Not A Stripper

Redirect

2005-12-25T23:43:00.000-06:00

I made a decision! (I hope you were sitting down for that) From now on you can read my musings at the Latest Obsession. This blog will no longer be updated. See you over there!

inspiration

2005-12-08T11:05:00.000-06:00

ok. I'm getting inspired again.

I need to figure out how to have blogergy. synergy. blog synergy. right now I have a knitting blog, a personal blog, and this. Seems a shame to let this go to waste, and lots of the stuff I put on the personal blog could go here instead/also. I see my friend waking slow/slowlyawake do this crossposting all the time, I will ask her about how it works if she doesn't see this first.

I'm used to livejournal at this point, and I like its ease of use and its levels. Maybe I should become a paid user there and bring over the notastripper name? Or is this just as easy and I haven't figured it out yet? It'd be nice to have a place more formal than that, where I can do something resembling writing.

Robert Bork

2005-06-03T13:04:00.000-05:00

NPR this morning aired this overview of the Watergate scandal, which was very interesting and useful to someone who didn't live through it and knows the basics, but tends to get confused by the many names involved :)

Anyway, one part stood out. The Saturday night massacre ended when Robert Bork fired Archibald Cox, after his two superiors refused to do so. This depraved act of Bork's was surely a motivating factor behind the Democrats' opposition of his nomination to the Supreme Court in the 1980s (altho I'd appreciate some perspective on this from someone who knows more about the hearings).

That hearing seems to be the point in time people mark as the beginning of the current combative legislative tone, everything having been tit for tat since then. It's interesting to me that even that moment had its origin in the jaw-dropping abuse of power that was Watergate, surely one of the more clear-cut cases of right vs. wrong we've had in American politics.

On other words, the Republicans' choosing loyalty over fairness and justice is what got us where we are today. Hmm, when I say it that way it seems kind of obvious...

I'm back

2005-05-29T23:32:00.000-05:00

Sorry readers, I was expecting blogspot to email me if I had any comments, and they didn't so I thought nobody was reading anymore! I revisited my blog today after showing it to someone and noticed that I am still in some rss feed lists. :) I haven't deicded what to do with it, or anything. I could make it a "what's going on in my life" thing in general, but then I feel like that shoudl move to livejournal, I kind of have problems editing myself at times and who knows what I'd reveal ;) I had this problem in college once when a girlfriend told me she talked to her best friend every day. I don't always feel like I have thoughts worth sharing every day...then of course there are those days with plenty to go around.

Remember Me?

2005-04-26T18:00:00.000-05:00

Hi.

Well. Lots of changes.

--This blog was originally begun to give me a political outlet. However,
--I don't really need one anymore, since
--(insert angry comment about election here), and
--I had a dissertation to write, and
--I wrote it, and in the process weaned myself from politics.

Oh, I still keep up, kind of. But my outrage meter got severely reset by the election and everything happening since. The point at which I find my brain turning off out of self-protection from the anger politics produces comes a lot earlier than it did before. A LOT earlier. Like, I can sometimes feel it happening during the DAILY SHOW. During joke SETUPS.

So I'm not sure what to do with this blog now.

(and we'll see who still has me in their RSS. Holla!)

Tom Tomorrow is surprised

2004-10-03T09:59:00.000-05:00

This Modern World:

I have to admit, I'm surprised by the public response (though not unpleasantly so)--this is how Bush always looks to me. So he's shifty-eyed, smirks inappropriately, doesn't seem capable of maintaining a coherent train of thought for a full ninety seconds, seems generally befuddled and irritable? Well, it's nice the media and the commentariat finally noticed, but it's not exactly as if any of this is news. Point is, when I went back to the hotel last night I was too tired to watch much post-debate spin, so I had no real idea how this was going to play--I would have been unsurprised to find that Kerry had been declared the loser, or that the whole thing had been declared a draw. I just can't tell anymore. The gulf between what I observe when watching Bush and what the media report has just grown too wide.

I started this here blog (which got its perhaps-first non-friend reader last night, thanks for stopping by, narcissist :) because one day, I felt this exact way about the Iraq war reportage. I hope that this is the first weekend of the rest of our lives, and that in a few months, I'll be inspired to write another such dream column about how Bush had no clothes on the WHOLE TIME.

It feels like something is happening. I hope that's real. I've often marveled at how this election seems to go the way I want it to just at the right time.

Yes, I'm sober this time....

2004-10-03T02:55:00.000-05:00

and I'm rewatching the debate, all hail TiVo. I started doing so because of this here rumor, but I got sucked in. I'm not sure what I can see that I haven't already seen the first time or read about in the last few days, and let's face it, I'm so partisan that all it's gonna do is solidify my leanings :), but it's pretty interesting to carefully watch Bush and how he gets more and more annoyed as time goes on.

If you're too lazy to follow links, the rumor is based on this: at one point Bush is stumbling, and says "let me finish"--but he had plenty of time left, and nobody was interrupting him. They have an mp3 of the moment. It definitely happened. The tinfoil hats come out at the explanation they offer: he was talking to someone who was feeding him answers in an earpiece. Now given Bush's relationship to the English language, I think a more parsimonious explanation may just be that he got his verbal feet tangled up in his mental thicket and tripped. But hey, it's early on Sunday morning, and I am a scientist. Let's think about it a bit more systematically. What would one need to pull this off?

--an earpiece small enough (I'm sure the technology is good enough for this by now)
--a transmitter within range (ham radio people? what say you? what sort of boosters could bush wear to increase this?)
--a person feeding the info who can unsuspiciously be scarce during the debate (got to be a ton of these)
--practice with the system, requiring at LEAST one tech dude to handle the electronics and one policy dude to handle the content (I do not think you could find those skillsets in one person.)

Who is going to be looking for this sort of thing? The debate commission? They're busy running the hall etc. The other campaign? You'd have to have a suspicion first, and they are busy enough without going on snipe hunts.

Now, on the other hand, the video doesn't support this well. He seemed to be looking at someone (Lehrer?) as he was speaking, and kept eye contact with him and even gestured when he said "let me finish". So another possibility is a misreading of Lehrer's body language (because he had at least 30 seconds left). All I have is C-Span split screen video, so it's hard to be sure.

Another point against the idea is that inside accounts seem to suggest that even campaign Republicans were surprised at how Bush bombed the debate. "Everyone", including people like me, thought Bush would do about five times better than he did, and that Kerry'd be lucky to fight it to a draw. I doubt the Bush campaign thought differently enough to be scared enough to risk this.

But even if you think my tinfoil hat is reeeeeeeeally shiny right now (with the shiny side out, more of the mind control rays are deflected), you must admit that this is EASILY within the realm of possibility. We're talking about the party who sent their interns and staffers to Miami to stop the recount in 2000 by rioting in the halls of the county building. The party that even AFTER the Florida debacle in 2000 when they KNEW they'd be under scrutiny, tried to submit fucked-up felon lists that required a subpeona to uncover. What is stopping them from doing this? What moral principle? Only a nonbinding agreement with an opponent they don't respect and a commission with no real power.

Say what you will about the media's cravenness....

2004-10-03T02:47:00.000-05:00

but by rejecting the candidates' rules about the video feeds for the debates, thereby putting Bush's reactions and demeanor on the table, the republic just may have been saved.

