Published in Broader View Weekly on Thursday, September 15, 2011.

by Andrew Casler

Horizontal hydraulic fracturing site in Western Pennsylvania. (Photo by John Amos, Skytruth 2010, Courtesy Tompkins Co. Council of Government's Task Force)

CAROLINE, NY – On Tuesday, Aug. 30, residents of Caroline attended a town meeting that focused on potential impacts of horizontal hydraulic fracturing.

County Planner Darby Kiley presented a PowerPoint slideshow alongside Art Pearce a member of the Tompkins County Council of Governments Gas Drilling Task Force. The presentation featured aerial mapping of potential drilling activity in Caroline and projections of the resources required for gas extraction by horizontal hydofracking.

The presenters covered statistics such as: 55 percent of land in Caroline is leased to energy companies, as of October 2009; Tompkins County could potentially contain 2,100 gas wells; every gas extraction requires five million gallons of water and 167 tons of chemicals per well; of the liquid injected, nine to 35 percent flows back and the remaining liquid should stay underground; there are an average of 1,200 one-way truck trips per well; Tompkins County could sustain 2,520 — predominantly part-time — jobs directly from hydrofracking for ten years.

During the meeting, attendees raised questions about jobs created by renewable energy besides hydrofracking, the technicalities of leasing land with regard to tax codes and concerns about the nonexistence of an organization that would track and publish the surface spills caused by hydrofracking.

Kiley and Pearce have brought this presentation to several other towns in the county, including Ulysses, Lansing, Dryden, Danby and Enfield. There is another meeting in Newfield scheduled for late September.

Pearce said he tries to be fair to each side of the hydrofracking issue during his presentations, but he does not support horizontal-hydraulic fracturing under the process’s current practices, though he said the industry is becoming safer.

“Given more time and another few years it will be even better than it is today,” Pearce said. “Time is on our side. If we can wait on this and go slowly we will be in better shape.”

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation recently extended the comment period on the draft Supplemental Generic Impact Statement (dSEGEIS) until Dec. 12, 2011 (see sidebar). After this comment period, the DEC recommends an end to a yearlong ban on hydrofracking in the New York.

The Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York (IOGANY), which represents oil and gas producers, has said the extended comment period is unnecessary.

“We believe New York State has been ready, it will be more ready now,” Spokesman for IOGANY Jim Smith said. “We seem to be moving forward toward allowing New Yorkers to capitalize on this tremendous economic opportunity.”

Though hydrofracking will bring more jobs and business to New York, the presentation in Caroline showed that many of the fulltime jobs created directly from drilling will be filled by out of state workers who have experience in the field.

“It’s a new industry in New York,” said Smith. “The jobs initially have to go to the people who know how to do them, those people come into your community and spend money, I don’t know why there’s a problem with that.”

In opposition to hydrofracking’s economic viability is the diminishment of property values due to water safety concerns, increased noise and air pollution and the development of rural land into industrial sites.

“The general experience seen in the rest of the county is that once the subsurface rights have been leased, and there is drilling activity taking place in an area, the value of the surface rights where we all live are often damaged because it’s a less attractive place to be. It becomes an industrial area,” Pearce said.

“The industrial aspect of it is temporary,” said Smith. He said the size of a drilling site is nearly half the size of a football field. He added that when the drilling is complete grass and trees are planted at the site.

In attendance at the Caroline town meeting was Vice Chair of the Tompkins County Water Resources Council and resident of Caroline, Barry Goodrich. He said that he supports hydrofracking but only when it is done in a very responsible way, “And I’m concerned that the responsible way has not been developed yet.”

Goodrich said that his main concerns are not water contamination, because well contamination should only be an issue from faulty well drilling, surface spills and faulty well casing. Instead, he is wary of the socio-economic issues relating to housing, fire protection, private and state infrastructure.

Another attendee was Caroline resident and co-Founder of The Marcellus Accountability Project for Tompkins County Bill Podulka. He said that he understands that some landowners will benefit from horizontal hydrofracking, but the negative effects far outweigh the positive.

“Degraded quality of life, degraded health, higher prices for goods and services, and negative impacts on established industries like organic farming, tourism, wineries, and outdoor recreation outweigh the small, temporary income benefits from gas drilling,” Podulka later wrote to Broader View Weekly in an email correspondence.

With Tompkins County’s reputation for Finger Lakes wine and tourism, it is safe to say that fracing in Tompkins County could alter the landscape of the area. Specific to Caroline, land for horizontal hyrdofracing is already leased on the edges of Caroline’s Shindagen Hollow State Forest, which hosts regionally renowned mountain-biking trails and is a major stop in the Finger Lakes Trail because of its thick forest and diverse ecosystem.

More information on SGEIS & Fracking 

To view the slideshow please visit:

http://www.tompkins-co.org/TCCOG/Gas_Drilling/Focus_Groups/Mapping.html

For more information on hydrofracking please visit:

The New York State DEC at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/46288.html

IOGANY at: http://www.iogany.org/

The Marcellus Accountability Project for Tompkins County at: www.tcgasmap.org

Comments can be submitted two ways. Either online at www.dec.ny.gov/energy/76838.html via an online comment forum or by mail at the address: Attn: dSGEIS Comments, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-6510. — Please include the name, address, and affiliation (if any) of the commenter. Paper submissions also will be accepted at the four public hearings slated for November, but exact times and locations have not yet been announced.

