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June 30, 2004
Tell it, Brother!
by JeremyThere is something in the power of a sincere intellectual rant that can, in the course of one or two ecstatic sentences, take you from a knower to a true believer. Check out this post over at SIAW praising an art review but expressing some bewilderment over a perfunctory sneer at American society (the second sentence is the exemplar of rantissimo bravo):
Hughes takes a puzzling sideswipe at the "singularly depraved" culture of the United States - puzzling, because this is an oddly shallow phrase to find in a piece by a critic whose expert knowledge and infectious appreciation of American art might lead his readers to expect more subtlety. Perhaps it was meant as no more than a sop to Guardianista anti-Americanism, that convenient set of prejudices, masquerading as an ideology, that has permitted the liberal middle classes, and their pseudo-left parasites, to wallow in parochial British nationalism, while pretending to be doing nothing of the kind...
Them cats can write.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:46 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
The Mouse Takes the Cheese
by JeremySlice thrown! Large-toothed, cartoon-like rodent down. Whipping averted. No charges filed.
I don't know what shocks me most: the cheese terror, the waste of pizza, or the fact that Chuck E. Cheese is actually a 17 year old girl:
MACON, Ga. - A teenager dressed as pizza mascot Chuck E. Cheese was pelted with pizza and threatened with a beating by an angry parent who said the mascot wasn't paying enough attention to her child, police said.Macon police reported that the 17-year-old female employee was dressed as the character - a gray cartoon-like rodent with large front teeth - when a 31-year-old Macon woman threw a piece of pizza at her Sunday afternoon.
The report stated that the mother then threatened to "whip" the girl when she changed out of costume.
Someone alert Lileks.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Iraqis on Sovereignty
by JeremyHere is Zeyad on the surprise handover:
I was on the road back to Baghdad on the 28th when the transfer of authority to the Iraqi interim government was announced. Since I was exhausted and starving from the long road, I was therefore more interested in gobbling up my lunch of tishreeb and rice than the ceremonies on tv at the bustling restaurant near Kut. I thought it was a wise decision to announce the event two days before it was planned so I wasn't much surprised, though some people argue that it spoiled the whole thing. Actually, it took the unguarded Arab media by complete surprise, and I swear I could notice their confusion since it was very obvious that they hadn't yet prepared anything to downplay the significance of the event.
And here is compelling series of photographs and impressions from random Iraqi people featured on the BBC website (via Norm):
"May god keep Bush and Allawi, because Bush threw out Saddam and Allawi will give us safety and security."I think we should try and execute Saddam. He took our sons! He took my two sons from their colleges 25 years ago. I never heard from them again."
Posted by Jeremy at 07:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 29, 2004
Dr. Ali's Party
by JeremyFrom Ali over at Iraqi the Model:
I was on duty-call in the hospital all yesterday and I was in the ward when I heard the news that Mr. Bremer had already transferred the power to the new government two days ahead of the expected date. I was so happy about this news and I couldn't wait until I finish my tour to celebrate the occasion.My friends all seemed thrilled and optimistic, yet they seemed to have no interset in celebrating the event. I decided to do something so I asked one of my colleagues to cover for me for an hour; I told him that I have to get something from outside.I directly headed to the nearest bakery and ordered a nice cake and returned to the hospital as fast as I could...
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Poll Finds Americans Can't Think For Selves
by JeremyThe New York Times tells us:
Among those who do have an opinion, Mr. Kerry is disliked more than he is liked. More than 50 percent of respondents said that Mr. Kerry says what he thinks voters want to hear, suggesting that Mr. Bush has had success in portraying his opponent as a flip-flopper.
This is a handy statistical analysis tool. Case in point:
Chocolate is America's favorite flavor. A recent survey revealed that 52 percent of U.S. adults said they like chocolate best. The second favorite flavor was a tie (at 12 percent each) between berry flavors and vanilla.
Thus have cocoa farmers had success in portraying berry farmers and Vanilla farmers as producing an inferior crop.
I'm going to read the latest press releases from the big beverage companies because I'm thirsty and am curious what my favorite beverage will be come lunchtime.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Iraqis on the handover
by JeremyHere are some Iraqis on what one may hope will forever after be a three day weekend for them (via Norm):
"This is a historic day, because on this day the Iraqi people started to depend on themselves," said Jumaa Sarhan, 30, who sells newspapers on the sidewalk near Firdos Square, where the statue of Saddam was toppled last year. "All the people I've met and talked to are happy about it."[...]
Wadha Abdullah Hussein, 38... "I believe there was a desperate need for America and Britain to overthrow this fascist and dictatorial regime," he said. "I believe most Iraqis appreciate what the Americans and British have done in Iraq. Now we will go through a critical stage until the government and the elections are settled and I think that after elections the situation will improve..."
He has much more. And see the Iraqi Blog links to the left. Although you only have to browse through the news sites as well.
Posted by Jeremy at 08:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 28, 2004
Iraqi Sovereignty Transferred Early
by JeremyIraq's occupying powers formally transferred sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government on Monday -- two days earlier than expected -- to try to thwart guerrilla attacks, officials said.
I like it. Let's hope this is a formula we will continue to see -- in the face of fascist/Islamist terrorism, speed up liberalization rather than slow it down.
A report (via Zeyad) that a leading Shiite cleric may have been murdered by Al Qaeda is a clear reminder that civil war remains a very real danger, and that Isamist fanatics thrive on chaos:
I just heard that Sistani's spokesman announced that one of the four most senior clerics of the Najaf Hawza has been assassinated. He also launched a strong verbal attack against Al-Qaeda. Since it is obvious that it wasn't Sistani, then we have one of the other three, Sayyid Bashir Al-Najafi, Sayyid Mohammed Ishaq Al-Fayyadh, or Sayyid Mohammed Sa'id Al-Hakim. This isn't good at all.
I can no longer find any news items to corroborate the report of an assasination of a cleric -- there was a story on Australia's ABC mentioning it but it's now gone. But there was this:
KEY Iraqi anti-US leaders have expressed unease at the mounting insurgency in the country and denounced as infidels al-Qaeda's top leaders.The country's leading Shiite, Ali al-Sistani condemned the wave of attacks orchestrated by Jordanian terrorist Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi that has claimed the lives of 100 Iraqis a day.
In Karbala, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Sistani on Friday denounced the terror attacks and slammed Al-Qaeda's top leaders.
