September 11th radio communications, revisited

We’ve not adequate addressed the questions – the lessons learned, or, more to the point, the lessons not learned, about communications from the 9/11 attacks. For the moment, we’d like to return to the issue of the non-functioning handheld Motorola radios used by FDNY members that day.

They didn’t work – in a number of ways, which we’ll demonstrate in a series of posts, this being the first. Please don’t assume it as proven; we’re confident that the record amply demonstrates that, and we’ll be providing excerpts and links from the record as we proceed.

From Radio Silence: FDNY, by FDNY Battalion Chief John Joyce and Bill Bowen:

There is another point that does not go unnoticed by the firefighters, officers and chiefs of the FDNY in watching that footage. ((Footage taken at or near Ground Zero on the morning of September 11th, 2001.)) At one point, after both planes had struck the World Trade Center you can see Commissioner Von Essen in the lobby of the building. As the Fire Commissioner, he had no command position at a fire scene, and was merely observing what was happening. Those he commands are all over the huge lobby making ready to go up into the towers. A person approaches Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen and says to him, “Tommy, there are reports another plane is on the way.”

Commissioner Von Essen can then be seen heading out of the building almost right away and in the remaining footage it is clear Von Essen made his exit. perhaps to the firefighters who already dislike Von Essen this is more significant than to the public. The firefighters, who were no doubt frightened and not sure what was happening made their way up into those towers to save lives and help people. Thomas Von Essen made his way out of the building after hearing a new warning, which the firefighters never heard.

Perhaps unfairly, to those firefighters who saw that footage and virtually all New York firefighters did see that footage, it was just one more item about Von Essen that lowered their opinion of the man.

Radio Silence FDNY (Page 142)

NB: From Motorola.com “The XTS®3500 portable radio is no longer manufactured, however accessories and replacement parts may be available.” From the page XTS® 3500 Digital Portable Radio – Motorola USA. ((Page accessed 3 September, 2009).

BBC: two U.N. peacekeepers kidnapped in Darfur

Two peacekeepers seized in Sudan, according to the BBC.

Two members of the joint UN/African Union (UnAMID) peacekeeping force have been kidnapped in Sudan’s western Darfur region, officials say.

A Unamid spokesman said the pair – a man and a woman – were abducted in the western town of Zalingei.

The victim’s nationalities have not been made public.

* * * *

Spokesman Noureddin Mezni said armed men attacked the Unamid staff residence in Zalingei at 0430 (0130 GMT) and abducted the pair, whom he described as civilians.

Mr Mezni said the abductions were the first of UNAMID members, although there have been a series of kidnappings of aid workers in the region.

He said contact had been made with the captors, but did not give any further details.

Abducting United Nations workers from an official U.N. residence would seem to be a fairly clear challenge to U.N. competence and authority in the region, unless we’re badly misinterpreting the situation.

In such matters, we’d prefer to be wrong.

Questions on Sustainability and Human Ecology, Part 1

Earth, curtesy of NASA

Earth, curtesy of NASA

Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities begins, “It was the best of time, it was the worst of times.”  Dickens wrote about life in Paris and London at the time of the French Revolution. Looking at the modern world, I get the sense that the phrase still applies. I feel like John Muir at Yosemite, in awe of the beauty of the natural world, and simultaneously, like Henry David Thoreau fighting a terrible injustice on the underground railroad. Or like Al Gore working on energy policy at “We Can Solve It . Org ”, saying “We can move to 100% clean energy in 10 years, Bill McKibben at “350.org” saying if we don’t move to a sustainable energy model the climate will keep changing for the worse, Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society patrolling the seas to stop illegal whaling, Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, exploring and documenting the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” and many others in the sustainability community, frustrated and angered by much of what we see, and yet optimistic and hopeful.

Our economy and our civilization are based on burning large amounts of coal, oil, and natural gas. Doing so converts these gases, rocks, and tar that had been underground into components of the atmosphere: carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, and disperses various other items, including mercury, arsenic, and radionucleotides into the biosphere.

The volume we are talking about is huge. Enough such that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere went from 280 ppm before the industrial revolution to 385 ppm today, an increase of about 37.5%. This is so dramatic that we must ask questions about the ramifications of this on the weather and the climate. We must understand the geological ramifications of pulling 75 million barrels of oil per day out of the ground, and the meteorological implications of burning, and putting into the atmosphere 43.5 million barrels of oil, and tons and tons of coal and natural gas each day. We must also understand the ecological ramifications of dispersing 31.5 million barrels of oil per day into the biosphere as herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, and plastics.

