Oh, he’s just so smug.

And no, I’m not jealous of his abs, or the fact that Old Spice’s the Man Your Man Could Smell Like (née Isaiah Mustafa) has led something of a charmed life: The Tennessee Titans signed him to their practice squad, then sent him to play football in Barcelona; he owned a restaurant on Melrose; and he accidentally won $47,000 on The Weakest Link from a question where he mixed up Dr. Viktor Frankenstein and the comic book character Dr. Doom to fortuitous results. Then he got the Old Spice gig. And now he’s popping up everywhere, extolling his plants-only diet.

Mustafa is a vegan, you see, which means I feel even worse about myself. A few days ago, he appeared on the Tonight Show and shared his special diet with Jay Leno (which meant that I was annoyed by both the guest and the host for a change, rather than irritated solely by “Big Jaw”).

“I’m lucky to workout with Tony Horton of P90x fame,” said Mustafa. “He’s got me on this diet right now that’s absolutely ridiculous. There are five things you can’t do.” (Insert eye roll.) “There’s no alcohol; no caffeine; no processed sugars; nothing with a face – no animals or animal byproducts.” Life is so hard.

Oh yes, he goes on.

“But here’s the tough one: no gluten.”

The tough one? Who are you trying to impress, Isaiah? I know gluten’s hard to avoid and all, but to dismiss booze, coffee and meat like they’re tertiary characters in a daily diet is pretentious beyond belief. Also, every vegan I’ve ever met looks like the Crypt Keeper; so how does this fella pull off the beefcake bit without consuming, well, beef and cake?

Bring back Bruce Campbell’s avant-garde Old Spice spots. Now that’s a guy we can look up to.

In other news, Zooey Deschanel’s no longer a vegan, citing food allergies. I’ll take her word before Mustafa’s:

“Sometimes you just need a little something, a little meat.”

Yes, ma’am.

The post The Old Spice Guy Eats Green, and Makes Us See Green appeared first on EcoSalon.

From the Hill…

Our friends at the Heritage Foundation (who think Jack Bauer is a real person) have deployed multiple teams of energy, environment, homeland security and response experts to the Gulf to study the federal response to the oil spill. They have visited the areas hit hardest by the crisis. They’ve spoken with response workers, affected oil crews, fishermen, elected leaders and BP representatives. Their finding? President Obama has turned the spill an oil and water equivalent to making a mountain out of a molehill. And you know what? They’re not far off.

From a recent article issued by the foundation’s Web site:

BP is (very) slowly taking accountability for its creation of this crisis. Tony Hayward was finally dismissed as CEO, and they have promised full financial restitution for direct and indirect victims. On Day 100 of the spill, it’s time the Obama administration followed suit.

And what exactly does the administration have to be held accountable for? An environmental disaster made worse by federal incompetence. An unnecessary drilling moratorium that has pulled the plug on a Gulf economy already on life support. A claims process that was negotiated in secret, leaving few answers to why claims aren’t being processed and transparency is lost. A slow response that wasted clear weather days as hurricane season fast approaches, and a decision-making structure led by politics rather than duty.

Environmentally, the President and his eco-left echo chamber consciously chose to ignore the damage caused by the oil in favor of focusing on future tax increases that would expand government largess. The President’s initial push for cap-and-trade taxes as a response to an oil spill was so disconnected and oblivious that it was quickly brushed off by the Democrat-controlled Senate. Even so, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday cap-and-trade taxes were still possible this year if any energy legislation passes the Senate and the bill goes to conference.

Here are some details that are difficult to ignore: the administration assured us that we would not be paying for BP’s mistake at the gas pump, but the recent Reid-Boxer bill moving through the Senate indicates that increased taxes are inevitable and there will be a “drastic increase” in the price of oil per barrel.

Says Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, “Carol Browner, President Obama’s White House Energy and Climate Czar, recently said she thinks only Big Oil, which would include BP and a few others, should be drilling in the Gulf. With the Reid-Boxer oil spill bill, that’s exactly what will happen. And with this legislation, President Obama’s Gulf energy moratorium will become a permanent moratorium that will destroy thousands of good-paying jobs, restrict America’s ability to produce energy, and make America more dependent on foreign oil.”

BP is claiming a tax deduction worth roughly $9.9 billion. Congressman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) went on record stating this development was “reprehensible.”

This backlash is taking on the kind of viral reach that seems rivaled only by the widespread push for Hope just two years ago, when we as a nation took a look at the current state of things and paved a new path with a presidential candidate named Barack Obama. That kind of credit can never last. Someone has to pay for it when it comes due. It was unrealistic, juvenile and cockeyed to posit that one man – a good, fair and excellent communicator – would be able to Fix Problems Now.

Has President Obama failed us in the Gulf? Not really, but his and First Lady Michelle’s glamorous, nearly placating photo-ops on the beach haven’t helped.

But that doesn’t mean things are going well there, either. On the Louisiana coastline, barriers were delivered but wouldn’t get installed until permits were drafted, agreed upon and issued – that’s a legislative issue that would have benefited from an executive call to action.

