Some Good Books From Graduate School...

I will soon hand in my last assignment for a class on global social movements, completing the coursework for a master's degree in history (major world, minor U.S.) at Georgia State University in Atlanta. All that remains is the oral and written exams I'll be taking this June and I'll have my M.A.

As part of earning a master's degree, one has to read a lot of books. I chose the non-thesis option, so I had to take ten classes instead of nine. And that means even more books. Luckily this is a subject I'm strongly interested in, so reading wasn't a chore at all.

Below are some of my favorite graduate-school books and the reasons why I enjoyed them.

Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History-Editor Alexander Cook oversaw an anthology of articles by different historians focusing on different situations using Mao's Little Red Book as the lens. And it's really interesting--you have the student left in 1960s and 1970s Germany, you have the Shining Path in Peru, you have the Maoist-ish regime in Tanzania, and China during the Cultural Revolution. Plus it's provided me with some choice dystopian bits like every village having a loudspeaker providing the population with the regime's guidance--and in some cases loudspeakers inside people's houses they can't turn off.

Before European Hegemony-This book describes the world system from the 13th Century until the Portuguese rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean with armed warships. The bare bones of this world system are wool from England is made into textiles in the Low Countries, traded by Italians into the Middle East, and eventually from there goes to India, the East Indies, and China. But that's a massive oversimplification. My main problem with the book is that it understates the role of Islamic piracy in the Mediterranean in the Dark Ages (something the Pelican History of Medieval Europe points out), but that's a pretty small nitpick.

Killing for Coal-This book is about the big 1914 coal strike in Colorado. It's generally remembered for the Ludlow Massacre, but not for the fact that the miners proceeded to spend the week after the massacre beating the crap out of the Colorado state militia. Seriously, if things hadn't been headed off, there could've been some kind of statewide U.S. version of the Paris Commune. The book is a really interesting exploration of the coal industry at the time, the labor struggles wracking it, and just how darn important coal was for the U.S. at the time. This book played a major role in my decision to add more class-labor elements to the Wastelands series I'm working on, plus it was a source of really interesting information on what coal was used for. Fortunately most of Battle for the Wastelands (the first book, which is already written) takes place in a more rural area among soldiers scrabbling to maintain a limited technological base; it's the second novel, Battle for the Wastelands: Escape (formerly titled Escape from the Wastelands) where this influence will be felt.

Before Columbus-This book examines the Mediterranean antecedents of the Spanish settlement of the New World. There's a very interesting historical analogy involving the Reconquista. Parts of Spain the Christians conquered from the Muslims were like the British Empire in India, with a large number of Muslims ruled by a Christian/collaborator ruling class, while others were like the American West with a relatively small Muslim population and a much more arid landscape. I remember reading somewhere that Spanish kids play "Moros y Christianos" instead of "Cowboys and Indians" and that might be the inspiration for it. The Colombian Exchange, one of the books I'm reading for my exams this June, definitely compares the cowboy culture of the Spanish New World with Spain before the Muslims were expelled.

The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II-I first learned about this from an excerpt in the historiography book The Houses of History and ordered an abridged one-volume work for a paper on the influence of author Braudel. It's a good example of the "longue duree" type of history with a strong dose of environmental determinism. Very interesting.

White Flight-Although I question the argument that modern American conservatism emerged from specific policies intended to stymie integration (there are non-racist reasons to oppose expansion of mass transit, after all), this is still a very interesting history of Atlanta, the city supposedly "too busy to hate" during the Civil Rights era in the U.S. Lots of interesting stuff, including what happened to an American Neo-Nazi trying to keep blacks from moving into a particular neighborhood in the late 1940s. Seriously, antagonizing a prosecutor who's a WWII Marine veteran is a really, really bad idea. Also provides an interesting political history of Atlanta and the surrounding communities before, during, and after the civil rights era.

Birth of the Modern World-Another book I'm reading for exams this June. This is book is notable for introducing me to the "industrious revolution" paradigm that predates the Industrial Revolution and puts the American Indian wars in the context of Australian wars against Aborigines and the wars of the British and their Indian clients against tribal peoples in India. Growing industrial states finally suppressing tribal/nomadic peoples, basically.

Britons-A very interesting book about the origins of the British national identity. Some of the material early on really de-romanticizes the Jacobites (apparently they weren't even that popular in Scotland) and uses patterns of landownership and intermarriage to describe the growth of a collective "British" identity incorporating English, Welsh, Scots, etc.

