State of the Hope: The First 100 Days

The headlines say he's touched off a firestorm on both right and left on the torture issue. The headlines say the banks are resisting his proposed credit card reforms. The blogs say he's trying to do too much, he's not doing enough. The Republican obsessed cable shows duly report and debate every flaky pompous self-serving crass piece of idiocy anyone says or belches about how he's ineffective and wrongheaded.

Oh yeah?

The Associated Press:

"For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public's mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future.

Intensely worried about their personal finances and medical expenses, Americans nonetheless appear realistic about the time Obama might need to turn things around, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. It shows most Americans consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington."

Act Locally

For Earth Day 2009, President Obama went to an Iowa factory that manufactures wind power turbines to continue his economic argument for ecological sanity: "The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy—it’s a choice between prosperity and decline,” said Obama. “The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.”

He spoke in support of the EPA finding that greenhouse gases are harmful pollution and should be regulated. He also announced that the federal government is beginning the process of leasing offshore areas for electricity generation projects using wind and ocean currents.

That's good news for us here on the North Coast, where interest in using wave power has already generated some encouraging studies and discussion. Apparently our offshore area is prime for this kind of power.

Federal leadership and seed money are crucial, but local and state efforts are where things happen. California continues to lead in the attempts to control carbon emissions. The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that "The California Air Resources Board is expected to approve on Thursday a far-reaching rule called the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, the biggest step yet in the state's campaign to slash greenhouse gas emissions."

The Bay Area is also participating if not leading in innovation to foster a green economy. Another Chronicle story reports: Several Bay Area companies, including Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and Google Inc., were recognized Tuesday for pioneering environmental-saving innovations that cut costs and create new business. Smaller businesses are also recognized.

But there are other kinds of efforts that are just as crucial in safeguarding our planetary resources. Back when Earth Day started, so did recycling efforts (which so many experts said people would never do. They were wrong.) The full and too often forgotten mantra was "Reuse, Reduce, Recycle." One of the worst things we're doing that's poisoning our shared resources and causing geometrically increasing damage is dumping huge amounts of stuff, a lot of it toxic. No one seems to want to talk about it, but we're rapidly busy filling up and poisoning the earth with millions of cell phones a year.

But even with ordinary, non-toxic stuff, we've lost the ethic of repair and reuse. The Great Recession however is starting to reverse those practices. Yet another Chronicle piece reports on a suddenly thriving business: SCRAP, or Scroungers' Center for Reusable Art Parts. It's more than art parts now--it's become a place where companies with surplus stuff (because they're downsizing or going out of business or just changing inventory) unload without discarding, and where people with various needs can buy the stuff cheap.

The stuff includes clothing from Banana Republic, a textile company and an architecture firm, for instance. There are other companies besides SCRAP doing similar work in the Bay Area, most of which have been around for years (SCRAP for 30 years or so.) The difference is interest--and more stuff, being reused in more ways. "We used to have people come for things to accessorize. Now we have more people making their own clothing."

Looking around, Kraft said, "This was all going to be garbage. Companies probably would have just thrown it away. It's such great stuff."

Blue Planet

Last Chance

We're probably down to the wire on addressing the Climate Crisis to avoid planetary tragedy of almost unimaginable proportions and duration. The worst of it could begin later in this century, unless we stop the process now. It's humankind's last chance to redeem itself, before it become the species that kills the others. The experiment in complex life that didn't work out.

So optimism is a relative thing, and hope springs this spring in Washington. First the EPA finding on Friday: "said rising sea levels, increased flooding and more intense heat waves and storms that come with climate change are a threat to public health and safety. The agency predicted that warming will worsen other pollution problems such as smog." Declaring greenhouse gases pollution a threat to health and safety signals that the EPA will take steps to regulate it, even if Congress doesn't act.

This week could be the beginning of an historic shift, as Climate Crisis legislation comes forward for consideration. Apart from the important shift represented by the Obama administration, there is growing support if not yet consensus. "For the first time ever, we have got the political actors all aligned," said Richard Lazarus, Georgetown University environmental activist and author. "That is not enough to get a law passed, but that is a huge start. We haven't been close to that before." So the work is just beginning.

