Norman Rockwell

Illustrator or artist? That was the big question about Norman Rockwell. 

When I was growing up, there was a weekly magazine called The Saturday Evening Post.  The Post, which is still puiblished as a bi-monthly, has a long history. It actually published it's first edition in  1728, and was once owned by Benjamin Franklin. 

Norman Rockwell was famous in part for the cover art he created for the Post.

Rockwell's work is photo-realistic. Brilliantly so.  His art reflected America, in some cases at least, perhaps more as we wished it to be than it actually was.  Rockwell's paintings were about values like goodness, and decency, and kindness, and courage, and virtue.

Thanksgiving - Rockwell style

Norman Rockwell's work also often reflected more than a little whimsy and fun, as is amply shown in his 'Country Doctor' below.

 

 

I  have a lot of books. The biggest of all is a cumbersome coffee table volume that includes Rockwell's best known works.  It's really fun to flip through its pages occasionally and be reminded of Rockwell's genius.

 

  

Norman Rockwell - Self-Portrait

So, again, the big question about Rockwell: was he merely a talented illustrator or was he an artist?   I don't think there's any question. Illustration is about technical virtuosity. Rockwell was a consummate illustrator of humanity.  His paintings grew out of his imagination.  He imagined first, then painted what he imagined, and made it real.  That made him a uniquely gifted artist and visual communicator, who deserves a place historically alongside the greatest masters.

Here is a link to the Norman Rockwell Museum located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the artist's home town... http://www.nrm.org/

Tom Tomorrow's Gag Reflex

Tom Tomorrow is a funny guy; a cartoonist with an attitude about politics and the insanities of our bruised and broken American culture.  TT's real name is Dan  Perkins. The things that make him gag are reflected in his work.  I love his work.  It's smart, courageous, and unapologetic. TT  enjoys drilling sociopaths, stupid ideas, and corrupted institutions like the NSA.  He's my kind of guy.

Here is one of TT's most recent cartoon offerings. It's called, 'The Bottomless Pit of Arbitrary Accounting'.

Tom Tomorrow's cartoons used to appear on Salon.com. He works now for the Daily Kos online.  He's also published a couple of books.    If you think like me, you should be a Tom Tomorrow fan, if you aren't already.

Here is a link to Tom Tomorrow's webpage... http://thismodernworld.com/

A Hero's Journey - Molly Melching and Tostan

Tostan is a non-profit organization based in West Africa. It was founded by a remarkable woman named Molly Melching.  I first learned about Molly and Tostan from reading Half the Sky, a wonderful book about the  empowerment  of women in the world's poorest places. I wrote a blog entry about that book on 10/3/2012.

Born and raised in Illinois, Molly Melching's interest in French eventually took her as an exchange student to Senegal in West Africa. That was in 1974. She never left. After a stint as a Peace Corps volunteer, during which she learned to speak 'Wolof' (the principle language in Senegal), Molly remained in that country, continuing her community development and education efforts. That led to the launch of Tostan, which means 'breakthrough' in Wolof.

From that beginning, Molly and her team evolved a strategy for community development that put great emphasis on the empowerment of women.

In most places in Africa, there is a strong cultural tradition of male dominance, with women subjugated and treated like chattel.  In this tradition, girl children are considered unworthy of being educated, and are destined at a young age to be traded into a marriage relationship by her family.  With no rights of her own, a woman in these traditional African cultures is subjected to every kind of indignity and brutalization.

A particularly cruel aspect of reality for these African women is a tradition known as Female Genital Cutting (FGC).  In this tradition, girl children, most before the age of ten, are subjected to the cutting away of the external parts of their genitals, including the clitoris and labial tissue.  This is done without anesthetic.  Extremely painful and medically unnecessary, FGC is thought to dampen a girl's libido, a condition required culturally to be worthy of marriage.  In Africa,  nearly one hundred million women have been mutilated by FGC.  

Molly Melching and her colleagues at Tostan have developed a particularly effective model for evolving local communities away from FGC and early childhood marriage.  It works because it focuses on community development while encouraging respect for women and the acceptance of new cultural norms, including the ending of FGC and early childhood marriage.  Tostan has successfully implemented their community model in ten African nations, including Senegal, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Djibouti, Mauritania, Somalia, Gambia, Burkina Faso, and Sudan.  

On the occasion of International Human Rights Day on December 15, 2012,   Tostan reported that 115 of their participating communities in Guinea-Bissau collectively renounced FGC and forced childhood marriage. In fact, they went beyond that and embraced every human's right to recognition, respect, and  access to education and health care. Tostan was a powerful facilitator behind  this remarkable community achievement. 

Molly Melching has dedicated her life to the people, particularly the women and girls, of Africa. She and her colleagues at Tostan have made an enormous difference.  I admire them and urge every caring person to stand with them as they work diligently to bring dignity to all the women and girls of Africa.

Here is a link to the Tostan website...  www.tostan.org




   

Peace on Earth

On this Christmas day, I am thinking about what I wish for the coming year.

While there is a lot to be thankful for, there are so many things that could be better.   First and foremost, I wish for humanity to come together and choose to put people and nature ahead of multi-national corporations and a handful of the superwealthy. I wish for our lawmakers to create sensible public policy where guns are concerned. Enough with the NRA and doing what's best for the firearms industry.  Let's keep guns out of the hands of felons and psychotics. Let's have background checks and a reasonable system for gun licensing. Let's ban assault weapons, cop-killer bullets, and high capacity magazines.  Let's remember the 30 people that are murdered in the United States every single day, most of them with guns.   In 2013, let's come together and pressure our elected representatives in Congress to put people ahead of the NRA and enact sane gun safety laws.

I wish for sensible energy policy that weans the American economy from depenedence on oil and nuclear power.  I wish for a government that puts its citizens first.   I have wished for all of these things for a very long time.   My wishing hasn't made much difference thusfar.  Maybe 2013 will be different.  Maybe 2013 will become a turning point; a life affirming turning point,  that offers renewed hope for the future. I hope so.

Ua Reef 360

Marine biologist Richard Chesher is a wizard with a camera.  His latest 360 degree image features his wife, Freddie in the glassy smooth, crystal clear waters of Ua reef in their South Pacific home base of New Caledonia.  

Ua Reef - New Caledonia

Here's the link to the very  cool 360 degree rotating image of the reef.
http://www.360cities.net/image/diving-spots-new-caledonia-ua-reef#808.56,-24.88,110.0

There are several other blog entries  - posted earlier -  about Richard Chesher's remarkable life with wife Ferddie aboard their yacht Moira in the South Pacific. Click below on the label - Richard Chesher - to find the earlier entries.

Unify - 12/21/12

An amazing global event is happening on Friday, 12/21/12.  No, it's not the Mayan Apocalypse.   It's a global communion of meditation...a reflection of unity that involves humans from every corner of our Earth. This event is being coordinated through a website called Unify

Efforts like this give me hope...


