The Current Online

by Toni Leake

All that was missing from the black platform stage in Longview Community College’s cafeteria was a high barstool and someone tapping lightly on bongo drums. Members of Longview’s Writer’s Guild walked to the center of the stage and read poetry against a black backdrop.

Missing from the cafeteria ambiance were curling cigarette smoke and steaming coffee, as members of the guild sat listening to the recitations.

The poetry covered everything, from life in general, America eating its babies, to drunk driving. While some of the readers read their own material, others opted to read a poem by a favorite author.

Readers included Michael Bourgeois, who read the ’50s beat neck poem “Howl,” by Allen Ginsberg.

Courtney Coy read a short piece she had authored, “Old Wives Tale.” Jeff Brown recited two of his own works, “Missing You” and “License,” a poem about responsible driving. Dustin Hernandez recited his own “Silent Message” and “The Spirit in Me Won’t Die.”

English instructor Dawnielle Robinson-Walker recited “Amari the Unborn,” a poem about racism in America.

by Toni Leake

Blaming the president of the United States for every imaginable and unimaginable human woe has become a great American tradition. Certainly President Bush is no exception to this tradition.

The liberal media and Democrats, in an all-out feeding frenzy, are attacking Bush for everything from the war in Iraq and the sluggish economy to the heat wave that killed thousands of French citizens this past summer. While facts indicate that many of these issues are rooted in the Clinton administration, the critics choose to blame everything on Bush.

I am in a quandary about the Bush critics. In November, the Senate narrowly defeated a new Republican-sponsored energy bill chock full of favors to special interest groups. This bill is the first major revision of our country’s energy agenda in over a decade.

According to MSNBC.com, the bill was mostly written during a couple months of closed-door negotiations between House and Senate Republicans, and contains hundreds of items sought by energy lobbyists, including tax breaks for oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries, plus tax credits for renewable energy and conservation.

And what were the critics’ reactions? Minimal at best. For once, I missed Hillary’s snarled face denouncing Bush. Did the feeding frenzy change to pigs feeding at the environment trough, where no one wants to be excluded?

I am reminded of the gray, dismal morning of Election Day, 2000. I was stopped at the corner of Roe and College Boulevard in Leawood, waiting for the red light to change, when I glanced at the car directly in front of me. The blah beige Toyota Tercel, circa 1980, was dotted with rust spots and looked like it had escaped from a junk-yard grave. I recognized the car’s make and model immediately since I had owned one exactly like it, only in sky-blue, even though I hadn’t seen one in over a decade.

A makeshift sign plastered against the rear window read: F#!@ BUSH VOTE GREEN. Four oversized college-aged students, three men and one woman, sat behind the kitschy sign. The quartet wore long wool coats and wide-brimmed hats, a familiar couture for Bohemian avant-garde intellects north of the Mason-Dixon Line. They were engaged in conversation, accentuated by hand waving and billowing cigarette smoke. I assumed their mission was to take a political jab at the local bourgeois inhabitants heading to the polls to vote for Bush.

The light turned green and the Tercel sluggishly pulled forward. A filthy brown cloud of unknown substances spewed out of its exhaust pipe like a ten-foot pollution genie materializing from a magical lamp rubbed the wrong way. If it had granted me three wishes, the first would have been to transport this car directly to Houston, pollution capitol of Bush country.

Within seconds, the noxious, filthy cloud edged closer to me and I watched as the word GREEN blurred and disappeared. “Green!” I said to myself. “It looks more like number two brown from where I sit.”

The altruistic foursome forgot that actions speak louder than words, something that Bush critics seem to have forgotten as well. Take, for example, the peaceniks against the war in Iraq. According to them, the war in Iraq is about one thing: oil. In their minds, the war on terrorism is passe and possibly never existed at all.

