NOTE: it is quite possible that WordPress blocks this article from being sent to my personal email in Google. Damn WordPress for doing this and not being willing to help me out in stopping it.
The June 5, 2021, op-ed by Thomas Friedman (New York Times; title of article: “Progress in getting fossils off fossil fuels” or under another title: “The ‘Mean Greens’ are Forcing Exxon to Clean up its Act”) was well-received by this author. Reading the first article title, I think I like it better than the one put on the article by editors of the New York Times (the second title). I believe it is because of a conversation which I had with a former upstate New York propane gas business man who moved to Florida and opened a seafood restaurant in the Tampa Bay area, when talking about the man’s friend and a vice-president at the company where I was working by the name of John Hancock. You see, Mr. Hancock headed the “fossil fuels” division of the electric utility where I was working. No surprise that this “fossil fuels” head was a friend of a former business man who sold a type of “fossil fuel” in the Southern Tier of New York, near Binghamton and Endicott, the former home of IBM. When I mentioned to this person from upstate New York that I was working with John Hancock at the electric utility, this guy from upstate New York laughed and said, “well you say hello to that old fossil fool friend of mine!” To which I did. Thus, with Friedman’s article titled, from newspaper editors in the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania, something regarding “fossil fuels” rather than the “”mean greens” indicated by editors at the New York Times, I chuckled over this.
My dad told how, in the 1940s, he would drive a huge truck full of hay produced on Grandpa Cornwell’s farm to a New York City barge and then have it shipped to Cuba on the barge and sold to Cuban horse farmers there.
(Side note: my Cuban colleague from Florida told me about how HER grandfather owned a horse farm in Cuba in the 1940s and spoke about getting shipments of hay from America, but she never knew some of it was from upstate New York! Small world, is it not?).
Back to the story about shipping hay. My dad reported that, on his return trip from New York City, he would stop in the hills near Scranton-Wilkes Barre, PA, and pick up a load of coal and bring that load home and sell to customers in the Southern Tier, in the same area where the guy I mention about “fossil fuels” had a propane gas business (before moving to Florida). My dad, as he got older, went to work for that propane gas man and was working for him in 1948 when Grandpa Cornwell died at his home in Endwell, NY. After the gas man left the Southern Tier, about 1965, my father started his own propane gas business and appliance retail sales, which lasted about three decades after that. That business my dad had you can see today in the facility on Route 38 south of Newark Valley called Suburban Propane. Propane is great around here because the stupid residents of this town have voted against putting in natural gas, which some of us would like to have and perhaps could generate our own electricity independent of NYSEG. Voting against business opportunities here, whether the stupid Trump-like tea-totalers and Prohibition, dictating THEIR desires upon a population, removing the possibility of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” There. I had to get that part into my op-ed. Nevertheless, coal and propane, together with hay produced in New York. Quite a combination.
