Our People, Our Future

In this brief pre-Inauguration message, President Obama previews the goals and themes of his second term.  Meanwhile people are gathering in Washington for Inaugural weekend.  (Hi Mike!  Send me some exclusive photos!)  In one crowd by their booth on Saturday, CNN found people from all over the country and beyond our shores.  I have a feeling that, like the election, the number of people participating will turn out to be misunderestimated.

As he says in the video, the slogan for the Inaugural is "Our People, Our Future." President Obama is sworn in for his second term officially on Sunday (as per the Constitution, January 20) though the public ceremony and Inaugural Address are Monday, which also happens to be Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday holiday.   With an approval rating ranging from 51% to 54% depending on the poll, perhaps his best pre-Inaugural gift is knowing that his refusal to negotiate on the debt ceiling has won the day, and the GOPer House leadership has announced they'll pass it. 

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is reconstituting as Organizing for Action, an advocacy group with three principal issues on the immediate agenda: reduce gun violence, climate change and immigration reform.  I'm in.

And according to Andy Borowitz,  Fox News will be shutting down for scheduled maintenance on Inauguration Day.   Roger Ailes explained the timing of the shutdown, which will be the first in the history of the network: “We wanted to pick a time when we were positive nothing would be happening that our viewers would want to see.”

Gun Rights

President Obama's announcement of proposals for legislation and executive orders on guns and related health matters was an historic moment in an historic presidency.  His speech was the most impressive mix of common sense, reasoned argument, political sense and righteous emotion that I think I've ever heard.

A number of key moments have been shown and quoted.  But I want to highlight a section that hasn't gotten a lot of attention, in which he talks about rights other than the right to own guns:

"This is the land of the free, and it always will be. As Americans, we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights that no man or government can take away from us. But we've also long recognized, as our Founders recognized, that with rights come responsibilities. Along with our freedom to live our lives as we will comes an obligation to allow others to do the same. We don’t live in isolation. We live in a society, a government of, and by, and for the people. We are responsible for each other.

The right to worship freely and safely, that right was denied to Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The right to assemble peaceably, that right was denied shoppers in Clackamas, Oregon, and moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado. That most fundamental set of rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- fundamental rights that were denied to college students at Virginia Tech, and high school students at Columbine, and elementary school students in Newtown, and kids on street corners in Chicago on too frequent a basis to tolerate, and all the families who’ve never imagined that they’d lose a loved one to a bullet -- those rights are at stake. We’re responsible."

This is what I think of when I think of rights.  The right to have a cup of coffee in a restaurant without worrying that somebody with one too many and a gun is going to take offense at how I raise my eyebrow when I read the paper.  The right to sit at my kitchen table without being blown away by a bullet fired several blocks away or a half mile away at somebody else, or at nobody at all.  The right to go to a sporting event without being shot by a fan for the other side.  Not to mention the rights of  family members to go about their lives, to go to school, to their workplace, to public buildings without being mowed down by a gun made for massacre. 

All of these are more specific instances of the most fundamental right in a civilized society: the right to live.  The right of children to grow up.  Place these next to the right for any individuals who can operate a credit card to buy whatever guns they want whenever they want them. Not a close comparison. 

These very small restrictions being proposed and attacked with ferociously mendacious rhetoric are the least a responsible society can do.  Another measure of how far we've fallen is the end of restrictions in so many states and in so many places on where people can legally carry loaded guns, concealed loaded guns.  Such restrictions have been traditional since the nineteenth century.  And now when guns are more lethal than ever, and some people are apparently more homicidal than ever, we want fewer restrictions on guns than on driving a car or transporting live plants across state borders. 

It's probably true that gun legislation will require the support of gun owners, and the wearying rhetoric of supporting the rights of people to own all the guns they want as long as they aren't capable of slaughtering 20 children in seconds.  But hello?  There are some of us out here--in fact quite a lot of us out here--who don't want guns anywhere near us.  Although it's true that a gun owner is just as likely to be killed by one of these high powered guns with especially lethal bullets, when he or she is sitting at their kitchen table.

For another point of view by another non-owner of guns, here's Josh Marshall at TPM.

What Climate Assessment? Asks the Pack

Allow me to point out how ignored the previous story has been in the media as well as by politicians.  The draft report of the National Climate Assessment, which sets forth the parameters of the future of the United States as well as the world, was a half day story, at best.  It never made it on any cable news show that I saw, it just has not entered the conversation.

It broke at a bad time, certainly: late Friday afternoon is the worst.  But this is Tuesday night, and it's as if it never happened.

One reference I did see was that it didn't say anything new.  But of course it did, and I outlined many of those elements in my post.  It clarified as never before the two separate challenges of the climate crisis--dealing with the effects and dealing with the causes, simultaneously.  It quantified the crisis in terms of expected temperatures and time frames.  It rejected the notion that some parts of the country or some parts of the world would not feel effects.  And above all, it said outright that the crisis was already happening.  It said all this with the highest authority so far.

And it's true that there were other important news events and stories.  But there always are, and they are usually the kinds of events and stories that everybody is familiar with.  Yes, the debt ceiling, gun violence, wars, etc. should all be prominently covered.  But there is still room for more.  And that room is typically crowded out by non-stories that the media does for no better reason than...the rest of the media is doing it.

The prime example in this time frame--since the Climate Assessment was made public--is the "controversy" over whether the second term Obama administration is "diverse" enough.  How this story developed reminded me of a book I had already recalled when Jonathan Bernstein at his blog asked  for titles of great books on politics and government.  The book I named--and the book I thought of this weekend--was The Boys on the Bus by Timothy Crouse.

Tim Crouse was the other guy that Rolling Stone sent to cover the 1972 presidential campaign, principally the McGovern campaign.  Their prime guy was Hunter S. Thompson, but Thompson was so, well, quixotic that they wanted to have a, let us say sober assessment available as well, and that was Crouse.

But he used his time on the press bus to study the press and so he came up with The Boys on the Bus.  It's a lively book, with portraits of media personalities of the time.  I was briefly on that bus in 1972, after I'd read one of his Rolling Stone stories and chatted with Tim himself--I recall running into him in Harvard Yard at some point later on--and so I could see those folks through his eyes as well as mine.  (And you couldn't believe how beautiful Connie Chung was in 1972. Television never did her justice.)

