Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art One-half Banana Stems

Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art One-half Banana Stems - www.kevindayhoff.com Address: PO Box 124, Westminster MD 21158 410-259-6403 kevindayhoff@gmail.com Runner, writer, artist, fire & police chaplain Mindless ramblings of a runner, journalist & artist: Travel, art, artists, authors, books, newspapers, media, writers and writing, journalists and journalism, reporters and reporting, technology, music, culture, opera... National & International politics www.kevindayhoff.net For community: www.kevindayhoff.org For art, technology, writing, & travel: www.kevindayhoff.com

Friday, May 11, 2001

Words to live by

Words to live by

Friday, May 11, 2001

(Oh, just a minute, I left my 9mm pistol back at the restaurant, I’ll be right back), Oh, darn, I hate it when that happens, hey OJ! Know any good lawyers?  And she got blood all over the car seat. You have to decide who “they” are, what resources they have, how bad will they want you, and how careful will you always be?  If its Janet “el” Reno you are home free, wear a chinese beret and smoke soggy cigars.  If its the IRS, bend over and kiss your ass goodbye (no, just kidding, bring in all your receipts and just say you didn’t mean to erase your hard drive after the Judge said to preserve all email evidence) sorry, I got carried away, I didn’t mean to sound like I forgot to give the Judge over 3,000 documents one week before the lethal injection, didn’t I hear the FBI director was going to retire? Will his taxes be audited?  Will he be polygraphed?  “We don’t need no stinking badges, Man!”  “God, I love the smell of Napalm in the morning!”  “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, the great and powerful OZ has spoken!”  “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”  “My, people come and go so quickly around here.”  “Surrender Dorothy!”  “And her little dog Toto too!”  “We’re from the Government, and we’re here to help you.”  “Take me to your leader.”  “All the while Old Luke, Cool Hand Luke, he was a sayin’ ‘yes sir’ and ‘yes, boss man’, and ‘right away boss’, and all the while he was stealing the truck keys so he could drive away and escape in the truck.”  “Nuts!”  “Tora, Tora, Tora”  “I believe all we have succeeded in doing is to awaken a sleeping giant.”  “Should We Tell The President?”  “I’m Mad as Hell and I’m not going to take It anymore!”  “Living Well is the best revenge.”  “I believe what we have here is a failure to kamunnicate!”  “That’s why I always put rice out around my location, the birds come and eat the rice, if anyone else comes around, the birds fly away and I know someone is near me!”  “A tiger hunter only needs one bullet, if he misses, there isn’t time to chamber another round!”  “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I only have to out run you!”  “If two people know something it is not a secret.”  “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”  “All this and PAY too?”  “Bond, James Bond.”  “Doe, a dear, a female dear, Ray, a drop of golden sun, Me, a name, I call myself, Far, a long long way to run, Sew, a needle pulling thread, La,a note to follow Sew, Tea, a drink with jam and bread, which brings us back to Doe.” “BeetsPickleBeltsBuckleFeathersTickleGeeseCackleButCrackleMakesTheWorldGo’Round,SnapCracklePopRiceKrispies”  “Anticipation is makin’ me wait, is keepin’ me waitin’.”  “We need a bigger boat!”  “Don’t Get Off The F---ing Boat!”  “Iceberg Dead Ahead!”  “I took my golf pro’s advice, I gave up the game for two weeks, and then I quit altogether.”  “If Mickey Mouse Married Microsoft Mouse, which button would he use to enter?”  “The Minnie One!”  “Check-Mate King-Two, This is White-Rook, over?” “Kirby, take the point, Little John, take the rear!”  “Penny to Songbird, Come-in Sky!”  “And there was moonshine, moonshine to quench the devils thirst, the law, they swore they’de get him, but the devil got him first!”  “I never had sex with that woman.”  “Lassie, go find Timmy.”  “I’ll go to every golf course in the land if I have to, to find the real killer.”  “She was last seen with an Apache Chief named ‘Scar’.”   “I’ve never seen a king of beasts with quite so little hair.”  “With a bit of the apple still in her mouth.”  “You say she lived out in the woods with seven dwarfs for how long?”  “Cinderella, Cinderella all I hear is Cinderella.”  “May the force be with you.”  “Bad Boys, Bad Boys, What ya gonna do when they come for you?”  “In all the excitement I clean forgot, well, do you feel lucky, punk?” “Take Sominex tonight and sleep, Safe and restfull, SLEEP, Sleep, sleeep.....

