Just a few days ago, we celebrated Independence Day, the anniversary of the United Colonies’ declaration of independence from Great Britain more than 225 years ago. We celebrated with fireworks, and perhaps still in a few places parades, with picnics and cookouts and trips to the beach and mountains.
And hopefully, somewhere along the line, we stopped for at least a few moments to give thanks for those who sacrificed much -- their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor,” as they themselves put it -- to make us free, and to keep us that way in the years since.
But just how independent are we, actually? The truthful answer would have to be, not very. And less so, it seems, with each passing year.
Since our shift, c. 1970, from net oil exporter to net oil importer, we have been deeply dependent on sources of supply outside our own country to feed our ravenous appetite for oil and petroleum products. Some of those sources of supply are in countries that tolerate us at best, actively dislike us at worst.
We are dependent on 15,000-mile supply lines from China to supply us with the cheap consumer goods on which we have come to rely so greatly. Combine that with the last bit of dependency, and it’s easy to see why higher fuel prices are a concern for more than just filling our own tanks.
We have allowed ourselves to become dependent on government handouts and so-called entitlements in many areas of life. And we have acceded to the breakdown of organizations -- civic organizations and social clubs like the Grange, the Jaycees, and many others -- which previously served as buffers between individuals, the government, and the forces of nature, circumstance, and economics that buffet all of us.
That last is a clue to the fact that absolute and complete independence is an impossibility, of course. We could not have achieved our independence from England without the support of France, during our Revolutionary War. And even the most ruggedly independent pioneer or settler depended upon his neighbors, his family, or sometimes the local Indian tribe, to survive.
Interdependence is one thing, if it’s mutual. It is, in fact, probably the most basic, most natural, most normal condition for human beings. But the current situation, marked by trade deficits, military adventurism, and mistrust of American motives, is untenable.
If nothing else, the United States used to be able to be reliably counted upon to export its values: values like freedom, democracy, tolerance, and the rule of law. We still talk a good line in those regards, but place our rhetoric next to the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, warrantless electronic surveillance, waterboarding, and other actions in Iraq and elsewhere, and it’s no wonder many people in many countries of the world still admire the ideals of America, but fear and mistrust our actions.
Our next President, whoever he may be, will have his work cut out for him mending fences abroad, and trying to rebuild our badly damaged reputation.
Between now and Independence Day, 2009, we need a national conversation on how we as a nation and as individuals can become more independent -- in fuel, food, consumer goods, and many other economic measures, and in our personal expectations -- while at the same time promoting healthy and reasonable inter dependence with our neighbors, both locally and internationally.
If we can accomplish this, whether by next Fourth of July or ten Fourths of July down the road, we will really have something to celebrate.
Showing posts with label Current Events. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Current Events. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Column: Court strikes the right balance
Finally, at long last, the Supreme Court has confirmed what for many of us has always been self-evident: that sane, law-abiding citizens of the United States have an individual right, under the Second Amendment of the Constitution, to own guns for self-defense.
The Court was predictably divided on this decision, with the so-called “liberal” Justices opposed, and the more conservative ones in favor. Justice Kennedy, typically viewed as a moderate, voted with the majority to make it a 5-4 decision in favor of liberty, Constitutionality, and common sense.
Nonetheless this is not really, or at least exclusively, a liberal versus conservative issue. AP writer Mark Sherman accurately notes that the reaction broke less along party lines than along the divide between cities wracked with gun violence and rural areas where gun ownership is embedded in daily life.
This is the reality which partisan rhetoric has largely obscured: there is not a single “gun culture” in the United States. There are two. One of them is mostly an urban phenomenon: the “thug” or “gangsta” culture celebrated by gangsta rap and exemplified by the “Stop Snitchin’” DVDs put out by Baltimore’s gangs. For this culture, guns are about power obtained through violence, and wealth obtained the same way.
The second, and vastly larger, gun culture in the United States is often, but far from exclusively, rural. It reflects the estimated 43-55 million law-abiding gun owners -- only a fraction of whom are NRA members -- who own guns for hunting, shooting sports, and not least, personal safety. That includes defense against members of the first-mentioned gun culture.
Contrary to the views of at least one Presidential candidate, who seems to be doing some serious fence-sitting in view of the Court’s decision, members of the second-named gun culture are rarely bitter. In fact, they are typically optimistic, although sometimes frustrated by certain directions taken by this country’s ruling elite.
This second and much larger gun culture is peaceful, law-abiding, generally patriotic, and stresses personal responsibility. It views the Second Amendment as the “first freedom,” the right that, in the final analysis, guarantees all the others. It is, in other words, the culture that has remained in tune with the original intent of the Founders, now finally affirmed by the Supreme Court.
In making this ruling, the Court has struck the right balance. Writing for the majority, Justice Scalia noted that nothing in the ruling should “cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” In other words, it is only sane and law-abiding citizens who have the right to bear arms, and even then, not everywhere.
He further noted the justices in the majority “are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country" and that the Constitution "leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns.” This is hardly a return to a Wild West approach to problem-solving, as asserted by some fear-mongering anti-gun activists. If anything, statistics show the reverse: restricting gun ownership increases crime, as in Britain and Australia.
The right to keep and bear arms for a variety of purposes, including personal defense, is exactly that: a fundamental, individual right, on par with the right to speak freely, freely assemble, worship in accordance with conscience, and all the rest. It’s really rather sad that it’s taken this long, and required a Supreme Court decision, to affirm such a basic and self-evident truth.
The Court was predictably divided on this decision, with the so-called “liberal” Justices opposed, and the more conservative ones in favor. Justice Kennedy, typically viewed as a moderate, voted with the majority to make it a 5-4 decision in favor of liberty, Constitutionality, and common sense.
Nonetheless this is not really, or at least exclusively, a liberal versus conservative issue. AP writer Mark Sherman accurately notes that the reaction broke less along party lines than along the divide between cities wracked with gun violence and rural areas where gun ownership is embedded in daily life.
This is the reality which partisan rhetoric has largely obscured: there is not a single “gun culture” in the United States. There are two. One of them is mostly an urban phenomenon: the “thug” or “gangsta” culture celebrated by gangsta rap and exemplified by the “Stop Snitchin’” DVDs put out by Baltimore’s gangs. For this culture, guns are about power obtained through violence, and wealth obtained the same way.
The second, and vastly larger, gun culture in the United States is often, but far from exclusively, rural. It reflects the estimated 43-55 million law-abiding gun owners -- only a fraction of whom are NRA members -- who own guns for hunting, shooting sports, and not least, personal safety. That includes defense against members of the first-mentioned gun culture.
Contrary to the views of at least one Presidential candidate, who seems to be doing some serious fence-sitting in view of the Court’s decision, members of the second-named gun culture are rarely bitter. In fact, they are typically optimistic, although sometimes frustrated by certain directions taken by this country’s ruling elite.
This second and much larger gun culture is peaceful, law-abiding, generally patriotic, and stresses personal responsibility. It views the Second Amendment as the “first freedom,” the right that, in the final analysis, guarantees all the others. It is, in other words, the culture that has remained in tune with the original intent of the Founders, now finally affirmed by the Supreme Court.
In making this ruling, the Court has struck the right balance. Writing for the majority, Justice Scalia noted that nothing in the ruling should “cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” In other words, it is only sane and law-abiding citizens who have the right to bear arms, and even then, not everywhere.
He further noted the justices in the majority “are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country" and that the Constitution "leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns.” This is hardly a return to a Wild West approach to problem-solving, as asserted by some fear-mongering anti-gun activists. If anything, statistics show the reverse: restricting gun ownership increases crime, as in Britain and Australia.
The right to keep and bear arms for a variety of purposes, including personal defense, is exactly that: a fundamental, individual right, on par with the right to speak freely, freely assemble, worship in accordance with conscience, and all the rest. It’s really rather sad that it’s taken this long, and required a Supreme Court decision, to affirm such a basic and self-evident truth.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Column: Summer Reflections
As the wheel of the year turns from the Winter Solstice, December 21st, to Candlemas, February 2nd, there is an old axiom that “as the light lengthens, so the cold strengthens.” And in fact, the period between Christmas and Groundhog Day is often the coldest and snowiest of the year. In fact, the cold and snow sometimes extends right up to the Vernal Equinox, on March 21st.
If there were a similar axiom for this time of year, it might go “as the dark lengthens, so the heat strengthens.”
We are just past the Summer Solstice, the longest day and shortest night of the year. From now on each day will be just a little bit shorter, and each night a little bit longer, than the last. It’ll be barely noticeable at first, but within a few weeks we’ll be noticing, regretfully, that it’s not staying light quite as late as it was before.
That does not mean that the intensity of summer heat will lessen along with the light. It will eventually, of course, but we are now facing the hottest part of the year: “High Summer,” or the “Dog Days,” as some call them. From the Summer Solstice until at least Lammas (“Loaf-Mass,” the old harvest festival on August 1st), and perhaps until the Autumnal Equinox on September 21st, we can look forward to days, weeks or months of hot, hazy, and humid weather.
Nonetheless, this is a wonderful time of the year in many respects. Traditionally it’s a time for vacations, a word stemming from the so-called “Gilded Age,” when Vanderbilts, DuPonts, and other wealthy families literally “vacated” cities for the healthier climate of exclusive mountain or coastal retreats. With the advent of the Automotive Age, ordinary families could join the pilgrimage, and the Great American Vacation was born.
Present fuel costs may keep more people closer to home this year, and in years to come, but that’s not all bad: there are many places and events worth visiting here in our home state of Maryland, in fact right here in Carroll County. It’s even possible that some families may focus more on being families, and doing things together, rather than just going places.
And of course, this is the most fruitful time of the year, when fresh vegetables, fruits, and berries abound at farmers markets and roadside stands. What would late spring and early summer have been without strawberries and asparagus? But now we can look forward to locally-grown tomatoes, corn, and beans, yellow and zucchini squash, plus peppers and eggplant for those who like them, along with cantelopes and watermelons, cherries and peaches, red raspberries and plump blackberries, and much more.
And if the heat and humidity gets you down, be of good hope! It won’t be that long until the first Canadian cold fronts sweep through the area, bringing crystal blue skies and crisp nights, and the markets will be replete with apples and pumpkins, Indian corn and colorful gourds.
But that’s for the future. The wheel of the year keeps turning, ever-varied, eternally interesting. Best not to look too far ahead: better to simply enjoy what this turn of the year brings. Although the seasons may come back around, each moment in time is unique, and once gone, it can never be recaptured.
If there were a similar axiom for this time of year, it might go “as the dark lengthens, so the heat strengthens.”
We are just past the Summer Solstice, the longest day and shortest night of the year. From now on each day will be just a little bit shorter, and each night a little bit longer, than the last. It’ll be barely noticeable at first, but within a few weeks we’ll be noticing, regretfully, that it’s not staying light quite as late as it was before.
That does not mean that the intensity of summer heat will lessen along with the light. It will eventually, of course, but we are now facing the hottest part of the year: “High Summer,” or the “Dog Days,” as some call them. From the Summer Solstice until at least Lammas (“Loaf-Mass,” the old harvest festival on August 1st), and perhaps until the Autumnal Equinox on September 21st, we can look forward to days, weeks or months of hot, hazy, and humid weather.
Nonetheless, this is a wonderful time of the year in many respects. Traditionally it’s a time for vacations, a word stemming from the so-called “Gilded Age,” when Vanderbilts, DuPonts, and other wealthy families literally “vacated” cities for the healthier climate of exclusive mountain or coastal retreats. With the advent of the Automotive Age, ordinary families could join the pilgrimage, and the Great American Vacation was born.
Present fuel costs may keep more people closer to home this year, and in years to come, but that’s not all bad: there are many places and events worth visiting here in our home state of Maryland, in fact right here in Carroll County. It’s even possible that some families may focus more on being families, and doing things together, rather than just going places.
