The Silent Spring Where Money Talks: The Carson-Gore High School

What the heck is going on in the Los Angeles Unified School District? First we had the over-priced Robert F Kennedy Community Schools. Now, word comes that a charter school dedicated to "environmental sciences" - i.e. Green advocacy - and named for Rachel Carson and Al Gore is built on a toxic waste dump. No, this is not a joke:

The $75.5-million Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Sciences will open Sept. 13 for about 675 students. As he was with Bill Clinton (who has an L.A. middle school named after him), Gore is second on the ticket to Rachel Carson, the late author credited with helping launch the modern environmental movement.

"Renaming this terribly contaminated school after famous environmental advocates is an affront to the great work that these individuals have done to protect the public's health from harm," an environmental coalition wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Unified School District. Making sure the school is safe "would be an even better way to honor their contribution to society."

Construction crews were working at the campus up to the Labor Day weekend, replacing toxic soil with clean fill. All told, workers removed dirt from two 3,800-square-foot plots to a depth of 45 feet, space enough to hold a four-story building. The soil had contained more than a dozen underground storage tanks serving light industrial businesses.

Additional contamination may have come from the underground tanks of an adjacent gas station. A barrier will stretch 45 feet down from ground level to limit future possible fuel leakage.

An oil well operates across the street, but officials said they've found no associated risks. Like many local campuses, this school also sits above an oil field, but no oil field-related methane has been detected.

Groundwater about 45 feet below the surface remains contaminated but also poses no risk, officials said.

The school cost $75 million to build, but now needs another $4 million to clean up whatever lingering waste is out there. Even more toxic is the curriculum, which promises to teach kids absolutely nothing they could use in the real world should they ever manage to graduate.

Lowry said the school's environmental emphasis will do Gore proud, including recycling projects and research and beach cleanups. Cross-curriculum efforts will include environmental speeches and presentations in English, topsoil measurements in math and climate study in science.

The principal also envisions an organic garden that could produce a student-led farmer's market.

We are approaching the moment of liberal singularity, where their ideas will finally attain infinite density and zero volume

Back on the Block: A News Round-Up

Boy, take a couple days off from blogging and suddenly Special Forces generals, and their staff, are giving expletive-laden interviews to Rolling Stone as if they were Billy Joel's road crew! If you rely solely on Free Will for your news updates, I apologize. Herewith, a quick round-up of the last couple days' worth of blog-worthy material that I couldn't tackle:

1.) So...you might have heard that Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal let some Rolling Stone reporter follow him and his staff around, listening to them curse out their civilian bosses. Gosh, usually in the movies - and during Republican Administrations - that's what the hero does! I guess, McChrystal didn't get the message, tho' you'd think he would. He apparently is a political liberal who voted for Obama and can't even countenance the dread Fox News. If McChrystal really is a liberal, what did he think was going to happen when Obama took office? The Democrat Party's been the anti-war party for decades, and is filled with deep thinkers like Joe Biden who think nothing of dividing countries into three parts and declaring that US war efforts are "lost."

BTW 1: supposedly the dissension between the military and civilians in Afghanistan was an "open secret" in DC. By open secret, we mean: all of the big league DC-based journalists knew all about it, but didn't want to write about it for fear of making The One look bad. (hmmmm....sounds familiar). That Rolling Stone got a scoop of this quality should be a wake-up call for the rest of the MSM.

BTW 2: I don't care either way whether McChrystal should have been fired, but I do know this. We haven't seen Obama looking this serious and engaged in a while. Regardless of what you think of McChrystal's choice of embeds, the views expressed in the article were a sign of an incipient breakdown in military-civilian (at least Democratic civilian...) relations. I hope this snaps Obama out of his Afghan funk.

2.) We're so used to seeing progressive initiatives get approved by the courts, and watching conservative ones declared unconstitutional for failing to comport with the Living Constitution, that it was a pleasant surprise to see a federal judge lift the ban on deepwater oil drilling. People can bitch all they want about the judge being a (hiss!) Reagan appointee who owns (hisssss!) stock in oil companies. That doesn't make the ruling any less correct.

