Twenty-eight has been the most emotional, searching year of my life to-date.  I woke up one morning with a mild anxiety attack about money - the first time I've ever freaked out to that level about something. I was/am fully employed in a well-paying,  professional job, making nearly twice what I was making just 3 years ago, so what gives? Well, I've recently accrued more debt than I ever imagined without having a house to blame, and I've entered full out adulthood I realized.  I fought it every step of the way this year.  Adulthood is a good place for someone my age to be, but anyone who is an adult can appreciate why I would fight it.  Waking up afraid the timing of my direct deposit would sync up with my automatic payments so as to avoid a multitude of $30 overdraft fees.  Failing to fall asleep because I just got home after spending some surreal hours living someone else's suburban, steak house life to realize you can really care for someone and it not be right for you.  Standing, shaking as emotions get the better of you and your rational brain can't explain why you can't stop sobbing even though you know you shouldn't be.  Falling into a rut so slowly you see it engulf you, but wanting the comfort of its familiarity and confirmation over dealing with adulthood and life.  I'm two months from 29, and I'm still standing... dare I say thriving despite adulthood laying its claim on me.  I'm out of the rut, and cautious about falling into another one.  I still am living paycheck to paycheck despite being a professional now.  I still don't fully understand my emotional self.   But, what's 29 for if not to see how this all is going to work itself out?

I listen to MPR's Current online at work. It's my nod to my homeland, and I just haven't bothered after two years to find a local station I like in Boston. I'm lazy. Anyway, I hear this song that isn't just good filter for life in a cubicle, so I check out the band: The Pipettes. Hmm, I like what I hear. So, when are they on tour because I can't find the song about running away with the milkman on anything but a 4 track cd, and I'm cheap and want my money's worth. Turns out they'll be in Boston in a month. Good, I'm in.  Wait, they're playing with three more bands? $15 and I'll probably get five Pipette songs? Again, I'm cheap. So, now I have to check out the other bands... Monster Bobby is interesting, worth the cash. I'll go to the show. I'm too lazy to check out the other two bands in advance.

 

 

Yet, the American government refuses to raise its revenues to fund the $9 billion/month we're spending on average on the war in Iraq.  True we're cutting away some of our domestic spending in an effort to get the government's budget in the black, but what seems pretty obvious to me is those who bear these burdens are the same - future generations (i.e. posterity.) Friedman has an op-ed in the New York times Sunday on this subject that helped me realize that this is ultimately why I have such a distaste for politics in America.

 

I abhor the short-term tactics of the two-party system which has sliced and diced our voting districts for their benefit (i.e. gerrymandering) that have left this country seemingly crippled to stand up for itself and demand accountability from government servants. The war in Iraq has been a mess from the start from misinformation from top government officials to a lack of support in terms of changeover and equipment for our troops once in battle. Not to mention, we have not raised revenue to pay for this war; rather borrowing ahead on the credit of our children. The same credit we have squandered by not making the difficult decisions regarding healthcare and social security that has left people my age with this knowing feeling that although we pay into the safety net we better make damn sure we build our own because we will never collect under the current system.  Not to mention that it's possible in my lifetime that we run out of affordable oil and gas, yet politicians today refuse to call on our auto industry to make vehicles at least as efficient as those in China.  But what does it matter what you borrow from future generations if the United States continues to be so arrogant as to believe coming up with a goal by 2009 is making serious headway on climate change?

 

I wonder how long my generation and those younger will sit idly by and watch our future squandered. I wonder how my parents sleep at night realizing they are leaving little option for their grandchildren. I thought Americans prided themselves in building a better future for their children. It is time Americans explain and are held accountable for these decisions.

 

Three days prior to President Bush hosts his own climate change talk, the UN opened today a climate change summit saying: "we must act internationally now." President Bush disagrees that this global problem should be addressed on the global stage, and has chosen not to participate in the UN summit.  Bush proposes nations set their own limits. He's at least returning to his early campaigning days where he recognized climate change as a problem that needed addressing, but why is he so afraid to be held accountable (which is really just a figure of speech when it comes to the U.S. at the U.N.) to the world for limiting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions?

 

The New York Times report suggests an interesting twist by a popular terminator may have undermined some of the wind under Bush's sails. Swarchenegger batted clean up after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (South Korea) called for global action. Schwarzenegger claimed California would pull the United States along, and stated that the time has come for an international pact that embraces both poor and rich countries. Condoleeza Rice is scheduled to present the U.S. perspective at the UN climate change summit later today.

 

Up Next:

 

Global Meltdown: Bush v. Schwarzenegger

I thought it was bizarre that none of the major news sources in the US carried prominent news stories about President Bush's call for a two day meeting on climate change with international representatives in the US. I caught the story on the BBC where it was the headline of the website. I am a Minnesotan, and I especially appreciate the attention that was given to one of our major highways literally falling from the sky. However, this was several days later and the bridge story wasn't really developing, so why did it take precedence over Bush finally sitting down to talk climate change? I'll touch on what I think at the end of this blog.

