Time Waits for Newman

Greetings, friends,
If you happen to be in LA this Saturday, it'll be something rather unpredicted, a housewarming, hosted by yours truly.  Who would've thunk it?  Don't expect much...I've only just finished ripping up the carpet (and laying it over my lawn to kill it.)  Let's start in the early afternoon (so some of you can bring your kids or get to your meditation seminars) and continue until you all get frightened of my very, very black neighborhood.

If you bring small children, I'll just warn you that my house is NOT kid-friendly; the carpet tack boards are yet to be removed, I like to collect tiny bite-size souvenirs, there is some pretty blatant pornography in the bathroom and on the DVD player, there are lots of unsecured poisons, drugs, and even some dangerous areas of broken glass and chopped-up rose bushes in the backyard.  Not to mention my black widows, although the rain drove them into hiding.

Ignore your GPS and follow these directions:

Westside or South Bay - 405 either way towards LAX, exit Slauson/90 east, right on Slauson.  Continue a few miles until you reach Overhill (just past La Brea), where you should see the long descent into the vastness of the LA Basin.  The first light at the bottom of the hill is Alviso...make a right (south), then left on the first stop sign, 60th Street.  Two blocks and right on Keniston to 6216 (green porchlight and a lawn covered in carpet.)

Hollywood or points north - get thee to La Brea, go south over the Baldwin Hills.  At the top of the hill keep to the left on Overhill, and at the bottom, left onto Slauson.  The jazz club (La Louisiane) and the health food place (Simply Wholesome) are top-notch.  Follow the directions above from Slauson to my "pad".

Downtown or Koreatown - pay attention:  Crenshaw south to Vernon, turn right.  Vernon turns into Angeles Vista and winds across the hills.  You're in black Beverly Hills (aka Windsor Hills)!  See any gangs?  I didn't think so.  Turn left at the second stop sign (Rimpau), then across Slauson to 60th, make a right and then a left on Keniston.  Be cautious crossing 54th...there is no stop sign and the locals use this as a shortcut or a dragstrip.  See you...?  If you get lost or would rather call me than see me, you're in good company:  (323) 317 2248.

Speaking of maps, one of the most interesting things I've found on the newest version of Google Earth, other than the ability to fly about underwater, or the Moon or Mars, is that you can now look at some places in the past.  There's a little clock at the top of the screen, and it shows all the dates of satellite photos in the area you happen to be looking at.  I was a little perturbed when I found the oldest photo of my hometown to be 1989, yet a grainy black & white image undoubtedly taken by some weather satellite.  I can barely make out my old house, the trees, the pool, knowing that I was in there, unemployed, 23 years old, just out of graduate school and probably in despair.  It looks so old, even though 1989, for some of us, still sounds terribly futuristic.  I mean, that was five years AFTER 1984, right?  But once we elected Bill Clinton, and nothing changed, then crossed into 2000, and nothing changed, then elected Barack Obama, and nothing changed, how could 2010 seem even modern?  It's just a number, ticking off the distance from one of our supposed messiahs.  Everything changes at light speed for us, but the truly great changes come at a speed that we can hardly comprehend.

Like always, I embrace change and remain the same; I enjoy hanging out with "the kids", who are now almost half my age, the people who go out and get drunk and do drugs and have big ambitions.  Not that any of you, dear friends, don't have the same dreams and ambitions, but you and I have lost a lot of common ground and common priorities.  I was thinking this a few nights back, walking around the Hammer Museum at the closing of Robert Crumb's Book of Genesis, smirking at the long line for the bar, and the retro kids in '30s gear dancing to Ian Whitcomb...celebrating a culture that is now, eek, almost a century old.  I don't say this to patronize anyone; indeed, I am humbled by the dry humor and laser-focused desires of the people I know in their 20s and early 30s, and the brilliance and perseverance of those in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s...but I think young people today have a different relationship with loneliness, even if they still suffer from it, as I offer them a rare example of embracing it.  I live alone and rarely even stay over at someone's place; I often go for days without even speaking to a friend on the telephone.  Some might call it lonely, but I don't think there's any difference between me and those with significant others and kids, surrounded by other people night and day, as we are all basically alone, right?

But there is a solipsistic kind of dialogue that separates me from many people.  I used to dream, when I wanted to be "normal", of sharing life, yet nobody shares their life more than I do, with blogs and e-mails and that false sense of connection, Facebook...no, the difference is that when I talk to myself in the market, and laugh at stupid things I see around me, I've lost the patience to share, because none of us have time to share, do we?  So I entertain myself, and find myself very entertained now, never bored as I once was.  When I hear a fantastic song on the radio (and living near KXLU at last, the DJs are smokin' hot), I don't think any more, "I wish so-and-so was here to share this."  Now I just get into the moment, and when I go, as Ray wrote, I'm takin' that drum solo with me.  That's the message I have for "the kids", and the lament I pass along to the rest, that you unpack those dreams and ambitions, reject the ones with no value, and embrace the ones that will bear us all up into the cosmic consciousness we all, I'm afraid, are destined to return to, and return to each alone and in our own way, and sooner than we think.

Wha...wha...WHAT?  Mom, Joel's WHINING again...but really, I've having a blast, every day is full of potential.  In bridging the gap between the '80s (the pay-phone, the " letter", the person who you know for a while and then never see again), to the '10s (the instant message, Skype, and the sudden reunion with people you never really knew and want to know now even less), I just got a headache.  Sorry if I've been so silent, but after the false promise of " Facebook Reunion Summer" (and only now is the truth starting to hurt) I went straight into buying-a-house hell, and then Christmas hell magnified by my-brakes-went-out hell and now-I-owe-HOW-MUCH-in-property-taxes? hell, then woke up in February 2010 just in time for the housewarming.  Can I beam that date into the past?  LITTLE '80s BOY, LITTLE '80s GIRL, FEBRUARY 2010:  It will happen and it won't be anything like "they" promised.  But fuck that:  instead of fantasizing about beaming wonderful and subtle truths into the past, I'd rather pour the future a cocktail and hand it to them; we're headed that way anyhow.

