Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Iceland’s Volcanoes And Climate Change

by tristero

I’ve been wondering whether there might might be some kind of link between volcanic eruptions in Iceland and global warming. Apparently not. Yet.

They said there was no sign that the current eruption from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier that has paralysed flights over northern Europe was linked to global warming. The glacier is too small and light to affect local geology.

“Our work suggests that eventually there will be either somewhat larger eruptions or more frequent eruptions in Iceland in coming decades,” said Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a vulcanologist at the University of Iceland.

“Global warming melts ice and this can influence magmatic systems,” he told Reuters. The end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago coincided with a surge in volcanic activity in Iceland, apparently because huge ice caps thinned and the land rose.

“We believe the reduction of ice has not been important in triggering this latest eruption,” he said of Eyjafjallajokull. “The eruption is happening under a relatively small ice cap.”

Carolina Pagli, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds in England, said there were risks that climate change could also trigger volcanic eruptions or earthquakes in places such as Mount Erebus in Antarctica, the Aleutian islands of Alaska or Patagonia in South America.

Yeah, but wadda they know? Check out the comments. There you’ll find the truth! That’s because people who took some high school chemistry once are much better able to evaluate complex problems in geology, climatology, and meteorology than scientists who have devoted their entire lives to studying the science.

(This post is dedicated to my friends JB, JS, and BM, volcanoed in London, London, and Amsterdam, respectively. See you all soon, I hope!)

UPDATE: Very cool shots of volcanoes from around the world set to Hekla, by Jón Leifs:

h/t The great Alex Ross.

UPDATE: This link provides a somewhat different set of insights into the science:

the key to this problem (in my mind) isn’t melting point but rather the volatiles dissolved in the magma. Most magmas can dissolve more volatiles (from the source of the magma, not a surface source of water) under high pressure than low pressure. If you release that pressure, then the volatiles escape in the form of bubbles and you can get an explosive eruption (like popping the top of shaken soda can). If you happen to have shallow magma chambers with volatiles near the surface and deglaciate (remove the ice), you might be prompt a reaction of the volatiles (gases) coming out of solution with the magma. Now, if you combine that with even a small amount of additional melting from lower pressures brought by deglaciation, then, maybe you could produce a temporary, larger supply of eruptible magma. Magma does not need external water to produce explosive eruptions (such as an ice cap/glacier) – and it seems that the current eruption is silicic enough to produce its own explosivity due to its viscosity and water content – so the lack of an ice cap should not preclude more explosive eruptions in Iceland.

Klemetti goes on:

Now, this is all just speculation on my part and I’m not trying to connect it to global warming, global cooling or the Red Sox subpar start to the season. However, what I can say is that we need to stop trying to look at every study with the lens of climate change – and especially stop treating each side of the issue as adversaries if you don’t agree with them. Science is about discussion not confrontation, but a lot of this debate becomes “Jeez, the other guys are idiots because they don’t agree with me!” A little civility and open-mindedness goes a long way.

Sorry, Dr. Klemetti, but you share the naive attitude of many scientists who have failed to follow carefully the cultural war about evolution. You should read the comments to the previous link. The rightwing insists on confrontation instead of discussion. It’s not going to change until all us, scientists included, are prepared to be confrontational right back and push them to the margins of public discourse, where they clearly belong.

Eventually, you will have to be confrontational if you wish to preserve truly independent inquiry within your discipline. You might as well start now as it will be much easier.

h/t shirt in comments

Rove Nearly Handcuffed, Again

by tristero

Full disclosure: I have a good friend who is deeply involved in Code Pink. As I wrote Digby privately yesterday, many of their actions are not to my taste, but this one most certainly is:

Earlier this week, for the second time on his book tour, former White House adviser Karl Rove was faced by an antiwar activist determined to arrest him for “war crimes.”