As a sea of protesters packed streets and city squares, Hosni Mubarak’s presidency crumbled. With the fall of Mubarak, U.S. mainstream media quickly demonstrated hesitancy to explore certain unsightly aspects of the Egyptian revolution.

While reporting on Egypt, influences like the political sway of Egypt’s pro-Israeli policies were glossed over. Issues like the United States’ $1.3 billion average annual funding of the Egyptian military were left unexplored. The record-high food prices crippling the working class were forgotten. Covering the 44 percent of  Egyptians living  near or under the poverty line was considered poor taste. The incompatibility of extremist Wahabi Islam with Egypt’s predominantly sexually liberated culture were glossed over. And stories about the nation’s powerful neoliberal economic structure were taboo. This bad reporting occurred even as the revolution received more coverage in the course of one week than any story recorded by the Project for Excellence in Journalism in its four years of existence.

Democracy Now!’s Senior Producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous reported on the Egyptian revolution differently than other mainstream journalists. While embedded, Kouddous filed comprehensive coverage of the protesters’ goals, reasons for demonstration and the major developments of the movement. But this is not the angle that other prominent journalists covered—the majority of hard news coverage was centered on official government stances and interviews with some of the most powerful officials. Stories dealing directly with the protests relied on bird’s-eye-view camera angles or Egyptians pumping their fists while chanting slogans unintelligible to many American ears.

The mainstream media failed at covering the revolution from the very beginning.

There is an obvious disconnect between reporting on official government narratives coupled with brief soundbites of generally “angry” protesters, and conducting extensive interviews with the protesters, who were the truest embodiment of the revolution.

Kouddous said he spoke to doctors, journalists, lawyers, students and peasants.

“I spoke to everyone I could find in Tahrir who wanted to talk, and many people did,” he said. “It’s that simple to get the story. You just ask people, ‘Why are you here?’ and they’ll tell you why. They’ll tell you their hopes and frustrations and what they’re calling for and what they think of the U.S. policy.”

Rebellion

Before exploring the sources of media bias, it is important to understand just what the U.S. mainstream media weren’t reporting on.

The main causation purveyed by U.S. mainstream media was the November 2010 Egyptian elections, which were blatantly rigged, so much so that government tampering was caught on tape. Mubarak’s National Democratic Party won 83 percent of the seats in the Egyptian parliament.

But rigged elections weren’t the only concerns present in Egypt’s collective mind. That same November, global food prices reached record highs, and the next four consecutive months led to ever-higher food prices, which hit the highest rate on record in February 2011. The self-immolation of a Tunisian man brought forth the first Middle Eastern revolution of 2011 and actualized domino theory, as uprisings spread throughout the region.

Exactly one month later, an Egyptian man committed suicide by setting himself on fire. This, along with a wildly popular Facebook group dedicated to Kahleed Said, an Egyptian whose fatal beating, at the hands of police, was caught on-tape, and the demonstrations of activists who altruistically defied a government known for its brutality, triggered the Egyptian revolution.

In addition to having a government whose interests obviously do not hinge on popular support, Egypt has no minimum wage. Moreover, after decades of insituting economic deregulation, known as neoliberalism, the disparity of wealth is so large that half of Egyptian spending is done by the wealthiest 3 percent of the population. And with 44 percent of the population living under or just near the poverty line, the average Egyptian family of five struggles to live on only $1 per family member per day. The Arab Human Society report of 2009 concluded that Egyptian youths are insecure “in almost all living aspects,” and their lives render them “hardly free” to make their own decisions. Their socio-political environments discourage any meaningful social participation.

Egyptian journalist Tarek Osman wrote about this report in 2010: “The abuse of their rights drives them to reject not only the government regime but the entire society in which they feel imprisoned and humiliated.”

The new figurehead of Egypt, Omar Suleiman, does not seem likely to change the country’s human rights problem. Mubarak’s replacement is appropriately nicknamed “Suleiman the Torturer.” In The New Yorker, journalist Jane Mayer established that Suleiman is the Egyptian point man on U.S. extraordinary rendition.

Suleiman’s backer, the Egyptian military, whose counsel is by and large the main political force in the country, is a literal incarnation of Eisenhower’s forewarned “military-industrial complex.” According to The San Francisco Chronicle, the Egyptian military sells everything from bottled water to laptops. Also, The New York Times ran an article titled “Disappearances in Egypt Stoke Concerns About Military’s Vows for Transition,” which implicates the military in the abduction and torture of protesters.

Act Dependently and Maximize Harm

With the goals of the revolution flying directly in the face of American political and economic interests, media presented the uprising with undertones of Muslim bigotry and overwhelmingly questioned the legitimacy of establishing a true democracy in Egypt.

American news pundits have utilized egregious mistruths about the Muslim Brotherhood to unfairly cast Islamic radicalism onto the protests. MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews has interrupted reports about U.S. funding of Egypt and then changed the subject. Neoconservative Op-ed columnists Charles Krauthammer and his colleague David Ignatius even advocated for a military-controlled Egypt. Even newspaper reporters tended to focus on official narratives, largely leaving the underlying causation of this revolution unexplored.

Sparse coverage of intelligent discussion by middle-class Egyptian protesters, coupled with Americans irregularly seeing coverage of protesters’ voices, contributed to the fact that Westerners had problems relating to the spirit and implications of this uprising.