Life 'meaningless' for one in 10 young adults
By Alan Jones, PA
One in 10 young people believed life was not worth living or was meaningless, according to an "alarming" new report today. A survey of 16- to 25-year-olds by the Prince's Trust found a "significant core" for whom life had little or no purpose, especially among those not in education, work...
Click here to view this content.

Besides, not to bum you out, but I'm pretty well convinced that in a hundred years there won't be much left; all those ideas of making nice art and movies and books to send our culture into the future, well, better be buried in the backyard and written in something legible to a very intelligent insect or evolved bird.  I don't want to scare your kids, but I'm starting to envy my parents; they could only imagine the same Christian Armageddon that's been passed around for hundreds of years, but I can see the walls closing in, and the very narrow path ahead; those kids running around in their teens, when they're very old, will either see a radical Transformation or, more likely, the closed door for humanity at the starving, bloody end of the road.  Or maybe not; like Zappa said, "It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice; there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."

Cheery, eh?  Well, I had to get that off my chest.  I just want to explain why so much of the complaining going on around me means absolutely nothing.  Some of you can attest, I've broken up fights and silenced complaints by stating, "WHATEVER:  the sun is going to blow up in a few billion years and burn the Earth to a cinder."  Now I could add, "We'll be extinct in a few centuries; the only question is how many other species we take with us."  Part of my mission, friends, which I think about and tell my new backyard plants every day, is to create an oasis that might outlast me, and become the seeds of a future jungle, an oasis of native creatures that will spread out from Hyde Park and reconquer the lawns and topiaries of a very unsustainable LA.  The gathering of hummingbirds, spiders, bees and other creatures around my companion sage, my buckwheat, clover, ceanothus and coyote brush bears me out.

Well, going out with a whimper rather than a bang, at least:
http://www.Miller-McCune.com/idea/plotting-the-decade-on-an-x-y-axis-1707

Okay, enough self-indulgent crap.  Now, a message from our neighbors to the north:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tZ5cwm4jQc

Do I sense a SCREED coming on?

I don't usually brag about the terrible movies I've seen (bullshit:  I ALWAYS do), but thanks to White Springs TV, which I no longer can receive, I caught a couple of doozies before I moved out of Los Feliz.  Both of them, by coincidence, were made in South Africa during the 1960s...and I can't say I've ever seen ANY movies from apartheid-era South Africa before.  Needless to say, there were absolutely no black characters in either film.  The first was "The Cape Town Affair" (1967), a nearly word-for-word remake of the classic "Pickup on South Street" (1953).  Except that future Mr. Streisand, James Brolin did a hack job of Richard Widmark's smart-mouthed street punk, and (sigh) Jacqueline Bisset, about to hit the big time as Miss Goodthighs in "Casino Royale", is actually terrible trying to ape Mrs. Howard Hughes, Jean Peters.  The second movie was actually fascinating to me, it was so awful:  "Coast of Skeletons", a caper film where American cowboy actor Dale Robertson plays a criminal boss much like Ronald Reagan in "The Killers", slapping around Elga Andersen, who looked unnervingly like Sharon Tate.  Hot on his trail are two English character actors, Richard Todd and Derek Nimmo.  Even though an English production in South Africa, most of the cast and crew appear to be West German.  And there were a few black people in the background, as they chase each other through the streets of Jo'burg.  But neither of these movies were very enlightening about the life in '60s South Africa...as I'm sure that government wanted it.

Speaking of South Africa, I want to remind you that if that country can change, any country can.
Death to No One
Wednesday, November 4, marked the 30th year since the 444-day Iran hostage crisis began in 1979. On this day, the media traditionally offer us images of Iranians burning American flags and effigies of Uncle Sam. We are reminded of the great chasm of mistrust and misunderstanding that has marked the last three decades of US-Iranian relations. But in the past year, both Americans and Iranians have asked for something new. Americans have elected a president who promises to pursue diplomacy and Iranians have given birth to a popular democratic movement.
Click here to read more on our site

I am glad to see, as we all should, the struggle for freedom by one of the oldest, most educated, and yes, pro-Western countries in the Middle East.
After Iran Crackdown: Reform Movement Shows Resilience
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1907918,00.html
After Sunday clashes in Iran, 'Green Movement' supporters take stock
Source: csmonitor.com

Reuters.com - Khatami denounces Iran election, arrests   http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE5604J420090701  

Iranian clergy group blasts election
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/07/05/Iranian-clergy-group-blasts-election/UPI-50251246768495/
INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST   | December 21, 2009
Death of Iranian Cleric Could Set Off New Protests
By ROBERT F. WORTH
The senior cleric's funeral on Monday is widely expected to be a catalyst for possibly violent confrontations between protesters and the police.
Thousands Protest in Iran, Defying Crackdown Vow
Tehran -Thousands of protesters streamed down avenues of the capital Thursday, chanting "death to the dictator" and defying security forces who fired tear gas and charged with batons, witnesses said. The first opposition foray into the streets in 11 days aimed to revive mass demonstrations that were crushed in Iran's postelection turmoil.  Iranian authorities had promised tough action to prevent the marches, which supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have been planning for days in Internet messages.
Click here to read more on our site
Government Executes Protesters in Iran
Iran hanged two opposition protesters on Thursday and sentenced nine more to death for taking part in widespread rallies against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad following last June's presidential election.
Click here to read more on our site
Iranian consumers boycott Nokia for 'collaboration'
Saeed Kamali Dehghan
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/14/nokia-boycott-iran-election-protests
The mobile phone company Nokia is being hit by a growing economic boycott in Iran as consumers sympathetic to the post-election protest movement begin targeting a string of companies deemed to be collaborating with the regime.  Wholesale vendors in the capital report that demand for Nokia handsets has fallen by as much as half in the wake of calls to boycott Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) for selling communications monitoring systems to Iran.
Supreme leader Khamenei diminished in Iranians' eyes
--------------------
Since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei openly sided with President Ahmadinejad with the election results still in dispute, 'opposing him is no longer the same as opposing God,' one analyst says.
By Borzou Daragahi
Reporting from Beirut - For two decades he was considered to be above the petty political squabbles, a cautious elder contemplating questions of faith and Islam while guiding his nation into the future.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-leader15-2009jul15,0,4685397.story
Friction among Iran authorities heats up
--------------------
With street protests quiet, factional disputes intensify. Hard-line clerics call for opposition leader Karroubi to stand trial, and reformist lawmakers want supreme leader Khamenei investigated.
By Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim
Reporting from Tehran and Beirut -- Rival camps within Iran's corridors of power intensified their threats against each other Friday, signaling potentially dangerous clashes within elite circles and the security establishment after the disputed June 12 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-challenges15-2009aug15,0,2622663.story
Iran move to defrock dissident ayatollah opens rifts in theocracy
Source: csmonitor.com