But the book also had a premise: pack journalism.  Crouse described how everybody watched what the wire service reporters and the New York Times made the lead story, and that became everybody's lead story of the day.  They were the lead wolves and the pack followed.

Maybe the reason that this book is still in print 40 years later is that the phenomenon is not an historical oddity.  The media has changed immensely since then, but the basic practice of pack journalism has only gotten worse.

  Now maybe the pack follows the hot YouTube video that everybody is tweeting about, or what outrage starts on the Drudge Report or whatever.  But often enough, it's exactly the same--the New York Times has a lead story in the morning (which these days means posted in the middle of the night) and everybody follows.

That's exactly what happened with the Obama administration diversity story.  Hours after it appeared in the New York Times it was a prime topic on every cable news show I saw (including simultaneous blather about it on CNN and MSNBC), as well as every political site and blog.  And then well into the weekend.  And then a question at the Obama news conference on Monday.  While there were no questions on the Climate Assessment.

Now diversity may be an issue, but what else accounts for everybody discovering it on the same day?  Pack journalism and nothing else.  As it turns out, there isn't really very much substantive to say on the matter since, as the President pointed out, he's hardly even started appointing people to his cabinet and White House staff.  But of course, debunking the story itself became a story, as in this one titled "The First Pointless Controversy of Obama's 2nd Term."

So let's review: chunks of finite print space, air time and attention span were devoted to speculation on a matter of some importance that was so incomplete that it clearly could not be proven either way, instead of a matter of transcendent importance that was in the act of being proven to be very highly consequential now and into the foreseeable and unimaginable future.

Pack journalism is not the only reason.  But it is one that was clearly operating this time.

Assessing the Climate Crisis 2013

The draft report of the Third Climate Assessment by 240 scientists, business and academic leaders was released Friday.  The LA Times story on it began: "The impacts of climate change driven by human activity are spreading through the United States faster than had been predicted, increasingly threatening infrastructure, water supplies, crops and shorelines, according to a federal advisory committee.

"Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present," the report says. "Americans are noticing changes all around them. Summers are longer and hotter, and periods of extreme heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer."

NPR's printed report added:

Temperatures will continue to rise in America, "with the next few decades projected to see another 2 degrees [Fahrenheit] to 4 degrees [Fahrenheit] of warming in most areas," according to the latest National Climate Assessment, which came out Friday afternoon.

That means we can expect to see more "extreme weather events," according to the report, such as heavy precipitation — particularly in the Northeast and Midwest — and intense Atlantic hurricanes. Other parts of the U.S. will experience heat waves and droughts, especially in the West.
By 2100, U.S. temperatures are projected to rise 3 to 5 degrees, under the most optimistic estimates — and 5 to 10 degrees if global greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase."

The report says that evidence for climate crisis effects is now strong:

"Many more impacts of human-caused climate change have now been observed. Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington State, and maple syrup producers in Vermont have observed changes in their local climate that are outside of their experience. So, too, have coastal planners from Florida to Maine, water managers in the arid Southwest and parts of the Southeast, and Native Americans on tribal lands across the nation."

The Guardian story noted this:

"Future generations of Americans can expect to spend 25 days a year sweltering in temperatures above 100F (38C), with climate change on course to turn the country into a hotter, drier, and more disaster-prone place.

"Climate change is already affecting the American people," the draft report said. "Certain types of weather events have become more frequent and/or intense including heat waves, heavy downpours and in some regions floods and drought. Sea level is rising, oceans are becoming more acidic, and glaciers and Arctic sea ice are melting."

By the end of the 21st century, climate change is expected to result in increased risk of asthma and other public health emergencies, widespread power blackouts, and mass transit shutdowns, and possibly shortages of food.

"Proactively preparing for climate change can reduce impacts, while also facilitating a more rapid and efficient response to changes as they happen," said Katharine Jacobs, the director of the National Climate Assessment.

"As climate change and its impacts are becoming more prevalent, Americans face choices," the report said. "Beyond the next few decades, the amount of climate change will still largely be determined by the choices society makes about emissions. Lower emissions mean less future warming and less severe impacts. Higher emissions would mean more warming and more severe impacts."

As the report made clear: no place in America had gone untouched by climate change. Nowhere would be entirely immune from the effects of future climate change."

Here's the White House summary of this report, which is now open to public comment.

Outside of this report, the reality of  U.S. rising temperatures in 2012 is quantified here.  Note that temperatures were higher than normal for 16 months straight.

But North America is hardly alone in feeling the effects.  A New York Times report Friday notes that "Around the world, extreme has become the new commonplace.

"China is enduring its coldest winter in nearly 30 years. Brazil is in the grip of a dreadful heat spell. Eastern Russia is so freezing — minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and counting — that the traffic lights recently stopped working in the city of Yakutsk.

Bush fires are raging across Australia, fueled by a record-shattering heat wave. Pakistan was inundated by unexpected flooding in September. A vicious storm bringing rain, snow and floods just struck the Middle East.  “Each year we have extreme weather, but it’s unusual to have so many extreme events around the world at once,” said Omar Baddour, chief of the data management applications division at the World Meteorological Organization, in Geneva. " [Note: photo is of the Australian fires from space.]

In the UK, the Times reports, "The Met Office, Britain’s weather service, declared 2012 the wettest year in England, and the second-wettest in Britain as a whole, since records began more than 100 years ago. Four of the five wettest years in the last century have come in the past decade (the fifth was in 1954). The biggest change, said Charles Powell, a spokesman for the Met Office, is the frequency in Britain of “extreme weather events” — defined as rainfall reaching the top 1 percent of the average amount for that time of year. Fifty years ago, such episodes used to happen every 100 days; now they happen every 70 days, he said. "

There is more excellent reporting in the Times piece, but it comes on a day with bad news for the future of such much needed reporting.  A few days ago, the New York Times setting up a dedicated beat on the climate crisis and the environment was hailed as one of the bright spots in journalistic coverage of the topic in 2012.  Now comes word that the Times is closing its Environment desk.  The paper issued the standard reassurances that this won't affect coverage, but that's a very hard sell.

