The road not taken

A month ago, I wrote a rather lengthy footnote (here) about a powerful documentary concerning our energy choices in the late 70's and early 80's that have shaped our energy future in the past three decades. The part I most remember about the documentary is how President Carter, with solar panels newly installed on the roof of the White House, warned of the potential for the panels to become, "a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken" if they and other renewable energy technologies were not widely adopted. Solar panels as a curiosity was an example of an alternate scenario he hoped we would avert in favor of an energy portfolio rich with renewable energy technologies. Needless to say, we did not heed President Carter's advice and, sadly, the solar panels now sit in the National Museum of American History. 

I'm not going to dwell on the fact that we've lost so many years where we could've been designing clean, renewable, safe technologies that would eventually phase out dirty, non-renewable, dangerous (here here here)  energy technologies we still rely on today. I'm not going to analogize energy technology to computer technology, either. I won't say that in 1980, renewable energy technology and computer technology were both in a relatively nascent period of development, that the wonder of technology I'm writing this post on (Macbook) is the product of 30 years of innovation, that in the same 30 years we could've also been developing renewable energy technology (thus making it more efficient, cheaper, and a viable alternative to fossil fuels) we did very little; I won't because it should be all too apparent.

But I will say this: anyone who picked up a newspaper this week saw a starkly contrasting example of yet another choice we must make regarding our energy future, this time regarding our oceans. The good news first. Cape Wind, the nation's first offshore wind farm, was given the federal green light to begin construction. It will generate enough energy (420 MW) as a medium-sized coal plant and represents the first step in catching up to the rest of the world with this technology. Opponents claim that the windfarm will pose environmental hazards and clutter the landscape. Would you rather see quiet (and I think, majestic) wind turbines spinning in the distance or a smoking oil rig? Or a shoreline covered in a oily sheen? Which brings me to the bad news, the tragic explosion of the oil rig and subsequent hemorrhaging of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Is it a coincidence that two major energy stories in the same week focused on the same ocean? Probably, but it doesn't diminish the choice we as a country must make when we decide our energy future in the coming months.

It's true that this issue isn't black and white. Strict environmental regulations for both offshore wind and drilling must be a priority. Further, social and economic factors must also be incorporated into development decisions. But taking these factors into consideration actually favors offshore wind -- think of an ocean full not with oil rigs but with wind turbines, with hardy, Armageddon-style crews zipping from turbine to turbine, performing necessary maintenance. I mean, Ben Affleck needs a job, doesn't he? It would certainly be safer than sitting on a bomb for a living (or detonating one on an asteroid hurtling towards Earth...). And, despite the announcement last month that the moratorium on offshore drilling would be lifted, I think this disaster puts a very visible reminder in American's eyes of the dangers of conventional energy choices. 

So here we stand, once again, with a decision to make. Will we maintain the status quo, subjecting our workers to the tremendous and unnecessary risks of producing unsustainable fossil fuels and leaving open the possibility of environmental disasters? Or will we take President Carter's 30 year old advice and invest in an energy future that makes oil rigs and coal mines curiosities and museum pieces?

The musical intstrument everyone knows how to play

I found this gem in the dust jacket of an old Pete Seeger ("We Shall Overcome") album from the 60's I got today:

HERE'S HOW RECORDS GIVE YOU MORE OF WHAT YOU WANT:

1. THEY'RE YOUR BEST ENTERTAINMENT BUY. Records give you top quality for less money than any other recorded form. Every album is a show in itself. And once you've paid the price of admission, you can hear it over and over.

2. THEY ALLOW SELECTIVITY OF SONGS AND TRACKS. With records it's easy to pick out the songs you want to play, or to play again a particular song or side. All you have to do is life the tone arm and place it where you want it. You can't do this as easily with anything but a phonograph record.

3. THEY'RE CONVENIENT AND EASY TO HANDLE. With the long-playing record you get what you want to hear, when you want to hear it. Everybody's familiar with records, too. And you can go anywhere with them because they're light and don't take up space.

4. THEY'RE ATTRACTIVE, INFORMATIVE AND EASY TO STORE. Record albums are never out of place. Because of the aesthetic appeal of the jacket design, they're beautifully at home in any living room or library. They've also got important information on the backs -- about the artists, about the performances or about the program. And because they're flat and not bulky, you can store hundreds in a minimum of space and still see every title.

