Even though it's now pretty much a done deal and much of the relevant ground I've been over before, I'd like to comment a little on the tax plan that President Obama and the Republican leadership came up with. There are two major questions here. One is whether the deal in of itself is a good one; the second is whether it would have been better to have no deal at all than to have the one we ended up with. The answer to the first question, taking both the good and bad parts of the plan into consideration, is no. The answer to the second question is maybe, depending at least in part on how the passage of the tax plan ultimately affects several other key measures.
The centerpiece of the tax plan is the two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts. As I have said before, there is no sense in extending the tax cuts for earners in the highest income bracket. They don't need the money, most of them won't spend it anyway but will save it (meaning it won't stimulate the economy), and allowing them to continue to pay lower taxes increase the budget deficit by a large amount (far more than many of the programs the conservatives want to cut). The assertion that higher taxes would hurt many small businesses is wrong, as few fall into this category (and many that do are law partnerships, private medical clinics and so forth), and in any case if a small business has a need for an additional employee, they aren't going to refrain from hiring one just because they are paying slightly more in taxes. The Republican refrain that no one should have their taxes raised in a recession is just a nonsensical sound bite, one which attempts to imply, aside from the questionable economic arguments mentioned above, that everyone is suffering equally and we don't want to see anyone hurt by more taxes, like someone who makes half a million dollars a year is really going to suffer because they have to pay twenty thousand dollars more in taxes. It's also worth reiterating that even had tax rates for the highest income bracket gone up, they would have still been under 40% (as compared to the current rate of a little over 35%), which is not very high compared either to other countries or past tax rates in the US.
However, as bad as the Republican insistence on lower tax rates for the relatively well-off is, this isn't the worst part of the tax plan. That "honor" has to go to the estate tax. The estate tax had also been cut temporarily, but without this bill it would have gone back to the old rate, which if I recall the numbers correctly was 55% on estates of more than US$1 million. But the Republicans insisted on cutting it drastically, making the rate 35% on individual estates of US$5 million, or US$10 million for married couples. This will benefit a very tiny percentage of Americans, and it won't even be the people who actually earned the money, but their heirs. I know if I was going to inherit $US2 million I wouldn't complain if I had to give up half of it. Sure, a million dollars may not be what it once was, but it's still a pretty decent sum, especially if you don't have to earn it yourself. So why on Earth should we do this tiny percentage of wealthy people's children a favor when it'll add substantially to the deficit? It's absurd. This once again shows that the Republicans really are the party of the rich, or at least of the selfish rich (quite a few wealthy people have said they should pay higher taxes, whether income or estate taxes).
Then there was the temporary payroll tax cut. Obama apparently supported this idea as a stimulus measure that would benefit a much wider segment of the population than the Republicans' cuts for the rich, but it has its problems too. The payroll tax pays for Social Security, which for the time being is in the black. But having made the cut, there is a danger the Republicans will try to make it permanent (by once again crying tax increase if the Democrats try to allow it to go back to the original rate, just as they've done this year with the income tax rates). If that happens, Social Security will not remain solvent for nearly as long as it would have, and the Republicans will have an excuse to try to cut or privatize it (when the best way to boost Social Security in the long term is to increase the payroll tax -- not by raising the rates, but by raising the ceiling, since it is currently only taken out of the first US$100,000 in salary). If this doesn't happen, fine. But if it does, the payroll tax cut will also turn out to be a big negative.
Perhaps the only significant positive in the deal is the extension of unemployment benefits. Allowing them to expire would leave a lot of people with no income at all, and despite right wing assertions to the contrary, most of them are not just freeloaders who won't go out and look for work (though of course there are some people like that), as most businesses simply aren't hiring. Giving those out of work some money to spend will also stimulate the economy (more than lower taxes for a few wealthy people will), besides allowing them to put food on the table.
I seem to recall that there are also a few tax incentives for alternative energy and things of that sort in the bill, though I don't know the specifics. If so, that's a good thing. But given its bad parts, I can't say that the deal sounds like a good one overall. If there were no other considerations, I'd say it'd be better to let everyone's taxes go back to the old rates, which at least would cut the deficit by a large amount (or rather keep it from getting bigger, as past budget projections have assumed that all the cuts would expire). It's worth noting that keeping income tax rates the same won't stimulate the economy either, as people aren't getting more money, just keeping the same amount as before. The only substantial stimulus will be from the payroll tax cut and the extension of unemployment benefits.
As I stated earlier, given that this deal was overall more bad than good, does that mean Obama and the Democrats would have been better off rejecting it in its entirety? If the only things at stake were what the tax plan itself covered, I would have said yes. I would certainly prefer not to sacrifice those who are living on unemployment benefits (as I implied in the previous paragraph, letting taxes go back to the old rates for everybody would not necessarily be a bad thing), but considering the long term problems that this deal may cause, problems that will eventually affect everyone, that might have been the better choice if they were the only people to be sacrificed to the Republicans' intransigence. But aside from blocking any tax deal that didn't favor the wealthy, the Republicans -- even the few supposedly more moderate ones -- had pledged to block all legislation in the Senate until the tax plan was passed. This meant that a number of very important measures were in danger of not getting through. When I started writing this just after the tax deal was passed, it was still not certain which of them would make it. Now votes have been taken on two of them, with a third due to voted on any time now.
The first of these measures was the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell". This was something that should have been done a long time ago, and with the Pentagon having completed a study showing that repeal shouldn't cause any major problems, there was no longer any excuse for waiting, especially since the law would probably get overturned in the courts sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, there was still substantial Republican opposition, led by the increasingly erratic John McCain (even those who are disappointed in Obama's performance should be happy McCain didn't end up as US President), even though he once said he'd support repeal if the military leadership was in favor (apparently he has decided since that even if a majority of the military leadership, including the very top officials, are in favor, that isn't good enough; the entire leadership has to approve). But even worse, if the Republicans had continued to block all measures because of a lack of an agreement on taxes, repeal would have depended on the next Congress, where it would probably have failed. So one positive of the tax agreement was that a repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" has now been approved.
The second major measure was the Dream Act. This would have provided a path to citizenship for young people who were brought to the US illegally by their parents when they were children if they went to college or joined the military. To put this into perspective, many of these people were toddlers or preschoolers when they came to the US, so they have no memory of any other home. Some of them were not even aware until they were nearly grown that they weren't American citizens. And yet the vast majority of Republicans voted against this bill. One idiotic member of the House from Texas (Barton, if I recall correctly) made some statement about not "rewarding criminals". Only someone too stupid to understand the type of situation the bill covered, or, more likely, someone completely morally bankrupt, without the least shred of decency, could call someone who was brought to the US (the vast majority of them had no choice in the matter) as a child -- and as I said, in many cases at an age where they weren't even aware of what was happening -- a "criminal". Even calling their parents "criminals", while technically accurate, is a sign of perverted moral sense, as it seeks to put people who are simply seeking a better life for themselves and their families in the same category as murderers and rapists (not much different from 19th century England, where a father could be hung for stealing a loaf of bread for his children -- as if such a person was the same as a criminal who committed robbery and assault out of pure greed). But to call the children "criminals" is beyond disgusting.
Yet, unbelievably, the Dream Act didn't pass (actually it won a clear majority, but as usual, its Republican opponents were filibustering it, and there weren't quite enough votes to overcome the filibuster). Frankly, in my opinion, this is worse than if "don't ask, don't tell" hadn't been repealed. Gays in the military were being deprived of their careers, which is bad enough, but the young people covered by the Dream Act are in danger of losing their homes and getting deported to countries that in many cases they have little or no memory of. This is a terrible injustice, and Obama's agreeing to a bad bargain on taxes didn't avert it. So that's one more strike against the tax deal.
The third major measure is the ratification of the New START treaty with Russia. Again, there is no reason not to pass this and many reasons to do so, not least of which is without ratification, there will no longer be an arms control agreement between the world's biggest nuclear powers. The agreement that has been signed is by pretty universal consensus among experts and US military leaders, a good one from the US's perspective. In a misguided attempt to win over Republican opponents, Obama even agreed to spend more on upgrading the US's nuclear arsenal (once again, when it comes to things like this, the deficit doesn't seem to matter to the Republicans). One laughable complaint is that under the treaty the US will have to cut more than the Russians, because it has more weapons to begin with. That's like a situation where two people are pointing guns at each other, and the one with ten shots on his gun (as compared to, say, seven for the other guy) is reluctant to agree that both reduce the number of bullets they have loaded to four each. Both sides can still kill each other many times over, so who cares? In any case, this seems to have a good chance of passing, which would be a point in favor of the tax plan which cleared the way for it.
Of course one big problem with judging the merits of Obama's deal with the Republicans by the success or failure of other measures is that essentially the Republicans (who ironically criticize anyone who negotiates with "terrorists") are being rewarded for committing blackmail. Like other such situations, such as kidnappings for ransom, whether or not it is ever wise to give in is debatable. However, if Obama was going to submit to Republican blackmail, he should at least have fought for a better deal. Either he should have gotten a better tax deal, or he should have asked for a commitment from the Republican leadership not to support filibusters on any of the above three measures. As it turns out, at least one and quite possibly two of them will pass anyway, but considering the importance of the one that didn't, and the fact that even those that did pass might well not have, a bargain with the Republicans that didn't include such a commitment was not a good deal. Some say the mere ability of Obama and the Republicans to come to an agreement on anything is a positive development is a good thing, and there is something to that argument. But if all their agreements favor the Republicans this much, it might be just as well to not to make one in the first place. If the arms treaty is ratified, that combined with the end of "don't ask, don't tell" might just barely make the whole thing worthwhile, but not by a large margin. We'll have to hope Obama learns to bargain harder once the new, more right-wing Congress comes in.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
What I've Been Reading – 2010, Part 5
As I've gone through quite a few books since I last talked about what I've been reading, this time I'm only going to talk briefly about each book. I'm also skipping over some short stories and non-fiction I've read in the same period, even though much of it was good (e.g., Greg Egan's hard sci-fi short stories).
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
This novel focusing on the theme of female sexual desire was a huge seller when it came out. It was notable for being the first well-known novel by a woman to talk about sex from the female perspective (books like Lady Chatterley's Lover and Fanny Hill were of course written by men). As one might expect, sex is the dominant topic, though a lot of it is fantasies. While there is a fair amount of actual sex, there isn't as much as one might think (there's probably at least as much – certainly more variety – in Dhalgren, which is not mainly about sex) and as Erica Jong herself points out in the forward, it's usually somewhat disappointing. The novel also briefly touches on a theme of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, namely the difficulty people have in conveying their real feelings with words. Another interesting point is that the narrator's life has many points in common with Erica Jong's own, making the novel semi-autobiographical.
Fanny Hill by John Cleland
Reading Fear of Flying reminded me that I had a copy of John Cleland's Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure that I had glanced at but not actually read, so I decided to read through it. This 19th century work is famous (okay, infamous) for its graphic depictions of sex, and its reputation in this regard is fairly well justified, though of course there are much more graphic descriptions out there nowadays. There is of course a lot of sex, though interestingly Fanny Hill is really more of a mistress to successive men than a sex worker who receives many customers. In certain ways Cleland succeeds in showing a certain sympathy for his female protagonist, at least for his time, though in other ways his work reflects a purely male and sometimes sexist perspective. Also, despite depicting positively, or at least not particularly negatively, a wide variety of sexual practices, including lesbian sex, group sex, and sado-masochism, there is an extremely venomous attack on gay male sex, reflecting the extreme homophobia of the times.
More Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber
The last two collections of stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Swords and Ice Magic and The Knight and Knave of Swords, are notable for being somewhat bleaker than previous stories (both Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser undergo significant suffering), being set mostly away from the city of Lankhmar (the main setting for many previous stories) and containing a few explicit depictions of sex (though sex was always clearly a major motivation for the characters, it wasn't explicitly depicted in earlier books – there was supposedly a sex scene in The Swords of Lankhmar which the publisher asked Leiber to cut out). Otherwise the stories are as entertaining as always.
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
A futuristic science fiction novel in which geneticists have found a way to modify the genes of embryos so that the children they grow into do not need sleep and become super-intelligent partly as a result. The obvious superiority of the Sleepless causes resentment and hatred among the rest of the population (the Sleepers), resulting in conflicts and eventually causing many of the Sleepless to flee to a separate sanctuary they have created, at first on Earth but later in near-Earth orbital space. The main theme of the novel is the question of balance between the rights of the individual and their obligations to the society, or, as Kress explained it, between an Ayn Rand-type philosophy (which she said she ultimately found to be neither workable nor morally admirable, a sentiment I completely agree with) and the more communal societies depicted by Ursula LeGuin. Though I'm dubious about certain parts of the premise (I don't think eliminating the need for sleep would have such a dramatic effect on people) and I disagree with the arguments against secession made in the last part of the novel, the novel is interesting and the point that Americans in particular often resent intelligence, if perhaps slightly exaggerated, is nevertheless well taken.
Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Only slightly less famous than its predecessor Alice in Wonderland, this cleverly told tale includes Carroll's famous poem "Jabberwocky" and a tale which is structured like an elaborate game of chess.
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
This is another brilliantly cynical novel from Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut's style is unique and quite different from what I normally prefer, but he does it very well. It helps, of course, that I share a lot of his cynicism. I especially appreciate his mockery of things like patriotism, capitalism, and the type of history taught in schools. However, despite his liberal outlook, Vonnegut is not at all politically correct (not that that problematic term even existed at the time), so some liberals might have trouble with him as well (not me, however). Like a few of the other Vonnegut novels I've read, it's also metafictional, not only in that Kilgore Trout, one of the main characters (and a recurring character in a number of Vonnegut's novels), is a science fiction writer, but because Vonnegut himself appears in the novel.
Iron Council by China Mieville
This is the third of China Mieville's fantasy novels set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag. The most prominent power in Bas-Lag is the city of New Crobuzon, a huge, cosmopolitan and oppressive place a little like a more deadly fantasy version of Charles Dickens' London (Mieville's Bas-Lag novels are often characterized as steampunk, reflecting the type of technology prevalent in them). New Crobuzon was the setting of the first Bas-Lag novel, Perdido Street Station, and much of Iron Council is also set there (the second novel, The Scar, is set elsewhere, but New Crobuzon still plays a major role). The government of New Crobuzon, though supposedly a parliamentary democracy, is ruthless and authoritarian, and much of this novel focuses on resistance to it from dissident elements inside and outside the city, once again resembling somewhat the struggle of 19th century laboring classes against unfeeling bosses and rulers, including the major divisions among the dissident groups themselves, though here the authorities are more powerful and sinister (Mieville calls his world "an early industrial capitalist world of a fairly grubby, police statey kind"). While most of the main characters are human, Mieville's world contains a fantastic array of strange and often unpleasant creatures, though some are friendly or at least able to interact peacefully with humans (indeed, one of the main characters in Perdido Street Station is a khepri, a being with a human body but a head that resembles a giant insect). Even among the latter, there are some of extremely unusual appearance, thanks to New Crobuzon's punishment factories, which remake convicted criminals in bizarre and often unpleasant ways, such as making them part machine, attaching useless appendages to them, and so forth. The resulting creatures, called Remade, are looked down and discriminated against by everyone else, even the lower classes. There is also plenty of magic (here called thaumaturgy), which often takes nastily destructive forms. Another point that shouldn't really be worthy of note but still is somewhat unusual in much literature today is that two of the the main protagonists are gay (actually bisexual in one case), though this probably shouldn't surprise readers of the first book, in which the two chief protagonists are in a relationship which, though heterosexual, is even less conventional, as one is human and the other is khepri. I highly recommend the Bas-Lag novels, though with the caveat that Mieville doesn't seem to believe in truly happy endings; at best, the worst evils may be averted and some of the protagonists may survive after having won an incomplete victory over the various forces of evil.
The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
Margaret Drabble's The Red Queen is a mix of historical and modern fiction, with a dash of metafiction thrown in. The first half of the book is narrated by Lady Hyegyong, an actual historical figure who was born in 18th century Korea. As a child, she was selected to be the bride of the Crown Prince, and she survived intrigues, scandals, and the execution of her husband at the hand of his own father to see her son and grandson take the throne. She wrote four memoirs of her life, which I unfortunately haven't read (in fact I hadn't heard of her before – I must confess that I know less of Korea's history than I do of most other countries in the region), but which sound fascinating. In The Red Queen, however, she is relating her fictional fifth memoir in modern times, even though (as she mentions several times) she is long dead. Thus she mixes her narrative of her youth with very modern interpretations of the events. The second part of the book focuses on the woman that Lady Hyegyong calls her "ghostly envoy", the modern doctor who is in a sense possessed by her, having become fascinated after reading a translation of her memoirs while on the way to Seoul for a conference (a fascination shared by Drabble herself, who in a sense is Lady Hyegyong's real "ghostly envoy"). This part of the book obviously doesn't contain events to compare with those in Lady Hyegyong's life, but nevertheless there is one fairly dramatic and unexpected (despite some foreshadowing) occurrence towards the end. Interestingly, both the protagonists consider themselves to be rationalists and thus not big believers in the supernatural, and yet one is dead and the other is watched over not only by the first but also by guardian spirits. Despite this supernatural element, the book focuses more on psychology and human relations as well as Korean culture, making it very much a modern novel. Drabble herself makes an appearance in the last few pages of this unusual but very readable book.
The Stand by Stephen King
The Stand is one of Stephen King's longest and most epic novels, though it is not as massive as his Dark Tower series (actually the only other work by him I've read). The basic premise of the book is similar to that of George Stewart's Earth Abides, in which a plague wipes out most of humanity (and apparently King has said Stewart's book was an inspiration), though they take the idea in completely different directions. Though the first part of the book reads like post-apocalyptic science fiction, the supernatural soon makes an appearance (unsurprising, given that it's Stephen King), and the book becomes an epic struggle between good and evil (King was also inspired by The Lord of the Rings, a big influence on both this book and the Dark Tower books). This makes it a bit hard to characterize in terms of genre; it is sci-fi, horror and fantasy all in one. The horror elements come mainly from the very unpleasant symptoms of the superflu early in the book, the massive number of corpses scattered around in the subsequent part, and the diabolically nasty antagonist in the last half, but they are not overwhelming, so the book is enjoyable enough for those who aren't big fans of horror (like me). Having read this and the Dark Tower series, I can tell that King listens to a lot of classic rock, as a number of different songs are referenced in both works and one of the protagonists in this one is a R&B-influenced rock singer; he's a fan of Richard Adams and Watership Down, which is mentioned in both works; he often uses his home state of Maine as a setting (parts of both works take place there, though relatively brief parts overall); and he likes creating links between his various works (there are a number of connections not only between these two books but also with other novels he's written). In some ways the book hangs together better than the Dark Tower, which is a bit unwieldy in places, though even here there are certain inconsistencies and implausible moments (the former perhaps increased by King's frequent revisions – in the paperback edition that I read, the date of the story was changed somewhat from that in the original edition). But it is certainly an entertaining read, and it is understandable that, as King notes in his forward to the revised edition of the first Dark Tower novel, The Stand is the favorite of many of his readers, with only the Dark Tower rivaling it in the passionate devotion of its fans.
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
This novel focusing on the theme of female sexual desire was a huge seller when it came out. It was notable for being the first well-known novel by a woman to talk about sex from the female perspective (books like Lady Chatterley's Lover and Fanny Hill were of course written by men). As one might expect, sex is the dominant topic, though a lot of it is fantasies. While there is a fair amount of actual sex, there isn't as much as one might think (there's probably at least as much – certainly more variety – in Dhalgren, which is not mainly about sex) and as Erica Jong herself points out in the forward, it's usually somewhat disappointing. The novel also briefly touches on a theme of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, namely the difficulty people have in conveying their real feelings with words. Another interesting point is that the narrator's life has many points in common with Erica Jong's own, making the novel semi-autobiographical.
Fanny Hill by John Cleland
Reading Fear of Flying reminded me that I had a copy of John Cleland's Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure that I had glanced at but not actually read, so I decided to read through it. This 19th century work is famous (okay, infamous) for its graphic depictions of sex, and its reputation in this regard is fairly well justified, though of course there are much more graphic descriptions out there nowadays. There is of course a lot of sex, though interestingly Fanny Hill is really more of a mistress to successive men than a sex worker who receives many customers. In certain ways Cleland succeeds in showing a certain sympathy for his female protagonist, at least for his time, though in other ways his work reflects a purely male and sometimes sexist perspective. Also, despite depicting positively, or at least not particularly negatively, a wide variety of sexual practices, including lesbian sex, group sex, and sado-masochism, there is an extremely venomous attack on gay male sex, reflecting the extreme homophobia of the times.
More Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber
The last two collections of stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Swords and Ice Magic and The Knight and Knave of Swords, are notable for being somewhat bleaker than previous stories (both Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser undergo significant suffering), being set mostly away from the city of Lankhmar (the main setting for many previous stories) and containing a few explicit depictions of sex (though sex was always clearly a major motivation for the characters, it wasn't explicitly depicted in earlier books – there was supposedly a sex scene in The Swords of Lankhmar which the publisher asked Leiber to cut out). Otherwise the stories are as entertaining as always.
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
A futuristic science fiction novel in which geneticists have found a way to modify the genes of embryos so that the children they grow into do not need sleep and become super-intelligent partly as a result. The obvious superiority of the Sleepless causes resentment and hatred among the rest of the population (the Sleepers), resulting in conflicts and eventually causing many of the Sleepless to flee to a separate sanctuary they have created, at first on Earth but later in near-Earth orbital space. The main theme of the novel is the question of balance between the rights of the individual and their obligations to the society, or, as Kress explained it, between an Ayn Rand-type philosophy (which she said she ultimately found to be neither workable nor morally admirable, a sentiment I completely agree with) and the more communal societies depicted by Ursula LeGuin. Though I'm dubious about certain parts of the premise (I don't think eliminating the need for sleep would have such a dramatic effect on people) and I disagree with the arguments against secession made in the last part of the novel, the novel is interesting and the point that Americans in particular often resent intelligence, if perhaps slightly exaggerated, is nevertheless well taken.
Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Only slightly less famous than its predecessor Alice in Wonderland, this cleverly told tale includes Carroll's famous poem "Jabberwocky" and a tale which is structured like an elaborate game of chess.
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
This is another brilliantly cynical novel from Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut's style is unique and quite different from what I normally prefer, but he does it very well. It helps, of course, that I share a lot of his cynicism. I especially appreciate his mockery of things like patriotism, capitalism, and the type of history taught in schools. However, despite his liberal outlook, Vonnegut is not at all politically correct (not that that problematic term even existed at the time), so some liberals might have trouble with him as well (not me, however). Like a few of the other Vonnegut novels I've read, it's also metafictional, not only in that Kilgore Trout, one of the main characters (and a recurring character in a number of Vonnegut's novels), is a science fiction writer, but because Vonnegut himself appears in the novel.
Iron Council by China Mieville
This is the third of China Mieville's fantasy novels set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag. The most prominent power in Bas-Lag is the city of New Crobuzon, a huge, cosmopolitan and oppressive place a little like a more deadly fantasy version of Charles Dickens' London (Mieville's Bas-Lag novels are often characterized as steampunk, reflecting the type of technology prevalent in them). New Crobuzon was the setting of the first Bas-Lag novel, Perdido Street Station, and much of Iron Council is also set there (the second novel, The Scar, is set elsewhere, but New Crobuzon still plays a major role). The government of New Crobuzon, though supposedly a parliamentary democracy, is ruthless and authoritarian, and much of this novel focuses on resistance to it from dissident elements inside and outside the city, once again resembling somewhat the struggle of 19th century laboring classes against unfeeling bosses and rulers, including the major divisions among the dissident groups themselves, though here the authorities are more powerful and sinister (Mieville calls his world "an early industrial capitalist world of a fairly grubby, police statey kind"). While most of the main characters are human, Mieville's world contains a fantastic array of strange and often unpleasant creatures, though some are friendly or at least able to interact peacefully with humans (indeed, one of the main characters in Perdido Street Station is a khepri, a being with a human body but a head that resembles a giant insect). Even among the latter, there are some of extremely unusual appearance, thanks to New Crobuzon's punishment factories, which remake convicted criminals in bizarre and often unpleasant ways, such as making them part machine, attaching useless appendages to them, and so forth. The resulting creatures, called Remade, are looked down and discriminated against by everyone else, even the lower classes. There is also plenty of magic (here called thaumaturgy), which often takes nastily destructive forms. Another point that shouldn't really be worthy of note but still is somewhat unusual in much literature today is that two of the the main protagonists are gay (actually bisexual in one case), though this probably shouldn't surprise readers of the first book, in which the two chief protagonists are in a relationship which, though heterosexual, is even less conventional, as one is human and the other is khepri. I highly recommend the Bas-Lag novels, though with the caveat that Mieville doesn't seem to believe in truly happy endings; at best, the worst evils may be averted and some of the protagonists may survive after having won an incomplete victory over the various forces of evil.
The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
Margaret Drabble's The Red Queen is a mix of historical and modern fiction, with a dash of metafiction thrown in. The first half of the book is narrated by Lady Hyegyong, an actual historical figure who was born in 18th century Korea. As a child, she was selected to be the bride of the Crown Prince, and she survived intrigues, scandals, and the execution of her husband at the hand of his own father to see her son and grandson take the throne. She wrote four memoirs of her life, which I unfortunately haven't read (in fact I hadn't heard of her before – I must confess that I know less of Korea's history than I do of most other countries in the region), but which sound fascinating. In The Red Queen, however, she is relating her fictional fifth memoir in modern times, even though (as she mentions several times) she is long dead. Thus she mixes her narrative of her youth with very modern interpretations of the events. The second part of the book focuses on the woman that Lady Hyegyong calls her "ghostly envoy", the modern doctor who is in a sense possessed by her, having become fascinated after reading a translation of her memoirs while on the way to Seoul for a conference (a fascination shared by Drabble herself, who in a sense is Lady Hyegyong's real "ghostly envoy"). This part of the book obviously doesn't contain events to compare with those in Lady Hyegyong's life, but nevertheless there is one fairly dramatic and unexpected (despite some foreshadowing) occurrence towards the end. Interestingly, both the protagonists consider themselves to be rationalists and thus not big believers in the supernatural, and yet one is dead and the other is watched over not only by the first but also by guardian spirits. Despite this supernatural element, the book focuses more on psychology and human relations as well as Korean culture, making it very much a modern novel. Drabble herself makes an appearance in the last few pages of this unusual but very readable book.
The Stand by Stephen King
The Stand is one of Stephen King's longest and most epic novels, though it is not as massive as his Dark Tower series (actually the only other work by him I've read). The basic premise of the book is similar to that of George Stewart's Earth Abides, in which a plague wipes out most of humanity (and apparently King has said Stewart's book was an inspiration), though they take the idea in completely different directions. Though the first part of the book reads like post-apocalyptic science fiction, the supernatural soon makes an appearance (unsurprising, given that it's Stephen King), and the book becomes an epic struggle between good and evil (King was also inspired by The Lord of the Rings, a big influence on both this book and the Dark Tower books). This makes it a bit hard to characterize in terms of genre; it is sci-fi, horror and fantasy all in one. The horror elements come mainly from the very unpleasant symptoms of the superflu early in the book, the massive number of corpses scattered around in the subsequent part, and the diabolically nasty antagonist in the last half, but they are not overwhelming, so the book is enjoyable enough for those who aren't big fans of horror (like me). Having read this and the Dark Tower series, I can tell that King listens to a lot of classic rock, as a number of different songs are referenced in both works and one of the protagonists in this one is a R&B-influenced rock singer; he's a fan of Richard Adams and Watership Down, which is mentioned in both works; he often uses his home state of Maine as a setting (parts of both works take place there, though relatively brief parts overall); and he likes creating links between his various works (there are a number of connections not only between these two books but also with other novels he's written). In some ways the book hangs together better than the Dark Tower, which is a bit unwieldy in places, though even here there are certain inconsistencies and implausible moments (the former perhaps increased by King's frequent revisions – in the paperback edition that I read, the date of the story was changed somewhat from that in the original edition). But it is certainly an entertaining read, and it is understandable that, as King notes in his forward to the revised edition of the first Dark Tower novel, The Stand is the favorite of many of his readers, with only the Dark Tower rivaling it in the passionate devotion of its fans.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Congratulations to Liu Xiaobo (and a comment on WikiLeaks)
As most people who follow the news should be aware, this year's Nobel Peace Prize is being awarded to Chinese democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, who is currently being imprisoned by his government. China's hysterical reaction to the award simply helps prove to everyone with sense that they are still an oppressive authoritarian regime. They call Liu a criminal, when everyone knows his "crime" was only to openly call for a more open and democratic society. They put his wife and other relatives and friends under house arrest and prevent a long list of dissidents and relatives of dissidents from leaving the country in an effort to ensure that none of them can go to the award ceremony to accept the prize on Liu's behalf. This has only ensured that this will be the first time since Nazi Germany prevented 1935 recipient Carl von Ossietzky from traveling to accept the prize that the prize will not actually be given out at the ceremony. In other words, China has just ensured that they will be compared to the Nazis -- not entirely inappropriate in this case.
The most absurd thing though has been China's efforts to prevent other nations from attending the award ceremony. The majority of those invited (44 out of 65) have ignored China's threats and blandishments and official accepted invitations, but a number of countries have actually gone along (of course China, having no compunctions about telling outright lies in the interest of propaganda, claims that "the vast majority" of nations will not attend. Most of the 18 countries other than China that have said they are not attending are other authoritarian states, though there are one or two exceptions, such as the Philippines. Of course some countries had excuses which seemingly are unrelated to China, but one has to be dubious about them (if I were a Filipino, for instance, I would be strongly criticizing my government's kowtowing to China, no matter what lame excuse they offer).
It is also interesting to note that China seems genuinely incapable of believing that a prominent group like the Nobel committee could act independently of the government of the country where it is based (Norway). This is further evidence of their blinkered authoritarian mindset. Just because they make sure that any significant groups in China are under the control of the government, or at least unable to act publicly in a way blatantly contrary to its policies, they assume that the situation must be the same in all countries. Even if a group seems completely independent of the government, they assume the government must control it behind the scenes, because that's what they do with Chinese "non-governmental" organizations and such. Therefore, they persist in blaming the Norwegian government for the Nobel committee's selection, even though the government was not involved (though they no doubt agree with it, if they are sensible).
A few people may point to the irony that as Liu is being awarded the Nobel, many democratic governments are relentlessly pursuing Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for what many argue is an exercise of free speech. There is indeed a certain degree of irony here, but aside from the fact that bad behavior by some nations does not in the remotest degree excuse similar or worse behavior by others, there are certain differences between Liu and Assange. Many of the attacks on Assange do indeed strike me as illegitimate persecution (as for claiming he is the equivalent of people like Osama bin Laden, that is beyond ridiculous), and WikiLeaks has done much that is good (they won an award from Amnesty International for exposing extrajudicial killings in Kenya). The way governments have tried to block WikiLeaks and many companies have cut ties to it (often under government pressure) before it or Assange have been convicted of any crime also violates due process. I have seen little evidence that anyone has come to any physical harm because of WikiLeaks' release of classified US cables or other documents, and in many ways the US has been asking for something like this to happen by classifying huge numbers of documents as secret even when they don't need to be, and giving huge numbers of people top security clearance, as pointed out in this article and this one.
However, I have mixed feelings about the publication of communications which, if not private in the usual sense (if close to a million people are allowed to access them, they aren’t all that private), are nevertheless sensitive in certain ways, and could potentially cause harm, if only in the form of hurt feelings (not entirely insignificant when we are talking about foreign leaders). For one thing, foreign officials who are mentioned by name candidly speaking about their own or other governments are much less likely to speak honestly to US officials in the future. WikiLeaks, with the help of some of the mainstream media it works with, has made an effort to redact the names of many sources and agents, but some critics claim they haven't done a sufficient job and have exposed some people. It's true that they offered to cooperate with the US government in making redactions, but were refused. Nevertheless, it is better to err on the side of caution in a case like this, and it's not clear that WikiLeaks has done so. Then there's the excuse given for Assange's arrest, namely the sexual assault he is accused of in Sweden. I haven't heard enough of the supposed details to know what to make of this, but it seems the sex may have been consensual and there was no force involved, though he is accused of refusing to use a condom when asked to do so, which, while not as bad as what most people think of as sexual assault, is still not good (if it is true). In a nutshell, there is some room for argument about the morality of Assange's actions, while there is nothing remotely immoral about Liu's, not to mention the degree of repression in Liu's case, extending even to his family members and friends, is greater, at least at this point.
Finally, no matter how hypocritical Western governments may be sometimes, that is absolutely no excuse for China and similar regimes to behave even worse. For a country like China to point to abuses or human rights violations committed by Western democracies whenever its human rights record is criticized is like someone saying "See, you beat your dog, so it's okay for me to beat my children." In the end, China's treatment of people like Liu Xiaobo is indefensible, no matter how they try to change the subject. We can only hope that one day those in charge will realize that they can't control their people's minds completely. Perhaps the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo will help bring that day closer.