Of course, there is tremendous opposition, especially from fossil fuel conglomerates, as well as their sad sack know-nothing minions, tea-baggers all.

But it's getting harder for reasonable people not to see what's happening, or to see that the solutions are beneficial anyway. Forbes magazine has just named Denmark as the best country in the world for business--partly because it has one of the strongest committments in the world to reduce carbon, and a relentless effort to conserve energy and develop and use clean energy technology.

The dangers of not confronting the crisis--a frequent topic at international gatherings, like the recent one of Latin American nations-- were outlined by Energy Secretary Steven Chu as comparable to an Ice Age in reverse. Chu is direct, as is President Obama's chief negotiator on the next round of Climate Crisis international agreements, Todd Stern. They know the reality and what is at stake. The deck at this point is stacked against all of us: we may be too late, we may do too little. But we have to try, and if we've got any chance at all, now is the time to seriously start.

April is the New May

In 1965 the U.S. Department of Agriculture planted lilacs in some 70 locations in the northeast, and noted when they first bloomed. Figuring that the onset of spring was signalled by the lilacs blooming, the USDA was trying to help determine the best time for planting crops, like corn. But what they now have is a record of when lilacs bloomed in the past 44 years. And they are blooming as much as two weeks earlier now than in 1965.

Other evidence of early spring (and summer) onset is discussed in new books by Amy Seidl (Early Spring) and Stephan Farris (Forecast) but almost anyone in agriculture or forestry, etc. from wineries in California to corn growers in Iowa to maple sugar producers in New England can tell you this has been happening, and it's starting to have an impact. Sugar maples in New England (above right), for example, are dying and may soon be virtually extinct. The rippling effect of climate change--from northern species dying out to disease-carrying insects moving north--is just beginning. For now, some of it is pleasant, as April becomes the new May. But it's already starting to change lives and livelihoods, and a sane society would have noticed that by now.

Pillar of the Future: Fiscal Discipline

The final pillar of the future in President Obama's speech at Georgetown was restoring fiscal discipline in the federal budget. The topic of government spending and taxes inevitably comes up at tax time, pumped up this year by some big Republican lobbying firms and FOX news, owned by the biggest media company in the world, in the guise of a grassroots revolt.

Apart from very troubling matters of tone (which I'm writing about elsewhere), the tax-and-spend portion of this revolt is revoltingly incoherent and exploitive. In a month when 95% of American families are starting to receive the tax cuts that President Obama made a key part of his recovery package, Republicans ignore this inconvenient fact to complain about taxes--which their administration did nothing to lower, except for the very rich. And after eight years turning a surplus into huge deficits and debt, the Republicans complain about deficits and government spending.

To show how little sense they make requires nothing more than quoting President Obama in this speech. First of all, he talks about successful efforts to cut spending in the budget by eliminating unneeded programs and budget items. "Already, we have identified two trillion dollars in deficit-reductions over the next decade...Altogether, this budget will reduce discretionary spending for domestic programs as share of the economy by more than 10% over the next decade to the lowest level since we began keeping records nearly half a century ago. And as we continue to go through the federal budget line by line, we will be announcing additional savings, secured by eliminating and consolidating programs we don't need so that we can make room for the things we do need."

Before talking about entitlement reform he adds these common sense points:

"First, as I said earlier, the worst thing that we could do in a recession this severe is to try to cut government spending at the same time as families and businesses around the world are cutting back on their spending. So as serious as our deficit and debt problems are – and they are very serious – major efforts to deal with them have to focus on the medium and long-term budget picture.

Second, in tackling the deficit issue, we simply cannot sacrifice the long-term investments that we so desperately need to generate long-term prosperity. Just as a cash-strapped family may cut back on luxuries but will insist on spending money to get their children through college, so we as a country have to make current choices with an eye on the future. If we don't invest now in renewable energy or a skilled workforce or a more affordable health care system, this economy simply won't grow at the pace it needs to in two or five or ten years down the road. If we don't lay this new foundation, it won't be long before we are right back where we are today. And I can assure you that chronically slow growth will not help our long-term budget situation."

He then talks about the need for all parties to come together to fashion serious reforms of Medicare and Social Security, because only this will really deal with long-term federal deficits.

