Michael Vick is in a heap of trouble, but his trouble points out a few troubling things in our society not that have little to do Mr. Vick.
#1: The Court of Public Opinion
How can you possibly get a fair trial after being convicted in the media, decried as "Barbaric!" (see the video above) on the Senate floor? Where can you find "12 good men and true" to hear that case impartially? Media coverage is so ubiquitous today it's almost impossible to not be innundated with the opinions of the various public figures (in this case those opinions are very one-sided), which will undoubtedly shape the opinions of anyone subject thereto and this makes it incredibly difficult to get a fair hearing. But legal ramifications aside, we publicly convict famous people immediately upon charges being leveled, for any occurence and it is nearly impossible to shake this label once applied, even if one is found not guilty or charges are dropped. It's possible that the very liveliehood of a person could be stripped away for false accusations and trumped up charges. I know that there is the public trust to win/lose, but in some cases, the public condemns you on the basis of not much other than emotion and you can never regain your same position or status even if you've done nothing wrong.
Syndicated columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson puts it this way:
Even if Vick somehow beats the fed charges in his trial which is scheduled for November, that’s a doomed hope. In fact, as was the case with [OJ] Simpson, that will ignite even greater public fury. They will wag fingers at Vick and say that he was able to use his fame and name, and his A team, high priced attorneys to massage the legal system to skip away scot free, even though he’s guilty as sin. Vick will pay an even steeper price for that presumption.
He will lose any chance at endorsements. Sportswriters will rail against him. Animal rights groups will hound Vick in every city he sets foot in waving “Convick” signs in his face. Fans will rain boos and catcalls down on him when he sets foot on the field.
We show our (often justifiable) cynicism with the legal process by thinking any celebrity cleared of charges is only freed or offered leniency because they are rich. We forget that a jury of citizens hears the evidence and decides based on the facts presented. That's how the courts work and always have. It's this rational procedure that aids in our maintenance of civility instead of the vigilantism and mob justice, regardless of the facts/evidence, that rears its ugly head in the Court of Public Opinion.
#2: The Price of Fame or: The Blessing and Curse of Celebrity in America
You are beloved and popular and rich. But when you screw up, we will tear you a new one. Look at the ridiculing of Britney Spears these days. Mel Gibson became a punchline. The campout at Paris Hilton's house before she went to jail. Watch the Tonight Show sometime. We build 'em up so we can tear 'em down. Steven Spielberg tells a story that late New York Times film critic Pauline Kael told him after Close Encounters was a critical and commercial hit (his 3rd in a row to start his career) that there was chum in the water (an obligatory Jaws reference), as the critics' community was just waiting for him to make a mistake. 1941 was a slight misfire and they buried him (albeit very briefly, he followed up with Raiders of the Lost Ark, then ET and found himself back in their good graces forever). But the point is there. We want to tear down the idols so we love having paparazzos milling around like vultures waiting for some calamity to befall them, waiting for them to do something dumb/illegal. Why do think sites like TMZ and Perez Hilton and The Superficial are so popular? I wrote a couple months back about the phenomenon of not viewing high-profile celebrities as actual people, and I think that separation of them from their humanity is something they can start to do to themselves as well and it can become really problematic and creates the sort of problems we can see in folks from Vick to Lohan.
#3 The Race Thing
Two common arguments: "You're singling Vick out because he's black" and "You're only defending Vick because he's black". The first points to a deep-seated mistrust of the establishment (both state and media, though the distinction is increasingly blurring) and an entrenched perception of racial discrimination (if not an outright state of racial discrimination). The second points to stereotypes borne as a result of the first. If there were no feeling of the media conspiring to portray minorities negatively there would be no need to be overly protective of "one of your own" against perceived oppression.
While there are no doubt some who fall into the categories laid out, neither charge is necessarily accurate. It's possible to single Vick out because he is charged with a heinous crime. The fact is, even being tangentially connected to dog-fighting is problematic. Having the FBI say they have been tracking you and activity on your property for 4-5 years is problematic. Likewise, it's possible to attempt to defend Vick from the legal perspective by saying he is innocent until proven guilty, and the trial isn't set to commence until November and most who are out protesting haven't even read the indictment so though they may espouse, in that Howard Beale tradition, the "Mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore" attitude, they don't really know what exactly they are railing against.
#4: Pet the Dog, Eat the Cow
Sen. Robert Byrd stated, "God created the dog to be man's companion". A Sports Illustrated article quoted a few local Atlanta residents as saying this case was much worse than the case of Chris Benoit's double murder-suicide.
The Salt Lake Tribune reprints this Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed:
I watched cable news recently, and almost every anchor interviewed an official of the Humane Society, and all expressed horror, especially that Vick's indictment had accused him and his fellow defendants of executing dogs in ways apparently designed to be as cruel as possible: drowning, strangling, electrocution. One official compared the practice to child pornography. Then I went into town for some lunch, driving past all of the franchises peddling ground cow for human consumption - the same ones you'll find on every American highway exit. If killing dogs is the equivalent of child pornography, while eating cows is simply a way to put off mowing the lawn, we seem to be conflicted - or reeking with hypocrisy and confusion.
We have a set of intuitions, driven partly by our interactions with pets, that many animals can experience pain in a morally significant way, that they can suffer, or be used and degraded. Perhaps they have somewhat less of a claim on us than human beings do, but they make a claim. But another set of intuitions is driven by our dietary habits or our experience of thumping squirrels and armadillos on the road: that an animal is little more than an inanimate object, and can be used in whatever way a human being sees fit.
Our moral evaluation of animals seems to vary with their proximity to ourselves - both their everyday interactions with us and their perceived similarity to us - so that by the time you're done attributing love, loyalty and inferential reasoning to your dog, you have recognized her as a de facto human being, a member of the family. It works both ways, and your dog recognizes you as leader of the pack. Cows have big, sad eyes, but less personality of the sort that arouses our recognition. And these days, unless you're directly involved in the farming and food industry, your interaction with cows is limited to, let's say, the drive-through lane.
In practice, the moral claims of animals vary by species and track our sense of the animal's proximity - cognitive, emotional, physical - to ourselves. We become truly sentimental: We write memoirs with our dogs, talk baby-talk to them, let them lick our faces. But about other species we are as hard-nosed as possible. Essentially, we do whatever we feel like to them whenever we want. But there is no rational justification for this distinction. Pigs aren't more stupid, or less emotionally complex or less capable of experiencing pain than dogs, but they seem to lack that certain something (well, all except Charlotte's Wilbur).
We need to decide: (a) Do animals count? and (b) How, exactly, not as dwarfish, or four-legged, or stupid people, but as real things whose existence is, though connected to ours, profoundly external and different?
That last question is especially important, because we tend to think of our relationship to pets in human terms, and all other animals as a distinct other, yet how we arrive at that distinction is never really considered. What of those who have no pets and no real attachments to the "animal kingdom" (a phrase which itself confers human qualities on animals, the "king" of the jungle and so forth).
Well, that's all I got and I'm tired of writing. What say you? (I'm guessing nothing. That's usually how it goes 'round here).
Monday, July 30, 2007
RIP Ingmar Bergman
The Cinema has lost one of its all-time greats, perhaps the best European filmmaker ever:
Death and demons haunted the anguished works that made Ingmar Bergman a film-making legend. But the Swedish director — one of the greatest artists in cinema history — had overcome his intense fear of death by the time it finally found him.
Bergman died Monday at age 89, at home on the Swedish islet of Faro, the Ingmar Bergman Foundation said. The cause of death was not immediately known.
"The world has lost one of its very greatest film makers. He taught us all so much throughout his life," said British actor and director Richard Attenborough.
Bergman's movies won numerous awards and international acclaim, including Oscars for best foreign film for "The Virgin Spring," "Through a Glass Darkly" and "Fanny and Alexander." The 1973 "Cries and Whispers" was nominated for Best Picture.
Bergman, who retired from films in 2003 after making more than 50 movies, first gained international attention with 1955's "Smiles of a Summer Night," a romantic comedy that inspired the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music."
Bergman's works combined deep seriousness, indelible imagery and unexpected flashes of humor in finely written, inventively shot explorations of difficult subjects such as plague and madness.
More info on a legend for the unacquianted (an unacceptable status you should rectify post-haste should it apply to you):
The history of the cinema has seen directors whose works have been more "original" or "groundbreaking" (such as Eisenstein, Ozu or Godard). And there are plenty of directors who have made as many, if not more films (Griffith, Hitchcock or Chabrol). Yet the question remains: is there anyone who so epitomises the concept of the auteur – a filmmaker with full control over his medium, whose work has a clear and inimitable signature – as Ingmar Bergman?
One of the reasons one immediately recognises a Bergman film is that he is one of those rare filmmakers who has created his own cinematic world. (This is also the reason that we have a section on this website under the heading Universe.) Through recurring environments, themes, characters, stylistic devices, actors and film crews, Bergman has created his own kind of film, almost a genre in itself.
If Alfred Hitchcock is the epitome of the psychological thriller (despite the fact that he also made films in other genres), Bergman has become the hallmark for the existential/philosophical relationship drama (although he, too, has made other kinds of films). His films often use the narrative techniques of "classic" cinema with the addition of "modern" stylistic devices. Quite simply, Bergman fitted in perfectly with the ideal they wished to promote: the auteur who uses the film camera as a writer uses his pen.
In this mould Bergman's films rapidly came to typify the concept of "art house cinema". In a period when film was once again striving for legitimacy, Bergman demonstrated that film could be something more than entertainment: it could indeed be art. As such, it is important to remember that Bergman immediately preceded the other "modern" European directors with whom he is often mentioned: Antonioni, Buñuel, Fellini, Godard and others. The fact that film studies emerged at the end of the 1960s as an academic discipline in its own right is in many respects down to Bergman, whose films of existential exploration naturally lend themselves to systematic analysis.
