Year: 2011

Who’s Right on Smog and Clean Air Standards? Obama or His EPA?

~ Chris Cocca ~ 3 Comments

In September, President Obama announced that his administration would not adopt the new ozone standard recommended by EPA after a two-year review of the 2008 Bush administration standard.

EPA head Lisa Jackson had been pushing hard for the updated standard to replace the 2008 model, which the American Lung Association says “failed to protect public health, failed to follow the scientific community’s recommendations, and was legally indefensible.”

Ground-level ozone is a primary component in the creation of smog.  As we note on the Air Quality facts page at AirQualityAction.org, people with lung disease, children, older adults, and people who are active can be affected when ozone levels are unhealthy. Numerous scientific studies have linked ground-level ozone exposure to a variety of problems, including:

  • Airway irritation, coughing, and pain when taking a deep breath
  • Wheezing and breathing difficulties during exercise or outdoor activities
  • Inflammation, which is much like a sunburn on the skin
  • Aggravation of asthma and increased susceptibility to respiratory illnesses like pneumonia and bronchitis
  • Permanent lung damage with repeated exposures.

Healthy people also experience difficulty in breathing when exposed to ozone pollution. Because ozone pollution usually forms in hot weather, anyone who spends time outdoors in the summer may be affected.

As the ALA notes, “By choosing to ignore the recommendations of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), the President is failing to follow the nation’s landmark air pollution law, the Clean Air Act, and therefore failing to protect public health, particularly those most at risk including children, older people, and people who suffer from chronic lung diseases. For these people, breathing smog-polluted air can lead to coughing and wheezing, restricted airways, hospitalization and even death. Even healthy young adults and people who exercise or work outdoors can suffer from high levels of ozone pollution.”

All Americans, especially those already most at-risk from smog pollution, deserve the kind of protection ALA and EPA have called for. The President’s position on this issue is predicated by the false notion that tougher standards will adversely impact job creation. Remind the President that the creation of greener, cleaner jobs was at one time a top priority for his administration, and that his decision to punt on better smog standards is misguided and puts millions of Americans at needless risk.

Paul Krugman and Leonard Cohen on Depression and Depression

~ Chris Cocca ~ 5 Comments

Paul Krugman Mellencamp has finally uttered the words.  We’re in a Depression.  His Sunday NYT piece, “Depression and Democracy,” is here.

Elsewhere, Leonard Cohen has shared about Depression and Depression:

LC: Well, you know, there’s depression and depression. What I mean by depression in my own case is that depression isn’t just the blues. It’s not just like I have a hangover in the weekend… the girl didn’t show up or something like that, it isn’t that. It’s not really depression, it’s a kind of mental violence which stops you from functioning properly from one moment to the next. You lose something somewhere and suddenly you’re gripped by a kind of angst of the heart and of the spirit…

– Leonard Cohen, French interview (trans. Nick Halliwell)

It’s hard to be hopeful about the world economic situation.  But Cohen’s kind of depression — God, he’s right on, isn’t he, about there being different kinds? — the kind of mental violence, the kind that stops you from functioning properly from one moment to the next, the kind that grips you and won’t be shaken off without time and effort and help…maybe you see yourself in that.  Unwanted thoughts, irrational compulsions, excessive guilt.

For years, I looked to Cohen’s quote and thought, well, shit, this is the condition of artist. I found out later that it’s also the condition of millions of people who, in addition to being sensitive, winsome, and artistic, also happen to not produce enough serotonin on their own.  For many, such is the biology of general anxiety, OCD, and other depressions.  If that’s you, please know there is help.  If you don’t know if that’s you, please see a trusted physician and find out.  A friend of mine said it best: “no one should have to suffer because of their biochemistry.”  We’d never suggest a diabetic go without insulin.  We’d never expect a diabetic without the right help to function in healthy ways, let alone thrive.  Any physician worth her salt will tell you  it’s the same with the way our brains process the presence or death of chemicals our bodies are making as best they can.  Beloved, God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.  A righteous mind.

Divergent Visions of the Past: What Would Google+, YouTube, and Facebook Have Looked Like in 1997? (And Some Guest Apperances)

~ Chris Cocca ~ 2 Comments

Once Upon has their answer. I love the spirit of their project, but I believe the truth is much simpler, and it’s called AOL. Circa 1997.

