Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 1031
August 4, 2015
“Every story another tweaker told me while we were getting high”: A guide to the end of summer’s hottest books
For August, I posed a series of questions – with, as always, a few verbal restrictions – to six authors with new books: Kathleen Alcott ("Infinite Home," novel, out today) Dean Bakopolous ("Summerlong," novel, out now), Jennine Capó Crucet ("Make Your Home Among Strangers," novel, out today), Eileen G’Sell ("Portait of My Ex with Giant Burrito," poetry), Bucky Sinister (Black Hole, novel, Aug. 11), and Jonathan Weisman ("No. 4 Imperial Lane," novel, out today).
Without summarizing it in any way, what would you say your book is about?
G'SELL: Frank O'Hara, Anne Sexton, and Nicki Minaj roadtrip through the desert, smoke rising from the hood. Song, sadness, snow; beauty, death, and dessert.
Here’s your GOP debate lineup: Final roster set for Thursday night’s showdown
Fox News' poll window for the top 10 candidates to qualify for Thursday night's first GOP presidential primary debate closed at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, so we now know which candidates will make the cut and face off at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.
In averages of the most recent public polls, the top 10 candidates are as follows:
1. Donald Trump
2. Jeb Bush
3. Scott Walker
4. Mike Huckabee
5. Ben Carson
6. Ted Cruz
7. Marco Rubio
8. Rand Paul
9. Chris Christie
10. John Kasich
Neil deGrasse Tyson uses science to destroy the age-old racist “monkey” slur once and for all
Adam Goodes, the Australian rules footballer jeered by crowds for his celebratory Indigenous dancing, became the topic of global conversation this month. Many of these conversations forced Australians to reexamine the country's race problem, and shortly thereafter, a social media movement under the hashtag #IstandwithAdam was born.
On Monday, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson appeared on a panel for the Australian Broadcasting Association's Q&A where he was asked to comment on Goodes and race relations today.
Tyson, who said he wasn't at license to speak for Australia, offered, instead, a "cosmic" perspective on the news story.
"What we do in math is you separate the variables and what’s happening is all the variables are jumbled together and people are reacting but if you separate the variables, it can be revealing,” he said.
Tyson continued:
“For example, he is celebrating his score at the end of a game. Correct? I mean, during the game and he does it in a way that’s different from everyone else gesturally and, to me, that’s a form of freedom of expression, a freedom of speech. If you don’t like that, at some point you have to confess to yourself you’re not a fan of freedom of speech and so if you are going to do that, that’s a different country from what I understand Australia claims to be. That’s A.”
Smiling their way to the apocalypse: How the GOP could finally address global warming (and why they won’t)
Today, President Obama released the final version of his latest and boldest climate policy yet -- the Clean Power Plan -- which aims to lower the carbon emissions produced by power plants around the country.
Power plants produce the largest amount of carbon dioxide in the United States, and the EPA expects their carbon emissions to be about 30 percent lower in 2030 than they were in 2005, if it all goes according to plan. The policy will give each state an emissions reduction goal; it will be up to them to comply and submit a plan to meet that goal. Of course, we must assume that in certain states, where leaders still deny the existence of climate change, this plan will be fought -- and if this does happen, the EPA will have to impose its own plan. That is, after all, what partisan politics have come to in America.
The casual killing of blacks: When everyday activities trigger lethal force by the police
Not having a license plate on your vehicle, changing lanes to make way for a police cruiser, casually walking in the middle of the street: Apparently each of these actions has started a chain of events that has ended up with someone being killed by a police officer. And that someone has, in each of these cases, been black.
When I heard about the killing of Samuel DuBose, the first thing that came to my mind was, “That is the absolute worst instance.” But immediately after that I thought, “Well, I thought the same when Trayvon Martin was killed by a ‘security’ officer.” In actuality, to say “that’s the worst” implies a trajectory of ever-increasing evil. But the reality is that things have always been horrible in this country with regard to the casual killing of blacks.
The South’s faces of terror must go: Don’t let the Confederate flag fight go the way of gun control
The United Daughters of the Confederacy understood how power works. For the better part of the twentieth century, the United Daughters – along with other like-minded organizations – filled the South’s public spaces with monuments to their heroes. Statues dot town squares, parks, and university campuses, while public schools are emblazoned with the names of Confederate generals.
Confederate organizations knew that the symbols standing sentinel over public places reflected our values as a society. These symbols are also expressions of power – they demonstrate who controls the present as well as the past.
