Wow. A Chick Talking About Energy. Must Be A Cold, Ballbusting Dyke In A Loveless Political Marriage.

Since the NYT and the kook kidz of the DC press corp are far more interested in how often the Clintons manage to have dinner together than they are in what Hillary has to say, I thought it only fair to reprint the text of her recent remarks on energy policy. Just in case anyone, you know, thought that might be as important as the precise lemon-yellow color of her pantsuit (or the fact that the scarf she's wearing is a Hermes plisse).

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It is wonderful to be back here at the Press Club. And I thank you for the invitation.

I am delighted to have a chance to talk about an issue that is not going away, and it is not just about gas prices, because we've been here before. We've seen gas prices go up and the country scurry around trying to decide what to do to wean ourselves from imported oil, to be more self-sufficient, only to have gas prices fall and everybody just forget about what we need to do to protect ourselves going forward.

So we've been hearing a lot about energy policy in the last several months, and I was thinking about my own very first encounter with the problems that we are coping with today.

About 35 years ago, I was in law school and I edited a paper for a fellow student who was writing about an obscure organization that I had never heard of, which would soon, he posited, be very important to the world's economy. It was called OPEC, or something like that.

And I have never forgotten that because, like most Americans, I had grown up with very cheap gas. My late father used to love gas wars. He would drive for miles. We'd get in the car, we'd spend hours looking for 20 cent gas. And sometimes you'd get to one corner and there'd be this gas war going on and, you know, the Sinclair station would be at 20 cents and then all of a sudden the Esso station would be at 19 cents. My father lived for that.

So from my perspective, energy had never been a problem, other than being told to turn off the lights when you left a room and turning down the thermostat at night.

I was like most Americans: not really tuned in to what it could mean if we let our energy future basically be determined by interests and forces outside of our own country and our own authority.

So while the security and the environmental challenges of our reliance on high-priced, mostly imported oil are very real, it is the economic challenge that is most visible to every American: those higher gas prices, rising inflation and now higher interest rates.

So Americans today are once again feeling the effects of runaway oil prices and the failure of our energy policies.

Now, there are no easy answers to the complexity of this problem, but I believe that we can get our arms around it. It will take a well-funded, comprehensive approach with staying power. Government has to change basically our do-nothing policies. Businesses have to be part of the solution, not the problem, and provide accessibility, efficiency and innovation. And we as citizens have to do much more to reduce our dependence on oil and begin to conserve and demonstrate more energy efficiency.

We can't just point fingers and, sort of, place blame on anyone else: foreigners over there, oil companies over here. The ball is in our court. It is up to us to act and to act soon. It is going to require a virtual revolution in our thinking about energy and in the actions that must follow.

Now, energy is at the heart of the three great challenges we face as a nation: How do we keep our economy strong in a more competitive world? How do we keep our communities safe in a more dangerous world? And how do we protect our values in a rapidly changing world?

Our present system of energy is weakening our national security, hurting our pocketbooks, violating our common values and threatening our children's future.

Right now, instead of national security dictating our energy policy, our failed energy policy dictates our national security.

We would never leave 10 percent of our military or intelligence assets vulnerable to an easy attack. But that's what we've allowed to happen with oil.

Just one terminal in Saudi Arabia handles about one out of every 12 barrels of the world's oil exports. That's enough to trigger a new crisis beyond the scale of the 1970s if it were cut off. Onem terrorist attack has already been foiled there, and other threats have been made.

We would never deliberately put ourselves in a position that allowed Iran to believe that because of its oil reserves it is invulnerable to sanctions for its dangerous nuclear program, or for Sudan to think that China will protect it from the consequences of genocide in Darfur in return for access to oil, or for Russia to use its energy policy to pressure its smaller neighbors.

But as world demand for oil pushes prices higher and intensifies the competition for future supplies, those are just some of the consequences of our present energy policy.

Energy we all know is essential to our economic security, and the trend lines are terrible.

Petroleum imports accounted for nearly one-third of our trade deficit last year. Now, that does hurt everyone. It does have economic consequences in the short, medium and long term.

Some industries face immediate threats. Every penny increase in gas prices costs U.S. airlines $180 million. Now, imagine what will happen if, as predicted, costs continue to double every five years.

High energy costs burden business and diminish our competitiveness, and they're also a strain on families. When energy prices are rising faster than incomes, every family feels the consequences, but our most vulnerable families feel them the worst.

Almost one in three low-income families have skipped medical or dental care, and almost one in four have missed a rent or mortgage payment because of energy expenses.

And finally, our values demand that we be good stewards of the planet for our children and our children's children. We are failing that simple moral test if we continue to stand by as the Earth warms faster than at any time in the past 200,000 years.

I have seen firsthand and have heard from the natives in places from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Svalbard, Norway, about the consequences of global warming. And now thanks to former Vice President Al Gore, who has been a committed visionary on global warming for more than two decades, everyone can see those consequences for themselves at a local movie theater.

But this is not a time, I would argue, for hand-wringing or despair, despite the formidable challenges we confront. We can fix these problems together by changing to a clean energy future fueled by innovation and efficiency.

And, of course, the alternative is pretty stark: If we don't change, our problems will only worsen.

The Department of Energy forecasts that demand for oil worldwide will rise more than 30 percent by 2025. Carbon dioxide emissions from energy use will rise almost 30 percent over the same period.

So our economy and our environment cannot afford the status quo.

And we can start not just looking at the problems, debating the problems, but understanding what prevents us from dealing with them. And I think that there are two myths that still block us from action and that boil down to the idea that we as individuals, as communities, as businesses, even as our country, are basically powerless.

You know, that kind of fatalism is just wrong. I would also argue that it is un-American.

First, too many people are still stuck on the idea that we will struggle for a very long time, hurt our economy and lose jobs if we try to change the way we fuel transportation and provide electricity to our economy.

But if we look at the evidence, that myth just does not hold up. In fact, the present crisis offers us a great opportunity to improve the lives of all Americans with more predictable energy prices, in a cleaner environment, with technology-driven job growth and new economic dynamism.

And the sooner we start, the sooner the benefits will kick in.

Denmark now gets 20 percent of its power from wind. Brazil makes enough ethanol to power 40 percent of its cars. Britain's switch to clean energy technologies has created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the last five years, while GDP has risen and the U.K. has hit its Kyoto targets to reduce greenhouse gases ahead of schedule.

We're now spending far more on military security in the Persian Gulf than it would cost to jumpstart a clean energy future with all the benefits in new jobs, enhanced security and reduced global climate change.

Here at home, energy guru Amery Lovins estimates that taking steps to eliminate our oil dependence will actually save the U.S. economy tens of billions of unproductive dollars per year by 2025. And that doesn't even count the benefits for our security and the environment.

Now, this can't happen overnight. And it does require a major change in policy and attitudes, not just in the government but also in the private sector and, indeed, in each of our lives.

But we need to resist the idea that kicking the oil habit will wreck our economy. In fact, the greater risk is that we will wreck our economy by failing to kick the habit.

Second, we need to discard the myth that conservation can't play a large role in our transformation. The easiest way to reduce our dependence on oil immediately is to use less.

Now, for some, it's become almost fashionable to make fun of conservation. A few years ago Vice President Cheney famously mocked conservation as nothing but a, quote, "sign of personal virtue irrelevant to our national energy needs." Now, the truth is that conservation is not just a personal virtue, but an important part of any sensible energy policy.

We worked our way out of the last big energy crisis in the '70s and early '80s almost entirely through conservation. From 1977 to 1985, our economy grew by 3 percent a year while oil use dropped 2 percent each year, driven by the increasing efficiency of our vehicles, our appliances, our businesses.

Think about this: If we got back on that pace today, it would take less than three years to reduce oil consumption by an amount equal to what we import from the Persian Gulf.

The opportunities are overwhelming. About 80 percent of the energy potential of oil is wasted in internal combustion engines. More than half the energy potential of coal is wasted in traditional utility plants. Almost all of our homes and commercial buildings could use energy more efficiently.

American business knows something the vice president needs to find out: Conservation is about efficiency, about doing more with less, not doing less with less.

Companies like General Electric and Dow Chemical have made major efforts to improve energy efficiency, and they've seen major improvements in their bottom line.

Six months ago, I outlined a set of proposals in a speech to an enthusiastic group of clean energy venture capitalists. It's called the Cleantech Venture Network. They're actually investing money in this new energy future, and they're being joined every day by more and more smart investors.

Today, I want to suggest a concrete goal of reducing our dependence on foreign oil by at least 50 percent by 2025. That would be a reduction in oil consumption of just under 8 million barrels a day.

Now, I believe a 50 by '25 initiative will energize our economy, not undermine it.

And how will we get there? Two words: innovation and efficiency. They encompass the three major tasks that I want to discuss today.

First, we need to convert our liquid fuel base from oil to biomass. That can reduce our consumption by 4 million barrels a day by 2025.

Second, we need to change our reliance on high-carbon electricity sources to low-carbon electricity sources through innovations in renewables such as solar and wind, as well as carbon dioxide sequestration.

The third task is efficiency: getting much more from the cars, buildings, power plants, manufacturing processes we have. Just by major efficiencies in cars, expanding hybrids, getting more fuel- efficiency from trucks, industrial and residential sources, we can reduce consumption by another 4 million barrels a day.

Now, efficiency will start us down the road to a better energy future, but an independent, clean energy future will require dramatic innovations. The possibilities are greater than ever for government, science and industry to succeed.

For example, scientists estimate that the wind potential of just three states -- Texas, Kansas and North Dakota -- is equal to more than half of the electricity we consume today. California could meet half of its power needs from solar alone.

Technology is finally bringing down the prices and making these innovations closer to commercial application every day.

Wind is the fastest-growing power source in our country and worldwide. It's now competitive with coal in areas where the conditions are right.

Both solar and wind costs drop by one-third every time capacity doubles, and that's now happening about every two years.

Last year, power generated from solar cells increased by 57 percent. And many states are making big bets on alternative energy, from solar arrays in Arizona to wind farms in Maine.

