"One of the world's largest chemical companies warned Wednesday that its flooded plant near Houston will likely catch fire and explode in the next few days — and there's nothing the company can do about it."
"Arkema Group's plant in Crosby, Texas — about 20 miles northeast of Houston — was inundated by more than 40 inches of rain by Hurricane Harvey and has been without electricity since Sunday, the company, based in Colombes, France, said in a statement."
"The plant manufactures organic peroxides commonly used in everyday products like kitchen countertops, industrial paints, polystyrene cups and plates and PVC piping. The materials must be kept very cool, but refrigerators for the plant's low-temperature containers are out of commission, and backup generators were also swamped, meaning "the potential for a chemical reaction leading to a fire and/or explosion within the site confines is real," the company said."
"Over the years I have come to see more and more of what Adolph Reed calls “posing as politics.” Rather than organizing for change, individuals seek to enact a statement about their own righteousness. They may boycott certain products, refuse to eat certain foods, or they may show up to marches or rallies whose only purpose is to demonstrate the moral superiority of the participants. White people may loudly claim that they recognize their privilege or declare themselves allies of people of color or other marginalized groups. People may declare their communities “no place for hate.” Or they may show up at counter-marches to “stand up” to white nationalists or neo-Nazis. All of these types of “activism” emphasize self-improvement or self-expression rather than seeking concrete change in society or policy. They are deeply, and deliberately, apolitical in the sense that they do not seek to address issues of power, resources, decisionmaking, or how to bring about change."
"Rather than organizing for change, individuals seek to enact a statement about their own righteousness."
Oddly, these activists who have claimed the mantle of racial justice seem committed to an individualized, apolitical view of race. The diversity industry has become big business, sought out by universities and companies seeking the cachet of inclusivity. Campus diversity offices channel student protest into alliance with the administration and encourage students to think small. While adept in the terminology of power, diversity, inclusion, marginalization, injustice, and equity, they studiously avoid topics like colonialism, capitalism, exploitation, liberation, revolution, invasion, or other actual analyses of domestic or global affairs. Lumping race together in an ever-growing list of marginalized identities allows the history and realities of race to be absorbed into a billiard ball theory of diversity, in which different dehistoricized identities roll around a flat surface, occasionally colliding."
"Let us be very clear. The white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville, hate-filled and repugnant as their goals may be, are not the ones responsible for the U.S. wars on Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. They are not responsible for turning our public school system over to private corporations. They are not responsible for our separate and unequal health care system that consigns people of color to ill health and early death. They are not the ones foreclosing and evicting people of color from their homes. They are not the authors of neoliberal capitalism with its devastating effects on the poor around the planet. They are not the ones militarizing the borders to enforce global apartheid. They are not behind the extraction and burning of fossil fuels that is destroying the planet, with the poor and people of color the first to lose their homes and livelihoods. If we truly want to challenge racism, oppression, and inequality, we should turn our attention away from the few hundred marchers in Charlottesville and towards the real sources and enforcers of our unjust global order. They are not hard to find."
This is stupid, especially because Congresswomen Tenney doesn't understand the law. The NYS Thruway was financed by the Thruway Authority bonds, it receives no federal highway funding (with a handful of exemptions, e.g. in late 1970s widening of the "free" Interstate 88 overlap).
The Thruway was built before the Interstate system, it's grandfathered into whatever state standards exist. Full-service rest areas are allowed on the Thruway, because it's grandfathered in facility. This is why there are gas stations and McDonalds on the Thruway -- even though on a normal federally funded highway -- this is not permitted. On normal federally funded highways, only facilities that may be provided on the highway is bathrooms and picnic tables. No other businesses are allowed on federally funded interstate highways (which, I repeat, the Thruway is not a federally funded road).
Even if the US DOT decides to withhold federal highway funding for some reason (like the I Love NY signs), it's a moot point, because if you withhold 100% of $0 in funding, the Thruway Authority still receives no money.