The most absurd thing though has been China's efforts to prevent other nations from attending the award ceremony. The majority of those invited (44 out of 65) have ignored China's threats and blandishments and official accepted invitations, but a number of countries have actually gone along (of course China, having no compunctions about telling outright lies in the interest of propaganda, claims that "the vast majority" of nations will not attend. Most of the 18 countries other than China that have said they are not attending are other authoritarian states, though there are one or two exceptions, such as the Philippines. Of course some countries had excuses which seemingly are unrelated to China, but one has to be dubious about them (if I were a Filipino, for instance, I would be strongly criticizing my government's kowtowing to China, no matter what lame excuse they offer).
It is also interesting to note that China seems genuinely incapable of believing that a prominent group like the Nobel committee could act independently of the government of the country where it is based (Norway). This is further evidence of their blinkered authoritarian mindset. Just because they make sure that any significant groups in China are under the control of the government, or at least unable to act publicly in a way blatantly contrary to its policies, they assume that the situation must be the same in all countries. Even if a group seems completely independent of the government, they assume the government must control it behind the scenes, because that's what they do with Chinese "non-governmental" organizations and such. Therefore, they persist in blaming the Norwegian government for the Nobel committee's selection, even though the government was not involved (though they no doubt agree with it, if they are sensible).
A few people may point to the irony that as Liu is being awarded the Nobel, many democratic governments are relentlessly pursuing Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for what many argue is an exercise of free speech. There is indeed a certain degree of irony here, but aside from the fact that bad behavior by some nations does not in the remotest degree excuse similar or worse behavior by others, there are certain differences between Liu and Assange. Many of the attacks on Assange do indeed strike me as illegitimate persecution (as for claiming he is the equivalent of people like Osama bin Laden, that is beyond ridiculous), and WikiLeaks has done much that is good (they won an award from Amnesty International for exposing extrajudicial killings in Kenya). The way governments have tried to block WikiLeaks and many companies have cut ties to it (often under government pressure) before it or Assange have been convicted of any crime also violates due process. I have seen little evidence that anyone has come to any physical harm because of WikiLeaks' release of classified US cables or other documents, and in many ways the US has been asking for something like this to happen by classifying huge numbers of documents as secret even when they don't need to be, and giving huge numbers of people top security clearance, as pointed out in this article and this one.
However, I have mixed feelings about the publication of communications which, if not private in the usual sense (if close to a million people are allowed to access them, they aren’t all that private), are nevertheless sensitive in certain ways, and could potentially cause harm, if only in the form of hurt feelings (not entirely insignificant when we are talking about foreign leaders). For one thing, foreign officials who are mentioned by name candidly speaking about their own or other governments are much less likely to speak honestly to US officials in the future. WikiLeaks, with the help of some of the mainstream media it works with, has made an effort to redact the names of many sources and agents, but some critics claim they haven't done a sufficient job and have exposed some people. It's true that they offered to cooperate with the US government in making redactions, but were refused. Nevertheless, it is better to err on the side of caution in a case like this, and it's not clear that WikiLeaks has done so. Then there's the excuse given for Assange's arrest, namely the sexual assault he is accused of in Sweden. I haven't heard enough of the supposed details to know what to make of this, but it seems the sex may have been consensual and there was no force involved, though he is accused of refusing to use a condom when asked to do so, which, while not as bad as what most people think of as sexual assault, is still not good (if it is true). In a nutshell, there is some room for argument about the morality of Assange's actions, while there is nothing remotely immoral about Liu's, not to mention the degree of repression in Liu's case, extending even to his family members and friends, is greater, at least at this point.
Finally, no matter how hypocritical Western governments may be sometimes, that is absolutely no excuse for China and similar regimes to behave even worse. For a country like China to point to abuses or human rights violations committed by Western democracies whenever its human rights record is criticized is like someone saying "See, you beat your dog, so it's okay for me to beat my children." In the end, China's treatment of people like Liu Xiaobo is indefensible, no matter how they try to change the subject. We can only hope that one day those in charge will realize that they can't control their people's minds completely. Perhaps the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo will help bring that day closer.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
A Blog Post for the Sake of Making a Blog Post
For the past week or so, I've been thinking that I need to post something on my blog. Not so much because there was something specific I wanted to talk about (though there are always things to talk about), but simply because I have only made one post this month, and I'd like to be a bit more consistent (usually I manage three posts a month, occasionally only two or as many as four). But up until last week I was busy working on my paper on Taiwanese aboriginal songwriter BaLiwakes, which I presented at a conference that was held in Taidong last week celebrating the hundredth anniversary of his birth (I suppose I could just post the paper itself, but it's in Chinese and anyway I still plan to eventually start a blog devoted specifically to music, which would be a more appropriate place for it). Since returning from Taidong I have been occupied with several translation jobs. Actually it's not true that I didn't have anything to post about; I'd like to do at least a cursory survey of the many books I've read since my last post on my recent reading, but that would take too long. So here it is, the end of the month, and all I can do is this little place filling post.
I suppose I could comment on the recent elections in Taiwan (they took place this past weekend), but as my only other post this month was on election results (in the US in that case), I don't really want to talk about them at length. Still, in the absence of any other quick topic coming to mind, a brief overview of them can serve. The election was for the mayors of the major urban centers of Taiwan (Taipei, Xinbei City [as Taipei County is soon to be rather pointlessly renamed], Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung), city councilors in those locations, and neighborhood heads (in Taiwan the smallest administrative division is the li, which is essentially a neighborhood). The results were mixed, with the DPP winning only two of the big races as opposed to three for the ruling KMT, including losses by their two heavyweight candidates in Taipei and Xinbei, which despite generally leaning toward the KMT (particularly true of Taipei) were considered to potential DPP gains. On the other hand, their candidate in Taichung came closer than expected, and they won easily in Tainan and Kaohsiung (the latter was particularly a relief, as the KMT candidate had the gall to criticize the incumbent mayor for inviting the Dalai Lama and allowing a film about Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer to be shown at a city government-sponsored film festival). They also elected the same number of city councilors as the KMT (130) and actually received a substantially higher share of the popular vote.
Results were mixed in other ways. A number of the worst candidates in the city council races lost, but a fair number got in (in our area a candidate with known gang ties running as an independent took the third of three seats after a massive advertising campaign that exceeded those of all other candidates in the area). None of the Green party candidates for city council came close to winning, but on the plus side they got more votes than in the past, and our local Green party candidate managed 7.5% of the vote, not too bad considering unlike the above-mentioned gangster-type (or to a slightly lesser extent the KMT and DPP candidates) he didn't have billboards, campaign flags, banners or ads on buses all over the place. He actually got almost half as many votes as the KMT candidate squeezed out by the gang-connected independent candidate (the other winners being another KMT candidate and a DPP candidate) and far outdistanced the other independent candidate (who didn't advertise much either, though he had a few flags up). So while there's still probably a long way to go before Taiwan starts electing candidates with little money but real principles like those of the Green party and a few independent candidates (not the gang-connected ones, obviously), maybe it'll happen someday.
A final interesting point about these elections is that some, particularly in the DPP, believe that the shooting the day before the election of the son of former KMT leader Lien Chan may have influenced the results in the KMT's favor (Lien Shengwen was shot in the face while campaigning for a KMT candidate; he was not injured as seriously as might be expected but a bystander was killed). Whether this is true or not is hard to say for certain, but since the KMT has often claimed the pre-election shooting of then-President Chen Shuibian in 2004 influenced that election in his favor, it's not unreasonable for the DPP to make the same claim.
Looks like the above summary of the Taiwanese election will have to serve as the main theme of my second post for this month. Hopefully I can make up for my slacking next month, and also get in one or two posts that aren't related to elections (three in a row is a bit much).
I suppose I could comment on the recent elections in Taiwan (they took place this past weekend), but as my only other post this month was on election results (in the US in that case), I don't really want to talk about them at length. Still, in the absence of any other quick topic coming to mind, a brief overview of them can serve. The election was for the mayors of the major urban centers of Taiwan (Taipei, Xinbei City [as Taipei County is soon to be rather pointlessly renamed], Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung), city councilors in those locations, and neighborhood heads (in Taiwan the smallest administrative division is the li, which is essentially a neighborhood). The results were mixed, with the DPP winning only two of the big races as opposed to three for the ruling KMT, including losses by their two heavyweight candidates in Taipei and Xinbei, which despite generally leaning toward the KMT (particularly true of Taipei) were considered to potential DPP gains. On the other hand, their candidate in Taichung came closer than expected, and they won easily in Tainan and Kaohsiung (the latter was particularly a relief, as the KMT candidate had the gall to criticize the incumbent mayor for inviting the Dalai Lama and allowing a film about Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer to be shown at a city government-sponsored film festival). They also elected the same number of city councilors as the KMT (130) and actually received a substantially higher share of the popular vote.
Results were mixed in other ways. A number of the worst candidates in the city council races lost, but a fair number got in (in our area a candidate with known gang ties running as an independent took the third of three seats after a massive advertising campaign that exceeded those of all other candidates in the area). None of the Green party candidates for city council came close to winning, but on the plus side they got more votes than in the past, and our local Green party candidate managed 7.5% of the vote, not too bad considering unlike the above-mentioned gangster-type (or to a slightly lesser extent the KMT and DPP candidates) he didn't have billboards, campaign flags, banners or ads on buses all over the place. He actually got almost half as many votes as the KMT candidate squeezed out by the gang-connected independent candidate (the other winners being another KMT candidate and a DPP candidate) and far outdistanced the other independent candidate (who didn't advertise much either, though he had a few flags up). So while there's still probably a long way to go before Taiwan starts electing candidates with little money but real principles like those of the Green party and a few independent candidates (not the gang-connected ones, obviously), maybe it'll happen someday.
A final interesting point about these elections is that some, particularly in the DPP, believe that the shooting the day before the election of the son of former KMT leader Lien Chan may have influenced the results in the KMT's favor (Lien Shengwen was shot in the face while campaigning for a KMT candidate; he was not injured as seriously as might be expected but a bystander was killed). Whether this is true or not is hard to say for certain, but since the KMT has often claimed the pre-election shooting of then-President Chen Shuibian in 2004 influenced that election in his favor, it's not unreasonable for the DPP to make the same claim.
Looks like the above summary of the Taiwanese election will have to serve as the main theme of my second post for this month. Hopefully I can make up for my slacking next month, and also get in one or two posts that aren't related to elections (three in a row is a bit much).
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
2010 Election Recap
I've been intending to do a recap of the US election for the past couple of weeks, but I was too busy doing a paper on a completely different topic (the songs of a Taiwanese aboriginal songwriter named Baliwakes). It shouldn't surprise anyone that my general feeling about the election is one of disgust, similar to seeing Israel elect a Likud government or seeing La Pen come in second in a French presidential election. Not that the Democrats are all that great; a lot of them are blatantly self-interested and have taken foolish positions (such as opposing a public option or a carbon tax). But the Republican candidates were in almost every case clearly worse, at least in terms of their stated positions on key issues like the environment, budgetary policy, health care, and so forth, and in many places around the US people still elected them. The elections were widely seen as a referendum on Obama's policies (though exit polls shows votes didn't necessarily prefer the Republicans' policies by any significant margin) or his perceived failure to improve the economy. But his policies, while far from perfect, have not been that bad, though he sometimes compromised on their implementation so much that the results were mixed, and as for the economy, only the ignorant could have expected any president to turn it around completely in a space of two years, considering the state it was in when he was elected. But then the ignorant are unfortunately fairly numerous, in the US as elsewhere.
