transparency

here's a thought i thunk:

there is a movement among progressive types toward more transparency or visibility into the doings of governments and corporations.

the current admin seem bent on having more visibility into the lives and doings of private citizens.

hmmm.

times they are achangin'

my delightful 4-year-old neighbor told me yesterday that she was sorry she didn't see me all day, that she'd "spent all afternoon on the computer" . . . !

september 10 mindset

heard on npr today that obama is accused of having a "september 10 mindset."

ummm, that was when maybe we could have done something to prevent it, right?

responding to gas prices

either these gas prices will motivate us to curb our consumption and find saner solutions that our grandchildren can respect, or we will use them as justification to make some really bad decisions such as: build more nuclear reactors (mccain), lift the ban on off-shore drilling (bush), etc.

the differences between the candidates are clearer by the day.

bush's choice is to blame democrats and wonder ". . . how high oil -- how high gas prices have to rise before the Democratic-controlled Congress will do something about it" oops. didn't mean to mention oil prices when blaming dems for gas prices.

january 09 isn't going to come fast enough.

now in my line of work
i seem to see a lot more than most . . .

that's a line from an old jimmy buffett song that's in my head. but who among us doesn't feel that way? doesn't everyone? or do i just hang around with people who seem to see a lot more than most?

what i wish i were hearing about energy costs

just home from a trip to boston. drove up, flew back. gas prices are painfully high, though i suppose we'll think soon enough that $4.00/gallon doesn't sound so bad.

in theory, i understand that we need these high prices and this pain to motivate a less destructive way of life. what i hate is that, in yet another way, the burden falls hardest on those who can least bear it, while exxon made $40 billion profit from our pain last year, is on track again so far this year, and is now selling off its gas stations because there's not enough profit there.

here are some things i'd like to hear from our leadership:

• this crisis was inevitable and if we'd had good leadership, we'd have done something to prepare, but we didn't.
• there is nothing (sane) we can do to get our old gas prices and lifestyle back. those days are gone.
  
• we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, for reasons relating to national security.
• we need to reduce our dependence on all oil, for reasons relating to our planet.
• this will require some serious changes.
• we need to help the folks on the bottom, especially, for both economic and compassionate reasons. the price of gas is awfully close to minimum wage now.
  
• we need better local public transportation options. now would be good. i've tried using the bus system in asheville for getting around, and it's generally complicated and unnecessarily inefficient. boston, on the other hand, and even tiny ithaca . . .
  
• we need better distance travel options. trains are a great way to travel, but from asheville, i have to come/go through greenville, sc in the middle of the night, and unless i'm going to a city with good public transportation options, i'm stuck once i get there. (a nod to my friend chris ahrens who died last year, but to the very end, argued for passenger rail in our area)
• both local and distance public transportation will have to be subsidized or provided by governments, for the good of all of us, and we can't wait until the demand is high enough to make it profitable. we need investment in it first, so that it works, so that it can be understood as a workable option, so that demand can go up enough to support it.
  
• we need natural light and air in our homes and workplaces, so we're not spending so much on the artificial kind. we need better building design.
  
• for what we now call "the cooling season," we need well-placed trees to protect our homes from direct sunlight. trees that lose their leaves in the winter so the sun warms us in "the heating season." or if we have direct sunlight, what about solar options or green roofs?
• we need heating systems that work room by room. if the baby's room needs to be warmer, great, but we shouldn't have to heat the living room and kitchen all night.
• we need to cut down on how far things are shipped across the country, which means learning how to buy local -- not as a rigid rule, but as a factor to consider. i already pay more for organic, partly because i like supporting organic farmers. i willingly pay more to shop at town hardware, because i like supporting local business. i can start paying better attention to the local angle.
  

i recently heard mike farrell quote john o'donohue, saying that the duty of privilege is absolute integrity.

we who are privileged need to make choices others can't make. we all need to do what we can to create the world we want.

