Hi kids,
I’ve decided to launch a blog series for you. Before you cringe, consider this: You are all grown up and gainfully employed, married even, and living in cities all over the country, busy doing all sorts of wonderful things in the world. But I am still your mother, and I don’t get to see you enough, and I want to be sure you know about certain stuff. Like news, weather, health, recommended reading, etiquette, housekeeping, food, shoes, climate change, vitamins, etc etc etc. Why? Because I love you.
So every day, starting this morning and until I run out of juice, I’m going to dash of a brief-ish bulletin here on HuffPo. It’s for you, and I hope you like it.
First thing please drop everything to watch the SNL skit on the first Presidential debate, if you missed it, and thank you Mary for recommending. It’s pretty much perfect. (Mary, FYI that “old actor guy” is Alec Baldwin, to be found @AlecBaldwin, and a fellow HuffPo correspondent.) Further reading. (You are all registered to vote, right?)
Second, there’s a huge hurricane in the Caribbean called Matthew. By huge I mean 145 mph winds. Think about your hair (or your cat, Mary) in 145 mph wind, to say nothing of a village on a slope in Haiti that’s about to get dumped with 30 inches of rain. Is it tracking to the US? Too early to say for sure.
If the subject of severe weather interests you, and I cannot imagine how it wouldn’t, follow Andrew Freedman on Twitter: @afreedma (How do I know him? From his keynote at the Metcalf Institute last year. “Metcalf” likely rings a dim bell for you, since Jack and I support it actively. It’s a brilliant program to connect media folks and scientists so that the former understand what the heck the latter are saying; and so that the latter understand why their “we can’t be 100% certain” culture is so annoying to the rest of us who want to be damn sure, especially if it concerns the end of human life as we know it.)
Cooking tip: always make a little extra salad and fridge it for later. Yes to lemon balsamic dressing, yes to garlic bits. Pulverize this in those Cuisinarts you have sitting in their original packaging on top of your fridges and glop it into soups and sauces of all sorts; or chop and fill omelettes, tacos.
Why come home this weekend? I have a ton of basil ready to be harvested in the garden, so we’ll be having pesto clinic! Plus I’d love to see you.
Word of the day, ratification. As in, The ratification process for the Paris Agreement shot ahead on Sunday as India pledged 40% of its electricity to be renewable by 2030.
Comment: 2030 is not so far away, kids. I’ll be a spry 70-ish grandma by then, and all of you will be older than I was when you started drivers’ ed. Think about that!
Before you pop corks over this ratification news, be advised that our smartest scientists say the Paris Agreement is unfortunately too little and too late. Which is a subject for another day. For now, the smart money is on business and tech—and not government—to leap ahead on climate solutions. This is the next big thing, kids. For example, look into this $22 Billion IPO happening this week:
Renewable-energy champ @Innogy emerges from German utility @RWE_Group; $22 Billion IPO this week. Outstanding (and disruptive) mission statement sets this one apart: https://lnkd.in/dnx7Ad2 #solutions #innovation
That’s it for now.
Xoxo Mom