Hegemony for Health!!!

In the NYTimes - Warning: Habits May Be Good for You in which the methods of dopamine hegemony are shown both to have turned you into an automatized consumer and revolutionized your health and well-being in the process. (not to mention selling bazillions in products, as well.)

If you look hard enough, you’ll find that many of the products we use every day — chewing gums, skin moisturizers, disinfecting wipes, air fresheners, water purifiers, health snacks, antiperspirants, colognes, teeth whiteners, fabric softeners, vitamins — are results of manufactured habits. A century ago, few people regularly brushed their teeth multiple times a day. Today, because of canny advertising and public health campaigns, many Americans habitually give their pearly whites a cavity-preventing scrub twice a day, often with Colgate, Crest or one of the other brands advertising that no morning is complete without a minty-fresh mouth.

A few decades ago, many people didn’t drink water outside of a meal. Then beverage companies started bottling the production of far-off springs, and now office workers unthinkingly sip bottled water all day long. Chewing gum, once bought primarily by adolescent boys, is now featured in commercials as a breath freshener and teeth cleanser for use after a meal. Skin moisturizers — which are effective even if applied at high noon — are advertised as part of morning beauty rituals, slipped in between hair brushing and putting on makeup.

“OUR products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns,” said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. “Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers’ lives, and it’s essential to making new products commercially viable.”

Through experiments and observation, social scientists like Dr. Berning have learned that there is power in tying certain behaviors to habitual cues through relentless advertising.

The Pickens Plan

From U.S. News; Billionaire oilman and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens is taking his fight for American energy independence public today, outlining his plan to wean America off its $700 billion-a-year foreign crude habit.

"Our dependence on imported oil is killing our economy. It is the single biggest problem facing America today," Pickens said. "As we import more and more of our energy, we are participating in the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind, sending billions of our dollars overseas to buy oil for a commodity that lasts 90 days until burned in our gas tanks."

Here's his list of fixes, from a characteristically bombastic press release:

Step #1: Using the United States' wind corridor, private industry will fund the installation of thousands of wind turbines in the wind belt, generating enough power to provide 20 percent or more of our electricity supply

Step #2: Again funded by the private sector, electric power transmission lines will be built, connecting these wind power generating sites with power plants providing energy to the population centers in the Midwest, South, and Western regions of the country.

Step #3: With the energy from wind now available to operate power plants serving the large population centers in key areas of the country, the natural gas that was historically utilized to fuel these power plants can be redirected and used to replace imported gasoline and diesel as a fuel for thousands of vehicles in our transportation system.

Pickens, a vocal promoter of "peak oil" theory, has already signed on to build a $2 billion wind farm in the Texas Panhandle and reportedly could spend $10 billion on the project.

He's also funding an advertising campaign to garner support in pushing the incoming administration to act on his plan. His website is live today, and Pickens told USA Today that he wants to "elevate that question to the presidential debate, to make it the No. 1 issue of the campaign this year."

For those of you who enjoy watching rich Texans draw on whiteboards, here's the Pickens' Plan pitch:

Asleep at the Spigot

The NYTimes made another incremental disclosure in the direction of peak oil yesterday;

Over the last 25 years, opportunities to head off the current crisis were ignored, missed or deliberately blocked, according to analysts, politicians and veterans of the oil and automobile industries. What’s more, for all the surprise at just how high oil prices have climbed, and fears for the future, this is one crisis we were warned about. Ever since the oil shortages of the 1970s, one report after another has cautioned against America’s oil addiction.

Even as politicians heatedly debate opening new regions to drilling, corralling energy speculators, or starting an Apollo-like effort to find renewable energy supplies, analysts say the real source of the problem is closer to home. In fact, it’s parked in our driveways.

Nearly 70 percent of the 21 million barrels of oil the United States consumes every day goes for transportation, with the bulk of that burned by individual drivers, according to the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan research group that advises Congress.

SO despite the fierce debate over what’s behind the recent spike in prices, no one differs on what’s really responsible for all that underlying demand here for black gold: the automobile, fueled not only by gasoline but also by Americans’ famous propensity for voracious consumption.

Beginning with the indictment of our way of life - and sequeing into the fundamental complicity of our political processes in service to this way of life.

According to energy policy experts, it was in the late 1980s and early 1990s — during the administrations of President George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton — that things began to go wrong.