 

Bush plans to address the conference. What will the leader of the largest polluter contributing to climate change say? China and India have been invited. China poised to surpass the US in greenhouse gas emissions. India close on their tail.  Why is Condoleeza Rice the facilitator? What role will the International Panel on Climate Change play? What about Dick Cheney and his fossil fuel lobby?

 

 

As for why the bridge instead of the meeting....

 

1. The bridge was a tragedy with vivid imagery and connections/implications nationally regarding the safety/reliability of our aging infrastructure.

 

2. A call for a meeting is not a meeting is not an announcement of action.

 

3. Understanding of risk and magnitude is difficult to understand on climate change. The risk is high and the magnitude is astronomical. Aging infrastructure carries risks, but I would not consider them as high and the magnitude of impact not as great. However, it's much easier to get your mind around "what if a major bridge in NYC fell tomorrow" than "what if the temperature continues to increase at this rate."

 

That's my two cents. You can read the NYT's blurb on the meeting here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/04/washington/04brfs-DETAILSOFMEE_BRF.html 

I am fully employed. Only a two week adventure to Tanzania stands between me and my full re-entry into the workforce. I will be working on natural gas efficiency in heating homes and businesses. My job is to work with the people who administer energy efficiency programs (i.e. utilities and state programs) to encourage further energy efficiency in the marketplace. This means getting manufacturers to design better products, installers and stores to carry these products, and consumers to want to buy them. The idea is you use these efficiency programs to provide financial and marketing incentives to consumers to transform the market.  On day two, they gave me the rules on anti-trust, and that was the first time I realized the potential of this work if not done properly.  All in all, I spend my days learning about different ways to measure efficiency, how to calculate cost-benefit analysis, and what's the best way to get more efficiency out of heating. I know you're jealous, but I did drop a hefty penny on getting my master's in public policy degree, so we can't all be this fortunate.

 

Tuesday my roommate and closest friend here leaves for home. She has been threatening every day when I get home that she's going to a) go to the bahamas and lounge at an all-inclusive resort; b) mail order bride herself to Russia; or c) go back to California. She chose California. I not so secretly hope she makes it back to the East Coast by August, but we'll see where life takes us.

 

Well, I have yet another goodbye dinner for a friend from school who is moving on. Staying is great because there are a lot of great people here who are also staying, but the myriad of goodbyes is a little sad. Again, we'll see where life takes us.

 

Okay. Enough already. For the past three months, I have been spending my Monday afternoons struggling to glean insights on moral leadership through discussions on topics such as Moses, Huck Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Martin Luther King Jr. I feel like one of those sticky toys you throw at the wall except that I'm covered in dust, dirt, hair and slide to the floor with each toss. The class started with Moses and his 40 years of leadership of the Israelites to the Promised Land. That set the tone. Moral leadership was a commitment to God, a struggle to exceed one's limitations, overcome great obstacles, and come out on the other side.  What was moral about Moses' leadership? He was human, he made mistakes, he kept people together for the most part, he warranted the killing of hundreds after they disobeyed...where was the morality in his leadership? He killed an Egyptian for hurting his people.  Although he faltered, although he was a bit of a martyr at times, he relied on God ultimately to help him lead.  He turned to a friend and religious man for guidance when he couldn't see that he needed to reflect and celebrate...give blessing.  What was Moses' moral leadership? Through struggle and strife, he compelled and led people for 40 years across the desert based on the promise of something more.  They followed. Did he always lead by example? No. Was he inspired and instructed along the way? Yes.  So is that where moral leadership resides? In the ability to be inspired and instructed to lead and/or the ability to inspire and instruct in others the same? Possibly.  We never hit on the answer of what is moral leadership for me to feel grounded that this is on the right track.

 

In a recent paper where I was reflecting on a Vaclav Havel's Summer Meditations, I came up with this answer to the source of morality:

 

            Havel is vague in his description of the source of his morality in Summer Meditations.  He mentions Being, but never describes it.  His best hint at his source comes in his comment on the role of humans:

 

It is an extreme expression of the hubris of modern man, who thinks that he understands the world completely – that he is at the apex of creation and is therefore competent to run the whole world; who claims that his own brain is the highest form of organized matter, and has not noticed that there is a structure infinitely more complex, of which he himself is merely a tiny part: that is, nature, the universe, the order of Being. (Havel, 62)

 

Like Havel, I am at awe of “… the structure infinitely more complex, of which [I] am merely a tiny part.”  In my last reflection paper, I wrote about the feeling of standing in a forest and realizing how small human history, let alone my own history, is in relation to Earth’s – not to mention the history of the universe.  I wrote about looking at a map of the globe on the wall and realizing other people looking at that map would not know my town existed.  The place which defined much of who I was in the first 18 years of my life did not exist to others. 