We must also consider that these are finite resources. We will some day, sooner or later, run out of coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium. The Bruntlandt Commission’s classic definition of sustainability, quoted by the EPA, is “Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Saying “it’s ok, my kids will deal with it, will clean up the mess,” is not sustainable. Neither is it honorable.

Fossil fuels and nuclear power are not sustainable because they use fuels that are in finite supply and create vast amounts of waste that must be managed.  Wind, solar, and geothermal systems, on the other hand, are sustainable because there are no fuels to burn, and no waste to manage. Wind, solar and geothermal energy systems harness naturally occurring processes. The sun shines, the winds blow, the core of the earth is hot, regardless of whether we put solar panels or wind turbines or geothermal systems in place to capture and transform some of the energy.

Burning rocks and tar sounds like a bad idea – and it is.

Harnessing natural processes, on the other hand, may be “out of the box,” but it’s also elegant, honorable, and sustainable over the long term.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Ted Kennedy, curtesy OurCommonConcern.com

Ted Kennedy, curtesy OurCommonConcern.com

“His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives: in seniors who know new dignity; in families who know new opportunity; in children who know education’s promise; and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just, including myself.”

– Barack Obama

A United States Senator since 1962, Ted Kennedy lived by the words of his brothers.

At his inauguration, Friday, Jan. 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy said, “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

While campaigning for President in 1968, his brother Senator Robert F. Kennedy, said “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why… I dream of things that never were and ask why not.”

America should not reform its health care system because Ted Kennedy would have wanted it. America should reform its health care system because it’s broken. Senator Kennedy knew this and knew how to fix it. In his own words, “We are all part of the American family and we have a responsibility to help members of that family when they are in need.” He also said, “It is better to send in the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps.

One question remains: If Kennedy was opposed to Cape Wind, why? Is the answer here?

No Honor Among Profiteers

Nathan Vardi , writing on Forbes.com (and in the print edition dated August 3, 2009) ((NB: the print and on-line versions are not identical)), provides some detail on the current state of military outsourcing, and how, apparently, the relationship between two long-term friends and business partners fell apart when one shut the other out of a multi-million dollar payday.

Fire Fight/The Business of War recounts the formation of investment firm Veritas by Robert McKeon and Thomas Campbell.

In the early 1990’s, McKeon started Veritas Capital; Campbell joined him sometime thereafter.

By 1996, when they had raised $175 million for Veritas’ first private equity fund, McKeon and Campbell had taken an interest in military suppliers. To run their fund they formed a management company, with McKeon holding 62.5% and Campbell 37.5%. After some profitable defense deals they raised another $153 million fund in 2002 and split the general partnership the same way; their biggest backer was Credit Suisse ( CS – news – people ). For help navigating the defense bureaucracy, Veritas created an advisory board that included retired generals such as Barry R. McCaffrey and Anthony C. Zinni.

Vardi, in describing a 19-year relationship between McKeon and Campbell during which they vacationed together, traveled together, and had a weekly dinner – with no guests – at Harry Cipriani ((New Yorkers, and visitors, of certain social classes will recognize this as the name of a very expensive, high-status restaurant. )) Vardi reports that

They golfed together, went skeet and trap shooting, traveled together for meetings and once shared a hotel room in Mexico. [Emphasis supplied]

That this is worthy of note is in and of itself interesting. First, McKeon and Campbell were, at least some of the time, traveling on other people’s money, which they were entrusted with for investment purposes. Second, it says something about the expectations of CEOs and investment bankers that this would be regarded as a sacrifice. (Lincoln sometimes shared a bed while traveling, even after he was elected president). Third – and more damning – these men and their investors were making millions of dollars providing support services to troops who often didn’t get to sleep in a bed – much less a private hotel room.
Continue reading →

What's happening at The Pump Handle

Liz Borkowski : Occupational Health News Roundup at, of course, The Pump Handle

NB: The name is a reference to John Snow and the Broad Street pump handle, not as some have surmised, “the pump [which] don’t work ’cause the vandals stole the handle,” in the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues.

Nanotube SNURs: Nano step forward, nano step back

“Yes Sir, she got her safety training” Mark Catlin (SEIU and APHA OHS Section) finds another amazing collection of historical films with worker safety themes.