Before that point, the country reaped the benefits of the first fuel-economy standards, passed in 1975, known as corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE. Between 1974 and 1989, the efficiency of a typical car sold in the United States almost doubled, to 27.5 miles per gallon from 13.8.

Bringing us back full circle to Mark Whitaker's notion about the political barriers to sustainable living;

He proposes that instead of sustainability being an issue of population scale, managerial economics, or technocratic planning, an overhaul of formal democratic institutions is required. This is because environmental degradation has more to do with the biased interactions of formal institutions and informal corruption. Because of corruption, we have environmental degradation. Current formal democratic institutions of states are forms of informal gatekeeping, and as such, intentionally maintain democracy as ecologically “out of sync”. He argues that we are unable to reach sustainability without a host of additional ecological checks and balances. These ecological checks and balances would demote corrupt uses of formal institutions by removing capacities for gatekeeping against democratic feedback. Sustainability is a politics that is already here—only waiting to be formally organized.

Should be interesting to hear what the man of the moment has in mind for addressing the sociopolitical Great Filter that we're presently up against? I can't find it in his position statements, and I don't see it in the coalition he's built. Maybe I should just join the faithful and "believe" - confident that when wishes become horses, all we beggars will ride...,

New age America is entranced by Obama's electoral aura

A curious side-story in this year's election campaign is that the new age movement in the US has embraced Obama even more fervently than most of his supporters. New agers are traditionally liberal, so it's no surprise that they're backing the Democratic candidate. But the question that's been gathering steam among them in recent weeks goes much further than that, and brings - shall we say - a whole other dimension to the race: could Obama be a "lightworker"?

"Many spiritually advanced people I know ... identify Obama as a lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who [can] actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford in a piece headlined "Is Obama an Enlightened Being?" On the higher astral planes of the blogosphere, the notion met with enthusiasm. "He may play a major role," one blogger wrote, "in bringing us to [what] the Hopi Indians call the Great Shift." The endorsement of Oprah Winfrey, increasingly involved in new age spirituality, underscored the point.

from the UK Guardian.

Only Obama Ready to Put in Work....,

While the other wannabe, gonnabe, pranksters and wanksters pooh-poohed it at the time, only Sen. Barack Obama clearly asserted the narrative imperative to put in serious work in accordance with U.S. foreign policy stipulations regarding the global war on terror - in today's NYTimes;

Intelligence reports for more than a year had been streaming in about Osama bin Laden’s terrorism network rebuilding in the Pakistani tribal areas, a problem that had been exacerbated by years of missteps in Washington and the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, sharp policy disagreements, and turf battles between American counterterrorism agencies.

The new plan, outlined in a highly classified Pentagon order, was intended to eliminate some of those battles. And it was meant to pave a smoother path into the tribal areas for American commandos, who for years have bristled at what they see as Washington’s risk-averse attitude toward Special Operations missions inside Pakistan. They also argue that catching Mr. bin Laden will come only by capturing some of his senior lieutenants alive.

But more than six months later, the Special Operations forces are still waiting for the green light. The plan has been held up in Washington by the very disagreements it was meant to eliminate. A senior Defense Department official said there was “mounting frustration” in the Pentagon at the continued delay.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush committed the nation to a “war on terrorism” and made the destruction of Mr. bin Laden’s network the top priority of his presidency. But it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world.

While Baraka was ready to ride, and caught flak for saying as much, flatfooted, greenhorn republican presidential nominees were making unintelligible mouth noises about staying in Iraq for another 100 years....,

Beyond Brand Obama

Douglas Rushkoff asked some really salient questions a couple of weeks ago and speaking just for myself, these are questions I've not seen answered yet;

Where the Obama effort has always disturbed me, however, is in how branded it all feels. From the beginning of his candidacy, I felt as if the Obama name and image represented a new way of doing things more than it exemplified it. My own sense of cynicism reached a peak when Oprah Winfrey began campaigning for him. I've watched her similarly enthused by fakers from Tom Cruise to the founders of The Secret. Oprah's "energy," if you will, is that of national branding. Oprah + (insert your product here) = MegaBrand. Using Oprah to push Obama feels a bit like using rock to push religion. But it's not fair to criticize Obama for letting a powerful media celebrity attempt to teach her followers why he'd be good for the country, is it? He needs to get elected, after all.