To a large extent, Bergman's themes laid the foundation for his fame. His Strindberg-like conviction that marriage is hell on earth, and his recurring doubts about God were, ironically enough, and to put it crassly, not much more than a summary of the Scandinavian cultural tradition at the time, with its budding sexual freedom and its already far-reaching secularisation. Yet abroad at the time, not least in the catholic European and South American countries, or in the morally conservative United States and Eastern Europe, Bergman's films appeared revolutionary.
Neither can one totally ignore the contribution to Bergman's success of what were, for the time, quite daring depictions of nudity and "natural" sexuality. Bergman' films, with their unfathomable language, scenes of unspoilt natural beauty and blonde women, were widely regarded as the embodiment of a Scandinavian kind of exoticism.
A highly important director, Ingmar Bergman today seems ironically to have been virtually forgotten. His impact has been so all-pervasive, his influence so great and his films such obvious benchmarks, that his work has almost become invisible. Yet just as one occasionally has to revisit the Bible to understand something of western culture, one needs to see Bergman's films anew. For many it was a long time ago; for others it will be for the first time. Whichever it is, the films will feel familiar.
Death and demons haunted the anguished works that made Ingmar Bergman a film-making legend. But the Swedish director — one of the greatest artists in cinema history — had overcome his intense fear of death by the time it finally found him.
Bergman died Monday at age 89, at home on the Swedish islet of Faro, the Ingmar Bergman Foundation said. The cause of death was not immediately known.
"The world has lost one of its very greatest film makers. He taught us all so much throughout his life," said British actor and director Richard Attenborough.
Bergman's movies won numerous awards and international acclaim, including Oscars for best foreign film for "The Virgin Spring," "Through a Glass Darkly" and "Fanny and Alexander." The 1973 "Cries and Whispers" was nominated for Best Picture.
Bergman, who retired from films in 2003 after making more than 50 movies, first gained international attention with 1955's "Smiles of a Summer Night," a romantic comedy that inspired the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music."
Bergman's works combined deep seriousness, indelible imagery and unexpected flashes of humor in finely written, inventively shot explorations of difficult subjects such as plague and madness.
More info on a legend for the unacquianted (an unacceptable status you should rectify post-haste should it apply to you):
The history of the cinema has seen directors whose works have been more "original" or "groundbreaking" (such as Eisenstein, Ozu or Godard). And there are plenty of directors who have made as many, if not more films (Griffith, Hitchcock or Chabrol). Yet the question remains: is there anyone who so epitomises the concept of the auteur – a filmmaker with full control over his medium, whose work has a clear and inimitable signature – as Ingmar Bergman?
One of the reasons one immediately recognises a Bergman film is that he is one of those rare filmmakers who has created his own cinematic world. (This is also the reason that we have a section on this website under the heading Universe.) Through recurring environments, themes, characters, stylistic devices, actors and film crews, Bergman has created his own kind of film, almost a genre in itself.
If Alfred Hitchcock is the epitome of the psychological thriller (despite the fact that he also made films in other genres), Bergman has become the hallmark for the existential/philosophical relationship drama (although he, too, has made other kinds of films). His films often use the narrative techniques of "classic" cinema with the addition of "modern" stylistic devices. Quite simply, Bergman fitted in perfectly with the ideal they wished to promote: the auteur who uses the film camera as a writer uses his pen.
In this mould Bergman's films rapidly came to typify the concept of "art house cinema". In a period when film was once again striving for legitimacy, Bergman demonstrated that film could be something more than entertainment: it could indeed be art. As such, it is important to remember that Bergman immediately preceded the other "modern" European directors with whom he is often mentioned: Antonioni, Buñuel, Fellini, Godard and others. The fact that film studies emerged at the end of the 1960s as an academic discipline in its own right is in many respects down to Bergman, whose films of existential exploration naturally lend themselves to systematic analysis.
To a large extent, Bergman's themes laid the foundation for his fame. His Strindberg-like conviction that marriage is hell on earth, and his recurring doubts about God were, ironically enough, and to put it crassly, not much more than a summary of the Scandinavian cultural tradition at the time, with its budding sexual freedom and its already far-reaching secularisation. Yet abroad at the time, not least in the catholic European and South American countries, or in the morally conservative United States and Eastern Europe, Bergman's films appeared revolutionary.
Neither can one totally ignore the contribution to Bergman's success of what were, for the time, quite daring depictions of nudity and "natural" sexuality. Bergman' films, with their unfathomable language, scenes of unspoilt natural beauty and blonde women, were widely regarded as the embodiment of a Scandinavian kind of exoticism.
A highly important director, Ingmar Bergman today seems ironically to have been virtually forgotten. His impact has been so all-pervasive, his influence so great and his films such obvious benchmarks, that his work has almost become invisible. Yet just as one occasionally has to revisit the Bible to understand something of western culture, one needs to see Bergman's films anew. For many it was a long time ago; for others it will be for the first time. Whichever it is, the films will feel familiar.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Mid-Summer Mix: Best of 2007 pt. 2
It's that time again, it's the middle of the summer and the oppressive heat is beating us all into submission, and a result you are probably feeling a little worn down. In an effort to provide even a slight pick-me-up for the summer blues, I offer you free music!
The Best of 2007 pt. 2 (with just a few not from 2007 that needed to be included):
Tracklisting (with links to the albums from whence these songs emanate)
1. Devon Sproule - Old Virginia Block
2. Michael Buble ft. Boyz II Men - Comin' Home Baby
3. Fionn Regan - Hunter's Map
4. Chrisette Michele - Your Joy
5. JJ Grey & Mofro - By My Side
6. Electric Soft Parade - Misunderstanding
7. The Sleepy Jackson - Dream On (2006)
8. Kaki King - Happy As A Dead Pig In The Sunshine (2003)
9. Donnie - Over-The-Counter Culture
10. Norah Jones - My Dear Country
11. Maroon 5 - Little of Your Time
12. Roark - Letters
13. The Greencards - Waiting on the Night
14. Jon McLaughlin - Perfect
15. JJ Grey & Mofro - The Sun is Shining Down
16. Lewis Taylor - Song (Acoustic)
As usual, enjoy!.....or tell me I have terrible taste in music, either way, although I would ask you to showcase your superior taste by offering your own mix (that last statement of course being equal parts ego and desire for free music).
I think Ben has a new one due out this weekend as well, so when that becomes available I will link to that as well.
The Best of 2007 pt. 2 (with just a few not from 2007 that needed to be included):
Tracklisting (with links to the albums from whence these songs emanate)
1. Devon Sproule - Old Virginia Block
2. Michael Buble ft. Boyz II Men - Comin' Home Baby
3. Fionn Regan - Hunter's Map
4. Chrisette Michele - Your Joy
5. JJ Grey & Mofro - By My Side
6. Electric Soft Parade - Misunderstanding
7. The Sleepy Jackson - Dream On (2006)
8. Kaki King - Happy As A Dead Pig In The Sunshine (2003)
9. Donnie - Over-The-Counter Culture
10. Norah Jones - My Dear Country
11. Maroon 5 - Little of Your Time
12. Roark - Letters
13. The Greencards - Waiting on the Night
14. Jon McLaughlin - Perfect
15. JJ Grey & Mofro - The Sun is Shining Down
16. Lewis Taylor - Song (Acoustic)
As usual, enjoy!.....or tell me I have terrible taste in music, either way, although I would ask you to showcase your superior taste by offering your own mix (that last statement of course being equal parts ego and desire for free music).
I think Ben has a new one due out this weekend as well, so when that becomes available I will link to that as well.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Crisis of Confidence
Excerpted from a speech dubbed the "Crisis of Confidence speech", delivered by former president Jimmy Carter; July 15, 1979 (in it's entirety here):
"I know, of course, being president, that government actions and legislation can be very important. That's why I've worked hard to put my campaign promises into law -- and I have to admit, with just mixed success. But after listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America. So, I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.
The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America. The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July.
It is the idea which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else -- public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We've always believed in something called progress. We've always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own.
Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.
The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.
As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning. These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.
We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.
All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves.
We know the strength of America. We are strong. We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence. We are the heirs of generations who survived threats much more powerful and awesome than those that challenge us now. Our fathers and mothers were strong men and women who shaped a new society during the Great Depression, who fought world wars, and who carved out a new charter of peace for the world.
We ourselves are the same Americans who just ten years ago put a man on the Moon. We are the generation that dedicated our society to the pursuit of human rights and equality. And we are the generation that will win the war on the energy problem and in that process rebuild the unity and confidence of America."
"I know, of course, being president, that government actions and legislation can be very important. That's why I've worked hard to put my campaign promises into law -- and I have to admit, with just mixed success. But after listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America. So, I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.
The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America. The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July.
It is the idea which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else -- public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We've always believed in something called progress. We've always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own.
Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.
The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.
As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning. These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.
We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.
All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves.
We know the strength of America. We are strong. We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence. We are the heirs of generations who survived threats much more powerful and awesome than those that challenge us now. Our fathers and mothers were strong men and women who shaped a new society during the Great Depression, who fought world wars, and who carved out a new charter of peace for the world.
We ourselves are the same Americans who just ten years ago put a man on the Moon. We are the generation that dedicated our society to the pursuit of human rights and equality. And we are the generation that will win the war on the energy problem and in that process rebuild the unity and confidence of America."
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
We Are Not Leaving Iraq
The Declaration of Independence was signed (on or around) July 4, 1776, those affixing their signatures in agreement that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
It wasn't until nearly 100 years later, after the Civil War, that slavery was outlawed and people of color were granted the right to vote, own property, and go to schools (at least in theory).
It was another 55 years before women could vote.
Something to keep in mind while we wait for Iraq to come together on politcal benchmarks and reconciliation. If it took America, conceived under the auspices of liberty and democracy nearly 100 years to end slavery and 150 years from establishment to give women the vote, perhaps it's not really responsible to expect such grand movement from Iraqis in the course of 2 years, 3 years or a decade, especially when these ideas are not their own, and we have no real indication that even a plurality of those in power believe in these concepts. Even assuming they can "get it together" eventually, the question is what do we do in the interim.
