All posts by Steve Stern

Nelson Mandela is dead, the world is a poorer place

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Castro and Mandela

 

I cannot think of another individual of my lifetime who was as great an human being as Nelson Mandela. He was imprisoned for 27 years, the first eighteen in a cell without a bed or a toilet, and he came out speaking for peace. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.1

It is easy to think that Mandela was on our side, but I don’t think he was, we – eventually -were on his side. The world didn’t change him, he changed the world and the world is better for it.

1. From a speech he gave when he got out of prison, the same quote is also from a speech he made at his trial.

Catching Fire, Catwoman, Elysium, and Unionizing Wallmart

Americana, Film, Politics

catching-fire-capitol-couture Laura Atkins, Michele and I saw Hunger Games: Catching Fire over the weekend. It was very good, just as the reviewers said it would be. I didn’t expect much from the first Hunger Games movie and was shocked when it turned out to be so engrossing. With better reviews, I expected the second movie to be good – and it was – but it didn’t carry the surprise of the first movie. It was good but I wasn’t knocked out. Part of the problem is that I had seen Gravity in between the two Hunger Games movies and part of the problem is that it is hard to have a great second movie of a trilogy, just look at The Empire Strikes Back (OK, that was probably overkill and The Dark Knight was probably the best of Nolan’s trilogy).

However, Jennifer Lawrence is great, even if it is in a sort of Ree – from Winter’s Bone – way and carries the movie. In both her scene with President Snow, and when she finds out that she will have to go back into the area, she projects fear and utter hopelessness better than anybody I can remember. Now, after watching her on The Daily Show, I am looking forward to see her do a comedy.

Another part of my problem with Catching Fire is that the basic premise of the reaping and the Hunger Games really doesn’t make sense as anything but, as David Denby says, a fever-dream allegory of the adolescent social experience. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to cast the movie in the same mold as 1984 and Brave New World. Those books were meant as cautionary tales on where the world was headed. I keep wanting to see this movie as a comment on the country’s direction towards decreasing equality and I kept getting hung-up on Why did President Snow do that, it will just piss people off and make them even more likely to revolt. But maybe that is just the movie being unperceptive, Walmart doesn’t seem to understand that what it is doing is just pissing people off and making them more likely to strike.

Even so, while I am willing to admit the inequality is not what Catching Fire the movie is about, the inequality in Panem does set the tone for the movie. The movie takes the point of view that the future will be bringing less, not more, equality. So does  The Dark Knight Rises. It is all about the disparity between the rich and poor in Gotham City. It is pretty explicit when  Commissioner Gordon references A Tale of Two Cities in Bruce Wayne’s eulogy with It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known…Selina Kyle is even more explicit when she says There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us. 

And Elysium drops any nuance. Earth is a giant slum and the 1% live in orbit (with universal, instant, healthcare, seemingly, the same healthcare that the rich have in Panem). All three movies paint a bleak future. I think that they are really projecting the bleak present onto the future because most people do not realize the reality of the present. inequality-page25_actualdistribwithlegend-1Back in the late 50’s when the country was much more equitable than now, my first real job was a summer job as a Union Laborer working on – what we then called – Bayshore Freeway. It was easy to become a laborer and get into the Laborer’s Union. It was considered an undesirable job because it was a hard and dirty job but it was a Union job and a big percentage of my fellow workers were supporting themselves and a family because it paid pretty well. Even so, it was looked down upon by my friends who had more prestigious summer jobs inside. I always thought that was a little strange because I was making more money than they were.

After the Army and after I graduated from college, I went back to work in the construction business. Because the Laborers were making high, Union, wages, everybody up the foodchain was making, correspondingly, high wages. Occasionally I would talk to friends who worked for banks and had much more impressive jobs than I did. I was a basically a field guy and spent much of my time with guys who worked with their tools, in the dirt, while my banker friends worked in an office and  wore nice suits. I was always surprised at how little they were paid, I was always surprised that they got their suits at JCPenney.

I remember dating an executive who worked for I. Magnin – she was a big deal and had been hired away from Neiman Marcus – and I was shocked that she couldn’t afford a car. A couple of times, I joked that they should start a Union and they laughed, telling me that they were above that, Unions were for the masses, they were Bankers or Management.