Then there's Obama's efforts to reach out to new audiences online. And for sure, Obama's Facebook/YouTube/website representation is far beyond anything Howard Dean and his folks did last time out. Where Dean's people inserted their stock candidate into an online fund-raising campaign, Obama's message and media are more organically related to one another. His message is about invigorating bottom-up, grass-roots, community organizing - and the Internet is that, if anything.

Still, a closer look at Obama's online effort reveals many opportunities for work, and few opportunities for what I consider to be intelligent participation. We can sign up to make phone calls, send emails, volunteer in the streets, or become precinct captains. But where's the participatory democracy wiki? Where do we get involved in the conversations that help shape his policy positions? How is he incorporating the massive intelligence of his support network into his philosophy of governance? BarackObama.com is a great example of crowd-sourcing, but it's a far cry from even a fledgling effort at open source democracy.

Where does one get involved in the coversations that bring his policy position around to address the Peak Oil crisis, for example?

The oil era reaches its desperate endgame

Saudi Arabia appears ready to cave in to demands from Western governments for the kingdom to make special efforts to increase its production of oil. Analysts forecast that the world's largest producer will shortly raise its output by half a million barrels a day. The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, confirmed this impression at the weekend after emerging from talks with the Saudi monarch, King Abdullah.

What we are seeing in this desperate horse-trading is the endgame of the oil age. Even if we have not yet reached the inevitable moment of "peak oil", when production begins its inexorable decline, it is abundantly clear that the age of cheap fuel is over. The economic leaps forward by China and India represent a step-change in energy demand. The rate of discovery of new oilfields has failed to keep pace with the speed at which nations are joining the global economy. That means the price of oil will remain considerably above the level to which we have historically been accustomed.

That is the central fact that governments ought to be addressing. It is ridiculous for the Saudis to attempt to tell Western governments how they ought to tax fuel sales, just as it is ridiculous for Western governments to tell Saudi Arabia and other oil producers how much they ought to pump out of the ground. The debate ought to be about how best to break our economic dependence on oil.

From yesterday's Independent; The oil era reaches its desperate endgame

Mulholland Falls

I'm very tempted to put up Eisenhower's departing address here - because there just aren't that many ways to effectively contextualize and convey the domestic enormity of the political and economic genie that's been unleashed by the invasion of Iraq and the GWOT. But I put up the more cryptic Mulholland Falls because to me that movie more fully captures and conveys the complex quilt of "interests" competing in the presidential election for control of the direction of the country.

Because of the peculiar demographic status of the all volunteer and corporate mercenary expeditionary force, the domestic sense and sensibility concerning this very large and very protracted war has been kept to an unprecedented minimum. As a society, we have been anesthetized to the reality of the national commitment.

Comes Submariner in the comments;

This is intriguing and I'll definitely bookmark the link. Of the top, what I know is that McCain's dad and granddad were both admirals. His father in particular was CINCPAC during the Vietnam War and was an advocate for more aggressive maneuvers that would have confronted China directly.

That said, the lesson of Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, about the futility of containing a rising Asian power short of nuclear weapons is being painfully relearned. Resorting to wholesale purges of CENTCOM, Air Force Secretary and Chief of Staff in a compressed period tells me that Bush is having serious trouble holding the reins on his war horses.

Followed by Rembom;

"In the end, there is no simple solution. It is probably dangerous, for the republic and the armed forces that defend her, for this situation to exist. But it is also the logical result of 232 years of evolution between the military and the civilian authorities that control them. The question that remains is this: When nobody is willing to sit in judgment of the combat performance of the generals, including the generals, then who is really in control of our armed forces?"

who throws an article containing perspective and corroborating data on the subject not commonly aired or known in the public domain. Seems to me we have all the makings of an extremely interesting political discussion. It gets even more interesting if we ponder what's just around that signpost up ahead. The invasion of Iraq was an all or nothing gambit. There is no simple national retreat available to the U.S. from the operationalized objective of acquiring control of Iraq's oil. That the law of unintended consequences took effect almost immediately after the campaign began in earnest, and that American consensus reality has not accommodated itself to the facts of Peak Oil - means that a very rude awakening is in store. In the words of Nick Nolte before he throws William Petersen over the cliff, "this isn't America, this is L.A.....,"

Oil Crisis: Obama vs. Mccain

Whoever wins the White House this fall WILL spend more time tackling energy challenges than any other president in history.

The energy policies of Barack Obama and John McCain differ widely and voters can bet on some spirited political debate.

McCain would mandate reductions in greenhouse gasses, then largely rely on the free market to spur conservation. In order to ease the pain of high gas prices he also wants to suspend the federal gas tax.

