My Testimony to Texas State Senators about the TCEQ and White Stallion Coal Plant

Hello, I’m Joseph Ely, a concerned citizen from Matagorda County, speaking about the pattern of negligence and ineffectiveness by the TCEQ. This is exemplified not just broadly by Texas leading the nation in emmisions per person of a variety of hazardous and toxic substances but more specifically from my occupational and personal experience, and especially in regards to the granting of coal permits like the potential White Stallion Coal Plant in Matagorda County. I’m not paid to be here, in fact, I’m sacrificing badly needed hours at work to be here.

I grew up on the Colorado river, and through the years have seen the area change drastically from being a couple of small towns of a few rough neighborhoods, to a rapidly growing part of the county due in large part to our thriving recreation, hunting, fishing and ecotourism industries. Along with 40 local doctors, our elected representatives, and our community as evidenced by signs in front of homes all over the county, I'm concerned that the irrational permitting of this plant will cancel out what the people I grew up with have worked so hard for.

I've been talking to people who live around the Coleto creek coal plant and have heard about the trees losing half their foliage and the parts of the creek where even IF the fish bite, they aren't safe to eat more often than once a month.

I have worked in a private storm water consulting firm and have seen how environmental enforcement works. The regulations that pass in this capitol so often have little effect on the reality on the ground. The law only exists on the days the inspector is around and even if they are, the company appeals and ends up paying a meager fine and continues as before. This will be what we have to deal with if this permit is granted.

We are concerned that the rush to build this plant is ignoring the economic externalities involved with the mercury in our rivers, the acid rain on our crops, the particulate matter we breath, and most importantly, the cumulative effect of it all.

When I go out fishing with my father, I don't want to have to worry about getting the catch tested for mercury. When I go down to the river with my niece, I don't want to have to tell her about the days when folks would come to town back when the trees had more leaves and the fish used to bite. When I run into my friends I don't want to hear about how their medical bills shot up because their kids got asthma. I don't want to hear from my friends who grow rice about how yields aren't what they used to be.

At the last sunset review town hall a former TCEQ official stated openly that permits are very frequently granted despite widespread popular outcry from the local communities. So I ask, are we a country of, by and for the people? Or a feudalistic country of, by and for the wealthy regardless of public health, our rivers, or the reality that the rest of us face. The primarily role of government is to protect us from all enemies foreign and domestic. Isn't someone who poisons you a domestic threat? I'm not asking for lip service, I'm asking you to take action because my family, my friends, and my community are at stake.

-Thank you

The center that splintered

News cycles come and news cycles go
and let the best and worst of us show.
For example, a new building in lower Manhatten
Has caused wallets of news pundits to fatten
"The “ground zero mosque” is a place" they say
“Where terrorists will be recruiting all day,
It’s an insult to victims that simply is wrong,
That will let Al Queda sing victory songs,
More than 100 mosques in that city alone
Why another, so close, so soon?” they all moan

A fundamentalist says he’ll burn the Quran
Unless they move it (then changes his stance)
Then out come commercials saying Islam is our foe
They’ve put mosques where they’ve conquered since long ago
It’s true this issue has increased the flowing of
Tries to monetize on Islamaphobia
This place was announced last year so it’s weird
It’s a big deal now (an election is near)

Outcries have come from the left and the right
Everyone chiming in on the fight
People of all faiths have come in defense
To welcome the center and help it commence
Those against have no legal basis at all
The mayor and president stand by the law
Everyone’s flag here says “don’t tread on me”
Anyone against freedoms is free to leave

The issue however is not about rights
It’s about sensitivity and cultural fights
60 workers and their worshipping place
Were Muslim and also came down that day
Though their ashes are spread all over the boroughs
Disrespect towards them has been much more thorough

Their fellow Muslims have suffered the most
From bigotry since, from coast to coast
This new building could serve as a monument
A celebration of diversity, not just tolerance
To show ignorance will be destroyed by the truth
That religions don’t start wars, people do

So many people have uninformed views
They only see Muslims when they’re in the news
Anyone would want to take back their faith
From those who try to put a mask on its face
Lies must be undone from their very core
To heal a wound one must go to the source
To put peace back where peace was erased
One could not think of a better place

To show an Islam that’s not on Fox News
Of friendly faces, like jews and hindus
They’re part of America, and they’re here to stay
They will not live in fear and will not run away
They’re just people with rights, enough “them and us”
The dead horse has been beaten, let’s end with the fuss

Universe of Each Other

Why don’t we notice each other? The infinite splendor within us all is more than we'll ever know. So much food is wasted while people starve, so many buildings lie empty while people shiver in the night, so many people go to a cold bed at night screaming “somebody fucking touch me!”

Eyes stay lowered to the ground on the dance floor, in petrified fear that someone we don’t know could *gasp* interact with us. We tirelessly toil and spend to attract some kind of the sustenance known as attention, intoxicating, concealing, and trying to be someone else, in unabated desperation that someone will see us.

