New Politics

People usually can’t tell what I am by looking at me. My skin is white, like my mom’s, but some tints of my dad’s Filipino heritage peek through, making me look equally Cuban, Puerto Rican, Italian, anything but Asian. I’m lucky enough to have never really had any allegiance to a certain race or identified with any specific notions of it. I often joke with my friends about these things, usually bringing up all kinds of offensive, inappropriate comments about certain groups to get a cheap laugh, most probably because it’s more complicated for me to get the same treatment. But being a man without a team - a free-lance race(er), if you will - I have few preconceived notions about them myself, allowing me to find a lot of humor and joy in the differences we have and how they effect our interactions and shape our perceptions. I kid because I love. I love diversity, I love that my children will have roots on 3 different continents and I love this country for giving me, my family and countless others like them a place in the sun. Obama’s speech last Tuesday was given from this perspective, which is probably why it inspired and impressed me more than anything I’ve seen in politics. That something has finally spoken to me in this way has also engendered quite a bit of resentment towards the reaction to it.

He is a politician, one trying to contain a damaging scandal that speaks to the very heart of his campaign, a scandal so grievous that it caused Hillary Clinton to overtake him in national polling for the first time in months. He is a candidate who often gets by on looks and charm, his silver tongue paving the way through a rather charmed candidacy. The allegiance to Wright and Trinity were undeniably instrumental in Obama’s acceptance in the black community of Chicago and subsequently by the national black community - a voting block that has been crucial in many of his primary victories over a white woman. These are all things we knew before he stepped to that podium and it was impossible to forget while listening to his words. Perhaps it is because I support him, because I am a racial mutt same as he, because I have been seduced by that aforementioned silver tongue, but I didn’t care about any of it.

If my Catholic upbringing has taught me anything, it’s that if you look hard enough at anyone, you will see faults, you will see sin - they even make you apologize for it first thing Sunday morning. All any of us can do is mitigate these as best we can through good works and faith in eachother, neither of which come easy or without failure. Barack didn’t hide behind his press secretary or some other surrogate, he didn’t throw out some half-baked sound-byte of appeasement in hopes things would blow over by the next news cycle, he stood there for 30 minutes and talked to us like adults. He told us things we all know, but never hear. He made no accusations, but rather placed responsibility equally among all of us, himself included. He asked us to stop raising our voices and start listening to eachother. If you don’t believe me, watch the speech or read the transcript in its entirety. The motivations behind these words are unimportant to me. Sure, he could’ve been trying to divert our attention to save his own ass, but I don’t care. I don’t care why he said what he said, just that someone finally did so.

A black man running for President put his campaign on the line, stepped up to the plate and spoke about race in a way no other politician has ever done, but you would have never guessed by reading about it. A great deal of reaction and coverage was spent haggling over details. He didn’t go far enough to denounce a man who baptized his children, he didn’t explain how many times he heard these statements or the ways in which he tried to stop a preacher from preaching, he made us feel guilty for slavery and that was mean. It is as if we are at a beautiful restaurant in front of a gourmet meal but no one is eating because they don’t like the fold of the napkins. Obama’s mistake wasn’t that he stood by his preacher, it was that he assumed people would actually pay attention.

Politics is a dangerous game, not just for the candidate but for those who support them. We pin our hopes and dreams on certain people every couple of years and when they fall by the wayside, so does our resolve. We allow these candidates to paint themselves as the magic bullet, as the only answer to our problems; and so in their defeat lies ours. The one thing that really made me jump into this campaign was that Obama asked us, the people, to work for what we wanted, to help him reach our goals. Part of this is obviously tactical. You can’t fight the Clintons with the establishment, they are the establishment. The most powerful political machine cannot be undone from within, so he was forced to look elsewhere for his support. His relative inexperience and lack of accomplishments give him less to run on by himself, so he needs more help and faith from the outside. He has no record, so he forgoes specific policy items in favor of meta-themes. It is also, though, an undeniable return to history.

In his incredible book, The Argument, Matt Bai put much of the focus on the Democrat’s search for a post-Clinton identity. But he also provided amazing insight into political movements at large:

The story of modern politics was the story of popular movements molding their candidates, not the other way around. Roosevelt didn’t create progressive government; the progressives of the early twentieth century created him. Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy, while they despised eachother, both derived their essential arguments about social justice from the equality movements of the late fifties and early sixties. Ronald Regan would not have existed without the movement conservatives who offered him a philosophical anchor. These were great and preternaturally talented leaders, men who had the charisma and the intellect to synthesize the arguments that each of these movements had made, to persuade voters of their urgency, and to adapt them to the realm of policy making. But they were merely conduits for change, and they would never have emerged as public visionaries had others not laid the intellectual foundations for their arguments.

Barack has often been chastised for a lack of clarity, rhetoric instead of results. But perhaps this is because his movement, his base, has not yet codified their beliefs or their goals. Regardless of why, Obama has caused a progressive awakening in a generation that faces monumental challenges, my generation. One who has grown to see the prosperity of the 90’s - our formative years - become destroyed by forces outside our control: fanatical terrorism, global warming, economic instability. Those in power attempting to fix these problems are not the ones who live with the consequences. It is my friends who are getting laid off, who go to the emergency room for physicals, who are sent off to fight in the desert. We are the most diverse, best educated and technologically advanced generation this nation has ever seen and we must begin to take ownership of it. We can’t afford to be distracted by the horse race, but rather be enlightened by the message. Say what you want about Barack, but you cannot deny that his calls for a recognition of shared responsibility speaks to the best in us, that a house divided against itself cannot stand. If it takes inflammatory remarks by a preacher for us to take stock of our treatment of one another, so be it. If an opportunistic, ambitious politician can dupe us all into working for eachother instead of against, we are the better for it.

