Mrs. President

In 2008, the Democratic party came closer to nominating a female Presidential candidate than any major US political party ever has. I happen not to think she would have been a very good candidate, but more on that later. In my mind, this is clear evidence that our society is as ready to elect a woman as President as it ever will be short of actually doing it. (And I was ridiculed for saying much the same thing about a black President as of 2005.)
The question now is merely one of when it will happen and who it will be.

One important starting point is the fact that feminist reactions to her, are likely to be varied and unpredictable. Feminism never was about unconditional gender solidarity, especially where elected officials are concerned. One example of popular misconceptions on this point, are the recent claims that Sarah Palin is "redefining feminism". No she's not. Feminism is as Gloria Steinem is so fond of saying "simply what the dictionary says it is" namely the pursuit of full legal, societal, and economic equality for the sexes. One cannot redefine feminism but merely present a case as to how one's agenda or actions fit in with this program. And Sarah Palin's case is highly questionable at best, as it lies somewhere between that of Camille Paglia and Phyllis Schlafly. Indeed anyone who argues that because Palin is a successful woman that she's automatically a feminist has forgotten that Schlafly was also a successful lawyer.

Indeed not every female head of state has been a staunch promoter of women's rights. Golda Meir in particular was infamous for quotes to the tune of "Women's liberation is a bunch of foolishness." Margaret Thatcher while not overtly anti-feminist in the same way, was generally lukewarm at best. Often she claimed feminism had nothing to do with her success and supported policies such as indifference to high unemployment which were generally not good for women's advancement-or the society in general.

So it can be assumed-without assigning blame or charges of hypocrisy-that whether a female candidate gets support from feminists will depend on both the candidate and on the opinions of different feminists. During election 2008, there was a lot of talk about the "dilemna" of choosing between a black man and a white woman-often talking as if gender and skin color were the only relevant facts about either candidate. To this feminist the *correct answer* was to make a decision that was not based on either gender or skin color, and I ended up backing Obama in the primary and general election. I will say that despite all the talk of the "white female" vote in that election Ms. Magazine was fairly neutral on the Democratic Primary and utterly opposed to John McCain and Sarah Palin in the general election. It is worth mentioning however, that contrary to popular stereotypes Ms. Magazine enjoys a more diverse readership than most "women's magazines". Not to mention a whole list of other issues feminists tend to care about (even if not all share the same opinions) such as Iraq/Afghanistan, global warming, health reform, workers issues, the economy, education, social security, civil liberties, the environment, and more.

Another major issues regarding a female President, is that for nearly 2 decades the very concept has become all but synonymous with a particular woman, however she may have gone from first lady to Senator to Secretary of State.
In my opinion this is mostly not a good thing. Hilary Clinton's areas of popularity simply doesn't look very good on an electoral college map, and therefore it is questionable at best that she could win. One bottom line in this situation is that most people who hated Bill Clinton also hate Hilary. And not everyone who liked Bill Clinton likes Hilary.
Is misogyny a factor in this?
Probably. But it isn't the whole story.
During the 1990's Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and other right winged media got a huge amount of mileage out of the anti-Clinton cottage industry. And in part because of them a massive level of right winged media and social infrastructure was built, which made it all but impossible for any dissenting voices to be heard.
Another feminist angle on this is whether or not it is wise elect a former first lady for that role in our history, let alone pin all hope on her.

It is certainly true that Hilary Clinton does have a certain number of core supporters. From my own anecdotal experience most of them seem to be women of a certain age (late silent to mid baby boom generation) who feel a certain solidarity with her. Much of it seems to be based on life experiences. Most of these women despite all the hype did not seriously consider voting for McCain out of spite, or as Tim Wise suggested as a form of "white racial solidarity". And nearly all were insulted by the suggestion that Sarah Palin was a worthy substitute.
No. This supporters were/are better than all the media with the usual dismissive talk of them joining McCain, being "racial loyalists first" or being the same group who liked Sarah Palin will every likely acknowledge.
Such genuine solidarity is impossible to argue against directly. No matter how much patriarchal society may hate to acknowledge it as anything above petty spite in women. And no matter how much younger feminists by and large see things differently. But all the same, it is unlikely to win the day in 2016.

