Paris, day 25
evening: i'm always amazed at musicians who are only semi-successful in the indie music world but are able to sustain themselves on their artistry alone. such is the case with wildbirds & peacedrums, a married couple from sweden, home of h&m and ikea. claire, aaron, and i go to see them at the swedish cultural center here in paris. because they are labelmates of volcano!, we talk with the band after the show. we learn many things, and among them, when bantering with the audience, one should not make jokes about stereotypes you hold about said audience. for example, when in france, don't say that people here really do like their baguettes, because, though true, that joke will fall flat. aaron chimes in, saying that he needs to resist telling a sherriff of nottingham joke whenever volcano! plays nottingham. when playing in chicago, people should not make jokes about al capone.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
where i see millions of bones
Paris, day 24
morning: in the late 1700s, the cemeteries in paris were so overcrowded, with millions of bodies stacked on each other underground, that disease started to spread and public health was endangered. in 1785, the government took drastic action and exhumed all the bodies and put them in the tunnel system under the city. now, it's a tourist attraction.
we must muster the courage to travel underground and see bones!
claire, aaron, and i stand in line to descend more than 60 feet underground, past the sewer system and the metro tunnels, and down into the quarries, now called the catacombs. it's here that millions of bones are stacked on top of each other, up to the six-foot ceilings in a winding labyrinth. it's weird, uncomfortable, creepy, unnatural, and really interesting. the first time i saw a real bone was in a museum in rome this past october, and now millions are all around me.
we spend an hour down there, looking at femurs on top of femurs, skulls and bones in decorative scenes, fissures in skulls. it's crazy. after a while, it isn't shocking. it's amazing how you can get habituated to the most surreal experiences.
wall of skulls and what i can only assume are femurs.
everywhere
evening: in chicago, i never went to readings because when you live in a city for years, you start to stop taking advantage of it. you take it for granted but when you're somewhere else, and the things you can do in your own language gets smaller, you find yourself going to things you wouldn't normally do. unfortunately, this poetry reading isn't amazing.
morning: in the late 1700s, the cemeteries in paris were so overcrowded, with millions of bodies stacked on each other underground, that disease started to spread and public health was endangered. in 1785, the government took drastic action and exhumed all the bodies and put them in the tunnel system under the city. now, it's a tourist attraction.
we must muster the courage to travel underground and see bones!claire, aaron, and i stand in line to descend more than 60 feet underground, past the sewer system and the metro tunnels, and down into the quarries, now called the catacombs. it's here that millions of bones are stacked on top of each other, up to the six-foot ceilings in a winding labyrinth. it's weird, uncomfortable, creepy, unnatural, and really interesting. the first time i saw a real bone was in a museum in rome this past october, and now millions are all around me.
we spend an hour down there, looking at femurs on top of femurs, skulls and bones in decorative scenes, fissures in skulls. it's crazy. after a while, it isn't shocking. it's amazing how you can get habituated to the most surreal experiences.
wall of skulls and what i can only assume are femurs.
everywhereevening: in chicago, i never went to readings because when you live in a city for years, you start to stop taking advantage of it. you take it for granted but when you're somewhere else, and the things you can do in your own language gets smaller, you find yourself going to things you wouldn't normally do. unfortunately, this poetry reading isn't amazing.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
on smokey beer
lots of stuff live on our dining room table.i'm having a leffe blonde beer right now, one that i've had back in chicago but i don't remember it tasting like this: smokey like an oak plank grilled over charcoal (if i knew what that tasted like) and smelling like a good scotch. this is to say that it tastes good.
on the beauty of the opera house
metro buddies greet us on our way home every day. the wolf says, "fuck halloween". we don't take offense but we don't share his sentiment.
Paris, day 22
morning: a friend of mine comments on facebook that i should read a book, which will remain unnamed, about a girl from chicago who spends a month in paris. claire and i say that we have to network and learn to be schmoozers in order to get our own book deals.
we head to the paris opera house, or palais garnier, named after the man who won the prize to become its architect. we are spending another 10 euro on another tour with paris walked, and just like yesterday, it is cold out, but not as biting. though it's only a block or so from the metro opera stop to the entrance of the opera house, i am immediately glad that we will be spending the afternoon indoors.
the lights of the grand staircase are warm.
the chicago symphony orchestra won't get any more of my money until they drape everything in crushed red velvet. j/k.
afternoon: the tour is led by the same knowledgeable woman we had yesterday, oriel, who greets us at the entrance. little do we know the opulence that lies ahead. we lie to the boy behind the opera ticket tour office and he sells us a discounted student entrance ticket for four euro. i don't feel bad about this because i am young and unemployed. and yes, there is an unemployed discount for four euro as well, but i don't know how to prove my lack of a job.
we start the tour in the entrance that was supposed to be used by Napoleon III, who commissioned the building of the opera house because he wanted to show others countries that Paris was prospering. as we learn later, Napoleon never got to go to the opera because he abdicated before the opera house was finished 15 years later in 1885. damn that franco-prussian war. the interior of the building is pretty outrageous, much like versailles, but less overwhelming and ostentatious and a bit cozier. it also inspired The Phantom, and we learn that there is a lake under the building (no swans, alas). there is an amazing ballroom there too, just beyond a mosaic gallery, and in it, they filmed a part of marie antoinette and stella mccartney held her first runway show with chloe there too. the opera house is one of the most wonderful sites we've toured on this trip -- not overwhelming, beautiful mosaics, red velvet in the auditorium, stairs like waves, the chagall ceiling, the fabulous chandeliers, cozy lighting -- one day i would love to see an opera there. it makes me think about how i want to get another subscription to the cso, or see the joffrey ballet, or go to the lyric when i'm back in chicago and have some disposable income.
