Author: NewMexiKen

Everything you’ve heard about fossil fuels may be wrong

“Are we living at the beginning of the Age of Fossil Fuels, not its final decades? The very thought goes against everything that politicians and the educated public have been taught to believe in the past generation. According to the conventional wisdom, the U.S. and other industrial nations must undertake a rapid and expensive transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy for three reasons: The imminent depletion of fossil fuels, national security and the danger of global warming.What if the conventional wisdom about the energy future of America and the world has been completely wrong?”

Read more from Michael Lind at Salon.com and have your preconceptions challenged.

I’d like to draw your attention to

. . . two excellent comments regarding Memorial Day and the flag. So I’ve brought them to this post:

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Emmett wrote:

As a former, now recognized (certificate suitable for framing, no medal, no ribbon) Cold Warrior, I never asked or expected to be thanked or recognized. Spitting and cursing had passed before I entered service.

But I left the Navy with a compulsive need to clean and hostility to improper display of the flag; both of which I have had to get over. The flag as attire I coped with as an expression of free speech, but teeth still grate over misuse of the flag in misguided patriotic display.

Worn, shabby antenna versions are a particular peeve.

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Tom Johnson wrote:

First, for most of us, raising the flag quickly to the top of the pole and then down to half staff is not a possibility. My flag options are 1) the 3-by-5 hang-at-a-tilt flag we bought from our son’s Cub Scout troop or 2) the enormous ceremonial flag that draped my father-in-law’s casket, which we hang across the front of our garage on Veteran’s Day. So, in my own defense, let me plead “it’s the thought that counts,” and say that my symbolically incorrect displays, like those of most people, are a side effect of an admirable urge.

Second, let me bitch a little about what Memorial Day has become. Senator Daniel Inouye introduces legislation every year to return Memorial day to May 30, whether that date falls midweek or not. The legislation goes nowhere. His logic, which I share, is that the recognition of war dead should be an interruption, and that turning it into just another three-day weekend diminishes its impact. When we should be gathering as communities to recognize the sacrifice that makes this country possible, we are instead waterskiing and drinking beer. This is a significant civic loss.

Finally, I note a shift in recent years to using Memorial Day as a generic, all-purpose recognition of the military. The motivation for this, I think, is that patriotism has become a cudgel to beat political adversaries with, rather than a feeling of common purpose. Turning Memorial Day from a holiday during which we reflect on sacrifices past to an occasion that demands support of military adventures current is divisive in a way that isn’t productive. It’s like the “I Support Our Troops and President Bush” yard signs that became a patriotic necessity at the start of the Iraq War. This is a very confused understanding of what Memorial Day is for and about, a symptom of the perpetual militarism that the Founders certainly did not support or envision, and a partisan exercise that cheapens a profound American moment.

Sorry I went on so long, but this really gets under my skin.

May 31st

Clint Eastwood is 81 today.

Peter Yarrow, the Peter of Peter, Paul and Mary, and the author of “Puff the Magic Dragon,” is 73.

Joe Namath is 68.

Tom Berenger is 61, Lea Thompson is 50, Brooke Shields is 46 and Colin Farrell is 35.

Fred Allen was born on May 31st in 1894.

Allen was a radio comedian for nearly two decades who, as early as 1936, had a weekly radio audience of about 20 million. When he visited The Jack Benny Show to continue their long running comedy feud, they had the largest audience in the history of radio, only to be later outdone by President Franklin Roosevelt during a Fireside Chat. The writer Herman Wouk said that Allen was the best comic writer in radio. His humor was literate, urbane, intelligent, and contemporary. Allen came to radio from vaudeville where he performed as a juggler. He was primarily self-educated and was extraordinarily well read. . . .

Allen’s program was imbued with literate, verbal slapstick. He had ethnic comedy routines in Allen’s Alley, appearances by celebrities such as Alfred Hitchcock, musical numbers with talent from the likes of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, and social commentaries on every conceivable subject, especially criticisms of the advertising and radio industry. . . .

In 1946-47 Allen was ranked the number one show on network radio. World War II was over, Americans were beginning a new era of consumerism. And a very few consumers had recently purchased a new entertainment device called television. When Fred Allen was asked what he thought of television, he said he didn’t like furniture that talked. . . .

Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819.

American poet, journalist, and essayist … [His] verse collection Leaves of Grass is a landmark in the history of American literature.

Whitman grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and at age 12 began to learn the printing trade. Over time he moved from printing to teaching to journalism, becoming the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1846. He began experimenting with a new form of poetry, revolutionary at the time, free of a regular rhythm or rhyme scheme that has come to be known as ‘free verse.’ In 1855, Whitman published, anonymously and at his own expense, the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Revolutionary too was the content of his poems celebrating the human body and the common man. Whitman would spend the rest of his life revising and enlarging Leaves of Grass; the ninth edition appeared in 1892, the year of his death.

Library of Congress

The South Fork Dam

. . . gave way on this date in 1889 flooding Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The Johnstown Flood National Memorial describes the event:

There was no larger news story in the latter nineteenth century after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The story of the Johnstown Flood has everything to interest the modern mind: a wealthy resort, an intense storm, an unfortunate failure of a dam, the destruction of a working class city, and an inspiring relief effort.

The rain continued as men worked tirelessly to prevent the old South Fork Dam from breaking. Elias Unger, the president of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, was hoping that the people in Johnstown were heeding the telegraph warnings sent earlier, which said that the dam might go. When it finally happened, at 3:10 P.M., May 31, 1889, an era of the Conemaugh Valley’s history ended, and another era started. Over 2,209 people died on that tragic Friday, and thousands more were injured in one of the worst disasters in our Nation’s history.

