i really don't like it when people stand in the entrance way to buildings and smoke cigarettes. i went into a convenience store the other day, and at the other entrance a worker was standing OUTSIDE, holding the door OPEN, and letting all of the smoke come in. i didn't know what made me angrier...that this person was standing in the entrance with the door open and smoking or that this person was such by-damned idiot that they thought that standing halfway out of the door would make a difference. i mean, if you're going to be a jackass and smoke with the door open, just come in and smoke behind the register.
i think that is the longest rant i've had on smoking without dropping the f-bomb. it was a close thing there for a moment.
Monday, April 30, 2007
SUVs and the like...
i had THE most surreal...today, i saw a Lincoln Navigator (or one of them...they all look alike nowadays) with a bob marley sticker on the back with a quote from "redemption song." i almost fell out of the car. i mean...isn't that just the most incongruous...? i just thought that was weird, i thought i was back on the campus of warren wilson for a bit there. ooooo, burn!
anyway, that's not what i was thinking about. i was thinking earlier today that perhaps all of the folks who wanted to make the SUV the whipping boy of the "environmentalist" movement might have made a mistake. yes, i would agree that they are wasteful and generally unsightly. you sacrifice efficiency for safety (in some regards), but i've always thought that a little common sense and a german car were just as safe as tank-like SUV. *shrug* so, yeah. the SUV's were a logical choice to be the poster boy for all that is un-green. but, automobiles aren't the problem. they never really have been.
now, don't get me wrong. i'm an environmentalist. i recycle as naturally as breathing. i buy most everything i can from second-hand shops. i'm a bona fide, degree-holder from warren wilson. but, SUVs aren't the problem.
first, let me say that if you are an environmentalist they way i am an environmentalist then you know that the real problem is entire notion of free market capitalism and private property as first espoused by john locke in the second treatise of government. he postulated there that property is the combination of man's reason/work and nature. he goes further to argue that nature that is not combined with man's reason/work is utterly wasted. no major thinker in the western political discourse has placed a great deal of value on pristine nature. well, ok. that might be an overstatement of the truth, but you get what i mean. i only say this to point out that TRUE environmentalism is the last viable RADICAL critique of free market capitalism. radical in the sense that environmentalism is antithetical to free market capitalism. everything else has failed for one reason or another. at least, failed in the attempt capture the imagination of the western world and incorporate the civic traditions of the western world into it's machinations. we can list some of the more spectacular failures in world history - mercantilism, colonialism, national socialism, communism, fascism...the -ism's just keep coming and democracy keeps KNOCKING 'em out of the park. i tell ya what folks, you just can't beat democracy. which, ultimately, is fine by me. i understand that there are some things that democracy just won't be able to do. we will never see a time when we can, by logical argument, extend the notion of natural rights to the ecosystem in the same manner that they have been "extended" to animals. you are never going to convince the average blog reader that an ecosystem has the same natural rights you and i do - the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. ok, i'm fine with that...i wouldn't want to write any of the essays to make that argument anyway. but, we can do some things to make the free market more tenable to the non-human tenants of this planet.
having said that, within the framework of the free market, the real problem is scale. well, a combination of scale and lifestyle (fueled by economies). here, scale = population. i would go so far as to say that population is truly the source of our environmental degradation.
it's getting late, so i'll write more on this topic later as thoughts develop...i apologize for any grammatical mistakes. i'm publishing WITHOUT PROOFREADING!!!! aiieeee!
anyway, that's not what i was thinking about. i was thinking earlier today that perhaps all of the folks who wanted to make the SUV the whipping boy of the "environmentalist" movement might have made a mistake. yes, i would agree that they are wasteful and generally unsightly. you sacrifice efficiency for safety (in some regards), but i've always thought that a little common sense and a german car were just as safe as tank-like SUV. *shrug* so, yeah. the SUV's were a logical choice to be the poster boy for all that is un-green. but, automobiles aren't the problem. they never really have been.
now, don't get me wrong. i'm an environmentalist. i recycle as naturally as breathing. i buy most everything i can from second-hand shops. i'm a bona fide, degree-holder from warren wilson. but, SUVs aren't the problem.