Later,


Ron
++++++++++++



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Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art www.kevindayhoff.com: Travel, art, artists, authors, books, newspapers, media, writers and writing, journalists and journalism, reporters and reporting, music, culture, opera... Ad maiorem Dei gloriam inque hominum salutem. “Deadline U.S.A.” 1952. Ed Hutcheson: “That's the press, baby. The press! And there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing!” - See more at: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/#sthash.4HNLwtfd.dpuf

Thursday, April 12, 2001

20010412 Westminter Road Runners Club Annual Main Street Mile


A soggy Mile on Main Street

By: Kevin Spradlin, Times Staff Writer

April 12, 2001

When Shawn Pinamonti registered for the Main Street Mile, he knew he would be able to run a fast mile.

He just didn't know how fast.

Pinamonti was the first of 476 runners to cross the finish line of the Westminster Road Runners Club-sponsored race. He clocked a time of 4 minutes, 11.8 seconds Wednesday for the win.

Tristan Gilbert, a 2000 graduate of Westminster High, was second in 4:14.9. He was followed by 22-year-old Brendan Henderson. Howard Courtland, 46, took the masters title with a time of 4:46.

"I didn't really know what to expect," said Pinamonti, of Towson. "I knew I'd be up near the front. I was hoping to be first but I didn't know what anyone else would run."

Pinamonti wasn't too familiar with the layout of the race, but he wasn't too uncomfortable, either.

"I just moved to Maryland about a year ago," he said. "I heard about this race being a quick mile. But I'm a mile runner. This is my type of race."

Eldersburg's Rachel Hawes became the youngest two-time winner in race history. She was the first female finisher with a time of 4:50.3, edging runner-up Sherry Esposito by .7 seconds. North Carroll High distance standout Colleen Lawson came in third at 5:06 and Kim Keller won the masters division in 6:13.9.

Hawes has some experience in running. The two-time AAU champion in the 1,500- and 3,000-meter runs said she just runs for the enjoyment of the sport.

"I like running," said Hawes, 13, who also won last year's race. "I've been running since I was in second grade. It's fun. I like being in shape."

Other noteworthy finishers included Cheryl Williams (5:16), Amy King (5:17) and Tarynn Baker (5:18), who together swept the women's 16-19 age group. All three runners perform for the North Carroll track team. Bill Osburn was the oldest finisher with a 7:35.

Unlike in years past, the weather held off - somewhat.

"We would've had over 500 finishers if it had been sunny, but this isn't the worst year we've ever had," said race director Liuda Galinaitis. "A few years ago a storm hit just as the race started."

To make matters worse, the race wasn't as organized as it is today.

"We had used index cards to put on the runners' shirts. We couldn't read the names of anyone. We had no age groups that year."

But Galinaitis makes no apologies.

"I wasn't race director then," she quipped, "so you can't blame me."

Men's Open:

1. Shawn Pinamonti, 4:11.8;

2. Tristan Gilbert, 4:14.9;

3. Brendan Henderson, 4:24.2.

11-12: 1. Derek Woelfel, 5:15.5; 2. Justin May-West, 5:32.1.

13-15: 1. Dan Reedy, 4:33; 2. Tony Morris, 4:49.4; 3. Joe Taylor, 4:52.4.

16-19: 1. James Potter, 4:36.7; 2. Danny Sugars, 4:39.1; 3. Ron Shriver, 4:40.4.

20-29: 1. David Herdrix, 4:49.7; 2. David Cox, 5:06.9; 3. Michael Habenthal, 5:12.4.

30-39: 1. Ted Poulos, 4:38; 2. Pete Comis, 4:49; 3. Eric Maggio, 5:06.4.

40-49: 1. Greg Nelson, 4:48.2. 2. Mark Casteel, 4:50.8; 3. Paul Denz, 4:57.

50-59: 1. Ronnie Wong, 5:10.4; 2. Jim Knight, 5:13.9; 3. Eric Gyaki, 5:14.2.

60-69: 1. John Benket, 5:14.7; 2. Jim Turner, 6:49.6; 3. Paul Hocheder, 9:35.2.

70-79: 1. Bill Osburn, 7:35.7.

