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March 31, 2004
Testing...1, 2, 3
by CaraHello folks...again, many cheers and thanks to my better half for his incredible blogging mojo during my unplanned absence from blogging this month. No I haven't fallen off the face of the web...in fact I got a new job! Actually, I've been training for this new gig administering psychological tests to folks who are experiencing cognitive and memory glitches. I'm really quite excited about learning this new skill and excited that I'm once again in the work world of my original field of study but in a new (for me) and interesting capacity. And this training, which has been draining most of my blogging energy away, is getting near the home stretch and I'm finally finding myself less and less overwhelmed by exhaustion, so more posting will hopefully follow soon.
For now, I'll say that I've been inspired by Sheila O'Malley's post on bullying ; check it out. This is a pet peeve of mine too and something that has stewed in the back of my mind for awhile. More to come.
- Cara
Posted by Cara at 05:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 29, 2004
Mindreading and the Unthinkable
by JeremyIt strikes me that the failing of pre 9/11 intelligence and anti-terror policy was the tacit assumption that thinking the unthinkable was best left for Pentagon wargamers and PNAC Power Point nerds. 9/11 proved that worst-case-scenario policy must be mainstreamed; it's important to be sure this lesson has been learned. One thing that scares me is that there is still a whole world of the unthinkable (read: suitcase nukes, etc.) and I would like to be sure that these kinds of threats are being taken seriously.
In a better world the 9/11 commission would be serving this goal, though it seems the very human instinct to assume that the worst is behind us -- or to ward off evil by casting blame -- has made these hearings less useful than they should be.
And I have a feeling that mind reading is not the foreign policy coup we need for this new millenium; if it were, I'd recommend voting for this guy in 2004:
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 25, 2004
Lasswell on 9/11 and Comic Book Heroes
by JeremyPatrick Lasswell is like Cain in "Kung Fu" in that he doesn't blog when he doesn't damn well have something to say (I don't exactly make that boast my own self). In his latest post he takes on the notion that there was something lacking in Bush's first reaction to the whisper heard round the world.
A few minutes after the second tower got hit, Chief of Staff Andy Card walks discreetly over to Bush as he is listening to children read stories, and whispers in his ear the news that the nation is under attack. An expression passes Bush's face then he returns his attention to the children for the next ten minutes. There is great dissatisfaction on the part of some for the President's lack of immediate, decisive, and worthwhile action.
...
What many people needed and still need is for the President to have stood up, have a plan of action spring from his brow fully formed, and then teleport the remaining terrorists to The Hague for crimes against humanity after catching them in the act with X-ray vision. What a lot of people will not forgive George W. Bush for is the crime of being merely human when the situation clearly called for a comic book hero.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:32 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Yield, delegate, leech...call it what you will
by JeremyI think I've decided that life is too short and the rotational velocity of the Earth too great for me to justify reading Richard Clarke's book. I'm glad others in the blogoshphere are doing it, though. I've spent far too much time these past couple of weeks having debates (arguments) with 2 friends and 1 cousin about the war in Iraq. I'm supposed to be saving it for the blog, but I regressed.
The smoldering argument vibes, however, make me appreciate bloggers who are trying to give Clarke an honest, unbiased reading. Anne Cunningham is one, though she hasn't yet gotten too far in the book as of this writing. And then Daniel Drezner has some interesting observations. As a spectator, I'm getting a sense of Clarke as the sort of person who has grave doubts about anyone who has grave doubts about him. But I defer to those who are reading his book and cross referencing that against how he comes across in testimony vis-à-vis any baldly contradictory remarks he may have made in the past.
Here's Drezner (his page is not coming up right now so I can't supply the link):
Still, it's hard not to believe that Clarke's evaluation of presidential performance is directly correlated with how well those presidents treated Clarke.
As they used to say in the late nite TV ads: "read the book" (so I don't have to).
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In defence of Crayola
by JeremyPhilip Greenspun has for years come up in Google searches whenever I'm looking for information on certain of my hobbies -- computers, photography, blogging -- he was even mentioned in an email exchange I had with someone at my previous job about whether we should seek grants to use online coalition-building resources more in our non-profit work..."Well Philip Greenspun told me we're putting the cart before the horse" (evidently she'd met him in college).
For a while it seemed his name was always popping up with advice I didn't want to hear. How do you connect a database to a website if you're not a wealthy suit? (if it's 1993?) Step one: be an MIT professor or better, be Philip Greenspun (failing either of those criteria I had to wait for PHP/MySQL -- now anyone can learn to do it) I can't say he's a nemesis, though, because he knows what he's talking about in these matters and I don't.
