My first real vehicle accident

I got in my first real car accident yesterday.

When I was 18 I fell asleep behind the wheel with the cruise on and busted the axle on my car when I drifted into the median into a drainage box. I wasn't hurt but the car was. I don't count that as a "real" accident, for some reason, although my insurance felt differently.

It was more of a fender-bender than a "wreck": a lady just pulled right the f&*# out in front of me as I was driving down Two Notch Road, resulting in a side impact collision. Basically, I had time to stand on the brake and swerve a little towards her back end, so that I didn't nail her front driver-side door, thus knocking the stupid out of her, but instead the rear door.

She was on a cell phone.
She was 18.
She said, both to me at the time and to the cops later, that she "never even saw him" -- the sad thing is, I think she thought that made it my fault.

The cops wrote her a failure to yield citation and cited her as the contributing factor to the accident. I was not written a citation and was cited as not being a contributing factor. I have to testify at her court hearing on 8/31/08. I already filed a claim with her insurance and notified mine this morning.

I have a little bit of a neck pain and there's a mark across my chest from the seat belt.

The corner of the car is smashed up pretty bad (remember, I had time to turn the wheel a little, avoiding a perfect T-type collision. It looked more like a 7.) But I was able to drive it home, after collecting the pieces that fell out and putting them in the trunk. See the pics for more below.

Presidential politics and climate change

*UPDATE: (6/12) -- an excellent editorial in the Boston Globe covers the way that McCain falls far short on energy and environmental policy*

In the wake-up call issued by the report I mentioned yesterday, it is made clear that serious action must be taken to move America into a post-carbon (read: oil-free) future. Even Bush's own science advisor has broken ranks and admits the facts argue for a serious change in policy. Now that we're down to choosing between Obama and McSame in November, do we have a clear choice between presidential candidates in plans and priorities with respect to climate change? Yes, we do.

First, Democratic candidate Obama has promised serious action in the form of a market-based cap and trade solution to emissions and real investment in a clean energy infrastructure to improve our national security and environment simultaneously. The vicious cycle of empowering Iran and other rogue nations by sending them billions in oil wealth, then concomitantly fighting them and spending billions on national security in the Middle East, is desperately in need of change. Barack will change that broken record.

While John McCain's own website reports that he supports:

1. Climate Policy Should Be Built On Scientifically-Sound, Mandatory Emission Reduction Targets And Timetables.
2. Climate Policy Should Utilize A Market-Based Cap And Trade System.
3. Climate Policy Must Include Mechanisms To Minimize Costs And Work Effectively With Other Markets.
4. Climate Policy Must Spur The Development And Deployment Of Advanced Technology.
5. Climate Policy Must Facilitate International Efforts To Solve The Problem.

It turns out, that with a little digging, one can see that McCain has not voted to take any action whatsoever on climate change, often being the only Senator in Congress not to do so:

• On June 21, 2007, the Senate voted on the Baucus amendment to the energy bill, which would have removed some oil company subsidies in order to fund renewable energy. The amendment failed to pass. Where was McCain? He didn't vote.
• On the same day, the Senate held a cloture vote to overcome the standard Republican veto threat and pass the energy bill. The vote succeeded. Where was McCain? He didn't vote.
• On Dec. 7, the Senate held another cloture vote to overcome the standard Republican veto threat on the energy bill, which had become substantially bolder after being aligned with the House version. The vote failed. Where was McCain? He didn't vote.
• On Dec. 13, 2007, the Senate held another cloture vote to overcome the standard Republican veto threat and pass the energy bill, which had the Renewable Portfolio Standard stripped out of it but retained a measure that would shift oil company subsidies to renewables. The vote failed -- by one vote, 59-40. Where was McCain? He didn't vote -- the only senator not to do so.
• On Feb. 6, 2008, the Senate held another cloture vote to overcome the standard Republican veto threat and pass a stimulus bill containing a number of green energy incentives. The cloture motion failed, by one vote. Where was McCain? He didn't vote -- again, the only senator not to do so.

Of course, Barack was there and voted his principles. This pattern undercuts the supposed "green-ness" of the GOP candidate, whose claims to fame mainly rest on three past laurels:

• He voted against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and has sponsored or cosponsored the occasional, modest environmental protection bill (protecting whales; awarding tax credits for energy efficiency; boosting fuel efficiency). (Note, however, that his lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters is a measly 29 percent.)
• In 2003, he and Sen. Joe Lieberman introduced the first-ever climate bill to the Senate: the Climate Stewardship Act, which would establish a carbon cap-and-trade system to reduce U.S. emissions. It was introduced and voted down in 2003 and again in 2005.
• He acknowledges, without hedging, that anthropogenic climate change is real, and speaks eloquently about the need to address it. He has frequently criticized the Bush administration for inaction.

These years-old deviations from standard GOP orthodoxy have been undone by the weakness of his current proposals:

Relative to what's offered by other Senate cap-and-trade bills (and the plans of his Democratic rivals), the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act -- even in its 2007 incarnation -- is weak. Unlike other such bills, McCain's specifically sets aside massive and unnecessary subsidies for the nuclear industry. Its emissions targets are exceeded even by the lowest-common-denominator bill now heading to the Senate floor, the Lieberman-Warner America's Climate Security Act.

This is to say nothing of the Sanders-Boxer bill, the strongest extant climate legislation, which now boasts both Clinton and Obama as co-sponsors and includes even more aggressive targets. Beyond that, we have the plans offered by the leading Democratic campaigns, which offer bold targets, 100 percent auctioning of pollution permits, and detailed plans for how to allocate the auction revenue to boost the green economy.

McCain has never updated his position on cap-and-trade legislation, despite the steady advance in public opinion and climate science since he introduced his bill in 2003. He has not discussed, much less matched, the ambitious targets of his Dem rivals. He has not signed onto the Sanders legislation, or even Lieberman's new bill. He has not said whether he'll vote for it, and has hinted ($ub. rqd) that he'll vote Nay unless big buckets of nuclear pork are added.

In short, McCain's take on cap-and-trade legislation is now anachronistic, lagging well behind what's current, what's possible, and what's needed.

Basically, rather than update his position by voting new measures into law, he's avoiding confronting the right wing of his party by skipping every climate change vote. This portends poorly for the future. To summarize, a clear choice must be made by voters in November -- will we continue the same old, same old energy policies, those that send billions to the Middle East and Venezuela, only to turn around and spend billions more trying to fight and contain these countries? Or will we dry up the well that funds terrorist activity by moving towards a post-carbon future? One candidate has already shown courage and candor by opposing the gas tax, the other showed ignorance and political pandering.

You'll decide.

NSTC Global Warming Report

The National Science and Technology Council today finally released a report compiled four years ago that summarizes the evidence of global climate change and its already-occurring effects here in the US. The Bush administration pulled the report in 2004 before its release because it was filled with facts that didn't fit the conservative ideology that denies science in favor of $. A federal judge finally forced its release. Here's the full report.

The evidence is overwhelming.

Pro-science legislation proposed by Obama & Honda

I was just notified by email about new legislation proposed by Obama and Honda to revamp and improve public science education. Here are some details.

Honda’s and Obama’s bill would:

• Reorganize the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). OSTP has a STEM subcommittee that has remained largely dormant over the past few years. The bill would raise that subcommittee to a committee level, giving it a mandate to work proactively at designing coherent STEM strategies.
• Create an Office of STEM at the U.S. Department of Education at the assistant-secretary level. This office will coordinate STEM education initiatives among all federal agencies and have a seat at the OSTP STEM Committee.
• Institute a voluntary Consortium on STEM education. The Consortium would be integrated by no less than five states representing at least five of the nation’s nine geographical regions. Its mission is to develop common content standards for K-12 STEM education, engineered at the state and local levels.
• Create the National STEM Education Research Repository. This would be a clearing house for educators to research the latest innovations in STEM. This will break the silos that keep creative programs from being replicated.

