Viz... Magazine (3d Issue)

VIZ… Issue 3, Aug–Sep 2009

Health Care Is More Than A Privilege The Spill Goes On Chevron, Shell and the True Cost of Oil

The other news…

Change

Contents: Wastebasket (AKA Opinion)

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Democracy Now! Headlines

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Sanders Op-Ed: Health Care Is More Than A Privilege

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The Power of Fresh Eggs is Staggering: An Interview with Wynn Martens of the Urban Hens Project

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The Spill Goes On

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Paul Hawkenʼs Commencement Address to the Classs of 2009

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Obama Has 250,000 “Contractors” in Iraq and Afghan Wars, Increases Number of Mercenaries

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Barack Obama: A Critique

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By now, our faithful readers have noticed that our magazine is slimmer than usual. We have decided to pursue nonprofit status with the IRS. That process requires money and time. Hence, our temporary change in the number of pages. In addition, we have lost our hard-working web master and we need to find a way to fix that problem. Fortunately, neither of these problems is insurmountable and we will prevail. Our business address has changed; so if you wish to correspond with us by mail, take note of that. As always, thank you for your support. It is always good to hear that people appreciate our efforts. If you wish to contact us or contribute in any way, use our business address, or use these email addresses: [email protected] or [email protected]. It has come to our attention that someone has been accepting money on our behalf. If you wish to contribute to our cause, please send it to our business address or give it directly to one of our co-founders. Once you accept the Buddhists’ idea that things are constantly falling apart, change is easier to accept. Jim Kenworthy

As We Use to Was

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Chevron, Shell and the True Cost of Oil

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The Corporate Dollar

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Contact Information: VizMag, LLC 600 Coffman St, Unit 212 Longmont, CO 80501-5418 E-mail to: [email protected] VIZ “Peeps”: General and Ad Sales Manager: Print Design and Production: Copy Editor: Financial Manager: Contributing Writers:

Ad Design: Technical Consultant: Contributing Editors: Operations Manager: Circulation Manager: Webmaster:

Jim Kenworthy Greg Robles Jack Slavin, Nate Kenworthy Clive Clussin Bernie Sanders, Paige Doughty, Jim Kenworthy, Paul Hawken, Jeremy Scahill Dave Lefcourt, Lewey Pennock, Amy Goodman, Ernie Greenly Cyndie Hardey, Greg Robles Nate Kenworthy Ernie Greenly, Jim Kenworthy, Nate Kenworthy, Greg Robles Greg Robles Jim Kenworthy

Front Cover Artist: The funky artwork of Longmont’s own home-grown septuagenarian artist, D. Ernie Greenly, has recently bobbed to the surface like flotsam on a scum pond. Samples of his work can be obtained upon request from: D. Ernie Greenly, c/o 600 Coffman St, #212, Longmont, Colorado 80501 or viewed in either of his two books: So Long Longmont and/or Stuff & Nonsuch at the local library.

Wastebasket

(AKA Opinion)

Who Do We Think We Are?

Submit your letters to the VIZ… Wastebasket to [email protected].

A funny thing happened on our way to Empire. The rest of the world and over half of the voters are against us. They must all be terrorists. Don’t they know we are the good guys? We did everything imaginable to gain our goal: from spying on everyone to torturing the bad guys. Listen up folks, this is “W” speaking, with a lot of help from Dick. The dalliance of electing a black man as President can go nowhere. He’s just asking for class warfare. What does he expect us to do when our taxes are going to be raised, when lots of low class people get to go to college, and regulations are put on our Wall Street wealth machines? This is a disaster. We better organize some tea parties. Make the dummies think they are getting their taxes increased. Lots of low class folks, especially in the South, believe us, and besides, they really hate black people. And there are lots of others in small towns across the country. So many small business owners in those little places believe they are the town elite, so they must be upper class and in our class, ha, ha. Well, if not, they vote for us. Got to cultivate them more. And yes, they are churchgoers, Christians who get the heebie jeebies over this homosexual marriage movement. We got them for sure. I think. But what happened in this last election? I wonder why we couldn’t steal those votes like the last two times. It’s a dirty shame. Even the election officials are against us. The world is turning crazy. Did you see that frumpy 47-year-old Scottish woman singing in some talent show, blowing Simon Cowell off his rocker, proclaiming that woman to be astounding? I can’t believe this. We have got to return to our top lying game. If not, it’s all over for us. Get your thinking caps on, guys and Ann Coulter. Marilyn Gatlin Longmont, CO

Thank You, Paige, for Your Insightful Article (Issue 2) Something that spoke to my heart was when you said: “make-up…is a ritual, not that makes us strong, confident and powerful, not that teaches us to trust our beautiful bodies, and insightful souls, but which teaches us that we are inadequate the way we are, which teaches us we need to “make-up” for what we are missing. I’ve been grappling with this issue my entire life—that I wasn’t okay without my mask on. I remember my mother telling me when I was younger that she had to “put her face on” to go out into the world. I bought into this same “sick” system. I’ve spent most of my life trying to be that “perfect” person that the media and culture told me I needed to be. I suffered from eating disorders: starving myself to be “thin,” taking diet pills, and using laxatives when I binged. I slathered on those poisonous concoctions to “look good.” It’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve realized that I don’t have to self-improve. I’m okay just as I am. I’ve given up dieting and am much happier. I wear a little eye-liner and mascara for special occasions only if I want to, which were purchased from the health food store. I appreciate that you’ve brought this subject up. Your article empowers women to be who they really are. And it is very important to highlight the pattern of self-loathing that so many us have fallen victim to. Teresa Foster Longmont. CO