"Zarqawi, Zawahiri and bin Laden are filthy infidels who nurture malignance against Imam Ali and his sons," he said.
It scares me when Zeyad says things like "This isn't good at all." I suppose what he means is that there is a fine line between Shiite clerics righteously deploring Al Qaeda terror vs. tension between Shia and Sunni Muslims building to dangerous levels.
I get the impression most Iraqis understand that Al Qaeda would love to spark a civil war but that it would mean the death of Iraq. Democracy won't magically appear in Iraq today, nor will the terrorism suddenly stop. What will start to happen in the minds of Iraqis from this day on, however, is that they will begin to internalize a sense that democratic reform is their birthright, not some shell game thrown onto them by the U.S. They will more and more come to see it as something inherently Iraqi. This is what the terrorists are racing to prevent. This is why the handover of sovereignty, though it may thus far be only symbolic, is truly important.
UPDATE: Sometimes you've just got to quote Alaa:
Come rain, come tempest, descend fog and darkness, We Shall Overcome. The Devil is going to be defeated again, as usual, by the very evil of his machinations.And the enemy is desperate, he is striking left and right, beheading, slaughtering, murdering; blind with the rage of the wounded dying beast...
[...]
But We Shall Overcome; have no doubt about that. This, more than anything else, I know with every fiber of my being. And praise be to Allah, and thank you America.
Salaam
Posted by Jeremy at 04:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 27, 2004
Sunday Fluff Post
by JeremyI've started taking fish oil capsules for Omega-something-or-others. This because I've had a feeling my mild (sometimes moderate) gastroparesis has made it difficult for my body to efficiently absorb nutrients from the stomach-friendly foods I've been eating. I don't know if this is medically sound, but there's no harm in trying. The problem has been compounded, I'm figuring, by the fact that I've been a vegetarian for 20 years. But now I've also started eating fish.
My findings over the last few weeks? Though I don't think it has increased stomach motility, my symptoms have been markedly less severe. Even on days when I have to skip meals because my stomach is stuck in neutral, I'm less likey to experience the nausea, cramping and dizziness I had come to regard as my daily companions. Time will tell whether this is a causative link or just a pleasant anomaly.
But here's something I have learned: it's good to put generous amounts of lemon juice in tuna salad. What the effects of increasing mercury levels may have on my GP, I guess, is another interesting topic for investigation. But so far it's delicious. I'll let you in on my recipe for quicksilver Pate in a future post.
One more thing: I just had a lovely cigar out on the deck. It was one of those little Macanudo Ascot Maduros. Normally I don't get excited about these, it's just that you can now buy them at your local CVS drug store. The first thing I do when I get them home, however, is unwrap them and chuck them in by Spanish Cedar-lined jar humidor. After a few days in this fragrant sauna, they climb up a couple of notches in taste. I'm no cigar expert but here's a definition of a good cigar I once read on the internet somewhere: if you've smoked the thing down to the butt and find yourself wishing you had a roach clip, it's a good cigar.
Posted by Jeremy at 05:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 26, 2004
Welcome to our new home!
by JeremySure, it's not that different from our old one. Neat trick, huh? This one's Movable Type. It all went quite smoothly because Movable Type and Typepad are basically two versions of the same thing.
But it could have turned out like this:
So I am quite grateful it didn't.
If you notice anything massively screwed up, please let us know.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 25, 2004
Busy today but will break for Jarvis on TV tonite
by JeremyHave much to do today but a couple of things worth posting:
Thanks to everyone who has re-linked to our new URL.
If you haven't already, you should go read Jeff Jarvis's impassioned and eloquent take on "Fahrenheit 9/11" (unlike me, he has actually seen it).
And we may be seeing Jeff verbalize some of this stuff on TV tonight:
: As of now (and this could change), I'll be on CNN with Aaron Brown tonight between 10 and 11 ET to talk about Fahrenheit 9/11.
UPDATE: Cara and I just saw Jeff on Aaron Brown. He came across like a likeable, regular person, as opposed to the primary-colored tonka toy that is the persona usually seen on TV (because it reads well? Doesn't surprise or confuse or challenge anyone?). But we really liked what he said about the film. He said that Moore is attempting to point all post 9/11 anger and outrage toward Bush -- Jeff said that while he's no Bush supporter, he as a 9/11 survivor deeply resents this manipulation. He described the film as a "two-by-four." He didn't get much contradiction from Brown or Jeff Greenfield, just the usual luke warm ho-humification. Greenfield, though, made the surprisingly apt observation that Moore is not trying to actually convince anyone just, like Rush Limbaugh, trying to rouse the already converted. Can't wait (all, like, nine minutes) for Jeff's post-mortem.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 01:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 24, 2004
Diaspora2
by Jeremy
I just learned something fascinating about legendary Jazz pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith (a bit more mellifluous than "William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholoff Smith"). It seems he spoke more than a smattering of Yiddish and Hebrew, and had a day job as a cantor in a Harlem synagogue.
...[He] was a tickler's tickler. He was also a composer of over one hundred songs, a captivating showman ("a keyboard gladiator," according to Duke Ellington), a decorated war hero, and a cantor in a Harlem synagogue. With his trademark derby, a smoldering cigar and an icy stare, he had a knack for flustering rival pianists, but he was also a beloved mentor to three generations of jazz musicians. Raised in turn-of-the-century Newark and shaped by its diverse ethnic and cultural influences, he went on to become a legendary figure in Harlem in the1920s and '30s, where he created a new jazz idiom--stride.[...]
his church-going mother tried to steer her son to holy music. "I used to hear my mother play a hymn," recalls Smith, "and I used to take it and play it in ragtime. I used to go to a saloon, dance, sing and play, then pass my hat around." He was equally drawn to the musical traditions of his roguish father, who was Jewish. Young Smith learned Hebrew from a Newark rabbi for whom his mother did laundry. (In the 1930s, Artie Shaw noticed that Smith's business card had Hebrew characters identifying him as a cantor, and in a 1970 appearance on the David Frost Show, he baffles his host by speaking in Yiddish).
In the words of Yakov Smirnoff: "America, what a country!" Read the article on Smirnoff, by the way. It deserves its own post:
Mr. Smirnoff paid for the $100,000 mural himself and persuaded the building's owners to hang it before the first anniversary of the attacks. The mural was based on a painting Mr. Smirnoff made on the night of the disaster which now hangs in his Branson theater. "I don't know what was driving me, just an internal desire to heal," he says. Before coming to America, Mr. Smirnoff taught art at Odessa Pedagogical University in Ukraine.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 10:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 23, 2004
A Shout Out to My Homey
by JeremyOur American domination of world culture is almost complete. Norm Geras, after a Blue Note record buying binge, blogged the following phrase today:
"Yo, Plastic."
