Through the Eyes of a Daydreamer's Daughter

Once upon a time America was well on its way to having cheap and clean electricity from nuclear power plants. Then we had a problem with one power plant and that was pretty much the end of nuclear power in America. One after another we closed down the nuclear power plants that we had and we built no more. Instead of looking for ways to build better and safer nuclear plants, we fled from the field. Now we wish we had electricity from nuclear power as people do in Europe, but we are so far behind that it will take us years to catch up. Drilling for oil off our own shores looks like it will go the same route as nuclear power. We're watching a sickening spill cause terrible destruction, so we will withdraw from drilling rather than look for ways to drill better and safer. We will buy oil from nations that hate us, giving them money to injure us, because we fear drilling on our own soil or off our own beaches. We will run scared instead of taking a t...

I am positive that Tony  Hayward genuinely regrets the accident that is currently costing BP  a fortune, destroying his career at BP after a life of climbing the corporate ladder, and possibly ruining the company that funds his pension plan. I'm one hundred percent certain that sitting in front of our congressmen and women today, he wished someone had said something about the problems with drilling that well before the accident happened. Today, if he could go back to before the explosion and be told what would happen, he would certainly believe that he'd have welcomed the news and given that prescient employee a medal and a big bonus. But the truth is that "If you see something, say something," just isn't the way most corporations operate. Most corporate cultures operate on, "Go along to get along." Of course the person who fails to predict a disaster may be sacrificed after a disaster. But most people who predict disasters are also sacrificed--or...

I haven't been writing and posting here because I'm most absorbed by socioeconomic issues in our society and I do realize that those topics are not primarily about issues of aging. On the other hand, maybe aging B aby B oomers are more likely to suffer from the current economy and more likely to recognize the dangers in the ways society is changing. After all, those among us who were paying attention certainly had an opportunity to understand the socioeconomic conditions in Germany right before WW II broke out if we cared to know. The other day there was an article on the Internet that reviewed newspapers for 1930 and concluded that no one recognized then that the world was in the Great Depression. In fact, people were writing optimistically about the economy in 1930.