And of course, this is the most fruitful time of the year, when fresh vegetables, fruits, and berries abound at farmers markets and roadside stands. What would late spring and early summer have been without strawberries and asparagus? But now we can look forward to locally-grown tomatoes, corn, and beans, yellow and zucchini squash, plus peppers and eggplant for those who like them, along with cantelopes and watermelons, cherries and peaches, red raspberries and plump blackberries, and much more.
And if the heat and humidity gets you down, be of good hope! It won’t be that long until the first Canadian cold fronts sweep through the area, bringing crystal blue skies and crisp nights, and the markets will be replete with apples and pumpkins, Indian corn and colorful gourds.
But that’s for the future. The wheel of the year keeps turning, ever-varied, eternally interesting. Best not to look too far ahead: better to simply enjoy what this turn of the year brings. Although the seasons may come back around, each moment in time is unique, and once gone, it can never be recaptured.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
A visit from Jack Boots and E.N. Forcer
*knock, knock*
“Yes? Hello?
“Ms Homeowner?”
“Yes, that’s me. How can I help you gentlemen?”
“Ms Homeowner, I’m Jack Boots, from your neighborhood association, and this E. N. Forcer, from municipal government.”
(apprehensively) “Yes? What’s wrong?”
“Ms Homeowner, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you aren’t allowed to hang your clothes out to dry. Clean clothes flapping in the breeze is an eyesore, on a par with rusting automobiles left on blocks in the front yard. You’ll have to take them down.”
“But I do that to save energy, and also to reduce my carbon footprint. Hanging clothes out to dry saves fuel and protects the environment, while it also saves me money.”
“That’s what they claim, Ms Homeowner. I wouldn’t know about that. All I know is that we can’t have people thinking the folks living in this development can’t afford to use the dryer. You’ll have to take them down.”
“But…”
“Now Mr. Forcer has something to say to you.”
“Ms Homeowner, I understand you watered your vegetable garden last evening.”
“Well, yes, I did. We haven’t had much rain, as you know, and I depend on those vegetables to provide fresh, healthy food for myself and my family. We even can the excess to help us through the winter.”
“I’m sorry, Ms Homeowner, but I’m afraid that’s not allowed. Water restrictions, you know. You’re going to have to rely on canned and frozen foods produced a thousand miles away and shipped here, just like the rest of us.”
“But wait a minute, sir, if there are water restrictions, why are they continuing to build new houses? There are several big developments going in, I pass them on my way to work every day. And even one of those houses would use many times more water than I do to water my little garden!”
“I wouldn’t know about that, Ms Homeowner, not my department. I just know that watering your garden is a no-no. Thanks for your time, ma’am. Have a nice day.”
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes, Mr. Boots?”
“Your American flag in the front yard -- is that a 12 foot pole?”
“Why, yes, it is. Why?”
“Four feet too high for our neighborhood covenants. You’ll have to cut it down to size, or take it down entirely. Have a nice day, ma’am.”
“Ummm… well, thank you. Goodbye.”
Exaggerated? Well, yes… but not by much. Though the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent, conversations much like these have been held with many people across our county, state, and nation since the advent of homeowners associations, neighborhood covenants, and the like.
I grew up surrounded by one of the first major planned communities, the so-called “New City” of Columbia, Maryland. Columbia was notorious for its restrictive covenants. You had to get association approval to change the color of your front door, and even then, only limited colors were allowed. Still, I’d be the first to admit some covenants are appropriate. Few of us want to live next door to the rusting hulk of a ’57 Chevy on blocks, surrounded by pink plastic flamingos.
But some restrictions, such as the ban in many neighborhood association agreements on drying clothes by hanging them outside, are not only silly, but in this age of rising energy costs, shrinking supplies, and global climate change, are downright wrong-headed. Anything we can do, within reason, to save energy and help the environment should be not only allowed, but applauded by the relevant authorities.
Similarly, distinctions need to be made between keeping one’s lawn as green as a golf-course, or nurturing a bevy of blooming ornamentals, and growing food for one’s table. The first two are pretty, but not essential. The latter is a fundamental human right, and a decision in favor of good health, good food, and good stewardship of the land, and against the social, political, and energy costs of centralized production and long-distance transport.
The bit about the American flag was included partly because that, too, has come up in covenant disputes, and partly because finding the balance between individual liberty and community responsibility, and between deep, essential values and trivial, superficial desires, has been part of what America is all about.
Unfortunately, blanket restrictions, applied without consideration of why some people may choose a particular course of action and without weighing the specific situation on its merits, are counter to both individual liberty and true community. We can and should do better.
“Yes? Hello?
“Ms Homeowner?”
“Yes, that’s me. How can I help you gentlemen?”
“Ms Homeowner, I’m Jack Boots, from your neighborhood association, and this E. N. Forcer, from municipal government.”
(apprehensively) “Yes? What’s wrong?”
“Ms Homeowner, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you aren’t allowed to hang your clothes out to dry. Clean clothes flapping in the breeze is an eyesore, on a par with rusting automobiles left on blocks in the front yard. You’ll have to take them down.”
“But I do that to save energy, and also to reduce my carbon footprint. Hanging clothes out to dry saves fuel and protects the environment, while it also saves me money.”
“That’s what they claim, Ms Homeowner. I wouldn’t know about that. All I know is that we can’t have people thinking the folks living in this development can’t afford to use the dryer. You’ll have to take them down.”
“But…”
“Now Mr. Forcer has something to say to you.”
“Ms Homeowner, I understand you watered your vegetable garden last evening.”
“Well, yes, I did. We haven’t had much rain, as you know, and I depend on those vegetables to provide fresh, healthy food for myself and my family. We even can the excess to help us through the winter.”
“I’m sorry, Ms Homeowner, but I’m afraid that’s not allowed. Water restrictions, you know. You’re going to have to rely on canned and frozen foods produced a thousand miles away and shipped here, just like the rest of us.”
“But wait a minute, sir, if there are water restrictions, why are they continuing to build new houses? There are several big developments going in, I pass them on my way to work every day. And even one of those houses would use many times more water than I do to water my little garden!”
“I wouldn’t know about that, Ms Homeowner, not my department. I just know that watering your garden is a no-no. Thanks for your time, ma’am. Have a nice day.”
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes, Mr. Boots?”
“Your American flag in the front yard -- is that a 12 foot pole?”
“Why, yes, it is. Why?”
“Four feet too high for our neighborhood covenants. You’ll have to cut it down to size, or take it down entirely. Have a nice day, ma’am.”
“Ummm… well, thank you. Goodbye.”
Exaggerated? Well, yes… but not by much. Though the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent, conversations much like these have been held with many people across our county, state, and nation since the advent of homeowners associations, neighborhood covenants, and the like.
I grew up surrounded by one of the first major planned communities, the so-called “New City” of Columbia, Maryland. Columbia was notorious for its restrictive covenants. You had to get association approval to change the color of your front door, and even then, only limited colors were allowed. Still, I’d be the first to admit some covenants are appropriate. Few of us want to live next door to the rusting hulk of a ’57 Chevy on blocks, surrounded by pink plastic flamingos.
But some restrictions, such as the ban in many neighborhood association agreements on drying clothes by hanging them outside, are not only silly, but in this age of rising energy costs, shrinking supplies, and global climate change, are downright wrong-headed. Anything we can do, within reason, to save energy and help the environment should be not only allowed, but applauded by the relevant authorities.
Similarly, distinctions need to be made between keeping one’s lawn as green as a golf-course, or nurturing a bevy of blooming ornamentals, and growing food for one’s table. The first two are pretty, but not essential. The latter is a fundamental human right, and a decision in favor of good health, good food, and good stewardship of the land, and against the social, political, and energy costs of centralized production and long-distance transport.
The bit about the American flag was included partly because that, too, has come up in covenant disputes, and partly because finding the balance between individual liberty and community responsibility, and between deep, essential values and trivial, superficial desires, has been part of what America is all about.
Unfortunately, blanket restrictions, applied without consideration of why some people may choose a particular course of action and without weighing the specific situation on its merits, are counter to both individual liberty and true community. We can and should do better.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Remembering fallen heroes on Memorial Day
Yesterday we observed the national Memorial Day holiday. Observed by custom, over recent decades, on the last Monday of May, it yields a long weekend for the traditional (if unoffical) first weekend of summer. As such, it forms the backdrop for picnics, backyard barbecues, and trips to the beach, the lake, or the mountains.
All of this is well and good. The older I get, the shorter summer seems to become, and I am all for squeezing every ounce of gusto out of it that we can manage. I'm always up for a trip to the mountains, a session of grilling and partaking of potluck picnic fare, or exploring some waterfront location.
But it's important, I think, that we don't let these enjoyable observations of the beginning of summer obscure for us the deeper significance of Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was originally called. Though the precise date and location of its origin are unknown, it clearly dates back to the Civil War. As the website www.usmemorialday.org notes, it is "likely that… every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860's tapped into the general human need to honor our dead."
Memorial Day was officially first proclaimed by Union General John Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, and first observed on May 30, 1868. It is very much in keeping with the tenor of the day that, even at that early date, flowers were laid on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers alike.
The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York, in 1873. By 1890, again according to the website, it was recognized by all northern states, although perhaps understandably, the states of the former Confederacy resisted the trend, honoring their dead on separate days. World War One, however, brought the country together in many ways. One of those was making Memorial Day no longer about honoring the dead of the Civil War, but honoring all American servicemen (and later women) who had died fighting for their country.
The wearing of red poppies originated in the famous World War One poem, "In Flanders Fields." In 1915, Moina Mitchell was inspired by this to compose her own brief poem: "We cherish too, the Poppy red / That grows on fields where valor led, / It seems to signal to the skies / That blood of heroes never dies." She thus conceived the idea of wearing red poppies to honor those Americans fallen in battle.
At a time when more than 3,400 Americans have died in the fighting in Iraq, and hundreds more in Afghanistan, it is appropriate to pause amidst our understandable celebrations of the coming of summer to recall, for a moment, just why we commemorate this day. Westminster and some of the other municipalities of Carroll County are better at this than much of the country, it seems, honoring both the day and our fallen heroes with a parade and, often, further observances at the local cemetery.
Nonetheless I tend to agree with the views expressed on www.memorialday.com, that "Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day... What is needed is a full return to the original day of observance. Set aside one day out of the year for the nation to get together to remember, reflect and honor those who have given their all in service to their country."
How best to do this? Move the observation of Memorial Day back to its original date, May 30th, on whatever day that might fall. Making it an excuse for a 3-day vacation, some justly hold, undercuts the very meaning of the day, which is all about sacrifice and gratitude for that sacrifice. Without the valor and selflessness, even unto death, of those honored on this day, the U.S. would not be a nation, and neither we nor much of the rest of the world would enjoy the freedoms we so often take for granted.
In the words of General Logan, in his order proclaiming the day in 1868, "Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic." May we not forget. May we never forget. Tomorrow marks the traditional Memorial Day, May 30th. Let us truly, and gratefully, remember.
All of this is well and good. The older I get, the shorter summer seems to become, and I am all for squeezing every ounce of gusto out of it that we can manage. I'm always up for a trip to the mountains, a session of grilling and partaking of potluck picnic fare, or exploring some waterfront location.
But it's important, I think, that we don't let these enjoyable observations of the beginning of summer obscure for us the deeper significance of Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was originally called. Though the precise date and location of its origin are unknown, it clearly dates back to the Civil War. As the website www.usmemorialday.org notes, it is "likely that… every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860's tapped into the general human need to honor our dead."
Memorial Day was officially first proclaimed by Union General John Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, and first observed on May 30, 1868. It is very much in keeping with the tenor of the day that, even at that early date, flowers were laid on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers alike.
The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York, in 1873. By 1890, again according to the website, it was recognized by all northern states, although perhaps understandably, the states of the former Confederacy resisted the trend, honoring their dead on separate days. World War One, however, brought the country together in many ways. One of those was making Memorial Day no longer about honoring the dead of the Civil War, but honoring all American servicemen (and later women) who had died fighting for their country.