Now, tied to all of this is what Friedman says about the “fossils” of Exxon-Mobil” and how my thoughts go to the Florida propane gas man, seafood restaurant man, grouper fishing fleet man, whom I knew in the 1980s and 1990s in Florida. Friedman reports that the fossils within the Exxon-Mobil organization are being challenged by new investors who are described as the “mean green” crowd because they also would like Exxon-Mobil to diversify for the future and expand into non-fossil fuels. If anyone follows my own writings, they would discover that I have said something similar to Friedman, but without a reference to Exxon-Mobil. I have said that we need a balance between the green technologies and fossil fuels. Rather than building pipelines which pollute the atmosphere, build stockpiles of fossil fuels for the future, in the way FDR prescribed building federal savings and loan organizations, war bonds, victory bonds, and promoted the March of Dimes to fight a polio pandemic, for long-term investment into the future. But alas, Republicans have destroyed the means of long-term investment, even long-term housing investments with the greedy selfish approach of flipping homes, Florida over-developing new homes for the benefit of developers and banks, not the common folk, and an increase of common folk in Florida being left homeless because they cannot afford the homes of plantation-owning-mentality real estate people in Florida. Slum lords purchasing recycled homes and selling at a higher price or renting at astronomical rates and claiming it is “free market capitalism,” which is BS for “me, myself, and I” capitalism of the supply-side fat cat order and no concern for the demand side. Then when the Democrats wish to push money to more people and to the common folk, Mitch McConnell and gang refuse to work out a compromise, but insist that it ONLY be the way they want it. How does one expect Democrats to take this? Lying down and up where the sign doesn’t shine? Saving for long-term interest, whether in fossil fuels, real estate, or other resources, rather than promoting bank-style, “me, myself, and I” mentality of selfishness and instant gratification really destroys this nation, with Mitch McConnell, who made his money by being a U.S. Senator and nothing else, leads the damn charge and thinks he is a Teddy Roosevelt on San Juan Hill, when he is nothing but a lazy dumb ass who made him money, not by EARNING it, but by stealing it from taxpayers and lobbyists. The dictator on Capitol Hill, telling Republicans how they should vote against anything the Democrats propose, not working out a compromise unless the Democrats do as the McConnell Trumpican dictators want to have done. It is refreshing to hear of a bit of balance and moderation, as reported about Exxon-Mobil by Thomas Friedman. Will this last? I hope so.
Tied to this, as well, is my war with Gannett and the newspaper industry about delivery of print copies of newspapers in little Newark Valley. My grandfather came to this town because he was a classmate to the propane-seafood giant of Florida and that man’s father. I am told they were classmates at Syracuse University, so my grandfather, who became a teacher, was enabled to get a job teaching here in this town. Two of his children, including my mother, worked for this propane gas king, son of the SU classmate to my grandfather. What does this have to do with anything? Because I heard it told that my grandfather, who grew up in Fabius, NY, near Syracuse, and read the Syracuse Newspapers’ Post-Standard, Herald-Tribune, and Sunday Herald-American, was able to have those Syracuse newspapers delivered to his home in Newark Valley, NY, which is situated halfway between Binghamton and Ithaca, where there are two newspapers which are owned by Gannett. (There was once a third newspaper in Binghamton, the Sun-Bulletin, which was owned by an independent local publisher, then bought out by Gannett).
Thus, as I say things about this, I suppose someone could also conclude I am a “fossil” about reading newspapers. I wish to point out that my position about reading print copies is not fossil, but a responsible way of approaching reading which is acceptable to many people who are not fossils, but are ignored by the dictatorship of Gannett and its USA Today Network, with no capitalist competition to provide an alternative. Yet, I fully believe that moderation, as what Friedman describes happening with Exxon-Mobil, is fully possible in the newspaper industry. We need to rid the newspaper industry of those who grasp technology and force in a dictatorial way, their notions upon everyone and never acknowledging the words of us “fossils.” In this case, reading a print copy and re-implementing the details of the newspaper, as it once existed before people began dropping newspapers when the newspapers were changed as the “old coots” retired due to a Recession that did not beat around the bush and these young bastards grasped at a means of “change for the sake of change” so I can satisfy only, me, myself, and I, individualism, and these fat pigs and fat cats don’t give a damn about others. They fabricate reasons for why this happens in the newspaper industry and never wish to help the “fossils” out.
Kudos to Friedman, too, for revealing the progress being made at Exxon-Mobil. We can only hope it continues. We will try to continue to find Mr. Friedman’s column again and again. By the way. To those in America who are so stupid and having a lack of desire to learn in a lifelong learning environment, the Friedman op-ed was a very lengthy one with plenty of details to help us learn about what is happening, rather than relying on a quick video snippet which does not reveal the full details. Like a Sixty Minutes on CBS which is NOT a video snippet, but an in-depth report on what is happening, without all the BS of political analysis and bloviating political idiocy. Funny thing. Every time I speak with people about this topic of bloviating political analysis on cable television today, they tell me the same thing I am thinking. WE DESPISE THAT AND WE ARE THE PEOPLE TRYING TO TELL THE FAT CATS THAT IS NOT WHAT WE WANT. Do the freaking fat cats and pigs listen? NAH. They refuse to listen. And why is this junk like Fox News and others, so successful? Because the bastards of that network get paid much money and the viewers have no choice or “on demand” service for Fox, CNN, or MSNBC, or CSNBC, and others. They make money from ME when I never watch the damn crap, but I pay for delivery of a newspaper each morning and get nothing but crappy service and no one to fix the service.