            In realizing how small one person is, you also realize how much potential we each have.  This statement may at first seem confusing, but consider it.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was one person, but because he dared to dream and because he surrounded himself with other people who supported and dreamt with him, he led a movement that increased the civil rights of African Americans in the United States.  John Muir translated his love of the outdoors into a movement to preserve wildlands which inspired the creation of the Sierra Club with over 1.3 million members who more than 150 years later carry forward the desire to protect and preserve the environment.  Wangari Maathai was a revolutionary in Kenya who faced imprisonment and torture for organizing people to plant trees and overthrow the oppressive regime and now she is the first African woman and environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize and serves as an elected member of parliament.  These individuals and countless others serve as inspiration that the human spirit can transcend “narrow personal interests and at any time be prepared to defend the common good” and they can “stir dormant goodwill” to make a difference.  The common good, the something greater than ourselves that give us moments of awe and hope inspires us to act, but how we act depends on the morals that spring forth from that source.

            For Havel, moral imperatives, which he does not enumerate, call us to realize our “responsibility for the whole world.”  In this sense, Hillel’s three questions are a call to action.  I discuss this more in my reflection on the manifestation of moral leadership.  For me, I believe that in between Christianity and Muslim, East and West, Capitalist and Communist, and any other classification we wish to use to divide up humanity there exists commonalities.  These commonalities are at the core of the human spirit – at the core of our morality.  As humans, I would argue we all have a commitment to Compassion, Truth, and Hope, and that our morals are designed to realize that commitment.  Treat others with respect.  Be responsible for your actions.  Be honest or good.  To go back to Havel: “one must behave the way everyone ought to behave, even though not everyone does.”

 

If we share these morals as human beings, why is it so rare to find moral leaders?

  

I apologize for the late delay in this posting. I started it almost a month ago and got sidetracked.

I think I've caught a case of Ivy (not the poison variety).  The extravagance of my fortunate life hit an all time high yesterday on my 28th birthday.  I celebrated on three continents. I started at midnight April 2nd with a handful of Harvard women bursting into song in a duty free shop at the airport in Amman, Jordan. We had just spent 8 days touring the country, meeting the U.S. ambassador and Jordan's Prime Minister, and working on homes with Habitat for Humanity.  Hours later, 8:00am we looked out the window of a cafe in Paris at the Arc de Triomphe while enjoying a breakfast of crepes and croissants.  This time the birthday song was sung in french by one of my awesome roommates who made the 1 1/2 hour excursion into Paris during our layover happen.  After some 20 hours of air travel and airport layovers, we landed in Boston and after a quick birthday cheer from a fabulous group of women, I received well wishes from friends in Minnesota and Boston.  I ended my birthday snuggled next to an amazing man who planned the perfect birthday for a jet-lagged girl who thinks the world of him.

 

Reality hits this morning slowly as I come to terms with the fact that in a months time I will have finished the majority of my schooling.  I have an interview on Friday. Life is happening. If it is all as good as yesterday, I welcome it with arms wide open.

 

p.s. i'll upload pictures and stories from Jordan after April 11th.

I'm paying the equivalent of $4 for a half hour of internet access, so this will be quick. I have one more full day in Amman, Jordan, and then a day of travel back to the United States after spending 8 days travelling Jordan as a Habitat for Humanity volunteer and tourist. It's been amazing.  I floated in the Dead Sea, stood where Moses is supposed to have overlooked the Promised Land, and stood 20 feet from both the Palestinian and Israeli borders (separated by the Jordan River.) I met 13 wonderful Saudi Arabian women who I hope to keep in touch with long after this experience ends. Sometimes, we are given opportunities that allow us to grow as human beings (this is not in reference to the massive amounts of tasty food they have been serving us.)

 

 

If I gave you a magic wand that allowed you to pick two energy related policies that will be implemented as designed (the magic part!) and will move the U.S. toward a sustainable future, what would you choose and why?

 

 

The two energy related policies I would choose are (1) a nationwide cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide and (2) valuation of externalities and subsidies incorporated into the price of fuel sources. These two policies would begin to approach the social optimum, or “real”, price of energy while realigning incentives to benefit energy conservation.

My specific proposal for implementing a nationwide cap-and-trade system would be to set the cap at NCEP’s guidelines of 1.5% - 2.6% reductions annually based on emission intensity with a full auction of permits. Government revenue from permits would be dedicated to energy efficiency programs and research and development of renewable energy technologies.  One option for the energy efficiency programs is to model New Hampshire Pay As You Save (NH PAYS) in which utilities offer no-interest loans to consumers to invest in energy efficiency and then collect repayment through 2/3 of the energy savings. 