Women's Open: 1. Rachel Hawes, 4:50.3; 2. Sherry Esposito, 4:51; 3. Colleen Lawson, 5:06.1.

11-12: 1. Kathleen Hertsh, 5:19.7; 2. Tracy Armitage, 5:55.5; 3. Emily Fisher, 6:22.7.

13-15: 1. Allie Armitage, 5:21.3; 2. Maggie Rager, 5:36.5; 3. Anna Novak, 5:44.4.

16-19: 1. Cheryl Williams, 5:16.3; 2. Amy King, 5:17.7; 3. Tarynn Baker, 5:18.2.

20-29: 1. Dwan Gilmore, 5:53; 2. Terry Bosley 6:33.9; 3. Sue Werley, 6:48.

30-39: 1. Laura Brecheen, 6:17.6; 2. Carol Passmore, 6:18.6; 3. Laura Beck, 6:33.2.

40-49: 1. Debbie Frazier, 7:59.3; 2. Debbie Watenman, 7:59.3; 3. Susan Kron, 8:19.8.

50-59: 1. Dee Nelson, 6:37.4; 2. Irene Valeo, 6:39; 3. Ellen Hocheden, 7:42.7.

60-69: 1. Rose Ann Sautor, 13:15.8; 2. Bunny Pucci, 13:28.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=1663895&BRD=1289&PAG=461&dept_id=156632&rfi=8


Friday, February 16, 2001

“It’s hard to hug a fish”



“It’s hard to hug a fish” Feb. 16, 2001
++++++++++++
Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoff.com/
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Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art www.kevindayhoff.com: Travel, art, artists, authors, books, newspapers, media, writers and writing, journalists and journalism, reporters and reporting, music, culture, opera... Ad maiorem Dei gloriam inque hominum salutem. “Deadline U.S.A.” 1952. Ed Hutcheson: “That's the press, baby. The press! And there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing!” - See more at: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/#sthash.4HNLwtfd.dpuf

Monday, January 22, 2001

4-H Therapeutic Riding Program of Carroll County

4-H Therapeutic Riding Program of Carroll County

January 21st, 2001

The 4-H Therapeutic Riding Program is always seeking volunteers, ages 14 and up, to help with lessons at the 4-H arena at the Agriculture Center in Westminster. Horse experience is a plus, but is not required. for more information og here http://www.trp4h.org/index.html or call 410-876-1760.

4-H Therapeutic Riding provides a program of therapeutic horseback riding to children and adults with disabilities.

For over 20 years, this all-volunteer organization has served more than 1,500 individuals with a wide range of disabilities.

Therapeutic riding uses horses to make positive contributions to the physical, cognitive, emotional and social well being of individuals with disabilities.

The program serves as a training center for Special Olympic athletes competing locally and at the Special Olympic World Games.

Following standards of the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association, adaptations are made to allow individuals with disabilities to participate in various riding activities.

The program emphasizes cognitive, behavioral, psychological and physical goals for each participant.

My wife, Caroline, serves as a volunteer NARHA certified instructor, Board member and Treasurer. She also serves on the Carroll County Agriculture Center Board representing 4-H Therapeutic Riding and as the Ag Center Treasurer.

I volunteer also – mostly in a grounds maintenance – property management capacity, but I been known to do whatever I’m asked.

I designed the original landscape design for the property and, along with Caroline and many other volunteers, helped install the plants and build run-in sheds.

I grew up participating in 4-H.

In the past, I have taught many classes for the Cooperative Extension Service, served on numerous committees including: the Carroll Co. Agriculture Program Advisory Committee of the University of MD Cooperative Extension Service; the Cooperative Extension Service Maintenance Conference Planning Committee. I also served on a special Carroll & Frederick County agricultural community advisory taskforce for Dr. Raymond J. Miller, University of Maryland Vice Chancellor for Agricultural Affairs in the 1980s.

January 21st, 2001

For more posts on the 4-H Therapeutic Riding Program of Carroll County on “Soundtrack”go here: http://tinyurl.com/qltzfn The web site may be found here: http://www.trp4h.org/

Monday, November 20, 2000

20001120 Lillian and Nathaniel


Lillian and Nathaniel

November 20th, 2000

Excerpted from: "Happiness Is A Warm Gun", which I wrote on November 5th, 2000.