A Feb. 9, 2011, news story from The Washington Post focuses on the effects of the uprising and gives ample perspective from the Egyptian government and the influential players in Egypt’s anti-Mubarak movement. Unfortunately, the article loses major points by quoting real protesters only in the last 294 words of the 1,902-word story.

According to Steve Rendall, media analyst for the progressive media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, media willingness to regurgitate government narratives is nothing new in the mainstream press. Often, it occurs within stories about “national security” issues. He said that they far too often report the views of very powerful people, which inevitably distort bias in favor of the power elite’s perspective.

Indirect documentation of this can be found in Pew Research Center’s study on the effects of Egyptian protests on the United States. The report found that 15 percent of Americans thought the Egyptian protests were “good.” With only 15 percent of Americans supporting Egyptain revolution, this poll epitomizes an extreme break in conventional thinking about democratic reform, which has been historically supported by Americans. Since most Americans have no personal ties to Egypt, it is plausible that the main influence in forming U.S. opinion was the way in which the media framed the story – sparse coverage of intelligent discussion by Egyptians and emphasis on radical Islam fueling demonstrations. When looking at the same reporting on democratic movements in Syria, Libya or Eastern Europe, where the established governments are unfavorable to U.S. interests, media predominantly reported in favor of democratic demonstrators and revolution.

Conflicts of interest are rampant within the story—The Washington Post’s parent company relied on government money for 61 percent of its profit in 2010, and General Electric, which still owns 41 percent of NBC, reported $3.5 billion in North African sales during 2008 and has extensive lobbying interests with the U.S. government. Despite these, it is unlikely that the first thought of a corporate journalist is to check his or her parent company’s affiliations before filing a story.

According to Rendall, blogger Glenn Greenwald and Kouddous, the cause for glossing over important facts and self-censorship is likely the result of careerism. That is, journalists who unflinchingly support the same endeavors as the U.S. government and the corporate bosses are more likely to get interviews with elite news sources and be promoted within their company.

It is important to note that this sort of careerist journalism is the standard, but not the rule. Corporate-owned newspapers still publish articles that challenge the official government narrative. With close research, news about the realities of Egypt can be found deep within the coverage of mainstream outlets. But a culture of passionate and uninformed journalism is indeed the tone purveyed in popular debate. America is far removed from media blackout—instead, the reality is more akin to a whitewashing’s first coat of paint.

But with the most influential journalists supporting careerist interests, the need for an informed American citizenry is decidedly neglected. The press, which should be challenging power, is now engrained within the interests of power, whether government or corporate. The media are now acting as the most influential, integrated and powerful purveyor of rhetoric ever to exist.

This culture misses a large, valuable aspect of what it means to be a journalist – the fourth estate of government and constitutionally protected occupation designed to hold the powerful accountable . “The best investigative journalists, the most hard-hitting journalists, the journalists that break the biggest stories, and, in general, are better reporters are the ones who challenge power, not the ones who want to have access to it,” Kouddous said.

Remembering what he experienced when starting a career in journalism, he reflected on the advice Pulitzer Prize-winning Chris Hedges once gave him. ‘Never think about your career, just be a reporter. If you start thinking about your career, then you’re over.’

Shoppers browse the produce section of Wegmans

ITHACA, N.Y. – After five consecutive months of record-high global food prices, new breath has revived debate about the importance of local food infrastructure.

With implications of food access embroiled in mainstream political rhetoric, it is important to first acknowledge slant on either side of the issue. The right is warning against Obama’s push for food socialism because of expanding FDA regulations on the food industry; the left is concerned with the possibility of a food system collapse because of climate change and overly consolidated ownership.

Even in Ithaca, it doesn’t take many questions about the food industry to hear nutritionists, farmers and organic grocery store managers discuss their worries of systemic collapse.

One embodiment of Ithaca’s progressive food culture is West Haven Farm. Since its inception in 1992, this certified organic farm has offered sliding-scale prices on Community Supported Agriculture shares based on a shareholder’s income. CSA shareholders get regular deliveries of fresh local food at the farms from which they buy shares.

Todd McLean, manager of West Haven Farm, speaks from experience when discussing the problem of access to nutritious food. Raised in a fairly poor neighborhood of Kendall Park, N.J., he grew up on food stamps and didn’t like vegetables as a kid. “I thought vegetables [only] came in a can or a bag that you boiled in some water,” he said.

McLean is now working to break the stigma that healthy food is always bland and unsatisfying. He is a college-level farming instructor during summers who donates West Haven’s excess crops to local food pantries and is involved with Groundswell and Healthy Food For All, two organizations that work to make nutritious food accessible for more people.

Ithaca’s co-op grocery store, GreenStar, is also working to make its food accessible to more people. Two months ago, the store instituted a 15-percent discount for low-income households, and it provides a free one-year membership to the co-op.

Another player in the local landscape of food access is the American Red Cross, whose Tompkins County food pantry serves an average of 150 families per month. Homeless Services Director John Ward says that although the Red Cross is currently working to expand its food distribution operations through partnerships with Ithaca College and Cornell University, there isn’t very much non-canned, non-preserved food at the pantry.

“We serve primarily non-perishable foods out of our food pantry, but from time to time, we will have some fresh produce,” Ward said. “The problem with fresh food is its short shelf life, and most pantries are only open one day a week. … A lot of the pantries do not have the storage facilities for fresh produce, and so it has to come in and out the door within a day or two.”