Of course he was probably a hep cat back when I was still listening to the Bee Gees, but it seemed significant.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 07:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Harry's Place is Back
by JeremyAnd their archives are intact. It looks like the DNS servers haven't yet completed replicating across the pond, but keep checking.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 05:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
New URL for "Who Knew"
by JeremyHello friends. I am going to be moving the blog soon to a Movable Type format on a different server. The good news is that I will be able to import all posts and comments, and it looks like I'll even be able to have permalinks automatically forward to the new site! So it will be something of a metamorphosis.
The favor I'm humbling humbly asking of those of you who link to us is this: please change your links to this address: http://www.whoknew.us
For now this will still connect to the present, Typepad location. Ultimately (I'm hoping next week) it will magically begin to point to the new version of the site.
I still think that Typepad is a great service, but I'm looking forward to having full control of the mechanics and hosting of the site, and your help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
(UPDATE: Thanks to my friends at SIAW for the "humbling" alert. Humbling indeed. Glad you're blogging again, by the way. And thanks to all those who have updated your links to us!)
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 04:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Repubs and Dems to Citizens: Shut Your Fucking Pie Hole
by JeremyThe bi-partisan effort to return this country to some fictional era of moral correctness is reason enough to respect Ralph Nader for trying to force a crack in the two-party monopoly.
The Senate voted yesterday to substantially increase fines for broadcast indecency, responding to months of public outrage over racy radio and television broadcasts that culminated with the exposure of Janet Jackson's breast during CBS's telecast of the Super Bowl halftime show in January.An amendment attached to a Defense Department authorization bill likely to be voted upon today would give the Federal Communications Commission authority to increase the maximum fine for each incident of broadcast indecency from $32,500 to $275,000, with a cap of $3 million a day.
[...]
The resulting package passed 99 to 1. Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) cast the dissenting vote, saying he objected to the addition of language dealing with the media ownership rules.
The House already has passed its version of the defense bill so the two houses must now confer to decide whether the fines and other measures will be included in the bill sent to President Bush for signing.
Congress and the FCC can get away with this because Americans are used to the lack of freedom on TV and radio and most are aware that Howard Stern has been getting away with murder for ages. But, while not many people expect freedom or quality on broadcast radio or TV, if the FCC starts cracking down on the use of profane language on the internet, they will wish they hadn't. There isn't much these days that has the potential to spark a mass rebellion, but tamper with the internet (or ban beer) and you will see apathetic citizens become radical activists.
They may try and strangle satellite radio in its infancy, since it has not yet entered the public consciousness as a civic necessity.
But either way, Jeff Jarvis has a point that we as citizens should not let this sort of thing happen without a fight.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 12:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 22, 2004
Suicidal Fascist Scum
by JeremyOr choose your own way of saying that these sons of bitches won't stop until they're given the freedom to decapitate millions of people throughout the Arab world. Quite unimpressed with the Baathist penchant for dropping people off buildings or head-first into tree shredders, these murdering bigots like to take matters into their own hands. I'm comfortable with the idea of keeping the number of people they can get their hands on to a minimum, even if it means invading their "sovereignty", or offending their honor. I don't think they want to liberate Iraq from the U.S. I don't think Spain should "return" Andalucia to them. I don't think people should make apologies for them.
Why suicidal? Setting aside the obvious, it's because they have screwed up their Islamo-fascist crusade so badly that even the Saudis are now gunning for them.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 04:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Speaking Truth to Power
by JeremyIn the spirit of the free exchange of ideas, Michael Moore has threatened to sue anyone who disagrees with him:
Mr. Moore is readying for a conservative counterattack, saying he has created a political-style "war room" to offer an instant response to any assault on the film's credibility. He has retained Chris Lehane, a Democratic Party strategist known as a master of the black art of "oppo," or opposition research, used to discredit detractors. He also hired outside fact-checkers, led by a former general counsel of The New Yorker and a veteran member of that magazine's legendary fact-checking team, to vet the film. And he is threatening to go one step further, saying he has consulted with lawyers who can bring defamation suits against anyone who maligns the film or damages his reputation.
He may yet find the most damaging criticism coming from the Left, rather than form the Right.
I don't know whether it's Hitchens' intention to pick up the glove Moore has thrown down by tempting a lawsuit, but I'm glad to see him rail against Moore's irresponsible rhetoric and dare to disregard his outrageous warning that dissent will not be tolerated.
In any event, this rant on Moore's film by Hitchens is a must read:
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.[...]
We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation." (In fact, Iraq's "sovereignty" was heavily qualified by international sanctions, however questionable, which reflected its noncompliance with important U.N. resolutions.) In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then--wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 01:25 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 21, 2004
Harry's Place Meltdown
by JeremyThere are a handful of great blogs in this lonely, liberal hawk corner of the blogosphere. A few of them are what you'd call important (you know who you are). Harry's Place is an important blog, a valuable piece of the historical record. It now looks as if Harry's Place may have lost their entire archive. I truly hope this is not the case, but a catastrophe of this sort is something we should all have seen as a distinct possiblity. Let's take this as a warning to back up our archives. I confess that I only started doing this very recently myself.
Norm relays a call for assistance from anyone who may know how to contact their hosting company.
The good news is that, whatever happens, they don't plan to throw in the towel.
UPDATE: The word on the street is that this is just a domain issue, not a server problem. If so, then they may not have lost all their stuff. Let's hope that's the case.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 18, 2004
There's no word but evil
by JeremyNo other word exists in the English language to describe these bastards. And consider this statement from their website:
"A lot of voices were very loud, expressing their anger for taking a Christian military person as a hostage and killing him while they kept their mouth shut from saying anything supporting those poor Muslims who are in prisons and being tortured by the hands of the cross-believers," the Web site statement said, an apparent reference to the abuse of Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib prison.
"Those poor Muslims." Try to picture it -- these hooded murderers actually uttering that phrase -- "those poor Muslims" -- presumably with sentimental tears in their eyes, these terrorists, the majority of whose victims are Muslim, these people who decapitated a human being with their own hands. It shames us all that there is anyone who honestly supposes they give a flying fuck about "those poor Muslims" or any other living soul.
