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

 
Refresh
For some people - especially those outside of the U.S. - September 11 has already become a tired cliché:

get over it; thousands die every day; why are yours more important than the Afghanis you bombed or the Palestinians killed by Israeli aggression, or the hundreds of thousands of starved Iraqi children? etc, etc.

But we can never let 9/11 become a cliché: not the loss, not the horror, not the injustice, not the inhumanity. Those who would rather forget 9/11 by way of comparisons to other loss of life would do much better to elevate the worth of the lives they do value - including their own - rather than minimize the value of the lives we lost.

9/11 goosed the blogging boom because people felt a compulsion to keep track of the events unfolding before them, to chronicle them, to try to make sense of them; but they also took to blogging to record their own feelings, feelings so deep and powerful that the bloggers instinctively knew they had to be recorded, remembered, kept fresh and vigorous out of sacred duty to the lost and to themselves.

Asparagirl mentioned something like this to me in a recent email but my mind was off noodling somewhere else at the time. Jeff Jarvis’s elegant and profound post, “The Weight,” jarred all of this back into my mind and clicked on my mental “refresh” icon for 9/11 one more time:

I found the book collection of the New York Times' profiles of the victims of September -- Portraits: 09/11/01.

I was shocked at the size of it and the weight of it. The dimensions of the book are big: every page is large and there are more than 500 pages. And this is not even a complete memorial to the victims; it is only the portraits published before February. There are even more to be written, which will be included in the next edition, an even bigger book.

I don't know why I was so shocked at the size. Somehow, in my mind's scale, I thought this book would be smaller. I wonder whether this is a symptom of my memory, fading.

Of course, the book is huge. The loss is huge. Thousands of lives gone. Thousands upon thousands of lives scarred.

I bought the book and finally read the portrait of my neighbor who died. It returned me to September.

If you, too, feel your memory fading, if 9.11 starts to look smaller behind you, I urge you to go to the bookstore and pick up the Times' book, just pick it up. Feel the weight of the grief.

We hope to accomplish something like this with the 9/11 blog book as well.
posted by Anonymous at 5:48 PM

 
When Labels Dissolve
Bruce Baugh at Writer of Fortune, who I just found through my fiercely blogging wife, has a tremendous post on his own internal political climate:

I don't ever expect much good out of the big political parties in the US. If I thought one could accomplish much of what I wanted, I'd belong to one, but I'd given up on the Democratic Party long before I gave up on liberalism and while the Republican Party has some advocates of causes precious to me, they're grossly outnumbered. Nearly everything of interest to me in American politics happens in independent bodies capable of mountaining more effective critiques and proposing more productive (or at least more interesting) solutions. The general absence of good liberal critique of the current administration's actions, accepting the desirability of action without prior endorsement of the party or president, bugs me. I want to see more folks doing what, say, Patrick Nielsen Hayden does regularly - poking holes and pointing out stupidities without ending up saying "...and besides, the Jews have it coming" or anything like it.

In talking to other bloggers, I have found a substantial subculture who are perceived as some form of “conservative” because they are zero-tolerance toward terrorism in its many forms, support America’s basic ideals, don’t go in for self-loathing, and don’t think the Jews had it coming. But they don’t see themselves as conservatives either, as per our Tour O the Blogs for Charles Johnson:

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.

Like Johnson, Baugh has found himself reading the National Review of late:

Right at the moment, unfortunately, there's this problem that people who've long proclaimed their desire to see us all dead or subjugated are acting on their desire in ways that directly threaten us all. I can live with a lot of unpleasant-to-me ideas floating around, but when people start attacking others, then they must be stopped. This is true for the individual mugger and murderer, and it's true for the organized effort at mass murder. As an individual, I have no duty to submit to effort to kill me, and as a member of a society, I have a responsibility to attend to the protection of others from efforts to kill them.

All of this seems relatively straightforward to me, but it seems to cut awkwardly across partisan lines. And I am particularly disappointed at how hard it is to find any organized support for the basic right of self-defense and the basic duty of defending others on the left side of the political spectrum.

I'm reading a lot of conservative publications, in print and online, these days, largely because the editorial departments of places like National Review Online, the Weekly Standard, and the Wall Street Journal seem to agree with me on this point. I would read more liberal and leftist publications if I didn't find so much institutional counsel that seems to me to amount to "submit and be killed, because we like the cause of the folks trying to kill you or don't think the victims matter". The champions of what I think of as basic justice on the left are individuals, people like Christopher Hitchens and Nat Hentoff, who are as often at loggerheads with their own colleagues as with ideological opponents.

I’m also pretty simpatico with Hitchens these days, although I have a problem with his pathological hatred of Bill Clinton and his lack of regard for Israel.

Bottom line, though, bloggers like Baugh, Layne, Welch, and Johnson represent a new breed of independent-thinking intellectual activists who are beholden to no one way of thinking, who see themselves as basically liberal in outlook but without the profound stupidities of the left, who harbor utopian dreams of a true civil society, but who are willing - even eager (“bring it on asshole”) - to fiercely defend their rights and themselves in a world full of deluded, deranged, dangerous people who are willing to kill others for their ideas and their differences.
posted by Anonymous at 4:57 PM

 
Swarming Non Sequiturs
This interview is a performance art piece commenting pointedly upon the impossibility of interpersonal communication in a postmodern world: the principals don't even talk AT each other, but hurl sentence fragments out into the maw of eternity and comment disjointedly on the phonemes eternity throws back. The only thing mising is Leonard Pinth-Garnell. What can be next for this "monumentally ill-advised" avant garde duo? Samurai Clip-Art?
posted by Anonymous at 2:18 PM

 
"Four Dead In O-hi-o"
Today is May 4, the 32nd anniversary of the shootings at Kent State. My friend Mark Urycki has a superb radio documentary of the day and its aftermath here:

"Remembering Kent State, 1970," Reporter/Producer Mark Urycki's hour-long documentary, was originally aired in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the tragic events at Kent State University that are considered by many as a landmark moment in American social history. On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsman fired on a group of protesters on campus, killing 4 students and wounding 5 others. The documentary has won numerous awards from local, statewide, and national organizations including a national Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, a Clarion Award from the Association for Women in Communications, and Program of the Year from the Ohio Educational Telecommunications Commission.

"Remembering Kent State, 1970" focuses on the sounds of May 4th. Eyewitness accounts combined with historic audio take the listener directly to the scene where students protesting the American invasion of Cambodia were met with live rounds of ammunition that left four dead and nine wounded. Urycki places the historical sounds of the events leading up to the shootings-and those that followed-in chronological order to allow the listener to experience the fear, tension, and tragedy that took place at Kent State and the surrounding communities. The program has no narration. Eyewitnesses tell the story--a story that each sees from his or her own unique perspective.

Urycki's original 30-minute special was produced in connection with the 20th anniversary of the May 4th events. Nearly a year's worth of research and interviews went into the project, which was broadcast in 1990 and again in 1995. The documentary won numerous awards, including a National Headliner Award and the prestigious "National Journalism Award" from the Scripps Howard Foundation. Judges said, "WKSU's dramatic return to the Kent State occurrence brings back its living characters after twenty years. We hear the original sounds of the police radio, the National Guard, and the students. ...Kent State revisited on WKSU-FM allows the perspective of 20 years to enlighten an event that became a national tragedy."

For this expanded version of "Remembering Kent State, 1970" the WKSU newsroom was able to locate and obtain audio recordings that were not available a decade ago when the program was first presented. Hours of decaying reel-to-reel tape, some originally aired on WKSU (then a college station), were edited for the additional moments of sound that help to create a fuller picture of the events as they happened on that day. Some of the new tape hasn't been heard in 30 years and much of it has never been broadcast.

The May4.net site also has a wealth of information on the tragedy.

I am of the opinion that May 4, 1970 was the day Youth Culture completed its ascendancy to dominance in the United States. The process had begun fifteen years earlier in movie theaters across the country as the electrifying downbeat of Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” opened The Blackboard Jungle, a shocking film for its time, and ignited the rock ‘n’ roll explosion.

The ‘60s were years of bitter turmoil as Adult Culture - the “Establishment” - fought tooth and nail to retain its hegemony and keep the whippersnappers under heel. Vietnam exacerbated the conflict and became its lightning rod, causing many adults to side with the young against the war and giving the generational struggle an intense objectivity it otherwise wouldn’t have possessed.

Another factor often forgotten is that by 1970 a teenager rioting in the aisles at a 1955 showing of The Blackboard Jungle was 30 years old and in many cases still determined to never “grow old” or to identify with “them.” With “4 dead in O-hi-o,” and thousands of Americans dead or injured in Vietnam, people of all ages suddenly said, “this conflict isn’t worth the price - we have already fought one civil war, we don’t want another. We don’t want to lose anymore of our children over there, or, most especially, here on our own soil. Why were soldiers firing guns at our children on a COLLEGE CAMPUS? This has gone way too far.”

Adult culture - the “Greatest Generation” who had fought and won WWll - basically threw in the towel that day because it no longer wanted to fight its own children. Watergate seemed to certify the corruption and bankruptcy of the “old guard” and herald the moral superiority of the new. “Trust no one over 30” lost its literal meaning as an entire generation grimly determined to always “think young.” And so many have: like, for example, Bill Clinton. There is no Bill Clinton without May 4, 1970, for good or for ill.
posted by Anonymous at 1:58 PM

 
Francis Fukuyama: Fecund Fount of Foolishness
Francis Fukuyama has taken the kind of beating typically reserved for Russian dogs and the rugs of nomads since he declared libertarianism dead and genetic engineering verboten in a Wall Street Journal editorial yesterday. Fine and wise voices from various bloggy constellations in the libertarian zodiac including Brink Lindsey, Virginia Postrel, Glenn Reynolds, Stephen Green, Eugene Volokh, Josh Chafetz, and Dan Hanson pounced upon Fran Fuk’s words, shredded them like a squad of Edward Scissorhands, and liberally mulched the blogosphere for spring planting. Re this particular FukuFest, my own mulch will not contribute to the already bountiful harvest.

However yesterday’s nonsense was not by any means Fr. Fu’s first trip to the spotlight. With the aid of Godfrey Hodgson in the New Statesman, let’s take a look back at Fukuyama's career heretofore:

The article that made Fukuyama famous was entitled "The End of History", and it was published in the summer of 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall and well before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It argued not overtly in favour of triumphalism, but against pessimism. For decades, people had feared the end of liberal democracy. Now, suddenly, a consensus seemed to be emerging in its favour, "as it conquered rival ideologies like monarchy, fascism and, most recently, communism". So liberal democracy would turn out to be "the end point of mankind's ideological evolution", and so "history" - meaning "history understood as a single coherent evolutionary process" - was over.

"The End of History" was published in The National Interest, the neo-conservative journal founded by Irving Kristol to replace the liberal consensus in American intellectual life with a conservative climate. It developed out of a lecture that Fukuyama was asked to give at the University of Chicago, the home of neoliberal economics, by (among others) Professor Allan Bloom, himself the author of a conservative bestseller, The Closing of the American Mind. The lecture was funded, indirectly, by the ideologically committed, conservative John M Olin Foundation. Fukuyama wrote it while on leave from the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, a research institution closely associated with the US air force, where he had worked almost continuously since earning his doctorate in political science from Harvard. He had also been a member of the State Department's policy planning staff during the first Bush administration. It was therefore a product of the conservative establishment that had, by the 1980s, succeeded in Kristol's dream of displacing liberalism as the prevailing American public philosophy.

Fukuyama went on to expand his article into a book, The End of History and the Last Man, in which triumphalism for the American way was rather oddly linked to Hegelian and Nietzschean ideas. It was a smash hit.

In what is the rather strained style of a reluctant puff piece, Hodgson concludes:

Fukuyama tackles his great subjects from an essentially Candidean standpoint. All is for the best in the best of all possible societies. Yet we should still welcome the universality of his intellectual ambitions. After all, we complain about the pervasive stranglehold of specialisation. We should be delighted when someone comes along who is willing to take on philosophy, history, management studies, sociology and bioethics, and who has cool, clear thoughts to offer on those and other fields - for us to take or leave. He may not be the Last Man, but it would be a pity if he were the last would-be Renaissance man.

If by “Renaissance man” we mean intellectual dilettante who tiptoes through the tulips of serious inquiry like a precocious child expecting to be admired for his every too-clever-by-half utterance, then Fukuyama is surely that. But I love Hodgson’s damning with faint praise via:

“We should be delighted when someone comes along who is willing to take on philosophy, history, management studies, sociology and bioethics, and who has cool, clear thoughts to offer on those and other fields - for us to take or leave.

I vote “leave,” by the way. Hodgson is saying we should be happy ANYONE is willing to make such a fool of himself, and that fool is Francis Fu. Through Hodgson’s forced grimace, his disdain for any actual IDEA Fukuyama has had shines through, as well it should.

Back in December the WaPo ran a
joint profile of Fukuyama and his grand theory rival Samuel “Clash of Civilizations” Huntington, which clearly indicated that Huntington’s view of no “end of history” in sight seemed to be borne out by September 11. Fukuyama would have none of it:

..."If you get these Islamic terrorists who claim to hate Western civilization and they attack New York City, clearly you have a clash of cultures," Fukuyama says. But he quickly adds that the September 11 attack is merely a "rearguard action," and won't stop "this great freight train of globalization."

Since Fukuyama’s views expressed in yesterday’s editorial stem in part from his recent book, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, please allow me to paraphrase some thoughts I had on the subject in these pages about a month ago:

That 9/11 was a “rearguard action” is undoubtedly true, but do the “rearguard actions” ever stop? And if they don’t, can history be said to have ended? What do you do when history - whether alive or suffering post-mortem spasms - kicks you in the jimmies? You change the subject, as Fukuyama has done with his new book, which is the subject of a feature in the NY Times science section today [4/2].
If the human mind and body are shaped by a bunch of genes, as the decoding of the human genome seems to underscore, then biotechnologists will one day be able to change both and perhaps, in seeking to refine the imperfect human clay, will alter human nature.

That prospect should be worrying a lot more people, in the view of the political theorist Francis Fukuyama, because history's central question — that of what kind of society best suits human needs — has been settled only if human nature remains as it is, warts and all.
Talk about Brockian reversal, this new theory seems as dystopian and pessimistic as his “End of History” theory was utopian and optimistic. Does he see “human nature” as immutable? I wonder if our distant cave-dwelling relatives spoke of “Neanderthal nature.” Fukuyama has found a clever caveat to the “End of History” that functions as a link between the books: “The only objection [to EOH] he acknowledges as serious is the argument that history cannot end without an end to science, or at least to science that alters human nature.”

So history should have ended, would have ended, and perhaps will now be allowed to end if we put a stop to all of that silly scientific tinkering. Ah, that’s why half a billion people hate us even more than the communists did, and their more adventuresome representatives tried to blow up our two most important cities, because we didn’t stop science ten years ago.

His case against leaving science up to those rascally scientists is basically this:
Genetic engineering of the human germline — making permanent changes to the genes in the egg or sperm — would pose the most direct threat to human nature but other techniques bear watching, in his view. Mood changing drugs could change society if taken widely enough, and Dr. Fukuyama says he wonders whether Caesar or Napoleon would have felt the need to conquer Europe if either had been able to pop a Prozac tablet occasionally.

Major increases in human longevity could also be disruptive, he fears, because "life extension will wreak havoc with most existing age-graded hierarchies," postponing social change in countries with aging dictators and thwarting innovation in others.
Well, I guess we should all just be happy with the way things are, then. Would mankind have been worse off had Caesar or Napoleon been able to take a pill and lie down? Maybe, maybe not: we’ll never know, but it is pointless to assume change is inherently bad.

This kind of thinking is not only wrong, it is anti-democratic and smacks of the worst kind of top-down collectivism. Individuals will make their own choices whether they want to live longer, and over time, in the main, they will choose to do so, so work will continue in that direction. How, and even why, would you want to stop this?

Yes, we must keep an eye on what is happening to our species in the aggregate; but the species, like a democratic country, is a collection of individuals. The individual is the irreducible unit, not the state, not the species. Even the grand mover of meta-biology, evolution, only moves through individuals. Mother nature doesn’t wave her hand over species and push them in a certain direction: random (or even “designed,” it doesn’t matter) mutations occur in individuals that give them a slight advantage in passing on their genes; these advantages accumulate and the species changes over time. Scientists are just as much individuals as citizens in a democracy, and no more subject to top-down control than evolution.

You can make rules: no cloning of human beings for reproductive purposes, no building new people from old body parts, no creation of untreatable viruses. The rules may even be followed by most scientists in most places; but over time, like in evolution, “advantages,” real or perceived, will accrue. If people want to live longer, science - excuse me - individual scientists will find ways to help them do so.

Even Fukuyama’s best argument is nonsense:
But the most serious threat to the stability of human societies is genetic engineering that may alter, by design or inadvertence, the special balance of contrarieties of human nature.

Human nature, Dr. Fukuyama argues, "is fundamental to our notions of justice, morality and the good life."
So nothing can be changed about humanity, none of the “contraries” can be altered without destroying some grand biological system of “checks and balances”? Why draw the line now? Isn’t this a bit arbitrary? Every cohort fears for future generations: we want them to be like us, but is humankind rid of rabies, or AIDS, or malaria, or fatal birth defects any less human? Every change brings new problems. Look at globalization: pretty darn good overall, and pretty great for those with plenty of capital, but pretty awful for many individuals who are displaced from their livelihoods and lifestyles with no hope of latching on to a new living in their lifetimes. They’re just screwed. Do we stop? No.

There will be similar winners and losers with continued, inevitable-so-get-over-it, scientific advancement: good overall, bad for some individuals. Every new drug finds people who are allergic to it and kills them. No new drugs? Sure, Francis. There is something to his “checks and balances” concept: there is some kind of equilibrium within a species at any given time, BUT THAT EQUILIBRIUM CHANGES all the time, and with every change comes a new equilibrium. It was ever so and will be ever thus.

The Times piece ends with this, perhaps mocking conclusion:
History may have ended, but it seems that special measures are needed to keep it in a state of finality.
History never ends. Science never ends. Now is no more a stopping point than “happily ever after,” and the notion that it is so is no more realistic than a fairy tale.

Those words were true a month ago, they’re true today, and unless the verbal thrashing from the blogosphere and elsewhere jars something loose and causes a break in Fukuyama’s ETERNAL CHAIN OF BAD IDEAS, they will be true tomorrow.
posted by Anonymous at 10:38 PM

 
Digging In Time
This time it wasn't Blogspot's fault. My freaking cable modem has been down since 3:30. Now I'm on a neighbor's dial-up. This is the 6th ring of hell, the cable company will suffer the 7th. The TVs are out too, so it's some kind of total outage. I have large knots in my stomach, but I feel better now doing this. Back to our normal programming....

I find archaeology fascinating: reconstructing the reality of bygone times from physical remnants, remnants that literally burrow through time like worm holes and join our minds with those of our distant ancestors.

The NY Times has an interesting story discussing new computer modeling techniques that are giving a third dimension to a formerly 2-D past, and bursting some cherished bubbles:

Everyone knows that the Roman Colosseum is an architectural marvel. Built so that thousands of people could be ushered in and out in minutes, it is a testament to the genius of Roman engineering. Or is it?

By reconstructing the building with three-dimensional computer modeling and then virtually "walking through" it, researchers have discovered that in some sections the building may have had all the efficiency of a railroad-style apartment on the Bowery. The model reveals dark, narrow upper hallways that probably hemmed in spectators, slowing their movement to a crawl.

Such three-dimensional modeling is turning some of archaeology's once-established truths on their heads. Because 3-D software can take into account the building materials and the laws of physics, it enables scholars to address construction techniques in ways sometimes overlooked when they are working with two-dimensional drawings.

As always, though, there are naysayers, those who feel threatened by new techniques:

Some researchers reject the technique because they are wary of changing the way they work or of ceding control to computer programmers. And some are unconvinced that the technique accomplishes anything beyond creating pretty computer models. "There are a lot of archaeologists who look at this as glorified coloring book stuff," said Dr. Sanders of Learning Sites.

"There are always people hesitant to move from their own set ways of doing things," he said. He offered a historical example.

"It wasn't so long ago that there was a technology coming into popular use," Dr. Sanders said. "The equipment used to create it was very expensive, yet the images you got were something that you could never get without it. Within a generation it became indispensable to archaeology.

"That's exactly how photography got started."

Besides making news, archaeology plays a strong role in helping to define how we view ourselves, and plays a central role in addressing one of the really Big Questions: Is there such thing as progress? Put another way, Does history have a direction? More prosaically, the more we know about past peoples, the more our lives can be informed by their successes and cautioned by their failures.

Several months ago I interviewed some experts on archaeology and culture for an NPR radio series I was involved with at the time, the first of whom was Dan Fuller, popular culture expert and English professor at Kent State University, Tuscarawas campus. I asked him what archaeology means:

Dan Fuller - It seems to me that archaeology is simply genealogy in a more scientific sense. People have always been fascinated about where they came from, and that’s what so much of the stimulus for archaeology has been: find the mask of Tutankhamen and he shows up on the covers of over 100 publications and that fascination with this was then and this is what we came from.

EO - So deep down, archaeology may help serve some of the same needs as genealogy - our need for roots, for belonging to something greater than our fleeting existence. Each of us is a point on a vertical line of descendants through time, but we are also points on a horizontal line representing humanity here and now. Learning of our past also allows us to measure current humanity against those who have come before. How do we measure up? Dan Fuller is an optimist:

DF - It usually takes me about 30 seconds to convince someone that the good old days were not better: if you consider a life span over thirty to be a desirable thing. Of course there are things that we don’t like about our civilization but in fact, most of us really subscribe to an optimistic belief that man can progress. We wouldn’t have the United Nations if in fact we did not believe that civilization can improve.

EO - While English professor Fuller sees humanity’s improvement as inevitable and manifest, Curator of Archaeology and Director of Science for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Brian Redmond, is a bit more cautious and measured.

Brian Redmond - In the general sense, I don’t believe that civilization has an intended arrow - I don’t believe there’s a progressive nature to it. I think that’s just how we perceive it. Talk to any culture at any one time, they probably think this is the best of times and it could never get much better than this. If you look at different aspects of culture, things do improve. There is a tendency toward greater complexity: in civilizations things get more complex, whether it’s religious organization, or political organization, government formation, and of course technology. There is a trend to be more and more complex.

But does that mean things are better? I don’t think necessarily. You don’t have to worry about the wolves coming to your door tonight and carrying your children off, or having enough to eat tomorrow, because we provide for ourselves in that way. But I think that there are other concerns that are there and other stresses that we deal with that never existed before, and in that sense we are probably not better off than people 100 years ago in terms of our lives. And there is still warfare, but the wars are worse and more consequential.

EO - Dr. Redmond, where and when would you like to live if you had a choice?

BR - I probably wouldn’t be happy in any other time if I went back with the knowledge of today’s time because you know what you’re missing, what you don’t have. I would like to go back and visit different time periods: I’d love to go back to the Cuyahoga Valley in 1500 AD and see what was going on. I think, of course, it would be great to see some of the classical civilizations of the Mediterranean world: Greece and Rome, or the Middle East - watch them construct the pyramids and how did they do that. it would be fun to go back to East Africa 3 million years ago and see an early human. Wouldn’t that be neat to go and see what your distant ancestors look like? Maybe you would say, “Hmm, that doesn’t look like me at all.”

EO - Much closer to our own time and place is the Maya civilization of Central America, which thrived between 250 and 900AD. Peter Dunham is an archaeologist at Cleveland State University, specializing in ancient civilizations, and in particular the Maya. Why should we be interested in the Maya?

Peter Dunham - I think we identify with them. They had all the complex features that we do: a remarkable system of mathematics, they invented their own writing system. Remember, we didn’t - we borrowed ours. They had absolutely fantastic astronomical knowledge, terribly accomplished architects. They were very, very talented artists and sculptors.

They managed to build this remarkable civilization in the middle of a tropical rain forest: precisely the environment that most successfully resists our inroads today. There are huge areas of Belize that I work in that are full of ancient ruins and not one modern human being because we haven’t really figured out how to sustain our civilization in that environment, but they did.

EO - The Mayas may have thrived in the rain forest of Central America, but after peaking between 600 and 800 AD, their civilization declined alarmingly. What happened?

PD - Many of us labor under the misassumption that the Maya disappeared - they didn’t. There are still several million Maya people today who take exception to the idea that they disappeared, but they certainly underwent a significant transformation in the century between 800 and 900-or-so AD. And, I think one of the things that draws many of us to the Maya is just that: because if we identify with them as being like ourselves and they experienced this dramatic and traumatic decline, then doesn’t that mean that we too ourselves could face something like that? And the answer to that question is “yes.” The rules of civilization are the same no matter where or when you play the game.

EO - Through the work of archaeologists, including Peter Dunham, we have learned that a multitude of factors piled up on the Maya until their civilization could bear the weight no more, including environmental degradation caused by overfarming and overpopulation, climate change, drought, malnutrition and disease, and the inability of the political, social, and belief systems to deal with these problems.

PD - We have the good fortune that we actually recognize these issues and we have sciences devoted to trying to address them. This happened so quickly to the Maya that I’m not quite sure they recognized what the problems were, let alone figure out how to resolve them.

EO - Since 1992, Dr. Dunham has led an archaeological project in Belize, on the Yucatan Peninsula just below Mexico. What’s it like working there?

PD - Basically, what you have there are canyons in the jungle. You also have sheer towers of stone, so the environment is really a glorious one. It’s also for those very reasons, however, a very challenging one. It’s very hot, very humid. When you get into these canyons there’s no breeze whatsoever, and you have to carry a pack full of your gear, and it gives you a real sense of the terrain. Along one of the rivers, this one river in particular is one of the most beautiful hikes I’ve ever seen anywhere: the water is sort of like liquid turquoise.

EO - Regardless of the surroundings, archaeologists dig - are there any changes forthcoming regarding how archaeologists work? Brian Redmond:

BR - The development of instruments to detect archaeological deposits below the ground without digging, where we can actually go out and survey a site, look for artifact concentrations and identify and map them without doing a lot of digging - which essentially, every time we dig something, it’s destroying it. It’s kind of controlled destruction, but that part of the site is gone when we’re done. Also, it’ll help do some of these large scale surveys in the advance of construction and development, and get a better idea of what’s there, and maybe save more things before they’re destroyed.

EO - Discovery, preservation, understanding: archaeologists are helping us find out who we are through knowledge of who we were.
posted by Anonymous at 7:11 PM

 
Post-Mortem
I'm not going to dwell too much more on the Indians, but the conviction with which they are embracing putridity is possessed of the dark allure of a foggy day at Dead Man's Curve. PD beat writer Paul Hoynes dissected (I was going to say "vivisected" but you have to be alive to be vivisected) the remains thusly:

1. No offense from veteran hitters: In losing 13 of 15 games prior to last night, Jim Thome hit .170 (8-for-47), Travis Fryman .180 (9-for-50), Einar Diaz .222 (8-for-36), Matt Lawton .236 (13-for-55), Ricky Gutierrez .245 (13-for-53), Brady Anderson .263 (5-for-19) and Ellis Burks .265 (13-for-49). Only Omar Vizquel, hitting .280 (14-for-50) has performed as expected.

No one expected this offense to be the same as last year after losing Juan Gonzalez, Kenny Lofton, Marty Cordova and Robbie Alomar, but it had to be efficient to support a young starting rotation. In the last 15 games, the Indians have hit .181 with runners in scoring position. They've transferred the pressure to a rotation not yet ready to handle it.

2. No pop from the cleanup spot: Last year, Gonzalez hit .370 (40-for-108) with 11 doubles, nine homers and 33 RBI through 27 games. He struck out 22 times.

This year, Tribe cleanup hitters are batting .194 (18-for-93) with two doubles, eight homers and 22 RBI. They've struck out 28 times. Thome has hit cleanup 23 times, Burks four.

3. Inability to stop streaking: In winning 11 of their first 12 games, the Indians hit .272 as a team, scored 79 runs and hit 19 homers. The rotation went 10-0 with a 2.59 ERA (20 earned runs in 67?innings) with 52 walks and 84 strikeouts.

In losing 13 of their next 15, the Indians hit .224, scored 39 runs and hit 14 homers. The rotation went 2-13 with a 7.89 ERA (71 earned runs in 81 innings) with 53 walks and 88 strikeouts.

4. Sloppy play: Last year the Indians were 18-9 after 27 games. They made just 15 errors.

This year they've made 24 errors, including 16 in the 15-game slump. Lawton has made three errors in right field, while Gutierrez has made four at second base. Last year Alomar made one error at second and Gonzalez none in right field.

In addition, the opposition has taken advantage of a free pass to steal. Diaz has already made five throwing errors. He made eight in 134 games last year.

The opposition has been successful in 69 percent (27-for-39) of their steal attempts. Last year, the opposition was successful on 53 percent (10-for-19).

5. Double your trouble: The Indians have grounded into 33 double plays, including eight in a two-game stretch against Chicago. Gutierrez, impatient and trying to adjust to a new league, has hit into eight after grounding into 13 all last season with the Cubs.

The Indians had hit into 20 double plays at this time last year.

6. A lack of lightning in a bottle: A year ago, Cordova made the Indians look smart. He hit his way onto the team in spring training and was batting .426 (26-for-61) with six homers and 22 RBI through the first 27 games of the season. He did that mostly from the seventh spot, solidifying the bottom of the lineup.

The Tribe's seven-hole hitters this year are batting a combined .219 (21-for-96) with two homers and eight RBI. Seven players have appeared in that lineup position.

7. Rocky road: Last year the Indians didn't mind scoring runs the easy way. Through 27 games, they had 11 sacrifice flies and eight sacrifice bunts. Gonzalez had four sacrifice flies. Alomar had four of the bunts.

Burks and Thome, the third and fourth hitters this year, have two sacrifice flies between them. The Indians have seven overall and three bunts. Gutierrez, who had 17 bunts last year when he hit second, has one.

8. All or nothing: If the Indians don't hit a home run, they have trouble scoring. The offense has had 47 percent of its runs (55-for-118) produced by the long ball. Supposedly this offense was designed to hit line drives, living off doubles in the gap and aggressive baserunning.

Last year the Indians scored 167 runs, 49 more than this year, while hitting two fewer homers.

9. Too much, too soon?: After the 11-1 start, young starters C.C. Sabathia, Ryan Drese and Danys Baez were a combined 1-8 in the next 15 games. This is Sabathia's second year starting, but Drese and Baez are in the rotation for the first time.

10. Role reversal: Former Indians scout Dom Chiti looked at the White Sox lineup recently and said: "It reminds me a lot of our lineups from 1995 through 2001." Chiti, like most of the Tribe's offense, left after last year. But the only thing Chicago did was get better with the return of a healthy Frank Thomas and the signing of the re-energized Lofton.

They proved it by beating the Indians six of seven times over the last 15 games. It was an impression the Indians aren't likely to forget.

With those kind of numbers it doesn't take Dana Scully to figure out the cause of death.
posted by Anonymous at 3:21 PM

 
Radio Duties Done- Return to Blogology
posted by Anonymous at 3:02 PM

 
Some Things We Already Knew
The headlines blare with indignation: "Arafat Linked to Attacks." Dawn Olsen's logical parallel: "Bear Defecates In Wooded Area."
posted by Anonymous at 10:10 AM

 
Bloggers For Bill
Jason Rubenstein of the very fine new Tonecluster blog, is a fan of both "Bill" and "W.T." Quick. We all should be. Thanks Jason.

Tell me about it! Imagine my surprise, when I clicked on an innocent little link called "Dailypundit," read a few lines, and thought .."hmmm...kind of, well, Ellisonian, in a Larry Elder sort of way."

And then I got a good case of the chills. A frisson of recognition..a slight pause, another slight pause, and finally a 75 watt lightbulb suspended precipitously, but not quite, over my head. "Oh. THAT William Quick."

I didn't know of his pseudonymous work, but I knew of his non-pseudonymous work (whats the word for that? Not Eponymous, which'd mean all of his works were titled "WT Quick". Maybe Quickonymous?? Nevermind.).

The guy is really good, and one of my daily reads.

Anyway,
I have added you to my links, by the way, not only being like-minded in politics (and I enjoy your posts) but also are in the music scam, and I find non-leftist musician types difficult to find.
best,
-Jason

posted by Anonymous at 9:18 AM

 
Tawny and Rocky
Reader Kevin reminds us the Curse goes back to Rocky Colavito.
posted by Anonymous at 9:08 AM

 
Of Losers
Reader Marc finds a somewhat comforting parallel to my Indians' schizo start this year, but he doesn't buy my argument that the Arabs see Israel as an extention of American "Christian" power in the Middle East.

Eric,
A couple of completely unrelated observations based on blog entries: First, your lament about the Indians' about-face this year does have a striking parallel in the 1987 Milwaukee Brewers, who began the year 13-0, to tie a ML record, then later LOST 12 in a row in May. They finished up half-decent - third place in the old AL East.

Second, and more importantly, I found your discussion of European/Arabic anti-Semitism fascinating. I remember Bill Quick's original description of the Arab world as an "honor-shame society," and thought it may have some utility in explaining/rationalizing the batshit-lunacy of that society.

However, I'm not convinced entirely by the argument that Israel is seen as the nearest representative of the tremendously successful Christian empire. I came across an argument recently (I can't remember where) that Arabs used to see the Jews as a useful, non-threatening minority. Their transition from servant to regional power so enraged the muslim world that Arabs frantically searched for explanations why their power/their God had allowed this to happen. Anti-Semitism provided a menu of nefarious plots, trickery and barbarity that allowed the Arab world to save face (honor). Obviously we'll never know, but I have a feeling that if Israel was founded as a Christian nation, it would arouse less vitriol in the Arab world. It would spark controversy, and probably a short war or two, but nothing like the fountain of hate and lunacy we see today. They could tolerate, though not appreciate, losing to the other great power. Losing to a servile, dispersed, weak people (like they assumed the Jews were) is just too much to bear.
Marc

posted by Anonymous at 8:58 AM

 
The U.N and Justice: Oxymoron
With even Egypt giving up on the notion of a "massacre" at Jenin, Yossi Halevi believes the U.N. should turn its warped attentions to more germane lies, cover-ups and perfidies:

The commission thus won't be investigating the real tragedy: how the United Nations squandered the dream of a united humanity animated by justice -- a dream first offered by the prophets of ancient Israel -- and instead joined the unholy coalition of Islamic fundamentalists, far-left moralizers and far-right neofascists in again targeting the Jewish people.

posted by Anonymous at 8:50 AM

 
Another Voice For Separation
This from Steve Chapman at the Chicago Tribune:

Advocates of separation say it's time to quit talking about a solution and simply create one. Analyst Dan Schueftan of the University of Haifa's National Security Studies Center argues that there is little chance Israel can reach a compromise agreement with the Palestinians. So the sensible step, he says, is what sounds like an oxymoron: "unilateral compromise." Give up most of the settlements and territory and establish borders that can be closed off.

Critics say this plan has lots of flaws: It would cost a lot of money, it would deprive Israel of control over Palestinian areas, and it wouldn't prevent attacks by mortars or rockets.

But the current war of attrition is expensive in lives as well as shekels. Israel has minimal control over areas governed by the Palestinian Authority anyway. And it's easier to stop rocket attacks than suicide bombers who move across an open border. As Barak notes, "We have a fence around Gaza, and there are basically no suicide attacks from Gaza."

Arafat has denounced Sharon's approach, which preserves the existing Israeli presence. But Palestinians might be far more amenable to the Labor Party version, which would abandon most settlements and furnish the basis for a viable Palestinian state.

This wouldn't resolve hard issues like Jerusalem and the rights of refugees, which would be left for later, but it might well take the steam out of the current intifada. Why? Partly because most of the points of friction between the two peoples would be gone. Partly because Palestinians would finally have something valuable--something to lose.

Unilateral separation, true, is inferior to a final settlement that has the unequivocal support of both parties--which is like saying it's inferior to life in the Garden of Eden. Neither option is available. Peace now would be nice. But Israelis are coming to see the wisdom of a different approach, captured in a new slogan: Separation now. Peace later.

posted by Anonymous at 8:35 AM

 
Tour O the Blogs - DailyPundit/William Quick
Blogger 1: “Bill Quick is a writer.”

Blogger 2: “Obviously, we’re all writers.”

Blogger 1: “No, I mean he’s a writer writer.”

Blogger 2: “You mean he’s written some articles and stuff?”

Blogger 1: “No, Fukuyama-face, he’s a real writer writer writer: he’s written T-W-E-N-T-Y E-I-G-H-T novels including the seminal cyberpunk cult hit Dreams of Flesh and Sand (in which he invented “The Matrix”), the best-selling prehistoric thriller The Last Mammoth, a series of six novels entitled Quest For Tomorrow co-authored by THE William Shatner, dozens of shorter works of fiction dating back to 1979, and several screenplays for film and television. He writes for a living and gets paid and stuff!

He’s such a real writer that doesn’t always use his real name: he’s been ‘W.T. Quick,’ ‘Margaret Allan,’ ‘Quentin Thomas,’ ‘Sean Kiernan’ and ‘the guy who wrote the Quest For Tomorrow series for William Shatner, but don’t tell anyone.’”

Blogger 2: “I had no freaking idea - no wonder he does such a great job on the blog.”

Nor did I, and he sure does. I had known Bill Quick heretofore only as "DailyPundit: Rationales for an Irrational World,” among the liveliest, most closely-reasoned, prolific, readable, audacious, funny, and compelling blogs in existence.

As befits a man who has slung words together expertly for over 20 years, Quick is also a word smith: he invented the ascendant "blogosphere" on the auspicious day of January 1, 2002 - a new word for a new year:

I PROPOSE A NAME for the intellectual cyberspace we bloggers occupy: the “blogosphere.” Simple enough; the root word is “logos,” from the Greek meaning, variously: In pre-Socratic philosophy, the principle governing the cosmos, the source of this principle, or human reasoning about the cosmos; Among the Sophists, the topics of rational argument or the arguments themselves.

Rational, creative, forceful: very Bill.

For sheer output and consistency, Quick is rivaled only by the demigod Glenn Reynolds, with whom he shares a similarly independent political outlook, though Quick’s style has a noticeably sharper bite. He suffers fools not.

This fact comes through plainly in his Statement of Biases (the fact that he even has a Statement of Biases indicates a bracing impatience with crap):

Let me admit it up front: I'm biased.

I'm pretty much small-l libertarian, as much in the "leave me the fuck alone" party as anything. I'm a rabid civil liberties absolutist. I believe that all the amendments in the Bill of Rights either limit the power of government, or affirm individual rights of the people. I believe the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right of the individual in almost all cases to bear arms, and that at least ninety-five percent of gun control laws are unconstitutional.

I want the government out of my pocket, bedroom, and mind. I believe that liberal solutions, especially when they involve massive government power and authority, have done far more harm than good. I prefer a smaller, less expensive, less intrusive government, although not one limited only to the classic libertarian notion of "defense and doing justice."

I believe a large part of the major media - that media which charts the course for most of the rest - is either consciously or unconsciously biased toward the left, and consciously or unconsciously express their bias in their reporting, not to mention their opinions.

I don't much like big concentrations of power, though if I have to choose, I'll take corporate monopolists over government monopolists. The government monopoly guys have guns and, on occasion, the will to use them.

I think most things can be approached, apprehended, understood, and dealt with rationally. I don't believe life is too complicated for anybody but experts or government agencies to understand.

I am an atheist, but I don't begrudge anybody their right to practice any religion they wish, as long as their religious practices in no way infringe on my freedom to act as if they - and their religions - don't exist.

I believe in the right to own property, the right to self defense, and freedom that stops where your nose begins - and mine, too.

I believe in the possibility of self-education, self-improvement, and self-esteem gained through practicing both of them, as well as hard work.

I believe the human spirit is much more good than evil.

I view the world from these perspectives, and write my analyses of the world from them as well. Now you know where DailyPundit's coming from. Where are you coming from?

Damn - that’s a man who knows his mind, has a firm but flexible template through which to process life and the affairs of this world, and the restive energy to propel him through the nonsense that same world kicks up.

Now let’s take a look at Quick’s output: prolific, even prodigious; but never frenetic, never thin. If he posts it, there’s a reason. As of 8:30pm (Eastern), Quick, who lives in “a rambling Victorian flat” on Russian Hill in San Francisco, had made 24 posts this Thursday - that is vast - that is InstaPundit range. (I think we know where we are gong to turn if/when Glenn goes on vacation.) A few are brief links, but most have pithy comments and keen observations.

A few examples:

IDF Shows Tape Showing Fake Palestinian Funeral

The IDF released a videotape Thursday showing the apparently staged funeral of a Palestinian in the Jenin refugee camp. The footage was filmed by an IDF unmanned reconnaissance plane on April 28.

Think of all the superb Palestinian acting - not to mention the superb Palestinian lying - now going to waste since the UN decided to cancel their fault fact-finding mission.

He is staunchly pro-Israel.

The Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram, like all Egyptian media firmly under the control of the Egyptian government, prints something rather unlikely (for them):

The quiet consensus emerging from the dozens of human rights lawyers and military experts who have visited Jenin camp over the last two weeks is that there appears little substance to the Palestinian claim that a massacre occurred.

If, as some have suggested, part of the agreement reached between the US and Saudi Arabia at the recent summit in Texas was for the Saudis to pressure Arafat and the Arab states into a more peaceful line, it looks as if the Saudis may be doing their part. The usual approach for the Arab media to take is to accept any Palestinian charge, no matter how outrageous, at face value, and then amplify it throughout the Arabian world. However, that doesn't seem to be the case here. In Egypt's case, though, it is a fair speculation to wonder exactly who is applying the pressure: Saudi Arabia, or the United States itself?

Quick is also fair-minded. If Al-Ahram does something surprisingly honest, he notes it with a thoughtful analysis. He doesn’t conveniently ignore a story because it may contradict personal dogma as many others might do (subconsciously or otherwise); his personal dogma is the truth.

Calif. Senate OK’s Emissions Bill Targeting SUVs

California's state Senate Thursday approved a controversial bill to limit greenhouse gas emissions, a measure automakers say is aimed at choking off sales of sport utility vehicles through tighter fuel economy standards.

Gov. Gray Davis has not taken a position on the bill, which is strongly opposed by the auto industry. Officials in his office said the Democratic governor was working with the bill's author, Democratic Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, seeking "to make it more palatable to all parties concerned."

The only palatable version of this piece of nanny-state idiocy is one that goes away entirely. However, I can live with a bill like this as long as it has Davis's public paw-prints all over it. Let him step out front as favoring the elimination of the preferred mode of transportation for huge swathes of his suburban supporters.

The libertarian speaks: don’t tread on me, let me make my own decisions.

Bush Spokesman Chides Arafat For Remarks

The White House chided Yasser Arafat Thursday for condemning Israel as "terrorists, Nazis and racists," and said it would be better for all sides to focus on peace issues.

Oh, ho, ho, ho. You're the morons who forced Israel to let this poisonous little murderer out of his box. You rewarded him for doing everything but "focusing on peace issues." What are you complaining about now? He's only continuing to do exactly what he did before to win victory.

But Bill, tell us how you really feel. And on he goes, ranging with verve and insight over state, national, and international politics and culture displaying easy familiarity with a bewildering panoply of topics, all worthwhile, all worth pursuing. But sometimes he’s just astonishing.

I was peacefully cruising through his site last Saturday when I stubbed my toe on this:

Arab League Chief Warns U.S. to Fix Mideast Policy

Speaking to reporters in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, Moussa said Arabs were feeling "humiliated, depressed and helpless" by the United States' policy in the Middle East but would not stand by and watch Washington let Israel stay "above international law."

Islamic Arabia is an honor-shame culture. In such cultures, the primary concern is what others believe about you. If others believe you are inferior, then you are humiliated and shamed, and you will hate not only those who perceive you in such a shameful way, but also the source of that perception. This is the primary reason why the Israeli-Arab "problem" is insoluble at this point. Israel, by its very existence, is a humiliation to its neighbors, who, in all their hundreds of millions, lack the power to conquer a tiny state with seven million citizens. Worse, the quality of Israeli existence is a humiliation: Surrounded, constantly threatened with attack, vilified, dependent ultimately on the goodwill of the United States for survival, and yet Israel, at least in comparison to any other country in the Arab world, thrives. Its people live in freedom. It is incredibly productive. It is the only nation in the middle east to make the desert flower wholesale. Everything it accomplishes, every new height to which it rises, is a living rebuke to Arabia, which has done none of these things.

To a shame culture, Israel's mere existence is absolutely intolerable. The Palestinians are a side issue. The Arabs don't care about Palestine, and they never have. They have slaughtered far more Palestinians than Israel has in all its history. What the Palestinians are is the handiest club with which the Arab world can attack Israel. If there were no Palestinians at all, there would still be Arab hate for Israel, and Arab lust after her destruction. This would be true even if there were no Jews in Israel either.

And there is no obvious peaceful solution. One approach might be to raise the Arab world to Israel's levels of success. But the sort of requirements necessary for such a plan to succeed - mass education, liberalization, a more secular, meritocratic society - threaten both the religion and the regimes of the region. Not to mention that the impetus for such a rise would come from the outside, from the lands of the hated "Great Satans," and hence would be tainted on its face.

Turkey is often touted as being an example of a "successful" Islamic nation. Well, yes, compared to the rest of the Islamic world, it is successful. But it would be considered third world by most of the west, and its regimes is, by necessity, a dictatorship, always on guard against a resurgence of Islamofascist fundamentalism. Turkey is always one successful revolution away from becoming another Iran, and that revolution is always bubbling just beneath the surface. So Turkey is no solution, either, because its secular government is, all by itself, a humiliation to Islam.

And Israel itself is not the ultimate problem, because the existence of the west itself is an intolerably shameful fact of life to Islam. The mere presence of the United States is an unbearable humiliation to a honor-shame culture that perceives any more successful group as a rebuke not only to its person, but its religion and even its God. God promised Islam that all other nations and faiths would submit to it; the continued existence of any non-submissive states or religions is not just a humiliation, it is a humiliation in the eyes of God - and it cannot be borne.

If Israel were to vanish tomorrow, the next day the shamed, humiliated rage of Islam would focus on the United States. For the west to live in peace, the entire culture must be changed, and I suspect that this is not possible without first defeating it so thoroughly that even its religion is discredited. Shame cultures make war on anybody more successful than they. They cannot help it. They cannot be reasoned with, only defeated. That's why almost every festering "struggle" around the world partakes of this equation: SomeNation<-->Islamic Foe.

Honor-shame cultures are culturally incapable of renouncing war unless one of two things happens: Either every other state or culture submits to them ("Islam" means "submission"), or they are defeated so decisively the culture itself is destroyed.

Imperial Japan was an honor-shame culture - and history records how that turned out.

Now this is just jaw dropping insight, writing, logic, research and would do any publication on the world proud, but it was just another post on DailyPundit. I have based at least three posts on this revelatory piece since Saturday, including this, this, and this. That has to be a record, but we’re talking about a classic.

Quick’s medium fits his message: his site is clean, bright, logical. He has a nice comments section, and the “Me, Myself and I” link takes you to his bio, handsome scans of his book covers, and relevant info on his many publications. Also this revealing tidbit:

Since 1996, W. T. Quick has been listed in Who’s Who In America. Since W. T. Quick was too stupid to earn any sort of higher educational degree, this, his only tangible recognition of any achievement, was one of his lifelong ambitions. So while he feels somewhat embarrassed about mentioning it, he will anyway.

And well he should: Bill Quick is a self-made man in the very best sense.

Lest I forget, Bill Quick has not only written 28 novels, but he is the co-author of How to Get Your E-Book Published(with Richard Curtis)

If you're interested in e-publishing, this is the book that tells you how to go about it: everything from html to web sites to e-publishers and marketing, all discussed in simple, non-technical language. Find out how easily you can become a part of what many have said is the most revolutionary advance in publishing since Gutenberg. A Writer's Digest Book Club Main Selection!

And if Bill says it, I believe it.
posted by Anonymous at 9:51 PM

 
Faster Than a Speeding Matsoh
Where does this woman find these amazing stories? It's almost like she makes them up. I thought Ariel Sharon was SuperJew!
posted by Anonymous at 6:34 PM

 
Perspective? What Perspective?
Okay, so I’m a whiner and a fair weather fan. Fellow-Clevelander (I knew there had to be someone out there) Chas Rich of the splendid Sardonic Views puts things in a little better perspective for me, even though he is both a Yankee and a Phillies fan (how’s that for yin and yang?):

Why am I waxing nostalgic? This column by Rob Neyer about the history of the Phillies. The Phillies have been one of the worst franchises in the history of baseball. Arguably in all of sports [Clippers?].

I moved to Cleveland in 1994 to start law school. This was the start of Cleveland's great run of winning seasons. As long as I've lived in Ohio, Cleveland has had a winning record. The team has been struggling for the last few years to keep winning, by plugging in veterans and trading young players. This year it is coming to an end, the ownership has recognized this, and is trying to rebuild while keeping a decent team on the field, but the fans are losing it [this was the link to me - I'm guilty]. The team got off to an improbable 11-1 start, then went 2-13, including a humiliating 21-2 loss. Admittedly, this will be hard for any fan to take. The team will probably finish around .500, +/- 5 games before the season ends. Still, read the Neyer article and remember how much worse it could be.

Okay, so I’ve got used to the Indians not sucking. I’m spoiled, so shoot me. I’m still willing to use voodoo because winning has become my right. Certainly a Yankees fan can understand that.
posted by Anonymous at 6:23 PM

 
In My Day, Panty Raids Were Conducted By Students
While we’re in the mood: what is closest to toilet paper? Underwear, of course:

A California high school vice principal was placed on leave Wednesday while officials investigate claims that she lifted the skirts of teenage girls at a dance to make sure they were wearing "appropriate" underwear, the school said.

Parents at Rancho Bernardo High School in suburban San Diego say the vice principal, Rita Wilson [not Tom Hanks's wife], made the girls prove that they were not wearing skimpy thong panties before they were allowed into the dance on Friday.

posted by Anonymous at 3:11 PM

 
Waste Not Want Not
I am quite pleased to announce that there is a new history-of-toilets exhibit that just rolled into the Neville Museum in Green Bay, Wisc last week with the inevitable title of “Privy to the Past.”

I am flush with excitement, but toilets are only half the story. There is perhaps nothing I dislike more than addressing a subject in a half-assed manner, therefore we will also add:

Great Moments in Toilet Paper History
500 B.C.-A.D. 500: Roman So-Called Civilization— All public toilets feature a stick with a sponge attached to its end, soaking in a bucket of brine. Citizens use the tool to freshen up.
1391: The King's Pleasure— Chinese emperors begin ordering toilet paper in sheets measuring 2 feet by 3 feet.
1596: A Royal Flush— Sir John Harington, a godson of Queen Elizabeth I, invents the first flushing toilet (a distinction often attributed to plumber Thomas Crapper).
1700s: Damn Niblets!— Colonial Americans wipe with corncobs, later switching to old newspapers, catalogues and almanacs.
1857: Every Sheet Bears My Name— New York entrepreneur Joseph C. Gayetty manufactures the first packaged pre-moistened sheets of bathroom tissue — called "therapeutic paper" — in packs of 500 for 50 cents. Gayetty is so proud of his innovation that he had his name imprinted on each sheet.
1861-1904: The Gifts of Thomas Crapper— British plumber Thomas Crapper revolutionizes the toilet with a series of plumbing-related patents.
1872: Kimberly Meets Clark— Charles Benjamin Clark, a 28-year-old Civil War veteran, recruits John A. Kimberly to join him in building a paper mill in Wisconsin.
1890: On a Roll— Scott Paper introduces toilet paper on a roll. But the paper goods company is somewhat embarrassed to be associated with such an "unmentionable" thing and refuses to put its name on the product. Instead, the toilet paper bears the name of intermediaries. As a result, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Waldorf Hotel in New York becomes a leader in the toilet paper business.
1902: Enter the Green Bay Giant— Northern Paper Mills, the company that later became Quilted Northern, opens, producing Northern Tissue.
1916: Gas Masks Become Sanitary Napkins— Kimberly-Clark begins concentrating on a special wadding paper. With World War I brewing in Europe, this product, Cellucotton, was adapted for use as a filter in gas masks and bandages. Nurses began using it as sanitary pads. Cellucotton was renamed "Cellu-Naps," and then "Kotex."
1920: The Tissue and the Pop-Up Box— Kimberly-Clark introduces the Kleenex tissue. Nine years later, this product is marketed in the patented Pop-Up box.
1928: From Charming to Charmin— Hoberg paper introduces Charmin. The logo — a woman's head from a cameo pin — was designed to appeal to feminine fashions of the day. A female employee called the packaging "charming," and the product's brand name was born.
1932: Wiping Away Depression— Charmin tries to mitigate the pain of the Great Depression by introducing the economy-sized four-roll pack.
1935: Who's Got the Tweezers?— Northern Tissue is hailed as one of the few splinter-free toilet papers on the market.
1942: A Softer World— St. Andrew's Paper Mill in England introduces two-ply toilet paper.
1944: Patriotic Toilet Paper Duty— The United States honors Kimberly-Clark with an "E" Award (for excellence in commercial services) for its heroic effort supplying soldiers fighting in World War II.
1964: Enter Mr. Whipple— He appears for more than 20 years in TV, radio and print advertising. The real George Whipple was the president of the Benton & Bowles advertising agency, which came up with the "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin" ad campaign. He sold the rights to his name to Procter & Gamble for $1. Dick Wilson, the vaudeville veteran who portrayed Mr. Whipple on TV, later recalled his agent calling him about the project. "My agent asked me, 'What do you think of toilet paper?' And I told him, 'I think everybody should use it.'" For his role in making Charmin the No. 1 toilet paper in America, Wilson's salary grew to $300,000 a year, and Procter & Gamble promised him a "lifetime supply" of toilet paper.
1973: The Johnny Carson Toilet Paper Scare— Johnny Carson makes a joke about the United States facing an acute shortage of toilet paper. This prompts viewers to run out to stores and begin hoarding. Carson apologizes the next day for causing the scare and retracts his remark.
1991: Covert TP— The U.S. military uses toilet paper to camouflage its tanks in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War.
1995: The Great Toilet Paper Caper— A Philadelphia city employee is charged with stealing $34,000 worth of toilet paper from Veterans Stadium just before an Eagles football game. The accused, Ricardo Jefferson, was fired. City spokesman Tony Radwanski said: "We don't really know how long this was going on. We only looked at a 10-month period from October 1994 to August 1995, but man, he really wiped that stadium clean."
1999: Paperless Toilet — Japanese inventors unveil the paperless toilet. The device washes, rinses and blow-dries the user's bottom with a heating element.
2000: Men Are From Folders, Women Are From Wadders— A Kimberly-Clark marketing survey on bathroom habits finds that women are "wadders" and men are "folders." Women also tend to use much more toilet paper than men.

posted by Anonymous at 2:54 PM

 
Dream Police?
I am the father of three children of whom I am fiercely protective. My policy toward pedophilia or child abuse of any kind is zero-tolerance, period: not just one strike and you’re out, but if the pitch is anywhere near the plate, you are out. In this regard I am the kind of umpire I wish I’d had when I was pitching.

But with that in mind, I am 1000% in agreement with both Bill Quick and Gary Farber that the new bill seeking to ban computer-simulated child pornography is absurd.

This paragraph from a NY Times story on the matter pretty well sums it up:

The court has previously held that laws creating stricter legal categories for child pornography were constitutional, on the grounds that such material was "intrinsically related" to sexual abuse of children. But "virtual pornography," by comparison, "records no crime and creates no victims by its production," the court declared on April 16.

Anti-child pornography laws are there to do one thing: protect children. No children=no crime. You don’t have to be libertarian to see this. As Gary Farber mocks:

It's shocking. Damn these courts! They want you to prove that someone was harmed, in order to prove that something is a crime. This is outrageous! Really, isn't it enough for prosecutors to be able to point a finger and declare guilt? Shouldn't thinking things we find disgusting be a crime?

Not if general disgust is the only harm done. If that were the case then Cincinnati would have to outlaw Robert Mapplethorpe photos. Oh wait, they tried to do that.

As Bill says:

prosecuting people for making or possessing child pornography created by methods in which no children are involved is really prosecuting a thought crime.

And until the children, beavers, armadillos, women, men, or whomever can get out of your dreams and into your car, it’s none of the government’s business.
posted by Anonymous at 2:04 PM

 
Deceptive Hatred: They Don't Want You Dead Just Because You Are Jewish, Which Doesn't Mean They Don't Want You Dead
George Will, who looks like a morose Howdy Doody (I believe he even has the strings), joins the clarion call against anti-Semitism today:

It is time to face a sickening fact that is much more obvious today than it was 11 years ago, when Ruth R. Wisse asserted it. In a dark and brilliant essay in Commentary magazine, she argued that anti-Semitism has proved to be "the most durable and successful" ideology of the ideology-besotted 20th century. Successful? Did not Hitler, the foremost avatar of anti-Semitism, fail? No, he did not. Yes, his 1,000-year Reich fell 988 years short. But its primary work was mostly done. Hitler's primary objective, as he made clear in words and deeds, was the destruction of European Jewry.

Will is as gloomy as Ron Rosenbaum in his assessment of the situation:

Today many people say that the Arabs and their European echoes would be mollified if Israel would change its behavior. People who say that do not understand the centrality of anti-Semitism in the current crisis. This crisis has become the second -- and final? -- phase of the struggle for a "final solution to the Jewish question." As Wisse said 11 years ago, and as cannot be said too often, anti-Semitism is not directed against the behavior of the Jews but against the existence of the Jews.

If the percentage of the world's population that was Jewish in the era of the Roman Empire were Jewish today, there would be 200 million Jews. There are 13 million. Five million are clustered in an embattled salient on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, facing hundreds of millions of enemies. Ron Rosenbaum writes, "The concentration of so many Jews in one place -- and I use the word 'concentration' advisedly -- gives the world a chance to kill the Jews en masse again."

Israel holds just one one-thousandth of the world's population, but holds all the hopes for the continuation of the Jewish experience as a portion of the human narrative. Will Israel be more durable than anti-Semitism? Few things have been.

Back to the Moussaoui story from last night: if this frog-brained Islamist freak and his numerous like-minded amphibious brethren do not differentiate between the Jews and the people of the U.S. of A., rather than their core hatred being some twisted and expanded version of anti-Semitism, isn’t there yet a deeper strata of hatred where the Jews and the Americans really are united, and not just by the fact that the vast majority of Americans don’t want to see the Jews destroyed as Brookhiser asserted? Quoth Will:

Anti-Semitism's malignant strength derives from its simplicity -- its stupidity, actually. It is a primitivism which, Wisse wrote, makes up in vigor what it lacks in philosophic heft, and does so precisely because it "has no prescription for the improvement of society beyond the elimination of part of society." This howl of negation has no more affirmative content than did the scream of the airliner tearing down the Hudson, heading for the World Trade Center.

There is plenty of anti-Semitism in Europe, but I don’t get the sense that the Europeans are actually going to try to eliminate the Jews - again. Whatever the psychology of Europeans hating Israel because they hate America because they hate themselves, as per Jonah Goldberg, I don’t think the Europeans hate America enough to want us eliminated either.

But the Islamists and a large chunk of the more fundamentalist Muslims do want both us and the Jews gone - and is in dead. I don’t believe they want us gone because they literally equate us with the Jews - I believe they are aware we are a predominantly Christian country - so I think it comes back to Bill Quick’s honor-shame society thesis:

Israel, by its very existence, is a humiliation to its neighbors, who, in all their hundreds of millions, lack the power to conquer a tiny state with seven million citizens. Worse, the quality of Israeli existence is a humiliation: Surrounded, constantly threatened with attack, vilified, dependent ultimately on the goodwill of the United States for survival, and yet Israel, at least in comparison to any other country in the Arab world, thrives. Its people live in freedom. It is incredibly productive. It is the only nation in the middle east to make the desert flower wholesale. Everything it accomplishes, every new height to which it rises, is a living rebuke to Arabia, which has done none of these things.

To a shame culture, Israel's mere existence is absolutely intolerable. The Palestinians are a side issue. The Arabs don't care about Palestine, and they never have. They have slaughtered far more Palestinians than Israel has in all its history. What the Palestinians are is the handiest club with which the Arab world can attack Israel. If there were no Palestinians at all, there would still be Arab hate for Israel, and Arab lust after her destruction. This would be true even if there were no Jews in Israel either.

This last is a key thought: it isn’t the fact that Israelis are Jews that makes them so intolerable, it is the fact that they are such a successful society on every material, political, and social level - just like the U.S. - that makes them so hateful for the more radical Islamics.

To reiterate, there is rife anti-Semitism in Europe, but other than on the farthest fringes, it isn’t of the murderous kind; there is murderous anti-Semitism in the Arab Islamic world, but it isn’t fundamentally anti-Semitism, it is anti-Everyone Who Makes Us Look Like Fuckwads, as exemplified by Israel (do to its proximity to the fuckwads), the Little Satan, and the U.S., Israel’s guarantor, the Great Satan. This is the reason those titles aren’t reversed: if the feeling was really anti-Semitism at its murderous core, those titles would be reversed regardless of Israel’s physical size.

This view is borne out by history as well: when they were confident rulers a thousand years ago, the Muslims were unusually tolerant of other religions and cultures and had no particular animosity toward the Jews. In fact, it was the Christians the ruling Muslims were most concerned about. Per the august Bernard Lewis:

Like every other civilization known to human history, the Muslim world in its heyday saw itself as the center of truth and enlightenment, surrounded by infidel barbarians whom it would in due course enlighten and civilize. But between the different groups of barbarians there was a crucial difference. The barbarians to the east and the south were polytheists and idolaters, offering no serious threat and no competition at all to Islam. In the north and west, in contrast, Muslims from an early date recognized a genuine rival -- a competing world religion, a distinctive civilization inspired by that religion, and an empire that, though much smaller than theirs, was no less ambitious in its claims and aspirations. This was the entity known to itself and others as Christendom, a term that was long almost identical with Europe.

America is now the seat of “Christian” power, and Israel, ironically a predominantly Jewish country, is seen as the representative of “Christian” power in the Middle East.

For the Islamists, then, it isn’t that the U.S. is seen as a “Jewish” country, it is that Israel is seen as a “Christian” country in the cultural sense: for them, Israel is now more culturally “Christian” than is Europe, which is just kind of there. What the Islamist murderers seek to kill is the gap in cultural success that has been growing ever-wider for the last 700 years, and the shame that goes with it. The Islamists and their sympathizers would hate the U.S. and Israel no less if the two countries were filled with devout Wikkans as long as the countries represented the dominant “Christian” culture that mocks them with its success. The real anti-Semites, as found particularly in Europe, are of little concern beyond the offense caused by the stupidity, vacuity, and aridity of their ideas.
posted by Anonymous at 12:48 PM

 
Curse of the Merkins
Careful readers will have noted that I haven’t mentioned the Indians much of late. Like a rat in a cage, I tend to avoid stimuli that causes me intense discomfort - for example, a cattle prod to the scrotum - but I can keep my silence no more.

HAS ANY TEAM, IN ANY SPORT, AT ANY LEVEL, ON THIS OR ANY OTHER INHABITED PLANET EVER BEGUN A SEASON 11-1, THEN WOKE UP ONE MORNING BARELY TWO WEEKS LATER TO FIND THEMSELVES 13-14????? I’m not kidding, I really want to know.

This isn’t a collapse, this is an implosion of galactic proportion. There is no way I am venturing near Jacobs Field because I don’t want to get sucked into the black hole that has surely been created by the gravity of the collapse.

I thought it couldn’t get worse than Tuesday, when the worst-ever loss at Jacobs Field put them at 13-13, but at least they weren’t a losing team, they were a .500 team. Now they are a losing team, after an 11-1 start.

There were a record four managers fired in April, can Charlie Manuel be far behind? I was kidding around before about the Curse of Kitaen, but I am kidding no more. When it was announced that Chuck Finley and Tawny Kitaen were getting divorced, the Indians were 11-1. Now they are 13-14, you figure it out. It’s like when Nathan Lane was asked if he is gay: he said, “I’m 46 years old, never been married, work in musical theater, you do the math.”

Do the freaking math indeed. There is a curse plaguing the Tribe that makes The Curse of the Bambino look like a benediction. This is madness. Chuck - appease the woman, get her a movie role, send her to the Betty Ford Center, buy her some peanuts and Cracker Jack, seek council with Robert Blake......ANYTHING. But get her to take the curse off - I am begging you.

Give me back the real team, not the anti-team. I would call this lot impostors, but these merkins aren’t adept enough to be impostors, they are actively evil anti-players. We may have to get help from Haiti on this one.

Addendum
Brother Arne adds saged words from ersatz Indians great Pedro Cerrano:

Bats, they are sick. I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come.

I hope so, Pedro, I sure hope so.
posted by Anonymous at 10:22 AM

 
Spelunking With Friends
Marc Weisblott, who has a fascinating entertainment-related blog (knew there had to be a good one out there), suggests that I displayed “unbecoming insecurity” yesterday - I’m guessing relating to all the talk about links and traffic and whatnot.

Gosh - I hope not. This is funny to me because I am more used to hearing such epithets as “arrogant,” “egotistical,” and, of course, “butthole,” so this comes as some surprise. I will admit that this whole blog thing has me a bit humbled, though. I have written articles that millions of people must have seen unless my pages got stuck together or something (which is certainly possible with Playboy, for example), but somehow this has never felt as personal as a blog.

Some bloggers reveal most everything about themselves - they are the subject of their blogs - and others reveal very little (intentionally anyway). I am somewhere in between: believing that the macro can be revealed through the micro and that one of the reasons we live is to have material for stories, but I don’t want to have to ask the world to pass me the toilet paper every time I perch upon the throne, either.

That is part of the excitement of the experiment in personal journalism that is blogging: the search for the self through written expression. I find that the self is not just THERE waiting to be chronicled, the self is actually created, or at least broadened and developed, through the process of exploration. Picture a cave system: it’s there, but as you work your way through it, you clear out debris here, shore up a weak spot there, spot veins and follow them wherever they may lead, digging and examining and sometimes blasting as you go. And a bunch of invisible people follow you around as you go: it’s very exciting and kind of creepy at the same time.

I wonder what would happen if all of the bloggers and all of the readers (many wear dual hats, of course) suddenly found themselves in a huge room without warning. How long would it take them to figure out what the connection was, why they were there? How would the connection be made and who would be the first to figure it out? Would someone take charge and start barking out orders, firing off questions? What would be the clue that would trigger the solution?

So anyway, I guess I was exploring the Help-From-Others branch off of the Humility tunnel yesterday, a less-explored region of the persona cave system so I had to clear out some loose dirt and detritus. I’m sure I’ll still be spending most of my time in the main room of the Self-Assured Dickhead cavern, but it’s always interesting to do a little exploring too.

Nonetheless, I appreciate the vote of confidence from Marc, who has one of the most disturbing pictures I have ever seen on his site right now. The picture is so disturbing because it is alluring and beckoning while shattering a taboo that transcends virtually every culture on earth: women just don’t show their very pregnant bellies around town as a matter of course unless the display is either accidental or clinical. I find pregnancy sexy, but only when I am the cause. Other pregnant women are cute and adorable and have a “glow” relating to fulfillment of biological purpose or hormones or whatever, but here we have a woman displaying her girth as if it were sexy in and of itself. And it is - very freaky.
posted by Anonymous at 9:19 AM

 
Zac Is Not Quick Out of the Gate
According to Richard Brookhiser, Zacarias Moussaoui has NOT broken out of the gate on top:

The defense of Zacarias Moussaoui, the Frenchman of Moroccan origin who allegedly was meant to be the 20th hijacker, got off to a bad start in a Virginia courtroom last week. Mr. Moussaoui assailed "pagans, Jews, Christians and hypocrites," and said that he prayed for "the destruction of the United States" and of "the Jewish people and state." It’s as if O.J. Simpson had taken the stand to harangue the jury about white bitches. This will be a tough hole to dig out of.

Mr. Moussaoui’s call to destroy "the Jewish people and state"—note the order: people, then state—was logically odd. First we exterminate everyone, then we dismantle their empty post offices. But we can be grateful to him for making the priorities of fanatic anti-Zionists plain. These are not people who will be satisfied with 1967 borders, or 1948 borders, or a multi-religious patchwork like the old Lebanon or the Ottoman empire. They want no Jews, in Palestine or anywhere.

More interesting still is that fact that Moussaoui, with a brush broad enough for a car wash, paints worldwide Jewry and the almost 300 million people of the U.S. as one. This must be why I, a Norwegian-American Lutheran from California and Ohio, feel solidarity with a little country in the sand half a world away: because we are, in reality, one. Thanks Zac. One the other hand, I imagine this is how Indonesian Muslims feel when we toss them in the bag with Arabs. But wait a minute, at least they’re the same religion.

I’m guessing the survivors of Ruby Ridge would be taken aback to hear that they are one with a clan of Ethiopian Jews huddled together near Lake Tana, but Kevin Bacon would understand.

Now the aegis of Jewry is the United States. You may never have had a bris but, willy-nilly, you have been circumcised.

Bards of American-Jewish friendship look for deep resemblances between the new nation and the old religion, and there are some. Jews live worldwide, and people from all over the world live here. America tolerates a variety of ideologies and creeds, and Judaism has shivered into many beliefs and unbeliefs. But it’s easy to push such abstractions too hard. The key point of our present ad hoc alliance is that the United States does not wish for the destruction of the Jews; therefore their enemies wish ours.

Moussaoui will have a very hard time proving otherwise.
posted by Anonymous at 9:29 PM

 
The Land of Wonder Checks In
You know, we're having a real good week around here. This just came in from Australia, where our whole family had a tremendous time at the Sydney Olympics. We very much look forward to going back, mate.

G'day Eric,

I hope that you don't mind user feedback on your comments about InstaPundit links.

Like many people, I became aware of your site because of a link from InstaPundit. However, it's the content on your site which keeps me coming back.

Consider a link from InstaPundit to be the equivalent of a 20 cents off coupon for a grocery item. The coupon provides a means for the customer to try the item. However, the customer will only buy it again if he or she like it.

In most cases, I follow an Instaundit link and never return to the linked site. However, your site has very good content and I generally read it four or five days a week.

Regards,
Doug

posted by Anonymous at 8:50 PM

 
More More More
My friends, I am now tingling with acquisitive ecstasy. I am basically now an ex-club DJ: can't stay up that late anymore and can't take the smoke, but I can DJ vicariously. My friend Nik just stopped by to drop off about 2000 12" dance singles that he doesn't use anymore, and about 1000 various CDs, increasing my overall collection by 20% in about an hour of lifting and sorting. What a life! Back to blogging soon.
posted by Anonymous at 6:49 PM

 
Blogmantics
Deservedly, Bill Quick's "blogosphere" has made it to the mainstream. Now Charles Johnson's "idiotarian" and "anti-idiotarian" (you want to be the latter) have busted through to the big time via Ramesh Ponnuru in the National Review. And you question the blogfluence?
posted by Anonymous at 3:57 PM

 
Less Dead Than Previously Thought
Spunky new blogger Dawn Olsen has this remarkable breaking news from Jenin:

According to reports in the region, Palestinians have been seen digging up corpses and strategically placing them amongst the rubble. Eyewitness accounts have also backed this claim and added that once the corpses have been dumped, Palestinians have been calling U.N. officials over saying "Look, look, more dead bodies."

U.N. officials have been perplexed by the events and the advanced state of decomposition in which these bodies have been found. A member of the U.N. fact-finding team told this reporter:


"I have seen a lot of strange things at Jenin. After we survey an area and mark it off our list as having been checked, we are then having dead bodies pointed out to us that we must have missed. From the looks of it, these bodies must have been tortured, even dipped in acid. Many are nothing but bones. This is very disturbing. Obviously we are going to have be more thorough in our searches."

Abdul Muhammad, a Palestinian working with U.N team stated, "We will work day and night, with no rest, no water, no food, until every body is dug up. Even my great grandmother's grave is not sacred. We are on a mission from Allah."

Dawn has found her calling.
posted by Anonymous at 3:22 PM