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September 30, 2004
Live Blogette
by JeremyI'm not overly impressed with Bush's performance, though he scored a few points here and there. Kerry's not breaking any hearts either, though he's doing better than I'd expected. The problem with Kerry, however, is that the throughline of his arguments seems to be that mythical something-or-other he's going to do once elected to win the war in Iraq and the war on terror.
Bush just hit his stride saying that you can't build alliances by insulting your allies. Bush is sounding confident and credible on the issue of building alliances among countries that have any intention at all of assisting. This is the side of Bush that wins debates. He's suddenly that other person he becomes during these moments. Kerry appears more cautious for the moment.
Kerry makes a valid point that this coalition, other than the U. K.hasn't provided a significant number troops compared with the U. S. The trouble is who the hell could Kerry have brought up to the plate. He hammers down a valid claim that there wasn't a good plan for after the fall of the regime. He's sounding stupid now in saying that Bin Laden uses Iraq as a recruiting point. Bush is picking up on this, "my opponent has just said something amazing," saying Bin Laden doesn't decide our foreign policy.
"As the politics change his positions change" Bush said of Kerry, in a tone that sounds almost sympathetic, like he feels sorry for him. Clever. Then says, "let me finish" to moderator. Bush has good instincts for how his nuances of mood are received by his audience. The problem for Kerry is that Bush means what he says when he's talking about his motives for war in Iraq. What harms Kerry is that most Kerry voters think it's laughable to suggest that Bush means what he says about the war. This will kill Kerry.
Bush is doing a good job of making Kerry seem irrelevant without seeming vindictive or false. Kerry needs to learn how to do that to Bush.
"I understnand what the president is talking about because I know what it means to lose people." Kerry just let Bush command the issue of the loss of soldiers. This happens because Bush really does confront the horror of war but believes there's a reason it has to be done. Kerry can't win by trying to make that seem false.
Kerry is starting to seem more defensive again.
Bush: my opponent questioned his [Allawi's] credibility. You can't 'change the dynamics on the ground' if you do this.
Kerry: prime minister Allawi came here and said the terrorists are pouring over the border
Bush should be mentioning that Kerry did not meet Allawi, but he hasn't done so.
Bush mistake: said it's important to "speak clearly" (i.e. rather than "give mixed messages") and meaning what we say, we're less likely to have to use force. The trouble, of course, is that it makes you think of the fact Bush isn't, as they say, from the big clear speakers (when he's not in debate, that is). But Kerry, probably wisely, didn't snicker over this.
Kerry snags Bush for saying "the enemy attacked us" while talking about Iraq. "Saddam Hussein didn't attack us, Bin Laden did" Kerry said. This is a point scored, of course. The trouble is that this, to anyone who is conscious of the horrors of the Baathist regime in Iraq, seems like a semantic flub.
Bush snags Kerry for saying you can take preemptive action only if you pass a global test, Bush says I don't know what you mean "if you pass the global test" and sounds somewhat testy. Bush has surprisingly a good ear for when it's ok to sound testy and when not.
North Korea: Bush is sounding less confident, a bit more like he sounded during the first 20 minutes or so. He's lost his steam, and what else could you expect re: North Korea, and now Iran. He says Moooolaah which, to me, means money. Kerry should capitalize on this. He could make his mystery future stuff seem real if he's good here.
Sure enough, Kerry is sounding confident now and focused. He's scoring over Bush here. The trouble, as Cara points out, is that North Korea got nukes under Clinton.
Bush is helped by the moderator interjecting clarification on the differences in plans for N. Korea talks between the two: previous to this, Bush had sounded to be floundering. I didn't expect moderator to assist Bush, if only inadvertently. Bush is climbing back on Uranium vs. Plutonium correction of Kerry, and the fact that there were sanctions on Iran, where Kerry suggested not. Bush sounded confident here.
Kerry: "We can never allow another Rwanda" Why does he want to say this after saying the Iraq war was a mistake? It's a dangerous line. He mentions Darfur.
Bush picks up on Darfur, says he agrees that U.S. shouldn't commit troops. Why, I ask? Uses the word "hopefully" re: what might help the people of Darfur. This sounds weak.
Moderator asks what Bush admires about Kerry. Bush says a few gracious things: admires years of service in Senate, though "not so sure I admire his record." Sounds inappropriately nasty for the first time in the debate. But saves with joke about not holding Yale against him.
Kerry graciously thanks Bush for nice comments. The two share laugh over daughters. Says he greatly admires Laura Bush. Kerry is fumfering a bit over how to introduce criticism. He's doing a riff on good certainty vs. bad certainty. Not a bad tactic but he's not selling it as well as he could.
It's weird now: they're being really nice to each other. Neither wants to be the first to get nasty again.
Question about fears or something...
Kerry brings up the danger of loose nukes on black market from former USSR and that Bush has secured less of these after 9/11 than in years preceding 9/11. This is a strong argument and Kerry knows it. He's sounding confident here. He's credible on plan to reduce nuclear proliferation, but should not have mentioned JFKennedy.
Bush responds and is hemming and hawing. He's hurting here and, frankly, it's scaring me because I want to know that he will do something on this front. He should have been more prepared for this. This is the least happy I've been with Bush so far this evening.
Question to Bush as to whether he misjudged Putin. And is consolidating power ok.
Bush: not ok. Not democratic direction. But he's a strong ally in WoT. "I've got a good relationship with Vladimir." This is not a good thing to drag out again, and it sounds like Bush knows it and is wondering why he said it.
Kerry (Bush should be thankful) is bullshitting about his more sophisticated understanding of Russia. It's thin.
Bush, asked by moderator whether his hackles are raised by Kerry doubting the truth of Bush's reasons for war, says he doesn't take it personally and that he doesn't doubt the truth of Kerry having also said that Iraq was a threat. Kerry, amazingly, says yes Iraq was a threat: "that has nothing to do with it" meaning that his problem was with how the war was launched. This sounded silly.
Kerry ends with boilerplate conclusion about future, leadership, etc.
Bush: says military will be an all-volunteer army. This was very smart. People were listening for that and Kerry did not dare bring it up. Bush doing his patriotism, God shtick, but of course he manages to sound sincere with that kind of material, whereas Kerry just sounds like he's bringing formal closure to a speech.
CONCLUSION: I really think the fish oil works. I can't tell you how excited I am about that.
Other conclusion: a commentator is saying there's no campaign-killing bad soundbite for either candidate, and I think that's right.
The memory of this debate will fade and the polls will probably stay put. Though it could help Kerry simply because he seemed less nasty than he has previously and criticized Bush without coming off as the kind of blame-Bush-for-everything crank he has flirted with being in less formal moments. So this could make Kerry seem more serious.
Posted by Jeremy at 09:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Here's the plan...
by JeremyUnless you'll be attending the drunk blogging of the debate, or are disinclined to make light of something upon which the fate of the world hinges, if indeed you think it hinges, or hinges on this thing, then you'll want to know what I've got in store for you this evening...
For reasons unrelated to this presidential debate, I got no sleep last night. I don't mean a little, or that I tossed and turned, I mean absolutely zero, not so much as a chin-chest springback. On top of that I just had dinner at 7:45, and then I had one of those Smirnoff Ice thingies (7% alcohol, yo!). Those of you acquainted with dysmotility disorders will know what this means.......
I will be gastroparesis/insomniac blogging this debate!!!
What does that mean? I'll be punchy, quite irritable, I'll misunderstand just about everything, I'll miss scads of things while I read Saul Bellow in the bathroom, I will get angry at the candidates if they walk around the stage too much.
It's fun for everybody. But I have to admit that I'm not feeling too poorly just yet. It could be that the fish oil capsules I've once again started taking have actually been working. This could ruin everything, like when Kramer put a balm on his coffee burns and Jackie Chiles told him, "who told you to put the balm on? You never know what a balm's gonna do!"
No...wait...typing this tangential drivel is making me a bit seasick. Well alright! Now we've got something goin' on!