"But let's not kid ourselves and suggest that we can do it by trimming a few earmarks or cutting the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts," he said.

But of course, that's exactly what Republicans and these anti-tax rebels talk about. They aren't serious. They're trying to score political points. They aren't trying to solve big problems, or any problems at all, except how to win elections and serve the interests of their rich backers. They'll use anyone and anything to keep doing that. They aren't interested in governing, and they aren't interested in the well-being and the future of America.

President Obama ended his speech with his vision of the future, once these pillars and this foundation is in place: "There is no doubt that times are still tough. By no means are we out of the woods just yet. But from where we stand, for the very first time, we are beginning to see glimmers of hope.

And beyond that, way off in the distance, we can see a vision of an America's future that is far different than our troubled economic past. It's an America teeming with new industry and commerce; humming with new energy and discoveries that light the world once more. A place where anyone from anywhere with a good idea or the will to work can live the dream they've heard so much about.

It is that house upon the rock. Proud, sturdy, and unwavering in the face of the greatest storm. We will not finish it in one year or even many, but if we use this moment to lay that new foundation; if we come together and begin the hard work of rebuilding; if we persist and persevere against the disappointments and setbacks that will surely lie ahead, then I have no doubt that this house will stand and the dream of our founders will live on in our time. "

Pillar of the Future: Health Care

"The fourth pillar of the new foundation is a 21st century health care system where families, businesses, and government budgets aren't dragged down by skyrocketing insurance premiums" President Obama said in his Georgetown U. speech. "Fixing our health care system will certainly require resources, but in my budget, we've made a commitment to fully pay for reform without increasing the deficit, and we've identified specific savings that will make the health care system more efficient and reduce costs for us all."

Universal health care is necessary not just for individuals but for companies, large and small, swamped by the cost of health insurance. To help the budgets of individuals, families and businesses, health care will free money for other purposes in both the short and long terms, and therefore is a critical part of economic recovery and restructuring. But President Obama made one other point, that isn't usually noticed.

At first he seemed to be moving on from the pillar of health care to the pillar of reducing the federal deficit. But after explaining the need to deal with the long term government deficit and how his administration is attacking this problem (more on that in a post to follow), he spoke about the need to reform entitlements like Medicare and Social Security in order to forestall greater deficits, and to meet this goal, "Nothing will be more important to this goal than passing health care reform that brings down costs across the system, including in Medicare and Medicaid. Make no mistake: health care reform is entitlement reform. That's not just my opinion – that was the conclusion of a wide range of participants at the Fiscal Responsibility Summit we held at the White House in February, and that's one of the reasons why I firmly believe we need to get health care reform done this year."

Pillar of the Future: Energy

"The third pillar of this new foundation is to harness the renewable energy that can create millions of new jobs and new industries," said President Obama in his speech at Georgetown. This is crucial to our future for many reasons: to save scarce resources and reduce pollution, environmental destruction and waste; to end dependence on foreign oil and foreign wars for oil; to reduce global heating and head off a history-ending Climate Crisis. To name a few.

But at Georgetown, President Obama concentrated on American competitiveness in the world: renewable, sustainable and clean energy is the technology of today, the crucial need of the world's future, and therefore America's best opportunity to do what it has traditionally done best: invent, innovate and build new industries for customers around the world.

"We all know that the country that harnesses this energy will lead the 21st century," the President said. "Yet we have allowed other countries to outpace us on this race to the future. Well, I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders. It is time for America to lead again.

The investments we made in the Recovery Act will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years. And we are putting Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions on our energy bills and grow our economy at the same time."

Science will invent, entrepreneurs will innovate and industries will spring up not only because there is a need, but because there is demand--and for demand to grow fast enough, the price of clean energy must be competitive. It's getting there now, but President Obama wants to give it a nudge--while reducing the greenhouse gases that are causing the growing Climate Crisis.

