We are deeply indebted to Ram Dass, also known as Richard Alpert. We are indebted to him for his immense courage with psychedelics, for the deep wisdom he brought back from his journeys to the East, and especially for his enlightening concept of being in the here and the now.

This place in The Caldron is dedicated both to Ram Dass and to being in the here and the now. Let's keep it flowing, folks. Keep sending in your submissions, and we will keep posting them just as soon as we receive them.

Al Gore's Medium is His Message

Some have said that Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, is just what it appears to be - an urgent wake-up call to the world about the dangers of global warming by the man who "used to be the next president of the United States," as Gore himself ruefully puts it. Others have wondered whether it isn't a highly unusual opening salvo in what would be a very interesting addition to the 2008 presidential campaign. But when I saw the film the other day, I came out of the theater (into a global-warming inspired deluge) convinced that An Inconvenient Truth was a stunning, subtle, and perhaps intentional argument for the necessity of reinvigorating American democracy.

The film isn't, after all, "merely" about human-caused global warming and its terrifying potential to transform the world in ways that could mean the end of civilization as we almost knew it. It's also about the man American voters elected to run the world's most powerful nation in the year 2000 who then never became our 43rd president.

This combination of message and messenger is what makes the film such a powerful commentary on the American moral condition.

As Gore pointed out in the film, we used to live rather lightly on the earth. Puny human governments and their forms, however despotic and evil our leaders, however repressive their regimes, however vast the suffering of people living under them at the time, didn't much matter to our planet's well-being. Mother Earth would go on as before.

Now that has changed. As Gore cutely pointed out in his presentation, our "shovels" are now motorized and several stories high and can shear the top off of mountains in no time at all. So now the decisions made by those who control those "shovels" and the other tools of our wonderful and terrible technology can not only make the human lives they rule over horrific or honorable. They can also chart a course to planetary destruction or ensure our world's well-being for future generations.

Of course, we've had this awesome power since the Manhattan Project unleashed its unholy invention on the world. The bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, though, in the very intensity of their previously unimagined and unimaginable destruction seared into our collective imagination the price of wielding that power. And we've managed to choose not to do so again for sixty years.

But global warming is not so dramatic. With his animated version of the inundation of Bangladesh, the Netherlands, large parts of China, Manhattan and Florida, Gore convincingly demonstrates that global warming too brings with it Mutually Assured Destruction. This time though, there is no balance of Cold War powers, missiles armed and pointed, to keep those who lust for power in check. In the Warm War, America alone gets to decide the fate of the Earth for everyone.

If only the neocons who started the Iraq war to demonstrate American worldwide hegemony had gone to Al's slide show instead, we could have saved ourselves so much terribly wasted blood and treasure.

We already have the power to control the future of everywhere on Earth.

For we are the single biggest cause of global warming and our choices alone could bring global warming under control or send the whole world spiraling toward radical climate change.

The inescapable conclusion is that the only thing that stands between us and self-inflicted world-wide destruction is politics, and not anyone else's but ours, America's. It is we who must act for the good of the globe as citizens of Earth, empowered by our greatest gift to our planet, American democracy. We must save the world by deciding to choose a different path. And we must do so soon and together or it will never work.

It is following the logic to this place that makes the messenger so poignant, and so ironic, for he is the very emblem of our imperiled democracy.

We once had a system, however imperfect, as Al also pointed out in his slide show, which allowed us to do great and noble things - forge a Constitution to live by that inspired the world, end slavery, allow citizenship for women, go to the moon and back, start a movement and pass effective legislation to save the environment. American democracy, whatever its flaws, was a living, breathing thing that reminded us that we were all in this together and that we must forge our future as one people.

That all unraveled in the 36 days following the 2000 presidential election when the will of the people was undermined, first by Republican shenanigans, then by our Supreme Court. Now no less a person than Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Bobby's son, John's nephew- remember them?) has published a meticulously researched article frighteningly entitled, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" Kennedy's exhaustive review of all available evidence is convincing.

It turned out to be a remarkably fragile thing, this democracy upon which now the whole world's future may well depend. American democracy, after all, is just an idea, one that hinges on citizen participation and respect for our institutions, especially by those who would lead us, to make it work. It's clear with a man in the White House who has little regard for democratic practice and continues to dispute the worldwide scientific consensus on the reality and impact of global warming that America will not act to save the world unless we first act to save American democracy.

But in this new millennium we the people don't seem to play much of a role in what our government does or doesn't do in our name. The American people have become "inactionary" -- a term sociologist C.W. Mills coined during the McCarthy era, another time in our history when domestic repression mingled with international fear.

"Political will," Al said optimistically at the end of his film, "is a renewable resource." But political will is dependent on having feelings of efficacy. And we've become so anxious, afraid and complacent in the years since we failed to make him President Gore. It wasn't just 9-11 that did us in. It was bearing witness to the undermining of our political process by those who lusted for power more than they respected our precious if imperfect political system.

If we're to save the world this time - not from fascism as we did in World War II but from our own excesses - we have got to find our political will again. We must start by making sure our votes count and that we elect the visionary leaders we need at this time of climate crisis. We must act together as a nation in the interest of the Earth and its people to confront the passivity and the gluttony that got us here. (By Cynthia Bogard, CommonDreams.org, Monday, june 5, 2006.)

Climate Model Predicts Greater Melting, Submerged Cities

Over the past 30 years, temperatures in the Arctic have been creeping up, rising half a degree Celsius with attendant increases in glacial melting and decreases in sea ice. Experts predict that at current levels of greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide alone is at 375 parts per million - the earth may warm by as much as five degrees Celsius, matching conditions roughly 130,000 years ago. Now a refined climate model is predicting, among other things, sea level rises of as much as 20 feet, according to research results published today in the journal Science.

