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One small voice in the proud tradition of FreeBlogging*
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
posted by gbarto at 3:07 PM:
Bananas for Sex
Money Laundering
Transporting Terrorists
Who needs Made-for-TV miniseries when we have the United Nations?
Tune in today to see the world's tax dollars at work.
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Tuesday, June 01, 2004
posted by gbarto at 12:32 AM:
Nice piece by Den Beste on some of what's going on with the press.This site has played with one particular angle, that of power, going so far as to run a series of posts asking if Sy Hersh was more interested in bringing down Bush than reporting (this post was the boldest).
Notes Steve of Watergate:
But if it was a triumph for the journalistic profession, it also sowed the seeds of its decline. It inspired a generation of new journalists all of whom had the ambition of becoming the next Woodward or Bernstein. They wanted to do it again.He notes further down:
However, since Watergate, it seems that more and more individual members of the press are primarily motivated by personal ambition. And that's why this is a case of "spoiling the commons": in their quest to gain fame and respect personally, they collectively acted in ways which seriously damaged the reputation of their profession and industry.There is too much to what Steve says. However, having gotten the rants out of my system, I've started to wonder a little bit about how this works. I've no doubt that the Seymour Hersh's of the world dream of one day being as well known as Bob Woodward. Then again, Bob Woodward would probably like to be as well known as Bob Woodward: Woodward and Bernstein, in their own time, were legends. Today, they're characters in the movie, Dick (for the six people who remember that film). Russert's impressed, Matthews is impressed; those from that era are impressed. But having been around journalism majors in college, I get the impression that bitter conservatives are far more likely to know who these guys actually are than the typical journalism major. What of the typical journalism major, then? The knowledge is gone, but the dream lives on, preached by professors of journalism, and the kids learn that they, too, can be somebody.
This is probably the biggest mess of all. It is not just that journalists lack a Nixon to face off against; they lack the basic cultural literacy needed to know the difference between Nixon and an ordinary politician. Taught by solipsistic professors, they become solipsistic journalists. Why did Jayson Blair do what he did? Because the truth didn't matter... Blair did.
Where do things go from here? A solipsistic blogger probably isn't the best person to ask, so we'll leave that in the air.
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Monday, May 31, 2004
posted by gbarto at 11:23 PM:
In an effort to conserve my own bandwith and storage space, I've set up a blogspot photoblog connected to the onsite blog. For all the latest pictures, you can start (as always) with the photoblog site listed at left. In the mean time, here's one image that just had to go up here:
Saw this in a gas station window in Santa Cruz. Now, I'm not exactly part of the hypersensitive multi-culti crowd, but still... could central casting have been just a little more obvious about who might be sitting behind a gas station counter selling cigs to minors? Couldn't they find an Indian?
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posted by gbarto at 12:17 AM:
In MemoriamOn Sunday, Doonesbury named those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country in Iraq here. While some may question his intent, we do, as a free and self-governing people, have every right and reason to know of the sacrifices that we, as a people, are asked to make and ask our soldiers to make. Please take a moment to see the strip and remember those there named with your thoughts or prayers.
Throughout our history, brave citizens have faced death so that the rest of us might know better, freer lives:
June 6, 1944 (D-Day): 1,465 Americans killed (*)
World War II (overall): 291,557 killed in battle or died from wounds; 405,399 dead including those who died from diseases or in accidents (*)
September 17, 1862 (Battle of Antietam): KIA: 2100 USA + 1550 CSA = 3,650 killed in action on both sides (*)
Civil War (overall): United States: 360,000 Confederacy: 260,000 (*)
And too many more.
Yet, there is progress. You could not print the lists of casualties from the Civil War, or World War I or World War II, or the Korean or Vietnam wars, in a Sunday Comic strip. First, they would not fit. Second, we do not know. There is no list of the casualties on June 6, 1944, much less all of World War II. Consult three encyclopedias and web pages and you will find three different answers for the number of people killed, never mind their names. It is the saddening, maddening truth, that in Iraq so many have died that a list will shock, but not so many that the overall impact is one of dull incomprehension. Instead, there is the strong, too real feeling sense of comprehension that amounts to incomprehension: We know so much that we do not know.
