From Terrorism to Sabotage: the New GOP

After Republican congressional leaders showed themselves to be the most dangerous and most expensive terrorists in the world shutting down the government and threatening economic apocalypse, Republican officeholders everywhere are proving themselves to be saboteurs.

They are actively sabotaging the Affordable Care Act, and so far pretty successfully.  After all, when Rs in Congress prevent funding for the federal website, little wonder that it's screwed up.  Notes Kevin Drum:

No federal program that I can remember faced quite the implacable hostility during its implementation that Obamacare has faced. This excuses neither the Obama administration's poor decisions nor its timidity in the face of Republican attacks, but it certainly puts them in the proper perspective.

They aren't the only ones--our old friends the insurance companies that largely caused an expensive dysfunctional system with no conscience even when it comes to killing people--they are doing their best as well.  As are certain elements in the media.  And while I might myself be more upset by apparent problems in the individual coverage market if I were still in it, this article notes that the very small group affected is likely more educated and affluent, while the Act is already helping the overwhelming number of low income families. 

Still, the main saboteurs are Rs in Congress who've done more than hold empty votes defunding the Act--they've made implementing the Act and publicizing the system devilishly more difficult, and in the states that started this all by placing an unexpectedly heavy burden on the federal exchange.

And that, with historical context, is the topic of Bill Moyers' commentary above.

Election Night

No big surprises but some intriguing outcomes, especially in New York City which got its first Democratic mayor since the mid 90s and the first progressive in awhile.  At first glance the lesser of two assholes gets to be governor of Virginia, but the WPost looks at the numbers and sees something significant: the Obama coalition didn't stay home as they did in 2010.  Granted that the R candidate was so extreme he was extra motivating, but if the Rs keep going towards crazy Tea Party Land, it bodes well for 2014.

Oh. Canada?

Back in the 90s when the Clinton impeachment circus was underway I formulated my thesis that I called "America Inside-Out."  The premise was that while some behaviors normally associated with public acts were being driven into the silent regions within people, emotions that were normally internal were being made public in a big way.  The behavior of  Republicans in the impeachment frenzy was proving at least the second half of that thesis every day.

It might be simpler now to suggest that what we in the "general public" repress from our behavior gets expressed by public figures.  It used to be Hollywood stars and their affairs and vice.  Now it's political leaders (and sports stars.)  There is still that additional level of paradox when public officials (our representatives and those in charge of governing us) act out of their raging unconscious, almost as a matter of course.

In the U.S. this has led to what is now normal: one major party and chunk of the media operating entirely on fact-free emotions, making assertions that are easily and repeatedly proven not to be true.  It's irrationality raised to the throne, where I suppose it's been before.

Now comes Canada, the model of rationality in contrast to our chaos.  I haven't traveled there in some years, but I retain the feeling of awestruck joy experiencing the clean efficiency and calmness of the Toronto subway and Air Canada.  Even the funky Vancouver buses (and drivers) were humane and they went everywhere, cheaply. Calmly friendly, Canada was the place where people knew what they were doing, and they kept thinking about how to do it better.

So it comes as a very rude shock to see the current Mayor of Toronto, an admitted public drunk and as of today admitted crack smoker, though he allowed that he doesn't really remember it due to his drunken stupors.

This might seem to be a very public inside coming out, with the force of so much repressed feeling.  But I don't think it's sudden.  I don't follow Canadian politics closely but thanks in part to an old friend and one of this site's most faithful readers, I have some sense of what's been going on.  At least part of it might be described as the U.S. political contagion finally moving north.  Rabid right irrationality has infected Canada, east to west, or at least it seems so to me.  In Toronto specifically, it's dominant in the suburbs that have only recently been included within the Toronto electorate.

That doesn't entirely explain the Mayor of Toronto.  Because what is still inexplicable is not so much the man as how Canadians of Toronto could possibly have elected him.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"You said that we owe literature almost everything we are and what we have been.  If books disappear, history will disappear, and human beings will also disappear.  I am sure you are right.  Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory.  They also give us the model of self-transcendence.  Some people think of reading only as a kind of escape: an escape from the "real" everyday world to an imaginary world, the world of books.  Books are much more.  They are a way of being fully human."

Susan Sontag
"A Letter to Borges"

photo from Truffaut's film version of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

No Joy in Blitzburgh

There is no joy in Blitzburgh tonight.  For going on 40 years, the pride of the Steelers was their defense.  Through quarterbacks thickheaded (Bubby Brister) and thinskinned (Neil O'Donnell) and other offensive woes, the Steelers defense may have occasionally wobbled but basically stayed strong.

Then came this season and piles of points given up, climaxed today when the New England Patriots scored 31 points in 17.5 minutes (the fourth quarter) and broke all time records for most points scored (55) and most yards gained against the Steelers in their history.  And that history before the 1970s was not pretty.

This Steelers team didn't win a preseason game and lost the first four of the season.  But then put together two wins, including one against the Super Bowl champ, their most recent blood rival, the Baltimore Ravens.

