Citizen Power

I just got a very distracting, very energetic puppy named Gracie. She’s a 6-month old Puggle, which is half beagle, and half pug.  She is a major handful and is cutting down my computer time drastically, so far, but I don’t think that will last. She is just getting used to her new home and to her new masters (of the universe), which means I’m chasing her around the house a lot and cleaning up messes, when we are not going on walks.  So far it has rained every day which has made the walks wet, muddy and overall a lot less fun than they should be.

She has so far attempted to eat all sorts of things she found outside that are very bad for her, (including cat poop) which has made me see that having a dog is going to be quite a bit more gross, and demanding of my full attention, than my 2 old cats are.  So if I miss a day or two in writing online, she is the reason.  It’s hard to even read a newspaper with her around, online or the paper kind.  And talk about energy. This puppy has energy to spare!  If we could find a way to capture and store it, she could probably power my appliances, at least.

She is  learning basic puppy commands and so far all she knows is “sit”.  She lies down on her own though without being told.  She leads me during walks, and that’s not good, especially since she will eat anything and everything that looks interesting.  I even took somebody’s old piece of gum out of her mouth today.  If anyone know how to keep her from eating everything in sight, let me know . . .  I do feed her a lot of really good puppy food!

And I am quite sure that “slobber” is a noun because it’s all over her toys. . . .

Tonight is the season and show finale of Battlestar Galactica,  in my opinion the best sci-fi show to ever hit the airwaves.  I would not have written that 8 years ago, when I still thought Star Trek TNG was pretty much the pinnacle of TV sci-fi; or 7 years ago, when I loved Firefly, but BSG has surpassed them both.   Of course, movies used to be another matter altogether, but with the introduction of BSG, that changed too.  The show has always had movie-quality special effects, and movie-quality writing and acting. The show just took TV to another level completely, and even made me get plasma screen HD envy.  But alas, I still have my little 20″ TV screen, and it doesn’t do justice to a show with such walloping great production values.

I won’t bother to review the  show. You either like it or love it, or you don’t like science fiction, in which case I can’t change your mind and won’t try, even if BSG was and is far more than science-fiction.  It’s human drama at its finest.   I have never seen anything like this show on TV except for the long-defunct “Firefly”, the 2002 sci-fi show by Joss Whedon.  That show also had great writing, acting and special effects, but it was on FOX and didn’t even last one full season. Still, I was a huge fan.  Battlestar Galactica came very shortly after it and included some of the hand-held camera effects, and similar quick cuts in action.  Actually, I’m not a fan of the quick cuts but I like the hand-held effects because it seems more like you are there in person viewing the battle scenes, etc.

This show is famous not only for its quality but also for  how it mirrored a lot of the dark times we suffered as a country after 9/11.  The show took everything much farther of course:  an existential threat of being wiped out by a scary enemy, the tough decisions, the wars, the following ethical concerns of torture, capital punishment, holding captives, and much more.  There were alliances with good guys and bad guys, there was disloyalty and treason, and there was even a thrown election!  Remember the President cheated in order to win her election by throwing out some votes!  It seemed this show had a mirror event for everything we were going through, but of course, they were floating out in space with many fewer choices than we had.

I will mourn the end of this show for a reason related to that — as the war in Iraq is ending, so is BSG, so it will probably be the fate of the show to forever be tied to the so-called “war on terror” in peoples’ minds.  That’s too bad, because even without our own events the show would still be great.  It was one of the darkest, most confusing, most ethically-challenging shows of any type that I can recall.

And just to tie this slightly to my “power” theme — did you know they only ate algae-created food?  This might be our future, if we manage to move to becoming vegetarians, and then say climate change-created droughts cut down on the food supply drastically.  We might need to turn to the oceans for our food supply, and that might involve algae.  (or, gods-forbid — Soylent Green .  Let’s hope it never comes to that!).

They also powered their ships with “tylenium”,  a substance that doesn’t seem to exist.  The closest I can come to finding out what the frak that is, is a reference in a book discussing a “dimethylacenaphtylenium ion”.  Since I have no idea what that is, I can’t even write about whether or not it’s a plausible source of energy!

If you have never watched BSG, I would not start with the finale.  For the rest of us who have, the finale promises to be an amazing ride.

Basically, I’m against beauty contests because they are sexist, but this one deserve a mention because it’s so wonderfully odd!    With all the heavy news going on lately, bad economy, wars continuing, climate change, bleeding jobs, etc., it’s good to get a laugh from Russia.  Who else could come up with the Miss Atom contest?   This woman might be crowned “Miss Atom”.  Her name is Alyona Kirsanova of Novovoronezh, Russia,  and she is a real  contestant in Russia’s “Miss Atom” pageant 2009.   I believe she is standing in front of a radioactive cooling pond. I hope she doesn’t decide to jump in and take a swim.  And why do I think she looks cold?