Six weeks after the mass killing in Charleston, we are living through a heretofore unimaginable moment. We should take this opportunity to make clear that the Confederacy’s values are not our own. In that spirit, we should come up with creative and meaningful ways to rename schools called Lee and Davis, to remake Confederate monuments (or tear them down if necessary), and to re-imagine our public spaces. The alternative is to let them stand. And if we let them stand now, they may continue to cast shadows over our public spaces for generations.
Jon Stewart changed everything: How “The Daily Show” revolutionized TV & revitalized the Democratic Party
In 2006, Tom Stoppard (our greatest living playwright if you haven’t heard) gave us "Rock ‘n’ Roll," a tale of personal conflict set amidst a political revolution. The play opens in late-'60s London as a piper (Pink Floyd’s Syd Barret) serenades a young girl from atop a garden wall. It ends in 1990 with the Stones playing Prague. Along the way, "Rock 'n' Roll" traces Czechoslovakia’s long road from Alexander Dubcek’s Prague Spring to Vaclav Havel’s Velvet Revolution. As Stoppard tells it, musicians -- Dylan, the Stones, the Plastic People, the Velvet Underground --led the way; that rock-and-roll is apt to foster freedom because it is rebellious even when it isn’t political. He says it often works this way: artists leading politicians to democracy.
On Thursday, Jon Stewart, perhaps our greatest political satirist, bids us farewell, for now at least. No matter when he chose to go, it was bound to feel like the worst possible time. Stewart has spent 16 years pleading for a rebirth of democracy in America. Our national circumstances are, in a way not disimilar from those of the Czechs a generation ago: our culture more democratic than our democracy; our politicians silenced not by a communist dictatorship but by their own corruption. So we too look to our artists for political leadership.
The conservative plot for more abortions and bigger government: The surprising consequences of defunding Planned Parenthood
Anti-abortion lawmakers say they'll stop at nothing to defund Planned Parenthood. Energized by dubious claims that the venerable health-care organization is “selling baby parts,” 18 of them vowed last week to shut down the entire federal government rather than give it so much as a penny from the public trough.
The great irony is that if these conservative hard-liners actually got their way, it would result in many, many more abortions in the US. They can rail about “killing babies” from the floor of Congress, and they can compare abortion to the Holocaust, but in the real world, this is the only possible outcome.
It's easy to understand why. By law, Congress doesn't give Planned Parenthood a dime for abortion services. The organization is the top recipient of Title X grants, which subsidize an array of family planning services for low-income women. Among other things, Planned Parenthood's grants cover some (but not all) of the cost of providing contraceptives to 2.5 million women who happen to be at the highest risk of an unintended pregnancy.
Don’t look now, but the TPP just hit a major snag
Since the passage of fast-track authority, the biggest obstacle to more corporate-written international trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has not been unions or environmentalists or public health advocates. It’s been the calendar. And jostling by TPP member countries over domestic priorities may have just created such a calendar problem that we will not see a deal completed by the end of the Obama presidency.
Ministerial meetings in Maui last week were supposed to end in an agreement between the 12 nations negotiating TPP. But those talks broke up on Friday without a breakthrough. Officials played down the differences, claiming that anywhere from 90 to 98 percent of the details have been finalized. But the outstanding issues involve the basic building blocks of a trade agreement -- specifically, what industries get tariff elimination and unfettered market access, and which remain protected.
Here’s how we beat the billionaires: The simple campaign reform Sheldon Adelson & the Koch brothers fear
Politics, as the Republicans are again learning, always offers a crash course in humility.
The GOP establishment is currently paying for years of courting Donald Trump (Mitt Romney flying to Las Vegas to receive his endorsement in 2012) as the King of the Comb-Overs flirts with a third-party run.
Then there was the GOP's early embrace of Super PACs as a way of erasing Barack Obama's fundraising edge as an incumbent president. Now five years later, Super PACs are scuttling the plans of Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus for an orderly nomination fight that ends in March or early April with a consensus nominee.
With Super PACs, all it takes is a billionaire and a dream.
That, more than anything, explains why an unprecedented 17 Republicans have declared for the nomination. In prior years (as 2011 presidential dropout Tim Pawlenty knows well) the challenge of competing with well-heeled candidates was daunting when the maximum individual contribution was $2,500. (The amount is indexed to inflation and is currently $2,700).
