"George Bush Hates People"

I really have to stop reading progressive news websites. They are starting to freak me out. There was an article on how the Katrina disaster may increase U.S. awareness on climate change, but it will likely not change U.S. (Bush Administration) policy. Here is a tidbit:

The United States, a profligate energy user and where mobility is almost considered a right, accounts for a quarter of global greenhouse-gas emissions. After taking office in 2001, President George W. Bush walked away from the UN's Kyoto Protocol pact to curb the so-called greenhouse-gas emissions, caused by burning oil, gas and coal, which trap solar heat and thus warm Earth's surface. Bush not only questioned the scientific evidence for global warming -- he also said that pledges made by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, would be far too costly for the oil-dependent US economy to implement....The mounting evidence is that global warming is already causing Earth's fragile climate to change -- and hurricanes, pumped up by warmer water in the tropical western Atlantic, may be becoming more vicious and possibly more frequent too....But at present there is almost no talk in the United States about addressing the roots of the problem. Right now, the emphasis is on beefing up coastal zoning regulations and building codes and restoring natural wetland buffers in order to reduce the human toll to hurricane-prone areas...In the mainstream media, no voices are heard that call for tougher gasoline efficiency standards or curbing carbon pollution spewed by coal and oil plants. Americans are "geographically illiterate and historically illiterate," said Troyt York, president of the American Institute of Urban and Regional Affairs, which promotes sustainable development. "If you talk to them about global warming, they have no idea." Bush will remain steadfastly opposed to Kyoto's binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and promote his strategy of a voluntary approach.

As usual, THANKS SO MUCH, George.

Donkey Balloons and Cassandra

As it turns out, we may have gone to the Anne Arundel County Fair on "Republican Appreciation Night" or something. After I emailed my sad experience to the rest of my MoveOn group, one of the women wrote back saying, "I was at the fair Friday evening from 4-7. Everybody had Dem balloons. We gave out oodles and oodles. We replaced lost balloons and every kid, even the ones in strollers, had a Dem balloon -we must have easily outballooned the Republicans 50 - 1. We had myriad people sporting Dem stickers...We also had a woman change her registration to Dem from Rep while I was there...We may have been too generous with balloons!" Ok, so now we know where all the donkey balloons went.

Speaking of where balloons go, I noticed last week that Trader Joes gives out balloons that are biodegradable. Amazing. I love that store.

I also read a great article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called "We Can't Say We Weren't Warned." http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0921-25.htm It makes the point that Katrina shows how we have neglected environmental concerns for too long. Here is an excerpt:

On this larger issue, the science is perfectly clear. We are dangerously degrading our biosphere, and for decades policy-makers have been warned of the dire consequences of ignoring this systemic environmental decline. As with New Orleans, we are all living on borrowed time. We are rapidly approaching a planetary tipping-point from which there will likely be no recovery. But just as with Katrina, governments have ignored warnings of global ecological collapse as well. How much longer can we afford such shortsighted, selfish ignorance?

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was bestowed the power to foretell the future but no one would believe her. She warned of a Trojan Horse, to no avail. The rest, as they say, is history.

Will we as a society learn from this perfect storm, reaffirm our "respect for nature" and attend to our deteriorating planetary life-support systems before it's too late, or not?

When will we ever learn?

Elephant Balloons

We went to the Anne Arundel County Fair on Saturday night. Azalea pretty much touched all of the livestock there was to touch, including a few of the blue ribbon winning goats, sheep and cows. All four of us also went on the ferris wheel, and it took all the strength I could muster to keep Desi from wriggling out of my arms and climbing out of the car. Dang, that was scary. We also tried to put Desi in a little car ride with Azalea, but he (as usual) Houdini-ed his way out of the seat belt thingie and stood up in the seat just as the ride started. Luckily, Craig quickly reached over the fence and grabbed him out of the car just as they got going. Okay, so maybe putting Desi on carnival rides isn't a good idea right now. But he did so well at the Rehoboth Beach Amusement Park...

It was also a politically disheartening evening. There was an Anne Arundel Republicans booth and an Anne Arundel Democrats booth. I stopped briefly at the Dems booth to meet Dr. Jim Corwin, one of the guys who is running against Wayne Gilchrest. He seemed very personable and enthusiastic, but was clearly disappointed when I told him I wasn't a registered Democrat (I'm an I).

Both of the booths had stickers and informational flyers, and the Repubs had elephant balloons for the kiddies. Anyway, the Fair was positively filled with people sporting Ehrlich stickers and carrying those darn elephant balloons. I saw only two other people at the whole Fair who had Dem stickers on (and one of them didn't look like she was old enough to vote). It was depressing.

I guess the Dems at the booth got depressed, too, because they had closed up their booth and left by 10 p.m. or so while the Repubs were still there going strong until closing time. (The Dems also ran out of balloons by the time we got there -- I'm hoping it's because so many people took them, but I think the reality is that they didn't bring enough.) Man, I really wanted to bust all of those elephant balloons. Craig started getting annoyed with me because I was so worked up over all of this. But it wasn't just the elephants.

There was also a Confederate Flag paraphernalia booth and tons of people walking around with the Confederate flag on their shirts, on bandanas, etc. I saw one confederate t-shirt that said, "If you're offended by this shirt, you need a history lesson." I really wanted to approach that kid (bucktoothed pimply teenager type) and ask him to give me a history lesson to see how he would justify it. Next time I see that shirt, I'm going to ask the wearer to edumacate me.

Afterwards, I wrote a bummer of an email to my local Moveon group members, telling them about the whole sad experience. If we have any hope of getting rid of Bobby "Ignore the Chesapeake" Ehrlich, keeping Michael "Empty Suit" Steele out of the Senate, or even replacing Wayne "He's been there too long" Gilchrest, we are going to have to bust our bums.

Rock You Like a Hurricane

Azalea and I went to the White House protest the Administration's slow initial response to Hurricane Katrina -- this was the first weekend following the hurricane, when there were still people stranded in New Orleans and FEMA officials still wandering around scratching their heads.

My old high school friend, Blakely, whom I hadn't seen since high school graduation, was driving down to DC from Michigan to do this protest in front of the White House. At any rate, we had fun agitating Republicans, and Azalea had a nice time dancing barefoot in front of the White House. Blakely and Jay (her boyfriend) had a great experience talking to people, and said that they enountered only 5 people all day who approached them and said that they disagreed. Of course, 2 of those 5 came along while we were there. One of them said something like, "New Orleans has so much money. Those people aren't as poor as you think. They could pay for all the damage from Katrina from money made during Mardi Gras." Yeah, I'm sure that all those people in New Orleans (which has one of the highest rates of people living at or below the poverty line in the country) see a lot of that money that rolls in during Mardi Gras...

Idiots, I tell ya.

An Azalea Sky

Back in August, we went to Craig's summer-league beach volleyball picnic, where Craig and Lee actually won a first-place trophy! But one of the best parts of the evening was the amazing sky/sunset we experienced while we were there.