But too often the main reason that Hilary Clinton is seen as the "obvious" choice if the Democrats were to run a woman for President, is the assumption that there is "nobody else".

And have they learned nothing from the past elections? Surely the experience of the 21st century and before shows us that always picking the person who has been the "obvious choice" for years, is no sure strategy for victory let alone the only way to go.
Al Gore was considered an obvious choice for Democratic Nominee throughout the 90's, and John Kerry was nicknamed "JFK" at Yale. However almost nobody outside of Arkansas heard of Bill Clinton as of 1988, and before 2004 Obama was just another new Senator. Nor did many people outside of Georgia know much about Jimmy Carter when Nixon was in office.

So it would be folly to assume that just because nobody can name any possible female candidates besides Hilary Clinton (or Sarah Palin on the Republican side) doesn't mean that none exist, or that other hopefuls might not emerge at any time.

It may happen sooner than you think.

Say Goodnight Readers!

Biophilia and The Once and Future Predator Beast

These days it has become fashionable to suggest that biophilia or love or nature or biophobia or fear of nature, is the result of correct vs. corrupt socialization or education.

According to this view largely pioneered by David Orr in the 80's children will learn to fear nature if they are taught about serious environmental problems prior to high school age. And the result will become contempt of the natural world or insistence on viewing it as nothing mroe than a resource. Instead, this view suggests children should simply be given hands on projects or taken into the woods without much adult comment, in order to create "genuine environmental stewards". Increasingly, proponents of environmental literacy are influenced by this view.

In addition many "alternative" schools of thought such as Montessori suggests that kids should if possible, not know about political or global problems, until well into adolescence. According to this view if "political" parents don't wait for the right developmental moment to talk to their kids about things like war, world hunger, climate change, poverty, and other serious issues they will grow up to be detached cynics who can't bring themselves to care about anything.

But is this view correct? I decided to start by asking somebody with a lot of experience in education: my mother. She felt from both decades of teaching experience and a background in child development that such views were "simplistic". That there was no formula style of education guaranteed to make all the kids grow up to be environmentalists. Or concerned about other political issues for that matter.

So where does this view come from? Mostly the answer lies with research done in the 80's which found most environmental activists and scientists remember positive experiences with nature as children. However, I can't help but think that for every such person, there is also an avid outsdoorman who listens to Rush Limbaugh and scoffs at global warming.

Other people argue that human beings are innately biophilic such as E.O. Wilson. Many proponents of this view argue that this is simply because humans evolved in the natural world and consider it home. On a more cynical note some people argue that biophobia is natural or at least honest, considering how people have achieved a higher life expectancy in a modern industrial setting, you'd find in a Stone Aged tribe.

However a more provocative theory exists. That while humans may at one level love outdoor settings, that they are also seen as somewhat scary for a reason. And that reason involves an aspect of our evolutionary history, that many people don't want to accept. That our ancestors weren't "Man The Hunter", but largely a prey species. After all, look at the extent of predator imagery in horror movies, in children's fairy tales, in religion, and above all in war stories and war related rhetoric. After all, why is it that people tend to fear animals with sharp teeth to a degree that far outweighs the actual risk of being killed by one? Why have cats inspired so many extreme reactions from humans ranging from being worshiped in Egypt (something they seem to feel entitled to!!) to associated with the Devil or evil spirits in many other cultures? Could some of the hostility towards nature come not from a corrupt socialization or pure greed, but an unwillingness to acknowledge any human vulnerability towards nature?

Could it be that the correlation between *hawkish* politics and refusal to acknowledge problems like global warming or natural disasters, is not purely accidental? Many evolutionary psychologists, however are reluctant to take the role of predators in human evolution or our current behavior seriously. And if largely feline predators shaped our species in a way that was crucial to the development of war, could it also be more than a coincidence that so many militaristic leaders throughout history such as Napoleon, Hitler and others were known to hate and/or fear cats?