This is a simple formula, but it is daring to propose it. But for those who say fighting greenhouse gases pollution through carbon cap-and-trade should be left to another day when the economy is fixed, President Obama says doing it now is necessary to fixing the economy, both in terms of immediate economic activity and in his overall plan to build the foundation for a strong economy for the foreseeable future. Read what he said carefully:

"But the only way to truly spark this transformation is through a gradual, market-based cap on carbon pollution, so that clean energy is the profitable kind of energy. Some have argued that we shouldn't attempt such a transition until the economy recovers, and they are right that we have to take the costs of transition into account. But we can no longer delay putting a framework for a clean energy economy in place. If businesses and entrepreneurs know today that we are closing this carbon pollution loophole, they will start investing in clean energy now. And pretty soon, we'll see more companies constructing solar panels, and workers building wind turbines, and car companies manufacturing fuel-efficient cars. Investors will put some money into a new energy technology, and a small business will open to start selling it. That's how we can grow this economy, enhance our security, and protect our planet at the same time."

Other efforts along these lines are building a smart and secure electrical grid--another area where other countries are moving ahead--and Thursday's announcement of a plan for a new, smart high-speed rail network.

Go Ask Alice

Something to ponder in view of Wednesday GOP "tea parties" and the Rabid Right in general. For Alice's adventures at one, try companion blog American Dash here.

Pillar of the Future: Education

In his Georgetown speech, President Obama's first pillar in the foundation of the future is to reform the outdated rules and regulations that allowed this crisis to happen in the first place. The fifth pillar is long-term deficit reduction, to be done not by wishful thinking or crazy proposals, but by getting together to confront the hard problems and craft solutions. But that is a task that virtually all responsible economists agree needs to wait until the government has dealt with the Great Recession we're in right now. Both of these sober and sensible approaches belie the kind of infantile analysis the Rabid Right is indulging in, as evidenced by the "tea-bag" protests on April 15.

The second pillar of the future is education. Republicans have talked a lot about education while pursuing policies that have driven it to the brink of disaster on all levels. And at all levels, the United States is falling behind.

President Obama recognizes that the American economic future depends on our citizens being smart and skilled enough to compete and innovate in a world where many countries have invested more heavily in education.

It's not only that Europe has done better. It's especially important because the U.S. is not going to out-compete on the basis of raw numbers with countries like India and China. There are more college honor students in India than there are total college students in the U.S.

Here's what President Obama said at Georgetown:

"The second pillar of this new foundation is an education system that finally prepares our workers for a 21st century economy. In the 20th century, the GI Bill sent a generation to college, and for decades, we led the world in education and economic growth. But in this new economy, we trail the world's leaders in graduation rates and achievement. That is why we have set a goal that will greatly enhance our ability to compete for the high-wage, high-tech jobs of the 21st century: by 2020, America will once more have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

To meet that goal, we have already dramatically expanded early childhood education. We are investing in innovative programs that have proven to help schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps. We are creating new rewards tied to teacher performance and new pathways for advancement. I have asked every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training, and we have provided tax credits to make a college education more affordable for every American."

Outline of the Future

On Tuesday at Georgetown University, President Obama described what his administration has done to fix the economy and why--and he outlined the future and what we need to do to get there. But you wouldn't know it from the pitiful media coverage. See more in the post below.

Foundation of A Sustainable Future

President Obama warned the faculty and students at Georgetown University on Tuesday that he was there to deliver prose, not poetry. But there's more poetry in concise description in a precisely organized structure, easy to understand because it is so clear, direct and grounded in the real world.

Towards the end of the speech, he mentioned the problem of "an attention span that has only grown shorter with the twenty-four hour news cycle, and insists on instant gratification in the form of immediate results or higher poll numbers. When a crisis hits, there's all too often a lurch from shock to trance, with everyone responding to the tempest of the moment until the furor has died away and the media coverage has moved on, instead of confronting the major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focused way."

Well, that's another game he's not playing. In this speech he did precisely that: confronted the major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focused way. The media mostly ignored it, mentioning at best his assessment that the economy shows "glimmers of hope", but there are still difficult times ahead.

The first half of the speech was a step by step analysis of the current economic crisis, the steps that were taken in the last months of Bush and the steps his administration has taken and why. For anyone who is confused or doubtful about any part of it, this speech makes it pretty clear. You can read the transcript here or in PDF format at C-Span here. The CSpan video is currently here.