Here is a link to a video about this extraordinary global mind meld.
http://unify.org/#prettyPhoto[videos]/0/

Boeing 787 Build Video

The 787 is Boeing's newest commercial jet.  What makes it unique is that it is constructed almost entirely of strong, lightweight carbon fiber material. It is the most fuel efficient airliner ever built. In an age of high fuel costs, that is a big deal.

Here is a link to the video that shows how the 787 is constructed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f07HpUAuWgk

Mass Murder and the American Culture

Yesterday, a young man with mental problems drove to a primary school in Newtown, Connecticut  with two handguns and a military assault weapon. He went into two classrooms and killed 20 children, none older than seven years.  He also killed six adults, including the school's principal.

Two days earlier, right here in Portland, Oregon where we live, another mentally disturbed young man opened fire in a shopping mall filled with Christmas shoppers. Just months ago, yet another  unbalanced fool killed a bunch of people in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

America is the murder capital of the world. Something over 30 men, women, and children are killed in acts of violence every single day in this country, many with guns.  Why?  Why is mass murder a particularly American brand of insanity? To me, it comes down to three things: inadequate care for mental Illness,  lax gun control, and cultural signals that celebrate violent behavior.  Probably a lot of people would agree with that assessment. It's doesn't seem like rocket science.

It would be easy to blame the National Rifle Association for the gun mayhem that plagues our society. The NRA certainly is culpable to some degree.  Wayne LaPierre, the sociopath that runs that organization, is an extremist to the core. He wields the considerable political power of the NRA like a club to intimidate politicians who open themselves to even the slightest possibility of reasonable gun regulation. Why is LaPierre and why is the NRA so seriously reactionary when a poll indicates that three of four members of the NRA are open to thoughtfully applied gun control?  I believe it comes down to this: Wayne LaPierre's first loyalty is to the firearms industry, not to the NRA's individual gun owner members.   LaPierre is most interested in keeping markets open and unencumbered for guns and ammunition.   NRA members need to stand up and demand new leadership.  The NRA should be representing member rights, not those of businesses that profit selling assault weapons, and hollow-point ammunition, and oversized cartridge clips.

Another big problem: inadequate care for mental Illness. States have traditionally carried the burden for public oversight of mentally ill people. These days, too many people suffering from schizophrenia and other mental diseases are left to fend for themselves.  Since the 1980s when Reagan Republicans began their 'smaller government' drumbeat,  states have found themselves with ever less money and political will to take care of those with mental illness.  These days, people who are indigent with mental troubles often end up on the streets. If the states don't provide adequate support and oversight of  people with mental illness, who will?  Who protects the public from the kind of mayhem a schizophrenic individual with a gun can unleash on society?  So many of these mass murder situations are caused by people who should be under closely monitored care.   Conservatives have squeezed the life out of government programs designed to deal with this kind of societal threat.  Instead of pissing away money on aircraft carriers and other weapons systems we don't need, we need to rethink our public funding priorities, focusing on the things that affect the life of every citizen. I have no problem paying a bit more in taxes if it means nut cases capable of mass murder will get adequate treatment before they resort to violent acts of insanity.

Violence is an intoxicant in our culture. From the sports we play on athletic fields to the games we play on our computers and iphones, the lesson we learn is that survival is about destroying your opponent. I'm not sure there is much that can be done to insulate people against violence in sports and entertainment.  What we can do a lot better is teach our children important lessons on conflict resolution...ability to compromise...willingness to see issues from the perspective of others...recognizing that violence has no place in solving real world problems. 

As citizens, we bear ultimate responsibility.  When important issues are on the table, we have an obligation to inform ourselves.  We can't do what too many of us are doing; that is to allow ourselves to be swayed by the propaganda and bullshit arguments from special interest groups like the National Rifle Association.  You don't look to the fox for answers about how to guard the hen house.

At the end of the day, we depend on the politicians we elect to provide leadership. Mass gun murder must not be tolerated. A proper and concerted political response is required. Nothing less should be accepted.  President Obama needs to show some spine and step up. Our Senators and Congressional delegates need to step up.  They need to ignore the NRA's intimidation game and do what's right for society. If they fail us, they need to be replaced. We need to support candidates for office that will do the right thing. It's on us, all of us, to make sure every effort is made to protect children from being victims of senseless gun violence.

Selecting for Stupidity

I like the image below. It accompanied an article I just read on the Common Dreams webpage that highlights the research of  Gerald Crabtree, Stanford University.  Crabtree claims that human intelligence peaked at least ten thousand years ago when humans lived as stone age hunter-gatherers.

 

 

Crabtree asserts that life was hard in the stone age.  In his view, survival of the fittest definitely applied.  Being smart provided an extra edge.   Since then,  being smart has become less important to everyday survival. Perhaps that accounts for why humanity seems to be sleepwalking into an increasingly ominous future.

Published on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 by Common Dreams

Human Intelligence Peaked Thousands of Years Ago: Study

Stupidity trend will continue, says new research, but collective education can save us

- Common Dreams staff

Controversial study suggests human intelligence peaked several thousand years ago and we've been on an intellectual and emotional decline ever since.

Humankind's intelligence peaked thousands of years ago and advanced civilization has made life so easy for so many that our trend towards stupidity will continue as the ingenuity and intellect once needed for basic survival erode even further.

This, anyway, is the argument of a new study out in the journal Trends in Genetics, authored by Stanford University professor Gerald Crabtree.

Crabtree's study claims that harmful genetic mutations—occurring generation after generation as society advanced—have reduced our "higher thinking" abilities and the accumulated result has led to a gradual dwindling of our intelligence as a species.

The Guardian explains that Crabtree's thinking is a speculative idea—one he'd be happy to have prove wrong—but also a simple one:

In the past, when our ancestors (and those who failed to become our ancestors) faced the harsh realities of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, the punishment for stupidity was more often than not death. And so, Crabtree argues, enormous evolutionary pressure bore down on early humans, selecting out the dimwits, and raising the intellect of the survivors' descendants. But not so today.

“I would wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas and a clear-sighted view of important issues,” Professor Crabtree says in the paper.

“Furthermore, I would guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues. I would also make this wager for the ancient inhabitants of Africa, Asia, India or the Americas, of perhaps 2,000 to 6,000 years ago,” he continues. “The basis for my wager comes from new developments in genetics, anthropology, and neurobiology that make a clear prediction that our intellectual and emotional abilities are genetically surprisingly fragile.”

Speaking with the Telegraph, Prof Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist at Oxford University, pushes back against Crabtree's hypothesis, saying:

[Prof Crabtree] takes the line that our intelligence is designed to allow us to build houses and throw spears straighter at pigs in the bush, but that is not the real driver of brain size.
In reality what has driven human and primate brain evolution is the complexity of our social world [and] that complex world is not going to go away. Doing things like deciding who to have as a mate or how best to rear your children will be with us forever.
Personally I am not sure that in the foreseeable future there is any reason to be panicking at all, the rate of evolution with things like this takes tens of thousands of years...no doubt the ingenuity of science will find solutions to these things if we do not blow ourselves up first.

