The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

'....in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.”

Harper Lee

(photo: Mary Badham and Harper Lee. More about the 50th anniversary of To Kill A Mockingbird in posts below.)

Remembering "To Kill A Mockingbird"

Today—July 11—is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of one of the most beloved and enduring American novels of the 20th century, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Upon publication in 1960 it became immediately successful, and won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It remains among th top 10 best selling novels from then until now. It is one of the five most assigned novels in American schools, and American librarians recently voted it the best novel of the twentieth century.

It was of course inspiration for the 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Only Lawrence of Arabia could deny this movie the honor of Best Picture. It is still among the most popular and acclaimed movies of all time. A few years ago the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch—the character Peck played-- as the greatest film hero in the history of movies.

(That's Harper Lee with Gregory Peck in the photo, at the time of the filming. This appreciation continues after the next photo.)

To refresh your memory of the story: Atticus Finch is the widowed father of the tomboy Scout (Harper Lee’s self-portrait) and Jem (Scout’s older brother). Atticus is a lawyer appointed to defend Tom Robinson, a young black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. This event is based partly on a case of her father’s, and partly on the infamous Scottsboro Trials of young black men falsely convicted of raping a white woman, also in the 1930s, when Harper Lee was about the same age as her fictional stand-in, Jean-Louise, known as Scout.

Harper Lee transformed memories of her childhood: her father was the inspiration for Atticus Finch, Truman Capote became Dill, her brother Edwin and cousin Jennings became Jem, and Boo Radley was perhaps based on someone else in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama (as discovered by the director of a University of Alabama production of the stage version, who visited Monroeville.)

In Monroeville in the 1930s, a rich man’s son was caught joyriding in a stolen car. His father persuaded the sheriff not to arrest the boy, but to leave the punishment up to him. He imposed three years of house arrest, but it turned into a life sentence when even after that time the young man found he could no longer face leaving the confines of his house, except at night. He became an object of mystery and fear in the neighborhood. At least according to the local story.

Nelle Harper Lee left Monroeville for college, then law school in her father’s footsteps, though she stopped just shy of completing her degree. Instead she went to New York, where she worked as an airline reservations clerk and assisted her childhood friend, Truman Capote, in researching the book he took full credit for, In Cold Blood, also a classic, about two murderers in Kansas. Catherine Keener plays her in the 2005 film Capote (photo above), and looks very much like Lee’s 1960s photos.

She began writing in earnest in the mid 50s, returning frequently to Alabama to nurse her ailing father. One Christmas in Manhattan, a songwriter friend and his wife gave her a unique gift—a year’s income, to support her writing. (The songwriter was Michael Brown, who made his reputation and probably his fortune producing industrial musicals for clients like DuPont and Woolworth.) She used it to write the first draft of To Kill A Mockingbird.

The novel was innovative in several ways. Through the narrative voice Harper Lee developed, she solved a perennial problem for writers: how do you accurately portray events from childhood to reflect both the feelings and perceptions of the time, and the fact that you’re looking back with the knowledge and insight of an adult?

The wedding of a kind of fictionalized memoir describing the texture of childhood and a particular place and time, with a courtroom drama involving an important social and political issue, was itself a synthesis that violated the rules. But in Lee’s telling, both elements gave power to the other. The somewhat languid mood of much of the early parts of the book (it takes place over three years) gradually quickens into page-turning drama.

Lee’s first submitted version of the work was reportedly more of a series of linked stories. But her publisher insisted on a more unified novel. Lee was able to achieve this partly by following in linear time the education of the young girl, Scout and her brother, Jem, and partly by weaving a few important themes throughout the book.

The first was about innocence, both of children and of “the mockingbird”—the innocent who only sings and does no one any harm—which applies to both Tom Robinson, the accused black man Atticus defends, and to Boo Radley, the neighbor who lives in darkness, the stranger in their midst who receives their projections of violence, and is therefore a source of fear.

He is different (and a kind of artist, who creates sculptures and leaves them for the children to find, along with talismans of his own “normal” childhood). He is literally unseen, and so represents the aspects of people we are blind to, because of our preconceptions. This obviously applies to race, and there is also a strong theme of class in the novel—which cuts both ways. (It can be argued that Atticus has his own class prejudices.)