Rove and activist group Code Pink cofounder Jodie Evans first met last month in Beverly Hills, Calif., when Evans confronted Rove in the theater where he had planned to take questions about and autograph copies of his memoir, “Courage and Consequence.” In that encounter, Evans approached Rove with handcuffs, announcing that she was performing a citizen’s arrest.

The incident rattled Rove enough that he did not stay behind to sign any books.

Then, this week in a Las Vegas bookstore, Evans approached Rove again. She had waited in line with a copy of his book, along with other autograph seekers. When she reached the head of the line, however, she again announced that she intended to arrest Rove.

When she pulled handcuffs from her sleeves, however, Rove recognized her and let nearby security officers know that she was the same woman who had approached him in Beverly Hills. Evans was rapidly escorted from the store.

On the other hand, let’s not throw things, people. The absolutely last thing we need is a Sarah Palin who can claim martyrdom for anything. What’s the diff?

A picture of Karl Rove in handcuffs? A priceless image.

Pelting Palin with tomatoes? You’ll make people feel sorry for her. Only a righwing agent provocateur, or a crazy person, would want that. Don’t do it.

A Rout?

by digby

I keep hearing that it’s inevitable that the Democrats are going to be wiped out in November because everyone hates them so much. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that they will lose big if everyone hates the other side just as much:

The Republican Party may have a big election year anyway, but Americans sure don’t think much of it or its leadership.

Only 28% of voters in the country say they approve of the current direction of the GOP with 51% disapproving. Even among voters who identify with the party just 54% say they like where it’s headed. It’s predictable that Democrats would give it very low marks but even among independents just 18% think the Republicans are headed in the right direction while 49% dissent.

Not that the Dems are looking any better. But here’s the thing — every voter ends up having to choose among the candidates who are running. It’s just the way it is. Turnout matters, of course, especially in mid-terms. And maybe the hardcore right is more motivated and will prevail (although I would guess that if it’s only the 18% that identifies as teabaggers that the Dems can match them.) But since the Republicans are behaving like such asses, I’m not sure it’s going to work out the way people think.

Sure, the Dems will probably lose some seats. Just as Al Gore lost the members that came in his coat tails in 2002 (even though he was denied the presidency) Obama will probably lose some this fall as well. But it may not be rout that everyone’s predicting. If nobody likes either party, then it implies that we will get more or less the status quo.

On the other hand, there’s this. So who knows?

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Today’s Miraculous Factoid

by digby

And the quarterly fundraising reports show that the GOP’s top national target, Rep. Alan Grayson from Orlando, who takes no money from lobbyists, banksters or anyone with business before his committees, raised more money— almost entirely from small grassroots donations— than anyone else running for Congress in the United States, his second quarter in a row with over $800,000.

Wow.

Lot’s of other fascinating stuff from Florida in this DWT post.

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Threats And Coverage

by digby

After the all day teabag news orgy yesterday I thought I’d do a little research on the coverage of the antiwar rallies before the invasion of Iraq to see if I remembered the blase attitude correctly. I did. The New York Times, for instance, didn’t just fail to publish in-depth polling of the movement above the fold on page one, they just put a small story about the marches (which featured hundreds of thousands of people all over the country) on page 8 claiming they were smaller than the organizers had hoped for.

But I had forgotten about this from 2003:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22— The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum. The memorandum, which the bureau sent to local law enforcement agencies last month in advance of antiwar demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco, detailed how protesters have sometimes used ”training camps” to rehearse for demonstrations, the Internet to raise money and gas masks to defend against tear gas. The memorandum analyzed lawful activities like recruiting demonstrators, as well as illegal activities like using fake documentation to get into a secured site. F.B.I. officials said in interviews that the intelligence-gathering effort was aimed at identifying anarchists and ”extremist elements” plotting violence, not at monitoring the political speech of law-abiding protesters. The initiative has won the support of some local police, who view it as a critical way to maintain order at large-scale demonstrations. Indeed, some law enforcement officials said they believed the F.B.I.’s approach had helped to ensure that nationwide antiwar demonstrations in recent months, drawing hundreds of thousands of protesters, remained largely free of violence and disruption. […]

