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

 
Anne Against the Hypocrites
Ann Wilson continues to excoriate the affiliation of convenience between some Christian groups and Islamic-law states regarding U.N family planning issues:

Both Sunni and Shi'a interpretations of Islamic law justify the mutaa "marriage."

"What is one to do? Either one slips into adultery, or marries," [one sheik] said. "We say, 'There is a way that Islam has made legitimate with which you can build a relationship with a woman and conduct a [marriage] contract for a certain period.' " The contracts can run into years, or conclude in hours. Widows, divorcees and those who lack the cash to marry and set up a household in the customary fashion have needs and always will, the cleric says.

"The opposing [Sunni] view is that the Prophet made this legitimate for a limited time. We say he made it legitimate to meet a pressing need, and that need is still around."

Anne will have none of this nonsense.
posted by Eric at 11:16 PM

 
Is Keith Richards Dead Yet? Mick?
The 21st century Glimmer Twins, Matt and Ken, tag team the Kaus/LA Times tiff, give excellent chiaroscurro on clown columnist Rutten's status writing in a lame duck section of the paper, and remind us why we dig them so hard.

UPDATE
Rand Simberg has a lengthy and penetrating analysis of the Kaus/Rutten debate on blogs here:

No, in the static world of "serious papers," they don't approach an ideal--they have a deadline, and they rapidly home in on what's almost certainly wrong in the minds of much of their readership, with little feedback, because they're Reporters and Editors, and it's their job to tell us what the news is, and what to think. They're Serious professionals, trained in J-school. They say, "we say it's spinach and to hell with it."

If they're called on it, blatant misrepresentations of fact are occasionally handled with a retraction buried on page A23, but for the most part, the story sits there, right or wrong. And if it's wrong it festers, and the infection takes the form of declining subscriptions, and even active boycotts and new direct competition.

And the anger against the media builds, not because of the bias per se, but in their contempt for their readership, and their sanctimonious attitudes and denial of their bias--that is their, in Mr. Rutten's own word, "scam," and people are getting sick of it, because they now have alternatives. They are turning to weblogs because we are refreshingly honest about our biases--what you see is what you get, and if you don't like it, you aren't stuck with it, as you are in a one-newspaper town--another weblog is just a mouse click away.

What Mickey Kaus seems to be saying (at least to me) is that in the blogosphere, we recognize that every story is a work in progress, and as it's discussed, and bounced back and forth, it becomes more clear over time as to just what kind of animal it is, and a consensus builds, posts are updated, or new ones are added to elaborate and refine it.

Excellent, check it out.
posted by Eric at 10:45 PM

 
Star-Making Machinery
Doc has a truly stunning post that finds deep meaning in Joni Mitchell's "star-making machinery" lyric. He follows the thread hither and yon distinguishing between the cynicism of celebrity as generated by the entertainment industry and the interpersonal communication of the Internet and its manifestations the machinery is trying to shut down.

That machinery (let's call it SMM) is not what Internet radio is about, and it is not what the Internet itself is about. But it is what both threathen, and that's why there are veins in the teeth of the RIAA.

Today in the mail we got the latest Biography magazine. As usual I couldn't bear to to look at it; but for the first time I understood why: because it's so obviously part of the star-making machinery. It's less product than factory: one more way the machinery makes its sausage. Realizing it was part of the SMM made me feel like I'd just found a body-snatcher pod in my mailbox.

My stars are in my referers logs. They're in my email, on my blogroll, and in everything I look up on Google. They have everything to do with intrinsic value, with authority, with the possibility I'll be enlarged by getting to know them better.

They have nothing to do with celebrity. They are outside the SMM. And I'm not unique in that respect. The same is true of most of us here in the blogosphere. I suspect it's true to a huge and growing degree in the mass market as well.

....That's why the CARP/LOC ruling is so awful and wrong. It's about maintaining the star-making machinery that starts with the recording industry and works its way through commercial broadcasting, mass market advertising, arena performance events, cross-promotion and all the rest of it.

Music file sharing was the listeners' way of working around the failure of commercial radio to serve any form of passion or connoisseurship about music. When the RIAA killed Napster, it was understandable to the degree that Napster conceivably threatened the very revenues on which the industry depended.

Internet radio is also a way listeners, as well as professional broadcasters, can perform that same work-around. But this time the RIAA's attacks are not in self-defense. Through CARP/LOC, the RIAA and its allies are viciously and murderously attacking something that not only fails to threaten them, but actually serves the very artists they pretend to care about.

Internet radio is actually good for the record business. But that's not the issue here. Control is. Internet radio isn't an industry. Mostly it's personal. And it's completely out of anyone's control, like the rest of the Net. The entertainment industry can't tolerate that.

Vintage Doc. There's plenty more, check it out.
posted by Eric at 8:59 PM

 
Dawn and the Salty Babes
Drunk horny girls talking smack: isn't this what the Internet what created for?
posted by Eric at 4:13 PM

 
Smiting NPR
You think you are fed up with NPR? What with their retarded (but now wobbling) deep linking policy:

The policy was originally intended to maintain NPR’s commitment to independent, noncommercial journalism. We have encountered instances where companies and individuals constructed entire commercial Web "radio" sites based on links to NPR and similar audio. We have also encountered Web sites of issue advocacy groups that have positioned the audio link to an NPR story such that one cannot tell that NPR is not supporting their cause. This is not acceptable to NPR as an organization dedicated to the highest journalistic ethics, both in fact and appearance.

However, NPR also recognizes that the majority of the linking on the Web is not infringement. We are working on a solution that we believe will better match the expectations of the Web community with the interests of NPR. We will post revisions soon

Will you now? However, this still obtains:

Linking to or framing of any material on this site without the prior written consent of NPR is prohibited.

Obviously, this policy is both counterproductive to NPR and unacceptable to the Internet community, including bloggers, but this site, "Fix NPR," is fit to be tied with NPR's reporting in general, especially regarding the Middle East:

NPR is damaging Israel's public image by broadcasting distorted, unbalanced and often inaccurate reports on the Middle East conflict. The coverage is overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Palestinian "cause," and does not give the public a fair and balanced picture of Israeli concerns and perspectives.

NPR omits important historical, political, religious and moral context, focusing primarily on the grievances of the Palestinians, while downplaying or completely ignoring Israel's vulnerability and suffering. While Israel has, in fact, shown great military restraint and integrity in fighting this terrorist war against its men, women and children, NPR regularly misrepresents Israeli actions.

NPR frequently avoids personalizing Israeli victims of terror, while giving extensive coverage to human interest stories about Palestinians. NPR also gives lopsided prominence to critics of Israel, frequently omitting the views of the mainstream.

Due to NPR's large (upwards of 20 million) and influential listener base, the damage is incalculable. Details of some of these abuses, and NPR's refusal to correct them, have been well documented (see 'CAMERA and NPR' link).

NPR is funded both directly and indirectly (via 600+ affiliate stations) by taxpayer dollars. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which funnels tax dollars to NPR and the affiliates is mandated by the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act to dispense funds to networks that provide "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature."

Not only is NPR in violation of the Federal Statute, the network is also in violation of the public trust. NPR and affiliate stations accept donations from individuals, institutions and corporations that assume the programs broadcast will be an unbiased reporting of current and historical events, placing those events in accurate and reasonable context.

· We must encourage our Congressional representatives to inquire into the use of tax dollars to support a biased agenda.

· We must stop donating private monies until the distorted coverage ends.

· We will consider bringing a class-action law-suit against NPR.

· We must stop the damage

The site has even taken to an email campaign. I (who have written about NPR bias, they probably Googled me) received this Thursday:

Dear Friends:

Again, NPR refuses to call a State Dept-designated terrorist group a terrorist group after yesterday's grisly butchering of 19 Israelis, one of whom was Galila Bugala, an 11 y.o. girl who came to Israel 11 years ago from Ethiopia.

Also, NPR's Peter Kenyon's report on Israeli security on Saturday was full of jokes. Being blown up into pieces or burnt alive by Palestinian terrorists is not funny. Security concerns are real. Please read the transcript at the end of this newsletter.

1. NPR CANNOT SAY WHAT EVEN the ARABIST STATE DEPT says. Even the State Dept calls Hamas (and Hizbollah and Arafat's Al-Aqsa Brigade) a "terrorist" organization. But in yesterday's terrorist bombing, NPR steadfastly refuses to call Hamas a terrorist organization, rather it is a "militant Muslim group." NPR, REPEAT AFTER ME: "People who deliberately blow up a bus full of schoolchildren are terrorists."

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED 6/18, Bob Siegel: "Israel has announced plans to retake parts of the West Bank, holding them as long as terrorist attacks continue. That Israeli government statement follows the deadliest suicide bombing in Jerusalem in nearly six years. Nineteen Israelis, including an 11-year-old girl, were killed when a Palestinian bomber detonated his explosive on board a packed commuter bus during the morning rush hour. More than 50 people were wounded in that attack. A few hours ago, Israeli tanks took fire from Palestinian gunmen as they rolled into the West Bank city of Jenin. NPR's Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem.

LINDA GRADSTEIN reporting:
...The ISLAMIST MOVEMENT Hamas claimed responsibility for today's bombing and identified the attacker as 25-year-old Muhammad el-Rol, a graduate student at al-Najah University near Nablus..."

For JEFFREY DVORKIN's defense of NPR official position NOT to use word TERRORIST WHEN JEWS ARE KILLED, SEE http://www.npr.org/yourturn/ombudsman/020405.html
__________________
***NPR does not use word "terrorist" to describe Hamas/Hizbollah/Al Aqsa murderings of innocents Jews - even though State Dept has deemed them terrorist
***NPR whitewashes terrorist activities also by refusing to show how children are instructed to hate and kill and by refusing to report how Parents of the terrorists celebrate their acts.
***NPR spends more time talking about " Israeli occupation" or " Israeli reprisals" and fails to show the human face of terrorism. NPR uses these acts to introduce commentary not to describe to westerners the intense hatred of Jews taught and preached in Arab lands, but uses the terrorists acts to advance "peace Process" ideology.
***NPR abdandons its journalistic investigative mission by refusing to disclose the deception in Arafat's statements in "condemning" terrorism. NPR accepts and repeats these blanket statements.
***WHY DOES YOUR TAX SUPPORTED NPR CODDLE THESE TERRORISTS??????
_____________

2. PETER KENYON makes FUN of ISRAELI SECURITY CONCERNS SUNDAY All THINGS CONSIDERED 6/16. Essentially every comment Kenyon makes is snide, jocular, or condescending. (to listen to his smug voice with real audio, go to http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate=06/16/2002&PrgID=6)

"PETER KENYON reporting:
Rounding a corner in a Tel Aviv suburb, two drivers are rattled by the sound of a nearby explosion. Their cars collide, and they scowl at their crumpled fenders and at each other. They didn't get the memo; it was only a drill.
(Soundbite of sirens and horns)"
"KENYON: In a scene that could have been lifted directly from cable television, a young blond woman in tight jeans quickly dispatches a terrorist in a simulation staged for the annual Security Israel conference. The show is designed to attract visitors inside, where salesmen wait with all manner of security gadgets. If you've had enough of those annoying cell phones going off all around you, Gil Israeli of the NetLine company has just the thing. "
"KENYON: The Contact International Company(ph) guarantees that no one was killed in the making of this video promoting the new Taser M26..."
"KENYON: In 16 years of organizing this conference, Caspi has noticed another change. Although there's still plenty of the traditional macho ambience here, with free beer, automatic weapons and young women in skimpy attire, this year there's a new softer approach. The bomb-sniffing dogs aren't Rottweilers and Dobermans; they're black Labs and golden retrievers."
"KENYON: Those bomb-sniffing dogs aren't just being marketed for the parliament or the prime minister's office anymore, but for the corner coffee shop. Near the exit, a man says he's thinking of friends who live in West Bank settlements as he eyes a bulletproof child's car seat. It comes in robin's egg blue, sprinkled with cheerful designs. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Tel Aviv."

3. We don't want to eliminate NPR, just REFORM NPR. NPR has launched an aggressive in-your-face attack on critics of NPR media.
Last time we reported that NPR has hired a Washington PR firm and that NPR President Kevin Klose and NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin are getting speaking engagements at Jewish organizations (American Jewish Press Association convention and the Hadassah Convention).

Today in NPR's The CONNECTION the topics are: "Imagining a World Without NPR: Really smart famous people discuss critical issues including the war on terror, peace in the Middle East, global warming, and support for public radio."

The second topic is "Prospects for Palestinian Statehood. The trouble with temporary solutions. As the Bush administration prepares to unveil plans for an interim Palestinian state, a conversation about the tough sell ahead, and the diplomatic challenges and potential pitfalls of a state called Palestine."

4. How to spend a lazy JULY 21st Afternoon For those of you near MARTHA'S VINEYARD. 7/21. Old Whaling Church, 89 Main
Street, Edgartown 5:00pm Anne Garrels: A Reporter's Notebook - Afghanistan and Israel, hosted by Robert Siegel. It costs $30 to attend and proceeds benefit NPR. But you can stand outside and hold posters in good ol' American protest tradition.

I'm not sure where #5 went, but nonetheless:

6. BALANCE, NPR STYLE
Dick Gordon's The Connection second hour showed clear evidence of NPR bias. Opening was the USA Today reporter, followed by AMB Ned Walker and Shibley Telhami (Walker was Amb to Egypt, now president of Middle East Institute Foundation, and regular columnist for Egypt's al-Hayat and Telhami is a frequent NPR guest when they want an academic. He's a big Palestinian supporter Don't believe me, read what he says http://www.bsos.umd.edu/sadat/opeds-other.htm.)

7. Also from Boston, NPR finds additional time to feature on website and in programming the RADICAL LEFTIST HOWARD ZINN and the War on Terror "In his latest book, "Terrorism and War," leftist anti-war historian Howard Zinn calls for Americans to start a "real revolution in our thinking" about war and history. Zinn says if the U.S. wants to ever find real security, it has to change its posture in the world. That means stop using its military power to intervene in other countries policies, and stop dominating other countries' economies. These tacks, Zinn argues, have created a reservoir of possible terrorists around the world who have suffered at the hand of the US, and are ready to strike back."

Maybe, NPR should be called Internationale Public Radio...

Somewhat hysterical in tone, but pretty damning stuff. No wonder NPR doesn't want people deep linking, the "evidence" is embarrassing. The relativistic blather of their ombudsman is particularly damaging:

The use or ownership of language is key to reporting in this as in all other issues where there is controversy. If NPR's reporting is to have any role in providing non-partisan, explanatory journalism, then nouns and adjective must be chosen with care and with nuance.

Sadly, nouns and adjectives are also weapons in this war. While the term "terrorist" may be accurate in many cases, it also has an extra-journalistic role in delegitimating one side and affirming the other. It is not NPR's role to do this. NPR has an obligation to provide responsible and reliable reporting by describing with accuracy and fairness events that listeners may choose to endorse or deplore as they see fit.

Sadly, rather than appearing neutral, which may or may not be their actual goal, NPR appears to favor the Palestinians because there is no definition in any language on the face of the earth that doesn't conclude that "terrorism" is the purposeful killing of noncombatants to frighten said populace into changing policies the "terrorists" don't like. When one appears to be bending over backwards to achieve "neutrality" and said "neutrality" requires contortions, evasions and moral blinders to be maintained, that very "neutrality" becomes evidence of the opposite.

There are many things I like about NPR, it's basically the only serious news and talk left on the radio, but these problems are real and serious. The editors of the Fix NPR site are a bit over the top, granted, and they see some ghosts that probably aren't there, but they are dead right about the anti-Israel bias and about the absurdity of NPR launching a PR campaign to quell its critics rather than put the same effort into improving its coverage.

Growing worldwide anti-Semitism and moral degradation are of far greater and more immediate import than the pursuit of some quixotic dream of absolute journalistic neutrality, which exists only on a vacuum planet anyway. It is past time that NPR take a good hard look in the mirror, grow some testicles, and start making overt judgments rather than making them covertly in the guise of "neutrality," or it is time it be cut loose from the public teat.
posted by Eric at 3:10 PM

 
The British Are Coming
This crusty English dude cracks me up. Here you have this retired Group Captain - equvalent to a full Colonel - from Her majesty's Royal Air Force, and he is sitting at his computer "in a little one-horse-town-by-the-sea on the English Channel" issuing threats of subjugation:

You will be sorry that you ignored my demand for your unconditional surrender here. As a consequence, the invasion by stealth of our former colony has already begun.

Now that it's too late, I shall give you a clue.

You were warned.