Kevin Dayhoff

This essay goes with any meal. On the essay evolutionary scale, this essay is a monkey on roller skates. The monkey may or may not be wearing a pink tutu - this is for you to decide.

I

n today's democratic, free-market society one frequent predominant paradigm of happiness is a two-car garage, a dog and a comfortable life in the suburbs.

Take Lillian and Nathaniel, they have a nice home. He's a locally successful captain of industry and enterprise. She has devoted her life selflessly to her professional endeavors and they have both enjoyed the fruits of their labor. Their friends, neighbors and community consider them happy and successful.

But deep-down inside, they've never found meaning and happiness in their relentless pursuit of materialism. Nathaniel never loved Lillian; he simply enjoyed her as a comfortable piece of meat. Lillian never loved Nathaniel, she always saw him as a Faustian bargain to get beyond her rampant insecurities. Nathaniel cheated on her every chance he got.

One day, out in the back yard, raking the leaves, Nathaniel collapsed in the beginning stages of a heart attack. Lillian had just returned home from grocery shopping. She rushed by his side.

The cruelest hoax in life is to hope for safely and happiness. Nathaniel was comforted as he saw Lillian approaching. Lillian smiled as she knelt down beside him and whispered in his ear, "I always hated you, you bastard," as she gently placed the plastic grocery bag over his head.

In a life-long pursuit of happiness, Lillian is finally happy.


Update: Linkin Park - Numb


Sunday, October 01, 2000

October 28, 2000 performance of Love Letters featuring Joe and Audrey Cimino

October 28, 2000 performance of Love Letters featuring Joe and Audrey Cimino


October 28, 2000

October 28, 2000 performance of A. R. Gurney’s “Love Letters< directed by Steve Yeager and featuring Joe and Audrey Cimino at The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre
++++++++++++



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Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art www.kevindayhoff.com: Travel, art, artists, authors, books, newspapers, media, writers and writing, journalists and journalism, reporters and reporting, music, culture, opera... Ad maiorem Dei gloriam inque hominum salutem. “Deadline U.S.A.” 1952. Ed Hutcheson: “That's the press, baby. The press! And there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing!” - See more at: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/#sthash.4HNLwtfd.dpuf

Friday, August 25, 2000

Learn the Difference Between AFFECT and EFFECT

Learn the Difference Between AFFECT and EFFECT

by Tina Blue August 11, 2000

Confusion between the words affect and effect is so common that I almost never see either of the words used correctly. Since I read anything that doesn't move fast enough to get away from me, and since I read hundreds of essays by college students each semester, I have reason to believe that this error is not just a misspelling, but an actual misapprehension of the two words and how they are used.

Generally speaking, affect is a verb and effect is a noun. When you affect something, you produce an effect on it. Even in the passive voice, something would be affected, not effected.

[…]

Read Ms. Blue’s entire article and see what effect it has on you: Learn the Difference Between AFFECT and EFFECT

20000811 Learn the Difference Between AFFECT and EFFECT
http://grammartips.homestead.com/affect.html
Kevin Dayhoff www.kevindayhoff.net http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/
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Wednesday, September 01, 1999

19990901 Cuban Ambassador Vicki Huddleston State Department Bio

Cuban Ambassador Vicki Huddleston State Department Bio



September 1999



Biography



Vicki Huddleston


Principal Officer, USINT, Havana, Cuba


http://www.state.gov/www/regions/wha/cuba/huddleston_vicki.html


In September 1999, Ambassador Vicki Huddleston, a career Foreign Service Officer, became Principal Officer at the United States Interests Section (USINT), Havana, Cuba. Over the past two years, she has been Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs with responsibility for West and Francophone Central Africa. She was United States Ambassador to the Republic of Madagascar from 1995-1997.


Ambassador Huddleston was Deputy Chief of Mission in Port-au-Prince from 1993-1995 during the deployment of the Multinational Force to Haiti. She was Deputy and then Coordinator of the State Department's Office of Cuban Affairs from 1989-1993.


Earlier in her career, she was chief of the Economic Sections in Sierra Leone and in Mali. She has worked in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, the Office of Mexican Affairs, and as Country Desk Officer for Bolivia. In 1988-1989, while working for Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, she drafted the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) legislation which became law in 1990. Prior to entering the Foreign Service, she worked in Peru and Brazil for the American Institute for Free Labor Development. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru, she organized the financing for the two housing cooperatives in Arequipa.


