DennisPillion.com

The peaks and valleys of biking to work in Birmingham

In my own modest attempt to decrease my personal impact on the planet, I've taken to riding a bike to work instead of driving.

I figured, hey Alabama's among the top-50 most bicycle-friendly U.S. states, so why not pedal my way to work every day?

Like the city in which I live and work, there are a number of peaks and valleys associated with being a bicycle commuter. Here are but a few:

Peaks:

• Exercise, yo - Since I work online, and work out about 1/10 as often as I post on Twitter, most of my time is spent hollowing out the perfect indention in my chair at the office or the recliner in my living room. Riding the bike at least gets some blood circulating before and after my work day.

• It's a great way to wake up - It's like coffee, but on a bike. We all know that it's possible to get in your car and drive to work in a virtual stupor every day and rely on caffeinated beverages to jolt your heart into actively pumping blood through all your veins and arteries. It turns out, there's a better way to wake up. On days when I bike to work, I feel significantly more alert and can usually hold out until 10:30 or so before my first infusion of caffeine. That's progress.

Dear President Obama: Looking for an ass to kick? Start with your own

Barack Obama came out with his strongest public statements yet regarding the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, venting on the Today Show that he was looking for an "ass to kick" over the spill.

Well, here's a tip for you, Barry, free of charge. In your quest for hides that need a good tanning, start with a good, long look in the mirror.

You are the one who spear-headed an expanded push for offshore drilling just weeks before the Deepwater Horizon blew up in your face. You took in more political contribution dollars from BP than any other candidate in the past 20 years, and you are authorizing more off-shore drilling before the leaking well is even capped.

This sports journalist found his swagger covering the Gulf of Mexico oil spill

It's been more than a month now since my first trip to the Gulf of Mexico to report on the Deepwater Horizon/BP/Transocean oil spill/leak/explosion/debacle. Covering this ongoing story has been the highlight of my journalistic career (eclipsing even a college football national championship game), yet it has only come as a result of a national tragedy, the scope of which is barely being realized.

It was easy, even a pleasure to tell the story of people like Mike Reynolds, Alabama's Turtle Tsar. The Gulf Shores real estate broker has given countless hours of his time over the past six years organizing an army of volunteers to identify and protect sea turtle nests.

Reynolds' regiment of retirees marches over 47 miles of Alabama coast line every morning before most tourists get out of bed, marking new nests with protective barricades and signs warning the frolicking masses of the $100,000 fine imposed on those who disturb the nests. It's a purely volunteer organization, run with a precision that would make Nicholas II proud.

Backwards to the Future: An ongoing saga of politics and energy (but mostly politics)

FADE IN: EXT. THE STEPS OF THE U.S. CAPITOL BUILDING REP. ROY BLUNT addresses a crowd full of eager REPORTERS who would rather regurgitate what BLUNT is doing than do any actual research or break a story.

REP. ROY BLUNT

We must vote on offshore drilling, we must vote now, we must vote yes and we must vote yesterday. Anyone who does not do these things hates America and laughs all the way back to his terrorist camp as real, average Americans sweat at the pump.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER

I agree with everything this man says, but I'm waiting for someone to be indicted in a sex scandal, as that seems to be the only time I can advance my political career.

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI

Seriously, offshore drilling? That's what this is about? Your own people say that offshore drilling won't have any impact for 10-15 years at the earliest, and that it probably won't do much then. You can't wait five weeks for a regular session?

ROY BLUNT

No, we can't, because people are in favor of drilling now. Five weeks from now, people might figure out that the oil companies are the only ones who stand to benefit from the swill we're proposing.

NANCY PELOSI

Ha! So you admit that offshore drilling alone won't affect prices at the pump!

ROY BLUNT

Please, we admitted that months ago. Go look at YouTube for God's sake.

BARACK OBAMA enters, fresh from his Hawaiian vacation, wearing khaki shorts, sandals and six leis.

Welcome to the footprints blog

"Take only pictures, leave only footprints."

It's a pretty simple motto that a lot of parks and natural areas use as a guideline to minimize visitors' impact.

The concept is basic. Don't take home pieces of a natural treasure as you leave the park, and don't leave your refuse laying around when you do leave.

Nowadays, conservation is a lot more complicated. We talk about footprints, not it terms of tracks left in the dust, but as a measure of our carbon emissions into the environment. We have politicians who almost unilaterally talk about the importance of climate change, but are miles apart on what we should do about it. There are far too many elected leaders who feel talking about global warming is enough, and that the economic setbacks of weaning our country off of fossil fuels are too great to actually enact any kind of climate legislation. 

And why bother changing? After all, there are still plenty of mountains in Appalachia we can destroy to get more coal, and plenty of tar sands to be mined in Canada. Who'll miss mountains anyway? Never mind the fact that it takes two tons of sand to produce one barrel of oil, or that you'd have to go nuclear to come up with a more destructive process than mountain-top removal coal extraction. (It's just what it sounds like. Forest-covered mountains are systematically razed to the ground, coal extracted and the refuse simply shovelled over into the adjoining valley. The process destroys a mountain, a valley and whatever freshwater streams or lakes created the landscape in the first place. Small price to pay for some lumps of coal and "American jobs.")