If we leave, most believe it will lead to civil war, genocide and Al-Qaeda and Iran overrunning the country (what the Turkish/Kurdistan hostilities? How can Iran and Al-Qaeda co-exist when they detest each other? These and other such questions go unasked, nevermind unanswered). Also, according to a Thomas Ricks column in the Washington Post a week ago, recent Pentagon war games simulations resulted in the following:
If U.S. combat forces withdraw from Iraq in the near future, three developments would be likely to unfold. Majority Shiites would drive Sunnis out of ethnically mixed areas west to Anbar province. Southern Iraq would erupt in civil war between Shiite groups. And the Kurdish north would solidify its borders and invite a U.S. troop presence there. In short, Iraq would effectively become three separate nations.
That was the conclusion reached in recent "war games" exercises conducted for the U.S. military by retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson. "I honestly don't think it will be apocalyptic," said Anderson, who has served in Iraq and now works for a major defense contractor. But "it will be ugly."
Then again, if we leave what happens to our strategic position in the region, in terms of oil and potential threats. If we leave, will we be sacrificing a potential ally and regional foothold? And what of the 180,000 civilian/private contractors there? Do we leave them in without the military or mandate their withdrawal too? Or will they simply leave when the defense department money dries up?
On the other hand if we stay, what happens? The common line is we will "defeat" Al-Qaeda. The question that once again goes unanswered is how do we defeat a multi-national organization centered in Pakistan and Afghanistan, with cells throughout the region, eastern and northern Africa, Europe, and even, apparently, here in North America by keeping the majority of our army solely in Iraq? Even if we kill every member of the several "al-Qaeda"s, the Iranian Quds Force, Sadr, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taleban, and a whole host of other unknown, unnamed, undetected organizations will persist and what is to stop them from stepping in where bin Laden leaves off?
Also, what assurances do we have that the Iraqi politicians will ever buy into the philosophy of Locke, Paine, Jefferson, and the like. Muqtada al-Sadr has made his anti-Americanism quite clear, and as his faction is a stalwart of the support base for Prime Minister Maliki it makes one wonder how effective this government can be. A large block of Sunni MP's just ended a month-long (I believe) boycott, and the group just attained a quorom for the first time this summer last week before heading out for a vacation.
As I stated earlier it could take decades for the diplomatic-political brokering that needs to take place and if that's what the president and others of his ilk feel is the best course of action, why not be honest and announce and call for an open-ended commitment. Because it's dishonest to say "we cannot leave until the mission is accomplished because it is vital to national security" while at the same time saying "we are not in an open-ended commitment." If said mission is indeed as important as you say, the only responsible position is to stay until it is achieved, however long that may be, and if that isn't the defintion of open-ended, perhaps this year out of the classroom has atrophied my brain.
As usual, I'm left with more questions than answers, but the more I look at this situation I am increasingly convinced this will be the main issue in the 2010 mid-term congressional elections and probably into the 2012 presidential race. The framing of the "If we leave" scenario as absolute, untenable pandemonium seems to have won over the minds of the people and as a result, anyone who proposes withdrawal or anything similar is cast as naive or rash in their thinking.
We aren't leaving Iraq. Not today. Not 6 months from now. Not January 20, 2009. Maybe not ever.
It wasn't until nearly 100 years later, after the Civil War, that slavery was outlawed and people of color were granted the right to vote, own property, and go to schools (at least in theory).
It was another 55 years before women could vote.
Something to keep in mind while we wait for Iraq to come together on politcal benchmarks and reconciliation. If it took America, conceived under the auspices of liberty and democracy nearly 100 years to end slavery and 150 years from establishment to give women the vote, perhaps it's not really responsible to expect such grand movement from Iraqis in the course of 2 years, 3 years or a decade, especially when these ideas are not their own, and we have no real indication that even a plurality of those in power believe in these concepts. Even assuming they can "get it together" eventually, the question is what do we do in the interim.
If we leave, most believe it will lead to civil war, genocide and Al-Qaeda and Iran overrunning the country (what the Turkish/Kurdistan hostilities? How can Iran and Al-Qaeda co-exist when they detest each other? These and other such questions go unasked, nevermind unanswered). Also, according to a Thomas Ricks column in the Washington Post a week ago, recent Pentagon war games simulations resulted in the following:
If U.S. combat forces withdraw from Iraq in the near future, three developments would be likely to unfold. Majority Shiites would drive Sunnis out of ethnically mixed areas west to Anbar province. Southern Iraq would erupt in civil war between Shiite groups. And the Kurdish north would solidify its borders and invite a U.S. troop presence there. In short, Iraq would effectively become three separate nations.
That was the conclusion reached in recent "war games" exercises conducted for the U.S. military by retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson. "I honestly don't think it will be apocalyptic," said Anderson, who has served in Iraq and now works for a major defense contractor. But "it will be ugly."
Then again, if we leave what happens to our strategic position in the region, in terms of oil and potential threats. If we leave, will we be sacrificing a potential ally and regional foothold? And what of the 180,000 civilian/private contractors there? Do we leave them in without the military or mandate their withdrawal too? Or will they simply leave when the defense department money dries up?
On the other hand if we stay, what happens? The common line is we will "defeat" Al-Qaeda. The question that once again goes unanswered is how do we defeat a multi-national organization centered in Pakistan and Afghanistan, with cells throughout the region, eastern and northern Africa, Europe, and even, apparently, here in North America by keeping the majority of our army solely in Iraq? Even if we kill every member of the several "al-Qaeda"s, the Iranian Quds Force, Sadr, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taleban, and a whole host of other unknown, unnamed, undetected organizations will persist and what is to stop them from stepping in where bin Laden leaves off?
Also, what assurances do we have that the Iraqi politicians will ever buy into the philosophy of Locke, Paine, Jefferson, and the like. Muqtada al-Sadr has made his anti-Americanism quite clear, and as his faction is a stalwart of the support base for Prime Minister Maliki it makes one wonder how effective this government can be. A large block of Sunni MP's just ended a month-long (I believe) boycott, and the group just attained a quorom for the first time this summer last week before heading out for a vacation.
As I stated earlier it could take decades for the diplomatic-political brokering that needs to take place and if that's what the president and others of his ilk feel is the best course of action, why not be honest and announce and call for an open-ended commitment. Because it's dishonest to say "we cannot leave until the mission is accomplished because it is vital to national security" while at the same time saying "we are not in an open-ended commitment." If said mission is indeed as important as you say, the only responsible position is to stay until it is achieved, however long that may be, and if that isn't the defintion of open-ended, perhaps this year out of the classroom has atrophied my brain.
As usual, I'm left with more questions than answers, but the more I look at this situation I am increasingly convinced this will be the main issue in the 2010 mid-term congressional elections and probably into the 2012 presidential race. The framing of the "If we leave" scenario as absolute, untenable pandemonium seems to have won over the minds of the people and as a result, anyone who proposes withdrawal or anything similar is cast as naive or rash in their thinking.
We aren't leaving Iraq. Not today. Not 6 months from now. Not January 20, 2009. Maybe not ever.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Sicko and Summer Movie Syndrome
I suppose it's the effect of the general malaise brought on by summer, but "Summer Movie Season" brings with it "Summer Movie Syndrome", a condition in which no one has any expectations or pre-conceptions other than the films will be big, dumb, loud, and occasionally funny. Transformers has all of those elements in spades (though I didn't particularly care for it, but review is not the aim of this post). The dumber the better, don't ask me to think too hard, just sit back and enjoy the ride. As one writer once put it, "They're not supposed to be good. Your eyes are supposed to be glazed". The problem with "Summer Movie Syndrome", though, it is has crept into the other seasons, and now seems to have been adopted as the status quo in cinema and life in America in general.
Michael Moore's Sicko is not a "summer movie", though it is at times big, dumb, loud, and occasionally funny. The common wisdom is that Moore's picture is a piece of agitprop designed to convince us to adopt "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE". That's not what it' really is, no matter how many times Sean Hannity says it. This understanding of the film is simply the result of Summer Movie Syndrome run amuck. The way I saw it, Sicko is not so much an argument for "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE" so much as it is an attempt to force the discussion of the broader issue (perhaps even meta-issue) of the state of our health care system.
It's not as simple as "free-market" vs. "statist" in Moore's film, instead he is telling us that our system does not work as well as it should/could and shows a few select examples of things that work in other places. He has said himself in the many interviews he's done on the press tour for the movie that he knows there are problems with any system, but that it should make sense to try to incorporate as many functional aspects from good systems as possible.
A local radio hostess tonight was ranting about "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE", declaring, "I don't want the same people who run the DMV doing surgery on me. I don't want bureaucrats in Washington or the state capitol deciding which doctor or hospital I can go to". I'm sure most in her listening audience lapped up this nonsense, but make no mistake, it is nonsense because it is completely sidesteps the realities of the current system. Roger Ebert astutely points out in his review of Sicko, "Of course we have heard all about "socialized medicine," which among many evils denies you freedom of choice of hospitals and doctors. Hold on: That's the free-enterprise HMO system."
As an aside, we wouldn't be in a "HEALTH CARE CRISIS" is we took better care to look after our health in the first place. Instead, over half of adults are clinically overweight or obese; people are less active, more prone to excess portions and fast food, sleep deprivation, unsafe fad diets, and even perilous over-excercise now more than ever. Rush Limbaugh opined on radio today that in 20 years it will be skinny kids ostracized and teased and made outcasts by the legions of fat children. If we were more moderate, more sensible in lifestyle choices heart disease would not be the #1 killer in America. We wouldn't have to spend so much on cholesterol and blood pressure and diabetes medication. There would be fewer strokes, heart attacks, and fewer people in a doctor's office on any given day. This, however, is not in the best interest of the medical profession, which would suffer considerable financial harm if people were, oh, I don't know....healthy.