I knew Andrew Sullivan was up to no good over here: he's an advance scout for the invasion. But best of all is the Groupy's name: Lionel Mandrake. No way you could make that up and get away with it.
posted by Eric at 2:22 PM

 
Funny Ha
I am so digging having access to my referrers now: I keep finding all kinds of new buddies. I just found a humorist named Madeleine Begun Kane, who is actually funny. She has a great song parody about blogging here:

(To be sung to "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" by George & Ira Gershwin)
You praise my weblog
And I'll mention your blog.
You link my weblog
And I'll link to your blog
Weblog,
Your blog,
Weblog,
Your blog,
Let's call the whole thing off.

She has an ongoing parody of George W. called "Dubya's Dayly Diary" (she isn't a fan):

Dear Diary -- What a terrific week it's turned inta! I raised a ton a money fer the GOP. And I gave lotsa speeches inspired by great minds I never hearda.

The only bad part was when a plane almost hit the White House. We're pretty sure the pilot isn't a terrorist, so I guess he just has a real bad sensa direction.

Talk about a terrible pilot! He's almost as confused as Jeb, who accidentally endorsed Reno fer governor. He was givin a speech ta a buncha high school girls & said it's about time a woman became Florida governor. I bet that's the last time he pretends ta be a feminist. And Jeb's supposed to be the "smart" one in the family. Hah!

You may have seen her in actual print as well:

I'm a national award winning humorist (National Society of Newspaper Columnists) and write the "Driven Mad" column for TheCarConnection.com and the Ms. CyberPerson Answers Your Privacy Questions column for PrivacyPlace.com. Additionally, I was recently named one of the "Net's Hottest Columnists." And the person who did the naming wasn't even my mother.

My Raising Kane column and other humor have appeared in numerous publications including Family Circle Magazine, First For Women, America Online, Bridge News, Career Magazine, Women's Village, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, and the New York Times. My essays are often carried by the L. A. Times Syndicate and Knight-Ridder/Tribune and my e-book "Funny Contracts" will be available soon.

She's kind of a left-leaning Lileks, or some such thing.
posted by Eric at 1:59 PM

 
One More Round
Is that a Face, or a Badly Beaten Potato?

UPDATE
Tony P. has a relationship with the potato.
posted by Eric at 1:07 AM

 
Rummy
"Excuse me Mr. Secretary, but exactly how big are your balls?"
posted by Eric at 12:42 AM

 
Productive Jason
Jason Rubenstein is a lot like I am: thinking about the Middle East and recording electronic music. Except I haven't recorded anything new in a few months (have to get on that), and I didn't write anything like this today either:

The problem starts in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq - three states that actively finance and support terror operations, hate schools, vile propaganda, and the promotion of a complete death-cult culture impossible to reconcile with Western values. The problem continues with groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, PFLP, al-Aqsa, etc etc who are the operative arms of the culture. The problem continues with the oppression of the Palestinian people by their own government, a collection of thugs no better than the worst group of slimeballs found in the foulest of organized crime. Humiliation by the IDF is the least of worries for the average Palestinian. One would suppose that food, jobs, and security are high on the list of concerns - assuming that the culture of death hasn't permeated everyone's thinking beyond the point of the consideration of any other value system.

I was lifting boxes today.
posted by Eric at 11:37 PM

 
He Who Knows Mucho Variegated Shit
I'll tell you what: caveat emptor, e pluribus unum, and beware the ides of March! Dr. Weevil knows a shitload about Latin (the dead language), Caesar (the series of dead dudes; not the salad, the casino, or non-vaginal birth), and grammar. The Latin/Caesar post ends thusly:

I can only conclude that the mysterious power behind Bloggus Caesari is unlikely to be a Latin teacher.

Then again, he wouldn't be the first Pseudo-Caesar, or even the second or third. Book VIII, the last book, of the Gallic Wars was written by Caesar's sidekick Hirtius, since Caesar was too busy conquering Rome. The books on the Alexandrian, African, and Spanish Wars that have come down with Caesar's name on them were certainly not written by him, but by two or three different authors, one of whom may have been Hirtius. The book on the Spanish War (Bellum Hispaniense) is written in very bad Latin -- not just stylistically inept but often incorrect. Lord Macaulay suggested that it was written by "some rude old centurion who fought better than he wrote" and no one has come up with a better hypothesis.

And the grammar post ends with a joke:

Alabamian: "Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where the Harvard library is at?"

Upperclassman, sneering: "Here at Harvard, we do not end our sentences with prepositions."

Alabamian: "Well, sir, in that case, can you tell me where the Harvard library is at, asshole?"

Alabama having been randomly selected by throwing darts at a map, Sulizano.
posted by Eric at 10:58 PM

 
Important Bloggy Thoughts
I'm late on this one, but Jeff Jarvis has some profound thoughts on books, blogs, attention spans, etc. An exerpt:

Even books online -- dismissed as they've been -- have some advantages over books in print:

You can search online books. You don't kill trees. You don't have to lug them. They don't take up shelf space and thus don't have to fight for that space in stores and at home. They don't have shipping costs. And they can be up-to-the-minute -- witness John Dean's Deep Throat book released online -- really just an overlong weblog.

Though it's not online -- it's being published in a magazine in three parts -- witness, too, William Langewiesche's American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center published in the current Atlantic before it becomes a book this fall (see my post on this below). It is quite hot off the presses, much hotter than a book could be.

There seems to be a search on for better ways to make books. And maybe there needs to be. The book business has seen better days.

Books will be affected by all this. Authors will be. Publishers will be. Bookstores will be.

And libraries will be affected, too. Imagine what happens when their content becomes digital, when you don't need to go to the library, when the library -- any library, from anywhere -- can come to you.

One more thing: The Web is stealing the time, attention, and passion of lots of good writers who otherwise would be writing books. When I had coffee with Bill Quick, he said that writing his weblog presents him with an opportunity cost; he could be writing a book instead. A few months back, Layne was torturing himself writing his 'log when he should have been finishing his novel. There are a lot of talented people right now who are writing for the web instead of paper -- bound or glossy or pulp. That will have an impact on the craft.

I've got a little secret on that last bit: I'm writing a book WHILE I'm blogging. All of the policy stuff you see here is going to end up in a book in one form or another. That's how I can justify writing for free all day long. You can hit the PayPal though, if you want. We still have to figure out how to make money DIRECTLY from blogging, though. Your move, Jeff.
posted by Eric at 10:27 PM

 
Ross and the Swedes
Our bud, Dr. Ross the Boss, is digging E.S.T., the jazz trio from Sweden we have featured more than once on Cool Tunes:

a Stockholm-based jazz trio, led by Svensson, a lyrical pianist who can play like everyone from Monk to Evans, that dashes their (largely) acoustic performance with electronica touches and Scandanavian sensibilities.

My brother had an opportunity to see them yesterday at the Boston Globe Jazz Festival. Here's the Globe's review. They describe E.S.T. as "Radiohead playing 'Waltz for Debby' while they watch the Indy 500." I saw them this Spring in Munich, and they put on an inspiring, energetic performance. It was also the first jazz trio I've ever seen accompanied with a smoke machine and complex light show. What can I say? They're the new face of jazz.

There's more with links and whatnot.
posted by Eric at 10:13 PM

 
Anarchy In the U.S.
Leonard Dickens is an honest to goodness anarchist, like Sacco and Vanzetti:

...I am an anarchist, not a libertarian. Libertarians try to take a moral framework and construct politics out of it. Most people don't think it is OK to use high-powered microphones to record their neighbors' conversations. The same principle extends to warrantless examination of people's homes for heat (as in Kyllo). But then the same principle extends to warrantless searches for gamma rays. There is no simple dividing line between any of these: each involves energy of some sort that is radiating off of private property. Can you look, or not? From a moral absolutist point of view, looking at such radiation is either OK in all cases, or none.

As a constitutionalist, you (often) don't have to make such hard choices. In this case, the word "unreasonable" in the 4th amendment saves the day. Heat searches: unreasonable. Radiation: reasonable. No problem. Note, though, that it makes a loophole you can drive a truck through. (That's the downside of constitutionalism.)

As an anarchist, you also don't have to make such choices. The law for an anarchist ultimately comes back to consumer choice. If the consumers choose laws which are not morally consistent, that's just fine.

Very interesting. Leonard, I would very much appreciate an overview of the basic tenets of modern anarchism, if you would.

UPDATE
Ask, and ye shall receive:

But now an anarchist thought experiment. Earlier I said it is the right of Maryland to leave the Union if she wishes. That's because Maryland as a corporation proxies the rights of her citizens. By the same logic, Baltimore city can secede from Maryland. And by the same logic, Charles Village (my neighborhood) can secede from Baltimore city. And by the same logic, my block can secede from Charles Village. And by the same logic, I, personally, can secede from my block. None of these entities has any "right to rule" its citizens outside of their individual consent.

We can skip the intermediaries. It is my right, as a human being, to pull out of all of the corporations that would rule me without my consent. Federal, State, County, City. Of course, that will not happen - in the test of arms, they would conquer me. Therefore I don't try, which is prudent. But again, the test of arms proves nothing other than who is stronger and/or more immoral.

Try to imagine a society where rules are imposed on peaceful citizens only with their consent. That is anarchy.

Anarchy as moral absolutism: fascinating.
posted by Eric at 10:03 PM

 
Re-Spooned
What with the plethora of spanking good blogs out there, I don't get around to some as often as I should. I haven't checked in on Spoons in far too long, and now he has a new site design by the woman, designer to the blogs, who suggested my liver might make a tasty snack. I'm digging the "roiling skies in the wood-veneer surface" look. Nice organic/inorganic motif.

And Spoons has the goods to fill the container as well:

In today's NYT op-ed, Nicholas Kristoff upbraids incautious Westerners for saying that Islam is a backward and violent religion. He then follows with the story of a Pakistani medical professor who has been sentenced to death for speculating that Mohammed might not have shaved his pubic hair until he was 40.

What was your point again, Nick?

Ooh, nice kill line. Check it out.
posted by Eric at 9:34 PM

 
Jawing and Vibing
Dawn does one of my faves - A. Beam - yeah! Take a big old Amsterdam toke, good buddy!

Speaking of the Beamer, he has this to say on his site:

DAMMIT: I forgot to mention Townes Van Zandt in the music portion of that interview thing. Man, Steve Earle's gonna kick my ass!

Dude, check out the Cool Tunes playlist from last week: BOTH Steve Earle AND Townes Van Zandt (in the guise of Delbert McClinton singing "Pancho and Lefty" from the Poet tribute album). Again we vibe!
posted by Eric at 9:17 PM

 
Feel Good Well
Hope you're feeling better, Jim.
posted by Eric at 9:07 PM

 
Drugs and Afterbirth
Speaking of he who is hot: Armed Liberal, despite, or perhaps BECAUSE of the lingering effects of having his "sinuses roto-rootered," was kind enough to think of Dawn and me, in relationship to drugs of all things. I'm (mostly) kidding, it's really about our childbirth experience (there's not a whole hell of a lot left undeclared around here, you even know what I look like):

First, I think it’s amazingly cool that partners can sit down and be so publicly honest; something tells me that’s a very strong relationship. [thanks A.L. bud, I believe it is]

My take on the whole childbirth/drugs thing was settled during the Lamaze class I went to with my first wife for our Biggest Guy’s birth. The moms were all talking each other up about ‘making it through’ drug-free as we husbands all looked nervously at each other in the background. Then one mom…a pert young actress we called ‘Annie Hall’ at home looked around the room and explained: “most of adult life I’ve been trying to get good drugs. Now, the first time I really get to take them for any kind of a reason, you’re telling me I shouldn’t?”

This guy is a find.
posted by Eric at 9:01 PM

 
Roundup
Finally back: hellish day of moving dozens of boxes and odd-shaped items in and out of the truck, into storage - all with the specter of torrential rain hanging over our heads. Near-90 degrees, swimming humidity. The storm never came, just sat there looking down on us like a chain gang boss, all frowny and hard-assed, making us fret and move a little faster in the thick air.

It appears yesterday's "dustup," as Jeff calls these things, has died down. Since I've been laboring like a New Orleans dock worker all day, I haven't seen much of what's going on yet, but the general mood seems conciliatory. A-girl handled herself well, I'm glad we seem to be cool.

After a stem-winder of an oration, touching upon such far-flung notions as

"Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, the two Adamses, the two Roosevelts and the innumerable Kennedys actually sitting in their high and heavenly seats, morosely pondering that their grand experiment in democracy is about be overrun by 21st century Goths and Visigoths

and these words from Winston Churchill:

I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed,

Pej closed with this benediction to his detractors:

And for those of you who persist in trying to be insulting and degrading, go to Hell. My contempt for you knows no bounds.

I am spared:

Eric Olsen assures me that he was trying to tread lightly, and doesn't want a confrontation. I appreciate that, and I don't want a confrontation either.

So we are also cool. I do seem to end up in the middle of these, although I didn't start this one and I was never angry with anyone. Maybe I am getting better.

A final note on the original issue from Coldly Furious Mike, who has been quite hot of late:

as sick as we all have gotten of it all, as heartbreaking as each new atrocity is, as tiring as it can become to look true, real-life evil in the face day after day after awful day, now is not the time to be abandoning hope or overdramatizing ourselves. I don't know if this is what Asp truly means with her post - having read a lot of time-to-get-tough type things she's written in the past, I doubt it is. But there's no doubt in my mind that the one thing we all need most to maintain these days is focus. And by focus, I mean our ability to stay angry. We can't afford to just wring our hands and give it all up for lost. There's too much at stake, both in the Mideast specifically and in the broader context of our own war against the great evil of our times.

Well put, Mike.
posted by Eric at 8:35 PM

 
Critiques Of Critiques And So On
Hey, it's Friday, so I have to take care of my radio obligations - not that I don't enjoy them - and then I get to help my father-in-law move some stuff so there won't be much until this afternoon. All kinds of things hit the fan yesterday, so please scroll down and check out the scrum.

Very briefly: Asparagirl responded rather calmly and in measured tones to yesterday's affair. Her respresentation of my position is a little off, but reasonable nonetheless. I thought my discussion of her was pretty fair and balanced - especially compared to the other attacks - so I am surprised she spent as much time on me as she did, but she is certainly free to do so. I'm still not sure why Pej got so worked up, but no one likes to be criticized. I don't either. I didn't say he only links to women because he wants to get in their pants. I just said he likes the ladies - that's part of his online persona. Nothing much to dispute there.

I will have more on this later. I'm glad A-girl is not as despondent as she appeared yesterday. I have made a pledge to myself to not overreact to this stuff anymore - not good for my blood pressure - and when even my friends mention that I have been a bit "brittle" of late, that is a bad sign. I'm working on the flexibiity thing - a little mental and emotional yoga. I should restate that when I use words like "responsibility" and "should," I am only expressing my opinion. I do not speak for the world, only myself. Have a great day - you too A-girl and Pej.
posted by Eric at 10:22 AM

 
It's Not a Popularity Contest
Blogger A.C. Douglas is totally no-nonsense. Check out this broadside against those who would have the "accidental cross" be a part of the permanent WTC memorial:

And just where did that godless atheist Ms. Johnson even suggest the "cross" didn't mean anything. She in fact suggested precisely the opposite, and its meaning, according to her, has nothing to do with her "belie[f] in the power of the cross," but has merely to do with the "cross's" presence being a positive insult to any non-Christians directly connected with the tragedy were it to be made a permanent part of any memorial erected on the site (and an insult even to non-Christians not directly connected with the tragedy; I, for one, would certainly feel insulted).

There's more.
posted by Eric at 11:09 PM

 
McLuhless
Invaluable entertainment blogger Marc Weisblott has veered off in the direction of media theory and taken a class in that vaunted Canadian freak Marshall McLuhan. Now he's blogging about it:

I would be surprised if there were too many bloggers--or blog enthusiasts--who didn't have a musty paperback of McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man book kicking around someplace. Heck, I certainly had one. The fact that I never really got around to reading it only helps justify the naivete I'm bringing to the task of studying him. Part of the first week of reading involved going through Part One of McLuhan's seminal work--it must be seminal if I could have it sitting on my bookshelf all this time without reading it, right? For those not familiar, Part Two of the text finds McLuhan going through twenty-six different flavors of media, from The Spoken Word and The Written word through Weapons and Automation.