OK: I may fall asleep or be too nauseous to actually watch or blog this thing, when the time comes, so let me just go ahead and fisk all the commentary, the patronizing press pieces on the blog coverage, the outrageous but too typical reactions of you know who, and [gestures and winks at your favorite nemesis]:
[paragraph of nonsense I should have expected from this tiresome goon/type of rag]
Oh really?
[paragraph of nonsense I should have expected from this tiresome goon/type of rag]
Oh really?
[paragraph of nonsense I should have expected from this tiresome goon/type of rag]
Oh really?
[paragraph of nonsense I should have expected from this tiresome goon/type of rag]
Oh really?
[paragraph of nonsense I should have expected from this tiresome goon/type of rag]
Oh really?
[paragraph of nonsense I should have expected from this tiresome goon/type of rag]
Oh really?
[paragraph of nonsense I should have expected from this tiresome goon/type of rag]
Oh really?
[paragraph of nonsense I should have expected from this tiresome goon/type of rag]
Oh really?
Ok, done. I'm going to recline on the couch and moan now. I'll catch up with you later (tomorrow?)
Hoo boy! Yes. I'm nauseous and irritable now for real. No joke. No more blogging tonight. I'll blog more responsibly tomorrow.
Posted by Jeremy at 08:45 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
as vicious as it is vacuous
by JeremyMake the bad man take it back (via Lileks)
Hey! Twenty seconds ago you could read that article, now you have to register. Just trust me: he's a very bad man.
Posted by Jeremy at 08:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 29, 2004
Well, Something's a-Changin'
by JeremyWe watched George and Laura Bush on Dr. Phil today. What we saw was all about family, parenting, the daughters, etc. An hour long interview. Moderately interesting. The Bushes come off as being actual and actually likeable people, as in: not Nixonian-demons-from-hell (sorry, folks).
But the following thing caused me to do a Kramerian double-take:
Laura Bush, asked for her thoughts on parenting, quoted...Dr. Spock?...Mark Twain?...Dolly or Emmylou?...not even. The woman quoted James Baldwin (not Stephen or Billy or even Alec):
"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them."
Ok. So now I've had my last spasm of post 9/11 culture shock. I'm better now. It's not exactly the most radical thing James Baldwin ever wrote or said. But just to visualize him and the Bushes in my head all at once has required the bridging of new synapses. But it's ok now.
I'm looking forward to the JFK and Teresa segment that is scheduled to air next week. Honestly. I'm not what you'd call a fan of Dr. Phil, but he's probably more likely than anyone else to show us whether or not there's a real person behind Kerry's game face (or perhaps that should be 'game-show face'). I really still would like to like Kerry, though I'm not going to vote for him. That's just the kind of caring nurturer I am, I suppose.
Afterthought: What would James Baldwin's reaction be if were able to react? Would it be the usual? Dare we imagine it might be this? Possibly, given the wisdom of age (not to mention the ostensible afterlife) it might just be this.
Posted by Jeremy at 07:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 28, 2004
Bush Stooges Undermine Kerry
by JeremyWell, it looks like tricking the public into perceiving Kerry as a (get this) 'flip flopper' isn't enough. Now Bush's henchmen overseas have yanked the rug out from under Kerry just two days before the foreign policy debate:
French and German government officials say they will not significantly increase military assistance in Iraq even if John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, is elected on November 2.Mr Kerry, who has attacked President George W. Bush for failing to broaden the US-led alliance in Iraq, has pledged to improve relations with European allies and increase international military assistance in Iraq.
"I cannot imagine that there will be any change in our decision not to send troops, whoever becomes president," Gert Weisskirchen, member of parliament and foreign policy expert for Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party, said in an interview.
[...]
In a speech hammering Mr Bush for his decision to lead the US into Iraq, Mr Kerry said last week that in Afghanistan "I will lead our allies to share the burden."
He continued: "the Bush administration would have you believe that when it comes to our allies, it won't make a difference who is president. They say the Europeans won't help us, no matter what. But I have news for President Bush: just because you can't do something, doesn't mean it can't be done."
(Hat Tip: Michael Totten)
Posted by Jeremy at 06:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 27, 2004
The Laundry List
by JeremyYou've got to hand it to Johann Hari for stirring up some deep stuff. His interview with Christopher Hitchens is a must read. And his differences with Hitchens have gotten some talk going, in such places as here and here.
I respect the fact that Johann took a friend's objection seriously (it was similar to things I was muttering to my laptop after reading Johann's interview):
I was having a conversation with a very interesting and intelligent friend earlier. In reference to my recent interview with the Hitch, he said, ?I?m not sure what you wanted from him. You say you wish he was still on the left - but what exactly is it you wanted him to sign up to in order to still belong to that tribe? Other than endorsing Kerry over Bush, what is he supposed to say??
One of the things Johann responds with is a version of what I would categorize as the Left laundry list. I don't call it that to minimize the importance of the items on that list...
- The fight against climate change - The fight against the continuing existence and potential use of nuclear weapons(I put these two first because unless they are dealt with, there might not be any human beings left to deal with all the other issues; the following fights are in no particular order)
- The fight to extend democracy to peoples remaining under tyranny or in anarchic failed states
- The fight to ensure that democracy is meaningful, and not hollowed out by corporations, the rich, religious groups or other vested interests
- The fight for equality for gay people
- The fight for equality for women
- The fight to end the disastrous ?War on Drugs?
- The fight to end the spiritual tyranny of ?religion?, better labeled organized superstition, and to ensure its replacement with Enlightenment values
- The fight against poverty, which breaks down into a fight:
(a) against the extreme and undemocratic neo-liberalism imposed on much of the world?s poor by the IMF and World Bank; there is no freedom in a sweat-shop
(b) against the remaining scraps of Stalinism that repress all markets, as in North Korea
(c) The fight for social democracy ? which means markets tempered by extensive corporate regulation, a welfare state, redistributive taxation, and social investment in education and public health
...I call it a laundry list because you simply can't be equally devoted to speaking out on all of these issues at one time with equal fire, nor to other people's satisfaction. My take on Hitchens is not that he has renounced any of these things but that he has devoted his voice, for the moment, to the one manifestation of these issues whose importance he sees as being of frighteningly singular immediacy. And, of course, when Hitchens rails against Islamo-fascism, he is speaking out in favor of equality for women and for gay people, for defeat of religious tyranny. But on these issues, the stakes are far higher in the Arab world than they are in the U.S.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:24 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 26, 2004
New Bearded Shrugging Guy
by JeremyThat picture of Marx shrugging is surely among my most important contributions to society, so don't think I've renounced it. But it has occurred to me that casual visitors are probably misinterpreting its significance. Regular readers of this blog will know that our purpose has been neither to praise nor attack Marx or Marxism, though we have certainly expressed strong opinions, positive and negative, about many of the man's contemporary devotees.
The purpose of the banner was just to advertise the idea that self-questioning is the only thing that will save the left, or something along those lines. And whether Marx would or would not be impishly shrugging were he around today, we think it would be a useful exercise for people to imagine it.
But our banner has always cried "Marx!" when it really should be crying "Shrug." I know it doesn't look as cool, but there was something about the idea of Nostradamus shrugging that struck me as funny.
I've thought of having the shrugging person rotate each time you load the page. Marx one time...then Nostradamus...I dunno...Thomas Jefferson...
But I want to stop scaring away both people on the right whose first impression is that we're Stalinists or something, and people on the left whose first take is that we're trashing KM.
Nostradamus freaks? Sure, let's alienate them; I don't especially have a problem with that.
If you have any particular opinions about this then please let me know what you think.
UPDATE: It's rotating randomly between Marx and Nostradamus now, thanks to this brilliantly simple code. Just keep refreshing (it's only the two so you may have to refresh repeatedly). I'll add more self-questioning thinkers over the next few weeks. Any suggestions?
Posted by Jeremy at 01:31 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
September 24, 2004
Required Reading
by JeremySet five minutes aside and read this righteous rant from the good professor. You'll be glad you did.