“It is irresistible and can meet any man’s price. It is the universal solvent and dissolves conscience, dilutes moral indignation, neutralizes patriotism, obliterates innocence, and washes away shame, guilt, regret, and infamy.” D. Ernie Greenly Stuff & Nonsuch August–September 2009

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Obama Condemns Honduran Coup, But Wonʼt Suspend Aid, 06/30/09

Meanwhile at the White House, President Obama condemned Zelaya’s ouster. President Obama: “President Zelaya was democratically elected. He had not yet completed his term. We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there. In that, we have joined all the countries in the region, including Colombia and the Organization of American States. I think it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections.” Despite Obama’s comments, the US is refusing to apply any tangible pressure on Honduras. After Obama spoke, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US isn’t ready to formally declare the ouster a military coup, which would force a cutoff of millions of dollars in aid. Clinton also refused to explicitly commit to seeking the democratically elected Zelaya’s return, saying only the US wants to restore what she called “full democratic and constitutional order.”

Thousands Block Roads in Honduras, 07/17/09

In Honduras, thousands of people blocked main roads Thursday in the ongoing protests for the return of the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya. The blockades came amidst rumors Zelaya is making his second attempt to return to Honduras since his ouster. Earlier this month, the coup government blocked Zelaya’s plane when he tried to land at Honduras’s main airport. Speaking in Bolivia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Zelaya had told him of his plans to return. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez: “President Zelaya is returning to Honduras. They haven’t been able to frighten him. He told me, ‘Honduras has many borders, on land, on sea. I am not going to go running around the world. I am not going to finish my time feeling bad for myself. I prefer to die in Honduran territory.’ Let’s 2

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accompany Zelaya on his path to dignity.”

Bolivia Marks 200th Anniversary of Independence, 07/17/09

Chavez was in Bolivia to mark the 200th anniversary of Bolivian independence. On Thursday, Bolivian President Evo Morales honored the struggle of indigenous people in Bolivia’s history. Bolivian President Evo Morales: “Today we are honoring these native leaders, mestizos and creoles, as well. But we must remember that the native people not only fought for the independence of this country, but mainly for their rights.”

US, Colombia Near Military Base Deal, 07/17/09 The US is nearing an agreement to use three military bases inside Colombia. The Colombian government says the bases would be used for joint anti-drug operations. The ten-year deal would also extend the current arrangement allowing up to 1,400 US troops and military contractors on Colombian soil. Opposition Colombian senator Gustavo Petro called the plan a violation of sovereignty. Gustavo Petro: “This treaty aims to allow United States troops to be in Colombia. As a sovereign country, we must respect the fact that only Colombian troops have the right to be in Colombia.”

July Becomes Deadliest Month for US in Afghanistan, 07/21/09

Four US troops died Monday in a roadside bombing in eastern Afghanistan. At least thirty US soldiers have died so far this month, making it the deadliest month for US forces since the war began nearly eight years ago. Monday’s deaths also brought the combined US death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan to over 5,000.

Govʼt Agency Withheld Research on Dangers of Cell Phones & Driving, 07/21/09

The New York Times reports the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under the Bush administration withheld research showing that cell phone use by drivers caused nearly 1,000 fatalities and 240,000 accidents overall in 2002. The agency withheld the evidence in

part because of concerns about angering Congress. Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety said, “We’re looking at a problem that could be as bad as drunk driving, and the government has covered it up.” Federal researchers also shelved a draft letter they had prepared for Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta to send, warning states that handsfree laws might not solve the problem. Research shows that motorists talking on a phone are four times as likely to crash as other drivers and are as likely to cause an accident as a drunk driver with a bloodalcohol level of 0.08.

“I think one of the really significant and building areas of discussion- and data has been building for the last few years—is just the kind of information we get through the so- called mainstream. ....All we are getting is what I would call is a contrived silence, a censorship by a mission. I think this is almost the principal issue of today because without information, we cannot possibly begin to influence government. We cannot possibly begin to end the wars.” - John Pilger, 07/06/09

August–September 2009

Sanders Op-Ed: Health Care Is More Than A Privilege By Bernie Sanders

Let’s be clear. Our health care system is disintegrating. Today, 46 million people have no health insurance and even more are underinsured with high deductibles and co-payments. At a time when 60 million people, including many with insurance, do not have access to a medical home, more than 18,000 Americans die every year from preventable illnesses because they do not get to the doctor when they should. This is six times the number who died at the tragedy of 9/11—but this occurs every year. In the midst of this horrendous lack of coverage, the U.S. spends far more per capita on health care than any other nation - and health care costs continue to soar. At $2.4 trillion dollars, and 18 percent of our GDP, the skyrocketing cost of health care in this country is unsustainable both from a personal and macro-economic perspective. At the individual level, the average American spends about $7,900 per year on health care. Despite that huge outlay, a recent study found that medical problems contributed to 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007. From a business perspective, General Motors spends more on health care per automobile than on steel while small business owners are forced to divert hardearned profits into health coverage for their employees—rather than new business investments. And, because of rising costs, many businesses are cutting back drastically on their level of health care coverage or are doing away with it entirely. Further, despite the fact that we spend almost twice as much per person on health care as any other country, our health care outcomes lag behind many other nations. We get poor value for what we spend. According to the World Health Organization the United States ranks 37th in terms of health system performance and we are far behind many other countries in terms of such important indices as infant mortality, life expectancy and preventable deaths. As the health care debate heats up in Washington, we as a nation have to answer two very fundamental questions. First, should all Americans be entitled to health care as a right and not a privilege—which is the way every other major country treats health care and the way we respond to such other basic needs as education, police and fire protection? Second, if we are to provide quality health care to all, how do we accomplish that in the most cost-effective way possible? I think the answer to the first question is pretty clear, and one of the reasons that Barack Obama was elected president. Most Americans do believe that all of us should have health care coverage, and that nobody should be left out of the system. The real debate is how we accomplish that goal in an affordable and sustainable way. In that regard, I think the evidence is overwhelming that we must end the private insurance company

August–September 2009

domination of health care in our country and move toward a publicly-funded, single-payer Medicare for All approach. Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated and bureaucratic in the world. Its function is not to provide quality health care for all, but to make huge profits for those who own the companies. With thousands of different health benefit programs designed to maximize profits, private health insurance companies spend an incredible (30 percent) of each health care dollar on administration and billing, exorbitant CEO compensation packages, advertising, lobbying and campaign contributions. Public programs like Medicare, Medicaid and the VA are administered for far less. In recent years, while we have experienced an acute shortage of primary health care doctors as well as nurses and dentists, we are paying for a huge increase in health care bureaucrats and bill collectors. Over the last three decades, the number of administrative personnel has grown by 25 times the numbers of physicians. Not surprisingly, while health care costs are soaring, so are the profits of private health insurance companies. From 2003 to 2007, the combined profits of the nation’s major health insurance companies increased by 170 percent. And, while more and more Americans are losing their jobs and health insurance, the top executives in the industry are receiving lavish compensation packages. It’s not just William McGuire, the former head of United Health, who several years ago accumulated stock options worth an estimated $1.6 billion or Cigna CEO Edward Hanway who made more than $120 million in the last five years. The reality is that CEO compensation for the top seven health insurance companies now averages $14.2 million. Moving toward a national health insurance program which provides cost-effective universal, comprehensive and quality health care for all will not be easy. The powerful special interests—the insurance companies, drug companies and medical equipment suppliers—will wage an all-out fight to make sure that we maintain the current system which enables them to make billions of dollars. In recent years they have spent hundreds of millions on lobbying, campaign contributions and advertising and, with unlimited resources, they will continue spending as much as they need. But, at the end of the day, as difficult as it may be, the fight for a national health care program will prevail. Like the civil rights movement, the struggle for women’s rights and other grass-roots efforts, justice in this country is often delayed - but it will not be denied. We shall overcome! Learn more at http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=314114

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The Power of Fresh Eggs is Staggering: An Interview with Wynn Martens of the Urban Hens Project By Paige Doughty

“Americans’ total yearly waste would fill a convoy of garbage trucks long enough to wrap around the Earth six times and reach halfway to the moon. It is estimated that this year 222 million tons of waste will be generated by Americans.” ~Nation Wide Statistics http://www.dumpandrun.com/ This is a startling statistic: a sentence I tend to read with that familiar sinking sense of overwhelming defeat. It’s difficult to even envision 2,000 pounds of waste, let alone 444 billion pounds of waste in one year. More difficult still is where to begin educating people about how to change our lives to be less wasteful in a way that will make a big difference fast. In Boulder, Wynn Martens and Jeanne McDonald have a dynamic idea for educating people about waste and drastically reducing it in the process. The place to begin, says Wynn, is chickens. “Chickens teach us, at the most basic level what a closed system looks like. We keep the chickens, they provide us with eggs, we feed them our food scraps, and use their poop in our gardens. They give us a local protein source and take care of our waste.” In the simplest terms a closed system is, simply put, one which does not produce waste. In Wynn’s words: “The garden feeds the chicken, that fertilizes the garden, that lays the egg, that feeds the family that grows the garden that feeds the chicken… and so on.” Systems which don’t create waste are an important part of transitioning towards a sustainable society. Currently, about 30% of the waste in landfills is material which could have been composted (or fed to chickens). Compostable materials include everything from woods scraps, to yard clippings, to kitchen waste. In addition, this bio-degradable waste is, according to the EPA’s 2007 report on greenhouse gas emissions, the number one human contributor of methane (a greenhouse gas 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide) to the atmosphere. If the Urban Hens Project is successful, Boulder County could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions drastically, eat locally, and make healthier soil, all with one bird. As for getting started with chickens, the Urban Hens Project will soon be able to answer all of your questions. In July, 2008, Urban Hens received their first grant from The Foundation for Sustainability and Innovation. The Urban Hens Project is already underway, with hen houses being placed in neighborhoods around Boulder County. The first three hen houses to be constructed will be in various locations: One will be in the Community Roots Gardens in South Boulder, another will be near Shawnee Gardens, an assisted living center. Shawnee Gardens will share their hen house with neighboring Blossom Pre-School, and the third is slated to be placed at Anam Chara assisted living center in North Boulder. “We want to help people have hens by introducing community 4

