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Water on the Moon -- and Money for NASA
By Jon Wiener
"Water found on the moon," the headlines said – water that "could be used for drinking," the LA Times reported, possibly enough for "future astronauts to live off the land."
The "water" that was "found," however, consisted of 25 gallons. The average American uses about 80 gallons of water per day, according to the US Geological Survey. But most of that is for flushing the toilet and taking showers. If the astronauts used lunar "water" only for drinking, and if three astronauts each drank six eight-ounce glasses per day, they would drink the 25 gallons in about three weeks.
There would be a problem, however. NASA didn't find one big frozen puddle – their spectrometers identified dust that suggested water molecules were "likely to be mixed in with the soil." Getting the H2O out of the frozen soil would take energy and equipment. Maybe it would be easier for our people to bring their own water.
(87) CommentsNovember 14, 2009
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Berlin, Israel, Mexico: Walls Across the World
By Jon Wiener
It's being called "the most ambitious commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany": "The Wall Project" in Los Angeles -- and its political message will surprise many. Artists commissioned by the organizers have promised works that draw analogies between the Berlin Wall and the wall the Israelis have erected along the border with the West Bank, and the wall the US has erected along the Mexican border.
That's not exactly the sort of thing Ronald Reagan had in mind when he stood in Berlin in 1989 and said "Tear down this wall!"
LA's Berlin Wall anniversary commemoration has been organized by the Wende Museum, a private institution in Culver City, with the support of the City of L.A. It includes "The Wall Across Wilshire," a one-hour event on November 8 at which a replica of the Berlin Wall 60 feet long will be erected blocking Wilshire Blvd. in front of the County Museum of Art at midnight.
(244) CommentsNovember 2, 2009
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U of Cal Budget Protests Draw Thousands
By Jon Wiener
Thursday was a "Day of Action" against draconian budget cuts at the University of California campuses, and thousands of people rallied in protest at all ten campuses. At UC Berkeley, 5,000 students and workers, along with many faculty members, rallied at noon. At the same hour at UCLA, 700 students and workers and a few faculty members gathered at Bruin Plaza. And 500 rallied at UC Irvine, which Time magazine described as "normally placid."
The normally placid UC Irvine is where I teach.
The best sign I saw at the UCI rally read "If I wanted to go to a private school, I would have been born into a rich family."
(69) CommentsSeptember 25, 2009
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Adultery in South Carolina: Blame the Woman
By Jon Wiener
Here in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the famed "redneck Riviera," the death of the King of Pop has taken second place to the adultery of the Governor in the local news. But it's the comments posted online at South Carolina daily newspapers that suggest something about local sentiment on this issue. I guess I should not have been surprised by the number that blamed the woman, especially after the media identified her as Maria Belen Chapur, a journalist for the Argentine TV station Canal America.
In the Myrtle Beach Sun News [all quotes verbatim]: "Like most married men, he got caught involved with a woman of ways who seduced him. . . His biggest mistake was getting involved with a woman that when he tried to end it, sent copies of emails to his wife and the press anonymously and all knows she did it"-- tooclassy4you.
"This gal is having the time of her life. She's enjoying a sexual encounter with a governer in the US, AND most likely has another local stud on call for quickies. WOW! Ladies and gentleman this gal is a professional COUGAR" – ibshagn.
(72) CommentsJune 26, 2009
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Hawaii Prepares for North Korean Attack
By Jon Wiener
Vacationing on Kauai, the westernmost of the Hawaiian islands, the only question most tourists ask is which beach to go to today – but visitors and locals alike were startled by Thursday's news from Washington: a North Korean missile is now aimed at Hawaii, and Hawaii's missile defenses are being fortified.
Does that mean it's time to cancel the luau and get on the first plane home?
A Japanese newspaper reported that North Korea may – repeat may – fire "its most advanced ballistic missile toward Hawaii around July 4." Secretary of Defense Robert Gates then announced moving ground-based "interceptor" rockets to Hawaii, and activating the SBX – Sea-Based X-Band Radar, a $900 million, 280 foot high seagoing dome that looks like the world's biggest floating golf ball. It rides on a self-propelled oil platform, and is based at Pearl Harbor.