Alyona, according to the wired.com blog , is a first-time contestant in the Miss Atom contest.  The contest is open to workers in Russia’s nuclear industry.  You can see all the contestants here .

Nuclear power has a bad reputation in the United States.   As a source of power, it has strong pros and cons.  On the good side, it provides C02-free power and lots of it.  On the con side, it produced radioactive waste that we have a hard time finding places to store.   People remember Three Mile Island and other near-melt-downs and they are understandably quite fearful of it.

But lately I have been reading about a new kind of nuclear power called “Generation IV” nucler plants, which will operate at much higher temperatures, produce more power, and less waste. Four of the new types of nuclear reactors are “fast neutron reactors”.  I don’t pretend to know exactly what that is, but you can read a little about them here , and I’d be interested to know your opinion on nuclear power.

I know a lot of environmentalists who are strongly against it, but some climatologists, like James Hansen of NASA, believe we need to use nuclear power while we phase out coal plants.   Personally I think that we need to develop new nuclear plants, but they are very expensive.  What do you think?

Wall-E was a great movie, one of the best I saw last year. I rented it because I liked the cover art! and I like animated movies that are very well done. Not knowing exactly what it was about, I was completely entranced with it and didn’t get up until it was over. Imagine a future of obese people who don’t exercise and eat all day who only get around on scooters — sounds frighteningly like the present day, in some ways. Imagine a planet covered in its own garbage. At least we aren’t quite there yet.

So I’m glad it’s been nominated for six Academy Awards today. It’s an futuristic, environmental warning movie with some politics thrown in, and yet it was a huge hit and did very well last year, and deservedly so.

“Wall-E, the little robot who saved Earth, is having a big day - six Oscar nominations have been bestowed upon the film for Best Animated Feature Film of the Year, Original Score, Original Song, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Original Screenplay. These six nominations tie the film to Beauty and the Beast, long considered the best animated film of all time, and the only animated film to have ever been nominated for Best Picture. I wrote a review of Wall-E last June, and discussed its environmental ramifications.

Though “Wall-E” campaigned for a best picture and a best director nod, the film was passed over. “Clearly, and unfortunately, the Academy chose to follow tradition and ignore ‘WALL-E’ in the Best Picture and Best Director categories,” said the Pixar blog. The film will certainly win Best Animated Film (sorry, “Kung-Fu Panda” and “Bolt”), and is a top contender for score and song, where it is only up against “Slumdog Millionaire.”

By sheer volume of nominations, “Wall-E” will go down in the record books as one of the best-ever animated films. It was also the fifth-highest-grossing film in the U.S. in 2008, so its green message was spread far and wide, and was met with critical acclaim on hundreds of top-10 lists. If “Wall-E” wins big, it will have a place in movie history both for its beauty and its message.”

From USNEWS blog.

Now we need a movie or two like this every year until everyone in the public understands that environmental movies are not dull and boring or somehow associated with Al Gore! Environmental issues are associated with common sense, with humanity and with a concern for the future generations. As Wall-E shows in an amusing and sweet way, preserving the planet for the people to come is a human rights issue.

This caught my eye today:

22% Say Smoking Should Be Against The Law

Over one-out-of-five U.S. voters (22%) say the federal government should outlaw tobacco smoking, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Seventy percent (70%) disagree, and nine percent (9%) are undecided.
That support should come as good news for the 15% of voters who currently smoke — unless, of course, they’re trying to quit.
Only 14% of smokers think tobacco smoking should be against the law. Eighty percent (80%) are opposed, and five percent (5%) aren’t sure.
Twenty-two percent (22%) of former smokers say smoking should be outlawed, along with 23% of those who have never smoked.
Generally, those segments of the voting population that have the highest levels of smoking are the ones most likely to favor making it illegal.
But 71% of voters also believe that tobacco companies should not be held liable for health problems that current smokers develop.

From Rasmussen, the polling people.

I know a lot of people still smoke, and they think it’s a matter of freedom, and from a legal standpoint, they are right.  But  they have to consider who they may be harming. I have family members who still smoke, and I wish they’d quit. I am a former smoker.  I smoked for many years, and quit nearly five years ago. I have to say I must have had it easy, because quitting smoking for me wasn’t that tough. I had smoked over a pack a day for quite a while, and I was definitely hooked, but when I decided to quit I had made up my mind, and I never was even tempted to start again.  I had reached the point of just hating it.   I was able to quit the first time I tried and I never relapsed even once. From stories I hear, that’s rare, but it really wasn’t that hard for me. Now that I’m a reformed smoker, I’m trying to get everyone to quit. But the question is, do people have a right to smoke (kill themselves) or should it be illegal?

