Export cones, not drones

Once upon a time, Yemen had rich areas for growing grapes, pomegranates, oranges, and the famed Yemeni coffee.  Then came oil in Saudi Arabia and Yemeni men flocked there for work.  The women cut trees for firewood and the terraces eroded for lack of maintenance.  Water which once could be found at 60 meters is not found until 850 meters or more.  Now Yemenis fight over water.  See "Postcard from Yemen", Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 2013-05-08.

"Trees have the deepest system of root in soil. They evaporate water from sometimes 50 meters deep level of soil. It increase humidity in air and probabilities of rains, dew-sources of water."  Comment by mioffe2000 in response to "Postcard from Yemen".

This comment got me thinking about "The Man Who Planted Trees" about a shepherd who planted acorns over a wide area that had been deforested by charcoal burners.  The land was dry and suitable only for grazing sheep.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees, the story is a work of fiction.  However, people all over the world have planted millions of trees in many countries to stop desertification and alleviate global warming.  This article mentions a few of these projects.

What would the effect be on world peace if the U.S. exported cones instead of drones to some of the trouble spots of the world.  Well, not exactly cones because evergreens are not suitable for many areas.  Actually, for a small fraction of the military budget, the U.S. could send teams to plant trees of any size, from seeds to semi-mature trees a few meters tall.   It would take a few years to bring better rainfall back to areas where water is scarce.  More available water would reduce tensions among various groups and go a long way to reducing the hold terrorists have on some areas.

Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and violence

"But we must ask a question only Muslims can answer: What is going on in your community that a critical number of your youth believes that every American military action in the Middle East is intolerable and justifies a violent response, and everything Muslim extremists do to other Muslims is ignorable and calls for mostly silence?"
- Thomas Friedman, "Judgment not included", New York Times, 2013-04-27

But violence against others is not a Muslim "franchise".  People of all kinds of religious persuasions have turned to violence to promote certain distorted ends.

Christians practiced violence.  The Roman Catholic Church burned people at the stake for supposedly not conforming to the prescribed beliefs.  Torquemada of Spain had many torture devices to get people to admit to being Jewish.  Hitler was never ex-communicated from the Catholic Church.  Catholic Irish who planted bombs were considered heroes by many.  Michael Servetus was "burnt at the stake as a heretic by order of the Protestant Geneva governing council."

Jews have been killing more Arabs than Arabs have been killing Jews: since 2000,  6617 Palestinians vs 1,097 Israelis (including 1,447 vs 129 children).  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_conflict#Cost_of_conflict

Buddhists, supposedly a peaceful group, are attacking Muslims in Burma (Myanmar).  The recent riots of Buddhists against Muslims is only a part of centuries-long list of anti-Muslim events.

And all these perpetrators of violence seem to forget that a tenet of their religions is "to do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Quote of the Day - "right to do"

There is a difference between doing what you have a right to do and doing what is right to do.
- Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN
Quoted by Thomas Friedman in "Hot, Flat, and Crowded"

Reagan, Gorbachev, and the Berlin Wall

Many credit Ronald Reagan with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, citing Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down the wall!" and other actions.

First, Gorbachev was no absolute dictator like Stalin. He had many constituencies to please, both hard-line and open-minded. Gorbachev knew the Soviet Union was not working, but he could not like Stalin or Mao simply declare a change of course. He had to move politically rather than autocratically.

Second, Gorbachev's predecessors had put the Soviet Union in a precarious financial position with an overabundance of subsidies. The only thing that propped up the finances of the Soviet Union was the export of oil at $70/barrel.

Then the price of oil collapsed to $10/barrel, and with it the Soviet Union.

The severe drop in the price of oil was caused by millions of consumers saving energy, something Reagan was not enthusiastic about.

Unfortunately, things have turned around and consumption has gone up, the price of oil has gone up, and petro-dictators have been propped up. But blame Americans only indirectly. Many people in the world want to live like us and now they are - in China, India, South America, and many other places. And to live like Americans, they drive cars, air-condition their houses, and power their proliferating gadgets.

See "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" by Thomas Friedman

"That used to be us, how America fell behind in the world"

This is a title of a new book by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum.  I think I'll buy it when my book budget shows a surplus.

You can read an excerpt at http://www.npr.org/books/titles/140211680/that-used-to-be-us-how-america-fell-behind-in-the-world-it-invented-and-how-we-c?tab=excerpt#excerpt.  Our infra-structure is falling apart while China's is building up at great efficiency.

You can listen to an interview with Thomas Friedman at http://www.npr.org/2011/09/06/140214150/thomas-friedman-on-how-america-fell-behind.

All three copies in the Duluth MN Public Library are out.

