A lost soul coming down the road

The Republican National Convention starting Monday is taking place near the Interstate 35 bridge that collapsed last December. Recall that I-35, which runs from Duluth, Minnesota down to Laredo, Texas, is the "Highway to Holiness" which evangelicals have decided is referenced in Isaiah chapter 35. Was the location of the RNC calculated to send a message to the evangelicals? Even if not, could we expect to see some events along I-35 during the convention, and, if so, will it get any play at all in the media?

Gonna be some changes

"...Change doesn't come from Washington, it comes to Washington."

"America, we cannot turn back.  We cannot walk alone."

Back in the light

Al Gore was - is - awesome.  Enough said on that.

It feels like deliverance going down

The Big Dog was pretty good tonight, and Joe Biden, despite flubbing some lines, was pretty good, too.

But John Kerry was excellent. I missed the beginning of his speech because MSNBC and CNN couldn't be bothered to show it, but we caught the balance on PBS, through the interference of a crossed channel (and we stayed on PBS as a matter of principle for the rest of the night, although I got to see the shadow of NBC in the background). Was he that good four years ago, or has he grown tremendously since then? I'm regretting that we sold the car that had the Kerry bumper sticker still on it!

Update: Josh has posted the video of the entire Kerry speech. Looking forward to watching the whole thing tonight.



Update #2: Matt Yglesias gives his take on Kerry's speech last night.

Some play from dreams

Bruce played a fundraiser for Michelle Obama earlier this month.

Oh, there's also this "campaign" to draft Bruce Hornsby for Congress. Where can I get a bumper sticker?

This isn't from that fundraiser, but what the heck.

The way it is

History is made!



Time to take the next step....

I will shoulder your burden

Here's my first-ever attempt at liveblogging. On Hillary's convention speech. Hopefully this lets me give my real-time impressions, rather than being swayed by the post-speech spinning of the talking heads.

10:43. Already much better than Warner. She hasn't done all she has done to see another Republican squander...

10:45. "No way, no how, no McCain." Fantastic line. She has a chance to win me back.

10:49. Talking directly to her supporters. I hope that this is meaningful, although I suspect that too many of those supporters, those that claim to now be in the McCain camp, were never truly Democratic supporters -- how could they be? And can she take this beyond tonight's speech?

10:50. Nice eulogy for Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

10:51. Getting into core issues. Time to hammer into the failure of current Bush policies. I hope she gets into a sustained attack on McCain. I'm concerned that it's sounding a little too much like a Clinton stump speech, with too much "I ran". She needs to make this more about Barack, but she's hitting many of the right issues.

10:54. OK, here we go. "Were you in this campaign just for me, or...." This is absolutely the right approach, and tied it in beautifully to what I was first concerned about. This is really starting to get into high gear. It seems to me, however (although this is not a criticism of Hillary per se, but rather of her "supporters"), that much of the problem is not that some of these so-called "PUMAs" were not in the campaign for the many various issues, or even for Hillary, but, in their minds, were in it for themselves, and have taken Hillary's primary loss as a personal affront. Can she pull them along? If they were a supporter of her or the policies, she's saying that they have no choice to vote for Barack Obama. If they don't, it was never about her or the issues.

10:58. Alternating between "Barack" and "President Obama." Nice.

10:59. She's hitting McCain on issues, but perhaps a bit too abstract for my taste. And I wish she wasn't smiling through the laundry list. But getting better, and hitting some of the issues that I mentioned in my earlier post on Warner's keynote.

11:03. "Keep going.... And before we can keep going we have to get going by electing Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. We don't have ... a vote to spare..."

I think Hillary did as well as she could have done. This was a very good speech for Hillary. We'll see how this speech is spun now.

UPDATE: Olbermann agrees, calling it a grand slam. Matthews also seems to love it.

UPDATE # 2: Um, I'm watching a woman on CNN who is in tears. She's saying, though the tears, that Hillary, who should be president, did what she had to do, now it is time for Obama to do what he has to do, whatever in the world that means. She won't commit to voting for Barack, though she says she won't vote for McCain. It seems that for me, the speech was a very good way to bring the Hillary folks on board, but for the Clinton obsessives, it just further convinced them of how Hillary really deserved it. I don't understand this, I'm completely perplexed and frustrated. And CNN just went to commercial and guess which one aired -- the McCain/Hillary ad. Ugh.

UPDATE # 3: And now, the McCain camp has issued their reaction, using Hillary to knock Barack again, with the argument that Hillary didn't say Barack is ready to lead. And CNN just has to read it, and keep regurgitating it (though Carville is providing the proper reaction about the complete lack of graciousness in the McCain camp), along with the program note that they will be bring in lots more Republican reaction in a few minutes.