The Heritage Foundation would have us believe there’s a superhero who can help in our definite time of need, much the way that progressives did in 2008. Our Hope has warped and exaggerated the candidate Obama’s cure-all promises for actual change. Inspiring, but potentially empty, rhetoric during election season cannot translate into action on the scale that we assumed it would. This isn’t a TV show; there isn’t a quick fix.

But if you’re out there, Jack, we’d really, really appreciate it.

Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment in Christopher Correa’s weekly column, Hill/Street Greens, examining the environmental deeds (and misdeeds) of Washington, D.C. and Wall Street.

Image: John Griffiths

The post The First 100 Days of Deepwater Horizon: Somebody Call Jack Bauer appeared first on EcoSalon.

From the Street, but trudging up the Hill…

Oh, Oliver Stone. Such a confusing (or is it confused?) Hollywood conspiracy theorist. The Academy Award-winning director of JFK, Nixon and W. has profiled another iconic figure for his latest opus (no, not Wall Street 2).

South of the Border, a documentary about revolutionary Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his left-wing Latin American allies, opened in London this week, and like with many of his historical previous filmic endeavors, Stone’s new movie ties ideas from many opposing sources and forces, and stretches the yarn so that it almost becomes threadbare. A mad scientist at the edit bay, Stone has chopped and cut this doc so that it covers the green movement. He posits that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is an eye-opener for the United States, in that it should follow the example of South American socialists in nationalizing its energy industry.

Further, he decries that America’s country’s natural wealth was too important to be left in private hands, telling interviewers that oil and other natural resources “belong to the people.” What does BP have to do with Hugo Chavez? Not a thing, unless you pitch that question to Stone.

“This BP oil spill is typical” of what happens when private industry is allowed to draw revenue on what should be a public good, he says. “We shouldn’t make this kind of profit on oil or on health or on war or on prisons. All these industries should be public industries.”

South of the Border sheds light on the social improvements ushered in by Chavez, who has nationalized parts of Venezuela’s economy, including segments of the oil sector, as well as parts of the banking, electric and steel industries.

“Generally speaking the economy has surged in Venezuela from 2003 to 2008. This is a story that people don’t know,” Stone said.

He also referred to President Barack Obama as “Bush not-so-lite.” Given that he seemed to fawn over the previous commander in chief in 2008’s critical and box office misfire W., I’m not sure President Obama needs to worry about being assessed in such a fashion by the Oliver Stone of today. In the 90s, the director was crafting sensationalist (some might call propaganda) pieces that derided Nixon sympathizers and Reaganites and deified (while embalming) John F. Kennedy. Even scatterbrained and schizophrenic works like U-Turn seemed like they were biting the hand that reared, let alone fed them. But by the 00s, his movies got softer, more contextual and shapely. World Trade Center tried to satisfy both political parties, and W. was practically a eulogy to the 43rd President of the United States.

A couple of things:

Chernobyl was nuclear power as run by a government that owned everything for the people. When the government is put in charge, without private influence whatsoever, the power over industry is all concentrated in one body, the government. Doesn’t Oliver Stone make movies about how corrupt government is?

I wonder how he’d feel if the news media and entertainment industry were nationalized too. Might not have the leverage he’s got now, and you just know he’s got a movie in him about government-controlled media. Oh, wait, Natural Born Killers.

When Stone made the first Wall Street, the film’s tag line and mantra (intentionally or otherwise) was, “Greed is good.” The movie still feels like a corporate orientation video for new hedge fund employees. And its sequel, back by popular demand, focuses on another movement – the green movement. He might as well muddle that hot topic, too.

Let the mixed messages begin.

Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment in Christopher Correa’s weekly column, Hill/Street Greens, examining the environmental deeds (and misdeeds) of Washington, D.C. and Wall Street.

Image: nicogenin

The post Oliver Stone Wants to Put You in Charge of the Energy Industry appeared first on EcoSalon.

From the Hill…

Remember when you were a kid, and mom and dad would give you a few bucks each week for mowing the lawn, cleaning your room, doing the dishes and taking out the trash? And if you took on more responsibility, you’d ask the parentals for a raise, because baseball cards and toys are expensive. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has taken that concept a little too far.

She recently moved into a new district office located in the San Francisco Federal Building. It’s in a trendy neighborhood, has a great view and costs a little more than the old office space. How much more, you ask? Pelosi’s paying $18,736 each month to type, make calls and talk around the water cooler in the new digs. That’s right. I’m going to type that again because it bears repeating, and because – if you’re like me – upon hearing the price Speaker Pelosi is paying to go to work, you picked up a calculator and a pencil, and just shoved them in your eyes. $18,736. For renting an office.

All sorts of reasons were cited for the move: she’d been in the old place for twenty years; the new office’s location is more accessible for her constituents (public transportation and walking being so unruly and all); she needed more space (why? Because the monthly office pool is an actual pool?). Also the new office is in a “green” building. This is one of those moments when the word green means just so many things, isn’t it?