But the issue here is human love of nature. Could it not be lurking somewhere in our consciousness that nature of course provides food, water, and basically life. We know it can be beautiful. But watch out you never know what might be lurking!! A tiger! Shark! Wicked witch! Zombie! Shark! Something that is going to eat you! Could it be that in order to truly address human attitudes towards the environment that we may not just have to address rational risks and economic needs, but also a sort of innate ambivalence? A mindset that is drawn to nature and sees it as home, but also can't help but wondering what lurks behind the trees/bushes.

Either way the hidden role of predators in the phenomena of biophilia/biophobia seems to be an underexamined question. And *food* for thought.

Say goodnight readers!

Remembering Armstice Day

Happy Veterans Day Everyone!

Of course in much of the world it's Armistice Day today. And it used to be in the United States until 1954, Congress declared that the holiday would be changed to Veteran's Day. Why was this done?

In theory to recognize all veterans rather than just those of WWI. But this of course raises some of it's own questions. Was Armistice primarily about honoring WWI veterans or was it more? Or was it more about remember the end of WWI in its entirety, the living and the dead? Could the old Armistice Day have been extended to a celebration of all peace treaties where a war has come to an end? If Congress wanted to create a Veteran's Day, was it necessary to replace Armistice Day in order to do so?

I admit, that I'm taken a bit by some of the things done around the world in celebration of Armistice Day. For example many parts of the world a two minute silence is observed at 11 am. Why can't we in the US, share this with the rest of the world?

Apparently much of the change was motivated by the desire of some WWII veterans to "get their share" of what they perceived as a holiday for the WWI set. Of course, creating a "all veteran's holiday" was not a bad idea in itself-much as some people complain about too many holidays in the US. But I do question the perception of those WWII veterans who saw the Armistice Day as something that was *for* WWI veterans. In fact, it was more than that. It was a Remembrance of all those involved living and dead on an international basis. And also of the peace which ended it.

In today's world it would seem strange to have a remembrance for a war that most at the time felt was essentially over nothing. These days it is often seen as an insult to even suggest that might be the case. But in past generations, many people felt differently. Maybe it was partly because "The Great War" was believed to be the "war to end all wars" rather than the first in a sequence. (Which officially only goes to 2, but where many speculate about 3, 4, and even 5.)

However, one thing that become painfully apparent is how little WWI, is seriously remembered except as a prelude to WWI. And how it's legacies have never been taken seriously. For example people often talk about the Vietnam generation as having WWII veterans for fathers, but less is said about the generational relationship of the many Korean Vets and other member of the "Silent Generation" with their parents who lived through WWI. A lot is said about how during the early buildup of the Nazi Empire, that people who were reluctant to engage Hitler militarily had an "isolationist" mentality. But little is said about how fresh the memories of WWI were at the time. How some of the blame can be placed on WWI era propaganda about how the Germans were gassing prisoners. Or thd fact, that supposedly rearming was not in Germany's economic interest and nor were any additional war. Which is to say, that the conventional wisdom about how and why nations become aggressive CONTRIBUTED to the tendency to not take Hitler or Nazi ideology seriously. And how fundamentally those same paradigms have not changed much in terms of how geopolitics is analyzed.
Other overlooked realities involve talk about support for the Vietnam War by age. Often we are taught to think about it as young spoiled baby boomers opposing the war, unlike their wise parents who had been so hardened by WWII and The Depression. But in reality, support for the Vietnam War was higher among those under 30 than those over 49. Looking at the figures presented, those over 49 would have been born by 1916 in 1965, and by 1922 in 1971. I don't know what the breakdown of age cohorts would be within that older group, but I can't help but wondering how the many still living WWI veterans looked upon the Cold War and Vietnam War as it started, turned sour, and eventually left a nation profoundly disillusioned. I've never found much on the topic. And sadly, since the number of living WWI veterans is now down to three, I fear it may end up another largely untold and perhaps overlooked story.

Perhaps the bottom line as to why Veteran's Day ended up replacing Armistice Day (as opposed to finding another date for Veteran's Day), is that American society both in the 1950's and now, is much more willing to celebrating the making of war, than the making of peace. And that's a shame. Especially in these times, when Americans could have shared that 20 minutes of silence with so much of the world.

Say Goodnight Readers.

Whose Patriotism Would You Question?