Renowned historian David McCullough has written about the The Johnstown Flood.

Best line of the day

“For more than a decade, Ohioans have viewed Tressel as a pillar of rectitude, and have disregarded or made excuses for the allegations and scandal that have quietly followed him throughout his career. His integrity was one of the great myths of college football. Like a disgraced politician who preaches probity but is caught in lies, the Senator was not the person he purported to be.”

Sports Illustrated investigation on Jim Tressel, Ohio State

“Says the former colleague, who asked not to be identified because he still has ties to the Ohio State community, ‘In the morning he would read the Bible with another coach. Then, in the afternoon, he would go out and cheat kids who had probably saved up money from mowing lawns to buy those raffle tickets. That’s Jim Tressel.’ “

Say Thanks

Jill thanked her grandfather for his service in the U.S. Navy when we visited the World War II Memorial five years ago. He said it was the first time anyone had ever thanked him — in 60 years.

Remember those who serve.

What he said

I’m at a loss to understand what, exactly, Ruth Marcus, David Brooks, and their cohorts would have Dems do. Congressional Republicans have a plan to end Medicare and replace it with a privatized voucher scheme. The proposal would not only help rewrite the social contract, it would also shift crushing costs onto the backs of seniors, freeing up money for tax breaks for the wealthy. The plan is needlessly cruel, and any serious evaluation of the GOP’s arithmetic shows that the policy is a fraud.

Which part of this description is false? None of it, but apparently, Democrats just aren’t supposed to mention any of this. One party is allowed to present this agenda, but the other party is expected to sit quietly on their hands.

Steve Benen, The Washington Monthly

Via Krugman.

The Flag Today

“Protocol for flying the American flag on Memorial Day includes raising it quickly to the top of the pole at sunrise, immediately lowering it to half-staff until noon, and displaying it at full staff from noon until sunset.”

Library of Congress

Flying the flag but doing it improperly is, to my mind, worse than not flying it at all. It is about symbolism, after all, and that implies ritual.

May 30th

May 30th was Memorial Day (or Decoration Day) for over 100 years. According to the Library of Congress:

In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order Number 11 designating May 30 as a memorial day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

The first national celebration of the holiday took place May 30, 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery … Originally known as Decoration Day, at the turn of the century it was designated as Memorial Day. In many American towns, the day is celebrated with a parade. …

In 1971, federal law changed the observance of the holiday to the last Monday in May and extended it to honor all soldiers who died in American wars. A few states continue to celebrate Memorial Day on May 30.

Jeanne d’Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431. She was 19.

Keir Dullea is 75. Michael J. Pollard is 72. Pollard was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for his performance in Bonnie and Clyde.

Gayle Sayers is 68, Wynonna Judd is 47 and Manny Ramirez is 39.

Cee-Lo Green is 37 today.

Mel Blanc (1908) and Benny Goodman (1909) were born on May 30th.

The first Indianapolis 500 was 100 years ago today (1911). Such a big deal when I was young; such just another day at the car races today.

The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated on May 30th in 1922.

The changing face of Abraham Lincoln

When Abraham Lincoln was elected president on Nov. 6, 1860, most Americans had only a vague idea of what he looked like. Engravings of his likeness had been published in various newspapers around the country, mostly in the North, but some of these illustrations purposely distorted his facial features (the modern version of airbrushing) or simply failed to render accurately his less-than-handsome countenance. In 1856, an Illinois editor, who saw Lincoln in person as he gave a speech, remarked that the politician was “crooked-legged, stoop-shouldered … [with] anything but a handsome face.”

Lincoln was aware of his homeliness. One popular story, which might be apocryphal, claimed that a political opponent called Lincoln “two-faced” during a public debate. Without missing a beat, Lincoln replied to the crowd: “I leave it to you. If I had another face, do you think I’d be wearing this one?” . . .

Glenn LaFantasie writes about The changing face of Abraham Lincoln. A 9-slide show of 1860-1861 vintage photographs accompanies the article.

Ranking Baseball’s Best Ballparks

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight ranks the ballparks.

. . . I looked up the average rating — from one to five stars — for each of the 30 major league stadiums at the popular review site Yelp.com. It’s no more complicated than that. All of the ballparks have at least dozens if not hundreds of ratings from individual fans.

The winner by a country mile is Pittsburgh’s PNC Park. . . .

Click the link above for all 30.

Most ignorant line of the day

“My position many, many months ago when I wrote an op-ed for one of the major national newspapers was this. President Obama was setting up this false choice between default and raising the debt ceiling. And at least for a while, you can take away that false choice by ordering the Treasury to pay the obligations to outside creditors first, and there’s enough cash flow to do that for quite some time.”

Tim Pawlenty today on “This Week” via ABC News

Even an off-the-cuff remark this displays just colossal ignorance. What in god’s name is an “outside” creditor?

Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities

Yesterday Amazon released a list of American cities of over 100,000 people buying the most books per capita. Cambridge, Massachusetts, topped the list. Click the link to see the other 19. Amazon also included this:

  • Not only do they like to read, but they like to know the facts: Cambridge, Mass.–home to the prestigious Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology–also topped the list of cities that ordered the most nonfiction books.
  • Boulder, Colo., lives up to its reputation as a healthy city by topping the list of cities that order the most books in the Cooking, Food & Wine category.
  • Alexandria, Va., residents must be reading a lot of bedtime stories – they topped the list of the city that orders the most children’s books.
  • Summer reading weather all year long? Florida was the state with the most cities in the Top 20, with Miami, Gainesville and Orlando making the list.