Why Fuss about the Environment?

I keep hearing people fuss about the environment. I can’t figure out what it’s all about. The environment has been around a lot longer than humans. I figure it will be around for a long time after we’re gone.

No. I’m not worried about the environment. I’m worried about me.

I have a theory about this stuff. I call it the “Hammock Theory.” It works like this: assume I’m a lazy guy taking a nap in a hammock. The hammock is a rope hammock. That is, it is one of those hammocks made up of a network of connected strings.

Now also assume that while I’m napping, some rascal comes along and begins to cut the ropes. He doesn’t cut them all at once or all in one place. He cuts one here. He cuts another there.

At first, I’m not going to notice anything. Most of the net is there and as good as if it were all there. As he keep cutting, I may begin to notice a pinch here, a hot spot there, but at worst I may just roll over and keep snoozing.

The problem is, I’m no light weight. Eventually, this guy will cut enough ropes that without warning my weight will be enough to just rip through all the remaining ropes. I will drop to the ground and get hurt.

I don’t know about anyone else but right now I feel like my fat butt is hanging through a big hole in the hammock and if I so much as sneeze, I’m going for a bad ride.

Of Communication and Capitulation

President Bush has taken a swing at the presumptive Democratic candidate, by likening him to Neville Chamberlain and the Nazi appeasers. (NY Times but you may have to register).

There are many reasons I find the President’s statements ill advised. I find it especially ironic, however, that Chamberlain’s negotiations preceded a war — and are often credited with causing it. Any negotiations that might take place with Iran now would be negotiations following a war — and one can draw his or her own conclusion as to what caused what.

I know a lawyer who is a professional negotiator. I have often heard him say that “those who do not communicate will litigate.” I accompanied him once when he suggested to a client that communication and negotiation might be in the client’s best interest. The client assailed him as being a “Chamberlain.” His response, which I have carried with me since, was, “I know a thousand respectful ways to say ‘No.’”

I have a hunch that if we do not communicate with Iran, we will end up fighting with Iran. Communication, however, is not the same thing as capitulation.

Sex, Guns, TV, and Classrooms

Tara Parker-Pope writes too quick a byte on sexual harassment in our schools. One of the comments states,

What boy HASN’T played “Tune in, Tokyo” with the girls in school? Sex is a beautiful, natural act and should be encouraged, not confined into a dark, shameful corner. Let’s work to produce an enlightened, healthy Generation Y.

Tara fires back,

FROM TPP — But the discussion here isn’t about sex. It’s about harassment. And “tune in tokyo” is about grabbing a girls breasts without permission and turning them like they are radio dials. The fact that you think this is just harmless boy behavior is really disgusting.

I think Tara and her commenter both miss the mark. Sex, harassment, violence, and bullying are interrelated in complex ways that we may never fully understand.

I rarely watch TV. Each time I do, however, I see two things in almost all shows: violence and sex. The violence is explicit, graphic, and acceptable. It is most effective when used by the good guys. The sex is usually implicit, seductive, and subliminal. When it is shown graphically, it is usually lustful not loveful.

What a recipe. Take kids aged 12-18, add hormones, and stir a toxic mix of acceptable violence and unacceptable sex. The result cannot be anything but harassment and bullying.

I think Tara’s commenter, for all his misunderstanding, may have stumbled on a better solution than Tara’s violent name calling. I suspect if sex was acceptable and violence was not, the results in our classrooms might be different.

Highways and Whole Grain

When it comes to our highways, America likes it big.  For instance, there is Salem Sue, the worlds largest Holstein cow. There is the world’s largest tire and the world’s largest catsup bottle. There are all sorts of large people standing around, including vegetable eating celebrities, religious figures, and respected lumbering icons. (Lumbering icons also found here, here, and no doubt lots of other places).  As we all know, these monuments are simply the bait set out by the tourist traps that lurk near by.  I am not one to be fooled.

With these things in mind, I recently went shopping for bread.  To my delight, there was a new whole wheat bread with 12 grains.  (As best I can tell: wheat, millet, oats, barley, sunflower seeds, brown rice, flax, lentils, soy, spelt, malted barley, rye).  Without hesitation, I put it in my basket and head for the cash register.  I know that if 2 grains are better than one grain, then 12 grains must be better than 2.