Man, does that bring back memories. McLuhan became a chirping loon in his dotage, but his theories are integral to our view of the relationship between culture and the media. Check this out.
posted by Eric at 9:54 PM

 
Not Moore, Les
Ed Driscoll has a very fine site, focusing on "News, Technology and Pop Culture, 24 Hours a Day, Live and in Stereo!" He is also a writer, musician, home recorder, and wrote this excellent profile of the great Les Paul:

Les Paul, the father of the electric guitar and multitrack recording, dressed in a thick, oatmeal-colored ribbed turtleneck sweater (and it’s in the high-70s and humid on this June 3rd day), navy blue trousers and black loafers, and wearing wire rimmed aviator-style glasses, is doing a sound check at 6:00 p.m., before the first of his two shows every Monday night at the Iridium Club on Broadway and 51st in Manhattan.

If you have any interest in popular music you should know who Les Paul is, and this is a great place to start.
posted by Eric at 9:27 PM

 
Nuke Them For Me
As I look into my crystal ball, I see more bloggy storms a-brewing. Asparagirl went away for some time, reportedly into a cocoon of heterosexual bliss. Although some of this creeps out more than a few, this is fine: she is entitled to come and go with the breeze and tell the world about it upon her prodigal return. There are those who find A-girl's world a bit too reminiscent of the urban girly insular self-satisfacton of, say, Sex In the City, but I say to each their own and let the 100 flowers bloom. I would contend that when she has chosen to focus her talent upon policy, Asparagirl has been eminently readable. And, as I have said elsewhere, I talk way too much about myself to criticize others for talking about themselves.

But then we came to this:

And in the end, it will come down to Israel versus the Arab world. Israel has nukes and the Arab world will have them soon and there is no way out of this conflict. Do you understand? No. Way. Out. No matter how you slice it, there will be genocide of one group or another, perhaps both. The horror in that part of the world is still only just beginning.

Well, I'm tired of feeling horrified and sad and upset over it. I can't read any more proposed strategies for Dealing With The Situation, because we can't deal with it, and we're going to have to accept that. You take your Clauswitz, I'll take my Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. You know who she is--she's that "five stages of grief" doctor, her famous paradigm from her famous book "On Death and Dying". You find people's attitudes towards the Middle East terror war, from the blogosphere to the politicians to the pundits, fitting into every stage and every description of each stage

....I am looking down the road and I see within the next two to three years a nuclear war in the Middle East, with perhaps millions of people dead, and that will be that. Maybe when that awful day rolls around I'll be able to work up the tears, but for now, I can't. I can't change what happens there, and this is not pessimism, it is realism. I certainly can't cry about it anymore, not from lack of grief, because there is an immense amount of grief and it will surely only get worse, but from lack of ability to do anything to stop the grief.

Discussions of possible Israeli or Arab military strategy at this point are like arguing over angels dancing on the head of a pin or like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. There is a war, there has been a war, there will be a war, and accepting that means accepting that death is going to be here for a long, long time. It means accepting that it was here all along. Hope is a hard thing to put away, maybe the hardest of things. But sometimes you have to know when to say goodbye.

And sometimes sorry seems to be the hardest word. This is apocalyptic fatalism as written by Hallmark, and it is utterly appalling. As I said in her comment section, it is never the right time to throw in the towel. Where there is life there is hope and we must rage against the darkness and all of that cliched shit that is absolutely true.

If she really means it, this A-girl post is the most jaded, world-weary poison this side of a suicide bomber training camp: "Abandon hope for this world, your reward will come in the next, grasshopper."

To compound the crime, the normally sensible Pejman celebrated this onanistic slab of nihilism:

WANNA KNOW WHY WE ALL MISSED ASPARAGIRL WHILE SHE WAS GONE? It is because of amazingly well written posts like this. Even if you disagree with some or all of Brooke's comments, she has an unerring capacity to make you sit up, and concentrate all of your cognitive capabilities on her words and thoughts. Few writers have the ability to command such attention, or inspire such debate. Andrew Sullivan is a brilliant writer, but I'm really beginning to think that in many respects, he just doesn't hold a candle to our precocious friend.

Even accepting the dubious notion that you can separate style from content, this is a bit much. I didn't find myself drawn in, I found myself perplexed at first, then shocked at the intellectual and moral black hole I found myself in.

Andrew Sullivan may be a self-centered, self-serving, disingenuous polished turd, but he often writes with great clarity and precision, is never prone to nihilism or relativism, and rarely waxes wan. Frankly, there is no comparison: it's Salieri and Mozart.

On to Jeff Goldstein, who is nothing if not an aesthete. He was, of course, offended on every level:

Me, I'm just stunned. And sickened. And a bit annoyed, frankly.

I mean, thank Christ this kind of rationalizing bookhumpage wasn't charged with defeating Nazism. Getting too much to bear, is it dear? No problems. Just pen some wistful, world-weary words (a few fat paragraphs ought to convince people of your sincerity), strain a few analogies, and then its off to Starbucks to share a Caramel Macchiato and a rasberry scone with your pathos. (Or, if you're feeling particularly melodramatic, you can maybe hide out in a neighbor's attic or something and write journal entries until the world is dusted in irradiated ash -- or until the Stoli vanilla runs out, whichever comes first).

Jesus. Just fall on your pen already. Get it over with.

Jeff rather poetically cuts to the heart of the matter: it is irresponsible to extrapolate your particular mood onto the world and call it truth. This is called solipsism and is as vainglorious as any Islamist pronunciamento. Responsible people do not wake up in the morning, say "I am feeling nihilistic today" and declare multilateral nuclear warfare inevitable between suppressed yawns.

Then Matt Moore, snapping out of post-poll lethargy, whipped up a smoking satire of poor Pej's post, although I hereby declare Pej isn't the real issue here:

Wanna know why I didn't miss Asparagirl while she was gone? It is because of amazingly tedious posts like this. You disagree with some or all of Brooke's comments, and she has an unerring capacity to make you reach forward, and concentrate all of your cognitive capabilities on hitting the back button. Few writers have this ability to bore, yet inspire such ass-kissing. Andrew Sullivan is not at all web-savvy, but for sheer strident inanity I'm really beginning to think that he just doesn't hold a candle to our vapidly dogmatic friend.

Pretty wicked and there's more. Much of the real fun here is in the comments sections of these various posts - dive right in.

So where are we? I still have a hard time attaching the original nuke-party-for-everyone post to Asparagirl, but obviously she wrote it. Because she is young and a woman and sensitive and brash and coy and calculating and impetuous and is at the center of the NY blogger mafia, people tend to overreact to her, in both directions. Pej likes the ladies, what can he do? But in his hagiographic post, he might have mentioned that he disagrees rather vehemently with the content of the nuke-party post, which he does in comments elsewhere.

It is very difficult to keep all of this on a rhetorical plane, because as we have learned, blogs are very, well, personal, and as such personalities creep into discussions not on little cat's feet but in elephant shoes. We shall see what develops from here.

UPDATE
Very cool site, We Are Full of Shit, led by "Blow Hard," has an interesting rundown on the affair:

Damn it people, stop being so interesting, I'm trying to be constructive on other things today.

Today's topic is an Asparagirl post and where it went from there. My chronology might be off (read that as "is probably off") but this is the best I can piece it together.

In her post, she uses the five stages of grief model to explain her feelings about the Middle-East. She relates that she's in the final acceptance stage. As with all of these posts, take the time to read the comments.

Pejman Yousefzadeh loves Asparagirl's post and ponders her potential superiority to Andrew Sullivan. Note: Asparagirl disagrees with the Sullivanesque praise in the comments, remember read the comments, that's were most of the action is taking place on this.

Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom (btw, I learned today that his graphic is an old paisley shirt, no, make that a hemoglobin molecule) is very irritated by all of this. To him, Asparagirl's post represents simple defeatism, expressed with an annoyingly world-weary tone. He says that Pejman "points and drools" in linking it.

Next, someone, perhaps noticing a comment or two from me, spoofed my referral log with TBOTCOTW where I read Matt Moore take some shots at both Asparagirl and Pejman.

You must visit the Shitsters to get Blow's verdict.

UPDATE 2
Bruce Baugh righteously counsels against despair and fatalism with a personal story here.
posted by Eric at 5:39 PM

 
"That's Colonel Cappy, Yank"
I am just a foolish Yank. In response to this post on Group Captain Lionel Mandrake's VC, AFC, RAF (Retd.) site, A Letter From the Olde Country, I rather flippantly wrote:

Thanks for the audition there Cappy on behalf of me-self and the group.

The Group Captain replied:

Best Peter Sellers accent enabled .....

As a former officer and a gentleman in Her majesty's Royal Air Force, I am wondering whether I should take offence at being called "Cappy".

It's Group Captain, thankyouverymuch - equvalent to a full Colonel.

;-)

posted by Eric at 4:11 PM

 
Another For Norah
Our friend Ross over at the Bloviator has some nice things to say about singer Norah Jones, whom we reviewed a while back here. Ross also likes her new Rolling Stone profile/interview:

She sounds like a fun, good-time-seeking broad, in the most positive "His Girl Friday"/Nora Charles of the 21st century sense of the word. It'd be nice to hear some of that come out in her music (by the way, check out what she calls the kind of music she plays).

Thanks Ross.
posted by Eric at 3:42 PM

 
Ed to Ted: "Get It Together"
More on Ted Turner. Jerry, who has deep and mysterious sources (maybe HE is Deep Throat), sends on this letter former NYC mayor Ed Koch sent to Ted Turner yesterday:

June 19, 2002
Via Facsimile & Mail

Ted Turner
Cable News Network
One CNN Plaza
Atlanta, Georgia 30348

Dear Ted:
You will recall that we worked together in creating the New York City Vietnam War memorial honoring American soldiers here in New York City. Among others, including Donald Trump, we were both honored by the Vietnam Veterans for our support of that important measure.

I write to you now because of your recent comments equating the actions of Palestinian suicide bombers with the defensive actions taken by Israel. You are quoted as having said with respect to Israel, "they've got one of the most powerful military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are engaged in terrorism."

We all say stupid things on occasion. Comments of a similar nature appearing to explain and excuse suicide bombers were made by Cherie Blair, wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair of England for which she profusely apologized. Perhaps your and her comments were made out of frustration because the Palestinians and the Israelis have been unable, after so many years, to come to an agreement which would allow two states -- one Palestinian and the other Israeli -- to live in peace side by side.

Yet, surely there is no moral equivalency between those engaged in intentionally blowing up innocent civilians to achieve their cause with those who engage in reprisals to punish those who execute what are inexcusable terrorist acts.

The definition of a terrorist act is simple. It is the intentional targeting of innocent civilians in order to achieve goals, in this case, both political and religious. Do you disagree with the definition?

You and others evidently believe the Israelis have used excessive force in the actions triggered by the terrorist attacks. The recent attack for which Hamas has claimed responsibility is the 69th Palestinian suicide bombing in 21 months and Jerusalem's deadliest in six years, so reports the Associated Press. The Hamas statement claiming responsibility states, "We tell the Zionists to prepare your coffins, dig your graves, because your dead will be in the hundreds."

What form of reprisal would you suggest Israel take in response? On two prior occasions, one in Tel Aviv and the other in Jerusalem, Israel did not respond and, nevertheless, the bombings continued.

What is even more difficult to deal with is a recent Palestinian poll, a copy of which is enclosed. It shows that a majority of Palestinians believe that the State of Israel should be extinguished and a Palestinian state created to include all of historic Palestine lying between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Under such circumstances, what do you suggest Israel do in responding to the bombings and other acts of terrorism. If Mexican terrorists seeking to achieve the restoration to Mexico of land that once was part of that country, e.g., California, Arizona and New Mexico, engaged in suicide bombings to achieve their goal, how would you advise President Bush to respond if the Mexican government were either unwilling or unable to stop the suicide bombings.

I know I would expect the U.S. government to protect us, and it would have that right under the United Nations charter which provides for the right of self-defense.

Many of the parents, including those of the latest suicide bomber, have expressed support for their child's killing innocent Israeli civilians. Indeed, one parent was sorry that a nuclear bomb had not been used; another was unhappy that so few Israeli were killed. Do you believe parents abetting the killings by encouragement of the suicide bomber have some culpability?

So in conclusion let me ask what you think is the proper response for Israel under these circumstances.

All the best,
Sincerely,
Edward I. Koch

Yes, Ted, what is the proper response?
posted by Eric at 2:24 PM

 
Columbine Re-Revisited
I can be crusty, and I like sequestering myself off from the world and writing from my own sphincter from time to time, but the best part of this blogging biz is the interaction - hands down. That's what makes blogging different.

Back on May 20 I wrote a piece (based upon an idea from Dawn) comparing Columbine to 9/11, seeing similarities between the "revenge for humiliation" attitudes that led to each. I thought it was pretty good and would get some attention, but this was right in the middle of the grim Sullivan affair so it slipped through the cracks.

Now, a month later, young blogger Bo Cowgill, who is a junior at Stanford and a very impressive thinker already, has resurrected the theme:

07/24/01: COLUMBINE MISSILE DEFENSE:
(Ed: this is an old journal entry I wrote while working in Washington, D.C. I'm posting it because it reminds me of this posting on Tres Producers)
Reading Thomas Friedman's NY Times editorial today got me thinking about rouge nations and the 'undeterrabile.'

I wonder whether a good analogy to the so-called 'rogue' nations (a category which has recently been renamed 'nations of concern') would be Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the teenage lunatics whose rampage in 1999 cost the lives of dozens of Colorado high-schoolers.

Like these rogue nations supposedly are, no amount of punishment was enough to deter Harris and Klebold. In the end, the pair decided to commit suicide, so whatever punishment awaited them did not matter anyway. Who is to say that Saddam Hussein does not think or act the same way?

Much like Harris and Klebold, nobody gives a damn about most of the third world countries which the United States is worried about. In fact, those who do give a damn about Klebold, Harris or their dictatorship counterparts do so because they don't like them--at all.

There will be people who object to this idea on the grounds that while individuals can easily become irrational, societies cannot. But this is a pointless claim--one need only to look into history to see examples of how the desires of constituents can be safely ignored.

So lets imagine that instead of being creepy, goth-rock outcasts in a Colorado High School, Harris and Klebold, complete with their instability and irrationality, were the dictators of North Korea and Iraq, respectively. This is not as unimaginable a possibility as one might expect--Harris and Klebold were smart, calculating individuals, who for most of their lives were able to pass off as normal and stable. Can we be confident that they would be unable to manipulate their way up the political scene? If anything, their capacity for ruthlessness and manipulation would enhance their ability to scrap to the top. Why does it seem likely for a lonely, rejected, and perhaps perverted individual to find salvation in the anti-democratic institutions of third-world government? Or the Army?

And once there, why is it conceivable for this individual to push his way to the top, fueled by the powerful inner turmoil of his rejection? History has known many who have succeeded on the fury of their past anguish.

Once at the top or in any position to influence the launch of a nuclear warhead, what would it take for a Harris or Klebold to tip? Perhaps not very much. What was it that made them tip at Columbine? There was no single event that pushed them over the edge--one might say that it was an inevitable product of their terribly low social status.

How many of such leaders would it take to ruin the world and dramatically alter the course of history?

Only one.

And the past is the greatest testament to that. How different would 2001 be had Adolf Hitler, a ruthless, powerful, perverted psychopath who managed to make himself one of the most powerful people in the world?

Was Hitler deterrable? Perhaps not. Like Harris and Klebold, he willingly took his own life at the end of World War II. Had his military campaign been more successful, he surely wouldn't have, just as Harris and Klebold wouldn't have killed themselves had they managed an escape route.

So it seems like one could easily frame the NMD debate as one that is essentially a debate over appeasement. What is left to be done is to remind the rest of the world of the potential for disaster that could result if just one psychopath leader comes to the helm of a state that can somehow get its hands on nuclear weapons.

Pretty amazing, and remember this was written two months BEFORE 9/11. The psychology of the cheerfully suicidal AGAIN comes up (see previous post). This is not "bravery," this is not "courage," this is retreat from life, an abdication of responsibility, a decision that for whatever reason life isn't worth living - and "oh by the way - I think I'll take as many of you bastards with me as I can."

This psychology may be the greatest danger the world faces today.

UPDATE
Bo blogs my blog of his blog of my blog. Got it?

There will be some objections to the Columbine comparison on the grounds that Harris and Klebold were kids. Before September 11, this argument might hold some weight; however, by now surely people can agree--adults are also capable of ignoring severe punishment in pursuit of murderous revenge. There will also be the objection that because bin Laden and al-Quaeda are non-state actors, that mutually assured destruction is somehow "less assured." True, but I still think that the terrorists had reason to fear retaliation and still have reason ... well, notwithstanding the "rewards" of martyrdom.

posted by Eric at 1:46 PM

 
What Is Brave?
I am astonished a concept that seems so obvious to me - that suicide operations do no require bravery, but a special kind of cowardice - would not be shared by obviously intelligent people: columnist Chafets in the post below, and then blogger Leonard Dickens of Unruled in the comments secton of the same post:

bravery: showing courage
courage: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty

definitions from m-w.com

Plotting a crime that will get you life in prison if you are found out, and living with that possibility for years as you train for the mission in an enemy country. Pulling it off against the unknown resistance of crew and passengers. Overcoming the instinct to self-preservation to crash into a building.