UPDATE # 4: Carville said this is a bad night for Hillary haters. For the first time in a long time, I agree completely with Carville.

UPDATE # 5: Or maybe not. Andy Sullivan is barely moved, saying she did the bare minimum. Perhaps it's Sullivan's anti-Clinton obsession shining through, or maybe my perception is skewed. He's right, she didn't hit McCain as hard on the issues as I would like, as I've mentioned below. But this was about as effective as I've seen her, and I didn't sense any irritation, which I sort-of expected. So, I'm pretty happy. Still not sure it will help with her phony supporters, but it's a start.

UPDATE #6: Here's the video of the speech.

But you never noticed

Chuck Schumer is talking right now on MSNBC about how people are just starting to pay attention right now.  Well, if they are paying attention, they may have just tuned out again after that dreadful speech by Mark Warner. What was that all about, anyway? What a waste of time for a Keynote Address. Bob Casey, who is speaking with Andrea Mitchell right now, did a much better job, with a few memorable lines: "Not four more years, four more months!" and "That's not a maverick; that's a sidekick."  Not quite hard-hitting enough for my taste - when is anyone going to take McCain to task on his torture or environment hypocrisy, or his bellicosity in general or his specific and ridiculous war support, or choice, or his genuine misogyny (which the Hillary delegates for McCain conveniently ignore), or any of the hundreds of other issues? - but Casey was much, much better than Warner's milquetoast.

Josh just posted that he thinks the Warner keynote wasn't as bad as he expected.  I guess my expectations were not sufficiently low. 

Can Hillary get it right?  We'll see in a few moments.

The trouble I've seen

There's lots of speculation that Joe Lieberman is going to be John McCain's vice presidential running mate, and there's some polling questions that seem to back this up. I've been talking about this for some time. Joe Lieberman is one of the worst things to happen to the modern Democratic Party and the one great mistake that Al Gore made was to elevate him to an undeserved prominence. Water under the bridge, I know, but it's a pretty foul and polluted stream.

My non-scientific odds on McCain's VP selection have been something like the following:

• 35% - Joe Lieberman or, if his polling is poor, another nominee designed to draw the Jewish vote, such as the abominable Eric Cantor (who theoretically helps in his home state of Virginia while also helping peel off a portion of the Jewish vote in Florida).
• 30% - A woman, to boost McCain's push to convince deluded female Clinton supporters (no, I don't respect them; sorry). Now that Carly Fiorina has made a fool of herself on various occasions, a leading candidate is Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO that McCain mentioned in the Saddleback Church/Rick Warren "Forum on Faith" as one of the three most important people that he listens to.
• 20% - Mitt Romney. Please, please, please, let it be Romney. McCain cannot be that stupid, but please, please, please, let it be Romney!
• 15% - Wildcard pick (Tim Pawlenty, perhaps, if McCain decides to play it safe with his base).

The odds on the first two categories have remained strong as a result of Barack Obama's white bread choice of Joe Biden as his veep running mate. That choice, which I hope doesn't come back to haunt Barack, gives McCain the opportunity to make a choice that looks "bold." I don't think I'm very happy about this.

Have I mentioned how much I would like to see Mitt Romney on the Republican ticket?

Hey, wait a minute

OK, my enthusiasm yesterday regarding the MIT "discovery" regarding solar power and what amounts to more efficient electrolysis of water for a hydrogen fuel cell, was apparently misplaced, and my prior skepticism is restored.

Moving to hydrogen as an end-use fuel presents many challenges, and the cost and efficiency of electrolysis are rather minor in the larger scope. Shifting from concentrated and easily transportable fuel sources (oil converted to gasoline/diesel) to diffuse sources (solar/wind/biomass) converted to a somewhat less concentrated and much less transportable fuel (hydrogen) will result in energy inefficiencies that cannot be overcome (entropy problem). In addition, substantial changes in infrastructure are needed, and in the context of higher energy costs in the near term, making these changes will be difficult. (See the Hirsch Report for a sobering assessment.) Both an articulation and an assessment of the real challenges are somehow absent in the excitement generated by the Nocera et. al. report. Hydrogen will have uses, particularly in energy storage, but solving a few problems (when they are actually solved) will not painlessly transition us to a new energy future.

One day we'll walk in the sun

This is impressive (and makes me look too cynical in my prior Triflin' Energy Drainin' post, altough that analysis, in my view, remains correct in its premise). It looks like researchers at MIT may have found a way to address some of the most significant issues that raised so much concern for me in that post. This could be monumental.