FDA to Finally Reconsider Safety of BPA (Liz Borkowski) 

Celeste Monforton on Learning OHS from Sir Thomas Legge, a review of

the collection assembled by John W. Ward and Christian Warren entitled “Silent Victories : The History and Practice of Public Health in 20th Century America”  (Oxford, 2007.)  Our colleagues Tony Robbins and Phil Landrigan wrote a chapter on occupational disease and injury prevention, and in it, introduce me to Sir Thomas Legge.

He was the UK’s first medical Inspector of Factories (appointed in 1897) and he capitalized on his title and training to expose occupational hazards, propose interventions and demonstrate their effectiveness at reducing harm.  Robbins and Landrigan offer one little gem from Legge that is too good to keep to myself.  Legge proposed several axioms to reduce workers’ risk of lead poisoning, but with just a little tweaking, they seem quite appropriate for other workplace hazards:

Read Monforton’s complete piece at Learning OHS from Sir Thomas Legge.

Paul Bedard/U.S. News: Ridge book makes additional assertions

Former DHS head Tom Ridge’s new book has made headlines with the assertion that h was pressured to raise the national threat level prior to the 2004 elections.

His credibility on this point can be questioned since the matter has come up before, to which he’s responded “We don’t do politics” at the Department of Homeland Security. The standard question on cross-examination, as any third-year law student should be able to tell you, would be: Were you lyingthen, or are you lyingnow?

Either way, not a favorable impression of Secretary Ridge’s credibility. Let’s then put aside the question of the 2004 pre-election threat levels.

Paul Bedard at U.S. New & World Report reports that the book also contains the following assertions:

  1. Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings;
  2. was “blindsided” by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him
  3. found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored

Mr. Bedard is the author/editor of a feature at USN&WR called Washington Whispers, which we’ll be adding to our RSS feeds.

Assume what one wants about the 2004 elections and the threat levels. Bedard has spotted more troubling issues – (1) and (2) supra suggest that creating the Departmen of Homeland Security may have been a meaningless gesture, and that protestations of interagency cooperation were disingenuous; (3) suggests that someone may actually have spotted the problems with employing someone as FEMA head without any qualifications other than English fluency.

makes assertions

DataSF – DataSF – Liberating City Data

Once again, San Francisco innovates, by making municipal data available online in what appears to be a more comprehensive effort than done elsewhere.The project is called DataSF

.

DataSF is a clearinghouse of datasets available from the City & County of San Francisco. While there is plenty of room for improvement, our goal in releasing this site is:

(1) improve access to data

(2) help our community create innovative apps

(3) understand what datasets you’d like to see

(4) get feedback on the quality of our datasets

DataSF: Liberating City Data.

Via Matt Mullenweg

.

Health Care: Medicare or Insurance Care

Here’s the choice, as I see it:  The “Public Option”

versus The Status Quo.

Medicare for All versus Health Insurance for Most – affordable to the healthy and employed, but rationed to five (5) out of six (6) Americans. As Will Rodgers might have said, “Five out of six ain’t bad; Unless you’re number 6, and excepting that the five get exposed to whatever it is that number 6 has got.“

Health Care for all, versus Rationed Private Insurance Care that doesn’t cover 47 Million Americans that are over 18 and under 65, who’s taxes pay for Medicare for their parents and grandparents, their children covered by SCHIP, and for procedures given to charity care patients in hospitals.

In other words, “Health care By the People, Of the People and For the People,”

versus “Health care run By the Bean Counters Of the Insurance Companies For the Stockholders!”

Magna Carta on Display in NYC, Fraunces Tavern, Sept. 15 to Dec. 15, 2009

Image of the Magna Carta

Image of the Magna Carta

The year is 1215. A group of English Barons called King John to the fields of Runnymede to set his seal to the Magna Carta, to relinquish claims to what was called the “Divine Right of Kings,” to agree that:

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled – nor will we proceed with force against him – except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.

One of the four remaining copies will be on display at the Fraunces Tavern Museum

, 54 Pearl Street, New York City, from September 15 to December 15, 2009.  Telephone 212-425-1776, ext. 18, and 212-425-1778. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children, aged 6 to 18, and senior citizens. Admission is free for children 5 and under.

Tadataka Yamada, M.D. “Poverty, Wealth, and Access to Pandemic Influenza Vaccines” in N.E.J.M.