In upstate New York, there is a new wind farm that's gone in on acreage that has until now been primarily devoted to dairy farmers.

And it's got enough wind power to provide electricity to 50,000 homes. And it also, by the payments that it makes to the farmers, guarantees the farmers can stay on their land.

But we can't just wait for innovation. Just like the Manhattan or Apollo Projects, it takes focus and dedicated resources to make it happen.

That's why today I'll be introducing legislation for a strategic energy fund. We need a serious commitment from government to prioritize advanced energy and a commitment from our oil companies to reinvest their unanticipated profits into our shared energy future.

I want the oil companies to be part of the solution. Last year the top six oil companies had combined profits of $113 billion; more than the annual income of 170 countries.

Now, ExxonMobil had, you know, the highest profits in corporate history. Yet when CEO Lee Raymond was asked about how much his company had invested in alternative energy over the last decade, his reply was, and I quote, "a negligible amount."

Well, that's unexcusable. You know, the oil industry is making $300 million a day, not because they planned on it, not because of great managerial expertise, but because of escalating world demand and therefore increasing prices for this commodity that they didn't create in the first place.

I think it's time that we made sure they put a fair share of their profits toward a sound energy future.

Last month I joined with colleagues in writing the president to ask him to support Senator Cantwell's legislation to make price-gouging a federal crime in our oil and gasoline markets. Now, we still haven't heard back. But I want to reiterate that call today.

But we can do better than that. And here's how.

We need to reform our energy taxes so that large oil companies who reap huge benefits from unexpectedly high energy prices over the next two years will be required to pay a portion of their profits into the strategic energy fund.

Basically, if you take an average of their profits from 2000 to 2004, you add a 10 percent figure on top of that, then you can get to a point where those profits for just two years would be invested in the strategic energy fund.

Now, the oil companies would have the option: They wouldn't have to invest if they did this themselves, if they began making investments in biofuels, in other forms of renewable energy, in new, cleaner refining capacity, solar, wind. If they did it themselves, then they wouldn't have to pay into the fund.

And we ought to repeal the tax breaks that even the oil companies have told us they don't need and put that money into the fund as well.

With prices, profits and with these tax breaks in the fund, you could raise about $50 billion: more than enough to begin the energy revolution that we need.

Now, some of that money should go to reforming our tax code into an incentive not a disincentive to invest in clean fuels and diversify our energy sources.

Right now, our tax policies are totally upside down. We give large tax breaks for oil exploration far from our shores and limited tax breaks for installing biofuel pumps at America's gas stations.

We give consumers better tax breaks for buying Humvees than for purchasing hybrids and using clean energy.

So I support comprehensive legislation that would overhaul our energy taxes; signal the market we're in this for the long run by extending for 10 years the production tax credit; spur demand by doubling consumer tax breaks for hybrids, clean diesel and other advanced vehicles; and create a new tax incentive for fleet owners to purchase more efficient vehicles; speed the development of cellulosic ethanol by providing loan guarantees for the first billion gallons of commercial production capacity; ramp up the availability of ethanol by providing gas station owners with a 50 percent tax credit for the cost of installing ethanol pumps; and then extend and increase tax incentives for homeowners and businesses who will make their homes and businesses more energy-efficient -- there's a lot of good information out there abut how to do it, but unfortunately not much incentive to do it.

The strategic energy fund would allow government and business to work together to help solve some of the toughest scientific challenges that we have to deal with when it comes to energy and climate.

You know, we have the National Institutes of Health that promote partnerships for innovation. We ought to have something like a national institute of energy.

That's why last September I proposed a research agency modeled on the DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. And I was delighted that later that fall the National Academy of Science report endorsed the concept.

Now, DARPA was created what Sputnik went up. And the entire country just reacted as one -- "How could this happen?" It was a very unwelcome surprise.

Well, it was created with the idea we would bring our best minds together -- our universities, our business research labs, as well as government -- to try to figure out how to jumpstart and get ahead of the Soviet Union when it came to space technology.

Well, this succeeded, with stealth technology and global positioning satellites that empower our military, as well as a few surprises that today we all live with, namely the Internet and even the computer mouse.

Now, we'll never find the equivalent of stealth technology for energy if we don't look for it. Since 1978, federal and private spending on energy-related research and development has fallen more than 60 percent.

I propose that over the next five years we devote from the strategic energy fund $9 billion into this advanced research project agency for energy; we encourage creative, competitive projects; we think outside the box; we tell young inventors who maybe nobody's ever heard of before that there will be prizes for inventions that can help us move more quickly on the path to energy independence.

We also need to put the enormous purchasing power of the federal government to work, to help create markets for renewable electricity, more efficient vehicles and appliances, and biofuels. Federal buildings should be designed whenever possible and then retrofitted as well to meet the highest green building standards.

By 2010, we should require that the federal government purchase the most efficient cars made. That would create an annual market of more than 60,000 vehicles to spur continual improvements in technology.

By 2013, we should require that 10 percent of federal electricity purchases come only from renewable sources.

And by 2020 we should reduce federal oil consumption by 40 percent.

I'm very proud that in New York the Binghamton federal building was the first in the country to purchase 100 percent of its electricity from renewals.

Now, we can do all of this, and there are so many exciting developments. You know, if I'd here five years ago or 10 years ago, I couldn't have stood up here and said that we can do this, because we hadn't made some of the breakthroughs and it would have been a much more difficult path.

Yes, we could have done it, but it would have been much harder than what I believe is possible now.

You know, wind and solar power are terrific examples. Right now there's a two- to three-month backlog of orders for solar cells like the kind that are in the Clinton Library in Little Rock.

And wind is the fastest-growing source of energy. And one of the largest solar power systems in the country is at the Marine base in Twentynine Palms California, generating 10 percent of the base's needs.

We need a renewable portfolio standard to require 20 percent of electricity produced from wind, solar and other renewables by 2020.

Now, there is so much money to be made from this. And a couple of visionary companies have really gotten out ahead.

I want to applaud G.E. for its extraordinary commitment to a new energy future. G.E. will sell, this year, $3.5 billion worth of wind turbines and expects sales to reach $5 billion next year.

That supports jobs in four states, including my own. Investing in renewable energy creates more jobs than other energy investments; 40 percent more than a comparable investment in coal, for example.

Now, companies from Europe and Japan are flooding into energy markets that were pioneered by Americans. I don't want to lose either that technological edge or the jobs and exports that come from that kind of commitment.

Now, we can also make a gallon of gas go a lot further. You all have been reading and hearing a lot about the use of home-grown energy, clean diesel and ethanol made from corn, sugarcane, cellulosic materials.

We have an underused resource, American farmland, and rural communities across our country eager to try something new and do their part to help solve our energy problems.

Today we have 97 biorefineries located in 19 different states with the capacity to make nearly 4.5 billion gallons of ethanol.

Now, over the next 12 to 18 months, we will increase that capacity by 50 percent. And we're seeing it in New York as we're seeing it around the country.

But think about that: We have the capacity to make nearly 4.5 billion gallons of ethanol, but that is a long way from helping us deal with our gas problems. We need to be moving on a much faster track.

And last week, I met with the CEOs of the big three auto companies. They are enthusiastically ramping up production of flex-fuel vehicles. But there's hardly anywhere in the country to get your vehicle fueled if it's flex-fuel.

So we need to take immediate steps to make sure that the rapid expansion in biofuels continues and that we not only have the vehicles that can run on ethanol, but we have places where you can get them filled.

Right now there are more than 5 million flex-fuel vehicles on the road. Their owners may not even know it. Automakers could start with a good news recall to let owners know what's under their hoods and where to find a biofuel station.

We should put a $1 billion from the strategic energy fund into research aimed at unlocking the full potential of cellulosic ethanol. We can expand loan guarantees to help the first 1 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol capacity come on-line.

And I think we've got to take action on this pump issue or we're just spinning our wheels, so to speak. I propose that we have ethanol pumps at 50 percent of gas stations nationwide by 2015 and 100 percent by 2025.

Obviously, these are goals. I hope we can go even faster.

We should start by requiring the big oil companies to install ethanol pumps at all the stations they own. We should also provide a tax incentive to the independents and other owners to do so over the next 10 years, and then a mandate to get it done immediately.

You know, biofuels is a tremendous opportunity for us, but we need to make sure we seize it. And the only way to do that is to have a supply and a demand chain that actually works for the average driver.

Now, as we talk about innovative clean fuels, I want to just mention clean diesel, because we don't use clean diesel as much in our country as they do in Europe, and I think it's another opportunity. Again, a home-grown opportunity.

Just two quick examples. At Corning, a wonderful company I represent in New York, they're making the filters to go on to school buses to clean up the pollution from old diesel. So they're dealing with the environmental impact of diesel.

At Cummins engine plant in Jamestown, they're building the engines that run on low-sulfur diesel. And we have to get the low-sulfur diesel rule fully implemented by 2007, which is the deadline.

The oil companies already got one delay, and we can't let that happen again, because companies like Cummins are investing billions of dollars in making sure that we have low-sulfur engines on the road. And if the oil companies won't step up to the plate on cleaner fuels, then they need to get out of the way and let innovative companies do that.

We also are making some progress in fuel cells, thanks to companies like Plug Power, General Motors, Delphi, Kodak. But we haveto deal with coal, because we have huge resources of coal. Coal is to us what oil is to Saudi Arabia. And part of our domestic strategy must involve coal.

But unless we learn to burn it cleanly, the price of independence from imported oil by using coal will be accelerated global warming. Even if the United States never burned another lump of coal, China is bringing on-line a 1,000 megawatt coal-fired power plant every 10 days. So if we're going to reassert our leadership on climate change -- which I think we should -- we've got to deal with coal.

And the first step is to take a mandatory cap-and-trade system, like that developed in the McCain Lieberman legislation that I support, but obviously going out and trying to reengage the rest of the world in this issue.

But unless we get to clean coal, it's going to be very hard to achieve.

