miguelitoh2o's Blog

What are your favorite blogs?

2010-09-09T22:51:44Z

I've been thinking that since we're about to have a hiatus here at TPM Cafe, it might be a good time to tell some others what you've read or written here that seems memorable to you for whatever reasons. In thinking about my own writing, the policy blogs mostly seem dated and of less use now. Oddly, it's some of the more "poetic" writing that seems to hold up after the healthcare "debate" , and financial "reform", and the "end" of the war in Iraq have come to pass.

So three of my favorites from my own writing are as follows:

A reflection on the future of ours and perhaps all intelligent species, composed in a high fever in a spiral notebook while traveling in Mexico in 2009...

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/miguelitoh2o/2009/02/predation-landbridges-technolo.php

Some thoughts on consciousness, perception, and friendship composed after visiting a friend with Alzheimer's Disease...

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/miguelitoh2o/2009/10/memento.php

And a quasi-poetic takedown of the current corporate/business paradigm in the US and the world...

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/m/i/miguelitoh2o/2009/05/locusts.php

I've enjoyed innumerable blogs you all have written over the years, and would love it if you would share with us all some of the ones you've either written or read that speak to you. So, if you would, share those thoughts, (and links), here so we all might have some additional reading material to ponder during the upcoming hiatus.

I'm traveling this week, and may not be able to check in/comment before the Cafe goes dark, so if I don't get back to any comments/commenters in time, thanks in advance, and see you after the break, (hopefully). Cheers! - Miguelitoh2o

Dandelion Wine

2010-09-05T19:00:06Z

I first read Ray Bradbury's semi-autobiographical novel "Dandelion Wine" over 30 years ago. It made an impression on me, and if asked during the interim what my favorite Bradbury story was, I would have answered, "Dandelion Wine", though I'd read it only once heretofore. I've been reading it aloud with a friend this month over cigarettes and wine, a chapter or two a night. It's a magical book, with Bradbury describing life growing up in a Midwestern town during the early 20th century through the eyes of a pre-adolescent boy. It's almost more poetry than prose. It has been remarked that the town Bradbury was writing about was the same town that Sinclair Lewis pilloried in his book, "The Jungle". Clearly Lewis was not writing from the perspective of a 12 year old boy.

The title of the book comes from the annual process of making dandelion wine from the weeds proliferating on the summer lawns of the neighborhood.

Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered. And now that Douglas knew he was alive, and moved turning through the world to touch and see it all, it was only right and proper that some of his new knowledge, some of this special vintage day would be sealed away for opening on a January day with snow falling fast and sun unseen for weeks or months and perhaps some of the miracle by then forgotten and in need of renewal. Since this was going to be a summer of unguessed wonders, he wanted it all salvaged and labeled so that any time he wished, he might tiptoe down in this dank twilight and reach up his fingertips.

And there, row upon row with the soft gleam of flowers opened at morning, with the light of this June sun glowing through a faint skin of dust, would stand the dandelion wine.Peer through it at the wintry day - the snow melted to grass, the trees were reinhabited with bird, leaf, and blossoms like a continent of butterflies breathing on the wind. And peering through, color sky from iron to blue.

Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a tiny glass of course, the smallest tingling sip, for children; change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in.

I was struck last evening when we read a chapter dealing with the final day of the street trolley, and the advent of buses in Bradbury's boyhood town. One sunny summer day, the old trolley came down the street, stopped, and the aging operator called the neighborhood boys and girls aboard for a last ride, free of charge. When the vehicle reached the end of the line, and the kids expected Old Mr. Trillen to turn back to town, the operator told them that today, he was going to continue on, out of town, on tracks long abandoned, and he eventually stopped the trolley at an abandoned country park. He then handed out pre-packed lunches, and they all enjoyed an afternoon in the country before returning to town. On the return trip, the sound of the trolley's horn, the colors of its seats, the burnish of it's brass, and the patina of the woodwork were savored by the children as never before, knowing it would be their last opportunity to do so. An end of an era was passing, perhaps the first these kids had ever witnessed, and they were shocked that the world they inhabited could change so abruptly, and without forewarning. It's a theme that crops up more than once in the book. Life changes, or is threatened in some way, fear intrudes, then some kind of personal resolution allows the characters to accept their fates and move on.

It's kind of like that at TPMCafe right now, as Josh makes his decisions, (for whatever reasons), to keep the Cafe at all, or to change it in some fundamental way. We as readers and writers look around and see the patina of this place's architecture, and the assemblage of characters that inhabit it, and wonder, "How could this not just keep going on forever?". It feels not unike the first day of summer vacation when we were schoolboys and schoolgirls ourselves, when we bid goodbye to our friends and acquaintances who lived across town, and we wonder what life will be like without them for 3 months. Will they still be there in the fall, or will happenstance transport them from our lives, to become one more memory of how things were before? Will the vibe, gestalt, general bonhomie remain the same if any of our schoolmates fail to return after that summer break? "Dandelion Wine" paints a poignant picture of just these kinds of events that surround all of our lives and intrude as inexorably as death itself into the most perfect, in-control life you could design for yourself.

So, this hiatus which is about to be imposed on the community during whatever restructuring occurs here, (and I truly hope we are reincarnated in whatever format JMM sees fit), feels a little like that. Community is a fragile thing to tamper with wholesale. It feels like we're all going for that last trolley ride right now. Senses are heightened. We see each other more acutely, and recognize what a remarkable assemblage of voices have we have aggregated here over the years, and know that each one will be missed should he or she fail to make the return trip. Not just missed, but that this whole online microcosm will be different were that to happen. But maybe that's just life.

So Josh, If you're going to keep this trolley running, do the fixes as quickly as possible. Thanks. And I hope I see the rest of you after the break. And don't forget to vote should the hiatus extend past election day.

