Quote of the Day -- On the Man in the White House

"Today is a significant moment. We've only had 45 presidents. We now know, one of them was elected with the explicit and intentional help of a foreign power, in violation of American law, with the open support of the candidate who benefited from the crimes."

--Jeffrey Toobin

Divided St. Louis, Divided Kansas City, Divided America

This New Yorker Magazine cover ran in December, 2014.

It's still so tragically true, of course, and so very still true of our own city and of too much of America.

We need to get and be and stay better than this.

We tell ourselves we are.

Two Huge Sources and Reasons for Hope

I saw two media releases yesterday that gave me hope for the future of electricity and reducing pollution and carbon emissions. And then there's the hope for humankind.

First this from Bill McKibben and his 350.org group and The New Yorker:

Power to the People

Why the rise of green energy makes utility companies nervous.

A little bit from the article.

Mark and Sara Borkowski live with their two young daughters in a century-old, fifteen-hundred-square-foot house in Rutland, Vermont. Mark drives a school bus, and Sara works as a special-ed teacher; the cost of heating and cooling their house through the year consumes a large fraction of their combined income. Last summer, however, persuaded by Green Mountain Power, the main electric utility in Vermont, the Borkowskis decided to give their home an energy makeover. In the course of several days, coördinated teams of contractors stuffed the house with new insulation, put in a heat pump for the hot water, and installed two air-source heat pumps to warm the home. They also switched all the light bulbs to L.E.D.s and put a small solar array on the slate roof of the garage.

The Borkowskis paid for the improvements, but the utility financed the charges through their electric bill, which fell the very first month. Before the makeover, from October of 2013 to January of 2014, the Borkowskis used thirty-four hundred and eleven kilowatt-hours of electricity and three hundred and twenty-five gallons of fuel oil. From October of 2014 to January of 2015, they used twenty-eight hundred and fifty-six kilowatt-hours of electricity and no oil at all. President Obama has announced that by 2025 he wants the United States to reduce its total carbon footprint by up to twenty-eight per cent of 2005 levels. The Borkowskis reduced the footprint of their house by eighty-eight per cent in a matter of days, and at no net cost.

I’ve travelled the world writing about and organizing against climate change, but, standing in the Borkowskis’ kitchen and looking at their electric bill, I felt a fairly rare emotion: hope. The numbers reveal a sudden new truth—that innovative, energy-saving and energy-producing technology is now cheap enough for everyday use. The Borkowskis’ house is not an Aspen earth shelter made of adobe and old tires, built by a former software executive who converted to planetary consciousness at Burning Man. It’s an utterly plain house, with Frozen bedspreads and One Direction posters, inhabited by a working-class family of four, two rabbits, and a parakeet named Oliver. It sits in a less than picturesque neighborhood, in a town made famous in recent years for its heroin problem. Its significance lies in its ordinariness. The federal Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, has visited, along with the entire Vermont congressional delegation. If you can make a house like this affordably green, you should be able to do it anywhere.

I’ve travelled the world writing about and organizing against climate change, but, standing in the Borkowskis’ kitchen and looking at their electric bill, I felt a fairly rare emotion: hope. The numbers reveal a sudden new truth—that innovative, energy-saving and energy-producing technology is now cheap enough for everyday use. The Borkowskis’ house is not an Aspen earth shelter made of adobe and old tires, built by a former software executive who converted to planetary consciousness at Burning Man. It’s an utterly plain house, with Frozen bedspreads and One Direction posters, inhabited by a working-class family of four, two rabbits, and a parakeet named Oliver. It sits in a less than picturesque neighborhood, in a town made famous in recent years for its heroin problem. Its significance lies in its ordinariness. The federal Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, has visited, along with the entire Vermont congressional delegation. If you can make a house like this affordably green, you should be able to do it anywhere.

Oh, yeah.

Hope.

Secondly, this. I wrote about this a year or two ago, the hope it can and would and should mean for us. This is from Bloomberg Business News.

