Now That’s A Commencement Address May 29, 2009March 15, 2017 But first . . . TXCO Ugh. Of all the oil-and-gas speculations in the world, I had to stumble into this one? It went from $4 to a high of $14 or so, but is now in Chapter 11. My profound apologies. TBT Suggested here at $36 six months ago, I sold some at $56 yesterday. First off, it’s not as cheap as it was; second, as noted here, these two-for-one-leveraged exchange-traded funds have a high frictional cost. Then again, it’s hard for me to see investors not at some point demanding a higher interest rate to lend to the U.S. Treasury for 20 years – that case is made here among many other places – so I am holding some, as well. DIESEL Mike Baker: ‘Peter’s links for diesel pollution seem to be about 10 years old. What about the ultra low sulfur diesel they sell now? California now permits the new diesel cars. So there must be a difference. I get around 43 mpg with my 02 VW Jetta TDI. And that includes lots of fast highway.’ Stephen B.: ‘Diesel gas cost less than regular the last month. And new technology and low sulfur diesel together now combine for lower emissions than gas engines – or so they say. I have had my Mercedes E class diesel for 3 years and get 32 miles per gallon driving regularly. Imagine – a full size luxury car getting that mileage. Several friends have followed suit and gotten the same results.’ Diane McComb: ‘We really like our 2009 VW Jetta TDI Clean Diesel. Here is a link to the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission showing that our diesel car is approved for use as a New York City taxicab. I think that says something good about its emissions! Every other car listed there is a hybrid (except the Ford Crown Victoria Stretch).’ Sarah Johnson: ‘Diesel Fuel is actually a misnomer. It is petroleum fuel that can be burned in a Diesel engine. Rudolph Diesel invented the engine, not the fuel, and he invented the engine to run on vegetable oil. It will burn any oil that has the right viscosity to be delivered into the combustion chambers. Standard Oil managed to co-opt the word diesel after Diesel died and used it to market their more viscous product that couldn’t be burned in a carburated engine. If you burn vegetable oil or biodiesel fuel in a properly tuned diesel engine, you don’t have the cancer-causing pollutants. In any case, burning gasoline also creates cancer-causing pollutants. It would be great if we had a completely overhauled transportation system that resulted in less pollution everywhere.’ ☞ My vote: rooftop and window-film solar, someday, that power your home and recharge your electric car. MARRIAGE POLLS J.R. Pitts: ‘You write: ‘If the vote were held again today my guess is (and polls show that) it probably would go the other way.‘ [Here, here, and here are polls that suggest otherwise.] You don’t even pretend to have journalistic integrity anymore, do you?‘ ☞ I think there was a poll taken shortly after November’s vote and ensuing protest – a poll I can’t find now but that had stuck in my mind unless I just dreamt it – showing that 8% who voted against marriage would have changed their vote had fully grasped what they were doing. But J.R. is right to remind readers: the nature of this page is that not everything is fact-checked or rendered with perfect recall. One of the great things about it for me is that – as with this item and the diesel item above – you will often find a correction or amplification a day or two later as, from all of you, I learn more. That said, I do think Californians will come to a different result the next time civil marriage equality is put to a vote. And now . . . Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009 University of Portland, May 3, 2009 When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was ‘direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.’ Boy, no pressure there. But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation. . . but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades. This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food, but all that is changing. There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done. When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refugee camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums. You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way. There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world. Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown – Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood – and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history. The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich. The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe, exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.” So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past. Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television. This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it. Paul Hawken, environmentalist and entrepreneur, is the author of, among much else, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.
