Mice, Part 2

My reactions to the trapping of mice in my apartment, detailed in Mice, Part 1, got me wondering why they were relatively strong for something so minor. People and other animals are dying equally unpleasant deaths nearby and around the world all the time, and I don't feel the revulsion that I did at the mice with crushed skulls directly in front of me. Is it a failure of the imagination? Are we unable to care about what we don't experience directly? If this is the case, how will we ever have collective action on extreme crises like genocides, much less on the probably more widely relevant issues of worker rights, fair trade, and environmental preservation?

Even my reaction to the mice makes no sense in itself, at least in terms of concern for the mice. They probably died with very little suffering, and the amount of their suffering is not obviously correlated with how gruesome I find them. Did the mouse that sprayed blood on the wall suffer more than the mouse that appeared to have simply paused at the edge of the trap? Apparently, we are not horrified so much by the suffering of cute mice as by the implicit reminder that this sort of thing could happen to us. We're repelled by the prospect of our own pain and deaths, not by the actual pain and deaths of other creatures or people. So how do we proceed to strive for justice on a footing different than individual, personal fear? That fear of "it could happen to me" seems a quite inadequate basis for action, individual or collective. Whatever that magnanimous spirit is, how do we nurture it within ourselves and within society? What do we do in the meanwhile?

This question sounds very familiar to me, almost trite. I'm sure others have run up against it and formulated the question much like this. So.... any thoughts?

If democracy is the best option...

In Jared Diamond's Collapse, about which you may be tired of reading here, he first discusses a number of historical instances of collapse of civilizations in which environmental degradation played an important role, as well as discussions of environmental problems in some contemporary societies. In one of the last chapters, he discusses how societies have failed to prevent serious environmental problems: failure to anticipate a problem, failure to perceive the problem, failure to try to solve it, and failure to actually solve it. He says that the third of these is, surprisingly, the most common. In discussing various forms of clashes of interests that can cause societies to fail to try to solve environmental problems, he adds:

A further conflict of interest involving rational behavior arises when the interests of the decision-making elite in power clash with the interests of the rest of society. Especially if the elite can insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions, they are likely to do things that profit themselves, regardless of whether those actions hurt everybody else. Such clashes ... are becoming increasingly frequent in the modern U.S., where rich people tend to live within their gated compounds and to drink bottled water. (pp. 430-1)

In Perfectly Legal, David Johnston describes how the U.S. tax code is increasingly shifting the burden of taxation off the wealthy and corporations and onto those whose income comes primarily from wages and salaries. (It can be a little dry, but, if you're as geeky as I am, you will find it gripping and devastating.) This is not directly an environmental issue, but it serves to illustrate the point that those who can fund political campaigns get laws written in their interests:

(I will insert the quote from Perfectly Legal when I get the book unpacked after the move. It's about how, in the 2002 congressional election cycle, something like 80% of campaign funds came from 10% of the donors, or somesuch.)

While this upward distribution of wealth is patently unfair, this combination of power and isolation of a wealthy elite can have more disastrous consequences, as Diamond points out.

In a previous post, I complained that no political group seemed to act "in the general interst". Then perhaps the best way to make collective decisions is through a contest of interests, fought as "fairly" as possible. In my limited understanding, this is the point of a democracy, but this is not how our democracy is working now. The best hope for it that I can see is Clean Money. If you're a Californian, please do sign up and become a member. If you're not, look for the activity in your state at Public Campaign. It's a great investment in our country.

Mice, Part 1

This is, I'm sure, a familiar story. Several months ago, I was up early to catch a plane and groggily noticed from the bathroom that there was a small rodent sniffing around the living room floor. When I got back to Oakland, I bought, at my girlfriend's insistence, catch-and-release traps, and baited and set them. I'd see a mouse now and then, but, as it couldn't get into the food cabinets or up on the counters or dining room table, I didn't worry that much about it. After all, it's a mammal pretty closely related to humans, and was actually pretty cute. After a good while, I finally caught one baby mouse, which I released a couple blocks away. However, the presence of mice became less deniable and more evident, with lots of little mouse turds on the stovetop. (Evidently, they could climb up inside the stove from the floor.) The little crevice in the kicthen drawers shelving from which they entered was getting obviously dirty from their comings and goings. The catch-and-release traps, although cleverly designed, were not catching any mice.

Within 24 hours of setting the lethal traps, as my girlfriend finally asked me to do "sometime when I'm not there", I had killed 3 mice. Just this morning, the fifth was snared. It was a rather cute juvenile or young adult, looking at first like it had just paused at the edge of trap. However, the trap bar was clamped down on its upper back, probably breaking it immediately. Some of the others have been messier, making their eyes pop out or bloodying the trap. The worst one sprayed blood on the wall moulding, and was a little disquieting to clean up. After lifting the bar and allowing the fifth dead mouse to fall into the trash, I washed my hands, cut a small piece of cheese rind, re-baited and re-set the trap, and re-washed my hands.

Above, I make it sound like it's my girlfriend's fault I started using the lethal traps. It's not. Since I'm leaving the place at the end of the month, I felt like I didn't want to leave a mouse-infested place for my building manager to tend to. She has been very generous and helpful to me during my time here, and I didn't want to make more work for her.

What's for dinner, and Related Issues...

From what I can tell, part of being a good Buddhist is becoming a strict vegetarian. However, my teacher focuses on waking up to the nature of our existence, and doesn't say much about specific practices or dogmas. Correspondingly, as far as my practice is concerned, I tend to modify my point of view only as a result of direct meditation-related insight. On this question, my awareness once of what appeared to be at least an aspect of the original nature indicated that its basic character was not significantly different for animals and for humans, and thus that eating animals was tantamount to eating humans.

However, from a "rational" point of view, I don't really understand vegetarianism in a practical sense. It has long seemed to me that almost everything we do deprives animals of their lives. If you eat grains, animals were killed when the field was plowed, when the grain was harvested, and by pest control for the stored grain. If you use paper, animals were killed when those trees were harvested. If you eat dairy products, what do you think the dairy industry does with the excess male animals? And a large fraction of our energy needs is supplied by burning fossil fuels, producing global warming and changing habitats on a massive scale all over the world. Given this sort of death of animals from human activity, eating a little bit of animal protein for our dietary protein requirements seems rather minor. (I highly recommend the Harper's article at the last link.) Besides, it's not just animals that die because of the way we live, but other humans as well. Indeed, after reading Jared Diamond's descriptions of the results of environmental collapse on Easter Island and in the pre-European-arrival American southwest, there would seem to be a non-negligible possibility that the economic changes resulting from exhaustion of global resources (such as reaching peak oil) could produce an outbreak of cannibalism somewhere.

In the midst of all these questions, my reaction is that there are much larger spiritual issues involved than whether or not one eats animals. How do we reconcile ourselves to the death that is the direct result of our continuing to live? How does it affect what it means to be alive?

Going to Eritrea

As part of the wind energy project I'm volunteering with, I will be going to Eritrea 15 June to 14 July!

Lobbying for Clean Money, Fair Elections

Yesterday I went to Sacramento to (1) attend the press conference for Loni Hancock's Clean Money, Fair Elections bill, AB 583 and (2) to go talk to legislators or their elections issues staffer about the bill. This was my first introduction into such things, and it was a very interesting experience. I always find it kind of startling and fascinating when things that I do for the first time actually work kind of like people have told me they work, or in the way that I have been thinking about them. It's related to my surprise that I can really know anything. Those who know me know that I am often very convinced that I know many things very well, but there's still this feeling, particularly when doing something new, that I and everyone else contriving to do it is just playing a game that they hope will have the effect they want. I suppose this could be consistent with the conceit that no one knows more than I do...

Inside and just outside the capitol building, I ran into two people I haven't seen in a long time. The first was someone who had been a grad student and union organizer at UCLA when I was a grad student and union organizer at UCB. He was ABD and is now organizing TA's in the CSU system. The other was a friend-of-a-friend with whom I've hung out now and then over the years, who was in molecular biology but now works for the NRDC. I wonder how close to the expectation value of "number of people I know in the state capitol building on any given day" this sample was.

Anyway, I'm going back next week for the bill's hearing in the Elections Committee. Last year's bill was, against expectations, passed out of the EC, and we hope to do it again this year.

Love those Crixa cakes!

After dinner at a friend's house recently, we had our choice of desserts left over another friend's going away party. Given the choice between a plastic-covered cheesecake or a Crixa cake, we of course both went for the Crixa cake. As we were digging in, I asked what kind it was. My friend said it was their apple cake. She went on to say that, actually, she really liked plum cakes, which (in a slightly dreamy voice) were more of a gold cake, sweet contrasted with the plums' tartness, with the gold tinged purple around the plums... I said, wait a minute, isn't this like fantasizing about someone else while you're with your partner??? Startled, she exclaimed, "I'm sorry! I love you, Crixa cake!" Which we do, really.

Parasite at Anti-Schwarzenegger Rally

I was present yesterday at the San Francisco Ritz-Carleton Hotel for a protest against California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Although I oppose him in general, I was not there as part of the actual protest. Instead, I was for the first time one of those pests who swarm to such things to promote their own causes. Mine was Clean Money, Clean Elections. It was more difficult talking to people there than at the previous tabling events I've done. Most people were busy going someplace or other, and those that weren't were listening to people on a stage with speakers. However, of those with whom I managed to converse, most were interested in my cause, and many people signed our petition to the state legislature to support Loni Hancock's bill to have clean money elections in California.

Briefly, the idea behind Clean Money, Clean Elections: to run for office, candidates need money to get their message out to voters. Where does this money come from? Almost entirely from deep-pocket donors. These donors are the folks that need to be pleased by the successful candidate's time in office. So if politicians want to be re-elected, they are responsible to this small, wealthy constituency, and not to the voters who elected them. Clean Money gives politicians the option to run their campaigns entirely with public money (from taxes) if they take no private money. Then politicians are beholden not to special interests, but to voters at large. This is a non-partisan cause and should be supported by anyone who wants to strengthen our democracy.

Most of the crowd there were union members understandably angry about Arnie's proposals to shortchange the state workers' pensions. I asked many of the people with whom I talked if they thought their unions would endorse Clean Money. Every one of them said that, while there would probably be good support for it among the membership, the leadership would oppose it because it would limit the union's ability to pay for politicians. This didn't especially surprise me, but it does nonetheless disappoint me. Unions exist to promote the interests of the working people in their membership, and I doubt that we can really have a progressive movement in society without organized labor being perhaps the driving force. However, if unions had the broader picture of advancing their members' interests, they'd get behind Clean Money 100%.
Working people would be the immediate beneficiaries of Clean Elections because unions usually get outspent, as I recall off the top of my head, by about 3 or 4 to 1.

I believe, though, that all people would ultimately benefit from Clean Elections because decisions could be made more collectively and not just for the interests of a small segment of society. Everyone likes to believe that they know what's best for society, but for unions and business groups alike, their opinions happen to line up with what's best for them economically. A more disinterested decision making process will be necessary if we, as a society, are going to have a hope of making choices truly in the general interest.

San Francisco Mondovino Premier

When I started this blog, I had in mind that it would be a place for me to shape the vague ideas bouncing around in my head. However, while I am working on some higher concept posts, I'd like there to be more content in the meantime. In that vein, here is a (slightly edited) email I sent to a friend about the San Francisco premier of the wine world documentary Mondovino:

The event was in a screening room of a new condo development south of
Market close to the Embarcadero. The setting, at least, was fairly
generic, although, since small, fairly intimate. Most of the crowd
was dressed nicely but not especially upscale, and everyone was pretty
relaxed. Nossiter, I think, was dressed in a corduroy sport coat and
casual slacks or even jeans. He recommended that people would
probably be more comfortable not sitting in the first few rows. I
knew one person there: Joe Bilman who runs Subterraneum wine storage
where I rent a locker, and who had sent out the email announcement
that I had forwarded to you. I also recognized Steve Edmunds of
Edmunds-St.John, someone who, though mild-mannered, is obviously very
passionate about individually crafted wines.

For the Q&A period, there were about 6 people on stage. I recall only
Randall Graham of Bonny Doon, Jonathan Nossiter, Joel Rosenthal, an
inporter featured in the film, and Garen Staglin of Staglin Family
Vineyards. There were a couple other people involved in other aspects
of the wine business, a trader and perhaps a writer. Randy Graham:
definitely a terroirist but not willing to condemn micro-oxidation
completely, "if used judiciously"; mostly seemed silent and
thoughtful. Joel Rosenthal was much the way he came across in the
film. Jonathan Nossiter was criticized for filming people in ways
that rather slighted them, with the odd camera angles or showing that
guy's balls, or protraying the Frescobaldis as particularly venal, or
for showing Bob Parker's dog's ass, or for showing Michel Rolland just
hopping out of limos and recommending to everyone to use
micro-oxidation, or for just showing the Staglin family hanging out
around the house all day instead of being in the vineyards. His
almost uniform defense was that he just showed what people chose to
show him - he would have gladly filmed Staglin or Rolland in the vineyards if that were where they had taken him, for example. Garen
Staglin said that he very much resented how his wife's comments -
about getting their workers a t-shirt - were taken out of context and
implied that they were not caring and involved in their workers'
lives. He said that when Michel Rolland comes to his winery to
consult, he stays the whole day, and that in the five years he has
known Rolland, he has never heard him say micro-oxigenate. Everyone I
talked to said that they admired Staglin's courage for getting up on
the stage after that movie. A couple audience criticised the film as
unnecessarily divisive, greatly exaggerating what controversy existed.
One of them, a Burgundy buyer for a local wine store, came up to Nossiter at the
reception afterwards and said he found Nossiter's defense against
being divisive - that he just showed what he saw - so facile as to be
disingenious.

In the film Rosenthal commented that the current battle in the wine world was like the collaborators and the resistance in World War II. One of the panelists, perhaps Nossiter, said that a historian of the period had told him that, at the time, it was difficult to tell what exactly constituted collaboration or what constituted resistance, and therefore, who exactly was collaborating or resisting. This was agreed to apply to the current "battle" over wine.

There were three Joel Rosenthal selection wines served at the
reception - a Bandol Rose, a white Burgundy, and a St. Emillion. All
were fabulous, to my taste. The Bandol was light, richly but
delicately floral, and still gently girded by something approaching
structure. The Burgundy had a good core of concentrated ripe (but not
super-ripe) fruit, and a good supporting acidity not really distinct
from the fruit. The Bordeaux was concentrated red fruit, cedar spicy
and black earth, very lively and hitting many notes at once. I wanted
to ask him more about the wines, but I never managed to get in a word
between the other people there talking to him. (In that crowd, I was "just a consumer".)

Joe Bilman's comment was that, in his opinion, the movie was summed up
by his own choice in cars: a 1973 Alfa Romeo and a 2004 Lexus. Each
has its charms.