According to Ithaca College Nutrition Professor Julia Lapp, aside from getting less nutrition on a per-calorie basis with processed foods, modern artificial sugars and preservatives are a major contributor to obesity. High-fructose corn syrup, a staple in virtually all processed food, has been proven to cause more weight gain than normal table sugar because fructose does not satisfy hunger effectively.

Despite the problems of processed foods, Lapp says that eating fresh isn’t a panacea solution. “It’s not necessary to eat fresh foods, to be honest. But nutritionally, with fresh foods, you do get more vitamins that would get destroyed” by canning, freezing or simply exposure to air during shipment, Lapp said.

Joe Romano, the marketing manager of GreenStar co-op, says he thinks propagation of local food is the most effective way to make food more accessible, stabilize the world food system and provide consumers with nutritious food.

One thing that McLean, Romano and Lapp all have in common is that while discussing the benefits of organic foods, they mention the stigma associated with organic – the word is an informal synonym for un-tasty, yuppie food. They all agree that breaking through that stigma is one of the biggest hurdles to getting more people interested in nutritious food.

Romano made his case against the organic stigma by comparing organic practices to those of the fast-food industry. He describes a mainstream food system that is hijacked from reasonable practices—where food’s nutritional value is only as good as the marketing behind it, profit margins are the main ethics, and quality of life for livestock is seen only as a diminishing return.

“Food has been industrialized,” Romano said. “You can get a chicken that was ground into slurry, which is so disease-filled that it has to be soaked in an ammonia bath, dyed so that it isn’t pink and then formed into some kind of patties or nuggets and sold to you as chicken.”

With a highly consolidated food system relying on stomach-turning practices for higher output, the world food system is increasingly susceptible to failure—such as disease outbreaks or large-scale corporate bankruptcy. In contrast, local foods are diverse enough to minimize the food security problems that surface from over-consolidation, and the organic ethos is a baseline guide for producing nutritious food that is more beneficial to consumer health.

View of Entiat Range from Tenmile Pass. Peaks from left to right: Buckskin Mountain, Marmot Pyramid, Mount Maude (summit obscured by cloud), Mount Fernow (summit obscured by cloud), Copper Mountain. <br>

On May 3 Ithaca College Immersion Semester Program (ISP) students wake to a rainy lightless day at 3 a.m. By midday there will be no rational choice but evacuate from the mountains.

During the past few weeks, our expedition has reached locations far removed from any road and followed trails that are too narrow for ATV or snowmobile passage. The places we find are remote and inaccessible – this was a world guarded by mountains.

Like the highest levels of existential thought, these mountains are vaguely known by many, but only experienced by people willing to push the limits of their own physical and mental faculties. Ultimately, expeditionary mountaineering tests any definition of reality.

Travel through these mountains can be painfully exhausting, but your five senses will tell you that the experience is well worth the trouble. To climb through the North Cascades is something like traveling through a crisp, untrammeled and idyllic winter landscape. At times, perhaps when I’m most exhausted, I can’t help but imagine a claymation version of myself trekking across the set of a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer christmas special; the stop-motion animation would definitely provide some added breaks from hiking, which I desire very much.  The picturesque beauty of these mountains was mixed to include a dash of the impossibly rugged Himalayan wilderness that presides at the top of our world, and travel though these mountains is cumbersome. Here, in the North Cascades, the world can be seen as it truly is – elegant and deadly. The relationship between elegance and mortal risk become linked here, and out here in mountains, the sense of beauty and danger gets cranked up exponentially higher.

On this May morning we are camped outside Holden, Wash. It took 14 days of mostly high alpine travel to get to this town. Holden is a converted mining camp, which is now used as a Lutheran ministry. It is very small and isolated, the village has no telephones, cable television or cell phone reception, and there isn’t any road connecting to Holden, the main street dead ends in either direction. Aside from the postal service and their community dock at the edge of Lake Chelan, Holden is completely cut off from the outside world. The journey to get to this incredibly remote town is in and of itself worth reflection.

SR 20 to Buckskin Ridge

Group members beginning the expedition. Photo by Andy Black

We started this expedition on April 19 at Rainy Pass off of SR 20 – the North Cascades Highway. At Bridge Creek Trailhead, we learn volumes from those first steps on a trail completely covered by several feet of snow. Like infants first standing in a new world, it’s important to focus on every step.

Our first lesson is just how unforgiving alpine travel is. This is dramatically illustrated in the hard face-first fall that one student takes within her first few strides of the several week expedition. Carrying a 75-pound backpack, every step is challenging, it feels like the snow is grabbing at your ankles and wishing to toss you off balance.

When the day is over we have all experienced postholing, which is when a snow traveler unexpectedly steps into unconsolidated snow. The façade of a snowy, even-planed traveling surface gets proven false quickly. The snow often collapses and consumes whichever leg is carrying the majority of your weight. The rest of  your body follows the laws of impetus, plummeting down with unexpected force. At worst a posthole can break your knee; at best you are momentarily immobilized until you either dig yourself out or have a hiking partner pull you up.

On the second day of the expedition, we encounter elevation gain, which is a challenge much more taxing than just hiking on flat snow.

Hiking steep terrain comes with the risk of falling from a considerable height, and it adds the challenge of finding routes through high piled snow. Gaining nearly 2,000 feet of elevation, and traveling only four miles and hiking for a total of 14 hours straight, we finally arrive at our destination, McAllister Lake.

