Chris Hedges speaks at Occupy Wall Street

Writer and activist Chris Hedges has some powerful things to say about the forces and conditions that have led to the peaceful and many-days-long demonstration currently taking place in New York: Occupy Wall Street (peaceful on the part of protesters, that is; utterly and unforgivably violent on the part of the NYCPD, who are brutalizing and macing non-resisting people left and right, while shouting "Don't resist! I said, STOP RESISTING!" in an obvious attempt to cover their pathetic asses.)

Please watch and share. (And of course, watch the updated videos at Occupy Wall Street and share those, too.)

Book Review: Nassir Ghaemi's A First-Rate Madness is a first-rate read

As I have written about before, I am more than passingly familiar with the euphoria of creativity-filled up-cycles as well as the darkness of their unfortunate counterparts, those hideous depressive phases during which everything seems boring or bleak; tears and hopelessness are the order of the day; and even simple activities like picking out a shirt or brushing hair turn into loathsome, dreaded, and even inexecutable chores--forget actually doing anything productive. So it was with great interest that I dove into the literary results of Dr. Nassir Ghaemi's intriguing research and analysis, A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness.

Mental illness--well, I like to call it being Mentally Interesting, for which descriptor I will thank the writer (and fellow Mentally Interesting Person) Jerod Poore--is not quite the taboo subject it was a few decades ago; it is no longer a hush-hush domain to which mysteriously disappeared classmates are consigned ("Where did she go?" "I don't know, but I heard she had a nervous breakdown"); and--thank the Fates, along with relatively recent advances in neuroscience--it's no longer a complete mystery (although, it must be said, the human mind is inarguably the last great frontier, and modern medicine has only just begun to embark on its journey toward solving the biochemical and behavioral puzzles therein).

The core thesis of A First-Rate Madness: Rational, calm, balanced, agreeable, reasonable, conciliatory, and sane people are lovely to have around. Ahem. But when all Hell breaks loose, you want a leader who can stand at the edge of the abyss, confront the monster within, and stare that horned and tentacled bastard down. For this kind of nation-saving and history-making leadership, only a Mentally Interesting person will do, knowing as he or she does (like the back of the hand, in fact) the precise reach of said monster's limbs and the explicit scope of its awfulness.

At the outset, Ghaemi identifies the parallel nature of a clinician's diagnosis (of a mentally ill patient) and a historian's analysis. Both require a careful study of symptoms, of course, as well as an identification (if possible) of genetic components and an overview of indicated treatments--those sought, those avoided or not yet available, and those which succeeded (or failed).

Invoking the personal and fascinating stories of figures such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, and Mahatmas Gandhi, Ghaemi then points to the qualities--conspicuous in their abundance--that variously characterize those leaders who suffer with (and also, to be sure, exalt in) mental illness throughout the course of their lives, those being: Creativity, realism, empathy, and resilience.

In the case of General Sherman, for example, we are shown a leader who wholly transformed warfare from the faltering Napoleonic model of concentrated frontal assault to a bold and creative approach which took into account the economic and moral aspects of rebellion and thus enabled a totality of destruction that was at once brutal and wildly successful. But he was not, despite popular myth, a glorifier of war. Ghaemi explains:

Reconstructing the real Sherman, with his coercion as well as his complexity, means recognizing that he had manic-depressive illness. In fact, of all the leaders in this book, I would say that Sherman is the prototypical mentally ill leader. In different aspects of his bipolar disorder, he displayed many of the powers of mental illness to improve leadership: depressive realism, empathy for the South (before and after the war), resilience beyond measure, and unique military creativity. Yet until recently, no historian had carefully assessed whether Sherman himself suffered from deep, indeed sick emotions. This task was taken up by Michael Fellman, a gregarious American, self-exiled in Canada since the 1960s, where he is professor emeritus of history at Simon Fraser University. A specialist in the American Civil War, Fellman had been taught traditional history: trace the documents of who did what, who said what, and what happened; pull it together for the reader; and let it go. Such history seldom made well-grounded analyses about the abnormal mental states of the people it studied.

Having himself suffered a painful depression, Fellman realized that traditional history was mistaken because such conditions have an enormous impact on people--famous, infamous, and obscure. He became attuned to evidence of abnormal mental states among the Civil War figures he studied. Besides Lincoln's melancholy, Fellman discovered depressive tendencies in Robert E. Lee, and outright mental illness in General Sherman. What followed was a biography--researching and reporting facts based on primary sources--that a century after Sherman's own memoir unmasked the whole man: greater than we thought, in part because he was much sicker than we knew.

Greater than we thought, in part because he was much sicker than we knew.

A First-Rate Madness is suffused throughout with this generosity of spirit, with bittersweet reflections and a profoundly humane sensibility. (In fact, while reading it, one might wonder if the author himself is also a Mentally Interesting human being, so impeccable and accurate are his observations of the afflicted.)

To wit: the layperson, upon reading about the life and times of Dr. Martin Luther King, might infer that pacifism and idealism were both central components of his character and dominant forces that controlled his worldview. Not so, asserts Ghaemi, who proceeds to construct a portrait far richer, and more textured and heartbreakingly real, than any study of Dr. King this writer has encountered to date (my emphasis):

The Martin Luther King of popular mythology is a cardboard icon, brought out once a year on a holiday, with little resemblance to the real historical man. The cardboard King was a pacifist idealist; he wanted everyone to make peace and hold hands. The real King was an aggressive, confrontational realist; he believed that all men were evil in part, including himself; he thought that violence was everywhere and unavoidable, including within himself. "Nonviolence" did not mean the absence of violence, but the control of violence so that it was directed inward rather than outward.

