puffing

Henry Louis Gates - It's not my story

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:06:00 +0000

I haven't read every word of "print" on the story and fallout of Henry Louis Gates, esteemed Harvard professor, who was arrested in his own home by a police officer who thought he was breaking in. Race is a topic I hesitate to write publicly about. As my Latino friend Rudy once said about chiming in on a debate about African Americans, "I'm not black, and I can't say how I'd feel."

So this is not going to take the perspective of "A Phantom Negro" who criticizes Gates for acting like he was in too high a position to be treated that way, or the Cambridge police chief who criticized President Obama for saying the Cambridge police acted "stupidly."

I just want to say a few things. First, I have long admired Henry Louis Gates, Jr., not because I know much about his scholarship, but because I have been proud that a black man rose to the heights of academic excellence and esteem. Second, I was outraged by the arrest, going to that place in my brain where all the stories of racial profiling have been stored. Third, I don't think President Obama was wrong to say the police acted stupidly. Apparently they did.

But maybe he shouldn't have said much about it at all. Maybe none of us should say much about what another person does. At age 53 - not old, not young - I've come to see and hear many, many stories. People stories. From afar, a person's actions might seem scandalous, unwise, downright stupid. But then they'll tell me their story, for an hour, and in just one hour I come to understand their story a little - enough to step down off my high horse of judgment and imagine their life.

Eckhart Tolle says that if you were born with the same genes and the same circumstances as any other human being, you would make the same choices they have. So far, I think he might be right. So I am going to withhold judgment of Gates, of Sgt. James Crowley who arrested him, and of President Obama for using that word about something he didn't know a lot about. It's a wilderness of unkown to assess any person's actions. I'm not talking about murder, or other heinous crimes, I think you know that.

How far will the 'Obama effect' go?

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:47:00 +0000

After a couple of weeks of restraint regarding Iran's post election protests (yesterday he did condemn the regime's violence), and the Republican outrage over said restraint (supporting those who might have been dead today if they had gotten their way last year to bomb the hell out of them), Chris Hedges reminds us who another violent perpetrator is and who the people are acting like citizens of a democratic republic.

"Where were we when our election was stolen from us in 2000 by Republican operatives and a Supreme Court that overturned all legal precedent to anoint George W. Bush president? Did tens of thousands of us fill the squares of our major cities and denounce the fraud? Did we mobilize day after day to restore transparency and accountability to our election process? Did we fight back with the same courage and tenacity as the citizens of Iran? Did Al Gore defy the power elite and, as opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has done, demand a recount at the risk of being killed?"

Read his whole excellent piece in Truthdig, a little reminder of Iran's history at the mercy of foreign powers.

How far will our President go, speaking about our country's failings? In Cairo he acknowledged our role in the 1953 violent coup in Iran. Does this go far enough to flip the Bush credo that Iran is one of the members of the Axis of Evil? Our government, in our name - WE are the ones who have incited, and continue to incite and impose, violence in the Middle East. I hope for a day when masses of U.S. citizens wake up to this fact and stop demonizing the Other (with plenty of evil deeds, granted) under our leadership as if we are God's anointed. Even if President Obama believes this, how far can and will he go to effect a shift in perspective and policy of what might be the most terrifying government in the world?

scary socialist health care and Richard Scott

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:14:00 +0000

The same man who drummed up the Swift Boat "scandal" against John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid is behind the "socialist" health care scares against President Obama's health care reform plans: Rick Scott. He himself has a shady past - the biggest health care settlement over fraud in U.S. history. Imagine slinging mud when you've got that kind of history? Politico broke the story about the launch of his group Conservatives for Patients' Rights, using his own money behind trying to bomb Obama's health care plans before they get launched. Scott claims that the more government is involved with health care, the worse it will be. You can read his own March 2009 entry at The Health Care Blog in which he outlines the four "pillars" of Patients rights: choice, competition, accountability, responsibility.

Nicolas Kristof's column in yesterday's NYTimes gave a great example of a Canadian who happens to have had some pretty good experiences with her medical care for $49 a month. Hmm, imagine going into an Emergency Room and no one is sticking a clipboard in your face to find out how you're going to pay for it? So all those terrible stories you hear about Canadian health care, don't assume those are the only ones.