And Sixty Minutes? I pay for Binghamton’s channel 12 which delivers the program through Spectrum, but I COULD receive it as a free broadcast, but that is rough to do. It is rough, due to the stupid commissioners of the FCC who side with big corporate fat cats in helping them rake in enough money so that freaking Sean Hannity has enough money to purchase the hate monger’s mansion in Palm Beach – the late Rush Limbaugh. I have done better things to deserve an award than Rush Limbaugh and it was not due to bloviating hatred, either, but having a love for all human beings and never concerned about the color of the skin.
Sure, I am contentious against the lack of balance, moderation, regulated capitalism and balance, and the checks and balances designed into our system of democracy. My contention and hatred is with the evil spirit and the one who runs the evil spirit, or devil or Satan, with his demons like Trump and other Trumpicans.
Interesting, the drawing of “Lady Liberty” in a New York Times book review of a book titled, Noise. Rather than holding a scale to balance out justice, the image is a sarcastic reminder of the legal profession today with its ill desires of love of money when “Lady Liberty” holds two dice (you can view this image by accessing the link to the book review). Believe me, there was a day when FCC commissioners and others did make some reasonable decisions not tailored to big business and we did not have to rely on love of money to decide our justice. My contempt of this system says one thing: peace does not exist without TRUE justice for all of us. That is possible, so when are we going to collectively get to work, write to our leaders and those in business and express what we wish to see happen. I hear it in the voices of people who say they don’t like to pay for entire menus of cable television offerings or who don’t want to pay for electronic editions. What is holding people back from speaking out? Fear of Republican and fat cat retribution?
Perhaps I am saving the best for last when I offer a final remark about Friedman’s op-ed about fossil fuels. There is the point about moderation, but also about weaning America of the oil controllers in Saudi Arabia, a nation which sent people of its monarchy to New York City on 9/11/2001 and which has a monarchy which inspires the Taliban and others to behead their own citizens. Unacceptable; and don’t give me the BS designed to shoot holes in these facts with fabricated BS about Biden and his son. The truth gets buried under fabrication of theories. Fantasies and conspiracies and the truth gets buried. And a people in the USA who have no brains and are able to differentiate between fabrication and truth because, as the Nazis say, “we can tell a lie over and over again and it becomes the truth.” There is no lie about the fact that Saudi monarchists were responsible for 9/11, yet we went after a foe of the Saudis while the Taliban and friends of the Saudis went free in another form of obstructing justice. Peace without justice cannot happen. It was Obama and his administration which brought down Osama Bin Laden and don’t you ever forget that as fabrications are tossed out there and you are expected to believe such fabrications and are unable to discern the truth.
Friedman’s point is about weaning America of the Middle East dictatorial control of oil and to do that, we need to encourage the “fossils” and the “mean greens,” together, or it won’t happen. We also need to designate oil from the ground as a reserved saving account for the days when oil is less available. I add this. That the “fossils” and the “technologists” of the newspaper and media markets need to work together, too, and right now, Gannett is like a centralized newspaper from communist Soviet Union called Pravda, not a pertinent American newspaper with an interest in local news, which was the content which got Gannett off the ground, originally.
Competitive capitalist forces between the “mean green” and the “fossils,” as well as the media “technologists” and the “fossils” can help us to bring down the prices and provide better service because that is what has been proven is the important part of capitalist competition. The goal in newspapers should not be the lousy one with blinders on and a total direction to embrace technology only.
To control the prices, government wage and price controls, pushed by liberals in the past, are not the answer. The answer is regulated capitalist competition and moderation in implementation, as Friedman points out in the energy industry and Exxon-Mobil.
