Terry Cowgill

Remnick’s Revolt

My initial reax after seeing the New Yorker cover at right was: “What’s all the fuss about? It only a cartoon!”

Sometimes after proper reflection, I “refine” my positions, in the words of the male subject of the cartoon. Not this time. When I first saw it yesterday, I thought it was a mildly amusing slam against the ignoramuses who have used the Obamas as a vessel into which they pour their worst fears. And I’m sticking to my story.

The prevailing wisdom among Obama supporters such as Connecticut’s own Colin McEnroe is that the image is dangerous because “it’s quite likely to be circulated, out of context, among the credulous, as proof of something it was (I assume) meant to disprove.”

As I stated when I led off Colin’s thread, he seems to be suggesting that certain types of satire are out of bounds because packs of morons (who won’t vote for Obama anyway) might misinterpret what they see and spread it around the Internet to their fellow know-nothings.

I heard New Yorker editor David Remnick on an NPR interview yesterday with Michele Norris (she’s from Minnesota; why does she pronounce her name MEE-shell?). She asked him why the magazine didn’t do a better job explaining its cover — to which Remnick replied, “A satirical cartoon would not be any good if it came with a set of instructions.”

Continue reading Remnick’s Revolt…

A Laugh A Minute

You know, the presidential campaign is making great fodder for late-night comedians. That means people like me have plenty to write about and that we can all have a good laugh on a regular basis. Indeed it would be most amusing if the stakes weren’t so high.

Take Jesse Jackson’s recent “hot mic” comment about Obama “talking down to black people” and how the right reverend wants to turn the senator into a eunuch. Of course, Jackson’s crude comments are fed by two things: 1) Jackson’s jealousy that Obama has succeeded where he himself has failed (in case you’ve forgotten, Jackson ran for prez in ’84 and ’88).

But 2) there is a larger dynamic at work here. When Jackson accuses Obama of “talking down” to African Americans by highlighting the importance of their own personal responsibility for improving their lives, it bothers Jackson to no end.

What is wrong with delivering an empowering message to the African-American community, as Obama and Bill Cosby have?: “Yes, there is still racism is this country and we need to work hard to end it, but you can also do your part to help yourselves. Black men have to stop abandoning their families in such great numbers. Black parents have to do their best to emphasize to their children the importance of education.” and so forth.

After all, if you go through your life thinking the blame for every adverse circumstance you experience can be laid squarely at the feet of whitey, how will you ever improve your lot? It’s profoundly paralyzing and fatalistic.

Continue reading A Laugh A Minute…

A Windmill In Every Back Yard

All right! You go, Boone! An inveterate 80-year-old oil man, the legendary T. Boone Pickens, came out strongly today for alternative energy on the very conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page.

And I couldn’t agree with him more. Pickens trots out some interesting stats:

“In fact, if we don’t do anything about this problem, over the next 10 years we will spend around $10 trillion importing foreign oil. That is $10 trillion leaving the U.S. and going to foreign nations, making it what I certainly believe will be the single largest transfer of wealth in human history.”

If you are still inclined toward more domestic drilling as the solution to our energy problems, those are pretty powerful numbers, especially when you consider the U.S. has only 3% of the world’s proven oil reserves.

And I like Pickens’ emphasis on national security. This is an angle that could bring just about everyone together: conservatives who want to minimize our vulnerability to coercion at the hands of foreign governments; liberals who are concerned about the environment; and quasi-isolationist libertarians who value self-reliance.

Pickens prefers natural gas (for automobiles), and embraces wind and solar to replace the coal- and oil-fired electricity generation plants that foul our air. For some reason, he does not even mention nuclear power, which (as I have written before) could be an important piece of the energy independence puzzle.

For the record, I like windmills. Every time I see one, I’m reminded that there’s a little less crude oil we have to buy from some feudal monarchy in the Middle East that trains terrorists to blow up Americans.

