environment Jazz June 12 Action music vocalists: jazz vocals Latin Jazz Mili Bermejo
by Warren
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Singing For The Planet: Mili Bermejo’s Set
Here is the complete set by Mili Bermejo and her trio: Dan Greenspan – bass, and Doug Johnson – piano.
They began with a bass/voice duet:
Te abrace en la noche , by Fernando Cabrera
Noche, by Nando Michelin
environment Politics: climate bill Senators urgency
by Warren
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Month 6, Day 22: Passing the word along…
The National Resources Defense Committee is requesting people to contact the Senators who’ll be going to the Wednesday meeting at the White house (they’re all listed at the bottom of this post) and deliver something akin to the following message:
Dear Senator,
As you go to the White House on Wednesday for the Climate and Clean Energy Meeting with the President, please keep some of these things in mind.
The American people want comprehensive energy and climate legislation. A recent Pew poll on June 14 indicated overwhelming support for measures like limits on greenhouse gases, higher efficiency standards, and a requirement that utilities produce more energy from renewable sources. This is one of the rare times when the popular thing to do is also the right thing.
There is no time to lose, and no time to waste. The polar ice caps are melting and nearly every day registers record-setting high temperatures all over the world. Our addiction to oil is crippling both our national security and and our economy — and every day the Gulf of Mexico reminds us that this is a substance of extraordinary toxicity. Our elected representatives have been unable to develop a serious, long-term, sustainable national energy plan for many decades, and now is the time. Failure cannot be an option.
With a billion dollars a day going to buy foreign oil, with our trade rivals investing heavily in clean energy industries, our economy is under assault from within; our century-long addiction to oil has finally reached the point where its unsustainability is obvious to all but a few oblivious deniers. Add catastrophic climate change to the picture and it is self-evident that we cannot afford to procrastinate; inaction, as the President said, is not an option.
Senator, we are hoping against hope that you will come out of Wednesday’s meeting with an agreement that gives us some reason for optimism. Don’t let us down.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
Harry Reid: 202-224-7327
John Kerry: (202) 224-8525
Joe Lieberman: 202.224.9750
Lindsey Graham: (202) 228-5143
Richard Lugar: 202-228-0360
Barbara Boxer: 202-224-0454
Lisa Murkowski: 202-224-5301
Susan Collins: 202-224-2693
Debbie Stabenow: 202-228-0325
Judd Gregg: 202-224-4952
Sherrod Brown: 202-228-6321
Maria Cantwell: 202-228-0514
Jay Rockefeller: (202) 224-7665
environment: British Petroleum idiots
by Warren
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Month 6, Day 21: Lies and Lying Liars…
Well, this one pretty much wrote itself. BP’s British stockholders are claiming the company misrepresented its safety record to them, thereby artificially inflating the value of its stock (well, duh!)….and they are threatening legal action. IIRC, this is the first time I’ve written to a UK newspaper. It’s a little long, but it has a classical allusion and some rather archly constructed sentences. I forgot to change the spelling of “behavior” before I sent it off. Ah, well.
It comes as no surprise that British Petroleum is accused of misleading its stockholders by misrepresenting its safety record. We already know that BP misrepresented its safety record to the U.S. Government and to the general public. Why should the company’s own investors be treated any differently? Looking at the behavior of oil companies in general (and BP in particular) it is increasingly evident that oil is dirty in more than the physical sense. It appears to engender both corporate and individual behaviour that could accurately be described as sociopathic. BP’s malfeasance is only the most recent and grotesque example; a few moments’ search turns up an appalling roster of inexcusable acts committed by major oil companies, often in parts of the world with inadequate legal and logistical mechanisms for dealing with the consequences of environmental criminality. Even if climate change were not a Damoclean sword over our heads, the unique combination of malignity and incompetence that has characterized Big Oil’s collective actions over the past half a century should be a more than adequate reason for us all to end our dependence on fossil fuels. Why give money to a rude, destructive, irresponsible boor?