Obama would tax oil companies and use the money to help low income people. He would also restrict greenhouse gasses, but charge more for companies to pollute and use the money to fund renewable energy research. He also sees a bigger role for government in encouraging conservation.

CNNMoney.com asked the candidates questions which we feel are central to solving the world's energy challenge. Here's what they said:

Green is the new Black

comedy gold.....,

Having it all
Our “Having it All” Issue highlights stories about things like sustainable high fashion, eco-friendly commuting, farming in the city, and environmentally-responsible musicians. You can have it all, it just might look a little different than what you’re used to.

Interactive Experience
in|ur magazine utilizes an interactive Flash format for the online magazine, creating a more tangible online reading experience. Throughout the pages of the current issue readers will encounter clickable advertising and links (both highlighted and hidden).

Intentionally Urban Magazine......,

Iran Air Strike by August?

Rumors of the impending attack on Iran have been rife for three years now. Here's the latest in Tuesday's Asia Times online.

The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.

Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.

The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC's elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds' stated mission is to spread Iran's revolution of 1979 throughout the region.

Targets could include IRGC garrisons in southern and southwestern Iran, near the border with Iraq. US officials have repeatedly claimed Iran is aiding Iraqi insurgents. In January 2007, US forces raided the Iranian consulate general in Erbil, Iraq, arresting five staff members, including two Iranian diplomats it held until November. Last September, the US Senate approved a resolution by a vote of 76-22 urging President George W Bush to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization. Following this non-binding "sense of the senate" resolution, the White House declared sanctions against the Quds Force as a terrorist group in October. The Bush administration has also accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, though most intelligence analysts say the program has been abandoned.

An attack on Iraq would fit the Bush administration's declared policy on Iraq. Administration officials questioned directly about military action against Iran routinely assert that "all options remain on the table".

Patent for a Pig (Pt.1 of 5)?

Patenting living organisms is already settled case law in the U.S.

Thereby paving the way for some VERY BIG business plans indeed.....,

Please read the notes that accompany this youtube video and links to the remainder of the series and related videos.

As with the terminator seeds, it's not just about the organism itself, it's about the organism's offspring, as well. If this is what they'll do to farmers in the U.S., just imagine what they'll try to do with farmers outside the view of the American public?

Assessing Memetic Weapons Capability of Neoconservatism

Use of radio as a form of memetic warfare has long been known and exploited (Voice of America, Radio Free Europe). The early innovations of memetic warfare are evident in spam, now reaching 80% of internet traffic -- possible to justify future implementation of severely restrictive counter-measures. In contrast to the threat of viruses, spam has a cognitive component. The focus on sexually explicit imagery, together with performance improving drugs and devices, is clearly associated with evocation of lust as a memetic weapon. It is no coincidence that a high percentage of such spam originates in the USA -- where even the highest ranked hotels offer "adult movies". Only the naive would fail to recognize the offensive function of such memetic weapons against other cultures, such as Islam.

Whilst such spam may be understood as a memetic analogue to biological warfare, there is a case for anticipating the development and deployment of memetic analogues to tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. There is also a case for recognizing the probable nature and targets of such weaponry and the appropriate modes of defence.

From Anthony Judge's Seven Deadly Sins of Fundamentalism

Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied

Charles Kettering: General Director of Research Laboratories at General Motors.
[From Nation's Business, 17, no. 1 (January 1929), 30-31, 79.]

A few weeks back I was sitting with a group of executives. All were admiring a new model.

"It is absolutely the best automobile that can be made," enthused one. I objected to that statement.

"Let's take this automobile which, you say, is the 'best that can be made' and put it into a glass showcase," I said. "Let's put it in there-seal it so no person can possibly touch it. Just before we seal it in the case, let us mark the price in big letters inside the case."

"Let us do that and come back here a year from today. After looking at it and appraising it, we will mark a price on the outside of the glass. It will be a price something less than what we think the car is worth today. Probably $200 less. Then, let's come back once every year for ten years, look through the glass, and mark a new price. At the end of ten years we won't be able to put down enough ciphers to indicate what we think of the car. That is, of course, eliminating its value as junk.

"In those ten years, no one could possibly have touched the car. There could be no lessened value through handling. The paint would be just as good as new; the crank case just as good; the real axle just as good; and the motor just as good as ever.

What then, has happened to the car?

