Every politician accumulates IOUs, but Clinton has them by the truckload, starting with Wall Street. The herald of ‘change’ is utterly traditional in his fealty to the traditional lobbies, starting with the military-industrial complex.
... The week before the election, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette unleashed some of the harshest abuse that the governor had ever sustained. The editorial asked what Governor Clinton's record could teach us about President Clinton:
‘A purely rhetorical approach to issues that may please all, coupled with a tendency to side with those interests powerful enough to do him some political good ...
‘Finally, and sadly, there is the unavoidable question of character ... it is not the duplicitous in his politics that concerns so much as the polished ease, the almost habitual, casual, articulate way he bobs and weaves. He has mastered the art of equivocation. There is something almost inhuman in his smoother responses that sends a shiver up the spine. It is not the compromises he has made that trouble so much as the unavoidable suspicion that he has no great principles to compromise.’
—Alexander Cockburn, Nov. 6, 1992, The Golden Age Is In Us
June 29, 2012
‘no great principles to compromise’
Substitute “Obama” for “Clinton”:
June 28, 2012
Dear Pat
Dear Senator Leahy [Vt.]:
You write:
"In passing the Affordable Care Act, Congress built on the cornerstones of modern America like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, to strengthen the Nation's social safety net and help protect hardworking Americans."
That is such obvious bullshit that you must think words have no meaning if you were able to sign your name to it. Social Security is provided by the government, not by forcing people to buy annuities on their own. Medicare and Medicaid are insurance programs provided by the government, not by forcing people to enrich private insurers.
As an aside, don't you also cringe at the word "hardworking"? Is there to be a panel to determine who is "hardworking" enough to receive what is due to them as a citizen? In fact, it is the least hardworking who seem to be the most rewarded, cheered on and even subsidized to live off the labor of others. You write, "It's time to stop the political posturing. Congress works best for the American people when we are able to come together to solve national problems." Yet here you are, challenging your readers as to how "hardworking" they are or flattering what is normal life as something that puts one group against their mythically "lazy" neighbors.
But back to the "Affordable Care Act": It strengthens nothing except the grip of for-profit insurance on our lives. To require the industry to cover our right limbs, we must pay with our left limbs. And you may not know this, enjoying some of the best medical insurance in the world, paid for by all Americans, but coverage means nothing when the company actually has to pay for something. Their business is to deny payment. This "Affordable Care Act" is no better than kicking everyone off welfare and saying poverty has ended.
Making it illegal not to have medical insurance does not strengthen the social safety net. It only underscores its absence. And the absence of a government worth the name.
human rights, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism
You write:
"In passing the Affordable Care Act, Congress built on the cornerstones of modern America like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, to strengthen the Nation's social safety net and help protect hardworking Americans."
That is such obvious bullshit that you must think words have no meaning if you were able to sign your name to it. Social Security is provided by the government, not by forcing people to buy annuities on their own. Medicare and Medicaid are insurance programs provided by the government, not by forcing people to enrich private insurers.
As an aside, don't you also cringe at the word "hardworking"? Is there to be a panel to determine who is "hardworking" enough to receive what is due to them as a citizen? In fact, it is the least hardworking who seem to be the most rewarded, cheered on and even subsidized to live off the labor of others. You write, "It's time to stop the political posturing. Congress works best for the American people when we are able to come together to solve national problems." Yet here you are, challenging your readers as to how "hardworking" they are or flattering what is normal life as something that puts one group against their mythically "lazy" neighbors.
But back to the "Affordable Care Act": It strengthens nothing except the grip of for-profit insurance on our lives. To require the industry to cover our right limbs, we must pay with our left limbs. And you may not know this, enjoying some of the best medical insurance in the world, paid for by all Americans, but coverage means nothing when the company actually has to pay for something. Their business is to deny payment. This "Affordable Care Act" is no better than kicking everyone off welfare and saying poverty has ended.
Making it illegal not to have medical insurance does not strengthen the social safety net. It only underscores its absence. And the absence of a government worth the name.
human rights, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism
Dear Bernie
Dear Bernie [Senator Bernie Sanders, Vt.]:
Your defense of industrial-scale wind energy is logically fallacious.
It does not follow that because wind turbines don't produce carbon emissions, they reduce such emissions from other sources.
It does not follow that because wind turbines don't produce toxic air pollution, they reduce the pollution from coal-burning plants.
It does not follow that because wind turbines don't have the impacts of fracking or nuclear waste, they reduce those impacts.
The fact is, after decades of experience, it is impossible to detect any meaningful reduction of carbon emissions, air pollution, or other poisonings of the environment from other sources of electricity due to industrial wind energy on the grid.
That being the case, there is no excuse for continuing support of this industry that has no beneficial effect and leaves only a legacy of divided communities, degraded landscapes, and destroyed natural habitats.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
Your defense of industrial-scale wind energy is logically fallacious.
It does not follow that because wind turbines don't produce carbon emissions, they reduce such emissions from other sources.
It does not follow that because wind turbines don't produce toxic air pollution, they reduce the pollution from coal-burning plants.
It does not follow that because wind turbines don't have the impacts of fracking or nuclear waste, they reduce those impacts.
The fact is, after decades of experience, it is impossible to detect any meaningful reduction of carbon emissions, air pollution, or other poisonings of the environment from other sources of electricity due to industrial wind energy on the grid.
That being the case, there is no excuse for continuing support of this industry that has no beneficial effect and leaves only a legacy of divided communities, degraded landscapes, and destroyed natural habitats.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
June 24, 2012
Wind Energy Is Wasteful and Harmful
The president of Wind Watch writes:
Climate change, dwindling resources, ecological and geopolitical concerns surrounding conventional sources of electricity — all are prominent worries today, as they should be.
Wind power companies and their lobbyists — and many in the environmentalist community — assure us that industrial wind can break our dependence on other fuels, reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, and help build a “green” economy of 21st-century jobs.
A closer look, however, reveals that wind’s actual record has not lived up to those promises — despite billions of dollars of public and private investment and an increasingly undeniable toll on the environment and on the citizens, mostly rural, who must bear the personal costs of 500-foot turbines thrust into their neighborhoods.
Generous handouts — paid for by every American — intended to create a smattering of factory jobs could be much more efficiently spent to help the economy as a whole, and to work towards seriously addressing concerns of resource depletion, energy security, and pollution control.
The wind is diffuse, intermittent, and variable. When the realities of the electrical grid are taken into account, wind energy’s theoretical benefit is drastically reduced, because other sources have to stay on line — and operate less efficiently — to not only provide electricity on demand, but also balance the fluctuating wind-generated supply.
Not only are industrial wind turbines a waste of land and money, they also have serious negative impacts.
Wind projects usually target open areas and undeveloped mountain ridges. A single turbine weighs 250 tons or more and requires wide heavy-duty roads for construction and maintenance. It is supported by an underground foundation of hundreds of tons of steel-reinforced concrete. A group of turbines is a sprawling facility that dominates the landscape for miles. The facility also needs a substation and high-voltage transmission lines to connect to the grid.
In addition to wind energy's impact on rural landscapes and wild habitats, human neighbors often suffer from the noises generated by the giant machines. Leases typically include “gag orders” to keep landowners quiet about their complaints. Neighbors — many of them unsuspecting — are induced to silence in return for small “forbearance” payments.
As more people speak out, many jurisdictions are insisting that at least 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) separate the turbines from any residence to protect people's health. Others are recognizing the necessity of limiting low-frequency and pulsating noise.
The wind industry has benefited for decades from favorable treatment by all levels of government. Yet to this day it has been unable to demonstrate the results that are still promised. Against this backdrop of a failed experiment, the clear burdens imposed by industrial wind — on our diminished landscape, on wildlife, on people’s right to enjoy their homes — are unacceptable. It is time to hold this industry to account. Strict environmental siting and nuisance regulations are needed to limit its impacts. We need to end the many direct and indirect subsidies that prop it up.
Industrial wind has shown itself to be a great waster of resources, both natural and human. As more communities around the world learn about the harm it does, and stand up to say no, our business people and politicians would do well to take heed.
The people are indeed speaking up in ever greater numbers. They are your neighbors. And they are starting to be heard above the roar of the turbines.
[Click here to download PDF]
Climate change, dwindling resources, ecological and geopolitical concerns surrounding conventional sources of electricity — all are prominent worries today, as they should be.
Wind power companies and their lobbyists — and many in the environmentalist community — assure us that industrial wind can break our dependence on other fuels, reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, and help build a “green” economy of 21st-century jobs.
A closer look, however, reveals that wind’s actual record has not lived up to those promises — despite billions of dollars of public and private investment and an increasingly undeniable toll on the environment and on the citizens, mostly rural, who must bear the personal costs of 500-foot turbines thrust into their neighborhoods.
Generous handouts — paid for by every American — intended to create a smattering of factory jobs could be much more efficiently spent to help the economy as a whole, and to work towards seriously addressing concerns of resource depletion, energy security, and pollution control.
The wind is diffuse, intermittent, and variable. When the realities of the electrical grid are taken into account, wind energy’s theoretical benefit is drastically reduced, because other sources have to stay on line — and operate less efficiently — to not only provide electricity on demand, but also balance the fluctuating wind-generated supply.
Not only are industrial wind turbines a waste of land and money, they also have serious negative impacts.
Wind projects usually target open areas and undeveloped mountain ridges. A single turbine weighs 250 tons or more and requires wide heavy-duty roads for construction and maintenance. It is supported by an underground foundation of hundreds of tons of steel-reinforced concrete. A group of turbines is a sprawling facility that dominates the landscape for miles. The facility also needs a substation and high-voltage transmission lines to connect to the grid.
In addition to wind energy's impact on rural landscapes and wild habitats, human neighbors often suffer from the noises generated by the giant machines. Leases typically include “gag orders” to keep landowners quiet about their complaints. Neighbors — many of them unsuspecting — are induced to silence in return for small “forbearance” payments.
As more people speak out, many jurisdictions are insisting that at least 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) separate the turbines from any residence to protect people's health. Others are recognizing the necessity of limiting low-frequency and pulsating noise.
The wind industry has benefited for decades from favorable treatment by all levels of government. Yet to this day it has been unable to demonstrate the results that are still promised. Against this backdrop of a failed experiment, the clear burdens imposed by industrial wind — on our diminished landscape, on wildlife, on people’s right to enjoy their homes — are unacceptable. It is time to hold this industry to account. Strict environmental siting and nuisance regulations are needed to limit its impacts. We need to end the many direct and indirect subsidies that prop it up.
Industrial wind has shown itself to be a great waster of resources, both natural and human. As more communities around the world learn about the harm it does, and stand up to say no, our business people and politicians would do well to take heed.
The people are indeed speaking up in ever greater numbers. They are your neighbors. And they are starting to be heard above the roar of the turbines.
[Click here to download PDF]
Climate change hysteria
There is only one thing worse than climate change hysteria, and that is the hysteria of climate change denial.
There is no denying the fact that humans make a mess of their environment. This is not news. Environmental concerns are neverending and myriad.
Slowing the human contribution to climate change will not stop all the other crimes against our planet, nor would debunking climate alarmism or exposing opportunism obviate the need to be as concerned as ever about our environment.
Hysteria on both sides, both driven by fears we are all susceptible to, ultimately ensures that business carries on as usual, exploiting those fears, playing one group against another, and walking away with easy profits. And the environment continues to lose.
environment, environmentalism
There is no denying the fact that humans make a mess of their environment. This is not news. Environmental concerns are neverending and myriad.
Slowing the human contribution to climate change will not stop all the other crimes against our planet, nor would debunking climate alarmism or exposing opportunism obviate the need to be as concerned as ever about our environment.
Hysteria on both sides, both driven by fears we are all susceptible to, ultimately ensures that business carries on as usual, exploiting those fears, playing one group against another, and walking away with easy profits. And the environment continues to lose.
environment, environmentalism
June 23, 2012
Wind and Coal and Natural Gas
So how's it going, the reduction of fossil fuel emissions with the expanded erection of industrial wind? Today I looked at IEA data for electricity generation in the U.S., which I haven't done since a few years.
From 2006 to 2010 electricity from coal went down 139.8 TWh, from natural gas up 165.4 TWh, and from wind up 68 TWh. Overall generation went up 55.3 TWh.
If anything is replacing coal, it is obviously natural gas, whose increase seems to be proportional to that of wind.
Natural gas emits about half of what coal does, and without particulates, so that is indeed an improvement. The practice of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to get more natural gas, however, is certainly a worrying one, and the emissions and widespread contamination from fracking may well cancel any benefit of switching from coal to natural gas.
Furthermore, there are different kinds of natural gas–fired turbines: open-cycle and combined-cycle. The latter can be about twice as efficient as the former. But because wind turbines are also being erected, the less efficient open-cycle gas turbines must be used, because combined-cycle gas turbines can not power on or ramp their output quickly enough to balance the fluctuating power generated by wind.