Warren Senders
Education environment India Indian music music Personal Warren's music: copyright intellectual property open mics songs
by Warren
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You Can’t Steal A Gift!
My ongoing exploration of alternative ways of thinking about our economic paradigm has given me a new set of lenses to use when I look at the things I already do.
I’m a musician; it’s how I make my living.
Recently a colleague linked to a story in the Boston Globe:
Across New England, church coffeehouses, library cafes, and eateries that pass the hat to pay local musicians or open their doors to casual jam sessions are experiencing a crackdown by performance rights organizations, or PROs, which collect royalties for songwriters.
His FB comment described them as: People trying to get something for nothing and then whining when they are thwarted.
Sympathetic though I am to the needs of working professionals, his words nevertheless didn’t set well with me. This post is my attempt at resolving that dissonance.
I’m a musician. It’s how I make my living — but it’s also how I make my life.
environment: irresponsible media New Orleans Times-Picayune
by Warren
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Month 6, Day 20: Whatever You Do, Don’t Mention The Oil!
The New Orleans Times-Picayune ran an AP story on global warming; it was written by Joe Conason, who is excellent. So I built on that. This letter, remarkably for something sent to Louisiana, doesn’t mention the Gulf spill once.
It is certainly true that “global warming has lost momentum as a public concern” since 2007. It is also true that our media have contributed to this problem. Through superficial reporting and an editorial policy built around a specious equivalency between scientific truth and industry-funded denialism, print and broadcast media have fostered the illusion that there is still a “debate” about the reality of global climate change. There is no debate; climate scientists are overwhelmingly in agreement that anthropogenic global warming is both real and dangerous. Of course some scientists’ predictions or analyses don’t match the work of others; that’s inherent in scientific processes. Enabled and encouraged by an inattentive and irresponsible media, our politicians refuse to come to terms with the reality: shared sacrifice is essential for shared survival.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: 350 Barack Obama British Petroleum James Hansen
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Month 6, Day 19: Saturday POTUS
I had finished writing this last night, but hadn’t had time to tag it. Then my wife and daughter called from India and I put it away for the morrow. In this letter I’m combining current events with some old exhortations. How I wish James Hansen was wrong. How I fear that he’s right.
Dear President Obama,
Congratulations on securing British Petroleum’s commitment to set aside twenty billion dollars in escrow. Given how long it usually takes the victims of corporate negligence to have their day in court, this is a tremendous accomplishment.
The behavior of BP and its contract partners has been appallingly irresponsible. But while it’s easy to blame the oil companies, we need to do more. As you correctly pointed out in your oval office address, our nation (and, indeed, the world) needs to end our addiction to fossil fuels.
We’re going to run out of them, sooner rather than later. Often the money we spend on them goes to countries that regard us as enemies. These are good enough reasons. But the real reason for us to stop burning oil and coal is the enormous damage inflicted on the planetary biosphere by increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It is crucial for humanity’s survival and well-being in the centuries to come that our levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide be brought below 350 parts per million, as noted by Dr. James Hansen, the climatologist whose work was silenced by the Bush administration (surely a piece of irresponsibility that can rank with British Petroleum).
Your administration will be remembered with gratitude by generations yet unborn if you can start this process. The window of opportunity is rapidly closing; the environment is going through an increasing cascade of “tipping points,” each one of which makes recovery to a hospitable climate more difficult.
Right now Dr. Hansen is on record as saying “Obama doesn’t get it.” He thinks you don’t take the likelihood of a climate catastrophe seriously.
I think it’s time for you to prove him wrong.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: addiction BP Chile oil spill
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Month 6, Day 18: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
Newsweek has an article on the “Environmental Legacy of the Oil Spill,” discussing the aftereffects of a 400,000 gallon spill off the coast of Chile, thirty-six years ago. I used it as the hook for a pretty standard screed.
It’s good to know that decades after a huge oil spill off the Chilean coast, the affected areas are showing “signs of life.” And perhaps, decades from now, the shattered ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico will show some signs of life, too. Right now, however, with oil spewing from the ocean floor before mixing with toxic dispersant, we are finally learning some crude facts about the poisonous stuff that’s powered our nation’s addiction. Oil is dirty. It’s dirty when you take it out of the ground, it’s dirty when you move it from place to place, it’s dirty when you process it, and it’s dirty when you burn it. The slimy legacy of Reagan-era corporate deregulation is now washing ashore on Louisiana’s beaches, and it’s forcing us to face the simple truth: whether or not we know how, we must change our relationship with oil — because it’s killing us.
Warren Senders
environment: idiots Jonah Goldberg let's play "really bad analogies"
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Month 6, Day 17: He’s Not Useful — He’s Just An Idiot.
I was in the mood for a fight with an idiot, and lucky me! Jonah Goldberg has an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune.
Jonah Goldberg asserts that “If you remove the argument over climate change from the equation,” fossil fuels are environmentally friendly and economical. Indeed. Let’s follow his example. If you remove the argument over lung cancer and emphysema from the equation, cigarettes are healthy. If you remove the argument over lifelong emotional and physical trauma from the equation, child abuse is just another way for adults and kids to bond. If you remove the argument over radioactive fallout, mutations and millions of deaths, nuclear holocaust is just a good fireworks display. With the devastating effects of climate change manifesting globally, and the scientific evidence for anthropomorphic global warming now completely incontrovertible, there are only two reasons for Goldberg to “leave it out of the equation” — foolishness or knavery. Neither makes a convincing argument.
Warren Senders
environment Indian music Jazz June 12 Action music photoblogging Warren's music: Mili Bermejo Singing For The Planet
by Warren
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A Quick Report on the June 12 Concert
The “Singing For The Planet” concert happened as planned last Saturday. We had an excellent crowd and raised a little over $800 for www.350.org — and the music was lovely.
Mili Bermejo, Dominique Eade and Me
I’m just putting a few photographs up for now. A full report with video will go up later this week. These images are courtesy of Hadley Langosey, and there will be more to come.
Dominique, Will Slater, Will Graefe, some guy, Harriotte Hurie, Mili Bermejo, Dan Greenspan, Priti Chakravarty, Akshay Navaladi. Missing: Doug Johnson
First Set: The Mili Bermejo Trio
Mili Bermejo with Doug Johnson on piano and Dan Greenspan on bass
Second Set: Warren Senders & The Raga Ensemble
Me, with Akshay Navaladi, tabla; Priti Chakravarti, harmonium; Harriotte Hurie, tamboura.
Third Set: Dominique Eade & Friends
Dominique Eade with Will Slater on bass and Will Graefe on guitar.
environment Politics: Barack Obama inappropriately moderate approaches
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Month 6, Day 16: No Teeth in this Tea…
The President gave his big Oval Office Speech today. I was teaching, so I didn’t see it. I gather it was, alas, pretty weak tea. Newsweek ran a story on it…so I sent them a letter, trying to be evenhanded.
The President is correct: our nation must end its dependence on fossil fuels — and it must do so sooner rather than later. If we keep demanding oil to fuel our lives, we’re going to see more drilling rig disasters, more contaminated seas, more destroyed ecosystems — because oil is dirty, and there’s no way to make it clean. Furthermore, as the President pointed out, there is a finite supply of oil, and we’ve already gotten the stuff that’s easy to get; extracting what’s left is guaranteed to yield catastrophe after catastrophe. And, as oil company executives revealed in hearings on Capitol Hill, their plans for disaster cleanup are pathetically inadequate, amounting in essence to hoping for the best. What President Obama unfortunately chose not to emphasize was the single most important reason to get off oil: the slow-motion catastrophe of global warming caused by carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Warren Senders