November 9, 2007

Friday link round up

by Sylvia S Tognetti

a few links worthy of attention:

Apocalypse Now: the drought.  Rick Perlstein puts the drought and wildfires into political context and sees an apocalypse for the conservative vision of government. And not just because both the House and the Senate voted to override  Bush's veto of the first water bill in 7 years. I can't find a way to excerpt it without spoiling the punchlines - just read it.

Via Climate Science Watch - a feature article by Chris Mooney in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, about what made the the National Assessment of Climate Change unique, and how it was suppressed. This is an issue that I have been following for a long time, and have intended to blog but haven't, because I haven't had the time to do it justice. More on that in the not too distant future.

Al Gore on "30 Rock", spoofing NBC's Green Week - Huffpo has the video  - for whatever it is worth, he seems to have lost some weight.

 

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 10:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 23, 2007

Blogroll addition

by Sylvia S Tognetti

After all of the blog commentary there has been about the infamous article in the New York Times, I really wanted to hear what Al had to say about it, and it sounds like he was in fact prepared and eager to respond to it until Inhofe so rudly cut him off and prevented him from answering Inhofe's own questions. Now that Al has a blog, maybe he can answer it there.

Welcome Al! If you happen to read this, you too have an open invitation to join the Post-Normal Times Advisory Board.

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 8:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 11, 2007

blog maintenance

by Sylvia S Tognetti

I'm redirecting feeds to feedburner - if you do not see any posts after this one by sometime Monday, you may need to reload the feed, or I may need to find out what I did wrong. More soon...

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 11:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 12, 2007

No more test posts

by Sylvia S Tognetti

I promise - no more test posts. The technical issues seem to have been resolved and some changes were made that should make this site work better. Apologies to anyone who might have reached this site when it was in a state of suspension, or who, like James Annan, might tried to tried to comment. Instead, he wrote his own post regarding Paul Baer's post on The worth of an icesheet which has generated some discussion on his blog. That post was also linked to by John Quiggin who has a number of thoughtful posts on the subject.

After spending much of the week learning more than I ever wanted to know about Movable Type I have to do some real work but, over the weekend, will see if I can get the index page to list recent comments and will add a link to the comments feed, which is: http://www.postnormaltimes.net/blog/comments.xml

I also look forward to continuing the books discussion started in the last post on science and policy interfaces. Another blog I would like to acknowledge, that regularly links to climate related posts here, is A few things ill-considered, by Coby Beck, who has written the best cheat sheet you can find for answering those tiresome, redundant and unsubstantiated arguments by the global warming "sceptics."

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 8:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 5, 2007

Blog-keeping

by Sylvia S Tognetti

This is just a test post - I seem to be having problems with my blog software which isn't sending out trackbacks or notifying technorati, and a few other things. I may try reposting the last entry again and delete the old one because this seems to happen when I post using 3rd party software rather than directly in the blog interface. This link is just to test the trackback.

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 11:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 3, 2006

Back by popular demand

by Sylvia S Tognetti

this is a test. I have a glitch that is preventing me from uploading images from my blog interface software. But this is a real image (uploaded directly) that I took last August during festivities at the Chicago AFSCME convention, that I attended as a guest of one of the delegates. There were several of these live statues at various points in the room, creating atmosphere.

Addendum: I didn't post this picture out of any nostalgia for the sixties, or any other idyllic once upon a time that never was when all was well, and science was used to prove it - instead of to identify new and unforeseen problems. But how else to respond to the revelation that the current National Strategy for Victory in Iraq comes right out of the playbook of Henry Kissinger, who, according to Bob Woodward, gave Gerson (Bush's speechwriter) a memo he wrote to Nixon in 1969? Unfortunately, it isn't news that policy is getting made by speechwriters. What is news is that, in a 60 Minutes interview about his book, State of Denial, Woodward essentially makes the case that Kissinger, along with Cheney and Rumsfeld who both worked in the White House during the Ford administration, are "fighting the Vietnam war all over again." Cheney even told Rumsfeld to "get it right this time." Not that some of us haven't suspected this based on inuendos from Bush et al that seem to lay the blame for all social dysfunction on the '60s. Upon seeing it confirmed by Woodward with actual quotes, I suspected Digby would be all over it it and sure enough, found a post on it. As he so eloquently put it:

The extent of Rumsfeld's screw-ups is well known by now, but this book seems to be asserting something about the war that is quite startling at this late date --- the real reason they were so anxious to go into Iraq come hell or high water. Yes, we know it was about oil and it was about Israel and it was about PNAC wet dreams and seven thousand other things. But I'm talking about the Big Reason, the one that united all these people: Iraq is their long awaited chance to do Vietnam right.