i'm no energy expert. these things won't solve everything. i just want us to think about all this, have a real conversation and go in a sane direction. for a change.

surprise! eric just moved to boston

eric's been spending so much time on biz trips to boston . . .

we knew he might need to get an apartment there. we were pretty sure the company he's working with would need to set up headquarters there. we didn't know it would be so sudden.

last week it was suddenly time. i looked for apartments on craigslist. he went to see them. he signed a lease on one. i packed up his car. i drove to boston. we went to ikea. presto! instant apartment!

the house in asheville is on the market and it looks like i'll be at cornell law this fall -- and he'll be in boston.

note: you can stop reading now if you're not really interested in the details of his apartment -- i'm mostly doing this part for family:

here is the apartment from the outside. his is the bottom right. he can walk to arlington center. the bus to harvard square is about a block away.

the living room / office:
panning to the left, the door to the bedroom:

continuing the leftward pan to the kitchen:
bedroom:
bathroom:the view out of the front living room window, complete with eric walking home from the cleaners:

bush, a very successful president

this from will durst at 23/6:

Say what you will about the President, he knows how to turn the switch that greases the gears of the Republican Party Cash Machine. Oh sure, he may have an approval rating lower than a puppy-eating cobra, but this puppy-eating cobra lays the golden egg. The last seven years have been very very good for America's wealthy which means the wealthy still like George Bush very very much and they will pay very very good money to hang out and have their pictures taken with him. He's not only a rich person, he's a rich person's rich person.

so, sure, not all extremely wealthy people make these choices based solely on economic self-interest, but still.

durst's post is about mccain's relationship to bush and money, but it gave me a way to understand what i perceive to be bush's continuing pride in the job he has done/is doing. maybe it's not cluelessness. if the people around him around him are genuinely delighted with his presidency, then he can see himself through that lens and continue to feel good about it, despite . . . well, everything. which is how he appears to me: self-confident, pleased, laid-back, spending his lame-duckness the way seniors who've done well spend that last bit of high school.

what do i want?

christine is doing her "great big dreams" retreat again this weekend, and that's got me thinking about what it is i want.

yes, i want to sell the house, but more specifically i want to sell it at a good price to someone who will love being here and be good neighbors with lela and miles next door.

and more generally, i want to be free of these possessions (including the house) that seem to hold me in ways i don't want to be tethered.

so how do i ask for what i want? i want to live simply and be free to do the work i feel called to.

that reminded me of what we hoped for during our "delusions of stability" in 2006 when we bought this house -- we wanted it to be a good launching pad.

wow. that worked.

careful what you ask for.

mental retardation and death penalty

my home state of north carolina sure has sentenced a lot of mentally retarded people to death.

in 2002, the supreme court decided that we could no longer constitutionally execute mentally retarded people.

at my future alma mater, john blume has compiled a rough list of the number of people who have had their sentences reduced from death in light of this ruling. nationally, there are 83 on the list, and guess how many north carolina claims? 16! maybe that means nc is just busier getting them off the row than other states, but i kinda doubt it.

thanks, as always to karl keys for his faithful gathering and posting.

there are three executions scheduled for this week.

non-coverage of the issues about florida and michigan

i'm feeling frustrated with the coverage of the decision yesterday. a month ago, howard dean gave jon stewart a better explanation of what the issues are/were. here's a nugget but the clip is enlightening, hilarious and smart. jon stewart is a funny, funny man.

we're gonna find a way to seat them at the convention.

[jon: . . . how can you seat them when their results don't count?!]

it's a little hard but we're gonna do it.

first of all, you can't win without michigan and florida in the general election.

second of all, ya gotta be fair to the campaigns, not just the voters in florida and michigan.

third of all, ya gotta be fair to the other forty-eight states who did what they were supposed to do.

it's gonna be quite a juggling act but we're gonna do it.

the mainstream media are happier to report the expressions of frustration and division without covering the issues. sigh. once again, i get better news from the daily show.