Bethesda Water Main Break

A few final words
I think the water company and emergency crews did a tremendous job responding to the River Rd Water Main break. The road was opened for traffic on Jan 1 after 80 feet of 66 inch pipe was replaced. The road will need to be repaved, so there will still be some disruptions at some point. It would still be nice to know why the pipe broke, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for a definitive answer.

There is a larger issue of Water Main infrastructure that needs to be addressed. I think everyone aggrees on the need to deal with the problem, but I’m not sure where the money will be coming from to fix it. I recommend people take a look at WSSC’s recent article on the number of Water Main breaks to get a sense of the scale of the problem.

The latest:
Traffic – will obviously not be moving down river road this evening or any time soon.
Schools – Let out early and are closed tomorrow for the holiday
Who is affected - still haven’t gotten a solid answer on this, but it looks like southern MC might still have lower water pressure. I haven’t hear from anyone in the rest of the county
Safety – There is not a boil advisory in effect, and both WSSC and MC are saying the water is safe to drink although it may be colored.
Sanitation – As long as you have water, toilets should still flush, even if they fill very slowly.
Heat – If you have a radiant heating system, you might want to check to see if you have a minimum water pressure requirement.
Laundry- If your water is discolored, wait a day or two so you don’t end up with brown under garments.

WSSC – Says that water should be restored to those who have lost it and they shut down the spill.

“LAUREL, MD (December 23, 2008 ): The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) is continuing to work to repair a 66–inch water main break in the Bethesda area near 8500 block of River Road. At 1:15 p.m., WSSC crews were able to shut down the main and begin restoring water pressure to the customers affected by the break. All customers in the area should have their service restored by 2 p.m.

The water is safe to drink. However, some of our customers may experience discolored water for the next 12 to 24 hours. Discolored water due to sedimentation poses no health hazard. It is free from harmful bacteria. You can drink the discolored water, but it may taste different. WSSC does not recommend that you used discolored water to prepare baby formula. Clothes laundering should be postponed until the discolored water condition clears up.

There is significant damage to River Road, closing the road in the area between Bradley Boulevard and Seven Locks Road. The road will remain closed for an extended period of time. WSSC strongly recommends that area residents take alternate routes to avoid the area. “ (http://www.wsscwater.com/info/releases/122308.cfm)

From Earlier Today:
I’ve been getting a lot of hits this mornng to the blog because of my coverage of the last water main break. This is what I know:

The water main break was a 66 inch pipe that broke open about 7:55 am. There were several cars trapped in the water stream, but everyone was removed from harms way safely. The break is on River rd. (yes river road – oh the irony) between sevel locks and bradly blvd in bethesda. There is currently no estimate on when the water will be shut off.

Obviously, a lot of areas are going to be affected by this break, I’ll post anything I can find out.

Channel 8 has been doing a pretty good job of coverage.

From the County:

Water is Safe
“Montgomery County’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) advises residents that water quality in the County has not been impacted by the water main break, even if residents are experiencing low water pressure. Hospitals have emergency water supply systems, so area hospitals are not currently affected. HHS has set up a hotline at 240-777-4200 to address any health issues resulting from the water main break.”

Schools Closing Early
“All Montgomery County Schools will close two-and-one-half hours early today. All daycare will remain open, except at schools with no water in the building. Daycare providers will contact parents directly if they are closed.”

More Available at:

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/apps/News/press/PR_details.asp?PrID=5142

Roger Berliner, county councilman from Bethesda is on channel 8 talking about the need for infrastructure funds. He sounds a little whiny. He seems to be blaming tax payers for not wanting to pay more to fix the infrastructure. Hmmm, How much are we paying for the intercounty connector? Maybe we should fix what we have before we build new infrastructure.

WSSC Update:

“The break occurred at approximately 7:55 a.m. this morning and affects approximately 100 customers in the area. Others may experience low pressure or a loss of service as WSSC crews work to shut down the broken main in order to conduct repairs. The main in question was put into service in 1964.” – http://www.wsscwater.com/info/releases/122308.cfm

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that more than 100 people were affected by the water main break. I was fairly critical of WSSC last time this happened. I am anxious to see if they do a bett

Great Pictures availabe at:

http://media.myfoxdc.com/photos/photo_gallery/riverrd_watermain_break_122308/album/index.html

Best news coverage available at:

http://www.news8.net/news/stories/1208/579934.html

A Poll, just for fun:

Political Update:
Roger Berliner, county councilman from Bethesda is on channel 8 talking about the need for infrastructure funds. He sounds a little whiny. He seems to be blaming tax payers for not wanting to pay more to fix the infrastructure. Hmmm, How much are we paying for the intercounty connector? Maybe we should fix what we have before we build new infrastructure.