From the NSTA's email:

Legislative Update: Rep. Honda and Sen. Obama Introduce eSTEM Bill

On May 21 NSTA Executive Director Gerry Wheeler joined Representatives Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), Rush Holt (D-NJ), and Mike Honda (D-CA) on the steps of Cannon House Office Building for a press conference on a bill introduced by Rep. Honda and Senator Barack Obama titled the Enhancing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Act of 2008.

The legislation, based on the National Science Board recent Action Plan, calls on Congress to reorganize the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), create an Office of STEM at the U.S. Department of Education, institute a voluntary state Consortium on STEM education, and create a National STEM Education Research Repository.

Learn more about the legislation:

• Summary from Rep. Honda’s office (PDF)
• Press release
• NSTA’s letter in support of the legislation (PDF)
• Photos from the press conference

This legislation, along with proposed uses of technology to open up government and the move to create a Chief Technology Officer cabinet-level position, separate Obama from McCain in so many ways. The GOP is the party of tradition, while the Democrats represent change and progress.

Excellent argument that "blue America" = an "urban archipelago"

I don't spend much time reposting entire articles that I've read with little commentary or analysis. However, the editors of The Stranger (Seattle) have put together a real gem: a political argument that uses demographics and polls to argue that "blue America" is really a string of urban islands stretching across rural "red America". Read on for yourself:

From the Nov 11 – Nov 17, 2004 issue

The Urban Archipelago
It's the Cities, Stupid
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=19813&mode=print
by The Editors of The Stranger

There are two maps on this page.



The one on the left should be familiar. It's one of those red-state/blue-state maps that have been tormenting Democrats, liberals, and progressives since November of 2000. Over the 36 days that George W. Bush and Al Gore fought for the White House in Florida, "red" and "blue" became metaphors for America's divided electorate. Red vs. Blue--Democrat vs. Republican; liberal vs. conservative; pro-life vs. pro-choice; gun-huggers vs. gun-haters; gay-huggers vs. gay-haters.

The red-state/blue-state map opposite shows the results of 2004's presidential election--red states won by George W. Bush, blue states won by John F. Kerry. But the red-state/blue-state map is misleading. If a Republican presidential candidate takes 50 percent of the vote plus 1 vote in any given state, the whole state is colored red (even worse, a mere plurality of voters can turn a state red when third parties are involved). The same goes for the Democratic candidate--corral the most votes, and the whole state is colored blue. But painting an entire state one color or the other creates a false impression, an impression that we believe is hampering the Democratic Party's efforts to pull itself out of its tailspin.

Take a look at the second map on the opposite page. This map shows a county-by-county red/blue breakdown, and it provides a clearer picture of the bind the Democrats finds themselves in. The majority of the blue states--Washington, Oregon, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware--are, geographically speaking, not blue states. They are blue cities.

Look at our famously blue West Coast. But for the cities--Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego--the West Coast would be a deep, dark red. The same is true for other nominally blue states. Illinois is almost entirely red--Chicago turns the state blue. Michigan is almost entirely red--Detroit, Lansing, Kalamazoo turn it blue. And on and on. What tips these states into the blue column? Their urban areas do, their big, populous counties.

It's time for the Democrats to face reality: They are the party of urban America. If the cities elected our president, if urban voters determined the outcome, John F. Kerry would have won by a landslide. Urban voters are the Democratic base.

THE URBAN ARCHIPELAGO

It's time to state something that we've felt for a long time but have been too polite to say out loud: Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of sanity, liberalism, and compassion--New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and on and on. And we live on islands in red states too--a fact obscured by that state-by-state map. Denver and Boulder are our islands in Colorado; Austin is our island in Texas; Las Vegas is our island in Nevada; Miami and Fort Lauderdale are our islands in Florida. Citizens of the Urban Archipelago reject heartland "values" like xenophobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia, as well as the more intolerant strains of Christianity that have taken root in this country. And we are the real Americans. They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools, and hate-mongers. Red Virginia prohibits any contract between same-sex couples. Compassionate? Texas allows the death penalty to be applied to teenaged criminals and has historically executed the mentally retarded. (When the Supreme Court ruled executions of the mentally retarded unconstitutional in 2002, Texas officials, including Governor Rick Perry, responded by claiming that the state had no mentally retarded inmates on death row--a claim the state was able to make because it does not test inmates for mental retardation.) Dumb? The Sierra Club has reported that Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Tennessee squander over half of their federal transportation money on building new roads rather than public transit.

If Democrats and urban residents want to combat the rising tide of red that threatens to swamp and ruin this country, we need a new identity politics, an urban identity politics, one that argues for the cities, uses a rhetoric of urban values, and creates a tribal identity for liberals that's as powerful and attractive as the tribal identity Republicans have created for their constituents. John Kerry won among the highly educated, Jews, young people, gays and lesbians, and non-whites. What do all these groups have in common? They choose to live in cities. An overwhelming majority of the American popuation chooses to live in cities. And John Kerry won every city with a population above 500,000. He took half the cities with populations between 50,000 and 500,000. The future success of liberalism is tied to winning the cities. An urbanist agenda may not be a recipe for winning the next presidential election--but it may win the Democrats the presidential election in 2012 and create a new Democratic majority.

For Democrats, it's the cities, stupid--not the rural areas, not the prickly, hateful "heartland," but the sane, sensible cities--including the cities trapped in the heartland. Pandering to rural voters is a waste of time. Again, look at the second map. Look at the urban blue spots in red states like Iowa, Colorado, and New Mexico--there's almost as much blue in those states as there is in Washington, Oregon, and California. And the challenge for the Democrats is not just to organize in the blue areas but to grow them. And to do that, Democrats need to pursue policies that encourage urban growth (mass transit, affordable housing, city services), and Democrats need to openly and aggressively champion urban values. By focusing on the cities the Dems can create a tribal identity to combat the white, Christian, rural, and suburban identity that the Republicans have cornered. And it's sitting right there, on every electoral map, staring them in the face: The cities.

The urbanites. Howard Dean had it wrong when he tried to woo the "Pickup Truck with Confederate Flag" vote. In fact, while Kerry won urban areas by a whopping 60 percent--that actually represents a 15 percent drop in urban support from 2000 when Gore won the election. The lesson? Democrats have got to tend to their urban base and grow it.

In cities all over America, distressed liberals are talking about fleeing to Canada or, better yet, seceding from the Union. We can't literally secede and, let's admit it, we don't really want to live in Canada. It's too cold up there and in our heart-of-hearts we hate hockey. We can secede emotionally, however, by turning our backs on the heartland. We can focus on our issues, our urban issues, and promote our shared urban values. We can create a new identity politics, one that transcends class, race, sexual orientation, and religion, one that unites people living in cities with each other and with other urbanites in other cities. The Republicans have the federal government--for now. But we've got Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City (Bloomberg is a Republican in name only), and every college town in the country. We're everywhere any sane person wants to be. Let them have the shitholes, the Oklahomas, Wyomings, and Alabamas. We'll take Manhattan.

EMBRACING URBAN SELF-INTEREST

To all those who live in cities--to all those depressed Kerry supporters out there--we say take heart. Clearly we can't control national politics right now--we can barely get a hearing. We can, however, stay engaged in our cities, and make our voices heard in the urban areas we dominate, and make each and every one, to quote Ronald Reagan (and John Winthrop, the 17th-century Puritan Reagan was parroting), "a city on a hill." This is not a retreat; it is a long-term strategy for the Democratic Party to cater to and build on its base.

To red-state voters, to the rural voters, residents of small, dying towns, and soulless sprawling exburbs, we say this: Fuck off. Your issues are no longer our issues. We're going to battle our bleeding-heart instincts and ignore pangs of misplaced empathy. We will no longer concern ourselves with a health care crisis that disproportionately impacts rural areas. Instead we will work toward winning health care one blue state at a time.

When it comes to the environment, our new policy is this: Let the heartland live with the consequences of handing the national government to the rape-and-pillage party. The only time urbanists should concern themselves with the environment is when we are impacted--directly, not spiritually (the depressing awareness that there is no unspoiled wilderness out there doesn't count). Air pollution, for instance: We should be aggressive. If coal is to be burned, it has to be burned as cleanly as possible so as not to foul the air we all have to breathe. But if West Virginia wants to elect politicians who allow mining companies to lop off the tops off mountains and dump the waste into valleys and streams, thus causing floods that destroy the homes of the yokels who vote for those politicians, it no longer matters to us. Fuck the mountains in West Virginia--send us the power generated by cleanly burned coal, you rubes, and be sure to wear lifejackets to bed.

Wal-Mart is a rapacious corporation that pays sub-poverty-level wages, offers health benefits to its employees that are so expensive few can afford them, and destroys small towns and rural jobs. Liberals in big cities who have never seen the inside of a Wal-Mart spend a lot of time worrying about the impact Wal-Mart is having on the heartland. No more. We will do what we can to keep Wal-Mart out of our cities and, if at all possible, out of our states. We will pass laws mandating a living wage for full-time work, upping the minimum wage for part-time work, and requiring large corporations to either offer health benefits or pay into state- or city-run funds to provide health care for uninsured workers. That will reform Wal-Mart in our blue cities and states or, better yet, keep Wal-Mart out entirely. And when we see something on the front page of the national section of the New York Times about the damage Wal-Mart is doing to the heartland, we will turn the page. Wal-Mart is not an urban issue.

Neither is gun control. Our new position: We'll fight to keep guns off the streets of our cities, but the more guns lying around out there in the heartland, the better. Most cities have strong gun-control laws--laws that are, of course, undermined by the fact that our cities aren't walled. Yet. But why should liberals in cities fund organizations that attempt, to take one example, to get trigger locks onto the handguns of NRA members out there in red states? If red-state dads aren't concerned enough about their own children to put trigger locks on their own guns, it's not our problem. If a kid in a red state finds his daddy's handgun and blows his head off, we'll feel terrible (we're like that), but we'll try to look on the bright side: At least he won't grow up to vote like his dad.

We won't demand that the federal government impose reasonable fuel-efficiency standards on all cars sold in the United States. We will, however, strive to pass state laws, as California has done, imposing fuel-efficiency standards on cars sold in our states.

We officially no longer give a shit when family farms fail. Fewer family farms equal fewer rural voters. We will, however, continue to support small faggy organic farms, as we are willing to pay more for free-range chicken and beef from non-cannibal cows.

We won't concern ourselves if red states restrict choice. We'll just make sure that abortion remains safe and legal in the cities where we live, and the states we control, and when your daughter or sister or mother dies in a botched abortion, we'll try not to feel too awful about it.

In short, we're through with you people. We're going to demand that the Democrats focus on building their party in the cities while at the same time advancing a smart urban-growth agenda that builds the cities themselves. The more attractive we make the cities--politically, aesthetically, socially--the more residents and voters cities will attract, gradually increasing the electoral clout of liberals and progressives. For Democrats, party building and city building is the same thing. We will strive to turn red states blue one city at a time.

From here on out, we're glad red-state rubes live in areas where guns are more powerful and more plentiful, cars are larger and faster, and people are fatter and slower and dumber. This is not a recipe for repopulating the Great Plains. And when you look for ways to revive your failing towns and dying rural counties, don't even think about tourism. Who wants to go to small-town America now? You people scare us. We'll island-hop from now on, thank you, spending our time and our money in blue cities. If an urbanite is dying to have a country experience, rural Vermont is lovely. Maple syrup, rolling hills, fly-fishing--everything you could want. Country bumpkins in red rural areas who depend on tourists from urban areas but vote Republican can forget our money.

You've made your choice, red America, and we urban Americans are going to make a different choice. We are going to make Seattle--and New York, Chicago, and the rest--a great place to live, a progressive place. Again, we'll quote Ronald Reagan: We will make each of our cities--each and every one--a shining city on a hill. You can have your shitholes.

URBAN VISION

The first president Bush had a problem with the "vision thing," and he lost. Democrats had a problem with vision thing in 2004, and they lost. But they don't have to continue having this problem.

Above any other advantage, the new urban identity politics solves "the vision thing" for the Democratic Party. No longer are we a fractured aggregation of special interests or a spineless hydra of contingent alliances--we are a united front, with a clear, compelling image and an articulated system of values. Up until now, the Republicans have been winning the image war. When you think of "America," you imagine a single-family dwelling with a flag in the front yard and acres of corn waving in the background. It's an angry red fantasy. But propaganda is flexible, and audiences are pliant. Urban politics opens up a whole new visual vocabulary to be exploited by TV advertising, and it's a vocabulary rich in emotional content, particularly after September 11. This is the era of cityscapes, rapid transit, and crowds of people. Political advertising can no longer pander to nostalgia about the yeoman countryside--we must embrace our urban future.

With all the talk of the growth of exurbs and the hand-wringing over facile demographic categories like "security moms," you may be under the impression that an urban politics wouldn't speak to many people. But according to the 2000 Census, 226 million people reside inside metropolitan areas--a number that positively dwarfs the 55 million people who live outside metro areas. The 85 million people who live in strictly defined central city limits also outnumber those rural relics. When the number of city-dwellers in the United States is quadruple the number of rural people, we can put simple democratic majorities to work for our ideals.

Even people who don't live in cities look to urban centers for a certain image of America. The nation identified with New York City in such a visceral way on September 11 not just because Americans died there--Americans died in a Pennsylvania field and in Northern Virginia too--but because the New York skyline is a stirring image of American prosperity and achievement. It symbolizes the motivation and spirit of the American people, the wealth of our nation, the thrum of diverse cultures, and inexhaustible cultural creativity. Cities inspire us; they speak to our hopes and our passions. Small towns diminish us; they speak of lost history and downscaled dreams. The Democratic Party should compete on our own turf, change the terms of the debate, and give the American people heroes to believe in--as well as enemies to revile.

Conservatives have vilified liberals for decades, and the new urban identity politics gives the Democratic Party its own partisan villains. The truth is that rural states--the same red states that vote reflexively Republican in national elections--are welfare states. While red-state voters like to complain about "tax-and-spend liberals," red states are hopelessly dependent on the largess of the federal government to prop up their dwindling rural population. Red states like North Dakota, New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, West Virginia, Montana, Alabama, South Dakota, and Arkansas top the list of federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid. And who's paying the most? Blue states. Cities--and states dominated by their cities. Welfare states, in contrast, demand federal money to fund wasteful roads to nowhere. Welfare states guzzle barrel upon barrel of oil so their rural residents can sputter along on ribbons of asphalt.

Take a state like Wyoming, the arid, under-populated home of our glowering vice president Dick Cheney. Wyoming receives the second-highest amount of federal aid in the nation per capita (Alaska, another red state, is number one), and it ranks second lowest in federal taxes paid (behind only South Dakota). Overall, the federal government spent about $2,413 per capita in Wyoming for the fiscal year 2002 (the last year for which data is available), compared with almost exactly half that amount, or $1,205 per capita, for Washington State. This ridiculous disparity extends even to Homeland Security funds, which ought to be targeted toward the most vulnerable areas--coastlines, big city landmarks, porous borders. But landlocked Wyoming, with exactly zero important strategic targets, merits $38.31 per capita in Homeland Security funds. New York state residents get a measly $5.47. An urban agenda would argue for kicking Wyoming off the federal dole. States should pay their own way, not come to cities begging for handouts.

A refusal to subsidize rural waste will inform other policy decisions as well. Farm subsidies, for example, are obsolete and they cause needless friction in international trade agreements. The agricultural complex in the United States is so concentrated that very few voters have a personal stake in the continued existence of farm subsidies. Rural voters aren't going to switch party affiliations no matter what we do, so let's jettison their issues when they fail to serve our core interests. Ethanol, a corn-derived alcohol, is another great example. Scientific consensus says that corn will never be a viable source for alternative fuel, since the very production of ethanol requires so much fossil fuel and the payoff is paltry. Ethanol is vanity research; the new urban politics should stand for real solutions.

In the same way, we need to claim legislation like the Clean Air Act as our own. It is urban residents, not rural residents, who suffer when air quality is poor, and coal mines in rural states cannot dictate what size airborne particulates we should be willing to breathe. Asthma is a growing problem across the nation, but it is particularly acute among African American and Latino children growing up in the inner cities--the death rate from asthma complications is three times as high for minority children as it is for whites. This is unacceptable, and it's just one example of an issue urban residents can and should rally behind.

Democrats are now emphatically the minority party. This doesn't mean we give up; it means we take a page from the Republican playbook, refining and relentlessly pushing a vision of our own. We must rededicate ourselves to the urban core.

URBAN INDEPENDENCE

The anti-urban vote does more than just overwhelm city voters in presidential elections. It also overruns city priorities on local policy debates. We should go our own way. After all, when a city like Seattle's fate is tied to that of a state like Washington, the city's interests are routinely routed. In 1993, for example, Washington voters limited state budget increases, hobbling education and transportation funding. The measure, which passed statewide by a 51 to 49 margin, tanked in Seattle, 46 to 54. A 1997 gay rights measure, meanwhile, suffered the converse fate, losing statewide while winning here. And Tim Eyman's two tax-slashing initiatives won in rural and suburban areas but went down in flames inside city limits.

Laws limiting taxes have a disproportionate impact on cities, which rely on local levies to pay for basic social and human services like domestic-violence programs, low-income housing, and tenant advocacy. If you're wondering why the city is suffering draconian budget cuts--$24 million this year, $20 million in 2005--you can thank rural voters who seem unable to grasp a basic Christian tenet; greed is bad, sharing is good.

The lesson is simple for urban residents: Seattle shouldn't cast its lot with the rest of the state. Rural and suburban voters have shown again and again that they aren't willing to fund urban infrastructure. Throughout Washington State, transportation taxes like 2002's Referendum 51 have tanked, while anti-transit measures like Tim Eyman's I-776 have passed overwhelmingly. While that might seem like grim news for cities like Seattle, there's a silver lining: When cities set their own transportation priorities, truly urban systems (like the monorail) get funded and built, while the suburban mega-highways that lard initiatives like R-51 go unfunded. We don't use suburban roads. We can let the suburbs figure out a way to pay for them.

Cities have the clout, and the imperative, to give people alternatives to driving solo, and to punish those who insist on clogging our city streets. In Seattle, we've done exactly that. We've built bike lanes, expanded the bus system, and banned new park-and-rides inside city limits. We've funded a South Seattle-to-downtown light rail system. And we've overwhelmingly supported the monorail, an inner-city mass-transit system that's paid for by one of the most progressive taxes available: an excise tax on the value of cars in the city. Want to buy a Hummer? Fine. But you're gonna pay for it--and help fund public transit. If you want to rely on environmentally friendly public transit, though, we'll make it affordable and easy to use. That's a truly urban value.

Transit like the monorail, in turn, promotes density in outlying areas (like Ballard and West Seattle), which leads to the creation of housing that's affordable to everyone--not just the proverbial penthouse-dwelling downtown urban elite. Cities like Seattle can further encourage dense urban housing by adopting policies that encourage developers to build dense low-income housing. And we've done it: Last year, Mayor Greg Nickels unveiled a new push to increase density outside downtown by increasing building heights and providing incentives to developers who build inner-city housing.

The more housing that is built in cities, the more people can afford to live there. And the more cities pass laws that make it easier to live in cities--laws like Washington State's inflation-indexed minimum wage, which passed overwhelmingly in Seattle--the more cities will attract the kind of culturally and economically diverse populations that make them attractive places to work and live. And, as counterintuitive as it may seem to composting, recycling self-righteous suburbanites, living in dense urban areas is actually better for the environment. The population of New York City is larger than that of 39 states. But because dense apartment housing is more energy efficient, New York City uses less energy than any state. Conversely, suburban living--with its cars, highways, and single-family houses flanked by pesticide-soaked lawns--saps energy and devastates the ecosystem.

Cities' freedom to go their own way extends, of course, beyond mere infrastructure. Urban dwellers are cultural libertarians--we don't just tolerate a diversity of lifestyles and attitudes, we embrace it. Seattle, for example, has over 1000 churches, mosques, and synagogues. From San Francisco to Ann Arbor to Seattle, cities have been the vanguard.

Drug reform is a prime example. Eight states have passed medical marijuana initiatives; none could have done so without the pro-pot clout of cities. Last year, Seattle voters overwhelmingly passed Initiative 75, which effectively decriminalizes marijuana possession by making it cops' lowest law enforcement priority. And just this month, Ann Arbor passed a law legalizing medical marijuana, the second city in Michigan to do so. There are countless other examples. But the bottom line is this: Cities, not the outlying suburbs, are leading the way on drug reform. And where cities go, the nation will inevitably follow.

Gay rights, another national issue, took a beating this November, as 11 states passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. But locally, Seattle has ensured that gays and lesbians enjoy the full protection of the law. Not only are Seattle city employees and employees of firms that contract with the city entitled to domestic partnership benefits, earlier this year, Mayor Nickels announced that the city would honor gay marriages from other progressive jurisdictions, such as Portland and San Francisco.

But there's still more to do that the Feds and the State are loath to deliver: Subsidized childcare; safe injection sites; expanding the monorail through the rest of the city; discouraging excessive auto use by taxing mileage (to pay for more public transit); and providing family planning for low-income families. An aggressive new urbanist movement will go its own way, making the cities, not the states, the true laboratories of democracy.

URBAN STATES

In November 1960, a black 6-year-old girl named Ruby Bridges entered the newly desegregated William Frantz Public School in New Orleans. In reaction to her admission, white parents withdrew their kids from Ruby's class and she completed the first grade alone, with instruction from one teacher and support from a child psychiatrist. Ruby's walk to class on the first day of school inspired Norman Rockwell's The Problem We All Live With. In this painting (one of Rockwell's best, as far as we are concerned), a very black Ruby Bridges is escorted to school by four big white U.S. marshals. The image is powerful because it represents the federal government as an institution and enforcer of reason. The white bigots of New Orleans can complain, bitch, and threaten the lives of black boys and girls all they want, but in the end the federal government steps in to ensure that the rights of every American are protected.

This image of the federal government is now in a coma. The lawmaking bodies that are clustered in Washington, D.C. (the Senate, the House, the Justice Department, the Supreme Court, the White House), no longer form the enlightened center from which reason and justice emanate. During the civil rights era, the federal government could claim to at least aspire to this transcendental order (the Great Society, the War on Poverty, the Voting Rights Act of 1965), but not today. Since the beginning of the 21st century, Washington, D.C., has exerted a force that is not progressive (as epitomized by Rockwell's painting) but oppressive. This is not an exaggeration. For example, the sole reason why the state of California--or more accurately, the cities of California through the agency of the state--turned to its own citizens to establish funding for stem cell research is because the federal government, in the form of the reelected Bush administration, holds a profoundly backward position on the matter.

Under Bush, the federal government spent almost nothing ($25 million) this year on stem cell research, a policy that's entirely informed by the bizarre belief in a God who has a white beard, lives in heaven, and hates the idea of stem cell research. The reality is this: There are over 100 million Americans (most of them Christian) whose lives would be improved or saved by therapies and treatments that could be developed through stem cell research. The federal government, however, holds the opinion that God should not be deprived of worship from the souls that are supposedly housed in the miniscule cells of five-day-old embryos. Realizing this is just plain stupid (or country, an archaic synonym for stupid that should be revived in our post-2004 election world), California's citizens--its urban citizens--passed Proposition 71, which would allocate for research nearly $300 million a year over the next 10 years. This figure, $300 million, is three times larger even than what John Kerry proposed, and promises to bring the benefits of this new science to all Americans before the close of this decade. Clearly the federal government is no longer the enforcer of reason, the cities are, we urbanites are.

Proposition 71 is just the beginning of a new, muscular urban politics. More and more decisions involving health, education, transportation, and law must be wrested away from our theocratic federal government by large humanistic cities. The federal government may give us its prayers but it will never give us even the most basic health care coverage. The State of Hawaii has what the rest of America doesn't have--universal health care coverage. Why can't other states do the same? Or, more to the point, why can't big cities compel the states they're located in to do the same? Again, it is not the State of Washington that is blue, it is the concentrated population of Seattle that is deep blue; and because Seattle is so damn big it has the power to dictate the politics of its generally hostile state. So, this is not about state rights--indeed, the counties in California that passed Proposition 71 by 60 percent or more were all urban (San Francisco with the highest percentage in the whole state, 71). It's about urban rights, about empowering the bastions of reason and rationality in a nation that is increasingly unreasonable and irrational. As a resident of the city, you should be proud to be an urbanite.

URBAN VALUES

It's no secret what the urban population is against--the Bush administration and its red armies have done us the favor of making it a cinch to identify: We oppose their sub-moronic, "faith-based" approach to life, and, as stated above, we hereby relinquish our liberal tendency to sympathize with their lack of, say, livable working conditions, a family wage, and a national health care program. We no longer have to concern ourselves with the survival of the family farm, nor do we have to concern ourselves with saving fragile suburban economies from collapse. They're against us; we're against them. This is a war.

But if liberals and progressives want to reach out past our urban bases, it might be helpful to identify some essential convictions, thereby allowing us to perhaps compete on "values." Identifying and articulating our core convictions, as opposed to compromising and downplaying them in search of some kind of non-urban appeal, might actually attract voters in exurbs and rural areas who understand the importance of cities to the national economy. But even if it doesn't, ours is a superior way of life. Wherever people choose to live in this country, they should want to live as we do.

So how do we live and what are we for? Look around you, urbanite, at the multiplicity of cultures, ethnicities, and tribes that are smashed together in every urban center (yes, even Seattle): We're for that. We're for pluralism of thought, race, and identity. We're for a freedom of religion that includes the freedom from religion--not as some crazy aberration, but as an equally valid approach to life. We are for the right to choose one's own sexual and recreational behavior, to control one's own body and what one puts inside it. We are for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The people who just elected George W. Bush to a second term are frankly against every single idea outlined above.

Unlike the people who flee from cities in search of a life free from disagreement and dark skin, we are for contentiousness, discourse, and the heightened understanding of life that grows from having to accommodate opposing viewpoints. We're for opposition. And just to be clear: The non-urban argument, the red state position, isn't oppositional, it's negational--they are in active denial of the existence of other places, other people, other ideas. It's reactionary utopianism, and it is a clear and present danger; urbanists should be upfront and unapologetic about our contempt for their politics and their negational values. Republicans have succeeded in making the word "liberal"--which literally means "free from bigotry... favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded"--into an epithet. Urbanists should proclaim their liberalism from the highest rooftop (we have higher rooftops than they do); it's the only way we survive. And in our next breath, we should condemn their politics, exposing their conservatism as the anti-Americanism that it is, striving to make "conservative" into an epithet.

Let's see, what else are we for? How about education? Cities are beehives of intellectual energy; students and teachers are everywhere you look, studying, teaching, thinking. In Seattle, you can barely throw a rock without hitting a college. It's time to start celebrating that, because if the reds have their way, advanced degrees will one day be awarded based on the number of Bible verses a person can recite from memory. In the city, people ask you what you're reading. Outside the city, they ask you why you're reading. You do the math--and you'll have to, because non-urbanists can hardly even count their own children at this point. For too long now, we've caved to the non-urban wisdom that decries universities as bastions of elitism and snobbery. Guess what: That's why we should embrace them. Outside of the city, elitism and snobbery are code words for literacy and complexity. And when the oil dries up, we're not going to be turning to priests for answers--we'll be calling the scientists. And speaking of science: SCIENCE! That's another thing we're for. And reason. And history. All those things that non-urbanists have replaced with their idiotic faith. We're for those.

As part of our pro-reason platform, we're for paying taxes--taxes, after all, support the urban infrastructure on which we all rely, and as such, are a necessary part of the social contract we sign every day. We are for density, and because we're for density, we're for programs that support it, like mass transit. If you ignore the selfish whimperings of the Kirkland contingent, it's not too hard to envision a time when the only vehicles allowed on the streets of Seattle are buses, trams, and shuttles. Utopian? Wrong: reality-based. It's a better, smarter way to live, and the urbanist is always in favor of that. People who commute to the city for their livelihood and then attack urban areas and people in the voting booth are the worst kind of hypocrites. Commuters, we neither want nor need you. We welcome, however, new residents, new urbanites, the continual influx of people from other places who come here to stay (are you listening, liberal residents of Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming?). These transplants help create the density we find so attractive, and they provide the plurality that makes cities thrive.

A city belongs to everyone in it, and expands to contain whoever desires to join its ranks. People migrate to cities and open independent businesses or work at established ones. They import cultural influences, thus enriching the urban arts and nightlife, which in turn enrich everything. Most importantly, they bring the indisputable fact of their own bodies and minds. We wait in line with them at QFC, we stand shoulder to shoulder with them at the bar, we cram ourselves next to them on the bus. We share our psychic and physical space, however limited it might be, because others share it with us. It's not a question of tolerance, nor even of personal freedom; it's a matter of recognizing the fundamental interdependence of all citizens--not just the ones who belong to the same church. Non-urbanites have chosen to burn the declaration of interdependence, opting instead for tyranny, isolationism, and "faith." They can have them.

These, of course, are broad strokes. We all know that not everyone who lives in the suburbs is a raving neo-Christian idiot. The raving neo-Christian idiots are winning, however, so we need to take the fight to them. In this case, the fight is largely spiritual; it consists of embracing the reality that urban life and urban values are the only sustainable response to the modern age of holy war, environmental degradation, and global conflict. More important, it consists of rejecting the impulse to apologize for living in a society that prizes values like liberalism, pluralism, education, and facts. It's time for the Democratic Party to stop pandering to bovine, non-urban America. You don't apologize for being right--especially when you're at war.

Long, but excellent. It brings to mind my recent tirades about Whistling Past Dixie.

NCOBS and Transcendentalism

I just completed a 4-day course at NCOBS, running Sat 5/10 to Tue 5/13, and it was great. More on why...

I was wrong when I said:

In other news, I'm going on a NC Outward Bound trip with my students from May 10-13. It's an outdoor experience with no showers or toilet paper (read the fine print).

There actually was TP. I was able to actually avoid having to poop in the woods, though, as the urge didn't really hit me until the evening of day two, when we came down from the summit of Table Rock and there is a parking lot and outhouse there that we were allowed to use. Also, we wore rain gear so much (especially Sunday night, during the storm) that I didn't get very dirty at all, and I was able to clean up some with baby wipes and such in the aforementioned outhouse. So, for me at least, the typically-cited discomforts of "roughing it" were not really discomforts at all.

• Day 1: Got all our gear together (Eric called this the "Duffle Shuffle" IIRC) and walked about 10 minutes to the intersection of multiple trails, called "five points" I think. They taught the students how to make a shelter of their tarps and set up camp.
  
• Day 2: Went to the summit of Table Rock via the Devil's Cellar. It was tough for me, as I am so out of shape. I also had overloaded my gear by trying to be tough and packing two of the four dromedaries, the 5-L water containers. I had to get T.U. to carry one for me after a few minutes of hiking. Both my soles of the shoes I borrowed from C.S. blew out, and my feet got very wet. We camped at the base of Table Rock, just off a campsite, and a large storm blew in that night. It was damned cold and some trees fell, but we had heavy-duty rain gear, which blocked the wind and cold out entirely. I went to bed early, though, as my feet were hurting.
  
• Day 3: We walked down the S.O.B. trail ("shortness of breath") to near base camp and went rock climbing and repelling. Best day by far. We camped that night on a platform just off from base camp.
• Day 4: Awoke at 5:45 AM to do a 4.2 mile run around the trails. I had to run in Crocs(R) because the low-top hiking shoes had blown out. The run's a story in itself. We left around 1 PM.
  

And to compensate for the extreme wind and cold of Sunday (I didn't pack warm clothes) I got the beauty of the Devil's Cellar and Table Rock summit views. See my pics. Our guides names were Luke and Eric. I talked with Luke a bit alone and discovered what an interesting fellow he is: went straight from high school to being a nature guide, basically. He and Eric and I were all 26: Eric was born in August while Luke was born in October.

Luke seemed very at peace with himself. It's a very physical job, and he had injured his ankle, but he never once complained, although he used walking poles to help support the weak stride. This made me think of how his life for the past eight years was probably going to get more complicated soon, just as mine was. My fault, in retrospect, was in thinking, "How long can he do this job, and what will he do later in life?" I thought this before the solo time of introspection, and realizing that this was a faulty notion occurred to me then.

We did our solo time while at the Devil's Cellar, spending a few hours alone with a journal and the stated intent of reflection, introspection and enjoying the views. We were also told to write a letter to ourselves during this time, one which would be collected by the guides and then mailed to us 6 months down the road. I took a few minutes to do this, and wrote a letter to myself about Transcendentalism. In April '07, I quoted Thoreau. I didn't realize that in May '08 he'd come back to me with a vengence:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."

Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
...
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change.

Walden

What I wrote in the letter to myself was about how I had changed over the years. As I reflect now on my life's choices, I look back and see a boy, dumb as he was, who had a real sense of adventure and thought that life offered many exciting mysteries to solve. I used to stare out of the classroom window of Mrs. Reynold's chemistry class and Mr. Blevin's biology class and contemplate going off into the woods with but a backpack full of gear. I felt the call of the wild in some way.

Growing older, I am now more concerned with security and comfort. Have I lost for that? Am I the less for it? The fact that I feel cynical about life...did the "meanness" of it get to me? Have I forgotten the wisdom of KISS?

I pondered these things in my solo time.

I also snuck in a nap.

I ponder these things still -- is it the case that the responsibilities we accumulate throughout life, with a family and with debt obligations, lessens the vigor of life itself? Will the way that our human evolution has occurred reverse itself to some degree later on? Will we move back away from urbanization to live simply and close to nature? Ideally, our technology and progress would simplify life, but the real does not meet the ideal. Not in that.

I don't know if any of the students (4 girls, 5 boys) got what I got from it, but I really enjoyed the peace, the absence of an itinerary or schedule or clock. I think we forget the part of our biology that is 100% animal. We are human, yes, but humans are social animals that have moved away from where their biology evolved -- nature red in tooth and claw -- and perhaps we are the less for it.

Maybe Luke had things figured out. Worrying about how you'll support yourself is the hallmark of the modern man. Living in the present is difficult. That's all the more reason to cultivate it.

Personal reflections

The decision to finish with an M.S. in Chemistry rather than staying to complete my Ph.D. is something I've been mulling over in recent days. For one thing, I attended Hammond's 2008 commencement, and I was looking at everyone else's robes and hoods and thinking about the pride of wearing doctoral regalia. Shallow, eh?

With a baby on the way, (now at 23 weeks, 8 inches and ~1 lb., we've decided to name him Seth) it sometimes seems that my career options are limited by the responsibility of raising a family and keeping a steady income stream. I look back and wonder if I'll ever live to regret the decision not to finish, given that it seems now my professor was right: if you leave with the statement, "maybe I'll come back to finish it later," you probably won't ever do so. And I think that subconsciously I knew that, even then.

Timeline of my thoughts: I look at my blog entry preceding the defense of my research proposal, then the one directly proceeding it, where there is a hint of wanting to quit:

It's a relief, I guess. I'm also just tired, and I've been thinking of taking the M.S. and getting a job...*sigh*

However, about five days later, in one of my blog posts, I refer to finishing the Ph.D.:

I certainly agree that my wife takes priority over everything else, that staying healthy is tied with my Ph.D. in close second, that running the AAFSA group is a distant third, but should still take huge precedence over blogging...

However, then on April 22 I admitted I was looking for jobs and was making the blogsite private again as a result. So it really seems that I made my final decision to quit the Ph.D. program some time between April 11 and April 22. About the only big thing I know that happened between those times was the shooting at VT, but I really don't think that influenced me (unless it was subconscious). I didn't go for my Hammond interview until the end of June, and I was notified I got the job only a few days later.

It's so funny, because as a kid and teen and even in college, I was so concerned with the question, "what will I do with my life?" My view then was that carefully choosing my career path and following crucial steps in the process would produce unbounded happiness and success. What seems to have happened, instead, is that a somewhat-arbitrary set of circumstances simply showed me, along the way, that I would be happier changing course from my originally-perceived "perfect" career path(s). And it appears to be the case that teaching chemistry to highschoolers at a private school in Columbia was never "in my sights" as a goal, yet happened nonetheless.

I know that for some people, this would be a nightmare: I have a childhood friend that I think of as almost preternatural in his ability to plan and determine his own course in life. He was valedictorian, an athlete, he wanted to go to med school since I can remember him, and all he's accomplished has proven, at the least, that some people have a powerful drive and deliver on their own goals. I was just never that way. Maybe I never will be.

I wonder, as with kids who are not planned, if some of life's surprises are the best things to happen to us. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and perhaps our preconceived notions of our own happiness and success are often flawed, much to our chagrin. Lou Holtz reportedly said that,

"Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it."

If that is indeed the case, then I wonder if I will one day look back upon my responses to life's happenings (i.e., my decisions) with regret or with pride. At the least, I have more options available to me if anything about my present choices should prove to be beyond accommodation and incapable of living with.

Here are my pipe dreams career-wise:

1. Go to law school, perhaps while working as a teacher by going to USC, and become an IP attorney. With my technical background, I qualify for the USPTO exam.
   
2. Get my left scaphoid non-union fixed and my 90° wrist bend back so I could enlist and attend OCS to become a pilot for the Navy or Air Force. (The age window is closing fast, however)
   
3. Sign up with the Effa Bee Eye or the CIA. The new FBI drug requirements will help (modified 12/06), as I experimented a little during my senior year of high school. The CIA's requirements seem extremely lax, but, as with most things in the CIA, they're probably just unpublished publicly and highly flexible. However, I haven't used any illegal substances since I was 17 (roughly since November of 1999), so I should be good with either one.

At least in theory, all of these are open to me and I could work them out financially if I really wanted to go for them. For the time being, I'm happy teaching at Hammond. Perhaps Lou Holtz was right, and this is just my response to what life handed me, but I don't feel like I'm "settling for less".

Politics notes

A few notes on Obama:

1. Did you know that his name comes from the Hebrew word בָּרוּךְ "baruch": blessed? The quasi-journalist David Brody thinks he's "elitist" for mentioning what his name means.
2. Is Obama a Muslim? No.
   
3. Here's a strong case for Virginia's new Democratic Senator, Jim Webb, as VP:

• His military background shoring up Obama's perceived weaknesses: "He helps considerably with Obama’s credibility on military affairs. While Obama does have what seem like pretty decent instincts on foreign relations, in all honesty his understanding of the military as an institution is thin. He needs someone on the ticket who knows how the military works, how things get done, and how its internal politics operates. Webb was Secretary of the Navy, serves on both the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, and has had a lifetime of experience thinking through the uses of military power. A Democrat like Obama is likely to end up sideways with the military, at least on occasion (although less than in past decades, given our recent experience), and he'll need someone by his side who knows how the game is played with the Pentagon."
• Bringing support from military voters: "Webb could very credibly campaign in areas with large military installations (especially Navy and Marine installations). Virginia, Florida, and California (the latter may be in play if McCain can maintain his now-fictive reputation as a moderate) have enough active-duty military personnel that improving the Democrats’ performance with military voters in these states could be the difference between victory and defeat. Military support for Republicans is very strong, especially with a veteran on the Republican ticket, but Democrats only need to improve their performance marginally to make a big difference here."
• Support from Appalachian voters: "Obama has shown some considerable weakness among white voters in and around Appalachia (defined broadly), although it’s not clear yet how much this will extend to the general election. Webb’s claim to fame, along with his work on military issues, is his ostentatious embrace of his Scots-Irish heritage—what my friends in sociology might call “paleo-whiteness.” If Obama put Webb on his ticket, he could campaign actively among active-duty military personnel (see b), and spend most of his time on a bus driving up and down from Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, south through Virginia and West Virginia, and in a stab at Republican home territory, in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky. I think the odds of the Democrats winning in those latter three states are slim, but if Webb could make them competitive by driving up the Democrats' performance in parts of those states where they generally do not run well, it could force the Republicans to expend time and resources where they’d rather not."
• Webb's sponsorship of the GI Bill: "Webb is the leading supporter of the recently passed New GI Bill, which--whatever its policy merits—is a great political issue for Democrats, and one where McCain has staked out a position that he shows no interest in budging from (and which he shares with Bush). This is a great issue because it allows the Democrats to attack McCain on what should be his greatest strength, and to tie him to the president. On its own, it won’t dislodge a whole lot of veterans (or currently serving personnel), but it may make them more open to listening. Having Webb on the ticket raises the profile of the issue and ensures that it will be a major part of the Fall campaign."
• Webb's trans-partisanship: "Webb openly defines himself as a “Reagan Democrat,” and he has a great claim to the title (having actually served as a Reagan appointee). If Obama is going to genuinely open up the electoral map, he needs to be able to speak directly to Republicans who have grown disgusted with their own party. To get them to switch to the Democrats, he needs a spokesman who has the credibility that can only come from having done it himself. I can imagine Webb giving a great speech to the Democratic convention, aimed directly at voters who regularly pull the lever for Republicans, saying, “Here’s why I became a Democrat, why I chose to serve on Obama’s ticket, and why I think you should join me in switching your party allegiance.” Sort of like a sane version of Zell Miller. No one else currently in the running for Obama’s VP can do that."
• His cultural orthodoxy shoring up Obama's perceived global awareness, a.k.a. "elitism": "Obama needs cover. There is no question that either McCain or his (official or informally coordinated) surrogates will attack Obama for being culturally alien and itching to sacrifice our national interests in order to play patty-cake with dictators. He needs someone who oozes cultural orthodoxy and hawkishness to protect this—very vulnerable—flank. I can’t think of anyone who can defend Obama as effectively as Webb can."
• Obama needs a tough military vet to attack McCain on military issues: "Obama needs someone to attack McCain, on precisely the issues that McCain wants to run on. Whether we like it or not, one key role of the vice-presidential candidate is to spend time ripping the bark off the guy at the top of the opposing ticket. Webb is strong—and arguably more sophisticated—on the dimensions that McCain will be trying to run on: national security and “outsiderness.” There are some candidates who would be good at attacking one prong of McCain’s strategy, but not the other. Webb is good on both."
• Webb's sensitivity to white working-class voters and their cultural politics: "In office, Obama needs someone to keep him from doing anything stupid. I once thought Obama’s political radar to be exceptionally well-tuned. Like a lot of other people, I’m now convinced that it doesn’t pick up on some potential threats as well as it does others. Webb, on the other hand, is very finely attuned to things that will be seen as offensive to white working-class voters—he has the view from the inside, not an outsider view driven by polling those one does not instinctively understand. Just as important, Webb is a blunt, no-nonsense guy, whose whole history suggests that he will be willing to tell Obama things that others won’t. I think there is a danger that he will share his dissents with others as well, and that this might cause problems for a President Obama. But, on balance, I think this is less of a risk than that he won’t hear things that make him uncomfortable."
• Webb's ability to take on "the war on drugs" and other tough issues: "In office, Webb will be a good spokesman for some of Obama’s less popular policy initiatives. At the top of the list here, I put America’s drug war and our habit of excessive incarceration. I would consider an Obama presidency a failure if he did not make significant progress on this issue—it is a matter of exceptional national importance. But he needs someone pushing it who can speak directly to the fears that Americans will have, that cutting back on incarceration will mean greater dangers for themselves and their families. I don’t think Obama is the perfect messenger for this point, but Webb is (and has shown a very strong interest in the issue)."

A few weaknesses of Webb are claimed, but I think he's a great pick. Some people think that two senators on a ticket is weaker than one with a governor, as it lacks executive experience. However, given that McCain is "just" a senator also, this won't play well. I'd love to see Webb on the ticket.

Reason for blogging

It's good for your health!

Or wait...is it? (yes, the article in the NYT is all about people who write for a living and get very little sleep and inadequate rest/exercise, plus it provides anecdotal evidence, no studies)

My blog writing reasons are...complex and change from time to time.

Kennedy's parishoners on threats to faith & anti-intellectualism

D. James Kennedy, who I love to critique, had his church vote on perceived spiritual "threats" in our country. I was amazed to see the list:

How dangerous are the following to the spiritual health of America?

	Very	Somewhat	Not very
The ACLU and similar groups	96	3	1
Pro-homosexual indoctrination	95	4	1
Abortion	93	6	1
Islamic terrorism	91	8	1
Hollywood	89	10	1
News Media	87	12	1
Darwinism/evolution	85	14	1
Cults and false religion	82	16	2
Atheism	82	16	2
Courts	81	18	1
Apathetic/uninformed Christians	79	20	1
Colleges and Universities	78	21	1
Public education (K-12)	69	29	2
Congress	63	35	2

As PZ joked, we "very dangerous" atheists are slacking off if we're way down at #9 below teh gayz. Now, the comment I want to make is especially directed towards "colleges and universities" as well as "public education"...

While there can be no doubt that there is a certain anti-intellectual crowd within the faith community, I would by no means suggest that this is the "best" crowd. In fact, while it may or may not be a plurality, such a group would probably be the rural, uneducated religious follower rather than a smart and sophisticated believer with apologetic resources. *UPDATE: A new study is underway at BU to gauge and improve the image of Evangelical scholarship and to highlight the existence of the Evangelical intelligentsia. Groups like Kennedy's here do this study no favors.*

I've pointed out before that I think the IQ issue doesn't work when comparing believers to non-believers: I think it's bunk. So let's clearly set aside questions of intelligence and focus on the question of education (not one and the same).

First, the facts show that getting a college education does not lead to a loss of religious belief in general. At best, it may lead to a large percentage of students changing religious affiliation and/or becoming more generous with their orthodoxy.

Second, while faculty at universities tend to be far less likely to be "born again" or Evangelical-types, 4 in 5 describe themselves as "spiritual" and so it's factually false to say that most professors are materialistic atheists.

Third, it is crystal clear that the younger generation is trending towards nonreligious attitudes.

What sorts of conclusions can we draw from these facts? It seems that both educated and uneducated younger people are trending away from organized religion. However, there is still a clear aversion to self-identify as an atheist, and it doesn't seem that we can blame universities and colleges for the trend.

My interpretation is that basically, the anti-intellectual sentiment expressed by the average believer is more a reflection of attitude towards arrogance and self-reliance, perceived effects of education, than actually believing that education is evil or wrong. While majors in the sciences certainly seem to believe in God far less than other people, perhaps cause/effect should be investigated there: consider the possibility that people majoring in the sciences are skeptical by nature. Therefore, all the repeated studies (including these) which have shown that fewer than 50% of scientists believe in God, that more than 60% are atheists and agnostics, that belief in God among "elite scientists" (NAS Members) is a mere 7%, and that 95% of NAS biologists are either atheists or agnostics, can't be blamed on science itself.

See:
1) SciAm Article 1999
2) Nature 1997

Ask yourself this: why is it that people who have to think logically to survive in their careers, to depend upon evidence and critical inquiry, are much more likely to reject the God hypothesis? Pride? You can see it that way, I suppose, if you want. But doesn't that imply that science itself is prideful, in saying that we ought to use our brains and the best evidence available to establish knowledge and valid beliefs? If that's pride, call me the devil, I guess...

I think that people who are drawn to science are people who are analytically-oriented and skeptically-minded by nature. We're the types who want evidence and logical arguments to persuade us. Perhaps we can simply be viewed with equity by those unlike us, and learn to view them likewise, rather than elevating ourselves unduly because of our genetically or environmentally-determined natures, which we cannot ourselves claim credit for. And perhaps others (believers) can stop denigrating us unduly for the same reason; skeptics may be hardwired for skepticism.

McCain now rejects Parsley as well as Hagee

Retraction: my whining about how the supposedly liberal media made no attempt to strike balance between Obama's former pastor and the radicals that McSame sought out endorsements from is now officially rescinded. Now, McBush is backing away from crazy Hagee & Parsley. Try your best.

It was a big day for backtracking:

• McCain rejects Hagee, 4:00 PM
  
• Hagee says, "screw you" in reply, 5:00 PM
  
• McCain rejects Parsley, 10:38 PM
• *update: Parsley withdraws endorsement, Sat AM*
  

Keep in mind this all comes after being asked by Snuffleupagus and by Bill Bennett about whether he knew of Hagee's radical views on the Catholic Church and Judaism generally. McCain was cool with him then.

There's your "straight talker"...

Note on Appalachia & Obama

When I said a few days ago that I know the Appalachian region all too well, as I lived my first 20 years there, I spoke about the racism that I know played into Obama's significant electoral losses in the region. Boy, I wish I'd known that the Daily Show video had come out the night before on this exact issue.

For those of you who can't/won't watch the video, Jon Stewart basically cuts through the "white working voters" bullshit to get to the heart of it -- race and ignorance. Voters were interviewed who repeated the nonsense about Obama being a Muslim and simultaneously (with no hint of irony or detection of illogic) an atheist.

As much as the Bible Belt section of Appalachia sucks, and as I've pointed to every conceivable fact to support that statement, I wanted to point out something of a little more substance: the NPR interview that exposed a lot of this racist nonsense and its closing statement in particular.

Exit polls from Tuesday show that 22% of voters admitted that race was a factor in their decision. For 8% of voters, race was the most important factor. And almost all those voters went for Clinton. Sometimes, voters say that they aren’t racist – but their friends and neighbors are. Here’s Anna Sale again talking to Brian Blankenship, a Logan County barber.

Blankenship: Well they’re saying Hillary, and if Hillary don’t, they’re saying McCain.
Sale : So they don’t like Obama
Blankenship: No
Sale : And what are the reasons
Blankenship: I’d say because he’s black, most of them.

Finn: And sometimes, voters have no problem saying it themselves.

Cooper: You know I didn’t vote for no colored.
Sale: Who did you vote for?
Cooper: What’s her name?
Sale : Clinton.
Cooper: Clinton, yeah.

Finn: That’s Morris Cooper, an 80-year-old man from Lincoln County. In all these cases, the voters weren’t asked about race – they brought it up themselves.

None of this surprises William Turner. He grew up in Harlan County, Kentucky, and is now chair of Appalachian Studies at Berea College. He says there’s no one single factor that explains Obama’s trouble with voters in Appalachia. It’s his race, it’s his name, it’s his upbringing in far-off Indonesia and Hawaii. And Obama’s message of change, which is so popular elsewhere, doesn’t resonate in a region that resists change.

Turner: How often I heard it said, Nobody likes change but a baby with a dirty diaper. So this kind of change is maybe just a little too much for people to absorb.

Finn: Some people think Obama can turn these attitudes around if he spends more time in West Virginia. In 1960, John F. Kennedy crisscrossed the state for three weeks, and even went down into a coal mine. It paid off – the mostly Protestant state helped select the nation’s first Catholic president. But Turner says Obama has a much tougher job than Kennedy.

Turner: I don’t think Barack could have in the short time he had change these long-standing stereotypes of black people or Appalachia. So what we need is just more education, more interaction, people getting to know each other better. And if he did nothing else but held up a mirror so we see ourselves better than we did last week, that’s good that he did that.

Finn: West Virginians, and other people in Appalachia, complain a lot about unfair stereotypes. But in this case, Turner says we have no one but ourselves to blame.

Indeed. Every hick they interviewed said the same ignorant things. It's enough to make me angry as hell and physically repulsed at the same time. All I can hope for is that more sunlight will work as a disinfectant; that the more people look at these sorts of attitudes, the more those holding them will be recognized for what they are and shunned. Education and liberal values are not going to work on the uneducated and staunch racists in Appalachia.

The same exact thing applies to eastern KY (where all of my dad's family is from and all still live) and there's a great video at Kos on it...also OH, PA, and to a lesser extent TN.

It will be so easy to beat McBush on issues of foreign policy, domestic policy and political ethics that I really think the only thing that can defeat Obama is the demographic he's struggled with for a a long time -- Southern or Appalachian whites & uneducated whites.

Random items

I used to listen to Steven Curtis Chapman (when I was a Christian), so this is really sad. His teenage son ran over his youngest daughter in the family's own driveway and killed her. And I find things like this just more evidence of the lack of a caring and powerful god -- it was a complete accident, nothing to do with free will. Notifying any of the family via a messenger angel or telepathy or "prophetic" dreams that this was going to happen would not have violated anyone's freedom.

This story about another megachurch minister getting caught doing something over the top sexually (think Haggard & diving suit) reminds me of an old thread I wrote -- "Stunning hypocrisy". This guy, though, was going to meet a 13-year old girl with a box of condoms on the front seat; at least Haggard and Gary M. Aldridge were legal.

I've never taken a philosophy class, so my rambling attempts at arguing with apologists over atheistic ethics should be forgiven. That said, after reading this exposition on Rawls and social contracts, I think I see the ideal I was striving for in explaining how morality follows logically from valuing one's own life and survival. It isn't about biology or evolutionary ethics, but it doesn't have to be.