Only in the South...

I like New Orleans, it's probably one of the oldest European founded cities in the country, and if anybody who's been there is to be believed (I never been farther south than Kansas City) it's got it's own, great culture. But it's also got a logistical problem: Mother Nature intended for most of New Orleans to be under a considerable amount of water (as I understand it, the only part above sea level is the "crescent" along the river that the French originally built). I feel that, while a bad thing, Katrina did give us the best opportunity we'll ever see for letting nature put the ocean back where it belongs.

Most logical people realize that land which is under sea level and within spitting distance of the ocean isn't worth the risk. Somewhere along the line, somebody who wasn't logical built a couple levees and a city where a city had not business being. People moved in, and every few years I'd see a documentary on how a big storm could wipe out New Orleans. Nobody cared though. Katrina changed all of that, and took the decision out of our hands. Now it's time to recognize that the hard part (getting out of New Orleans) has been done for us, and we just need to tie up the loose ends and we'll be rid of our (up until recently) death defying, sub sea level experiment.

All of this doesn't mean that I hate the people of New Orleans. If my house was flattened by a tornado, I'd hole up in the basement until it was over, then I'd camp out in my back yard and rebuild on the old foundation. If my house was somehow flooded (not likely since I live on a hill) I'd sit in the attic, with a boat ready to go if it was bad enough. My point is, I can understand why people want to go back to their homes in New Orleans, because I'd feel the same way. But I don't live in New Orleans, I live in Iowa on land that is quite a distance from any significant water (the great lakes are probably the closest) and quite a bit above sea level. I'll probably still have dry land even when the ice caps melt in a few years. The same can't be said for the crescent city.

There's also a considerable environmental reason to let New Orleans die in peace. Since the Mississippi River existed, it has carried silt to the delta in Louisiana to replace the land carried out to sea by various natural occurrences. When man came along and changed that rule, the wetlands along the Louisiana coast just began to slowly disappear, and the raging ocean could get a lot closer to centers of population. Even after Katrina (I think, but definitely before) the state of Louisiana was shrinking at an alarming rate. Let the river work it's magic (and God knows there's plenty of dirt in the Mississippi) and the buffer zone of wetlands will come back and do its job.

We have an opportunity here. Even if you just move the city a couple of miles inland, stop building a city on a lakebed that's only dry as long as conditions are ideal and the levee holds. People weren't meant to defy nature, and we're already getting away with more than we should.

The Real Test Begins

Finally, Israel and Hezbollah have (mostly) stopped fighting each other in southern Lebanon. This in itself is a breakthrough, but the hardest part is just beginning. It will take the international community's continual involvement and evenhandedness to make this work. Evenhandedness includes not openly declaring that this was a major victory for Israel (it wasn't, if anything, Hezbollah proved once again that it has what it takes to survive in a slug-fest with Israel). Yes, George Bush, I'm talking to you. Israel and the various terrorist organizations it is continually trying to crush are like little boys fighting on the playground: if you want them to stop, you don't tell them that one was right and that he won the fight, that will just make the "wrong" "loser" keep going until he's victorious and in the right. It should be remembered here that Hezbollah thinks they are doing God's work too (and many Lebanese who've just seen their neighborhoods flattened feel that Hezbollah is the only thing standing between them and the armies of the West).

O.K., now that we've established that George Bush is an idiot, we'll continue on to the substance of this here piece. As history has so clearly shown, when left to their own devices, Muslims and Israelis have a tendency to kill each other. The obvious solution here is to not leave them to their own devices. Enter the U.N. international peacekeeping force. There were already observers in southern Lebanon before and during this whole fiasco, but they were unarmed (what were they thinking!?). When you're trying to keep two armed groups from shooting at each other, you need to have more guns than both of groups combined in between them. The one language everybody understands in the middle east is guns. They don't care so much for rules in our sense of the word, the only rule that seems to be constant throughout the region is that the man with the bigger gun has the right of way.

This peacekeeping force has to be armed, and it has to be international. Americans are equivalent to Israelis as far as Hezbollah and the Lebanese are concerned (and they're not too far off the mark). Americans should probably be a part of it, but in a diluted manner. Arabs aren't as angry at Italians, French, or Indians as they are at America. I think it would a very good idea to include some Egyptians and/or Jordanians too, just to keep up the charade of neutrality. These non-Americans are also a lot less likely to look the other way when Israelis push the line, but shoot any armed Arab they see. Stupid and inhuman as Bush has implied they are, Arabs can tell when they're getting the short end of the stick, seeing as that's what they've gotten since the rise of western Europe.

Maybe just as important as the peacekeepers, international public awareness and pressure is going to be needed to keep this whole thing rolling. Politicians are just dogs that do whatever they think the majority of people want them to do, after a bit, they'll just stop trying to do anything in southern Lebanon. We must keep asking "Is the ceasefire still being enforced?" "Are the peacekeepers being fair or are they just continuing Israel's war for them?" "Is a more permanent solution being negotiated?" Politicians don't like questions like this, because then they have to work, and keep going with their project. And the more time you stay with something, the more chance you'll do something that will cost you votes. That's the risk one takes when he/she put his/her name on the ballot. Live with it, and do some good while you're at it.

So, keep interested in Lebanon. Don't just move on when something else steals the spotlight, that's what you're expected to do, and you don't want to be some kind of pawn. Who knows, maybe this will be the start of a more stable middle east.

The Big One

As far as I can tell, this latest terrorism bust was the real thing, and the perpetrators had the means to carry it out. This is a change from the other mostly fabricated busts we've had to endure this year. The Dept. of Homeland Security is patting itself on the back, and I'm sure the White House is full of old guys high-fiving each other. Oh, wait, Bush is on vacation in Crawford, so that's where the high-fives are. But before you all go voting republican this fall because they stopped a big terrorist attack, you should remember that all of the credit should go to British authorities. Brits figured out what was happening, and the Brits put a stop to it. Just reminding everybody.

I won't go into very much detail about the actual plot and stuff, because news this big has a habit of being beaten to death by any and all media. It contained the usual creativity necessary in plots with any chance of succeeding, although it does seem to be inspired by a 15 year old Al Qaida plan, and, surprise, the would be bombers were Muslims. Since you know all of that, I'm going to look at the bigger picture.

I read a book a little less than a month ago now, The Arabs, by David Lamb. It is about 20 years old now, and you should keep that in mind when reading it, but it's a great insight on Arab culture and the role the Islamic religion plays in every day life. I'd encourage everybody to read it. With the basic ideas from this book, and a fairly quick analysis of current events, one can piece together the root of our problem with terrorists.

Our problem is not a religion the promotes war. Islam encourages peace and tolerance just as much as Christianity or Judaism. It's the extremists who seem to have found some sympathy in recent years that commit these acts of terror. Other religions have these extremists, too. We've stepped on one too many feet though, and more and more people are fed up enough with us to lend a sympathetic ear to religious terrorist groups. A few simple things (for instance, not backing Israel without question) would take away a lot of moderate supporters that terrorists enjoy.

Another thing I find disturbing is that these people just arrested in the U.K. were all born and raised in the U.K. This is just the latest in a string of events in Europe that seem to point to widespread ethnic unrest within the Arab immigrant community. There were riots in France (not the labor riots, but the ones before that which were more racial in nature), the July 7 attacks in London last year, and now this, are just the most high profile events I can think of off the top of my head. All of these attacks involved Muslims who lived in western countries. Maybe it's just because we don't have as many muslim immigrants as Europe, but the U.S. doesn't have those kinds of problems. I haven't heard one case of Muslims or arabs in born and raised in America plotting to commit an act of terrorism against us.

What needs to be done in Europe is to integrate Muslims into society, not just let them do their own thing in their own part of the city while you pretend they don't exist. Integration would inevitably bring about representation in the government, which would help when dealing with muslim governments, since you've got your own Muslims helping you make policy decisions. When they feel like it's their country too, not just the native British or French's, immigrants won't be so quick to jump on the anti-western bandwagon (but they could still very easily do so if policy changes aren't made so that we don't seem to completely disregard arabs and Muslims).

There you have it. Ignorance breeds mistrust, and pretty soon you're killing Iraqi civilians and smuggling liquid explosives onto planes. Make an effort to understand other people and where they're coming from, and a lot of problems will take care of themselves.