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egg co-ops. It’s not just about the eggs, it’s about re-awakening community. The assisted living facility, Shawnee Gardens, and the pre-school, Blossom, will share a hen house, providing fresh eggs, waste disposal, and intergenerational learning experiences.” Wynn says. “It’s not a new idea to have school yard chicken coops and 80 years ago most people in Boulder County had hens! The idea of neighborhood egg co-ops are a little newer. And there is much flexibility about the way these could work. Anyone can do it!” Wynn’s passion and excitement for this project is obvious. The idea of a neighborhood egg co-op, as Wynn explains it, would looks something like this: “You get a group of people in a neighborhood who want to participate, each person contributes some money to the construction of the hen house, and then each member agrees to take care of the hens once per week. On the day you care for the hens you also collect the eggs. Each member would get about a dozen eggs per week depending on the number of members and hens. As a rule of thumb, if you have 20 hens, they’ll produce about a dozen eggs per day.” Wynn insists that hen houses are actually much less work than owning a dog, especially when that responsibility is shared. “There’s a lot of misconceptions about hens. They’re not like a dog or even a cat, and they are even easier than having a garden. You have to collect the eggs once per day, and you need to water and feed them every four to five days.” And Wynn knows what she is talking about—she has had chickens since she was a young girl and is the current proprietor of 56 hens! The most challenging part of having chickens is keeping predators out. Dogs, coyotes, raccoons, and even skunks find them to be tasty treats. That’s why one of the first stages of The Urban Hens Project is happening this Spring 2009 with the University of Colorado’s Department of Architecture and Planning. Their task: Design and build “the ultimate hen house.” After the contest Urban Hens will develop a kit for having a hen house. “This will be a very clear step by step process in having chickens in our neighborhoods and yards. We won’t have any roosters, as they are the birds that make a lot of noise.” Wynn says. The Urban Hens Project is in the beginning stages, but Wynn has big goals for the initiative. “Our goal is to sell 30 coop kits per year for the first two or three years. These houses will have about 4-6 hens in them. As far as space goes, if you don’t have a hen yard, or turn-out [somewhere for the chickens to go outside]

August–September 2009

that’s about four square feet per chicken of space.” If you aren’t convinced to start a chicken co-op already, here are a few more tidbits to consider. According to Wynn’s research in her Urban Hens Proposal, farm fresh eggs are significantly healthier than commercially produced eggs; they contain one-third less cholesterol, one-fourth less saturated fat, and may contain more vitamin A and E, more omega-3, and more beta carotene. Having chickens can reduce waste, provide food, fertilize your garden, and build community, and bring joy. “I’m doing this because we can use it as a tool to build community. It’s easy and effective, and can help us achieve a sustainable society. I’m not so interested in the individualistic approach to sustainability. Hens teach us if we work together and share our efforts, then this seemingly monumental problem will be much easier. My husband sells our eggs at work and then people pull them out at cocktail parties! The bigger picture is to make community by drawing people into something they can be a part of. The power of fresh eggs is staggering.” Further Resources: Urban Hens Website: http://www.urbanhens.org/ EPA Report on Greenhouse Gas Emissions: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ index.html Dump and Run: a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing waste in College and University Communities: http://www.dumpandrun.org/ For basic composting information online: Eco Cycle: http://www.ecocycle.org/compost/index.cfm or http://www.compostguide.com/ Paige Doughty is an environmental educator and freelance writer. Her written work has been published in a variety of places, her essay “The Patience of the Wild” will be published in the 2009 Green Living Guide by Llewellyn. She currently works in Boulder Colorado teaching the Community Adventure Program at New Vista High School. She seeks to combine her passions for writing and art with transition towards a sustainable and joyful world. Learn more at www.paigedoughty.com.

The Spill Goes On By Jim Kenworthy

On March 24, 1989, Rikki Ott was living in Cordova, Alaska, when the Exxon Valdez spilled several million gallons of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (oil) into Prince William Sound. The devastation was complete. Million of seabirds were killed, thousands of sea otters, hundreds of harbor seals and billions of salmon and herring, including herring eggs. No herring eggs means no herring for a long time. Whales, sea lions and seabirds eat herring. In addition, herring is also a huge commercial commodity. Without this fish, the sound will not recover; and, scientists have no idea how long it will take for it to come back. So the commerce at Prince William Sound, twenty years later, is still in tatters. Rikki Ott studies marine pollution. At that time, besides being a marine toxicologist, she was a commercial salmon fisherperson and on the board of the fishermen’s union. When the spill occurred, she had lived in Cordova for four years. The effects of the spill have far-reaching consequences. Exposure to oil in the environment is linked to genetic harm in animals and in humans, and is connected to respiratory problems, various kinds of cancers and reproductive abnormalities. Thirty-two hundred plaintiffs sued Exxon in 1994. It took the jury three weeks to render a decision. They didn’t have to debate innocence or guilt. The question they were concerned with is: how do we hold this large corporation accountable to the people? In the end, they decided to link punishment to profit. They decided the punitive damages should be one year’s profit: five billion dollars plus actual damages of $287 million. Exxon applied to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals three times. The punitive damages were reduced to $4 billion, raised to $4.5 billion plus interest, and then reduced to $2.5 billion. Exxon appealed this to the Supreme Court and on February 27, 2008, eight justices heard arguments. Justice Samuel Alito recused himself because he owned several hundred thousands of dollars worth of Exxon stock. The Supreme Court made a decision that changed the original intent of the jury and the lower courts. They delinked the payment from punishment and linked it to damages. The problem with linking payment to damages is that damages are ongoing and can never be settled with finality. So far, the plaintiffs have received only a few cents on the dollar. Senator Patrick Leahy decried the ruling as “another in a line of cases where the Supreme Court has misconstrued congressional intent to benefit large corporations.” Rikki Ott sees the action by the Supreme Court as a crisis in democracy. “The question we started asking as our lawsuit went on and on, and we didn’t get paid was: how did corporations get this big, where they can manipulate the legal system and the political system?” She started doing research and found part of the answer in a continued on page 8