Other scientists were also skeptical. “At first sight this is a classic case of Arts Faculty science. Never mind the hypothesis, give me the data, and there aren’t any,” said Professor Steve Jones, a geneticist at University College London.

"I could just as well argue that mutations have reduced our aggression, our depression and our penis length but no journal would publish that. Why do they publish this?” Professor Jones said.
“I am an advocate of Gradgrind science – facts, facts and more facts; but we need ideas too, and this is an ideas paper although I have no idea how the idea could be tested,” he said.

"You don't get Stephen Hawking 200,000 years ago, he just doesn't exist," University of Warwick psychologist Thomas Hills told website LiveScience.
 

"But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation."
 

Despite his own research, Crabtree does not predict a future of diminishing returns for civilization and says that the species' ability to thrive is inherent in advanced civilization, and specifically in our ability to share information with one another. "Remarkably it seems that although our genomes are fragile," Crabtree says, "our society is robust almost entirely by virtue of education, which allow strengths to be rapidly distributed to all members."
 

The Independent offers this quick survey of man's descent into stupidity:

Hunter-gatherer man
The human brain and its immense capacity for knowledge evolved during this long period of prehistory when we battled against the elements
Athenian man
The invention of agriculture less than 10,000 years ago and the subsequent rise of cities such as Athens relaxed the intensive natural selection of our “intelligence genes”.
Couch-potato man
As genetic mutations increase over future generations, are we doomed to watching soap-opera repeats without knowing how to use the TV remote control?
iPad man
The fruits of science and technology enabled humans to rise above the constraints of nature and cushioned our fragile intellect from genetic mutations.
_________________________

This piece comes from the Common Dreams webpage, a great source of progressive journalism.

 

Gratitude

A while back (5/14/12), I wrote about kindness.  Of all the character traits we humans can possess, kindness is the one I value and admire the most in a person.  Gratitude is an attitude reflected by a kind heart. The article pasted in below appears to confirm that... 


A Grateful State: Gratitude is vital to well-being, research shows
November 22nd, 2012 in Psychology & Psychiatry


Before we eat Thanksgiving dinner at my house, along with saying grace, each of the 20 or so people at the table takes a turn lighting a candle and expressing gratitude. The appreciation can be lighthearted - for mashed potatoes or a day off from school. Or the thankfulness may be accompanied by a heavy heart - for the memories of a loved one recently passed.

As it happens, this expression is not an empty exercise. And if we developed the discipline to be consciously grateful on a regular basis, year-round, research shows we'd be happier and suffer less depression and stress. We'd sleep better and be better able to face our problems.

There's evidence that gratitude is uniquely important to well-being. Long embraced by religion as a "manifestation of virtue," it's one of the few things that "can measurably change people's lives," says Robert Emmons, a University of California-Davis professor who has been studying it since 1998 and is the author of the book "Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier."
"Gratitude implies humility - a recognition that we could not be who we are or where we are in life without the contributions of others," Emmons writes.

At a time when Thanksgiving is the starting gun for a race to the mall, Jeffrey Froh has some insight as well.

"We know there's a negative relationship between materialism and gratitude. That's pretty powerful right there," says Froh, a professor at Hofstra University on New York's Long Island. His research with more than 1,000 high school students showed that grateful teenagers were also less likely to be depressed, more likely to want to give back to their communities and more likely to have higher grade-point averages, among other traits.

But despite the benefits, Emmons says, gratitude is in trouble.

"Outside of happiness, gratitude's benefits are rarely discussed these days. Indeed, in contemporary American society, we've come to overlook, dismiss or even disparage the significance of gratitude as a virtue," he says. "We have become entitled, resentful, ungrateful and forgetful."

Not all of us.

Gratitude, says Susan Swan, is an important component of yoga - something she's taught since 1991.
Almost three years ago, she had a stroke during a class. But when she tells the story, she focuses on her good fortune. Her students called 911, help came quickly and she was given an experimental drug that worked wonders. She has children, grandchildren and friends. Swan knows she doesn't look like she's had a stroke. At 68, she's tall and wrinkle free, with straight, shiny blond hair. Her speech is good, her aphasia not overwhelming. She's gone back to teaching yoga, which she credits for her ability to feel gratitude rather than anger. It's important, she says early one evening over tea in her tiny kitchen, to "come into the now. Lose your mind and find your senses. Right now, I am fine."

Swan, who also has survived breast and colon cancer, gives meaning to Emmons' statement that gratitude "is morally and intellectually demanding." He doesn't suggest forgetting the negative.
"If you have something that life serves up, you have a choice to say, 'Hey, there is a blessing in here,'" Swan said. "'How is it going to serve me and not impede me?'"

Judy Vaughan is a St. Joseph of Carondelet nun who "has real trouble with the institutional church" but a rock-solid belief in a God who is "a loving spirit who has my back," and a doctorate in social ethics from the University of Chicago.

"I learned from my mom the importance of saying thanks," Vaughan says. "She was born in 1916 and came from the school that said when you got gifts, you wrote notes." She founded and has lived since 1996 at Alexandria House, which actually is two lovely Mid-Wilshire homes offering transitional housing and support to homeless women and their children.

"Gratitude gives an opening to the universe to give more good things. Gratitude is opening to receive more good things from the universe," says Vaughan.  She tries to be grateful every day, even now, when Alexandria House faces falling state and private funding.

"Gratitude really is a perspective. It is one that needs to be cultivated," Vaughan says. "It is a gift from God in my life that I like almost everyone I meet. I'm not naive, but I really work at seeing the positive in people."

Gratitude could save the planet, says filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg. "If you can really absorb the beauty of a flower or a landscape, can you really bear to see it destroyed?" he asks. "Gratitude touches your heart. And we need the heart to create a shift in consciousness."

Schwartzberg, who has been shooting time-lapse photography of flowers for more than three decades, showed his "Gratitude" film at a TedX Talk; it's among the most-watched presentations.
In it, author, lecturer and Benedictine brother David Steindl-Rast speaks: "You think this is just another day in your life. It's not just another day. It's the one day that is given to you, today. ... It's the only gift that you have right now, and the only appropriate response is gratefulness. ... If you learn to respond as if it were the first day in your life and the very last day, then you will have spent this day very well."

Look, really look, at a cloud, a stream, a strawberry, Schwartzberg urges. "Instead of gobbling it while you're reading the paper, say, 'Oh, my God,'" and take the time to be in awe of it.
—-

KEEPING A 'GRATITUDE' JOURNAL

The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California-Berkeley is making it easy to try out a "gratitude" journal, with an interactive online project launched this month that's shareable on social media. At www.Thnx4.org, anyone can sign up for a two-week journal plan that includes prompts to get your grateful thoughts flowing.