There is a reductive element in the comic strip, as there is a reductive effort in history: In printing the list, did Doonesbury capture the human toll? Or reduce to names what were once whole, living, breathing people? Do the casualty figures from battles past reduce those killed to nameless figures? Or inflate them into something larger, a mass of human will focused toward an end in which every individual is important for being part of something so important? - And a listing of every individual would reduce to a collection of names something that was much more than that.
We cannot settle the issues of what best signifies our loss in the wars that stretch across our country's history. But I don't think the issue is loss, in any case. To hear the phrase, "He died for his country," one would think "his country" wanted him to die. The men and women we celebrate on Memorial Day did not die for their country. They lived! Lived to their very last in places and situations they would not have chosen to be in for a million dollars but for the fact that it is there that they were needed. By their country. Their sacrifice is measured not only in the life they lost on the beaches of Normany, the sands of Iwo Jima and elsewhere round the world, but in the lives they gave, leaving beyond the comforts of hearth and home, the joys of family and friends, to go to far-off places where the work to be done was not for them, but for their country. Just as our brave men and women in Iraq are preparing a country for the Iraqi people and a stabler Middle-East for us and the world, their own lives on hold.
As we pick up our newspapers, buy our Starbucks coffee and our McDonald's Happy Meals and go about the business of grousing that everything is closed on Memorial Day, let us reflect not only on our loss, but on our gain. For it is there that the value of these men and women's efforts lie. In a little more than five months, we will go in to voting booths, with no fear that we are being watched, cast a vote for whomever we damn well please, and walk out, free to go about our business, having had our say in who is to be the next leader of our country. That is a big deal. For this we remember those who have sacrificed for us both here and abroad. As the parades go by, the countdowns to furniture sales commence and all the rest, let us try for a moment to think of those we celebrate not for having died, for we all shall do that sooner or later, but for having lived a different life, a life given over totally to our freedom. And let us then look upon their deaths not merely with sadness at the tragedy of the loss, but also with humble gratitude for all their efforts have secured to us.
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Saturday, May 29, 2004
posted by gbarto at 2:39 AM:
Just saw an online promo for Day After Tomorrow. It boasted, "Watch Lady Liberty get trashed!" or words to that effect. Seems most appropriate given the agenda of the people pushing the movie the hardest.* * *
Thursday, May 27, 2004
posted by gbarto at 11:28 PM:
I noticed that a lot of Maureen Dowd's column today sounded like Kaus with the famous Dowdian snarkiness woven in. Wonder who read him to her.Also wonder why one still reads the Times when you can read Kausfiles two days in advance.
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Wednesday, May 26, 2004
posted by gbarto at 10:24 PM:
For those saying we need the UN imprimatur in Iraq... They may be right. It has all the elements for making Abu Ghraib seem like small potatoes. Uh oh... Do I sense...UN troops buy sex from teenage refugees in Congo camp
... another outsized headline coming on? I wonder if it involves word that according to the Independent,Teenage rape victims fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo are being sexually exploited by the United Nations peace-keeping troops sent to the [sic] stop their suffering.
It certainly couldn't be becauseevery night teenage girls crawl through a wire fence to an adjoining UN compound to sell their bodies to Moroccan and Uruguayan soldiers.
The trade, which according to one victim results in a banana or a cake to feed to her infant son, is taking place despite a pledge by the UN to adopt a "zero tolerance" attitude to cases of sexual misconduct by those representing the organisation.
For those of you who missed, those were UN troops from Morocco and Uruguay trading bananas for sex
The same people investigating the UN Oil for Food Scandal will doubtless soon be on the case. (via The Corner)* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:29 AM:
Cicero puts the latest warnings about Al-Qaeda in sharp perspective.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:20 AM:
Cicero picks up the headline,Rains in central America have killed nearly 300 and made thousands homeless in the last few days.
1) It's all Bush's fault.
2) If we weren't busy in Iraq, we'd have the resources to stop the rain and bring peace and happiness to the region.
3) Based on death tolls this month, Mother Nature's more dangerous than Al-Qaeda and the Baathists combined. Why aren't we fighting Her?
