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Sanely free of McCarthyite calling anyone a "traitor" since 2001!
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"The brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include With ease, and you beside"
-- Emily Dickinson
"We will pursue peace as if there is no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there is no peace."
-- Yitzhak Rabin
"I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be."
-- Alexander Hamilton
"The stakes are too high for government to be a spectator sport."
-- Barbara Jordan
"Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to
trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule --
and both commonly succeed, and are right."
-- H. L. Mencken
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
-- William Pitt
"The only completely consistent people are the dead."
-- Aldous Huxley
"I have had my solutions for a long time; but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them."
-- Karl F. Gauss
"Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire,
the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind;
and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise
the improvements of social life."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his
expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were
respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom."
-- Edward Gibbon
"There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify
the evils, of the present times."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Our youth now loves luxuries. They have bad manners, contempt for authority.
They show disrespect for elders and they
love to chatter instead of exercise.
Children are now tyrants, not the servants, of their households. They
no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up their food, and tyrannize
their teachers."
-- Socrates
"Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments."
-- Sidney Hook
"Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness."
-- Sidney Hook
"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization.
We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect
disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about particular degrees of interest
and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimized."
-- Reinhold Niebuhr
"Faced with the choice of all the land without a Jewish state or a Jewish state without all the
land, we chose a Jewish state without all the land."
-- David Ben-Gurion
"...the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him
an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this
or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages
to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also
to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing,
with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess
and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminals who do not withstand such
temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the
opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction;
that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion
and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their
ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty,
because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of
judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square
with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil
government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts
against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if
left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has
nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her
natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is
permitted freely to contradict them.
-- Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson
"We don't live just by ideas. Ideas are part of the mixture of customs and practices,
intuitions and instincts that make human life a conscious activity susceptible to
improvement or debasement. A radical idea may be healthy as a provocation;
a temperate idea may be stultifying. It depends on the circumstances. One of the most
tiresome arguments against ideas is that their "tendency" is to some dire condition --
to totalitarianism, or to moral relativism, or to a war of all against all."
-- Louis Menand
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."
-- Dante Alighieri
"He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers."
-- Henry B. Adams
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under a bridge."
-- Anatole France
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
-- Edmund Burke
"Education does not mean that we have become certified experts in business or mining or botany or journalism or epistemology;
it means that through the absorption of the moral, intellectual; and esthetic inheritance of the race we have come to
understand and control ourselves as well as the external world; that we have chosen the best as our associates both in spirit
and the flesh; that we have learned to add courtesy to culture, wisdom to knowledge, and forgiveness to understanding."
-- Will Durant
"Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is
but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest
winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?"
-- Herman Melville
"The most important political office is that of the private citizen."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"It is an error to suppose that books have no influence; it is a slow influence, like flowing water carving out a canyon,
but it tells more and more with every year; and no one can pass an hour a day in the society of sages and heroes without
being lifted up a notch or two by the company he has kept."
-- Will Durant
"When you write, you’re trying to transpose what you’re thinking into something that is less like an annoying drone and more like a piece of music."
-- Louis Menand
"Sex is a continuum."
-- Gore Vidal
"The sum of our religion is peace and unanimity, but these can scarcely stand unless we define as little as possible,
and in many things leave one free to follow his own judgment, because there is great obscurity in many matters, and
man suffers from this almost congenital disease that he will not give in when once a controversy is started, and
after he is heated he regards as absolutely true that which he began to sponsor quite casually...."
-- Desiderius Erasmus
"Remember, Robin: evil is a pretty bad thing."
-- Batman
"Being evil is not a full-time job."
-- James Lileks
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
Farber's First Fundamental of Blogging:
If your idea of making an insightful point is to make fun of people's
names, or refer to them by rilly clever labels such as "The Big Me" or "The Shrub,"
chances are high that I'm not reading your blog. The same applies if you refer
to a group of people by disparaging terms such as "the Donks" or "the pals."
Farber's Second Fundamental of Blogging:
The more interested you are in scoring a "point" for a political "team," a "side," than in exploring the validity or value of an idea, the less interested I am in what you're saying.
Farber's Third Fundamental of Blogging:
If you see a link on another blog, and use it, credit the blog; if you comment on someone's writing, without linking, drop them an e-mail of notice.
People I knew and miss include Isaac Asimov, Charles Burbee, Terry Carr, A. Vincent Clarke, George Alec Effinger,
Bill & Sherry Fesselmeyer, John Foyster, Jay Haldeman, Chuch Harris, Mike Hinge, Terry Hughes, Damon Knight, Ross Pavlac, Elmer Perdue, Tom Perry,
Larry Propp, Bill Rotsler, Art Saha, Bob Shaw, Martin Smith, Harry Stubbs, Harry Warner, Jr., Walter A. Willis, Susan Wood, Kate Worley, and Roger Zelazny.
It's just a start.
You Like Me, You Really Like Me
Every single post in that part of Amygdala visible on my screen is either funny or bracing or important. Is it always like this? -- Natalie Solent
Where would the blogosphere be without the Guardian? Guardian fish-barreling is now a venerable tradition. Yet even within this tradition, I don't believe there has ever been a more extensive and thorough essay than this one, from Gary Farber's fine blog. Gary appears to have examined every single thing that Guardian/Observer columnist Mary Ridell has ever written. He ties it all together, reaches inevitable conclusion. An archive can be a weapon.
-- Dr. Frank
Isn't Gary a cracking blogger, apropos of nothing in particular?
-- Alison Scott
I usually read you and Patrick several times a day, and I always get something from them. You've got great links, intellectually honest commentary, and a sense of humor. What's not to like?
-- Ted Barlow
...writer[s] I find myself checking out repeatedly when I'm in the mood to play follow-the-links. They're not all people I agree with all the time, or even most of the time, but I've found them all to be thoughtful writers, and that's the important thing, or should be.
-- Tom Tomorrow
Amygdala - So much stuff it reminds Unqualified Offerings that UO sometimes thinks of Gary Farber as "the liberal Instapundit." -- Jim Henley
I look at it almost every day. I can't follow all the links, but I read most of your pieces. The blog format really seems to suit you. It also suits me; I am not a news junkie, so having smart people like you ferret out the interesting stuff and leave it where I can find it is wonderful.
-- Lydia Nickerson
Gary is certainly a non-idiotarian 'liberal'...
-- Perry deHaviland
...the thoughtful and highly intelligent Gary Farber... My first reaction was that I definitely need to appease Gary Farber of Amygdala, one of the geniuses of our age.
-- Brad deLong
My friend Gary Farber at Amygdala is the sort of liberal for whom I happily give three cheers. [...] Damned incisive blogging....
-- Midwest Conservative Journal
If I ever start a paper, Clueless writes the foreign affairs column, Layne handles the city beat, Welch has the roving-reporter job, Tom Tomorrow runs the comic section (which carries Treacher, of course). MediaMinded runs the slots - that's the type of editor I want as the last line of defense. InstantMan runs the edit page - and you can forget about your Ivins and Wills and Friedmans and Teepens on the edit page - it?s all Blair, VodkaP, C. Johnson, Aspara, Farber, Galt, and a dozen other worthies, with Justin ?I am smoking in such a provocative fashion? Raimondo tossed in for balance and comic relief.
Who wouldn?t buy that paper? Who wouldn?t want to read it? Who wouldn?t climb over their mother to be in it?
-- James Lileks
Gary is a perceptive, intelligent, nice guy. Some of the stuff he comes up with is insightful, witty, and stimulating. And sometimes he manages to make me groan.
-- Charlie Stross
One of my issues with many poli-blogs is the dickhead tone so many bloggers affect to express their sense of righteous indignation. Gary Farber's thoughtful leftie takes on the world stand in sharp contrast with the usual rhetorical bullying. Plus, he likes "Pogo," which clearly attests to his unassaultable good taste.
-- oakhaus.com
MichaelMooreWatch.org: Maybe that?s what Gary Farber should rename his site, instead of arpagandalf or whatever.
-- Matt Welch
Gary Farber is a principled liberal....
-- Bill Quick, The Daily Pundit
I read Amygdala...with regularity, as do all sensible websurfers.
-- Jim Henley, Unqualified Offerings
Okay, he is annoying, but he still posts a lot of good stuff.
-- Avedon Carol, The Sideshow
The only trouble with reading Amygdala is that it makes me feel like such a slacker. That Man Farber's a linking, posting, commenting machine, I tell you!
-- John Robinson, Sore Eyes
Jaysus. I saw him do something like this before, on a thread about Israel. It was pretty brutal. It's like watching one of those old WWF wrestlers grab an opponent's
face and grind away until the guy starts crying. I mean that in a nice & admiring way, you know.
-- Fontana Labs, Unfogged
We read you Gary Farber! We read you all the time! Its just that we are lazy with our blogroll. We are so very very lazy. We are always the last ones to the party but we always have snazzy bow ties.
-- Fafnir, Fafblog!