American Babylon-I met the author while selling books at a conference and he was very pleased to know that I liked this book, which is about the growth and decay of Oakland, better than Origins of the Urban Crisis, which is about the growth and decay of Detroit. The latter is considered one of the best books in the field, but I thought American Babylon was written better and more detailed.

Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures-Chocolate and tobacco were used in sacred and political ceremonies by the indigenous populations of the Spanish New World. So how exactly did they become popular foods/products in Europe? This book explains how. It's also got some interesting stuff about how the Indians adapted to Spanish rule and how the Spanish colonists picked up a lot of indigenous culture in Mexico.

The 2013 Georgia Big Picture Conference Blog I Manage

Behold the new blog of the 2013 Georgia Big Picture Conference!

I will be managing this blog on behalf of one of my clients. Information about upcoming Atlanta-area film events and workshops and the conference itself will be appearing there.

A Recipe To Save The GOP Part One: Distributism

Much is being said about the poor long-term demographic prospects of the Republican Party. I've done some thinking about that and here are some ideas I've got to retool the GOP for the long run. I'll dedicate this post to economics and a later post to social issues.

Firstly, I've heard it said that millennials (my generation) will be voting against George W. Bush the rest of their lives due to the Great Recession and other issues. As the Boomers die off, real or perceived fealty to the big banks whose reckless financial practices helped cause the recession must be avoided.

But how to do this without betraying property rights, capitalism, etc? Well, here's a solution that people might not have thought about.

Distributism. And there are ways to implement it without an excessively activist state. Back when "too big to fail" was the mantra people who supported bailing out the banks and auto companies cited, someone else pointed out that too big to fail was also too big to exist. There was an opportunity there to avoid "too big to fail" in the future by requiring any entity accepting federal bailout funds to spin off parts of their operations into smaller companies. Although one ought to keep economies of scale in mind (that's a big flaw in the distributist economic model), many companies spin off on their own already. Obviously this opportunity has passed, but should there ever be a perceived need for another bailout (and there might), it should come with strings that ensure that "too big to fail" is no longer a problem. The GOP can also oppose corporate welfare like farm subsidies, which are used by agribusinesses to buy out smaller competitors. In this case, one can oppose "bigness" by simply being fiscal conservative rather than being particularly activist.

I proposed this as a solution to the GOP's demographic woes on my alternate history Internet forum and someone suggested that without a commitment to help people on the bottom end of the economic totem pole, this is just "Libertarianism lite" and would be "hollow" rather than true distributism. If we want to go with conservative ideas on hands-up, not hand-outs, education and infrastructure are two ways to deal with it.

For starters, the cost of attending college has risen drastically over the last few decades, with a big jump recently fueled by state-level budget cuts brought on by the recession. It was once possible to make enough money doing summer jobs to pay for college, but this is increasingly more difficult now. And good educational systems breed economic success--Silicon Valley exists in a large degree due to the University System of California's presence in the area, while a strong university system propelled California's historic prosperity. Meanwhile, according to a U.S. Congressman I saw speak once, foreign companies don't bring jobs to America because of lack of worker skills, not overly high wages. Improving the technical college system will bring blue-collar type jobs back to America, providing prospects for the majority of people who don't go to college.

As a reporter for The Griffin Daily News, I observed that in order to attract businesses, the local government agreed to refurbish a rail line. Many of the local VIPs were in favor of the TSPLOST to improve infrastructure as well. Working as a journalist later on the North Side, I saw a lot of this as well. Infrastructure is already to a large degree a government responsibility, so a stronger focus on infrastructure would not be expanding the scope of government. And if infrastructure is good for business, that means jobs for people and thus less need for handouts. There is a fine line between this sort of thing and the corporate welfare I've decried above, so one must be careful.