We’ve Put On 1,100 Pounds May 28, 2009March 15, 2017 HUGE NEWS Remember Bush v. Gore? Ted Olson argued for Bush (and was later his Solicitor General), David Boies argued for Gore. Now the two have teamed up to argue for marriage equality. ‘We believe this is the kind of matter where Americans must come together and recognize the rights of all citizens,’ Olson told the Associated Press. ‘For a long time I’ve personally felt that we are doing a grave injustice for people throughout this country by denying equality to gay and lesbian individuals,’ he told The Advocate. 39 MPG Bill Kistler: ‘The Bride and I laugh every time we read about better automobile mileage in your column. Honda made the CRX in the ’80s which consistently got 40 and 50 mpg plus – no special tricks, just made them that way. So the answer is just get the manufacturers to do what they already can (and did) do.’ ☞ Here‘s a great piece that explains how Honda could manage that – the CRX was 1,100 pounds lighter than today’s Prius – and the trade-offs involved. DIESEL Peter K.: ‘Before you go out and buy a diesel vehicle like the VW TDI Diesel Jetta that Stewart Dean recommended, first you should know: 1) diesel exhaust is poison, far worse than gasoline exhaust – as explained here. (‘The cancer risks from diesel emissions are about ten times higher than the cancer risks from all other hazardous air pollutants combined.’) And here. (‘The American Lung Association and the EPA have estimated that soot pollution causes more than 4,700 premature deaths annually in just nine major American cities.’). . . . 2) when you can find it, diesel fuel costs about 20% more than regular gas. . . . 3) the EPA ratings for his VW TDI Diesel Jetta are 30/41 city/highway mpg versus 48/45 for a Prius. He may do better with his diesel but so do Prius drivers; the new EPA figures are underestimates. I averaged 45 mpg with my Honda Civic hybrid, driving like a typical driver here in Massachusetts, where ‘hypermiling‘ means 75 mph. . . . 4) Off the highway, hybrid and electric vehicles get much better mileage because they use ‘regenerative braking’ to recoup the energy normally lost when you slow down. A hybrid’s engine turns off when you stop, saving fuel and avoiding pollution during traffic jams.’ ☞ But those pollution links are old and lately diesel has not been more expensive than gas. Stay tuned. Tomorrow: A Truly Great Commencement Speech
Hypermiling May 27, 2009March 15, 2017 DROPPED MY WEDDING BAND DOWN THE DRAIN! Remember Apollo 13, where the astronaut’s wife is showering at the beginning of the movie and drops her wedding band down the drain – an omen? If only she had seen this. (Thanks, Roger.) GOOD MORNING Twenty seconds to start your day. (Thanks again, Roger.) PAINT CHIPS! You will recall the amazing Sherwin-Williams house-visualizer I have previously linked you to. And you probably know that iPhone app where you hold the phone up to some music that’s playing and it figures out what the music is (and offers to sell you the album). Well now comes Sherwin-Williams free ColorSnap app. Take a picture with your iPhone, move your finger around the phone to the spot you want to match – and voila! It tells you exactly what color that is and suggest some secondary colors that would go nicely with it. LUKE ASKS FOR THE SAME RIGHTS AS HIS SISTER California voters rescinded the right to marry, but if the vote were held again today my guess is it probably would go the other way. People’s minds are opening, just as they once opened to allow mixed-race marriages of people like Justice and Mrs. Clarence Thomas. Ads like this one, from the Empire State Pride Agenda, are part of the reason. 39 MPG Stewart Dean: ‘Ho-hum. Right now my VW TDI Diesel Jetta when driven with mild hypermiling gets 65-70 MPG locally and 50-55MPG on the highway. That’s right: better mileage locally because my speed is lower, and speed kills . . . your fuel mileage. Travelling at 55, I get 50-55MPG, at 65-70, I get 40-45MPG. Air resistance is a killer. In silly old Europe with high fuel taxes, half the cars are diesels. High mileage is here now: buy a diesel.’