The second half of the speech is about the future. President Obama began by referring to a parable. "There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was destroyed as soon as the storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when "…the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house…it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock."

We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity – a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest; where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad."

President Obama outlined five pillars of a better future.

"It's a foundation built upon five pillars that will grow our economy and make this new century another American century: new rules for Wall Street that will reward drive and innovation; new investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive; new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and industries; new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and new savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations. That is the new foundation we must build. That must be our future – and my Administration's policies are designed to achieve that future."

In the coming days, I will excerpt President Obama's remarks on several of these pillars, and his vision for a better future.

Happy Easter (and the Dog We Can Believe In)

Photos from the White House Easter Egg hunt plus one of Bo, the Dog We Can Believe In. These and more in Al Rodgers' latest photo blog at Kos. Check it out.

Aloha Bo

Meet Bo, the First Dog: a present to Sasha and Malia Obama from Senator Ted Kennedy. This is the official White House portrait.

Sunday Morning

Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.--from Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens
photo by Andrea Gerak, Budapest

Stop the Presses?

Newspaper editors and and a national media survey defending newspapers against the Internet incurs the wrath of Daily's Kos, and the AP attempt to get paid for links to its stories inspires Arianna's huff. It's the New Media against the Old, supposedly, though it looks a lot like the same old same old, dog eat dog, pissing contests and dominance games.

Kos is caustic and dismissive. To the assertion that “News consumption depends on news production, and I don't see anything on the Internet that produces news—that is, detailed responsible empirical journalism—the way newspapers do (or did). ” he responds: "If you're in such a bubble that you haven't seen the dozens of news operations online that are producing 'detailed responsible empirical journalism', then you are hopeless." Dozens? Really? As much as daily and weekly newspapers and magazines? Even though Josh Marshall of the TPM sites admits: "If all the big papers disappeared right now and we replaced them with 50 TPMs, it wouldn't come close to doing the job."

I left a comment on this post challenging the site to operate for a full week without using links to newspapers, but only to those other "dozens of online news operations" using only their original reporting. Then we'll see where we are exactly.

Kos titles this post "More on Newspaper Executive Arrogance," but arrogance has a different source when in an earlier post he wrote, "But as I've already argued, why should newspapers cover sports when that's already capably covered in umpteen other outlets? Do they need to pay for David Broder's column? Do they need AP wire? Do they need a style or celebrity or business sections? A theater or architecture critic? Of course not. "

Of course not, because Kos knows best. And oh, he also happens to run sports blogs.

There's no doubt a lot of arrogance among newspaper executives and the corporate execs who started newspapers on their downfall by cutting "costs" (i.e. reporters, foreign news bureaus, etc.) just to squeeze out higher profits to finance their other corporate shenanigans. Some of them whine for preferential treatment because they feel it is their due, though others are just looking for some road to survival.

But come on, people like Kos and Arianna who are aggressively growing their sites and influence are not exactly arguing from disinterested objectivity. And they are doing so without employing very many people, and as far as I know, none in union jobs.

Arianna goes on about how the old models don't work, these old guys don't understand the Internet like she does, which may both be true. But to the key question of what the new model is for paying reporters to write the stories she aggregates on her site, is never answered. Huffington Post is at best symbiotic with established media, but mostly predatory. Plus it's no great improvement. A cross between the National Inquirer and the Nation, with heavy doses of Vanity Fair, it is replete with sensationalist and all too often misleading headlines. Which usually link to somebody else's reporting. What's wrong with asking Arianna to pay for it? She sells ad space. I have to deal with those jumping and moving ad images wracking my eyes and playing havoc with my computer whenever I stop there. (Huffpost does pay a monthly fee to the AP.)

Instead Huffpost has lots of opinion columns--I'm not sure they pay for those now, but they didn't when they started. But their writers are celebs or celebrity journalists who do it to maintain visibility, to publicize themselves for their paid media jobs. These days the media is run across all platforms--print, TV, blogocracy--by a relative few people, who may report or write a column for a newspaper while taking another paycheck for opining for a particular cable network, and possibly another for political or media consulting, another for books and and of course the speaking fees, then publicizing themselves and all these activities on "new" blogs and Twitter. Or they work for a think tank or advocacy group or university or some institution that benefits from their visibility--and if they become visible enough, they can move on up to more celebrity. It's the instant, interconnected media version of celebrity journalism--pretty much the only kind of journalism we're getting, and the only kind we're going to have if newspapers fold.