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posted by gbarto at 2:05 AM:
Mickey Kaus is in rare form with his latest bit on Kerry. Says he, the nomination game has nothing to do with campaign money. The Dems are just hoping that the more they keep Kerry out of the limelight, the better their chances. Notes Kaus:A convention without an acceptance speech. "Who would tune in to watch such a thing?" Exactly! The Democratic wizards have tipped their hand. Their game plan has been revealed to the world! It's to keep the American public from realizing until the last possible moment the grim reality that Kerry really is the Democratic alternative.Note: Kaus also says Bush left himself wiggle room for Iraq elections happening before January, just not after. So, no lift for faster elections, but they're not off the table either. Hope his hopes are justified.
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posted by gbarto at 1:24 AM:
Instapundit notes that Tom Clancy has come out against our Iraq effort. So, does this mean Bush loses the Clancy-fan vote?Hmmm...
Retired insurance salesman chatting with a Clinton-era general who sat still for our planes being shot at in the no-fly zones
Leader of the free world, with all our intelligence (however bad it is, with Tenet as DCI) and the knowledge that in his judgments hang not rankings on the NYT bestseller list but the lives of his countrymen
I'll buy Clancy's next work of fiction, because he tells a damn good story. In the mean time, I'll be waiting to see how many of his new fans sign on to the other, hardcore conservative elements of his thinking.
Tom Clancy is noted for his Debt of Honor, which featured a plane crashing into the Capitol Dome. Pretty prescient about the threat posed by airplanes.
Clancy also wrote a book, Without Remorse, about a CIA agent who, among other things, hunted down his wife's killers and had the help of higher ups in getting away with it. If this were real life, the NYT would scream with rage about government agents literally getting away with murder - vigilante justice! - while clandestine government organizations kept them at arm's reach from the law.
I'm waiting to see if the anti-War crowd, having found a new hero, will also sign on to the implications of John Clark's rise. When they start marching in lockstep with Clancy on race, homosexuality, etc, I'll consider joining him on the Iraq question.
Till then, Tom Clancy's one helluva writer, but George W. Bush is a better pick for president.
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posted by gbarto at 1:15 AM:
Here's Fredrik Norman's notes on appearing on television (as leader of Norwegian Friends of America) to try to put Abu Ghraib in perspective and call for support for the larger goal of a democratic Iraq. I saw it at Instapundit too.* * *
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
posted by gbarto at 11:38 AM:
The Other FrontReading the comments from this Roger Simon post on libertarians, the war and the Bush speech (found at Instapundit), I was struck by how intensely some people feel that there is another front in this war: The Media. Now, the media has always been a battleground. And conservatives and Republicans have always been at a disadvantage there. But the MSM (mainstream media) is not being presented as an obstacle anymore. It's being presented as part of The Enemy.
As far back as I remember (I grew up during the Reagan era), the media has been presented as an enemy of Republicans, and a place where truths they don't like don't see print or get airtime. But in my lifetime it is a new thing to see the larger MSM - not just select individuals like Peter Arnett - presented as an enemy of the country that has to be defeated.
Unfortunately, there's something to the commentary. Not, I think, because the media wants to sink the country - really wants to sink the country and have Al-Qaeda win. But because the media doesn't understand what's at stake here.
I've said it before, half in jest. I'll say it again, more in earnest. While George W. Bush is fighting a war for our survival, the media is fighting a battle for its ego. Ronald Reagan won in spite of it, Bill Clinton made fools of it, post-OJ the critics mocked it as trashy entertainment. And the media is now on the move to prove it matters. When did the media matter? When it ended the Vietnam War and brought down Richard Nixon. What are they gunning for? To reassure themselves that the Fourth Estate will have the final say. They will not be content until they have brought down this President and ended this War.
It was this comment from Syl that struck me:
That NY Times editorial mrp [another poster] pointed out shows anger that Bush hasn't followed their policy directives.It's true. Every time I read the New York Times, the tone seems to indicate that it's not about what we need to be doing, but what the New York Times deems that we need to be doing. There is a sense that if Bush had followed their advice and we'd found ourselves in a worse quagmire, the editorials would be reading, "Stay the course, Mr. President." Since Bush doesn't bother about the NYT, they are looking for any straw they can grasp to assert that the Old Gray Lady matters. Every feint half-way in the Old Gray Lady's direction is followed by soft cooing about the President coming to terms with the practical realities She had Herself underscored months ago. Every move away is treated not merely as a bad decision, but as a betrayal of Her Reason.
