Coffeehouse Climate and ‘Generation Hot’
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As anyone gifted should know, a cigarette and a cup of coffee is the maximus-a-mode in a perfect remedial coupling — no matter the clock face.
And then, take that coupling, couple it with an environment of other like peoples and stuff, and faster-than-you-can-say-Kafka-three-times — innovative/enlightened speech and thought develops.
(However, in these more-than enlightened, techno-times, one is required to remove tobacco from the hyped-up twosome, and maybe if nothing else, replace it with a Droid.)
Freak-me-not: The coffeehouse has not only impressed just myself, but apparently influenced the rise of advanced civilization.
(Illustration found here).
In the mid-1990s, during a personally-weird period, I became a regular customer at a newly-opened coffee shop in Pismo Beach, CA, the Black Pearl Coffee House (now sadly the original longtime defunct — read an AolTravel blurb here), and seemingly for the first time, recognized the difference between coffee, and ‘coffee as espresso.’
And all this coffee‘s side affects/effects.
I went from customer to barista to eventual de facto manager seemingly quicker than whipping-up a soy-milk, double-shot cappuccino.
Along with the beans came the brain salad.
A comfortable, intellectual-leaning place to sip good coffee attracts all kinds from everywhere.
Pismo Beach was a draw: Consumers of the Pearl’s rich, black-and-strong coffee by-products came from all over the planet carrying a wide assortment of ideas, experiences, lifestyles, and of course, a shitload of opinions (which may all be the same), and in coming in contact with all that melting shit-pot diversity, I felt a better person for it — and a revelation of how neat, so-wonderfully mysterious was, “Enigma.”
The Pearl’s noir ambuience — called by some as of the ‘Casablanca‘ fashion — cultivated learning and discussion tingled with a bit of shadowed romance.
There’s been other coffee shops over the years, some good, some shitty, some about average, but nothing like the one known by cool locals just as, the Pearl.
Ironically, I no longer drink coffee having mutated to yerba matte tea, which still leaves me under the coffee house umbrella, if not its support foundation.
Anyhow, this coffee recollection was perked this morning by a post on The Dish about the influence on mankind of coffee and gathering-rooms of coffee houses.
Science/technology/cultural writer, Steven B. Johnson, gave a lecture in Oxford, England, in connection with his new book, “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation,” and how when 1600s England switched from alcohol to coffee, the impact was staggering.
In the talk from last July (the video found at The Dish link or here), Johnson explained how society shifted from near-brain dead to good cheer nearly overnight.
The money quote:
“The English coffee house was crucial in the development and spread of one of the greatest intellectually flowerings in the last 500 years, what we now called, the Enlightenment.”
Also the Brits’ switch from consuming alcohol, “day-in-and-day-out, from dawn to dusk,” as Johnson says, to coffee, and shifting from taverns to coffee houses, naturally produced better ideas and much-more sound minds: “…effectively drunk all day. And you switched from a depressant to a stimulate in your life, you would have better ideas..”
And that’s a damn fact.
Not only the beverage, but the ambiance.
Johnson says it was also where these coffee products were consumed, or the “architecture of the space” in these coffee houses, that fueled the hatching and spreading of ideas amongst a mass-variety of people types, an arena where “ideas has sex.”
Kink with a touch of creepy.
Johnson, however, provides a happy gloss to innovations with “very long incubation periods” that supposedly were humane and good, but has put humanity on the course it now finds itself — were these new concepts more motivated by a higher-than-thou, intellectual greed in the beginning, and later, by a reality of financial greed as it is nowadays?
Science and technology via enlightenment has led us to where?
Mankind’s enthralled brain full of its wonder and enlightenment might have an extinction clause.
Sonofabitch!
Who’d in the livin’ shit figured coffee was instrumental in peak oil/peak everything/climate change?
All I wanted was coffee and a smoke.
Coffee houses, and, yes, even coffee shops, attract the yearning young.
