Best in Show

A quick excerpt from, again, Michael Moore's (Stupid White Men) - but that'll be the last. And it brings up a discussion point below. He places the US among the top 20 industrialized nations.

"We're #1 in per capita energy use
#1 per capita municipal waste generated
#1 per capita carbon dioxide emissions
#1 in lowest voter turnout (that may soon change)
#1 in likelihood of children under the age of 15 to die from gunfire
#1 in daily per capita consumption of calories"

And for the backers of 'small government'...
"#1 in the least amount of tax revenue generated (as a percentage of gross domestic product)
#1 in least amount of federal and state government expenditure (as a percentage of GDP)"

My point is, the US is used to being in a league of its own. What happens when it no longer is the most important country on this planet? It soon won't be the biggest market anymore (China) - still, I doubt that the US is psychologically equipped to deal with this sort of rejection or indifference.

ha ... finally a second of blogging peace

I'm gaining a whole new understanding for a famous person which I will name later on in this blog, but not yet for the sake of suspense. All the info below (unless sarcastic and unless otherwise noted) is thanks to a book by this guy.

Grab a bit of fresh air before you read this... our topic today is Waste!

The largest monument (by volume) in the Americas was the Sun Temple in Mexico. These days in San Fransisco, the main landfill is 5 times the Sun Temple. (What a monument we are leaving to future generations, what a testament to our ingeniosity...)

The Fresh Kills (what a name) Landfill on Staten Island (for NYC's garbage) will soon be the "highest point on the Eastern seaboard south of Main". (courtesy of a Newsweek story). It had to apply to the FAA for a permit because it poses a threat to aircraft.

Baltimore was negotiating with China to dump its crap in Tibet (both saw the situation as a massive win, Tibetans were not invited to discuss the topic, but eventually international pressure prevented that scheme was being realized).

"A cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" (Oscar Wilde)

"There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the earth as if it were a business in liquidation" (Herman Daly)

The author also points out that, really, we "ought to understand the economic significance of a healthy environment as a kind of infrastructure supporting future productivity". (At this point he is particularly peeved that economists fail to take external costs, 'externalities' per the Damsetz model of property rights, such as the price of polluting smoke into account in their economic analyses, based on the fact that it's hard to calculate).

Now, I'm only half-way through this book, Earth in the Balance, and it's already yielding tons of valuable stuff (only some of which is noted above). The book is on my reading list for my Engineering for Sustainable Development class, and the author is none other than ... Al Gore. Interesting, isn't it, that the guy has such insight, knowledge, and interesting things to say. Depressing though that while living in the US during the 2000 elections, I had no idea the guy was one of the most environmentalists of the Senators. What is that a tribute to: the guy's bad campaign or the insanity of the US election process and the need to rush to the center?

As a side note, he brings up an interesting insight into the French Revolution. Chapter 3, called "Climate and Civilization: A Short History" covers our vulnerability to a slight disruption in the expected weather patterns. For instance, the "year without a summer" of 1817: the explosion of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia saturated the air with thick dust for a few years, reducing the amount of sunlight, causing lowered temperatures and resulting in massive starvation and revolutionary fever worldwide. Similarly, part of what sparked the French Revolution could be the explosion of the Asama volcano in Japan. Whoever thought global impact was a new thing?


Thanks to Catherine for passing along the following url: http://www.electoral-vote.com . Which highlights for those not living in the UK (!), that the BBC leaked a Florida republican reports on (allegedly unconstitutional) tactics to disrupt African American voting.
Also an interesting story from the LATimes on the election as a cultural war, not an economic election. I like the story, but hasn't the US always been massively divided on these issues (e.g. abortion & religion)?

Well, while we are getting ready for the stay-up-all-night election night here, where we'll watch Outfoxed & Fog of War and the numbers come in, (and like 1/3 of Americans we're worried about massive mess-ups a la Florida'00), life tends to go on - despite Michael Moore's personal plea in my inbox the other day to let the dirty socks pile up and do nothing but activism work from now until the end of the election. In fact we went to a lovely (lovely and brilliant are soo British words) formal dinner last night at St. John's, a 500 year old gorgeous college, with the company of the members of the Cambridge Pugwash society.