Esperar

2010-08-31T22:33:50Z

I've often been struck by the two meanings of the Spanish verb "esperar" which means "to hope" or alternatively "to wait". It seems to me that hoping and waiting is almost all that thinking Americans can do these days. We hoped and waited for meaningful healthcare reform, and ended up with a system that will reduce overall costs of healthcare in this country by 1%-3%, while health/insurance companies will recognize a windfall increase in revenues of a much greater degree. We hoped and waited for meaningful financial reform, and got a bill that that took some swipes at the financial industry, but keeps the "too big-to-fail" paradigm in place and will still allow the sort of gaming that lead to the financial collapse. We hope and wait for a fiscal policy and bills that will be directed at helping out all Americans but we ended up with a system that entrenches the country in a paradigm that seems guaranteed to ensure the survival of the biggest financial institutions, while locking the average American into economic servitude. Esperamos. We wait.

]]> ♥ the Dept. of Homeland Security. Blackwater/Xe grew from a $260M/year federal contractor to about $1B per year between 1996 and 2009 due to the en vogue belief that a $900/day private soldier can operate more economically and efficiently than a $100/day US soldier. That, plus our elected officials knowledge that a volunteer army is essential to maintaining public support for their military adventurism. Numerous other federal contractors benefited from the amorphous "War on Terror" and our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, as Americans succumbed to a kind of torpor in the face of the threat of terrorism. The SCOTUS decision in Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission opens the floodgates for corporate money to influence the elections in this country beyond anything previously contemplated. If you want to do much more than hope or wait for change here in America, you best be a businessman or woman.

The axiom that "the business of America is business" seems truer than ever. Like all of these previously mentioned areas of our economy, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 seems as much aimed at rewarding federal and state contractors as it is in putting Americans back to work while nominally helping the economy to limp along, at least for a little while. While some shovel, sign wielders, gravel pit workers, and equipment operators are busy paving the country, the companies who garner these contracts are raking it in. That money will return to insure a kind of inertia to the status quo just as it does in the US war, financial, healthcare, and insurance industries by rewarding congress critters who feed the monkey on our back by supporting more largess directed at their industries. We're outmaneuvered in the press by corporate sponsored ads, and talking heads spreading disinformation and espousing the virtues of the current paradigm, while building a general fear of change in the US populace.

With every improvement in the efficiency of business, we are told it will benefit everyday Americans. Since 1967 the GDP has increased about 328%. Meanwhile the average US income has increased only 194%. We produce more and yet our incomes lag the growth in GDP by about 40%. Accounting for the population growth during this period of 36% does not account for the slower rate of income in America. Per capita income actually declined in 2008. Wealth is being distributed up the socioeconomic ladder to those who all ready posses the lion's share, and we're told to relax and understand that it's those with the wealth who create jobs for the rest of the population. We must wait, and hope.

There's a ratchet effect to it all. It's difficult or impossible to dial back the kind of changes that shower so much wealth on corporations, when doing so would leave the public officials advocating such reversals subject to a diminution of corporate sponsorship in their campaign war chests, and open them to criticism the next time someone sets his underwear on fire on a domestic flight. We write our congressmen and our newspapers, and get form letters in reply that might be vaguely tied to the subject at hand. The world seems desperately hungry for a real change in the way we do business, whether from the left or right sides of the aisle, yet we trundle on. Esperamos. We continue to wait. And hope.

Now, our venue under which I'm writing is considering eliminating the reader blogs section of the TPMCafe, (one of the few outlets for open and intelligent debate I know of on the internet), as it is impinging on the current business model through cost and perhaps some public embarrassment by the recent implication of a blogger here in an act of arson on a public servant's office. TPM has been one of the few ways I've felt my ideas have had an impact on the larger world, however small that impact may have been. Other bloggers here have injected their ideas into the larger world of public debate. I hope and wait for a decision on the part of TPM management that might go in the face of the other things I'm hoping and waiting for. Perhaps it's all we ever will be able to do. Esperar.

Afghanistan: We Have Met the Enemy and He is US.

2010-06-13T06:49:55Z

From the NYT:

The military's intelligence network in Afghanistan, designed for identifying and tracking terrorists and insurgents, is increasingly focused on uncovering corruption that is rampant across Afghanistan's government, security forces and contractors, according to senior American officials.

They are also looking for insights on how to combat a widespread perversion of authority by Afghan power brokers, which senior officials describe as "a plague" on the American-backed effort to build an effective and competent government and win the support of the Afghan people.

I thought those "Afghan power brokers" were "the American-backed effort to build an effective and competent government"?

The United States and its NATO allies may find themselves following leads that point to the top levels of government, because even close family members of President Hamid Karzai have been accused of engaging in the drug trade and enriching themselves with lucrative business deals. American contractors are among those accused of wrongdoing, and some in the United States government have been known to look the other way rather than upset Mr. Karzai.

When we are seemingly incapable of controlling graft in our own government let alone Afghanistan how can we reach for such heights? Upon retirement from US politics, our politicians campaign war chests, filled from the corporate exercise of free speech, get rolled over into charitable foundations, (with our pols' wives installed as the paid director). The only difference between the kind of graft in Afghanistan and the US is that we openly permit it to happen in the first place here in the US.

Feel teh stoopid? Does it burn? As our President and the Democratic Congress attempt to prove once and for all that Democrats aren't pussies when it comes to "Defense" and that we can win this "war", just remember that we can always redefine our Afghanistan objective to something that is perhaps attainable. I'm still trying to *think* what such an objective might be. One thing we can count on is that we will be required to expend a lot more money and American lives in the pursuit of the ongoing Ionesco play in Afghanistan and Washington DC alike. It's time to cut our losses and retreat. Leave Afghanistan for the Afghans, and send the troops to the Gulf of Mexico where they might serve some useful purpose by helping to clean up the aftereffects of corporate malfeasance, lack of regulatory nerve, and our misguided energy policy.

Dear TPM.... [amended with link to TPM explanation of glitches]

2010-06-07T15:46:59Z

It's been great being together all this time. I've learned a lot, and hope you got something in return as well. I remember those first days we were together when you blew me away with your intelligence and wit. I felt like I'd come home. To a sanctuary where I was free to converse openly with people who were an inspiration and a reassurance to me. Just knowing I wasn't alone out here, as the rest of the world seemed caught up in the sound bites of MSM white noise made living more sweet. It was so easy for us to talk back then.

