BREAKING: the scene in Kiev and Crimea is basically an apocalypse in a trapper’s hat!
But really, just think how much worse Americans’ knowledge of geography would be if we didn’t get our hands all up in foreign conflicts. Nightmarish.
The Article: Feminist infighting only takes our eyes off the real struggle by Hadley Freeman in The Guardian.
The Text: There are so many terrific, beautifully observed details in Andrew O’Hagan’s just-published article in the London Review of Books about his attempts to ghost Julian Assange’s autobiography that it feels churlish to pick out just one. But for now, I’m going to have to be churlish. One of Assange’s many contradictory traits nailed by O’Hagan is his obsessive antagonism with those on his side, and his apparent uninterest in his actual opponents: “Julian’s relationship with the Guardian … appeared to obsess him … The Guardian was an enemy because they hadn’t toed the line, whereas the Daily Mail was almost respected for finding him entirely abominable,” O’Hagan writes.
This tendency – to turn on your own side rather than spending energy fighting the opposition – is by no means limited to deluded wannabe cult leaders with a messiah complex and bad table manners. You can see it on a daily basis in political parties. But the manifestation that I have been musing on much of late, currently all too clearly on display, is within the feminist movement.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that shit is getting pretty crazy in Ukraine. Not wasting a moment’s time following Sochi’s close, Putin sent troops to Crimea and is taking aim to annex the culturally pro-Russian peninsula. PBS News Hour fleshes out the details and strategies with Stephen Cohen of New York University and Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia.
Without a minute to spare following Sochi’s end, Vladimir Putin sent troops to Crimea on the supposed grounds of protecting its people from “fascist” opposition forces. Crimea is historically a pro-Russian area, and therefore an easy point of entry for Russian forces seeking to maintain power over the country in flux. The fear (for some), of course, is that Russia will try to expand its influence and seize control of other parts of Ukraine and re-assert its cultural and political dominance. With talk of annexing Crimea in the works, many in western parts of Ukraine are looking to Europe and the United States for help. Good luck getting that, though — imposing economic sanctions on Russia could mean EU leaders’ gas would get a great deal more expensive. And amid their own feeble economic recovery, that’s the last thing they want. Meanwhile, photos from Crimea present a populace that doesn’t seem to mind Russian presence.
The Article: Running It All On Clean Energy: “A Question Of Social And Political Will” by Sandy DeChart in CleanTechnica.
The Text: Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment Senior Fellow Mark Jacobson says the United States has the technology and logistical ability to convert to all-renewable energy sources by 2050—if we can manage to exercise the social and political will to do so. He’s the guy who told David Letterman we already have enough wind to power the entire world “seven times over.” Now he has proven his point with a groundbreaking roadmap to clean energy for all 50 U.S. states.
With colleagues from academia and industry, Jacobson—a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy—recently developed detailed plans that three states (New York, 2/18/13; Washington, 1/14/14; and California, yesterday—2/22/14) could use to switch over their energy infrastructures from conventional fuels to 100% renewable resources by 2050. As Jacobson uses the term, “infrastructure” includes electric power, transportation, heating/cooling, and industry uses. “Renewable power” is derived primarily from wind, water, and sunlight (WWS), generating electricity and electrolytic hydrogen.
Some findings of research behind the plans:
-Powering the U.S. with only wind, water, and solar energy sources would save the average consumer $3,400 per year.
