No Other Hope

South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State, endorsed Barack Obama for President. The editorial said in part:

"The restoration of the Clintons to the White House would trigger a new wave of all-out political warfare. That is not all Bill and Hillary’s fault - but it exists, whomever you blame, and cannot be ignored. Hillary Clinton doesn’t pretend that it won’t happen; she simply vows to persevere, in the hope that her side can win. Indeed, the Clintons’ joint career in public life seems oriented toward securing victory and personal vindication.

Sen. Obama’s campaign is an argument for a more unifying style of leadership. In a time of great partisanship, he is careful to talk about winning over independents and even Republicans. He is harsh on the failures of the current administration - and most of that critique well-deserved. But he doesn’t use his considerable rhetorical gifts to demonize Republicans. He’s not neglecting his core values; he defends his progressive vision with vigorous integrity. But for him, American unity - transcending party - is a core value in itself.

Can such unity be restored, in this poisonous political culture? Not unless that is a nominee’s goal from the outset. It will be a difficult challenge for any candidate; but we wait in the hope that someone really will try. There is no other hope for rescuing our republic from the mire.

Sen. Obama would also have the best chance to repair the damage to America’s global reputation. A leader with his biography - including his roots in Africa and his years spent growing up overseas - could transform the world’s view of America. He would seize that opportunity.

Congress has been largely useless under both Republican and Democratic leadership. Setting aside the ideological conflict for conflict’s sake to get anything worthwhile done has fallen severely out of fashion.

And America certainly has things to get done. From terrorism and climate change to runaway federal entitlement spending, there are big challenges to be faced. Sen. Obama is the only Democrat who plausibly can say that he wants to work with Americans across the political spectrum to address such subjects - and he has the integrity and the skills of persuasion that make him the best-qualified among the remaining Democratic hopefuls to address these challenges.

He would be a groundbreaking nominee. More to the point, he makes a solid case that he is ready to lead the whole country. We see Sen. Barack Obama as the best choice in Saturday’s Democratic primary. "

[political junkies, why not try a dash of American Dash? You'll be glad you did!]

The Dream Today

Senator Barack Obama, speaking at Dr. Martin Luther King's church on Sunday:

Update: This speech is now on YouTube, where it currently is the fourth most watched video in the world.

"Unity is the great need of the hour" is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome. What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Unity is the great need of the hour – the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country. I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans. I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

We have an empathy deficit when we're still sending our children down corridors of shame – schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.

We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.

And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own. So we have a deficit to close. We have walls – barriers to justice and equality – that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.

Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we've come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We've come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily – that it's just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.

All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price. But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won.

It starts with a change in attitudes – a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts. It's not easy to stand in somebody else's shoes. It's not easy to see past our differences. We've all encountered this in our own lives.

But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart – that puts up walls between us. We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.

For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system. And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.

We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity. Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.

So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others – all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face – war and poverty; injustice and inequality.

We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late. Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.

But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.

The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country's ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.

And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.

That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words – words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.

He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort.

Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.That is the unity – the hard-earned unity – that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope – the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.

The stories that give me such hope don't happen in the spotlight. They don't happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She's been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there. And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat. She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children. But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.

And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta. And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia. And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope – but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.

Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone. In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone. In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone. So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America

The Dreaming Up Daily Image

This is a beach scene. The blue at the top is the
ocean waves, glowing with luminicent life. The
red strip is the pollution known as the red tide.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"We all seem doomed to a freedom to choose between indifference and sadness."

James Wright

I used to respect this man. I voted
for him twice, stood by him in the
darkest days. But I respect him
no longer. This is why--and this, this
and this , this, this...

The Dreaming Up Daily Image

another fellow creature from the deep sea

To Stop It: Not Easy But Easier

People in the developed world, and specifically in America, are showing their concern for the Climate Crisis and related energy issues by trying to do something about it. (After all, the Toyota Prius hybrid outsold the Ford Explorer SUV here in 2007.) Though the eventual need will likely be nothing short of transformational, there are places to start that could have profound effects on lessening greenhouse gas pollution, and on lower energy costs at every level, including to families and individuals.

In Tuesday's Democratic debate, Barack Obama brought up energy conservation as such a strategy. He mentioned replacing light bulbs with more efficient florescents, and various design changes to increase efficiency and use renewable energy. He referred to these as the "low hanging fruit"--that is, the easiest alternatives to harvest.

I have to admit that although I am transitioning to florescent light bulbs, I didn't quite realize the magnitude of what such a switch can mean. Here is what Lester Brown of the WorldWatch Institute writes about it (as excerpted in Sentient Times ), with my emphases:

Perhaps the quickest, easiest, and most profitable way to reduce electricity use worldwide—thus cutting carbon emissions—is simply to change light bulbs. Replacing the inefficient incandescent light bulbs that are still widely used today with new compact fluorescents (CFLs) can reduce electricity use by three fourths. The energy saved by replacing a 100-watt incandescent bulb with an equivalent CFL over its lifetime is sufficient to drive a Toyota Prius hybrid car from New York to San Francisco. ..

Shifting to CFLs in homes, to the most advanced linear fluorescents in office buildings, commercial outlets, and factories, and to LEDs in traffic lights would cut the world share of electricity used for lighting from 19 percent to 7 percent.

Here in California, CFLs are practically free, as the result of a state program. So except for lamps and fixtures that don't accept the current designs, there's no excuse not to switch--even given the disposal problems. By the time a new CFL gives out, they may have improved design to deal with that.

My latest conservation efforts have been in turning off as many appliances that are always on (in standby mode, like computers, TVs etc.) as practical, by plugging them into power strips, and switching off the power when not in use. We saw results in the electric bill immediately.

On a slightly larger scale, there are changes in home and workplace design, and eventually in community design as talked about in Lester Brown's article, and advocated by many, including writers Kim Stanley Robinson and James Howard Kuntsler. But again, the cumulative effect of gradually going green when repairs and replacements are necessary, and maybe making one major change every so often (like solar panels) when that's practical, can add up.

Then there are the decisions by communities that inevitably become political ones, that can have major consequences. To its advocacy for green design, a group called Architecture 2030 is calling for a complete end to building new coal-fired electrical plants. John Edwards advocated the same at the Tuesday debate.