Debate #1 Multiple Choice

2004-09-30T21:32:00.000-05:00

Which of the following is a true statement?

A) Bush is prematurely senile

B) Kerry is a wicked good debater

C) I am drunk

D) ALL OF THE ABOVE!!!!!!!!!!

OK, if the blogosphere and punditocracy try to call this a tie I'mma spit on them all PERSONALLY.

The possible long-term effects of racism

2004-08-25T12:32:00.000-05:00

I haven't been following the Michelle Malkin business; I had vaguely heard of her book and its thesis (Japanese-American internment during WWII wasn't as bad as history thinks, racial profiling is sometimes OK), but when I saw her and her condescending ways on Bill Maher, I pegged her as an Ann Coulter type to ignore. But it turns out she actually has an idea or two that the blogosphere has decided is worth taking seriously. In a post by a blogger new to me, Orcinus, I found this paragraph:

Taken in isolation, these little acts of racial mean-spiritedness may have seemed of little moment. But in fact they had consequences that eventually exploded into the history books. In Japan, the public had been closely watching the passage of the Alien Land Laws with mounting outrage. And when news of the passage of the Asian Exclusion Act was announced, mass riots broke out in Tokyo and other cities. As Pearl Buck would later observe, the then-nascent movement for American-style democracy, which had been slowly gaining momentum in Japan, was effectively wiped out overnight. The military authoritarians who would control the nation for the next 20 years gained complete political mastery, and one of the cornerstones of their rule was a bellicose anti-Americanism that would finally reach fruition in late 1941.

Interesting, eh? I'm generally fascinated by this sort of wide-angle lens on history. Thought I'd share.

Alan Keyes is Nutty, Part 317

2004-08-25T10:35:00.000-05:00

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Declaring "the front line of the war against terror once again involves the citizens," Republican Alan Keyes said Tuesday he believes the U.S. Constitution grants properly trained private individuals the right to own and carry machine guns.

"You're not talking about giving citizens access to atom bombs and other things," the former presidential candidate said. "That's ridiculous."

Well, of COURSE!! Nuclear weapons, what a wacky idea!! He's just talking about MACHINE GUNS! You know, fully automatic rifles and such. The idea being that the 2nd amendment says that citizens should be armed similarly to the military. So give them guns like this one!

Or even little purse-sized guns like this Uzi-style! See, it goes right over one's shoulder.

Only with proper training, of course. Training provided by...erm....proper training, definitely, definitely need proper training. From the Fully Automatic Weapon Training Gnomes of Limited Government. Yeah, that's it!

Now, why would it be safe, and not scary as all get-out, to have Americans walking around with their own personal machine guns? You may wish to ask this of Alan Keyes. Well, someone has already done so:

"Have you ever been to Israel?" Keyes asked the reporter. "Because if you've ever been to Israel, you wouldn't ask that question. And in the midst of terrifying dangers, you walk around the streets of Israel and you see every other person carrying arms and Uzis and so forth and so on, and believe me, you do not feel less safe on that account."

Ah yes. When in Israel, one is awash in feelings of security and peace. Walking down the street, taking buses, sipping coffee at outdoor cafes--surely, the presence of multiple uzis being carried by trained citizens (all of whom are veterans, remember) is a soothing balm of reassurance to the Israeli mind. (Non-sarcastic proposal: you know the "Hitler" rule of online discussion? When Hitler gets mentioned, the conversation has degraded such that there is nothing more worthwhile to be said. Should there maybe be an "israel" corollary, on using Israel as a sociological example of anything?)

But wait, the best is yet to come:

Keyes made the remarks at a news conference he called to attack the "ideological extremism" of his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Barack Obama.

Extremist Barack Obama objected to a messy little law that would have allowed people to use self-defense as a legal defense for violating local handgun laws. So in Chicago, say, if you own an illegal handgun, but use it in self-defense, you would be able to avoid prosecution for owning an illegal handgun. Surely, objection to that sort of change by a lawyer like Obama could only be grounded in ideological extremism, and not in how it creates a frigging legal MORASS out of already messy gun regulations. And, surely, taking the 2nd amendment to one of its interpretations' logical extremes by allowing citizens to carry the same weapons as soldiers is, comparatively, a moderate suggestion.

Disgust, Equality, Leadership and the Family

2004-08-05T00:04:00.000-05:00

Martha Nussbaum has an article in The Chronicle about disgust and shame and how they relate to law, inspired by current debates about homosexuality. Lots of good insights, but then at the end there's this one:

"In general, a society based on the idea of equal human dignity must find ways to inhibit stigma and the aggression that are so often linked to the proclamation that 'we' are the ones who are 'normal.' Such a society is difficult to achieve, because incompleteness is frightening, and grandiose fictions are comforting. As a patient of the psychoanalyst Donald W. Winnicott said to him, 'The alarming thing about equality is that we are then both children, and the question is, where is father? We know where we are if one of us is the father.'"

Wow! This made me think of a lot of things. First of all, my man George Lakoff, who in my world would be a household name, and his ideas about the links between conceptions of the family and resultant political views that explain so much about sociopolitical discourse in America today. (I also talk about him in posts archived here and here.)

But it also made me think about leadership. My first 9-to-5 job was one summer at college, and watching how the office was run made me realize just how unorganized and leaderless a place could be while still functioning well enough to not get noticed. (No that place wasn't terrible, but it did illustrate the concepts.) It made me see what gets things done is just people deciding to do them, that there is no boss or parent in life, and that even people in roles that could be expected to be bossy/parental often don't fulfill those roles. It's hard to explain without sounding stupid. But it comes up a LOT, especially when I look at how things happen politically. Budgets may need to get passed or too many people get mad, but other bills and ideas? One person gets the light in their eye and their work makes it happen. That person is necessary (but not always sufficient) for implementation. (This article on electronic voting made me think of this, for some reason.)

So I think this observation about the frighteningness of equality is valid. That nobody could be in charge is so terrifying that we develop religions, invent conspiracy theories, etc. to PUT someone in charge. Grandiose fictions ARE comforting.

This election season

2004-07-29T22:07:00.000-05:00

It just gets better and better. Gore didn't run, gracefully. Dean woke up the Dems and then all the momentum transferred seamlessly to the strongest candidate, who keeps doing the right things. The bad news from Iraq and the 9/11 Commission comes in at just the right time and public mood starts turning just when it should. The famously scattershot Dems have a convention so on message even Republicans are impressed. The common wisdom about Kerry's speech was that he had to give a great one. Well, he was no Obama, but he was presidential. It really, really worked. Not a misstep to my ears, not one. Being overly stentorian may grate on one (the biggest criticism I have--not enough changes in tone of voice) but it's grating in the right direction--the respectable one.

Damned if I don't think we can do this. I just hope when we get there we can fix some of the damage. But we SO can get there.

One or Two Americas?

2004-07-28T22:59:00.000-05:00

So, like you I'm sure, Barack Obama's speech at the DNC last night blew me away. I've been loving Edwards for a year or so but his speech seemed lackluster in comparison, to me anyway.

