Prop 8 and God – A challenge to author Rick Warren

I’m posting this for my friend and colleague, Kemble Scott —

    There’s been a lot of talk about “God’s will” and the upcoming vote on California’s Proposition 8.

    The latest to invoke God in trying to get the measure passed is Rick Warren, a televangelist and bestselling author.

    I’m an author too, so Warren’s words got my attention. They sent me on a mission to look for other times in history when arguments like this have been used.

More things the next President can do at little cost

• Read Michael Pollen’s article in the New York Times magazine from Sunday October 12th and follow all his suggestions, including:
  • Resolarize the American farm (move away from mono-cultures and oil-based food)
  • Re-regionalize the food system
  • Rebuild America’s food culture by leading by example in the White House – via choice of White House chef and appointing a White Houser farmer
• Make all agriculture and food policies transparent
• Look at California and others – see what the states and the municipalities are already doing and support the best ones and entice others into adopting them. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
• Stop the USA from eavesdropping on US citizens without warrants

What I am reading today: 10/10/08

I’ve found myself reading non-fiction books over the past six months — geology books, books about food, books about systems. For a die-hard fiction, mystery reader this has been fascinating to me.

The books I am actively reading now include: Thomas Freidman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded; Hugh Laurie’s (yeah, yeah, of House fame) The Gun Seller; and Richard Florida’s Who’s Your City. I was reading Fred Pearce’s With Speed and Violence, but I seem to have put that last one down for now.

Hmmm. The future of the world, a mystery, urban life, and climate change.

I feel good about America today

Yes, I know the financial markets are in a mess, here at home and all around the world.

Yes, I know China is building at least one coal fired power plant a week and already 1/3 of the pollution that reaches my city comes from China.

Yes, I know a friend of mine has defaulted on his mortgage at least 5 times and may lose his home.

What the next president can do at little cost

Given the constraints the bailouts and the economy will have on the new president, it seems that we should look at, first, what we can do that will cost no (or little) money. Please share other ideas!

• Release the scientists (let them communicate with other scientists, let them speak — i.e. Jim Hansen of NASA on climate change)
• Review current rules and regulations and start enforcing the ones that fit our vision
  • FDA
  • EPA
  • Fed Reserve
• Make all government transactions more transparent and more understandable

Let’s get it right this time

Dear politicians – Obama, McCain, Dodd, Frank, Pelosi, Reed, Feinstein, Boxer

 This is an opportunity now to develop our own plan, not just tinker with the administrations. Why don’t we buy preferred shares like Buffet did? Why don’t we set up something that economists all over the world and especially here in the USA have been suggesting for weeks?

 It has always appalled me that we simply accepted two things: the administration’s assessment of the crisis and its timing and the structure of the bailout deal.

Open letter to Barack Obama

I am a supporter. I’m going to vote for you. I’ve given, and will give, both money and time. I live in San Francisco and realize this is not one of your battleground states, but I feel so strongly about what we need to change that I need to tell you and I want, badly, more from you, too.

We are falling apart from the inside. These past months with the Mississippi flooding and the bridge in Minneapolis failing – was such a clear metaphor to me. Our infrastructure, and really, the way we manage our society, is falling apart. Lots of reasons why, but we are. And I think this is true of health care (was a misnomer, it should be called a disease care system,) of politics, of our belief in science, in energy, in absolutely every aspect of my American life. The middle class I was raised in is gone. It sickens me.

A Hippocratic oath for government

I admit that I am naïve and an optimist, but lately even my own political party isn’t doing things right as far as I’m concerned – not right for me, not right for regular people, not right for the citizens of this formerly great nation.

I am hopeful we can change things, and yet I’m ashamed of our actions as a nation – towards others in the world as well as toward ourselves. Need I mention Katrina and New Orleans. Need I mention bailing out Bear Sterns and Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac with alacrity and enthusiasm without any requirement that they change their ways or become more transparent? With little being done for those who are losing their homes and their jobs? Need I mention how we treat those we think are beneath us?