Ambassador Huddleston has received four Superior Honor Awards and two Meritorious Honor Awards. In 1994-1995, she shared with members of the U.S. Embassy in Haiti the Distinguished Service Award and the Award for Valor. Her husband Robert is a retired Foreign Service Officer. Arizona is her home state.


Cuba

####

Monday, June 14, 1999

19990614 The Kennedys by Hugh Sidey Time magazine

June 14, 1999

Hugh Sidey, who “has reported on and written about nine U.S. presidencies for TIME” has penned a short and concise piece of why the Kennedy family continues to be relevant in American history – no matter what your political persuasion.

Time magazine Monday, June 14, 1999 Heroes and Icons by Hugh Sidey Monday, June 14, 1999

With its mix of political triumph and human tragedy, their saga enthralled the nation and made them America's most powerful family

The Kennedy clan, the pre-eminent American political family of our time, seems to be cast in the stars, the distant stuff of legend.

But look down. They march ever more numerous among us. There's a spot on Washington's infamous Beltway where an unsuspecting family might find their children in school with a couple of Joseph and Rose Kennedy's 54 great-grandchildren.

That same family could be the neighbors of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, one of the Kennedy clan's five surviving originals (there were nine). It could be served in the Maryland assembly by delegate Mark Shriver, nephew of the martyred John Kennedy (and one of 29 grandchildren of Joe and Rose). And it could fall under the growing political hand of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, oldest child of the murdered Robert Kennedy, now Maryland's lieutenant governor and touted for higher office.

Members of such a Beltway family would have as good a chance as not to pass Ethel Kennedy, Bobby's widow and still the exuberant duchess of Hickory Hill, while driving to work along the Potomac River parkways.

[…]

The Kennedy clan is embedded in American political culture of the past half-century like no other family. They arrived at that power base through cold calculation and the blunt instrument of their immense wealth but also because of honorable service to the nation, their reckless exuberance and glamour--and family tragedy beyond measure.

[…]

Read the entire article here: The Kennedys

Related:

Dubious Influences: Century's Villains and Antiheroes

Five Captivating Romances: When Love Was the Adventure

####

Label: President John F. Kennedy – see also Kennedy Family

Wednesday, April 07, 1999

Environmental Affairs Advisory Board Rediscovered on the County Staff DisOrganized ReOrganizational Chart

Environmental Affairs Advisory Board Rediscovered on the County Staff DisOrganized ReOrganizational Chart

April 9, 1999

Today, it was disclosed exactly where the Environmental Affairs Advisory Board would soon be restored to the County Staff disorganized reorganizational chart.

…..Attendance of all County Staff was mandatory at a ceremony at the fountain in front of the County Office Building as high Carroll County Government officials announced stringent new regulations developed to stem the alarming rise of environmental activism in the community. One official was overheard to say: "Environmentalists get emotional and that leads to overkill in the regulation department."

Meanwhile, at a secret, undisclosed location……………………………………
19990407-1082-cropped-So-mu.gif

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Sunday, March 21, 1999

19990320 My Locational Whereabouts


My Locational Whereabouts

Kevin E. Dayhoff

Westminster, MD 21158

______________________

Saturday, March 20, 1999

Commander Kay Church, Receptionist

225 North Center Street

Westminster, MD 21157-5194

410.386.2102

Dear Commander Kay,

Oh!, Ah, ummmm, Kay - It seems that I’m lost. Recently, I seem to have been dropped off the office building radar screen - on my head. I’ve gone off to find me. If you should happen to find me, could you please tell me where it is that I am. Right now, I may be losing, but I’m making record time.

Meanwhile, please hold all my calls, should I ever again be found on the County Staff reorganized organizational chart, other than under a rock, face down in Longwell Run desperately hugging a bunny with a clump of unopened resignation letters waded up in my mouth. If Hillary Clinton calls, take a message.

If you should find me aimlessly wondering about the halls of the office building, with a shell shock look about my unshaven face, staggering, stuttering, slobbering and muttering to myself, please direct me to safety; - preferably someplace where chocolate covered doughnuts can be found.

Should you, ever hear a voice similar to mine, disseminating from the close proximity of a pounding sound on the inside a trash truck, would you please consider stopping the truck and saving me from the landfill?