In summary, wind is not doing much at all to reduce fossil fuel emissions, and may well be responsible for less reduction than is possible without wind. That only makes industrial wind's own environmental and social impacts that much more unacceptable.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
From 2006 to 2010 electricity from coal went down 139.8 TWh, from natural gas up 165.4 TWh, and from wind up 68 TWh. Overall generation went up 55.3 TWh.
If anything is replacing coal, it is obviously natural gas, whose increase seems to be proportional to that of wind.
Natural gas emits about half of what coal does, and without particulates, so that is indeed an improvement. The practice of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to get more natural gas, however, is certainly a worrying one, and the emissions and widespread contamination from fracking may well cancel any benefit of switching from coal to natural gas.
Furthermore, there are different kinds of natural gas–fired turbines: open-cycle and combined-cycle. The latter can be about twice as efficient as the former. But because wind turbines are also being erected, the less efficient open-cycle gas turbines must be used, because combined-cycle gas turbines can not power on or ramp their output quickly enough to balance the fluctuating power generated by wind.
In summary, wind is not doing much at all to reduce fossil fuel emissions, and may well be responsible for less reduction than is possible without wind. That only makes industrial wind's own environmental and social impacts that much more unacceptable.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
June 17, 2012
Mike Barnard doesn't know much about wind
Comments to a pair of editorials in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution by AWEA CEO Denise Bode and Wind Watch President Eric Rosenbloom have apparently been closed, so we received this late reply to the most substantial one. It is notable that all of the comments attacked Rosenbloom's piece (despite most commenters obviously not having read it), with unquestioning acceptance of Bode's inane sales pitch. It looks like the "New South" is still easy prey to carpetbaggers.
Mike Barnard (June 13, 1:10 pm) appears to be a one-man propaganda machine on behalf of the big energy companies hiding behind wind. He misrepresents not only his own apologias but also Rosenbloom's arguments.
For example, at aweo.org (not com), Rosenbloom notes that wind turbines on the grid consume a significant amount of energy. One of the sources is the Danish Wind Energy Association. He admits that the exact amount can only be speculated, however, because, as he also notes, it is not measured, as reported by the Electric Power Research Institute. This is an example of questions we should be asking but that the industry refuses to answer.
To some of Barnard's other points:
1. Intermittency. There's a big difference between predictable intermittency and knowing exactly how that intermittency will shape up. And there's a big difference between continuous minute-to-minute variability and the occasional loss of a single coal or nuclear plant. In fact, the grid is overbuilt precisely to handle such an event. Building wind requires using that excess capacity to balance wind's variability (as Rosenbloom says in this piece). And, as Germany has discovered, when that excess capacity is tied up with the wind, the loss of a coal or nuclear plant would be catastrophic.
2. Subsidies. It is a strange argument to say that money has long been wasted on other sources so it is only fair to waste more on wind. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, wind received 42% of all federal subsidies for electricity production while producing 2.3% of the electricity generated. Wind is clearly benefiting from a very unlevel playing field already.
3. Wind "farms" are usually built, with their roads, platforms, substations, and transmission lines, in previously undeveloped, even wild, places. The impacts of such massive and sprawling constructions are obvious.
4. There has actually been no "peer-reviewed" study showing no connection between giant wind turbines and health problems. The "reviews" that Barnard cites are essentially echos of each other that carefully avoid the ever-growing reports of health problems that begin when the turbines start turning and that disappear when the person leaves the area. It can only be called sociopathic to reverse the cause and effect, as Barnard does by blaming the doctors and acousticians who report findings of harm. In contrast, an editorial in the preeminent British Medical Journal (BMJ, 8 Mar 2012) recognizes the health effects of large-scale wind energy facilities and calls for serious study to provide the basis for adequate regulation to protect the public.
5. The science of biological effects of low-frequency noise and infrasound (LFN/IS) is young. In fact, LFN/IS is rarely measured as part of noise control regulations. But it is known (as reported in "peer-reviewed" journals) to have serious physiological effects and that large wind turbines produce it.
6. While I was composing this reply, wind was generating less than 4% of Ontario's electricity, according to the Independent Electricity System Operator. And the province was exporting about the same amount. To say that wind, even in part, allowed switching off coal clearly ignores the facts. In fact, Ontario has replaced coal with more nuclear and natural gas.
wind power, wind energy
Mike Barnard (June 13, 1:10 pm) appears to be a one-man propaganda machine on behalf of the big energy companies hiding behind wind. He misrepresents not only his own apologias but also Rosenbloom's arguments.
For example, at aweo.org (not com), Rosenbloom notes that wind turbines on the grid consume a significant amount of energy. One of the sources is the Danish Wind Energy Association. He admits that the exact amount can only be speculated, however, because, as he also notes, it is not measured, as reported by the Electric Power Research Institute. This is an example of questions we should be asking but that the industry refuses to answer.
To some of Barnard's other points:
1. Intermittency. There's a big difference between predictable intermittency and knowing exactly how that intermittency will shape up. And there's a big difference between continuous minute-to-minute variability and the occasional loss of a single coal or nuclear plant. In fact, the grid is overbuilt precisely to handle such an event. Building wind requires using that excess capacity to balance wind's variability (as Rosenbloom says in this piece). And, as Germany has discovered, when that excess capacity is tied up with the wind, the loss of a coal or nuclear plant would be catastrophic.
2. Subsidies. It is a strange argument to say that money has long been wasted on other sources so it is only fair to waste more on wind. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, wind received 42% of all federal subsidies for electricity production while producing 2.3% of the electricity generated. Wind is clearly benefiting from a very unlevel playing field already.
3. Wind "farms" are usually built, with their roads, platforms, substations, and transmission lines, in previously undeveloped, even wild, places. The impacts of such massive and sprawling constructions are obvious.
4. There has actually been no "peer-reviewed" study showing no connection between giant wind turbines and health problems. The "reviews" that Barnard cites are essentially echos of each other that carefully avoid the ever-growing reports of health problems that begin when the turbines start turning and that disappear when the person leaves the area. It can only be called sociopathic to reverse the cause and effect, as Barnard does by blaming the doctors and acousticians who report findings of harm. In contrast, an editorial in the preeminent British Medical Journal (BMJ, 8 Mar 2012) recognizes the health effects of large-scale wind energy facilities and calls for serious study to provide the basis for adequate regulation to protect the public.
5. The science of biological effects of low-frequency noise and infrasound (LFN/IS) is young. In fact, LFN/IS is rarely measured as part of noise control regulations. But it is known (as reported in "peer-reviewed" journals) to have serious physiological effects and that large wind turbines produce it.
6. While I was composing this reply, wind was generating less than 4% of Ontario's electricity, according to the Independent Electricity System Operator. And the province was exporting about the same amount. To say that wind, even in part, allowed switching off coal clearly ignores the facts. In fact, Ontario has replaced coal with more nuclear and natural gas.
wind power, wind energy
June 16, 2012
Bloomsday
More than any other writer, Joyce gave voice to the uncommon in the common, the commonness of the uncommon.
He rejected God and State for the human, who made (and makes) them.
He rejected God and State for the human, who made (and makes) them.
Noisy village
I can only assume there is a "noisiest village" contest today, which I did not know about.
Or perhaps it's national weed-whacker day? To celebrate what is perhaps the ultimate symbol of rude, lazy, and wasteful?
I felt quite antisocial and unpatriotic quietly scything the dog pen amidst the roar of gas engines near and far.
environment, environmentalism, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism, "Guns, Gas Engines, and Jesus"™
Or perhaps it's national weed-whacker day? To celebrate what is perhaps the ultimate symbol of rude, lazy, and wasteful?
I felt quite antisocial and unpatriotic quietly scything the dog pen amidst the roar of gas engines near and far.
environment, environmentalism, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism, "Guns, Gas Engines, and Jesus"™
June 14, 2012
Military Hero Worship
Thomas H. Naylor writes at Counterpunch:
Nations which amass military might always find a way to use it. The risk of war increases in direct proportion to the military power of the state. Wars also cover up a plethora of political and economic problems by deflecting public attention away from the real issues.
Many, but not all, of our troops are naïve, well intended, ill-informed, patriots, who have been manipulated into risking their lives for false gods by our prowar media and political system. But heroes they are not.
In stark contrast to the troops, Obama, Biden, Panetta, Clinton, Petraeus, Stevens, Leahy, and Sanders know better. They are all people of the lie. They know exactly what business they are in. It’s call technofascism.
Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism
Nations which amass military might always find a way to use it. The risk of war increases in direct proportion to the military power of the state. Wars also cover up a plethora of political and economic problems by deflecting public attention away from the real issues.
Many, but not all, of our troops are naïve, well intended, ill-informed, patriots, who have been manipulated into risking their lives for false gods by our prowar media and political system. But heroes they are not.
In stark contrast to the troops, Obama, Biden, Panetta, Clinton, Petraeus, Stevens, Leahy, and Sanders know better. They are all people of the lie. They know exactly what business they are in. It’s call technofascism.
Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism
May 30, 2012
Blinded by industry
A friend writes, regarding “On wildness and carbon” by David McKay:
If anyone finds the wind industry compelling, there’s a lot they aren’t getting and probably never will, because they don’t want to. People are reluctant to admit there is no solution, [that] all we can do on an insanely overcrowded planet full of greedy people is use far less energy, and start planning massive overhauls of cities and towns, making our lives smaller, getting some trains running, getting rid of cars, bike lanes everywhere, electricity only for parts of the day, smaller stores, small passive energy houses, using air conditioning only in extreme weather, shut down the meat and dairy industry, the list is endless. But that is apparently not ever going to happen on a large scale, because the changes are too huge for people to comprehend and corporate lobbyists wouldn’t allow it. Modern lives are built around electricity and technology, so going back to a more natural, sustainable way of life is probably impossible. People’s lives in the not so distant future will be forcibly curtailed by nature, not because they chose a wiser path.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
If anyone finds the wind industry compelling, there’s a lot they aren’t getting and probably never will, because they don’t want to. People are reluctant to admit there is no solution, [that] all we can do on an insanely overcrowded planet full of greedy people is use far less energy, and start planning massive overhauls of cities and towns, making our lives smaller, getting some trains running, getting rid of cars, bike lanes everywhere, electricity only for parts of the day, smaller stores, small passive energy houses, using air conditioning only in extreme weather, shut down the meat and dairy industry, the list is endless. But that is apparently not ever going to happen on a large scale, because the changes are too huge for people to comprehend and corporate lobbyists wouldn’t allow it. Modern lives are built around electricity and technology, so going back to a more natural, sustainable way of life is probably impossible. People’s lives in the not so distant future will be forcibly curtailed by nature, not because they chose a wiser path.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
May 29, 2012
Mr Dooley spurns the church and state
From “Dooleysprudence” by James Joyce (1916):
...
Who is the funny fellow who declines to go to church
Since pope and priest and parson left the poor man in the lurch
And taught their flocks the only way to save all human souls
Was piercing human bodies through with dumdum bulletholes?
...
Who is the tranquil gentleman who won’t salute the State
Or serve Nebuchadnezzar or proletariat
But thinks that every son of man has quite enough to do
To paddle down the stream of life his personal canoe?
anarchism
...
Who is the funny fellow who declines to go to church
Since pope and priest and parson left the poor man in the lurch
And taught their flocks the only way to save all human souls
Was piercing human bodies through with dumdum bulletholes?
...
Who is the tranquil gentleman who won’t salute the State
Or serve Nebuchadnezzar or proletariat
But thinks that every son of man has quite enough to do
To paddle down the stream of life his personal canoe?
anarchism
May 28, 2012
Coey 2012
Learning about the power of genetic engineering are St Anne’s pupils T— and K— with Monsanto Education Officer Laura Coey.
Learning about the power of hydraulic fracturing are St Anne’s pupils T— and K— with Halliburton Education Officer Laura Coey.
Learning about the power of unmanned drone warfare are St Anne’s pupils T— and K— with General Atomics Education Officer Laura Coey.
Learning about the power of submission to Jesus are St Anne’s pupils T— and K— with Billy Graham Crusades Education Officer Laura Coey.
Learning about the power of wind energy are St Anne’s pupils T— and K— with Action Renewables Education Officer Laura Coey.
May 26, 2012
Time waves
Just as, in listening to Cottard, Brichot and many others, I had come to realise that, through common culture and fashionable fads, a simple undulation sends the same mannerisms of speech and thought over the surface of the globe, in the same way over the whole expanse of time great tidal waves bring up from the depths of the ages the same hatreds, the same sorrows, the same types of bravery, the same strange fancies running through superposed generations, each section made at various levels in the same series giving a repetition (like shadows cast on a row of screens) of a phenomenon as identically reproduced although often not as trivial, as the family trait which set M. Bloch junior at odds with his father-in-law, M. Bloch senior with M. Nissim Bernard, and others before them whom I had never known.