It also includes a survey so researchers can mine the data to look at the effects of gratitude in many specific ways, Emilian Simon-Thomas, who, with Robert Emmons of the University of California-Davis and others, developed the $5.6 million project, said Thursday. At Thnx4.org, participants take a survey of 78 questions, then get a little nudge for two weeks to write in their journal, perhaps sharing their grateful states on Facebook or other sites. At the end, after another survey, they'll get a report on their own changes - and be invited to stick around and continue to express gratitude, perhaps less frequently.

Of course, you can express gratitude on your own, and here are some of Emmons' suggestions:
Occasional "gratitude journaling," one to three times a week, is more effective than writing every day.

Journal writing is more effective if you make the conscious decision to become happier, more grateful, more positive.

Gratitude in depth is more important than "gratitude by the numbers." In other words, elaborating on a particular benefit in detail is more beneficial than listing several benefits more superficially.
Another recommendation is to focus on "mental subtraction" of good things from your life: Consider, for example, what life would be like if you had never met your spouse, rather than how grateful you are for that spouse.

(c)2012 Los Angeles Times
Distributed by MCT Information Services

Billionaire's Long Game

Just read an excellent piece by UC Berkeley economist Robert Reich. He was the Labor Department boss under Clinton.

In the piece pasted in below, Reich is reporting on a handful of superich guys, who also happen to be seriously sociopathic.   Guys like the Koch Brothers,  Sheldon Adelson, and Donald Trump make all wealthy people look bad. I would guess that more than 90% of all people earning over $250,000 annually are good souls. They are not selfish to the point of sociopathy.  Sadly for those many good souls with big bucks, it only takes a few billionaire bad apples to piss away the good name of all those folks who have the good fortune to be rich.

Why do some people who already have billions push so aggressively to screw those less fortunate?  I have a theory. First, who are we talking about? Nearly all of these sorry assholes are old, and they are mostly old white guys.  They've turned possession of the most money into a game. Having more than everybody else - and I mean everyone else...can't let some other billionaire asshole have more than you - having the most money makes you 'king of the hill'.  Psychologically, it means you have the biggest dick.  That's what it really comes down to with this very small club of billionaire jerks who are doing their damnedest to take down the middle class.

I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here. Bill Gates, George Soros, and Warren Buffet are billionaires. They are also, by and large, very good souls. There are many other rich folks, the vast majority I'm guessing,  who are mostly good people.  Unfortunately, too many of those mostly good rich folks are quietly staying in the shadows, trying to keep clear of the shitstorm being stirred up by their sociopathic brethren.  I have a bit of advice for those among the wealthy who are sitting on their hands. If they don't want any shit to get on them, it might be wise to throw in with the people who are in firm control of all the moral high ground.  Clue: it's not the side led by the Koch Brothers.

Check out the following piece by Robet Reich.



The Billionaires' Long Game

Posted: 12/12/2012 11:59 am

by Robert Reich

Clipped from the Huffington Post

 

I keep hearing that the billionaires and big corporations that poured all that money into the 2012 election learned their lesson. They lost their shirts and won't do it again.

Don't believe that for an instant.

It's true their political investments didn't exactly pay off this time around.

"Right now there is stunned disbelief that Republicans fared so poorly after all the money they invested," said Brent Bozell, president of For America, an Alexandria-based nonprofit that advocates for Christian values in politics.

"Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million this cycle," Donald Trump tweeted. "Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money."

Rove's two giant political funds -- American Crossroads (a Super PAC) and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (a so-called nonprofit "social welfare organization" that doesn't have to report its donors) -- backed Mitt Romney with $127 million spent on more than 82,000 television spots. Rove's groups spent another $51 million on House and Senate races. Ten of the 12 Senate candidates they supported lost.

The return on investment for American Crossroads donors turned out to be just 1 percent, according to any analysis by theSunlight Foundation, a Washington-based group that advocates for open government.

Among Rove's investors was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire who owns the Las Vegas Sands Corporation.

Adelson invested more than $100 million in the election, mostly on Republicans who lost -- including $20 million that went to Romney's super PAC "Restore Our Future," $15 million to another super PAC that almost single-handedly kept Newt Gingrich's Republican primary campaign going and about $50 million to nonprofit Republican fronts such as Rove's Crossroads GPS.

Adelson wasn't alone, of course. Texas industrialist Harold Simmons invested $26.9 million; Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts invested close to $13 million; a network organized by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch invested $400 million.

But if you think these losses mean the end of high-stakes political investing, you don't know how these people work.

You see, if and when they eventually win, these billionaires will clean up. Their taxes will plummet, many of laws constraining their profits (such environmental laws preventing the Koch brothers from more depredations, and the anti-bribery Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that Adelson is being investigated for violating) will disappear, and what's left of labor unions will no longer intrude on their bottom lines.

And they have enough dough to keep betting until they eventually win. That's what it means to be a billionaire political investor: You're able to keep playing the odds until you get the golden ring.
Looking ahead, Adelson tells the Wall Street Journal he's ready to double his 2012 investment next time around. "I happen to be in a unique business where winning and losing is the basis of the entire business," he says, "so I don't cry when I lose. There's always a new hand coming up." He isn't looking back at his losses. "I know in the long run we're going to win."

Exactly. Adelson, Simmons, the Koch brothers and other billionaires will keep pouring in as much money as it takes to eventually win -- unless they're stopped. And procurers like Karl Rove will make sure they're at the gaming table.

Relative to their net worth, the billionaire investors have been playing for a pittance. Forbes magazine estimates Adelson's net worth at $21.5 billion. His Las Vegas Sands Corporation just approved a special dividend paying him about $1.2 billion this year, ahead of any possible tax increases that might emerge from congressional budget negotiations.

In the meantime, he and other billionaire political investors are profiting from their reputations as high-stakes players.

Adelson says he has many friends in Washington, "but the reasons aren't my good looks and charm. It's my pocket personality," referring to his political investments. And his determination to keep playing the odds ensures his Washington friends will continue to pay attention.

POLITICO reports Adelson recently met with three GOP governors said to be eying the 2016 presidential race.

This week he met separately with House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (the Adelsons invested $10 million in super PACs affiliated with Boehner and Cantor),possibly to discuss changes to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

As income and wealth become ever more concentrated in America, the nation's billionaire political investors will invest even more.

A record $6 billion was spent on the 2012 campaign, and outside groups poured $1.3 billion into political races, according to data from the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Responsive Politics.

That's why Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission has to be reversed -- either by a Supreme Court that becomes aware of the poison it's unleashed into our democracy, or by constitutional amendment.

It's also why we need full disclosure of who contributes what to whom.

And public financing that matches public money to contributions from small donors.

Most fundamentally, it's why America's widening inequality must be reversed.

ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage," now available in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

Sarah Silverman's Bro Rules

Sarah Silverman is a piece of work: smart, caring, committed, and fun.   This wonderful PSA she just did makes me laugh.  I really like Sarah Silverman, and I really like and admire what she says...