I just had lunch with a friend who spent seven hours in Emergency Room waiting last week here in Michigan.

So it's time to weed out the scary stories from the true ones - both here at home and in that terrible country to our north (and across the pond) - while the Obama administration forges ahead with health care reform. Come on, something has to give with the cost of every little - and big - item related to medicine, and when someone desperately needs medical attention but can't go to the ER because they don't have insurance. It's lovely to want each of us to be in charge of our own health care, but when at least 46 million - 18% - of Americans don't have health care coverage (in 2007 according to this site), what is in their control besides the choice not to go to the doctor and suffer?

The High Line

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:44:00 +0000

Have you ever walked along abandoned railroad tracks? There's something about the weeds, the fields around you, the sense of destiny.

How wonderful that a lot of rich NYC residents poured money into a new park that took the brownfield-ish strip of abandoned elevated tracks to an innovation of delight. With its wildflowers and prairie grasses, you can walk along it while looking down on the meatpacking district just 3 floors below. The sidewalk even runs through an old brick commercial building.

Read the NYTimes piece here. See the slideshow here. The High Line's home page is here. Maybe you can make it to their opening benefit event Monday, June 15: It's only $1,000 a ticket.

green movies

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:38:00 +0000

I'm going to have to start shifting my perspective on Wal-Mart, now that it is driving markets for antibiotic-free beef, and also pressing vendors to cut down carbon emissions in their packaging.

According to the NYT yesterday, Warner, Disney and Sony are altering DVD packaging to be lighter and use less plastic. Warner alone hopes to cut its carbon emissions by 31% by doing so. Part of the story is that they need to reduce costs. But apparently before the economic downturn, it was Wal-Mart that was holding vendors to the green fire.

Digital Digest also shows that DVD package sets will be smaller.

Dog Green Sector on Omaha Beach imagined

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:49:00 +0000

William Pfaff on Obama's Cairo speech

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:31:00 +0000

In Pfaff's column at Truthdig he makes two observations about President Obama's speech at Cairo University Thursday:

Obama’s newsworthy statement was his adamant reiteration of his conviction that Israeli settlement expansion must be halted, in conformance with the commitment made by Israel in the road map agreement, and that an independent Palestinian state must come into being. . . .

The second noteworthy declaration by Obama was that he intends to withdraw all American military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan; to establish no American bases there; and to demand no privileged access to the region’s resources.

This is surely as much of a blow to Pentagon planners as his statement to Israel was to the settler community. It would seem a renouncement of the American military program of world-girdling strategic bases, pursued for the past 30 years. It comes as more of a surprise than the Obama statement concerning Israel. It could be much more important to America and its future. One awaits elaboration.

from "huffing" to "puffing"

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:24:00 +0000

After some time rethinking this blog, I am turning it a bit - maybe as much as 180 degrees.

I'd still like to address current events. But rather than "huff" about them I plan to "puff" the positive about them as much as possible. I don't want to be Pollyana-ish. The point is rather to showcase ways people are facing the world's problems with honesty. Well, who can really know, right? What is the truth?

Back to nuanced political conversations

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:47:00 +0000

-
-

So I was commenting over at Loring's on his excellent Clown Time post saying that back in the days of W, columnists were wistful for nuanced political conversations. Politics had become binary, and wouldn't it be nice to some day get back to the subtleties of politics again. But now in these days of Rush Limbaugh's top entertainment dollar, I was saying, we might be glad to have Mr. Obama's intelligence in the White House, but look at the Republican Party, getting less nuanced than ever, trying to paint the President as a socialist.

Today the New York Times has this article about Mr. Obama wanting to reach out to the moderate elements of the Taliban.

Asked if the United States was winning in Afghanistan, a war he effectively adopted as his own last month by ordering an additional 17,000 troops sent there, Mr. Obama replied flatly, “No.”

Mr. Obama said on the campaign trail last year that the possibility of breaking away some elements of the Taliban “should be explored,” an idea also considered by some military leaders. But now he has started a review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan intended to find a new strategy, and he signaled that reconciliation could emerge as an important initiative, mirroring the strategy used by Gen. David H. Patraeus in Iraq.