And one note about the faculty of Florida where I found my career. Because the faculty salaries in Florida suck so badly, why did I have a concern about losing some of the state’s best educators to other areas of the nation? There were several I have known who departed Florida and did so at younger ages, before becoming entrenched with a fear of age always being considered last as it loses out to youth. It is called capitalist competition with an ability for, in this case, faculty to find better pay elsewhere. No one could consider the me, myself, and I instantaneous heads of the organizations about this, as we attempted to negotiate with them. They only saw their own salaries and contempt for removing the cap on FICA deductions to a more fair one for all (justice for all) as being better than making education better by keeping good educators rather than considering better salaries in order to keep the better ones. And those better educators went to states where they, too, could gain tenure, which the high-paid heads of the organization disdained, for some reason, and never would negotiate something feasible and better for all. In this respect, there is one big problem here. Capitalist competition would be better if the doors around the world were more open, as we talk about the globalization of business, but never consider the globalization of education and other items within our cultures. For me, I was fully recognized in the international community, but denied access to it by America and Florida. We don’t have open doors with Canada and other nations, regarding faculty (and other careers), so it makes it nearly impossible for open capitalist competition on a world-wide basis. When I get treated like crap by lousy Republican administrators, especially if I am part of a union, I lose my ability to capitalist competitiveness where I am accepted in a large audience.
Energy. Newspapers and the media. Education. Information industry. All “industries” with a common thread, but also differences in how they should be handled. Friedman’s article points to energy. I have brought up the fringe elements in the other areas where there is a common thread.
Tioga Herald 
Local Binghamton CBS affiliate, channel 12
Dear Sirs or Madams (of CBS Sixty Minutes):
We regularly watch Sixty Minutes and appreciate having this news AND information source available to us. We despise Fox News with its lies. the National Association of Broadcasters needs to put Fox out of business.
We have a bumper sticker which reads: “We get our NEWS from Comedy Central and our entertainment from Fox News.” That about describes what we have to the nth degree in America today, due to the Republican destruction of the Fairness Doctrine which was put in place in the 1940s to guard against Nazi propaganda which had destroyed Germany. In the 1940s, everyone was in agreement, so this was a bipartisan decision.
For some 20 years or more, I have written to publications and the media. I have used local newspapers and local television outlets, as well as networks. I write to Sixty Minutes, especially when I hear the recently repeated story about robots (Anderson Cooper?). I write about many other news reports. With the demise of local news, by hedgefund lovers of money (also a recent story on Sixty Minutes), I have watched as my writings have not been published. At first, I was puzzled. As time has gone by and with the wisdom of age, I have discovered the reasons. Both your Sixty Minutes report and an article in The Economist and other publications have unraveled the mystery and puzzle to me. When one relies only on intuition and observation of actual events at a Florida newspaper and elsewhere, it is good to find out that what I have been writing about what I KNOW has been correct, it is sad that no one pays attention to me anymore. At one time, before the older great journalists retired – the people of good will running local newspaper – I was accepted. Now I feel as if I am on the outside looking in when most of what I have written has been correct.
Wat I am finding is that my distribution to a local Binghamton Fox affiliate has been read by such people at Fox. What do they do? Just as Trump does. Put a spin on what I say that is in line with their lies and re-distribute. There is no teamwork among people of good will in the media business and that is a crying shame. So, I have removed the Fox affiliate from my distribution. I have removed Sean Hanity from my distribution list.
With this being said, what about the other three Binghamton television network affiliates? NBC and ABC affiliates in Binghamton are run by one owner. The local news comes from one outlet: Newschannel 34, the ABC affiliate. The PBS affiliate has no local news, only the PBS Newshour and other PBS network news analysis.
This situation leaves the local CBS affiliate, WBNG, channel 12. The local news is not always “local, but taken from “wire” stories on CNN and other news places. CBS Channel 12 had the best local news source in this area, back in the years when I was growing up. Today, I would have to say this Grey Company local affiliate is not THE BEST, but it sure is better than Fox 40.