      While climate change remains the 300 lb. gorilla in the room, our energy policies should not neglect other externalities caused by energy production and use. My second proposal would be to level the playing field for fuel sources by adjusting existing sources to reflect their “true” costs by including externalities and subsidies in energy costs, at least when choosing fuel source investments.  Government may still mediate between these “true” costs and ratepayer costs as necessary to support the economy; however, increased energy costs, especially in artificially low markets like the Midwest, would send the market signal that energy efficiency is cost-effective and that energy costs us not only on our utility bills, but also on our healthcare costs, etc.  Reflecting the true cost of our dirtier energy sources increases the likelihood of development in cleaner technologies. For example, in Minnesota, wind energy is the second cheapest source of energy after coal without considering the “true” costs of pulverized coal burning.  This change in policy would increase investment in wind energy to the point it can serve Minnesota’s energy market without resulting in dramatic changes to their relatively low energy prices.

      We pay the costs of energy whether they are in the form of a permit or realized externality every day. These policies are designed to represent that payment in the market, so we make informed decisions as we invest in energy.          

I can't help it. I'm a geek when it comes to energy policy. I get excited at the idea of talking about "negawatts" (the idea that energy efficiency could be accounted for in the supply of energy like coal, renewables, etc.) I also turn a beet shade of red when people talk about energy policy and it's thinly veiled ideological arguments because time has taught us, as we struggle to clean up the carbon dioxide (global warming) problem we allowed by burning coal without accounting for the pollution, that our energy choices carry consequences that cannot and should not be ignored.  So yesterday, I woke up as excited as I was when I was a kid on christmas morning because we were having the head of the regional energy planning agency in class to talk about these topics.

 

In his presentation, he claimed wind energy was not going to be sited in the amounts necessary in the region to address the energy need. He has support for that argument, look at Cape Wind - an offshore wind project that Robert F. Kennedy opposes (because he's a hypocrite.) However, he in the next breath then said the future of the region's energy supply is most likely nuclear. Amusing, seeing as we haven't built a nuclear plant in some two decades because of issues with 1) security (still an issue if not moreso since September 11); 2) this pesky little thing called nuclear waste (so they may have won to have it stored in Yucca Mountain, but now states are fighting because they don't want the stuff transported in their jurisdiction); and 3) high up-front capital costs and insurance premiums.... nuclear plants are expensive and risky (I'm not positive on this, but I think the federal government has granted nuclear plants an out from insurance obligations if something does happen.) Anyway, nuclear isn't just sitting there as the golden key to the future of energy as this guy was suggesting. So, I asked him: Do you think it would be easier to site a wind project or a nuclear plant in the region? Turns out wind has a better shot here in New England. Nuclear will get built, but it will be in the South. Go figure.

 

As he went on with the nuclear cheerleading, he dismissed clean coal (which I tend to like to do because of questions about the technology today, but I'm not as flippant about it as he was) and renewables (despite evidence to the contrary that regions can support 20%+ renewables there is always a resistance from your traditional energy experts).  At one point, he claimed that nuclear was the best way to hydrogen. I agree with him that using coal or natural gas to get to hydrogen doesn't make a lot of sense, at least not at the energy return on investment we see right now.  At one point, he mentioned a report the agency is putting out looking at the future of energy in the region and he said... we're incorporating carbon costs into coal which makes nuclear look better and better. So, I had to ask: When you say nuclear is looking better, it's because you don't internalize the costs of nuclear waste which you admitted earlier made nuclear cost-prohibitive. How do you rationalize not incorporating a known future cost in planning for future energy supplies? Isn't that the problem with coal now? We knew for decades that carbon dioxide was a greenhouse gas, yet we never accounted for it, and now we're trying to get on top of the problem. See the thing with energy decisions is they're often quite long-term, and we are not good at long term planning.  When they decided in the 1950s and 1970s to build coal plants they stuck us with 50+ years of coal generation and the pollution associated with it (granted you can install controls after the fact, but it's not that easy (I could go on and on about this.)) In the 1980s, we switched to natural gas going crazy for this cleaner fossil fuel, but the fuel cost variability have energy prices going all over the place (something that can make or break business and the livelihood of low-income families.) Also, when we take natural gas for electricity it pushes up the price because we're also using it to heat our homes and so families can get hit hard (at least in Minnesota and New England.)   I'm digressing.....

 

Okay, so the guy says yeah we're not internalizing the cost of the waste because that's not our job. We look at the price of an energy source and make recommendations that way. Yeah, I've heard this argument before. It's the one offered that doesn't jive well with the second most common argument they give: regulations cause too many burdens for energy production.  So, you see...don't regulate them, let the free market decide...but when the free market is deciding don't expect it to take into consideration social concerns like nuclear waste.  This wasn't his argument to be clear... it's just where an argument can go. I was inspired.

