ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

Good story. Not at all that surprising, unfortnately. The PR firm that now runs America can't allow coffins to be photographed or showed on the news either, remember?

From England: Wounded soldiers not allowed to participate in a Remembrance Day parade. Organizers say the parade is for veterans only: http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,2209307,00.html

Unfortunately.

Grr.

Lest we not forget the amounts
of depleted uranium being used on Iraq, the
contamination of humanity
on both sides, the neurological effects, environmental residue, birth defects of Iraqi babies, the list is endless. How all this supposedly wins hearts and minds is yet to be seen...

local parallel: the Ojai Independence Day parade is a public event supported by - but not put on by - the City, with private discretion as to who/what gets to be in it.

this could happen here, and if it did, what would we be prepared to do about it?

inside info: my very first I-Day parade entry idea (which later became the Ojai Peace Coalition) was to have cardboard tanks with flowers in the barrels, with "Support Our Troops...Bring Them Home" painted on the sides. the tanks were deemed "too ominous".

honey, war's ominous.

So now a city runs and staffs a parade, but outsources the "decisionmaking" to a "private board," and all of a sudden the First Amendment does not apply.

The city ought to disassociate itself. For shame!

And what a farce it makes of Veterans Day. And what an insult to veterans. True patriots abhor Bush and his crime of Iraq. They fought and died to protect our right to express our support for this country. Any vets who march in that parade dishonor themselves and their own service.

And Long Beach dishonors our vets everywhere.

evan, did someone on Ojai's ID parade censor your tanks?

If Ojai tried that, well, the ACLU is already here.

in one of those etymological (or is it entomological) oddities,
there ain't enuff OM in ominous

yes, i suppose the tank idea was "censored"...it was just an idea; i hadn't made them or anything. i was eager to be in the parade at all, so i approached them in a spirit of "let's find something mutually agreeable".

With regards to depleted uranium: Depleted uranium is not dangerous, it is the by product that is left over after the useful uranium isotopes are taken out. It is about 60% less radioactive that natural uranium that is found in nature, which occurs in many different places. There is no evidence that it is any kind of health risk. It is used in amunition because it is so heavy. You would get more radioactivity by living in Denver Colorado than if you walked around with a bunch of DU in your coat pocket. It is used in all sorts of applications where ballast is used, it is used in airplanes.

Brian

really? NO evidence that it is ANY kind of health risk?

seems to me that, at BEST, the science is still out. seems to me that, at LEAST, DU acts in the body just like other heavy metals, which are generally not good for us because they can't be processed.

Nonsense.

The Ojai ID parade never censored OPC Evan. You guys censored yourselves if anything. We made two very controversial parade floats in 2005 and 2006 and staged our own parade back in 2004 when the city/committee in charge of the parade decided not to have the parade the 4th because it was on a Sunday. They wanted to wait until Monday the 5th, so we held our own right down Ojai Ave. called the Patriotic People's Parade. No one ever even said boo to us. Of course, we didn't ask permission because it really wasn't theirs to give when it came to the design of our floats. We paid our fees and obeyed the line-up rules and so forth, but it was our opinion that the designs were our own. It would be an utter travesty to allow oneself to be censored on the day commemorating the Declaration if Independence. Irony of the highest order.

In 2005, the first year the OPC was in the parade too, we built a three masted schooner painted to look like the USS Constitution. In front of the Museum, the USS Constitution was attacked by "corporate pirates" like The Carlyle Group and United Defense who gained control somewhere around the theater and installed George W. Bush and Dick Cheney at the helm. George was in full flight suit with cod-piece. And at around the judges stand Dick Cheney was up in the crows nest controlling George with a huge set of puppet strings. Oh, and there was a banner hanging over the sides of the ship saying mission accomplished. The crowd loved it, except for a couple of them who threatened us with death. Really. As I recall, we approached the OPC to join forces in the line up and go one right after the other. We even got permission from the parade controllers, but you guys said you were afraid that our float was too controversial. At least we were on the front page of the OVN.

In 2006, we built a giant mock-up of the new Hummer ''H4". It was two stories high and painted bright yellow. It came complete with it's own life size gas pump attached to the rear bumper. Of course, Arnold was at the wheel and good ole' W was dancing in the street manning the pump every 100 ft when the huge GAZGUZLER (that was the license plate) ran out of fuel. The giant truck that was pulling it was running on pure veggie oil . It had a sign on the trailer that had an arrow pointing to the truck saying "This one powered by farmers" and another one pointing to the H4 saying "This one powered by oil." Originally I wanted the sign to read "This one powered by War", but I was overruled somewhere around 3 am when we were finishing the float the night before. You can still see it on youtube here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DoF6DPVL93Y

DU : You can find anything on the internet, doesn't mean it's true!

