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I voted for Sam Adams.

His lying is understandable, considering the circumstances, as it was for Bill Clinton. The problem, for me, is why he lied. He knew he had done something horribly wrong. As a father of a teenager and a high school teacher, I find his decision making regarding relations with an 18 year old that is in a formal internship relationship with him appalling. How would the population feel if one of their teenager's teachers were to have sex with them soon after their 18th birthday? I would feel outraged. I would imagine that teacher would also lose their job. I think you would have a very difficult time finding anybody that would disagree with that.

Why should we hold our mayor to lower ethical standards that we hold thousands of school teachers? I generally see sexual relationships between authority figures and young people under their charge as an abuse of power. When that authority figure bides their time, waiting for a magical date to arrive at which point their act will be legal, I find it downright creepy. It is not illegal, but had I know this about Sam Adams I would not have voted for him.

Step down, Sam.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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I briefly made it onto the air today regarding the topic of potentially using local solid waste infrastructures already in place to produce fuel (methanol) on a massive national scale. Unfortunately, I think I failed, verbally, to do this topic the justice it may deserve (disorganized stammering, I apologize for that). I would like to follow this topic up in this forum, perhaps tapping expertise that I sorely lack on the topic. The answer I received on the air did not satisfy my curiosity. (Summ: it's gross, it can be done...)

First, I was able to witness electrical production using human and animal waste in a small vilalge in Belize, called Hattieville, in the early 1990's. This village was off the grid, and its youth had an alarming rate of illiteracy. International volunteers created an underground cistern-like "digester" that families fed with buckets each day. This tank produced flammable gases which were used to spin a generator, poering each home with light in the evening (not a lot of electricity), providing opportunity for people to read and study into the evening and, ultimately, improving literacy and the level of education in the community. Pretty cool stuff...why not use this on a larger scale?

It seems to me that our current human waste managemnent infrastructure (toilets, sewers, centralized treatment plants) would provide a conduit for virtually every home in the country to funnel their wastes to localized central locations, reducing the need for transporting the material and keeping the source of this energy local. This is a dependable and constant source of energy that takes no effort to produce... using this waste in this way could also help to solve the chronic problem of waste disposal. Perhaps, also, fuel production from human waste could fit in nicely with some of the urban experiments in grey water purification and reuse?

I have also wondered if this potential fuel source is being ignored due to its inherant economic implications. Current sources of fuel are wrapped up with the market system, supply and demand, trade, production, and profiting. To create fuel using governemnt operated facilities and communually owned and produced (free) raw material might not be well accepted by the corporate and political machinery in place.

I am no expert on this topic, just a curious layperson. I am wondering what the inherant flaws are with using human waste to produce fuel. Are there assocaited public health hazards? Would it be so inefficient as to make the alterations in our solid waste management plants counterproductive? Am I seriously off base with the idea of being able to produce fuel in this way?

posted 4 years, 10 months ago
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