Posted by Jeremy at 01:56 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
by Jeremy
Other people have special Friday things on their blogs. I wanted one too. Plus, I have let my satire site fall to ruin and neglect (for numerous reasons, not the least being that the comments on this post scare me. Please tell them not to hurt me). So, I thought, I shall start a new weekly feature, and I shall call it...
All of the news excerpts I will share in this weekly feature will come from unimpeachable sources, I assure you.
Noam Chomsky Joins Scott Peterson Defense Team
In a rousing opening statement to jurors, the MIT linguist made the following case for the defendant:
"One might assert that a campaign of genocide against unarmed civilians in the third world such as the United States is currently conducting would represent a reasonable margin of cost attendant upon a cynical corporate media crusade seeking to demonize violence against women in a fairly transparent attempt to distract its corporate constituency from a rather stark effort to reorder the American economy toward a relatively amoral form of economic and social, one might say quasi-feudal stasis.Now I happen to think this is not a prudent ethical transaction, but one makes these decisions on the basis of one's own experience not to speak of one's willingness to consent to various forms of injustice. Now, it comes to a question of reasonable expectation. It is a simple fact that Scott Peterson stands accused of killing and disposing of a woman, his putative spousal contractant. The question one might ask oneself, to the extent of its relevance, is who or what party or parties would have a reasonable expectation of gaining strategic capital from the public condemnation of men who do what is commonly termed 'grievous harm' to women.
And then one must ask oneself whether there is room for doubt that such a trial could be other than an exercise of a coercively inductive nature within a larger context in which a populace is intimidated into passivity by what would seem to me to be an endless series of show trials. I find it unconvincing at best, given this country's continued support for the international slave trade, that we can reasonably expect to impute to one person a greater value with respect to their freedom as with respect to that of another. Though no one is denying that the killing of suburban women -- and here I hold the whole question of pregnancy to be somewhat irrelevant -- is, at best, ethically disquieting."
Interesting. Who can be sure, but I think he means that the United States is trying to demonize violence against women in order to make the war on terror seem necessary and to distract us from our unjust system here at home and that therefore it would be a kind of collusion with the state to convict a man for murdering his wife. It seems like a fairly obvious argument in retrospect. I wonder what the jury will make of it.
Posted by Jeremy at 01:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 23, 2004
Kerry's Iraq Diplomacy
by JeremyKerry is claiming that his superior diplomatic skills would turn the Iraq situation around. How?
Step one, it would seem, is to blow off the Iraqi Prime Minister when he visits the country to deliver an address to the congress.
Step Two ? sensitive and nuanced diplomacy:
"I think the prime minister is obviously contradicting his own statement of a few days ago, where he said the terrorists are pouring into the country," Kerry said. "The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story."Kerry was referring to comments Allawi made Sunday on ABC's "This Week." But Allawi also expressed optimism about the mission in that appearance.
Update: Biden found time to be there.
Posted by Jeremy at 06:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2004
Pajama Bloggers
by JeremyI have just determined that I come up number 5 in a Google search for 'pajama bloggers.' So I just thought I'd, uh, reinforce that a little.
Posted by Jeremy at 09:30 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
'frighteningly good'
by JeremyHarry shares some mixed feelings about the role of blogs with respect to Big Media and indeed whether we should look for any real interplay between them.
But then, in the comments, there's this from David Aaronovitch of the Guardian:
I read this and a number of other blogs. Some of them are frighteningly good, with an extraordinary amount of information in them and often very well-written. It seems to me that there is a kind of information and opinion continuum of which we paid people are now only one end. And not always the better end.
Just to prove that you are now reading a blog, I will say this: cool.
Posted by Jeremy at 08:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Some Perhaps Very Unwise Choices Made by Angry Persons Who Clearly Feel Very Strongly About Certain Things About Which They Care Very Deeply
by JeremyThe title of this post is just a stab at how one might use a headline to get at the truth in a non-emotive way, ? la Reuters. A sub-headline could read something like: '20 'Children' Die' or 'Captive Beheaded.' There are really no wrong answers.
Reuters is unhappy with a Canadian Newspaper company for altering some of its copy:
The dispute centers on a policy adopted earlier this year by CanWest Global Communications - the publisher of 13 daily newspapers including The National Post in Toronto and The Calgary Herald, which both use Reuters dispatches - to substitute the word "terrorist" in articles for terms like "insurgents" and "rebels.""Our editorial policy is that we don't use emotive words when labeling someone," said David A. Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor. "Any paper can change copy and do whatever they want. But if a paper wants to change our copy that way, we would be more comfortable if they remove the byline."
Mr. Schlesinger said he was concerned that changes like those made at CanWest could lead to "confusion" about what Reuters is reporting and possibly endanger its reporters in volatile areas or situations.
"My goal is to protect our reporters and protect our editorial integrity," he said.
(Via Glenn Reynolds, Volokh Conspiracy)
Posted by Jeremy at 08:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Blair Mujahideen Project
by JeremyNeed much more be said than this?
Poor execution aside, are the plight of Afghanistan and the terror of September 11 really good starting points for a faux documentary?
My apologies for the implication that this post was going to contain some brilliantly sly reference to Tony Blair. Boy, that would have been just about as clever as the film mentioned above.
Ah, but the point of this post is: don't believe any deviously placed ads trying to create the impression that this film is a documentary.
It just strikes me as sleazy and distasteful
Posted by Jeremy at 12:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 21, 2004
Olbermann, O'Brien Way Off
by JeremyI saw Barbara O'Brien (author of a book I am in, so I am resisting an urge to avoid criticizing her) on Keith Olbermann. Boy did they both misrepresent the role of bloggers in the CBS Bush memo (Rathergate) story. I was going to blog about it, but I couldn't have put it better than this (hat tip: Glenn Reynolds):
Barbara O'Brien, author of "Blogging America" was just on Keith Olbermann. She's plugging her book, but she's also down on the blogosphere. She didn't shoot down Keith's idea that the furor in the blogosphere "originated" by Buckhead on Freerepublic was some sort of pipeline from the White house...or...something. I don't know, it wasn't really clear, they admitted it was some "alternative conspiracy theory" relating to the White House setting up CBS. Unbelievable. But the line of information that Ms. O'Brien gave was Buckhead to Drudge to "Major News Media."
I don't remember Matt Drudge having any such role in this, but to mention that name is to sprinkle magic anti-credibility dust over a story. To suggest that this was somehow planted in the blogs by right wing Bush operatives, however, is utterly absurd. This was a case of many people beginning to notice something obvious. What is remarkable is that bloggers had to nudge journalists to do this, as if saying 'psst! Did you get a load of that pile of flaming elephant poop right under your nose?' That's not a leak; it's basic journalism.
Posted by Jeremy at 01:20 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
It's looking uglier...
by JeremyI don't know how far this is going to go, but the this could be a glimpse into a pandora's box that Rather and CBS were reluctant to open:
At the behest of CBS, an adviser to John Kerry said he talked to a central figure in the controversy over President Bush's National Guard service shortly before disputed documents were released.Joe Lockhart denied any connection between the presidential campaign and the papers. Lockhart, the second Kerry ally to confirm contact with retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, said he made the call at the suggestion of CBS producer Mary Mapes.
And yet:
Lockhart said Mapes asked him the weekend before the story broke to call Burkett. "She basically said there's a guy who is being helpful on the story who wants to talk to you," Lockhart said, adding that it was common knowledge that CBS was working on a story raising questions about Bush's Guard service. Mapes told him there were some records "that might move the story forward. She didn't tell me what they said."