39 MPG May 26, 2009March 15, 2017 We both deserved a holiday yesterday, but a relentless pursuit of truth, justice, and the American way knows no rest. So if you missed yesterday’s column, it’s here. Today’s is here: BATTERY BREAKTHROUGH It runs on air (sort of). And whether or not this is “the” breakthrough, it’s just one more sign that – if as a species we play our cards right – bright days lie ahead. But in the meantime . . . UNDERSTANDING THE CHRYSLER BAILOUT The senior bondholders are getting almost nothing and the unions wind up with 55% of the company – how can that be? It turns out this makes sense. You can read more detail here, but the essence is that Chrysler without the government bailout is being valued at $2 billion – and the senior creditors are getting every penny of that. (If you think Chrysler without a government bailout is worth more than $2 billion, step right up and make an offer.) The government is under no obligation to bail out bondholders, and sees no pressing national need to do so . . . so that $2 billion is all they wind up getting. Pennies on the dollar. But then, with “old Chrysler” dead and buried, with no remaining creditors as it emerges from bankruptcy, the government invests in new Chrysler, providing cash to give it a chance to remake itself. In exchange for a 55% stake in the new company, Chrysler’s workers agree to major contract concessions. However it ultimately plays out (and perhaps similarly with GM), there is considerable thought behind the process. If it works, the taxpayers may even one day get some or all their money back. 39 MPG BY 2016 Meanwhile, the agreement to up fuel efficiency “CAFE” standards to 39 mpg for passenger cars by 2016 is a bold move toward reduced dependence on foreign oil and reduced carbon emissions. Predictably, the Wall Street Journal takes a dim view, noting that consumers have shown no interest in buying fuel efficient cars when gasoline is under $4 a gallon, and dismissing the possibility of our ever imposing taxes that would create such a floor. (In silly old Europe, gas always costs double or triple the price here, with that added tax going to pay for, oh, I don’t know – free health care?) But gasoline surely will cost more than $4, either because revived demand drives the price back up and/or because we come to our senses and – yes, I know this is America, but will we ever* do the smart thing? – tax it more heavily. *Quoting a broken record on this point (myself): “Were we wise, in 1973, after the first OPEC oil shock, to keep the government from ‘intervening’ with a thoughtful reorientation of our federal tax system? Namely, by lowering the income tax on work and investment (both of which we want to encourage) and replacing that lost revenue by raising the federal tax on gasoline consumption (which we want to discourage) by, say, a dime a gallon per year – forever – thereby to encourage fuel efficiency? The failure of government to meddle in this way has had monumental, tragic consequences for our country. (And, by the way, we should still do it.) Had we taken this step in 1973 or 1974, our auto industry today would lead the world in fuel efficient technology; we would, as a nation, collectively be untold trillions of dollars wealthier (for not having had to send those untold trillions overseas to buy oil); we’d enjoy greater national security; Ford’s preferred dividend would be as solid as a rock.”
Rich on Rights; Gourevitch on Torture May 25, 2009March 15, 2017 THAT NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER AND HIS MORTGAGE Turns out, there’s more to the story. Did Edmund Andrews mention anywhere in his article or his book, Busted, that his wife had twice before declared bankruptcy? Chivalrous of him to leave that out; but, as Megan McCardle notes for The Atlantic, relevant to his tale. Writing of this new twist, Andrew Leonard complains, ‘One of Busted‘s selling points is the level of personal detail Andrews provides about his finances and his marriage. To leave out a detail so relevant to his tale of debtor’s woe smacks of outright dishonesty – and it’s exactly the kind of behavior that you would hope a New York Times reporter would avoid at all costs.’ Nor is Leonard buying Andrews’ response. THAT NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST AND EQUAL RIGHTS Get on the stick, Mr. President, writes Frank Rich of the need to provide LGBT Americans equal rights under the law. I have no doubt the President will get there in his careful, thoughtful, deliberate – successful – way. So a few months or even a couple of years more or less may not seem to matter (unless you’re an Arab linguist who just lost his job or a widower who can’t collect survivor benefits). But 40 years after the Stonewall ‘riot’ that marked the beginning of the modern gay rights movement – and with the Democrats controlling Congress and the White House – impatience is understandable. Frank nails it, as usual. BASEJUMPING Andy M.: ‘I liked your ‘vacation planner’ – but those slides were nothing! Have a look at this video of basejumpers.’ WATERBOARDING This conservative radio talk show host lasted six seconds, and observed: ‘It is way worse than I thought it would be. It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.’ JESSE VENTURA WAS WATERBOARDED . . . . . . and told Larry King: ‘It is no good, because you – I’ll put it to you this way: you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.’ ☞ In other words, it can get you to say anything. But what Larry might have followed up to ask: ‘Can it get you to reveal important secrets?’ We hope the answer is ‘no!’ because then there’s no dilemma. Sure, we should never do it because it’s torture . . . but, by the way, it doesn’t work anyway. The more difficult question is whether to do it if it does work. The answer is still no in almost any conceivable realistic situation (you know ’24’ is not realistic because Jack Bauer’s cell phone never drops a call). As suggested by this McClatchey Newspapers report, former Vice President Cheney has been misleading us: [Cheney] quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a “deeper understanding of the al-Qaida organization that was attacking this country.” In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information “was valuable in some instances” but that “there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.” A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general’s investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any “specific imminent attacks,” according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month. FBI Director Robert Muller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn’t think the techniques disrupted any attacks. AND THEN THERE’S THIS . . . Abu Ghraib was perhaps even worse than you thought. According to this by Philip Gourevitch, the soldiers who tried to reveal Abu Ghraib for what it was were rewarded not with Pulitzer Prizes but with prison. If you think we didn’t torture (we did), read this. If you think the additional photos should have been released (Gourevitch doesn’t), read this, too. Tomorrow: 39 MPG
Memorial Day Weekend May 22, 2009March 15, 2017 Summertime is here at last and thoughts turn to travel. Do not miss this 60-second video. And then perhaps take a quick run through these remarkable slides. (Thanks, Alan.) [Gary Diehl: ‘Quick browser tip. Often you run across small video clips that lack the ability to be full screened. In Firefox or IE this is an easy fix. Just hold down Ctrl and click + a few times. The screen will zoom to where you want it. When you’re done, pressing Ctrl and Zero jumps you back to normal.’] Enjoy the long weekend! And remember our fallen heroes.
Oh, That Rumsfeld May 21, 2009March 15, 2017 NOT SO HIGH ON WOLFRAM Well, Google may not be out of business quite yet. THAT NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER AND HIS MORTGAGE Stephen Gilbert: “Why is it that I feel buying Andrews’ book, reviewed here, will save him from a fate he deserves?” DEFICITS Rob Meeker: “I refer your Bush deficit questioner to the following Frontline report on the deficit, which comes down hard on Bush’s refusal to reconsider tax cuts in the face of war and other expenses during his term. They make a particular point of how Reagan and Bush Sr. both adjusted their agendas in the face of events. Bush Jr. would not.” SO IT WAS A HOLY WAR AFTER ALL Arlen Long: “The first paragraph in this article (“The Bush Legacy and the Fog of War”) pointed me to this amazing, devastating GQ (GQ!) article (“Rumsfeld’s effect on Bush’s legacy”).” ☞ Which then links to this must-see slideshow of formerly top-secret daily intelligence briefings Bush got from the Secretary of Defense. Each cover featured a Biblical quotation (e.g.: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”) ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY Andrew Zachary: “Well, if it’s astronomy pictures you want [Friday’s post], here are some amazing sites run by amateurs. The technology now available for CCD imaging is so advanced that 20 years ago these photographs would have been the envy of any professional observatory. Some still are, particularly the ones from Robert Gendler or the ones from Russell Corman. And if you want to think about vast numbers of stars, this photograph of the Andromeda Galaxy would qualify. There are roughly 1 trillion stars in this galaxy, or nearly 10 million times as many as in [Friday’s] photograph of the globular cluster in our own galaxy known as 47 Tucanae.”