Welcome back, Me

I have been engaged in other activities including a few other blogs and haven’t focused on this blog much over the last several months, but I do intend to start writing on this blog soon. I have made a decided effort to stay out of the election related political banter, which is one reason I didn’t have much to talk about this fall, but now that the election is over and everyone is getting back to their lives and real world issues are once again taking center stage, I am excited to start writing again.

More on the MC water outage

WSSC issued another update at 4pm on the 16th that included a boil advisory for the next three days. While the advisory recommends boiling water before brushing teeth, drinking etc…, the update does not mention anything about showering – which it seems to me would result in at least as much water exposure as teeth brushing. I tried calling the number that WSSC listed on their Web site to find out more information; however, I received a recording that repeated the information in the update and then referred me back to the Web site. Very helpful. 

Several individuals read my earlier post when searching on some variation of “is it ok to take a shower”. I did email WSSC and asked this question. I have not yet received a response. In cased anyone would like to email WSSC, their email address is: communications@wsscwater.com. WJLA indicated in their coverage that WSSC said it was save to bath and do laundry, just not drink the water.

You can also find the latest advisory at: http://www.wssc.dst.md.us/info/releases/061708A.cfm

A map of the area affected by the boild advisory is availabel at: http://www.wssc.dst.md.us/OutageFolder/Overview.html

One more quick correction from my earlier post, it turns out that this was a 48 inch water main that broke, not a 36 inch water main.

——————–Update on June 18th———————-

The first set of water contamination tests came back negative. They need one more set of negative tests to confirm the results and then the boil advisory should be lifted.

Also, the Washington Post ran an article (see below) today saying that the early warning system to alert everyone of the Water Main Breakage failed because the two guys that know how to operate it were on vacation.

—————Final Update June19———————

WSSC has lifted the boil water advisory after two tests for contamination came back negative. Of course, there are still a lot of questions about how the event was managed that I think need to be answered.

http://www.wssc.dst.md.us/info/releases/061808B.cfm

————News Coverage———————

From News Channel 7 (WJLA):  http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0608/528624.html

Washington Post Article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/18/AR2008061800410.html

 http://www.wssc.dst.md.us/info/releases/061808B.cfm

 

 

Water Main Break in Montgomery County

Large swaths of Montgomery Country in Maryland had the misfortune last night of experiencing a large water main break. Tens to hundreds of thousands of people were without water or had severely limited and possibly contaminated water supplies. That means there was no drinking water and more importantly, no water to flush toilets, shower or clean anything. Whether because of a water main break or a tornado or a terrorist attack, infrastructure problems like this are going to happen and they are going to range from inconvenient to tragic. In this case, I personally learned a lot about how people, businesses and government in my little corner of the world respond to crisis and it wasn’t pretty. This is a great test case, because it was a severe enough issue to encompass pretty much every person and business, but not so severe that loss of life is expected.

First, the water provider (Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission – http://www.wssc.dst.md.us/) did a terrible job of communicating with the public. Water service was disrupted last night at around or before 7pm. As of 10pm last night, there was no notification on the Web site of the disruption. I was able to find out by calling them and as in most neighborhoods, this led to a phone tree of sorts and I imagine that mostly through peer to peer notification, people found out what was going on. While the Web site was finally updated, the information was useless and at 7:30am this morning the Web site still said that they had not identified where the leak occurred, what they were doing about it, and what I should do with overflowing toilets. Finally, at 10:15am this morning, they finally posted an update with some information, but it was posted well after rush hour and it had several errors. First, it says that the disruption occurred several hours after it actually occurred. Second, it claimed we had a “water man break”. I don’t usually criticize spelling, but when you have 15 hours to issue a release, I’d think you would have time to proof read it. Finally, the information released is not the same as I am hearing on the radio sourcing WSSC which is telling me that it will be 3 days before water services are fully restored to all neighborhoods. The release implies that everything will be better by tonight – let’s hope they are correct. I give them a D- for communications. It wasn’t timely, is barely helpful, and does not fill me with confidence that they are on top of the situation. That’s government for you.