But lately I'm finding I frequently enjoy his blog. Like this post, in which he trashes Linux (I harbor deep feelings of dislike for Linux -- I think of it as that operating system you use when you want to spend 6 weeks trying to get your scanner to work, but when I say things like that, computer nerds assume it's because I don't know what I'm doing, which is true).
And this one where he demonstrates that coloring books may not be the handtools of satan we all thought they were(?).
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 12:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Getting macho in his advancing years?
by JeremyExercise guru Richard Simmons cited for assault
Sounds like a meaner, butcher Richard Simmons, until you read the first paragraph of the story:
Exercise guru Richard Simmons allegedly slapped a man who made a sarcastic remark about one of his videos, police said.
Sounds like the same old Richard Simmons, though perhaps a bit more testy, if that's the word.
The man "made the off-hand comment, 'Hey, everybody. It's Richard Simmons. Let's drop our bags and rock to the '50s,"' said Phoenix police Sgt. Tom Osborne. "Mr. Simmons took exception to it and walked over to the other passenger and apparently slapped him in the face."
I can't help but visualize the guy as John Candy playing his stock "guy you want to slap who later turns out to be your best buddy" character. I can see where his remark might have stung, though. I once had a teacher who reminded me a lot of Richard Simmons who told an anecdote about having the parking space he'd been waiting for stolen right from under his nose by a woman who would clearly have seen that he'd been there waiting for it (this will not seem unusual to New Yorkers). He figured that leveraging his vulnerability might have a more profound impact than threatening or using a profanity. So he went over to her and said "you're a mean lady." This evidently made her shrivel, since she couldn't just respond with a middle finger or a "yeah, eff yourself asshole" which would have been the normal reply. Anyway, it kept him out of trouble with the law and was true to his persona. But I've got to hand it to Simmons for, similarly, staying true to form.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 07:52 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 24, 2004
The non believers are at it again!
by JeremyThis is the most blatant case of dishonoring the teachings of a socialist minister and blaspheming against Eisenhower that I think I've ever seen. It's a damnable outrage!
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 22, 2004
Progress elsewhere
by JeremyZawahiri, perhaps not...but Yassin, yes!
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 02:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 21, 2004
Not Your Father's "Peace" Movement
by JeremyThis pictorial post by Michael Totten is worth 13,000 words...
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 10:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 20, 2004
The Robert Frost of Ridicule
by JeremyI like satire that appears broad and obvious but is actually brilliantly subtle. Tim Blair is a master.
One of the things that most irks me about Noam Chomsky is how he pretends to weigh everything like some freaking poindexter Solomon. Here's Chomsky on whether he'd like to be kicked in the groin: "one might choose to espouse the argument that, kicked in the gonads, one would attain to a certain dysphoria, a position that in itself may be understandable if rather subjective..." That's me being unbrilliant and unsubtle. Tim Blair manages to scratch the same itch by blogging briefly on the agonized thought process that led Chomsky to decide not to favor Bush in the coming election but, rather, to endorse Kerry. It's a fascinating glimpse into Chomsky's deepest and most unadulterated, most private thoughts.
Blair, for good measure, also manages to point out that Chomsky's disingenuous chatter doesn't amount to jack anymore.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 01:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Read Harry's Place
by JeremyFor two reasons:
One:
Check out their counter-protest posts on how you can "do something" for the the people and for the future of Iraq.
Two:
You'll want to read an excellent post by Marcus on one of the latest reminders of how little difference there is between the anti-war stance of the "left" and that of the "right" and his conlusion that the labels "left" and "right", post 9/11, are "straitjackets":
"...the political positions honest people hold on Iraq and the war on terror aren't really explicable by applying the terms left and right to them. In fact they reflect a divide much more profound and something that has been at the centre of human affairs for thousands of years before French deputies decided where they were going to sit in parliament."
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 12:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The importance of being boring-but-honest
by JeremyAs I struggle to finish an article (for an electrical trade journal with a bi-monthly circulation about the same as Glenn Reynolds' daily circulation) I understand the temptation to just make stuff up.
A small percentage of my readers will be in rooms other than the bathroom and will read my article to its completion. How would they ever know that most of the electrical industry heavies I called and emailed for weeks never got back to me (I honestly think it would be easier to interview celebrities and indeed I'm starting to seriously consider it). And how would these semi-interested readers ever know if the piquant but unstartling eruditions of these figures whose opinions are already basically known, were completely falsified (rather than conspicuously absent)?