Winding our way back to Sicko. Mark Twain wrote a short story entitled "A Fable: A Cat, A Painting, A Mirror" (or some combination of those three). In the story, a painter hangs his latest painting on a wall facing a mirror so he can admire it in the mirror, because "...this softens it, and it is twice as lovely as it was before." Well, a housecat overhears the painter musing to himself on how wonderful his painting is and goes to tell all the animals in the forest. They want to know what a painting is, so the cat goes into the painter's room, but he doesn't know where to stand to look at the painting in the mirror, so he stands directly between the painting and the mirror and sees only himself. He reports to the animals that the painting looks like a cat. They want to see for themselves, so they all go and each stands between the painting and the mirror and sees only itself (Nevermind how an elephant got in the room or why a cow would be in the forest...it's summer, just go with it).
Twain's moral to the story: "You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination. You may not see your ears, but they will be there." This, I think, is at least part of the brush-back against Moore, certain viewers came in expecting to hate it and stood in front of the mirror seeing their own opinions reflected instead of what is really going on and being said. Granted he does resort to cheap cinematographic gimmickry on occasion. In the film he edits a sequence such that the viewer assumes he and a group of 9/11 rescue workers sailed from Miami to Gitmo, when in fact they flew to Cuba commercially. As the boat nears international waters off the Florida coast, he cuts to a graphic that says something to the effect of "The Department of Homeland Security doesn't want you to see how we got to Cuba." The inside joke is, neither does Moore. But rather than reading all of that, isn't it just so much easier to rant about "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE" and Moore himself, rather than confronting the actual problems.
Unfortunately, the Summer Movie Syndrome does not stay in the moviehouse. It has extended in the political theater and the media at large. Rather than actual news reportage we have an incessant barrage of stories that read, "According to the latest _____ poll, ____% of the American people think ______". This is laziness. Especially irksome are the Fred Thompson-related polls. "Incredibly a man who is not even declared in the race is leading....". No, what's incredible is that a man who is not even declared in the race is IN THE POLL. Jim Gilmore was a declared Republican candidate who dropped out of the race over the weekend, but since your name is not Romney, McCain, Giuliani, or Thompson, you're already irrelevant, you leaving the race couldn't possibly matter. Who ever heard of anything more than a 3-horse race, anyway? Who cares that Ron Paul is more popular on the internet than even Obama? We already have one "maverick" in the race. We can't have two. That would make people think too much. And come on, it's summer, Rush Hour 3 is opening soon. And if that's too far away, there's always Obama Girl vs. Giuliani Girl if you want to catch up on politics.
Michael Moore's Sicko is not a "summer movie", though it is at times big, dumb, loud, and occasionally funny. The common wisdom is that Moore's picture is a piece of agitprop designed to convince us to adopt "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE". That's not what it' really is, no matter how many times Sean Hannity says it. This understanding of the film is simply the result of Summer Movie Syndrome run amuck. The way I saw it, Sicko is not so much an argument for "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE" so much as it is an attempt to force the discussion of the broader issue (perhaps even meta-issue) of the state of our health care system.
It's not as simple as "free-market" vs. "statist" in Moore's film, instead he is telling us that our system does not work as well as it should/could and shows a few select examples of things that work in other places. He has said himself in the many interviews he's done on the press tour for the movie that he knows there are problems with any system, but that it should make sense to try to incorporate as many functional aspects from good systems as possible.
A local radio hostess tonight was ranting about "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE", declaring, "I don't want the same people who run the DMV doing surgery on me. I don't want bureaucrats in Washington or the state capitol deciding which doctor or hospital I can go to". I'm sure most in her listening audience lapped up this nonsense, but make no mistake, it is nonsense because it is completely sidesteps the realities of the current system. Roger Ebert astutely points out in his review of Sicko, "Of course we have heard all about "socialized medicine," which among many evils denies you freedom of choice of hospitals and doctors. Hold on: That's the free-enterprise HMO system."
As an aside, we wouldn't be in a "HEALTH CARE CRISIS" is we took better care to look after our health in the first place. Instead, over half of adults are clinically overweight or obese; people are less active, more prone to excess portions and fast food, sleep deprivation, unsafe fad diets, and even perilous over-excercise now more than ever. Rush Limbaugh opined on radio today that in 20 years it will be skinny kids ostracized and teased and made outcasts by the legions of fat children. If we were more moderate, more sensible in lifestyle choices heart disease would not be the #1 killer in America. We wouldn't have to spend so much on cholesterol and blood pressure and diabetes medication. There would be fewer strokes, heart attacks, and fewer people in a doctor's office on any given day. This, however, is not in the best interest of the medical profession, which would suffer considerable financial harm if people were, oh, I don't know....healthy.
Winding our way back to Sicko. Mark Twain wrote a short story entitled "A Fable: A Cat, A Painting, A Mirror" (or some combination of those three). In the story, a painter hangs his latest painting on a wall facing a mirror so he can admire it in the mirror, because "...this softens it, and it is twice as lovely as it was before." Well, a housecat overhears the painter musing to himself on how wonderful his painting is and goes to tell all the animals in the forest. They want to know what a painting is, so the cat goes into the painter's room, but he doesn't know where to stand to look at the painting in the mirror, so he stands directly between the painting and the mirror and sees only himself. He reports to the animals that the painting looks like a cat. They want to see for themselves, so they all go and each stands between the painting and the mirror and sees only itself (Nevermind how an elephant got in the room or why a cow would be in the forest...it's summer, just go with it).
Twain's moral to the story: "You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination. You may not see your ears, but they will be there." This, I think, is at least part of the brush-back against Moore, certain viewers came in expecting to hate it and stood in front of the mirror seeing their own opinions reflected instead of what is really going on and being said. Granted he does resort to cheap cinematographic gimmickry on occasion. In the film he edits a sequence such that the viewer assumes he and a group of 9/11 rescue workers sailed from Miami to Gitmo, when in fact they flew to Cuba commercially. As the boat nears international waters off the Florida coast, he cuts to a graphic that says something to the effect of "The Department of Homeland Security doesn't want you to see how we got to Cuba." The inside joke is, neither does Moore. But rather than reading all of that, isn't it just so much easier to rant about "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE" and Moore himself, rather than confronting the actual problems.
Unfortunately, the Summer Movie Syndrome does not stay in the moviehouse. It has extended in the political theater and the media at large. Rather than actual news reportage we have an incessant barrage of stories that read, "According to the latest _____ poll, ____% of the American people think ______". This is laziness. Especially irksome are the Fred Thompson-related polls. "Incredibly a man who is not even declared in the race is leading....". No, what's incredible is that a man who is not even declared in the race is IN THE POLL. Jim Gilmore was a declared Republican candidate who dropped out of the race over the weekend, but since your name is not Romney, McCain, Giuliani, or Thompson, you're already irrelevant, you leaving the race couldn't possibly matter. Who ever heard of anything more than a 3-horse race, anyway? Who cares that Ron Paul is more popular on the internet than even Obama? We already have one "maverick" in the race. We can't have two. That would make people think too much. And come on, it's summer, Rush Hour 3 is opening soon. And if that's too far away, there's always Obama Girl vs. Giuliani Girl if you want to catch up on politics.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Always Going Forward, Always Looking Back?
Exerpted from Financial Times Deutschland by way of WatchingAmerica.com:
"For the people of the United States, respect for their own heritage is undoubtedly a source of strength and stability. It helped them endure the upheaval of four dreadful years of civil war which cost the lives of three percent of the population. It also kept the United States from succumbing to darkness in its domestic affairs, even during those times that the authority of the Supreme Court was ignored. In the 220 years of its history, the American republic has not always been a model - but it overcame break-downs like the Great Depression in the 1930s without succumbing to the temptation of totalitarianism; it overcame McCarthyism in the post-war era; and it will overcome the damage that the present President has done to its basic values and fundamental rights.
And while it is a pillar of American democracy, that healing strength that is founded in the cult of the founding fathers has a rather peculiar consequence: The intentions of these political actors of two centuries ago are the ultimate touchstone for conditions in the United States today; and to this day it is this backward-perspective that to a great extent influences America’s perceptions of the rest of the world.
Americans are hardly conscious of this, and since they never discuss it, the phenomenon is hardly registered in Europe. But anyone who listens to the way Americans discuss themselves is surprised at America's implicit self-comparison, less with real foreign countries than to another, mythical, abroad...It appears that the abroad against which the United States established and still defines itself is none other than the England of religious persecution lead by King George. Not: “We are no dictatorship” but: “We are not a monarchy,” is what editors and commentators tend to write whenever they condemn President George W. Bush’s excessive use of authority - and even then the emphasis is on the first word of the phrase. This raises the question of whom and what this refers to, and the answer points again and again to a past that serves as a point of departure for America.
In America, the collective image of foreign countries is a mythical one, preserved as if in formaldehyde, handed down from the time of the founding fathers with the Kingdom of England circa 1776 unconsciously serving as the main point of reference. This allows the United States to persist in describing itself as the freest country on earth, although by nearly every objective criterion, most European nations are more liberal and free than the United States. One only has to recall the repressive American culture of prohibition and punishment.
It is in this way that the tradition-arrested Americans protect themselves against the pressure to compare their own achievements and social structures against real foreign examples. Thus the myth and collective emotion stabilize society. But this happens at the expense of critical thinking and lessons learned. It is a double-edged phenomenon that has worked its way into every aspect of American public life.
"For the people of the United States, respect for their own heritage is undoubtedly a source of strength and stability. It helped them endure the upheaval of four dreadful years of civil war which cost the lives of three percent of the population. It also kept the United States from succumbing to darkness in its domestic affairs, even during those times that the authority of the Supreme Court was ignored. In the 220 years of its history, the American republic has not always been a model - but it overcame break-downs like the Great Depression in the 1930s without succumbing to the temptation of totalitarianism; it overcame McCarthyism in the post-war era; and it will overcome the damage that the present President has done to its basic values and fundamental rights.
And while it is a pillar of American democracy, that healing strength that is founded in the cult of the founding fathers has a rather peculiar consequence: The intentions of these political actors of two centuries ago are the ultimate touchstone for conditions in the United States today; and to this day it is this backward-perspective that to a great extent influences America’s perceptions of the rest of the world.
Americans are hardly conscious of this, and since they never discuss it, the phenomenon is hardly registered in Europe. But anyone who listens to the way Americans discuss themselves is surprised at America's implicit self-comparison, less with real foreign countries than to another, mythical, abroad...It appears that the abroad against which the United States established and still defines itself is none other than the England of religious persecution lead by King George. Not: “We are no dictatorship” but: “We are not a monarchy,” is what editors and commentators tend to write whenever they condemn President George W. Bush’s excessive use of authority - and even then the emphasis is on the first word of the phrase. This raises the question of whom and what this refers to, and the answer points again and again to a past that serves as a point of departure for America.
In America, the collective image of foreign countries is a mythical one, preserved as if in formaldehyde, handed down from the time of the founding fathers with the Kingdom of England circa 1776 unconsciously serving as the main point of reference. This allows the United States to persist in describing itself as the freest country on earth, although by nearly every objective criterion, most European nations are more liberal and free than the United States. One only has to recall the repressive American culture of prohibition and punishment.
It is in this way that the tradition-arrested Americans protect themselves against the pressure to compare their own achievements and social structures against real foreign examples. Thus the myth and collective emotion stabilize society. But this happens at the expense of critical thinking and lessons learned. It is a double-edged phenomenon that has worked its way into every aspect of American public life.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Katrina? I Don't Know No Katrina
If you recall, 6 weeks ago at the start of hurricane season (circa June 1), the forecasters predicted 13-18 named storms for this "hurricane season", with 6 or 7 reaching Category 3 or stronger hurricane strength making landfall stateside. Not much has happened thus far this year. Last year was pretty quiet too. 2005, however, saw the double catastrophe of Hurricane's Katrina and Rita along the Gulf Coast. I wonder what the news is on that front....
"Thousands of pounds of ice originally sent to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts are being melted after being stored in Gloucester [Massachusetts] for two years. A Federal Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman told the Gloucester Daily Times that the ice held at Americold Logistics and at 22 similar facilities nationwide is being melted to dispose of it for health reasons. The cost of storing the ice at all the facilities since Katrina is $12.5 million.
The ice was originally sent south to help Katrina victims, but in September 2005 the ice was sent back north by the federal government, and some of it ended up in the Gloucester.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged at the time that it had ordered too much ice due to faulty estimates by local officials. Truckers received up to $900 a day to move the ice to storage sites around the country.
Gloucester received 118 truckloads of ice in September 2005, but 99 of those were sent to Florida in October 2005 to help with relief efforts after Hurricane Wilma. By November 2005, only four truckloads, weighing between 40,000 and 84,000 pounds each, remained in Gloucester.
FEMA contracts required disposal of the ice three months after purchase. But FEMA spokeswoman Alexandra Kirin told the Times that the agency decided to keep the excess ice for the 2006 hurricane season. With fewer storms than expected, the ice was not needed, and the agency decided not to save the ice for the 2007 season because it couldn't determine if the ice was safe for human consumption."
In the first few weeks after the hurricane hit, $127 million was raised by Habitat for Humanity International. They have been concentrating on rebuilding homes in St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, and Orleans parishes. However, since 2005, only 50 homes have been completed with 70 under construction. This is because only $29 million of the $127 million raised went to the project. About $15 million has been spent with $14 million left to finish what has been started. Habitat’s goal was to construct over 1,000 homes throughout the Gulf Coast, but so far only 100 have been completed or in progress.
Meanwhile, some would-be beneficiaries of PA [public assistance] grants fume about the slow delivery of help. Among them is Nicholas Felton, president of a union for New Orleans firefighters, who five months ago complained loudly about lack of progress in securing millions of dollars from FEMA for repairing uninhabitable firehouses that are plagued by sewage backups and rodents. "We have not seen any movement, any money, from federal, state or local officials," he said. "We have only been successful enough in repairing fire stations with generous donations from people around the city and country, and with firefighters putting in the work. I wish I knew where it (rebuilding money) is so that we could go tell folks to let it loose."
Officials in Nagin's administration who handle PA paperwork, including Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Cynthia Sylvain-Lear, say little, "other than they're working on it, and they're trying to get it. But it's been almost two years and we haven't gotten anything," Felton said. Sylvain-Lear...blamed the lack of progress on a broader problem: Project Worksheets prepared by FEMA that estimate repair or rebuilding costs using figures that are far too low, forcing the city to ask for an amended Worksheet. Without the use of higher figures, the city is forced to find money elsewhere in its budget to fill the gap, she said."
Senator [Ted] Stevens’ [R-Alaska...yes, that Ted Stevens] suggestion came after listening to frustrated Louisiana officials recount their problems with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) they said has stalled thousands of projects. "We need a new Marshall Plan for that -- not just FEMA," said Stevens during a subcommittee hearing.
Disaster Recovery Subcommittee Chairwoman Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, agreed, saying if the reconstruction of France and Germany was conducted on a project-by-project basis like in the Hurricane Katrina recovery, "We would still be rebuilding Europe." She described some of the problems as "a nightmare." The subcommittee hearing this week focused on problems encountered with about $10 billion of the $110 billion Congress approved for public works projects such as canals, water and sewer projects, schools, and other public facilities.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin leveled criticism at FEMA for underestimating the reimbursement to localities for projects, which he described as their "biggest obstacle." He and others also criticized FEMA for rotating its officials to the hard-hit areas, many of whom were inexperienced, and disputed project estimates previously approved by other FEMA personnel.
Hurricane Katrina nearly swept away the jazz traditions of New Orleans along with the rest of the city, but native son Harry Connick Jr. says the danger of losing that legacy still hasn't subsided even though the storm waters have. As Connick Jr. gets set to take his "My New Orleans" tour to the Montreal International Jazz Festival on Saturday (June 30), he admits the hurricane has given added significance to his work. "Performing is a lot more meaningful after Katrina," he told a news conference in Montreal on Friday. "If only because there seems to be so much attention focused on what's going to happen with this music, mainly traditional jazz music."
Connick Jr. is concerned that with so many musicians fleeing the city in the aftermath of Katrina, that distinctive New Orleans sound would be lost. "It's very difficult to get the city back on its feet when nobody lives there anymore," he said. "The traditional jazz scene wasn't doing particularly well before the storm. After the storm, everybody's gone."
Looks to me like nothing much is happening there either. At least it's not all bad news:
[Texas] State officials say more than $500 million for 22 southeast Texas counties is now beginning to make its way to thousands of people 21 months after the storm. State and federal officials say the delay is partly because of their determination to avoid the waste and fraud that plagued assistance efforts for Louisiana residents after Hurricane Katrina.
Unlike Katrina victims, Rita victims had to fill out detailed financial reports including information from family members, landlords, churches and others, proving they weren't getting substantial money from any other sources.
I would be remiss if I failed to credit the many charitable organizations and churches and such doing smaller recovery projects away from these federal and mainstream activities; they should not go unmentioned, as those volunteers (for the most part) are giving their time, money, and effort to aid their fellow man in his time of need, a quality far too rare in times such as these. So to those NoLA volunteers out there, I salute you. If you would like to plug your organization here, feel free; let us know where we can direct people who want to aid physically, financially or otherwise, as I'm sure there are still those out there willing to help, and from the looks of it, there is no shortage of need for private aid.
To the federal and local politicians keeping the people tied up in this endless bureaucratic rigmarole due to your ineptitude and tedium, shame on you.
"Thousands of pounds of ice originally sent to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts are being melted after being stored in Gloucester [Massachusetts] for two years. A Federal Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman told the Gloucester Daily Times that the ice held at Americold Logistics and at 22 similar facilities nationwide is being melted to dispose of it for health reasons. The cost of storing the ice at all the facilities since Katrina is $12.5 million.
The ice was originally sent south to help Katrina victims, but in September 2005 the ice was sent back north by the federal government, and some of it ended up in the Gloucester.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged at the time that it had ordered too much ice due to faulty estimates by local officials. Truckers received up to $900 a day to move the ice to storage sites around the country.
Gloucester received 118 truckloads of ice in September 2005, but 99 of those were sent to Florida in October 2005 to help with relief efforts after Hurricane Wilma. By November 2005, only four truckloads, weighing between 40,000 and 84,000 pounds each, remained in Gloucester.
FEMA contracts required disposal of the ice three months after purchase. But FEMA spokeswoman Alexandra Kirin told the Times that the agency decided to keep the excess ice for the 2006 hurricane season. With fewer storms than expected, the ice was not needed, and the agency decided not to save the ice for the 2007 season because it couldn't determine if the ice was safe for human consumption."
In the first few weeks after the hurricane hit, $127 million was raised by Habitat for Humanity International. They have been concentrating on rebuilding homes in St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, and Orleans parishes. However, since 2005, only 50 homes have been completed with 70 under construction. This is because only $29 million of the $127 million raised went to the project. About $15 million has been spent with $14 million left to finish what has been started. Habitat’s goal was to construct over 1,000 homes throughout the Gulf Coast, but so far only 100 have been completed or in progress.
Meanwhile, some would-be beneficiaries of PA [public assistance] grants fume about the slow delivery of help. Among them is Nicholas Felton, president of a union for New Orleans firefighters, who five months ago complained loudly about lack of progress in securing millions of dollars from FEMA for repairing uninhabitable firehouses that are plagued by sewage backups and rodents. "We have not seen any movement, any money, from federal, state or local officials," he said. "We have only been successful enough in repairing fire stations with generous donations from people around the city and country, and with firefighters putting in the work. I wish I knew where it (rebuilding money) is so that we could go tell folks to let it loose."
Officials in Nagin's administration who handle PA paperwork, including Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Cynthia Sylvain-Lear, say little, "other than they're working on it, and they're trying to get it. But it's been almost two years and we haven't gotten anything," Felton said. Sylvain-Lear...blamed the lack of progress on a broader problem: Project Worksheets prepared by FEMA that estimate repair or rebuilding costs using figures that are far too low, forcing the city to ask for an amended Worksheet. Without the use of higher figures, the city is forced to find money elsewhere in its budget to fill the gap, she said."
Senator [Ted] Stevens’ [R-Alaska...yes, that Ted Stevens] suggestion came after listening to frustrated Louisiana officials recount their problems with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) they said has stalled thousands of projects. "We need a new Marshall Plan for that -- not just FEMA," said Stevens during a subcommittee hearing.
Disaster Recovery Subcommittee Chairwoman Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, agreed, saying if the reconstruction of France and Germany was conducted on a project-by-project basis like in the Hurricane Katrina recovery, "We would still be rebuilding Europe." She described some of the problems as "a nightmare." The subcommittee hearing this week focused on problems encountered with about $10 billion of the $110 billion Congress approved for public works projects such as canals, water and sewer projects, schools, and other public facilities.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin leveled criticism at FEMA for underestimating the reimbursement to localities for projects, which he described as their "biggest obstacle." He and others also criticized FEMA for rotating its officials to the hard-hit areas, many of whom were inexperienced, and disputed project estimates previously approved by other FEMA personnel.
Hurricane Katrina nearly swept away the jazz traditions of New Orleans along with the rest of the city, but native son Harry Connick Jr. says the danger of losing that legacy still hasn't subsided even though the storm waters have. As Connick Jr. gets set to take his "My New Orleans" tour to the Montreal International Jazz Festival on Saturday (June 30), he admits the hurricane has given added significance to his work. "Performing is a lot more meaningful after Katrina," he told a news conference in Montreal on Friday. "If only because there seems to be so much attention focused on what's going to happen with this music, mainly traditional jazz music."
Connick Jr. is concerned that with so many musicians fleeing the city in the aftermath of Katrina, that distinctive New Orleans sound would be lost. "It's very difficult to get the city back on its feet when nobody lives there anymore," he said. "The traditional jazz scene wasn't doing particularly well before the storm. After the storm, everybody's gone."
Looks to me like nothing much is happening there either. At least it's not all bad news:
[Texas] State officials say more than $500 million for 22 southeast Texas counties is now beginning to make its way to thousands of people 21 months after the storm. State and federal officials say the delay is partly because of their determination to avoid the waste and fraud that plagued assistance efforts for Louisiana residents after Hurricane Katrina.
Unlike Katrina victims, Rita victims had to fill out detailed financial reports including information from family members, landlords, churches and others, proving they weren't getting substantial money from any other sources.
I would be remiss if I failed to credit the many charitable organizations and churches and such doing smaller recovery projects away from these federal and mainstream activities; they should not go unmentioned, as those volunteers (for the most part) are giving their time, money, and effort to aid their fellow man in his time of need, a quality far too rare in times such as these. So to those NoLA volunteers out there, I salute you. If you would like to plug your organization here, feel free; let us know where we can direct people who want to aid physically, financially or otherwise, as I'm sure there are still those out there willing to help, and from the looks of it, there is no shortage of need for private aid.
To the federal and local politicians keeping the people tied up in this endless bureaucratic rigmarole due to your ineptitude and tedium, shame on you.
Monday, July 09, 2007
A Little Summer Reading
A post of things I've been reading of late for those long summer afternoons when you've got nothing to do, but don't want to turn on the TV because there are no sports to watch and you're already caught up on Making the Band 4 and you don't want to go outside because it's too freaking hot (ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd was in Fresno last weekend for the local ESPY's and in recounting his experiences here on his show today he quipped something to the effect of "Fresno was great, but it was hot. It was so hot on Friday Jerry Tarkanian said it was too hot to illegally contact a recruit").
So, with said, I present you a full smorgasbord of this and that to munch on, most of it excerpted, because this post would've ended up longer and more ungainly that it already is.
Families Outside the Spotlight Also Grieve
by Mary Sanchez, Kansas City Star
"...is a murder that reaches the every-hour-on-the-hour status of CNN truly more of a loss? What if your child’s death is the one noted with a paragraph in the newspaper while another child’s mother is inundated with strangers offering comfort and financial support after reading a front-page story...Reporters and editors are often pressed to explain the varying degrees of coverage when murders occur. And they should continue to answer the questions. Because often the disparity cannot be justified except for convoluted explanations that do nothing to soothe the emotions of families left feeling that their loved ones are less worthy..."
Sometimes Our Suspicions Are Unfounded
Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald
"My wife and I have a running joke. Say the doctor informs me he's going to administer some test that will hurt like heck. When he leaves the room, I whisper to Marilyn, ``You know why he's doing it, don't you? It's because I'm black.''
It is, of course, a joke with a point. Namely, that some black folks can read race into anything. Some of us keep indignation in our hip pockets and conspiracy on speed dial. But we'll get back to Isaiah Washington in a moment.
First, the obvious disclaimer: I am not saying race is never the reason bad things happen. Au contraire. One often gets pulled over because one is black. One often gets substandard healthcare because one is black. One often fails to get the job because one is black. Worse, because those in charge of pulling people over, giving healthcare or making hiring decisions are seldom clear and candid that race is their reason, it's easy to become paranoid, to believe everything is race until proven otherwise. So to be African American is often to walk a tightrope above a snake pit of suspicions, both founded and un."
Which brings us to two truths that may seem contradictory but aren't:
1) There is epidemic racism in this country.
2) You can find racism where it does not exist.
Forgive me, but [Isaiah] Washington seems far more illustrative of the second axiom than the first. For what it's worth, the creator and producer of Grey's is a black woman, Shonda Rhimes. And Washington is, by his own admission, a temperamental actor who used a hurtful word toward a colleague. Yet he thinks he was fired because he is black.
He -- like many of us, black and otherwise -- seems knee jerk where race is concerned. I mean is it so hard to believe people feared him because they thought he was a volatile jerk? Or that a white actor of middling fame who disrupted his workplace would have also been fired? In his rush to make himself a martyr, Washington fails to consider these and other obvious questions. He comes across as one of those brothers the running joke is meant to mock -- the kind for whom race is a get-out-of-jail-free card. Unfortunately, like the boy who cried wolf, such people trivialize what is serious and give others license to do the same.
The Cost of Failure
Cal Thomas, Syndicated Columnist
If you believe the Bush presidency is a failure, what then? Do you delight in whacking him like a piñata for the next 18 months with your only objective a Democratic blowout victory in the 2008 election? If that is your strategy, do you ask yourself what kind of country a Democratic president will inherit and whether he (or she) will have the ability to quickly turn things around after months of pummeling a weakened president?
Politics has always been a contact sport, but in the past - even during difficult times - there were those who transcended partisanship, putting the country first. In her book "Team of Rivals," Doris Kearns Goodwin writes of how Abraham Lincoln brought his severest critics into his administration to work with him, not against him, for the promotion of the general welfare. This is a foreign notion in our day of 24/7 cable news, talk radio, fundraisers and polarizers. These exist and profit from stirring the pot, never achieving harmony or consensus. Each has a vested financial, political and career interest in division, not unity. A fundraiser once told me he can't raise money by sending out letters stressing positive achievements, only negative threats. And thus, the cynicism deepens.
Leadership is something that is conveyed by the people, not imposed by the leader. If people trust you, they are willing to be led. If they don't, they rebel at your sense of direction, or they conclude you have lost your way. That is the conclusion an overwhelming majority of Americans - including many Bush voters and former supporters - have reached concerning this president and his presidency.
The president should name a panel of prominent Democrats and Republicans to help him during the next 18 months. That assistance would not be for the purpose of making him look better, but for tackling difficult problems that partisanship has not solved. He might call it "Americans United," or some other high-minded name that would elevate dialogue beyond the reach of partisan dividers. Didn't he say once that he is "a uniter, not a divider"? This could help him prove it.
Sadr-Maliki rift grows
BBC News
Iraqi Shia leaders linked to the radical cleric, Moqtada Sadr, have attacked their former government ally, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. They accused Mr Maliki of bowing to US demands and sanctioning US attacks on Mr Sadr's Mehdi Army militia. Mr Maliki has said the militia must purge its ranks of criminals. Dozens of people have died in recent fighting between Iraqi forces and Mehdi Army militiamen, amid signs of a growing rift between the Shia groups.
In April, six cabinet ministers loyal to Mr Sadr quit their posts in protest at the government's refusal to demand a deadline for the withdrawal of US troops. Support from Mr Sadr's bloc was critical to securing Mr Maliki's appointment as prime minister last year. The Mehdi Army militia and its allies within the fledgling Iraqi security forces have been accused of operating sectarian death squads, targeting Iraqi Sunnis. The militia's stronghold of Sadr City, a vast slum in eastern Baghdad, was the focus of a major US military operation in late June.
On Saturday, Mr Maliki said the Mehdi Army had been infiltrated by criminals and by members of the Baath Party of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Mr Sadr's supporters said Mr Maliki's comments effectively gave US forces a "green light" to attack the Mehdi Army militia. According to [Sadr aide, Sheik Ahmed] al-Shaibani, Mr Maliki's comments indicated he was ready to implement the US agenda of "ending the Mehdi Army militarily and politically".
Moral Relativism & A Mighty Heart & July 4 (that title is all for one post)
Jim Emerson, scanners movie blog, editor of rogerebert.com
"...that is what "professional obscurers of moral clarity" do -- usually in the name of moral clarity. They distort, spin, and obfuscate. They propagandize. They exploit the blunders of their enemies. And they claim a monopoly on victimhood. Any casualties they cause on the other side -- whether it's the people on those planes or in those buildings on 9/11, or the random innocents who were also sent to Guantánamo -- are incidental. These propagandists are among the extremists who help ratchet up the levels of violence because they see only themselves as victims and consider everyone else an enemy combatant and therefore fair game.