Still, this result was expected, and it could have been worse. Not only did the Republicans fail to win control of the Senate, but some of their most extreme candidates lost. O'Donnell was expected to lose (that even a sizable minority voted for her is bad enough) but Buck in Colorado, Angle in Nevada and Fiorina in California all were close or even ahead in pre-election polls. As bad as the overall results were, it's consoling to note that the candidates I specifically named in my previous post as ones who shouldn't be elected as senators were not actually elected. But even in the Senate, there were some bad results -- how Wisconsin voters could pick Ron Johnson over Russ Feingold is beyond me. And one or two of the winning Democrats aren't all that great either -- Joe Manchin of West Virginia took a gun to the carbon cap and trade bill in an ad, sucking up to both the NRA and the coal industry in one stroke (though the Republican would no doubt have been still worse).
In Texas, the results were even more overwhelmingly bad than they were nationwide. Not one of the candidates I voted for came even close to winning. I ended up voting for Bill White for governor, which I regret, not only because he lost by a substantial margin, but also because I still think in principle it's better to vote for the candidate you agree with most (in this case Deb Shafto) even if they have no chance of winning. At least the Green candidate for comptroller got over 5% of the vote, guaranteeing the Green Party a place on the ballot next time (I know this will not make all Democrats happy, as they think -- rightly in most cases -- that Greens will take votes from Democrats, but I think people should have as many choices as possible). For that matter, as I noted in my pre-election post, it would have been a great day if even one of the candidates I voted for won. In other words, that they all lost is what I expected.
California, as has happened in the past, showed a bizarre mix of relatively sensible votes and considerably less sensible ones. They rejected the Republican CEO candidates for senator and governor, as well as an attempt by oil interests to block implementation of a law addressing climate change, but they also foolishly rejected the legalization of marijuana (a drug that is overall less harmful than either alcohol or tobacco). They got rid of the ridiculous, gridlock-inducing requirement that budgets be passed by a two-thirds majority in the legislature, but added a new one requiring the same supermajority for adding new fees, which added to the same absurdly high bar that was already in place for increasing taxes proves that Californians, like other Americans, also like to vote for calorie-free chocolate cake (see the link to Kinsley's piece below).
Nationally, what remains to be seen is how Obama will deal with the constraints placed on him by the Republican control of the House and their bigger minority in the Senate. Considering the Republicans' record over the past two years, I'm not too optimistic about the chance of anything much good getting done. Their rhetoric since the election hasn't given me any more hope. For example, we've already had self-appointed tea bag Republican Senate leader Jim DeMint claim that the deficit can be cut without touching Social Security or defense, as "hundreds of billions of dollars" can be saved by cutting "waste" elsewhere. One has to wonder if he is knowingly spouting nonsense, has a very odd definition of waste, or is actually unaware of the real numbers in the budgets he's been voting on over the last six years (the total for all non-defense discretionary spending is only $530 billion dollars, so to save hundreds of billions out of that you'd have to cut nearly everything). But at the least I hope Obama can find ways to get it across to the public that the Republicans are the ones standing in the way of finding real solutions to problems, solutions that benefit the majority, not a privileged few.
Here are some interesting links from the past few weeks that relating closely or distantly to the American political situation:
U.S. is not greatest country ever by Michael Kinsley
I Still Love Obama. Love. Love. Love. by Curtis Sittenfeld
Mugged by the Moralizers by Paul Krugman
We Are All Juan Williams: Associating minorities with crime is irrational, unjust, and completely normal. by Shankar Vedantam
Still, this result was expected, and it could have been worse. Not only did the Republicans fail to win control of the Senate, but some of their most extreme candidates lost. O'Donnell was expected to lose (that even a sizable minority voted for her is bad enough) but Buck in Colorado, Angle in Nevada and Fiorina in California all were close or even ahead in pre-election polls. As bad as the overall results were, it's consoling to note that the candidates I specifically named in my previous post as ones who shouldn't be elected as senators were not actually elected. But even in the Senate, there were some bad results -- how Wisconsin voters could pick Ron Johnson over Russ Feingold is beyond me. And one or two of the winning Democrats aren't all that great either -- Joe Manchin of West Virginia took a gun to the carbon cap and trade bill in an ad, sucking up to both the NRA and the coal industry in one stroke (though the Republican would no doubt have been still worse).
In Texas, the results were even more overwhelmingly bad than they were nationwide. Not one of the candidates I voted for came even close to winning. I ended up voting for Bill White for governor, which I regret, not only because he lost by a substantial margin, but also because I still think in principle it's better to vote for the candidate you agree with most (in this case Deb Shafto) even if they have no chance of winning. At least the Green candidate for comptroller got over 5% of the vote, guaranteeing the Green Party a place on the ballot next time (I know this will not make all Democrats happy, as they think -- rightly in most cases -- that Greens will take votes from Democrats, but I think people should have as many choices as possible). For that matter, as I noted in my pre-election post, it would have been a great day if even one of the candidates I voted for won. In other words, that they all lost is what I expected.
California, as has happened in the past, showed a bizarre mix of relatively sensible votes and considerably less sensible ones. They rejected the Republican CEO candidates for senator and governor, as well as an attempt by oil interests to block implementation of a law addressing climate change, but they also foolishly rejected the legalization of marijuana (a drug that is overall less harmful than either alcohol or tobacco). They got rid of the ridiculous, gridlock-inducing requirement that budgets be passed by a two-thirds majority in the legislature, but added a new one requiring the same supermajority for adding new fees, which added to the same absurdly high bar that was already in place for increasing taxes proves that Californians, like other Americans, also like to vote for calorie-free chocolate cake (see the link to Kinsley's piece below).
Nationally, what remains to be seen is how Obama will deal with the constraints placed on him by the Republican control of the House and their bigger minority in the Senate. Considering the Republicans' record over the past two years, I'm not too optimistic about the chance of anything much good getting done. Their rhetoric since the election hasn't given me any more hope. For example, we've already had self-appointed tea bag Republican Senate leader Jim DeMint claim that the deficit can be cut without touching Social Security or defense, as "hundreds of billions of dollars" can be saved by cutting "waste" elsewhere. One has to wonder if he is knowingly spouting nonsense, has a very odd definition of waste, or is actually unaware of the real numbers in the budgets he's been voting on over the last six years (the total for all non-defense discretionary spending is only $530 billion dollars, so to save hundreds of billions out of that you'd have to cut nearly everything). But at the least I hope Obama can find ways to get it across to the public that the Republicans are the ones standing in the way of finding real solutions to problems, solutions that benefit the majority, not a privileged few.
Here are some interesting links from the past few weeks that relating closely or distantly to the American political situation:
U.S. is not greatest country ever by Michael Kinsley
I Still Love Obama. Love. Love. Love. by Curtis Sittenfeld
Mugged by the Moralizers by Paul Krugman
We Are All Juan Williams: Associating minorities with crime is irrational, unjust, and completely normal. by Shankar Vedantam
Saturday, October 23, 2010
2010 Election
This particular election is looking downright disturbing at the moment. Even if fringe candidates like Sharron Angle, Ken Buck or worse yet Christine O'Donnell (just to name a few of the more extreme candidates for Senate – the House has even more of these types) don't actually win, the mere idea that they could come close makes me wonder about the basic sense of much of the electorate. That any sizable number of people could swallow some of the outrageous stances taken by some of these people is scary. Of course the campaigns have also featured some very negative campaigning. Both sides have been guilty here; much as I don't want to see Rand Paul win, for example, I don't support attacking him for joining an irreverent club in college (all religions should be open to mockery, including Christianity and Islam, and it certainly shouldn't be necessary to be a Christian to get elected – interestingly enough, Chris Matthews, part of the supposedly "left-wing" media, apparently asked Paul's opponent, Conway, some pointed questions to that effect). But for all the faults of the Democrats, given the attitude the Republicans have been displaying recently (particularly the rabid right-wingers), it'll be a disaster for the US – and, given America's still substantial power and influence, for the world as well – if the latter win control of Congress. [Incidentally, I came across a website that fact-checks statements by politicians in both major parties – though whether a particular statement is true is one thing; whether it's really important is another.]
Unfortunately there's little I can do about any of this now. All I can do is fill out my own ballot as best I can. Here again it's mostly a lost cause, as I'm stuck with voting in Texas, which is even more hopelessly conservative than most other states (though there are a few that are worse). I hope that may change in the future, but for at least the next few elections, the Republicans can be expected to dominate statewide races; in fact if the Democrats can avoid a sweep they'll have done well. Even my congressional district has been gerrymandered to be solidly Republican (at least in some other areas of Texas, Democrats can get elected to Congress or the state legislature). Nevertheless, I will vote just to show that not everyone is enamored of the usual conservative rhetoric that dominates the state. The following are my views of the major races on my ballot following a bit of research into the candidates and their views. I probably won't vote on all the local races since I don't have time to do enough research and I'm not familiar enough with local issues (better not to vote on particular race if you know nothing at all about the candidates than to vote in a blind partisan manner). But I believe that it's important that people make an effort to vote, including doing the necessary homework, even if their candidates don't have a chance of winning. Even casting a blank ballot (essentially voting "none of the above") is better than not voting at all.
US House of Representatives, District 32
Grier Raggio (D)
The Libertarian candidate, Myers, actually is fairly sensible on many points, but like all libertarians, he has an excessive faith in the free market and its ability to solve problems, so while his positions on drugs and subsidies to oil and coal companies are spot on, his position on health care, for instance, is completely backward. Raggio, the Democratic candidate, has good (though not always very detailed) positions on pretty much all the issues they were asked about (including health care, alternative energy, carbon emissions and immigration). Though he's less bold and forthright than Myers on some issues, overall his views accord best with my own. The incumbent, Sessions, on the other hand, has pretty much nothing going for him at all. So Raggio gets my vote.
Texas Governor
Bill White (D)
Deb Shafto (Grn)
Deb Shafto, the Green candidate, is in many ways the best. Certainly I like what she has to say on the Vote411/League of Women Voters questionnaire about renewable energy and energy efficiency, and the little she had space to say about education sounded good to, except maybe the part about longer school days. Her much longer responses to the Dallas Morning News questionnaire show that she's a serious candidate. I agree with the majority of her stances, including on the environment, energy, taxes, and the problems with the death penalty, so on the issues she comes out on top. On the other hand, Bill White, the Democrat, seems okay on most issues, and more importantly, he has a real chance to beat the incumbent Perry, who is hopelessly right-wing. So while I'd really like to vote for Shafto, I may end up going with White just in order to beat Perry. But certainly I'd urge anyone who for whatever reason didn't like White to give Shafto their vote.
Additional note: I looked up some accounts of the debate between the candidates, which Perry refused to attend (obviously he doesn't think the voters need to hear from him or get a chance to make any comparisons). Shafto's responses were the ones I agreed with most; White seemed overly cautious and unwilling to commit himself (he declined to rate Obama's performance, for example). The Libertarian, Glass, had some good one-liners, but she also showed that she's a extreme right-wing T bagger-type Libertarian, rather than the standard Libertarians who are at least anti-war and pro-legalization (of cannabis). She did say she'd sign a bill legalizing medical marijuana but didn't seem enthusiastic about it, while she's apparently rabidly anti-immigrant and absurdly said Obama was the "worst president ever". She also said Ayn Rand is her favorite philosopher. An obvious nut. But between Shafto and White, it's harder to decide than ever. If Perry weren't so terrible, I'd feel less hesitation about not voting for the candidate who has a chance to beat him. On the other hand, I also like the idea of voting for a candidate I really agree with on a lot of things, plus supporting a decent liberal third party (which the Libertarians clearly aren't). Still a toss up.
Texas Lieutenant Governor
Linda Chavez-Thompson (D)
Once again, the choice is between the Green candidate and the Democratic candidate. In this race it theoretically should be easier to choose the Green, Gonzales, as I have no particular reason to expect that the race will be as close as it will be for governor (most polls focus only on the governor's race, but one analysis I found said the incumbent Republican is heavily favored in this race). But judging from her responses to the Dallas Morning News questionnaire, Chavez-Thompson is a strong candidate, while Gonzales seems to be the weakest of the Green candidates for statewide office. It doesn't help that his writing is poor. So with some reluctance (as a general principle, I'd really like to be able to vote for more Green candidates), I think I'll probably have to go with Chavez-Thompson in this race.
Texas Attorney General
Barbara Ann Radnofsky (D)
The Democrat, Radnofsky, gives decent responses on most issues, and while the Libertarian seems slightly better than the Republican incumbent, he's still a Libertarian (and his response to the Dallas Morning News question on EPA standards is typical Libertarian fringe nuttiness – whereas Radnofsky's response is excellent). So I definitely plan to vote Radnofsky in this race.
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
Edward Lindsay (Grn)
Since there's no Democrat in this race, I'll certainly vote for Lindsay, the Green. He doesn't talk much about the environment (of course the office he's running for doesn't really deal with environmental issues directly) but he seems okay (and when asked why he's running as a Green, he states that their platform, including promotion of a clean environment, accords with his philosophy), and perhaps more importantly, in the absence of a Democratic candidate, he's the Greens' best chance at getting 5% of the vote in a statewide race. If he does get that much, the Greens will have automatic ballot access in the next state election, rather than having to go through the petition process. As Texans (and Americans) need a good third party option in the future, I would urge all sensible Texas voters to give Lindsay their votes.
Texas Commissioner of General Land Office
Hector Uribe (D)
Uribe, the Democratic candidate, has some good things to say on land use, renewable energy, and conservation, so he gets my vote.
Texas Commissioner of Agriculture
Hank Gilbert (D)
Gilbert's emphasis on the importance of climate change is enough to win my support. The Libertarian seems somewhat better than the Republican incumbent (and I like his support for hemp cultivation), but not good enough to take a chance on.
Texas Railroad Commissioner
Jeff Weems (D)
Art Browning (Grn)
This one is another difficult choice. Again, all other things being equal, I'd prefer to vote for the Green candidate, as I'd like to see the Green party become a real force in US politics. Browning, the Green candidate, seems alright from his responses to the brief Vote411/League of Women Voters questionnaire and the information on the Texas Green Party website. Unfortunately, he didn't respond to the more extensive Dallas Morning News questionnaire, so I still don't know a lot about his views. Weems, the Democratic candidate, seems to know his stuff. His statement that he would "be outspoken in advocating an expansion of wind and solar power" and his strong statement on global warming are points in his favor. Also, he seems to have a good chance of winning (perhaps even a better one than White has). The Dallas Morning News was enthusiastic in their endorsement of him (not that I agree with them on all or even many of their endorsements), and his opponent is not an incumbent, the incumbent having lost in the primary. So at the moment I'm leaning toward Weems, though it's a tough call.
Texas Supreme Court, Place 3
Jim Sharp (D)
Even aside from the need to bring a little balance to a court that is all Republican, judging from his responses to the Dallas Morning News questionnaire, Sharp, the Democrat (and a sitting Appeals Court judge), seems like a very solid candidate, so he gets my vote.
Texas Supreme Court, Place 5
Bill Moody (D)
The situation in this race is almost identical to the Place 3 race, except that the Democrat, Moody, is a district court judge; in any event, he looks like the best choice.
Texas Supreme Court, Place 9
Blake Bailey (D)
While the responses given by Bailey, the Democratic candidate in this race (and an attorney), are a little more abbreviated and thus slightly less convincing than those of the other Democrats running for Supreme Court, there's nothing particularly objectionable in his views. The Republican incumbent, on the other hand, when asked to name a judge she admires, named Antonin Scalia. So it's Bailey in this race.
Court Of Criminal Appeals, Pl. 2 & Pl. 5
These races have no Democratic (or Green) candidates, so the choice is between Libertarians and Republicans. I am generally wary of Libertarians, as some of them are simply far right "t bag" types, like their candidate for Texas governor or worse yet the Koch brothers. However, some of them emphasize the civil libery aspect of Libertarianism, and so are more palatable than most Republicans. These two strike me as more this type. Both of them have problems with the death penalty, and the one in the Pl. 5 race also makes a strong statement on the importance of mercy (though he does make some typical Libertarian comments about big government as well). The Republican candidates didn't reply to the Dallas Morning News questionnaire, and the one running in Pl. 2 didn't even bother with the Vote411/League of Women Voters questionnaire. So if I vote at all in these races, it'll be for the Libertarians.
Court Of Criminal Appeals, Pl. 6
In this case there is a Democratic candidate, and the Libertarian didn't respond to either of the questionnaires, so he's out. The Democrat doesn't really give me all that much to go on as he – and the Republican as well – decline to answer the death penalty question on the (admittedly reasonable) grounds that they may hear death penalty questions, and neither acknowledges that the court is particularly "tough on crime" (though the Republican is more defensive about it). Still, the Democrat's remarks on mercy are good (the Republican's are okay but more vague) and his reasons for running as a Democrat sound good. I haven't decided if I'll vote on this one, but if I do it'll be for the Democrat.
State Board of Education, Dist. 12
This race is also between a Libertarian and a Republican. Both are somewhat critical of the current board. Neither is quite specific enough in their criticism to show exactly where they stand on some of the current board's more idiotic moves, though the Libertarian makes the point that the board should not try to casually overrule the work of educators and experts. The Republican does suggest that maybe the board should be made up of educators, which is not unreasonable. He is also less fond of the idea of charter schools (the Libertarian is a supporter), making the reasonable argument that it would make more sense to improve the regular public schools (though as charter schools do have some virtues, I have mixed feelings on this issue myself). So while this is an important race, I may simply abstain on this one, though I might go with the Libertarian.
Texas House, District 115
Not much of a choice here. No Democrats (or Greens) running, so we're left with a Libertarian and the Republican incumbent. The incumbent sounds pretty bad, as he supports Arizona's absurd immigration law and supports Texas' lax air pollution standards over the EPA's more stringent standards. The Libertarian didn't respond to the Dallas Morning News candidate questionnaire, so he's an unknown (though if he's a typical Libertarian, he'll be great on a few issues and nutty on a lot of others). Still, it's tempting to vote for him just as a vote against the incumbent.
These are all the races I'm likely to vote on, except for a few local referendums (basically alcohol sales should be legal, but city park land shouldn't be sold unless there are assurances it won't be turned into just another housing or shopping development). Frankly I'll be happy if even one or two of the people I vote for actually wins, but in any case I will have done my civic duty.
Unfortunately there's little I can do about any of this now. All I can do is fill out my own ballot as best I can. Here again it's mostly a lost cause, as I'm stuck with voting in Texas, which is even more hopelessly conservative than most other states (though there are a few that are worse). I hope that may change in the future, but for at least the next few elections, the Republicans can be expected to dominate statewide races; in fact if the Democrats can avoid a sweep they'll have done well. Even my congressional district has been gerrymandered to be solidly Republican (at least in some other areas of Texas, Democrats can get elected to Congress or the state legislature). Nevertheless, I will vote just to show that not everyone is enamored of the usual conservative rhetoric that dominates the state. The following are my views of the major races on my ballot following a bit of research into the candidates and their views. I probably won't vote on all the local races since I don't have time to do enough research and I'm not familiar enough with local issues (better not to vote on particular race if you know nothing at all about the candidates than to vote in a blind partisan manner). But I believe that it's important that people make an effort to vote, including doing the necessary homework, even if their candidates don't have a chance of winning. Even casting a blank ballot (essentially voting "none of the above") is better than not voting at all.
US House of Representatives, District 32
Grier Raggio (D)
The Libertarian candidate, Myers, actually is fairly sensible on many points, but like all libertarians, he has an excessive faith in the free market and its ability to solve problems, so while his positions on drugs and subsidies to oil and coal companies are spot on, his position on health care, for instance, is completely backward. Raggio, the Democratic candidate, has good (though not always very detailed) positions on pretty much all the issues they were asked about (including health care, alternative energy, carbon emissions and immigration). Though he's less bold and forthright than Myers on some issues, overall his views accord best with my own. The incumbent, Sessions, on the other hand, has pretty much nothing going for him at all. So Raggio gets my vote.
Texas Governor
Bill White (D)
Deb Shafto (Grn)
Deb Shafto, the Green candidate, is in many ways the best. Certainly I like what she has to say on the Vote411/League of Women Voters questionnaire about renewable energy and energy efficiency, and the little she had space to say about education sounded good to, except maybe the part about longer school days. Her much longer responses to the Dallas Morning News questionnaire show that she's a serious candidate. I agree with the majority of her stances, including on the environment, energy, taxes, and the problems with the death penalty, so on the issues she comes out on top. On the other hand, Bill White, the Democrat, seems okay on most issues, and more importantly, he has a real chance to beat the incumbent Perry, who is hopelessly right-wing. So while I'd really like to vote for Shafto, I may end up going with White just in order to beat Perry. But certainly I'd urge anyone who for whatever reason didn't like White to give Shafto their vote.
Additional note: I looked up some accounts of the debate between the candidates, which Perry refused to attend (obviously he doesn't think the voters need to hear from him or get a chance to make any comparisons). Shafto's responses were the ones I agreed with most; White seemed overly cautious and unwilling to commit himself (he declined to rate Obama's performance, for example). The Libertarian, Glass, had some good one-liners, but she also showed that she's a extreme right-wing T bagger-type Libertarian, rather than the standard Libertarians who are at least anti-war and pro-legalization (of cannabis). She did say she'd sign a bill legalizing medical marijuana but didn't seem enthusiastic about it, while she's apparently rabidly anti-immigrant and absurdly said Obama was the "worst president ever". She also said Ayn Rand is her favorite philosopher. An obvious nut. But between Shafto and White, it's harder to decide than ever. If Perry weren't so terrible, I'd feel less hesitation about not voting for the candidate who has a chance to beat him. On the other hand, I also like the idea of voting for a candidate I really agree with on a lot of things, plus supporting a decent liberal third party (which the Libertarians clearly aren't). Still a toss up.
Texas Lieutenant Governor
Linda Chavez-Thompson (D)
Once again, the choice is between the Green candidate and the Democratic candidate. In this race it theoretically should be easier to choose the Green, Gonzales, as I have no particular reason to expect that the race will be as close as it will be for governor (most polls focus only on the governor's race, but one analysis I found said the incumbent Republican is heavily favored in this race). But judging from her responses to the Dallas Morning News questionnaire, Chavez-Thompson is a strong candidate, while Gonzales seems to be the weakest of the Green candidates for statewide office. It doesn't help that his writing is poor. So with some reluctance (as a general principle, I'd really like to be able to vote for more Green candidates), I think I'll probably have to go with Chavez-Thompson in this race.
Texas Attorney General
Barbara Ann Radnofsky (D)
The Democrat, Radnofsky, gives decent responses on most issues, and while the Libertarian seems slightly better than the Republican incumbent, he's still a Libertarian (and his response to the Dallas Morning News question on EPA standards is typical Libertarian fringe nuttiness – whereas Radnofsky's response is excellent). So I definitely plan to vote Radnofsky in this race.
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
Edward Lindsay (Grn)
Since there's no Democrat in this race, I'll certainly vote for Lindsay, the Green. He doesn't talk much about the environment (of course the office he's running for doesn't really deal with environmental issues directly) but he seems okay (and when asked why he's running as a Green, he states that their platform, including promotion of a clean environment, accords with his philosophy), and perhaps more importantly, in the absence of a Democratic candidate, he's the Greens' best chance at getting 5% of the vote in a statewide race. If he does get that much, the Greens will have automatic ballot access in the next state election, rather than having to go through the petition process. As Texans (and Americans) need a good third party option in the future, I would urge all sensible Texas voters to give Lindsay their votes.
Texas Commissioner of General Land Office
Hector Uribe (D)
Uribe, the Democratic candidate, has some good things to say on land use, renewable energy, and conservation, so he gets my vote.
Texas Commissioner of Agriculture
Hank Gilbert (D)
Gilbert's emphasis on the importance of climate change is enough to win my support. The Libertarian seems somewhat better than the Republican incumbent (and I like his support for hemp cultivation), but not good enough to take a chance on.
Texas Railroad Commissioner
Jeff Weems (D)
Art Browning (Grn)
This one is another difficult choice. Again, all other things being equal, I'd prefer to vote for the Green candidate, as I'd like to see the Green party become a real force in US politics. Browning, the Green candidate, seems alright from his responses to the brief Vote411/League of Women Voters questionnaire and the information on the Texas Green Party website. Unfortunately, he didn't respond to the more extensive Dallas Morning News questionnaire, so I still don't know a lot about his views. Weems, the Democratic candidate, seems to know his stuff. His statement that he would "be outspoken in advocating an expansion of wind and solar power" and his strong statement on global warming are points in his favor. Also, he seems to have a good chance of winning (perhaps even a better one than White has). The Dallas Morning News was enthusiastic in their endorsement of him (not that I agree with them on all or even many of their endorsements), and his opponent is not an incumbent, the incumbent having lost in the primary. So at the moment I'm leaning toward Weems, though it's a tough call.
Texas Supreme Court, Place 3
Jim Sharp (D)
Even aside from the need to bring a little balance to a court that is all Republican, judging from his responses to the Dallas Morning News questionnaire, Sharp, the Democrat (and a sitting Appeals Court judge), seems like a very solid candidate, so he gets my vote.
Texas Supreme Court, Place 5
Bill Moody (D)
The situation in this race is almost identical to the Place 3 race, except that the Democrat, Moody, is a district court judge; in any event, he looks like the best choice.
Texas Supreme Court, Place 9
Blake Bailey (D)
While the responses given by Bailey, the Democratic candidate in this race (and an attorney), are a little more abbreviated and thus slightly less convincing than those of the other Democrats running for Supreme Court, there's nothing particularly objectionable in his views. The Republican incumbent, on the other hand, when asked to name a judge she admires, named Antonin Scalia. So it's Bailey in this race.
Court Of Criminal Appeals, Pl. 2 & Pl. 5
These races have no Democratic (or Green) candidates, so the choice is between Libertarians and Republicans. I am generally wary of Libertarians, as some of them are simply far right "t bag" types, like their candidate for Texas governor or worse yet the Koch brothers. However, some of them emphasize the civil libery aspect of Libertarianism, and so are more palatable than most Republicans. These two strike me as more this type. Both of them have problems with the death penalty, and the one in the Pl. 5 race also makes a strong statement on the importance of mercy (though he does make some typical Libertarian comments about big government as well). The Republican candidates didn't reply to the Dallas Morning News questionnaire, and the one running in Pl. 2 didn't even bother with the Vote411/League of Women Voters questionnaire. So if I vote at all in these races, it'll be for the Libertarians.
Court Of Criminal Appeals, Pl. 6
In this case there is a Democratic candidate, and the Libertarian didn't respond to either of the questionnaires, so he's out. The Democrat doesn't really give me all that much to go on as he – and the Republican as well – decline to answer the death penalty question on the (admittedly reasonable) grounds that they may hear death penalty questions, and neither acknowledges that the court is particularly "tough on crime" (though the Republican is more defensive about it). Still, the Democrat's remarks on mercy are good (the Republican's are okay but more vague) and his reasons for running as a Democrat sound good. I haven't decided if I'll vote on this one, but if I do it'll be for the Democrat.
State Board of Education, Dist. 12
This race is also between a Libertarian and a Republican. Both are somewhat critical of the current board. Neither is quite specific enough in their criticism to show exactly where they stand on some of the current board's more idiotic moves, though the Libertarian makes the point that the board should not try to casually overrule the work of educators and experts. The Republican does suggest that maybe the board should be made up of educators, which is not unreasonable. He is also less fond of the idea of charter schools (the Libertarian is a supporter), making the reasonable argument that it would make more sense to improve the regular public schools (though as charter schools do have some virtues, I have mixed feelings on this issue myself). So while this is an important race, I may simply abstain on this one, though I might go with the Libertarian.
Texas House, District 115
Not much of a choice here. No Democrats (or Greens) running, so we're left with a Libertarian and the Republican incumbent. The incumbent sounds pretty bad, as he supports Arizona's absurd immigration law and supports Texas' lax air pollution standards over the EPA's more stringent standards. The Libertarian didn't respond to the Dallas Morning News candidate questionnaire, so he's an unknown (though if he's a typical Libertarian, he'll be great on a few issues and nutty on a lot of others). Still, it's tempting to vote for him just as a vote against the incumbent.
These are all the races I'm likely to vote on, except for a few local referendums (basically alcohol sales should be legal, but city park land shouldn't be sold unless there are assurances it won't be turned into just another housing or shopping development). Frankly I'll be happy if even one or two of the people I vote for actually wins, but in any case I will have done my civic duty.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Gliese 581 g: A potentially habitable planet
One interesting news item at the end of last month was the announcement of the discovery of a planet in the habitable zone of a star other than the Sun. This was exciting news for many reasons, though not too surprisingly a lot of journalists (and even the discoverers themselves) went a little overboard in their descriptions of what had actually been found, and even when they didn't, many readers (judging from comments some made on the articles) weren't quite able to grasp all the details. Many other people (particularly those who didn't do more than glance at the articles and those who only saw the news mentioned on TV) no doubt ended up with a completely mistaken understanding of what had been found. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if there are some people who think the astronomers actually found alien life or even an alien civilization. This is far from the case, though the discovery is an important milestone in the search for alien life nonetheless.
Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star located about 20 light years from our solar system. As interstellar distances go, this is not very far; the closest star other than the Sun is 4.2 light years away, while the center of the galaxy is about 25,000 light years away. In fact most of the stars that we can see in the sky without any optical aids are farther away than Gliese 581. We can't see Gliese 581 without a telescope, however, since, like all red dwarfs, it is very faint and cool (the closest star other than the Sun, Proxima Centauri, is also too faint to be seen by the naked eye).
In 2005, a planet was discovered around Gliese 581, and since then five more planets have been found, including this latest one, giving it the third most known planets of any star (the Sun being first). What makes this latest planet, designated Gliese 581 g, special is the fact that it orbits in the middle of the star's habitable zone. This refers to the distance from the star at which a planet might be expected to have surface temperatures above 0 degrees Celsius but below 100 degrees Celsius, and thus could potentially have liquid water on its surface. The habitable zone varies for each star, being closer in for small, cool stars like Gliese 581 than for stars like the Sun. Gliese 581 g orbits at a distance of 0.146 AU from Gliese 581. One AU (Astronomical Unit) is equal to the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, and so 0.146 AU is a distance of about 22 million kilometers. It takes Gilese 581 g only 37 days to orbit its star, compared with a little over 365 days for Earth and 88 days for Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun. Since it is so close to its star, one might think that it would be inside the habitable zone, making it too hot to support life, as Mercury and Venus (though only barely in the latter's case) are in our Solar System. But as noted, the habitable zone for Gliese 581 is much closer to the star than ours is to the Sun, since it is much cooler. In fact, another planet in the same system, Gliese 581 d, is 0.218 AU from the star and orbits in 67 days, still much less than Mercury, and yet is believed to be on the outer edge of the habitable zone (like Mars in our Solar System).
Though hundreds of planets have been discovered outside our solar system, only one previous discovery was clearly in the habitable zone of its star, the planet 55 Caceri f. However, this planet is a gas giant similar to Neptune or Saturn in our Solar System, and so as it is not thought to have a solid surface, it couldn't have liquid water or Earth-like life (on the other hand, if it has a large enough moon, the latter could have liquid water and life). Gliese 581 g is believed to be a “super-Earth”, a large rocky planet with a mass of 3 to 4 times that of Earth and a diameter of up to twice Earth's. So it is the first Earth-like planet that is situated right in the middle of its star's habitable zone (other than the Earth itself), and that's what makes the discovery exciting.
On the other hand, it is important to remember that there is a great deal that we don't know about this planet. Though it is in the habitable zone, we don't actually know that it even has water in any form, nor do we know if it has an atmosphere. This latter point is important, as an atmosphere is necessary to retain heat and bring the planet's surface temperature above the freezing point of water. This is also the case on Earth, as without the greenhouse effect caused by our atmosphere the planet would be permanently frozen. Given Gliese 581 g's large mass in comparison to Earth it seems probable that it should have an atmosphere, possible one thicker than Earth's, but we don't know this for certain.
Also worth noting is Gliese 581 g's rotation period. Since it is relatively close to its star, it is probably tidally locked, like the Moon is with respect to Earth, so that its day is equal to its year in length and one side of the planet is constantly turned towards the star (and the other side is always turned away). This means that one side of the planet would be very hot and the other side very cold, though an atmosphere (if there is one) would ameliorate this to some extent. So it would actually be the band around the planet on the edge between the day and night sides (the “twilight zone”, so to speak) that would have the greatest potential for life. On a planet this size, this would still be a fairly large area, but it's not quite the same as an entire planet that is habitable. (Though it has also occurred to me to wonder if the tidal lock might not be more like that of Mercury, which rotates 3 times for every 2 revolutions about the sun, rather than a 1:1 lock; if so, the temperature extremes would be somewhat less. But perhaps the tides in this case make a 1:1 lock certain – I don't know the physics and math well enough to check this myself).