I'm glad that Johnson's family honored him by pleading that he had the highest respect for the Saudi people -- it was a civilizing impulse that does honor to the man's memory. But it was a language too decent for Johnson's murderers to comprehend; this humane spirit was the opposite of the terrorists' contempt for human life.
They'd have gone through with it even if their demands had been met; their goal is to murder and terrorize innocent people -- Muslims, Jews, and Christians -- and humiliate the civilized world. If you think I'm being simple-minded, like Bush, picture it again:
"Those poor Muslims."
UPDATE: Saudi security forces have killed Saudi Arabia's top Al Qaeda leader and three others. This is the language terrorists understand; I'm glad a portion of the Saudi royal family are now willing to speak it.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 05:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mighty Intriguing
by JeremyOf course, anyone who has ever watched "Mission Impossible" would know to take the utterances of a KGB agent with a grain of salt, but this is a pretty potent little offhand remark from Putin (hat tip: Roger):
"After Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services, the intelligence service, received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests," Putin said.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 12:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Paul Berman on Iraq
by JeremyHere are some eloquent passages from Paul Berman's piece -- on the Iraq war and those who opposed it, and on Bush policy -- in the current issue of the New Republic:
Some of the protesters invoked the authority of the United Nations. The United Nations was founded in 1945 in a spirit of anti-Nazism, in order to struggle against every kind of racist and totalitarian state that might reflect Nazi or Nazi-like influences. This has always been a source of the U.N.'s singular prestige. The Baath party, on the other hand, was founded in 1943 (originally in Damascus) in a spirit of pro-Nazism, in order to adapt the racist and totalitarian ideas of Europe for the Arab world. The whole purpose of the United Nations, from a 1945 point of view, is to rid the world of parties like the Baath.[...]
And so, during this last year we have learned that people who smirk at putting the words "liberal democracy" and "Iraq" into a single sentence ought to reduce their smirk by 20 percent, in proportion to Iraq's Kurdish population. We have learned that, in Kurdistan, the democratic left has turned out to be especially strong. And we have learned that, in some of the world's liberal democracies, other democratic leftists couldn't care less. "They shall not pass" was the slogan of the left in the Spanish Civil War. "Yes, they will," is the slogan of Spanish socialism today. Iraqi success, as much as Iraqi suffering, turns out to be invisible in the modern world.
It's good stuff; good enough that it's not entirely undermined by the trademark Berman disclaimer that he's still a card-carrying leftie who loathes the Bush administration:
We have learned that there are many paths to hell, and one of those paths is called the "National Security Strategy" of 2002. This is the White House document that affirmed U.S. hegemony over everyone else as the national goal and preemptive war as the policy--two ideas that were guaranteed to strike terror in half the world.[...]
Yet, this most wrongheaded of national security strategies expressed the mentality that governed the invasion--the hubris and the indifference toward waging a battle of ideas. A good many people always dreaded the probable effect of this set of attitudes...
"So what's wrong with that?" I hear you say, "He's separating the wheat from the chaff." Well, yes. And I agree that we'd have benefited from a style of rhetoric closer to Tony Blair's, though the effect would have been the same, we'd still have been shunned by "the world" for entering into an "illegal war" without some key European Allies. What I find silly about Berman's anti-Bush fervor is the way this sort of thing has been disingenuously shoe-horned into some of his essays as a rhetorical gesture aimed at glancing over the heads of the choir, from time to time, during his fiery sermons. I admire the goal, but I could not have summed up the disingenuousness of this method -- however sincere his dislike for Bush may be -- better than Berman does himself:
... and I'm reassured to see, when I glance back at my own writings and statements from the weeks before the invasion, that I, too, warned against Bush's approach. I participated in a New Republic symposium very much like this present exercise early in March 2003, and I howled piteously about the president's rhetoric, ignorance, and Hobbesian brutishness, and concluded by declaring myself "terrified" at the dangers he was courting--terrified that American power, stripped of liberal principles, was going to end up as no power at all ("Resolved," March 3, 2003).
He "howled piteously." This is unusual credentialing by most people's standards. But here's the tip off:
I have found that, in most places, the best way to call for solidarity is to begin by deploring the policies, character, rhetoric, culture, political tradition, and diplomacy of America's president. People become surprisingly open-minded if you begin this way.
Here's what Berman says closer to the end of the piece. If I'd been his editor I'd have suggested dropping most of the anti-Bush disclaimers above (or challenged him to place them into one brief sentence) in favor the statement, far less campy, with which he later makes his point:
Here is the challenge: to rage at Saddam and other enemies, and, at the same time, to rage in a somewhat different register at Bush, and to keep those two responses in proper proportion to one another. That can be a difficult thing to do, requiring emotional balance, maturity, and analytic clarity
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 10:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 16, 2004
Bloomsday: Celebrating the Crazy Genius
by JeremyWhat do you mean "which crazy genius?" This one:
I don't mean to make fun of the old guy -- I really do think he's a huge writer. But I'm reminded of a line I half remember from Orwell's "Keep the Aspidistra Flying" where several respectable people are discussing English novelists and one says he used to think a great deal of Joyce "before he went off his tree." I guess I'm a fan of the unwritten masterpieces that should have happened somewhere between Dubliners and Ulysses (a novel that is nevertheless a sloppy treasure trove).
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 06:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
One More, Then Happy Posts
by JeremyForget the political spin that will be put -- by both sides of the two party revue -- on any story that comes down the pike. This offers some important insight into the inner workings of Al Qaeda. I won't give you my spin either, but read this article.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 12:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
After this, Nothing But Sunshine for One Week
by JeremyI have made a decision to post only positive things for a period not less than, but also not to exceed one week. Note that I have not yet started. I'll start after this post.
Michael Totten links to a poll taken in Iraq that shows confidence in the Coalition (let's be honest: the U.S.) is just about nil. This bills itself as a post Abu Ghraib poll, so it might be more helpful to see the post post Abu Ghraib poll (though we may have punched our ticket: I'm not sure there will be a post post on that one, not in Iraq, anyway), but below are my thoughts (this was going to be a comment on Michael's post, but I don't have enough material today, so I've made it a post of my own).
Michael's post is here.
My Comment:
I'm furious over Abu Ghraib too. But I just read through the poll you link to and I actually found it more encouraging than I'd expected. Iraqis polled have next to zero confidence in the coalition's ability to keep the country secure. This is part bad planning by the U.S. but in larger part probably a sign that the fascist/terrorist "insurgency" is having the intended effect of making Iraqis feel terrorized and unsafe.