Take a ride up Route 22 into Stephentown, N.Y., or up Route 7 into Pittsfield, Mass., near Lake Pontoosuc. An enormous windmill (see image at top of this post) rises up on a nearby ridge that cuts the electricity bill of the Jiminy Peak ski resort nearly in half. It is an impressive piece of machinery and a pleasure to look at.

And I don’t have a NIMBY attitude about them. I don’t have enough money to put one up, but if an energy company approached me about building one on my property, I would seriously consider it. Any offers out there?

Do Fireworks Cause Pollution?

Evidently, yes, but they don’t count in a city’s officially recorded pollution levels.

I was asking myself the same thing as I sat on the dock of my brother-in-law’s camp in the Adirondacks Friday night. At dusk, amateur gunpowder aficionados crowded onto the tops of boathouses in our bay. They fired off hundreds (perhaps thousands) of rounds of fireworks.

Several things were going through my mind at once: “Boy, is that stuff ever loud?”; “It stinks to high heaven!”; and “Could I be in danger here?”

The lament about the loudness is self-evident but the stinky air pollution concern was new to me. Usually when I watch fireworks displays, I’m far enough away (and they are shot high enough) that they almost seem odorless. In this case, I’d say one of the most active docks was less than 100 feet away — close enough for me to smell the spent gunpowder in all its hideous glory. Now take that and multiply it by at least a million.

Once in the 1980s, I was flying on a 737 from Raleigh-Durham Airport to Boston on a clear night. It was either July 4 or the night closest to July 4 that people chose celebrate it. Flying at probably 15,000 feet, I peered out the window and could see scores of tiny-looking fireworks exhibitions from the D.C. Metro area up through eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I can only imagine how the “carbon footprints” of those towns and cities rise every Independence Day.

But far more importantly, while sitting on that dock and seeing the fireworks being shot into the air and toward me, I wondered what would happen if one of them was late in igniting and did not explode until it landed near my feet.

I guess my question is if fireworks are illegal in the state of New York, why isn’t the law enforced? I understand the Washington County Sheriff’s Department and the Lake George Marine Patrol would be overwhelmed and unable to stop the mischief. But as my father-in-law suggested, if a few amateur pyrotechnicians were arrested and made examples of by spending a night in jail and paying a stiff fine, others might think twice before engaging in such dangerous behavior.

Any thoughts? What do you think should be done? Or, should anything be done at all, for that matter? After all, it’s just harmless fun until someone loses a limb, right? End of rant …

Hmmm …

Sorry for the light blogging the last few days. I just haven’t felt like writing much lately. Two things on my mind as it wandered Wednesday afternoon:

1) Are liberals more tolerant than conservatives? H/T to Althouse for alerting her readers to a recent study that suggests liberals are more likely to read conservative blogs than vice versa; ergo, liberals are more tolerant and open-minded, according to Jonathan Chait of The New Republic.

Nonsense. A willingness to read a blog with an opposing view does not denote open-mindedness. I occasionally watch Bill O’Reilly, for example — not because I’m trying to diversify my worldview, but because I like to make fun of him and have a good laugh. I have no philosophical tolerance for Bill-O at all. Couldn’t the same be said of a MoveOn type who reads Ann Coulter or Hugh Hewitt?

Just for the record, Chait’s conclusion is not consistent with my experience here in the Northwest Corner or elsewhere in the U.S. For every gun-toting, God-loving right-winger with no patience for publications like Mother Jones, I can show you a Birkenstock-wearing lefty who can barely “tolerate” being in the same room with a pro-lifer.

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2) There has been a lot of hand-wringing over recent announcements that Connecticut’s largest newspaper is going to be experiencing yet more cuts in staffing and pages.

This time the cutbacks could be severe, as the Hartford Courant’s parent, Tribune Corp, buckles under the weight of $1 billion in annual debt payments amid shrinking ad revenues and stock prices. Now Trib’s largest paper, the Los Angeles Times, has announced even bigger lay-offs.