The Persians have even been making gestures of conciliation to the West, which is not like them:

Exclusive: Read Iran's New Proposal for Nuclear Talks

By Dafna Linzer, September 10, 2009 4:37 pm EDT

http://www.propublica.org/article/iran-offer-includes-willingness-for-talks-on-nuclear-disarmament-but-no-910/

But there is still a lot of bad blood between us...
Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, Iran, 1979 and 2010  
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog//175189/
History shows that a revolutionary movement triumphs only when two vital factors merge: it is supported by a coalition of different social classes and it succeeds in crippling the country's governing machinery and fracturing the state's repressive apparatus...

And of course, we're not doing shit to help.
Senate Quietly Passes Iran Sanctions Bill
The Senate quietly passed legislation Thursday implementing tough new sanctions against Iran that advocacy groups say will cause more pain for the citizens of the country than for the government it's intended to cripple.  The sanctions would target gasoline companies and Iranian imports of refined petroleum products. In addition, the bill includes provisions to ban imports to the US and exports to Iran, with the exception of food, medicine and other humanitarian aid goods. Assets of certain Iranian individuals could also be frozen.
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Not to highlight the disagreement I have with many of you about Afghanistan, which I think President Obama parsed about as well as I expected, I hope that the backchannel way out of that country is really being pursued, as it was successfully in the war we started with NO justification in Iraq...
Britain and US prepared to open talks with the Taliban
Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/27/britain-us-talks-taliban-afghanistan
A concerted effort to start unprecedented talks between Taliban and British and American envoys was outlined yesterday in a significant change in tactics designed to bring about a breakthrough in the attritional, eight-year conflict in Afghanistan.
A War of Absurdity
There is no indication that any of the contending forces in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, are interested in bringing al-Qaida back. On the contrary, all the available evidence indicates that the Arab fighters are unwelcome and that it is their isolation from their former patrons that has led to their demise.
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It may not look like it on the outside, but there really is a feeling of compromise in the air, one hopes, after Obama went to Cairo and began the slow process of withdrawing a huge, huge American military out of the world.
Fatah's Metamorphosis
The history of peace negotiations in the Middle East has so often yielded disappointed hopes that it would be risky to expect too much from the results of the Fatah convention, which just concluded in Bethlehem. Yet, the historic grouping of the Palestinian Movement has just accomplished an unprecedented metamorphosis, by having pragmatic political officials - a priori more inclined to compromise, both with Hamas and with Israel - enter its leadership.
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Let them work it out, eh?
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Tensions rise as Iraq blames Baathists in Syria for bombings
By Adam Ashton and Laith Hammoudi
BAGHDAD ­ Iraq Tuesday demanded that Syria hand over two high-ranking Iraqi Baath Party officials following last week's bombing of two government ministries. Iraq later recalled its ambassador to Damascus for consultations, and Syria followed suit, withdrawing its envoy from Baghdad.  The bombings, executed with thousands of pounds of nitrate fertilizer carried on trucks, killed at least 95 people and wounded more than 1,200 near the Foreign and Finance Ministry buildings last Wednesday.  Iraq's Council of Ministers called for an international investigation of what it characterized as "war crimes."
Read More...

Might as well, since we are all alone in that country, for real.
McClatchy Washington Bureau
The 'coalition of the willing' in Iraq becomes an army of one
By Hannah Allam
BAGHDAD, Iraq ­ The British said cheerio back in July, around the same time the Romanians cleared out "Camp Dracula," their compound on a U.S. base in southern Iraq. Tonga and Kazakhstan left ages ago, and no one seems to remember if any Icelandic forces ever made it to Iraq.  It doesn't matter now, anyway, because as of Friday, former president George W. Bush's "coalition of the willing" formally ceased to exist, leaving only the U.S. military's 130,000 or so forces to shepherd their Iraqi counterparts through a volatile election season before a full American troop withdrawal that's expected by the end of 2011.  U.S. commanders officially disbanded the Multinational Force Iraq, or MNF-I, and introduce the USF-I, or U.S. Force Iraq, at a ceremony Friday in Baghdad. American soldiers and officers said the transition is largely a formality because they've been going it alone since the summer.
Read More...

Now comes the real problem, which some of you remember from the '70s.  The Feds are doing their best to contain the anger of the world...
Gates Invokes New Authority to Block Release of Detainee Abuse Photos
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has blocked the release of photographs depicting US soldiers abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, invoking new powers just granted to him by Congress that allows him to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and keep the images under wraps on national security grounds.  In a brief filed with the US Supreme Court late Friday, Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson, and Solicitor General Elena Kagan, said Gates "personally exercised his certification authority" on Friday to withhold the photos
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Musicians protest use of songs by US jailers
http://current.com/items/89610400_musicians-protest-use-of-songs-by-us-jailers. htm