The Oil Stops Flowing

America's largest oil field (Prudhoe Bay in Alaska) has closed while Beyond Petroleum (here on referred to as BP) scrambles to repair corroded pipes in a 22 mile stretch of the pipeline that delivers oil to America. Analysts everywhere are in a frenzy telling people that gas prices are going to skyrocket and there's been talk (from the government no less) of opening the strategic reserves (a supply of oil the government keeps squirreled away in case of emergency). I'm here to fight the flow and convince everybody that this isn't the end of the world. Furthermore, there is no need even for mild panic.

Ever since I can remember, oil (and therefore gas) prices have risen steadily. The main reason for this is not instability in the middle east, or hurricanes in the gulf, or any of the other excuses oil companies throw out. Oil prices are raised because raising the price doesn't affect demand, as it would for any other commodity. Because demand isn't affected, supplies are a little tighter, which raises prices (it's a circle). Americans with their oil are like addicts with their drugs, we don't like to pay more for it, but we can't just not buy it. The idea that America pissing off the government of an oil producer causes some kind of drop in supply (which is implied when the price goes up) is a load of crap. They may hate us, but the money we pay the mid east for it's oil is what runs those countries. Plus, we've been rubbing shoulders with the mid east since before I was born. You may also remember gas prices spiking after Katrina, supposedly because refineries were damaged. Well prices went back down after a day or so. That's a pretty quick repair job for a big refinery if you ask me.

Because of some recent news events that are much bigger than an oil crunch, this headline has kind of been drowned out, but you can bet that somewhere, crooked oil companies (the only kind) will try to raise prices, citing this pipeline shutdown. I've taken the liberty of checking my facts, and Prudhoe Bay accounts for only 8% of our oil. Not a very big slice of the pie, and if Americans were conservation minded (which they aren't, sadly) they could easily cut consumption for a couple months to compensate. Since that's unlikely, we'll probably just import that extra 8% in the meantime. Before you all head out the door with torches and pitchforks asking for directions to the nearest Saudi embassy, let me share a little known fact: the country we import the most oil from is Canada (18% of imports), with Mexico in second (15%), and Saudi Arabia and Nigeria tied for third (12%). In total, 49% of our imported oil comes from countries in the Americas. Don't believe me?

There will be no large drop in supply, let alone some kind of crisis. If you wanted to go one step farther and see oil prices drop, you could start limiting your use, and encouraging others to do the same (you'll need those skills when the oils runs out and stops flowing for good in a few years). The real tragedy in this is for BP, whose profits are expected to grow 2% less than they did last year because of this fiasco, and isn't that horrible? Actually, the state of Alaska is losing a few million dollars every day that the pipeline is down (I'm guessing this is in lost taxes mostly).

So there you have it, no need to panic.

Raising the Bottom Line

Right now, the federal minimum wage is set at $5.15/hour. It hasn't been raised for something like a decade, although a few states (but not mine), have taken the liberty of raising it themselves. Republicans in congress have blocked a couple attempts by Democrats in just the last few months to raise the minimum wage to $7 something/hour. I don't know why, maybe they just don't care about all the people living below the poverty level. In a move that shows who Republicans really care about, they recently tried to abolish the estate tax, and in that bill also included a raise in the minimum wage to $7.20/hour. Needless to say, most Democrats who want the wage increased voted against this bill (and I support them). This was an underhanded move to try to get rid of the whole minimum wage issue and at the same time fulfill a promise they've made to the rich quite often. Once again, the well being of America was one of the last things on Republicans' minds.

I have a job that pays $5.15/hour. I could do with a raise. I also have a lot of friends who make more than $5.15/hour, but less than $7.20. We'd all get a raise if the minimum wage were raised, as it should be. This is by no means the most important issue at stake in this election, but I'd say it's in the top 10.

I find it interesting how a congress that has been led by Republicans for the last 10 years has raised it's own pay quite a bit since they last gave the poorer part of America a break. And now, any small bone thrown to poor people has to be compensated for with a giant tax break for millionaires. Not really the priorities I'd have if I were elected by any district in the U.S., because I don't know of any districts where millionaires outnumber minimum wage earners (let alone in those proportions).

Let's now debunk the main myth that's used to justify not raising the minimum wage: It hurts businesses and therefore, it hurts the economy and America. If you're living below the poverty line (which you are if you make $5.15/hour), you're not spending much. If you had a little more money, you'd spend more of it, therefore helping the economy. And a good economy is good for business. I see no problem.

We now have a couple of very good reasons to raise the minimum wage, and none not to, so let's do it. Besides, if the money's really not there, why does congress need a pay raise every couple of years?