Geologic sequestration, storing carbon deep within the earth after you extract the carbon from the burning coal, holds the key to making coal use compatible with the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Scientists believe we will be able to store nearly all of the carbon dioxide we currently emit for hundreds of years. But we need more real-world data, and that can only come from large-scale testing.

I propose we do two things to scale up the potential of clean coal.

First, undertake five large-scale tests of geologic sequestration in a variety of settings to really investigate the viability of this technology.

Second, provide tax credits for carbon sequestration to encourage domestic oil production. Oil companies already inject carbon dioxide into mature fields like the ones we have here in the United States to recover oil. The Department of Energy estimates that with oil priced at $40 or higher per barrel, it is economical, with ample CO2 supply, to use CO2 to recover 47 billion barrels of oil from existing U.S. fields.

Think of what we could recover at today's prices, as we were cleaning the air at the same time.

Nuclear is now very much in the news as a potential power source because of its lack of contribution to global warming. If you look at nuclear energy, which currently provides 20 percent of our energy with virtually

no emission of greenhouse gases, we do have to take a serious look, but there remain very serious questions about nuclear power and our ability to manage it in a world with suicidal terrorists.

So I have real concerns, specifically about a plant in my state near where I live, Indian Point, which has had a number of problems, and more generally with the capacity and quality of the oversight provided by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

So we need to resolve problems with the NRC, as well as questions of cost, safety, proliferation and waste, before we go forward with nuclear power.

But we can do all of that on the research/demonstration side while we are getting more efficient at the same time. You know, we could look at all of the options for efficiency. And there are many that we are just basically ignoring.

You know, last year in Auburn, New York, Nucor Steel spent $14 million on a continuous reheat furnace, money it will earn back in just three years through efficiency savings and higher productivity.

Texas Instruments was going to build its next plant in another country. Through efficiency, it decided to stay and build in Texas.

So I just would make a plea that we do more to set the standards for energy efficiency and let businesses and homes and others know more about what each of us can do and provide some technical assistance and support.

That's especially important with low-income people because we haven't done anywhere near what we should on weatherization of homes, which again helps cut bills for the persons living in the home but also saves energy for the rest of us.

Let's now talk about transportation, which is the hardest issue of all.

First, we do need to do more on mass transit. We need to look at places in our country where mass transit makes sense and make the investment.

Some states are doing that.

Now, we are missing a tremendous opportunity to save money and save energy because we haven't done enough on mass transit.

But we have to look at how we make more efficiency in transportation. We have to change the engines and fuels in the cars that Americans drive.

Hybrids is an example of what we need to do. You know, most foreign oil is used in automobiles: about 70 percent. And the surest way to reduce oil consumption is through hybrid technology that increases fuel-efficiency by 30 percent to 40 percent.

Hybrid sales are doubling every year. Manufacturers like Ford are setting ambitious goals for new hybrid production. We have major new improvements in hybrid engines coming on line. There's a really great partnership between General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and BMW that'll build state-of-the-art hybrid engines less than 50 miles from here in Baltimore.

The next step is hybrid plug-ins, enabling drivers to use household electricity to recharge car batteries at night. I saw some of these. They were on display on Capitol Hill. You can drive 100 miles or more for every gallon of fuel you put in the tank.

I also recommend what's called a fee-bate. That means for the least efficient old cars we need to provide a tax incentive so that people trade them in for more efficient cars.

And, finally, I do believe it's vital we make progress on fuel- efficiency standards. We can't separate, however, the challenge of making auto manufacturing more energy-efficient and the challenge of making U.S. manufacturing more competitive.

I believe we could do both. We need to be sure that our high standards don't provide an easy excuse for more auto jobs to leave the U.S., but I don't think that's the reason not to do it. We just need to be more creative about it.

We've been in a stalemate on CAFE standards for quite some time. I've worked with Senator Obama on legislation to offer auto companies assistance with retiree health care costs in exchange for them investing more in fuel-efficient cars.

That's a start. But we need the carmakers, the unions and the Bush administration to hammer this out. This is one of those moments that cries out for presidential leadership.

And President Bush will be meeting with the CEOs of the big three auto makers on June 2nd. And I think we should challenge all sides to take that opportunity to come back to Congress with a real proposal that will reform and raise our car fuel-efficiency standards and provide Detroit with the help it needs to ensure that the cars are designed and built here in the United States.

I also fully endorse an idea that Senator Lugar has been promoting.

We need a new commitment to a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Specifically, we should increase it to hold 90 days of supply. We should use mandates and incentives to ensure that distributors hold similar stocks of gasoline, heating oil, jet fuel and other refined products. We should update the process of releasing oil from the reserve to make it transparent and responsive to short- term

market swings. And beyond that, we do need to work with other countries to build up strategic reserves in places like China and India that also can be buffeted by the global economy if they are not prepared, and that can then set off panic in the global marketplace.

This should be the first step of a major effort, as Senator Lugar has proposed, to develop strategic partnerships with those countries to work cooperatively on clean coal, climate change and other energy issues we cannot solve in isolation.

So here we are. There's a lot to be done, and I know that this is probably a more wonkish speech than many of you anticipated. But I feel so strongly about this because I'm afraid what has happened before will happen again.

Gas prices go up, everybody's in a panic, everybody talks about what we have to do. Gas prices go down. The sense of urgency recedes, and we just keep, sort of, stumbling forward into an energy future that we are not in control of.

Oil sits at $70 a barrel. Goldman Sachs predicts $100 a barrel by 2010.

So we have two choices here. We have two paths we can pursue.

You know, we can just let people stew in it and they can't afford to get to work; that's their problem.

I ran into a woman the other day who said, "You know, Senator Clinton, I don't know what I'm going to do. You know, my commute, 25 miles each way, is now costing me about $100 more. I don't know where that money's going to come from."

We can wait for the terrible potential of a terrorist attack to hit a pipeline, to hit a terminal, with all that that will mean to the world economy.

We can see global warming slowly but surely have the incredible effects it's having, from flooding and storms to desertification.

Or we can make a choice. And this is where I come down.

You know, I remember sitting in my office about a year and a half ago. And we were debating the McCain-Lieberman bill on the floor, which I have continually supported.

And one of my colleagues came to the floor in opposition. And he just basically said, "We can't do this. It'll ruin our economy. We'll go backwards. It'll destroy the American standard of living."

And I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. And I got up and I went to the floor and I said, "Since when have Americans become so fatalistic that we go around saying 'We can't do it, we can't do it'?"

That is not the tradition of our country. We can do it. We just need a commitment to do it. And we need the leadership in both the public and the private sectors to get it done.

And I believe that we definitely can get it done. So from my position today, I hope we make the right choice.

Thank you all very much.

Energy Harvesting

One excellent side effect of the publicity that Al Gore is receiving for AIT is the renewed (you should pardon the expression) interest in all kinds of non-polluting, or green, energy. BBC has a fascinating article on one of the most interesting forms of green energy -- energy harvesting. As BBC explains, energy harvesting looks "at ways to tap into the energy available from the workings of the human body or transport vibrations." The article notes that the "concept was pioneered by the military sector, largely bankrolled by the DARPA in the United States (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

Their interest is mainly in reducing the need for soldiers to carry heavy rechargeable batteries that serve essential yet power-hungry communication devices. So they've looked at how 'heel-strike' generators, powered through the pumping motion of a footstep, can be embedded within a boot heel. These devices currently achieve upwards of 3 - 6 watts of power output."

The vibrations created when cars drive through tunnels could be used to power the lights in the tunnels. The vibrations created when hundreds of consumers walk from the subway to the street could generate the power used to heat the subway station. Eventually, energy harvesting could become a regular feature of all kinds of architecture.

There may not be one grand "answer" to our need for clean energy. There may be thousands of small answers that comprise both conservation and green energy. Energy harvesting is a great idea. Hopefully, the focus on AIT will lead to more funding for similar good ideas.

This is a Coup

Prior Aelred sent me this article from Project for the Old American Century, that does an excellent job of explaining a point I've been trying to make in several recent posts: "'A coup d'etat ... or just coup ... for short, is the sudden overthrow of (taking over from) a government. Unlike a revolution, which usually takes large numbers of people to take over, a coup can be done by a small number of people, or even one person, if they, for example, control the country's army,' Wikipedia

Generally, a coup is seen as the overthrow of those in power by another - usually with support of at least part of the military. Often this is imagined as a swift move followed by a consolidation operation (kill or expel those who were previously in power). However, a coup seems to be occurring in the United States, but it is a slow coup. It may be culminated by one drastic move that consolidates the plan, but the pieces are being clearly put in place for a coup of the entire government with the eradication of democracy and the Constitution."

Discussing "executive power," (including Bush's attempt to use "signing statements" to implement his "unitary executive" (aka dictator) theories), "intelligence," (including Bush's illegal spying on American citizens), and Bush's military reach into domestic affairs, Rowan Wolf (great witch name!) concludes that "we have an administration attempting to institutionalize their vision of a 'unitary executive.' It is also an administration which has directly supported eroding the Constitutional protections of the people as well as fighting any oversight or transparency. It is an administration which has supported, and dramatically increased the role of the military in domestic operations, intelligence and direct intelligence gathering (spying on people in person), technology transfer, and enforcement tasks. This raises the prospect of a coup, [yet]few seem to see this as anything more threatening than a 'temporary' situation."

There's a power in naming something by its true name. The true name for the Bush administration is a coup.

As I Said

From today's EEI newsletter:

"Wall Street Investors Climbing on the Climate Change Bandwagon
Investors, and not just socially-conscious ones, have begun targeting companies that control GHGs, believing climate change regulation in the United States is not far off, the New York Times reported today.

Wrote the Times: "New carbon-tilted rating scales could come in handy, and investment research houses like Sanford C. Bernstein and Innovest Strategic Value Advisers are busily setting them up. Innovest, in partnership with UBS, has created a carbon beta basket, a fund that will hold 50 stocks in five industries. The fund managers would monitor global warming regulations and would buy and sell the stocks on the basis of how the companies would be affected by those rules."