Gary Farber you are a genius of mad scientist proportions. I will bet there are like huge brains growin in jars all over your house.
--Fafnir, Fafblog!
Amygdala
Thursday, September 02, 2004
SCIFI WIRE'S COMMENTARY. This dynamic page will change soon, so I'll just note this without comment, and no disrespect meant to anyone:
Top Ten SF DVD Sales 1. The Passion of The Christ.
This is actually a terrific, must-read, piece, documenting Zell Miller's outright, knowing, lies, lie-by-lie. Read The Rest Scale: 5 out of 5.
Slate's RNC coverage has been on fire; probably the best single source around. See Saletan here, here, here, here, and so on, for instance. All outstanding must-reads, 5 out of 5.
BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- Police Wednesday arrested a man in connection with last week's pipe bomb explosion at a Boston-area laboratory specializing in stem-cell research.
The man had already been charged last year with trying to blow up the same building.
The pipe bomb exploded last Thursday morning at the Amaranth Bio laboratory in Watertown, Massachusetts, shattering windows, police said. No one was hurt in the blast.
[...]
Police said Karger was awaiting trial on charges he tried to cause a gas explosion in the same building in February, 2003.
[...]
Amaranth's Web site says its technology is focused on organ regeneration and it is working on possible cures for diabetes and liver disorders.
We wouldn't want that; whole clumps of a couple of hundred cells would be killed, and they're morally identical to a baby.
A cannabis-like substance produced by the brain may dampen delusional or psychotic experiences, rather than trigger them.
[...]
The team's theory is that rather than triggering psychosis, the substance is released in response to psychotic symptoms to help control them. People with the worst symptoms might be unable to produce sufficient anandamide to prevent them.
At some point in their lives, between 5 and 30 per cent of healthy people have had symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations, which can be triggered by something as simple as sleep deprivation. "All of us are potentially psychotic," says David Castle of the University of Melbourne. So for the body to have a system that prevents these experiences getting out of hand makes sense, he says.
Give now to the Get Alan Keyes Some Anandamide Soon.
The world's first plastic magnet to work at room temperature has passed the elementary test of magnetism. Its creators at the University of Durham in the UK have used it to pick up iron filings from a laboratory bench.
In 2001, chemists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln claimed to have created the world's first plastic magnet, but it only worked below 10 kelvin. Other researchers have made plastic magnets, but typically they only function at extremely low temperatures, or their magnetism at room temperature is too feeble to be of commercial use.
So the Durham team can claim to have made the first plastic magnet that could be used in everyday products. One of the most likely applications is in the magnetic coating of computer hard discs, which could lead to a new generation of high-capacity discs.
[...]
TCNQ was chosen because of its propensity to form charged particles called free radicals.
In conventional magnets, magnetism is the result of electron spins lining up. In their polymer, the researchers hoped to mimic this mechanism by creating an alignment of free radicals.
Damn commie scientists; always with the "freeing the radicals." You just can't trust them, I tell you! Reds, all of them. And mostly anti-God.
I hear some of them believe in evolution.
[...]
And in addition to computer hard discs, the team thinks that plastic magnets could have important medical applications, for example in dentistry or the transducers used in cochlear implants. Organic magnetic materials are less likely to be rejected by the body.
Again with the hints of extropianism. If God had wanted us to have plastic magnetic organic cochlear transducers, we'dda been born wit dem, I tells ya.
Democratic Party of Georgia's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner
March 1, 2001
[...]
I'm proud to be Georgia's junior senator and I'm honored to serve with Max Cleland, who is as loved and respected as anyone in that body. One of our very highest priorities must be to make sure this man is re-elected in 2002 so he can continue to serve this state and nation.
[...]
My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders – and a good friend.
He was once a lieutenant governor – but he didn't stay in that office 16 years, like someone else I know. It just took two years before the people of Massachusetts moved him into the United States Senate in 1984.
In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington.
Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so.
John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment. Business Week magazine named him one of the top pro-technology legislators and made him a member of its "Digital Dozen."
John was re-elected in 1990 and again in 1996 – when he defeated popular Republican Governor William Weld in the most closely watched Senate race in the country.
John is a graduate of Yale University and was a gunboat officer in the Navy. He received a Silver Star, Bronze Star and three awards of the Purple Heart for combat duty in Vietnam. He later co-founded the Vietnam Veterans of America.
[...]
Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Senator John Kerry.
Good of Senator Zell Miller that he still has this on his Senate website, as it's obviously still something he believes in and believes is relevant to inform the world of.
FAMOUS GOP SAYINGS: COLLECT THEM ALL! So much rapidly aging news, and so much that gives me a headache. But some stuff I want to put on my own record.
This morning I stopped by a meeting of the Iowa GOP delegation, attended by Nebraska Senator (and potential 2008 candidate) Chuck Hagel.
[...]
Soon after Hagel spoke, the acting state Republican chair--an African-American man in a white cowboy hat named Leon Mosley--urged his delegates, "Let's remember what's paramount in our life: God ... This is the GOP: God's Official Party." At that, the room burst into sustained applause.
I'm glad we're all clear on that very reasonable claim.
ALAN KEYES: MULTITRONICS NOT QUITE READY. Kudos to Lileks for this slightly aged observation:
Speaking of Star Trek: do you know who Alan Keyes reminds me of? Richard Daystrom. He had that same erudite quaver that suggested madness or brilliance and probably both. Now that Keyes has come out for reparations, I also expect him to announce that M-5 will be his political strategist. Note to Mr. Keyes: regards to Senator Dunsel.
Boy, that red-lined the geekometer.
Not in my world, James. Besides, a fifth of the time you misspell your Trek references: have you no shame, man? And stop apologizing for Trek references! (However, since he recognizes that DS9 is the best Trek, this, along with other sins, is almost forgiveable.)
THE CONSCIENCE OF A (CERTAIN) CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRAT. That Zell Miller: one sure has to admire a man with such a conscience.
Back when the "right time" was 1964, and the "right place" was northeast Georgia, rookie state legislator Miller ran to the right against Representative Phil Landrum, a conservative Southern Democrat who staunchly opposed black civil rights but agreed to sponsor key legislation for LBJ's War on Poverty. Miller pressed this connection to voters, trying to capitalize on the unpopularity of Johnson's civil rights agenda in his very conservative district. Even then, Miller was running on the "Southern values" platform, though they were a little different back then. He dismissed Johnson as "a Southerner who has sold his birthright for a mess of dark porridge." He then called for an investigation of Communist infiltration in the civil rights movement and dismissed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as "neither constitutionally acceptable nor fundamentally proper."
[...]
After the second defeat, Miller clearly needed a change of direction to get into office. In 1968 he joined the executive staff of Georgia Governor Lester Maddox (he was "like a father to me," Miller later said), an infamous segregationist and former restaurant owner who refused to serve black customers and once chased several out of his diner with a gun and pickaxe in hand. Miller later defended Maddox's record--and his own conscience--by pointing to the governor's appointment of African Americans to state commissions, draft boards, and police departments during Miller's time with him. Miller wants to have it both ways: He capitalized on his segregationist record to earn the good graces of a retrograde politician like Lester Maddox but was happy to play the progressive when the times called for it.
No! I can't believe it. What a terrible smear of this brave Democrat, forthrightly speaking his mind so courageously! With Zell Miller, it's all about principle. How noble of the Republican Party to recognize his firm convictions!
"If we embrace homosexuality as a proper basis for marriage, we are saying that it's possible to have a marriage state that in principle excludes procreation and is based simply on the premise of selfish hedonism," the senate candidate told hosts Michelangelo Signorile and Corey Johnson.
I propose a Constitutional amendment banning infertile people from so-called "marriage." It will also make single parenthood and adoption by single people illegal, because, as everyone knows, children need a mother and a father, or they'll wind up girlymen/mannishgirl drug-addicted pedophilic Islamic mass-murdering pro-terrorist traitors, and Democrats. But I repeat myself.
It was at this point that the hosts asked Keyes their question about Mary Cheney, getting a response.
An interviewer then said: "I don't think Dick Cheney would like to hear that about his daughter."
Replied Keyes: "Dick Cheney may or may not like to hear the truth, but it can be spoken."
When asked Tuesday evening to explain his statements about Mary Cheney, Keyes did not back down.
"I have said that if you are actively engaging in homosexual relations, those relations are about selfish hedonism," he said. "If my daughter were a lesbian, I'd look at her and say, `That is a relationship that is based on selfish hedonism.' I would also tell my daughter that it's a sin, and she needs to pray to the Lord God to help her to deal with that sin."
Rick Garcia, director of Equality Illinois, a non-partisan gay-rights group, said Keyes' views are not representative of the state's Republicans nor Democrats.
"Selfish hedonism? Has anyone seen Dr. Keyes look at a microphone or a television camera? That's hedonism," Garcia said.
Earlier in the story:
After the candidate told the hosts that homosexuality is "selfish hedonism," he was asked whether Mary Cheney is a "selfish hedonist."