Notre Dame "A Single Garment of Destiny" May 20, 2009March 15, 2017 But first . . . THE DEFICIT Joel Margolis: “For most of the Bush administration you constantly harped on the fact that Bush was responsible for an irresponsible rise in the National Debt. I’m waiting for even one column from you arguing (admitting) that Obama is worse.” ☞ There was no need for big deficits (if any) when Bush was in office. There is a huge need for one now. Launching a war of choice and “financing it” with tax cuts was a disaster, as was allowing the housing bubble to get so preposterously out of hand. Also, to the extent these deficits are investments in infrastructure, etc., that is a totally different kind of deficit from one incurred to enable the wealthy to throw more lavish parties and buy larger boats. Thanks for considering my view. LET US SERVE Last month an Arabic linguist West Point grad; this month a highly-decorated combat pilot. This new case, and perhaps Aubrey Sarvis’s compelling account of it – “Air Force Boots Their 25 Million Dollar Aviator (He’s Gay)” – just may be the final straw. Like that moment in the McCarthy hearings half a century ago when Joseph Welch confronted McCarthy: “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” Meanwhile, Nathaniel Frank adds to the case for letting us serve. And, really, I should stop there – just reading the first link above will eat up the five or ten minutes some of you allot me each day – but I just found the following so inspiring, and indicative of the kind of man we’ve elected, I didn’t want to delay posting it any longer: NOTRE DAME JV: “If you missed Pres. Obama’s commencement address at Notre Dame, here are the text and video. Another exercise in excellence.” . . . . . Your class has come of age at a moment of great consequence for our nation and the world – a rare inflection point in history where the size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake our world to renew its promise; that we align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age. It is a privilege and a responsibility afforded to few generations – and a task that you are now called to fulfill. This is the generation that must find a path back to prosperity and decide how we respond to a global economy that left millions behind even before this crisis hit – an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day’s work. We must decide how to save God’s creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it. We must seek peace at a time when there are those who will stop at nothing to do us harm, and when weapons in the hands of a few can destroy the many. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity – diversity of thought, of culture, and of belief. In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family. It is this last challenge that I’d like to talk about today. For the major threats we face in the 21st century – whether it’s global recession or violent extremism; the spread of nuclear weapons or pandemic disease – do not discriminate. They do not recognize borders. They do not see color. They do not target specific ethnic groups. Moreover, no one person, or religion, or nation can meet these challenges alone. Our very survival has never required greater cooperation and understanding among all people from all places than at this moment in history. Unfortunately, finding that common ground – recognizing that our fates are tied up, as Dr. King said, in a “single garment of destiny” – is not easy. Part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man – our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin. We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice. And so, for all our technology and scientific advances, we see around the globe violence and want and strife that would seem sadly familiar to those in ancient times. We know these things; and hopefully one of the benefits of the wonderful education you have received is that you have had time to consider these wrongs in the world, and grown determined, each in your own way, to right them. And yet, one of the vexing things for those of us interested in promoting greater understanding and cooperation among people is the discovery that even bringing together persons of good will, men and women of principle and purpose, can be difficult. The soldier and the lawyer may both love this country with equal passion, and yet reach very different conclusions on the specific steps needed to protect us from harm. The gay activist and the evangelical pastor may both deplore the ravages of HIV/AIDS, but find themselves unable to bridge the cultural divide that might unite their efforts. Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son’s or daughter’s hardships can be relieved. The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side? Nowhere do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion. As I considered the controversy surrounding my visit here, I was reminded of an encounter I had during my Senate campaign, one that I describe in a book I wrote called The Audacity of Hope. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an email from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life, but that’s not what was preventing him from voting for me. What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my website – an entry that said I would fight “right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” The doctor said that he had assumed I was a reasonable person, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, “I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.” Fair-minded words. After I read the doctor’s letter, I wrote back to him and thanked him. I didn’t change my position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that – when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do – that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground. That’s when we begin to say, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions. So let’s work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women. Understand – I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it – indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory – the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature. Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words. It’s a way of life that has always been the Notre Dame tradition. Father Hesburgh has long spoken of this institution as both a lighthouse and a crossroads. The lighthouse that stands apart, shining with the wisdom of the Catholic tradition, while the crossroads is where “…differences of culture and religion and conviction can co-exist with friendship, civility, hospitality, and especially love.” And I want to join him and Father Jenkins in saying how inspired I am by the maturity and responsibility with which this class has approached the debate surrounding today’s ceremony. This tradition of cooperation and understanding is one that I learned in my own life many years ago – also with the help of the Catholic Church. I was not raised in a particularly religious household, but my mother instilled in me a sense of service and empathy that eventually led me to become a community organizer after I graduated college. A group of Catholic churches in Chicago helped fund an organization known as the Developing Communities Project, and we worked to lift up South Side neighborhoods that had been devastated when the local steel plant closed. It was quite an eclectic crew. Catholic