Then came the loss to Oakland (another old rival, but a shadow of its great teams.)  But it was only today's loss that has the Pittsburgh sports scribes declaring that the season is over, and it's time to remember baseball and pay attention to hockey.  Or this:

"This score was tied, 24-24, with 7:10 remaining in the third quarter, the Steelers having overcome deficits of 14-0 and 24-10, but what happened after that, for the consumption of a national-television audience no less, was little else but the Steelers quitting on their mission, quitting on themselves, quitting on their coaches, quitting on their organization, quitting, inescapably, on their city."

Pretty harsh, and maybe too much.  There's something cyclical going on, for the Steelers and their conference, which is turning out to be the worst in the NFL.  The only reason that one team in it won today was because two teams in it were playing each other.

None of this will be a big surprise to my billions of readers.  I said the Ravens' Super Bowl win was a fluke, and they would stink this year.  They stink this year.  And I said that the Steelers would have a tough time winning a single game, because other teams have figured out how to beat them.  But I don't necessarily agree their season is totally lost, basically because nobody else in their conference is any good either. Still it's obvious that personnel changes are in the offing, and for whatever reasons, the Steelers haven't lucked out in their draft choices or young free agents.

So the Steelers could become the new old Pirates for awhile.  Rebuilding, if that's even possible in today's NFL.  

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"I’ve been trying to understand the mentality that leads people who wouldn’t ask a stranger to give them a keychain or a Twizzler to ask me to write them a thousand words for nothing. I have to admit my empathetic imagination is failing me here."
Tim Kreider
New York Times

At Last, the GOP Healthcare Plan

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Saying that “the American people are fed up with a disastrous Web site that doesn’t work and never will,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) and a phalanx of congressional Republicans today unveiled their own health-care Web site, EmergencyRoom.gov.

“At EmergencyRoom.gov, every American can access the one tried-and-true health-care system that has worked in this country for decades,” he said.

While Healthcare.gov has frustrated many users with its difficult-to-navigate design, Rep. Cantor said that at EmergencyRoom.gov, “Health care is just three easy steps away. One: enter your zip code. Two: see the list of emergency rooms. Three: get to the nearest one before you die.”

Night of the Century in Boston

Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox for winning the 2013 World Series in six games, and winning a world title at home for the first time in 95 years.  Especially stunning since I believe the last time was also in Fenway Park.

Now let's hope Boston can celebrate without burning the town down.

It was a series dominated by pitching, bad hitting and bad fielding.  When almost the entire winning team bats around .200 (with several starters even below that) it's not exactly a Series of fireworks.  Only David Ortiz who batted .668 was outstanding, so I assume he's the MVP.  Timely hitting however was the difference.

And yes ESPN they WON the series, they didn't "clinch" it.  Clinch is a perfectly good word that has always meant something other than "win" in baseball.  It meant that a team has mathematically won something even though they are games yet to be played that will be played.  That is, no combination of losses and wins by another team could overcome their lead.  But they would not officially win until the season is done.

However the World Series works like this: the first team to win four games wins the damn thing.  Both teams go home.  They aren't going to go out and play the 7th game tomorrow.

I have to credit ESPN for being the last outpost in the English speaking world to correctly use "fewer," as in "fewer runs", not "less runs."  But I don't understand why they throw away the specific function of "clinch."

So now we have basketball.  Maybe somebody will also explain to me the difference between "shot attempts" and "shots."

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

Cloudminding#2 by WSK

"There is no possibility of true culture without altruism."

Susan Sontag

Can't Anyone Here Play This Game?

First St. Louis bobbled and booted away the first game of the World Series.  Then Boston threw away the second, and traveled across country to throw away the third.  Yes, there's been some great pitching and timely hitting, but also a lot of bad baseball.

How about the fourth?  A Boston outfielder booted a ball that led to the Cardinals' first run.  Then with two outs in the last of the ninth, a Cardinal runner--not even representing the tying run--gets himself picked off first to end the game.

You know what this series needs?  A tight team like the Pirates.  But sorry, it's too late.  Wait til next year.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

 Green October #2 by WSK

“Besides an outer light and eye, sight requires an 'inner light,' one whose luminance complements the familiar outer light and transforms raw sensation into meaningful perception.”
Arthur Zajonc
Catching the Light

Fires Today and Tomorrow

Let's just note what is happening.  Today there are three big news stories involving Australia running concurrently:

Australian Firefighters Fight Weather in Worst Bush Fire in 45 Years

Climate Change is Absolutely Linked to [Australian] Fires Says UN Chief

Australian Prime Minister Denies 25 Years of Climate Change Science

That last headline is a little deceptive--the science referred to in the column is linking this wildfire to climate change, but this Prime Minister is a denier, and even in a huge country where the climate is very noticeably changing and bringing havoc of which this fire is only the most recent and violent example, there is a political attempt to set up a commission to investigate climate scientists for fraud.

But you get the idea.  The sensible idea--and the premise of various fictional 'cautionary tales'--is that however strong the opposition and denial is, it falls to pieces in the face of extreme evidence.  Then everybody gets together to address the problem.

It may happen.  But it is not happening now.  Apart from ones I've suggested before, or the ever-proximate political reasons--politicians stirring up scared masses on behalf of the fossil fuel industries that fund them--there are other reasons being offered.