Today, I'm going to talk about a major double standard in American society. But this one unlike those involving skin color, gender, and even class by and large goes unnoticed and unquestioned. This double standard is about political views, and goes to the heart of how love of one's country is seen is contemporary-especially post Vietnam War-America.

Of course, there's been a lot of talk over the past three decades, probably too much talk, about the so called "white working class Republicans". Why too much talk? Because above all, it's a bit of a Red Herring. Sure it is possible to find poor and working class Caucasians who vote Republican, but they are in reality a small minority. As statistician Andrew Gelman demonstrated very well in his book "Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State", voters in nearly every state and demographic become more likely to vote Republican as their incomes rise. However, this increase is simply much steeper among whites than minorities, among Red State voters than Blue State voters, men than women, rural than urban, and among heavily observant Protestants than everyone else. It is certainly true that many blue collar voters are do in fact vote Republican against their economic interests and that many liberals are well off or even rich-also against their economic interests. But both of the above represent visible minorities rather than the norm. After all, if 70% of all low income white voters are primarily democrat and if George Bush got 60% of all high income voters, the minority 30% and 40% will still amount millions of people-plenty enough to feed the common stereotypes if one is determined enough!!! But on the whole most of the conventional wisdom over how income, education and religion influence American voters should probably be thrown out with the morning trash.
The differences between "liberals on the coast" and those with "heartland values" is not a class struggle so much as a regional difference between people who are mostly middle to high income.

Now we've gotten the idea of class resentment out of the way, as an explanation:Why is it that so many people would question the patriotism of anti-war protesters without knowing their intentions? But yet, the same people would take for granted that the much talked about "guys with Confederate flags" are the most patriotic Americans of all-despite any reactionary politics-even though that flag symbolized an attempt to succeed from the United States? I've thought about this a bit, and could not escape the conclusion that this is either about regional power struggles or it is about a double standards that systematically finds ways to judge the right as more patriotic than the left.

"Wait a minute!" some readers may say, "Aren't Southerners often unjustifiably labeled as ignorant, backwards, or racist?". The answer to this is "Yes. It happens all the time." Sometimes even very progressive and/or educated Southerners are misjudged completely. Regional conflicts often do cut both ways. However, this might not be a purely regional conflict. After all, Confederate flags have become common in places other than the former Confederacy. I've been told by multiple sources that the Confederate flag is much more common in much of Pennsylvania than in most of the South. Personally, I didn't see much of it, during a brief time period spent in Georgia, but have seen it all over the place in Washington towns-not too far from notoriously liberal Seattle.

So if the Confederate flag is no longer confined to regions of the US that were once a part of the Confederacy, what exactly is being asserted against "political correctness", liberalism, and "big government"? For many the answer to this is simple: racism. But is it that simple?
Often the flying of the Confederate flag DOES raise some very emotional debates from the racial angle. But even when this happens nobody decides to question the patriotism of conservative white males in the way that anti-war protesters are ASSUMED to at least be a "less patriotic" class of Americans. And when people are called out for not only flying the stars and bars, but also doing other things that romanticize the Southern cause, such as claiming that their favorite book and/or movie was "Gone with the Wind", generally their patriotism won't be questioned even if their racial sensitivity is. Could it be that there's is a certain ideological bias and not just a regional one? Probably considering how rarely Southern or Texan accents are shown on TV, movies, or in the media. And most likely that ideology would tend to involve certain things like relative hawkishness, a distrust of big government, contempt for liberals, boosterism for "traditional" family values, and so on.

In fact, sometimes the inequity in how Confederate flag flyers and "Gone with the Wind" lovers are treated compared to protesters goes deeper than that. It is not unusual for diversity training as it exists in some segments of the left to portray Confederate flag flying or enjoying "Gone with the Wind" as "typical of white people". And any white person who grew up in a family/community where none of this is the norm will often be told how blind or sheltered they are and even firmly told not to "put themselves above" the guys with the Confederate flag. So in the context of diversity training anti-war protesters are often told not to put on any snotty airs about being less racist than those who express some level of "Confederate pride" or "rebel pride", and that yes of course, they are just as racist if not more so. They are just too lacking in self-awareness to see that what they think is greater tolerance is really just an uppity look down attitude on more open working class whites.