From Dr.  Tadataka Yamada’s  “Poverty, Wealth, and Access to Pandemic Influenza Vaccines”

in N.E.J.M (link is to free full-text article):

On June 11, 2009, Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), declared that the status of the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic had reached phase 6 — active transmission on a global scale. Until now, the case fatality rate of this influenza has been quite low, but history teaches us that the situation could take a turn for the worse during the next wave of the pandemic. If a 1918-like pandemic were to occur today, tens of millions of people could die, the vast majority of them in the world’s poorest countries.

Fortunately, the prospects for developing an effective vaccine to prevent infection with the current H1N1 virus are excellent, and the world’s pharmaceutical companies are working diligently at this task. In contemplating equal access to such a vaccine, it is important to consider three key issues: manufacturing capacity, cost, and delivery.

Only a few countries in the world have plants for manufacturing influenza vaccine, and three companies — GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, and Novartis — account for most of the world’s manufacturing capacity. The number of doses of vaccine against H1N1 influenza that could be produced with the existing capacity is very large, but the sobering truth is that even if production were switched over completely from seasonal influenza vaccine to pandemic influenza vaccine, there would not be nearly enough for everyone in the world. The size of the gap in potential supply depends greatly on the dose that is required, and it may be possible to reduce the necessary dose by as much as 75% with the use of an adjuvant. The challenging problem is that much, if not most, of the manufacturing capacity is already spoken for through purchasing contracts held by many of the world’s wealthy countries. Continue reading →

Open Fire Academy fall classes

CERTIFICATION COURSES
We will begin opening registration for the October 2009 Classes. However, to help our sponsor maintain appropriate documentation, we must require all students to complete the Haywood Community college application. Before we can accept payment or send out enrollment keys, we must have this form. It can be sent by email to admin@openfireacademy.org or fax it to 715.479.2852. fire at night

Understand that registration is on a first come- first served basis. So act quickly.

The courses we are offering in October:
Fire Officer I10/26/200912/20/2009$60.00
Fire Officer II10/5/200911/29/2009$60.00
Fire Officer III 10/12/200912/6/2009$60.00
Fire Officer IV10/19/200912/13/2009$60.00

Fire Instructor I 10/5/200911/29/2009$60.00
Fire Instructor II 9/7/200911/1/2009$60.00
Fire Instructor III 10/5/200911/29/2009$60.00

Incident Safety Officer10/5/2009 11/29/2009$60.00

Fire and Life Safety Educator I 10/12/2009 21/6/2009 $60.00

Fire and Life Safety Educator I 10/19/2009 12/13/2009$60.00

Introduction to Visual Mind 11/2/2009 11/27/2009$50.00

Introduction to Wildland Behavior 11/2/2009 11/27/2009 $60.00

The link to download the proper registration form is:
http://openfireacademy.com/course/modedit.php?update=1723&return=0

REMEMBER: These are set up on first come/first serve, so you want to get into the class, get us the registration for ASAP as the class will fill up quickly.

TRAINING SESSIONS
We have seen many of you sign up for the openfireacademy.org email service. We hope you have found it to be helpful. But wouldn’t you like to take it further? In addition to an email and chat system, there is a calendar, word processor, spreadsheets, presentations (similar to your PowerPoint,) and much much more! The key with these is that everything is run from the web… no need to store on your computer and they are accessible from any computer with an internet connection or a smart phone with web access. We will be delivering an orientation training on how to use the apps package to get you going on using it to the fullest.

The course is free and registration is simple. There is a link on the main page called “OFA Apps Orientation”. Sign up there and you are ready to go. There are no tuition costs to take the course.

If your department would like to utilize OFA Apps in your department, you are welcome to use the OFA Apps for free. However, some have said they would like a departmental version for more security. If this is something you would like, contact admin@openfireacademy.org and we will get you started.

Violence against ER nurses

Liz Borkowski

at The  Pump Handle posts on evidence of violence against ER nurses:

n a national survey by the Emergency Nurses Association, more than half of emergency-department nurses reported that they’ve been physically assaulted on the job. For many nurses, being assaulted is a recurring problem: Approximately one-fourth of the 3,465 respondents reported experiencing physical violence more than 20 times in the past three years. While all hospital staff are at risk of both physical assault and verbal abuse, the problem is particularly severe in EDs, and against ED nurses in particular.

Violence Against ER Nurses