The wearing of red poppies originated in the famous World War One poem, "In Flanders Fields." In 1915, Moina Mitchell was inspired by this to compose her own brief poem: "We cherish too, the Poppy red / That grows on fields where valor led, / It seems to signal to the skies / That blood of heroes never dies." She thus conceived the idea of wearing red poppies to honor those Americans fallen in battle.
At a time when more than 3,400 Americans have died in the fighting in Iraq, and hundreds more in Afghanistan, it is appropriate to pause amidst our understandable celebrations of the coming of summer to recall, for a moment, just why we commemorate this day. Westminster and some of the other municipalities of Carroll County are better at this than much of the country, it seems, honoring both the day and our fallen heroes with a parade and, often, further observances at the local cemetery.
Nonetheless I tend to agree with the views expressed on www.memorialday.com, that "Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day... What is needed is a full return to the original day of observance. Set aside one day out of the year for the nation to get together to remember, reflect and honor those who have given their all in service to their country."
How best to do this? Move the observation of Memorial Day back to its original date, May 30th, on whatever day that might fall. Making it an excuse for a 3-day vacation, some justly hold, undercuts the very meaning of the day, which is all about sacrifice and gratitude for that sacrifice. Without the valor and selflessness, even unto death, of those honored on this day, the U.S. would not be a nation, and neither we nor much of the rest of the world would enjoy the freedoms we so often take for granted.
In the words of General Logan, in his order proclaiming the day in 1868, "Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic." May we not forget. May we never forget. Tomorrow marks the traditional Memorial Day, May 30th. Let us truly, and gratefully, remember.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
No Child Left Inside
Okay, you know about “No Child Left Behind,” but do you know about “No Child Left Inside”? In case you've been sleepwalking through the last five or six years, No Child Left Behind is the propaganda… errr… umm… excuse me, public relations name given to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (EASA), and was signed into law in 2002. It is controversial, and justly so, for subjecting students and teachers alike to a regimen of standardized tests in the name of “accountability.”
The No Child Left Inside Initiative is in some ways almost the polar opposite of ESEA. Signed into law on April 21st -- John Muir's birthday - by Washington state governor Christine Gregoire, the initiative will provide $1.5 million a year to outdoor education programs working with underserved youth in the state, according to a press release by the Children and Nature Network.
Nor is Washington the only such forward-looking state. New Mexico's legislature passed, in March, the Outdoor Classrooms Initiative, an effort to increase outdoor education in the state through the use of state parks, federal public lands, ranches, nature centers and other locations, again according to the C&NN (not to be confused with CNN, the cable news provider).
Martin LeBlanc, vice president of C&NN and national youth education director for the Sierra Club, was quoted as stating that “In pursuing a national Leave No Child Inside movement, our goal is to secure this level of support for all children in every state.” That is indeed a worthy goal. But it's sadly ironic that government support is needed to get children outside to play.
I clearly remember my own youth, in which “go outside and play” was a commonly-heard refrain, often coupled with “it's too nice a day to be indoors.” And go outside and play I did, often and for extended periods.
Either alone or with friends from the neighborhood, I built forts in the woods, climbed trees, explored (and splashed, and occasionally fell) in the streams, and created whole worlds of fantasy and imagination -- just the sort of self-directed, unstructured free play experts now hail as essential for psychological and emotional development in children, not to mention the development of an ecological consciousness.
Free play in the outdoors is the absolute antithesis of standardization and cramming for tests. Perhaps that's one of the reasons it may seem threatening to some educators, government officials, and even parents.
From “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” I am struck -- and not positively -- by the way in which 21st century Americans have become willing to let the government make their decisions for them, in effect almost live their lives for them, dictating everything from how subjects are taught in schools to what kinds of food we can and cannot eat.
The much-quoted ideal that “that government is best which governs least” seems to have been left lying wounded somewhere along the road to a plasticized, idealized, technotopian future.
One of the ways in which governments can provide a positive impetus, however, is in funding opportunities for children to get out into the wider world of nature and play. If the so-called “learning” and “educational” opportunities are not themselves too structured -- remember the wise dictum that “the work of children is play” -- these kinds of programs can provide a healthy (in every sense of the word) counterbalance to our increasingly inward-looking, indoor, virtual, and regimented future.
But come on, folks: we don't need to wait for the government to fund our children's play. In fact if we do, we're just buying into the system again. All we really need are parents willing to encourage, if not require, that their children get out from behind the PlayStation or X-Box, up from in front of the TV or DVD player or internet-enabled computer, and go outside to play.
Yes, it may require a bit more parental supervision. But then, any of the aforementioned indoor, technological activities really requires more supervision than it often receives. And anything worth doing requires making choices, and setting priorities.
What is your priority for your children? To be cogs in a well-oiled machine? Or to know and appreciate the beauty, grandeur, and awe-inspiring possibilities of the natural world within which we live? The choices we make, for ourselves and our children, have never been more important, for our future and theirs. Let's choose to leave no child inside.
The No Child Left Inside Initiative is in some ways almost the polar opposite of ESEA. Signed into law on April 21st -- John Muir's birthday - by Washington state governor Christine Gregoire, the initiative will provide $1.5 million a year to outdoor education programs working with underserved youth in the state, according to a press release by the Children and Nature Network.
Nor is Washington the only such forward-looking state. New Mexico's legislature passed, in March, the Outdoor Classrooms Initiative, an effort to increase outdoor education in the state through the use of state parks, federal public lands, ranches, nature centers and other locations, again according to the C&NN (not to be confused with CNN, the cable news provider).
Martin LeBlanc, vice president of C&NN and national youth education director for the Sierra Club, was quoted as stating that “In pursuing a national Leave No Child Inside movement, our goal is to secure this level of support for all children in every state.” That is indeed a worthy goal. But it's sadly ironic that government support is needed to get children outside to play.
I clearly remember my own youth, in which “go outside and play” was a commonly-heard refrain, often coupled with “it's too nice a day to be indoors.” And go outside and play I did, often and for extended periods.
Either alone or with friends from the neighborhood, I built forts in the woods, climbed trees, explored (and splashed, and occasionally fell) in the streams, and created whole worlds of fantasy and imagination -- just the sort of self-directed, unstructured free play experts now hail as essential for psychological and emotional development in children, not to mention the development of an ecological consciousness.
Free play in the outdoors is the absolute antithesis of standardization and cramming for tests. Perhaps that's one of the reasons it may seem threatening to some educators, government officials, and even parents.
From “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” I am struck -- and not positively -- by the way in which 21st century Americans have become willing to let the government make their decisions for them, in effect almost live their lives for them, dictating everything from how subjects are taught in schools to what kinds of food we can and cannot eat.
The much-quoted ideal that “that government is best which governs least” seems to have been left lying wounded somewhere along the road to a plasticized, idealized, technotopian future.
One of the ways in which governments can provide a positive impetus, however, is in funding opportunities for children to get out into the wider world of nature and play. If the so-called “learning” and “educational” opportunities are not themselves too structured -- remember the wise dictum that “the work of children is play” -- these kinds of programs can provide a healthy (in every sense of the word) counterbalance to our increasingly inward-looking, indoor, virtual, and regimented future.
But come on, folks: we don't need to wait for the government to fund our children's play. In fact if we do, we're just buying into the system again. All we really need are parents willing to encourage, if not require, that their children get out from behind the PlayStation or X-Box, up from in front of the TV or DVD player or internet-enabled computer, and go outside to play.
Yes, it may require a bit more parental supervision. But then, any of the aforementioned indoor, technological activities really requires more supervision than it often receives. And anything worth doing requires making choices, and setting priorities.
What is your priority for your children? To be cogs in a well-oiled machine? Or to know and appreciate the beauty, grandeur, and awe-inspiring possibilities of the natural world within which we live? The choices we make, for ourselves and our children, have never been more important, for our future and theirs. Let's choose to leave no child inside.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Reflections on Virginia Tech tragedy
No one with an ounce of human decency could fail to be heartbroken at the tragic massacre on campus at Virginia Tech last week. A deeply disturbed, indeed deranged, student, a South Korean resident alien named Cho Seung-Hui, killed 32 students and professors before turning his gun on himself, making this the largest mass shooting in American history.
Students and professors alike demonstrated true courage and even heroism, blocking the murderer with closed doors, piled-up desks, and sometimes even their own bodies. The first victim was a freshman girl, the second her RA (Resident Assistant), who tried to come to her aid. A 76-year-old engineering professor and Holocaust survivor, Liviu Librescu, was killed holding his classroom door closed so that his students could escape.
In the midst of this tragedy and heroism, it is all the more saddening, although predictable, that elements of the gun-ban lobby, in the media and elsewhere, would try to use this horrific event to bolster their agenda. But then, many of the same people attempted to do the same thing after 9/11, in which no firearms were even used. Ideology bows to neither human tragedy nor reason, apparently.
Far from being a showpiece for what is euphemistically called gun "control," this incident clearly demonstrates the futility of expecting laws to stop criminals, who by their very nature transgress laws. Guns are banned on college and university campuses -- but that did not keep Cho from bringing his onto the campus at Virginia Tech. Granted, a person with his psychological profile ought to have been barred from purchasing a firearm. Somebody dropped the ball, somewhere.
Still, I recall thinking sadly, as I received news of this incident, "oh no, guns are prohibited on campus: those students were defenseless, no way to fight back." At least some VT students felt the same: one member of the campus shooting club, interviewed by ABC's Good Morning America, expressed frustration that if concealed carry of a handgun were allowed on campus, he or someone else might have been able to stop the shooter before he'd killed so many.
I am reminded of the woman, some years ago, who watched her mother gunned down in a fast-food restaurant, unable to intervene because she had left her handgun legally locked in her car in the parking lot. Or again, of the high school vice principal who retrieved his handgun from his car parked legally off-campus and was, in fact, able to subdue a shooter who was rampaging through his school.
In fact, as Gun Owners of America director Larry Pratt accurately points out, according to UPI, "all the school shootings that have ended abruptly in the last 10 years were stopped because a law-abiding citizen -- a potential victim -- had a gun." Yet the gun-ban crowd would like to further restrict legal access to firearms. This makes no sense at all.
I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: criminals may be crazed, they may be deranged, but they are not stupid. They are far more likely to pick "soft" targets, places where they know no one is going to be shooting back at them, for their rampages. Would not knowing whether a given victim or bystander would be able to return fire absolutely dissuade all violent crime, all the time? No, of course not. Would it help the situation? I believe it would, and there are statistics to back up this view: see John Lott, "More Guns, Less Crime."
More productive is trying to figure out why so many signals were missed in the case of Cho: an individual who had twice been accused of stalking, who had been examined and found to be mentally unstable, who had frightened classmates and professors alike with his graphically violent and twisted poetry and plays, who was so distant and sullen his tutor said that attempting to communicate with him "was almost like talking to a hole,” according to an AP report. Yet neither the university administration nor law enforcement authorities proved willing or able to step in and prevent the tragedy.
As a hunting safety instructor, and a certified range officer, I will proudly admit my bias: that ordinary, law-abiding citizens clearly have the Constitutional right, and ought to have the means, to protect themselves from deranged, murderous psychopaths like Cho. If this incident at Virginia Tech makes one thing clear, it is that citizens who count only on the authorities to protect them are in for a grievous, and perhaps lethal, disappointment.
Students and professors alike demonstrated true courage and even heroism, blocking the murderer with closed doors, piled-up desks, and sometimes even their own bodies. The first victim was a freshman girl, the second her RA (Resident Assistant), who tried to come to her aid. A 76-year-old engineering professor and Holocaust survivor, Liviu Librescu, was killed holding his classroom door closed so that his students could escape.
In the midst of this tragedy and heroism, it is all the more saddening, although predictable, that elements of the gun-ban lobby, in the media and elsewhere, would try to use this horrific event to bolster their agenda. But then, many of the same people attempted to do the same thing after 9/11, in which no firearms were even used. Ideology bows to neither human tragedy nor reason, apparently.
