Links for Friday, November 17
A mini-discussion of property, among other things.
An interesting mix for today, from American Judaisim, to the film Israelism, to Obama in Kalorama, and much much more.
Links
Seven interesting and intriguing links.
• I'm An American, A Jewish-American By Heritage... An Israeli-American Not At All (Howie Klein)
Growing up, the person I loved most and who loved me most was my grandmother, Jean. And the person I respected most was my grandfather, Abe. Until I was a teenager, when I realized I could hitchhike across the country and stow away on a ship, “running away from home” meant getting on a bus to Bensonhurst and going to their home. I loved their home. It was filled with books and with delicious food and with unconditional love. In fact my first long distance hitchhike was to go visit them in Miami Beach for Spring Break when I was 14 or 15. (I was arrested on the New Jersey turnpike and my father had to come get me. He gave me the bus fare for the trip. I won a dance contest at their hotel.)
I remember one time my grandmother telling me about Israel. It’s the first time I remember ever hearing about it. She had never been there but she described it as a kind of paradise, but one that needed our help. I must have been 6 or 7 and she told me Jews were the smartest people in the world and much smarter than Arabs. She was trying to instill some kind of tribalism in me. It didn’t work; I was very American. […]
Good story, a prelude to his memoirs, and an introduction to a review of the movie Israelism. For those who don’t know, Howie Klein is this guy:
Howie Klein (born February 20, 1948) is an American writer, concert promoter, disc jockey, music producer, record label founder, record label executive, progressive political activist, adjunct professor of music, and a fan of punk rock. He is perhaps best known for his role as President of Reprise Records from 1989 to 2001. He appears occasionally as himself in music-related film documentaries and has received accolades for his stance against censorship and for his advocacy of free speech protection.
He’s also quite the progressive activist.
File under “Propaganda, propaganda, everywhere, and not a space to think.”
• The 20 Farming Families Who Use More Water From the Colorado River Than Some Western States (ProPublica)
A stunning interactive display as well as an essay.
Agriculture has always been the largest use of the Colorado River, and California’s Imperial Irrigation District, established in 1911, has among the earliest claims and by far the largest claim to the river. The district — and by extension, the farmers it serves — has access to enormous amounts of cheap water from the shrinking river. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court have upheld the farmers’ rights to the water.
The river’s reservoirs cratered last year, with Lake Mead falling to its lowest level since it was filled in 1937. As the federal government weighs paying more than half a billion dollars to the irrigation district and its farmers to use less water, The Desert Sun and ProPublica sought to find out who was using the water and what they did with it.
The district refused to tell us and denied public record requests, saying that identifying individual customers would create “uncertainty, fear and turmoil.” So we used satellite data, combined with records on who owns and farms each field in the valley, to estimate for the first time exactly who benefits from the vast supply of water, and how they use it.
And from the interactive portion:
File under “Property is a social agreement, not a right.” See below for more.