Addressing income inequality

Thanks to Occupy Wall Street, our nation has finally started a long-delayed dialogue on income inequality. The Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, gives an overview of its negative effects:

Economists long ago tried to justify the vast inequalities that seemed so troubling in the mid-19th century—inequalities that are but a pale shadow of what we are seeing in America today. The justification they came up with was called “marginal-productivity theory.” In a nutshell, this theory associated higher incomes with higher productivity and a greater contribution to society. It is a theory that has always been cherished by the rich. Evidence for its validity, however, remains thin. The corporate executives who helped bring on the recession of the past three years—whose contribution to our society, and to their own companies, has been massively negative—went on to receive large bonuses. In some cases, companies were so embarrassed about calling such rewards “performance bonuses” that they felt compelled to change the name to “retention bonuses” (even if the only thing being retained was bad performance). Those who have contributed great positive innovations to our society, from the pioneers of genetic understanding to the pioneers of the Information Age, have received a pittance compared with those responsible for the financial innovations that brought our global economy to the brink of ruin.

Mr. President, should Timothy Geithner happen to step down as Treasury Secretary in your second term, would you please–for the love of all that is good in the world–hire Joseph Stiglitz? Just a suggestion.

The Quotable Tim Vine

I have a dentist appointment coming up soon. Like most this is not something that I look forward to. This funny quote on dentists helps a bit:

Now, most dentist’s chairs go up and down, don’t they? The one I was in went back and forwards. I thought ‘This is unusual’. And the dentist said to me ‘Mr Vine, get out of the filing cabinet.

Weekly A-Z Photo Archive: I-(Ineffable)

For this week’s ‘I’ archive, the word is INEFFABLE. I chose this beautiful picture of the setting sun because when I look at the sun in the sky I always think of its ineffable beauty and power. Here is the entry from the archives of our photography contributor for Nascence, Linda Kuster. Also, please check out Frizz who founded this photo challenge.

The Budget and NASA

The White House released its latest budget and, as expected, it took an ax to funding for NASA. As a space exploration enthusiast this is really disappointing. As a kid, I grew up in a state of unalloyed awe for the scientists/adventurers that sat astride thousands of pounds of fuel in order to breach the heavens and expand the scope of human knowledge. Phil Plait of the blog Bad Astronomy has an informative overview on what this means:

Overall? “Its budget overall drops from $1.5 billion to $1.2, a very deep cut that doesn’t just threaten but destroys near-future Mars exploration as well as future big grand missions to the outer planets in the tradition of Voyager, Cassini, and others.” On Mars exploration: “The President’s request for just Mars exploration is $361 million, a crippling $226M drop in funding over the FY12 estimate, a 38.5% cut.”

But, it is not all bad news. For instance, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST):

JWST is getting a large $109M (21%) increase as it gets nearer to completion.

Sunday music: Chemical Brothers-The Devil Is In The Details

I have yet to see the movie “Hanna” but I’ve listened to its soundtrack extensively.

Whitney’s zenith

Joe Levy over at The Hollywood Reporter makes a persuasive case for “I Will Always Love You” as Whitney Houston’s greatest hit.

As with so much pop music, it’s an enactment of American potential, an expression of an ideal of unity that is usually nothing more than that: an ideal. Except for the time it takes to listen to one song or to dance to another. Then it’s an ideal in action. Not for nothing was the other song consistently mentioned in the hours after Whitney’s passing her recording of “The Star-Spangled Banner” from the 1991 Super Bowl, an African-American reclamation of the national anthem less audacious than Jimi Hendrix’s or Marvin Gaye’s but no less powerful.

I am inclined to agree. When the song came out in November 1992, I knew nothing of the movie “The Bodyguard” but that voice was impossible to ignore. My entire family gathered around the television when the music video aired and drank in the performance. My family that did not eat dinner around the table or have family reunions would seemingly in spontaneous fashion gravitate to the living room whenever that song came on. She and her music were that beautiful and wonderful. That will be my enduring memory of her.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Indulge

Here is the latest selection from the photo library of Nascence photography contributor, Linda Kuster. This photo was taken at a patisserie in Paris and shows one reason why a person such as myself with an insanely large sweet tooth loves the city so much. This week’s theme is INDULGE. I hope you like this pic as much as I do.

Ohhhh, my mouth waters…

Therein lies the problem

Continuing on the ‘Concert of Democracies’ theme. I don’t usually agree with Jonah Goldberg but he has written an article on the UN that had me nodding. I frequently fall into my default setting of optimism, hope and idealism and forget that the problems with the UN are structural AND congenital. The handicaps for the UN were inserted at its inception. Here is a snippet of an article by Goldberg in the LA Times:

The Security Council isn’t a democratic entity; it’s based on brute force. Russia and China were made part of the permanent five members when they were totalitarian dictatorships. They have seats because they are powerful, not because they are decent or wise or democratic. And the same is true for us. Our seat was bought with might, not right.

