So yesterday marked a hilarious (for me at least) point in the campaign. Amid the Obama lovefest and Hillary-supporters-are-pissed news, a somewhat obscure, but ultimately awesome political news event occurred. John McCain garnered the endorsement of Puerto Rican reggaeton star Daddy Yankee. This is huge. Ok, seriously, the man is a music god on the island and I can only assume that McCain will, by virtue of the endorsement, get a lot of attention. The only problem is that well Puerto Ricans can't vote for president. In fact, no one living in Puerto Rico except military personnel can vote for any national office. Actually, I don't even think Daddy Yankee can vote for John McCain.

Now I understand where the endorsement comes from. McCain has been a fierce advocate of immigration reform that isn't mouth-foaming or unworkable. I don't love it, but I can see where people would respect it. In fact, that was the primary reason for the endorsement. While I read a few articles about it, I couldn't help but wonder if anyone told him what the guy's songs are actually about. From casual sex in "Lo que paso paso" to thinly veiled references to muscle cars and sex in "Gasolina," I think it's a rather odd fit. McCain is (other than that little divorce remairrage soon after thing) a pretty straight-laced guy partnered with a guy advocating some rather un-family values.

When I think about the contrast combined with the fact that the endorser probably can't even vote (no, I couldn't find his official address, so I'm not 100% sure), it seems about a good as an endorsement from Gary Glitter. :-D. Hey, maybe "Gasolina" is about energy independence...Anyway, McCain apparently likes Daddy Yankee's gasolina...just don't tell him what that means (chances are McCain's staff has no idea either).

Labels: Brandon, Daddy Yankee, gasolina, John McCain, politics

So according to the election law blog, this guy is an opportunistic douchebag. I felt it my civic duty to let him know. Also, his contact information is available through ebay should you feel the need to do the same.

Labels: Barack Obama, Brandon, Champaign Politics, Joe Biden

I just arrived in Champaign today after a rather bizarre and shall we say "adventurous" roadtrip from my home in California. On this trip, my girlfriend and I mostly went by maps because what were once our sightseeing plans had hit a few hiccups, so we had to take a different (and shorter) route. While studying the maps of the country between California and Illinois, I was struck by how artificial our political subdivision boundary lines are. I was struck by the number of metropolitan areas that spanned not only dozens, and occasionally hundreds, of municipalities and square miles, but also multiple states. This got me to thinking that there's something wrong, almost offensive to common sense, in this scenario.

States, municipalities, counties. They are largely artificial. The most obvious is counties. They are, for the most part, entirely artificial lines drawn in the sand by state governments to make governing larger states easier - they are mere subdivisions of the state. States aren't always as obvious. A few, like Hawaii or some of the original colonies make sense in that they were around as pre-existing entities with something like a cohesive foundation and common identity and then became states. A larger number of states, however, are just more lines drawn in the sand by the Federal Government throughout history to make sense of huge annexations of territory into the United States. To get a sense of this, think mostly of the territory west of the Mississippi, you know, all them funny square states with nice straight line borders.

Municipalities, what we call cities, are perhaps even less obvious. Well cities are areas people live together and decide to make some sort of government to organize group projects and they are largely formed by the people who live there, so they aren't exactly arbitrary in the sense that they aren't imposed by some distant authority with no consideration for ground level realities. Americans have this funny attachment to municipal autonomy and authority despite the fact that no one votes for their local government, but that's not really the point. What I'm really trying to get at here is that the system of municipal governance is seriously defunct. The idea that a group of people living in a geographic area within a city can suddenly declare their independence (in some states) without the consent or even input of the rest of the city is sort of bizarre. Even more often, developers will create tailored enclaves just outside of established cities in the county where they have more freedom, and then make those enclaves into suburban municipalities strikes me as a sort of theft. They get the benefits of the city, but share none of its burdens.

That's all just sort of background for the real point: our current system of political organization is largely artificial and fails to correspond to the realities on the ground. I think there is certainly a role for a national government in terms of foreign policy, defense, trade, and large-scale public health and development projects. With that in mind, everything below that level needs work. This division into states, counties, and cities sets up false distinctions. The most logical level of organization is the city-state. A city-state, in my mind, is what we often refer to as a "metropolitan area," but even that's not quite correct, because a lot of metropolitan areas overlap and would more properly be absorbed into a city state. A city-state would basically be any number of more-or-less geographically contiguous municipalities that have a common cultural and economic nexus. A convenient example would be to take the area right around the University of Illinois and admit that having three municipal governments in Champaign, Urbana, and Savoy is a little bit silly because they all share a common geographic locus, are economically interdependent, and have common issues and problems. A larger example would be taking the Chicagoland area including Chicago and the suburbs in both Illinois and Indiana and admitting that they have a lot of strong common interests and need something more than dozens of municipal governments to tackle regional issues.

The shift to organization around the city-state would involve a some rather large and probably uncomfortable changes. One of the most obvious would be either the dissolution of states, or a reconception of what states' powers are. It could also just be as simple as redrawing state boundaries to reflect the fact that, for instance, northwest Indiana is more part of Chicago than it is part of Indianapolis. The point is that power would change hands, and no one seems to like that very much. A second change would be a rethinking of the powers or even existence of municipal governments. This could go in a few directions. One would be to dissolve all municipal governments and make one larger city-state government. A second would be to have the municipalities cede certain powers to a larger regional government in areas affecting the city-state/region at large. The point here isn't really the exact form, but that a single municipality should not be able to have absolute veto power over the direction, growth, and make-up of the city-state. This also means that cities should not be able to unfairly benefit from ordinances/laws that unfairly burden their neighbors.

A proper city-state governance system would require that burdens be spread more evenly amongst geographic areas and the people in general. Perhaps an example would help clear this up: a municipal government, for the hell of it let's just call it "Santa Monica" wants to maintain its character and limit multi-unit housing and commercial development. These limitations create a housing shortage which drives up prices in the city and pushes traffic congestion into neighboring cities. Or perhaps this city decides to limit development to single family housing and completely bars multi-family units. Land prices go up, and the people who work in some of the lower-end jobs are forced to commute in increasing traffic both in the city and in surrounding communities and driving up rental prices in the surrounding ares. Or perhaps the government decides to create a huge office park near the highway which creates huge traffic snarls as people commute to work in this new place.

These are all problems. Cities can create unfair benefits for themselves or unfair burdens on their neighbors because of the fragmented urban landscape in which most of us live. I'm not saying the big cities should just swallow the small ones, but that the small ones shouldn't have unilateral power to enrich themselves and impose costs on their neighbors without consent or even deliberation. City B shouldn't be able to block a subway line that connects cities A and C just because the residents of city B think that it might bring colored folk (this happened in L.A. in the 70s). Or if they do block the subway line, they should either defray the cost of rerouting it, or find an equally suitable and cost-neutral alternative. None of this necessarily entails the loss of all local autonomy, not per-se, but merely requires that problems that are regional in scope (housing, economic development, zoning, etc) be dealt with in a realistic and fair manner.

The thing is I don't think this is so much an aspiration as a matter of time. City-states are probably going to be the next big thing. Just ask Tom :-D

Labels: Brandon, cities, future politics, political organization, politics, states, suburbs

This weekend was a bit of a milestone. Gas hit an average of over $4 per gallon across the nation. A lot of people are whining about the price of gas and I generally smile and ask what kind of car they drive. A typical answer is some bloated SUV they don't need for their suburban commute. I give a wry grin.

I smile because $4 a gallon gas is, in many respects, rather good news. Now don't get me wrong, I know it sucks paying $70 to fill up a gas tank that only a year ago took $35 and three years ago took $25. Hell I hate getting gas, that's why I make every effort to take public transportation everywhere I go. In L.A. this is no mean feat.

Look, the spiraling price of gas hurts the poorest the hardest. I know that. It especially sucks for the rural poor who have no or limited access to public transportation and economic opportunities are few and far between, quite literally. I can't imagine how hard this is hitting families in the midwest and southeast where public transportation is the worst and rural areas predominate. These aren't the people whose minds need to be changed. The poor always get the shaft when there's a downturn.

There's something about $4 a gallon that seems to have finally hit the people whose thinking needs to be changed - the middle class. I use my family as a wholly unscientific but somewhat representative sampling of the American political and class spectrum (ok, I lack an evangelical in my immediate family, but my ex wife is one, that counts right?). When my brother who loves his cars so much that he insists on putting $2000 sound systems in every one tells me that he figured out how to take the bus to work near downtown from his place in the San Fernando Valley (LA's infamous valley) and my mountaineering faux-ruralist mother asks me about hybrid cars, I know that something big has happened to people psychologically.

Again, I want to stress that in the short-term high gas prices suck. It really screws with people's household economics and in an economic downturn it's especially painful. In the long-term, however, I see high gas prices as a relatively positive development. Gas prices are high and it looks like they aren't going to be coming down, they'll probably go up more before they reach some sort of stability and as rumors of $8 a gallon gas fly about, many people don't see an end in sight. High gas prices and the fear of higher prices in the future will do for America what decades of public policy initiatives, academic studies, increased CAFE standards, and quite frankly liberal whining have failed to do. We may finally see urban revitalization, curbing of rampant sprawl, raised fuel efficiency on vehicles, and investment in public transportation.

Long-term, high gas prices seem to be a rather good thing because the blunt force trauma of harsh energy economics is beginning to change people's behavior. If the prices are sustained or increase, behavior will change. People will look for jobs closer to home or homes closer to jobs. They will be willing to pay that extra 1 cent in sales tax to finance light rail and subways in their cities so they can hop a train to work. They will want denser housing (I doubt Americans would accept Manhattan as the standard, but something like brownstones, rowhouses, and mixed use development like in DC or Chicago is entirely feasible). They'll demand more fuel efficient cars. It won't kill suburbs, but it'll change what a suburb is, encourage urban infill, and maybe keep me out of traffic so that I can sleep on my way to work (which I currently do) instead of cussing out the idiot who almost ran me off the road.

Labels: Brandon, gas, public policy, public transportation

For those of you who haven't been paying attention, PETA just announced a $1,000,000 (1 million) prize for the first scientist who can grow chicken meat in a test tube and make it commercially viable.

"PETA is offering a $1 million prize to the contest participant able to make the first in vitro

chicken meat and sell it to the public by June 30, 2012. The contestant must do both of the following:

• Produce an in vitro chicken-meat product that has a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike.
• Manufacture the approved product in large enough quantities to be sold commercially, and successfully sell it at a competitive price in at least 10 states."

Okay, so first off I'm going to go at it from an economic point of view. A million dollars, really? Is that all? I imagine that developing technology to mass market test tube meats would cost tens of millions. A million sounds like a tiny drop in the bucket.

From a purely culinary standpoint this is disgusting. I don't know about any of the rest of you, but to eat real free range chicken that's walked around and eaten worms and corn is quite a treat. There's not much meat. It's a little tough, but it's also incredibly flavorful in ways that store bought chicken from chickens that have spent their entire lives in tiny cages just isn't. I imagine test tube meat would be even more flabby and uniformly flavorless.

EEEWWW. Does no one else fine the concept of eating meat grown in a test tube revolting? I've recently become a vegetarian - okay, well a 95% vegetarian, I'll still eat meat to avoid offending someone or when there aren't many options - and my rationale wasn't animal cruelty. If a group is concerned with animal cruelty, pointing out the conditions the animals are raised in and lobbying for more sustainable practices or offering attractive vegetarian alternatives seems the way to go. Developing meat in a test tube sorta doesn't.

Test tube meat seems to offer something for nothing. We get meat without hurting the animals. We get meat presumably without the methane. We get meat. I'm not going to lie, meat is pretty damn tasty, but really? Test tubes? I'm all for sustainable agriculture and a shift away from factory farming. I actually wouldn't mind having a chicken coop for eggs like my dad used to when my sisters were kids. People and livestock animals have a symbiotic relationship and this would completely destroy that relationship. There wouldn't be a cow if humans hadn't engineered them from Aurochs. There wouldn't be any of these animals, especially at the numbers they currently exist, if we hadn't taken the most docile specimens of the original stock and selectively bred them for stupidity, fatness, and docility.

This wouldn't really help the animals, without the need for meat, we wouldn't have the need for the animals. I suppose the next project would be eggs and milk from floating udders or something. I'm not religious, but this strikes me as profoundly against the laws of all gods and nature. Meat is supposed to come from a living thing. You eat the flesh of another you gain its strength and all that. I'm not defending the status quo, I think it's pretty bad. But test tubes seem like going from bad to worse.

Imagine a world where one private company holds the patent rights to your chicken or your beef. Ok well the beef thing is sort of true alreday. Something like 90% of all Holstein cows (our black and white dairy cows) are descended from two bulls. That's a disaster waiting to happen, but anyway. Maybe I'm paranoid, but if they started marketing test tube meat I would either want strict labeling or I'd never eat meat again, even at the risk of being "that guy" at dinners.

Efforts should be focused elsewhere. On improving the conditions of raising livestock. Encouraging people to eat less meat. Phasing out subsidies on feedstock to make the price of meat reflect the actual costs of production, thereby assisting in #2. Helping people raise their own livestock so they see the value of that succulent chicken breast as they feed and eventually kill their own chicken.

Labels: Brandon, food, politics, science, terrible fucking ideas, vegetarianism

So I haven't written much lately and Billy remarked on it this morning, so I decided to give our readers a taste of what has been going on in my mind the past few months. I've been tempted to write a few times, but either there were too many new posts on those days or I felt that I needed a more coherent vision of what I was aiming for. Now I've got both space and a vision, so here goes.

This is the first in what will be a series of posts on what constitutes a virtuous society or at least a version of a virtuous society. This has to be a series because it's too much for one article and I'm not trying to talk about a panacea or silver bullet, so it'll take some time to lay out. Essentially this series will pose the question "What makes a society virtuous?" and attempt to answer it. When I talk about society here, I'm not just talking about a nation, but a city, a community, basically any group of people sufficiently large that they don't all know each other and are reliant in one way or another and where people are affected by the actions of others. Technically this can go global if you really want it to, but I'm not that ambitious yet.

One of the first things a society must deal with when defining itself is how to deal with problematic people or behaviors. Do we allow individuals absolute free reign to do as they please with absolutely no restrictions? Do we force people to comply with a set of rules by using the police and coercion? Do we control every aspect of a member's life with a police state? The virtuous society does none of these.

A virtuous society uses a combination of informal social control mechanisms and police power. Before anyone (Tom) screams, I want to qualify the hell out of that statement. Police power should only be used for the most egregious and outrageous conduct. By that I mean things like violence against the helpless, using a weapon on an unarmed person, murder, irreparable property damage (I'm thinking arson or something like that), fraud, etc. This is not to say that there wouldn't be laws against other things like battery, intimidation, or even petty traffic offenses. They just wouldn't have to be enforced much and they would be relatively low priority. Sort of like decriminalizing drug possession. It's still not legal or ok, just not something we're going to pursue all that vigorously hopefully because it won't be necessary.

Let's start with correctional mechanisms. For the most egregious conduct, yeah we can still have prisons and all that, basically we don't want people hurting one another physically or severely impairing them financially/in their welfare (and if you're going to bitch that this isn't a comprehensive list, I know that, these are just examples). For the rest of the stuff we have alternatives to incarceration. What if, instead of locking up a guy who steals some kid's iPod or who gets into a bar fight, we turn him over to the community? By community I mean his family, friends, the victim, and neighbors. No, this isn't vigilante justice, that's why his friends and family are there. I'm talking about the classic shaming session where everyone gets together and asks the perpetrator to a) admit guilt, b) explain their conduct, and then c) decides on remedial measures. I'm sure you could add to that, but those are the basic elements. Now granted, this won't work on everyone and it won't make us all sit around the fire singing kumbaya, but the power of group approval or disapproval is sorely underestimated these days. The end goal is to get the offender to admit guilt understanding that they won't face punishment by some unfamiliar power and explain why they acted as they did. Once they've done that it's a negotiation process where the victim, family, friends, and neighbors talk about what would be an appropriate way for the offender to kiss the boo boo make all better.

The way that this works is we build on a common moral code. A common moral code means that we have an agreed upon set of things that we think are right and wrong, good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable, better and worse. A common moral code requires that the vast majority of people agree on these things, and by vast majority I'm talking maybe 95%. Now before I get any complaints about how that's not possible, I want to qualify the hell out of this too. I'm not talking about a pervasive every-little-action-you-take morality, but a solid core of what we value. We already have such a core, it's just not as big as it should be and we don't enforce it too well. 99% of us don't commit murder, why? Because we're afraid of being caught? Well if we just went by our chances of being caught on a strictly cost-benefit rational basis, murder's not such a bad thing. Ok that's a bit extreme. Let me give another one. The Los Angeles subway system operates on the honor system. Yeah, you buy a ticket, don't pass through a turnstile and once in a blue moon a sheriff wanders onto the train and asks people to show their tickets. Mostly they just accept anything that looks vaguely like a ticket without checking the date. The chances of any individual being caught are almost nothing, but the rate of payment is still about 94%. In fact, the city was arguing for a long time whether it should even bother installing turnstiles because the cost-benefit was pretty dubious. Metro loses about $5 million a year to nonpayment, but costs of implementation and maintenance would be high. People are paying because they know they should.

There's a laundry list of our core values, but I'm not really interested in the specific list at this moment. Maybe we could work that out in the comments section. What I'm interested in is strengthening the core values and expanding them so they encompass more types of behavior. No, I'm also not talking about social control over every aspect of a person's life. We're not in a 14th century village, it's neither practical nor particularly desirable. I'm just talking about normative values that keep people from messing with one another and possibly themselves. I also want to stress that this is voluntary to the extent that it wouldn't involve state power to force people to accept a core of beliefs. The state might facilitate a dialogue, but it's not going to be imposed from the top down. This is something that's organic, bottom-up if you will. A common moral code has to come from a serious conversation about what we value and what kind of life we'd like to live. It's more than just the golden rule because it's about how you treat nature, your neighborhood, and abstract entities (businesses, other societies, etc).

Before Tom tells me that this can only come from religion, I'm going to say that religion isn't enough. Religion can be an element, but it's simply insufficient both because the language of religion tends to be either-or and because it would by its very nature require physical coercion. Why? Well quite simply that to use religion we'd probably have to pick a religion and well, we live in a diverse, pluralistic society where not everyone has the same religion or any religion at all. We can take elements from religious teaching, sure. I'm good with that, even as a non-theist. We can use some universal elements particularly from multiple religious traditions, but we need more. No, we need a serious society-wide (depending on what level we're talking it could be national) dialogue about first principles and what we are about as a society and sort of argue it out. Think of it as a moral constitutional convention but with its endpoint being something like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (or in this case Society X's Declaration of a Moral Consensus).

Ok before I go on too long, I want to wrap up quickly by reminding you all before the flames start to spout that I'm not talking about forcing people to do anything. I'm talking about approval and disapproval, the casual "Hey Jim you're a bastard for kicking that dog" type of thing. Also, I'm not talking about pervasive Spanish Inquisition dogma or even Salem witch trials stuff. I'm talking about a basic set of dos and don'ts that the vast majority of us can agree on and enforce. Yeah we'd be our brother's keepers. I'm also ok with that. We'd also have consciences. Crazy stuff.

Labels: Brandon, society, sociology, The Virtuous Society

So this article explains why President Barack Hussein Obama would be the bane of terrorists. I think it's a rather interesting analysis. What always amuses me is how people who ostensibly want to rid the world of terrorism support war hawk presidential candidates. There's this funny thing about grassroots asymmetrical conflict - for every guy you kill, his brother, cousin, and best friend pick up a gun to avenge him.

Labels: Brandon, politics

So here's something I found interesting. Parents spying on their teenagers and reading their emails. Fantastic. If my parents had done that when I was 16 I would have gotten in so much trouble. They would have known all of my um activities... But yeah. Interesting stuff...

Labels: Brandon, society

So I was perusing the news this morning as I am wont to do and stumbled upon this gem. That links prolonged sexual abstinence to sexual dysfunction. Now this is a study, so it only really tells us that there's an association, but that can run either way. It could be that more people who are abstinent become dysfunctional by prolonged sexual repression, or it could be that people who are already dysfunctional are more likely to remain abstinent than their sexually healthy counterparts who break the pledge. Either way this was just interesting. Enjoy.

Labels: abstinence, Brandon, sex

One of the classiest parodies available online. I almost bought it for a while...

Labels: 2008, Brandon, future politics, Hillary

I was sitting in class today and we were discussing property rights. During the discussion a few thoughts and more questions came to mind that I thought I'd share.

Okay, so we have this thing called property. What does that mean? What does it really mean to "own" property. Oh I know the legal definition and the bundle of rights that are legally enforceable on a given piece of property, but I'm asking in the conceptual sense. Does owning property mean that I can do absolutely anything I want to on it? Could I, for instance have ten dogs on my half acre residential lot that bark all night? Does it matter what my neighbors think? Somehow I get the feeling that even some of the more ardent of libertarians would probably say no, there are reasonable limitations to how an individual can use their property. People can do what they want so long as it doesn't harm another person or interfere with their rights to enjoy their property.

The old saying goes "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins" and that's generally a sound principle. It's in balancing your right to swing against my right to not be hit that government generally comes in (and I swear Tom if you talk about God granting property rights or government being evil I'm bursting a vein, this isn't about government) as an intermediary and we have that messy court stuff. At the founding of this country private property rights were generally understood in the negative; property was the ability to stop others from interfering in your enjoyment and use of it. Today that's not quite so true. Granted a good number of us think this way, but that's not the way things work. If that were true we wouldn't have industrial pig farms because the stench is so overpowering that it makes the areas nearby virtually uninhabitable.

The problems of "do no harm" compound when we are talking about things that are not land or even the long term health of land. Land can be damaged pretty badly by poor management or short-term thinking. Iowa has a good 50 years or so of topsoil left - but then what? What about rivers, air, lakes, the ocean? We don't really have property rights to air and water, but if we did what would that look like? How do you own water or air rights? How would we remedy harms to those rights? I could just imagine a polluter having to buy the right to pollute from millions of property owners from Illinois down to Indiana to have a source of pollution in Wisconsin. This sounds a bit extreme, but we currently (and into the future will) reside somewhere between absolute unregulation and this extreme uberprivatization. What's the right line? What about multi-source pollution? If there are millions of cars in LA that produce smog and my kid gets asthma complications that can be fairly traced to the smog to whom do I turn for redress?

I'm perfectly serious here, we have a certain conception of property rights and that influences all of the questions I've posed. A lot of these questions are directed towards the more libertarian-oriented here, but they're generally open. I'm not really trying to push a value judgment, but rather asking where the balance should fall. Basically what is property and how does it apply to some of the hypothetical scenarios I've tossed up?

Labels: Brandon, environment, property, rights

As I reread Michel Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" I am struck by the pervasiveness of the disciplinary mechanism which order our lives. Of particular interest to me was Bentham's Panopticon and how very like the famed Panopticon the Law School classroom is. Students are prescreened, regimented, and disciplined before they even arrive. Upon arrival, they are given an examination number which is anonymous but at the same time individualizing because it is unique. Exams are double-blind in that the professors have no idea whose paper they are grading, yet scrutinizing each individually for whether or not they have included certain key lessons and adopted the correct modes of thought.

Students are forced to compete against one another in a perverse scheme which imposes a hierarchy upon them and which grades them according to their relative proficiency in the prescribed disciplinary methods and modes of thought. Each student, upon receiving his or her grade for a course, knows exactly where they stand in relation to their peers. In many schools this is a precise numerical quantification, in others merely a relative measure of being "in the top x%". It is almost like the school Foucault discusses where students wear different color cloaks and clothing to designate whether they are elite, good, mediocre, or outcasts. Those who are among the elite are granted privileges such as access to the most prestigious and high paying employers, summer clerkships for after their first year, and teaching assistantships.

Beyond the classification and quantification of each student vis-a-vis their peers, law professors act like the all-seeing eye of discipline as they stand in front of their classrooms. Granted, they are perfectly visible manifestations of power, yet they exercise panoptic power nonetheless. Their panoptic power stems from the Socratic method. Under the Socratic method, a student is chosen (sometimes at random, sometimes according to a formula) and assaulted with a barrage of questions designed to either demonstrate mastery of a concept or simply to confound the poor wretch. This is particularly cruel because classroom participation has absolutely nothing to do with grades or performance. It is the stick to the grading scheme's carrot. If a student stumbles in a Socratic session they face varying degrees of humiliation and censure from their peers thereby reinforcing the work ethic and disciplined thought process of the law classroom.

The end result of three years of this process is to produce docile minds. This is not docile in the sense of dull, slow or stupid. Quite to the contrary, the minds produced are sharp, quick, and highly efficient. This is docile in Foucault's "docile bodies" sense in which a whole body (or in this case mind) is regimented into discrete parcels and put through rigorous training to produce correct reactions to given situations. Students are run through intellectual gauntlets and crucibles to extinguish deviant thought modes and approaches to a given situation and produce a relatively uniform type. It is kindly called "thinking like a lawyer." Little of substance is learned in a legal education, indeed, nothing need be learned. The end goal is simply to produce docile minds. Minds which approach problems in a mechanistic, methodical manner to come to the most correct conclusion given one's goals. Minds which rarely question the power structure in which they are embedded. And therein lies the danger...

Labels: Brandon, discipline, law, power

Now that I've caught your attention, I wanted to bring an important and pressing issue up that we don't see very much here on Urbanagora. We talk about politics to death, culture, the future, science fiction, how big people are in other countries, and what our favorite words and quotes are, but we so rarely talk about the important big picture issues. Today I decided to address the topic of the future of the Earth. No, this isn't a piggyback off of Tom's future posts. I don't care what gadgets and dodads and crap we can foolishly spend our money on in the future, but what the world we will live in can look like.

The title says it all. There is no "I," no individual desire in a threesome, all must work together or it becomes a couple with a third wheel (believe me, I've heard some funky stories about people and their threesomes...and yes the title was just to get your attention you pervs!). So too there is no "Me" in humanity. Just as someone who only thinks of their own pleasure can successfully and enjoyably (for all involved) participate in a threesome, we cannot, as a human community create a lasting future.

Our current environmental problems do not stem from a lack of knowledge. We know a whole hell of a lot. We know that we are causing or at the very least rapidly accelerating the extinction of more species than we even know exist through our actions. We know that higher concentrations of certain gasses in the atmosphere will cause some increase in temperature (I'm not speculating as to how much or at what point, only that it is relatively well accepted that increases in Greenhouse gases should, at least in theory, raise temperatures). We know that our cars spew out smog and all sorts of other toxins that increase the rate of asthma and other respiratory problems in children. We know that deriving power from fossil fuels is unsustainable and will either raise the planet's temperature to rather uncomfortable levels, or at the very least spew out tons of pollutants that pollute waterways and lower the quality of life of those who live nearby (I'm not just talking in the U.S. here). We know that the agriculture we practice today is more like ecocide in the sense that we kill off every species that is not of our particular favored type and grow a single species for our benefit in a manner that more closely resembles strip mining that true agriculture as we destroy the underlying soil's long-term fertility. We know that our throw away technology and consumer goods are piling up in landfills poisoning waterways and clogging landfills. We know all this and so much more and we know how to at the very least mitigate, at the very most stop them yet nothing happens. Why?

I'm not here to offer comprehensive solutions, I'm not an ecologist or an environmental systems analyst. I'm here to argue a simple point. Our environmental problems stem not from lack of information or lack of technology, but from a serious cultural crisis. This is not a spiritual crisis or an economic crisis though admittedly it is related to both. In a sense we are in a spiritual crisis and as a nod to Tom I will freely admit that in many (though not all) cases, traditional religious approaches to ecosystems management and the human place in the world produced far more ecologically sound ways of living. In another sense we are in an economic crisis. The economic crisis is not merely a crisis of capitalism (or Socialism, though socialism is mostly dead), or of industrialism, or of inefficient systems. Our crisis is all of these and much more.

Our current ecological predicament is a crisis of culture that combines a loss of perspective in what humanity's place in the larger world is with a development model that stresses short-term economic gain over long-term health and sustainability of the system. Our problem isn't that Earth is somehow inadequate, it's about as perfectly suited for life as a planet can get - to date the only planet we've found and quite possibly the only one we'll find for quite some time. No, our problem is the way we understand ourselves in relation to all life on the planet. Somehow over the past 500 or so years, generally in lockstep with the rise of Colonialism, Globalization, and Capitalism, our relationship with the world around us became one not of survival, but of exploitation and domination.

Nature became something to be dominated and tamed, not to be feared, respected, or with which we should coexist. For some time now we have been strip mining the planet and harvesting its resources with little regard for future need, replacement rates, and external impacts. We haven't hit a complete crisis point yet, but the day is coming when we will. We've seen numerous regional crises - desertification, melting of crucial sources of river water (glaciers), species loss, deforestation, and wildly fluctuating weather. Some of this could be coincidental, much of it is not. Three of them are undeniably human induced (if you can guess which 3 I'll give you a cookie), two are debatable though likely.

So back to the post's title. Part of our cultural problem is the over (and might I add zealous) emphasis on the individual. We pretend that people are perfectly free to make whatever choices they want to and are completely unaffected by outside influences. Anything or anyone who suggests that we think beyond our narrow self-interest is labeled a radical, a communist, or worse. Yet the crises of the 21st century will require more than individual action. They will require a new conceptualization of our relationship with nature and with one another. How can we best live on this Earth without destroying it or damaging it irreparably? How are we to live in ways that make use of the land without depriving other species of their habitats or our descendants (and ourselves) of the ability to enjoy nature by camping, hiking, rafting, or just knowing it's there? In short, how can we shift our cultural priorities to put the proper emphasis (or for you economists value) on the future?

Any solution to the problems of the 21st century will require collective action and that's the point. We can't act as individuals. If I change 5 light bulbs in my house to flourescent it wouldn't make a damn difference. Even if everyone in the country did it nothing would happen (we'd remove something like the equivalent of good sized coal plants from the country). Our environmental problems are political and cultural not technological (I swear to God Tom if you mention anything about cyberspace or Vir I'm going to spontaneously combust) or informational. There are simple solutions to some problems, more complex ones to others, but all require people coming together to recognize collective interests and goals to change the way we live and engage with "nature." These can be public, private, or some combination thereof. The goal is not to specify the exact "how," but to raise the issue which has been too long ignored.

Labels: Brandon, culture, environment

Every time I think the Republican party is a serious outfit with some smart people I stumble upon news like this. Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of lewd conduct for apparently attempting to solicit sex with a plainclothes officer at an airport stall. In isolation this wouldn't really be anything other than a hypocrite with some repressed sexuality issues. In a larger context, however, it shows a fundamental problem with the modern conservative movement in America which has found its home in the Republican party.

This restroom incident occurred pretty close on the heels of another infamous restroom incident involving a Republican Representative from Florida, Bob Allen. That incident itself followed on the heels of the infamous Mark Foley scandal involving Representative Foley exchanging lewd instant messages with a 17 year old page (yes I realize it wasn't technically pedophelia since the age of consent is 16 in the district). Around this same time we had one of the Right's poster boy's Ted Haggard come out and beg forgiveness of his wife for sleeping with a male prostitute and soliciting illegal drugs while decrying gay marriage.

I really wish I were cherry picking, but these are just the headline scandals of the past year. I'm sure I'm missing dozens of smaller ones. The point I'm making here is that there is something fundamentally wrong with a group of people who decry the moral decay of our society brought about by sexual deviance, decadence, drugs, and homosexuality when those dirty two-faced bastards are doing it themselves. I don't care who they solicit for sex. In fact, I think prostitution should be legal - why lie to ourselves? We should at least regulate it and make sure it's safe and hey, Uncle Sam can get his cut too.

My point is a little deeper than whether Republican politicians have sex with men. I couldn't care less frankly. What rankles me is that they sit on their high horses and decry immorality to get votes and hoodwink religious conservatives into voting for them so that they can sell those same conservatives down the river by cutting taxes for the wealthy and promoting legislation that is at odds with the economic interest of their base constituency.

Look at the exit polls from 2004 and you'll see something funny. Look at the income section and the Republicans have managed to capture the middle class. Now I realize that this doesn't have crosstabs (crosstabs allow you to look up how say someone who goes to church every week and makes $30,000 a year voted) but having seen the detailed crosstabs on the '00, '04, and '06 elections (the '02 exit polling was fundamentally flawed and no one uses it) it appears that a good chunk of the Republican vote comes from people of relatively modest means (lower middle to middle income) who attend church to use a bad pun, well, religiously. These people are economically screwing themselves to protest what they see as the elite establishment making fun of them and constantly denigrating them and their way of life. They vote for firebrand conservatives who are really much more interested in cutting taxes and protecting corporate interests than in helping them out.

There are much more detailed examinations of this issue like What's the Matter With Kansas and dozens of others, but none of them quite hit on the hypocrisy of the politics. They whine that conservatives vote against their own economic best interest, I agree, great. Few of them talk about the hypocrisy that seems to rot at the very core of the conservative movement. I'm really just picking on sexual misconduct because it's easy, but the list goes on from Pat Robertson's diamond links that he hides as humanitarian assistance to impoverished Africans to his shady for-profit charitable organizations that have made him a multi-millionaire. Jimmy Swaggart's rendesvous with Prostitutes. Then of course there's the standard financial stuff like the Jack Abramoff one.

Anyway, yes I had a point. See if a Democrat gets caught with a prostitute he's like "and...?" at least we're honest about our issues.

Labels: Brandon, dirty republicans, homosexuality, immorality

So I logged onto my google homepage today and was greeted with this story in my Top News Stories section. It's a good article about how the average incomes for Americans have still not recovered to the highs 0f 2001. Particularly interesting was this passage:

"Total income listed on tax returns grew every year after World War II, with a single one-year exception, until 2001, making the five-year period of lower average incomes and four years of lower total incomes a new experience for the majority of Americans born since 1945."

So, anyone still wonder why people are pessimistic about the economy when for the first time in most working people's lifetimes incomes have failed to rise?

Labels: Billy Joe Mills is a Silly Boy, Brandon, economics

It was day four of the College Democrats of America Convention in Columbia South Carolina and, as I had done the previous three days, I woke up drunk after a fifteen hour work day and a solid four of drinking, with the balance going to sleep. Today was yet another big day. Day 2 was Obama. Day 3 Edwards. Today was Hillary. Not Clinton. No no. Just "Hillary." She can't possibly be associated with her more popular husband.

Hillary took the stage, a model of calm and feminine serenity. She gave a speech that I didn't pay much attention to - I'm not a Hillary boy - and it was good. Granted it wasn't rousing like Edwards, or inspiring like Obama's, but it was good. She was calm, focused, and intense, just not passionate. Sometime in the middle we were turned around by a woman carrying a large sign that said something like "Hillary Clinton is a Cold Calculating Woman - Stephanopolous" on one side and "Hillary doesn't care about anything but power" on the other. You can see a brief mention here. Then all of a sudden the most amazing thing happened. The Hillary posse that was sitting behind me (one supporter kept crying and saying "Oh my God! Oh my God! I love her soo much" in the most obnoxious fashion) stood up and started chanting "Hil-lary Hil-lary" and I even found myself joining. Not because I like Hillary Clinton as a candidate, but because well...groupthink and the woman was just flat out obnoxious.

One of our staff walked gently up behind her and asked her to move to the back or leave and she refused. After half a minute or so someone stood up and lineman pushed her to the back of the hallway and out the side door where she sat on a chair. Aah fun stuff...

Clinton meanwhile was smiling wryly as though suppressing a laugh (which I'm sure she was) and looked on calmly while the whole fiasco was going on. Once the woman was out and the chanting died down, she resumed her speech without missing a beat. Apparently she's used to being booed and protested at...man I hope she's not our candidate, at least no one protests Obama or Edwards...

Labels: 2008, Brandon, crazy people, future politics, Hillary

So I'm here in beautiful Columbia South Carolina at the annual College Democrats of America (CDA) Convention. Yes, this is the first I've written about it, but yesterday sucked (for me at least) so there wasn't much to talk about. The CDA is an organization nested within the Democratic National Committee that supports and organizes local chapters to support and promote Democratic candidates in local, state, and national races.

Today was really quite something. From rumors of RNC trackers to using the popcorn machine to make freshly popped popcorn it was a ride. The highlight of the day was actually at the end. John Edwards, native son of South Carolina gave the keynote speech of the day and he blew me away. I've never seen him speak in person before and he honestly gets shafted by the MSM while they fawn over Obama or talk about how Hillary can't win. He's the third wheel of the Democratic presidential nomination and really doesn't get the credit he deserves. Whether he wins or loses John Edwards is probably the most important candidate in the race in my mind.

Why? you might ask. He's not a woman. He's not black. In fact, he's a WASP. The reason is really simple actually: he's an old school populist liberal. He's the trend setter and the issue spotter in the field. He's the man with the vision and the plan that the other campaigns sort of rush to catch up with and overshadow. He was the first one to come up with a credible system for universal healthcare coverage. He's also got the most realistic plan apparently. Not that these things matter all that much, because no one reads 20 page position papers, hell even I don't usually. But he's got it.

Back to the populism. Granted, a chunk of it is message, but the message is generally crafted based on ideas and views the candidate holds to a greater or lesser extent. I'm not sure what it was exactly. He didn't bound onto the stage like Obama giving rushed handshakes to a few people and high fiving the rest as he plowed through the ropelines. He walked slowly and deliberately taking time to shake hands, squeeze hands, take pictures, and look at people. We hear a lot about how he's fake and it's a sham, but looking at that man as he walked up to the stage made me wonder if he wasn't really quite genuine.

He took the stage and was absolutely electrifying. He didn't have some high-minded idealistic speech about how we need consensus or hope. No. He cut the bullshit and talked like a man with a master plan. Don't get me wrong, the man is sharp, he just doesn't talk in vague language. He's concrete. He looked tired and his voice croaked a few times from strain or exhaustion, but his eyes blazed with an intensity and fire that I have seen in few others. His main focus was economic issues and he spoke eloquently and passionately about economic inequality, universal healthcare and the programs he had in mind to address these things. He talked about a genuine social safety net and human capital building infrastructure including: reduced cost or free college tuition for all qualified students (regardless of income); creating 1 million transition jobs to help young people get on their feet, gain experience and look for something else; expanding section 8 housing; and humanitarian assistance both at home and abroad. It was electrifying. He didn't have any moment in which the crowd overshot him like Obama often gets, but there were a lot of nodding heads around me as he spoke of the world in economic terms that hit close to home. He didn't mention culture issues, he didn't talk about abortion or gay marriage. He talked bread and butter and I respect him for that. He took stands on tricky issues and let his opinions be heard and heard loud and clear. There's little ambiguity in what he wants.

To be honest before today I had never thought of him in any serious way. I knew he was a candidate. I knew he was sort of popular. But I didn't really like him. I watched him in 2004 and was turned off by some of his somewhat conservative social positions. Since then I've come to realize that voting on culture issues is really a bad investment because we wind up electing the same plutocrats who only advance the agenda of the wealthy and powerful. Sure candidate X may be anti-death penalty, but if he's going to enact an economic policy that will destroy the livelihoods of millions he's probably going to push more people into crime and jails.

As he left the stage he took about twenty minutes to mingle with the crowd. He took pictures, shook hands, spoke brief words. He looked exhausted, but he never rushed. Even with his staff tugging at his sleeve urging him to hurry, he took his time and went out of his way to make sure he connected with everyone he could. Getting back to the title of the post and it's original intention. Today I saw a man much deeper than a $400 haircut (which flaps in the breeze just fabulously by the way), I saw the man who in my opinion at least is the most important candidate of the 2008 election cycle. Like I said in the beginning, he's the opinion leader. When he focuses on an issue, the others follow. Even if he doesn't win, which it looks like he won't, he's forcing the other candidates to really address tough issues that the Democratic party has run from for the last twenty years. He's pushing the party back to its base as the party of, yes, liberals. No more of this bullshit conservative economics with liberal social values. It's all about the economy stupid!

If the Democratic party wants to win in the future, it must distinguish itself from the Republicans by showing that it is unafraid of taking on large corporations, the wealthy and the powerful and push for the economic security and wellbeing of the vast majority of Americans. Centrist Democrats are wrong about triangulation. It's a fucking disaster. Once you strip the economics out of politics you are left with hot button culture issues and the ones who will turn out to vote on them will be whoever is most indignant and pissed off which usually happens to be blue-collar religious conservatives who have become the great butt of the culture industry's jokes. They lash out at the "liberal elite" that shadowy slinky crowd who somehow manage to rule the world while consistently losing elections. When your economic platforms are that similar the choice is simple: vote for the bastards who seem to be the more moral people rather than the bastards who like all sorts of strange things you couldn't possibly imagine doing.

Labels: 2008, Brandon, politics

It's been a while since I've written anything and Billy has just simply begged me to (and offered me all manner of favors) so I've decided to post once again. Today's topic of interest in the field of 2008 Republican presidential hopefuls. All I can say is: Really? IS THAT REALLY THE BEST THEY'VE GOT!? Let's do a rundown, shall we?

Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani is a "new brand" of Republican. Pro-life, pro gun control and pretty pro government in general. He's very socially liberal, but appears willing to compromise his beliefs for votes. Some people call him a pseud0-Democrat, but ever since I heard him in a debate I've been singularly unimpressed. My favorite Giuliani moment was when Ron Paul humbly suggested that perhaps the United States is reviled and hated because we interfere in other countries' politics and kill their people, Giuliani retorted with something along the lines of "No, it's because they hate freedom!" to a roar of applause. I knew then that the Republican party was irrevocably doomed for the '08 election cycle. Oh and a large minority of Americans would not vote for a guy who's been married three times. Dressing up like a pretty lady probably doesn't help him either.

Mitt Romney

Romney's an interesting cat. He, like Giuliani is sort of a "new brand" of Republican. He's socially liberal (although rapidly trying to backpedal on just about all of his former positions), economically conservative, and he's got the presidential look. His major liability is that a good number of Americans wouldn't vote for a Mormon. So if the base can swallow Mormonism and a less than perfect record on social issues, Romney would be a good pick. If the base wants pretty, he's also their Ken.

John McCain

What can be said about the Arizona senator? He's managed to piss off so many people that his campaign is sinking faster than the Titanic. He was once the presumed presidential nominee for 2008. Republicans always pick the guy who waits his turn like a good boy, but McCain is getting the shaft. His strong pushes for government accountability and to limit the influence of big money on elections as well as his less than perfect conservative track record have raised the ire of just about every segment of the Republican base except the Billy Joe Mills types. Add to this the fact that Americans don't like old people, it's pretty safe to write his candidacy off.

Fred Thompson

A lot of moderate conservatives love Fred Thompson. I mean c'mon, he played a lawyer on TV! What good Republican doesn't love lawyers and TV (read Hollywood). He's also been a lobbyist (we love the beltway culture) and apparently a lackluster senator. Many tell me that he's John McCain without the baggage, but I think he's going to run into trouble for his lobbying career and late entry into the field. But at least he's conservative.

Newt Gingrich

The leader of the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994. Newt Gingrich curiously sat on the sidelines during the impeachment proceedings of then president Bill Clinton. Well, it's not so curious, he's also been married three times and was doing the no no bad thing with a staffer at the time. Gingrich is a hardcore conservative on most issues though. Unfortunately he's not the most deft politician as evidenced by his taking the blame for the government shutdown of 1996 when Clinton made him look like a petulant child who was throwing a tantrum over not getting his spending cuts (despite the fact that it was Clinton who shut the government down). He's still a force to be reckoned with, but hasn't taken any serious steps toward a presidential bid as of yet.

Ron Paul

Ron Paul's a funny guy. People I know on the hill call him "Dr. No" because they say he votes no on almost every single piece of legislation and the Republicans don't count on him in anything really. That, and the fact that he has little appeal outside of the hardcore libertarian wing of the party, means that his candidacy is not exactly soaring on the updrafts. I have to give him credit for being honest and more realistic than the other candidates especially on national security matters.

There are several other candidates that are to the right of all of these gentlemen, but the right seems to be somewhat dormant in this year's selection process and this post is getting too long, so I'll just stop the list here. The only hope Republicans have in 08 is that their relatively moderate candidate field will attract centrist voters, but the primaries will likely get really ugly because each of the major candidates has a good deal of baggage that people aren't going to want to have on their candidate. It looks like 2008 will be a good year for Democrats...

Labels: Brandon, bunnies, conservatives, crazy people, politics, Republicans

Hey Urbanagora. As my first official time posting, I'd like to thank Billy Joe for all the hot passionate love making that he used to convince me to write on the blog and Augur for watching and video taping. Anyway, I thought you could all use a fun diversion from the hard work of reading blogs and arguing, so I decided to post the IMMIGRATION GAME!!!

It's a nifty little thing created by the New York Times that gives you about ten fields you can manipulate to try and get a score of over 40 to qualify for immigration under the Kennedy bill that's currently in the Senate. You'll notice that almost none of the types of workers we currently seem to need most, that is, unskilled workers willing to work for low wages, will ever make it in under the Kennedy system. Enjoy!

Hugs n' Kisses Billy

~Hanno

Labels: Brandon, immigration, politics

Now I've been thinking quite a bit lately about service. Public service is one of our greatest values. We do it when we volunteer, when we work in charity, public interest, government, and the military. The kind of service I'm talking about today is the last one. Military service. I've heard presidential contenders talk about how we need to increase the size of the standing army. I've heard liberals talk about bringing our troops home and not getting into senseless wars. I've heard conservatives talk about the lack of shared sacrifice and national unity (patriotism). And I have a bold suggestion that would answer all three of these issues.

I know I'm not the first, I won't be the last, but my reasoning is different from most people I've talked to about the issue. We should have compulsory national service. Yeah, I'm talking about the military. No, I didn't drink any special punch, kool aid, or a special carmel mochiatto. I'm serious. We should have compulsory national military service for maybe 2 years for everyone. Abolish the standing army and go back to a citizen-militia or keep a small core of specialists and a large reserve of citizen-militia. For those who are physically unable to do the training or who are already exempt from military service (religious grounds, disability, etc) they can do logistical support and get job training to boot.

This proposal would work towards solving all three issues cited at the beginning.

1) It would greatly increase the size of the military

2) It would ensure a much greater degree of accountability in the use of the military. Anyone wonder why the Iraq war protests died after a few months? It's because there was no draft. No one who doesn't want to fight has to. If it doesn't have a direct and immediate impact on people's lives, it's really easy to let it go.

3) It would make people give something up for their countrymen. I'm not talking about full-time service for two or three years, I'm talking serious training for 3-6 months, and on-call duty for a few years. Sort of like the national guard (except the politicians would have to be VERY careful how they used them since they'd be conscripts).

Now I know the first objection to this idea will probably be from Tom. Tom, relax. This would actually create something closer to what you think of as the perfect government - an armed and militarily trained citizenry that the politicians are terrified of pissing off. This could also help the poor by giving them skills training for free and wouldn't disrupt lives too much. Ok so the kids would have to delay college by a year maybe. Actually if the training were done the summer after high school, they wouldn't have to miss anything more serious than their backpacking trip across Europe (spoiled snots). Thoughts?

Labels: Brandon, military, patriotism, politics, service