Far from being a showpiece for what is euphemistically called gun "control," this incident clearly demonstrates the futility of expecting laws to stop criminals, who by their very nature transgress laws. Guns are banned on college and university campuses -- but that did not keep Cho from bringing his onto the campus at Virginia Tech. Granted, a person with his psychological profile ought to have been barred from purchasing a firearm. Somebody dropped the ball, somewhere.
Still, I recall thinking sadly, as I received news of this incident, "oh no, guns are prohibited on campus: those students were defenseless, no way to fight back." At least some VT students felt the same: one member of the campus shooting club, interviewed by ABC's Good Morning America, expressed frustration that if concealed carry of a handgun were allowed on campus, he or someone else might have been able to stop the shooter before he'd killed so many.
I am reminded of the woman, some years ago, who watched her mother gunned down in a fast-food restaurant, unable to intervene because she had left her handgun legally locked in her car in the parking lot. Or again, of the high school vice principal who retrieved his handgun from his car parked legally off-campus and was, in fact, able to subdue a shooter who was rampaging through his school.
In fact, as Gun Owners of America director Larry Pratt accurately points out, according to UPI, "all the school shootings that have ended abruptly in the last 10 years were stopped because a law-abiding citizen -- a potential victim -- had a gun." Yet the gun-ban crowd would like to further restrict legal access to firearms. This makes no sense at all.
I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: criminals may be crazed, they may be deranged, but they are not stupid. They are far more likely to pick "soft" targets, places where they know no one is going to be shooting back at them, for their rampages. Would not knowing whether a given victim or bystander would be able to return fire absolutely dissuade all violent crime, all the time? No, of course not. Would it help the situation? I believe it would, and there are statistics to back up this view: see John Lott, "More Guns, Less Crime."
More productive is trying to figure out why so many signals were missed in the case of Cho: an individual who had twice been accused of stalking, who had been examined and found to be mentally unstable, who had frightened classmates and professors alike with his graphically violent and twisted poetry and plays, who was so distant and sullen his tutor said that attempting to communicate with him "was almost like talking to a hole,” according to an AP report. Yet neither the university administration nor law enforcement authorities proved willing or able to step in and prevent the tragedy.
As a hunting safety instructor, and a certified range officer, I will proudly admit my bias: that ordinary, law-abiding citizens clearly have the Constitutional right, and ought to have the means, to protect themselves from deranged, murderous psychopaths like Cho. If this incident at Virginia Tech makes one thing clear, it is that citizens who count only on the authorities to protect them are in for a grievous, and perhaps lethal, disappointment.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Westminster City Council's "green" resolution falls short
A journey of a thousand miles, so goes the old saying, begins with a single step. However, I would add, someone who stops after that first step won't get far on the journey. The decision by the Westminster City Council to adopt a "Resolution on Climate Disrupting Pollution" may be viewed as an important first step in joining the battle against global climate change, but I hope it won't be the city of Westminister's last.
As a Times article on Monday, April 9th, pointed out, the Catoctin Chapter of the Sierra Club had asked the City Council to approve and sign the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement. The agreement, already signed by some 400 municipalities nationwide, is a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012: the goal set in the much-maligned Kyoto Protocol. This is admittedly a challenge, but hardly an un-reachable one, as the number of cities signed on attests. Seven Maryland cities, including Sykesville and Baltimore, have already signed.
Instead, the Mayor and Council of Westminster decided to adopt what councilman Gregory Pecoraro described as "sort of a homegrown version of how we want to approach this."
As a general rule, I am all for homegrown, local approaches. However, there are times when local authorities need to band together to deal with problems and issues which are beyond what any of them can solve on their own, when the need for unified action transcends the importance of local autonomy. The crisis we as humans face due to global warming is one of those. Furthermore, the U.S. Mayors Agreement is not something being forced on us from above; it is a voluntary union of equals to accomplish something in our common interest.
Encouragingly, the same edition of the Times reported the formation in Mount Airy of a new “green” organization dedicated to "raising awareness about global warming, rising energy costs and other environmental issues.” Sometimes citizens catch on quicker than their elected leaders.
And there's little excuse for ignorance or apathy. The scope and urgency of the problem has been clearly articulated and reinforced by a whole series of recent articles in the Times. On April 6th, an AP article headlined “Experts say natural wonders at risk from global warming” elucidated threats to “natural treasures” from Australia's Great Barrier Reef to the Amazon rainforests due to climate change. Some of the damage may already be irreversible.
An article on Easter Sunday focused on mountaineers and ice climbers worldwide who are firsthand witnesses to "vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations, and flood-prone lakes" as a result of rising temperatures. A report from Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday the 11th stated that continued warming could result in food shortages for 130 million people across Asia by 2050 and cause potentially catastrophic problems in Africa. And we think we have immigration problems now.
Yet still some people refuse to either admit that there's a problem, or take ownership of humanity's part in it. It's easier to say, "oh, it's just natural fluctuations" -- despite indications that without human input, the earth would now be in a slight cool-down -- or complain that the costs would be prohibitive. Ironically, doing nothing will likely prove even more costly, in the long run.
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is another group that gets it. According to a Capital News Service report, the Council passed a regional climate change initiative that will unite efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses in the National Capital Region. Maryland faces the largest impact from climate change in the region, according to the Council's Stuart Freudberg, due to the amount of Maryland's land adjoining the Chesapeake Bay.
So again, it is a good and important first step that Westminster's Mayor and City Council have passed a resolution to "work diligently to identify and implement such environmentally responsible practices as may be practical… with the goal of conserving energy and reducing the amount of global warming pollutants generated by City operations." But the Devil is in the details, and this provides few of them. In fact, "practical” provides copious wiggle room.
I hope -- and would strongly urge -- that the Council adopt the higher levels of focus, commitment, and accountability represented by the U.S. Mayors Protection Agreement. Doing so would not only provide specific goals and assistance in achieving them, but would send a signal that Westminster is proactive, forward-looking, and committed in facing one of the greatest challenges of the new century.
As a Times article on Monday, April 9th, pointed out, the Catoctin Chapter of the Sierra Club had asked the City Council to approve and sign the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement. The agreement, already signed by some 400 municipalities nationwide, is a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012: the goal set in the much-maligned Kyoto Protocol. This is admittedly a challenge, but hardly an un-reachable one, as the number of cities signed on attests. Seven Maryland cities, including Sykesville and Baltimore, have already signed.
Instead, the Mayor and Council of Westminster decided to adopt what councilman Gregory Pecoraro described as "sort of a homegrown version of how we want to approach this."
As a general rule, I am all for homegrown, local approaches. However, there are times when local authorities need to band together to deal with problems and issues which are beyond what any of them can solve on their own, when the need for unified action transcends the importance of local autonomy. The crisis we as humans face due to global warming is one of those. Furthermore, the U.S. Mayors Agreement is not something being forced on us from above; it is a voluntary union of equals to accomplish something in our common interest.
Encouragingly, the same edition of the Times reported the formation in Mount Airy of a new “green” organization dedicated to "raising awareness about global warming, rising energy costs and other environmental issues.” Sometimes citizens catch on quicker than their elected leaders.
And there's little excuse for ignorance or apathy. The scope and urgency of the problem has been clearly articulated and reinforced by a whole series of recent articles in the Times. On April 6th, an AP article headlined “Experts say natural wonders at risk from global warming” elucidated threats to “natural treasures” from Australia's Great Barrier Reef to the Amazon rainforests due to climate change. Some of the damage may already be irreversible.
An article on Easter Sunday focused on mountaineers and ice climbers worldwide who are firsthand witnesses to "vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations, and flood-prone lakes" as a result of rising temperatures. A report from Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday the 11th stated that continued warming could result in food shortages for 130 million people across Asia by 2050 and cause potentially catastrophic problems in Africa. And we think we have immigration problems now.
Yet still some people refuse to either admit that there's a problem, or take ownership of humanity's part in it. It's easier to say, "oh, it's just natural fluctuations" -- despite indications that without human input, the earth would now be in a slight cool-down -- or complain that the costs would be prohibitive. Ironically, doing nothing will likely prove even more costly, in the long run.
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is another group that gets it. According to a Capital News Service report, the Council passed a regional climate change initiative that will unite efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses in the National Capital Region. Maryland faces the largest impact from climate change in the region, according to the Council's Stuart Freudberg, due to the amount of Maryland's land adjoining the Chesapeake Bay.
So again, it is a good and important first step that Westminster's Mayor and City Council have passed a resolution to "work diligently to identify and implement such environmentally responsible practices as may be practical… with the goal of conserving energy and reducing the amount of global warming pollutants generated by City operations." But the Devil is in the details, and this provides few of them. In fact, "practical” provides copious wiggle room.
I hope -- and would strongly urge -- that the Council adopt the higher levels of focus, commitment, and accountability represented by the U.S. Mayors Protection Agreement. Doing so would not only provide specific goals and assistance in achieving them, but would send a signal that Westminster is proactive, forward-looking, and committed in facing one of the greatest challenges of the new century.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
The greening of Maryland
Spring is the season of green growing things. And this year, in Maryland, spring seems also to be the season for growing "green" initiatives.
Even as the earth greens up with the coming of spring, so the State House in Annapolis is "greening up" with the combination of an ecologically-friendly Governor with an ecologically-friendly General Assembly. As a recent front-page article in the Washington Post put it, in Maryland this year "it's suddenly very, very easy being green." For those of us who love the earth and care about its welfare, that is good news indeed.
The article delineates a string of eco-friendly initiatives either passed by the Assembly or proposed by the current Governor, former Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley. Former Governor Bob Ehrlich was more of a conservationist than he often got credit for, but certainly the election of a new governor is a contributor to this greening of the Maryland legislative process. So is the election of Attorney General Doug Gansler, who campaigned heavily on green issues. But, the article points out, there are other factors involved which transcend partisan politics.
One is concern over global warming, popularized by former Vice-President Al Gore's award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Inconvenient or not, the idea that not only is the earth warming, but that human activity contributes dramatically to that warming, has captured the imagination and awakened the concern of many in state government and the electorate alike.
The article notes that the Global Warming Solutions bill, which would reduce Maryland's emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020, has been criticized by the Chamber of Commerce, "which says Maryland businesses shouldn't bear the burden for a global problem." The problem with that idea is that if everyone says they shouldn't have to bear the burden, no one ends up bearing the burden. Global warming is a common problem, it was created collectively, and it needs everyone working together toward a solution.
Closer to home, the deadline for cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay has been set for 2010, a goal which now appears impossible to meet. But the looming nature of that deadline has increased both awareness and urgency to do something about the Bay, and to do it sooner rather than later.
One important feature of this move is a new alliance between environmentalists, such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and those traditionally seen as opponents of environmental clean-up, such as farmers and watermen. It is not quite correct that, as the article states, "environmentalists decided that cow manure, as bad as it is, is better than the oil, metals, fertilzer, and sewage that flow downstream after a farm becomes a suburb." While true, this statement doesn't tell the whole story.
I wrote an article on this subject for a magazine called Edible Chesapeake, and the reality is that most farmers are genuinely concerned about the land, and will do all they can to enact conservation measures -- as long as they can pay for them without cutting even further into their already tenuous bottom line. The external pressures on farmers -- low commodity prices, foreign competition, pressure from developers -- make it hard enough to keep on farming, and conservation measures only add to the cost. Since the public is largely responsible for these challenges, it makes sense for the public to help farmers meet them.
The new alliance between farmers, watermen, and environmentalists to clean up the Bay points to the biggest reality of the expanding green movement: common problems require common solutions. We all drink the water, we all breathe the air, we all rely on food from the earth. It will take all of us, working together, to make a dent in the host of significant environmental challenges we face in the 21st century.
If we can rise to these challenges with the same level of ingenuity, innovation, and determination we brought to facing the political and military challenges of the 20th century, we could be in the beginning years of a century filled with promise and accomplishment. If we fail, we'll have a rough row to hoe, moving into the third millennium. The choice is ours - but Maryland, it seems, is off to a good start. Let's keep up the momentum.
