The lengths to which George W. Bush will go to avoid having to look his father in the eye are rather remarkable, aren't they?
" The trip was made amid great secrecy. Even Bush’s parents, who were due to eat a traditional turkey dinner with their son, were not told. "
William Germano is speaking to academics on how to present papers with competence, but his advice is timeless. Among the highlights (which is also to say among those things which drive me crazy when people fail to remember them):
I train people to be trainers (i.e. to stand up in front of a group and convey information) and I will be making them read this piece.
I am not now, nor have I ever been a smoker (a sinner, yes). I will, however, defend your right to smoke. And so will the aldermen of Somerville, Massachusetts.
" Backed by angry bar and restaurant owners, aldermen passed a resolution last week asking the Board of Health to reconsider the city's recent smoking ban." Distancing themselves from, and in some cases criticizing the Board of Health's passage of a smoking ban in the city's bars and restaurants, aldermen voted 11-0 in favor of a resolution asking the health board to reconsider the move until a statewide smoking ban takes effect. "
- The Somerville Journal, November 30, 2003
Somerville is a pretty small town in physical size. It is very easy to take your drinking across the city line to another town to a bar which will allow you to light up. And Somerville's bartenders and restaurant owners are none too pleased.
And, so it would seem, neither are the aldermen - though not all for economic reasons. Still, 11-0!
Julian Sanchez is doing his part down in DC on this issue. I've learned about Ban the Ban, a blog focusing on DC, but bringing together info from all over.
All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing.
That any American general would offer an opinion on the possibility of military dictatorship in America without the requisite caveats is on the edge of nightmare.
. . .
The quote is attributed to Edmund Burke, but seems to be a rather wild paraphrase - possibly constructed for political reasons.
The Oslo Accords are a decade old now.
What if Israel had, as a parallel piece of policy back in 1993, made a commitment to join the European Union within a decade (that is, by the end of 2003)? What if the EU and the US had agreed to support the application as part of their commitment to pushing Oslo forward?
What does the world look like in 2003 if Israel has been joining Europe and has been putting economics at the forefront of its security concerns instead of territory?
De Spectaculis is well within the top one hundred hits for "terrorist tactics techniques" on Google. You can get the decoder ring by sending in six boxtops from "The Breakfast of Champions".
That works out to about $3500 per man, woman, and child in Iraq. The CIA Factbook's 2002 estimated GDP per capita was $2400 with growth going down.
Why not just give people the money and let them decide what to do with it?
By the by, I've seen two estimates of the average size of an Iraqi household with the numbers being 6 and 7. So, instead of just handing out cash, establish a low-interest credit line for every family of $25,000 - and let them decide how to use it.
The headline blazoned across this morning's Boston Herald, staring out from the newsboxes as I walked to work, calls Iraqis "Savages".
And of course the actions, the possible mutilation of American soldiers, that brought on this trumpet blast also serve to reduce the humanity of the victims.
In light of a welling anger among some Americans toward Iraqis, an anger at what appears to be a lack of appropriate gratitude, we're going to see more of this from our side. Much more and worse.
The diehard, bigscreen hawks, so eager to follow a banner to war - any banner and any war as long as you could watch it on CNN - never did have the courage of their convictions. They just wanted their proxies to break something, to show that unprovoked might can sometimes make right - when "right" is an action movie. Though they speak about fortitude and determination, these emotions are too slow, too thoughtful, too cool. Anger, its hot lusty rush, its demand that something be done now, is their only true emotion. Action must supercede thought, precede thought and so preclude it.
In the blindness of their persistent rage they will seek to break yet another thing: America's will. Through the coming winter, the drumbeat will begin to sound, louder and more persistent: "Fuck them. If this is how they repay us for liberating them, if they don't - by god - thank us for saving them, then let them rot, let them kill each other. Bring the boys home."
