'TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
Every Day Is Earth Day
By Baron Dave Romm
Earth Day 2006 was April 21. We cannot consign the fate of the planet to one 24 hour period. Every day is Earth Day. Here are a few thoughts and actions you can take.
First rule of camping: Don't shit where you sleep. Dogs know this; Republicans aren't that smart.
To be a Republican these days, one must believe in lies and not believe in the truth. Various of my Republican friends criticize me for such a sweeping statement, and I'm perfectly willing to admit it's a generalization but I have yet to find a counter-example. As usual, conservatives blame the messenger and don't see the flaws in themselves. I'm still collecting the truths that Republicans reject in The Heartland Project, the subject of a column here a few weeks ago. For this column, I want to focus on one truth that the radical right will deny to your last breath: how humans are ruining the environment.
On the environment, liberals are right and conservatives are wrong. Al Gore was entirely correct, and if you voted for George W. Bush in 2000 you are complicit in helping to destroy the human race. Stark words, to be sure, but you are more likely to die from Exxon/Mobil than from Al Queda. Any of the sphincter conservatives better get used to clenching their butts over some serious issues and not just Republican hysteria-mongering.
In your lifetime, a billion people will die or be displace due to global warming. Here is a chart of the great weather and flood catastrophes of the last 40 years. The last ten years of the study, 1988-1997, are the worst by a lot. Bangladesh and other low-lying areas will be underwater. According to the US Geological Survey, A sea-level rise of 10 meters would flood about 25 percent of the U.S. population, with the major impact being mostly on the people and infrastructures in the Gulf and East Coast States. Ten meters may seem a lot, but that amount of sea level rise is predicted for 2030 with much more to come. Tuvalu, a tiny Pacific island nation, is already being lost to a rising ocean level with tens of thousands of people fleeing to Australia... and Australia refused to let them in so they were forced to go to New Zealand. Multiply the number of refugees by a thousand in the near future.
I don't want to let anyone off the hook. The major knock I have against the Clinton Administration was their indifference to ecological issues. The Gingrich "Revolution" that swept the GOP to control Congress in 1994 was a disaster for the human race. Clinton had to compromise. Al Gore helped tremendously, but at Clinton gave in to too many corporate interests at the expense of human interests. Clinton was at his worst when he behaved like a Republican. There are few, precious few, Republicans who realize the danger we're in from our own shit. But they have bowed to corporate interests and support their own party's rape of the environment. Voting for Democrats is one of the solutions, but be careful of the Democrat you vote for.
In this election, and for the foreseeable future, the rallying cry to save your life is: Zero tolerance for Republicans. George W. Bush just doesn't give a damn. Republicans are just trying to win elections and they don't give a damn about you. You should give a damn. You have to sleep in this shit.
One of the easy things you can do is write a Letter to Editor. More papers are avoiding real journalism andprinting more opinions from readers. Yours should be one. Don't worry if it doesn't get printed; perhaps they heard from many people and picked someone else's letter expressing a similar view. Your voice was heard. Of course, you can write basically the same letter to several papers; you can send the same one out, but a good idea is to respond to a specific story, so alter your letter accordingly. You may publish your letter in your blog in a forum.
With the explosion of blogs, we are experiencing another wave of Mass Individualism. Readers of Bartcop and Bartcop-E are probably familiar with many of the politically active sites... at least the ones with which we agree. Many environmental blogs are listed on the Eco-Business site. The Society of Environmental Journalists (whatever that meeans) links to their members' blogs. I don't know if I want to encourage more political blogs, but: Empire's Fall. The site has lots of information and clips. Warning: Sound file loads automatically. I get requests to link to blogs all the time. I don't run a blog so can't reciprocate in quite the way they want. A mention here or in one of my other essays is as good as it gets for most sites, so I'll leave such linking up to my readers. I think it's great that the left is finally becoming as active on the net as the radical right. But we need to band together more than we need more blogs. Encourage the sites you like, and become active in blogs and forums even of the sites you don't always agree with. It's too easy to get caught up in the echo chamber of your own spin; visit a wide range of sites, and leave messages.
20th Anniversary of Chernobyl is April 26th. I'm pro-nuclear power, but the Chernobyl accident points out the need for heavy regulation and far more concern for safety. The main hinderance to large scale to nuclear power is the lack of a clean way to dispose of nuclear waste. I think this is a solvable problem, but we have yet to solve it. We need to put more R&D money into solving the waste problem than we need to put money into other worthy projects such as solar power. If we really want to reduce dependency on foreign oil, we need to go nuclear. We can put oil and coal to far better (and more profitable) uses than burning.