One is proposed by a big story in Time Magazine based on a study that reportedly says that people are just too selfish to sacrifice anything now for the good of the future, even for their own grandchildren.

The study may or may not be valid, and/or actually applicable to the climate crisis.  Frankly I give it a 1 in 3 chance that it is both robust and all that relevant.  But it does suggest that it's more than lack of imagination that's involved--the ability to foresee a problem and to act on it according to how serious it might be, how probable and what the cost of dealing with it is versus the eventual cost of not dealing with it.

The interpretation here is that it's also the imagination of compassion.  The "you'd do the same for me" projected into the future.  It's hard for me to believe that people in the present wouldn't sacrifice for their grandchildren, which seems to go against even some Darwinian view of human nature.  But we've become accustomed to believing the worst about human beings.

But the article moves quickly to suggesting that a winning strategy on the addressing the climate crisis is emphasizing short-term gains.  And there are plenty, especially in clean energy technologies, in new industries and new jobs in old industries (construction for instance.)

It is certainly true that you people are more keenly interested in clean energy when (a) dirty energy prices are going way up, like gasoline for instance, (b) there are jobs and economic benefits visible to all, as in some places where wind farms have recharged a dormant economy.  Still, President Obama tried this for most of his first term.  He promoted clean energy for all these short-term reasons, seldom mentioning climate change.  There were successes.  But perhaps clouded by the political opposition to absolutely everything he is for, it didn't change a lot.

The longer lasting lesson here however is that even though these efforts are motivated by wanting to save the future, to keep as much of this biosphere intact for grandchildren and beyond--everything that is to be done and planned and fought for is to be done in the present.  Not even short-term gain.  Now.  What it does for you and your life right now.

Those who are fighting politically (even in ways that seem pretty dubious to me) to get efforts to stop the causes of the climate crisis, are doing so as a big part of their lives now.  Those who are working especially in cities and counties and states to start dealing with the inevitable effects, are doing so in the present.

When the climate crisis becomes severe--and it seems it will before another half century has passed--then people will have to deal with it as an inevitable part of their present, and how they deal with it will define them, as well as determining the farther future.  Will they react with panic and violence?  Or will they summon courage, resourcefulness, compassion, nobility, even heroism?

Hope for the future is enacted in the present.  Some people are already there.  Others consumed and being dragged down by denial, eaten away by extreme selfishness, cowardice and mania are not in the end leading happy lives.

The Hummingbird Chronicles

       Green October #1 by WSK

I have no doubt that 2013 will turn out to be the warmest year on record for the North Coast.  It's nearing the end of October and we're apparently living in San Diego, though the sunny days in the 60s are followed by increasingly colder nights, now in the low 40s.  So it's a pleasant sort of surreal so far.

The hummingbirds seem hungrier, I don't know what that may mean.  Flowers are still blooming but my feeders are emptying as fast as they usually do in January, maybe faster.  I'm pretty sure we have three regulars now, and maybe four.  The larger hummers with the longer beaks I took to be migrants turn out to be residents who are now feeding regularly here.  That suggests there's also a pair of the smaller, rounder ones.  But there are seldom more than two around at a time, though I have seen three at the same time--two competing for the feeder and one flying by.

The past week or two we've also been hosting a number of small white butterflies with a black spot or two on their wings.  Dragonflies follow the hummers when they get near the feeders, while the hummers also have to deal with the webs that industrious spiders weave and re-weave after a wrecking wind.  Spiders pose at the end of web strings in our windows like Halloween decorations.

The hummers provide entertainment as they buzz at each other and then suddenly alight on the clothesline side by side, then spin off and return to feed on opposite sides of the same feeder.  They know me and often come around when I'm outside.  Once recently I was watching one from the kitchen door window, as it maneuvered around an almost but not quite empty feeder.  It clearly wasn't getting all it wanted, so it tried each side, then flew underneath it and tried that, then flew above it and tried the top.  Then it flew directly opposite where I was watching and hovered in place looking at me, as if to demand, how do I work this thing?

Otherwise they have me well trained.  Two feeders well stocked.

Update: So of course the day after I posted this the weather changed abruptly.  After these weeks of unseasonable summer, for the past few days we've gone directly to unseasonable winter.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you...Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?"

Emily in Our Town by Thornton Wilder

The Morning After

President Obama spoke about the shutdown, the threat of default, the lessons and the road ahead.  The video above is as succinct a lesson in how the American government should work as any teacher anywhere could present.  Some excerpts, focused on what we've just been through:


"These last few weeks have inflicted completely unnecessary damage on our economy. We don’t know yet the full scope of the damage, but every analyst out there believes it slowed our growth. We know that families have gone without paychecks or services they depend on. We know that potential homebuyers have gotten fewer mortgages, and small business loans have been put on hold. We know that consumers have cut back on spending, and that half of all CEOs say that the shutdown and the threat of shutdown set back their plans to hire over the next six months. We know that just the threat of default -- of America not paying all the bills that we owe on time -- increased our borrowing costs, which adds to our deficit."

"And, of course, we know that the American people’s frustration with what goes on in this town has never been higher. That's not a surprise that the American people are completely fed up with Washington. At a moment when our economic recovery demands more jobs, more momentum, we've got yet another self-inflicted crisis that set our economy back. And for what? There was no economic rationale for all of this."

