Monday, May 02, 2005
Snow?!*%#!
Yes, it's 2 May 2005 & there is an inch of snow on the ground. I was going to stay home this a.m. & do something, but, snow, no. On to the coffeehouse, sluggards or slackers or whatever....
Global Warming
This from the St. Petersberg Times, a paper I've been reading more & more. Good reporting, good editorials, just good. Here's an excerpt, emphasis added:
Current research shows that the waters in the Atlantic basin are as warm as they've been since scientists began recording temperatures more than 100 years ago. The average for the last decade was one-tenth of a degree centigrade higher than the previous high, recorded in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The increase doesn't sound like much. But researchers such as Trenberth have concluded that it is not a normal fluctuation in ocean temperatures, or the effect of El Nino, a current of warm ocean water. It's an increase in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, they say.
When researchers plug global warming data into their models, they can re-create the climate patterns of the past 30 years, Trenberth said. Without that data, the models fail to re-create the patterns.
"There is a man-made contribution," Trenberth said. "It's not outstanding at the moment. But it's there."
Hurricanes already may be dropping more rain as a result of the warming.
Trenberth pointed out that "very heavy" precipitation, the kind dropped during hurricanes, was up 20 percent over the previous century. And by 2080, the average rainfall near the center of hurricanes will increase by 18 percent, according to Knutson's models.
Such a trend would not be easily reversed, scientists say.
Current research shows that the waters in the Atlantic basin are as warm as they've been since scientists began recording temperatures more than 100 years ago. The average for the last decade was one-tenth of a degree centigrade higher than the previous high, recorded in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The increase doesn't sound like much. But researchers such as Trenberth have concluded that it is not a normal fluctuation in ocean temperatures, or the effect of El Nino, a current of warm ocean water. It's an increase in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, they say.
When researchers plug global warming data into their models, they can re-create the climate patterns of the past 30 years, Trenberth said. Without that data, the models fail to re-create the patterns.
"There is a man-made contribution," Trenberth said. "It's not outstanding at the moment. But it's there."
Hurricanes already may be dropping more rain as a result of the warming.
Trenberth pointed out that "very heavy" precipitation, the kind dropped during hurricanes, was up 20 percent over the previous century. And by 2080, the average rainfall near the center of hurricanes will increase by 18 percent, according to Knutson's models.
Such a trend would not be easily reversed, scientists say.
My Brush With Fame, Via The Kid
This article appeared in yesterday's Star-Tribune. My kid is best friends with the Melissa, mentioned below. I met T.R. Knight at Melissa & Brandon's wedding. Ah, the reflected glow of the bright lights of L.A.
"CJ: An M.D. on TV, T.R. makes rounds on visits home
C.J., Star Tribune
May 1, 2005 CJ0501
Housewives don't rule Shirley Knight's new Sunday night TV ritual; doctors do.
Knight's son T.R. Knight plays Dr. George O'Malley on ABC's 'Grey's Anatomy.'
'It's fun having him on a show that people like,' said Knight, who works at Park Nicollet Clinic. 'He had been on a sitcom called 'Charlie Lawrence.' ' Don't know it? 'Ohhhh, and there's a reason. They made six or seven, with a pilot, and showed two before they pulled it. It was CBS, with Nathan Lane.'
'He lived in New York for five years, and then he just went to L.A.' T.R. didn't have to pound the pavement long before landing the show, co-starring the inestimable Sandra Oh.
T.R. got his acting start in Guthrie productions of 'A Christmas Carol.'He was like 5, 6 and 7 when he played Tiny Tim. That was just a fluke that he started as Tiny Tim,' Shirley said. 'This is a lot better.'
A receptionist/secretary in the physical therapy area, Mom isn't a TV person. 'I've just got too much else to do,' she said. She was once a day-care provider, which gives T.R. a huge built-in audience with metro's under-14 set.
T.R. has been in Minneapolis a couple times in the past few months, once as a surprise. 'I was in the hospital for just a couple days. All of a sudden, there he is. He flew in for like four hours, maybe six hours, and he had to go back, but he was so sweet.'
He also has to visit his brother, Danny; sister, Melissa, and nephews Alexander, 2 months, and Benjamin, 3, Uncle T.R.'s biggest fan. 'We miss him when he's gone,' said Mom.
Knight said that her late mom, Malinda, believes she was first to start calling Theodore Raymond, both family names, T.R. 'I thought we started that from a few months old. We'll just give her credit.'"
"CJ: An M.D. on TV, T.R. makes rounds on visits home
C.J., Star Tribune
May 1, 2005 CJ0501
Housewives don't rule Shirley Knight's new Sunday night TV ritual; doctors do.
Knight's son T.R. Knight plays Dr. George O'Malley on ABC's 'Grey's Anatomy.'
'It's fun having him on a show that people like,' said Knight, who works at Park Nicollet Clinic. 'He had been on a sitcom called 'Charlie Lawrence.' ' Don't know it? 'Ohhhh, and there's a reason. They made six or seven, with a pilot, and showed two before they pulled it. It was CBS, with Nathan Lane.'
'He lived in New York for five years, and then he just went to L.A.' T.R. didn't have to pound the pavement long before landing the show, co-starring the inestimable Sandra Oh.
T.R. got his acting start in Guthrie productions of 'A Christmas Carol.'He was like 5, 6 and 7 when he played Tiny Tim. That was just a fluke that he started as Tiny Tim,' Shirley said. 'This is a lot better.'
A receptionist/secretary in the physical therapy area, Mom isn't a TV person. 'I've just got too much else to do,' she said. She was once a day-care provider, which gives T.R. a huge built-in audience with metro's under-14 set.
T.R. has been in Minneapolis a couple times in the past few months, once as a surprise. 'I was in the hospital for just a couple days. All of a sudden, there he is. He flew in for like four hours, maybe six hours, and he had to go back, but he was so sweet.'
He also has to visit his brother, Danny; sister, Melissa, and nephews Alexander, 2 months, and Benjamin, 3, Uncle T.R.'s biggest fan. 'We miss him when he's gone,' said Mom.
Knight said that her late mom, Malinda, believes she was first to start calling Theodore Raymond, both family names, T.R. 'I thought we started that from a few months old. We'll just give her credit.'"
A Good Analysis of "Ownership"
Bush's "Ownership" society is nothing more, in my opinion, than an excuse to get yours & the hell with everyone else. This makes the argument from the street.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Cleaning up the Cuyahoga
Seems like the pollution in Ohio has resurfaced once again. This update from Americablog gives us more of the story. No wonder Kerry lost Ohio, or should I suggest, had it stolen?
Yeah, That's the Ticket
My house as an investment. Sure, I'll work all my life fixing up my house to where I like it, & then, sell it & move into a smaller house because I don't want to mow the lawn? WTF? How stupid does Sen. Allen think we are? & he's being touted as a Presidental candidate? I guess things are looking up in 2008.
Eschaton: "Another Great Meet the Press Moment
From Senator Allen (R-VA):
And moreover, in the event that a personal savings account approach is taken, allowing them to invest in a home in addition to right now it's stocks, bonds and other financial instruments, if people can invest in their own home, they'll know it. They'll understand it. They'll take care of it. And they'll enjoy it and they don't have to worry about mergers and acquisitions and scandals and market share. And by the time they retire, they're going to have a pretty good nest egg there and they don't need as big a house, usually, because they don't want to be cutting grass and trimming hedges, and that is good for the economy as well.
-Atrios 1:25 PM
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Eschaton: "Another Great Meet the Press Moment
From Senator Allen (R-VA):
And moreover, in the event that a personal savings account approach is taken, allowing them to invest in a home in addition to right now it's stocks, bonds and other financial instruments, if people can invest in their own home, they'll know it. They'll understand it. They'll take care of it. And they'll enjoy it and they don't have to worry about mergers and acquisitions and scandals and market share. And by the time they retire, they're going to have a pretty good nest egg there and they don't need as big a house, usually, because they don't want to be cutting grass and trimming hedges, and that is good for the economy as well.
-Atrios 1:25 PM
Comments (66) Trackback (0)"
May Day
When I was in grade school, we celebrated May Day by making little conical shaped paper baskets, putting some candy in them & then hanging them on the doorknobs of our favorite schoolmates, teachers, & adult friends. My daughter did not have this tradition in her school. Later on, we celebrated the victories of the working people of the world on May Day. Sometimes, under the right conditions, if you know what I mean, we would break out with an extremely off-key rendition of The Internationale. I'm not sure where today is going, but with Bush & his fellow American Taliban in charge, I need to do something more than the honey-do list, which I am expert at avoiding. Yes, Leslie, it rhymes, & I hope you appreciate it. So here we go:
...Let the winds lift your banners from far lands
With a message of strife and of hope:
Raise the Maypole aloft with its garlands
That gathers your cause in its scope....
...Stand fast, then, Oh Workers, your ground,
Together pull, strong and united:
Link your hands like a chain the world round,
If you will that your hopes be requited.
When the World's Workers, sisters and brothers,
Shall build, in the new coming years,
A lair house of life--not for others,
For the earth and its fulness is theirs.
Walter Crane, The Workers' Maypole, 1894
& more:
Rosa Luxemburg
The Idea of May Day on the March
Written: First published in Liepziger Volkszeitung, April 30, 1913
Published: From Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg, tr. Dick Howard (NY: Monthly Review Press, 1971)
In the middle of the wildest orgies of imperialism, the world holiday of the proletariat is repeating itself for the twenty-fourth time. What has taken place in the quarter of a century since the epoch-making decision to celebrate May Day is an immense part of the historical path. When the May demonstration made its debut, the vanguard of the International, the German working class, was breaking the chains of a shameful law of exception and setting out on the path of a free, legal development. The period of the long depression on the world market since the crash of the 1870's had been overcome, and the capitalist economy had just begun a phase of splendid growth which would last nearly a decade. At the same time, after twenty years of unbroken peace, the world breathed a sigh of relief, remembering the period of war in which the modern European state system had received its bloody baptism. The path seemed free for a peaceful cultural development; illusions, hopes of a reasonable, pacific discussion between labor and capital grew abundantly like green corn in the ranks of socialism. Propositions like "to hold out the open hand to the good will" marked the beginning of the 1890's; promises of an imperceptible "gradual move into socialism" marked its end. Crises, wars, and revolution were supposed to have been things of the past, the baby shoes of modern society; parliamentarism and unions, democracy in the state and democracy in the factory were supposed to open the doors of a new, better order.
The course of events has submitted all of these illusions to a fearful test. At the end of the 1890's, in place of the promised, smooth, social-reforming cultural development, began a period of the most violent and acute sharpening of the capitalistic contradictions--a storm and stress, a crashing and colliding, a wavering and quaking in the foundations of the society. In the following decade, the ten-year period of economic prosperity was paid for by two violent world crises. After two decades of world peace, in the last decade of the past century followed six bloody wars, and in the first decade of the new century four bloody revolutions. Instead of the social reforms--conspiracy laws, penal laws, and penal praxis; instead of industrial democracy--the powerful concentration of capital in cartels and business associations, and the international practice of gigantic lock-outs. And instead of the new growth of democracy in the state--a miserable breakdown of the last remnants of bourgeois liberalism and bourgeois democracy. Specifically in the case of Germany the fate of the bourgeois parties since the 1890's has brought: the rise and immediate, hopeless dissolution of the National Socialists; the split of the "radical" opposition and the reunification of its splinters in the morass of the reaction; and finally the transformation of the "center" from a radical peoples' party to a conservative governmental party. The shifting in the development of the parties was similar in other capitalist countries. In general, the revolutionary working class sees itself today standing alone, opposed to a closed, hostile reaction of the ruling classes and their malicious tricks.
The sign under which this whole development, both economic and political, has been consummated, the formula back to which its results point, is imperialism. This is no new element, no unexpected turn in the general historical path of the capitalist society. Armaments and wars, international contradictions and colonial politics accompany the history of capitalism from its cradle. It is the most extreme intensification of these elements, a drawing together, a gigantic storming of these contradictions which has produced a new epoch in the course of modern society. In a dialectical interaction, both cause and effect of the immense accumulation of capital and the heightening and sharpening of the contradictions which go with it internally, between capital and labor; externally, between the capitalist states--imperialism has opened the final phase, the division of the world by the assault of capital. A chain of unending, exorbitant armaments on land and on sea in all capitalist countries because of rivalries; a chain of bloody wars which have spread from Africa to Europe and which at any moment could light the spark which would become a world fire; moreover, for years the uncheckable specter of inflation, of mass hunger in the whole capitalist world--all of these are the signs under which the world holiday of labor, after nearly a quarter of a century, approaches. And each of these signs is a flaming testimony of the living truth and the power of the idea of May Day.
The brilliant basic idea of May Day is the autonomous, immediate stepping forward of the proletarian masses, the political mass action of the millions of workers who otherwise are atomized by the barriers of the state in the day-to-day parliamentary affairs, who mostly can give expression to their own will only through the ballot, through the election of their representatives. The excellent proposal of the Frenchman Lavigne at the Paris Congress of the International added to this parliamentary, indirect manifestation of the will of the proletariat a direct, international mass manifestation: the strike as a demonstration and means of struggle for the eight-hour day, world peace, and socialism.
And in effect what an upswing this idea, this new form of struggle has taken on in the last decade! The mass strike has become an internationally recognized, indispensable weapon of the political struggle. As a demonstration, as a weapon in the struggle, it returns again in innumerable forms and gradations in all countries for nearly fifteen years. As a sign of the revolutionary reanimation of the proletariat in Russia, as a tenacious means of struggle in the hands of the Belgian proletariat, it has just now proved its living power. And the next, most burning question in Germany--the Prussian voting rights--obviously, because of its previous slipshod treatment, points to a rising mass action of the Prussian proletariat up to the mass strike as the only possible solution.
No wonder! The whole development, the whole tendency of imperialism in the last decade leads the international working class to see more clearly and more tangibly that only the personal stepping forward of the broadest masses, their personal political action, mass demonstrations, and mass strikes which must sooner or later open into a period of revolutionary struggles for the power in the state, can give the correct answer of the proletariat to the immense oppression of imperialistic policy. In this moment of armament lunacy and war orgies, only the resolute will to struggle of the working masses, their capacity and readiness for powerful mass actions, can maintain world peace and push away the menacing world conflagration. And the more the idea of May Day, the idea of resolute mass actions as a manifestation of international unity, and as a means of struggle for peace and for socialism, takes root in the strongest troops of the International, the German working class, the greater is our guarantee that out of the world war which, sooner or later, is unavoidable, will come forth a definite and victorious struggle between the world of labor and that of capital.
Celebrate & do the right thing.
...Let the winds lift your banners from far lands
With a message of strife and of hope:
Raise the Maypole aloft with its garlands
That gathers your cause in its scope....
...Stand fast, then, Oh Workers, your ground,
Together pull, strong and united:
Link your hands like a chain the world round,
If you will that your hopes be requited.
When the World's Workers, sisters and brothers,
Shall build, in the new coming years,
A lair house of life--not for others,
For the earth and its fulness is theirs.
Walter Crane, The Workers' Maypole, 1894
& more:
Rosa Luxemburg
The Idea of May Day on the March
Written: First published in Liepziger Volkszeitung, April 30, 1913
Published: From Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg, tr. Dick Howard (NY: Monthly Review Press, 1971)
In the middle of the wildest orgies of imperialism, the world holiday of the proletariat is repeating itself for the twenty-fourth time. What has taken place in the quarter of a century since the epoch-making decision to celebrate May Day is an immense part of the historical path. When the May demonstration made its debut, the vanguard of the International, the German working class, was breaking the chains of a shameful law of exception and setting out on the path of a free, legal development. The period of the long depression on the world market since the crash of the 1870's had been overcome, and the capitalist economy had just begun a phase of splendid growth which would last nearly a decade. At the same time, after twenty years of unbroken peace, the world breathed a sigh of relief, remembering the period of war in which the modern European state system had received its bloody baptism. The path seemed free for a peaceful cultural development; illusions, hopes of a reasonable, pacific discussion between labor and capital grew abundantly like green corn in the ranks of socialism. Propositions like "to hold out the open hand to the good will" marked the beginning of the 1890's; promises of an imperceptible "gradual move into socialism" marked its end. Crises, wars, and revolution were supposed to have been things of the past, the baby shoes of modern society; parliamentarism and unions, democracy in the state and democracy in the factory were supposed to open the doors of a new, better order.
The course of events has submitted all of these illusions to a fearful test. At the end of the 1890's, in place of the promised, smooth, social-reforming cultural development, began a period of the most violent and acute sharpening of the capitalistic contradictions--a storm and stress, a crashing and colliding, a wavering and quaking in the foundations of the society. In the following decade, the ten-year period of economic prosperity was paid for by two violent world crises. After two decades of world peace, in the last decade of the past century followed six bloody wars, and in the first decade of the new century four bloody revolutions. Instead of the social reforms--conspiracy laws, penal laws, and penal praxis; instead of industrial democracy--the powerful concentration of capital in cartels and business associations, and the international practice of gigantic lock-outs. And instead of the new growth of democracy in the state--a miserable breakdown of the last remnants of bourgeois liberalism and bourgeois democracy. Specifically in the case of Germany the fate of the bourgeois parties since the 1890's has brought: the rise and immediate, hopeless dissolution of the National Socialists; the split of the "radical" opposition and the reunification of its splinters in the morass of the reaction; and finally the transformation of the "center" from a radical peoples' party to a conservative governmental party. The shifting in the development of the parties was similar in other capitalist countries. In general, the revolutionary working class sees itself today standing alone, opposed to a closed, hostile reaction of the ruling classes and their malicious tricks.
The sign under which this whole development, both economic and political, has been consummated, the formula back to which its results point, is imperialism. This is no new element, no unexpected turn in the general historical path of the capitalist society. Armaments and wars, international contradictions and colonial politics accompany the history of capitalism from its cradle. It is the most extreme intensification of these elements, a drawing together, a gigantic storming of these contradictions which has produced a new epoch in the course of modern society. In a dialectical interaction, both cause and effect of the immense accumulation of capital and the heightening and sharpening of the contradictions which go with it internally, between capital and labor; externally, between the capitalist states--imperialism has opened the final phase, the division of the world by the assault of capital. A chain of unending, exorbitant armaments on land and on sea in all capitalist countries because of rivalries; a chain of bloody wars which have spread from Africa to Europe and which at any moment could light the spark which would become a world fire; moreover, for years the uncheckable specter of inflation, of mass hunger in the whole capitalist world--all of these are the signs under which the world holiday of labor, after nearly a quarter of a century, approaches. And each of these signs is a flaming testimony of the living truth and the power of the idea of May Day.
The brilliant basic idea of May Day is the autonomous, immediate stepping forward of the proletarian masses, the political mass action of the millions of workers who otherwise are atomized by the barriers of the state in the day-to-day parliamentary affairs, who mostly can give expression to their own will only through the ballot, through the election of their representatives. The excellent proposal of the Frenchman Lavigne at the Paris Congress of the International added to this parliamentary, indirect manifestation of the will of the proletariat a direct, international mass manifestation: the strike as a demonstration and means of struggle for the eight-hour day, world peace, and socialism.
And in effect what an upswing this idea, this new form of struggle has taken on in the last decade! The mass strike has become an internationally recognized, indispensable weapon of the political struggle. As a demonstration, as a weapon in the struggle, it returns again in innumerable forms and gradations in all countries for nearly fifteen years. As a sign of the revolutionary reanimation of the proletariat in Russia, as a tenacious means of struggle in the hands of the Belgian proletariat, it has just now proved its living power. And the next, most burning question in Germany--the Prussian voting rights--obviously, because of its previous slipshod treatment, points to a rising mass action of the Prussian proletariat up to the mass strike as the only possible solution.
No wonder! The whole development, the whole tendency of imperialism in the last decade leads the international working class to see more clearly and more tangibly that only the personal stepping forward of the broadest masses, their personal political action, mass demonstrations, and mass strikes which must sooner or later open into a period of revolutionary struggles for the power in the state, can give the correct answer of the proletariat to the immense oppression of imperialistic policy. In this moment of armament lunacy and war orgies, only the resolute will to struggle of the working masses, their capacity and readiness for powerful mass actions, can maintain world peace and push away the menacing world conflagration. And the more the idea of May Day, the idea of resolute mass actions as a manifestation of international unity, and as a means of struggle for peace and for socialism, takes root in the strongest troops of the International, the German working class, the greater is our guarantee that out of the world war which, sooner or later, is unavoidable, will come forth a definite and victorious struggle between the world of labor and that of capital.
Celebrate & do the right thing.
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