Investors develop lists of "carbon leaders" and "carbon dogs" to rank companies in the area of climate change control, according to Innovest. The investors also are betting on an emissions trading system being instituted. Wrote the Times: "Such a system plays to the basic math of the carbon beta basket. The companies selling the credits would receive an added source of income and therefore would be deemed ‘carbon leaders;’ the companies buying them will incur a new cost and will be deemed ‘carbon dogs.’ Even companies that decide to reduce their emissions could wind up as dogs, from the view of the carbon basket's fund manager, because they must incur costs to switch fuels or buy pollution control equipment."
New York Times , May 24."

Voters for Peace -- Take the Pledge Now

Go here and pledge to vote for peace.

Darfur: Finally Some Encouraging News

BBC reports some encouraging news concerning the genocide in Darfur. BBC explains that, "UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi [described as "Mr Annan's top trouble-shooter"] is to try to persuade the government to accept UN peacekeepers in Darfur. A report by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan accuses the Sudanese government of depriving Darfur residents of fuel and food, breaking humanitarian law." In particular, Brahimi will work to convince Sudanese leaders to accept a UN peacekeeping force, which would "take control of the peacekeeping mission from the 7.000 poorly equipped and under-funded African Union (AU) troops."

The women of Darfur need serious protection. Let's hope they get it soon.

AIT

Sending out an SOS to the world, sending out an SOS to the world. Bonus points if you get the reference w/o googling.

Higher and Higher Degrees of Organization, Flow, and Deep Silence

This, via Thorn Coyle, is good:

"Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne." Kurt Vonnegut


"All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife…..Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself, and never mind the rest." Beatrix Potter


Now go read the rest.

I'm not sure whether or not there's some cosmic force aiming towards "the good." Carol Christ kind of has me convinced no, Chardin kind of has me convinced yes. My garden kind of has me convinced no; my grandson kind of has me convinced yes.

But, in the end, I don't care. Aided by the universe, or headed into the wind, I need to be on the side of the Earth, on the side of women, on the side of the poor, on the side of art, on the side of thriving. I have to take responsibility for trying to figure out what "the good" is and for doing it. Back in the misty days of my discovering Wicca, I read somewhere that, "A witch takes responsibility." It sealed the bargain; I knew that I was home.

Al Gore Rocks

Go watch the trailer for An Inconvenient Truth

Gore: "This is not really so much a political issue as a moral issue."

Truer words were ne'er spoken.

Snakes

Swamped today, but here's another poem from Stanley Kunitz, who died last week at 100. It's about snakes, so after you finish it, go read Echidne, who's one of the best writers on feminism that I know.


THE SNAKES OF SEPTEMBER

All summer I heard them
rustling in the shrubbery,
outracing me from tier
to tier in my garden,
a whisper among the viburnums,
a signal flashed from the hedgerow,
a shadow pulsing
in the barberry thicket.
Now that the nights are chill
and the annuals spent,
I should have thought them gone,
in a torpor of blood
slipped to the nether world
before the sickle frost.
Not so. In the deceptive balm
of noon, as if defiant of the curse
that spoiled another garden,
these two appear on show
through a narrow slit
in the dense green brocade
of a north-country spruce,
dangling head-down, entwined
in a brazen love-knot.
I put out my hand and stroke
the fine, dry grit of their skins.
After all,
we are partners in this land,
co-signers of a covenant.
At my touch the wild
braid of creation
trembles.

News Flash: High Tide Followed by Low

There's a small cafeteria in my office building and every day, every single day, they are not quite ready for the lunch crowd. You want to yell at them, "WTF? How can it continue to be a surprise to you that people suddenly start showing up here around noon EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY? Maybe tomorrow you could, you know, just assume that around 11:50 the cashier might want to get her change counted and be, oh, I don't know, AT THE CASH REGISTER?"

I work with a brilliant woman who normally comes into the office around 10:30 ish or works all day from home. Once in a while though, we have to be at court at 9:00 am or at the airport at 7:30. On those days, INEVITABLY, she calls me on my cell, running late, and says, in a surprised voice, "Traffic is really bad this morning!" And it's all I can do not to yell, "Yeah, Gail. Guess what? We work in Washington, D.C., one of the most congested cities in the entire United States. The traffic is bad EVERY morning. It was bad two weeks ago when you called me to say you were going to be late for court because of the traffic. It was bad a month ago when you called me to say you'd meet me at the other law firm for the deposition because traffic was bad. In fact, the next time that you've got to be somewhere early in the morning, maybe it would be smart for you to just ASSUME that traffic's going to be bad and leave in time to get where you're supposed to be!"

And, now we're coming up on another election. Five months, give or take. Electoral politics are going to be heating up, as they do EVERY SINGLE TIME THERE'S AN ELECTION. And I'd really, really, really like to think that THIS time, the Democrats won't act like the cashier in my cafeteria or my co-worker, caught totally off-guard by what anyone else could see coming a mile away. Here are a few things the Democrats need to get ready for NOW.

1. "You're saying you think it was better with Saddam in power."

2. "You're giving aid and comfort to the terrorists."

3. "You're for tax and spend."

4. "My opponent wants to cut and run."

5. "Most liberal, most liberal, most liberal."

6. "I respect my opponent's military service, but . . . ."

7. "You want gays to take over our country, convert our children, and burn our bibles."

8. "This time, trickle down economics will lift all boats."

9. "We'd have fifteen cent a gallon gas if my opponent weren't more concerned about the caribou than she is about working Americans and their gas bills."

10. 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11!

Look, I'm a witch and I have accesss to deep, esoteric secrets, vast, arcane wells of wisdom. And I'm going to share a few secrets with you:

Tomorrow, a strange yellow ball will rise in the eastern sky. Tomorrow, in the evening, the moon will be about three percent smaller than it will be tonight. And the Democrats, caught offguard again by the very tactics that Rove used an entire two years ago, won't have a good, standard, sound-bite-sized answer for any of the above-ten points. Come on, Dr. Dean, surprise me. Prove me wrong. Please.

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

I've been reading around on the internet and trying to understand what was going on in Akhmatova's mind and heart that led her to write what she wrote. The web is an interesting way to learn about a new subject; there's a ton of information out there, but it's disjointed, disorganized, in disarray.

She followed her heart very willingly, did Akhmatova, marrying poets and Assyriologists and loving (and being loved by) many others.

Bopping around on the web, I came across several different translations of a poem of hers called Song of the Last Meeting. Comparing them helps me to understand what she may "really" have been saying, since I can't read her in the original Russian. Which do you prefer?


FIRST TRANSLATION:

Song of the Last Meeting (1911)

My breast grew helplessly cold,
But my steps were light.
I pulled the glove from my left hand
Mistakenly onto my right.
It seemed there were so many steps,
But I knew there were only three!
Amidst the maples an autumn whisper
Pleaded: "Die with me!
I'm led astray by evil
Fate, so black and so untrue."
I answered: "I, too, dear one!
I, too, will die with you..."
This is a song of the final meeting.
I glanced at the house's dark frame.
Only bedroom candles burning
With an indifferent yellow flame.

SECOND TRANSLATION

Song of the Last Meeting

My breast was chilled through, oh so helpless,
But my steps were still very light.
I picked up the glove for the left hand
And put it by chance on the right.
It seemed like the steps were so many,
But I knew there were only three!
Fall's whisper, with maple-trees blending,
Requested: "Now die with me!

I'm deceived by this my specious
Fate far too fickle, untrue."
I replied: "My precious, my precious!
Me too. I shall die with you..."

'Tis the song of our very last meeting.
I glanced at the house now all dark.
Only candles in the bedroom were burning
With a nondescript yellowish spark.

English verse translation © John Woodsworth
Ottawa (Canada)
20 January 2002

THIRD TRANSLATION

Song of the Last Meeting
by Anna Akhmatova

I was help less and my breast was freezing
But I walked and my footsteps were light.
And the glove that was meant for my left hand
I unthinkingly put on my right.
And it seemed that there were so many steps then,
But I knew there were only three!
In the maple trees there where the whisper
Of autumn that said, 'Die with me.

For I've been deceived by a whimsy
Called Fate-sad, wicked, untrue.'
I answered, 'I've been deceived also,
My dear, and I'll die with you.'

This: the song of our last meeting...
I looked back at the dark house's frame;
In the bedroom the candles were burning



HECATE'S ATTEMPT TO CHERRY-PICK THE BEST OF THE ABOVE THREE TRANSLATIONS:

The Song of Our Last Meeting

My breast was chilled through; I was helpless,
But my steps were still very light.
Unthinking, I pulled my left-hand glove
Mistakenly onto my right.
It seemed there were so many steps then,
But I knew that there were only three!
In the maple trees there was a whisper
Of Autumn that said, 'Die with me.

For I've been deceived by Fate's whimsy
And Fate's been sad, wicked, untrue.'
I answered, 'I've been deceived also,
My dear, and I'll die with you.'

This is the song of our very last meeting.
I glanced at the house, now all dark.
Except the bedroom candles were burning
With a nondescript yellowish spark.

*****************

In the end, I'm struck by what may have been only a sense-impression or a throw-away line for Akhmatova: "Except that the bedroom candles were burning with a nondescript yellowish spark." She's leaving him not only because the rest of the house was dark but because, in the end, the sex just wasn't that good. So, translating various translations may be a poor way to learn what a poet was saying, kind of like trying to understand a painting by painting a copy of a copy reflected in a mirror. But it helps me, I think, to access Anna.

Why do I care? What makes it worth the effort? I can't thrive -- hell, I don't think I could live -- without poetry. Thriving isn't something that happens to us; it's something we do. What must you have to thrive? How much time do you spend doing it? If not, why and if not now, when? If we allow ourselves to wind down, to quit thriving, then John Ashcroft and Dick Cheney have won.

Out in the Garden

Out in the Garden is a delightful book by Dean Riddle that first convinced me that I, too, could be a gardener. And that it was a task worth taking on.