Tonight my tent group is too exhausted to cook dinner. Instead we have peanut butter, chocolate chips and summer sausage. Despite not eating well, I sleep like a very old man who has been up past midnight – or maybe car crash survivor better sums it- exhausted and fragmented into an nightmare laden slumber. By the end of this expedition we will crush days long days like this one.

Waiting for rappel before descending McAllister Pass. Photo by Andy Casler

After the abuse of that first 14-hour day, the group decides to take a layover day to clean out blisters and rest sore muscles. During the layover we focus on completing as many student lead lessons as we can. Everyone in the class is required to teach three 45-minute-long lessons and three 15-minute-long lessons.

The next day the class makes quick work of ascending McAllister pass. However the downside was of the pass is the risky part. To get down we fix ropes and rappel down the pass one by one. The process takes hours and as time progresses the sun is warming the snow, and we are facing higher risk of avalanche with every moment. We finally get off of the pass at 11 a.m. during this sunny day.

The North Cascades’ features rough terrain, making for very unforgiving travel. In just a few days, a climber can gain 3,000 feet only to lose 5,000 feet and then regain 5,000 feet, but only to find his or herself losing that elevation all over again. For days and days it goes like this. The challenge of traveling here is also a part of what makes these mountains so special; groups come here to train for Himalayan expeditions.

The trek to Holden was filled with the strains of freezing-cold  water crossings, more postholes than can be counted, and most dangerous of all, taking a wrong turn up a steep ice-covered avalanche chute, not wearing crampons, with purchase very hard to find.

The group was attempting to cross Ten Mile Pass to Holden Valley. The intended route was crossing the pass at its lowest point. This involved hiking into thick tree cover. In the trees our group’s student-leader-of-the-day got disoriented when trying to find our intended route up the pass. Finally we ascend a taller, steeper and more exposed icy route.

Climbing the avalanche chute above Ten Mile Pass. Photo by Andy Black

Much of this climb is through hard-frozen-icy snow that can barely be penetrated by  the but of an ice-axe or a boot. When it becomes clear that crampons are necessary for the climb, the group is already too committed to put them on. This terrain is much too steep.

Will Holets, another ISP student, and I are at the front of the hiking group, and we trade off with each other as lead step-kicker. In these awful conditions, making steps takes at least five boot kicks just to make a tiny toehold in the icy snow. Our route is through a recent avalanche’s deposition zone. The avalanche left the slope laden with snow and ice boulders. Falling here could lead to a 600 ft slide. Even with proper self-arrest, cuts and cracked ribs are probable.

Chris Pelchat pointing his ice axe towards Buckskin Ridge and Mount Maude. Photo by Andy Casler

“As late morning approached and the sun was reaching its peak all we could do was pray for clouds to block its hot rays from melting and loosening the snow beneath our feet. We were in a life threatening situation,” Radley said afterward.

At the top of this avalanche chute strong wind gusts  gave cacophonous, shrieking whistles, providing me a permanent reminder of the potential for a horrid turn of events that could have left a member of the group injured, an also a better sense for the magnitude of challenge the group had overcome. We  came within 200 feet of summiting Ten Mile Mountain, and received a beautiful view of the mountain that we were scheduled to ascend, Mount Maude.

May 3, the day we had to turn back 

Village of Holden, Wash. Photo by Andy Black

This expedition has planned for 22 days worth of food and supplies for 12 people. All of the gear equates to many hundred pounds of supplies between us. So much weight means there is no way we can hope to carry all the food, fuel and personal gear. To make this three-week expedition possible we arrange for two seven-day rations and one eight-day ration. The first time we restock is in Stehekin, Wash. The town is located on the north shore of Lake Chelan. The town Stehekin is inaccessible by road. The only ways in or out are by foot, boat or flight.

Having spent the last two days getting our final re-ration together the group is well rested. Now leaving Holden, the day ahead of us is expected to be the most physically demanding trek of the expedition. The rain in getting heavier as morning light breaks.

Already soaking wet, we begin this ascent of Copper Creek Basin. The plan is to camp 2526 feet higher than Holden and 3.73 miles away from the town, just below Buckskin Mountain. On the next day, May 4th, we should climb and descend Buckskin ridge. Gaining and losing a total of 4,600 feet – 2,300 feet up and 2,300 feet down, at the top of Buckskin we would be looking at the north face of Mt. Maude, a mountain that the famous climber and climbing guide author Fred Beckey characterized as a “dominating hulk” of the North Cascades. In the next two days after that, we plan to climb up the eastern face of that colossal rock.

The Copper Basin climb is complicated by snow. First the trail we need to follow is entirely covered. We locate the trail by looking for felled trees and hold the path for a few hours. Hiking for more than an hour, we’re moving fast and gain lots elevation, but the steady morning rain turns to snow. Now it’s getting much colder. To get warm again we stop and put on extra layers of clothing. In the time it takes to get into my backpack, put on a long sleeve shirt plus another jacket, the top of my pack is filled with several inches of snow. Though we’re under tree cover, these are blizzard conditions. We waste little time and continue to boot-pack through increasingly deep snow. Within minutes we come to an avalanche chute. After 14 days of navigating alpine terrain, the protocol of crossing an avalanche chute is nearly common sense: The leader of the day (L.O.D.) walks across the chute first, sets their backpack down at a safe zone — which is usually in the trees on the other side of the crossing, we then cross the chute one by one. This limits the risk of injury if an avalanche were to occur, because if we all crossed together the whole group would be exposed to the risk of an avalanche, simultaniously.