"But probably nothing has done more damage to America's credibility in the world, our standing with other countries, than the spectacle that we've seen these past several weeks. It's encouraged our enemies. It's emboldened our competitors. And it's depressed our friends who look to us for steady leadership."

"But to all my friends in Congress, understand that how business is done in this town has to change. Because we've all got a lot of work to do on behalf of the American people -- and that includes the hard work of regaining their trust. Our system of self-government doesn’t function without it. And now that the government is reopened, and this threat to our economy is removed, all of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists and the bloggers and the talking heads on radio and the professional activists who profit from conflict, and focus on what the majority of Americans sent us here to do, and that’s grow this economy; create good jobs; strengthen the middle class; educate our kids; lay the foundation for broad-based prosperity and get our fiscal house in order for the long haul. That’s why we're here. That should be our focus."

"I think the American people during this shutdown had a chance to get some idea of all the things, large and small, that government does that make a difference in people's lives. We hear all the time about how government is the problem. Well, it turns out we rely on it in a whole lot of ways. Not only does it keep us strong through our military and our law enforcement, it plays a vital role in caring for our seniors and our veterans, educating our kids, making sure our workers are trained for the jobs that are being created, arming our businesses with the best science and technology so they can compete with companies from other countries. It plays a key role in keeping our food and our toys and our workplaces safe. It helps folks rebuild after a storm. It conserves our natural resources. It finances startups. It helps to sell our products overseas. It provides security to our diplomats abroad."

"So let's work together to make government work better, instead of treating it like an enemy or purposely making it work worse. That’s not what the founders of this nation envisioned when they gave us the gift of self-government."

I’ve got a simple message for all the dedicated and patriotic federal workers who’ve either worked without pay or been forced off the job without pay these past few weeks, including most of my own staff: Thank you. Thanks for your service. Welcome back. What you do is important. It matters.

You defend our country overseas. You deliver benefits to our troops who’ve earned them when they come home. You guard our borders. You protect our civil rights. You help businesses grow and gain footholds in overseas markets. You protect the air we breathe and the water our children drink. And you push the boundaries of science and space, and you guide hundreds of thousands of people each day through the glories of this country. Thank you. What you do is important. And don't let anybody else tell you different. Especially the young people who come to this city to serve -- believe that it matters. Well, you know what, you’re right. It does."

And those of us who have the privilege to serve this country have an obligation to do our job as best we can. We come from different parties, but we are Americans first. And that’s why disagreement cannot mean dysfunction. It can't degenerate into hatred. The American people’s hopes and dreams are what matters, not ours. Our obligations are to them. Our regard for them compels us all, Democrats and Republicans, to cooperate, and compromise, and act in the best interests of our nation –- one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all."

24 Billion Dollar Fools

The Senate, the House, the President signed off on a bill to reopen the federal government and pay the country's debts, for now.  All in one day.  Just in the nick of time.

But not exactly.  It came about $24 billion too late.  That's the estimate of what the U.S. lost in economic activity due to the shutdown alone.  The cost as measured by slower growth and higher unemployment is yet to be known.  Then there's the yet-to-be-determined direct costs of shutting things down and then starting them up again.  All the overtime to catch up with work not done, on top of the guaranteed wages for those furloughed--thanks to the private sector hawks of the House, money for nothing.

But the people who truly pay--who always pay for the foolishness of generals and legislators who are focused on their own greed and ego--are the children who lost nutritional support and Head Start, the sick, the old, the powerless, including those who have lost jobs and income as twisted byproducts of what the rotten House wrought.

We all pay for their folly.  Electing fools is not funny, it's not entertainment, it's not what outrageous thing will they say today.  Yet politics and the political media on all sides lives by this, prospers by this, become stars through this.  

The American Problem

The American Problem is and has always been race.  All societies--from neighborhoods to nations-- have problems with the Other, however "not one of us" is defined.  The Other is the scapegoat, the excuse, as well as a challenge to the status quo and its power structure.  The American flavor of this universal problem is predominantly race.  Beginning with the defining American sin, the eradication of the peoples who were already living here.  Continuing and becoming etched in a still ongoing history with black slavery, and the white/black racial divide, however permeable, artificial and complicated.  And even though racism against Asians was once a more prominent feature (and remains in pockets of the country) and racism against "brown" people or Latinos is growing, the old forms continue to define politics and political power, as well as other aspects of communal life.

It just so happens that racism is all over the news recently, although not in the forms we're used to: overt violence or conflict, marches or speeches, etc.  It's embedded in the attempted political coup in Washington, and in the ongoing and escalating controversy over the names and mascots of prominent sports teams that are historical slurs or stereotypes of Native Americans.

Regarding the team nickname controversy, at the moment attention is focused on one team, that plays NFL football in the nation's capital of Washington. There were a couple of new events, after President Obama expressed his opinion that the Washington organization ought to change its nickname.  One excuse offered by the team owner and echoed by a prominent ESPN writer was that by and large Native Americans aren't really upset by it.  Rick Reilly supported this argument by quoting his own father-in-law, a Blackfeet elder in Montana.  But Bob Burns told his son-in-law that he had misunderstood him and misquoted him.  When Reilly refused to correct the error (Burns said) he decided to go public.  In Indian Country Today, he wrote that Reilly " failed to include my comments that the term “redskins” demeans Indians, and historically is insulting and offensive, and that I firmly believe the Washington Redskins should change their name."