"Of course she is," Keyes replied. "That goes by definition. Of course she is."
[...]
Campaigning in North Middleton Township, Pa., with President Bush, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spoke to reporters about Republican chances to hold the Senate and said, "I think it's clear we lose Illinois."
Ya think?
Informed about Keyes' comments from the radio program, McCain said, "I don't think that's appropriate, but it's not the first inappropriate remark Mr. Keyes has made. He made a remark the other day that people who perform abortions are the same as terrorists. That's a very unique take on that issue and one that's very seldom espoused."
Read The Rest Scale: 2.5 out of 5 for a bit more on how Keyes is pissing off the Illinois delegates to the Republican Convention since they are, you know, too unimportant for him to bother actually speaking to.
I am a secret agent of the Democratic Party, working secretly to sow the seeds that will undermine Keyes and the Republicans.
"You are acting as a media surrogate for the Democratic Party!" said Keyes to me, hissing in anger when I asked him a question. "And when you ask questions that are aimed at achieving their purposes in the political battle, I have the right to ask who you speak for and who you represent."
I thought he knew that I worked for the Tribune, since I've interviewed him, but that wasn't good enough.
All I asked, innocently, was why he hadn't yet addressed the members of the Illinois Republican delegation. The reason I asked it is that he's a Republican, he's running for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, and though the GOP convention is half over, he hadn't yet made a speech to the delegates from Illinois.
"The reason you're asking that question is because the media wants to attack the Republican Party!" he said. "You take approaches that are trying to sow the seed and impression of divisions within the party, to serve the purposes of the Democrats!"
Channel 2's political reporter Mike Flannery came to my defense. He probably thought I was ready to squirt a few tears. Either that or he was trying to start his own fight with Keyes to make his own story. But I think Mike was trying to protect me, since he knows how terrified I become when politicians have temper tantrums around me.
Read The Rest Scale: 2.5 out of 5 for more from one of the most famously Daley-feuding reporters in Chicago, John Kass. It's always great to have a campaigner who knows the local issues and personalities, but that's the boring old politics! This new tactic of freshness from a thousand miles away proves that ignorance is a far more clever scheme!
9/2/2004 02:07:57 AM|permanent link| |
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THOSE CRAZY CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS. Oh, that nutty Andrew Sullivan. Who told him he should say what he thinks?
THE SPECTACULAR INCOHERENCE: How to convey the spectacular incoherence of last night's continuing infomercial for the re-election of George W. Bush? The evening began with a series of speeches trumpeting vast increases in federal spending: on education, healthcare, AIDS, medical research, and on and on. No, these were not Democrats. They were Bush Republicans, extolling the capacity of government to help people, to cure the sick, educate the young, save Africans from HIV, subsidize religious charities, prevent or cure breast cancer, and any other number of worthy causes. The speakers were designed to target certain demographic and interest groups, just as the Democrats used to. The notion that these things are best left to the private sector, or that spending needs to be slashed in the wake of rising debt, or that the race of a speaker is irrelevant: all these are now Republican heterodoxy. The highpoint of this section was the speech of Bill Frist. I've never really listened to him give a speech before and this one was frighteningly bad. He has a cadaverous face and a terrifying smile. His first anecdote made no sense at all. His denunication of trial lawyers - the one moment when he didn't look like a funeral director - left him wild-eyed and awkward-gestured. He spoke as if to a bunch of seven year olds in their second language. How did this guy ever get to a position of leadership? He's the Senate Majority Leader and, on a bad day, he'd give small kids nightmares. His speech was a mishmash of comic cliches, pathetically contrived hand movements, that robotic swivel from teleprompTer screen to teleprompTer screen, and crude demagoguery. When you see who really runs the GOP (funny Tom DeLay isn't in prime time, isn't it?), you begin to realize why a cross-dressing ex-mayor, a dissident Californian and an unelected ex-librarian are among its major spokespeople.
This is no time to be honest, Andrew! Stop at once!
Read The Rest Scale: 0 out of 5 on that entry, but the rest of his convention coverage is also interesting and good.
IT'S CHINATOWN ALL OVER AGAIN. Although it's on Salon and therefore you may not read this photo-caption, it is another example of the oft-denied necessity of the serial (or as the British say, "Oxford") comma:
George W. Bush, left, with his father, mother and sister Doro.
Read The Rest Scale: Oh, it's a scurrilous account of someone's memories of a Presidential candidate's activities in the military thirty years ago; who would put any credibility in that? 3 out of 5.
9/2/2004 01:09:05 AM|permanent link| |
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Wednesday, September 01, 2004
KARL ROVE GOES FOR THE IRISH-AMERICAN VOTE. Amygdala notes the bit other blogs don't.
Rove compared the U.S. war on terrorism to the decades-old conflict in Northern Ireland.
"This is going to be more like the conflict in Northern Ireland, where the Brits fought terrorism, and there's no sort of peace accord with al-Qaida saying, 'We surrender,'" Rove said.
No wonder he has such a reputation for canniness. (No, I'm not criticizing Rove on the facts here, but on his keen political sense.)
Read The Rest Scale: well, Karl claimed the same old same old, that Kerry and other war protestors in the early Seventies were "tarnish[ing] the records and service" of ordinary vets, when, of course, they were instead protesting the political leadership of LBJ and Richard Nixon and their appointees, but it's just the usual par for the course; 2 out of 5.
9/1/2004 11:32:54 PM|permanent link| |
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EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FORENSIC SCIENCE I LEARNED ON CSI. Okay, not, though I'm no expert, either. But it's a good thing I don't take tv "hard science" seriously, because here I am sorta vaguely listening to tonight's CBS CSI (original) rerun with a tenth of my brain while reading, and I hear an actor playing an investigator solemnly pronounce to another that "Mrs. [so & so] was shot at a 45 degree angle; it was perpendicular."
45 degrees, 90 degrees: pretty much the same thing. I look forward to an episode in which they investigate a building collapse. Or use a compass.
9/1/2004 09:39:09 PM|permanent link| |
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MY UN-ASKED FOR GEOGRAPHICAL ADVICE TO JOHN KERRY. Focus effort and resources on, in no particular order, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Tennesee, Wisconsin, yes, Florida, and a bit on Arkansas. Throw a bit into Virginia. If you can spare it, toss a little into Louisiana and Oklahoma; what the hell. Don't neglect everywhere else, of course, but those should be your focus right now. Well, don't worry about New York, Illinois, or Massachussetts and the rest of the Northeast. Don't worry much about the West Coast.
If the election were right today, in the middle of the Republican National Convention, I'd bet Kerry to lose. Of course, the election won't be held for a tad more than two months, and as usual, events, and how each campaign responds, whether cannily and with alacrity, or dully and lethargically, will control who wins, or even whether it's close or a blow-out.
And, yes, the Swiftvets, and the poor Kerry team response, hurt him. I don't like it, but I'd be a liar if I said I didn't think so.
Speak bluntly, Mr. Kerry, and Mr. Edwards, on taking the war to the terrorists. Your base won't all like it, but you're not going to lose many; meanwhile, that's the key issue for you to win or lose any possibles or doubters on. Hammer on how you will hammer. Hammer.
It's up to you.
No points for nuance, save negative points. Either you're JFK on the missile gap, or you lose.
Be credible, or else.
Hammer Bush on being weak on North Korean nuclear weapons, and Iranian nuclear-weapons-to-be. Don't talk about negotiations. Don't talk about the UN. Save it for after you are elected. Talk about Bush's failure, and how you will not tolerate a nuclear Iran.
Yes, make the economic case. But it's issue number six while the first five are strength-and-terror,strength-and-terror, strength-and-terror, strength-and-terror, and strength-and-terror.
LIES, DAMN LIES, AND CAMPAIGN SPEECHES. I've been trying to stay away from writing anything about the political conventions, because they're such festivals of contumely nonsense that it is almost impossible for me to resist pointed cheap shots and enraged counterpoint.
But, lo, it is almost impossible for me, so here a note or two in response to some oddities of the Gubinator.
I remember watching the Nixon and Humphrey presidential race on TV. A friend who spoke German and English, translated for me. I heard Humphrey saying things that sounded like socialism, which is what I had just left. But then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting government off your back, lowering taxes and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air.
Aside from the historic note that this may be the first time since 1972 that a speaker at a Republican National Convention has cited Richard Nixon as a political hero, one wonders how many delegates present laud the, um, breath of freshness exemplified by President Nixon signing into being the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Agency and the Department of Natural Resources; his detente with Brezhnev's Soviet Union; his establishment of direct (though not formally full) relations with Mao's China and sharing of U.S. military intelligence with it; his illegal negotiations in 1968 as a private citizen with the government of South Vietnam; his non-winning of the Vietnam War and cynical betrayal of the government of South Vietnam; his creation of wage, price, and rent, controls; his suspension of the convertibility of the dollar into gold; his complete lack of opposition to Roe v. Wade; his campaigning in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment; his creation of the Family Assistance Plan (FAP), which would have given direct cash assistance to all poor people and provided a guaranteed minimum income to all adult Americans; or his support for affirmative action and creation of Task Forces to enable it.
