Writing on the Wall

There’s one politician who hasn’t weighed in on the ‘Islamic center in NYC’ argument. He seems like a logical person to ask, given his experiences. But George W. Bush refuses to comment. Why? Because he would buck the Republican Party line like no other.

Say what you will about Bush’s foreign policy, one of its cornerstones was pushing the notion that the United States was not at war with Islam, that it was fighting on behalf of Muslims, not against them. It was just days after the September 11 attacks that he said:

“The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.”

Maybe it was Bush’s own religious experiences, or maybe he was just pandering. But for the 7 years he was president after September 11, 2001, George W. Bush spoke up time and time again in support of Islam and Muslims.

The GOP’s willingness to latch onto the issue is truly a sign of how polarized this nation is becoming. Using a wedge issue is nothing new (and not exclusive to the Republican Party) but it has reached a new low. Between the BP oil disaster, gay marriage in California, race baiting and immigration, do we really need to heap on religion?

It’s the economy, stupid. I think that the GOP’s inability to stomp the Democrats on that issue alone really says all you need to know about how much more effective they can govern. Unfortunately, the election is still a good 2 ½ months away.

It is going to feel like forever.

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“We respect your faith. It’s practice freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful. And those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.”

-George W. Bush

“America treasures the relationship we have with our many Muslim friends, and we respect the vibrant faith of Islam which inspires countless individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity, and morality. This year, may Eid also be a time in which we recognize the values of progress, pluralism, and acceptance that bind us together as a Nation and a global community. By working together to advance mutual understanding, we point the way to a brighter future for all.”

-George W. Bush

“Some of the comments that have been uttered about Islam do not reflect the sentiments of my government or the sentiments of most Americans. Islam, as practiced by the vast majority of people, is a peaceful religion, a religion that respects others. Ours is a country based upon tolerance and we welcome people of all faiths in America.”

-George W. Bush

“We see in Islam a religion that traces its origins back to God’s call on Abraham. We share your belief in God’s justice, and your insistence on man’s moral responsibility. We thank the many Muslim nations who stand with us against terror. Nations that are often victims of terror, themselves.”

-George W. Bush

“Islam is a vibrant faith. Millions of our fellow citizens are Muslim. We respect the faith. We honor its traditions. Our enemy does not. Our enemy doesn’t follow the great traditions of Islam. They’ve hijacked a great religion.”

-George W. Bush

“Islam is a faith that brings comfort to people. It inspires them to lead lives based on honesty, and justice, and compassion.”

-George W. Bush

“America rejects bigotry. We reject every act of hatred against people of Arab background or Muslim faith America values and welcomes peaceful people of all faiths.”

-George W. Bush

“The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.”

-George W. Bush

Noticed this was running on my work PC

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posting from my nexus one. For those times when you need to  blog
Away

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Airplane! makes air traffic control out to be an exciting adventure full of poisonous food and glue sniffing. Air Control is not the substance addiction simulator I was hoping it would be, but it does suffice as an entertaining puzzle game.

Air Control is a top-down puzzle game where you must draw flight paths for incoming planes and helicopters. The three maps have a mix of runways and helipads, and only certain colored planes can land on certain areas. Gameplay involves pressing a plane and dragging a path to its destination. The catch, of course, is that if a plane hits another one, you lose.

The game’s graphics are simple but crisp. The controls are tight and responsive, which is good since they are the cornerstone of the game. Sound is limited to rudimentary beeps and boops when clicking and guiding a plane. There is no music.

Monthly high scores for each level are available. Looking through the leaderboards made me feel incredibly inadequate, so if you are prone to low self-esteem, avoid looking there. I can only assume that there are real air traffic controllers playing.

The game comes with only three levels, two of which are boringly similar. The stage set around aircraft carrier is particularly fun, despite my low success rate. It goes something like this, only set to the Benny Hill theme song:

Pros

• Only $2.15, give or take
• Engaging (but not addictive) gameplay that eventually falls flat.

Cons

• Only 3 levels, and 2 of them are mostly the same
• No airplane sound effects

The game is available in both a Lite and Paid variety. Lite is limited to one level.

Springfield-based newspaper State Journal-Register has created some “fucking golden” ringtones from your phone drawn from Blagojevich audio recordings.

When the transcripts started coming out, I said I’d go as far as to pay money for all the transcripts in an audio book format. Then I found out they were being freely released. SCORE!

