Thursday, June 25, 2009

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RJ Eskow: Global Pop: Finding Michael Jackson in Albania Top
Here's a small Michael Jackson story to place upon on the pile, one that illustrates the global reach and power of pop music. Albania existed in totalitarian isolation from the rest of Europe for four decades. It broke with the Soviet Union during Kruschev's de-Stalinization reforms because its dictator, Enver Hoxha, liked Stalinism. Its only ally from that point forward was Maoist China, but even that relationship was severed after the fall of the Gang of Four and the death of Mao. It was illegal to even own a car there. Like North Korea today, Albani was a closed country that allowed almost no foreigners in and let even fewer citizens out. Even listening to foreign media broadcasts was a crime. I arrived there in 1991 as one of the first wave of outside consultants sent there to help with reforms. People had already made improvised "cars" by welding windows onto the fronts of tractors. Saudi Arabian Wahhabi evangelists had already installed a loudspeaker and a muezzin at the local mosque, which had been unused for forty years. Although the government sent me to help with health care financing, it quickly became clear that they needed food and medical supplies far more urgently than they needed economic restructuring. My host and translator was a warm and gracious physician who had learned his English by covertly listening to the BBC. He had been turned in once by a neighbor who heard the sound of English-language radio, and had spent a terrified day at secret police headquarters before being set free with a warning. The day I left for home I asked him what I could send him as a gift. "Connie Francis records," he said. (Connie Francis, for those of you who don't remember, was a star from the pre-Beatles era whose big hits were "Lipstick On Your Collar" and "Where the Boys Are." ) Pop music's traces were faintly discernable elsewhere in the garrison country, too. When we walked into Tirana's only 'restaurant' - a barely-converted garage filled with card tables, folding chairs, and aid workers from everywhere in the world - Garth Brooks' voice was coming out of a boom box. And at a high-level diplomatic meeting some Albanians spoke of their country's best-known folk singer, saying that public use of English was so heavily forbidden that he had been given two years in prison for singing "Let It Be" at a folk festival. "The last guy I heard singing it back home," I told them, "should have gotten five ." They laughed - fortunately. And when we went to see some remote medical clinics in the Sar Mountains, our car was stopped in remote villages by crowds curious to see a Westerner face-to-face. On one rock-filled road we were waved down by a gang of slightly-scary teenagers with dirty faces and rocks in their hands. When they saw me, the tallest boy - evidently the leader - reached into his pocket, pulled out a single glove, and put it on. "Michael Jackson!" they screamed. "Michael Jackson!" The doctor translated for me as they kept talking. "They want to know if you know Michael," he said. I didn't. They let us pass. I won't claim that Michael Jackson overthrew Albanian Communism. He never met Enver Hoxha in epic battle, although that picture on the cover of the History album made it look as he had. I was in Prague when Vaclav Havel tried to make Frank Zappa a minister in his government, but I wouldn't say pop music overthrew Communism there, either. I'll say this, though: it didn't hurt. Was Michael Jackson the first global pop star? Crowds in India mourned the death of country crooner Jim Reeves in 1964. And it took me a while to realize that the singer on an old African record called "Chimiraja," accompanied only by a loosely tuned guitar and someone banging on a Coke bottle, was actually singing about "Jimmie Rodgers," the "Singing Brakeman" of country music. Jimmie Rodgers died in 1933. Popular music has always been global. But Michael Jackson became a worldwide star in the first era to have satellite communications. People didn't just hear his music. They saw him. They experienced him - or at least an aspect of him. Michael Jackson broke barriers of race, language, and nationality. His private behavior had a strong impact on some people. But his music reached billions, and it did some good in the world. In whatever court he may yet face, even if it's only the court of public opinion, surely that counts for something. RJ Eskow blogs when he can at: A Night Light The Sentinel Effect: Healthcare Blog More on Michael Jackson
 
Peter Daou: Death Top
When my nephew was six or seven years old, he composed a short poem which still gives me chills - he had no idea what it meant (or maybe he did) and I have no idea how he wrote it, but it's as deep and dark as anything I've read: Soon it comes to every person, See it happen in one black curtain Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, are names from my youth who have now gone behind the black curtain. Not to mention the far more disturbing murder of Neda Soltani , whose life bled away in front of us, her eyes staring off into that infinite distance the dying see. I wrote this on Twitter : "With the loss of anyone famous what we're really mourning is the passage of our own lives, their death a marker on OUR journey." I wrote it because death is ever-present and life is ever-shrinking. For some of us, death is an obsession, for others, barely an afterthought. My childhood was bombs and bullets and bodies and burning buildings, so I'm of the former. The thought of eternal non-existence is unthinkable, mortifying beyond words. If that's the fate that awaits us, it's a wonder that we don't all curl up and scream in endless horror. Some people do, figuratively. Death is life's greatest motivator, for good and evil, fueling our futile quest to 'matter' - futile, because the people we seek to 'matter to' are themselves reaching out to us to give them meaning. It's like two jumpers hurtling to earth, each reaching to the other, but neither with a foothold and both doomed to the same end. Some try to matter by helping others, some by hurting others, all with the desire to be remembered, to bridge an unbridgeable gap, to leave some kind of a mark, to prove that they existed. Humans are impossibly lonely creatures, staring forlornly into time and space, without an anchor or a reference point, probing the depths of physics, philosophy, psychology, poetry, but forever bumping up against the unknowable. My father, who died a decade ago, adored Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat -- this quatrain in particular: And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky, Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die, Lift not thy hands to It for help--for it Rolls impotently on as Thou or I. Searching for the light behind the dark curtain, we turn to religion, to faith, to drugs, to music, to love. We get a glimmer of hope with stories of near death and other paranormal experiences. We meditate and pray. We look to nature and art and beauty. And I think we do get glimpses of the light behind the curtain. In hypnagogic states, the twilight before sleep, in moments of transcendence when our thinking brain is suspended, in vague remembrances of a home, a place of origin whose location is timeless and dimensionless, in the sudden opening - and closing - of a portal during moments of intense fear and love and pain and pleasure, in the stillness of night and nature, in strange confluences and coincidences, in the inexplicable faith that somehow, somewhere, there is an answer. It's amusing to me that science, in its quest to deconstruct and debunk, has reaffirmed the ephemerality of the physical world - quantum theory paints a wonderful and mysterious picture of a universe that is merely thought and potential. Just imagine that when you look out across the horizon, everything in your sight is energy, nothing solid, and that it's all a thought in your mind. And that you are a thought in someone else's mind. We've seen the black curtain this week and it gives us pause, as it should, and it hurts, as it must. Still, we have reason to believe that behind the curtain is something even more mysterious, more frightening and more beautiful than the world we know. More on Michael Jackson
 