And there are many, many more such insights to be appreciated in this fine book, as well as a clear-eyed analysis of those leaders whose personalities might best be described as even-keeled, rational, or else well-balanced, but whose marks on history--if even they made any--are mostly pastel-hued and watery as opposed to fierce, glittering, bloody, or--invoking here the title of another enlightening book by a thoughtful psychologist (Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison)--touched by fire.

A written work may be described as truly successful, I think, when you find yourself quoting it in your head, even weeks and months after having read its final passages. Inasmuch as I have been doing just that--taking in the words and deeds of our current American leadership with new eyes, even--I'd say that A First-Rate Madness is an extraordinary accomplishment. And I highly recommend it.

-------------

Footnote:

Unlike numerous recently-published tomes, Dr. Ghaemi's book--refreshingly, and perhaps intentionally--steers clear of former half-term Alaskan governor Sarah Palin, despite her erratic behavior, propensity to deceive, and general mental instability, all of which are topics of analysis you'd think would be irresistible to any academic psychiatrist, particularly one who's exploring the connection between mental illness and leadership. When I wondered aloud why this might be so, my son's quip provided the obvious answer:

"That's because she's not a leader, Mama."

UPDATE: be sure to check out Dr. Ghaemi's blog, Mood Swings.

It's hard to believe he was a Republican

“Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

- President Dwight Eisenhower (R)

Break for beauty: the amazing Alina Cojocaru dances Don Quixote with Johan Korborg

Meet Alina Cojocaru, a stunningly talented Romanian ballerina--now a principal dancer at the Royal Ballet of London--who in my humble opinion may well become the next Margot Fonteyn (and as you can imagine, I would never make such comparisons lightly). I'm not certain of the date of this performance; Cojocaru's Kirti (in Don Quixote) marked her debut ballet with the Kiev school in the mid-nineties, when she was a teen. She's now thirty and is engaged to her partner Johan Korborg, who, as you can see in this clip, is no slouch himself.

But as for Cojocaru...*sigh*...what beautiful lines and what absolutely incredible extension. I watched this three times, with a goosebumps bristling along my limbs and lump wedged in my throat. She's technically near-perfect but is by no means a flawless dancer, not yet: she travels a tiny bit while executing those whiplash fouettes, for one thing. And dancing Kirti requires more fire, at least to my romantic mind. Cojocaru will mature and develop subtleties like emotionality and musicality over time. In this performance, however, she is perhaps too calm and collected.

Nonetheless, I am sure Dame Margot would approve. I know I'll be watching.

Mutinous Memories

My Mum recently sent me the link to a 2005 article in Miami New Times about the heyday of a certain notorious nightclub in that city, where I lived as a teenager. It was called The Mutiny:

In its time there was nothing like the Mutiny Hotel and today it lives on in hindsight like the afterimage of a hallucination, bright but blurry. The Mississippi Delta is said to begin in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis; likewise the Mutiny in its day defined Miami's psychic boundaries. It was the nerve center of the city's exploding cocaine trade, a favorite hangout of globetrotting spies, and a desperately popular watering hole for Latin America's nouveau riche. It was meant to be elegant, and was, but early on it became infamous and edgy, and reveled in the reputation. Its most decadent highs were a carnival barker's advertisement for the Seventies, and its decline was an early object lesson in America's S&L crisis."I did a movie called life, with actors that were real people," says Burton Goldberg, former owner of the Mutiny. "We had dictators, secret police, drug people, bankers, the international trade, gunrunners, and celebrities: Rod Serling, Senator Kennedy, Cher, Hamilton Jordan, Jacqueline Onassis, George Bush. Mimes and magicians! Naked dancers in very fine taste, not prurient! Music! Chairs with enormous arms!

As it so happens, the Mutiny was where Yours Truly worked as a waitress for several months during a semester-long hiatus from my junior year at UF. A few years ago, I wrote about the experience here at Litbrit, as well for Ezra's eponymously-titled blog. At the time, I changed the names of the club--and certain patrons--to protect the not-so-innocent. But what the hell, the club itself is no more, and my choice of faux names--The Uprising--was a pretty transparent synonym for the club's real name, anyway.

If you like Scarface and spy novels--or perhaps just fancy a break from all the politics and sad, sad 9/11 stuff that's on the tube and in the 'Tubes this week--you might enjoy my little memoir/story about working and living it up Miami-style at the end of the Disco age. I invite you to read Sunshine, Cigar Boxes, and Semi-Automatics:

With Lena's help, I opened and poured bottle after bottle of Dom Pérignon; I served Ceasar salads and filets mignon and enormous Maine lobsters erupting crabmeat and brandied cream; and I brought several glasses of Johnny Walker Black on the rocks from the bar, where I'd already made friends with Sam, an art student at Florida International and a fellow Monty Python wonk.

"Alberto's here again, huh?" he said when I requested the third such cocktail. "Though pretty much everyone drinks this, you'll find. But it's Monday, and there aren't too many people who can put away this much Scotch on a weeknight." He drained the bottle and slipped its nozzle onto a new, full one. "You'll have fun here. You'll make good money."

So I had heard. But thus far, Lena and I had waited on exactly one party.