The memorandum, circulated on Oct. 15 — just 10 days before many thousands gathered in Washington and San Francisco to protest the American occupation of Iraq — noted that the bureau ”possesses no information indicating that violent or terrorist activities are being planned as part of these protests” and that ”most protests are peaceful events.”…The memorandum urged local law enforcement officials ”to be alert to these possible indicators of protest activity and report any potentially illegal acts” to counterterrorism task forces run by the F.B.I. It warned about an array of threats, including homemade bombs and the formation of human chains. The memorandum discussed demonstrators’ ”innovative strategies,” like the videotaping of arrests as a means of ”intimidation” against the police. And it noted that protesters ”often use the Internet to recruit, raise funds and coordinate their activities prior to demonstrations.”

The teabagger rallies don’t seem to have activated any of these alarms despite the fact that we know for a fact that sympathetic members of the far right are currently plotting violent activity, which the anti-war marchers had no history or intention of doing. Hell, the antiwar protesters didn’t even get any coverage in the press despite having millions take to the streets all over the world. The teabag extremism doesn’t seem to bother anyone much. Perhaps it’s because they are all lumpy,middle-aged white people who spend more time watching beck than sharpening their guerilla warfare skills. But, you have to wonder what the government thinks about this:

[T]he extremism of the Tea Partiers will be far eclipsed on Monday when another band of American patriots rides into town to demonstrate against the government. On April 19, an assortment of gun-rights groups will mount the Second Amendment March at the grounds of the Washington Monument. On the Web site for the march, its founder, Skip Coryell, calls it a “peaceful” event. But these folks, as the Violence Policy Center points out in a new report, are pushing a virulent strain of anti-government extremism that certainly could drive a body to take violent action.

Last month in an article for Human Events, a conservative magazine, Coryell noted that one aim of the march is to imply the threat of violence:

My question to everyone reading this article is this: “For you, as an individual, when do you draw your saber? When do you say “Yes, I am willing to rise up and overthrow an oppressive, totalitarian government?”

Is it when the government takes away your private business?
Is it when the government rigs elections?
Is it when the government imposes martial law?
Is it when the government takes away your firearms?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating the immediate use of force against the government. It isn’t time, and hopefully that time will never come. But one thing is certain: “Now is the time to rattle your sabers.” If not now, then when?

… I understand that sounds harsh, but these are harsh times. …

I hear the clank of metal on metal getting closer, but that’s not enough. The politicians have to hear it too. They have to hear it, and they have to believe it.

Come and support me at the Second Amendment March on April 19th on the Washington Monument grounds. Let’s rattle some sabers and show the government we’re still here.

Notice that Coryell says he’s not advocating the immediate use of force against the government. That sure makes it sound like he’s revving up the gun-rights troops for possible rebellion down the road.

At the march, he will be in good company. One scheduled speaker for the rally is Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America. In 1992, Pratt participated in a Colorado meeting of neo-Nazis and self-proclaimed Christian patriots that marked the birth of the modern militia movement. Another speaker at this pro-gun hoe-down will be Sheriff Richard Mack, who states on his Web site that the “greatest threat we face today is not terrorists; it is our own federal government. If America is conquered or ruined it will be from within, not a foreign enemy.”

And the Oath Keepers are sponsoring the march. This is a group of right-wingers — many of whom serve in the military or police forces — who pledge to disobey what they regard as “unconstitutional” orders from an increasingly repressive government. Their view of the government is rather dark. They vow not to “obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps” and not to “obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps.” As if the Obama administration is on the verge of declaring martial law and rounding up the citizenry.