Adopting a distributist economic model, which is based on Catholic teachings, could help the GOP appeal to the growing (largely Catholic) Hispanic demographic, which also tends to favor a larger government. It will also appeal to the Occupy types and Tea Partiers opposed to things like bailouts. An emphasis on small business could appeal to immigrant small business owners that in some places pretty much are the bourgeoisie and who are in danger of being turned off by perceived nativism in the GOP. Finally, since it's a Christian ideology, many in the Religious Right might be open to it, especially younger evangelicals concerned about "social justice" or supporters of Mike Huckabee, who was more interventionist on economic issues and more overtly concerned about the poor than many of his Republican peers. A campaign to revamp America's failing infrastructure would, so long as the improvement program exists, generate more blue-collar jobs and hopefully bring those works over to the Republican fold. It will also benefit companies that might oppose a distributist "anti-bigness" program by providing them government contracts. Spending more money on education will hopefully mitigate the opposition to the GOP among the well-educated, something Rick Santorum hasn't been helpful with.

Furthermore, this is something squarely in line with Republican tradition. Teddy Roosevelt was not a fan of the monopolistic trusts of his era, which were prone to engaging in legitimate abuses.

Although I imagine people might think I'm suggesting selling out Republican principles to buy votes of various demographics, none of these ideas are anti-conservative. Many of them, like opposition to corporate welfare, align with traditional fiscal conservative principles, while improving existing infrastructure simply means the government is taking responsibility for something that has historically been its responsibility.

Obviously all these things will have to be paid for. The only idea I've got to pay for them at the federal level (as opposed to local stuff like not handing out property tax exemptions too readily) off the top of my head are cuts in farm subsidies and other sorts of corporate welfare and in defense, which are coming anyway as the public turns away from an active foreign policy as a result of the Iraq and Afghan Wars. I'll write more on this later.

Writing Contest Update and Summer Goals

These last few days I haven't been able to get any work done on my personal writing projects due to paid writing obligations, leaving my current word count for May at 14,000 words. This will give Nick, who has more time commitments than I do but can write the same amount if not more material when he does have time, a good shot at catching up. Hopefully I won't need to buy him lunch this month, although later in the summer it's looking more likely.

(That being said, I've got a week left and my most severe deadlines have passed, so it's back in the saddle again...)

However, regardless of who wins the contest this month or overall, I'm thinking of setting two goals for the summer.

1. Finish the first draft of The Thing In The Woods. It's getting clearer and clearer this is a young-adult novel, so I don't need to worry about it being so short. If I can get it to 60,000 words or so, that'll be fine with me. That being said, Delilah S. Dawson's upcoming young-adult novel is 80K to 90K and Jeff Baker's recently-completed young-adult horror novel (he described it as Harry Potter meets Lovecraft) is 100,400 words, so maybe I need to be careful. My graduate school classes start in late August and I imagine the reading and paper commitments will be extremely challenging, so let's see if I can get it done by August 26. Delilah and James R. Tuck manage to get whole first drafts completed in months and they have much more familial and other real-life responsibilities than I do, so it's time to crack the whip.

2. Finish the "Coil Gun" script. I'm around 85 pages in and the minimum page count for a script to be taken seriously, according to a friend of mine who lives in Los Angeles and writes for Elementary, is 90. I think I could finish that in a week if I really put my nose to the grindstone, since I once wrote 40 pages in a week and I'm adapting one of my own short stories, not devising entirely new material. Then take it to an Alpharetta group I'm in (that I haven't attended in months) that has a monthly screenwriting meeting and register it with the Writer's Guild of America to be safe.

Character Interview: Ian Barnes

Today we at The World According To Quinn have the pleasure of sitting with Ian Barnes, a junior at Ohio University.

Author: So, where are you from?

Ian: I grew up in the Huntsburg Township, in northern Ohio. My father helps manage the East Branch Reservoir there, for the city of Akron. My mother is a teacher in Cardinal High School. I graduated from there in 2009.

Author: Did you ever have your mother as a teacher?

Ian (reddens): Nope. Although I had friends who had parents for teachers, my mother was always careful to avoid that. Even if there's no favoritism--or overdoing it to avoid favoritism--it still doesn't look good to a lot of people.

Author: That's cool. How is school going for you these days?

Ian: It's going well. I'm now a staff writer for The Post, the Ohio University student newspaper. My beat is student activities, so I do a lot of stories on the Greek system, clubs, and the like. It's really interesting.

Author: That's how you met Sarah, right?

Ian (raises eyebrow): How did you...oh, wait, you talked to her already.

Author: Yep.

Ian: Cool. I was doing a story on the work they were doing for the local food bank. Every Saturday--and I mean every Saturday--a bunch of them go to the Southeastern Ohio Food Bank and help organize donations. I went along with them a couple of times to get a feel for the story, interview some of the girls, and talk to officials at the food bank.