Posted by Jeremy at 12:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 20, 2004
Jarvis on MSNBC
by JeremyDeborah Norville is hosting a discussion on the Rathergate affair. Jeff Jarvis is a participant along with four or so others. Interestingly, Deborah Norville not only 'gets' this story, she seems to be pissed off about it. I suppose she's immersed in that trend of nighttime news personalities who are being encouraged to express opinions these days. But I can't help but think also that she, a former employee of CBS and someone who has not gotten much respect as a TV journalist, is seeing the irony of that lack of respect now, since Dan Rather is supposed to be the model of the TV anchor that she would normally be contrasted with. Anyway, she and Jeff seem to be on the same wavelength on this in terms of marveling at the fact that A) bloggers outstripped big media at its own game here and B) CBS stonewalled for so long before deigning to admit they were wrong and even now are being vague in their apologies.
Jeff says that Deborah Norville did a good job on this thing and I agree.
Hugh Downs does not get it. He expressed concerns that this sort of thing will put even more pressure on TV news reporters to self-censor. The trouble with that is A) tell that to Dan Rather B) they damn well should sweat bullets over the fear that they may have based an entire story on phony documents. Downs unwittingly demonstrates the incredible arrogance that makes this sort of thing possible, as if to say 'we can't be expected to hop-to every time some viewer notices that a story is based on false evidence' whereas I'd argue that...uh...yes they should.
If you return a cake to the bakery because you found broken glass in the middle of it, you wouldn't expect the baker to say, 'I can't do my work if you people are going to keep bitching at me.'
Better analogy: You're sitting in the back of a bus. You and some of the other passengers begin to notice that the bus is not actually going anywhere. You walk up to the front of the bus and you see that the driver is simply turning the wheel back and forth and saying "vroom-vroom-vroom" to himself, and screeching once in a while. You say, 'excuse me...you're not actually driving this thing, are you?' and he says, 'Look, buddy, I'm an experienced bus driver and you're just a passenger. Besides, I can't do my job if you people are going to keep bitching at me.'
Posted by Jeremy at 09:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 19, 2004
You Mean We Have to Change Too?
by JeremyI have been absorbing random bits and pieces of the foxhunting issue going on in the UK. It has the character of an overheard conversation for me. British bloggers probably have the same perception of the Dan Rather/forged documents/Bush national guard story that most of us American bloggers have been obsessed with, some very reluctantly.
A good strain of this overheard-conversation comes today from Harry. You can follow the footprints of his fellow interlocutors back to the rooms where various threads of the conversation are continuing.
This is a compelling image from Harry's post:
Actually, of late, I have been giving a lot of thought to the whole issue of our treatment of animals and meat-eating given that my six-year-old daughter has woken up to where her meat comes from and was horrified by the fact. Her reaction (and I am being literal with the term horrified) has me contemplating vegetarianism again.
It's hard being a kid; there's no denying it. And, though I don't say so from first hand experience, it's hard being a parent. Rude awakenings are the hard struggle of childhood, the rock pile on which they labor and for which they deserve all the free food and shelter and birthday presents they get. Being frequently horrified yet getting stronger and wiser is their job (also in the job description: having fun, mastering the concepts of shapes, sizes, and volumes by pouring liquids from one container to another, and trying to get away with murder at every opportunity).
We seem to be immersed in a worldwide culture of challenging old structures. The spectrum spans the range from the trivial to the historically monumental. The trend is not all encompassing. Much that should be rethought will be ignored.
My theory on why the 9/11 attacks happened was that Islamists sensed that change might be afoot in the world and they wanted to seize the opportunity and act rather than watch passively as the Muslim world began to accept democracy and Western influence. It would stand to reason that reactionary sociopaths would notice cultural change on a more profound level than anyone else, much in the same way that Hitler had a profound understanding of the opportunities that the turn of the last century and its wordwide crises afforded someone like him.
Taken in this context, fox hunting and fraudulant reporting by CBS seem like distractions, and they can certainly function that way. The point is, though, that these issues are part of a larger tectonic change, small and large pieces of an historic turning point (and I tend to think it's for the better). If we are deciding that we can no longer accept genocide and fascism abroad, as if these things were merely a hazy mountain range in a cozy watercolor landscape, then we have to accept that this means questioning assumptions and practices, small and large, that we have previously resigned ourselves to ingoring.
I guess this is what some people call the 'culture war.' But to me it's just a matter of believing that change in the world is possible. We're counting on millions of people in the Arab and Muslim world to shake off numerous aspects of their culture that have been holding them back (and I'm not referring to theocratic fascism: that has to be destroyed by force. I am talking about embracing classical liberalism as an Arab/Muslim birthright rather than as American imperialism) but we ought to recognize that a similar wave has been sweeping through the West, though on a smaller scale. One of the most significant manifestations of that for me has been the rejection of party loyalty (I know, I know. Some of you have been there for years already). Same sex marriage, though divisive, is an issue that is bubbling up from the surface. It's part of this. Fox hunting, important to some, trivial to others, would also appear to be emerging out of a culture unable to do things simply because they have always been done. And tolerating abuses of the press with a snort and a wave of the hand is not wise in this era, though it is a time honored tradtion. The list will go on.
Like it or not, this is a fascinating time in the world's history. Anyway, here we are.
Posted by Jeremy at 01:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 18, 2004
Not as big a mess as I thought
by JeremyNorm Geras who, studies show, has obsessive-compulsive tendencies, steers readers to this personality disorder test. Here are my results:
Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Low
Narcissistic: Low
Avoidant: High
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Moderate
Ask me more about my moderate schizotypal personality features and I'll tell you all. But, like, next week some time. If not the week after. Though a moderate part of me feels I should rethink that.
I have an observation about the question, "Have you ever been in jail or done something that you could be put in jail for?" For one thing, I know one or two people who have been arrested for grabbing milk crates from behind supermarkets. This used to be a widely tolerated practice, but in the last fifteen years or so it has been upgraded, due to business owners' lobbying I assume, to the level of hardcore theft. Also, in many countries you need only to have expressed an opinion to have to answer "yes" to that question. So I think that question (and several others) are a bit loose.
Posted by Jeremy at 02:42 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
September 17, 2004
Who Needs Seinfeld...
by Jeremy...when you've got Lileks:
At the blogger party last month, King Banion opened my fridge and asked "does it always look like this?" It does. I have a shelf devoted to sodas, and every day they get replentished so there's always a full assortment. Do all the labels face the same way? What do you think?
Posted by Jeremy at 02:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Death to Infidels
by JeremyLook, we know he's an egomanical asshole whose political views we should not have to listen to speaking truth to power, but this is outrageous:
I am told that Howard Stern just said on the air, after a phone chat with Tommy Ramone, that if there is a good thing about the death of Johnny Ramone it's that he won't be able to vote for Bush now as he'd been intending. And, Stern added, it would be a good thing if all Bush supporters were to die.
This is the sort of thing that made me hate Howard Stern from the early 80's through about 1996. I think I'm going back to that position.
I think he's been trying his hardest to get fired again (and doing his best to get fired, he has quipped in the past, is what he does for a living) so he can retire with some credibility. But if he's cruel and stupid without being funny, he's just going to be seen as a crusty-bastard and a political shill.
Though I want the FCC censorship to end, I think Stern needs to give up the ghost and stop broadcasting. He's just not talking straight anymore. It's time for him to shut up and go home.
Harsh? At least I'm not saying this just days after his death. Now that would be a lousy thing to do.
Posted by Jeremy at 08:25 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Torches and Truncheons for Kevin Drum
by JeremyThe crime? Daring to think for himself. He has my empathy on this one. Tim Blair (hat tip: Michael Totten) gives you a taste of the venom Drum received for suggesting that the Rathergate mess might actually involve forged documents and that the underlying facts, if true, are not worth wasting time on.
Jeff Jarvis also got some flack for wanting to pass, at first, on this story. But, like a true mentsch, he admitted he was wrong to lump the CBS/forgery story in with his 'mud' embargo. But I don't think he received the same kind of battering from the anti-anti-Bush crowd as Kevin got from the anti-Bushies.
It must be remembered, of course, as Michael aptly acknowledges in his comments, that Andrew Sullivan got obscene amounts of abuse, often of a personal nature, when he began to ramp us his criticism of Bush.
The moral of the story, I guess, is that zealots are poisonous to free speech, to free thought, to the collaborative pursuit of the truth. Or something along those lines.