Sarah Silverman

Here is a link to Sarah's Bro Rules PSA...
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/entertainment/video-sarah-silverman-tells-men-be-bro-choice

Owl and the Pussy Cat

Amazing video of a black cat playing with a young barn owl.  Apparently, the owl was an orphan raised in a household shared by the cat. There's a special joy in seeing creatures who don't generally get along in nature, actually finding pleasure in eachother's company.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0nxsE196Xc

The Gravity Light

This is a wonderful, ingenious idea.  About 20% of the world's population - 1.5 billion people - still rely on kerosene lamps for light after dark...either that, or they don't have any light at all at night.

There is a great unmet need for a very cheap source of artificial light that can be deployed around the world, ending the dependence on kerosene by those in the poorest places.

A press release from the London-based Gravity light inventors, Martin Riddiford and Jim Reeves, provides teh following perspective...The World Bank estimates that, as a result, 780 million women and children inhale smoke which is equivalent to smoking 2 packets of cigarettes every day. 60% of adult, female lung-cancer victims in developing nations are non-smokers. The fumes also cause eye infections and cataracts, but burning kerosene is also more immediately dangerous: 2.5 million people a year, in India alone, suffer severe burns from overturned kerosene lamps. Burning Kerosene also comes with a financial burden: kerosene for lighting ALONE can consume 10 to 20% of a household's income. This burden traps people in a permanent state of subsistence living, buying cupfuls of fuel for their daily needs, as and when they can.  Moreover, the burning of Kerosene for lighting also produces 244 million tonnes of Carbon Dioxide annually.

It was thought that maybe some sort of solar powered solution could meet this need for a safe, clean, and cheap alternative to kerosene lamps.  Problem with solar is, it requires sunlight. It that sunlight is going to be useful at night, a battery is required to store the energy collected during the day by solar PV cells. 

The gravity light does not depend on solar energy. It is a  LED that is powered by - you guessed it - gravity.

The grivity light

Here's how it works. A weight of about 20 pounds is hung from a string. As the weight pulls the string through the light, it turns a small generator inside the unit that produces enough power to run the light.  One setting of the weight provides about 20 minutes of light before the weight needs to be reset.

Riddiford and Reeves, the developers of the Gravity Light, expect to be able to mass produce them for about $5 each.  That means a subsistence farmer in Africa currenlty using a kerosene lamp can buy a gravity light for about the cost of three months worth of kerosene.   This is a no brainer. This technology should be adopted and dispersed on a mass scale as soon as possible.


Here is a video that tells the stlory of the Gravity Light...  http://vimeo.com/53588182

Saving a Humpback

It's a beautiful thing to see humans show compassion for another species. In this video shot in Mexico's Sea of Cortez in February, 2011, a group of people cross paths with a giant humpback whale, barely alive, trapped in a tighly wrapped cocoon of nylon gill net. At some personal risk, the humans worked with a knife to cut away the netting. After an hour, they restored the great whale's freedom. The humans were then treated to a joyful display of breeching and tail slapping by a magnificent creature, grateful to be free.

Here is the link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBYPlcSD490

A Blonde Comes Into the Library

This is a very clever little video about a subject that I have long been involved with and for which I remain very enthusiastic.

Here is the link to 'A Blonde Comes into the Library'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13bG9xnoMSQ&feature=youtu.be

Gorillas - 98.6% Human

Here is a link to a wonderful short film that's up close with wild gorillas. We have an obligation to protect these near human ceratures. If we don't they will be gone in the wild by mid-eentury.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co8NneR8ilc

Invelox Wind Techology

Lester Brown from the Earth Policy Institute sees wind technology as the foundation for the world's emerging clean energy future.  What comes to mind when most folks think about wind turbines are tall towers with gigantic three bladed, vertically mounted sweep turbines. 

There are so many more ways to capture wind energy.

A new innovation I just became aware of was developed by a company called Sheerwind. They call their new design Invelox.  The diagram below comes from the Sheerwind webpage.  The Invelox design takes advantage of a physical principle called the Venturi Effect. 

Simply stated, if the wind is moving at 10 mph entering an ivelox machine; by the time it passes through the rotating internal turbines that wind is moving at 40 mph. Those spinning turbines are attached to a generator that turns the wind into mechanical energy.

Invelox Wind Turbine Prototype

Here's a comparison between a traditional sweep turbine and a Invelox.

 

 

 

The Invelox technology is scale able over a broad range from 5 Kw up to 7 Mw. Sheerwind expects to began deliveries in 2013.  The company claims their turbines will be able to deliver energy at 4 cents/KWh,  comparable to the most efficient fossil fuel power plants.

 

There is a huge market for clean, cost effective renewable energy technologies. If Sheerwind delivers as promised, the future should be very bright for their Invelox turbines.

 

Here is a link to Sheerwind's webpage...   http://sheerwind.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 



America the Possible

James Gustave Speth is the former Dean of the Yale University School of Forestry.  He was a founder of the National Resources Defense Council. He's written a number of books, the most recent of which is, America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy. 

James Gustave Speth

I had high hopes when I began reading America the Possible. When an author uses the word 'manifesto' in the title of a book, one  expects it to offer a specific prescription; a remedy for what ails that can be embraced by the masses. In a word, Dr. Speth's new book is terrific. It's an effecive and most worthy effort  from a genuinely good soul, who certainly qualifies as one of the world's most distinguished voices for the environment.

The arguments in this book are presented succinctly and with great aplomb. Speth begins with a review of  the social, economic, political, and environmental consequences of our government's current status as a wholly owned subsidiary of giant corporations and the super wealthy.  In effect, argues Speth, the American people have allowed the jackals to take charge of Uncle Sam's henhouse. 

On a  global scale,the evidence is clear. All of the human culture is in a tailspin.  Speth calls for a democratic transformation of the institutions society depends on. Public policy and governance must be reinvented to moderate and manage the destructive forces at work in the modern world.  This effort must be driven from the bottom up by citizens galvanized into a political force that can stand up to the daunting influence of the rich and powerful.

America the Possible is a very important book. Speth paints from a global perspective, but focuses mainly on the United States. It's all too clear that we Americans are a big part of the problem.

Speth covers a lot of bases.  He urges the nurturing and participation in a national scale, even global scale movement.  It turns out, the organized grass roots are already deep. Paul Hawken's book, Blessed Unrest reports on the hundreds of millions of people who are engaged in grassroots progressivism around the world. An extraordinary amount of human potential; the problem at the moment is all that human energy is unfocused.  Imagine what might be possible if you could get all those people on the same page.

That's where I think America the Possible comes up a tad short.  If it's me trying to galvanize the grassroots, I would put the focus on something that will inspire Americans who want to see the restoration of our nation's core democratic princples.  I'm talking about a goal, a rallying cause that can power the evolution to a human civilization that every person would or should wish for. It has to be something that will get grassroots social, political, economic, and environmental leaders all together on a single formidible task.

