Looking Ahead

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The horrors of the Chechen terrorist act in Moscow and of the Russian response have left many of us shaken. What will be the impact on the world, and on us, Americans? Once more, we should look back in history for some form of an answer.
The Chechens, slightly more than one million in strength, have been the most warlike and independence-minded of the Muslim nations in old Russia. The Caucasus, wild country of the 10,000-foot high mountain ranges and taller peaks, bordered by Turkey and Iran on the south, Black Sea on the east and the landlocked Caspian Sea on the west, is the home ot the intermittently warring Muslim republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan and the hemmed-in Christian Armenia. Landlocked Chechenya, between Ingushetia on the east and Dagestan on the Black Sea in the west, is directly north of the republics.
The area was ruled by Armenia until in the 7th century, when it became Arab-dominated and converted to Islam. Seljuk Turks came in the 10th, Mongols and the Tartar Golden Horde in the 13th, Ottoman Empire in the 16th and the Persians in the 18th centuries, until the expansionist and Pan-Slavist Russians gradually conquered the area.
Russia itself threw off the rule of the Golden Horde after 1480, under Ivan the Great, and his grandson Ivan the Terrible (he killed his son and heir in a fit) started the expansion by annexation of Siberia in the west and the Muslim lands in the south. Russia fought the Turkish Ottoman Empire for territory in 12 wars between 1686 and 1878, most actively after defeating Napoleon's attack in 1812, until the Turks, with aid from Britain France and the Italians (Sardinia-Piedmont) beat them in the Crimean War, with a quarter of a million dead on each side, nostly from disease.
The Chechens were conquered in 1823, and revolted twice. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1918, the Caucasus was alloved to unite in a Republic, which was dissolved in favor of individual Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs) in 1920s. The Chechens and Ingushes were united in an Autonomous SSR within the Russian SSR, as were the 20 nationalities, speaking 80 languages and dialects, of the larger Dagestan ASSR (2M pop.) During WWII, Hitler succeeded in the Caucasus with the collaboration of certain disaffected Muslims. After the war Stalin repaid the Chechens by deporting all of them, in two weeks, to the deserts of northeast Kazakhstan (not a first; he had deported the Volga Germans to Siberia during the war), and a quarter of the deportees died. Under Khruschew, in 1957, they were allowed to return. Meanwhile, many Chechens, well known for their commercisal skills (the Russians also point out their great skills in Mafia-style crime) had drifted to Russia, Europe and the Americas.
After the collapse of the USSR in 1989-91, the Chechens declared independence.The Russians did not try to reconquer the province, an important oil route, until 1994. Chechenya's capital Grozny was largely destroyed, and there was immense brutality in fighting on both sides. In 1996 Russia withdrew, defeated. Chechenya's president, Aslan Mashkadov, tried to effect an armistice leading to peace, but his uncontrollable field commanders wanted to fight. One warlord, Arbi Barayev, turned to hostage taking, for ransom. He kidnapped several dozen people, Russians (Russia's MTV paid $2 million ransom for its reporters), tourists, journalists, wealthy Ingushettis and Chechens, beheading four British and New Zealand electronics engineers (allegedly their employers' $10M was topped by bin Laden's $20M Jihad money). Mashkadov's forces tried to capture him. He died in a battle, in June 2001.
How does bin Laden figure in? Well, his money fuels the Chechen commanders' actions and training. In 1999 1,200 Chechen warriors, from the notorious Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, an al-Qaeda hideout, entered neighboring Dagestan, to start a revolt. That province, with a divided legislature, to give all of its 14 ethnicities representation, did not fall for the Chechen-Arab attempt, and they withdrew. In September 1999 several apartment houses in Russia exploded, killing 300 people. President Putin blamed Chechen terrorists, and revived the army action against Grozny. There have been claims that Putin needed the outrages to consolidate his weak presidency and give Russians a rallying factor against an external enemy. Official US has not commented. The current war, once more, has been extremely brutal, with Russian renegade soldiers accused of kidnappings and extortion. Grozny has once more been destroyed, to the ground. Which brings us to this week of horror in Moscow, when some 50 Chechen terrorists, men and women armed with bombs, captured an entire Moscow theater audience of 700 as hostages, threatening wholesale killings and suicide by bombs, unless the Russian forces in Chechniya withdrew and stopped the war within a week. Some killings of hostages had taken place when the Russian security forces attacked and freed the hostages, after flooding the theater with an odorless gas, with disastrous results. They did succeed in stopping the detonation of 400 lbs of explosives. It is to be noted that the leader of the suicide squad was Movsan Barajev, nephew of Arbi Barajev.
