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January 30, 2005
Iraqi Election: Three Thousand Words Worth
by Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 06:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Friends of Democracy - Iraqi Election Broadcast
by JeremyAre you watching? It's on CSPAN. You can watch it online via this page (if you missed the live broadcast you may be able to find it archived on CSPAN's website).
The first panel, pictured below, listens to phone calls from Omar and Mohammed of Iraq the Model. Body-language quiz: can you spot the pessimist who doesn't appreciate the brothers' enthusiasm? Cigars will be awarded for correct answers:
Posted by Jeremy at 03:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 29, 2005
Character Crucifixion Can Be Funny
by JeremyVery rarely. But Iowahawk has pulled it off. If I were Glenn Reynolds I wouldn't know whether to write 'ouch!' or 'heh'. I think this calls for both (Hat Tip: dougf)
Posted by Jeremy at 11:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 28, 2005
Zarqawi's Critique of American Democracy
by Jeremy
It seems Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Iraqi insurgent and some time political analyst -- he has issues with democracy -- has gotten a bit more specific in his critique of the American form of government and the prospects of something like it being forced down the throats of the Iraqi populace.
Earlier this week he stated: "We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology." Some conservative bloggers are now trying to spin this as some kind of 'anti-democracy' manifesto. But we thought it would be prudent to cut through the spin and ask Mr. Zarqawi to fine tune that talking point a bit.
Mr. Zarqawi did not return our calls but his media spokesman delivered his response to me just this morning (tied to a brick and tossed through the windshield of my car on the highway, almost killing me. It's sad, isn't it, that people in this country have been forced to share information this way. I am fairly certain I saw the gentleman smiling and laughing as he drove away, clearly relieved to see that I had come to no harm).
Here, in any event, is Mr. Zarqawi's elucidation on what is evidently his key bone of contention with the American democratic system at present (note the quaint misunderstanding of my title. If only the U.S. occupying forces allowed a free press in Iraq perhaps he'd have a better working knowledge of how a newspaper is structured).
Dear Jew Newspaper Zionist Scum,You want to know why I have problems with your American democracy? Where do I start? Let me tell you the most important issue for me now: the death penalty. That is one thing I absolutely do not want to see here in Iraq.
Yes, yes, I know: society takes many risks in which innocent lives can be lost. We build bridges, knowing that statistically some workers will be killed during construction; we take great precautions to reduce the number of unintended fatalities. But wrongful executions are a preventable risk. And I can't emphasize that enough. By substituting a sentence of life without parole, we meet society's needs of punishment and protection without running the risk of an erroneous and irrevocable punishment.
Mind you, I'd like to talk to you about that 'life without parole' thing, too. But perhaps that is for another time. And by then, God willing, you and your family will have been dealt with by my spokesman who you have by now become acquainted with.
Disclosure: I and my family have been invited to attend 'a feast...of sorts' by Zarqawi's spokesman, but this generous hospitality will in no way cloud my objectivity in future reporting.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:52 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 27, 2005
Optimism Over Iraq
by JeremyI've had a feeling that 9/11 happened because the most reactionary forces in the Arab and Muslim world recognized a shift in that part of the world toward liberalization and democratization. They are recognizing a need to act now to stave that off before it's too late. I don't mean to trivialize or rationalize the bloody rampage those monsters have been on. But I think that's why they chose this millenium to ramp up the jihad. And I think that same sort of thinking is fueling the opposition to democracy in Iraq.
That's where my optimism comes in: I think it's already too late.
The current struggle, then, is to make this political transformation (or revolution or 'bourgeois revolution' if you're of that philosophical persuasion) happen sooner rather than later because millions of lives and the futures of millions of children span the gap between now and then.
So I see democracy as already existing in Iraq's future in a manner of speaking and we are currently seeing the brutal journey that so many people are having to venture on to arrive there.
This reminds me of a weather report I once heard on the radio. It was roughly this:
"Cloudy skies this morning will be mixing with clear skies in the evening, resulting in a partly cloudy afternoon."
The dj, who was reading this off of a weather feed, stopped and pointed out, in disgust, that this didn't make any logical sense. It was as if the clear evening sky was already there waiting for us, festooned with beautiful stars, if only we could see them. But it would soon have a surprise in store for it because all that peaceful nighttime beauty was soon going to meet up with a formidable foe in the form of the cloudy sky of that morning. How could the clear sky suspect that such a thing was coming? They would fight it out for a while, each side the worse for wear during the afternoon, but the clear sky would ultimately, inevitably prevail by the time the evening rolled around and would thus have its kingdom restored.
Well, ok, the analogy is not perfect. But you see what I mean.
And I should add my best subsequent guess as to what the weather forecast might have meant in the mind of the meteorologist who wrote it. Probably it was his clumsily dumbed down way of saying that some sort of existing air mass currently traversing the continent, characterized by cloudy skies, would be moving into the area beginning in the afternoon, gradually displacing the local cloudless air mass and fully replacing it by the time the evening rolls around. So there really would be two simultaneously existing 'skies' mixing in the afternoon.
Don't make me tie this together. It won't sound right.
Posted by Jeremy at 05:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 26, 2005
My Plan for the Next Few Weeks
by JeremyThose of you who read Michael Totten regularly will know that I'm going to be guest blogging there once again for the next couple of weeks at least. This time, I'm happy to report, I'll be sharing the job with Mary Madigan. I should have my first post up in a few hours. I once again had to shovel snow this morning and I expect to have to do some more shovelling when I get home from work. So I had less time for posting than I'd have liked.
The reason I'm filling in for Michael is that he's been asked to help edit a blog called Friends of Democracy that will feature coverage of the election in Iraq written largely by Iraqis themselves. It looks like it'll be a central hub of information for coverage of this extremely important historical event. Read it, link it, blogroll it...
Posted by Jeremy at 12:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 24, 2005
Blizzard Charles
by Jeremy
I didn't know they named Blizzards, but this one was apparently named Charles. Very dignified. It's fitting because the snow was very dry, light and powdery (due to the fact that the temperature ranged from ten degrees below zero Fahrenheit to ten or twelve above! Which is -23 to -11 Celsius!). (UPDATE: Apparently naming blizzards was popularized in North Dakota in 1997 after Blizzard Hannah triggered what they refer to as The Big Flood).