The second theme, which follows from the first and is explicitly stated as a lesson to the children in the novel, is that of cultivating empathy and understanding by trying to see the world from the other’s perspective (as Scout does finally when she stands on Boo Radley’s porch at the end), by metaphorically living in someone else’s skin, walking in their shoes. This is a lesson about life and specifically about race. It remains the most crucial lesson in our public as well as private lives, and so this too accounts for this novel’s standing.

This theme is reinforced in other ways throughout the novel, notably by the brief story of Mrs. Dubose, a surly neighbor who insults everyone, including Scout and Jem, and says harsh things about Atticus. When Jem loses his temper and destroys her garden flowers, Atticus sends him to Mrs. Dubose to apologize and make restitution. Mr. D. requires him to read aloud to her everyday. When she dies, they learn that she was always in pain and addicted to morphine, which accounted for her harsh behavior. She decided she would die free of her addiction, and Jem reading to her was a way for her to bear the pain. It’s another example of assumptions and projections contradicted by understanding, as well as a story of redemption and the power of simple acts to do good.

As the Civil Rights Movement came to fruition in the early 1960s, the book struck a chord. So did the equally classic 1962 movie version, which in addition to Gregory Peck at the height of his fame, had quite a pedigree behind the camera. Alan Pakula produced it (though only his second feature as a producer, he later produced Klute, Sophie's Choice and other hits, as well as directing All the President's Men, etc.) Robert Mulligan directed, Elmer Bernstein wrote the musical score, and the screenplay was written by Horton Foote, the Texan playwright, who had written extensively for television drama and later wrote many acclaimed movie scripts, including Tender Mercies for Robert Duvall. Duvall’s first movie role was Boo Radley.

Harper Lee was a consultant on the movie and present for the filming (mostly on a backlot in California.) She and other participants formed lifelong friendships on that set. She and Gregory Peck in particular remained close. As she watched the first scene being shot she was seen to shed a few tears: he reminded her so much of her father. For his part, Peck’s grandson Harper Peck Voll is named after Harper Lee.

Young Mary Badham, who played the six year old “Scout,” also kept in touch with Peck for the rest of his life. She felt close to him immediately on the set, and between takes would be seen hanging onto him in his lap. She called him “Atticus” ever after.

A wide search for children to play Scout and her brother Jem was conducted in various southern cities, but the actors selected, Badham and Philip Alford as Jem, lived within a couple of blocks of each other in Birmingham, though they’d never met.

Mary Badham was herself a “tomboy,” as was her character, and the girl that Scout was based on—Harper Lee. She acted for several more years, and was in one more notable movie (This Property is Condemned, based on a Tennessee Williams play, written by Francis Ford Copolla and starring Robert Redford and Natalie Wood.) She gave up acting by the late 60s but returned to it in recent years. While Harper Lee has long been reclusive, refusing most appearances, it was often Mary Badham who represents this movie when it is honored and shown at festivals.

The movie streamlines the story of the novel by collapsing the events into a single year. It very carefully tells the story from the children’s point of view, even in shot selection. Though the subplot of Mrs. Dubose (played by the accomplished actor, Ruth White) was shot, director Mulligan felt it sidetracked the momentum of the film and most of the scenes were cut. It’s said her performance was brilliant.

There are so many indelible images, performances and moments in this movie. Mary Badham was remarkable, especially in a scene of Peck as Attticus putting Scout to bed and talking of her mother (added to the film and not a scene in the book), and then of course in one of the most moving scenes in any film—when she sees Robert Duvall behind the door, and recognizes him, and with a luminous smile says, “Hey, Boo.” Her face in this film is absolutely unique.

And of course, Gregory Peck, who could express so much with presence, gesture and nuance—with a tilt of his head and a raised eyebrow. The makers of this film understood and complemented this power. They allowed him to react without speaking; in a key scene, in which he learns that his client is dead and he must tell others of this, we see him mostly from the back.

This style worked very well for Harper Lee’ story, which needed a delicate touch on screen. That her novel got such a near-perfect movie has helped keep the novel alive.