Leaders are not generally good at being followers. There are many single issues that ignite passion among the tens of thousands of leaders who fall under the progressive umbrella. The leaders of those single issue groups must be mobilized to an unprecidented degree. They must choose to channel a significant portion of their energy toward a great shared goal.  

Restoring genuine representative democracy to America is a very tall order.   If I were responsible for instilling inspiration, I would focus on two morally bankrupt legal constructs as a rallying point for progressives.  One is the treatment of corporations as persons under the law. The other is money being protected as a form of speech.  These two ideas allow the rich and powerful to own public policy and the process of governance in America. Neither concept has ever passed muster in the legislative process. Neither has ever been signed into law. In both instances [Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific in 1886, Buckley vs. Valeo in 1976], it was overreaching by conservative Supreme Courts that provided legal standing. 

More recently, the current conservative dominated Supreme Court doubled down with a ruling called, Citizens United.  Because of this ruling, corporations and the rich are allowed to flood the American elective process with limitless amounts of campaign cash anonymously.  Hundreds of millions were invested by corporations and the rich into influencing the 2012 election, almost entirely to support conservative candidates and initiatives.   In essence, these two repugnant ideas provide the framework for a deeply entrenched political brand of legalized bribery.  We are where we are at the moment in America because rich and powerful corporations and individuals are unaccountible for the massive, undemocratic influence they wield over public policy and governance.

There are a number of very worthy efforts underway to push back against corporate personhood, money as speech, and the stench of  Citizens United.  I hope the smart and dedicated leaders of these groups will soon come together and pool their energy rather than competing with eachother. Before I go further, in the interest of full disclosure, I need to say that I came to embrace this particular focus after reading Thom Hartmann's book, Unequal Protection.  Hartmann urges his followers to give their attention to a group called Move to Amend.  This group is focused entirely on pushing a constitutional amendment that would eliminate corporate personhood and money being treated as speech.   I also urge support for Move to Amend.

The leaders of every progressive advocacy group, every trade union, every organization that prizes the restoration of genuine representative democracy in Amerca should rally around Move to Amend.  While we're at it,  let's demand that all political candidates seeking local, regional, state, and national elective office take a public position on corporate personhood and money as speech. 

Focusing on corporate personhood and money as speech does two things. First, it offers a real chance to actually change the law on those issues. Second, the process of getting everyone on the same page would create a single movement rallying point of amazing scale.   Such a movement would make James Gustave Speth's bold and life-affirming vision for America the Possible, not just possible, but maybe even genuinely probable.

Here is a video of James Gustave Speth talking about building a new economy
http://vimeo.com/47118890

Here is a link to a video of Thom Hartmann talking about corporate personhood... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hziy7WR9TQc

Bruno Manser - Laki Penan

I first learned about Bruno Manser maybe 15 years ago when I saw a story about him on CBS 60 Minutes  The Swiss born Manser was showcased as a strident advocate for the Penan people of Malaysian Borneo.  Manser spent 1984-1990 living in remote settlements with the Penan, writing a journal of his experiences. Manser was in Borneo when the forests the Penan have occupied for millennia  came under assault from commercial loggers. It turns out the massive logging operations that were stripping trees from Penan territory were owned substantially by high ranking Malaysian politicians. 

Bruno Manser

Manser became a fearless champion of the Penan people, taking their story of  political exploitation and ecological destruction to a global audience.  The Malaysian government banned him from entering the country.  The high ranking Malaysian government officials behind the logging and the rapacious industry leaders they were in cahoots with put a price on Manser's head. 

Bruno Manser was last seen in a remote village in Borneo in May of 2000.  He is presumed to have been murdered sometime after that. The mystery of his dissappearance remains unsolved. He was declared dead by a Swiss court in 2005.  

Bruno Manser understood the threats against him, yet he plunged forward undeterred. Many would argue that he was reckless in his pursuit of justice for the Penan people. Maybe, but he deserves to be remembered as a hero, who gave his life defending the indigenous people and the tropical forest landscape that he loved. Hats off to Bruno Manser. He was an extraordinary human being.


Here is a link to the website for Bruno Manser - Laki Penan, a film done about Manser's life and death in Borneo...  http://www.brunomanser-derfilm.ch/p/manser_en.htm

Here is a link to aa You Tube presentation of a part of that film, with English sub-titles...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8RqHqdLVh8

Here is a link to the Bruno Manser Fund that carries on his work on behalf of the Penan and other indigenous peoples around the world.
http://www.bmf.ch/en/

Treeless Paper

Paper is made mostly from fibrous cellulose that comes from trees. To print one edition of the Sunday New York Times, it takes 63 thousand trees.   When you consider how many newspapers are printed around the world, how much toilet paper is consumed, and add to that all the product packaging, shipping materials, and paper we write on and and use in our computers, it's no wonder deforestation is a very serious problem. 

Forests are essential to the health of the planet.  They absorb carbon dioxide, the principle greenhouse gas created by human addiction to fossil hydrocarbon energy sources like coal and oil.  Trees  expire oxygen in the photosynthetic process.  They provide food, shelter, and a lot more to the insects, birds, and animals that are adapted to live in them. The more trees we have, the better off we all  are. 

Fortunately, a lot of factors are at work to reduce demand for paper from trees. Technology has evolved to a way that is replacing newspapers, magazines, and books printed on paper with electronic versions available on smartphones and tablet computers. Paperless communication is an idea that has arrived and is here to stay.

Packaging that once depended to a high degree on cardboard and paper is evolving rapidly. Plastics have taken over a lot of the burden from paper, and now more and more of the plastic packaging  we use is made of biodegradable, plant derived materials that are relatively benign to the environment.

There is always going to be a requirement for paper, but cutting down old growth forests and reducing them to pulp to make toilet paper makes no sense at all.   The cellulose plant fiber used in paper can be readily provided by seasonal crops like switch grass, begasse from sugar cane, kenaf, and industrial hemp.  Instead of taking years to grow, these plants grow over a matter of months into a form that is readily harvestible and easily processed into paper. 

It used to be, we depended on forests for building materials and for making furniture. These days, we have environmentally friendly substitutes that serve those same purposes. 

Biofuels have become an important part of the equation for replacing oil and coal.  Cellulosic biofuels can be made from corn stalks and other waste materials that are part of growing food crops.  Stripping trees from forestland to make bio-fuels is not cost-effective and it cannot be justified in any way when the raw materials can be acquired from fast growing cultivated crops.

We have reached a point in evolution when we can no longer take from our environment without consequence. We.must embrace our proper human role of stewardship. We must be the nurturers of our biosphere.  The transition to treeless paper is a big step in the right direction.

My Favorite Dance Image

Digital photography is a creative outlet I thoroughly enjoy. The other day, I was fortunate to do a session in my home studio with a young woman named Tiarra Lynn. She is a dancer and a bodybuilder.  I haven't had a chance to photograph many dancers, so working with Tiarra was a treat.

Here is my favorite image from that session.