Well I guess I wasn't brought up that way. Plus I'd get caught eventually and it would be a disgrace for all involved. I actually had one guy, whose colorful quips I'd threaded into an article, tell me with slight suspicion that he didn't remember saying some of those things; it was ok, he told me, just that he was surprised at some of his own remarks. I checked my tapes later and found I'd quoted verbatim. There are many issues involved in this kind of hat dance: sometimes people say things ad lib that give a misleading impression of their fundamental thinking; sometimes these ad libs give a better sense of what they really think; sometimes people are boring or use bad grammar and you have to decide whether it's ok to fix it up a bit (you can fix grammar when the error is clearly verbal corner-cutting, you can fix boring never, I'd say); sometimes an interviewee trusts you and let's down his guard and you have to be careful to remind the person (if applicable) that they need to tell you what's off the record; sometimes nobody returns your calls (dammit) and you have to figure out ways to make your own words more interesting despite a lack of juicy material.
Bottom line: I go crazy dealing with all of the above and I can't imagine doing this more than every couple of months and I don't know how daily news people can keep their sanity. But if you can't do the job honestly then find another f'ing job. I'm equally mystified by the skill and intestinal fortitude of surgeons, but if the work is getting to you, you probably shouldn't give yourself license to perform phony appendectomies.
Fraudulent journalism vandalizes our society and I'm glad to see this particular type of flunkie is increasingly on the run.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 19, 2004
Glenn is Back
by JeremyNo, the other Glenn -- Glenn Halpern from Hippercritical. He's given the blogging cortex of his brain a rest after a recent pit stop, and now he's back with a vengeance.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
More election activism
by JeremyTAIPEI, Taiwan (CNN) -- Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has been released from hospital after being wounded in an apparent assassination attempt while campaigning for Saturday's electionChen's running mate, Vice President Annette Lu, was also treated and released following the gun attack Friday.
"Both the president and vice president have just checked out," a spokeswoman at the Chi Mei hospital in the southern city of Tainan told Reuters.
Chen was shot in the stomach at 1:45 p.m. (0545 GMT), the Presidential Office said. Lu's leg was grazed by a bullet.
The office said both Chen and Lu had called for calm after the shooting.
"They did not suffer life-threatening injuries. They urge the public to cool down," Chiou I-jen, secretary-general in the Presidential Office, told a news conference.
I can't conceive of there being any true connection to Spain's recent "campaigning effort" other than, perhaps, the most general sort of inductive inspiration, but I sure hope this sort of 11th hour election terror isn't one day recorded in history books as typifying democratic elections of 2004. I don't know enough about Taiwanese politics to understand how this may effect the outcome of the election -- probably the effect will not be the one intended. But it's no coincidence that President Chen has taken a strong stance in favor of Taiwanese independence (and against Chinese control, or what some like to call "hegemony.")
UPDATE: I should have known on the basis of the report that Chen was already out of the hospital, that he was not shot in the "stomach" but rather in the belly. This distinction is way too often blurred in these kinds of reports.
UPDATE #2: The Washington Post got it right: "Chen was shot across the abdomen and Vice President Annette Lu was struck in the right knee." They managed to avoid the silly word "belly," while still avoiding a seriously misleading use of the word "stomach." I'm sorry to split hairs, but this sort of thing gives me a brain injury (that is, a headache).
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 09:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Harry's Place "Do Something for Iraq" Event
by JeremyThis weekend's worldwide (but let's not overstate) anti-war demonstrations will be adding their meager forces together to objectively worsen the lot for 25 million Iraqis. The effect won't amount to much, probably, but it's a shameful and shallow misapplication of what at other times has been a noble expression of citizen involvement. Harry's place, over the next few days, not only will help remind us what constructive citizen involvement means, but will provide links and tips for ways we can lend our own small efforts to trying to offset the harm these demonstrations may cause. I plan to keep checking in all weekend and I hope you'll do the same.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 08:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 18, 2004
Cross your fingers but don't hold your breath
by Jeremy-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 01:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Baruch atah Mel
by JeremySatire is officially moot:
Mel Gibson told Sean Hannity on his radio show today that his next entry in the [religious film] genre may be the story of the Maccabees, the Jewish guerilla fighters who led a successful rebellion against Greek conquerors 165 years before Christ, inspiring the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
Here's Gibson's pitch (picture his hands making that cinematographic "U"):
"It's about Antiochus, the king who set up his religion in the Temple, and forced them all to deny the true God and worship at his feet and worship false gods. The Maccabees family stood up, and they made war, they stuck by their guns, and they came out winning. It's like a Western."
A Western; not bad. But I've got some juicier ideas to bounce off of you:
Here are some voice over ideas for the trailer (to be read by a middle aged guy in a whiskey-baritone):
The Maccabees are back...and this time it's personal.