We’re out of Ammo and the Battle’s Just Getting Warm

The New York Times today reports that Al Qaeda’s latest HIPO is a brash leader named, Abu Yahya al-Libi.  A focus of the article was on a video released by Abu Yahya on  September 10, 2007.  In the video, Abu Yahya offers six strategies the U.S. and others might take in their fight for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world.

Quoted in the article is Jarret Brachman, who has explained Abu Yahya’s strategy behind the video.  Dr. Brachman calls the ploy brilliant.  I agree.  He believes the action helps inoculate Jihadists from propaganda produced by countries seeking to discredit Al Qaeda.  I agree again.  Noticably absent from the discussion, however, is the issue of credibility.

In an information war, credibility is the ammunition that wins battles.  As Dan Rather knows, an error of information, a loss of credibility, and the battle is lost.  In this era, an error of information is not long hidden.

Credibility is gained a yard at a time.  It can be lost in an instant.  An error need not be intentional.  Dan Rather did not intend to lie.  He simply screwed up.  The result, in the language of labor relations, was his industrial death.

I think Abu Yahya’s stategy is more than brilliant.  He taunts the U.S. and his other enemies.  Like a school yard bully, he goads us to come fight him on his turf.  The turf at issue?  It is the hearts and minds of the moderate Muslim community.  That is, the battlefield of ideas and information.  On this battleground, bullets and bombs will do us as much harm as good.  Our best ammunition is credibility: being believed by those we are trying to convince.

The current administration, with its focus on bullets and bombs, has tossed away its most valuable weapon as worthless.  It has squandered our credibility as if it were nothing more than a fistful of sand.

I have no doubt that Abu Yahya understands that we are out of ammo and it’s time to fight.  He is aware that we are as far behind in this arms race as we were at the onset of WWII.   Unfortunately, we cannot this time rebuild our arsenal simply by cranking up our factory production or asking the public to invest in war bonds.  Credibility is not manufactured.   It is earned.  And slowly at that.

As One Might Expect, a Human Cow Hybrid

As one might expect, the pictures of Eliot Spitzer’s prostitute hookered me my highest visit rate to date. (I was an English major. I am licensed to create new verbs).

As one might expect, being one of a few million new blog posts each day, traffic has been light. Every silver lining, however, has its cloud. Family and friends seem to click through uninvited. Too impatient to comment, they pick up the phone and give me an ear full.

One so-called friend — an urban, meat eating, cow loving, metrosexual — told me he was offended by my cow post. I really didn’t think I was talking about cows.

But in deference to my cud loving friend, I decided I would research and report back cow intelligence. To this end, I set aside ten minutes on Google.

As one might expect, the news is old. Another WordPress blogger, who clearly has more free time than I do, reports on a human-cow hybrid. Science appears to have triumphed over nature again. Closer examination, however, shows that it has done nothing more than create a genetic template that has existed for years in the natural environment.  No matter its pretense, no matter how hard it hopes to rise above its Newtonian roots, science will never be anything more than a journeyman to nature.

Bovine genes have long been combined with human genes. They long ago made the leap between the species. Evidence you ask? One need only spend a few minutes in commuter traffic before the evidence becomes indisputable.

I hope that my research will reassure my cow loving friend that cows and humans have long had a close genetic heritage and existed in an intellectual parity. Today, we have finally reached the point were we can create this hybrid artificially in the lab. In just a few short years we will be able to do so in the comfort and safety of our own homes. No doubt, a patent is pending even as I type.

Intelligent Life and Cows

While commuting to work today, I got stuck behind a slow moving car. The driver put on his left hand turn signal. As I prepare to drive around him to the right, he turned right, almost colliding with me.

It is commutes such as these that get me thinking about signals and intelligent life. More specifically, humankind’s search for some signal that intelligent life exists in the universe. I have always been skeptical of these efforts. I do not understand why scientists spend so much time looking out into space for intelligent life.  If they looked around down here, they would see that we are surrounded by intelligent life. (With the possible exceptions of cows and commuters).

Our search for intelligent life reminds me of an insecure property owner.  The kind of person who is embarrassed by his neighbors.  He keeps looking down the street and hoping someone more like himself will come along and move in next door.

