progress lies in the hands of representative legislatures

I've been only somewhat following the California governor's race, but I kept asking myself the same question: where's the progressive alternative here? It seems, superficially, that leading-contender Attorney General Jerry Brown would be rather conservative in a lot of his policy-making; for example, rather than strongly supporting restoration of majority-rule in budget and revenue decisions, he's implied that he'd much rather continue the current Schwarzenegger policy of cutting state programs and services until we have no infrastructure left. The other major Democratic Party contender, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, has come out strongly for budget and revenue reform, and is known (deservedly or not) as one of the greatest allies of the LGBTQ movement in the state, but as Calitics has reported, Newsom for whatever reason enjoys throwing due process out the window, at least when it comes to the right of immigrant children. Again, I haven't been following the race very closely, so I'm not sure whether there are more factors here, but it seems at a glance that neither candidate is a particularly appealing option for progressives. So what are progressives to do?

I think the answer is clear: the progressive alternative is a representative legislature. Just yesterday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors restored civil liberties by passing a veto-proof bill overturning Newsom's executive action. There is, of course, also the example of the ongoing health reform debate in Congress. The expected leadership from the White House has been absent (as it has been, unfortunately, on other issues of major concern). It has been Speaker Pelosi, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Tri-Caucus (CBC, CHC, and CAPAC), and generally the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives that have been pushing the frontier on the legislation and trying to make some meaningful health reform happen.

Progress in the country requires not only the will of the people to aspire to a better deal, but elected representatives who are actually accountable to that will. The design of the Senate, and the inherent nature of executives elected by millions upon millions of people, render these branches rather immune to the popular cause. It is representative legislatures, such as the House and state and local legislatures, that can and will be the driving force of progressive change. FDR, after all, would not have had the success he did without the strong majorities making up the New Deal Coalition in Congress.

What this means practically is that concerned citizens need to shift their resources and focus--as voters, donors, and volunteers--away from imperial executives and onto representative legislators. Individuals and groups inevitably will have more influence, given the smaller constituency size, but perhaps more importantly, the regularity of elections allows for continuous accountability.

feminism can feed the world

Natasha Chart at Open Left writes on how feminism can fight global warming; her hypothesis, writ short, is that increasing educational and economic opportunities for women reduces the birthrate, and thus reduces the number of people who are creating CO2 (not to mention also reducing maternal mortality rates and a host of other bad things).

It would seem to follow as well, with regard to my last post, that this would likewise be an effective way of reducing the number of malnourished persons around the world. Even more effective, perhaps.

the world is getting hungrier

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports that over 1 billion people are malnourished around the world, and that the problem is likely getting worse:

After gains in the fight against hunger in the 1980s and early 1990s, the number of undernourished people started climbing in 1995, reaching 1.02 billion this year under the combined effect of high food prices and the global financial meltdown, the agency said. The figure topped the 1 billion mark in June, and was 963 million a year ago.

The blame for the long-term trend rests largely on the reduced share of aid and private investments earmarked for agriculture over recent years, the Rome-based agency said in its State of Food Insecurity report for 2009.

"In the fight against hunger the focus should be on increasing food production," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said. "It's common sense ... that agriculture would be given the priority, but the opposite has happened."

In 1980, 17% of aid contributed by donor countries went to agriculture. That share was down to 3.8% in 2006 and only slightly improved in the last three years, Diouf said in an interview with AP Television News.

[...]

Thirty countries now require emergency food assistance, including 20 in Africa. FAO announced in June that the number of hungry people had reached 1 billion, or one in six of the world's population. The world's most populous region, Asia and the Pacific, has the largest number of hungry people — 642 million — followed by Sub-Saharan Africa with 265 million.

"The current crisis is historically unprecedented" said the new report. "With developing countries today more financially and commercially integrated into the world economy than they were 20 years ago, they are far more exposed to shocks in international markets."

[...][M]ore investments will be needed to fulfill pledges like the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, which aim to halve of the number of those living in hunger and poverty by 2015, the report said.

"an organization's whose sole desire, and drive, is the pursuit and seduction of goats"

Jon Stewart (and John Oliver) on the stunning lack of fact-checking at CNN:

CNN Leaves It There

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

nobel prize week, day 5: well, that was unexpected

Pres. Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009?!