And yet, the minute the context shifts to the topic of patriotism they are automatically labeled as "lesser" Americans. And told that they "failed" to appeal to the "guys with the Confederate flags" because they supposedly didn't fly the American flag quite enough.

However, having been to a number of protests I can tell you that American flags actually are a fairly common feature. And no. The overwhelming majority of them are NOT burned, defaced, or presented upside down. Of course, some people have suggested that we should replace a number of other symbols with the stars and stripes. Among those things include the UN flag, Peace Symbols, images of Iraqi people and/or their suffering, signs, slogans, and even the rattlesnake with the "Don't Tread on Me". Also many suggested getting rid of the puppets, the street theater and costumes used for political commentary, and even the bandannas some people bring in case there's tear gas.

So should a protest look like a 1970's Nixon rally? One important thing to consider is that these rallies are not just watched by "Middle America", but by people all over the world. And if the anti-war movement presents itself as only concerned about American death, that could look less than empathetic towards other people around the world. And it is. At this point we unelected an administration who horrified, enraged, and even scared large number of people around the world with this behavior. And in many other countries people who will be watching these protests in the US, are also seeing much more of the carnage in Iraq than is typically shown on US television.

Perhaps the solution to a lot of public perceptions about anti-war protests is that perhaps more people should just try and see a few for themselves. After all, the whole society has been filled with images and stereotypes since the 70's. And what better way to replace stereotypes than a little reality.

But either way, we'll think about replacing the peace symbol when The Confederate flag is no longer sold as a bumpersticker.

Say Goodnight Readers!

Persistance of the Classics and Why They Really Matter

Hi Everyone!

Today I'm going to talk about an issue where for the most part what most people assume has turned out to be wrong. All long as I can remember, there has been talk about how young people just didn't appreciate fine literature anymore. And in a way, this post is setting the ground to write about my own experiences with neo-conservatives before we took them seriously.

Certainly the idea that interest in classic literature is one the decline has been around since 1951, when Ray Bradbury wrote the book "Fahrenheit 451", but my guess would be that it goes back further than that. However, the astonishing thing about Ray Bradbury's own view of his book is that in his mind the story was not about censorship. This came as a surprise to many readers of the book, who saw the very idea of firemen burning books with or without the owner's consent, the constant wars, and the fact that people who memorized books have to live on the Lam as hobos, as very clear indications of social repression. Yet, Bradbury says that despite having written in the McCarthy era, that the book was about how television would destroy all interest in literature and turn people into a bunch of narrow minded morons. That he NEVER had any real concerns about censorship per se. However, this picture of very violent social repression where the problem was not a dictator but a sort of "tyranny of the majority" where no dissent is tolerated, and where ordinary people are both so ignorant and so out of control that they can't even see their own condition or their own brutality falls right in line with neoconservative political theory.
Although to my knowledge Ray Bradbury has no direct connections to any neo-conservative organizations, and while much of his iconoclastic romanticism would put him at odds with the harder neo-con political thinkers such as Leo Strauss, William Kristol, or Harold Bloom, there is a common set of assumptions involved. Basically the assumption goes that codes of human behavior are a fragile thing and can easily be disrupted or destroyed by bad ideas, or even more openness to imagery, technology, and such than "the masses" can really handle. Furthermore, that our basic humanity and the ability to recognize atrocities depends on either full inculcation into these finer things in life, or some form of social control. And that a human being without either a very conservative style of education or strong social constraints would be capable of committing terrible atrocities without knowing that they were wrong. That ordinary citizens who had not committed these crimes as of yet, and maintain that they would not slaughter, gas, or torture simply lacked the self-awareness to know how readily they would do so.
This may sound crazy, and it is. But several key architects of the Bush administration including Karl Rove as well as the heads of PNAC, all believed in these theories. In their minds the most dangerous tyranny was the result of a society that was too open as far as free speech and freedom of thought. And loss of interest in fine literature was one of the troubling early symptoms of this decay.
As a youngster who was at the same time very taken by both "Fahrenheit 451" and Oliver Stone's "JFK" (which had just come out), I had no idea how much the the neoconservative ideas hinted at in the novel would conflict with the movie's idealistic notion that truth for its own sake mattered. And that is very much at the heart of why classic literature's demise has been greatly exaggerated. Let me explain.
In the 90's there were basically two camps as to why literature was "simply no longer appreciated". There were those who welcomed this change and those who did not. The reasons that the neo-cons were concerned has already been outlined. Some paleocons, moderates, and liberals lamented the loss of "fine literature". Some liberals shared this lament often blaming underfunded schools and social problems. Others say the "decline" in more neutral or even positive terms, saying that this was inevitable with a more diverse society. Some even advocated for throwing the "dead white males" out of the curriculum entirely.