August–September 2009

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August–September 2009

Paul Hawkenʼs Commencement Address to the Class of 2009 University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009 By Paul Hawken

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there. Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades. This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food-but all that is changing. There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done. When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums. You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation,

peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way. There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world. Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown - Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood - and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers,and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, nongovernmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history. The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist continued on page 12

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Obama Has 250,000 “Contractors” in Iraq and Afghan Wars, Increases Number of Mercenaries By Jeremy Scahill

Newly released Pentagon statistics show that in both Iraq and Afghanistan the number of armed contractors is rising. The DoD says it sees “similar dependence on contractors in future.” A couple of years ago, Blackwater executive Joseph Schmitz seemed to see a silver lining for mercenary companies with the prospect of US forces being withdrawn or reduced in Iraq. “There is a scenario where we could as a government, the United States, could pull back the military footprint,” Schmitz said. “And there would then be more of a need for private contractors to go in.” When it comes to armed contractors, it seems that Schmitz was right. According to new statistics released by the Pentagon, with Barack Obama as commander in chief, there has been a 23% increase in the number of “Private Security Contractors” working for the Department of Defense in Iraq in the second quarter of 2009 and a 29% increase in Afghanistan, which “correlates to the build up of forces” in the country. In Iraq, the Pentagon attributes the increase to better accounting. But, these numbers relate explicitly to DoD security contractors. Companies like Blackwater and its successor Triple Canopy work on State Department contracts and it is unclear if these contractors are included in the over-all statistics. This means, the number of individual “security” contractors could be quite higher, as could the scope of their expansion. Overall, contractors (armed and unarmed) now make up approximately 50% of the “total force in Centcom AOR [Area of Responsibility].” This means there are a whopping 242,657

contractors working on these two US wars. These statistics come from two reports just released by Gary J. Motsek, the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Program Support): “Contractor Support of U.S. Operations in USCENTCOM AOR, IRAQ, and Afghanistan and “Operational Contract Support, ‘State of the Union.’” “We expect similar dependence on contractors in future contingency operations,” according to the contractor “State of the Union.” It notes that the deployment size of both military personnel and DoD civilians are “fixed by law,” but points out that the number of contractors is “size unfixed,” meaning there is virtually no limit (other than funds) to the number of contractors that can be deployed in the war zone. At present there are 132,610 in Iraq and 68,197 in Afghanistan. The report notes that while the deployment of security contractors in Iraq is increasing, there was an 11% decrease in overall contractors in Iraq from the first quarter of 2009 due to the “ongoing efforts to reduce the contractor footprint in Iraq.” Copyright Jeremy Scahill 2009. Jeremy is the author of the international best-seller Blackwater:The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Learn more at http://rebelreports.com/.

The Spill Goes On from page 5

Supreme Court finding from 1886. Up to that time, corporations had argued for personhood rights 287 times under the 14th Amendment and lost 287 times. The 1886 case was different and our system of rights was fatefully altered. The case was not about personhood. Corporate personhood was never argued. The decision about personhood was made by The Secretary of the Supreme Court. He wrote in his head notes that: “The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment.” Chief Justice Waite agreed with the secretary. This was cited as precedent and the nightmare monster of corporate personhood was born. Corporations now have constitutional rights, just like real human beings. Yes, corporations, with all their wealth and power, have the same rights as living citizens. What they don’t have is a conscience, and a sense of community, or the idea of cooperating with their neighbors. In the late 1970’s, the Court made another decision that strengthened the power of corporations, compared to humans. At that time, they ruled that efforts to limit campaign spending was 8

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a violation of 1st Amendment rights, effectively stating that the more money an individual or corporation has the more they are able to use that money to spread their message. In short, after that decision, money became free speech. In the Exxon-Valdez spill, 3200 individuals sued a multizillion-dollar corporation. Corporate power and influence crushed justice. The Supreme Court decided that Exxon’s profit was more important than the livelihood of 3200 families. Rikki Ott has her answer, and she is advocating a 28th Amendment to strip corporations of human rights. She has written a book, “Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.” Exxon Mobil CEO Receives Ten Percent Raise: Exxon Mobil announced recently that its CEO Rex Tillerson has received a ten percent raise in 2008, even though the company’s stock price dropped 15 percent. Tillerson now receives a compensation package valued at nearly $24 million.

