Kit Stolz

Cheney, Dust, and Bob Dylan

Marc Ambinder (here) explains how the GOP is putting its foot into its mouth, or shooting itself in the foot…or some combination thereof.

Each time Cheney opens his mouth, the DNC — or Robert Gibbs, if he's
in the mood — finds a way to reduce Republican opposition to President
Obama's plans to the words of someone who is very unpopular with most
Americans. (A side note: Cheney, smarter than the average elephant,
understands this. He has his legacy to defend. He is worried not about
criminal prosecution; rather, if the Obama mindset over next
four-to-eight years sets in, Dick Cheney, a guy who most Americans
don't like, will be the Dick Cheney that Andrew Sullivan knows: truly
infamous and even wretched; someone who sanctioned torture; someone who
abused executive power with relish. Obama's Justice Department may soon
renounce the legal foundations upon which Cheney's policies were
constructed and may even cite the former administration's lawyers for
misconduct. If they do this — once they do this — the edifice will
be nothing but dust.)

In other dusty news of the day, Ann Powers, the pop music critic for The Los Angeles Times, gets a chance to listen to Bob Dylan's new record, coming out next month, and reports (here) that its last song is on the same subject:

"It's All Good": "Throw on the dust! Pile on the
dust!" Dylan shouts in this apocalypse party of a song. Sharp guitar
lines and one of the album's fastest tempos gives the band a chance to
fade out on a high note. Dylan's final word: Enjoy this world, even as
it descends into chaos. In fact, especially enjoy the chaos.

I've had something of a falling-out with Dylan over the last decade, considering his recent records wildly overrated, and his recent performances mostly dreadful, but I do love the picture and title for the new one. Hope springs eternal…as does love:

On Climate: “The Expert is Scared”

From the Aspen Environment Forum:

“Maybe that’s the narrative: The expert is scared.”

—Robert Socolow,
Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Co-Principal
Investigator, Princeton University’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative

Note that Socolow in the climate/energy field is considered something of a hopeful moderate.

Probably should have attended this conference. List of speakers, beginning with Lisa Jackson, new EPA chief, looks great. Here's a roulette wheel/graphic representing a massive recent unified study, out of a huge program at M.I.T., which found a substantially greater probability of catastrophic warming this century, assuming (as we saw last century) no substantive policy change. For more, see here or here.

Sex and Death, by Richard Avedon

With all due respect to Science Daily, Nature, the GRL, and countless other ultra-serious scientific journals, the most interesting thinking in the world of science journalism right now seems to be happening in blogs such as Bioephemera, which looks at the intersection of art and science.

Here's an example, from the great photographer Richard Avedon, part of a series he did in l995 for The New Yorker (though it's unclear if it was ever published). It's labeled a "photo editorial," and that seems about right…mortality in these pictures seems unable to resist beauty, and beauty isn't a bit surprised, and doesn't that make a lot of sense?

Here's the whole series, courtesy of Bioephemera….via a fashion site called Haute Macabre.

Climate, by Emily Dickinson

#1295

I think that the Root of the Wind is Water —
It would not sound so deep
Were it a Firmamental Product–
Airs no Ocean keep —
Mediterranean intonations —
To a Current's Ear —
There is a maritime conviction
In the Atmosphere —

She's utterly correct, of course. It's quite astounding how much the atmosphere can resemble the ocean in its influences, such as with Rossby Waves, or with the simple fact that most of the excess energy the planet has absorbed from space has been taken up by the ocean, rather than the atmosphere.

84% in fact, according to Tim Barnett of Scripps.

Here's an antique locket of America's greatest woman poet, courtesy of Tartx.

Weirdest Right-Wing Obama Taunt

Lately I've heard a new insult directed at Barack Obama by right-wing outlets…claiming that without his teleprompter, he's lost. Unable to pronounce words. Hopeless in front of a crowd with a mic.

No, I'm not kidding. The allegation is that Barack Obama is stupid. Take a look at this genius post from the super-popular right-wing site Powerline, which begins:

Everyone knows that Barack Obama is lost without his teleprompter…

…and goes on to mock him for mispronouncing a word. The post then puts up a YouTube rant, supposedly from the teleprompter to the Prez, in which "the one who bails your ass out night in and night out" demands better treatment, a private heated compartment, top billing, etc.

Right. The President, who was mocked repeatedly by his Republican opponent during the fall debates for his "campaign of eloquence," now has been struck dumb, and cannot articulate his own thoughts.

This despite the fact that, for instance, a couple of weeks after taking office he took questions from the national press live for forty-five minutes, without a single misstep of the slightest consequence.

To such a criticism this Democrat can only say: Wow.

With enemies like that, who needs friends?

Geo-Engineering: The Ecologist Doesn’t Like It

According to The Ecologist, the technological fixes for global warming are untested, dangerous, expensive, and probably ineffective. (See the chart below.)