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Basically, MIT scientists claim to have found a way to efficiently split the hydrogen and oxygen from water in order to "store" the energy, and then release the energy again in a fuel cell. This has been, in my view, the only way hydrogen fuel cells make sense - as an ultra-efficient battery to store clean energy, which makes sense but only if you can get beyond the multiple hurdles of inefficiency, sourcing the hydrogen from a clean source (water, rather than natural gas, for instance), and utilizing electricity that comes from a clean source. The scientists claim that they:

. . . have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

Significantly, unlike current methods of electrolysis to split the atoms in water, this method uses normal water at room temperature conditions, mimicing the process of photosysnthesis.

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

This still seems to have a way to go, given that solar cells are still fairly inefficient at capturing the sun's energy (a technical problem), and extremely expensive (a commercialization and mass marketing problem). It also seems to me to be less of a solar play than a hydrogen play. But for hydrogen cells to make sense, they need to go together.

Brave new world.

Update: Looks like MIT has pushed the envelope on honestly reporting the "discovery" and the media badly muffed getting the story right. Details in a follow-up email.

Turning this into a waste land

"Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct."

That's the first sentence from the AP article today on the Bush Administration's draft regulations that would effectively gut the Endangered Species Act. I guess I really need to stop being stunned.

"The draft rules would bar federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats."

And then there's this:

"The new regulations follow a pattern by the Bush administration not to seek input from its scientists. The regulations were drafted by attorneys at both the Interior and Commerce Departments. Scientists with both agencies were first briefed on the proposal last week during a conference call, according to an official who asked not to be identified.

Last month, in similar fashion, the Environmental Protection Agency surprised its scientific experts when it decided it did not want to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act."

January 2009 cannot come too soon.

Don't you believe them

OK, I just had to flag Bruce's Fan of the Month. Check it out.

Listen to the banjo wind

OK, so if you've been reading this blog much (OK, I know that's not terribly likely), it must be obvious that I think Abigail Washburn is the bomb. It is fair to say that I am enamored with her, from her work with Uncle Earl to her new venture as the Sparrow Quartet.

Over the past several years, much of my pleasure and personal growth, outside of watching my daughters mature into beautiful, intelligent and a bit challenging young women, has come through the evolution of my views on and appreciation of music. That's a bit strange, perhaps, for someone who never made the commitment to become much of a musician. But listening to good music, starting with Bruce Hornsby and beyond into the musical influnces in Hornsby's music, from jazz to hip-hop to pop to bluegrass - has brought a dimension and depth to the music and artistry that interests me, and to the cultural ties and values and character in that music and artistry, which I think help round me out, make me more thoughtful (I'd like to think), and hopefully more interesting.

And so this musical journey has led me to a discovery of other musicians and sounds, to the Camp Meeting-inspired jazz tour through Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett.

And then veering off to the jazz-infused bluegrass banjo of Alison Brown, and the country-bluegrass-American folk singer and violinist Carrie Rodriguez. Carrie's Seven Angels on a Bicycle is a beautiful, lightly produced, intimate album, and her work with Chip Taylor is tremendous. And it turns out that Carrie Rodriguez has a brand new album just released this week, and is the iTunes Discovery Artist of the Week, with a free download of the track "Infinite Night" through tomorrow. Then there's also Patty Griffin's Impossible Dream, and Allison Krauss, and Crooked Still, and Adrienne Young, and Allison Moorer. Either most of the creativity in folk music is by women, particularly with those named a variation of Allison, or there's some particular insight into my id there.

And somewhere in all that came the discovery of Uncle Earl and, as a result, Abigail Washburn. I don't have the vocabulary or musical knowledge to describe her work in any satisfactory way. But if you read this, and haven't had a chance to listen to "Waterloo, Tennessee" with Uncle Earl, or "Song of the Traveling Daughter" (I think I could listen to the deeply moving Red and Blazing for hours on end without tiring of it, yet my wife doesn't understand the appeal of it at all), or her new offering "Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet," you should. The novel mixture - not a fusion, but rather a surprisingly harmonious coexistence - of American bluegrass with Chinese folk music is brilliant and hypnotic and thought provoking.

Yet I'd be dishonest if I didn't also point out that tied up in my pleasure in Abigail Washburn's music is also some jealousy. While I have spent my life letting events guide me from place to place, visionaries like Abigail are capable of seeing and taking new directions, new directions which some may not see or may instead fear. The fear, that is, of the risks of stepping off a well-heeled trail or of the burdens and obligations that would be laid at the feet of others if the new course leads to failure.