But we are hooked on war.
America's Wars: How Serial War Became the American Way of Life
On July 16, in a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the "central question" for the defense of the United States was how the military should be "organized, equipped - and funded - in the years ahead, to win the wars we are in while being prepared for threats on or beyond the horizon." The phrase beyond the horizon ought to sound ominous.
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Even the junkies want to quit...
Pentagon Board Says Cuts Essential
Tells Obama to slash large weapons programs.
Washington - A senior Pentagon advisory group, in a series of bluntly worded briefings, is warning President-elect Barack Obama that the Defense Department's current budget is "not sustainable," and he must scale back or eliminate some of the military's most prized weapons programs.
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Not a problem if you're gay, though, don't worry about a marriage commitment or dying for your country, two great American pasttimes.
Gay military question still up in air
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/26704.html

Maybe not everywhere...
Iowa Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30027685/
** Iceland's PM marks gay milestone **
Iceland's new openly lesbian Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir has generated little excitement at home, but her appointment will make waves abroad, says the BBC's Vanessa Buschschluter.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7862804.stm >

D.C. Council Votes To Recognize Gay Nuptials Elsewhere

By Nikita Stewart and Tim Craig
The D.C. Council unanimously voted yesterday to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere, joining a growing number of states to loosen restrictions on the unions.
Article at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Z-rich-Elects-a-Gay-Woman-by-Andy-Harley-090329-578.html
OpEdNews » Zürich Elects Lesbian Mayor as City Gears up for EuroPride
Vermont Legalizes Gay Marriage With Veto Override
Montpelier, Vermont - Vermont on Tuesday became the fourth state to legalize gay marriage - and the first to do so with a legislature's vote.  The House recorded a dramatic 100-49 vote, the minimum needed, to override Gov. Jim Douglas' veto. Its vote followed a much easier override vote in the Senate, which rebuffed the Republican governor with a vote of 23-5.  Vermont was the first state to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples and joins Connecticut, Massachusetts and Iowa in giving gays the right to marry.
Click here to read more on our site

Of course, a lesbian might be running Iceland, but here they can't even find a place to live after jumping in front of bullets and bombs:
More female veterans are winding up homeless
"WASHINGTON - The number of female service members who have become homeless after leaving the military has jumped dramatically in recent years, according to new government estimates, presenting the Veterans Administration with a challenge as it struggles to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/07/06/more_female_veterans_are_winding_up_homeless?s_campaign=8315

Eventually the military will crack from within, as it did (if you read HOWARD ZINN) near the end of every war we've fought in:
GI Resistance Under the Radar
An interview with two former soldiers who describe how they helped prevent their unit from deploying to a war zone.
What do you do if you are a soldier being asked to fight a war you do not believe in?  For two former soldiers whose unit was ordered to deploy to Iraq in April 2005, the answer came in the form of work slowdowns, letter-writing campaigns, and one-on-one organizing with fellow soldiers.
Click here to read more on our site

Oh well.
Use It or Lose It? How to Manage an Imperial Decline
Do empires end with a bang, a whimper, or the sibilant hiss of financial deflation?
Click here to read more on our site
Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, Dismantling the Empire
Source: tomdispatch.com
Welcome to 2025: American Preeminence Is Disappearing Fifteen Years Early
Memo to the CIA: You may not be prepared for time-travel, but welcome to 2025 anyway! Your rooms may be a little small, your ability to demand better accommodations may have gone out the window, and the amenities may not be to your taste, but get used to it. It's going to be your reality from now on.
Click here to read more on our site

Anyway, let me conclude with the punchline of the joke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SULYI8y4WPo

Vive le screed!

A Change of Scenery...or an Ecological Renovation?

Greetings, dear friends,
Once again I write to you from that state of confusion, that unnerving feeling when one takes stability, a life humming along, and intentionally disrupts it.  I parallel-parked a mid-size U-Haul tonight...that only took me about 5 five back-and-forths and getting out twice to see how far I was from the car behind me.  To my credit, I had one Steinlager and it was on a hill...and the club down on the corner, the one that replaced the hip-hop club, is really bopping...so parking spaces are hard to come by, especially accommodating a U-Haul.

The reality of buying didn't really sink in when I cut that cashier's check for $25K, but when I had to load about 60 (I lost count around 30) heavy boxes of books into a truck, up and down my stairs for each one, well, I feel like I've really accomplished something.  I'm also pretty stiff, but not enough to make me feel old.  Just that if I ever move again, I'm probably going to save up and hire two or three of the day laborers who spend the day hanging out at the U-Haul on Hollywood Boulevard.  Anyway, with Robert Barkaloff's gracious assistance, I unloaded them in a hour.  They're safe under a cover in my new garage, soon to be brought out onto a nice 3-yard long double-sided bookcase...once I buff out an ancient wood floor.  One step at a time.

The first day I hung out at my new abode, I put in a mailbox, had a beer lounging on the new carpet in an empty room (they always start out empty), and then we walked up to my new liquor store, Buddha Liquors on Slauson and Rimpau.  There were two huge Buddha at the door, no shit, and it was more of a little market than just a liquor store, right down to the chrome turnstiles and the old-fashioned round turntables in the cashier's boothes.  I bought my first food to put up in a cabinet, a jar of Nutella.  I cleaned out the construction debris left over from the last owner's cheap renovation, and found a roach (the kind that a stoned laborer might leave in a closet, not a cockroach.)  I thought about smoking it, but it had gone through five months of idleness and then a termite fumigation.

I've found my local BBQ (Woody's, actually semi-famous in the area), a pet store, a "smoke shop" and a decent place for fish.  I'm one light east of one of the best African-American health food restaurant/markets on the West Coast.  And now I'm committed...my bed, my desk, all my papers, my precious books, even my 14 year old TV have all relocated to another address.  My bikes, my hand-me-down Beverly Hills couch, the desk lamp I've had since I was in elementary school...all passing through the jostling of a U-Haul to find a new place to manifest.

My computer, and the person typing this, are still in Los Feliz.  I have to wait out the DSL and, well, there is still plenty to move.  15 years worth of art begged or bought off of friends...but Corinne, you'll be glad to know that your photo of us in Pearl Mackey's penthouse was the first out of the bubble-wrap.  Anyway, until Wednesday I'll be packing, and taking advantage of a working shower, stove, fridge, etc.  It's like camping indoors.  If anyone in LA knows where to get an interesting shower curtain or a bead curtain, I'd like to know.