This site has often emphasized the bad news and the likely outcomes if we don't change, as a way to emphasize the urgency of changing. (And more of that is coming, unfortunately.) But while the necessary changes are ultimately major, they can start with what's easy, and then what's maybe not easy but easier than ultimate change, which can come step by step. In fact, the people who deal with figuring out the details of solutions are much more hopeful that the necessary changes are doable than those who deny the causes of the Climate Crisis and then add that it's too difficult to deal with anyway.

Unfortunately a lot of these science and design types are not great communicators to the many of us who are not. (Lester Brown is one of the exceptions, so I refer you back to that article.) And while all the video and poster contests are probably helpful in getting young people involved, they need to do a little more towards informing and inspiring the adults who can actually do something now.

The Dreaming Up Daily Image

Stop the Silliness: Campaign Notes

Update, Tuesday night: After the Democratic debate in Nevada and the Republican primary in Michigan with the third winner in three contests, it feels great to be a Democrat. Trapper John liveblogging the debate at Kos said it best: "We've got three potential presidents up there -- they've got Lord of the Flies."

The three Democratic candidates came together to make the Democratic party stronger going into the decisive part of the primary campaigns and especially into the general election against the Republicans. This will help whoever the nominee will be, and also it will help elect a more Democratic and progressive Congress, which each will need to govern effectively.

Individually, I thought each had moments that helped them and hurt them, but on balance they all helped themselves. I feel better, although I don't think I'll soon forget how the Clintons behaved when they felt they were losing, in contrast to how Obama has behaved since his loss in New Hampshire. (There's more at American Dash.) END OF UPDATE.

On Monday Barack Obama held a press conference, at which he said: “I don’t want the campaign at this stage to degenerate into so much tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, that we lose sight of why all of us are doing this,” Mr. Obama told reporters at a news conference here. “We’ve got too much at stake at this time in our history to be engaging in this kind of silliness. I expect that other campaigns feel the same way.”

“If I hear my own supporters engaging in talk that I think is ungenerous or misleading or in some way is unfair, I will speak out forcefully against it,” he said. “I hope the other campaigns take the same approach.”

“I think that I may disagree with Senator Clinton or Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals. We’re all Democrats,” Mr. Obama said. “We all believe in civil rights. We all believe in equal rights. We all believe that regardless of race or gender that people should have equal opportunities.”

"I think that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have historically and consistently been on the right side of civil rights issues. I think they care about the African-American community and that they care about all Americans and they want to see equal rights and justice in this country.”

This was the first bit of sanity in several intense days in which identity politics reared its ugly head with charges and countercharges of racism and sexism whizzing back and forth. Though many of the charges were made, on and off the record, by staff and "surrogates" (an inaccurate use of the word, but that's the one everyone uses), Hillary and Bill Clinton did a lot of this to themselves by their clumsy statements, and their refusal to admit the statements were clumsy (though they wound up backtracking.) While I can see the points they were trying to make, and I understand that they were tired and perhaps desperate when they made some of these statements, they still reveal to me a small-mindedness and willingness to distort for political advantage that simply sickens me.

It seems a classic case of having suffered the vicious distortions of the right wing conspiracy, they've taken up the weapons of their erstwhile enemies. The irony of the week was that in the crossfire of statements by Democrats that might or might not have been conscious racial codewords, few noticed Karl Rove's overt use of racial codewords in his column. He must be pleased as punch.

The Clintons continue to distort Obama's record on the Iraq war, to the extent that his fellow Illinois Senator Durbin called it swift-boating. Obama himself didn't go that far, but he did say: "I have to say that she started this campaign saying that she wanted to make history and lately she has been spending a lot of time rewriting it. I know that in Washington it is acceptable to say or do anything it takes to get elected but I really don’t think that is the kind of politics that is good for our party and I don’t think it is good for our country and I think that the American people will reject it in this election."

The Offensive

This amidst a week of controversy over remarks that offend African Americans, including by a "feminist" defending Hillary. Controvery over remarks about Hillary that offend women, including remarks by other women. Hillary and her people were lambasted for being divisive, and defended as victims of a sensation-hungry media. Her staff and supporters are accused of engaging in racial politics. Then Hillary accused "the Obama campaign" of keeping alive the controversy over her remarks about Martin Luther King and LBJ. Yet it is her own words that haunt her.

One of her defenders specifically noted that the New York Times and other media are lifting her remark out of context. That does happen to be a nasty habit of our arrogant, theme-driven, cliche-making media. But here is the full quote as he produces it:

"I would point to the fact that that Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became a real in people's lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished."

So this is supposed to make it better. Actually, I grasped the point she was trying to make the first time--it may take a village but in the end it takes a President, and in a narrow framework, I agree. That's why we need a President who will lead on the Climate Crisis in particular, but also many other issues.

It's a metaphor for a legitimate if insulting point, which is-- Obama (King): poet, dreamer, who can't get things done. Hillary (LBJ): no poetry but ready to execute. There's no real evidence this is so, but it does state an assertion of why she should get the nomination.

People are upset because she disses Dr. King, who did a lot more than make speeches, when and where even making speeches was pretty courageous and important. They are upset by the implication that black people are dreamers who aren't competent executives, and that black people always need white people to do the heavy lifting. I don't think they're impressed by the quite believable statement that this isn't what Hillary intended to say. They suspect unconscious racism.

But what did she intend to say? She was specifically countering the power of Obama's message of "hope." Hope isn't enough, she was saying, and she talked about failed hopes. And in this context, the statement actually gets worse.

Leave aside Dr. King for a moment--look at this part of the statement:
" when he [LBJ] was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do..."

That's when she utters the codeword hope. The implication is that here we have another dreamer, President Kennedy, able to inspire a generation and he makes eloquent speeches, but --let's straighten out her grammar for her--he only hoped to pass Civil Rights legislation, but apparently he failed. It took experienced pro LBJ to do it.

Well, it's true that JFK proposed the legislation that became the Civil Rights Act. But I wouldn't exactly call it a failure of leadership. It was more along the lines of somebody killed him.

