Koch Rancho Mirage

Koch Rancho Mirage

According to this morning's edition of the Valley, a local newspaper, there were between 800 and 1000 protesters yesterday at a demonstration against the corporate takeover of American politics in Rancho Mirage.  The procession stretched back along this boulevard far into the line of palms, opposite the entrance to Rancho Las Palmas Resort where the Koch brothers' convention was held.

The demonstrators were met by about two dozen county sheriff's deputies dressed in riot gear, wielding billy clubs,

and three others perched atop the resort roof with rifles - according to the paper...plus this surveillance team.  Whether they were private security or public employees wasn't clear.

Down on the ground, the deputies appeared to be having a terrific afternoon cruising around in their jeeps.  The weather was gorgeous, sunny and mild with a light breeze.  Contrary to right-wing hopes the crowd was placid, even jubilant, and the police were probably getting paid overtime to patrol what was more of a festival than the angry confrontation falsely alleged by the paper.

Common Cause organized most of the bussed-in crowd around the notion "Uncloaking the Kochs" - and other groups joined in, including Code Pink and Ruckus Society, whose theme was to "Quarantine the Kochs".

Mike Roddy and I, in our Climate Zombie masks, tuxedo tee's and top hats, unfurled our Koch Kills banner and marched across the parking lot, stopping frequently as people requested pictures, when we were accosted by a woman who claimed to be representing Common Cause, and a man who was so agitated by our banner that the woman asked him to go away and let her handle it.

She said things like, "This is divisive - it isn't a free speech issue!  We're begging you to put this away.  People have complained," and finally repeated,  "I'm asking you as a favor - I have to live here."  After listening to her hostile objections, we had to demur.  I made it plain to her that whatever the objectives or strategy of Common Cause, Mike came from Seattle and I came from New Jersey, quite independently of their organization, and that we had every right and intention of exercising our right to free speech and assembly.  Koch DOES kill in myriad ways, and we don't believe mincing words is going to bring about the drastic changes required to save human civilization - not to mention the rest of the species on earth - from catastrophic climate change - the science of which is systematically denied by shamelessly greedy corporatists.  Raising the massacre in Tucson as though it in any way is comparable or relevant to reporting the devastation promulgated to our environment by the policies of non-regulation and thug tactics promoted by the Kochs was ridiculous and offensive and rather distressing.

Besides, we weren't the only ones - this congenial fellow came from Oregon with his own handpainted sign...evidence that great minds think alike!

And an enlargement of this photo reveals the banner from Code Pink stating:  "Koch Kills Democracy."  I don't know if there were objections to that sign as well, or if people think killing democracy with corporate money is more or less worthy of note than pollution killing people, causing cancer, emphysema, asthma and diabetes; or decimating trees and other plants, not to mention the wildlife dependent upon them for food and habitat.

The NYTimes online ran an article headlined "25 Arrested at Conservative California Meeting" with the usual nonsensical mainstream media distortions:

"The mostly peaceful demonstration had been arranged with authorities, but some protesters crossed the street to the entrance of the Ranchos Las Palmas Resort where they were met by deputies in riot gear...they were arrested without a struggle, booked at Indio jail, and released."

Mostly peaceful??  It was COMPLETELY peaceful!  This photo is the beginning of the advance across the road after the speeches and music in the lot.  Does this look like there is any impulse remotely resembling violence?  The media is full of distortions - one reporter pestered some retirees behind us, who watching from the lawn, lounging on their golf carts, repeatedly as to whether they weren't afraid of an attack from the crowd - and they just looked at her incredulously and laughed.

There was at least one other tuxedoed, top-hatted participant, as people are starting to make the obvious link between obscene corporate profits, the stratification of the economy, and the destruction of the ecosystem.

The Times reported SOME protesters crossed to the entrance but, as someone who was there, I can attest that virtually ALL crossed - there was almost no one left standing on the opposite side - and the police shut down Bob Hope to accommodate the crowd while the arrests took place.

Curious onlookers peered over the wall.

After everyone who wanted to be arrested had been, the police warned with bullhorns and flashing lights that the protest had to retreat, as the road would be re-opened.  There was an orderly withdrawal.  A bus took those that were arrested from the scene.

On the way out I offered an elderly woman the Koch Bucks flyer.   "Oh," she said fastidiously, eyeing our banner with a distinct lack of approbation,  "that's too rough for me...I don't want to become what we despise!"