I would call facing each of things brave. Perhaps not tremendously brave, but brave.

I don't understand the impulse by many smart people to deny this. Do you think you could pull off such an operation with no fear? I could not. Any one of those things would cause me fear. Do you think these men were so different from you as to not be human? Why do you think that? Neither you nor I will ever know these men, nor much of anything about them, outside of their actions.

Is it that you think that evil men cannot have any virtues?

Why is it so important to try to characterize these men as cowards?
Leonard Dickens

The reason these people are not brave is that they have resigned themselves to death as an inevitable result of their actions, a death they are convinced will lead them straight to the cushiest of heavens, and so the normal rules of bravery, of courage no longer apply. The definitions quoted apply to those who still value life, who wish to preserve their own and presumably others. There is no RISK when an EAGERLY AWAITED DEATH is the inevitable result of one's actions.

The accomplishment of life's work requires the courage to expose oneself to the random dangers of life's theater. Virtually all threat in life is based upon the premise that individuals seek to PRESERVE THEIR OWN LIVES. Once one renounces the desirability of preserving one's own life, one becomes a different kind of creature entirely. This isn't the same thing as performing heroically in the face of near-certain death because the soldier who charges up the hill in the face of withering fire does so not because he doesn't value his own life, but because he so values the lives of his compatriots and the rightness of his cause that he acts IN THE FACE OF HIS FEARS.

Suicide terrorists of whatever scale of destruction are SELFISH COWARDS because they choose a course of action that removes the danger and risk inherent in living life - they just throw in the towel - in favor of an ultimately SELFISH course of acton they believe will lead them - just them, no one else - into the arms of Allah. "I will kill innocent men, women and children, and forego the rest of my messy, risky, unpredictable life on earth in order to get a 'Go Straight to Allah' card." That is the easy way out. That is selfish. That is cowardice. Death is easy - life is hard. Life requires courage - death does not.

Please also see this earlier post for some similar thoughts.

UPDATE
There is much good and interesting thinking in the comments section here, but Andrea Harris' struck me such that I must direct you to her site for more:

The word you are all searching for is "rashness." One might call it the "dark side" to bravery. Bravery often consists of doing something that goes against one's instinct for self-preservation, but in service of something good (ie: going into a burning building to save a child). Rashness often consists of doing something that goes against one's instinct for self-preservation, but in service of something evil (flying a plane into a building in order to kill many men, women, and children, all because you have become convinced that you'll get to sit on god's lap as a reward -- and oh yeah, your people will be able to rule the world and you'll get praised to the skies and you'll be able to watch it all on god's big-screen tv while getting serviced by gourgeous babes).

posted by Eric at 12:20 PM

 
Butter On That?
Just found another new (to me) site. Who could resist the name Hot Buttered Death? The anonymous Buttery Death guy would appear to be in the UK, based upon my detective work, and the fact that it is tomorrow today and he talks about a lot of Britishy stuff. He also has good taste in music:

Interview with Matt Johnson from The The. I heartily recommend the new 45 RPM compilation, too, which just sounds beautiful and, better still, restores the original single version of "Uncertain Smile" and its 12-inch extended version to circulation.

I do too.

posted by Eric at 11:10 PM

 
Melodrama, But Not Melodramatic
Damn, I forgot how cool Bruce Baugh is. Sorry about that Bruce:

The human soul is unrealistic.

No, this isn't a materialist argument that the idea of the soul is unrealistic. I mean that our interior lives are seldom constrained by the limits of physical reality.

I am freshly reminded of this as I get back to work on my third book. There are no vampires, to the best of my knowledge, and if there are they aren't like the ones in White Wolf's games and fiction. But there are people who have spent a long time on a fixed obsession and find themselves drifting when the object of obsession perishes, and who feel themselves moving slower than their former peers and left behind in history, and who feel cut off from their neighbors by a hidden blight. When I project those emotions into the fictional context of the World of Darkness, I am writing what I know.

I have a friend that I just can't watch some movies with, because whenever the action gets melodramatic or heroic or whatever, he starts saying things like "But they wouldn't do that..." True enough, most people wouldn't. But a lot of people dream of doing it: of rising to challenges that seem unsurmountable and triumphing over them, of seeking and finding their true love, of plunging into terror and tragedy and emerging at the end, perhaps shaken but wiser and stronger for it.

Shaken, and perhaps stirred. You should read Bruce if you aren't.
posted by Eric at 10:59 PM

 
Calling Substantive Single Men
Help this fine young woman out:

This Marine I went on a date with a few weeks back played it in his mighty fine Mustang. Too bad he was not as fun as his car. There has been a definite trend in the guys who have asked me out of late.. Pretty.. but no substance.. I prefer substance. No fun talking to your self. I do that alone at home.. Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou.. Ok, truth be told, I am not pining for a Romeo.. I just want someone to participate in my whims.. My spur of the moment adventures.. My late night food runs.. Etc.. Having someone tag along makes the trip that more spontaneous and funny.. though I do crack myself up, I like making other people laugh more..

Is that too much to ask? I think not.
posted by Eric at 10:54 PM

 
Pressed
Dawn and I both noticed a post by Jeff Goldstein about Southwest Airlines' new policy requiring "persons of size" to buy two seats instead of one. Dawn handled the semantic PC aspect, I'll handle the reality.

The whole - and I mean whole (maybe 12 of us) - family went to Sydney for the Olympics in 2000. Lily was almost 1. In order to save money, we flew a tortuous route from Cleveland to Houston to Honolulu to Guam to Cairns, Australia to Sydney. I shit you not. It took about 24 mind-reaming, numbing, soul-crushing hours to get there.

We had a tremendous time in Australia, but two weeks just isn't enough to attend the Games, see the sites, and have five minutes to take a dump. And remember we had a baby along: a sweet little cherub who got a kidney infection and required a day at a Sydney hospital lying there like a sad little limp rag. That'll take a bite out of your "Aussie Aussie Aussie oy oy oy" "g'day mate" festivities.

We saw and did much in Sydney and then in Cairns before we retraced our steps backwards across the mighty, mammoth, really damn big Pacific Ocean. Only this time we got to stop in Hawaii for a couple of days on the way back. We were REALLY looking forward to our restful stop in Honolulu when we boarded the plane in Guam. We were also hoping for a little extra room to stretch out and relax a bit in transit. No way. Every motherloving seat on the entire bird was full. The two older kids were off sitting together somewhere toward the front of the plane.

Dawn, Lily and I were smack dab in the middle of the middle row, right in front of the movie screen, bookended by two of the most massive, bulging, seeping, distended Samoans you have ever seen. And I've spent time in Carson, CA. No way to even sex them they were so monumental and bulbous. They both smiled gently at we little munchkins crushed between them. They spilled over onto the seats around them like Playdough extruded from a mold. They were so stuffed into their seats that they had body parts all disarranged like twin Cubist sculptures.

We had three people in two middle seats surrounded by AT LEAST 750 lbs. of gaily-attired humanity. Never mind two seats, they EACH could have easily filled THREE seats. But they only had one, and copious spillover in every direction. People two rows back were complaining that they blotted out the sun, you can imagine how it was for us.

This was SEVERAL hours of pressed ham bearing down upon us from both directions. Thank God they didn't smell. When we finally escaped we had floral print marks on our faces and the three of us had essentially melted into one person trying to avoid the mud flow from either side. My left, and Dawn's right side didn't work correctly for a few days after that. I still have nightmares.

I'd say it's about time "people of size" make the move to twin seats. We're all flying to Hawaii in less than two weeks, and we aren't taking Southwest: cause for concern. We are taking along a cattle prod this time, though. Pray for us.

UPDATE
Dawn has a vivid, hysterical answer to a gentleman seeking clarification re who qualifies as a "fatty-fatty wideload."
posted by Eric at 9:41 PM

 
Soldiers of Fortune?
These cool guys keep showing up in my comments section. Wylie In Norman had some interesting things to say about child rearing, so I checked out his site, WylieBlog, and found this fascinating proposed strategy for the Israelis:

The 'Palestinians', as opposition, have the decided advantage in strategy options here due to their willingness to sacrifice Joe Abdullah for 'the cause'. They have zero compunction about attacking innocents (what we in the west would call non-combatants) be they elderly, mothers, infants, busloads of schoolchildren, whatever. The Israelis, on the other hand, want to find and punish combatants only, taking great pains (as they did in Operation Defensive Shield) to avoid harming even those whose complicity might be in question. So, what's the answer? A modest suggestion: Mercenaries.

Israel has a fairly prosperous, market-based economy. They have a big problem that the IDF is ill-suited to handling, that is, dealing with subversives and terrorists. They DO have perhaps the world's premier intelligence community. So they hire a mercenary force, known for ruthlessness and effectiveness (a few brigades of Chechnya veterans?), provide them with a mission statement - Do whatever it takes to protect the civilian population from terrorist attack - and supply them with pertinent intelligence information. Create incentives for days between attacks. If the PA looks to have genuinely thrown in the towel (free elections, handover of all known terrorists and operatives, etc), everyone gets a bonus. Back them up militarily if they are militarily attacked, but otherwise let them operate under their own recognizance. Bet it wouldn't take a year to clean up the whole rats' nest.

UPDATE
Reader Dean pops up all over the place with insightful, sometimes brilliant analysis. Here are his thoughts on Wylie's mercenaries. This guy should get his own blog, pronto:

Given the mission parameters (protecting a civilian populace from terrorists), I'm not sure that what you want is "mercenaries." Since you (the Israelis) would be providing intelligence information, it's not like the mercenaries are actually totally separate from yourselves, and therefore alleviating blame. INdeed, if they kill the wrong guy, you'll be in hot water, because you provided the intel.

Arguably, what you really want is a small hit-team, capable of operating behind enemy lines (in this case, in PA-controlled areas) and capable of hunting down and eliminating top terrorist leaders, in manners and with timing unaffected by rules of engagement that would affect other Israeli forces.

The problem, of course, is preventing such an extra-legal entity from becoming very quickly a rogue elephant. Who would have oversight? What would keep them from killing other people? Could they really use ANY means (e.g., area weapons, which would incur civilian casualties)?

Not that possessing the moral high-ground necessarily means much in an international relations sense (that and $1.25 MIGHT get you a bad cup of coffee), but it DOES affect how a nation looks at itself. I've always been of the opinion that the Israelis restrain themselves, NOT for kudoes from the EU or even the US, but because their own populace, at some level, has drawn a line as to what is and is not permissible. One crosses that line at one's own peril.
Dean

posted by Eric at 8:29 PM

 
Why?
Our friend Sulizano has a true ecstasy/agony story that reminds us random death isn't proprietary to the Middle East, South Asia, or anywhere else.

When I hear things like this I think of the cynicism of Depeche Mode's song "Blasphemous Rumors":

I don't want to start
Any blasphemous rumours
But I think that God's
Got a sick sense of humor
And when I die
I expect to find Him laughing

I don't want to think this way. I want to think there is a deeper meaning to existence than irony. I realize that just because we don't understand something doesn't mean that it can't be understood, but the seeming randomness of life and death does test my faith. Perhaps it is meant to.
posted by Eric at 4:56 PM

 
Cut Off the Root
Mike Hendrix at Cold Fury has an excellent post on the "root cause" of the Palestinian problem: "moderate" Arab states.

The "Palestinian problem" would have gone away a long time ago if it weren't for these states' constant agitprop coupled with their material support. They keep alive the notion that if the Palestinians just persevere with their outrageous attacks long enough, the civilized world will eventually grow weary and admit defeat, and then they can get on with solving the "Israel problem." As plenty of folks have already said, the Arab world is more than willing to fight to the last Palestinian. They've been doing just that for years, and with almost no adverse consequences for their cowardly and duplicitous actions. It's just about time we found some way to make them suffer in measure comparable to the way they've kept the Israelis - and in very concrete ways, the rest of the world - suffering for decades now.

posted by Eric at 4:04 PM

 
Squished
My Ohio compatriot Gregory Hlatky, who likes dogs by the way, found this rather weighty news:

WHEN THEY OUTLAW STICKY BUNS, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE STICKY BUNS

But is there a loophole?
posted by Eric at 3:55 PM

 
Ted Turner's Terror
I have always had a certain amount of admiration for Ted Turner: his blowhard personality, his iconclasticism, his success on his own terms in sports and entertainment, his engagement with the affairs of the world, the idealism of the Goodwill Games. And I always thought Jane Fonda was hot. Sure, half of what he says is stupid, but half of what most people say is stupid.

Unfortunately, Ted has chosen a terrible time to go from being an occasional dumbass, to being a screaming, sphincter-exploding, shit-for-brains DANGEROUS dumbass. Stephen Hayes is not surprised:

TED TURNER is still a moron. In the event there was any doubt about this proposition, Turner generously offered more evidence in an interview published yesterday in the Guardian. The offending passage: "Aren't the Israelis and the Palestinians both terrorising each other? The Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers, that's all they have. The Israelis . . . they've got one of the most powerful military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are involved in terrorism."

The outrage came quickly. The Israeli government called him "stupid." Tom DeLay ripped Turner, saying his "twisted attempt to justify terrorism against Israel by establishing moral equivalence descends to new depths." Even CNN, the network Turner founded, hastily issued a statement pointing out that he "has no operational or editorial oversight of CNN," and that his "views are his own and they definitely do not reflect the views of CNN in any way."

I love this part: even Turner's virtual offspring have disowned his ass. I can only guess that some form of guilt-drenched underdog populism has infected this billionaire's soul, rendering him incapable of seeing that a pox should not be cast equally upon both Middle Eastern houses. Sometimes underdogs are twisted, amoral, autocratic, anti-human fuckwads who don't dserve the consideration they have been shown. Besides, who could be more of an underdog than Israel: ostracized, vilified, demonized, dehumanized, marginalized by virtually the entire freaking earth?

Hayes sees Turner's latest word-mangling as a continuation, not a shift:

In fact, in the very same interview in which he made the Israelis-as-terrorist claims, Turner tried to explain away his most recent faux pas, a February speech in which he praised the September 11 hijackers as "brave," although maybe a "little nuts."

Turner told the paper that he had "made an unfortunate choice of words," and speculated that he might have picked that one because he owns the Atlanta Braves. "Look, I'm a very good thinker, but I sometimes grab the wrong word . . . I mean, I don't type my speeches, then sit up there and read them off the teleprompter, you know. I wing it."

But that comment was more than just a poor word choice. After labeling the terrorists "brave," Turner asked the audience for a show of hands--how many among you would commit suicide for your country? No hands. Point made. Turner may now, after an outpouring of criticism, wish that he hadn't called the hijackers "brave." (Even for those foolish enough accept the argument that it's somehow courageous to commit suicide, Turner's argument doesn't wash: Osama bin Laden revealed two months earlier, on his infamous videotaped confession, that most of the hijackers had no idea they were sent to die.) But Turner did say it, and at the time, he meant it.

Hayes is greatly offended by Turner's attempted "clarification":

It reads, in part: "I want to make it absolutely clear that my view was--and is--that there is a fundamental distinction between the acts of the Israeli government and the Palestinians . . . I believe the Israeli government has used excessive force to defend itself, but that is not the same as intentionally targeting and killing civilians with suicide bombers." The statement also said Turner regretted "any implication that I believe the actions taken by Israel to protect its people are equal to terrorism."

Implication? Forget implication. Turner was very clear about what he meant: He thinks the Israeli government is involved in terrorism. Indeed, he repeated that point twice. He was not only clear, but emphatic.

It's apparent that Turner does believe that the September 11 hijackers were "brave" and that he does believe the Israeli government is guilty of terrorism. And others--Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said--share his views.

But say this for those other very public morons: At least they have the courage of their convictions.

So Turner is not only an amoral idiot, he is also a poltroon. I don't pretend to know how Turner "really" feels, but it would seem to me his true position is more likely to come out when he is "winging it" than when he is in damage control mode.

Zev Chafets begins with the same premise as Hayes:

Talk about bad timing. Yesterday, Ted Turner tells Britain's The Guardian that Israel and the Palestinians are "terrorizing each other" in an unfair fight between a powerful military and poor people "who have nothing."