In case I am ultimately ground up into veggie burger and fed to the bog turtles, allow me to share with you what a pleasure it has been to serve under you. Thanks !

Sincerely yours,

Uncle Kevin

Remember Kay, always keep your salad shooter at the ready!!

Carroll County Commissioners, Environmentalism EAAB - Carroll County Environmental Affairs Advisory Board, Art literature of the absurd,

Wednesday, February 10, 1999

19990210 The Bronze Rat

The Bronze Rat
(Note: I did NOT write this although I sure wish I had…)
February 10, 1999

A tourist wanders into a back-alley shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed, life-sized bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner what it costs.

"Twelve dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner, "and a thousand dollars for the story behind it."

"You can keep the story, old man," he replies, "but I'll take the rat."

The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm.

As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall in step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him.

By the time he's walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people begin to point and shout. Multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run full tilt.

No matter how fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously, now not just thousands but millions, so that by the time he comes rushing up to the water's edge a trail of rats twelve city blocks long is behind him.

Making a mighty leap, he jumps onto a light post, grasping it with one arm while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can heave it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the light post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater into the sea, where they drown.

Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop.

"Ah, so you have come back for the rest of the story," says the owner.

"No," says the tourist, "I was wondering if you have a bronze Democrat."

####

19990210 The Bronze Rat

The Bronze Rat
(Note: I did NOT write this although I sure wish I had…)
February 10, 1999

A tourist wanders into a back-alley shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed, life-sized bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner what it costs.

"Twelve dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner, "and a thousand dollars for the story behind it."

"You can keep the story, old man," he replies, "but I'll take the rat."

The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm.

As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall in step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him.

By the time he's walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people begin to point and shout. Multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run full tilt.

No matter how fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously, now not just thousands but millions, so that by the time he comes rushing up to the water's edge a trail of rats twelve city blocks long is behind him.

Making a mighty leap, he jumps onto a light post, grasping it with one arm while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can heave it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the light post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater into the sea, where they drown.

Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop.

"Ah, so you have come back for the rest of the story," says the owner.

"No," says the tourist, "I was wondering if you have a bronze Democrat."

####

Thursday, November 26, 1998

19981124 and 25 Dr Connett presentation on Municipal waste incineration

Municipal waste incineration

A poor solution for the twenty first century

Paul Connett's speech on incineration and waste reduction

A presentation by Dr. Paul Connett Professor of Chemistry

St. Lawrence University

Canton, NY 13617.

At the 4th Annual International Management Conference

Waste-To-Energy

Nov. 24 & 25, 1998

Amsterdam.

About the author

Dr. Paul Connett is a full and tenured professor of chemistry at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where he has taught for 15 years. He obtained his undergraduate degree in natural sciences from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Dartmouth College in the US. For the past 14 years he has researched waste management issues with a special emphasis on the dangers posed by incineration and the safer and more sustainable non-burn alternatives.

He has attended numerous international symposia on dioxin, and with his colleague Tom Webster has presented six papers at these symposia which have been subsequently published in Chemosphere. He has given over 1500 public presentations on these issues in 48 states in the US and 40 other countries. With his wife Ellen he edits the newsletter Waste Not, which is in its twelfth year of publication. With Roger Bailey, Professor of Fine Arts at St. Lawrence University, he has produced over 40 videotapes on waste management, dioxin and other environmental issues.

To aid your browsing of this important and extensive speech, CANK has created an Index to all headings and has also highlighted some (but not all) key phrases in red

Executive Summary

Far from it being the universally proven technology claimed by its promoters, the incineration of municipal trash with energy recovery has been an experiment which after 20 years has left the citizens of industrialised countries with a legacy of unacceptably high levels of dioxins and related compounds in their food, their tissues, their babies and in wild life.

The author argues that as the industry has struggled to make incineration safe, they have, like the nuclear power industry before them, priced themselves out of the market. Moreover, as they have sought air pollution control devices to capture the extremely toxic by-products of combustion, the resulting residues have become more problematic and costly to handle, dispose and contain. There are still remaining concerns about the safety of incinerators, especially as they are built in developing economies, which do not have the resources to build, operate or monitor them properly.