Ultimately, it is the book itself, which is Harper Lee’s achievement, justly celebrated today. Though she attempted a couple of other books, this is the only one she published. She lived a quiet but full life in New York and in a house full of books back in Monroeville, Alabama. Now in her 80s, she lives nearby. In 2006, Harper Lee reaffirmed her dedication to writing and the written word, in a letter to Oprah Winfrey. "Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.”

Emerson for the Day

"It is awful to look into the mind of man and see how free we are...Outside, among your fellows, among strangers, you must preserve appearances,--a hundred things you cannot do: but inside,--the terrible freedom."

Emerson

painting by Kandinsky

Emerson for the Day

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live!"

H.D. Thoreau

photo: Walden Pond

LeBronian Motion

2nd Update: Man, it's ugly. The NY Times, AP, Sports Illustrated and Washington Post --no doubt among others--join the negative reaction, turning LeBron from hero to villain instantly, and LeBron's ex-boss, dissed by hearing the decision on TV, unloaded on his erstwhile meal ticket, calling him a narcissistic traitor, and accused him of quitting during the playoffs. Here's a sample, from SI: "But James does not have the heart of a champion. He does not have the competitive fire of Jordan, the bull-headed determination of Kobe Bryant, the quiet self-confidence of Tim Duncan, the willful defiance of Isiah or the winning-is-everything hunger of Magic Johnson. He is an extremely gifted player who wants the easy way out."
Very ugly.

Update: It's Miami.

So tonight LeBron James is going to announce where he plays basketball next season. On a prime-time television special. About him. For an hour.

I may not be as exercised about it as this guy, but it is pretty weird. Nor have I paid that much attention to LeBron, except to note that he's a hell of a player, and his behavior in playoff games has been odd, to say the least.

But the stakes are beyond NBA basketball. James has apparently announced his ambition to become a billionaire, and if he chooses to leave his current city of employment (Cleveland), that city's economy could take a major hit.

So what will he do? Stay in Cleveland, where his team disgraced itself by quitting in their final playoff games, but where he will rake in the most salary, and be the undisputed King? Or go to Miami, where another star player (Chris Bosh) has joined the superstar Dwayne Wade, and figure to be clearly be the favorite to finally reach the NBA finals and get a ring--but where LeBron will no longer be the sole focus? Or will he go to New York, and become King of the supposed media capital of the world?

If he's serious about winning a championship and Miami can still afford him, he goes there. He is apparently less likely now to go to New York, and while there's a logic to him staying in Cleveland, I'd be surprised by that.

To suggest how really weird this is, apparently none of the teams he is considering knows whether he will choose them. He's not just announcing his choice to the world. He's announcing it to the team he will deign to play for.

For the past several decades, sports stars have made lots of money, comparable to Hollywood stars. What they do is singular, especially in the playoffs. So standards of what is obscene, especially when so many are unemployed and otherwise struggling, do change. But this is getting well into the territory of the disgusting.

So as an NBA fan, I'll want to know what he decides. But I can wait to check it online when I normally make the sports rounds. I hope whatever he decides that LeBron does make it into the finals next year, and that the Lakers kick his ass. Is that just because I'm a Lakers fan? Maybe. But I'll say this: even if he decides on the Chicago Bulls (a longshot now--it looks like either Miami or Cleveland), LeBron James is no Michael Jordan.

Consequences: Prepare Now

Catching up to President Obama's announcement on Saturday on a $2 billion federal investment in solar technologies: the significance of this is obvious economically and in the fight to save the farther future from runaway climate catastrophe.

Further, one of the technologies being financed includes ways to store sun-generated energy for use at another time--a key feature in an adapatable power generating and distribution system.

But investment in many solar and certain kinds of wind technologies have another important feature: these are decentralized, local power sources. The ability of communities and even households to be self-sustaining, especially in energy, are key to surviving the Climate Cataclysm period of the nearer future. Soon enough, the grid is going to be more expensive and less dependable. The entire nation will continue to be held hostage to oil supplying countries, or even to what other countries can do to our economy and currency. Wars over oil can continue to cripple our economy.