What about the good citizens of Montgomery County? They exhibited all of the characteristics that you would expect. I think people did a good job of reaching to out to one another and sharing information. They also panicked this morning when there was no water service and rushed out to buy every drop of water for sale. Shoppers Food Warehouse in Onley had lines 50 to 100 carts deep and carts were stacked with as many cases of water as people could fit into them. It was classic hoarding. People were certainly more rude than normal and there is no doubt it had the potential to turn ugly quickly; however, for the most part, it was a pretty orderly if not slightly unkempt mob.

The local stores really let me down. In a time of crisis, if you can’t count on local business to instill some sense of order, then the battle is lost before it’s begun. Shoppers to it’s credit was open and selling water. However, when asked about rationing, the manager said she couldn’t stop people from buying as much water as they wanted. There were several things that she could have done, but she didn’t seem to be trying. I also wonder why the police weren’t a visible presence at every grocery store, knowing that they would be descended on by a thirsty mob this morning. My guess is that, it didn’t occur to anyone at county executive’s office or in the police force.

I was really disappointed in Giant, a formerly locally owned franchise and now a subsidiary of Ahold Inc., and the other large local chain grocery story, Safeway. Despite having water on their shelves, they closed their doors to customers because they did not have any water service. This is unacceptable. I can only hope shoppers will remember this treatment and punish both franchises for turning their backs on the communities that they serve.

In summary, when a disruption like this is accompanied by an actual emergency, I suspect exactly the same only much worse. Communication with the public by utilities and public agencies will be slow and of poor quality. People will panic and hoard supplies and local businesses will let us all down by focusing on their needs instead of the needs of their customers and communities.

Where does that leave us? I suggest buying a plastic tarp and some duck tape.

 

———————–Update on June 17————————-

A couple of helpful resources for folks:

There is a map of the areas under the boil advisory at: http://www.wssc.dst.md.us/OutageFolder/Overview.html

The latest update is available at wssc at: http://www.wssc.dst.md.us/info/releases/061708A.cfm

New Math: Coal + Light Bulbs = Autism? (2 of 2)

Part 2 of a 2 part series

In my previous post I outlined my concern that Mercury contained in Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs) will find its way into the environment. I equated the magnitude of Mercury contamination due to CFLs to Mercury released from coal plants in the United States. I think it is important to put that concern in context by noting a recent study that suggests increasing levels of mercury in the environment is correlated to increasing rates of Autism.

A recently published study conducted by faculty at the University of Texas suggested autism rates increase proportionally with proximity to coal plants. A summary of the findings can be found on Science Daily (Link below) . I have not read the full methodology yet, but the abstract available through Pub Med and the Science Daily article were enough to make me believe, until further scrutiny proves otherwise, that the study, while methodologically flawed in some ways, is probably onto something.  We know that burning coal for energy releases small amounts of Mercury vapor into the atmosphere and evidence suggests that the concentration of Mercury increases as one moves towards the emission source.

As I read the study, the authors did not look at whether Mercury emissions were a factor in the increased rates of Autism, only at Autism rates in relation to the distance from a coal plant. The authors seem to assume there is a correlation. Hopefully, this will be addressed in a future study. However, given the well-document affect that Mercury has on prenatal and pediatric development, I think their conclusion has some merit – although I would call it suggestive not definitive.

Given the Government of Maine study mentioned in the first posting on this topic, the University of Texas study mentioned above, and the putative connection between Mercury exposure and Autism, it gives me pause how seemingly blithe the introduction of a ubiquitous product like the CFL has been. It appears that environmental groups, consumer protection groups, the government, and the media are so eager for a technological/product success that reduces energy consumption without requiring a reduction in quality or an increase in cost, that they are willing to turn a blind eye to what seems like solvable issue and a preventable problem.

Helen Suh MacIntosh, an Associate Professor at Harvard’s school of public health has written on Tree Hugger that CFL’s do not pose a danger to people in the immediate vicinity of a CFL breakage, although she does address the long term impact of improper CFL disposal. I tend to be more conservative. I included the link to Helen’s Tree Hugger response below. She may very well be correct. None-the-less, I think that there are some things that can be done to reduce the dangers of mercury exposure in the home as well as reduce the amount of Mercury released through discarded CFLs into the environment.