One of my first discoveries from hangin’ at the Pearl, for an instance, was the meaning and depth of the “gothic subculture,” those wonderfully-unique people who enjoy dark shadows and mascara on guys.
They were always ready for talk about literature, movies, music, not much about politics, though, unless was to fuck all authority — and most-usually, the nicest people around.
These young people nowadays, sometimes called Generation Y, or Echo Boomers (vs the one previous, Gen X; and before them, my compadres, the asshole Baby Boomers) have seemingly inherited a new moniker, and it ain’t pretty for anyone or any age, “Generation Hot.”
Mark Hertsgaard, the environment correspondent for The Nation, has written a new book, “Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth,” and posted an article at HuffPost about it.
A few snips:
In fact, every child on earth born after June 23, 1988 belongs to what I call Generation Hot.
This generation includes some two billion young people, all of whom have grown up under global warming and are fated to spend the rest of their lives confronting its mounting impacts.
For Generation Hot, the brutal summer of 2010 is not an anomaly; it’s the new normal.
…
In other words, dangerous climate change is no longer tomorrow’s problem; it is here today.
But for most of us, the other scientific shoe has yet to drop.
Aside from a fundamentalist few, most people around the world, in rich and poor countries alike, accept that climate change is real and has already begun to occur.
Nevertheless, many non-specialists still do not grasp the most fiendish aspect of the climate problem: we can’t turn it off.
No matter how many solar panels, electric cars and other green technologies we humans may embrace, the fact remains that more severe climate change is locked in for decades to come.
The reason is the physical inertia of the climate system: the fact that carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere for centuries.
Even if global greenhouse gas emissions were magically halted overnight, sheer physical inertia would keep average global temperatures rising for another thirty years at least, scientists say.
…
One of the key facts of the 21st century is that climate change is going to get worse, perhaps a lot worse, before it gets better.
Like it or not, the kids of Generation Hot will have to learn how to cope with the consequences — not only for their health and economic prospects but their emotional well-being.
All too true.
Hertsgaard marks that day in 1988 as the original alarm: The warning came from NASA scientist James Hansen’s testimony to the U.S. Senate and, crucially, the decision by the New York Times to print the news on page 1, which in turn made global warming a household phrase in news bureaus, living rooms and government offices the world over.
In an even-more sad reality, the real start to this bad weather affair occurred more than 12 years before Hansen’s oratory, the original Earth Day, April 22, 1970: Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.
On that day 40 years ago, a shitload of people thought the future was that sign at the left — if something wasn’t done, humankind wouldn’t last past the 1990s.
Now the situation is far, far worse then even imagined back then, with far less popular support.
(Illustration found here).
The word, ecology, made its appearance on the world’s popular stage and I toyed a little while with the idea of studying to become an ecologist, even if I lacked any discernible skills in math and science.
The decade after April 1970 saw the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, passage by the US Congress of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species act and other key pieces of environmental legislation.
This year, one could see the twist to the plan, how the creators of pollution and environmental damage spin the smoke and mirrors of climate-change denial.
From the Washington Post last April: In 1970, students at San Jose State buried a car as a protest against consumerism. In 2010, there will be Earth Day events in Washington put on by Chevrolet and Ford.
The car should have stayed buried — or else we’re all going to be Generation Gone.
Bad Sun Shining
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Energy, Environment, Technology, Weather | Leave a Comment
Beyond peak oil, climate change, the financial meltdown, peak soil, the GOP’s “Pledge to America,” the death of Eddie Fisher, the population bomb, etc., etc. — what else could possibly disrupt my golden years?
From NASA: “The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms” — Richard Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division.
From NASA’s “Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts” — It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.
(Illustration found here).
Fisher also reported “I believe we’re on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather. We take this very seriously indeed.”
He added “…but it turns out that our data have practical economic and civil uses. This is a good example of space science supporting modern society.”