first, let me say that if you are an environmentalist they way i am an environmentalist then you know that the real problem is entire notion of free market capitalism and private property as first espoused by john locke in the second treatise of government. he postulated there that property is the combination of man's reason/work and nature. he goes further to argue that nature that is not combined with man's reason/work is utterly wasted. no major thinker in the western political discourse has placed a great deal of value on pristine nature. well, ok. that might be an overstatement of the truth, but you get what i mean. i only say this to point out that TRUE environmentalism is the last viable RADICAL critique of free market capitalism. radical in the sense that environmentalism is antithetical to free market capitalism. everything else has failed for one reason or another. at least, failed in the attempt capture the imagination of the western world and incorporate the civic traditions of the western world into it's machinations. we can list some of the more spectacular failures in world history - mercantilism, colonialism, national socialism, communism, fascism...the -ism's just keep coming and democracy keeps KNOCKING 'em out of the park. i tell ya what folks, you just can't beat democracy. which, ultimately, is fine by me. i understand that there are some things that democracy just won't be able to do. we will never see a time when we can, by logical argument, extend the notion of natural rights to the ecosystem in the same manner that they have been "extended" to animals. you are never going to convince the average blog reader that an ecosystem has the same natural rights you and i do - the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. ok, i'm fine with that...i wouldn't want to write any of the essays to make that argument anyway. but, we can do some things to make the free market more tenable to the non-human tenants of this planet.
having said that, within the framework of the free market, the real problem is scale. well, a combination of scale and lifestyle (fueled by economies). here, scale = population. i would go so far as to say that population is truly the source of our environmental degradation.
it's getting late, so i'll write more on this topic later as thoughts develop...i apologize for any grammatical mistakes. i'm publishing WITHOUT PROOFREADING!!!! aiieeee!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
all things great and small
well, folks. it's been awhile since i wrote a post. i take that back. i write blog posts all the time. it's just a rare event that i actually take the time type what i was thinking. i spend a lot of time shouting at the radio (i listen to conservative talk radio more than i prol'ly should) and scaring other drivers. i often wonder if i would be as good in a live debate on the radio as i am in the car. stray thought.
so, i watched the democratic presidential candidates debate the other day (i shall refer to them as the D8). for the most part, it was the sort of rhetoric i was expecting. most of the candidates shied away from saying anything to terribly controversial or even slightly different from their counterparts...i suppose no one wanted to risk being an actual individual. *shrug* i didn't think that hilary clinton seemed the least bit sincere at any moment during the debate. not even a little bit. i thought that barack obama actually looked like a rank amateur--along with bill richardson. as a matter of fact, if this had been my first exposure to obama i would have been asking what the big deal about the guy was. richardson did say a few things with which i agreed or at least applauded him for saying. sticking up for the second amendment despite the very recent tragedy in virginia i thought was..well, brave--but only in the sense that he risked political backlash to say something he thought was important. generally though, he looked incredibly unpracticed.
john edwards was sappy and forgettable. chris dodd -- who? joe biden...i like his attitude. his mannerisms make you think that he is forthright and a straight talker. i don't know him well enough to know if that is just an image projection or the unvarnished truth. but, like the others, there was more persona and style than substance.
i tell ya...the guy that i really liked on that dais was dennis kucinich. he seemed like an honest to God democrat. something that has been absolutely missing from the policitical scene for far too long. i generally agreed with all of his major policy positions that were touched on during the debate. there is something wrong with his website though. i wanted to do a little more research on where he stood on other domestic issues...no luck though. to my recollection, he was the only person on the dais to make the case for attacking global terrorism in a more fundamental and wholistic manner than has been tried thus far.
to me his position on global terrorism seemed to acknowledge that people are people. by in large, our politics and political morality are formed by the material conditions of the lives we lead. so, it only stands to reason that if you are born under the shadow of violence, live with violence, rely upon violence as the means to solve all your problems and hold your life together--you might have a slight inclination to strap bombs to your body and blow up buses. it's just speculation on my part...i think it might have some merit. in any event, there isn't anything in the republican bluster that acknowledges that fact--the material conditions of our lives MAY have SOMETHING to do with who we become as we grow older. if you want to attack problems like global terrorism at their root, you MUST change the conditions under which these people are molded. don't get me wrong. there are evil people in the world. people who were born evil and will create mayhem and carnage as naturally as breathing. i understand that if you cannot isolate those people then they will never leave you a choice that doesn't include violence.
but, it seems to me that kucinich, more than anyone else on that dais, understands that in order to create a lasting peace. a peace that is meaningful and doesn't rely on the presence of violence, you have to attack root causes: extreme and pervasive poverty, lawlessness, genocide, pandemic-like disease...one of the few things clinton (bill) did that i am proud of was he attacked these so-called "soft" economic issues. putting more cops on the street, affordable daycare, tax credits for continuing education or re-education...it was these things as much as loose accounting practices and internet pseudo-companies that led to the incredible expansion of the economy in the late 90's. much like clinton, kucinich understands that the only real solution to the problems we see in the world must include a comprehensive approach to solving these supposedly unconnected issues.