I just came in from my tiny, unimpressive, needs-tons-of-work suburban Virginia garden. (It's funny how, in America, we say "yard" where the Brits would say "garden." Ground Force, in addition to providing endless hours of porn in the form of Tommy, (about whom I feel the way the comic strip Cathy's mother felt about Prince Charles on his wedding to Di: "He never even got to meet you!") Tommy, if you ever tire of Mrs. Walsh, those children, the Cockney part of London, ok, my father's family were Cockneys while the Walshes were still living in Wales, but, you know what I mean . . . ) also helped to convince me that gardening wasn't too serious an endeavor for me to mount. Pun intended)). I pulled weeds from the herb bed, esp. the section devoted to dill. By mistake, I pulled up a tender dill seedling along w/ the weeds and grass. I ate it. it tasted fresh and green and the way that I imagine Spring in Sweden (the land of my peeps) must taste -- forget the Wild Strawberries, Ingmar. (Do you do this too? Do you free-associate all the way through your garden? If you do, I'd love to hear about it, either in comments here or via email!)

I stuck my nose deep into the tiny, pink old fashioned roses that the people who were here before me planted outside the screen porch. It's enough to say that I'm not a huge rose fan, (rose bushes look gorgeous for about three weeks out of the year and, for the other 49 weeks, not so much). But the smell of a rose does amazing things to a human. At first, my thought, nose buried deep in the rose, ass pointed high in the air, was that smelling a rose takes us to a different place. But then, I thought, "No, not really. It takes us to Earth." We live too little of our lives here on Earth and too much of our lives on tv, on the internet, in our heads. Smelling a rose brings us back to Earth.

T. Thorn Coyle is big on reminding us of this: we are EMBODIED consciousness, at least for this time around, this life, this attempt to become who we really are. We are spiritual to the extent that we are able to connect our bodies, our minds, and that ineffable something else that the xians call soul. I remember this best in the garden, fingers dirty, nose in a plant's sex organ, dill leaves on my tongue, sun reaching past me to have the most amazing sexual congress with the green leaves that make food from the sun.

Thriving. For me, it happens out in the garden. Where does it happen for you? How will you make it happen, how will you keep on making it happen under the Bush (was any man ever more incongrously named?) coup? Does it happen for you at all?

I'm going to go plant moonflower seeds (I bought some more, since the last packet had so few) around the foot of my deciduous magnolia and see if they'll balance the leaves of GWPDA's black iris for the rest of the summer. And attract the hummingbirds. Then I'm going to sit under the Green Man wind chimes that my gorgeous friend Kathy gave me and see what the wind can say to me today.

Love Ya, Big John, But You Still Aren't Getting It

Go here and listen to Stephanie Miller's interview w/ a very hip, very funny John Kerry. Kerry "gets" so much -- he gets that we need to quit cutting taxes on America's wealthiest citizens while borrowing money and shipping manufacturing jobs oversees. He gets that we need a real, comprehensive energy policy -- yesterday.

But how he can still defend his vote to give Bush authority to use force in Iraq is beyond me. He says now that he regrets the vote because Bush broke his word to Congress to use force only as a last resort to enforce inspections. Well, John, what possible reason did you have to trust George Bush even back then? Come on. You just can't be that naive.

And how can he say that his only mistake in response to the SwiftBoaters was not having enough money? John, you were one of the best-funded Democratic candidates in history. If you didn't have enough money, no one's going to. The problem wasn't money. The problem was spending the money you did have on Bob Shrum and shit consultants who told you to ignore Karl Rove's attacks -- a strategy others have tried and that has NEVER WORKED EVEN ONCE.

And how can Big John still not get it about election fraud? John, they stole the election from you. Miller does a good job of trying to hold his feet to the fire on this one. Finally, he says, well states will legislate paper ballots even if the feds won't and hopefully we'll win back one House or the other this fall. John, that's not a plan. I guarandamntee you Ohio and Florida won't institute paper ballots and Ohio and Florida have selected George Bush twice over the will of the rest of the country. I know that I sound like a broken record (butcha are Hec, butcha are!) but until the Democrats decide to throw everything they've got -- and I mean everything -- at electing the Secretaries of State in Ohio and Florida, they might as well not bother running anyone for President.

So here's a smart, hip, personable, funny guy, the kind of guy I'd love to hang out with and have an elitist glass of pinot noir, a guy who would move America forward, a guy you can see beginning to repair the damage done to our image abroad, not least because most world leaders would probably also enjoy having an glass of elitist pinot with him, a guy who desperately wants to be president. In short, he'd be a great president. But he's not going to get that chance because he still has the huge blind spot all the Democrats seem to have concerning what's happened to electoral politics in America. John, more money isn't the answer and the fact that you think it is scares and depresses the bejebuz out of me.


Thanks to cs, art is bread at Eschaton for the tip.

Catholics! Could You Please Go Feed the Poor or Comfort the Sick or Something for a Change?

I've just about had it with these whiny-ass titty babies.

Totally Frivolous Friday Blogging

When I was a little girl and my mother needed to do something nice for herself, she'd buy herself a hat. Ladies don't these days, as a rule, wear hats -- more's the pity -- so when I feel that need, I buy myself a Hermes scarf. (I'm not saying how many I have, although my son occasionally asks me; that's a secret known only to my brilliant friend Elizabeth, who helped me set up a database to catalog them.)

So, last night Elizabeth and I went to the invitation-only party for the grand re-opening of the Hermes store in Tyson's Corner. Tres impressionnant.

Hot air balloon in the trademark Hermes orange. Gorgeous black Clydesdale paraded through the store accompanied by chic young girls in jodhpurs and boots. Massive bouquets of white peonies that smelled so much like honey you kept expecting a beekeeper to show up. Attendants at the valet parking who were, shall we say, pretty-pretty boys avec accents français who surely have never done valet parking duty ever before in their young lives.

Nice people passing trays of champagne and nibbles. E and I tried the steak tartare, which was being served, as so many appetizers and desserts are these days, on spoons -- automatic portion control. But it was very nice, just the right amount of spice to go with the steak. There was a gorgeous, huge, black Kelly bag that I looked at the way Jimmy Carter admitted to having looked at some women -- with lust in my heart. E and I perused the scarf counter and then had a lot of fun noting really big hair, really big boob jobs, and really bad plastic surgery. Speaking of which, the only semi-celebrity we saw was Andrea Mitchell, wearing a rather mud-colored Roccaille shawl.

We headed across the courtyard and had dinner at Colvin Run Tavern. We split the pate appetizer and E had lamb while I had flounder stuffed w/ crab, shrimp, tasso, and asparagus. Then we split the cheese tray. The food was amazing; the service pretty so-so and not nearly as nice as I've had the other times that I've been there. Colvin people, here's a clue, if you no longer carry Six Grape Port, don't suggest Six Grape Port.

So, I know, I know. There's a hole in the ozone, the world's a mess, there are wars and famines and diseases and all kinds of problems demanding our attention. But by now you know that I think we were put her to thrive, not just to survive. And once in a while, you have to put it all behind you and enjoy yourself. Now, go buy a scarf.

Well This Is Totally Cool

BBC reports that, "New York has announced plans to expand free wireless internet connections into Central Park and other public places across the city. Officials estimate that the new system will be up and running by the summer and will attract thousands of outdoor computer users." BBC notes that, " For the ever growing number of on-the-move New Yorkers addicted to laptops and PDAs, this is good news. Many have grown used to paying for wi-fi connections in New York's cafes. Now, though, they will be able to log on outdoors and for free. . . . It is all paid for by corporate sponsorship and may be the blueprint for even more ambitious projects in locations including Philadelphia, which aim to eventually offer free wireless access not just in public spaces but across entire American cities."

Love the idea of free wireless available everywhere.

DaVinci Would Be Amazed

Via Witchvox, here's a very good editorial from the Portsmouth Herlad concerning the snit some xians have managed to work themselves into concerning the upcoming movie version of the DaVinci Code, a book that was really nothing more than a moderately entertaining potboiler mystery.

The editorial notes that, "Various Christian organizations have planned protests at theaters that will begin showing the movie, which is based on a book written by Rye Beach resident Dan Brown, tomorrow night." After noting that the DaVinci Code may, in fact, spur some people to investigate religious ideas, the editorial concludes, "However, many of these leaders are so outraged that such a book could be published, much less made into a movie for mass consumption, that they are missing the educational opportunities inherent in the discussion.

They are using words like 'heresy and 'blasphemy' - those ancient calls to arms that struck fear into Christians during the dark days of the Inquisition and witch trials, to limit the number of followers who will even consider reading or seeing what Brown has to say.

But these are not the Dark Ages. The light of intellectual inquiry burns bright and for the truly religious, whatever is revealed by that light will not detract from the beacon of faith that lies in their hearts.

It is only the irrational actions of self-protective church leaders who profess to be the only ones capable of seeing truth that can dim that beacon."

I think that's about right. I'll just add that the ONLY thing that could induce me to go see the movie would be the chance to piss off some fundi whack-jobs who think that they get to tell the rest of us what we can and can't read, watch, discuss, etc.

Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Here's a very good idea from People for the American Way:

"Wow.

I wrote you on Monday urging you to call your senators – often – until they stood up to the Bush administration’s troubling violations of our privacy rights. You certainly took the ball and ran with it. We have call reports pouring in on your conversations with Senate staff and they are encouraging.

Not only did many of you give your elected officials a piece of your mind, it sounds like many senators are listening more closely than they were when the week began. Judging from the call reports as they came in, staffers for the senators appeared increasingly overwhelmed and increasingly willing to note that their senators understood the public outcry and had concerns themselves.

Sustained input is powerful – and invigorating. Keep the calls coming. Give those on the fence an extra push, and encourage those already on the right path. If you haven’t called, pick a time today to dial your senators and let them know:

• vote NO on any legislative ‘fixes’ that would whitewash the executive branch’s illegal eavesdropping,
• support proposals to cut off spending for illegal surveillance, and
• support a full investigation of the NSA’s domestic wiretapping and its massive database of phone records, including the appointment of a special prosecutor.

Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121"

*****************************

I figure if they're going to track our calls anyway we might as well make some calls to bitch about it.