This article in the New Republic
Online may not be accessible, so here is a long excerpt about this issue of divided or united America and how Obama's message resembles and differs from Bush's in 2000:

"So in 2000 Bush portrayed the country as divided (and therefore needing a uniter); and in 2004 Democrats portray the country as united (and therefore needing to get rid of a divider). But the funny thing about both these formulations is that neither was, or is, really true. In mid-2000 America wasn't nearly as divided as Bush contended. The economy had grown long enough and strongly enough to begin lifting all boats; there hadn't been a major war in decades; and, despite his Oval Office dalliances, Clinton was leaving office with an approval rating topping 60 percent in most polls. The election was considered dull news largely because no one felt a need for drastic change in the way things were headed. Bush's greatest success was convincing just enough people that, despite the evidence, the country really was a divided place, and new leadership was needed to bring us back together.

But if Bush was wrong in 2000, the Democrats are wrong today. The country is, in fact, divided. A hard-core 45 percent has rallied behind Bush, and a similar number behind Kerry. People are worried about terrorism, but deeply divided on what to do about it. The same goes for the economy, gay marriage, and abortion. To be sure, the Democrats will argue that all of this is Republican spin--that most people don't care about gay marriage, that a majority are critical of the war in Iraq. And to an extent this is true. But this line of argument can also be pushed toward self-parody, in which Democrats embrace a worldview that blames any kind of political tension, even healthy debate over real divisions, on the GOP spin machine."

All these arguments over whether or not we are united just make me think: what unites us? What should? "Freedom" obviously is a bit too vague a concept when some people are willing to get their bags checked on the Boston subway and some aren't. I know what I think: I think it's our tolerance for our plurality, and our ability to reinvent ourselves within and between generations. Some of "them" would say god, to which I say, bite me. But they'd be more right than I am, I do think.

Maybe the point is just that it's an ongoing experiment and it's set up such that nobody can impose their view for long. So since everyone feels like their values are dying, they fight for them, and the struggle is ensured to continue. Not very satisfying an explanation, not good for a campaign sound bite :)

Or maybe I'm reaching philosopho-burnout. I've been philosophizing about red/blue etc. for a few days now and it's starting to hurt.

Boyfriend!

2004-07-07T11:43:00.000-05:00

I think I've mentioned before that my boyfriend works in the Kerry campaign. Well, at last I have proof!! (He's the one with the most facial hair and the best clothes :)

Edwards!

2004-07-07T11:41:00.000-05:00

I am inspired to return to blogging by Kerry's selection of John Edwards for VP. My studies took over for a bit there, but I am so excited about this. I read a profile two years ago on Edwards that made him sound like the second coming of Clinton, charisma-wise, and emphasized his "ambulance-chasing trial lawyer" background as a PLUS. It's a fantastic assessment, go read it. (The bit I am talking about is near the end.)

18 or so months ago the word was that Edwards was who the Republicans most feared running against. I was never sure if that was reverse psychology or what, but I give it a few grains of truth. The guy has an iconic American life, beautiful intelligent wife, darling children, is no stranger to struggle and heartbreak...and he's got a REALLY CRAGGY picture in his attic! No candidate has been that good looking since Kennedy.

He's the only person I donated to in the primaries and I only started giving $ to Kerry yesterday. My bimonthly $20 will not get me on any Big Donor lists, but this is the first time in my political life that "my guy" is a contender, and I'm excited about putting my $ where my mouth is.

Against All Enemies

2004-06-05T06:18:00.000-05:00

I borrowed Richard Clarke's book from my stepdad and am reading it now. It's very accessible and the first chapter, which is his experiences on 9/11/01, is very exciting. It's amazing how long ago 9/11 was, but how fresh it can seem--and how unreal it still can seem. You may think you've heard all the book has to say in its media coverage when it came out (I did), but its overview is worthwhile.

Anyway the reason I am blogging about it is on page 89. December 1993 was the 5th anniversary of the Lockerbie Pan Am 103 bombing and Clarke had organized a Scottish cairn to be erected at Arlington in memorial (many killed were servicepeople). At a ceremony, Clinton and a 4-year-old boy whose father had died on 103 broke ground for the cairn, and Clinton whispered something in his ear, which the boy's mother later told Clarke was "My father died before I was born too. Be good to your mom."

Cute story eh? Not like the media cared--their report that night on the Prez was all about Arkansas state troopers, and not a word about Pan Am 103. No wonder people think politicians are assholes. Turns out those who actually interact with them have very different views. Clinton's empathy is well-documented, but when I was in DC last weekend I asked a campaign staffer why she chose to work for Kerry a year ago, and she had a personal story about how well he handled a question of hers when she met him.

Speaking of dissertations....

2004-06-05T06:12:00.000-05:00

did you know the difference between a thesis and a dissertation? I didn't until recently. In a nutshell, a thesis is an idea (hence "thesis statement") and a dissertation is a document. So one writes one's dissertation, which expounds and supports one's thesis. I can't believe I was thinking of doing this without knowing that.

Anyone who wants to buy me the book Shivers recommends is way hired. :)

Remember me?

2004-06-05T06:05:00.000-05:00

yeah...slow week for the blog, I know. I have decided that my interest in politics/current events and my interest in obtaining my PhD are not very compatible. So I am trying to unplug a bit from the news cycle...I will try and make it such that when I _do_ plug in, tho, I think to blog about it. Or maybe you will just hear a lot about the pain of writing a dissertation.

Freudian Overtone of the Day

2004-06-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

The Rude Pundit: Apparently our President keeps Saddam Hussein's gun, the one he had when he was captured from the 'spider hole,' in a study off the side of the Oval Office. Bush shows it to visitors; he is 'proud of it' because, it seems, or so it is said, it reminds the President of how 'proud' he is of the troops.

That's only a little bit illegal, btw. For all sorts of reasons...

Yes Yes Y'all

2004-06-01T20:51:00.000-05:00

I visited my boyfriend in DC this weekend. On Friday I met him at his workplace--the John Kerry campaign headquarters! I had a great time meeting his coworkers and volunteering for the afternoon with the Internet team. Later on John Kerry dropped by to visit me...well OK, for a photo op. (I was standing to his right.) You know how he can look way craggy sometimes in photos? Not in person, at ALL. And jeez, such a better voice.

It Made Me Laugh

2004-06-01T20:43:00.000-05:00

U.S. Backs New Iraq Leaders, Says Not Puppets.

not puppets! LOL!

Going to DC

2004-05-27T23:09:00.000-05:00

I'll be in the District over the holiday weekend visiting my boy. We'll try and avoid the terrorists, don't worry. But blogging may be light or nonexistent.

In Any Other Country...

2004-05-27T11:16:00.000-05:00

From Al Gore's speech to MoveOn.org:

But amazingly, even active duty military officers are speaking out against President Bush. For example, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed senior General at the Pentagon as saying, ' the current OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) refused to listen or adhere to military advice.' Rarely if ever in American history have uniformed commanders felt compelled to challenge their commander in chief in public.

The Post also quoted an unnamed general as saying, "Like a lot of senior Army guys I'm quite angry" with Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush Administration. He listed two reasons. "I think they are going to break the Army," he said, adding that what really incites him is "I don't think they care."

In another country, this level of disconnect would have people expecting a coup.