Stewart Ackerman, writing in TNR, elaborates on the myths developed in the 60's and 70's - that attributed the failures in Vietnam to anti-war sentiment, and shows how this framing is being used now by the War-niks to blame "overzealous opposition to misguided wars" rather than misguided wars or any kind of failure in U.S. foreign policy:

When Nixon prosecuted an even more savage war with no appreciable change in its fortunes, an emboldened Congress, led by Democrats, voted to cut off funding in 1974. This had an unintended and profound consequence. Suddenly, the right, which had spent the previous five years and the entire Johnson administration recognizing that the war was bleak, if not totally futile, had a new scapegoat: the forces that had ended the war before giving their preferred strategy time to work. Those forces were twofold: first, the representatives and senators who had betrayed the troops in the field; second, the antiwar movement that had pressured them to do so. ...

Democrats are, of course, not blameless. He also writes:

...it is a profound and painful thing to accept that one's country has involved itself in a futile or immoral cause; it is worse still to ask what intellectual or political mistakes led to such a nightmare. Faced with a disastrous war, the most important consideration is not "Were we wrong?" but "Why were we wrong?" and "How can we avoid being so wrong in the future?" These are questions that often will implicate the country's leading politicians and intellectuals, and its cherished myths. The anguish of confronting them has been on display in the Democratic Party's foreign policy debate for 35 years.

Back to Digby;

Republicans did worse than that. They nursed their grudges against the counter culture and turned them into an opportunistic partisan culture war. And the real pieces of work, the neocons and the partisan veterans like Cheney and Rumsfeld waited patiently until they got their chance to "do it right." Never having honestly assessed what went wrong the first time but merely laying facile blame on liberals and the anti-war movement, they have willfully made the same mistakes all over again and seem to have no more sense of their own responsibility than they did three decades ago....

...all their dirty linen is now being exposed. The macho GOP they've been selling for 30 years turns out to be a bunch of whiny cranks who are so obsessive about their youthful "failures" that they have spent their entire lives getting into a position that they could prove they were right after all. But it's clear that the modern Republican party is incapable of governing a superpower. They have no capacity for self-analysis or learning from their mistakes so they cannot be trusted to learn from this two term debacle of terrorist attacks, unnecessary wars, economic insecurity, corruption and now even covering up for known sexual predators rather than risk their hold on power....

...It is long past time that Democrats killed the 60's albatross the Republicans hung around their necks more than three decades ago and throw the dead carcass right back at them. This country's problems are not caused by unreconstructed hippies ruining the political system. The problem today is the eternally resentful, unreconstructed anti-hippies who somehow got psychologically paralyzed by the events of that time.

To wrap up what was just suppose to be a test post, those now occupying the White House are obviously incapable of learning anything, particularly from their own mistakes, and will undoubtedly continue to find scapegoats make excuses for them by leaning on uncertainty, and muttering about untidiness and threats from unknown unknowns - which make learning imperative. Rapid changes in climate alone have put us in uncharted territory.

So now what? George Soros in his new book the Age of Fallibility, that he discussed in an interview on C-Span, suggests that, for the US to be again be a world leader, it has to contribute to solving common problems of humanity, of the kind that cannot be addressed without collective action, like global warming, the energy crisis, and nuclear proliferation. And, of course, building the capacity to govern that matches up to the capacity we have developed to destroy the entire planet. He also points to the leadership role taken by the United States after World War II, when it sponsored the United Nations and initiated the Marshall Plan. Since then, we have had a Cold War that was also devastating. What is sorely missing now, besides leadership and accountability, is a plan for Post-Cold War Reconstruction.

More later on implications for science. Stephen Colbert has The Word on Kissinger.

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 9:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 25, 2006

housekeeping

by Sylvia S Tognetti

Over the next few days this site getting a software upgrade and, finally, a comments feed. So there may be some disruption - but not for long. Hopefully this will solve the problem also of having to do a "site rebuild" to get comments to actually show up.

update: the blog software has been upgraded and the comments should work better now. There is a comments feed but I haven't yet added it to the template because when I start trying to do things like that, days can disappear... but soon enough, there will be a comments feed.