These critics not only oversimplify the war; they also stop short in their assertions. What they should be saying is this:

I am against the war in Iraq because it only serves the oil interests of this country AND I am willing to pay $5 a gallon for gas like the Europeans. I don’t mind tanking-up for $80 to $100 a pop to help end this war. I am willing to live without heat in the winter like the Russians and without air conditioning in the summer like the French. And I am willing to live without work while the American economy restructures itself to absorb the new price of oil and energy.

Why do these critics stop short? Aren’t they willing to give up anything for world peace?

You see, I am willing to pay $80 plus for a tank of gas-as long as my car is getting 100 plus miles per gallon. We need to step back and identify what the root issue is. I don’t believe that the war in Iraq is a root issue. The root issue is why we don’t have an energy plan that eliminates our dependency on not only foreign oil, but oil in general. If you look at all the major problems facing our country, how many would be solved if we had alternatives to using foreign oil or oil for fuel? For starters, what if the $87 billion Congress recently allocated for Iraqi restructuring could have been applied to education, Medicare, developing new energy sources, AIDS research, cancer research and military defense?

Some of you may feel that the reason we don’t have a long-term energy plan to develop alternate energy sources is Bush and the Republicans. Please think again. The last president who promoted a long-term energy policy to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and conserve energy was Richard M. Nixon. We’ve had both Republicans and Democrats in the government since Nixon.

Under the Clinton administration, which began partying like it was 1999 starting in 1994, gas-guzzling SUVs multiplied like amoebas splitting every 20 seconds. The speed limit on freeways and highways was raised. Car engines became less efficient rather than more so. Clinton’s laissez-faire attitude towards businesses allowed utility companies to descend into obsolescence rather to upgrade.

Fast-forward to November 2003, Congress battled over the passage of a new energy bill. Republican Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana was in charge of House energy negotiations, and the bill’s provisions have all the earmarks of a typical Republican anti-environment, pro-oil industry mandate.

MSNBC.com quotes Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) saying the bill has “glaring examples of industry favors.” According to him, it is a “Thanksgiving turkey” stuffed with special interest treats. Fox News reported that McCain dubbed the bill the “hooters and polluters” bill because hidden within the 1,200-page bill, which cannot be amended, is a provision to provide expansion money to a Louisiana shopping center that currently has a Hooters restaurant.

The fact is that McCain is being kind. I don’t see how anyone can read the actual provisions of this energy bill and not find it to be a national disgrace that jeopardizes the very future of this country.

And what are the altruistic Democrats saying about it? Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) supports the bill because of the provision to double the use of ethanol in gasoline. Since ethanol is derived from corn, it’s a major boost to farm belt states, like his. On a segment carried by National Public Radio, Daschle said that the bill would increase South Dakota’s economy by $5 billion and that makes it a good bill even though scientists contend that it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it generates. NPR also noted that Daschle is up for reelection next year.

The Democratic critics of the bill seem to be interested in attacking the bill for only one reason: to get a larger piece of the pie for themselves.

And where is the Green Party in all of this? They should be swarming all over the energy bill like students leaving campus after class on a Friday morning. The Ralph Nader of the 1960′s and 1970′s would have been publicly outraged. Why is no one in any of these groups pointing out the obvious: the bill, with its estimated $31 billion price tag over 10 years, does not provide one single provision to move the country away from oil dependency?

Bottom line: green, red, white or blue, it all looks like number two brown from where I sit.

Provisions of Bush’s new energy bill

* Tax breaks of $13 billion for oil, gas, and coal industries and $5.5 billion for renewable energy sources – wind, solar and biomass.

* Mandatory reliability requirements for high-voltage power lines and incentives to spur power line production.

* A requirement to double ethanol production for gasoline to 5 billion gallons a year by 2012.

* Authority and financial help, including $18 billion in loan guarantees, to build a pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope.

* Tax incentives for improving energy efficiency of homes and appliances, including a tax credit for buying hybrid gas-electric cars.

* A requirement to speed up permits and ease some environmental rules to promote energy development on public lands.