Now, you've shut me down. Every time I open my mouth to say something, you tell me that my session has expired. That I must "login or register as a new user" if I want to be heard. That hurts. After almost two years, you don't remember me and all those wonderful times we had. Sometimes, I think I should register as a "new user". Maybe then I could get a foot in the door with you instead of this continual deep freeze.

I know it happened when you started going around with that new kid, "FaceBook". All of a sudden, you wanted me to "Sign in or post a comment using Facebook" every time I had anything to add to the conversation. You did it again when I went to save this very letter! Then when I had acquiesced, you forgot whatever It was I'd previously written. So, I've become a copy and paste artist of my own material just to preserve my sense of self. It's not like I don't all ready wake up in the middle of the night and drag myself to the bathroom mirror just to reassure myself that I still exist. I mean, what exactly is the message you want me to take away here? It's beyond passive aggression now, and I don't know how much more I can take sweetie. I mean I really care for you and all your friends, but it's becoming a self-destructive habit for me, when you act like I'm not even here.

Maybe you do this to all your other boyfriends too. Maybe not. I've been hearing different versions of the story. Either way, it's clear that our time together isn't what it used to be back when your face lit up, eager to hear whatever I had to offer the conversation, (even my most gawdawful stoopidest comments you posted without asking me to verify who I am!). So you just go on about your way and don't worry about me. I'll be fine. I think. *Sob*

Fond regards and remembrances of the way we were, Miguelitoh2o

Well, call it coincidence, or not, TPM just posted an explanation on the cafe: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/07/regarding_recent_snafus_with_tpmcafe/

Good Mornin' Life!

2010-06-04T19:45:39Z

Are things going badly in the United States and the world in general, or what? The economy is stagnant, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to have a life of their own, and just keep going on and on. The deficit hawks in government and the O.E.C.D. want responsible nations to cut back on expenditures in the midst of one of the worst unemployment cycles we've seen in recent history. Of course no one ever broaches dialing back the War on Terror, but instead set their sights on cutting back Social Security benefits. Our versions of banking and healthcare reform are every bit as beneficial to the regulated industries as they are to the American people, but that's just the way we roll. Meanwhile corporate malfeasance in the Gulf of Mexico has resulted in what I believe will be the greatest environmental catastrophe since the meteor Chixulub crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago. On top of all of this Democracy and Capitalism's trajectories seem to be on a collision course wherein our political class no longer feels beholden to constituents, but instead operates as the political wing of the emerging corporate dynasties of our planet. It's our 21st century return to the *New and Improved* Feudal State. We still go to the polls, but actually changing society's direction seems wholly outside the realm of possibility, when our politicians simply morph into another shill for corporate interests following their election. No wonder most of us are depressed.

Seems like all we can do is describe the illness, with nary a clue as to how to cure it.

]]> This video was posted here at TPM earlier this year by Saladan. It won the Kodak Prix at Cannes as well as the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film this year. The French company H5 produced it, and it takes a cynical and often hilarious look at America, as well as the world, and our new emerging Corporatism as the dominant social paradigm of the world in which we live. When I first watched the film a couple of months ago I thought the closing sequence in which the Earth splits open, spouting oil gushers, as Esso Girl, and Big Boy try to outrun the catastrophe was a little over the top. In retrospect, with the Gulf of Mexico becoming a toxic soup of oil, I find the sequence to be almost prophetic.

The film is a little over 16 minutes long, and while focusing on something that is no laughing matter for America or humanity in general, it exposes some of the operative assumptions underpinning our cultural problems in a clever and amusing way. I suppose if we can't bring our culture to change in a meaningful way, we might at least take some small comfort in the filmmakers, and ultimately our, intellectual understanding of the world we have thoroughly made in our own image. The film goes down not unlike a culinary treat, an amuse-bouche with which to relieve the sour taste in our mouths from a world that seems to be spinning ever further out of our control. Please take the time to watch and enjoy. Laughter and smiles are in too short a supply these days. Good mornin' Life!

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

Here's the link for those who have trouble with embedded videos: http://vimeo.com/10149605

Deepwater Horizon vs Three Mile Island

2010-05-30T01:35:38Z

Wednesday, March 28, 1979, Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (TMI), operated by the Metropolitan Edison Corporation, due to a cooling system malfunction suffered a partial meltdown of the reactor core.

This loss of coolant accident resulted in the release of a significant amount of radioactivity, estimated at 43,000 curies (1.59 PBq) of radioactive krypton gas, but less than 20 curies (740 GBq) of the especially hazardous iodine-131, into the surrounding environment.

I had the pleasure of spending 36 hours on Three Mile Island in the wake of the accident, as the company I worked for as a Quality Assurance engineer had accepted a contract to construct some of the equipment that would be used to purge the radionuclide contaminants from the Auxilliary building at TMI Unit 2. So I was like one of those QA guys out on the Deepwater Horizon rig, part of an industry that I had little control over, but believing the system design of the BWR and PWR reactors in use at the time were designed in a a more or less fail-safe manner. In comparison to the Soviets' plant at Chernobyl, TMI-2 functioned pretty close to as planned, with the containment building virtually suppressing the environmental effects by comparison. Still, the accident rocked my understanding of, and confidence in the limits of the built-in redundancy of the nuclear plants I had been helping erect around the country. The clean up pf TMI-2 took about 11 years and cost around $1B.

In the fallout, (pun intended), from the TMI-2 accident, the United States Government adopted a moratorium on the building/licensing of new nuclear facilities. The unintended reality of that moratorium has resulted in Nuclear plants that had been designed for a 30 year life span being refitted over and over again in order to keep them generating energy long past their design/shelf life. Energy is very important to any civilized society that would seek to offset the devolution to entropy described in the second law of thermodynamics.