Hanukkah: a time to light some candles...and kick some ass!
I hope there's a nose-to-nose shouting match between, like, Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise over whether you're supposed to light the candles from left-to-right or right-to-left.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:09 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Scooped by shared experience
by JeremyI had a Howard Stern post forming in my head and it was crystallizing around the phenomenon of trying to listen to NPR in the morning and then, when that whiny-voiced guy starts doing the ad for ADM or says "Marketplace is made possible by..." or whatever it is -- I switch over to Howard Stern. Then, when Howard Stern is doing something that equally annoys or offends me, or when that interminable commercial break starts, I go back and listen to those weird, foppish NPR guys again. I, in other words, am a qualified Howard Stern fan. I think he's the only person on radio who speaks openly about what he's really thinking (no false front or covert self-aggrandizing agenda; his self-aggrandizing agenda is totally out in the open). And I like having the power and freedom to steer through the obstacle coarse of wince-inducing programming and wish there were more of it from which to select.
But I don't appreciate having my thoughts mind-read, broadcast, and blogged while I'm still sorting them through.
More on the free speech issue and on the final death throes of the decades-long gradual demise of radio (and birth of Satellite radio?, preceding it's inevitable cable-TV-like demise?) this weekend.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 09:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 17, 2004
Cleaning up my act
by JeremyI've been washed out and queasy long enough -- I think I'm starting to snap out of it. But I've left a debris field of unfinished tasks in my wake and I want to use some of my weekend to pick up the pieces. One thing I want to do is make some additions to our blogroll -- so if you have been politely wondering why the f*** we've not given you the billing you know you deserve or why I never linked to that article of yours I said I'd post about two weeks ago, then let me know via comment or email. I'm planning a quixotic, over-compensatory belly flop that will peak by about Sunday Noon -- so get through to me before then. Oh, and I will blog more meaningfully too. As a gesture of good faith and a test of my own resolve to make good on my promise to myself I actually sent Norm my list of 5 top Dylan songs. It was a tough choice but I'm glad to have applied myself and done that work. I now crave more of that awesome business some call "industry" (by which I think you know I mean neither "business" nor "industry").
Oh, and if Anne hasn't posted about "On the Road" then don't let me forget to post about that.
-Jeremy
P.S. Ok, so maybe I have a day or two to go before I'm feeling up to par again. But I'm feeling energized, and with that anything's possible. I might even stop whining about my mild to moderate gastroparesis. When the GP flares up, eating makes me testy, as if someone were pulling my hair, and being testy makes me blog "creatively" like I've just done here. I should blog before dinner. It's better than snapping at people, though, or going all the way down to the poolhall and staring people down (I've never really done that -- I think people would laugh at me). Eric Alterman is spewing on TV in the background and I want to punch him in the nose (if only we were down at the poolhall). Is that my GP, or is that a perfectly normal reaction?
Posted by Jeremy at 09:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 16, 2004
Police identify Spain 'bombers'
by JeremyIt seems Spain has got an ID on 6 to 8 people who they believe perpetrated the bombings in Madrid last week. But why does CNN put the word 'bombers' in quotes? I suppose they mean to remind us that these are only suspects who have not been tried and convicted. I'd have put that across in another way, were I a CNN editor. "Spanish Police Identify Bombing Suspects" perhaps. Elswhere on their website was this headline: "Police name suspect in Ohio highway shootings."
I'm not sure I'm actually accusing CNN of anything other than awkwardness here, though their carelessness often seems selective. But it seems odd to me that 'bombers' does not seem odd to them. It conveys a sense of "hey, it's the Spanish authorities who are accusing these guys, OK? So don't look at us." I don't think a headline should dangle a story between thumb and forefinger and wince. The truth here is that 6 to 8 people have been identified as bombers -- actual train bombers definitely exist so there should not be any quotation marks around the word. The story is not about these 6 to 8 people who may or may not be 'bombers,' it's about the bombers, who Spanish authorities now believe include these 6 to 8 suspects. If you play your cards right you could come up with a headline in which you would not have to put quotes around 'Spanish', 'police', 'identify', 'train' or 'bombers.' Do we know for sure that these guys are even 'Moroccans?' No: we take the Spanish authorities at their word, no quotation marks needed.