First, manage your exposure by:

• Using the smallest CFLs you can get away with to reduce the amount of Mercury in your home
• Locating a recycling center that takes CFLs instead of throwing them in the trash
• Using old-fashioned incandescent lights or LEDs in bedrooms with small children
• Avoiding contact with CFLs if you are pregnant

• Sending letters of thanks to Home Depot, Ikea and other retailers that do recycle for their leadership

Second, ask local retailers to:

• collect CFLs for recycling or
• advertise the locations of the nearest CFL recycling centers

Third, ask CFL manufacturers to:

• provide clear instructions for cleaning up broken bulbs
• collect CFLs for recycling if they don’t already

Finally, ask the government and regulatory agencies to

• fund studies extending the Texas study that correlates proximity to coal plants with risk of Autism
• ensure that consumers can recycle CFLs easily at no cost
• decrease mercury emmissions from coal plants as soon as possible (we have the technology, let’s stop arguing over who should pay for it)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/0/080424120953.htm

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/ask_treehugger_14.php#comments

New Math: Coal + Light bulbs = Autism ?

Part One of a Two part series…

I recently finished changing every light bulb in my house to the new energy efficient and good for the environment CFL (compact flourescent light). You’ve probably seen them; they usually come in pretty green packaging to reinforce their pro-earth value and look a little like something M.C. Escher would have invented had it been he, rather Thomas Edison, who ushered in the age of illumination.

After installing about 50 CFL bulbs and making a list of what I am going to buy with my tens of dollars in energy savings, I finally read the paper that comes inside the package and learned that the CFLs contain Mercury. Ok, my fault, I probably should have read the instructions that came with the light bulb before installing them, but come on, it’s a light bulb. I didn’t read the instructions that came with my toothbrush, my socks, or the last pack of gum I bought at 7-11.  

Mercury is bad. It’s not a little bit bad, it’s a lot bad. Exposure to mercury causes all sorts of problems from physical birth defects to developmental disorders including very possibly autism. You don’t want to breathe it or touch it and if you have kids or a pregnant spouse, the stuff should basically scare the $*!# out of you.

When CFLs break – I have two dogs – light bulbs will break, they release their 4-5mg of mercury, which either stays in carpet or vaporizes. What does the EPA say about cleaning up a broken CFL:

• Have people and pets leave the room, and don’t let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out.
• Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.
• If clothing or bedding materials come in direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from inside the bulb that may stick to the fabric, the clothing or bedding should be thrown away.

The government of Maine did a study and found:

• Mercury concentration in the study room air often exceeds the Maine Ambient Air Guideline (MAAG) of 300 nanograms per cubic meter (ng/m3) for some period of time, with short excursions over 25,000 ng/m3, sometimes over 50,000 ng/m3, and possibly over 100,000 ng/m3 from the breakage of a single compact fluorescent lamp.
• Mercury readings at the one foot height tend to be greater than at the five foot height in non vacuumed situations.[They recommend not vaccuuming]

Some of the steps the state of Maine recommends you take to deal with a broken CFL?

• Putting the broken bulb parts in a galss jar with a rubber seal – apparently zip lock bags leak Mercury like a sieve.
• Removing any carpet under the area where the bulb broke.
• Putting a drop cloth on the floor whenever changing a light bulb.

Wow, CFLs are like magic beans. They can turn my daughter’s bedroom into a superfund site before you can say “Congress did what?”

Funny you should ask, Congress banned the incandescent light bulb – a.k.a.. the normal light bulb – by phasing it out until it is illegal to sell them by 2014.

Let me summarize up to this point. If I break a light bulb, I may need to throw away my shirt, cut out my carpet and buy a hermetically sealable glass jar. Congress decided that absent a better option coming to market by 2014, I will either have to live with these minor inconveniences or learn to read by candlelight.

What if I just want to throw away a light bulb (or 50)? What then? Well apparently, they have to be taken to special recycling centers. No, you can’t put them in the little blue bins that contain glass and plastic and get picked up once a week at your curb. You will need to find a recycling center. If you are lucky, you live near an IKEA or Home Depot since those establishments apparently accept CFLs for recycling; otherwise, you may need to do a lot of driving to recycle these energy saving light bulbs when they burn out.

My guess is that most people won’t bother recycling and will just throw them in the trash. It’s only a little bit of Mercury and people are basically lazy. Let’s do a quick comparison. Every one agrees that coal plants are bad because they release about 45 tons of Mercury into the atmosphere every year. If an average house has 50 lights, that means that about 40,000 homes with CFLs will house about 1 metric ton of mercury. Let’s say we only throw away 10 lights per year and we recycle half of those. That means about 800,000 homes will dump about 1 ton of mercury into land fills every year. There are about 40,000,000 homes in the United States. Once we all make the switch to CFLs, that’s about 50 tons of mercury every year dumped into landfills where it can leach into groundwater, vaporize into the air, or contaminate future building sites once the landfill is capped off.

Part II coming on Monday June 2nd

Resource Links:

http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/index.htm
http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/homeowner/cflreport.htm
http://www.thedailygreen.com/going-green/tips/recycle-cfls-460128
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59298
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf

Hepatitis Awarenss day

Yesterday was hepatitis awareness day and I wanted to take a moment to do my part to make everyone aware…

Hepatitis is a category of diseases that cause liver inflamation and if not effectively treated can  lead to cirrhosis and death. Over 2 Billion people around the world have been exposed to one or more of the viruses that cause hepatits and roughly 1 in 12 people have an active Hepatitis infection. Next time you’re in a meeting, look around – chances are someone in the room has or has had a viral hepatitis infection and is probably not aware of it. Roughly 1.5 million people every year die from hepatitis related liver failure.

Hepatitis B is VERY infectious. I used to do HIV vaccine research which required that I work with blood containing high volumes of the HIV virus. I was always far more worried about contracting Hepatitis B than HIV from the blook I worked with because it is so much more virulant. You can get it from sharing straws, public restrooms (yuck) and even tears of infected indivuals can contain the virus. You can also get it through blood transfusions and sex of any kind. Since most people don’t know they are infected with hepatitis you shouldn’t count on them to protect you.

One of the reasons I am writing this is becaue my wife’s grandmother was infected with Hepatitis B from a blood donor during an elective surgical procedure. This was many years ago before we tested the blood supply for the virus. She eventually succombed to the virus cutting her life far shorter than it would have been.

The CDC now recommends that infants be given the Hepatitis B vaccine, but many adults have never received it. I highly recommend it. It is an effective, inexpensive way to protect yourself and those around you. You could be lucky enough to contract the virus and not suffer liver damage, but others whom you expose to the virus may not be so lucky. There is also a vaccine for Hepatitis A, which is an acute form of the disease. I would highly recommend this for adults. While you are less likely to die from Hepatits A, it may save you from one of the most miserable experiences of your life. Most people get Hep A from fecal contaminated food products or infected shellfish.

Quick Summary:

1. Get vaccinated, tell others
2. If your wife wants to watch a tear-jerker instead of Iron Man next time you go to the movies, tell her you can’t because you’re afraid of contracting hepatitis.
3. Wash your hands (seriously, I shake a lot of hands and it really grosses me out knowing 42% percent of men and 25% of women don’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom) 

Is Knut Kpoot

Arctic seals may be the only creatures under the sun that are truly happy with Wednesday’s announcement placing the polar bear officially on the U.S. threatened species list. Canadian Inuits are unhappy because they sell their polar bear kill quotas to foreign hunters and “There’s more Americans who want to shoot polar bears than any other nationality,” Environmentalists and Animal rights activists are unhappy because the ruling didn’t go far enough: “the government has its eye firmly on the gas pump, and is far more concerned about the interests of big business. “ In particular because no critical habitat designation was made and because Dirk Kempthore, Secretary of the Interior said:

“[listing the polar bear as a threatened species] should not open the door to use of the Endangered Species Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources….That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the ESA law. The ESA is not the right tool to set U.S. climate policy.”

I think there is no doubt that a sizable portion of the anti-global warming community would like to leverage the Endangered Species Act as a legal wedge to force changes in global climate policy through court-mandated reductions in green house gas emissions.

On the other side of the issue, many skeptics note that we are potentially damaging the economies of Alaska, Canadian Inuits, and even the contiguous United States by placing an animal on the engagered species list when not only is not in decline, but the population has grown steadily over the past 30 years. Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner released a statement after the EPA announced the ruling and noted that “By any measure this species is thriving. It certainly doesn’t need further protection from the United States government.”