The questions pile up. How did such a group of Muslims (the women were wearing black headdresses and clothes) slip into Moscow and pass through to the theater, in today's fearful atmosphere? Did they expect to escape, as Chechen terrorists did after a 1995 capture of 1000 hospital hostages in Budyonnovsk, near Stavropol, and a similar 1996 event near Kizlyar, in Dagestan? Will the reckless gas attack by the Russian security people cause more Muslim revolts in Russia and reactions elsewhere? Did Putin transgress against the Chemical Weapons Convention?
As for us in the US, will the next hostage-taking be here? I think not. Checheniya does not support terror. Terrorists are forewarned of negative reactions around the world, according to some concerns expressed by Palestinian (Arafat as well as Hamas) speakers. Our response to 9/11 brought down the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. A repeat terror act that could be laid to the door of bin Laden might cost them a lot more. Fear must not be our reaction, we too are forewarned and should be prepared.
I first heard Paul Wellstone interviewed on WNYC, in May 2001. His clear voice and honesty sent me to buy "The Conscience of a Liberal," his autobiography, and to review it. Although not a disciple, I felt that Wellstone might be the most ethically correct Presidential candidate for the US. His death is an immense loss.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
This week's article was to be about a peaceful walk on the West Side, but then came a note from Dr. Paranoia:
"No doubt, you have been worrying about the events in rogue nations, and the assassinations. North Korea has admitted transgressing the 1994 agreement and has continued to work on nuclear weapons. When plutonium was denied, North Koreans enriched uranium, with tools from Pakistan (then under a different government), obtained in return to supplying the Pakis with rocketry to defy India. This story emerges after a visit from Japan's President Koizumi and the release of five Japanese, when the NorKos admitted the kidnaping 20 years ago. Dr. P. agrees with South Korea's President Kim Dae-Jung, who suggests that the dictator Kim Jong Il is doing a Bush-like threat, and offering revelations, to force negotiations and get concessions from the West. Kim wants to shed the Axis-of-Evil label and get an energy plant.
"The Bush plan for Iraq is working well, maybe too well. The US Congress has authorized him to use force if he thinks it appropriate and necessary, should the UN efforts to demilitarize Iraq fail. In the UN, France, Russia and China want no military action. All Muslim countries protest it, even Kuwait and the emirates where we have bases that would serve as launching posts.
"The terrorist protesters, al-Qaida inspired, have been active. In Kuwait American marines have been attacked and assassinated. On the 2nd anniversary of the USS Cole explosion in Yemen that killed 17 and injured 33 sailors, terrorists in Bali blew up nearly 200 tourists and injured hundreds more. It was the 9/11 equivalent for our Australian friends, and a blow to Indochina's fragile economy and government. The big Jemaah Islamiyah sect appears involved, and the Indonesian government is scared to name them, although the identification was made by senior minister Lee Kuan-Yew of Singapore, a country that has experience with Jamaah's terrorist faction. Jemaah's leader Abu Bakar Bashir points to the CIA and Israel as the probable culprits, just like the al-Qaida propagandists did after 9/11, then talking of the spurious 4,000 Jews (so did more recently the Poet Laureate of New Jersey, Muslim convert, revolutionary Marxist and sometime hater of whites, Imami Amiri Baraka, nee LeRoi Jones, of whom more later).
"In Zamboanga, the Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf organization blew up six people and injured 144 more. If this does not make the Muslim world take a deep breath and reconsider, I do not know what will. The Washington, DC area sniper who has shot at 12 innocents and killed nine, is definitely too well organized and scheduled to be a maniac acting solo. If the tarot card clue is to be trusted, the language of "Dear Policeman I am God" is non-idiomatic American and points to a MidEastern ethic.
"The Muslims have also been reacting politically. Before the outburst of terror, Pakistan's militant Islamist parties, normally attracting a low vote, elected a sizable minority to the Parliament, a warning to the apathetic Pakistani middle class to protect their interests, or face a radical change. The Musharraf- led Army remains still in charge, and there is a thaw in the Kashmir situation, after a horribly bloody election.