August–September 2009

Barack Obama: A Critique By Dave Lefcourt

Save for Rush Limbaugh and those of his ilk, most people want Barack Obama to succeed. What our new President has inherited from his predecessor is daunting: two wars and an economic crisis not of his doing. Having a president who is intellectually sharp is a refreshing change from the cowboy bellicosity of the previous president; yet, months into the Obama administration, it is fair to take a skeptical look. What has emerged in reality does not square with some of the expectations many people held with his coming. On Guantanamo Obama vows to close Guantanamo, the notorious detention facility in Cuba, but he keeps intact the possibility of sending suspects to foreign facilities for further interrogation. Obama has not signaled he is in favor of investigating the torture abuses approved by John Yoo, the attorney in the Justice Department who wrote the torture memo justifying its use. So in this area, change is nuance rather than a repudiation of the Bush administration excesses. On Iraq Obama vows to end the war in Iraq, saying troops will be removed by 2011; yet, he intends to leave 50,000 troops there beyond 2011 as “trainers.” Again, the President saying he is ending the war does not square with reality. Moreover, the Iraqi led government of al Maliki wants all American troops out of the country by August, 2010. On Afghanistan Obama has sent 4,000 new troops as “trainers” and he is committed to sending 17,000 additional combat troops by the summer. He has continued the unmanned drone attacks against suspected al Qaida and Taliban enclaves in Afghanistan and inside Pakistan. These drones have killed many innocent people along with a few suspected terrorist leaders. The overall effect has inflamed residents, who seek revenge. In anticipation of the American troop surge into Afghanistan, Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader who ruled in Afghanistan prior to the U.S. invasion in 2001, has called for the Taliban in both countries to merge as a combined force to take on the increased American presence. Although Obama acknowledges Afghanistan’s history of resistance and defeat of foreign occupation, he has stated he

The enactment of the Graham, Leach, Bliley Act of 1999 essentially overturned the Glass Steagell Act of 1935. This allowed financial institutions and insurance companies to indulge in mortgage bundling. August–September 2009

recognizes there is no sole military solution in Afghanistan. He is determined to go after al Qaida and Taliban elements “…so there will be no sanctuaries in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan to plan and carry out future attacks against America.” What seems lost is the recognition of Afghanistan as a tribal society that resists any foreign intervention—a tribal society that has never had a strong central government capable of governing in the provinces far removed from the capital, Kabul. The present Karsai government is seen, by the majority of the Afghan people, as a puppet regime of the U.S. It is notoriously corrupt and has little standing beyond the capital, revealing President Karsai as little more than “mayor” of Kabul. On Pakistan Far more serious than Afghanistan is Pakistan. Traditionally, its main adversary has been India. Of prime concern is the fear of governmental breakdown resulting in Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of terrorists. Other major complications are the Pakistani army and the ISI intelligence service. Both have helped the Taliban to gain power in Afghanistan in the 1990’s and currently provide Taliban support in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The U.S. wants the Pakistani Army’s cooperation and assistance; but, the Army has been fairly duplicitous, alerting the Taliban prior to an impending attack on their positions. The reality is there can be no military settlement of the conflict. On the Economic Meltdown As to the ongoing financial and economic meltdown, it continues to be Obama’s primary preoccupation. The Bush administrations’ policies and actions contributed mightily to our current plight. The deregulatory system, allowing financial wheeling and dealing, has perpetrated the collapse of the worldwide economy—a crisis with no end in sight. It is not yet the equivalent of the 1930’s Great Depression, but no other recession since that time has evoked that era as does the calamity we are now facing. How did this happen? In large part it is the result of ignoring history and the lessons supposedly learned and subsequently forgotten from policies enacted during the Great Depression. The Glass Steagell Act of 1935 established a wall separating the commercial banks and the investment banks, as it was recognized at the time that the melding of these institutions’ financial activities precipitated the ’30s depression and, thus, provided the impetus to enact and establish regulation. With the Reagan administration in the 1980’s, came the belief that government regulations were inhibiting economic growth; thus, began the era of “supply side” and “trickle down” economics, and the reemergence of wide scale income-disparity, mirroring the 1920’s. It was also during this time that we experienced the Savings and Loan crisis, the recessions of 1983, 1991 and 2001—portending worse things to come. However, it is necessary to go back to the waning days of the Clinton administration and the enactment of bipartisan legislation