the ballroom makes me want to waltz.
the night sky as rendered by garnier.
the hall of mosaics must have taken a long time to create.
while in the opera house, we see that it's snowing a little outside. it's the first snow we see of the season and we see it in paris! it's magical and ridiculous how happy this makes me.
later, we walk from a metro stop, through the rain, to musee guimet, in a 'sumptious hotel' as described in our guidebook. (hotel in french does not only mean a place to sleep for the night, but a residence i think.) it is a museum full of buddhas collected by a scientist who became obsessed with them on his travels and brought them back to the city. some buddhas are cute and zen, some are agro and scary, but seeing them comes as a welcome relief from the opulence of the opera house and previous tours of amazing buildings.
evening: basically everything in paris is closed on sunday -- supermarkets, retail stores -- but luckily banette is open so we get another baguette. we also shop for cherry crumble materials to use our expensive cherries before the rot and to welcome aaron to our paris apartment for the next five days. my feet need a blankie over them.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
soaked in rum and free doctor pepper
get a free dp (doctor pepper, not dirty projectors) tomorrow and thank the dreaded (ha!) axl rose.
Paris, day 21
morning: i lay around doing nothing, but everytime i get up, my head is pounding. it's surprising because this is the first time in six months that i've gotten sick. i used to get sick a lot. maybe that was a sign of unhappiness?
afternoon: we go for another walking tour with paris walks, which is an amazing tour company here in paree. if you come here, you should look them up. they are affordable (only 10 euro!) and their laid-back manner is really very informative and enjoyable. they showed prince charles and camilla around when they came to town recently. claire and i are running out of walking tours to take since we've gone on practically every one they offer. this time, it's a tour around les halles. the sun is out and we are fooled into thinking it won't be cold outside, but we are wrong and it is freezing. we go through 18th century arcades where women used to shop away from the elements, tasty chocolate spots, and the oldest patisserie in paris (the queen of england stopped in on her visit here!). we stop at an old church and at the old commerce building. for some reason, i think of our recent visit to versailles and the jeff koons exhibit there. by the end of the tour, my fingers are practically frozen, at one point, my hand is stuck clamped, so we head over to a chocolate spot and i get a hot chocolate, which was crazy delicious. we then head over to the oldest patisserie and buy some awesome goodness.
evening: we head home and eat our awesome goodness. my baba with chantilly has been soaked in rum. why aren't more cakelike things soaked in rum? we're both feeling bad right now so we might not head out tonight, though we planned to.
a giant metal lobster by jeff koons hangs in one of the state rooms in versailles. outrageousness hanging in an outrageous room. i loved it!
a giant snail with smaller snails at a snail restaurant, a word which comes from restore, when the person who created the first restaurant (a man who made broth and added beef to it) said his food would restore you after a long days work.
hot chocolate is so good! i am so cold!
claire with our oldest patisserie desserts. mine is the one on the right.
i've been obsessed with the sky and clouds lately. today's was a particularly beautiful one.
Paris, day 21
morning: i lay around doing nothing, but everytime i get up, my head is pounding. it's surprising because this is the first time in six months that i've gotten sick. i used to get sick a lot. maybe that was a sign of unhappiness?
afternoon: we go for another walking tour with paris walks, which is an amazing tour company here in paree. if you come here, you should look them up. they are affordable (only 10 euro!) and their laid-back manner is really very informative and enjoyable. they showed prince charles and camilla around when they came to town recently. claire and i are running out of walking tours to take since we've gone on practically every one they offer. this time, it's a tour around les halles. the sun is out and we are fooled into thinking it won't be cold outside, but we are wrong and it is freezing. we go through 18th century arcades where women used to shop away from the elements, tasty chocolate spots, and the oldest patisserie in paris (the queen of england stopped in on her visit here!). we stop at an old church and at the old commerce building. for some reason, i think of our recent visit to versailles and the jeff koons exhibit there. by the end of the tour, my fingers are practically frozen, at one point, my hand is stuck clamped, so we head over to a chocolate spot and i get a hot chocolate, which was crazy delicious. we then head over to the oldest patisserie and buy some awesome goodness.
evening: we head home and eat our awesome goodness. my baba with chantilly has been soaked in rum. why aren't more cakelike things soaked in rum? we're both feeling bad right now so we might not head out tonight, though we planned to.
a giant metal lobster by jeff koons hangs in one of the state rooms in versailles. outrageousness hanging in an outrageous room. i loved it!
a giant snail with smaller snails at a snail restaurant, a word which comes from restore, when the person who created the first restaurant (a man who made broth and added beef to it) said his food would restore you after a long days work.
hot chocolate is so good! i am so cold!
claire with our oldest patisserie desserts. mine is the one on the right.
i've been obsessed with the sky and clouds lately. today's was a particularly beautiful one.Friday, November 21, 2008
depends on how you feel i suppose.