"In Iraq's "referendum," 100 percent of the 10.8 million voters cast ballots, some of them signed with blood from needle-pierced fingers, giving 100 percent of the vote to Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi spin doctors ascribe it to the voters' unanimous desire for peace, assured by their beloved leader's rule. Apparently the 3/10 of one percent of voters who cast negative votes seven years ago (that would be 30,000 people) have been eliminated or have escaped abroad. Saddam has executed massive numbers of non-supporters, according to Amnesty International. In his elite Republican Guard of 80,000 troops (not to be confused with Iran's Revolutionary Guard) the dictator has put to death a dozen generals and over a hundred of other officers. He has a group of 20,000 young executioners who have sworn to die in his defense. Nevertheless, Iraqis have blinked, offering to admit UN inspectors everywhere they want to go, including the palaces.
"Where does all this leave us, the US? Is the entire world against us? Does that make us enemies of the people? The answer is that there is the fear of war and death throughout the world. If this gets through to our enemies, the secret creators and hoarders of weapons of mass destruction, we will succeed in disarming them. Our friends will come back. Joschke Fischer, foreign minister of Germany (and a former terrorist himself) wants to visit and make peace. The MidEast dictators want us to win but are afraid of their street people. As for Israel, Dr. P. is less sanguine. Mark well, the Muslim world will change only when their women become emancipated and assume their rightful place in the world. A development that needs strong fostering.
"Coming back to the Poet Laureate, Imamu Amiri Baraka, the former Beat poet LeRoi Jones, whose "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note" (1961) earned him first notice, he is not a terrorist associate. His early style dealt with suicide, death and self-hatred. A play, "The Dutchman," earned an Obie. Baraka, with his first wife Hattie Cohen, founded Yugen, a major lit journal, and Totem Press. With Diane di Prima he ran the Floating Bear newsletter (1961-69). He organized a Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BART/S). After the murder of Mohammed Ali he withdrew, divorced, became a Kawaida Muslim, moved to Harlem, and embraced revolutionary Marxism. At 68, he is a distinguished man of letters, with a wife, poetess Sylvia Robinson (Amina Baraka), and five children. But the revolutionary fervor seethes and occasionally breaks out, crying for notice. So there, judge for yourself. How about these Southern preachers bad-mouthing another faith ex cathedra? Named are Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham and particularly Jerry Falwell, whose TV characterization of the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist caused Indian-Muslim riots and nine deaths. Jerry apologized and his apology was accepted in Cairo, but not very likely in Peshawar. And Harry Belafonte, who calls Colin Powell a "house slave." There is no dearth of old fogged minds and old warped ideals vying for attention."
Thank you Dr. Paranoia. Some good news on the new, economics and news fronts. IBM is performing better than expected, and the New York Times' Styles supplement is beginning to tell both interesting and important stories. Fashionistas, take notice, your "Nero fiddling" styles might get revealed as irrelevant and boring.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Steven Spielberg, Farelly Bros, Coen Bros, eat your hearts out. "My Big
Fat Greek Wedding," a $5M movie released in April has earned $135M, nearly all by word of
mouth, and a friend in NJ tells in serow how the theatre was sold out and his family
did not get in during the last weekend in September, 6 months after release. This old-fashioned movie just speaks to people's desire to see upbeat, regular family themes, stuff you can feel happy about.
If you haven't heard of it, the plot is simple. An aging Greek restaurant owner's daughter
and a shy Wasp schoolteacher fall in live and eventually get married, with all the heartaches,
trials, family resistance, cultural differences and humor that goes with it. As to the funny and
touching portrayal of Greeks as history- proud, clannish, almost tribal, listen to my colleague Jackie, a young Hispanic woman from Astoria who got married to Tony, a Greek Orthodox faithful, about a year ago:
"Unlike Ian in the movie, I did not have to wear a bathing suit and get dunked in a church basin to get baptized before the wedding. Since I'm Catholic, my obligatory Greek Orthodox baptismal (oh, no question about it!) was simple. I wore a white dress and white everything else, and the Archimandrite rubbed holy oil on my wrists, knees and neck.
