A bed with iron rails

This is....well, just watch.

Blow up and lose my head well I hope I don't (well, I hope I don't)

I think this shows the problem with speaking extemporaneously about something, trying to avoid conflict, and just completely stepping in it.

Here's Coach K, asked yesterday to comment on Joe Paterno:

“Well, I think, unless you’re there, it’s tough to comment about everything,’’ Krzyzewski said. “I just feel badly for him and whatever he is responsible for, it’ll come out and hopefully it’ll come out from him.

“I think one thing you have to understand is that Coach Paterno’s 84 years old. I’m not saying that for an excuse or whatever. The cultures that he’s been involved in both football-wise and socially, have been immense changes and how social issues are handled in those generations are quite different.

“But as we judge, remember that there’s just a lot there. There’s a lot, lot there. I think he’s a great man and it’s a horrific situation.”

Presumably Krzyzewski is trying to be diplomatic, to be a fair-minded man, not to wonder aloud and all, but still.

If he wanted to avoid saying anything negative about Paterno, Krzyzewski should have demurred. No conversation about the Penn State situation should include any form of rationalization or feeling badly for Joe Paterno. And certainly no commentary about Paterno being a great man. I'm pretty sure I know how history should treat JoePa at this point, indelible stains and all. But that's for history's judgement, if it is too horrifying to be history's dustbin. Right now, this tragic situation demands a detachment from Paterno and instead a focus on those abused kids and how the hell this happened in the first place. This being the crimes and the rug that it was all swept under. Under that old man's ethical watch.

(No, I don't trust that the Times has printed the full context of the quote, either. Perhaps Coach K deserves a little bit of wiggle room on this. I would have rather Krzyzewski never said a word on this topic. Now part of me is hoping for clarification, knowing the best thing is that Krzyzewski never utters another public word about Joe Paterno.)

Meanwhile, here's what happens when extemporaneousness meets a vacuum.



This is what happens when you're not even curious, because you know that you are not really expected to know or think through anything, other than that you disagree with what the other guy is doing, simply because that is what the other guy is doing. Instead, you rely on the idea that people will just know that you know enough to listen to someone else who you know knows something. Because of your aura.

Substance is irrelevant. Substantive policy is irrelevant.

That's what is known as leadership.

Why don't you come and lay with me

I'm not sure why I am posting on the Penn State scandal, but I wanted to throw a couple of thoughts out there. I'm not going to make this the most articulate post ever. But, a few things need to be said, if just for me. I might change my mind on some of this, but this is where I am at right now.

1. Paterno.

Joe Paterno had to go. He's getting off, frankly, quite easy. He doesn't deserve it. To get off easy, that is.

Remember, this man, this so-called paragon of virtue, the model for men, the image that every other coach with "integrity" pointed to, couldn't be bothered to protect children - elementary school aged boys - from a predator. This isn't the case of having a small lapse in judgement at the time he supposedly discovered that Jerry Sandusky was raping a young boys in the team's locker room. Read that again, by the way. Sandusky was raping kids. This isn't open for debate. Telling your boss isn't a defense for allowing this to happen, and to continue to happen. How holier-than-thou JoePa could look Sandusky in the eye, or allow in his locker room, or anywhere near his university (because, it was JoePa's university), is simply staggeringly incomprehensible. It would be so if there had only been one "incident."

But that's not the case, either. This wasn't a momentary lapse of judgement. This was a choice that Paterno made for a dozen years, if not longer. Sandusky "retired" from coaching in 1999, after apparently being accused of child molestation in 1998. The top assistant coach in the nation, he was never offered a more senior coaching position, never became a head coach. Because back then, the University and the team (any difference?), and perhaps the broader coaching world, already knew that he was using the university and the team and his "charity" to take advantage of children, to scout them out, to pick his next vulnerable victim. There is no way that Paterno didn't know about this. Yet he still called Sandusky one of his best friends, still honored him and his charitable works that were designed to allow Sandusky to prey on children. Day after day, year after year, Joe Paterno called Sandusky a friend. Day after day, year after year, Joe Paterno knew what Sandusky did, what Sandusky was doing. Day after day, year after year, Joe Paterno did nothing to stop him, to remove him from the campus, or to get Sandusky away from the vulnerable kids that he was abusing. This is a choice made by a man with something rotting in his core, and no amount of good deeds can erase what Joe Paterno allowed to happen under his nose.

Any excuses made for Paterno that he is an old man, or look at all the great things he did - well, they don't cut it. Joe Paterno was capable of coaching one of the top football programs in the nation - or at least of being the face of it. And, he wasn't an 84 year old man when he learned of this. He was no older than 75. And really, he was likely younger than that. This could not have been a surprise. Moreover, the idea that his judgement is worse due to frailty and old age is simply incredible. With age is supposed to come wisdom, I've heard.

Instead of wisdom, Joe Paterno made excuses. His statement that he would retire at the end of the season, and that the Trustees should not spend one more minute thinking about him, may be one of the most galling, self-serving statements I have ever seen, but Paterno clearly believes that he is the Center. Because that's the way it always has been for Joe Paterno. He's a man in a bubble. And, it turns out, a coward.

2. Penn State University.

I don't understand any of what happened at Penn State, why anyone would have covered this up, except that they had to be covering up their prior cover up. The only explanation I can conceive of for ignoring the 2002 locker room rape incident is that the University and the coaching staff feared that their knowledge of Sandusky's prior molestations would come to light. I don't like blind speculation, but nothing else makes any sense.

There's a lot of information flying about right now, and it's hard to determine what is accurate and what is not, but it appears that Sandusky's "predilection" was an open secret. Regardless of how open, it is likely that the Penn State coaching staff had to know Sandusky liked molesting young boys, but were somehow willing to overlook it because he was, in those circles, admired for his coaching and, well, if they didn't see it, it wasn't their business. Which is nonsense, but still. Doing it on campus, in the locker room, that crossed a line, but by then Penn State was already in too deep. They couldn't act then, because by that point, any action would condemn their previous actions (or lack thereof). In for a penny, in for a pound (so to speak).

Every one of those people should go down with Paterno.

3. Hero Worship.

The outcry in support of Joe Paterno by a loud (hopefully) minority is sad and pathetic. I'm struggling with this thought a bit, but I think that if I were an employer, and I was interviewing anyone who was at Penn State at this moment in time, I would Google their name and ensure that the name didn't come up in one of the stories about the riots, or JoePa defenders. Their judgement is so bad as to disqualify them from anything for which I could ever hire them. These kids rioted in support of a man who enabled a predator.

Maybe that's unfair. They're kids, right? It was a sudden response and they didn't have time to think, right?

But I think that that's just nonsense. That's beyond a mere failure of critical thought and judgement. It's a moral failing. Hopefully those kids will come to regret their behavior, but I wouldn't want any of them to ever, ever work for me. They gave in to foolishness and immorality and mob mentality.

Hero worship is like that. It gets rolled up into identity and can blind you to reality, particularly when image and reality, so seemingly in alignment, suddenly don't match up. There's a choice between reality and image, and if your identity is tied into imagery, reality is often doomed. Circle the wagons, our own identities are at stake. If JoePa isn't the awesomest man ever, then what does that make of those who worshiped at his altar?

It seems to me part and parcel with the current Herman Cain scandal and it's accompanying silliness - because it is silly, although that doesn't mean it's not also troubling and dangerous, or that Herman Cain is not a credible (but only because of what it says of the GOP) candidate. I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

But, people choose affiliations, and for many people - the ideologically rigid, the small minded, the paid pundits, the con artists, the gullible - those affiliations are unbreakable. Bill Clinton was a sleaze, of course, for womanizing, but now it turns out that the female accusers of the Hermanator are plants from the "Democrat Machine," are money hungry publicity hounds, and, it also turns out, that there is really no such thing as sexual harassment. It goes the other way, too. I'm not claiming that consistency is the exclusive province of one side of the ideological spectrum.