Even as the earth greens up with the coming of spring, so the State House in Annapolis is "greening up" with the combination of an ecologically-friendly Governor with an ecologically-friendly General Assembly. As a recent front-page article in the Washington Post put it, in Maryland this year "it's suddenly very, very easy being green." For those of us who love the earth and care about its welfare, that is good news indeed.
The article delineates a string of eco-friendly initiatives either passed by the Assembly or proposed by the current Governor, former Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley. Former Governor Bob Ehrlich was more of a conservationist than he often got credit for, but certainly the election of a new governor is a contributor to this greening of the Maryland legislative process. So is the election of Attorney General Doug Gansler, who campaigned heavily on green issues. But, the article points out, there are other factors involved which transcend partisan politics.
One is concern over global warming, popularized by former Vice-President Al Gore's award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Inconvenient or not, the idea that not only is the earth warming, but that human activity contributes dramatically to that warming, has captured the imagination and awakened the concern of many in state government and the electorate alike.
The article notes that the Global Warming Solutions bill, which would reduce Maryland's emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020, has been criticized by the Chamber of Commerce, "which says Maryland businesses shouldn't bear the burden for a global problem." The problem with that idea is that if everyone says they shouldn't have to bear the burden, no one ends up bearing the burden. Global warming is a common problem, it was created collectively, and it needs everyone working together toward a solution.
Closer to home, the deadline for cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay has been set for 2010, a goal which now appears impossible to meet. But the looming nature of that deadline has increased both awareness and urgency to do something about the Bay, and to do it sooner rather than later.
One important feature of this move is a new alliance between environmentalists, such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and those traditionally seen as opponents of environmental clean-up, such as farmers and watermen. It is not quite correct that, as the article states, "environmentalists decided that cow manure, as bad as it is, is better than the oil, metals, fertilzer, and sewage that flow downstream after a farm becomes a suburb." While true, this statement doesn't tell the whole story.
I wrote an article on this subject for a magazine called Edible Chesapeake, and the reality is that most farmers are genuinely concerned about the land, and will do all they can to enact conservation measures -- as long as they can pay for them without cutting even further into their already tenuous bottom line. The external pressures on farmers -- low commodity prices, foreign competition, pressure from developers -- make it hard enough to keep on farming, and conservation measures only add to the cost. Since the public is largely responsible for these challenges, it makes sense for the public to help farmers meet them.
The new alliance between farmers, watermen, and environmentalists to clean up the Bay points to the biggest reality of the expanding green movement: common problems require common solutions. We all drink the water, we all breathe the air, we all rely on food from the earth. It will take all of us, working together, to make a dent in the host of significant environmental challenges we face in the 21st century.
If we can rise to these challenges with the same level of ingenuity, innovation, and determination we brought to facing the political and military challenges of the 20th century, we could be in the beginning years of a century filled with promise and accomplishment. If we fail, we'll have a rough row to hoe, moving into the third millennium. The choice is ours - but Maryland, it seems, is off to a good start. Let's keep up the momentum.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
"War to end all wars" still resonates
"Over there! Over there! Send the word, send the word, over there! That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming, the drums rum-tumming everywhere -- over there!"
Corny, perhaps, to our jaded modern ears, but those were stirring words to the people of both America and Europe in 1917, when the American Expeditionary Force under General "Black Jack" Pershing landed in France. Brought willy-nilly into World War One by the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-boat, the United States for the first time intervened in a European conflict.
The isolationism which had sidelined us during the first three years of the war had been overwhelmed by the deaths of American at the hands -- or torpedoes -- of the villainous "Huns." In the wash of patriotism that followed, our intervention was seen as a direct repayment for French assistance in winning our own independence from Britain, less than a century and a half earlier. As General Pershing stepped ashore and saluted the French Field Marshall who greeted him, his words were, "Lafayette, we have returned!"
My paternal grandfather was among those Yanks, the famous "Doughboys" with their khaki uniforms and flat helmets, who fought Kaiser Wilhelm's troops to a standstill and then slowly but steadily pushed back their line until the Armistice on November 11, 1918. Like many, he did not escape unscathed: a mortar shell, exploding near him, broke his leg in fourteen places and flung it up over his shoulder.
Amazingly for the time period, he did not lose the leg, although it healed an inch-and-a-half shorter than the other one. My father tells that, as he grew older and taller, he'd tease his father that he was getting taller than he was. In response, "Pop" Harbold would rock up onto his longer leg, fix his son with a mock glare, and growl, "Not yet, you're not."
What has put me in mind of "the Great War," as it was called -- the "war to end all wars," that signally failed in that ambition? The fact that this Friday, April 6, marks the 90th anniversary of our entry into that war. An article in USA Today, entitled "One of the last: WWI vet recalls the Great War," profiles Frank Buckles, now the ripe old age of 106. He is one of only four surviving members of the 4,734,991 Americans that served in World War One: less than one in a million now surviving.
The articles points out that that although the days of trench warfare and biplane dogfights are long gone, "the first industrialized war set the stage for all that came after. It marked the emergence of the United States as a superpower." Furthermore, the article states, the war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ethnic cleansing, weapons of mass destruction -- the terrible chemical weapons that killed or maimed so many during WWI -- as well as globalization, U.S. foreign policy, and even women's rights and controversy over the treatment of surviving veterans, all have roots in World War I.
"If you want to understand the world of today," the article quotes Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, "you need to go all the way back to 1914." Yet World War One is largely a forgotten war, today. Veterans of World War Two, including my father, have justly received accolades as member of "the Greatest Generation," that stood against first Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, then fought the long Cold War against the Soviets. Even the veterans of Korea have received recognition.
Ironically, however, echoes of the now little-known WWI continue to resonate in today's world. While the conclusion of World War Two eventually knit the continent of Europe together, and made Japan a staunch ally, the victorious Allies in the First World War not only humiliated Germany into spawning the Nazis, but carved up the former Ottoman Empire into arbitrary nation-states which Yale historian Jay Winter is quoted as saying were "usually made in an afternoon after tea without much thought to ethnic balance or viability of these countries."
These capricious borders, as the article points out, remain to this day, and control the lives of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in Iraq, and rival ethnic groups in Lebanon. The establishment of Israel can also be linked to the post-WWI Balfour Declaration. "Most of our headaches in the Middle East today are a hangover from the great military binge of 1914-18," notes Ferguson.
An ironic legacy indeed, for the war to end all wars.
Note: A reader wrote to me, after this was published, stating that
Corny, perhaps, to our jaded modern ears, but those were stirring words to the people of both America and Europe in 1917, when the American Expeditionary Force under General "Black Jack" Pershing landed in France. Brought willy-nilly into World War One by the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-boat, the United States for the first time intervened in a European conflict.
The isolationism which had sidelined us during the first three years of the war had been overwhelmed by the deaths of American at the hands -- or torpedoes -- of the villainous "Huns." In the wash of patriotism that followed, our intervention was seen as a direct repayment for French assistance in winning our own independence from Britain, less than a century and a half earlier. As General Pershing stepped ashore and saluted the French Field Marshall who greeted him, his words were, "Lafayette, we have returned!"
My paternal grandfather was among those Yanks, the famous "Doughboys" with their khaki uniforms and flat helmets, who fought Kaiser Wilhelm's troops to a standstill and then slowly but steadily pushed back their line until the Armistice on November 11, 1918. Like many, he did not escape unscathed: a mortar shell, exploding near him, broke his leg in fourteen places and flung it up over his shoulder.
Amazingly for the time period, he did not lose the leg, although it healed an inch-and-a-half shorter than the other one. My father tells that, as he grew older and taller, he'd tease his father that he was getting taller than he was. In response, "Pop" Harbold would rock up onto his longer leg, fix his son with a mock glare, and growl, "Not yet, you're not."
What has put me in mind of "the Great War," as it was called -- the "war to end all wars," that signally failed in that ambition? The fact that this Friday, April 6, marks the 90th anniversary of our entry into that war. An article in USA Today, entitled "One of the last: WWI vet recalls the Great War," profiles Frank Buckles, now the ripe old age of 106. He is one of only four surviving members of the 4,734,991 Americans that served in World War One: less than one in a million now surviving.
The articles points out that that although the days of trench warfare and biplane dogfights are long gone, "the first industrialized war set the stage for all that came after. It marked the emergence of the United States as a superpower." Furthermore, the article states, the war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ethnic cleansing, weapons of mass destruction -- the terrible chemical weapons that killed or maimed so many during WWI -- as well as globalization, U.S. foreign policy, and even women's rights and controversy over the treatment of surviving veterans, all have roots in World War I.
"If you want to understand the world of today," the article quotes Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, "you need to go all the way back to 1914." Yet World War One is largely a forgotten war, today. Veterans of World War Two, including my father, have justly received accolades as member of "the Greatest Generation," that stood against first Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, then fought the long Cold War against the Soviets. Even the veterans of Korea have received recognition.
Ironically, however, echoes of the now little-known WWI continue to resonate in today's world. While the conclusion of World War Two eventually knit the continent of Europe together, and made Japan a staunch ally, the victorious Allies in the First World War not only humiliated Germany into spawning the Nazis, but carved up the former Ottoman Empire into arbitrary nation-states which Yale historian Jay Winter is quoted as saying were "usually made in an afternoon after tea without much thought to ethnic balance or viability of these countries."
These capricious borders, as the article points out, remain to this day, and control the lives of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in Iraq, and rival ethnic groups in Lebanon. The establishment of Israel can also be linked to the post-WWI Balfour Declaration. "Most of our headaches in the Middle East today are a hangover from the great military binge of 1914-18," notes Ferguson.
An ironic legacy indeed, for the war to end all wars.
Note: A reader wrote to me, after this was published, stating that
"I can find no reference to Gen. Pershing saying, "Lafayette, we have returned." I can find reference to, "Lafayette, we are here," being said at the grave of Marquis Lafayette."He did not indicate who said it. I accept the correction as given, since I was operating from memory in that instance (not personal memory, of course, memory of something I'd read). The point remains the same, in either case.
Friday, March 23, 2007
A frog in troubling waters
It has been said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I agree with that assessment. A historical education allows one to detect patterns that are difficult or impossible to discern without that perspective. One of those is the effect of outside dangers and threats, real or imagined, on the development of government, and the transmutation of free societies into authoritarian ones.
This pattern can be detected as far back as ancient Sumeria, where the peaceful, pastoral rule of the archetypal shepherd-king, Dumuzi, gave way to the iron-fisted, brutal rule of the archetypal conqueror and law-giver, Gilgamesh. Similarly, outside threats led to the rise of the first kings in ancient Greece. Invasions or threats of invasions from the Celts, among others, brought ancient Rome from a Republic, to a Dictatorship, to an Empire, as a fearful people willingly agreed to their own subjugation by demagogues who claimed to be able to protect them.
In more recent years, trumped-up threats of attack by Communists and others led to the overthrow of the democratic Weimar Republic in Germany by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi henchmen. The pattern is clear: fear, whether justified or not, leads to autocracy and loss of freedom, freedom which is regained -- if at all -- only with great cost and difficulty.
In the United States, however, we have the example of Benjamin Franklin, widely credited with asserting that those who are willing to give up their freedom for a little security deserve neither freedom nor security. Other Founders expressed similar views. Is the United States in danger of becoming another Weimar Republic, rather than the free Republic of our Founders' vision? The signs are troubling.
A recent Justice Department audit recently revealed that the FBI systematically abused its powers to secretly obtain information on American citizens, ostensibly in the name of the war on terrorism. Eight federal prosecutors have been fired, apparently for resisting political pressure on their investigations. A new Homeland Security program called ADVISE will mine already collected data to gather still more information on U.S. citizens.
That's in addition to the sweeping provisions of the inaptly named USA Patriot Act, and various surveillance programs against American citizens, including electronic eavesdropping by the NSA. Some of these have supposedly been shut down or limited under Congressional oversight. But how limited? We don't really know. That information is secret. We're expected to trust the government, and accept their word on it.