Now the Unions are being driven out of the private sector workplace. Wherever possible, Union workers are being replaced by nonunion people and there are lots of ways to do it. When Standard Oil moved their data processing from San Francisco to the suburbs in the San Ramon Valley, I was working for Shapell in the area. I wondered, out loud to everybody I knew, why they would do that. A leasing agent for Bishop Ranch explained it to me, In San Francisco, the data processing is done by, largely, minority workers who are Unionized. In San Ramon, the work is done by wives of low level executives. They are all Republicans and don’t want to be in Unions so Standard Oil can pay them less. According to the New Yorker, In 2005, Alaska Airlines fired nearly five hundred union baggage handlers in Seattle and replaced them with contractors. The old workers earned about thirteen dollars an hour; the new ones made around nine.

Unions are being driven out of the construction industry partially because Mexicans are getting their jobs. Unions are being driven out of the car manufacturing industry as manufacturers move south to non-Union states or overseas. Unions are being driven out of everything.

Because of that, everybody, except the very few, is making less money.

For awhile that was hidden because, as manufacturing went non-Union, or moved to China, stuff got cheaper. So a guy wanting a Skillsaw paid less for it than he would have twenty years ago. But now, so many people are paid so little that, as the New York Times reported, Walmart and Target both trimmed their yearly forecasts recently, citing economic factors like slow wage growth. That is another way of saying , workers aren’t getting paid enough to even buy the cheap stuff they sell at Walmart and Target. Too many Americans now work low-paying jobs like working at Walmart. The workers can no longer afford to buy enough to stimulate the economy. People can not live on the $7.75 an hour minimum wage, they can not support a family on the $8.00 an hour Walmart pays.

 

Mostly non-thanksgiving thoughts on Thanksgiving weekend

Around home, Local events

Richardson Bay-0215Michele’s stepfather, Jim, was hosting Thanksgiving this year which really meant that Michele and her sister, Claudia, would do the shopping, cooking, table setting, and general preparation. Accordingly, Michele went to Napa Tuesday night to be there all day Wednesday, I followed on Thanksgiving morning. Michele suggested I go through Marin County – the slightly longer way – to save myself the agony of East Bay traffic. Michele’s belief  – firmly held belief – is that the area between about the Oakland Coliseum, in the south, and Appian Way, in the north, is a 24/7 traffic nightmare. It is a belief that is hard to argue with on the evidence, so I went through Marin. All the way up 280 and through San Francisco, the the highways and streets were almost empty.

Thanksgiving was a warm California day with only the slightest trace of a breeze – about the fourth warm day in a row without any wind – and, as I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, the walkway was packed. I had thought I might stop at the viewpoint to look at the Bay and San Francisco, but the cars were waiting in line just to get into the parking lot. Just after the view point turnoff,  a flashing sign said Muir Woods parking full, take shuttle. I was swamped with love for California, where people walk across the bridge or go to Muir Woods for Thanksgiving. I didn’t think that this would be a Thanksgiving where people went around the table saying what they are Thankful for; it was not that kind of crowd and it was still too close to Phyllis’ s passing away. But if it did come up, I would say that I am Thankful I live in California.

Going down the Waldo Grade, Richardson Bay gleamed in the sunlight. There are maybe three or four vistas – that I see often – that take my breath away everytime I see them. The view down into Richardson Bay, coming down Waldo Grade on The 101 – would you prefer The Redwood Highway? – is one of them. Everytime! Traffic is speeding up, the lanes are narrow, the highway curves and the spectacular view distracts as it flashes by, blinking through buildings and soundwalls. I am so glad I live here.

Richardson Bay-0217

In San Rafael, I stopped at Whole Foods to pick up some turkey parts for Michele’s gravy and get sushi to go for me. There was a mysterious crowd around a tent outside the store and I wondered if this is some sort of charitable give away, But the crowd looked prosperous and Whole Foods is from Texas, where they don’t give much away. Later, driving across The Blackpoint Cutoff, I saw a billboard advertising Turkey Dinner – 99.95 Whole Foods.

Getting closer to Napa, I run into the first signs of the mono-culture that has become the Napa Valley. I found it strangely discomforting.

Napa vinyards in winter-0228

Napa vinyards in winter-0230

At Michele’s step-father’s home, Thanksgiving Dinner was great and so was the wine. The turkey, from The Fatted Calf , was a heritage, organic, free range, bird that seemed to resemble an actual animal and was the best turkey I have ever had. It made me realize that most turkey dinners are not that good with dry white meat and leathery skin. Some of the outstanding wine was from the Jacuzzi Winery which is the same Jacuzzi family that gave us the modern airplane propellor (and, I am told, but was not able to verify on Wikipedia, the counter-rotating torpedo propellor).

I got up early Friday morning to drive to San Francisco for the Auto Show which I was going to see with my son in law, Gabe, and above average grandson, August. I got up early because I was going to have to fight the dreaded East Bay traffic, but I was one of the few cars on the road all the way into San Francisco. I even had time to stop and look at one of my favorite bridges, The Carquinez Straits Bridge.

Carquinez Straits Bridge-

What I like about this graceful bridge is that its towers are concrete rather than steel and that there is no cross bracing, giving it an open, airy look. I have no idea how they did without the cross bracing – this is earthquake country, afterall – but they did and the bridge looks great, even with the old cantilever span next to it. As I got close to San Francisco, I began to see just how bad the air was because of no wind for the last couple of days. I don’t think that I have seen the Bay Area this smoggy in thirty years. It gave going to the Auto Show an ironic twist.

Carquinez Straits Bridge-0242

With no traffic, I got to the Auto Show early and was surprised that there was a long line.

San Francisco in smog-0245

The guy infront of me, about my age, told me that there was always a line on opening day. It was a tradition. As we stood there, a couple of his friends joined him with lots of tradition sounding chatter, Bob couldn’t make it. Where is Al? He’ll should be here in a couple of minutes. What I don’t think was traditional was their conversation on Global Warming and the rising oceans. They all agreed that where we were standing would be underwater in fifty years. Standing there on the dry sidewalk, eavesdropping, I could help but think they are right. And here we all are, waiting to look – with lust in most cases – at the very things that are polluting the atmosphere, not the only thing by far, but one of the things. Especially when you add in the whole supply chain: the energy to get the raw materials, the energy used to make the tools to make the tools to make the cars, the energy used to get them here and the energy we use to run them.

That is the problem, the lives we live – the lives we want to live – is trashing the earth. We want to blame Exxon or BP, and it is true that they are pushers, but – as Pogo used to say – We have met the enemy and it is us.  The life we live, even the most conscientious of us – and I am not one of them – uses too much energy to not trash the planet. We all know it, and very few of us are living our lives as if it were true. And no countries have National Policies based on those truths.

Two weeks ago, The United Nations announced that The Warsaw Climate Change Conference 2013 concluded successfully! (the exclamation point is theirs). In this case, successfully means Expressing serious concern that the warming of the climate system is unequivocal….Underlining the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties’ mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and aggregate emission pathways blah, blah, blah, blah…Urging all Parties to the Kyoto Protocol to ratify and implement the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol as a matter of urgency. In other words, agreeing that we really do have a problem and should do something about it, is considered a success.

I don’t want to give the impression that all this soured me on our first three generation visit to the San Francisco Auto Show, however. We had a super time looking at the newest offering of polluters.

SF Auto Show 2013-0278

As we were going down the escalator into the underground hall and I was trying to get my bearings, Auggie said There is a Corvette! and was off.  This is a dealer show, not a manufacturer’s show, so almost all the cars are already in showrooms and on the road but Gabe and I had not seen the new Corvette yet and we followed right along. By the time I got the ISO on my camera high enough to take a good picture in the low light, we had blown past the Corvette, past the Mustangs, where Auggie didn’t want to sit behind the wheel but was willing to sit in the passenger seat, to the Nissan GTR where Auggie didn’t get to sit at all. The GTR is a Japanese interpretation of a Supercar. Japanese in that it is exquisitely built, very reliable, hypercomplex, more transformer solid than graceful, and Supercar in that it will do zero to sixty in about 2.9 seconds with a top speed of about one hundred and ninety miles per hour.

GTR at San Francisco Auto Show-0250

By the time we got to Audi, Auggie ventured behind the wheel,

Audi at San Francisco Auto Show-0254

and by the time we got to Jaguar, Auggie had taken over the driving and Gabe was in the passenger seat. The future is pretty obvious.