These will be very peaceful rallies, I’m sure, because few citizens would venture into a crowd like this to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech. After all, they might get shot. So, in a practical sense, their right to speak ends at the muzzle of a gun — ironically especially when the gun is held by a constitution revering, gun-toting libertarian. (“Sure go ahead and speak up. Better hope I don’t lose my concentration or somebody might get accidentally capped.”)

I suppose the bigger risk is that these armed zealots might shoot each other. It could end up in a shootout if passions run high as they often do at these things and there’s a misunderstanding or a case of mistaken identity. And certainly police would be in danger if these armed anti-government types feel threatened.

But there will not likely be any trouble with the liberals. They’ll get the message and stay far away. That’s what gun toting political rallies are all about — suppressing dissent.

But I do wonder how the government feels about this. Perhaps they are sanguine because these are all good Real Americans instead of rambunctious young people who break windows and taunt the police. They just pack heat in a crowd. And anyway, if anything happens, they’ll just blame it on infiltrators.

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Why The Sudden Burst Of Journalistic Conscience?

by digby

Last night I wrote about Fox News belatedly deciding that it was wrong for their stars to be promoting and hosting political events and broadcasting them. I speculated that they simply didn’t want anyone but professional GOP operatives to make money on such things, but I really have no idea what inspired them to put the kibosh on Hannity’s teabagging lovefest in Cincinnati yesterday.

And it turns out that Fox was fibbing when they claimed they were “furious” when they found out about the problem. The Cincinnati Tea party calls BS:

The CTP is firing back, claiming that Fox News is lying. They said that not only did they work with Fox News staff on logistics for the event, but executives told CTP organizers Hannity wouldn’t be able to tape his show in Cincinnati because of a “personal emergency”:

Shortly after the scheduled book signing (which was canceled) Fox News producers onsite informed the Cincinnati Tea Party senior leadership that Mr. Hannity had to rush home for a personal emergency. The Cincinnati Tea Party expressed a statement of support and concern to Hannity and family. The Cincinnati Tea Party received information from local media attributing concerns regarding ticketing to a executive vice president at the Fox News Network. The Cincinnati Tea Party has not been able to confirm the authenticity of this message via a source this statement to any @foxnews.com email or http://www.FoxNews.com website. Emails and phone calls to network went unanswered until 7:48 p.m. — more than four hours after the scheduled appearance; this source has not yet put it in writing despite our request.

Again, Fox has been promoting these events from the very beginning. Hannity, Beck etc have been featured as headliners all along. An event charging 5 bucks a head can hardly be considered the journalistic sin here. I wouldn’t put it past Fox to find that the only crime in all this but that tells a bigger story, no?

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The Poor Rich

by digby

Here’s a very sad story of a financial planner in pain:

A Message from ‘Henry’

We’re high earners not yet rich, and now the government wants us to pay more?

I’m in the 32% federal and 10% state income tax brackets. I pay a 1.2% property tax on very expensive California real estate. I am subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax. I am self-employed and subject to a 15% payroll tax on the first $100,000 in income and an 8.75% state sales tax. If I have a gain from investing, I pay a minimum of 15% federal and 10% state tax but can only write off $3,000 per year if I lose.

And now the government wants me to pay more?

As a child I mowed lawns, shoveled snow, had a paper route, sold sandwiches at school, and cut up dead trees and split them for firewood to sell during spring break. I have worked every summer since I turned 14. I took out student loans for college and worked 35 hours a week, at night, to pay for the rest.

Since I graduated in 1983, I have been in straight commission sales and have had many 60- to 70-hour work weeks. No secure salary, no big promotions, no pension—just me profiting though helping others while being subject to the swings of the economic cycle. The first 20 years were tough, but it’s finally starting to pay off.

I drive a nicer car (bought used), live in a better neighborhood, have more retirement savings than many. But I am certainly not rich, and every month I find my ever increasing bills (and taxes) tend to match my income. I have more than most only because I’ve worked harder than most and because I am a saver. It was not easy.