Brian- the problem as I see it is that you present your opinions in a very dogmatic way.
Just because you say it doesn't mean it's true!!

El Anonimo,
This is something that can be proven, it's not theory. There is no problem.

Robert Fisk is a journalist. He's been a foreign corespondent for over thirty years, and much of that time he's spent covering the middle east and Eurasia. He's written an excellent book about the stories he's covered and the places he's been that runs a bit over twelve hundred pages. It is the most densely packed tome of pure information and knowledge that I've read in some time. It's called The Great War for Civilization: The conquest of the Middle East, and I highly recommend it to anyone who want's to begin to understand what's happening in those regions of the world. I mean really understand the history, not just see it all in a skewed, propagandistic black and white that is constantly fed to us here from the likes of Fox (faux) News.

Before I get into Depleted Uranium and just to belabor the point, Robert Fisk was IN Afghanistan when the USSR invaded, he was IN Iran when the Shaw fled and the revolution followed, he was on both sides of the front during the eight year long Iran/Iraq war, he was IN Lebanon during the civil war and when the truck bomb went off killing US marines in their barracks. He was IN Saudi Arabia where we staged our troops for the first Gulf War and he was IN Iraq before, during and after that conflict. He was the last western journalist to interview Osama bin Laden in his cave in Tora Bora. He was NOT an embedded journalist during the run up to invasion and after. He was IN Iraq and has been since before that illegal war started. In short, he knows his shit, and he has absolutely NO reason to lie to us. He is a real Journalist.

Depleted Uranium is a disaster. There are really no words strong enough to encompass the magnitude of the crime of it's use. Simply, it's use is a war crime worse than the use of mustard gas in WWI, Agent Orange in Vietnam, VX and other nerve agents during the Iran/Iraq war, you name it. There is no disputing this fact. It's true, what Brian says that depleted uranium is used because it is heavy. He also says it's safe. Also true--as long as it is not fired as a tank round or anti-tank projectile from an A-10 Warthog; you remember those, they're the ugly bastards that CNN was so awed by during the First Oil War. A DU round just sitting in the corner is not a huge risk. I wouldn't want to wonder around with a lump of it in my pocket, I'll leave that to Brian and hope he's already had all the children he wants to have. When the DU round is fired as an armor piercing projectile, however, things change very rapidly.

Smoking is bad for you. Inhaling DU is really fucking bad for you. When the round is fired it leaves behind with our troops a small cloud of DU dust. In a wind it would be gone quickly, but it's still there. When the round smashes into a defunct, aged, technologically prehistoric, Iraqi tank, it pulverizes the armor and much of itself. It becomes a lot of DU dust that floats all around the battle field until it is finally inhaled by something like a human or falls on the ground. If it goes in the human, it tends to cause all sorts of serious medical maladies. This group of medical maladies was often referred to after the First Oil War as Gulf War Syndrome. In Iraq they usually just called it cancer. Or birth defects. Or still births. If the dust is not inhaled by someone, it gets washed into the soil, where there was soil, to contaminate the vegetables and fruits that are grown to feed people. Those people generally get stomach cancer--as children. Not a normal occurrence. If it falls into the sand the winds pick it up and it can still be inhaled. Essentially anywhere DU ammunition is used becomes a toxic waste site until it is cleaned up.

It is impossible to say that the use of DU munitions is okay. To do so, one is either seriously misunderstanding the nature of this weapon and it's consequences long after any war or one is condoning an unspeakable war crime. I am not overstating this. Here are two links to information about what DU is doing to people it has been used on. Not all of them are in Iraq. Find out what is happening to fellow human beings as a direct result of the use of this weapon and please try to post a moral argument for DUs' continued use. I'd really like to see a well reasoned, moral argument in favor of the wholesale poisoning of huge populations for generations. Better still, give me an argument in favor of ever deciding to use it in the first place. That's the one Bush and his cronies are going to have to trot out when we finally reconvene Nuremberg. How dare they do this in our name?

http://www.robert-fisk.com/depleted_uranium_links.htm

http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/fisk-du.html

Happy Veteran's Day.