Give money to the groups you support. Sadly, politics these days is too often about the money, and greasing the wheels of the environmental movement us up to you. Local organizations support local causes; state-wide organizations have a wider constituency, and so on. I worked briefly for the Minnesota chapter of the Clean Water Action Alliance, and they do tremendous work. Most of the time on the job is, alas, fundraising. But the real work is calling members and informing them of an upcoming Congressional or State vote on some issue. We would encourage members to call their Congress member or state representative, and have handy both their local number and their number in Washington or St. Paul. It was very effective in Minnesota, less so on the national level. Your donations make this lobbying effort possible. If you can pay $3 a gallon at the pump so the oil companies can spend millions to buy senators, you can spend a few bucks so the people who care can keep you apprised of important votes.
You will have to change how you live, but less than you think. The Earth Day site contains a lot of useful information, including ten simple actions that will help. If millions of people replaced their light-bulbs and bought organic food and walked to the store instead of driving a few blocks, the world would be a better place. Would you rather hand wash some dishes or worry about religious nutjobs flying airplanes into buildings? The connection between energy consumption and global terrorism is not direct, but it is real. These are your choices.
Global Warming has been rebranded Climate Change. Hate radio was so successful in brainwashing gullible right-wingers that even mentioning the words Global Warming causes butts to clench all over the Red States. You should be on top of the issue. Republicans and conservative Democrats have been lying for years. Their lies are killing the planet. There is no direct link from the failure of the Bush administration to sign the Kyoto Protocol to the Katrina scandals, but they are part of the same uncaring short sighted greed.
I hate to be an alarmist, but there's an election coming up and fear is what gets the undecideds to vote. The GOP has been running on fear and hate for decades. Now, there's really something to fear. Get the word out. You have to live in the world you make.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. To receive the show as podcasts go to Shockwave Radio Theater Podcast or paste the following string in your podcast software: http://www.romm.org/podcast and if that doesn't work try the link from Podcastalley.com's listing. All podcasts also on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air. --////
Hubert's Poetry Corner
FiGURING OuT OuR LeADER [sic]
A scientific explanation for what the world has long known?
Update From Colby
Katherine Harris
Hi,
Katherine had a $2,800 dinner with the guy who bribed "Duke" Cunningham (R-Criminal) of California. To make up for it she gave $100 to a group whose leader claims to have risen from the dead. I guess Katherine is trying to do the same thing with her campaign.
Katherine Harris Deliverance Tour
Colby Black
in Frostproof
Thanks, Colby!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly cloudy, but no rain.
Wonder why hasn't Katie Holmes been seen in public.
No new flags.
Calls for Cheney's Early Retirement
Los Angeles Times
A Los Angeles Times editorial on Sunday called for a "far more audacious" makeover of resident George W. Bush's administration, saying he should send Vice President Dick Cheney into early retirement.
"The remaking of the president in the public eye likely will require more than last week's game of musical chairs," the editorial said.
"Bush has acknowledged that he has spent much of his political capital on Iraq, and the way to replenish the reserves is to replace the officials most associated with the overreaching that led to the tragedy in Iraq -- and with the administration's broader disdain for diplomacy."
"Throwing Cheney overboard would be an implicit repudiation of the excessively hawkish foreign policy with which the vice president, even more than Rumsfeld, has been associated," the paper said.
Los Angeles Times
12 Creative Craft Daytime Emmys
PBS
PBS won a leading 12 Creative Craft Daytime Emmy Awards on Saturday night, including seven trophies for "Sesame Street."
Kevin Clash, who portrays Elmo on "Sesame Street," won for performer in a children's series. The performer in an animated program went to Maile Flanagan as the title character in the PBS show "Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks."
Syndicated shows earned 10 awards, with comedian Ellen DeGeneres' talk show taking four. "Jeopardy!" was honored for game or audience participation show, while the service show Daytime Emmy went to "30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray."
Among the major broadcast networks, CBS won nine Daytime Emmys, ABC earned four and NBC two.
PBS
Judge Orders Documents Turned Over
Record Labels
A federal judge has ordered major record labels to turn over privileged documents after finding they may have used misleading information to convince the government to abandon a major antitrust probe.
The ruling late on Friday from U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in San Francisco came out of a dispute over which documents Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group and EMI Group Plc should be forced to release in a lengthy copyright battle over Bertelsmann's investment in music-swapping service Napster.
During the investigation, the joint ventures and their record label parents each submitted a "white paper" to the DOJ summarizing their arguments. They also provided documents that included redacted, or blacked out, sections to remove privileged material.
In the ruling, Patel said Hummer Winblad provided reasonable cause to believe that information in the white papers was "deliberately misleading."
Record Labels
Indie Label's Artist Trading Cards
Trustkill Records
While most indie labels look to the Internet and other new-media ventures to promote their artists, Trustkill Records was inspired by a more traditional form of media: the baseball card.
Starting with the release of Bleeding Through's "The Truth" in January, the Trenton, N.J., rock-based label rolled out a series of artist-branded trading cards, each with stats and tidbits about the act on the back of the card.