Why then does the government feel so entitled to take my money and give it to others? Why should I have to carry so many people on my back? Call me cruel. I don’t care. I give to whom I choose—but since so much is confiscated (and wasted in the process) I have little left I wish to give.

This guy makes more that 250k a year and it’s not because he works so much harder than the rest of us, it’s because he’s lucky enough to be a member of a privileged class working in a job that pays him very well for the hours he works. I don’t begrudge him his success, but the fact that he thinks his success is solely due to his work ethic is very telling. The fact is that the vast majority of people in this country, many of whom don’t happen to be white males like him, don’t get the breaks this fellow got and work in equally valuable fields for far less money. (Like the teachers who taught him, for instance.) That assumed superiority is what gives him away as a Randian asshole.

I happen to know financial planners and they are not all like this. One of my best friends is a financial planner and she feels an obligation as a decent human being to pay taxes and believes that giving back is a responsibility of those who do well. There are more like her. And believe me, you’d do much better trusting your nest egg to someone who has some empathy and a sense of social responsibility than to a greed head who considers himself poor because he has to pay a little more in taxes on what he earns over 250k. He’s a spoiled idiot with no imagination or integrity who doesn’t live in the real world and shouldn’t be trusted with other people’s money.

He’s like this student at Syracuse who said this to an MSNBC reporter today when asked what he thought about Chase CEO Jamie Dimond as commencement speaker:

“He’s one of the finest financial minds in the nation right now and especially, for the most part, that he’s really going to end up leading us out of this crisis with everything that he’s doing.”

These Baby Galts aren’t rugged individualistic entrepreneurs. They are idol worshipers shilling for their heroes. In fact, John Galt has another word for them.

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Simple, Old Fashioned Fraud

by digby

I knew that Goldman Sachs had done some low-down things, but this takes the cake. It’s so bad that even the sluggish SEC couldn’t avoid taking action:

Goldman Sachs, which emerged relatively unscathed from the financial crisis, was accused of securities fraud in a civil suit filed Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which claims the bank created and sold a mortgage investment that was secretly devised to fail. The move marks the first time that regulators have taken action against a Wall Street deal that helped investors capitalize on the collapse of the housing market. Goldman itself profited by betting against the very mortgage investments that it sold to its customers. The suit also named Fabrice Tourre, a vice president at Goldman who helped create and sell the investment. In a statement, Goldman called the S.E.C. accusations “completely unfounded in law and fact” and said the firm would “vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation.” The instrument in the S.E.C. case, called Abacus 2007-AC1, was one of 25 deals that Goldman created so the bank and select clients could bet against the housing market. Those deals, which were the subject of an article in The New York Times in December, initially protected Goldman from losses when the mortgage market disintegrated and later yielded profits for the bank. As the Abacus deals plunged in value, Goldman and certain hedge funds made money on their negative bets, while the Goldman clients who bought the $10.9 billion in investments lost billions of dollars. According to the complaint, Goldman created Abacus 2007-AC1 in February 2007, at the request of John A. Paulson, a prominent hedge fund manager who earned an estimated $3.7 billion in 2007 by correctly wagering that the housing bubble would burst. Goldman let Mr. Paulson select mortgage bonds that he wanted to bet against — the ones he believed were most likely to lose value — and packaged those bonds into Abacus 2007-AC1, according to the S.E.C. complaint. Goldman then sold the Abacus deal to investors like foreign banks, pension funds, insurance companies and other hedge funds. But the deck was stacked against the Abacus investors, the complaint contends, because the investment was filled with bonds chosen by Mr. Paulson as likely to default. Goldman told investors in Abacus marketing materials reviewed by The Times that the bonds would be chosen by an independent manager. “The product was new and complex, but the deception and conflicts are old and simple,” Robert Khuzami, the director of the S.E.C.’s division of enforcement, said in a statement. “Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party.”

This guy Paulson made 3.7 billion dollars from this scam.