Posted by Jeremy at 02:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Blogger Counterbalances Awful Pajama Pic
by JeremyThat recent picture of myself blogging in pajamas was so ego-destroying I thought I'd post a better pic. This was taken a few months ago at the first and, thus far, only Western Massachusetts bloggers' Meetup we've attended (simply because we've been spread too thin, I tend to feel crummy in the evenings, etc). I knew there'd be a picture posted of us but I avoided looking at it for all these months because I usually end up looking like I do in that PJ's shot. But this one's not so bad.
If you hear a loud cry coming from the East coast of North America that would be Cara seeing that I've posted a picture of her again. But I think it's a good one of her. The trouble with saying that to people is that they zero in on some aberrant blemish, some dead pixel, some weird spot or wild lock of hair and take you to mean that the thing only ever looks worse than that. People -- and I mean every last one of us -- are funny (both ha-ha and not).
Anyway. I'm sick and tired of not knowing what some of you look like. Stop it. Post pictures of yourself, goddammit. Don't make me come after you. Many of my favorite bloggers have pictures on their blogs. Others' pics can easily be found on their professorial homepages. I know what the SIAW guys look like as we saw here.
Anyway, this is us plus half of Greg on the left:
If you can't allow yourself to be indentified publicly, you could at least pull a Henry Green:
Posted by Jeremy at 12:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 16, 2004
Reputation of Iraqi 'Resistance' Being Tarnished by CIA/Mossad Plot, Warns Naomi Klein & Jeremy Scahill
by JeremyNaomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill are worried about the abduction of those two Italian women in Iraq lest it tarnish the reputation of the resistance. And after all: where do you go to buy back your reputation (emphasis mine, hat tip: Harry):
Today, Torretta's life is in danger, along with the lives of her fellow Italian aid worker Simona Pari, and their Iraqi colleagues Raad Ali Abdul Azziz and Mahnouz Bassam. Eight days ago, the four were snatched at gunpoint from their home/office in Baghdad and have not been heard from since. In the absence of direct communication from their abductors, political controversy swirls round the incident. Proponents of the war are using it to paint peaceniks as naive, blithely supporting a resistance that answers international solidarity with kidnappings and beheadings. Meanwhile, a growing number of Islamic leaders are hinting that the raid on A Bridge to Baghdad was not the work of mujahideen, but of foreign intelligence agencies out to discredit the resistance.
Among the evidence that this was not the work of pious and well meaning resistance beheaders was the observation that some of the abductors were clean shaven and wearing suits. Hmm. We know that Islamists would never shave their beards in order to carry out terrorist attacks, so we can rule that out. Why, you'd almost think it reminiscent of the Ba'ath regime if you didn't know better. So clearly this is not the noble resistance or Ba'ath fascists. It must be the CIA/Mossad because only they would feel threatened by liberated women trying to impose their progressive ideas on the Iraqi culture. I'm convinced.
Also this:
And then there were the weapons. The attackers were armed with AK-47s, shotguns, pistols with silencers and stun guns - hardly the mujahideen's standard-issue rusty Kalashnikovs.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but doesn't the 'K' in 'AK-47' stand for Kalashnikov?
But this is most damning piece of evidence:
Strangest of all is this detail: witnesses said that several attackers wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms and identified themselves as working for Ayad Allawi, the interim prime minister.
That's strange: the abductors made sure witnesses knew they were representatives of the Allawi government. That seems a little careless. Anyway, the cat's out of the bag and that's all that matters.
What we do know is this: if this hostage-taking ends in bloodshed, Washington, Rome and their Iraqi surrogates will be quick to use the tragedy to justify the brutal occupation - an occupation that Simona Torretta, Simona Pari, Raad Ali Abdul Azziz and Mahnouz Bassam risked their lives to oppose. And we will be left wondering whether that was the plan all along.
Klein and Scahill are not, of course, themselves suggesting that this is the work of CIA/Mossad, but they ask this (and a nod, as we know, is as good as a wink to a blind bat):
Who could have pulled off such a coordinated operation - and who stands to benefit from an attack on this anti-war NGO?
As Woody Allen says to Christopher Walken's character in "Annie Hall,"
"Well, I have to go now, Duane, because I'm due back on planet earth."
Posted by Jeremy at 08:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 15, 2004
Hunter or Holy Man?
by JeremyA couple of weeks ago I was leaving work and when I got out to the parking lot I was scared half to death by a sound that, I'm assuming, is what it would sound like if a Tyrannosaurus were to pass gas. It was unsettling.
I then noticed a bearded guy in a car with a sheepish expression on his face and something like a ram's horn in his hand.
"Sorry," he said, "I was just practicing."
I assured him it was no problem. What I wanted to say was, "If you're hoping to simulate some kind of Paleolithic gastric disorder then you're cool. For anything else, keep practicing." But I'm a nicer person than that.
Later I was a bit confused. Was the guy a rabbi working on his shofar chops? Or a guy from the hill country warming up his moose or deer call? Strange that I never noticed it before, but these are two outwardly very similar demographics.
#1 - Shofar (click for sound and note the musicality. Note: this is not the guy described above):
#2 - Moose call (sound may be real moose, not sure, but not very musical):
Do you see how different they're supposed to sound? Now you can use that for practicing either one, so what are you waiting for?
Anyway, happy Rosh Hashanah.
Posted by Jeremy at 09:19 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Blog Influence on Mainstream Press?
by JeremyI know it's small, but is this a hint of a corporate media company taking a hint from the blogosphere? (follow my red markings to see what I'm referring to)
It now reads "Update 5." I guess the fact that they report on the stock market has something to do with it too: twenty minutes ago can be ancient history for them as well.
Posted by Jeremy at 01:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 14, 2004
New Orleans could be in serious trouble
by JeremyThis is very scary:
The worst-case scenario for New Orleans - a direct strike by a full-strength Hurricane Ivan - could submerge much of this historic city treetop-deep in a stew of sewage, industrial chemicals and fire ants, and the inundation could last for weeks, experts say.[...]
The surveys predict that about 300,000 of the 1.6 million people living in the metropolitan area would risk staying.
The computer models show a hurricane with a wind speed of around 120 mph or more - hitting just west of New Orleans so its counterclockwise rotation could hurl the strongest surf and wind directly into the city - would push a storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain over the city's levees. Ivan had sustained wind of 140 mph Tuesday.
[...]
New Orleans would be under about 20 feet of water, higher than the roofs of many of the city's homes.
[...]
A rescue of people who stayed behind would be among the world's biggest since 1940, when Allied forces and civilian volunteers during World War II rescued mostly British soldiers from Dunkirk, France, and carried them across the English Channel, van Heerden predicted.
Posted by Jeremy at 07:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Lightning-Quick Takedown by Blogoshphere Piranhas
by JeremyThis is an intelligent look at the Sixty Minutes forged documents thing. Some of this guy's conclusions are off the mark, but I like the way he narrates this story (free registration required):
In the world of investigative journalism, they don't come any bigger than 60 Minutes. That's why the lightning-quick takedown of the venerable CBS News program's tale of President Bush's alleged sweetheart Vietnam-era treatment in the Texas Air National Guard was so shocking.
We don't know for certain if CBS and correspondent Dan Rather were really snookered by forged documents. CBS is sticking by its story that the papers on which it based its damning report were authentic. But that report was shredded by the school of piranhas in the blogosphere ? and Old Media reporters who followed quickly in the Web bloggers' wake.
Also Online
See the CBS memos
The attack started immediately after 60 Minutes II aired the report Wednesday. Hours later, posters at the Free Republic Web site noticed something odd about the documents. The lawyer-run Powerlineblog.com site got interested, and then graphic designer Charles Johnson at littlegreenfootballs.com showed on his site how the documents were likely designed using Microsoft Word and its Times Roman font ? which did not exist when Mr. Bush was in the Guard.Sensing blood in the water, the professional sharks at ABC News, Newsweek, The Dallas Morning News and others took big bites out of the report's credibility in other areas. Result: The story is now about CBS and what looks like its sloppy reporting, not Mr. Bush and what he did during the Vietnam era.