“Redskins” is part of that mentality from colonial times when our people were hunted by soldiers and mercenaries who were paid for the scalps of our men, women and children. How can anyone claim this is a proud tradition to come from? The labels, racism and hatred that Indian people continue to experience are directly tied to those racial slurs. Let me be clear: The racial slur “redskins” is not okay with me. It’s never going to be okay with me. It’s inappropriate, damaging and racist."

The Oeneida Nation helped focus the issue last week by sponsoring an event next door to the NFL owners meeting.  They are keeping up the pressure with television and radio ads.

But the biggest media audience to be exposed to the issue was probably tonight on Monday Night Football, when Bob Costas spoke out on the issue during halftime: "Ask yourself what the equivalent would be if directed toward African-Americans. Hispanics. Asians. Or members of any other ethnic group. When considered that way, “redskins” can’t possibly honor a heritage or noble character trait,” said Costas. “Its an insult, a slur, no matter how benign the present day intent.”

As we approach the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination, it becomes clearer that politics in the period since the Civil Rights movement and particularly the civil rights legislation that President Kennedy introduced in 1963, has been formed and deformed by race.

It led to the realignment of the political parties, as the Democrats lost the South and the Republicans took over there, and have since become a party of the white South, too often defined by white southern bigotry.  The extremism already organizing in JFK's time--and thick in the atmosphere of Dallas in 1963--has come to dominate the Republican party, according to several political scientists.

The current debacle of taking the government and world economy hostage without even a coherent ransom note is a product of that continuity based on racism.   I don't have to quote Joe the Plumber or anyone else to note that racism against President Obama is a factor in both the timing and intensity.  The sense of a beleaguered white fundamentalist minority is also expressed in the fears of the wrong apocalypse and endtimes expressed by their Queen (not Sarah, the other Queen.)

Racism in relation to the shutdown is exposed also in this Politico piece by Roger Simon.  Back when I watched TV I enjoyed his acerbic commentary, but I was unprepared for the sheer anger of this piece.  He begins with a pretty harsh joke (If Ted Cruz and John Banal were on a sinking ship, who would be saved? Answer: America) but he sees nothing funny in the shutdown. "I am not talking about closed parks and monuments. I am talking about the funds cut to nearly 9 million mothers and young children for food, breastfeeding support and infant formula. That is harsh. Making a war against babies is harsh."

After calling out Cruz and Banal for motives of craven ambition ("Have you ever seen Boehner’s suite of offices in the Capitol? It would make Midas blush.")  he zeroes in on racism being expressed by Tea Party activists. "America has come to a sorry pass. Not because there are still racists among us, but because the racists among us think they can tell us what makes an American."

House of Horrors

There are real stories accompanying this New Yorker cover, but the one that sums up the national mood is a previous post by Andy Borowitz, titled Poll: Americans Divided Over What Wild Animal They Would Like To See Congress Mauled By:

"While a majority of Americans say they would enjoy seeing Congress torn limb from limb by a ferocious bear, there is disagreement over which species of bear would be best suited for that assignment.

But the poll showed that there was also strong support for the idea of Congress being set upon by a pack of rapacious animals, with rabid hyenas the first choice of many respondents, followed by feral dogs and cats.

While insatiable, bloodthirsty mammals were most often cited as the animals Americans would like to see eviscerate Congress, there was significant support for another scenario, involving Congress being consumed by a swarm of predatory insects."

One of the actual stories is about the 14th amendment, especially apropos since--and this is not satire--a GOPer congressman who supports the party's position threatening default has said that if default actually happens, Obama might be impeached for failing to guarantee the full faith and credit of the U.S.

At his press conference, Henrick Hertzberg notes, President Obama said that invoking the 14th amendment is so legally controversial that it would not end insecurity and doubt in the market, and so would not leave the economy undamaged.

But if default were really going to happen, H. writes, Obama's best option might still be the 14th amendment:

"In the end, Obama could have no honorable choice but to invoke the Fourteenth. There is little doubt that he would prevail. The Supreme Court would be unlikely even to consider the matter, since no one would have standing to bring a successful suit: when the government pays its bills, who is damaged? The House Republicans might draw up articles of impeachment, adopt them, and send them to the Senate, where the probability of a conviction would be zero. This would not be a replay of Bill Clinton and the intern. President Clinton was not remotely guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, but he was guilty of something, and that something was sordid. Yet impeachment was what put Clinton on a glide path to his present pinnacle as a wildly popular statesman. President Obama would be guilty only of saving the nation’s economy, and the world’s."

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"When the mind reaches out to know, the space of desire opens."

Anne Carson

This is the Way Our World Ends

image by sive

I've been waiting to post on this extraordinary study.  It was covered by major newspapers and other news outlets the other day, but I've noted the silence from the usual sites that deal with climate science and climate crisis news.  I'll speculate on possible reasons for the silence so far, but first, the substance of the story.  And it's big.  Very big.

Using existing data on five climate variables (3 from the atmosphere, 2 from the oceans) from 1860 to 2005, and some 39 models for future climates,a study published by the University of Hawaii determined for various locations around the world "the projected timing of climate departure from recent variability."  One major measure is the "projected year when annual or monthly air temperature means move to a state continuously outside annual or monthly historical bounds."  Note the word "continuously."  Basically what it means is determining the year when the climate changes, for all practical purposes, permanently.

The change is measured basically in this way: when the coldest years are warmer than the warmest years in the past. (This is in fact the headline of the New York Times story on the study.)  The conclusion is that this change will happen very soon.

The changes they project will happen from south to north, beginning in tropical countries.The study has two sets of conclusions: the first based on carbon pollution continuing at projected rates, the second on carbon pollution being reigned in.  In the "business as usual" scenario, the first set of cities reaches this tipping point in the 2020s, including Kingston, Jamaica.  The change is projected for New York City, Washington, DC and many other U.S. cities in 2047.  It may take until 2071 to reach Anchorage, Alaska.  (The study is based on a margin of error of plus or minus 5 years.)

Though these conclusions are accompanied by the usual call for action now to curb carbon pollution, the second set of numbers is not much farther in the future. The 2047 date for much of the world becomes 2069.
 
Effects of the climate crisis are already occurring, but this is the most obvious and important effect: the change to a new climate for all the life on this planet.  Various stories sought out climate scientists for comment, and some called this study conservative. For instance: "Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann said the research "may actually be presenting an overly rosy scenario when it comes to how close we are to passing the threshold for dangerous climate impacts. By some measures," he said, "we are already there."  One of those measures, the study's authors note, may well be ocean acidity, which may have passed the tipping point in 2008 or so.

The most salient quote in the stories I saw is this one, from the Washington Post: “I think people don’t appreciate the fact that one of the metrics we are most familiar with, and definitely have the most difficulty dealing with, extreme heat, is coming down the track,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University."

A few late 1980s/early 90s extreme heat waves in Pittsburgh more than convinced me that unrelenting extreme heat is the worst: it makes thinking clearly very difficult, or controlling impulses, or conquering lethargy and despair.  I assume one of the reasons people "have the most trouble with" this "metric" is that it is so terrifying.

So basically what this study says is that the world changes--that for practical purposes, our world begins to end--well within the lifetime of adults living today.  In the earliest cases, just 7 to 10 years from now, when this heat hits millions of the poorest people and poorest societies in the world.  And 20 or so years later, when it completely transforms daily life everywhere in North America except the northernmost areas.

The study also looks at what species are most vulnerable when.  And that's not a pretty picture either.  As humans we are dependent on the life around us, even if that doesn't seem so clearly to be so.  It will become obvious.

The implications include how societies will cope, will even survive.  Temperature and related climate factors affect not only nature as natural resources but elements of the familiar.  The animals, the trees, the winters, the birds, the skies we know now will be different, or no more.  Food sources from the sea are especially vulnerable, but so are all food resources in this stretched-out global society, where food comes from great distances and must feed huge populations, every day.  Many people alive today will see this change as it happens.  The next generation will probably not even know many aspects of our world.

So why have newspapers like the aforementioned NY Times, Washington Post, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette done this (admittedly one-day) story, as well as USA Today TPM etc but not Climate Progress, Real Climate and other such sites?

One possibility is that they are still examining the science, from scientists they don't know.  Another is that the conclusions run up against the political and fundraising stance of working to "solve" or "stop" or "reverse" climate change, or simply the deflating effect of futility, of despair.

But there is much that can and must be done to prepare for the change, as a society and as individuals and families.  In order to face these tasks and this future while living in the now while we have it--and all the other challenges, can't even be approached without confronting the implications of this probable near future.  There is much to be done to save even worse effects in the farther future--effects that are not survivable for much of existing life--by drastically reducing carbon and other greenhouse gas pollution.

This very hard future has been suggested in recent books such as Mark Hertsgaard's Hot, Bill McKibben's Eaarth, David Orr's Down to the Wire and Paul Gilding's The Great Disruption, among others.  (And these are probably the most optimistic or at least gentler treatments.)  Now there are dates associated with this new world.

So far however the trend of denying and avoiding the implications holds.  If it continues, the prophesy of T.S. Eliot becomes ever more salient:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Update: There is a brief story at Live Science.

Canada's Nobel Lit Laureate

I must admit this one caught me completely by surprise, at least when I started reading the speculation on the leading candidates. Canadian short story writer Alice Munro has won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature.  She wasn't my Canadian candidate, but the one who was--Margaret Atwood--explains why Munro deserves this recognition.

Atwood among others has that combination of distinguished writing in several literary forms plus an active involvement in issues of the day that would seem to qualify her.  But the Literature prize is also given to writers whose accomplishments are in a single literary form, with little regard for geopolitics or nationality.

At the age of 80, Munro has announced that she's published her last book of stories.  So this is recognition of a career.

I also must admit that I don't know her work.  Here's a suggestion from Slate on where to start.