i mean...perhaps the single greatest piece of foreign policy ever developed by this country was the marshall plan. after WWII, without firing a single shot the US created democracies and "democracy-friendly" (even i can't say that without a little bit of a sneer) nation-states around the globe. i know that we prol'ly don't have the economic might and will to create another marshall plan for the 21st century, but with strong international support i believe we can come awfully close. otherwise, we just keep killing terrorists as they pop up. if we go that route, though, the limiting factor will become the birth rate of nations where we are currently warring. if we kill more than can be born, then we've got a fighting chance. hmph.
yeah, kucinich is a good choice.
on a completely different note...i've been writing with the movie "school of rock" playing in the background. you know you're a dad when you're watching a kid movie and you feel yourself start to cry because all of the kids are succeeding at something together. little fellas playing music.
peace.
so, i watched the democratic presidential candidates debate the other day (i shall refer to them as the D8). for the most part, it was the sort of rhetoric i was expecting. most of the candidates shied away from saying anything to terribly controversial or even slightly different from their counterparts...i suppose no one wanted to risk being an actual individual. *shrug* i didn't think that hilary clinton seemed the least bit sincere at any moment during the debate. not even a little bit. i thought that barack obama actually looked like a rank amateur--along with bill richardson. as a matter of fact, if this had been my first exposure to obama i would have been asking what the big deal about the guy was. richardson did say a few things with which i agreed or at least applauded him for saying. sticking up for the second amendment despite the very recent tragedy in virginia i thought was..well, brave--but only in the sense that he risked political backlash to say something he thought was important. generally though, he looked incredibly unpracticed.
john edwards was sappy and forgettable. chris dodd -- who? joe biden...i like his attitude. his mannerisms make you think that he is forthright and a straight talker. i don't know him well enough to know if that is just an image projection or the unvarnished truth. but, like the others, there was more persona and style than substance.
i tell ya...the guy that i really liked on that dais was dennis kucinich. he seemed like an honest to God democrat. something that has been absolutely missing from the policitical scene for far too long. i generally agreed with all of his major policy positions that were touched on during the debate. there is something wrong with his website though. i wanted to do a little more research on where he stood on other domestic issues...no luck though. to my recollection, he was the only person on the dais to make the case for attacking global terrorism in a more fundamental and wholistic manner than has been tried thus far.
to me his position on global terrorism seemed to acknowledge that people are people. by in large, our politics and political morality are formed by the material conditions of the lives we lead. so, it only stands to reason that if you are born under the shadow of violence, live with violence, rely upon violence as the means to solve all your problems and hold your life together--you might have a slight inclination to strap bombs to your body and blow up buses. it's just speculation on my part...i think it might have some merit. in any event, there isn't anything in the republican bluster that acknowledges that fact--the material conditions of our lives MAY have SOMETHING to do with who we become as we grow older. if you want to attack problems like global terrorism at their root, you MUST change the conditions under which these people are molded. don't get me wrong. there are evil people in the world. people who were born evil and will create mayhem and carnage as naturally as breathing. i understand that if you cannot isolate those people then they will never leave you a choice that doesn't include violence.
but, it seems to me that kucinich, more than anyone else on that dais, understands that in order to create a lasting peace. a peace that is meaningful and doesn't rely on the presence of violence, you have to attack root causes: extreme and pervasive poverty, lawlessness, genocide, pandemic-like disease...one of the few things clinton (bill) did that i am proud of was he attacked these so-called "soft" economic issues. putting more cops on the street, affordable daycare, tax credits for continuing education or re-education...it was these things as much as loose accounting practices and internet pseudo-companies that led to the incredible expansion of the economy in the late 90's. much like clinton, kucinich understands that the only real solution to the problems we see in the world must include a comprehensive approach to solving these supposedly unconnected issues.
i mean...perhaps the single greatest piece of foreign policy ever developed by this country was the marshall plan. after WWII, without firing a single shot the US created democracies and "democracy-friendly" (even i can't say that without a little bit of a sneer) nation-states around the globe. i know that we prol'ly don't have the economic might and will to create another marshall plan for the 21st century, but with strong international support i believe we can come awfully close. otherwise, we just keep killing terrorists as they pop up. if we go that route, though, the limiting factor will become the birth rate of nations where we are currently warring. if we kill more than can be born, then we've got a fighting chance. hmph.
yeah, kucinich is a good choice.
on a completely different note...i've been writing with the movie "school of rock" playing in the background. you know you're a dad when you're watching a kid movie and you feel yourself start to cry because all of the kids are succeeding at something together. little fellas playing music.