"People's minds will have been changed; improvements will come in other cars; new styles will have come. What you have here today, a car that you call 'the best that can be made,' will then be useless. So it isn't the best that can be made. It may be the best you can have made and, if that is what you meant, I have no quarrel with what you said. . . ."

Change, to a research engineer, is improvement. People, though don't seem to think of it in that manner. When a change is suggested they hold back and say, "What we have is all right--it does the work." Doing the work is important but doing it better is more important. The human family in industry is always looking for a park bench where it can sit down and rest. But the only park benches I know of are right in front of an undertaker's establishment.

The younger generation--and by that I mean the generation that is always coming--knows what it wants and it will get what it wants. This is what makes for change. It brings about improvements in old things and developments in new things.

We, as manufacturers, must offer those improvements after they have been found to be capable improvements. The public buys and disposes of what it has. The fact that it is able to dispose of what it has enables us, as producers, to put a lower price tag on the new model. The law of economy in mass production enters here. We are permitted to turn out cars in volume because there is a market for them...

If everyone were satisfied, no one would buy the new thing because no one would want it. The ore wouldn't be mined; timber wouldn't be cut. Almost immediately hard times would be upon us.

You must accept this reasonable dissatisfaction with what you have and buy the new thing, or accept hard times. You can have your choice.

Of course, it wasn't always this way. Coupled with the corporate aim of production and sales without end, psychology and the tools of mass media combined to give rise to the collective id monster threatening to devour us all - dopamine hegemony.

The Militarist

Despite neoconservatism's close association in the public imagination with the Bush administration, and despite McCain's image as a moderate, a look at the record makes clear that McCain, not Bush, is the real neocon in the Republican Party.

McCain was the neocons' candidate in 2000, McCain adhered to a truer version of the faith during the early years of hubris that followed September 11, and as president McCain would likely pursue policies that will make what we've seen from Bush look like a pale imitation of the real thing. McCain, after all, is the candidate of perpetual war in Iraq. The candidate who, despite his protestations in a March speech that he "hates war," not only stridently backed the 2003 invasion of Iraq but has spent years calling on the United States to depose every dictator in the world. He's the candidate of ratcheting-up action against North Korea and Iran, of new efforts to undermine the United Nations, and of new cold wars with Russia and China. Rather than hating war, he sees it as integral to the greatness of the nation, and military service as the highest calling imaginable. It is, in short, not Bush but McCain, who among practical politicians holds truest to the vision of a foreign policy dominated by militaristic unilateralism. American Prospect current issue by way of P6

Senate Passes Genetic Discrimination Bill

People learning through genetic testing that they might be susceptible to devastating diseases wouldn't also have to worry about losing their jobs or their health insurance under anti-discrimination legislation the Senate passed Thursday.

The 95-0 Senate vote sends the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act

The bill, described by Sen. Edward Kennedy as "the first major new civil rights bill of the new century," would bar health insurance companies from using genetic information to set premiums or determine enrollment eligibility. Similarly, employers could not use genetic information in hiring, firing or promotion decisions.

"For the first time we act to prevent discrimination before it has taken firm hold and that's why this legislation is unique and groundbreaking," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who sponsored the Senate bill with Sens. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. back to the House, which could approve it early next week. President Bush supports the legislation.

Mapping the Individual - Cheaply

In yesterday's Guardian;

The cost of sequencing an individual genome is falling exponentially - just as the cost of hard disk space or transistors on a chip did when computing took off. Plotting the numbers on a graph suggests that by 2012 it will take a few hours and cost less than $100. A few years after that it will cost perhaps $10.

That's when you should expect an explosion in personal sequencing. Jason Bobe, the director of community for the Personal Genome Project, based at Harvard Medical School, writes the Personal Genome blog and reckons that by 2015, 50 million people will have had their own DNA sequenced. He says: "My rationale is simply to assume that the trend line for the personal sequencing market might look a lot like the one experienced in the personal computer market" - which grew from a few thousand units sold in 1975 to 50m in 1995. "If the personal genome sequencing market follows suit, we might say that 2007 for personal genome sequences was like 1979 for PCs, and we've just turned the corner into 1980 where units sold remains below 1m, but growth is noticeable."

The rapidly falling cost and time needed to map your DNA

2003
$437,000,000
13 years to map

2007
$10,000,000
4 years

2008
$100,000
4 weeks

2012
$100*
2 days

*Forecast

"How far down the cost [of sequencing] will go will be determined by the final size of the market and its applications." But if the whole population is sequenced from birth, and your DNA becomes your passport and benefit ID, that will expand the market - perhaps making it a self-fulfilling prediction.