Happenings on day 20 in Paris
morning: i wake with a pounding headache but pull myself together to get to the Musee d'Orsay.
afternoon: a guided tour of the museum brings me face to face with millet, monet, van gogh, and picasso, among other artists. the museum is housed in an old central train station with lots of natural light. it's beautiful -- rivals the miro museum in barcelona for best museum space ever. i competely enjoy my time there and wonder if my previous assessment of my feelings on art were right or not. yes, i do feel like people feel obligated to go to museums because that's what you're supposed to do, but i also feel a lot of warmth looking at some of the paintings. appreciation, nice feelings, feelings that i want to be an artist. it's not that i don't feel anything looking art, but that i expect more, like maybe other people have cried looking at a piece and that maybe i should have cried sometime in my life before a piece of art or something, which is stupid. maybe it depends on the mood you're in. the louvre didn't put me in a good mood. the orsay did. i like impressionism a lot. later, we eat at an expensivo restaurant. i get onion soup blanketed with cheese and some overpriced but tasty french fries. even later, we go on a hunt for a coat, but end up empty handed.
evening: we grocery shop at monoprix and on our way home, we accidentally buy expensive cherries. after eating some tasty california-style pasta, i prepare to apply for a career opportunity i want. my headache worsens and now i want to fall asleep. my thoughts are disjointed and my eyes are shaky because of this fatigue. but i am committed to these quick notes.
morning: i wake with a pounding headache but pull myself together to get to the Musee d'Orsay.
afternoon: a guided tour of the museum brings me face to face with millet, monet, van gogh, and picasso, among other artists. the museum is housed in an old central train station with lots of natural light. it's beautiful -- rivals the miro museum in barcelona for best museum space ever. i competely enjoy my time there and wonder if my previous assessment of my feelings on art were right or not. yes, i do feel like people feel obligated to go to museums because that's what you're supposed to do, but i also feel a lot of warmth looking at some of the paintings. appreciation, nice feelings, feelings that i want to be an artist. it's not that i don't feel anything looking art, but that i expect more, like maybe other people have cried looking at a piece and that maybe i should have cried sometime in my life before a piece of art or something, which is stupid. maybe it depends on the mood you're in. the louvre didn't put me in a good mood. the orsay did. i like impressionism a lot. later, we eat at an expensivo restaurant. i get onion soup blanketed with cheese and some overpriced but tasty french fries. even later, we go on a hunt for a coat, but end up empty handed.
evening: we grocery shop at monoprix and on our way home, we accidentally buy expensive cherries. after eating some tasty california-style pasta, i prepare to apply for a career opportunity i want. my headache worsens and now i want to fall asleep. my thoughts are disjointed and my eyes are shaky because of this fatigue. but i am committed to these quick notes.
in the beginning....
we arrived at the prague airport on October 17. My friend and traveling companion Claire has written a detailed travel log of our adventures, so detailed that any attempt by me to summarize our trip will be overshadowed by hers. So here's her take on our three days in Prague.
the city.
the band playing in the awesome prague bar we went to our first night in. i recorded it vertically, so here it is horizontally. you still get the picture.
the city.the band playing in the awesome prague bar we went to our first night in. i recorded it vertically, so here it is horizontally. you still get the picture.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
is art just inaccessible to me?
Happenings on day 19 in Paris
morning: i stay in bed all morning. my fever broke last night but this sore throat and neverending headache need to disappear!
afternoon: go to monmartre cemetery (it felt creepier than the one in montparnasse). see tombs and graves that look like vaults and little notre dames. cats and crows are abundant. degas, emile zola, dalida, and truffaut are all there. so is a chestnuss tree. gloomy weather -- great for going to a cemetery, which is inherently a gloomy activity.
evening: go to the neighborhood creperie and get a galette with emmental cheese and a mambo crepe (lemon spread and chocolate). talk with claire about my feelings about art. perhaps they come from my insecurity about my visual art knowledge. maybe i don't need to force myself to understand but just be open and interact? am i too quick to judge? i should also see better comtemporary art. i decide to take some sort of class when i get back to chicago. on the way home, we buy a baguette from our local banette. do the women there think we're idiotic? so happy to buy a baguette that's warm, soft, and straight from the oven?
later: maybe watch the first episode of bbc's pride and prejudice again (we just saw bridget jones a few days ago -- mark darcy!). read a little autonauts of the cosmoroute (the inspiration for these quick daily notes on my activities -- maybe i'll go on a little roadtrip in the future too). do some real, structured writing.
morning: i stay in bed all morning. my fever broke last night but this sore throat and neverending headache need to disappear!
afternoon: go to monmartre cemetery (it felt creepier than the one in montparnasse). see tombs and graves that look like vaults and little notre dames. cats and crows are abundant. degas, emile zola, dalida, and truffaut are all there. so is a chestnuss tree. gloomy weather -- great for going to a cemetery, which is inherently a gloomy activity.
evening: go to the neighborhood creperie and get a galette with emmental cheese and a mambo crepe (lemon spread and chocolate). talk with claire about my feelings about art. perhaps they come from my insecurity about my visual art knowledge. maybe i don't need to force myself to understand but just be open and interact? am i too quick to judge? i should also see better comtemporary art. i decide to take some sort of class when i get back to chicago. on the way home, we buy a baguette from our local banette. do the women there think we're idiotic? so happy to buy a baguette that's warm, soft, and straight from the oven?
