Congratulations, President Obama. This was a noteworthy victory, given the shrill voices of your opponents over the entire four years of the first term. I cannot remember another President who endured such an obstreperous loyal opposition.( Even President Clinton's enemies gave him the conventional 100 day honeymoon before unsheathing their knives.) That you retained your sense of propriety and ran what was (mostly) a high road campaign was justly rewarded by the electorate. May this please be the end to Mitt's 15 minutes of fame. The serial flip-flopper must have flopped his last flip by now. His politics, and that of his party, were roundly repudiated last night, although the House remains a trouble spot. I was horrified to hear the Speaker boasting on NPR this morning that the American voters still support the House Republicans. They are the reason that Congress has such a low approval rating. But we love our own representative, even as we deplore the institution as a whole. I hope that the President extends an olive branch to Boehner, but I also hope he takes a page from Bush43"s playbook and campaigns vigorously for a Democratic Party victory in the 2014 mid-terms. Yesterday provided Mr. Obama with some significant political capital. Please use it.

On the GOP and Science

A new book about the President's mother quotes her as saying “Don’t conclude before you understand. After you understand, don’t judge.” This is a noble sentiment, and of course one that informs the life of a careful researcher in the physical or social sciences? But can it be of use to those of us who are a bit more partisan? I have spent a life time watching the two parties joust for control of Washington. I think I understand what sets them apart. And I am afraid that I must judge one as being worse for America than is the other.

I long ago concluded that the Republican Party is wrong-headed about everything on its agenda. Nothing it or its standard-bearers advocate strikes a responsive chord with me. And I know where this attitude of mine began. Raised in a New England GOP household, I was fooled into believing that Richard Nixon actually did have a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam. I soon learned the folly of my naivete. Nixon perfected the art of saying anything to get elected, and the GOP surfed that cynicism to victory again and again over the coming decades. For further proof, think of RMN's despicable "southern strategy", replete with race-baiting and appeals to the crackers and good old -boys of the formerly solid Democratic south. (more on this some other time)

But at least Nixon wasn't anti-science, as is the current lot of Bible-thumping GOP wannabees. Isn't it astonishing that his environmental policy record would put even the last two Democratic Party presidents to shame. In fact, the current GOP, base and insiders alike, would never nominate him for high office. His legacy includes Watergate, G. Gordon Liddy, dirty tricks, Donald Segretti, bombing Cambodia, and Spiro Agnew. But it also includes the EPA, the Endangered Species Act, and many other signature enviromental moments. We yearn for such a steward now.

So ethnographers can adopt the President's mother's mantra: href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/opinion/03iht-edcohen03.html">“Don’t conclude before you understand. After you understand, don’t judge.” I choose to understand, but I simply must judge. The GOP's rabid anti-science views on climate change are just plain wrong. Track the record of the adults in that party and you will see that until they contract Potomac fever they tend to believe the science.

A long lay-off

I taught six sections this past semester along with serving as the Master Learner in an environmental science-politics learning community. something had to give, and as I was reluctant to give up reading fiction and politics I dropped my blog. but I am back, baby!

Gun Violence...and the beat goes on

When I was 11 years old, the President of the United States was assassinated. When I was 16, Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King fell to an assassin's bullet, and within months, the dead President's brother was also cut down. You might say that I became inured to gun violence well before adulthood. But I was not alone.

In the mid-70's, when I was in my mid-20's, President Ford survived two assassination attempts. In 1980, former Beatle John Lennon was gunned down outside his apartment building in New York. In 1981, President Reagan was wounded, as was presidential press secretary James Brady , a D.C. police officer, and a Secret Service officer. Such a high profile shooting briefly changed the gun narrative in America, and serious discussion concerning some kind of limits of guns seemed possible. Except that it didn't.

Recognizing a shift in public sentiment, the the National Council to Control Handguns morphed into the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (CPHV) in 1983. It was founded as an education outreach organization with the mission to reduce gun violence, with President Reagan's former press secretary and wife as its "First Family". His terrible wounds, and subsequent disability make Mr. Brady a powerful symbol for restraint, even as the Gun Lobby demonizes anyone who supports him. They had some success, but as the 1999 Columbine horror demonstrated, their legislative successes were replete with loopholes. This has a paralyzing effect on American politics.