I want to be funny too

2004-05-26T10:42:00.000-05:00

Like Jesus' General, who here comes up with a new way to get street potholes fixed.

What?

2004-05-26T10:31:00.000-05:00

U.S. Warns Of Al Qaeda Threat This Summer (washingtonpost.com):

That information dovetails with other intelligence 'chatter' suggesting that al Qaeda operatives are pleased with the change in government resulting from the March 11 terrorist bombings in Spain and may want to affect elections in the United States and other countries.

'They saw that an attack of that nature can have economic and political consequences and have some impact on the electoral process,' said one federal official with access to counterterrorism intelligence.

How does this make sense? Were Al-Q paying any attention to the results of the first attack? Bush's approval rating was 90% immediately after, even tho he'd done nothing but fly to Omaha and look scared. Mayor Giuliani was more presidential and the country STILL rallied behind him. You try to influence elections Spain-style and Bush'll win in a landslide.

As to attacks having economic and political consequences...If they couldn't get this lesson from 9/11/01 and had to get it from 3/11/04, well...uh...clue phone?

Trying to think of this more seriously and in context of the Fantasy Ideology article (which I still haven't reread, so help me out here), it seems that these analyses of al-qaeda's motives mean that we still misunderstand them. The reason this analysis makes no sense is because it's assuming that Al-Qaeda think like we do.

hee hee hee

2004-05-26T09:38:00.000-05:00

Do you read conservative blogs?This will make you giggle, then. It's just too bad there's no Andrew Sullivan.

Dr. Jon Stewart, PhD

2004-05-26T09:26:00.000-05:00

Gotta love this guy:

But it has always been a dream of mine to receive a doctorate and to know that today, without putting in any effort, I will. It’s incredibly gratifying. Thank you. That’s very nice of you, I appreciate it.

I’m sure my fellow doctoral graduates—who have spent so long toiling in academia, sinking into debt, sacrificing God knows how many years of what, in truth, is a piece of parchment that in truth has been so devalued by our instant gratification culture as to have been rendered meaningless—will join in congratulating me. Thank you.

Congratulations!! Excuse me while I bang my head against this wall.

Armed Forces Radio

2004-05-26T09:23:00.000-05:00

Apparently AFR airs an hour of Rush Limbaugh every day. Surely that's a factor in the right-wing dominance of the military I mentioned last week. They also air five hours of NPR programming, but there is a difference between news and drug-addled ranting, even if the news tends leftward.

Conservative vs Liberal Morality

2004-05-25T14:51:00.000-05:00

From The American Prospect, a very interesting little article.

I've been thinking a lot over the past week about frameworks and schemas and how everything we know is known within an interpretive framework. What set me off was realizing that Kerry has been successfully framed as a flip-flopper, just as Gore was framed as a liar. So I was thinking of ads that would counteract that and how to reframe his behaviors in a different context, like "It's not flip-flopping to adapt to changing circumstances, in fact it's irresponsible of Bush not to." There's no point in arguing "facts" because how Kerry voted on Bill X isn't the issue--WHY he voted that way is. So getting into "facts" is playing their game, and they made the rules, so guess who wins? Anyway, the point is not to prove people wrong but to change minds, and telling people "you're wrong" is not going to make them open to your message. Hence "reframing". It's at the emotional pre-fact level so I was thinking a very strong visual referencing the idea itself, like Kerry putting on flip-flops because he's about to walk on the beach, or a guy changing horses midstream because the first horse is lame and unable to cross. Definitely NOT a lot of talking.

This TAP article reminds me of schemas via the ideas of George Lakoff. I had read an article summarizing his argument a few months ago and I find it up there with the Al-Qaeda article I blogged about in terms of explanatory power. I can't find it now, but this interview is just as good. The way Lakoff brings the experiences back to the family and conceptions about how families work is just incredible. If you get this framework into your head, American political discourse jumps into focus. It's amazing.

And the TAP article about morality fits right in.

Childhood Revisited

2004-05-25T14:09:00.000-05:00

They're remaking the Last Unicorn. One's first response when a fondly remembered thing from youth is changed or remade is "NOOOOOOO!!!" And this will be a live-action/CGIed-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life version. But I still think it looks cool. After all, Lord of the Rings made it to the silver screen as a cartoon first time around, and look at THAT remake.

These movies are too disturbing for adults, tho. Time Bandits, the Dark Crystal--kids handle them just fine, but they weird the hell out of adults. There should be an MPAA rating for that... Maybe CG-18?

Predictions, and the French

2004-05-25T12:15:00.000-05:00

Speaking of predictions, last spring a bunch of us made some about how long the war would last. (Defining what that meant became part of the prediction.) The guesses ranged from "2 days if they surrender like the french" to "18 months". Too bad for the last guy we had no money on it, eh?

Reading that file in which I saved the predictions, I remember that there were a lot of anti-French jokes at the time, even among my group of people who thought all the "freedom fries" crap was, well, crap. I had a lot of discussions about it with a friend (American) who happened to be living in Paris at the time. I traced it back to at least the perception of them being pansies in WWII, and was surprised to see that was actually a primary reason for a lot of people at the time. Of all the things to hold against a country. It's a stupid prejudice and I hope that nobody reading me here buys into it. If you do, Molly Ivins has some good points.

UPDATE: for fun, here are the (anonymized outside lucien) predictions.
joker: 3 days 16 hours to get to baghdad, 2 days if they surrender like the french. 2-3 weeks including the surrounding baghdad part

westyp: 12 days

ponytail: 12 days if iraqis surrender like a wave of french people, 6 months if we have to urban-war in baghdad

Yours Truly: 22 days, abbreviated baghdad seige, mass surrender by rest of army (I thought I had won...)

cujo: until the chemical attacks start

vroomboy: 18 months

Iraqi President

2004-05-25T11:53:00.000-05:00

So I was trapped in the car last night during Bush's speech. It was that or radio with commercials, and it's a draw to which I hate more, so I listened to most of the speech. It sounded fine until I realized that the plan is to appoint a person to be head of Iraq, give all power over, and insist on elections by January. But...if some guy (I'm not under any illusions here) is appointed head of Iraq and has all the power, what enjoins him to hold elections? What stops that man from being Saddam II? The separation of powers? What is the government's structure? And if he DOESN'T have all the power, well then, it's not a complete handover, now is it?

I'll have to dig up a post I made before we attacked Iraq predicting the timing of the war and the election. I think I called that we would be done 18 months before the election (which May 2003 basically was) and the Prez would use the intervening months to try to get Iraq off the table. Hence the insistence on the June 30 date, which will have meaning only in how the symbolism of actions after it will translate in the Arab world.

There seems to be a whisper in the air lately about current events echoing LBJ's decision to escalate in Vietnam. Maybe I am just saying that because I caught 20 minutes of an HBO movie dramatizing the decision this weekend, but I think I heard it elsewhere too :) Anyway, I read a chilling sentence in the intro to The Presidential Difference (VERY HIGHLY recommended--look for the edition with the bush/gore profiles in back, or for one with a bush/kerry comparison if it comes out). Whaddya know, here is the exact page (chapter starts on the page before). The two options then: "salvage what little can be preserved with no major addition to our present military risks" or "use our military power in the Far East to force a change of communist policy." The more things change, eh? Did we not go into Iraq to use our military power in the Mideast to force a change of radical Islamist culture and concomitant Mideast governmental policies? And are we not now salvaging what little can be preserved with as little military risk as possible in withdrawing? Vietnam did change this country, that made me realize: it'd be politically impossible today to ramp up the war as it must have been possible then.