Oil wells aren't power plants. They're raw energy in the process of being "harvested" from the Earth. The utilization of fossil fuels as an energy source carries with it generally accepted scientific environmental burden in terms of the carbon load on the atmosphere. On top of that if we factor in the environmental impact of oils spills such as the Exxon Valdez and the truly horrific ongoing gusher in the Gulf at the site of BP's former Deepwater horizon site, the environmental and societal costs of our continued dependence on oil has far exceeded the effects suffered as a result of our utilization of nuclear energy. We can change this paradigm.

So my question is this: How much more of this travesty in the Gulf of Mexico and other sites around the globe, must we bear witness to before we can agree to dial back our dependence on oil and start investing in the infrastructure and subsidization that will facilitate weaning ourselves from this greasy, toxic, teat? The Three Mile Island Unit 2 accident brought the US nuclear power generating industry to its knees, how much more disaster must we endure before we redefine our energy policy in a way that does not grant concessions to corporations with vested interests in the status quo?

"Fun" fact: Look at the top 100 economies on Earth, of which 51 are corporations. Now look at the corporations in that [outdated] list. (Hint: General Motors, Exxon-Mobil, Ford Motor, Daimler-Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Royal Dutch Shell, BP Amoco, Volkswagen, Honda, Nissan.) While I don't consider the auto manufacturers as culpable as the Oil-harvesting corporations, I include them here to highlight the extent to which oil has insinuated itself into our lives.

For what it's worth, I have more confidence in the nuclear industry and their "product" than I do the oil industry. Apologies if this blog covers ground all ready covered here. I haven't been able to spend much time lately at TPM.

Oh Brave New World/Fahrenheit 451

2010-05-23T21:33:37Z

A quasi-book report and reflection on Bradbury's book published 57 years ago.

'Fahrenheit 451' , Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel of a future world in which books are banned, and society has devolved into a hedonistic and violent caricature of civilization was published over a half century ago. In it the kind of critical thinking promoted by books is actively discouraged by the state, while people are fed a steady diet of cultural bromides via the television which is piped into every home. The residents of this futuristic America are fed a stream of innuendo preparing them for their acquiescence and acceptance of an upcoming war. The protagonist, Guy Montag, is a fireman. Not one as we understand the profession, but a state employee charged with identifying homes which house these seditious books, then burning the books as well as the homes to the ground.

Early on in the story Montag's wife, a woman bereft of feeling, affection, and any joy attempts suicide, but is revived by medics after Montag discovers her. Alienation is a dominant theme in Bradbury's future America.

]]> When Montag and his fire crew raid an elderly woman's home and find a vast archive of books. Montag inadvertently reads a single line from one of the books, "Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine", a line from Alexander Smith's 'City Poem:Dreamthorpe'. After they doused the books and home with kerosene, the woman removes a match which she had previously concealed and commits a suicide of her own through self-immolation amongst her books. The Fireman is intrigued by this snippet of language outside the daily norm fed into his home and fire station via the television, and begins to pilfer books and hide them in his own home.

Eventually he is called out on a raid by his captain, and is dramatically led to his own home where the books are revealed to be hidden in air ducts, and under floorboards. The fireman is instructed to destroy the books, and in a destructive epiphany turns the flamethrower on the television and his bed as well in a symbolic burning of his life, which has led up to this crux moment. When his captain discovers an earpiece which Montag has been using to stay in contact with a English professor sympathetic to his new ideas about books, the Captain threatens to track him down and prosecute him. Montag snaps, turns his flamethrower on his captain, and kills him.

He flees across the city to the professor's house, as helicopters track him, all the while televising the spectacle. He manages to elude them, and the authorities surround and kill another innocent man in order to maintain the illusion of a successful capture of the renegade. Montag is told by his academic friend of a colony of itinerant book lovers called "The Book People", in the distant countryside where he might find refuge, and begins an arduous journey to reach them.

Eventually he finds this colony, and is astonished to learn that they have no books of their own, but rather each member has become a book by memorizing it verbatim. Montag is given the task of memorizing the book of Ecclesiastes. Shortly after, the war begins and presumably the society Montag has escaped from is destroyed. The story ends with the Book People moving off toward the city to search for survivors and to help rebuild civilization.

It's a story about censorship, but Bradbury who lived his whole life in the heart of the bastion of film and television, (Los Angeles), maintained for thirty years that is was really about the dulling effect of television on people's desire to seek out more complex understanding of the world they inhabit through literature. It's interesting to reflect on this now as we've arrived a cultural paradigm in which, if we don't see the coverage of current events on our television screens it's almost as if they never occurred. The scant attention paid heretofore to the severity of the Deepwater/Horizon oil spill comes immediately to mind. At the same time our perception of events are just as easily manipulated as they were in Bradbury's novel when the authorities hunted down the innocent man and staged the capture and death of the novel's protagonist, although perhaps more subtly. I'm thinking of how many Americans believe we are waging wars of value, bringing democracy to the Middle East, in both Iraq and Afghanistan despite the evidence to the contrary.

We increasingly seem to live in the world Bradbury described in 'Fahrenheit 451' as we move into the second decade of the 21st century. A world in which words speak louder than actions and complex, critical thinking is discounted in favor of political fidelity. A world in which our president actively opposed the more inclusive forms of financial reform, and yet when the watered down version was passed by the US Senate, immediately mass Emailed his supporters, (among whom I'm listed), a letter touting the historic success: "When opponents in Congress tried to block the legislation altogether, you stood up -- and they backed down. When the lobbyists pushed for loopholes and exemptions just before a final vote, you did not relent -- and we fought them off".

Oh Brave New World.

Teabaggers, Obamabots and Firebaggers! Oh My!