So for my money, her expanded quote not only insults Martin Luther King, Jr., it insults John F. Kennedy.

And once again I remind her and you that the one experience in raising hopes that Hillary is known for was to bring universal health care to the U.S. in 1993 when it was a very popular idea. She was the point person on getting it done, and she failed. I don't think it was all her fault, but the fact is, the Clintons raised hopes, and those remain failed hopes, and people like me are affected by that failure. Kind of ironic, huh?

Are you experienced?

When you get to the nub of many of these charges and distortions the Clintons had engaged in since just before the New Hampshire vote, the intent on the face of it seems to be to support Hillary's claim of being experienced, while Obama is not.

It seems reasonable to talk about one's specific experience and how it contrasts or compares with the experience(s) of someone else also seeking the presidency. But Hillary's argument that she is qualified because she is Experienced and Obama is Inexperienced raises the basic question: what is she talking about? What experience?

Hillary was never elected to anything until the year 2000. Before that, she had accomplishments on various issues, as did Barack Obama. Obama was elected to the state legislature in 1997. Hillary has roughly four more years than he does in the U.S. Senate, while he has roughly three more years as an elected public servant. They both have specific accomplishments as Senators.

Yet Hillary is Experienced and Obama is not-- stated most offensively by Gloria Steinem who insisted that a woman with as little experience as Obama would never be considered for President. Only a man. Which apparently means that this society hates the idea of a woman President so much that it would even rather have an unqualified black man. How offensive is that? Steinem is having a very ugly 70s flashback.

But Steinem glosses over the uncomfortable fact that most of Hillary's "experience" is of being what she was so caustic about in the past: a wife. Hillary was the wife of the President of the United States, after being the wife of a Governor. She can claim all she wants to claim about what she did there, but on the face of it, this is the qualification for President of Laura Bush.

Hillary may be able to tell us what's specifically relevant about the direct experiences of a First Lady and the indirect experiences of observing what people with responsibilities as elected or appointed officials did. But as a general claim of experience, it just doesn't work for me. What probably qualifies Hillary even more these days in the minds of many--and Steinem must really be galled by this--is that electing Hillary is also electing someone with actual experience of the responsibility of the office, her husband. He seems to be running just as much as she is.

I don't argue with Hillary's qualifications to be President, especially compared to the guy in there now. I certainly don't argue against it on the basis of gender, and women--especially women running for office-- have specific "damned if they do/damned if they don't" problems due to stupid gender stereotypes. Though how the Clinton campaign plays the gender card is a fascinating and not altogether praiseworthy story. Right here I simply maintain that the "I'm experienced and he isn't" argument is false and insulting. And incidentally, would be ripped to shreds in the general election.

I agree with what Obama said in his peacemaking statement. But the last couple of weeks has reduced my respect for the Clintons markedly. I'll vote for her if she is nominated because we only get to hire one of two people for the job in November (although if Al Gore were to run at the head of a third party ticket, I would probably vote for him.)

On the other hand, as long as we're doing identity politics, maybe I should vote for Giuliani. It's true there's never been a woman or an African American elected President. There also has never been an Italian American elected President. You know, fuggedabadit.

It saddens me to say that I believe--more now than even two weeks ago--that I don't see anything really changing if the Clintons are returned, except perhaps somewhat reducing the damage Bush has done, but that's not enough to save the future. At this point I would vote for Hillary but without hope.

I'll vote my hopes for the possibility of what John Kerry calls a "transformative presidency" when I vote for Obama in the California primary.

The Dreaming Up Daily Image

an unidentified floating creature in the unknown

world of the deep (very deep) blue seas.

The Species That Doesn't Know So Much

Here's another argument for human humility, as well as a stab in the arrogance of those who say there's nothing left on earth to explore. There is. In fact, there is, oh, nine-tenths of the planet.

From a review of two new books (The Deep by Claire Novian, and The Silent Deep by Tony Koslow, both from U. of Chicago Press) about discoveries in the deep (really deep) blue sea, I learned the following:

"Only the uppermost part of the oceans—the top two hundred meters—bears any resemblance to the sunlit waters we are familiar with, yet below that zone lies the largest habitat on Earth. Ninety percent of all the ocean's water lies below two hundred meters, and its volume is eleven times greater than that of all of the land above the sea."

How deep is it? The Marianas Trench off the Phillipines goes down 11,000 meters. Just what does that mean? "Ships plying the waters over the trench glide as far above Earth's surface as do jet aircraft crossing the face of America."

Scientists know that "the most common backboned creature on our planet is a fish known as the benttooth bristlemouth, and it is only found in the deep sea." But we don't know a lot more--because less than one percent of the ocean deep has been mapped. By our standards, there are very strange creatures down there--some of them, in the deeper of the deep, are wispy, transparent animals barely different from the water around them, whose metabolisms are incredibly slow.

But there are also large animals about which we know next to nothing. And by large, they mean: very large. In this elegantly written review, Tim Flannery notes: "It says much of our ignorance that the very largest denizens of the deep have never been captured or seen alive." Scientists now believe that the fabled giant squid is a shrimp next to "the colossal squid...recognized as the largest of all invertebrates." They've figured this out mostly by examining the stomach of whales, that feed on them. "...for the great majority of squid families, the very smallest squid eaten by the whales exceeds in size the largest examples ever caught by a scientist."

The deepest of the deep is so far from sunlight that literally no light penetrates it. Yet the deep is not completely dark: bioluminicent creatures, who supply their own light, are far more common there than on land.

We know so little about the deep, and we aren't learning much more now, because there was only one vehicle capable of reaching the deepest ocean, and this robotic craft was lost at sea in 2003. There is no other.

But our persisting ignorance doesn't prevent us from destroying what we know not of. Our deadly chemicals are drifting down, and massive radioactive waste has been dumped into the depths (the Russians deep-sixed seventeen complete nuclear reactors into the Arctic Ocean.) Massive quantities of chemical weapons have been dumped, and lie on the sea bottoms.

Industrial waste has deformed and destroyed undersea life, and as our pollutants literally rain down into the oceans. The Climate Crisis will have its effects as well, particularly on the sea life known as coral. Vast coral forests, each of which can "support an abundance of life that rivals a tropical rainforest," have already been severely damaged and destroyed by fishing fleets--some of these forests were more than two thousand years old--scooping up the fish known as orange roughy, a deep sea perch, which otherwise has an estimated life span about twice that of humans.

Flannery concludes:

"The ocean depths are not some hellish and distant zone, but are an element of our living planet which is connected in very intimate and immediate ways to ourselves. They are also our last frontier, where wonders innumerable await the next generation of brave bathynauts who choose to journey there. Let us hope that we do not destroy this amazing place before they get their chance. "

Mice Studies Prove Humans Are Dumb

Nothing says more about the state of humanity than our attitudes towards animals and our treatment of them. We in our modern scientific civilization have depended on a view of animals as machines, or as dead meat even when alive.

As machines we use them for our experiments. But they aren't machines, which not only calls into question our ethics but our science. An article in the New Scientist last summer (not online) by two American scientists describes how willful blindness has compromised experimental results, with consequences for human health as well as morality.

Because rodents are treated as machines, and machines don't care where they are as long as they are maintained, mice are kept in bare cages while their bodies deal with our drugs and their genes are taken away or new ones introduced. But those cages aren't neutral. They cause stress that manifests in fairly obvious but ignored ways. These manifestations are either considered "natural" or otherwise discounted. They include aggression in males, so "males in particular will spend much of their time fighting if kept in these conditions. However, if they are given a couple of simple diversions...the fighting disappears."

Physiology is affected as well as behavior, which compromises results by adding "uncontrolled variables," not to mention suffering. "Moreover, we now know that mice display empathy...so stress experienced by one animal can affect others, too."

Noise is "a major source of stress for lab animals," which again causes physical effects and comromises results. The authors point to a study on genetic mutations that initially concluded that mice missing a particular gene developed a heart defect. Yet when the experiment was conducted again on mice living in better conditions, "those defects virtually disappeared."

This study shows "that lab animals' environmental conditions can completely change the results of a genetic study" ("one of the most clear-cut types of animal studies") But, the authors conclude, "This too seems to have fallen on deaf ears since it was published in February [2007]." This article in New Scientist was published in the June 2 issue, and apparently roundly ignored as well.

So lab mice are showing that environmental factors affect health, and that humans are blind and deaf to the power of environment, the interplay between psychology and physical health and behavior, and the biological realities of nonhuman animals. Makes you wonder who is experimenting on who.

The Dreaming Up Daily Image

It Does Happen Here

It was late in that awful day, September 11, 2001, and as media mouths were speculating what terrorist attacks we might expect next, I said (and have a witness who remembers this) that whatever this terrorist group would try to do, it wouldn't again involve boarding airplanes and turning them into missiles aimed at particular targets. The success of that intention required surprise, which was effectively over when the passengers, having learned of the Twin Towers, brought down their hijacked airliner over Pennsylvania.

But for the next six years ordinary airline passengers were forced to take off their shoes and (more recently) turn over their shampoo, and undergo various other humiliations and inconveniences beyond sane screening and precautions. And to question any of this--especially on the spot--could get you arrested, blacklisted on a no-fly list, and might even get you disappeared.

So it took six years plus for the truth to quietly emerge in a study: that none of this has made any damn difference in making flying safer or it catching terrorists. "Can you hide anything in your shoes that you can't hide in your underwear?" is one of the pertinent questions.

A week or so after this study was reported in December, an oped by a commercial pilot (and now a writer for Salon) appeared in the New York Times, laying out the reasons why these actions and restrictions are folly, and have always been. He has no new data--all this was known at the time each idiocy was instituted.

But no one wanted to hear this, just as for years they didn't want to hear how improbable being the victim of a terrorist attack in the U.S. would be, compared with much more common ways we get hurt and/or die. Easing fears may have been part of the intent of these "make work" procedures, but they also institutionalized Fear. So we got Bushwhacked in 2004, and Rudy would like to repeat it in 08.

Humiliating people, stripping them of their clothes in public, where have we seen this before? Making people vulnerable makes them passive. It's one step towards a police state. It trains citizens to be docile and authorities/police/soldiers to be aggressive, and pretty soon arrogant in the use of power, the threat of force and force itself. And I believe there are powerful people in this country who know this, and intend this.

But we sheep don't even bleat. That study, quietly issued a few days before Christmas, changed nothing for passengers. Big companies got big contracts to do all this, and the ease with which news organizations have smuggled devices onto airplanes that could have been bombs, or the vulnerabilities of our ports and shipping, means nothing. As long as we the people take off our shoes and bow before the great authority of the state, and leave our nail clippers at home.

Why Obama

It's long been my contention and belief that the Climate Crisis is the most significant set of problems to face humanity, and therefore the core issue in electing the next U.S. President.

So I read with interest a Kos diary by JohnnyRook that expresses some of my sentiments about why I support Barack Obama, even though the apparent policy differences on this issue with Hillary Clinton (or John Edwards) seem small. Like JohnnyRook, I am not happy with Obama's apparent support for ethanol and clean coal, nor am I happy with his willingness to allow nuclear power into the mix, although in that case his caveats are significant: provided safety is proven and the nuclear waste problem is solved (and we're nowhere close to that.)

But there are overriding issues, and JohnnyRock expresses one for me in this paragraph, which for clarity I've divided into a couple of graphs, and I've added my own emphasis:

Policy differences (over coal, ethanol) are less significant in my calculation than the ability to inspire and motivate. Clearly, any of the Democratic candidates, if elected, will take action on global warming, but I believe that Obama is uniquely suited to the task, because of his ability to inspire a vision in people.

Without that vision, I believe, there will be far greater resistance to the policies that we must of necessity adopt to halt the heating of the planet. I see in Obama and his rhetorical, motivational and organizational skills an American leader who can turn global warming in the public consciousness from an important issue into the defining issue of our age (which is what it truly is), giving us a genuine sense of national purpose (as opposed to the shoddy imitation of purpose that Bush has tried to make of the Iraq War.

And while I'm trying to keep my political obsessions under control, I do revert occasionally, at American Dash.

The Dreaming Up Daily Image

We're sending beams of love to Valjean
who is undergoing chemo and radiation
treatments this week in Chicago.