"When we got married, my mother- in-law gave me a stone to wear, to ward off the evil eye, mati. My girlfriends did not spit on me for luck, although they do a little pft, pft habitually, to ward off evil spirits - you should hear them when someone enthuses over a new baby. [This is an old European superstition, Germans say "unberufen," Jews say "kinehora," some of us knock on wood. Italians give the signal of mano cornuto, index and little finger extended, secretly, against the maloccho, or wear an amulet - although the same symbol stands for cornuto, the betrayed spouse. The Irish wear a shamrock.]

"As to dancing, we had a Greek band (a deejay came on later), and they played the Kalamatino, a circle dance, what I call a twelve step, for 15 minutes continuously, after the ceremony. Tony and I started, then everyone joined in. Even Tony's grandmother, who always wore black (Greek
widows and mothers who have lost sons do, you know) did a turning dance, arms above her head, with everyone else.
"There are lots of different Greek circle dances and steps, you learn them when you grow up in Astoria, even when you are not Greek. Everything is painted blue, also in the church. Greek priests can get married, but that limits their progress in the hierarchy. My Archimandrite was a monk."
A professional movie man who teaches at the Tish School tells me that this movie, best
he's seen in six months, was a fluke that cannot recur. Made for almost no money, in movie terms, and released in March, it died. The producers hoped to make their money back, and not much else. It came about when Tom Hanks's wife Rita Wilson saw a one-person show about a Greek woman's life, written and performed by Nia Vardalos, and asked her to expand it to a script. The Hanks group signed on Joel Zwick, a TV serials director, and went on, withthe author playing the heroine, Toula Portokoulos, Lainie Kazan as her earthly mother, Andrea Martin as explosive Aunt Voula and John Corbett as the milquetoast groom. Michael Constantine in the role of the father, who cures everything, from a scratch to a head cold , with a spray of Windex, gave the performance of his life. The movie, released just before the Greek Lent, when life slows down for the Quadragesimal (forty days), but then it took off slowly, with modest promotion in the Greek communities, city by city.
It sort of gives one faith in the good taste and morality of the American public, noting the
garbage that market research says we like. You do not need total frontal exposure, body bags, horror and weird visual effects for public appeal, clean upbeat funny story and hopeful morality is still part of our lives. Bravo for us!
To complete our Greek week, we saw a revival of a Rodgers and Hart 1938 oldie musical, "The Boys From Syracuse," in a rare revival, at the Roundabout 42nd Street American Airlines theatre. It is based on Shakespeare's "Comedy Of Errors," about a set of twin boys and their twin serving slaves, separated by a shipwreck, and trying to find each other. This is a much broader farce, not truly Greek, livened up by singing and dancing courtesans in Ephesus, a city that executes visitors from competing Syracuse, unless they pay a bounty.
The first act is sort of dull, with two famous tunes, "Falling in Love with Love" and "This Can't Be Love" barely making a difference. But the second livens up, with two lesser melodies, "Come with me where the food is fine and the landlord never calls," a Gilbert & Sullivan-esque paean for life in jail, and the courtesans' "Sing for your supper, and you'll get breakfast, songbirds always eat," another hymn in a series of scenes debunking lies and evasions in married life.
Rodgers and Hart did 15 musicals. Richard Rodgers, subsequently with Hammerstein and some other librettists, was the composer of 40 musicals, a staggering sum. Rossini created 38 operas, with two surviving. Rodgers did a lot better. We too are the better for it. Take a trip to your local theatre, movie or stage, else the terrorists win.
To top off the Greek extravaganza, we visited a typically ethnic Greek diner. Wish I could report on a fabulous calorific ethnic dish, but I chickened out. Had roasted fowl, on a bed of lettuce, for my sins. I'm thinking of a personal dietary Quadragesimal, else the calories win.

Is President Bush a secret agent for peace?
By Wally Dobelis, weekly columnist for Town & Village, NYC
My frequent correspondent, Dr. Paranoia, tells a story of a bar encounter with a Texan, a self-proclaimed Republican, who loudly complained about our President warlike Iraq policy. " As we say in Llano, the man needs to populate his matrix. He don't get granular enough. And he has to tune up his counter-intuitive thinking, he's no Reagan. Just leveraging those hostile ideas don't fly in the world of of the A-rabs. There's no strap there, and no exit policy." Taken aback, Dr. P. asked about the apparent Texianisms. Turned out the language is Information Technology management. Strap means strategic planning. .