If you'd just like to wish me well (it is farther from nearly everyone I know in LA...but closer to the airport and the rest of you)...I'm having a party next Saturday, 26 September, in an empty apartment.  There will be one chair, an old turntable and some records...and a fridge.  If this e-mail was addressed to you, or fell into your hands through somebody you enjoy, then you are invited.

3747 Evans Street, Apartment 4
Los Feliz - Los Angeles - 90027
or from space:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=34.106754,-118.27382&spn=0.00109,0.001725&t=h&z=19

If you are interested in my new house, it was built in 1925, a half-block from the northern border of Inglewood.  At the time, Inglewood was a growing suburb at the foot of the Baldwin Hills, and my house was built on the side facing Downtown Los Angeles, about five miles away across the farms.  One of the first bus lines in LA, the 52, ran down my street, Keniston Avenue, and the longest streetcar line of the Los Angeles Railway, the 5, rolled along Crenshaw Boulevard a few blocks east.  You can see here a map of the city 5 years before the house was built; in the undeveloped area west of West Boulevard and south of 60th Street (the SW corner of the map.)  Eventually the cities grew together, the hills filled up with mansions, and LAX was built on a bean field between Inglewood and the beach.  Now Hyde Park, like a lot of LA, is in transition, and upon a transition; a mile north is a wealthy neighborhood, and east of that hip Leimert Park; south is the vast open suburbs of the South Bay, and south east a mile or so, the slow change from nice ranch homes to small bungalows, and then the rundown apartments and finally projects of the "hood", a few more miles towards the 110.  Here's what it looks like from space:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=33.983114,-118.341513&spn=0.001188,0.001725&t=h&z=19

Look for the house at the center, on the east side of the street, with two cars in the driveway and two small trees in the backyard.

May we all see each other again soon,

Save Film at LACMA

It's amazing that a city like LA, which bemoans the loss of the film industry, does so little to prevent the loss of film screenings.

Michael Jackson Moonwalked for Your Sins

Greetings, friends,
Those of you from Los Angeles will understand that, even though I've been in my apartment for 15 years, I don't know all of my neighbors.  Today I'm referring to the couple just north of my building.  I've watched as they made significant improvements to their house, aged and retired, and their kids (two boys?) grew up and moved away.  But other than putting some misdelivered mail in their box and closing my windows against the oily smoke of their barbecue, I've had no contact with them.  Until tonight...I pulled into my parking space, home from work, and the man was ten feet away at the wall, pulling hard on one of the trees that separate my apartment building from their house.  I must have had quite a look on my face, because he gave me a sheepish smile, and like Mr. Jimmy in that Stones song, he said one word to me, and that was "dead".  I nodded and went upstairs to my apartment.  That was our first, and probably last communication.  It is too late for Los Feliz to get to know me.

I have to make a point of meeting my new neighbors.  We are, after all, just a few blocks from the Newport-Inglewood Fault, where a huge chunk of Long Beach and coastal Orange County is sliding into West Los Angeles, pushing up those Baldwin Hills that you can see on the right as you fly into LAX.  Since I was born the fault's moved about 3 centimeters, though it can move faster when it wants to.  In those kinds of exigencies, it's good to know your neighbors.  But people in Park Mesa, the neighborhood between the Baldwin Hills and Inglewood, are probably friendlier anyway.  We'll see because, as some of you already know, I bought a house there.  Now I can stop making fun of your complaints about how much money you owe on your own houses, right?

Good timing:

Reuters.com - Home values seen losing over $2 trillion during 2008  http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE4B84A420081215  

Money is all imaginary, anyway.  That's a definite; I'm glad I figured it out young.  Money doesn't buy love, or friendship, or anything really, except ways to kill time.  Money didn't do Michael Jackson any good, did it?  Like I've been saying, his money probably killed him in the guise of an overpriced doctor.

What a sick, sick week that was.  We finally assassinated another childhood icon, then gushed over it for the uncomprehending youth of the 21st Century.  Sick.  At least, I thought as I listened to the memorial at work, they didn't go batshit and tear up the Staples Center.  It was like every other memorial I've been to; 30 minutes too long and just thick enough to veneer the horror of being mortal.

Anyway, you should know me for such a geek that, once I found a house, one of the first things I'd do would be to peruse the geologic maps of the area.  (Warning - that link will take you to a large .pdf file, but it is beautiful.  Park Mesa is the area at the very top edge of the map, just southeast of the jumble of the Baldwin Hills, which are east of the harbor at Marina del Rey; you can follow the high ground of the mesa all the way south to Palos Verdes.)  I've really longed for a place of my own to whitewash and hang the art, to plant the cactus and grow the corn, to wallpaper with my punk rock flyers from the '80s, to put up solar panels and telescopes and weather stations and whatever the hell I want in.  I'll build a rocket, damn you, and shoot it at North Korea.

Not that I'm too worried about them...
North Korea: A Global Crisis Canary
Gas prices are above $4 a gallon; global food prices surged 39% last year; and an environmental disaster looms as carbon emissions continue to spiral upward. The global economy appears on the verge of a TKO, a triple whammy from energy, agriculture, and climate-change trends. Right now you may be grumbling about the extra bucks you're shelling out at the pump and the grocery store; but, unless policymakers begin to address all three of these trends as one major crisis, it could get a whole lot worse.
Click here to read more on our site

Speaking of buildings, I watched a documentary a few days ago about one of my favorites, the magnificent Parthenon in Athens.  This building comes from a time when we were more in harmony with the world; instead of trying to remake the world, it celebrates our humanity.  The Parthenon is even more amazing than I thought.  There is hardly a straight edge or right angle in the entire structure...the restoration team needed a computer to help them calculate the angles of surfaces, and only very recently have they figured out how the ancient Greeks accomplished these measurements with only a compass, scale models and their ingenuity.  The reason for all these curves was to make the building actually look perfect; if they had built the columns and walls straight, optical illusions would make it look warped (as many modern buildings do.)  The subtle curves and perfect 4:9 proportions make it one of the most visually pleasing structures ever built.  There are also no random measures or proportions in the building, which one Greek architect described as an architectural symphony.