Francisco Rey Marcos, a researcher with the Institute for the Study of Conflict and Humanitarian Action (IECAH), writes (emphasis mine):
" Violence in any armed conflict may seem 'indiscriminate', merely the product of chaos, but in fact it is rarely so. On the contrary, there is always a rationale of some sort. ... In Iraq, more than in the earlier wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan, it may be that humanitarian agencies -- their independence already stretched -- are being widely perceived as part of the framework created by the intervening forces, as actors in the armed conflict, and not as impartial providers of aid and protection.And make no mistake, this has not come about by accident.
When British Prime Minister Tony Blair said during the Afghan conflict that 'this war has three dimensions: the military, the political and the humanitarian one', he reinforced the impression of a hidden agenda behind humanitarian action.
In the case of Iraq, coalition governments have also been financing the most sympathetic, least publicly sceptical NGOs while ignoring others less pliable, so it is easy to see how this perception of ordinary Iraqis took hold. "
I've had cause to make this point before: No one in a conflict situation is perceived as neutral by the participants.
Some months ago I returned to Bloom County:
" I was happily, amusedly, laughingly surprised to find that many of the political strips not only stand up to the wearying passage of time, but are relevant to our jaded world. After all, we have a Republican in the White House again. And as a source of humor (red, white, blue, or black) that is the gift which gives until you scream for mercy. "
Berke Breathed is returning to the Sunday funnies.
" The world went and got silly again. I left in 1995 with things properly, safely dull, and couldn't imagine why anyone would feel it necessary again to start behaving ridiculously. It would have been at least courteous of the Republicans to warn a few of us inclined to retire our ink-swords that they had King George waiting in his zoom-zoom jetsuit aching to start the Crusades again. "
The world went and got silly again - after all, we have a Republican in the White House.
There is no better blog than Body and Soul.
Read this and then this. And then everything else.
Crooked Timber is wasting bandwidth with that perennial barroom argument: the "Ten Greatest Albums of All Time". If it's good enough for Rolling Stone, so they seem to think. (If it's good enough for Crooked Timber, so I seem to think . . .)
Attempting to make some sort of objective, quantitative statement about what is subjective and qualitative is a mug's game. Essentializing pop music - anything really (paintings, novels, interior decoration, politics) - generally shows people at their worst.
When I use the word "qualitative" I use it judiciously to mean "quality of life". While our contemporary environment exposes us to a terrible amount of aesthetic abuse, we also consciously immerse ourselves in the sound of our own desire. In other words, most of us listen to music for pleasure. What we choose to listen to is chosen precisely because it affords us some sort of comfort, whether a warm blanket of rage, the cool menthol of hipness, a shiny plastic happiness, or a million other feelings. We listen to music because it impacts our quality of life.
So, you undoubtedly get some benefit from something that sounds like pure noise to me, while yet another may get himself through the day with what you consider to be pure tripe. The only relevant measure of "greatest" albums, the only question about music worth asking is simply: what ten records got you through the last year?
In alphabetical order, and with the understanding that this list is for 2003 and not for any other time period, the albums that built this blog:
Appetite for Destruction, Guns 'n Roses
Celebrity Skin, Hole
Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones
Inflammable Material, Stiff Little Fingers
Murmur, REM
Red Dirt Girl, Emmylou Harris
Retreat From the Sun, That Dog
Say Something Nasty, Nashville Pussy
Stone Roses, Stone Roses
Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, PJ Harvey
. . .
Mrs Martial points out that my utter lack of criteria about which anyone can argue is singularly effective at shutting down conversation. She wonders if that is what I'm trying to do and whether or not she should be rethinking this whole moving in with me business.
She also thinks that the top five barroom arguments are:
. . .
Finally, those who think that having some qualitative measure to separate the wheat from the chaff is, well, essential should make healthy use of the Musical Correctness calculator. Lord knows I do.
. . .
UPDATE: Hee hee! Tim Grierson weighs in with "The Top 500 Reasons Rolling Stone Still Doesn't Matter".
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did the right thing today, and ruled that marriage is a responsibility open to all.
De Spectaculis has earlier offered an opinion or two.
. . . while watching the Ohio State and Purdue game.