That's a "NO!" I can live with. What? We're not winning a war? Mr. Obama may someday think we're winning that war, we know it's expedient to talk in terms like that when you're trying to reassure the American public. There's no winning in war, but at least I don't think he'll fly in Marine One to a carrier's deck and declare "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED."

the rest of the story?

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:26:00 +0000

When Paul Harvey died last week, I remembered the many times I listened to his, "here's the rest of the story" - saying "rest" with that bluejay-like upturn, telling the other side of famous historical or news-worthy events. (Read a short Tribune review of Harvey's career by Phil Rosenthal.)

So then as I read about Obama signing his budget filled with almost 8,600 earmarks costing $3.8 - 7.7 billion, depending on which side of the aisle is talking, thereby reneging on his campaign pledge against Congressional earmarks, I wondered, what is the rest of the story?

Compromise and moving on for the sake of making room for the battalion of other concerns is part of it. Presidents get worn down. In forty-one days since Inauguration Day, this President has faced ungodly choices between bad and worse. Too bad he's so busy, otherwise he might tell us his thought process on this broken pledge.

Well, it's not like we didn't expect it. It was just a matter of time.

Revolutionary Road: Mendes didn't get it right this time

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:57:00 +0000

I am in the minority about this film. While I would give it high marks for writing, directing, and acting, I don't like it.

When I left the theater after watching Sam Mendes’ “American Beauty” I was stunned with the triumph of beauty, even in the brutally tragic ending. I admired the skill to pull that off, while many of my family and friends didn’t get it, and didn’t like the film. How could a pool of blood blossoming like a rose under Lester Burnham’s (Kevin Spacey) head be beautiful?

When the credits rolled after “Revolutionary Road” I felt no such triumph, even though it is a remarkable and powerful film. The capacity for human ugliness (manifested at its worst in a love relationship) shared between April (Winslet) and Frank (DiCaprio), and between the neighbor’s psychiatrically challenged son John (Michael Shannon) and Frank, was very well played. Winslet is strong as always. And though I am no fan of DiCaprio’s boyish face and charm (is anyone?), I admire his ability to act. Crazy John was the best character in the film – brilliant.

If brilliant acting and writing didn't make me love this film with dark material, what can? The scenes of angry screaming were so realistically painful, so intimately depressing, I wanted some element of beauty to balance my heart. Beauty is sometimes painful, and I have no qualms with that assumption. So what makes dark material palatable in “Amadeus,” “Brokeback Mountain,” or “Midnight Cowboy”? Is it the emotional makeup of the viewer that contributes the needed perspective?

My friend who watched it with me loved “Revolutionary Road” and wants to read the book. Reading the words that bored into my raw human emotions like a hot brand is the last thing I want. But she found beauty, and wants more.

Cringing through the yelling scenes I wanted a powerful link, a Ratso and Joe connection to get me through the pain. None of the relationships in the film provided that. Maybe it's that realism that my friend likes. As she said when I told her I didn't like it, "well, you can't say it was superficial!" No, I can't say that.

Why are we still at war?

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:42:00 +0000

No War. Questions?

Art by John Robertson

50" X 70'' acrylic/latex

on unstretched canvas

found here

Please read Norman Solomon's essay today, and ask yourself, what exactly is the "War on Terror."

. . . there will always be plenty of rationales for continuing to send out the patrols and launch the missiles and drop the bombs in Afghanistan, just as there have been in Iraq, just as there were in Vietnam and Laos. Those countries, with very different histories, had the misfortune to share a singular enemy, the most powerful military force on the planet.

please get Afghanistan right

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:12:00 +0000

Here's a 7-minute video of Rachel Maddow on January 19 talking about how President Obama's personnel assignments and plans for Afghanistan really aren't that different than his predecessor's. She interviews Bob Herbert of the New York Times who also disagrees with Mr. Obama's plan to increase troops there.

Here is a new web site called Get Afghanistan Right. They oppose military escalation in Afghanistan and support non-military solutions to the conflict.

Updike's death poem

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:23:00 +0000

John Updike died last Tuesday. Apparently he was working on a poem about his death:

It came to me the other day:

Were I to die, no one would say,

'Oh, what a shame! So young, so full

Of promise - depths unplumbable!

Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes

Will greet my overdue demise;

The wide response will be, I know,

'I thought he died a while ago.'