Shannyn Moore: Palin's Faux Outrage; Round Two Top
The recent faux outrage from Palin's office is the most transparent in almost a year. The photoshopped picture posted by Linda Kellen Biegel has been spun into an arena that only the uninformed could follow. The same picture was photoshopped with a " Baby Dave Letterman " last week without a peep from the governor. I suppose suggesting that Letterman was a pedophile was enough. Palin's spokesperson said: "Recently we learned of a malicious desecration of a photo of the Governor and baby Trig that has become an iconic representation of a mother's love for a special needs child." Iconic? Really? Palin is not the Madonna. Desecration? What is holy or sacred about Palin? Why the faux outrage? This attack on Biegel is really about her records request for the email communication between Eddie Burke and Sarah Palin. Biegel suspects there has been a concerted "backlash" effort by the Administration against Palin's critics. Burke, a right wing radio host, has rabidly attacked any critic of the governor. If Sarah Palin ate a baby heart on TV, Eddie would say it was because she was low in iron and needed the sustenance to keep her strength up against her liberal enemies. Burke's show regularly features Palin, her attorney, her spokesperson, her brother, her father, and representatives from an out-of-state, pro-Palin website regularly. The initial price tag for the records request was $65,000. Biegel pressed Linda Perez, the Director of the Department of Administration, for an explanation of the search process that was taking 16 hours per employee. The cost was lowered to $5,552.64. The blogging community supported Biegel in an " accountability drive " on her blog and readers donated money. In the last few days most of the funds needed have been collected and Linda is ready to write the check and get the requested emails between Burke and Palin. NOW, an attack from Palin. Linda has blogged for years. She walks with a cane, and has physical disabilities. She has a bi-racial child and is always on the righteous side of fighting discrimination. She attended the Anchorage assembly meetings this week to testify in favor of the ordinance banning discrimination against the GLBT community. Burke attended the same event, protesting the civil rights ordinance with a shirt stating : "Homophobic, Red Shirt, Bible Thumping Nazi, Gay Bashing, Tea Bagging, Rascist (yes misspelled), White Guy, Bigot." Yes, Sarah Palin pals around with this fine example of tolerance. The Palin administration is now calling on Alaskan Democrats to condemn Biegel. Where was the condemnation on Crooks and Liars for photoshopping the same picture with David Letterman last week? Oh, that's right, they don't have a records request on the governor, Linda does. The attack on Biegel is another example of Palin's "faux outrage." The false victimization spin from of Sarah is her antidote for criticism. She did it to Letterman, she's doing it to Linda. More on David Letterman
 