2010-05-19T20:21:02Z

Political discourse in the US long ago descended into sound bites and talking points in the Main Stream Media. Like Rockem'-Sockem' Robots ™ the pundits line up at 5PM weekdays and on Sunday morning to deliver their punches in a parody of what actual debate looks like. Democrats and Republicans alike, appear to have assumed the mantle of distrust in which the electorate holds politicians in general. Add to that the Dems failure to suggest let alone enact progressive legislation and policy, and a division within the left-leaning ranks of the electorate has formed and widened, so now we see those lefties criticizing the democrats caricatured as Firebaggers, while their counterparts who think Obama and the Dems are doing the best they can under the circumstances are labeled Obamabots by some. Add to the mix the Republican Teabaggers, perhaps the least articulate of all these factions, and American politics assumes all the hallmarks of a clown show. The blogosphere is just as susceptible, if not more so, to such oversimplification, as some bloggers strive to promote their own agenda, and squelch debate from their opposition.

]]> Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and at Guantanamo under his predecessor. I thought he would also re-institute the right of Habeus Corpus for detainees. After the resounding failure of the economic theory propounded by the Chicago School of Economics, I hoped he would install people into positions of power with regard to our monetary policy who had seen these problems in advance, as opposed to the ones he actually installed who were the architects and their proteges of the financial disaster. I had hoped he would execute a speedy withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistan. I had hoped for an honest and open national debate on healthcare, and was more than disappointed when early in the process, Obama announced that "single-payer was off the table". My feelings of antipathy were further compounded when he cut a deal with Big PhARMA to not ask for much of anything from them for a virtually meaningless $80B concession, and their pledged support for the bill. We ended up with a bill much like one we could have enacted in 1993. The fact that healthcare stocks rose on passage of the bill pretty much described clearly who were the real winners in the so-called "battle". Financial reform has gotten a lot of lip service from BHO as well as Congressional Dems, but much of it may turn out to be mere posturing by the time legislation is enacted.

On March 30, the President announced that he was expanding offshore exploration for oil, despite known environmental dangers and a bureaucratic regulatory infrastructure that had previously been gutted by the Bush43 administration. Now we find ourselves faced with the greatest environmental catastrophe we have ever faced as a result of offshore drilling and the relaxation of regulatory oversight. Almost a month has transpired since the inception of the oil rig explosion/fire. The salvage operation has been left in the hands of the oil company responsible for the disaster. There are questions that need to be asked as to whether the steps taken to contain the oil were taken with an eye toward preserving the company's access to usable oil at our environment's cost. While the effects of the disaster will be felt by all Americans, but more especially the Gulf Coast residents, the assumption of command has been studiously avoided by the US Government. Meanwhile the environmental costs escalate daily.

As the failures of the Obama Administration to advance a progressive agenda have mounted, along with a concurrent rise in criticism of his administration by the left, Obama's supporters have gone to the mats in defense of the President by attacking their would-be allies. These Obama supporters argue that such criticism aids and abets the conservatives in the upcoming elections, as if politics were a parlour game that can be won merely by employing the Atwater/Rovian model of repeating the talking points until people believe them to be true. Under less severe circumstances, that might be possible, but the discussion here at TPM is not just an extension of the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party, (disallowing the sockpuppets of course).

Yet the vocal objection from the President's supporters to criticism of him persists, as if this will be the deciding factor in the Democrats and Obama's success at the polls. This seems not just ridiculous to me but stupid. I don't want a Republican government any more than I want a snakebite. If the Democrats and BHO want to succeed at the polls they will need to satisfy their constituents. Doing so will fire those constituents up to vote for more of the same. From where I'm sitting, that means they have to support America's middle class over corporations. They need to develop sound monetary policy and financial regulation that signals an end to the casino-like behavior of Wall Street. They need to extract us from our occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan quickly without feeding the Military-Industrial Complex in the process. They need to shore up Social Security without cutting benefits, (raise the tax rate on the top 0.1% of income earners). They need to go back and address ways to make healthcare more affordable now that they've taken the first step toward universality. They need to develop an energy policy and incentives that will move us off the oil tit altogether, (not just the foreign oil tit). And they need a massive Jobs program to stimulate employment.

If the Democrats can even feint in the direction of these objectives, their critics on the left might be mollified, and they should have no trouble at the polls. Whether they can accomplish this in time to affect the fall elections is problematic, but 2012 is still within reach for them. Should they continue to support corporate interests over the middle class's interests, they will suffer losses. The outcome has nothing to do with the vocal critics here at TPM or any other blog. That, I believe, is called "the tail wagging the dog".

America's Chernobyl.

2010-05-16T18:26:15Z

Photo courtesy of stuckincustoms

On April 26, 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant,in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic melted down as a result of design errors that allowed coolant to be displaced as the control rods were inserted, thus allowing the reactor to superheat. Soviet nuclear engineers were convinced prior to the accident, that the reactor and operating procedures they were using were completely safe. The reactor suffered two explosions, the first from superheated, (and radioactive), steam, which was followed by a nuclear explosion as the reactor core melted and achieved a critical mass of sorts. The force of the first explosion tore off the 2,000 ton upper plate (to which the entire reactor assembly is fastened). A radioactive plume spread out from the site, covering most of Europe. I had worked in the nuclear industry upon graduation from university, and recall being amazed that the Soviets did not utilize a Containment structure surrounding their reactors as the ultimate fail-safe in the event of a loss of coolant to the reactor core.

There were 50 deaths directly attributable to the disaster. Nine months after the plume spread out over Europe the incidence of Down's Syndrome increased significantly in human births. The incidence of structural anomalies in human fetuses nervous systems doubled the following year. The incidence of thyroid cancer increased greatly in those exposed to the plume of radionuclides. Four square kilometers of the surrounding forest turned brown and died. Livestock and wildlife that remained after the evacuation of the area died, or suffered thyroid cancer. The town of Chernobyl/Pripyat is now the largest ghost town in Europe, although some of the elderly former residents are moving back to the area contrary to official restrictions. The disaster was a colossal mistake in foresight, planning, engineering, and policy on the part of the Soviets.