A Lasting Peace

When I last weighed in on Israel's version of neighborhood diplomacy, we were one week into a fairly limited offensive into Gaza. In that post I was very supportive of Israel's actions, but I've taken a considerable turn now.

I cannot sit back and condone the endless bombing that is killing more civilian children than Hezbollah fighters. An air strike last week killed four U.N. observers in southern Lebanon, an incident that I don't think was completely intentional, but they had to have been aiming closer to that outpost than they should've been (it should be noted in that bombing that the commander of the U.N. observers called the Israelis many times with their exact coordinates so that Israeli jets could avoid killing them). Even after turning southern Lebanon and half of Beirut into a big crater, rockets still rain down on Israeli cities. Therein lies the truth: Israel hasn't really accomplished anything.

I will take this opportunity to say that, while casualties resulting from these rockets are very unfortunate, they pale in comparison to civilian casualties of Israeli airstrikes, and they can't be used to justify these killings.

I don't like Hezbollah, and in the unlikelihood that anything good comes out of this ordeal, it will be the disarming (and maybe destruction) of Hezbollah. While I admire their trying to do a thorough job, Israel has done as much as they can militarily without carpet bombing all of Lebanon. Before it becomes blazingly obvious that guerrillas have bested the Israelis again, Israel needs to stop all military action and finish things with negotiations. That way, when Hezbollah renews attacks on Israeli forces and civilians (and you can bet they will), Hezbollah will be the bad guy, not Israel.

Hezbollah has a lot of respect in the Arab world because they are the only group that's beaten Israel in an armed conflict, the other Lebanon war (what many equate as Israel's version of the Vietnam War). Hezbollah used guerilla tactics, and faced with an enemy that they couldn't really fight and mounting casualties, Israel left Lebanon in shame. A repeat of history will be very bad for Israel's standing in the world. The only thing holding back the Arab hordes is the image that Israel is invincible. Take that away and you've got nothing.

Now that I've elaborated on why this war has gone far enough, I'm going to take on the Bush administration. Yes, I'm still talking about Israel-Lebanon. In a move that doesn't surprise me, Bush claims to want peace, but an immediate cease-fire is bad because it won't last. Well, duh! The point of a cease-fire is to stop the fighting for a couple weeks so that the two sides can negotiate a peace that will last. Anybody with half a brain could tell you that a cease-fire is never intended to be permanent. W's not so hidden motive here is to let Israel finish the job (fairly messy work, politically), while appearing to broker a non-violent solution. Well, the first half of the plan's working, but the charade's pretty bad.

A lasting peace isn't all that hard to come by, and even Condi could handle it. You negotiate one of those evil ceasefires, make it last for 1 week to start with. Then you have negotiations between Israel and Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, possibly Iran, and you'll have to include the Lebanese government in there somewhere. We wouldn't just throw these arch enemies in a room somewhere and tell them to work out their differences nonviolently. There would be a large, mutlinational delegation (possibly from the U.N.) including the U.S.A., Egypt, Russia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the U.K., at the bare minimum. Of course, no solution will be present after one week, but because they have made progress, the parties will agree to extend the ceasefire another two weeks. After a few months, a ceasefire that wasn't meant to last has followed a logical series of events and led to an agreement that will.

The only snarl I see to a peaceful solution (besides Bush's unwillingness to find one), is that Hezbollah and probably Hamas are never going to take part in negotiations that will have to end in their destruction if any progress is to be made. That's the problem with negotiating with terrorist groups, they're only interested in fighting. Take that away, and they don't know what to do with themselves or how to get to heaven. But there's a solution to even that. Hamas and Hezbollah are already political parties in Palestine and Lebanon, if they completely disarm and focus solely on running for office, they would be one of the first political parties in the mid-east that isn't connected to a militia. And they could still advance their cause if in fact they do reflect the will of the people. You can bet that that's something Bush and Israel won't go for, but they'll have to. Would they rather some other armed political party took control of everything (like Hamas has done in Palestine and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon)? Or would it be better to deal with Hamas and Hezbollah in their neutered forms?

What we're dealing with now is a serious problem, and one of the best chances in a while to fix the bigger problem. Right now everybody is the loser, from Lebanon to Hezbollah, to Israel. It goes back to what we teach preschoolers: Don't fight, share, and we all win.