Category: Uncategorized

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Vincent Ludwig and Khan.

Ricardo Montalban died this morning. He was 88. Most people knew him from Fantasy Island or The Wrath of Khan, and I never saw the former and enjoyed the latter, but I really knew him for Leslie Nielsen’s The Naked Gun, which I watched over and over again when I was in high school (“I think anyone…can be anassasseen”). Fantastic slapstic and mildly absurdist humor. And OJ Simpson’s in it to boot. Good stuff.

Anyway he’s dead. There’s an obit in the New York Times today for him. One line bothers me, though; a quote from his friend and publicist David Brokaw:

the actor was ”exactly how you’d imagine him to be” off camera. ”What you saw on the screen and on television and on talk shows, this very courtly, modest, dignified individual, that’s exactly who he was,”

I think that sorta sucks. I mean, yay for being courtly and modest and dignified, all fantastic qualities, but really? He was exactly who you’d imagine him to be? I much prefer regular surprises when I’m finding out who a person is, rather than for them to be exactly how I’d expect. Much more interesting that way.

Anyway, it’s sad when people die, moreso when you have some emotional connection to them or their works. I accept death’s inevitability more than most people, and I had some mild emotional connection to some of Montalban’s work. Hope his kith and kin are managing as well as they can.

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Same Old Leaders in Energy Investment

I’m surprised that I got to this front page article in the New York Times before either Grist or Climate Progress (I don’t subscribe to info-overload Treehugger anymore). Titled “Gulf Oil States Seeking a Lead in Clean Energy”, there are a few points that need to be touched on:

  1. There’s certainly some greenwashing going on here. These nations contribute overwhelmingly to the production of one of the most ubiquitous greenhouse gases. They’d need some pretty big clown shoes to make the huge carbon footprints they’re responsible for. Green investment is stupendous, but that fact can’t be overlooked.
  2. However, their enormous investments are completely out of America and Europe’s league. $25 million to one research team? This leaves us Westerners in the dust. The joke will be on us. “Energy independence”? Ha! At this rate, we’ll finally make the transition to clean energy in a couple decades, only to find that all the supplier companies are Saudi.
  3. Not wanting to stray to far from the traditional media pack, author Elisabeth Rosenthal makes one statement that I quibble a little bit with:

    For the rest of the world, the enormous cash infusion may provide the important boost experts say is needed to get dozens of emerging technologies — like carbon capture, microsolar and low-carbon aluminum — over the development hump to make them cost-effective.

    Yes, having coal plants not emit CO2 would be good. However, carbon capture is just not in the same league of clean tech as Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), more efficient, cheaper, and more sustainable photovoltaic cells, and other really clean technologies.

Anyway, I hope Romm and Roberts pick up on this soon. I’d love to read their commentary.

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Coal and Fly Ash

Devilstower on Daily Kos has a phenomenal (I mean truly amazing) article up today about fly ash in coal, you know, the stuff that spilled in Tennessee recently. Seems like the stuff’s really toxic, and it’s managed about as well as that big scary essay is managed by an over-procrastinating high school student. We’ll just put this over here and deal with it later.

But really, you should go read Devilstower’s article. It’s fantastic. And if you’re interested in learning more about our cheap-as-in-poor-quality energy supply, take a look at Big Coal, by Jeff Goodell, which looks deeply and objectively into every aspect of the coal lifecycle, from mine to train to plant to outlet. Wonderful book.

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Session Creep

Last night I went to a session at this local Irish pub for the first time in about five years. Sessions are fantastic, because you get to play music with other people. However, at the session tonight, there was one guy who approached the music like a creepy old guy approaches children. He was paying insufficient attention to the mood of each tune, instead just rocking out in an accelerating fashion on his congas. Now, I’m sure he’s a fantastic elementary school music teacher, but for those of you who aren’t musicians, speeding up in a reckless fashion is BAD. And annoying. Sigh. I suppose the idiom clarified later tonight holds true: 75% of the folkie world are the greatest people you’ll ever meet, but the other quarter are creepy, annoying, arrogant, or generally unpleasant to be around.

Tonight’s Winter Extravadance. Come one come all.

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Israel and Gaza

What a mess this whole Gaza business is, eh? One is tempted to throw one’s hands up in resignation that the violence will continue indefinitely. But that’s a completely deplorable attitude. If we all resign to continued violence, then there will be continued violence.

But it’s hard! Let’s say that and get it over with. Both sides are sort of stuck in a rut. It’s like the active form of mutually assured destruction. An eye for an eye leaves the holy land looking like post-WWII Europe.

So what do we do? Well, the goal is to create some sort of peaceful compromise. In the short term, there’s one thing Israel wants and two things Hamas wants. Israel wants Hamas to stop launching rockets into its cities (duh). Hamas wants Israel to stop killing tons of Gazans in this invasion (duh) and to lower the embargo so they can have food and medical supplies and other things Israelis take for granted (duh?). Personally, I think it’s Israel’s responsibility as the larger power to make the signal that they will stop under those conditions. There we go! Truce! End of violence in the short term! No more murdered civilians! Yay!