and Protestant churches. Jewish and African-American organizers. Working-class black and white and Hispanic residents. All of us with different experiences. All of us with different beliefs. But all of us learned to work side by side because all of us saw in these neighborhoods other human beings who needed our help – to find jobs and improve schools. We were bound together in the service of others. And something else happened during the time I spent in those neighborhoods. Perhaps because the church folks I worked with were so welcoming and understanding; perhaps because they invited me to their services and sang with me from their hymnals; perhaps because I witnessed all of the good works their faith inspired them to perform, I found myself drawn – not just to work with the church, but to be in the church. It was through this service that I was brought to Christ. At the time, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was the Archbishop of Chicago. For those of you too young to have known him, he was a kind and good and wise man. A saintly man. I can still remember him speaking at one of the first organizing meetings I attended on the South Side. He stood as both a lighthouse and a crossroads – unafraid to speak his mind on moral issues ranging from poverty, AIDS, and abortion to the death penalty and nuclear war. And yet, he was congenial and gentle in his persuasion, always trying to bring people together; always trying to find common ground. Just before he died, a reporter asked Cardinal Bernardin about this approach to his ministry. And he said, “You can’t really get on with preaching the Gospel until you’ve touched minds and hearts.” My heart and mind were touched by the words and deeds of the men and women I worked alongside with in Chicago. And I’d like to think that we touched the hearts and minds of the neighborhood families whose lives we helped change. For this, I believe, is our highest calling. You are about to enter the next phase of your life at a time of great uncertainty. You will be called upon to help restore a free market that is also fair to all who are willing to work; to seek new sources of energy that can save our planet; to give future generations the same chance that you had to receive an extraordinary education. And whether as a person drawn to public service, or someone who simply insists on being an active citizen, you will be exposed to more opinions and ideas broadcast through more means of communications than have ever existed before. You will hear talking heads scream on cable, read blogs that claim definitive knowledge, and watch politicians pretend to know what they’re talking about. Occasionally, you may also have the great fortune of seeing important issues debated by well-intentioned, brilliant minds. In fact, I suspect that many of you will be among those bright stars. In this world of competing claims about what is right and what is true, have confidence in the values with which you’ve been raised and educated. Be unafraid to speak your mind when those values are at stake. Hold firm to your faith and allow it to guide you on your journey. Stand as a lighthouse. But remember too that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen. It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us, and those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own. This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open, and curious, and eager to continue the moral and spiritual debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame. And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works, charity, kindness, and service that moves hearts and minds. For if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together. It is no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism. It is, of course, the Golden Rule – the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated. The call to love. To serve. To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth. So many of you at Notre Dame – by the last count, upwards of 80%—have lived this law of love through the service you’ve performed at schools and hospitals; international relief agencies and local charities. That is incredibly impressive, and a powerful testament to this institution. Now you must carry the tradition forward. Make it a way of life. Because when you serve, it doesn’t just improve your community, it makes you a part of your community. It breaks down walls. It fosters cooperation. And when that happens – when people set aside their differences to work in common effort toward a common good; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another – all things are possible. After all, I stand here today, as President and as an African-American, on the 55th anniversary of the day that the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Brown v. the Board of Education. Brown was of course the first major step in dismantling the “separate but equal” doctrine, but it would take a number of years and a nationwide movement to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all of God’s children. There were freedom rides and lunch counters and Billy clubs, and there was also a Civil Rights Commission appointed by President Eisenhower. It was the twelve resolutions recommended by this commission that would ultimately become law in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There were six members of the commission. It included five whites and one African-American; Democrats and Republicans; two Southern governors, the dean of a Southern law school, a Midwestern university president, and your own Father Ted Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame. They worked for two years, and at times, President Eisenhower had to intervene personally since no hotel or restaurant in the South would serve the black and white members of the commission together. Finally, when they reached an impasse in Louisiana, Father Ted flew them all to Notre Dame’s retreat in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, where they eventually overcame their differences and hammered out a final deal. Years later, President Eisenhower asked Father Ted how on Earth he was able to broker an agreement between men of such different backgrounds and beliefs. And Father Ted simply said that during their first dinner in Wisconsin, they discovered that they were all fishermen. And so he quickly readied a boat for a twilight trip out on the lake. They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history. I will not pretend that the challenges we face will be easy, or that the answers will come quickly, or that all our differences and divisions will fade happily away. Life is not that simple. It never has been. But as you leave here today, remember the lessons of Cardinal Bernardin, of Father Hesburgh, of movements for change both large and small. Remember that each of us, endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God, has the grace to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we all seek the same love of family and the same fulfillment of a life well-lived. Remember that in the end, we are all fishermen. If nothing else, that knowledge should give us faith that through our collective labor, and God’s providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other’s burdens, America will continue on its precious journey towards that more perfect union. Congratulations on your graduation, may God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.