Photo courtesy of the US Coast Guard. Source: www.incidentnews.gov/incident/82 20 via SkyTruth

The unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico will likely exceed the environmental costs of the Chernobyl accident. Both disasters are hard for the average person to assess, at least so far. The Chernobyl incident was invisible to those without access to radiation dosimeters, and the Deepwater Horizon disaster remains offshore and it's scope more nebulous in the public mind at present. Both accidents were born of the search for, or generation of energy. The etiology of events and official attitudes leading up to both disasters bear some commonality as well. The officials and engineers responsible for both projects seemed to share a confidence in their own mastery of the technology to an extent at which they succumbed to an uncritical belief that such a disaster was all but impossible. In accordance with those beliefs they chose to under-design the safety features of both the oil rig and the reactor. As is so often the case, the little people pay the most dearly for these errors in planning and policy, (see: Union Carbide at Bhopal, 3000+dead).

We have yet to see what the final cost of the Deepwater Horizon disaster will be. The question that is foremost in my mind is what, if anything, will our policymakers learn from the errors made in licensing and regulating offshore oil exploration? Does the granting of exemption from installing the $500,000 remote acoustic shutoff for a BOP seem like an economically sound policy now that we will be spending years and billions of dollars trying to contain this spill? Does granting a waiver from producing a detailed EIS make sense for offshore drilling? Assuming we continue to risk our continental shelf and shorelines with the exploration for oil,do we think it might be worthwhile to require audits of these facilities to ensure compliance with a set of national standards for construction and operation? Should we re-evaluate a national energy policy that stifles development of alternative energy in favor of powerful traditional energy sources? Should we pay for the entire mess to be cleaned up? (Hint: by trimming Social Security payments and eligibility we should be able to do this!) Or should we hold these corporations economically accountable? (Hint: Yes.) Should the potential loss of tourism, marine wildlife, and marine habitat factor into the instinctual urge of our legislators to tell us to grab our ankles and bend over for whatever industry lobbyist is offering the largest sum for their election campaigns?

I would like our President and legislators to address all of these questions publicly.

You can contact your President here.

You can find contact info for your Senators here.

You can find contact info for your Representative here.

[Continental] Shelf Life

2010-05-15T16:23:01Z

MODIS/Aqua satellite image taken May 11, 2010. Main body of slick is apparent, as is a small patch of slick to the west, but clouds obscure much of the image. Observable slick and sheen covers 3,908 square miles (10,122 km2). Photo courtesy of SkyTruth.

This disaster and the preparedness of our country to deal with its effects as well as our national response, (or lack thereof), to containing it makes me sick to my stomach. Why haven't we shut down production of all offshore wells until a comprehensive safety and environmental evaluation for each has been completed? How about shutting down only BP's wells and wells that Halliburton has worked on until we determine whether there is a systemic risk to rigs these two companies have built? How about shutting down just wells that Halliburton has performed contracts on? Perhaps just shutting down wells owned or operated by BP might be a start? Is this a moment of truth in which we will reevaluate and act on our oil addiction/energy policy or will we truly jump the shark on this issue?

When the World Trade Center was taken out, we grounded all flights in the US for days in order to ensure no further such attacks occurred on US soil. And now a corporation takes out a stretch of coastline, removing its beneficial use for decades, destroying marine habitat likely for decades if not for all time, and we act as if there is no clear and eminent danger waiting out there on those other rigs?

President Obama, and members of Congress, this is a wake up call for all of you. We need to suspend all off shore drilling until these wells and platforms have been evaluated for their safety and potential environmental impact lest similar accidents occur on them and we find ourselves yet again incapable of stemming the type of destruction we're witnessing now off the coast of Louisiana. The US government must mandate that all wells within our territories minimally be retrofitted with a remote trigger to the BOP valve. Then we need to institute real incentives and subsidies for the development and implementation of alternative energy as well as promoting fossil fuel conservation as a significant part of our national energy policy. It's time to declare openly who you work for; the people of the United States and the future of our world or the oil companies. Choose.

The Harder They Come.

2010-05-14T20:43:56Z

USA Today reports that the cost of the US occupation of Afghanistan has outstripped the cost of waging our occupation of Iraq. This information comes to us at the same time that the leader of the coalition forces in Afghanistan reports that the Afghan war is essentially a draw between the coalition forces and the Taliban.

Nicholas Kristof had an opinion piece in the NYT the other day. In it he contrasted Bangladesh with Pakistan, a US ally from whence many of the terrorists attacking the US and its citizens originate. Bangladesh and Pakistan split in 1971 at which point Bangladesh was considered an international "basket case".

But then Bangladesh began climbing a virtuous spiral by investing in education, of girls in particular. It now has more girls in high school than boys, according to Unicef. This focus on education has bolstered its economy, reduced population growth rates, nurtured civil society and dampened fundamentalism.

All of which makes me think about how we administer foreign aid while trying to affect foreign policy in the countries where Islamic fundamentalism is prevalent. Consider Afghanistan. We funded the Peace Corps in the 60s and 70s, but following the 1979 coup, and then during the Soviet Union's invasion and occupation, we donated about $3B over 10 years in weapons and economic aid. Following the evacuation of the Soviets and the subsequent collapse of the USSR, our aid to this area of the world diminished to a trickle. Now we find ourselves occupying the country, killing civilians along with Taliban fighters, spending $83+M per day, and wondering why anyone would be surprised at Gen. McChrystal's admission that the conflict is at a draw.

]]> Last September I calculated that we could have paid every Afghan man, woman and child 125% of the median income of their country for the full 8 years we had been occupying the country, if they would just lay off the terrorism and we still would have broken even with what we've spent waging war. But doing that wouldn't have fit the neocon agenda or enriched the corporate coffers of the defense industry. So our foreign policy remains locked into the war paradigm in order to enhance corporate profits, even though the strategy makes no sense whatsoever regarding the stated goals of our intervention. I think Obama would like to get out of Afghanistan, but he's preoccupied with not having himself and his party appear to be too soft on defense, (let alone the Jonas Brothers). Since 2001, we've spent about $271B on the war in Afghanistan and now the rate is increasing. That's roughly 90 times what we spent during the 10 years of Soviet occupation,(which was considerable). I can't even think of the loss of life and limb that has accompanied this gambit. Perhaps we're just better at blowing stuff up than we are at building things. Maybe we just like to play with guns. Either way, our national foreign policy seems to serve entrenched industries much better than it serves the interests of the American people.