By three in the morning, though, I'd served a few other tables and opened another half-dozen bottles of Champagne. Alberto and his crew were beginning to look restless, but they hadn't asked for the check. I was certain it would be outrageous, well into the hundreds of dollars; Lena informed me that the two grand Alberto spent that night was nothing compared to some of his weekend expenditures, indeed, nothing compared to the bankrolls through which some of the club's other guests regularly burned. [Continued...]

I know what I did this summer

[Definitely click to embiggen and read.]

Besides melting, boy-maintaining, reading, drinking iced-tea, eating watermelon, and playing with Photoshop, I was able to get in some high-quality sleeping, although I did have a few nightmares, most of them brought on by daytime musing on the prospect of a right-wing religious ideologue winning the presidency next year.

These nightmares intensified when I learned more about NAR, the New Apostolic Reformation movement, and its far-reaching involvement in American society, culture, and politics. NAR is the force behind newly-announced presidential candidate, Texas Governor Rick Perry. From the Texas Observer (emphasis mine):

Unlike other radical religious groups, the New Apostles believe political activism is part of their divine mission. “Whereas their spiritual forefathers in the Pentecostal movement would have eschewed involvement in politics, the New Apostles believe they have a divine mandate to rescue a decaying American society,” said Margaret Poloma, a practicing Pentecostal and professor of sociology at the University of Akron. “Their apostolic vision is to usher in the Kingdom of God.”

“Where does God stop and they begin?” she asks. “I don't think they know the difference.”

Poloma is one of the few academics who has closely studied the apostolic movement. It’s largely escaped notice, in part, because it lacks the traditional structures of either politics or religion, says Rachel Tabachnick, a researcher who has covered the movement extensively for Talk2Action.org, a left-leaning site that covers the religious right.

“It’s fairly recent and it just doesn’t fit into people’s pre-conceived notions,” she says. “They can’t get their head around something that isn’t denominational.”

The movement operates through a loose but interlocking array of churches, ministries, councils and seminaries—many of them in Texas. But mostly it holds together through the friendships and alliances of its prophets and apostles.

The Response itself seems patterned on TheCall, day-long worship and prayer rallies usually laced with anti-gay and anti-abortion messages. TheCall—also the name of a Kansas City-based organization—is led by Lou Engle, an apostle who looks a bit like Mr. Magoo and has the unnerving habit of rocking back and forth while shouting at his audience in a raspy voice. (Engle is also closely associated with the International House of Prayer—, Mike Bickle’s 24/7 prayer center in Kansas City.) Engle frequently mobilizes his followers in the service of earthly causes, holding raucous prayer events in California to help pass Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative, and making an appearance in Uganda last year to lend aid to those trying to pass a law that would have imposed the death penalty on homosexuals. But Engle's larger aim is Christian control of government.

“The church’s vocation is to rule history with God,” he has said. “We are called into the very image of the Trinity himself, that we are to be His friends and partners for world dominion.”

“It sounds so fringe but yet it’s not fringe,” Tabachnick says. “They’ve been working with Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Sam Brownback, and now Rick Perry. ... They are becoming much more politically noticeable.” [...]

The New Apostles talk about taking dominion over American society in pastoral terms. They refer to the “Seven Mountains” of society: family, religion, arts and entertainment, media, government, education, and business. These are the nerve centers of society that God (or his people) must control.

I plan to keep close tabs on these worrisome gentlefolk. NARWatch makes it easy--bookmarked and done (thanks, Rachel!) (To really stay up-to-the-minute, be sure to like NARWatch on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.)

Sorry, fundies, you may have succeeded in passing anti-women laws like mandatory ultrasounds in Florida, but I'm not ready to change my name to OfRobert and give up reading books. Not just yet.

Friday Frank: Heavenly Bank Account; New York, 1982

As relevant as ever.

That's right, you ain't got nothing, and they've got it all, and your miserable ass is up against the wall...

Thank you, Maestro; you certainly called it. *Deep sigh.*

And with that--oh hey, it's after three! I'm off to see if there's any rum left over from last weekend's mojitos.

Bon Weekend, everyone.

XXX
D.

Allen West is a gentleman

There are no words.

Memo to Joe Walsh: Taxes are already at a historic low--even lower than they were under Republican presidents

(H/T Laffy for the video)

I watched the exceedingly rude, arrogant, and condescending Congressman Joe Walsh on Hardball Monday night, and as he interrupted, sidestepped, and over-talked his host, I did a little talking of my own, to my hapless television set (come on, you know you do it, too).

Like virtually all who signed Grover Norquist's No Tax Increase pledge--and then deny that Grover Norquist tells them what to do--Walsh pushes the narrative that even closing loopholes and adjusting definitions of qualified deductions are the same thing as sucking the lifeblood from the job-creators who, he keeps promising, will eventually produce all these magical jobs if we just believe hard enough and stop asking them to pay their fair share.

(Comedian Bill Maher describes this nonsense as regarding "job creators"--aka the wealthy/corporate class--as some sort of delicate and endangered exotic animals at the center of a National Geographic feature: Shhh! Don't upset them! They'll run away!)

And while the deranged House Republicans chug along in their clown car, sometimes spinning in circles, always lurching toward the default cliff they seem to want to take the country right over, too many Democrats are oddly silent about the dire need to increase revenue if we're to ever get within spitting distance of balancing the budget one day, which is what the president wants, even if people like me would suggest that job creation via bold, broad, and inarguably necessary infrastructure spending should be the first priority.