After New Hampshire

Hillary Clinton's surprise 2 point victory over Barack Obama throws this election season into complete chaos. Everything that seemed to be revealed by Iowa is called into question, probably until the final results on Tsunami Tuesday on February 5, and maybe not even then.

The Democratic race itself now has no shape, except as a two person contest, at least for the next month. If Obama had won by even 5 points, the endorsements would have started to roll in, and the wave would keep building. Now the Culinary workers in Nevada, set to endorse him, are scratching their heads again. They are said to be a key to the Nevada caucus.

Hillary won her base constituency that Iowa said she'd lost: women and party Dems. The Obama organization lost out to the establishment party organization. The youth vote slipped back to its usual unpredictability--even whether it will show up at all.

The polls were spectacularly wrong, indicating a last minute surge, or more troubling, the race gap problem in which voters say they will vote for an African American candidate, but don't. The polls were not so wrong predicting John McCain's GOPer victory (though his margin decreased through the night to about 5 points) so race may be a factor. Ugly.

The questions that the New Hampshire results open up will not necessarily be answered in Nevada (close) and South Carolina, where Obama still has to be favored. The possibility that Hillary got traction with her last minute negative campaigning, and that of husband Bill and her usually negative staff, may make the next month Uglier.

In concession, Obama was eloquent, though adding only new phrases (Yes, we can) and emphasis (a New Majority) to his Iowa victory speech. In victory, Hillary's speech was great in tone and substance for its first half ("I have found my voice") and mostly meandering thereafter, stealing liberally from Obama.

As chaotic as the Dem contest is, the GOPers are in even greater confusion. They've had 3 state contests with 3 different winners, and may get yet another in South Carolina and another in Florida. Whereas the Democrats had record turnout in New Hampshire, the GOPers didn't even match 2004, when there was no actual contest.

I hope I can pull back from this electoral obsession--I really don't want to have to wallow in the muck and mire of the next month. On Feb. 5, I'm voting for Obama. I never thought we'd get the chance for the transformative, inspirational leader we will require to have a chance to save the world from the worst of the Climate Crisis. He is that hope. I don't see another.

Elsewhere

Lots of New Hampshire stuff ongoing at American Dash, plus the latest on Doctor Who and Star Trek at Soul of Star Trek.

Son of the Future

Senator Barack Obama, historic winner
in Iowa.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"Hope is not blind optimism. It’s not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It’s not sitting on the sidelines or shrinking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and work for it, and fight for it."

Barack Obama
Iowa Caucus victory speech

Son of the Future

It's a phrase that popped out of the mouth of Chris Matthews, of all people, but if Iowa is any indication, it fits Barack Obama.

First the numbers: Obama won a decisive victory with 38%, 8 points better than John Edwards, 9 better than Hillary Clinton.

According to entrance and exit polling, his victory was pretty much total: He won the highest proportion of men and women, of Democrats, Independents and Republicans; those making more than $50,000 a year and those making less. The only major divided category was age: Hillary won 65 and older, Edwards won 45-64, and Obama won everyone younger, including a majority of voters 17-29. He won on all the choices for top issue (Iraq, the economy, health care) and he won the liberals and moderates. Oddly, John Edwards won the self-described conservatives.

But the most obvious statistic in Obama's win was this: 52% of these voters named "can bring change" as the most important candidate quality, and 51% of them voted for Obama.

The most sensational number was turnout. Something like 113,000 Dems voted in the caucuses in 2004. An optimistic projection for this year was about 150,000. At last count, this year there were some 238,000. About twice as many voters caucused for the Democrats as for the Republicans.

And as Obama pointed out in his victory speech, he and his campaign accomplished exactly what he set out to do: bring people together, bring people in, change the dynamic. And he did so by never compromising on principle.

He sure changed the dynamic of the 2008 election campaign. He's now going to be the favorite in the first two primaries: New Hampshire and South Carolina. Hillary and Edwards will contest them, and everything up to and including February 5, but there's no minimizing the momentum this victory gives Obama. By the end of the evening, candidates Chris Dodd and Joe Biden officially ended their candidacies.

While Edward's "concession" speech was a solid but graceless rendition of his incisive stump speech (he failed to even mention Obama, let alone congratulate him, and barely acknowledged his wife Elizabeth, the hero of his campaign), and Hillary gave a graceful but slightly dazed concession, Obama's victory speech was remarkable. He had the MSNBC commentators falling over each other praising it, with Eugene Robinson nearly in tears, and comparing him to Bobby Kennedy. In fact, both the speech and the victory seemed to bring out the best in almost everyone on TV, at least for awhile.

I've only listened to excerpts from Obama's speeches of the past few days, but I heard the same mastery of cadence tonight. He has this little hand gesture with which he seems to be conducting his own sentences--his speech was so musical, that he had that largely white audience doing a little call and response. And he repeated not only some of the resonant lines from his latest stump speech, but a sentence from his 04 Dem Convention address that got him so much attention in the first place: "we are not a collection of Red States and Blue States, we are the United States of America."

He spoke finally about hope, and this summarized everything that made this such an historic moment. The first (literally) African American candidate to win such a victory (I say literally because, as he said, he has a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas), and in a state that is 95% white; a person whose victory is going to be heralded around the world and especially in the Third World--the first step to bringing this country back into the world community. A person of practical vision: serious, humane and confident.

It looks like a "change" moment, as the commentators said, and I guess some of us got a glimpse of what we've waited for decades to see again, at least that possibility. This son of the future might be the leader we need but we thought we'd never see again. And those of us of an age hope that our hopes are not dashed in the same catastrophic way as they were before, in 1963, and 1968. We have to hope that in 2008, we're given this last chance.

(As promised, I've sent most of the analysis over to American Dash.)

Awaiting Iowa

The Iowa caucuses are later today, at last. And then the first real primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday. Right now the buzz is about Barack. Coming in first in the Des Moines Register poll by the biggest margin anyone's had is providing a lot of that buzz, which could easily be translating into momentum.