But then there’s the long-term stuff. In the long term, Israel wants to continue not having rockets fired into its cities by Hamas (makes sense). Hamas wants two things in the long term: a unified, sovereign Palestinian state (oh, good idea!), and the elimination of Israel (wait, what?). Now, I know those annoying Jews(irony) took away the land where Palestinians had been living for centuries, nay millennia, but honestly, guys. Just because your new neighbors weren’t there a month ago doesn’t mean you can evict them or kill their dog.

Now, as far as I know, with the exception of that last desire, neither side is inherently opposed to the desires of the other. Israel doesn’t really want to lower the embargo, but that’s because they’re afraid of more weapons getting in, not because of the basic food and medicine stuff. So some form of these basic tenets should be possible to agree on. I don’t know much about the specifics, and doubtless they’ll be hard to work out as well, but that general point seems pretty straightforward. Right?

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Missouri Senate 2010

In case you don’t pay as close attention to political prognostication as I do, Kit Bond, the Republican senator from Missouri, has announced that he won’t run for reelection in 2010. I don’t know much about Bond’s reputation, but an open seat in one of the purplest states in the nation will certainly make this race front-and-center during this cycle.

Anyway, word is, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (yes, that Carnahan family) is the leading contender on the Democratic side. There are, however, numerous Republicans in the field and no clear favorite at this point. However, on to the point of this post: today Roll Call reports that one of those Republicans has announced that she’s not running. My thought on reading this was, I wonder if there’s backroom communication going on among Missouri Republicans about who should and shouldn’t run? I suppose it’s pretty certain that’s the case. Sigh. Not that interesting a point, I suppose.

Best quote of this issue, so far, though, is this one regarding Kit Bond from Daily Kos’s Devilstower:

Podiums everywhere will feel safer, knowing that they’re not going to be subject to Bond’s red-faced pounding.

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Office Lunch

When I arrived at this my first full-time job, I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do for lunch. At home, I grab lunch whenever I want and eat it as soon as I make it. At college there’s this cafeteria with lots of options, all (ostensibly) free, and generally made for you. I haven’t packed a lunch since high school. But that’s what I generally do at work, and eat at my desk as I catch up on my personal email, blogs, and facebook.

Today, though, I went on my first office lunch outing, with four coworkers to a nice new Vietnamese restaurant. It’s strange going out to lunch with coworkers in the middle of the workday! All of your relationships with them are centered around the work environment and mindset, and then here you are in a social situation where you have to converse about things not related to work! Really, it seems like work-related things are a conversation topic of last resort in such a situation. We talked about birds and squirrels and local businesses; it wasn’t that awkward, but I was stricken by the distinct social nature of the outing.

But, of course, almost all of my coworkers are absolutely fantastic, and I really enjoyed the interaction with these four, even if it was a little odd.

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First Post

Welcome all to Dispatches from Life, the fledgling permanent personal blog of myself, Alex Krogh-Grabbe! Believe me, this is quite a celebratory event. The champagne is flowing so freely as I sit hear quietly on the couch in my living room at 9:18pm, the dark Christmas tree beside me and the day’s precipitation well on its way to becoming a crunchy nuisance outside.

But enough frivolity for a second. The purpose of this blog is to provide an outlet for my random spurts of journalistic passion. Someday soon I might have the focus, perseverance, and enough to say about a topic to keep a more interesting blog, but for the time being this will do for something of a slightly more professional LiveJournal. Except, far less angst and far more commentary about Very Serious things. Very, very serious. All the time.

So, I hope you enjoy yourself here. The internet is a dangerous place, and perhaps here you may find some smiles and comfort for a short while. Hope to see you again soon.

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10 Reasons to ditch your car

We could all use fewer cars on the road, and most of us could do with a good many fewer hours spent in them. So here it is! From Personal Finance Advice blog, ten mainly financial reasons to adapt your lifestyle to not include that pesky gas-oholic. In summary: no car payment, no car insurance, no pain when gas prices increase, no car repair bills, better health, environmentally friendly, no gym membership, better organization, less stress, a much healthier bank account.

Granted, there are some times when it is very useful to have a car. For example: in bad weather, it is difficult and uncomfortable to walk or bike. When traveling long distances when you’re transporting heavy things, it is much easier to have a car than to take public transportation. If you have a physical disability, perhaps sometimes it is easier to drive.

But most of our lives are not spent in such conditions. Thus, I would put my vote in for carsharing or something similar as the most environmentally friendly option for a reasonably mobile, normal human being. If you want to go farther than that and remove cars from your life entirely, more power to you. It’s just that for most people, that wouldn’t work so well. These are some useful points to consider, though, when trying to make that decision.