(Oh eerie, even the timing is about right. Dien Bien Phu is analogous to the first gulf war. Then the real decision, LBJ's, came a dozen years later. There's even paternal overtones; in this war we have vengeance and/or Freudian one-upmanship of the father. LBJ's attitudes towards the policies of JFK seem lots more reverent than they would have been had JFK not been killed, altho I'm no scholar of the man or the time.)

Supposedly there will be speeches every week laying out the handover more clearly. Why don't they just say "as soon as we find out, we'll let you know." That's clearly the size of it.

It's Not that Complicated

2004-05-24T13:17:00.000-05:00

Slate has this modest proposal for getting out of Iraq.

Confused about Chalabi?

2004-05-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

Me too. I wake up today and he's suddenly an Iranian spy? How long was I asleep, anyway? Kevin Drum has a very useful timeline. Bottom line: scumbag. The fact that he's been in any kind of power lately is just another testament to how stupid the planners of this war were.

Crazy liberals!

2004-05-23T18:02:00.000-05:00

What will they think of next? Turns out nurse visits have the power to save lives, cure cancer and reduce CO2 emissions. Well, save lives, anyway.

It is truly beyond me how anyone could oppose programs like this. I can see how they might be deprioritized cause they are easy to let slip by the wayside, not being based in response to crisis or anything, but I mean to actually look at these things and say "nope--too much government intervention. Bad." Is the concept of "investment" so difficult?

Really, please, someone try to enlighten me about why people would object to these things.

Stealing Ideas

2004-05-22T20:38:00.000-05:00

The NYT (registration required) has this article on Where to Get a Good Idea that reminded me of the blogosphere--more specifically, how blogizens move around in the outside world. You can seem so well-read, interesting, innovative, creative when you read a blog your friends don't....

I love my TiVo

2004-05-21T13:18:00.000-05:00

The Way We Eat Now is yet another article about Americans' eating habits and how they are related to our health and lifestyle. And then they drop this in the middle:

"The best single behavioral predictor of obesity in children and adults is the amount of television viewing," says the School of Public Health's Gortmaker. "The relationship is nearly as strong as what you see between smoking and lung cancer. Everybody thinks it's because TV watching is sedentary, you're just sitting there for hours—but that's only about one-third of the effect. Our guesstimate is that two-thirds is the effect of advertising in changing what you eat."

Yet another TiVo/DVR advantage: it's a weight-loss tool! Where are the ads promoting THAT angle??

It's a good read, and later on they discuss the "Amish paradox" and how humans evolved to be hunter-gatherers and hence to be moving around all the time. Now, I'm normally not a fan of any argument starting with "humans evolved to," since evolutionary biology can so easily be misused and misunderstood. But I back this argument because of a bit of info i read in, I think, this book. Medical anthropologists who study modern skeletons turned to the study of ancient skeletons to look at the history of disease. Many diseases then were similar, until they went back to pre-agricultural skeletons--which were uncannily healthy, and all died of age or trauma. Because, of course, they were living the live they had evolved to live.

UPDATE: Dude, I hadn't even finished the article when I posted this, but the article makes this point and many more. Like that the "food pyramid" is from the dept of AGRICULTURE--not anything health-related--which is why it emphasizes grains a bit too heavily. And that you can only gain bone mass as a kid, everything after that just accelerates or decelerates its loss. Stuff you kind of knew...

Maybe I SHOULD be a stripper...

2004-05-21T12:10:00.000-05:00

Fearful strip clubs register voters to oust President Bush. (Instead, I'll be registering voters tonight at the Metro.)

Don't Let Your Dingle Dangle Dangle in the Mud

2004-05-21T11:32:00.000-05:00

My sister announced a few months ago she would join the Air Force ROTC when she began graduate school (in family counseling and social work). It wasn't the surprise it might have been because she knows (and dates) a lot of military people, so the topic was at least not a new one. It's been really interesting since then to see the effect this has on other people. For example, a lot of people have asked, half-jokingly, if this means she is now a Republican. Even I did when she told me (I made her promise not to become one, and she agreed). The whole thing has made me realize how I live a life firmly in a certain corner of American society. This is perhaps best illustrated by a friend who found some military cadence CDs on the iTunes Music Store...
under Comedy. There is a humorous element to cadences, of course. The task they help to pattern is tedious and humor helps make it bearable. But I doubt that's the sense in which they were categorized. (No, I don't have any better ideas, but Vocal or Spoken Word would be more true to the intent.)

When you think about it, this association of military service with Republicanism is really unfortunate. What is Republican about loving your country enough to work for its security? We're at the point now where that question, from a leftist, is bizarre. Readers who may not know me well may be questioning my leftism for even bringing it up. Sure, we may no longer overtly assume that to be a soldier is to commit atrocities--that is now a socially inappropriate position to hold, after it apparently did such harm during and after Vietnam, and both sides now rush to lip-serve the meme of "supporting our troops." But it's an empty phrase on both sides. What leftists do now is patronize those who have chosen the military. Why aren't there demands for Lynndie England's head? Because the assumption is she was just a poor misguided kid who didn't know any better.

Now there is a basis from which to make that call. But I'm not sure that leftists who rush to patronize understand that basis, and I think that because of responses to my sister's choice. She has signed up to be an officer, she is not enlisting. I don't even fully understand the implications of that distinction, but I know enough to see that there are a whole hell of a lot of them. But the words "Air Force" are where people tune out and get shocked, "ROTC" doesn't modulate that much at all. The difference between signing up to be a grunt at 18 with high school diploma in hand and signing up for ROTC to get a commission at age 25 after obtaining a graduate degree is not often considered. (If they really knew about the military, the "Air Force" part itself would have meaning--it's widely perceived to be the easiest armed force to serve in, in lots of ways. People who understand the relationships between the branches get this right away, and understand her choice better.)

The situation is so bad that some of her military friends do not understand how anyone who holds a liberal position could be on their side. I submit that this is a problem. Republicans/conservatives have lined up this key segment of Americans in their corner (military and flag-waving supporters), and have been very successful at marginalizing pro-military liberals (see how unusual that phrase looks?). The thing is, "pro-military liberal" does not have to be an oxymoron--and it must not be. Only if liberals publicly demonstrate that will we have a chance to break the Republican stronghold on this group of Americans. And if liberals can do that, there is no longer a way for R's to easily and casually impugn our patriotism as they now do.

I worked a lot of this out as I went, so I might have missed some bits. I hope this starts a discussion and people are able to help develop this idea. Because my sister deserves props for her decision--genuine ones, not "well, if they will pay your bills, that's cool" ones. She has put her money where her mouth is, and will be showing people in the military that what I say is true by her example. Let's back her up from the outside.

As if.

2004-05-20T14:10:00.000-05:00

yeah, I'm sure this was just some PFC's acting on their own initiative.

Oh puh-LEASE.