5. THEY'LL GIVE YOU HOURS OF CONTINUOUS AND UNINTERRUPTED ENJOYMENT. Just stack them up on your automatic changer and relax.


6. THEY'RE THE PROVEN MEDIUM. Long-playing phonograph records look the same now as when they were introduced in 1948, but there's a world of difference. Countless refinements and developments have been made to perfect the long-playing record's technical excellence and insure the best in sound reproduction and quality.


7. IF IT'S IN RECORDED FORM, YOU KNOW IT'LL BE AVAILABLE ON RECORDS. Everything's on long-playing records these days...your favorite artists, shows, comedy, movie sound tracks, concerts, drama, documented history, educational material...you name it. This is not so with any other kind of recording.


8. THEY MAKE A GREAT GIFT because everybody you know likes music. And everyone owns a phonograph because it's the musical instrument everyone knows how to play. Records are a gift that says a lot to the person you're giving them to. And they keep on remembering.


AND REMEMBER...IT ALWAYS HAPPENS FIRST ON RECORDS.

[Well put, Don Draper.]

We're comin' to America!

There are so many things fucking right with this video.

Neil Diamond was not my first thought last week as I walked into the law school. Funny, it usually is. As I entered, I was greeted by a group of people who were most decidedly not law students. No, not beleaguered twentysomethings, but whole families, dressed up, smiling, and holding American flags and speaking, well, not English. After reading the sign, "Naturalization ceremony in Room 25," it all made sense.

I was naturalized some 23 years ago by an old judge in a nondescript courtroom. I still have the picture. I had a look in my eyes that said 2 things:
1. Why is this old man in a bedsheet holding me and why does he smell like Fritos?
2. Holy shit.
If I were to be naturalized today and someone memorialized it with a picture, I would have the very same look in my eyes. Since my memories of being naturalized and my knowledge of the process  come only from an old photograph, I can (safely?) assume that being held in the arms of some old judge is a mandatory part of the process. But maybe my judge only ate Fritos some days. I don't know if that part is a requirement. But I know for sure that I would still be thinking holy shit, this is a big deal! [Joe Biden: you mean a big fucking deal] Yes, it is a BFD.

Smiling images of these fresh off the vine Americans was juxtaposed sadly with that ghastly Arizona law that just passed, making it Morning in America once again....for racial profiling, that is. Things haven't been this rosy for the profilers among us since it was a television show (things got worse in a hurry for profilers when they realized that the television show was not a loving tribute to racism, but rather a "gritty" crime drama (really, what crime dramas aren't "gritty") about Dr. Sam(antha) Waters who has the magical ability to "see" through the eyes of others (a trait otherwise known as "empathy") while motivated by the death of her husband at the hands of the serial killer dubbed The Jack of All Trades) But fear not, profilers, the PATRIOT act was a pretty decent consolation prize after Profiler went off air in 2000.

And ok, you're right seething anti-illegal immigration dude, illegal immigration is a problem. I'm not saying that it isn't. But can one state, in one fell swoop vanquish civil liberties in such a heavy-handed (and probably unconstitutional) way? I hope not. Do we not learn from our past?

I'm reading two books right now that tangentially relate to this. One, Zoli, is by the amazing author Colum McCann. It's a book about a Gypsy poet (say "Gypsy poet" in Borat's accent, I know you want to) who becomes famous in post-WWII Eastern Europe but is later shunned by her family and community. Her family was killed by Nazi sympathizers. During the war, she gets hassled by soldiers on the city streets who ask for her papers because she looks Gypsy.

The other is called The Bravest Battle. It's about the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against Nazi extermination in WWII.

I'm hesitant to compare this to Nazi Germany (apparently there's a day for that and a website for other like comparisons), but is it too crazy to imagine a situation in Arizona now where a sheriff stops someone on the street and asks to see their "papers"? And can you imagine a WWII movie not having at least one scene where this same situation occurs between a Jew and a Nazi? Ok, hopefully you made the comparison all by yourself -- it saves me from some rancor from the few Glenn Beck fans among my readers (although, I do remember seeing President Obama crudely given the Hitler stache during healthcare tea parties...just sayin').