Trustkill founder Josh Grabelle says he has been surprised at the number of inquires about the cards the label has received, given that biographies of artists are already all over the Web. It's enough interest, Grabelle says, to have him planning another series.
Trustkill Records
India's "Gone with the Wind" Goes to Pakistan
'Mughal-e-Azam'
The forbidden love of Pakistanis for Indian movies was allowed into the open on Sunday with the public screening of a 1960 classic beloved on both sides of the border.
Mughal-e-Azam, or The Great Mogul, a historical romance with a tragic ending, may have been made in Bombay, as Mumbai was known until a few years ago, but was set in Lahore at a time when Muslims ruled India.
"I've seen it a dozen times on video, but watching Mughal-e-Azam on the big screen was special," said Abdul Waheed, a long-haired, bearded pensioner of 75, after buying his ticket for the first screening in Pakistan of the 1960 classic.
India's most popular art form -- the movie -- is lapped up in Pakistan, though it is only available illicitly, through pirated videotapes and discs, and some independent cable television channels have begun showing them late at night.
'Mughal-e-Azam'
Texas Community College Bans
MySpace.com
Del Mar College students now have to use computers outside the school's system if they want to visit the popular Web site MySpace.com.
The community college has blocked the site in response to complaints about sluggish Internet speed on campus computers.
An investigation found that heavy traffic at MySpace.com was eating up too much bandwidth, said August Alfonso, the school's chief of information and technology. Forty percent of daily Internet traffic at the college involved the site, he said.
MySpace.com
AttendeesWorried About Press Freedoms
Overseas Press Club Awards
The role of the watchdog media, threats to press freedom, and the split between reading news online or in print were popular subjects as E&P chatted with guests, prize winners and presenters at the annual Overseas Press Club Awards winner Thursday night at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York.
Brian Williams, who told E&P he is still a big print fan, was the wisecracking master of ceremonies. Ted Koppel accepted the President's Award for his "dedicated and continued support of foreign news coverage," after telling us he was very worried about what might happen to press freedom if the U.S. experiences another terrorist attack here at home (and he expects one).
The awarding of several Pulitzer Prizes on Monday for tough investigative probes renewed calls from some quarters for a crackdown, because the press is allegedly publishing too many national security secrets. Radio talk show host Bill Bennett (R-Cafeteria Christian) called for possible jail time for Dana Priest of The Washington Post and two New York Times reporters.
When E&P asked Priest, who also won an OPC award, about Bennett's comments before the dinner, she replied, "He says we should go to jail because we have damaged national security, but he hasn't made the case that we have actually damaged national security. So either we didn't damage national security and this is part of a campaign to intimidate the media into not reporting things, or he knows something that is classified" -- which he shouldn't -- "and he's in the same boat we are."
Overseas Press Club Awards
OKs Giving Placenta to Parents
Gov. Linda Lingle
Gov. Linda Lingle signed a bill Friday allowing hospitals to release the placenta, the organ that connects mother and child in the womb, to a birth mother.
The legislation came after several Hawaiian couples found they would not be allowed to take the placenta - known as iewe in Hawaiian - from the hospital to perform a traditional ceremony.
In Hawaiian belief, the iewe is considered a part of the child. Ceremonies in the islands include burying the iewe under a tree, so that the growth of the tree can be used to better understand psychological and spiritual changes in the child.
Under the new law, the placenta could be released to the mother, or someone else she has chosen, after a test of the mother confirms that the placenta doesn't carry an infectious disease.
Gov. Linda Lingle
Just in case you have a spare placenta laying around... Placenta Etiquette, Making Placenta Essence, Vaginal Food & Cuisine, Various Uses of Placenta, Placenta Recipes, Placentas, Placenta Recipe, Placenta Recipe,
The Amateur Gourmet: Tom Cruise's Placenta Polenta, and Tom Cruise's Placenta Eating Tips.
Found In Egypt
Ancient Gold Cartouches
The discovery of gold cartouches dating back to 1400 BC sheds new light on the relationship between two ancient Egyptian rulers, Egypt's antiquities department said.
A team of French and Egyptian archeologists have discovered two sets of nine solid gold cartouches bearing the name of Thotmusis III (who ruled from 1479-1425 BC) near the pharaoh's stepmother Queen Hatshepsut's temple in Luxor, 700 kilometres south of Cairo.
Thotmusis III, who was Hatshepsut's stepson and co-ruler after the death of his father Thotmusis II in 1479 BC, was widely regarded as having had strained relations with the queen. Thotmusis III was a child when his father died and the rule of the kindgom was initially put in the hands of Hatsheput.
Until the latest discovery, Egyptologists believed that Thotmusis III destroyed Hatshepsut's statues out of jealousy upon her death in 1458 BC, particularly the ones in Hatshepsut's temple in el Deir el Bahary in the southern city of Luxor.
Ancient Gold Cartouches
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