Speaking of which:

Beck in 1997

I literally cannot watch that video for fear of the uncontrollable mourning that might pour forth.  Not a longing for my teenage years as such, but a sadness at how the Beckthos just didn’t stick.

MTV in 1997

That song is as good now as ever.

Matt Drudge and Eric Scheiner Hate the Muppets, Seem Rather Fond of Poverty

~ Chris Cocca ~ 7 Comments

Headline writer Matt Drudge linked to a post by CNSNews video producer Eric Scheiner today that basically equates the folks behind Lily the Sesame Street Muppet with ye old Politburo.

Drudge’s headline: SESAME STREET Muppet Touts Entitlements: ‘I Get A Free Breakfast and Lunch’…

Scheiner’s take: “Sesame Street Muppet Pitches Government Dependence: Free Food at School.”

Now that you know the specific evil Sesame Workshop is apparently sanctioning, here’s a bit from Scheiner’s post:

(CNSNews.com) – A “food insecure” Muppet is helping to promote a national “Food for Thought” campaign that teaches poor families to seek out nutritious food and to eat on the taxpayers’ tab.

At the National Press Club on Thursday, Lily the Muppet – who worries about her family not having enough money to feed her properly — pitched free food at school:

“Sometimes we can’t always afford to buy all the food that we need,” Lily said. “I mean, but we’ve been finding lots of ways that we can get help…Yeah, for example, at school I get a free breakfast and a lunch…part of the meal plan.”

Rather than stave off starvation on the public dole, perhaps Drudge and Scheiner are suggesting that the nation’s chronically poor children, many of whom are being raised in food deserts, might sustain themselves on ideology.

Lily’s message is being circulated through schools, hospitals and food assistance programs as part of Sesame Street’s “Food for Thought” multi-media campaign, which includes DVDs and a booklet listing “services that can assist your family” as well as “referrals to social service agencies.”

Organizers say they have produced a million of the kits.

Here’s to a million more.  And yes, Matt Drudge, basic nutrition is an entitlement, and making it available to those who can’t yet provide it for themselves is the obligation of any society that styles itself as free and full of opportunity.

As for CNSNews: it’s owned by L. Brent Bozell III‘s Media Research Center, which says it aims to “prove — through sound scientific research — that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values” and to “neutralize [that bias’s] impact on the American political scene”.

How the hell is feeding poor kids a liberal or conservative issue?  Is it really more conservative or “traditional” to expect the market to take care of the poor?  And even if it is, what are we supposed to do while we wait for all of these layers of regulation and “entitlements” to be peeled back so we can freely suckle Market Mother Wolf?  If the private sector has to wait for lower taxes and fewer regulations before it solves the hunger problem in America, to hell with the private sector on this particular issue.

What’s so offensive to a certain radical conservative strain about things like the Food for Thought Campaign?  Is it simply hating to be reminded that poor kids actually exist, that they really do go hungry?  Is it really only politics?  Or, at the end of the day, is it really about hating those kids and their families because of who they are and where they live, and how easy it is to blame them for their misfortune, a reality so inconvenient to certain sacral political beliefs?

False Choices Aren’t Choices: What If Athens Had the Internet?

~ Chris Cocca ~ 4 Comments

Coke is better than Pepsi.  The National League is superior.  Heinz > Hunts.

The Democrat and Republican brands at the national level?  Both unappealing.

The populist, rational elements in the Tea Party and Occupy movements?  More aligned than everyone who benefits from the “your two choices are” narrative wants to admit.  (Everyone like both national parties and much of the media).

The efficacy of Americans Elect remains to be seen, but they’re right: Iowa and New Hampshire shouldn’t have the biggest say in which major-party candidates survive to other states. And we shouldn’t only have major-party options in the first place. )Sorry, Campaigns and Elections class in college.  You were right about almost everything else.)

This is closest we’ve ever gotten, practically, to a direct nomination process.  Remember when Ross Perot said we’d have townhall meetings and direct democracy via computers in the future?  Will we?  Only if we want to.  Sure, he thought he’d get the contract to build our civic Cerebro, but that’s another story.