Taxation in America--money coming in--is at a historic low. Expenditures, thanks in large part to those big, expensive wars, are at a historic high. I'm no math fiend, but even I can see the problem here.

But for those who, like Congressman Walsh, would seem to be even more math challenged than I, perhaps a nice graphic would help get the point across:

(Via.)

Alan Grayson running for Congress; vows to fight Washington's culture of "Meanies and Weenies"

All of this compromise hasn't accomplished anything useful for anybody on our side...the President should be saying to people, "The Republican party is cruel; the Republican party is bigoted; the Republican party cares only about tax breaks for the rich."

-- Congressman-to-once-again-be Alan Grayson, D-FL

YEAH.

Yesterday, Alan Grayson declared his candidacy; my Mum and Dad's lost cat Manuel suddenly showed up at their door after worrying everyone sick for a week (and he seems no worse for wear); and I baked an enormous pan of Georgia peach cobbler which my lads thoroughly enjoyed, hot from the oven, with vanilla Häagen-Dazs melting in rivulets all over it. Not bad for a Monday, and sweltering summer Monday at that!

What's making you happy this week?

Friday Frank: Montana; New York, 1982

I was just thinking to myself, Wow, I haven't posted a Friday Frank in ages. ( This rainy afternoon has inspired me to spend entirely too much time poking around YouTube for old favorites.)

This one is too good to not share. I only wish it were longer.

Bon Weekend, everyone--and stay dry!

XXX
D.

Fourth thought

"Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

-- John Stuart Mill, from On Liberty

Freedom From and Freedom To: We're giving away our privacy and liberty, and for what?

Comedian Lee Camp riffs on the worrisome state of American privacy in one of his great Moments of Clarity.

I have long maintained that the concepts of Freedom From and Freedom To are both vital components of human liberty (and I thank Margaret Atwood for introducing this concept to my young feminist's brain via her masterpiece The Handmaid's Tale).

Indeed, without Freedom From, Freedom To--the necessary foundation upon which any bona fide pursuit of happiness gets built--becomes, itself, an untenable concept.

As our Freedom From is curtailed, so goes our Freedom To. When law-abiding citizens are increasingly prevented from traveling freely about their own country by air, and now by train, bus, and car--as they are searched, x-rayed, groped, and humiliated, absent probable cause, mind you, and even assaulted, and by agents of the We-the-People government that is supposed to be by, for, and of US--these selfsame citizens are also realizing a parallel curtailment of their human potential.

Think of all the opportunities missed, the creativity hampered, the activism delayed, the commerce sacrificed, and the education denied due to the vast reduction of our Freedom From unconstitutional searches and privacy invasions. Every former gypsy and rambling man I know--even people who'd consider themselves apolitical and TSA-agnostic--has drastically reduced his or her travel to a bare minimum these days, if they even leave home at all. And when you ask why, the answer will never be fear of terrorism, but rather, will almost invariably center around an extreme distaste for the overbearing and omnipresent Security State and its concomitant time-sucking nature. It's just not worth it, they say.

It's just not worth it. That sad sentence would break the hearts of our forebears, don't you think? And yet, it perfectly encapsulates the American mindset right now.

Whither Liberty, ca. 2011? Whither Justice For All?

Perhaps we should ask a Constitutional scholar and professor. He might know.

"And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer: Let it be."

Violinist Michael Province, aged 15, and cellist Nathan Chan, aged 16, do John Lennon proud. What a beautiful, joyful interpretation of a song for our day.

Shine on 'till tomorrow, gentlemen. And bravo!

(H/T Diane S.)

Oil sands, tar sands; tar sands, oil sands--let's call the whole thing awful

With so many Americans facing a summer characterized by "staycations" (if they're lucky to even have homes in which to stay), job-hunting, and general belt-tightening, it's understandable that they'd be more receptive to something--anything--that promised to keep gas prices from soaring again, even if it meant turning their heads for a while so as to avoid seeing the toxic morass of trouble waiting for them not too far down the road. Few of us enjoy being reminded about the dirty realities attendant to our oil addiction on a good day--and in a good economy. When the chips are down, though, and the clever PR folks have been busily weaving their magic, even the sticky, corrosive stuff from Alberta might start to sound good to us--Hey, it's from Canada, our friends. It will increase the world's oil supply and that will lower the price!

Or something. Gain an understanding of the nature of the beast--the commodities market, that is, and the manner in which speculators can drive prices upward, as well as the way other oil-producing nations open and close the spigots--and you'll be quickly disabused of any Econ 101-style fantasy. But who's got the heart to do even that much, and can we be blamed, really? I mean, what options exist beyond the gasoline-powered internal combustion engines that power the cars we're all currently trying to cut down on driving?

Yes, more and more automakers are offering electric and hybrid-electric cars, and I'm excited about the ones yet to come. But even taking into account any modest tax incentive, these vehicles don't come cheap, and for the millions of Americans who are currently unemployed or underemployed, buying a new car of any kind is simply not feasible.

And yes, there are public transportation options for some, depending on where you live. In the vast majority of Florida, for example, it's extremely difficult to get around without a car. Few areas in this state were built on a model of sustainability, with a mind toward residents being able to walk to work, school, and grocery stores. For the most part, our peninsula is stuffed like a Christmas stocking with huge, ungainly suburbs, all of them laced together by increasingly threadbare ribbons of horrifically crowded roads and interstate highways.

