Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Murphy’s Gold Glove moment

I’m watching the Mets game — which can be a dangerous thing, as we all know — and things have been going well. As an example, take the seventh-inning play by first-baseman Daniel Murphy. The youngster, who the Mets view as a potentially important offensive cog, has proven himself to be a man without a position (anyone remember Gregg Jeffries?). He failed miserably as a left fielder and has looked like a deer in the headlights at first.

But tonight, he turned in one of those rare plays, one destined for the late-night highlight reel.

Mark Loretta of the Dodgers pokes the ball down the first-base line, hitting the bag and popping the ball up and toward the infield. Murphy comes racing in, grabs the ball barehanded and flicks it behind his back to pitcher Bobby Parnell who was covering. Parnell turned in a nice stretch to collect the throw and Loretta was out (the instant replay was inconclusive — it was close, but the Mets deserve a break).

Ron Darling, I think, compared him to Jason Kidd and the Mets dugout bowed in his direction.

All I can say is “sweet” (to quote my nephews).

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Act locally think globally

It is becoming increasingly clear that we must do more than talk about climate change here in the United States. We need tough rules at home and a program that shares new technologies abroad to make it clear that we are not asking the developing world to sacrifice more than we are willing to sacrifice.

Without that, the developing countries will continue to balk at any potential treaty:

In the end, people close to the talks said, the emerging powers refused to agree to the specific emissions limits because they wanted industrial countries to commit to midterm goals in 2020, and to follow through on promises of financial and technological help.

“They’re saying, ‘We just don’t trust you guys,’ ” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group based in the United States. “It’s the same gridlock we had last year when Bush was president.”

The cap-and-trade plan, approved by Congress, is a good start for the United States, but not nearly strong enough to do what needs to be done.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Sudden appearance of backbone

Good news from the Senate, according to OpenLeft:

A progressive bloc in the Senate has given the Democratic leadership a blunt choice: pursue a strong public option, or lose 10-15 left-wing votes on health care.

As Chris Bowers wrote in his OpenLeft post,

This has happened because the Progressive Block strategy is starting to manifest itself. Rather than Democratic leaders voluntarily turning legislation into a warm pile of corporate mush in order to appeal to a center-right business, media and political status quo, and then having those leaders browbeating the left into supporting said warm pile of corporate mush because that is just “political reality,” now progressives are determining the limits of political reality themselves. Progressives are offering the leadership a simple choice: pass a strong public option, or you don’t get a health care bill.

Let’s hope they keep up the pressure.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.