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.