Due to sheer, dumb luck (or maybe dumb wind sheer), a big hole -- it looked in the satellite photo like the eye of a hurricane -- opened up over Western Massachusetts for several crucial hours so we only got about 12 to 14 inches of snow. Tough enough to shovel away, but not too bad (er...particularly because our extremely generous neighbor from across the street came by with a snowblower to help dig us out!)
The outer Cape got absolutely hammered. Three feet of snow, temperatures beyond frigid, hurricane force gusts (70 mph!) and coastal flooding. The good news is that it did not take anyone by surprise.
Here's a rather spartan New England account of the storm.
And here's how it affected the New England Patriots' ability to play football.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 23, 2005
Farewell Johnny
by JeremyIt was sad to hear of the death of Johnny Carson. For years I, like just about everyone else, looked forward to staying up late to see him on the Tonight Show. He really was the best late night talk show host. I'll be interested to see what tributes Letterman and Leno pay to him tomorrow night. Neither of them would be doing what they're doing now had it not been for Johnny Carson.
Posted by Jeremy at 06:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
The Most Important Election
by JeremyMany Americans, mostly Democrats, seemed genuinely convinced that this past presidential election was "Probably the Most Important Presidental Election in American HistoryTM." And, sure, it was important to me. But that sort of claim always sounded a bit delusional to me. The upcoming election in Iraq puts things in perspective a bit:
How many Americans would have voted this past November 2nd if to vote meant to risk death? I wouldn't have. But then I can't begin to imagine living for thirty years under a regime as repressive as that of Saddam Hussein's fascist Iraq.
While we're on the subject of thinking globally:
A year or so ago I was a bit annoyed by some sort of anti-war statement made by Ian McKewan. but this (via Norm) shows me that he has kept his eyes open. I'm glad because I really admire him as a novelist:
McEwan admits he has found himself "at odds" with friends in the liberal intelligentsia "with whom I'd naturally expect to agree". Indeed, his donnish uniform - blue cords, woolly jumper - would point to a different set of opinions but, as he says, this war is unusual.He was appalled by articles cheering on the insurgents. "I would have thought that was a vote for anarchy and probably another one-party state."
He loathed the anti-war slogan Not In My Name. "Its cloying self-importance suggests a bright new world of protest, with the fussy consumer of shampoos and soft drinks demanding to feel good, or nice." Walking past marchers rather than with them, he says: "I was troubled by the sheer level of happiness on the street. I did think whatever the reasoning of America for going in, history has offered us this chance to get rid of Saddam. If you decide you don't want that, it is probably a very reasonable view, but it is a vote for more torture, more genocide. It's a sombre, grave choice."
Posted by Jeremy at 04:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Krypto, the Dog of Steel
by Jeremy
This waiting canine with the expressive face was, to my eye, the spitting image of Krypto the Superdog. Turns out not to be the same dog. But this fella (gal?) was a bit of a raconteur. We heard some cool stories about the squirrel that got away. Stuff like that. Some dogs don't seem to mind waiting at all.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 21, 2005
What it Means to be 'Left'
by JeremyThis is the question that won't go away for those of us who were or are Left or liberal but have been confused and often outraged by some of the reactions of our Left and liberal friends these past few years.
I think it's reasonable to say that to be a liberal means that you have a basic belief that all people should have access to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- or say it how you like -- and that it is the job of the state to make this possible and to preserve and protect this and to extend it to all members of society. I suppose some people make the distinction of calling this 'classical' liberalism to distinguish it from trends in recent domestic politics, etc. That does make sense, but I'm going to gloss over the distinction for the moment.
To be 'Left', I think, is simply to feel that a state that stands against this liberal promise needs to be actively opposed, with violence if absolutely necessary. This would apply to your own state or to others. It also implies optimism that oppressive states can be conquered by a united populace (or by some percentage thereof. 80 percent would certainly do).
But 'Left' is now defined by most people as what seems to me to be a religiously literal devotion to Marx's idea that recent human history can be mapped as a progression from feudalism to capitalism to (the idea is) socialism to communism (Stalinism was not predicted. Nor was Fascism or Baathism or Islamist terrorism).
The problem with this is that a this popular strain of the Marx-influenced Left (think: 'no blood for oil' protestors) is so faithfully committed to the idea that the oppression of a populace by a state can only have its pinnacle in the form of capitalism, that it has blinded itself to the fact that the outrage of the Left -- which is of course a term that precedes Marx -- is supposed to be directed toward the oppression itself, in whatever form, rather than toward the mere fact of a capitalist state exercising any sort of power. I think this is a case of worshipping the architect instead of helping to build the house. But I'm not a Marxist (though I think he was an important thinker, like Darwin, say. But I wouldn't want to live my life based on the writings of Darwin either. I'd miss out on a lot of stuff, and dislocate my shoulders probably, in the effort to evolve the ability to fly. No offense intended to passionate but open-minded followers of either man's theories).
The problem is, if you're more committed to playing a role in a sort of pageant in celebration of Marx's conception of this historical progression (and I refer you to the fact that he is shrugging up above) than to the spirit of liberalism itself, and to its vital goals, or very simply to the present needs of those around you, then what kind of value system are you going to bring to a utopian society if it ever does come into being?
So I do still consider myself liberal and of the 'Left' within the above framework. I just never had to work so hard to grasp what these things mean, or to figure out why so many people seem to be getting them all knotted up (to put it kindly).
I've been extremely grateful to Norm, Roger, and Michael (and to these writers and these writers) for wrestling with ideas related to this question, each in their own distinct way from within their own distinct modes of thought and belief, the sum total result being what I would think of as a culture of the true Left, though I'm willing to admit that the term itself is no longer helpful in uniting people.
The bottom line I guess is that it doesn't matter, during times like these, what we call ourselves. It matters what happens to people. And we as individuals can help improve what happens to people. That's the political thesis I'd like to see more intellectuals make a fashion of.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:58 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Inauguration
by JeremyNo citizen of the world can fail to have learned of the harsh Right wing inaugural address delivered by President Bush last night. Here is but a chilling sample:
We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.