Within a few hours, Turner's heroic victims blow up an Israeli bus, killing mostly school kids. And not for the first time, Turner comes off sounding like an idiot.

But then Chafets heads off in an entirely different direction:

Turner may be half nuts, but the CNN founder also happens to be more than half-right. Israelis and Arabs are, indeed, trying to terrorize one another. That this obvious observation is even controversial demonstrates how badly President Bush's euphemistic "war on terror" has degraded political language.

Terror — the threat or use of force to break a hostile population — has been the inescapable part of modern warfare since Sherman burned his way through Georgia. He and Lincoln terrorized the Confederacy into surrender. The Allied leaders terrorized Germany and Japan into capitulation.

Terrorism takes various forms. It can consist of Mau Mau warriors scaring the British out of Kenya with rifles and spears or the Soviet Union decomposing in the face of American nuclear terror that it could no longer plausibly balance. But it always paints a picture of disaster and invites the enemy to see it clearly — and behave accordingly.

That is what the Palestinians have done in the intifadeh — and what the Islamic terrorists did in declaring jihad on America. It is also at the heart of the Israeli invasions of the West Bank and the new American doctrine of preemption.

Whoa now Zev buddy, that's a pretty damned broad definition of "terror." The simple fact that we possessed nuclear weapons is an example of terror? Every definition I have heard removes legitimate military targets from the list and specifies the intentional or indescriminate targeting of civilians as characterizing terror, which would absolutely remove Israel's actions in Jenin, etc. from the list. Similarly, since our "preemptive" actions have been directed at specific military or paramilitary targets - and have specifically avoided civilian casualties - they too would not fit any previous definition of terror I have ever heard (outside of the U.N. anyway). And regarding nukes, we didn't even use them against the USSR, how can this be terror?

Then Chafets directly contradicts Hayes, and my own thinking, with this jaw-dropper:

After Sept. 11, Turner described the hijackers as "brave." That comment, like his Palestinian pronunciamento, caused a stir. But Turner was right. Flying a plane into a building with premeditation is, indeed, an act of bravery. So is blowing yourself up on an Israeli school bus.

"Brave" in what sense? Because they knew they were going to die in carrying out their plans? I would call this cowardice most craven: if you have resigned yourself to dying, if you think as a consequence of your murderous/suicidal actions that you will wake up in the arms of a bevy of beauteous virgins who will righteously wax your little Islamist ding-dong for all eternity, this is not bravery but the lowest of onanistic, dehumanizing, self-deceptive, selfish, take-the-easy-way-out chickenshit imaginable. If you have already opted out of life, nothing you do is "brave," just an extension of this yellow-livered surrender.

Finally, Chafets takes a turn for the rational:

The Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers, that's all they have," says Turner. Presumably, he would like Israel to reply by employing its own suicide bombers on Palestinian buses — and America to dispatch troops to fight the jihad on camelback. That's how baseball works — they knock down your pitcher, you knock down their pitcher.

But war isn't baseball. In real life, if you turn your sons and daughters into bean balls, you invite a Louisville Slugger upside the head.

That's human nature, and it is why Turner's assertion that Israel and the Palestinians are trying to terrorize one another is banal. The real issue — the one he ducks — is what they are doing it for.

The Palestinians are fighting for the eventual destruction of Israel. That's the open objective of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the implicit meaning of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's demand for a "right of return." Just last week, a Palestinian poll was published showing that a clear majority of the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza regards the extermination of Israel as the proper aim of the intifadeh.

Israel has other ideas. It is willing to accept a ceasefire followed by some form of Palestinian state in most of the occupied territories. But it is also willing — and properly so — to do whatever it takes to make the Palestinians stop blowing up buses. If that means terrorizing the enemy — or even being called a terrorist state by Ted Turner — well, that's the price of survival.

After all, war is hell. In fact, I think Sherman was in Atlanta when he said that.

Okay then, that's more like it; but Zev, lose the definitions of "terror" and "bravery." Everything else you said makes sense.

UPDATE
David Hogberg reminds us of another Turner numb-fest:

In my opinion, the dumbest thing Ted Turner ever did involved not his mouth, but his wallet. Whatever shred of respect I had for him was completely obliterated when he donated one-billion bucks to the United Nations. You might as well flush a big wad of cash down the toilet.

That would be a very large wad and a very large toilet.

UPDATE 2
Howard Kurtz recaps the latest Turner follies and recalls another greatest hit:

While the CNN founder has had a limited role at parent company AOL Time Warner in recent years, his public remarks have repeatedly gotten him in hot water. On Ash Wednesday last year, Turner asked several CNN staffers who had ashes on their foreheads: "What are you, a bunch of Jesus freaks?"

UPDATE 3
Charles Johnson emails this in:

And although CNN was quick to issue a statement saying that Turner had no input into their editorial decisions, there's no doubt in my mind that his
sick moral equivalence has infected the entire CNN system.

I think we saw a reaction at CNN from Turner's statements. Overcompensating a bit?
posted by Eric at 2:18 PM

 
Perspicacious
Poised as I was in my defensive posture, I was a little hard on Jim Schwab yesterday, who, after all, has every right to be proud of his own birth performance. Today, Jim graciously avers that he hadn't quite understood our situation - in particular the fact that we weren't informed of the ramifications of the drugs they mainlined into Dawn from the moment we walked in the hopital door.

Even more importantly, Jim is perspicacious enough to appreciate the hyper-eclectic trio of Rollins Band, Fatboy Slim, and Wild Bill Moore from the Cool Tunes playlist, AND he downloaded our MP3 of "Liquid Body Punch" and DUG IT. You may say whatever you want about me from now on Jim, we're cool.
posted by Eric at 1:29 PM

 
Vulnerable
You know how it feels when your heart suddenly, unexpectedly, jumps to your throat? Lily was inordinately tired last night and fell asleep while watching Snow White for the eleventy-hundreth time. Then she didn't want to get up at the regular time this morning. When she did get up she was more dazed than usual and very quiet.

Dawn had to get to work, so since I don't have to take my son to school anymore for the summer, I got the job of ferrying Lily to her pre-school. She loves school and looks forward to going each day. Sometimes when I pick her up in the afternoon she says she wants to stay at school with her friends. This is a good sign as to the quality of care she is receiving.

When we got to the school she was very clingy; her teacher noticed and asked to hold her. She clung to the teacher, a sweet young woman not much older than my other daughter, like a baby koala. Then Lily shed a single, enormous, silent tear as I was walking away. My heart leapt throat-ward and I had to blink back a tear of my own.

Man, how vulnerable we are to the emotions of our children - it's kind of frightening. I sure love that little thing, though.
posted by Eric at 1:03 PM

 
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Inconvenienced
Dawn is in very fine form here, taking on the rude and clueless who have the misfortune of throwing stones in her passway.
posted by Eric at 12:39 PM

 
"Extreme" Tracking
I love this new Extreme Tracker that Dawn hooked me up with. While Site Meter does a better job with raw numbers, Extreme tells me who referred my last twenty visitors, which is a very cool thing indeed.

For example, I found out Ken Layne was amused by the fact that I ran into myself in the NY Times where a review I wrote of an Ellroy novel was blurbed. More importantly though, while I was over there, I poked around (of course) and came across this post, which is really about ESPN columnist Bill Simmons, but contains this reference to Daniel Pearl:

It's not like those scumbag anchor-desk monkeys and worthless cubicle columnists calling Daniel Pearl "Danny."

As usual Layne has found something that strikes a nerve. I was driven insane by the "Danny" reference. I have been trying to figure it out ever since.

There is the cheesy insider factor: "I am an insider, insiders call Daniel Pearl 'Danny' so I will too." This is annoying, but there is something deeper that bothers me even more. I think it's the effrontery of feigned familiarity that frosts my flake, because that familiarity implies that the user somehow "shares" in the suffering of those who really do know and love the late Mr. Pearl.

They share nothing beyond what all of mankind shares when someone is brutally mistreated, then killed for wretchedly vague "political," or somehow even worse, religious reasons. The reason Bill Clinton's "I feel your pain" phrase has stuck to him like tar is that other than in a very general sense, Bill doesn't share my fucking pain or anyone else's he doesn't know. Who does he think he is - Jesus? - taking on the pain of the world in some grand gesture of empathy.

The media is just the media, and unless the clown behind the desk actually does know someone personally, he/she shouldn't pretend otherwise, and certainly shouldn't imply that, due to his/her lofty position in front of the camera or at the helm of a column, he/she somehow "absorbs" some aspect of the news that flows through him/her. Don't try to make the news more personal than it is, and don't try to "share" in the suffering of others because it is false, is in bad taste, and impugns the integrity of the media in general. Assholes.

Then I noticed there are some Dr. Weevil's in the referrer list as well. And I find that the good doctor has checked out my Cool Tunes playlist from last night and found his knowledge of the artists therein lacking. His musical taste would appear to be of a country bent. So I say, fear not for your coolness Doc, I don't know nearly as much about country as you clearly do, and the show is new release-based anyway - I if I didn't get them from the labels I wouldn't know a lot of the artists either. For those who lean toward the twang, though, there are some tasty tidbits from Chuck Prophet, Steve Earle, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and Delbert McClinton in the show - all worth checking out.

The point of publishing the playlist on the blog isn't to intimidate anyone, but to induce people to listen to the radio show if they have some spare time on Saturday nights. People have been asking what's on the show, and I have to send the list to the labels each week anyway, so there you have it. You'll note that this week's list has a link off of the Mr. T Experience tune. Why? you may ask. Because our esteemed fellow blogger, Dr. Frank is the lead singer of that smoking hot veteran punk outfit, and THE WORLD SHOULD KNOW. Thanks Extreme Tracker.

UPDATE
Dr. Frank goes mainstream - do I surf the zeitgeist or what?
posted by Eric at 11:36 AM

 
Nothing Funny Today
Jeff Goldstein is often hilarious when there is something to be hilarious about. Today he is outraged by the latest suicide terrorist attack on Israel:

The whole region needs to be de-Nazified. And the only way such a thing will happen is if the civilized world throws over the realpolitik goal of maintaining "stability" in the region and instead condemns this culture of undisguised hatred -- and in no uncertain terms. The US should insist the UN condemn, not justify, Palestinian suicide bombings, or it should withdraw its support. Statements from international "aid" agencies like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch should be ignored by the mainstream western media until the time when these highly politicized groups re-establish their credibility as objective observers of world conflict. University professors who exercise their free speech rights to support divestiture and preach the sobriety and righteousness of Palestinian "resistance" through the act of blowing up high school kids or shooting little girls in their beds should be challenged -- consistently and tenaciously. And so on.

I couldn't deal directly with this today - sometimes these things are just too much for me. Thank goodness bloggers have not become jaded to this kind of horror.

UPDATE
The Bear has had a profound change of heart on the appropriateness of a Palestinian state:

The conventional wisdom has been that once the Palestinian question is resolved, we will have a freer hand to work through the other issues plaguing the region.

The conventional wisdom has it exactly backwards. Even with the brutal course I propose of a full Israeli takeover of the territories, there will still be terror and death so long as the money and arms continue to flow from the regimes who benefit from such violence.

Even Israel does not have the might to address all of these petty fiefdoms of blood all at once.

But I know a nation that does.

Let us hear no pathetic cries of "national sovereignty" and "American imperialism". Let us ignore those who will rise to defend the tyrants and the murderers out of reflexive allergy to "Western hegemony".

And let us simply hope that our society has the collective will to know what must be done, and to do it.

Armed Liberal has turned as well:

How would you negotiate with the people who do this as a matter of course? I used to support the idea of a Palestinian state. I used to be irritated at Israel for all the things they did in the name of 'security'. I was the political audience Arafat played to.

Not any more.

And speaking of stepping away from funny, Laurence Stuart Simon of Amish Tech Support performs a thought experiment where he removes 19 of his high school classmates from the world - the results are stunning.

There is a strong current of fed up disgust blowing through the blogs this evening. I wonder if this augurs a change in the greater zeitgeist as well. Despite everything that has gone down thus far, we have, in general, been willing to back the Palestinian's right to statehood. Perhaps Joe Katzman is right that even this most ephemeral of hopes needs to be dashed completely.
posted by Eric at 10:34 PM

 
Cool Tunes Playlist
Cool Tunes is a radio show in a magazine format Saturday nights at 10pm (Eastern) on WAPS, "The Summit," in Akron, Ohio. I play new music, reissues, and preview shows coming to town each week. Musically it is among the widest-ranging 2 hours in the country: modern rock, punk, electronica, jazz, reggae and ska, roots rock, Americana, blues, world, funk, hip hop, avant garde, etc. - if it's cool I play it. Cool Tunes has been proudly serving humanity since 1990.

Cool Tunes 6/15/02
Artist Song Album Label
Tommy Keene "All Your Love Will Stay" The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down SpinArt;
The Who "Substitute" (US single) The Ultimate Collection UTV/MCA;
Fidel "Talkin'" single Fidel;
Schatzi "Death of the Alphabet" Fifty Reasons to Explode Mammoth;
Travis "Driftwood" The Man Who Epic;
Haven "Say Somethng" Between the Senses Virgin;
Chuck Prophet "I Bow Down to Every Woman" No Other Love New West;
Steve Earle "Johnny Too Bad" Sidetracks E-Squared/Artemis;
Buju Banton "Wanna Be Loved" The Best Of Hip-O/Island;
Capleton "Raggy Road" The Best Of Hip-O;
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Bang" Yeah Yeah Yeahs EP Touch and Go;
Mr. T Experience "Boredom Zone" The Thing That Ate Floyd Lookout;
Millencolin "Fingers Crossed" Punk-O-Rama 7 Epitaph;
Dillenger Four "Sell the House..." Situationist Comedy Fat Wreck Chords;
Mad Happy "Bite Size Pieces" Feel Good Music ... Bar/None;
The Vines "Get Free" single Capitol;
StepKings "California" 3 the Hard Way We Put Out;
Rollins Band "Starve" The Only Way to Know For Sure Sanctuary;
Ray Wylie Hubbard "Without Love" The Singer Songwriter Collection Rounder;
Delbert McClinton "Pancho and Lefty" Poet Pedernales Freefalls;
Ohio Players "Love Rollercoaster" Party Starter Level 1 UTV;
Dazz Band "Let It Whip" Love Funk Hip-O;
Fatboy Slim "Right Here Right Now" Live On Brighton Beach Ministry of Sound;
Oakenfold "Time of Your Life" Bunkka Maverick;
Jenna Mammina "Lotus Blossom" Meant to Be Mamma Grace;
DJ Micro/Deepsky "Jareth's Church" Music Through Me Moonshine;
Bobby McFerrin "Invocation" Beyond Words Blue Note;
Gary Burton "Ladies In Mercedes" Rarum Vols 1-8 ECM;
Wild Bill Moore "Heavy Soul" Bottom Groove Milestone;
Ray Brown Trio "Blues For Junior" Some Of My Best Friends Are Guitarists Telarc;
Ray Brown Trio "Tanga" Telarc Jazz 25 Years Telarc;
posted by Eric at 10:05 PM

 
Poor Timing
Building truly impressive calf muscles as he continuously bounces up and down to see over the corn, David Hogberg sees all the way to New York and finds terrible irony in a Times editorial today decrying police searches on buses, the very day a suicide terrorist struck a bus in Israel killing at least 19 children.
posted by Eric at 8:25 PM

 
Get Your Blog On
Our good friend Sulizano has a blog. I hope she still continues to post comments on Dawn and my sites. We lose more good commenters that way.

So anyway, her blog has a great name, "Get Your Drawers On," and she has already talked about her breasts, figured out what to do with "child bugger" priests, and been linked by apostate Amish folk. Check her out!
posted by Eric at 8:14 PM

 
This Too Shall Pass
Everyone has a birth story, or at least those who have given birth. The men seem to enjoy lording their superior "supportiveness" over me, but I will take my abuse with a stout heart. Jim Schwab's tale is actually quite similar to ours, involving pre-eclampsia and other joys:

They informed her that she needed to be in the hospital on Sunday night (March 17th... St. Paddy's Day.... urrrrggghhh.... As an Irishman, I was rather crestfallen.... as a father-to-be, I was excited, scared, nervous, etc) and they were going to induce her first thing on Monday morning. This was interesting to me... I KNEW now what day my baby was to be born (we didn't know the sex.... I think, like a Christmas gift that should be opened on Christmas, so should a gift from God be opened on the birthday) that was good. They were worried about the baby and my precious wife... that was BAD!

We showed up at the appointed time (after some time in the Pub.... perhaps that story will come out too....), got all set, settled in and slept. In the morning, they wheeled her down and set her up in the delivery room. They gave her the drug (I forgot the name....) to induce the labor.. and WHAM!!! within 5 minutes or so, she was having "end-stage" contractions.... two minutes apart, full strenght delivery contractions. OUCH! However, the drawback here was that the drug doesn't force the cervix to dialate to end-stage..... so she still had hours to go while her body went through the natural progression... in the meantime, the contractions were continuing at "end-stage" This was the hardest thing I have EVER watched another human being, much less the love of my life, this wonderful woman who was bearing my child go through. It actually hurt me to watch this (I'm positive not nearly as much as it hurt her).

Yes, yes, yes - superior sensitivity and all of that. I don't recall ever hanging out in a PUB in connection to any of my birth experiences however.

Now, my wife, being the trooper and proponent for "natural" childbirth had stated throughout her pregnancy that she wanted to do this drug-free. I was sceptical from the begininng, knowing what a wuss I am. However, I supported her decision. UNTIL I watched her going through this pain.... the midwife informed us that "NOBODY makes it through an induced birth without an epidural." She made it like 3 hours (they induced her at 7:30, she didn't get the epidural until about 10:30 or so... I can't remember the exact times...) until she just said fuck it, give it to me. I asked ONCE "are you sure, you were adamant about doing this drug-free." She looked at me, got hit with another contraction and said "I can't do it, I can't." I supported her and she was given the epidural. She was so much more comfortable from that point forward, that she actually slept for a few hours! I was relieved that this wonderful woman was suffering so much less. At around 2:30, March 18, 2002, the miracle that is my second daughter, Abigail Elizabeth was born. Erin did suffer some more, during the end-stages and the actual birth and there were a few issues afterwards, but NOTHING like she would have if I had tried to prevent those drugs.... think of several more hours of end-stage labor pains (for those of you who haven't lived through it, or watched your significant other live through it (and that's all we can really do, is watch, not even sympathize), you won't truly understand until you do), without any relief. If that would have been the case, I should have been arrested for spousal abuse!

Yes, and I hurl insults at the disabled on weekends for fun. I just hang around the handicapped parking area of Wal-Mart and wait for them to show up.

Unlike Eric I didn't see it as my job to prevent my wife from getting drugs that would make her much more comfortable, but as I watched her suffering, I saw it as my job to prevent the suffering. I still don't see the drugs as a bad thing. In fact, I never did. The entire experience was the hardest, greatest, most painful, most beautiful thing I have EVER done in my life and the rewards are undescribable.

I did see the drugs as a bad thing because that was what we were taught, and Dawn and I both agreed that drug-free was preferable for both her and the baby. Again, the problem was no one in the classes, nor anyone at the hospital said "Your wife is on muscle relaxants for the pre-eclampsia, and she is on powerful contraction-inducing drugs as well. These drugs are at odds with each other. There is no way Dawn can use her relaxation, self-hypnosis, etc., training under these conditions, and you should both resign yourself to the fact that she will need an epidural when the time comes."

I don't enjoy the suffering of childbirth: we were trained to perceive the pain of contractions and then the actual extrusion of the baby as not pain, but "productive discomfort," and that this was preferable to doping up either the mother or, especially, the baby. This was my mindset. It turned out to be the wrong mindset.

I have just read Dawn's latest post on the subject. She STILL seems to feel that she somehow "failed." I didn't think she failed anything then (2 1/2 years ago) and I sure as hell don't think she failed anything now. She did her very best to have Lily naturally. She went way beyond the call of duty. She held out as long as she possibly could - longer. If anyone failed, I did. I tried to stick to the "plan" way beyond its relevance. "Perfection" in this case was achieved by the superhuman effort Dawn made to live up to an impossible standard to which I held her far beyond the point of reasonableness. That effort spoke of perfection. The result (Dawn and Lily healthy, happy) was perfect too. As long as my attitude is forgiven, what came in between no longer matters.
posted by Eric at 7:10 PM

 
Enemies of Enemies
While we are wallowing in family values (kidding, sort of), Anne Wilson has a great post on the bizarre alliance between "conservative" Christian groups and some Islamic-law countries in opposition to various UN "reproductive rights" efforts:

First, the players:

the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (an orthodox Catholic organization that monitors UN birth control/abortion programs)
John Klink, a former Vatican adviser;
Janice Crouse of Concerned Women of America
Paul J. Bonicelli of Patrick Henry College in VA.

Contrary to most conservatives' views, Islamic-law countries do not absolutely forbid birth control, or abortion for that matter. What they do forbid is birth control or abortion done on the woman's own initiative.

....The problems of alliance with these Islamic states (like Libya, the Sudan - where Christians are routinely enslaved, Iran, Iraq, etc.) are twofold. First off, while advocates like Austin Ruse claim that the alliance is "pro-family," what passes for "family values" in these countries are essentially institutions based on slavery, imprisonment, polygamy, abuse, and for all practical purposes pedophilia, as girls of 11 and 12 are forcibly married off. One reason Afghanistan had 20% infant mortality rates and almost as high *maternal* mortality rates was because girls between 12-14 were forced into marriage and virtually endless childbearing under stone-age conditions.

There is a lot more and it's all very sensible and informative. These Christians are making a huge mistake.
posted by Eric at 6:48 PM

 
The Cost of Hope
My ass has been fact-checked so often lately that I'm expecting a bill from the proctologist. Joe Katzman follows up this discussion with some sobering thoughts on "Biochemical Terrorism: A Scenario and its Consequences":

Now, Eric... are you going to tell me that a scenario like this is unthinkable? You know it isn't. Count the costs. It results from a linear extrapolation of success in the Palestinians' pursuit of stated strategies, at sites that have already been the target of attacks. If this is not Israel's exact response, their leeway to do much less is very, very limited.

THIS is where their hope leads the region. This is what can happen when "hope" means hope for the wrong things.

Too many more lives are stake here than just the Israelis and the Palestinians. And so we are left with the Zen paradox of the Middle East: until the Palestinians lose all hope, they must not be allowed to have it.

posted by Eric at 1:52 PM

 
Some Like It Hot

Terrorism suspect Zaccarias Moussaoui wants his ''American show trial'' moved from Virginia to Denver, where he said there are fewer government employees and the air is better.

In addition, he said, "I also like the idea that they have government employees who are arsonists out there. That's my kind of gal."

posted by Eric at 1:10 PM

 
Headline: "FBI, CIA Heads to Appear on Capitol Hill"
So as to not alarm the delicate sensibilities of Congress, they will appear connected to bodies.
posted by Eric at 1:00 PM

 
Next Step...Teleporting Clones

Australian scientists said Monday they had successfully "teleported" a laser beam encoded with data, breaking it up and reconstructing an exact replica a yard away.

Their work replicates an experiment at the California Institute of Technology in 1998, but the Australian team believes their technique is more reliable and consistent.

Although the research brings to mind the way "Star Trek" characters were beamed around on TV and in film, scientists at the Australian National University said their technique's main use will be as a way to encrypt information and for a new generation of super-fast computers.

At this stage, the process perfected by Australian physicist Ping Koy Lam and his 12-member team can only teleport light by destroying the light beam and creating an exact copy at the receiving end from light particles known as photons.

See, I wasn't kidding about the clones.
posted by Eric at 12:54 PM

 
Judge Tosses Dog Attack Convictions

A judge threw out a second-degree murder conviction Monday against Marjorie Knoller in the 2001 dog mauling that killed a neighbor, but let stand involuntary manslaughter convictions against Knoller and her husband, Robert Noel.

Murder convictions against the dogs were also overturned on the grounds that they were not read their rights before confessing to the crime.
posted by Eric at 12:51 PM

 
Of Criminals, Terrorists and Society
Mark Almond sees a commonality between criminals and terrorists as physically embodied by Jose Padilla, Richard Reid, and Zacarias Moussaoui:

For all their professed idealism, many Russian terrorists a century ago stoked up their commitment with heavy drinking and drug use. Mohamed Atta may have indulged in rather un-Islamic strip clubs and pornography before Sept. 11 simply to throw the police off any scent they had. But it is equally possible that like earlier generations of terrorists he felt above the petty moral constraints and taboos his ideology imposed on others. Petty criminals and terrorists both feel they are supermen beyond ordinary
laws and obligations.

At the dawn of the 21st century, the contemporary alliance between fanaticism and criminality offers similar challenges faced by czarist authorities in Russia a hundred years ago. The West, however, has obvious advantages. For all that Islamic extremists seek to draw on the well of psycho-criminal resentments existing in our societies, the depth of our democracies' political legitimacy is vastly greater than Nicholas II's regime. Terrorists are fish out of water in the West. The criminal underworld may offer them a few recruits and some cover, but they cannot come up for air into ordinary society, which reviles them, their terrible deeds and sinister ideology. Our modern misfits can mouth rhetoric and kill for it, but they are unlikely to convert society.

posted by Eric at 12:11 PM

 
The Entertainment Blogger
Marc Weisblott reviews the pilots for the upcoming 2002-2003 TV season. With our time more and more precious, who needs to watch a bad TV show?
posted by Eric at 11:58 AM

 
It's Who You Know, Not Who you Are
Michelle Cottle thinks we need religious, not ethnic profiling:

In fact, if we were really serious about profiling as an anti-terror strategy, we'd start talking more about religious profiling. As CNN's Lou Dobbs has pointed out, what we're engaged in is not a war on terrorism, it is a war on Islamism. Brown, black, pink, white, or gray, all al Qaeda plotters have a twisted brand of Islam in common. Does this mean we should fingerprint every Muslim within our borders? Absolutely not. (Though the administration seems to think this is a fine approach for certain ethnic groups.) But we should be fretting at least as furiously about how to spot bad apples within the larger Muslim community as we are about spotting them within the entire Middle Eastern or South Asian community. Clearly, such efforts would need to be handled delicately; even putting aside the government's hypersensitivity to charges of religious discrimination, we don't want to fuel Islamists' absurd claims that America hates all Muslims. But working out these sorts of tricky security strategies is precisely what we pay our public officials to do. Otherwise, we're going to get blindsided (and blown up) by the next Jose Padilla or Richard Reid who slips in under our ethnicity-obsessed radar.

Exactly, it is ASSOCIATIONS that need to be monitored closely, not ethnicity. Anyone can be influenced by an Islamist, and it's not as though most Islamists are subtle about their beliefs. Profiling Islamists and their associates should be our focus: this is not religious discrimination, this is taking a self-selected group who wish us harm at their word.
posted by Eric at 11:49 AM

 
Palestinian Mentality
Speaking with members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades:

"Israel will have to be driven out."

Each dismissed suggestions that the guerrilla tactics they prescribe have serious flaws. Unlike history's successful guerrillas, the Palestinians possess no rear area where they can take refuge. The Gaza Strip is ringed by fences. Gunmen occasionally infiltrate Gaza settlements, but the attacker is almost always killed.

The West Bank offers greater space for mobility, and targets abound on the roads and in settlements. But Israel is well-placed to stay on the offensive. Its tanks sit near Palestinian towns, and its helicopters and jets are overhead. The Palestinian answer, both Abu Iyad and Rashid said, is a conviction that death is nearly certain.

"We know the Jews are coming to kill, not to kiss," Rashid said. "There are painful hits on us, it is true. But the ranks of martyrs are infinite. Knowing you can die at any moment is an advantage."

Certainly: knowing that your cause is lost but carrying on suicidally anyway because you can't think of anything better to do leads to about zero planning and development of a civil society with things like dog catchers and trash collectors and the routine structure of everyday life because the whole deranged culture worships death and couldn't care less about such trivialities as LIFE.
posted by Eric at 11:33 AM

 
Bush's Oxymoron?
Does Bush really believe this? Steve Chapman:

In unveiling his plan for a new federal Department of Homeland Security, President Bush promised that it would require no new funds. On the contrary--it would "enhance operational efficiencies," minimize "duplication of effort" and foster "streamlined grantmaking." Creating a huge new Cabinet-level bureaucracy, he assured the nation, "would not grow government."

It may still be a good idea, but no new bureaucracy ever saved the taxpayers money.

It may sound thunderously obvious, but nobody ever created a federal department in order to save money for taxpayers. The whole goal, whether stated or not, is to assure more dollars for a specific government function. Establishing a Department of Homeland Security to reduce the size of government is like going to a NASCAR race to get some peace and quiet.

posted by Eric at 11:25 AM

 
"Liberate All of Historic Palestine"
An interesting article from the LA Times demonstrates that among myriad other issues, the Palestinians and Israelis can't even agree on terms (we seem to be having that problem with "loophole"):

A few years ago while on assignment in Amman, Jordan, I was chatting with one of the friendly waiters at my hotel, who told me he was Palestinian. His father, he explained, had come to Jordan from the West Bank.

Where in the West Bank, I asked.

"Jaffa," he said, naming the old town by the sea next to Tel Aviv. "I thought you said the West Bank," I responded naively. Like most people, I thought the West Bank was the narrow strip of land to the west of the Jordan River occupied by Israel in 1967. He quickly dispelled my misconception.

"The West Bank," he explained, "goes from the river Jordan all the way to the sea."

His West Bank included all of Israel. Apparently my waiter friend's ideas match the views of most Palestinians today, who, according to a recent survey by a Palestinian polling group, say the objective of the current uprising is not to end the Israeli occupation of territories captured in 1967, but rather to "liberate all of historic Palestine."

That term in itself--historic Palestine--is hardly an example of specificity, since there has never been a country called Palestine. After
World War I, with the Ottoman Empire defeated, the British received a mandate to look after the region named Palestine by the Roman Empire. The Turkish Ottomans had controlled the area for centuries before the British took over. More than half of that land of the Palestinian Mandate became an independent Jordan in 1946. Two years later, in 1948, the United Nations divided the rest between Arabs and Jews in a partition rejected by the Arabs, who immediately went to war against Israel.

And there are still those who question whether Israel is engaged in a fight for its very existence?
posted by Eric at 11:17 AM

 
More Loopy Holes
Brian Linse has done his homework and responds to those (enumerated in his post) who have disparaged (at great length and in great detail) use of the term "loophole" to characterize unlicensed sale of guns at gun shows.

While technically there is no "loophole," the fact that who exactly is, and who is not a dealer is left ambiguous in the federal statute as presented by Linse would certainly lead the average person to conclude that the term "loophole" is not out of place here. More to the point, Linse recommends a course of action:

Domestic crime was not the question that began this thread, however. The thread began when I questioned Reynolds and Goldstein's assertion that "there is no loophole" in response to a piece in the NY Times that claimed the gun show loophole was a potential source of weapons for terrorists.

What will the "there is no loophole" folks say if, (God forbid) an act of terrorism is perpetrated on US soil by some of bin Laden's boys armed with gun show weapons? Why should we support the Bush Administration's weakening of other civil liberties, yet leave this potential threat unattended?

I would advocate amending FOPA in the manner (Sec.1 F.) that the State of Colorado used to close the loophole within it's borders. Simply define all firearms sellers at gun shows to be "dealers", and let existing laws regulate sales.

This seems sensible to me. Linse also advocates NOT calling those who would sell a gun at a garage sale a "dealer." Though the slippery slope obsessives would call into question the difference between a gun show/flea market and a garage sale, I would say there is a significant difference in that a garage sale takes place on private property, typically the owner's property, and in the context of selling a random assortment of other things.

I believe the public/private, commercial/noncommercial contrast is crucial here: it is much more likely that a terrorist would go to a gun show, where they rather predictably SELL GUNS, than at a private garage sale where such a thing would be much less predictable, even if an ad suggested guns would be for sale.
posted by Eric at 10:51 AM

 
Now That's a Surprise
I took my son to his bass guitar lesson tonight. So I was sitting there looking at the NY Times Sunday Book Review section, and I turned to page 12 for part 2 of the review of the new Primo Levi biography.

My eye drifted over to the left to an ad for the paperback release of James Ellroy's The Cold Six Thousand, and I saw a blurb:

"A ripping read....This book is pure testosterone."
-The Plain Dealer

I reviewed that book last year for the PD.

Although I did, in fact, write the things they quoted, I also wrote a lot of other things that weren't all that flattering, leading me to believe that reviews of this book must not have been all that great. They also quote the NY Times and Village Voice, so I'm in good company. Pretty cool to be in the NYT for the second time in a week.

In case you're wondering, the book was readable, even compelling, but very disturbing and ultimately not very satisfying.