Which is not entirely fair, really, because Mr. Bush has not been entirely forthcoming about his Guard record (nor, for that matter, has Democrat John Kerry released all the documents related to his service in Vietnam). CBS' bungling of this story with only seven weeks to go in the presidential race probably means that any further reporting on Mr. Bush and the Guard, however well sourced and documented, will be received by many Americans as mere political mudslinging.
We think New York Times columnist William Safire may be on to something by telling his old friend Dan Rather to quit stonewalling and instead to call for an independent investigation of CBS' report. The days are long past when a major media organization can haughtily appeal to the authority of its brand name to dismiss criticism it finds impertinent.
So what do I think is off the mark? Well, the piranhas thing, while funny, implies that bloggers are nastier than anyone else. I think the real issue is that we are people with a megaphone but without the baggage of being run by a corporation, thus, no boss tapping an index finger to his lip 'wondering' whether one really wants to use the word 'forged' or whether one has considered putting scare quotes around it (hey wait...I just did. Oh well).
But more seriously, this:
The story is now about CBS and what looks like its sloppy reporting, not Mr. Bush and what he did during the Vietnam era.Which is not entirely fair, really, because Mr. Bush has not been entirely forthcoming about his Guard record
This misses the point. Jayson Blair, as I recall, wrote stories that followed a more or less truthful arc but invented details, quotes, biographies so that his stories could be made lively with little actual effort. This is what one usually calls 'fiction' and fiction often can convey an underlying truth. The trouble is, journalists are not supposed to be writing fiction. Fiction is a very dangerous thing for journalists to be doing, whether by intent or through lack of diligence. And that's what this flap has been about. The other thing, of course, is that the stories regarding the Viet Nam records of Bush and Kerry are not especially important to most people, so I think we can be forgiven for allowing the underlying story to be obscured by the overlying fraud.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:44 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 13, 2004
EARLY BIRD MUGGED BY WORM
by JeremyUPDATE #2: The editorial is no longer up. But here's a screen shot.
The Cincinnati Post would seem to be guilty of ingnoring some important factual evidence in this piece. But I have a feeling the truth is more that sometimes you'd be better off making deadlines by the skin of your teeth. I think somebody has gotten stung by an otherwise admirable adherence to a very cautious deadline schedule. Still, someone should have caught this and swapped in a stock piece on obesity or stun guns or pitbulls or divorce rates or urban sprawl or new studies showing the importance of a healthy diet or...anything else.
UPDATE: Oh yeah, and I found it because it showed up on the default homepage for Google News with a dateline of "5 hours ago."
Posted by Jeremy at 11:38 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 12, 2004
Happy Sunday
by JeremyThis will make you thankful for the job you've got (or you need to find a new one). Or, it will make you glad to be unemployed (Via Harry).
Posted by Jeremy at 08:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 11, 2004
I Like Windows 2000 But I'm Not Willing to Die For It
by JeremyBack when I used to use Windows 98 I could understand all the sneering from Mac and Linux freaks. I had to restart my computer several times a day just to keep the thing running. Now that we're a Windows 2000 household we can keep our computers on for weeks between crashes and restarts. I think that's pretty impressive: two or three weeks between restarts is an eternity in Windows time.
I'm not so sure, though, that it's an impressive separator between nuclear accidents or unintended missile firings. But then I haven't done the cost/benefit analysis on that. Alan E. Brain has.
Posted by Jeremy at 08:49 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
An Animated Gif is Worth a Thousand Words
by JeremyPosted by Jeremy at 03:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pajama Bloggers Unite!
by JeremyI think it's the start of a movement. I'm with you, brother Simon!
Posted by Jeremy at 02:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
On Twine, Pigs and Politics
by JeremyJeff wants us piggies to stop wallowing in the mud. I understand what he means, but I respectfully reject his opinion on this. Yes, it would be better if this campaign stayed focused on issues of current importance. But that ain't happening. We're blogging about failures in the press to report accurately and failures in the Kerry campaign to provide the very vision and leadership that Jeff, that all of us, are yearning for. That is an important story right now.
Yes, I wish Kerry would speak so loudly about his policies on the war and on important domestic issues that the Viet Nam stuff would slough off and disappear. But we can't pretend he is doing that just because we'd like him to.
As the saying goes, 'you can't push a rope.'
But read Jeff on 9/11. He was there and his strong feelings on all of this are coming from a deep place, and his reflections are moving.
And then let's all blog what we want to blog.
Posted by Jeremy at 02:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Remembering September 11th
by JeremyThere are so many ways to try to comprehend, once again, what happened on this day three years ago. I have had difficulty deciding what to post today, but something came back to me. A year or so ago I was feeling nostalgic for my old hometown (the Big Apple) and, specifically, the subway. I found all kinds of websites devoted to the subway. And I found one particular item that has stayed with me ever since. That's what I decided to post today. It was someone's contribution to a conversation about the conductor's announcements that evidently are no longer spoken live by the actual conductors anymore; they use tape loops these days. Here's what a guy named Craig had to say:
soothing conductress
Agreed -- the recording does sound like a robot. Part of the problem may be that some sentences are pasted together from what must be pre-recorded words or phrases. But yeah, it's pretty lame. I'll never forget the time I was riding the F uptown on the morning of September 13, 2001. The train was of course full of scared, unhappy commuters putting on their bravest faces and going back to work. As we approached my stop, the conductor, an African-American woman with a very soothing voice (a lot like the DJ in the movie The Warriors if anyone's seen that) announced the stop and then said "Remember... take care of each other out there". I was almost completely overcome, and I think a lot of the other passengers were too.by Craig Bolus on 06/04/02
That still moves me immensely, despite the fact because of the fact that it's such a small, random image of that unbelievably long week.
Please share your thoughts, random or related.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:02 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 10, 2004
Journalism is as Journalism Does
by JeremyLooks like CBS has screwed up in a huge way, and the story was broken by the blog INDC:
UPDATE: Dr. Bouffard called me again, and after further analysis, he says that he's pretty certain that it's a fake.[...]
I asked him to put a percentage on the chances that this was a fake, and he said that was "hard to put a number on it." I then suggested "90%?" Again he said it's "hard to put an exact number, but I'd say it's at least that high, sure. I pretty much agree that that font is Times New Roman."
Is this a revolution? Have the tables turned? Is this the hour the ship comes in? Or is this just a case of good old fashioned journalism (remember that?) versus padded, politicized TV reporting? We'll see how this unfolds. Either way, this is quite a ripple in the blog pool, perhaps to become a bit of a wave in the news media ocean.
UPDATE: James Hamilton links to this BBC article that breezily reports the missing-Bush story without any mention of the reported suspicions of forged documents. How long can they forestall the inevitable? Sooner or later they will have to open their lexicon of spicy rhetoric and blow the thin layer of dust off of the word "dodgy" and the phrase "sexed up." The longer they wait, the more it'll look, once they kow tow to the demands of factual reporting, as if they'd been dragged by the ear into the inner offices of that "free-floating cadre of rightist warriors".
And while you're at it, read James Hamilton's take on one person's 'diagnosis' of Bush as a "dry drunk." Might as well get a jump on that one too.
Posted by Jeremy at 06:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 09, 2004
The Kerry Throughline
by JeremyPenny at Pattern Perception has figured out the point of Kerry's campaign strategy. I think she's onto something.
Posted by Jeremy at 09:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
That Schoolgirl Bully
by JeremyYou have to admit he's a talented writer, though reading his stuff is a bit like sucking up the sugary glop that sits at the bottom of your Starbuck's iced coffee. He's foppishly bitchy, I guess you could say. And I do feel I can say things like this about him because he has made a career of glibly tearing apart the work of other people.
I'm tempted to compare him to Aunt Esther of Sanford and Son, but I think that flatters the man.
