‘Cause they said it really loud
They said it on the air
On the radio, whoa, oh, oh
On the radio, whoa, oh, oh
On the radio, whoa, oh, oh
On the radio, whoa, oh, oh
On the radio

-Donna Summer “On the Radio,” courtesy of Metrolyrics

I swam for a full hour yesterday, first session of that duration of the new season. God, it was magnificent- maybe the best weekend of the whole summer. Not too cold, not too hot, low humidity and for one magical weekend, no extremes whatsoever.

It was a little chilly to start, but as I moved in the blue water the sun warmed me and filled me with the animal joy of movement. I even made a point of not sitting out too long in the pleasant sunshine so the skin did not redden overmuch. Life is grand.

(IPad Mini in waterproof case. Perfect for keeping up while paddling.)

I listen to the radio as I swim these days. It helps forestall the boredom that sets in with the repetitive motion, and the slow circling motion that helps pace the exercise. I used to listen to National Public Radio as performed my aquatic yoga, but my friends there have become a little shrill for my taste, and the sometimes jarring commercial news-and-talk radio does a better job of simulating balance. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled into the President’s Weekly Radio Address.

I didn’t really know that it still existed, but not only is it still around, the CBS radio network actually carries it (and the GOP rebuttal) each Saturday morning. There is long precedent for the conversation between Chief Executive and his subjects. FDR began the tradition when he was Governor of New York State, and confronted a recalcitrant legislature. He carried it over into his unprecedented four terms in the Oval Office in the dark days of the Depression and global war.

The print media of the day dubbed them “Fireside Chats,” since they were a cozy way of getting around the nonsense of opposition to the New Deal and let Mr. Roosevelt speak directly to his constituents.

“No longer was the message of the administration to be tinkered with by the interpretations of the press; Roosevelt was simply going to tell the people what he was doing and why. This level of intimacy with politics made people feel as if they too were part of the administration’s decision-making process and many soon felt that they knew Roosevelt personally.”

Ronald Reagan, ever the showman, migrated the evening fireside to the Saturday morning analogue media wasteland. The move coincided with the increasing irrelevancy of the medium in the new age of digital communication that makes the radio addresses hard to find. But I was still amazed at the content.

You would think that the dramatic developments at the VA might have been worth a comment- particularly in the context of the Affordable Care Act. Some words that might instill confidence in the public and shore up the increasingly ragged notion that the Government can do anything effectively or efficiently. But nope, none of that. Instead we are off on another grand adventure.

Normally, the weekly radio address is recorded in the Oval Office, or some place we are supposed to think is the Oval Office, evoking the last great period of the Progressive ascendancy. This one was different, but familiar. The President went to a place with the human props he thinks are so effective.

Not so much on the radio, in my mind, but of course he multi-purposed the event across media that did not exist when FDR established the Fireside Chat. Mr. Obama evoked the kids, of course, by speaking at the Children’s National Medical Center. He said: “I refuse to condemn our children to a planet that’s beyond fixing.”

I am not convinced that it is, and thought back to that bizarre speech he made about the planet starting to heal, and the seas ceasing to rise, based on things he hadn’t done yet.

Of course, he was talking about the new EPA rules he is going to impose tomorrow morning, first thing on the second of June.

I listened hard, but couldn’t hear anything about the other new set of sweeping regulations, the ones that will place decorative ponds on private property (or the two little streams that bound the property of Refuge Farm) under the jurisdiction of the EPA bureaucrats in Washington. I guess those will be released late some sweltering summer Friday afternoon.

Anyway, the upshot of this Chat was that Mr. Obama is going to direct the EPA to place the first carbon pollution limits on existing U.S. power plants, which are still mostly fueled with that nasty coal stuff. There are those who argue the rule will put a stake in the economy, and will result in the loss of 224,000 jobs every year through 2030 and impose $50 billion in additional annual costs.

Considering that the economy still is languishing, and in fact actually contracted in the last quarter, that seems sort of ill-advised, you know?

Plus, where I come from, if you are going to do something big, you normally have a plan to accommodate the change. The Government says that currently, 37% of the electrical supply is produced by coal-based generation plants. I listened hard, but could not hear mention of any plan to replace the electricity produced by burning coal.

I guess it will sort of happen by itself, like getting an appointment to see a doctor at the VA.

The line as I heard it was that by targeting carbon dioxide, the administration is going to help young asthma patients. “In America, we don’t have to choose between the health of our economy and the health of our children,” said the President. He went on to say that the cost of carbon pollution “can be measured in lost lives” and roughly “100,000 asthma attacks and 2,100 heart attacks will be avoided” in just the first year that the standards go into effect.

Since we breath carbon dioxide (regularly, if we are lucky), I was having a hard time following the argument. But Mr. Obama was actually at a hospital, the children seemed real enough and it was on the radio, so it must be true.

He has also dispatched his people to fan out across the country to build support for the new regulations, and reassure those who might be concerned about the impact of the coming rules. Like people who are concerned about a reliable source of warmth in the winter and a cooling breeze in the sweltering summer.

The extremes of winter and summer kill people, too. But we don’t want to quantify that.

That is what is so ironic about it all. The narrative is that the new rules will benefit public health. Predictably, the devilish details of the rules have been closely guarded- in a Republic you don’t want people to question really big new agenda items. It is inconvenient and slows down change.

For my part, I would prefer to have a working national power grid, regardless of how it is fueled, until there is a rational, workable and affordable replacement. “Renewable” sources of energy only make up about 5% of electric production, so good luck with that. We seem to be intent on knee-capping the basic component of a vibrant economy “for the children.”

We can give thanks to Tom Steyer and his ilk in the crony capitalism world. Tom is donating a hundred million dollars to the President’s party this election cycle to support bold environmental action. Koch Brothers? Don’t make me laugh.

Steyer made his billions exploiting the financial practice of “absolute return” investing, a strategy that aims to produce a positive absolute return regardless of the directions of financial markets. Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital did pretty much the same thing. In the gambling world, that would mean betting for and against the house, and it worked out pretty well for him. Not so much for the rest of us, but no matter. Maybe he feels bad.

Even after donating a hundred million dollars to ensure that his voice of alarm is heard, Mr. Steyer will have plenty of cash left over. I imagine he can probably afford a Honda generator to power the appliances in his mansions if a weakened grid goes down.

I was paddling furiously in the pool, though not actually going anywhere in particular. The President said: “The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way.”

I wonder exactly what he has in mind for those choices? Wouldn’t you think you would want to have a plan for the transition that we could talk about?

He did not mention one, except to trust in the American spirit of innovation. We may be shivering when it happens, but it is all true. Must be. I heard it on the radio.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303