UPDATE
LakeFxDan finds similar problems with Ellroy's most famous book:

I had the same reaction to L.A. Confidential when I read it after falling in love with the movie. The ending (as I assume you know) is completely different, because they very wisely excised a completely gratuitous B plot which turned out to be the motivation behind the A plot that drove the story. Ellroy seemed to have some idea for including a clumsy horror-inducing satire of Walt Disney in his novel, but his blend of fact and fiction otherwise remains electrifying.

The B plot was completely unnecessary, as the movie proved, and completely distracting, because the real Walt -- while certainly deserving of parody -- never did anything one tenth as horrible as in this book. Ellroy's tone is pitch-perfect everywhere but in this plot. It almost gets you wondering how it got made into a movie at all; the Disney stuff was so integrated into the story it's not like they were saying "do we keep this or that?", but more like "how can we make a workable story while driving zig-zag through the potholes?" I had immensely greater respect for Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson after reading the book, because they found a great movie in the midst of this literally half-witted storyline.

UPDATE PT. DEUX
Blogger Doubting Thomas reviewed The Cold Six Thousand in its own clipped style - does Ellroy think he is in a bad Hemingway contest? - back in April:

Sunday. Up at 10. Nice run on Penn's Landing--four miles and did the stairs three times. Brunch at the Griffin Cafe on Market. Nice long walk to South Street. Raining and chilly. Good day to read.

At the Bean all day; finished the Ellroy novel. The clipped, spare prose gets old. The plot is the usual: psychopathic strong-arm types, evil plotters, and dirty politics; creepy, paranoid, kinky, and conspiracy-laden; Ellroy is a morning drive shock jock posing as a writer; not great, not bad. Enjoyed reading it.

In bed at 8. Slept until 7 the next morning. Great weekend. Need a woman full time. Repeat: need a woman full time. Will Kaci call? Work beckons.

UPDATE 3
Here's my original Ellroy review from the Plain Dealer:

The Cold Six Thousand
by James Ellroy
Alfred A Knopf, New York
672 pages



James Ellroy’s The Cold Six Thousand is a morality play and character study in the guise of a very hard-bitten crime/political conspiracy/espionage novel. Beneath the surface of a ripping read, Ellroy explores the natures of hate, revenge, loyalty, greed, deception, idealism and addiction. This audacious, extended (almost 700 pages) adrenaline rush traces the frenetic exploits of three fictional characters through the volcanic period bookended by the murders of John Kennedy in late ‘63 and Robert Kennedy in mid ‘68.

These people - youngish, troubled Las Vegas PD intelligence officer Wayne Tedrow Jr.; former FBI operative, and current attorney to both Howard Hughes and major Mob figures, Ward Littell; and hitman/drug and gun runner/anti-Castro idealist Pete Bondurant - are so busy scheming, traveling and committing flamboyant, operatic murders that they barely take a nap in four-and-a-half years. Among the locales the peripatetic characters scuttle back and forth between are Dallas, Las Vegas, Saigon, various towns along the Gulf Coast, Mexico City, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Sparta Wisconsin, and an opium farm in Laos.

Ellroy, author of several best sellers including American Tabloid and L.A. Confidential, is audacious in his use of real historical figures in the action. Such disparate figures as J. Edgar Hoover, Bobby Kennedy, Jack Ruby, Howard Hughes, Sonny Liston, Sammy Davis Jr., Sal Mineo, James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, and Mob figures including Carlos Marcello and Moe Dalitz all interact with the book’s fictional characters. Other figures, including LBJ and Martin Luther King are observed vicariously through wire taps or electronic bugs. In fact, surveillance - observation without interaction - is one of the main activities of many of the book’s characters (on par with murder and travel), and is the favorite activity of lead character Tedrow.

Ellroy writes in the clipped, profane, aggressively insensitive style of classic crime noir. This book is not for the easily offended, although it is an equal opportunity offender: among those colorfully disparaged are Italians, Hispanics, Vietnamese, Southern whites, Jews, Catholics, women, and especially gays and blacks, who rack up over a dozen separate derogatory epithets each, including some I had never heard before. My childhood was spent in the “enlightened” post-civil rights ‘60s and ‘70s, in relatively affluent and tolerant suburbs of Los Angeles and Cleveland, and this book helped me grasp for the first time in my life the hatred for minorities, especially blacks and gays, felt by large blocks of Americans. For them, including such figures as J. Edgar Hoover and a fair portion of the crime fighting establishment, the civil rights era was a threat, a disruption and an offense, and leaders such as Martin Luther King, often referred to here as “Martin Lucifer Coon,” were widely loathed.

This book is pure testosterone: all action is observed from a male perspective and the few female characters of note serve as loyal (or otherwise) support for the main male characters. Everyone is dirty, everyone has mixed motives, all of the main characters occupy a clandestine twilight world where the borders between cop/spy/criminal are more membrane than wall, and the figures permeate those membranes with regularity if not impunity.

The plot is far too Byzantine to explicate here, but in a nutshell, LVPD Sgt. Tedrow is sent by his Mob-controlled superior to Dallas in November of ‘63 to kill a black pimp who knifed a casino card dealer in Vegas. Liberal, idealistic Tedrow is loathe to perform the task, for which he has been paid $6,000 (“cold”) in advance. His Dallas PD liaison - a scabrous, drunken Klansman with ties to Tedrow’s right wing pamphleteer father back in Vegas - is all too eager to “clip the spook”; he and Tedrow Jr. clash on every level. Littell and Bondurant, beholden to the Mob for past indiscretions, are also in Dallas and are involved in the assassination of JFK. All become entangled; the pimp is not killed but others are with profound consequences for Tedrow Jr., and the chase is afoot. Tedrow Jr’s character transmogrifies over the course of the book, with its final form not revealed until the shocking climax. We truly don’t know Tedrow Jr. until the final page.

The Cold Six Thousand is a must for fans of crime/spy fiction, and for those who appreciate subtle character study. For others it is probably too grim, gruff, and grotesque.

posted by Eric at 11:28 PM

 
What's Good For the Goose...
As part of my sensitivity training, Matt Moore suggests pregnancy.
posted by Eric at 10:29 PM

 
The Family Farm
I have noted in Steven Den Beste's bio that he loves kids and hopes to have his own some day. He applies his engineer's mind with surprising tenderness to theories of child-raising in a post today:

The parents of my parents' generation and to some extent my generation have taken a pathological view of the role of parents in the development of children. Much of this comes out of the post-war baby-boom era in which I was born. This was a time of major technological change, and home conveniences that we take for granted were completely new then: automatic washing machines and driers for clothing, refrigerators, dish washers, electric vacuum cleaners, frozen food; all of these things made the job of "house wife" or "homemaker" much different than it had been. Much easier than it had been.

...The new job was child-rearer, and the women of America threw themselves wholeheartedly into the job. The conceptual model was parent as sculptor, child as clay. The parents of my generation invested more of their ego in the accomplishment of their children than ever before, and increasingly a child gone bad was seen as a failure by that child's parents. When a kid got poor grades in school, his parents had to come in to be lectured by the teacher about it, for instance.

This caused a couple of results: a generation of spoiled brats (including me) who thought they were at the center of the universe. And in reaction against all this regimentation and high expectations, you got wholesale revolt by the kids and the Flower Power '60s.

Both of those two conditions apply to me. I was (am) a spoiled brat, AND I rebelled against expectations at various times, which is why I am just now - at 43 - starting to live up to some of my capabilities.

Den Beste continues:

That whole attitude towards parenting is wrong. The child is not a lump of clay, the child is a seed. The home is not a studio for producing adults, it's a farm. The parent is not a sculptor but an agronomist.

Raising a child means providing a healthy and nurturing environment for the kid, and then waiting to see what the kid becomes. The goal isn't to produce a scientist, or a concert violinist, but rather an adult who is happy. Everything beyond that is gravy.

I would basically agree with this, but besides raising an adult who is happy, it is also critical to raise an adult with a sense of responsibility: for while it is probably possible to be happy without such a sense, those around you will surely not be.

Den Beste concludes:

Do not decide what the child is to become. Let your child show you.

A child is like a new birth present every day. Each day she opens up a bit more and shows you something new. Sometimes the present is underwear, and sometimes it's a new toy. But every day is a revelation, a surprise, a priceless gift if only you are open to see it. If you have no expectations about what it will be, you will be endlessly delighted. (Even when it's underwear.)

This is wise and I hope he gets the chance to practice it, but you've got to keep your eye on the little suckers, too. The farmer has to prune and occasionally stake up the plants that are leaning too far in one direction or another, lest they become uprooted.
posted by Eric at 9:33 PM

 
Birth Day
Keeping with her tradition of randomly swinging between celebration and excoriation, Dawn came after me today for a fairly innocent little post I wrote yesterday about postpartum depression, wherein I counseled fathers to not be assholes about the freakish moods of new mothers and to be on the lookout for the danger signs of postpartum depression.

Okay, I'll admit I was talking to myself a little bit in that post: physician heal thyself. But Dawn took this an as opportunity to tell the story of her horrific birth experience with Lily, and to point out some flaws in my performance. I will state here and now: in the grand scheme of things I was an asshole in this situation, but my assholedom was not without context. Please allow me to state that context now.

When Dawn got pregnant I suggested we take Bradley classes, because I had had a very good experience with the method with my first wife and our two children. Bradley encourages mental and physical preparation - including relaxation techniques - to prepare you for a "natural" childbirth, i.e., one without pain killers, which in theory, dull the experience for the mother and begin the baby's life under the influence of drugs.

All of this training is very helpful in preparing for the big day and also brings the couple closer together, but as Dawn mentions, it doesn't take into account the distinct possibility THAT THINGS CAN GO WRONG. Much of the psychological training involves learning to relax away the pain of childbirth, with the burden on the father to coach, cajole, TO INSIST that the mother stick to the plan when she INEVITABLY weakens due to pain, fatigue, and/or fear and calls for the drugs. We are told this WILL happen, and that it is our job to help our partner over this hump when it inevitably occurs, and on to a happy, natural outcome for all.

This is what happened during the birth of my first two children: at some point my first wife went ballistic, demanded my head and drugs simultaneously, I calmly and doggedly talked her out of it, and all was natural and well in the end: mission accomplished. I saw this as my job.

All well and good, but Dawn developed pre-eclampsia:

high blood pressure, protein in your urine and swelling. For most woman the illness remains mild. But in some cases it becomes serious and affects other parts of the body, such as the liver, brain, lungs or blood clotting system. It can get worse very quickly - and it can be dangerous.

Your baby may grow slowly or have other problems because he or she can't get enough food or oxygen from the placenta.

The swelling was so bad and Dawn's blood pressure so high that at her last checkup, the day before Lily was due, her doctor sent us directly to the hospital: do not pass go.

While her OB is a wonderful doctor and compassionate man, he did not explain thoroughly enough, or even much at all, what the repercussions of this condition would be: that the conditions of Lily's birth were pretty much out of our hands at this point. He did not explain that Dawn was simultaneously put on a muscle relaxant for her blood pressure AND given a drug to induce contractions. Talk about internal contradictions: from that point on Dawn's body was at war with itself, a fact that not explained sufficiently to either of us.

Much time and discomfort passed, until it was time for intense agony. The unnatural nature of this agony was not explained to either of us: the fact that she was having violent drug-induced contractions, yet she didn't even have her faculties about her to use the methods with which we had prepared to deal with normal contractions. She couldn't control her mind or her body and was in terrible pain, suffering from fatigue, and was very afraid.

I thought IT WAS MY JOB to do my best to hold her to our program. Had I understood the reality of Dawn's condition: had it been explained to us by the doctor or nurses, or had we been informed in our classes that under certain conditions - like pre-eclampsia - that all bets are off, that none of the training really applies anymore, and that certainly it is no longer relevant to try to hold the line against pain killers, a lot of pain and resentlment could have been avoided.

Dawn called for the epidural, I resisted. Dawn got very pissed with my resistance. FINALLY, the doctor began to explain the exact circumstances to us, to me, and with great reluctance I agreed that the epidural was appropriate. I still didn't really understand that it was NECESSARY.

Once the epidural was in place, things went well and we were able to use our training in the pushing phase, where Dawn performed like a champ and squeezed that puppy out pronto.

I was an insensitive asshole for a time when poor Dawn was in agony, but I thought I was SUPPOSED to be an insensitive asshole under the circumstances, and I was not given the information I needed to change the plan until I had already made a fool out of myself. If I could take it back, I certainly would. I made a bad situation worse, not better, but I was not equipped with the information I needed to make an informed decision, either. There is plenty of blame to go around, although Dawn deserves none.

For me the story ended when our perfect Lily was born and Dawn was deemed out of the woods and on her way to recovery. I was filled with relief and love. The story clearly still hasn't ended for Dawn. I ask again for her understanding and forgiveness. Next time I will know, and now so do you.
posted by Eric at 5:01 PM

 
More Differences Than Similarities
Two recent columns rightly sing the leadership praises of Presidents Bush and Musharraf, and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but then wishfully state that the techniques used to de-escalate the India/Pakistan confrontation over Kashmir can be applied to the Israel/Palestinian conflict. David Ignatius even put this idea in his lede paragraph:

India and Pakistan this week stepped back from the brink of nuclear war over Kashmir. In a world where so many conflicts only seem to get worse, it's important to understand why this one got better. It might even provide a few lessons for dealing with the world's most maddeningly intractable problem -- the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Jim Hoagland's opening is more modest and to the point, if you can call the "strategic realignment of Asia" modest:

American diplomacy centered on a single word has led to a fragile truce between India and Pakistan. By persuading Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to add the word "permanently" to his promises to stop aiding cross-border terrorism against India, the United States has averted immediate catastrophe and may have opened the way for a strategic realignment in Asia.

Both agree America's diplomacy was key to the reduction in tensions over Kashmir. Ignatius writes:

One big reason things got better on Kashmir is that the United States intervened quickly and decisively to pressure both sides toward de-escalation. When intelligence made clear that India and Pakistan were preparing for war, Washington sent a series of emissaries to the subcontinent, culminating in this week's visit by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The U.S. emissaries were blunt and forceful. They used America's good relations with both sides to push for concessions. Because U.S. intelligence was good, the Americans couldn't be bluffed. And the Americans worked with the key neighboring powers -- Russia and China, both of which have their own Muslim insurgencies to worry about -- to gain more leverage.

And it was the trust both parties had in George Bush - who has had some big problems of late - that enabled both sides to make compromises. Hoagland:

India's acceptance of America's role as an honest broker in this crisis is a strategic shift worth developing.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee seemingly overruled his hawks not because he believed Musharraf but because he believed George W. Bush. There is now an opportunity to use this crisis to reverse decades of mutual mistrust between Washington and New Delhi, which had feared Bush was resuming the U.S. "tilt" toward Pakistan that prevailed during the Cold War. That is the big picture the Bush administration must keep in view.

Ignatius thinks highly of the Pakistani and Indian leaders as well:

Yet U.S. mediators alone couldn't solve this crisis. They needed bold and courageous partners. And in this case, they found them, in Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Musharraf, in particular, deserves credit. For my money, he is the most courageous and visionary leader on the world scene today. What Musharraf decided was that, in the end, India and Pakistan were fighting a common enemy in the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban that had infiltrated Kashmir. This common enemy was responsible for last December's bombing of the Indian parliament, just as it was responsible for recent bombings of a church in Islamabad and a French group in Karachi. The same common enemy threatened two countries that were on the brink of war.

That insight made all the other diplomatic moves possible. What's more, I'm told by one of Musharraf's close military advisers that the Pakistani president concluded that elements of his own intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, were in part responsible for the rising wave of terrorism that was afflicting both Pakistan and India.

Musharraf recognized that the ISI had helped the Taliban (and its al Qaeda allies) take power in Afghanistan during the 1990s, a decade of political weakness and corruption in Pakistan. After they were driven from power in Afghanistan last fall by the United States, the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters drifted south and east -- into Pakistan and Kashmir -- where they posed a mortal threat to the subcontinent.

The miracle is that Musharraf had the wisdom to break from traditional Pakistani rhetoric and politics and see these Muslim fanatics for what they were -- his enemy.

But Ignatius unrealistically sees a similar effort working in the Middle East:

Change the names of the players and all of these same tactics could be used to good effect in the Middle East. As the India-Pakistan conflict shows, when it comes to resolving intractable crises, there simply is no substitute for forceful American intervention.

The differences in the circumstances are greater than the surface similarities. India and Pakistan are two actual countries with a real - if disputed - border. Each has a strong leader. The Palestinians are not a country, not even close. The fact that they don't have a country is one of the core problems. While India and Pakistan are not evenly matched - India has a much larger and better-equipped military - they are at least on opposite ends of the same scale, and each possesses the trump card of nuclear weapons. The Palestinians have a bunch of terrorists scattered throughout the populace, and their only trump card is the willingness of a significant percentage of their population to kill themselves in an effort to kill Israelis.