If you look at it as suicide, I guess everyone has the right to commit suicide, but only if they don’t take people with them. That’s the problem with smoking, it spreads.   A “no smoking” section in a restaurant is like a “no peeing” section in a swimming pool . . . it’s going to waft into someone else’s airspace,  and they will be breathing that smoke whether they want to or not. So, it definitely harms public health. For that reason alone, it should be outlawed in public places.

The question still remains whether countries can and should ban something that leads to near-certain death. You could argue that high-fat food (burgers, fries, ice cream) leads to heart disease, stroke, even cancer,  and you could argue that should outlawed also.  But I’m not for that at all. Who’s to determine what we can eat or drink and why would it be up to anyone but us what we want to put in our bodies? (After all, autonomy over your own body, and privacy, is the Constitutional argument for allowing abortions to be legal).

The statistics for smoking are bad enough though, that it gives people a good excuse to act like Big Brother. This is from the American Cancer Society:

Health Effects of Smoking

Each year, a staggering 440,000 people die in the US from tobacco use. Nearly 1 of every 5 deaths is related to smoking. Cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs combined.

Cigarette smoking accounts for at least 30% of all cancer deaths. It is a major cause of cancers of the lung, larynx (voice box), oral cavity, pharynx (throat), and esophagus, and is a contributing cause in the development of cancers of the bladder, pancreas, liver, uterine cervix, kidney, stomach, colon and rectum, and some leukemias.

About 87% of lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women, and is one of the most difficult cancers to treat.

That’s enough to nearly scare anyone who smokes to death — if the cigarettes don’t kill you first.

My solution to all of this is that it’s in the country’s best interest to discourage smoking, from a health insurance and public safety point of view. Keep cigarette smoking legal, but raise the taxes on them to about $10 a pack. If people really, really want to kill themselves, they can pay for what it costs the rest of us.

Even though I hate cigarettes, I do think weed should be legalized. After all, it’s good for people. The day it becomes legal (and I think that day is coming) I’m going to be the first in line to buy some. I might have to bake it in cookies or something though, since I can’t see starting up smoking again.

Maybe if marijuana was legalized, no one would want to bother with tobacco anymore.  What would be the point?

This has nothing to do with politics, but it’s about a TV icon who passed away on December 18th.

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry was the wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and someone I admired.   She died on Thursday of leukemia complications.  Barrett was the original Star Trek feminist, the powerful, smart woman. In the original Star Trek pilot she played “Number One” which was the Captain’s sidekick or sort of a vice-captain. Score one for the women. That role later went to “Mr. Spock” when the series started, but she blazed that path briefly back when it was still a woman’s place in American society to defer to men and look pretty. She did that later too because after all, it was Star Trek. To her credit, she never appeared on the show in a bikini or harem pants, (did she?) at least until she was much older and played Lwaxana Troi, when she appeared (faux) naked for her wedding ceremony.

Barrett’s most well known as “Nurse Chapel” (remember her Spock Gaze) on the original series, and also as the voice of the ship’s computer through several of the ST shows and movies. I used to be a huge, geeky fan of Star Trek, and even went to a ST convention once, though I never met her. I think I have seen every episode of ST, (except for some Deep Space Nine episodes (and much of the last show, Enterprise)) several times. Star Trek, especially TNG (The Next Generation) helped form how I think about the world and is one reason why I am a progressive. It’s one reason why I thought things like science, immigrant rights, space exploration, and governments were important. It made me see into the future, and consider ideas like borders don’t matter when you are dealing with a universe, even at a very young age. It was a show that made you wonder. What’s a parsec, anyway? Would food replicators solve world hunger? Would the Federation be a good evolution for the UN, or would it be repressive? And remember, there are no borders in space, so free trade… well, that’s Firefly, not ST. (Firefly was every bit as good as Star Trek, it just burned out far more quickly).

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In my spare time I produce an anti-war podcast called “Civilianism”, so I figure I might as well write about it here, since it’s my last one of 2008. They will return in 2009, or at least that’s the plan. I’ve been doing a podcast since 2005, and while it was a lot of fun for two years, it’s gotten to be a lot of work. But it’s the only real “activism” I do, especially in the winter, besides writing on websites. The following is typical of what I usually post for each podcast. The current one is about Obama’s plan for a continued war in Afghanistan. I’m totally against this idea, but then, I’m not the president. (Since Sarah Palin ran, though, I’m now convinced I’m as qualified to be president as anyone). These notes were for the podcast I just finished today. Even if you don’t listen to the podcast, the links are all to good articles about what people now are thinking about Afghanistan. Many people previously in favor of that war are now against it.