It is easy to predict the result of our contact with extraterrestrial life.  One of three things will happen:

1. If the creatures are dumber than us, like cows, we will eat them.
2. If we are dumber than the creatures, they will eat us.
3. Otherwise, we will fight with each other.

Why do I pick on cows? I have spent many hours in free range country. Every time I have met a herd of cows on the road, all the cows on the left side of the road have exited to the right and vice versa.  Any resemblance to commuters is purely a coincidence.

The Argument Culture

A favorite is Deborah Tannen’s book, The Argument Culture. In it, she points to similarities that can be drawn between war and public discourse. She observes that in order for a public discourse to have sizzle, (my word, not hers) there must be conflict.

This morning, I found an example of the sort of thing she describes. Dan Schur, in his guest blog on the NY Time’s site, made the following statement:

Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s comments would seem to have forced Senator Obama to choose sides — to either stand with Reverend Wright and others who support his condemnations of the United States, or with those who think they should be rejected out of hand.

I commented there and elaborate here.

I disagree that Reverend Wright’s statements required Obama to “choose sides.” Choosing sides is helpful in creating dramatic tension for Schur’s article but of limited value in bringing people together. The Reverend’s actions were divisive. But so is Schur’s suggestion that Obama, and by implication the rest of us, should all choose sides.

We have just seen that Eliot Sptizer, held up by the public as a rock of integrity was, in fact, human. So too, it appears, is the Reverend Wright. I am not without sin. I will not be the first to cast stones at either of these two men.

For those of you who may have missed Obama’s speech, he both rejected Wright’s remarks and stood with him as a decent human who cared for people of all races.

Collaboration and healing take place only when differences are acknowledged honestly and openly. Collaboration and healing take place only when individuals are brave enough to stand the middle ground and see the virtue — and the sin — in those individuals, like Schur and Wright, who have chosen their respective sides.

Contrary to Schur’s thinking, I think Reverend Wright’s actions were a call to Obama to hold the middle ground. I think he did so directly and with honesty. All the more brave for a man on the stump.

Biodiesel — The Real Flower Power

I like to look out the window when I drive. This can slow me down. So it was without surprise when, recently, I was cut off by a careening two-story SUV. It was driven by a young man with his cell phone pressed to his ear. He was gracious enough to take time out of his busy schedule to flip me his middle finger. The last thing I saw of his truck was his bumper sticker, which read “Biodiesel — The Real Flower Power.”

The SUV got me to thinking. How could such a large vehicle, driven so recklessly, be doing anything good for the environment? I don’t know much about science. But my experience with grocery carts leads me to the conclusion that to get heavy things moving you need “uumph.” I’m guessing the same is true with cars. I would also guess that for any specific car, you probably need the same amount of “uumph,” regardless of whether the “uumph” comes from gas, electricity, or some other place.

Later the same day, I read in the New York Times that a bio-fuel plant in Alabama is polluting a nearby river, called the Black Warrior River. It seems that oil and grease is left over after making biodiesel fuel. The substance, which is like salad dressing, is being dumped into the local river. Apparently this is just too much of a good thing and the local fish and other wildlife are falling prey to death by dressing.

Which leads me back to “uumph.” It seems to me that for whatever we do, we’re going to use some kind of “uumph.” “Uumph,” in turn will leave an environmental footprint. So changing the source of the “uumph” doesn’t get rid of the environmental footprint, it just leaves the footprint in a different place. It is sort of like trying to decide whether you want to track mud in the front door or in the back door.

So I suspect the SUV driver is no greener for burning biodiesel. He is still using the same amount of “uumph.” Instead of sucking oil out of a pipe in Alaska, however, the driver’s choice of “uumph” is killing fish in Alabama.

I thought this was a real original thought. Just to check myself, I Googled it. Son of a gun. Wouldn’t you know. Someone thought up the same thing almost a generation ago.

Just goes to show. No thing in this world like an original idea.

Caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

I am reading that Eliot Spitzer has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. (Cute pics).

What an opportunity for some Applied Yin and Yang.

The premise:

The person without sin is most often without virtue.

The question:

Where is the bigger hypocrisy? Is it with Spitzer, who lies with those he judges, or is it with the public, which first ignored Spitzer’s sins and now ignores his virtues.