So not only are we not talking about nation-to-nation dealing in the Middle East, the leadership in question is not comparable to that of South Asia either. India and Pakistan's leaders are relative moderates who do not despise the other side and who are particularly despised in return. Need I say more about Sharon and Arafat? And while it would appear that Sharon has the best interests of his country at heart, Arafat seems to have only the wil to hang on to power at any cost in his twisted, abscessed heart.

Also, while Kashmir is symbolically important to both India and Pakistan, it isn't a question of survival, of existence. Israel and the Palestinians are now locked in a struggle for their very existence, or at least many involved perceive that to be the case. The U.S. really was more or less neutral in the India/Pakistan conflict; while we have pretended to neutrality at times in the past, we ultimately side with Israel in the Middle East conflict, and rightly so. It is but wishful thinking that the many differences between the conflicts of South Asia and the Middle East will disappear any time soon.
posted by Eric at 2:39 PM

 
Systems
Armed Liberal is back with Pt 2 of his "Self-Organizing Systems and the War on Terrorism" series, and it is once again startlingly good: complete with an anecdotal micro example of his macro theory. A must read.
posted by Eric at 1:56 PM

 
Outside the Bounds
As anyone with a blog has learned, the word has consequence. This is the subject of two wise editorials in the new Forward:

At a time when deeds of extreme evil are the stuff of daily life, it's tempting to want to react in extremes, if only to give verbal vent to our emotions. But words have consequences, as the Talmud reminds us. Bad words can lead to bad actions. Loose words from the wise can mislead the impressionable, raising up future generations without a moral compass. No less important, loose words can profane the name of Heaven. That is, they can undermine the moral authority of those who stand for what is right by creating the impression that they have lost their way.

Nathan Lewin, one of the most distinguished legal minds in the American Jewish community and a leading voice for morality in our nation's public life, has stumbled into just such a moral swamp with his ill-considered proposal to "execute" the families of suicide bombers. The proposal, first broached in an essay in the opinion journal Sh'ma, is immoral on the face of it and shockingly ill-advised from the point of view of Israeli and Jewish diplomatic and public relations interests. It would amount to nothing more than the deliberate murder of innocent bystanders in the hopes of deterring future behavior by others. That's known as terrorism.

Christ's teaching backs up this way of thinking as well:

For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? (Mark 8:36)

Lewin's thinking is clearly desperate, and there is no guarantee he believes in his own suggestion. He may have raised the point to expand the debate, or put some fear into the Palestinians, but as this editorial says: words have consequences.

Scholars, be cautious in your words, lest you incur the penalty of exile and be banished to the place of evil waters, and the students who come after you drink of them and die and the name of Heaven be desecrated. — Talmud, Tractate Avot ("The Ethics of the Fathers") 1:11.

It is outside the bounds of any moral tradition to preemptively punish - with death no less - those guilty only of association, and in this case not even voluntary association (which is certainly probable cause for investigation), but with the involuntary association of blood relation.

The question cannot be whether or not this policy would be "effective," for no meaure of its success could leave out the affects it would have upon those who carry it out, and at minimum the affect upon them would be to remove the certainty of the moral higher ground. The reason Israel is destined to win this struggle in the long run isn't its military superiority, the reason is its moral superiority. To surrender this in the cause of "efficiency" would be to surrender all.

Radical Islam does not value individual human life as sacred, but views life only as a vehicle though which Allah may be served. The Jewish and Christian traditions place sacred value in each individual soul: this is in part why we find the suicide bomber ethos so alien and abhorrent. To kill the family of suicide bombers would be to partake of this rancid ethos, and to taint the society that permitted it with the same foul stench. Strength is one thing, immoral brutality another.

After the frenzied allegations of atrocities and indiscriminate killing by the Israelis in Jenin, the truth has filtered out - even to the Arabs - that this was not so: that the Israelis risked the lives of their own soldiers to try to prevent civilian casualties searching for terrorists door to door instead of just leveling the entire cesspool. This truth has greatly enhanced Israel's moral vision of itself, strengthened critical U.S. opinion of it, and even grudgingly, the view of its morality within the Arab world - at least among those with a shred of capability for critical thinking. This can never be surrendered in the interest of "efficiency" or "practicality" lest all be lost.

In a second editorial, the Forward editors also caution against American Jews backsliding on the issue of the advisability of a Palestinian state, reaffirming that this eventual outcome is the only hope for peace:

The Zionist Organization of America, seeking to blunt the impact of the Egyptian-Saudi lobbying blitz, greeted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during his visit to Washington last week with full-page advertisements in the general press calling on President Bush not to allow "a mini-Iraq terrorist state on Israel's border." The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main Jewish pro-Israel lobbying group in the capital, issued a warning of its own against such a "terrorist state."

What's remarkable about these statements is that they contradict stated Israeli policy and defy Israeli public opinion. Just last month, Prime Minister Sharon fought a high-stakes showdown in the central committee of his own Likud party, trying unsuccessfully to block a resolution that ruled out Palestinian statehood. Sharon has stated repeatedly that he sees such a state as a likely and acceptable outcome of peace negotiations, if and when they get started. Most of his public backs him up.

Perhaps certain elements of American Jewry feel they can help the situation by being more hardcore than the Israelis themselves: that perhaps this might cast the Israeli position in a better light or some such thing. But again, words have consequences, and to deny that the Palestinians have a right to their own land, ever, is to remove whatever small glimmer of hope that they as a people now have. Do we wish to create an entire nation of suicide bombers? No.

Most American Jews, while demanding an end to terrorism, share with the Israeli mainstream a desire for diplomatic solutions. They want to see Israelis and Palestinians move toward coexistence, not endless confrontation. In the long run, that will require allowing the Jewish state to disentangle itself from its neighbors to the east. Our leaders know this. They ought to say it.

So should we.

UPDATE
Joe Katzman offers his thoughts on this post:

Eric,

I agree with the first part of your post. Killing the families of suicide bombers is not tenable, and that morality is an underappreciated
by very important factor in this war.

Where Lewin has a point is that unless the family-based rewards for suicide bombings are derailed, they won't stop. As I explained in
"Suicide Economics".

The question is how to do it. Lewin may be wrong, but we need a real answer that is right. "The Peace Process" is obviously not that answer, and indeed a cogent argument can be made that it probably created the current mess.

You also write:

[EO] "Perhaps certain elements of American Jewry feel they can help the situation by being more hardcore than the Israelis themselves."

Israeli opinion is divided, as I see it. So is American Jewry.

Most Israelis support a Palestinian state that is not just a secure base for Al-Asqa and Hamas to launch more attacks. Most also believe this is exactly what a Pealestinian state would be under its current leadership. Hence the paradox of majority support for a two-state solution, and also the rising support for "transfer" - i.e. deporting the Palestinians wholesale as Kuwait did.

American Jewry faces the same contradictory impulses, but I'm beginning to see a hardening of views. Unless a real Palestinian partner emerges in the next couple of years, opinion is going to shift toward the transfer option here, too. And then the real tragedy will unfold.

[EO] "But again, words have consequences, and to deny that the Palestinians have a right to their own land, ever, is to remove whatever small glimmer of hope that they as a people now have."

Actions have consequences too. "Never" is too long, but that doesn't mean "now" shouldn't come off the table.

Eric, I don't WANT to give them hope right now. To do so isn't helpful, it's cruel and dangerous. Like the Germans of the 30s, they already have too much hope, of the wrong kind. It's toxic, not helpful. We actually need to remove (at at least badly shake) their CURRENT HOPE that terrorism will create no negative consequences, and leads to negotiating concessions that eventually allow them to exterminate Israel and massacre its Jews.

ONLY then will we finally have a small glimmer of hope. For them, and for us. Until then, all hopes are cruel illusions. On both sides.

Hamas' recently stated its intent to use chemical weapons in attacks. Hizbollah is talking about a "mega-terrorism" strategy of 9/11 scale attacks. The risks of those illusions are rising steadily by the day. Those risks do not exclude the regional use of nuclear weapons in retaliation. Which is not a risk we can afford to stoke, or to take chances with.

[EO] "Do we wish to create an entire nation of suicide bombers? No."

The buried assumption is that our actions are the key variable here. But they aren't. If your friend is an alcoholic, the kindest thing to do for him is NOT to support him or cover for him. That gives him hope, but it also perpetuates the underlying problem. Until he "hits bottom" and LOSES the hope that his present course is tenable, he is utterly beyond help.

So it is with the Palestinians and their Arab backers. Right now they are utterly beyond help. And the consequences grow in potential scope by the day. For all of us.

posted by Eric at 12:42 PM

 
Melonhead
There is always hard news breaking, but this is summer: we must set aside time to think about watermelons.

Watermelon selection is critical: your summer social status could take a real beating if you foul up the melon-selection for the company picnic. Fortunately, that gaffe can be precluded by following the advice found on this page. And of course, there is always the critical SEED ISSUE.

For those who consider themselves ignorant of watermelon lore, there is also a Did You Know section, which changes every time you refresh the site: The U.S. is fourth in worldwide watermelon production! They were harvesting watermelons in Egypt 5,000 years ago! You could spend your entire summer attending watermelon festivals! (none in Hawaii though, darn it.)
posted by Eric at 11:54 AM

 
Movin' On Up
The Bear has a new update of his Blogger Ecosystem. I am at 99, tied for 14th (a Mortal Human); Dawn is at 84, tied for 22rd (a Large Mammal); but COMBINED we would be at 183, or 3rd overall. Ha Ha!! This is a system I like, for now. Today the bloggy ecosystem, tomorrow the world.
posted by Eric at 5:17 PM

 
Winds of Joe
Joe Katzman is a sincere and deep thinker - we are lucky to have him blogging. Every week on Saturday he brings us a bit of Sufi wisdom, reminding us that militant isn't the only brand of Islam. He was also thoughtful and romantic enough to discuss Dawn and my stories of our meeting in relationship to his own love story.

Now today, he has a thoughtful piece on the "Harvard Jihad Speech," where he, again, refuses to dehumanize a person of another tradition, even one radically opposed to his own:

In the end, however, Yasin must be judged as an individual. As any of us would wish to be judged.

He has now had his 15 minutes of fame, and exits stage left. Yet this will not be a 15 minute war. The true measure of Zayed Yasin's greater jihad will not be legacy of his commencement address, but the legacy of his future. Much lies ahead of him, and many things will change. My hope is that he may choose well, and become the kind of American Muslim leader we need.

This is a perceptive man of great good will.
posted by Eric at 4:44 PM

 
Singing, Scrappers, Memories
As a super duper extra special Fathers Day treat, my daughter Kristen - who is as talented as she is beautiful - will be singing the National Anthem tonight before the Mahoning Valley Scrappers game. The Scrappers are a Class A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. This is pretty flipping exciting.

Making the situation even more interesting, the Scrappers' new manager is Chris Bando, who was a ML catcher for 10 years with the Indians, Tigers, and A's. He had a very fine year in '84 when he hit .291 with 12 home runs and 41 RBI 75 games for the Indians.

Earlier in his career Bando caught for Solon High School and graduated the same year I did, '75. Bando was also the buttmunch who hit two home runs off me in a single game our senior year, the only game I lost all year for the CVC champion Chagrin Falls High School Tigers. So he beat me, but we won the league. Ha ha. I will remind him of that tonight.
posted by Eric at 4:07 PM

 
Fathers Day But..
No matter how important fathers are, they don't go through any semblance of what mothers do in bearing children. You can gain all the "sympathy weight" you want, and go to all of the Bradley, or Lamaze classes and coach your wife through the birth. You can even have sympathetic false lactation, but she stores and bakes the bun and goes through the attendant physical, emotional, and psychological fun house accordingly.

The rejection of Andrea Yates' postpartum depression defense by the jury cast a jaundiced eye on the legitimacy of postpartum depression, but it is very real and very common. Both of my wives went through some version of it: a sometimes firghtening emotional roller coaster the first few weeks of the baby's life.

It is crucial for fathers to recognize the signs of postpartum depression and provide comfort and support, and when necesssary, intervene on behalf of mother and child. This site provides information and support, as does this one.

The worst thing you can do is ignore or downplay the reality of this condition, as did Yates' husband Russell, who should rot forever in hell as a result. He is more culpable than she for the death of their children in my estimation. Happy Fathers Day shithead.

Your absolute obligation as a husband and father is to not be an ASSHOLE, and support the mother of your child to the best of your ability until her hormones settle down and return to some semblance of normal. It's not about you, sorry. You'll have your turn later.
posted by Eric at 3:21 PM

 
Haunted House
When I was a kid growing up in Southern California, there was nothing much more exciting than going to Disneyland, especially because we went each year on the annual TRW night: no tickets for rides, no long lines, no riffraff. It was great, and there is something special about Disneyland at night, too: the mystery is more complete, the illusion of a self-contained world of joy and excitement even more effective.

Since we lived in the vicinity and had relatively easy access, all the kids I knew were Disneyland vets and experts, offering extended and detailed accounts of their favorite rides, experiences, and we were all pretty much beside ourselves with anticipation when the Haunted House was due to open in 1966. We were crushed when it didn't open as planned due to Walt Disney's death and various engineering and conceptual issues.

When it did open in '68, the wait was worth it: convincing and scary on the actualization level, it was also funny and engrossing conceptually - a perfect frisson. The hologram "ghosts" were stunning and utterly convincing, as was the story behind their exploits. I haven't been in years, but I still love the Haunted House from beginning to end with all my heart.

Now there is a site dedicated to the Haunted House, called DoomBuggies.com after the little tracked vehicles that spirit you through the ride (I LOVE that part at the end where you are turned toward the mirror and a ghost is sitting next to you in your "DoomBuggy" - my son didn't: when he was 4, the ghost sitting in his lap literally scared the shit out of him, poor little guy).

There is a detailed history of the ride :

One of Walt Disney's ideas for Ken Anderson's original walk-through spook house was to base the experience in New England (as the Haunted Mansion's facade at Walt Disney World is currently themed), and the storyline may have featured Ichabod Crane's fateful encounter with the Headless Horseman, as featured in the Disney film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. DoomBuggies.com has obtained a file written by Ken Anderson in October of 1957, describing the effects surrounding the climax of the attraction (a close encounter with the Horseman) and how they were to be accomplished. Interestingly, many of the Haunted Mansion's special effects utilized in the graveyard remain the same as Mr. Anderson envisioned them to this very day.

There is a stories and rumors section:

We've heard various forms of this statement for years, and it's always been an unfounded rumor (at least, to date.) The truth is that the Haunted Mansion, long a Disney theme park favorite, is not in danger of being torn down or removed. Nor are there plans underway to scrap the "Ghost Host" narrative track by Paul Frees and replace it with a track by another vocal talent, another long-standing rumor.

However, this doesn't mean that the Walt Disney Imagineers don't revisit the Haunted Mansion from time to time, and consider how it is aging and what might be done to keep it fresh. The 2001 "Nightmare Before Christmas Holiday" makeover is an example of this. The pet cemetery in the queue, added in the early '90s, is another example of this. And in the mid-'80s, WDI went a little further in examing potential improvements to the ride, sketching out some ideas that were on the drawing board, Some of these are pictured below.

There is a section of interviews with the creators, an amazing behind the scenes section, a multimedia vault, and much, much more.

Site designer Chef Mayhem also has a blog, which seems to updated less often than Asparagirl's. This tidbit is helpful, though:

Disney is now accepting reservations for the "999 Happy Haunts Ball" at Walt Disney World, scheduled for October 30, 2002. The cost has been updated to $119.99, and I gotta tell ya, this sounds like a winner. Disneyland has also officially scheduled another Haunted Mansion Holiday event for October 3, but details are sketchy at the moment. I'm not sure how they'll top last years event, or make it significantly different. Rumor has it that there will be a concurrent display in the Disney Gallery (above POTC) regarding the Haunted Mansion, with some really cool Print on Demand offerings related to the Haunted Mansion. We'll just have to wait and see...

posted by Eric at 2:18 PM

 
HAP HAP HAPPIEST of Fathers Day to YOU
My warmest wishes to all paternal types: we are important too, and it's nice to live in a culture that is beginning to value a father's role as parent and not just provider/protector or some such atavistic thing.

My sweetest Dawn has blown my cover as Regional Man of Mystery by revealing my true identity in a touching (for me) Fathers Day salute on her site. Please don't say I look like Sting: I am taller and younger, but he is much richer.
posted by Eric at 1:47 PM