The Preemptive Pardon

We were talking at a meeting of the minds breakfast this morning and the issue of establishing a truth commission came up. You know, something like occured in South Africa or in Guatemala. Of course, we were not talking about the crimes against humanity that were perpetrated by the South African government or the crimes of the Guatemalan military, we were talking about the war crimes committed by the Bush Cheney Administration.

As you might imagine, such a Commission against the administration was established back in 2006. Here is part of their Charter.

When the possibility of far-reaching war crimes and crimes against humanity exists, people of conscience have a solemn responsibility to inquire into the nature and scope of these acts and to determine if they do in fact rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

That is the mission of the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity. This tribunal will, with care and rigor, present evidence and assess whether George W. Bush and his administration have committed crimes against humanity.(clip)

The tribunal will deliberate on four categories of indictable crimes:

1) Wars of Aggression, with particular reference to the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

2) Torture and Indefinite Detention, with particular reference to the abandonment of international standards concerning the treatment of prisoners of war and the use of torture.

3) Destruction of the Global Environment, with particular reference to systematic policies contributing to the catastrophic effects of global warming.

4) Attacks on Global Public Health and Reproductive Rights, with particular reference to the genocidal effects of forcing international agencies to promote “abstinence only” in the midst of a global AIDS epidemic. more

Of course, this Commission has no real authority. But as this Dec 24th piece in Al Ahram shows, the prosecution of this Administration's War Crimes is still very much on the minds of many global citizens who have watched the last eight years with the same horror and dismay as our brunch group.

Several advocated this morning that much like the 2006 Commission Charter states, "people of conscience have a solemn responsibility to inquire into the nature and scope of these acts and to determine if they do in fact rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity. "

The truth is though, this simply will not happen. And if it did , the Right Wing of this country will go Postal.

So what should people of conscience do?

Just as important, how should the new administration actually deal with the negative international sentiment that the Bush Cheney years have created?

At first, I suggested that Obama should simply issue a preemptive pardon for their acts. It's very hard to argue that you have done nothing wrong if the President pardons you. Even if you haven't been convicted, it must have been eminent or likely.
.
But this was not enough for the group, not nearly enough. As we continued to debate the practical realities of the creation of a Truth Commission with real authority, most agreed it just won't happen in this country. Still, a Presidential pardon for unprosecuted and unrepented crimes just wasn't doing it for them.

So we added this.

President Obama should not only pardon Bush, Cheney, and their collaborators, he should do something physical, something that serves as a Global signal that indeed, real change in the United States has occurred.

President Obama, we more or less agreed, should raze Abu Ghraib prison, and have its broken, pulverized pieces rebuilt into a monument for human decency and respect. He should announce that Guantanamo will not only be closed, it will never be used as a prison again.

.

He must tell the world that the time of torture, and illegal renderings, and the Bush Doctrine of Preemptive War has no place in our National soul.

.

A preemptive pardon may or may not stop the international community from putting these folks in the light of truth in whatever venue might be appropriate, be it the ICC or some other authority. And it shouldn't.

.

But it will tell the world that we know we did wrong.

.

And perhaps subsequently,

.

We can forgive ourselves,

.

And we can begin to focus

.

on the important work ahead.

.

That's CHANGE we can all believe in.

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To Be One

I know this sounds a little tautological, but I had a little epiphany a few days ago. It wasn't the biggest epiphany I suppose, but it did carve itself into the folds of my cerebral processes pretty deeply.

It started when I heard this story from the Pope. In the spirit of human love and understanding during these so called Holy Days, he decided to say this:

Pope attacks blurring of gender
BBC News
December 23, 2009

Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

He explained that defending God's creation was not limited to saving the environment, but also about protecting man from self-destruction. (clip)

Speaking on Monday, Pope Benedict XVI warned that gender theory blurred the distinction between male and female and could thus lead to the "self-destruction" of the human race. clip

"Rainforests deserve, yes, our protection, but the human being ... does not deserve it less," the pontiff said.
.
It is not "out-of-date metaphysics" to "speak of human nature as 'man' or woman'", he told scores of prelates gathered in the Vatican's sumptuous Clementine Hall.

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"We need something like human ecology, meant in the right way."

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The Catholic Church opposes gay marriage. It teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are.

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Rev Sharon Ferguson, chief executive of Britain's Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, described the Pope's remarks as "totally irresponsible and unacceptable".

