The Capitalism Strain

 


Researchers with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile have developed an insulating material which allows a device to achieve a cooling differential of up to 23 degrees Fahrenheit using no electricity and no moving parts. 23 degrees cooling may not be sufficient on its own in all applications, but it will certainly increase the efficiency of existing devices by assisting them in not working as hard and thereby using less electricity. The useful attributes of the new insulator will help mitigate the climate warming effects of increased use of air conditioning and refrigeration, which in turn can lead to increased climate warming, and on and on.

 


Heating and cooling of indoor spaces accounts for between 40 and 60 percent of energy use worldwide, depending on location and also on who is doing the studies and how. It’s enough to know that indoor climate control is the single biggest factor in energy use around the world. Heating is the larger portion of the 40 to 60 percent of energy use, but that could flip by mid-century as the warming climate increases demand for cooling and lessens demand for heating. Be that as it may, it helps to understand that overall energy use will continue climbing, as it has throughout human history, though perhaps at a lesser rate due to improvements in the efficiency of devices and systems.


'Today capitalism has outlived its usefulness' MLK
A banner outside the August 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, displays an image of Martin Luther King, Jr., along with a quote from him. Though the Reverend Dr. King’s remarks and activism on behalf of civil rights earned the most attention, his beliefs about the evils of unbridled capitalism and militarism were also worrisome to leaders of the nation’s power structure. Photo by Flickr user Liz Mc.


The achievements of researchers and engineers who develop improvements in using energy more efficiently are necessary and helpful in the fight against global warming, and they are to be lauded. It is government and business leaders and ourselves, the users of energy, who deserve condemnation as improvements in energy efficiency come without changes in the overall demand for energy and reduction of its deleterious effects on the climate. Embracing improvements in efficiency without simultaneously reducing our demand for more of a currently harmful thing is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Eliminating the burning of fossil fuels for energy will make the single greatest reduction in the pollutants causing global warming. That seems obvious, and it’s a simple statement to make, but it conflicts with powerful corporate, capitalist interests. Switching energy production entirely to renewable sources like wind, solar, and hydroelectric will greatly reduce pollutants, though not eliminate them. That also seems obvious. Ignoring for the moment the fraction of the population who blindly refuse to acknowledge responsibility for what is happening all around them, there is a greater obstructive force standing in the way of reducing carbon emissions enough in the next 10 years to slow – or even halt – climate change, and it is called capitalism.

The Trio of Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt sing “After the Gold Rush” on Late Show with David Letterman on March 24, 1999. Neil Young wrote the song for his 1970 solo album, and the lyrics of the final verse dreaming about escape from this planet to a new home are bound to remain a dream for the foreseeable future, despite the efforts of technology capitalist Elon Musk.

At the climax of Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain, the team of scientists studying an alien microbe they have dubbed “Andromeda” discover in the nick of time that the destructive microbe would grow out of control if given a nearly limitless source of energy, in this case the detonation of a nuclear device meant to contain it by destroying it. They discover the opposite would happen, that the Andromeda strain would feed greedily on the energy supplied by nuclear fission and would quickly overtake the planet, and in a tense scene during the countdown to detonation, they manage to disarm the research facility’s nuclear device. Capitalism is similarly greedy and destructive. It is a system that needs close watching and regulation, not the rampant deregulation of the past 40 years. Like the unregulated sex urge which has led to global overpopulation and the consequent strain on the earth’s resources, greed is also an innate urge in humans, an urge that has found its closest reflection in capitalism, and unregulated it plunders and eventually destroys the earth’s resources, including its many peoples, rich and poor alike.
— Techly

 

The Night Light

 

There was a time, thirty and more years ago, when late night television struck a delicate balance between light entertainment and interesting conversations with political and media celebrities in a talk show that was perhaps taken for granted at the time and has not been repeated since, namely The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In the time since, there have been other late night shows which touched on some of the same notes, particularly the ones hosted by David Letterman, but none have reproduced the entire formula, if indeed they were even trying. Since 2016, reruns of The Tonight Show have been airing, and viewing them is a revelation in comparison to the shows currently airing.

 

Phil Donahue Johnny Carson 1970
Johnny Carson appeared in August 1970 as a guest on the syndicated daytime talk show The Phil Donahue Show. Phil Donahue, on the right, talked with a wide variety of guests, much like Carson did on his show, with the difference being that Donahue often went into greater depth in his interviews, many times having only one guest on for an entire hour long show. Photo by Rollyn Puterbaugh.