Dozens of urban intellectuals have already taken their own lives rather than live to see the fearful enactment of this reactionary anti-tyrannical program.
But braver, more altruistic souls have refused to be silenced, though they risk much.
Want to do something to help? Well, while it's too late to protest the presidential inauguration, you can do something almost as meaningful: join the boycott of American companies that invest in democratic nations overseas. Enjoy your Swedish fish? We all do. But did you know that Sweden has one of the highest voter turnout rates of any country in the world? Ignorance is a luxury we can no longer afford.
Posted by Jeremy at 03:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 19, 2005
Dirty Bomb Threat in Massachusetts
by JeremyI hope to hell this is not real:
Officials in Boston are dealing with a possible nuclear terror threat today after receiving word that two Iraqis and four Chinese aliens were smuggled into the U.S., and would be headed to the Massachusetts capital, possibly with nuclear material.Teams of police officers are said to be prowling city streets with radiological sensors after receiving information of a possible dirty bomb.
According to the Boston Herald, a man from Mexico called authorities in California to tell them of the smuggling and potenital nuclear threat.
[...]
The source said the caller didn't identify himself and failed to show up for a meeting with federal authorities in California, but he did leave pictures of four Chinese men along with some names at a drop site on the Mexico-California border.
[...]
The investigator talking to the Herald said much of the information sounds far-fetched.
"A lot of it doesn't make sense and some of it does,'' the source said. "It's totally uncorroborated. This all began several days ago as a series of phone calls and they don't know who the caller is. There are some parts of it that just don't make sense and other little pieces of it that fall into place. The information is these people that came into the country are going to New York into Boston and the (nuclear) material will follow them.''
There's speculation the caller could have been ripped off by illegal aliens he helped cross the border, and is now seeking vengeance.
Posted by Jeremy at 08:03 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Do You See a Pattern?
by JeremyYou'll probably be aware of this, though it has so far gotten only scant coverage on television:
No arrests had been made Sunday in the killings of 47-year-old Hossam Armanious, his 37-year-old wife, Amal Garas, and their two daughters. The four were found bound and gagged with their throats slashed early Friday.[...]
Unidentified law enforcement sources told The Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark and The Sunday Record of Bergen County that investigators were examining messages Armanious had posted in an Internet chat room that may have provided a motive in the slayings.
The messages were of a religious nature and concerned the family's Coptic Christian beliefs, both newspapers reported.
And you may or may not be aware of this (via David T):
Last week a 23-year-old victim was punched and kicked as he walked passed the Yeten Lev boys school in Casenove Road. The suspects approached the victim, kicked his arm and punched him in the face.Detectives have now linked this assault with another seven similar incidents against Jewish men. They include: A 24 year-old man who was attacked as he walked along Kyverdale Road in Stamford Hill. The suspects approached the victim and punched him in the face before running away.
A 15-year-old boy who was attacked outside Hadley Court in Casenove Road. His hat was knocked off and he was kicked to the ground.
A 14-year-old boy was attacked as he tried to make a phone call at a public telephone box. Police said the teenager noticed a green vehicle pull up beside him and saw a number of people leave the vehicle. They approached the victim and punched and kicked him.
[...]
The irony is that the jews that live in that area are Satmar hassidim, who are strongly anti-zionist.
Apologists for this sort of violence will have to find an excuse other than anti-Zionist activism to explain this, or they might have to acknowledge, if nothing else, the gross ignorance of the perpetrators, though I'm not sure that's allowable since it would indicate disrespect.
But aren't both of these incidents what, to take an example, Naomi Klein wished on Manhattan during the Republican convention when she urged protestors to "bring Najaf to New York?" (and yes, the context would seem to indicate that she is simply urging that the topic of Najaf be raised. But you can almost hear the wet squishy sound of the huge wink in the last sentence of the article; she means it). Or do people like Naomi Klein not understand what they are talking about when they extol the virtues of the Iraqi 'insurgents?'
If we all increasingly have the opportunity, like the family that was slaughtered in New Jersey, to see what the 'insurgency' looks like up close, will their Western intellectual apologists learn from the experience? (hint: did they learn anything from 9/11?)
Posted by Jeremy at 04:24 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 18, 2005
New York Times Troll Targets Iraq The Model
by JeremyWhen I bitterly criticize the New York Times it's because I think it's a hugely important paper and I hate to see it rotting from within. One thing the blogosphere has taught me is that a New York Times story -- and this goes for any major paper -- is only as good as the journalist and/or the editor responsible for that story. Whatever the culture of the paper may be, we are talking about a collection of individuals, some of whom have no business seeing print.
Having said that...have you ever wondered what it would look like if one of the trolls from your favorite blog published their crap in the New York Times? While I don't know who this 'journalist' is, I think this piece gives us a glimpse of what it will look like if (when? Now that?) trolls write for the NYT (hat tip: Jeff Jarvis):
When I telephoned a man named Ali Fadhil in Baghdad last week, I wondered who might answer. A C.I.A. operative? An American posing as an Iraqi? Someone paid by the Defense Department to support the war? Or simply an Iraqi with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq? Until he picked up the phone, he was just a ghost on the Internet.[...]
Ali seemed to have gone through a radical transformation when he found out that his brothers, both described as dentists on their Web site, had met President Bush. Odd. I scrolled down a bit into the past and found that in mid-December a conspiracy theory had emerged about Iraq the Model on Martini Republic.
[...]
A man posting [on Martini Republic] as Gandhi reported that his "polite antiwar comments were always met with barrages of crude abuse" from Iraq the Model's readers. His conclusion? The blog "is a refuge for people who do not want to know the truth about Iraq, and the brothers take care to provide them with a comfortable information cocoon." He added, "I hope some serious attention will be brought to bear on these Fadhil brothers and reveal them as frauds."
What kind of frauds? One reader suggested that the brothers were real Iraqis but were being coached on what to write. Another, in support of that theory, noted the brothers' suspiciously fluent English. A third person observed that coaching wasn't necessary. All the C.I.A. would need to do to influence American opinion was find one pro-war blog and get a paper like USA Today to write about it.
Martini Republic pointed out that the pro-war blog was getting lots of attention from papers like The Wall Street Journal and USA Today while antiwar bloggers like Riverbend, who writes Baghdad Burning, had gone unsung. Surely Iraq the Model did not represent the mainstream of Iraqi thinking?
