Dumper Oil Tanks
Stephen Capiz grew up in St. Paul's West Side flats in the '50s, a place to which he credits his early, somewhat unconventional, training in art.
He said it was such a popular place that police only let a couple of cars through at a time as little fires burned everywhere. His dad often dropped him off and gave him an hour to hunt, and one day, he unearthed a book on contemporary art. Inspired, he started finding old brushes and painting with industrial paint on linoleum. "I used whatever I could find," he said.
After spending more than four decades painting, Capiz now has work in collections as far away as Iceland, Japan, Mexico, Argentina and Spain. Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, bought a piece for his private collection.
Capiz said his travels, seeing interlocking walls in Spain or aerial views of roads and pastures in the Midwest, inspired many of his often bold and vibrant abstract pieces. To appease his father, who wasn't a fan of contemporary art, Capiz learned to paint more representational landscapes. These often have more muted tones or are rich, dark scenes set in the evening or at dusk -- ice dams on Lake Superior, the backwaters of the Mississippi, thunderstorms and arroyos in the desert, snowy stands of birch or Aspen.
Smoldering dump gave artist his start - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Natural Gas (gas) is mainly methane - odourless, colourless, tasteless; we add an odorant so we can smell a leak. If we cap Riverton dump we have a massive supply. Gas was here since forever; gas in nature, ignited by lightning burns for centuries. The Jews' "burning bush", the Greeks' Olympus flame, Chinese bamboo pipelines from 700 BCE tapped earth's gas leaks. The UK uses gas from the 1700s and fans know tanks near Oval cricket field store gas from Victorian times. US energy comes from oil, coal, gas - in that order - and gas produced in 34 states account for 25 per cent of energy use. The cost to transport gas is horrendous; but now we can turn gas to a liquid (LNG). The same vessel holds 60 times the amount and we turn it back to vapour before use. Gas is cheap, has a good record and US technology is cutting edge. CLNG - a new firm with no track record, ships, technology, power plants or gas fields - is unusual. It is set up just to make money from us and its gas price will be higher than integrated US firms or mature gas providers.
Cabinet and the nation must consider some other issues: (1) A gas cartel as in oil will soon exist. Producers will not cap their wells when prices fall and CLNG will not fold. Like OPEC they will fix volume, price and screw us royally! (2) Open our strategic sectors to multinationals or local firms only; ban new firms formed in tax havens. They make money here but are not subject to all our taxes and scrutiny.
Cabinet and the nation must consider some other issues: (1) A gas cartel as in oil will soon exist. Producers will not cap their wells when prices fall and CLNG will not fold. Like OPEC they will fix volume, price and screw us royally! (2) Open our strategic sectors to multinationals or local firms only; ban new firms formed in tax havens. They make money here but are not subject to all our taxes and scrutiny. (3) Raw gas is cheap CLNG's replacement, maintenance, royalty and other costs are not. With this and US$600m capital in our electricity formulae our energy will not be cheap.
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Mark Engler is a senior analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus, a TomDispatch regular , and the author of How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy (Nation Books) . This article originally appeared on TomDispatch.
I own two shares of BP stock . I received my stake in the company as a Christmas gift in 1989, when I was 14 years old. The previous June, I had taken a "summer enrichment" course in the Des Moines public schools, designed as an introduction to the world of business. The teacher gave each of us in the class a modest hypothetical budget to invest in the stock market.
Earnest young capitalists, we made our picks and then followed the quotes in the morning paper. I invested heavily in Amoco and finished the summer feeling that my portfolio had done quite well. As a result, my younger brother decided that I should receive a real piece of the enterprise that was once John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. He conspired with my mom to get me an Amoco share for the holidays.
The merger proved profitable indeed. Over time, the price of my stock nearly doubled. I received dividends every three months, usually of around 60 cents per share. And by the mid-2000s, BP was making some $20 billion per year in profits. The numbers looked good.
On July 21, the present writer offered the evaluation that an attack on Iran by the United States and Israel was now emphatically back on the agenda after a two-year hiatus.
More than two weeks after issuing that warning, it is possible to offer a second installment of evidence to buttress the original finding. The author considers that this evidence is now sufficient to confirm the July 21 analysis. The contours of the coming conflagration are becoming somewhat more distinct, and give us reason to fear not just a Middle East regional war, but possibly even a world war, with increasing danger that nuclear weapons will come into play.
The most dramatic and outspoken confirmation of the views expressed here on July 21 comes from Fidel Castro, the first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, and the de facto head of state of Cuba. During the spring and summer of 2010, Castro has referred several times to the growing war danger among the United States, Israel, and Iran. On August 8, Castro took the unusual step of convening a special session of the Cuban parliament to discuss the nuclear war danger threatening the peace of the world. Essentially, Castro called for the worldwide mobilization of peace-loving forces to avoid the worst, and included a special personal appeal to Obama.
Whatever one may think of Castro personally and politically, he is unquestionably one of the longest-serving national leaders in today?s world, and brings to the table his experience during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. Castro knows, in short, what a nuclear confrontation looks like from the inside. The American public would do well to put aside the arrogance and impudence of the US mass media and pay attention to why this sick old man is putting so much of his flagging energy into an attempt to alert the world to a danger which is being widely ignored.
The first week of August is dedicated to the world?s most feared predator of the sea. ?Shark Week? drew crowds of interested visitors to the Oklahoma Aquarium which featured education presentations to teach guests about why humans need sharks and why they need to be protected. The aquarium was filled with shark events including scavenger hunts and behind-the-scenes tours that let?s guests dive into the information event.
The Aquarium Education Department gave special presentations and had graphics events that explained facts about sharks more in-depth in the Siegfried Families Shark Adventure and Cox Shark View Room. Guests were able to feel chain mail that divers wear in the tanks and shark jaws.
SLIDESHOW: Sharks At Tulsa Aquarium ?We had tons of people out this week. It?s one of our busiest times of the year because everyone just loves sharks,? said Greg Tatum, Marketing Coordinator at the Oklahoma Aquarium.
Tatum said there was also a large response from visitors after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. ?People were really talking about it here at the aquarium. It?s a very sad situation. We actually have an exhibit that just features the Gulf,? Tatum said.
Web Exclusive: 40/29 Takes Bite Out Of Shark Week - KHBS-KHOG Northwest Arkansas
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