If Only We Were Serious About Conserving Energy

BBC has a fascinating report on smart meters. A smart meter is a device that shows the consumer, possibly even remotely via the internet, how much energy her appliances are using and what it's costing. They have, as BBC reports, the potential to save not only money for the consumer, but a huge amount of energy. In turn, that's very good for the environment.

Most consumers are unaware, because they don't have any way to tell, that the electrons they use at, say 3:00 in the afternoon are usually much more expensive than, say, the same number of electrons used at 3:00 in the morning. This is because at 3:00 in the morning, there's not as much demand -- fewer people are running computers, hair dryers, diswashers, etc. So electric companies shut down the plants that cost the most to run (due to, for example, fuel type or emissions costs) and run their cheaper, baseload, plants, likely nuclear, wind, hydro, etc. As more people wake up and start to use their toasters, electric coffee pots, computers, etc., the electric companies begin running their more expensive plants. But that simply doesn't show up at all in the electric bills that consumers receive, nor do current meters show this information to consumers. Similarly, consumers are often unaware of how much money they could save by, for example, unplugging their tvs when they turn them "off" or by setting their refrigerator a degree or two higher. A smart meter can provide this sort of information.

As BBC notes, there are some implementation issues that need to be worked out, but I think smart meters have a lot of potential. Instead of giving huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, it's too bad the US government isn't giving a dollar-for-dollar tax break to electric companies to install smart meters in every home in America.

And You Know, If Fifty People A Day Do It, They Just Might Think It's a Movement

BBC reports that "Ecuadorean oil officials cancelled Occidental Petroleum's operating contract after a long-running dispute." This follows Bolivia's nationalization of foreign energy companies and the imposition of hefty extraction taxes upon oil companies in Venezuela. There's something very interesting going on in South America, although Bush is too obsessed with the Middle East to notice.

For years, the conventional wisdom has been that countries couldn't nationalize assets because it would scare off investors. No one would, for example, build natural gas pipelines or oil wells if they worried that, once built, they'd be seized by the state. There may still be some wisdom to that, but I'm not sure that it's the hard-and-fast rule that it was once thought to be. Once a company recovers its investment and makes some profit, nationalization may be disappointing, but not necessarily disappointing enough to stop all future investment. Occidental Petroleum invested money in Ecuador. It made a large profit in Ecuador. Why wouldn't it invest again just because that profit was finite?

As I've noted before, I think that, over the next fifty years or so, oil and natural gas assets will have to be nationalized. Carbon-based resources are too scarce and the demand for them is too high to allow private investors to reap the windfalls that are already beginning to occur. Perhaps by the time we overthrow the Bush Coup, our neighbors to the South will have a history of energy asset nationalization that we can learn from.

The Mountains of the Moon Whose Snows Feed . . . The Nile

BBC reports that a "fabled tropical ice field in Africa could disappear in two decades because of climate change, a study says." The article continues, "The Rwenzori Mountains straddle the border between Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. They are home to one of four remaining tropical ice fields outside the Andes and are renowned for their spectacular and rare plant and animal life."

But what makes this more than just another in such a long stream of melting-ice stories that many of us have become, you should excuse the expression, numb to them is that this particular ice field truly is fabled. As BBC explains, "Their legendary status may stretch back to a reference by the 2nd Century AD Greek geographer Ptolemy, who wrote of snow-capped equatorial peaks that fed the Nile: 'The Mountains of the Moon whose snows feed the lakes, sources of the Nile'.

Some researchers think conceptual maps prepared by Ptolemy are a good fit for the Rwenzori, which feeds Lake Albert, which in turn feeds the White Nile."

Ptolemy. These ice fields were mapped and described by Ptolemy. They'll be gone in a few decades at this rate. It makes me very sad.

It's a Coup. We Need to Call It What It Is

Dictionary.com tells us that a coup is a sudden and decisive change of government illegally or by force. Synonyms include coup d'etat, putsch, and takeover.

A group of corporatists and neocons, using fundies as dupes, desperate that their attempt to seize power by impeaching Bill Clinton had failed, stole the 2000 election and the 2004 election. George Bush is just their puppet, the purportedly likeable cowboy that they used as a front man for their coup.

The difference between the American coup and, for example, a South American or African coup was that, in America, the might of the Supreme Court, rather than the might of the Army, was used to effect the coup. Like a skilled pickpocket, the corporatists and neocons stole power in plain sight. Unable to believe its eyes, America pretended that there had been no coup.

But that doesn't change reality. It doesn't make those in power today any less guilty of a coup. Nor does it change the fact that the tools we'd normally use in a democracy to effect a change of leadership won't work when dealing with a group that steals elections and engages in all the illegal acts against American citizens (warrantless spying, detention w/o charges or access to a lawyer, free-speech zones, arrest of those wearing t-shirts that could displease the emperor, leaking state secrets to smear opponents, lying us into a war where they've (via Haliburton) stolen millions of dollars and killed thousands of innocents, etc., etc., etc.) that this group of fascists are eager to perform.

The Democrats must quit pretending that we are dealing with honest opponents in a fair election. They must quit pretending that, if the rank and file will just donate enough money to fill the pockets of the right consultants, we can take our government back. Those tactics work if the other side doesn't get to "count" the votes in a darkened back room. They won't work in the American Interregnum, as I think this era will come to be known, because the other side steals elections.

So what is the answer? I don't believe in giving up. So the first thing the Democrats must do is begin to call the current administration what it is -- a fascist coup. They must begin to acknowledge what we're up against and quit living in the pretend world that they wish we still inhabited. They need to begin, loudly, announcing that the Republicans have stolen and will continue to steal elections. Will the press scoff? Yes, loudly at first. Democrats will be called poor losers, shrill, and insane, and will be accused of undermining our democracy (remember these people project like a metroplex). That can't stop us. The Democrats need to present evidence to back up the claim and they need to keep making the claim. They need to announce that the Republicans plan to steal the election this fall and state how they expect the heist will be pulled off. When the Republicans steal the November election, the Democrats need to call for, and we need to be ready for, massive civil disobedience. Let's not wait until November 8th to start organizing.

It's a coup. The first step towards replacing it and restoring American democracy is acknowledging what it is and naming it. There's power in naming.

May the Goddess Guard Him. May He Find His Way To The Summerlands. May His Friends And Family Know Peace

Former poet laureate Stanley Kunitz died at 100, asleep in his bed. The AP reports that, "In some ways, he maintained a quiet, contemplative life, working for hours at night on an old manual typewriter, and by day nurturing his beloved garden in Provincetown, Mass. But he also helped found two writing centers and was a self-described pacifist who was a conscientious objector in World War II, opposed the Vietnam War and criticized the U.S.-led war against Iraq.

'He was very outgoing, very cheerful, very funny, very interested in you and the others in the room,' said fellow poet Galway Kinnell. 'You could say that most of the American poets younger than he was tended to look up to him as their guide, their leader, their surrogate father.

'Of course,' Kinnell added with a laugh, 'after a while, all the poets were younger poets.'

Shortly before his 100th birthday, "The Wild Braid" was published, featuring poems, photographs of Kunitz in his garden and his reflections on gardening, art and the end of life. 'Death is absolutely essential for the survival of life itself on the planet,' he said, explaining his acceptance of mortality. 'It would become full of old wrecks, dominating the population.'"


He loved two of the things that I love: poetry and gardening. Here's one of my favorite poems of his:

The Long Boat

When his boat snapped loose
from its mooring, under
the screaking of the gulls,
he tried at first to wave
to his dear ones on shore,
but in the rolling fog
they had already lost their faces.

Too tired even to choose
between jumping and calling,
somehow he felt absolved and free
of his burdens, those mottoes
stamped on his name-tag:
conscience, ambition, and all
that caring.

He was content to lie down
with the family ghosts
in the slop of his cradle,
buffeted by the storm,
endlessly drifting.
Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn't matter
which way was home;
as if he didn't know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.


From The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden by Stanley Kunitz with Genine Lentine, W.W. Norton & Co., 2005.

You know, if you can spend a hundred years writing amazing poems and gardening, die in your sleep, and have Galway Kinnell eulogize you -- well, I think that's about as good as it gets.

Guest blogging: Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?

Having just been there for the second weekend of the annual Jazz & Heritage Festival, I answer with a resounding yes. The sad thing is I was able to say the same while I was there.

THE GOOD

Although I am a frequent visitor to The City That Care Forgot, I am pretty claustrophobic in crowds, so this was my first visit for any of the big festivals (New Year’s, Carnival/Lundi and Mardi Gras, Convergence, French Quarter Fest, Satchmo SummerFest, Southern Decadence). Jazz Fest was incredibly well-run. According to other attendees, the crowd was typical of other years. The music was fantastic, the food and drinks were ample and delicious (I’m now hooked on pheasant, quail and andouille gumbo), and I don’t think I ever waited in line for anything (food, beverages, the shuttle, the bathroom) for more than 10 minutes.

Many of my favorite places to eat, drink, shop and hear music – Galatorie’s, Irene’s Cuisine, Acme Oyster House, Dickie Brennan’s, Desire Oyster Bar, Fiorella’s, Court of Two Sisters, Marigny Brasserie, Johnny White’s, Violet’s, Fleur de Paris, Riverstone Galleries, Trashy Diva, Fifi Mahoney’s, Tipitina’s, Rock n’ Bowl, Blue Nile, Snug Harbor, Donna’s – were open and going strong. Many more places that haven’t re-opened yet are set to within the next month, in conjunction with the planned re-opening of the Morial Convention Center. And the music at the clubs in the evenings was beyond phenomenal, with unexpected combinations popping up everywhere (Bonearama, Rebirth, Dirty Dozen AND some Mardi Gras Indians at Tip’s, Charmaine Neville with several very talented teenagers at Snug Harbor, everybody and their cousin playing a kickoff Rock n’ Bowl romp night on Wednesday).