[...]
"Me and my brothers," he said, "we generally agree on Iraq and the future." (He is helping his brother Mohammed, who is running on the Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party ticket in the Jan. 30 election.) But there is one important difference: "My brothers have confidence in the American administration. I have my questions."
Now that seems genuine.
The emphasis on that last line is mine. I found it -- amazingly -- even more outrageous than the rest of the article. The rest of the article, however, is quite something, isn't it?
It would be interesting to see whether the paper of record continues with this sort of investigative reporting. After all, people leave comments on Martini Republic every day so there will always be new ground to cover. If the brothers are killed by 'insurgents' on election day (God forbid), will Sarah Boxer deign to cover that?
UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis fisks the shit out of Boxer's article. And I do mean shit.
UPDATE: Ali sets the record straight:
I feel I should give my opinion on the NY times article about me and Iraq the Model that has created some variable reactions on the blogosphere. The article was, despite Ms Boxer's kindness, a bad piece of journalism. I had around 45 minutes long phone call with the reporter about my journey with Iraq the Model, my new site, the elections, the general situation here in Baghdad but she (or the paper) seems to have a certain agenda and managed to change the whole issue into a very silly gossip (going as far as quoting trolls!) that is way beneath any respectable paper and certainly beneath me so I won't give it more attention but lesson learned and I won't make the mistake of talking to anyone from the NY times again. It's important to note though that my feelings of respect, gratitude and love for the American people have never and will never change.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:45 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 17, 2005
Meeting Bloggers
by JeremyCara and I had the pleasure to meet and spend time with Michael Totten, Judith Weiss, Mary Madigan, and Eric Deamer, as well as two other really nice and smart people whose names I'm not including because they don't have blogs to use as crib sheets to help me learn their names over a period of months (UPDATE: Susan and Kim. Sorry!).
Meeting Michael was something we'd wanted to do for a long time. His blog was our anti-venom as we struggled to make sense of what was happening to our friends on the Left, here in Western Massachusetts. Michael's hometown of Portland, Oregon sounds uncannily, granolaliciously similar.
We are part of a small diaspora, are us and Michael.
But to our delight we found that so are Mary and Judith and Eric. Dinner conversation, for once, was not a Swiss cheese of avoided topics and tense silences. We could, you know, say anything. And having said it, the thing would be understood, smiled at, sized up and tossed back in a different wrapping; fumbled threads of conversation were not silently psychoanalyzed (do you know what I mean?); things went wrong without the Bush Administration being palpably, if not audibly, understood to somehow be a root cause.
Of more universal interest: this was the nicest group of people you could hope to spend a crazy evening with.
I know you're wondering whether Michael is the brilliant, confident in a good way, clear headed person his blog persona would suggest or whether it's all a clever put-on. He's legit, folks. Just as it was heartening to learn it of Norm (though I knew already), I'm happy to be able to inform you that Michael is a 'top bloke.'
High points of evening:
calculating the bill at the Cambodian restaurant. We'd all put in too much. Instead of, like, doing arithmetic, we had Michael pass dollar bills out to people one at a time and then recount the stack. After three cycles of this we decided that a thirty percent tip was fair enough.
Caught a glimpse of Lenin while squeezed into a sort of human bristle dart board inside a tinnitus factory somewhere in the East Village. It was a party thrown by these folks who I would have liked to meet had it been possible (shouting 'ginger ale' at the top of my lungs to the bartender consumed all the ego strength six weeks of Zoloft would afford me).
I bitch, but only because it's funny. Cara and I enjoyed the whole crazy evening. Even getting lost in the subway was OK.
But we all promised to blog our version of the following. So here's mine:
Can't Get That Tune Out of My Head
This portion of the evening was directed by David Lynch. It was visually very beautiful but in a way that made you feel small and somewhat frightened. The venue was what Lynch would have you think a New York City night spot looks like. A fifty foot ceiling...dimly lit...dark blue lights...pastel colored papier mache cactuses...small tables arranged beautifully throughout the space (made into eyesores by having human beings seated at them) with gorgeous white table cloths too nice to think of anyone using.
The soundtrack was provided by an extremely accomplished pianist falling down an endless flight of stairs with her Steinway grand tumbling behind her.
I ask Dieter if we can have dessert menus. "Dessert menus?" he repeats in a way that would have been perfectly appropriate if what I had asked had been for him to trim my nose hairs. "I'll ask," he said. Though the condescension clearly cost him something, he returned with a reply: "The kitchen is closed." There were people eating dessert next to us. We sat for a while longer but Dieter never returned to ask if we'd like drinks, though there was a ten dollar minimum. That poor pianist was still tumbling down that faux marble staircase. It was a fitting soundtrack to this trivially kafkaeque affair.
We finally creeped out of the joint like giggling bandits, each of us aware that we had done something wrong and were lucky to have gotten out of that place without incident. But no one was at all certain what really had happened. So we all agreed to blog it and compare our respective versions.
Moral of the story: I don't know. You tell me. We had a blast, though. But you probably want to see some pictures:
In the lobby just after making our escape from Dieter and the tumbling pianist. From left to right: Michael Totten, Mary Madigan, Judith Weiss, Cara, Eric Deamer, Eric's girlfriend, Kim (I'm so sorry I only got the back of your head! I'm a bad man.)
Our Cambodian dinner:
UPDATE: Here is Mary's account of the evening. And Michael's. And Judith's.
Posted by Jeremy at 02:11 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
January 16, 2005
The Pessimist
by JeremyUs: Don't worry dog, they're coming back.
Dog: Now how do you know? How do you know?
Posted by Jeremy at 08:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 15, 2005
An Adventure
by JeremyWe are off on an impetuous adventure today to meet some people we're eager to meet. We're usually not so spontaneous and seldom so very social. (It's amazing what a little medication can do for you.) Also our lovely, recently bought Saturn doesn't complain when we ask it to drive to NYC without warning (the way my old Saturn used to. "You want to go where?! Oh, man, you're a caution, you know that?). My new Saturn simply shrugs and says, "Sure. Just check my oil, kemosabe."