What bothers me about local channel 12 is the fact it no longer accepts email. This is the device I have used to distribute what I write. Why does channel 12 do this? Why does a news AND INFORMATION channel not read what I write any more? What the hell is going on? Here we are and I can say my likes and dislikes are pretty much on the same page as channel 12. But none of my writing is accepted there. Don’t get me wrong. There is never 100% agreement with any humans or human organizations. But my judgment is that, unlike Fox, they don’t lie. They are not liars, liars pants on fire.
Yesterday, I was in an area in which a local Solid Gold radio broadcast (Equinox) was difficult to receive as we have a country music station interfering. So, in the car, we turned to another local radio station with music more acceptable to us, though it was NOT solid gold. In this area, there are pockets where hills block one signal and from some valley comes another. Back in the days of my youth, with mostly AM broadcasts, that never happened here. Even when FM was introduced, it never happened. We received ALL Binghamton stations plus other smaller city stations. Today, we senior citizens are being relegated to purchasing, on a lower revenue stream in our family budget, Sirius XM. At one time, it was all FREE, FREE, FREE – supported by local advertisers. But yesterday, in the car, when listening to this other station because we were FORCED to do so by rules emanating from the FCC which is controlled by big business when it should be a third party representing the DEMAND SIDE of the market or WE THE PEOPLE. It is represented by those on the SUPPLY SIDE of the market. Period. Money is used to validate this. BS on that because free broadcast once DID make money and could still make money, just not feed the already filled to the brim pockets of those with hedgefund investments like the guy Sixty Minutes reported on who now owns a multitude of newspapers and can buy a mansion in Miami when most of us have had to leave Florida because we cannot afford the housing there (along with factors of heat, humidity, and hurricanes with outrageous costs to put money into an insurance hole for hurricanes and never see it again). But on this radio station we were FORCED to turn to, as a Cuban citizen might be forced when Castro put a block on many broadcasts from Miami, we listened to the news. At the end, we discovered we were FORCED to listen to Fox News. Fox News ended the broadcast with “all America loves Fox News.” Another lie because all America DOES NOT love Fox News. They say it to inspire groupthink from peer pressure and get Republicans elected. I call the Republicans “republicunts” and “repugnicans” because, due to Fox News, the Republicans have become perverted and are NOT like the Republicans I knew one time, associated with, and was a registered Republican. BTW. How much media is covering those of us who have found that “republicunts” and “repugnicans” have forced us to leave the party? Instead I hear crap about Democrats.
Interestingly enough, the story on Fox News which we heard and which surprised us, was a condemnation of Joe Biden. It was absurd as this news report did not just report the news, as was the function under the Fairness Doctrine, but made a comment about how bad Biden was because he stood up to Big Oil. In other words, he stood up to the Koch brothers, Texas slick oil men, and others. Fox News did not say that, did they? They wish to force the Keystone Oil Pipeline and only do that by drawing a false picture of alternative fuels. Had we been more in line with alternative fuels, due to Fox News, we would not be stuck today with the a dilemma which mirrors the results of the 1973 oil embargo. It was republicunts which put the axe on alternative fuels – for the sake of BIG OIL
This harks back to a Sixty Minutes report many years ago about the development of green technology and alternative fuels with the help of government “incubator” money for business in America. The report was a great one in which we the people learned that America, perhaps being blocked by BIG OIL back in those days(?), did not have investors to buy up those companies because it required deep pocket-ed investors for the long term development of such alternatives. Your report told about investors from China who were purchasing these “startups.” And to Fox News people, they blame government dollars being thrown to China, while they never report on how much Big Oil was sabotaging Americans who may have wanted to invest, so as to hold the control in thic country. It is the basis for attacks against Democrats, while, as is always the case (and with gun safety and domestic terrorism), it is the Fox followers and their sabotage which are the root cause – with their evil love of money.