Late night television talk shows have never been a fountainhead of intellectual conversation, but compared to what passes for conversation on today’s shows, the talk shows of the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s could almost pass for Socratic dialogues. Perhaps with the atomization of media into YouTube and social media outlets, where people can select snippets of the shows they want to watch, having long form dialogues between host and guest is no longer salable. In that case, it’s hard to say whether the fault belongs with the audience or with the purveyors, or even whether either party sees assigning blame as necessary. Maybe they are all happy with the new situation.

Thanks to the same internet media outlets which have served the short, snappy comedy bits on the new late night talk shows well, many of the older shows which have a more limited audience, such as the earliest Tonight Show episodes hosted by Steve Allen, Jack Paar, or Johnny Carson, are available for those who know where to look. Meanwhile, for those less internet savvy, there are reruns of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson available on select television outlets around the country.

An appearance by the Smothers Brothers on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in January 1991 exemplifies the kind of classy, understated comedy rarely seen since then on the late night talk shows or anywhere else on television.

It’s interesting that a talk show, of all formats, can hold up to scrutiny from thirty years on, because much of the political jokes and movie and television show plugs from the era of original airing have of course dated, and some may even be incomprehensible to many viewers now. What makes return viewing worthwhile is the charm and charisma of the host, Johnny Carson, in relating to his guests; the polish of the show’s production and its good natured sensibility; and the view into a world which expected a little more from its viewers in the form of attention span and intellectual capacity than what is expected today by most of the late night television media, never mind the distorted mirror held up to our society by the trashy daytime shows which we acknowledge with revulsion or delight, depending on our point of view.
— Vita

 

A Good Backup

 

“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me Nigger.”
― Muhammad Ali (1942-2016), speaking in 1966 in protest of the military draft.

Nearing the end of another NFL season, it’s easy to see how important a quality backup quarterback can be to a team’s fortunes in making it into the playoffs. Sixteen games, some of them on short rest on Thursdays, takes a toll on starting quarterbacks, especially since teams have become pass oriented in the past thirty or more years. When teams ran more than they passed, which was generally the case until about 1980, quarterbacks didn’t take as much of a beating as they do now. The NFL, as it has too often done, tinkered with the rule book at about that time, changing it to favor the passing game and increase scoring. No more low scoring defensive slug fests, if they could help it. Air Coryell, named for Don Coryell, the head coach of the San Diego Chargers from 1978 to 1986, became the model for a new style of NFL play.


The NFL has allowed greed to take the upper hand and has over saturated the market. Player protests against police brutality are the least of its problems, much as league officials would like to blame the protests for all its problems. Slipping in the television ratings started several years ago, before the protests began. The league’s real problems begin with a rule book as complicated as the Talmud, and the rigorous application of all its tenets can slow games to a crawl,  along with all the artificial television timeouts taken to cram in over an hour’s worth of commercials into each game. The game has become a technocratic bore.

JohnnyUnitasSignAutograph1964
Johnny Unitas signing an autograph at the Baltimore Colts’ Westminster, Maryland training camp in the summer of 1964. Unitas, the starting quarterback for the Colts from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, was often hurt, but his backup many of those years, Earl Morrall, was probably the best in NFL history. Photo by Joel Kaufman.

Speaking of the protests, it seems there is no one around in the media to speak up for the players the way Howard Cosell spoke up for controversial athletes in his day. Mr. Cosell lent a real world perspective to sports that is missing today. Yes, he was bombastic, but the bombast was always mere showmanship, and most people understood that. Some were so irritated by Mr. Cosell that they couldn’t see past his bombast and arrogance, all of it done with a sly wink, and therefore they tuned him out, missing his points about keeping a realistic, adult perspective on sports in the larger world.

Comedian Billy Crystal tells a story about Howard Cosell in this 2013 appearance on David Letterman’s late night talk show.
Howard Cosell was a good backup for his viewers against the more real and destructive bombast and arrogance of NFL owners and marketers, as well as other authority figures in sports and in the politics surrounding it. He would have backed up the players protesting police brutality now similarly to the way he backed up Muhammad Ali when Ali refused to comply with the draft. The league doesn’t always look out for the players’ best interests when they make rules changes and schedule expansions out of greed, and it appears no one in the current media has the stature and integrity Howard Cosell had in the late twentieth century, and will as he did back up athletes when they exercise their constitutional rights as citizens.
― Vita

Howard Cosell guest starred as himself on a 1972 episode of the television situation comedy The Odd Couple, with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. Ironically, Mr. Cosell was at the height of his fame then largely because of his broadcasting duties on Monday Night Football, which started in 1970, inaugurating the bloat of the NFL into the ubiquitous bore it has become today.