Political Fauxs

The 21st Century's gonna be a new century! Not the century of slavery, not the century of lies and issues of no significance, of classism and statism, and all the rest of the modes of control... it's gonna be the age of humankind, standing up for something PURE and something RIGHT! What a bunch of garbage, liberal, Democratic, conservative, Republican, it's all there to control you, two sides of the same coin! - Alex Jones in Waking Life

Politics are a touchy issue. It is often hard to have a discussion with somebody about politics unless they identify with your "political party". I am guilty of getting overly defensive but if I was to have a rational counterpart who was able to disagree respectfully I would very much enjoy a political discussion. It is the degree of disagreeability I have a great distaste for; I think people are too quick to defend themselves rather than listen to opposing viewpoints. I can tell immediately if somebody is willing to have a productive discussion or is going to be stubborn and abrasive. Here's how-do they ever express interest in your way of thinking or are at least able to agree on a middle ground? If not all hope is lost, abandon ship. There must be a mutual respect for each others intelligence.

The views I hold descend from the political environment I was surrounded by and I tend to think this is the way most people are. One parent was conservative one was liberal. I've spent 70% of my life with two presidents and say 90% of my politically aware life with these guys (I'll say this starts at age 10-around 1996). I lived in a mostly white upper-middle class neighborhood. Here are my cliff notes of those administrations:

Clinton: (Highest Approval Rating: 73; Lowest Approval Rating: 37)-a time of financial prosperity, scandal, and peace. The economy did very well and we actually started paying back our national debt. Clinton was certainly no stranger to scandal though. How big was the Monica Lewinsky thing? I'll throw Linda Tripp's name in there because that seemed to be tossed around all the time. The Clinton administration was able to keep the United States secure and was able to administer peace talks between Bosnia and Herzegovina. During this time it became clear to me that too many government officials took advantage of their status here are a few of these people who worked for President Clinton (these officials deeply sadden me to the point of great frustration): Webster Hubbell, Dick Morris, Mike Espy and Henry Cisneros.

Bush: (Highest Approval Rating: 90; Lowest Approval Rating 25)- Bush achieved the highest approval rating of the 13 presidents whose ratings have been tracked, but also the 3rd lowest. (behind Truman-22 and Nixon-24). Bush's presidency will probably be remembered for 9/11. He was able to rally America during this difficult time, indicated by his approval rating of 90 10 days after. He was able to capture perhaps our greatest enemy and begin the spread of democracy in a terrorist nation but also pass the now controversial USA Patriot Act under the cloak of 9/11. Unfortunately, the urgency of the Bush Administration to invade Iraq may have greatly affected the way the world views the United States. The Bush administration, like Clinton, lost many conniving government officials: Alberto Gonzalez, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Karl Rove, Alphonso Jackson, and Harriet Miers. Finally, the financial collapse of 2009. Many attribute this financial collapse to the deregulation of bank restrictions which actually can be seen starting in the Clinton administration (see: Glass-Steagall Act Repeal) Notice, however, that neither Bush nor Clinton are fault, congress is largely to blame as the repeal of this act passed with flying colors due to bi-partisan support. Interesting how the one thing congress can agree on is the ability of banks to run wild and eventually collapse the worldwide economy.

In the 2000's I started proactively thinking about politics more often. In my search for political coverage I discovered C-Span (zzzzzzz, snore, cough, zzzzz) and the Fox News Channel (not to be confused with your local Fox News show). Fox News is known to make edits to video tape and sound clips to drive the most radical conservative agenda . In fact Fox News is a misnomer, it is actually opinion based programming rather than objective news coverage. Hopefully the audience watching the most popular cable shows realize this. I recently found a comparable left-wing channel. I was very disappointed because who the anchor is: Here's the story-before a boy becomes a man and has to worry about things like politics, sports are what he talks about. That boy goes to ESPN for sports and one of the greatest anchors was Keith Olbermann. He had the wittiest and most hilarious quips "He put the biscuit in the basket" or "I can read his lips, and he is not praying" or "real craftsman don't blame their tools". Unfortunately, he somehow found a job in politics and is now the liberal version of Bill O'Reilly.

I tend to watch shows like the Daily Show. Admittedly, it is skewed towards the left. However, The Daily Show regularly brings on guests from both political parties and always treats them with mutual respect (unlike MSNBC or Fox News). The most powerful and substantive portion of the show is the before and after clips. People are actually held accountable for the things they say (both Democrats and Republicans); it is a depressingly honest representation of the hypocrisy of our government. I wish more news sources took this approach, corporations skirt accountability too easily due to their influence. If you haven't seen Jon Stewart's debate with Jim Cramer (Part I, Part II) it is journalistic gold.

After writing this blog a few things become more clear. The two major parties of our government are fundamentally flawed and furiously self-interested. How do you sift through all the garbage on television and on the internet then? Well my personal experience has told me that if there's one thing that can't lie it's numbers. If you're interested in reading straight facts about politics go to http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/. If you don't like his articles you can at least respect the ability to draw interesting conclusions based on statistical data.

What do we have to look forward to with President Obama. Yes, lets think about the good things Obama can offer us. Lets forget about the garbage about the Nobel Peace Prize, even Obama basically admitted he was undeserving...which segues to my next point- He SEEMS to be a sincere, honest president. He has some wonderful ideas lets see if he's going to commit to actually making a change. You have to admit his town hall meetings are refreshingly intimate interactions with our government. He is willing to directly answer the public's concerns. I think we can all agree health care needs an overhaul and president's have been down this road before and failed. I think the best way to consider the health care debate (forget about party allegiances) is to consider existing examples of government run health care. I will provide a link to Wikipedia's pages and you make up your mind whether these are successful or not.

I. Medicare
II. Medicaid
III. England's Universal Healthcare (other countries included in link)

IV. Hawaiian Universal Healthcare (This is a New York Times Article which many regard as Liberal)

Sometimes all the lies and deceit brings me to a breaking point and I like to remind myself why the government is such an essential part of life. The Declaration of Independence is my welcoming reminder that this country made some visionary changes to a human society in the past for the good of its people. The beauty in America is that people have a voice and maybe one day we will be able to instill a passion in our politicians to reflect on our history and elminate the petty self-righteousness...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Solar Power:(Light) Wave of the Future?

    Recently I've been visiting prospective graduate schools. I've been to the University of Delaware, University of Massachusetts-Lowell, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. These trips have been a lot of fun really and meeting professors is always an interesting experience. So my plan is to research something related to renewable energy sources. Solar power is my first interest. Wind power looks to have a really bright future and is a few steps ahead of where solar is today. In my opinion wind power technology is fairly straightforward and wouldn't really interest me academically and solar power today is... lets say imperfect and that's what draws me to it. It's so expensive and inefficient but consider the potential advantages:

a) The sun will be burning for ~4 billion more years so the source is not going anywhere soon
b) I think people are more willing to install solar modules than a wind generator on their property. Solar panels are more customizable and less of an eye sore (check out these cool shingles or roofs)
c) One interesting study showed that if we employed 8% efficient solar panels on the 6 major deserts we could provide the WORLD its energy needs. However, the study admits there are major technical and political obstacles standing in the way so don't take this too literally.
d) The places in most desperate need of electricity are right where the sun's rays are strongest
e) Nano-science is pushing the boundaries of solid-state electronics and thin films which would directly affect solar cells.
f) Being responsible for our own power generation would clearly make us more aware of our energy consumption (The Google Power Meter alone reduces power consumption). That link and this somewhat cheezy movie shows, just having knowledge gives people the power to change. We've become so reliant on electric companies that its hard to consider our alternatives.
g) Clearly a corollary to part f would be relieving our dependency on electrical companies. I don't foresee nor want the electric companies to become obsolete but I see them as a safety blanket. They will be there when the sun isn't shining. The candle industry had to step aside when Edison started providing DC current to New York. So too the electric companies either need to step aside or aid in the development of alternate energy sources.

Instead of sustaining an illusion of endless energy supply it is time for society to be more responsible and aware. Natural gas and oil reserves are finite, they WILL run out. A wonderful article in Scientific American (draft of the article here) is written by Leonardo Maugeri-an Executive VP of an Italian oil company. Basically he is disagreeing with alarmists who argue that the peak of oil recovery has been realized; once we think we've exhausted an oil reserve we find a new way to extract more oil or we find a new reserve all together. He is right-many studies conducted on this topic have been proven wrong. So how long does he think our reserves will last? According to him we'll safely glide into the next century, after that we will be running on E...100 years of oil left, according to an oil company! This is not some nagging environmentalist urging the use of alternate energy sources (i.e. me). 100 years...wow. At that point we will have no choice but to turn to alternates. Nuclear energy will probably be the understudy to oil in this theatrical performance of "How to Drain the Earth of its Natural Resources as Fast as Possible" written by: The Human Race. But hopefully solar power and wind energy will be viable sources as well. All this tells me one thing: get a head start on solar so that we can conserve some oil, ergo lower our greenhouse gas emissions.

But how do we encourage people to limit their use of natural gas and oil? A good way to motivate people is to offer direct and immediate consequences to their actions. See if you can follow me: having personal power generators (such as solar modules) would be like having an energy checkbook; you would have to budget the amount of energy used and if you saw that maybe you were overusing in the beginning of the month then you would amp it down to stay within your limits (haha amp it down-a little electrical humor there). I can't count how many times I've been guilty of leaving my bedroom light on or leaving a window open or leaving that butt warmer on for too long, but let me tell you I would be willing and able to limit my energy consumption if I knew I would be running out soon.

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