getting started

Concerned about the current political situation and to discipline myself to write on a regular schedule, I thought that blogging would keep me on track. A blog is a journal, and keeping one has always appealed to me. Interestingly, seventy years ago George Orwell began his journal, the year was 1938. Of course, I have no illusions here. (By the way, ANIMAL FARM, is an important reference book when considering problematic social and political happenings.) But, I digress! I plan to post twice weekly, perhaps on Mondays and Thursdays? Subject matter will vary among several preoccupations, including cooking, horticulture and all things political. With the 2008 General Election just behind us, with President-elect Obama piecing together his administration and with leaks and rumors coming forth everyday, who needs the "soaps"? His appointments speak forcefully on what we can expect from his administration. And to date, the choices that have been announced are not providing me much comfort. There seems to be a recycling of Clinton administration operatives. So, I am still looking for the "change" Mr. Obama promised. For starters, Eric Holder, for Attorney General, with his connection to Chiquita, the pardon of a very rich gangster at the end of the Clinton presidency and backing harsher drug penalties, would never be on my short list! Obama's first announcement, the selection of Rahm Emanuel for White House Chief of Staff was not a propitious beginning. One could argue, perhaps, that if Obama is his own man and not beholden to others and the corporations, he could become an instrument for change, that who he picks as figureheads for various federal agencies does not matter. At best, this might be wishful thinking on my part. But, it seems that with corporate rule no president or even congress can turn this country around. What worries me greatly is that the Bush administration has deliberately bankrupted the nation. And even if Obama wanted to improve the commonwealth, there would be no monies available for change and the social programs required. In the mid-1930s, Democrats had huge majorities in both houses. Democrats have relatively small majorities in the new congress; and, with so many Democrats as closet-Republicans, there is little to cheer about. As for the Big Three automakers, they deserve to fail. They must fail, if the environment is to be salvaged and if a much needed lifestyle change is to come about. In subsequent postings, I will discuss public transportation and the need to rein in the private passenger car. There is a strong bias when it comes to considering alternatives to the internal combustion engine( ICE), and that preference is the electric vehicle. A major concern is that its promotion is yet more ideological hype.The battery required to match ICE performance(the driver's apparent need for long-distant commuting and fascination with speed) is framed in an unattainable technological context(similar to the idea of travel to Mars and the unified field theory). Most of our problems are created by technological innovations! Battery design draws heavily upon rather rare and expensive natural resources; acquisition of cobalt and other resources create geopolitical problems. Then, there are ecological issues, including sustainability. When considering energy sources, I have to ask, whatever happened to vegetable oil as fuel? For starters, it is not expensive. Also, beating down the competition would be difficult. Many small businesses could manufacture it. And as with nuclear fuel, how are battery end-products handled? Huge piles of discarded automobile tires are something we have all seen. And we also know the image and reality when scrap tires burn. Hydrogen fuel is high-tech and expensive; but to its credit, like vegetable oil, its manufacture is decentralized and more competitive. However, the matter before us precludes fuels. There are simply too many private passenger vehicles. As with individuals in any animal species, beyond a certain population number various ecological systems break down. Unfortunately, the U.S. developed alongside the automobile, to the point where there is no real solution, save a complete restructuring of towns and cities and how they connect to one another. The residential patterns are based on motor vehicle transit. Public transportation is problematic in broadly decentralized suburban and, certainly, in rural sectors. These sectors are now, and probably always have been , largely populated by people wishing to escape the "great unwashed" urban immigrant populations. "White flight" is a major phenomenon in the community in which I reside. And the color line is still central to our national divide. The twin cities of Grass Valley and Nevada City have very small city limit areas; but, a vast territory beyond those limits carry the place names. Many residents drive ten or twenty miles round trip merely to shop for groceries! Sprawl is a consequence, obviously, of the domination of the passenger automobile. People continue to go further out from community centers simply because they can. Of course, in the short run that is not sustainable. The dark side of private vehicle technology outweighs benefits when numbers surpass an optimum level. And for the automobile, the number is quite small. When there is no easy solution to the dark side problems,(gridlock, environmental destruction, death and injury and the deterioration of meaningful and healthy lifestyles), great catastrophes are inevitable. Truth be told, there are too many homo sapiens! A six billion human population is not sustainable, either. The pre-industrial world population was about two billion! Fossil-based energy has made the increase possible. Crude oil and natural gas are non-renewable. Without sufficient quantities about four billion people will perish from starvation, disease, warfare and consequences of climate change(brought on by too great an addiction to fossil fuels). And people in my community, today, were talking about gasoline prices falling below two dollars a gallon! As if the cost of gas is the end-all of our existence. Well, perhaps in a real sense, it is! A recently published book covers the subject of Earth without a human population. I have got to get myself to the library and request an inter-library loan to read it. (Funding is so meager in this town and county that no copy of a recently published book is ever available, locally. I will have to pay a dollar for the import of a loan copy!) Blogging has reinforced the realization that this writer is draft-oriented, that several to many drafts are needed to get my thoughts in order and communicative. Computer composition demands a fluency of thoughts and quickness for sentence arrangements and connections that are not always attainable, especially with someone with an innate aversion toward machines. Nevertheless, I will persevere.