How it is possible to equate Koch Industries killing of humans, through cancer, emphysema and other ailments, and the destruction of trees and all the species dependent upon them for habitat and food, with our sign, mystifies me.  Regardless of those two isolated incidents, our reception was almost universally encouraging, as we with some others added a touch of theatre to a boisterous and jolly event, which was hailed, surprisingly, with approval by raucaus honks and toots from cars passing by.

At the end a helicopter, which had been circling through the afternoon, swooped lower as though we were supposed to tremble from intimidation, and run away ignominiously.

It wasn't the dimensions of the Egypt uprising, of course, but we felt empowered nonetheless.  Some people wondered whether there was any point, or whether we could possibly have any influence on a country run by politicians who are nothing but puppets for ruthless, soulless people like the Kochs, who possess essentially limitless financial resources.  But I look at it this way.  I can't remember anything like this - a direct challenge to virtually omnipotent billionaires by ordinary people, some who traveled thousands of miles to confront them.  It's just the beginning.

While in my ClimateZombie persona, I was delighted to be recognized by Christine SoCal, who posts on Earth Boppin'.  It was so exciting to meet a Wit's End reader from across the continent, who gave me some excellent advice about comparative studies of trees, and what happens to specimens in the landscape from herbicides, and damage from mechanical equipment.

So getting back to the topic of Wit's End, here are some photos from my first days in California, around Del Mar, where the trees are succumbing to the effects of exposure to toxic greenhouse gases.

As soon as I publish this post, I'm heading out to the desert for more pictures, and will do a better job on the subject of trees.  A close look at this park, across from the beach, shows futile efforts to trim branches in the hopes of encouraging fresh, more vigorous growth.

Groundcover leaves exhibit the classic loss of chlorophyll indicative of damage from ozone.

I did find some lush hibiscus although there were almost no leaves...

This jade tree has more flowers than leaves, a troubling symptom.

The speckling is from damaged stomates, which absorb the ambient ozone and turn brown or rusty.

The leaves on this shrub should all be green, but they are losing chlorophyll...

and turn red in stages.  Sooner or later they will shrivel up and fall off, and the plant will be dead.

These leaves exhibit the marked, prominent veins as well as yellowing.

A glowing bird of paradise is a delight to see!

There are several varieties of coniferous trees, all losing needles.

There are still some pretty flowers to be found.

I was thrilled to greet the Pacific, dotted with surfers.

Many, many thanks to Mike Roddy, whose assistance has been invaluable on this trip, and to his friends, John Hines and Randy Godfrey, and Terry and Catherine Payne, for their gracious hospitality.

Here is my souvenir...I think, it's the skeleton of sea worms.

Update:  A Terrific Rap from Jasiri X in Wisconsin Against the Billionaires! 

Wit'sEnd was Tweeted!

here...now, if only I understood the Twitter...

Greenpeace sends a message aloft to the Koch Brothers

That was yesterday - I'm working on uploading pictures from the demonstration today.  Everything went smoothly, with a very well organized street closure and breach into the private confines of the billionaire's cabal, with some peaceful arrests (not me though!)  Arrest the Kochs not the people!! was gleefully bellowed by a substantial and enthusiastic crowd, with groups including Common Cause, Code Pink, Ruckus, and of course the Climate Zombies.  Well okay.  We're not a group, only two.  But we had virtual companions.

Rumor had it that the Koch's had hoped for a significant counter demonstration of tea partiers, but when they figured out nobody cared enough to turn out, they released a "secret" memo that it wouldn't be safe to go after all, because the "crazy liberals were going to get violent"!  So that way, they have an excuse for having no grass roots support, after all - only astroturf...

If anyone comes across media coverage please post links in the comments.

Koch Kills Redux, live from Rancho Mirage!

These are the Climate Zombies at the White House last fall.  What are Climate Zombies?  They are the lies that dirty fuel industry-sponsored climate change deniers repeat again and again, no matter how many times legitimate science proves them wrong - they just keep rising from the dead, like zombies!!
The blog Skeptical Science slays the zombies - check it out!

This is the flyer distributed last October 10, 2010 - at a rally in front of the White House for climate action sponsored by the Global Warming Education Network and 350.org.   Today, Climate Zombies are back to confront the Kochs at their conference in Rancho Mirage, California.  Here's what the bill says on the back:

Climate Zombies Bought Your Vote!

Corporate money is polluting our legislature and government agencies just as their products are polluting our air and water. Billionaires like the coal-­rich Koch brothers are financing a well-­orchestrated campaign of lies to confuse the American public -­ exactly like the tobacco companies waged a marketing war to keep consumers addicted to cigarettes for decades.

