Franksummers3ba's Blog

My last post was very unsuccessful in that the links did not activate. I have been having trouble with the blog again. This is the time to complain but not tyo have the problem. It had gotten much better. Now it is hard for me to post anything well. I cannot post the links I wish to post but can advise you to look them up from earlier posts. I have decided to attach a sketch of my musings without much comment. perhaps to stimulate thought:

This is facebook note containing an earlier post from this blog:

There is a record flood coming to South Louisiana. This crest of high water will probably hit us around the week of May 18-25. The Mississippi River will bring the vastness of these waters in the upper and middle reaches of its course down on us. I think we also have to consider the risk of these natural conditions being made worse by human action in these dangerous times.

I am often critical of wetlands and water policy but I do think the Bonne Carre and Morganza Spillways have some things that they do well. I hope that they and even the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MR GO) will be able to handle the water crisis better than it was handled in 1927. Of course alot of bad human action made the floods of 1927 worse than they needed to be.

What follows is a blog post from my WordPress blog in October of 2009. I want to say that it is not about dealing with two hundred year floods primarily. However, I may comment on it later or mention it in a future post and discuss how huge intake of water could have been distributed through the infrastructure I describe here. Of course we cannot do these things in two weeks. However, it reminds us of some issues we need to address. I ENCOURAGE EVERYONE IN THE FLOOD PLAIN OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AT LEAST TO PREPARE TO EVACUATE. But here is my post on topic:

“Ideal Wetlands Policy on the Louisiana Coast
Posted on October 2, 2009 by franksummers3ba

I have decided to address the issues of wetlands conservation in Louisiana briefly in this post. In the past I have conspired for significant political change which would address the challenge of wetlands and coastal preservation and restoration along with many other issues that would be addressed only in the context of some very large political changes. This post is sort of an admission of defeat compared to those nearly forgotten goals. On the other hand it is for more than I am ever likely to see happen.
1. I would like to see some kind of stimulus fund used to by not one very large single tract but a series of many smaller tracts operated as a single National park with a total of perhaps 100,000 acres in all from the Atchafalya Swamp, the Chandeleur Islands, Cheniere Au Tigre, Grand Isle, Vermilion Bay’s coast, the Mississippi natural levees, and Ile des Dernier among other places.
2. I would like to see each oil and gas drilling and production corporation which has a part in developing the resources of Louisiana’s share of the Gulf madeto participate or have its own artificial barrier island. Each of these would have to include a fish hatchery, a wetlands plants nursery and an artificial beach as well as a grassy wetlands section of several times the dry acreage on the inland side of the island. These islands would also have to hold a clinic, a regional drilling office, serve as a juncture for pipelines and have a public docks and small hotel. On the gulfside of the islands the corporations must operate or lease out underwater habitats and laboratories joined to a central umbilicus running up the island. The islands must be built of at least eighty percent certified clean waste such as wrecks, broken concrete, compressed and sealed garbage and other materials.
3. A Louisiana State Park should be set up in long lanes connected to several giant purification and oxidation farms worked by convicts and detainees as well as other workers. Part of this farm would be leased out as cattle pasture to offset expenses. As much as possible of emergency drainage and partialy cleaned sewerage would go from the cities of South Louisiana to these farms. After going through a simple plant and oxidation ponds the waters would go through an artificial eco system until reaching the park lanes. These lanes would resort to canals and pipes where necessary but would generaly run as continous fishing, hunting and camping stips of wetlands and coulees depositing their flow after natural work into the Gulf waters.
4.The lanes would enter the fully flooded areas and there would be an artificial long island causeway with many breaks through which as many as possible future pipelines should be run. The surface of this would have to be ninety percent suitable and reseved for ither simple recreational use or pure wildlife reservation.
5. There would be a designated spillway zones between the island causeway and the ends of the lanes. These zones would have a concentration of wetlands preserves, erosion fences and jetties and all of the storm water pumps sediment rich floods and excess waters which could not be used in ordinary diversions would be pumped ad diverted into these areas. The state would also operate commercial species hatcheries and nurseries for seafood supported by a special tax and operate lease and overseen new oysterbeds in this zone.
6. When this was done a series of sites for artificial islands set in between and landward from the oil and gas islands would be leased to casino resorts.
7. A series of levees and canals would be built around and between the lanes which would try to use existing structures and make a coherent feature of wildlife, wetlands, transit and drainage policies.
I expect things would be far from perfect if we did all of this. However, I also expect this is far better than the horror to which we are headed and have always been headed.