later: maybe watch the first episode of bbc's pride and prejudice again (we just saw bridget jones a few days ago -- mark darcy!). read a little autonauts of the cosmoroute (the inspiration for these quick daily notes on my activities -- maybe i'll go on a little roadtrip in the future too). do some real, structured writing.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
yes, that is magnificent...
yesterday, i went to the louvre, the biggest museum in the world, at least in terms of visitors. it's huge in size too, but not as big as i expected. the museum itself has an interesting history; it was once a fortress, then a palace, then, after the french revolution, a museum.
i've never been a student of art or art history and i'm a bit embarrassed by this. i know the famous pieces and artists -- the ones that are mainstream like the teenage mutant ninja turtles or ones that i've come to learn about in recent years -- but on the whole, i have many more friends who are much more learned about the art world. i wish i knew more, but i don't.
visual art for me has never been emotional. yes, i can appreciate the skill it takes to paint something like seurat's huge sunday afternoon canvas, but i've never been so taken by a piece of work that i'm rendered speechless. well, the only time i was completely amazed was when i went to the miro museum in barcelona and saw a huge tapestry he had made especially for the museum. but even then, i don't know if i was hit emotionally by the piece or just taken aback by how grand and difficult it must have been to make. i'm not saying i don't like visual art, that i don't think some things are beautiful, but maybe i don't experience it like others do. does this make me uncultured?
i think sometimes people are also expected to love art, that if you don't, then something is wrong with you. millions of people go to museums, but is it because that's expected when you're on vacation or that you actually want to see art. even then, is it just to say that you've seen it, or is it because you understand it and that it means something to you?
at the louvre, a horde of people stood around the mythical mona lisa taking pictures. i spent an extra 5 euro to go on a guided tour because i didn't think i knew enough about art and i wanted someone to tell me about and take me to all these important works. according to my tour guide, the myth began when DiVinci brought the portrait to the king -- which was odd in and of itself because portraits are commissioned and the king didn't commission the work -- and the king bought it at some outrageous price. this news of a high-value purchase spread and people couldn't figure out why the king would pay so much for a painting. moreover, the portrait was never shown to the public. then, another king decided to hang it in his bathroom, and the public still never saw the portrait. when it finally was shown to the public, it already had a mythical rep. that's continued ever since. but, the smile on the mona lisa is just your average DiVinci smile, who thought that the features of a face should have a circular shape. if you look at other DiVinci's, most of the people have a similar smile.
notice i'm more interested in the story rather than the piece itself, although i did take a picture of the mona lisa since it seemed like the thing to do. it is blurry though since i hate using flash so you can't see her smile. but if you go to the louvre, you can elbow your way to the barricade that keeps people at least 10 feet away from her.
i've never been a student of art or art history and i'm a bit embarrassed by this. i know the famous pieces and artists -- the ones that are mainstream like the teenage mutant ninja turtles or ones that i've come to learn about in recent years -- but on the whole, i have many more friends who are much more learned about the art world. i wish i knew more, but i don't.
visual art for me has never been emotional. yes, i can appreciate the skill it takes to paint something like seurat's huge sunday afternoon canvas, but i've never been so taken by a piece of work that i'm rendered speechless. well, the only time i was completely amazed was when i went to the miro museum in barcelona and saw a huge tapestry he had made especially for the museum. but even then, i don't know if i was hit emotionally by the piece or just taken aback by how grand and difficult it must have been to make. i'm not saying i don't like visual art, that i don't think some things are beautiful, but maybe i don't experience it like others do. does this make me uncultured?
i think sometimes people are also expected to love art, that if you don't, then something is wrong with you. millions of people go to museums, but is it because that's expected when you're on vacation or that you actually want to see art. even then, is it just to say that you've seen it, or is it because you understand it and that it means something to you?
at the louvre, a horde of people stood around the mythical mona lisa taking pictures. i spent an extra 5 euro to go on a guided tour because i didn't think i knew enough about art and i wanted someone to tell me about and take me to all these important works. according to my tour guide, the myth began when DiVinci brought the portrait to the king -- which was odd in and of itself because portraits are commissioned and the king didn't commission the work -- and the king bought it at some outrageous price. this news of a high-value purchase spread and people couldn't figure out why the king would pay so much for a painting. moreover, the portrait was never shown to the public. then, another king decided to hang it in his bathroom, and the public still never saw the portrait. when it finally was shown to the public, it already had a mythical rep. that's continued ever since. but, the smile on the mona lisa is just your average DiVinci smile, who thought that the features of a face should have a circular shape. if you look at other DiVinci's, most of the people have a similar smile.
notice i'm more interested in the story rather than the piece itself, although i did take a picture of the mona lisa since it seemed like the thing to do. it is blurry though since i hate using flash so you can't see her smile. but if you go to the louvre, you can elbow your way to the barricade that keeps people at least 10 feet away from her.
the crowd looking at the mona lisa.
the louvre palace and the grand pyramid.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
so it's true!
two nights ago, i had dinner with someone i met while i was in barcelona. she's french, and i had forgotten what city she was from. when she told me, i didn't understand what she said, so she had to pull out a map and point to it. she's from lyon. not an unknown city, but she said it with a french accent so i didn't understand her. and so it continues...
she told me i should visit her in lyon while i'm here. i said i would love to and that she should visit chicago. she said she probably wouldn't and that she hates americans, even though she likes her american friends. she fulfilled one of the strongest french stereotypes i had.
right now, some kids across the street are dancing to some blasting tunes. a little while ago, they were singing along hardcore to the macarena -- that was surprising.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
homesick. now what?