The weakening and the demise of real news gathering organizations like the New York Times as well as the slipshod reporting on the climate crisis up to now is only one of the debilitating factors in the necessary attention to this crisis, now and in the near future.  An active media goading government and helping to spread information is part of what's needed.  And the decline of that capability and focus is yet another reason to doubt that we're adequately addressing these challenges.

What should be happening now is that a sufficiently informed and motivated public is supporting a very informed and motivated U.S. government in a two track effort: to prepare for and deal with the present and near future effects of global heating, and to go after the causes of global heating in the farther future by severely reducing the greenhouse gases that enter the atmosphere. 

In particular, the U.S. should be using the current economic situation--relatively high unemployment and very low borrowing costs--to make substantial investments in both efforts, which would employ more Americans and stimulate economic activity as well.  Use the fact that infrastructure is neglected and aging to replace it with energy efficient and low-carbon infrastructure.  Help regional and state entities prepare for their specific challenges, like sea level rises or the physical effects of extreme weather.  Invest in public health to deal with outbreaks of diseases when and where they haven't occurred much before, due to temperature changes that affect disease-bearing insects as well as plant ecologies and even atmospheric changes that are unprecedented challenges but could have very sudden effects.  And so on.

And of course, investing in energy efficiencies, waste reduction, new technologies and new energy sources and technologies as part of reducing greenhouse gases. 

(As for sea levels, also this week, RealClimate posted a two part assessment of where the science now is on sea level rise. Its general conclusion is that "The recent improvements in understanding have confirmed the concerns of many sea-level experts, namely that the 4th IPCC report has understated the risks of future sea-level rise because the projection models used were not mature."  )

Some cities, states and regions are taking this seriously, within their resources. What the federal government is doing in these areas is being done largely sub rosa, and though a rosa by any other name still helps, it's not sufficient.  But with the federal government gridlocked by an increasingly extreme minority, possessed of a Dark Ages mentality, such sensible commitment seems unlikely in the near future.  Their paranoid fantasies of needing to defend themselves with arsenals of automatic weapons in a chaotic country is pushing us towards that self-fulfilling prophesy.

We'll soon see just what President Obama has in mind for the near term.  The beginning of the end of ruinous military commitment in Afghanistan helps to lessen the unnecessary drain.  But the apparent necessity of fighting political battles of a century ago or more, rather than really facing the future as a society, does not inspire a lot of confidence in adequate government response.  But we can still hope, and make that hope real in what we do.   

A Few on Lew

Nasty GOPers were joined by Bernie Sanders in opposing Jack Lew's appointment as Treasury Secretary.  Sanders was upset that somebody else "from Wall Street" was going to run Treasury.  But Lew's experience seems much more in federal government, as the Budget Director at the end of the Clinton presidency (where he presided over the last 3 surpluses in U.S. history) as well as in the Obama administration.

So here's a link to Rachel Maddow's pretty positive segment on Lew, as well as this story on why he scares GOPers.

Rachel by the way featured President Obama repeating (in his statement thanking outgoing Sec Geitner and introducing Lew) a "saying around the Treasury Department": "No peacocks, no jerks, no whiners."  Rachel suggested it should be translated into Latin and mounted somewhere prominent in Washington.  One of her viewers promptly gave her the translation:

Nulli Pavones, Nulli Turbatores, Nulli Vagientes

To which I can only add:

Amen

Thwip!

This is said to be President Obama's favorite photo from the White House photographer's selection of his favorites of 2012.  It's the child of a White House staffer at a pre-Halloween party. (I've edited it slightly to fit this page, but it's still too wide.  Click on it to see it larger.)

The previous post notes that people are finally beginning to hear what President Obama has been saying on the debt ceiling.  They might also note what he says on other topics.  There's been lots of debate on whether the fiscal cliff deal is a good one for the economy, the deficit, or politically.  But it was clear from what President Obama said about it that his priority was to make sure the middle class retained its tax cut, so that its vulnerable members are able to better their lives in an era where the rich got very much richer and everybody else fell back.  Similarly, when he appointed Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary, everybody shouted about everything except what President Obama said--that the troops and their families come first, during and after their service.  Only on gun violence were the President's words heard clearly, although he will probably have to repeat his focus on people--on children like the one in this picture--as the gun violence debate becomes more central.

cliffnotes continued, plus Cockroaches More Popular Than Congress

There are three remaining cliffs: the debt ceiling, renewing the funding for the federal government, and the sequestered budget cuts.

For awhile it seemed they might be happening simultaneously, but now, maybe not quite.  It turns out that the U.S. will be unable to pay its bills in mid-February, requiring that the debt ceiling be raised.

President Obama has been saying for some time now that he will not negotiate on the debt crisis.  Before the tax cliff deal, those words were being ignored by GOPers and the media.  They figured President Obama would have to negotiate.  But he kept saying he won't.  And Democrats in Congress kept saying it.  And now, media and GOPers alike are beginning to believe him.  And GOPers are beginning to back away. Commentators on Lawrence suggested that Obama may even get authority for all presidents to raise the debt ceiling on their own, so that this issue will go away forever.

Partly this seems a judgment that the GOP can't win on this.  The polls clearly show that the public believe President Obama handled the tax cliff deal better.  Republicans were even harder on Banal than the public in general.

That Congress itself is reviled isn't news.  But a new PPP poll found that in head to head matchups, cockroaches are more popular than Congress.  So are root canals.  So is Genghis Khan.

How much more reviled can Congress get?  Well, they're still more popular than Gonorrhea.

Climate Crisis Comes Home

A lot of poorer countries already suffering from effects of the climate crisis are justifiably upset that bigger and richer countries--principally the United States--have contributed much more to the crisis but aren't paying much of a price to address it.  Well, there's some solace in a few stats from 2012.

NOAA announced  Monday that 2012 was the hottest year in the contiguous U.S. since its record-keeping began in 1895.  It was 1 degree F hotter than the previous record-holder (1998) and 3.3 degrees hotter than the average year.  It was also a very dry year.

All that had consequences.  According to Climatewire a few days ago, it was also a banner year for weather-causes disasters, mostly in the U.S., with the U.S. sustaining 90% of the insured losses.  The average year is 65%.

Insurers are still tallying the October storm's impact, but it's expected to cost the industry $25 billion or more, surpassing the financial losses of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and perhaps even topping the wreckage of Florida's Hurricane Andrew of 1992. Sandy promises to be the second or third costliest disaster in U.S. history. Its total economic costs are estimated to be more than $50 billion.