Consistency and logic unfortunately don't seem have a role when you're talking about identity and affiliation. It's all about defending your cause. So, St. Joe followed the rules, reported what he heard to his superiors, and had no other responsibility whatsoever. And now he's being railroaded. That's the logic of identity, the aura and fanaticism of hero worship. There's a mythology, an almost religious adherence to a narrative of greatness, that is unshakable to its adherents.

4. The NCAA, Sanctions and the U.

One of my initial reactions to this scandal was that - here we have the University of Miami, likely facing dire NCAA sanctions because some kids were getting paid by a booster so that those kid could provide the University with a profitable venture, yet Penn State isn't going to face NCAA consequences for enabling a child rapist. It seems so incredibly unfair. Much of what happened at Miami was wrong, but not criminal (or, where it was, it was within the realm of a technical criminality that is commonplace). Yet Miami will face much harsher consequences from the governing body of the sport than Penn State will face. (Only time will tell what consequence will be imposed by the school or more-level-headed students or alumni or fans. In a just world, the University trustees would dissolve the football program. But that's not the world in which we live.)

I think I'm off that fence, though. Penn State doesn't provide UM with a pass here. At the same time as Penn State was enabling a rapist, UM was allowing someone to pay for prostitutes and abortions. It's hard to believe that the UM coaching staff could have been entirely unaware of what was going on. It's much easier to believe that they chose not to know.

I don't think that this was or is unique to the University of Miami. And I am in no way equating what happened at Penn State to what happened at Miami. There is a disgusting vulgarity to Penn State that is matchless, incomprehensible, vile.

Nevertheless.

I liked Randy Shannon while he was coaching Miami, and had thought he was a class act. He may have not won it all, but he was doing things the right way, right? That's what we were told. Shannon, it was said, was rebuilding Miami's football program with integrity, dignity, increased scholarship, all in the image of Penn State and Joe Paterno.

I don't think the similarities are things UM would now like to acknowledge.

Sticks and Stones

The other day I noticed that the Right was all up in another one of their panic fits because a new Libyan leader stated that Sharia law would be the basis for law in the new Libyan republic. Uh-oh, that means it's a future terrorist state, they are saying.

Juan Cole points out that the constitutions of Afghanistan and Iraq, both drafted under the guidance of the Bush Administration, each explicitly provide that all laws must conform to Islamic law:

But there is no hand-wringing about those two “liberated” countries and Islamic law or sharia. I guess if secular, communist Afghanistan was made fundamentalist by Reagan and Bush, or if the relatively secular Baath Party of Iraq was overthrown by W. in favor of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Islamic Call Party and the Bloc of Ayatollah Sadr II, that is unobjectionable and not even reported on. But if there’s a Democratic president in the White House, all of a sudden it is a scandal if Muslims practice Muslim law.

Let it go, let it drop

I really should be able to let this issue go by now, but it remains a frustrating thorn for me.

Yesterday, Sully's Ask Me Anything video clip was answering the question, "How Would President Hillary Be Different." Andrew gave what was a pretty meh answer - not so much, blah blah blah. Whatever. It's not the answer that bugged me so much, as the premise.

What's the motivation for that question, anyway? It remains the odd case that a lot of Hillary Clinton campaign supporters still hold on to the idea that Hillary Clinton should have been president. I should resist stereotyping that group as feminists, but...yeah, it's a lot of strong feminists, smart ones even, whom I often respect tremendously - but then there's this issue. Deep down they still seem to hold views almost as irritating as the Republican base view that Barack Obama is an illegitimate president. Remember that Hillary's campaign was the first to stoke the flames of birtherism and Obama-is-Muslim-ism. Those embers have not entirely burned out. Clinton supporters don't still argue that Obama isn't American, but they often remain attached to their view that Hillary/they were entitled, and that all of the Administration's so-called failures are the result of Hillary's destiny having been robbed of her. Obama is weak. Obama's style isn't to their liking. They believe Barack Obama stole Hillary's (and their) victory.

It's all this stuff wrapped around the politics of identity and hope, and the sense that it was Hillary's time and time for a great leap forward for women, and whatever else. And that's all fine, and somewhat understandable, given American history where The Women of the U.S. Government is more likely a Playboy pictorial rather than a statement about elected officials (though it bears mention that there are a record number of women serving in the 112th Congress). Still, to make that more important than everything represented by Barack Obama, well, come on folks. But this isn't about that. This is about the argument that Hillary Clinton was entitled to the Presidency, and that Barack Obama got in her way.

Frankly, I'm calling bullshit.

In simple terms, here's reality. Hillary would not be President today if she had won the nomination.

That's not a comment on Hillary's qualifications, her ability, or what kind of success she could have had as President (though I think much less than President Obama, for a number of reasons). I always supported the Obama campaign, but I never disliked Hillary - well, not until she campaigned the way she did, but her service as Secretary of State has restored my respect.

But let's first discuss electoral reality. I know that reality doesn't much matter in alternative histories, or histrionics, but it matters to me. And the reality is that Hillary Clinton could not have won any states in the South, save perhaps (but not necessarily) Florida - but most of Florida isn't really the South, anyway. A Democrat winning North Carolina or Virginia is simply inconceivable if Barack Obama had not been the nominee. I'm really not even willing to entertain the argument, because it would be disingenuous and silly.

For purposes of argument I would even discount the fact that Hillary's campaign was directed by the ridiculously incompetent Mark Penn, and consider, for this paragraph alone, the possibility of a narrow Clinton victory in a general election, all other things being equal (which, of course, they were not - but more on that in a moment). Even with this hypothetical narrow electoral Hillary Clinton victory, Hillary would have had very different coattails. Hillary Clinton would not have enjoyed the brief and incredibly successful period of a supermajority senate that led (despite - I would actually argue made possible by - the Kennedy-to-Brown switch) to the misnamed "Obamacare" and the slew of other legislative successes of Obama's first two years. Would Hillary Clinton, again all things being equal, have done much the same as Barack Obama? Possibly. But then again, all things would not have been equal.

But that brings us back to whether there was any possibility of Hillary Clinton being sworn in as President. And there are two words that pretty much change the whole picture: Sarah Palin.

John McCain would have never selected Sarah Palin as his running mate if Hillary had been the nominee. Palin was, among other things, a cheap, shallow attempt to attract female voters who were angry (see above) about Hillary losing the nomination. The cynical ploy was aggressive on numerous fronts, as the McCain campaign ran ads, including the infamous "Passed Over" ad, to explicitly woo Clinton voters and simultaneously point out that the Democrat didn't have a woman on his ticket (but John McCain did). And then there was the incredibly dishonest PUMA movement, their anger and insistence that Hillary was treated unfairly (by the media or by Obama? I never could figure it out), and the claim by a quarter of Clinton supporters following Hillary's concession speech that they would vote for McCain. McCain would have a female running mate. The brilliant McCain campaign believed that Sarah Palin would seal-the-deal. The idea that McCain could win the presidency by peeling off Clinton voters might have been terribly poor strategy (or not - it may have simply been a complete failure of execution, their tactics rather than their strategy), but it was in fact one of their most important strategies in the election.

The McCain campaign also thought they could overcome Palin's obvious inexperience by using it to highlight the argument of the Base that Barack Obama had no experience. They thought it was fine to have the issue of experience front-and-center because they truly believed it would hurt Barack Obama more, because a campaign focused on experience would benefit the guy who had been there forever. In that sense, Palin's inexperience as (lack of) qualification was ridiculously perceived as an electoral advantage. Maybe I'm giving John McCain more credit than he is due, although if you go back and read my blog entries from the campaign, including long before Sarah Palin was even firing off starbursts in the eyes and shorts of middle-aged conservatives, you'd see that it was unlikely that I would have ever given that huckster more credit than is his due. Still, it is simply inconceivable to believe that the McCain campaign, as it were, could have tried the Palin trick if Hillary - who also campaigned against Obama on the basis of her experience - was at the top of the ticket. The premise for Palin's ascendancy would have simply not existed.