 

After class, a nuclear engineering student came up to me. I shouldn't worry. They've got nuclear waste taken care of . . . for at least 1000 years. So, build the nukes, set up a trust fund for the future populations who might be exposed and fund cancer research. Am I talking to a Solow scholar about substitutability? See, what this guy was saying was . . . we should use the space for nuclear waste today because the benefit we will get will make us better off and we can invest some of that investment in a cure for cancer and trust funds. That way when the nuclear waste's radioactivity leaks out and contaminates people they can not suffer because they will have the cure for cancer (and I suppose gene mutation and birth defects?) and fat bank accounts to buy themselves indoor games when being outdoors is not an option.  I mean this is obviously an extreme, but the nuclear engineer and I have a fundamentally different approach to the future: He says let us reap as much of the benefits we can today and the benefit of this will better future generations through technological advancement, capital (money) accumulation, and quality of life improvements that only come through economic development (they usually also offer a side argument of why should we care about future generations, what about the starving poor of this generation....problem is I haven't seen the starving poor benefit from siting an energy facility)...these are substitutes for a nuclear waste free environment or a supply of fossil fuels left in the ground. I, on the other hand, say realize that natural resources and the capacity of the environment to handle our waste is finite, take what we need to survive but sustainably which requires that you leave some of the natural resources in the ground or some of the environment clear of harmful pollution because money is no substitute for the bounty provided by a healthy environment.  At this point, he was standing in traffic exasperated at my naivete or worse my anti-technology/anti-progress approach. My mind was spinning because how could you presume that destroying the very thing that provides you with life's essentials was progress. The more I think about it. The more this argument between unfettered human potential to out-race our problems with technology and human advancement and sustainable consumption with investment in protecting that which provides life's essentials (clean water, air, healthy soil, food, etc.) come up in conversations the more I realize this is the economic rationale beyond the arguments you see in energy and air pollution policy all the time. It's nice after a 1.5 years to be able to identify the argument so clearly. Now if only I had the silver bullet solution.

 

I graduate in three months. Breathe. Classes are almost secondary to this looming reality. I've come full circle. The five months before I uprooted from Minnesota to move to Boston I hit this moment in my life where I literally couldn't see what was going to happen. This was new, I could always see my future before that, but then it was just blank.  I got here and the pieces came together, but now with three months left I'm lost again.  It's a little different this time.  I know what I want. Now, I just don't know if I get what I want. Damn the rolling stones! Before I can get to moving on, whatever that means, I've got to get through my thesis.

 

My thesis has become an interesting experiment in seeing how I've changed in the last two years. I still prefer external deadlines and criticism to self-imposed timelines and compliments.  It's been difficult to move forward on this project because I had hyped it up so much in my mind that when it started and I saw the reality of what we were doing and what was expected of us I felt deflated.  I guess it's true that we're our own harshest critics, but I keep holding out for that one sign from the outside world that there are higher standards to be met ... that pushes me to my limits. As it stands, the thesis will be done by the end of this month.  It won't be an embarrassment, even though I lost 5 hours of typing yesterday because I cannot master the save function of my computer.

 

Later this month, I'm going to Jordan for a week on a Habitat for Humanity build with women from Dar Al Hekma, a women's university in Saudi Arabia.  I finally got my passport renewed after 9 years. When I got it in the mail this week, it was as if someone gave me a key to my cell and said you're free.  Traveling is very important to me. I think once you've seen how different the world is.... how your reality doesn't even dawn on someone else and vice versa.... you become addicted.  You want to see the pinnacles of human development (great architecture, art, etc.), the wonders of nature (I can't wait to see the Dead Sea), and the human condition (poverty, happiness, struggle, victory, etc.)  It's a chance to realize how little you know, how much you can learn, and the inspiration of life. I have to say I find it troubling that during our trip we may have a royal visit.  There is no reason for me to sit with the King and Queen. I mean the experience would be amazing, but why because of my affiliation should I have this opportunity that many other people would cherish so much more?

 

And, of course, jobs. My roommates have been interviewing for months for jobs. I have had two informational interviews about jobs I may be interested in.  Unlike my roommates, I have a very defined goal for my next job. The problem is I don't know where I want to do that work. My top choice at the moment doesn't have that job open, and the other two places each have their strengths and weaknesses.  Life choices can be such a pain.

 

I'll post some thoughts on energy policy later this weekend as proof that this blog hasn't just digressed into my personal angst. Until then.