However, the poll also shows a considerable amount of confidence in the prospect of an interim government and the prospects of democratic reform. While Al Sadr's putative "support" remains high, the poll also shows that, if he ran for the presidency, only 2% would vote for him.
It's worrying that this poll shows what I'd consider to be a naive amount of faith in the Iraqi Police and Army to do a better job of providing security than the Coalition, but the fact that the anger is being projected toward democratic reform, rather than toward civil war or any of the many forms of nihilistic terror on offer, is a good thing to see. When the U.S. troops are less visible and the attacks on the Iraqi government increase, the attitude toward the U.S. might become more realistic. Either way I think the message is "we need better security so we can build a free Iraq" and the fact that they're saying such a thing is good news.
On the other hand: polls schmolls.
As to your other point: I agree that a large head will (and should) roll. And it should be Rumsfeld's (though he's done a "superb" job, as did Tenet.)
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 10:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 15, 2004
Branson's Triumph
by JeremyIf anyone previously doubted Richard Branson's general superiority in any damn thing his whim breezes past (he showed Coca Cola a thing or two about how to manufacture piss flavored beverages; Virgin Cola far surpassed New Coke as an achievement in urimancy. Nice airline, though.) they'll want to take note of the fact that Branson has now undeniably earned the title of world's most extended and narcissistic midlife crisis (I'm not counting "The Batman" because he's just a comic book character).
Way to go Richard!
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 06:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 14, 2004
Do We Support This?
by JeremyWe on the left have been instructed (one shining example) to oppose the encroachment of uniformed imperialists into defenseless communities under the thin pretext of "intervening" to "save lives." So I guess, yeah, we'd want to support any members of the international popular resistance brave enough to stand up to these axe-wielding, jackbooted thugs.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 06:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 13, 2004
The Strategic Importance of International Human Rights
by JeremyWhen debating the war in Iraq (or even Afghanistan) with anti-war leftists, one point I'm often willing to concede, for the sake of argument, is the notion that these wars may have been the result of the same cold, cynical calculations as were the previous Cold War policies of client-state imperialism. This administration has realized, in other words, that the "our SOB" concept simply isn't serving U.S. interests anymore.
What I don't say in these situations is that I believe that Wolfowitz and others of his kin (or cabal, if you're one of those) have a post-holocaust lens through which they cannot separate a moral, humanitarian motive from a strategic one. Genocide, to put it starkly, is inextricably linked with a fascistic hostility to world stability.
The old 60s slogan was "Fascism Means War." Last year I had a homemade bumper sticker on my car that read "Baathism is War in Iraq." I am now deriving the following equation: "Genocide=Fascism=War" and hence a new bumper sticker: "Genocide Means War." I suppose the problem with this would be the implication that anything short of genocide doesn't threaten world stability. But then that's the problem with bumper stickers, I guess. Let me know if you come up with a better version and maybe I'll actually have some made.
In any event, it would be hard to find a better illustration of the threat to world peace inherent in a monstrously repressive regime than this post by Norm Geras.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 06:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 12, 2004
Bringing Darfur Front and Center
by JeremyMy faith in the blogosphere's capacity to contribute something of weight and real importance to the world has been vindicated once again this past month as the looming horror in Darfur, Sudan has taken an increasingly prominent place on more and more blogs.
The story, increasingly given the spin of immediate urgency that is so needed, has also increasing in visibility in the press. I don't know whether blogs have played any role in forcing this issue into, at least, the periphery of the public consciousness, but Desmond Tutu took one blog seriously enough to draft the following statement for its pages, and to be recited during a rally at Harvard:
Let us not say we did not knowWe know and we must do something.
Let us speak up and speak out against the atrocities in Darfur.
Those dying are God?s children.
They are our sisters and brothers. Let us act now before it is too late.
God bless you for caring.
We defeated apartheid because the world cared and acted.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Kofi Annan's words have been chillingly "diplomatic" on this topic. His actions have been shockingly restrained.
The good news is that many other players whose voices matter are making overtures toward a tougher stand on the Darfur crisis.
It was on the agenda at the G8 Summit agenda.
Kerry released a strong statement this week:
"The world did not act in Rwanda, to our eternal shame. Now we are at another crisis point this time in Sudan...we must also start planning now for the possibility that the international community, acting through the United Nations, will be forced to intervene urgently to save the lives of the innocent."The United States, working with the governments of the region and our allies in the United Kingdom and Norway has recently made significant progress towards a final peace agreement between the Sudanese government and its southern opposition. While this is a welcome development, the peace agreement will be fundamentally compromised if the world stands by while the government threatens the lives and livelihoods of other citizens of Sudan."
And the Bush administration may be ready to put Darfur on the front burner:
The Bush administration is considering toughening its policy toward the government of Sudan over the events in Darfur...
Continuing to play games over whether or not to use the word genocide would be a shameful mistake, as Colin Powell openly avows:
Mr. Powell steered clear of the term genocide in describing the events in Darfur but said that administration lawyers had begun a review to determine whether the conditions for genocide have been met....
"I'm not prepared to say what is the correct legal term for what's happening," Mr. Powell said. "All I know is that there are at least a million people who are desperately in need, and many of them will die if we can't get the international community mobilized and if we can't get the Sudanese to cooperate with the international community. And it won't make a whole lot of difference after the fact what you've called it."
This is not a partisan issue. It doesn't matter which candidate you support -- do anything you can think of to make sure Darfur stays on the election year agenda.
(Most of the links in this post are via "Sudan: The Passion of the Present")
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 01:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 11, 2004
Welcome to the Club (if only for an instant)
by JeremyA quick post. No time to organize my words. I'd make it a Haiku, but that would take too long. So I'll just lay down the phrases as they are, rather than blow off posting alltogether.
A quasi-Socialist workplace (mine). A blogger (me) sees a poster on the wall published by Adbusters. It shows the flag of the "New World Order" and contains many icons of U.S. corporations. But, this blogger (me) notices, it also cotains a swastika and a star of David. Right, I think, I get it: Israel bad, in league with evil imperialist U.S., just like all these global capitalist corporations. I'm still uncertain what the swastika means in this context. But I sure as hell know what it means when juxtaposed with the Star of David. And, likewise, I know what it means to juxtapose the Star of David with images of global domination of finances.