I should also point out that we haven't actually seen this planet, or for that matter the vast majority of other 500 or so known extrasolar planets. There are no pictures of it, even pictures showing it as a tiny dot. This is because it is so dim compared to its parent star that the light from the latter makes the planet invisible, even to our best telescopes. Only very large planets which orbit at a significant distance from their stars and yet are hot (and so emit a lot of infrared radiation) can actually be imaged directly. So how do we know the planet exists? As a planet orbits a star, its gravity tugs on the star, causing it to move towards or away from us. This causes a slight shift in the light of the star (due to the Doppler effect). Analysis of these shifts in the star's light, tiny though they are, allows astronomers to detect planets and even determine certain of their characteristics (such as mass, distance, and period of revolution) fairly precisely. Of course this takes repeated observations so that there is sufficient data. In fact recently another group of astronomers were unable to detect Gliese 581 g in their own analysis of the data, though apparently they only used one of the data sets that the discoverers use, and the latter have stated that both data sets are necessary to detect the planet with any reliability. But while we can still say the planet probably exists, this is a reminder of how little we actually know about it.
Of course given all the above caveats, it should be clear that we don't really know for certain that Gliese 581 g is habitable, even though it is in the habitable zone, much less whether it actually has life. It has the greatest potential for having some type of life of any planet we've discovered outside the Solar System – that's what everyone is excited about – but it doesn't necessarily have any life, let alone intelligent life (and even if it is habitable for life "as we know it", it might not be habitable for us -- at least without a lot of work). In fact, there are several places in our own Solar System other than Earth which are as likely to have life based on what we know now (namely Mars and Europa), though if we were able to confirm that Gliese 581 g had water and an atmosphere it would have to be considered a more likely candidate, at least for larger life forms (it's highly unlikely that Mars has any life larger than microbes, if that, and while Europa might have larger life forms, we know too little about how life gets started and evolves to be confident of this, since on Europa any life would have to have formed under the ice that covers the moon – unlike on a watery Gliese 581 g, where it could live on the surface).
Unfortunately it will be some time before we know anything more about Gliese 581 g, other than confirming its existence. To actually detect and analyze the planet's atmosphere, we would need better telescopes, such as the proposed Terrestrial Planet Finder. Unfortunately, this has so far been a victim of insufficient funding for NASA (yet another example of why NASA should be getting more money, as I have argued before). But another reason Gliese 581 g is significant is simply that it shows there are Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of stars other than the Sun, and so we can probably expect to find more. After all, there are more than a hundred billion stars in the galaxy, and even within the relatively close range of 100 light years there are thousands (though such stars are only close in a relative sense; none of our current spacecraft can travel even a few light years in less than a few centuries). Many of these stars resemble the Sun much more closely than Gliese 581, which as noted above is relatively small, faint and cool, and so any planets they have in the habitable zone would not have the tidal locking problem. Even if Gliese 581 g doesn't have life, or if it only has very simple life, we now have to consider it more likely that there is a planet out there somewhere with more, and that we will find it eventually.
Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star located about 20 light years from our solar system. As interstellar distances go, this is not very far; the closest star other than the Sun is 4.2 light years away, while the center of the galaxy is about 25,000 light years away. In fact most of the stars that we can see in the sky without any optical aids are farther away than Gliese 581. We can't see Gliese 581 without a telescope, however, since, like all red dwarfs, it is very faint and cool (the closest star other than the Sun, Proxima Centauri, is also too faint to be seen by the naked eye).
In 2005, a planet was discovered around Gliese 581, and since then five more planets have been found, including this latest one, giving it the third most known planets of any star (the Sun being first). What makes this latest planet, designated Gliese 581 g, special is the fact that it orbits in the middle of the star's habitable zone. This refers to the distance from the star at which a planet might be expected to have surface temperatures above 0 degrees Celsius but below 100 degrees Celsius, and thus could potentially have liquid water on its surface. The habitable zone varies for each star, being closer in for small, cool stars like Gliese 581 than for stars like the Sun. Gliese 581 g orbits at a distance of 0.146 AU from Gliese 581. One AU (Astronomical Unit) is equal to the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, and so 0.146 AU is a distance of about 22 million kilometers. It takes Gilese 581 g only 37 days to orbit its star, compared with a little over 365 days for Earth and 88 days for Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun. Since it is so close to its star, one might think that it would be inside the habitable zone, making it too hot to support life, as Mercury and Venus (though only barely in the latter's case) are in our Solar System. But as noted, the habitable zone for Gliese 581 is much closer to the star than ours is to the Sun, since it is much cooler. In fact, another planet in the same system, Gliese 581 d, is 0.218 AU from the star and orbits in 67 days, still much less than Mercury, and yet is believed to be on the outer edge of the habitable zone (like Mars in our Solar System).
Though hundreds of planets have been discovered outside our solar system, only one previous discovery was clearly in the habitable zone of its star, the planet 55 Caceri f. However, this planet is a gas giant similar to Neptune or Saturn in our Solar System, and so as it is not thought to have a solid surface, it couldn't have liquid water or Earth-like life (on the other hand, if it has a large enough moon, the latter could have liquid water and life). Gliese 581 g is believed to be a “super-Earth”, a large rocky planet with a mass of 3 to 4 times that of Earth and a diameter of up to twice Earth's. So it is the first Earth-like planet that is situated right in the middle of its star's habitable zone (other than the Earth itself), and that's what makes the discovery exciting.
On the other hand, it is important to remember that there is a great deal that we don't know about this planet. Though it is in the habitable zone, we don't actually know that it even has water in any form, nor do we know if it has an atmosphere. This latter point is important, as an atmosphere is necessary to retain heat and bring the planet's surface temperature above the freezing point of water. This is also the case on Earth, as without the greenhouse effect caused by our atmosphere the planet would be permanently frozen. Given Gliese 581 g's large mass in comparison to Earth it seems probable that it should have an atmosphere, possible one thicker than Earth's, but we don't know this for certain.
Also worth noting is Gliese 581 g's rotation period. Since it is relatively close to its star, it is probably tidally locked, like the Moon is with respect to Earth, so that its day is equal to its year in length and one side of the planet is constantly turned towards the star (and the other side is always turned away). This means that one side of the planet would be very hot and the other side very cold, though an atmosphere (if there is one) would ameliorate this to some extent. So it would actually be the band around the planet on the edge between the day and night sides (the “twilight zone”, so to speak) that would have the greatest potential for life. On a planet this size, this would still be a fairly large area, but it's not quite the same as an entire planet that is habitable. (Though it has also occurred to me to wonder if the tidal lock might not be more like that of Mercury, which rotates 3 times for every 2 revolutions about the sun, rather than a 1:1 lock; if so, the temperature extremes would be somewhat less. But perhaps the tides in this case make a 1:1 lock certain – I don't know the physics and math well enough to check this myself).
I should also point out that we haven't actually seen this planet, or for that matter the vast majority of other 500 or so known extrasolar planets. There are no pictures of it, even pictures showing it as a tiny dot. This is because it is so dim compared to its parent star that the light from the latter makes the planet invisible, even to our best telescopes. Only very large planets which orbit at a significant distance from their stars and yet are hot (and so emit a lot of infrared radiation) can actually be imaged directly. So how do we know the planet exists? As a planet orbits a star, its gravity tugs on the star, causing it to move towards or away from us. This causes a slight shift in the light of the star (due to the Doppler effect). Analysis of these shifts in the star's light, tiny though they are, allows astronomers to detect planets and even determine certain of their characteristics (such as mass, distance, and period of revolution) fairly precisely. Of course this takes repeated observations so that there is sufficient data. In fact recently another group of astronomers were unable to detect Gliese 581 g in their own analysis of the data, though apparently they only used one of the data sets that the discoverers use, and the latter have stated that both data sets are necessary to detect the planet with any reliability. But while we can still say the planet probably exists, this is a reminder of how little we actually know about it.
Of course given all the above caveats, it should be clear that we don't really know for certain that Gliese 581 g is habitable, even though it is in the habitable zone, much less whether it actually has life. It has the greatest potential for having some type of life of any planet we've discovered outside the Solar System – that's what everyone is excited about – but it doesn't necessarily have any life, let alone intelligent life (and even if it is habitable for life "as we know it", it might not be habitable for us -- at least without a lot of work). In fact, there are several places in our own Solar System other than Earth which are as likely to have life based on what we know now (namely Mars and Europa), though if we were able to confirm that Gliese 581 g had water and an atmosphere it would have to be considered a more likely candidate, at least for larger life forms (it's highly unlikely that Mars has any life larger than microbes, if that, and while Europa might have larger life forms, we know too little about how life gets started and evolves to be confident of this, since on Europa any life would have to have formed under the ice that covers the moon – unlike on a watery Gliese 581 g, where it could live on the surface).
Unfortunately it will be some time before we know anything more about Gliese 581 g, other than confirming its existence. To actually detect and analyze the planet's atmosphere, we would need better telescopes, such as the proposed Terrestrial Planet Finder. Unfortunately, this has so far been a victim of insufficient funding for NASA (yet another example of why NASA should be getting more money, as I have argued before). But another reason Gliese 581 g is significant is simply that it shows there are Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of stars other than the Sun, and so we can probably expect to find more. After all, there are more than a hundred billion stars in the galaxy, and even within the relatively close range of 100 light years there are thousands (though such stars are only close in a relative sense; none of our current spacecraft can travel even a few light years in less than a few centuries). Many of these stars resemble the Sun much more closely than Gliese 581, which as noted above is relatively small, faint and cool, and so any planets they have in the habitable zone would not have the tidal locking problem. Even if Gliese 581 g doesn't have life, or if it only has very simple life, we now have to consider it more likely that there is a planet out there somewhere with more, and that we will find it eventually.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
A Concise Manifesto for the "Tea" Party and Other Right-thinking People
Looking again at my previous manifesto, I realized it has a problem: too many words. It might be useful as a reference for leaders of our movement when they want to make speeches, but for most of our ground troops (and you are the ones who count; after all, we are a grassroots movement, no matter how many billionaires and big corporations secretly help fund us), it is unnecessary. To follow it all would require reading and something approaching thought. Reading and thinking is for liberal losers. Therefore, we present our concise manifesto, containing all the ideas most of us will ever need (and just about all the ideas that we can keep in our heads anyway).
Government=bad
Corporations/capitalism=good
Deficits=bad
Taxes=bad
Health care reform=socialism=evil
Health insurance companies=selfless
Social programs=bad
Defense spending=good
Global warming=hoax
Fossil fuel consumption=good
Alternative energy=pointless
Immigrants=bad
Gay marriage=evil
Constitution=flawless
Founding Fathers=godlike
Barack Obama=communist/fascist/Islamic/godless/un-American
Government=bad
Corporations/capitalism=good
Deficits=bad
Taxes=bad
Health care reform=socialism=evil
Health insurance companies=selfless
Social programs=bad
Defense spending=good
Global warming=hoax
Fossil fuel consumption=good
Alternative energy=pointless
Immigrants=bad
Gay marriage=evil
Constitution=flawless
Founding Fathers=godlike
Barack Obama=communist/fascist/Islamic/godless/un-American
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