The SJ-R releases are bleeped, though, which kinda ruins it. The original tapes are not.

Sidenote- the MP3s are credited as “FBI featuring Rod Blagojevich”. Sounds like a great, topical band name to me.

Uncertain Economy?

How does the bottoming economy effect business’ ‘green’ plans, whether real or perceived? There is no concise answer; many experts offer different opinions.

In an interview with TIME Magaazine, Paul Maeder of Highland Capital, a venture capital firm built around green investments, warns that, “The […] industry is at risk because of a real lack of access to capital.” An article from the Associated Press in October warned that the recent downturn in the economy would, “at the very least, […] push back when […] reductions would have to start.”

Michael Klare of the Huffington Post can even seen a upside. He writes, “The good news is that economic hard times will cause people to drive less, fly less, and otherwise consume less energy, thus lowering expectations for greenhouse-gas emissions.”

This belief may be off-set by recent fluctuations in the cost of transportation. The price of oil has seen a rapid plunge from a record high of $137 a barrel to as low as nearly $50 a barrel. The recent deflation of gas prices in recent months has some experts worried that the nation will ‘forget’ about the necessity of reducing our dependency on fossil fuels.

With the price of oil dropping so fast, some worry that investment in alternative sources of energy may be discouraged, as the perceived necessity of them slowly dissipates. However, the long term savings aspect is one that has been played up to emphasize the necessity of greening industry despite tough economic times.

Emily Smith of the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, in an interview with the Republican American, warns that, “It’s not just about today. It’s about the future, and reducing our dependency on fossil fuels is not only better for the environment but cheaper in the long run.”

In The End

There is little doubt that this ‘green’ phenomenon is more than just a temporary trend. In increasingly dark and desperate times, it should be of no surprise that not every company is honest in its attempts to better the environment and our planet. While bodies like the FTC and independent watchdog groups provide some barriers of honesty, the responsibility of determining what is truly ‘good’ for the environment ultimately rests with the consumer.

Greenwashing

The word is ‘greenwash; and business watchdog group CorpWatch defines it as, “phenomenon of socially and environmentally destructive corporations attempting to preserve and expand their markets by posing as friends of the environment.” The phrase is so popular, it was included in a recent edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Hamish McLennan, CEO of ad agency Y&R, warns companies of the danger of greenwashing. They have “got to show that there’s substance behind what you say. Otherwise, it could backfire.”

TerraChoice, an environmental marketing agency, has established the “six sins of greenwashing,” a by-no-means-definitive but still useful checklist of the most common flaws in greenwashing advertising.

TerraChoice conducted a survey in 2007 of products that laid claim to being environmentally friendly.

The results of the study were damning. Only one of the 1,018 products examined did not break any of the sins.

TerraChoice CEO Scot Case explained the phenomenon of greenwashing in an October interview with CBS News, “It’s just something that the marketing department created rather than a legitimate marketing claim.”

This past summer, the Federal Trade Commision conducted two workshops focusing on overhauling its “Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims,” often referred to as the “Green Guide.” The guide has existed since 1998 and serves as legal means to enforce and ensure honesty in advertising.

“A lot of it is done with images; pictures of trees, the globe, kids, kids ON the globe,” explains Leonard Gordon, Director of the Northeast Regional Office of the FTC. “It’s not a simple problem, and it’s probably not going to have a simple solution.”

The FTC expects to release a new edition of its Green Guide by the end of 2009. Can consumers wait that long?

The Good

Wal-Mart is one of the few companies that has actually found increased business in these tough economic times. While the stingy company is not known for its friendliness (complaints frequently revolve around it driving local businesses to close and its distaste for unions are relatively well-known), it has found economic sense and cents in adopting green policies to cut business costs.

Wal-Mart is the single largest private consumer of electricity in the United States and aims to raise energy efficiency at existing stores by 20 percent by 2012. By 2015, the company plans to have doubled the fuel efficiency of its shipping vehicles.

The company has also built several prototype stores tailored to energy efficiency. The latest, in Las Vegas, reportedly uses 45 percent less energy then a typical Wal-Mart store. The Vegas location is specially tailored for the desert climate, “to better align our stores with the communities we serve,” according to vice president of Prototype and New Format Development, Charles Zimmerman.