These acts of President Richard Milhouse Nixon sound almost... socialistic. Aren't they mere roadmarks on the march to communism?
And, oh, yes, that whole illegal use of the CIA and FBI, illegal creation of a secret enterprise to burglarize U.S. citizens he deemed political enemies, to firebomb institutions, to frame enemies of crimes, and the entire general subversion of the United States Constititution known by the metonym of "Watergate." Small thing, that, easily forgettable, and certainly not worth mentioning.
I said to my friend, "What party is he?" My friend said, "He's a Republican." I said, "Then I am a Republican!" And I've been a Republican ever since!
Interesting choice of inspirations for Governor Schwarzenegger. Interesting things for the Republican delegates to so lustily cheer last night. Mind, I'm for some of those things (not all; I'd be thrilled if the FAP, based upon the notions of crazed communist Milton Friedman, in some form came back and were made law by whatever party could manage it, though); are they?
And trust me, in my wife's family, that's no small achievement! I'm proud to belong to the party of Abraham Lincoln, the party of Teddy Roosevelt, the party of Ronald Reagan and the party of George W. Bush.
The tv cameras were understandably constantly cutting throughout this speech back to Mrs. Schwarzenegger, prominent Democrat Maria Shriver, daughter of former Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee of 1972, Sargent Shriver, seated next to former President George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara. Tactful of Governor Schwarzenegger to not say he was proud to belong to the party of the only Republican President in between Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, wasn't it? Right to his face, with the tv cameras on the former President, and everything. Must have made former President Bush feel good.
[...]
In this country, it doesn't make any difference where you were born.
Except to have prominent members of your party agitate in favor it making the difference in whether you are specially security-screened or not (regardless of whether your ethnicity/origin actually bears a statistical relationship to Islamic population or Islamic terrorism, which would at least be a logical argument).
It doesn't make any difference who your parents were.
Except in the statistical likelihood of your wealth, your level of education, your childhood comfort, and your contacts, none of which were affected in the case of, say, our two current Presidential nominees. Clearly who the parents of our current President were made no difference in his self-made life, no more than it did for President John F. Kennedy.
It doesn't make any difference if, like me, you couldn't even speak English until you were in your twenties.
Except insofar of the likelihood of people shouting at you "learn to speak English!," or members of your party attempting to pass laws making illegal the use of any other language in government documents or in schools.
[...]
To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: "Don't be economic girlie men!"
The U.S. economy remains the envy of the world. We have the highest economic growth of any of the world's major industrialized nations.
We're the America that sends out Peace Corps volunteers to teach village children. We're the America that sends out missionaries and doctors to raise up the poor and the sick. We're the America that gives more than any other country, to fight AIDS in Africa and the developing world.
We're the America that is rated 21st in the world by The Commitment to Development Index, created by the Center for Global Development and Foreign Policy magazine, which ranks some of the world's richest nations according to how much a wide range of their policies help or hinder the economic and social development of poor countries. Holland, Denmark, and Portugal are the top three.
We're the America whose Official Development Assistance (ODA) as ranked by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as measured proportional to Gross National Income (GNI) is .014%. The UN target is .7 of Gross National Income, and only Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden meet that goal.
Out of the 22 countries of the Development Co-operation Directorate (DAC) of OECD, we're the America that contributes less of our Gross National Income to international aid than any other. That is, we contribute less of our income than Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
...the televised image of General Scowcroft, drink in hand, toasting the Chinese leadership with these words: "We extend our hand in friendship and hope you will do the same." He then went on to say, in a callous slap at the Chinese now in prison for their advocacy of peaceful change: "In both our societies there are voices of those who seek to redirect or frustrate our cooperation. We both must take bold measures to overcome these negative forces."
[...]
On February 26 [1998], [President Bush] hosted a barbecue to which the U.S. ambassador, Winston Lord, had invited Professor Fang Lizhi, China's most outspoken dissident and human rights activist. Embassy officials told the press that the invitation was meant to signal concern about human rights. But that concern was not shared by the White House, which made it known before the event that the President would probably not meet with Fang. In any case, there was no opportunity: uniformed Chinese police physically prevented Fang from attending the dinner.
In final meetings with Chinese leaders before his departure, the President expressed only "regret" over the incident. The White House then went out of its way to say that the invitation to Fang had not been the President's idea and blamed the U.S. embassy for the fiasco.
[...]
Quite apart from his studied avoidance of China's most famous advocate of basic freedoms, the President also ignored "talking points" on human rights prepared for him by his staff for use at the dinner. Throughout January and February, intellectuals in China, inspired by Fang, had sent petitions to Deng Xiaoping and the National People's Congress urging amnesty for such political prisoners as Wei Jingsheng, who has been imprisoned since 1979 for writing an article urging that China's modernization program include democracy. Their hopes that the U.S. President would give a boost to their efforts were dashed.
In March, martial law was declared in Tibet following a demonstration on March 5-7 in which Chinese troops followed Politburo member Qiao Shi's exhortation to be "merciless." Dozens were killed, and more than 300 were arrested. The State Department made a public statement deploring the violence and excessive use of force against demonstrators, but it did not mention China by name and did not express its views directly to the Chinese leadership -- undoubtedly to avoid offense.
From mid-April on, as student demonstrations in Beijing and elsewhere gathered strength, avoiding offense appeared to become the Bush administration's guiding principle. The President and Secretary of State studiously avoided comment on the growing democracy movement, and at no time did they publicly suggest that there would be serious repercussions if the authorities responded violently.
We're that America.
Yes, we're a great and good America. Sometimes. And we dream great dreams.
But we're also this other America.
I miss seeing any discussion of this America, and its need to do yet better, at this Republican National Convention.
Read The Rest Scale: on Arnold's speech, well, you know, he'll be back. On the Human Rights Report on the U.S. response to China, 4 out of 5. Reading more on where America actually stands in international aid wouldn't hurt either.
FAVORITE WORDS. A pleonasm for me, and some may be found here. There is a sad desuetude that is almost haptic in contemporary language. There is no aporia in observing this, but rather, litotes. Some say it is nugatory, but I say, my friends, let us use our vocabulary in foudroyant, mellifluous, concinnity.
Results of the quiz
96. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite 104. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite 121. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite 156. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite 169. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite
Didn't intentionally leave any unanswered, but obviously I missed one. A few I guessed at. A fair number made me grumbly, because the alike/opposite factor was so freaking vague it seemed to me as if the author pulled words from dictionaries without being familiar with their actual usage.
On the plus side, a whole bunch of my favorite obscure words were used, and a smattering I either was delighted to be reminded of, or were simply new to me. A few too many medical-only terms for my taste, though.
Also, a bit over time-consuming, but still one of the more interesting quiz-type thingies (see what a great vocabulary I have?).
Read The Rest Scale: only if you are pernickety, and hold no truckle with hebetated usage.
THE OTHER EARTHS are closer to being found. This is hugely exciting.
The roll call of planets beyond the solar system swelled significantly with the announcement of a trio of newly discovered worlds much smaller than any previously discovered around other stars. The masses of these new planets are comparable to those of Neptune or Uranus in our solar system, ranging from about 14 to 20 times the mass of Earth.
[...]
Dr. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington said, "We are prepared unexpectedly for the next step in planetary science, finding truly Earth-mass planets."
One of the new planets is part of a system around a star 55 Cancri, already known to harbor three larger planets, making it the first quadruple-planet system to be found beyond the solar system, and a likely target for research. Dr. Barbara McArthur of the University of Texas said, "We're on the way to finding the first extra-solar planet Earth, and it's an exciting road to be on."
Fifty years from now, everyone will have forgotten this year's political conventions, but this will be a crucial step in history.
ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER. Which one?
McCain, Giuliani and Schwarzenegger are speaking because they are brave.
I don't know if you have noticed, but this whole campaign has revolved around courage.
John McCain? He spent five and a half years as a POW under brutal conditions, refusing an offer of early release. Without doubt he displayed heroic courage.
Rudy Giuliani? Though not on remotely the same scale as Senator McCain, he showed leadership and courage on September 11th, 2001.
Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Arnold Schwarzenegger?
David Brooks says:
Schwarzenegger has an unshakable belief in economic freedom.
Um, okay. Clearly up there with leading a city attacked, while thousands die, and you barely escape with your own life. Clearly up there with years of torture, imprisonment, deprivation, and suffering.
Arnold, after all, courageously fights the California smoking laws, and the evil Democrats and unions.
What churl would deny any difference in scale?
(Mind, I've written numerous times about how the Governor has been a far cannier and more successful politician than his detractors foolishly predicted, and that there is much I find admirable about him. But. People. Let's have some frigging sense of proportion.)
Read The Rest Scale: 2.5 out of 5 if you want David Brooks' newsflash that courage is important.