But the second most expensive weather related disaster in the world last year was the drought in the U.S. midwest.  Its insured losses topped $20 billion.

Meanwhile, by one measure, media coverage of the climate crisis decreased slightly last year, and by a couple of other measures, increased slightly.  But the increases are interesting.  Many more stories related weather related disasters to the climate crisis, and the New York Times began covering the climate crisis as a beat, not just a subject.  That's a development that should affect U.S. media coverage in general in 2013.

Although this change at the Times has been in the works for awhile, Sandy probably changed forever how the New York-based U.S. media covers the climate crisis.  More effects like those that cost all that money as well as pain and suffering last year will only accelerate that change. Meanwhile, that the U.S. is feeling the impacts is not in itself a cause for joy anywhere, but it may well help this country finally face its twin responsibilities, of seriously addressing both the causes and effects of the climate crisis.

It's oddly like the situation with gun violence in the U.S.  The horror of Newtown was the Sandy equivalent in focusing feeling and attention.  In both cases, what's politically possible will not entirely address the problem, but any positive action may well save some lives, and save some people from pain.  The difference is that what is actually possible could reduce gun violence substantially.  But nothing known is going to prevent further climate crisis effects for many years, nor change what is already happening for centuries.  But the analogy still holds: things can still be done to make things better.  And in the case of the climate crisis, save the far future for humanity and life as we know it on Earth.

Choosing Children Over Guns

When 20 first graders and 6 teachers and administrators were shot dead in a few minutes at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, probably everyone in America experienced it in a terribly personal way.  This is a photo of President Obama when he was first briefed on that massacre.  He called it the worst day of his presidency.

It remains a personal matter to him, and several photos (including this) released as part of White House photographer Pete Souza's choices as his favorite photos he took this year (collected at TPM ) involve this horrific event.  Another is this photo, of President Obama preparing his speech for the Newtown vigil. He is doing so during breaks in a rehearsal he attended, of a school performance of the Nutcracker, which included his 11 year old daughter, Sasha.

This is one of many photos of President Obama with beaming children, who seem to take to him.  But this photo was taken when he visited with families of victims of the Sandy Hook school shootings.  The children are siblings and cousins of Emile Parker, one of the 20 children killed. (The family gave permission for the photo to be published.)

These photos should remind everyone why this must remain personal, and why (according to this TPM story) President Obama is intent on quickly passing laws to ban assault weapons and high capacity ammunition, as part of a thoughtful, heartfelt and sustained effort to reduce gun deaths and gun violence in America.  Update: a story on how broad this package might be, simply on changes to gun laws.

(I plan to post some of the other Souza picks in the coming days, taken on happier occasions.)

When It's Too Far

There are big changes coming due to the Climate Crisis and over the next decades a lot of them are going to be caused by something that seems to be getting very little notice.  It goes by the neutral name of transportation.

Transportation of goods and people by means of cars and trucks, airplanes, ships and (to a lesser extent) railroad, together account for the largest share of greenhouse gas pollution.  They also cause a lot of other pollution with very real detriments to human health, as well as to other categories of the living environment and even the built environment.

But instead of minimizing the amount of transportation necessary, our global economy has exploded it over the past few decades.  Goods and even fresh food are shipped over immense distances.  Goods that were made in America and sold in America are more often made in China and shipped here (in ships that often go back nearly empty.)  Fruits and vegetables that used to be grown in abundance here in California are now trucked here from Mexico, shipped and flown here from South America and who knows where else.

This transport all contributes to making global heating worse for the future.  As a cause, it cannot go on as it now does.  But probably before it is limited because of its causal contribution--or because it becomes too expensive-- it will lessen because of the effects of global heating.  It is already doing so, especially in foodstuffs from the U.S. because of the current drought in our grain-growing states.

So much is being transported so far because it's cheaper to do it that way that to build or grow nearer to the intended customers.  Capitalism alone cares not for the future and seldom even considers it.  It does not reckon costs to be borne by the future.  Above all it doesn't reward prudence, and it usually ignores redundancy, or an alternative means to achieve necessary ends, especially when the primary means no longer functions.

 For decades and with increasing speed in the past few decades, the world has become structured according to cheap transportation, so that there is less land immediately available to grow food nearer where it will be consumed.  Less capacity to manufacture goods, and so on.

In several ways--felt pretty much all at once--this system will no longer function as it has in recent years.  The poor, especially in other countries, are already feeling this.  Then the effects will move up in class and appear in richer countries.  Some observers have already charged that food riots and other violent manifestations of  food scarcity and drought are seldom reported as such, or news of them is actively suppressed, since these are very threatening to the established order.  But the established order better figure out that these problems are big and real, and start addressing them.

NFL Preview

The NFL playoffs begin today and the Pittsburgh Steelers aren't in them.  Sadly, they don't deserve to be.  Bad luck was one contribution.  You have to wonder about conditioning with so many injuries and coaching with so many lapses.  But who knows.  They just didn't play that good.  And they've got better and more exciting competition.

Even though it's not likely that anybody is going to beat Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos, the Wild Card round this weekend has some potentially entertaining matchups. Three of the games test late season momentum against experience and stats. Unless they crash--and I don't think they will just yet--the inspired Indianapolis Colts could take the wilting Baltimore Ravens.  The Cinncy Bengals have mo and might even overcome the crashing Houston Texans, though the Texans were a pre-season fave to win it all.  Of the two upstarts, I like Luck and the Colts.

In the NFC the Minnesota Vikings beat their rivals the Green Bay Packers to get into this game, so they have mo.  But very likely not enough.  Adrian Peterson may or may not have a big day but the Packers probably will.

Another flashly frosh in RGIII has given the Washington Negroes instant cred, and the Seattle Seahawks had late season mo.  The Seahawks defense will be tested by the Washington Rednecks wide-open offense, but the Washington Dagos will have to play their best game to get through it, and also stop Seattle's offense.  The Seahawks could have a down game but they should overcome the  challenge of the Washington Spics, a fun team to watch but with a racist name that is a disgrace to their country, conveniently located in the nation's capital.