The Internet sites include lots of other voices offering their opinions in comments and diaries, all for free, while driving up readership and making money and careers for a very few people, like Kos and Arianna. Nice work if you can get it.

The problem is that the real news is not gathered by celebrities. It is gathered by plodders--reporters who may lack ambition and imagination, who just want a steady job with an income to help support a family and be a member of the community they cover. But they develop and follow leads, they do the work that may offend the powerful, which often enough threatens their steady job, or it would if there weren't unions and a solid tradition of newspapers defending their reporters. You can't consume what is not produced.

There should be more reporting, better reporting. We shouldn't be amazed at what it took one reporter at the LA Times to uncover about health insurance companies in California--dozens of reporters should have found it out earlier. But we are amazed, because she did it, she spent a long time getting the story, and it may eventually mean life or death to any number of people.

As for those other features of newspapers--I've already written about Kos, a resident of Berkeley, and his apparent hostility to the San Francisco Chronicle. But I happen to value pretty highly the theatre reviews of Robert Hurwitt there, the movie reviews of Mick DeSalle, the art criticism of Kenneth Baker, as well as Jon Carroll, my favorite columnist in the world.

This debate goes off on tangents--like the reporters and columnists people don't like, or the medium they prefer (newspaper, laptop, Kindle, etc.) Those discussions are meaningful in themselves, as are the fears that in-depth reporting or writing of any length is being killed off by Internet snippets and eye candy--but this newspaper crisis is a crisis because there is no apparent way to pay people to do what reporters and newspaper writers do.

I don't know the answer. I like free access to the information on the Internet, and I don't think a lot of sites demanding payment will work. But at least I acknowledge there is a problem, and it is serious. It seems to me people like Kos and Arianna are avoiding it.

It's additionally if also ruefully funny that while both of them defend the common man against Wall Street and big corporations, they have nothing to say about union jobs at their blogs. Maybe that's too little guy mundane for the Blogocracy. Or maybe it's just another in the well-established tradition of exploiting the labor of writers and reporters.

This economy is forcing the issue faster than the problems are being confronted, let alone solved. To some degree, these newspapers may be like endangered species. Once they're gone, they're gone. Even if it was a freak storm that wiped them out. We're going to miss them--and not just sentimentally, but in missing information-- and that includes the Blogocracy.

Slickhorn Gulch on the San Juan River, Utah. Photo: uploaded to Flickr by Tim Tuttle.

Steady, They Say

Clambering up the rocks of a dry wash gully,
warped sandstone, by the San Juan River,

look north to stony mountains
shifting clouds and sun

--despair at how the human world goes down

Consult my old advisers


"steady" they say


"today"

(At Slickhorn Gulch on the San Juan River, 1999)

--by Gary Snyder, from Danger on Peaks (Shoemaker Hoard)

Earthquake in Italy

The earthquake that devastated L'Aquila is very far away from where I am, and yet it is not. Not far from L'Aquilia (80 kilometers) in the Abruzzi region of Italy is Manoppello, where my mother was born, and her parents met and lived until coming to the U.S., and where I still have relatives, although I don't know any of them. I know that some of them still live in the house where my grandmother lived. Since early news reports said that other towns and villages were affected by the quake, I tried to find information on Manoppello. I found only one article, in Italian. I'm told I was bilingual for awhile--when I knew few words in English or Italian--but I can't really understand, or certainly read Italian. Yet after staring at the article for awhile, I did begin to understand enough: though the earthquake was felt there, there were no deaths and no significant damage. That of course is not true of L'Aquila, where hundreds have died and many buildings devastated.

That I would feel connected to this distant disaster in a place where I know no one is not entirely goofy. I saw another article somewhere about efforts in the U.S. to collect money for earthquake relief by Italian Americans--someone said that it doesn't matter how weak the ties now, how distant the American life is from the Italian or the immigrant experience, the bond is still there. These connections occur in time as well as place; from another time to this.