Anything that increases self-sufficiency, as part of the "resilience" that's become the buzzword in certain quarters, is important--like 82,000 homes to be weatherized this summer with funds from the Recovery Act.

And the homegrown answer can't be left up to coal, which is polluting in every possible way, damaging to the environment which more and more must sustain us, and leaves communities just as beholden to machinations from outside--maybe not in another nation, but in that other country of corporate rule.

So fortunately the ship of state is also turning away from coal, perhaps slowly and even quietly, but decisively. On Wednesday the Obama administration issued new rules governing coal plant pollution.

For the ever-moving target of now, jobs are a key to community and household stability. The writing is on the wall for fossil fuel related jobs. The Union of Concerned Scientists claim that wind power can generate two to three times the number of jobs as fossil fuels. I heard someone on TV assert than even now, there are more U.S. jobs in wind than in coal. Why is this a secret?

The answer for now, the near future, the far future, is all the same: clean local energy and conservation. Just think about what they both might mean for summers with more very hot days and nights, as well as winters with more snow and rain, when you really don't want blackouts and brownouts, or energy it is too expensive to use.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"The most radical, audacious thing to think is that there might be some point to working hard and thinking hard and reading hard and writing hard and trying to be of service."

Mark Vonnegut, introduction to Kurt Vonnegut's Armageddon in Retrospect. Drawing is also by Kurt Vonnegut. Note the "should have been." By 2005 Vonnegut believed: "Well, it's too late! Look, the game is over! The game is over. We've killed the planet, the life support system."

Consequences: Feeling It

The consequences of climate change begin to be acknowledged and understood, but slowly. In a human sense that's understandable--denial as well as distraction and unfamiliarity slow it down, but eventually it will sink in.

It's one thing to read about possible future consequences of, say, sea levels rising. The breadth and depth of these changes can be noted and comprehended intellectually, and by some, imaginatively. In fact, intellect and especially imagination are crucial necessities.

But when temperatures rise above 100F, as they are in cities in the US Eastern and Middle Atlantic states, the consequences of prolonged bouts of heat become viscerally evident. The external ones can be observed--machinery, wiring, urban infrastructure frying along with vegetables in the garden and crops in the field, while bodies of water begin drying up. And the internal ones can be felt as well as observed in others. The growing difficulties of thinking clearly, keeping a "cool head," and of acting with energy, in periods of high heat. The obsession with keeping cool, the exasperation becoming fear and desperation.

In a postscript to his visionary book, Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse, David W. Orr confesses the personal source of his concentration on the subject, which began in a blistering hot summer. "After the summer of 1980, climate change was important to me, not because I'd thought a great deal about it in an air-conditioned office, but because I had first felt it viscerally and somatically. My interest did not begin with any abstract intellectual process or deep thinking but rather with the felt experience of the thing, or what the thing will be like. That summer is recorded both mentally and bodily in memories of extreme heat with no respite."

There was another extremely hot summer or two at the end of the 80s, especially 1988 in the Eastern US. That experience is what drove my insistent focus on climate change and the future, as well as the more personal and selfish preference for the North Coast of California, where the heat rarely rises above 70F. Those late 80s hot summers led to some of the first public alarm reflected in books and other media, and inspired some interest in what I regard as still the best film about climate change, James Burke's After the Warming.

Surely there is some correlation between the killer heat waves that western European countries have experienced and their own focus on the Climate Crisis. As Stephan Faris's reporting in Forecast shows, people living in the most affected areas of the world so far--particularly those whose lives and livelihoods are tied to the land--experience, recognize and acknowledge the signs and the consequences of the reality that others foolishly and tragically reject.

So once again this summer, TV airheads chirp about "another hot one out there" and ways to beat the heat, as if the prospect of more and longer heat waves can be cured by more ice cream. Meanwhile, the vulnerable among us, already ignored and even targeted by shameful political callousness, will sicken and die silently from the heat, unknown, probably uncounted and unheeded. Especially the old.

My sympathies to those who must endure the heat today. Keep as cool as you can. And when your head is cooler, remember today. This is something we must all prepare for, while we try to prevent even worse for generations ahead.

A Climate Progress update on the heat wave and its relationship to the Climate Crisis.