[De même qu’en écoutant parler Cottard, Brichot, tant d’autres, j’avais senti que par la culture et la mode, une seule ondulation propage dans toute l’étendue de l’espace, les mêmes colères, les mêmes tristesses, les mêmes bravoures, les mêmes manies, à travers les générations superposées, chaque section prise à plusieurs niveaux d’une même série, offrant la répétition, comme des ombres sur des écrans successifs, d’un tableau aussi identique quoique souvent moins insignifiant que celui qui mettait aux prises de la même façon M. Bloch et so beau-père, M. Bloch père et M. Nissim Bernard et d’autres que je n’avais pas connus.]
—Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured
(1932 translation of Le Temps Retrouvé (1928) by Frederick Blossom):
[De même qu’en écoutant parler Cottard, Brichot, tant d’autres, j’avais senti que par la culture et la mode, une seule ondulation propage dans toute l’étendue de l’espace, les mêmes colères, les mêmes tristesses, les mêmes bravoures, les mêmes manies, à travers les générations superposées, chaque section prise à plusieurs niveaux d’une même série, offrant la répétition, comme des ombres sur des écrans successifs, d’un tableau aussi identique quoique souvent moins insignifiant que celui qui mettait aux prises de la même façon M. Bloch et so beau-père, M. Bloch père et M. Nissim Bernard et d’autres que je n’avais pas connus.]
—Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured
(1932 translation of Le Temps Retrouvé (1928) by Frederick Blossom):
May 25, 2012
Vermont Wind Proposals
Also see: "Large wind projects in Vermont"
And listen (and chat or call in) to Wind Wise Radio, May 27, 7:00 p.m.: Stand Against the Wind — Chris Braithwaite and other guests talk about the destruction of Lowell Mountain in northern Vermont, co-hosted by Annette Smith, executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
May 23, 2012
wind = natural gas
On May 1, 2012, Windpower Monthly published an interview by Ros Davidson with Denise Bode, CEO of industry lobby American Wind Energy Association. Besides her incoherence about the Production Tax Credit (the industry will die without it! the industry no longer needs it!), here is an interesting excerpt about natural gas. Before moving to the AWEA in 2009, Bode was CEO of natural gas lobby American Clean Skies Foundation.
Bode's comment that "You can safely frack" reminds us of this statement from the AWEA strategy memo leaked from its November 2011 board meeting:
Cf "Breaking Up with the Sierra Club", in response to the discovery that the wind industry cheerleader had accepted more than $25 million dollars from fracker Chesapeake Energy.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
RD: You and Texan oil billionaire T Boone Pickens have promoted the idea of a wind–natural gas partnership, using both sources for generation and natural gas for vehicles. You co-authored an article on the issue with Pickens on Politico (the political journalism website) just before the 2011 AWEA conference. Yet, many people are increasingly uncomfortable with natural gas because of questions about the environmental safety of fracking - a procedure that releases gas from underground shale rocks - and because of methane emissions. Where does that leave AWEA and the prospect of natural gas as a "bridge fuel" to a low-carbon future?It is obvious that wind needs natural gas, not just to ensure power on demand, but also to effectively balance wind's high degree of variation. However, natural gas does not need wind. In fact, without wind, natural gas turbines can operate about twice as efficiently - ie, with about half the emissions. In other words, to support wind on the grid is not only to support more fracking for natural gas, but also to support less efficient use of that natural gas.
DB: You're talking to somebody who was a state regulator of oil and gas. You can safely frack. You can regulate and manage it. The natural gas industry really got ahead of itself because they were drilling in places that did not have a mature regulatory structure. They also didn't have the infrastructure to properly address the fracking. Over time that will change, whether it is through federal or state regulation. It can be managed.
RD: So the controversy over fracking and methane emissions doesn't change your view of wind and gas collaborating?
DB: It's a matter of fact that wind and gas will be the two largest new sources of electricity generation.
RD: But doesn't the public perception of natural gas fracking make the partnership more difficult to sell?
DB: You know, we're focused on the PTC and don't spend a lot of time promoting our partnership. We try not to tear somebody else down and build ourselves up. We talk about the benefits of wind. Natural gas has to pretty much make its own case, although we do need to work together. We need each other to balance utilities' portfolios. Natural gas provides peak power in a way that wind can't. We need each other and should work together as much as possible.
Bode's comment that "You can safely frack" reminds us of this statement from the AWEA strategy memo leaked from its November 2011 board meeting:
We need to create a space for the wind energy industry without defining it as an alternative to fossil fuels and coal and that goes beyond being one of many "renewables." "Renewables" in general are saddled with weaknesses that we don’t want to have to carry.That is to say, wind has moved from serving as atonement for consumerism to now being little more than the greenwashing arm of the natural gas industry.
Cf "Breaking Up with the Sierra Club", in response to the discovery that the wind industry cheerleader had accepted more than $25 million dollars from fracker Chesapeake Energy.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
May 15, 2012
Denmark's ecological footprint worse than U.S.
This just in from Common Dreams: The World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report 2012 finds that:
“The U.S. has the fifth largest ecological footprint in terms of the amount of resources each person annually consumes. We rank only behind Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Denmark in the global rankings of the Ecological Footprint.”
Denmark: 4th largest per-capita ecological footprint in the world.
U.S.: 5th.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
“The U.S. has the fifth largest ecological footprint in terms of the amount of resources each person annually consumes. We rank only behind Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Denmark in the global rankings of the Ecological Footprint.”
Denmark: 4th largest per-capita ecological footprint in the world.
U.S.: 5th.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
May 13, 2012
Nimby: you lose.
Another friend sent us a couple of articles by industrial wind development consultant Tiff Thompson about the pesky problem of people resisting the insertion of giant industrial machines near their homes after finding that any benefit is far outweighed by many adverse effects. Below are some quotes from her articles, with comments in italics. Since she has named her consultancy "Nimby Consulting", she clearly assumes that there is no basis for their fears, only selfishness, and that she can therefore bully them into submission ...
"For those waging arguments out of genuine fear, the prospect of an industrial-scale wind turbine within visible distance from their homes appears more important than seemingly distant implications of climate change."
False choice. She thus removes one side of the equation. Opponents are not only concerned that industrial wind's impacts are greater than claimed; they are also motivated to fight more strongly for those concerns because industrial wind's benefits are much less than claimed.
"[S]etbacks over 1 mile will effectively kill any wind project, even in the most rural settings."
Can not even consider accommodating concerns. This statement about "setbacks over 1 mile" is actually disingenuous, since the industry fights every setback, no matter how modest, e.g., the effort in Wisconsin to increase a 1,250-ft minimum setback (less than one-fourth of a mile) to 1,800 ft (just over one-third of a mile).
"The wind farms typically referenced in oppositional arguments are, indeed, poorly sited and often the first the industry erected."
"The first" meaning: last month's. The industry has been saying this as long as it has existed, even as problems are documented with practically every facility built.
"Strategies such as ..., while successful at reducing noise, unfortunately also cause significant power loss."
Again, can not be seriously considered. Or as Ditlev Engel, CEO of Vestas, the world's biggest turbine manufacturer, wrote to Denmark's Environment Minister in complaint about regulations of low-frequency noise: "At this point you may have asked yourself why it is that Vestas does not just make changes to the wind turbines so that they produce less noise? The simple answer is that at the moment it is not technically possible to do so."
"In 1999, international noise standards were created by the World Health Organization’s Community Health Guidelines – set at roughly 40dB(A) averaged over night in one year. And in 1972, the US Environmental Protection Agency established its Office of Noise Abatement and Control, only to be later phased out in 1982, when individual states and local governments were given authority to create noise regulations. Today, in the USA, umbrella legislation – the EPA’s Noise Control Act of 1972 and Quiet Communities Act of 1978 – remains enforced, holding guidelines of permissible indoor and outdoor noise levels at 55dB(A) and 45dB(A) respectively."
Why is the EPA indoor limit (45 dB(A) — the writer apparently got the respective order backwards) 5 dB greater than the WHO outdoor limit? (And inside bedrooms at night, WHO guidelines specify a limit of 30 dB(A).) Note that a change of 5 dB is one that triggers widespread community complaints. Imagine the difference between a rural indoor nighttime level of 25 dB and the intrusion of 45 dB from neighboring wind turbines! And that's A-weighted (see below) averaged levels — add a significant low-frequency component (which is more prominent indoors) and a pulsing character, it's no wonder people get sick.
"In a recent Leicester, UK, article: ‘We were wrong on turbine noise, admit protesters’, a four-turbine project that was greeted by foreboding turned out to be not so threatening after it was erected and operational."
The one and only such report! The typical story is the opposite: Neighbors are reassured, even supportive, and then discover how wrong they were (e.g., Mars Hill and Vinalhaven, Maine; Falmouth and now Fairhaven, Massachusetts; Deeping St Nicholas, England; Waubra, Australia). Furthermore, not everyone is sensitive to noise to a health-threatening degree. This single light report can be weighed against the innumerable reports of problems around the world and increasing attention from the medical community (e.g., editorial in
the March 8, 2012, British Medical Journal [BMJ], special issue [August 2011] of Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society).
"[I]f people do not like wind energy, do not receive payments, have a turbine within their view, or dislike the developer, they are more likely to be annoyed. Hence, accurate noise assessment – from the beginning – is essential not only for a successfully sited project but also for community goodwill."
But remember, it's a (false) choice of turbine or climate change. And remember the impossibility of adequate distances from homes. And the economic cost of quieter and safer operation. And the laughability of noise standards (and the mystery of logarithmic decibels and frequency weighting). In other words, get the bullshit machine cranking early, and keep spreading it thick until the project is on. Be prepared to pay off a few neighbors. Then ... who cares? Once it's up, it will be nearly impossible to halt the multimillion-dollar investment. On to the next marks!
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
"For those waging arguments out of genuine fear, the prospect of an industrial-scale wind turbine within visible distance from their homes appears more important than seemingly distant implications of climate change."
False choice. She thus removes one side of the equation. Opponents are not only concerned that industrial wind's impacts are greater than claimed; they are also motivated to fight more strongly for those concerns because industrial wind's benefits are much less than claimed.
"[S]etbacks over 1 mile will effectively kill any wind project, even in the most rural settings."
Can not even consider accommodating concerns. This statement about "setbacks over 1 mile" is actually disingenuous, since the industry fights every setback, no matter how modest, e.g., the effort in Wisconsin to increase a 1,250-ft minimum setback (less than one-fourth of a mile) to 1,800 ft (just over one-third of a mile).
"The wind farms typically referenced in oppositional arguments are, indeed, poorly sited and often the first the industry erected."
"The first" meaning: last month's. The industry has been saying this as long as it has existed, even as problems are documented with practically every facility built.
"Strategies such as ..., while successful at reducing noise, unfortunately also cause significant power loss."
Again, can not be seriously considered. Or as Ditlev Engel, CEO of Vestas, the world's biggest turbine manufacturer, wrote to Denmark's Environment Minister in complaint about regulations of low-frequency noise: "At this point you may have asked yourself why it is that Vestas does not just make changes to the wind turbines so that they produce less noise? The simple answer is that at the moment it is not technically possible to do so."
"In 1999, international noise standards were created by the World Health Organization’s Community Health Guidelines – set at roughly 40dB(A) averaged over night in one year. And in 1972, the US Environmental Protection Agency established its Office of Noise Abatement and Control, only to be later phased out in 1982, when individual states and local governments were given authority to create noise regulations. Today, in the USA, umbrella legislation – the EPA’s Noise Control Act of 1972 and Quiet Communities Act of 1978 – remains enforced, holding guidelines of permissible indoor and outdoor noise levels at 55dB(A) and 45dB(A) respectively."
Why is the EPA indoor limit (45 dB(A) — the writer apparently got the respective order backwards) 5 dB greater than the WHO outdoor limit? (And inside bedrooms at night, WHO guidelines specify a limit of 30 dB(A).) Note that a change of 5 dB is one that triggers widespread community complaints. Imagine the difference between a rural indoor nighttime level of 25 dB and the intrusion of 45 dB from neighboring wind turbines! And that's A-weighted (see below) averaged levels — add a significant low-frequency component (which is more prominent indoors) and a pulsing character, it's no wonder people get sick.
"In a recent Leicester, UK, article: ‘We were wrong on turbine noise, admit protesters’, a four-turbine project that was greeted by foreboding turned out to be not so threatening after it was erected and operational."
The one and only such report! The typical story is the opposite: Neighbors are reassured, even supportive, and then discover how wrong they were (e.g., Mars Hill and Vinalhaven, Maine; Falmouth and now Fairhaven, Massachusetts; Deeping St Nicholas, England; Waubra, Australia). Furthermore, not everyone is sensitive to noise to a health-threatening degree. This single light report can be weighed against the innumerable reports of problems around the world and increasing attention from the medical community (e.g., editorial in
the March 8, 2012, British Medical Journal [BMJ], special issue [August 2011] of Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society).