Then there's the “Real ID” program, aimed at creating a de facto national identity card, beloved of all authoritarian states. "Papers, please!" used to be a cliche in old war movies. Now it may become a fact of our national life. Although not part of the current plan, modern technology would make it feasible to include a microchip allowing individual persons to be tracked by satellite.
Satellite tracking and GPS location are already part of the National Animal Identification System, which in the name of food security would effectively abolish private ownership of food animals, making all livestock part of a closely-monitored “national herd.” Recent E. coli scares have raised the spectre of similar federal control over vegetable production, too. And whoever controls the food, controls the populace.
More locally, there is the ever-growing number of red-light cameras, now reportedly to be joined by speed-enforcement cameras. Whatever happened to the old dictum that “only in a police state is the job of the police easy”?
For that matter, how often are books like Animal Farm, 1984, and Brave New World taught in schools, these days? I hope they are, but you don't hear too much about them. Most of what you hear is emphasis on math and science over history and the humanities, and standardized tests that emphasize recalling pieces of data over detailed analysis and thoughtful reflection. Hmmm, you don't suppose that's part of the pattern, too?
It is said that a frog who jumps into boiling water will immediately jump back out again, but a frog swimming in water which is gradually increasing in temperature will stay there until it is too late to avoid being cooked. I worry for our country, and the people of our country, lest we are becoming too much like that frog.
A recent Times editorial suggested that “a majority of Americans are opening their eyes and seeing how they have been duped.” I sincerely hope that's the case, and that we will, as that editorial suggested, “return to the day when America was truly the home of the free.” The alternative is deeply troubling.
This pattern can be detected as far back as ancient Sumeria, where the peaceful, pastoral rule of the archetypal shepherd-king, Dumuzi, gave way to the iron-fisted, brutal rule of the archetypal conqueror and law-giver, Gilgamesh. Similarly, outside threats led to the rise of the first kings in ancient Greece. Invasions or threats of invasions from the Celts, among others, brought ancient Rome from a Republic, to a Dictatorship, to an Empire, as a fearful people willingly agreed to their own subjugation by demagogues who claimed to be able to protect them.
In more recent years, trumped-up threats of attack by Communists and others led to the overthrow of the democratic Weimar Republic in Germany by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi henchmen. The pattern is clear: fear, whether justified or not, leads to autocracy and loss of freedom, freedom which is regained -- if at all -- only with great cost and difficulty.
In the United States, however, we have the example of Benjamin Franklin, widely credited with asserting that those who are willing to give up their freedom for a little security deserve neither freedom nor security. Other Founders expressed similar views. Is the United States in danger of becoming another Weimar Republic, rather than the free Republic of our Founders' vision? The signs are troubling.
A recent Justice Department audit recently revealed that the FBI systematically abused its powers to secretly obtain information on American citizens, ostensibly in the name of the war on terrorism. Eight federal prosecutors have been fired, apparently for resisting political pressure on their investigations. A new Homeland Security program called ADVISE will mine already collected data to gather still more information on U.S. citizens.
That's in addition to the sweeping provisions of the inaptly named USA Patriot Act, and various surveillance programs against American citizens, including electronic eavesdropping by the NSA. Some of these have supposedly been shut down or limited under Congressional oversight. But how limited? We don't really know. That information is secret. We're expected to trust the government, and accept their word on it.
Then there's the “Real ID” program, aimed at creating a de facto national identity card, beloved of all authoritarian states. "Papers, please!" used to be a cliche in old war movies. Now it may become a fact of our national life. Although not part of the current plan, modern technology would make it feasible to include a microchip allowing individual persons to be tracked by satellite.
Satellite tracking and GPS location are already part of the National Animal Identification System, which in the name of food security would effectively abolish private ownership of food animals, making all livestock part of a closely-monitored “national herd.” Recent E. coli scares have raised the spectre of similar federal control over vegetable production, too. And whoever controls the food, controls the populace.
More locally, there is the ever-growing number of red-light cameras, now reportedly to be joined by speed-enforcement cameras. Whatever happened to the old dictum that “only in a police state is the job of the police easy”?
For that matter, how often are books like Animal Farm, 1984, and Brave New World taught in schools, these days? I hope they are, but you don't hear too much about them. Most of what you hear is emphasis on math and science over history and the humanities, and standardized tests that emphasize recalling pieces of data over detailed analysis and thoughtful reflection. Hmmm, you don't suppose that's part of the pattern, too?
It is said that a frog who jumps into boiling water will immediately jump back out again, but a frog swimming in water which is gradually increasing in temperature will stay there until it is too late to avoid being cooked. I worry for our country, and the people of our country, lest we are becoming too much like that frog.
A recent Times editorial suggested that “a majority of Americans are opening their eyes and seeing how they have been duped.” I sincerely hope that's the case, and that we will, as that editorial suggested, “return to the day when America was truly the home of the free.” The alternative is deeply troubling.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Unintended consequences haunt U.S. actions
Okay, I admit it. I was wrong.
In the days leading up to the Iraq invasion, I questioned the so-called "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive war, on the grounds that it would lead dozens of other countries around the world to preemptively invade their neighbors on a variety of flimsy pretexts. After all, if the great United States thinks it's morally justified to invade because it thinks someone might attack it, why shouldn't others?
This, however, did not happen. Unfortunately, however, what did happen, which I utterly failed to predict, is even worse. Countries around the world started making decisions, and conducting actions, out of fear that we might attack them preemptively.
Iran has been the loudest and most belligerent of those, but North Korea's efforts have been the most successful (read: frightening). Kim Jong Il's autocratic but impoverished family fiefdom has managed to "go nuclear," at least in a minor but worrying way. It has also done pretty well about developing long-range missiles that could, if they get the bugs ironed out, carry a North Korean nuclear warhead all the way to the West Coast of the United States.
Kim is a nut-case, granted. But his histrionic avowals that his nuclear program is only defensive in nature, to avert a U.S. attack, don't ring as hollow as they should, taken in the context of Iraq. Ditto Iran, and its pursuit of a "peaceful" nuclear program. Ditto Syria. Ditto, probably, half-a-dozen other countries that may be surreptitiously trying to create or acquire nukes: the fact that we attacked Iraq, which didn't have nuclear weapons, and did not attack North Korea, which does, is not lost on despotic regimes worldwide.
Most concerning of all has been the reaction of Russia. A few weeks ago, the general commanding Russia's strategic missile forces warned that Poland and the Czech Republic could be targeted by Russian missiles if they agreed to host U.S. anti-missile defenses, according to an AP report. This, despite U.S. insistence that the defenses are aimed at a missile attack from the Mideast, not Russia -- a claim bolstered by the small size of the defense, which Russia could overcome with ease.
It might be tempting to dismiss these threats as the blusterings of a bellicose, vodka-swilling bullyboy (take a look at a picture of General Solovtsov, and you'll see what I mean), were it not for the words of his suave, sophisticated, and coldly dangerous boss not long before.
Vladimir Putin is a shining example of the fact that you can take the man out of the KGB, but you can't take the KBG out of the man. He has the background of a Soviet-era secret police boss, which he was, and the instincts of a Russian tsar, which he appears to be headed toward becoming.
On February 10th, again according to AP reports, Putin accused the U.S. of "almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations," and stated that "one state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," and that this was forcing countries opposed to the U.S. to build up their nuclear arsenals, fomenting a new arms race.
Now, one can observe that the Kremlin complaining of American use of force in international relations and overstepping our national borders is a decided case of the pot calling the kettle black. But that does not mean that Putin is entirely wrong, particularly when he notes that "unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved a single problem, they have become a hotbed of further conflicts."
One can quibble over the use of the word "illegitimate." But it is plain that our post-9/11 tendency to go it alone, or with a shaky coalition of the not-entirely-willing, to believe that preemption is an appropriate response to potential threats, to attempt to solve political and social problems with military force, and to believe that 9/11 gave America the moral right to do basically whatever we felt like in the world, has not only failed to achieve the desired ends, but has destabilized the balance of power both in the Middle East, and in the world as a whole.
We can only hope that the next president, of whichever party, proves more willing to engage in multi-lateral negotiations to resolve problems and threats diplomatically, preserving the option to use force as a last resort, not a first choice -- and that the world situation does not worsen too much in the interim.
In the days leading up to the Iraq invasion, I questioned the so-called "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive war, on the grounds that it would lead dozens of other countries around the world to preemptively invade their neighbors on a variety of flimsy pretexts. After all, if the great United States thinks it's morally justified to invade because it thinks someone might attack it, why shouldn't others?
This, however, did not happen. Unfortunately, however, what did happen, which I utterly failed to predict, is even worse. Countries around the world started making decisions, and conducting actions, out of fear that we might attack them preemptively.
Iran has been the loudest and most belligerent of those, but North Korea's efforts have been the most successful (read: frightening). Kim Jong Il's autocratic but impoverished family fiefdom has managed to "go nuclear," at least in a minor but worrying way. It has also done pretty well about developing long-range missiles that could, if they get the bugs ironed out, carry a North Korean nuclear warhead all the way to the West Coast of the United States.
Kim is a nut-case, granted. But his histrionic avowals that his nuclear program is only defensive in nature, to avert a U.S. attack, don't ring as hollow as they should, taken in the context of Iraq. Ditto Iran, and its pursuit of a "peaceful" nuclear program. Ditto Syria. Ditto, probably, half-a-dozen other countries that may be surreptitiously trying to create or acquire nukes: the fact that we attacked Iraq, which didn't have nuclear weapons, and did not attack North Korea, which does, is not lost on despotic regimes worldwide.
Most concerning of all has been the reaction of Russia. A few weeks ago, the general commanding Russia's strategic missile forces warned that Poland and the Czech Republic could be targeted by Russian missiles if they agreed to host U.S. anti-missile defenses, according to an AP report. This, despite U.S. insistence that the defenses are aimed at a missile attack from the Mideast, not Russia -- a claim bolstered by the small size of the defense, which Russia could overcome with ease.
It might be tempting to dismiss these threats as the blusterings of a bellicose, vodka-swilling bullyboy (take a look at a picture of General Solovtsov, and you'll see what I mean), were it not for the words of his suave, sophisticated, and coldly dangerous boss not long before.
Vladimir Putin is a shining example of the fact that you can take the man out of the KGB, but you can't take the KBG out of the man. He has the background of a Soviet-era secret police boss, which he was, and the instincts of a Russian tsar, which he appears to be headed toward becoming.
On February 10th, again according to AP reports, Putin accused the U.S. of "almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations," and stated that "one state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," and that this was forcing countries opposed to the U.S. to build up their nuclear arsenals, fomenting a new arms race.
Now, one can observe that the Kremlin complaining of American use of force in international relations and overstepping our national borders is a decided case of the pot calling the kettle black. But that does not mean that Putin is entirely wrong, particularly when he notes that "unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved a single problem, they have become a hotbed of further conflicts."
One can quibble over the use of the word "illegitimate." But it is plain that our post-9/11 tendency to go it alone, or with a shaky coalition of the not-entirely-willing, to believe that preemption is an appropriate response to potential threats, to attempt to solve political and social problems with military force, and to believe that 9/11 gave America the moral right to do basically whatever we felt like in the world, has not only failed to achieve the desired ends, but has destabilized the balance of power both in the Middle East, and in the world as a whole.
We can only hope that the next president, of whichever party, proves more willing to engage in multi-lateral negotiations to resolve problems and threats diplomatically, preserving the option to use force as a last resort, not a first choice -- and that the world situation does not worsen too much in the interim.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Striking a blow for food choice
Unlike our neighbor to the north, Pennsylvania, and a number of other states throughout the U.S., Maryland does not believe that people should have a right to purchase fresh, unpasteurized milk and other dairy products from trusted local farmers. Under the guise of protecting our health, the regulators are actually preventing us from enjoying the health benefits of milk and other dairy items which have not been "killed" by pasteurization, and which therefore contain their full compliment of enzymes and beneficial probiotics.