Mankind's Greatest Invention

"Surely mankind's greatest invention is the sentence." So begins John Banville's essay on Robert C. Richardson's books on Emerson, in what has to be my favorite quote of recent years, perhaps of all time.

When you're a writer, no matter how famous or obscure, whether you're one of the handful anointed by income or crowned by royalties to bear the title of writer, or you're a wretch like me, insultingly underpaid for squeezing into dubious forms, sooner or later, what gives you the buzz and the meaning, is a sentence you see and hear that you've written.

Oh sure, some get off on paragraphs, and there's the lucky few that get to play with chapters or scenes, and whole books, plays, sagas. But even they share the secret (and often secretive) gleam of a shining sentence, appearing under their fingers.

I wrote a review of a book about a writer who made very good sentences: Jane Austen. And in it I wrote a pretty nifty sentence, at least I like it. And for once I will violate the code and call your attention to it. It is mere cleverness maybe, but it is musical and funny, with a touch of cultural wit at the center. Or maybe it's just cute, I don't care. These days I must take my pleasure where I can. And pointing out a really elegant sentence is forbidden. That's up to readers to discover, and if they don't, well, everybody loses.

So in connection with Jane Austen's journey from obscurity in life to Jane-mania in the 21st century, I wrote this: She has the fame of the single name: absent Tarzan, she is our only Jane.

Good. Now I can put the clipping away with all the other forgotten sentences, and make some more.

Where Are They?

Hey, GOPer Gulf Coast governors: where are the National Guard troops President Obama authorized you to call up to help clean up and protect the Gulf? In this emergency that you blame everybody else for not addressing, especially the federal government?

According to the Christian Science Monitor:

While most of the criticism has been heaped on federal agencies and the Obama administration, questions are being raised about the extent to which the four Gulf state governors (all Republicans) are responding too – specifically, on deployment of National Guard troops under their command.

In a recent investigative report, CBS News found that Louisiana's Gov. Jindal had deployed just 1,053 of the 6,000 troops available to him. "Alabama has deployed 432 troops of 3,000 available," according to CBS. "Even fewer have been deployed in Florida - 97 troops out of 2,500 - and Mississippi - 58 troops out of 6,000."

And, by the way, why do you keep harping on what you know won't work--like those phantom berms, that are destroying more than they are saving, and will likely dissolve in the next big storm?

Or all the hoohaw you're spewing about how the Jones Act is preventing foreign vessels from helping, when it isn't? And lots of skimmers and other vessels from elsewhere are deployed?

Maybe you're too busy helping the BP police state of the Gulf scare reporters away, or you're just serving your oil company masters. But hoping to pin failure on President Obama is no excuse for GOPer governors to be derelict in their duties. Stop the political flimflam and showboating, and get to work saving what's left of the Gulf.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"He took out his union card from his wallet it and showed them, one by one. 'These words right here"--pointing to the slogan on the back of the card--"is what it all comes down to, you won't hear it in school, maybe the Gettysburg Address, Declaration of Independence and so forth, but if you learn nothing else, learn this by heart, what it says here--Labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producer thereof.--Straight talk. No double-talking you like the plutes do, 'cause with them what you always have is to be listening for the opposite of what they say. Freedom, there the time to watch your back in particular--start telling you how free you are, somethin's up, next thing you know the gates have slammed shut...Why you could write a foreign phrase book just on what Republicans have to say.'"

Thomas Pynchon

Against the Day

Hoedown of Shame

First they came for the undocumented, with vicious racism masked as self-preservation. Then for the homeless, including and especially homeless veterans. Then with state budget cuts targeting the old, the injured and the ill, but keeping corporate graft. Now GOPers and their well-fed leaders are coming for the working middle class, in trouble in an ugly and changing economy, or just doing the work of the people.

The now famous documentary about the plight of migrant workers was called "Harvest of Shame." But that was 1960. Now GOPers and their supporters have no shame. They have no conscience. And libertarians and their ilk have no sense of history, of what life was like for the less than rich and therefore powerless, before unions and federal and state law protected them, in the name of decency and community, as well as (it turns out) prosperity and democracy. Like all ideologues, they're willing to cause suffering for their theoretical purity, and like all right wing dupes, serve the interests of the rich and powerful. And this is the America they want to return to. This isn't just a harvest--it's a celebration of shame. If anybody remembers what the word means.

