Kurt Vonnegut Dead at 84
Pearls Before Breakfast
Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he’s really bad? What if he’s really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn’t you? What’s the moral mathematics of the moment?
On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities — as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
The musician did not play popular tunes whose familiarity alone might have drawn interest. That was not the test. These were masterpieces that have endured for centuries on their brilliance alone, soaring music befitting the grandeur of cathedrals and concert halls.
Happy Easter!
Sunset – Bangkok
Doyle announces initiatives on energy independence and global warming
From the press statement posted on Governor Jim Doyle’s Web site:
Office of Energy Independence
Governor Doyle today signed an Executive Order creating the new Office of Energy Independence to advance the Governor’s vision on energy policy and promote the state’s bioindustry. The office will serve as a single-point of contact for citizens, businesses, local units of government and non-governmental organizations pursuing bio development, energy efficiency and energy independence. The office will also identify federal funding opportunities and serve as the State Energy Office, working to maintain federal designation and funding.
One initial project for the office will be to work with the Public Service Commission (PSC) on a potential multi-utility effort to build a “clean coal” electric generation facility.
Judy Ziewacz will serve as Executive Director of the office, which will be located in the Risser Justice Building.
Task Force on Global Warming
Governor Doyle signed an Executive Order creating a Task Force on Global Warming that will bring together a prominent and diverse group of key Wisconsin business, industry, government, energy and environment leaders to examine the effects of, and solutions to, global warming in Wisconsin. Using current national and local research, the task force will discuss and analyze possible solutions to global warming challenges that pose a threat to Wisconsin’s economic and environmental health. The task force will create a state plan of action to deliver to the Governor to reduce our state’s contribution to global warming.
In conjunction with the new task force, the Governor directed the Department of Natural Resources, with the assistance of the PSC, to lead an effort to obtain a current estimate of the greenhouse gas emissions in Wisconsin.
The task force will be chaired by Roy Thilly of the Wisconsin Public Power and Tia Nelson of the Board of Public Land Commissioners.
State ready for energy research lab
This column by Tom Stills, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, ran in the Stevens Point Journal:
A joint proposal was filed Feb. 1 by the UW System, UW-Madison and Michigan State University to open a federal energy research lab in Madison. Molly Jahn, dean of the UW-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has described the proposal as a strong fit with faculty, staff and student projects related to bio-energy. Those projects are taking place in disciplines that encompass biology, agriculture, engineering, natural resources and the social sciences. . . .
It will be months before the next phase of the federal selection process begins, but the collaborative effort should merit a hard look in Washington. If Wisconsin is successful, it could mean several hundred jobs and tens of millions of dollars within five years.
Corn is Not the Future of US Ethanol
New technology to make ethanol from crops such as grasses and trees instead of corn could ease price spikes of the grain within a decade, a U.S. Energy Department official said on Wednesday.
“I’m not going to predict what the price of corn is going to do, but I will tell you the future of biofuels is not based on corn,” U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell said in an interview.
Output of U.S. ethanol, which is mostly made from corn, is expected to jump in 2007 from 5.6 billion gallons per year to 8 billion gpy, as nearly 80 bio-refineries sprout up.
Chad Vader meets Mayor Dave and Maya Cole
Maya Cole met Chad Vader last weekend at Indie Coffee.
AT&T’s Rhetoric on Competition
Wisconsin residents would lose their rights to cable television repairs within 72 hours, credit for service interruptions and advance notice of rate increases, under a bill on the fast track in the state Legislature.
The proposal, designed to increase competition in an industry dominated by cable companies, is supported by the lobbying muscle of telecommunications giant AT&T.
It’s part of AT&T’s challenge to cable companies such as Charter Communications, which are licensed by local governments.
There is little agreement on whether the proposal would help consumers or hurt them.
Pitsch mentions this:
But proponents say the bill would lower costs for telecast delivery – whether by cable or AT&T’s fiber optic lines – by up to 23 percent by introducing competition and deregulating the industry.
What fiber optic lines would that be? AT&T has done nothing to upgrade it’s copper based network to the home (other than spend money on lobbying and advertisements regarding the ongoing resale of the old network, something we’ve paid for over and over and over…), unlike Verizon in other parts of the country. Nice to see our politicians continue to “stick it to us”. `