Okay, this:
The coming weeks will be so tough because the essential contest - of which the Swift boat stuff was only a start - will be over who really has courage, who really has resolve, and who is just a fraud with a manly bearing.
AN ARTICLE I'VE NOT READ, but very much want to, would explain this, which we have read so often, but which remains mysterious it its lack of detail to me:
At the time of the American transfer of power to a newly sovereign government in Iraq in late June, American officials said one of their greatest disappointments during the occupation after the ouster of Saddam Hussein was the failure to be able to spend reconstruction funds rapidly enough.
Of the $18 billion appropriated by Congress following the end of major combat, only about $600 million had actually been spent on contracts with companies hired to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure.
As a result, just before the transfer of power, the occupation shifted $2.5 billion in Iraqi oil revenues, which were nominally under control of the Iraqi oil and finance ministries, to construction projects that would provide a quick payoff to Iraqis increasingly skeptical about American intentions.
The security problems are obvious, and have been overwhelming. Fine.
How does that explain why, with $18 billion appropriated by Congress, the Coalition Provision Authority had to take -- a true meaning of "appropriate," indeed, when it's someone else's money -- $2.5 billion from Iraq?
Can someone explain this to me? Is it something about the way the Congressional bill was written? Something about CPA organization/authority? Something about the contractors? Corruption somewhere? What makes this make sense, or at least tells us what, more precisely than this entirely vague, obscure, wording-we've-seen-a-hundred-times, happened?
Because this is a damned important part of what's gone wrong, and yet, most curiously, no reporter seems to have been able to produce a, you know, report, that tells us WTF has been going on.
On a visit to Baghdad during the summer, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told Americans at the new embassy that he wanted a thorough review of procedures on spending. Aides to Mr. Powell said that more specifically, he wanted to know why there had been so many delays.
As so many early AOLers used to say, "me, too."
Administration officials say the delays were a result of many factors, including cumbersome contracting regulations imposed by the Congress and a heightened sensitivity over the fact that early in the occupation several contracts were awarded without competitive bidding to the Halliburton Company, once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.
When they went into Iraq, many administration development experts approached the aid programs in a traditional way. The idea was that improvements to power generation capacity, electricity lines, water and sewage would be "precursors for larger economic investments" down the road, an administration official said.
But that view did not take into account the problems arising from the spread of the anti-American insurgency. Rebels were also attacking oil fields, making it clear that without security it made little sense to keep spending money to improve oil production equipment.
And this explains taking $2.5 billion from Iraqi coffers (which I'm sure they were thrilled to have done without an elected Iraqi government approving of it) how?
More, please. Ms. CPA is ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille.
YES, NEW POSTS TODAY! But only after our Alien Overlords have finished my re-programming. Everything-The-President-Says-is-Correct. We-love-the-President. We-must-fix-the-damn-"l"-key.
TV NEEDS JOSS more than Mars needs women. What can I say? I'll let Joss Whedon say it.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel creator Joss Whedon told SCI FI Wire that he's ready to return to the Buffyverse with television films once he receives a green light from The WB, home of Angel, or another network. "We haven't really heard anything," Whedon said in an interview. "Obviously, there's been a regime change at The WB. The fans are interested. I'm interested. I don't think either [Buffy star] Sarah [Michelle Gellar] or [Angel star] David [Boreanaz] would want to do it. But I think there's about 10 other characters I could name who would be totally worthy of movies. And I'm just waiting for somebody to say yea or nay."
As for a proposed Buffy animated series, Whedon said, "A presentation is being made. It hasn't been bought anywhere, but it's still in the creating stages, so it's still a possibility."
Beyond Buffy, Whedon said he'd readily return to series television. "I had some ideas," he said. "I'm sort of trying to look at the marketplace and say, 'What kind of idea will actually go?' Because I'm not really interested in making things that don't. … So I'm not sure if what I have is what the world wants right now."
But, Whedon added, "I am totally prepared to go back to TV. Not 24-seven, as I did with the first years of Buffy. But now I've learned about surrounding yourself with the right people and delegating so that I can actually run a show without ruining my life. And TV is, you know, … a medium that I love in a very different way than I love movies. The things that I can't do in [a] movie are things that I mourn: the smaller moments. The … protracted interactions. The things that make TV really fascinating. Watching characters change over the years. You know, I've waited my whole life to make movies, but movies don't do that. … You either write novels that are way too long, or you make TV if you want to do that. And … I can't write novels that are long."
He's absolutely right about the protracted interactions and small moments, and that, along with the sheer quantity and regularity, is why I'd rather have Joss Whedon productions back on tv about one hundred times more than Joss Whedon movies (which are also bound to be far more compromised by interference from studios than any likely tv productions), nice those the latter also are.
I GOTTA GET INTO THE LEDERHOSEN BIZ. There are fortunes to be made.
The world's biggest bierfest, as famous for its traditional legwear as its beer and sausages, faces an unprecedented absence of lederhosen after the Bavarian government refused to back down on plans to cut grants to folk groups.
The prospect of drinkers in jeans and T-shirts packing the beer tents at the Munich Oktoberfest came closer yesterday after lederhosen wearers said that they would boycott the event.
More than six million people are expected to attend the festival - last year tourism brought in more than €50 million (Ł34 million) to Munich and the beer festival is the highlight - but tourism officials fear that many overseas visitors, usually drawn by the colourful traditional displays, may decide not to come.
The festival is regularly opened by about 6,000 men in lederhosen, or leather shorts, and women in dirndls - pleated smocks with low-cut blouses. They parade through the city centre as the barrels of beer are wheeled in by horse-drawn cart.
Their distinctive costume, however, does not come cheap. The cost of fitting an average family of three is about Ł4,000. State grants worth €500,000 (Ł338,000) - distributed for the past 40 years - used to cover 13 per cent of the cost of each garment. In return, members of about 1,000 clubs agreed to play an active role in festivals and cultural events. Last week, however, efforts to persuade the Bavarian government not to cut the grants collapsed. Edmond Stoiber, the Bavarian prime minister, said the subsidy had to be stopped to save public money.
Ł4,000!
Pretty silly decision to cut back, though. Germany can't afford projection power for its military; the very least they can do is provide lederhosen so that oppressive forces in the world might be danced away. And with enough lager, who will care?
But did you know this?
The costumes, which date from the 17th century, reveal not only where a person comes from, but also whether they are Roman Catholic, married or single, and even if they are an experienced hunter.
The Telegraph can reveal that Prince Charles, who has an abiding interest in environmental issues, has told senior aides that he does not want to have any links with events or groups that promote onshore wind farms.
[...]
Senior aides at Clarence House, where Prince Charles has his private office, say that the heir to the throne has been firmly against wind farms for years, but that he has so far chosen not to enter the public debate on their future.
A spokesman declined to comment yesterday but a friend of Prince Charles said: "This is a difficult issue for the Prince because he is in favour of renewable energy and is concerned by the effects of global warming.
"But he believes that wind farms are 'a horrendous blot on the landscape'. He thinks that if they have to be built at all they should be constructed well out at sea."
Clearly that would be ever so much economical and efficient.
To be sure, Britain is a small country, and the issue isn't as simple as it might appear on the face of it. But this does rather highlight the fact that there's simply no way of producing energy that some won't object to.
Total enrollment in the two government health programs did rise during Bush's tenure -- by about 7.5 million. But for the vast majority, coverage was required by law, not the result of any policy change.
"Part of the reason more people were covered is the economy got so bad that people lost income," Rowland said. "There were more low-income people under Bush than previously, so they became eligible for public programs."
Arsonists destroyed a Jewish community center in eastern Paris in a pre-dawn attack Sunday and left behind anti-Semitic graffiti, police said.
No one was hurt as flames tore through the center located on the first floor of a six-story building. The center, which served as a meeting place and cafeteria for the elderly and disadvantaged, was gutted, rescue officials said.
[...]
Authorities immediately suspected the fire was set deliberately. Inside the building, investigators found anti-Semitic graffiti and swastikas scrawled in red marker. One message read, "Without the Jews, the world is happy," while another said, "Jews get out."
I'm willing to volunteer for the moon colony, but you go first, without a vacuum suit, okay?
The Danube River is known for its beauty and has been immortalized in song. Now researchers have employed the water body as a testing ground for quantum teleportation. Scientists report today in the journal Nature that they have successfully teleported photons more than 600 meters across the famous waterway.
[...]
By separating the entangled pair, the scientists successfully transported information about the state of one photon to the other. Using fiber-optic cable laid under the water in sewer pipes, together with microwaves sent across the air above the water, three distinct states were teleported across the Danube. Over the course of a 28-hour experimental run, the system was correct 97 percent of the time.
The results indicate that quantum teleportation is feasible over long distances and under real-world conditions, the scientists say. “Our result,” they write, “is a step towards the implementation of a quantum repeater, which will enable pure entanglement to be shared between distant parties in a public environment and eventually on worldwide scale.”
His partner, Mr. Stone, glumly agreed: "We're so dumb." (Except that he added a four-letter word. Many of their sentences include four-letter words.)