I'll report on our travels tomorrow. Until then...I must away.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 14, 2005
Stuff Your Sorries in a Sack, Mister
by JeremySorry
You had to know there was a reasonable explanation for the Prince Harry in a Nazi uniform thing. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical until I heard his side of the story:
"I'd been led to believe by the costumer that I was dressed as one of the Village People, all of whom, as I am given to understand, are avowedly homosexual" the penitent prince explained. "I was not a little proud of myself for proving to the world that I'm not, you know, homophobic. I just dressed how I dressed and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now there's all this."
All better? Me too.
New Food Study
The government released official dietary recommendations Wednesday, revising an eating plan that would make pot-smoking Americans more 'zooted' -- if they only followed it. It turns out that wholesome, low carbohydrate foods such as celery, carrot juice, and rice cakes do more to satisfy munchies while enhancing the euphoria concomitant with the inhalation of Cannabis smoke than do many of the more common snack foods. But what about pizza and chocolate chip cookies? Total buzz kill.
"It's common sense, and I don't know how many more times we have to say it," said Tommy Thompson, U.S. Health and Human Services secretary. The recommendations are a product of HHS and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
A series of ads will launch in early Spring to advance the notion that Marijuana and junk food are no substitute for Marijuana alone, explains undersecretary of Hemp, Ellen Feiss, who recently put together a white paper on the subject. It was a really good paper but then her computer devoured it and suddenly half of it was gone. So then she had to write it again only it wasn't as good.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:05 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 13, 2005
The Dangers of Organizing
by JeremyAt a time when this is being reported...
There are mysterious knocks on his door at night. His friends ask him not to visit. He declines to allow even his first name to be published.This shadowy figure, a young Sunni Muslim from Baghdad, is neither spy nor criminal. He is an election worker helping Iraq prepare for its historic national poll, scheduled for the end of the month.
[...]
Things are so bad that one of the officials from the Independent Electoral Commission, Adil al-Lami, compared the workers to a clandestine political movement. "They function like an underground," he said in an interview.
This particular worker says he does it to serve his country. "There are a lot of people around the world who also would fight for what I do," he said after finishing his day recently at the election commission. "I believe in democracy."
...it's an eerie kind of synchronicity to see this being reported:
Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon set a March 28 trial date for Edgar Ray Killen, arrested in one of the most notorious crimes of the civil rights era.[...]
James Chaney, a 21-year-old black Mississippian, and two white New Yorkers, Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24, were ambushed, beaten and shot. They were helping blacks register to vote during the Freedom Summer of 1964.
I'm not the only nut who notices the resemblance, though it's an an unpopular thing to notice. This Washington Times Op-Ed piece hits the nail on the head:
It's tragic that so many people at the NYT (which did an admirable job of chronicling Washington's battle with the Klan in the 1960s) today seem blind to the similarities between the Klansmen and the jihadists.
Posted by Jeremy at 03:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Cakewalker Returns
by JeremyI've been worried about the loping swaggerer. He's a dyed-in-the-wool hipster I often see walking along a dangerous bend in the road here in Holyoke. The first few times I encountered him, doing his drug-induced (or medication-deprived?) cakewalk, one hand in the pocket of his blue jeans, the other swinging in front of him then off to the side of him, sent into that graceful orbit by the wild (but slow) alternation of one leg loping and arcing, instep first, out in front of the other, his whole body led by the swinging of his hips, as we were taught to do in T'ai Chi -- it always looked like he was one arm or leg swing away from launching himself into some kind of low orbit -- I worried that someone careening around that corner, looking the other way toward oncoming traffic, would accidentally take the guy out.
And then I hadn't seen him for a few weeks. But today he was back.
Only, no cakewalk. He was strolling square-shouldered and straight-armed like the rest of us do. He was no longer in danger of defying gravity (the weakest of the known forces in the universe) or hurling himself back through a time vortex into the 1970's. And the expression on his face, now visible because that thick purple haze he used to be shrouded in is gone, shows a man who is strong but tired. I think he's either off something or back on something now. Or maybe it's just a Winter thing.
Anyway, I'm glad the guy's not dead.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It Would Be Funny If it Were an 'Upper Class Twit' Sketch
by JeremyNorm: "Maybe it's just that Terry Jones is a comedian."
As Glenn Reynolds would say: heh.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 11, 2005
Why We Get All Uptight About Forged Documents
by JeremyDan Rather and Mary Mapes seem to think that CBS is being made to suffer because a few people, who are probably being paid by the Bush Administration (disclosure: I am paid handsomely by the Bush Administration under their Former Armchair Socialist Vegetarian Propaganda Department to maintain this blog, providing it is viewed daily by at least 23 confirmed semi-vegetarian former-quasi-socialists and approximately 14 small 'l' libertarians who talked a lot about Ayn Rand in college and haven't renounced her explicitly but find themselves not enthusing about her much anymore) cling to a chauvinistic predilection for news stories that are based on 'genuine' documents and 'actual' interviews, or whatever it is.
Well my bad, as they say, and mea culpa.
Here is Powerline on the extent of Mary Mapes' respect for journalistic ethics:
Finally, on August 31, only eight days before the 60 Minutes show aired, at a time when Smith and Mapes were desperately trying to persuade Bill Burkett to give them the anti-Bush documents that they had heard he possessed, Smith sent an email to Mapes proposing that they set up a book deal for Burkett so that he could be paid in exchange for turning over the documents:Today I am going to send the following hypothetical scenario to a reliable, trustable editor friend of mine...
What if there was a person who might have some information that could possibly change the momentum of an election but we needed to get an ASAP book deal to help get us the information? What kinds of turnaround payment schedules are possible, keeping in mind that the book probably could not make it out until after the election.
Mapes replied: "that looks good, hypothetically speaking, of course."It's also worth noting that both Mapes and Dan Rather continue to defend the 60 Minutes report, and to claim that the documents are authentic. Rather says he believes in the documents because "the facts are right on the money." Given what we now know, this statement is delusional.
Here is another hypothetical scenario:
Fictional Dan Rather: I have just uncovered the remains of Adolph Hitler under the couch in my living room.
Befuddled Viewer: No you haven't. You couldn't have.