Author: Did you start dating her then?

Ian (shakes head): Nope. When I first came to the school, I had a tendency to... (Swallows) Ask girls out too soon. Pouncing on someone I just met would just be doing the same thing I'd done before and likely get the same results. I think that's what Einstein called "insanity."

Author: Makes sense. So how did you end up dating?

Ian: Well, I'd taken some Advanced Placement classes and that allowed me to finish my core curriculum up a bit early, which in turn freed up more time to take interesting electives. One of them was folklore. I'd like to be a novelist, you see, even though I'm majoring in health communications. Guess who was in the class with me?

Author: Sarah.

Ian: I didn't want to be too eager at first, but if you see someone fairly often and get to know them better, that makes this less, well, "now or never." Plus she actually lives pretty close to me, so we can see each other during the summer.

Author: Awesome.

(Ian smiles.)

Author: So what about folklore interests you?

Ian: Well, I always did like urban legends. The class has a good bit of material on urban legends originating in Ohio, including some from my neck of the woods. It's always interesting to know where these stories come from and how they change over the years.

Author: Do you think any of those stories are true?

Ian: I'm sure some started out with a grain of truth, but the tale grows with the telling, you know. The "melon heads" story, for example. A bunch of hydrocephalic kids escaping a doctor who was abusing them? That makes sense. But them living out in the woods long-term and actually reproducing? Seems far-fetched, especially since I've heard hydrocephalus will kill without treatment.

Author: Makes sense. What kind of novels are you interested in writing?

Ian: Well, I've always figured I could write the Great American Novel, but let's be realistic--I need more life experience. In the meantime, I think I can write some good comedy. One writer I like is Christopher Moore. I really liked his vampire trilogy, at least the first two, while The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove and Lamb were pretty funny too.

Author: Have you started writing anything?

Ian: I've been taking notes for the last couple of years for a college comedy. Think Van Wilder, but not nearly as vulgar.

What will Ian do when he finds out the Melon Heads aren't just a story? Find out by reading "Melon Heads," available at Amazon.

My Friend Eli's Hilarious, Cynical Song

My friend Eli Banks posted this song he wrote in 2002 (when we were both juniors or seniors in high school, depending on which side of the summer it was) on Facebook. It goes to the tune of "My Favorite Things" and took 23 minutes for him to write:

People whose breath smells like ranch flavored Pringles
Speed limit drivers who use their turn signals
Geniuses, intellects, no one's a fool
These are the people I see at my school

Really fast walkers who know where they're going
People whose insight is constantly growing
Someone you couldn't refer to as "tool"
These are the people I see at my school

When I'm angry
When I'm hungry
When I feel irate
I simply start thinking of kids at my school
And then I start feeling great!

Good taste in music and beautiful fashion
Students who care who are learning with passion
Good human beings who follow the rules
These are the people I see at my school

Nobody drinks and nobody does drugs
Walk through the halls and start giving out hugs
Everyone's loving and everyone's cool
These are the people I see at my school!

When I'm angry
When I'm hungry
When I feel irate
I simply start thinking of kids at my school
And then I start feeling great!

For the record, this was written during his "glory days of sarcasm and bitterness." Those who didn't particularly enjoy high school or know people who didn't should get a kick out of this.

Melon Heads Character Interview: Sarah Haley

Former member of my Lawrenceville writing group Malissa Thomas came up with the idea for interviewing characters in one's writing, which in her case is her serialized novel Finding Monsters. I've decided to borrow the idea, so today on the World According to Quinn, we'll be interviewing Ohio University sophomore Sarah Haley.

Author: So tell us, Sarah, where were you born?

Sarah: I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but my family moved to Chardon when I was three. They wanted a place quieter than the big city. I graduated from Chardon High School in 2010.

Author: What was it like growing up in Chardon?

Sarah (toys with her dark hair): Well, it is a small town where people know each other a lot more. That can be boring sometimes, although Cleveland's not too far away. On the other hand, it's easier to be a big fish in a small pond.

Author: What do you mean?

Sarah: Well, it was a lot easier to get on the track and softball teams when I did.

Author: Two sports? That's impressive.

Sarah: Not at the same time! Track and field and softball are during the same parts of the year. I always wanted to do both, but eventually chose softball.