* A 10-year, $1 billion program to deal with “coastal erosion” for six states with offshore oil and gas production. Louisiana would get more than half of the money.

* Shield manufacturers of the gasoline additive MTBE, which have contaminated water supplies in 28 states, from product lawsuits. Protection would be retroactive to Sept. 5. That date would eliminate most cases filed.

* A $2 billion, seven year transition assistance to MTBE manufacturers as they scale back production because of state bans. The bill would extend a Senate-proposed federal MTBE phaseout from four years to 10 years.

by Toni Leake

His head is shaven and dark hair has started growing back like a five o’clock shadow. He is wearing both a black leather jacket and a tough attitude. But his voice is so soft it is barely picked up by the tape recorder.

Paul Gorham is home on a brief leave from active duty in Baghdad. A security guard at Longview, Gorham’s reserve unit was called to active duty last spring. Before he left, Gorham told the Current that he was ready to go. Today, he is edgy and on guard. When asked if he feels his life is in danger in Baghdad, he responded, “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be long for the world.”

Gorham’s life in Baghdad is both simple and complex. “[We] go out and drive around, do patrols-joint patrols with the local police, the Iraqi police. And hope we don’t get shot at or bombed,” he said.

“The possibility is always there. I’ve seen it happen to others. We’ve been shot at plenty of times. We’re just there to let the Iraqi police handle things; we’re just there for security support. Even [the Iraqi police] take a beating, too. It’s a bunch of chaos. We come home at the end of the day. That’s our one purpose in life-to go out and come home at the end of the day.

“We’ve run into things. I’ve been in a shoot-out. They’re not pretty; they’re not fun. I’ve had rocks thrown at me. You get flipped off a lot.

“You get waved at a lot, too. The majority of the people want us there. They’re glad to have us there. They know life is going to get better. It’s not the majority of the people-it’s that one guy. And that keeps you from being able to trust the majority of the people.

“People don’t understand what it’s like out there,” Gorham said. “It’s unbelievable. I’ve seen temperatures as high as 136 degrees, and that’s just the surface temperature. We’re sitting in a hot humvee, loaded down with body armor that’s an inch thick and Kevlar helmet. You have to drink water. If you don’t drink water, you’re not going to be living. And you can’t drink water at room temperature. It won’t bring your core body temperature down. The water has to be cold.”

The troops buy ice from local kids who sell it on street corner.

“You see the kids on the side of the road selling ice from big blocks about three feet by eight inches by eight inches in size. They’re out all day in the pounding hot sun. They work hard.

“They charge us twice what they charge the Iraqis. [The kids] charge us $2, the Iraqis pay $1.” Gorham stated, laughing. “But I appreciate the service.

“Ice is a commodity over there and its price goes up and down with demand. If the electricity goes out, you pay up to $4 for a little block,” he said.

Ice isn’t the only valuable commodity in Baghdad.

“Oil still makes the world go round. Fuel is a very large commodity,” stated Gorham, adding that a shortage of fuel exists in Baghdad.

“They’ll tie up one lane on a highway or road, dedicated to people waiting all day long in the hot summer sun waiting to get fuel [for their cars],” Gorham said.

There is not only a shortage of cold water and oil, but showers are at a premium as well.

“Baghdad is a filthy place, a lot of dust and pollution. The pollution is miserable in the heat. There is no hot water to take a shower with. I built a shower but it’s only cold water. I get hot water by putting cold water into a jug and letting it warm up in sun and pouring it on me.

“You can’t stay clean even after you take a shower. I keep bunches of baby wipes around. I can take one and wipe my face with it. Five minutes later, I’ll wipe my face again and the wipe will be completely brown.

“[For protection] I wear goggles a lot. I wear sunglasses a lot. Sometimes I wear both,” he said.

“When we get done for the day, we go to the compounds and stay there,” Paul continued, adding he and his friends have stopped eating at a favorite restaurant, for several reasons. It’s become dangerous since the troops are open targets for any snipers in the area. Local kids would approach their vehicles and become targets as well. Gorham said that children do not deter snipers from shooting at the troops.