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Box Turtle Ben Emerges from His Shell

by digby

… and unsurprisingly says something stupid:

The White House ripped CBS News on Thursday for publishing an online column by a blogger who made assertions about the sexual orientation of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, widely viewed as a leading candidate for the Supreme Court. Ben Domenech, a former Bush administration aide and Republican Senate staffer, wrote that President Obama would “please” much of his base by picking the “first openly gay justice.” An administration official, who asked not to be identified discussing personal matters, said Kagan is not a lesbian. CBS initially refused to pull the posting, prompting Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director who is working with the administration on the high court vacancy, to say: “The fact that they’ve chosen to become enablers of people posting lies on their site tells us where the journalistic standards of CBS are in 2010.” She said the network was giving a platform to a blogger “with a history of plagiarism” who was “applying old stereotypes to single women with successful careers.” The network deleted the posting Thursday night after Domenech said he was merely repeating a rumor. The flare-up underscores how quickly the battle over a Supreme Court nominee — or even a potential nominee — can turn searingly personal. Most major news organizations have policies against “outing” gays or reporting on the sex lives of public officials unless they are related to their public duties.

Everything I’ve heard is that Kagan is not a lesbian. Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, obviously, or anything shameful in being called that. But I know far too many straight, single women who are assumed to be gay simply because they aren’t married or don’t have an active dating life. It’s hurtful to them, and not because they have any prejudice against gay people but because it’s an assumption about them that isn’t true. Everyone deserves to be seen the way they really are, whether gay or straight.

Marc Ambinder, a blogger for the Atlantic, wrote Monday about what he called “a baffling whisper campaign” about Kagan “among both gay rights activists and social conservatives. . . .

“So pervasive are these rumors that two senior administration officials I spoke with this weekend acknowledged hearing about them and did not know whether they were true. . . . Why is she the subject of these rumors? Who’s behind them?”

Why? Because every woman who isn’t married after a certain age is assumed to be a lesbian by some people, even if she isn’t, especially if she doesn’t look like a fashion model. And social conservatives and gay rights activists (for different reasons) have a vested interest in her being seen as gay. It’s not an insult but it is a misconception and one that isn’t entirely benign to the person who is the subject of it. If she says anything publicly to deny it, it sounds as though she has a prejudice against gay people and if she doesn’t deny it, she becomes known as something she isn’t. It’s not fair.

Ben Domenech is right wing hit man and always has been. And he’s succeeded wildly here. The rumors are now “out there” and Cokie’s Law is in effect. How a known plagiarist came to be employed by CBS is the more interesting story, actually. Especially for a man who’s known to hire hookers to powder and diaper him and then sing him to sleep. Or at least that’s the rumor. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Update: I’m getting lots of emails on this. Some people are upset with me for failing to uphold the view that “it doesn’t matter” if you’re gay. Of course it doesn’t. If you’re gay you should be able to live openly and freely being who you are. But I believe that just as it’s been painful for gays to be in the closet or forced to live as if they are something they’re not, it’s also painful for some straight people to be assumed to be something they’re not. I maintain that people should be allowed to define themselves in the world honestly and live authentic lives, no matter whether they are gay or straight.

Anyway, yes, if it doesn’t matter to you whether other people label you as something you’re not then by all means simply say “whatever” if asked. But if your sexual identity is something that you think is intrinsic to who you are then you should be able say so regardless. I don’t think it makes you a bigot or a closet case. In fact, think it’s a fairly human thing that doesn’t denote political cowardice or homophobia.

I also got notes from several men who say that they too face this question — and are often assumed to be pedophiles to boot! Assumptions are bad.

Update II: Gay rights groups are not fools and know exactly what’s going on. And Ben Domenech is a lying scumbag. He knows what he did and he did it on purpose. Despite his unctuous, insincere defense of gay rights, he knows very well that this will hugely gin up the fundraising and activism against her from the far right and make it more difficult to confirm her. I hope he extracted a big payment from his wingnut benefactors. He earned it.

