Lots of interesting items in Sunday's NYT Week in Review (usually worth the $4 itself). A couple of articles cut across the pages, pinging off each others' substance and ideas.
The editors point out that the manufacture of ethanol may not be all that it's cracked up to be, and that the EPA must conduct due diligence on whether or not ethanol contributes to rather than inhibits global warming. Rightly so. It'll be a tough sell in places like my home state, Illinois, where farmers love to sell their corn to ethanol producers-cha-ching! You can still the echoes of cash registers ringing at the grain elevators the past couple of harvests.
Ethanol was discussed in the larger context of energy alternative mandates. Let's not let the market dictate whether or not we invest in green technology, eh? Let's put some weight, muscle and money behind the laboratories researching this stuff and get it out there. If you mandate it, will it come?
The article also mentioned that electric cars died in California in the 1990s because it was "obvious the technology was not ready." Hm. That's not what it looked like to me when I saw Who Killed the Electric Car? Technology wasn't the culprit...
Professor Paul Collier of Oxford says civil wars average 7-15 years in length, whereas cross-border conflicts average six months. I am positive there is some IR work on this out there some where... I'd like to learn more. No mention of Congo in the article; the bloodiest damn civil war on the African continent continues to rage.
Nicholas Kristof waves another flag for unsexy causes. Not so long ago he urged us to fund anti-pneumonia campaigns. This time he touts the malnutrition cause. He's out there reporting on those fighting the good fight-let's give them all a hand. (Also, he ties into the ethanol debate: "The general rise in food prices (in part because of American use of corn for ethanol) is leading to more micronutrient deficiencies").
Meanwhile, Frank Rich reminds us what we already know-that our elders in the halls of Congress are behind the times. Repeal the ugly Defense of Marriage Act and Don't' Ask Don't Tell!! If the public were allowed to vote via text message (a la American Idol) the task would have been settled already.
Great article on Obama's incoherent, misguided approach to engaging Iran by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett (I don't think the last names are coincidence!). Have We Already Lost Iran? Notable quote "Beyond the nuclear issue, the [Obama] administration's approach to Iran degenerates into an only slightly prettified version of George W. Bush's approach-that is, an effort to contain a perceived Iranian threat without actually trying to resolve underlying political conflicts. Obama administration officials are buying into a Bush-era delusion: that concern about a rising Iranian threat could unite Israel and moderate Arab states in a grand alliance under Washington's leadership."
Lastly, Philip Gourevitch, editor of The Paris Review, argues Obama should NOT release the latest photos to surface of prisoner abuse in Iraq. I disagree. Let's air the dirty laundry as quickly as possible. We must face and deal with the consequences of our ineptitude in this matter. By not releasing the photos Gourevitch says Obama is "not suppressing information." Well, what do you call it then?
Also, Gourevitch discusses a photo of a bloody cell: a prisoner who has smuggled a gun and taken potshots at security was shot in the legs. It's his blood from the gunfight that's all over the cell. It's horrific. We don't' need to see this kind of stuff Gourevitch says. What if context were given? After all, Gourevitch and Errol Morris used the same photograph in their film Standard Operating Procedure. He should have titled his article "The Abu Ghraib We Should Not See."
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