The first weekend featured most of the big names, while the second weekend featured largely local talent, many of whom came home and are still displaced in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It was a cathartic event for the many, many locals who attended and performed, topped off by Antoine “Fats” Domino’s appearance at the concluding concert Sunday night. Ill and unable to perform, Fats left the hospital to come give his best wishes to all the festival-goers, and to thank us for contributing to reviving the city.

THE BAD

Aside from a few pockets, the city is a shambles. The French Quarter, which is all many tourists see, is about 2/3 back, with many of the remaining closed businesses due to re-open within the next month. The Garden District is in fine shape, with the high-end boutiques along Magazine Street open for business. Faubourg Marigny is in decent shape too, because most of the businesses there serve the middle and upper class residents who’ve either returned or never left in the first place (it’s one of the neighborhoods that didn’t flood). The rest of the city is a mess.

I stayed in the Central Business District. The hotel I usually stay in has not re-opened, despite the building sustaining no significant damage. (I’ve already composed an angry letter to the corporation that runs the chain.) Many of the buildings in the CBD demonstrate minor damage, but what’s even more worrisome is the volume of “commercial space for lease” signs.

The rest of the city is even worse. Driving up Canal Street to Rock n’ Bowl in mid-city Wednesday night was shocking – business after business is still empty and boarded up. The shopping center that plays home to Rock n’ Bowl currently plays home ONLY to Rock n’ Bowl. With chain link fence around the entire rest of the complex, it looks like a war zone.

Driving to and from the Fairgrounds, one goes past empty neighborhood after empty neighborhood, deserted houses often slid off their foundations, the ghoulish FEMA marks indicating how many bodies, human and animal, were found there. Although there are small pockets of people in most places, the overwhelming majority of houses and businesses are dark and silent. Every highway ramp and overpass parking area is full of flooded vehicles, towed there and abandoned.

THE UGLY

The first time I saw the Morial Convention Center, I burst into tears, remembering all the desperate people who fled there, seeking safety, only to find hunger, thirst, heat, stench, government indifference, despair and death. To quote “Brownie”: “There are people at the convention center?!?” To quote Curious George: “Who cares? They’re poor, they’re black, they don’t give me and my friends money, and they don’t vote for us. Let ‘em die.”

I was constantly amazed at the ignorance of many of the non-residents I encountered. Fest goers didn’t recognize the Morial Center, and even after being told its name, had no idea what had happened there. They didn’t know that the FEMA markings were FEMA markings, why they were there, or what they stood for. They didn’t know what the water marks on houses and buildings were, and even when told, it just didn’t seem to compute. They had no idea where the 9^th ward is, or that it was the LAKEside and canal levees that failed. No, the Mississippi River did not flood the city, people. And no, I don’t think they were drunk at the time. Was I the only person in America paying any attention last August and September?

But the ugliest thing is our political “leaders,” who can’t even be bothered to force the insurance companies to pay up (which would cost the government NOTHING), so that people can go on with their lives. Nor can they be bothered to reign in the Army Corps of Engineers for causing the whole disaster with their decades ass-backwards pork barrel water “management” projects. Nor can they be bothered to pull their heads out of their tax-cutting asses long enough to actually RAISE taxes to go DIRECTLY to Gulf Coast restoration.

Interacting with locals, my most common question was: “What can I do to help?” The answer, invariably (in a town whose primary industry is tourism), was come visit, spend money, come back, and encourage others to come. Despite the many problems the city still faces – loss of residents, loss of neighborhoods, bankruptcy, massive infrastructure problems – it is still New Orleans. It’s a city built on catastrophe, having survived hurricanes, floods, fires, and plagues, always coming back. The birthplace of jazz and the second line, the only city in the United States where the residents truly understand that you’re not promised tomorrow, so you damn well better live today will come back. It’s already on its way. If you can conspire to get there, do, and help the city regain its lush, decadent, tawdry, fabulous vibe.

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?
I miss it both night and day
I know that it's wrong... this feeling's gettin' stronger
The longer, I stay away

Miss them moss covered vines...the tall sugar pines
Where mockin' birds used to sing
And I'd like to see that lazy Mississippi...hurryin' into spring

The moonlight on the bayou.......a Creole tune.... that fills the air
I dream... of Magnolias in bloom...and soon I'm wishin' that you were there

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?
And that's where I left my heart
And there's something more...I miss the one I care for
More than I miss New Orleans

Guestblogged by Elizabeth

Buy My Brilliant Friend's CD!

AFTER THE FALL - EP - complete!
I just finished recording, arranging and producing a powerful little collection of songs - I hope you will buy one, listen to it, love it, be inspired, tell a friend, and spread the good word. The EP opens with an emotional piano/vocal performance of "After The Fall", recorded live in New York City. The next two tracks, "Not Your Landscape" and "Wolf" were produced at Delphi 23 Studio in Williamsburg, adding strings, guitar, percussion, and synth effects to underscore their message of warning - you'll be singing along with their infectious hooks. "January Mourning" is a hauntingly beautiful acoustic piece about letting go, and "Fight or Flight" closes the collection with a dramatic call to action.

Rick Tippett of The Washington Post says "Very impressive...as always, what surfaces in (Clarke's) music is passion and soul." All songs touch on themes of love, loss, passion and pride, and they rock!
ITunes & PayPal coming soon - for now, please email me your mailing address in order to purchase a CD:

I will happily mail one to you along with some good karma--->buyatfcd@amyclarke.com

AFTER THE FALL - EP
Release May 1 2006
All Selections ASCAP
1. After The Fall (Live in NY)
2. Not Your Landscape
3. Wolf
4. January Mourning
5. Fight or Flight
All tracks (c) Amy Clarke & ScorpFaery Productions
www.amyclarke.com/music www.myspace.com/amyclarke

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

How many demands the beloved can make!
The woman discarded, none.
How glad I am that today the water
Under the colorless ice is motionless.
And I stand -- Christ help me! --
On this shroud that is brittle and bright,
But save my letters
So that our descendants can decide,
So that you, courageous and wise,
Will be seen by them with greater clarity.
Perhaps we may leave some gaps
In your glorious biography?
Too sweet is earthly drink,
Too tight the nets of love.
Sometime let the children read
My name in their lesson book,
And on learning the sad story,
Let them smile shyly. . .
Since you've given me neither love nor peace
Grant me bitter glory.
1913
-- translated by Judith Hemschemeyer

*************************************************************************************

Well, this one speaks pretty directly to me. I've been where Akhmatova was when she wrote this. I think it's the same place that Stevie Nicks was in when she sang, "And sometimes...when they ask her about the men in her life...she says, 'well, they are poets...and yet they are priests of nothing...aah, but they are legends.' And I thought that there was a...connection."
~Stevie Nicks, live version ending to Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You/Live From Red Rocks, 1986

And if I ever find a recording or an mp3 of that live performance, BTW, I am going to be the happiest woman on earth.

My generaton of women may be, please the Goddess, the last generation of women who get sold that lovely opium dream of living through a great man, of being muse to a great poet.

You Can't Win a Fight When You Won't Open Your Eyes and Look at Your Opponent

Prior Aelred sent this Smirking Chimp article to me. You've got to go read it right now. Everyone in America needs to read it. The bottom line is that the Republicans have undoubtedly STOLEN the last two elections and the Democrats seem to want to just close their eyes and pretend that this isn't happening. Which, unfortunately, assures that the Republicans will continue to steal elections.

It makes people uncomfotable when you say that the Republicans are stealing elections. They act as if you've just farted, or just announced that you were abducted by aliens who kept you in a spaceship and made you bear their alien babies. The Republicans count on that.

The article notes that, "the Bush campaign was aided enormously in this thievery because their campaign co-chairs in key states were also the Secretaries of State -- that is, the officials in charge of conducting elections and certifying the vote results: Katherine Harris in Florida in 2000 (with brother Gov. Jeb Bush overseeing her work), and, in 2004, Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio, Terry Lind in Michigan, Matt Blunt in Missouri, Glenda Hood in Florida, et al." I've been saying for a year and a half that I won't give any money to any Democratic presidential candidates until the Democrats figure out a way to elect Democrats as SoS of Ohio and Florida. What's the point? So far, I can't see any evidence that the Democrats have made this Job One. They're now busy fighting over whether to give their money to DC consultants (NO! For the love of God, NO!) or local efforts in all states. As if this were going to be some normal election and we just need to figure out where to best spend our money. It's not and that's the least of what we need to do.

The article continues, "One can't escape the conclusion that the Democrats in general still don't know how to respond to cutthroat aggressiveness and criminality on the part of the Republicans. The Dems never knew what hit them in Florida in 2000, in Ohio in 2004 and don't really have their oppositional act together now in 2006, with the midterm election just six months away." This is what really scares me. And, I think it relates to my earlier post on integrity. People are afraid to admit that we're dealing with a group of out-and-out criminals who are willing to break all the rules, because admitting that forces us to face some scary questions about how to deal with those people. It takes us outside the realm of the known, where there are rules that work, and dumps us into an alternate, and frightening, new reality.
We're not going to just get better funded, better organized, and elect better people. I knew when I heard about the NSA phone database that these crooks NEVER plan to leave office. They would never create a tool like that and then turn it over to, say, Hillary Clinton.

I'm not sure what -- other than massive civil disobedience -- will work with the power-mad fascists who have stolen control of America. I am sure that continuing to squeeze our eyes shut and pretend that we're not dealing with a real crisis -- in short, continuing to do what we've been doing but hoping for different results -- will only result in more stolen elections.

In 2004, I hoped that Kerry could pul off a landslide and that a landslide would be more difficult for the Republicans to steal than the close election we'd had in 2000. I still hear people heartened by Bush's low poll numbers who hope the Democrats will pull off landslide victories this fall that will be too big for the Republicans to steal. I don't buy it. In 2000, they had to scramble to steal the election, get help from the SCOTUS (fuck you, Sandra Day!) Again: "One can't escape the conclusion that the Democrats in general still don't know how to respond to cutthroat aggressiveness and criminality on the part of the Republicans. The Dems never knew what hit them in Florida in 2000, in Ohio in 2004 and don't really have their oppositional act together now in 2006, with the midterm election just six months away."