It's not unlike the way we approached healthcare reform, just so long as it didn't impinge too badly on the insurance and healthcare sectors, (see: Big Pharma Deal + "single payer is not on the table")... Just as any bank reform will inevitably leave enough loopholes for the Wall Street crowd to continue with slight variations on the theme that sank the world economy while enriching their personal and corporate bank accounts... And just as it is to the way we have a energy "policy" that is only geared to oil production/consumption. As one blogger here at TPM said recently, abandoning our offshore oil exploration in favor of alternative energy research and production is "simply outside the realm of political possibility" in spite of our Gulf coast being subjected to an environmental and economic catastrophe of epic proportion resulting from that "policy". Think about the ongoing loss of marine and estuary habitat, natural resources, and the loss to the local economy in the Gulf of Mexico, and then think about who gets to decide what's politically feasible and why. I'd personally like to see a cessation of all offshore drilling operations until a safety/environmental oversight study has been performed on each drilling facility, and appropriate corrections are made.

All these decisions that favor corporate profits over the common good of our country carry economic, environmental, and societal costs for the rest of us. Yet our politicians find reigning in corporate excesses "outside the realm of political possibility". You see, here in the land of the "brave and the free" we can own awesome firearms, but we are not capable of initiating and instituting a public policy that functions for the common good so long as such a policy will negatively impact existing, powerful commercial institutions' income. Should such a policy gain a foothold in the public consciousness, the corporations would just back some Astroturf organizations populated by dull-normals who will appear in public with signs decrying the loss of corporate domination of the dialogue and economics, as "socialism", and half the rest of Americans will be spoon fed sound-bites instructing them as to how America demands "unique solutions" to its problems, and they will pronounce these ersatz opinions with gravitas until they're evicted from their homes and their children are hungry.

You should all be as angry as this guy. Not angry as the Tea Party thinks you should because Obama is socializing America, (which he decidedly is not), but because he and Congress continue to empower the corporatocracy that serves as our de facto government in the absence of a government with the cajones to lead us out of the economic and environmental messes we find ourselves in today. How bad does it have to get before we demand a government that serves humanity rather than corporations? Of the 100 largest economies on this planet, 51 are now corporations, while only 49 are countries. How big and powerful are we willing to allow these corporations to grow before we insist on a more symbiotic relationship with them? It won't become any easier as these companies displace even more sovereign nations from that list. The longer we defer addressing the basic conflicts which are now being revealed to exist between the laissez faire Capitalism that has been championed over the last 30 years, and Democracy, the harder these corporations will be to reign in.

Just remember, the harder they come, the harder they fall.

The Language of Dreams.

2010-05-08T21:30:56Z

As far back as I can remember, I've loved music. It seems to be hardwired into most of our minds, perhaps from generations of singing our legends, stories, and myths around a campfire before we learned to write. Musicians seem more at home in the realm of Morpheus, of Dreams than most of the rest of us. Something about the fluidity of this language they speak so eloquently necessitates a mind capable of traversing the "real" world and that of our innermost hopes, aspirations, and fears.

As a kid I liked to sing. I can recall my mother singing songs from her young adulthood as she cooked the evening meals when I was a preschooler. By third grade, I would pray for lulls in the solar storms, so that the AM radio waves originating in Boston and NYC would skip more easily off the ionosphere, as I lay under the covers in my Pennsylvania home with my transistor radio glued to my ear, listening to the latest and the greatest the pop world had to offer. By junior high I fronted a garage band doing covers of the 'easy' soul classics of the day, (mostly of the Atlantic- Stax/Volt persuasion). Lately I just listen and sing in the car. I went on strike as a prepubescent, when my parents insisted I take time from my Saturday morning football to learn to play piano. Later in high school, I remember my friends Greg and Hans jamming in my parents living room on that same piano and guitars, and I entertained second thoughts about those lessons. It's great to have friends who are musicians and I keep telling myself that it isn't too late for me to learn something more sophisticated than the kazoo.

Musical compositions that interest me the most are those with a twist. Sometimes just a simple, but unexpected chord change can make me fall in love with a song. In H.S. some of my favorite musicians were The Band, not a flashy R & R group, but one given to interesting melodies and arrangements, incorporating a wide assortment of musical instruments. This kind of music, rather than going from A to B to C and Back to A, takes a more circuitous aural route from A to A. It's the kind of music that is the antithesis of Top 40, (although two of the Band's singles did reach #25 and 34 on their chart positions). Making it to the Top 40 playlist, a song has to have an instantly recognizable beat, and a melody that just about anyone can learn in one or two sittings.    The downside of such a formula is that the music can just as quickly lose its' appeal. Conversely, I often come to appreciate tunes with the musical 'surprises' built in, as I hear them more often. As I familiarize myself with the often counter-intuitive progressions in such songs, I can appreciate the intelligence and imagination of the composer/composition more fully. The effect of such compositions can be far reaching. Who was it who said: "The Velvet Underground only sold 2000 records on their first release, but all 2000 of the purchasers of that first album formed bands".

]]> rock 'n' roller / acid rock cum blues kinda guy, with forays into jazz, 'folk' and 'country rock', even some classical,. Sometimes my favorites defy categorization altogether.   The rhythm and blues and rock and roll groups that pursue less obviously commercial styles, all too often remain unsung. Commercially there ain't no substitute for that 3 or 4 chord melody, (not that there's anything wrong with that), but there are always bands of musicians following their own muses wither they will lead them. It's been a lot easier, since the advent of the internet, to keep track of some of those that disappeared all too easily in the 'studio formula for stardom'. I recently came across a website belonging to one of my favorite unsung singer/songwriters, (Jen Trynin). After releasing two excellent cds in the 90s I never heard from her again. Interestingly her website is promoting her new book which tells the story of how she went from being poised to be the 'next big thing' to well... not. The reviews promise it will be an interesting read. I had wondered for years what became of such a promising musician, so I Emailed her, telling her how much I enjoy her music.   Perhaps because she didn't fit the Top 40 idiom of music, Jen ultimately replied to my missive personally. Nothing against Robert Plant, (I love that album he did with Alison Krauss), but I doubt he answers his fan mail himself.

