Oh, Canada

Canada must be concerned that the previous Administration had tilted so far to the left that the country was in danger of tumbling off the continental shelf. That's the only explanation for the sudden extreme surge to the right, with the withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and the banning of veils at the oath of citizenship ceremonies.

Of course, one might ask if I can criticize them over Kyoto when the US doesn't even adhere to the protocol. Of course I can; I am not my government, and I've criticized the US too.

The gist of it is that Canada says the Kyoto Protocol does not successfully solve the problem of climate change, at least not to the extent that it offsets the economic costs to industry. The implication is that the Kyoto Protocol is just a bunch of words, just pomp and circumstance.

If they are making this argument, then why would they stress the importance of being able to see the face of someone taking the oath of citizenship? If Oaths and Accords do not have inherent value guaranteeing success, why make the oath of citizenship sacrosanct enough to request someone sacrifice an important element of their personal religion? Do they ask Christians to make some sacrifice acknowledging Canada over Jesus?

A couple clarifying points: I do not agree that women should have to wear veils; I think it is also quite reasonable that they need to verify their identity at some point in the application process, to remove the veil so it can be confirmed they are who they say they are. But during the public ceremony, when they are simply saying words to signify the completion of the application process, what difference does it make?

If your ceremony is about the values of openness and equality, if you are asking Muslims to sacrifice their veil, what are you asking other applicants to sacrifice? You know, to keep things equal.

From The Papers: Further Amateurish Reactions To The World

Canada: The New United States, And Not In A Good Way

A climate meeting opened in South Africa on Monday, in the face of the upcoming expiration of the environmental commitments from the Kyoto Protocol. Against this backdrop, it is reported that Canada will announce a formal withdrawal from the accord next month. Really, Canada? What happened? I used to look up to you, both literally and figuratively. Oh, that's right, Harper happened. Trust me, Canada, being an international douchebag might look like fun from where you're standing, but it's not all it's cracked up to be.


College Campus Revolutions

UC Santa Cruz students and faculty staged a protest of the pepper-spraying of UC Davis students and proposed tuition fee hikes. Where to begin with this?

1) UC Davis needs to out and out fire the police officers responsible, but the question is, should it be done publicly, or should they be allowed to slip away into the night? A public shaming might trigger unfortunate responses, but would anything less than a public revelation satisfy the outrage over this particular episode? Either way, this incident must follow the officers should they attempt to apply for new jobs in law enforcement. I'm usually one to allow for extenuating circumstances and second chances, but there are no extenuating circumstances in this case, and therefore, no second chances.
2) As for the tuition hikes, yes, education is getting extremely unaffordable, and that's damaging to our society in so many ways, both in the moment and in the future. A photo of the Santa Cruz protest showed a chalked message that "Education Is A Right, Not A Privilege." Education should certainly not be only for the privileged few, but the question of whether it is a right is a little trickier. Much as one's civil liberties under the Bill of Rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, are always limited by the rights of others to not be harmed and not have their rights infringed upon, the right to education is heavily contingent on the availability of resources. The universal ideal would be free education for all, but there is no such thing as a free lunch. Resources are needed. To use a physics metaphor, there must be potential energy in order to create kinetic energy, and life tends towards entropy.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't fight for resources, but going after the UC Regents may not be the proper approach. The regents certainly deserve criticism, and it is all well and good to make them sign a pledge that they would fight to raise taxes on the wealthy, close corporate loopholes and and end Prop. 13, but that's no more than a symbolic action. This is certainly a strong message and a coherent plan of action, but it should be targeted at Sacramento.

It is also an issue of national significance. Our priorities are wrong:instead of corporate bailouts, the money should be reinvested in education. Let the free market determine what corporations succeed; corporations that fail should dissolve and try again with a new model. Meanwhile, if we invested in education, we would be spurring the growth and development of a new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs, creating actual 'job creators' and qualifying people to fill those jobs.

What? Another Herman Cain Allegation? I'm Shocked. Shocked.

The AP describes 'an explosive allegation' in which a Georgia woman said she and Herman Cain had a thirteen year affair. Really, at this point, I think it would be more explosive news if someone came forward and said they had NOT had an affair with or been harassed by Herman Cain.

Cain denied it, but a statement from his lawyer did not repeat a denial, but instead basically said that the public and the media had no business snooping into the details of consensual conduct between adults. In general, that's true, but when you are running for president, you are no longer quite the same private individual, and your judgment must be called in to question. Whether or not he had an affair is not really a major issue except between Cain and his wife, but harassment allegations are an entirely different ballgame. Especially when you imply that God told you to run for the Presidency.

On a purely political level, does one's past mean that one can't be an effective leader? I would say no. Look at Bill Clinton. But it is important for us to be able to respect our leaders.

So yes, it is theoretically possible that Herman Cain would be a good president. But no, he wouldn't be. He's just crazy, and kind of slimy.

How The World Has Turned

A gay softball organization has had to pay an undisclosed sum of money to three players who were disqualified from the 2008 Gay Softball World Series because they were perceived to be too heterosexual, as they were bisexual.

First of all, I had no idea there was such a thing as a Gay Softball World Series. I think that is spectacular.

Second of all, I don't know why, but this strikes me as really very funny.

From The News

House Republicans, in continuing to defend the Defense Of Marriage Act after the Obama Administration announced it would no longer do so, is citing a recent poll that found that more than half of all Americans accept same-sex marriage. That's right; they say that because a majority accepts gay rights to marriage, gays are no longer entitled to safeguards against laws that would deny them those rights.

This is the conclusion they draw, rather than concluding that the will of the people, as indicated by the poll results, is that they should not continue a foolish and inevitably doomed position of discrimination.

You can't use poll results to support your argument in one context but completely ignore the same information in a different context. Well, you can, but you had better be prepared to be called a hypocrite.

From The Papers: An Amateur's Reaction To Politics

So, the Chronicle this morning carried an article stating that interim Mayor Ed Lee is most likely going to announce that he will, in fact, run for a full term. This comes on the heels of a very visible 'Run, Ed, Run' campaign--think 'Run Lola Run' but without the funky German techno-soundtrack, although both Lola and Ed have distinctive hair, Lola on top of her head, and Ed on his upper lip.

The reason for the campaign is that when Ed Lee accepted the position of interim mayor when Gavin Newsom emigrated to Sacramento as Lt. Governor, he said he would not run for the full term. This apparently helped secure him some support on the Board of Supervisors, several of whom are now planning to run themselves.

Let's assume that the promise not to run was sincere at the time, and not an example of the old bait-and-switch. The fact that he has changed his mind is controversial. Or at least it is controversial among those who are running for mayor against him. Supervisor David Chiu is quoted as saying, "Our successes this year have been based on trust, and many San Franciscans share the widespread disappointment that Ed Lee has broken his promise to our city."

Widespread disappointment? I want names of those disappointed. I have not seen anybody worrying, wailing, or gnashing their teeth over this. I like a lot of what I know about David Chiu, but this seems like sour grapes to me.

So he changed his mind. Who cares? He still has to run. He still has to be elected, and the reports I have seen during his interim stint show that he has been productive and beneficial to the city. How dare he want to continue if he thinks he can do good work? I'm more bothered by the fact that the 'Run, Ed, Run' campaign was apparently run by people with links to former Mayor Willie Brown and Rose Pak, the head of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce excludes practitioners of the Falun Gong from cultural events. I didn't directly experience Willie Brown as mayor, but his column in the Chronicle strikes me as smug and self-aggrandizing. Lee says he has no involvement with the 'Run, Ed, Run' group.

The promise not to run seems irrelevant to me. It reminds me of a somewhat petty dispute among friends of mine one time, where Female Friend A made Female Friend B promise not to date Male Friend C, even though Male Friend C would have driven Female Friend A crazy if they had ever dated, which they never did. Female Friend B made such a promise, but later did date Male Friend C for a time. Outrage? Hardly. Maybe Female Friend B shouldn't have made such a promise, because things change, such as with Ed Lee's perspective on the mayoral race. But Female Friend A shouldn't have asked her to make that promise, because that promise is silly.

For people to get their feathers ruffled over Ed Lee deciding to run after all is a waste of time and energy. There are more important matters. Let the voters decide if Ed Lee should be mayor, or if one of the other candidates can present themselves as a better option.

What I Don't Want

A doctor in Kansas who performed late-term abortions was murdered outside his church on Sunday. Doesn't matter which side of the abortion debate you defend; this is as bad as it gets.

No matter your politics, no reasonable person could say there is any justification to this murder.

This country seems placed to be polarized on fundamental issues. When I say fundamental, I mean fundamentally not worth killing over. Gay marriage, abortion. The responses on either side are so visceral, so firmly held. It's one American version of Israel-Palestine.

I don't want to fight in a culture war. "Culture war" seems like an oxymoron. I don't know if it even means anything, except in terms of the us versus them paradigm that is so easy to fall into in the aftermath of the State Supreme Court ruling in favor of Prop. 8.

If culture war does mean something, I don't know if there is one going on. But the vitriol is there, and the media sells it. It gets the attention, stirs the blood. I don't like myself sometimes when my blood is stirred in this regard.

Don't get me wrong. I feel that I know what is right. But I don't want to demonize the other side. Even that term, the other side, is really rather nebulous, and at the same time, very simplistic. I don't want to adopt those thought patterns, because that is what breeds actions like the tragedy in Kansas. Think of the killer: if he has a family, if he has parents, they must feel like their life is over. Is that sort of pain worth inflicting for anything?

I deleted a blog entry the other day about the Supreme Court ruling because I realized that it was not helpful, that it was the exact sort of vitriol I have deplored for years from fringe groups. I don't want to be fringe, at least not in a reactionary sort of way. I want to be mainstream, to be thoughtful, to be empathetic. That's the way to progress as a culture, and more importantly, it will be the way to be happier with my own life. A culture war is way too big for one person to fight. The notion makes no sense.

What is it about the narrative of living that makes it so easy for us to write everything in terms of conflict and us versus them? Why do we say that a good story has to have conflict? It may be true, but why? Or is the problem that people don't have a good understanding anymore that conflict doesn't have to be violent to be interesting?

Shorelines And Shorebirds

In the evening at the shoreline, you will find flocks of sanderlings, sandpipers, gulls, Caspian terns, dowitchers, all feeding when the water recedes before scuttling away as the water floods back.

You will also find the Western Snowy Plover, a threatened shorebird that is the focus of a National Park Service protected habitat program.

When you first spot these little guys from a distance, they look like fuzzy golf balls, huddled among the stones and the other birds, helpless and fragile. There are approximately 2300 of them remaining on the Pacific Coast, and up to 100 of these can be found in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, one of the treasures of the Bay Area, which stretches from Point Reyes National Seashore in the north to the Phleger Estate near Woodside.

They are the reasons the National Park Service is implementing the idea of "Sharing the Beach," and why dogs need to be kept on a leash between Sloat and the Beach Chalet. How would you like it if you were chased by a massive furry beast many times your size, or if a kite looked like a predator?

These birds need to be undisturbed to conserve their energy for breeding purposes. They have been on this coast for a very long time; it is their natural habitat. People might ask, "Can't they go somewhere else?" No, that's not how evolution works. And natural selection does not include oil spills, massive luxury development, careless littering of food that attracts predators.

If we are clever enough to exploit the Earth for resources, we also need to be clever enough to preserve it, to control and hopefully repair the damages we inflict. It is our ethical responsibility.

Snowy plovers--and all threatened and endangered species--need our help, now more than ever, because the administration is gutting the EPA and the Endangered Species Act.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne says they are streamlining the Endangered Species Act, permitting departments to make their own decisions about what might harm endangered plants and animals, skipping scientific evaluation of any projects, which not only removes the last vestige of value from the Environmental Pillaging Agency, but also, in the words of Kempthorne, works 'to ensure that the Endangered Species Act would not be used as a “back door” to regulate the gases blamed for global warming.'

That last statement needs no comment. It is appallingly disingenuous, deceptive, and corrupt. Kempthorne is well named Dirk, as he is thrusting his namesake into the heart of the world, into everything more important than the coffers of the corporations that he and his president serve.

This makes me very angry.

There is no sense of shame in this administration, increasingly acting only at the behest of vocal and affluent minorities. There is a crisis, increasing as we are distracted by the campaign for a new administration. (Were you also aware they are now trying to label contraceptives as a form of abortion?)

As the most dominant, technologically-advantaged species on the planet, we are stewards of the world around us. Stewardship is not about consumption, but about preservation, and that is what the Park Service is trying to do, and their job may have just been made more difficult.

The silver lining, from a selfish respect, is that it has, at least for now, eliminated some of the many possibilities for future careers that I have been juggling. Gone are English Literature, Linguistics, History, any of the ivory towered academic realms that cannot be applied to preserving the world.

War

I could talk about how scared I am with Russia occupying Georgia, saying the world can forget about Georgia's territorial integrity. I could talk about the hypocrisy of George W. Bush telling Russia that violence is not the answer. I could talk about the political drama of the US now sending aid and troops into Georgia.

But all I can think about are the Georgians and South Ossetians dying and wounded and left homeless by bombs and bullets.

Hurray! Bold New Horizons With George W.

Speaking of natural catastrophes, President Bush's recent statement proclaiming a 'time horizon' for withdrawal from Iraq is about as vague and abstract and meaningless a political notion as anything I've heard. The newspaper describes it as a concession, but really, it is disingenuous to describe it as anything more than a bubble of rhetoric, devoid of real substance.

The thing with a horizon is that no matter how long you walk towards it, you're never going to get there. Bush is either practicing to deceive again--and doing it badly--or he believes in a flat Earth.

Actually, the latter idea is frighteningly plausible.

Perhaps it is one more example of a clever manipulation of emotions on the part of the lamest-duck president I've ever encountered. He isn't necessarily lying outright; he just wants to sound like he's promising something without actually committing to anything specific. It's the problem of a political system designed to win elections, not engage in a true debate over the best course for the country.

The idea of horizons is romantic, and plays on the 'over-the-rainbow', Westward Ho! sort of mindset. The problem with that is it doesn't actually DO anything, and while I have spent years wishing Bush would do less, this irks me. It's just a bad metaphor, and that offends me as a writer. Plus, it smacks of that sort of grand, epic mentality that produced "Axis of Evil", and we know how well that worked out.

Random Thoughts: The Confidence Game

We all live in gated communities. Sometimes literally, as in housing projects with security fences, or a country-club enclave of the rich and snobby, but always figuratively. (Brief random tangent: San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is getting married in the Bitterroot Valley, spending time in the new gated community near my hometown. How weird is that?)

Most of us have been spared hardships the rest of the world suffers, such as drought, food shortages, civil wars. Until recently, we were relatively unscathed by natural disasters. Even after the heartbreak of Hurricane Katrina, we have still been able to tune out stories of floods and tornadoes in the Midwest and around the world as apparently lacking a direct effect on our lives.

And the foundation of that insularity is our money. Economists talk about bubbles bursting, and I find that image quite appropriate. So much of our economy is based on intangible ideas, the perception of what something is worth, and a general understanding and acceptance that stocks are worth what we agree they are worth. Consider the subprime mortgage crisis: speculators, mortgage brokers, a whole flotilla of people greedy or gullible or both, all overextended their reach, like a balloon that is inflated too far.

It is not just our economy that is based on abstract ideas of value, of course, and there are sophisticated laws of supply and demand and market value that I won't pretend to understand. But fundamentally, we take pieces of paper and say, "Okay, this paper is good for this much product." Or we say, "This piece of paper called a stock was worth this much a while ago, and now, a few days later, it is worth an entirely different amount." It might make for an easy substitute for trading five oranges for a loaf of bread, or trading sex for free housing, or other more tangible economic transactions, but it is undeniably abstract, and based on 'consumer confidence.' And now in the heyday of electronic transfers and credit cards, it is a game of numbers, a confidence game. And of course, everyone wants to win when it comes to games.

But what does it mean to win this game? To have a bank account with inflated numbers? Does that really do you any good in the event of a natural catastrophe?

A current example of this can be found in Mexico. My friend Marina works for a non-profit group that distributes grant money to conservation projects in Mexico. They are currently gearing up for another battle against hotel lobbyists to defend current laws aimed at preserving mangroves along the coasts. Hoteliers want to remove the current stringent laws that forbid any destruction of wetlands; the people of New Orleans could tell them what a good idea that would be. But the thing is, hoteliers could make money by building additional properties, and their argument is that would benefit the locals economically. They do not consider the tangible effects of their actions on the environment. It's an argument of the abstract versus the tangible.

Standardization of costs and values through the abstract techniques of our modern economy is beneficial in many ways. An economy is a method of collecting and distributing and using resources, and money is, obviously, a simplifier for that process. But the process needs to stay tangible. We must understand that it is a tool to allow us to live, not a goal for which we live. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs features many elements that can be fulfilled only with the possession of resources. But it is a long way to go between needing shelter and needing multiple homes in the suburbs, or needing satellite TV, or needing a new car every couple of years. A Humvee is not self-actualizing.

If we are told that suddenly our stocks have less value, or the dollar is losing strength, for most of us, that is a very abstract notion based purely on confidence and instinct. Phil Gramm has many flaws, including: a) calling Americans 'whiners', which is mostly unfair; and b) supporting a candidate for President who has not unequivocally distanced himself from the worst administration I have ever known. However, his assessment that we are going through a 'mental recession' is not entirely baseless, even if he didn't quite get the idea or the presentation right. Say what you will, but we are not the happiest people in the world by any measure.

The trick is to find meaning in life that can be more tangible, to establish what you really need, as opposed to what society says you want. Do something tangible, like pick up trash on the beach. Figure out what toys you might want that you would actually use. How much do you really need?