The Quiet Generation Speaks Up

A few weeks ago, I posted a NY Times op-ed by Thomas Friedman, claiming that young adults today should be called Generation Q–the Quiet Generation that was too busy with online social networks to engage in activism the old fashioned way. Nathan Wyeth has a response in yesterday’s Grist. It seems that “[t]his weekend, some 5,000 young people from every state in the nation will be convening at the University of Maryland at College Park for the first national youth summit on climate change.”

In a word, excellent.

Rudy’s Record on the Green Thing

Here are some key points on where Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani stands on environmental issues–with video clips, no less.

Berkeley Helps Residents Go Solar

Berkeley is getting ready to become the first city in the country to help its residents configure their homes for solar power without paying for the equipment up front.

Under the plan, a city-approved solar installer would determine the kind of system the homeowner needs. The city would pay for the system and installation costs, minus any applicable rebates, and recoup the cost over a 20-year period through an additional assessment on the property tax bill.

Not only would the plan possibly save the taxpayer money in the long run (by lower electric bills, among other things), but it would bring Berkeley closer to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, per a measure that city voters approved last year.

Berkeley also is thinking about using the financing plan for other energy-saving projects, like insulation or heating. And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it will grant Berkeley $160,000 for some of the legal, accounting and staffing costs of starting the plan.

Impressive.

Publishing ‘Rough Drafts’ vs. ‘Original Work’

Tess Gallagher, widow of Raymond Carver, considered by many to be “the American Chekhov,” wants to publish “original versions” of 17 stories in his 1981 collection, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” But this op-ed by David L. Ulin notes “Carver’s early drafts–as well as his work before and after ‘What We Talk About’–are hardly the spare, poetic efforts with which he is identified but more discursive slices of working-class life.”

The question has been raised whether Carver’s “original” work should be published, given that his most famous work may have been influenced greatly by his editor, Gordon Lish. By publishing the “original” versions, Gallagher is reportedly trying to remove Lish’s influence.

“What’s at issue here is authorship, and the question of who ‘owns’ literature,” Ulin writes. “If Lish shaped Carver’s stories, the logic goes, then what part did Carver really play? And if the stories were, in fact, some kind of collaboration, what does that mean for Carver’s legacy?”

Although I think most writers would prefer the public not see their unedited work–here Nabakov is quoted, comparing it with “passing around samples of one’s sputum”–I can understand the fascination some people might have with seeing a writer’s efforts unadulterated by an editor’s hand and the various revisions preceding a final published story.

Ulin concludes: “In the end, it doesn’t matter how the stories came to reach their published form. At the same time, I don’t think we should hide the early drafts. After all, if Carver’s stories belong to him, they also belong to the rest of us, and we should be able to decide for ourselves what we think about the process by which they came to be.”

So writers–if you don’t want those early drafts to come out, I suggest you start shredding.

California Fires: Disaster as Hip Cliche

“Grim nonchalance” is the phrase Meghan Daum uses to describe the Californian’s view of the disasters they face in the Golden State.

Between earthquakes, wildfires and mudslides, California does come across as a risky place. But then the southeast has hurricanes. And the midwest has floods and tornados. And the northeast has blizzards and ice storms. So what place doesn’t have problems? None that come to my mind.

But I digress. I was talking about California and its residents. Daum says of them: “In the same way that New York City dwellers wear the hassles of their daily lives as a badge of honor, Californians like to view their proximity to impending disaster as a direct reflection of their toughness; evidence that they’re more interesting, more glamorous than everyone else–and the closer they live to the precarious edge, the more quintessentially Californian they are.”

She goes on to write: “[Joan] Didion called Los Angeles weather ‘the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse.’ [Raymond] Chandler, for his part, described windy Santa Ana nights when ‘meek little wives feel the edge of a carving knife and study their husbands’ necks.’ This is sexy stuff, but it’s also what we use to deny our own role in the mess.

“Yes, Mother Nature is mercurial, and yes, the winds that blow in from the desert have certain otherworldly qualities. But to become over-reliant on our disaster mythology, as poetic as it is, is to carry on a heedless romance with California rather than the respectful, mature relationship that ought to develop at some point in the love affair.

“Didion wrote, ‘We tell ourselves stories in order to live.’ But in order to live here, we also need cliches.”

Interesting. I guess you don’t see this kind of literary romanticism of tornados and hurricanes, do you?

Global Warming Victims

A new book, EARTH UNDER FIRE: HOW GLOBAL WARMING IS CHANGING THE WORLD, by environmental photojournalist Gary Braasch, has more than 100 photos of species, cultures and ecosystems threatened by climate change. Be sure to check out the cool photos with this article.

Two Cinematic Favorites

First, the review of a book about one of “the iconic American filmmakers of the last half-century.” Then, an article about a wonderful actor who’s described as “often the best thing in bad films (‘Along Came Polly,’ ‘Red Dragon’) or a small, integral part of wonderful films (‘Almost Famous,’ ‘Happiness,’ ‘Boogie Nights’),” and who in ‘Capote,’ “pulled off the clever trick of becoming a leading actor with the versatility of a character actor.”

A Promo for Polytheism

Maybe one God isn’t enough. This column provides an interesting comparison between monotheism and polytheism, and an argument that the latter may encourage less blind faith and more thought.

Five Easy Pieces of an Organic Diet

Finding it hard to switch to an organic diet? This article from the NY Times Health blog provides “Five Easy Ways to Go Organic.” It’s a start, anyway.

The Lunch From Hell

Joel Stein says he’s going to hell . . . and, if his lunch companion is to be believed, I’ll be right there with him. Sometimes you can take the Bible just a bit too literally.