Tallulah laments, 10 principles of the 1977 National Energy Plan

Almost 30 years ago, President Carter laid out these principles...wonder what would have happened if we had kept going on this.

The first principle is that we can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the government takes responsibility for it and if the people understand the seriousness of the challenge and are willing to make sacrifices.

The second principle is that healthy economic growth must continue. Only by saving energy can we maintain our standard of living and keep our people at work. An effective conservation program will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

The third principle is that we must protect the environment. Our energy problems have the same cause as our environmental problems -- wasteful use of resources. Conservation helps us solve both at once.

The fourth principle is that we must reduce our vulnerability to potentially devastating embargoes. We can protect ourselves from uncertain supplies by reducing our demand for oil, making the most of our abundant resources such as coal, and developing a strategic petroleum reserve.

The fifth principle is that we must be fair. Our solutions must ask equal sacrifices from every region, every class of people, every interest group. Industry will have to do its part to conserve, just as the consumers will. The energy producers deserve fair treatment, but we will not let the oil companies profiteer.

The sixth principle, and the cornerstone of our policy, is to reduce the demand through conservation. Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts. Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy. Conservation is the only way we can buy a barrel of oil for a few dollars. It costs about $13 to waste it.

The seventh principle is that prices should generally reflect the true replacement costs of energy. We are only cheating ourselves if we make energy artificially cheap and use more than we can really afford.

The eighth principle is that government policies must be predictable and certain. Both consumers and producers need policies they can count on so they can plan ahead. This is one reason I am working with the Congress to create a new Department of Energy, to replace more than 50 different agencies that now have some control over energy.

The ninth principle is that we must conserve the fuels that are scarcest and make the most of those that are more plentiful. We can't continue to use oil and gas for 75 percent of our consumption when they make up seven percent of our domestic reserves. We need to shift to plentiful coal while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy.

The tenth principle is that we must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century.

Tallulah's trials and tribulations with Assisted Living Facilities

Today I get a call from dear ol' mum, she talks about her favorite talk show host Bill Handle, how she's still having trouble turning on her TV and how the place she lives in is going to hell. My mom, the good Presbyterian woman she is, rarely uses the term hell so I listen carefully. It seems that my mother had a backed up toilet. I asked her for how long, she said two days.

TWO DAYS????!!! At this point my face is turning red...I'm 3000 miles away. Calming myself down, I call the front desk to verify that my mom had called the maintenance department to request assistance. The very nice receptionist says oh yes she's on the list. I tell her that my mom said it had been 2 days since she put in the request.

Silence fell, that kind of silence where they're carefully choosing their words as not to implicate themselves in anything or to indicate exactly how long my mother has been on this list. I tell the lovely woman (and she really is, I'm not being facetious), that some of the other residents suggested that my mom get a plunger as sometimes maintenance takes a while. The woman said, that's not a bad idea. I calmly, though I really wanted to jump through the phone line, calmly tell her that my mother has absolutely no strength to plunge a toilet on her own, someone needs to plunge her toilet immediately.

I call my mom and tell her that I've contacted the front desk and to call me when someone has plunged her toilet. One and one/half hours later, she calls to say they just plunged.

I ask you, if this is what we get at almost $5,000.00 a month, I wonder and am very concerned how bad it is at other places? Needless to say, I fear that very soon I will have to find new options for my mom.

So far the case of the backed up toilet is only one of 4 incidents (I know about) that have happened at Summerville since my mother moved in this past October 2006 (We're looking at only 2 1/2 month stay).

1. Nurses aide failed to help with clean up during a bad accident. (I was there, she was completely unbelievably unwilling to help)
2. Nurses aide failed to show up to take my mother to dinner
3. Somehow my mother lost her lunch seating last week which she ended up missing a meal.

A letter to poet, Brendan Constantine

January 2007

Dear Brendan,

I know you will never see this letter unless of course you google yourself (sounds so dirty or a Who song from Tommy if it were written today). But I have to write you a note and I thought since I do not have your email anymore, I'd just write some content for the blog.

I think about you from time to time wondering what you're doing. Perhaps its my impending eve of destruction or at least that's how I view my birthday next week. Lately I've been thinking a lot about old friends. I do not remember my life when I did not know you. Sure I met you in my 13th year of life but the years before were such a blur. And though I haven't seen you since my 30th birthday (only moments ago it seems), a seat is still reserved for you in my heart's memory bank. That is if a heart has a memory bank, maybe it's just a flash drive...yes even my heart has been upgraded with a USB2 port.

Tuesday, I went to an open poetry night at the local cafe (it's 45 minutes away from my holler). The instructions were, bring a poem or two to share with others. Knowing that the best poem I ever wrote had these two lines: Kenny Jones is the new drummer, Cause Keith died what a bummer I opted to read someone else's poetry. I searched and found one you had written. "Last Night I Went To the Map of the World and I Have Messages for You".

And so it was my turn and I read your poem aloud. As the overly paranoid of litigation gal that I am, I stated the name of the author and year so as not to get into any copyright infringement issues. Only someone my age who grew up where I did would worry about copyright infringement at a small cafe in West Virginia. I did not read it the way you would have...but I did read it aloud. The audience enjoyed it so much that when my turn came around again and they realized I only brought 1 piece with me, I was asked to read it again. Only this time, there was an entire discussion about your choice of meter and the political ideas behind it. I smiled, knowing that no matter how you make yourself present be it by someone else reading your poetry, you always become the life of the party.

So with that, I salute you. You've done well. If and when you find this blog, please know that the girl who would listen to Tom Waits and Social Distortion or play with that punching Bruce Lee puppet with you still thinks of you and wishes you the very best.

Love your pal,

Tallulah