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 7, 2006

March on Washington, New Orleans style

by Sylvia S Tognetti

In a previous post, I said, "maybe we need a Mardi Gras parade through Congress or something." Well, here it comes... Next Tuesday, March 14th at 2 pm, there will be a New Orleans style second line march from the Capitol to the White House led by the Rebirth Brass Band. Rally in Lafayette Park from 3pm till midnight. Besides being the Ides of March, March 14th is the eve of when those displaced by Katrina are scheduled to be evicted from hotels without any place to go. The Gulf Coast Renewal Campaign is calling for a halt to the evictions until transitional and long-term affordable housing is available and is campaigning for passage of the "Hurricane Reclamation, Recovery, Reconstruction and Relief Act" to provide more comprehensive assistance. to Katrina survivors and enable them to rebuild their communities.

For more info click here.

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 5:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 10, 2006

Traffic report

by Sylvia S Tognetti

Welcome to visitor number 10,000*, who followed a link here from Effect Measure, where you can find out everything that is and isn't known about Avian Flu. So, with kudos to Revere, I'll take the opportunity to post a few comments on environment and public health. For some reason, there seems to be more general acceptance of uncertainty on health matters than on, say, climate. At least I have never heard Bush say it was necessary to have certainty that the Avian flu has mutated before making decisions, even if his decisions have left much to be desired. And those who have serious ailments have no problem with the idea of getting second and even third professional and other opinions about what to do, and aren't surprised to get different answers.

There is another observation I have been wanting to make. Public Health docs seem to have no problem taking on the political battles needed to promote public health. In fact, the Code of Ethics of the American Public Health Association requires this:

We promote the scientific and professional foundation of public health practice and policy, advocate the conditions for a healthy global society, emphasize prevention and enhance the ability of members to promote and protect environmental and community health.

as do the AMA Principles of Medical Ethics:

III."A physician shall respect the law and also recognize a responsibility to seek changes in those requirements which are contrary to the best interests of the patient."

And its a good thing too. Otherwise, our rivers might still be valued more as sewers, and our lives more miserable and short. In many places in this world, they still are.