That I live in a very earthquake-prone area now that (like L'Aquila until this week) hasn't experienced a quake in long enough time to forget the danger in daily life, has something to do with the attention I'm paying. The experience of such a disaster lasts well beyond it in time, as evidenced in an oped piece in the New York Times by Stanislao Pugliese, about a far worse quake in another Abruzzi town in 1915, in which "3,500 of the town’s 5,000 residents had perished in a matter of 30 seconds." Among the dead was the mother of Italian novelist Ignazio Silone. This immense event changed him and all his fictions, Pugliese writes, which"bear the often subtle, sometimes vivid imprint of the catastrophe."

Such a disaster changes or reinforces ideas about fate. "In a twist of fate that surprised no one, the only house left undamaged was uninhabited." In the disaster and the aftermath, much is also revealed about human beings and their institutions:

“In an earthquake,” Silone wrote decades after his experience, “everyone dies: rich and poor, learned and illiterate, authorities and the people. An earthquake accomplishes what words and laws promise and never achieve: the equality of all. But it is an ephemeral equality, for when fear had died down, collective misfortune became the opportunity for even greater injustices.”

“Only loss is universal,” he once wrote, “and true cosmopolitanism in this world must be based on suffering.”

Many of our lives are not hit so hard, though at any moment they may be. But we who have been relatively fortunate are not absolved from empathy. It is our role to understand and to act.

"The sharp swallows in their swerve

flaring and hesitating

hunting for the final curve

coming closer and closer--

The swallow heart from wing beat to wing beat

counseling decision, decision:

thunderous examples. I place my feet

with care in such a world."

--William Stafford

April is National Poetry Month, a good excuse. This poem is one of many by many poets discussed in an excellent new book by John Felstiner: Can Poetry Save the Earth? A Field Guide to Nature Poems (Yale.)

Prague Spring

"The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War. Today, the Cold War has disappeared, but thousands of those weapons have not." President Obama commits to a goal of a world without nuclear weapons in a speech before a huge crowd in Prague. Click collage to enlarge.

Europass

Some images of the Obamas in Europe this past week from various sources. Click photo to enlarge.

Obama Update from Air Force One

President Obama provides a five minute update on the substance of his European trip so far, from inside Air Force One in flight. Also here's a link to the video of President Obama's town hall meeting in Strausborg. After the acknowledgements, he makes a strong statement of his goals for America and Europe together addressing the challenges of the future, at this crossroads of history.

Triumph in London

After a week of handringing press about the Obamas facing hostility towards the U.S., their two days in London is an unqualified triumph--personally, politically and for the national and international economy, as well as for future U.S. relations with the world. See more in post below.

It was a personal triumph, the makings of instant legend: Barack breaks up a fight between France and China and gets an agreement, Michelle dazzles the Queen with some unroyal physical contact and the Queen's request to keep in touch. (One Brit reporter said she's never seen the Queen take a shine to any of the Brit leaders, let alone Americans, as she did to the Obamas.)

President Obama was such a hit at the G20 Conference that the leaders of Russia and Italy were grinning into the camera with him, and Andrea Merkel of Germany--so obviously stiff and distant from GW Bush--was captured smiling and relaxed around him. The London media was uniformly gushing, and many newspapers throughout Europe and Asia carried photos of President Obama meeting their country's leaders.

The conference itself was more successful than anyone had predicted or imagined (though President Obama said simply that they'd done "okay") and sent a powerful message about the 20 leaders who preside over more than 80% of the world economy, seeing the need to work together, and also to aid other countries in the worst trouble.

For it is the world's poor who are hit hardest most immediately by the global Great Recession. The World Bank estimates that from 200,000 to 400,000 children will die because of it. “In London, Washington and Paris, people talk of bonuses or no bonuses,” Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president, said this week. “In parts of Africa, South Asia and Latin America the struggle is for food or no food.”