This may all be true, but as more than one scientist pointed out at this year's American Geophysical Union conference, if the news about global warming is as bad as some fear, we really may not have a choice but to begin to research these technologies.

Now Chris Mooney, probably our best young science journalist, writes a column on "When Will Geo-Engineering Tip?" for Science Progress (here). This will not make The Ecologist happy, I predict…

…for me the surprise is that Mooney argues that geo-engineering will likely be "cheap." To which one can only ask the old jazz question: Compared to what? But to be fair, as Jeff Masters of Wunderblog reported from the AGU this year, some possible solutions do look reasonably priced…if goofy.

Why DeSalination Is Not the Answer

A water manager for United Water Conservation District named Steve Bachman explains succinctly why desalination is not the answer, in a story I wrote in today's Ventura County Star (here):

“People ask all the time about desalination,” he said. “And yes, we can
do that, if you’re willing to pay two times or more what you’re paying
now for water.”

In a phone conversation, he explained further. Water districts can buy water from Metropolitan — when it is available — for $600 an acre-foot. "Desal" today costs in the range of $1100.

So there you go. Of course we haven't mentioned the huge carbon footprint, the infrastructure problems, the salts disposal…but do we need to?

Limbaugh’s Popularity Dives, Hurts GOP

As reported previously, Democratic partisans James Carville and Paul Begala launched an attempt to anoint Rush Limbaugh the head of the GOP in the mind of the American public. This was possible because no one really knows who speaks for the GOP these days, as a poll, from Pew, (here) shows. The top contender is John McCain, at a measly 11%. Second is Limbaugh, at 5%.

It's clear the White House approved. On Monday, President Obama's press spokesperson said (here), reacting to the charge from Darth Vader (er. Dick Cheney) that Obama is weakening the nation:

"Well, I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy, so they trotted out the next
most popular member of the Republican cabal," Gibbs said.

Limbaugh took the bait and appointed himself chief spokesperson for the GOP. And it's helped him in his ratings (here). But though this may be good news for Limbaugh the broadcaster, it's terrible news for the GOP with the broader electorate, according to a new CBS News Poll:

Over the past few weeks, the White House has been casting right-wing
talk show host Rush Limbaugh as the head of the Republican Party, and
based on a new CBS News poll, it appears they may be onto something:
According to the poll, Limbaugh’s favorable rating stands at just 19
percent, a full 43 points lower than President Obama’s.

Limbaugh’s unfavorable rating, meanwhile, stands at 40 percent,
while 41 percent say they don’t know or don’t have an opinion. Not
surprisingly, the conservative commentator, who has said he hopes that
the president’s economic policies fail, is far more popular with
Republicans – 47 percent view him favorably – than with Democrats, just
seven percent of whom view him favorably, and Independents, just 14% of whom approve of Limbaugh.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

The Scariest Opening to an Essay Ever

From Keeping It In the Family, by Claire Watkins, in Granta's recent Fathers issue.

My father first came to Death Valley
because Charles Manson told him to. He always did what Charlie said;
that was what it meant to be in The Family.

It's a great little memoir/essay, no more than about 700 words long. Read it. Here's the picture that set it in motion…of Claire, her sister, and her dad, a Charlie Manson devotee, in Death Valley in the 1960's.

Tennessee Williams: Tougher Than You Might Think…

This week’s New Yorker has an extraordinary review of Thornton Wilder’s hoary classic Our Town.

Extraordinary because reviewer Hilton Als begins with criticism of Thornton Wilder the man and playwright that is so sharp it’s almost bitter, then moves to all but dismissing his best-known play, and then finally redeems the play – somewhat – by praising a new production and in particular the actresses in it.

But his words of criticism are token gestures to his occupation task compared to an anecdote he quotes about Wilder from Tennessee Williams. Turns out that Wilder himself was gay, but closeted, and worse, when Williams opened in New Haven what is surely the greatest American work of words of the last century – A Streetcar Named Desire – Wilder had nothing good to say about it.

In his memoirs, Williams recalls…

We were invited to the quarters of Mr. Thornton Wilder, who was in residence there. It was like having a papal audience. We all sat about this academic gentleman while he put the play down as if delivering a papal bull. He said that it was based on a fatally mistaken premise. No female who had ever been a lady (he was referring to Stella) could possibly marry a vulgarian such as Stanley….I thought, privately, This character has never had a good lay. I got back at him years later when a bunch of theatre people were invited, during the Kennedy administration, to a banquet at the White House. All of us theatre folk were told to line up in alphabetical order…And here was Thorton Wilder bustling about like a self-appointed field marshal, seeing that we were arranged….Mr. Wilder rushed up to me with the radiant smile of a mortician and shrieked, “Mr. Williams, you’re a bit out of place, you come behind me.” Well, I was just stoned enough to say to him, “If I am behind you it’s the first and last time in my life.”

Moral of the story: Don’t throw stones at the man on the other side of the river – you might need his help in getting across.