With all of this explanation, I return to the issue of local news CBS affiliate, channel 12. Back in the days when television was first begun, I recall channel 12 being both CBS and ABC. The local NBC affiliate is now Fox40 and a new NBC affiliate was formed after that change happened. Channel 12 was the only VHF affiliate at that time. It still really is the only “digital” VHF, except perhaps the local NBC affiliate run by ABC affiliate channel 34. Thus, in those early years, few people actually invested in a UHF antenna. I know my dad did not. It was stupid of the FCC to do that, especially when we compare to the city of Scranton where ALL the local affiliates have been UHF and VHF has not existed there. If there were smart people on the FCC back then, they would have handed all the VHF to bigger cities such as Syracuse, Rochester, and so forth. With the VHF affiliate in Binghamton and no one investing in UHF antennas, but purchasing huge VHF antennas to receive channel 12 of Binghamton and the Syracuse VHF stations, that station in Binghamton left the other network broadcasts in the dark as underdogs to channel 12. The news reporting on channels 40 and 34, quite frankly my dear, SUCKED.
When channel 12 was both CBS and ABC, we got to see, in the late 1950s when I was at pre-K age, Mickey Mouse Club. It was broadcast on ABC, so channel 12 picked it up. (Ironic that ABC is now owned by Disney and the “mouse”). Thus, my favoritism of CBS channel 12, which went to CBS only at the time channel 34 was created (WBJA) as an ABC affiliate (see the story about the history of channel 34: https://tvstations.fandom.com/wiki/WIVT ).
Thus, with the sabotage of my stories conducted by Fox and the fact that a better news station (CBS 12 of Binghamton) rejects email, I have to protest this situation because good people are not coming together to solve this problem in America. This is not polarization. It is the news and information being taken over by one network when we have four networks. Fox operates in the same way as the communist party or Nazi party control of broadcasting in a dictatorship.
I repeat. That is NOT polarization so bleeding heart liberals need to stop being so damn diplomatic about it all and calling it polarization. I despised the Capitol 4th concert this past week (on PBS) because, once again, it tries to be nice and talk about a divided America. It is NOT divided. It is a nation with the stage being set for dictatorial control just like that of Hitler and Goebbels. We need to stop pussyfooting around with all this BS for bleeding heart diplomacy – as if that is going to fix the problem. Given the evidence in history in other nations, THIS BLEEDING HEART DIPLOMACY WILL NOT FIX THE PROBLEM OF THIS NATION HEADING TOWARDS A DICTATORSHIP. IT WILL NOT. I have been correct in EVERYTHING I HAVE SAID AND WRITTEN SINCE THE ELECTION OF RONALD REAGAN IN 1980, so TO BE IGNORED NOW IS REALLY ASININE. To not be able to write to the local CBS affiliate is asinine, too. You people need to collect the information, not be concerned about how nice Fox or republicunts or repugnicans are treated. Stop the BS of bleeding hearts. Stop scoffing at people like me and ignoring what we are saying.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. People of America consider what German Niemoller said:
This quote was one of many which inspired the creation of the Fairness Doctrine in late 1940s USA. Cowards are the ones who realize I am correct and use what I write to the detriment of people of good will among the Democrats AND true Republicans (i.e., the Lincoln Project). It is about time journalism and media reared its head loud and strong against such actions.
Why does local CBS affiliate channel 12 NOT accept email? What the hell is this in forcing us to do? All to go to ONE monopolized platform called Facebook? Or forcing us to go to social media only? Forcing us to listen to the lies of Fox and other outlets of hatred? Listen to the DEMAND SIDE of a capitalist market which SHOULD exist with balance between supply and demand. I speak about such balance and keep in mind this is just as the checks and balances are SUPPOSED to exist in our government between executive, legislative, and judicial, but has been SABOTAGED by people like Trump, Giuliani, McConnell, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Kevin McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Gaetz, and many other sodomites who enjoy rape of women, but not homosexuality.
For the DEMAND SIDE, I am speaking. Now pay attention to many of us who want checks and balances in government and economics, not a dictatorship of the SUPPLY-SIDERS.
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