I hope you're all well. A +.

phugh

FISH. I miss good seafood, fresh sushi and real ethnic variety, beyond the English curries and English fried food.

Cambridge pics

I've been getting some requests for what Cambridge looks like. A good (albeit fairly standard) place to start with is http://www-digitalstudios.arct.cam.ac.uk/shapewalks/home.aspx . Some nics pics if you click on the Historic Highlights title. You gotta keep in mind though that it's all fairly tiny: it'll take you about 5 minutes to go around the center of town. And if you're wondering where I am in all this, i'm about a block behind number 11 on the HH map, and my department is across the street from number 15, same map. Still, everyone gets around town on a bike. Which is great except for the lucrative business of stealing all of the university students' bikes (reports of bikes stolen within the first or second day of ownership - with a good lock - are not uncommon). I had to use the bike yesterday to get back and forth quickly for a meeting, as a result of which I spent the entire lecture wondering if it would still be there. (Almost).

[Oh and a quick note on the meaning of 'college' for the americans: college here is a subdivision of the university. Everyone belongs to a college. It's got nothing to do with your department though. You pay your fees to your college. Your sense of loyalty (should) go to your college, and most people sleep in their College and eat there. For undergrads as well, it makes a big difference as all the tutorials are taught by the college. Not the same big deal for post-grads though. There's just over 30 of them in Cambridge, each with its own building and peculiarities in terms of history but also traditions for formal hall. Oh and each college has a different set of colors, so different scarfs, t-shirts and assorted paraphernalia.]

I came to a sad realization on Wednesday night: I'm the oldest of the women in the program. And by a few years... I was actually proud of being the only married woman (as Val is well aware!), but being the 'doyenne' is perhaps something i wasn't prepared for. I'm so used to being the absolute youngest in a group. No worries, i'll get over it in no time. Besides, some of the men in the class are in their 40's, and one is just about twice my age.

that's all folks for today...

initial ramblings

Arg. This is trial number 3 and my posts keep disappearing. So here we go again... after much prodding from various friends upon our departure from Seattle, I jump into the Blogging world. This won't be the expected "intro to life in Cambridge" though, given the timing of things, here are a few ramblings based on a summer reading (Michael's Moore Stupid White Men).

Don't expect all postings to be political or controversial though, in fact I hope that some will be generally enjoyable.

With that said, some scary considerations:

• 67% of people on welfare are children (who still wants to cut welfare?)
• 40% of women who divorce between the ages of 25 and 34 end up in poverty.
• The US is one of a very select group of countries in the world to execute both children and mentally disabled. Somalia is the only other country who did not sign the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Iran, Nigeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan are the only other ones who want to be able to execute their juveniles. That's some good company...
• If you agree with the principle that you can judge a society by the way it treats its weakest members, that doesn't bode well for the US. Consider another population group: in some counties, only 1 in 900 defendants have a jury trial, all others are (politely?) asked by the PD to sign a guilt plea, regardless of whether they in fact are guilty. 1 in 900, that's some stark odds...
• John Gray points to a 'policy of mass incarceration'; 'imprisonment as a means of social control on a scale beyond all others except Russia'. If you then realise that in the UK less than 1 in 1,000 are in prison and that in the US it's about 1 in 100, and that the UK is generally agreed to be a safer place, when then: are US citizens 10 times more dangerous on average, or is there something else going on?

Ok, well if you're this far, let me change topic for a second.

Yes, Cambridge is a bit odd and some of the buildings are 800 years old. Yes, graduation is done in Latin (as is Oxford's by the way). Yes, some colleges require you to wear a graduation-type gown to dinner. And Yes, you are mandated to live within a 3 mile radius of the city center if you wish to receive a degree from this institution (the radius is a bit bigger for PhD students, but not much). That's all for today's taster.

A +.