Now, some may say that is another reason why Hillary should have been the nominee, because the nomination of Hillary Clinton would have prevented the foisting of Palin on greater America. But that would miss the point, too, because the selection of Palin was a dramatically important revelation, about John McCain and about the state of conservatism. It wasn't really that the sorry state was news, but the media felt free to ignore it. A Clinton nomination would have simply allowed a continuation of the old narratives. John McCain was a media darling. John McCain ran against George W. Bush eight years earlier. He was often supposedly at odds with is party. The myth of McCain the Maverick enabled so-called fair-minded people to ignore the intellectual and moral rot of institutional conservatism.

Instead, more than anything else, the selection of Palin, which would have never occurred following a nomination of Hillary Clinton, revealed the real John McCain, his colossally poor judgment and cravenness, which he has only continued to show (plus, bitterness!) in the three years since his defeat. Instead of so-called experience, the campaign turned on temperament and judgement, two issues that the McCain's Palin selection (and Obama's character) put in a different contrast. That's the environment in which Obama was able to present his case to America. That playing field would have been much different for Hillary Clinton. Hillary wouldn't have been campaigning against the creepy get-off-my-grass curmudgeon.

Hillary Clinton would have faced the John McCain that people pretended was a great guy, the war hero they imagined him to be, the buddy of journalists and John Stewart. Hillary Clinton would have faced the John McCain that my friend who was on the leadership of the Florida Democratic Party told me he would vote for in a general election between McCain and Clinton. It's something he told me as he headed to a $500-minimum Clinton fundraising event.

So let's not reinvent history. Let it go.

People Say They've Got The Game Rigged

Supposedly Wall Street hates President Obama. Slate told me so the other day. There are all these quotes from some angry bank executives to prove it. And I'm not saying Slate is necessarily wrong about "Wall Street's" likes and dislikes.

So if that's the case, 'splain this to me, if you would. Why has President Obama received more contributions from financial sector employees than all of the Republican contenders (and not so contenders) combined?

(I know, I know, this just proves to the Progressives that the President is owned by those financial corporations. Because every employee of a corporation is a monolithic reflection of that corporation's mindset - whatever mindset a corporation can have. And support of someone within a "corporation" means you hate the "people." Sigh.)

I Hope Someday They'll Say Hooray For Me

President Obama receives more negative coverage than his slew of Republican challengers. This is not a surprise. His genuine moderation makes him a target from the right and the left. So-called Progressives may claim that this moderation is a sign of weakness, or that he really isn't on their side. They don't understand. It's what enables the President to get anything done - and he has achieved far more for the Progressive agenda than any President in my lifetime - and to hold the line on existing progressive policies.

Get a Job

The Occupy Wall Street movement seems to be gaining some real traction, and reflecting some real anger. But what do you do with that anger? Anger's not sufficient, and misdirecting that at the the current resident of the White House, who isn't perfect but actually gets their point and is too often stuck with the choice of do-less-harm or leave-the-asylum-to-the-inmates (which doesn't, I'll point out, make him weak), is counterproductive. I'm sympathetic to the frustration, but most of the damage is already done and largely irreversible. There is no Robin Hood. How do you move the rudder in a way that changes our course but does it in a way that carries a nation in its current?

One of my closest friends who is an absolute mensch, an incredible parent, a good soul, a progressive thinker, a Democratic voter, thinks that manipulating loopholes to structure annuities for relatively wealthy old people so that they can qualify for government handouts is doing justice. The beneficiaries of these annuities are entitled to restructure their economic reality because the law permits it, and by helping them do it, he's doing right by his family and he's doing right by America. Who gives a darn about where it comes from, who has to pay, or who gets less as a result? That's not the lucky citizen's problem. You take the law as you find it. It's all about getting the most for yourself, whether you're getting paid to make it happen, or getting the fruits of it.

Some people are just entitled. The right-wing argues against "entitlements" designed to lift up those in need, but they have their claws deep in their sense of entitlement to every advantage they can muster. If you get a tax break, or a bailout, or a school voucher, if anything allows you to get a leg up, then you're entitled to it. If a program or a social service helps someone else, it's (speaking in Italics) an entitlement. The privileged don't have to match up both sides of the ledger.

A different friend of mine - one who is reliably, consistently, and (to his credit) a principled conservative, despite the fact that we disagree on just about every issue - argued today that a 20-something begging for debt relief is foolish. He's right, of course. There's effectively no chance this will happen, despite the hole in which current college graduates are finding themselves, as individual student college loan debts have increased five-fold over the past dozen years while job prospects have plummeted in the current recession. But when you see old white teapartiers decrying medicare cuts while opposing universal heathcare, and the hundreds of other ways that the oh-so-aggrieved haves expect their own privilege and resent the way those others expect a have, or even a half-a-have, of their own - because it's their country, it's their apple pie, not yours - well, it's hard not to sympathize with the Occupy Wall Street protester's sentiment. When you see that banks and multinational corporations are entitled to bailouts for stupid decisions but individuals have to look forward to a future of suffering a mountain of unforgivable debt for doing what those institutions told them was the right thing to do - invest in your education, invest in your home - it's hard not to sympathize with their anger, even if the ones expressing that anger haven't earned that sympathy through anything they did themselves.

In a fair world, it shouldn't be that hard to generate some understanding for the counterargument that - kids, just shut up. You may have some college debt, but even if you're living at your parent's home, you mostly have a place to live that's not a cardboard box under a highway. You're mostly not fighting the Nazis in a foxhole (outside of the PS3 in your mom's basement). So sip your latte and get over it, you entitled little brats. Them's the breaks, and there are no guarantees in this world. Life is hard work. Go bake your own triple mochaccino pie. Responsibility means taking care of yourself.

The government used to expect a lot from its people - minor things like saving the free world and whatnot - but the government seemed to have their backs, too. What they got, they got because it was their right, because it was the nation's responsibility to them, even if it was often really their dads and uncles in those foxholes, and (ok, Southeast Asia, anyone?) they were ducking-and-covering while the welfare state irresponsibly wasted our tax dollars pretending to land someone on the moon.

Today, however, the government asks for very little from us, young, old, in-between. Service to your fellow Americans is optional. Yet we all want, and all we want is, more, more, more. More gigabytes. More prescriptions. More healthcare. More regulations. More immigrants. More iPods.

And more. More - and better - jobs. We want more of a role in a system where legislators have abdicated governance to unseen bosses, both theirs and ours. We want more of our elected representatives having-our-backs and not just the backs of those corporations-are-people-too-and-executives-are-the-corporation, who insist that we deregulate the tax code and the work environment and the planet and reward risky corporate recklessness so the bankers and traders and senior executives can get bonuses and the icecaps can melt away and the mountaintops wash out to the ocean, white with foam, all to unburden the economy and unleash the raw power of capitalism and liberty and manifest destiny and reLOVEution. Or something. We all want more of that pie-in-the-sky, and that light from above. We want more responsibility, both from us and for us.

It's a distraction, though. Government isn't the problem. The particular state of our government and governance is a disaster, but the cause is selfishness and empty promises and greed and ask not what you can do for your country or what your country can do for anyone else, but what your country can do for you. Or me. Government can help solve problems, or government can be blamed for problems, or government can create problems, or who the heck knows, governing isn't my problem. I just want what's coming to me, what I'm owed, what's my there's-only-one-true-God-given right as, you know, a real American. The first and last responsibility is to that reflection in the mirror.

But none of this is an answer. At best, and that's maybe giving too much credit, it's a conversation. I don't know that it helps, particularly if nobody - particularly those doing the reporting, and even those doing the talking - is even listening. Expressing anger is important, even without a clear message. It just not enough, and it's definitely not Michael Moore or Ralph Effing Nader.

When I first read those words in the sign above, they seemed like nonsense, a shallow frat-boy crock of whining. But perhaps they're more profound than I perceived, because the more you think about it, the more you realize that Shit is truly, totally, completely fucked up and bullshit.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Matt on Conservative Nostalgia:

But from a non-bigoted conservative point of view, what is there really to miss about the America John Boehner grew up it? The tax rates were high, but at least they didn’t let Jews into the country club?

Boo Radley

This.

Cartoons and Candy

a short history of CG characters in movies from lnrdshelby on Vimeo.

There were slave owners

The Times publishes a fascinating adaptation from the new book 1861: The Civil War Awakening, by Adam Goodheart, which I just received an advance notice of and is on my list of books to read after I finish up James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. The article tells the story of how the seeds of emancipation were planted in the first days of the Civil War, as three escaped slaves sought asylum at a Union post at Fort Monroe in Virginia literally hours after the State of Virginia approved secession, and the (at least to me) unsung heroism and creativity of Major General Benjamin Franklin Butler who had just taken command of the fort.

A long, long way from anywhere real safe

Nothing to worry about here.

Experts estimate that about seven tons an hour of radioactive water is escaping the pit. Safety officials have said that the water, which appears to be coming from the damaged No. 2 reactor, contains one million becquerels per liter of iodine 131, or about 10,000 times the levels normally found in water at a nuclear plant.

It all just seems like an episode of The Simpsons. Homer tries to avert nuclear disaster by plugging a hole with "more than 120 pounds of sawdust, three garbage bags full of shredded newspaper and about nine pounds of a polymeric powder that officials said absorbed 50 times its volume of water." D'oh!

Maybe the earthquake and tsunami-triggered near-meltdown was a black swan, but what's happening with the water really shouldn't be seen that way, and has been a pretty obvious consequence of the plan to pump tons of seawater into the reactors and storage pools. Where does the water go afterward? It seems to me that there were always two choices: it either vaporizes and spreads via air (makes you long for the days of acid rain, I guess), or it flows back out into the ocean (or into the ground water). Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't think all the sawdust in the world is going to prevent one or the other of those things happening. Can someone explain this better? Or maybe we're still just supposed to be satisfied that everything is hunky-dory.

None of this is to say that dumping seawater on the reactors and spent fuel pools was a mistake at the time. Sometimes, you must do what you have to do to avert catastrophic consequences. But sometimes those solutions present you with other dangers, and, at least in the reporting, there seems to have been scant consideration of those consequences. Did anyone factor in the long-term dumping of radioactive material into the ocean? Was there a comparison of the impact of one event to the other? I don't have any of these answers, but I'd like to know if someone even bothered to take these and the many other tradeoffs, into consideration, rather than what it appears - literally plugging holes and bailing water as we sail into the belly of the Kraken.

Everyone glow in the dark

What I have learned from the news over the last couple of weeks is that there is absolutely nothing to fear from any radiation. At all. Everything is good. Always.

Seriously, the sloppiness and credulity of the reporting has been astounding. At most, you would think they would report that there is no evidence that radiation at the levels being reported is dangerous - if that's even true (which seems unlikely to me). But no, instead we have the unskeptical reporting that everything is "safe." As Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out in The Black Swan, "Contrary to popular wisdom, our body of knowledge does not increase from a series of confirmatory observations." That is, you cannot know something for sure through verification, only through negative instances. But not if you ask our media, not if you ask our officials. Everything is safe.

Walk in the Sun

David Roberts over at Grist argues that we may need to choose between renewables and nuclear. This is a good summary of reasoning that I have been compiling for a post of my own. I will return later to add my own thoughts.

I saw a bombed aisle

I went home on Friday extremely frustrated by the idea that the U.S. would be engaged in any sort of military action in Libya. That wasn't any weak-kneed liberal anti-war philosophy. Rather, I didn't see the point, and wasn't sure what good we could do. Moreover, it seemed to me that the Egyptian "revolution" succeeded in large part because the West kept its distance.

As I sit here tonight, I not sure if I have changed my mind or not, but I'm still trying to figure this out. Why are we engaging in this battle now? Ghaddafi is the same man who was in charge before. (I know, his actions are despicable.) Will our action just give the Libyans a common enemy? Are we verifying Ghadaffi's crazy arguments that the rebellion was just a foreign plot against Libya? Does this undermine everything President Obama has done to recalibrate our relationship with the Arab world? What will the neighboring Egyptians think?

On the other hand, will Arabs on the street feel betrayed by all of America's talk about freedom if we sit this out, and let a dictator brutally destroy his own people?

What do we do if we outst Ghaddafi? Who is going to ensure a stable government at that point where there are no institutions to restore any normalcy?

Can we even know what is right?

A world so uncertain

Ain't no livin' in a perfect world.

I've seen this movie, and it don't end nice. Looks like trouble in paradise.

We've been walking on a thin line.

Knockin' 'em down

Grant Hill responds to Jalen Rose's unfortunate comments in ESPN's "The Fab Five" about Hill and Duke.

Spin the wheel and hope for the best

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. These few people are making an incredible sacrifice, which hopefully (but, it seems, not likely, given the ever-increasing inevitability of a meltdown) will not be in vain.

There's a shelter down at the veteran's hall

In case you forgot about Senator John McCain. Here he is, the mavericky one, on Barack Obama's view on nuclear power: 'well, it has to be safe, environment, blah, blah, blah."

Big ball men

The New York Times has gathered some experts to discuss nuclear safety.

Watch out now for the gamma rays

I don't understand how the "nuclear-power-will-solve-everything" crowd is going to rationalize this away.

I'm not out for the gotcha, the I-told-you-so, although I've been clear on this blog pretty much since it began that I am not a fan of the idea of nuclear energy as an environmentalists nirvana of clean energy or American energy independence. Despite my hopes for electric cars like the Volt, which drives beautifully and is a real achievement for GM, I have not been sold on them for a couple of reasons. Usually, you are trading the tail pipe for the smoke stack. The response that the GM insiders will give you - and I have had this conversation with them - that Florida is a great market for the Volt because a relatively large percentage of our energy is "clean" - and that means nuclear - is not sufficient in my mind, in no small part (but not mostly, as it turns out) because of what we are seeing right now.

A great friend of mine, the most environmentally-minded person I know, a good, fair-minded person who proudly wears his environmentalism on his sleeve, who has built a second career around reducing carbon emissions, has been a strong advocate of nuclear power. He and I have argued on many occasions and at great length about nuclear energy as a major piece in the puzzle to turn back the clock on global climate change; I acknowledge that his view is also consistent with the environmental consensus at the moment, and that it's difficult to argue that nuclear power has no role to play. So, as the nuclear crisis in Japan has unfolded, I have emailed him the stories from the New York Times and elsewhere, not to argue or dig at him, but because I simply don't think that the arguments in favor of worldwide dependence on nuclear power are realistic or, similarly to those Japanese containment vessels, can hold water in light of what we are seeing. That's not reactionary; it's consistent with what I have always believed. I understand the foundation of my friend's passion - we will reach a point of no return on atmospheric CO2 and global warming, and the consequence of that is dire. The problem is real, and fossil fuels are the most visible culprit (I will leave aside the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a meat-based diet). As vocal as I have been in my rejection of the pro-nuclear bandwagon, I have been more vocal in my concerns about oil and coal. I have driven a hybrid for five years now; that's not because I am an apologist for oil. I have consistently written about the evils of mountaintop removal and the dangers not just from the smokestack but also from coal ash and the toxic and radioactive byproducts of burning coal. To be clear, I am in no way advocating greater reliance on fossil fuels (despite what Jim Fallows would argue about the "clean" future of dirty coal).

Nevertheless, and despite the fact that I acknowledge the current limitations of renewable, clean sources of energy, my friend's absolutist response in defense of nuclear energy and his view of a simple dichotomy of fossil vs. fission, has been terribly troubling to me.

It's a dilemma I see so often today across all sides of every issue - near-religious obsession, such a commitment to an ideology that nothing can shake our view, no other perspective matters, all evidence is massaged to fit our existing predilection, all other risks and dangers are ignored, the practical needs or concerns of others get delegitimized, no matter how horrific the consequences. The humanitarian concerns of Palestinians are irrelevant due to our concern for the security of Israel. Health care reform is a failure because it inadequately strengthens abortion rights, or unfairly recognizes those same rights. Any tax is a form of socialism. Marriage rights for those unlike ourselves (or sometimes too much like ourselves for our comfort or honesty) somehow undermine the legitimacy of our own commitments. We see in polarities, rather than spectra, and this colorblindness paralyzes sound decisionmaking and rational discussion. We've become a nation of extremists, uncompromising devotionalists to various secular and spiritual dogma, evangelists for whatever cause celebre ignites our passion. We're all flat-earthers now. We worship at the alters of our own certainty, content in the knowledge that at the end of our horizon lies the end of all knowledge, and that within our experience grow the roots of all justice. We defend our Alamo at all cost.

And so, the problem at the Fukushima power plants is not a fundamental risk inherent in reliance on nuclear fusion for energy, or an acknowledgment that there are unknown unknowns for which we cannot account, known knowns for which we may or may not be able to account or which we may ignore at our peril, and known unknowns that may simply not be worth the risk. The pro-nuclear environmentalist crowd see doubters as simply heads-in-the-sand BANANA ("Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything") purists who are willing to sit back and let greenhouse gases destroy the planet, as if the only alternative to nuclear power is doing nothing to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. They don't hear the argument that, not only is nuclear power risky, but it may be, in itself if taken to extremes, the equivalent of doing worse than nothing - taking a huge gamble that offers no benefit in the time frame needed for a solution, because, even setting aside every other argument, it simply cannot keep pace with the rate of growth in energy use. Yet whether our poison is pride or ego or blindness or rage or greed or hope or faith or despair, we seem unable to acknowledge or evaluate or balance inherent risk when it undermines or weights in against our passion.

Instead, my friend resorts to the argument that the problem is that the Fukushima plant is old, as if his plan all along had been to scrap every aging nuclear facility and start from scratch. He argues that the Japanese were stupid to build close to a fault line, as if all risk can be eliminated through careful planning, just like BP was able to eliminate the risk of an oil spill from its Gulf oil drilling, just like NASA has been able to eliminate the risk of any shuttle disasters. And most frustratingly, he argues that he'd much rather have to contend with leaking radiation during a carbon-free life than using fossil fuel based power plants, because only global warming matters (and really, at some level, he's right; it is the most critical issue of our generation). He's unmoved by the fact that the timing of building a sufficient number of nuclear power plants is inadequately slow (if even possible) relative to the needs for reducing climate change. He's uninterested (and yes, this is a bit of caricature, because I know where he's really coming from, but it's not a straw man) in the environmental costs of radiation exposure or - and this is critical - storage of greater volumes of nuclear waste. He's carefree toward the risks from accidents. He's confident that the terrorism risks imposed by more fissionable material is easily manageable. He has boundless faith in the ability to make nuclear reactors cheap, safe and easily regulated, in the U.S. and around the world. The dangers from nuclear meltdown in Japan are singular. They're not instructive of anything more than the particulars of the scenario, excused through its own uniqueness, its own folly, its own unreproducible facts. And anyway, it's all safer than the risks from fossil fuel.

Which may or may not be right, but which doesn't do anything at all to acknowledge the fact that you may be dealing with multiple unforeseen or intolerable risks, that the solutions to our environmental and energy needs may lie largely elsewhere. Just imagine the opportunity if as many resources were expended on solar energy as are spent on corporate-owned gas, oil, coal and nuclear interests (for example, the President's new budget just requested $36 billion in government-backed loan guarantees to cover up to 80% of the cost of building new nuclear reactors).

Our positions have become so unbending, so indestructible, that they cannot be shaken by an earthquake or a meltdown. All we need is a towel.

A towel, [the Guide] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow-heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

Train rolls by

The New York Times has an article today on the Florida high speed rail fiasco. It's worth a read, although it gives too much credence, I think, to the arguments against the bullet train.

It's your life

The State of Illinois has abolished the death penalty.

Low Country

More in the ongoing series of how the GOP loves the Jews.

In his kitchen there′s a corpse

TNC has a cute post on "The Hypocrite," a veggie burger with bacon on top. The bacon-vegetarianism conundrum seems to be a big topic of late. NPR did a story the other day on bacon as the gateway to sending scores of long-time vegetarians dashing permanently back to meat, as if, hell, they just never noticed bacon before. I call bull on that tale, but maybe that's just the Jew in me. Then again, maybe NPR will do a follow-up story on bacon as the gateway to giving up a kosher kitchen. Maybe I should go easy on them, however, since NPR appears to have a few issues of its own at the moment, being in the frying pan and all (though who knows, given the track record of the accusers, or the media's credulous reaction to them).

Anyway, it all reminded me of this, one of the better posts on vegetarianism that I have seen. An oldie but goodie.

On we roll

Some time ago I wrote about the bruhaha in Brooklyn between hipsters and Hasids about bike lanes. Well, it looks like Congressman Anthony Weiner has taken sides.

Cyclone

Just because.

Maybe the book and the verse was all wrong

Rick Santorum: the Crusades weren't that bad!

Stander on the Mountain

Silas House takes on mountaintop removal:

As a child I once stood on a cedar-pocked ridge with my father, looking down on a strip mine near the place that had been our family cemetery. My great-aunt’s grave had been “accidentally” buried under about 50 feet of unwanted topsoil and low-grade coal; “overburden,” the industry calls it. My father took a long, deep breath. I feel that I’ve been holding it ever since.

Oh no

Voldemort kills high speed rail.

Gas lighter

I had the opportunity to drive the new Chevy Volt on Friday with an executive from the GM team that developed the car. It is very impressive, and a great thrill to get an insider's perspective.

Over time, my conversation with the GM executive turned to hydrogen fuel cells. She believes strongly that they represent an important piece of our energy future.

I have mentioned before that I am a bit of a hydrogen fuel cell skeptic. I have spent a fair amount of time in the past looking at this. I would love to be proven wrong - I hope to be proven wrong - but the research I have seen so far has not convinced me of the practical viability of hydrogen as fuel, and particularly as an efficient source of energy. But she is convinced, and asked me to send her some of the information that I have gathered over time, so that she can respond and show me why she is a believer. Here's part of what I sent:

While I believe that hydrogen has a role to play, it is not in and of itself a solution, because hydrogen is not a fuel, but rather a carrier, like a battery. The real fuel source is the energy used to source the hydrogen. As we touched upon, one of my main concerns is the sourcing of the hydrogen - specifically, getting to a hydrogen process with a low carbon footprint.

In an efficient model (is there one?), it takes about the same amount of energy to create hydrogen (use an energy source to separate hydrogen from a molecule) as the hydrogen "fuel" yields (when you restore it to it's pre-split state). Add to that the energy used to transport the hydrogen fuel to the distribution network (on top of the costs - economic and environmental) to getting the original energy source and the substance that you created the hydrogen from. At the end of the day, the hydrogen fuel has provided substantially less energy than was required for its creation and distribution. Because hydrogen isn't an energy source, it is a carrier.

Many environmentalists and conservatives are united in the belief that nuclear power is the answer to carbon-neutral sourcing and energy independence. Even ignoring the dangers, which I think are real and largely swept under the rug (to make the danger argument makes you a crazy person), I believe the pro-nuke argument is, at best, pie-in-the-sky. (I also don't think you can really look at any single region and the energy sources in that region; electricity is fungible.) Nuclear energy has numerous hurdles, and the obsession with it in certain political circles is, I think, largely cynical. Nuclear power is costly, too far off, with limited supplies of uranium, and it's not going to happen on any large scale. It's just not. Nuclear power plants take too long to build, even if they were favored from a policy standpoint. According to a McKinsey study, under the best possible scenario we get less than 100 megatons of CO2 offset by nuclear power by 2030 - less than 2% of current emissions. This is an issue that cannot wait two decades to address, in a nominal fashion. There is no way nuclear reactors can be built in sufficient capacity and timeframes to keep up with consumption needs at current growth rates.