Find out more about these criminals and what you can do to stop them from destroying our country at http://witsendnj.blogspot.com

This blog, Wit's End, is mostly about trees and vegetation, and how it is dying incrementally, at a rapidly escalating rate, from exposure to toxic background ozone.  Tropospheric ozone is derived from precursors released fuel combustion emissions, which also produces CO2 - the most ubiquitous greenhouse gas causing our climate to dangerously destabilize.  For more information, visit the Basic Premise page at the top of this blog.  But for today the focus will be on the Koch Brothers - later I will post pictures from the demonstration in front of the resort, and the Climate Zombies holding aloft our banner that proclaims "KOCH KILLS."

The dying of trees (and all other vegetation) poses an existential threat that is even more urgent than climate change from CO2 - dangerous as that is - because it poses an immediate reduction to our food supply, not to mention every other species that rely on plants for food.  It's critical for people to understand that climate criminals like the Koch brothers are spending enormous sums of money to bury the facts and confuse the science.

Right-wing ideologues own the the mainstream media, and anyone who relies on American television and radio for full and accurate information is being deluded.

We must convert to clean energy - on an emergency basis! - to prevent the worst consequences of climate change that will continue to worsen into the foreseeable future.  An even greater imperative, is that we must stop burning fuel now to rescue plants, which are the base of the food chain...or mass starvation will ensue.

Why target the Koch brothers?  Well, they're loathsome assholes, that's why.  And collossal hypocrites....and contemptible social climbers - using not talent or wit or knowledge or value to ingratiate themslves to high society, instead they buy their way onto the boards of prestigious institutions like the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Opera with the most blatantly crass method - money.  What's more revolting than that?   Oh...maybe the craven jerks that accept and reward them, when they should be shunned by anyone with a conscience!

There are so many references to be found that reveal the machinations of the Koch brothers - following is a somewhat random if incoherent sample.  Enjoy!

The original spotlight on the Koch activities was Jane Mayer's article in the New Yorker, "Covert Operations:  The billionaire brothers who are waging a war Against Obama." which has the most vivid and complete investigation into the Crimes of Koch, although much as been published since.  I won't even post a a single excerpt because the entire thing is a must-read, an amazing expose of the way things really work in America, where corporations now have the same rights as humans, and none of the responsibilities.

This article explains how minions such as Paul Singer, who are paid by the likes of the Koch brothers, spread their vile lies.

Even more insidious is the influence of operatives such as the fellow known as Lefohn, whose nefarious psuedo-science I reported on in this post, along with the activities of the "Air and Waste Management Association" - folks who are too smart to deny climate change, but rather, their intent is to squeeze more obscene profits from cleaning up the messes they have made, as mandated by the government they control - all funded by you and me!

This RealClimate post examines Cucinelli's despicable attempts to harrass climate scientist Michael Mann; and this search details how Koch Industries funded his campaign for Virginia Attorney General.

This post in the Climate Progress blog is titled "Koch-funded Prop 23 Study Draws Oily Conclusions."

Another Climate Progress post has this chart:



In yet another CP post, Koch is exposed as funding a book that argues against mine safety while this one skewers their manipulative, many-strings-attached, so-called philanthropy.

A column by Frank Rich investigated the connections between Koch money and Tea Party candidates like Christine O'Donnell:

"In fact, local chapters of Tea Party Patriots routinely received early training and support from FreedomWorks, the moneyed libertarian outfit run by the former Republican House majority leader and corporate lobbyist Dick Armey. FreedomWorks is itself a spinoff from Citizens for a Sound Economy, a pseudo-grassroots group whose links to the billionaire Koch brothers were traced by Jane Mayer in her blockbuster August exposé in The New Yorker. Last week the same Tea Party Patriots leader who bragged to the National Journal about all those small donations announced a $1 million gift from a man she would identify only as an entrepreneur. The donor’s hidden identity speaks even louder than the size of the check. As long as we don’t know who he is, we won’t know what orders he’s giving either."

What follows is the Koch brothers section from Rolling Stone's article (which they since pulled off the web!) The Climate Killers

The Tea Partiers

Charles and David Koch

CEO and Executive Vice President, Koch Industries
"The multibillionaire brothers not only run the nation's largest private energy company, they rival Exxon in funding the front groups that spread disinformation about the dangers of climate change. Over the years, the Kochs and their foundations have lavished millions on climate deniers at the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, which Charles founded in 1977. Cato, in turn, supports the work of Patrick Michaels, a leading climate denier who attempts to discredit the international scientific consensus on global warming while accepting money from coal companies. As author Thomas Frank observes in What's the Matter With Kansas?, "Koch money subsidizes the mass production of bad ideas."