And yet,

Early in the Bush years a unsuspected truth came to light: That the death of the classics has not just greatly exaggerated, but entirely wrong. And I remember reading this article and looking upon it as a rare tidbit of great news, in grim times. After years of hearing classics dissed as "dead white males" or having their supposed demise blamed on the "liberal agenda", it was nice to hear that through it all classic literature was bringing more profits to book publishers than they realized. How would a corporation not notice what was making them money? Part of the reason was the force of conventional wisdom. But part of it, is ironically it took newer computer technology for the figures to become apparent. I say ironically because it was the very technologies that were predicted to render classics anachronistic and "irrelevant" to young people, that have made it all possible. As younger member of Gen-X who relates well with Millenials, I can tell you that TV, movies, and pop culture have had a real role in attracting young interest in reading the classics. Furthermore, it was the internet and computer technology-another predicted literature killer-that alerted publishers as to how popular some of these novels actually are. And what I find even more impressive about these sales figures, is that they not only exclude academic/school publishing but have showed up in the context of the books having been around for if not at least a hundred years. Anyone who's browsed used bookstores can figure out that books that have been in continuous print for a long time are generally easiest and cheapest to find-and you even get a choice of multiple editions. Plus with so many students buying these books (but excluded from the sales figures) there is probably also a lot more people who already have a copy in the house than with a bestseller that just came out.
During the late 90's, I remember having to wait four months to borrow a copy of "Les Miserables" even though the local library had five copies of it.
Of course, a lot of people misconstrued this finding as a "revival" of interest in these books. But really the only thing revived is publisher interest in promoting them. The actual popularity has been going on under the radar for decades, at least. Some of my militant Latina feminist friends in the anti-war movement were skeptical of my happiness at the finding and suggested that this "resurgence" reflected a "return to dead white males" in neoconservative times. One rather dour woman suggested that it probably came down to money, grim economic times. That classics were generally cheaper on a per page/per pound basis than more modern titles. And that books written in the past tended to be "denser" and have a bigger "bang for page" in terms of both effort and reward. A few Russians I knew pointed out that during Soviet times people read the classics (Pushkin et al!!) simply because there were few modern fictional titles-and the Politburo liked it that way. And that American publishing in their view was starting to develop a similar quality in a hidden way. That beneath the large fancy bookstores with their beautiful wood decor, fake fireplaces, and mini cafes selling so many coffee confections that there are dramatically fewer titles than there were in plain old Waldenbooks back in the 80's-when said Russians came to America. Other the other hand many say that libraries offer much more than they did 40 years ago, and not just in terms of both classic, modern, children, young adult (much more sophisticated these days than in the past), foreign language, and other titles, but in terms of lectures, public forums, and more.

So how do we make realistic comparisons on these things? To start out one has to evaluate the claims and arguments as to what is desirable.