.

"When you have religious leaders like that making that sort of statement then followers feel they are justified in behaving in an aggressive and violent way," she said."

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From my perspective, the Pope got a twofer here. He put down and marginalized the danger that his flock has put the rest of humankind in with its aggressive fire burning ways, and he managed to continue to provide some group for them to hate so they don't feel too guilty about it. (You can't have a billion Catholics confessing all at once I suppose).

.

Plus, I guess this kind of stuff gets him some distance from all those Priests who have sullied themselves and the Institution they represent with their penchant for alter boys. (a completely different condition called pedophilia).

.

And that's when it hit me.

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There are two types of folks out there. Those who would bring us together, and those who would divide us. And often those who say they are unifiers, are just the opposite.

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If any religious leader speaks in such a way that his folks get to heaven, and those other guys don't, then we need to investigate that. Sure, I understand branding and differentiation as well as most folks, and I'm well aware of the importance of such when it comes to selling something.

But can't we take a break during the Holidays?

.

So what is the tautological epiphany I'm talking about?

.

It's the recognition that "Unifiers bring us together".

And "dividers divide us".

So, no matter what they say they are doing

or who they say they are,

Are they bringing us together,

.

or are they dividing us from ourselves?

.

Now, it does not escape me

that I have found myself

in my own logic pretzel here.

Division may be an illusion,

And hate may generally just be fear.

But when religious leaders stir them both up,

.

I just hate it.

.
And it's hard to be One.
.

At least it's

.
Christmas.

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All the King's Men

As the first day of winter arrives, it's helpful to remember that even though it is the longest night, it's also the first day of the waxing sun. For the next six months, the days will get longer. I spent the weekend putting lights on everything... trees, bushes, the lawn, the house... I even put bright red lights on the railing around the back deck.

I would well imagine that people from space, watching our rather young uncivilized culture develop, would give good reports to their supervisors that "the living forms" on earth seem somewhat developed. They seem to brighten their habitations and settlements as the incidence levels of the sun increase, and they seem to do so with a clear understanding of their solstice.

Whether or not, a waxing economy will follow the sun is another question. As one reader and contributor notes (CL), "great falls do not always mean great recoveries".

"I am not much of a consumer, so I have only been to Starbucks once or twice and do not like their over priced coffee much.

I am an Arranda's person and like my food from places like the taco stands on Caesar Chavez. And I buy my clothes from Goodwill almost always. I like the place and I enjoy poking around used stuff. "

Here's his list of closings:

Starbucks 600
Linens'n Things gone
Ann Taylor 117 stores closed
Eddie Bauer 29 stores closed
Cache 23 stores closed
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Catherines 150 stores closed
Talbots 78 kids stores closed
J.Jill 22 stores closed
The Gap , Banana Republic, Old Navy 85 stores closed
Foot Locker 140 stores closed
Wickes Furniture gone
Levitz furniture gone
Zales 82 stores closed
Piercing Pagoda 105 closings
Disney stores 98 closed
Children's Place 220 gone
Home Depot 15 stores closed
Comp USA kaput
Macy's 9 stores closed
Movie Gallery 400 of 3500 closed
Hollywood Video 520 stores closed
Sprint 125 stores closed
Ethan Allen 12 stores closed
Wilson Leather 158 stores closed
Pacific Sunwear 154 stores closed
Sharper Image 90 stores closed
Dillard's 6 Stores closed
GMG malls value 24 billion dollars owes 23 billion went bankrupt
KB Toys 356 stores closed
Circuit City gone

Yes, this long night brought on by probably the worst president in American History (including Hoover) , is very likely the beginning of a long hard economic winter. But in all fairness, it was not all his doing.

And, it wasn't just the doing of Reagan and his "R"s,

This great undoing is the doing of an economic system

that is based on consumption.

We ignore externalities

while embracing unlimited growth,

in a world run on finite resources.

And all the Kings horses,

and all the Kings men,

cannot put Humpty

back together again.

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art and lists courtesy of Charlie Loving.

Thick and Thin

It's hard to fathom that a barrel of oil was trading for 147.00 dollars just last July, and that it traded this week at under forty. How can that be? And wouldn't it be nice if say something like solar panels plummeted the same way?