But rent is getting higher all the time, and San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities in the country. So maybe this is just a harsh realty reality. The thing is, Pelosi’s new office rent is four times what she was paying for the old one – which is also located in San Francisco. Also, her rent is almost double what anyone else in Congress is paying. Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., whose office is in Los Angeles, is getting it for a steal: only $9,055 a month! And Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, D-FLA., pays only $1,353 a month for an office owned by the University of Central Florida in Orlando and another $100 for a small office provided by the City of Port Orange.

So how’s Pelosi paying for her pad? Each member has a Representational Allowance at his or her disposal, to cover the cost of rent, transportation and supplies and materials associated with the position. Another good use for this allowance is the cost of communication with constituents, like town hall meetings. She’s paying for this space with an allowance. That’s a lot of dishes she must have washed! What’d she do, offer to mow the lawn at the National Mall?

Here’s a map of all the LEED-certified buildings in San Francisco. Something tells me Speaker Pelosi could have found an office that was just as green, for a little less green.

Image: Speaker Pelosi

Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment in Christopher Correa’s weekly column, Hill/Street Greens, examining the environmental deeds (and misdeeds) of Washington, D.C. and Wall Street.

The post Nancy Pelosi’s Allowance Is Better Than Yours appeared first on EcoSalon.

He’s baaack!

You’ve all heard of Richard Pombo, right? For 14 years, he represented a real-life version of the smoke monster from Lost to environmentalists everywhere. The Tracy, CA cattle rancher was even given a cute nickname by President George W. Bush: “The Marlboro Man.” From 1993 to 2007 Pombo represented the 11th Congressional District, which runs from Morgan Hill to Danville along the east side of I-680, including farm towns like Manteca and Lodi.

So why is he so toxic?

Pombo introduced bills to expand offshore oil drilling (“Drill, baby drill!”), rewrite the Endangered Species Act (“Die, Bambi, die!”) and increase logging on public lands (“Fell, baby, fell!”). He even advocated more commercial whale hunting (I guess dolphins and baby seals weren’t big enough game), and infamously that environmental regulation “owes more to communism than to any other philosophy.” Seems reasonable. I could swear the last time I went hiking that the wind in the willows seemed to be whispering Marxist propaganda at me.

Then came 2006. Environmentalists spent more than $1 million to help Democrat Jerry McNerney, a former wind energy executive, upset the rootin’ tootin’ pollutin’ Marlboro Man. But this week it appears that Pombo will be coming out on top and reinvigorating his political career – and worse, his political agenda. He’s running in the Republican primary in what may be California’s hottest congressional race of the June 8 election.

His district will include, wait for it, Yosemite National Park. That sound you’re hearing is a thousand woodland creatures screaming collectively.

Pombo and the other three candidates, state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced; former Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson; and Fresno City Councilman Larry Westerlund, have similar positions on the issues. They all have angled for lower taxes, an overturn of President Barack Obama’s health care law, and new rules to waive the Endangered Species Act to allow more water to be pumped to farmers from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Can’t evolution of flora and fauna be stifled by the law? What good is lawmaking anyway if it can’t put limitations on everything, even nature?

The Stetson-donning Pombo, has stated that if elected, he’d not only start with 14 years seniority, but with insight into how Congress works, particularly when it comes to water and wildlife laws.

Here’s something to chew on: If the GOP wins back the House in November, Pombo has said that by January he could be chairman again of the powerful House Natural Resources Committee. Perfect!

“This is a tight race,” he said. “The state, the Central Valley, doesn’t have a lot of time. We’re in trouble. We need somebody who is going to be effective immediately. That’s what I bring to the table.”

What are greenies doing about this? Not much, I’m afraid. (Really, with this kind of threat to the environment, how can anyone not be afraid?) The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund has spent around $65,000 on radio ads calling Pombo “another corrupt politician.” (Been there, done that, guys.) The Humane Society Legislative Fund has distributed thousands of mailers – which is kind of counter-intuitive if the mailers are not printed on recycled paper, which you just know Pombo and his ilk will call out. And the League of Conservation Voters put Pombo on its “Dirty Dozen List,” normally reserved for sitting members of Congress – do they not realize that The Dirty Dozen is the title of a movie starring Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas and Donald Sutherland – precisely the kind of “man’s men” that deems the classification a compliment?

“Having Pombo represent a district that includes Yosemite National Park is like electing Godzilla as mayor of Tokyo,” said Warner Chabor, CEO of the California League of Conservation Voters. No, Warner, it’s not. Godzilla was a stranger in a strange land. Richard Pombo is a danger in endangered land.

During the campaign, he has caught controversy for once taking money from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and also for billing taxpayers $5,000 after taking his family in 2003 on an RV trip of national parks. I mean, come on. Californians, when you vote in this election next week, take a look outside your window and hum the “This Land is Your Land” tune. When you do that, remember that those lyrics are little more than Communist what’s-mine-is-yours propaganda. Do you like the view from your den? Enjoy it now, because it’s about to become Marlboro country.

The post The ‘Marlboro Man’ Returns to Ruffle Green Feathers appeared first on EcoSalon.