In 2005, company CEO and President Lee Scott hired Conservation International, a nonprofit group more known for working with indigenous people to protect their lands, to assist Wal-Mart in adopting sustainable practices. Wal-Mart has even gone as far as bringing none other than the tree hugging poster boy himself, Al Gore, into the mix to deliver a motivational message to Wal-Mart corporate headquarters.

Worst of the Worst

Is a company reworking their logo logo and then spending $200 million in an advertising campaign enough to convince consumers that they too are eco-friendly?

British Petroleum – BP dominated the headlines in the dog days of summer in 2007 when Indiana regulators awarded this company a permit to increase the amount of ammonia it dumps into Lake Michigan by 35 percent. While the amounts were still under the federal guidelines, it caused an uproar among Illinois politicians and citizens.

In 2007, BP agreed to pay fines and restitutions totalling $370 million. The fines were the result of a fatal explosion in Texas, crude oil leaking from pipelines in Alaska and fraud and propane price manipulation, according to a 2007 document from the Department of Justice.

Exxon Mobil – Oil mega-giant distributed funds to 39 lobbying groups of the “climate denial industry,” according to a report in the Guardian. These groups attempt to downplay the notion that our climate is changing as a result of human activity. In Exxon Mobil’s defense, the company cut funding in 2008.

General Electric – GE launched a $90 million public relations campaign entitled “Ecomagination.” The campaign focuses on many of the elements that Leonard Gordon discussed. Happy elephants, walking trees and young children are but some of the imagery found in commercials and on the campaign’s website.

Just a few weeks after the launch of its Ecomagination campaign, GE was fighting Congress, trying to delay a clean-up operation in the Hudson River. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2007 that as GE was prepping lawyers and lobbyists to weaken rules regarding pollution generated by trains and the nation’s railroads, while still in the midst of its strong Ecomagination marketing campaign.

This is by no means an accusation of guilt or negligence, merely an attempt to shed light on what may be otherwise misleading marketing.

All it took was a former Vice President standing in front of a projection screen, armed with a simple slideshow and describing one little ‘inconvenient truth,’ to spark a rebirth in the nation’s environmental conscious.

Armed with hard facts and a compelling story, Al Gore’s award-winning documentary made the effects of global warming a dinner table topic of conversation not only across America, but across the globe. No longer were environmentally conscious people stereotyped and generalized as ‘hippies’ and ‘tree huggers’. Environmentalism was suddenly injected into mainstream culture.

The discussion quickly evolved to a form that was sure to grab attention of consumer-minded Americans; not just how to save the environment, but how to save money.

Businesses small and large quickly jumped on the “green marketing” bandwagon. From light bulbs and power generation to household cleaners and automobiles, Al Gore’s phenomenon seems to be not so much a trend as it is our new way of living.

Green marketing is the process of selling products and/or services based on their environmental benefits, as described by About.com.

In an age where consumers are slowly coming to distrust and even despise “dirty” companies like Exxon Mobil, entire consulting firms have popped up based solely around crafting a “green” image for a company. But if the past is any indication, consumers cannot rely on the word of a company alone.

Susan Ward, a small business writer for About.com, outlines the keys to successful green marketing. Her very first point outlined is to be honest with the consumer. She explains that, “Being genuine means that that you are actually doing what you claim to be doing in your green marketing campaign.”

There is no doubt that green marketing has quickly become a profitable business.

“Green has gone mainstream,” explains Adam Adamson, author of the book BrandSimple in an interview with USA Today. “Research shows many folks will pay more for eco-friendly goods or services.”

For most, if not all, companies, greening their business plan is a matter of dollars and cents. The business practice has become so popular, it has its own term: greenwashing.

This article originally appeared in the September 12, 2008 edition of the Lewis Flyer. It was my first published article.

1,460 pounds. That is the amount of waste generated by an average American citizen in one year. Accounting for Lewis University’s student body, that translates to 5,531,940 pounds of trash each year.

Going green can come off as just one more pop culture catch phrase that doesn’t mean much to the average person. Celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently converted his famed Hummers to run on biodiesel fuel, and Edward Norton, who is working to bring solar power to low-income housing, are leading the charge to ‘go green’. Unfortunately, converting your juggernaut SUV to run on vegetable oil or installing solar panels on your dorm are not exactly feasible solutions for Lewis University students.