So, then, at this point in time and given the current economic climate, a lot of us are going to be ripe for a good PR nudge by Big Oil. And boy, are the spinmeisters working overtime in their efforts to overcome the facts about the proposed tar sands pipeline, excuse me, oil sands pipeline. (I imagine the phrase tar sands is being phased out due to its propensity to evoke mental images of tar on our sands, fresh in our minds thanks to the catastrophic BP spill last year.)

As I wrote last month, the Keystone XL Pipeline is a project so encumbered by serious threats--to American water tables, to ecosystems, to human lives, and, thanks to the resource-greedy, carbon-spewing process of refining tar sands, to the future of the planet itself--it is almost surreal. It's a horror show that puts the summer theatre lineup to shame; coming soon, only it's dead real.

Forewarned is forearmed, so here's a sampling of information (emphasis mine) about this nightmare of a proposed oil project, and at the bottom, you'll find a link to the House of Representatives along with the address of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. I hope you'll take a few moments to write to them. It bears repeating: the United States should to be investing heavily in sustainable and renewable energy resources, not enabling further dependence on a fuel that is slowly killing us--or, as is the case with tar sands oil and the Keystone XL pipeline, that will likely sicken and wipe out unknown numbers of lifeforms, including human beings, on an accelerated schedule.

Tar sands oil--that is, the production and exporting thereof--is undeniably bad for Canada:

Oilsands deposits underlie three main areas in northeastern Alberta, totalling about 140,000 square kilometres.

That's about the size of the state of Florida, a comparison often used by U.S. environmentalists to suggest how much boreal forest would be ripped up. But not quite. About 80 per cent of the oilsands will be mined in-situ, a technique that uses injected steam to soften the bitumen underground and pump it out. The gaping, smoky open pits often equated with oilsands mines will sprawl across about 500 square kilometres.

That doesn't mean the rest of the region will remain pristine. Even in-situ mines require roads, pipelines and other facilities that will chop the forest into smaller and smaller blocks and destroy habitat for animals that require large undisturbed areas. One U.S. scientist has estimated that those effects will reduce songbird populations by 166 million birds over the next 30 to 50 years. [...]

The Alberta Cancer Board has found cancer rates about 30 per cent higher than anticipated in the downstream community of Fort Chipewyan, with blood and lymphatic cancers double the expected rate. The board didn't consider possible causes.

Government air-quality monitoring has found no increases in carbon monoxide, ozone, particulates or sulphur dioxide in Fort McMurray, the largest community in the oilsands area. Nitrogen dioxide and hydrogen sulphide have increased slightly. In some streams, PAHs are already at levels toxic to fish embryos. However, a fish with two jaws caught last spring downstream from the oilsands was later found to be a goldeye showing signs of a natural after-death phenomenon.

What about those tailings ponds?

The oilsands use a lot of water and much of it ends up in vast tailings ponds, which are now the size of the city of Vancouver, and they're growing. The ponds are toxic. About 1,600 ducks tried to land in one last year and most died, covered in oily sludge. The ponds are separated in some places from the Athabasca River only by large earthen dams. One study suggests that up to 11 million litres of tailings leak out every year, although Alberta says any leaks percolate harmlessly into bedrock.

Sediment in the ponds has been very slow to settle and dealing with it is one of the industry's most stubborn problems. Companies have proposed "capping" the ponds with clean water and leaving them, but Alberta's energy regulator recently said mines must start converting to dry tailings by the summer of 2011. Of nine oilsands projects that filed proposals to do that, only two plan to meet the timeline, although the regulator promises the timeline will be enforced.

How significant are greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands?

It depends on the comparison. The oilsands are Alberta's second-largest industrial emitter - coal-fired power plants are bigger. One oft-repeated statistic is that all the greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands account for only five per cent of Canada's total emissions and 0.1 per cent of global emissions.

Environmentalists respond that any one project which shows up on a global scale is significant, period. They also point out that the oilsands are Canada's fastest-rising source of greenhouse gases.

Tar sands oil and the Keystone XL Pipeline would be undeniably bad for the United States, its citizens, and its environment:

[Nebraska cattleman Randy] Thompson apologizes for becoming animated, but says he's about done using politically correct language where the Keystone XL project is concerned.

Though he is a lifelong conservative and registered Republican, Thompson had never written so much as a letter to the editor or contacted a single politician in his life until agents for TransCanada first notified him, three years ago, that his property lay in the path a proposed $7-billion crude oil pipeline.

Now he is at the centre of a high-stakes fight over Keystone XL, which would transport up to 900,000 barrels per day of oilsands bitumen from northern Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

The long-delayed pipeline project has been under intense scrutiny amid persistent concerns - raised by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, state legislators and private landowners - about the dangers posed by a possible spill of Canadian crude along its 2,700 kilometre route.

The U.S. State Department has the authority to grant a 'presidential permit' approving construction, and has indicated it will make a decision by the end of 2011 on whether Keystone XL is in America's national interest. [...]

As the project is currently planned, Keystone XL would run directly over the vast Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies Nebraska with 83 per cent of the water used in irrigation and 78 per cent of the state's public water supply.

Moreover, the pipeline would cut a swath through Nebraska's Sand Hills, the largest sand dunes complex in the western hemisphere, where soil disturbances risk massive "blowouts" and erosion that can take decades to repair.

TransCanada has waged an intense campaign - via mass-media advertising campaigns and lobbying in the corridors of the state legislature in Lincoln - to convince Nebraskans the pipeline will be both safe and an economic boon to the state. But public skepticism has grown following a series of leaks on TransCanada's existing Keystone 1 pipeline, which became operational in June 2010.