Then Kucinich asked his supporters to support Obama as their second choice, if (or rather when) he doesn't get the required 15% of caucus attendees and is disqualified. Wednesday there was reporting--or rumors--that the Biden people and the Richardson people may also be steering their supporters towards Obama. (Chris Dodd announced that he's not sending his supporters to anyone.) And the Biden story (by Beverly Davis) says nobody is suggesting John Edwards, which would be a blow to his chances--until now, the polls and the buzz had him benefitting from second choice votes.

So what will happen? It still depends on who shows up. But the night before the evening that the caucuses commence, the signs point to Obama, then Edwards, then Hillary. The story will be (as I suggested before) that the young voters gave Obama the victory, or the tried and true older voters plus women came through for Hillary, or John Edwards' tireless campaigning inspired working people to go to the caucuses in droves and send a message.

As for immediate consequences, if Obama wins, he's going to surge in New Hampshire and could win there, and then it will be a matter of whether Hillary or Edwards can stop him in the super primaries. Of the three, he is likely to benefit most from a victory longterm, especially if it is as solid as the Register poll suggests.

If Edwards wins, it's big for him, because it's now unexpected. But he still has a big mountain to climb, beginning with New Hampshire.

If Hillary wins, it's very big for her, because it reinstates her as the favorite. It's all about momentum going into New Hampshire. Obama is still going to be strong in New Hampshire, but if she wins there, it will really look like she's back.

There are a couple of other elements to look for. If Obama wins, it very well could mean voters want a new face. If it's Hillary, then it could be that the reassurance of experience trumps all--or that women are still behind her, and could carry her to ultimate victory. If Edwards wins, then his take no prisoners, populist/progressive Democratic message may be resonating with voters who are feeling economically insecure, and angry.

On the Republican side I'm sticking with my original prediction: Romney, Huckabee, McCain. If McCain places, he'll hold on to his New Hampshire lead. If Romney wins, he might be able to catch up to McCain in New Hampshire, and if not, he's got the bucks to keep going for Tsunami Tuesday in February. If Huckabee wins, that's expected right now, and it won't do him much good in New Hampshire, where he's still a long shot. He could win in the South, though, and stay alive for February. If he loses, he's in trouble, and he's got no money or organization or apparently staff to campaign in other states.

If this isn't complicated enough for you, here's a piece that speculates that an Obama victory in Iowa could lead to a long fight for delegates which would eventually mean the nominee will be...Al Gore.

As for me, I'll live with whoever wins in the long run. But I hope Obama wins in Iowa. Right now it's very likely I'll vote for him in California. I've seen the progressive blog spin (spinning wildly towards Edwards and even back to Hillary) but I've seen excerpts of his speeches of the last few days in Iowa, and if anyone currently in the race can bring the kind of change this nation and this world desperately need, it's Barack Obama. I don't expect to agree with his every position or comment. I mean, the only health care plan that makes any sense to me is Kucinich's. But there are tides in the affairs of humans, and this time they affect the planet. Obama looks like the man of the hour to me.

On a site/personal note, I had hoped that this obsession/addiction with presidential electoral politics would be gone by now, but in fact it seems to have gotten worse. I paid little attention to Iowa in 2004; I was just waiting to see who emerged. But I don't want to clutter this site with too much of this inside politics stuff. So when I need to work off my obsession, I'll post at my recently revived American Dash site. That was my first blog (called several different things over the years) and it's got quite an archive of posts, going back to 2002. I'm still working on tagging them all with "labels" so they can be searched according to topic. But if you're interested in my blatherings on this kind of thing, bookmark that site and check there. Although I'm sure I'll bring up the subject again around here from time to time.

The Dreaming Up Daily Image

Hope, Despair and the Climate Crisis

A version of this New Year's pep talk is "rescued" at Daily Kos. And frontpaged at Docudharma.

This is about how we respond to the Climate Crisis and the relentless bad news about it--with despair, or with hope. I'll tip my hand and say it is really about how to fight off despair and find hope for the future.

It's not easy to find hope. For thanks to the climate crisis, the prospects for a livable future just keep getting worse.

I've written many times about the Climate Crisis over the past several years on various community blogs, and I notice several repeated reactions in comments. Some offer their favorite solutions, or write about what they are doing personally to limit their carbon footprint. But many responses are more emotional.

There is fear, partly the product of quite natural denial--not denying the reality of global heating, but staying in denial about it as much as possible, while obsessing on much smaller issues. There is anger, about how we allowed this to happen, etc. And there is despair: the world is coming to an end, and there's really nothing we can do about it.

Despair, like anger, is another expression of fear. But it is not entirely irrational. How can it be, when we do face the real possibility of catastrophe?

Despair

People have basically two reasons for despair: they believe that in its present state, humanity won't meet this challenge. There are too many political, economic and cultural barriers. Humanity isn't smart enough yet, mature enough, enlightened enough. And then there's human nature: greed and fear will overcome.

The second reason for despair is that resistance is futile: that the tipping points have all been passed, and there's nothing humanity can do anyway to prevent catastrophe.

It's hard to argue with either of these reasons. They may prove to be true. But there are also counterarguments to each of them.

Humanity may not be smart enough to handle this, to even understand the problems. There may not be enough humans who can hold back panic and despair itself, or control selfishness on an individual, family, community or national level.

But there is precedent for societies that acted with courage, and understood that in a crisis, we are all in this together. Even in the midst of confusion and apparent incompetence. Read about London in the Blitz and you can see the elements of it: self-respect, fellow feeling, cultural identity and pride, good example and leadership.

In terms of smarts, beginning about four score and ten years ago, we began to develop one important conceptual tool: the ability to imagine the future: to use scientific facts and human insights to imagine future events and conditions (as the IPPC reports do), and how people will react to them (as this "Age of Consequences" report does.) And if they are bad outcomes, how people can cope with them, or even better, how we might prevent them from ever happening.

Since then, we've gotten more sophisticated and more subtle in using this tool. We've developed working theories of ecology (how life works together) and complexity (how everything depends on everything else.) It turns out we've got many of the tools to confront this crisis, to guide us to what we need to develop technologically, what we need to anticipate and do. And even how we might feel along the way.

It's true that how or whether we use these tools will be the test of our civilization. If we do it right, we go on and get better, building on the best of what we've done for the past ten thousand, and even hundred thousand years. If we don't, then we may very well fail as a civilization, and even as a species.

