We have seen the enemy and he is Exxon

February 1, 2007
New York Times "Exxon Sets Record on Annual Profits…Oil prices for the quarter ranged between $55 and $63 a barrel, averaging just shy of $60"

February 1, 2008
cnnmoney.com: "Exxon shatters profit records"
"Oil giant makes corporate history by booking $11.7 billion in quarterly profit; earns $1,300 a second in 2007....Crude prices skyrocketed nearly 60% last year. The surge helped prices break through the $100 a barrel mark for the first time ever early last month."
Msnbc.com: "Exxon Mobil Corp. posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $40.6 billion — on Friday as the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from historic crude prices at the end of the year. Exxon also set a U.S. record for the biggest quarterly profit, posting net income of $11.7 billion for the final three months of 2007, beating its own mark of $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005. The previous record for annual profit was $39.5 billion, which Exxon Mobil had in 2006."

April 29, 2008
The U.S. Energy Information Administration website:
crude oil is selling $116 a barrel down from $119 one week ago. Gas prices are up 20% (over $.60/gallon) from last year.

From Susannah: Okay, you get the point and we've all heard it ad nauseum: gas is going up, up, up at the pumps, and big oil profits are better than ever. I have a question: WHY IS THIS NOT PRICE GOUGING????? Exxon and other oil giants say its simply supply and demand: supply is low, demand is high, people will pay, big oil will flourish. But aren't there laws against what they are doing?

Case in point: In April 2003 there was a huge ice storm in Central New York. Everyone was without power for close to a week while temperature highs were in the low 40s. Gas generators were a scare commodity. We were trying to keep warm, trying to save our perishable food, getting by until the electricity was restored. You could turn on the radio and hear people calling in with tips on where to find a generator - perhaps offering them for sale themselves - at an exorbitant price. And guess what? Those sellers got in trouble with the law for price gouging. The supply was low, the demand was high, but it was illegal all the same.

So what makes Exxon and Standard Oil and Mobil different? Is there something I'm missing here because right now I'm thinking the only thing that keeps them out of the pokey is Mr. GW "a'hm a Texas oilman" Bush. Can anyone out there set me straight?

Migrating through Central New York

Today Max and I went birding. First to Derby Hill on the far southeast shore of Lake Ontario to see the Hawk migration. Most were too high but we did see a bald eagle, a vulture or two and a couple of hawks. From there we drove to Sterling Nature Center (about 30 miles west along the southern shore of the lake) and I showed Max the great blue heron rookery. There was also a great egret there.

I am so annoyed that I don't have my new camera yet! I had to settle for using my little Kodak digital and my old Pentax 35mm film camera with a zoom lens. It was so great watching the herons, they are one of my favorite animals - so majestic, especially in flight.

After Sterling we went southwest to the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge. Lots of geese, a couple of great blue herons, carp (orange carp? are orange carp native?), and - the best part - two osprey nests. The first had one osprey, pretty sure she/he was incubating eggs. The second nest was one we had visited a couple weeks ago, at that time there wasn't much to the nest - just a shallow shell. We were pleased to see that the ospreys had rebuilt the nest and both ma and pa were sitting in it. We also saw what I think were Caspian terns at Montezuma. If so, that's a lifer for me.

Gorgeous day. Gorgeous wildlife. And now I am pleasantly tired, relaxed and ready to watch the Yankees game. Who could ask for anything more?

What I did on my summer vacations

Yesterday we celebrated three birthdays: My two sons, born on April 14th and April 8th, and my youngest daughter, born on April 7th. I can hear all your brains working backwards 9 months....I'll save you the trouble: July...It's JULY!! The ironic thing is that the boys were both due in March, the girl in May...go figure.

Anyway, now that my baby is 21 and ALMOST out of the nest, I get to reflect on 29 years of motherhood and see how I did. For as long as I remember being a good mother has been my top priority in life. That's all I wanted - to be a good mother. So......did I do it? I suppose that's not for me to say, and maybe it's not possible to quantify, but I look at all four of my kids (the other was born in October - smart girl!) and I see mature, responsible adults. Even the ones who grew up kicking and screaming every step of the way....I see the way they live, the way they interact with others and I think, "Wow! They are such great young adults! Maybe I did at least some of it right!"