Declaration

All men--and all women--are created equal, that's pretty much how the Declaration of Independence (the July 4 we celebrate) begins. But when I google photos of Michelle Obama, I see just how racist this country remains. Such ugliness attacking this beautiful and good and profoundly patriotic woman, and you wonder about your fellow citizens. Which may also include the 26% who aren't real clear on which country the U.S. gained its independence from. Anyway, this photo and the photos below are some of Michelle that I've collected in the past few months, mostly from the White House. Today I celebrate that she is my First Lady.

P.S. And Happy Birthday, Malia!

"And how should we behave during this Apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another, certainly. But we should also stop being so serious. Jokes help a lot. And get a dog, if you don't already have one."
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Listening

As acidly as I might characterize Climate Crisis deniers--especially the professional ones, the moral equivalents of decades of cigarette company shills-- I don't think everybody who professes skepticism about global heating is malicious. I know they are basically and tragically wrong, but I still am interested in getting as many of them on board as possible.

So I was interested to see this Chris Mooney piece in the Washington Post with the headline "If Scientists Want to Educate the Public, They Should Start By Listening." Mooney writes that skeptics aren't necessarily uneducated. "For one thing, it's political outlook -- not education -- that seems to motivate one's belief on this subject." He suggests that instead of just talking at these people, scientists listen to them. For on the Climate Crisis as well as two other examples of issues that aren't controversial among scientists but have substantial and seemingly irrational opposition among the public, Mooney writes:

"These three controversies have a single moral, and it's that experts who want Americans to take science into account when they form opinions on contentious issues need to do far more than just "lay out the facts" or "set the record straight." What science says is important, but in controversial areas, it's only the beginning. It's critical that experts and policy makers better understand what motivates public concern in the first place; and in this, they mustn't be deceived by the fact that people often appear, on the surface, to be arguing about scientific facts. Frequently, their underlying rationale is very different."

This article got an angry and typically lengthy rejoinder at Climate Progress. Part of the objection involves not naming the real culprits, which include the corporate media and the disinformation campaign heavily financed by fossil fuel industries and their pr lackeys. While I can understand the frustration--once again, the responsibility is put on the scientists, plus (though they don't say so in this post) climate scientists who do venture into the public typically are met with very organized, very aggressive and practiced deniers who spurt out spurious charges and bogus information so fast and so relentlessly that there is never enough time to properly answer them.

Those deniers aren't sincerely interested in either listening or really in being listened to. But there are some whose opposition, while not really based on questioning the science, have reasons stemming from their lives and sincere attitudes. Apart from those whose reasons are ideologies so strong and automatic that their minds can't be changed, there is probably a subset--admittedly very small (since deniers are a small percentage of the public to begin with), but there are some who are troubled but open enough to profit from dialogue. As long as it is dialogue.

Here's how I put it in my comment on this Climate Progress post:

"We’re once again into a both/and rather than either/or situation about the Mooney piece. Yes, for various reasons the media has misreported on the climate crisis. Yes, corporate power is probably part of why. Yes, science education and communication are weaker than they should be. And very much yes, a highly funded disinformation campaign has provided reasons to doubt climate change for people who are predisposed to want to doubt climate change.

There are other factors that Mooney doesn’t discuss, like the immense psychological barriers to accepting the logical conclusions, the consequences of the climate crisis, like the end of the civilization they know, one way or another. Like the political fact that there has never been a crisis quite like this: a crisis (until recently) of the future that’s invisible or easy to ignore in the present, governed by such apparently unfamiliar concepts as lag time, tipping points and cumulative impact.

But what Mooney does discuss is valid: for repeat deniers not on fossil fuel payrolls, it isn’t all about feeding them information. It is also about listening to them. About understanding where they are coming from, in their lives. Listening allows information to be translated and applied directly to their concerns. It permits analogies and metaphors, specifically meaningful to them. It means taking their real life consequences and concerns into consideration in designing the methods of addressing the causes and effects of climate change. It means allowing everyone in the community to talk about this, without fear of being demonized, and to work it out for itself.