I was a little homesick two days ago, despite being in Paris, one of the world's most awesome places. I was a little homesick because I wasn't in Chicago, my adopted home city, where Barack Obama gave his victory speech. I was a little homesick because I wished I could be among the thousands in Grant Park, because I wish I saw the speech in person, because I wish I was there for the historic moment. Maybe that makes me lame and corny and swept up in the Obama wave, but sometimes i'm lame and corny and tend to get swept up with my emotions.
I watched the election results in the gorgeous one-bedroom apartment that Claire and I share in the 14th arrondoisement. We drifted in and out of sleep in front of CNN and at 5:00 a.m. Paris time, I awoke to CNN announcing that Obama was the 44th president and scenes of jubilation from grant park. i felt a little pang in my heart then for chi-town.
I'm not so naive as to think that things will change overnight, or that things will change that dramatically at all, but at least now, for me and half of the country that voted for him, there's hope. For a long time, there wasn't even that. It's particularly amazing that so many people were inspired by him, mobilized by his campaign, and exhilarated by his message. Though this is a small victory, we still have a long way to go.
I watched the election results in the gorgeous one-bedroom apartment that Claire and I share in the 14th arrondoisement. We drifted in and out of sleep in front of CNN and at 5:00 a.m. Paris time, I awoke to CNN announcing that Obama was the 44th president and scenes of jubilation from grant park. i felt a little pang in my heart then for chi-town.
I'm not so naive as to think that things will change overnight, or that things will change that dramatically at all, but at least now, for me and half of the country that voted for him, there's hope. For a long time, there wasn't even that. It's particularly amazing that so many people were inspired by him, mobilized by his campaign, and exhilarated by his message. Though this is a small victory, we still have a long way to go.
On a side note, it's crazy that he went to my rival high school.
My friend Jake sent me this e-mail before the election. I thought I'd post his thoughts here (better late than never).
Five essential issues the candidates have avoided.
Medicare for all
The failed drug war
Sprawl
The devastating impact of animal agriculture
Class war
Every four years the United States carries out one of the greatest exercises in mass political participation in the world, yet every presidential election is defined by the issues the candidates choose to debate rather than the most important issues the country faces. The issues raised this year are the most urgent in several decades of presidential contests, but after three debates in which the same questions were recycled again and again, it should be no surprise that hugely important issues are still off the table. No matter who wins this Tuesday, these issues must be brought into the national debate.
Medicare for all
The United States is unique among rich countries: it does not provide health insurance to all its people - one out of every six Americans does not have coverage. Since almost 50 million people can't afford to see a doctor, you might think the US spends less on health care than other rich countries that cover everyone. But in fact American per capita health care expenses are *two times higher* than even the second-highest spender - and three times higher than other countries with universal coverage.
That means we're getting a horrible deal on health care - other countries insure everyone, spend far less money doing so, and their people are at least as healthy as Americans. The reason is that those countries' governments provide health care. In America private insurers do it, spending huge amounts of money to reduplicate each other's bureaucracy (which is mainly used to find ways to *deny* care), to pay their executives millions of dollars, and to buy advertising.
The US already has a highly efficient government health insurance program that provides care at a much lower cost than private insurers - but only the elderly are eligible for Medicare. If we extended Medicare to all Americans, our health costs would plummet and we could guarantee the right of every American to health care. Unfortunately, private insurers also spend your health care dollars on lobbying and political attack ads, which is why even those politicians who understand the right way to solve our health care crisis are afraid to support it. Only when the American people start demanding the only efficient and fair solution - Medicare for everyone - will politicians start listening.
The failed drug war
Americans have a strange relationship with recreational drugs. The two that are by far the most socially destructive - alcohol and tobacco - are legal and widely available. Meanwhile, one drug - marijuana - that unlike alcohol and tobacco is not addictive, not associated with violence, and carries less risk of chronic disease, remains illegal. Other truly dangerous drugs like heroin and methamphetamines are driven underground, where they cannot be regulated. Instead the business is controlled by violent gangs that battle each other and the police to control the market - leading to exactly the same kind of unnecessary violence that accompanied the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s. And finally, we treat those who suffer from addiction as criminals, offering them jail rather than treatment. Does anyone seriously believe that addiction is a choice, which can be pummeled out of the victim by prison?
Dangerous drugs should be legal but strictly controlled, and treatment programs should finally be fully funded. This would not only eliminate the violence involved with drugs, and it would not only begin treating drug abusers as human beings with a devastating medical problem. It would also radically reduce the amount of taxpayer money spent to fight drugs - now mostly wasted on controlling prohibition-caused violence and imprisoning nonviolent offenders - and redirect it in more effective ways.