Fictional Dan Rather: Are you denying the holocaust? Are you saying Hitler wasn't guilty of crimes against humanity? Who put you up to this?
Befuddled Viewer: That's your cat.
Fictional Dan Rather: But Hitler really is dead, you can't deny that. I therefore stand behind the story.
Do you see how it's better to have a story based on information that isn't made up?
Here's Jay Rosen:
Personally, I hope that broken contraption "trust us, we're CBS," forces the network into the clear skies of a new idea: We used to do our reporting in a way that required the public to trust us, the professional journalists. It worked for a while, but times and platforms change. Now we have to do our reporting in a way that persuades the public to trust us.
And Jay gets specific:
A simple example of a different approach: Sixty Minutes publishes on the Internet (as transcript and video) the full interviews from which each segment that airs is made. All interviews, every frame. Even the interviews that were not used. Producers and correspondents would instantly become more accountable for these interviews and the selections made from them. And in my view that would strengthen the journalism, make for better work; it would also be a revolution in accountability. CBS would be creating more value by publishing more source material, although it would also be more open to criticism and scrutiny.
This sort of thing would apparently make some journalists and the companies they work for feel like they've been caught in the kitchen with the lights suddenly on, which is a sign that something is amiss:
I am currently about halfway into Bernie Goldberg's book Arrogance. Goldberg tells a story that is relevant to Jay Rosen's suggestion. A CEO who was the subject of a hostile 20/20 interview recorded the interview himself. Goldberg reports that the CEO, "fearing his comments might be taken out of context and that the interview might be edited to make him look bad, took the unedited transcript and video of the entire interview . . . and put it out on the World Wide Web."ABC's reaction? They were not happy. Were they worried about their copyright? Nah. They were worried about their loss of control over what went the public got to hear. As an ABC Vice-President told the New York Times: "We don't want other people attempting to get into and shift the journalism process."
And another former ABC News Vice President, now a professor at the Columbia Journalism School, called the CEO's action "a not-so-subtle form of intimidation." Got that? In this former network news executive's view, making the entire interview available -- the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth -- that's "intimidation." But editing it so that the CEO looked worse than he would have in an unedited interview -- that's not "intimidation," it's "journalism."
My unprofessional opinion: part of the problem is that there is too much emphasis on unearthing blockbuster stories that no one else has, rather than on covering known stories better, more deeply, and more credibly than anyone else.
Posted by Jeremy at 09:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 10, 2005
Genocide Denial Courtesy of Al Jazeera
by JeremyAn Op-Ed on Al Jazeera's English website explains that the genocidal chemical weapons attacks on Kurdish civilians didn't really happen, and if they did they were done by Iran (hat tip: SIAW). The following paragraph didn't make sense to me until I realized it was meant to be construed as an example of the kind of self-evidently scurrilous lies we American imperialists concoct out of thin air:
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW) "at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 people, many of them women and children, were killed out of hand between February and September 1988, the victims being Iraqi Kurds systematically put to death in large numbers on the orders of the central government in Baghdad".
The author's response? In part, it's this:
While the War College report acknowledges that Iraq used mustard gas during the Halabja hostilities, it notes that mustard gas is an incapacitating, rather than a killing agent, with a fatality rate of only 2%, so that it could not have killed the hundreds of known dead, much less the thousands of dead claimed by Human Rights Watch.
That bit sounds familiar, doesn't it? I'm thinking in particular of Pat Buchanan, though there are many (far too many) similar examples I could dredge up. I'll refresh your memory regarding Buchanan:
Pat Buchanan has vocally defended the innocence of some people accused of having been Nazi war criminals, most famously Ivan Demjanjuk. In a March 17, 1990 column defending Demjanjuk, he claimed that the diesel engines used to suffocate inmates at Treblinka could "not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody."
The Al Jazeera piece cites another claim:
There are other champions of the genocide claim. One is Jeffrey Goldberg, whose 18,000-word story, The Great Terror, in the 25 March 2002 issue of The New Yorker forms the basis of the US Department of State's website on alleged Iraqi genocide.Goldberg's story is long on lurid details; we are told, for instance, that one woman, Hamida Mahmoud, died while nursing her two-year-old daughter. Goldberg also follows the Human Rights Watch formula in invoking the Nazis: "Saddam Hussein's attacks on his own citizens mark the only time since the Holocaust that poison gas has been used to exterminate women and children."
And the author's take-down of that one? I find this part to be the most compelling:
What Goldberg did not tell his readers about is that he has dual Israeli/American citizenship and served in the Israeli defence forces a few years back.
You get the general idea. But what is the point of denying Iraqi involvement in the gassing of the Kurds (if there was a gassing which no one is saying there was a gassing)? The author of the piece, Mohammed al-Obaidi, is a representative of the People's Struggle Movement (Al-Kifah al-Shabi), an Iraqi party that is boycotting the January 30th election, claiming it is just sham meant to lend validity to the unholy alliance between Iraq and the evil American Empire. Therefore it's important to disabuse Iraqis of the most resilient motivation they have to want to cooperate with the Coalition toward making the election happen, namely the bitter memory of what the alternative was.
If the U.S. leaves Iraq in the lurch the resulting vacuum would quickly be filled either by Islamists or by Baathists. Let's say the Baathists regain control. What would that mean to unarmed Shia and Kurds? Not much, al-Obaidi is in effect saying, nothing to worry about. Better that than the having those filthy Americans patrolling your streets. History, because it tells a disturbingly different story, is threatening to this point of view.
Here is al-Obaidi, in a different opinion piece, explaining the trouble that will result from an election:
The planned election will change the political composition of Iraq to suit the interests of the occupation authorities. The change will also lead to ethnic, sectarian and religious divisions that the Iraqi state and people had succeeded to avoid.
Take another look at that last sentence. How, again, was the Iraqi state 'and people' able to avoid these divisions? (Did the trains even run on time under Saddam?)
I hope to hell that Iraqis are not buying this kind of crap. For that matter it would be nice if Western Leftists could see through this bullshit, though I honestly don't much care about that anymore.
