Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

I love that dirty water….

It’s been a 180-degree turn for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with today’s announcement on carbon once again makes clear:

The Obama administration took another step toward regulating carbon dioxide, issuing a notice Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency will review whether those emissions should fall under the Clean Water Act.

The EPA earlier this year determined that C02 should be regulated under the Clean Air Act due to its impact on temperatures. But Tuesday’s notice — soliciting scientific data as to what extent seas are made more acidic by C02 — could extend regulation out to U.S. waters.

The notice was in response to a petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, which wants the EPA to impose stricter pH criteria for ocean water quality and publish guidance to help states protect their waters from ocean acidification, which reduces pH levels.

“As more CO2 dissolves in the ocean, it reduces ocean pH, which changes the chemistry of the water,” the EPA said in its notice. “These changes present potential risks across a broad spectrum of marine ecosystems.”

And so, maybe, we still have a fighting chance to reverse this thing.

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The Bird lands

Mark Fidrych, one of baseball’s true eccentrics, died today, 33 years after he took the game by storm and then flamed out into obscurity.

I loved watching his antics on the mound when the Tigers were on national television:

He often talked to the baseball, fidgeted on the mound and got down on his knees to scratch at the dirt. Fidrych would swagger around the grass after every out and was finicky about baseballs, refusing to reuse one if an opposing player got a hit, and rejecting fresh ones he declared to have dents.

He liked to jump over the white infield lines on his way to the mound, with a wide, toothy grin that, coupled with his hair, made him easy to spot even from the upper reaches of Tiger Stadium.

Rest in peace.

In

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Doggie diary: The story of Rosie and Sophie Houdini dog strikes again

It has been an eventful week with the doggies, marked by their growing comfort with the car (woo hoo!) and an unfortunate willful streak that has both Annie and me feeling a bit frustrated.

They’ve regressed with their jumping and nipping, a huge problem that we have to take care of now. They’ve been on the counters and the dining room table — they got a hold of some important mail one day and stole a sandwich I was making for lunch on another. They’ve also been digging (I think I’ve got that one under control — when they dig I squirt them with a water bottle) and refuse to listen when we kick them off the couch.

This morning brought a scare, courtesy of Rosie the Magician. I let them out in our fenced-in yard, did a few things in the kitchen and then looked out the window. Only one dog visible. I went outside, figuring that Rosie was back by the shed or on the other side of the pool. She wasn’t. Somehow, she managed to get out of the yard and was investigating the creek that runs adjacent to our yard.
That’s when panic set in. I ran into the house, grabbed her leash and ran out the front door. I had to calm down before I approached her — if I had run at her or yelled, she probably would have taken off like we were playing a game of chase. I sidled over slowly, pet her and hooked the leash to her collar.
I then went back in the yard with her and checked the fence out. I found the spot she snuck through, an unsecured spot that needs to be fixed. She probably bumped up against it while the two dogs were playing and rolled underneath.
The upshot is that I have to get some spikes and secure the fence so that they can’t push through it and escape. Sheesh.
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