However, with the assistance of the Maryland Independent Consumer and Farmers Association (MICFA), that may be about to change. This very week the Health and Government Operations Committee of Maryland's House of Delegates is considering a bill that would de-regulate direct farmer-to-consumer sales of raw milk and dairy products, restoring both the right and responsibility to make informed food choices where it belongs: with the consumer. And, not incidentally, increasing the ability of small farmers to keep far more of the food dollar than they presently enjoy.
Here is my letter of support, sent to the Committee:
However, with the assistance of the Maryland Independent Consumer and Farmers Association (MICFA), that may be about to change. This very week the Health and Government Operations Committee of Maryland's House of Delegates is considering a bill that would de-regulate direct farmer-to-consumer sales of raw milk and dairy products, restoring both the right and responsibility to make informed food choices where it belongs: with the consumer. And, not incidentally, increasing the ability of small farmers to keep far more of the food dollar than they presently enjoy.
Here is my letter of support, sent to the Committee:
Honorable Delegates,Let's hope this bill not only passes in committee, but makes it through the other hoops and hurdles to become law. As I indicated in the letter above, small farmers, rural communities, the environment of Maryland (including the Bay), and the health of consumers stand only to benefit from the freedom to purchase and consumer this most basic and beneficial of natural foods.
Please let me add my voice to those already raised in support of HB1010, sponsored by Del. Mary Ann Love, which would legalize direct producer-to-consumer sales of raw milk.
It is deeply frustrating to me and to many that we do not have the choice to purchase and consume natural, fresh, unpasteurized milk and dairy products from trustworthy farmers in Maryland, despite considerable evidence of the health benefits such raw dairy products provide. At present, the system is skewed to support huge industrial dairies -- for whom pasteurization is an undeniable necessity -- and regulators have been unwilling or unable to think outside the box. HB1010, if enacted into law, would change that.
In the process, it would not only provide a major boost to health-smart consumers in the Old Line State, but it would help to enable more small farmers to stay on their land, by providing them with a greatly-enhanced source of income. This is good for consumers, farmers, rural communities, and the environment alike: the latter, particularly since farmers whose operations are geared toward on-farm sales of fresh, raw milk to savvy consumers also tend to be farmers practicing sustainable, ecologically-friendly farming methods. This, in turn, is a benefit to the Chesapeake Bay, as well as to our overall quality of life, state-wide.
For the health and well-being of consumers, farmers, and the land, I strongly encourage you to support HB1010.
My heartfelt thanks go to those members of the Committe who are co-sponsors of this bill: Peter Hammen, James Hubbard, Nicholaus Kipke, Karen Montgomery, and Joseline Peña-Melnyk. Those of us who care deeply about fresh, healthy, natural and local foods owe you a debt of gratitude.
And for the rest of you, I implore you to come onboard. With the passage of HB1010, we could be seeing the dawn of a new day for Maryland consumers and farmers alike.
Respectfully and with thanks,
Thomas H. Harbold
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Celebrity silliness, sleaze reflects poorly on U.S.
In the news today, three people are fighting over the body of recently-deceased starlet Anna Nicole Smith: her mother, the man who claims to be her husband, and the man who claims to be the father of her child. Actually the man who claims to be her husband claims to be the father of her child, too. I'm not sure which is more disreputable, that three people are fighting over custody of her corpse, or that this is considered newsworthy.
And then of course there's the saga of the Lisa Marie Nowak, the Space Shuttle "astro-nut" and married mother of three who drove 1,500 miles in diapers to confront her romantic rival for the affections of another astronaut, and stands charged with attempted kidnapping and murder. Only Smith's death prevented the media from making a bigger deal of this than they did.
It's no wonder that Islamic extremists worldwide consider the U.S. to be morally decadent, and that even some of our historic friends and allies are having trouble taking us seriously. Here we are, in the middle of a global war against terrorism, two active shooting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the potential of some sort of military action against Iran, and these stories lead the news. And we're the world's last surviving superpower.... it's sad, is what it is.
And then of course there's the saga of the Lisa Marie Nowak, the Space Shuttle "astro-nut" and married mother of three who drove 1,500 miles in diapers to confront her romantic rival for the affections of another astronaut, and stands charged with attempted kidnapping and murder. Only Smith's death prevented the media from making a bigger deal of this than they did.
It's no wonder that Islamic extremists worldwide consider the U.S. to be morally decadent, and that even some of our historic friends and allies are having trouble taking us seriously. Here we are, in the middle of a global war against terrorism, two active shooting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the potential of some sort of military action against Iran, and these stories lead the news. And we're the world's last surviving superpower.... it's sad, is what it is.
Trans fats tip of Orwellian iceberg (Column: 2/13/07)
If, as seems likely, avoidance is the typical American response when faced with a problem, overreaction is the typical American response when the problem can no longer be ignored. Case in point: trans fats.
Some astute nutritionists, especially those of unconventional persuasions, have been saying for some time that the likely culprit in coronary heart disease is not natural fats, saturated or otherwise, but unnatural ones, such as trans fats, as well as other industrially processed and refined foods. Small quantities of trans fats occur naturally in meats and dairy products, but these naturally-occurring fats have not been implicated in health problems.
The problematic fats are those created artificially by injecting hydrogen into vegetable oils to make them mimic the texture and behavior of naturally-occurring saturated fats. Crisco, for instance, is an artificially-created hydrogenated vegetable oil specifically intended to look and feel like lard. Now, ironically, it is turning out that lard is a good deal healthier for us than Crisco. This is a good example of why it pays to be skeptical of faddish health and dietary claims, and look to traditional foods and diets instead -- but I digress.
Now that it has been confirmed that trans fats are indeed a serious health risk, not only are restaurants and food manufacturers scrambling to find alternatives (some of which have their own problems associated with them), but many municipalities across the country are passing legislation to ban the use of trans fats.
That's where I draw the line.
For the record, I am very pleased that trans fats are being discredited. But I am not pleased that any time something appears to be bad for us, we pass laws to ban it. This kind of nanny-state mentality does us little credit, either as Americans or as humans. It should not be necessary to spell this out, but perhaps it is: freedom includes the freedom to make bad choices. Bad choices come with consequences, from which (hopefully, if we survive) we draw the experience to make better choices in the future.
Regulating every jot and tittle of our lives not only robs us of freedom, it robs us of the opportunity to learn and grow through our experiences. It moves us closer and closer to an Orwellian existence as automatons under the watchful eye of Big Brother, enjoying the last modicum of illusory freedom: the freedom to choose which corporate-controlled, government-approved channel to watch on our giant-screen plasma TVs.
I am exaggerating, of course, but maybe not by much. We see this nanny-statism all around us, and the trend seems to be growing. I don't smoke, in fact I strongly dislike smoking, but I'm still troubled by moves to ban smoking in all public places -- in some municipalities, even outdoors -- and if some radicals had their way, even inside private homes. I am troubled by plans to conduct body-mass indicator (BMI) tests on school-children and send the results home.
I am troubled by the response to the E. coli spinach scare, which is to recommend the creation of a massive new federal bureaucracy that will allegedly guarantee food safety (the same way the Feds guarantee border security, or success in Iraq?), rather than allowing people to make their own choices between industrially mass-produced and centrally-distributed foods, or local foods purchased from a trusted farmer.
And this is just a handful of the more prominent examples. Each of these can be defended, individually, on various grounds. But collectively, they add up to a massive invasion of our rights to privacy and self-determination. We are losing our freedom in the only way we can lose it: by passive acquiescence.
Lulled by high technology, labor-saving devices, and mind-numbing entertainment, Americans have gotten out of the habit of doing for themselves, and into the habit of expecting government to do it all for us: including make our decisions. And government, which by its very nature tends toward the ever more centralized and authoritarian, is all too willing to respond.
I hope I will not be found too irreverent if I paraphrase Martin Neimoeller's famous dictum: “They came for the smokers, and I did not speak, because I was not a smoker. They came for the junk-food eaters, and I did not speak, because I ate little junk food. They came for the trans-fat consumers, and I did not speak, because I avoid trans fats. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak.”
Some astute nutritionists, especially those of unconventional persuasions, have been saying for some time that the likely culprit in coronary heart disease is not natural fats, saturated or otherwise, but unnatural ones, such as trans fats, as well as other industrially processed and refined foods. Small quantities of trans fats occur naturally in meats and dairy products, but these naturally-occurring fats have not been implicated in health problems.
The problematic fats are those created artificially by injecting hydrogen into vegetable oils to make them mimic the texture and behavior of naturally-occurring saturated fats. Crisco, for instance, is an artificially-created hydrogenated vegetable oil specifically intended to look and feel like lard. Now, ironically, it is turning out that lard is a good deal healthier for us than Crisco. This is a good example of why it pays to be skeptical of faddish health and dietary claims, and look to traditional foods and diets instead -- but I digress.
Now that it has been confirmed that trans fats are indeed a serious health risk, not only are restaurants and food manufacturers scrambling to find alternatives (some of which have their own problems associated with them), but many municipalities across the country are passing legislation to ban the use of trans fats.
That's where I draw the line.
For the record, I am very pleased that trans fats are being discredited. But I am not pleased that any time something appears to be bad for us, we pass laws to ban it. This kind of nanny-state mentality does us little credit, either as Americans or as humans. It should not be necessary to spell this out, but perhaps it is: freedom includes the freedom to make bad choices. Bad choices come with consequences, from which (hopefully, if we survive) we draw the experience to make better choices in the future.
Regulating every jot and tittle of our lives not only robs us of freedom, it robs us of the opportunity to learn and grow through our experiences. It moves us closer and closer to an Orwellian existence as automatons under the watchful eye of Big Brother, enjoying the last modicum of illusory freedom: the freedom to choose which corporate-controlled, government-approved channel to watch on our giant-screen plasma TVs.
I am exaggerating, of course, but maybe not by much. We see this nanny-statism all around us, and the trend seems to be growing. I don't smoke, in fact I strongly dislike smoking, but I'm still troubled by moves to ban smoking in all public places -- in some municipalities, even outdoors -- and if some radicals had their way, even inside private homes. I am troubled by plans to conduct body-mass indicator (BMI) tests on school-children and send the results home.
I am troubled by the response to the E. coli spinach scare, which is to recommend the creation of a massive new federal bureaucracy that will allegedly guarantee food safety (the same way the Feds guarantee border security, or success in Iraq?), rather than allowing people to make their own choices between industrially mass-produced and centrally-distributed foods, or local foods purchased from a trusted farmer.
And this is just a handful of the more prominent examples. Each of these can be defended, individually, on various grounds. But collectively, they add up to a massive invasion of our rights to privacy and self-determination. We are losing our freedom in the only way we can lose it: by passive acquiescence.
Lulled by high technology, labor-saving devices, and mind-numbing entertainment, Americans have gotten out of the habit of doing for themselves, and into the habit of expecting government to do it all for us: including make our decisions. And government, which by its very nature tends toward the ever more centralized and authoritarian, is all too willing to respond.
I hope I will not be found too irreverent if I paraphrase Martin Neimoeller's famous dictum: “They came for the smokers, and I did not speak, because I was not a smoker. They came for the junk-food eaters, and I did not speak, because I ate little junk food. They came for the trans-fat consumers, and I did not speak, because I avoid trans fats. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak.”
Barak Obama and the art of nuance (Column: 1/23/07)
Illinois Senator Barak Obama is currently the darling of the media, having recently announced the formation of a Presidential exploratory committee. This is perhaps not surprising. He is young, photogenic, articulate, and tends to speak in terms of bringing people together, rather than separating them -- a refreshing breath of air, in a country often bitterly and rancorously divided by partisanship.
However, it's an old saying that any shaft of wheat that sticks its head above its neighbors will get cut down. And so Senator Obama has been drawing fire -- especially from the left -- for being, of all things, "too nuanced." Too nuanced? Give me a break! After years of black-and-white, my-way-or-the-highway rhetoric from both left and right, we could use a little nuance in our nation's political discourse. Actually, we could use a lot.