When asked who his ideal President would be, the Texan declared, without hesitation: "Clinton, with a better zipper control." Totally shocked, the good doctor asked for an explanation. "Come now, you know that Clinton is one of us, a moderate Republican. If he hadn't run the country with both hands tied behind his back and his gonads otherwise occupied, we would have a different world. That wife of his with her universal medical care fantasies, the bimbos of the week, and my own party viciously tying him up with investigations, accusations, indictments and impeachments, it is a miracle anything got done in those eight years. Egos first, country second. I pass." Since the man was clearly unbalanced and in need of medical attention, Dr. P. retreated, to call 911. When he returned, the Texan was gone, leaving behind the delicious aroma of Maker's Mark bourbon and a trace of cowchips on the floor.
Regarding the Iraq policy, Dr. Paranoia disagrees. He thinks that George W's matrix is quite well populated, there's been intensive OTJ training. The good doctor, who pretends to have extra-sensory perception powers, projects the following insight into the President's mind:
"Neither the UN, nor we, the US, the anti-proliferation advocates, have adequately formulated appropriate actions when a rogue nation acquires nuclear arms capacity. Pakistan is one such power. Luckily, it is in the hands of a right-thinking dictator, but that does not mean a suicidal Muslim fanatic cannot take over. They have strong al-Qaeda supporter cells there. For the world's survival, we must do all we can to keep Musharraf in power. Civil libertarians will have to ponder this one.
"Now, that conflicts with another situation (Lord, what doesn't?), Iraq, an unstable country. We could live with Saddam, under the Bush/Powell 1991 theory, to keep the area stable, if he were a Musharraf, but this man is definitely a madman. A very clever survivalist madman, with world-ruler ambitions. He keeps Iraq intimidated - after 30 years of his rule the majority of the population is too young to know any other system, they are no longer literate, spying on each other for survival is the accepted lifestyle. The minority Kurd and Southern Shia opposition is cowed. The Revolutionary Guard is kept well-fed and subservient. He has no Baath oppositionists, they get executed. Political jokes are punishable by death. Even trusted henchmen get liquidated when they become too powerful. This man has the instincts of a wild animal of prey. He knows when to give a little, e.g. allow the inspectors in, then sabotage them, straight from the Dictator's Playbook. He makes his biologicals' factories mobile and enriches uranium in tiny aluminum centrifuges hidden in peoples' homes.
"Then there's his economic power, as the world's 2nd richest oil reserves holder. He smuggles it, flaunting the UN's sanctions. He has intimidated Jordan, Syria, Turkey, countries with fragile economies, with his cheap oil, and the Gulf sheiks, with potential revolutions ("if they attack me, your regimes are dead") . Not having lost any power, despite the loss of the 1991 war and world-wide opposition to his regime, he still nurses the ambition of ruling the Muslim universe and the world's oil supply, and dictating terms of survival to the industrial countries.
"If we let him survive, with continued ineffective arms inspections, he will eventually acquire nuclear arms, and develop delivery vehicles. Fortunately, the latter require major facilities, and we can fly satellite watch. Our terrestrial intelligence has failed, but there are the Brits with their historic ties, and the Israelis, whose survival predicates efficient spying. He has 10,000 clandestine workers in the mass destruction weapons' industries, and some will whisper, once we have Arab-speaking UN inspectors on site. Then we can blow his cover and alert the UN and resuscitate the allies who are waiting for some facts that expose Saddam. He has to fall eventually, else the other rogue countries that are surreptitiously acquiring nuclear arms capabilities - North Korea, Iran, Syria, Lybia - will continue, unintimidated. Once we catch Saddam, we can, with the blessings of the UN and the entire world, promulgate controls in the UN that will intercept other rogues threatening nuclear holocaust.
"Ah, oil. We oil professionals understand the need to protect the world's energy supply and prices. The US gets 1/6 of the six million barrels we import daily (only 4/10ths of our needs are produced domestically) from Iran, and is the country's best customer! As we speak! You think we want war, come on, no, we wants Saddam to submit! Saddam sees it as a bluff, and won't blink. To scare Saddam, I have to act the reckless mad dog foaming at the mouth, the revenger for the attempt on my father's life -Arabs understand that. . The more concern it causes in Europe, the more worry in Arab countries, even in the US, the better for that image. It scared the UN lard-buts into action, didn't it?. I have more tools to escalate it, remember the Iraqi opposition leaders' revolution conference in August. We have a cleverly leaked a psychological attack plan, to bomb the Iraqi government and military facilities, but save the infrastructure, to be able to broadcast threats and announce opportunities for the army to surrender and avoid death by bombs. You think anyone here wants a Vietnam?