For life's a shabby subterfuge,

And death is real, and dark, and huge.

The shock of it will register

Nowhere but where it will occur.

please work together

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:40:00 +0000

A week into office, President Obama spent nearly two hours today wrangling with Republicans in the House and Senate over his economic stimulus package. Republicans are still pushing for more tax cuts.

When a Democratic President walks into Republican conferences to explain his plan for two hours, something his Republican predecessor didn't do, let's hope they can together find enough fluff to cut so that everyone can agree on moving forward.

Whether the stimulus package is what is needed or not, whether it will work a bit or not, who knows? But if the Republicans stonewall him after this outreach and his willingness to listen to their ideas about the plan, we'll get an idea of how this will go for a while.

Maybe they're ticked about the "Mexico City" abortion ruling.

Bob Herbert had a good column today about Republican la-la-land mentality to be able to balance the budget and keep cutting taxes.

Rachel Maddow, you go!

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Rachel Maddow of MSNBC

Ok, I knew this would kick in, the haunting, yucky, crappy fact that Mr. Obama has always planned to accelerate the aggression in Afghanistan.

Thanks to Rachel Maddow, alone in the media (?) voicing her objections to the plan in Afghanistan - especially using Russia's supply routes, maybe peace-loving people will find their voice to pressure the Obama administration to re-think the strategy.

Justin Raimondo has strong praise for Ms. Maddow in today's antiwar.com. I hope she will keep on speaking her mind boldly. She is one of the few TV journalists who has risen to the top who seems to keep on speaking her mind. I hope she won't be pressured by MSNBC into toning it down. I hope she will keep asking hard questions. I hope her voice, that has become popular since the presidential campaign, will get through to the Obama administration.

As Mr. Raimondo says, closing Guantanamo is fine, but if it's only to appease liberals and avoid the harder mess in Afghanistan and Pakistan, then it's pathetic.

white house garden

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:34:00 +0000

Over at Slow Food Nation I read about Kitchen Gardeners International waging a web campaign called Eat the View to get the Obamas to devote a portion of the White House garden to an organic edible garden.

You have 3 days to vote for a tasty change:

what we need is here

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:36:00 +0000

portrait of Wendell Berry by Rob Shetterly, part of Shetterly's collection called "Americans Who Tell the Truth"

Poet and Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry, along with plant geneticist Wes Jackson of the Land Institute, wrote an Op-Ed piece in yesterday's New York Times about what's needed: a new 50-year farm bill. What they say is that, of course, we need to rethink the industrialized farming we're doing, which depletes and adds toxins to the soil, and depends too much on fossil fuels. The answer? Perennialized grains.

For 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe that as long as we have money we will have food. That is a mistake. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy. The government will bring forth no food by providing hundreds of billons of dollars to the agribusiness corporations.

Any restorations will require, above all else, a substantial increase in the acreages of perennial plants. The most immediately practicable way of doing this is to go back to crop rotations that include hay, pasture and grazing animals.

Read the whole piece here. I love Berry and have followed him for a while, though not too closely. He doesn't own a computer and believes we should think for ourselves. What a concept! I appreciate his simple way of viewing life and the world. Here is a poem he wrote that beautifully expresses that simplicity:

What we Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

Bill Moyers' memo to Obama: backbone, Man

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:16:00 +0000

My apologies and correction: Thank you to Bill Moyer of the Backbone Campaign who came and corrected me here in a comment. This letter was written by him, not Bill Moyers. I appreciate the correction, and I apologize for the mistake, which he says happens pretty often.

I noticed that Bill Moyers suggests Lester Brown for a new "Secretary of Sustainability" post, along with other suggested progressive thinkers for help in the new administration. I'm posting the whole piece from Tikkun and have added links.

Bill Moyers on Progressives for the Obama Administration

For the last five years I have led an organization that has called on citizens and elected officials to show “backbone” for progressive values and policies. We work from the axiom that “If the people lead, the leaders will follow.” As one would expect, we placed ourselves squarely in the way of regressive Bush Administration policies such as preventive and preemptive war, modern xenophobic crusades, domestic spying, torture, terrible Cabinet and Supreme Court appointments, etc.

