I’m doing a “Progressivism on Tap“ book event this Wednesday evening (the 24th) in DC — details here.

If you can’t make it, you can catch a 52-minute interview of me on Miami Public Radio’s ”Topical Currents” show (audio here).

I really loved the fact that MPR played four snippets of songs and speeches for me to discuss as I do in the book. They started with Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone,” then Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” then Laurence Olivier doing Hamlet’s “To be or not to be”  soliloquy, and finally Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech.  Not coincidentally, I think, they all feature metaphors, perhaps the single most important figure of speech.

The “Progressivism on Tap” event on the 24th is a double feature. I’ll be talking about Language Intelligence. Bill Ivey — former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts under Bill Clinton and a trustee of the Center for American Progress – will be talking about his new book, Handmaking America.

Join us at 6 pm at Busboys and Poets for some food and a discussion. Books will be on sale.

Or you can buy the Kindle here and the paperback here.

by Dominique Browning via Moms Clean Air Force

Over here at Moms Clean Air Force, I’ve been–I’ll admit it–profoundly depressed that the candidates have blown their chance to talk about the most important issue facing our planet. Climate Change.

Two debates down. A moderator who says “Whoops! Ran out of time to ask about climate. So sorry!”

Well, I’m sorry too. And I’m angry. Angry as hell and high water.

Two debates about “domestic policy” and not one word has been uttered about the chaotic domestic weather we’ve been enduring. Not one word about our unreliable climate. Not one word about the pain and suffering visited upon millions of Americans because of runaway greenhouse gas pollution. Not one word about the ugly legacy we will leave our children.

And now, one debate left to go. The topic? Foreign policy.

I’ve been walking around in a funk about this, my mental climate as agitated as it has ever been, thinking, well, that’s that. We won’t hear a word.

And then, the lightbulb–LED, naturally–popped on!

We have one more chance–before we vote–to demand that the candidates talk about climate change. And we have a moral imperative to demand that.

Because climate change is one of the most urgent and important foreign policy issues Americans will  ever face.

Climate change is a foreign policy issue for military reasons.

Our military leaders know this. They know that their soldiers–our husbands and wives, our children–are the ones whose lives are on the line when wars break out over the shrinking resources caused by water shortages and unproductive land. That’s why our military leaders, never known for their radicalism, are pushing for innovative sustainable energies. They want to keep our soldiers out of harm’s way.

Climate change is a foreign policy issue for economic reasons.

Read more

Opine away.

By Joel Pett, the Cartoonist Group