The trouble is, how to express one's outrage without accusing co-workers of consciously espousing anti-Semitic views (which one doesn't think is the case) and without getting side-tracked into a political argument. Well I did it. I just said "I've got issues with that poster." When I used the word anti-Semitic I guickly said I wasn't talking about the criticism of Israel. He listened and, I think, was a little embarrassed that he hadn't seen it himself. He completely understood what I objected to and we agreed together that the poster should come down.
I then told my co-worker about this other bizarre (bizarre, that is, unless one accepts it as a prosaically familiar ugliness) moment in the Kalle Lasn universe. My co-worker wondered aloud how someone with such political sophistication (Lasn) and so well educated could be so wrong-headed about something.
"Welcome to the club" I thought to myself.
Then we argued about politics. I had to take the position of supporting these last two wars. It's an ugly position to have to take in an argument, but the truth doesn't reshape itself just so that I can avoid saying things that sound ugly. His side should have sounded ugly too, but it didn't. That, to me, is telling.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 06:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 10, 2004
Unsolicited Sources
by JeremyI've been working on a series of trade magazine articles on reevisions to the Natiunal electrickal code (spellings adjusted to prevent unwanted googling) and I just got an email from some public relations person at a big manufacturing company offering the "services" of one their employers as a source for future articles. Since I have a hell of a time getting people to call me back, I have a strong temptation to use any source I can get: biased? tainted? Bring 'em on. Bring 'em all on.
What I'm wondering is how common this phenomenon is in real journalism. Do reporters at actual newspapers get these kinds of generous offers of assistance? And more to the point: how often are stories guided by these kinds of sources? Anyone out there know?
By the way, if you haven't already done so, I can't stress enough the importance of installing high quality, custom overrcurrent, arc-faullt and ground-faullt protection devices at the priimary load cennter of your home or place of business, and urging the local representatives of your state or municipality to require such devices, even where in excess of any and all relevant codes adhered to by your local authoritty having jurissdiction. But then that's just common sense, isn't it?
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 09, 2004
More on the crime of photography
by Jeremy
Actually, I have mixed feelings about this, but I lean more toward the importance of making concessions to safety than to the notion that freedom means doing whatever you want whenever you want (e.g. you're supposed to turn your cell phone off when you're in a hospital, but I wouldn't doubt that some people ignore that). But this is a bizarrely coinicidental follow up to a previous post; it ought to make Ali feel less alone.
And for those who crave pictures of the New York City Subway (as I often do: I became almost tearful with nostalgia when I first discovered this treasure trove) there is this site (click the links for pictures). And this is their homepage which features some strong opinions about the ban. It's a debate that's raging inside my head as I write this; I'm still not sure which side I come down on.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 06:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 08, 2004
All the News That's Fit to Punt
by CaraWith MSNBC on serving as my housecleaning background, I heard them say "Italian hostages were freed". I immediately thought "Gee, I wonder what they did to get those terrorists to free those hostages". Later, when I flipped by FOX I found out: Oh, Special Forces rescued them; this was not the result of negotiations. No, the terrorists did not 'free' the hostages of their own accord, which was my first impression given the wording of this headline; it was a successful U.S. military rescue mission that freed these hostages. I checked out CNN's site and this story, though on the front page, was in small type, no photos, and read "Kidnapped Italians, Pole freed" and when you clicked on the story itself the headline read "Italian hostages freed in Iraq", then it went on to say "Three Italians held hostage in Iraq for nearly two months and a Polish citizen have been freed as a result of a military operation, according to the U.S.-led coalition. " . On the FOX site this story was the main headline on their front page with a photo and large type, and it reads "European Hostages in Iraq Rescued". This story didn't even rate a mention on the NYT's site .
It's really the same, day after day after day...this obvious slanted left leaning 'exaggerate anything that makes the US look bad and downplay or ignore anything that make the US look good' agenda running 'big media news' organizations. It can't be more obvious. *rant* I really can't take it anymore. Who the hell do they think they are? Who the hell do they think they're fooling? Are they all really as deluded as they seem and actually believe they are the holy priestly purveyors of the truth? This really, at some point, has to catch up with them. They are making their own bed. *rant*
Another thing I noticed on the NYTime's site...a story with the headline "Genital Cutting Losing Favor" shared their front page with this story "Lawyers Decided Bans on Torture Didn't Bind Bush".
It's nice to know that Times reporters are on the case, busy exposing the injustices of US torture...and also busy softening the word "torture" into the phrase "genital cutting" when it has to do with a "religious rite" known only to Muslims in Africa. I remember, not long ago, when the liberal media unashamedly referred to this practice as 'genital mutilation', but now I guess the newest P.C. term has multi-culturalized further into "genital cutting"; this phrase makes it seem like the girls are cutting themselves, as if they're not being, what in truth is, tortured. Interestingly, the word 'torture' makes no appearance in this story at all for applying the word torture here would be considered by the P.C. press biased judgmental opinion even in light of the fact of the tangible torture of thousands if not millions of girls (yes, that means children), but applied to the US the word torture is thrown around like a fact even before investigations begin. In fact the only time the term genital mutilation is used at all in this article is when it's qualified as a term that only the 'opponents' of cutting use. Any criticism at all of this practice is given solely through the words of a reformed 'cutter', a woman who, for years, actually did this for a living and who now sees the horror of it for what it is, apparently, IMHO, better than the 'objective' Times reporter does.
Note to all (journalist) lefties, remember now, don't tread too heavily on those Islamist eggshells lest you crack your own vulnerabilities on the sharpened shells of the ceremonial genital knife, boxcutter, or Jihadi be-heading blade.
Obviously, 'objective' slant aside, the meat of this story is positive as it shows that at least some people are finally facing up to their own culture's lies and abominations and this is always a positive thing for everyone everywhere when this happens, wherever it happens. I just wish it would start to happen within the 'Big Media' Time's culture as well.
- Cara
Posted by Cara at 05:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
"He's Be-Boppin' and Scattin' and I'm Losin' it!"
by JeremyThe Dalai Lama has, in that piquant manner of the holy man, called Johann Hari a fatty. My question is this: since Johann has endorsed our blog (or at least recommended it to his blog readers) can we then consider ourselves fat by association? No. We are not worthy.