Update III: None of this is meant as an endorsement of Kagan. I’m hoping the administration picks someone far less amenable to executive power than she seems to be. But this campaign is designed to force the administration to pick someone more conservative than she is on a whole panoply of issues. I hope the White House just picks the most liberal person they can find and forces the Republicans to filibuster the nomination if they can’t wrap their minds around that.

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Overt Racism In The Tea Party. And Beyond.

by tristero

We need to make this very clear: the self-styled “Tea Party” is white, elitist, and racist:

Demonstrators began gathering early Thursday for speeches at Freedom Plaza. Among them was Jerry Johnson, 58, a lawyer from Berryville, Va…

Johnson expressed opposition to Obama. “It’s not just because he’s black,” he said. “I wish I could tell you that I loved this guy, that he was a great president, that I had faith in him. But I have none. Zero.”

“Just.”

I’m sure Mr. Johnson will protest that he simply misspoke, totally unintentional. Uh huh. Lawyers are many things: inarticulate is not one of them. This is a a guy whose entire professional training – and let’s not forget, he’s way more educated than the average American – goes towards using words with an obsessive precision most of us can’t even begin to approach.

But before we begin to think that teabaggers and only teabaggers are racists, here’s one that I’ll bet hardly anyone will notice. And yet it’s just as ugly an expression of racism and bigotry as Jerry Johnson’s: Author Simon Winchester writes about the Iceland volcano and compares it to the Krakatoa explosion of 1883:

The last time the world was so mightily affected in this way was in 1883, when a similarly tiny vent in the earth’s surface opened up on the island of Krakatoa, between Java and Sumatra, in what is now Indonesia. Some 40,000 people died because of that eruption — it was a much more fierce event, and in a much more populated place. But the clouds of dust that cascaded upward into the stratosphere affected the entire planet for the rest of the year on the same scale — except that the effects themselves were of a profoundly different kind.

Where Iceland’s volcano has set off a wave of high-technology panic, Java’s event set off something benign and really quite lovely: worldwide displays of light and color that reduced mankind to a state of stunned amazement. Where Iceland has caused shock, Java resulted in awe. And where Eyjafjalla’s ashes seem to have cost millions in lost business, Krakatoa’s dust left the world not just a remarkable legacy of unforgettable art but also spurred a vital discovery in atmospheric science.

There are many ways I would describe a volcanic eruption that killed 40,000 people, and I have a very vivid imagination, but this way? No, I can’t imagine it. The level of bigoted callousness on display here is something I can’t begin to conceive.

The most profound effects of the Krakatoa volcano on the entire planet were neither “benign” nor “lovely.” They were horribly tragic. And while surely Krakatoa’s eruption inspired awe, there is also no question that it sent hundreds of thousands of human beings into deep shock. As for the financial cost, Winchester’s comparison assigns virtually no economic consequence to the deaths of 40,000 people and the destruction of their ecosystem.

This is jaw-droppingly blatant Eurocentrism. Winchester minimizes the significance of a dreadful tragedy in order to make specious comparisons with Eyjafjalla. Thus, Krakatoa’s importance becomes its impact, not on the world, but only on the most refined aesthetic and intellectual palates in Europe. White Europe. This is racism.

Don’t get me wrong. There are many ways to discuss the multifarious impacts of Krakatoa’s eruption and my recollection of Winchester’s book is that he did a pretty good job (he also got a few minor facts wrong, but that’s another story). But this op-ed is simply disgusting. Unintentional? Well, possibly unconscious. Nevertheless, a professional writer, like a lawyer, has no excuse. It is an indication of how far Western culture has to go in order to understand what racism is that Winchester, not a stupid man, felt comfortable writing such self-centered trash, and that the New York Times apparently had no problems publishing it.

We’ll see if they print any letters that notice this. I certainly hope so.