Frankly it is unlikely that scientists or politicians can do this. They need a more neutral but creative third party. The most successful dialogues I know of came after a small theatre company’s piece on climate change, in which they employed comedy that went after everybody’s pretensions. There must be other ways to overcome the mutual not listening of today’s debates. There is very likely a significant subset of skeptics and deniers who must be listened to before they can themselves hear.

Will this convince everyone? Not likely. Will it build support to pass climate crisis legislation? Maybe not, and maybe it’s not necessary because as the polls show there is plenty of support for doing…something. Maybe the extreme rhetoric we’re hearing is sound and fury signifying nothing, which will become apparent in November. But this environment is toxic in more ways that one. We face hard times ahead. We need a wider understanding."


That theatre company--called Human Nature--was on my mind because I attended an award ceremony honoring them over the weekend. They are from the nearby and ironically named town of Petrolia, California. Despite the name (and the fact that it was the first place in the state where oil was discovered, though there wasn't much), it is in a rural-to-wilderness area of the Lost Coast, the Mattole valley. There were a lot of people at that ceremony from that community, which has supported Human Nature for a generation.

True, many of these are ex-hippie back-to-the-landers, not your typical denier profile. And true: Human Nature started doing theatre about local environmental issues, like salmon in the rivers. But they did make fun of the pretensions of both sides, and they still do. Still, I think it's remarkable that the community is so much behind them, when the show they've been doing for the past four years (as well as the new one) is about the worldwide phenomenon of the Climate Crisis.

And it's also true that the dialogues that followed their shows often happened on college campuses. But people with doubts did show up (as did climate scientists) and they did talk, and their views were honored. And sometimes, that's how it has to begin.

As I mentioned at the end of my comment, we're facing tough times as the Climate Crisis effects become more obvious and need a lot of attention. I worry about that. On the one hand, we have a country so apparently divided, with really extreme, really barbarous views being openly advocated--with a lot of hostility expressed in very violent terms towards people of color, of poorer circumstances as well as contrary political views. And there's the Supreme Court arming their "revolution." Along with government being vilified, and too broke and broken down by years of being bled for profit, that it's ability on any level to address an emergency is pitifully diminished. All that tends to suggest these communities can't survive a crisis--that they'll get the violence, selfishness and panic our Social Darwinist apocalyptic mythologies assume.

On the other hand, there's Rebecca Solnit's book, documenting the positive ways people respond and help each other in a crisis. And there's the hope that once people are listened to, they can themselves listen. And the people trying to talk to them can speak to their concerns, at least enough to convince everyone of basic good will.

What the efficacy of dialogue can be on the current efforts to get a climate bill through Congress is an open question, and I have my doubts. That seems to have it's own momentum, and it may be more important that it is an extremely hot summer so far in Washington, as well as elsewhere in the world. And that whatever temporary stall there was in the statistics has ended, and this year we're clearly again in record-breaking global heating.

Speaking of heat, the first stories on Senator Robert Byrd said he'd been hospitalized for heat exhaustion and dehydration. That was quickly forgotten when the eulogies started, but maybe it shouldn't. Lots of unnamed older people are doubtless dying in the DC heat, and elsewhere. Denying this and related effects is murderous, and eventually suicidal.

Climategate

Remember Climategate, the scandal involving stolen emails exposing supposedly rigged data that discredited climate scientists and their entire generation-old conclusion that the globe is warming dangerously? That was red meat to the hungry stupid media?

Anyone who took a second look at it could see that there was nothing there, certainly nothing that discredited any important overall findings. And now the whole house of cards has tumbled.

The Times of London, the paper that "broke the story," this week retracted the key elements of the story.

Then the U.S. climate scientist most consistently and virilently vilified by the fossil fools was completely (and unanimously) exonerated by an investigative committee of faculty at his university, Penn State.

Maybe the credibility problem of the fossil fools and the deep pockets that finance their relentless lies will finally penetrate the members of the media that still care about accuracy, not to mention the planet, however few or otherwise silenced they may now be.