Author: Why?

Sarah: Well, I'd played softball when I was little, but got into youth track in middle school. I kind of missed softball. Also, playing softball still gave me the chance to run, but doing track would never give me the chance to throw, if you understand what I'm saying.

Author: Did you play in college?

Sarah (shaking her head): I'm sure you've heard of the expression "jack of all trades, master of none." I wasn't bad at either sport, but wasn't good enough to earn a scholarship in either. Besides, when I was in high school, sports took up all of my time. I never even dated anyone. I wanted to join a sorority and socialize more. I still do intramurals though.

Author: How did that go?

Sarah: Well, I joined Chi Omega. They're a wonderful group of girls and do a lot of community service. We also do mixers with the fraternities and some of the schools on campus.

Author: How do those go?

Sarah: You meet a lot of interesting guys that way. Some are real stinkers, but others are cool. My Big Sister just got engaged to a man she met at a mixer with the law school.

Author: Are you dating anyone now?

Sarah: Yep. A nice boy named Ian Barnes, who grew up in the Huntsburg Township. It's not that far away from Chardon, actually. It's easier to hang out when school's out. I met him when he was doing a story on Chi Omega for the school paper and when I took an elective focusing on folklore, guess who was in the class?

Author: That's pretty funny. What are you majoring in?

Sarah: Secondary education and teaching. I'd like to be a high school teacher and coach either track or softball.

Author: Those are worthy goals to have.

Sarah: Thanks!

What will happen when one of the "stinkers" Sarah refers to decides to take revenge on her and her new boyfriend? Find out in my short horror/dark comedy story "Melon Heads," available on Amazon.

Problems With Cain, Perry, Romney

Here are some issues with the current Republican front-runner candidates that show why Jon Huntsman is a better choice for the 2012 GOP nomination.

Although I voted for Herman Cain when he ran against Johnny Isakson in the Republican primary in 2004, I am not inclined to support him now.  In addition to his earlier conspiracy-mongering about Islamic law in America, his "999" plan has a bit of a problem.

84% would pay more under Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan.  That's right.  84 percent of Americans would pay more taxes under this plan.  And it would burden the poorest Americans to a large degree.

Although many claimed the Bush tax cuts would burden the poor, that's a foolish argument.  Nobody's taxes were raised.  This, however, would be a tax increase.  I don't mind sales taxes in small quantities--I have written in support of Metro Atlanta's proposed regional sales tax to pay for transportation improvements and Fulton County's Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax to improve the schools--but a nine percent sales tax on top of state sales taxes would be fairly burdensome.

And as Rick Santorum said, many states lack sales taxes.  This scheme would impose a federal sales tax on those states and additionally burden their taxpayers.

Meanwhile, Rick Perry has started pandering toward the Birthers.  Thankfully he isn't overtly claiming that Obama wasn't born in the United States, but this interview shows that he's trying to appeal to them.  There are reasons to dislike Barack Obama--"Gunwalker" comes to mind--but the claim he was not born in the United States when there are birth announcements for him dating back to the 1960s is absurd.  Such people should be ignored, not pandered to.

And here are some reasons not to view Mitt Romney as an authentic conservative, listed in an open letter from Huntsman to New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu.  Assuming this is true--and it does ring true, considering Romney's more left-wing record in the past--Romney's a lot less conservative than I had thought.

A Very Moving "Calvin and Hobbes" Fan-Fic

I found Reminiscence, a one-shot "Calvin and Hobbes" fan-fiction today courtesy of TVTropes.  I wasn't aware there even was "Calvin and Hobbes" fan-fiction until today but I've been a lifelong fan of the comic (my parents read it to me before I could read myself), so I figured I'd give it a whirl.

It's really well-done.  The author clearly knows the comic strip--he or she refers to "Uncle Max" (a minor character Bill Watterson ultimately got rid of) and gets the name of Calvin's babysitter's boyfriend correct.

The story is equal parts funny and moving.  After all, it's about Calvin growing up and what ultimately happens to everyone.  I won't go into detail, but although I hate sad things, this is both sad and beautiful.

Enjoy!

A Proposal to Keep Cobb's Libraries Safe...

Recently, I got quite a scare.  Cobb County, where I grew up, was considering closing most of its library system in order to fill a $31.5 million budget gap.