“I’ve seen dead people, pretty gruesome. You never get used to it. Being shot at- you never get used to it. They say there are no cowards on the battlefield, but if you’re not scared, you’re lying. That’s a lie. Use fear as an ally to tell you things aren’t normal. You’re always on edge.

“When we get done for the day, we go to the compounds and stay there. We eat army chow, which is pretty tasteless. [The military] has hired Iraqi cooks that make kabobs, which are pretty good,” he said. When he and his comrades get tired of Iraqi kabobs and army food, they visit the hotel restaurant where the generals eat.

Entertainment had been non-existent except for a Drew Carey performance at a local hotel for the troops.

“He was hilarious,” Gorham said. “Someone fired a rocket into the hotel that night he stayed till about 3:30 a.m. in the morning. He’ll probably work it into his comedy routine. The rocket didn’t explode, but took a big chunk out of the wall.”

Direct contact with the Iraqi populace is limited. However, Gorham said that when the troops returned to the compound in the evening, they would see local kids motion with their hands to their mouths to show they were hungry.

“I always believe that if I’ve got more food than I need, then I share it,” Gorham said. “If I see families are struggling, I share.”

Gorham was stationed in Kosovo in 2002, but his experience in Baghdad is in sharp contrast to his experience in Kosovo.

“Kosovo was a cake-walk compared to Baghdad. Kosovo was a civil war, but Baghdad was a war where we actually invaded,” he said.

“We were [in Baghdad] for two weeks before we got attacked for the first time”- that’s when we realized it.” He stated that he feels the best plan for Iraq is “for all of us to come home.”

Gorham warns, though, “The war on terror-come on, let’s face it. There really is a war on terror. We got to do something to keep these guys on the run. As much as I hate to say it, we’re probably going to be in this a long time.”

Gorham feels differently now about the United Nations than he did last spring.

“I think that I would like to see the United Nations take a bigger role. I was against that when the war first started. It’s funny what experience will do. I’d like to see things settle down. The United Nations has a potential to be good [for Iraqi peace].”

United Nations involvement could be non-military, he suggested, such as donations of cars and food.

Gorham was not part of the detail that responded to the bombing of the United Nations Headquarters in August 2003.

“I was about a mile away, across the river, when we heard the explosions go off. We knew immediately something was wrong,” he said.

Gorham’s unit was initially assigned to handle riots, but the schedule was turned over to another unit who took over their equipment.

“If you ever been to a riot, you’re not anxious to go again,” he said. He said the replacement unit responded to recent riots and some of their men got hurt.

Gorham returned to Baghdad on Nov. 2, 2003. He is slated to return home on Dec. 25, 2003, but the dates are not definite. On his short leave here in Kansas City, he saw his family, which has expanded to include a new granddaughter, who he saw for the first time.

“She’s five months old and a complete angel,” Gorham said, smiling. “I’m going to spoil her when I get back. I told my wife I wish I knew grandchildren were so much fun. I’d have them first.”

Gorham confesses that he shaved his head for the first time before leaving Baghdad to return home. “My daughter saw me and said, “my mama was kissing another man in the hotel.” The nine-year-old recognizes him now, though.

Gorham has returned to Baghdad with visions of his wife, daughters and granddaughter-and Ogden’s Barbecue in Belton dancing in his mind. He’ll have to tuck those memories away when he begins patrolling the dangerous streets once again.

When you enter Sybil Chandler’s cubicle at the Business and Technology College, you find yourself wondering if you made a wrong detour and entered the office of a newspaper editor. Stacks of publications, reports and documentation are neatly organized and piled everywhere. While you wait for Chandler to remove the papers stacked on her extra chair to offer you a seat, you notice her personal computer is on and her phone seems poised and ready to ring at any second.