Now, it is an open question as to whether Senator Obama is really as nuanced in his thinking as his own rhetoric makes him appear: his voting record, what there is of it, reveals a solidly liberal Democrat. But whether Obama proves to be the man the times are calling for or merely a flash in the pan, I repeat that our national discourse could use a large helping of nuance.
I don't think I'm stupid, but I fail to understand why the American electorate is not interested in any opinion or perspective which cannot be boiled down to a 30-second sound bite. Actually, I take that back: I do understand it, all too well. We have become addicted to 30-second sound bites, thanks to at least two generations of TV commercials, and now the internet. This shortening of the American attention span does us a real disservice, because issues of any substance cannot be discussed adequately, still less resolved, in 30 seconds.
Whatever our principles and ideals -- and principles and ideals are good and worthy things, believe me -- the reality is that life happens not in black and white, but in shades of grey. We need someone in the White House who is not only capable of perceiving shades of grey, but of working within them to get things done and move the country ahead in a positive matter. Right now, Republicans and Democrats are solidly dug into their own entrenched positions like the Allies and Germans in World War One, shelling each other back and forth across No-Man's Land.
Something has to give, because just as the physical landscape of France was destroyed by the artillery barrages of WWI, the rhetorical crossfire between left and right is really tearing up the terrain of our national life. The razor-thin margins by which Presidents have been elected, and even the Houses of Congress controlled, in recent years demonstrates the sharpness of the divide, and those of us who are huddled, somewhat uncomfortably, on the middle ground spend more and more of our time looking apprehensively at the armies gathering to the left and right.
I use the term "armies" advisedly, of course. Thankfully, America has been spared the warring of rival militias which has devastated Iraq, Somalia, and many other nations worldwide. Our system still works. But it is seriously strained by the level of rancor, mistrust, and one-upsmanship which has replaced civility and domestic statesmanship on the national scene.
Doctrinal orthodoxy, which may be admirable (to a point) in religion, has become the order of the day in politics. Some Democrats feel that they cannot even be friends with anyone who voted for George Bush, and some Republicans feel the same way about someone who might be willing to vote for Hillary Clinton. This is hardly a recipe for domestic tranquility.
It is, of course, far too early to determine whether Barak Obama is the one to break this philosophical gridlock, and restore a spirit of cooperation, civility, and bipartisanship to American politics. In fact, that is undoubtedly too much to expect of any one person.
Still, someone has to make a start. I firmly believe that we need more nuance and less absolutism; less black-and-white posturing and more willingness to work within the shades of grey which are an inevitable part of politics. If Senator Obama can make that start, more power to him. Time will tell whether he is the best person to fill the Oval Office after the 2008 elections. But whatever else he may or may not be, Obama deserves credit, not blame, for trying to restore the lost art of political nuance.
However, it's an old saying that any shaft of wheat that sticks its head above its neighbors will get cut down. And so Senator Obama has been drawing fire -- especially from the left -- for being, of all things, "too nuanced." Too nuanced? Give me a break! After years of black-and-white, my-way-or-the-highway rhetoric from both left and right, we could use a little nuance in our nation's political discourse. Actually, we could use a lot.
Now, it is an open question as to whether Senator Obama is really as nuanced in his thinking as his own rhetoric makes him appear: his voting record, what there is of it, reveals a solidly liberal Democrat. But whether Obama proves to be the man the times are calling for or merely a flash in the pan, I repeat that our national discourse could use a large helping of nuance.
I don't think I'm stupid, but I fail to understand why the American electorate is not interested in any opinion or perspective which cannot be boiled down to a 30-second sound bite. Actually, I take that back: I do understand it, all too well. We have become addicted to 30-second sound bites, thanks to at least two generations of TV commercials, and now the internet. This shortening of the American attention span does us a real disservice, because issues of any substance cannot be discussed adequately, still less resolved, in 30 seconds.
Whatever our principles and ideals -- and principles and ideals are good and worthy things, believe me -- the reality is that life happens not in black and white, but in shades of grey. We need someone in the White House who is not only capable of perceiving shades of grey, but of working within them to get things done and move the country ahead in a positive matter. Right now, Republicans and Democrats are solidly dug into their own entrenched positions like the Allies and Germans in World War One, shelling each other back and forth across No-Man's Land.
Something has to give, because just as the physical landscape of France was destroyed by the artillery barrages of WWI, the rhetorical crossfire between left and right is really tearing up the terrain of our national life. The razor-thin margins by which Presidents have been elected, and even the Houses of Congress controlled, in recent years demonstrates the sharpness of the divide, and those of us who are huddled, somewhat uncomfortably, on the middle ground spend more and more of our time looking apprehensively at the armies gathering to the left and right.
I use the term "armies" advisedly, of course. Thankfully, America has been spared the warring of rival militias which has devastated Iraq, Somalia, and many other nations worldwide. Our system still works. But it is seriously strained by the level of rancor, mistrust, and one-upsmanship which has replaced civility and domestic statesmanship on the national scene.
Doctrinal orthodoxy, which may be admirable (to a point) in religion, has become the order of the day in politics. Some Democrats feel that they cannot even be friends with anyone who voted for George Bush, and some Republicans feel the same way about someone who might be willing to vote for Hillary Clinton. This is hardly a recipe for domestic tranquility.
It is, of course, far too early to determine whether Barak Obama is the one to break this philosophical gridlock, and restore a spirit of cooperation, civility, and bipartisanship to American politics. In fact, that is undoubtedly too much to expect of any one person.
Still, someone has to make a start. I firmly believe that we need more nuance and less absolutism; less black-and-white posturing and more willingness to work within the shades of grey which are an inevitable part of politics. If Senator Obama can make that start, more power to him. Time will tell whether he is the best person to fill the Oval Office after the 2008 elections. But whatever else he may or may not be, Obama deserves credit, not blame, for trying to restore the lost art of political nuance.
Just in time, or too little, too late? (Column: 1/16/07)
I'm torn between two ways to characterize President Bush's plan to “surge” more than 20,000 additional troops into Iraq over the next several months: one is “it's about time,” the other is “too little too late.” They are variations on a theme, and the difference between them is hair-thin.
The sad reality is that this administration, and this country, has not taken this war seriously enough from the outset. Oh, certain segments of the public have, of course, especially those directly affected because they have loved ones in the armed forces. And the armed forces themselves have certainly taken it seriously. They have given the last full measure of devotion to their country, regardless of how flawed both the justification for going to war, and the execution of it, may have been.
But from the beginning, much of the administration and the country have treated the war as a sideshow. While claiming its centrality in the war against terror, the Bush administration has called for no general mobilization, no increase (until quite recently) in the size of the military, no sacrifices on the part of the citizens of this country. It has been slow is providing material support -- such as body and vehicular armor -- needed by troops in Iraq, and has consistently underestimated the number of troops needed to control the situation on the ground, once the initial military phases of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein were over.
And lacking leadership from the President, the public has been basically happy to go along. The length of this war has now exceeded that of World War Two. During World War Two, the public bought war bonds, planted victory gardens, endured rationing to make sure the troops got the first and best of everything, worked extra shifts in plants producing military materiel, and enlisted in droves. We may have yellow "support our troops" ribbons on our SUVs, but show little concrete action to back the words.
Of course, one obvious difference is that in World War Two, we were directly attacked. In the war in Iraq, we were the ones doing the attacking. So the parallels are not precise.
Nonetheless, the point is that if you're going to fight a war, you'd better darned well do it right. You'd better go in there like you mean it, and make sure you have the troops and materiel to make a success of it. General (later Secretary of State) Colin Powell, when he served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the presidency of the first George Bush, got it right in his so-called “Powell doctrine”: if you're going to fight, you go in with overwhelming force, and you make sure you've got a clear exit strategy.
The Iraq war has thus far been an abject failure on both points. That dishonors our troops and discredits the United States of America. As Commander in Chief, based on our performance in Iraq, President Bush deserves to be cited for malfeasant in office. Now, belatedly, he's trying to accomplish what should have been done in the first place. He and his advisors appear to have forgotten the old saying about do it right the first time, because it's far more difficult and expensive to come back and fix it, later.
And so, here in the eleventh hour, we're surging in more troops. And, forgive me for saying so, a pitifully small number of troops. If we were genuinely serious about bringing this war to a satisfactory conclusion, we ought to be surging in 50,000 to 100,000 more troops -- possibly even doubling the number we have there now.
Oh, that's right, I forgot: we don't have that many more troops. From the Clinton administration until very recently, we've been focusing on reducing our troop strength, because our technology is so incredible we don't need as many boots on the ground as we used to, back in the old days. Yeah, right. We've seen how well that works.
So, is the current proposed troop surge “just in the nick of time,” or “too little, too late”? I don't know. Ask me in six months. If I had a crystal ball, I'd be making oodles of money in a Washington think-tank somewhere. But I do know this: if this latest strategy doesn't work, if we're stuck in an endless meat-grinder in Iraq, or worse yet forced to withdraw with our tail between our legs, we'll be in for a world of hurt over the years and decades to come.
So we'd better get down on our knees and pray it works.
The sad reality is that this administration, and this country, has not taken this war seriously enough from the outset. Oh, certain segments of the public have, of course, especially those directly affected because they have loved ones in the armed forces. And the armed forces themselves have certainly taken it seriously. They have given the last full measure of devotion to their country, regardless of how flawed both the justification for going to war, and the execution of it, may have been.
But from the beginning, much of the administration and the country have treated the war as a sideshow. While claiming its centrality in the war against terror, the Bush administration has called for no general mobilization, no increase (until quite recently) in the size of the military, no sacrifices on the part of the citizens of this country. It has been slow is providing material support -- such as body and vehicular armor -- needed by troops in Iraq, and has consistently underestimated the number of troops needed to control the situation on the ground, once the initial military phases of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein were over.
And lacking leadership from the President, the public has been basically happy to go along. The length of this war has now exceeded that of World War Two. During World War Two, the public bought war bonds, planted victory gardens, endured rationing to make sure the troops got the first and best of everything, worked extra shifts in plants producing military materiel, and enlisted in droves. We may have yellow "support our troops" ribbons on our SUVs, but show little concrete action to back the words.
Of course, one obvious difference is that in World War Two, we were directly attacked. In the war in Iraq, we were the ones doing the attacking. So the parallels are not precise.
Nonetheless, the point is that if you're going to fight a war, you'd better darned well do it right. You'd better go in there like you mean it, and make sure you have the troops and materiel to make a success of it. General (later Secretary of State) Colin Powell, when he served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the presidency of the first George Bush, got it right in his so-called “Powell doctrine”: if you're going to fight, you go in with overwhelming force, and you make sure you've got a clear exit strategy.
The Iraq war has thus far been an abject failure on both points. That dishonors our troops and discredits the United States of America. As Commander in Chief, based on our performance in Iraq, President Bush deserves to be cited for malfeasant in office. Now, belatedly, he's trying to accomplish what should have been done in the first place. He and his advisors appear to have forgotten the old saying about do it right the first time, because it's far more difficult and expensive to come back and fix it, later.
And so, here in the eleventh hour, we're surging in more troops. And, forgive me for saying so, a pitifully small number of troops. If we were genuinely serious about bringing this war to a satisfactory conclusion, we ought to be surging in 50,000 to 100,000 more troops -- possibly even doubling the number we have there now.
Oh, that's right, I forgot: we don't have that many more troops. From the Clinton administration until very recently, we've been focusing on reducing our troop strength, because our technology is so incredible we don't need as many boots on the ground as we used to, back in the old days. Yeah, right. We've seen how well that works.
So, is the current proposed troop surge “just in the nick of time,” or “too little, too late”? I don't know. Ask me in six months. If I had a crystal ball, I'd be making oodles of money in a Washington think-tank somewhere. But I do know this: if this latest strategy doesn't work, if we're stuck in an endless meat-grinder in Iraq, or worse yet forced to withdraw with our tail between our legs, we'll be in for a world of hurt over the years and decades to come.
So we'd better get down on our knees and pray it works.
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