We may fail. But we do have choices, collectively and individually. People who talk about human nature-or who make relentless movies and video games about violence and revenge as the default human responses-tend to stress the negative. Even the "survival of the fittest"/"selfish gene" evolutionists emphasize these impulses and strategies.

Hope

But not everyone--not even every evolutionist---believes violence and selfishness are good survival strategies, especially in social species, and now especially in one that controls the destiny of a lot of the life on the planet. There are plenty of examples of unselfishness as survival strategies in animals and humans.

Even early evolutionists, like Darwin's close friend Thomas Henry Huxley knew that humanity had the capacity and the choice to transcend certain instincts -and he believed humanity would only survive if it acted (as he said) "ethically."

That we have these capacities and these choices has been known for much longer. There's a story that appears in many versions, appearing most often these days as a Cherokee tale. The briefest version might go like this:

Grandfather told his grandchildren: " Sometimes it is as though there is a terrible fight going on inside me, between two wolves. One wolf is full of anger, he fights for no reason, he is selfish, full of arrogance, resentment and despair. The other wolf lives in harmony and hope, he is giving and compassionate, and only fights when it is right to do so, and in the right way. It is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit. You may have these two wolves inside you, too."

They thought about it for a minute, and then one child asked, "Which wolf will win, Grandfather?"

Grandfather smiled and said quietly, "The one you feed."


So it is reasonable to say that humanity can make such choices in time? This brings up the question of how much time we have--and the second reason for despair: that time has already run out.

In a sense this is certainly true. That is, the climate crisis is not a prediction-it is a reality. Its consequences are being felt today, almost everywhere. And the consequences are bound to be larger in the next ten, 20, 30 years than they are now. We are reasonably sure of this because the greenhouse gases that will cause those consequences have already been spewed into the atmosphere. There's just a length of time between cause and effect, and the time for effect is still in our near future.

Though the emphasis has been on preventing even worse consequences farther in the future by stopping greenhouse gas pollution, the warnings about preparing for the near future have been stated, though not exactly shouted. Most recently it was half buried in the IPPC report.

The reason these warnings have been relatively quiet, and not heard clearly anyway, is that we're used to thinking in either/or terms, but this isn't an either/or situation.

It isn't that we either have a Climate Crisis if we keep on spewing CO2 or if we stop spewing it, we don't have a Climate Crisis. As I've been saying for months, we have to understand this crisis requires two sets of actions. We have to prepare for inevitable effects in the near future-everything from seawalls and emergency response to public health and plans to deal with changes in food and water supplies and impacts on local economies, to animal and human migrations, to conflict resolution on a big scale. This is what I've been calling the "fix it" aspect, and others are beginning to call "adaptation," which I think is a very bad word choice (but that's for another time.)

And we have to end greenhouse pollution, find alternative energy and other solutions in order to save the farther future, and ultimately, our civilization and as much of our planet's life as we can. That's the "stop it" aspect. (Which those same tin-earred technocrats call "mitigation.")

If we pick just one, we fail. And the particular danger for progressives/Democrats is to continue to ignore the "fix it" aspect until something really bad happens for which we are unprepared, and the political shit hits the fan. And the despair becomes more than theoretical--because unless people know to expect some effects, any effects could make them believe that it's all over, we've failed, we're all doomed.

At the same time--literally at the same time--if we devote all our attention to "fixing it" (as some GOPers and corporations would gladly have us do)and none to "stopping it", we condemn the far future and quite possibly the human race to massive suffering and eventual oblivion. We must do both.

The future

Are we all doomed anyway? Individually, of course, we all are, eventually. We're mortal. But is this civilization doomed? Is the future of our grandchildren all but gone?

It's important to understand what we're talking about when we talk about the future. For despite what we project and imagine, and regardless of whether we regard the future with despair or not, there is one unassailable fact about it: the future hasn't happened yet.

We can imagine future scenarios, but those scenarios are in the present. The future is in that sense a fiction.

Of course it is responsible to develop and use the best information, to prepare for dire possibilities and probabilities, and try to prevent them if possible. To do so, we have to think of these future scenarios as real. But really, they aren't.

We cannot say for certain what will happen. Our actions may change the future, and they may not. But our responsibility to the future is what we do in the present. We will not even know if what we are doing is futile or not. And in a real sense, it doesn't matter.

We live in the present, and what do we live with here? Despair. And/or hope. They aren't in the future either. Hope and despair are conditions of our present.

There are reasons to hope. Progressives like Howard Zinn, Rebecca Solnit and Naomi Klein can give you inspiring examples from history and in the present. Environmental and spiritual activists talk about The Great Turning, and some New Agers still herald the Age of Aquarius.

But in the end, past and present examples and future scenarios can only be encouraging or discouraging, guides and good examples, or warnings and cautionary tales. They can't tell you that hopefulness or despair turn out to be correct. For neither despair nor hope are conditions of the future. They are conditions of the present. They motivate us or prevent us from acting. They help give our lives meaning or sour our living moments. They prompt us to give, or they urge us towards selfishness.

And in the final analysis neither is reasonable nor unreasonable. They are choices, and commitments.

The single person who started us imagining the future in the ways we imagine it these days was H.G. Wells. He did it with a little-known speech ("The Discovery of the Future") and a best-selling book (Anticipations) that is now forgotten, but it started the scientific approach to the future. And a few years earlier he'd done it with his famous novel, The Time Machine, which started a particular way that science fiction imagines the future.

In that story, the time Traveller visits the future, where he finds the human race divided into two species, destroying each other's humanity. He goes briefly into the farther future, and sees the planet fade to its end. He returns to late 19th century London and tells his story. No one believes him, but one friend, named Hillyer, listens to him. Hillyer (who is actually the narrator of the novel) acknowledges that the Traveller "thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind and saw in the growing pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end."

A sobered Hillyer himself concludes: "If that is so, it remains for us to live as though it were not so."

I don't think Hillyer meant that the dire possibilities of the future if humankind remains on its destructive course should just be ignored in daily life. Certainly Wells did not feel that way. Wells told an interviewer that The Time Machine was about "the responsibility of men to mankind. Unless humanity hangs together, unless all strive for the species as a whole, we shall end in disaster." Today he might also emphasize that humanity's survival depends on the environment that sustains it.

