Just as the whole Karl Rove v. Sheryl Crow thing was blowing up in the news, I was arriving in Washington, D.C. to cover ... Sheryl Crow. Taking on climate change. You can read about Crow's big arrival over on my blog, but a few quick thoughts on the Rove encounter before I head for the airport to come home.
When I mentioned this story yesterday morning, I had no idea this would become the story-of-the-moment on all the major mainstream media outlets. But Sheryl Crow's candid telling-off of Karl Rove has blown up, landing in the Washington Post, Hollywood Daily, some random news channel in Iowa, Fox News, and the New York Times, among tons of others. As I was pulling on my shoes this morning, it came on CNN, where, exhibiting the highest standards of journalism, the reporter remarked that the exchange "must have been awkward" before focusing the rest of the segment on a quote from an interview yesterday in which Crow (obviously joking) suggested imposing limitations on how much toilet paper Americans can use.
Of course, the toilet paper comment has been all over conservative blogs today. Because as we all know, Crow, like all loony Hollywood leftists, wants us all to sacrifice so they can have giant houses and fancy cars. And, she's fat a celebrity, making her inherently hypocritical.
Or maybe the toilet paper is just a good distraction from the fact that Rove got told off by a sassy, beautiful woman on his own turf. As cynical as I might be sometimes, if someone like Crow can use her star power to take on the Bush administration and land climate change in the headlines (if even for the wrong reasons), all power to her.
Crow really put it best herself yesterday, responding to the one question I got in during their press conference about the problems that come from speaking out on social issues when you're a celebrity:
"We get a bad rap for putting ourselves out in front on issues, but my response to that is, with this particular issue, I don't really care," said Crow. "It's so dire at this point. If people are going to be critical, they're missing the point. The point is to get people in a room."
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Comments
View as Flat
WWAGD?! Posted 1:59 am
24 Apr 2007
Task List for Sheryl
Since Sheryl Crow has fallen into the Al Gore "Do As I Say; Not As I Do" club, I have prepared a task list for here (Bono, please make a copy for yourself):
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:10 am
24 Apr 2007
Heh
The Hypocrisy claims all come from ignorant people who think the only way to deal with climate change is by forcing everyone to live like the Amish. (Both sides of the fence here)
When the real answer is you can have a pimped house, a sexy car, and use tons of energy :P
Just so long as we figure out how to make energy without emitting tons of carbon.
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Solar John Posted 7:06 am
25 Apr 2007
A note to Sheryl
Hey Sheryl,
I tried your one-sheet suggestion, but found that it quickly reaches an irreversible tipping point. Any other suggestions?
SJ
http://solarjohn.blogspot.com
Solar John
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jcarterwil Posted 6:58 am
06 May 2007
Real Savings
The problem is not about individuals, its about understanding solutions that provide real energy savings in the near term so that we see changes, and are motivated to do more. I keep hearing about the need for a "Manhattan Project" style objective. That is a find approach when there is really no other solution, but let's go for some real savings now. We know that CFL's have an impact, how do we get more people to recognize that?
Also, companies like www.gridlogix.com and the Texas A&M energy group (look up Re-Commissioning or see www.machine2enterprise.com) have solutions that can reduce energy usage in an average commercial building by 10-20% by optimizing the control software in the building. Across the nation that would result in reducing consumption of 500M barrels of oil/yr and the CO2 output of 25M cars.
I think we should focus on real solutions.
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