Todd Paglia: Pipelines are Forever: Why we delivered the World's Dirtiest Oil to Secretary Clinton Top
Seeing the future is hard enough -- but can you smell it? If you are talking about green energy maybe you can.... We conducted our own scientific research on this very question in Washington, D.C., where we unveiled the world's first-ever Clean Energy Smell Test. If you thought the Coke and Pepsi taste tests were exciting, this one is really going to roll your socks up and down - and there is slightly more at stake than which carbonated sugar water tastes best. On one side we have the energy future that visionaries like Van Jones - our green collar jobs czar - have been fighting for. On the other side we have Big Oil's version of our future (can you hear the booos?). One smells like sunshine, a gentle breeze through a windmill, mountain water flowing into a micro-hydro generator. The other smells like, well, hell. The green energy future was preferred by 99.5% of those tested; (the .5% was Dick Cheney, who loved the sludge so much he started hyperventilating - it wasn't pretty.) What is this sludge from the Tar Sands? The sticky, tar like stuff is buried beneath one of the most carbon rich and diverse forests in the world - the Boreal Forest. Once that forest is destroyed the sludge is basically steam-cleaned to produce synthetic crude oil, millions of gallons of toxic waste, massive greenhouse gas emissions, and more. (For lots more stomach-turning stats - including Canada's plan in the '50s to melt the bitumen with atomic bombs - see Tar Sands by A. Nikiforuk). This is the stuff that Canada wants to send our way via new pipelines that will run straight through our heartland. And Canada is teaming up with Big Oil to make this "dream" come true. Yes, Canada. Our friends to the North are not quite as green as you might think. One person has the power to decide whether the pipelines can cross the border and enter the US: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Only she can approve or disapprove the permits for these pipelines. That's why yesterday, ForestEthics delivered a sample of Tar Sands sludge, as well as a copy of the ad that we ran in Roll Call , DC's pre-eminent political newspaper, to Secretary Clinton. And we conducted our first-ever Clean Energy Smell Test right on the steps of her home-away-from-home, the State Department. Normally, seeing is believing. But when it comes to Tar Sands, smelling is the real indicator. Imagine a strip-mined pit that literally looks like the dark side of the moon - a black moonscape reeking like a tarry toxic soup. The scent is Dow Chemical meets the Devil's suntan oil. That's the Tar Sands. Canada is our largest oil supplier, and Tar Sands oil is increasingly what it's sending us. The pipeline that's currently up for Sec. Clinton's review, the Alberta Clipper, will extend like an 1000-mile long syringe into the U.S. through Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin, where it will plug into existing pipelines to get the Tar Sands to Chicago and beyond. Secretary Clinton has had a few things to say about global warming, (2,270,000 Google hits for "hillary clinton" + "global warming"), including: "It is a threat that is global in scope but also local and national in impact. ... No issue we face today has broader long-term consequences or greater potential to alter the world for future generations." - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, April 27, 2009 We couldn't agree more. And apparently there has been quite a debate going on at the State Department about this particular pipeline. One thing that's clear is that Secretary of State Clinton cares deeply about climate change - and that approving or denying permits for this pipeline is one of her first major decisions as Secretary of State that will directly address the issue. Politicians can always say something that sounds good - remember which president copped to our oil addiction. But doing something real, like denying this pipeline, leaves no wriggle room, and that's what leaders are clamoring for. I hope Secretary Clinton does the right thing regarding the pipelines not just because it is important for our own green future, or for the people suffering downstream of the Tar Sands, or for what kind of world my children will inherit, but for a far more basic reason: shifting toward a greener, more just future is not one big decision. There is no moment that strikes and everything before is old and everything after is new, like in the Wizard of Oz. Life is not like that. We will make this turn towards a brighter future for our children only if we make a thousand smaller decisions in the direction of this larger goal. This is one of those decisions. And remember, pipelines are forever. Can you smell our green energy future? I sure hope Secretary Clinton can. More on Climate Change
 
Anderson Cooper Remembers Going To Studio 54 When He Was 10 With Michael Jackson (VIDEO) Top
As part of CNN's coverage of Michael Jackson's death, Anderson Cooper told a story about going to Studio 54 when he was 10 with Jackson and other friends. "When I was 10, for some odd reason, I went to Studio 54 with Michael Jackson and a bunch of people and I had no idea who he was and I saw him dance and I was like, Oh, that guy is a really good dancer." Later, he tantalizingly added: "Why I was at Studio 54 is a whole other story... Child welfare authorities probably want to talk to my mom." Watch the video: More on Anderson Cooper
 