Jaguar at San Francisco Auto Show-0265

We It didn’t take long to run through the entire show and get to the model car department where Auggie had some serious decisions to make.

Auggie at San Francisco Auto Show-0271

Shopping done, we broke for an early lunch, then Auggie and Gabe took off and I went back for some serious car watching.

 

Iran vs. World

Americana, Politics

Iran-4

At about 9 pm last Saturday night, Iran and a group of assorted World Powers reached a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program for six months while the two sides work out a permanent, more sweeping, agreement. By most accounts, it is a good deal all around. Iran has to stop enriching uranium beyond 5 percent and convert its stronger stockpile  back to oxide and, in turn, it will receive some financial relief, but most sanctions will remain.

At about 9:08, Ari Fleischer tweeted The Iran deal and our allies: You can’t spell abandonment without OBAMA. Of course he had no idea what the deal was, but, apparently, he wanted to be first in line to denounce it. On Monday, the price of gold dropped 20%, reflecting the opinion of the realist community on this now being a safer world. I should probably start any comments about the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program by the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany with a disclaimer. I think that the crisis around Iran having the bomb is a manufactured crisis. Let me explain.

By manufactured crisis, I don’t mean to say that Iran having nuclear weapons is OK, I think that it is awful. But I don’t see it as more awful than anybody else having nuclear weapons. I am of the opinion that nobody should have them. That they are dangerous to mankind – actually to all of God’s creatures – and, if there were a rational, just, loving, God, nuclear weapons would not even exist, not even as a concept. Nevertheless, lots of countries have them and we seem to be OK with that.

Pakistan is reputed to have about 100 nuclear weapons and rather than trying to get rid of them, Congress has just authorized more than $1.6 billion in military and economic aid. Israel is hysterically screaming about the danger of Iran having weapons and possesses a nuclear arsenal of somewhere between 80 and 200 weapons. The United States has, by treaty, 7,700 nuclear weapons, most of them loaded and ready for delivery (euphemistically put). According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, we have a stockpile of an estimated 4,650 nuclear  warheads ready for delivery by more than 800 ballistic missiles and aircraft. That is probably enough killing power to kill everything on the planet down to the cockroach level.  Of course our weapons are OK because they can not be used unless they are authorized by the President – or, in the unlikely case of somebody in the chain of command running amok – and we are not a terrorist country (unless you want to count killing people by drone or the 150,000 to 240,000 people we killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons).

All those nasty details aside, I think that Iran getting a nuclear bomb wouldn’t change anything very much. These weapons are really only last resort, defensive, weapons. What would Iran do with their nuclear weapons? Attack Israel? That is ridicules. Imagine Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. The largest North Korean weapon, tested in 2009, is estimated at a destructive force of 2.35  kilotons and there is little reason to think early Iranian weapons would be any bigger. If they attacked, Israel would go ballistic (pun intended). Israel has buried ICBMs, submarines capable of launching nuclear cruise missiles, and nuclear equipped F-16’s capable of hitting Iran. If that isn’t enough, we could – and probably would – honor our treaties with Israel and retaliate. It would take only seventy five missiles – out of our arsenal of 450 silo-based Minuteman III ICBMs, each with a warhead of 330 kilotons – to destroy every city in Iran with a population over 100,000. Attacking Israel would be suicidal, we could essentially, turn Iran into glass.

Making a deal with Iran might be Obama’s most meaningful foreign policy act yet, even if it is the most surprising. It shouldn’t be, but it will be controversial. Controversial in that more Republican than just Ari Fleischer will be against it, if no other reason that it was negotiated by the Obama Administration. Senator John Cornyn of Texas has complained that Obama did it to distract us from Obamacare, being the first, I guess, to make wagging the dog about making peace rather than war. Controversial in that there is a large anti-Iran lobby (and a large pro-war, any war, lobby). The same people who wanted us to attack Iraq – and thought it would be easy and cheap – have been wanting us to attack Iran for a while. Of course, none of them want to go to war themselves or have their kids go to war but they are still anxious for war. And controversial in that Binyamin Netanyahu – and, strangely, the Saudis – have been cheerleader for war with Iraq War for years. They will be very disappointed and will let us know it and they have influence in Congress.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.