The avalanche chute crossing at Copper Basin comes with hard pounding wind and snow. Gusts are estimated at 70 to 80 mph. The whipping snow grinds against my checks, I worry about losing my footing and falling down the avalanche chute and the pressure of a strong gust seems to compress my eyeballs deep into their sockets. It’s no wonder why ancient cultures decided that mountains hold mischievous spirits that delight in the pain of humans; local folklore holds that witches live high in these mountains.

After crossing the chute, we arrive at the edge of an alpine meadow. At the meadow we are reintroduced to the driving snowstorm. There is already a new layer of fresh snow that is 3 ½ feet deep.

Wading through what is now waist deep snow we continue the ascent in the snowstorm. The gusts of wind are deafening and this is the most strenuous hiking we have ever dealt with. Steps wash away as you try to maintenance them for the people behind you, and with a pack that’s pushing 80 pounds, every step taken is agonizingly laborious. To make it even harder, for the first time in the trip, my pants keep unbuckling and falling down despite my tight belt. I’m not the only one who this happened to, but I think no one else had them fall to knee level.

After crossing the alpine meadow we regroup in a cluster of trees and begin to push straight up a 45-degree slope. After what seemed to be an eternity, OAL major Will Holets’s finally takes a break from leading.

I am now leading and kicking steps for the rest of the group. Kicking into three feet of fresh snow is infuriating. Steps wash away when you add weigh and there is good way to support them other than completely rebuilding it. The person in second, the sweeper, doesn’t have it much better they’re just plowing less snow.

Kicking steps in the blizzard at Copper Creek Basin was more like trying to make steps in baking flour, flat surface can be achieved, but it will collapse as soon as pressure is applied down on it. Every step washes away underneath your feet and it goes on like this step after step. We climb across the snow blocked alpine meadow and now the group is pushing up the right side of an avalanche chute. Despite all the physical work of sweeping and leading kicking steps, I am freezing in a hard charging wind. While snowboarding I’ve sometimes had my gloves freeze solid on my hands, but this is the first time in life that all the clothing on my body is frozen stiff. Kicking steps through the high piled snow, I cut up through some pine trees to my right. On a ledge now, I probe the snow with my ice axe trying to work rightward through the cluster of trees. Maybe 15 steps into the traverse, in one probe, my ice axe plunges deeper than the bottom of my feet. The path ahead looks unsafe. The terrain below me is somewhat clear of trees, which is worrying. If snow was always stable there, there would be full grown trees. A fall from here would be very dangerous, and being consumed by an avalanche could be fatal. With the ultra fluffy snow consistency I decide to wait for a professional opinion. Turning around I see Professor Chris Pelchat come in to view. He looks where I’m standing, “This is sketchy!” he says.

Pelchat turns the group around, and we work our way a little higher to take cover in the tree wells above. Many people are very cold, despite having just climbed harder  and faster than they ever had during the whole trip. I put on what layers of clothing I have left, the snow is still driving down. It’s decided that everyone needs to regroup in a cluster of trees 200 yards below.

During the descent snow and wind combine to make a blinding veil that cuts at your cheeks. After the climb down Pelchat addresses his class. “So this changes everything!” he begins.

Most of the announcement is unintelligible to me as Pelchat yells over tremendous winds. I gather that the avalanche risk is too great to continue, that we are going to hike as fast as possible to get back to tree cover, and that I should keep watching the person in front me.

Halfway across the alpine meadow Andy Black and I notice a small avalanche coming down above us. Luckily it’s a minor slide and does not reach us, but the sight makes my knees quake and heartbeat quicken, scared and exhausted a few prayers come to mind. Thoughts of death are near. The wind is much stronger on the race back to tree cover and flatter ground. The blasting gusts come in waves. They are often strong enough blind me and I get knocked down more than once. When I can finally get to my feet and vision is restored I make sure that the person in front of me is still in line. After a couple of these gusts I see the whole line of mountaineers get knocked down like upended dominoes, but every time we stand up again.

Andy Black and Chris Pelchat with frozen beards after the blizzard. Photo by Andy Casler

It’s hard work, but after a very stressful and fast paced hike we are back in the trees. The L.O.D. takes the opportunity to let the class eat some food and drink water. I have food, but all of my water was frozen in the blizzard. After the break the L.O.D. maintains the pace of mad dash back to Holden. Some instinctual force says that even though being back the trees means we are out of avalanche danger, our hiking must be as quick as possible, and the L.O.D. forgets to arrange for another packs-off break. This rush down didn’t need to happen, but I also don’t hear a single person request a break. We are all mildly shell-shocked.

The end of mountaineering comes with some regrets. We never got to learn how to travel in a rope team, use crampons or climb on a glacier. After returning to civilization, the expedition aspect of this last trip is lost, as cell phones and laptops must be used to plan a rock climbing trip and inform family members that we’re still alive after a huge storm in the mountains.

There was one very important lesson that was imparted on every student after we decided that alpine travel was no longer safe enough to be an option. The lesson is that adapting to new facts is more important than finishing what you started out to do. If properly applied this lesson can save a lot more than just 12 lives.