Mike Ragogna: Michael Jackson, Child of America, Gone Top
"You and I must make a pact, we must bring salvation back, where there is love, I'll be there..." "I'll Be There" was one of the first songs that introduced us to that legendary performing/recording act of five brothers, The Jackson 5, featuring the angelic voice of a small, skinny kid named Michael. Centered mostly around little brother's vocals, these Gary, Indiana, siblings further busted up the pop and r&b charts with such memorable Motown hits as "I Want You Back," "ABC," "The Love You Save," "Mama's Pearl," "Never Can Say Goodbye," "Sugar Daddy," and later, "Dancing Machine," but their music became the soundtrack of the early seventies, it being impossible to have not owned at least one of those infectious singles. A mere year or so later, the pre-teen Michael Jackson (marketed as being two years younger) became a solo artist, with his own run of child's view singles that included his first monster hit and release, "Got To Be There," followed by his cover of Bobby Day's "Rockin' Robin," "I Wanna Be Where You Are," and the theme song to the movie Ben starring Lee Montgomerey. Some time between the brothers' hits "Enjoy Youself" and "Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)" and right around the time Michael starred in The Wiz alongside the 5's Motown sponsor, Diana Ross, the first serious stories of The Jacksons' childhood surfaced, tales of intense rehearsals, parental abuse and emotional neglect; it was shocking since these boys appeared on every home's entertainment device for years, thus becoming somewhat extended family to many. That was the first controversial tabloid exposé the still rising star had to survive, but sympathies especially went out to Michael, his having been the most popular and familiar face of the act as well as one of his family's youngest children. After signing with Epic Records in 1979, the celebrity made a major "comeback" with what was the beginning of an endless stream of smashes, starting with "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," "Rock With You," "Off The Wall" and "She's Out Of My Life." Under the supervision of Quincy Jones, the producer/architect behind an emerging late seventies/early eighties champagne R&B sound, the album Off The Wall and its associated hits established Jackson as a young African American icon. The album's follow-up, the international sales phenomenon that was Thriller , gave Jackson seven more hugely successful hits in his duet with Paul McCartney, "The Girl Is Mine," "Billie Jean," "Beat It," "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," "Human Nature," "P.Y.T.," and his Vincent Price duet, "Thriller" (an eighth, "The Lady Of My Life," was rumored to have been prepped before the government's crackdown on the music industry's promotions practices began). The LP soon displaced Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon , Carole King's Tapestry and Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Waters as the biggest selling album ever, and its relative videos cast Michael Jackson as an actor -- strutting down a boulevard on lit, multi-colored squares, assuming the role of mediator in a gang fight, and dancing with zombies in what became a world event for the debut of the mini-movie "Thriller." At the top of his game as well as the world, Michael won eight Grammys for the hit-packed album, and he showcased his famous moonwalk dance moves on Motown's 25th Anniversary special. Virtually, the next day, every kid on the planet was trying to emulate his or her pop hero, and from this point on for many years, he really was the King of Pop, all due respect to The King. It's after this point when things started reeling out, his Bad album having included many hits, though none that touched the heart as what came before. "Bad," "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," "The Way You Make Me Feel," "Dirty Diana," and "Smooth Criminal" all seemed forced, though "Man In The Mirror" with its honest, positive message of changing the world for the best from within each individual was one of his finest offerings. The whole idea of Michael Jackson now being "bad" in any sense of that word was ludicrous, as was the album cover that featured a thuggish, mysteriously lighter-skinned Jackson. His growing immodesty and contrived crotch-grabbing contradicted everything we knew about him, and that emerging, fabricated image probably was the first red flag that something was very wrong. Perhaps those around him did not re-orient him from fear of losing their jobs or offending, and probably, this was the last, best moment in time that some kind of intervention might have been effective. From then on, though pretty good albums and decent singles were released such as the beautiful "You Are Not Alone" and "Heal The World" (after which he named and created a charitable foundation), Michael Jackson's career and personal life decisions did almost nothing more than provide fodder to the tabloids. The list they were able to choose from was long and disturbing: marrying than immediately divorcing Lisa Marie Presley; converting his home into Neverland; having numerous plastic surgeries and skin-whitening processes; acquiring a hyperbaric chamber and, apparently, the bones of the "elephant man," John Merrick; adopting Bubbles the chimp; securing an arranged marriage and pregnancies with Debbie Rowe; naming his son "Prince Michael"; arranging for interviews during which he asserted his heterosexual desires a little too insistently -- something we never really gave much though about until allegations of sexual abuse with children occurred, which brings us to those stories of Macaulay Culkin, Jesus Juice and sleepovers with children that takes us to the endless lawsuits and eventual loss of his millions and collapse of his career. Today's death of Michael Jackson accompanies the death of a little more of this country's innocence. And it's symbolic that his heart finally just gave out. Ultimately, the adult Michael was responsible for his own actions, and will be remembered for them accordingly. But due to his abusive upbringing and unimaginable, disorienting success as an artist, he probably just couldn't handle his life in any practical way. All we know now is that he suffered from something , and his passing is tragic because it happened at the bottom of a downward spiral, his never really being able to redeem himself in the eyes of the public -- something we seem to require before a forgiveness and acceptance back into the flock. Beyond the reams of his documented eccentricities, Michael Jackson was a huge talent who'll be missed, and he was one of our better, kinder kids whose life and story spun out of control, those seeds probably planted in his misplaced childhood. Just a thought -- shouldn't we have been our disturbed brother's keeper when it was obvious he really, really needed one? More on Michael Jackson
 
Tony Sachs: What Was Your Michael Jackson Moment? Top
What flashed through your mind in the moment when you first heard about Michael Jackson's death? Before the psychologists, professional and amateur, drew the comparisons between him and Elvis, another musical king with a Christ complex who built an enclosed world for himself to avoid dealing with reality? Before conspiracy theorists started floating theories of drug overdose, suicide, murder or feigned death? Before pundits started recounting the tales of plastic surgery, molestation and megalomania? Before the crocodile tears and official press statements of countless current and former celebrities? What did you think in that split second when you heard the news and thought, "Really? Michael Jackson ?" I'd like to think we all flashed back to a moment when he moved us with his talents rather than titillating and repulsing us with his idiosyncrasies. Maybe, depending on how old you are, you thought of seeing the Jackson 5 performing on the Ed Sullivan show when "I Want You Back" first broke them nationally. Or of hearing a newly mature Michael belt out "Dancing Machine" with his brothers. Maybe your Michael Jackson Moment came when "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" saturated the airwaves at the tail end of the disco era, or when the 14-minute "Thriller" video got played every hour on the hour on MTV, ending once and for all the accusations of racism at the music channel. The moment that sprung from my memory banks when I heard the news took place in the spring of 1983. I was not quite 14; Thriller had already fallen from the top spot on the Billboard charts; and Michael Jackson was performing with his brothers on a televised tribute to the 25th anniversary of Motown Records, the label on which they'd gotten their start. The Jacksons performed a brilliant medley of their early hits, but it was when Michael held the stage alone that he crossed the line from superstardom into the rarefied air of those few who have created a pop culture phenomenon. Michael did the moonwalk on stage that night. With a quarter century's hindsight, it's almost impossible to convey just how astounding, how jaw-dropping that single moment was. I'd never seen anything like it before, and I can imagine that most of the viewing audience had never seen anything like it either. I recorded the program on my VCR (this is decades before DVR or Tivo or YouTube, mind you), and watched it incessantly for weeks afterward. How did he do that? How could he move that way? I tried, unsuccessfully, to moonwalk myself -- I'm still pretty bad at it. I dragged my classic rock-loving friends over to watch it; they claimed indifference, though to this day I still think they were faking it. Apparently, the rest of the country felt the way I did. Thriller shot back to #1 on the charts, where it stayed for most of the next eight months, becoming the biggest selling album of all time in the process. For the next year or so, Michael was everywhere -- his dance moves, his red leather jackets, his sequined gloves, his falsetto "ah-HEEEE-heee"s -- until even the most ardent MJ fans started to get a little sick of him. Michael had plenty of great moments after that Everest of a career peak. "We Are The World," "Man In The Mirror," "Smooth Criminal," "Black Or White," "Scream." Live performances where he could still sing and move with the greatest performers of the century. But eventually, as his personality disintegrated, the music suffered as well. The hits kept coming, kind of, but if you're anything like me, it's hard to remember the last time you really cared about a new Michael Jackson record. If I heard a single track from his last studio album, 2001's Invincible , I can't recall it. The stuff I heard was good -- most of it, at least -- but it had stopped being undeniable. It didn't grab you by the collar the way "Billie Jean" or "Rock With You" did, almost forcing you to pay attention. And of course there was the amazing shrinking nose, lightened skin and straightened hair. The parasols and surgical masks. The accusations and trials. The closing of Neverland. The relocation to Bahrain. Moments that will be shoved and re-shoved in our faces for the foreseeable future as the 24-hour news machine looks for more sordid images to regurgitate in order to make us pay attention. But I hope that in our mind's eyes, somewhere behind the images of the weird, pajama-clad, not-quite-human latter-day Michael Jackson, we'll be able to hold onto those memories of when the guy made magic. Those moments when he scaled heights we could scarcely even conceive of at the time. The moments that made us feel so burned, and sad, and outraged, when he slipped up and showed us he was human, after all. More on Michael Jackson
 