"[I]f people do not like wind energy, do not receive payments, have a turbine within their view, or dislike the developer, they are more likely to be annoyed. Hence, accurate noise assessment – from the beginning – is essential not only for a successfully sited project but also for community goodwill."
But remember, it's a (false) choice of turbine or climate change. And remember the impossibility of adequate distances from homes. And the economic cost of quieter and safer operation. And the laughability of noise standards (and the mystery of logarithmic decibels and frequency weighting). In other words, get the bullshit machine cranking early, and keep spreading it thick until the project is on. Be prepared to pay off a few neighbors. Then ... who cares? Once it's up, it will be nearly impossible to halt the multimillion-dollar investment. On to the next marks!
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
May 12, 2012
North American Windpower
A friend has sent us these excerpts from the May 2012 issue of the trade journal North American Windpower.
Pressure Applied in States to Widen RPS Allowances
"It's disconcerting to even have the conversation," [George Cannon, a partner at Dallas-based law firm Patton Boggs,] continues. "Any attempt to water down or cancel an RPS has a chilling effect on investment."
Cannon says that any potential elimination or alteration of federal incentives and state mandates places into question the future viability of wind energy.
"The RPS mandates are effectively what creates the market, assuming there are no other structures in place, such as feed-in tariffs," he says. "If you roll back the RPS, then you are eliminating much of the market for the renewable off-take."
Global Wind Market Demands Industry Evolution
To make matters worse [emphasis added], load growth in the U.S. in non-existent, with 2012 electricity consumption projected to remain 1% below 2007 peaks. ...
As a consequence of the aforementioned issues, turbine prices in the U.S. are approaching unsustainable levels. ...
Clipper Windpower's Liberty turbine design was very innovative. However, ongoing doubts remain regarding the durability of its quantum-drive powertrain, which, in turn, lead to concerns regarding long-term warranty exposure and put future sales at risk. Reinventing the group was an option for United Technologies Corp. [who divested its recently acquired Clipper assets], but to do so would require a great deal of time and investment, especially given the unique architecture of the Liberty concept. ...
Nordex recently announced that its joint venture deal [with Vestas] fell through and that it is exiting the offshore wind business completely.
California Wind Market Is 'Not for the Faint of Heart'
... rabid environmentalists ...
Navigating California's Regulatory Maze
Because California's four primary areas for wind farm development are now largely saturated, developers are moving into many new regions of the state that host a combination of renowned natural landscapes, community activism, cultural resources and diligent government oversight.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
Pressure Applied in States to Widen RPS Allowances
"It's disconcerting to even have the conversation," [George Cannon, a partner at Dallas-based law firm Patton Boggs,] continues. "Any attempt to water down or cancel an RPS has a chilling effect on investment."
Cannon says that any potential elimination or alteration of federal incentives and state mandates places into question the future viability of wind energy.
"The RPS mandates are effectively what creates the market, assuming there are no other structures in place, such as feed-in tariffs," he says. "If you roll back the RPS, then you are eliminating much of the market for the renewable off-take."
Global Wind Market Demands Industry Evolution
To make matters worse [emphasis added], load growth in the U.S. in non-existent, with 2012 electricity consumption projected to remain 1% below 2007 peaks. ...
As a consequence of the aforementioned issues, turbine prices in the U.S. are approaching unsustainable levels. ...
Clipper Windpower's Liberty turbine design was very innovative. However, ongoing doubts remain regarding the durability of its quantum-drive powertrain, which, in turn, lead to concerns regarding long-term warranty exposure and put future sales at risk. Reinventing the group was an option for United Technologies Corp. [who divested its recently acquired Clipper assets], but to do so would require a great deal of time and investment, especially given the unique architecture of the Liberty concept. ...
Nordex recently announced that its joint venture deal [with Vestas] fell through and that it is exiting the offshore wind business completely.
California Wind Market Is 'Not for the Faint of Heart'
... rabid environmentalists ...
Navigating California's Regulatory Maze
Because California's four primary areas for wind farm development are now largely saturated, developers are moving into many new regions of the state that host a combination of renowned natural landscapes, community activism, cultural resources and diligent government oversight.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
750,000 pounds of concrete and 46,000 pounds of steel
Lori Potter reports in the Kearney (Neb.) Hub (via Wind Watch):
Jake Nikle of Wanzek Construction’s Fargo, N.D., office provided the Hub with some details about the materials, machines and manpower required to build the Broken Bow Wind farm.
Wanzek and its subcontractors are preparing sites for 50 wind turbines that will have a combined generating capacity of 80 megawatts. ...
The initial work includes building roads through pastures to the hills where foundations and electrical cables are installed. The concrete foundations now hidden underground are octagon shaped, but high in the middle and sloping to the sides.
Each foundation is about 8 feet below ground and is 56 feet across at its base.
The “pedestal” on top of the ground goes down three feet. Each of the 14-feet concrete circles has 128 bolts in two circular rows. The 8-foot-long bolts are anchored through a ring in the concrete foundation that also has 23 tons of rebar. ...
About 250 yards of concrete were required for each foundation. To support the weight of a turbine, 750,000 pounds of concrete and 46,000 pounds of steel are used.
More than 45 miles of underground cable will be buried to link the turbines to a substation.
Nebraska Public Power District, which has a power purchase agreement with Edison Mission Group, is building a nine-mile transmission line between the wind farm substation and an existing NPPD substation south of Highway 2 near Broken Bow.
Getting equipment to the turbine sites isn’t easy. About 24 miles of roads have been built, including some that included filling in parts of pasture canyons that must be crossed.
Turbine construction will be done in two phases, with cranes putting a section of each tower put onto the pedestals.
Then a larger, 550-ton-capacity crane will lift the top section — nacelle, rotors and blades — into place. It will require about 30 semitrailer trucks to haul that crane’s components.
Depending on the configuration of the load, it will take eight or nine trucks to haul each turbine.
At times when one of the three 42-meter (about 140 feet) blades extends straight up from the tower, the turbine will rise about 400 feet from the ground.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
Jake Nikle of Wanzek Construction’s Fargo, N.D., office provided the Hub with some details about the materials, machines and manpower required to build the Broken Bow Wind farm.
Wanzek and its subcontractors are preparing sites for 50 wind turbines that will have a combined generating capacity of 80 megawatts. ...
The initial work includes building roads through pastures to the hills where foundations and electrical cables are installed. The concrete foundations now hidden underground are octagon shaped, but high in the middle and sloping to the sides.
Each foundation is about 8 feet below ground and is 56 feet across at its base.
The “pedestal” on top of the ground goes down three feet. Each of the 14-feet concrete circles has 128 bolts in two circular rows. The 8-foot-long bolts are anchored through a ring in the concrete foundation that also has 23 tons of rebar. ...
About 250 yards of concrete were required for each foundation. To support the weight of a turbine, 750,000 pounds of concrete and 46,000 pounds of steel are used.
More than 45 miles of underground cable will be buried to link the turbines to a substation.
Nebraska Public Power District, which has a power purchase agreement with Edison Mission Group, is building a nine-mile transmission line between the wind farm substation and an existing NPPD substation south of Highway 2 near Broken Bow.
Getting equipment to the turbine sites isn’t easy. About 24 miles of roads have been built, including some that included filling in parts of pasture canyons that must be crossed.
Turbine construction will be done in two phases, with cranes putting a section of each tower put onto the pedestals.
Then a larger, 550-ton-capacity crane will lift the top section — nacelle, rotors and blades — into place. It will require about 30 semitrailer trucks to haul that crane’s components.
Depending on the configuration of the load, it will take eight or nine trucks to haul each turbine.
At times when one of the three 42-meter (about 140 feet) blades extends straight up from the tower, the turbine will rise about 400 feet from the ground.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
May 8, 2012
Mind and Body
Happiness is beneficial for the body but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind. ... Ideas take the place of sorrows; when the latter are transformed into ideas, they at once lose part of their noxious effect on the heart and from the very first moment the transformation itself radiates joy.
[Le bonheur est salutaire pour le corps, mais c’est le chagrin qui développe les forces de l’esprit. ... Les idées sont des succédanés des chagrin; au moment où ceux-ci se changent en idées, ils perdent une partie de leur action nocive sur notre cœur, et même au premier instant, la transformation elle-même dégage subitement de la joie.]
—Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured
(1932 translation of Le Temps Retrouvé (1928) by Frederick Blossom)
[Le bonheur est salutaire pour le corps, mais c’est le chagrin qui développe les forces de l’esprit. ... Les idées sont des succédanés des chagrin; au moment où ceux-ci se changent en idées, ils perdent une partie de leur action nocive sur notre cœur, et même au premier instant, la transformation elle-même dégage subitement de la joie.]
—Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured
(1932 translation of Le Temps Retrouvé (1928) by Frederick Blossom)
May 6, 2012
Omnivores?
Today, the New York Times Magazine published the winning essay in their Ethicist contest for the ethical justification of eating meat. As expected, it is lame.
And in a strange fit, the Times “Public Editor”, Arthur Brisbane, decries the contest for making meat-eaters uncomfortable (which strongly suggests that the ethics of meat eating is indeed elusive).
He cites, apparently as reasonable critique, a blog post by Lisa Henderson, a sophomore at Kansas State University, on the Pork Network: “I believe that humans are omnivores and that meat provides protein and other things that are essential for health. Animals utilize the grass. Animals help us utilize more of the earth. I am not anti-vegetarian, but they seem to be anti-meat, and they seem to want to take that choice away from me.”
The omnivore argument actually justifies a vegetarian diet, because, especially since the invention of cooking, humans can thrive in a large variety of environments without meat. Furthermore, while meat-eaters insist that the imperative of being omnivorous drives their eating habits, they are not in fact omnivorous. Do they eat other humans? Do they (at least the majority in the U.S.) eat horses and dogs? The fact is, they too make ethical and cultural decisions about their diet and do just fine.
It is also telling that meat-eaters always feel threatened by the mere existence of a vegetarian diet. That response suggests that the only justification is indeed cultural in that vegetarians are seen as apostates or traitors.
Brisbane then solicits a comment from Calvin Trillin, which again he cites as apparently meaningful: “If they had a chance, they would eat us.”
Those vicious cows and chickens: terrorists in our midst!
Finally, Brisbane had also noted evocations by animal experimenter Linda Cork of life on the Arctic tundra and arid plains, where she sees fishing and herding to be essential to survival. But that only underscores that animal flesh is not essential to survival in Stanford, California. (Science researchers like Cork, for all their avowed objectivity, generally sugarcoat the fate of their victims as “sacrifice”.)
So to the winning essay, by former vegetarian Jay Bost, who, like Linda Cork, apparently saw that life in the Arizona desert would be difficult without eating animals and that therefore it’s OK to eat them in North Carolina and Hawaii, too.
In what Brisbane derides as “awfully complicated”, Bost lays down three conditions (not necessity, not imperative) to feel OK about eating the corpses of other animals: 1) accept that death begets life, that all life is just solar energy temporarily stored in an impermanent form; 2) invoke compassion to choose ethically raised food, vegetable, grain, and/or meat; 3) give thanks.
Bost defines “ethical” as “living in the most ecologically benign way”. He compares boutique organic beef to monoculture/pesticide agriculture and — quel surprise! — concludes that not eating meat may be unethical. He compares the “best” situation on one side (we're not even getting into the horrors of “organic” dairy) to the worst situation on the other. Of course, meat eaters also eat plants, since healthy life without plants is a lot more unlikely than life without meat. They are implicated in both sides.
But let us consider cannibalism again. Since the greatest burden on the earth’s ecology is in fact the burgeoning human population, why wouldn’t it be ethical, by Bost’s definition, to eat other humans? In fact, one might conclude from his argument that not eating humans may be unethical. After all, if grazing animals help the land, it would be unethical to kill them. Whereas the Gospel of John in the Christian testament notes at 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son”. In the ritual of the eucharist (i.e., “thanks”, Bost’s final condition), believers consume the flesh of Jesus (”just solar energy temporarily stored in an impermanent form”), not a sheep or chicken.
Which leads me to my own (unsent) entry, imagining the only possible ethical argument, namely, the circular one of religion:
Meat: An Ethical Imperative
In the Book of Genesis, Cain slew Abel, because Abel was a meat-eater and thereby found greater favor with G-D. Having distanced himself from the ways of G-D by foregoing meat, Cain’s ethics had deteriorated to the point that his envy turned to murder. After that, he kept to cities, where a greater variety of sin is possible. But as the mark of his crime faded, his envy rose again, and so today urban vegetarians righteously condemn the diet that has sustained humans for millenia. They denounce meat-eaters as cruel, but instead of being cruel to animals, vegetarians must be cruel to other humans, just as Cain was toward Abel.