I'm feeling a little off today, I'll shut up. Oh, and there's no charge to CNN for the journalism tutorial.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 15, 2004
A Puddle of Humanity
by JeremyThis was #1 on CNN's "More Top Stories" list so I figured I could not afford to ignore it (er...plus I saw it on Tim Blair). If a crowd this size stood shoulder to shoulder, they could form a line stretching from the Northeast corner of the White House to, like, the Northwest corner of the White House:
This is probably the most important story that's happened in the past couple of days. Good job, CNN!WASHINGTON (CNN) -- More than 60 people gathered Monday in Washington for a march to the White House, calling for an end to U.S. military action in Iraq.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 04:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 14, 2004
Time to order some new textbooks
by JeremyOk, here's an announcement I thought we'd had the last of many moons ago...astronomers believe they have discovered a new planet in our solar system. It's about the size of Jupitor and sits between the Earth and Mars (that last sentence is a lie. The first sentence is true).
Ok now class, how many planets in our solar system? Ten? That is correct! Billy, can you name them? "Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupitor, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Sedna."
Ok, we've probably finished mapping our own solar system, maybe. Finding life on planets many light years away? Piece of cake.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 09:57 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
The Terror Vote
by JeremyIt appears that terrorists have taken up the cause of Democracy, in a manner of speaking. The election result they lobbied for in Spain seems to have been accomodated. I don't mean to suggest that the unexpected Socialist triumph amounts to a vote in favor of terrorism -- even Al Qaeda wouldn't ask for that generous an accomodation. No, these terrorists simply want to be left alone to do what they need to do, to kill who they need to kill, to dismantle what freedoms they please, and the Socialist party of Spain is likely to afford them just that opportunity.
And the message to Al Qaeda is clear -- want to influence the outcome of pivotal elections in Western Democracies? Bomb away. It should be an interesting November. Having said that, I have genuine sympathy for the millions of Spaniards who simply wanted the horror of last week's bombings to never happen again, but I have nothing but admiration for those Spaniards who understand -- as hateful a fact as it may be -- that this means war.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 04:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Hitchens on Kerry
by Jeremy"KERRY has the look of a dog being washed when warfare comes up as a subject."
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 12:48 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 13, 2004
Norm on Madrid
by JeremyNorman Geras has a series of extremely moving posts on the tragedies that continue to unfold in Spain. If you're reading this now, click the above link and read as you scroll down. For those reading this in months and years to come, you can follow the links below.
Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 12:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Not that it matters now, but Marx would do more than shrug
by JeremyRoger Simon characterizes ETA as "driven by a kind of Marxism that would probably make Marx commit suicide." Indeed. If, that is, he'd have been able to survive 70 years of Stalinism. It's possible that Marx would be the most vocal and most credible critic of certain aspects of Marxism. The folks at Socialism in an Age of Waiting provide a clue as to how Marx saw terrorism as, at the very least, immensely self-defeating:
In 1867, after a bomb planted by a Fenian group at Clerkenwell Prison in London killed several passers-by, Marx wrote to Engels as follows:"The last exploit of the Fenians in Clerkenwell was a very stupid thing. The London masses who have shown great sympathy for Ireland will be made wild by it and driven into the arms of the government party. One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour of the Fenian emissaries."
One would like to think, having witnessed atrocities such as those of 9/11 and 3/11, that Marx would also have something to say about the tragic human loss. In any event, he'd do more than just shrug. At times like this I resent that people who commit such crimes against humanity are seen as having even the most rudimentary capacity for intellectual or spiritual contemplation; they are stupid, soulless, murdering scum.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 12:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 12, 2004
Next: Expunge All References to the Human Unconscious
by JeremyThanks to the U.S. cogress for cleaning up the country by publishing the following on the internet (via Jeff Jarvis):
To amend section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, to provide for the punishment of certain profane broadcasts, and for other purposes.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 1464 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
(1) by inserting `(a)' before `Whoever'; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
`(b) As used in this section, the term `profane', used with respect to language, includes the words `shit', `piss', `fuck', `cunt', `asshole', and the phrases `cock sucker', `mother fucker', and `ass hole', compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms).'
I haven't yet posted on the Howard Stern issue because I'm still collecting my thoughts about it, but there certainly is an old, ugly thing rearing its head again.
Next they'll clean up the internet -- {THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE}
More thoughts to come.
UPDATE: George Carlin weighs in (hat tip: Jeff Jarvis):
"More of the same, more of the same. What are we, surprised?" Carlin told The Associated Press on Friday
He blamed it on religious moralism, media commercialism and election-year politics.
"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things -- bad language and whatever -- it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. ... There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."
...
"These bursts of interest and decency are just like when you're in the Air Force, Army and Marines, whatever -- the discipline in your unit may get a little lax, people live with it, it's fine for months at a time then some colonel notices it and suddenly they crack down ... enforcing all the minor rules and regulations. Then what happens after these bursts of bothering people, that wears off and we get back to normal, relaxed discipline, but things still get done.