One claim I've debunked is the idea that young people "just aren't interested in these books anymore". Not as the result of technology, or TV, or school budget cuts, or feminism, or liberalism, or an increasing number of people who are "not of European ancestry". As for the last, they were saying similar things about Germans, Irish, Italians, Swedes, Poles, Greeks, Hungarians, and Jews not too ago. But what about the idea that books are better appreciated by people of the same color, national origin, ethnic background, gender, class, religion, cultural background, and/or sexual orientation as the writer? Or that Shakespeare is simply "not relevant" to anyone who isn't a middle class WASP male? Personally, consider these claims to be fairly groundless. It is true that some evaluation was in order for the recognition of authors who maybe were overlooked due to various prejudices and didn't get the recognition they deserved. But at the same time Shakespeare was once scorned for not speaking Latin. And Dickens was once looked upon as a low class radical. Some feminists have made an interesting argument that sexism and an unsophisticated concept of racism influenced the fact that "Huck Finn" is considered such a great American novel-despite recurrent campaigns to ban it- while "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is relatively ignored by comparison. But these sorts of debates are very different from arguing that writer and reader need to come from similar backgrounds.
For the most part these sorts of debates are healthy. Because I've concluded from the evidence that the classic endure not for lack of interesting contemporary literature, nor because of some deep need to glorify dead white males, nor because of nostalgia or commitment to neoconservative thinking. They endured the late 20th and into the 21st century for the same reasons they made it that far in the first place, which to say by being truly great works of literature. And they are in no danger of being rendered irrelevant by social or technological change nor interest in non-English speaking and non-Western classics. Ordinary people with a modicum of education ARE much more capable of appreciating literature for its humanity and the desire to understand worlds other than the here and now, much more than the panicking of conservative thinkers, nor any dismissive ideas about "relevancy" and identity politics, ever came close to recognizing.

Say Goodnight Readers!!

Water Saving Tip #5: Save the Ice Caps and Aquifers

That's right. After decades of being asked to save the whales and the tigers, and more, you are now being called upon to save glaciers and underground bodies of water. It has longed been theorized that the ability to store food was the ultimate lynch pin of human civilization. However, one of the ecology movement's most important insights is that food is water (often lots of it). And so far, our methods of storing and transporting are very limited in scale, and very expensive in terms of money, infrastructure, energy, and losses to evaporation. If you look at the distribution of freshwater on earth, a very high percentage of it however is "stored" either underground or in the form of ice.

Of course, glaciers have largely been looked upon either the visually beautifully casualties of global warming, or as synonymous with the purest water on earth. Of course, the consumers in supermarkets who buy "glacier pure" bottled water have most likely never been too close to an actual glacier. Real glaciers are often full of debris, dirt, pebbles, dead animals, and even pollution from far away. But what many people don't know is that glaciers are to a large extent nature's "water towers" with the snowmelt feeding many of the world's rivers. Some parts of the world such as India and parts of the United States are heavily dependent on ice melt for both human uses and the ecosystems. Restoring the glaciers may sound right out of science fiction, but artificial glaciers have in fact been used as "appropriate technology" in India. And if done on large scales they might not just serve as a water saving tactic, but might help slow down climate change. Basically the ice on the planet reflects sunlight, while rocks especially the ones with dark colors, tend to store heat from the sunlight. Physicists refer to this property as "albedo" or the propensity of materials to reflect light rays rather than absorb them-mostly as heat. And it can be a major factor in the temperature of a planet. So if ice caps and glaciers melt on earth, the planets albedo could drop and global warming would accelerate. And similarly more ice could cool the planet. This is the reason some people have suggested painting roofs or even rocks white, white topping streets and so on as either a way to cool cities, or even the planet itself. However, it is unlike that such technology could be a magic bullet if greenhouse gases are not addressed more directly.

Also groundwater has been found to be more than just a series of passive vessels that take in rainwater until it is removed. For example scientists have discovered that having a lower water table over a certain land area can influence the length and severity of droughts, even if they do not cause them per se. In the past it was taken for granted that depleting groundwater wasn't an ecological problem per se, because it didn't degrade the ecosystem but simply meant that the resource was no longer available. Now we know that reality is a lot more complicated. Also more recent studies shown that some methods of "water conservation" such as lining canals with concrete can decrease the amount of water penetrating the ground table. As can the placing of concrete and asphalt over many land surfaces, and in some cases the losses of certain animals such as prarie dogs. Another controversial measure to increase the amount of water underground is the concept of injecting highly purified sewage into the water-table. Somehow this idea generates more opprobrium than the amount of uncleaned sewage that gets into the groundwater table regularly, or the number of poorly maintained septic tanks all over America. Is the idea of recycled sewage the next thing people will have to "get over" for the sake of survival? Very likely.

But more important is the idea that groundwater far from being an inert underground mass, is in fact, deeply connected with other aspects of the local ecology, including the above ground flora and fauna, the soil conditions, and even the land/atmosphere interactions.

Say Goodnight Readers!

Absurdities of our Time: Part 4

When I look at the solutions proposed for alternative energy, one thing that stands out is how few options are being seriously considered, and how many are being relatively ignored. And in some cases at least, the ones that are getting the least attention are technologically the easiest to implement.

In the long run, I don't doubt the importance of algal fuel, photovoltaics, or other wild ideas such as VIVACE and thermo-electric cells. But what doesn't make sense is the lack of attention to multiple and highly effective solutions that can be implemented either immediately or in the short run, that are getting very little attention.

For example biomass gasification is very little different from coal gasification in terms of the technology involved, and coal gasification largely supplied Nazi Germany during WWI and South Africa during the Apartheid era. Yet most of the attention is going to technologies such as algal fuels and carbon recycling. And this is not meant to doubt the long term benefits of algal fuels and carbon recycling. But rather to suggest that maybe, we should implement now (not to mention in the 70's) what is and was backed by experience.

The same thing applies to the issue of solar electricity. Of course, I'm very happy that the photovoltaic "solar revolution" finally seems to be coming around. However, it's been mentioned on this blog that commercial scale solar thermal power plants existed in the first few years of the 20th century. Why with so much knowledge of fossil fuel issues, and so much anticipation for solar electric technologies, is there not a much wider utilization of solar thermal energy. And of course, in addition to hybrid cars, there is such a thing as a hybrid power plant: It uses solar thermal energy and combustion (coal, oil, biomass gasification, etc) either at different times and/or the same time to produce electricity. Not to mention solar water heating, commercial level solar steam production and other industrial uses for solar thermal energy, solar air cooling and refrigeration, and more. Perhaps an even more interesting possibility involves solar chemical power, in which many energy intensive chemical production applications are done with solar energy rather than combustion of fossil fuels, and/or massive amounts of electrical heating. PV are a great technology, but why such a narrow conception of solar energy? How about solar lighting during the daytime, where various innovations are used so that a wide variety of buildings can get most of their light from the sun even in during relatively cloudy whether or when the sun has only partially risen or has at least partially set. Many of these don't rely on windows, but use various "light pipes" with mirrors and lenses.

On the other hand, if we want to explore wild ideas, why not some of the wild ideas involving wind energy. Since wind energy is already somewhat successful at the level of basic tried and true stodgy old turbines shouldn't that be the type of energy in which we can put our eyes on the skies, both literally and figuratively? How about kite energy? Or solar-wind tower generators? Or high flying wind turbines? Why have both the micro wind and micro solar thermal industries gotten so little attention compared to rooftop photovoltaics.

And if photovoltaic (and perhaps soon solar thermal) cells are coming out as frustratingly slowly as the swine flu vaccine, put all the emphasis on rooftops rather than on putting them in arrangements that will maximize their exposure to sunlight?

Also it's no secret that much of the issue with renewable energy and a very high energy efficiency world is not so much the energy available or even the technology available to produce it, but also the issue of energy storage. And contrary to popular belief this isn't just a problem for renewable electricity, but also for combustion and nuclear efficiency. Basically it's very hard to run a nuclear reaction so that it produces "just enough" electricity to meet the current demand. And with coal or gas plants trying to find tune the combustion level for current needs can lower the overall energy efficiency of the plant and defeat the purpose. As a result a high percentage of electricity in the grid is wasted. And too often the popular solution has been to look for the "perfect battery" or hydrogen fuel. But little attention is paid to other options. Why not time the most energy intensive tasks including the powering of electric or plug-in hybrid cars so it occurs primarily at peak production? Or improve the amount of air pressure or flywheel based energy storage? And why have options such as nitrogen energy storage, or the concepts of zinc, lithium, or aluminium economies?

Why hang everything on hydrogen as the great big carbon free hope?

Ultimately the biggest lesson of today's problems is not to put all your eggs in one basket. Hopefully humanity won't make that mistake with renewables.

Say Goodnight readers!