To acknowledge that there are victims and extremists on either side is not to play into the enemy's hands, no matter how they may try to spin it, because then they are forced to acknowledge the same thing. What serves the enemy is behaving in ways that appear to give weight to their propaganda, by far the most powerful weapon in any war. Suicide bombers, by definition, destroy themselves along with their victims. And because of that, they are doomed to lose. The West's challenge is to avoid helping to create more suicide bombers by acting in ways that appear to lend credence to their feelings of paranoia, humiliation, and victimhood.
...the whole "War on Terror" concept, and particularly the inept invasion and occupation of Iraq it was used to justify, is precisely what Al Qaeda wanted: to create the perception of a war between the West and Islam. It's been a worldwide recruiting drive for Al Quaeda and other ideological camps seeking to convert Muslims to terrorism. [Director Michael] Winterbottom is quite specific about the similarities he sees between the stories of his two movies [The Road to Guantanamo and A Mighty Heart], and nowhere do I see him implying that the murder of Daniel Pearl and the secretive detainments at Guantánamo are equivalent. What he's saying, I think, is more like "two wrongs don't make a right" -- that, in war, victims are victims and aggressors are aggressors. No moral relativism there. Just a fact. Judea Pearl's son was savagely murdered, and nothing can rationalize or excuse that fact. Now, how do you explain to an Iraqi husband or father that the death of his children, wife or parents is less morally significant because they were accidental collateral damage?
Back when John McCain still appeared to have something of a moral compass, he criticized the inflammatory and ineffective Bush policies that allowed or encouraged "extreme interrogation methods" or "abuse" or "torture" (depending on whose PC term you want to invoke) by saying: "It's not about who they are. It's about who we are."
That is not "moral relativism." That is "moral clarity." We can't control who "they" are. We can only control who we are.
finally, and, arguably, most importantly:
Dan Patrick Leaving ESPN
Patrick, who has been with the network for 18 years, announced on his radio show Monday that he will appear on air for the last time Aug. 17. Norby Williamson, ESPN executive vice president for production, made a simultaneous announcement.
The final week of Patrick's radio show, which started in 1999, will include a look back at memorable moments, interviews and guests.
"If there was animosity, I wouldn't be doing any radio shows after today," Patrick said on his show, adding, "I hope to be doing radio somewhere, somehow, down the road."
In a news release, Patrick said: "I feel privileged to have had this opportunity and I have extremely mixed emotions about leaving. With that said, I told ESPN that I believe it's time for me to try something different, something that will also be challenging and rewarding. While I'm not sure what that will be, I am grateful to ESPN for its willingness to allow me to pursue new endeavors."
So, with said, I present you a full smorgasbord of this and that to munch on, most of it excerpted, because this post would've ended up longer and more ungainly that it already is.
Families Outside the Spotlight Also Grieve
by Mary Sanchez, Kansas City Star
"...is a murder that reaches the every-hour-on-the-hour status of CNN truly more of a loss? What if your child’s death is the one noted with a paragraph in the newspaper while another child’s mother is inundated with strangers offering comfort and financial support after reading a front-page story...Reporters and editors are often pressed to explain the varying degrees of coverage when murders occur. And they should continue to answer the questions. Because often the disparity cannot be justified except for convoluted explanations that do nothing to soothe the emotions of families left feeling that their loved ones are less worthy..."
Sometimes Our Suspicions Are Unfounded
Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald
"My wife and I have a running joke. Say the doctor informs me he's going to administer some test that will hurt like heck. When he leaves the room, I whisper to Marilyn, ``You know why he's doing it, don't you? It's because I'm black.''
It is, of course, a joke with a point. Namely, that some black folks can read race into anything. Some of us keep indignation in our hip pockets and conspiracy on speed dial. But we'll get back to Isaiah Washington in a moment.
First, the obvious disclaimer: I am not saying race is never the reason bad things happen. Au contraire. One often gets pulled over because one is black. One often gets substandard healthcare because one is black. One often fails to get the job because one is black. Worse, because those in charge of pulling people over, giving healthcare or making hiring decisions are seldom clear and candid that race is their reason, it's easy to become paranoid, to believe everything is race until proven otherwise. So to be African American is often to walk a tightrope above a snake pit of suspicions, both founded and un."
Which brings us to two truths that may seem contradictory but aren't:
1) There is epidemic racism in this country.
2) You can find racism where it does not exist.
Forgive me, but [Isaiah] Washington seems far more illustrative of the second axiom than the first. For what it's worth, the creator and producer of Grey's is a black woman, Shonda Rhimes. And Washington is, by his own admission, a temperamental actor who used a hurtful word toward a colleague. Yet he thinks he was fired because he is black.
He -- like many of us, black and otherwise -- seems knee jerk where race is concerned. I mean is it so hard to believe people feared him because they thought he was a volatile jerk? Or that a white actor of middling fame who disrupted his workplace would have also been fired? In his rush to make himself a martyr, Washington fails to consider these and other obvious questions. He comes across as one of those brothers the running joke is meant to mock -- the kind for whom race is a get-out-of-jail-free card. Unfortunately, like the boy who cried wolf, such people trivialize what is serious and give others license to do the same.
The Cost of Failure
Cal Thomas, Syndicated Columnist
If you believe the Bush presidency is a failure, what then? Do you delight in whacking him like a piñata for the next 18 months with your only objective a Democratic blowout victory in the 2008 election? If that is your strategy, do you ask yourself what kind of country a Democratic president will inherit and whether he (or she) will have the ability to quickly turn things around after months of pummeling a weakened president?
Politics has always been a contact sport, but in the past - even during difficult times - there were those who transcended partisanship, putting the country first. In her book "Team of Rivals," Doris Kearns Goodwin writes of how Abraham Lincoln brought his severest critics into his administration to work with him, not against him, for the promotion of the general welfare. This is a foreign notion in our day of 24/7 cable news, talk radio, fundraisers and polarizers. These exist and profit from stirring the pot, never achieving harmony or consensus. Each has a vested financial, political and career interest in division, not unity. A fundraiser once told me he can't raise money by sending out letters stressing positive achievements, only negative threats. And thus, the cynicism deepens.
Leadership is something that is conveyed by the people, not imposed by the leader. If people trust you, they are willing to be led. If they don't, they rebel at your sense of direction, or they conclude you have lost your way. That is the conclusion an overwhelming majority of Americans - including many Bush voters and former supporters - have reached concerning this president and his presidency.
The president should name a panel of prominent Democrats and Republicans to help him during the next 18 months. That assistance would not be for the purpose of making him look better, but for tackling difficult problems that partisanship has not solved. He might call it "Americans United," or some other high-minded name that would elevate dialogue beyond the reach of partisan dividers. Didn't he say once that he is "a uniter, not a divider"? This could help him prove it.
Sadr-Maliki rift grows
BBC News
Iraqi Shia leaders linked to the radical cleric, Moqtada Sadr, have attacked their former government ally, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. They accused Mr Maliki of bowing to US demands and sanctioning US attacks on Mr Sadr's Mehdi Army militia. Mr Maliki has said the militia must purge its ranks of criminals. Dozens of people have died in recent fighting between Iraqi forces and Mehdi Army militiamen, amid signs of a growing rift between the Shia groups.
In April, six cabinet ministers loyal to Mr Sadr quit their posts in protest at the government's refusal to demand a deadline for the withdrawal of US troops. Support from Mr Sadr's bloc was critical to securing Mr Maliki's appointment as prime minister last year. The Mehdi Army militia and its allies within the fledgling Iraqi security forces have been accused of operating sectarian death squads, targeting Iraqi Sunnis. The militia's stronghold of Sadr City, a vast slum in eastern Baghdad, was the focus of a major US military operation in late June.
On Saturday, Mr Maliki said the Mehdi Army had been infiltrated by criminals and by members of the Baath Party of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Mr Sadr's supporters said Mr Maliki's comments effectively gave US forces a "green light" to attack the Mehdi Army militia. According to [Sadr aide, Sheik Ahmed] al-Shaibani, Mr Maliki's comments indicated he was ready to implement the US agenda of "ending the Mehdi Army militarily and politically".
Moral Relativism & A Mighty Heart & July 4 (that title is all for one post)
Jim Emerson, scanners movie blog, editor of rogerebert.com
"...that is what "professional obscurers of moral clarity" do -- usually in the name of moral clarity. They distort, spin, and obfuscate. They propagandize. They exploit the blunders of their enemies. And they claim a monopoly on victimhood. Any casualties they cause on the other side -- whether it's the people on those planes or in those buildings on 9/11, or the random innocents who were also sent to Guantánamo -- are incidental. These propagandists are among the extremists who help ratchet up the levels of violence because they see only themselves as victims and consider everyone else an enemy combatant and therefore fair game.
To acknowledge that there are victims and extremists on either side is not to play into the enemy's hands, no matter how they may try to spin it, because then they are forced to acknowledge the same thing. What serves the enemy is behaving in ways that appear to give weight to their propaganda, by far the most powerful weapon in any war. Suicide bombers, by definition, destroy themselves along with their victims. And because of that, they are doomed to lose. The West's challenge is to avoid helping to create more suicide bombers by acting in ways that appear to lend credence to their feelings of paranoia, humiliation, and victimhood.
...the whole "War on Terror" concept, and particularly the inept invasion and occupation of Iraq it was used to justify, is precisely what Al Qaeda wanted: to create the perception of a war between the West and Islam. It's been a worldwide recruiting drive for Al Quaeda and other ideological camps seeking to convert Muslims to terrorism. [Director Michael] Winterbottom is quite specific about the similarities he sees between the stories of his two movies [The Road to Guantanamo and A Mighty Heart], and nowhere do I see him implying that the murder of Daniel Pearl and the secretive detainments at Guantánamo are equivalent. What he's saying, I think, is more like "two wrongs don't make a right" -- that, in war, victims are victims and aggressors are aggressors. No moral relativism there. Just a fact. Judea Pearl's son was savagely murdered, and nothing can rationalize or excuse that fact. Now, how do you explain to an Iraqi husband or father that the death of his children, wife or parents is less morally significant because they were accidental collateral damage?