"Given my real strategy, I can ignore the Republican oppositionists, such as Richard Armey, who warns that under the cover of the preemptive American attack, the Israelis may attempt to expel the Palestinians from the West Bank, and the Indians may wipe out the Pakistani forces threatening Kashmir. We have also warned the Saudis to cool their support of the Muslim radicals [voiced in a Defense Policy Board meeting in August by a mysterious RAND analyst, Laurent Muraviec]. So far, we have given the MidEast dictators of the Arab League some cover, by not pressing them into anti-Iraq service. Outright support of my policy would certainly threaten their governments, given the amount of anti-American radicalization of the street Arabs that al-Quaeda and Palestinian propaganda has generated. Deep down, the sheiks want al Quaeda and the radicals to fail. Actually, there's also hope in the street, with people who burn the US flag one day and stand in line for a US visa the next.
"Do Americans share my insight? Some do, Democrats like Gephardt and Lieberman, who take flack for it. Am I playing politics? Well, I'm political, and that's my trump card."
That's Dr. P's take. We can draw our own conclusions, . Not everything is politics. The world is at war.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

Is the Iraq crisis really about oil prices? Is stability of oil supply essential to the recovery of the world from the current long-term economic recession? You can hear these problems discussed in detail on CNN and Fox News. This column is mostly about how long will the earth's oil supply last, and the tragic lack of activity in developing alternate resources.
During the past two years, prompted by the 2000-01 energy crisis in California (bound to come back again) and New York's unpreparedness for the same, this amateur student of the energy scene made a scary discovery - that the world's main energy source, the hydrocarbon, oil, is running out. Doing a few arithmetical calculations, straight out of the World Almanac, it looked like all the world has is 37 years' worth of oil reserves, at the current (unadjusted for future growth) consumption rate. Further, no one in government was seriously planning for alternate sources - wind , water, hydrogen - perhaps under the sneaky assumption that atomic energy will save the world. For the latter to work, my calculations showed the need for a 20-fold increase in atomic energy plants worldwide, a worrisome proposition environmentally and from the point of view of political endangerment.That's assuming electricity can be converted for transportation.
To the doubters - the 37-year estimate is valid and probably over-optimistic; the Colorado School of Mines' M. King Hubbert Center for Petroleum Studies head man L.F. Ivanhoe notes that economists routinely use the Reserves/Production ratio of 40 years as the demarcation line, although using a graduated line is more realistic. Ivanhoe sees that countries with the heaviest drilling activities, e. g. the US, will dry out first. He also postulates the increasingly expensive recovery cost as limiting the desirability of this source of energy. Incidentally, Oil and Gas Institute sources laugh at all of this, talking of a supply level that is good for hundreds of years.
The reputable Odell Report, "A Guide to Ol Reserves and Resources," available through the Greenpeace web site, is very candid and not alarmist. It refers to the mid-1950s World Oil and Gas Journal and US Geological Survey estimates of about 1,000 to 1,1000 billion barrels (BB) of oil that underlie the above conventional 40-year figures, and attempts to project subsequent discoveries and deep sea explorations. A new figure of 1,800 BB emerges. There is also a Shell Oil estimate of 2,750 to 3,250 BB of conventional oil.
Adding on to normal sources, Odell projects the potential of some 3,000 BB from non-conventional sources, such as tar sands in Northern Canada and oil shale in the US, Brazil, Mozambique and elsewhere. a very costly resource, environmentally and from the point of excessive energy cost. He discredits a 20-year old Russian theory, by Academician Strykowich and his predecessors, that oil comes from great depths of the Earth, valued at 11,000 BB.
After the discourse of the high-flying optimistic assessments, Odell modestly suggests that all of the above sources, whether or not realistic cost-wise, could sustain mankind past the middle of the 21st century. I should rest my case, but there are more findings to identify.
On November 2, 2001 The Economist Magazine, in London, did a research piece about oil running out, and found even more pessimistic information. It involved climbing the legendary "M. King Hubbert's peak." In 1952 this legendary Shell Oil geologist forecast that the US production of oil will top off in the early 1970s and then slowly decline. Oil production in any country will follow that route. He was totally right, as to the US.
Now the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC) in Britain has projected that the world-wide peak is just around the corner, per their Colin Campbell ("The Coming Oil Crisis"). Rival analyses by the US Geological Survey (we're fine for a few decades) and the International Energy Agency (demands will be met until 2020) are not taccepted by the pessimist community which now includes the geologist Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton ("The View From Hubbert's Peak"), who sees the peak date as 2004!!!
The Economist rightly observes that the pessimists have been too glum, predicting oil prices of $150 and $100 a barrel. Their editors like Dr. Michael Lynch of DRI-WEFA, an economics consultant, who faults Hubbell-type analysts for relying on fixed estimates of how much ultimately recoverable oil is below ground; the figure is a "dynamic one and depends upon improvements in infrastructure, knowledge and technology." The cost of producing oil has fallen from $20 a barrel 20 years ago to $4. Dr. Deffeyes counters that after the billions spent on technology he sees little chance of improvement.
So, what's the answer? I have a recent one, from Dr. Michael R Smith of ODAC and the Energy Network, a middle-of the-roader . The world's oil reserves are finite but it will never run our. The key is that supply cease to be able to meet demand. Already 27 countries are past the peak and 14 are about to experience it. Past the peak, the production drops by 4-5 percent a year. When that happens to the world as a whole, growth in demand will be impossible to meet and economic growth will be impacted. Prices will skyrocket when no new discoveries are made, and deepwaters become the resource. He feels the peak will come between 2015 and 2020, and the pinch will be felt in 2010, when massive investments will be required in the Middle East. There is no solution, and the world is not developing any alternatives to cheap oil.
As seen from this corner, the politics played are execrable. The Anglo-American-Dutch oil moguls are not interested in highlighting the dangers, since this will impact stock prices. US government must defend the Arab oil princes, to protect the world economy, and control Iraq, the country with the 2nd highest oil reserves, whose ruler has the anger, the desire and and the capacity to manipulate the world's oil economics to the disadvantage of the industrial countries. So, the concerns involve not only the narrow interests of the oil industry but also our national interests, and the broad welfare of the world's economy. That is all apart from the dangers that terrorists unleash on the West. Good luck, world. If the broad coalitions interested in the development of alternate sources of energy do not start doing their job, instead of letting the anarchists lead them into fighting IMF and World Bank, and the Greens do not stop discrediting themselves by setting utopean economic targets, the children of the next generations may have to revert to living as savages, among immobile car wrecks and inaccessible skyscrapers, cutting down forests for fuel and fighting over water.

People of the T&V country who are concerned with their health and look for pleasant opportunities of walking a mile or more, with varieties of views and experiences, are very fortunate. Just consider the well-known varieties: Stuyvesant Town, with its circle of gardens and varieties of pathways; Riverwalk to the north, along East River, Riverwalk to the south, to xxStreet, also suitable for bicycling.We also have parks suitable for circling or traversing, Madison Square Park, Union Square, Stuyvesant, Gramercy.
If an East Side resident is willing to cross the island and enter new territories, there is the new park south of 16th street, all the way down to World Finacial Center and the Cove, a basin for ferries and pleasure boats. You might be hesitant, to travel on along the Battery City Promenade, to the Battery; believe me it is all right, not going there is giving in to the terrorists. We must conquer fear.
Today I'll stick with a really pleasurable plan, crossing the island along 17th, 18th or 19thStreet, on foot, or on 23rd, via the M23 bus, to visit Chelsea Piers, our local luxury resort. We went on foot, through through the above pleasant streets, stopping at the bookstores on 18th and Bed, Bath etc and T,J. Maxx on 6th Avenue, then past Ajax School, with its dreadlock and big pants crowd of students peacefully having lunch on the street, then the neat sidewalk gardens of the neatly rehabilitated Anglo-Italian brownstones and their high stoops and iron tracery railings, then the industrial/garage/warehuse area, until reaching 11th Avenue. The traffic was thick, but the crossing button at 18th worked miracles, and we were inside the Piers, passing a boatmarina of yachtclub proportions on the 16th Street side.