"Ohio State appears to have players named Hawk and Fox on their defense. Kind of like the Bush defense team.""Hmm, I think that they're a bit more like hedgehogs."
The New York Times suggests that Bush Administration should stop their crying over spilt milk and start figuring out how to clean it up.
" [T]he administration is giving the impression of having one foot out the door, while doggedly refusing to take the only realistic next step — asking the United Nations to take over the nation-building. ... There is only the certainty that the Bush administration, which has made all the wrong bets so far, does not have any better options. "
Whether they have better options, do not forget that they're still betting with other people's money! And lives.
If, as the Washington Post reports,
" The Bush administration plans to support the creation of a reconstituted governing body in Iraq that will assume a large degree of sovereignty by next summer -- and possibly end control by the U.S.-led occupation before the 2004 presidential election. ... " The decision represents a major shift in U.S. political strategy. Mirroring the U.S. military strategy of 'Iraqification,' Washington now wants to hand over as much responsibility for the political process as is feasible, as fast as it is feasible. "
Then, how will the $87B be spent?
. . .
Given the experience of holding elections in post-conflict Cambodia in 1993 - $2 billion dollars plus for a population of thirteen million - I'd estimate about $8 billion for elections in Iraq.
$79B to go . . .
Was in Washington on Monday meeting a variety of people to discuss a variety of projects.
The security situation in Iraq is now considered bad enough by the NGOs that we will not send someone there, though we may send someone to the region.
The international NGOs are not themselves abandoning Iraq. Most of them have offered a choice to their employees about whether to stay or not, and many people have chosen to stay. They do not want us there right now because adding responsibilities to security and evacuation plans makes the plans less reliable for the staff who count on them.
. . .
UPDATE: Josh Marshall highlights the security situation in Iraq by suggesting that a change in American strategy is in the works.
" And all that seems really clear is that something major is about to happen on the ground in the US occupation. "
He also refers us to Fred Kaplan's take, astutely subtitled: We're not pulling out of Iraq, so it's logical that we're pushing in deeper.
There is nothing like reading a great book for the first time. Master and Commander stunned me the first time I read it. The dialogue was nearly incomprehensible, and O'Brian's own narrative style uniquely obscure. I could not put it down until I figured out what the hell was going on.
Over the course of the series, O'Brian matures as an adventure writer, bringing the action into focus, and as an historical one, clarifying for his readers subtle points of etiquette or obsolete technologies. His mastery, however, is such that any clarifications come within the structure of the narrative and are never digressions; O'Brian is one of the least intrusive of authors. Also, over the course, he acquires the knack of ending his chapters and his books at the precise moment where to say any more would be to say too much. As a result, the stories being told seem to hang unresolved, nearly forcing the reader headlong into the next chapter or book.
I'm looking forward to the movie. Tim Dunlop recommends it.
Yahia Said returns to the Iraq he left as a teen.
" Iraqis want to regain control of their future and to become truly independent and free. They are sick of violence of all kinds, whatever the pretexts. They are tired of empty rhetoric and ideologies. Most Iraqis want to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives and move on. Whoever cares for them should help them do just that. "
I want to emphasize this comment. Nearly everybody caught in a conflict feels this way. But people also feel powerless in the face of the violent. So they live their lives as close to normally as possible and they go through their days with varying degrees of fear and uncertainty.
There are strategies for dealing with the violent and the lawlessness of incessant conflict. Some of these strategies encourage people to come out of the darkness, to stand up unafraid, to speak out and to build for the long-term. But others push people back down into their holes, away from the light of day, away from their participation in the future. Whoever cares should think about which effect their strategies are likely to have.
This is a fascinating look at "performance enhancing" drugs. Why doesn't my insurance cover HGH?
(Via Marginalia)
When designing a new programme, whether water or food security or micro-credit, etc, a development colleague of mine always applies what he calls "the Cargo Plane Test".
Would you get a greater or lesser return on your funding if you were to fly the money (in $1 bills) up over the region where it is to be spent and then dumped the money out into the sky?