Top Tunes from 1958 May 19, 2009March 15, 2017 YOUR OWN OLDIES JUKE BOX Click on any year from 1955 through 1995 (in the right column) and a Juke Box pops up with 20 hits of that year. (Thanks, Roger!) PUTTING STEPHEN COLBERT’S BIRTHDAY TO GOOD USE Seriously! Click here. You can help a whole classful of kids. WOLFRAM Alan Rogowsky: “This is amazing.” WHY NO WOMEN? Marie Coffin: “Yesterday you presented ‘a little math proof’ (from your readers) of the fact that if you take a two-digit number and subtract the digits, you get a number divisible by 9. However, you’re not giving yourself enough credit. You actually proved this already in Friday‘s column. Your explanation . . . ‘Start out with 10. Subtract 1 and 0 from 10 and you get 9. From there on in, the die is cast. Because when you go up to 11, you are adding one more – but also subtracting one more. So still 9’ . . . is called ‘Proof by Induction’ – in this case, you have proved the statement not only for all two-digit numbers, but in fact for all numbers greater than or equal to 10. I think this also answers your question ‘But no women. What’s up with that?’ We were all smart enough to see that you had already provided the proof, and no further proof was needed. :)” ☞ I love it! Tamara Hendrickson: “You note that you didn’t hear from any women. Disappointing but not surprising from my perspective. I have a Ph.D. in Bioorganic Chemistry from Caltech and I can enumerate several occasions where people of influence, including teachers, mentors, and peers, tried to hold me back with a ‘Girls can’t do math’ or ‘You will only succeed because of affirmative action’ kind of attitude. Some interferences were trivial while others were devastating. For example, when I was in 4th grade, I was in a 4th and 5th grade combination class and so I was able to do fifth grade math that year. When I got to fifth grade, my new teacher told me that she didn’t have time to teach me 6th grade math so she made me do 5th grade math again, same book and everything. Not only did I lose a year of math education but I certainly took the message home that she didn’t think I was ready for 6th grade math. I don’t know a woman scientist who doesn’t have at least one story like this. Maybe she would have taken the same attitude if I was a boy, but I can’t think of a single male scientist that I know that recalls a story of being held back or discouraged. We still live in a society where it is sometimes hard for many women to feel comfortable eagerly demonstrating math or science skills. The net effect is not only that woman are going to by shyer about writing you about things like this but also that women still seriously lag behind men in careers in math and the sciences, particularly for career paths that require graduate level education. (It is getting better every year though!) When I started my first job as a chemistry professor in 2000 I was the only female faculty member in a department of 19. It was four years before a second woman was hired. (While I am on a soapbox about women in science, I should mention that African American and Latino representation in the upper level sciences is even worse. Most chemistry departments do not have even a single faculty member of color.) Pat F.: “If you (a) pick a number, (b) switch any number of digits and (c) subtract the larger from the smaller, the result is divisible by nine. EX: 1234 -> switch 2 and 3 to get 1324 -> 1324-1234 = 90. TA DA!! Who cares? You do. Suppose you are trying to balance your checkbook and you and the bank don’t agree. Look at the difference between you and the bank. If it is divisible by nine, you might have switched two digits in recording. I have used this and it has kept me from looking stupid in arguments with my bank.”
