Tioga Herald

THREE-PENNY OP-ED: Balance Between Fossil Fuels and Renewable Energy Fuels (Biomass, etc.)

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.