One major recipient of Koch cash is Americans for Prosperity, where David chairs the foundation's board. In addition to fomenting last summer's town-hall brawls over health care reform, AFP sponsored a "Hot Air Tour" on climate change, deploying a manned balloon at 75 events for the purpose of "Exposing the Ballooning Costs of Global Warming Hysteria." At the events, the group's president, Tim Phillips, grossly exaggerated the costs of climate legislation, calling it a trillion-dollar tax on American families.

Last October, at an AFP summit attended by David Koch, the assembled Tea Partiers screened a climate-denial film that accused advocates like Al Gore of wanting to take civilization "back to the Dark Ages and the Black Plague." Such events, Koch proclaimed, "bring to reality the vision" of "fighting for the economic freedoms that made our nation the most prosperous society in history." Last year, seeking to defend its own prosperity against a carbon-capped future, Koch Industries spent more than $8.5 million on lobbying."

Here is a rare intelligent NYT Op-Ed:  "The Brothers Koch and AB32."

A review of the Mayer piece in the New Yorker with fresh analysis and more links, is titled "It's the Real Thing:  The Power of Koch."

Koch-Funded Organizations Launch New Campaign To Protect Big Oil Profits The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party - NY Times "The Koch brothers agenda is morphing into the Republican agenda. "Their program opposes a federal deficit, but has no objection to running up trillions in red ink in tax cuts to corporations and the superrich; apologizes to corporate malefactors like BP and derides money put in escrow for oil spill victims as a slush fund; opposes the extension of unemployment benefits; and calls for a freeze on federal regulations in an era when abuses in the oil, financial, mining, pharmaceutical and even egg industries (among others) have been outrageous." Oil company owned by Tea Party's billionaire brothers gives $1 million to fight California's climate change law, from the San Jose Mercury News. Koch Industries Funds Attack on Science Linking Formaldehyde and Cancer. Voter Beware: Concentrated Corporate Power Is Creating Deceptive Elections. Even more, ruminations by Professor Coyne on the deceptive Koch exhibit about evolution at the Smithsonian. Greenpeace unveils the role of Bill Koch, the other brother, in opposition to Cape Wind clean energy anna's link, and a catalog of Koch Industries millions to fund climate denial front groups and think tanks The "Boycottkochbrothers" blog, with many links and real-time updates Kochtupus uses the money to influence energy policies in Canada Advance news about Rancho Mirage protest and Supreme Court Justices' links to Koch Cato Institute, founded by Koch, is deceptive about source of funding, UK Guardian article boycott Terrific graphic timeline of Koch family from the John Birch Society to Rancho Mirage "Quarantine" action. Visit Wit's End again soon for photos from the action on Sunday, up as soon as I can post them!

Drowning in a Pool of Tears

For the past two years there has been a hefty flock of turkey vultures roosting in this huge dying sycamore in the village of Pottersville.

Today I realized that now, there are many more spreading to adjacent trees, and they have even settled on chimneys in the neighborhood.  What's the point?  I'm not sure, other than it's creepy.  But also, carrion seem to be thriving, and my guess is, it's because everything else is hungry, and vulnerable.   You'd expect at least a temporary explosion of opportunistic species as the others die off, from lack of sustenance, as the plant-based food chain collapses.

Along both sides of the street that runs through, there are a number old hemlocks, probably planted about a hundred years ago, which are swiftly dropping needles.  Lately, the bark has noticeably deteriorated.

It is covered with sap that has been oozing from cracks and holes, which has hardened into something that resembles a dirty sugar icing...and bark is popping off in large sections, revealing the raw red wood beneath.

Just on the outskirts of the village is a girls' boarding school, with a pastoral campus that has many trees in varying degrees of decay.

The tips of the branches of this maple are stubby - there is no evidence of fresh young growth from last summer, and the trunk has lost massive strips of bark.  Just behind it are pine trees with almost no needles remaining.

Further beyond is a typical blackened maple.  I never saw this black bark until it began a rapid spread two years ago - and now it is everywhere to be found.

It has been too frigid to venture outside for anything other than essential excursions.  Once long ago on the old fashioned kind of telephone, I asked my sister if she ever felt frightened in the night, when there is a blizzard howling.  I always have - I am very conscious that merely a flimsy thin wall, and tenuous source of heat that will cease if the power goes out, is all that separates my cozy warmth from a freezing death.  She laughed and said of course she did - and then added sardonically, that of all the people she knew at the big fancy law firm where she worked in downtown Manhattan, with the four-figure floral arrangements in the foyer, none suffered any such inkling.  They blithely assumed without question that the world would always remain the benign, predictable place they had enjoyed all their privileged lives...at least, for them.