One rupture in a pipe fitting last month left a 20,000-gallon mess at a TransCanada pumping station in North Dakota.

"I am appreciative we will have jobs and revenue derived from the pipeline, but I really have an issue with the route that it has taken," says Tony Fulton, a Republican state senator.

"There is no other place on the planet like our Sand Hills, and the Ogallala Aquifer, which is precious not just to us but to the country."

The debate over the pipeline in Nebraska has been characterized by charges TransCanada has negotiated in bad faith, using arm-twisting tactics to coax landowners into granting right-of-way easements to build the pipeline.

Thompson says he was warned, in his very first discussions with TransCanada's agents, that rejecting the company's offer of compensation would prompt it to seek an eminent domain order to condemn his land so the pipeline could proceed.

Some U.S. lawmakers are concerned, if not alarmed, and have called for further review of the pipeline's potential for disaster while questioning the currently weak state of regulatory oversight, facts that even an industry-friendly outlet is admitting:

U.S. Congressmen Henry Waxman, the leading Democrat on the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee, is worried that regulatory oversight isn’t keeping up with an increasing amount of diluted bitumen being transported via U.S. pipelines. "I'm concerned that the industry is changing, but the safety regulations are not keeping up with the changes," he said at an Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing. "That could be a recipe for disaster down the road."

Anthony Swift of the Natural Resources Defense Council said at the hearing, "It is in the public's best interest for our pipeline safety for regulators to evaluate the risks that high volumes of heavy, corrosive and abrasive crudes, such as diluted bitumen, will have on the U.S. pipeline."

A number of pipeline accidents in the U.S. Midwest have some questioning whether diluted bitumen may be to blame. TransCanada's existing Keystone pipeline leaked 10 barrels of oil, due to a faulty fitting at a Kansas pump station last month. That accident followed a 500-barrel spill at a pump station in North Dakota in early May.

The committee last month passed a bill requiring the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to study the impact of diluted bitumen on U.S. pipelines.

Even Republicans think the issue should be investigated. "I think it is something we need to look into," said Republican Representative Joe Barton.

However, President of the Association of Oil Pipelines Andrew Black disputes any claims that diluted bitumen is contributing to pipeline corrosion, saying, “Diluted bitumen has been moved through pipelines for many years.” [Well, then, that settles it!--DNT]

Yet, a large number of the Usual Suspects (aka the House Republicans), are pushing hard for prompt approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline:

House Republicans are attempting to fast-track the controversial pipeline that would carry crude oil from tar sands mining in Alberta, Canada, across the US heartland and down to refineries in Texas.

The House Energy and Power Subcommittee approved a bill that requires President Obama to make a decision on the Keystone Pipeline by November 1.

If he were to do so, he would have to over-rule demands for further review by the Environmental Protection Agency and ignore the protests of local communities that would be affected along the 1,700-mile pipeline route.

House Republicans seem bent on upping the nation's consumption of tar sands oil, presumably to reduce oil imports from the MidEast.

The strategy is blind to the environmental consequences of tar sands production, which has an environmental and emissions footprint that is several times larger than traditional crude oil.

The increased impact is due to the large amounts of energy, water and solvents needed to separate the crude oil from sand with which it is mixed in geological deposits.

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To find your House reps, click here.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

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Also at Dirty Hippies

Chocolate Grand Marnier Torte à la Litbrit

This exquisite, dreamily chocolate-y flourless torte is one of my go-to grownup desserts for special occasions, and I say that because creating the torte tends to be a relatively labor-intensive and time-consuming endeavor, certainly more so than the throwing together of my (almost) everyday cakes and cookies (not that there's anything wrong with--or non-delicious about--those). Furthermore, Grand Marnier is a bit pricey these days. Trust me, though, this torte is absolutely, positively worth the effort and expense.

This is my adaptation of a recipe I found in Elle, back in the 1980's. (Come on, America, please go metric already!) It's also the first birthday cake I ever made for Robert, in 1988; the following year, we got married. To be clear, I'm not suggesting any connection between the two, although, as readers may remember, I do firmly believe that a fine chocolate experience affords the kind of transcendent bliss and soul-soothing magic that make fine chocolate itself worth defending from the slings and arrows of outrageous corporate takeovers.

Anyway, I'm going to give you my recipe for an 8" torte; the picture above is of the 10" one I made for Robert's birthday this year, reasoning that the lads would be deeply unhappy if they only got a tiny sliver each and there were no remaining torte over which to fight the next day. If you're making this with an eye toward satisfying a large-ish number of chocolate connoisseurs, just multiply the ingredients by 1.5, and when you get to the eggs, substitute 8 whites and 7 yolks for the 5 eggs called for. (Note to my fellow math-o-phobes: use your cell-phone's calculator, as I did! Or, *sigh*, just e-mail me, and I'll send you the quantities for the 10" version.) As for the chocolate itself, I generally use Ghirardelli's bars in my baking--the quality is reliably good and they're widely available in the States. If you're near a Trader Joe's, though, I'm told their chocolate is superb.

You'll want to make this the day before, at least, as the flavors need to blend and develop.