There have been many proud moments in my life as a mom. Watching my oldest perform a sax solo in high school and quietly weeping, wishing my dad were alive to see him. Being with my #2 son and his wife when my first grandchild was born - His calm, gentle manner not only with his laboring wife, but with his worried mother-in-law was something that every man should have witnessed. He took charge, he took care - of his wife, his mother in law, and his new baby daughter. Seeing my oldest daughter marry her "cutie" on a hill on the farm where I grew up. Witnessing my youngest overcome her fears and set off on a trip to Michigan..... wow....they've grown up.....and we all survived (me with a few more wrinkles and gray hair for which I blame them every chance I get!)

Someday, when my life is finished, I hope I will have earned these three words as my epitaph: SHE DONE GOOD

Check out the Argonauts!

So much to say, so little space....you should listen to the Countless Screaming Argonauts podcast. My favorite so far is Episode #20 where the guys talk about (among other things) the Doomsday Ark and the legacy we as a planet might leave behind. Max and the Penguin are great - and that Manhattan Man! Geez can you GET anymore New Yorkian?? Don't believe me? You gotta go see - errrrr...hear - for yourself.

The Story of Me

The following in an excerpt from Max's blog followed by my thoughts

So who are you? April 11th, 2008 by Max

Ever wonder how people are going to talk about you when you’re gone? Could you tell the story of the me that is inside me, by telling the stories people will remember of me?

It’s so hard to capture, really capture, who someone is. How do you show the inner mind? The person inside who says hey look at me, see me, I’m in here. I’m not this shell, I’m here and I’m alone.

We like to have a handle on who everyone else is, but I think we don’t know the inside. Is any of that, the piece of one’s soul that one keeps only for one’s self? Do we even keep these things for ourselves? Or is it in showing ourselves to people that we create these caricatures of ourselves that people will talk about when we are gone?

I suspect, in presenting ourselves to the world in the way that we do, to not show the holes in our panes while trying to let the world see in. We try to get the thing that we need, we ensconce in translucent frost the lens we are trying to focus on ourselves.

Somewhere behind the glass, is us!


Susannah thinks...

Behind the frosted glass, inside the fortress the voice cries, "I am here! See me! But don’t hurt me please!" It is the ultimate trust, the ultimate vulnerability, allowing others to see our true self. People think that physical intimacy is the ultimate act. I say it is nothing to offer one's body - sure the physical risk is real but it's the emotional intimacy that is most difficult to share. It is our soul that we keep safe inside and souls can be damaged far more deeply than bodies. Perhaps that is the secret to finding one’s “soul mate” – our “other half.” It’s not just about good sex, or similar personalities, or common interests.

The soulmate I want – the soul mate I think most people want whether or not they realize it – is the one to whom I can safely reveal the me inside. My soul mate would be able to tell the real story of me.

Higher Powers?

A friend and I have had a few chats about religious beliefs and whether God or some other supreme being really exists. For myself, I believe in some sort of higher power, but this conversation got me thinking. Here are my musings on the subject:

I believe that there are (perhaps sentient) forces greater than I that affect my life, that I cannot explain, and that I do not fully understand. It may be that I think of these forces in human terms because that is what is familiar to me. Giving human form to this power provides a shape and context that helps me define what I feel. Is it possible this power is just another part of me? Perhaps we all have an intuitive, unconsciously-tapped inner resource that only seems to us to be an external being.

I believe that this power - these forces - are possible to alter by virtue of the choices I make but although I might influence events, they often resist change: Our paths are to some extent pre-determined, but there are many and we can choose. I see life as a room full of doors: some will open to me, some may open with effort, some are not for me and will never yield. Each of these doors eventually leads to more rooms, more doors, more choices. Sometimes there are obstacles, false paths, dead ends. Sometimes I must retrace my steps and start again. But there is always a guiding force - a higher power? a sentient being? my own instincts?

Considering all of these things, I realize how a good debate such as the one between my friend and I forces us to closely, perhaps intimately, examine our own beliefs.