Beau Friedlander: This Is Not The Climate Bill You Need To Fear Top
Whatever happened, it was bad. Cormac McCarthy's The Road envisioned an apocalypse that didn't kill civilization so much as render it insane. It was literary hyperbole for the sake of allegory. So is this. Lawmakers in Washington: Please for just one moment pretend that the above scenario is possible, that you are characters in the prequel, and do the right thing on this climate bill that you're about to vote on. You've heard it all before. We are in the middle of one of the largest mass extinctions this planet has seen thus far, and still people have the audacity to hope for profit over salvation. I wonder--perhaps with Cormac McCarthy, perhaps alone--if this audacity will cease to govern the choices we make as a society when bands of erstwhile parishioners and plumbers and bankers and bowling alley attendants and suitcase salepeople and itinerant bachelors wander the streets looking for anyone who isn't "one of them" to bonk on the head and eat. I tend to doubt it these days. The Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill--a.k.a. the American Clean Energy and Security Act, ACES, H.R. 2454--will likely get voted up or down today unless it's looking really bad and Pelosi decides to put it off for a while. It needs to garner 218 votes in the House of Representatives to pass. As it stands, there are a lot of scared politicians out there who are none too sure. Nancy Pelosi is doing a good job under trying circumstances. The whips are out in full force. David Axelrod has been clear . President Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, delivering a stern warning on Thursday to members attending the Democratic whip meeting. "If this goes down, it shows we can't govern," Axelrod­­­ said, according to one person in attendance. No one wants to say it in the mainstream coverage, but truly, what is at stake here is an environmental Armageddon. If you haven't seen the movies and the interactive maps, you should. The information is out there, and it is clear. Estimates of the number of people who will be displaced by natural disasters or rising sea levels vary from 50 million by 2010 to hundreds of millions or even one billion by 2050. The number of deaths caused by starvation due to changing weather patterns and the inability of the world's farmers to keep up with demand is unknowable, but it is certainly in the hundreds of millions if not billions. We are looking down the barrel of unfettered expansionism, and it is our own desire for more of everything that will pull the trigger if we can't break this carbon-coughing obsession with an obsolete and dangerous way of life. Now to climb down from the soapbox and look at this flimsy reed of a bill everyone is fretting over like a nervous laboratory chimpanzee trying to please an implacable lab attendant. Egad. Farmers this week said they needed special exemptions. There was talk of trapping cow farts and such--all of which is fine and good--but much more talk about how the Department of Agriculture (famously backward-thinking and reckless about environmental issues) would have to oversee carbon offsets for farmers. Really? By the same token, I would like oversight on Waxman-Markey. Few who are "serious" about saving us from ourselves as regards the wholesale destruction of the planet have a high opinion of this bill. This bill is not worth a damn when it comes to the problems we face. Sure it's great that some semblance of clean energy and "solution"-oriented thinking has hit the political mainstream. But again, are we really arguing about this? You want to make a difference, it's going to hurt people. Sure money is tight. A solution will make money all the more scarce for families barely making ends meet. Everyone needs to swallow hard, and grow up a little. It is what it is. What do we get for the expenditure? Not so much with the present bill . Maybe not enough. But still: Waxman-Markey requires that 6 percent of electricity come from renewables by 2012, and 20 percent of electricity from renewables by 2020. There would be a 3 percent cut in carbon emission by 2012, a 17 percent cut by 2020, a 42 percent cut by 2030, and more than an 80 percent cut by 2050. All of this cutting will create a huge number of green enterprise jobs. Energy costs will actually decrease in the long run, but as mentioned already and mumbled over and over by Blue Dog Democrats who remain on the fence, there will be associated costs in the short-term. Whether it is farm lobbies moaning about the cost of diesel and electricity--note they get a complete pass on the off-gassing catastrophe that is rising from their feedlots--or whether we're talking about lawmakers nervous about passing the expense on to voting citizens, we're concerned here mainly with a quagmire of self-interest and self-serving bias that truly endangers life on the planet. George Lakoff rarely rises to the level of Luntz-like poetry, but here no poetry is required: Pay a lot now, or pay much more later. The bleak landscapes of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning book are not that far off in the future if we don't get a handle on this problem. And while Waxman-Markey is weak medicine for a very sick planet, it's a whole lot better than taking the poor orb behind the Milky Way and shooting it. Pass the Waxman-Markey bill please, so we can get a foothold in the mountain of a problem rising up before us. from Air America More on Nancy Pelosi
 