Which still leaves an opportunity to explore internally.

And so back to the musical journey, which although seemingly varied and unrelated, is also somehow interconnected and consistent. I've found that not only do my musical interests frequently intersect, but the music seems to intersect with my values and ideals and other interests. Superficially, listening to Abigail singing in Chinese creates interest in reading and adding more depth of meaning to the recent National Geographic issue on China and the ongoing discussion on China in that magazine, as well as James Fallows' monthly dispatches from China in the Atlantic Monthly (which, of course, all ties in nicely with the Beijing Olympics - despite being conflicted between an interest in the Olympic games and Chinese culture, versus a deep concern with Chinese human rights, environmental and political lapses). But the intersection (and introspection) works on much deeper levels, too.

Musically, when Abigail Washburn formed the Sparrow Quartet, combining her banjo playing skills with Bela Fleck, it took me back to the origination of my interest in bluegrass, through Bruce Hornsby, who has had a long and productive relationship with Bela Fleck (the rare Jewish banjo genius). Fleck and Bruce collaborated on a number of Fleck albums, and Fleck appears on White Wheeled Limousine, Barren Ground, Fire on the Cross and perhaps other songs that I cannot recall at the moment. So it seems quite natural and right that my interests in the distinctive musical styles of Abigail Washburn and Bruce Hornsby would intersect, through the connections with Fleck, despite the lack of apparent similarity, since that's where my broader musical voyage began.

And it's not all that surprising, then, that Bruce and Bela and Abigail (not to mention Sam Bush and Arlo Guthrie) all played at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival back in late June (though I don't think Bruce played with Abigail).

And when I learned of Abigail's interest in Tibet and her belief that a long term solution to the political, religious and geographic disputes with China is enhanced by helping to build cultural ties, I was impressed but not entirely surprised that her worldview favors peace and progress through understanding. It is, in a way, another manifestation of the harmonious coexistence that guides her music, an interest in creating a harmonious coexistence of cultures.

And when she says this, and backs it up with a fundraiser performance, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, although it brought a big smile to my face:

"I hope Obama wins. I believe in a better future when I think about him as President."

Harmonious coexistence.



Update: Apparently Newsweek did an article on Abigail Washburn last month. Here it is.

China Doll

The 2008 Olympic Games began yesterday in Beijing. In honor of the games, and putting aside the numerous issues regarding China's social, environmental and political issues, it sounds like a perfect occation for another clip of Abigail Washburn.

Maybe I'll cruise bars in futile search of perfect 10's

I don't want to comment on this, but here it is.

Brings to mind Bob Shrum's Time Magazine article where he conveyed the story about John Kerry's distrust of John Edwards.

I'll buy the special meal with the prize

I know this is a taboo issue for feminists. And this is a site that you can bring your kids to - it's sort of like Disney World in words, right? But, as a follow up to yesterday's post, and since I posted the PETA picture of Amanda Beard in that article (so why not jump all in?), I will just comment that vegetarians are hot. My wife included (but not pictured).

We can be so helpless, helpless and so strong

The November ballot in California will include Proposition 2, known as the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, to prevent cruel and inhumane practices toward farm animals, including the confinement of animals in cages so small that they cannot turn around.

Both Andrew Sullivan and Nick Kristof have pointed attention to this proposal, to their great credit. And I don't want to be critical of their comments. But something struck me in both of their pieces, and it's emblematic of how animal rights issues are handled generally in the mainstream media.

Specifically, both had to caveat their positions in favor of these proposals by making it clear that they were not vegetarians and, in Andrew's case, that he does not agree with everything about the animal rights movement. Yet I wonder why commentary on civility and humanity towards animals has to have a qualification regarding discomfort with parts of the animal rights movement.

It is an almost universal phenomenon, apparently the accepted way of making any commentary acknowledging the basic rights of living creatures to some form of compassion and dignity in life. And whenever I read stories or posts regarding animal rights on the web, there is an outpouring of commentary on the evils of the animal rights movement or PETA, or, from the more obnoxious, just how delicious a slab of pork tastes.

However, regardless of the merits or flaws of PETA or other organizations, I am just not sure why any attempt to address inhumane treatment of animals requires one to distance from the excesses or perceived misdeeds of an organization that agrees with your position. I can hear all of the arguments why the caveat is needed - gaining credibility by showing an absence of extremism, placing the author in the mainstream, whatever.

But why does the so-called animal rights movement deserve a special type of distancing? Within every movement, there are extremes. Does any comment on every issue require distancing from the radicals within a movement that has taken some ownership of that issue?(Do I need to condemn Michael Moore if I comment on problems in the health care system?) Is it just perceived "liberal" causes? Is it because vegetarianism is seen as freakish and anti-American within the general community (what good American doesn't love a good steak and potatoes)?

The animal rights movement, as it were, is not PETA.

The pro-Israel Jewish community is not AIPAC, or Joe Lieberman, or Doug Feith. Nobody in their right mind inserts "I'm not a Jew and don't agree with everything in the Zionist movement" into articles on Israel.

The gay community is not the HRC. Andrew Sullivan would certainly never say "I don't agree with everything in the gay rights movement" in his posts on gay marriage. But of course, he understands as well as anyone that a wide range of attitudes and behaviors and perspectives exist in the gay community.

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Look, I'm not an activist, but I do believe strongly in animal rights. I am offended by the cruelty to animals that exists in most commercial animal farming. That, along with several other issues, led to me become a vegetarian. Given what I have seen, the idea that you can produce and eat meat humanely is a fiction, which people can cognitively maintain solely because our society insulates us from the reality of the process of factory farming. But I, like most vegetarians and most people concerned with animal rights, don't attack non-vegetarians. I eat and drink dairy products, but others choose not to, and they often do it from a highly moral position. I am on the board of directors of a zoo, surely a position that would offend some PETA extremists who may object to caging wild animals.  And I actually do see that point.  Yet almost everyone at the zoo is a strong advocate for animal rights. My oldest daughter volunteers at the local SPCA. We support the Humane Society and the Jane Goodall Institute.

But the opinion makers in the media have decided that, in order to make a comment about humane treatment of animals, they have to make a concerted effort to distance themselves from the most extreme behavior of the most extreme organization in that cause. And then, as Andrew did today, follow that up with a post against PETA just to make sure we get the point. So they choose to marginalize the cause, to prove that they are not extremists.

Nick Kristof did the same thing in his OpEd on Proposition 2 in the New York Times last week, saying:

My hunch is that in a century or two, our descendants will look back on our factory farms with uncomprehending revulsion. But in the meantime, I love a good burger.

I will set aside the question of the level of moral courage exhibited or missing from that statement.

But values are values, and shouldn't need a caveat.

What's also somewhat striking to me is that it seems so easy to be outraged by the antics of a silly and, frankly, marginal group of activists, empowered mostly by their ability to seek out celebrities. Particularly when most of the people who are associated with the animal rights cause are good people who care about the same thing that people like Andrew Sullivan and Nick Kristof claim to care about. At the same time, the general consensus view in our society is to not be particularly bothered by man's inhumanity to animals (or, too often, to man), and to ridicule those who do. As a vegetarian, I am well aware that it's rare that a vegetarian can go out with non-vegetarians and not be harassed and subject to ridicule for their moral choice.

So, what if a bunch of radicals choose to act stupid and make over the top comments?

And when compared to the daily moral outrage on the other extreme, is PETA's occasional or even frequent bad judgment really deserving of the routine condemnation it receives from the mainstream? Is it really better to condemn those who are trying to do something good, even though they may occassionally cross an invisible line and offend the oversensitive, just so you can keep face with those who don't want to be troubled with a painful truth?

Change doesn't come from those who are not willing to take action.

And that action starts with each of us.

Everybody's buying important things for their lives

Greg Sargent at TPM is currently documenting some of the shenanigans going on with oil company employee contributions to the RNC. Party contributions are allowed at the $28,000 per person level. So, while mister fair-play anti-lobbyist (who just happens to have a campaign staffed by lobbyists) John McCain pretends to be capped by the fundraising limits set on his presidential campaign by agreeing to take federal matching funds, the Republican National Committee is out raising essentially unlimited dollars being funneled by Republican-leaning industries through its employees.

Of course, we're supposed to believe that all of this doesn't matter because the McCain campaign and the RNC are not allowed to "coordinate".

And I've got some swampland for sale in the Everglades (if McCain and Crist don't strike a deal to turn it over to the oil industry first).

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign has the nerve to attack Senator Obama for not accepting matching funds so that he can do unlimited fundraising (at the $2300 per person level).

And the media plays along.

Running with the wrong set

It looks like the push for Wes Clark as Barack Obama's running mate is picking up steam again. A petition drive is currently up. All of my prior reasons for endorsing this view still stand.

Here's General Clark's interview with TPM from a couple of weeks ago.