Chocolate Grand Marnier Torte à la Litbrit

For the torte:

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1/3 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup walnuts
1/3 cup plus 6 tablespoons sugar
2 oz. finely-grated or chopped semisweet chocolate
zest of one orange, finely grated
5 eggs, which you've taken out of the fridge and allowed to come to room temperature, then separated
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the filling:

1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons Grand Marnier
1/2 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped finely (but not pulverized)

For the glaze:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup (this is not the same thing as HFCS, don't worry)
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 oz. semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup finely chopped walnuts

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Preheat oven to 350º F. Lightly butter an 8" springform pan, line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper, butter that, and then dust very lightly with flour.

Melt the unsweetened chocolate and butter together in a double-boiler or pan with a heavy bottom over low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from stove and allow to cool.

In a Cuisinart or other food processor, whirl the walnuts around with 2 tablespoons of the sugar until finely ground, using the on-off pulsing button, and then tip it into a small bowl and add the grated, semisweet chocolate (not the melted stuff, not yet!) and the orange zest, and stir until mixed.

Beat the egg yolks in a mixer until they are foamy; add 4 tablespoons of sugar and keep beating until the mixture is pale yellow. Then stir the cooled, melted chocolate/butter mixture into the egg yolks.

In another, deep bowl, beat the egg whites and salt until you see soft peaks. Reduce the mixer's speed and slowly sprinkle in 1/3 cup sugar, making sure it's incorporated before adding the next sprinkle (patience, patience). Then increase the speed again and beat like mad until the egg whites are stiff.

Stir 1/3 of the egg whites into the unsweetened chocolate mixture, then sprinkle 1/3 of the nut mixture on top, and fold together gently until barely combined. Repeat this until all is combined and batter is smooth, but do not overmix, or you'll knock all the loft out of your egg whites.

Spread the batter evenly in your prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes. (My oven is a bit temperamental and tends to run high, so I reduce the temperature 10-20 degrees and watch my precious sweetie-projects like a hawk--this torte is no exception.) Remove when a toothpick inserted in the middle of the torte comes out almost clean. Cool in the pan for ten minutes, then run a thin, flat knife around the edges of the cake; remove the springform pan's rim, and invert the cake onto a wire rack. Peel off the parchment paper and re-invert onto another wire rack on which you've put a fresh piece of parchment. Allow to cool completely, then wrap the cake tightly in plastic film (Saran wrap) and put it in the freezer for about an hour, until semifrozen.

Meanwhile, make the filling...

Drain any liquid from your ricotta, and press it through a fine sieve into a small bowl. Stir in the sugar and 1-2 teaspoons of the Grand Marnier; fold in the chocolate bits. Cover with plastic and refrigerate until mixture firms up and can be spread.

Remove the cake from the freezer and carefully, with a very slim and sharp knife, trim off any exceedingly obvious bumps on the crust. Now, the tricky part: with the same knife, slice the semi-frozen cake horizontally in two. I find that if I score it around its perimeter first, finding the halfway-mark between the top and bottom and going in about an inch and giving it a quarter-turn at a time, it's easier to do this in an even way. I also pay attention to my knife, making sure it's parallel to the counter and not sawing away at strange angles. Keep turning and slowly easing the sideways knife blade in until you've got two perfect discs.

Place the bottom-most disc, cut side up, on the serving platter you plan to use. Sprinkle it with at least 1 tablespoon of Grand Marnier. Remove filling from the fridge and spread on top of this, going to within 1/4" of the edge of the torte. Then place the top half of the cake on it, sprinkle that with the remaining Grand Marnier, cover the whole thing with plastic wrap and press down gently and evenly to compact the layers and filling. Refrigerate at least five hours, or overnight.

Now, the glaze. Melt the butter, corn syrup, salt, and 2 teaspoons of water together in a double boiler or small, heavy pan, over low heat. Stir occasionally, turn up the heat to medium, bring to a boil, and allow it to boil for 1 minute, stirring all the while now. Remove from heat and stir in the semisweet chocolate, which will quickly melt. Allow to cool for about five minutes; it will thicken somewhat.

Take the cake out of the fridge and unwrap it. Pour the glaze over it, and with a metal spatula or frosting knife, quickly spread it out over the top and sides. Wait five minutes for it to set, then press the chopped walnuts into the sides and slightly on to the top, as you see in the picture. Refrigerate again for an hour, at least; take it out again about fifteen minutes before serving.

If you like, you can use orange slices and a few curlicues of peel for decoration, as I did.

Fire up the espresso machine, take a bow, and enjoy!

Cock-ups will cost you when you're liberal; otherwise, IOKIYAR*

Lovely, dear...we've all seen one before, you know.

Let's see...on this hot, sunny June morning in America, we've got families being thrown out onto the streets thanks, ultimately, to the criminals on Wall Street.

We've got how many wars going on, how many people still without work, how many families in the Gulf states still dealing with the double-blow of the economy followed by the BP spill that everyone has forgotten about?

Healthcare crisis? What crisis? (I just learned that my family's monthly health insurance premium is slated to go up $700--that's PER MONTH--because I turned fifty. Awesome!)

But lest anyone think that the Politicians Who Are Not Anthony Weiner haven't been busy, I'm here to tell you that in three weeks, with the help of the tut-tutting church ladies in the "liberal media", a strong voice of the people was silenced--like *that*--and not because he enabled torture, carried on an affair with an aide and then bribed her to keep silent, or sold his votes to the highest-bidding corporate donor.

No, Weiner was drummed out of office due to his having engaged in salacious (and occasionally illustrated) online correspondence with women he'd never been in the same room with, actions that struck me as being the peacock-like display behavior of a charged-up male inspired by the surfeit of female attentions that typically attend the powerful and/or celebrated.