 

 

 

My classes are alright, but not earth-shattering. I haven't delved into the issues I'm passionate about because I've been running to keep up with small less meaningful assignments that are uninspiringly linked to inflated grades. I'm in debt beyond my wildest imagination. Did I make the right choice by going Ivy?

 

I did and this is why: I have shared conversation with the leading voices on policy, politics, news, and culture and I share with a regularity that has me forgetting what a privilege this opportunity is. In three months, will I remember the different formulas to value an infrastructure asset? Not likely, but I'll know I can look that up somewhere. I've already forgetten the analytical framework offered in my public participation course last year, but it's in my notebook somewhere. Have I researched why climate change is different than acid rain as a public policy issue? Not beyond the surface yet. Will I remember having my perspective on climate change policy confirmed by someone who has been writing about it for over 20 years? Yes. Will I remember Salman Rushdie talking about the Kashmiri conflict through the story of Shalimar the clown in a church in Harvard Square? Not even when amnesia captures my mind, and the way I lose my keys, wallet, ID, etc. that's not far from now.

 

A small group of environmentally-minded students in the Cambridge area met for breakfast with Andrew Revkin today. Revkin is the New York Times science writer that has covered climate change since the mid-80s. He gets some grief from liberal climate change activists for criticizing urgency tools, and I get why he argues against it (no one likes chicken little), but at the same time I can't help but wanting to scream "WAKE THE FUCK UP PEOPLE." Look, not to brag, but I was right about the WMDs and the Iraq war; therefore, I must be right about global warming too (pure logic) and I'm scared. Anyway, out of the brunch and on a tangential movement with some other students we've decided to throw together a climate change series for the spring. A series, you know, will totally save the world (if only, i knew a cheerleader in need of saving.)

 

I'm in finals now... I saved this as a draft and then forgot about it. Sorry for the once a semester updates. I will easily survive finals and even found time to snag a potential boyfriend along the way. It's nice to have that potential though a little overwhelming (I'm not a huge fan of commitment.)

 

My final year began with a bang when former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami spoke today regarding the ethics of tolerance in a violent world. His presidency was replaced last year by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (current Iranian President) who has been known for comments ranging from destroying the nation of Israel to hosting a competition for cartoons regarding the Holocaust in response to last years' cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed.  Khatami's speech will be uploaded here soon.

 

He spoke from that place that is between the fences. A space you at once find noble in the sense of building bridges and feeble in the sense of real progress. He condemned both American imperialism and Islamic terrorism. He called for the co-existence of Israel and Palestine while reminding the crowd that Israel has threatened Palestine's existence just as current Iranian President Ahmadinejad threatened Israel's. Reoccuring themes of coexistence, peace, and tolerance were fastened to cautionary tales of double standards. He seemed to stand at odds with all sides and at peace with the best of human intentions. I say, he seemed.

 

In response to clash of civilizations, Khatami has created a center for a dialogue between civilizations. He triumphs peace and democracy, and you find yourself believing maybe what he advocates is possible . . . if only we try a little harder. Then a question in the audience broke the facade, and made me realize that Khatami's hopes and dreams of co-existence, peace, and democracy are as distant as the modern age would have seemed to the first humans. Someone asked him how he could give a talk on the ethics of tolerance while allowing, under his presidency, the killing of Iranians for homosexuality. His response was that punishment and violence are separate things. He supports punishment for crimes, and homosexuality and adultery are crimes. Should the punishment be death? Only in the most extreme cases, but it remains that as long as humans commit such crimes they shall be punished (and possibly with capital punishment.)

 

The truth is humans are flawed and foolish. We believe in nations and religions at the loss of our humanity. We kill and suffer in the names of such things. In his reply to the question of homosexuality he closed by saying that he realized not everyone would agree with him, but he was asked his opinion and gave it. In that sense, I was impressed with his honesty, and my hope pooled around the idea that before co-existence, peace and democracy we must have honest dialogue. In that sense, Khatami showed courage today.

 

For more information on Khatami, check here.

Once a month in the summer on this new "live spaces" format is commendable, and you should be outdoors.

 

So, I can't cope. I mean my emotions and I have a distant, at best, relationship. Case in point: my experience with a cat and the vet. Yesterday, I was welcomed home by the smell of feces...charming. One of the cats I'm housesitting was unable to control himself, and literally had shit all over everything. I was remarkably understanding and entered the apartment. I tried to bathe the cat. I sprayed the entire apartment down in stain remover. I was coping. Enter: next morning.