Sadly, our leaders rarely followed. Whatever their reasons for lagging behind, convoluted political calculus or political cowardice, they squandered and dissipated energy that could have saved our nation and our world from many offenses and setbacks. At this important juncture, my sincere desire is that we are able to transform our movement from serving as an emergency brake against regression, to being an accelerator for progress. My hope is that your Administration will match Americans’ appetite for change with the boldness and vision to move forward together.

Throughout the five years I have followed your progress, I have admired your oratory and demeanor while yearning for you to say more, take stronger positions, and risk rocking the boat. As you guide our nation and inspire our world to face multiple and intersecting crises, I hope that you will allow yourself at key moments shake off the restraints of caution that may have served you in your ascent to this position. For as much as we need unity, we also require genius and bold decisive action.

Poetically, your inauguration will come the day after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday Celebration. Many will mark that day with speeches about “The Dream” and dwell upon your election as a fulfillment of his prophetic vision. I ask you to resist that indulgence and look for inspiration in a yet more challenging and powerfully prophetic speech: "Beyond Vietnam".

In "Beyond Vietnam", Dr. King spoke of the “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism” and said that “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” He proclaimed that “we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.” And that “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.” “Change we can believe in” must be grounded in that prophetic call.

This is a time when prophets and visionaries are needed, and there seem to be too few of those in your immediate circle of advisors. Therefore, I would like to use this opportunity to suggest a few people who will not be hounding your transition team or submitting applications on your website:

First and foremost I urge you to draft former Pentagon analyst Franklin “Chuck” Spinney into your inner circle. Chuck’s 33 years in the DoD, (7 in the Air Force, 26 as an analyst in the Pentagon) his relentless intellect, expertise in fourth generation warfare, grand strategy, military history, and the dysfunctional procurement process—combined with impeccable integrity—make him a perfect advisor in a time of transformation.

Secondly, I urge you to make Sanho Tree the new “Drug Czar” to re-craft our nation’s failed, and destructive drug policies. Sanho’s international and domestic expertise, intellectual integrity, and concrete experience enable him to offer you the best advice for effective new policies to improve public health, address disproportionate negative impacts on people of color and our poor, while reducing violence here and abroad.

Next, I propose Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute for a new Secretary of Sustainability post and the creation of a new national service organization—a Sustainability Corps. Professor Brown has led the way toward understanding current realities and proposing positive responses since his book Building a Sustainable Society (1982), and through his annual State of the World Reports and now his book Plan B 3.0. He and [L.] Hunter Lovins, [co-]author [along with Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins] of Natural Capitalism, could make a wonderful team, working closely with other agencies to craft an integrated response to climate change and other ecological crises.

Besides the above I also suggest:

• Lori Wallach to help you redesign our nation’s approach to trade agreements.

• Emira Woods as an assistant Secretary of State for Africa

• Stephen Zunes to revamp our Middle-East policy

• Tom Goldtooth to address environmental justice concerns of our First Peoples from the Dept. of Interior

• Eric Cooper to initiate a national dialogue on racial and economic disparities from the Dept. of Education

• Dan Kammen to lead our nation’s transition to green and clean energy from the Dept of Energy

• Angela Glover Blackwell to assist Tom Daschle at Health and Human Services

• Baldemar Velasquez to work with Gov. [Janet] Napolitano to institute a fair and humane immigration policy.

Most of these are areas where vested interests stand in the way and political courage will be necessary to implement the changes most Americans believe are necessary. As Educator in Chief, partner with us, a movement for change that stands beside you, behind you, and yes, in front—leading you forward to transform the political debate and manifest change we can believe in. Because together—we most certainly can!

Bill Moyers is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Backbone Campaign. See www.backbonecampaign.org.

Where will the auto industry be a year from now? Well, how about next week?

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:45:00 +0000

electric Chevy Volt at the 2007 North American Auto Show in Detroit

As Midwest Credit Unions offer $10 billion in new car loans, GM offers discounts, and some car dealers offer two-for-one deals, my university's business professors chime in on the auto bailout (squashed yesterday). Below is the press release in its entirety (my bold). I wonder what kind of "unexpected directions" John Revitte has in mind.