A Gripping Tale of Mortgage Madness May 18, 2009March 15, 2017 But first . . . REPUBLICANS’ MORE BUSINESSLIKE APPROACH TO DISCRIMINATION As reported here: SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday. . . ☞ He’s spot on, which is why the GOP should come out against marriage generally, not just same-sex marriage. Married workers cost more if you provide family health insurance. So the smart hiring order is: single people first; and then married gay people (who are less likely to have kids needing health insurance and more likely to have working spouse’s with their own health insurance), and then, if you absolutely must, married heterosexual couples. It’s just good business. THE TEST TUBE Meanwhile, Massachusetts has had marriage equality for five years. A sort of test tube for the rest of the country. This site – from advocates of marriage equality – considers the pros and cons. What effect have the 10,000 same-sex marriages had on “the institution of marriage” – other than allowing 20,000 more citizens to affirm its value? One encouraging finding: statewide support for marriage equality has increased ten percentage points since it was enacted. That suggests that, with time, some of the fears and uncertainty resolve themselves, as people come to understand that love is not a zero-sum game. The happiness of one couple need not come at the expense of another. EVEN FINANCIAL WRITERS GOT CAUGHT UP IN THE MORTGAGE MADNESS Stephen Gilbert: “Did you see this? A first person account of how a couple fell into the mortgage pit. The victim, however, is a financial writer for the New York Times. I can think of a $5.99 paperback (I bought it a long time ago) that could have saved him a load of grief.” ☞ The 48-year-old financial expert with a near-perfect credit score borrowed $414,000 on take-home pay, post alimony and child support, of $2,777 a month. The monthly payments were $2,500. His new wife kicked in, but soon their combined credit card debt was $50,000, a good chunk of it at 27% annual interest. They solved that problem, paying off the cards by taking out an even larger mortgage at a higher rate . . . then his wife lost her job and the mortgage payments became impossible, a problem they solved by not paying it. It’s been eight months of non-payments, and still this is not a home in foreclosure (the banks are backed up). And when you read the story, it almost seems . . . well, not reasonable, exactly, but, well . . . NINE Mark Budwig: “You wrote: ‘Start out with 10. Subtract 1 and 0 from 10 and you get 9. From there on in, the die is cast. Because when you go up to 11, you are adding one more – but also subtracting one more. So still 9.’ The correct meaning of ‘the die is cast’ is identical to ‘the dice are cast’ – that is, events are set irrevocably in motion and the outcome is in the hands of fate. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he had no idea how things would work out, just that as Fortune’s Favorite, he would prevail. The die was cast.” Bryan Norcross (and Jim Roberts and Ken Doran and Rob Gordon and Nick Watson and Michael Haynes and James Ooi and Toby Gottfried and Andrew Klossner and several others*): “You asked, ‘Why does any two-digit number – when those two digits are subtracted from it – become a number divisible by 9?’ A little math proof: If a two-digit number is AB [with A in what my first-grade teacher Mrs. Green used to call ‘the tens place’], it is equal to: 10xA + B. Adding the two digits together is: (A + B). Subtracting the two digits from the two-digit number is thus expressed: 10xA + B – (A + B). The B’s cancel each other and you’re left with: 10xA – A . . . which is 9xA (ten times something minus one of those somethings leaves you with nine of them). And any number that is a multiple of nine is also, of necessity, divisible by nine.” * But no women. What’s up with that? Artie: “Forget two-digit numbers; if you take ANY whole number – 4,875,331, say – and subtract from it the sum of its digits, the result will be divisible by 9.” ☞ Artie goes onto to explain the math and asks me to put him in touch with any of you whose kids may need math tutoring in Manhattan. Just one more service bundled into the cost of your subscription.