Modeler Bette Otto-Bliesner of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and paleoclimatologist Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona matched results from the Community Climate System Model and climate records preserved in ice cores, exposed coral reefs, fossilized pollen and the chemical makeup of shells to determine the accuracy of the computer simulation. Roughly 130,000 the Arctic enjoyed higher levels of solar radiation, leading to increased warming in the summer and the retreat of glaciers worldwide. The model correctly predicted the extent of the resulting Arctic ice melt, enough to raise sea levels by roughly nine feet.

"Getting the past climate change correct in these models gives us more confidence in their ability to predict future climate change," Otto-Bliesner says. "These ice sheets have melted before and sea levels rose. The warmth needed isn't that much above present conditions."

But sea levels rose as much as 20 feet 130,000 years ago and Overpeck speculates that may have been the result of additional melting in Antarctica. After all, the ice there is not all landlocked; some rests in the ocean and a little warming in sea temperatures could melt it or pry it loose. And this time around, the warming is global, rather than concentrated in the Arctic. "In the Antarctic, all you have to do is break up the ice sheet and float it away and that would raise sea level," he says. "It's just like throwing a bunch of ice cubes into a full glass of water and watching the water spill over the top."

Such a sea level rise would permanently inundate low-lying lands like New Orleans, southern Florida, Bangladesh and the Netherlands. Already sea level rise has increased to an inch per decade, thanks to melting ice and warm water expansion, according to Overpeck. And evidence that the Arctic is exponentially warming continues to accumulate. Indeed, in another paper in the same issue of Science, Goran Ekstrom of Harvard University reported a marked increase in so-called glacial earthquakes (seismic events recorded throughout the world when Greenland's glaciers slip past rock) since 2002. In fact, last year alone saw twice as many quakes as in previous years, with most of that increase coming during the summer months.

. "We need to start serious measures to reduce greenhouse gases within the next decade," Overpeck says. "If we don't do something soon, we're committed to [13 to 20 feet] of sea level rise in the future." (By David Biello, Scientific American, March 24, 2006.)

With Ineptitude on Full Display, the Party's Over for Republicans

People who live in mud huts should not throw mud, especially if it comes from their own roofs. As Scripture says, don't point to the speck in your neighbor's eye when you have a piece of kindling in your own.

I see by the papers that the Republicans want to make an issue of Nancy Pelosi in the congressional races this fall: Would you want a San Francisco woman to be speaker of the House?

Will the podium be repainted in lavender stripes with a disco ball overhead? Will she be borne into the chamber by male dancers with glistening torsos and wearing pink tutus? After all, in the unique world view of old elephants, "San Francisco" is a code word for "gay," and after assembling a record of government lies, incompetence and disaster, the party in power hopes that the fear of g-a-y-s will pull it through in November.

Running against Ms. Pelosi, a woman who comes from a district where there are known gay persons, is a nice trick, but it does draw attention to the large shambling galoot who is speaker now, Tom DeLay's enabler for years, a man who, judging by his public mutterances, is about as smart as most high school wrestling coaches.

For the past year, Dennis Hastert has been two heartbeats from the presidency. He is a man who seems content just to have a car and driver and three square meals a day. He has no apparent vision beyond the urge to hang onto power. He has succeeded in turning Congress into a branch of the executive branch. If Mr. Hastert becomes the poster boy for the Republican Party, this does not speak well for them as the Party of Ideas.

People who want to take a swing at San Francisco should think twice. Yes, the Irish coffee at Fisherman's Wharf is overpriced, and the bus tour of Haight-Ashbury is disappointing (where are the hippies?), but the Bay Area is the cradle of the computer and software industry, which continues to create jobs for our children.

The iPod was not developed by Baptists in Waco. There may be a reason for this. Creative people thrive in a climate of openness and tolerance, since some great ideas start out sounding ridiculous.

Creativity is a key to economic progress. Authoritarianism is stifling. I don't believe that Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard were gay, but what's important is: In San Francisco, it doesn't matter so much. When the cultural Sturmbannfuhrers try to marshal everyone into straight lines, it has consequences for the economic future of this country.

Meanwhile, the Current Occupant goes on impersonating a president. Somewhere in the quiet leafy recesses of the Bush family, somebody is thinking, "Wrong son. Should've tried the smart one."

This one's eyes don't quite focus. Five years in office and he doesn't have a grip on it yet. You stand him up next to Tony Blair at a press conference and the comparison is not kind to Our Guy. Historians are starting to place him at or near the bottom of the list. And one of the basic assumptions of American culture is falling apart: the competence of Republicans.

You might not have always liked Republicans, but you could count on them to manage the bank. They might be lousy tippers, act snooty, talk through their noses, wear spats and splash mud on you as they race their Pierce-Arrows through the village, but you knew they could do the math.

To see them produce a ninny and then follow him loyally into the swamp for five years is disconcerting, like seeing the Rolling Stones take up lite jazz. So here we are at an uneasy point in our history, mired in a costly war and getting nowhere, a supine Congress granting absolute power to a president who seems to get smaller and dimmer, and the best the GOP can offer is San Franciscophobia? This is beyond pitiful. This is violently stupid.

It is painful to look at your father and realize the old man should not be allowed to manage his own money anymore. This is the discovery the country has made about the party in power. They are inept. The checkbook needs to be taken away. They will rant, they will screech, they will wave their canes at you and call you all sorts of names, but you have to do what you have to do. (By Garrison Keillor, The Baltimore Sun, June 8, 2006.)

Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.