Buda Rabblerouser -- Part 3

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Location: Buda, Texas, United States

Technologist, entrepreneur, writer, idealist, activist. A lot of things in our country and world are screwed up right now (government corruption is a prime example), and we can either just watch things get worse or tackle the problems head-on. We need to choose the latter path.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Not Marginalized in the Least

I recently came across some very innovative new music by a group called Max and the Marginalized. It turns out that "Max" is Max Berstein, the son of Carl Bernstein (as in "Woodward and Bernstein") and writer/screenwriter Nora Ephron. He obviously has an amazing writing pedigree, and it shows. The band's unique concept is to record a new song about something in the news that they feel strongly about every week, and most of these songs are strongly political.

One of Max's songs is about the Bush Administration's tragically wrong-headed "abstinence-only" concept of fighting AIDS in Africa. Max even put out a video for this song ("Lectures for the Dying") focusing on Uganda:



This issue particularly resonates with me, because in the fall of 2005 I attended a presentation by Uganda President Museveni about his country's efforts to fight AIDS at the Hart Senate Office Building in DC. That meeting preceded my trip to Uganda the following January with University of Texas Professor Gary Chapman -- at the request of the President's office -- to help start up a new computer initiative there. In fact, we were told at one of the seven big "revival meetings" (the 10th slide in the slideshow) that Prof. Chapman and I attended out in the Ugandan boondocks that most of the audience members were HIV positive.

It's funny sometimes how things are connected.

Jerry

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

My Op-Ed Piece Today in the Statesman

The Austin American-Statesman today published my Op-Ed piece that takes a swing at Rush Limbaugh and his "ditto heads" on the topic of climate change:

We should've listened to the inconvenient truth a long time ago

This critical topic, of course, absolutely won't go away. Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Dr. James Hansen's original warning to Congress about global warming (Associated Press Story), and Dr. Hansen gave a presentation at the National Press Club and briefed the House Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming.

The good news is that whoever wins the Presidential race will be infinitely more pro-active on this issue than the abysmal Bush Administration.

The bad news is that -- according to Hansen -- it's already too late to avoid major consequences of man-made warming, and he says that if we don't do something major soon to reduce CO2 the consequences will be dire and irreversible. His number one target: coal-based power plants.

My take is that the increase in greenhouse gases (such as CO2 and methane) are an important part of what's causing climate change, but there are clearly other major factors, too (sunspot activity, El Nino, etc.) These factors all conspire to create what many respected scientists call an "energy imbalance" that truly does threaten our planet's future in a big way.

We clearly need to reduce our (human) contribution to the Climate Change problem as aggressively as we can, because that's the part that we can control. These changes will take a long time to impact things (as Dr. Hansen often says, more radical climate change is already "in the pipeline"), but we need to do it for future generations.

This problem begs for national leadership on climate change, something that has been not only lacking, but has been undermined by the Bush Administration.

I can't wait for a new Administration and Congress.

Jerry

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Guess What a "Google News" Search Will Find!

Yesterday and today, if you search Google News for either "Traffic.com" (search) or "Norman Mineta" (search), the first thing that will show up is my guest editorial Friday in Hawaiireporter.com, entitled "Former Transportation Secretary Mineta and the Ethics in Government Act."

The Internet is an amazing tool for exposing serious fraud and corruption for all to see. My friends over at the Sunlight Foundation are absolutely on the right track.

Jerry