 

I wake up at 6am. Worried from some web diagnosis of cat diarrhea that the cat died last night. Such is not the case. Rather, he was waiting for me to get up and look for him to jump on my white sheets and defecate everywhere. My god.... I was still coping. I felt bad for him. The vet opened at 8am. I could do this. I don't know a thing about vets. Would I just drop the cat off and be off on my way to work...collect him when he was better? Likely not, but maybe if I was there when the doors opened I could do a walk in and be out quick. So, I wrap the cat in a towel. I can't find or they don't have a carrier for him. It doesn't seem that crazy in the feces-covered apartment. We take a cab because I don't have a car.  I call the vet's office because the cabbie is lost, and am alerted by an answering service that without an appointment I will be charged double. So, 6 blocks from the vet's I call to make an appointment. They suggest this afternoon. Anything earlier? I ask as we round the corner. 11:30am is the earliest. I take it, and hope they have some sort of waiting room for cats that show up early because 3.5 hours of the cat wrapped in a towel on my lap is very unappealing.  We arrive at the vet...8:05am...they are not pleased to see me...is it because i have a cat wrapped in a towel, that I'm 3.5 hours early for my appointment, or because I'm covered head to toe in cat hair? Suddenly, it all seems crazy. When I explain that I don't have a carrier, and that I can't go home and come back (it took 40 minutes and cost $22), she suggests we sit down and be prepared for a LONG wait. I think she thought common sense would prevail and I would not sit down with the cat in my lap for 3 hours....it does have diarrhea, after all. She's right. I let the cat hide behind a plant on the floor. I give it water...I may be crazy, but I'm still a nurturer. Exasperated at my choice (more desperation, but I don't think she realizes it), we get a private room to wait in. I call my mom because I clearly am not a good adult. She's gone, so I talk to my dad. He's fine with the situation, and I start to breakdown (sobbing is coming.) I hang up with him, and call my friend. He's on his way to work. I'm unable to talk. I'm like an unfit mother, but it's a cat....and the cat is showing no signs of illness at the vet. I'm just crazy. My friend is filled with dread that the cat is dead because i'm having a breakdown. No...I'm just covered in cat hair, sitting in a vet's office examination room with a seemingly healthy cat, a bag filled with a sample of the diarrhea, and an almost dead cellphone....for the next 3 hours. 

 

At this point, left only to think, which is dangerous, I start to imagine what's going to happen when the cat owners get home. I noticed on Sunday that their only plant was dying. I thought they said to water it once a month... I thought that was a long time, but respected their wishes. Turns out the note said once a week. I was suppose to start their car and let it run for 10 minutes every couple of weeks, but when I tried this morning (I can't drive a manual) it was dead. Even now, I'm wondering is the battery dead or do I have to step on some pedal to start a car like that? The apartment is covered in feces. The furniture has tell-tale splotches where I used cleaner. There is a fruit fly infestation from a banana that was on the counter while I was out of town for a week. The back up cat sitters didn't take my offer to eat any of my food they wanted, especially the perishables.

 

So here it is some of the best weather I've ever seen, three days from my last day at my internship, a day from the arrival of an out of town guest, and I'm a wreck. I mean I'm fine now... a little agitated by the two loads of laundry and three hours of cleaning it took to approximate a feces-free apartment. The cat is happy as can be. He loves to shed on newly washed things (my clothes all summer), so the apartment is his playground. He's on medicine, so we should be in the clear. It just worries me that all of this happened this morning. It doesn't sound like the actions of a fully-functioning adult.

Last year, the Bush Administration tried to restrain NASA's lead climatologist from speaking out about global warming. When that didn't work, they quietly rewrote the mission of NASA to eliminate support for global warming research.

 

OLD NASA MISSION: “To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can.”

 

NEW NASA MISSION: “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”

 

DIFFERENCE: We no longer care to understand and protect Earth.

 

For more on the story, check out this NYT article.

 

It seems, perhaps, that global warming is An Inconvenient Truth that our government still doesn't want to fully recognize that we need people like NASA's Jim Hansen to study and solve.

 

First, a thank you for the nomination to the BOB's site.

 

Second, a plug to see this amusing new satire from Cynically-Tested Pictures: http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2750016?ns=1

 

Third and final plug.. I've got a friend in the Minneapolis Gay Men's Chorus and they're doing a Southern tour..which I lovingly call "Unbuckling the Bible Belt" -- read all about it and if you live down south..go to a show: http://community.livejournal.com/tcgmc/

 

Now, on to the idea of a basic income...

 

Feeling the frustration of free market inundation in the classroom at odds with the homeless people in the neighborhood, I found myself at a gathering of similarly frustrated students - what struck me as odd was here we were ivy-league students sitting at a chic cafe talking about the plight of the poor, but I was desperate. Here's the proposal: provide everyone with a basic income of, say, $10,000 garnered from a higher tax somewhere else. Then, the proposal goes, all people could afford their basic needs... food, shelter, etc. Obviously, $10K won't buy you a house or really afford you rent in a metropolitan city, but you could partner with your friends and live in a communal situation, so the proposal goes. This wouldn't be seen as welfare because all people regardless of income receive the basic $10K income... wouldn't it be grand?  suggests the proposer.