That was many years ago, long before I realized human civilization is heading for imminent collapse, or should I say Driving Straight Into Catastrophe?   (Come back to that link and read it!)  Last night I was pondering my recollection of a few episodes of averted and actual drownings that have punctuated my life.

What has this got to do with the topic of this blog - trees dying from exposure to ozone?  Quite a bit, potentially.

The first episode occurred one summer while I was still married, and youngest daughter hadn't been walking for very long.  Soon-to-be-ex took her to the pool in the backyard, to swim while I prepared dinner.  She was floating in a tube when he decided to put on his goggles and do laps.  At some point, she drifted to the deep end, and then, in a soundless heartbeat, vanished through the tube, into the depths.

Luckily, we had a houseguest at the time, a professor from France known by the children, who adored him, as PaPaPierre.  He just happened to be out, crossing the lawn in the waning light, and observed her disappearance.  He leapt over the fence and into the pool to pull her out.  Ex was completely oblivious until the rescuer called to him.  Imagine my consternation when they brought her inside.

Next, shortly after we had separated, Ex brought our three daughters to the Princeton University pool, a luxurious facility reserved for faculty living in subsidized housing - and then he left to get sandwiches for lunch.  This, despite my frequent pleas to never rely on teenage lifeguards.  Sure enough, youngest daughter again slipped through her tube - and this time, first daughter had just emerged from the dressing room and saw her go down - so she jumped, fully clothed, into the pool to haul her out.  The lifeguard never noticed until it was over.  It came to my attention because first daughter's watch was ruined, and I had to intervene to get Ex to replace it.

In hearing of those two events my English friend, Roger, told me about a holiday in Greece, when he brought his family to a children's wading pool.  A mother deep in conversation failed to notice her baby had slipped, with barely a ripple, under the shallow water, and drowned at her feet.  To this day I feel her grief and guilt.  Tragedy can happen so easily.

Last one.  Youngest daughter at around age three had been begging desperately for a kitten so finally, I relented and checked the classified ads in the local newspaper - back in the day before every conceivable thing could be obtained on the intertubes.  As it happened there was a litter of pure-bread Persians available in Chester, a nearby town, so we went to choose one.  Well, it turned out the lady who was selling them a bit younger than normal was in somewhat of a hurry to find them homes, because she was feeling just a bit overwhelmed.  Two weeks before, she was cooking in the kitchen while her two daughters watched the teevee in the family room behind her.   The youngest toddled down the hallway into the bathroom and promptly drowned in the toilet, where she was soon discovered by her sister, who was around the same age as my daughter.  The mother looked shell-shocked, beyond distraught.  I was so aghast, I had no idea how to respond when she related this horrible event.

I had never even suspected that something as innocuous and normal as a potty could be a mortal threat, although you don't have to think about it very long to realize, of course it can be lethal for toddlers, whose heads are disproportionately heavy compared to the rest of their bodies, making it difficult for them to extricate themselves if they tumble head first into a tub, basket or other container.

So for me, this analogy illuminates a confusing conundrum - why hardly anyone but me realizes that trees are rapidly disappearing from the landscape.

For the most part, like a child slipping into water, the trees barely make a splash compared to the daily roar for attention from a culture overwhelmingly technological.

And like the mundane potty, the source of the danger - emissions from burning fuel which are obviously dangerous if you stop to think about it...everybody knows air pollution is bad - but most people rarely if ever make the connection between something as humdrum as turning on the lights, running the refrigerator, the washer and dryer and vacuum, heating or cooling the house, and driving the car...with extinction.

Perhaps having these close brushes with the ephemerality of life (and a few others, besides) has enabled me to see how abruptly and capriciously life can end, as it is now in the process of ending, everywhere.

Don't it always seem to go -
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
We paved paradise, put up a parking lot.

- Joni Mitchell

Here's a different version, with some enchanting photos:

I highly recommend this fountain of searing outrage from columnist Chris Hedges, "Where Liberals go to Feel Good," which is a painful evisceration of well-meaning hand-wringing disillusioned progressives who aren't really willing to step out of their comfort zone to effect the change they claim is required.  And then, there is the awakening fury of courageous people rising up to denounce inequality, unemployment and, most urgently, the escalating cost of food.  I have heard estimates of 90,000 people protesting in Egypt on this "Day of Anger" which will quite likely turn into many "Days" before it's over.  The following news report was posted in a brief flash on Yahoo, and then was surpassed in importance by some football player with hurt feelings, the cast of Jersey Shore, and Gingrich calling for the abolishment of the EPA.  The revolution will not be televised...