"Society can be counted on to let this fade."
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 01:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sorting Out the Horror in Madrid
by JeremyThe BBC's "security correspondent" (hat tip: Roger L. Simon) speculates that the attacks in Madrid, which bear some hallmarks of Basque separatist group ETA, but also of Islamist groups connected to Al Qaeda, could conceivably turn out to have involved some collusion between the two. We may not know the answer to this for a while yet. But this sort of thing seems inevitable to me.
"The BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner, says the nightmare scenario for Spain would be a collaboration between Islamic and Basque groups. He says recent events in Iraq have shown how different groups can work together in a common cause."
Yes. And Paul Berman has articulated, more clearly than anyone I'm aware of, how Al Qaeda and Saddam's Baath regime must be seen in the context of a now very long history of antiliberal movements:
"Over the last several decades, a variety of movements have arisen in the Arab and Islamic countries--a radical nationalism (Baath socialist, Marxist, pan-Arab, and so forth) and a series of Islamist movements (meaning Islamic fundamentalism in a political version). The movements have varied hugely and have even gone to war with one another--Iran's Shiite Islamists versus Iraq's Baath socialists, like Hitler and Stalin slugging it out. The Islamists give the impression of having wandered into modern life from the 13th century, and the Baathist and Marxist nationalisms have tried to seem modern and even futuristic.But all of those movements have followed, each in its fashion, the twentieth-century pattern. They are antiliberal insurgencies...They are the heirs of the twentieth-century totalitarians."
If the ETA thinks they are still fighting against fascism by launching nationalist terror attacks on innocent Spaniards, then their view of the world is exactly upside down. It must finally be accepted that terrorism must be seen as an anti-liberal force by its very nature. Terrorism, to put it another way, is the "poor" man's fascism. If you would blow up a train today, you'd enslave or exterminate your own people tomorrow.
Here is a picture from the New York Times that looks all too familiar:
And here is an example of where the proud 20th century spirit of popular protest (rather than its effete, modern offspring) lives on (from the Guardian):
UPDATE (via Tim Blair):
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 10:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 11, 2004
Horrible bombings in Madrid
by JeremyMADRID, Spain (AP) -- Powerful explosions rocked three Madrid train stations Thursday just days before Spain's general elections, killing more than 170 rush-hour commuters and wounding more than 500 in Spain's worst terrorist attack ever.Foreign Minister Ana Palacio said there were indications the armed Basque separatist group ETA was to blame. ``Right now we have to wait until we have an official statement. We don't have this official statement, so we just can say there are some hints and indications that point toward ETA,'' Palacio told the BBC.
Glenn Reynolds has some informative links on this.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 08:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 08, 2004
Rings of Power
by CaraOkay, so I got a call today from a close friend, someone I'd sort of lost contact with these past few busy years. He'd left this ominous sounding message in a terribly somber sounding tone ending with this, "Cara, I really need to talk to you about something...it's of great import." Wow, as I dialed his number and cursed myself for not keeping in closer touch with him, I braced myself for the worst.
"Hi! How's it goin'?!", he said in a surprisingly upbeat and relaxed tone.
"Okay, hey let's cut to the chase", I answered, "everything alright or what? You sounded so serious!"
"Oh yeah, yeah...it is serious but it's good serious...I just wanted to make sure you'd call me back sooner rather than later!" He then went on to explain that he and his partner of many years, another close friend, were getting married. Relieved and giddy, I yelled, "Well it's about time!"
"Well," he said, "we had to wait 'til the laws caught up with us!" I repeated, "It's about time!"
Jeremy and I haven't blogged about gay marriage, specifically, up to now. I don't quite know why, we both absolutely support it. Maybe it's because we were both disheartened by the Bush amendment thing (which I don't think has a chance and which Jeremy touched on in this post) and we were waiting for things to play out more before we chimed in. But after this phone call and little story, it's time.
My friend also told me that last August his mother died of cancer. I thought back to our college days, the days of his parents insisting he try therapy to 'help' him end this bi-sexual 'phase'. He didn't dwell on it much but I knew enough to know his parents weren't very understanding, to say the least, after he came out to them. He did tell me how close he was with his mom all through his teenage years; his mom had her own issues and it seems she relied a lot on my friend to get through. This was why he was especially heart broken at how cold she had become toward him after she learned the truth that therapy would never change.