[...]
Alec Baldwin, for example, emerges as a villain almost as evil as Kim Jong Il. Sean Penn and Danny Glover take up arms to fight beside Mr. Kim, with Mr. Penn crying "Die, conservative!" before blowing away a Team America member.
Mr. Kim, for his part, feeds the international weapons inspector Hans Blix to his sharks. (They used real sharks for that scene.) But not before he croons a song about the solo life of an absolute dictator: "I'm so Rone-ry."
[...]
The current version of the film is a guaranteed NC-17, with surprisingly graphic scenes of puppet sex. The filmmakers will have to cut it to an R rating, but not before they have their fun torturing the ratings board.
[...]
He added: "If you watch the first 40 minutes of the movie, you'd think Michael Moore wrote it and Rob Reiner directed it. If you watch the last 40 minutes you'd think we were the biggest right-wingers in the world."
[...]
"An actor convinces himself he's doing something important to the world," said Mr. Stone, who is 33 and has yet to work with one. "You're an actor; all you do is read lines. And here's Janeane Garofalo on CNN: `We are being silenced.' I can't turn on the TV without hearing Michael Moore's voice. And he's being silenced?"
"We never get silenced," said Mr. Parker, 34. "People are always throwing money at us. I wish someone would silence us so we could take a frigging vacation."
[...]
As for the big disaster scenes, the special effects team that worked on "Independence Day" was brought in to create the flooding of the Panama Canal (in a 1,000-gallon tank) and the toppling of the Eiffel Tower, with almost no digital effects. After all this effort, the filmmakers decided to leave the puppet strings in the frame. "We don't want anyone to think we did it C.G.I.," said Anne Garefino, an executive producer, referring to computer generated imagery. "It was too hard to do it this way."
[...]
Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone approached every scene with a WWJBD ethos: What Would Jerry Bruckheimer Do? The puppets bleed when they are shot. In the middle of every huge action sequence, there is a moment — complete with a soundtrack of tender, swelling strings — when two Team America agents confess their love, just before one gets killed. And when the Sphinx cracks in two, it falls directly on the bad guys' jeep — crushing a young boy in the process.
"It's very Sam Peckinpah," explained Joe Viskocil, the production's special effects coordinator, preparing the Sphinx for a collision.
[...]
Not fun. Fun, they recalled, was back in 2000, when they dropped acid and dressed up as Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow to attend the Academy Awards. That was, Mr. Parker said, awesome.
"I'm so glad we did that," said Mr. Stone.
Mr. Parker: "I remember about 30 seconds when I actually believed I was Jennifer Lopez."
That seemed so long ago. For now, Mr. Stone sighed and turned back to his work. "I've never worked harder in my life," he said. "This is relentless. It's like being at war, but nowhere near as important. It's just a dumb puppet movie." (Except he added a four-letter word.)
I blame Canada. We need more movies with surprisingly graphic scenes of puppet sex, though. Who's with me?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, Pete, I think there's a little bit of a mischaracterization there. Senator Kerry knows that his latest attack is false and baseless. The President has condemned all of the ads by the shadowy groups. We have called on Senator Kerry to join us in calling for an end to all the unregulated soft money activity that is going on in this campaign. And the President has stayed focused on the issues and the choices that the voters face. That's what this ought to be about. There are some clear choices that the voters face for the future. This should not be about the past, and we've made that very clear.
Q But don't you think you could put this matter to rest if you would just condemn this particular ad? That's what Kerry is asking.
MR. McCLELLAN: And the President has condemned all of the ads and condemned all of the soft money -- unregulated soft money that is going on. Senator Kerry should join us in calling for an end to all of this soft money -- unregulated soft money activity. Senator Kerry has declined to do so. The President has been on the receiving end of more than $62 million in negative, false attacks from these shadowy groups that exist. The President thought that we got rid of all of this kind of soft money activity when he signed the campaign finance reforms into law. Apparently Senator Kerry was against this soft money activity previously, too. Now he appears to be for it, as long as it benefits his campaign.
Q There are the ads, and then there's the charge within the ads. Last week at one of the "Ask President Bush" events, a voter stood up and repeated the charge that Senator Kerry had self-inflicted wounds in Vietnam. The President didn't say anything. What does the President think about the charge?
MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, the President thinks that we should get rid of all of this unregulated soft money activity by these shadowy groups. It's not known who is contributing to these groups.
[...]
MR. McCLELLAN: And there have been a lot of false, negative charges made against the President by these shadowy groups. So if he would join us, we could get rid of all of this unregulated soft money activity.
[...]
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the issue here is these unregulated soft money groups that exist. The campaign finance reforms were passed in order to get rid of this kind of activity. Yet there is a loophole in the law, and the FEC has refused to address it. We think that all of this activity should be stopped.
Q Could I follow on that? Because what Terry seems to be getting at, what's clear from this event that Bush had last week --
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, let's not be selective here. Let's look at the overall activity that's going on by all of these shadowy groups. I think we're being a little selective right now.
[...]
MR. McCLELLAN: No, actually I disagree fully with you, David. Senator Kerry is the one who has given his tacit approval to this kind of unregulated soft money activity by shadowy groups. He can join us in condemning all of this activity and calling for an end to it....
[...]
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think that it's important that we recognize that there is a loop hole that groups are exploiting. And we should end all this activity.
[...]
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, ultimately in any campaign the voters are going to make the ultimate decision on all the issues. But this goes to the issue of shadowy groups that are funded by unregulated soft money. That's what this issue is about.
[...]
MR. McCLELLAN: We condemned all the ads, Dana. We condemned all the ads. The President condemned all the ads. You heard from him just recently. Why won't -- why won't Senator Kerry join us in calling for an end to of this activity, when we've been on the receiving end of substantial amounts of money of this kind of activity.
Now, I'm a little vague on this, and I'm not quite sure, but my preliminary take is that it's possible that the President is asking for Senator Kerry to condemn all the unregulated soft money activity that is bing conducted by these shadowy groups. I'll need to reread White House Press Secretary Scott McLellan's remarks at this single gaggle on the 19th a few more times to be sure, though. He was pretty cryptic about this.
(That "activity" is sometimes known as "free speech," rumor has it, and I have to agree that we better put an end to citizens speaking out on politics pretty damn quick, or this country is going to go right down the drain.)
Jimmy Orr, the White House's Internet guru, wants the White House Web site to get bloggier.
"We're trying to make it more bloggish," he says in an interview. "People need to see that we're on the site and we're listening to what they have to say."
[...]
A while back, Orr was his own guest on "Ask the White House" One questioner raised the topic of blogging. And it turns out Orr's a fan.
"Bloggers are very instrumental. They are important. They can lead the news. And they've been underestimated," he wrote.
"Here's what the bloggers do. They notice something in the news or something they've observed that maybe the 'traditional' media hasn't covered or isn't spending much time on. But they think it is significant. So, they give the story a second life (or first). And they talk about it. And others talk about it. Before you know it, it is leading the news."
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And he's not the only one in the White House who reads blogs, he says. Far from it.
"They're important here," he says. "I can tell you that a lot of people read them."
See, you didn't know that. Thank heavens the WH is all hip and groovy and on the job.
Read The Rest Scale: you can wait for the movie, but I'd bet 60-40 that it will be recovered within six months, and 50-50 that it will be within three months (same as last time; of course, possibly the current snatchers learned from that).
8/22/2004 09:41:39 AM|permanent link| |
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Saturday, August 21, 2004
WE ARE THE TEST OF YOUR BRAIN. What would you do without us?
''Liberals are, in my estimation, just not bright people.'' The former economics professor went on to clarify that liberals were drawn to ''occupations of the heart,'' while conservatives favored ''occupations of the brain,'' like economics or engineering.
The odd thing about Armey's statement was that it displayed a fuzzy, unscientific understanding of the brain itself: our most compassionate (or cowardly) feelings are as much a product of the brain as ''rational choice'' economic theory is. They just emanate from a different part of the brain -- most notably, the amygdala, the almond-shaped body that lies below the neocortex, in an older brain region sometimes called the limbic system. Studies of stroke victims, as well as scans of normal brains, have persuasively shown that the amygdala plays a key role in the creation of emotions like fear or empathy.
If amygdala activity is a reliable indication of emotional response, a fascinating possibility opens up: turning Armey's muddled poetry into a testable hypothesis. Do liberals ''think'' with their limbic system more than conservatives do? As it happens, some early research suggests that Armey might have been on to something after all.
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Consider this possibility: the scientists do an exhaustive survey and it turns out that liberal brains have, on average, more active amygdalas than conservative ones.
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(Those who suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome also show unusual patterns of amygdala activity, but those patterns are almost inevitably the imprint of a specific event, and not the long arm of DNA.)