Sean, there's some negative energy in the way you're saying all of that, and i'm uncomfortable with it. You're right that nobody censored the OPC (it wasn't the OPC yet, just me with an idea)...i opted to choose another idea that the parade committee would be comfortable with and that would also contain my message. since it was my first participation, i chose not to break into the establishment with all flowers blooming, so to speak.

in regard to combining forces with the "Ojai Patriot's Club", it's evident now that i didnt express myself clearly enough three years ago: my concern (and it was shared by many in my group) was that the two groups were different enough flavors of a common pursuit that it warranted a little separation, to "spread the wealth" through the parade, if you will. we wanted to be there on a straightforward pro-peace platform and you seemed to prefer a subversive anti-war (or at least anti-administration) one. i find no fault with the way you chose to interact with the parade, its officials, or our community...you're right that the USS Constitution was a dazzling departure from the norm and shook people up whether they enjoyed or despised it.

i think i have said many times that i enjoy your presence in the parade (loved the Hummer!), but that doesnt mean that i want to be that same presence. methinks we have slightly different philosophies regarding our message and our participation, and that's okay. i like to think theres's room - and perhaps even a need - for both of our ways of doing things.

SPK,
I can see where you're coming from on the DU dispersal when a round is exploded into dust but there are a number of factors that make that argument sink. BTW the only reason I perk up on stuff like this is my quest for nuclear power and to try and change the hearts and minds of people who are so against it. Anyway the DU being 1.7 times heavyer than lead does not hang around in the air for very long because it is so heavy. Even if you did inhale it or ingest it the half life is something like 4.5 billion years. The radioactivity is barely measurable in the first place. There is just as much radioactive particles that occur naturally in dirt. You have radioactive particles under your fingernails from working in your garden. Food has radioactive particles in it from the ground. Measurements have been made before and after on the battle field and there was no detectable difference between what was there before and after. I understand your concern because of the fine particles being released into the air would be a way for something to be inhaled. Any kind of foreign material in a dust form is probably not good for you. But as for DU just sitting around in the courner someplace it definately poses no risk.

You're probably right about the need. Ours were the only two anti-war voices in that parade that year. Something I found just wrong. Now it seems everyone has jumped on the anti-war bandwagon. Good. Sorry if I seemed negative. I guess I'm just getting a little tired of war.

Brian,

You need to look at the links and read the first hand accounts of the people who have been exposed to this. From whence do the at least 500 fold increases in child cancers and birth defects come in Iraq? Robert Fisk wrote "about a
British government report detailing the extraordinary lengths to which the
authorities went at DU shell test-firing ranges in the UK - the shells are
fired into a tunnel in Cumbria and the resulting dust sealed into concrete
containers which are buried(.)" DU 'aint what you think it is. Why would you simply believe the government story on this stuff, which is what you are quoting, especially after what we've been through with this illegal war. DU is refurbished nuclear waste. It is made from the spent fuel rods of your beloved fission power plants. There isn't any DU in my garden, but there is in a growing number of people in places we keep "liberating", and they all seem to end up dying of cancer.

DU is not made from spent fuel rods.

Does anybody have a gieger counter?

Epigenetic uranium deposits with potential commercial value have been found in the lower part of the upper Eocene to lower Miocene Sespe Formation near Ojai, in Ventura County, California.^This report describes the geological and geochemical setting of these deposits and postulates a model for their origin.^Several uranium deposits are located on Superior Ridge, a topographic high about 3 miles long located just south of White Ledge Peak and 6 to 9 miles west of Ojai (Photo 1).^A single uranium deposit on Laguna Ridge is located about 3 miles south of Superior Ridge, and was included with the Superior Ridge deposits in the White Ledge Peak district.^A few small deposits are known to exist in other parts of Ventura County.^A preliminary model for uranium mineralization in the Sespe Formation postulated that the organic material necessary for concentrating the uranium by chemical reduction or precipitation originated as terrestrial humic acid or humate.

Published on Monday, November 12, 2007 by The Boston Globe:

18 Veterans Arrested in Antiwar Protest
by Tania deLuzuriaga and Charles M. Sennott

More than a dozen members of an antiwar veterans group were arrested yesterday as they protested the exclusion of their message from Boston’s Veterans Day parade. Members of Veterans for Peace lined up in front of a podium at City Hall Plaza holding antiwar placards, as color guards from Massachusetts military units and JROTC bands from across the state filed into Government Center for a ceremony, sponsored by the American Legion, to honor veterans after the parade.. Some protesters wore gags, which they later said symbolized the fact that, while they were permitted to march in the parade, they were prevented from carrying signs opposing the war in Iraq.
“We were exercising our First Amendment rights,” said Winston Warfield of Dorchester, a member of the group. “The First Amendment protects free speech, even when you don’t agree with what’s being said.”
When Boston police asked the demonstrators to move from the front of the podium so that the Veterans Day services could continue, they refused. As the Boston Firemen’s Band played The Marine Hymn, several protesters were placed in plastic handcuffs and led away.
“Our free speech and civil rights are being abridged here,” said Nate Goldschlag, a Vietnam-era veteran who was among those standing in front of the podium. “We are veterans, too, and we should be allowed to express our opposition to this war.”