Quakeup Call

I was online this afternoon here in Arcata, and pretty simultaneously heard an explosive sound and felt a force pass beneath my chair, and some shaking.  Then another wave of shaking, not a lot but enough to visibly wobble and shake my computer screen.

I headed for the usual US gov site to see what happened but it was shut down--the shutdown.

Other sites were operating though and it's officially now a 4.9 earthquake about thirty miles off the coast between Eureka and Trinidad.  It was felt throughout the area, even into southern Humboldt. Some people felt objects and themselves lifted off the ground, saw trees swaying, but so far no damage or injuries reported on the local sites. The HSU seismograph is reproduced above.

Wait For Next Year

The Pittsburgh Pirates remarkable season ended in St. Louis on Wednesday.  Once they lost the 4th game at home 2-1, the structural disadvantage of being the Wild Card team made the 5th game a very tough climb.  The Cardinals were able to use their ace pitcher twice in 5 games, and Adam Wainwright won both.  The Pirates could use their ace only once, because they had to use him to win the Wild Card game with the Reds.  And as division winners the Cards had home field for the final game.

Still, three of their starting pitchers pitched valiantly, including the losing pitchers of the last two games.  Pedro Alvarez hit 3 home runs in the 5 games, and together with the wild card game became the first player in major league history with RBIs in all of his first six playoff games.  Andrew McCutchen had a scorching post-season--though he was the potential winning run for the series when he popped out to end the 4th game.

But the Bucs pushed a perennial championship team to the limit, and became a national story in the process.  Most of all they made baseball fun again in Pittsburgh.  The beautiful PNG Park is a great place to enjoy a baseball game, but such a great baseball park is made for fans hanging on every pitch and at-bat with a winning team.  Pittsburgh has that now.

 This story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes something else that is making the Pirates a Pittsburgh favorite--tickets to games are relatively affordable and available, in contrast to tickets for the Steelers and Penguins.  (That great photo above--taken outside PNC Park where fans gathered to cheer their Pirates and watch the 5th game on a jumbotron-- also comes from this Post-Gazette story.)  See you next year.

The Missiles of October 2013

The United States economy is threatened with destruction not by a foreign power but by domestic terrorists who apparently control the government through Speaker John Banal.  His missiles are aimed at us all.

  Today President Obama held a press conference in which he explained the current missiles of October crisis--the negative missiles of votes not taken on the government budget and authorizing the Treasury to pay outstanding debts--in much the same terms as in his recent speeches. (Here's a summary.)  He explained why he can't give in to government by extortion.  He said no one would expect him to do so if the extortion was coming from a foreign power, and sure enough, John Banal responded later in the day by saying he won't put these matters to a clean vote because that would be "unconditional surrender."  So now he's head of a party at war with the United States?

If he had been listening closely, he might have noticed that President Obama gave him a face-saving out: simply vote to reopen the government and pay the bills, for even a short amount of time, and attach to that bill something to the effect that once these are done, the President and Congress will hold negotiations on--practically anything they want.

Banal says all he wants is a conversation.  President Obama has offered it.

But as President Obama pointed out, so far Banal's definition of a conversation is a list of Rabid Right demands followed by the President and Dems in Congress saying, "okay, we'll pay your ransom."

There is not much time left before the economic equivalent of the dogs of war are unleashed--much easier to start than to stop.  It's 9 days until the Secretary of Treasury says the government will run out of money to pay all its debts, but it won't take that long.  When this starts to look real to investors, governments holding US debt and just people with money in the bank, the downward spiral begins.

Where does it go? I've seen informed speculation that default could mean an immediate spike in interest rates to 12%, an unemployment rate of 25% by Christmas, gas and other prices sky high overnight, and even with some sort of panic fix, the damage will continue for years.  And that's possibly just the beginning, because the effects ripple out to the world economy, and then ripple back.  The missiles of this October are not thermonuclear, but they are still extraordinarily destructive to almost everyone.

Deadly Delusions

National Journal:
"In interviews with more than a dozen GOP lawmakers, the Republicans rejected the notion that Washington could default on its debt unless a borrowing increase is approved before Oct. 17. For the United States to actually default, these Republicans argue, the Treasury Department would have to stop paying interest on its debts—something GOP lawmakers claim is inconceivable."

Time Magazine blog: 
With no end in sight to the current budgetary impasse, Congress has a ten-day window to approve measures that would allow for the extension of the nation’s debt ceiling. If both the House and Senate fail to forge a deal before 0ct. 17, experts warn that the self-induced crisis would surpass the 2008 recession in its effects.

Tim Bitsberger, a former aide to George W. Bush, said during an interview with Bloomberg published today that a potential U.S. default on its debt “would blow Lehman out of the water” — a reference to the investment bank collapse that spurred the 2008 financial crisis."

America's Number One Terrorist

"To weaponize the debt ceiling, you must be willing to inflict harm on millions of innocent people. It is a shockingly powerful self-destruct button built into our very system of government, but only useful for the most ideologically hardened or borderline sociopathic."
Jonathan Chiat

Over the weekend US forces raided sites in Libya and Somalia to capture known terrorists.  Meanwhile the world's foremost terrorist went on national television to assert that the United States is on a direct path to default, which he and his GOP congressional cronies are causing.  Just as they have caused the federal government to stop working.  And he won't stop it, by simply putting it to a vote.