Back at Holden we meet in the main lodge of the old mining town. Amid the Lutheran Ministry serving a town dinner, Ithaca College ISP students decide that high alpine travel anywhere in the area is unsafe because of all the fresh snow. The Lutheran’s let us stay in the yurts next to the campground and the next morning we take the Chelan Lake ferry to Chelan, Wash.

Breakfast on evacuation day in a yurt outside of Holden, Washington. Students from left: Will Holets, Wes Judd, Lisa Radley, Andrew Casler. Photo by Andy Black

In the subsequent days we decide to go rock climbing in Leavenworth, Wash. There we meet famous climber and one of the first men to ascend the more technically difficult north face of Mount Maude, Fred Beckey. We see him at a rock climbing area called The Playground, Beckey is there because he also couldn’t hike with all the new snow.

Mount Maude was first ascended by John Burnett and Hermann F Ulrich in July of 1932, and its much more difficult north face route was first ascended on June, 17 1957 by Fred Beckey, Don Gordon, John Rupley and Herb Stanley.

Here’s an article that I helped write about the environmental science course called Environmental Sentinels at Ithaca College.

Has All of Mainstream American Politics and Press Become Foreign to the Concept of Transparency?

By Andy Casler and Chris Giblin

Since the drop of the latest WikiLeaks documents, mainstream media has selectively reported the release and is effectively shooting the messenger by displacing blame from the State Department’s espionage against U.N. officials. Since the release, WikiLeaks has been taken off of the Amazon.com server and is no longer accessible through its URL name.

Though many of the revelations have already been known, WikiLeaks is the first to provide government documents confirming beyond any doubt that the U.S. State Department encouraged U.S. diplomats to spy on the U.N. secretary general, his team and foreign diplomats. This measure was supported by current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as former Secretary of State Condolleza Rice.

On Nov. 29, 2010, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, gives Obama Administration officials and the State Department a springboard to call into question the moral validity of the latest WikiLeaks release and completely avoids any mention of the wrongdoings of the U.S. government. During the show, former Chief Spokesman for the State Department Jamie Rubin appeared on Morning Joe to call the release, ”A cyber attack on the United Sates in general.” Rubin went on to warn viewers about the danger of losing informants because their words may be published in the news.

The anchors of Morning Joe unquestioningly backed Rubin’s assessment of the situation and are heard dropping “Yes” after “Yes” to his assessment of leaks being an attack on America and a threat to national security.

After a few pro-FRACing commercials, the report was followed by an interview with the ranking member of the House’s Homeland Security Commission Rep. Peter King, who is calling to have WikiLeaks labeled a terrorist organization. King is a long time friend of Joe Scarborough, the anchor of Morning Joe. Scarborough, a former U.S. Congressman, quickly and quietly commented that it’s an overstep to classify WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization but loudly stated that the work of WikiLeaks must be stopped. The viewpoint that espionage is unethical or that some government leaks are necessary for an informed and functional democratic society are completely ignored.

The Activism Director of Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting Peter Hart believes that the politics of a document release is something that corporate media refuse to qualify.

“I think they see the political purpose of Wikileaks as something that they cannot tolerate or support. But there is a project here to uncover documentation of criminal acts.” Hart said. “It’s raw material and it’s there to be mined and to be reported on. The idea is that it should be treated as a sort of radioactive release of secrets: That undermines the very idea of journalism itself.”

“It provides remarkable fodder for journalists to test the gap between the government’s public face and it’s private negotiating stances,” he added.

A good example of this can be seen in the leaked information regarding the U.S. government’s public and private view of the Honduras coup attempt. In public, the U.S. called the coup “illegal and unconstitutional” but privately supported the coup.

Brash Assessments

With WikiLeaks and Julian Assange dominating the recent mainstream American news scene – this past week, Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that it provided the second-most covered news story after the state of the U.S. economy.

“Obviously, there were people who talked more broadly about him and WikiLeaks,” said Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the organization. “And certainly, there is some level of support for what WikiLeaks did out there, but certainly, a lot of the coverage in the later stages of [this past] week focused on Assange as being some kind of criminal, either in the sexual assault case or as somebody who is working against U.S. interests and needs to be prosecuted.”

Interestingly enough, America’s mainstream media seems fascinated by the news content WikiLeaks is providing them with, though the vast majority of analysts have either portrayed the government’s alarmist reactions as their own or denounced the validity of the leaks. In other words, for some analysts, the spreading of a video showing U.S. troops gunning down civilians in Iraq is worthy of nothing more than a shrug, while others have agreed with the administration’s assessment of WikiLeaks and the imminent danger it poses, despite the fact that, thus far, there has been no indication that the leaks have compromised anyone’s safety in any way. The Pentagon quietly admitted late last summer, and the fact that only speculation has been heard since points to the fact that they still cannot provide the proof of Wikileaks’ harm.

“The initial assessment in no way discounts the risk to national security,” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote in a letter on Aug. 16. “However, the review to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by the disclosure.”

So, America’s most familiar media outlets are decidedly negative regarding the concept and leadership of WikiLeaks, whether that be Fox News’ parroting of an increasingly fear-mongering Obama administration or by the ‘so what?’ reaction of Albert R. Hunt in a letter published by the New York Times, or by analyst David Gergen on CNN. Obviously, those who express praise or any sort of admiration for what WikiLeaks is doing is not seen in the mainstream media, despite it being a topic that continues to be highly debatable.