Here are some thoughts from a piece in a Kurdish news site on the subject of Halabja/Anfal denial:
In the last sixty years we have seen many efforts by politicians, scientists, historians and other ?Hitler partisans? to deny the Holocaust. Despite the overwhelming evidences on the Nazi?s attempt to annihilate the Jews throughout Europe, and the revealed concentration camps in Germany, those Holocaust deniers have not hesitated to continue their attempts of fact distortion. Now in the case of Halabja and Anfal?s denial by ?Saddam partisans? one should not be very surprised by such attempts. One needs not look and search hard to find that almost all of those Holocaust deniers in the past and present have at least one thing in common, they almost all are racists, fascists or chauvinists[...]
Having learnt about the Holocaust and all those attempts to deny its existence I was not very surprised by Mohammed al-Obaidi?s article published in Aljazeera?s website on Tuesday 28/12/2004. The writer has questioned the scale of Halabja gassing and number of the victims and puts the culpability of that ?minor? crime on the Iranian.
[...]
Is it possible at all for politicians like Mr al-Obaidi to rebuild the ?Arabic Iraq? on the same terms that brought the Anfal and Halabja about?
I'm not sure I'm parsing the intended sense of that last paragraph correctly, but it seems to characterize the objective intent of al-Obaidi's views on the January 30th elections, namely that a return to the glorious days of unity and 'peace' in Iraq would be a good thing. I'm optimistic that Iraq will be unified, at the very least, in voting NO to this plan.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Idiotic Tsunami Reactions and the Right/Left Conspiracy
by JeremyAnd Reaction is the right word. I'll divide this post inot two sections.
Idiot on the Right: Michael Savage (via Glenn, Michael, etc.)
"I wouldn't call it a tragedy. ... We shouldn't be spending a nickel on this."[...]
"This is more a UNICEF deal, it's a U.N. deal, it's a Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, George Soros, Bill Clinton bleeding-heart-liberal deal. I don't want to send them any money. . . Many of the countries and the areas in these countries that were hit . . .were hotbeds of radical Islam. Why should we be helping them destroy us? . . . I truthfully don't believe in foreign aid."
Idiot on the Left: John Pilger
While the sea may have killed tens of thousands, western policies kill millions every year. Yet even amid disaster, a new politics of community and morality is emerging.The west's crusaders, the United States and Britain, are giving less to help the tsunami victims than the cost of a Stealth bomber or a week's bloody occupation of Iraq. The bill for George Bush's coming inauguration party would rebuild much of the coastline of Sri Lanka.
Pilger details some of the terrible activities and regimes the UK and U.S. have supported over the years, though he neglects to mention U.S. aid to Saddam Hussein lest it be too suggestive of the fact that it's a very good thing that bastard is now gone (because one or two readers might ask themselves how he got that way).
It's a bit tiresome to have to continue to separate Left from Right when it is so often unclear why the differences matter. Along those lines, here is something by Nick Cohen (via Norm):
Hadi Salih, international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, was tied and blindfolded and tortured by Baathist 'insurgents' loyal to Saddam Hussein before being forced to kneel, strangled by electric cord and shot.I shouldn't be shocked that there hasn't been a squeak of protest from the anti-war movement at the killing of a brave socialist, but I am. Two years ago I believed that after the war people who opposed it for good reasons would vow to pursue Blair and Bush [-] for what they had done [-] to their graves, but have the intellectual honesty to accept that Saddam's regime was fascist in theory and in practice and the good nature to offer fraternal support [to] Iraqi socialists, democrats and liberals in their deadly struggle.
More fool me. The Stop the War Coalition, which organised one million people to march through the streets of London, told the kidnappers and torturers from the Baath Party and al-Qaeda that the anti-war movement 'recognises once more the legitimacy of the struggle of Iraqis, by whatever means they find necessary'. Its leading figures purport to be on the left, but have cheered on the far-right and betrayed their comrades by denouncing Iraqi trade unionists as 'Quislings' and 'collaborators'.
[...]
Times when old certainties fall apart are unsettling. They force people to decide what they believe in: Do you want priests to be able to control 'their' people? Are you for fascism? If you answer 'no' to both questions, you will undoubtedly find when the battle is joined that you will have to spend as much time fighting the left as the right.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 09, 2005
Heh. Woof! - Woof!- Woof!
by JeremyThis old guy was waiting outside at a party I attended some time ago. I don't remember his name, but he was suffering from a bit of canine dementia. His thing was he'd look at you with that mildly drunken look you see pictured below, as if he is saying "heh." Except he would be saying it at the top of his lungs. His bark was not only the loudest and deepest I've ever heard but he'd broadcast it at full volume while standing twelve inches away from you. Your heart jumps out of your chest. However much you may love dogs you cannot stop your autonomic nervous system from pulling all five alarms. He barks like he's at a Who concert and he doesn't stop. Woof!- Woof! - Woof! - Woof!- Woof! - Woof! - Woof!- Woof! - Woof! - Woof!- Woof! - Woof! - Woof!- Woof! - Woof! - Woof!- Woof! - Woof! - Woof!- Woof! - Woof! - Woof!- Woof! - Woof! - Woof!- Woof! - Woof! - Woof!- Woof! - Woof! -...you get the idea. Eventually he hears his master calling his name at the top of his lungs and does a slow double-take before giving that "heh" look and sitting back down again.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 07, 2005
Fundamentalism's Purges
by JeremyThere has been a great deal of attention paid to the second American Revolution (the Christian Fundamentalist one that happened on November 2nd, 2004). People have pointed out that, having surpassed the mere crimes of the McCarthy era, we are now headed into an unprecedented abyss of anti-intellectual repression that would make guys like Pol Pot extremely jealous.
One need only take a look at the American film industry to get an idea of the damage Christian Fundamentalism has done to artists even before the Revolution. The following is a list of films that were conspicuously panned 'hated' or otherwise subjected to unfair discrimination by Christian Zealots:
- Plan Nine from Outer Space (1956)
- Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)
- Battlefield Earth (2000)
- From Justin to Kelly (2003)
- Gigli (2003: A film with a foreign sounding title!)
- You Got Served (2004)
The silencing of each of these films was, in its way, a kind of pogrom against art. But now, I regret to report, the final assault has been made. With the theft of this film's rightful place in the pantheon of North American art a fait accomplis, I dare not imagine what the next assault may be. Let it not be forgotten that there was once a time when Americans lived free. Please: tell the world our story!