I now demand David Vitter's naughty bits so I can bronze them and hang them from my rear-view mirror. It only seems fair.

*It's O.K. If You're A Republican

On social democracy, that inexplicably unmentionable phrase that truly embodies the spirit of We, the People

from Andy Warhol's Money series

This is one of those instances where even typing something out does little to make it more believable: Delta charges soldiers returning home from Afghanistan an additional luggage fee of $200 each (they are allowed three checked pieces, but as you'd imagine, members of our armed forces have a lot of bulky belongings that can't be jammed into three bags).

And yet.

I think there is an important larger message here: Delta, as we all know, is a corporation. Supreme Court classifications to the contrary notwithstanding, corporations are simply amoral entities, built from paper and pixels, that do not think or feel one way or another about anything; rather, they just seek maximum profits, period. Think of them like sharks--they don't care who gets hurt, they don't care what standards of decency and propriety they offend (making soldiers pay extra for their baggage? Really??) and they don't care who gets in the way; they only care about feeding, feeding, and more feeding.

For a conscientious human being, then, the question is not "How can Corporation XYZ be so uncaring?" but instead, "How far have we gone--and how much further are we willing to go--in allowing these amoral entities to control all the aspects of our daily existence?"

Right now, when you regard the matter with wide-open eyes, you realize that corporations control our elected leadership--much if not most of it, anyway--as well as our geopolitical posture, our banking system, our education system, our medical decisions, our agriculture and food supply, and, perhaps most worryingly, our very ability to elect candidates for public office who represent us, the people, as opposed to them, the aforementioned entities whose only raison d'être is to turn a profit.

Going by what I learned in high school American history, and what I've since observed about what I'd loosely term "the national character", I'd say Americans tend to recoil at the very notion of being controlled and reflexively put a foot down if they feel that is what someone, or something, is trying to do.

As such, they shy away from--and often will outright demonize--the word "socialist", because they see it as being under the controlling thumb of the state.

Blame the paucity of engaging, thought-provoking debates about political philosophy in our high school social studies classes; blame the shallow nature of the learning that does take place in a teach-to-the-test climate wherein facts are regurgitated and promptly forgotten; the end result is that far too many of us don't seem to realize that we are the state.

Ironically, in a social democracy (which yes, is a form of socialism, albeit one that's rather more grounded in reality than utopian socialism), we would be the ones in control.

As matters currently stand, we're under the control of a plutocracy--and it's an insidious, shadowy, "Aw shucks, we're just like you" kind of plutocracy--with the difference being, the plutocracy is most definitely not us.

And on ever-increasing numbers of issues, we have virtually no say whatsoever, not even within the context of elections, wherein we get the false choice of voting for one beholden-to-corporations candidate over the other beholden-to-corporations candidate, and thanks to their professed differences on a handful of social issues (Roe, marriage equality, guns), we think we've had some say. We "feel" as though we have some measure of control.

We don't.

Whenever I am in a conversation with non-political-junkies--at dinner, say--with people who start complaining about the government this and the state that, and people inevitably head into a discussion about why we are better off not letting the government or the state have so much power, I always chime in: HEY! You are forgetting something! The government is US. The state is US.

When the State-That-Is-Us has control, this is a good thing. Trouble is, that's not what we're seeing. We are not under the control of ourselves--of us--but rather, we're under the control of the wealthy, namely corporations and their interests. That's why our own money, our tax dollars, never seem to get spent the way we want--on excellent public education for all American children, affordable health care, clean air and water initiatives, programs to feed our hungry and provide shelter for our homeless, energy-efficient public transportation that would relieve us of our miserable hours-long commutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and so on--but instead get spent, one obscene trillion-pile after another, on endless wars, bailouts, subsidies for Big Oil and of course, Big Agribusiness, and money-pit "security" agencies that violate our Constitutional rights and treat law-abiding citizens as guilty until proven innocent. I'm sure you can think of more.

The government is us. And to my mind, the only way to even begin to make leadership behave that way is to completely change the way elections are funded and do away with all forms of campaign "donations" as well as halting altogether the corporate lobbying of sitting leaders.

Campaigns would be publicly-funded; candidates for public office would be given a strict limit as to what they could spend on a campaign.

Imagine what could be accomplished if, instead of spending months and years in "pre-election money-grubbing-and-vote-pandering mode", a leader could actually lead. No more mudslinging attack ads (too expensive!) and no more ridiculous talking-point pageants masquerading as debates. Imagine candidates running for office solely because they are leaders answering a call to duty. Imagine them getting elected based solely on their leadership abilities--their knowledge, their talent, their record of doing good work on our behalf.

Imagine having leaders who are beholden to no-one but us, the we in We, the People.

It would not be impossible for the United States to implement a truly American-people-controlled system of governance--a social democracy--indeed, I would argue that social democracy is the closest thing there is to an actual embodiment of what the Founding Fathers intended for the country, and one only need read the wise and poignantly beautiful writings of Jefferson, Madison, Adams, et. al. to confirm this.

But given the range of theatrical talents, the vast and tentacular wealth, and the predators' amorality that characterize the beasts we currently face, it is dispiritingly unlikely that we ever will.

Dear Media: Is that a REAL scandal in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

Cf.

Litbrit on the Nicole Sandler show

I had a great time this morning chatting with fellow Floridian Nicole Sandler. We talked about Weinergate, among other things, and wondered why it almost always seems to be male politicians who find themselves entangled in these things.

I come on around the 35:30 mark.