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Those M.R.I. scans suggest an explanation. Perhaps we form political affiliations by semiconsciously detecting commonalities with other people, commonalities that ultimately reflect a shared pattern of brain function. In the mid-1960's, the social psychologist Donn Byrne conducted a series of experiments in which the participants were given a description of several hypothetical strangers' attitudes and beliefs. They were then asked which stranger they would most enjoy having as a co-worker. The subjects consistently preferred the company of strangers with attitudes similar to their own. Opposites repel.
Say you're inclined to form strong emotional responses to images of violence or human suffering, and over the course of your formative years, most of the people you meet who respond to these images with comparable affect turn out to be Democrats. That's a commonality of experience that exists beneath conscious political affiliation -- it's closer to a gut instinct than a rational choice -- but if you meet enough Democrats who share that experience, sooner or later you start carrying the card yourself. Political identity starts with a shared temperament and only afterward deposits a layer of positions on the issues.
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The question becomes less puzzling if you assume that 1) people choose parties primarily because they desire the companionship of people who share their cognitive wiring, and 2) they desire that companionship so much they're willing to pay for the privilege.
There may be something to this. Then again, there may not. But count on your Amygdala to keep track for you.
To help fight these wars, Congress passed a gigantic $416 billion appropriations bill for the Department of Defense in July, which President Bush signed into law on Aug. 5. The measure, the president declared, ensures that "our armed forces have every tool they need to meet and defeat the threats of our time."
Well, not exactly.
[...]
Legislators have amply demonstrated that what they're really interested in is raising and providing some home-state pork to impress voters in an election year. To that end, they have busied themselves with squeezing funds for war essentials such as training, weapons maintenance and spare parts -- things troops in combat need more, not less, of -- to send extra dollars their constituents' way.
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A pork-hungry Congress has long been with us, of course, but this year, with our armed forces engaged on two major fronts, Congress has pushed the pork in the defense budget to an all-time high, totaling $8.9 billion. And even as they did so -- and voted to fund wartime operations at only a fraction of what nearly all analysts agree is needed for the duration of 2005 -- conservatives, liberals and moderates alike have presented themselves as doing everything they can think of to support the troops in the field. Don't believe it.
[...]
On June 24, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Alaska Republican Ted Stevens, rammed the $416 billion bill through the Senate in just a few hours. Forty-two amendments, the majority of them involving small spending projects promoted by senators with an eye on bringing home the bacon, were adopted by unrecorded "voice" votes -- usually after cursory deliberation that failed even to explain the subject matter.
The next day's Congressional Record provided some details when it printed the text of the amendments. There, for example, you can find the amendment offered by Democratic Sen. Max Baucus for a grant to Rocky Mountain College in his state of Montana for three Piper aircraft and a simulator, and Republican Sen. Rick Santorum's $3 million add-on for an unbudgeted artificial lung device for the Army. By the time Congress had finished with the bill in July, House and Senate members had added more than 2,000 of these "earmarks," thereby achieving their new porcine record. Some of these items had at least some tenuous relevance to defense, but many didn't. None, though, had been included in the defense budget put together by DOD and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and there was subsequently little, if any, objective evaluation -- for instance, either by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) or in a congressional hearing -- of their cost and efficacy. Each one was literally a pig in a poke.
[...]
In parts of the bill that no one talked about, the Armed Services Committee raided the accounts that support combat readiness. Specifically, the committee cut Army depot weapons maintenance by $100 million (just when the repair backlog from the wars has grown to unmanageable proportions), and it removed $1.5 billion from the services' "working capital funds" for transportation and consumables (e.g. helicopter rotor blades, tank tracks, spare parts, fuel, food and much more). In one unseemly move, the committee also cut from one account $532 million for civilian repair technicians activated to support the deployed forces, claiming the money should have been credited elsewhere in the bill. But then it failed to add the money where it said it belonged.
In another feat of legislative trickery, the committee cut another $1.67 billion throughout the bill in anticipation of lower inflation in 2005 -- a pretense at a savings that OMB said in written comments to the committee "do[es] not exist." OMB concluded that "the practical effect of these reductions would be cuts to critical readiness accounts." In response, the Armed Services Committee did nothing and urged the Senate to endorse its bill, which it did by a vote of 97-0 on June 23.
Thereafter, the Senate Appropriations Committee used other gimmicks to reduce essential defense accounts in its bill. By the time Congress had finished with the appropriations measure on July 22, I counted $4.534 billion in reductions, mostly buried in the General Provisions section in the back of the bill. Ostensibly labeled as "unobligated balances," "general reductions," "excessive growth," "adjustments" and savings due to "management improvements," these were simply offsets to accommodate the $8.9 billion pork invoice the appropriators wrote. That more than $2.8 billion of these cuts came in military pay and the Operations and Maintenance budgets that support soldiers' salaries, training, spare parts, weapons maintenance and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan shows where the committee's real priorities lay.
Moreover, it is not as if Congress had not been told that its actions would cause problems: House and Senate hearings held in the spring and early summer, and a GAO study issued in July, were replete with assertions that the military services were facing underfunding for training, maintenance and purchases of spare parts. In June, OMB warned that "increasing Congressional reliance on reductions of an indiscriminate nature and increasing use of earmarks within the DOD budget will damage future military capabilities."
With no Republican doing anything to restore the funding cut from the war-fighting accounts or to stem the record-busting pork parade, you might think some Democrats would step in where McCain and others declined to tread. You'd be mistaken. There was nary a peep of complaint on the Senate floor. Feasting at the pork trough every bit as much as others, Democratic defense leaders such as Hawaii's Sen. Daniel Inouye, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee, spent his time and energy making sure his home state was well taken care of, adding funding for brown tree-snake eradication programs and health-care spending for Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. As far as I could determine from the Congressional Record, committee reports and conversations with former colleagues, others, such as Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, did nothing to undo the mess.
As for President Bush and Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards, it's hard to say whether they are ignorant of the corrosive nature of congressional business as usual on defense, which seems unlikely, or are simply intimidated by the prospect of seriously fighting a system of debased values that sacrifices military readiness for selfish gain. In any case, none of them has made an effort to combat Congress's feeding frenzy.
And the media? Not for the first time, they were sound asleep.
I COMMAND YON WAVES TO ROLL BACK UPON THE OCEANS. The Kings and Queens of the Olympics have spoken:
(AP) -- Athletes may be the center of attention at the Olympic Games, but don't expect to hear directly from them online -- or see snapshots or video they've taken.
The International Olympic Committee is barring competitors, as well as coaches, support personnel and other officials, from writing firsthand accounts for news and other Web sites.
An exception is if an athlete has a personal Web site that they did not set up specifically for the Games.
The IOC's rationale for the restrictions is that athletes and their coaches should not serve as journalists -- and that the interests of broadcast rightsholders and accredited media come first.
Just so. After all, the Olympics are about profits, and selling rights! Mere athletics is entirely secondary. It's a shame some people are confused about this.
Participants in the games may respond to written questions from reporters or participate in online chat sessions -- akin to a face-to-face or telephone interview -- but they may not post journals or online diaries, blogs in Internet parlance, until the Games end August 29.
To protect lucrative broadcast contracts, athletes and other participants are also prohibited from posting any video, audio or still photos they take themselves, even after the games, unless they get permission ahead of time.
[...]
The Olympic guidelines threaten to yank credentials from athletes who are in violation as well as to impose other sanctions or take legal action for any monetary damages.
Thank goodness the committee is protecting both us and the athletes from us hearing from them directly. Who knows what that could lead to? At the very least, fewer profits for "accredited media" and the Olympic Committee. Have people no sense of priority?
In truth, around 300,000 troops might have been enough to make Iraq largely secure after the war. But doing so would also have required different kinds of troops, with different rules of engagement. The coalition should have deployed vastly more military police and other troops trained for urban patrols, crowd control, civil reconstruction, and peace maintenance and enforcement. Tens of thousands of soldiers with sophisticated monitoring equipment should have been posted along the borders with Syria and Iran to intercept the flows of foreign terrorists, Iranian intelligence agents, money, and weapons.
But Washington failed to take such steps, for the same reasons it decided to occupy Iraq with a relatively light force: hubris and ideology. Contemptuous of the State Department's regional experts who were seen as too "soft" to remake Iraq, a small group of Pentagon officials ignored the elaborate postwar planning the State Department had overseen through its "Future of Iraq" project, which had anticipated many of the problems that emerged after the invasion. Instead of preparing for the worst, Pentagon planners assumed that Iraqis would joyously welcome U.S. and international troops as liberators. With Saddam's military and security apparatus destroyed, the thinking went, Washington could capitalize on the goodwill by handing the country over to Iraqi expatriates such as Ahmed Chalabi, who would quickly create a new democratic state. Not only would fewer U.S. troops be needed at first, but within a year, the troop levels could drop to a few tens of thousands.
Of course, these naive assumptions quickly collapsed, along with overall security, in the immediate aftermath of the war.
I have no problem understanding why many people supported the invasion of Iraq. I trepeditiously, luke-warmly, supported it myself. There were a variety of good arguable reasons to support the idea (few put forward then or later by the Bush Administration) at the time, as well as some bad reasons. We also couldn't know then -- despite the claims of both supporters and opposers -- how it would turn out, and we still don't know what Iraq will look like in three or five years (I'm clinging to some hope).