There are countless practical ideas for the ordinary college student to reduce their carbon footprint. It is not uncommon to see students at the library printing out dozens of pages off a computer, only to use a few sheets. By printing only necessary information or copying into a notebook (they probably aren’t being used enough anyway), paper consumption would be reduced dramatically. Indeed, many professors have switched to issuing hand-outs and syllabuses over the internet instead of making photocopies.

Fluorescent light bulbs, which use 75 percent less energy, are quickly rising in popularity. Something as simple as switching off a light or unplugging electronics when not in use will not only help to conserve energy, but it will reduce monthly electricity bills.

It’s not all just light bulbs and electricity. “I have reduced my personal weekly garbage to a simple plastic bag,” says Professor Lee Witkowski, a teacher of Environmental Sciences at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois.

Scattered across campus are several recycling stations for students to discard empty can and water bottles. Of course, that water bottle’s life span can be extended simply by taking it home and filling it back up. All-natural cleaning agents, from pet shampoo to laundry detergent, are far more affordable than in the past.

The pressure to reduce environmental impact does not rest solely on the students. The administration of Lewis University should keep an environmentally-sound ethic for all future building projects and renovations. Green roofs are gardens located on the top of buildings and have recently become popular in Chicago. They serve to reflect heat from the building, cool the surrounding air, and scrub the oxygen we breathe. By making use of triple paned windows and natural sunlight to illuminate rooms, heating and electricity prices can be reduced.

“People will not receive awards for going green,” Witkowski declares. “Satisfaction will come from simply doing it. That’s the motivation.”

Above all, Witkowski says, “It is a belief. The American people must think global and act local.”  Going green is not as simple as using energy efficient light bulbs, or using less paper. Proper education and a change in beliefs are required to truly ‘go green’. Always remember that the power is yours!

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Tips you may not have thought of:

• Carpool! Traveling in groups reduces the number of vehicles on the road. Not only will this cut down on pollution, it will also make traffic more bearable.
• Combine destinations into one trip. Instead of waiting until tonight to run to Target, stop there on your way home from school.
• Tossing your water bottle in the recycling bin is good. Taking it home to use for another day is better.
• Soaking crumpled newspaper pages in an equal mixture of water and white vinegar makes for an excellent window cleaning agent.
• Invest in an organic reusable bag for grocery shopping.
• Keeping your car tires at the proper inflation will reduce fuel consumption.
• Open your windows! The Environmental Protection Agency reports that indoor air is up to 90 percent more polluted than outdoor.

This article was originally published in the September 26, 2008 issue of the Lewis Flyer.

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The Lewis University Rugby Club have put on their striped jerseys in anticipation of the fall season. The team of 20 has been busy practicing on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Chicago Blaze’s nearby field in Lemont and is set to face off against other local clubs as well as nearby universities like Illinois State in the weeks ahead.

“The real thing that is important is our spring session,” said Ryan Bulfin, a graduate assistant for television operations and is in charge of the Rugby Club at Lewis. “We will be officially recognized by CARFU – the Chicago Area Rugby Football Union – where we’ll play against other schools.” Northwestern, Loyala and DePaul are just a few of the other schools that make up the CARFU.

“We wanted to organize the fall season as recruiting and training,” Bulfin explained. The Club only has the bare minimum number of members needed to field a team. “We are just making the cut. It is tough because we are pretty new.”

The team certainly understands the tough task waiting ahead on the field. “We’re playing against schools that have had rugby traditions for years. We are [the underdogs] but it is a good undertaking. I really want to get a proud rugby tradition started at Lewis, and so do the other guys on the team,” Bulfin explained.

The Rugby Club is in the midst of recruiting and is open to all male students, resident or commuter. Bulfin was quick to emphasize that no experience was needed.

“It doesn’t matter how big you are. I’m a skinny guy. People should understand that position-wise you are matched up against someone your size.”

The small size of the club has created many playing opportunities. “Everyone gets to play. No one sits out, everyone gets great playing time,” Bulfin said.

“It’s a good outlet for people who want to do something physical, it’s good exercise. There’s really no better way to get in shape,” said Bulfin.

But beyond serving as a way to keep up one’s health, Bulfin pointed out the social aspects of the game. “Rugby is a very social game. After each game guys get together, congratulate each other on a game well played, make some new friends, and then we grill and have some fun. There’s some great comradery.”

Students interested in the Rugby Club should send an e-mail to bulfinry@lewisu.edu or find the ‘Lewis University Rugby’ Facebook group.