What makes music important to us? What is the elusive feeling, the tingling in the gut, the expansion of our breathing, (inspiration?), the clearing of the senses, that comes when we hear something we've never heard before... Aural pleasure. It's beyond pleasant. It exults. Takes us out of ourselves if only for an instant, and reminds us of how we are bigger than the sum of our parts. It's a boundary and wall destroyer in that sense. That concept of the mobius strip wall is perhaps an apt metaphor for music and humanity, (for me, anyway). Each culture on this planet has its' own particular idiom of music, but put all those cultures together, and we'll all be swaying to the 'other guy's' beat by the time we reach the 5th bar, (and I'm not talking tavernas, Heh...). Music... it's a guaranteed cultural ice breaker. There is a ton of good music out there that many of us have never had the pleasure of hearing.

So bear in mind, if we ever meet, at a party let's say, and I seem distant, half-focused on the conversation at hand, a far-away look in my eyes... don't take it personally if I didn't completely register that last crystalline, brilliant, sentence you just spoke. My mind may just be focused on that bridge between verses of that excellent song our host is playing.

So tell me what great or poor taste I have in music, but please give us all some links to some of what you think is interesting music. If you can't find a link, an artist and composition/album title will suffice. Come on Mr. & Ms. Tough... lay it on me. Tell us what music means to you and why it's important, (or not, god forbid... Which reminds me of a cautionary tale: Should you meet someone you're attracted to who doesn't have a music collection, or who doesn't like animals... Walk away...). Peace...

Oh... and go back, and click those links, you passed up in this post.   And if you are disappointed, click them again, and again. Listen. Sometimes we need to train our neural/aural circuits so we can really hear what's goin' on.

Fun fact: There are over two hours of music that is linked to in this blog. Take your time checking it out.

Capitalism vs Freedom of the Press

2010-05-03T17:29:43Z

Everything you were taught about freedom of the press and the US Constitution in high school civics class has entered the Hall of Mirrors.

photo:jgoldmania/Flickr/creative commons

From Advertising Age Magazine, May 24, 2005:

Days after financial services giant Morgan Stanley informed print publications that its ads must be automatically pulled from any edition containing "objectionable editorial coverage," global energy giant BP has adopted a similar press strategy.

The memo cites a new BP policy document entitled "2005 BP Corporate-RFP" that demands that ad-accepting publications inform BP in advance of any news text or visuals they plan to publish that directly mention the company, a competitor or the oil-and-energy industry.

One former publisher and longtime magazine industry executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that "magazines are not in the financial position today to buck rules from advertisers" and predicted that such moves will continue.

Both broad and quite specific, the directives range from notifying the media agency prior to running any editorial that contains fuel, oil or energy news text or visuals to providing the agency the option to pull any advertising from the issue without penalty. If the ad cannot be pulled, then the agency "must receive notification immediately of the situation in order to alert BP and to manage the situation proactively," the memo said. It also states that if MindShare, [BP's media-buying agency], is not notified of the mentions prior to the issue's on-sale date, immediate advertising schedule suspension will "likely result."

Another magazine executive who had not heard about BP's policy or of Morgan Stanley's said his company has unwritten guidelines with advertisers from several industries, including auto, airlines and tobacco, to pull their ads if related negative stories are in the issue.

"I think it's OK to have systems in place to pull advertisers out, but clearly we don't show them stories ahead of time." The executive called BP's policy a "stupid request. It makes you think these guys are hiding something."

Nearly a decade ago, a move by automaker Chrysler Corp. set off a maelstrom of reaction when it sent letters in early 1997 demanding that magazine sales staffs warn them of potentially "offensive" or "provocative" editorial. Editors' concerns over the policy's potentially chilling effect were realized when Hearst Magazines' Esquire killed a short story containing homoerotic scenes, apparently to avoid losing the automaker's business. The marketer, now known as Chrysler Group, discontinued its policy in the fall of 1997. That October, two publishing organizations, the Magazine Publishers of America and the American Society of Magazine Editors, took the unusual step of issuing a joint policy on the topic of editorial integrity that bars magazines from giving advertisers a sneak peek at stories, photos or tables of contents for upcoming issues.

So we can take heart that the Magazine Publishers of America and the American Society of Magazine Editors have issued that policy statement, but a chilling effect certainly remains concerning editorial evaluations of topics concerning corporations as well as industries that are heavy hitters in advertising. This effect virtually guarantees that there will be no investigative journalism from a major publication concerning such corporations or industries unless they have all ready fallen into public disfavor. I don't have any solutions and this seems like another instance in which Capitalism and Corporatocracy have failed in our realization of an independent fully functioning democracy. Welcome to our brave new world.

Black Gold, (A Fiction)

2010-05-01T18:47:36Z

Washington DC, March 30: The President of the United States proposed opening vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time.

Later, that same day, Wyoming, A "gentleman's" ranch, the sun is fading over the Tetons:

Carl: That black bastard is co-opting our own turf! Before you know it, he'll be reducing the capital gains tax.

Dick: Don't get your knickers in a twist. We can make this work for us. Call Dave and find out what contracts we've got going right now on offshore platforms.

Carl: You sly bastard... On it!

Dick: Call Eric when you finish with Dave. We're gonna need a black ops demolition expert. If he asks why, tell him it's for that project on the border of Warziristan. Goddamn it! We'll control both houses by this fall and the White House again by 2012.

Author's note: I'm not saying anything like this has actually occurred, but I wanted to ask the rhetorical question if there are powerful political and economic persons who could or would be callous enough to risk environmental calamity in order to advance their political objectives. What do you think?