The idea of a third party got a big boost

Thomas Friedman has spoken out for the need of a third party.  At the Aspen Ideas Festival, he said, "We need a third party.  I am for a third party.  We are trapped in a corrupt duopoly".  See "Has the Third Party's Moment Arrived?", John Avlon, The Daily Beast, 2011-07-01.

He also said, "One thing about the Internet and the hyperconnected world—it has flattened every hierarchy in the world from The New York Times to the banking industry. It’s flattened every hierarchy in the world except the two-party system, and that will not remain. That is a prediction that I will make."

This reminds me of the aphorism, "Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?"  And of course, I have to preach, probably to the choir, be sure to vote in each and every election.  If you have no choices that you like, write somebody in.

Freedom and democracy: It's not what you believe but what you do

I find it very hard to read Charles Krauthammer; I think he is very rigid in his thinking.  When he wrote in his latest column, "From freedom agenda to freedom doctrine", Washington Post, 2011-02-10, that George Bush and the neo-cons were the only ones interested in promoting freedom and democracy, I stopped reading.

What he ignores is that the neo-cons solution was to bring freedom and democracy at the point of a gun.  We can see how well that is working in Iraq and Afghanistan where chaos is more the norm.  What he ignores is that the Egyptians have started on a path to freedom and democracy, not with guns but with their gums.  They did it not with outside armies but by themselves.

In writing this, I did go back and skim Krauthammer's article.  He does make a good point with the second point of his Freedom Doctrine, but most of the rest is a call for the world being as we think it should be, not as others may want it.

A much better read is "They Did It", Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 2011-02-12, written in Cairo.  One of the best quotes is, "Because the Obama team never found the voice to fully endorse the Tahrir Square revolution until it was over, the people in that square now know one very powerful thing: They did this all by themselves."

We're exceptional 'cause we say so

Thomas Friedman wrote a spoof cable from the Chinese Embassy back to Peking; it would be hilarious if it weren't so sadly true.  You can find it at "From WikiChina", New York Times, 2010-12-01.

I've always found "exceptionalism" a bit arrogant.  It's kind of grade-schoolish; "my whatever is better than your whatever!"  Does it really matter?  Can't our whatevers be our whatevers without having to be better than somebody else's?

See "I Live in the Best House in the World".

There is hate and there is hate

Thomas Friedman wrote a good column on the dangerous level of divisiveness in this country - "Where Did 'We' Go?", New York Times, 2009-09-29.

He compares the situation in Israel before Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 with the situation in the United States now. He thinks the vitriol in much of the anti-Obama rhetoric is going to lead somebody to take extreme action.

He also thinks that the level of criticism leveled at all presidents since 1992 has made it difficult for them to govern. He postulates that George H. W. Bush was the last "legitimate" president.

I was going to add a comment about the need for a viable third party when there were 42 comments, but I had to be elsewhere. When I got back there were 201 comments and a note that "Comments are no longer being accepted." Now, nearly 8:30 in the evening, there are 393 comments!

I did read or skim the 201 comments. They ran from the very thoughtful to the very shallow and divisive. The worst were those that divided left and right with one being good and the other being bad, depending on the persuasion of the writer. I had less sympathy for many on the right because they didn't consider the degree of difference in criticism of presidents. There is a big difference between satirizing a president and creating lies about a president. There is a big difference between calling a president an idiot (aren't they all in one way or another?) and saying that president was not born where he was.

Interestingly, the critics on the right say that the "liberal media" don't criticize the president. Let's see, Steve Sack of the Star Tribune and Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury have drawn cartoons criticizing Obama.

Why some politicians can't always deliver on promises

I had to craft the headline carefully. I didn't want to imply that all politicians never fulfill their promises. I didn't want to imply that some politicians always fulfill all of their promises. Well, maybe some do because they make very few promises or they make such generalized promises that it is hard to say that the promise was not fulfilled.

Back to the topic. For the answer see "Secrets of a Pollster" by Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 2009-03-24. The relevant quote is

"[Politicians] never come out of the box and deliver the scale of progress and change they promise — not because they are cynical, but because events conspire against them and they encounter competing power centers. What distinguishes the best leaders, he says, is that they learn from their crashes, adjust, persist and succeed."

Thomas Friedman for Secretary of State

I sent the following to Barack Obama's transition web site at

http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision

Thomas Friedman for Secretary of State. He speaks Arabic and Hebrew; he spent years in both Lebanon and Israel; and he has contacts all over the world. He also has a realistic view of the difficulty of bringing people together. See
"Show me the money", New York Times, 2008-11-09

Intercepting Iran's Take on America

Op-ed by Thomas Friedman
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/opinion/05friedman.html

A great spoof on the latest U.S. assessment of Iran - a supposed Iranian National Intelligence Estimate of America

Friedman points out all the weaknesses and misdirections of American politics with few understanding what the real problems are and few working on meaningful solutions to them.