The Gun Lobby, the darlings of K Street, and their enablers within the GOP and the conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats, control the issue. The sight of presidential candidate John Kerry in full hunting clothes during the late stages of the 2004 campaign testifies powerfully to how one must kowtow to the forces of 2nd Amendment extremism. And it isn't just Democrtic candidates that must worship at the gun extremist altar. GOP candidate Mitt Romney felt it necessary to lie about his life-long NRA membership during the 2008 primaries.

The Gun Lobby gets what it wants. In 2008, Texas decided to permit teachers the right to carry guns in school. Last year, the gun reform they won was our right to carry weapons in National Parks. It seems that the only reform possible is the expansion of gun owner rights. But do we feel any safer?

I was in Arizona the day of the Tuscon shootings, although many miles away in the Sedona area. It is a beautiful state, to be sure, but with a political culture very foreign to this writer. During my travels I noticed two people wearing handguns strapped to their thighs, and I'm not sure if they were cowboy re-enactors or just colorful local figures. It got me to thinking about the famed urban-rural split: while most Americans live in city or suburb, much of our identity is forged in our rural past. Despite the fact that most Americans have lived in non-rural settings since 1900, the mythology remains. And it is that mythology that the gun lobby successfully exploits. In the wake of the recent elections, the NRA proudly chortled "Election Day 2010 was a great day for the Second Amendment and NRA members, and positions us well for our future defense, and advancement, of the Second Amendment! The most important fact about Tuesday's elections for gun owners is how many more pro-gun lawmakers we will have in the next legislative session and how many fewer anti-gun lawmakers there will be." Most Americans do not belong to the NRA, but it controls the debate. It controls Congress. It controls the Supreme Court. And the beat goes on.........

The Coarse Nature of American Politics

In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on a conservative Arizona Democratic Congresswoman, there has been much hand-wringing and despair within the political chattering classes. As mainstream media figures promise to dial back the vitriol, it will be interesting to see if it has any effect on our political process. I'm betting that it will have little to no effect.

For example, the day after the horror, Sarah Palin's website still included the image of a bullseye placed on the map of the Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' district. I doubt that there is a direct link between such an incendiary metaphor and the dreadful assault she and others endured, but it does seem insensitive for the 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential candidate to fail to revise the webpage in the wake of the tragedy.

I am looking forward to following the various threads for debate which will surely issue from the sad event: handgun control, the insanity defense, the death penalty, and many more that will ignite partisan debate. It will be interesting to see if the vitriol truly does become lessened.

The best rant of 2010

I meant to include this link in my earlier post. Keith Olberman unloads on the President for his angry remarks about Progressive Democrats.

Mr. Obama attacks his base

What a terrible time for Progressive Democrats, as we watch America's twin Republican Parties seek to protect the interests of the top 2% of Americans. I refer, of course, to the GOP itself, and the Obama wing of the Democratic party. A president who can tolerate all sorts of right wing abuse heaped upon him, his campaign ideals, and even his family, reacts in rage to the criticism sent his way by the very people who elected him. He makes a terrible deal with the GOP, agreeing to save the rich their tax breaks in return for a modest extension of jobless benefits, merely postponing the issue to the depths of his re-election campaign.

This is not the first time I and other Progressives have felt the sting of his words. He must think that he can win re-election in 2012 with a coalition of Moderate Democrats, and Independents. Given that his White House seems to be the epitome of political naivete I wouldn't be surprised if he believes that Moderate Republicans will vote for him too, as he tracks ever right-ward. But I have news for you, Mr. President: there are NO moderate Republicans left in this nation. Even if they existed, they would want you to fail. Doesn't he listen to what the Senate Minority leader had to say in the aftermath of the voter rebuke that was the Mid-Term Election? Mitch McConnell had this to say to his pals at the Heritage Foundation, the right wing think tank that gave us the Bush Administration: "Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office...But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won't veto any of these things. We can hope the President will start listening to the electorate after Tuesday's election. But we can't plan on it."


Come on, Barry: how about saving some of your invective and scorn for your real enemies? If you don't, you risk a reprise of the inglorious end of the Carter Administration. If someone like Senator Sanders of Vermont decided to challenge you in the primaries you will see disaffected Progressives abandon you in droves. Given the largely-unrealized promise of your campaign rhetoric, that would be a great tragedy for the nation.