However, even if these concerns are overcome, as we move into the twenty first century, the role of trash incineration, with or without energy recovery, will become less and less viable, both economically and environmentally.

Our future task will be dominated by a need to find sustainable ways of living on the planet. Those who have been preoccupied with making incineration safe have lavished their engineering ingenuity on the wrong question. Society's task is not to perfect the destruction of our waste, but to find ways to avoid making it. The argument that burning waste can be used to recover energy makes for good sales promotion, but the reality is that if saving energy is the goal, then more energy can be saved by society as a whole by reusing and recycling objects and materials than can be recovered by burning them. Municipal waste is a low-tech problem. It is made by mixing. It is unmade by separation.

Both problem and solution are at our fingertips, not on the drawing boards of Swiss or Swedish engineers. In the longer term, after the citizen has played his or her part by supporting source separation, reuse, recycling, composting and toxic removal, industry has to pay more attention to the way objects and materials are made and used. How an object is going to be reused or recycled has to be built into the initial design decisions

To recognise that it is overconsumption that is giving us both global warming and a waste disposal crisis, is to recognise that trash is the most concrete connection each individual has to the global crisis. More effort has to be put into resisting the largely post-war American philosophy that "the more one consumes the happier one becomes'", before it makes the planet uninhabitable. A way has to be found to tame the voracious appetites of the multinational corporations which plunder the world for short-term profit. This cannot be done until we as individuals find a way to resist the skilful advertising that traps us within a whole web of false needs. The antidote to overconsumption is community building. The fierce local arguments that ensue over the siting of both landfills and incinerators can be used to force these issues onto the political agenda.

Incineration might make sense if we had another planet to go to, but without that sci-fi escape, it must be resisted in favour of more down-to-earth solutions that we can live with, both within our local communities and on the planet as a whole. Both incineration and raw waste landfilling attempt to bury the evidence of an unacceptable throwaway lifestyle. Every incinerator built delays this fundamental discussion by at least 20 years.

Introduction

As I deliver these comments I am very conscious of the fact that many of the people sitting in this audience earn their living from the operation of incinerators. They will probably find many of my views antithetical to their own. I applaud the organisers of this conference for having the courage to allow me to speak. Too often, decision-makers do not discover the downside to incineration until the wrath of the public is unleashed.

To paraphrase the words of Shakespeare's character Mark Anthony, I come here not to praise the idea of the incineration of municipal waste with energy recovery, but to bury it.

However, whether you agree with my position or not, I hope you agree with Joseph Joubert, who said, " 'Tis better to debate a question without settling it, than to settle a question without debating it". In my view, incineration of municipal waste looks back to the nineteenth century, not forward to the twenty first. Indeed, the first waste-to-energy plant was operating in Hamburg, Germany in 1895.

I will argue that even if the finest engineers were able to make incineration safe - i.e. captured all of the toxic emissions and found a safe method of handling and storing the ash - from an ethical point of view, they would not have made the incineration of trash acceptable. It simply doesn't make ethical sense to spend so much time, money and effort destroying materials we should be sharing with the future. Thus, those who have set themselves the Herculean task of perfecting the art and science of incineration, have poured a massive amount of attention into the wrong end of the problem and produced a sophisticated set of answers to the wrong question. As we prepare to enter the twenty first century, society's task is not find a new place or a new machine in which to put the trash, but to find ways of not making waste in the first place.

When one first hears about trash incineration it seems like a good idea. I certainly thought so. It promised to rid our Northern NY county of 32 leaking landfills and to produce energy as well. It seemed like a win-win situation. For a municipal official beleaguered with the responsibility for a mountain of trash coming at him or her on a daily basis it appears to offer a quick fix solution, with little or no modification of the existing infrastructure for picking up trash. For a politician with citizens yelling at him or her because they don't want to live near a proposed landfill, or the expansion of an old one, the modern waste-to-energy incinerator looks like a perfect political escape plan.

It is only when one spends time looking below the surface appeal of these facilities that one realises the huge backward step they represent, environmentally, socially, economically and from the point of view of moving towards a sustainable society.

I will discuss the arguments against building more trash incinerators under seven headings.