But as we reform our drug laws we must also take steps to address the underlying social problems that make illegal drugs so socially destructive for certain communities. Right now, even though drug use is evenly spread across cities and suburbs, whites and blacks, the drug war is targeted mainly at poor urban blacks. For decades, the economy and social fabric of these communities was devastated by a toxic combination of deindustrialization, capital flight, and racist neglect. Now we imprison huge numbers of these young men for their involvement in what is often the only viable source of jobs in their community, and they then return to their neighborhoods with even bleaker prospects for a job or stable lives. The answer is not to get tougher on people with few other choices - we must target the real problem, which is economic collapse and inadequate public investment.
Sprawl
The global climate crisis and the rising price of oil (halted only temporarily by the world recession) are closely related to sprawl. The endless extension of roads and highways to serve endlessly expanding suburbs and their ever-larger houses and lawns requires an endless increase in the use of energy and resources to heat and cool those houses, to build the infrastructure to serve them, and to propel the cars whose commute distances and times are, unsurprisingly, also endlessly increasing. The longer we stay on this path, the worse global warming, air pollution, traffic congestion, and global oil shortages will become.
For the last 50 years, the government has subsidized and even mandated sprawl by building highways, using zoning regulations to discourage dense, mixed-use development, and constantly intervening in the Middle East to keep the price of oil low. Americans are now demanding more options - neighborhoods that are walkable and bike-friendly, with good access to public transit and retail and jobs close by.
But to make this kind of development cost-effective, and to fight our destructive addiction to oil, the price of gas can never again collapse to the artificially low levels of the 1980s and '90s. And that's why the candidates won't talk about this issue - the only way to address climate change, to meaningfully reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and to convince developers to invest in compact development rather than sprawl is to keep the price of gas high. A price floor of at least $4 should be established and gradually increased, so that if the price of oil drops the cost of gasoline will still reflect the social damage done by driving. Some of the revenues from this tax should be spent to help those who can least afford the transition, and the rest of it should go toward expanding public transit and Amtrak, which have both suffered from decades of underinvestment, and to research on alternative energy sources. The transition to a more sustainable lifestyle will be painful, but not as painful as if we once again wait complacently for the next oil shock.
The devastating impact of animal agriculture
Over the last 50 years the livestock industry has quietly experienced a revolutionary transformation, from the family farm to the factory farm. Now most animals are raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), where as many animals are crammed together in as small a space as possible to maximize the profits of huge agribusinesses.
It goes without saying that these conditions are horribly cruel to the animals, who have almost no space to move around or engage in any of their natural behaviors. The cramped conditions also lead to aggression among the animals, so the livestock corporations cut off the chickens' beaks to prevent them from killing each other, and cut off the pigs' tails to keep the pig in the cage behind from chewing it off.
But the problems extend far beyond ethical bankruptcy. CAFOs are breeding grounds for disease, which leads the corporations to shoot the animals full of antibiotics, which make their way into our food and increase the risk that antibiotic-resistant diseases could emerge and devastate the food supply. Huge amounts of animal waste are concentrated in one spot, making responsible disposal impossible - so agribusiness dumps it into our rivers and streams, destroying their ecosystems. This runoff can then infect our vegetable supply, and was the source of recent deadly outbreaks of E. coli and salmonella in lettuce, spinach, and tomatoes.
On top of these dangers, the intense consumption of meat presents its own problems. The livestock industry is responsible for 1/5 of the world's human-induced greenhouse gases - a total greater than cars and planes combined. Meat is horribly energy inefficient, requiring that many times more grain be fed to animals to produce the same amount of protein and calories than a plant-based diet. And meat-eating is aggravating a growing global food crisis by diverting grain to the production of meat rather than to feeding the hungry.
Yet the government heavily subsidizes the production of meat by sending millions of dollars to agribusiness corn and soy interests that grow most of their crops to supply CAFOs. For decades government has stood idly by as factory farms swallowed up the country's family farmers and devastated the rural environment. It's time to start thinking about regulating these unethical threats to public health out of existence, and transitioning to a less meat-heavy diet.
Class war
The only class war in America has nothing to do with Barack Obama's very modest proposal to increase taxes on the incredibly super-rich. Over the last 30 years, the productivity of American workers has increased more than 70 percent, yet workers' real wages have not increased at all, and the lowest-paid have actually taken a big pay cut. What that means is that corporations are making more money, but they aren't giving any of it to their workers (corporate profits now occupy a larger share of the economy than at any time since the 1960s). Corporate executives and shareholders have seized all the gains for themselves. That's class war.
The reason that productivity and wages rose in tandem during the 1950s and '60s is that labor unions were strong, and made sure that workers got some share of the pie. But the severe recession of the early '80s and a brutal assault on organized labor by the Reagan administration crippled the unions. Free trade deals and the increasing share of low-skill nonunionized service jobs in the economy has kept workers weak ever since.
At the same time, the tax rates on the very rich have been continuously lowered, especially on the investment income that they don't actually work for (capital gains taxes). Many corporate executives now pay a lower effective tax rate than their secretaries. The theory was that these people knew how best to invest that money - a theory that produced reckless speculation and has given us the worst financial crisis since the Depression. Maybe it's time to let working people spend more of the money from the wealth they produce rather than letting rich folks wreck the economy with it.
Rebalancing the tax code to reward work rather than unearned income is a good way to start, and so is raising the minimum wage to a true living wage and indexing it to inflation. We must also remove some of the barriers to organizing unions that businesses have thrown up over the years - passing the Employee Free Choice Act, which was blocked only by a Senate minority this term - should be a high priority.