Well, they just might. Here's the story from Renewable Energy News:

PV costs to "plummet" in 09

The cost of photovoltaic electricity is due to plummet in 2009, according to leading clean energy analysts at New Energy Finance.

The second issue of its quarterly Silicon and Wafer Price Index shows average silicon contract prices falling by over 30% in 2009, compared with 2008. With thin-film PV module manufacturing costs approaching the US$1/Watt mark, crystalline silicon-based PV will come under severe competition for larger projects, resulting in margins shrinking throughout the silicon value chain, as the company argues in a recent exclusive report – "Through Thick and Thin".

The ultimate winners will be consumers, who will finally see competitive solar power, and those few companies with good cost positions.

The second quarterly issue of the New Energy Finance Silicon and Wafer Price Index shows an average perceived spot market price of solar-grade silicon during October and November of US$332/kg. The weighted average price for polysilicon for delivery in 2009 under contracts signed in 2007 and 2008 was US$113/kg, compared with US$165/kg for silicon for delivery in 2008, a reduction of 31.5%.

At the 2008 contracted silicon price of US$165/kg, silicon contributes an estimated US$1.52/W to the current crystalline silicon module price of around US$4/Watt – or just under 40%.

A silicon cost reduction to US$113/kg in 2009 would therefore lower module prices for the majority of the market volume that uses contracted silicon by 12%. clip

Although the decrease in silicon prices will be good news for silicon-based cell and module-makers, another threat is now looming larger. According to the new report, "Through Thick and Thin", New Energy Finance forecasts that production of thin-film photovoltaic modules will more than quadruple to 1.9GW in 2009, and thin-film technology will be competitive with crystalline silicon photovoltaic in larger space-constrained applications, such as commercial rooftops and smaller on-grid projects. (clip)

New Energy Finance analysis, based on the historic cost experience curve, suggests that current silicon-based solar module prices of US$4/Watt could drop to US$2.60/Watt by the end of 2009, a reduction of 35%. (clip)

For a ground-mounted plant in a region with good insolation, and based on a 6% real cost of capital, this could translate into an unsubsidised generation cost of US$0.17/kWh for crystalline silicon – competitive with daytime peak electricity prices in many parts of the world. Meanwhile, thin-film manufacturers can achieve unsubsidised costs of US$0.13/kWh for the same large project by 2010.

Michael Liebreich, chairman and CEO of New Energy Finance, said: "We are about to see the convergence of two powerful forces in solar photovoltaics: the price premium accruing to silicon refining is about to unwind, at the same time as thin-film manufacturing is really starting to get to scale. (clip)

The next two years will change the economics of PV electricity out of recognition."

As encouraging as these numbers appear, consider how these costs can be further reduced through more advanced optics, chemistries, and other advancements. Here's my edit of a piece from the National Renewable Energy Lab:

New Technologies Show Promise for High-Efficiency Solar Cells
by Kevin Eber, NREL

A number of recent technological advances suggest new pathways to solar cells that will convert a large fraction of sunlight into electricity -- if the technologies can be commercialized, that is. clip

In November, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) announced that they have developed an antireflective coating that captures the entire spectrum of sunlight from any angle.
The arrangement allows each layer to enhance the antireflective qualities of the layer below it, resulting in a highly efficient capture of sunlight.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took a similar approach to boosting solar cell efficiency, but focused their efforts on the back of ultrathin silicon solar cells. The team applied an antireflection coating to the front of the cell and covered the back with multiple layers of reflective coatings and a diffraction grating, trapping light within the cell and boosting its efficiency by up to 50%.

Sunovia Energy Technologies, Inc. and EPIR Technologies Inc. have developed a glass ceramic material with nanoscale crystalline particles embedded in it that is transparent to visible light but converts ultraviolet light into visible light as it passes through. The material could be used as a cover on rigid solar modules, increasing their conversion efficiencies.

Researchers at Ohio State University (OSU) have devised a potential solar cell material that can capture the entire visible portion of sunlight. It has promising properties, including the ability to generate electrons that remained in an excited energy state for a relatively long period of time."

There is even a way that you, yes you, can help in developing affordable clean energy.

The "Clean Energy Project" is part of the World Community Grid, which draws on unused computer resources to generate solutions that can benefit humanity. It will combine quantum chemistry calculations with molecular dynamics to determine the electronic properties of thousands of compounds, and it is expected to be completed in only two years.

IBM will pilot the World Community Grid on its internal computer network. You can learn more about the Project from the World Community Grid and Harvard.

Lowering the price of silicon with more silicon plants, while using less and less of it in advanced thin film PV plants in conjunction with new advanced coverings and diffraction gratings combined with a global effort to combine our computers into a giant super computer is beginning to sound like we're getting serious about changing the way we make energy.

And if we are serious, we'll make it

through thick and thin.

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The Path to Light

Several nights ago, I met with some folks after my workout at the request of a friend and reader. As an energy entrepreneur, he had assembled a group of inventors, investors, and activists who he thought might benefit from my experience and my perspective.

Towards the end of our visit, he volunteered to the group that I was a Marxist. (he is a libertarian and has even worked for Ron Paul from time to time)

I was amazed. I felt a little like the President elect must have felt after Palin called him a socialist.

This guy has read most of my books and he reads the blog from time to time. And, I think in general, he agrees with much of my thinking. But I had no ideal that he considered me a Marxist. And, I don't think he was saying I was a Groucho Marxist. (even though that might be more accurate)

But it did demonstrate how our minds tend to try to place things and philosophies that are new to our experience into categories that fit into historical cubby holes.

True, I do believe that the model we humans presently use to meter our daily lives is more than anachronistic. True, I do believe that an advanced economy should strive to achieve minimum employment, not full employment. And true, I think that an advanced culture should strive to assure all of its citizens a full and meaningful life, independent of the archaic notions that we presently labor under.

But a Marxist?

Hardly.

Marx believed among other things that the basis of value should be based on labor. His view was the antithesis of the capitalist's notion that if you accumulate enough capital, you should be able to live a comfortable life from the return on that capital. It is rather odd that this notion is so prevalent and universally unquestioned in our society. I mean come on, who doesn't want to be rich?

But, much as I am a transnationalist, I am also a transcapitalists, a trans-Marxist, and a trans subject/object manifoldist as much as that is possible, and that's just for starters.

In my view, most any idea or philosophy that has come from our past should probably stay there. We need to be looking at a clean slate here.

We need to start a dialogue, a real dialogue about how we really want our world to be. We need to start thinking and imagining a completely new structure for our civilization. We need to write about it, talk about it, argue about it, and organize around it.

We need to rethink our money system and why we allow a handful of bankers to make the stuff, while thousands sleep on our streets in cardboard boxes over warm sidewalk vents. We need to rethink how we organize ourselves, our settlements, and our growing virtual global community.

We need to reimagine what we must ultimately become.

We need to do this, because, you see, there is every reason to believe that the system, the living money and economic system that has developed over the last 200 years or so is not just "a little under the weather", it might very well have suffered a heart attack. (acute myocardial infarction)

Yes, our trusty old man, our grand ole economic work horse is not just a "little sick"; and, he's not likely to be back on the streets after a little rest. No, he's in intensive care, and no matter how much oxygen and zero percent interbank rates the $ Doctors give him, the truth is, the old ticker just can't take it anymore.

The good news is.... this is not bad news.

An economic philosophy of growth based on the rampant mining of our finite resources at the expense of our natural wealth, (our air, our forest, our oceans, and the life within them) cannot be sustained very much longer. New reports of a changing Arctic make that clear.

We need a completely new human ethic if humankind is to survive and not tear itself apart in the coming decades as the ravages of resource depletion, climate change, and social unrest slowly and steadfastly make their presence known in our political and social landscapes.

Sure, we can develop and install some kind of Cheneyesque "keep the patient alive" heart stimulator, and that's what we'll do. We have to.

And Death will steal back behind his curtain for a time.

But he will leave his mask on the wall,

and his shadow will grow long on the land.

Even as we craft the path to light.

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Milk

After brunch today, we walked down old Pecan Street where we came across the new incarnation of the Ritz Theatre. We saw that Milk was playing so we decided to catch the matinee on this beautiful Sunday.

Maybe the movie was more meaningful because I sometimes stay in the Castro district when I'm in San Francisco. Maybe it's just a really good movie. I thought that Shawn Penn's portrayal was spookey good, sometimes looking just like the real Harvey.

If you don't know the story, Harvey Milk was the first openly gay guy elected in American politics and his story certainly makes for a powerful and moving movie.

I looked at several reviews and most of them just didn't capture my sense of the movie. This one from the local newspaper did the best:

"The movie begins with him in 1978, making a tape recording to be played in the event of his assassination. We then flash back to 1970, when Milk, at 40 years old, decides to throw off his closeted life and move from New York to San Francisco with his new lover, Scott Smith (James Franco). clip

By the time he arrives in San Francisco, Milk looks like a hippie, but he's an old hippie with non-hippie talents, such as a gift for organization and a head for business. He buys a camera shop, and soon his store becomes a community hangout. Before anyone else does, Milk realizes the potential clout of the gay community.

He becomes the guy people go to when they get beaten up by the police. He becomes the guy the Teamsters talk to when they want the gay community on their side. A generation ago, it apparently wasn't that easy being gay in San Francisco, but Milk realizes the way out of the darkness: He understands that mainstream acceptance will come not through hiding and assimilation but through people being openly and unapologetically themselves.

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Van Sant's (the director) goal in "Milk" is to give the gay rights movement the grandness and impact of the civil rights movement.

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To do that, Milk must be made into the gay equivalent of Martin Luther King Jr., who led a moral crusade, fully knowing that he might be murdered along the way.

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In truth, the King comparison only goes so far. Yes, Milk led a crusade that involved physical risk, and the real Harvey Milk did make tapes (in 1977) to be played in the event of his assassination. But it would be stretching things to say Milk was killed because he was gay.

His death was more like a fluke, part of a macabre workplace crime that also robbed the city of its mayor. It's evidence of the film's effectiveness, its power to incite emotion, that Milk's death is made to feel like the inevitable consequence of his being a visionary.

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One truth "Milk" doesn't need to amplify or manipulate: It's that Harvey Milk's story is part of the San Francisco story, and that story still means something, even to those who came to town years later and never heard of Milk until they got here.

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Van Sant's (the director) images of the candle-lit procession in the aftermath of Milk's death, of the tens of thousands filling Castro Street, are as moving as anything on this year's screen. Those images will mean the same everywhere - that there's something in the American soul that makes people want to come together and that makes progress unstoppable."

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Back last September, as I walked down through the Castro, I noticed the Harvey Milk something or another. It was a school or a public building of some kind. I knew something about Harvey Milk, but not that much really.

.

This film will give you the historical context you need to understand what an important figure Harvey Milk was in the struggle against hate and oppression of the gay community, and how every struggle of any community or racial group often finds focus in a single individual.

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It is a potent reminder that progress of the human condition is a constant struggle, a struggle against those who would divide us through our religion, through our cultural biases, and through our fears.

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Like most good hero stories, it shows us how more often than not, great men do not make history, but that history makes great men.

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I suspect there will be a lot of that going on in the next 10 years, as we watch history and we watch those who are in sinc with it move together to change the world in ways we could never have imagined just a few decades ago.

.

Milk made me feel good and it made me cry.

.

And Shawn Penn should get an Academy Award nomination for it.

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What Matters

We've been waiting to hear who will be the new Secretary of Energy. Even though my boss announced to the executive team this morning that he was not going to Washington, I remained confident that someone besides the normal business as usual, green on the edges, let's not be too concerned about climate change if it endangers our economy, fire burning neo-neanderthal would get the nod.

And it looks like we are not going to be disappointed.

According to Huffington and everyone else, it will be Steven Chu:

A Chinese-American, Chu is a professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at the University of California-Berkeley and has been the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004, where he has pushed aggressively for research into alternative energy as a way to combat global warming.

It is the oldest of the Energy Department's national laboratories, but does only unclassified work. In recent years under Chu, it has been at the center of research into biofuels and solar technologies. Chu has been a strong advocate for the need to engage scientists in the search for ways to combat global warming by replacing fossil fuels with other energy sources such as biofuels and the sun.

And this comes from the Steven Chu page on Wikipedia

Steven Chu is an American experimental physicist and President-elect Barack Obama's Secretary of Energy-designate. He is known for his research in laser cooling and trapping of atoms, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. His current research is concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at the single molecule level.

He is currently Professor of Physics and Molecular and Cellular Biology of University of California, Berkeley and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

As global warming warnings grow more dire, Chu is currently pushing his scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and industry to develop technologies to reverse climate change.

And according to the Journal, Obama's new energy czar will be Carol Browner:

Democratic officials said Wednesday. Carol Browner, who headed the EPA under President Bill Clinton, will coordinate energy policy from the White House in a new "energy czar" role.

Browner, 52, would be charged with coordinating environment and energy initiatives across the administration, the aides said.

Other developments in Obama's energy team include Nancy Sutley, an energy official for the city of Los Angeles, who will be Obama’s choice to head thes White House Council on Environmental Quality, according to the aides.

Energy and environmental policies are central to Obama’s plans to revive the economy. Obama has said he wants to spend $150 billion over 10 years to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and create millions of jobs in a new “green” energy economy. "

The idea of having a real scientist in charge of DOE is rather remarkable. Thanks to Wikipedia, here's some history:

The first Secretary of Energy was former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, a Republican nominated to the post by Democratic President Jimmy Carter, the only time a president has appointed someone of another party to the post. Schlesinger was also the only secretary to be dismissed from the post.

Bill Clinton's first Secretary of Energy, Hazel R. O'Leary, was the longest to hold the position, as well as its first female and African-American holder. Clinton also named Federico Peña to the post, the first Hispanic to hold the position. Bill Richardson, who succeeded Peña, was the second Hispanic to hold the position and later became Governor of New Mexico. The current secretary, Samuel W. Bodman, has held the post since February 1, 2005.

If confirmed Steven Chu will be the 12th Secretary of Energy, but he might well be the first to understand the challenge of climate change with the scientific understanding to forge a solution.

Whether or not he will succeed in this epic effort is not really the issue here.

The fact that he actually has a chance....

Is what matters.



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Survive the Fall

When I first started earthfamilyalpha, it was right after the Kerry defeat. The thought of four more years of W was more than I could fathom. Four more years of war, four more years of attacks on science, four more years of lies, and four more years of incompetence in government was more than I could possibly stand.

At least, not without doing something about it.

.

There were those nights that I blogged deep into the night. There were those times that I rewrote the story after being disconnected from the server, somehow forgetting to save my work. There were the nights when Blogger would go bonkers and I couldn't post, and I would get up in the middle of the night to see if the problem had been fixed yet.

Like a lot of bloggers, I was a bit possessed.

Then, an amazing thing happened.

The People of the United States elected a very smart black man to be their leader. And they gave him a Congress that can fund and support his plans and promises. And even though the World is headed for water that is a great deal more than troubled, I am somehow tranquil.

Not that I don't worry about the uncertain future that we all face. Not that I'm not concerned about how we are going to make the changes that we must make if we are to right our ship of state and set it on a course towards environmental and economic sanity. Not that I believe that this new President won't be moved by the military industrial complex that has run this country since Ike warned us about it.

But I do believe that this New President will do his very best to actually bring about the change that he promised.

And with that hope, with that as my basic foundation, I find myself to be at Peace, at least for the time being.

Late last week, as I walked through the foyer at the Hotel where I work out every weekday night, my eye caught someone sitting on the bench to my left. I looked down.

"Tommy?", I said.

Yes, it was Tommy, a friend I had known since we were in Den 2 together at the age of eight. Since the time he moved off to the big city when we were 14, I have seen him perhaps 2 or 3 times at the various decadenal birthday celebrations of our common childhood friends.

We embraced, and I asked him if he would be staying in the hotel tomorrow. Since he was, we made plans to chat in the lounge the next day.

After our brief encounter, I made my way down to the gym, for a good long workout. Later, as I sat in the steam shower, I remembered something that Tommy probably never forgot.

When we were 13 , just before Tommy moved away, we were Explorers together in Troop 14. One of the reasons that we stayed in Scouting so long was due to this really cool trip that we took to Colorado each year to a place called Stonewall, not too far from Trinidad.

At Stonewall, there was, as you might guess, a great natural stone wall that arose out of the ground as if God had somehow hired some giant stone masons, perhaps while he was resting. This perfect slab of limestone or whatever, had somehow turned sidewise during the eons of geologic heaving; and, as the softer soils eroded from its sides with time, and wind, and water, a great natural stone wall remained.

Well, Tommy and about six others of us decided we needed to come down the face of this great 300 foot wall. We made it up to the top coming up the easy side, but we would come down the hard side, the impossible side.

There were four major ledges that we could use in our planned descent down the face. They were narrow, but then, so were we.

As we started our first descent down to the first ledge, we waited as Tommy came last down the rope.

We heard a pop. And there was Tommy falling towards us with his broken rope. Somehow, David Taylor and I managed to catch him with his clothes as he flew past us. Luckily for Tommy, he was the smallest of us all, or we might not have been able to catch him.

Needless to say, our little adventure was now in chaos. Tommy was in shock and not about to go anywhere. So, we stuck him back in a little crevase, and we promised to return once we had managed to get everyone else to safety.

On the last ledge, I stared down as the last person made it safely down. As I breathed a sigh of relief, the rock ledge below my feet gave way, and I became a roadrunner cartoon character.

Tommy told me last week when we met for drinks, that he saw me fall and he figured I was dead. Instead, as he recounted the story, I hit the ground and then simply popped back up, telling my startled group that I was just fine.

We never really talked about this with too many people. It was too stupid, too dangerous, and too unreal to share with our parents or our friends who didn't see it happen.

And now, more than 44 years later, we sat down and talked about in length.

We had to send a rescue team to get Tommy down that day.

But David and I knew that we had saved his life.

So did Tommy.

And whether or not we catch our own complex civilization

as it careens down this cliff of greed and ignorance,

might well depend on luck, as much as strength or skill.

But it will also require courage,

And heart.

And I am at Peace with that.

Because you see,

with the right understanding,

we'll survive the fall.


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Work with me

I've been at a clean energy venture conference during much of the last few days, and all in all, it was a very good one, lots of venture folks, policy makers, and lawyers. There weren't a lot of actual industry folks, but that wasn't the focus of the conference. There was a lot of focus on carbon trading and the road ahead.

During one of the panels, in which an influential "R" still maintained that the jury is still out on climate change, I whispered to a colleague next to me that the discussion was strangely void of the economic reality that exists outside of the new paint and big ceiling beams of the impressive UT conference facility where the event was held.

I mean, think about it, the Princes of the World are once again in Washington begging for mercy from the court of the King. What is happening to our consumer driven economy is nothing short of breathtaking. And the speed of the apparent demise of those who create the very foundation of the post war "everyone has a car, and an electric garage door opener" dream can only be matched by the speed in which the other guys watched their former Soviet Union dissolve like snow on a hot sauna.

Here's part of the story from the NYTs.

Back on Capitol Hill, Auto Executives Still Find Skeptics
New York Times
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON — As the Senate banking committee debated a potential rescue package for American automakers, the committee chairman, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, suggested that it would be difficult for lawmakers to approve a financial lifeline for the three companies. (clip)

“There are a number of ways that we could address this issue,” Mr. Dodd said. “The one that has received a lot of attention is whether Congress will act. If Congress is going to act, it is going to require some significant effort of the coming days. There are alternatives to that.”

Mr. Dodd then used his questioning of a witness, Gene L. Dodaro, the acting comptroller general of the United States, to highlight the authority that the Treasury or the Fed could use to aid the auto companies, either by tapping the $700 billion economic stabilization program approved by Congress in the fall or the Fed using its existing powers to aid imperiled industries.

“Both of those avenues of authority are available,” Mr. Dodaro said.

Mr. Dodd’s skepticism about the ability of Congress to generate enough support for a new rescue plan, coupled with opening comments by Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, who announced that he would strongly oppose a taxpayer bailout for Detroit, signaled just how steep a challenge the auto executives were facing even before any them fielded a single question Thursday. (more)

And well they should. These Princes have managed to drive their once great companies into the Wall Street dirt. And they shouldn't be bailed out, they should be bought out.

Here's Michael Moore:

Members of Congress, here's what I propose:

1. Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address. And because we are facing a massive economic, energy and environmental crisis, the new president and Congress must do what Franklin Roosevelt did when he was faced with a crisis (and ordered the auto industry to stop building cars and instead build tanks and planes):

The Big 3 are, from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil and, more importantly to build trains, buses, subways and light rail (a corresponding public works project across the country will build the rail lines and tracks). This will not only save jobs, but create millions of new ones.

2. You could buy ALL the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion. Why should we give GM $18 billion or $25 billion or anything? Take the money and buy the company!

3. None of us want government officials running a car company, but there are some very smart transportation geniuses who could be hired to do this. We need a Marshall Plan to switch us off oil-dependent vehicles and get us into the 21st century.

This proposal is not radical or rocket science. It just takes one of the smartest people ever to run for the presidency to pull it off. What I'm proposing has worked before. The national rail system was in shambles in the '70s. The government took it over. A decade later it was turning a profit, so the government returned it to private/public hands, and got a couple billion dollars put back in the treasury.

This proposal will save our industrial infrastructure -- and millions of jobs. More importantly, it will create millions more. It literally could pull us out of this recession.

In contrast, yesterday General Motors presented its restructuring proposal to Congress. They promised, if Congress gave them $18 billion now, they would, in turn, eliminate around 20,000 jobs.

You read that right.

We give them billions so they can throw more Americans out of work. That's been their Big Idea for the last 30 years -- layoff thousands in order to protect profits.

These idiots don't deserve a dime. Fire all of them, and take over the industry for the good of the workers, the country and the planet.

What's good for General Motors IS good for the country.

Once the country is calling the shots."

The idea of nationalizing the transportation industry will put more than a dent in the collective capitalist's philosophy, it is downright anathema to who we say and think we are.

But the times before us are extraordinary, and they will call for action that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.

With climate change, and global competition for limited resources,

We're are facing challenges as dangerous and dire

as any that we faced in the last century

when the last new world order was established.

So let's give unfettered competition and unregulated greed a rest,

and lets cooperate to make a new world and a new order.

As the new president might soon say:

Work with me, here.

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True Work

The National Bureau of Economic Research announced today that the US is in a recession. With over 1 million jobs lost, and the DJIA about 6000 points down from it's high, including almost 700 points today, the announcement is hardly news . Here's part of the story from the International Tribune.

In a statement released Monday, the members of the group's Business Cycle Dating Committee - made up of seven prominent economists, most from the academia - said the economy entered a recession in December 2007, when economic activity peaked.

The declaration came after the euro zone itself fell into recession last month. Economists say they do not expect it to grow again, even marginally, until the third quarter of 2009.

Further signs of economic stress emerged Monday, with surveys in China, Europe and the United States showing that manufacturing had declined precipitously in those regions."

According to the economists, the last expansion lasted 73 months with the prior recession running from March to November, 2001.

The expansion of the 1990s ran for a record 120 months.

Yesterday, as we waited for 2 1/2 hours on the International Bridge at Columbia to get back into the country, we had plenty of time to chat. One of the conversations that came up is the notion that an advanced society shouldn't strive for full employment, just the opposite in fact. I wrote about it in a early book called Lightland.

Here's a bit of it.

In a robotic society in which full employment is not the goal, it would be necessary to completely reexamine these generally accepted roles of government. A society in which jobs are being systematically eliminated through advancements in technology and efficiency would need a completely different work ethic in order to prosper and grow.

Such a work ethic would embrace the notion that work is not a daily repetitive motion in which the participants strive to earn a living in the world system of markets or in the dead halls of government. Rather, true work would be more likely represented by the work of the artist who has labored over her canvas.

True work would be represented by the creative scientist who has once again failed trying to describe the effects of gravity in such a way that it can be manipulated to benefit humankind. True work would be the care that one human has given to another.

Such a Robotic Society would need to feed and house its participants with a minimum of intervention in their lives. Food and housing would be a right of each citizen who participates in the community.

How might this be accomplished?

A Robotic Society will more likely need to provide for these basic needs with new inventions of social contract. Perhaps there will be private food coops which act like the health service organizations that were considered in the US health care debate. Perhaps they will be organized around communities. However, these communities would not just be geographic, they could be electronic. They could be professional. They could be based on personality or personal choice.

The same kind of creative solutions that will work in the areas of food provision will need to be exalted in the quest to provide shelter. The answers will be there when the right questions are asked. The answers will not be found in big government and authoritarianism.

They will more likely be found in the hearts and minds of a humankind that has thrown off the models and institutions of the past and has stepped into the light of the eternal future."

The primary ethic of a robotic society would hold then that full employment as we know it is not a virtue, but is actually a remnant of an immature culture.

Whether or not this recession turns into something else, we'll know soon enough.

But the fact that our entire economic model of growth and consumption is unsustainable on a global scale is becoming more and more known everyday.

We must throw out everything we thought we knew.

And open the windows of our minds.

To our True Work

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art courtesy of Cora Van