They are:
1. Toxic emissions
1.1 Hydrogen chloride is formed.
1.2 Nitric oxide is generated.
1.3 Toxic metals are released.
1.3.1 Mercury, a highly problematic pollutant, is difficult to control.
1.4 Dioxins, Furans and other by-products of combustion are formed.
1.4.1 Post combustion formation of dioxin.
1.4.2 The fly ash dioxin problem.
1.4.3 No continuous monitoring of dioxins possible.
1.4.4 Rising concern about current dioxin levels.
1.4.5 Dioxin emissions easily captured in food chains.
1.4.6 Ireland.
1.4.7 Advances in one country do not always translate to success in others.
1.5 End-of-the-pipe control
1.6 Modifications to counteract one pollutant can lead to increases in others.
1.6.1. UK.
2. Ash disposal.
2.1 Fly ash hazard often obscured.
2.2 Ash represents a Catch-22 for the incineration industry.
3. Economic costs.
3.1. Incinerators are formidably expensive.
3.2. Very few jobs are created for this massive economic investment.
3.3 Most of the money invested in the incinerator leaves the community.
3.4 Loss of capital is acute in developing economies.
3.5 Taxpayers usually find out true costs when it is too late.
3.5.1 Flow control outlawed in the US.
4. The waste of energy involved.
4.1. Modern incinerators do produce saleable energy.
4.2 Reality versus Public relations.
4.2.1 Consider these simple points:
4.3 Recycling saves more energy than incineration yields.
4.4 A larger vision is needed.
5. Public opposition.
5.1. In the US incineration is the most unpopular technology since nuclear power.
5.2 US development at a standstill.
5.3 Opposition in other countries.
5.3.1 Germany.
5.3.2 France.
5.3.3 Bangladesh.
5.4 The dangers of ignoring public opinion.
5.5 Look at more than one option.
5.6 Even a true believer should not lead with incineration.
5.7 The non-burn alternatives are more popular.
6. A few words on the alternatives.
6.1 Landfills.
6.2 The importance of composting.
6.3 Integrated waste management.
6.4 Five principles.
7. Sustainability.
7.1 Cheap fossil fuels conceal our non-sustainability.
7.2 Incineration is a wasted opportunity.
7.3 Forces behind overconsumption.
7.4 Fighting the dominant paradigm.
7.5 Community building.

8. Conclusion

Read Dr. Conett’s entire presentation here.

Tuesday, October 01, 1996

19960900 The Five Most Dangerous Myths About Recycling

The Five Most Dangerous Myths About Recycling

Institute for Local Self-Reliance

2425 18th Street, NW · Washington, DC 20009

202-232-4108

bplatt AT ilsr.org

September 1996

MYTH #1: We can recycle only 25 to 30% of our solid wastes.(1)

FACT: Twenty five percent was considered a maximum level in 1985. Today it should be considered a minimum, not a maximum. By continuing to build the reuse, recycling, and composting infrastructure and integrating the best features from the best programs, local and state, the nation as a whole can achieve 50% recycling by 2005.

[…]

MYTH #2: Recycling is more expensive than trash collection and disposal.(8)

FACT: When designed right, recycling programs are cost-competitive with trash collection and disposal.

[…]

MYTH #3: Landfills and incinerators are more cost-effective and environmentally sound than recycling options.(15)

FACT: Recycling programs, when designed properly, are cost-competitive with landfills and incinerators, and provide net pollution prevention benefits. Recycling materials not only avoids the pollution that would be generated through landfilling and incinerating these, but also reduces the environmental burden of virgin materials extraction and manufacturing processes.

[…]

MYTH #4: Landfills are significant job generators for rural communities.(19)

FACT: Recycling creates many more jobs for rural and urban communities than landfill and incineration disposal options.

[…]

MYTH #5: The marketplace works best in solving solid waste management problems; no public-sector intervention is needed.(23)

FACT: The solid waste system has always operated under public sector rules and always will. Currently these rules encourage unchecked product consumption and disposal. Public-sector intervention is needed to shape a system in which materials are produced, used, discarded, and recovered efficiently. We need to change the rules so that disposal alternatives; source reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting, operate in a level playing field. Even after we level the playing field, favoring disposal alternatives makes sense because of its many community and public sector benefits.

Read the entire article here: The Five Most Dangerous Myths About Recycling

For questions or comments, contact:

Brenda Platt, Director, Materials Recovery, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

(Brenda Platt) bplatt AT ilsr.org

19960900 The Five Most Dangerous Myths About Recycling

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