I'm left wondering why we're reduced to these partisan battles when there are so many other important issues to tackle. Because a law like this doesn't solve a problem like illegal immigration, it just fuels hate and racism. For the new Americans among us, I'm glad you're here. You show we discouraged that the United States is still a place to treasure, that it is still seen as the "City Upon a Hill" John Winthrop promised his Puritans so long ago. But, like Winthrop's flock, we are an imperfect, sometimes ugly group. Welcome to the club, we're not all so bad as our racist laws make us out to be. Hey, we've still got Neil Diamond.

Iceland: Sleeper Cell

On 14 April 2010, our world changed, thanks to the assholes up in Iceland. This small Northern European country, slightly larger than Kentucky, and appearing to sit at the kiddie table of Europe geographically, rose out of the ashes of their economic doldrums and took a giant shit on the rest of the continent, unleashing the feral beast Eyjafjallajokull (nicknamed "The Situation") and crippling Western Europe in a terrifying display of a new form of terrorism.

We should have seen this coming. The New Kid on the Block, being hazed into the Axis of Evil by Kim Jong Il and his goofy collection of fascist goons as we speak, is laughing at Western Europe from high atop the globe. While folks in this country worried about mild reforms to a broken healthcare system, millions of Wolf "The Dentist" Stansson's were "over there" in Iceland readying their hellish barrage of magmatic fury. Think about it: Tea Partiers (who are apparently better educated and more affluent than their idiotic viewpoints would suggest) were asleep at the switch. It's not some government takeover that they should have been worried about, nor the fact that the president was supposedly not born in the United States (he was a crafty toddler, forging documents and all), nor even the fact that the country will soon mandate that our elderly will be put to death in front of a screaming horde of liberals. No, they should have focused their anger on the creeping danger that is Iceland.

It all goes back to the warning signs present in the fanatical suicide statement, cleverly disguised as a children's movie, "D2: The Mighty Ducks", which gave perceptive viewers a glimpse into this dark dark world. Apparently, the deception traces its roots all the way back to the naming of the country. Think back to the pivotal scene, where Coach Gordon Bombay went for an ice cream with Icelandic beauty Maria and perfectly enumerated his, and in doing so, our complicity in this vast conspiracy.
Coach Bombay: "I thought Iceland was covered with ice"
Maria: "No, it is very green."
Coach Bombay: "I thought Greenland was green!"
Maria: "Greenland is covered with ice, and Iceland is really nice!" [Ed.: after divulging this state secret, Maria was sent to the Greenland Gulag, a vast shop of ghastly horrors, with its receding glaciers and such]
So it's true! The founders of Iceland had this evil plot in mind from the beginning, way back to naming the country. Indeed, the 1821 eruption was merely a dress rehearsal for the horror that was to come.

We've all flown in these years since 9/11. Airport security has increased and continues to do so with each failed tighty-whitey/shoe bombing, but the industry forges on, battered, but not deterred. This unlikely rogue state has taken a much broader tactic, employing the power of its natural resources for something other than hot spas and geothermal energy -- for terror. Thanks to this eruption, which can only be imagined with a sort of perverse sexual imagery ("erupt", "bulge", "pyroclastic flow"), Iceland has crippled Europe's airways and cost its economy millions, perhaps billions. Take that, terrorists!

Let this be a lesson for us all. Look not to poor, attention-hungry countries with fanatical dictators for the next foreign conflict. Let's look to the volcano states. It would be folly to ignore the slumbering beast patiently waiting the next ocean over. The 2004 Tsunami was just the first volley: the Pacific Ring of Fire is blessed with 2 advantages: 75% of active and dormant volcanoes on earth, and a badass name. Chile, Indonesia, and those bastards up in the Pacific Northwest are all a risk to our god-given right to freedom. Mark my words: Iceland is just the beginning of volcanic terrorism.  Axis of Evil, big whoop -- the real enemy is on the Discovery Channel...

Thanks, law school

For "continuously and systematically" stripping me of my ability to write a funny, topical, frivolous blog about the quirks of life I find amusing. I'll take another crack at it soon enough, I promise.