Back when John McCain still appeared to have something of a moral compass, he criticized the inflammatory and ineffective Bush policies that allowed or encouraged "extreme interrogation methods" or "abuse" or "torture" (depending on whose PC term you want to invoke) by saying: "It's not about who they are. It's about who we are."
That is not "moral relativism." That is "moral clarity." We can't control who "they" are. We can only control who we are.
finally, and, arguably, most importantly:
Dan Patrick Leaving ESPN
Patrick, who has been with the network for 18 years, announced on his radio show Monday that he will appear on air for the last time Aug. 17. Norby Williamson, ESPN executive vice president for production, made a simultaneous announcement.
The final week of Patrick's radio show, which started in 1999, will include a look back at memorable moments, interviews and guests.
"If there was animosity, I wouldn't be doing any radio shows after today," Patrick said on his show, adding, "I hope to be doing radio somewhere, somehow, down the road."
In a news release, Patrick said: "I feel privileged to have had this opportunity and I have extremely mixed emotions about leaving. With that said, I told ESPN that I believe it's time for me to try something different, something that will also be challenging and rewarding. While I'm not sure what that will be, I am grateful to ESPN for its willingness to allow me to pursue new endeavors."
Saturday, July 07, 2007
As Simple As Changing Guita...err...a Light Bulb
I watched some of the Live Earth broadcasts throughout the day on Bravo!, CNBC, and NBC proper, and I enjoyed rousing performances by Alicia Keys, Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Joss Stone (someone get her some shoes, please), Red Hot Chilipeppers, Shakira, and a cavalcade of other stars (actually, those are the only ones I saw. I turned it off after 2/3 of a song by Keith Urban and then again upon Al Gore's introduction of Bon Jovi, and if I'd had a brick I would have thrown it through the TV just now as I stumbled upon The Black Eyed Peas doing Where is the Love....good thing the remote was right next to me and there are no bricks in this room, although the external hard drive on the desk is sort of brick-like now that I look at it).
Do Your Part! or: At Least Sing Along
One thing I failed to see during all of these performances and puffery was any compelling call to do anything beyond "take a stand" and "act now for your children and their children" and "it's as simple as changing a light bulb". Hardly seems like a cause worthy of a 24-hour glorified telethon. The truth is, this event had very little to do with global warming (or climate change or whatever the euphemism du jour may be). The claim I heard was that this event was to raise awareness. It's possible that in some remote areas and developing or even non-developing nations they are unaware of the phenomenon known to us as global warming. Of course, those same people probably weren't within a fortnight's journey of a television with cable or satellite service to showcase the event, and even if they saw it, it's doubtful they speak English, and even if by some stretch there are English-speakers who haven't gotten baptized into recycle-reduce-reuse (and close the loop, we can close the loop), they would not have gotten a clear picture of what to do from the Live Earth festivities. Those of us fully aware that Al Gore won an Oscar and who have been getting this message since grade school are far more interested in hearing a gaggle of popular singers and bands of today and yesteryear all on one day than we ever will be about E85.
Is It As Simple As Changing A Light Bulb?
My gut instinct is that changing over to CFL's and hybrid cars in America won't reverse the warming trend or fundamentally change the climate, and I'd be willing to wager if I could interpret the science it would say something similar. Producing less CO2 is hardly substantive given how much we already produce (to say nothing of China and India eaching putting one new coal-fired power plant online every month). Assuming CO2 emissions are the culprit we've been told they are by the TV news (which I will probably rant about again any day now), cutting emissions in half would probably put us back where we were at some point in the middle of the last century which is, as I understand it, still part of the period of problematic emissions buildup. It's like gas prices: they were 2.50 or so for a while then skyrocketed up to 3.50ish and now they are back down around 3.00 even, which seems like a great decrease, but really we're still no better off than we were at this time last year. I'm not a global warming skeptic, I believe there is such a phenomenon. I am, however, increasingly a "global warming can be solved by going green" skeptic. It could just be that I was made a cynic upon the disappointing realization that Captain Planet would never come through on his promises (he was our hero, claimed he was going to take pollution down to zero....lies, a pack of lies, Captain.)
And Now For Something Completely Different...But Not Too Different
Live Earth officially being over (though still being re-transmitted) what does one do now? Go out and recycle plastic shopping bags? Turn the thermostat up to 78? Wait til after 7 to wash clothes? I think it's gotta be bigger than that. Much bigger. Something international and stringent, which could really upset our attempts to "protect our way of life" more than al-Qaeda or any illegal immigrant could ever imagine. The classic Platonic paraphrasing is "necessity is the mother of invention"; In this case, it would appear that there is a very clear necessity, except the generation currently running the country taught us all to live it up, live for today because who still cares what happened yesterday and who knows what tomorrow brings. Well, it appears a substantial majority of climate scientists have a working hypothesis of what tomorrow brings and it doesn't augur well for mankind nevermind civilization as we know it. Nevertheless, we carry on as if nothing will happen. And when the only "necessity" is carpe diem what do we invent?
Do Your Part! or: At Least Sing Along
One thing I failed to see during all of these performances and puffery was any compelling call to do anything beyond "take a stand" and "act now for your children and their children" and "it's as simple as changing a light bulb". Hardly seems like a cause worthy of a 24-hour glorified telethon. The truth is, this event had very little to do with global warming (or climate change or whatever the euphemism du jour may be). The claim I heard was that this event was to raise awareness. It's possible that in some remote areas and developing or even non-developing nations they are unaware of the phenomenon known to us as global warming. Of course, those same people probably weren't within a fortnight's journey of a television with cable or satellite service to showcase the event, and even if they saw it, it's doubtful they speak English, and even if by some stretch there are English-speakers who haven't gotten baptized into recycle-reduce-reuse (and close the loop, we can close the loop), they would not have gotten a clear picture of what to do from the Live Earth festivities. Those of us fully aware that Al Gore won an Oscar and who have been getting this message since grade school are far more interested in hearing a gaggle of popular singers and bands of today and yesteryear all on one day than we ever will be about E85.
Is It As Simple As Changing A Light Bulb?
My gut instinct is that changing over to CFL's and hybrid cars in America won't reverse the warming trend or fundamentally change the climate, and I'd be willing to wager if I could interpret the science it would say something similar. Producing less CO2 is hardly substantive given how much we already produce (to say nothing of China and India eaching putting one new coal-fired power plant online every month). Assuming CO2 emissions are the culprit we've been told they are by the TV news (which I will probably rant about again any day now), cutting emissions in half would probably put us back where we were at some point in the middle of the last century which is, as I understand it, still part of the period of problematic emissions buildup. It's like gas prices: they were 2.50 or so for a while then skyrocketed up to 3.50ish and now they are back down around 3.00 even, which seems like a great decrease, but really we're still no better off than we were at this time last year. I'm not a global warming skeptic, I believe there is such a phenomenon. I am, however, increasingly a "global warming can be solved by going green" skeptic. It could just be that I was made a cynic upon the disappointing realization that Captain Planet would never come through on his promises (he was our hero, claimed he was going to take pollution down to zero....lies, a pack of lies, Captain.)
And Now For Something Completely Different...But Not Too Different
Live Earth officially being over (though still being re-transmitted) what does one do now? Go out and recycle plastic shopping bags? Turn the thermostat up to 78? Wait til after 7 to wash clothes? I think it's gotta be bigger than that. Much bigger. Something international and stringent, which could really upset our attempts to "protect our way of life" more than al-Qaeda or any illegal immigrant could ever imagine. The classic Platonic paraphrasing is "necessity is the mother of invention"; In this case, it would appear that there is a very clear necessity, except the generation currently running the country taught us all to live it up, live for today because who still cares what happened yesterday and who knows what tomorrow brings. Well, it appears a substantial majority of climate scientists have a working hypothesis of what tomorrow brings and it doesn't augur well for mankind nevermind civilization as we know it. Nevertheless, we carry on as if nothing will happen. And when the only "necessity" is carpe diem what do we invent?
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
A 4th of July Admonition and Admiration
Shame on you, dear reader. Shame on you for letting me go so long without posting. I've been neglectful in by blogging duties of late and your silence in this regard makes you complicit. Please, let's get it together. All of us.
In other news, all is now right with the world as Takeru Kobayashi has been dethroned as hot-dog eating champion of the world by one Joey Chestnut of San Jose earlier today, proving once again that sometimes it just takes a Californian. Kobayashi showed his true colors last month when he claimed arthritis of the jaw had set in and he would likely not eat competitively again, coincidentally, just days after Chestnut had broken Kobayashi's record 53.5 hot dogs in 12 minutes by eating an unbelievable 59 earlier in June (a record he broke again today by taking down 66!). Despite beating the record, there was some speculation that Chestnut might fold in the head-to-head matchup. Of course, that all turned out to be nonsense, as Joey C. proved yet again that he is the greatest eater of this, or any other, generation.
Just look at the nonchalance on the face of this beast, he could eat another dozen and not break a sweat. Goodbye and good riddance to the Kobayashi legend. The American re-ascension continues; say it with me now: U!S!A! U!S!A! U!S!A!
In other news, all is now right with the world as Takeru Kobayashi has been dethroned as hot-dog eating champion of the world by one Joey Chestnut of San Jose earlier today, proving once again that sometimes it just takes a Californian. Kobayashi showed his true colors last month when he claimed arthritis of the jaw had set in and he would likely not eat competitively again, coincidentally, just days after Chestnut had broken Kobayashi's record 53.5 hot dogs in 12 minutes by eating an unbelievable 59 earlier in June (a record he broke again today by taking down 66!). Despite beating the record, there was some speculation that Chestnut might fold in the head-to-head matchup. Of course, that all turned out to be nonsense, as Joey C. proved yet again that he is the greatest eater of this, or any other, generation.
Just look at the nonchalance on the face of this beast, he could eat another dozen and not break a sweat. Goodbye and good riddance to the Kobayashi legend. The American re-ascension continues; say it with me now: U!S!A! U!S!A! U!S!A!
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