I think part of the confusion stems from a category error. We tend to anthropomorphize countries, talking about them as if they were people. U.N. members vote for stuff, so people think it’s somehow democratic in more than a procedural way. But that’s not true. There’s nothing in the U.N. Charter — at least nothing that has any binding power — that says a government has to be democratic or even care for the welfare of its people. When the ambassador from North Korea claims to speak for his people at the U.N., it has no more moral legitimacy than a serial killer speaking for the victims he has locked in his basement.

The glorious sounds of Calgary

As I sit in a Butte Starbucks waiting for my car maintenance to finish I figured I might as well do some blogging. Hmmm, setting aside thoughts on what that means that I decide to spend all my time blogging…I recently had a glorious trip to Calgary. It was my first trip to western Canada and, it may be because of the great friends that I took the trip with as well, but I was really impressed with the city. My love affair with Canada continues. Over the next few days I will be sharing little notes and pictures as I travel eastward to Kentucky but I wanted to share Calgary with you as well. One of the first events that we (Jason, Preston and I) attended was a performance of some Mozart and Beethoven pieces by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. I love live music and it was really a revelation. We had seats behind the orchestra and I found myself constantly imagining being overcome by progressing and receding tides of auditory beauty. Seriously, I almost started sweating. And not all of that can be explained by the glass of wine I had before the performance ;)

I will post some more collages next of delicious food we had at a local Vietnamese pho shop, an incredible dim sum joint and a quirky eatery specializing in the Canadian specialty known as “poutine” called “The BIg Cheese” over what remains of this week.

A Concert of Democracies?

The US Ambassador to Nato, Ivo Daalder, recently held a public Q & A on Twitter and I posed the following question:

Sadly no response was forthcoming. I was really looking forward to his answer as someone who thinks that reform of international organizations is both an important line of academic research and an important practical necessity. Well, I thought to ask him about the potential for a ‘concert of democracies’ because the idea is thought to have first been outlined by Ambassador Daalder and James Lindsay. Here is an excerpt from their American Interest article entitled “Democracies of the World, Unite!”:

To meet the security challenges of the age of global politics, we need, as Francis Fukuyama has argued in these pages, forms of multilateral cooperation (whether institutionalized or not) that are both effective and legitimate.4 Great-power concerts, the United Nations and regional organizations cannot provide what we need. The solution lies instead in organizing the world’s democratic governments in a framework of binding mutual obligations. And precisely because the need for both effectiveness and legitimacy is so critical, by “organizing” we mean a Concert of Democracies with a full-time secretariat, a budget, ministerial meetings and regular summits. We are not proposing a photo-op bedecked gab fest.

First to the question of effectiveness. From the United States and Canada to India and Japan, from Brazil and Argentina to Botswana and South Africa, from Finland and Spain to Australia and New Zealand, the world’s democracies possess the greatest capacity to shape global politics. They deploy the greatest and most potent militaries; the largest twenty democracies are responsible for three-quarters of the resources spent on defense in the world today. Democracies also account for most of the world’s wealth, innovation and productivity. Twenty-eight of the world’s thirty largest economies are democracies. The average annual income of people living in democratic societies is about $16,000, nearly three times greater than the average income of those living in non-democracies. In the main, the people living in democracies are better educated, more prosperous, healthier and happier than those who live under authoritarian and dictatorial rule. Harnessing the power that comes from this overwhelming military, economic, political and social advantage would provide the necessary ingredients for effective international action.

What is interesting to me is that during the 2008 campaign, Arizona Senator John McCain, was a proponent of a concert of democracies while then Illinois Senator Barack Obama discounted the idea. And now we have one of the first people to articulate the idea serving in the Obama Administration. Obviously this one idea could not and should not serve as some kind of litmus test but it is comforting to know that those that fill our bureaucracy are not as anti-internationalist as the American populace generally.

Mardi Gras in Eunice

My sister and her family lived in Southwestern Louisiana in the small town of Eunice. I once visited and unfortunately it was not around the time of Mardi Gras. I did have a delicious gumbo though. As I prepare to leave the ranch for the last time I had the pleasure of sharing the treat of King Cake on this Fat Tuesday with a friend who also hails from The Pelican State. Here is a video of a Mardi Gras celebration in Eunice. Oh, and Happy Mardi Gras =)

Weekly A-Z Photo Archive: H-(Home)

For this week’s ‘H’ archive, the word is HOME. Here is a file photo of downtown Bardstown which will always be home no matter how far I venture. Also, please check out Frizz who founded this photo challenge.