Violence and murder are a part of the human psyche. If we don’t regularly kill animals — respectfully, gratefully incorporating their spirits into our own — we end up killing other humans, even loved ones, as Cain killed his own brother. To advocate a vegetarian diet is ultimately to advocate murder. To eat humanely raised and slaughtered animals is to promote peace among men, which is why sacrificial meals are at the core of every religion and community.
As the essential bond of society, shared murder is its ethical basis.
To maintain civilization, if we are to avoid human sacrifice, the crime of Cain, we must slay animals and, to honor them as worthy gifts to the gods, eat them.
In choosing a nonviolent diet, vegetarians deny that ethical necessity. In continuing to eat meat, even to our own and the planet’s harm, we recognize the necessary sacrifice that ethical living demands. We must bear the burden of Cain by emulating Abel.
Update, April 7, 2013: Chris Grattan of Brockport, N.Y., writes: “In paleolithic hunting cultures, the rites connected with the killing of game were oriented toward an expression of gratitude to the animal for having given its life and the belief that its spirit would return in another body. In neolithic horticultural and agricultural societies the rites to promote the fecundity of the land were often gruesomely bloody, often in the form of human sacrifice. I try to keep this in mind when being subjected to vegetarian sanctimony.”
Get thee behind me Cain, ye ferking vegetarian!
But, back in reality, as omnivores we can choose what we eat. For most people most of the time, there is no need to eat animals. To choose to eat animals is to choose killing and suffering, and ethical justification for that choice — when it is a choice — is impossible.
As I have quipped before, meat-eaters claim to be omnivores, but they can’t swallow the truth.
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
Art and Society
From The Past Recaptured, by Marcel Proust (1932 translation by Frederick Blossom of Le Temps Retrouvé (1928)):
Even in our artistic enjoyment, although sought after for the impressions it gives, we are very quickly content to leave those impressions aside as something that cannot be expressed and confine our attention to those phases which allow us to experience the pleasure without analysing the sensations thoroughly, while thinking that we are communicating them to others with similar tastes, with whom we shall be able to converse because we shall be talking to them of something which is the same for them as for us, the personal root of our own impression having been eliminated. At the very times when we are the most dispassionate observers of nature, of society, love, even art itself, since every impression has two parts, one of them incorporated in the object and the other prolonged within ourselves and therefore knowable only to us, we are quick to neglect the latter, that is to say, the one part to which we ought to devote our attention, and consider only the other half, which, being outside ourselves, cannot be studied deeply and consequently never will cause us any fatiguing exertion; the slight groove that a musical phrase or the sight of a church made in our consciousness we find it too difficult to try to comprehend. But we play the symphony again and again or keep returning to look at the church, until, in this running away from our own life which we have not the courage to face — they call this “erudition” — we come to know them as well, and in the same manner, as the most learned lover of music or archaeology. How many there are, consequently, who stop at that point and extract nothing from their impression, but go to their graves useless and unsatisfied, like celibates of art. They are tormented by the same regrets as virgins and idlers, regrets that fecund labour would dispel. They are more wrought up over works of art than the real artists, because they do not labour arduously to get to the bottom of their emotional state and therefore it is diffused in outward expression, puts heat into their remarks and blood into their faces; they think they are doing something really great when, after the execution of a work they like, they shout vociferously “Bravo, bravo!” But these manifestations do not force them to seek light on the nature of their love; they do not know what it really is. Meanwhile, this unexpended passion exuberates into even their calmest conversation and leads them to indulge in grand gestures, facial contortions and noddings of the head when they talk of art. “I have been at a concert where they played some music which, I admit, did not thrill me. Then the quartette began and, nom d’une pipe, that was another story!” (Here the music lover’s face assumes an anxious expression, as if he were saying to himself, “Why, I see sparks, I smell something burning; there must be a fire somewhere!”) “Good Lord! what a difference! It was exasperating, it was badly written, but it was stunning! It was not something everybody could appreciate.” And yet, ridiculous though these devotees may be, they are not entirely to be scorned. They are nature’s first efforts in the process of evolving the artist; they are as shapeless and lacking in viability as the earliest animals, which preceded the present species and were not so constituted as to be able to survive. These weak-willed, sterile dabblers should arouse our sympathy like those first contrivances which were not able to leave the ground, but in which there was, not yet the means, secret and still to be discovered, but at any rate the desire, to fly. “And let me tell you, old man,” adds the dilettante, as he takes your arm, “that’s the eighth time I’ve heard it and I promise you, it won’t be the last.” And in truth, since they fail to assimilate the really nourishing part of art, they suffer from a continual need of artistic enjoyment, a gnawing hunger that nothing can satisfy. So they go and applaud the same work for a long time at a stretch, believing also that in being present they are performing a duty, an act of piety, as others regard their attendance at a meeting of a Board of Directors or a funeral. Then come works of a different, even quite contrary, character in literature, painting or music. For the ability to launch new ideas and systems and, especially, to absorb them has always been much more widespread than genuine good taste, even among the producers of art, and this tendency is spreading considerably with the increase in the number of literary reviews and journals — and, along with them, of people who imagine they have been called to be writers and artists. There was a time, for example, when the better element of our youth, the more intelligent and more sincerely interested, no longer cared for any but works having a lofty moral and sociological, even religious significance. They had the idea that that was the criterion of the value of a work, thereby repeating the error of such as David, Chenavard, Brunetière, and others. Instead of Bergotte, whose airiest sentences, as a matter of fact, required much profounder meditation, they preferred writers who seemed more profound only because they did not write as well. “His intricate way of writing is suited only to society people,” the democratically minded said, thereby paying society folk a compliment they did not deserve. But the moment our reasoning intelligence tries to judge works of art, there is no longer anything fixed or certain; one can prove anything one wishes to. Whereas the real essence of talent is a gift, an attribute of a cosmic character, the presence of which should first of all be sought for underneath the surface fashions of thought and style, it is by these latter qualities that the critics classify an author. Because of his peremptory tone and his ostentatious scorn of the school that preceded him, they put the mantle of prophecy on a writer who has no new message to deliver. This constant aberration of the critics is such that a writer should almost prefer to be judged by the public at large (if the latter were not incapable even of understanding what an artist has attempted in a line of effort unfamiliar to it). For the talent of a great writer — which, after all, is merely an instinct religiously hearkened to (while silence is imposed on everything else), perfected and understood — has more in common with the instinctive life of the people than with the superficial verbiage and fluctuating standards of the conventionally recognised judges. Their battle of words begins all over again every ten years — for the kaleidoscope comprises not only society groups, but also social, political and religious ideas, which temporarily spread out more broadly through refraction in the large masses but nevertheless are shortlived, like all ideas whose novelty succeeds in deceiving only minds that are not very exacting as to proofs. Therefore parties and schools have followed one another, attracting to themselves always the same minds, men of only relative intelligence, always prone to partisan enthusiasms which less credulous minds, more exacting in the matter of proofs, avoid. Unfortunately the former, just because they are only half-wits, need to round out their personalities with action; therefore they are more active than the superior minds, attract the crowd and build up around themselves, not only exaggerated reputations for some, and unwarranted condemnation of others, but civil and foreign wars, which it ought to be possible to escape with a little non-royalist self-criticism. And as for the pleasure that a perfectly balanced mind, a heart that is truly alive finds in the beautiful thought of some master, it is no doubt wholly sound, but however precious may be the men who are capable of enjoying it (how many are there in twenty years?) it nevertheless reduces them to the condition of being merely the full consciousness of someone else. When a man has done everything to win the love of a woman who could only have made him unhappy and, despite repeated efforts over many years, he has not even been able to obtain a rendezvous with her, instead of trying to describe his sufferings and the danger he has escaped, he reads and rereads this pensée from La Bruyère, annotating it with “a million words” and the most moving memories of his own life: “Men often want to love and do not know how to succeed in so doing; they seek defeat but are not able to find it, so that, if I may so express it, they are forced to remain free.” Whether he who wrote that pensée intended it so or not (and then it should read “be loved,” instead of “love,” and it would be finer that way) it is certain that the sensitive man of letters referred to gives it life, fills it with meaning to the point of bursting and cannot repeat it without overflowing with joy to find it so true and beautiful, and yet he has added hardly anything to it and there remains merely the pensée of La Bruyère.
Even in our artistic enjoyment, although sought after for the impressions it gives, we are very quickly content to leave those impressions aside as something that cannot be expressed and confine our attention to those phases which allow us to experience the pleasure without analysing the sensations thoroughly, while thinking that we are communicating them to others with similar tastes, with whom we shall be able to converse because we shall be talking to them of something which is the same for them as for us, the personal root of our own impression having been eliminated. At the very times when we are the most dispassionate observers of nature, of society, love, even art itself, since every impression has two parts, one of them incorporated in the object and the other prolonged within ourselves and therefore knowable only to us, we are quick to neglect the latter, that is to say, the one part to which we ought to devote our attention, and consider only the other half, which, being outside ourselves, cannot be studied deeply and consequently never will cause us any fatiguing exertion; the slight groove that a musical phrase or the sight of a church made in our consciousness we find it too difficult to try to comprehend. But we play the symphony again and again or keep returning to look at the church, until, in this running away from our own life which we have not the courage to face — they call this “erudition” — we come to know them as well, and in the same manner, as the most learned lover of music or archaeology. How many there are, consequently, who stop at that point and extract nothing from their impression, but go to their graves useless and unsatisfied, like celibates of art. They are tormented by the same regrets as virgins and idlers, regrets that fecund labour would dispel. They are more wrought up over works of art than the real artists, because they do not labour arduously to get to the bottom of their emotional state and therefore it is diffused in outward expression, puts heat into their remarks and blood into their faces; they think they are doing something really great when, after the execution of a work they like, they shout vociferously “Bravo, bravo!” But these manifestations do not force them to seek light on the nature of their love; they do not know what it really is. Meanwhile, this unexpended passion exuberates into even their calmest conversation and leads them to indulge in grand gestures, facial contortions and noddings of the head when they talk of art. “I have been at a concert where they played some music which, I admit, did not thrill me. Then the quartette began and, nom d’une pipe, that was another story!” (Here the music lover’s face assumes an anxious expression, as if he were saying to himself, “Why, I see sparks, I smell something burning; there must be a fire somewhere!”) “Good Lord! what a difference! It was exasperating, it was badly written, but it was stunning! It was not something everybody could appreciate.” And yet, ridiculous though these devotees may be, they are not entirely to be scorned. They are nature’s first efforts in the process of evolving the artist; they are as shapeless and lacking in viability as the earliest animals, which preceded the present species and were not so constituted as to be able to survive. These weak-willed, sterile dabblers should arouse our sympathy like those first contrivances which were not able to leave the ground, but in which there was, not yet the means, secret and still to be discovered, but at any rate the desire, to fly. “And let me tell you, old man,” adds the dilettante, as he takes your arm, “that’s the eighth time I’ve heard it and I promise you, it won’t be the last.” And in truth, since they fail to assimilate the really nourishing part of art, they suffer from a continual need of artistic enjoyment, a gnawing hunger that nothing can satisfy. So they go and applaud the same work for a long time at a stretch, believing also that in being present they are performing a duty, an act of piety, as others regard their attendance at a meeting of a Board of Directors or a funeral. Then come works of a different, even quite contrary, character in literature, painting or music. For the ability to launch new ideas and systems and, especially, to absorb them has always been much more widespread than genuine good taste, even among the producers of art, and this tendency is spreading considerably with the increase in the number of literary reviews and journals — and, along with them, of people who imagine they have been called to be writers and artists. There was a time, for example, when the better element of our youth, the more intelligent and more sincerely interested, no longer cared for any but works having a lofty moral and sociological, even religious significance. They had the idea that that was the criterion of the value of a work, thereby repeating the error of such as David, Chenavard, Brunetière, and others. Instead of Bergotte, whose airiest sentences, as a matter of fact, required much profounder meditation, they preferred writers who seemed more profound only because they did not write as well. “His intricate way of writing is suited only to society people,” the democratically minded said, thereby paying society folk a compliment they did not deserve. But the moment our reasoning intelligence tries to judge works of art, there is no longer anything fixed or certain; one can prove anything one wishes to. Whereas the real essence of talent is a gift, an attribute of a cosmic character, the presence of which should first of all be sought for underneath the surface fashions of thought and style, it is by these latter qualities that the critics classify an author. Because of his peremptory tone and his ostentatious scorn of the school that preceded him, they put the mantle of prophecy on a writer who has no new message to deliver. This constant aberration of the critics is such that a writer should almost prefer to be judged by the public at large (if the latter were not incapable even of understanding what an artist has attempted in a line of effort unfamiliar to it). For the talent of a great writer — which, after all, is merely an instinct religiously hearkened to (while silence is imposed on everything else), perfected and understood — has more in common with the instinctive life of the people than with the superficial verbiage and fluctuating standards of the conventionally recognised judges. Their battle of words begins all over again every ten years — for the kaleidoscope comprises not only society groups, but also social, political and religious ideas, which temporarily spread out more broadly through refraction in the large masses but nevertheless are shortlived, like all ideas whose novelty succeeds in deceiving only minds that are not very exacting as to proofs. Therefore parties and schools have followed one another, attracting to themselves always the same minds, men of only relative intelligence, always prone to partisan enthusiasms which less credulous minds, more exacting in the matter of proofs, avoid. Unfortunately the former, just because they are only half-wits, need to round out their personalities with action; therefore they are more active than the superior minds, attract the crowd and build up around themselves, not only exaggerated reputations for some, and unwarranted condemnation of others, but civil and foreign wars, which it ought to be possible to escape with a little non-royalist self-criticism. And as for the pleasure that a perfectly balanced mind, a heart that is truly alive finds in the beautiful thought of some master, it is no doubt wholly sound, but however precious may be the men who are capable of enjoying it (how many are there in twenty years?) it nevertheless reduces them to the condition of being merely the full consciousness of someone else. When a man has done everything to win the love of a woman who could only have made him unhappy and, despite repeated efforts over many years, he has not even been able to obtain a rendezvous with her, instead of trying to describe his sufferings and the danger he has escaped, he reads and rereads this pensée from La Bruyère, annotating it with “a million words” and the most moving memories of his own life: “Men often want to love and do not know how to succeed in so doing; they seek defeat but are not able to find it, so that, if I may so express it, they are forced to remain free.” Whether he who wrote that pensée intended it so or not (and then it should read “be loved,” instead of “love,” and it would be finer that way) it is certain that the sensitive man of letters referred to gives it life, fills it with meaning to the point of bursting and cannot repeat it without overflowing with joy to find it so true and beautiful, and yet he has added hardly anything to it and there remains merely the pensée of La Bruyère.
April 30, 2012
new translation of first 2 lines of the divine comedy
In the midst of the walk through our life
I found myself by a hidden forest
When I had left the right way.
(Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai
Per una selva oscura ché la via diritta era smaritta.)
I found myself by a hidden forest
When I had left the right way.
(Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai
Per una selva oscura ché la via diritta era smaritta.)
April 25, 2012
Vermont Congress members and big wind
The American Wind Energy Association's WindPAC has donated the following to Vermont's congressional delegation, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission
Barton Merlesmith of North Ferrisburgh, Director of Business Development, NRG Systems, donated $500 in 2011.
Thomas Gray of Norwich, VP of AWEA, donated $3,450 from 1997 to 2004.
Earth Turbines also accounts for $5,000 donated directly to Peter Welch so far in the 2012 election cycle.
Turbine manufacturer General Electric has directly donated $8,000 and its employees $8,750 to Patrick Leahy so far in the 2012 election cycle.
wind power, wind energy, Vermont
- Representative Peter Welch: $1000 in 2009
- Senator Patrick Leahy: $1000 in 2010, $1000 in 2011
- Senator Bernie Sanders: $3500 in 2009
Barton Merlesmith of North Ferrisburgh, Director of Business Development, NRG Systems, donated $500 in 2011.
Thomas Gray of Norwich, VP of AWEA, donated $3,450 from 1997 to 2004.
Earth Turbines also accounts for $5,000 donated directly to Peter Welch so far in the 2012 election cycle.
Turbine manufacturer General Electric has directly donated $8,000 and its employees $8,750 to Patrick Leahy so far in the 2012 election cycle.
wind power, wind energy, Vermont
April 20, 2012
Hope, a Tragedy
From Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander:
Pessimists, Professor Jove replied, don’t start wars. It was hope, according to Professor Jove, that was keeping Kugel up at night. It was hope that was making him angry.
Give Up, read the sign on the wall behind Jove’s book-covered desk, You’ll Live Longer.
But you’ve been to Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, said Kugel.
That’s how I know, said Professor Jove.
Kugel had waited weeks for an appointment.
We are rational creatures, Professor Jove explained; hope is irrational. We thus set ourselves up for one dispiriting fall after the next. Anger and depression are not diseases or dysfunctions or anomalies; they are perfectly rational responses to the myriad avoidable disappointments that begin in a thoroughly irrational hope.
Kugel wasn’t sure he understood. Professor Jove smiled warmly.
Tell me, he said. Hitler was the last century’s greatest what?
Kugel had shrugged.
Monster?
Optimist, said Professor Jove. Hitler was the most unabashed doe-eyed optimist of the last hundred years. That’s why he was the biggest monster. Have you ever heard of anything as outrageously hopeful as the Final Solution? Not just that there could be a solution — to anything, mind you, while we have yet to cure the common cold — but a final one, no less! Full of hope, the Führer was. A dreamer! A romantic, even, yes? If I just kill this one, gas that one, everything will be okay. I tell you this with absolute certainty: every morning, Adolf Hitler woke up, made himself a cup of coffee, and asked himself how to make the world a better place. We all know his answer, but the answer isn’t nearly as important as the question. The only thing more naively hopeful than the Final Solution is the ludicrous dictum to which it gave birth: Never Again. How many times since Never Again has it happened again? Three? Four? That we know of, mind you. Mao? Optimist. Stalin? Optimist. Pol Pot? Optimist. Here’s a good rule for life, Kugel, no matter where you happen to live or when you happen to be born: when someone rises up and promises that things are going to be better, run. Hide. Pessimists don’t build gas chambers.
I just want my family to be safe, said Kugel. I just want the world to leave us alone. Is that asking too much?
What, asked Professor Jove, did Jesus Christ say when they nailed him to the cross?
I don’t know, said Kugel. What did Jesus Christ say when they nailed him to the cross?
He said Ouch, said Professor Jove.
I don’t get it, said Kugel.
There’s nothing to get, said Professor Jove. It hurt. First they whipped him half to death, then they held him down and nailed iron spikes through his wrists. If he was lucky, they did the same to his feet. The weight of his body bearing down on his chest made it difficult to breathe, and he died, slowly and agonizingly, from respiratory distress.
I still don’t get it, said Kugel.
There is hurt in this world, said Professor Jove. There is pain. Hoping there won’t be only makes it worse.
Pessimists, Professor Jove replied, don’t start wars. It was hope, according to Professor Jove, that was keeping Kugel up at night. It was hope that was making him angry.
Give Up, read the sign on the wall behind Jove’s book-covered desk, You’ll Live Longer.
But you’ve been to Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, said Kugel.
That’s how I know, said Professor Jove.
Kugel had waited weeks for an appointment.
We are rational creatures, Professor Jove explained; hope is irrational. We thus set ourselves up for one dispiriting fall after the next. Anger and depression are not diseases or dysfunctions or anomalies; they are perfectly rational responses to the myriad avoidable disappointments that begin in a thoroughly irrational hope.
Kugel wasn’t sure he understood. Professor Jove smiled warmly.
Tell me, he said. Hitler was the last century’s greatest what?
Kugel had shrugged.
Monster?
Optimist, said Professor Jove. Hitler was the most unabashed doe-eyed optimist of the last hundred years. That’s why he was the biggest monster. Have you ever heard of anything as outrageously hopeful as the Final Solution? Not just that there could be a solution — to anything, mind you, while we have yet to cure the common cold — but a final one, no less! Full of hope, the Führer was. A dreamer! A romantic, even, yes? If I just kill this one, gas that one, everything will be okay. I tell you this with absolute certainty: every morning, Adolf Hitler woke up, made himself a cup of coffee, and asked himself how to make the world a better place. We all know his answer, but the answer isn’t nearly as important as the question. The only thing more naively hopeful than the Final Solution is the ludicrous dictum to which it gave birth: Never Again. How many times since Never Again has it happened again? Three? Four? That we know of, mind you. Mao? Optimist. Stalin? Optimist. Pol Pot? Optimist. Here’s a good rule for life, Kugel, no matter where you happen to live or when you happen to be born: when someone rises up and promises that things are going to be better, run. Hide. Pessimists don’t build gas chambers.
I just want my family to be safe, said Kugel. I just want the world to leave us alone. Is that asking too much?
What, asked Professor Jove, did Jesus Christ say when they nailed him to the cross?
I don’t know, said Kugel. What did Jesus Christ say when they nailed him to the cross?
He said Ouch, said Professor Jove.
I don’t get it, said Kugel.
There’s nothing to get, said Professor Jove. It hurt. First they whipped him half to death, then they held him down and nailed iron spikes through his wrists. If he was lucky, they did the same to his feet. The weight of his body bearing down on his chest made it difficult to breathe, and he died, slowly and agonizingly, from respiratory distress.
I still don’t get it, said Kugel.
There is hurt in this world, said Professor Jove. There is pain. Hoping there won’t be only makes it worse.
April 16, 2012
Arbeit macht nicht frei
“My wife has the occasion, as you know, to campaign on her own and also with me, and she reports to me regularly that the issue women care about most is the economy and getting good jobs for their kids and for themselves. They are concerned about gasoline prices, the cost of getting to and from work, taking their kids to school or to practice and so forth after school. That is what women care about in this country and my vision is to get America working again.”
That's what Mitt Romney said in a speech on April 4 to the Newspaper Association of America.
Here's what Hilary Rosen said on CNN on April 11:
"What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, 'Well, you know my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues and when I listen to my wife that's what I'm hearing.' Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future."
The rest is history, with most people revealing that they have thrown away their humanity in picking what political team they root for.
Mitt Romney and Hilary Rosen are saying the same thing. They deny the other's right to say it, because they are both expressing false concern. And both are wielding their comments as a weapon against the other.
What this whole stand-off illustrates is the false divide in U.S. politics.
Hilary Rosen is a right-wing corporate flack, famous for leading the Recording Industry Association of America's campaign against people sharing the music they've bought with friends. She still advises Obama on the issue. After quitting that job, for a short time she was interim director of Human Rights Campaign, which awarded their 2011 Workplace Equality Innovation Award to Goldman Sachs. While working at the Huffington Post, she was outed as a consultant for BP.
Ann Romney is married to one of the predatory capitalists that Rosen serves. They may not have anything in common in personal style and beliefs, but they both serve the same master.
At least Ann Romney only raised a few children and supported her husband on behalf of that system, whereas Hilary Rosen has actively contributed to its evil. Her dismissal of Ann Romney appears to be because the latter has only listened to women on the campaign trail, without a history of actively working to maintain their economic misery.
Many "liberal" commenters on this issue have expressed a hatred for women who choose to stay at home as a betrayal of feminism, as if feminism is only about a few women getting to the top of the exploitative pyramid and everyone else being forced to toil in "service" jobs as somehow liberating.
Rosen's strong support of Obama and the Democratic Party is clear evidence that the only difference between the parties is that one is slightly more tolerant of gays.
That's certainly a good to be counted, but it does nothing for the 99% of the people, women and men, gay and otherwise, who are not striving to triumph in a cut-throat system. It's good that Goldman Sachs extends benefits to gay partners, but that hardly makes it a benign force in the world. Human rights are rather a broader issue.
What is work for? Actively raising a family should not be the privilege only of the rich. Is either Mitt or Hilary suggesting an economic system that makes raising a family easier for everyone (as in many European countries)? They are both against women, against men, against families, against humanity.
Arbeit macht nicht frei. Work does not make you free.
human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
March 31, 2012
The Four or Five Funny Books
1. The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life (translation of An Béal Bocht) by Myles na gCopaleen (Brian O’Nolan a.k.a. Flann O’Brien)
2. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
3. Fisher’s Hornpipe by Todd McEwen
4. Come to the Edge by Joanna Kavenna
5. Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson
6. Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander
7. The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W. E. Bowman
March 28, 2012
The Arrogance of Industry
The state of New South Wales in Australia has drawn up draft guidelines to regulate further construction of "wind farms". Wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Australia duly submitted comments to decry them and denounce those supporting them. (The alleged latter, however, do not find the guidelines to be very good, either: see here, here, and here.)
Ken McAlpine, Director of Policy and Government Relations, writes:
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
Ken McAlpine, Director of Policy and Government Relations, writes:
Vestas opposes the Draft Guidelines, primarily because of the sheer number of new and additional requirements and barriers that would be placed in front of the wind energy industry without any clear evidence, justification or demonstrated need for this additional regulation.In other words, after removing requirements and barriers facing development of previously protected land and instituting favorable regulations and tax breaks and other financial benefits to make our industry profitable, without any clear evidence, justification or demonstrated need, and seemingly motivated primarily by an attempt to appease pro-industry investors, how dare you consider anyone else's concerns or wishes, let alone the people you pretend to represent!
The Draft Guidelines appear to be in conflict with the New South Wales (NSW) Government’s own renewable energy policies and seem to be primarily motivated by an attempt to appease anti-wind protest groups.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
March 23, 2012
Judy Callens: Good Riddance!