So why is it that, in the environmental arena, scientists still dance around taking positions on policy issues? Hopefully, this is changing. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is somewhat of a breakthrough in that it explicitly connects ecosystems - which happen to also be the source of avian flu - to human well-being. The connection to human well-being is also implicit in the concept of ecosystem services, which refers to economically significant benefits that ecosystems provide for humans. More on that later.

~~~~~~~~~~~

*At least according to site meter. I have no idea how many visitors this site has actually had. Statistics provided by my webhost show over 40,000 visits and over 12,000 unique visitors. Of course, that includes RSS feeds, admin, and peddlers of poker and piills (I delete about 75 spam comments and trackbacks a day. My apologies if I have accidentally deleted anything legit.) This blog was launched last February.

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 7:39 PM | Comments (0)

January 7, 2006

Housekeeping

by Sylvia S Tognetti

If you read this blog from an RSS feed, without actually clicking on the page, you probably miss the revisions I always feel compelled to make the next day. Like in the last two posts. Just so you know.

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 1:20 PM | Comments (1)

November 15, 2005

Constructive reconstruction

by Sylvia S Tognetti

If you think that almost 100 years of experience might improve response time for a disaster that is well anticipated, see this post by the Questionable Authority (and comments), regarding response to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

Once the first responders to a disaster have done their job, and media coverage begins to fade, comes the hard and perhaps the most critical part - the reconstruction, which in the case of the Gulf Coast will shape the future of the whole country. So there is another new blog worthy of a regular read is the Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, part of a project of the Institute for Southern Studies, to keep this process accountable and constructive. They are also accepting anonymous tips and monetary contributions towards an Investigative Fund so as to be able to provide comprehensive coverage of both the good and the bad, and identify actions that are needed.

Lastly, for those of you in the DC area, Margie and her band, Disaster Relief, continue their Round the Beltway Tour to raise Katrina relief funds. Next stop, Domku, tomorrow, Wednesday the 16th, 8:30 pm - in Margie's words:

Hey y'all!!!

Just wanted to let you all know me and my band Disaster Relief are continuing our Refugees Round the Beltway tour. Next stop: deej out at Domku! If you haven't been to Domku, now's your chance to munch on some great food, drink butt kicking Belgian beers, and hang with great friends on a Wednesday night! It's at 821 Upshur St NW in Petworth. Kickoff is at 830p! Join me and my unusual suspects: LT King on Drums, Don Fede on bass, the fabulous Sandy Bishop on vocals, and guest performers Bruce Blaylock on guitar, Paul Hyland of the Oxymorons and Moshe Adler on percussion, and very special guest John Penovich on guitar. (You might know him from a little ol band called the Cravin Dogs!!!) Not that the rest of my band isn't very special, but you know what I mean. Anyone else want to join the band? Let me know!!!! Doornation is $5 most of which is going to MusiCares cuz they were kind enough to hook me up after the storm [that would be Katrina, you short-memory freaks --ed] Also: Save the date of Tuesday December 13! We're planning a Christmas Extravaganza at Bangkok Blues with Disaster Relief and the Oxymorons!!!!

Thanks to all of you for your support. So far we've managed to raise over $3,700 for Share Our Strength, Habitat for Humanity and New Orleans Blues Queen Marva Wright. Your contributions are greatly appreciated. Hope to see you Wednesday!!!!

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 1:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 10, 2005

Regime change?

by Sylvia S Tognetti

I just stumbled over another related blog during some late night surfing - Resilience Science - which seems to have started around the same time as PNT - the more the merrier! For your reading pleasure, a good post discussing regime change that may be underway - but not the kind any one wants. It is in the arctic. Roger Pielke Sr. also elaborates. I have added both to the blogroll - along with the blog of James Annan, who has been challenging so-called climate skeptics to put their money where their mouth is, and Stoat (aka, William Connolley) who "takes science by the throat" with good discussion of the latest findings in climate science. In other additions to the sidebar, James Risbey has been added to the PNT Board of Advisors. PNT has also joined the Circle of Science Assessment, where you can find links to more science and policy blogs. Given that I have had some deadlines, this blog has gone off on a few tangents lately - but a number of actual science and policy posts are brewing.

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 12:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 4, 2005

Come out and welcome Marvalous Marva to the DC area

by Sylvia S Tognetti

This announcement was buried at the bottom of the last post, but for today, it is much more important than Brownie's e-mails, so I'm putting it at the top o' the blog. If you are in the DC area, please come out to Bangkok Blues in Falls Church this evening from 7-11 pm, and give a warm welcome to the Marvalous Marva Wright, Queen of the Blues, and some other displaced musicians who lost everything in New Orleans, including my friend and part-time music goddess, Margie Perez who will do the opening set with her band, Disaster Relief. The details:

A Special Fundraiser and Performance by Marva Wright, the Blues Queen of New Orleans

Marva Wright will be reunited with her close friend and bandleader, bass player and vocalist Benny Turner (brother of the late blues guitarist Freddie King). Both Marva and Benny lost everything in New Orleans and he is now based on the West Coast as she tries to rebuild her life here in the DC-Baltimore area. Joining Marva on stage will be one of the area's finest blues guitarists, Robert Lighthouse as well as Pete Locke on keyboard, L.T. King on drums and Tala Faral from Madagascar on sax. The evening will begin with a performance by the award-winning singer-songwriter Margie Perez and her band Disaster Relief featuring Fritz Myer on guitar and flute, Don Fede on bass, L.T. King on drums, and Tala Faral on sax . She too lost everything to the floods following Katrina.