What I don't understand is how anyone could possibly believe, in the face of all the highly detailed expositions we've accumulated over the past year-plus of what happened, why, and how it went against all the professional advice in the government, that the post-war situation was handled other than extremely incompetently for no justifiable reason, and how anyone could reasonably believe the political leaders who caused this debacle to be competent to further lead us forward in the arena of foreign affairs.
As Matthew Yglesias has been pounding lately, it doesn't matter how grand your ideas are, and how correct (or not), if you can't competently carry them out. Why would people support those with what might or might not be better, even great, ideas, if they're going to be executed as if the planners lived in Candyland?
Read The Rest Scale: 5 out of 5; it's long, but it's necessary to grasp the full reality, including the history of the incomprehensible non-strategy against Moqtada Sadr.
8/20/2004 06:47:04 PM|permanent link| |
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THE ORIGINS OF SPAM. Eric Idle begins his diary of the making ofSpamalot, the destined-for-Broadway musical version of Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
Bow before Eric Idle. Bow NOOOOOOOOOW!
Then run away, run away!
Advance tickets here for the opening at Chicago's Schubert Theater in December.
Ever fancied becoming a cartoon character? New animation software can turn digital videos into smoothly animated cartoons.
Computer scientist Michael Cohen, of Microsoft research in Redmond, Washington, honed the prototype on a video of his daughter, Lena. The software scans the film for prominent objects - such as Lena swinging on monkey bars - then turns that movement into a cartoon.
"We're trying to look at the video as a whole," he says, rather than as a series of frames. This gives objects' edges continuity, making them smooth. It also allows complex movements to be translated into cartoon action.
The work was presented at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics meeting in Los Angeles last week.
Answer: don't try to sell books before you learn not to write sentences like that and various others on your website.
(That goes for eight gazillion wannabe writers, but it will never happen. Bad writers are bad writers because they don't realize they can't tell what an ungrammatical sentence is, and because they can't parse, can't punctuate, have no sense of rhythm or meter, don't know how to write dialogue, don't know what a "said-bookism" is, don't know how to plot, don't know how to structure, and so on.)
Read The Rest Scale: 1 out of 5 if you want to see the sad site of a woman who allegedly had an affair with Kerry when he was single. Pointless, really.
8/20/2004 03:33:05 PM|permanent link| |
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Psychologists, anthropologists and linguists have long wondered whether animals, young children or certain cultures can conceptualize numbers without the language to describe them.
To tackle the issue, behavioural researcher Peter Gordon of Columbia University in New York journeyed into the Amazon. He carried out studies with the Pirahă tribe, a hunter-gatherer group of about 200 people, whose counting system consists of words which mean, approximately, 'one', 'two' and 'many'.
Gordon designed a series of tasks to examine whether tribe members could precisely count and conceive of numbers beyond one or two, even if they lacked the words. For example, he asked them to look at a group of batteries and line up a matching amount.
The tribe members struggled to perform these tasks accurately after the numbers were greater than three, Gordon reports in Science1; and their performance got worse the higher the numbers climbed. "They couldn't keep track at all," he says.
Other researchers in the field have welcomed the study. But they disagree about what it means. Psychologist Charles Gallistel, at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, says that the Pirahă simply may not recognize when one quantity of items exactly equals another, so they have trouble with matching tasks. He argues that people do possess an innate, non-verbal ability to conceive of all numbers, and that language simply helps them to refine it.
Psychologist Susan Carey of Harvard University in Massachusetts argues the opposite: she says we lack an innate ability to count beyond very small numbers, and that the Pirahă difficulty with numbers proves it. "It's a spectacular finding," she says.
Clearly we need at least... uh, many more studies.
PROFESSOR VOLOKH WONDERS WHY THE PRESIDENT IS CALLING FOR AN END TO FREE SPEECH via "527's" here.
This is independent spending on political expression, which Buckley specifically held was constitutionally protected, by a 7-1 vote that include liberals, moderates, and conservatives in the majority (the only dissenter was Justice White). I certainly hope that McClellan's views don't represent the policy agenda of the White House. (For a more detailed argument on why such speech should be protected, see here.)
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UPDATE: Unfortunately, President Bush seems to be taking the same view....
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A reader suggested, in response to the original post, that maybe McClellan was calling for "an end" simply in the sense of urging people not to do this sort of thing. But the references to thinking that BCRA would have gotten rid of such speech strongly suggest that "an end" means a legally mandated end. Bad stuff.
I STILL LIKE BARBARA TUCHMAN'S work, but it's long been known that her famous, iconic, thesis from The Guns of August, that WWI happened, essentially, because of inflexible plans locked into railroad timetables, and the inability of leaders to forsee the inevitable results, was quite wrong.
It's a terrific story, and thus compellingly easy to believe, conveying the lessons it does, but it's wrong. And here is a terrific look by Adam Gopnik at contemporary historical views of the causes of WWI.
The last century, through its great cataclysms, offers two clear, ringing, and, unfortunately, contradictory lessons. The First World War teaches that territorial compromise is better than full-scale war, that an “honor-bound” allegiance of the great powers to small nations is a recipe for mass killing, and that it is crazy to let the blind mechanism of armies and alliances trump common sense. The Second teaches that searching for an accommodation with tyranny by selling out small nations only encourages the tyrant, that refusing to fight now leads to a worse fight later on, and that only the steadfast rejection of compromise can prevent the natural tendency to rush to a bad peace with worse men. The First teaches us never to rush into a fight, the Second never to back down from a bully.
We struggle with these contradictory lessons: which to use?
{...]
But Strachan is no drudge; he has a point to make and a message to deliver. His desire is to take the cliché image of the war, particularly the English one—the war as Monty Python massacre, with idiot Graham Chapman generals sending gormless Michael Palin soldiers to a senseless death—and replace it with something more like the image that Americans have of our Civil War: a horrible, hard slog, certainly, but fought that way because no other was available, and fought for a cause in itself essentially good.
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Strachan and Stevenson—a historian at the London School of Economics—complicate that view. The Germans may have wanted a war, but they surely didn’t want this war. What Conrad had in mind was a much more limited war, a war with Serbia. Even if Moltke and Conrad were in favor of a war on German-Austrian terms, they did not control the crucial casus belli—the assassination of the Archduke—and they could not have forced the hands of so many players on their own. At the same time, the new scholars have exploded the idea that the Schlieffen plan was actually useful, let alone a well-oiled doomsday machine. It was an old academic, deskbound exercise, in case of a possible war with France, which specified almost nothing in practical terms, much less dressed troops and routed trains. The Germans were not blindly following a preset plan; they were making it up as they went along, sometimes in a state of panic produced by the absence of a plan.
So it was not a march of folly at all. It was a march of fools. That is, it was not a tragedy of errors and misunderstandings that carried the unknowing participants toward an end that they could not envision. It was the deliberate decision of individuals who thought they knew just what they were getting into.
And that, of course, never happened before, and hasn't happened since, and will never happen again.
Where are my "sarcasm" marks?
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Nonetheless, both Strachan and Stevenson emphasize that the standard images of the war, and of the verdict that Keegan seconds even today—that it was an utter and futile massacre, with an additional note of industrialized absurdity that indicted the entire civilization that had allowed it—were late in coming. Memorable antiwar literature and theatre—Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front,” R. C. Sherriff’s “Journey’s End,”and the war memoirs of Sassoon and Robert Graves, to which one could add Renoir’s “Grand Illusion” and Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms”—were written only in the late nineteen-twenties. Strachan insists that this literature reflects the war seen through the prism of the twenties and not as it was understood in its time—as, in large part, a tragic necessity, the noble struggle of liberal civilization to save itself.
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And the point we might still take from the First World War is the old one that wars are always, in Lincoln’s perfectly chosen word, astounding. They produce results that we can hardly imagine when they start. It is not that wars are always wrong. It is that wars are always wars, good for destroying things that must be destroyed, as in 1864 or 1944, but useless for doing anything more, and no good at all for doing cultural work: saving the national honor, proving that we’re not a second-rate power, avenging old humiliations, demonstrating resolve, or any of the rest of the empty vocabulary of self-improvement through mutual slaughter.
Mind, this is not a pacifistic point: it is necessary to destroy at times. It's just terribly important to know when that choice is worth the cost.
Nor would I even agree that wars are necessarily "no good at all" for the above results: sometimes they are; it's simply that the results are also rarely fully predictable.
SAME OLD SAME OLD. Of course, classic insane Jew-hatred continues to roll along as well as ever; it's always useful to glance at MEMRI now and again for a reminder, such as bit of SOP from Al-Jundi Al-Muslim (The Muslim Soldier), which is published by the Religious Affairs Department of the Saudi armed forces.
And this from the Egyptian weekly magazine Aqidati, published by the Al-Tahrir foundation, which is linked to the ruling National Democratic Party.
