The Difficult Transition of #BlackLivesMatter from Spontaneous Protests to Racial Justice Movement

I've lately thought about and discussed the issue of racial justice with a number of different people. One thought keeps cropping up: what happens if the current collective outrage never translates to meaningful action? What if, like Occupy Wall Street around the world, the passion of millions of protesters fizzles for lack of cohesion, and their voices become no more than a paragraph or a footnote in the annals of history?

Here's a pithy, rather spare think-piece to get us started:

http://mic.com/articles/107382/black-lives-matter-must-move-beyond-protests-or-risk-losing-the-fight-for-racial-justice

People like to compare the recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. They bear depressingly apt similarities, despite taking place fifty years apart; both protest the unequal treatment of African-Americans in this country, especially by the government or law enforcement. However, the most crucial difference between the two is: the Civil Rights Movement was carefully coordinated and led by a group of activist organizations, including the NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. A huge factor in their success was their ability to stage massive protests and rallies across the country over the course of many years, put forth specific and actionable demands, and apply sustained pressure on relevant politicians to meet these demands. This is virtually impossible for a movement without some form of centralized leadership.

The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were far more than human embodiments of their cause. These men and women were organizers, negotiators, motivators -- and tragically, often martyrs, too. When Martin Luther King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington, it was understood that he spoke with the collective voice of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. Because he and his fellow leaders so clearly expressed what they were hoping to accomplish with the March, the government had no choice but to respond; indeed, King's speech and the March are historically credited with securing the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Black Lives Matter thus far lacks this level of specificity in terms of goals or action plans, in large part because it, like Occupy Wall Street, has no spokesperson with whom the government can negotiate. They are doing a good job of advocating for body cameras on police officers, but otherwise, have been unable to articulate or agree on a set of actionable demands, and would find it difficult to hold the government accountable for hypothetical promises to address said demands. These movements start by channelling the frustrations and desires of the people at large, but can only grow into effective organizations if they are willing to move on from 100% spontaneous, grassroots advocacy to a more centralized system. Not all members of the movement can be equal; there must be somebody vested with the authority to make decisions and speak for the group. Every democracy elects a leader -- a social movement can be no different if it is to be sustainable.

It's much like the crucial difference between rebellion and governance: rebellion is the tearing down of an unjust system, while governance is about building a just (and importantly, stable) system. Rebellion is the easy part; destruction requires much less long-term planning. Building something new -- whether a new piece of legislation or a new world order -- calls for a much more comprehensive vision, and the capability to slog through the unglamorous legislative and administrative processes of achieving it. Idealism isn't enough: it requires tenacity, compromise, and specific skills that the body of protestors are unlikely capable of collectively wield.

This is why Occupy Wall Street petered out. That particular movement had issues, from the outset, with accepting a central authority that could harness the energy of the protesters and direct it towards specific policy goals. Many protesters were too suspicious of any sort of authority, any hint of inequality of position or platform. They couldn't recognize, to the detriment of the cause, that there are many shades of nuance between spokesperson and dictator, that one would not inevitably morph into the other by some Delphic slippery slope fallacy. Elevating a few key protesters to a position of power might have seemed inegalitarian at the time, but would have helped transform a movement based on outrage and sheer emotion into an organization, which would ultimately have achieved a greater and more lasting impact.

This is a lesson I dearly hope that the Black Lives Matter movement learns. Idealism can topple world orders, but pragmatism and dirty hands can build one anew.

Melville House to Publish the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture

This just happened. Melville House has outdone itself:

http://www.mhpbooks.com/press-release-melville-house-announces-publication-of-the-senate-intelligence-committee-report-on-torture/

The "Senate Torture Report," as the document is commonly known, is the product of a years-long investigation into the shocking and inhumane treatment of prisoners at the hands of the C.I.A., and the agency's vast attempts to hide its actions from both the rest of the government and the citizenry at large. It's a tremendously important work that shines a bright light on the evil that certain members of our public institutions insist, wrongly, is the price of preserving peace in our country.

Melville House, in the best tradition of letters in this democratic experiment we call the United States, is rushing to turn a heavily redacted, low-resolution, practically illegible set of images into a coherent and usable book by the end of the year. (Yes, that's in just a few weeks.) I can only imagine how chaotic and caffeinated their offices must be these days. But this is an important task. Without dissemination of information, democracy as we know it is meaningless. Only an informed public can truly self-govern in the way our forbearers intended.

Hats off to you, Melville House. What a way to close out the year.

The Economist: War Games as Pentagon Simulations

I played an excellent evening of board games not too long ago, and I was prompted to dig up this short but interesting article about wargaming:

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599016-understand-war-american-officials-are-playing-board-games-war-games

This is a practice that hearkens back to the elite of ancient India, where the future military leaders of the Gupta Empire honed their skills on a recognizable predecessor of modern (Western) chess. The game was adopted by the Persians, the Islamic caliphate, and made its way into Europe. There were other, similar games, such as Chinese chess and the Scandinavian hnefatafl (sometimes called "Viking chess"), but none that achieved the international cachet that chess enjoys (the former is a more regional pastime, and the latter is practically extinct). "The sport of kings," as chess was often called, became a status symbol across many civilizations; skill at the game required not only a modicum of natural talent, but also much training, which was usually only accessible to those with the leisure to pursue it. It was only natural that most chess masters of old belonged to the military elite and ruling classes.

Modern wargaming adheres to much the same logic. It is a common pastime for ordinary citizens, to be sure, but it uses the same set of skills that chess was meant to hone in princes and generals. It stands to reason that the Pentagon would commission its own wargames -- now we have only to wait for them to appear in stores. One wonders: has military strategy been, like many other educational topics, been democratized?

The People's Climate March, a Recap

Over the weekend, I went to the People's Climate March. I went alone, one of more than 300,000 people who attended the New York City event (similar marches were staged in cities around the world), and was warmly welcomed by perfect strangers, from climate scientists to concerned parents pushing baby strollers. There was universally an acknowledgement of solidarity, of common and overarching cause. There was a determination that the United Nations should hear us, on the weekend of the Climate Summit.

The March spanned more than fifty blocks on Manhattan's West Side, from 86th Street down to 34th Street. I joined about halfway through, having rushed across the river from the Brooklyn Book Festival, which was unfortunately on the same day. I tried to document what I could; my batteries gave out partway through...

I took this photo from just outside the barricade; it gives a good sense of the density of marchers along the route.

Marchers flocked to New York from colleges and universities throughout the Northeast, bringing handmade signs, slick printed banners, and matching t-shirts. (You know it's a real campus group when it has special t-shirts!)

There were also members of a diverse array of disproportionately-impacted communities, from indigenous populations to farmers to anyone who happened to live in a low-lying coastal region, included most Hurricane Sandy victims in the tri-state area (an unsurprisingly well-represented group).

Activists of all ages carried signs and slogans, and looked pretty happy to be here. It wasn't just young, idealistic college students!

These marchers, though, look like young, idealistic college students... The "fill-in-the-blank" signs were handed out to marchers at the beginning of the day. There was a wonderful diversity of answers, from the indisputably factual to the unflinchingly personal.

There were some interesting pieces of green technology along for the ride. I was especially taken with this tiny solar-powered vehicle, which reminded me of a cross between a VW Beetle and a golf cart. (It was moving at slow enough speeds that children could clamber on.)

I fell in with a group of scientists, some of whom had come all the way from the U.K. to participate in the march. They had an incredible prop: an enormous rolling blackboard covered in real data. The evidence was clear, from more than ten feet away!

And of course, the scientists came prepared with clever exoplanet jokes.

This photo was taken towards the end of the march, as the afternoon was just giving way to early evening. As the lighting is lacking, the signs read "Tuvalu," "Save the Arctic," and "Stop the tar sands at the source." This was indeed the delegation representing the tiny Pacific archipelago of Tuvalu, which is in danger of being submerged by rising sea levels. Some of them probably came a very long way to be heard in front of the United Nations.

As for the media round-up, my favorite pieces about the March:

• The New Yorker ran an excellent article about the event, as well as a interview with the environmentalist and scholar Bill McKibben, one of the primary organizers of the March.
• The New York Times also covered the March, including audiovisual material that gives a great sense of the numbers and diversity of the marchers. A follow-up article provided deeper analysis of the economics behind climate change mitigation.

The U.N. appears to have gotten the message -- but it remains to be seen in the months and years ahead how seriously its member states take their new vows on climate action. It will require intricate policy and sustained initiative to see them through the vagaries of politics, of course. But no country can claim that its citizens do not care or will not be affected by climate change.

The Guardian: Beijing Pilots Recycle-to-Ride Public Transit Program

This seems like a clever idea and incentive structure to address a very specific recycling problem, that of discarded plastic bottles, which cumulatively represent a significant threat to the environment (see the Great Pacific Garbage Patch):

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jul/04/beijing-recycling-banks-subway-bottles

One of the crucial elements of any mass behavioral shift is the incentive structure. Unfortunately, the average human being's sense of morality or duty doesn't stand up well to repeat inconvenience, if the inconvenience in question doesn't tangibly benefit him. (People are generally willing to perform isolated acts of kindness or charity, even if against greater obstacles, in large part because these incidents seem out of the ordinary and don't connote repeat obligation.)

This system set in motion in Beijing has two obvious advantages. One is the instantaneous reward mechanism: the recycled bottles are converted to currency at the station, and the currency can be immediately used to ride the subway. It doesn't require the average person to go out of their way or alter their routine; it can be as simple as recycling your empty water bottle at the end of the day as you head home, or taking your recycling to the subway station in the morning when you leave for work.

The second is that it also incentivizes the transit authority (and thereby the municipal government) to more aggressively promote recycling. Prior to the implementation of this infrastructure, the transit authority would only be motivated to encourage recycling for environmental reasons; citizens' recycling benefited the PET recycling industry, but not the government. Now, because the transit authority would be earning money through this new program (funds which presumably help pay for operation and maintenance of the subway system), there is a direct incentive for the government to encourage recycling.

Obviously, there are some kinks to be ironed out, such as ensuring that the machines themselves operated efficiently and that the bottles collected would be processed at an acceptable environmental standard. As a collection mechanism, however, this seems like a great idea to promote environmentalism that also makes economic sense. I can't wait for the MTA to install some bottle-recyclers of its own; perhaps this would also reduce the number of track fire delays (usually caused by trash thrown onto subway tracks).

Surrealist Street Artist Inspires in Tehran

I've always enjoyed public art, from mosaics in subway stations to murals in parks. It lends spaces a sense of personality, shaped by the people who interact with the architecture around them as much as by the planners and architects who first conceived them. It makes a place look truly inhabited and a structure look alive, more so than a form designed purely for unobtrusive function would otherwise be.

Of course, there's often a more specific message behind public art -- the very nature of the beast lends itself to political and social expression. One might expect that public art in fraught environments would be more message-driven (even though the risk to artists is correspondingly higher). One often forgets that beauty, with no ulterior motive, can be a message in itself:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/90589/an-iranian-artist-is-beautifying-tehran-with-surreal-street-art

I hope this artist continues to create and inspire.

Thoughts on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Especially Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Brilliant Dissent

Like many of you, I am greatly disappointed, if not entirely shocked, by the recent Supreme Court ruling in the case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. The decision was a Plessy v. Ferguson of our time, putting an already disadvantaged group, women, at the mercy of discriminatory organizations for superstitious and spurious reasons that should have no place in American public life. Unsurprisingly, all three of the female justices on the Supreme Court voted against Hobby Lobby.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's scathing, legally scintillating dissent should itself vindicate our sex in the face of a risibly paternalistic ruling that presumes women incapable of making their own decisions about their reproductive health. I dare any of the (all-male) justices on the opposing side to produce a more compelling and well-reasoned argument than this:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/231974154/Ginsburg-Dissent

(It's worth reading the entire way through. Multiple times, if necessary.)

This ruling is a severe blow to women's rights in our country; the earlier comparison to Plessy v. Ferguson is no exaggeration. Under the guise of religious freedom, this Supreme Court decision sets a new precedent of "separate but equal" for employees of companies whose leaders believe that women ought to have less control over their sexual and reproductive lives than men do. Consider that Hobby Lobby is perfectly willing to cover Viagra, circumcision, and vasectomies -- but somehow simultaneously refuses to pay for IUDs and Plan B. This plainly demonstrates that Hobby Lobby is willing to participate in the funding of some forms of birth control and reproductive healthcare, so long as the recipients are male. The Court is essentially sanctioning corporate sexism.

The Supreme Court's majority opinion significantly undermines the credibility of the institution and the ruling, as it is laden with ignorance and misinformation about women's health, contraceptives, and even about Christianity itself. For example, intrauterine devices primarily work by preventing fertilization rather than by causing a woman's body to reject the implantation of an embryo -- which means that, even under the most conservative Christian understanding of "the beginning of life," IUDs do not negatively affect human beings with personal rights. Hobby Lobby therefore does not even have reasonable religious grounds in refusing to cover IUDs. For that matter, Hobby Lobby's 401K plans invest in some of the same medical device and healthcare companies that make the products Hobby Lobby objects to covering. This is blatantly hypocritical, and the five Catholic male justices who sided with Hobby Lobby should have seen right through it. This Economist article does an excellent job of deconstructing the hypocrisies and irrationality of Hobby Lobby's position:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/07/hobby-lobby-and-religious-exceptions

Perhaps even more disturbing, though, is the majority's insistence that a corporation should be allowed to pick and choose the elements of the healthcare it is required to provide for its employees. So long as a corporation operates in this country, it ought to adhere to all of this country's laws, especially where they concern employees who are American citizens and who depend on these laws for protection. This savvy comedian, who spoke out about the Hobby Lobby case before the Supreme Court came to its decision, points out that much as citizens have to pay all of the taxes we owe even though we might not agree with every government function that our tax dollars pay for (such as the Iraq War), a company must similarly pay for everything it is legally bound to provide for its employees, regardless of its owner's personal beliefs:



Yes, I have strong feelings about this decision, as should all women and anyone who supports equal rights for women. Let's hope that, much as Plessy was followed by Brown v. Board, that a future Supreme Court will overturn this abhorrent, misguided ruling.

Thoughts on Higher Education, Opportunity, and Systemic Inequality

Education is one of the cornerstones of the American Dream. As a society, we have come to see it as the great equalizer -- a mechanism that, however imperfectly, levels the playing field for children born into different socioeconomic backgrounds and allows individuals to achieve based on talent and effort, rather than on circumstance. This is universally seen as a social benefit. However, the way we discuss education as a culture requires more nuance, particularly with respect to disadvantaged students. This article in The Atlantic raises some interesting and thoughtful points:

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/the-danger-of-telling-poor-kids-that-college-is-the-key-to-social-mobility/283120/

It occurs to me that there are several different but intersecting camps of people who value education: those who see knowledge as a tool and those who see knowledge as a goal; and those who pursue knowledge for themselves and those who pursue knowledge in the interests of the broader community. I conceive of it something like the below (and pardon the primitive ASCII graph):

                    | Self                  | World                      
Theoretical  | Truth              | Intellectual Discourse
Applied       | Advancement | Social Change          

In theory, anybody should have the option of choosing any of these four paths (or even multiple paths, if they can manage it) without being told that one is better or more applicable to their situation. It's problematic that a vast population of American students is steered towards the "applied + self" box simply because of the circumstances of their birth. It's inherently unjust, even if it makes sense (especially within the Andrew Carnegie model of the American Dream) that a talented child growing up poor would prioritize climbing the socioeconomic ladder over other intellectual goals, especially compared to an equally talented child growing up in better conditions, for whom such advancement is not as crucial. The latter child is more likely to pursue one of the other three options simply because she wants to. The former child, however, faces significant societal pressures to choose "applied + self," even if she would have chosen one of the other three if fully informed and separated from external influences. After all, people tend to perform better in fields they find genuinely interesting.

This is a fundamental problem because it allows us to perpetuate -- and feel justified in perpetuating -- the systemic limitation of the free will of an entire population of our most vulnerable citizens, disadvantaged youth. It's similar to the idea: "People vote with their stomachs. Only when they are full do they vote with their minds." Just because, in practice, education allows the hungry to fill their stomachs, does not mean that education should be sold to the hungry as a means to fill their stomachs, while it is simultaneously sold to the well-fed as a means to enrich their minds. This, in itself, is a pernicious way that children of different family means are treated unequally, a way that is thus far completely sanctioned within our society. Rather, a truly just society calls for informed and educated citizens who freely choose their life's paths, and whose progress down those paths is determined not by how far behind they started, but rather the distance they are able and willing to walk -- and this will only happen when all children start on a more level field. All students should be allowed to pursue the path they find most rewarding, and to have their successes and failures reflect upon their own effort and talent, rather than on conditions beyond their control. And all students should have the opportunity to make an informed and unencumbered choice for themselves, out of the posited four, at the beginning of their journeys.

Sochi 2014: Where can I buy a rainbow flag?

I've been watching the Winter Olympics this weekend (mostly for the figure skating, which is wonderful). I've also been keeping abreast of Putin's crackdown on LGBT rights and the subsequent displays of pride and solidarity from other countries. Here's an excellent little video by The Guardian, wherein a number of British celebrities learn how to say "Where can I buy a rainbow flag?" in Russian:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/video/2014/feb/07/learn-russian-protest-anti-gay-laws-sochi-winter-olympics-video

Neil Gaiman! Stephen Fry!

Because damn it, Putin, you're not going to bring Russia into the twenty-first century without some twenty-first century values -- among which are equal rights for all citizens, including gay ones. (Yes, we have a ways to go on this issue in the US as well.)

Statistics, Demographics, Music, Art

Last night, I went to Vienna Teng's concert at the Highline Ballroom with Brett, who was in town this week. Vienna's touring her new album, Aims. Her sound in this record is rather different from her earlier work -- it's louder, more electronic, more contemporary. But it's still the Vienna we all know and love, and it's not the first time she's tried something new (see "Grandmother Song" and "Radio" from her previous album, Inland Territory).

One of the aspects of Vienna the songwriter that I admire is how she incorporates a wonderfully diverse array of experiences, abstract concepts, and places into her work. One never forgets that she's a true renaissance woman -- she just finished up a dual degree in business and environmental science (one of her passions is environmental sustainability), and she was a computer scientist out of Stanford undergrad. Aims's album artwork, for example, is quite inspired -- it's a population density map of Detroit:

http://viennateng.com/album/aims

It makes the demographics/stats/sociology nerd in me really happy. I've always loved maps -- centuries-old ship's maps, star charts, subway maps, hilariously inaccurate classical and medieval maps (like those inspired by Herodotus, for example), Tolkien's maps... (The maps room is probably the coolest underrated exhibit in the Vatican Museums compound.) Maps that convey information beyond mere geography, like this one, are even better.

On the subject of demographics... I can't wait until The Signal and the Noise comes out in paperback! It's another case of excellent concept meets brilliant cover design (the art department at Penguin has turned out some really thoughtful covers these few years; Moonwalking with Einstein and The Painted Boy come to mind):

http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/features/the_signal_and_the_noise

I get the sense that Vienna must have read some Nate Silver, and not just because she's an intelligent, multi-talented person with a mathematical brain and two advanced degrees. This occurred to me while listening to two particular songs on the Aims album, "In the 99" and "The Hymn of Acxiom." The former includes the phrase "said the signal to the noise" -- while the phrase (or a variation thereof) didn't originate with Nate Silver, Vienna does use the line in a song about social (im)mobility and economic stratification. "The Hymn of Acxiom" was, more obviously, inspired by Acxiom, a marketing/advertising company that compiles databases of personal information. It's actually rather creepy how much it knows about us -- Vienna even said as much when she was introducing the song. (Just a year and a half ago, she'd said in an interview that she was trying to figure out how to merge the worlds of music and sustainability -- I suppose she found it!) Even in her Inland Territory days, one could sense from her music that she was highly aware of, and engaged with, the social context in which she was writing (see "Stray Italian Greyhound," inspired by the 2008 presidential election, and "No Gringo," a commentary on the illegal immigration issue). 

The first step to addressing any issue is understanding it -- which is especially difficult with broad, longterm problems like climate change, food security, infectious diseases, &c. I particularly admire people like Vienna Teng and Nate Silver because they're not necessarily on the front lines, not really within the system or calling the shots, but they've nonetheless found ways to achieve great things in fields that they love and simultaneously contribute to our understanding of how our world works and how we might face the challenges of living in it. (Vienna's taken the approach of having two mostly separate careers, music and sustainability, that inform each other; Nate Silver has found an innovative way to apply his expertise, quantitative analysis, to a largely unrelated field.) Interestingly -- and I'm sure it's no coincidence -- all of these areas deal with multitudes, the masses, the People.

One of the great advantages of civilization, which elevates homo sapiens above non-sentient species, is our ability to consider and attempt to solve problems which affect humanity as a whole, as opposed to merely dealing with issues that affect our genetic kin and the small populations we interact with regularly. We're capable of viewing our species (and indeed, our world) as collectively valuable -- even the pieces we can't see -- and of thinking in the big picture, in the long-term, in lightyears rather than miles and millennia rather than mere decades. We acknowledge that which is greater than the individual, the genetic, even the human, and embrace the possibility that comes with it. (I am one, but I am of the many, and my words, actions, ideas may one day sway the multitudes, whether they know it or not.)

The Economist: On Pollution, China is Better and Worse Than We Think

I'm reading Jared Diamond's excellent book Collapse (you know it's important when it has its own Wikipedia page!), which devotes a whole section to the real sociopolitical dangers modern China faces as a result of environmental fragility and degradation. I rather serendipitously happened upon this article in The Economist, which discusses developments therein (both good and bad) since Collapse was published in 2005:

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21583245-china-worlds-worst-polluter-largest-investor-green-energy-its-rise-will-have

I subsequently ended up thinking a lot about the subject, so I thought I'd muse about it in prose. (Sometimes -- very occasionally -- I miss writing essays for college history classes...) This post is rather long, so I've put it below the cut:

The Economist: Is the EU the Holy Roman Empire 2.0?

A thought-provoking historical perspective on the current economic and political situation in the EU:
http://www.economist.com/news/christmas/21568659-old-empire-offers-surprising-lessons-european-union-today-european-disunion-done

Several such entities have been attempted in Europe through its long history, from the classical Roman Empire to today's European Union. Though the continent derives some unity from its vaunted Greco-Roman roots, it contains a great deal of diversity in terms of language, ethnicity, culture -- all the necessary components of national identity. There are, in fact, a number of key differences (some articulated in the above article, some not) between the current EU and comparable historical entities (interestingly, they all begin with 'c'). Here's my (history buff's) perspective (it's longer than usual, so I've put it under the cut):

Washington Post: Food Truck for Peace

This is such an inspired idea!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/food-truck-will-deliver-message-of-mideast-peace/2013/01/25/b121ea7e-6665-11e2-93e1-475791032daf_story.html?hpid=z1

Throughout human history, the concept of breaking bread has had a powerful hold on our imaginations. Food, and the culture and traditions surrounding it, is one of the original methods of brokering peace. Back in the earliest days of homo sapiens, the acquisition of food was a costly group effort that strengthened the bonds within one's immediate community. In Ancient Greece, offering food and shelter to visitors became an integral part of upholding the honor of one's house. In many cultures, it was considered taboo to bring weaponry to the table, and any harm that befell a guest at one's table brought great dishonor upon the host.

It's time that we brought everyday Jews and Muslims to that table. In the most political city in the melting pot that is America, peace -- or at least understanding and friendship -- might well take root via food.

NYTimes: A Religious Perspective on the Newtown Massacre

I have, on occasion, made my views on religion known to readers of this blog. (I don't think religion and politics should be taboo topics of conversation, so long as disagreements are civil and rational.) I consider myself secularly spiritual.  I personally think of religion as a blend of mythology and morality, but I have great respect for religious people who live by the true tenets of their creed (which I don't think include holy wars, persecution of minorities, or evangelism), and I believe that the hearts of most religions are benevolent and peace-loving. I appreciate the value of the moral guidance and comfort that religion can bring to believers in difficult times. This is an example of such:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/opinion/dowd-why-god.html?hp&_r=0&gwh=02A7DB3DBD76598A7F25B51569ED6491

This man reminds me of Victor Hugo's Bishop of Digne, one of the first and finest examples of religious men I'd encountered.

Merry Christmas.

Gun Control in the United States, an Open Letter

Dear Mr. President,

I voted for you, because I believed and still believe that your vision for America's future is much like my own: a country where every child has access to a good education, healthcare, and three square meals a day; where we, as a country, promote peace and understanding around the world; where we develop the new technologies that will improve the standard of living here and abroad. This vision is gravely threatened by gun violence, which deprives innocents of the first of the three unalienable rights supposedly guaranteed to all citizens -- life.

It's the Commander in Chief's duty to protect the people of this country. You have demonstrated, Mr. President, that you are capable of doing so; we saw you order the strike on Osama bin Laden with the clear-eyed decisiveness that your job requires. You gave us the rhetoric, the reassurance, and the follow-through on that particular project. You have the chance to do something like that again. It won't be a military exercise this time, where an executive order and a talented team can accomplish, as if by fiat, a coup like your last. It will be a tough slog, a thankless and likely ugly legislative battle that may well demand an aggressive stance against the gun lobby and the far right, rather than the compromise and civility that you so favor. (Perhaps it might be time to unleash our inimitable Vice President on Congress?)

It won't be pretty; it won't be perfect. But it is necessary. Surely you can see this. Surely it is worth fighting for. Please fight for it. We need your boots on the ground as well as your blazing rhetoric. We need your head as well as your heart.

If you need more convincing, or a more professional opinion, this Washington Post column says it better than I did:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-on-guns-take-action-now/2012/12/17/5f300f98-4888-11e2-ad54-580638ede391_story.html?hpid=z3

Yes, we can. We can ensure that these children did not die in vain. Mr. President, yes we can heal this nation. It starts with better gun control.

With hope,
Sarah

President Obama Thanks Campaign Volunteers

This is our president.



To borrow a phrase from his 2008 victory speech, if there's any question that he cares -- that he has genuine compassion for the people who work for him, the next generation, Americans of all stripes -- this is your answer. I, and I'm sure many of my peers, would be proud to be part of the future that he sees for this country and for us.

(Also, I'm thinking, Malia and Sasha have an awesome dad.)

NYTimes: Bloomberg Endorses Obama, Cites Climate Change and Sandy

This. Climate change has been given such short shrift this campaign even though, as this recent disaster has shown, it is of utmost importance. Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg, for reaching out to Democrats to point this out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/nyregion/bloomberg-endorses-obama-saying-hurricane-sandy-affected-decision.html?smid=tw-nytmetro

This is not just an environmental issue. Climate change is a national security issue, an economic issue, a health issue. There's been a War on Terrorism, a War on Poverty -- how about a War on Global Warming?

We need a leader with longterm vision, who understands that his policies affect more than just the here and now, that his children and his children's children -- future generations and the whole planet -- are at stake. It's hard, sometimes, for system of a four-year election cycles to deliver such a leader. We might have one in a second-term Obama; we know we don't in Romney.

Seeing is believing. Let's hope there are more believers now.

Updates on the Storm Front

For all of you who are concerned in the wake of Sandy: I'm alive, my family is safe, we have power and water, and our house is fine. My office is in the blackout zone, so the building has no power and even our servers and emergency hotline are down; I won't be returning to work until they get electricity back. (Not to mention that public transportation is down and Manhattan is essentially cut off from the rest of the city.)

I hope everyone else in the Northeast is safe!

Update 11/03: The office building finally has power back!

How to Explain Gay Rights to an Idiot

It's got pictures!

http://atheist-overdose.tumblr.com/post/29153516004/how-to-explain-gay-rights-to-an-idiot-follow-for

Simple logic at its finest.

Washington Post: Is Mitt Romney a Unicorn?

Something amusing:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romney-a-unicorn-fighting-birthers-with-their-own-ploy/2012/05/29/gJQAvNDRzU_story.html?hpid=z2

The sad thing is that people actually take the birther thing seriously. It would be poetic justice (but even sadder) if somehow the "Mitt Romney is a unicorn" meme caught on with that crowd.