Category Archives: Current Events

Another Regulation Conundrum

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My previous post centered on regulations to force bloggers to disclose seemingly small-fry issues, like whether they were comped with an ebook for reviewing independently published authors.

Thursday’s paper ran a story from the New York Times on a more weighty and poignant regulatory issue.  The article, “Marin County battles hippie holdout,” tells of David Lee Hoffman, an entrepreneur of artisan teas, who designed and built 30 structures during the 40 years he lived on a rural hillside.  Inspired by youthful treks through Tibet and Nepal, Hoffman, 67, and his wife, Ratchanee, have tried to create a sustainable, non-polluting, homestead.  In the process, by ignoring repeated notices of violations of county building codes, they racked up $200,000 in fines and have just been ordered to vacate their home until the violations are fixed. The case is now before a judge.  http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/26/4443307/hippie-askldj-flaksj-dfklaj-sdlfkj.html

photo by Jim Wilson, New York Times

The Hoffman homestead contains such fanciful structures as the Worm Palace, a Solar Power Shower Tower, and a moat, which is integral to recycling household water.  One of the county’s chief concerns is their method for disposing of human waste, which uses worm colonies to help turn human waste into humus.  Composting toilets are not legal in Marin.  The county also says it’s worried about an excess of rain, which could flood the moat and send the gray water into nearby creeks.

Hoffman says, “I did what I felt was right.  My love of the planet is greater than my fear of the law.”

***

There’s nothing simple about the regulations that govern our lives, and many of them serve us well.  I like clean water and knowing the content of the food I eat.  I want pure aspirin when I have a headache, and I want to trust the odometer when I shop for a used car.  If I buy a hot dog during a ballgame, I don’t want to have to think , of Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle.  And I might not want to live downstream from the night soil in the Hoffmans’ garden.

And yet…

Most of us know, in the corners of our awareness, that many of our problems are beyond the capacity of our current institutions.  We know that business as usual is part of the problem.  That regulators do not create solutions.  As Einstein said, “One cannot alter a condition with the same mind that created it in the first place.”

How do we enable people like the Hoffmans, willing to devote their lives to imagining new ways of living?  If we fine and evict people for living their dreams, pretty soon we’re going to run short of dreamers.

Regulating Bloggers?

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Disclaimer: I certify that I have received no financial renumeration, goods, or services for the content of this post.

I know you’re all shocked that the superPacs have yet to contact me, but under a proposal before the California Fair Political Practices Commission, bloggers expressing political opinions might have to insert such a disclaimer.  Last Thursday, FPPC chairwoman, Ann Ravel, announced plans to make such disclosure “suggested” for this November’s elections, and mandatory thereafter.  http://tinyurl.com/773olq2

This stirs up many questions, the first and foremost being, why?  Why focus on bloggers when we all know victory in this election will cost hundreds of millions of SuperPac dollars?  For attack adds on TV, not a few hundred blog posts.

The current FCC push to force TV stations to post the sponsors of political adds is news.  A district court decision to allow superPacs to solicit political add time on PBS stations is news.  The fact that bloggers post their opinions is not.

I believe some politicians cannot abide a medium that is beyond their control, and political blogging is a macguffin as defined in Neal Gabler’s marvelous book, Life, the Movie (look under Book Reviews here for more info). Gabler writes:

“It was with Kennedy in mind that Norman Mailer in 1960 prophesied that ‘America’s politics would now be also America’s favorite movie’…Candidates were the putative stars, the primaries open costing calls, the campaign was an audition, and the election itself the selection of the lead, while the handlers served as drama coaches, scriptwriters, and directors.  As for substantive issues, though they couldn’t be purged entirely, they largely became what film director Alfred Hitchcock…once called macguffins-that is, they were the excuse for setting the whole process in motion though they have virtually no intrinsic value.”

That helps me understand why Ms Ravel would float such a silly proposal.  How would the California FPPC try to regulate bloggers living out of state?  How much money would I have to rake in to be required to disclose?  Five dollars?  Fifty?  Five-hundred (I wish)?  Will twitter or Facebook users have to disclose as well?  What about book reviews?  Will I have to disclose which publishers are buying my pearls of wisdom?  What about lucrative Hollywood kickbacks for my movie reviews?

I think this proposal is a bluff intended to float the notion that bloggers need to be regulated, a move toward the slippery slope of controlling what we can and cannot say.  This being America, the pols still have to tie such actions to some concept of “fairness,” although here it’s pretty thin.  To go after bloggers who might somehow make a buck when Citizens United rules the day is like meeting a Martian invasion with mosquito spray.

But now it’s time for a quick commercial break:

Come on, SuperPacs, make me an offer!  Show me the money!  This space for sale!  Get it while you can!  Bargain prices!  Show me the money!  Will write for loot.  Everyone has their price.  Show me the money!  Did I say that already?  Try me out!

Call me….

What is Social Darwinism?

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No, I am not playing Jeopardy, I’m considering the phrase Barack Obama used to characterize the recent House budget proposal.  I thought I had a good idea of what he meant:  survival of the fittest, applied to human endeavors.

I learned a lot more from an article in a New York Times opinionater blog post written by Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia.  In his article, “The Taint of ‘Social Darwinism,'” Kitcher credits the birth of the concept to 19th century philosopher, Herbert Spencer, who first talked of “survival of the fittest.”  The phrase was never used to describe evolution but survival in the human jungle.  Kitcher characterizes the Social Darwinist view:

“Provided that policymakers do not take foolish steps to protect the weak, those people and those human achievements that are fittest — most beautiful, noble, wise, creative, virtuous, and so forth — will succeed in a fierce competition, so that, over time, humanity and its accomplishments will continually improve. Late 19th-century dynastic capitalists, especially the American “robber barons,” found this vision profoundly congenial. Their contemporary successors like it for much the same reasons.”  http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/the-taint-of-social-darwinism/?src=me&ref=genera

I can’t help thinking of Charles Dickens’ London, where “the fittest” is the pre-repentant Ebenezer Scrooge.

One not so grand irony is that many of our latter day Social Darwinists were born into wealth and opportunity, while truly self-made men and women, like Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, understand the value and necessity of supportive social structures.  In Kitcher’s words, “Horatio Alger needs lots of help, and a large thrust of contemporary Republican policy is dedicated to making sure he doesn’t get it.”

I urge everyone who has a stake in this debate – meaning all of us – to give Philip Kitcher’s article a read.

Bill Moyers Interviews Andrew Bacevich on the Middle East

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On January 4, I published a post called, “Sabre Rattling Over Oil:  Better Get Used to It.”  http://wp.me/pYql4-1AT

I quoted from a 2008 interview between Bill Moyers and Col. Andrew Bacevich in which Moyers says, “Our finest warriors are often our most reluctant warmongers.”  Now we the privilege of hearing these two in a new discussion on Moyers & Company as we seem to drift helplessly toward our third war in a decade, and voices of reason and restraint are drowned out in the hysterical ranting of politicians.

Please be sure to look for the show on PBS this weekend, or watch it on billmoyers.com  http://billmoyers.com/episode/moving-beyond-war/

Andrew Bacevich on Moyers & Company

This week, on an all-new Moyers & Company, Bill Moyers and Bacevich explore the futility of “endless” wars, and provide a reality check on the rhetoric of American exceptionalism.

“Are we so unimaginative, so wedded to the reliance on military means that we cannot conceive of any way to reconcile our differences with groups and nations in the Islamic world, and therefore bring this conflict to an end?” Bacevich tells Moyers.

Bacevich also answers the question of whether Iran is a direct threat to America with a definitive no. “Whatever threat Iran poses is very, very limited,” he tells Moyers, “and certainly does not constitute any kind of justification for yet another experiment with preventive war.”

Andrew Bacevich is a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran who retired as a colonel after 23 years in the military, to teach history and international relations at Boston University.

Doh! Now we (guys) are in for it!

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NPR reports that in response to you know what, Democratic women legislators in six states have proposed new limits to male access to reproductive health care. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/15/148695307/in-protest-democrats-zero-in-on-mens-reproductive-health.   Consider:

House Bill 116 in Georgia states that:  “Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation over vasectomies.”

An Oklahoma state senator proposed new legislation to regulate sexual acts:  “Any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.”

In Ohio, a female state senator sponsored a bill requiring men seeking drugs like viagra to:

  1. Have a cardiac stress test to ensure they are ready for sexual activity.
  2. Obtain written certification from a recent sexual partner that they are indeed experiencing erectile dysfunction.
  3. See a sexual therapist who would explain certain nonprescription lifestyle choices, such as celibacy, as alternate treatments for the problem.

***

It’s the very passion that people bring to these issues make them such effective smokescreens.  If “they” can get us asking the wrong questions…

We slide toward a third war in a decade with no hint of a national debate.  Recent news on Citigroup and Goldman Sachs reveal that the players who brought us the last financial meltdown are on track to do it again.  People know about Rush Limbaugh.  How many have heard of Greg Smith?

It used to be that “Nero fiddling while Rome burned” was the ultimate paradigm of irresponsible leadership.  Now it’s the 2012 presidential election.

And We Have A Winner!

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That’s right, a winner in the: Caption the Condom Cartoon Contest  (announced here last week http://wp.me/pYql4-1MT).

There were at least a few positive outcomes after Rush Limbaugh’s slur of law student, Sandra Fluke, which inspired the contest.

1) One positive result:  I got to use some great alliteration in the contest name. 

2) Another bit of good news:  eleven sponsors bailed on Rush after his outburst.  Unfortunately, a Republican Super-Pac stepped in with bailout money.  Apparently some consider Limbaugh’s mouth too big to fail.

3) And best of all, at least for this blog, Camille w1ns a $10 Amazon gift card with her caption:

If only Rush’s parents had known how to use me properly… 

Please stop by Camilles blog and see what other clever things she is up to: http://poppycockandsomesuchnonsense.wordpress.com/

And thank you all for your entries and for stopping by to share a laugh!

Justice Department Goes After eBook Price Fixing

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The Wall Street Journal reports that the Department of Justice warned Apple and five major publishers that it plans to sue them for “allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203961204577267831767489216.html

The publishers include Simon & Schuster, Hachette Books, Penguin, Macmillan, and HarperCollins.  The suit centers on Apple’s plan to move ebook pricing from the “wholesale model” to the “agency model,” as it prepared to release the first iPad.  Biographer, Walter Isaacson, quotes Steve Jobs:

“We told the publishers, ‘We’ll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that’s what you want anyway,'”  

The publishers were then able to impose the same model across the industry, Mr. Jobs told Mr. Isaacson. “They went to Amazon and said, ‘You’re going to sign an agency contract or we’re not going to give you the books,'”

William Lynch, CEO of Barnes & Noble, testified in a deposition that abandoning the agency model would effectively transfer even more power to Amazon, since they can afford to sell ebooks below cost to build market share.

Everyone who intuitively knows that an ebook is not “worth” as much as a physical book must wonder why the two are so often priced within a dollar of each other.  If ebooks were “fairly” priced, would traditional publishers fall farther behind?  Would more brick and mortar stores disappear?

I don’t know…

But I do know that everyone who has a stake in the issue, or is just curious about the upheaval in publishing, should read this article to keep up on the latest events in the ongoing drama.

Quiz: Who Said These Words on the Senate Floor?

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No prize for the answer to this one, but in today’s climate, it is an eye-opener to realize these words were spoken by an earlier generation’s, “severe conservative.”  Unlike today’s crop, this man was always respected for his integrity and the strength of his convictions:

“I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C’, and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism.’” – Sen. Barry Goldwater, Sept. 16. 1981.

From Richard Brenneman’s blog, eats shoots ‘n leaves: http://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/