The Red Mistress

Here we have a dance video, an exquisitely rendered dance video, directed by visual artist Benjamin Von Wong.  If you're a fan of the dance, you will love this work by Wong and his creative collaborators.

The video is less than four minutes long. If you're like me, you'll find yourself compelled to watch it more than once.

Here is a link to Benjamin Von Wong's dance video,  The Red Mistress.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ydkblES5QoY

I am a big fan of Von Wong's photography. You can see more of it at the following link...http://www.flickr.com/photos/iintrigue/

Profile in Courage - Veronique de Viguerie

So,  I was cycling through the channels this night before Thanksgiving, and I came across this HBO documentary called, Witness.   It followed a French photojournalist named, Veronique de Viguerie.   She's in the south part of the Sudan, one of the most dysfunctional nations on Earth. She was traveling around,  getting a sense of the cruel life of the people living there.  We're talking subsistence farmers, struggling to survive, with the added weight of the constant threat of violence from an armed group of thugs called the LRA, led by the infamous Joseph Kony. For years, Kony and his band have assaulted one village after another, murdering people, kidnapping women and children,  burning and pillaging the landscape.

With virtually no protection from the Sudanese army, the locals launched their own militia, calling it the Arrow Boys.

So here's Veronique, this young, attractive blond woman,  following the armed Arrow boys as they traipse through the bush, searching for Kony and his band.  It's amazing television.  She's  capturing the moment with her camera, putting herself very much at risk of being caught in the crossfire of a deadly confrontation with Kony's thugs. On top of everything else, Veronique was pregnant while fully engaged in this physically demanding adventure in the South Sudan.  That's who she is.

Veronique de Viguerie

Veronique de Viguerie has embedded herself with the Taliban in Afghanistan and with muslim pirates in Somalia.  She's put herself in harm's way in Iraq, Niger, Mexico, Guatemala. Libya, and Pakistan.

On 10/31/12, I wrote another Profile in Courage blog entry. It was about Corrine Dufka, also a photojournalist.   What these two women share is a relentless focus.  Courage is obviously a big part of who they are, but with Veronique and also Corrine,  the thing that seems to drive them is a determination to deliver a result worthy of the story they are covering.   I admire them, and appreciate all that they do to reveal ugly human conflicts that don't get nearly enough media attention.


Here's a link to an article written about Veronique in The Daily Beast.  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/06/12/veronique-de-viguerie-fearless-photographer.html

Here is a link to Veronique's photo gallery  .http://vero-de-viguerie.photoshelter.com/gallery-list

Here is a link to a video taken from Veronique's time in the South Sudan.http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2012/11/witness-south-sudan.html

World Toilet Day

Yes, it's a crappy subject.  Toilets are something that we in the developed world tend to take for granted. Finding a place to 'go' is rarely an issue.  Why then do toilets merit their own global day of recognition.   Turns out that 2.6 billion people around the world do not have access to even the most basic toilets.  Thus, November 19th is World Toilet Day.

Hundreds of millions of people are living in urban slums,  literally immersed in their own raw sewage.  Dealing with human waste is a huge issue no one likes to think about.  What we have now are major urban areas, particularly in lesser developed nations, in which the waterways are choked with turds and garbage of every description.  We're talking about slums with thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of humans with no infrastructure for handling waste at all. 

 

Ever driven by a dairy farm or a cattle feed lot when the wind is blowing your direction?  Imagine living with that kind of stench 24/7.    That's the life for a very large portion of humanity.

Fortunately, there are people who are working to make a difference. The Gates Foundation is putting money into developing low cost waterless toilet systems that can be mass produced to help aleviate this problem.  All such efforts inevitably bump up against a hard reality.  There are more than seven billion humans on Earth. Every year, another 75 million are added to that number. We're talking the equivalent of a dozen cities the size of Los Angeles added evey year to the human population, mostly in the poorest, most dysfunctional parts of the world.

World Toilet Day is an important day of recognition, because people who have to live in their own shit have no dignity. If ever there was a human right, it should be the right to live with at least a modicum of dignity. In 2012,  nearly a third of the world's people do not have even that basic kind of dignity.

On this special day of recognition for human sanitation, let's thank the good people who have chosen this arena for their activism.  My source of information on this subject is Michael Campana, a hydrologist at Oregon State University. I'm sure Dr. Campana feels a bit like Sisyphus  when he talks about the lagging  response to the need for toilets around the world.  The good news is, people like him and those focused on this challenge at the Gates Fondation are trying to make  headway.

It's hard to be optimistic about resolving the world's toilet troubles as long as we fail to deal with the root issue, which is population growth.   The solution to the sanitation problem starts with universal reproductive choice and guaranteeing that all couples have access to contraception. 

Here is a link to Michael Campana's webpage http://aquadoc.typepad.com/waterwired/

Here is a link to Bill Gates' inspiring, 'Reinvent the toilet challenge' http://twistedsifter.com/2012/08/bill-gates-reinvent-the-toilet-challeng/

Cradle to Cradle

That's the title of a book published in 2002. One of the most interesting things about this book by architects William McDonough and Michael Braungart is that it was printed on biodegradable plastic.

The subtitle of Cradle to Cradle is 'Remaking the Way We Make Things'.  

Here is a diagram that presents the Cradle to Cradle principles.

Cradle to Cradle is a design philosophy that boils down to 'waste equals food',  In essence, it's a repudiation of our throw away society in which billions of tons of  materials that could be reused end up discarded in landfills around the world.  McDonough and Braugart see a future in which everything is recycleable and almost nothing is thrown away. It's a beautiful concept, and a lot has happened since the book came out that reflects its life affirming ideals.  These days when old buildings come down, the brick, steel, concrete, wiring, and mechanical systems are now recycled more often than not.  Moreover, new buildings are being designed purposefully with end-of-life recycling and reuse in mind.

Waste is literally becoming a dirty word. That is a very good thing.

 



 

"What your people call your natural resources, our people call our relatives."

                                                   Oren Lyons - Faith Keeper on the Onondaga

Here is a link to William McDonough's website...
http://www.mcdonough.com/

The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time

Sometimes a quirky gem appears out of nowhere. I ran across one today on You Tube.  It's a relentless compilation of motion picture insults. The greatest examples of cursing and vile comeuppance ever seen in the movies.  Enjoy.

Here is the link to the 100 greatest movie insults of all time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSEYXWmEse8&feature=related

Ingrid Visser - Champion of New Zealand's Orca

In New Zealand, a marine biologist, Dr. Ingrid Visser has focused the last 20 years of  her life on studying and protecting the orca whales that spend their lives along the coastline of that island nation in the South Pacific.

Ingrid Visser, PhD, with wild orca

Orca is a more scientific name for the whale species commonly called killer whales.  People who appreciate their exceptional intelligence and generally benign relationship with humans prefer to call them orca.

On August 21st, I published a blog entry titled Great White Versus Orca.  One fact in that story was that sea lions and seals are the principle diet of the orca based locally off the Northern California coast. Apparently, they also kill and eat sharks.