To live as though it were not so is to enact hope. To work towards a future in which humanity flourishes, body and soul, can be a joy of the present.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, who certainly read H.G. Wells in college, wrote a widely quoted statement: "... the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."

We might read this today as a warning against either/or thinking. But that's only one part of Fitzgerald's statement. The part that is usually forgotten--and which sounds very much like Hillyer in The Time Machine, goes like this:

"One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."

The Dreaming Up Daily Image

Happy New Year!

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"I have heard all you have to say about your problems. It is my view that your real problem is that you are a member of the human race. Face that one first."

Idries Shah

R.I.P. 2007

click on this to see the full-sized collage

Some of those we lost this year

Filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni; filmmaker, stage director and writer Ingmar Bergman; political leader Benazir Bhutto; actor Roscoe Lee Brown; filmmaker Frank Capra, Jr.; singer Denny Doherty (the Mamas and the Papas); author David Halberstam; critic Elizabeth Hardwick; singer, actor and arts advocate Kitty Carlisle Hart; TV performer Don Herbert ("Mr. Wizard") journalist Molly Ivins; nature preservation advocate Lady Bird Johnson; actor Deborah Kerr; cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs; mime Marcel Marceau; novelist, author, filmmaker Norman Mailer; writer Grace Paley; singer Luciano Pavarotti; jazz musician Oscar Peterson; actor Anne Pitoniak; actor Tom Poston; jazz musician Max Roach; classical musician and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich; author and JFK advisor Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.; singer and arts advocate Beverly Sills; TV talk show host Tom Snyder; novelist and author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; actor Jane Wyman, political leader Boris Yeltsin---and 899 American soldiers killed in Iraq, plus an unknown number of Iraqis.

There's a little more on some of these and their legacies at Boomer Hall of Fame, and Books in Heat. I met several of these people, and most of them touched my life in some way. I am grateful for their presence, which will live beyond their absence.

Iowa Polls

This is about when the polls start to matter--three or four days before the voting. It's more of a mess this year because of the New Year's Eve/New Year's Day interval. But here's the latest:

The McClatchy poll shows the Dems still virtually tied, but the trend line has Edwards moving up, and Obama and Hillary down. It also suggests that the Huckabee bubble has burst, and Romney's trend is up.

The Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll has the Dem finish as Hillary, Obama, Edwards, and the GOPers as a virtual tie between Romney and Huckabee. The GOP finding is consistent with McClatchy; however the Zogby poll is not considered as reliable as most others. The poll to watch will be the Des Moines Register, which has been the most accurate.

A couple of other findings from the Zogby that supports the Hillary lead--she's still strong among older voters, who are (based on historical precedent) the most likely to caucus. (McClatchy agrees.) Zogby also found Hillary's supporters are the most firm in their support. Both of these bode well for Hillary, if they prove out.

McClatchy found that events in Pakistan have not changed preferences, and that Edwards would get the most "second choice" votes. My initial guess a month ago of Edwards and Romney is looking pretty good, but these two polls suggest Obama could finish third. On the other hand, the Washington Post touts the Obama Internet-savvy organization and get out the vote effort, which could provide an unprecedented counterbalance of younger voters. His crowds are reported to be younger. Young voters are probably the wild card in the caucuses.

Meanwhile, the American Research poll in New Hampshire also shows an upward trend for Edwards in that state, a lesser upward trend for Obama, and a large downward (9 points) for Hillary. But as in Iowa, it's essentially a statistical three-way tie. Romney and McCain are vying for top spot among the GOPers, both trending upward at the expense of Rudy. Huckabee apparently has no bubble to burst in NH--he holds steady at 11%, which thanks to Rudy's fall, places him third.

As the polls come in, I think I'll update this thread rather than start new ones, so if you're interested, you might revisit here.

UPDATE 12/31/07: This is the one I was waiting for: the Des Moines Register poll 3 days before the voting--which was just about the only poll that got the finish order right in 2004: it shows an upward trend line for Obama, who comes in first with 32% (up from 28% in November) while both Hillary (25%) and Edwards (24%) were flat: no change. Obama's lead now is the largest any candidate has had. There is some fluidity: 6% are undecided (the same percentage as in other polls) and up to a third could change their minds. The poll is of voters who are likely to attend the caucuses, and a great many of them are first-timers and even not registered (although they can register "on the way to the caucus"). A bright spot for Edwards: there was an uptick in his support during the four days of the polling, but there was also for Obama. Not good news for Edwards: the union household is split pretty evenly among the three candidates.

This poll also show GOPer Huckabee maintaining his lead, 32% to 28% for Romney. That's not a safe lead.

So three polls, three different Democratic leaders. The only commonality is that Hillary's support has remained firm--the question being how big it is. One thing does seem very likely: while the race between the top three Dems is very close, it is a three person race: no other candidate looks likely to get the 15% for viability in most caucuses. Perhaps for that reason, the Register poll shows that, contrary to McClatchy, the "second choice" votes aren't likely to change the outcome.

Update 1/1/08: To further muddy the waters, the CNN/Opinion Research poll (conducted Dec. 26- 30) shows a two-way tie on both sides. The GOPers are the same--Huckabee and Romney, with Romney showing the upward momentum and Huck downward. On the Dem side, though, the tie is between Hillary and Obama, with Hillary slightly ahead. This one shows momentum for both Hillary and Obama but not for John Edwards, who is a relatively distant third. Meanwhile, the Register poll may itself have given Obama new momentum. The other candidates attacked its new turnout model. It does seem that the outcome hinges on how many young voters actually caucus.

Also, Dennis Kucinich--who is polling at around 1 or 2%--has asked his supporters to give their second choice votes to Obama. He did this in 2004 as well, although then he steered his supporters to Edwards. The other candidates haven't weighed in, but observers believe that Dodd, Biden and perhaps even Richardson voters are more likely to back Hillary as second choice, but precedent indicates they are more likely to remain uncommitted, or in particular instances, to see if they can't get 15% for one of these second tier candidates by combining their votes. The Biden campaign is saying straight out that they're running for fourth.