The Hudson River is still beautiful. Amtrak still owns some damn fine real estate along it. My train trip from Albany to NYC last Thursday reminded me of just how important it is that GE cleans up its thousands of tons of discarded PCBs and that St. Laurence Cement makes its new riverside plant environmentally safe and that we don't forget just how SACRED rivers like these are.
The idiots who think it's OK to just leave the PCBs on the river bottom without dredging and disposal should be sentenced to a lifetime of dining on river fish with fat cells rich in PCBs. They should also have to ride along the river slowly, logging the wildlife, the river birds, fowl and woodland creatures that depend on it for life. They should see the shallow marshes near Rensselaer, the country homes that dot the hills near Selkirk and Normans Kill, the gothic power and beauty of West Point, the splendor of Hyde Park, the quaint river lighthouses that dot treacherous navigation points between NY and Albany, the sheer cliffs of the Palisades, and the majesty of the great bridge spans, like the Tappan Zee, Bear Mountain and the Rhinecliff bridges.
I defy anyone to witness what I saw on my glorious sunny trip down the rails along the Hudson and not be moved by its beauty. Even GE's Jack Welch, who willfully presided over the poisoning of the river, would have to agree (maybe not in public) that this was a better, cleaner river before they started dumping shit into it 60 miles North of Albany.
In a move that surprised many naysayers, Christy Todd "I never met a potential oilfield I didn't want to drill in" Whitman directed the EPA office responsible to rule that GE does in fact have to clean up the river it polluted. The EPA's Hudson River decision, handed down last Summer , has enough holes in it to weave a screen door from, but at least it is an order to cleanup, not the "leave it alone on the bottom" approach that Neutron Welch favored.
So maybe, just maybe after all those years of pumping PCBs into the majestic Hudson, GE will have to spend more to clean it up than the $15 million they spent on bullshit ads saying the river was better off left alone, with the PCBs "safely" on the bottom.
If you want to read more about saving the Hudson, check out this site, or to see just how beautiful it still is, visit the tourism site.
We need clean rivers--and the Hudson is near and dear to my heart.
The winner of this year's (intentionally) bad writing competition, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, has been announced. The contest is named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton who, in 1830, penned:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
The object is to write the worst opening to an imaginary novel. The winning entry for 2002 was from Rephah Berg, and reads:
On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained.
In one of many amusing, Jerry Springer style stories I saw in the Austin paper this morning, it appears that a 350 pound woman killed her mother by sitting on her until she died. I'm thinking this is among the worse ways to die...
I'm a fan of FuckedCompany.com, and have even read some of the book that Phil wrote. Unlike Odd Todd, Phil has really figured out out to make money without working too hard, and while surfing for hotties. You have to appreciate that. Anyway, he's going to make a stop in Austin this week - bring him a Shiner bock or something in my honor if you go.
Here's the email I received:
Subject: FC Sporadic for Tuesday, July 16, 2002
Hey,
Not really a Sporadic -- just a quick note to let all you rednecks in TX know
I'm coming to Austin for the last stop of the FC Book Tour THIS THURSDAY!! I've
never been to Austin, looking forward to it...!
Come by, it's likely you'll be the only person there, so bring me a bottle of
Yoohoo. or whatever you drink in texas.
Fun Foto of the Week...
Despite his claim of no "malfeance" (sic), the mainstream press is finally rooting out what Bush knew and when he knew it was time to dump his Harken stock.
Ah, if he had only become baseball commissioner: that's his real goal. And judging from the All-Star Game, baseball needs a new one.
In other news:
The "No Duh" headline of the week...