The Democrats are the only hope we've got. We have neither the time nor the resources to organize a third party with any realistic chance of taking control. So we've got to wake the Democrats up, no matter how difficult a job that may be. I'm open to suggestons on how that might be done.

Equs

Bush slips below twenty-nine percent in polls.

An Invitation to the Barricades Based Upon a Realization of the Nature of Our Oppressors and the Need to Live with Integrity

T. Thorn Coyle always has something interesting to say, but this week, her posts keep resonating with things that I've been thinking about, especially within the overall themes of how we thrive in today's world. She says:

"I see that change is possible. Humans can deal with each other in forthright and adult ways, and have fun while they are at it. It is this signal I will follow, not the noise.

I mentioned to my homeopath this morning that my integrity is my only currency. She said it is the only thing any of us have. Yet humans support people and systems that have little to no integrity all the time. Why is this? What blinds us? Fear, greed and neediness."

It's interesting, because I've been thinking about the fact that it is the complete lack of integrity that makes the Bush administration and its supporters, both within the mainstream media and in general, so impossible to deal with. The recent Mary Cheney brouhaha is just one tiny example. She's gay, she's openly gay. She's made a good living off the very fact that she is gay and can supposedly help, for example, Coors attract more gay customers. Her father mentioned shortly before the Republican convention that she was gay. Yet, she and her mama are willing to try to make political capital and sell books by pretending to be highly offended that, when asked a question about gays (that never would have come up at all but for Republican pandering to an inflammable base of gay-haters) Kerry and Edwards mentioned that she was gay. No integrity. How do you deal with that? Kerry's fumbled it up until now. I think the answer may be to do something that liberals have been reluctant to do up until now: to begin to directly challenge these people's integrity.

And of course, Mary Cheney's only one small example in a tsunami of acts that simply reek of a lack of integrity: from the 2000 "election" to the misuse of 9/11 to lying us into an illegal, immoral war to robbing from the poor and the old and the sick to give to the rich to illegal spying on Americans to torture to secret jails with no due process to swift boating and planting kerned documents to polluting the air and calling it "Clear Skies," everything these people do is tainted by a lack of integrity. They don't even feel a need to be consistent; they're happy to claim today that impeaching a president would be the end of the world when just a few years ago they impeached Clinton over a blow job. Kay Bailey Hutchinson got caught recently asserting that lying isn't an impeachable offence, although she'd said the exact opposite about Clinton. Debbie Howell will continue to lie on the pages of the WaPo about whether Democrats were beneficiaries of Abramoff's bribes, even when it's been clearly shown that that is not the case.

Which brings us back, I think, to Ms. Coyle's question: If our integrity is our only currency, the only thing any of us have, why do we support people and systems that have little to no integrity all the time? Why is this? What blinds us? Coyle answers: Fear, greed and neediness. And perhaps she's right. Particularly about the role that fear plays in this process. In particular, I think we are afraid to simply announce and be forced to act upon the fact that we are dealing with people who have no integrity. We're not talking about differences of opinion, about people of good will honestly disagreeing about legitimate policy differences. We're talking about the fact that we're dealing with people -- the people in charge of our government and the largest most powerful nation on Earth -- who lack all integrity. It's an extreme statement to make and liberals have become too terrified of being called extreme, fringe, wacky, dirty hippies, tree huggers, kooks. So it's that fear.

More, though, there's a fear associated with what happens once you admit to yourself and announce to the world that your opponent lacks all integrity. Our system of democratic government, with its checks and balances and respect for diversity, is based to a larger degree than we often recognize upon the premise that even our opponents will act with integrity, that everyone will play by the rules. Once that's no longer the case, when you have a large group of powerful people who refuse to follow any of the rules, our democracy doesn't really provide the tools to deal with that. We can't vote them out of office when they have their fingers on the Diebold hard drive. We can't convince our fellow Americans to vote them out of office when they have blackmail dirt obtained by illegal spying on key members of the media and their bosses.

So, what do we do? How do we thrive when the entire system created to allow us to thrive no longer works, when it's been infected by a complete lack of integrity? If the first part of the answer to that question is to always behave with integrity ourselves, what does that mean in this new world?

I can't remember now where I read it, but I saw something on the web a week or so ago about a woman who attended a political debate where the Republican began by refusing to disavow ads that were clearly dishonest. She said that, on reflection, she wished that she hadn't sat quietly, following the moderator's rule that audience members not ask questions. She wished she'd stood up and announced her objection and refused to sit down until the Republican did the thing that integrity would have required him (or her, I just can't remember) to do. Maybe that's the way we ourselves behave with integrity when dealing with those who have none.

But it's only part of the answer. I think the other part is to acknowledge that we're living in a new world and that new solutions -- possibly involving mass civil disobedience -- are going to be necessary. That's scary, but dealing with the fear that brings up may be necessary in order for us to thrive. Sometimes, a forest fire is necessary to clear old growth and allow new trees to grow. Sometimes, forest fire is the only way for the forest to preserve its own integrity.

I'm not saying anything original. In fact, some guys with long hair said it very eloquently over 200 years ago:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

I Suppose Grown Ups Acting Like Grown Ups Would Be Too Much To Expect/

Via Witchvox, comes an article about the sons of a serviceman being kicked out of the Boy Scouts for being Wiccan. It's 2006 and this is America. For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The article reports that: "The number one scout law is to do your duty to God and your country," Troop 71 Scout Master Gene Doherty said. "They met to discuss whether or not the boys could live up to that because of their religion."

The conclusion was that they could not.

Doherty called Army Cpt. Todd Buchheim, the boys' father and a former Eagle Scout stationed at Fort Polk, to inform him that the boys no longer were welcome in the troop. The Buchheims said Doherty told them that if Cody had lied about his faith, the boys could have remained with no problem."


Does this sound like the sort of thing we'd like to model for our children? I swear there are days when i think Americans have the emotional age of a retarded twelve year old, but that would be unfair to some retarded twelve year olds I've known. So many of the problems we have in this country could be solved if people would just start to act like grown ups.

The freaking point of the meeting was religious diversity! And when they got religious diversity, the grown ups -- not the kids, but the grown ups -- freaked out.

I'll leave aside why any self respecting Wiccan would have their kids in a gay-hating group like the scouts. This weekend, the cutest little nine year old came up to me at the grocery store parking lot selling something for the boy scouts. I said, "Sorry. I won't donate to any group that excludes gays."

I swear, America, grow the fuck up. Because when you hurt yourself, I will laugh.

Walden

One of the smartest people I've ever "known" has started a blog. You must add it to your daily list.

Hmmmmm.

From today's EEI newsletter: "Real Time Power Prices in Boston Area Top $1,000 per MWh

Data from ISO New England showed that electricity prices in the Boston area spiked to more than $1,000 per MWh and averaged nearly $900 per MWh for several hours on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Neither ISO New England nor area power plants knew the cause of the spike.

Traders guessed the price jump was likely due to either transmission or generation problems. Wrote the newswire: 'A spokeswoman at ISO New England, the grid operator, said that despite the high prices (which remained over $1,000 for several minutes) the system conditions were normal and no emergency procedures were in place.'
Reuters , May 9."

In Which Your Humble Blogess Plays Cassandra

Starting to see a number of Republican fundraising appeals that warn that if the Democrats seize control of Congress this fall, they will impeach George Bush. That's interesting. I wish I had their faith in the Democrats. They can't be doing this because Bush is so popular. In fact, as I noted last week, conservatives are beginning to move away from him in droves, claiming that he's never "really" been conservative. So I'm thinking it's a bit of a time bomb being planted in case the Democrats do retake Congress and, even less believable, grow a real spine and punish Bush.

They want to be able to say, "See! We told you so! Those hate-filled Democrats, attacking our president "in a time of [undeclared] war! They should be focused on other priorities!"

Which, coming from the folks who impeached Clinton over a blow job, is going to be pretty damn rich.

Get Her! She's a Witch!

Via Witchvox comes this report of attempts to curtail attacks on those suspected of being witches in India.

Some excerpts from the article: "Recalling the trauma she faced, Ramani narrates: 'I was tortured and forced to eat human excreta just because I was branded a witch by the ojhas (witch doctors).'

Today Ramani is not alone in the fight.

Vaisakhi, another survivor, says: 'It is a blot on our society. We have to face such inhuman torture even in this 21st century. It is a shame that when women have reached space, we are subjected to such horror.'

Vaisakhi, in her 50s, had also been brutally beaten up by a villager, who branded her a witch.

There are scores of women who have been branded witch by villagers and tortured. Many were killed, sometimes by beheading or dismembering their limbs.

Many like Ramani Devi are forced to drink urine or consume human excreta. Some are ostracised and thrown out of their villages."

We like to think that persecution of those thought to be witches ended long ago. It didn't.

Anne Johnson has a report of xians lined up to yell insults at pagans and others who dared to gather for a festival in the US this weekend. Can you imagine the coverage if a bunch of pagans lined up outside the Baptist church and hurled insults at the Baptists as they waited to go inside?

Weekend Akhmatova Blogging

"When the American national poet Robert Frost had visited her at a dacha in 1962, Akhmatova wrote: 'I've had everything - poverty, prison lines, fear, poems remembered only by heart, and burnt poems. And humiliation and grief. And you don't know anything about this and wouldn't be able to understand it if I told you...' Two years before her death at the age of 76, Akhmatova was chosen president of the Writers' Union. She did not live to see the publication of her collected works in 1986 in Moscow."

So, you know, for this alone, I would love Anna, even if I can't quite access her poems yet.

What do you think of this? I like it as well as I've like anything of her, i think.


When you're drunk it's so much fun --
An early fall has strung
The elms with yellow flags.
We've strayed into the land of deceit
And we're repenting bitterly,
Why then are we smiling these
Strange and frozen smiles?
We wanted piercing anguish
Instead of placid happiness. . .
I won't abandon my comrade,
So dissolute and mild.
1911 (Paris)
-- translated by Judith Hemschemeyer