The craftsmanship of the Parthenon also blew my mind...the marble columns were assembled in slices, with a wood pin at the center to line them up.  The joints were so finely measured and sanded (to 1/20th of a millimeter, or less than a hair's breadth) that when the old columns were pulled apart by the restoration team, the workers could still smell the cedar wood of this central pin...and that's a 2500 year-old piece of cedar, friends.  The restoration team had to come up with new tools to make these fine adjustments, and realized by looking at the old marble that the Greeks had developed stronger and more precise tools than can even be made today...that knowledge of stone masonry and metallurgy is lost, even with computers.  Incredible.

Three years ago another favorite building of mine celebrated a mere century on Earth, my old co-op Barrington Hall.  It used to look a lot different.  Anyway, I'm driving up to Berkeley next weekend to see 100 or so of my old friends from there.  That should be interesting.

Maybe I would add something about the recent 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, but it only reminds me how my generation never got to go to the Moon, or Mars, or under the oceans like we were encouraged in the 1970s.  Well, we can go virtually, right?

Google Moon

This site provides "a mosaic of landing site images and a tour of the Apollo landings" on the moon. Click to zoom in on the landing sites for the "six missions of the Apollo Program, which lasted from 1963 to 1972." Also includes a FAQ and a relief map showing moon elevations. From Google, in partnership with scientists at the NASA Ames Research Center.

Hopefully we will go back someday.  We may have to go somewhere just to prevent a disaster that would wipe out the whole planet, not slowly, but in a hurry.  That seems a little dramatic, but we CAN prevent an asteroid impact now...not an earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood or any other natural disaster, but an asteroid without much difficulty.  You don't even need a bevy of nuclear missiles to do the job; found in advance, a celestial body can be knocked slightly off course just by flying around it.  We don't even have to land.  We'll have a good asteroid to test in a few decades, when Apophis flies by...with a 1 in 450 chance of pummeling the Earth the next time around.

That's higher than the odds of a song playing twice in a row on my iPod --  1 in 750.  No, really.  I looked it up on Google and eventually found an article about it.  No kidding.  In the meantime...maybe we should clean up Garbage Island?

I must admit, when I even think about "Garbage Island", I can't keep this Seventies song out of my head.  "I'll remember the nights in the cool sand, makin' love out on Garbage Island..."

Maybe then we can clean up the City of Garbage in Manila?

Crazy, eh?  Well, nature (and justice) move slowly yet inexorably.  Tucked away in the headlines, I was pleased to see that Royal Dutch Shell is finally going to face the music for abetting the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and several others in Nigeria.  Saro-Wiwa was an activist and successful TV producer (the early 80s show "Basi & Co.", about some bumbling schemers trying to profit off the oil boom in Lagos, was supposedly the most popular TV show ever made in Africa.)  As a native Ogoni, he rallied for his people's rights in the Niger delta, where unfortunately most of the country's oil comes from, and a number of activists were quickly tried and executed with the encouragement of Shell.  A few may remember that this atrocity sparked my very first SCREED, way back fourteen years ago when e-mail was still fresh.
Shell on trial
By Daniel Howden, Africa Correspondent
Royal Dutch Shell will revisit one of the darkest periods of its history tomorrow as a potentially groundbreaking court case opens in New York. The oil giant stands accused of complicity in the 1995 execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian environmental activist. The world's boardrooms are watching the case, which...
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Late Nigerian Activist's Son to See Shell in Court
Oil firm faces trial amid accusations of complicity in human rights abuses.
New York - Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr. has been fighting for more than 13 years to make his late father's prediction come true.  It will happen this month when relatives of victims of the Nigerian government's violent crackdown on residents of the oil-rich region, where Royal Dutch Shell had drilling operations, will get to challenge the deaths and injuries in a U.S. court.  The trial that starts May 26 in U.S. District Court in New York stems from two lawsuits accusing Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. and the former managing director of its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Transport and Trading PLC, of being complicit in decisions by Nigeria's then-military government to hang oil industry opponents, including playwright and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.  "In a sense we already have a victory, because one of the things my father said was that Shell would one day have its day in court," Saro-Wiwa said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday. "We felt they had ducked their responsibility for what happened in Nigeria, so we wanted to fulfill that prediction."
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The war between nations and the indigenous people living atop their resources is global:
Court: Brazil on the Brink of Civil War
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Deep in the northernmost reaches of the Amazon jungle, a land conflict between rice farmers and a handful of Indian tribes has turned so violent that the country's Supreme Court warns it could escalate into civil war.  The court is expected to decide in August if the government can keep evicting rice farmers from a 4.2 million acre Indian reservation decreed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2005.
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Hmmm...and I feel another screed coming on.  Why are Brasilians and Nigerians throwing themselves at their exploiters, when here in the United States we don't even care if the beautiful mountains of Appalachia are despoiled by coal tips and mountain top removal?
http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/06/power-politics-epa-refuses-to-reveal-dangerous-coal-ash-waste-sites.html

Well, I have the satisfaction of knowing that, no matter what, we are going to run out of this goo, and the planet will heal.
Tomgram: Michael Klare, Goodbye to Cheap Oil
Source: tomdispatch.com

The human race might not be around to see it, though...we might have snuffed ourselves out in a James Bond scenario...
OpEdNews » Scramble for World Resources: Battle for Antarctica
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Scramble-for-World-Resourc-by-Rick-Rozoff-090518-42.html

Person by person, the last species to go extinct in the latest "great extinction" will, natch, be us.
To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/29/1
Global warming causes 300,000 deaths a year, says  Kofi Annan thinktank
Climate change is greatest humanitarian challenge facing the world as heatwaves, floods and forest fires become more severe
John Vidal, environment editor
Climate change is already responsible for 300,000 deaths a year and is affecting 300m people, according to the first comprehensive study of the human impact of global warming.  It projects that increasingly severe heatwaves, floods, storms and forest fires will be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year by 2030, making it the greatest humanitarian challenge the world faces.