Nobelprize.org is down for the moment, I assume overrun by the unexpected increase in interest.

update: Ah, there we go: The Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 goes to President Barack Obama, "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

From the press release:

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

nobel prize week, day 4

Day 4 is the Prize for Literature, but as always, we wait in anticipation for Day 5, the Peace Prize. Last year, there was a lot of build-up, with predictions that Human Rights Watch or Chinese dissidents would win the award, but alas, a career diplomat won the prize. Undeterred, would-be soothsayers claim (yet again) that the Nobel Prize committee is seeking to "return to activist roots," with top odds on former hostage Ingrid Betancourt (France), PM Morgan Tsvangirai (Zimbabwe), peace mediator Sen. Piedad Cordoba (Colombia), and human rights activist Dr. Sima Samar (Afghanistan). Given how far off mark the predictions were last year, I won't put too much credence on this list (which also mentions President Obama and French President Sarkozy), but if I had to guess, I'd guess PM Tsvangirai as a relatively safe pick for the Committee that will still make them feel like they're "boosting" the position of a peace maker.

But on to Literature! The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2009 is awarded to Herta Müller (Germany), "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed."

From her bio:

Herta Müller was born on August 17, 1953 in the German-speaking town Nitzkydorf in Banat, Romania. Her parents were members of the German-speaking minority in Romania. Her father had served in the Waffen SS during World War II. Many German Romanians were deported to the Soviet Union in 1945, including Müller's mother who spent five years in a work camp in present-day Ukraine. Many years later, in Atemschaukel (2009), Müller was to depict the exile of the German Romanians in the Soviet Union. From 1973 to 1976, Müller studied German and Romanian literature at the university in Timişoara (Temeswar). During this period, she was associated with Aktionsgruppe Banat, a circle of young German-speaking authors who, in opposition to Ceauşescu’s dictatorship, sought freedom of speech. After completing her studies, she worked as a translator at a machine factory from 1977 to 1979. She was dismissed when she refused to be an informant for the secret police. After her dismissal, she was harassed by Securitate.

Müller made her debut with the collection of short stories Niederungen (1982), which was censored in Romania. Two years later, she published the uncensored version in Germany and, in the same year, Drückender Tango in Romania. In these two works, Müller depicts life in a small, German-speaking village and the corruption, intolerance and repression to be found there. The Romanian national press was very critical of these works while, outside of Romania, the German press received them very positively. Because Müller had publicly criticized the dictatorship in Romania, she was prohibited from publishing in her own country. In 1987, Müller emigrated together with her husband, author Richard Wagner.

The novels Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger (1992), Herztier (1994; The Land of Green Plums, 1996) and Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet (1997; The Appointment, 2001) give, with chiselled details, a portrait of daily life in a stagnated dictatorship. Müller has given guest lectures at universities, colleges and other venues in Paderborn, Warwick, Hamburg, Swansea, Gainsville (Florida), Kassel, Göttingen, Tübingen and Zürich among other places. She lives in Berlin. Since 1995 she has served as a member of Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, in Darmstadt.

And her listed works (1982-present) (works noted by the bibliography in bold):

Niederungen. – 1982
Drückender Tango : Erzählungen. – 1984
Der Mensch ist ein groβer Fasan auf der Welt : Roman. – 1986
Barfüβiger Februar : Prosa. – 1987
Reisende auf einem Bein. – 1989
Der Teufel sitzt im Spiegel. – 1991
Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger : Roman. – 1992
Eine warme Kartoffel ist ein warmes Bett. – 1992
Der Wächter nimmt seinen Kamm : vom Weggehen und Ausscheren. – 1993
Herztier : Roman. – 1994 (The Land of Green Plums. - 1996)
Hunger und Seide : Essays. – 1995
In der Falle. – 1996
Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet. – 1997 (The Appointment. - 2001)
Der fremde Blick oder Das Leben ist ein Furz in der Laterne. – 1999
Im Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame. – 2000
Heimat ist das, was gesprochen wird. – 2001
Der König verneigt sich und tötet. – 2003
Die blassen Herren mit den Mokkatassen. – 2005
Atemschaukel : Roman. – 2009

Selected Criticism
Die erfundene Wahrnehmung : Annäherung an Herta Müller / Norbert Otto Eke (Hg.). – 1991
Der Druck der Erfahrung treibt die Sprache in die Dichtung : Bildlichkeit in Texten Herta Müllers / Ralph Köhnen (Hrsg.). – 1997
Herta Müller / edited by Brigid Haines. – 1998
Predoiu, Grazziella, Faszination und Provokation bei Herta Müller : eine thematische und motivische Auseinandersetzung. – 2000
Dascalu, Bogdan Mihai, Held und Welt in Herta Müllers Erzählungen. – 2004
Bozzi, Paola, Der fremde Blick : zum Werk Herta Müllers. – 2005
Patrut, Iulia-Karin, Schwarze Schwester - Teufelsjunge : Ethnizität und Geschlecht bei Paul Celan und Herta Müller. – 2006

pres. obama nominates judge denny chin, other apias to federal judgeships

Remember how during the Democratic presidential primaries, 80-20 called for then-Sen. Obama's defeat because he refused to fill out their questionnaire? Many folks then, including me, were baffled, since the questions seemed like softballs.

Well, there are recent signs of hope that while Candidate Obama didn't make the pledges at that time we hoped for, he's going to actually carry them out anyway. Pledges #4 asked then-Sen. Obama to nominate more APIAs to become Article III life-tenured judges (at the time APIAs comprised only 0.6% of all federal judges, despite comprising 4.5% of the population and 5.3% of all attorneys at top 100 law firms), and Pledge #4 asked for him to nominate an APIA to a Circuit Court of Appeal during his first term (there are no APIAs sitting on federal Courts of Appeal).

As the saying goes, talk is cheap, and Pres. Obama is walking the walk. Yesterday, Pres. Obama nominated federal district court Judge Denny Chin (SDNY) to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. If confirmed, he would be the sole active-status APIA Circuit Court judge (Judge A. Wallace Tashima of the Ninth Circuit is a Senior Judge, which means he does not have a full caseload--h/t angry).

But wait, there's more! The President has also nominated three APIAs to federal district courts in California: Jacqueline H. Nguyen to the Central District of California, Edward Milton Chen to the Northern District of California, and Dolly M. Gee to the Central District of California. From the Alliance for Justice blog:

If confirmed, Edward Milton Chen would be the first Asian Pacific American district court judge in the history of the NDCA, (this is especially significant given that approximately 35% of the population in San Francisco is Asian Pacific American). Dolly M. Gee would be the first Chinese American female district court judge in the history of the United States, and Jacqueline H. Nguyen would be the first Vietnamese American district court judge in he history of the United States and the first Asian Pacific American female district court judge in California history.

In American history, there have been only four Asian American federal circuit court judges and 14 Asian American federal district court judges. Asian Americans are still significantly underrepresented on the federal bench.

AFJ has an interesting fact sheet as well.

nobel prize week, day 3

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2009 is jointly awarded to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (UK), Thomas A. Steitz (USA), and Ada E. Yonath (Israel) "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome."

From the press release, these breakthroughs may lead to better antibiotics:

Ribosomes produce proteins, which in turn control the chemistry in all living organisms. As ribosomes are crucial to life, they are also a major target for new antibiotics.

This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry awards Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath for having showed what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at the atomic level. All three have used a method called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome.

[...]

An understanding of the ribosome's innermost workings is important for a scientific understanding of life. This knowledge can be put to a practical and immediate use; many of today's antibiotics cure various diseases by blocking the function of bacterial ribosomes. Without functional ribosomes, bacteria cannot survive. This is why ribosomes are such an important target for new antibiotics.

Go Science!

nobel prize week, days 1&2: medicine and physics

Oh my, I seemed to have almost missed Nobel Prize week, one of my favorite weeks of the year! Monday was day one... I'm so behind.

As always, the primer: The Nobel Prize series is named after Alfred Nobel, a Swedish inventor and entrepreneur living at the dawn of the 20th century who bequeathed much of his fortune to the Nobel Foundation. The prizes, awarded since 1901, and including awards of $1.5 million for innovation in Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Economics, are given annually by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2009 is jointly awarded to Elizabeth H. Blackburn (USA), Carol W. Greider (USA), and Jack W. Szostak (USA) "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase." From the press release, on Blackburn, Greider, and Szostak's discovery of "how the chromosomes can be copied in a complete way during cell divisions and how they are protected against degradation":

The long, thread-like DNA molecules that carry our genes are packed into chromosomes, the telomeres being the caps on their ends. Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation. Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. These discoveries explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are built by telomerase.

If the telomeres are shortened, cells age. Conversely, if telomerase activity is high, telomere length is maintained, and cellular senescence is delayed. This is the case in cancer cells, which can be considered to have eternal life. Certain inherited diseases, in contrast, are characterized by a defective telomerase, resulting in damaged cells. The award of the Nobel Prize recognizes the discovery of a fundamental mechanism in the cell, a discovery that has stimulated the development of new therapeutic strategies.

[...]

These discoveries had a major impact within the scientific community. Many scientists speculated that telomere shortening could be the reason for ageing, not only in the individual cells but also in the organism as a whole. But the ageing process has turned out to be complex and it is now thought to depend on several different factors, the telomere being one of them. Research in this area remains intense.

Most normal cells do not divide frequently, therefore their chromosomes are not at risk of shortening and they do not require high telomerase activity. In contrast, cancer cells have the ability to divide infinitely and yet preserve their telomeres. How do they escape cellular senescence? One explanation became apparent with the finding that cancer cells often have increased telomerase activity. It was therefore proposed that cancer might be treated by eradicating telomerase. Several studies are underway in this area, including clinical trials evaluating vaccines directed against cells with elevated telomerase activity.

[...]

In conclusion, the discoveries by Blackburn, Greider and Szostak have added a new dimension to our understanding of the cell, shed light on disease mechanisms, and stimulated the development of potential new therapies.

Yay telomerase!

On to Day 2. The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2009 is half-awarded to Charles K. Kao (China) "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication"" and jointly half-awarded to Willard S. Boyle (USA) and George E. Smith (USA) "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor."

From the press release on Kao's breakthrough on fiber optics:

In 1966, Charles K. Kao made a discovery that led to a breakthrough in fiber optics. He carefully calculated how to transmit light over long distances via optical glass fibers. With a fiber of purest glass it would be possible to transmit light signals over 100 kilometers, compared to only 20 meters for the fibers available in the 1960s. Kao's enthusiasm inspired other researchers to share his vision of the future potential of fiber optics. The first ultrapure fiber was successfully fabricated just four years later, in 1970.

Today optical fibers make up the circulatory system that nourishes our communication society. These low-loss glass fibers facilitate global broadband communication such as the Internet. Light flows in thin threads of glass, and it carries almost all of the telephony and data traffic in each and every direction. Text, music, images and video can be transferred around the globe in a split second.

If we were to unravel all of the glass fibers that wind around the globe, we would get a single thread over one billion kilometers long – which is enough to encircle the globe more than 25 000 times – and is increasing by thousands of kilometers every hour.

And from the press release on Boyle and Smith's contribution to the revolution that is digital photography:

In 1969 Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith invented the first successful imaging technology using a digital sensor, a CCD (Charge-Coupled Device). The CCD technology makes use of the photoelectric effect, as theorized by Albert Einstein and for which he was awarded the 1921 year's Nobel Prize. By this effect, light is transformed into electric signals. The challenge when designing an image sensor was to gather and read out the signals in a large number of image points, pixels, in a short time.

The CCD is the digital camera's electronic eye. It revolutionized photography, as light could now be captured electronically instead of on film. The digital form facilitates the processing and distribution of these images. CCD technology is also used in many medical applications, e.g. imaging the inside of the human body, both for diagnostics and for microsurgery.

Digital photography has become an irreplaceable tool in many fields of research. The CCD has provided new possibilities to visualize the previously unseen. It has given us crystal clear images of distant places in our universe as well as the depths of the oceans.

That was much, more more comprehensible than last year's award ""for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature."

Internet and digital cameras for everyone! And then some anti-aging telomerase, on the rocks, please.