Here’s the speech at the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association (TREIA) conference I referenced in the last post. By the way, props to TREIA for the high production value at this conference. Everyone looks a little bit smarter with one of those little TedTalks microphones wrapped around their ear, don’t you think?
The President’s Inaugural speech
Haven’t had time to post in a week. Trying to be encouraging, someone said to me this week that “eventually you’ll find your voice.”
My problem isn’t finding my voice. My problem is finding the time.
I have been a bit amazed at the reaction to the President’s inaugural speech. Everyone is breathless at the fact that he now says he meant what he said when he was running for President. The idea that this speech represented some kind of departure for him ideologically is just bizarre to me. I really like James Fallows, but I saw nothing startling in the speech. At all.
I was very encouraged that he devoted more time to climate change than to any other policy area. But it’s not like he hasn’t held a consistent position on that issue throughout his Presidency. And there are pretty obvious reasons why the issue was on the back burner during the height of the recession, and why it might, hopefully, return to the front burner in his second term.
My next post will be a speech I gave back in December at the TREIA (Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association) conference suggesting that the coming year may see a renewed focus on carbon taxes, driven not just by environmental considerations but also by the role a carbon tax can play in the larger efforts at tax reform. If ever there were a time to be talking about a federal carbon tax, it is now.
This blog is a terrible idea
No one is more surprised than I am to find myself launching a blog.
Politicians keeping a blog – or tweeting, or otherwise oversharing their momentary musings – is a terrible idea, politically speaking.
I know there’s a lot of hype around social media and politics, and some if it is well-deserved (though not all of it). But if you’re not running for President, some of this stuff just doesn’t scale down very well. I’ve always said social media would destroy more political careers than it would enhance. Thus far, I’ve generally been proven right.
Reasons this blog is a terrible idea:
- Probably no one will read it;
- Scratch that - one person will definitely read it: the opposition researcher for my next political opponent;
- I have not noticed that the Internet is generally lacking in content;
- I don’t really have time for this;
- I have always said politicians should talk less and listen more, and that is especially true in my case;
- I will almost certainly say things I will later regret.
So why am I doing this?
Mostly, it’s an itch I kind of want to scratch. Plus it might be fun. If it’s not fun, I’ll probably let it die, so don’t get too attached to it. (As if…)
Being a member of the minority party in the lower house of the state legislature has all the frustrations one might imagine. So another purpose of this blog might be catharsis. We’ll see.
I’m tagging this post with all the topics I hope to write about - even though this initial post isn’t really about any of them. It’ll give you an idea of what I’ll be writing about, which will give you an idea of whether to come back. (How did you get here, anyway?) I’m sure it will evolve over time. Or just quietly disappear. I’m really not optimistic.
By the way, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m using Tumblr for the first time and have no idea what half of these buttons mean (like the box on my screen right now that says “let people photo reply”…what does that mean?) And why am I asking you questions? I don’t even think Tumblr allows you to post comments.
I’ll get this figured out eventually, but have some patience.
And no, I don’t need to be reminded of my derogatory opinions about Twitter. I still kind of think I’m right about that. But four years, billions of dollars, and trillions of tweets later, I’m open to the possibility that I might have been wr-wr-wr-wr….not exactly right.
We’ll see. Meanwhile, I think I’ve enabled this blogging platform to post stuff to twitter, so I guess now I’m tweeting. Who’d have thunk?