This was emphasized by Michelle Obama's emotional visit to a multicultural school for poor girls, and by President Obama in his press conference (full transcript here; the importance of this section to Obama administration policy was noted by Amy Sullivan):

"But in an era of integration and interdependence, it is also my responsibility to lead America into recognizing that its interests, its fate is tied up with the larger world; that if we neglect or abandon those who are suffering in poverty, that not only are we depriving ourselves of potential opportunities for markets and economic growth, but ultimately that despair may turn to violence that turns on us; that unless we are concerned about the education of all children and not just our children, not only may we be depriving ourselves of the next great scientist who's going to find the next new energy source that saves the planet, but we also may make people around the world much more vulnerable to anti-American propaganda."

As the Obamas head for the Continent, this reinvigoration of American leadership could be paying dividends at home already. By evening, both the House and Senate passed the Obama budget plan. There was also the sense that confidence might be returning, and that the Great Recession may be bottoming out. There yet may be shocks from the financial sector, but confidence can go a long way. And right now, the Obamas have provided a well-timed touch of hope.

In some ways it was like the Inauguration all over again, but this time for the whole world. This is our President and First Lady! Yes!

Not So Retro Today

Fewer Americans understand the dangers that nuclear weapons and nuclear war still pose. Few will recall that the peace symbol's original meaning was in support of nuclear disarmament in England. So it's fitting that it was in England yesterday that a new start to controlling nuclear weapons began. See the post below.

It's been nearly twenty years since most Americans felt the daily threat of thermonuclear war and the instant end of the world as we know it. With the demise of the Soviet Union, that threat seemed to disappear, but though it diminished, it did not really go away. The U.S. and Russia have enough nukes pointed at each other to destroy both countries, and subsequent studies show the chance of accidental nuclear war is even higher than it was in the 1980s.

Just months before he was killed, President Kennedy fought for and obtained the first treaty between the superpowers that even attempted to slow the nuclear arms race, with the nuclear test ban treaty. Other treaties followed, and nuclear weapons were even destroyed. But the Bushites withdrew American participation in such international treaties, including the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and made plans for more nukes.

So it was an historic step--but more than that, a vital step--that President Obama took yesterday in his meeting with the Russian president. You probably didn't hear about it, because after decades of one kind of denial, we're deep into another kind. We don't even know we're still in danger. We'd rather twitter about the Queen's new Ipod.

So for the record, there is this excerpt from the joint statement. Read it and rejoice:

As leaders of the two largest nuclear weapons states, we agreed to work together to fulfill our obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and demonstrate leadership in reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. We committed our two countries to achieving a nuclear free world, while recognizing that this long-term goal will require a new emphasis on arms control and conflict resolution measures, and their full implementation by all concerned nations. We agreed to pursue new and verifiable reductions in our strategic offensive arsenals in a step-by-step process, beginning by replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new, legally-binding treaty. We are instructing our negotiators to start talks immediately on this new treaty and to report on results achieved in working out the new agreement by July.

The Real Estate

First in Australia, then in China, then around the world: "From an Antarctic research base and the Great Pyramids of Egypt, from the Colosseum in Rome to the Empire State building in New York, illuminated patches of the globe went dark Saturday night to highlight the threat of climate change." Easy enough but symbolism marks emotion, and people care enough to vote in this way to address the Climate Crisis. Then in Germany: "Once booed at international climate talks, the United States won sustained applause Sunday when President Barack Obama's envoy pledged to "make up for lost time" in reaching a global agreement on climate change." Todd Stern, Obama's envoy, added: "we are seized with the urgency of the task before us."

The Climate talks are not the only venue for acting urgently. "Efforts to mitigate climate change could be hampered if nations do not agree to protect the world's forests by the end of the year, warn researchers. Earthwatch says it is vital for leaders attending a key UN summit in December to find a way to halt deforestation." In the U.S. Congress: The debate on global warming and energy policy accelerated on Tuesday as two senior House Democrats unveiled a far-reaching bill to cap heat-trapping gases and quicken the country’s move away from dependence on coal and oil. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants a bill passed by July.

"You will hardly know who I am or what I mean/
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless."-- Walt Whitman
click photo to enlarge.

"[Friendship] is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom, and unity." Ralph Waldo Emerson. Photo: Trinidad Head, CA. Oddly, a different passage from this same essay was posted today on the actual Emerson for the Day site.