MSU experts: More than money needed to bail out the auto industry
Contact: Kristin K. Anderson, University Relations, Office: (517) 353-8819, Cell: (517) 282-8881, mailto:Kristin.Anderson@ur.msu.edu?subject=MSU%20News&body=Title:
E-mail Editor
Published: Dec. 10, 2008
Story
EAST LANSING, Mich. — It will take more than money to bail out the Big Three automakers, say Michigan State University business, labor and economic experts.

With the economic future of the country at stake, any decision Congress makes in the next day or so regarding the auto industry will be historic. Solutions to fixing the auto industry are as varied as public sentiment.

Whomever President Bush might tap as the “auto czar,” MSU experts offer insights into what may be on that individual’s hubcap.

“Big-time restructuring at the industry level,” said Robert Wiseman, professor of management. “Individual auto companies have now fixed many of their internal problems, which had to be done. Historically, some companies which have come to a head with restructuring have also had to fight to regain their dominance in the industry.

“Whoever is selected will spend several months figuring out where the companies, as well as the industry, stand,” Wiseman said. “The person will have to look at what to keep, junk, sell or shut down. We may be looking at up to two years before we’ll have a better understanding of where we are in the marketplace. This person will have to have long-term vision and the ability to help the industry consolidate and remain competitive globally.”

"What happens in the auto industry in the next few days, and months, could be a turning point for the entire industry worldwide," said John Revitte, professor of labor and industrial relations.

"The auto-rescue bill and the bridge loans will raise new and unexpected issues beyond just the Detroit Three and their unions. Loans to the auto industry, and the conditions, will also influence relationships with suppliers, dealer networks and other original equipment manufacturers," Revitte said. "We could find the global auto industry moving in entirely unexpected directions."

“It’s important to help the industry, but it’s also important to help the consumer,” said Douglas Roberts, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research. “Restructuring means retooling, but that won’t help automakers move cars off the lots now, or provide people with financial incentives, for example, to purchase automobiles.

“Also, the shareholder versus stakeholder perspectives will have to be considered. A ‘green’ car that may prove economically responsible may not jive with what shareholders see as a company’s prime responsibility — to provide excellent return on their investments.”

Faculty available to speak to the auto bailout and other economic and labor issues include:

Charles Ballard, professor of economics in the College of Social Science, is a well-known source on business and the economy, including topics such as microeconomics, tax and expenditure policy, state-and-local public finance, taxation, and poverty and income distribution. Phone: (517) 353-2961 or e-mail him at ballard@msu.edu

Richard Block, professor in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations, College of Social Science. An expert in union administration, labor arbitration and government-sponsored training programs, he can discuss strategies announced by General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler in relation to product market and union issues. Phone: (517) 353-3896 or e-mail him at block@msu.edu.

John Revitte, professor in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations, College of Social Science, and in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities. He is an expert in auto industry issues, labor and politics, collective bargaining and dispute resolution. Phone (517) 353-8884 or (517) 282-2467 (cell), or e-mail him at revitte@msu.edu.

Douglas Roberts, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, college of Social Science, and former Michigan state treasurer. He is an expert in tax policy, ethics, K-12 and higher education financing, and political strategy and presidential politics. Phone: (517) 355-6672 or e-mail him at douglas.roberts@ssc.msu.edu.

Robert Wiseman, Eli Broad Legacy Fellow of Management and professor of management in the Eli Broad College of Business, is an expert in modeling decision behavior under uncertainty and the role of risk in corporate governance and strategic decision making. He also can discuss the role of CEO risk preferences on firm performance and other aspects of the economic climate. Phone: (517) 432-3508, or (517) 980-1283 (cell), or e-mail him at wiseman@bus.msu.edu.

crashing

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:32:00 +0000

Mike Luckovich November 26.

not to be confused with Les Brown and the Band of Renown

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:30:00 +0000

Oh, I get so tired of the hype to make nuclear power acceptable. I see where people are coming from who say we should develop multiple ways of weaning ourselves from foreign oil. And, I am not an expert on it by any stretch. But when the primary ways they want to do that are to build new nuclear reactors and increase offshore oil drilling, I cringe. As someone who lived in İstanbul when Chernobyl exploded, I'm not too excited about nuclear power plants.

Lester R. Brown is an intelligent, concerned man who for decades has been turning out some of the world's best and most compelling ideas for efficient and respectful-to-our-mother-earth alternative energy resources.