3.) There was a crazy rumor going around that Obama was planning to grant a blanket amnesty to every illegal alien in the US. I'm sure he would do it if he thought he could get away with it, but the backlash would overwhelm him.

4.) Four Christians passing out leaflets outside a fairgrounds in Dearborn, MI were arrested for disturbing the peace...for passing out Bibles to Muslims. No offence, but, if Muslims need a police state so they can feel more righteous about their religion, that doesn't make me think theirs is the One True Faith.

5.) You know what was the last thing Tipper said to Al before they sent out that "We're getting divorced" email? Apres Moi, Le Deluge. How else to explain the sudden interest in a four year old sexual assault complaint from a middle aged (ew!) massage therapist? Apparently, The Oregonian had the story in hand a couple years ago, but nobly stayed their hand. I'll bet Kobe Bryant and the Duke Lacrosse team wish they had received the same courtesy.

6.) SF Mayor Gavin Newsom is getting behind a local initiative that would go a long way towards reducing the Croesus-like pay scale of the City's transit workers. Watch out for Newsom. Everyone thinks he's a standard-issue SF progressive, but he has a real knack for finding liberal Sacred Cows to run against. Sure, he's a liberal goof, but he's liberal goof who isn't quite as doctrinaire as people might like to think.

7.) The gold standard for lousy TV talk shows have long been The Chevy Chase Show and the

The Magic Hour, but CNN may be preparing to broadcast a new king of crap. I give you...The Elliot Spitzer/Kathleen Parker Hour! No, this is not a joke. It's hard to know what's worse: that CNN's journalistic standards now include a blow-hard lefty who abused his prosecutorial discretion as NY AG, was an ineffective governor of NY (and directly precipitating that state's current crisis state), and resigned his office after getting caught with a call girl, complete with the "anguished-wife" press conference...or that Kathleen Parker is considered "conservative." Note to media types - just because someone was born in the south and isn't a liberal does not mean she is a conservative.

8.) And, congratulations to Nikki Haley who looks like she will be the next governor of South Carolina, a state that is in desperate need of a political house cleaning, if not a long hot bath. I think when people like Mitch Daniels and (ahem) me call for a truce in the culture wars on the GOP side, this is what they are talking about.

Haley's clearly not a RINO squish, but the campaign against her was the sort of social conservative button pushing effort that gives uptight Bible thumpers a bad name. It had everything: adultery, racism, plus they questioned her religion. None of it was true, and even if it was, who gives a good goddam? Too many Republicans, especially in the South, have gotten too used to an electoral formula that involved putting on a prissy face, denouncing your opponents as sinners...and then soaking up earmark money and campaign donations from their real supporters. We've had one too many GOP politicos talk a big game about family values and then (heh heh) fall on their sword. I don't literally believe that Haley (or Sarah Palin) can do a better job because they are women, but they certainly can't do any worse than the men who've been in charge for the last 15 years.

Love Story: The Al Gore Di-Gorce

For the second time in less than a year, a nationally prominent Democratic couple - in one of those annoying "two-for-the-price-of-one" marriages - is heading towards divorce. Can the Clintons be far behind? Al and Tipper Gore Decide To Separate

Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, have sent an e-mail to family friends announcing a mutual decision to separate, a longtime family friend told CNN.

"We are announcing today that after a great deal of thought and discussion, we have decided to separate," the message said. "This is very much a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration. We ask for respect for our privacy and that of our family, and we do not intend to comment further."

Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail but declined to comment further.

The couple, married for 40 years, has four grown children and three grandchildren.

Now, everyone says this was a mutual decision, and there was no affair (heavens!), and so on. And, I'll be nice and say that I believe them.

Nonetheless, I predict Al will be remarrying within two years, and that his new wife will be a strikingly beautiful blond in her mid-40's from the San Francisco Bay Area who has ties to both the tech and entertainment industries. And, who is a big league Democrat donor. Sorry, but that's just how these sorts of things tend to work out.