But we cannot expect one man to do it all. Elections are not the realization of change, they are the beginning of it. If he loses the nomination, if he loses the general election, we cannot retreat into the background in defeat. If he becomes our President, it is our responsibility to hold him accountable and help to fulfill the promises of his potential and our own. Obama has outed us. The success of his platform and the goals he has set will only be met through the efforts we make. The themes he has brought to bear since his introduction of Senator Kerry in 2004 cannot be ignored, especially as we descend into an ever bloodier campaign season. Hillary - an impressive public servant in her own right - has undoubtedly inspired many young women to pursue ambitious careers. John McCain has given credence to sacrifice and centrism in a party that has been known for anything but. Obama’s message challenges us to recognize the nobility in our foes, to respect differences and approach challenges with optimistic pragmatism instead of cynical ideology. His candidacy might fade, but these ideas must not.

Many have belittled the thinking man in these times, but the consequences of looking tough and acting stupid are keeping us from what we can become. Harsh crime legislation and unyielding drug policy have stopped neither and added non-violent, first time offenders to the ranks of the incarcerated, now accounting for 1 out of every 100 of our citizens. Elliot Spitzer’s demise at the hands of a call girl might have been cheered by the Wall Street firms he savaged as Attorney General, but considering the greed and deception they perpetuated to bring down our economy - with no jail time in sight - one wonders who really got off and who got screwed. If we could have seen the facts in Iraq for what they were, free from agenda, fear or spin, we would have $1.3 Trillion more in our pockets, we would be without 29,000 wounds and be able to hold over 4,000 of our sons and daughters that have been lost to ignorance. We are waging war against an ideology instead of a nation, so it must be considered that our ideas and culture can and must fight as effectively as our military. If we continue to distill these complex issues down to sound bytes and slogans, deny the due process of debate and discussion and pigeon-hole the myriad points of view into mere black and white we run the risk of turning into the same fanatics that seek to destroy us. If we cannot decide the proper course of action through argument, we must find a way to do so through conversation. Obama or Hillary, Democratic or Republican, we all share the same fate. If there is one thing I hope this Presidential race will teach us, it is that there are more important things than winning elections.

Impending Florida Mail-In: Let the Clusterfuck Begin

Ever the beacon of our fair, balanced and uncorrupted representative democracy, Florida is at it again. There are several reports hitting the wire that the state “government” is day or so away from annoucing their “plan” to administer a re-vote via mail-in ballots. Here is the plan as detailed by the States Democratic Party chair, Karen L. Thurman:

Under her timetable, fundraising and a public comment period would begin today and end April 12, about when ballots go to production. Overseas and military ballots would be sent out April 19. Fifty temporary election offices would be set up May 1 in poor areas to ensure access to voters with mail difficulties. On May 9, the bulk of the ballots would be shipped out, and the election would officially be on June 3, a day shared with Montana and South Dakota.

The counting will be done by an outside contractor using optical scanning devices and signature confirmation and other validation will be done by state and local election officials. Considering the extremely tight timetable, officials argue, this is the best way to get an accurate vote, thereby representing their electorate honestly.

What a bunch of horse shit. Firstly, the “fundraising” period will inevitably include a good chunk of soft money contributions that have been banned in federal elections, making this process suspect from day one. Secondly, there are no gaurantees with the USPS and even if they were iron clad in their delivery, people have moved, they might be out of town, any number of scenarios can interrupt people actually getting the damn things. Not only this, the opportunities for fraud are as plentiful as fanny packs at Islands of Adventure. The verification process happens only when the ballots are received by government officials, allowing for any number of incidents to occur along the way. Buying ballots, hoarding ballots, soaking mail, the possibilities are endless. And most importantly, IT’S FLORIDA. We’re talking about people who got absolutely confounded by hanging chads, who had to go to the damn Supreme Court to tell them how to count and now they think that they can pull this completely new system out of the bag with 3 moths to go? (Here’s a more professional critique)

I have nothing against Floridians on spec, and they absolutely deserve to have their voices heard like the rest of us. But these rules were established by the DNC MONTHS AGO, in full view of the public, and they went ahead and broke them anyway. Citizens could have told their party leaders not to risk a penalty and representatives should have known better, so they have no one to blame but themselves. I undertsand the frustration of having Iowa dictate terms to the rest of the party. Such a small, rural state having this much influence on a nation as complex as this is a little ridiculous, but you don’t change the guidelines by pretending they don’t exist. That the race is so close, so hotly contested and getting so many’s passions boiling is reason enough to try something drastic, which is exactly why this shouldn’t happen.

No matter the outcome, people have to believe that the process is fair above all else, they have to feel that the election happened by the book and that their choice wasn’t hijacked by someone more connected or a favorable circumstance benefitted one group at the expense of another. Every one of Florida’s House Democrats - whether supporting Hillary, Barack or neither - don’t want any part of this because it simply cannot be trusted. 318 delegates can’t be thrown around on spurious information, and if this goes through, there will be no end to the arguments, litigation or controversy, further deepening the democratic impasse and inflaming hostilities on both sides; regardless of the outcome, no one wins this thing. Floridians are complaining that they don’t want to be disenfranchised, but that ship has sailed. You already voted. You were told - in no uncertain terms - that it wouldn’t count and you went ahead and did it anyway. You were disenfranchised from the day you moved your primary, from the moment you broke the rules and that can’t and should not be changed at the 11th hour by some hair-brained scheme. Since you can’t bring yourselves to obey the law, you get to sit and wait for this thing to play out, the same way the rest of the country did in 2000. When the decision is made, you’re gonna have to eat it the same way the rest of us did in Bush v. Gore.

Maybe Dean can cut you a deal and seat your delegates at the convention 50/50 or some other formula determined after the rest of us are through. Maybe you can come to some reconciliation yourselves and relax at the beach until November. But one thing is for sure: you don’t get to decide this race if you don’t follow its rules. Florida wants their voices heard at the expense of the rest of country, and they shouldn’t get to screw us again.

A victory for Hip Hop’s birthplace

2 posts in one day???  It’s been a while since i’ve done that……

Anyway, good news for housing activists and hip hop historians today.  Allhiphop reports the following:

Efforts to save the birthplace of Hip-Hop culture proved successful as the New York Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) rejected a proposed sale of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue to a developer Mark Karasick. According to Sen. Charles Schumer, the HPD cited the fact that current rents could not be sustained if the sale of the property had gone through. The decision is the latest chapter in the struggle for Sedgwick Avenue tenants to preserve their building. Tenants enlisted Hip-Hop co-founder DJ Kool Herc last year to help save the property after word got out that the 100-unit apartment building’s owner planned to leave an affordable housing program. The building has also been deemed eligible to be listed on national and state registers of historic sites.

article appears here.

Let’s Be Frank (furter)

I saw this in a NYtimes blog and just couldn’t pass it up.  Classic!

Obama Doubletalk on NAFTA?

MSNBC News report says that Obama’s campaign called the Canadian ambassador last month to warn that NATFA would “become part of the debate in the democratic primaries, and that Obama would take some heavy swings at the trade deal, but told the ambassador: ‘Don’t worry, its just plain rhetoric. Its not serious.’”

Dodd endorses Obama, makes great speech

“I’ve grown up over the last number of years, listening to people talk about Reagan Democrats. I’m now standing next to a candidate where we can talk about Obama Republicans.

A 7 Mile March to the Polls in Texas (2008)

An incredible story popped up on Crooks and Liars today describing a beautiful answer to a disgusting act in an escalating primary battle:

Early voting starts today in Texas. In Waller County, a primarily rural county about 60 miles outside Houston, the county made the decision to offer only one early voting location: at the County Courthouse in Hempstead, TX, the county seat.

Prairie View A&M students organized to protest the decision, because they felt it hindered their ability to vote. For background, Prairie View A&M is one of Texas’ historically Black universities. It has a very different demographic feel than the rest of the county. There has been a long history of dispute over what the students feel is disenfranchisement. There was a lot of outrage in 2006, when students felt they were unfairly denied the right to vote when their registrations somehow did not get processed.

…

1000 students, along with an additional 1000 friends and supporters, are this morning walking the 7.3 miles between Prairie View and Hempstead in order to vote today. According to the piece I saw on the news (there’s no video up, so I can’t link to it), the students plan to all vote today. There are only 2 machines available at the courthouse for early voting, so they hope to tie them up all day and into the night.

Yes, we’re talking about this election - 2008 - where black students are forced to these lengths to exercise their rights and draw attention to these abuses. This is early voting in a primary, mind you, I can’t wait to see what these kids will do for the general election. By the way, don’t think Yankees are invulnerable to this, either. A little publicized story in the New York Times has uncovered a drastic underreporting of Obama votes in several counties in New York’s primary - in some cases, not registering a single ballot cast in his favor. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m an Obama man, but these are problems that have persisted since the clusterfuck of the 2000 election. No matter who you’re voting for, your vote deserves to be counted and no one - not Obama, not Clinton, not McCain and certainly not appointees to local election boards - should be allowed to destroy or steal them. Federalism has its place, but shouldn’t there be some sort of standard in national voting and election oversight? Shouldn’t we at least use the same machines and meet the same requirements to use them? How can the world’s most successful democracy tolerate these kinds of problems? If there are aspects I am ignoring, please, educate me.

Arroz con McCain

From The Nation

Democrats who think it’s going to be a cakewalk into the White House next November had best remember one name: Condoleezza Rice.

John McCain is a formidable candidate in his own right, but if he has the political imagination to do it, he can cause the party of Jefferson and Jackson indescribable angst with Rice as his vice-presidential pick.

Besides being the greatest two-for in GOP history, Rice brings other huge pluses to the decorated Vietnam hero. Indeed, she may be enough to elect the venerable hero/naval aviator.

McCain’s troubles with the religious wing of his party could well evaporate with the churchgoing Rice at his side. She solidifies that part of his base overnight.