But beyond legislation, we need to start rethinking some ideas that have been taken for granted for too long. The market does not magically distribute income to those who work hardest or most deserve it, it distributes income to those with power. Over the last 30 years a large majority of the population has acquiesced in their stagnating incomes as the power of well-positioned executives, investors, and managers soared and they took more and more of society's wealth. Now that we see what they've done to economy with all that money and power, it's about time we took some of it back.
The failed drug war
Sprawl
The devastating impact of animal agriculture
Class war
Every four years the United States carries out one of the greatest exercises in mass political participation in the world, yet every presidential election is defined by the issues the candidates choose to debate rather than the most important issues the country faces. The issues raised this year are the most urgent in several decades of presidential contests, but after three debates in which the same questions were recycled again and again, it should be no surprise that hugely important issues are still off the table. No matter who wins this Tuesday, these issues must be brought into the national debate.
Medicare for all
The United States is unique among rich countries: it does not provide health insurance to all its people - one out of every six Americans does not have coverage. Since almost 50 million people can't afford to see a doctor, you might think the US spends less on health care than other rich countries that cover everyone. But in fact American per capita health care expenses are *two times higher* than even the second-highest spender - and three times higher than other countries with universal coverage.
That means we're getting a horrible deal on health care - other countries insure everyone, spend far less money doing so, and their people are at least as healthy as Americans. The reason is that those countries' governments provide health care. In America private insurers do it, spending huge amounts of money to reduplicate each other's bureaucracy (which is mainly used to find ways to *deny* care), to pay their executives millions of dollars, and to buy advertising.
The US already has a highly efficient government health insurance program that provides care at a much lower cost than private insurers - but only the elderly are eligible for Medicare. If we extended Medicare to all Americans, our health costs would plummet and we could guarantee the right of every American to health care. Unfortunately, private insurers also spend your health care dollars on lobbying and political attack ads, which is why even those politicians who understand the right way to solve our health care crisis are afraid to support it. Only when the American people start demanding the only efficient and fair solution - Medicare for everyone - will politicians start listening.
The failed drug war
Americans have a strange relationship with recreational drugs. The two that are by far the most socially destructive - alcohol and tobacco - are legal and widely available. Meanwhile, one drug - marijuana - that unlike alcohol and tobacco is not addictive, not associated with violence, and carries less risk of chronic disease, remains illegal. Other truly dangerous drugs like heroin and methamphetamines are driven underground, where they cannot be regulated. Instead the business is controlled by violent gangs that battle each other and the police to control the market - leading to exactly the same kind of unnecessary violence that accompanied the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s. And finally, we treat those who suffer from addiction as criminals, offering them jail rather than treatment. Does anyone seriously believe that addiction is a choice, which can be pummeled out of the victim by prison?
Dangerous drugs should be legal but strictly controlled, and treatment programs should finally be fully funded. This would not only eliminate the violence involved with drugs, and it would not only begin treating drug abusers as human beings with a devastating medical problem. It would also radically reduce the amount of taxpayer money spent to fight drugs - now mostly wasted on controlling prohibition-caused violence and imprisoning nonviolent offenders - and redirect it in more effective ways.
But as we reform our drug laws we must also take steps to address the underlying social problems that make illegal drugs so socially destructive for certain communities. Right now, even though drug use is evenly spread across cities and suburbs, whites and blacks, the drug war is targeted mainly at poor urban blacks. For decades, the economy and social fabric of these communities was devastated by a toxic combination of deindustrialization, capital flight, and racist neglect. Now we imprison huge numbers of these young men for their involvement in what is often the only viable source of jobs in their community, and they then return to their neighborhoods with even bleaker prospects for a job or stable lives. The answer is not to get tougher on people with few other choices - we must target the real problem, which is economic collapse and inadequate public investment.
Sprawl
The global climate crisis and the rising price of oil (halted only temporarily by the world recession) are closely related to sprawl. The endless extension of roads and highways to serve endlessly expanding suburbs and their ever-larger houses and lawns requires an endless increase in the use of energy and resources to heat and cool those houses, to build the infrastructure to serve them, and to propel the cars whose commute distances and times are, unsurprisingly, also endlessly increasing. The longer we stay on this path, the worse global warming, air pollution, traffic congestion, and global oil shortages will become.
For the last 50 years, the government has subsidized and even mandated sprawl by building highways, using zoning regulations to discourage dense, mixed-use development, and constantly intervening in the Middle East to keep the price of oil low. Americans are now demanding more options - neighborhoods that are walkable and bike-friendly, with good access to public transit and retail and jobs close by.
But to make this kind of development cost-effective, and to fight our destructive addiction to oil, the price of gas can never again collapse to the artificially low levels of the 1980s and '90s. And that's why the candidates won't talk about this issue - the only way to address climate change, to meaningfully reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and to convince developers to invest in compact development rather than sprawl is to keep the price of gas high. A price floor of at least $4 should be established and gradually increased, so that if the price of oil drops the cost of gasoline will still reflect the social damage done by driving. Some of the revenues from this tax should be spent to help those who can least afford the transition, and the rest of it should go toward expanding public transit and Amtrak, which have both suffered from decades of underinvestment, and to research on alternative energy sources. The transition to a more sustainable lifestyle will be painful, but not as painful as if we once again wait complacently for the next oil shock.
The devastating impact of animal agriculture
Over the last 50 years the livestock industry has quietly experienced a revolutionary transformation, from the family farm to the factory farm. Now most animals are raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), where as many animals are crammed together in as small a space as possible to maximize the profits of huge agribusinesses.
It goes without saying that these conditions are horribly cruel to the animals, who have almost no space to move around or engage in any of their natural behaviors. The cramped conditions also lead to aggression among the animals, so the livestock corporations cut off the chickens' beaks to prevent them from killing each other, and cut off the pigs' tails to keep the pig in the cage behind from chewing it off.
But the problems extend far beyond ethical bankruptcy. CAFOs are breeding grounds for disease, which leads the corporations to shoot the animals full of antibiotics, which make their way into our food and increase the risk that antibiotic-resistant diseases could emerge and devastate the food supply. Huge amounts of animal waste are concentrated in one spot, making responsible disposal impossible - so agribusiness dumps it into our rivers and streams, destroying their ecosystems. This runoff can then infect our vegetable supply, and was the source of recent deadly outbreaks of E. coli and salmonella in lettuce, spinach, and tomatoes.
On top of these dangers, the intense consumption of meat presents its own problems. The livestock industry is responsible for 1/5 of the world's human-induced greenhouse gases - a total greater than cars and planes combined. Meat is horribly energy inefficient, requiring that many times more grain be fed to animals to produce the same amount of protein and calories than a plant-based diet. And meat-eating is aggravating a growing global food crisis by diverting grain to the production of meat rather than to feeding the hungry.
Yet the government heavily subsidizes the production of meat by sending millions of dollars to agribusiness corn and soy interests that grow most of their crops to supply CAFOs. For decades government has stood idly by as factory farms swallowed up the country's family farmers and devastated the rural environment. It's time to start thinking about regulating these unethical threats to public health out of existence, and transitioning to a less meat-heavy diet.
Class war
The only class war in America has nothing to do with Barack Obama's very modest proposal to increase taxes on the incredibly super-rich. Over the last 30 years, the productivity of American workers has increased more than 70 percent, yet workers' real wages have not increased at all, and the lowest-paid have actually taken a big pay cut. What that means is that corporations are making more money, but they aren't giving any of it to their workers (corporate profits now occupy a larger share of the economy than at any time since the 1960s). Corporate executives and shareholders have seized all the gains for themselves. That's class war.
The reason that productivity and wages rose in tandem during the 1950s and '60s is that labor unions were strong, and made sure that workers got some share of the pie. But the severe recession of the early '80s and a brutal assault on organized labor by the Reagan administration crippled the unions. Free trade deals and the increasing share of low-skill nonunionized service jobs in the economy has kept workers weak ever since.
At the same time, the tax rates on the very rich have been continuously lowered, especially on the investment income that they don't actually work for (capital gains taxes). Many corporate executives now pay a lower effective tax rate than their secretaries. The theory was that these people knew how best to invest that money - a theory that produced reckless speculation and has given us the worst financial crisis since the Depression. Maybe it's time to let working people spend more of the money from the wealth they produce rather than letting rich folks wreck the economy with it.
Rebalancing the tax code to reward work rather than unearned income is a good way to start, and so is raising the minimum wage to a true living wage and indexing it to inflation. We must also remove some of the barriers to organizing unions that businesses have thrown up over the years - passing the Employee Free Choice Act, which was blocked only by a Senate minority this term - should be a high priority.
But beyond legislation, we need to start rethinking some ideas that have been taken for granted for too long. The market does not magically distribute income to those who work hardest or most deserve it, it distributes income to those with power. Over the last 30 years a large majority of the population has acquiesced in their stagnating incomes as the power of well-positioned executives, investors, and managers soared and they took more and more of society's wealth. Now that we see what they've done to economy with all that money and power, it's about time we took some of it back.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
damn this french!
i just ventured out of our paris apartment alone for the first time, with no claire and her french as a fallback. popping into clothing stores and the supermarket, i dodged sales clerks so that i wouldn't have to talk to anyone. at sephora, i walked away from a a woman spying on me, terrified she'd ask if i needed any help (not that i'd know if that was her question). at monoprix, i had no clue what the cashier said to me as i paid. at a small knick-knack shop, the owner said something to me and all i could say is "par-lee voo onglay?" i feel like david sedaris. french is so completely foreign to me i can't even start to decipher what someone is saying. nasal sounds. grunting sounds. the silent endings of words. ah!!!
we've been watching cnn in our apartment. they keep showing lines of people waiting to vote. they're struggling to bring us election 'news' 24/7 and just filled up time by describing the technology that the cnn news room uses to bring us the election results -- this includes a model of the capitol that opens up to show us senate and house seats.
salut!
after two weeks of non-stop travel, which brought me through the czech republic (prague), germany (berlin and rosenheim), and italy (bolzano, giussago, verona, and rome), i've finally arrived in paris, my home for the next month. first impressions after two days: it rivals prague for 'the best lit city in the world', the eiffel tower reminds me of a chess pawn, and everything is expensive.
in the upcoming days, i'll blog a bit more about my recent travels, but now i've got to get caught up with election news. claire and i are staying up all night to watch the results and i've spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to find a good place to go. more soon...
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