Orlov's Reinventing Collapse

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan was wont to say:

We don't know who discovered water, but we know it wasn't the fish.

Apropos the most recent commentary with Bros. Makheru and Submariner in which I expressed my view of the permissible limits of public questioning to the former - and the utility of unconstrained private questioning to the latter - participants in a culture are not the best ones to uncover widely held assumptions.

Amanda Kovattana goes straight to the heart of Orlov's treatment of our predicament, uncovering at least one of the fundamental assumptions inherent to being a fish in these American waters;

Along the way, he reveals pithy insights to explain how the American system works in contrast with the Russian one. For instance the story of the classless society is exemplified by the concept of a middle class — something Americans have proudly espoused — which he points out is held together by the common denominator of everyone owning a car. That's right, not education, not equal opportunity, or equal rights but the one-ton behemoth that we must have to get around the wasteful geography created by suburbia.

We know about this waste from the film The End of Suburbia and James Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere and all the other peak oil fellows, but Orlov points out that because we are so identified with owning a car as part of this American middle class identity we will be hard put to let it go. And when we are forced to (due to diminishing and increasingly expensive gasoline supplies) so will go the myth of the middle class. In turn he explains how the Russians lost faith in the classless worker's paradise because they could clearly see that there was an elite strutting around in cool Armani threads. Meanwhile the lack of consumer goods and trendy fashions meant that a good life for all never became a reality.

And because our ideologically indoctrinated minds are so closed to such deep seated change and so invested in our "can do" innovation, we will, like Napoleon, be unable to retreat from the overextended, oil fueled, debt based economy which is poised to come crashing down, financed as it is by foreign investment that will eventually decide that we are not a good credit risk.

And there it is in a nutshell. Few national politicians dare give voice to what's just beyond the signpost up ahead. Being unwilling and unable to discuss reality, how then could they ever go about proposing, much less implementing, any of the radical engineering redesigns required to genuinely rebuild along viable and sustainable lines? The patient is as yet utterly unwilling to hear an objective and accurate diagnosis. With no diagnosis, how can she participate in her own treatment, much less get on board with the radical measures required to effect an actual cure?

"Alabama" Kind of Likes Barack Obama

Reading is Fundamental

Pulling my children away from the television and video games, I've instituted a daddy book club during which we read science fiction and fantasy novels which interested me when I was a child. (and which naturally, by extension, must interest the children, as well - though 90 minutes of reading with freewheeling discussion-Q/A may be the real attraction) In any event - it beats the hell out of passive viewing and thumb-twitching - and thus far, they both seem to greatly enjoy it.

Since the children will be beginning taiji and their first fledgling sword lessons next week - I thought we might begin with Elric of Melnibone. As any fan of Elric knows, a big part of the attraction to this anti-hero is his sentient, soul-stealing sword Stormbringer. Since I'm short two lent-out and long-ago lost books from the original series, I went by the library and to my surprise discovered there was a more recent Elric related novel called The DreamThief's Daughter - presciently published in 2001 and set in the context of pre-Nazi and Nazi germany;

Nazis... controlled the media. On the radio, in the newspapers and magazines and movies, they began to tell the people whom they should love and whom they should hate... This is by no means a new phenomenon... The American Puritans characterised everyone who disagreed with them as evil and godless and probably witches... The British and the Americans went into China to save the country from the opium they had originally sold it. The Turks had to characterise Armenians as godless monsters before they began their appalling slaughter of the Christians.

Frightened nations will accept too easily the threat of civil war and the promise of the man who says he will avert it. Hitler averted civil war because he had no need of it. His opposition was delivered into his hands by the ballot boxes of a country which, at that time, had one of the best democratic constitutions in the world, superior in many ways to the American.

It is a mark, I think, of the political scoundrel who uses the most sentimental language to blame all others but his own constituents for the problems of the world. Always a "foreign threat", fear of "the stranger". I still hear those voices in modern Germany and France and America and all the countries we once thought too civilised to allow such horror within their own borders.

Moorcock pulls no punches in his treatment of the socioeconomic context giving rise to German fascism. The literary treatment in turn provides us with a fantastical backdrop over which to discuss 20th century history and current events as these unfold with breathtaking speed all around us.