Reuters.com - Climate change worsens disaster risks for poor-UN  http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSLB776371  

Some animals will probably disappear before us... Obama Keeps Bush-Era Polar Bear Rule
Protection was granted, but limits were set on what to do.
Washington - The Obama administration will retain a Bush-era rule for polar bears, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Friday, in a move that angered activists who noted the rule limits what can be done to protect the species from global warming.  The administration had faced a weekend deadline to decide whether it should allow government agencies to cite the federal Endangered Species Act, which protects the bear, to impose limits on greenhouse gases from power plants, factories and automobiles even if the emissions occur thousands of miles from where the polar bear lives.  "We must do all we can to help the polar bear recover, recognizing that the greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change," Salazar said in a statement.
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...while others will probably miss us with few tears.
Hint of conservation push brightens whaling stalemate
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17386

It's a pathology; a global mental illness.  Our civilization has believed, for thousands of years, that we are not of this world, but apart, and must remake it:
All Trees Near Levees Face Army Corps' Ax
Policy aimed at protecting levees draws fire from locals.
Columbia, Louisiana - The Army Corps of Engineers is on a mission to chop down every tree in the country that grows within 15 feet of a levee - including oaks and sycamores in Louisiana, willows in Oklahoma and cottonwoods in California.  The corps is concerned that the trees' roots could undermine barriers meant to protect low-lying communities from catastrophic floods like the ones caused by Hurricane Katrina.  An Associated Press survey of levee projects nationwide shows that the agency wants to eliminate all trees along more than 100,000 miles of levees. But environmentalists and some civil engineers insist the trees pose little or no risk and actually help stabilize levee soil.
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A pointless pathology, which in the long run has no positive outcomes:
Even the Mighty Mississippi's Sediment Won't Be Enough to Save Our Vanishing Coast
Even under best-case scenarios of building massive engineering projects to restore Louisiana's dying coastline, the Mississippi River cannot possibly feed enough sediment into the marshes to prevent ongoing catastrophic land loss, two Louisiana State University geologists conclude in a scientific paper being published today.  The result: The state will lose another 4,054 to 5,212 square miles of coastline by 2100, an area roughly the size of Connecticut.
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We believe that, rather than our technology getting us INTO this problem, it can still save us, like magic:
Toward Climate Geoengineering?
Preamble:  That global climate change has reached an impasse whereby the "powers-to-be" are entertaining climate geoengineering mitigation, instead of the urgent deep reduction of carbon emissions required by science, represents the ultimate moral bankruptcy of institutions and a failure of democracy.
With global atmospheric CO2 levels rising at about 2 ppm/year toward 388 ppm, or near-440 ppm CO2-e (including methane effects), John Holdren, in his first interview since being appointed as President Obama's new science adviser, revealed
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The blow is not going to fall on us individually, or nationally, but planetwide, as a species:
Climate chaos predicted by CO2 study
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
The world will overshoot its long-term target on greenhouse gas emissions within two decades. A study has found that the average global temperature will rise above the threshold that could cause dangerous climate change during that time. Scientists have calculated that the world has already produced about a third of...
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Report on Warming Offers New Details

By David A. Fahrenthold
Man-made climate change could bring parching droughts to the Southwest and pounding rainstorms to Washington, put Vermont maple sugar farms out of business and Key West underwater over the next century, according to a federal report released yesterday.
'We have taken every measure we can think of to stop the desert moving closer and submerging our crops and villages'
Farmers end up as eco-refugees in a government relocation plan aimed at giving them a better life
Jonathan Watts in Minqin
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/18/china-ecorefugees-farming
When the desert winds tear up the sands outside his front door, Huang Cuikun, pictured  below in a dried- up riverbed near his home, says he is choked by dust, visibility falls to a few metres and the crops are ruined.  Dust storms hit his village in Gansu province more often than in the past. The water table is falling. Temperatures rise year by year. Yet Huang says this is an improvement. Three years ago the government relocated him from an area where the river ran dry and the well became so salinated that people who drank from it fell sick.
Global warming's toll: Glacier in Bolivia is gone
http://www.grist.org/article/another-one-bites-the-dust-literally-bolivias-18000-year-old-chacaltaya-gla/
Ban exhorts nations to ramp up investment in disaster risk reduction – (17 May 2009)
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today appealed to all nations to bolster efforts to curb disaster risk, stressing that decisive action taken now can be "one of the best investments countries can make."  Speaking at the launch ceremony in Bahrain of the first-ever "Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction," Mr. Ban said stepped up spending in slashing risk is "critical to saving lives and livelihoods."  Further, it is essential in reaching the aims set forth in both the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the eight anti-poverty targets with a 2015 deadline, and the Hyogo Framework for Action, the 10-year programme adopted in 2005 which calls for investing heavily in disaster preparedness and strengthening the capacity of disaster-prone countries to address the risks.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30820&Cr=isdr&Cr1=

Although I think the UN is starting out very small...
McClatchy Washington Bureau
U.N. environment chief urges global ban on plastic bags
By Grace Chung
WASHINGTON ­ Single-use plastic bags, a staple of American life, have got to go, the United Nations' top environmental official said Monday.
Although recycling bags is on the rise in the United States, an estimated 90 billion thin bags a year, most used to handle produce and groceries, go unrecycled. They were the second most common form of litter after cigarette butts at the 2008 International Coastal Cleanup Day sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy, a marine environmental group.  "Single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme. His office advises U.N. member states on environmental policies.
Read More...

The good news is, regardless of what we do, when left alone the world heals very quickly...not a bleeder but a small cut.

Yale Study Finds Evidence that Damaged Ecosystems Can Recover Rapidly

www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/39985

Sigh...if only we had learned our lesson back in the Seventies.  Remember when small cars became hip, and we almost switched to the metric system?
Op-Ed Columnist:  Flush With Energy
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
America needs to learn from Denmark, which responded to the 1973 Arab oil embargo in such a way that today it is energy independent.