 

I must be missing something because this makes 1) absolutely no sense to me and 2) doesn't appear to have a shot in hell of coming to fruition politically. First, if all people were given $10K more dollars, wouldn't that shift the prices of all goods (especially finite goods like affordable apartments in new york city) up so that that $10K was the new $0? Not according to the proposer, rather more people would get in the business of building homes because there was money to be made.... but wouldn't that drive up the cost of building homes (not to mention that the market is thwarted by the lack of space in places like nyc) as well? I'll give you it's not directly linear...every dollar of income equaling a dollar higher price of all goods, but I think that on limited goods like housing in metro areas the result would minimize the opportunity of the $10K. The income would also have an effect on the labor market...some people would choose to work less perhaps because they could cover their expenses with the basic income and only half the work they use to do . . . but maybe not because of full-time benefits like healthcare.

 

In the process of challenging the proponent and his idea, he pointed out to me that Alaska provides all its citizen with the equivalent of a basic income . .. that being the petro fund dividend which can be in the thousands. I think it's a weak example: 1) it's an anomaly in the US; 2) it's based on the profits of oil companies drilling not taxation of the employees; 3) there is no evidence that this fund has led to the utopia suggested by the basic income proponent.

 

Wouldn't providing basic needs, like universal healthcare, be a better solution to addressing the needs of the poor than providing all people with $10,000? Or is that not giving the free market enough credit?

 

 

I welcome thoughts on the concept of a basic income.

I think I'm finally back. I've been decompressing after my first year of graduate studies and settling into a summer of research on energy efficiency markets and incentives. Anyway, we all know you could care less about my dull life, and want to get to the textual gold I provide for your hungry, eager mind(s).

 

Today, it's the disservice of great, powerful minds who chose not to engage in the rigmarole of politics and academics. It's inspired by the rebirth of my soul this Spring. After a year of early morning lectures on the glories of the free market, my once constant questioning of the assumptions that humans are all rational beings and that markets operate freely became struggles to make it to lecture or a handing over of my critical thinking skills for my information absorption and graph making abilities. I could find the dead weight loss (hisss..hisss... let the market be free!) in any government policy. I could recite all the economist who came up with nifty ways to think about trade when you could isolate reality away from economics. And it was pretty and neat in round numbers and colored graphs (well maybe not my problem sets, but the solution sheets were.) It was like the reality of a reality show, edited to arouse and numb my mind, and failing to provide much substance. When almost all hope was lost, John Kenneth Galbraith passed away. Suddenly, I woke from my stupor to realize... what was happening in my early morning economics course was far more heinous than just a sugar-coated lesson in semi-futile information . . . it was a culture war.

 

What do I mean? I mean the Galbraith once taught at Harvard. Was the president of the American Economic Association. And quite frankly thought what I learned this year was not proper preparation for dealing with reality and critical economic issues plaguing the globe. If you can get your hands on it, read Power and the Useful Economist which was his address to the American Economic Association. This should be required reading and the stepping stone to a broader understanding of the relationship of power and the market... when the U.S. establishes a new catfish economy in Viet Nam and then destroys that economy when it threatens the American catfish industry that's not a free market.  Ask anyone on the street and they will associate money with power and vice versa. This is common sense, and it's something my classes didn't address.

 

Who cares what goes on in some stifled classroom? In this classroom sits future presidents, directors, politicians, etc. Those who find something wrong with government and politics today should care. When we walk away from these egregious failures in the classroom, when we see the cracks in the facade of higher learning and opt out, we are throwing in the towel - allowing "the way it is" to be decided by those who showed up. Galbraith showed up, and outnumbered as he may have been he rose to the forefront. It is time that those who think that money and power are related, that markets are influenced by politics, and that the growing divide between the rich and the poor is a problem to step up to the challenge - to sharpen their minds against the grain of free market economics and to challenge the assumptions made at the training ground of our future leaders.

 

When the Republicans and conservatives couldn't win a national election and state elections weren't easy either, they went back to the basics. Republicans ran in droves to School Boards, and when you think about it the move was genius. Perched over future generations, they restructured education and a new educational order entered... challenges to evolution in science classes, abstience-only sex education, banning of classic books, and the quieter war over what economics and ethics should be taught. It is not enough to realize the failures of society; rather we have a responsibility to work toward their redress.

 

 

Sort of. Classes are over, tests are completed to yet unknown outcomes, and friends are leaving for internships around the globe. I'm juggling two apartment sublets and a housesitting job, two trips (NY and MN), friends coming into town with friends leaving town, and starting a summer internship that I'm excited about. All of this is to say, I have limited functioning capacity at the moment. More later as I wake up from this stupor. All in all, I have been blessed with a great opportunity.