Cliffed

Thanks to the holidays, I had a certain amount of distance from the cliffhanging in Washington.  It felt good, in a sad sort of way.  I hope not to be drawn into the coming tragic nonsense, which is likely to be considerable.

As to evaluation of the deal, the analysis that makes the most sense to me was Lawrence O'Donnell.  He makes a couple of key points: no Democratic President in memory has gotten congressional Republicans to raise taxes on anybody.  The last time some GOPers voted to raise taxes was with Bush I in the White House, and fewer of them voted for that than voted for the deal this time.

But the biggest point is that when taking inflation into consideration, the $400,000 tax bracket in this deal is precisely the same as the $250,000 bracket in the Clinton era.  In other words, if the Clinton tax structure had never been altered by Bush II, it would be exactly the same as the deal that Obama-Biden made.  Plus they got the unemployment benefits renewed, and a number of other crucial items.  They didn't cave.  Other Democrats--especially from high cost of living places like NY and southern CA--thought the $250,000 level was too low.  They're happier with 400K.

Another random thought.   Jonathan Chiat thinks Speaker Banal's proclaiming that he won't negotiate with Obama is crazy.  Taking Banal literally, it's not crazy.  Banal has tried it twice and run away from the deal twice.  He either can't back up a deal with votes or he realizes he's out of his depth and getting rolled, or both.  He'd be crazy to keep doing it.  Chiat's point is that if the House wants to actually do anything, they have to know if Obama will sign it.  But they don't need Banal going to the White House to find that out.  All this worked for years through various means (aides talking, back-channel phone calls, signals through the media, etc.) so that both sides had a pretty clear idea where the other side stood on specific legislation and provisions, without "negotiations."

In fact, Banal going to the White House to negotiate with the President like he was a head of state was always more of a symbolic win for the GOP, placing their leader on equal ground with the POTUS.  But Banal has failed so spectacularly in public, he's better off being as invisible as possible.

The new Congress was sworn in today--the most diverse in history, and for the first time, white men aren't the majority.  Still, Michele Bachmanniac is back, and she introduced the first bill, to repeal Obamacare.  Positive change is happening, but the old craziness is still powerful, and it's a crap shoot at this point whether positive change is happening fast enough to avert multiple catastrophes.  

Resilience 2013

Happy New Year

A Change in Climate?

There are a few hints that 2013 may finally bring visible movement towards direct U.S. confrontation with the climate crisis. 

The newly appointed Secretary of State, John Kerry, is expected to emphasis the issue.  The newly appointed Senator from Hawaii is known to be an articulate advocate on climate issues.  And in his New Year's Day statement after he signed the fiscal cliff bill, President Obama listed "protecting our planet from the harmful effects of climate change" as one of the priorities for the year, along with immigration, gun violence, energy and economic issues. 

Public opinion supports such an emphasis.  After the sobering storms of 2012, including those that disrupted and endangered the holidays for many, 4 out of 5 Americans polled say that climate change is a serious problem, and a majority want the federal government to address it.  Even 60% of those who don't trust scientists say they believe the world is warming.  Notably it is an issue that does not divide drastically along partisan lines.  83% of Democrats believe the climate crisis is real, but so do 70% of Republicans and 77% of Independents.

Still, the politics of Washington continues to feed extreme opposition, and the New York Times opines that the Obama administration still seems too timid given the stakes.  But unfortunately the effects of global heating are getting harder to ignore, with more tipping points expected in 2013. 

 According to Bill McKibben, the ongoing drought in the U.S. has contributed to a 45% rise in global food costs.  While the rest of the world sees the economic and health effects of the effects, the U.S. itself cannot be blind to them for much longer. 

2012 Tributes

I'm about done with my annual tradition of paying tribute to some of those who died in the past year--the authors, theatre people, science fiction figures, baby boomer icons.  This is more than a journalistic exercise for me.  First there's the respect for their work. And tribute to pay to those who've meant something to me.

There are ironies.  I didn't know any of these people.  On the other hand, the degree of separation seldom goes beyond two.  I briefly met Neil Armstrong, George McGovern, Nora Ephron (I was introduced to her in the Esquire magazine office) and Robert Hughes.  I had long funny interviews with Mark O'Donnell and all of Firesign Theatre, including Peter Bergman. I heard Doc Watson play live. And most of the others--the ones who mean something to me--I've probably met someone who knew them. 

At Books in Heat, I mention books of particular significance in my life, like Robert Hughes' Shock of the New and Paul Fussell's Class (oddly these two men came to look like each other.)  Books have often made a stronger impression--a stronger change--than a lot of people.  The same can go for performances--music, movies, etc.  For instance, I haven't read much Gore Vidal, but hearing him talk on TV--especially in the 60s--was not only informative but heartening.  Even when he went far afield he did it with intelligence and articulation.  It suggested possibilities, and hope.

 There are a few special names I haven't written about here before, with some personal meaning.

I had what I knew would be my last opportunity to hear Ravi Shankar in person when he played one of his last concerts, right here at Humboldt State.  But I didn't go.  A combination of money and time.  It's a big regret, right up there with failing to get myself into Pittsburgh to see a LA Lakers exhibition game, with Magic Johnson and Kareem.  But I've been listening to his music since George Harrison revealed him.  He stood for principles and disciplines, but had flexibility, kind of like the Dalai Lama.

I was in high school when Dave Brubeck's Time Out caused a sensation.  It was the first--and really the only--jazz album I listened to repeatedly, and even studied (I had a musician friend who talked about the time signatures.)  I listened to more, particularly an earlier album called Jazz Red Hot and Cool, but also work after that.  I related to how Brubeck played the piano.  If Bach had played jazz (well, he did, but you know what I mean) he would play it like Brubeck.  But partly because he got popular, it became unfashionable to like Brubeck.  He wasn't cutting edge enough.

I'm ashamed I gave into that at times.  Think however of what it might have been like to be Brubeck, to hear the disdain as well as praise.  And to just keep on making your music.

The more I learned about Brubeck, the more admirable he became.  Here's a really interesting piece about him.  He kept playing almost to the end, and it always sounded new.  A great model for getting old.  At least I heard him play live once.

I don't know what to say about Whitney Houston.  There was something special about her--her voice certainly--but more.  She's a haunting figure.