We're getting another chance to turn lemons into solid gold...
IPCC chief: Benefits of tackling climate change will balance cost of action
The cost of tackling climate change will be paid for by benefits that would come from better energy security, employment and health, Rajendra Pachauri says ahead of major announcement on 2013 reports
Damian Carrington
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/20/ipcc-pachauri-climate-change-cost
Measures needed to tackle global warming could save economies more money than they cost, the world's top climate change expert said today.  Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Guardian: "The cost could undoubtedly be negative overall."  This is because of the additional benefits that reducing greenhouse gas emissions could bring, beyond limiting temperature rises.
Unemployed Seek Training for Green-Collar Jobs
"I think the opportunities in this field are going to be huge."
San Jose, California - As the economy sheds jobs, community colleges across the country are reporting a surge of unemployed workers enrolling in courses that offer training for "green-collar" jobs.  Students are learning how to install solar panels, repair wind turbines, produce biofuels and do other work related to renewable energy.  "I think the opportunities in this field are going to be huge," said Rudy Gastelo, a part-time handyman who left the construction industry two years ago. "I'm not getting that 9-to-5 paycheck, so I'm looking forward to maybe getting a job within a solar company."  To meet growing demand, two-year colleges are launching or expanding green job training with money from the federal stimulus package.
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Newsweek

America's Green Warriors

Report: ‘Green’ jobs outpacing traditional ones | csmonitor.com
Source: features.csmonitor.com

Especially in my state, which needs all the help it can get right now:
Auto emissions deal a win for California
--------------------
The state is the model for a compromise with U.S. carmakers and the federal government to curb greenhouse gases.
By Jim Tankersley and Richard Simon
Reporting from Washington -- The agreement that the Obama administration will announce today forcing dramatic reductions in vehicle greenhouse gas emissions and improvements in auto mileage marks a potentially pivotal shift in the battle over global warming -- and a vindication of California's long battle to toughen standards.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-emissions19-2009may19,0,5567325.story
EPA gives California emissions waiver
--------------------
The state can develop its own standards on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, though it agrees not to toughen the standards before 2017. Automakers agree to drop lawsuits.
By Jim Tankersley
Reporting from Washington -- The Environmental Protection Agency granted California's request to impose tough restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks -- reversing the Bush administration's position and opening the way for the state to take the lead on global-warming policy. Thirteen other states -- including Maryland -- are slated to adopt Calfornia's standards.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/bal-car-waiver-0630,0,3946031.story

Sadly, California is getting ready to throw away this opportunity as well:
Schwarzenegger considers oil drilling off coast
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/06/07/MN251808DH.DTL
Desperate to plug California's gaping budget hole, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has turned to an idea he has long opposed - offshore oil
drilling.  Schwarzenegger has thrown his support behind a Texas company's proposal to tap an oil field just off the coast of Santa Barbara County. Drills lowered from an existing oil platform near Vandenberg Air Force Base would bore as many as 30 wells into the seabed over the life of the project. The state could reap $1.8 billion in royalties over 14 years.  Viewed on an annual basis, that isn't much - just over $100 million a year. But with California's government facing a $24.3 billion deficit and literally running out of money, the Tranquillon Ridge drilling project would give the governor a rare new source of revenue.  To critics, that smacks of selling out California's treasured coast.

Some others just don't get it.

Democrats may make trouble for climate bill

Check out this page:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22836.html
Green technology should be shared
Big business is gearing up to fight the use of green technology by developing countries seeking to reduce carbon emissions
Mark Weisbrot
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/may/19/wto-climate-change-intellectual-property
The battle over intellectual property rights is likely to be one of the most important of this century. It has enormous economic, social and political implications in a wide range of areas, from medicine to the arts and culture - anything where the public interest in the widespread dissemination of knowledge runs up against those whose income derives from monopolising it.

Others, well...

Lindsay Lohan fears becoming an out-of-work actor

"Washington, Mar 1 : Hollywood actress Lindsay Lohan has admitted that she fears becoming an

But don't give up hope until the end...some countries DO get it...
The Carbon Tax Has Proven Its Effectiveness in Sweden
Sweden, which has just taken over the European Union (EU) presidency for six months, is attempting to convince its European partners to follow its example by instituting a carbon tax. "A carbon tax affects many more waste products than does the system of a market trading carbon emissions quotas," asserts Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren. "But, take care," specifies Ministry spokesperson Mattias Johansson, "we're not talking about a European tax. Every country would assess its own carbon tax.
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Including, amazingly, THIS ONE:
New standards could cut tax breaks for corn-based ethanol
--------------------
Rules proposed by Obama administration set the stage for a battle between Midwest grain producers and environmentalists who say the gasoline additive actually worsens global warming.
By Jim Tankersley
Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed renewable-fuel standards that could reduce the $3 billion a year in federal tax breaks given to producers of corn-based ethanol. The move sets the stage for a major battle between Midwest grain producers and environmentalists who say the gasoline additive actually worsens global warming.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-corn-ethanol6-2009may06,0,2321568.story
AP NewsBreak: US wants to move on climate change
By JOHN HEILPRIN
The Obama administration, in a major environmental policy shift, is leaning toward asking 195 nations that ratified the U.N. ozone treaty to enact mandatory reductions in hydrofluorocarbons, according to U.S. officials and documents obtained by The Associated Press.  "We're considering this as an option," Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman Adora Andy said Wednesday, emphasizing that while a final decision has not been made it was accurate to describe this as the administration's "preferred option."  The change - the first U.S.-proposed mandatory global cut in greenhouse gases - would transform the ozone treaty into a strong tool for fighting global warming.
Read More...
Obama Pledges Public Works on a Vast Scale
Washington - President-elect Barack Obama promised Saturday to create the largest public works construction program since the inception of the interstate highway system a half century ago as he seeks to put together a plan to resuscitate the reeling economy.
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Vive le screed!