As I was telling Jake the other night, for too long most big-media journalists have operated as if they did not have to respond slavishly to the marketplace. “Trust us,” they said implicitly. “We’ll tell you the news we think you need to know and if you want to respond, maybe we’ll run your letter to the editor and maybe we won’t.”

Continue reading Hmmm ……

Undaunted Crooners

I attended the first part of Project Troubador’s Grove Festival in Lakeville on Saturday and took some photos.

Organizer Eliot Osborn (on guitar at left) and the Joint Chiefs started off but were interrupted twice by downpours that sent concert-goers scurrying for cover.

I left after the second soaking but it looks like things cleared up in time to finish the program with the likes of the New World CEIli Band.

Anyone out there stay after the rain? I recall the event was canceled in 2006 because of the previous day’s rains and the threat of the same on the day of the festival. A wise call by Osborn, as holding the concert then would have resulted in a mud bath. This year’s adverse weather was a comparatively tepid affair.

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Word on the street is Region One Assistant Superintendent Tom Gaisford is handing in his resignation and taking advantage of early retirement. I’ll no doubt learn more about it at today’s special Board of Education meeting.

The big question for me is whether the board will replace him. Will they find a new assistant superintendent or take advantage of Gaisford’s departure and opt to go without a #2 in the face of declining enrollments regionwide? Stay tuned …

Think This Is Real?

Pretty amazing if it is. Best ballgirl ever …

BTW …

… Two pieces in today’s NYT that reinforce my strong desire to send George Bush packing for Crawford. It’s been an open secret for years that the Bush admin has politicized the Justice Department. But today we learn that former Attorneys General Alberto Gonzalez and John Ashcroft applied ideological litmus tests to candidates for career civil service posts at Justice, including internships.

Then we learn that when the White House received an email from the EPA concluding greenhouse gasses are pollutants that need to be controlled, the Bush admin simply refused to open it. Could this be a variation on “No news is good news?”

Now, more than six months later and under pressure from The White House, a watered-down and redacted version of the EPA report will be published. Why not let the EPA release the original version and if Bush admin officials disagree with it, then they can challenge it in public?

I know the Dems are trying to paint a President McCain as a second term for GWB. In some ways it would be, but I can’t picture McCain engaging in this type of disgraceful behavior. As for a President Obama, well, who knows? He’s a blank slate. Even his supporters know little about him. I guess you know which way I’m leaning …

A Pair of Summer Slippers

The 2008 battle for president is turning out to be the Battle of the Flipfloppers.

Reversing years of opposition, McCain has come out for offshore drilling. This runs counter to what he said as recently as January. And reversing years of advocacy for public funding of elections, Obama has opted out of the Watergate-era system of taxpayer funding of presidential campaigns. This runs counter to what he said as recently as February.

Both men rationalize their 180s by claiming that circumstances have changed. Obama’s seems the more breathtaking of the two, but I’d guess neither will be substantially harmed by their inconsistencies. Maybe that’s because there isn’t a good YouTube sound byte like John Kerry’s legendary quote on funding the Iraq war.

Obama supporters such as Colin McEnroe are trying to spin for their man, arguing that he faces such an onslaught from GOP 527s that he simply must have enough money to answer the Republican attack machine. He further argues (just as unconvincingly) that the system is broken and that since he has a record number of donors, many of whom are giving small amounts, then his campaign is already tantamount to public financing.

That really is pathetic. There is no evidence that independent GOP groups will be any more effective at smearing than similar groups sympathetic to Democrats.

Here’s what Obama should have said: “This is a historic moment for America. We have a choice between me and a guy who wants to continue the legacy of one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. This election is simply too important to worry about spending limitations, especially since I can can easily raise twice as much as Sen. McCain. That’s why I have changed my mind.”

So much for change we can believe in …

R.I.P., George Carlin

First it’s Timmy; now it’s George. I know among his many attributes, George Carlin was a scathing social critic. But I was partial to his observational humor, as in this brilliant riff about “finding a place for your stuff.”