Proposed Cobb budget plan would close most libraries, slightly increase taxes

(Luckily, the Cobb government found a way to keep the libraries open, although cutting public-safety was not the ideal way to do it.)

Given I spent many hours haunting the now-closed Merchant's Walk Library (replaced by a new library nearby) and the Mountain View library that would have survived even if the cuts were implemented, this was not something I liked at all.

And cutting libraries is a bad idea for more than just personal reasons.  Given how job applications are increasingly becoming online-only, libraries provide the major opportunity for people who don't have computers (or who have dumped their Internet connections to cut costs) to apply for jobs.  The unemployed finding jobs means tax revenue and consumer spending, which means more tax revenue.  If the county government made it more difficult for those without home computers to find jobs, it would be shooting itself in the foot.

Furthermore, libraries provide a ready source for books for students in the local schools, who will need to use them for required-reading assignments and research for their papers.  This is especially applicable to poorer students who may not have lots of books at home or Internet access and who might not have ready access to a car to get them to a farther-away library.

And finally, libraries provide major opportunities for those who seek to learn outside of school.  I learned a colossal amount of things I would never have learned otherwise if I did not have access to the library system.  Over the years, I probably read thousands of books.  And this wasn't just for pure entertainment or the joy of learning--many of those books had to do with improving my personal writing.  The document "General Writing Tips" on my computer is full of bits of useful advice I'd gotten from books I would not have even known existed if I hadn't gone wandering the shelves--it's a file I really should read more regularly.

Without the library system, I would have never reached my full potential.  And I had parents who cared a great deal about my education and put a whole lot of effort into it--when I was very young, my mother read to me an hour per day.  Someone not similarly blessed would be in need of the library system even more.

Now, libraries are government programs and require tax monies to sustain them.  As a conservative/Libertarian, I'm not a fan of high taxes and generally believe low taxes promote economic growth.

(And lest anyone start, Reagan and Bush 2.0 both spent colossal sums, the former on the military expansion that pressed the Soviets so and Social Security and the latter on the Iraq War, which was truly a massive drain.  The fact both ran up deficits does not disprove supply-side economics, since both were big spenders.  If a tightwad president still ran deficits under a low-tax regime, THEN the anti-supply-siders would have a much stronger point.)

I will admit, there comes a point when taxes are too low to gather the necessary revenue--the far left end of the Laffer Curve.  Although I lived in Cobb County most of my life, I'm not familiar with the tax rates so I cannot comment intelligently on whether or not they're too high or too low.

However, there's a way to increase Cobb County's income without raising taxes per se.

House gives final approval to Sunday alcohol sales bill

According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, allowing Sunday alcohol sales could raise $3.4 million to $4.8 million for the state of Georgia.  The AJC quoted the group's vice-president, Ben Jenkins, as saying this was "state tax revenues."  This means there are additional monies to be had for local governments too, on top of the money going to Atlanta.


If Cobb County were to legalize Sunday alcohol sales, it would raise additional funds.  I don't know how much, since I am not familiar with how alcohol is taxed, but in these economic times, every little bit of extra money helps.  Legalizing Sunday alcohol sales would provide additional revenue for the county to provide needed services--not just libraries, but others as well.


I no longer live in Cobb County, so my voice would carry less weight than those living there still.  Those of who do live in Cobb County, if you could contact the county commissioners with this suggestion, it would be very helpful for the long-term future of your community.

First News Article Round-Up of 2011

Here's my first news-article round-up of 2011...

http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb-gwinnett-receive-federal-784889.html

Cobb and Gwinnett Counties rejected participating in MARTA back in the 1970s and Gwinnett rejected it once again in the 1990s.  This is a significant turnaround.  Whatever concerns there are about costs and importing hooligans via train (crime around Lenox went up soon after MARTA connected there) must've paled in the face of the possibility of $4 per gallon gasoline starting next summer.

Given Atlanta's notorious traffic, anything that will take cars off the road will certainly be beneficial.  Although the project paying for itself via fares is unlikely, reducing congestion and air pollution will be a major benefit and in my opinion, worth paying for.

And including Cobb and Gwinnett in MARTA might improve the governance of the organization, which has been plagued by boneheadedness and corruption in the past.