What pissed me off? I guess his wishing hurricane Frances on Floridians was the final straw. That was a shitty thing to write and, sadly, too typical of him to be called a low moment. I guess you've got to pull out your best writing any way you can, but it's a shame that Wolcott's best stuff comes through putting fashionable sneers before the dignity of people's lives and work.
The trouble is, I don't think even Aunt Esther was cruel to anyone but Fred Sanford. And he at least had it coming.
Posted by Jeremy at 08:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 08, 2004
Hitchens on the Reactionary "Left"
by JeremyThe antiwar isolationist "left" started by being merely "status quo": opposing regime change and hinting at moral equivalence between Bush's "terrorism" and the other sort. This conservative position didn't take very long to metastasize into a flat-out reactionary one, with Michael Moore saying that the Iraqi "resistance" was the equivalent of the Revolutionary Minutemen, Tariq Ali calling for solidarity with the "insurgents," and now Ms.[Naomi] Klein, among many others, wanting to bring the war home because any kind of anti-Americanism is better than none at all. These fellow-travelers with fascism are also changing ships on a falling tide: Their applause for the holy warriors comes at a time when wide swathes of the Arab and Muslim world are sickening of the mindless blasphemy and the sectarian bigotry. It took an effort for American pseudo-radicals to be outflanked on the left by Ayatollah Sistani, but they managed it somehow.
(hat tip: Norm)
For specifics, read the whole thing...
Posted by Jeremy at 08:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Two Three Kinds of Stupid
by Jeremy
This was damned stupid but ultimately irrelevant. Whereas this idiocy is not only relevant but downright disturbing.
UPDATE: The AP proves itself to be no better than a high school weekly. I had read that the Cheney people cried "out of context" but I couldn't see how the context could fundamentally alter the meaning. It turns out to have been the AP reporter who fundamentally changed the meaning. Here is Cheney's statement in it's full context, without a sentence cut in the middle and a period unethically inserted by the reporter (via Michael Totten):
Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war.
He's saying that if we get hit again, Kerry is more likely to react out of a pre-911 mind set. While certainly a poorly worded and contentious statement, it's hardly the same as saying we'd be more likely to be attacked if Kerry is elected.
The trick is to not just believe what you read in the papers anymore. Naw man, you got to swagger in like you goin' into a used car dealership. Then you got to show them motherfuckers you ain't no easy mark, that you ain't nobody's two bit skank, never was, and got no plans to be.
Oh. Sorry. I got a little carried away. The thing is, I used to feel that reading the newspapers was an enriching experience, but I guess I've been a bit coarsened by the practice these past few years.
UPDATE #2: Apparently the AP reporter didn't insert the period (see latest update). But the quote was taken out of context with an extremely distorting result. Yes, I know that every quote is taken out of context. The phrase people use for this, rather than 'it was taken out of context' should be something like 'its meaning was distorted by the obscuring of its original context' since that refers to something that only sometimes happens when a quote is taken out of context. But that's a mouthful to shout at a murder of reporters at a press conference. I saw Penn Jillette on TV recently, talking about the show on which he debunks fashionable hucksterism of all kinds. He tries, he said, to debunk intelligently, without playing dirty pool with people. He said that when they're editing footage of someone they think has a ridiculous point of view his partner Teller sometimes says, "now, we don't want to pull a Michael Moore with this guy." So maybe that's a good phrase. Here's how it might sound, hypothetically: "A spokesman for the Vice president has accused the AP reporter of pulling a 'Michael Moore' on him." Even fans of the disingenuous filmmaker would nod in comprehension.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 07, 2004
"Well, they're all important"
by JeremyAt first I though this doctor sounded a bit callous, but I've changed my mind. I like this guy's attitude:
If the case of former President Bill Clinton is any example, being a big shot can sure help get a doctor, but it doesn't guarantee first choice.Dr. O. Wayne Isom said he was at his East Hampton home at 7 a.m. Friday when he got a call from a primary-care practitioner at Westchester Medical Center asking him to accept a patient transfer for emergency coronary surgery.
"I said, 'I'm on vacation,' " Isom recalled in a telephone interview.
"And he said, 'Well, it's an important person.'
"And I said, 'Well, they're all important.' And I had a tee time at 9 o'clock.
"He said, 'Well, they want you.'
"And I said, 'Who is it?'
"And he said, 'I can't tell you. It's an important person.'
"I said, 'If you can't tell me, then I'm going to play golf.' "
Posted by Jeremy at 12:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
The Struggle to Keep Anti-Americanism Relevant
by JeremyHere's a refreshing dose of clarity from James Hamilton (who dispenses a lot of the stuff):
For those who are convinced that the USA is the sole source of all the world's violence, hatred, and evil, the period since 9/11 has been a difficult one. Not a week seems to go by but there is some atrocity committed elsewhere in the world that is hard to pin on the States - Beslan this week, the Bali bombing two years ago, Darfur. Or, there are acts committed that involve the States, but which cannot reasonably be transmitted to the States' area of responsibility - the sheer cruelty and bloodthirstiness of murderous foreign kidnap gangs in Iraq, for instance. Keeping the US ahead in the evil league has become harder for all save the most myopic opponents of the Iraq war, and even these have Saddam's death pits to explain away now.
Read the rest; it's a post about a proposed "Psychology of Terrorism Research Center" at Penn State.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 06, 2004
An account by a 10 year old survivor of Beslan
by Jeremy> After more than 24 hours in the sweltering heat of the school gymnasium in Beslan, one of the boys trapped inside could not take it any longer...Summoning up his courage, he approached a hostage taker with a bayonet fixed to his assault rifle and asked him for a drink. It was probably the worst error that he could have made.
"Instead of giving him water, he drove his bayonet through the boy?s body," said Stanislav Tsarakhov, 10, another captive standing nearby. "I don't know if he died."
(via Norm. Norm has many posts on Beslan that you should read. Click here and keep scrolling down).
If your reaction to this is to think of Russia's crimes against Chechnya, I would ask you to think about this carefully, as A. E. Brain has done. If you think that the solution is for Russia to make concessions to Chechnya, then ask yourself whether it serves Chechens for a state to be formed that has any danger of infection by the fascist scum capable of committing these kinds of atrocities as a central policy.
Below is an example of the people whose lives would be betrayed by making concessions in the face of this kind of terrorism (emphasis mine):
Chechnya collecting money for Beslan terror victims GROZNY. Sept 6 (Interfax) - Dozens of Chechen organizations and enterprises will transfer their one-day earnings to a fund that will assist the relatives of the Beslan terror victims, said Taus Dzhabrailov, chairman of the Chechen State Council."Staff members of the Chechen State Council, government, administration, ministries and agencies and dozens of other organizations in Grozny and elsewhere in Chechnya will transfer their one-day earnings to the fund," Dzhabrailov told a public mourning meeting on Monday.
He said the Chechen people share the pain and suffering of the residents of North Ossetia. "We have been suffering from terror triggered by a handful of separatists, scum and international terrorist organizations for over 13 years," Dzhabrailov said.
"The terrorists will not be able to set the peoples of Russia against each other, or to spark a new hotbed of war in the North Caucasus," Dzhabrailov said.
UPDATE: This analysis by Dan Darling of the Chechnya crisis and its history is a must read (via Roger)
Posted by Jeremy at 12:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Once Again: What's Up With the Western Intelligentsia?
by JeremyHere's Clive James doing a very good job of articulating something that has been making Cara and me feel as if we had stepped into a parallel universe (and not a nice one):
[T]here is not just an equivalence, but a blend, between the Islamism that condemns the Western liberal democracies and the international pseudo-Left intelligentsia that condemns them as well. ... We can be certain ... that the performance of the Western intelligentsia has never been worse. Before the collapse of the Warsaw Pact regimes, the intelligentsia was merely deluded. After the collapse of the World Trade Center, it has gone haywire. Essentially a branch of the home entertainment industry, the Left intelligentsia circulates, almost entirely for its own consumption, opinions even more contemptuous of ordinary people than used to prevail on the Right.
(Via Jonathan Derbyshire, via Norm)
Posted by Jeremy at 12:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 05, 2004
Minuteman Seized by Imperial Menace
by JeremyA freedom fighter has become the next political prisoner. When will the targeting of sovereign leaders end?
Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, deputy commander of armed forces under Saddam Hussein, was captured Sunday near Tikrit by the Iraqi national guard and U.S. troops, the Iraqi Defense Ministry said.[...]
The military said al-Duri was organizing many attacks by insurgents in Iraq.
[...]
Al-Duri, a longtime Baath Party leader, was instrumental in helping Saddam come to power in a 1968 coup.
U.S. officials say he was also involved in Saddam's decision to use chemical weapons against Kurds in northern Iraq in 1988. That attack killed 5,000 people and left 10,000 severely injured -- many blinded, maimed or disfigured.
At least he never committed a serious crime against innocents, like insulting John Kerry during a political campaign.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 04, 2004
Just invented a new game using Google News
by Jeremy[UPDATE: click the permalink for this post to see the images fully]
Here are my first two successful results (the search phrases I entered are in bold blue type):
'The Straw Man' (not that I needed one):
'The Self-Deprecating Search Engine'
Try it and share it with your friends. But please, if you pass this on to other people, always refer to this as Jeremy's total frigging waste of timeTM.
Seriously, please share any efforts of your own by posting your search phrases in the comments.
Posted by Jeremy at 02:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Norm posts on the Nazi-like slaughter of children in Beslan
by JeremyNorm has a powerful series of posts today on the horror of what was done to children by the terrorists in Russia, on the historical precedent for it, and on the shame of certain members of the press not daring to use the word 'terrorism.'
Comparisons with Nazi barbarism are much misused, but those responsible for this horror are, for once, true and authentic heirs
Click here and scroll down.
Posted by Jeremy at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
HYOO-bris
by JeremyI'm tired of hearing people say the word 'hubris.' It used to be you'd only hear that word from people entrenched in academia, much in the same way, I suppose, that people in prison will use words like 'shiv' 'shank' or 'screw' (and that's just 's').
But now people are hubrising all over the place. As my grandmother used to say, "What can I do" (rhetorical, but not a question). As my generation is famous for saying, "Whatever."
While 'hubris' is not one of your postmodern words, the phenomenon of its popular comeback reminds me of something a professor of mine once said when I was still in the clutches of my abortive effort to get a master's degree in English Lit. The professor's specialty was Medieval Lit. but he was teaching a course on linguistics, a secondary area of specialization for him. Linguistics is where all that postmodern hoodoo actually appears to have some validity. It's like discussing clowning techniques in a clown techniques seminar, rather than trying to understand all of human endeavor by applying prevailing theories of the aerodynamics of fiberglass reinforced Russian-style juggling rings.
Here's a paraphrase of what the professor said during a discussion of how people's use of language changes in different contexts: "If we were to speak to each other at a bar using the language we use in this seminar, that would certainly be unbelievably pretentious." This may have been a simple 'fer instance,' but it also resembled the way a nice person drops hints when he has overheard people whispering about a friend who hasn't been bathing frequently enough.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 03, 2004
Bush Pointing the Finger Again
by JeremyThis was a headline in Reuters today:
Bush Blames Terrorists for Russian Deaths
I suppose they're innocent until proven guilty? It might have been an accident? The Russians did it? What?
This is the sort of thing -- I mean what it suggests about the editor, that he or she supposes Bush might be crying 'terror' so it looks like there's a war on or something -- that makes me feel that Zell Miller's anger was a glimpse of what is not crazy in politics lately.
Is there anyone who would not blame terrorists for this:
"Six hundred and forty-six people, including 227 children, were hospitalized following the terrorist act in Beslan," sources in the Russian Ministry for Civil Defense and Emergencies and the North Ossetian Health Ministry told Itar-Tass.[...]
"The majority of patients have bullet wounds in the back," the sources said.
(News links via The Command Post)
Posted by Jeremy at 08:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Lesser Horror of Action: Russia Storms School
by JeremyRussian troops stormed a school Friday in a chaotic battle to free hundreds of parents, teachers and children who had been held hostage for two days by Chechen separatists.Naked and screaming children ran for safety amid machinegun fire and explosions while attack helicopters clattered overhead. The Tass and Interfax news agencies spoke of over 300 wounded, mostly children. Rebels fled with soldiers in pursuit.
It seems unthinkable for troops to have stormed the school at the expense of children's lives. As in the case of the storming of the theater a few years ago, Russia will probably take criticism for their handling of this incident. And it's likely to me that they would have taken less criticism if, wile authorities waited, the terrorists had succeeded in killing all of the children in that school. It's an agonizingly clear reminder of the false morality of passivity in the face of this sort of inhuman violence.
One of the survivors underscores the sadism that one concludes is the prime motivation behind this sort of crime:
One unidentified woman freed Thursday told Izvestia that during the night children occasionally began to cry:"Then the fighters would fire in the air to restore quiet. In the morning they told us they would not give us anything more to drink because the authorities were not ready to negotiate.
"When children went to the toilet, some tried to drink from the tap. The fighters stopped them straight away."
These are people who would not have hesitated to kill every one of those children if they had not been stopped.
Posted by Jeremy at 09:54 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 02, 2004
Blogger Survives Fascist Rally
by JeremyI am quite certain that no words more sinister and false and generally toxic to everything free thinking people hold dear have ever been uttered or written by any person living or dead in any language on this Earth or indeed on any planet on which we might reasonably expect to find intelligent life, than the soul curdling hex of satanic evil that Matthew Yglesias has written below [UPDATE: about Zell Miller's speech]:
I don't believe I've ever heard a more disgusting speech delivered in the English language. The fact that I couldn't see a single person on the floor who seemed to feel anything less than the utmost enthusiasm for that lunacy was, well, a bit disturbing.
Nevertheless, my brothers and sisters, let us take a moment in prayer to thank the almighty for seeing that no harm befell the flaming centrists who found themselves trapped on that convention floor. Surely the trauma of being there in the belly of the Beast was punishment enough:
Watching that speech from inside the hall, I was genuinely afraid at one or two points. The audience was so enthused by his frankly fascistic remarks that at any moment I thought the distinguished Senator might point up and say "see, there, right there is one of these unpatriotic liberal journalists busy abusing the freedoms our soldiers fight to protect -- he must be destroyed for the safety of the Republican" and that Matt Welch and I would need to fend for our lives against the onrushing hordes.
If I agree with Yglesias on one point, it's that the world suddenly seems to be chock full of Sara Heartburns lately (or was that not his point).
(via Michael Totten).
Posted by Jeremy at 11:31 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 01, 2004
Hi Friends
by JeremyI'm not blogging consistently because I'm not feeling the best this week; the nausea won't quit. What's cool about living in the Happy Valley (Amherst, MA area) though, is that when you tell this to people you bump into throughout the day (because I always forget to just say "I'm fine, how are you." I once said "how are you?" to someone and she responded, "Oh, no one really cares.") you learn all the ins and outs of the benefits of medical marijuana in weed form vs. Marinol. I would guess the West coast is better for this kind of expertise, but not by much. Personally, Papaya extract seems intriguing as a next exercise in futility (not as much fun but less likely to burn out any more of my brain cells).
Let me say this: that Zell Miller really knows how to bring on the fire and brimstone! Man-o-man! And it was smart to have the most intense pro military and anti Kerry stuff come from a Democrat. But the most damaging thing for Kerry is that it wasn't off the wall. He didn't come off as raving; the man came across as truly mad as hell and not prepared to take it anymore. If Kerry could raise half that much ire against the enemy (reminder: I'm referring to theocratic fascists, Baathists; people killing and enslaving innocents all over the world. I'm not referring to Democratic or Republican candidates) he wouldn't have to worry about a bit of bluster from the other side, or some nasty ads about Viet Nam.
But now I must sleep.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