Hey, dude, is that one of them game-changing, but…
From the UK’s the Telegraph (h/t RawStory):
Experts say the “low hanging fruit” of scientific knowledge, such as the laws of motion and gravity, was attained using simple methods in previous centuries, leaving only increasingly impenetrable problems for modern scientists to solve.
Uncharted areas of science are now so complex that even the greatest minds will struggle to advance human understanding of the world, they claim.
…
Russell Stannard, professor emeritus of physics at the Open University, argues that although existing scientific knowledge will continue to be applied in news ways, “the gaining of knowledge about fundamental laws of nature and the constituents of the world, that must come to an end”.
He said: “We live in a scientific age and that’s a period that’s going to come to an end at some stage. Not when we’ve discovered everything about the world but when we’ve discovered everything that’s open to us to understand.”
The end of science? WTF — I wanna go back to sleep.
‘No Wiggle Room’
Filed Under Just Plain War, Scratching Sounds, War & Politics | Leave a Comment
In all the hullabaloo this week about Bob Woodward’s new book, “Obama’s Wars,” seemingly no one took notice of the big lies that led to that horrible, incoherent inheritance.
According to documents released yesterday by the National Security Archive, in January 2001, in one of the first meetings of George Jr.’s administration, the newly-minted, nit-wit president directed the Pentagon to look into military options for Iraq and the CIA to improve intelligence on the country.
And the rest, so sorry to say, is some very ugly history.
(Illustration found here).
Of course, to anyone paying any kind of half-assed attention the past decade, this little bit of info is not any kind of a new revelation — Paul O’Neill, George Jr.’s first Treasury Secretary, revealed nearly six years ago: “From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic “A” 10 days after the inauguration – eight months before Sept. 11.
“From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.”
And from the National Archive, another official bit of old news: In November 2001, as Osama bin Laden was allowed to escape from the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered Gen. Tommy Franks to draw up Iraqi invasion plans, and, in softening the reason, “Focus on WMD.”
In a Raw Story piece on the archive documents:
Forecasting an optimistic outcome far from the result the Iraq war produced, Rumsfeld said that Washington’s image in the region and the world would benefit from toppling Saddam.
“If Saddam’s regime were ousted, we would have a much-improved position in the region and elsewhere,” he wrote.
“A major success in Iraq would enhance US credibility and influence throughout the region.”
Another Rumsfeld known unknown.
In Woodward’s book, Obama is pictured as overseeing a conflicted discussion on what to do about the shit storm that is Afghanistan.
From the Washington Post:
“This needs to be a plan about how we’re going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan,” Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. “Everything we’re doing has to be focused on how we’re going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint.
It’s in our national security interest.
There cannot be any wiggle room.”
From all the reviews and news stories on Woodward’s tome, it appears Obama faces a horrible legacy in the form of some real-shithead/asshole military — a left-over from Rumsfeld and The Dick.
And there’s no movement here:
Woodward quotes Petraeus as saying, “You have to recognize also that I don’t think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It’s a little bit like Iraq, actually. . . . Yes, there has been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids’ lives.”
Thank-you, George-ass-Jr. for creating a requirement for so much damage repair and really, no wiggle room.
A Known Known
Filed Under history, Orwellian | Leave a Comment
(Added stuff below)
News this morning that one of the great assholes of our time (on the rock-face with Dick Cheney), damn-dumb Don Rumsfeld, will release his “autobiography” early next year and will tell the tale straight — as if the sonofabitch could say anything with a straight face.
The book’s working title? “Known and Unknown.”
(Illustration found here).
According to Reuters:
“Like Donald Rumsfeld himself, this memoir pulls no punches,” said Adrian Zackheim, president and publisher of the Sentinel imprint of Penguin Group.
The book, titled “Known and Unknown,” will span the length of Rumsfeld’s life and explore some of the controversies such as the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq and allegations of human rights violations at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the publisher said.
The title is derived from comments made by Rumsfeld during a February 2002 news conference in which he referred to “known knowns” and “known unknowns.”
Rumsfeld had been asked by a journalist whether there was any evidence that Iraq had tried to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.
The reality of the “known” is Rummy is a hard-hearted asshole.
And this press conference in December 2004 reveals the real known:
Q: Yes, Mr. Secretary.
Our soldiers have been fighting in Iraq for coming up on three years.
A lot of us are getting ready to move north relatively soon.
Our vehicles are not armored.
We’re digging pieces of rusted scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass that’s already been shot up, dropped, busted, picking the best out of this scrap to put on our vehicles to take into combat.
We do not have proper armament vehicles to carry with us north.
SEC. RUMSFELD: I talked to the General coming out here about the pace at which the vehicles are being armored.
They have been brought from all over the world, wherever they’re not needed, to a place here where they are needed.
I’m told that they are being — the Army is — I think it’s something like 400 a month are being done.
And it’s essentially a matter of physics.
It isn’t a matter of money.
It isn’t a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It’s a matter of production and capability of doing it.
As you know, you go to war with the Army you have.
They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.
Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe — it’s a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.
Because he didn’t give a shit.
(New added stuff in the PM)
And he’s been not-giving-shit a long time.
When I did the original post early this morning, and looking for some art to complement it (as art should), I saw this old, familiar photo to the left of Rummy and the Dick from about 1975.
Amazingly, these two clowns have been causing mischief nearly four decades.
And who’d figured during Gerald Ford’s one-shot presidency these guys would eventually create a nightmare, turn the entire Middle East into a nasty, more-violent, unsettled war zone and cause the deaths of thousands and thousands — longevity of always plotting in the shadows of the dark side.
(Illustration found here).
Rumsfeld’s memoir is due in January; the UK’s Tony Blair has regurgitated his self-story already, “A Journey,” and it created some not-so-happy receptions; and after the mid-term elections in November, George Jr.’s crayon-sketched, “Decision Points,” will be made public — three amigos without a known regret.
Krugman at 4 a.m.
Filed Under Finance, Politics, Scratching Sounds | Leave a Comment
Famous, mega-rich person, Marie Antoinette, has been credited, though not so in reality, with the ugly phrase, “Let them eat cake” when observing the starving poor — a similar asshole stance from GOP wag, US Sen. Mitch McConnell: “…that no one in this country will pay higher income taxes next year than they are right now.”
(Illustration found here).
Of course, mush-mouth Mitch was yakking about the 1 percent at the top of the US income braket — the rich.
Paul Krugman this morning takes a whack at the self-pity wailings of the rich if George Jr.’s tax cuts are allowed to expire at the end of this year — it’s just so pathic.
The economic bottom dwellers aren’t the ones blubbering:
Yet if you want to find real political rage — the kind of rage that makes people compare President Obama to Hitler, or accuse him of treason — you won’t find it among these suffering Americans.
You’ll find it instead among the very privileged, people who don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes, or their health insurance, but who are outraged, outraged, at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes.
…
At the same time, self-pity among the privileged has become acceptable, even fashionable.
Tax-cut advocates used to pretend that they were mainly concerned about helping typical American families. Even tax breaks for the rich were justified in terms of trickle-down economics, the claim that lower taxes at the top would make the economy stronger for everyone.
These days, however, tax-cutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case.
Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it.
Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich.
I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on.
Why, they can barely make ends meet.
And in a similar vein from Robert Reich:
The rich spend a far smaller portion of their money than anyone else because, hey, they’re rich.
That means continuing the Bush tax cut for them wouldn’t stimulate much demand or create many jobs.
But it would blow a giant hole in the budget — $36 billion next year, $700 billion over ten years.
Millionaire households would get a windfall of $31 billion next year alone.
And the Republican charge that restoring the Clinton tax rates for the rich would hurt the economy — because it would reduce the “incentives” of the rich (including the richest small business owners) to create jobs — is ludicrous.
But dude, cake is expensive.