As if the NY Times is elected by the people.
It must be terribly frustrating for them to have worked so hard over the last few months only to have their directives ignored.
Their arrogance and self-importance is just too blatant for words.
This seems pretty characteristic in the leftish component of the mass media. Bush got elected in spite of them, back when it was on the surface just about politics. And they haven't left that. They're still refighting Florida in their own minds while the country is engaged in a war that started not when the last chad fell but when 3000 people died not so far from the Old Gray Lady's haunt, if you come right down to it. But like some fairytale queen, She still is strutting about in her castle, mouing over the King's failure to attend to her plans for the next dinner party even as the people perish in famine.
The question: Can a media this self-obsessed bring us down? Hard to say. They do have their influence, and it is broad. But it is not deep. Hand them a certain video they don't want to play, and the people will ditch them in a minute to find someone who will. People respond to the media's headlines. But if they sense they're not getting the real story, they don't trust the media. They just know that something important is going on but it's not clear what. Which means that the conservative MSM (Fox News, Limbaugh and the internet) has to stay on its toes to trumpet the stories the MSM is playing down.
As to the major networks' call to ignore the speech, I think it's a good thing. As we saw with the video, people can get curious about what's up, even if the media tries to ignore it. I think it's a lot better for people to find out about the speech by watching unfiltered on C-Span, or even broadly scrutinized on Hardball, than by having the final impressions set by Dan Rather's three sentence write-off summary. Both C-Span and Hardball will leave the curious with plenty of questions and a reason to come here next. Dan Rather just leaves them with a reason to turn off the tube and go to bed.
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Monday, May 24, 2004
posted by gbarto at 7:34 PM:
So much better than what's-his-name's Grendel, a top notch thriller from the traditional bad guy's side of at isfullofcrap.com, the new home for Laurence Simon of Amish Tech Support fame.* * *
posted by gbarto at 7:15 PM:
A Dog's Life has a nice like at the plus ça change... phenomenon and what it means for the relevance of Cannes' favorite boor.* * *
posted by gbarto at 6:47 PM:
Cicero points to a pitch for nuclear energy and suggests we're probably headed that way, even if it means the French were right about something. The TurkeyBlog, too, thinks that making use of nuclear power is a wise move and one thing the Frenchies have gotten right.But while we're on the subject of French engineering, what's with Charles de Gaulle? I've found myself wondering, and thought, No, they must have... When planes fly by (as they do where I live, sometimes) the windows rattle. If they're low enough, the building might even shake just a little bit. Now, the pictures of the terminal at CDG show a monstrosity of glass and steel that, we're told, should have been secure, but with which they had a fair number of problems, right up to the terminal's opening. Could these problems relate to an inability of the structure to handle all the vibrations in the building caused by the noise of planes coming in and out? Cumulative, of course, with the pounding of people's footsteps, etc. Did they, in factoring for the real world conditions in which the building had to function, literally fail to allow enough wiggle room?
If so, we're looking at an engineering disaster worse than the library where they forgot to factor in the weight for books. (Not sure if the latter is real or an urban legend. Either way, it's a great story, so no letters of correction please.)
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posted by gbarto at 6:20 PM:
The TurkeyBlog did not see Bush's speech - schedule didn't line up. But what he's reading at Fox, Instantman and elsewhere indicates that, alas, he didn't jump on the bandwagon for faster elections.Now, it is true that in this speech, Bush shouldn't have jumped on faster elections. Just because he's the president doesn't mean he can do a 180 on national television. But, it would have been nice to see indications he was preparing the country and the world for a shift forward in the timetables. Staying the course is nice as far as it goes, but there are reasons why going faster might be better.
What the president might have done (but apparently didn't) was to stress that the first national elections would be in January, while being vague about lower level elections or even hinting that how national elections were managed would be based in part on how local and regional elections went. That would have been a way to simultaneously acknowledge that some parts of Iraq are already transitioning to self-rule and concede the obvious - if regional elections work, there's a lot less worry about the national deal, whereas if regional election efforts turn violent, we're in for quite a headache in a few months.