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that firmly entrenched the deregulatory era. The enactment of the Graham, Leach, Bliley Act of 1999 essentially overturned the Glass Steagell Act of 1935. This allowed financial institutions and insurance companies to indulge in mortgage bundling. Defaults of sub-prime mortgages began in 2007 and went into free fall in 2008 (along with the spread of derivatives—virulent credit default swaps underwritten primarily by insurance giant AIG) and precipitated our present financial crisis. The recent passage of the Obama economic stimulus and recovery package (ARRA) of $780 billion is a start, with its emphasis on investment in infrastructure, assistance with health care, extended unemployment benefits, and financial rescue of the states facing dramatic budget cuts. What has failed to materialize is the stabilization of the big financial institutions. The banks that were at the heart of the crisis are essentially insolvent. The latest gambit by the administration—asking private investment firms in partnership with the government to step up and buy the “toxic assets” at auctions—seems like a “Rube Goldberg” solution. It does not reduce the size of these huge banking institutions— making them less likely to be “too big to fail”—it just puts off the day of reckoning. The extent of the banks’ “toxic assets” is not fully known, and nationalization of these institutions is needed to get the financial system again under control and functioning. Another concern is the makeup of the Obama financial and economic team—major players and advocates of deregulation enacted in 1999. Examples: 1) Lawrence Summers, Obama’s chief economic advisor, was Clinton’s Treasury Secretary who pushed the Clinton to sign the Graham, Leach, Bliley Act into law, and 2) Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Tim Geitner, a former New York Fed governor who failed to see the warning signs of the financial crisis; and, in his present position, he has failed to assure current financial institutions that his grandiose wedding plan between privatepartnership & government will work. One is left pondering: do we suspend all skepticism and judgment and just trust them? No member of Obama’s financial team has ever acknowledged their involvement in contributing to our present crisis. Are we to assume they have seen the error of their ways and reject their former deregulatory selves? They continue to advocate propping up these bankrupt institutions, refusing to bite the bullet and take them over, absorb their losses, sell off whatever positive assets they still have and just let them fail. They appear to be still too attached to their former selves (and friends) to recommend what is needed. Conclusion Barack Obama still retains the confidence of the electorate, but the people are less confident in some of the ‘experts’ with whom he has surrounded himself. It remains to be seen if the public will remain supportive if conditions continue to deteriorate. Eloquent rhetoric can take you only so far. Now is the time for positive solutions. Nothing less will suffice. Dave Lefcourt lives in Ellicott City, MD, close enough to Washington, DC to keep a thumb on the political pulse of the nation. Lefcourt’s timely critical critiques are often published in the Baltimore Sun.

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???…, ???…

As We Use To Was We’re feelin’ blue—We’re feelin’ blue, cuz; Life ain’t what it used to was. There’s things we had but don’t have no more; While new stuff—new stuff, Keeps comin’ through the door. REMEMBER PLAYIN’: Crack the Whip, Hide & Seek, Kick the Can, Horse, Red Rover…? LISTENIN’ TA: Captain Midnight, Jack Armstrong, The Shadow, Tarzan, Boston Blackie, Gangbusters, The Saint, Charlie Chan…? EVERY SUNDAY MORNING READIN’: Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Popeye, Alley Oop, Mutt & Jeff, Li’l Abner, Joe Palooka, Betty Boop…? AND REMEMBER: Doctors making house calls, Clothes hanging on the line, Rumble seats, penny candy, untanglin’ kite twine, Milk in glass bottles—with cream on top, Fishin’ for craw-dads, watchin’ toads hop…? AND THE NEW STUFF… NEW STUFF…? Don’t get me started! To survive all this NEW STUFF,

You can’t be faint-hearted! Like punchin’ button after button… And refrain from cussin’, While talkin’ to a damn computer… Instead of a person; Or wadin’ hip-deep through acronym jam Made from GHZ’s, CD’s, and DRAM… Or havin’ to deal with bouts of compunction, While fightin’ off Alzheimer’s ‘n’ erectile dysfunction, And tryin’ to ignore the new crop of lasses, Whose tattoos descend—into half-seen crevasses, And newspapers full of vice—violence and disaster. We’re all goin’ to Hell… faster and faster! You know, guys, I’ve been thinkin’ ‘Bout the cause of our fuss; And wonderin’—just maybe—if the problem is us. Could it be? Could it be, That we’re all feelin’ blue, cuz… We ain’t as young as we use to was? ~ Lewey Pennock

Lewey Pennock was born and reared in Longmont, Colorado, graduating from Longmont High in 1948. After obtaining his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Colorado, Lewey went on to become a teaching professor at Western Oregon U. He is now retired and resides in Monmouth, Oregon.

August–September 2009

Chevron, Shell and the True Cost of Oil By Amy Goodman

The economy is a shambles, unemployment is soaring, the auto industry is collapsing. But profits are higher than ever at oil companies Chevron and Shell. Yet across the globe, from the Ecuadorian jungle, to the Niger Delta in Nigeria, to the courtrooms and streets of New York and San Ramon, Calif., people are fighting back against the world’s oil giants. Shell and Chevron are in the spotlight this week, with shareholder meetings and a historic trial being held. On May 13, the Nigerian military launched an assault on villages in that nation’s oil-rich Niger Delta. Hundreds of civilians are feared killed in the attack. According to Amnesty International, a celebration in the delta village of Oporoza was attacked. An eyewitness told the organization: “I heard the sound of aircraft; I saw two military helicopters, shooting at the houses, at the palace, shooting at us. We had to run for safety into the forest. In the bush, I heard adults crying, so many mothers could not find their children; everybody ran for their life.” Shell is facing a lawsuit in U.S. federal court, Wiwa v. Shell, based on Shell’s alleged collaboration with the Nigerian dictatorship in the 1990s in the violent suppression of the grass-roots movement of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta. Shell exploits the oil riches there, causing displacement, pollution and deforestation. The suit also alleges that Shell helped suppress the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People and its charismatic leader, Ken Saro-Wiwa. Saro-Wiwa had been the writer of the most famous soap opera in Nigeria, but decided to throw his lot in with the Ogoni, whose land near the Niger Delta was crisscrossed with pipelines. The children of Ogoniland did not know a dark night, living beneath the flame—apartment-building-size gas flares that burned day and night, and that are illegal in the U.S. I interviewed Saro-Wiwa in 1994. He told me: “The oil companies like military dictatorships, because basically they can cheat with these dictatorships. The dictatorships are brutal to people, and they can deny the human rights of individuals and of communities quite easily, without compunction.” He added, “I am a marked man.” Saro-Wiwa returned to Nigeria and was arrested by the military junta. On Nov. 10, 1995, after a kangaroo show trial, Saro-Wiwa was hanged with eight other Ogoni activists. In 1998, I traveled to the Niger Delta with journalist Jeremy Scahill. A Chevron executive there told us that Chevron flew troops from Nigeria’s notorious mobile police, the “kill ‘n’ go,” in a Chevron company helicopter to an oil barge that had been occupied by nonviolent protesters.