Brian-

I just love it when you talk that way- "Epigenetic", "Eocene", "postulates", etc.
Gosh- you sound like such an educated, informed "scientist" worth listening to.

In the back of my mind however I keep thinking you should take a trip on that long river in East Africa where I am sure you will feel at home- "De Nile"

Just a hunch.

We love ya...

Brian was lifting, er, citing this from 1988:
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5294927

I didn't mean to side track this thread, sorry about that. The "lifted" paragraph was a suprize to me, I didn't know there was uranium around here !

I nominate spk and evan a. for president and vice-president and the Ojai anti-war party and chair and vice-chair of the Ojai Independence Day Parade committee.

hey, no worries about "side tracking" the thread, Brian...we know that's how these things evolve, and it's all good!

the "debate" over the benefits and risks of DU is almost beside the point for me. since i oppose bullets in general, i don't really care if they're made of petrified dinosaur crap...the point for me is that it's yet another weapon of mass destruction that we need to be doing without anyway.

if you try to tell me that using nuclear power will eliminate DU munitions by eliminating war, i'll have heard it all!

Please don't equate the fact that I am clarifing the real dangers of depleted uranuim to a notion that I'm in love with bullets or something.

All bullets, regardless of their composition, aerosolize to some extent when they are fired. This is not metal dust; it's metal vapor, and does not settle to the ground any more quickly than does the vapor that rises off of molten metal in a foundry.

In a study done in NYC several years ago, it was found that the lead vapor levels in the air in one NYPD indoor shooting range were far beyond what workers in the US lead industry are allowed to be exposed to, and this study resulted in the installation of air recirculating and filtering equipment in that and most other indoor law enforcement shooting ranges and many private ranges. (At some ranges, shooters are required to wear particulate masks, even though these only provide minimal protection.)

In a war zone, there's not only plenty of vaporized metal in the air, but some extremely noxious oxidized propellant components drifting around as well. In a classically ironic karmic balancing act, the bullet that takes the life of its intended target also claims a bit of the life of the shooter, regardless of that shooter's beliefs or motives.

I would be interested in knowing if absorbed DU concentrates visibly in the teeth as does lead -- people who suffer from lead poisoning display what is known as the "lead line" at the top of each tooth, where plaque & tooth moss might be expected to form in some individuals, and is often mistaken for poor oral hygiene, when it is, in fact, an indicator of heavy metal poisoning.

Interesting information phalarope. I was not aware of the lead content of the air at shooting ranges, though it all starts to make sense. As we no, lead is a seriously danger to IQ.

Brian, you are not "clarifying the dangers of DU", you are obfuscating the real dangers of this heinous weapon and parroting the Pentagon and NATO's official line. How many more times do these people have to lie to you before you stop swallowing whatever they say? I sometimes wonder if your receive checks from the nuclear power industry and now the Pentagon. You really should look into that. It could be lucrative--selling out the human race for a living. You know, Exxon Mobil pays $10,000 for "studies" that claim global warming isn't real. I'm not even sure you need a PhD.

so, elemental lead vaporizes to gas state when shot from gun....
yikes!! i think you just disproved 1st law of thermo.
mention in your nobel/noble acceptance!!!

Brian, i was really just saying that - for me - it matters not what the bullets are made of. it matters that they're made at all, and what they're used for. i'd like to see us eliminating the need for bullets (and then the bullets themselves) based not on what they're made of, but out of a sense of morality over their use. so while i genuinely applaud clarity and truth (and urge us to continue seeking it in regards to DU), in one sense the point is moot.

however, since you bring it up, you've proven many times over that you are, as you say, "in love with bullets"...provided they're being used elsewhere, and on brown people. please don't pretend to be shocked: your defense of war and the racism that fuels it is well-documented.

it's a bitch being righteous.

it's a bitch being righteous.

so, elemental lead vaporizes to gas state when shot from gun....
yikes!! i think you just disproved 1st law of thermo.
mention in your nobel/noble acceptance!!!

Are you trying to be worth arguing with?
You'll have to try harder.