Dorothea Tanning died this year at the age of 101.  I first became aware of her name when I saw a photo of surrealists in Paris in the 20s or 30s, which noted that she was the only woman and only American in that group, and that she was born in Galesburg, Illinois.  That's where I went to college, and it turns out she went to Knox College, too. 

I got a book of her paintings and read her autobiography.  She became a poet and novelist in the latter years of her long and eventful life.  A woman who went from Galesburg to Paris to the American Southwest and New York City, all that created lines of attention and sympathetic vibration.  Her powerful imagination, her bravery, her persistence.  And her memories.

But I could write similar things about my responses and recollections concerning Ray Bradbury or Barry Commoner's The Closing Circle, Levon Helm's voice, Victor Spinetti's comic acting, Mary Tamm as a Time Lord, Forbidden Planet and Earth v. the Flying Saucers, Davy Jones and the Monkees--all brought back to mind by the event of a death, to recall their contribution to the texture of my life.  Much of it is still alive to me.  I suppose memories are that way, but those who leave behind their performances on film or recording, their words in books and on stages, live in the new experiences and possibilities. 

So of course in thinking of them I am thinking of myself.  They are part of the library of me--a library that will one day burn down.  I leave just these traces. 

And so I say again as I've said before and on each of those other posts: may they rest in peace, and their work live on.

I've just returned from a Christmas visit with Margaret's daughter Amanda, her husband and their son (and therefore Margaret's grandson) Beckett, who turns two years old today. 

So what's new in toys for two year olds?  It seems to be magnets--pretty powerful and adaptable magnets on all kinds of toys, puzzles and games.

There is another trend, as reflected in that book (which Beckett received) and its title, at least in tech-centric Menlo Park.  Beckett gets a single session per day (15 to 20 minutes) on the ipad. His ipad time is after dinner, and sometimes he watches episodes of Mister Rodgers.   But mostly he plays games and puzzles.  The one I saw that I remember is a virtual broom that can sweep up virtual dirt.  But another requires matching icons, which he does at such a speed that I couldn't figure out what the object of it was.  He obviously was getting it right, though.

Apparently disengaging from the ipad is such a widespread problem for children that this book was written.  Treated as a parody it nevertheless does ritualize the transition from ipad to dreamtime.  And that's the two year old news for today.  Happy birthday, Beckett!

Happy Holidays

    Peace

Last News Before Christmas

 

On Friday, Lawrence O'Donnell in 18 minutes eviscerates the NRA press conference and the NRA as the lobby for mass murderers, and its CEO as the most responsible for the shooter's ability to kill 20 first graders in minutes.  (I was going to embed that video but I can't deal with having that NRA Moloch's face on my blog. Instead I'm substituting a photo of President Obama and staff observing the moment of silence at 9:30 a.m. in honor of the victims of the school murders exactly a week before.)  

 

Also Friday, Rep. Mike Thompson, who is heading up the House Democrats efforts on gun control measures, affirmed that an assault weapons ban should include the type of weapon used in the Connecticut shooting, which by some interpretations would have slipped through the old assault weapon ban.  I'm proud and happy to say that Mike Thompson is currently my Congressional representative, although redistricting has redrawn the boundaries so he won't be after January.  He'll still be in Congress, as will the Democrat we in the new District 5 elected in November.  Thanks for everything, Congressman Thompson.

 

Also on Friday, President Obama talked to Speaker Banal and Senate ML Reid about crafting a simple bill (already dubbed Plan C) to ensure taxes won't be raised on the non-rich and unemployment benefits will be extended, all before the 1st.   He said: "So, as we leave town for a few days to be with our families for the holidays, I hope it gives everybody some perspective. Everybody can cool off; everybody can drink some eggnog, have some Christmas cookies, sing some Christmas carols, enjoy the company of loved ones. And then I'd ask every member of Congress while they’re back home to think about that. Think about the obligations we have to the people who sent us here. Think about the hardship that so many Americans will endure if Congress does nothing at all."

 

President Obama also announced that he was appointing Senator John Kerry to be Secretary of State.  A story I saw somewhere last week suggested that the climate crisis is likely to get more attention from a Kerry-run State Department.  That must be true, because the professional deniers are already slamming the appointment.

The Wrong Doomsday????

Despite all the weird flourishes and theories, the Mayan calendar prediction of doomsday is an unusually short apocalyptic tale: one day (Dec. 21 or 23) the world ends. End of story. It’s not very satisfying.

We usually prefer our doomsday stories to be longer and more elaborate, with a hint of redemption and a happy ending. The oldest stories involved gods and human sins, with doom coming from nature, especially the sky (the Flood.) That changed in the early 20th century to humanity and its technologies as the predominant cause (according to W. Warren Wagar’s survey for his 1982 book Terminal Visions.)

In modern doomsday stories there’s usually a specific cause. It might be a violent end to civilization (thermonuclear war, pandemic) or the most subtle doomsday of dystopia: a Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Hunger Games, Brave New World-- the living death of an inhuman society.

These doomsdays, set in the future with a causal chain of events to get there, are often cautionary tales. The implication is that it’s in the power of the present to avoid them.

For example, the first modern doomsday story and cautionary tale was H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, which took the growing distance between rich and poor in industrial England to the logical conclusion of a split into two human species, the effete Eloi and the marauding Morlocks. The future divided between rich and poor in The Hunger Games series seems a point between Wells’ 1890s and the far future of The Time Machine, as well as a little beyond our present.

These days there are also post-apocalyptic tales (from Mad Max to The Road, and arguably the fashionable zombie and vampire stories) that seem to articulate a feeling that avoidable apocalypse just isn’t going to be avoided.

Why not? Oddly common to Christian and other religious doctrines and their apparent arch-enemies, scientific evolutionists (from Social Darwinists to “selfish gene” adherents) is the basic take on human nature as predominantly selfish and sinful. Receptivity to scientists emphasizing the role of cooperation, empathy and altruism in animal and human behavior is only now becoming widespread.

So why are doomsday tales so popular? Here’s my theory. Animal intelligence is focused most basically on finding stuff to eat, while avoiding being eaten. More broadly, that translates as probing the environment for two categories of information: opportunities and dangers. Both of these get our attention, but dangers get very quick, intense and visceral attention, for obvious reasons—like a growling tiger. Doomsday is a very dramatic danger (particularly in IMAX 3D with special effects.)