Where do I stand? The contrarian in me is inclined to be believe that if nobody likes the policy and everyone is compaining equally, then it’s probably about right. To be clear, I am not an expert on these matters and I am relying on what was said during the press conference when the designation was announced and the consensus facts presented by other bloggers. The net effect seems to be that a few American hunters won’t be allowed to pay 30k for the privilage of a new polar bear rug to put next to their fireplace. Other than that, oil will continue to flow from Alaska, ice will continue to melt, and polar bears may or may not start to decline in number over the next decade.

Let me tell you why I think this was a good ruling.

1) Any admission by a Republican administration that Global Warming is occuring and is having a measurable effect on the world in which we live is a step in the right direction.

2) The administration is correct, the Endangered Species Act is a terrible vehicle to use to set national and international climate policy including greenhouse gas emissions policy.

3) Advocates of updating our climage-change policies now have a face and a mascott around which to rally.

The reality is that regardless of the Polar Bear’s plight or even global warming, we need to change our energy policy in this country and that change will be disruptive, expensive, and painful for a lot of people. It should be done through an elective process where policy makers and policy can be judged by the people. Advocates for change now have a very persuasive mascott, and policy makers now have a face to show their constituents as they ask them to bear the burden of a new more sustainable and secure energy policy. That’s probably not going to help our friends the Polar Bears, but if you are an arctic seal, you have to think everything is working out just fine.

There are a ton of good blogs and articles out there covering this; I listed a few below that in combination present the two sides pretty well.

http://blog.heritage.org/2008/05/08/problems-with-the-polar-bearglobal-warming-link/

http://www.dailymantra.com/2008/05/a_hollow_victory_for_the_polar_1.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121089170579096819.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1056196.html

An FSA for Charitable Donations?

The Myanmar typhoon has me thinking about charitable giving and the difficulty inherent in a dynamic economy to both budget for and manage philanthropic activities. The increase in gas and food prices along with the uncertainty created by the ongoing economic malaise has stretched many American budgets to the breaking point. Because media exposure to a crisis is concentrated around the time of the crisis, the ability of most small donors is limited to their monthly disposable income, which in many cases may be negative. While there is a tax-incentive for donating to exempt organizations and causes, the incentive is weakened because it is delivered based on the federal accounting cycle rather than at the time of the donation.

 

I think what we need is a new set of tools that facilitate better control over budgeting and planning for philanthropic events. I think something similar to the Flexible Spending Accounts that many Americans currently use to put money aside pre-tax for health care and dependent care costs is the right model. The problem now is that while donations are tax deductible, I have to wait as much as a year to ever see that tax advantage. Also, I have no incentive to budget ahead of time for my philanthropic ventures. The current system is much too ad-hoc.

 

If I had an FSA for charitable donations, I could set aside money for charity at the beginning of every year with proportionate amounts deducted from every paycheck. This way, I  realize the tax savings immediately. The other advantage is that I could  hold a percentage of my donations in reserve thorouhout the year in case something like a tsunami or typhoon event occurs; then I would have a much larger reserve from which to give. If an entire year passes without a catastrophic event, I could just disperse a little bit more money to each of the organizations that I would normally support.

 

From a business perspective, if it was run like a health or dependent care FSA, employers would have a much better idea how much if not to whom their employees donate. That’s certainly good from a CSR public relations point of view.

Al jazeera in Myanmar

I was looking for on-the-ground video of the Myanmar Typhoon affected area, so I naturally turned to You-Tube. It looks like the best footage is coming from Al jazeera (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXAF8AjgiWM), which I find interesting – not surprising mind you as Al jazeera is far and away the most popular media outlet in the “muslim world”.

 

They are a complex phenomenon and I am having a tough time deciding whether I applaud or cringe at their success. They are obviously spending a lot of time and money trying to create a legitimate global media brand, but they are also clearly a tool for the dissemination of hateful anti-global and anti-western rhetoric, especially within the middle-east. I’d like to believe that over the long term, their impact will be decidedly positive – after all, a free press is really at the core of a democratic society.

 

What is clear is that they have a distinct editorial advantage in some parts of the world and on some subjects. That kind of leverage is going to keep them around for quite a while.

 

Some interesting background reading…

 

FP, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3497 

M. Malkin http://michellemalkin.com/2007/10/25/jihadists-turn-on-al-jazeera/

AIM http://www.aim.org/press-release/aims-charges-of-anti-american-bias-at-al-jazeera-are-vindicated/