Kip at Long story; short pier, in a "Sputtering, frothing rage" takes the time to offer a curse to the dark:
" I want them—all of them, from Rumsfeld to Rove, from Rice to Powell, from Bush himself to Ashcroft, at whose feet this latest particular outrage can be laid, I want them all sitting back, dumbfounded, their heads in their hands, staring at the mailbags and ballots, muttering to themselves.My goodness. Were there that many decent people? Is it possible there were that many decent, humane people in the whole country? "
. . .
More recently, Kip quotes from Time - September 10, 2001.
" In the profile on Colin Powell [...] —there’s a bit on how the relatively new Administration is dealing with Iraq. "
A few weeks ago I asked my mother, civil rights worker and anti-war activist, "During the 60s, did you wake up every morning with this same sense of rage and depression?"
She said, "Yes. But we got over it."
. . .
(The title to this post is hot, hot, hot! - fresh from tonight's Simpsons.)
" When someone onscreen slits their wrists, you're not supposed to envy them, are you? "
David Neiwert points out that in Rush Limbaugh's world, "over-rated" isn't so much an insult as a description of the way things work.
" In Limbaugh's world, people are capable of advancing to superstar levels on the tide of pure hype. "
And Ralph Wiley views Rush through the cold, cold lens of his professional perspective.
. . . sounds like a fair characterization of most commentary, from the blogosphere to the pundits to the government ministries. The phrase itself comes from a review of Stephen Schwartz's The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror. Paul William Roberts writes:
" For the truth we should be more cognizant of is that, currently, Islam is as much, if not far more, at war with itself as it seemingly is with the rest of us. This is the subject with which this book deals. But unless more of us are willing to familiarize ourselves with the lengthy histories and complex analyses books such as this one necessarily involve, we must either declare our ignorant neutrality or our brazen bigotry whenever the issue arises. "
The phrase also has a wider resonance.
How are we to make informed decisions when most of our sources are in fact either ignorant or brazen? Well, we could start by reading this book.
the watch wants us to be informed, to know the enemy the better to fight.
I want you to be informed of who your friends are: the watch is now Pacific Views.
Jesse from The Gotham City 13 wonders what is meant by the word "normal":
" So I get home from dinner, check the news and what do I read? Well, GWB says that Iraq is returning to normal. Okay, 'normal' in what sense of the word? Because for decades now, 'normal' for the Iraqis has been Saddam Hussein in power. And I thought we went to war with Saddam because of how he treated his people. So, I guess what he's saying is that, things are returning to the way it was under Saddam. That's great, let me tell you. 87 billion dollars of greatness. "
" By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty, against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion. "
- Lord Acton, The History of Liberty in Antiquity
I hear a lot of stories from the trouble-spots of the world, and I will occasionally share those that I think are instructive or illustrative. However, no one should ever forget that the web is public space. Friends and acquaintances of mine have gotten in trouble because their names were linked, on the web, with operations that governments or movements did not approve of. The worst fallout - so far - from these instances has been the denial of visas and the cutting back of some projects. It could easily be worse.
Worse? Everybody I work with knows people who have been killed.
I downplay the danger of what I do because, doing the job that I do, I am very seldom in a dangerous situation. I don't usually spend more than two or three weeks anywhere and I - largely - avoid danger zones. But the people on the ground, the staff of the organizations with which I work, do not in general pick up and leave whenever the situation gets hot. The local staff often don't even have that choice.
As a result, De Spectaculis will never knowingly put someone in danger or get someone in trouble. Names, and sometimes even locations, will not be attached to whatever stories I choose to tell.
My own rules for De Spectaculis involve truthfulness and entertainment. I feel perfectly free to embellish my own life for artistic purpose. I will otherwise never knowingly tell an untruth about a verifiable fact. While my opinion is clearly my opinion, I always base my opinion on experience.
Finally, De Spectaculis is my blog and I will write about whatever strikes my fancy. The choice to read is, as always, the reader's.