Because a definite doomsday on a particular date is a clear-and-present danger, it’s the kind we respond to best. We don’t handle indefinite doomsdays as well. Much of humanity lived for decades with doomsday from thermonuclear holocaust as an everyday possibility. We still live with other indefinite doomsdays hanging over our heads, but the constant possibility plus its unpredictability leads to what Robert Jay Lifton called “numbing.” We can’t keep feeling it and stay sane.

A definite doomsday is a dramatic release. It permits feelings and expressions of dread, fright and regret, and focuses whatever ideas, faith or hope one has about a next world.

Why the Mayan calendar, though? Perhaps the doomsday we fear is no longer purely technological. We’ve returned to fearing doom from the skies (asteroids, aliens etc.) and from nature and the gods.

The most likely apocalypse is still that causal combination of technology and nature that is the climate crisis. Denial has been a remarkably strong response to its reality. But focusing on the Mayan doomsday exemplifies another psychological dodge called displacement. The numbed and repressed feelings in response to the future that is rapidly becoming the present can be released in what for most people is this slightly thrilling but mostly comic pretext. It’s a few days of social media buzz over a dubious interpretation of an ancient calendar’s non-prediction that conveniently displaces the indefinite doomsday of the climate crisis.

The climate crisis has been a test of the aggregate human intelligence of civilization: can we respond to a grave danger in the future that we can anticipate but isn’t actually growling at us? We’re not passing that test so far. Maybe any imaginary doomsday can eventually help focus our attention.

Cliffnotes: Is This the End of the World?

In Washington terms at least, Speaker of the House John Banal's failure to get enough GOPer votes to pass his pandering Plan B, with its cuts to Meals on Wheels and other GOPer goodies, was spectacular.

Now the House has gone home for Christmas, and may not be back this year.  It seems that short of a last ditch final deal effort on Dec. 31, which Banal may very well not have the power to guarantee, it's over the fiscal cliff for the USA.

TPM seems right on this--it shows that Banal never had the votes to support any deal he was negotiating, and unless he is willing to take something to the House floor that can pass only with mostly Dems and a few GOPers, he can't even be considered a viable partner to negotiate with. 

Here's Andrew Sullivan:

"But the GOP appears incapable of acting for the public good. They cannot operate responsibly within the constitutional framework of this country. Their absolutism even in the face of stinging electoral defeat and hefty public opposition is a function of their existing in a hermetically-sealed ideological universe where the only thing they care about is not being primaried by someone even further to their right. That's right: the only thing. Not the country; not the debt; not the global economy; not the voters; not the American economy. They are vandals, not representatives, a rogue threat not just to this country but to the wider economic system in the world."

"We have a constitutional crisis: an opposition party so ideological and so bent on its own power at the expense of everything else, that the system cannot work. Only public opinion has a chance of swaying them. But when you're as fanatical as these zealots, public opinion is about as relevant as the thought that they should actually exercize basic responsibility."

Sounds like doomsday to me.

The Moral Moment

As the funerals for the very young victims of the Connecticut shooting proceed, two each day so far, the story continues to dominate the news and the national conversation.

There is growing support for once again banning assault rifles, for making high capacity ammunition illegal and for expanding background checks to gun shows and the Internet--all of which the White House announced that President Obama supports.

There is also a great deal of skepticism that any of this will get through the U.S. Congress.  Others say this is the moment of opportunity and it won't last long.

  But one thing may be happening: Americans are waking up to the fact that things have gone very far wrong, while they mostly weren't paying attention.  Sales of assault weapons and 30-round clips have soared, guns (including these) are allowed in more places than they were in the Old West, much of this driven by greed--for the money to be made by the sale of more expensive and lethal weaponry.

The gun lobby has no boundaries, even successfully censoring information gathered by the federal government on gun violence--the public is kept in the dark by congressional fiat.  The gun lobby has also successfully restricted federal research into gun violence, and presumably non-federal as well.  It won't do for citizens to see who pays the price for these weapons, or that the assault weapon ban and other bans in the past have actually worked to reduce the number of these weapons and the violence associated with them.

It's difficult to know how surprising all this is for much of the public, since a meaningful dialogue on gun violence has been missing in America for a generation, while guns have become easier to fire, faster in firing more bullets, and generally more lethal.

 The tag I use for posts like this is "land of guns," which comes from a line of a poem written after Bobby Kennedy was gunned down in 1968, while his wife was pregnant.  I think the poem was mine but frankly I don't remember.  There was some gun legislation after that, not enough, as LBJ said, principally because of the power even then of the NRA.  The blizzard of assassinations joined the violence of Vietnam and police tactics against demonstrators etc. led to an impassioned discussion on a whole range of matters that was described as the culture of violence.  Maybe it was too impassioned, but the total lack of it hasn't resulted in more rational laws and boundaries.

Today gun culture is ingrained further in popular culture.  We all see this.  Guns are linked to manhood in gun ads, without irony.  There is hardly a hero in an American movie or TV show who isn't blasting away with a gun.   The big cultural advance is that sexy women are shown blowing people away with the same aplomb. 

What we do not all see is how much this translates into reality, into an actual gun culture that worships and fetishizes firearms. For all their actual or pretend technical knowledge, that doesn't make the people involved in gun culture any more realistic.  Like everyone else in America, they see their heroes dodge bullets and only protect the good people and blow away the bad.  Like too many scenes in too many movies and TV shows that depict heroes walking away from explosions that in real life would have splintered them, they believe in the immortality--and maybe even morality--of the hand with the gun.

The slaughter of children is unspeakable, impossible to dwell on for long, for anyone.  But for some active or passive captives of the gun culture who never even imagined the possibility, it is a sudden awakening from a deep delusional dream. 

Of course there are many immune to even this.  They are out there right now buying up the same assault rifle with the same clips before they're banned.  There are the officious idiots calling for the arming of teachers.  But at least for the moment their voices are not the ones speaking most clearly. 

Cliffnotes: No Deal or Bad Deal

Nobody seems to know what John Banal is doing with his Plan B, but the deal that some (but not all) are saying is close includes a provision to cut Social Security benefits.  Well, thanks a lot.  It's supposed to be the "least painful" option.  Least painful to who?  Not to me.  I don't think this is what I voted for.  Why is hitting the most vulnerable the "least painful" option?  Why is this limited damage?  It is, as Krugman says, cruel and stupid.  And as he points out, it's not justified except politically.  Not the change I believe in.