(74) CommentsJune 19, 2009
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Harvard Strike 40th Anniversary
By Jon Wiener
This spring is the 40th anniversary of the Harvard strike, one of the iconic moments of 1960s student protest, but -- strangely -- the only notice thus far has been in the "Opinion/Taste" pages of the Wall Street Journal.
They're still against it.
The strikers – I was one of them (as a grad student) -- demanded an end to university complicity in the war (kicking ROTC off campus); an end to evictions of working-class people from property the university wanted to develop; and the creation of a black studies program.
(7) CommentsMay 18, 2009
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Disaster in Dodgertown: Manny is Banned for 50 Games
By Jon Wiener
Somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; but there is no joy in Dodgertown: mighty Manny has struck out.
Manny Ramirez, the baseball superstar who led Los Angeles to a record-breaking winning streak at home this season, has been banned from baseball for 50 games. He tested positive for performance enhancing drugs on Wednesday night, and the town is reeling.
The drug in question, according to news reports, was human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), identified by Wikipedia as "a women's fertility drug typically used by steroid users to restart their body's natural testosterone production as they come off a steroid cycle." However Manny has never tested positive for steroids, and he said his doctor had prescribed it for "a medical condition."
(35) CommentsMay 8, 2009
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Hurricane Expert Fired by Bush Allies at LSU
By Jon Wiener
Louisiana State University is firing a leading hurricane scientist who was scheduled to testify as an expert witness in a case against the Army Corps of Engineers for their pre-Katrina work in New Orleans. Ivor van Heerden, who had been deputy director of LSU's Hurricane Center, says the school's former president, previously a Bush appointee, had earlier threatened to fire him if he testified.
Tenure exists, we are told, to protect the expression of views that are unpopular with the powerful. This is another case where the person who needed the protection of tenure didn't have it. LSU was able to fire van Heerden because he is an untenured Associate Research Professor.
Van Heerden was the leader of "Team Louisiana," the official independent state-funded investigation of the Katrina flooding. That panel found that the levee failures reflected poor design, bad science and shoddy engineering on the part of the Corps. The Bush Administration had held the levee failures were an "act of God."
(42) CommentsApril 13, 2009
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South Carolina Suffers While Gov. Rejects Stimulus Funds
By Jon Wiener
On a recent visit to a state whose Republican governor rejected $700 million in federal stimulus funds, I got a sense of how deep the economic slide has been. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is a prime resort destination for families from New York and New Jersey to Ohio and North Carolina. But the unemployment rate in Horry County, home of Myrtle Beach, reached 14.3 per cent in February, with the state as a whole at 10.7 per cent, among the worst in the nation (where the average in February was 8.1 per cent).
Nevertheless South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has said he will reject federal stimulus funds – to keep the government off our backs, of course. Now Republicans competing to succeed him are debating his decision.
Tourism is life on the Grand Strand, with its long, long beach lined with miles of high-rise timeshare condos and hotels and more than a hundred golf courses in the area. But for families coping with job loss, cancelling the summer vacation at the beach is one of the most obvious moves – which means economic disaster here.
(47) CommentsMarch 29, 2009
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Obama's 'Katrina Moment'? Never Mind.
By Jon Wiener
The AIG bailout bonuses were "Obama's Katrina Moment" -- that's what Frank Rich argued in his New York Times column on Sunday. Just three days later that seems like a ridiculous claim.
The original "Katrina Moment" came when the public turned against George W. Bush, definitely and permanently, after seeing his massive incompetence in handling the aftermath of the hurricane in August 2005. Bush's approval ratings dropped below 40 percent, and never went back up.
Obama's approval ratings in contrast actually have gone up since Rich made his pronouncement: in a new CBS poll released Tuesday, 64 percent of Americans say they favor the job that Obama is doing right now – two points more than CBS's poll earlier this month. Even more significant, ratings for the president's handling of the overall economy increased from 56 to 61 percent.
(64) CommentsMarch 25, 2009
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