Tickets: Minimum $15 (ahead) $20 (door)

Net ticket proceeds will go to Marva Wright.

Bangkok Blues is located at 926 W. Broad St. (or Rt. 7), Falls Church, VA; 703-534-0095 - they have a full menu of Thai food and appreciate advance notice of how many to expect. For more info about the performers see: Marva Wright ; Benny Turner ; and Robert Lighthouse

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 12:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 3, 2005

Brownie, self-proclaimed "Fashion God," asks to be rescued

by Sylvia S Tognetti

In this town, good image consultants get paid for an hour or two of work, what I make in a day. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that, as Katrina made landfall, "Brownie" was more preoccupied with when he could go home, and, with his attire. I really do have other topics I want to write about but, since Brownie is still on the federal payroll, and since he provides some transparency into how things get done, or not, in the Bush administration, and since disasters don't end when news coverage fades, a few excerpts from Brownie's e-mails(pdf):

Monday August 29th, 7:52 am (Mike Brown to Cindy Taylor, FEMA Deputy Director for Public Affairs): "Can I quit now? Can I come home?"

Monday August 29th, 8:51 am (Mike Brown to Cindy Taylor and Marty Bahamonde - the only FEMA employee in the region before landfall): "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god."

Other e-mails, from later that morning, at 9:39, 9:53, and 10:20, and 11:57 show that, contrary to his statements that he only learned of the breach in the levees on Tuesday, he was indeed informed on Monday morning, both of the breach in the levee, and of severe flooding. But for some reason, replied at 12:09 that he had been told that "water over not a breach."

By Friday September 2nd, he must have realized he was in way over his head - in another e-mail: "Last hurrah was suppose to have been Labor Day. I'm trapped now, please rescue me."

On Sunday September 4, he was advised by his press secretary, Sharon Worthy to: "Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this [crisis] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working.... ROLL UP THE SLEEVES"

More analysis is provided in this staff report prepared for Rep. Charles Melancon.

But that isn't all that happens in this town. If you live in the area, please come out to Bangkok Blues in Falls Church this evening from 7-11 pm, for:

A Special Fundraiser and Performance by Marva Wright, the Blues Queen of New Orleans

Marva Wright will be reunited with her close friend and bandleader, bass player and vocalist Benny Turner (brother of the late blues guitarist Freddie King). Both Marva and Benny lost everything in New Orleans and he is now based on the West Coast as she tries to rebuild her life here in the DC-Baltimore area. Joining Marva on stage will be one of the area's finest blues guitarists, Robert Lighthouse as well as Pete Locke on keyboard, L.T. King on drums and Tala Faral from Madagascar on sax. The evening will begin with a performance by the award-winning singer-songwriter Margie Perez and her band Disaster Relief featuring Fritz Myer on guitar and flute, Don Fede on bass, L.T. King on drums, and Tala Faral on sax . She too lost everything to the floods following Katrina.

Tickets: Minimum $15 (ahead) $20 (door)

Net ticket proceeds will go to Marva Wright.

Bangkok Blues is located at 926 W. Broad St. (or Rt. 7), Falls Church, VA; 703-534-0095

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 12:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 30, 2005

Something that we know IS happening, TODAY!

by Sylvia S Tognetti

As an almost life-long Washington area resident, the first public event I remember participating in was standing in a very very very long line at the Capitol, with my entire family, to pay respects to President Kennedy, when he was lying in the Rotunda. All I knew at the time was that the world had changed forever. The passing of Rosa Parks makes me wonder, what might have been, had some other people, inspired by what she did, not had their lives so rudely cut short. If you are anywhere near the Washington DC area, you need to turn off your computer shortly, and go pay your respects to Rosa. She will be lying in the Capitol Rotunda this evening from 6:30 pm to midnight, and tomorrow morning, from 7 to 10 am. If you have children, take them with you. They will never forget it.

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 11:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 6, 2005

Disaster Relief

by Sylvia S Tognetti

See Billmon for everything you need to know about the job qualifications of the current director of FEMA. Wait, there's more.

For those of you in the DC area, an announcement from The Deej:

fate has a way of toppling mighty oaks at our
feet. one can trip through the fallen branches,
or appreciate the new view. in the wake of
hurricane katrina, most of us are wondering what
we can do to help...

well, it just so happens that our previously
scheduled artist, MARGIE PEREZ, is a new orleans
resident who has almost no idea what to expect
when she finally makes it home. in the mean
time, MARGIE and her band have offered to make
their wednesday evening show at DOMKU a relief
effort.

MARGIE PEREZ with DISASTER RELIEF
DOMKU 821 upshur street nw (petworth)
music at 8.30
$5 "doornation" OR MORE!!

call 202-321-5077 (deej cell) for more
information.

SUPPORT THE ARTS AND DISASTER RELIEF

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 4:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 1, 2005

A few announcements

by Sylvia S Tognetti

If you read the previous post prior to 10 am EST/US, and found it worthwhile, you might want to check it again. After a good night's sleep, I couldn't resist adding another quote about what was actually learned from one of Oriana Fallaci's unabashedly biased interviews with history.

Second, if you are interested in "Procedures and Toolkits for Integrated and Participatory Analysis of Sustainability", Mario Giampietro is organizing a summer school session that will take place July 17-23, in Sangonara del Verde (near Murcia, Spain). For more information and for an application, please visit liphe4.

Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at 12:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack