Thoughts on culture, politics, music and stuff by Eric Olsen, Marty Thau and Mike Crooker, who are among other things, producers.

 
The Return of Mike
Below Mike makes some excellent points in response to our discussion of the Middle East. I do not believe that Israel is perfect, and it is not beyond criticism or reproach. Palestinians are people too and deserve to be treated as such. I think those who support Israel are particularly sensitive right now because so much of the hyperbole being leveled against it is of the kind that denies its humanity or legitimacy. I'm glad that you do not. Thanks.

Eric:
I thought you made a pretty good rebuttal to my points and I'll have to concede some of yours. One last item about the Jenin journalism: I wasn't saying it wasn't propaganda, I was saying that our demands for context are sometimes pretty selective, and mostly self-serving. If we think our actions can be rationalized by explaining recent history, we'll do that; if we think our actions need no justification we'll tend to ignore or deny contextual arguments.

I'm not saying that each side is equally at fault, in my eyes it isn't 50/50 but it isn't all one way either. If you could quantify it, I'd say it's probably 75/25 or so, with the bulk of 'blame' being on the Palestinian side. I do think Israel has the right to protect itself but I bridle when I hear euphemisms used to 'spin' Western opinion. An example is 'accidental' civillian deaths. I agree that IDF soldiers are not targeting civillians (although some of these curfew shootings make you wonder) but if you use human shields or if you're bulldozing houses in a warren of a refugee camp, these deaths are NOT accidental--I'm sure the IDF knows approximately how many civillian casualties will occur and then decides to go forward or to wait, but they no in advance that civillians will be killed. Again, I'm not saying they have to conduct operations with zero civillian casualties, but give us the truth--the operation proceeded as planned, civillians were killed while operation took place, we regret the loss of life.

Another point you offered was that the int'l aid groups were kept out because of ordnance and booby traps, but what was the Israeli plan? Were they just hoping that no one was going to return to Jenin? Who did they expect WAS going to eventually clean up the mess? If there are unexploded bombs in the rubble, wouldn't it make sense for the IDF to search the rubble? Where they could defuse the bombs? Hey, I can understand that the IDF has no desire to go back in there, the Palestinians made the mess, but why keep out aid workers for 6 days and then let them in--did they think the bombs were going to expire? I just don't understand the reasoning there. You either offer help and go in, or you pull back and let others in who are offering humanitarian assistance.

Of course you're right that an Israel that is democratic is an obvious Western ally and worth defending, but my point is that we have to be careful about WHY were supporting that democracy. If Israel has a democratic vote and the majority decide to shoot all Palestinians--we obviously don't continue to support them. Likewise if Syria and Jordan suddenly decide to pressure HAMAS and Islamic Jihad to stop the bombings, well we want to support that, even if they aren't democracies. My point is we have to be careful not to lose site of the ACTIONS we support and don't get so hung up on the flavour of the politicians.

Anyway, very interesting discussion, thanks.
Mike Dea
Vancouver

posted by Anonymous at 9:49 PM

 
Non-Clash of Civilizations
While I thrash about in the dark trying to come to elementary terms with the problems of the Middle East, and world conflict between religions/civilizations in general, there are bloggers with a much keener grasp of the situation than I.

Check out this extraordinary exchange between Muslimpundit Adil Farooq and Joe Katzman of Winds of Change, proving that deep-thinking men of good will can always find common ground. Gives you hope for the future.
posted by Anonymous at 9:30 PM

 
Between the Two, I’ll Take Art
Speaking of delusional paranoids who should be ignored, Cynthia McKinney's constituents deserve exactly the manipulative, freakish embarrassment they keep electing every two years.
posted by Anonymous at 6:17 PM

 
The Night Is Filled With the Yapping of Loons
This story is a sympathetic take on Art Bell, the late-night syndicated radio talk show host who specializes in "unexplained phenomena," shall we say. The article praises Bell for his nonjudgmental approach to his many deranged callers.

This is in fact what I dislike most about Bell: there are truly unexplained phenomena that deserve critical review, but he approaches the plausible in the exact same way he approaches the ravings of disturbed individuals who don’t need a sympathetic hearing on national radio, but who need psychiatric treatment. Bell’s humoring of the literally lunatic fringe for the sake of ratings is the same kind of exploitation I despise in “reality” shows. Neither is it appropriate for these people to be encouraged in their delusions. It's very sad. I don’t think Bell should be censored, just ignored.
posted by Anonymous at 6:03 PM

 
Response to Mike
Mike wrote to express his disagreement with some of my positions regarding Israel and the Palestinians, the conflict in Jenin, and the NPR report on same from yesterday. I quote Mike:

The Jenin situation: You were amazed that the journalist didn't contextualize her comments about Israeli suffering as well as Palestinian. But after 9/11 wasn't there a huge outcry against any 'root causers' who tried to put the terrorist attacks 'in context'? After WTC there was justifiable outrage against the horror of the attacks, everyone was shocked and furious and demanded justice. These are the same feelings that go through Palestinians in Jenin. Is it the whole story? no, there's context, there's a root cause, but no one wants to hear it after something traumatic like having your house destroyed with
perhaps your relatives inside.

I find it very difficult to compare 9/11 - an unannounced attack against civilian targets specifically tailored to cause maximum possible loss of life - to the Israeli military incursion into Jenin. The differences to me are obvious and fundamental. No matter how you may characterize the Israeli action, its goal was to capture or eliminate armed terrorists in response to repeated attacks on Israeli civilians for the express purpose of causing death and terror.

The “root causes” in this case are very relevant because the Israeli action was in response to terrorism, not terrorism itself. The Israeli action was no more terrorism than our incursion into Afghanistan, and was just as justified. As far as “no one wanting to hear it,” this report wasn’t for Palestinians, it was for Americans, who would have no reason whatsoever not to want to hear a balanced report.

“Okay this destruction is sad and alarming, and if civilians were killed that is a terrible thing. But why were the Israelis there in the first place? Why did they knock down houses? If civilians were killed, how did this happen?” These are some of the questions a responsible reporter would have asked herself, and not just hammered at the resultant destruction without trying to put it into some kind of context for her - more or less neutral - American audience. The most appalling thing about the report was that the reporter SO OBVIOUSLY TOOK SIDES FORM THE VERY BEGINNING, using every possible rhetorical technique to paint the Israelis in the worst possible light (I think I just mixed my metaphors).

Just to make sure, I went back and listened to the report again - which I encourage you all to do here (skip through the first 4 minutes, which is another report) - and rather than not being as bad as I first thought, if anything it’s worse. When the report was live yesterday it took a while to sink in how egregiously biased it was; when I hear it now it sounds like a parody: McCarthy’s orotund tones, her indignation at having to “sneak” into the camp, the elderly weeping Palestinians, the litany of allegations and condemnations, the great detail given in the case of the deaf man allegedly bulldozed to his death “while 50 of his neighbors screamed in protest.”

The report is propaganda pure and simple, consciously rigged to generate sympathy for the Palestinians and opprobrium for the Israelis. I don’t want civilians killed. I do think the Palestinians deserve a home of their own. I don’t believe they are all terrorists, but I do believe they have brought on the Israeli retaliations on themselves and I haven’t heard one Palestinian, certainly none in any position of power, condemn suicide bombings as a strategy, as immoral, as illegitimate, as murder of innocent men, women, and children.

Regarding your concerns as to the particulars of the conflict in Jenin, consider these reports. Rather than paraphrase, I will simply copy Charles Johnson's revealing post:

In an extraordinary article for Egypt’s Al Ahram, Jonathan Cook interviewed one of the “engineers” from Jenin—a master bomb-maker from the City of the Bombers, who escaped in the final days of the battle. This man’s own words, published in an Egyptian government-controlled paper, irrevocably refute hysterical Palestinian claims of an Israeli “massacre.” It was a battle. It was house-to-house dirty-ass urban warfare, against a perfidious enemy with almost universal support among the so-called “innocent” population. The good news, according to “Omar,” is that there aren’t many engineers like him left.
Omar admits he is one of only a few dozen fighters not to emerge either dead or in plastic handcuffs from the fiercest battle waged by the Palestinians during the Israeli army's invasion of the West Bank.

Of his group of 30 gunmen, only four escaped from the camp on Wednesday, after the Palestinian arsenal ran dry. Most of the others were shot dead.
UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen is “horrified beyond belief” at the sight of bulldozed houses. Maybe Omar can shed some light on why the bulldozers were necessary:
"Of all the fighters in the West Bank we were the best prepared," he says. "We started working on our plan: to trap the invading soldiers and blow them up from the moment the Israeli tanks pulled out of Jenin last month."

Omar and other "engineers" made hundreds of explosive devices and carefully chose their locations.

"We had more than 50 houses booby-trapped around the camp. We chose old and empty buildings and the houses of men who were wanted by Israel because we knew the soldiers would search for them," he said.

"We cut off lengths of mains water pipes and packed them with explosives and nails. Then we placed them about four metres apart throughout the houses -- in cupboards, under sinks, in sofas."

The fighters hoped to disable the Israeli army's tanks with much more powerful bombs placed inside rubbish bins on the street. More explosives were hidden inside the cars of Jenin's most wanted men.

Connected by wires, the bombs were set off remotely, triggered by the current from a car battery.
Jesus. There were bombs everywhere, in houses, cars, rubbish bins, under sofas. They turned their city into a hell on earth. And those “innocent” people caught up in the battle?
According to Omar, everyone in the camp, including the children, knew where the explosives were located so that there was no danger of civilians being injured.
Not just most people. Everyone in the camp knew about the bombs, even the kids. And this proved to be their undoing:
"We were betrayed by the spies among us," he says. The wires to more than a third of the bombs were cut by soldiers accompanied by collaborators. "If it hadn't been for the spies, the soldiers would never have been able to enter the camp. Once they penetrated the camp, it was much harder to defend."
In a way, this is more good news. If there were people in Jenin so disgusted at seeing their homes turned into deathtraps that they would risk being lynched and hung in the public square, maybe there is hope after all. Here’s how Omar and his noble Palestinian comrades ambushed the Israeli soldiers on Tuesday:
"They were lured there," he says. "We all stopped shooting and the women went out to tell the soldiers that we had run out of bullets and were leaving." The women alerted the fighters as the soldiers reached the booby- trapped area.

"When the senior officers realised what had happened, they shouted through megaphones that they wanted an immediate cease-fire. We let them approach to retrieve the men and then opened fire.

"Some of the soldiers were so shocked and frightened that they mistakenly ran towards us."
My God. And rather than applaud Israel for sending men into such hellish conditions when they could have simply given a 48-hour warning and leveled the city with air strikes, the European community is foaming at the mouth with accusations of massacres and war crimes. There was a massacre planned, all right. And there were war crimes committed. But not by the IDF. Listen to Omar.
On Wednesday, after the fighters ran out of ammunition, he says, armoured vehicles roamed the streets calling out to them in Arabic: "You are finished and can't win against us. We are more powerful than you. Surrender."

He saw one fighter who went down to the street with his hands in the air shot dead by snipers.

Regarding the aid worker situation, I give you this post from Glenn Reynolds:

DAVID BERNSTEIN sends a link to this story this story from the NY Times and notes:
Israel says it blocked access to aid groups because of danger from booby traps. The aid folks accused Israel of making up lame excuses. Well: "As relief agency officials and human rights activists swarmed around the camp, an Israeli Arab doctor stepped on something that exploded, blowing him off his feet. Writhing in agony and bleeding from the leg, Wael Omari, part of a delegation of physicians, was stretchered away to an ambulance by shocked colleagues. The blast was a sharp reminder of the dangers posed by unexploded ordnance and booby-traps."
Yes. Although strangely the Times story doesn't mention that the aid groups had failed to take the Israeli warnings seriously. But we do get this quote from an ICRC staffer: ``It took six days for the Israeli army to let us into the camp, but now we have fairly free access on a daily basis.''

Here is yet another report from Charles Johnson:

UN Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories Terje Roed-Larsen has accused Israel of refusing to allow rescue teams into Jenin while the battle was going on. Here’s an interesting detail from IMRA:
Col. [reserves] Didi Yedidya, commander of Fifth Battalion that operated in Jenin, explained that during the entire period, the IDF permitted rescue and evacuation teams in subject to the condition that they pass through an Israeli inspection point so that the Israel could make certain that wanted terrorists were not smuggled out. Yedidya noted that few teams accepted those conditions and that the IDF inspections discovered wanted terrorists hiding in evacuation vehicles.
Apparently, avoiding inspections was more important to these “rescuers” than actually helping people.

I agree with you that Israel needs to find a way to give the Palestinians a home of their own. It is in their best interests and is morally appropriate. I also agree that the settlements are an inappropriate provocation and need to be largely dismantled. I believe that Israel needs to withdraw, create a buffer zone, maybe even build a wall, and get on with life.

Finally, your point about democracy: it isn’t just that Israel is a democracy and that none of its Arab neighbors are - it’s what that fact reveals about their repective worldviews, priorities, values and senses of morality. We share these with Israel and largely don't with their neighbors: that’s why we should and do support Israel.
posted by Anonymous at 5:22 PM

 
A Very Speedy Reply to Marty's "Arabs and Jews"

"This Jewish-Arab argument has been ongoing for 2,000 years. No matter what anyone says, it's a religious war."

The Arab-Jewish part has only been going on for 1300 yrs, since the Arabs didn't start colonizing the Middle East until after Islam was invented by Mohammed around 700 CE. Jews were all over the Mid-East and North Africa before the Arabs showed up. (We sometimes forget that the ancient Egyptians weren't ethnically Arabs, who came later.) When Mohammed came to Medina, he found a thriving Jewish community which he massacred, enslaved, and expelled after they refused to convert to his new religion. This set the tone for succeeding Muslim-Jewish encounters.

On the other hand the Christian-Jewish argument HAS been going on for 2000 yrs. A great source of demographic charts and maps - but expensive - is Barnavi's "Historical Atlas of the Jewish People." Scheindlein's "Short History of the Jewish people" and Rejwan's "Israel's Place in the Middle East" both talk about Jewish activity in Palestine after the Romans destroyed Judea and named it that. Peters' "From Time Immemorial" also includes some of this background material, although she concentrates on the period preceding Israel's independence.

Goitein seems to be THE historian everyone refers to who made sense of the primary sources.
Judith Weiss
posted by Anonymous at 3:54 PM

 
Reply to "Weeping Palestinians on NPR" and "Ad Nauseum"

Eric:
I ran across your site and started to read some of your latest posts and disagreed with some of your ideas.

The Jenin situation: You were amazed that the journalist didn't contextualize her comments about israeli suffering as well as Palestinian. But after 9/11 wasn't there a huge outcry against any 'root causers' who tried to put the terrorist attacks 'in context'? After WTC there was justifiable outrage against the horror of the attacks, everyone was shocked and furious and demanded justice. These are the same feelings that go through palestinians in Jenin. Is it the whole story? No, there's context, there's a root cause, but no one wants to hear it after something traumatic like having your house destroyed with perhaps your relatives inside.

Hey, I agree with you, suicide bombers are terrorists and have got to be stopped, but that doesn't mean every Palestinian is a terrorist. That doesn't even mean all Palestinians who are resisting occupation are terrorists. Why wouldn't they defend their city against the Israeli incursion? Why is that a terrorist act? I think it is morally justifiable for Palestinians to resist military occupation and forced illegal military eviction from their land. Is it justifiable to blow up Israeli citizens? NO.

As for Israeli military action, you have to agree that they were provoked and their citizens are crying out for safety, but after the battle, why bulldoze the houses? And if you have to bulldoze the houses why keep aid out? When the battle is over why not let civillians at least claim the bodies of their loved ones. Allow aid agencies to look for possible survivors in the rubble, and if you've got all those bulldozers lying around why not help uncover the bodies in the rubble. Plus, is it Israeli military policy to use civillian shields? These small cruelties puzzle people like me who are leaning toward supporting Israel, but are just saddened by these actions.

Israel obviously doesn't want to be seen as being forced to negotiate a Palestinian state by violence and terror, the only problem is that its been 35 years since '67 and it hasn't all been wars and violence, there have been times of peace where Israel could have been negotiating but chose not to. I think Israel only has two choices--invade and annex the whole of the West Bank and Gaza and give citizenship to the Palestinians or help Palestinians create a state of their own.

But Israel has acted like they wanted the best of both options, the land for themselves but no statehood or citizenship for the Palestinians. The West Bank now is not unlike apartheid South Africa--little settlements of Jews living amongst the Palestinians, but being segregated by military checkpoint, and special road.

When you look at this conflict you have to say, what is wrong with Palestinians? Why don't they want peace? I could totally back Israel in this fight if it wasn't for the settlements, it just seems that they are a deliberate provocation in the Palestinian faces, a constant reminder who has the military strength and the will to do what they want, to take land with no regard to compensation or property rights. Why would Israel do this if it wanted peace? Was it a chip to be bargained with and then returned? Or was it to create 'facts on the ground', an urgency to Palestinians to settle before all their land was gone?

On the issue of Israel being a democracy, thats another thing that picks at me. Surely, Israel is a democracy for the benefit of its own citizens, democracy is a good in and of itself. It irritates me when I hear Israelis say that there cause should be supported because they are the only democracy in the region, as if that’s the reason that they chose to be democratic, so that they could claim to be on 'our team'. I'm in favor of an Israeli state. I'm glad it’s a democracy, I wish other regimes in the area were democratic, but if Syria, Jordan, and Egypt were democracies would that mean I should have less support for Israel? No, the reason I believe in the legitimacy of Israel is not a function of the non-democratic status of its neighbours.
Mike Dea
Vancouver

posted by Anonymous at 2:40 PM

 
ARABS & JEWS
To this day Arab nations do not recognize the existence of a Jewish state. If and when that is ever acknowledged and Israeli security is guaranteed -- let's not forget that Israel is surrounded by 14 Arab nations with drawn scepters and needs to be assured of secure borders -- then, perhaps, Israel and Palestine might be able to coexist.

From the Israeli perspective this is "their final solution" after so many false starts towards a peace accord. From the Palestinian perspective the Jews have "stolen" their land and should be totally driven out of Israel. Aside from the fact that it's impossible to determine if anyone "stole" any land, that will never happen and the sooner the Palestinians recognize that fact, the better off their future prospects will be.

After WW2 and the Holocaust, the surviving Jews flocked to Israel from all over Europe and realized they must never allow themselves to be in the same passive position again. The Russians, after losing 20 million people in WW2, built up their defenses similarly. It's called learning from past experience and never making the same mistake twice.

There will be no solution as long as Arafat and Sharon are in power. These two bickering warriors from past wars despise each other and are incapable of diplomatic response. They must relinquish their positions of control and the countries of the world must somehow step up and mediate a just settlement to this insanity. It doesn't seem likely the USA can do it alone. Much to the credit of the USA, they've certainly tried and deserve to be recognized for it instead of all this ridicule.

Iran, Iraq and Syria must withdraw and stop fueling the fires of hatred. The Arab media machine must call a halt to their incendiary propaganda. The Israelis must withdraw from their settlements and rewrite the post 1967 borders. The issue of Jerusalem remains a sore point but perhaps it can be made into a Holy City, with access to all religious sites for all three religions ... and monitored by UN forces.

This Jewish-Arab argument has been ongoing for 2,000 years. No matter what anyone says, it's a religious war. Enough with this "Jew bashing." Let's fight AIDS, food shortages in 3rd world countries, environmental problems ... and the like. There's certainly no shortage of world issues to confront.

My last thought ... a good deal is when both sides are unhappy. There must be compromise. Does anyone have a better solution?
Marty Thau
posted by Anonymous at 2:15 PM

 
Alice doesn't live here anymore...

It gives a whole new meaning to the term "Grunge".


posted by tofu at 1:47 PM

 
Weeping Palestinians on NPR
Just when I was starting to feel better about NPR - other than the Cato sponsorship issue, but that was more of a Cato problem - I heard this report this afternoon from Jenin by Julie McCarthy. In 8 minutes of breathy allegations, weeping Palestinians, words like “cruelty” “onslaught” “devastation” “indiscriminate” “bullet-riddled” were tossed about casually as McCarthy toured the camp after “sneaking in” with Palestinian help, of course.

She quoted the UN clown Larsen, she quoted an Amnesty International lackey, she quoted a Palestinian negotiator: all of it, every little bit, from the Palestinian perspective other than a brief, nearly hysterical quote from a young Israeli lieutenant who denied that anyone was “plowed over with bulldozers.” She then related the tale of a disabled deaf man who was “plowed over with bulldozers” as his wordless shrieks died away. “How often do you beat your wife, young man?”

She never said why the Israelis were there in the first place. She never mentioned Israeli civilian deaths from suicide bombers. She strongly sided with the Palestinian claims of “hundreds of civilian deaths” over the Israeli position of a “few dozen.” She ended the jeremiad with “the Israelis will have to answer to world opinion for allegations of wanton cruelty.”

I was driving back from dropping my son off for his weekend stay at his mother’s, and I kept looking down at the radio in disbelief. It just kept going on and on and getting worse and worse. Whatever this woman’s predispositions, in a classic case of identification-with-subject, she was overwhelmed by the scene and lost any sense of dispassion or proportion. She became a Palestinian, joined in the outrage, totally lost it.

Hear it for yourself. So much for balance.
posted by Anonymous at 6:57 PM

 
Ad Nauseum
I guess it has to be said again and again: suicide bombers are terrorists, not freedom fighters; radical Islam is cynically using the Palestinians to get at Israel because Israel is full of Jews, strong Jews, and Israel stands in the way of their domination of the Middle East; the U.S. supports Israel not out of some misplaced sense of guilt or sorrow for the Holocaust (although we are deeply sorrowful or we are heartless pigs), nor because the “Jewish lobby is so powerful,” but because Israel IS THE ONLY MODERN DEMOCRACY IN THE ENTIRE CESSPOOL, I mean region.

The fact is that we have to keep saying those things to a minority who mistrust Israel and/or Jews here in the U.S., and the much larger element in Europe who HATE ISRAEL AND THE JEWS. Are they insane? Blind? Egregiously misinformed? Amnesiacs? Are they really happier with a Jewry that turns the other cheek, as suggested by Melanie Phillips in the Spectator?

Maybe the Europeans need to be reminded - again - that they killed 6 million Jews only 60 years ago or so. I guess that wasn’t enough. I guess the fact that some Jews escaped and had the raging balls to form their own country where they wouldn’t live in fear of being yanked from their beds in the middle of the night and gassed, shot, or experimented upon makes many Europeans indignant.

Perhaps this - and the fact that all of their current neighbors wish them dead, eliminated, terminated, extinguished as a country and a people - might explain Israel’s preoccupation with security. Oh, also the fact that teenagers are blowing themselves up amongst them at parties, restaurants, malls, on buses, streets, and anywhere else they can squeeze like rats through cracks in a wall.

Europe’s moral culpability is so great regarding the Jews that maybe the poor sensitive Europeans can’t take it. Blame the victim, especially when he refuses to be a victim anymore. I respect, admire, even love the Israelis, and if I had to choose, I’d take Israel over any European country in a fight (I’d really hate to give up the UK) because I know they will always be there for us as well.
posted by Anonymous at 4:16 PM

 
Empty Nest
While this whole internecine blogger controversy is fresh on my mind, check out Jeff Jarvis’s comments re same:

The early adopters want it to be theirs; they don't like new neighbors; they also don't want to see their invention ruined by the clumsy. They become old farts at a remarkably young age. They can act just like old-media publishers who are fearful of losing control of the medium.

That's life. The Internet belongs to the audience. It belongs to the people. There is no way to control it. There is no way to own it.

Mind you, I love all the pioneers (except when Blogger is down; I was going to publish this last night!). They invented a whole new kind of commentary, reporting, publishing, storytelling. They did a great job. They're still doing a great job. They gave birth to a brilliant child. But now it's time for the child to grow up and move out of the house.

Love everybody, that’s my motto, even if they disagree with you. But remember, it’s all fun and games until someone gets shot in the kneecap and has to have a patella transplant.
posted by Anonymous at 3:30 PM

 
Curse of Kitaen
First there was the Curse of Rocky Colavito, now it’s the Curse of Kitaen. Ever since the fact that Chuck Finley has filed for divorce from the strung-out, bloated, limp-fleshed whorehound became public, the Indians have been beaten like redheaded stepchildren.

What must we do to free ourselves of this curse? Voodoo? Potions? Get Robert Blake on the case?
posted by Anonymous at 3:12 PM

 
Treacher Feature
Jim Treacher is one hilarious, twisted fellow. I referenced Nelly Furtado’s “I’m Like a Bird” yesterday in my attack on suicide bombing-celebrant Julio Pino, a professor at nearby Kent State. Thus inspired, Jim came up with new lyrics more appropriate to teenage girls blowing themselves up:

I'm like a bomb
I'll only blast away-ee-ay
I don't know where my head is
I don't know where my heart is
(And baby, all I need is to do is 'splode this)
I'm like a bomb
I'll only blast away-ee-ay
I don't know where my leg is
I don't know where my arm is

Okay, he knows it's in bad taste, but sometimes it's either laugh, cry, or shoot the wife. Treacher, a man of rare perspicacity as well as comedic talent, also paid me the ultimate compliment, suggesting my “ouput is almost Lileksian.” Damn, that makes my millennium. Thanks, Jim.

Speaking of Lileks, I also agree with Treacher that his latest Bleat on the Gnat is touching and sublime, to an extra degree for me because I am also the father of a little girl and in my 40s. Being middle-aged and crusty, I appreciate the wonders of young life and love even more than I did when I had my first two in my 20s.

Of course, I was a drunken reprobate then, working 70-hour weeks DJing around SoCal and living a demented version of the high life, which was “high” only to the extent that I was. Did work some wild parties, though, including a house just down the street from where Robert Blake lives. He was at the party - I have no problem believing he shot someone, the hostile little shit.

Last word on Treacher for the moment, his latest blog takes out after Denton for his use of the word “hijacked” in his discussion of computer-bloggers vs. warbloggers. This was an unfortunate usage, though I’m guessing unintentional. As I was driving home from radio just now, I recalled a function I DJ’d at USC at which John Wayne (an alum) spoke.

I’ll never forget the Duke’s words: “Either lead, follow, or get the fuck out of my nutsack,” or something to that effect. That’s how I feel about the blog book.
posted by Anonymous at 2:46 PM

 
Cubbyholes Being Erected
More blogger book commentary from Reid Stott via Glenn Reynolds who also cautions against polarization - call it a fourth way.

But despite these new bumps and surges of convergence, we can't seem to get away from either/or and us/them. The truth is Jason wrote some very worthy things related to 9-11, whether anyone describes him as a "warblog" or not.

And on the other side of the coin, there are indeed people who may not have been First Wavers like Jason but were veteran bloggers long before 9-11, who consider themselves generally left of center, yet fully support the war on terrorism.

And don't care if they are published in a book or not.

So build me my own cubbyhole. No label, please.

Here's the thing: "warblogger" is a generic term meaning "sometimes comments on politics, foreign policy and the intertangled web of culture, religion, media, general wonkism as it relates to 9/11 and its aftermath." There is no "when the war is over" because the consequences of 9/11 will reach their tentacles into every nook and cranny of the future. I am unaware of any blogger who writes only on "war."

All I have ever stumbled across speak of whatever is on their minds at whatever time - we're talking about degrees here, not absolutes. Even the most misty, starry-eyed sensualist, or the most hardened digitalist has made some sort of commentary on 9/11 and its labyrinthine postscript. Maybe this is about jockeying for position, maybe it's rope-a-dope, maybe Colin Powell will sweep in and cuff our ears, but in the meantime just participate in the process.
posted by Anonymous at 9:26 AM

 
Dung Hits Fan - Civilians Struck
The "Warblog" book pot is further stirred by Nick Denton, who sees a divide between the original, computer-related bloggers, and the bloggy-come-latelies who have concentrated on politics, policy, and blowing things up.

Nick has some good points to make for both sides, finding a Clintonian third way:

For a long while, there was a curious arrangement between the two groups, in which each ignored the other's politics: the warbloggers grateful that someone had made web publishing so easy; the web kids pleased to see their creation spread.

And then James Wolcott writes a piece in Business 2.0 that pretty much ignores weblogs before the warbloggers; and the warbloggers get together to write a book, tentatively called Blog Nation. Jason Kottke, veteran web kid, seems to feel weblogs have been hijacked, which they have. The warbloggers respond, politely: write your own damned book. The revolution is eating its children. On balance, I think Jason has a point, and at least he's making it; most of the SF web people are scared of argument. Sure, a book needs to have a voice. But, get real, “Blog Nation” is not a monolithic work, it's a *compilation*. Compilations are meant to be diverse; at least in so far as that makes them interesting. So, warblogger buddies, just make nice with Kottke; apart from anything else, he's actually an excellent writer.

Interesting and perceptive all, but immediately upon seeing Jason's original comments, I sent him an email thanking him for his comments and inviting him to participate in the book as HE WAS THERE and made valuable contributions to humanity on 9/11 itself. Haven’t heard anything from him, so I am not sure that Jason is “making his point” since he would have appeared to have made his critique from the bleachers, then bugged out early to beat the traffic.

I restate again, here, now, that our intention is to put out the best-written and most thought-provoking book we can. That’s all. There is no political agenda beyond HATING TERRORISM in its many forms. This is not a “warblogger” vs. “whateverthehellblogger” situation; this is not Bay Area vs. Everywhere Else; this is a book to represent the contributions of bloggers everywhere to the minds, hearts and souls of mankind in reaction to a stunning tragedy.

Two of my most fervent nominations - if I can only pick two, I pick these two - are about as far from “warblogging” as possible: Tony Pierce’s riveting, brilliant, funny, wrenching photo essay "Dear Kids From Afghanistan," and David Rees’s scathing, scabrous, hysterical, vicious satire "Get Your War On" (part 6 is my favorite). That’s about as far from “eradicate the assholes and the camels they rode in on, NOW,” and dissertations on ballistics as you can get.

Now I have question: Where did Nick get the “Blog Nation” title? I haven’t seen or heard a title discussed anywhere and I am confused. Not that it’s a bad title, but Nick, who I also have not heard from, seems to know something I don’t.

Keep those cards and letters coming.
posted by Anonymous at 8:53 AM

 
Oh, Okay, Now We'll Stop
Now that SCIENTISTS have called for a halt to the $5 billion worldwide child prostitution industry, that should about take care of it. Baby-raping pimps throughout the globe responded to the news:

"We don't want to mess with no SCIENTISTS, they might use death rays on our asses or something. We'll send the little kiddies back to their moms and dads and stop sticking crusty, rusted needles into their emaciated little arms to keep them hooked and at our mercy. They aren't virgins anymore anyway," said pimp spokesman M.F. Assplow. One less thing to worry about.
posted by Anonymous at 9:24 PM

 
Allergies vs. Viscera-Sucking Worms
Wherein it is alleged that the reason Third World urchins suffer fewer allergies than Western tykes is due to the

the number of parasites -- especially roundworms, flatworms and pinworms, known collectively as helminths -- found in their bodies.

Those parasites may be doing something to the body's immune system to help prime it, and understanding that may be the key to dealing effectively with allergies...

Um, I'll take the allergies, thank you. We have effective treatments that don't involve repulsive flat organisms setting up housekeeping in my child's sphincter.
posted by Anonymous at 9:09 PM

 
Skanks On Parade
According to Reuters

It may not be OK to be a skank but legally it is OK to be called one.

A California state appeals court has ruled it is not libel to call someone a "skank" or even a "big skank" on the radio -- describing the word as "a derogatory slang term of recent vintage that has no generally recognized meaning."

The state's 1st Court of Appeals, ruling in a case stemming from the show "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire," found that participants in the program "voluntarily subjected themselves to inevitable scrutiny and potential ridicule by the public and the media."

In other words, you can call women who prostitute themselves shamelessly in front of the entire nation with promises of endless wet sex and neck rubs in exchange for access to millions any freaking thing that flies out of your mouth: like "leper-blowing dirt whore," or "donkey-sucking cum-bubble," and the court says it's okay.
posted by Anonymous at 9:00 PM

 
"It Would Have Been Better to Be Dead and Buried"
I have been going on and on about the destructive mentality and worldview that allows suicide bombing to be viewed as an acceptable military strategy among certain elements in the Middle East. The worship of death, the doomed romanticism that lives for the past, that refuses the future, that denies the sacredness of life in this world all contribute to the misery and squalor of those who partake of these ideals.

So I’m reading this about the devastation of Jenin and feeling kind of bad about the destruction of people’s homes, and yet more death - regardless of the disputed numbers - and even feeling somewhat sympathetic to the sorrow being expressed by the Norwegian (I’ve always been proud of being Norwegian-American, now I’m not so sure) UN representative Terje Larsen, until I get to, first this:

"Not any objective can justify such action, with colossal suffering" to civilians, said Larsen, wearing a blue flak jacket and walking over a broad swathe of pulverized concrete where hundreds of people once lived.

And then I think, well, yes it can be justified if the objective is to stop even greater suffering by even more innocent people. I’m certain there were civilians killed in Jenin and any is too many, but for the most part, it was the Palestinian terrorists who put their own people in jeopardy:

"What we see in Jenin is a result of die-hard terrorists there who booby-trapped themselves and all the places there," [Danny Ayalon, Sharon's chief foreign policy adviser] told The Associated Press. Civilians "were given a chance to surrender and they didn't... The result of the destruction is their fault."

I freely admit this position is biased and I still feel for the civilians who have been left homeless, injured or dead. But then I come to this at the very end of the story:

Hindi, 42, and his family hid in the house for six days, and had taken shelter in the basement when the first floor was blown away. After that, they fled.

"It would have been better to have stayed inside," said his brother Zaki, 36. "It would have been better to be dead and buried."

No it wouldn’t you deluded shithead. It is better to be alive. In America, or Canada, or Norway for that matter, he would have said, “Well, at least it was only property. At least we all are safe. Material things can be replaced,” and a litany of similar clichés.

But not for Zaki, who worships death and sees it as preferable to continued misery here on earth. Not, “Whew, we just barely escaped. It’s good to be alive,” but “Shit, the way things are, we’d be better off dead and humping virgins and eating grape bon bons or whatever.” This man feels no sense of investment in his life; he sees life as a liability, not an adventure and magical opportunity to be cherished. I imagine that he, like bin Laden and others believe that “Americans and Jews value life too much.” No, just enough.
posted by Anonymous at 6:04 PM

 
Maybe Now We Can Move On to a Real Energy Policy
The president’s blogrolling with the oil industry is one of the things I like least about him.

Bush repeatedly has argued that the oil can be extracted without harming the environment or wildlife, and he has cited Iraq's current oil embargo as proof that new drilling is needed more than ever. But environmentalists and many Senate Democrats — as well as a handful of GOP senators — argued the oil can be found elsewhere without risking the refuge and its wildlife, including a herd of 123,000 caribou that calves each year on the coastal plain.

During two days of sometimes emotional debate, drilling supporters assailed "radical" environmentalists who have opposed drilling and talked as much about the recent turmoil in the Middle East and Iraq's suspension of oil shipments as about the refuge itself.

"There's an inferno in the Mideast and we're importing more than 50 percent of our oil," said Murkowski, arguing that extracting the oil in ANWR is a matter of national security because it will cut the need for imports.

Drilling opponents scoffed at that argument.

Bush has done what he was expected to do: try to open up ANWR for oil development. Now that the move has been defeated soundly, I hope we can move on to a real energy policy that concentrates on conservation and away from oil period.
posted by Anonymous at 4:40 PM

 
Be Nice to Our Northern Neighbors
I am absolutely opposed to blowing up Canadians. They are nice people and also very sensitive. If we are not more careful, someone will write a STRONGLY WORDED LETTER.

Seriously, this awful mishap should re-verify the fact that there is no way to preclude human error in war any more than any other human endeavor. We have caused civilian casualties, and have killed our own and our near-own accidentally. This sucks and the military should put top priority into precluding it, but at least we are sorry when we do it. We don't kill civilians intentionally, or as a matter of strategy, nor do we hide our combatants among civilians. But still, lay off the Canadians.
posted by Anonymous at 4:26 PM

 
Humbled By Doc
I ran with the Cato/NPR story because I thought it was hilarious. I should have known that someone like Blogfather Doc Searls would have the knowledge and insight to turn it into something much deeper and more important:

Here's where I'm in extreme agreement with Cato: I want NPR weaned from the last 2% it still milks from the federal teat, and I want it — and its hundreds of affiliates — to realize what a gold mine they have in something commercial radio does not: listeners who are also customers. A real commercial relationship. Accountability to millions of loyal customers. What an incredible fucking privileged position these guys are in. Amazing.

And yet they waste their time, and enormous amounts of market karma, flattening real community radio — a potential distribution channel — all over the place. They did it when they got the FCC to kill off the sub-100-watt Class D license a couple decades ago; and they did it again when they joined with their paranoid commercial brethren to do the same to low power FM a couple years ago.

Doc also conducts a poll regarding where you get your news vis-a-vis radio and the Web. Check it out - I bow to the Blogfather.
posted by Anonymous at 4:00 PM

 
Pino Not Even Intelligent?
The letters are coming in strong today. An anonymous individual from Minneapolis sends in this query regarding the Kent State flap:

One quick question: Why do you use the word "intelligent" to describe Pino? Do you assume that because he's a history professor he's intelligent? You must not have spent much time around academics. (I'm speaking primarily of the humanities and social sciences, the fields that have become the bitches and hos of left-wing politics.) Many of them are deeply stupid in addition to being unwise. For the most part they attain their positions not by demonstrating their intelligence but by demonstrating their willingness and ability to conform to the orthodoxies of their tribes. That they're where they are because they're intelligent is what they WANT you to think. Don't fall for it.

He has a point. Since I have no personal relationship with Pino, and no knowledge of him apart from his editorial and the article about the controversy, I imagine I did assume his basic intelligence based upon the fact that he is a working academic. Let us call him, then, “one who has accumulated knowledge,” for surely he must have done that to become a professor at a large university.

He has demonstrated a good deal of “deep stupidity” as well as a lack of “wisdom,” yet he still may well be “book smart,” which is one measure of “intelligence.” I myself can be deeply stupid (I tried to run over a particularly offensive neighbor - that was stupid), and quite unwise (how about 2 DUI’s in 16 months in SoCal in the late ’80s? not much wisdom there), while I am “book smart” to some degree. I have a high IQ, whatever that indicates (I think it indicates an ability to take IQ tests rather well).

Regardless, I am guilty as charged of assumption. I sit here braying.
(PS - I just realized I called John Simmons "intelligent" in the last entry - I still think he is, though.)
posted by Anonymous at 3:21 PM

 
A Libertarian Responds
Among the super perks of doing the blog is hearing from intelligent, interesting people with all different points of view. John Simmons, of the mighty fine Paxety Pages (“From the Remote Wilds of Lower Blogovia”) from down in Fla (I bet we’re hotter than you are today; oh crap, he’s got a thermometer on the site, they’re at 84, we only got to 83), send this response to our Cato/NPR story:

As a libertarian who was around when Cato was founded, I would generally agree with you about the wrongness of Cato “contributing" to NPR if contributing is what Cato is doing.

But - as a person with a long background in broadcast news, I know there is another way "contributions" are made to NPR - special interest groups "buy" stories. When you hear an NPR announcer say a certain story was funded by a contribution from XYZ, that means that XYZ gave NPR a grant to report on that issue.

NPR claims organizations giving grants have no editorial input into the story, but the organization could certainly guide the reporting through creative grant requirements.

So, perhaps to get our libertarian ideas before more people, it is good for Cato to "buy" its way onto NPR. If that's what Cato is doing rather than just making a general contribution.

A very interesting perspective. However, isn’t it still rather philosophically hypocritical for Cato to align itself with NPR in any way for the reasons I mentioned? I was half-joking about “engagement,” but maybe that really is their strategy.
posted by Anonymous at 3:04 PM

 
Campaign From Prison?
Here is a discussion of the options of convicted felon-congressman Jim Traficant, miscreant from Youngstown.
posted by Anonymous at 11:50 AM

 
Conversion Intoxication
This flap at Kent State regarding an Islamic professor’s editorial in defense of suicide bombing - that Glenn Reynolds, of course, highlighted this morning - has me all stirred up: on its merits alone, and for the fact that I live less than ten miles from Kent, have taken classes at the school, and have done commentaries for WKSU, located on the campus.

First, let’s look at the farewell ode that associate history professor Julio Cesar Pino wrote to a suicide bomber in a guest editorial in the Daily Kent Stater earlier this week:

A letter to Ayat al-Akras, who died a martyr's death on March 29, 2002 in occupied Jerusalem, Palestine.

Bismillah, r-Rahman, r-Rahim
As-salamu-'alykum-wa-rahmatullaahi-wa-barakatuh!
In the name of Allah, the most Compassionate, the most Merciful, peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.
Dear beloved Sister and Martyr:
Freedom bird, freedom bird!
How happy you must feel in the midst of millions of Muslims who have sacrificed themselves for over 14 centuries so that Islam might live. Arabs and Kurds, Chinese and Malays, Indians and Africans walk the same ground alongside you in Jennah (paradise). You, Ayat, are a shining star of the greatest generation raised for humanity since the days of the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). I write "you are" because the Koran teaches that those who die in the cause of Allah (all praise is for him) "are not dead but alive, though ye see them not."

Why did you choose martyrdom, Ayat? That is what most Americans wish to know. The latest issue of Newsweek magazine has a picture of you on the cover, calling you "the human bomb." The author of the story, Christopher Dickey, wonders why an 18-year-old girl wanted to commit "suicide" rather than finish high school and marry her boyfriend. He says you are a "terrorist" and that the majority of Palestinians condoned your action, making them "terrorist" cheerleaders. Forgive Americans for thinking that Palestine is at peace and you, a demonically possessed creature, genetically programmed to kill by Arab DNA, are the one making war.

Yes, Ayat, you are like a bird, you are like Nelly Furtado, another bird-like young woman:

”i'm like a bird, i'll only fly away i don't know where my soul is, i don't know where my home is (and baby all i need for you to know is) i'm like a bird, i'll only fly away i don't know where my soul is, i don't know where my home is”

Whipping himself into further rhetorical frenzy, channeling the poetic soul of Osama bin Laden (maybe he is dead), Pino continues:

You are not a terrorist, Ayat. The real terrorists are those who some 100 years ago hijacked a beautiful religion and transformed it into a real estate venture. Glancing around the world, they saw in Palestine "a land without a people, for a people without a land," as their spokesmen and women chant ad nauseum. The Zion of the concertina wire, F-16 bomber death planes and tank crews collecting skulls and shedding martyrs' blood. The birthplace of your ancestor, and mine, the Palestinian pacifist Joshua ben Josef, is now a battle zone -- with Christians, Muslims and peace-loving Jews trapped inside Bethlehem. Your last cry, by gesture rather than the spoken word, was "Stop, thief! This is not your land and we are a people." I can assure you, Ayat, that the whole world stopped to listen. Even the numbskull who parades as president of the United States heard you, and, following the text written for him by his handlers, expressed astonishment at how a teenager could perpetrate such an act. Simply, it is pronounced "justice" and spelled C-O-U-R-A-G-E.

Without belaboring the point that suicide is the exact opposite of “C-O-U-R-A-G-E” - it is an abdication of responsibility for one’s own life, it is the final easy way out - I think Nelly has it exactly right when she says, “i don't know where my soul is, i don't know where my home is,” in relationship to birdhood. There is nothing “free” about having no sense of home, about having a hole where a soul should be, for only a person - or a people - devoid of a center, devoid of a spiritual home within themselves, can view murderous suicide as a form of salvation, as noble, as “freedom.”

Other than the basic notion that the Palestinians deserve a home of their own OF SOME FORM, there is no moral imperative as to which particular land is whose. So the rhetorical cry of the self-extinguished bird: “This is not your land and we are a people” is both meaningless and redundant. The Palestinians are a people - who is saying they aren’t? - but the cry of “this is not your land” is a purely political statement, not a moral statement, and political claims must be resolved politically - through negotiation - not by self-destructive, murderous blackmail.

“This is not your land - I blow myself up,” is the ultimate temper tantrum, the ultimate in childish acting out. “If I can’t have my way, I’ll kill myself, and I’ll kill you in the process.” This sounds like Columbine. Perhaps a teenager IS the best symbol for such an adolescent philosophy. At least teenagers ARE adolescent - I don’t have a clue what Yasser Arafat’s excuse is, or that of a college professor who is supposed to instruct young people, not publicly try to out-adolescent them.

Forgive the American public, Ayat, because we, or better said, the government of our masters, send tax money that goes directly to the forces occupying Palestine -- four billion dollars every year since 1948, not that any of this comes as a shock to those who study American history. I will wager that in Jehannah (hell) sinners laugh themselves silly over this irony: The American-made helicopters that rain hellfire over Jenin and Ramallah, Bethlehem and Nablus bear the names of Native American peoples, the Apache and Chinook, wiped off the face of this land in a previous genocide. From the heights of paradise, pardon us Sister, for permitting such hypocrisy to go unpunished.

It goes without saying that there is so much crap here that it would require a case of toilet paper to deal with it, but let us put aside the incongruous equating of the Palestinians with Native Americans (who really were here first, but who were no more a “people” than the warring tribes of Afghanistan; at least the Palestinians are an actual “people,” but they have no more right to any particular piece of land than the Israelis do; the history of the Middle East is one of migrating tribes and peoples, conquerors coming and going, redefining boundaries to suit their own needs - like I said, it’s a political question that can only be resolved politically) and get to the heart of the matter. This man Pino thinks like an adolescent because spiritually he actually IS ONE. His romantic, faux-poetic blather about suicide bombers going to heaven and smiling beatifically down and whatnot sounds sincere - unlike the cynical rote manipulations of Osama bin Laden for example - but adolescent, even childish, because they are the ejaculations of a spiritual baby: he just converted to Islam two years ago, per the Akron Beacon-Journal:

The man at the center of the controversy said his essay was misunderstood. Pino, who converted to Islam two years ago, said he definitely is not urging American students to become suicide bombers.

This fool is still in the throes of conversion euphoria: he is still dancing around with epiphany-intoxication ruling his brain. He sounds like John Walker-Lindh, only Johnny Taliban at least was an adolescent searching for his way in the world when he was bitten by the Islamic bug. Most converts think and speak with the simplistic tongue of the zealot until reality slowly creeps back in and the person realizes that life still must be lived and that religious conversion, rather than being THE ANSWER THAT SOLVES ALL PROBLEMS is just another way of looking at life, another filter for dealing with reality, just like the senses.

A particular appeal of Islam seems to be its poofy romanticism, its call to step outside of apparent reality and rearrange appearances into a radically new hierarchy. “This is really great! According to the material, secularized, INFIDEL world, I haven’t done much, am kind of a loser, but according to my NEW WAY OF THINKING all of the “false, Western” values that make me look like a chump, are ALL WRONG: down is up, wrong is right, suicidal murder is “martyrdom” and pleasing to Allah.

Of course this is an extreme position and most Muslims don’t go to these extremes, but recent converts (along with the “humiliated” middle and upper-middle classes, and the truly oppressed) are among those most likely to buy into the self-serving “beautiful loser” romantic appeal of the whole thing.

That’s how a presumably intelligent adult American man can sound like such a blithering idiot. The idiot concludes:

A supplication from those of us left on Earth:

O, Allah, protect the soldiers of Islam fighting in Palestine. Accept the martyr into paradise. Heal the wounded, succor the sick, free the captive, grant shelter to the refugee, comfort the widow and orphan. Let us take the pain of Ayat al-Akras and the hundreds like her into our hearts, so that the suffering awakens us to the terror done in our name and with our implicit silence, and moves us to action. May Allah elevate your place in paradise,
Assad Jibril Pino

The blind idiocy of the convert is what allows this man to offer such heartfelt, even eloquent sentiment for those who happen to be Islamic, yet to completely demonize the other side: the Jews equally fighting for a home of their own, equally suffering, equally human before any god’s eyes. The zealotry of the convert sees only evil in the other side, and the “other side” is everyone who doesn’t share his particular vision of reality, who denies the “infidel” any nobility, any dignity, even any humanity.

And the cynical, power-grasping leadership of much of the Islamic world - from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to secular Iraq to the Palestinian Authority - pray upon this all-or-nothing, us-vs.-them, Jews-drink-blood, Americans-give-them-the tools-to-do-it, outrageous horseshit that would be laughable if its consequences weren’t so dire. I think the ridiculous absurdity of the extreme Islamist view is the buffer zone that allowed us to essentially shrug off the Islamist threat prior to September 11. But ignorant, desperate, oppressed people are often immune to the call of logic, as are many recent converts.

I agree with Glenn that this man shouldn’t be fired for expressing his deluded point of view, but his romantic, childish, illogical effusion should be ruthlessly skewered for the dangerous, immoral fantasy that it is, and all clear-thinking people should point and stare at an intelligent man who has betrayed his own mind, his family, and his country.
posted by Anonymous at 11:18 AM

 
The Rock Invents Writing!
See this interesting story from the NY Times which asserts that evidence has been found indicating the Scorpion King may have been a historical figure, and that a 5,250-year-old tableau found in Egypt detailing his exploits may be the earliest form of writing yet found. And you thought he was just a wrestler trying to become an actor.
posted by Anonymous at 9:07 AM

 
Give Me Public Radio Or Give Me Death
My nose for hypocrisy, or at least screaming irony, was sharpened by the Tim Noah/William Bennett discussion of earlier today. So there I was, driving along to pick up the 2-year-old from pre-school, listening to "All Things Considered" on NPR, thinking distant thoughts of Hawaii and other vague pleasantries, when the familiar, nasal, NPR announcer intoned, “Today’s program brought to you with the help of the Cato Institute.”

The Cato Institute, as in libertarian think tank, as in “25 years of advancing liberty.” Perhaps the Cato Institute is unaware that NPR is a nonprofit institution with FUNDING FROM THE GOVERNMENT (though NPR claims to receive only 2% of its funding directly from the government, it’s the thought that counts), and that NPR notoriously leans to the left. This is like hearing that "Israel Radio International is brought to you with the help of the Palestinian National Authority.”

This is Cato’s mission:

The Cato Institute seeks to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace. Toward that goal, the Institute strives to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, concerned lay public in questions of policy and the proper role of government.

And

The Jeffersonian philosophy that animates Cato's work has increasingly come to be called "libertarianism" or "market liberalism." It combines an appreciation for entrepreneurship, the market process, and lower taxes with strict respect for civil liberties and skepticism about the benefits of both the welfare state and foreign military adventurism.

The market-liberal vision brings the wisdom of the American Founders to bear on the problems of today. As did the Founders, it looks to the future with optimism and excitement, eager to discover what great things women and men will do in the coming century. Market liberals appreciate the complexity of a great society, they recognize that socialism and government planning are just too clumsy for the modern world. It is--or used to be--the conventional wisdom that a more complex society needs more government, but the truth is just the opposite. The simpler the society, the less damage government planning does. Planning is cumbersome in an agricultural society, costly in an industrial economy, and impossible in the information age. Today collectivism and planning are outmoded and backward, a drag on social progress.

Witness official Cato Policy Analysis No. 277, titled “With Friends Like These: Why Community Radio Does Not Need the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” written in 1997.

In Congress, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and other Republican leaders suggested dropping the CPB [which provides funds to PBS and NPR] from the budget. For some, the concern was financial. For others, it was ideological. Then-senator Bob Dole accused the corporation of "subsidizing hate and anti-Semitism." His colleague Larry Pressler (R-S.Dak.) claimed that "all [PBS's] favorite people are from the American left" and demanded that stations receiving CPB grants disclose their employees' political affiliations. Many observers expected Congress to "zero out" the CPB's budget, abolishing or privatizing the corporation.

Instead, the CPB lives on, albeit with slightly less money in the bank, its day of reckoning postponed until 1999. Part of the credit for that turnaround must go to America's public radio and television stations, which mobilized thousands of listeners and viewers to protest the proposed changes. After all, argued the subsidized stations, if PBS and NPR are not there to bring audiences alternative programming, who will?

Writer Jesse Walker’s main thrust is that the big national “noncommercial” professional broadcast networks like NPR and (now) ARI actually stifle truly noncommercial community radio.

Community radio may be the only noncommercial radio in this country that is truly "public," relying on local volunteers for most of its programming, financial support, and day-to-day administration and going out of its way to broadcast material that is unavailable elsewhere on the dial. Yet to the extent that the CPB has been concerned with radio--its primary interest has always been television--it has been wary of the community stations' localism, experimentalism, and volunteer base. Indeed, one of the primary rationales for creating the CPB was to replace the scattered array of small stations with a tighter, more centralized public radio system under professional control.

The original community stations were free of federal subsidy, getting by on a shoestring and a loyal base of local volunteers and donors. Since the 1970s several of those stations have chosen to pursue CPB funds as well. But that money has come with strings attached. Though federal funds have undeniably assisted many stations, they have also encouraged many broadcasters to forget their traditional mission. The CPB has fostered a new professional class within the community radio movement, a group that has accumulated power at volunteers' expense and promoted more streamlined, predictable programming. And while most community broadcasters continue to be grateful for any support their small stations can acquire, others are beginning to wonder if it is worth the price.

There are many good reasons to defund the CPB. It seems wrong to force any taxpayer to fund speech she disapproves of, be it NPR or the Voice of America. And it is not fair to force low-income taxpayers to underwrite news and entertainment for NPR's generally affluent audience. But there is another problem, less often noted: federal funds inevitably eradicate local diversity and character.

Okay, so we libertarians, preferring the very minimum of government control over the lives and choices of Americans, and fearing for the future of truly independent, noncommercial community-based radio, will decide to - oh, I don’t know - PROVIDE FUNDS DIRECTLY TO THE ORGANIZATION THAT EPITOMIZES EVERYTHING WE DETEST AND FEAR, and that most directly threatens the future of the aforementioned independent community radio stations that represent all we libertarians hold dear.

Just to make our libertarian policy crystal clear, please consider this report from early ‘95:

Leading conservatives, speaking at the strategic panel discussion at the National Press Club Dec. 19, agreed that federal funding for public broadcasting should be an early target for elimination in the new Congress.

...."Stop subsidizing the tastes of the upper middle class--NEA, NEH, Corporation for Public Broadcasting," agreed William Niskanen, chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute. Niskanen also proposed eliminating tax exemptions for nonprofit organizations, which benefit conservative groups "by some amounts" but "benefit the Left by massive amounts."

"Frankly, I think Americans ought to have more of their money under their total control and we should eliminate all these special privileges," he explained, pledging that Cato is "willing to trade in our exemption in a tradeoff for lower rates for all Americans."

Or if not that, then we’ll give all our money to NPR because, you know, engagement is better than unilateral withdrawl, or something like that.
posted by Anonymous at 6:26 PM

 
NEWS FLASH - Women are Bitches
That's right I said it. I am a female and sometimes I am a complete bitch. I am not proud nor boastful, merely honest. Apparently there is a new understanding of this phenomena and how it applies to pre-adolescent girls.

According to this article and corresponding study, young girls between the ages of 10-13 (but sometimes up to age 100) are prone to a certain type of bullying that's not as violent as hallway brawls or after school fist fights, but no less insidious. I can speak from firsthand experience on this matter. Girls can be really mean.

Think Stephen King's Carrie. Poor Carrie White, already plagued with a psychotic, religious freak mother, is then tortured and ostracized by the girls at school. For what? Being different, being naive, being creepy? Okay, being creepy is a good reason.

Girls can be disturbingly cruel to one another, pushing the most sensitive buttons. I know for a fact that I didn't leave my house the entire summer of '81 for fear that a certain girl, initials J.L. (I am still a little afraid of her) would kick my ass. The not-so-veiled threat of physical violence foisted upon me on the last day of school ruined my entire summer. It's almost shocking that my mother didn't notice that her prepubescent daughter wanted to spend every waking moment with her and had developed an aversion to public places.

I clearly recall dreading the first day of school that fall. Seventh grade orientation: all students gathered to hear the principal espousing the virtues of being in junior high-land. I am not listening - my eyes are darting over the entire cafeteria looking for this too-developed 12-year-old nemesis. Suddenly I spot her.

Eyes fixed, heart racing, butterflies fluttering, we make eye contact. For a brief millisecond J.L. flashes a glare, then a warm smile. I instinctively smile back, the way one might react when faced with a snarling pit bull as it lunges to lick you and sniff your crotch. Relieved and relaxed I realize she has forgiven all grievances and we are now friends. I am embarrassed of my harsh judgment and ashamed for wasting my entire summer in fear of this highly evolved and benevolent girl.

As we were ushered out of the cafeteria to begin our glorious junior high years, I approached my new friend and then it hit me, I had grown five inches over the summer and now towered imposingly over the heavy-chested shrimp. She wasn't my friend, she just had good depth perception and realized I could now beat her ass to a pulp.

That was a turning point for me. I would be bullied again by various antagonists: some of them I faced and challenged, some I cringed in fear of, but I was now wiser. I had a better perspective. Being afraid is a waste of time. Not much has changed with the adult women I deal with, although I will say that the shorter the female, the nastier they are. Randy Newman was right.

I hope as my daughter grows up I can help her avoid the pitfalls of these treacherous relationships. So far she seems to be more of a bully-er than a bully-ee. I like neither.
Dawn Olsen
posted by Anonymous at 3:35 PM

 
The Francis Fukuyama of Cyberspace
Tim Noah - who appears to be gunning for the title of the "Francis Fukuyama of cyberspace”: as wrong as possible on as many fronts as possible - does two things with this "Chatterbox" column. (Before we go on, who would name his column “Chatterbox” anyway? What kind of self-image does this imply? “I just chatter away all the livelong day: chatter, chatter, chatter. I’m like a box full of chatter. Tee hee. I am silly. I don’t care who knows it. I am Chatterbox.” If I ever get a column with Slate, I think I’ll call it “Dumbshit.”)

First, Noah denies that the West’s ability to self-criticize is an asset, then he reaffirms his earlier denial that Western civilization is indeed superior to Islamic civilization because, while we would use the measurements of (his words) “democracy, economic prosperity, religious toleration, respect for human rights, and equality of the sexes,”... “Many Muslims would consider a better yardstick to be piety, an ability to preserve ancient traditions, and strict obedience to Allah.” Now, he makes it clear that these aren’t HIS priorities, but they are Islamic priorities and are therefore germane to the discussion.

I don’t think you can have it both ways: you either pick one set of values or the other. You can’t say “these are my values and by these values the West is clearly superior,” and then turn around and say “however, by another set of values, another civilization is superior so there is no such thing as actually “’superior.’”

This is of course the whole postmodern dilemma of relativism in a nutshell, but regardless of our “scientific” inability to set absolute values for the universe, we are able to choose values for ourselves, here on earth; and if you choose the values of “democracy, economic prosperity, religious toleration, respect for human rights, and equality of the sexes” as your yardstick, then you HAVE MADE A DECISION, and unless you are autistic (no offense), by such a yardstick the WEST IS SUPERIOR.

You do have the option of saying something like “all values are relative and therefore you can’t compare cultures that have different values,” but A) Noah doesn’t do this in a forthright manner, and B) even though the universe is theoretically value-neutral, we are still free to SELECT VALUES OF OUR OWN, just as we are free not to try to walk through trees even though theoretically the wood is no more solid than air. Having selected values, we must then apply them consistently.

Noah then accuses William Bennett (no friend of mine, a self-important pontificating windbag) of CIRCULAR REASONING because while Bennett says that the ability to self-criticize is instrumental to the West’s superiority, he then brooks no actual criticism of the West. I agree with Bennett’s first point without reservation, but disagree with the second: obviously we in the “West” (hardly a monolith - look at the US-Euro split over the Middle East, for example) deserve criticism on many fronts (for example, we suck at men’s field hockey), but the openness and egalitarianism that allows for self-criticism IS central to our ability to improve, to refine, to replace outmoded theories with new, better ones.

This process is similar to, if not identical to the scientific method and explains our superiority in that critical area as well. If you can’t tell the emperor that he has no clothes without fear of having your head amputated as he flaps his wiener obliviously in the breeze, then you probably won’t decode the human genome, develop advanced weapons, or be within a country mile of the technological cutting edge that leads to improved economic productivity, or even basic health care.

The fact that we can and do criticize ourselves in an ongoing, eternal, internal audit without taking it too personally and killing or jailing each other in the process, is much more important than any specific criticism. I don’t care if Bennett is so deluded as to think we are perfect - we are not - but this doesn’t make him wrong for singing the West’s praises for its ability to criticize itself.

Noah then excoriates Bennett on a personal level for writing a book called Why We Fight when he, Bennett, appears to have actively avoided service in Vietnam as a young man. While this may make Bennett a hypocrite (what moralists aren’t?), it STILL doesn’t make him wrong about the West’s ability to criticize itself. You could call him a big fat infected turd and he would STILL be right about the West and self-criticism. No matter how you may insult, or even kill, the messenger, his message may still be correct, and in this case it is.

Tim Noah: still wrong, and still chattering.
posted by Anonymous at 1:01 PM

 
Assaults, Cyber and Otherwise
As if exploding Palestinians, near-universal international condemnation, and intense military conflict weren’t enough, Israel is also being assaulted digitally.

According to security firm mi2g, the Israeli domain .il has been the biggest victim of web defacements over the past three years, suffering 548 of the 1,295 attacks in the Middle East.

As violence escalates in the region, cyber attacks on Israel are also on the rise. In the past 14 days, Israel has suffered about two-thirds of the significant web defacements in the Middle East.

Of course, under the circumstances, this seems more an annoyance than a critical problem, and so far the attacks have been limited to website defacements and denial of service assaults, but Israel is more vulnerable than the Arab states to serious infrastructure disruption because Israel actually has an advanced cyber-infrastructure to attack.

Israel is vulnerable not just because of its action against the Palestinian Authority, but also because it has the largest number of Internet connections in the Middle East. Israel has 2.4 million net connections, more than any of the 22 Arab countries.

...It is possible for the political hackers to intensify their campaign, said Peter Sommer, senior fellow at the Computer Security Research Centre at the London School of Economics. "It is entirely feasible to mount an attack on critical national infrastructure," he said. "From a pro-Arab point of view it would be far more effective than sending in a suicide bomber."

More effective, perhaps, but not nearly as dramatic, nor in keeping with the ethos of romantic self-destruction now at the core of the Palestinian strategy. Why cripple the infrastructure of an entire nation when you can blow yourself up, taking anywhere from 0 to 20 Israelis with you, and demonstrate to the world what you have been driven to by the “evil Jew” occupier? Of course using the word "strategy" implies some kind of achievable goal toward which one is strategizing, but the PLO's goal at this point would appear to be the magical disappearance of Israel, which any sane person would not define as "achievable."

Interesting also, and very encouraging, is the sympathetic coverage of Israel by the BBC, normally a bastion of Palestinian leanings. (Thanks to Marty for the heads up)
posted by Anonymous at 11:02 AM

 
Disconnect
This how dependent I’ve become upon the Internet: I get in this morning - after dropping off my son at school, weird to see everyone in shorts in mid-April but it’s 80 degrees already! - just before 8 as I always do on weekdays, fire up the computer while I take a quick look at the papers, snag a Diet Coke (just for the fun, the bubbles and the caffeine of it).

With the computer up and running I hit my CompuServe icon, hit “connect” to get my email (still on an old version of CompuServe so I can keep my email address: a nice and tidy ericolsen@compuserve.com - no stupid numbers, qualifiers, mitigators, or phonetic variations like some wretched personalized license plate; I really hate personalized license plates, “Oh, look at me, I’m driving my car - not your car, but my car, and you know it is my car because it has my name on it. Okay, not really my name, but if you squint your eyes, and read it quickly out loud, ‘CSMEHTH’ spells ‘Smith’ - cool!”).

Only I don’t get my email, I get an error message: "(568) DNS Error: unable to resolve gateway.compuserve.com"

Shuddering with foreboding, I quickly hit the Internet Explorer icon which should take me almost instantaneously - I have a cable modem - to my homepage, but this doesn’t happen either. I get the dreaded blue “i,” and “The page cannot be displayed” warning, as dissatisfying as flat Diet Coke, warm flat decaffeinated Diet Coke.

I now know from experience that the system is down. I am already irritated because Chuck Finley gave up 9, yes I said “9,” runs in a single inning last night, condemning the Indians’ winning streak to a premature halt at 10.

I curse the harpy Tawny Kitaen for the emotional and physical damage she has inflicted upon Chuck, who has filed for divorce after being pummeled piston-like with the spike heels of the faded “actress/model.” Chuck has also had to care for their distraught children while Mommy was in the slammer for said attack, and while she has lurched about erratically and glassy-eyed since.

The woman is only 40. There has been a spate of celebrations lately as the famous and beautiful have hit the magic gateway into middle age while remaining famous and beautiful. There’s Tom Cruise on the male side of the ledger, but men have always been allowed to age more gracefully than women, allowed to retain their sex appeal well into their 60’s. Look at Cary Grant (well, don’t actually look at him, he’s dead, but look at his example), Sean Connery, even Willie Nelson.

But now women are being allowed to stay sexy and beautiful past 40: Jodi Foster, Meg Ryan, Demi Moore (oops, she’s 39), Heather Locklear, Madonna, Kristin Scott Thomas, Michelle Pfeiffer are all smoking hot. But Tawny most certainly is not. Let’s not even get into the body thing, it’s her face that’s been ravaged by gravity, care and whatever, and turned into some kind of geological mishap. Good riddance - but in the meantime Chuck has to deal with all the crap: divorce is never easy, he’s still waiting for the spike heel holes to fill in, and he has children to worry about.

Hallelujah! The cable modem is up and running - I have CONTACT once again. I can go anywhere, do anything, communicate with virtually anyone. The winning streak had to end, Chuck will rebound, and it’s tough on a woman turning 40 with her looks pretty well shot when she has traded on them her whole life. No wonder she’s lashing out and losing it. Okay, I’m better now.
posted by Anonymous at 10:13 AM

 
Tour O the Blogs - Little Green Footballs/Charles Johnson
The time has come: no more procrastination, no more digressions, obsessions, or detours down blind bloggy alleys. The time has come to take a serious look at Charles Johnson’s amazing Little Green Footballs: not a venereal disease, not a fall sport of leprechauns, but one premier stretch limo of a website and one remarkable blog.

Before we peer enviously at this tender site, let’s take a look at Charles himself, who is rather remarkable in his own right. According to his bio, Charles has been “involved with computers since the Neolithic age,” which, I’m told is a long time ago.

Starting with an 16K Atari machine, he learned the Basic, 6502, and 68000 languages (I like people languages because they aren’t named after numbers). Ascending the pyramid, he wrote for Atari mags, eventually becoming West Coast Editor of ST Log magazine. He then made software and hardware products for Ataris under the company name CodeHead Technologies (trip-py, bu-uddy), where he got serious design experience putting together the company’s packaging and manuals.

Proving himself to be as versatile as he is talented, Johnson also found the time to become not just a “musician,” as in, “Yeah, I’m a musician - I was once in a band that opened for a band that opened for Culture Club in Fresno.” Charles became a Musician, playing guitar for such jazz and fusion greats as George Duke, Stanley Clarke, and Al Jarreau.

He made his recording debut on Stanley Clarke’s seminal School Days album (have it, very impressed), co-wrote the title track for George Duke’s Reach For It (also have it, also very impressed - I interviewed George in his home studio for Japanese TV in about ‘83, I wonder if Charles was there), besides working on many another funky fresh recording and concert stage. In recent years he has toured the world with Al Jarreau (he of the eccentric e-nun-ci-aaa-tion) before heading back to the greenish glow of LGF Web and graphic design (more on the company later).

Upon approaching the Little Green Footballs site, you will first notice that this isn’t just some blog - it is an elegant expression of design artistry in the form of a weblog/media link site. The lime football logo looks good enough to eat. For the visitor’s viewing pleasure there are rotating photos of Johnsonia: three cells in the upper right-hand corner with tropical fish, omelets, sprigs of spearmint, every manner of flora, doorknobs, squiggly lines, etc., and a larger cell in the upper left that is in fact a “detachable” slide show of Johnson’s bucolic travels through Europe, SoCal and other enviably scenic locales (often snapped from atop his trusty bicycle).

While most blogs are single-story bungalows, Little Green Footballs is a plush mansion: every feature has a secondary, even tertiary level to it. Johnson doesn’t just make morally-attuned, eminently sensible, zero-tolerance-for-terrorism-in-its-many-ugly-forms posts for a legion of regular visitors; he also has a reader comment area that generates buzzing traffic of admirable quantity and quality.

For example, I got sidetracked from writing this review yesterday by a fascinating semantic debate begun by Charles regarding the term “suicide bomber,” and its recent semi-replacement, “homicide bomber.”

Charles doesn’t like “homicide bomber,” arguing,

It misses the dark, anti-human essence of this tactic: that the murderer is willing to kill himself in order to kill his victims. The suicide factor is precisely what makes it so hard to stop, and so effective as a weapon of terror.

I agree with him that the fatalistic death-cult aspects of the “suicidal homicide” is what makes this tactic different from other forms of murder and/or terror - somewhere there must be a term that confers the nauseating horror of the ritualistic slaughter of the self for the purpose of killing others.

Johnson’s readers have now posted 24 comments on the subject, coming up with some penetrating insights and excellent suggestions, including new appellations “exploding Arabs,” “human bomb,” “death cult bomber,” “suicide terrorist,” “genocide bomber,” "the latest impediment to a Palestinian State" "Arafat's willing executioners," “murder-suicide bomber,” “Islam[i]kazi,” “suicide murderer,” "Cowardly murderer who makes most reasonable people hope against hope for the existence of a just God and therefore the eternal torments of Hell for said cowardly murderer," "splodeydopes," and a proposed resurrection (oops, wrong religion) of “kamikaze.”

Remember, all of this fast and furious action is taking place in the reader comment area; Charles’s readers - many bloggers themselves - are so intense and engaged they boisterously gather ‘round the metaphorical reeking dumpster in the back alley of his site to exchange ideas.

Another example: the current CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) Sharon war crimes poll controversy:

Here is an absolutely perfect example of the inherent dishonesty of groups like CAIR. When I checked the poll mentioned in the previous entry this morning, the results were: 86% against trying Sharon for crimes, 14% for, with over 11,000 votes. (Did anyone grab a screen shot?)

Now, 45 minutes later, the results are suddenly 11% against trying Sharon for crimes, 89% for, with 2,197 votes.

Glenn [Reynolds] is much nicer about this than I want to be:
Yes, I'm trying to come up with an honorable explanation for this change, but I'm drawing a blank here. I think I'm going to regard any statements from CAIR with rather a lot of skepticism from now on. Er, especially if they announce "poll results."
I was going to use a word that connotes deception. But of course, we must give CAIR the benefit of the doubt. It could have been an incredibly unlikely technical glitch. Or maybe it was the evil Jews again.

Besides being a fine example of Johnson’s righteous indignation, this posting, made just five hours ago, has generated 28 comments and much explication.

Quana had posted a comment last night presupposing what actually happened:

I'd recommend going there without following the link so they can't see where you are linking from. They may decide to remove votes from certain sites (you KNOW who you are!) due to some kinda 'bias correction' (that's statistics blather for 'we don't like this number').

OTOH, I don't believe it really matters much either way. The results actually made me laugh out loud. What fun!

This morning she felt vindicated:

I did take screenshots last night (12:37 a.m.) and this morning (9:53 a.m.) CDT. Discrepancy is 9394. I suspect they deleted the votes coming from links in the blogosphere. (I'm hoping they didn't get me since I logged in directly and didn't follow a link.) Just my suspicion. (Still laughing.)

Another comment on the matter from Addison:

This is just sad.
Here is the link to where the vote currently stands (with 3444 votes; 58% YES). It was over 12,000 votes last I checked and I looked back and read this:
CAIR is investigating several nefarious attempts by users trying to manipulate the votes. Thank you for your patience while we isolate and correct the problem. Please be advised that such systems that help in weighing public opinion should not be misused.
READ: The votes didn't go the way we expected and we have absolutely no respect for freedom of choice, so we will disregard all the votes we don't like.

Charles and his truth squad will brook no shenanigans from disingenuous Middle Easterners, their running dogs, or anyone else.

A follow-up posting from Charles (back on the main blog) brought in Quana's aforementioned evidence:

Quana has screenshots of the CAIR poll, before and after. (Of course, she could have used a nefarious Jewish graphics program to alter them.)

Overall, a tremendous example of how the blogosphere (Go Bill Quick!) keeps track of breaking events in real time, self-corrects, utilizes its disparate talents - and what a smoking hot site is Little Green Footballs. (Jonathan Last explains the whole affair including the blogger angle - though he inexplicably leaves off Johnson’s contributions - in the Daily Standard here.)

Interestingly, though Johnson is rather evidently “zero-tolerance” on terrorism, he also sees himself as

a think-for-yourself social liberal, leaning toward libertarianism, but without the loony stuff.

Before 9/11, I wouldn’t have read one word of the National Review, for example. But the fall of the WTC had an extraordinary clarifying effect for me, and while I still consider myself basically liberal, many of the people most identified with that camp have behaved disgracefully since then.

This sounds like Ken Layne, Matt Welch, and many others, including myself for that matter. Johnson has perhaps captured the very soul of warblogatry: a general liberality, stung by betrayal from without and within, spurred to relentless vigilance and action.

Besides the killer blog, comment section, action photos, and general design appeal, LGF has a cool “show all entries” feature that does just that in a single page, and a link to a page with the latest breaking news headlines under the headings “Top Stories,” “Web Development, “ “Internet Stories,” “Cycling,” and “Offbeat.”

More you say? You want more? How about a reader’s preferences area where you can set your preferred font, print-size, and other predilections, which will pleasantly greet you upon your return, instructions as follows:

Epsum factorial non deposit quid pro quo hic escarole. Olympian quarrels et gorilla congoleum sic ad nauseum. Souvlaki ignitus carborundum e pluribus unum. Sic tempus fugit esperanto hiccup estrogen. Marquee selectus non provisio incongruous feline nolo contendre.

Like I said, many layers of goodies by way of information, entertainment, and edification everywhere you go.

There is an ongoing reader’s poll. There are useful links galore (including 145 blogger links until the heading “Anti-Idiotarians,” Tres Producers thankfully included), and more, more, more. In fact there is so much, the site sometimes takes a while to load (but Charles has laid down the law: if his host doesn’t snap it up, pronto, he’s moving on to greener footballs, er, pastures).

You’ve heard about the content, you’ve heard about the elegant, functional site features. You may say to yourself: this guy must be a site designer or something. Well, yes, he is. LGF is also a very successful “Web Design” company run by Charles and his brother Michael with offices in LA and San Francisco.

We offer web and print design, brand consulting, graphics design, and backend programming. In all these tasks, we have one simple credo:

Clarity of purpose leads to effective design.

We take pride in working with each client to determine the best approach for their particular web site, and we have developed a systematic method that virtually guarantees an effective and successful web site.

Charles and Michael together have many years of computer experience; Charles was a very well-known programmer for the Atari ST line of personal computers, and for years owned a shareware company named “Little Green Footballs Software.” Hence the name of our web design firm. The actual roots of this unique name are lost in the mists of antiquity. (But under the right circumstances you might be able to convince Charles to tell the story.)

I prefer some mystery in life, let the little green footballs bounce about in my imagination for now. Also on the site regarding the business are a lavish portfolio and a listing of tools and skills. I’m sold. Design me something, buddy.

Clearly, anything Charles Johnson does, he does very well, deftly balancing imposing skill with humor and a steely moral sense. A superior blog and individual.
posted by Anonymous at 8:47 PM