U.S. National

The Arena Grand theater is a masterpiece, and it's currently showing a masterpiece, CHICAGO, just rightly voted Oscar's best picture.  My advice:  see them both, asap!!!

By way of introduction:  this "dual review" marks my first for the new freepress.org web site.  By way of disclosure, the operators of the Arena Grand Theater---along with the legendary Drexel East and Grandview Theaters---are Jeff and Kathy Frank.  They are old friends of mine, and Jeff has kindly agreed to provide passes to those films I review.  He understands that I will be panning those films I don't like. 

I will, however, be lavishing praise on all three of these gems of theaters.  Here we are on solid mutual ground.  I've always loved the Drexel and Grandview.  They are oases of class and taste in an industry now dominated by crass and fake.  They combine the old style grace of the golden age of cinema with brilliant and often daring choices of product and programming.  More on them as the opportunity arises.

The sky-high electricity and natural gas prices in California between 2000 and 2001 that bankrupted the state’s largest utility and caused several days of rolling blackouts was the result of widespread manipulation by several Texas-based energy companies with close ties to President Bush, federal energy regulators ruled Wednesday.  

The energy companies, Dynegy Inc., Reliant Resources, Enron Corporation, all of which contributed heavily to Bush’s presidential campaign, must now refund California billions of dollars in profits it reaped between January 2000 and June 2001. Other energy companies, including Duke Energy, Mirant and Williams Companies, were also identified for taking of advantage of loopholes in California’s newly deregulated energy market to boost their profits and ordered to pay refunds.  

In addition, FERC harshly criticized Reliant Resources for manipulating natural gas prices at the Southern California trading hub known as Topock. In FERC’s staff report to Congress, Reliant is accused of dominating the Southern California gas market, raising prices there and selling at the top of that market.  

As the Senate and House both move to begin considering the Budget Resolution for Fiscal Year 2004, both chambers have been talking openly about including revenues from potential lease sales in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Lease sales will generate revenues that could be included in the budget, but only if drilling in the Arctic Refuge has been approved.

This week, the Senate budget committee and the House Budget Committee both begin work on the FY 04 budgets.

On the House side, Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-IA) has stated that he doesn't think Arctic drilling should be part of the budget resolution. The House Budget committee began deliberations on the budget resolution on Wednesday, March 12. Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, for the third year in a row, declined to include assumptions of drilling revenue in the resolution, which provides the broad framework for the annual spending and tax bills. The resolution is non-binding, but merely serves as a blueprint.

The American people have been denied additional time to voice their opinion about the management of their public lands. A recent decision by the administration rejects a request to extend the public comment period for the draft oil and gas leasing plan of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska's northwest area. A coalition of conservation groups formally requested extending the 60 day comment period to 90 days, as was requested and approved in 1998 for the northeast planning area of the NPR-A. The same group also asked for public hearings to be held in the lower 48 states, just as they were for the northeast planning area of this region, also called the Western Arctic.

Only a single hearing outside Alaska was granted, to be held in Washington, DC on March 13 - a mere five days before the public comment period ends March 18. With so much land in the crosshairs of big oil, and so little - less than 5 percent - of the nation's land permanently protected as wilderness, it is only fair that the public has adequate opportunity to speak up.

This is long, so if you want to see exactly what the report says instead of looking at we say about it, the report is also available directly from the National Research Council as follows:

Press Release: www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309087376
Summary (4 pages) books.nap.edu/html/north_slope/reportbrief.pdf
Full Report (viewable on screen and searchable but you cannot print or download it): www.nap.edu/books/0309087376/html/
Briefing as Real Player: video.nationalacademies.org/ramgen/news/030403.rm

The Alaska Wilderness League last week applauded a bipartisan coalition of Senators for introducing legislation to permanently protect the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The legislation, which seeks to designate the fragile 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain of the Refuge as statutory wilderness, was introduced today by Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT).

"We praise the leadership of Senator Lieberman and the other co-sponsors for coming together to support legislation that permanently protects Alaska's most threatened wilderness from the ravages of oil development," said Cindy Shogan, Alaska Wilderness League's executive director. "Sacrificing the crown jewel of our national wildlife refuge system for a six-month supply of oil that might be available 10 years from now is unconscionable."

At the end of last month, the Bush Administration failed yet another test of responsible management on America's public lands, signing off on a forest plan revision that fails to protect Alaska's magnificent Tongass National Forest. The Forest Service reviewed over nine million roadless acres and determined that not a single acre deserved long-term protection, leaving open to logging much of what's left of the largest and oldest trees in the rainforest.

February's decision builds off a bad draft plan which failed to recommend any new wilderness and drew widespread criticism in Alaska and nationally. During a public comment period on the draft plan, testimony at Alaska-based public hearings on the plan ran at almost ninety percent in favor of new wilderness protections. In addition, over 170,000 Americans from across the country submitted comments in support of new Tongass wilderness.

There you have it. Go see it.

There's more to say below. But first:

Thirty-seven U.S. states have animal cruelty laws that result in felony convictions. My own state of Ohio does not. What does that tell us about the mentality of humans in the Buckeye State? Well, if the riots I heard about at OSU are any indication – all over a bunch of large men wrestling, grabbing and grinding each other over a football – then the future is bleak.

There are two identical bills in the Ohio legislature right now that would increase the penalties for animal cruelty, House Bill 480 and Senate Bill 221. S.B. 221 passed on December 10, 2002 and is awaiting the signature of Governor Bob “Serial Killer” Taft. I hope a man with so much human blood on his hands will find some compassion for innocent animals. It seems a passive-sounding group “The Ohio Association of Animal Owners” is putting up quite a fight against animal protection legislation in Ohio -- battling the “animal rights terrorists ,” as it were. Contact your state reps and senators and ask them to support the two bills.

Well, it’s autumn and back to school time again. Reading, writing, football Friday night . . . and animal cruelty lessons! In some classes, anyone from elementary school-age children to medical and veterinary college students are forced to cut up dead animals. Biology classes especially bring back horrible memories in some people of frog guts and frog legs sliced off the poor frog’s body. Pig hearts, I hear, are even used in some anatomy classes because they are so much like humans’. Except if pigs ran the schools, they’d have a heart and not dissect dead humans!