Into Each Moment

Without disputing the immense tragedy of the deaths of children, in Connecticut or anywhere--for infants and children die unspeakably every day, often of easily preventable diseases-- there is also the solace of the life they had.  I thought especially of these words by playwright Tom Stoppard.

In Stoppard's play Shipwrecked, the middle play of his Coast of Utopia trilogy, Alexander Herzen has just suffered the sudden death of his young son.  Michael Bakunin attempts to comfort his by saying, "Little Kolya, his life cut so short! Who is this Moloch...?"  Herzen replies:

 "No, no, not at all! His life was what it was. Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn’t disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don’t value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life’s bounty is in its flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it’s been sung? The dance when it’s been danced?...   Was the child happy while he lived? That is a proper question, the only question." 

We Will Have To Change

At the memorial service in Newtown, President Obama gave voice to the weight the nation feels because of this tragedy.  He also expressed the anger and the resolve many are feeling, that action must be taken to prevent whatever future violence of this kind it is possible to prevent. "Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?" the President asked, and answered, "I’ve been reflecting on this the last few days, and if we’re honest with ourselves, the answer is no. We’re not doing enough. And we will have to change."

 He brought both sentiments together in the simple act of reciting the first names of the 20 children who were killed.  Children's names often have a fashion according to the years in which they were born, so millions of Americans know children with these names--perhaps 6 or 7 years old, as these children were--or a little older, a little younger.  My own grand-niece Oliva.  My friend's new grandson Benjamin.

Additionally we may know people very much like the heroic teachers and administrators at the school who without hesitation put the lives of the children first, and some of these adults were also killed.  One of the heroic victims looks much like one of my nieces, who teaches children of just that age at a small school in a small town.  As President Obama said, this was something that could have happened anywhere.

We are only beginning to learn as a nation the extent to which guns and gun culture have overtaken sanity, in Newtown as well as elsewhere. We are perhaps wakening to what we have let get out of control.  But we must do what we can.

Charlotte. Daniel. Olivia. Josephine. Ana. Dylan. Madeleine. Catherine. Chase. Jesse. James. Grace. Emilie. Jack. Noah. Caroline. Jessica. Benjamin. Avielle. Allison.

A Sane Comment

This comment posted on Andrew Sullivan's blog:


Guns don't kill people - people do. By the same token, planes don't kill people - people flying them into buildings do. And yet, I recall that we immediately and decisively worked to keep deranged people from gaining possession of planes when a handful of those people used them as tools of mass murder; indeed, we made it much more difficult for the overwhelming majority of peaceful, law-abiding citizens to board a plane.

The Story's Story

This is not about the horrific events at the Newtown school, where 20 first graders as well as 6 teachers and administrators were shot to death with a semi-automatic military assault rifle with bullets designed for maximum injury and death.  It is about how the story of it was told.

I leave it to others who followed the news concerning the Connecticut school shooting via social media, Twitter, etc. to describe the ebb and flow of that information. (Apparently the name of the shooter went out via social media as the actual shooter's brother; he contradicted it by posting on Facebook, and police later verified he was not involved.)  Being a child of print and television, I followed it mostly by cable "news" stations on Friday afternoon and thereafter online, favoring established newspaper web site stories.

The narrative of what happened has changed many times over the first 36 hours of coverage.  How did the gunman gain entry to the school?  At first there was no information on school security.  Then the NY Times posted the letter sent to parents about the new system in which visitors had to be identified and buzzed in before allowed entry.  This system (according to the letter, which was months old and stated that the procedure might be refined after first implemented) was to kick in at 9:30 a.m., after the ordinary entry of students.  The Times blog entry suggested that the shooter got in before 9:30.

The newspaper's story overnight Friday presumably for the Saturday edition stated something different: that the shooter gained entry because the principal recognized him as the son of a woman who had worked at the school.  There was a different account reported by either NBC or CNN, that the shooter had shot his way through the barriers.  By late Saturday, the Times story revised its account to conform with this narrative of how the shooter got in.

This is relatively ordinary revision of what is known, although the Times story that said the principal had let the shooter in did not say how it came by that knowledge, since the principal was one of the adults who was killed.  That the information was incorrect was one thing.  That the Times did not couch its account as what x source said was sloppy journalism, at least by the standards I knew.  The same was true of accounts I read in other newspaper stories and web stories.

Then there is the matter of the shooter's mother.  For much of the day Friday she was reported to be a teacher in the school where the shooter attacked.  By nighttime this was called into question, and she was variously described as a substitute teacher, someone who volunteered at the school, or someone who had worked in the school in the past.  By Saturday night, accounts were referring to her as having no job or employment, and dropping any assertion that she was involved in that school in any way.

I bring up these two changing assertions of fact principally to point out their effect in the age of 24 hour cable coverage.  The effect generally is that the "facts" as they are known or assumed get quickly absorbed into a particular narrative, which is repeated, embellished and commented upon.  Pretty much exactly like gossip.

Some "expert" commentators and some politically motivated ones on FOX (which predictably saw the shooting as an argument for more guns) railed against the school for having no security and no barrier to entry, before the existence of both were known.  Similarly, I heard commentators talking about the shooter going to the school to kill the children his mother taught and "loved."  Yes, I heard the word "loved." 

Not all the reporting was slipshod, and the circumstances were very difficult.  But these examples suggest the danger of poorly sourced information being strung together in a narrative that people repeat because they have to say something to fill the time during continuous coverage.

American Slaughter

This is the blackest day for America in this decade.  The slaughter of innocents is testimony to our collective inanity and insanity.  That we produce such horrific weapons is bad enough, that young adults or even boys and girls use them against each other in war zones is worse.  But the worst is permitting them to be used against helpless children in our own communities.

Nothing else correlates with gun violence than the laxity of gun control laws.  Days ago Michigan passed newly lax laws to permit concealed weapons in schools, dormitories and sporting events.  And today those who voted for those laws demanded that the governor sign them, as their response to the slaughter in Connecticut.  It is this deification of guns that is the most insane.  Guns will solve every problem.  What problem did these guns solve?

It is long past time that this insanity is addressed.