The Quotable Kishore Mahbubani

“Before the onset of contemporary globalization, when humanity lived in separate countries, it was like living on separate boats. The international order essentially needed rules to ensure that the 192 different countries (boats) did not collide with each other and instead tried to cooperate. Today, we no longer live on 192 different boats. Instead, we live on 192 cabins on the same boat. However, we have no captain or crew to take care of this boat. We would never sail out to sea without a captain or crew. Yet the world is sailing into the future by weakening the institutions of global governance precisely at the time when they need to be strengthened.”

Sunday music: The Black Keys-These Days

My mouth waters…

I love surfing food blogs. It always makes for a mouth-watering experience. Here is one of the recent culprits from one of my favorite sites, Chow.com:

I hope to fix this soon. In case you do too, here is the recipe:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup whole milk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick), melted and cooled slightly
1 large egg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup strong brewed coffee, at room temperature

INSTRUCTIONS
Heat the oven to 350°F and arrange a rack in the middle. Coat an 8-by-8-inch square baking dish with butter and set aside.
Combine flour, 3/4 cup of the cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and whisk to break up any lumps. In a large bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup of the granulated sugar, milk, butter, egg, and vanilla until evenly combined and smooth. Add flour mixture to milk mixture and whisk until just combined (some lumps will remain).

Transfer batter to the prepared baking dish and spread evenly. Combine remaining 1/4 cup cocoa, remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar, and brown sugar in a small bowl until well mixed, then sprinkle over batter. Pour coffee over batter, do not stir, and place in the oven.
Bake until cake is bubbling, puffed, and set at the edges but still a bit loose in the middle, about 25 minutes. Remove to a rack and let cool 5 minutes before serving.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Down

Here is the latest selection from the photo library of Nascence photography contributor, Linda Kuster. This week’s theme is DOWN. I hope you like this pic as much as I do.

Senegal’s slow slide

One of Africa’s most stable democracies appears to be venturing into a precarious time. Abdoulaye Wade, the octogenarian President has over the course of his two terms attempted to chip away at the solid edifice of the nation’s democratic institutions. But the people are not taking it lying down. Alfred Stepan and Etienne Smith writing for Project Syndicate have a primer:

Wade has been tinkering with Senegal’s constitution in dangerous ways ever since he was inaugurated in 2000. Of the 15 changes Wade made to the constitution, ten weakened democracy; the others were erratic, if not bizarre. For example, Wade at one point abolished Senegal’s senate, only to reinstate it after realizing that it could be put to use as a place to reward political allies. Likewise, he reduced the length of presidential terms from seven years to five, but later restored it to seven.

In February 2007, Wade was re-elected as Senegal’s president amid opposition charges that the election had not been free and fair. As a result, the opposition boycotted the June, 2007, parliamentary elections. That was a mistake, because the boycott gave Wade absolute control over the legislature, as well as the ability to appoint Constitutional Court judges unimpeded.

As an activist for human rights and democracy this is troubling. Why do so many African statesmen find it so hard to relinquish their grip on power? Now, as a Green, I am a bit puzzled by the silence on the part of the Global Greens Movement considering that we will be having an International Congress just weeks after the first round of what promises to be a closely watched presidential election. If I am able to attend the Congress next month in Dakar I will loudly and proudly stand with those protesting against Senegal’s slide into authoritarianism.

The Quotable Steve Jobs

“Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Gratuitous pussycat: Saying goodbye to Leo and Viv

So in the course of my move to Kentucky and then to Hungary I’ve been stressed with the effort to find a home for my two-year old cats, Leo and Viv. I called several family members and unfortunately not one was willing to foster them while I was away. I was hurt by this because I consider my cats members of the family and assumed that my family would think similarly and was surprised to find otherwise. I waited until I had no other choice but had to take Leo and Viv to the humane society in Missoula. I was calling family right up until the moment I pulled into the humane society parking lot and unfortunately got no answer as I took my kitties into the waiting room. During the intake interview I cried a bit as Leo and Viv meowed.

Leo and Viv were found on the side of the road in Butte after their mother had been run over so I considered them very special considering their unfortunate situation. I adopted them when they were six weeks old and ever since the little orange furballs have been affectionate companions. During the intake interview I implored them to keep them together and they even assured me that they would notify me once they were adopted, which was thoughtful. I hope that they are adopted by a loving family as they deserve nothing less.

Weekly A-Z Photo Archive: G-(Go)

For this week’s ‘G’ archive, here is a beautiful photo of the Moon or Luna. The word is Go. And I chose this pic in the hopes that we will one day ‘go’ back to the moon. I am space junkie and am saddened by the decline in our space exploration program. Here is an entry from the archives of our photography contributor for Nascence, Linda Kuster. Also, please check out Frizz who founded this photo challenge.