Columns
SMITHEREENS: Reflections on Bits & Pieces
Happy post-Earth Day to all. Who knew we'd be honoring the 50th anniversary by hunkering in our suites instead of marching in the streets? To my mind, a viral pandemic is nature's way of fighting back against humankind's planet-killing misbehavior. Mother Nature's giving us a good global spanking and she's sent us to our rooms. Now let's consider what Michael Moore has to say on the matter.
Planet of the Humans: Moore Than We Can Handle?
Michael Moore is the executive director of a controversial new Jeff Gibbs documentary, Planet of the Humans, a film that's raising both raves and hackles inside the environmental activist community. The film was intended for theatrical release on Earth Day, but with the world in the grip of a deadly pandemic, the film has been released for free online viewing—for 30 days.
In this ecological jeremiad, filmmaker Gibbs argues that the Green Movement was sold out by leaders whose efforts largely promoted the interests of billionaires and corporate America. The film's disturbing conclusion is that humanity is facing imminent extinction and there's no time left for "techno-fixes and band-aids. It's too little, too late."
Is that grim enough for you?
So what do we do? According to Moore and Gibbs, "the only thing that MIGHT save us" is reducing humankind's pillaging impacts on the biosphere by culling the human population and ending the out-of-control consumption of natural resources. Instead, the doc argues, environmental activists have settled for “green” illusions like biomass, solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars. But the solution will take more than offering the world trendy arrays of marvelous, new "green products."
"No amount of batteries are going to save us," warns Gibbs (co-producer of “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Bowling for Columbine").
Among those featured (and challenged) are Al Gore, Bill McKibben, Richard Branson, Robert F Kennedy Jr., Michael Bloomberg, Van Jones, Vinod Khosla, Koch Brothers, Vandana Shiva, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Tesla's Elon Musk.
You can view the entire movie below.
The Bard Is Onboard: Bell's Edition
Darrin Bell, the witty social commentator behind the Candorville comic strip, recently waxed Shakespearean, offering up a Sunday interlude in which his cartoon doppleganger, Lemont Brown, relaxes beneath a tree, pulls out his smartphone and goes full-Hamlet with the following silicon-powered soliloquy:
To tweet or not to tweet: That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the snark and venomous replies of anonymous jerks
Or to take arms against the sea of Haters and, by Googling links that prove them wrong, end them.
To stop updating, to pause — to pause, perchance to browse the tweets of others.
Ay! There's the rub. For in that browsing state, what dreams may come
When we have re'lized others are wittier than we.
But that the dread of something after tweeting,
The undiscovered country from whose bourne no burned-out twitter-pundit returns, puzzles the will and does make anonymous haters of us all.
Thus, 'tis better to never stop tweeting and never to read the tweets of others.
The Death of .org? Capitalism Plots the Privatization of Internet Domains
Daily Kos is out with a chilling warning: A private equity firm called Ethos Capital is currently plotting to purchase the right to control all of the Internet's .org domains. That's the domain favored by artists, progressive groups, and nonprofits worldwide. If the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) agree to this plan, Ethos Capital would be free to issue entirely new rules to control how non-profits get—and keep—their .org web domains.
Up until now, the cost of reserving a domain name typically runs around $10 per year. If Ethos Capital gets its way, those fees could soar to $1,000 or $10,000 or $100,000. As Daily Kos glumly notes, "a $100,000 fee would make a huge dent in an organizations' operational budget."
ICANN and the FTC have the power to keep the .org domain accessible to grassroots and other non-profit organizations. If you want to protect your precious .org domain from the ogres of exploitation, there's a petition you can sign on the Action Network.
Community Energy Considering Nuclear Power
East Bay Community Energy, Alameda County's public "green" electricity agency, is reportedly considering adding nuclear energy to its power mix. The Sierra Club is one of the many eco-groups left recoiling in shock at the news. "Community Choice programs in California were created to give the public the power to choose where their electricity comes from . . . . That means we have the power to stop EBCE from investing in this unsafe, dirty power."
Consider the negatives: poor reactor safety, numerous meltdowns, no way to safely store radioactive wastes that remain deadly for 100,000-plus years, and an existential ink to nuclear weapons production. "Every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on truly safe, affordable and renewable energy sources," the Club protests.
For the time being, EBCE’s energy mix is still nuke-free but, to make sure it stays that way, the Sierra Club and other local environmental organizations are asking people to contact the EBCE and send a clear message that "adding dirty, dangerous power is contrary to the goals we advocate for: local clean energy as the solution to climate change, with equity at the heart of our approach."
And you can let the folks at EBCE know directly where you stand by visiting their website, sending an email, making a phone call, or sending a letter to their headquarters at 1999 Harrison Street, Suite 800, Oakland, CA 94612
Pelosi's Up-armored Funding Pitch
California Representative Nancy Pelosi's latest fund-raising pitch gets off to a great start:
"People tell me it must be a tough job to be Speaker of the House when the president belongs to the opposite party, living in a world without facts or decency, and has nearly every Republican in Congress marching in unthinking lockstep behind him."
Heck, Pelosi counters: "I've had a tougher one. I raised five kids born in six years."
Good training, one would think, for dealing with the Toddler-in-chief and his schoolyard gang of partisan bullies.