In this article at his Earth Policy Institute site, he articulates the shortcomings of relying on nuclear energy, and how its economics are flawed, compared to the devlopment of technologies that rely on geothermal, solar and wind energy.

Among the problems he lays out:

the cost of a nuclear reactor: $7 billion; ". . . reactors have an average life expectancy of about 40 years. According to a 2004 International Atomic Energy Agency report, the decommissioning cost for each reactor will range from $250 to $500 million, not including the cost of removing and disposing of the waste. 90 nuclear reactors are set to close within the next seven years. With only 36 new nuclear reactors under construction worldwide, Brown notes that world nuclear power generation could drop by 10 percent by 2015. With this "aging of the nuclear fleet," nuclear power generation could hit a sharp decline as more aging reactors close." - Brittany Schell at Common Dreams
Uranium now costs $60 per pound, compared to $10 at the beginning of the decade.
the cost of waste disposal and lack of any permanent waste storage sites
250 incidents last year of nuclear material being lost or stolen, and a lot was never recovered
the danger of another accident like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island

"Wind is the most mature of the renewable energy sources," said Brown. "Emphasizing the creation of new jobs with investments in renewables and efficiency is the way we want to go."

projection

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:25:00 +0000

AP photo / Morry Gash

"Troops training for and fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are firing more than a billion bullets a year."

Chris Hedges, seminarian and anti-war columnist at Truthdig, challenges us - and our new American President - to rethink our power in the world in his column today titled "America's Wars of Self Destruction."

"The most destructive evils, however, are not those that are externalized. The most destructive are those that are internal. These hidden evils, often defined as virtues, are unleashed by our hubris, self-delusion and ignorance. Evil masquerading as good is evil in its deadliest form."

This reminded me of Sharon's post today, because I was thinking after that good thought provocation that it's what we project onto others that gets us in trouble. (Jung said "The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others.") Fundamentalist beliefs that WE are right and THEY are wrong, to the point of a billion bullets on either side has got to stop. But will we keep stopping it with more bullets? (Ha, right, more like keep trying to stop it, because you can't win this one, folks. - I just noticed that when I posted this I had mistyped "can win this one" -yikes!)

We have to change on the inside. And I hope Barack Obama's attention to political solutions will start down that path, even to change his own intention to escalate the criminal war in Afghanistan. It seems to me it begins with listening, and imagining how it is to be in someone else's shoes.

Transition President: Henry Paulson?

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:55:00 +0000

Hamilton Nolan makes a very good point in this piece with a short video of President Bush smirking during a speech about the tanking economy. We essentially have no president at the moment. Bush is a despised lame duck. Obama says "only one president at a time." So who is the de facto president? Hank Paulson! If the prime issue is the economy, and he's calling the shots, Nolan is right!

Should the U.S. intervene in Kashmir?

ruth.mowry@gmail.com (Ruth) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:28:00 +0000

During his campaign Mr. Obama iterated an interest in a more active U.S. stand toward a peace process in Kashmir. He has said he'd like to appoint an envoy to help settle the dispute there (some say this could be Bill Clinton). More recently he has stated that he would like to see U.S. support of a bilateral effort of both India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir.

His idea is to help resolve the Kashmir issue so that Pakistan can stop focusing on India and focus on the militant problem on its border with Afghanistan, obviously one of the biggest American problems on the new president's plate. But adding a third party to the mix over Kashmir will not likely help India politically - has upset many in India in fact, just when the US-Indo relations have been developing well (yikes, the nuclear deal), and further it would likely encourage the militancy in Kashmir, upsetting their current election process. India has never sought international intervention over Kashmir, and recently U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon ruled out U.N. intervention unless asked by Pakistan and India, saying the two countries should resolve it themselves through talks.

Of course the separatist Peoples League in Kashmir welcomes potential official support from the U.S. to help resolve their concerns.

Does Mr. Obama really want to become more involved in the two-decade dispute that will only further complicate the U.S.'s already tenuous position in the military front between Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as its relations with India? His wish to escalate our military presence has been much criticized already, and rightly so.

President Obama will have to negotiate a great many disastrous messes. I am not sure that increasing U.S. involvment in the J&K issue is the best way to help resolve that one. And will he have time to address this issue any time soon with the collapsing economy worsening by the day?