A friend writes:
The principal (no "pal" of mine!) of Hartland Elementary School, Judy Callens, is retiring at the end of this academic year (because her contract was not renewed?). We have therefore been subjected to a barrage of encomia for her devotion to learning and her inspirational leadership.
In fact, her vision is limited to producing little soldiers. She is obsessed with disciplinary trivialities and eager to punish anyone who does not fall in with her rigid program of indoctrination. Her paeans to "community" in a weekly newsletter were no more than self-aggrandizing assertions of her school as defining the limits of that community. She epitomizes the reasons that so many people are not just dissatisfied with their public schools, but flee them in horror.
When we reached out to the teachers to help us through a bad patch in our son's academics, asking them to warn us earlier than at grade-reporting of any problems, to suggest extra work that might be helpful, etc., we were met almost entirely with silence. The guidance counselor who further brought it up on our behalf was met with defensive anger. Finally, Judy Callens, with our son in her office to inform him of her latest punishment for poor grades, told him that his teachers have no responsibility to communicate (same root as "community"!) with us beyond entering grade data into the online "Powerschool" program.
She even prefaced her comment to this child with a sarcastic "With all due respect". Too cowardly to face his parents, she revealed her true lack of respect for, even hatred of, children. And that attitude characterized the entire school. Her "leadership" encouraged a blithe laziness among the teachers, an environment that expected respect to flow one way only, especially when not deserved.
The community of Judy Callens' vision is a narrow one indeed. It is entirely shaped by her own personality: mean, resentful, small. It is defined by deference to authority above all else, perversely tested by giving every reason to disdain it. Hers is the logic of an abusive parent: ensuring the very disrespect she demands in a vicious spiral of violence and failure.
Spring came early with the announcement of her departure. Let us hope that Hartland Elementary will do much better with her replacement.
I wish Ms. Callens all the misery and misfortune she deserves for the violence she has done to the many young lives entrusted to her.
School Choice Vermont!
The principal (no "pal" of mine!) of Hartland Elementary School, Judy Callens, is retiring at the end of this academic year (because her contract was not renewed?). We have therefore been subjected to a barrage of encomia for her devotion to learning and her inspirational leadership.
In fact, her vision is limited to producing little soldiers. She is obsessed with disciplinary trivialities and eager to punish anyone who does not fall in with her rigid program of indoctrination. Her paeans to "community" in a weekly newsletter were no more than self-aggrandizing assertions of her school as defining the limits of that community. She epitomizes the reasons that so many people are not just dissatisfied with their public schools, but flee them in horror.
When we reached out to the teachers to help us through a bad patch in our son's academics, asking them to warn us earlier than at grade-reporting of any problems, to suggest extra work that might be helpful, etc., we were met almost entirely with silence. The guidance counselor who further brought it up on our behalf was met with defensive anger. Finally, Judy Callens, with our son in her office to inform him of her latest punishment for poor grades, told him that his teachers have no responsibility to communicate (same root as "community"!) with us beyond entering grade data into the online "Powerschool" program.
She even prefaced her comment to this child with a sarcastic "With all due respect". Too cowardly to face his parents, she revealed her true lack of respect for, even hatred of, children. And that attitude characterized the entire school. Her "leadership" encouraged a blithe laziness among the teachers, an environment that expected respect to flow one way only, especially when not deserved.
The community of Judy Callens' vision is a narrow one indeed. It is entirely shaped by her own personality: mean, resentful, small. It is defined by deference to authority above all else, perversely tested by giving every reason to disdain it. Hers is the logic of an abusive parent: ensuring the very disrespect she demands in a vicious spiral of violence and failure.
Spring came early with the announcement of her departure. Let us hope that Hartland Elementary will do much better with her replacement.
I wish Ms. Callens all the misery and misfortune she deserves for the violence she has done to the many young lives entrusted to her.
School Choice Vermont!
March 21, 2012
Security Threat — Stand Your Ground
Are George Zimmerman and Robert Bales very different from Barack Obama?
George Zimmerman was protecting his gated community — and in the evening of February 26 shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, because he didn't recognize him.
Barack Obama was protecting his country — and bombed and killed 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (and nine others) on October 14, 2011, because his father had said mean words against U.S. arrogance (and who (along with three others) had already been killed for it on September 30, 2011). Although their murders would be inexcusable no matter their country of origin or residence, both al-Awlakis were U.S. citizens. But Obama did not recognize them as part of his community and considered that to be justification for murder.
George Zimmerman was protecting his gated community — and in the evening of February 26 shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, because he didn't recognize him.
Barack Obama was protecting his country — and bombed and killed 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (and nine others) on October 14, 2011, because his father had said mean words against U.S. arrogance (and who (along with three others) had already been killed for it on September 30, 2011). Although their murders would be inexcusable no matter their country of origin or residence, both al-Awlakis were U.S. citizens. But Obama did not recognize them as part of his community and considered that to be justification for murder.
American soldier Robert Bales "snapped" in Afghanistan and, allegedly alone, methodically killed 16 people and injured five in the dark morning hours of March 11. In one house, he killed a woman, four girls aged 2-6, four boys aged 8-12, and two other relatives. He then set their bodies on fire. In another house, he killed a 55-year-old man. In another village, he killed four members of another family, including another child. [Click here for their names.]
Bales had quit his career as a stockbroker to sign up with the Army after the hijacked airplane attacks on September 11, 2001. His fortunes as a capitalist were obviously not going well, and now he had something to blame. Eradicate that eternal enemy and his honor and prosperity would be restored, the latter at least in the expanded war market.
"Restoring America" — implying attainment of the personal "success" every citizen/consumer feels entitled to, somehow never wondering how everyone can triumph over everyone else — is the normal cry of every election in the U.S.A. That means that social and economic breakdown is the normal situation. It's as if politicians and every other huckster (the only people that do in fact "make it") want it that way! They market fear so they can sell you redemption.
It is the eradicating of an enemy — any enemy — that promises honor and profit. Without that enemy, where are you?
The message is the same from all of these killers: Stand your ground, America. It's never your fault. You have good reason to be scared, because other people aren't like you. Don't ever change! Don't ask questions! Shoot first! You're not a failure if you can kill! Your readiness to kill proves you're right!
[Ten years later: “Warshington Warlords”]
March 18, 2012
All that remains
From "Going, Going" by Philip Larkin:
And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls, the carved choirs.
There'll be books; it will linger on
In galleries; but all that remains
For us will be concrete and tyres.
Most things are never meant.
This won't be, most likely; but greeds
And garbage are too thick-strewn
To be swept up now, or invent
Excuses that make them all needs.
I just think it will happen, soon.
environment, environmentalism
And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls, the carved choirs.
There'll be books; it will linger on
In galleries; but all that remains
For us will be concrete and tyres.
Most things are never meant.
This won't be, most likely; but greeds
And garbage are too thick-strewn
To be swept up now, or invent
Excuses that make them all needs.
I just think it will happen, soon.
environment, environmentalism
March 17, 2012
Into the tumbril!
Jeffrey St. Clair writes:
The environmental movement has become freighted with more and more deceptive terms. Let’s begin by banishing the tiresome phrase sustainable development. Coined by NGOs in the 1970s, this discreditable term has been used to put a green gloss on everything from mega-dams to rainforest logging. Endless development is a more accurate description.
Next, let us eliminate the Mephistophelean phase win-win solution, a verbal potion of the Clinton era that was used to justify oil drilling in the Arctic, logging in the redwoods, and rollbacks in air pollution standards. In win-win solutions, industry gets what it wants and environmental groups get paid in grants to go along with the deal.
Finally, let us jettison the term holistic, especially when affixed to “ecosystem” or “resource management.” Holistic is a merely a New Age-update of the venerable term “multiple use,” one of the oldest cons in the history of conservation. Multiple use was the ludicrous notion that public lands could be all things to all people (or more properly all industries). In other words, wildlife could peacefully co-exist with mining, logging, livestock and off-road vehicle use. Holistic ecosystem management posits the same battered notion, but escalates the deception by suggesting that logging and grazing are actually beneficial to the long-term health of the ecosystem.
environment, environmentalism
The environmental movement has become freighted with more and more deceptive terms. Let’s begin by banishing the tiresome phrase sustainable development. Coined by NGOs in the 1970s, this discreditable term has been used to put a green gloss on everything from mega-dams to rainforest logging. Endless development is a more accurate description.
Next, let us eliminate the Mephistophelean phase win-win solution, a verbal potion of the Clinton era that was used to justify oil drilling in the Arctic, logging in the redwoods, and rollbacks in air pollution standards. In win-win solutions, industry gets what it wants and environmental groups get paid in grants to go along with the deal.
Finally, let us jettison the term holistic, especially when affixed to “ecosystem” or “resource management.” Holistic is a merely a New Age-update of the venerable term “multiple use,” one of the oldest cons in the history of conservation. Multiple use was the ludicrous notion that public lands could be all things to all people (or more properly all industries). In other words, wildlife could peacefully co-exist with mining, logging, livestock and off-road vehicle use. Holistic ecosystem management posits the same battered notion, but escalates the deception by suggesting that logging and grazing are actually beneficial to the long-term health of the ecosystem.
environment, environmentalism
March 14, 2012
A friend writes
Good god, women have enough problems and then to be "defended" by the likes of this Queen of Banality Maureen Dowd. Disgusting and dull as always, a free ad written for the too awful to even adequately describe Hillary Clinton. Maureen Dowd writes this embarrassing, dumb ode to female power, yet more men are mentioned in the column than women, and the only two who qualify to be in this faux-feminist bit of dreariness are military/industrial complex good soldiers Hillary Clinton and Olympia Snowe. O saintly Hillary Clinton, she has "fought for women's rights around the world", she has. And O, the "mass misogyny" of the Republicans! Poor ole Olympia Snowe -- fed up and leaving, and she be a woman! O if ye be female clasp your hands and shake them at the bitter heavens in despair and rage, rage rage at the Republicans, except if they be women.
Hillary should run for President in 2016, opines the ever vulgarian Dowd. Women are beginning to think Obama is not enough -- (surely not!) so, naturally, "they " are turning to Hillary, who as we know is so different from Obama in that she is apparently a female. She writes "If women are so vulnerable, they may need one of their own. Is she inevitable?" Excuse me while I throw up. I am channeling Santorum now. Wow. This monster known as Hillary Clinton is a champion for women's rights, as long as they are in her peer group, and they certainly don't include the women and female children she has consigned to a violent death in her endless war-mongering and support of drone attacks -- was it not she who said she would obliterate Iran? And applauded her vile husband's ending of welfare for poor mothers, and decided that desperate people, many of them undoubtedly women, should not be allowed to declare bankruptcy? How in any way is this charlatan lauded as being for women's rights? Is feminism defined as merely a privileged class of women "taking over", identical in nearly every way to the men who now hold power? How sad and pathetic.
The Republicans are barbarians when it comes to women, there is no doubt. But they have gotten this far in erasing abortion rights because the Democrats never fought back viciously and relentlessly against these deadly thugs. The Dems, including Clinton, (who described abortion as a "tragedy") apologized every fucking step of the way and pathetically tried to seek "common ground" with anti-abortion, anti-women forces, and so they lost this war, and THAT is a tragedy for women.
WHAT IS THE WORST thing is not Dowd's ignorant, trashy chick-lit-style column -- it is that every single commenter agrees with her -- every single one. Not one person not extolling Cinton to the skies, not one person pointing out what a war-mongering piece of shit she is -- opining all over the place that the head of the World bank is the place for her, the Supreme court, the presidency -- oh my god! The place for her is in the dock answering for her war crimes, but as these comments indicate, what passes as the "left" is essentially dead in this country -- they are brain-dead, banal, only think in the lifeless, claustrophobic terms handed to them by the media, can no longer think critically and have become Republicans albeit ones that believe in abortion rights (to a degree) and the difference between the parties has been essentially erased but the team players on both sides are so brainwashed they don't even see it. Now because Repubs hate women, the Dems now LOVE women (except for those women who made the bad decision to be Palestinians or Afghans, Pakistanis, Libyans, Yemeni, Iraqi, Irani, etc etc....) Dems even lauding that vicious creep Snowe, who quit only because she and her corporate sleaze husband are facing a big corruption lawsuit.
I despise the repubs for their hatred of women, but I despise the Dems for the same. I know that women are just as vile as men, and take no comfort in the prospect of seeing "one of my own" as President, unless perhaps it was Green party candidate Jill Stein, which will never happen. The only kind of woman who would be electable in this backwards kind of culture are women like Clinton, who are utterly indistinguishable from the men who run this country -- psychopaths all.