I want to hear more Progressives speak out in support of Senator Sanders of Vermont.

picture source: The AtlanticWire; McConnell quote: CNN.com
video source: CSPAN

And I am guilty, too

I was referred to this funny blog via a FB friend. This is too true: guess I better get cracking.

The depressing politics of climate change

If the great Bill McKibben loses hope, is there any chance of the world's leaders coming to grips with the threats facing the planet? The idiocracy that is the climate change deniers has now strengthened its grip on American politics. Next year, the raving lunatics of the right wing will take control of the House. Meanwhile, the Wealth Club, otherwise known as the Senate, will be even more in the thrall of Big Coal and Big Oil.

What can one person do? I invested in highly efficient replacement windows in my house, replaced an aging oil heating system with an efficient gas furnace, replaced every light bulb with compact fluorescents, set the thermostat as low as possible in the winter and as high as possible in the summer. We both drive small cars, and I'll be replacing one next year with a hybrid, perhaps even one made my Ford. I walk to errands rather drive. And all these individual efforts make negligible planetary difference. What can one person do, if even Bill McKibben is losing hope.

a perfect opportunity to take pleasure in the misery of others

The news of the near-bankruptcy of the group that opposed the Cape Wind project brings me joy. How rare it is that one of the plutocrat Koch brothers is on the losing side of a political battle. In this case, joining the late Sen. Kennedy, Bill Koch opposed a much needed technology because it might interfere with his yachting pleasures. Of course, the fact that he makes his billions in the oil business has nothing to do with his opposition to clean energy.

It is comical to listen to the opposition to this project. One of my students told me that he is against it because the electricity to be produced will be more expensive that what coal or nuclear plants can produce. Of course, he (like many of his ilk) are ignorant of the concept of externalities: that is, if polluters had to factor environmental or social costs into the equation, their artificially cheaper electricity would not survive the comparison. But I guess Koch et. al. see that 130 windmills in their ocean pose a threat to their navigation skill, thus imposing a social cost on the rest of us? Hmmm, perhaps he could invest in a nice Garmin GPS unit so that he can chart a course around Nantucket Shoals. As for the rest of us, I hope this project represents a chance to chart a course away from the dangerous 19th Century technologies that have enriched people like Koch while endangering the whole planet.

Pity the rich: they really are different from the rest of us.

Bob Dylan in Lowell, Massachusetts

You have to give the man credit. Nearing 70 years of age, he is still working, writing and performing. As an event, I give it a grade of A+. Dressed like a cross between one of Custer's 7th Cavalry footsoldiers and an Argentinean cowboy, he sure looked the part of consummate stage performer. His band is really strong, and as the set commenced the sound mix toned down the guitars a bit, as the acoustics weren't great the Tsongas Arena. He even spoke to the audience before the encore, as he introduced the band.

Dylan croaks rather than sings, so the concert was more of a celebrity extravaganza than a tour down memory lane. (I don't mind "croakers", as I really like Tom Waits, and I grew up on Louis Armstrong). He took many old favorites and gave them new arrangements, some so outlandish that the band sounded like Canned Heat at Woodstock. Especially odd was the treatment of "Highway 61". I didn't recognize what I was hearing until he bleated "61".

I can understand why the great performer might want some relief from 40+ years of singing what his fans want, but some of the arrangements were extraordinarily self-indulgent. "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again", one his greatest songs ever, was unrecognizable.

However, on two occasions he strode to the microphone with just a harmonica, and the band backed it down a bit so that we could actually understand him. As for his rock-out numbers, I really liked "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum". His arrangement of the great "Tangled Up In Blue" was a major disappointment. And to conclude, he gave us the short, Top 40 radio version of "Like A Rolling Stone". All in all, a solid B grade, Bob.

The set list:

1.	Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking
2.	It Ain't Me, Babe
3.	Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
4.	Love Sick
5.	Rollin' And Tumblin'
6.	Simple Twist Of Fate
7.	Honest With Me
8.	Visions Of Johanna
9.	Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
10.	Tangled Up In Blue
11.	Highway 61 Revisited
12.	Not Dark Yet
13.	Thunder On The Mountain
14.	Ballad Of A Thin Man
	(encore)
15.	Jolene
16.	Like A Rolling Stone

What I'd rather be thinking about

Eighteen years in the making, tomorrow I am going to complete the goal of climbing all 48 4000 foot mountains in the Granite State. As goals go, it is not all that meaningful an objective, except that the older I grow the harder these mountains are to hike. My 47th climb, last month, was especially brutal, taking me nearly 12 hours to bag Mt. Isolation. Fittingly, I did the hike alone. A half a day hiking alone in the woods gives one plenty of time to think.