Invisible Solar Cells That Could Power 

Skyscrapers

Can you imagine skyscrapers, creating their own energy, their own electricity?

Can you imagine how the owners and/or developers of these things would virtually line up to have their huge, towering buildings create their own electricity?

The saved, unused, uncovered Earth since we wouldn't need as many "solar farms," covered in panels?

Can you imagine the savings?

Can you imagine the reduced pollution and carbon emissions?

Then imagine lowered--possibly drastically lowered--energy bills?

One day, getting away from hydroelectric dams, jamming up our rivers?

Imagine.

The US, "Corrections", Prisons, Racism and Gross Injustice

From the Zinn Education Project  today.

Kalief Browder was arrested at the age of 16 for allegedly stealing a backpack weeks before in the Bronx. Despite no evidence, never being convicted of a crime, nor a trial, Browder was held at Rikers Island for almost three years. For most of that time, he was held in solitary confinement. He was beaten and starved. He maintained his innocence, requested a trial, but was only offered plea deals while the trial was repeatedly delayed. On principle, he refused to plead guilty.

Eventually he was released from prison, but not from the trauma he had suffered. On Saturday, he committed suicide. We mourn his loss and commit to redouble our efforts to teach about and challenge the "new Jim Crow."

There's so much of this story that needs to be retold. I'll cut to the end. This from NPR  today:

The Los Angeles Times spoke to Browder's lawyer on Sunday. Paul V. Prestia said that all those years in jail took an unbearable toll on Browder.

The Times reports:

" 'I think what caused the suicide was his incarceration and those hundreds and hundreds of nights in solitary confinement, where there were mice crawling up his sheets in that little cell,' Prestia said in a phone interview Sunday evening. 'Being starved, and not being taken to the shower for two weeks at a time ... those were direct contributing factors. ... That was the pain and sadness that he had to deal with every day, and I think it was too much for him.'

Learn more on Democracy Now! here: http://bit.ly/1IqM1sx 

More links:  Three Years on Rikers Without Trial - The New Yorker

Kalief Browder, Held at Rikers Island for 3 Years Without Trial, Commits Suicide

Kalief Browder, 1993–2015 - The New Yorker

Koch -- It's the Evil Thing

Two men inherit a fortune, make it even bigger, then set out to crush lots of others so they can make yet more.

Because they can.  They certainly don't need it.

Sure, that makes sense.

Very Christian.

And lots of middle-class and poor support the entire idea by voting Republican.

Bloody brilliant.

To learn and know more about what the Koch brothers do--and are doing to America, go to this link:

Covert Operations - The New Yorker

On this day...in nearby Oklahoma, 1921

From the  Zinn Education Project

In 1921, Greenwood (in Tulsa, Oklahoma) was one of the most prosperous African-American communities in the U.S. Serving over 8,000 residents, Greenwood’s commercial district was known nationally as the ‘Negro Wall Street’. The community boasted two newspapers, over a dozen churches, and hundreds of African-American-owned businesses. On the evening of May 31, 1921, Greenwood was ravaged by a white mob. By the conclusion of the riot at midday, June 1, virtually every building in a 42-square-block area of the community--homes, schools, churches, and businesses--was burned to the ground and thousands were left homeless. Over 1,200 homes were destroyed. Every church, school, and business in Greenwood was set on fire. Approximately 8,000 African-Americans were left homeless and penniless. (Continue reading here: http://bit.ly/1pGWfv5.)

(People) need to learn the hidden history of the 1921 Tulsa race riot (massacre) and how this links to racial wealth inequality today. Read "Burning Tulsa: The Legacy of Black Dispossession" by Linda Christensen of Rethinking Schools and see her classroom lesson: http://bit.ly/1fDOUvG


You can read and see more about that ugly, fateful day, here:

What happened to Black Wall Street on June 1, 1921?