The TurkeyBlog has supported faster elections at lower level because they appeal both to his inner idealist and his inner cynic:
The idealist in me hopes that national elections in Iraq could merely ratify the self-rule of people who were already governing themselves at all lower levels. And if we're smart, that national level will be of mostly symbolic import, because we're a hell of a lot safer letting the different groups largely govern themselves in hodgepodge configurations with a national government being there mostly to referee disputes, than we are letting the direction of the whole country be set on the basis of the outcome of power struggles among competing groups. We should be dividing Iraq up into several states, à la our own history, and allowing them to converge or diverge within their own zones to the extent that they play nice with the other zones and citizens by tradition linked to other zones. (Didn't our plan lead to Civil War? Yes, but it bought us sixty years to become something worth having a civil war over.)
The cynic in me has studied a little bit of European revolutionary history. Democratic revolutions, whether started from within or provoked from without, have trouble taking. I like the idea of doing elections now, during a foreseeable future where our presence isn't in doubt. If elections are taking place in towns where we're helping train police forces, etc, a) the bad guys will have incentive to behave and b) we'll be there to deal with it if they don't. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that in January Bush may not be President any more, and if things get ugly, I've little doubt that real-politiking Kerry will abandon Iraq and the idea that Arabia can be anything other than a horde of savages to UN schemes for containment. And we already did that one in the 1990s.
So, Mr. President, it's good to hear the war isn't going as badly as claimed, that we're working to make things better, that we aren't going to lose Iraq, etc. But in the next few talks, we hope to hear about how the Iraqis might just be staking their claim to their country even faster than widely advertised.
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posted by gbarto at 1:40 AM:
Be sure to drop by Cicero's Conservative Observer for a look at what's being talked about in French and Spanish media. Interesting bits including Europe's reactions to events in Gaza.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:21 AM:
Bush falls on his own!Instantman indicates that after Bush took a spill on his mountain bike, Kerry had a quip at ready about training wheels.
It was a sharp jibe that from a different source may have played well. But from Mr. Kerry, it merely reminds that when Bush falls, Bush falls, but when Kerry falls, it's the fault of the Secret Service Son-of-a-Bitch who has the temerity to be there to take his bullet if need be, because Kerry does not fall. Which is taking the "Damn dog!" phenomenon to the extreme (for non-rural readers, it's an old joke that if there are indications of flatulence in the air, one blames the dog, lest one be blamed oneself; it is in the nature of those who really enjoy this bit to create the sort of stinkers for which Kerry is becoming famous).
We are left, then, with a tumble for the president, and a reminder of the mean-spirited arrogance of the jerk who may or may not be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States when the ceremonies in Boston conclude.
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posted by gbarto at 12:41 AM:
Kausfiles continues to beat the drums for faster elections in Iraq, noting that Mark Steyn now seems to be on board.The TurkeyBlog again joins in endorsing as many elections as fast as possible on the grounds that some will work, others won't, and it's best for all this to get started while we're there to help when things go sour and encourage where things go well.
Besides, transferring sovereignty bit by bit is the best way to set a course for what makes the U.S. work - a so-called federalist but really anti-federalist system in which the smaller constituencies of a democracy can work things out in their own ways as a larger entity holds them together and sets broad outlines.
As we embark on our democracy project in Iraq, we need to keep in mind that only one or two countries have had reasonably decent transitions to democracy. The model is ours. But our democracy did not arise as a uniform system uniting a country. It arose as a system for allowing multiple systems that could come together on some points and agree to disagree on others. The rupture of the Civil War exposed weaknesses in the framework and its result affirmed that we would be unified as one democratic nation, whether the South liked it or not. But both before and since, much of what has made the U.S. work is that if you don't like things in one place, you can go to another without leaving the country. In Iraq, things are likely to be pretty dicy. Trying to make Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis live in a uniform, unified system is not likely to work. Letting them work in different, loosely affiliated systems where one gains new autonomy by effectively handling autonomy earlier granted may.
So... elections now, or ASAP. If a community is ready to choose a mayor and council that get the streets swept and the sweepers paid, we should be cheering them on and suggesting to the next town that they, too, could swap an administrator for a mayor if they think they're ready. And if we do it right, the real handoff won't be on any fancy date designated by treaties and negotiated by world leaders. It will come when the last hamlet says that its police are ready, its mayor is prepared, and thank you for the help but we can do this on our own now.
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