With no proof of the alleged “harm” that may come out of WikiLeaks, devoting oneself to the school of thought that it will compromise the safety of U.S. citizens is problematic and gives the unequivocal thumbs up for all controversial government endeavors.

“For all that… the Presidents Bush or Barack Obama tell us of the good that they hope to accomplish, we haven’t seen any evidence of that, I would say,” said Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers in 1970, in a late October interview on Democracy Now! “And in terms of blood on their hands, I’m sorry to say, but a lot of actual blood has been spilled as opposed to this hypothetical, possible blood, of which none has been reported from the WikiLeaks.”

At the same time, it seems strange that other mainstream analysts seem to think of WikiLeaks to essentially be a non-issue. Such points of view are shortsighted, as they only focus on its effects thus far on the U.S. and ignore what WikiLeaks has exposed and changed for other countries such as Kenya. It seems as though many other American mainstream analysts have decided that only a present-day Pentagon Papers will impress them, and they have made it clear that they generally accept their right to secrecy and the fact that atrocities will be committed in any war. When Wikileaks released the Afghanistan papers over the summer, the UK’s the Guardian had this to say about it:

“A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.”

But somehow, things like this just don’t seem shocking enough to American media. If this is all stuff journalists already knew about then they should have already been outraged by it. However, in an Obama administration that is increasingly going against its initial promise of transparency, WikiLeaks has become the scapegoat of an embarrassed and annoyed American government.

Misrepresentation

The “liberal” mainstream media aren’t the only outlets reporting this story in a misleading fashion. True to form, Fox News’ article on the November 28^th release and The New York Times article leave out any mention of Condoleeza Rice’s actions of ordering spying. And after the release of the Iraq war papers no agenda setting Sunday morning talk shows mentioned the release.

“When these releases are viewed primarily as the threat to U.S. foreign affairs and conduct of our diplomacy. That’s the way they are framed by elite media and the Sunday shows are in some ways the worst examples of that kind of discretion,” Hart said.

Though, as mentioned earlier the Pentagon quietly acknowledged that there were no damages done to U.S. intelligence sources or practices after the WikiLeaks’ release, accusations like the site having “blood on its hands” are still circulating.

This development is directly opposed to the media parroting the Obama Administration’s line that WikiLeaks has breached the safety of military informants. The latest release only irrefutably documents information that has already been published by – in the self-contradicting words of the former State Department spokesman Rubin – good journalists. So what then separates this ‘terrorist’ leak from to the work of good journalists? And furthermore, why is this information more damaging to U.S. relations this time around, maybe because it’s not getting swept under the rug this time? Is this media uproar really over the awkward conversations that U.S. diplomats are undoubtedly having today? If so, then it is obvious that diplomats, more so than the average person, should know that actions have can have consequences, and that spying is, at the very least, a conflict of interest that they shouldn’t have partaken in.

On Nov. 14 the Iran began trial of  18 year-old blogger Navid Mohebbi for acting against Iranian national security; insulting the Supreme Leader, the “former” leader (Khomeini); propaganda against the  Iranian state for “acting with foreign media” according to  the website A Safe Word for Women.

Mohebbi is the youngest blogger to be persecuted for questioning the government.  His lawyer is not allowed to attend the trial.

Mohebbi’s blogging began with posts about playing sports and going to school, but turned to questioning government practices and supported women’s rights. Last winter  Mohebbi was arrested , he was only released after giving the government his e-mail and blog passwords. According to GlobalVoices he wrote about the experience:

The law is what your interrogator decides it to be. Your final judgment depends on Ministry of Intelligence orders rather than the country’s judicial system… Then I came home and asked myself, when they will ever want to improve their behavior.

Mohebbi is an activist for The One Million Signatures Campaign, which aims to stop discriminator laws against women in Iran, he has been in custody since Sept. 18, 2010.  According to Chris Crowstaff at A Safe World For Women and The Committee of Human Rights Reporters Mohebbi was severely beaten when he was arrested and his family was threaten with a gun. Information of the youngest persecuted blogger is scarce, but worth seeking as his court case progresses. Neither The N.Y. Times or Aljazeera have made any mention of the low profile trial.

According to the Washington Post on Tuesday all 50 state attorneys general joined in a lawsuit against Bank of America, Chase, HSBC and Wells Fargo over the banks fraudulent handling of American home foreclosures following the Bush T.A.R.P plan.

The Associated Press’ M. Conlin and C. Anderson write:

Perhaps an even bigger threat are the lawsuits that contend the banks’ foreclosure machinery amounted to a racketeering enterprise. One such case, an Indiana lawsuit against Bank of America, was filed under civil Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations or RICO laws, which allow damages to be tripled.

With racketeering charges being brought up in a case against Bank of America, bank executives and lobbyists are working feverishly in Washington to keep the class action lawsuits and scandal from causing damage to banking giants.

Harris’ remarks were mentioned during this episode of Democracy Now! which features former high level P.R. man from the health care industry Wendell Potter speaking out against the practices of the industry he once represented. Today, Potter was featured on Democracy Now! once again to further discuss the underhanded dealings of the health insurance industry – one example being the establishment of “astroturf”, which is an organization portrayed as grassroots, but actually funded by a large corporation.

The Democracy Now! interviews equate to this Tom Tomorrow cartoon: