Politics – Page 18 – Ellis Hollow

Sunday music two-fer: Bright Eyes, Jenny Lewis

Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins’ Rabbit Fur Coat got my vote for album of the year in 2006. Interesting to see how the next generation deals with spirituality in this age of cynicism.

I always thought we’d look back at this performance as a sign that we’d reached the tipping point, and it was just a matter of time before the politicians joined the people’s parade. I mean Jay Leno having Bright Eyes sing ‘When the President Talks to God’?

More bee coverage on DailyKos

See this ‘recommended diary’: This is the most important underreported story (w/poll).

[Colony collapse disorder] needs to get immediate attention, and it should get that attention ahead of Iraq, global warming and every other issue, because if the bees die off, we won’t be far behind.

The diary provides a nice round-up of article links (mostly the second-round of local coverage of the problem). I report this in a similar vein to Sports Illustrated covering global warming.

DailyKos is a political blog. There is some environmental coverage from time to time (especially global warming). But 90 percent of it is inside the Beltway and local netroots political organizing stuff. To make the recommended diary list requires the votes of your fellow readers at the site.

Bottomline is: At least among lefty bloggers, this is an issue that has some staying power — even in the face of all the other issues we face.

Politics and the English Language

Good advice from George Orwell in his Politics and the English Language first published in 1946:

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

When Sports Illustrated warns about global warming …

… maybe it’s time to start doing something about it.

I read SI religiously from age 8 until I was intoÂ my 40s — first for the pictures of my favorite quarterbacks, later for the swimsuit issues, and then one day I came to realize that SI has just about the highest quality writing and photography of almost any periodical — jock or non-jock.

I kept getting it long after I stopped reading the timely sports articles because the ‘off-topic’ articles were long and meaty and a joy to read.

I know most readers skip right over them. Â But evenÂ ifÂ theyÂ onlyÂ getÂ toÂ theÂ secondÂ paragraphÂ Â of this cover story, they’llÂ getÂ theÂ message:

Global warming is not coming; it is here. Greenhouse gases — most notably carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, oil and gas — are trapping solar heat that once escaped from the Earth’s atmosphere. As temperatures around the globe increase, oceans are warming, fields are drying up, snow is melting, more rain is falling, and sea levels are rising.

I’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth and read about climate change from political and environmental perspectives. But it was fun to see how SI put a sports spin on the subject. One of the examples they provided about how jocks are taking action:

Two years ago the men’s lacrosse team at Middlebury College calculated its “carbon footprint” (the amount of global-warming carbon dioxide its daily activities generated) and raised money to purchase enough renewable-energy credits (investments in wind power) to offset those emissions. The team thereby became carbon-neutral — a status also claimed by last summer’s soccer World Cup in Germany, cycling’s Team Clif Bar Midwest and the Vermont Frost Heaves, this writer’s American Basketball Association team, which rides in a biodiesel-powered bus.

Long-time activist and author Bill McKibbenÂ (TheÂ EndÂ ofÂ Nature) is quoted in several places. My favorite:

We’re still so used to the idea that we can deal with the forces of nature that we think nothing of naming our teams Hurricanes and Cyclones. In 10 years, that will be like calling a team the Plagues.”

Global warming in SI? I can’t help but think that we’re near the 100th monkey on this issue.

Update: [3/13/2007] MichaelÂ ShawÂ overÂ atÂ BagÂ NewsÂ Notes (he analyzes media images) blogged about the cover, drawing Katina parallels.

Sunday music: Illumination

More gypsy punk from Gogol Bordello.

No, I’m not angry. I’m hopeful because spring is dropping a few hints around here.

In case Eugene isn’t making himself clear:

Don’t believe them for a moment
For a second, do not believe, my friend
When you are down, them are not coming
With a helping hand
Of course there is no us and them
But them they do not think the same
It’s them who do not think
They never step on spiritual path
They paint their faces so differently from ours
And if you listen closely
That war it never stops
Be them new Romans
Don’t envy them my friend
Be their lives longer
Their longer lives are spent
Without a love or faithful friend
All those things they have to rent
But we who see our destiny
In sound of this same old punk song
Let rest originality for sake of passing it around
Illuminating realization number one:
You are the only light there is
For yourself my friend
There’ll be no saviors any soon coming down
And anyway illuminations
Never come from the crowned
Illuminating realization number one:
You are the only light there is
For yourself my friend

GoÂ buyÂ Gypsy Punks Underdog World StrikeÂ now.