Michael Jackson Mourners At Apollo Theater: Al Sharpton Makes Statement (VIDEO) Top
Reverend Al Sharpton was quick to get in front of the cameras tonight to discuss the death of Michael Jackson . Sharpton told the media that was camped out with crowds of mourners in front of New York's Apollo theater that he hopes "Michael gets the respect he was due." The Reverend also said he spoke to Jackson at times and had no warning the performer had a "serious illness." Watch the video:
 
US Swine Flu Cases May Have Hit 1 Million Top
ATLANTA — Swine flu has infected as many as 1 million Americans, U.S. health officials said Thursday, adding that 6 percent or more of some urban populations are infected. The estimate voiced by a government flu scientist Thursday was no surprise to the experts who have been closely watching the virus. "We knew diagnosed cases were just the tip of the iceberg," said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert who was in Atlanta for the meeting of a vaccine advisory panel. Lyn Finelli, a flu surveillance official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, made the 1 million estimate in a presentation to the vaccine panel. The number is from mathematical modeling, based on surveys by health officials. Regular seasonal flu sickens anywhere from 15 million to 60 million Americans each year. The United States has roughly half the world's swine flu cases, with nearly 28,000 reported to the CDC so far. The U.S. count includes 3,065 hospitalizations and 127 deaths. The percentage of cases hospitalized has been growing, but that may be due to closer scrutiny of very sick patients. It takes about three days from the time symptoms appear to hospitalization, Finelli said, and the average hospital stay has been three days. Other health problems have been a factor in most cases: About one in three of the hospitalized cases had asthma, 16 percent diabetes, 12 percent have immune system problems and 11 percent chronic heart disease. The numbers again highlight how the young seem to be particularly at risk of catching the new virus. But data also show that the flu has been more dangerous to adults who catch it. The average age of swine flu patients is 12, the average age for hospitalized patients is 20, and for people who died, it was 37. It seems to be deadliest to people 65 and older, with deaths in more than 2 percent of elderly people infected, Finelli said. Also at the meeting, CDC officials made projections about flu vaccines expected to be available to protect against both seasonal and swine flu this fall. More than 25 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine should be available by early September, CDC officials and vaccine manufacturers said. The same five manufacturers that make the seasonal vaccine are producing swine flu vaccine as well. As many as 60 million doses of vaccine to protect against the new virus could be ready by September, said Robin Robinson, an official with the federal agency that oversees vaccine manufacture and distribution. That prediction seemed a bit optimistic, others at the meeting said. The vaccinations might be given as two shots, spaced 21 days apart. But the vaccine has to be tested before it's made available to the public. More on Swine Flu
 
Jackson Death Causes Media Scramble Top
NEW YORK — Two broadcast TV networks were already planning dueling prime-time specials on Farrah Fawcett's death Thursday. Then Michael Jackson died. It forced an extraordinary scramble for news organizations from covering the death of an entertainment icon to another. "What a sad, incredible ... you couldn't write this," said a nonplussed Larry King on CNN, describing how his planned show on Fawcett was "blown out of the well" with Jackson's death. He sensed immediately what most news organizations did, that the Jackson story was bigger, because of both the surprise factor and the magnitude of his stardom. ABC had planned an hour on Fawcett's death, a Barbara Walters special that had initially been scheduled for Friday but had been moved up earlier this week when word came that her condition was grave. NBC News, which last month had presented a show on Fawcett's fight against anal cancer, announced shortly after her death that it would do its own Fawcett special. After Jackson's death, they became two-hour specials _ one hour on each star. CBS also put together a quick hour mixing the stories. "I think we should remember Michael Jackson as the great performer he was," Walters said. Earlier, she had asked co-anchor Martin Bashir whether Jackson would be remembered more for his talent or his scandals. Bashir answered that it would be his music. But the special, perhaps because there was so little time to put it together, leaned heavily on tapes of old interviews with Bashir, Walters and Diane Sawyer that focused more on his oddities than what had brought him to prominence in the first place. The cable news networks almost immediately began covering the story exclusively. Fox News had twin crawls in urgent yellow at the bottom of its screen, one repeating "breaking news" and the other nuggets like: "MC Hammer tweets on Jackson death: `I have no words.'" Clips of Jackson performances and videos ran continuously as wallpaper, their quick camera cuts reminiscent of MTV in the 1980s, which lived off Jackson's hits. BET, meanwhile, set aside programming for Jackson tributes and airing of Jackson videos. More on Michael Jackson
 
Google Porn Causes Memory Loss, Reports China State TV Top
China's slamming of Google appears to have sparked an online backlash among some Web users in China.
 