Now this kind of hiking is not like an Everest Expedition, but it still requires a fair amount of planning. Weather plays a huge part, of course, as it dictates what clothing and other gear is necessary. Can I find potable water, or must I carry enough for my needs? Is my map up-to-date? Is there a current trail report available to assist in my preparations? Am I fit enough to enjoy the hike, or should I postpone until I can get a few more sessions in the gym? How much food to bring, what safety equipment to bring in the event that I am benighted? Batteries? First Aid kit? Having done 47 of these hikes, I learned that rational planning enhances the chances for success. Because I plan, I've never had any serious difficulties, save for a couple of exposed above tree-line hikes in terrible thunderstorms. I am honest about my abilities, and have even turned back just short of a summit when the weather suddenly turned dangerous. Of course this required trying for those peaks again.

Instead of continuing my preparations for my Mount Cabot hike, I logged into the New York Times this morning. My favorite prize-winning economist opines about the latest GOP folly, its new published agenda to be enacted if it should return to power. It is the very antithesis of careful planning, a fantasy document more attuned with magical thinking than rational policy making. Replete with Reagan era wishful thinking about the evil of Big Government it seeks to return America to the age of Herbert Hoover. Newt Gingrich pulled this trick in 1994, and his successors hope to fool the voting public again. I would never trust these cats to plan one of my hikes, let alone plan for my country.

Empty premium seating and tax cuts for the rich

News that neither the Giants nor the Jets sold all the available seats for their respective opening games of the season reminds us that even the affluent are feeling the effects of the recession. Shall we thus extend the Bush tax cuts, as the GOP (otherwise known as "the party of the rich") would prefer? After all, public dollars were used to build this massive sports palace (just as in the case of the new Yankees' stadium). So why shouldn't we use the same logic to help the teams full the stadium?

How to kill Big Government - libertarian - style

Since the rise of Ronald Reagan, the GOP has been the party of fantasy. It has pushed for smaller government, arguing that this will free Americans from tyranny. Extolling the virtues of the Founding Fathers, Reagan and his successors (including the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney) have sold Americans on the myth that you can have everything: tax cuts and public services, guns and butter. Libertarians now own the GOP, and while they cannot win elections under their own banner (see Ed Clark - David H. Koch of Koch Industries ticket, 1980; Ron Paul for President, 2008) they have managed a complete take-over of the Grand Old Party.

Reagan and his acolytes pushed a program that has come to be known as "starving the beast". In the words of the anti-tax conservative zealot Grover Norquist, the goal is to make government small enough that it can be "drowned in a bath tub". Norquist, forever tainted by his association with the felon Jack Abramoff, continues to hold his weekly meetings for conservative players in D.C., where they hatch their plans to "take back America". (more on Norquist in a future post). Somehow they have convinced many Americans to ignore the folly of 96 months of Bush-Cheney policies. All that is wrong with America is the result of 18 months of Obama-Biden.

So what about those 96 months of "starving the beast". The surplus is long gone, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the military became the most successful jobs program in the nation. I like Frank Rich's take on this, as published in the New York Times today.

Conservatives on the attack

Republicans have been trying to kill Social Security since its birth. The program's success undermines their ideological belief that government by definition can do nothing right. Today Paul Krugman examines the math behind their claim that the program faces financial deficit unless something is done to trim benefits. Let us hope that Congress reads The New York Times.

Raising the retirement age or cutting the benefit pay-out are the reforms favored by the Right. Of course, another way to react to a supposed looming deficit would be to lift the cap on earnings from its current level of $106, 800. Or, we could reduce our bloated defense budget and re-direct the savings to Social Security.

Unfortunate timing

Just as Congress leaves for its summer recess, two government reports have been issued concerning global warming. In the year of the great Gulf of Mexico Oil Well Catastrophe, in a decade that continues to be much warmer than normal, in a time when the planet's atmosphere is perhaps at the tipping point toward a larger catastrophe, Congress was unable to pass a modest carbon tax. Conservatives - Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats - simply cannot summon the will to address this issue. As any student of the American legislative process knows, the Congress will always take the path of least resistance. With campaign donations from the carbon industry in play, legislators seem unwilling to address our larger needs in this mid-term election year. Until the public opinion is marshaled to do battle with the deniers and their corporate sponsors, the planet will continue to bake.

How did the climate change deniers come to dominate the discourse? No doubt economic insecurity is a factor: with unemployment numbers still rising, public sentiment can easily be marshaled to oppose anything that might cost coal miners and oil rig drillers some jobs. But the famed "paranoid style of American politics" phenomenon may also be at work. As Richard Hofstadter famously articulated in his seminal work, Americans have a long history of courting the irrational in our politics. It is so much easier to give in to the paranoia than to reason together. No wonder Congress was so hot to get out of town.

Let the market place decide

Today Paul Krugman identifies who is to blame for the failed cap and trade legislation. In his New York Times op-ed piece he skewers the usual suspects, delightfully eviscerating the maverick, John McCain. But his comments about the culpability of the energy industry are especially interesting. He points out that EM actively supports climate change deniers. This is evidently a well-known fact about the company - witness this article from the U.K. Guardian last year. But it was news to me.

The only way to change such corporate misbehavior is to affect the company's bottom line. I will no longer purchase its products: I estimate that I buy about $1800 worth of its gasoline a year. Driving less and walking and biking more more have failed to impress EM. Contributing money to environmental groups hasn't moved the company either. Today I will cut this credit card in half and mail it to the company to protest its hypocrisy.

Imagine what a market-place solution to climate change might look like. I imagine that Nike and Adidas are already working on wearable air-conditioned suits for comfort in the coming dystopia (picture a lighter weight version of the outfit Neil Armstrong wore as he stepped onto the moon). But what if we could change corporate behavior before things get much worse?

I wish I could cut the deniers in half, too. Don't they have children (and grandchildren?)

Faux News

Today I reported as spam an opinion expressed about an editorial in The Boston Globe. I did so because the writer suggested a link to the Wall Street Journal to back up the claim that there is no such thing as global warming. You might think my reaction extreme, but it is has been some time now since the WSJ could be considered a reputable news source. Purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation a couple of years ago, it can no longer be seen as a serious source for reputable journalism. You see, it is tainted by association with another holding of the company, Fox News.

Journalists are not supposed to have an agenda. Journalists who twist the facts to fit that agenda should be fired. As that is par-for the course at Fox, however, no one is ever removed for violating the journalistic canon. Witness the contretemps over the Shirley Sherrod story. Fox News is an infotainment outlet. It's employees are masters of the procrustean argument. The company, owned by an extremely wealthy Australian conservative has an ax to grind, an agenda to push. It is a willing servant of the Republican party, of the tea-baggers and the right wing of the American political spectrum. It is to journalism what BP is to environmentalism.

Climate Change and Dystopia

(picture credit www.beanos.com)

If you read The Road (or cheated and only saw the film) you know what dystopia looks like. In fact, our current cinema and published fiction assaults us with such images (consider The Book of Eli or Children of Men as cases in point). Although much of the American public wishes to deny this possible future, serious thinkers Bill McKibben have been contemplating the worst case scenarios for over 20 years.

Were it not for Hollywood we might find it near impossible to imagine what life on a hot, dry Earth might look like. I think I'll sponsor a Dystopian film Festival at my workplace to spread the bad news. This looks like as good a list as any from which to make my selections.

oh..Netherlands!

( photo is from a Reuters report)
An all-European World Cup Final, played in South Africa, was one for the ages. Spain played a lovely game, and the Dutch looked more like a team at the bottom of the EPL table, fighting relegation. Setting a record for yellow cards, and finally losing a player to a red card, the Dutch determined that their only chance at victory was to play an ugly, physical game. Too bad, as they have some brilliant players, most especially Arjen Robben.

I rooted for the Dutch. Nearly two decades ago I read a book about Dutch soccer tactics and strategy, and taught the approach to my youth soccer teams. I had this weird nostalgia for those long-ago days, I guess.

In the "silver-lining" department, the U.S. National team beat the Spanish side in last year's Confederation Cup. So I guess this means that we have arrived as a soccer nation?