This is a round-up of things to discuss about the death of Osama bin Laden:

Morals of the Strike

1. What objective could be more worthy than to kill the enemy who had been the mastermind of 9-11, struck at the Cole, the African embassies and had many other records of having waged an unconventional war against the United States for many years? We have a right to rejoice in this kill and the fall of an old enemy.

2. It is always best to be temperate in rjoicing over a kill and to acknowledge that it will not bring the innocent back from the dead and that there were others killed with him who were not as culpable as he. That does not mean they were not valid targets. The others were simply less worth clebrating in an emotional sense.

3. The disposal of the body with few international witnesses or none at sea after taking the target in a walled compound in a lightning raid is very bad policy.Sometimes very bad policy is worthy if one did the best one could. The question is can the US prove to reasonable people and not the lunatic majority in the Beltway that they did in fact kill OBL. Nonody in history could have believed it a sane way to kill a secretive and mysterious man and deal with his death but can they prove they really did kill him and are not lying?

Geopolitics:

1 Found in a palace in Pakistan in a garrison city means we have real problems with Pakistan and probably with the British Commonwealth.

2. We acted against basic interantional law and I think everyon would say it is justifiable if we can prove we did what we say we did. However, our behaviorafterwards has thrown it all into doubt for millions.

3.This is an evolving story. We will not know for a while what the strategic implications will be.

This is one of those Sunday mornings like many other mornings when there is a great abundance of things to write a blog post or a Facebook Note about in these near and present days. Here is a list of some of the things I could and possibly should blog or do a Facebook Note about today:
1. The horrific damage and high death toll created by the enormous number of tornadoes which have ripped across much of the southern United States. This is even more true because I live in the section of the country affected even if not in the regions most devastated.

2. A bit more about the British royal wedding and the absence of prominent Americans in the crowd. There is a whole series of important articles to be written about what this weekend means in all sorts of ways.

3.The White House Correspondents Association Dinner is always good for a post and its jokes are always worth reviewing.

4. The Beatification this weekend of Karol Wotija, Pope John Paul II.

5. The scrubbing of the Endeavor launch by NASA.

6.The NFL draft

7. The unresolved dispute between NFL labor and management

10. The Obama long form birth certificate

11. The killing of Gaddaffi, Khadaffi, or whatever you chose to call the Libyan premiere’s grandchildren.

12. The killing of the military troops and the contractor shot in a base by an Afghan stationed there.

13. Steve Carrel leaving the hit show he has led through successful seasons.

14. The special election I voted in yesterday for State representativee.

But faced with such choice and also with my own fatigue I will not really do a post right now. I will only list these things and say that in life we all struggle to remain informed about the things that we think concern us and to respond to the issues and demands that arise from these events. It is never all that easy and sometimes we just have to pass on some things we would like to do. There is tomorrow, whether we like to procrastinate or not. We do not have to be able to do everything to do something. Doing something worthwhile is often the mostwe can ask of ourselves. Even if we wish we could ask more.

The wedding was rather beautiful, extravagant, popular, edifying and polished. I certainly wish the couple well and will return to these matters in a future post I think. I have had a tiring day on many accounts but the wedding viewing schedule is the principal reason for my waeriness I must confess for that reason I will not have a long post today.

Yesterday’s post has in fact been attached to the Windsor’s wedding book and published in their site. It is unlikely this longer post will also be published. If it is I will try to remeber to mention that in a comment later. However I am including the post in this blog since I had mentioned it earlier…