The New Zealand orca whales have a very different diet.  Ingrid Visser, who was the first person to study New Zealand's resident orca, discovered that they depend to a large degree on hunting, catching and eating sting rays that they find very often in shallow inlets along the New Zealand coastline.

Sting ray

 People may recall that the well-known TV naturalist, Steve Irwin, was killed a few years ago while swimming in shallow water by a sting ray hiding in the sand.  Rays have a sharp barbed extension atop their tails that they use to defend themselves.  Ingrid Visser discovered that the New Zealand orca  have evolved a very effective technique for hunting sting rays, while avoiding the deadly tail barb.  The orca work together. When they locate a sting ray hiding in the sand, one whale seizes the ray by its tail so it can't use its deadly dangerous barb, and the other whale bites the ray, killing it. Then the two whales and sometimes their friends share the meal.




Orca with freshly caught stingray

Because many of the places where the whales hunt stingrays also serve as industrial harbors, Ingrid Visser was concerned that toxic chemicals like poly-chlorinatred biphenyls (PCP) left over from human industrial activity could be present in the resident sting rays. That posed an even bigger threat to the orca, because PCPs tend to accumulate in the fatty tissues of predators ingesting tainted fish.

Long story short,  Ingrid Visser used tissue samples from locally caught sting rays and also from one of the resident orcas to prove the rays were indeed carrying high levels of PCPs and other toxic industrial chemicals.   

Ingrid Visser is more than a marine mammal scientist. She is also a champion for New Zealand's orca and her nation's  marine environment in general. She founded the Orca Research Trust to advance her work and to report it to the public. She also successfully petitioned the New Zealand government to change its designation for its resident orca to critically endangered.

Because of  Ingrid Visser's tireless efforts, the people of New Zealand know a lot more about the marine mammals that live close at hand with them. Because of Ingrid Visser,  prospects for New Zealand's resident orca are far better than they would likely be othewise.  In my book, that makes Ingrid Visser a hero of the highest order.

Here is a link to Ingrid Visser's webpage.
http://www.orcaresearch.org/

Energiewende in Germany

I'm pasting in below an article just out by Thomas Hedges about Germany's emerging transition to clean, renewable forms of energy.  At the moment, Germany gets 25% of its energy from clean, renewable sources like wind and solar. By 2050, it will be 80-100%  powered by clean renewables.  No other advanced nation comes close.  The only reason the U.S. isn't in the same place, doing the same thing is politics pure and simple. In Germany, energy policy is based mostly on what's best for it's citizens and their quality of life. In the US, energy policy is controlled by big oil, coal, and nuclear.  It's no wonder we have no cogent energy policy.

Germany's example proves we can do a whole lot better.


__________

Published on Thursday, November 15, 2012 by TruthDig.com

How Germany Is Getting to 100 Percent Renewable Energy

by Thomas Hedges

 

There is no debate on climate change in Germany. The temperature for the past 10 months has been three degrees above average and we’re again on course for the warmest year on record. There’s no dispute among Germans as to whether this change is man-made, or that we contribute to it and need to stop accelerating the process.

 

 

Solar panels cover the rooftops of a German farming village. (InsideClimate News/Osha Gray Davidson)

 

 

Since 2000, Germany has converted 25 percent of its power grid to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biomass. The architects of the clean energy movement Energiewende, which translates to “energy transformation,” estimate that from 80 percent to 100 percent of Germany’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2050.

Germans are baffled that the United States has not taken the same path. Not only is the U.S. the wealthiest nation in the world, but it’s also credited with jump-starting Germany’s green movement 40 years ago.

 

“This is a very American idea,” Arne Jungjohann, a director at the Heinrich Boll Stiftung Foundation (HBSF), said at a press conference Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C. “We got this from Jimmy Carter.”

 

Germany adopted and continued Carter’s push for energy conservation while the U.S. abandoned further efforts. The death of an American Energiewende solidified when President Ronald Reagan ripped down the solar panels atop the White House that Carter had installed.

 

Since then, Germany has created strong incentives for the public to invest in renewable energy. It pays people to generate electricity from solar panels on their houses. The effort to turn more consumers into producers is accelerated through feed-in tariffs, which are 20-year contracts that ensure a fixed price the government will pay. Germany lowers the price every year, so there’s good reason to sign one as soon as possible, before compensation falls further.

 

The money the government uses to pay producers comes from a monthly surcharge on utility bills that everyone pays, similar to a rebate. Ratepayers pay an additional cost for the renewable energy fund and then get that money back from the government, at a profit, if they are producing their own energy.

 

In the end, ratepayers control the program, not the government. This adds consistency, Davidson says. If the government itself paid, it would be easy for a new finance minister to cut the program upon taking office. Funding is not at the whim of politicians as it is in the U.S.

 

“Everyone has skin in the game,” says writer Osha Gray Davidson. “The movement is decentralized and democratized, and that’s why it works. Anybody in Germany can be a utility.”

 

The press conference the foundation organized with InsideClimate News comes two weeks after one of the biggest storms in U.S. history and sits in the shadow of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would unlock the world’s second-largest oil reserve in Canada. The event also comes one day after a report that says that the U.S. is on track to become the leading oil and gas producer by 2020, which suggests that the U.S. has the capability to match Germany’s green movement, but is instead using its resources to deepen its dependency on fossil fuels.

 

Many community organizers have given up on government and are moving to spark a green movement in the U.S. through energy cooperatives.

 

Anya Schoolman is a D.C. organizer who has started many co-ops in the district although she began with no experience. She says that converting to renewable energy one person at a time would not work in the U.S. because of legal complexities and tax laws that discourage people from investing in clean energy.

 

Grid managers in the U.S., she explains, often require households to turn off wind turbines at night, a practice called “curtailment.”

 

“It’s a favor to the utility companies,” she says, which don’t hold as much power in Germany as they do in the United States.

 

Individuals and cooperatives own 65 percent of Germany’s renewable energy capacity. In the U.S. they own 2 percent. The rest is privately controlled.

 

The largest difference, panelists said, between Germany and the U.S. is how reactive the government is to its citizens. Democracy in Germany has meant keeping and strengthening regulatory agencies while forming policies that put public ownership ahead of private ownership.

 

“In the end,” says Davidson, who spent a month in Germany studying the Energiewende, “it isn’t about making money. It’s about quality of life.”

 

This article was made possible by the Center for Study of Responsive Law.

 

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Germany is a European nation with far fewer renewable energy resources available than we have in the United States.   In Europe, cloudy days are far more common than sunny days.  In the US, we have large stretches of land, especially in the Southwest, where the sun shines far more often than not.  Yet, Germany's energy policy as made it one of the world's most prominent adopters of solar PV. 

We do not have an energy policy in the United States.  We need one desparately. We need it to be focused on transitioning our country away from dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear power to a portfolio of emerging clean, renewable resources.  The one missing ingredient is political will. Let's hope the newly re-elected President Obama will seize the moment and provide much needed leadership.