2004-05-20T13:44:00.000-05:00

WHILE I WAS WRITING THAT LAST POST, what news do I hear? Bush election campaign ran from Indian call centre.

Why did they stop? Maybe it was political pressure. Or maybe they had already worked the database, and were done.

WHERE'S THE BLOG?

2004-05-20T13:41:00.000-05:00

No, I haven't already abandoned my latest hobby. it's just been a hell of a week for news. I guess I wasn't really kidding on Monday about having had enough...and I was preparing for a talk yesterday so I didn't have non-news things to say either.

It feels like the West Side Story "Something's Comin'" song lately tho, don't you think? Every week Sy Hersh has more revelations in the New Yorker. The latest is just another jaw-dropper and a MUST-read for anyone following the story, as all his articles have been. Every day someone says something disturbing to Congress. Whatever the hell is going on in Iraq--raiding Chalabi? Bombing Arabs who shoot into the air? And of course, let's not forget the ongoing domestic situation. The deficit is back (the very word reminds me of being a kid). The military is so hard-up for people, they are re-calling up peopel on their way out, and teh draft grumblings aren't going away. and under "irony of the week" I'm not sure which is better: Bush condemning activist judges (MA gay marriage) on the 50th anniversary of the unanimous Brown civil rights decision? Or the closing of an Ohio plant Bush visited on his "See? There's a lot of jobs, and soon there will be more" alternate-reality campaign tour a few weeks ago? (The person responsible for that decision has to be anti-Bush. I hear it's having a big impact on his Ohio numbers. yay swing states!)

So yeah, I have felt a bit overwelmed by the news this week. And inarticulate. I am just not capable of expressing the outrage I feel when I really pay attention to matters. A specific topic maybe I can rant on, but in general....

So, on a friend's wise advice, when the going gets tough, the tough buy shoes. "Arthur" sandals in black, size 9.

Sorry, No Posty Today

2004-05-18T16:27:00.000-05:00

I kind of maxed out on news yesterday and shut down. It's 4pm and I haven't even gone through my rss feed list!

Or maybe this is still residual pain from seeing the Swan last night on Fox for the first time. I knew it was bad, I had read articles specifically describing how bad it was, and it was STILL worse than that. All the worse because it seems okay for awhile and then someone says something and you realize they are not good people. Last night, that moment for me was when the coach--the person who guides the person through the disgusting process, er transformation--told a depressed person recovering from surgery and isolated from everyone she knew that she had too negative an attitude. Tough love is one thing, but coming through her collagen'd lips...ugh.

A friend pointed out that they had one of them on a 1700 calorie diet with 2 hours of weight training in the gym daily. If those numbers mean nothing to you...well...let's just say you certainly will lose weight on that program. But probably from places you didn't want to lose weight from. Like your muscles.

What I Should Be Doing

2004-05-17T11:32:00.000-05:00

instead of catching up on blogs....

More Nick Berg

2004-05-17T10:22:00.000-05:00

kuro5hin.org, the excellent group blog/zine thing, has a feature listing 50 things about the Nick Berg story that don't pass the smell test. There are a few in there that my post last week could speak to, so look for me in the comments section. (Also, if you really wanted more details from me about what happens when you decapitate something, that's where I provide them.)

It seems there is a there there, of some kind. I can't say I care much tho, because it seems like one of those things that will never be known. Most suspicious to me is not letting the family see the body. Would any reputable Jewish funeral home or graveyard receive a body without SOMEBODY seeing it, family or not? Jewish rituals around death certainly suggest otherwise. But then, we are talking about a Jew named Nicholas....OTOH, I know a Jew (bar mitzvah and everything) named Christopher. :)

Torture

2004-05-17T10:10:00.000-05:00

So it looks like this week's media cycle will be all about what torture techniques America uses, what laws and treaties should or shouldn't regulate them, and how necessary they are for the war on terror. (I've already switched from NPR to iPod in my car. Monday morning--that may be a record!) As usual, readers of the Atlantic Monthly have a jump on this issue, as they have already read The Dark Art of Interrogation. If I had a nickel for every time Atlantic Monthly was ahead of an issue in this way...well, I'd have like 2 bucks. But that's a lot of nickels dude!

Meta-post

2004-05-14T21:05:00.000-05:00

I can't recommend Josh Marshall's blog, Talking Points Memo, highly enough. It's linked in my sidebar. He has been superb this week in response to and analysis of developments. That Slate article I just posted even credits him with uncovering some of its facts. In the world of online amateur political commentary, where there's so many "me too" blogs (including this one!), he really stands out. An email correspondence he posted yesterday has made me think about trying to blog in the most original way possible. There's a lot of me-too-ing that can be done, especially in echo chamber times like the present; Marshall has a PhD in something political or international relations-y and so has unique things to say there. I think what will be unique about Not a Stripper is eclecticity and connections between disparate things....I'm feeling lately like that's what I've got to offer. :)

He denied it three times

2004-05-14T21:03:00.000-05:00

A must-read from Slate:

The story gets worse in its details. As far back as June 2002, U.S. intelligence reported that Zarqawi had set up a weapons lab at Kirma in northern Iraq that was capable of producing ricin and cyanide. The Pentagon drew up an attack plan involving cruise missiles and smart bombs. The White House turned it down. In October 2002, intelligence reported that Zarqawi was preparing to use his bio-weapons in Europe. The Pentagon drew up another attack plan. The White House again demurred. In January 2003, police in London arrested terrorist suspects connected to the camp. The Pentagon devised another attack plan. Again, the White House killed the plan, not Zarqawi.

At least Peter had the decency to "weep bitterly" after he did the wrong thing 3 times.

The article makes a good point about who "the White House" might be. If it's Bush, that's bad enough. If it's NOT Bush, then he's in even less control than we think, and the inmates are running the prison. Er...maybe not the best analogy these days...

Who Can Launch a Thousand Ships?

2004-05-13T21:46:00.000-05:00

In honor of the Iliad-based movie about to come out, Troy, Slate has a slide show about the visualizations of Helen throughout history. Very engrossing, and a great lens to look at an era through: do they show Helen or imply her? Was she abducted by Paris, or did they fall in love? I personally would cast Angelina Jolie, my longstanding celebrity crush. She oozes sex and can launch any number of...ships. Also she's just wild enough to straddle that line between abduction and love. You can see her being impulsive enough to run off, but having Menelaus so wrapped around her finger that he's convinced she was stolen.

Who would you cast, and why? Let's get some comments! Also--did you read the Iliad (or the Odyssey) in school? I have a feeling that's not as common as it once was...

Nick Berg Video: The Occam's Razor Analysis

2004-05-13T11:38:00.000-05:00

I'm not posting a link here, you resourceful kids who must see it can find it. I had to look and found it this morning. At first I had the same reaction of horror that everyone else did, although somewhat tempered by some past experience of my own: I work in a biology lab and have decapitated maybe 800 undrugged rats in my life. (We need them stress-free because we study stress and need good basal values, so drugs are not an option as they may mess with what we are looking at.)

Then the timestamp issues were pointed out, the conspiracy sites are all abuzz with "IT'S A FAKE! WAG THE DOG!" Well kids, the guy is in Philadelphia with no head, so it's not a fake. The question is how alive he may have been. I was curious and took a second look and found a lot of timestamp jumps, which you can read about below.