Two protesters were killed, and many more were arrested and tortured. Oronto Douglas, one of Saro-Wiwa’s lawyers, told us: “It is very clear that Chevron, just like Shell, uses the military to protect its oil activities. They drill and they kill.” Chevron is the second-largest stakeholder (after French oil company Total) of the Yadana natural gas field and pipeline project, based in Burma (which the military junta renamed Myanmar). The pipeline provides the single largest source of income to the military junta, amounting to close to $1 billion in 2007. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, popularly elected the leader of Burma in 1990, has been under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years, and is standing trial again this week. [On Tuesday the government said it had ended the house arrest of Suu Kyi, but she remains in detention pending the outcome of the trial.] The U.S. government has barred U.S. companies from investing in Burma since 1997, but Chevron has a waiver, inherited when it acquired the oil company Unocal. Chevron’s litany of similar abuses, from the Philippines to Kazakhstan, Chad-Cameroon, Iraq, Ecuador and Angola and across the U.S. and Canada, is detailed in an “alternative annual report” prepared by a consortium of nongovernmental organizations and is being distributed to Chevron shareholders at this week’s annual meeting, and to the public at TrueCostofChevron.com. Chevron is being investigated by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo about whether the company was “accurate and complete” in describing potential legal liabilities. It enjoys, though, a long tradition of hiring politically powerful people. Condoleezza Rice was a longtime director of the company (there was even a supertanker named after her), and the recently hired general counsel is none other than disgraced Pentagon lawyer William J. Haynes, who advocated for “harsh interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding. Gen. James L. Jones, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, sat on the Chevron board of directors for most of 2008, until he received his high-level White House appointment. Saro-Wiwa said before he died, “We are going to demand our rights peacefully, nonviolently, and we shall win.” A global grassroots movement is growing to do just that.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column. Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 750 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” recently released in paperback. © 2009 Amy Goodman

Fabio Sassi provided artwork. To view more of his art visit www.fabiosassi.blogspot.com/.

August–September 2009

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Paul Hawkenʼs Address from page 7

Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich. The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of selfpropagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.” So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel

your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past. Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television. This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it. Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and author. His books include Blessed Unrest. For more information visit wwww.paulhawken.com. The content above is used within the spirit of Fair Use in accordance with U.S. Code. For more info visit www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.

The Corporate Dollar By D. Ernie Greenly

Be there a poet so poetic of ode or sonnet, To convey its beauty when versing on it? The corporate dollar. How beautiful it is. How masterfully it works. How sweet it is. How it sweetens the pot; how it sweetens the tooth; and, oh, how it sweetens the yummies that fill pudgy CEO tummies. It is the palm oil that greases the cogs of free enterprise, prevents friction in the market place, and unctions the functions of Machiavellian conjunctions. It brightens the futures with sugar commodities and pink pork-bellies and it enlightens the blind seers of gloom and the sightless augurs of doom with rose colored spectaculars. It has the power to make the timorous nerd into an aggressive arbitrageur, to turn the brutish beast into a jet-set sophisticate, to transform the dim-witted gump into a respected intellectual, to convert the wooden-headed dummy into a prime administer of international affairs. It is immovable and stands gold-crowned and silver-vested. It is irresistible and can meet any man’s price. It is the universal solvent and dissolves conscience, dilutes moral indignation, neutralizes patriotism, obliterates innocence, and washes away shame, guilt, regret, and infamy. Its sweet smell of success overpowers the odor of calumny, the whiff of complicity, and the p-u of perfidy. A world without the corporate dollar would be like a world without kudzu. There would be no great entrepreneurial icons like Mike Mulctem, Donald Triumph, or Lee I. Acoconut to make the merry money-go-round. There would only be the raggedy street people who have no visible means of automobiles. Huh? Huh? Huh? Or what? See Ernie’s bio on the inside front cover.

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Shameless Pitch for Funds If you wish to support us with a contribution, we promise to make good use of your hard earned dollars. Write your check to VizMag and send it to: VizMag 600 Coffman St. Unit 212 Longmont, CO 80501 Please do not give any money to persons purporting to represent Viz…, except the cofounders, Greg Robles or Jim Kenworthy. Thank you for your attention.