If Speaker Banal and his cronies continue and accomplish default, they are in all practical terms guilty of sedition.  At the moment they are terrorists, terrorizing the American people with unparalleled power to make good on their threats.  What they have been unable to accomplish through democratic means, they mean to accomplish through extortion.

Someone suggested a little thought experiment be put to them: if Democrats threatened to shut down the government and drive the world's most economically crucial nation into default unless Republicans in Congress got rid of the sequester, voted for a much needed infrastructure program, passed effective gun control and raised taxes on the rich--would they consider that a legitimate strategy?

I recently suggested the possibility that there's money behind this callous insanity: This is one case where a billionaire or two--no matter what their agenda might be, corporate greed or crypto-religious apocalyptic anarchism--can start the process that ends up in a national and world economy in shambles, and real anarchy in America.  That turns out to be true in a way, and it's the Koch brothers, of course.  The conspiracy reportedly began as the second term agenda for thwarting Obama, with this exact scenario  in mind: shut down the government to destroy Obamacare. The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort, says the New York Times.

Chiat writes further:

The standoff embroiling Washington represents far more than the specifics of the demands on the table, or even the prospect of economic calamity. It is an incipient constitutional crisis. Obama... now has to crush the practice completely, lest it become ritualized. Obama not only must refuse to trade concessions for a debt-ceiling hike; he has to make it clear that he will endure default before he submits to ransom. To pay a ransom now, even a tiny one, would ensure an endless succession of debt-ceiling ransoms until, eventually, the two sides fail to agree on the correct size of the ransom and default follows.

This is a domestic Cuban Missile Crisis. A single blunder could have unalterable consequences: If Obama buckles his no-ransom stance, the debt-ceiling-hostage genie will be out of the bottle. If Republicans believe he is bluffing, or accept his position but obstinately refuse it, or try to lift the debt ceiling and simply botch the vote count, a second Great Recession could ensue."

Update: If you're not already anxious and depressed, read Josh Marshall's perspective on what's happening and what's ahead.  The weak Speaker overwhelmed by events sounds like a Shakespearian screenplay, if there's an economy left to support one when this is over.

We Had 'Em All the Way!

In a tense back and forth game on Sunday, the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 5-3 in their division playoff series, with 2 runs in the 8th inning to break a tie.  The Pirates now need to win one of the next two games.  Monday's is at home, where they--and all of Pittsburgh--would love to see them end it.

For the fourth game the Pirates pitch veteran Charlie Morton, who battles rather than overwhelms.  The Cardinals pitch their rookie phenom Wacha, who was one out shy of a no-hitter his last outing. He's never started at PNC Park.  Morton on the other hand has been shaky lately, and hasn't pitched in 8 days.  So much of the third game was counter to stats and expectations it's impossible to speculate, except that the Pirates should the advantage in the late innings because of more experienced relievers and a better bench, and at least on Sunday that proved out.

The Pirates are on a roll--5 straight wins against the Reds, 2 against the Cardinals with just one loss in between.  It's their time.

The R Word

The longstanding controversy over the racist nicknames of certain professional and college sports teams has gone mainstream in the past year, mostly centered on the Washington team of the National Football League, and their use of the R word to identify themselves.  Better than the N word some might say, but that it's pretty much in the same league is really the point.

It's so mainstream that ESPN has openly discussed it, and several news outlets have officially refused to use it in their coverage.  But it reached a new level over the weekend, first because Oneida Indian Nation held a conference on the Washington name in Washington, in the same hotel where the National Football League team owners were also meeting.

Then Sunday it went to still another level when President Obama joined his name with many others--prominent and not--who agree that the nickname is perceived as insulting and the Washington team ought to change it.

You Think Last Week Was Crazy?

If the shutdown wasn't absurd enough, on Saturday it hit a whole new level in Washington.  The House voted unanimously to guarantee retroactive pay for federal employees now furloughed, which means GOPers will vote to pay federal workers to do nothing with no strings attached, but they won't vote to let them do their jobs without killing or wounding the Affordable Care Act ( or whatever they're demanding today instead.)

And until Saturday about half the federal employees furloughed worked for the Defense Department, but Secretary Hagel decided that the bill the GOPers pushed through that exempted the military and employees necessary to support them meant, well, almost everybody in the Pentagon.  So he called 350,000 people back to work, and there's little likelihood the GOPers will squawk.

However, beneath the waves of absurdity and insanity is the cold reality of the shutdown: the families who aren't federal employees but are not getting federal and federally-supported state health, education and survival services they need.  It's the cold reality of stuff that isn't being built with federal funds or for federal agencies (like the Pentagon) that means private businesses must lay off people, and the economy takes numerous hits.

It's also clear that Republican governments in the states, having already denied needed help to the most vulnerable through the sequester, already manipulating the Affordable Care Act to make healthcare less accessible to the most vulnerable, are happy to use the shutdown to inflict further cruelty on the poor, the sick and the old--as in Arizona, which has stopped welfare payments.  Stopped them.

Maybe it's time that the GOP own the slogan once applied to Exxon:

We don't care.  We don't have to care.  We're Republicans.