Which brings up this article from this past week from The New Yorker:

What We Talk About When We Talk About Reparations

And it is based on this recent article from The Atlantic

The Case for Reparations

Most Americans likely don't know there were, in fact, some reparations paid for slavery just after the Civil War, as Ta-Nehisi Coates points out.  Trouble is, they were paid to slave owners.  How's that for irony?  And hypocrisy.

Food for thought.

Enjoy your Sunday, everyone.

Quote of the day

"We will continue to have mass shootings as long as it is so easy to buy politicians."

--Andy Borowitz, American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author, also won the first National Press Club award for humor.
______________________________

If only that were somehow only funny and not true or tragic.

Links:   Andy Borowitz - Search : The New Yorker

Andy Borowitz Report - The New Yorker

Andy Borowitz - Wikipedia

Think government surveillance is new?

The whole brouhaha over government surveillance of our emails and phone calls gives me two reactions.

First, it makes me laugh because I think people are making a great deal out of not much and second, it kind of p*sses me off because the people complaining are quite likely, also, the ones who would REALLY scream bloody murder if we WERE attacked by some wack-jobs, intent on killing and hurting people in this nation.

And for anyone who thinks this is a new phenomenon, think again.

Back in 1937, the following happened:

"When Princess Juliana of the Netherlands became a mother, CBS planned a fifteen-minute spot" on the radio, mind you "...about the new heir to the House of Orange. For reasons of scheduling, New York changed its mind. The decision to drop it, a cabled order went back to London:

"KILL JULIANA'S BABY." 

That afternoon, Helen Sioussat found two FBI men at her door."*

Mind you, that's 1937, too.

When it comes to the government surveillance of our emails, so far, I come down with the likes of Right Wing, Republican, small-government, though moderate columnist David Brooks last week on NPR :

"You know, I'm not as bothered as some. I'm somewhat bothered by the secrecy, but I don't feel it's intrusive. Basically, they're running huge amounts of megadata through an algorithm. That feels less intrusive to me than the average TSA search at the airport. And so I don't think it's particularly intrusive. It is supervised by the court. It has some congressional supervision.

It seems to be reasonably narrowly focused. And so I don't regard this as a crime against our civil liberties. I regard it as a somewhat moderate and balanced way to look for people who are calling bad people."

What the government is doing was put by the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, also, so it's not as though it hasn't been "aired out", so to speak. It was never a big secret.

And what's the alternative choice?  That we have wackos with bombs running around the country for some God-knows-what purpose, trying to kill and hurt Americans?

I'll stick with the possible loss of a little privacy every time.

*Director of Talks and Public Affairs for CBS radio from 1937 to 1958. Passage taken from the book
 Murrow: His Life and Times by A. M. Sperber.

Link:

Week In Politics: Sifting Through Surveillance

Additional, great article, just out this week, that rather agrees with my points:

The New Yorker:  So Are We Living in 1984?

Boston: In tribute

Is this what we want for America?

Is this what we want for our kids?

Is this what we want for our schools?

Is this what we want for our country?

Link:  The New Yorker

Quote of the day--on America and our guns

"On gun violence and how to end it, the facts are all in, the evidence is clear, the truth there for all who care to know it—indeed, a global consensus is in place, which, in disbelief and now in disgust, the planet waits for us to us to join. Those who fight against gun control, actively or passively, with a shrug of helplessness, are dooming more kids to horrible deaths and more parents to unspeakable grief just as surely as are those who fight against pediatric medicine or childhood vaccination. It’s really, and inarguably, just as simple as that."

--Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker Magazine, "The Simple Truth About Gun Control"

Link to orginal post:   http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/the-simple-truth-about-gun-control.html#ixzz2Fv7oyvYR

The deafening silence from the NRA this weekend

"If you still don't think guns are the problem, the absolute silence of the NRA since Friday -- even to express the minimum of condolences -- says it all."

--From the usually comedic Andy Borowitz, writer, The New Yorker

Link: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport

Diversity to white, corporate America (and too many Americans)

From The New Yorker Magazine.