Hillary should run for President in 2016, opines the ever vulgarian Dowd. Women are beginning to think Obama is not enough -- (surely not!) so, naturally, "they " are turning to Hillary, who as we know is so different from Obama in that she is apparently a female. She writes "If women are so vulnerable, they may need one of their own. Is she inevitable?" Excuse me while I throw up. I am channeling Santorum now. Wow. This monster known as Hillary Clinton is a champion for women's rights, as long as they are in her peer group, and they certainly don't include the women and female children she has consigned to a violent death in her endless war-mongering and support of drone attacks -- was it not she who said she would obliterate Iran? And applauded her vile husband's ending of welfare for poor mothers, and decided that desperate people, many of them undoubtedly women, should not be allowed to declare bankruptcy? How in any way is this charlatan lauded as being for women's rights? Is feminism defined as merely a privileged class of women "taking over", identical in nearly every way to the men who now hold power? How sad and pathetic.
The Republicans are barbarians when it comes to women, there is no doubt. But they have gotten this far in erasing abortion rights because the Democrats never fought back viciously and relentlessly against these deadly thugs. The Dems, including Clinton, (who described abortion as a "tragedy") apologized every fucking step of the way and pathetically tried to seek "common ground" with anti-abortion, anti-women forces, and so they lost this war, and THAT is a tragedy for women.
WHAT IS THE WORST thing is not Dowd's ignorant, trashy chick-lit-style column -- it is that every single commenter agrees with her -- every single one. Not one person not extolling Cinton to the skies, not one person pointing out what a war-mongering piece of shit she is -- opining all over the place that the head of the World bank is the place for her, the Supreme court, the presidency -- oh my god! The place for her is in the dock answering for her war crimes, but as these comments indicate, what passes as the "left" is essentially dead in this country -- they are brain-dead, banal, only think in the lifeless, claustrophobic terms handed to them by the media, can no longer think critically and have become Republicans albeit ones that believe in abortion rights (to a degree) and the difference between the parties has been essentially erased but the team players on both sides are so brainwashed they don't even see it. Now because Repubs hate women, the Dems now LOVE women (except for those women who made the bad decision to be Palestinians or Afghans, Pakistanis, Libyans, Yemeni, Iraqi, Irani, etc etc....) Dems even lauding that vicious creep Snowe, who quit only because she and her corporate sleaze husband are facing a big corruption lawsuit.
I despise the repubs for their hatred of women, but I despise the Dems for the same. I know that women are just as vile as men, and take no comfort in the prospect of seeing "one of my own" as President, unless perhaps it was Green party candidate Jill Stein, which will never happen. The only kind of woman who would be electable in this backwards kind of culture are women like Clinton, who are utterly indistinguishable from the men who run this country -- psychopaths all.
March 6, 2012
March 3, 2012
Vestas V112 uses less power
A full page ad from Vestas in the March North American Windpower (below, or the part that fit in my scanner) boasts that its 3-MW V112 wind turbine "uses less power", that it has a "unique system that uses the wind's own energy to cool the nacelle and reduce power consumption".
This is interesting because the industry and its apologists have long insisted that power consumption by large wind turbines (which can not operate without power from the grid) is insignificant.
But if it is insignificant, then the energy savings of the Vestas "Cooler Top" design would be insignificant. Yet they devoted a full-page ad to promote it.
Which clearly suggests that energy consumption by wind turbines is indeed substantial.
Update: The new design may not work so well to prevent overheating, as a model in Germany was destroyed by fire of "undetermined" cause.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines
This is interesting because the industry and its apologists have long insisted that power consumption by large wind turbines (which can not operate without power from the grid) is insignificant.
But if it is insignificant, then the energy savings of the Vestas "Cooler Top" design would be insignificant. Yet they devoted a full-page ad to promote it.
Which clearly suggests that energy consumption by wind turbines is indeed substantial.
Update: The new design may not work so well to prevent overheating, as a model in Germany was destroyed by fire of "undetermined" cause.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines
February 27, 2012
Capitalism versus individual freedom
Capitalism is antithetical to individualism. Capitalism replaces individualism with commodification. People are nothing more than units of production and consumption in the accounting of capital. Even the "masters" of capital are mere servants to the cancer of profit. Individualism is a threat to capitalism.
(Conversely, only with socialism can the individual be free to be him- or herself. See Oscar Wilde's essay "The Soul of Man under Socialism".)
human rights, anarchism
February 26, 2012
Lim’rick
There once was a foolish young clerk
Who was after some fun in the park
Who was after some fun in the park
With two saucy sisters
But three loyal fisters
Had bites that were worse nor his bark.
February 19, 2012
The Dream Awakes
Finnegans Wake is the last novel written by James Joyce. After Ulysses was published in 1922, installments of Work In Progress soon began to appear, the final title being a secret between the writer and his partner, Nora Barnacle. The finished book was published in 1939, and Joyce died less than two years later, leaving a work the reading of which is still very much “in progress.”
The language of Finnegans Wake is confounding; consider, for example, “O here here how hoth sprowled met the duskt the father of fornciationists but, (O my shining stars and body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of soft advertisement!” The language is like that of a dream, not quite conscious or formed, shimmering with layers of possible meaning. Yet this is a return to possibility, shaped by the experiences of the world we have fallen (into sleep) from. One of the many sources Joyce drew from is the Ancient Egyptian story of Osiris, torn apart by his brother or son, Set, the pieces gathered and reassembled by his sister or wife, Isis, and their other brother or son, Horus, slaying Set, allowing Horus to rise as the new day’s sun. So in Finnegans Wake, we have fragments and allusions and confusing messages that the reader must, like Isis, put together into a recognizable form.
The book begins with the fall of Finnegan, a hod carrier, from a scaffold. At his wake, in keeping with the American vaudeville song, “Finnegan’s Wake,” a fight breaks out, whiskey splashes on Finnegan’s corpse, and he rises up again alive. But Joyce has him put back down again (“Now be aisy, good Mr Finnimore, sir. And take your laysure like a god on pension and don’t be walking abroad”). Someone else is sailing in to take over the story: Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, whose initials HCE (“Here Comes Everybody”) lend themselves to phrase after phrase throughout the book.
HCE is a foreigner and takes a native Irish wife, Anna Livia Plurabelle (whose initials ALP as well are found in phrase after phrase), and they settle down to run a public house in Chapelizod, a suburb of Dublin. HCE personifies the city of Dublin (which was founded by Vikings), and ALP personifies the Liffey river, on whose banks the city was built. Joyce universalizes his tale by making them stand as well for every city-river pair in the world. And they are, like Eve and Adam, the primeval parents of all the Irish and all humanity.
ALP and HCE have a daughter, Issy, whose person is often split, and two sons, Shem and Shaun, eternal rivals for replacing their father and for Issy’s affection (among other things). Shem and Shaun often are seen with a third fellow in which their two halves may join against HCE or in winning Issy.
A scandal in the park threatens HCE’s reputation, perhaps his life. In a midden heap, a hen named Biddy finds the letter that ALP has dictated a letter to Shem which Shaun is charged with carrying to the ruling power of the time, which may be HCE himself. It is a letter that is hoped will redeem his past, just as Finnegans Wake is a vast “comedy” that seeks to redeem human history.
The progress of the book, however, is far from simple as it draws in mythologies, theologies, mysteries, philosophies, histories, sociologies, astrologies, other fictions, alchemy, music, color, nature, sexuality, human development, and dozens of languages to create the world drama in whose cycles we live.
The language of Finnegans Wake is confounding; consider, for example, “O here here how hoth sprowled met the duskt the father of fornciationists but, (O my shining stars and body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of soft advertisement!” The language is like that of a dream, not quite conscious or formed, shimmering with layers of possible meaning. Yet this is a return to possibility, shaped by the experiences of the world we have fallen (into sleep) from. One of the many sources Joyce drew from is the Ancient Egyptian story of Osiris, torn apart by his brother or son, Set, the pieces gathered and reassembled by his sister or wife, Isis, and their other brother or son, Horus, slaying Set, allowing Horus to rise as the new day’s sun. So in Finnegans Wake, we have fragments and allusions and confusing messages that the reader must, like Isis, put together into a recognizable form.
The book begins with the fall of Finnegan, a hod carrier, from a scaffold. At his wake, in keeping with the American vaudeville song, “Finnegan’s Wake,” a fight breaks out, whiskey splashes on Finnegan’s corpse, and he rises up again alive. But Joyce has him put back down again (“Now be aisy, good Mr Finnimore, sir. And take your laysure like a god on pension and don’t be walking abroad”). Someone else is sailing in to take over the story: Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, whose initials HCE (“Here Comes Everybody”) lend themselves to phrase after phrase throughout the book.
HCE is a foreigner and takes a native Irish wife, Anna Livia Plurabelle (whose initials ALP as well are found in phrase after phrase), and they settle down to run a public house in Chapelizod, a suburb of Dublin. HCE personifies the city of Dublin (which was founded by Vikings), and ALP personifies the Liffey river, on whose banks the city was built. Joyce universalizes his tale by making them stand as well for every city-river pair in the world. And they are, like Eve and Adam, the primeval parents of all the Irish and all humanity.
ALP and HCE have a daughter, Issy, whose person is often split, and two sons, Shem and Shaun, eternal rivals for replacing their father and for Issy’s affection (among other things). Shem and Shaun often are seen with a third fellow in which their two halves may join against HCE or in winning Issy.
A scandal in the park threatens HCE’s reputation, perhaps his life. In a midden heap, a hen named Biddy finds the letter that ALP has dictated a letter to Shem which Shaun is charged with carrying to the ruling power of the time, which may be HCE himself. It is a letter that is hoped will redeem his past, just as Finnegans Wake is a vast “comedy” that seeks to redeem human history.
The progress of the book, however, is far from simple as it draws in mythologies, theologies, mysteries, philosophies, histories, sociologies, astrologies, other fictions, alchemy, music, color, nature, sexuality, human development, and dozens of languages to create the world drama in whose cycles we live.
—Wikipedia, Sept 2–13, 2002
February 18, 2012
O brave new world of false environmentalism
The United States Climate Action Partnership: "We are committed to a pathway that will slow, stop and reverse the growth of U.S. emissions while expanding the U.S. economy."
USCAP Members Include:
USCAP Members Include:
- AES
- Alcoa
- Alstom
- Boston Scientific Corporation
- Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
- Chrysler
- The Dow Chemical Company
- Duke Energy
- DuPont
- Environmental Defense Fund
- Exelon Corporation
- General Electric
- Honeywell
- Johnson & Johnson
- Natural Resources Defense Council
- NextEra Energy
- NRG Energy
- PepsiCo
- PG&E Corporation
- PNM Resources
- Rio Tinto
- Shell
- Siemens Corporation
- The Nature Conservancy
- Weyerhaeuser
- World Resources Institute
February 14, 2012
The divine right of money
Paul Craig Roberts writes in Counterpunch:
Austerity is the price charged by the EU for lending the Greek government the money to pay to the banks. In other words, the question was austerity or default. However, the question was decided without the participation of the Greek people. ...
Some say that the EU is using the banks for the EU’s agenda, and others say the banks are using the EU for the banks’ agenda.
Indeed, they may be using each other. Regardless, democracy is not part of the process. ...
Violence begets violence. Violence in the streets is a response to the economic violence being committed against the Greek people. ...
Perhaps future historians will conclude that democracy once served the interests of money in order to break free of the power of kings, aristocracy, and government predations, but as money established control over governments, democracy became a liability. Historians will speak of the transition from the divine right of kings to the divine right of money.
Austerity is the price charged by the EU for lending the Greek government the money to pay to the banks. In other words, the question was austerity or default. However, the question was decided without the participation of the Greek people. ...
Some say that the EU is using the banks for the EU’s agenda, and others say the banks are using the EU for the banks’ agenda.
Indeed, they may be using each other. Regardless, democracy is not part of the process. ...
Violence begets violence. Violence in the streets is a response to the economic violence being committed against the Greek people. ...
Perhaps future historians will conclude that democracy once served the interests of money in order to break free of the power of kings, aristocracy, and government predations, but as money established control over governments, democracy became a liability. Historians will speak of the transition from the divine right of kings to the divine right of money.
February 11, 2012
Simple Fact
The simple fact is that industrial society is based on ever more concentrated sources of energy that add to both the power of those who control society and the productivity of those whose work makes continually increasing wealth and power possible.
The simple fact is that industrial society can not continue on less concentrated sources of energy, such as the sun and wind. Rather than sharing their abundance out of the secure comfort of their power, those who control society would instead concentrate the benefits of such diminishing energy to maintain their power and comfort at the expense of the rest of society (and the environment).
Rather than help to facilitate that horrible future by advocating "alternatives" and "sustainability", we need to do everything we can to slow things down, deescalate, decentralize, ... deindustrialize.
The simple fact is that industrial society can not continue on less concentrated sources of energy, such as the sun and wind. Rather than sharing their abundance out of the secure comfort of their power, those who control society would instead concentrate the benefits of such diminishing energy to maintain their power and comfort at the expense of the rest of society (and the environment).
Rather than help to facilitate that horrible future by advocating "alternatives" and "sustainability", we need to do everything we can to slow things down, deescalate, decentralize, ... deindustrialize.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)