Sybil Chandler, Certified Hazardous Material Manager, is the Environmental Health and Safety Degree Coordinator for the Business and Technology College. The mountains of paper inside her office are just one indication of how she stays current in the rapidly changing fields of environmental health and safety and occupational health and safety. She notes that it is important to note the distinction between the two programs she oversees. The first is Environmental Health and Safety, which falls under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the second is occupational health and safety, which falls under the auspices of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Chandler began on the road to safety as a child growing up in Louisiana near the ocean, although she states that in Louisiana, “You don’t really call it the ocean – it’s more like the swamp that turns into the ocean.” Her father ran a shipyard that built ships, tugboats and offshore rigs. Chandler recalls the many company picnics held at the shipyard that she attended as a child. “We would pull in [to the shipyard] and there would be the Safety First [sign].” In addition, her father always carried his hard hat and safety glasses in the back of his car. Chandler attributes this early exposure to occupational safety as a main reason for her interest in the subject.

Chandler attended Louisiana State University, where she initially majored in engineering because she had always been mechanically oriented. She soon discovered that engineering wasn’t her cup of tea — it wasn’t people-orientated enough to suit her. Chandler then switched to business management but missed the technical emphasis of engineering. She ended up combining her two main interests, business and technology, which led to her graduation in 1987 with a degree in industrial technology with an emphasis in occupational safety.

In 1987, OSHA had been in existence for almost 15 years. It was also the year that the bottom fell out of oil industry. Finding work without experience was next to impossible. Chandler did a two-year stint of soul-searching, after which she returned to graduate school, this time attending the University of Southern Mississippi. After Chandler received her master’s in health education with an emphasis in occupational safety, she got a job with an environmental consulting firm in Buffalo.

Chandler says that after she experienced her first Buffalo blizzard, she actively sought to transfer out of the Buffalo office. She ended up in Kansas City by way of Tallahassee. During this timeframe, Chandler worked as the Regional Safety Coordination, a job that required OSHA knowledge and included medical surveillance, occupational exposures and training. She added working on hazardous waste sites to her resume later.

“The interesting thing about safety is that it is a very diverse kind of field. You have little bits of pieces of everything,” Chandler states. In addition, she describes her job by saying, “It’s a jack of all trades kind of position where you have to know a little bit about a lot of stuff.”

Although people in her fields may have a specialty area, consultants often assume the role of the specialist. As a consultant, Chandler considered her specialty area to be occupation safety under OSHA. However, she also has had extensive experience working on hazardous waste sites, which falls under the EPA umbrella, by participating in “emergency responses.”

Mercy responses are initiated by the EPA in reaction to disasters with potentially hazardous effects to the environment, such as a power plant explosion. The EPA hires outside consulting companies to assess environmental damage and conduct necessary clean-ups. For instance, when the Kansas City Hawthorne Power Plant had an explosion, the EPA issued a emergency response because it was suspected that asbestos had been released into the air. Outside consultants trained in hazardous wastes arrived at the site wearing “moon suits” or personal protective equipment suits to conduct air tests and determine appropriate actions to ensure safety of the community.

Because of her participation in mercy response projects, Chandler has had enough experience to be a trainer of hazardous materials teams. She came to the BTC in May of 1998 after responding to an ad placed in the paper for faculty to run both the Environmental Health and the Occupational Safety programs.

Chandler teaches entry-level classes and the capstone class for the programs offered at the Business Technology College. Adjunct instructors teach in-between classes. Chandler brags that her adjunct staff is very qualified in the courses they teach and include people who work for the EPA or have jobs in occupational safety area. Currently, the program offers three certificates and four associate’s degree.

Chandler recommends an awareness course she teaches, EHSS 100: Intro to Environmental Health & Safety, to find out whether you’re interested in going into the field or if you would like additional information on EPA and OSHA issues. Chandler said, “It’s a required course for some of the other disciplines at the Business and Technology College. People moan and groan about taking this course, but I’ve had some informal responses from students that tell me it’s one of the most beneficial classes they’ve taken.”