The Climate Bill Explained Top
Cap-and-trade? Offsets? Pollution credits? The climate bill under consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives tackles global warming with new limits on pollution and a market-based approach to encourage more environmentally friendly business practices. But what exactly do the proposed rules mean, and how would they work? Some questions and answers about the bill, a top legislative priority for President Barack Obama: Q: What's the purpose of this legislation? A: To reduce the gases linked to global warming and to force sources for power to shift away from fossil fuels, which when burned, release heat-trapping gases, and toward cleaner sources of energy such as wind, solar and geothermal. Q: How does the bill accomplish this? A: By placing the first national limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases from major sources like power plants, refineries and factories. This limit effectively puts a price on the pollution, raising the cost for companies to continue to use fuels and electricity sources that contribute to global warming. This gives them an incentive to seek cleaner alternatives. Q: Is this the "cap-and-trade" idea that has been in the news? A: Yes. The first step in a cap-and-trade program sets a limit on the amount of gases that can be released into the atmosphere. That is the cap. Companies with facilities that are covered by the cap will then receive permits for their share of the pollution, an annual pollution allowance. This bill initially would give the bulk of the permits away for free to help ease costs, but they still would have value because there would be a limited supply. Companies that do not get a big enough allowance to cover their pollution would either have to find ways to reduce it, which can be expensive, or buy additional permits from companies that have reduced pollution enough to have allowances left over. That is the trade. Companies typically would pick the cheaper option: reducing pollution or buying permits. They also have a third choice: They can invest in pollution reductions made elsewhere, such as farms that capture methane or plant trees. These are known as offsets. Q: So the idea is to try to reduce the overall level of pollution, regardless of whether, say, a particular factory reduces emissions? A: That is true in the beginning. But as the cap gets lower and lower, reaching an 83 percent reduction by 2050, eventually all polluters will have to reduce. It is merely a question of when. For instance, it will be very tough for coal plants to reduce emissions at the outset of the program because the technology to capture and store carbon dioxide is not yet commercially available. It probably is 10 to 20 years away. So they will be buying offsets and buying allowances from other entities that will have an easier time. Q: Do most environmentalists support this approach? A: Most do, at least broadly. Cap-and-trade has had success. Since 1990, the United States has had a cap-and-trade program for sulfur dioxide, the main culprit in acid rain. Democrats have had to make a lot of concessions to win votes for the current bill from lawmakers from coal, oil and farm states. Some liberal environmentalists think these concessions weaken the bill. For instance, the bill's sponsors have had to lower the cap _ it originally called for a 20 percent cut by 2020 _ to 17 percent. Research suggests that much deeper cuts will be needed globally to avert the most serious consequences of global warming. Q: Who opposes this approach, and why? A: Republicans, some farm groups, some environmentalists, the oil industry, which feels it has received too few free permits, and some moderate Democrats. They all worry about the cost and the loss of jobs if industries move to countries that do not have controls on greenhouse gases. The bill has provisions to prevent this, but there are questions whether they will work. Republicans call the bill a national energy tax on every American family. This is because, as industries spend money to reduce pollution or buy credits, they will pass on that cost to consumers, the people who turn on the lights or pump gas in their cars. Recent analyses by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office show that the new rules eventually will cost the average household an extra $175 a year. Q: Under the bill, what will happen to companies that do not follow the rules? A: If they exceed their limit, they will have to pay a fine equal to twice the cap-and-trade price for each ton of pollution over the limit. Q: Other than costs potentially being passed along to consumers, will this affect most Americans' day-to-day lives? A: It fundamentally will change how we use, produce and consume energy, ending the country's love affair with big gas-guzzling cars and its insatiable appetite for cheap electricity. This bill will put smaller, more efficient cars on the road, swap smokestacks for windmills and solar panels, and transform the appliances you can buy for your home. Q: How quickly will we notice these changes? A: Some will occur more quickly than others. For instance, measures to boost energy efficiency in buildings and appliances are the low-hanging fruit that does not require major infrastructure changes or new technologies. Other changes are decades off and probably will come when the cap gets more stringent and permits get more expensive. For instance, the country can build more wind and more solar panels, but currently it lacks the transmission lines to move the energy they generate to population centers. As for cars: While more efficient models are a near-term reality, it will take a while to change out the fleet. Some people will continue driving 10-year-old gas guzzlers. Q: What are the chances this bill will become law? A: Both the Obama administration and Democrats want this bill passed by the end of the year, when negotiations for a new international agreement to reduce greenhouse gases get under way in Copenhagen, Denmark. Even as Democrats hold the majority in Congress, it will not be easy to get this enacted. Many moderate Democrats from rural states and conservative districts are worried about the costs and complexity of the legislation when the economy is already weak. Very few Republicans, if any, are expected to support the bill. Approval of a climate bill in the Senate has been viewed as a long shot. Parts of the bill may need to be changed to secure approval in the Senate. Q: Why is it so important to tackle global warming anyway? A: Left untended, scientists say, global warming will cause sea levels to rise, increase storms and worsen air pollution. For these reasons, the Environmental Protection Agency recently concluded that six greenhouse gases pose dangers to human health and welfare. And politically, without U.S. action, developing countries like China probably will not agree to mandatory pollution limits.
 