Links: https://www.facebook.com/NewYorkerCartoons?fref=ts

http://www.newyorker.com/

https://www.facebook.com/newyorker?fref=ts

One they get. The other, they don't

There's an odd thing about this poltical cartoon. I think that most all Americans--except maybe lobbyists--would agree with it and say that's one thing--if not THE thing--that's wrong with our political system. That is, that we have to get the money out of our politics and so, our government. Sure. But then, approach so many people about doing it and killing "campaign contributions" and putting in place true, tough, stringent, accountable, prosecutable campaign finance reform and either their eyes glaze over or they disagree with you. It seems obvious. Unless and until we get these campaign contributions out of our political system (we know them for the bribes they are), we will keep getting representatives and legislation and laws and so, government, by and for the corporations and wealthy. Nothing will change until we get the money out. It's that simple. Link: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2012/02/13/120213ta_talk_marantz

Are you watching "Downton Abbey" on PBS?

“'Downton Abbey' is situated precisely on the Venn diagram where 'prestige' meets 'guilty pleasure': it’s as much cake as it is bread. And, sue me, I like cake." --Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker Magazine. Sunday evenings at 8 pm on KCPT locally. Yow. Life is too short to live without PBS, NPR or "Masterpiece Theater." Link: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2012/01/23/120123crte_television_nussbaum#ixzz1kAb4azkb

This made me laugh out loud

You don't even have to be from there to get a laugh.

Quote of the day

“Europe has never been at greater risk of explosion than today.” --French President Nikolas Sarkozy, quoted this week in Brussels at the European Conference to save the Euro and so, by extension, the European economies and possibly, Europe and the international economy. Link: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/12/is-europe-exploding.html#ixzz1g4om2inj

Democracy breaking out in Putin's Russia, "Occupy"-like

First, Vladimir Putin's ruling party got beat up, earlier this week, so "Even with all the ballot-stuffing, cyber-attacks, and manipulations, the pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, only got forty-nine per cent of the vote—results that were hardly cheering to Putin or his allies." Putin blamed the vote on Hillary Clinton, of all people. Now? "Tomorrow, thousands of Russians are expected to come out onto the streets of Moscow and demonstrate against the corrupt and profoundly undemocratic regime..." In the video above, a premier Soviet journalist accuses the media and medium of "getting more and more sophisticated at exciting, captivating and entertaining and amusing the audience but it can hardly be called a civil, socio-political institute." Man, if that doesn't ring true for American television, nothing does. Anyway, it seems Russia is getting it's own "Occupy" movement. "For a long time now, dissent has been taking hold among younger people who are unwilling to forgo freedoms, and promises of freedom, made within living memory" --David Remnick, The New Yorker Magazine. Good for them. Now if more would just break out over here. Maybe we could get a true third political party, one that's for the people and not just the wealthy and corporations. As ever, here's hoping. Links: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/world/europe/russians-vote-governing-party-claims-early-victory.html?pagewanted=all; http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/12/putins-television.html#ixzz1g4XjaZX3; http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/12/09/143461580/russian-government-says-it-will-permit-massive-protest-this-weekend?ft=1&f=1001

Quote of the day

"The struggle for justice doesn't end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me." --Troy Davis, executed by the state of Georgia, in spite of 7 of 9 witnesses from his original trial rescinding their original testimony against him. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_davis

Where Facebook is headed

"Initially, Facebook was just a place to post photographs and see which of your high-school classmates had gone to pot. Then it became a place for organizing political protests, and wasting time playing games. It’s grown and grown in all these ways. It gets credit from many for helping facilitate the Arab Spring, and it now hosts four per cent of all the photographs ever taken. Now, if Facebook gets its way, it’ll be where you read your news, find new songs, and watch video. It will have eaten a big chunk of the rest of the Internet." --Nicholas Thompson, "What Facebook Really Wants", The New Yorker Link to original story; http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/09/what-facebook-really-wants.html