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06.24 Mr. Holder, You Must Hold Torturers Accountable Health & Environment
06.29 Thinking about Climate 06.26 False Health-Scare Ad on CNN 06.25 Louella Learns the Limits of Medicare 06.23 The Simple Answer to America’s Health Care Crisis: Medicare for All 06.23 Tell ABC: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate 06.23 Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex 06.22 Thinking about Recoveries 06.20 Obama's Health Care Waterloo 06.15 Obama, Like Clinton Before Him, is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform 06.11 Two Key Health-Care Numbers 06.10 Big Breakthroughs for Single Payer Health Care 06.10 Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations Media Watching
06.29 WP's Connolly Back, on Health Reform 06.17 Hypocrisy and Hope: Western Coverage, Iranian Courage 06.15 Excusing Outrages of the Right 06.11 Tying Obama to Bush's Budget Mess US Politics, Policy & Culture
06.30 Obama's Torture Hypocrisy 06.30 Court Circular: Annals of Imperial Continuity 06.29 Obama, They Want You to Fail 06.26 Who to Trust on a Truth Commission? 06.26 Tarnished Shields: The Morally Bankrupt 'Family Values' Republican Leadership 06.25 America's "Bases of Empire" 06.24 Twelve Angry White People: Jury Nullification in a Pennsylvania Coal Town 06.24 Touring Empire's Ruins 06.23 Employers are Undermining the Economic Stimulus Program 06.19 Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black 06.17 Afghanistan's Operation Phoenix 06.16 Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran? 06.13 Where's the Anger as the Wheels Come Off Obama's and the Democrats' Recovery Program? 06.10 Waiving the Rules for Old Glory 06.10 Obama's Era of Openness Is Closed High Crimes?
07.03 Reviewing Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd's "Rules of Disengagement" 07.01 Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure 06.25 It's All Good, Again: 'Uptick' in the American-Made Tides of Violence in Iraq 06.22 Obama Opposes Plame-gate Release 06.21 Dexter's Legions: The "Good" Killers of the "Good" War 06.18 Extending the Tradition: Proudly Taking American Torture Into the Future 06.15 New UN Report Denounces America's Human Rights Record 06.14 Fear Rules Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance
07.01 Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism:" The Economic Strategy of Imperial America 06.23 Obama's Financial Reform Proposal - A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control 06.10 Cyberscares About Cyberwars Equal Cybermoney International
07.01 Pirates of the Mediterranean 06.29 Color Revolutions, Old and New 06.25 Iran Divided & the 'October Suprise' 06.23 Astringent Corrective: AbuKhalil on Iran's Turmoil 06.20 Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?” 06.20 Through a Glass Darkly: Sifting Myth and Fact on Iran 06.19 Iran's Election and US - Iranian Elections 06.16 The Ir-Af-Pak War: Obama Looses the Manhunters 06.12 Israeli War Crimes Against Children During Operation Cast Lead We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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ON THE SOAPBOX:Wrong on So Many LevelsThe U.S. Navy's plan to build an airfield in rural North Carolina would disrupt the ecology of migratory birds, destroy the economy of a small town, and possibly put pilots in danger. If it weren’t so tragic, this could be a comedy skit on "Saturday Night Live."
On Friday, April 27, 2007, on NPR (WYPR), Elizabeth Shogren reported on "All Things Considered" that the U.S. Navy wants to build a landing strip. Why they want to build it, where they want to build it, and how they want to build it are so wrong on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to start.Let’s start with "why?"
So, "where" does the Navy want to build this practice landing strip? On water? Certainly not. On land. (Of course.) Stable, never-moving, flat as a table... land. And what land have they chosen? Fifty square miles in the middle of fertile wheat- and vegetable-producing North Carolina—right next to a bird sanctuary to which 80,000 snow geese and thousands of Tundra Swans migrate from Greenland and Alaska, respectively, every winter. Joe Albea, who was interviewed for the piece by Shogren, noted that the Tundra Swans can weigh up to 24 pounds; and Bunny Sanders, who spoke in opposition to the airfield at a public meeting, noted that these birds have 7-foot wingspans. (Think of that crashing into the jet engine of a plane going supersonic speeds!) Of course, this massive population of massive birds does not worry the Navy. Apparently, if all else fails—e.g., if taking away their food source, shooting off cannons, and chasing the birds with dogs fails—then the Navy is prepared to poison them. (How’s that for an "inconvenient truth"?) If that were not enough, the land the Navy plans to claim as their own belongs to small working farmers to whom it has belonged for centuries. And the little town of Plymouth and the Pocosin National Wildlife Refuge that surround it rely on the nature lovers and birders who come every year to see the magnificent display. So... obviously... The town doesn’t want it. The bird sanctuary doesn’t want it. The farmers don’t want it. The two senators and the governor of North Carolina have said "no." Even the the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service opposes it. But, according to the report, the Navy is "weighing all comments." Un-be-lieve-a-ble! What is there to weigh? It’s plainly a stupid idea. The Navy wants to disrupt the ecology of the migratory birds, the economy of the town, and possibly put pilots in danger by creating an airfield that in no way simulates the environment they say they’re training their pilots for. If it weren’t so tragic, it would be a comedy skit on "Saturday Night Live." If they want to simulate the deck of an aircraft carrier, I suggest they find a piece of the Atlantic that no one’s using and build a platform. Or, better yet, call up Steve Jobs and ask him to create a simulator—which would do a much better job at training and not risk the life of one pilot or one bird. I urge you to email your senators and congressmen, and, spend the stamp to write Dr. Donald C. Winter, Secretary of the Navy, 1000 Navy Pentagon, Washington, D.C. 20350-1000. Support the little town of Plymouth, NC. Tell the powers-that-be that you don’t want your tax money spent to destroy a community and an entire migratory bird population for a useless airfield. For the full NPR story, click here.
Lynda Lambert, a college English instructor, writes from Baltimore. Copyright © 2007 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on May 5, 2007. |
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