One thing that bothered me, however, was two things about the use of the word "battlestations." First: I'm fed up with the use of militaristic language in politics. Can't we just say "Campaign headquarters"? Second: On the first page of her letter, Pelosi mentions the Dems "recently opened 32 Battlestations" while, on page 3 the Speaker asks for funds to "support the existing 27 Battlestations." Did we lose five regional offices in the time it took to type 16 paragraphs?
Political Warspeak bursts out in another part of the letter where Pelosi warns that billionaires like "Charles Koch and Sheldon Adelson are mustering their forces for an all-out, scorched-earth attack on House Democrats." The response? A "frontline" strategy involving "March Forward, an aggressive, multimillion-dollar effort to defend" Congress' Democratic majority. [Emphasis added.]
Berkeley's Reps Shine in ACLU Legislative Poll
The Spring 2020 issue of the American Civil Liberties Union newsletter has just arrived and it includes a Special Insert: a 2019 Legislative Scoreboard of ACLU-backed bills that were passed into law and a three-page tally showing how all State Assemblymembers and Senators voted on eight key issues, including Economic Equity, Immigrant Rights, Privacy and Voting Rights. Only five members of the Assembly attained a perfect overall score of 100 percent and one of these "Civil Liberties Champions" was Berkeley's own Buffy Wicks. Only four members of the State Senate received perfect 100 percent scores. The winners included Berkeley's Nancy Skinner.
Two Timely Political Ditties to Entertain Your Ears and Eyes
These satirical singing cartoons come to us courtesy of a group called "The Founders Sing," aka The Founding Fathers.
Why Are German Jets Carrying US Nuclear Bombs?
On April 23, members of the anti-war community were startled to read a Deutsche Welle report that Germany's fighter jets "have access to US nuclear weapons."
Nicolas J.S. Davies, a CODEPINK activist and author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq, quickly sent out an email asking:
"Can anyone . . . explain how German planes carrying American nuclear weapons does not violate Article 1 of the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty]?
"Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly..."
David Swanson, director of World BEYOND War and author of many books, including War Is a Lie, provided this deadpan response:
a) Germany is a US colony
b) The US makes its own laws
c) THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!
d) all of the above
Signs of the Times
In every major emergency, public leaders step to the podium to address the public and, off to the side, a sign language practitioner is standing ready to steal the show. Here are a few of the outlandish performances captured on video. Three of these performers turned out to be frauds. Can you guess which? Answers at the bottom of this week's column.
Mayor de Blasio's Sign Language Interpreter
https://youtu.be/maAq8QQAIKs
Mike Bloomberg's Sign Language Star
Hurricane Matthew Signing Interpreter
FEMA ASL Interpreter
Hurricane Irma Press Conference
San Diego Wildfire Press Conference
Sign Language Interpreter Steals Show
Hurricane Irma Emergency Interpreter
Tampa Police Sign Language Interpreter
Nelson Mandela Memorial Service
Apparently volunteering as a sign reader can be a great ad hoc gig. It turns out that three of the interpreters were frauds. The fact that nobody at the press events caught on suggests that press events are rarely covered by deaf journalists. Can you guess which three signers were fakes? The answer appears at the bottom of this column.
How the Pandemic Is Giving the Earth a Rest and Giving Wildlife a Break;
Flipping the Senate
Donald Trump has declared himself a dictator, said he would force states to reopen on May 1 despite the obvious public health threat, bizarrely threatened to "close-down" states that don't reopen, retweeted calls to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, and cut off funds to the World Health Organization—all in just the past few days.
Donald Trump's epic incompetence will cost many more Americans their sheltering-in-place and social-distancing ends too early. All the more reason to hope for a new administration come November.
Twenty-three Republican seats are up for election and nine elections in eight states are considered vulnerable. The outcome of the following races that could finally ditch Mitch McConnell's ruinous rule.
• Susan Collins in Maine
• John Cornyn in Texas
• Steve Daines in Montana
• Joni Ernst in Iowa
• Cory Gardner in Colorado
• Kelly Loeffler in Georgia
• Martha McSally in Arizona
• David Perdue in Georgia
• Thom Tillis in North Carolina
Democrats have a shot in each of these critical contests. Flipping three of these seats would leave the Senate tied at 50-50. Winning four seats would give the Democrats a clear majority.
Let's Take a Quick Look at the Texas Race
Trump crony John Cornyn may have met his match in MJ Hegar, a no-nonsense progressive the Texas Tribune has described as "a tattooed, motorcycle-riding military hero running as a political outsider and fed-up working mom." That's right, MJ stands for Mary Jennings.
MJ's campaign literature is branded with a logo that looks like the imprimatur of a motorcycle gang and the former Air Force pilot's campaign mailer describes her as someone who "took on the Taliban when her rescue helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan."
MJ isn't taking any Corporate PAC money and she isn't taking any guff from Cronyn as he faces what The Hill has called his "toughest race yet."
If elected, there's something else that would set MJ apart from the rest of the Senate crowd—the humongous floral tattoo that runs from her right shoulder down to her elbow.
Which Sign Language Interpreters Were Fakes?
The fraudsters (as far as we can tell) are the last three in the line-up.