He said that about a week before she fell into a coma she'd called the family together to go over her 'arrangements' and her wishes. She was very pragmatic and organized about the whole thing, having evidently come to terms with the inevitable. And I think she'd more than come to terms with something else as well as she, it turns out, turned to my friend, took off her wedding and engagement rings and placed them in her son's hand. She said to him, "I don't know if the marriage laws will ever change, but I want you two to have these."
Now, I don't want to give the wrong impression here; I do know that my friend's mom had, through the years, mellowed quite a bit and had come to accept the basic facts of her son's life. However, I don't think she ever quite reached the level of validation my friend had ultimately hoped for, at least not until then.
He said, "It's like she gave me the rings, then made it happen."
Teary eyed chills and goosebumps aside, somehow, the fact that my friend's a Tolkien junkie from way back, before it was fashionable, can't escape mention here too. Seriously, this is a Latin and French teacher that for years has let kids earn extra credit by conjugating their Elvish verbs. Today he also informed me he's going for his Ph.D. in Medieval Studies. "Oh", I said, "so you're finally getting your doctorate in Middle Earth then?" "Uuuh, well yeah!" he laughed.
"When I become bored or irritated by the gay marriage battle--and I do, I sometimes do--I like to picture the writhing faces and hoarse yells of the mullahs and the fanatics. Godless hedonistic America, not content with allowing divorce and pornography, has taken from us our holy Taliban and our upright Saddam. It sends Jews and unveiled female soldiers to our lands, and soon unnatural brotherhood will be in the armed forces of the infidels. And now the godless have an election where all they discuss is the weddings of men to men and women to women! And then I relax, and smile, and ask my neighbors over, to repay the many drinks and kind gestures that I owe them."
My friend, modern-day Middle Earth Hobbit, teacher of Latin, French and Elvish, protector of liberties and Lord of the Wedding Rings.
- Cara
Posted by Cara at 10:36 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
An Historic Moment
by JeremyA step forward for humanity is a good way to start the work week, dont' you think?
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 07:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Blog space for this evening
by JeremyJeff Jarvis copped out, but he'll soon be shamed into sharing pictures of some of his own blog locations. This is one of mine (though I also blog from the library, from my office, from the deck, and various occasional other places). If you can see both the screen content and the room itself, it's because I enjoyed one of those rare harmonic convergences during which the batteries in both my camera and my extension flash were simultaneously charged and ready. And yet...it's boring as hell, isn't it?
Can you spot my right knee and my empty bottle of therapeutic diet Coke?
Cara often blogs from that lovely chair you see in the background (which, believe it or not, reclines!) so I guess I've killed two birds with one stone.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 12:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 07, 2004
More Tales of Horror from Guantanamo
by JeremyWarning: not for the squeamish!
He spent a typical day watching movies, going to class and playing football. He was fascinated to learn about the solar system, and now enjoys reciting the names of the planets, starting with Earth.
And then the interrogations began!
Less diverting were the twice-monthly interrogations about his knowledge of al-Qaida and the Taliban. But, as Asadullah's answer was always the same - "I don't know anything about these people" - these sessions were merely a bore: an inevitably tedious consequence, Asadullah suggests with a shrug, of being held captive in Guantanamo Bay.
Do not avert your eyes from what follows!
The food in the camp was delicious, the teaching was excellent, and his warders were kind. "Americans are good people, they were always friendly, I don't have anything against them," he said. "If my father didn't need me, I would want to live in America."Asadullah is even more sure of this. "Americans are great people, better than anyone else," he said, when found at his elder brother's tiny fruit and nut shop in a muddy backstreet of Kabul. "Americans are polite and friendly when you speak to them. They are not rude like Afghans. If I could be anywhere, I would be in America. I would like to be a doctor, an engineer _ or an American soldier."
(Via Tim Blair)
Posted by Jeremy at 05:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 05, 2004
What a presidential candidate should sound like
by JeremyWhy can't Tony Blair be president? (via Jeff Jarvis):
Tony Blair defended the doctrine of pre-emptive military action this morning, promising to "wage war relentlessly on those who would exploit racial and religious division to bring catastrophe to the world". In a speech in his Sedgefield constituency, the prime minister warned of the "mortal danger" posed by Islamist terrorists and rogue states acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and insisted that "this is not the time to err on the side of caution".
"We surely have a duty and a right to prevent the threat materialising; and we surely have a responsibility to act when a nation's people are subjected to a regime such as Saddam's," he said. Mr Blair called for the reform of international law and the UN to allow the elimination of rogue, repressive regimes which might supply terrorists with WMD....