Let me give you my "professional" opinion first. ("Damnit Jim, I'm a scientist, not a terrorist assassin!") It may seem morbid, but I think my experience gives me a very unique perspective on this act. I've done it myself, in a more controlled way, on a different sort of animal, but believe me, it is never a trivial thing. The first few times I had to do it I thought I was having a panic attack. But that feeling subsides as the experience gets familiar, and one has to remind oneself of what one is doing to recapture even a little of that. That these men could do this, and either control or not have that feeling, says to me they either have experience or are capable of acts of depersonalization that I cannot fathom. Or both, of course.

IMO the act was genuine in every meaningful way. A live man was decapitated. He may have been unconscious or sedated. I don't think he was dead, and if you read my time analysis below you'll see why. But if he was dead, it was not out of mercy but to control him, and it was by some method so fast and scarless that we should be thankful.

If I seem detached, well, I have had a lot of practice. It's my job. I'm not a monster and I hope I'm not sounding like one. But I must protect myself from reality somehow, and my natural defense is intellectualization and analysis. If I let myself feel too bad for this guy as a person, how am I supposed to deal with the three dozen American soldiers dead in Iraq this month...SO FAR?

Is there a voyeurism aspect? Sure. I've come to terms with that in myself. I want to see this to make sense of it to myself. Anyone who condemns people for wanting to see and puts themselves onthe moral highground for not looking is not being fully honest with themself, or understands so little about humanity that they couldn't be contributing much of value to these discussions. I have friends who have asked me to not post the URL because they will look and they don't want to. THAT'S humanity, THAT'S self-knowledge. And here is my version.

ANALYSIS

There are two cameras. One thinks it's 2AM and one thinks it's 1PM. I'll call them Camera2 and Camera13.

Video begins at 13:26. Camera13 is on Berg at a 3/4 angle. He begins talking.

After "my father's name is Michael" 13:26:27->2:18:30 (Camera2, facing Berg) "My mother's name..."
(so we have an 11:07:58 second difference between the cameras.)

at "I live in we-westchester" there is a skip. Not a stutter--to my ears, an audio artifact.

"...Philadelphia." 2:18:43->2:40:32. This is the shot seen on the news: 5 standing hooded men and Berg sitting. (I wonder what they did in that time. Drug Berg? 20 minutes is about right for a sedative isn't it?)

Blah Blah Blah, probably about how Jews like me are the root of all evil and we drink baby blood. Or whatever the fuck he says. I don't fucking want to know, honestly. In the middle of it, we get a jump from 2:43:39->2:44:31, it may be audible but I don't speak Arabic. There are many things that sound like they could be skips, and in Hebrew (which I do speak, and which is similar syntactically to Arabic) they almost certainly would be, but I suppose they could be features of the language itself. Anyway, in those almost 60 seconds there is absolutely NO change in anyone's pose. I really, really looked for one, too. 5 people didn't move a muscle. This and the skip makes me think we are dealing with some real hi-quality AV equipment here. (hence Occam's razor.) The sound later is off from the video, and I think this is where it happens. Perhaps one camera's sound was used for both?

At 2:44:32 you start to hear movement and people yelling "alaaaaa! hu akbar!", but it doesn't show up on video. There is a truly bloodcurdling scream at 2:44:34-7. I hope it's a fake, but I doubt it. There may be some audio skipping in or after it.

In the image, the guy pulls his sword at 2:44:35 and wrestles Berg down to the floor with his knife out but not touching him. As they wrestle him, the timestamp inexplicably becomes unreadable. the 2:44 is clear, but the seconds aren't. The very last clear time you see is 2:44:12, but that's not possible--2:44:42 maybe? camera error?

Another jump to Camera13. By our previous calculation the timestamp on there should be 13:52:10, but it's 13:45:47 so one of teh camera's timestamps had to have been adjusted in that 20 minutes to have at least the minutes close to each other. We have a different angle and Berg is on the floor. If it's a recreation of when they were wrestling him down before, it's a damn good one.

13:45:52 jumps 6 seconds to :58, the camera was too close and it looks like they just cut out the zoom. Then we have the stuff you won't see on TV, and I am sad to say during this the timestamp is perfect. It's interminable. There is one cut at 13:46:33 to 13:47:46. In that minute the task has been underway, and we see the completion. Their barbaric trophy is displayed until 13:47:53, in a 3/4 angle shot. One last cut, to 2:46:17. Same image (dude's head covering is exactly the same, arm looks to be at same angle), different camera angle. And now we know that it's been about two minutes since they wrestled him to the ground. And those two minutes are generally accounted for by Camera13.

I saw a different version this morning that had more at the end, but the one I sat down and analyzed didn't have that last bit. Trust me, it's just as well.

Pens

2004-05-12T18:48:00.000-05:00

(this blog thing is pretty addictive) Even I can afford this, so you can, too. Send pens to Afghani schoolchildren.

UPDATE...yay Froogle! Free shipping from Corporate Office Supply if you get more than $45 of stuff. I think I will send some paper...notebooks or reams?

FO' NO GO...

2004-05-12T18:33:00.000-05:00

My mom used to own a '67 Mustang. She said it was a lemon; in fact, when I first heard of this as a kid, she said "it could pass anything but the mechanic" which had to be explained to me. I was reminded of that idiom when I read this (Guardian, via Atrios):

On June 30, the fabled handover of sovereignty is to take place. In Washington they are clinging to the mantra that this marks a turning point, with no reason why things should get better. It's only six weeks away, but there is still no plan, not a single piece of paper yet describing exactly what powers are being transferred to whom. Who will these 10,000 prisoners belong to? How much of the oil revenues will flow directly into the interim government? Who will the new government be?

Can these people organize ANYTHING that isn't a campaign?

Presidential polling...

2004-05-12T17:09:00.000-05:00

From Mellman's "Kerry's legendary lead" on The Hill.com:

Indeed, in most races involving incumbents the critical number is not the margin over the challenger but rather the percentage of the vote the incumbent is garnering. As sophisticated poll-watchers know, few incumbents get more votes on Election Day than they do in the last polls. Voters who are undecided at the end break overwhelmingly to the challenger.

Learn something new every day...

DUDE.

2004-05-12T16:46:00.000-05:00

Digby's got a great catch that connects the prison abuses, WMD, and a possible direct order from the President.

Ugh, it still hurts to type that. Perhaps on this blog I will use the acronym friends have come up with instead: GFH. Roughly, it stands for "Governor Poopy-Head."

I'm realizing...

2004-05-12T16:39:00.000-05:00

my blog style is strongly influenced by Andrew Sullivan. Ah well, at least my opinions aren't. :)

The "Loyal" Opposition...

2004-05-12T16:21:00.000-05:00

On a mailing list I'm on someone made the point that instead of trying to fix the present situation, the opposition (don't know why she didn't say the Democrats, but I like this british way of putting it :) was using it for political advantage. That had me thinking. It's of course true. But what other options are available to them?

On the one hand they should feel more responsible, as they've contributed to the situation by supporting Bush's decisions about war and taxes at every point. On the other hand, fighting wouldn't have done much good; if I remember correctly, for each vote (war and the tax cuts), the R's controlled the legislature. There are undoubtedly backstage things they could have fought for, but I'm not wise enough in the ways of the Congress to know what they are.

Re the Iraq war, a lot of them equivocated appropriately at the time, in my opinion. They supported it enough to not be tarred anti-American, but opposed things enough in principle to be somewhat credible in their criticisms now. Too bad that stance had to be joined to a "yes" vote, but honestly, the Bushies would have attacked iraq no matter what Congress did. (Does Congress have the power to recall troops that have been sent under executive privliege?) I never was a fan of Dean's pure anti-war stance because it was hard to be purely against a war that did get rid of one of the worst dictators of his time. From this perspective, the "OK, we'll let you go to war, but if you screw it up don't say we didn't warn ya" stance of Kerry and Edwards and other senators gives them a firm foundation at this point in time, even if it sounded horrible before.

Where do we go from here?

2004-05-12T16:05:00.000-05:00

Call me an optimist, but I still think that getting a new Administration in can fix a lot of problems. It's clear to the world that Bush and his team are responsible for our foreign relations missteps of late, for better or for worse. (That is, some amount of what we've done would have probably been done by any administration--I don't think Gore's military would have been any more able to observe the Geneva Convention when holding terrorists in custody, but i think we can be sure they wouldn't have invaded Iraq and done so there.) So in this case the demonization of Bush may work to our advantage internationally. If we manage to vote him out--AND if the new guy makes fence-mending a priority--I think we can repair a lot of the damage.

Just about sums it up...

2004-05-12T16:00:00.000-05:00

Robert Jeffers, via Atrios, captures current events perfectly. An excerpt:

And we don't abuse prisoners. Except when we do. It's not 'American.' Except it is expressly sanctioned by military regulations. Except it can only be sanctioned by the DoD, because Rumsfeld keeps tight rein on everything.

Except he doesn't. Because this was authorized in Iraq, not in Washington. Except it couldn't have been, because Rummy runs a tight ship.

Except he didn't know. But don't call it 'plausible deniability.' Because there's a chain of command.

What particularly surprises me is the shock (or "shock", if you will) over violations of the Geneva Convention. I had forgotten that we had been here in 2002. Apparently I wasn't the only one. An editorial last week (can't remember where, sorry) reminded me that we had left the Convention by the wayside a long time ago:

All the detainees were being treated as if they were prisoners of war, although the Pentagon has not declared them as POWs under the Geneva Convention.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday the captives were considered "unlawful combatants" and have no rights under the convention.

"We do plan to, for the most part, treat them in a manner that is reasonably consistent with the Geneva Conventions, to the extent they are appropriate, and that is exactly what we have been doing," Rumsfeld said.

I remember so clearly how this seemed bad at the time, but nebulously. And I keep remembering other things that had that same feeling. Wasn't there a nuclear weapon anti-proliferation treaty we un-signed? A global warming initiative we refused to join? A UN Security Council we thumbed our nose at? Are we scared yet of the implications THOSE might have soon?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

2004-05-11T21:39:00.000-05:00

I read a lot, and every now and then save particularly interesting articles, and now that I have a blog I'm wondering if I should go back and post about the stuff I saved. (I'm kind of assuming that in the future those will be "saved" in my blog archives :) A lot of the articles are relevant, despite being not fresh (like the last post's article). And some are just cool.

What do my readers (hi nora!) think?

(update: sorry no comments section, still trying to work out bugs. leave comments wherever. we're hardly so big here I won't see them. :)

(update update: look mom, comments! blogger is still annoying me, tho.)

Why Doesn't Al Qaeda Watch Discovery Channel?

2004-05-11T21:08:00.000-05:00

If you saw Sopranos this week, you are familiar with the shipping container terrorist threat. (My sister is watching Discovery Channel right now, and they had some of the same clips.) It's been in and out of the news ever since 9/11. The idea is that so few of these containers are scanned, and they are so vital to international commerce, that if a terrorist blew up even one, shipping would shut down worldwide. (If it sounds unlikely, remember the effect of 9/11 on air travel and that the economy is a lot different now than it was then, and that on average businesspeople are more conservative than travelers. And that the explosion could be a nuclear one--the first terrorist nuclear attack, contaminating the latest Gap shipments from Asia!)

If you're like me, your first thought when seeing these sorts of reports is "what the hell is wrong with Al-Qaeda that they haven't done this yet?" (Not that I'm complaining you understand, but if you want to fuck things up...) Well, whenever I think this I flash back to an article that I read around the first anniversary of 9/11 called
Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology. It's long, but utterly fascinating, and when you are done you will know the answer to that question. It's not straightforward. But it's very important if you really want to understand why Al Qaeda does--or doesn't do--what they do.

I haven't read it since 2002 (perhaps I will tonight), but if I'm properly remembering its points, it highlights how this blind spot of theirs has given us a golden opportunity to prepare and defend ourselves against terrorism after the warning of 9/11. I wonder how it will look with a few more years of hindsight. The shipping containers, for example. Something like 5% of them are scanned now, which, considering how few were before and how unlikely Al Qaeda is to capitalize on the opportunity, is an improvement.

Thanks for the props...

2004-05-11T10:17:00.000-05:00

wakingslow! I may be new but I've got a backlog of pissed-off. Also, as a student, I have a lot of work to procrastinate. I may not be a check-it-daily blogger for a while but you can always add me to your syndication list.

DREAM COLUMN...

2004-05-11T09:28:00.000-05:00

In my dream universe I have a column on the NYT op-ed page. Here's my response there to Sullivan, Brooks, and all the other Iraq hawks who are now acting surprised at recent events.

I TOLD YOU SO

CHICAGO -- I told you so.

I told you so but you didn't listen. Look who was right! Me. Not you. I told you so.

I told you so I told you so I told you so. You stuck your head in the sand and now you're bitching you got sand in your ears? How dumb are you??

I told you so. I didn't want to be right. But I was. Almost two years ago, I was. And you were wrong. Why? Because you're stupid. The truth was there for you to see before. You ignored it. I wished I could have ignored it, but I couldn't then, so I marched. Even though I hated Saddam too. And now--I'm right. You said so yourself. I told you so.

What made you think that people who have proven themselves to be incompetent leaders will suddenly become competent just because they say they are? Why did you believe them then? What did they ever do to earn your trust, to make you think they could conduct foreign policy without quagmiring us? I told you they couldn't. You thought I was being petty. You thought I just "hated Bush". I wasn't being petty. I hate Bush for a reason--this reason. I told you so.

What's that? Are you now gonna argue this is some sort of master plan to give the Iraqis an appropriate independence narrative, and we just needed to play the role of the bad guys? Funny how that rationale only comes out now, when things are messy. Anyway, even if so, couldn't we have gotten our troops some MOTHER FUCKING ARMOR? FOR THEIR VEHICLES? AND THEIR TORSOS?

We are talking about people who ignored the recommendations of the VERY PEOPLE THEY WERE SENDING TO FIGHT. They did this on basic cable. I know you saw them do it. You probably thought you knew more than generals about how to fight wars, too. Well, if you are so wise in the ways of war, I dare you to face the parents of the last American soldier to die in Iraq and defend your craven support of these idiots. I dare you I dare you I dare you.

I told you so.