Michael Jackson Fans Mourn And Celebrate The King Of Pop (PHOTOS) Top
The King of Pop, Michael Jackson, has died at the age of 50. His fans are gathering around the country, indeed around the world, to mourn for him and celebrate his legacy as one of the greatest musicians and entertainers of all time. One large crowd gathered in front of the Apollo Theater in NY , the place where Jackson was unveiled to the world four decades ago. One of the mourners was the Reverend Al Sharpton, who spoke about his relationship with Jackson and his hope that the King of Pop would be respected in death. Check out his legions of fans gathering below. View a slideshow of his life in pictures here . Watch all his best music videos here . More on Michael Jackson
 
Steve Rosenbaum: The WTC Site: A look ahead Top
For most New Yorkers the current World Trade Center site generates a stream of complex emotions. Anger, Fear, Sadness, and mostly a strange nostalgia for the days when the the world wasn't divided into 'before' and 'after' 9/11. Today - the WTC site has a lot of construction activity - but at least so far its all below or at ground level... which means that what is actually going on has remained somewhat of a mystery. The open question hanging over the site, how will New Yorkers feel when that empty piece of sky and ground is replaced with actual architecture and stone, and steal, and water and trees. Well, the first answers to that question were unveiled at The Center for Architecture last night. The occasion was the opening of the exhibit "A Space Within: The National September 11th Memorial and Museum." And based on the size of the turn out, and the long serious looks that the exhibit engaged in its audience - New York is anxious... even hungry for the remembrance and rebirth of the site. Here's a video that gives visitors to the Center for Architecture exhibit a first look what the site will look like: and Here are some photographs from the opening of the exhibit. Here's the public description of the event: CalendarofEvents Thu 06.25.2009 Exhibition Opening: A Space Within:The National September 11 Memorial & Museum When: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM THURSDAY, JUNE 25 Where: At The Center On September 11th, 2001, what had been one of the world's most densely developed business districts became, for many, hallowed ground. Soon after, questions emerged. What comes next? How could one site serve the needs of victims' families, survivors of the attacks, members of the surrounding communities, business interests, and visitors? The answer required a clear separation of the sacred and the secular; a defined, eight-acre space, serving as a tribute, would be created within the larger development. A Space Within is a public showcase of the memorial and museum that are now taking shape at the heart of the World Trade Center site. RSVP Exhibition and related programs are organized by the AIA New York Chapter in partnership with the Center for Architecture Foundation and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Memorial design by Michael Arad and Peter Walker Museum design by Davis Brody Bond Aedas Museum pavilion design by Snohetta Exhibition curator: Thomas Mellins Exhibition design: Incorporated Architecture & Design Partner: National September 11 Memorial & Museum Lead Sponsors: Digital Plus Faithful+Gould Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Sponsor: Associated Fabrication Supporters: Adamson Associates Fisher Marantz Stone Guy Nordenson and Associates Structural Engineers Horizon Engineering Associates Langan Engineering & Environmental Services Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Snøhetta Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates WSP Cantor Seinuk Media Consultant: C.C. Sullivan Event website: http://cfa.aiany.org/index.php?section=exhibitions
 
Obama Makes 11th-Hour Climate Bill Push Top
US President Barack Obama urged lawmakers Thursday to pass a historic global warming bill, amid down-to-the-wire campaigning on the eve of a tense vote in the House of Representatives. More on Barack Obama
 
Tamar Abrams: Baby Boomers Lose Two Icons on One Sad Day Top
If, like me, you grew up in the 1960s and 70s, the soundtrack of your life included the Jackson Five and Charlie's Angels was must-see TV. So today is a sad day for a generation -- even for those who found Michael Jackson's lifestyle distasteful and Farrah Fawcett bland. They helped define a generation of Baby Boomers who were too young to claim Elvis and too old to boast about Jennifer Aniston. It's odd to lose two key representatives of my youth on the same day. I know my parents are used to it. When you reach the seventh and eighth decades of life, there is a certain resignation to hearing about the death of your peers. The obituary page begins to read like a high school yearbook, with a daily relief that your name isn't listed there. But at 52 I'm still shocked by the death of those close to my age, or anyone whose childhood photos are all in color. Among other things, we tend to define ourselves by the roadmap of celebrities, TV shows and music that we follow throughout our lives. As with certain smells from the past, a song or a TV clip can be almost painfully evocative. So what happens when those icons whose lives ran parallel to our own begin to disappear? We search for answers: How do you get anal cancer? How could someone like Michael Jackson die suddenly of cardiac arrest? Was he abusing drugs? In the answers we look for reassurance that the death had less to do with human frailty than with something that can be prevented. But in the end, it is all a part of the process of letting go. There's no guarantee that the celebrities we admire in our youth will grow old alongside us. And sometimes the celebrities appear to grow younger in direct contrast to our own aging. Farrah Fawcett left us with an iconic poster, even more iconic hair and a haunting documentary about her own impending death. Michael Jackson left us so suddenly, but the music and the dancing remain. At the end of a sad day, a generation of men and women in our late 40s and early 50s are reminded of our own mortality and the increasing losses that lie ahead. More on Michael Jackson
 

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