Moreover, the premise behind the idea of "clean" nuclear energy "charging" hydrogen is that we have a clean source of the hydrogen itself from H2O via electrolysis. Which remains extremely inefficient.

As we discussed, the only currently practical source for generating large quantities of hydrogen is natural gas - which helps T. Boone Pickens' goal to reduce dependence on foreign oil, but isn't weaning us off of fossil fuels.

My view has been that, unless and until you can source hydrogen from water using solar power (or, arguable, wind, but I have issues there, too), I don't see hydrogen fuel cells providing and large-scale solution. And that doesn't take into account any atmospheric impact from pumping more water into the atmosphere, which I have never seen any studies on.

So, if you are going to use natural gas anyway, isn't it simply more efficient to use it directly as fuel, without the intermediaries?

Meanwhile, even if we are to overlook those issues, a fuel cell "tank" would need to be significantly larger (maybe 4x) than a gasoline tank to carry an equivalent amount of energy. That may or may not account for the supposed greater efficiency of a fuel cell engine - some claim it is three times more efficient, so you'd need less fuel. Others say that number is flat-out wrong, and it is only marginally more efficient. But even conceding that hydrogen is more efficient, there are other issues. See the articles below, which I will let speak for themselves.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/11963
http://www.oilcrisis.com/hydrogen/crea.htm
http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/QuantumOfSolace.htm

So, where do I end up? I think hydrogen fuel cells may present an energy alternative that helps eliminate dependence on foreign oil. It may also be a cost solution, to the extent it relies on cheap energy (coal, ugh - and don't get me going on "clean coal"!), combined with greater efficiency (if you don't take the rest of the inefficiencies of the process into account).

I understand why scientists and engineers love the project. It's challenging, exciting, cutting edge, important. There is (or was) great research funding potential.

But my gut tells me that research into improved solar cells and better batteries is money much better spent in the short and medium term, rather than on fuel cells, despite how much I know engineers and auto manufacturers would like those research dollars, and would love to put those vehicles on the road sooner rather than later. But what of the front-end of the hydrogen process? I would keep pumping dollars into electrolysis research in order to make the process of sourcing hydrogen clean and efficient. Only then does a hydrogen-powered fleet make sense to me.

Preacher in the Ring

I'm stuck with John Mica as my Congressman until the end of time, it appears. But at least I don't have Daniel Webster - whose district includes my office - as my "representative," because he apparently believes some really crazy stuff.

Over the courthouse

Last week, I sat in an audience as Florida's newly-minted health-care-executive-turned-Governor Rick Scott cheered the District Court judge in Florida that "overturned" that evil scourge known in his circles as "Obamacare," which, as Governor Scott informed us, would otherwise have been the worst piece of budget-busting, tax-raising, job-killing legislation in the history of humanity (not exaggerating). So, what to make of this "overturned" legislation? Is there any chance that the more-conservative-and-more-Republican-than-not U.S. Supreme Court would uphold the recent District Court decisions in Florida and Virginia and kill health care reform?

Laurence Tribe thinks (hopes) not, and takes personal affront, on behalf of himself and the honorable justices of the Supreme Court, to the shameful idea that the Supreme Court could put ideology above the law and strike down the Affordable Health Care Act.

There is every reason to believe that a strong, nonpartisan majority of justices will do their constitutional duty, set aside how they might have voted had they been members of Congress and treat this constitutional challenge for what it is — a political objection in legal garb.

That's the conclusion. But Tribe's outrage over the very idea of a different result is the really beautiful part of the OpEd, this argument couched as a stalwart defense of integrity, this attempt to convince - not me, not you, I think, but the justices themselves - that Laurence Tribe respects them so much that, geez, they just could never, ever break the faith and act as, heaven forbid, legislators rather than honest arbiters of the truth embodied in the Constitution.

Who said chivalry was dead?

The football title

For lunch today we made our annual pilgrimage to Sweet Tomatoes for our "Soup(er) Bowl Sundaes." (Just like it sounds - soft serve in a soup bowl, with toppings galore.) It's kind-of fun, but doesn't compare to those Carvel football cakes.

At the risk of upsetting close friends, it's hard to resist cheering for the Packers and quarterback Aaron Rodgers, stepping dramatically out of the shadow of Brett-what's-his-name. Perhaps Rodgers' Hanukkah wishes will come true today!

Lost in the Snow

A couple of weeks ago, in between Abigail Washburn performances (Abby first appears about at about 19:30 in this segment), A Prairie Home Companion did a fairly funny Guy Noir item on the nefarious liberal plot engineered by Al Gore to use "snow emergency rules" to confiscate cars and force Americans to use mass transit and not listen to conservative radio shows.

Consistent with that plot, today Al Gore schools Bill O'Reilly on how global warming can create bigger, badder snow storms, and how scientists have been predicting that for decades. Not that any of the right is falling for Gore's silly nonsense.

Keep the Peace

I am going to try to not comment on the events in Egypt too much., because it's difficult for me to pretend that I have enough knowledge about the situation to pretend to any expertise. I know, this doesn't prevent most people from commentary.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that this "revolution," while dangerous and uncertain, presents the Israelis with an opportunity - and I think my use of that word is risky, and foolish, and subject to significant misinterpretation - to begin to change the dynamic of the Israel-Arab relationship.

It would be wise, I think, for Israel to signal its support for a truly democratic Egypt, not by appearing to back any faction or any overturn of government, but though a simple statement that the State of Israel supports the rights of self-determination, demonstration, free speech and democracy throughout the Middle East and the world, that it views democratic nations as partners in peace, and that, in that spirit, the State of Israel is redoubling its efforts to seek a lasting peace with its democratic neighbors and the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state that can live side-by-side with Israel in a cooperative relationship where the respect of nations and their people is a given. In connection with that, they should call for a renewal of face-to-face negotiations with Palestinians, in Cairo, to be mediated by the U.S., the E.U. and the legitimate democratically-elected governments of the Middle East.

There's a lot of massaging that can go on there, and I understand that Israel is a bit skittish on all of this, and on the risks any change in Egypt's government poses to the three-decade peace treaty with Egypt, but opportunities for true, organic change (as opposed to military takeovers, wars and such) only occur so often. Israel needs a game changer, if there is ever to be a true peace. You don't win friends or peace at the end of a sword, you don't achieve it through occupation or suppression. If they don't find a way to side with the people of the Arab world in this new democratic fervor, those democracies, or whatever they end up as, will surely not be on their side. There's no guarantee that they will be, anyway, but any good will is more than currently exists, and peace requires risk.

Oh, and by supporting the people and democratic ideals, they would also be on the right side of history, which matters.

Noisemakers

The Daily Dish posted a reader's email regarding the iPod as the nail in the coffin of the album. It sounds right, but I don't think it really is. Sure, there were the Styx concept albums and all in the past, but most "Top 40" albums have for a long, long time been collections of songs, and often a bunch of boring, uninspired songs wrapped around a couple of catchy tunes anticipated to get radio play. Even the good albums, the ones that were listenable from start to finish, were most frequently still just a collection of really good songs, rarely thematically connected. The iPod didn't create that dynamic. I was making mix tapes twenty-five years ago. It's now simply easier to pick out the songs we like, and we can have much more variety, rather than being limited to the twelve or fifteen songs that the cassette could hold.

But more significantly, I think the reader is wrong about the existence of albums as albums. "All that's over now," the letter says.

You don't hear albums that are made to be listened to from start to finish anymore? I don't think anyone listening to many top notch artists (which doesn't necessarily mean popular artists) would agree. Listen to a Springsteen CD, for example. Or get outside of radioland and listen to some of the more creative, thoughtful performers on the music scene today. Listen to the new CD from Abigail Washburn, City of Refuge, that just came out last week, an album that is so coherent from beginning to end that it is almost a crime not to listen to the whole album, over and over, which I have been, on my iPod, doing since it's release.

Now, whether or not all audiences appreciate what some artists are doing, that's out of the artists' control. If the Dish reader isn't appreciating the albums for all that is there, he has nowhere else to look but in the mirror. For me, the iPod gives me the opportunity to take those albums with me. I don't have to pick out my favorite few songs so that I can have a variety in my car or in my Walkman. Which values the music more - having the entire album on an iPod, or just a couple of choice picks on the mix CD? Because let's face reality, those records were mostly sitting on a bookcase or a box, gathering dust, and music was created to be heard, not looked at or held. I can now take my whole collection with me wherever I go, and I can listen to and revisit entire albums, start to finish, knowing that tomorrow I can do it again, or listen to a whole other album start to finish, or shuffle through my collection, or explore something new. The iPod lets me appreciate more - more artists, more music, more albums, in their entirety or not, as I choose and as the artists intend.

Dinner there

Maybe it was too obvious a choice, or maybe she didn't fit into the jazz theme, or maybe you've just gotta have Herbie Hancock when you can have Herbie Hancock, but wouldn't Abigail Washburn have been absolutely pitch perfect at the State Dinner at the White House for Chinese President Hu Jintao last night?

Here's Abby, highlighting American goodwill toward the Chinese people. Wouldn't that have been an extraordinary message?

Preacher in the Ring

Since we're on a roll here about why Jews tend not to be in the GOP, here's Alabama's new Republican governor, Robert Bentley, speaking on MLK Day at Dr. King's former church:

"So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

My point here has nothing to do with Christian doctrine, or whether Bentley's statement is an accurate representation of the Christian view of "brotherhood." I'm not all that concerned about it. This isn't intended to sound glib, but I'm not looking for an invitation to pray alongside Robert Bentley in his church (though I think that is what he is actually asking me to do). Again, I have no idea whether what he says is an accurate understanding of his religious dogma, but his faith is his faith, and he is allowed to have whatever beliefs he wants.

Rather, my issue is about the public sphere, rather than any theological perspectives, and the way that the Christianist right-wing GOP uses their religious views to exclude others in the political environment, and how that impacts the interest of others in being part of their worldview. My issue is about the linkage of exclusionary religious (or quasi-religious) dogma with political ideology, and the resulting lack of affinity for an ideology as a result of that linkage.

I'm not saying that I would consider being a Republican if the voices of Republicans weren't fundamentally opposed to the personal religious (or non-religious, as the case may be) expression (or lack of expression) of, um, unbelievers. Look, some Jews have come to the opposite conclusion, and have decided that Republican adoption of an ostensibly pro-Israel position (which I disagree is pro-Israel, but that's off-topic) consitutes a pro-Jewish position. The disagreements go much deeper than that, and regardless of exclusion or inclusion, the essential issue is that my values do not align with theirs.

But it's not even worth the conversation when, frankly, even if you buy into the idea that the GOP is pro-Israel, and even if you take into account the Bill Kristols and the Ari Fleischers and the Henry Kissingers and the Eric Cantors and the Sheldon Adelsons and whomever else you want to name, the fact remains that Jews remain the other in populist right-wing Republican circles.

UPDATE: I see that Steve Benen over at The Washington Monthly has picked up on my theme (from the broader perspective of all minorities):

When Republicans ponder why they struggle with outreach to minority communities, they may want to reflect on these incidents.

UPDATE #2: Some people may want to convince Governor Bentley that his statement was inappropriate, but my guess is that you can't torquemada anything. If Governor Bentley really wants to make us his brothers, I suggest he send in the sisters.

Collectivist Secretive Ideology, continued

Jeffrey Goldberg on Glenn Beck, again making my prior point about why Jews tend to not be Republicans (and please, spare me the argument that Beck is not a GOP spokesman).

UPDATE: Goldblog has more on Beck's Jewish problem.

Hot House Ball

This is a fascinating story about the U.S-Israeli collaboration to undermine the Iranian nuclear program through the Stuxnet computer worm - which, combined with the use of sanctions, has set it back farther than a military strike would have achieved.

Though American and Israeli officials refuse to talk publicly about what goes on at Dimona, the operations there, as well as related efforts in the United States, are among the newest and strongest clues suggesting that the virus was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage the Iranian program....

The biggest single factor in putting time on the nuclear clock appears to be Stuxnet, the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed.

And then there's this:

The worm itself now appears to have included two major components. One was designed to send Iran’s nuclear centrifuges spinning wildly out of control. Another seems right out of the movies: The computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the nuclear plant looked like, then played those readings back to plant operators, like a pre-recorded security tape in a bank heist, so that it would appear that everything was operating normally while the centrifuges were actually tearing themselves apart.

But the most incredible part to me is not the worm itself - which is pretty remarkable - but the way the Israelis acquired spinning centrifuges just like those the Iranians had acquired from Pakistan, and mocked up the Iranian operation, and then tested the worm to ensure that it would work.

But here's the question. Do the Iranian's treat this as an attack, or as run-of-the-mill espionage? Is cyberwarfare now real, and what are the consequences?

China Doll

Last weekend, we went to a screening of an Israeli movie, Noodle. You may have seen it, since the movie is a few years old, but it was new to me. The film involves an El-Al flight attendant who ends up unexpectedly taking care of the undocumented 6 year old son of her Chinese housekeeper who is abandoned when the housekeeper suddenly disappears.

Without giving too much of the story away, late in the film the action shifts from Israel to Beijing. The movie already had me thinking of Abigail Washburn, as it sought common ground and understanding between Chinese and Western cultures. But then, the flight attendant gets on a bus, and a traditional version of Kangding Qingge was playing on the radio. As my wife - who still doesn't quite understand that "Chinese square dance" - and friends looked at me quizzically, I grinned and said "I know this song," and quietly sang along. OK, I'm sure I rendered the words incomprehensible, but I had the tune right.


The Hebrew in the movie is subtitled, but in an interesting choice by the filmmaker, the Chinese is not. We’re to watch from the perspective of the Israeli characters, not quite being able to understand everything that a Chinese-speaking audience would. They would understand what the boy is saying as he struggles to communicate, and they would understand that cute little folk love song about a boy and a girl that would have been simply background noise to me if it wasn’t for Abigail. While I couldn’t translate the song literally as I sat there, Washburn gave me a connection that made the Chinese something other than “other,” and added to the film another layer of meaning for me. Her music routinely does that for me - makes my world both bigger and smaller.

And now, City of Refuge. Wow. My musical interests gravitate toward musicians who invite me to grow and explore with them. I’m always a bit apprehensive - where are we going now? But I learned a number of years ago to embrace the ride - from following the many directions of Bruce Hornsby, to his collaborations with Bela Fleck (luck guy) and Ricky Skaggs, to exploring bluegrass on a path that led me to Uncle Earl and Abby (and then Bela, again), and with each turn wondering if the next step on the journey will abandon those things that worked so well (no more Red and Blazings?), only to discover so much more.

I've tried to think of comparisons for this CD. Bring Me My Queen evokes a bit of Allison Moorer's Mockingbird disk, for instance, but that doesn't capture enough. At the end, City of Refuge is City of Refuge. I can tend toward wordiness, and this post is too long already, but I will just add one more comment. I am completely blown away by Burn Thru.

Abby was originally supposed to be in Asheville tonight, but since a 10-hour road trip to Asheville today wasn't a terribly sane idea anyway, I'll be spending tonight in Lake Wobegon (WMFE 90.7, at 6pm), where this weekend the kids will be that much more above average.

Toys with the motorized blinkin' eyes

Timothy B Lee does not want us to believe in Cylons. Which is what any Cylon would say, isn't it?

(h/t Sully.)

Heaven's healing grace

Sheesh. Abe Foxman invokes strawman, comes to Sarah Palin's defense:

“It was inappropriate at the outset to blame Sarah Palin and others for causing this tragedy or for being an accessory to murder,” Abraham Foxman, the [Anti-Defamation League's] national director, said in a statement. “Palin has every right to defend herself against these kinds of attacks.”

Well, at least he wishes she didn't use the phrase "blood libel."

In the past I could have said that Foxman just doesn't get it. Because Jeffrey Goldberg tells me that Foxman is a better man than that.

Heard a gunshot ring

It's starting to feel like the aftermath of Katrina all over again, with the conservatives and the media running around denouncing the "Blame Game" (and too many others taking the bait and feeding the fire).

UPDATE: On cue, here's George Will.

UPDATE # 2: To be clear, what I am talking about is the inability for introspection and reflectiveness and humility. Instead, we get finger-pointing and complaining about others placing blame. The whining about the so-called "Blame Game" is a diversion. Commentators provide little dialogue, no frank discussion, just point-scoring, defensiveness and petty whining about strawman offenders. The actual shooting rampage and attempted assassination seems, to the punditry, simply a side note, to put into context the bitter war between right and left.

I'm not sure why we need to know exactly what influenced Jared Lee Loughner. But if this act cannot start an open discussion of decency in political life, I'm not sure that anything can. We needn't wait until we can directly and specifically trace a straight line to political assassination from dangerous rhetoric. (And I'm not sure that could ever be possible; we cannot know or pinpoint everything that influenced someone's behavior, and just because it may appear apolitical does not mean that the behavior-as opposed to the philosophy-was not somehow influenced by the rhetoric.)

I don't accuse Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck or the myriad other right-wing flame throwers for causing this incident. Sometimes crazy is crazy. But if we are to concede the point that nasty speech is not the cause of the Tuscon massacre, we should also acknowledge that the same type of speech is unseemly, a reflection of the dangerous atmosphere, of the basest instincts of content-free political demagoguery.

Each of these pundits is accountable for their own rhetoric, whether or not the cause of darker acts. And they do not only inspire some form of reaction to it, they want a reaction - or else they would not do what they do, say what they say, and provoke the reactions that they provoke. Whether or not the calls to arms are figurative or literal, can anyone guarantee that those words are perceived as "intended" (which intent I will take at their word)? Pundits and radical ideologues (of all stripes - I have not been shy about my critique of those who have stolen the "Progressive" label, either) encourage reacting in bitterness and anger over any perceived slight, whether the slight was intentional or not. It's only reasonable to expect them to be at the forefront of addressing the practical effects of those offending words. If they're incapable of taking responsibility or toning down the hostility, that's worth noting. Accountability and responsibility for your own actions do not mean culpability for the crime, but that distinction may be too complex for our knee-jerk punditry to grasp.

When bad things happen, it is natural for most people to think about how they have behaved, and whether that behavior set the standard for how you would like to be remembered. We've all heard it many times - admonishments to never leave home angry with your spouse or kids, for example, because you never know what can happen, because that could be the final words you speak to that person. We all screw that up, sometimes more often than we care to admit, and we hopefully don't end up regretting it later. Because nobody who really cares wants to have to spend their lives remembering that the last words they ever spoke to someone they cared about were in anger, or were unseemly. You don't have to have caused the incident that took someone away from you. A moral person still regrets the words that offended or caused pain. That's simply a matter of self-awareness and conscience and maturity - to take responsibility and, to the best of your ability, to make things (if not right then) better.

Sarah Palin has demanded apologies and accountability from David Letterman for making insensitive jokes about her daughter's out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and from Rahm Emanuel for using the word "retarded." Conservatives routinely criticize violent music and violent video games like Grand Theft Auto. It's a mainstay of Republican ideology that words and symbolism have consequences.

But we see what happens when those who demand accountability from others are faced with having to account for their own words. Unfortunately, there is no attempt at consistency, only politics. There is no leadership, no attempt to say that we're going to use this tragedy to change the way we do things, to make good on our promises of civility and democracy, to ensure that tragedies like this remain rare, to change the tone rather than serve as an example of what is wrong, to be a leader rather than a troublemaker. And there is no attempt at genuine sympathy, except as passing words on the way to decrying the "politicization," the nefarious motives of critics, the blame game. Instead of sucking the oxygen from the fire, we instead get the stoking of the flames. Instead of joining in "liberal" calls to cool the flames, we get more inflammatory rhetoric. Instead of saying we're sorry for the way we treated you, the way we were dishonest about your motives, the way we incited people against you, instead of any of that, we get petty insults of the "liberal" media and the "Democrat" party, we get the invocation of the "Blame Game". (As a side note, it seems that John Boehner has taken the higher ground on this. I wouldn't have thought he would be the leader of a movement toward GOP decency, but I'm glad to see it.)

On the day of the tragic shootings, Andrew Sullivan posted an email from a reader who recounted overhearing two people speaking in a Tuscon Costco as he learned of the incident:

I am standing in the aisle at Costco when I found out my Congresswomen, Gabrielle Giffords, has been shot dead up on the north side.

While I’m scrambling with my phone, two couples in front of me are talking about it and suddenly I hear one of the women say, “Well, that’s to be expected when you’re so liberal.”

And the other woman says, “Ohh, so we get to appoint a Republican?”

I did not trust myself to speak. I’m a Soldier. Please remind me what country I am fighting for? At least seven people are dead. She happens to be the only member of Congress married to an active duty military — he’s a Navy officer serving as an astronaut.

We should all reflect on that.

UPDATE #3: Bill O'Reilly, not to be left out.

UPDATE #4: Contrast all of that with President Obama's speech at the Tuscon memorial service. The cheering and applause aside - which I struggled to get my head around, finally realizing, I think, that the crowd was trying to celebrate the lives of those who were taken, and to thank those who heroically risked their own lives to end the bloodshed - our President once again demonstrated how to rise above and lead.

Maybe I'll get a job making little skinny curly fries

Shortly after reading this in this weekend's New York Times, I received a call from another lawyer in town, someone whom I have known for a number of years. Our practice areas are similar and we have moved in many of the same professional circles. Though not in the same grades, our children all went to the local JCC. I wouldn't say we were close friends, but close enough that that we've occasionally sent small matters to each other, and we would sit together at conferences and Chamber events and the like.

Well, after a number of years of depending on himself, maintaining a practice focused on growth companies and running a legal/executive office suite business, his income has dried up. There has been no significant legal work in his practice area in the region in a couple of years. Nobody needs a finance lawyer right now. Nobody is looking to, or can afford to, rent law office space.

So now, as his debt load builds, he called me for advice on breaking back into a large firm.

And this, unfortunately, is the other side of the coin from the Times article.

[A] generation of J.D.’s face the grimmest job market in decades. Since 2008, some 15,000 attorney and legal-staff jobs at large firms have vanished, according to a Northwestern Law study. Associates have been laid off, partners nudged out the door and recruitment programs have been scaled back or eliminated.

And this:

This gets to what might be the ultimate ugly truth about law school: plenty of those who borrow, study and glad-hand their way into the gated community of Big Law are miserable soon after they move in. The billable-hour business model pins them to their desks and devours their free time.

Hence the cliché: law school is a pie-eating contest where the first prize is more pie.

One of the troubles with the profession, aside from the fact that it eats away at your soul, isn't simply that new graduates struggle under mountains of debt and anemic job prospects which are unfulfilling at best. The not-so-hidden story is that, even if you are one of those proud, lucky ones, one of those top-tier students from high-ranked law schools who lands one of those high-wage, elite, mega-firm spots -- which this friend, like I, did -- none of that provides any guarantee these days that fifteen or twenty years later, you will not wind up back in the same spot as those middle or lower tier law-school graduates who cannot get out from under the weight of their law-school debt. However, this time there's a mortgage to pay, a family to support, with fewer options and even less flexibility.

And even where you don't suddenly find yourself in a hole, it's not necessarily any better, because you're sometimes instead in a prison, with no chance of escape, because even if you can cross the moat and swim across the shark-infested bay, there's still nothing waiting for you on the other side, except those same conditions that you spent your entire career trying to avoid, telling yourself that the life of a lawyer was, if not the prize, the path to the prize.

Well, good luck with that.