peace.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
i think that we've become almost scarily good at crusading in this country. i'm watching the news tonight in my hotel room in cold-ass boston, ma and i see that don imus has been dropped by NBC and that the charges against the duke lacrosse players have been dropped. i know that i shouldn't do it, but i cruised the 24 hour news stations to see if ANYONE sees the irony or the lesson in those two stories. surprisingly enough, the only station to have a commentator that said what i was thinking was on fox news. at least the commentator was a former democratic strategist though.
i mean, yeah. if imus had called me or someone i loved names on national television, i would have been ticked off. but, i think that its a pretty fair stretch to go from name calling to racist, sexist and just generally being a WHITE man on tv that doesn't know when to shut up. and then we get the crusaders up in arms - al sharpton and jesse jackson (though he seemed ominously quiet this time around, didn't he?) and that crowd. i mean, really. has anyone seen MTV lately? or BET? has anyone seen BET's After Dark program lately? are you kidding me? i saw a commentator on television screaming that imus and his comments clearly showed the slow and steady decline of american morality. i guess this woman (and i could believe this of her) never heard big daddy kane rap about pimpin' and how it ain't really that easy.
i don't know. i'm not trying to defend what he said, and i'm not saying that he shouldn't be punished in some way for it. the one thing that we continue to forget about free speech is that oftentimes there are real consequences for opening your mouth and then sticking your foot in it. personally, i thought the two week suspension (hopefully without pay, though i doubt he would have noticed) was more than sufficient. it just seems that more and more often you see examples of media-types and talking heads JUMPING to conclusions about situations and are more often than not WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. case in point, duke lacrosse. 'nuff said, right?
whatever.
i don't mean to make an argument based on scale. you know what i mean, right? i don't mean to say that since imus didn't drop the n-bomb, it's ok and we should just get over it. imus isn't as bad as rap music, so we should just get over it and move on. i'm not saying anything like that. what am i'm saying is that we should practice a little battlefield triage here. we still have war raging in the middle east. we still have ever burgeoning national debt that threatens to consume all in cloud of economic stagnation. we still have utterly moronic and CRAZY people that want take all the corn in the US and stuff it into SUVs and trucks (GOD, don't get me started on ethanol and biodiesel) . we have a President and attorney general who politicize the law and its execution, do it in broad daylight, and then try (and seemingly succeed) to set the terms under which they will deign to be questioned about it. but, imus said nappy-headed ho's on national tv and radio so let's flood the news outlets with that AND the fact that the photographer is the real father of anna nicole's baby.
oh, ok. that makes sense.
i mean, yeah. if imus had called me or someone i loved names on national television, i would have been ticked off. but, i think that its a pretty fair stretch to go from name calling to racist, sexist and just generally being a WHITE man on tv that doesn't know when to shut up. and then we get the crusaders up in arms - al sharpton and jesse jackson (though he seemed ominously quiet this time around, didn't he?) and that crowd. i mean, really. has anyone seen MTV lately? or BET? has anyone seen BET's After Dark program lately? are you kidding me? i saw a commentator on television screaming that imus and his comments clearly showed the slow and steady decline of american morality. i guess this woman (and i could believe this of her) never heard big daddy kane rap about pimpin' and how it ain't really that easy.
i don't know. i'm not trying to defend what he said, and i'm not saying that he shouldn't be punished in some way for it. the one thing that we continue to forget about free speech is that oftentimes there are real consequences for opening your mouth and then sticking your foot in it. personally, i thought the two week suspension (hopefully without pay, though i doubt he would have noticed) was more than sufficient. it just seems that more and more often you see examples of media-types and talking heads JUMPING to conclusions about situations and are more often than not WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. case in point, duke lacrosse. 'nuff said, right?
whatever.
i don't mean to make an argument based on scale. you know what i mean, right? i don't mean to say that since imus didn't drop the n-bomb, it's ok and we should just get over it. imus isn't as bad as rap music, so we should just get over it and move on. i'm not saying anything like that. what am i'm saying is that we should practice a little battlefield triage here. we still have war raging in the middle east. we still have ever burgeoning national debt that threatens to consume all in cloud of economic stagnation. we still have utterly moronic and CRAZY people that want take all the corn in the US and stuff it into SUVs and trucks (GOD, don't get me started on ethanol and biodiesel) . we have a President and attorney general who politicize the law and its execution, do it in broad daylight, and then try (and seemingly succeed) to set the terms under which they will deign to be questioned about it. but, imus said nappy-headed ho's on national tv and radio so let's flood the news outlets with that AND the fact that the photographer is the real father of anna nicole's baby.
oh, ok. that makes sense.
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