USA Today on 11/04 follows up my "Tar Baby" post:
" U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement officials say that after six months of intensifying guerrilla warfare, Iraqi insurgents know more about the U.S. and allied forces — their style of operations, convoy routes and vulnerable targets — than the coalition forces know about them. "
(via Daily Kos)
Given the stretching of metaphor below, given George Bush's firmness of mind, and given the motley ways his allies insist that his critics "shut-up" . . .
I would like to suggest that the theme song of the Bush Administration is now "Papa Don't Preach".
John Holbo, reading Dead Right by David Frum, captures - at length - some of what makes contemporary "conservatism" seem so odd (emphasis in what follows mine).
" Frum cleaves to a radically elitist conception according to which, ideally, a narrowly-conceived set of social and cultural ideals are imposed on a potentially recalcitrant and resistant population. Why? Because he has the philosophical clarity of mind to see that the alternative is unthinkably terrible: a radically elitist conception according to which, ideally, a narrowly-conceived set of social and cultural ideals are imposed on a potentially recalcitrant and resistant population. ... " Frum has written a book about the need for a reflective, conservative philosophy. And: that’s the one thing he hasn't got. He just has no clue why he is a conservative, or why being one might be a good idea – or even what 'conservatism' ought to mean. "
Even more to the point, Mr Holbo writes that Frum implicitly suggests that "conservative" philosophy is:
" an illicit feeling ... that economics is, magically, a function not so much of social or cultural arrangements as aesthetic ones. ... : if only we achieve aesthetic satisfaction here, economics will take care of itself. "
The same could surely be written about contemporary "liberalism" and liberals. However, the aesthetes appear to have taken over the Republican party, while the Democrats have largely passed theirs over to the Greens. Can we please get back to thinking about the future - which we will wind up in sooner or later, whether we will or no - instead of this persistent imagining that the past will ever catch up?
All right, so we didn't pull out of Iraq. Now we're doing the right thing and paying the cost, no matter what.
Boy, I really wish we'd used that condom . . .
. . .
" The comparison is about a blind administration, talking itself into something and then unable to control the beast they've birthed, unable (and unwilling) to kill it. " - Christian Bauman, quoted out of an interesting context, writing in to Eschaton
WFYI TV Indianapolis is going to broadcast Paul's opera, The Trio of Minuet! Wicked cool, man!
" The Indianapolis Children’s Choir (ICC), known as one of the largest and most successful children’s choral programs in the country, strives to provide quality music instruction while attaining the highest level of artistic excellence in choral performance. In May 2003, the ICC, under the direction of Founder & Artistic Director Henry Leck, stepped outside the realm of its usual performance genre with Indianapolis’ first professional children’s opera, The Trio of Minuet." This special performance was recorded by FYI Productions, and airs Wednesday, November 19 at 8:00 p.m. on WFYI TV 20, with a rebroadcast on Thanksgiving Day, November 27 at noon. The opera and the taping for broadcast were generously underwritten by the Max Simon Foundation. "
How do you decide which industries to go to bat for?
Which industry is more important: oil ... or arms? Minerals ... or arms? Construction ... or arms?
I'm only asking because I was wondering about sustainability. I hate it when the pipelines are sabotaged or tapped. I don't like it when the diamonds and bauxite are bloody - and expensive. I'm bothered when the buildings just built are knocked down.
. . .
" Washington accounted for close to one-half of all new arms transfer agreements concluded during the year, as well as actual arms deliveries." Altogether, arms sales from all sources to developing countries made up about two-thirds of arms sales worldwide during 2002, according to the report, which is based on the most comprehensive data compiled by the U.S. government.
" New arms agreements with developing nations totaled 17.7 billion dollars, a 10 percent increase over new deals in 2001. Of that total, U.S. sales came to 8.6 billion dollars, or almost 48 percent of all arms transfers to Third World countries, up from 41 percent the previous year. "
Despite the above, arms sales are down this year. Some good from the slow world economy.
The CRS Report to Congress on "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1995 - 2002"
Zbigniew Brzezinski on "New American Strategies for Security and Peace".
This is text is vital. Pass it on.
(via Talking Points Memo)