Of course, there's the issue of finding money to pay for MARTA expansion, especially in a time of budget deficits.  I don't think monies from the TSPLOST voters will vote on in 2012 can be used to pay for MARTA operations, but they could be used to pay for building the lines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/world/asia/04china.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&src=un&feedurl=http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/world/asia/index.jsonp&adxnnlx=1294156855-LPhLoeD57e9INs3S6Z+r/Q

This is good news.  Considering how the alternative to reprocessing nuclear fuel is burying it somewhere for 10,000 years (and making sure our descendants know not to mess with it) or letting it pile up at the nuclear plants themselves, this is very good news.

One quibble: The article states that the National Research Council found that Bush's reprocessing program would have been uneconomical.  Here's the actual report and it's much more nuanced--the technology is not at the point needed to justify an accelerated timetable for building reprocessing sites. 

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?recordid=11998

That does NOT mean that reprocessing in the United States is uneconomical.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/to-beat-back-poverty-pay-the-poor/

Now this is interesting.  It reminds me of something that Richard Nixon proposed back in the 1970s, a guaranteed minimum income.

I'm not a big fan of handouts, but in the countries where this has been implemented, they've imposed all sorts of conditions on it like making sure one's children are educated and giving the monies to women rather than men. 

(Lest anyone accuse me of bashing men, I read about micro-financing in Haiti and how they gave the money to women because the men would gamble it all away on cock-fighting.) 

In the long run, this could break the cycle of poverty, producing a net gain in income (from educated workers rather than vagrants) and savings (lower incarceration and law-enforcement costs, for one).

However, IF such a thing were to be implemented, I would make it conditional on not drinking, smoking, and especially doing illegal drugs.  Drug- and alcohol-testing is surely doable.  Including classes for the adults receiving the monies would also be a good idea, since lack of education contributes to poverty and related problems, plus there is a "culture of poverty" that makes things worse for the poor that needs to be eradicated.

News Article Round-Up, Including a Possible Ban on Bake Sales

I had some links I wanted to blog on individually, but I was busy with my book and other tasks and they started piling up.  I'll just do them all at once...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40497637/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/

Seriously, Mrs. Obama?  Banning (or at least highly regulating) bake sales?

I can understand your concerns about the health of children and the awful overweight/obesity statistics in the United States.

However, this is a bad idea for several reasons.  For starters, unless you make following these rules a condition of receiving federal money, imposing them on state and local schools is unconstitutional.  Education is a state and local prerogative, not a federal one.  Even if it is a good idea, it is being done in the completely wrong manner.

Furthermore, this could do serious harm to organizations like bands, academic teams, etc. that depend on raising money from the local public to supplement funds from the school, if indeed they get any.  I was a member of my high school's Academic Bowl team and I remember we sold Chick-fil-A chicken biscuits to raise money to go on trips.  I'm pretty sure those didn't meet standards about portion size or what have you.

My life would be a lot poorer if I hadn't been able to go to the tournaments in Chicago, St. Louis, Myrtle Beach, etc.  Those were fun and highly educational.

I hope if Obama signs the measure, someone challenges the constitutionality of it in the Supreme Court.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45687.html

Joe Scarborough warns the Republican Party about how Sarah Palin would not be good for them.

I share his concerns.  Something I'm afraid of is that Sarah Palin wins the primaries due to her strength in the Republican Party base and then is destroyed in 2012 by Barack Obama.  I can imagine her winning the South and Midwest, but if Republicans win only that, they lose the election.  See 2008, for starters, along with Clinton's electoral wins in the 1990s.

And that assumes the South and Midwest vote for her because she's a Republican.  If something like the Katie Couric interview happens and less-"hard core" Republicans decide Obama is the lesser evil, it could be even worse.  It'd be 1964 all over again.

And I'm saying this as someone who will defend Palin against some of her detractors, like Andrew Sullivan's baby conspiracy theories or the people on DemocraticUnderground who call her a quitter, even though she resigned as governor because her enemies kept filing lawsuits against her that had to be fought with taxpayer money.

(She fell on her sword to protect the state budget.  The lefties are condemning her for her response to something THEY did.)

Note I did say some of her detractors.  She attacked Ronald Reagan (or at least came off as doing so--I haven't seen the context of her remarks), and that's just not cool.  Given the esteem Reagan is held in the Republican Party, this might be enough to ruin her chances of getting the nomination.

Let's hope Palin's reality-TV show is tremendously successful and it keeps her and hers busy for a long time to come.  :)