With Rice on the ticket, the GOP would have somebody to get enthusiastic about. The Secretary of State is immensely popular with Republicans. For a party that up to now has been clueless about how to run against either a woman or a person of color, Condoleezza Rice is pure political gold.

Woe to any Democrat who thinks taking her on in a debate is a sure thing. The woman is tough, fast on her feet and able to give better than she gets. Anyone who has seen her in action testifying in front of a hostile House or Senate committee knows that she will be able to wipe up the floor with a plodding, ordinary pol of a Democratic vice-presidential candidate. Take Rice lightly at your peril.

Ann Coulter Endorses Hillary Clinton

Thats right, folks, you didn’t read that wrong. As if this election couldn’t get any stranger, here comes spindly little Ann mouthing off on Hannity & Colmes about campaigning for Hillary if McCain gets the nod from the GOP. Enjoy (if you can):

Ted Kennedy backs Obama

Kennedy’s seniority and force as a legislator will be a huge gain for Obama, whose primary weakness in this race may be a lack of Democriatic party connections as compared to the Clintons. Even if he wins the popular vote, the pimary could be decided by “superdelegates,” members of the democratic party who are not required to pledge their vote to any specific nominee. These delegates have been surveyed to support Clinton more than two to one over Obama, and if the race turns out to be a tight one in the state primaries, they could be the deciding factor in the final nomination. (For a breakdown of how the delegate system works, see CNN’s delegate explainer)

This makes Kennedy’s endorsement critical, as his seniority will put him in a position to sway some of the unpledged delegates who have favored Clinton over Obama. The Clinton’s had encouraged him to remain neutral, knowing his influence, but he has decided to be an active supporter of the Obama campaign.

From the International Herald Tribune:

[Kennedy] intends to campaign aggressively for Obama, heading West this week, followed by appearances in the Northeast. Strategists see him bolstering Obama’s credibility for the office and providing particular benefits with union members and Hispanics, as well as the party base. [...]

After Obama won the Iowa caucuses, associates to both men said, Kennedy concluded that Obama had transcended racial lines and the historical divisions the Kennedy family had worked to tear down. [...]

“For somebody who, I think, has been such an important part of our national imagination and who generally shies away from involvement in day-to-day politics to step out like that is something that I’m very grateful for,” Obama said.

Thanks again, Dennis

American politics is so dirty and that it is usually a downer, but every time Dennis Kucinich makes the news he gives us something to smile about. Not long ago, he introduced a proposal for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. More recently, he managed to see past himself enough to urge his supporters at the Iowa caucus to move to Obama’s corner if he didn’t make the 15% required to be counted in a dictrict. And a few days ago, he asked for a recount in New Hampshire. Now I’m not saying I think New Hampshire was miscalculated, stolen, etc. But in light of certain questionable electoral maneuvers over the past decade (i.e. 2000, florida and 2004, ohio), I have come to the conclusion that asking for a recount can only be a good thing, and that it should be done more often. Candidates have to pay a fee to have a recount done, and Kucinich has chosen to pay for it from his own pocket: beautiful. This, mind you, is a hand recount, meaning that even the votes taken by computerized voting machines will be counted by hand, from the vote printouts they produce.

From TheHill.com,

The lawmaker said he does not expect his own vote count to be significantly affected by such a recount but he added that it is “imperative that these questions be addressed in the interest of public confidence in the integrity of the election process and the election machinery.”

In his request for a recount, Kucinich alleges that there have been “unexplained disparities between hand-counted ballots and machine-counted ballots.” [...]

“This is not about my candidacy or any other individual candidacy,” Kucinich said. “It is about the integrity of the election process.”

Let me just be one to say: Thanks again, Dennis!

New Philly Mayor has some Game

Newly elected Mayor Mike Nutter celebrated his new job with a fairly impressive rendition of the Sugar Hill Gang classic “Rapper’s Delight” during his inauguration party. Not bad to have ?uestlove on the decks, either. After a spotty start, he locks it in around 1:00. Enjoy.

Obama’s next Mistake

Quieting down the crowd that was cheering for him when he spoke after the primary in New Hampshire.

No other candidate has crowds react like that. The people were making a statement of their own, and he could have let them. The chanting O-BAM-A! might have itself become a contagious media event, picked up, circulated and discussed in the wake of the primary, to help give him some steam and offset an apparent loss to Clinton. The only way for the American public to see the excitement he stirs up in people is to let them make a statement of their own. Silencing a show of approval like that, from your own supporters, is passing up a powerful opportunity. It is “little” things like this that will win or lose an election.

Obama’s Mistake

Obama just lost the New Hampshire primary when he should have won it.

Why should he have won it? Because he has better policies, more charisma, and more intelligence than Clinton. Additionally, he has the benefit of having an opponent who is alternately nasty and sacharine, and that is never truly appealing.

In the last debate, though, he commited a fatal mistake. Clearly angry at Clinton for leveling unfair attacks at him, he defended himself artfully, with help from Edwards. Later, Gibson’s guest moderator referred to the “double team” Clinton had faced earlier, in which Edwards and Obama both suggested that Clinton represented the “status quo,” and was a force opposing change. Clinton responded oddly, and seemed to be looking for assurance. Here’s the exchange I’d like to highlight:

SPRADLING: My question to you is simply this: What can you say to the voters of New Hampshire on this stage tonight who see a resume and like it, but are hesitating on the likability issue, where they seem to like Barack Obama more?

CLINTON: Well, that hurts my feelings.

(LAUGHTER)

SPRADLING: I’m sorry, Senator. I’m sorry.

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: But I’ll try to go on.

(LAUGHTER)

He’s very likable. I agree with that. I don’t think I’m that bad.

OBAMA: You’re likable enough, Hillary.

CLINTON: Thank you…

(LAUGHTER)

What Obama doesn’t get is that this is war. Hilary is treating it like one, and she has shown that she is not above getting nasty to win. Obama was not being called upon to speak at this moment, Clinton was floundering, and silence from his corner would have left her to respond without assurance. This is something Obama should have left her to.

By alleviating the gravity of the situation with this little utterance, Obama moved away from his own frustration, which would have provided a platform for some powerful statements towards the end of the debate.

You will say, “but this is so insignificant.” Yes, deceptively so. The real outlines of a situation between people are in these small gestures. Obama is trying to be all things to all people, even a friend to Hilary. That is fine, but I think there were some beefs to settle first, which Obama ignored in favor of social grace. By doing this, Obama gave Clinton a platform that she wouldn’t have had otherwise.

It is worth noting that Obama did not make a very strong showing towards the end of the debate, and Clinton seemed to find her voice a bit more.

For comparisons, see Kerry’s response to Bush’s aggression in the Town Hall debate in ‘04, when Bush refused to let a question go when his time was up. Kerry replies to what Bush is saying, but skirts the more effective (and necessary) approach of taking Bush’s aggression head on and calling him out in it. Does anybody else see any parallels between the Obama-Clinton battle and the Bush-Kerry battle in ‘04? I do.

Aggression tends to win the day in American politics, and Obama will have to learn not to lose sight of the realities of his opponent if he wants to win this race. Softening to create a contrast is not a good option here. The American public tends to prefer the aggressive side of that contrast. There is no need to be nice when the other guy would gladly bash you to kindgom come. That’s not to say he should go negative, but that he shouldn’t forget that Hilary has done so.  She is serious about it and will take every pawn left unprotected. This is not about friendship for her.

Food Shortages, Ethanol and Mike Gravel

A disturbing article in the International Herlad Tribune appeared a couple days ago, and has gotten little, if any traction in the domestic press. According to the UN, on top of everything else going to shit on this planet, our food supplies are running dangerously low.

In an “unforeseen and unprecedented” shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday.

The changes created “a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food,” particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

There - of course - some seriously alarming numbers backing these claims:

The agency’s food price index rose by more than 40 percent this year, compared with 9 percent the year before - a rate that was already unacceptable, he said. New figures show that the total cost of foodstuffs imported by the neediest countries rose 25 percent, to $107 million, in the last year.

At the same time, reserves of cereals are severely depleted, FAO records show. World wheat stores declined 11 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds to 12 weeks of the world’s total consumption - much less than the average of 18 weeks consumption in storage during the period 2000-2005. There are only 8 weeks of corn left, down from 11 weeks in the earlier period.

Prices of wheat and oilseeds are at record highs, Diouf said Monday. Wheat prices have risen by $130 per ton, or 52 percent, since a year ago. U.S. wheat futures broke $10 a bushel for the first time Monday, the agricultural equivalent of $100 a barrel oil

….

high oil prices have doubled shipping costs in the past year, putting enormous stress on poor nations that need to import food as well as the humanitarian agencies that provide it.

There are several reasons for all this:

On the supply side, these include the early effects of global warming, which has decreased crop yields in some crucial places, and a shift away from farming for human consumption toward crops for biofuels and cattle feed. Demand for grain is increasing with the world population, and more is diverted to feed cattle as the population of upwardly mobile meat-eaters grows.

Ironically, our own prosperity is driving our demise. Worse yet, our attempts at combating global warming may be deepening the problem.

In the lead story in last week’s Economist, The End of Cheap Food, the British authority pointed their fingers squarely at America:

But the rise in prices is also the self-inflicted result of America’s reckless ethanol subsidies. This year biofuels will take a third of America’s (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV’s fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year. And it affects them indirectly, as farmers switch to maize from other crops. The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world’s overall grain stocks.

There is no doubt that many of the politicians - and subsequently businesses - pushing for ethanol have overlooked this fact in a nakedly political attempt to curry favor in Iowa while looking serious on climate change and American jobs. Sugar cane-based Ethanol produced in Brazil is cheaper and more efficient than our domestic flavor, especially considering the fact that the amount of energy needed to turn corn into fuel is so high that it offsets any environmental gain; but that won’t win you a caucus in Des Moines. It looks as though these concerns are actually being considered as there is an Energy Bill close to ratification that will expand funding and production quotas for non-corn Ethanol.

All this being said, we are still looking at a fundamental challenge to our way of life, something far more serious than terrorism or Iran getting the bomb. Who cares if we defeat the Jihadists if a loaf of bread ends up costing $500 and you can’t afford to feed your family? Emerging countries have been yearning for the protein-filled, doggy bag taking, dangerously obese lifestyle we’ve pioneered in America; and if the devastating droughts we’ve seen in Australia and our own South-East continue, it’ll be impossible to grow enough for everybody.

There will obviously be plenty of initiatives put forth by Governments, NGO’s, think tanks and the myriad brain trusts we have set up to find answers to problems like this. Nothing will be done, though, unless we as a people can control ourselves. People will always be hungry, but they don’t need to be fat. I’ll start with my own country. It is difficult to consume less in a culture and economy that is solely devoted to that very action, but if this crises deepens (which it likely will) eventually we’ll have to realize that resources are finite and the more we take, the less we leave for the rest of world. Steaks are dope, but not necessary every night of the week and gigantic meals are meant for celebrations, not necessarily lunch.

I’m not advocating a hunger strike or anything, and far be it from me to point fingers, but it seems ridiculous to expect progress without sacrifice. If we are concerned about these problems, we must not only be the first to act, but also be capable of accepting the consequences.  It is well and good to want to feed others, but to be willing to give part of your meal, that’s something else entirely.  The same goes for global warming.  It is fairly easy to rationalize that hybrid SUV, but why not demand better public transit and save $34,000?  Want to get rid of illegal immigration?, then go ahead and work in a strawberry field for $5 and hour and demand higher pay.  Do you support better health-care and education for all?, then pay more taxes.  These are somewhat extreme, but we must realize that we are not powerless to effect change.  The success we seek is only sustainable if we’re all willing to work for it.

Mike Gravel’s candidacy might not be remembered too far past January 3rd, but he had moment of brilliance during a recent debate on NPR. When asked to describe an issue he does not know the answer to, the former Senator from Alaska responded immediately:

“I wish I knew how to convince the American people that they are the answer to these problems, not the politicians. I wish I knew how to make that argument.”

Amen, sir.

 

 

 

The Music Wars: The RIAA Trial and Our First Casualty

Jaimee Thomas is the first person to refuse to a settlement in an RIAA lawsuit, the first defendant in a file-sharing trial, and the first to be found guilty of copyright infringement by a jury of her peers . For this distinction, the single mother of two will be forced to pay her accusers the amount of $220,000. At $9,250 each, here are the 24 songs she infringed upon (from Wired.com):

• Guns N Roses “Welcome to the Jungle”; “November Rain”
• Vanessa Williams “Save the Best for Last”
• Janet Jackson “Let’s What Awhile”
• Gloria Estefan “Here We Are”; “Coming Out of the Heart”; “Rhythm is Gonna Get You”
• Goo Goo Dolls “Iris”
• Journey “Faithfully”; “Don’t Stop Believing”
• Sara McLachlan “Possession”; “Building a Mystery”
• Aerosmith “Cryin’”
• Linkin Park “One Step Closer”
• Def Leppard “Pour Some Sugar on Me”
• Reba McEntire “One Honest Heart”
• Bryan Adams “Somebody”
• No Doubt “Bathwater”; “Hella Good”; “Different People”
• Sheryl Crow “Run Baby Run”
• Richard Marx “Now and Forever”
• Destiny’s Child “Bills, Bills, Bills”
• Green Day “Basket Case”

How much would you be willing to sacrifice for the Goo Goo Dolls? Considering that the plaintiffs had claimed she had distributed in the neighborhood of 1,702 songs through her Kazaa account, one wonders how they came to this eclectic mix of guilty pleasures (no pun intended). Also, the jury could have awarded anywhere between $750 and $150,000 in damages per song, making the amount of $9,250 seem just as arbitrary. Either way, it’s a substantial sum of money on top of already pricey legal fees, something Ms. Thompson will face on her own (from the West Central Tribune of Duluth):

“It’s been very stressful,” she [Jaime Thompson] said. “I have multi-billion dollar corporations with their own economies of scale suing me so it’s been very stressful.’’

She said the lawsuit has also affected her children. “I no longer have any disposable income whatsoever,” she said. “My disposable income used to go for CDs, but obviously not anymore. I’ve had to make some changes regarding extras for my children. All the disposable income went toward this case. I didn’t do this and I refuse to be bullied.”

Her appeal on the grounds that this constitutes excessive punnishment was recently rejected by the Department of Justice, setting a disturbing precedent for the future. The DoJ’s reasoning, surprising similar to the RIAA’s, is that infringement by an individual creates exponential damage to the copyright holder by fact of this dangerous interweb. Acting Assistant AG Jefferey Bucholtz breaks it down for us (from CNET):

Although defendant claims that plaintiffs’ damages are 70 cents per infringing copy, it is unknown how many other users–”potentially millions”–committed subsequent acts of infringement with the illegal copies of works that the defendant infringed. Accordingly, it is impossible to calculate the damages caused by a single infringement, particularly for infringement that occurs over the Internet. Furthermore, plaintiffs contend that their witnesses “testified to the substantial harm caused by the massive distribution of their copyrighted sound recordings over the Internet, including lost revenues, layoffs, and a diminished capability to identify and promote new talent…”

Since it’s “impossible to calculate the damages”, is $9,250 per song really enough? Why not $11,782.63 each? How about $25,902.17? If you’re going to make this woman responsible for the entire downfall of the music industry, if you’re going to make her take out 3 more mortgages her house and jeopardize her family anyway, why not just take her first born or a pound of flesh?

So this is the new business model? The RIAA and the Majors are betting that they can make up they’re lost revenue through suing the pants off people. It doesn’t matter if the product sucks, if we don’t listen to it or if we don’t want it, they’ll be sure to make us pay for it somehow. Who needs marketing when you have threats? High priced lawyers are a better investment than musicians, right? Wired’s interview with Universal Music CEO Doug Morris highlights the struggles going on between the ears of a lot of these old school executives, none of whom really get whats going on while still trying to reconcile the fact their audience is somehow indifferent to paying for something they hold dear. They’re digging their own graves without even knowing it. Yes, music is worth something, but people need to be convinced and lobbied more than the government, lawsuits sure as hell won’t be doing the business any favors. Radiohead’s run online will be over in a couple days, with an actual CD to follow. Initial numbers are not too encouraging, maybe 38% of people who downloaded actually paid anything and hundreds of thousands of copies were pirated off peer-to-peer eventhough it was offered free directly from the artist. However little they might have gotten, though, it’s a blessing that neither the Majors nor their RIAA lapdogs can touch a dime.

Clean Living (and driving)

You’ve heard of hybrid cars, electric cars, and maybe even hydrogen cars. But have you heard about the air car? It was listed as one of Time magazines best inventions of 2007 (best invention being the iphone), and it could very well be coming to the states soon. Here’s what Time had to say:

Electric cars are so 2006. French R&D firm MDI signed a deal this year with India’s largest automaker, Tata Motors, to start manufacturing compressed-air-technology vehicles. These ultra-eco-friendly cars run on air, and the only thing they emit is colder, cleaner air. Another convenient feature: a built-in air compressor can be plugged in to refill the tanks within minutes.
Available: 2009
theaircar.com

Hostages Taken at Clinton HQ in dowtown New Hampshire

There are early reports out of Rochester that around 1pm today a man in his 40’s walked into Hillary Clinton’s offices in New Hampshire, revealed he had a bomb strapped to his chest and has taken 2 volunteers hostage.

Live coverage here: http://www.wmur.com/video/14738085/index.html 

Dialogue and politics aside, this is some crazy shit, more to come, I’m sure.  Who knows what the reprocussions are going to be…

The Music Wars: Radiohead’s Rainbow Coalition

In yet another bold move against - or possibly for - the music industry, Radiohead, the hallmark of contemporary British Rock, has joined the likes of Prince and Nine Inch Nails in offering their next album - In Rainbows, their 7th - for “free”, and independent of their former record label, the languishing EMI. The entire album will be available for download directly from their website starting October 10, but unlike previous free releases, Radiohead, like always, is doing something a little different; they are allowing consumers to chose what they pay for the download. In addition to the mp3s, they are also offering a lavish “Disc Set” which will include 2 Vinyl records, 2 compact discs, and a hardcover book with lyrics and pictures, all at the low low price of 40 British pounds/$81.

Reaction is spreading far and wide, and most of it is positive, with many calling this the “future of the music industry”. Anyone who’s paid any kind of attention to the industry over the last couple of years has heard this phrase refer to any number of flash in the pan ideas, and I don’t think it’s completely accurate to depict this interesting move as any kind of bigger blueprint for a business that is as bankrupt on ideas as they are on revenue. There are few of my generation who have never heard the song “Creep” and this current innovation could never have been possible without their previous successes. For the album OK Computer, EMI was nice enough to provide the band a six-figure advance that allowed them to purchase a substantial amount of equipment and create arguably their finest presentation with complete artistic freedom. Bands like Radiohead and Prince can go ahead and burn the potential money they’d get from record sales because they already made have enough in the bank to sponsor their own African nation. The majority of musicians out there are hell and gone from this sort of lifestyle, and would still like to use their undersized profits to pay for things like food. A solution that solves only some people’s problems solves nothing.

What I hope comes from this, aside from another great album from one of my favorite bands, is that people remember that music not only costs something, but that its worth something. The British music rag, NME, has a posted comments of some fans who have gone through the pre-order process, and they are as interesting as they are encouraging, here’re some highlights:

Chris Rogers:
“I paid £10 for it. They deserve it. I’m just glad they’re back making music. It’s hard to put a price on it.”

Mike Wakelam, 27:
“For a normal CD the dealer price is around £9. The record company gets 25 percent, leaving £6.75. I’ve heard artists get 18 percent of that, which is £1.215. So I’ll pay £1.22.”

Jason, Sydney, Australia:
“What price do you put on happiness? For me, £7.99. Now let’s see how many cheapskates try and download it free.”

Lee, Bexhill-On-Sea:
“Anyone who thinkgs £2.50 is a fair price is taking the mickey. You have to pay for the water that comes into your home, you have to pay to watch TV, so why do people think they should be given music free?”

Radiohead is challenging us to do right by them, holding out the tip jar and putting the question of compensation out in the open, allowing others to scrutinize and be scrutinized by their choices. Napster and others made us think that free music is something to be expected, but they cost those who create it a great deal. I’ve been playing music for nearly 2 decades and I’ll tell you right now that things like rehearsal spaces, equipment, recording fees and CD duplication are not provided to us by nature of our craft, nor is rent, food or health insurance. And it’s not just the money we pay, it’s the sacrifices we make: pissing off your girlfriend to spend more time with your band, working shit jobs and forsaking better ones to have a flexible schedule and more time to play, spending 3 months in a van with 4 other guys who smell much worse than you do. Why do people think these things don’t matter when it comes down to the final product? The RIAA has led the charge against downloads and has hijacked the argument to ensure that their status quo of exploitation stays intact. But their excesses do not mean that artists aren’t deserving of something better.

The fact that these fans recognize this flies in the face of most business models over the last few years: endless parades of amateurs chasing a profitable way to give their product over for free. It’s not that people aren’t willing to pay for music, it’s that they don’t want to pay for crap. Mp3 quality for In Rainbows is also guaranteed since you’re getting the tunes straight from the source and they are also DRM free, so you can treat it just like anything else you buy: however the fuck you want. The disc set is also mad sexy, and makes me a little nostalgic for when albums where something you held in your hand and interacted with, not just something that you consumed. Countering the give-away mentality of mp3s with a fairly expensive - yet beautifully realized - physical product is something poetic in itself.

The big idea, to me at least, behind all of this is an affirmation that music belongs to the musicians. As a band and a business, Radiohead is in a place where they can afford to not be tied to the purse strings of a label in order to finance recording, manufacturing and distribution of their album, and as such have complete control of the process from start to finish. This is something we haven’t really seen since the Beatles, and by harnessing the warehouse-free Internet age, they are doing it cheaper, easier and faster than their predecessors. I stated before that most can’t do this, but perhaps we will see a decentralization of the business, allowing bands to be judged by their own standards instead of those provided by mega-stars. Smaller acts shouldn’t be expected to sell 500,000 units in a single quarter, they can now be the masters of their own destiny and find a place where they can be sustained with far less: targeted sales/tours to fans dedicated to their success instead of being rammed down the throat of an overwhelmed national audience. This allows bands to really connect with those they play for and grow organically as they make strides to increase their audience as they see fit. The sacrifice here is two-fold: their influence will never be as great, nor will they be able to fuck off and just play music. They will have to do the market research and fix their price-points; they will be the ones made to spearhead campaigns and generate profit and loss statements; they will be forced to do all the things they got into music to avoid, or at least know enough and be involved enough with those they pay to do so. Historically, the business swings back and forth between consolidation and the independent marketplace, but perhaps this time it will beget not only a creative revolution in musicians, but also an entrepreneurial one. The grunt work needed to support the business of an album won’t go away with the label, and if we want the independence, if we chose to forge out like Radiohead into a spectrum of possibilities, we must take the responsibility and do what is necessary to take care of ourselves and our fans.

 

 

Bill O’Reilly’s Blissfull Ignorance

In one of the funnier stories of the last few months, the fair and balanced people at the Village Voice recently reported that after visiting the famous Harlem soul food eatery, Syliva’s, the pugnacious pundit, Bill O’Reilly, remarked at the amazing similarities between blacks and other people:

“I ‘couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship. It was the same,’ O’Reilly said on September 19 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program...

everybody was—it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all.”

I mean, come ON. He’s almost making it too easy for us. I wonder, with the first mention of the word “Harlem”, what exactly popped into that tiny, narrow mind of his? Was he expecting watermelon hanging from every iced-out grill, people shooting their “gats” up in the air like they just don’t care, booming voices alternating chants of “black power” and profanity-laced rants against “crackah-ass whitey”?

Obviously, Bill has a long way to go to make it into this century, and he has a looooooong list of making an ass out of himself in regards to race in general, but if I may, I’d like to propose something that will probably get me crucified by all seven people who read this blog. Though this statement is obviously as offensive as it is hilarious, I can’t help but think it’s just a little inspiring. Listening to the full excerpt helped give some perspective.

Firstly, he went up to Sylvia’s to take Al Sharpton out to dinner - could you imagine seeing those two walk in, sit down, and share some corn bread? And in the man’s defense, it was probably the first time he’d ever come to Harlem and actually gotten out the car. I doubt he’s ever experienced regular black folk up close and personal, just sittin around having dinner instead of in some music video, BET, or battling with him on his show or some other forum. I bet all he knows about these Americans is what he heard/read/saw in the conservative media he helps create. It doesn’t make it right that he says shit like this, obviously, but in the absence of experience and knowledge, is it surprising that ignorant, cliched and racist assumptions have been allowed to fester? No.

Behind the “culture wars” and the media machine that perpetuates it exist communities of regular people and I’m glad Billy got to get himself some meatloaf, chill the fuck out for an hour and hear Al tell some James Brown stories. For him to come away feeling good about Harlem, to be able to relate Sylvia’s to his own experiences in his most-likely gated community, that is a powerful thing.  Granted, this won’t bring him to Abyssinian Baptist chruch or the NAACP anytime soon, but it’s a step in the right directin.  If you’re never exposed to other people, you’ll inevitably harbor misconceptions about them. They obviously won’t be as wacked-out and crazy as O’Reilly’s, but one look at how most America has been treating racial issues of late - profiling of Muslims/anyone who looks like Muslims, immigration, etc. - it’s pretty obvious that eating dinner together every once in a while can’t hurt. O’Reilly has definitely been an enormous jackass as long as I can remember, but I’ll cut him some slack on this one, eventhough I doubt he’d do the same for us.