In public our friends often shield us from the fountains of awe, enlightenment, and endearment flowing from beautiful people whom we do not yet know. A sedentary force field of those with whom we are familiar hinders our ignorant minds from the eye opening conversations that come from seeing with someone’s eyes whose are not our own. In our hometowns, we foolishly walk into a room looking to talk those we know so that we can feel comfortable, while a wise traveler walks into a room comfortable in talking to those whom they will know. We fail to realize that we are all travelers, and every time we walk out of the door, we journey into the foreign land that is the present, where anything can happen, and any connection with another human can be life changing.

So often we weaken our immune system to become sickly, anti-social creatures, through technology, we talk more and say less. We withdraw into a cocoon of artificial barriers we construct of secret societies of people that look like us, where age, culture and judgments imprison us, enslaving our decisions, sterilizing our interactions, and making us all very, very lonely.

In our stupidity, we blind ourselves from one another, because we fear the sheer magnitude of the transcendental majesty we all possess. Our imperfections make us perfect and even more fascinating to complete the treasure we owe each other because we are each other.

We shared the molecules that run through our veins with those that would become the galaxies, stars, our earth and each other when the universe was a baby. The carbon we share when we kiss was shared with supernovas. When we look in one another’s eyes we do it with oxygen that flowed from stars to planets. When we touch each other, we feel with hydrogen in our skin that traveled billions of light years to get here and put itself together in the delightfully unbelievable symphony that is life in us.
So can we please, please, notice each other, and share the universe within us all?

I want to be a slam poet

My chest opens in pain like the chains of the jail cell when she screams about snail mail and obama's war like what I had in store when that microphone tapped in my lungs and exploded like spindletop with the oil it brung that was burning with the flames of poetry!

What the fuck am I talking about?

OH, oh yeah, I WANT TO BE A SLAM POET.

I want to make circular reasoning make sense cause it has a ring to it then dab it with seasoning to give a zing to it that people will feel because I act like I mean it and they're obliged to applaud.

I want to read off a list of societal ills that people think about but nobody spills then i'll go spend my time and money at a bar instead of volunteering at a charity or donating to haiti.

I want . To breath . In between every. Statement. For emphasis. Because I'm gonna act like I mean it, and saying this memorized poem is not routine anymore, and Im gonna get my 30 points!

I WANT TO BE A SLAM POET.

I wanna talk with a brooklyn accent because even though i'm from texas I wanna fit the preconceived notion of what a poet should be so that I can be acknowledged.

I want to speak with a trembling voice as I pout and pause. To let the profound depth of these words sink in, cause someone needs to monetize this depression, and it’s ok to profit of tragedy if it’s art, right?

I want to talk about empowerment, love, and spittin it because it doesn't get old and even though I’m a delicate contemplative man in touch with my feelings, I’m the man and everyone should know it.

I WANT TO BE A SLAM POET.

I want to say things that are agreeable, things that make people cheer and smile. Because if I criticize commonly held beliefs in the room, they may not feel me, despite poignance and delivery. Everyone likes thought provoking subject matter, but only if they are thoughts we prefer to have instead of thoughts that encourage us to reconsider. Power to the people! Hip hop is awesome! Girls kick ass! Gimme my points!

I want to say the same poem every other week cause it gets me points and hardly anyone will notice, right? Besides even if they do, regulars don’t get me paid as much as judges do, and if regurgitating the same old shit every week gets me mad points every time, why should I ever write another poem again?

I want to deliver a shtick that I say over and over again that makes it catchy and cheap but mildly entertaining like ...

I WANT TO BE A SLAM POET

To make life music

There are 3 kinds of musicians, song writers, jammers and re-enactors. Song writers slave meticulously over composing a piece from beginning to end. They are always considering the endless possibilities of the convalescence of rhythms, melodies, lyrics and how these tools can adequately express what’s inside.

Then there are jammers, they make music on the spot for the moment. They have little idea of what they just played or are going to play. Whatever musical instrument around them is the vehicle that guides how the creation will unfold. The momentary mood is the driver, equipped with sonar, night vision, telescopes and microscopes to fit the changing world that surrounds, a world that has no idea where it came from or where it is going, but knows where it is.

Not to be forgotten are re-enactors. Record player players. They have no creativity of their own so they rely on others. Either they were never required or never enquired to create something on their own, so they don’t. They worked their asses off to earn the skill to execute music from others, because so often that is what people want to hear.

These musicians shape the world around us, the world within us and they are us, because life is music. A pure jammer cannot write a constitution, a pure song writer cannot fly a plane and neither can put together a computer.

I’ll pause to let you consider who you are.

Whether our strengths are synthesis, improvisation, or re-enactment , let us not use one but all. It is thinking about how things have been done that allowed us to plant crops as our forefathers did to survive the winter. It is thinking on our feet that allowed us to survive the Ice Age. It’s thinking outside the box that got us out of the cave and onto the moon.

Let us create and be created, let us change life and let life change us. Let us not reinvent the wheel, unless it makes more sense to invent a hovercraft. Let us give ourselves wings and wing it, find, write and jam a good song and sing it. Make a new feel and feel it, find a good steal and steal it.

Let us give credit where credit is due because Beetoven, Jimi Hendrix, and Nine Inch Nails deserve credit just like Newton, Tesla and Ben Franklin do. They, with us are notes in the seemingly infinite symphonies, ragas and jam sessions we call life on earth.

This world is too complex to fit in to one song, so let us all make music, in more ways than one.