Political Hot Air and Cold Winds
Consider taking a deep breath of air, post-Super Tuesday, and check out Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound, by Robert Whitcomb and Wendy Williams.
I've had the pleasure of working with Mr. Whitcomb, a top editor at the Providence Journal and former editor at the International Herald Tribune and Wall Street Journal. He's a supple thinker and outstanding writer who can expose inconsistencies and hypocrisies in our public policies. In Cape Wind, he and Ms. Williams (a writer for Scientific American, Providence Journal and other publications) take a withering look at how a sensible Cape Cod alternative energy project got tied up in knots by some of America's most notable icons. It's a cautionary tale about how society's best and brightest can serve as speed-bumps or even as outright car-jackers on the road to progress. Neither a Romney nor a Kennedy comes off smelling particularly clean here. Great election-year reading.