But I digress. Johann conducted an extremely interesting and provocative interview with the Dalai Lama, starting with a question that seems to have been poignantly effective:
I look awkwardly around the room. In addition to the Dalai Lama's translator, there is a mysterious woman, a mysterious man, and the press representative for the London Free Tibet Campaign. As one, they nod towards me expectantly. "Your Holiness, do you ever wish they had chosen some other boy to be Dalai Lama?" I ask. "Do you ever wish that the wise men had stopped at the next village along?"The Dalai Lama looks away for a moment, as though to a point in the far distance. "When I was young, I used to go to Potala on retreat for three weeks a year. It was not a voluntary retreat, you know. My tutor came along and I had lessons all day. Then, sometimes, I would have regrets. In the evening, when the sun disappeared into the horizon and the shadows from the mountains spread, I would see the shepherds leading their flocks back home. I would think, oh, I wish I was one of them."
It's good stuff. And so were the challenging political questions Johann asked him after that (needling the holy man to the point, one might conclude, of finally coming across with the aforementioned fat joke. "Be-boppin' and scattin' all over me" as George Costanza would have said).
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
...twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was...
by JeremyPoor Ali of Iraq the Model gets detained for taking pictures of bridges and camels (er...with high voltage towers in the background). He was just trying to pick up several months back pay and getting a few pictures for the blog, though I guess you can see where the soldiers and IP officers are coming from as well. It's an ironic turn of events with a happy ending, and pictures (hat tip: Tim Blair).
(It's from Alice's Restaurant. Remember?)
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 06:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 07, 2004
Some tips for innoculating yourself against a certain point of view
by JeremyIf you shy away from sharing an opinion on the current war with people like, say, Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz (choosing instead to share a position with, for instance, Pat Buchanan or Tom Clancy) you'll probably benefit from rehearsing the use of some rhetorical repellant for some unpleasantness being reported in National Geographic (via Lileks):
Ebullient radio interlocutor Hugh Hewitt quoted a National Geographic article that puts the number of Shi'ite dead under Saddam at five to seven million.
And the antidote:
1. Five to seven million "disappeared" is not the same as five to seven million killed. They could have wandered off. The discovery of mass graves that hold several hundred thousands is no proof that Saddam killed any more. Until we have at leave five million skeletons all clutching their national identification cards, with neat bullet holes in the back of their skulls, there is no reason to believe that Saddam had them killed.If we have learned nothing else in the last few years, it's that we should give him the benefit of the doubt.
2. So? Other people have died in large amounts elsewhere, and we're not worried about that.
3. Hey, Arabs killing Arabs. Like that's news. What do expect of these people? In any case it's obscene to use the death toll as a justification for Bush's illegal war. Which was also a racist war, I might add.
4. To paraphrase an influential thinker of the previous century: The death of millions is a statistic.
The reelection of one is a tragedy.
Good; got that sorted out. Now we can go see Michael Moore's movie in peace.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 09:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 06, 2004
No WWII Stories to Tell
by JeremyLike this Harry's grandfather, my great Uncle Harry served in North Africa during WWII and, similarly, had no stories to tell about it. He was severely traumatized by something -- or everything -- that happened there and was never the same since, we were told. As children, my brother and I would ocassionally ask Harry to tell us about the war. It wasn't simply that he would refuse to tell us anything; for all appearances it was as if he couldn't hear or see us. He would continue watching the television or reading the paper without so much as acknowledging we were in the room. He didn't appear disturbed or angry. It was just that, for a minute or two, my brother and I hadn't been born. Or so it felt to us. Then Uncle Harry would take us, as he always did, to the Port Authority Bus terminal to buy us comic books.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:23 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Two Ways to Remember
by JeremySince I have promised my posting would be padded or otherwise slight, I don't want to disappoint with an appropriate D-Day memorial (I accidentally typed "appropriated" and maybe should have left it that way). But I have a thought to pass on as we all observe, or miss, the commemorations going on this weekend. The thought (and it would be my sermon if I were not an atheist and if my mail-order ministerial ordination carried with it any kind of enforced expectation that I would tell people on old wooden benches how to live their lives) is this:
There are two ways to notice big things. One is the obvious way; just open your eyes and ears and take it all in. What will happen eventually is that you'll get a bit dulled by it -- the spitfires, the explosions, the thousands dead -- and the inductive currents of sorrow, gratitude and empathy will begin to attenuate within you*.
A second way is to study the debris field of shadows, echoes, small details that have been left behind.
The first kind of commemoration will be everywhere this weekend.
It'll be interesting to look for efforts at the second kind, for those times when you need to recalibrate your sense of proportion. Anne Cunningham has an example of this second type of D-day commemoration. It strikes me as an effort to size up something huge the way a sketch artist would -- by holding the stub of a pencil to the eye.
Which reminds me of a passage in a story by Nabokov in which a man's life is characterized by a brief description of some pencil shavings on his desk. I think that was it; I can't find the passage. But I think Nabokov had a habit of using pencils to size people up. Here's a different pencil metaphor of his, and a line (from Pnin), like so many of his, that in itself would have justified his career:
With the help of the janitor he screwed onto the side of the desk a pencil sharpener- that highly satisfying, highly philosophical implement that goes ticonderoga-ticonderoga, feeding on the yellow finish and sweet wood, and ends up in a kind of soundlessly spinning ethereal void as we all must.
Good way to end a post, so of course I can't resist spoiling it. But this is, after all, my atheist sermon. I just wanted to add that the pessimism of an image like the "soundlessly spinning ethereal void" is completely undermined by the worship of humanity that the career of Nabokov, or of any great artist, amounts to.
-Jeremy
*yes, an electrical metaphor. I'm working on an article for an electrical trade journal.
Posted by Jeremy at 09:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 05, 2004
Fisking A Piece of Military Propoganda
by JeremyYou all know the song:
Over hill, over dale As we hit the dusty trail, And the Caissons go rolling along. In and out, hear them shout, Counter march and right about, And the Caissons go rolling along.Then it's hi! hi! hee!
In the field artillery,
Shout out your numbers loud and strong,
For where'er you go,
You will always know
That the Caissons go rolling along.In the storm, in the night,
Action left or action right
See those Caissons go rolling along
Limber front, limber rear,
Prepare to mount your cannoneer
And those Caissons go rolling along.Then it's hi! hi! hee!
In the field artillery,
Shout out your numbers loud and strong,
For where'er you go,
You will always know
That the Caissons go rolling along.Was it high, was it low,
Where the heck did that one go?
As those Caissons go rolling along
Was it left, was it right,
Now we won't get home tonight
And those Caissons go rolling along.Then it's hi! hi! hee!
In the field artillery,
Shout out your numbers loud and strong,
For where'er you go,
You will always know
That the Caissons go rolling along.
That the Caissons go rolling along.
That the Caissons go rolling along
"it's hi! hi! hee!"
Hmm. Is it?
Hi-hi-hee?
Come now.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 08:26 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Come to Blog Country
by JeremyWell, it's not quite the beer and cigarettes I'd hoped for, but you have to admit it's a valiant effort.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 12:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 04, 2004
Peaktalk is back
by JeremyWelcome back to a blog always well worth the read! (one of the best designed blogs too).
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 09:29 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
More stuff worth reading
by JeremyNorm links to a fellow name Harry who has the following well balanced observation:
I was leafing through Abu Hamza's sermons on the beach this afternoon. OK, he's not everyone's cup of tea, and I wouldn't vote for him myself. I disagree with him about the need to blow up London; nor do we see eye to eye on the subject of flying airliners into buildings (he's for, I'm against). But in his wider argument that the UK is a moral cesspit and that the British are filthy drunken animals, I thought he made some valid points."They want only to look at nude pictures, go to football matches, have a few pints and go to sleep." This is not an ignorant ill-informed caricature; it is actually quite accurate, and the only riposte I can think of is that it beats chopping people's heads off.
And note that Roger has been profiled in the National Review:
"The first American writer... to his knowledge... to be profiled favorably by both the National Review and Mother Jones in his lifetime."
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 06:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 03, 2004
A little perspective, please
by JeremyIf you want more evidence of the extent to which some people have tweaked the knobs of reality to deliver a picture of the war in Iraq and/or the war on terror as an evil unprecedented in human history (at least that long) you should read this by the aptly named A. E. Brain:
Over at The Command Post you'll find a rarity : two back-to-back Op-Ed columns by me, both dealing (though in different ways) with the Iraq war, and World War II.In the first, by the unsubtle technique of changing just a few placenames, the truly woeful state of post-war media coverage is exposed. But there's another interpretation : the situation in Germany in 1946 was truly dire, with widespread starvation and near-starvation. The New York Times reports were, on the whole, not too inaccurate in painting a picture of Doom and Gloom. Yet it all turned out well in the end.
In the second, I tried to remind people (if they ever knew) just exactly how strong the Peace movement (usually and inaccurately called the 'Apeasement' movement) was in the USA in 1941. Or at least, up until December 7th. The continuing Anti-war demonstrations, and quality of the arguments against involvement in Iraq, are pale shadows of those of over 60 years ago. Given the enormities committed by Josef Stalin's murderous regime, and the decidedly un-free millions ruled by the British and French Empires, the Allied cause was far less visibly beyond reproach than the Coalition's today.
And check out this post by Eve Garrard (on Normblog):
In a letter to the Daily Telegraph [click on 'Misleading war'], the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, Irene Khan, has told us that in comparison to the human rights abuses in Rwanda, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Chechnya, the attack on human rights conducted by those engaged in the 'war against terror' (her scare-quotes) is the biggest attack of all on human rights, principles and values.
As the therapist of a friend of mine used to say, "I think there's something psychological going on here."
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 06:32 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Tenet to resign
by JeremyIt seems Tenet is resigning, my CNN email tells me. Can't yet find an actual news story about it, but keep your eyes on your DNOC, as Norm Geras would say (daily newspaper of choice).
UPDATE: He's leaving for "personal reasons." And I thought it might have something to do with politics or world events. Bush said Tenet has done a "superb" job. Why does that sound familiar. Here's CNN's story.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 02, 2004
Possibly thinner posting
by JeremyI will probably post something daily, but as I have an article to get done for next week I will posting light and thin for a while, delicate like a fine French crepe. I don't want to cause panic in the streets or anything, so please seek out your neighbors and tell them it's going to be OK, that the "Marx" guy hasn't gone anywhere, that he's just going to be a little more boring, even, than usual.
Just by the bye, I have been getting those nagging urges to give up blogging, but I just don't think it's going to happen. Without this blog I would have nowhere to put my anger, joy, chronic sense of the futility of all life, chronic sense of the potential of every individual to make a small difference by simply speaking up, need to whine about small things, need to reach out to others over big things.
Without this blog I would quite honestly be in danger of turning into one of those guys who mutters to himself in the supermarket (eh...I'm already one of those guys. But it would be worse). Without this blog, my road rage hormones would ramp up to unsafe levels. Without this blog...I would have to finish a piece of writing before publishing it.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 10:08 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 01, 2004
I Did Not Have Nuclear Relations With That Chia-Dictator
by JeremyThe L.A. Times reports this (free registration required):
"We never had nuclear relations with North Korea," Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said at a press conference in Seoul.Kharrazi said Iran's nuclear technology is self-developed, and the international community doesn't need to worry about his country's nuclear capabilities, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
Iran Embassy officials in South Korea were not immediately available for comment.
But it depends, it seems, on what your definition of the word "centrifuge" is, as we see in this report:
VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a confidential report on Tuesday Iran had acknowledged importing parts for centrifuges capable of making bomb-grade uranium that it previously said were made in the country.
But Shhhhh! don't tell anyone; can't you see Iran is embarrassed enough as it is?
"Iran has acknowledged that, contrary to...earlier statements, it had imported some magnets relevant to P2 centrifuges from Asian suppliers," said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, obtained by Reuters.
Well sure, a few "relevant" magnets. But let's keep this in perspective; it's not like they're getting any closer to actual weapons or anything.
There were also indications Iran's interest in P2 centrifuges, which can produce bomb-grade uranium twice as fast as earlier P1 centrifuges, was more than a "research and development" on a small amount of centrifuges as it had told the IAEA, the report said.
Well...yes, but...don't you need, like, a lot of centrifuges before there's any real danger of...and wouldn't you need some kind of Western supplier to...so it's not as if they could really have...
According to the IAEA, Iran said a private Iranian company had made "enquiries" through a European intermediary for 4,000 magnets for P2 centrifuges, enough to equip 2,000 centrifuges. The machines cannot enrich uranium without these magnets.
"The owner of the private company acknowledged that he had mentioned to the intermediary the possibility of future procurement of higher numbers of P2 centrifuge magnets beyond the 4,000," the report said, noting Iran said that a promise of future orders was made to get a better price.
Well everything's OK now, that's the important thing.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 10:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