What can we expect from foreign policy in the Obama administration in 2009 - will U.S. imperialism take precedence, or will peace? We can’t have both. The U.S. continues to impose its will by force around the world, and there is no sign of this stopping any time soon, because our new president says he will increase troops to fight the so-called “War on Terror”.

Gore Vidal, Andrew Bacevich, and Arundhati Roy strongly disagree with U.S. imperialist policy, and so do I. I play portions of all three, and a portion of an interview from KBOO radio. You can listen from the following link.
Download this episode here

Here’s one article I talk about:  “The Taliban Control 72% of Afghanistan, Surround Kabul, and NATO is in Denial”

“Armed clashes in Afghanistan have reached the highest level since the Taliban was ousted by American-led forces in 2001, according to the United Nations. Taliban leader Mullah Omar today warned violence will rise and urged foreign forces to withdraw, Agence France-Presse reported, in his first public statement in a year. Pakistan militants torched 50 NATO trucks carrying supplies for troops in Afghanistan, the second such attack in as many days, AFP reported today, citing a police official.”

More…

BBC article: Drivers halt Afghan supply route — Lorry Drivers in north-west Pakistan say they will no longer deliver supplies to NATO. If this means the war will have to end, that’s OK.
BBC: Countering the Taleban’s 20-year war
The Taleban is planning for a 20-year war in Afghanistan, so we must too, the article argues. I hope they are completely wrong.

Gore Vidal’s interview was about his book Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
(here is another interview with him, for more information, not the one I played)
Arundhati Roy’s anti-war talk Come September can be downloaded from iTunes
You can read the transcript here.

Times Online: US accuses Britain over military failings in Afghanistan.

(The In These Times magazine article, “Obama’s Burden” that I read from, is not online.)

Also see: More U.S. troops to Afghanistan? by Russ Feingold

Also see: Official Calls for Sensitivity to Afghan Demands

Also see: Brzezinski: Surge In Afghanistan Risky, Some McCain Backers Want World War IV
Obviously, let’s not let them have it.

It’s time for American imperialism to end and peace to prevail.

This is the last episode of Civilianism for 2008 — Happy New Year!”

And that’s how the show notes end. I used to post every bit of music I included, but that really is too much work, and sometimes I don’t even know where I got bits of audio that I include, so I just stopped doing that. If anyone really wondered, I suppose I could find it. The music in this episode in the 2nd half is all from the documentary “We” that is about Arundhati Roy’s speech “Come September”. “We” is a documentary that you can find online just by googling it. There are many clips of it on Youtube too. Basically, it’s just an anti-war speech with a lot of U.S. history thrown in.

Last week in Time magazine they ran an article called “The Happiness Effect” about how happiness might be catching. Personally, I think this is certainly true if you are talking about smiling — when a person smiles, it’s often easy to smile back and instantly feel a little better. I think of it as spreading like a yawn, when someone yawns and you soon yawn too, wthout really realizing why. Are we just imitating each other? Not consciously, but we do.

So perhaps it’s not really “happiness” spreading but just smiling and a moment of feeling like smiling — a sort of faux happiness. The same is true of looking at photos of people smiling, and watching a sitcom or comedy. You laugh, you feel happy and you are cheered up — but that’s not really lasting happiness as I would define it. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Do external factors of life affect our mood? Sure they do. But, if “catching happiness” virally is all it took to be happy, you could sit world leaders down in a room and show them a few funny movies, and all our problems would be solved! It strikes me that world leaders who start wars, for instance, are very very unhappy people. They would never admit that to you, but they must be.

Now, public health officials are studying happiness. Happier people tend to be healthier people, and often, if your friends and family members are happy, you are too. We are social animals, and we are plugged in to a large social consciousness that “transcends” our individual happiness. This makes me wonder, can a country be happy, in general? Can it also be depressed, collectively? That would explain the dark cloud we all felt this last 8 years. But going even further, scientists wonder if happiness is like a collection of microbes, like the common cold, that you can “catch” from other people. The article in Time cites a study that was published in the British Medial Journal. The emotional states of about 5,000 people were studied, as well as the social ties they shared, including their online ties. Because of these social ties and connections, the scientists doing the study were able to discover something very interesting. If a subject’s friend was happy, that subject was 15% more likely to be happy too. If that subject’s friend was unhappy, the subject was 10% more likely to be so.

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