Oh, yeah.

A Very Metal Interlude: Blind Guardian

I was saying goodbye to the commercial side of Portland today, buying a bunch of things I "need" for my upcoming travels from a collection of local businesses that I've come to appreciate. It comes off sounding a little mercantile, but I specifically wanted to drop some coin in town before leaving, a final gift to the commercial side of this city that has given me so much. The last thing I picked up was one of the very few physical CDs that I've bought recently, Blind Guardian's "Nightfall in Middle Earth" metal ode to Tolkien's Silmarillion. Not everything is available through (legal) online channels, and after striking out at Amazon, iTunes, and eMusic I found it at Bull Moose. This happens pretty frequently with metal and punk rock, since their distribution is patchy at best, and the various online music services generally have some pretty big holes in their catalogue. As always, it's totally ridiculous, totally over the top, and delightful in it's own way.

Yet Another Barack Obama Post

Hey, it's what I'm interested in right now. And his response to recent Republican attempts to try and start beating him over the head with 9/11 was a beautiful thing (via Sullivan):

I refuse to be lectured on national security by people who are responsible for the most disastrous set of foreign policy decisions in the recent history of the United States. The other side likes to use 9/11 as a political bludgeon. Well, let’s talk about 9/11...

...And yet George Bush and John McCain decided in 2002 that we should take our eye off of Afghanistan so that we could invade and occupy a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. The case for war in Iraq was so thin that George Bush and John McCain had to hype the threat of Saddam Hussein, and make false promises that we’d be greeted as liberators. They misled the American people, and took us into a misguided war.

Hit back hard, and with real substance. On another note, I'm not sure how I feel about the whole opting-out of public financing thing. My personal reaction is that it's unfortunate, and it could and probably should count a little bit against him, but on the other hand he's clearly adapting his strategy to the absolutely amazing success of his online organizing and fundraising, which I don't think anyone could have predicted. 

There's actually a pretty powerful resonance with Chellie Pingree's campaign for the CD1 Democratic nomination here in Maine recently. Pingree is a huge supporter of public financing for elections, and was the most recent past President and CEO of Common Cause, a campaign finance reform group. However, she's also a really good fundraiser, who pulled together a lot of bucks from a variety of corporate and institutional sources. The question became (paraphrasing an article in the Portland Phoenix here): Do you mind if she plays the current game really well while in the process of changing it? Ultimately, the answer from Maine voters was "no" and she won the race. Barack Obama is kicking ass with the set of rules that we have on the table right now, and although I'd like to see them changed he ultimately has to deal with the rules as they are, not as they may become.

Nature Network Posts

In an effort to be productive on two fronts, and explore my science-related interests, I've put up two posts on my Nature Network blog regarding the tools that Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA) and AAS have been rolling out to help science and technology minded folks get more involved in policy and the political process. If I were staying in the laboratory research field, and not gallivanting off to Africa, I think I'd probably start focusing my blogs toward the discussion of science communication tools, since their is a lot of exciting stuff going on as the sleeping giant of the research constituency realizes it has political power.

"Tools In Your Toolbox: Keeping Up With Science Policy News" 

"Tools In Your Toolbox: Keeping Up With Science Policy News 2"

Hubris!

Organic Farming AND Genetic Engineering

Excellent interview in U.S. News and World Report from two of the (currently) sparse chorus arguing for a realistic appraisal of best agriculture practices drawing on both organic farming and the emerging science of genetic engineering. Kicker quote:

What I've found is that when we talk to the organic farmers themselves, they are pretty intrigued by the possibilities. I think that's because they're experimentalists and understand the difficult hurdles all farmers face. I think they feel that there's been a lot of hype against genetic engineering. It's the people from the political organizations—and the urban dwellers—that tend to be the most actively against the idea.

The interview is with Pamela Ronald, a plant geneticist, and her husband Raoul Adamchak, an organic farmer. Pamela blogs at Tomorrows Table on the Nature Network. This is the conversation that I would like to see happen in the community of people concerned with environmental issues. We're facing some large environmental challenges in the coming decades, and I don't think we can address them without a levelheaded appraisal of real metrics related to farming such as crop yields, ability to farm marginal land, drout resistance, amounts of pesticides applied, etc. These metrics are not ideological, they are simply measurable in the finest traditions of science. We can integrate easily measurable metrics with more complex concepts, like the importance of local food systems, but we need to keep our ideologies flexible with regards to the tools at our disposal, which is where some applications of genetic engineering come into play.

Where Were You? - A Stream Of Consciousness

Where were you when Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination?

Just so that the moment doesn't fade away entirely, I was at Brian Boru's with Harris, Jenna, Robin, and Patrick from the League, and Kahari from the national League office. We had been canvassing in preparation for the June primary, and people were thanking us for coming by their door and handing them a voter guide. We were talking about Obama, about race, and about working on environmental issues from a "green jobs" perspective. I was listening to them talk, Africa on my horizon, and just feeling so God damn proud that I'd helped build up this group of leaders, who would continue creating ripples of change throughout Maine. Talk about leaving on a high note, so much so that doubt creeps in about whether leaving is the right decision. But, at the very least, I'm leaving my city, my state, and my country in good hands. And if I eventually regret leaving, well, what better argument is there for coming back?

Barack Obama, man. All that talk about hope and change. All I can say is that, even given the challenges that face us, I reject any outlook that is not fundamentally optimistic. Which, I think, is why I spend my time the way I do, pushing back for people, for the beautiful complexity of life on this planet, and for a reasoned and rational understanding of the world.

I defend my thesis tomorrow, and make my little contribution to our understanding of global environmental health. I'm done teaching for the year. I leave Portland in less than a month. I have regrets, but they're the right regrets, and I'm proud of how I've spent my time.