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 07:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 03, 2004
Totten lays it on the line
by JeremyTwo Michael J. Totten posts in a row. The man deserves it. Michael has the courage to think out loud, as it were, and wrestle with some tough decisions and that makes it just a bit easier for the rest of us. Knowing that Michael and Roger may have to tell their lefty friends they voted for Bush will make it less lonely -- if not actually less painful -- to have to tell the same to my socialist friends and family, if I indeed end up voting Bush. The fact is that voting Kerry would rescue me in the eyes of many of those close to me, but it would -- on the evidence of Kerry's opportunistic and dismissive remarks on Iraq and the war on terror -- be a betrayal of those whose lives and culture depend on the defeat of Islamo-fascism (starting with the people of Iraq but by no means ending there). There's just no voting for Kerry. So do I throw my vote away, or do I vote for someone who I have reason to believe will face the reality of the world situation in something approximating the only responsible way (Hmm...how can I fit that on a bumper sticker?)
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 09:27 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Totten Land Joins the Party
by JeremyIt seems Portland, Oregon is now jumping on the same sex marriage train (Note: I scooped Totten on that one)
I think this is a good thing. But I've got two observations:
One is that we should watch Bush very carefully to see what is really going on with his seemingly militant intentions regarding all this. To a certain degree it's illogical to be shocked by the Bush reaction since it strikes me as having been part of the plan -- in other words the "Bring it on" approach by gay rights activists in which they force a chain reaction of constitutional challenges to banning and/or failing to offer gay marriage. So Bush, with his religious right lip service (is it more than talk? that's what we're watching) is crowing right on cue. This was an interesting article in the New York Times indicating that Bush, personally, is in no way anti-gay (the quote below doesn't precisely make this point, but it's extremely illustrative -- read the article):
Last spring, during a class of 1968 Yale reunion that he held at the White House, Mr. Bush had a particularly striking encounter with Petra Leilani Akwai, who in 2002 had a sex-change operation. At Yale, Ms. Akwai was known as Peter Clarence Akwai."I was in the receiving line, I was dressed in an evening dress, and I was being escorted by a male friend from the Yale class of 1986," Ms. Akwai said in a telephone interview this weekend from Germany, where she lives. "And I said, `Hello, George.' And in order for him not to be confused, in case he hadn't been briefed, because our class was all male, I said, `I guess the last time we spoke, I was still living as a man.' "
"And he said," Ms. Akwai recounted, " `But now you're you.' "
Ms. Akwai said the president seemed completely comfortable. "He leaned forward and gave me a little sort of smile," she said. "I thought it was a sincere thing, and it was very charming."
Damn, I can't remember what the other observation was...but here's something: I'd been hearing and seeing stories referring to a "small town in New York" marrying same sex couples but only just found out this town-that-dare-not-speak-its-name is New Paltz, where I pursued my masters in English literature for two years. "Who Knew", as they say [ed: more to the point, "who cares" except you].
Coda: Gay couples will now be burdened with the "when is s/he going the pop the question already" problem. Soon there may be no cover for those who cling to that last symbolic (and over-rated) ounce of freedom.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 09:07 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 01, 2004
What's up with Typepad? (UPDATE: why I'm sticking with Typepad)
by JeremyI don't know. I hope Typepad is not pulling a "blogger." Sorry for the recurring slowdowns and stoppages.
UPDATE: Typepad has since issued apologies and details about the problems and it's apparently successful efforts to fix them. This reflects quite well on Typepad -- I expect things to go wrong with a web host; what separates the good ones from the bad ones is the response. Typepad has made it clear that they find this sort of problem unacceptable and they have addressed the problems decisively (unlike the host of my other websites who had almost exactly the same technical blowout happen -- I've had to contact them repeatedly to get them to fix my website one piece at a time: it's like pulling teeth. And they had no redundant server they could swap in.)
My apologies to the folks at Tyepad for using the "B" word.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Score one for armchair psychoanalysis!
by JeremyI have no proof of this, but I joked with a friend at a party that Howard Dean was scared to death he'd actually have to be president: "those freaky bastards are really going to elect me" our joke-Dean satirically said. And I believed the actual Dean was ambivalent at best. This was, I swear, before Roger Simon posted a more serious and empirical version of same on his blog. (Roger has a knack for having thought a thing through, blogged it and taken heat for it while the rest of us are still scratching our heads over it or cracking wise at parties). Anyway, I never actually thought that this question would be resolved in any conclusive way, but it seems my joke Dean is the real thing and that Roger's analytical skills have been vindicated once again...
"I don't care about being president," he said. Months earlier, as his candidacy was taking off, he told a colleague: "The problem is, I'm now afraid I might win."
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 08:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