Chelsea Piers is a sports and entertainment area, housed on the four piers, 59 through 62, and their administrative and garage facilities in the sheds west of 11th Ave. We walked in thpough a gara and shop area, past a Chelsea Brewing Company, classy microbrewery and restaurant, looking gor the Golf Club. That was a four-story building, overlooking Pier 59, a 200-yard driving range with over 50 hitting stalls. Intrigued, we invested $15 for a card that, inserted into the stall's computer, would automatically send up 89 balls, one after the other, from a hole, neatly placed on a fat rubbet tee that can be elevated to a height from 16 to 30 milimeter, the only such tech facility known to man, in the US anyway (I suspect it is a Japanese invention). The balls seemed strangely lethargic, and flew low, but that might be our imagination, and a denial not uncommon among high-handicap players. You can also stop and come back to use up the balance of your card at a time of your choice, bringing clubs that you trust. Golfers are superstitious mystics.
Exhilarated by the experience, we walked along the riverside padded path nortwards, past major millionaires' yachts in the next basin, with the bowling alleys on our right. Pier 60, the Sports Center, was devoted to basketball, volleyball, track, swimming and sunbathing, with a cardiovascular and sports medicine facility - and rock climbing and a boxing ring for hardbodies.
There were more boats in the next basin, before Pier 61 and its two Sky Rinks, for ice skaters, seven days aweek, all year round. Figure skaters and hockey players abound. Roller hockey enthusisasts go to to Pier 62, which also has two outdoor rinks, besides space for inline and skateboard workouts. These two piers are the congregating places for league players, the boys and girls who bring immense gear bags on buses and elevators, and keep apologizing while banging your shins. No problem, carry on, teach something to the fatties and couch potatoes the US seems to breed, since recently. The Field House, on the right, walking towards 62, has gymnastics, more basketball, batting cages, a gym, soccer and another climbing wall .
We were perfectly happy walking about, enjoying the marina scenery, stopping for sandwiches along the 1.2 mile waterside promenade, when a young nautical fellow pressed some free tickets on us. It seems the New York Water Taxi company was conducting some test runs of their service, stretching from West 44th Street pier to the River Café under Brooklyn Bridge (closing 10/3). The big yellow catamarans looked sturdy, and we got into one (there seem to be three). The fast ride to the Intrepid pier, at 44th Street, took about three minutes. The navy-grey Intrepid, planes stackrd on the deck, was assturdy as ever, with the Destroyer 946 qnd the submarine alongside. There's what looks like a floating dock, named Little lake and marked Air Space Museum that looks worth checking out. Eight sturdy ladies with McDonald's bags, joined our company, as we turned around to go back south. The taxi has a captain, who drives the sturdy boat into the pier, protected with tires, and holds it there, while a mate opens bates and helps passengers cross in and out. While the boat pulls out, the mate bolts the two front entrance doors, until arrival at the next pier. The cabin holds 54 passengers, and there is a top dech, max 29 passengers, thst's how many can hold to the railings. Believe me that's necessary, the wavves of ther harbor are rough.
There are six stops on the route, and during the longest passage, to the Cove of the World Financial Center, the little taxi seems to match the speed of the trucks on the West Side Highway. We fly past the stubby remnants of old piers, the marinas and warehouses, and the new highrise buildings exploiting the view and the Hudson River Park facilities.
After the Cove, the passage gets crowded, with Statue of Liberty and Staen Island ferries crossing our path. The Battery stop is tight, as id Pier 11, near the 55 Water Street, the DST building, the hub of the capitalist system. The boat has to turn around to head out, a tight procedure, since New York Harbor has become populated with ferry boats, since 9/11 destroyed the rail facilities to New Jersey. New York Waterway ferries with meaningful names like Father Michel M Judge and Senator Frank Lautenberg trade passageways with the taxis and other boats. It is not quite a busy as the Inner Harbour of Sydney, Australia, where the much larger two-headed ferries serve the residents of that city, practically all of them living on its its 66 bays. In Sydney they practically touch sides while coming in and out, but we are getting there.
Finally, we cross to Brooklyn, at the foot of the bridge, looking out at the blooming Japanese rose gardens of River Café. Our ladies with lunch bags leave us, and a new crowd, including some tourers with bikes, join in. It is tricky to lock the two-wheelers against the railings in FRONT, but the mate manages. The home tour is uneventful total time about 80 minutes. A great experience, that will cost tourists $15, once the tests are completed and regular service starts, but it is neat, more adventurous than the XXXX .