From the Navy Environmental Health Center
Technical Manual NEHC–TM6290.99-10 Rev.1 (May 2002)
( http://www-nehc.med.navy.mil/downloads/ih/tm6290.99-10Rev1.pdf ):

2.4.2.1 During firing, hot gases from the propellant can vaporize lead in the bullet. Even with "full jacketed" bullets, lead may be vaporized if the base of the bullet is not jacketed. Rifling or misalignment of the barrel, cylinder, clips, or magazines may chip lead
from the bullet.

From the Center for Disease Control publication MMWR Weekly, June 17, 2005 / 54(23);577-579
"Lead Exposure from Indoor Firing Ranges Among Students on Shooting Teams --- Alaska, 2002--2004" (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5423a1.htm )

A simple Google search will turn up a lot of articles on lead vapor -- molecular lead -- as relates to the use of firearms.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=lead+vapor+shooting+firing+range&btnG=Search

phalarope,
plez wax your eye-brows and back...

I wish we could dialog without name calling !

haha, touche...sort of.

Spk, phalarope,
I would just like to congradulate you two on actually presenting a plusible argument and presenting facts to back that argument up! You all have come a long way in your evolution of debate. The lead vapor levels in shooting ranges is a strong argument for your point. Wheather or not DU when shot in the battle field poses a long term risk maybe another matter. But it merits further investigation. It could be that the lead is worse that the DU.

Here is an interesting uranium site:

http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Elements/092/

Spk, phalarope,
I would just like to congradulate you two on actually presenting a plusible argument and presenting facts to back that argument up!

Thanks, Brian. I still have a long way to go when it comes to remembering to sign my name, and to proof-read my comments before I hit "Post". The non-functioning link to the CDC publication in my last post (as Anonymous) should be http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5423a1.htm
Maybe that will work.

Occasionally, I have a comment held for review by Tyler or whoever is moderating the blog at the time, and that post was an example -- I submitted it yesterday, and it just appeared today. When I submitted it, I found myself at a page telling me that the comment had been held for review by the blog owner. I'm not sure what causes this. Posting anonymously and including links in the same post?

Brian -

That is an interesting website, but you're aware that it clearly spells out some of the environmental dangers and enduring collateral health risks inherent in the use of DU rounds, right? The author rightly claims that exposure to the DU is probably a lot less dangerous than merely being at war in the first place, but his comments on the toxicity of depleted uranium rounds are pretty clear that DU is a nasty gift that keeps on giving:

There's a lot of controversy about the use of depleted uranium munitions, because people are afraid of the environmental effects on the countries that have been shot up with them. If they stayed intact there really wouldn't be much to worry about. But they don't stay intact, they vaporize on impact, and this turns out to have a huge impact on their potential for harm.

The radiation from uranium is largely of a type that does not penetrate skin much past the outer layer of dead cells, and hence is not particularly harmful if it's outside of you. But if you inhale particles of such an alpha emitter, the radiation gets direct access to sensitive cells in the lungs and can do a great deal of damage. Outside the body, alpha emitters are the least hazardous form of radioactive materials, and hence DU rounds, intact, pose little danger to, for example, the people shooting them. But inside the body, they are the most dangerous.

Besides the radioactivity, uranium is also a toxic heavy metal, sort of like mercury. Would you want someone to dump hundreds of tons of mercury in the countryside around you? Probably not. The net effect of the chemical toxicity and radioactivity are such that powdered uranium in and around a battlefield has the potential to cause serious long term medical problems for anyone who comes in contact with it, on both sides of the conflict.

On the other hand, the number of people killed by uranium poisoning is probably significantly smaller than the number killed by whatever difficulty was causing their country to get shot up in the first place. It might be a more efficient use of ones efforts to worry about that than about the uranium dust that's left over. But like land mines, DU is a real problem that the people who clean up the mess of war have to deal with.

phalarope - three or more hyperlinks in a comment will hold up the comment for moderation. otherwise, comments go live immediately.

note to our readers/commenters - if you post a comment that gets held up for review or moderation, you might want to email me to keep an eye out for it. my contact info is on the Contact Us page (linked in the left column)

If you scroll down on that site the guy has all these forms of radioactive minerals and other related radioactive items. The "fiesta bowl" is an interesting oddity. It's very "hot".
You are right that he does mention possible hazards of DU. But I don't think he is an expert on the subject nessesarily.
The person at this link has spent a good part of her life in the field and is probably better informed. You will no doubt consider this propaganda though. Oh well, here it is anyway.

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/news/na_harley_03jan00.html

Here's an exerpt from a story from CBS online, that seems to have eluded scrutiny:

In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.

spaz,
plez join military... then you can blog from iraq!!!

I smell "James Hatch".

Bird Brain: your name is apt.