Posted by Jeremy at 11:23 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
January 06, 2005
Certainly Appealing
by JeremyTEHRAN (AFP) - Deputies in Iran's conservative-run parliament have begun preparing designs for what will be a new national costume aimed at stemming the encroachment of Western fashion, a top MP said.Emad Afroogh, head of the Majlis cultural commission, said MPs have been "meeting with designers to come up with an interesting variety of affordable, nationally inspired designs that will also respond to modern needs."
He said the commission hoped to eventually incorporate the designs into a new bill offering guidelines on dress that "redefine Iranian identity while respecting religious and cultural red lines."
"People will not be forced to wear these clothes," he asserted, but nevertheless said the new designs "will certainly be appealing."
Posted by Jeremy at 08:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
by JeremyHey kids, it's more Iranian TV. This time it's a bastardization of a Koranic historical tale:
Although the Koranic version contains no mention of Jews and specifically names Roman pagans as the oppressors, the Iranian series shows "stereotypically evil-looking Jews wearing prayer shawls who notice the crucifixions and bribe the Roman officer to permit them to stone the Christians," reports PMW [Palestinian Media Watch].[...]
Some worry the series may fuel long-standing fears within the Iranian Jewish community that the Iranian regime will make its 23,000-strong Jewish population a scapegoat if the U.S. or Israel increases pressure against the mullahs in response to their suspected nuclear program, recalling the 1999 arrest of 13 Iranian Jews charged with "spying" for Israel.
Some observers have quietly commented the Iranians may try to use pressure tactics against its Jewish community to ward a pre-emptive Israeli or U.S. strike to destroy any illicit nuclear weapons facilities.
"If a foreign state attacks Iranian nuclear reactors or any other government controlled building, it would create a hostile environment for Iranian Jews," Pooya Dayanim, president of the Iranian Jewish Public Affairs Committee, told WorldNetDaily. "They have been singled out routinely as 'Zionist agents,' so there may be mistreatment."
[...]
In April 1999, Iran arrested 13 Jews it accused of spying for the "Zionist regime" and "world arrogance" ? Iranian code words for Israel. Those arrested included a rabbi, community leaders and a 16-year-old boy. The U.S., Israel and many European countries called on Iran to immediately release the prisoners and were highly critical of the case, calling it institutionalized anti-Semitism.
"Institutionalized anti-semitism" is the key phrase there. The offensive images are merely the 'tell.'
Posted by Jeremy at 07:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 05, 2005
Tsunami for Oil: At Least it Wasn't Our Fault
by JeremyI say that as an American. But if you're Australian you'll be sorry to hear that your tax dollars may have contributed toward the earthquake and tsunami in South Asia:
Now I don?t claim to be an expert on seismic activity, but there has been a series of events which led up to the 9.0 earthquake of the coast of Indonesia which can not be ignored.[...]
...Bob Brown, a senator in the Australian parliament, said "sound bombing" or seismic tests of ocean floors to test for oil and gas had been carried out near the sites of the Tasmanian beachings recently.
This article, though the author diplomatically refrains from naming names, questions authority even more courageously:
Was this an earthquake creation experiment that ran out of control? Many countries are working on methods of creating massive earthquakes as means to defeat the enemy. The technologically advanced countries are working on this project.[...]
Was this a show down by a country to show the region what havoc can be created?
The best commentary on this story was a response I read in the context of a newsgroup discussion. It ran precisely thus:
> Apparently the Australians were engaging in heavy under-sea blasting 500 > miles from the epicentre of the earthquake, looking for oil, thus triggering > the quake, but do not want this widely known.> Can anyone comment on this?
Yes - Fuck off
So why did I even post on this crap? I needed to get it off my chest. I hope you can understand.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:21 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Pre Election Polling
by JeremyI'll be submitting mine, Norm, so don't write me off.
But I'm having trouble. It's turning into an ugly exercise in fighting Beatles off with a stick. I have to let a few worthy others into the limelight. It would seem wrong for this to turn into the "Greatest Beatles and Dylan Songs" though that would be a far lesser evil than some of the lists I'm sure Norm is going to be getting from people who will pretend, out of sheer spite, that their favorite songs by people like Iggy Pop or Prince or Anonymous deserve to be anywhere near a list of the greatest rock or pop songs of all time.
I don't mean to pass judgement on other people's tastes, but we're talking about the "greatest", not "the most deserving of wider appreciation than they currently receive." But Norm seems to have an open mind about this so why am I being such an uptight s.o.b.? I guess it's just that I have today decided to kick "Yesterday" off my list (though I could be talked out of it), so the least you can do, dear urbane straw-man, is to let go of that Lou Reed song you're thinking of including.
Anyway, I'll get mine in soon, even if it's boringly obvious.
Posted by Jeremy at 01:03 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 04, 2005
The Technology That is Shaking Us By the Ankles
by JeremyIt would go without saying that Americans don't think for themselves and can't be bothered much with the whole 'charity' concept. So, barring the unlikely possibility that the deaths of more than 150,000 people are what is making Americans want to give, what in the hell can explain the fact that Americans have privately donated over 163 million dollars? (with no end in sight). If you're thinking it's some kind of mass hypnosis you'd be correct, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
The Internet allows people to react emotionally to the images they are seeing, says Mr. Melio, and it allows them to react to the urgency of the need."I think it speaks to the social acceptance of the Web," he says.
I admit it: I'm probably overreacting. I don't often get annoyed with the Christian Science Monitor (other than over it's offputting name) and the article balances its idiotic theories with some reasonable observations too. It was authored by three people and you can feel the tension of three different points of view all trying to shoulder through a doorway at the same time.
The funniest thing about this article that devotes at least some of its ink to the phenomenon of hi-tech modes of giving, is that it would use this as it's accompanying photograph:
Posted by Jeremy at 11:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Coyotes
by JeremyCara called me over just a minute ago to hear some beautiful coyote howls coming from the woods behind our house. They sounded very happy. It was very inspiring. It's always nice when they stop by the neighborhood.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 03, 2005
The Very Model of a Moderate Major General?
by JeremyI guess disturbing really is the word for the image of Mahmoud Abbas on the shoulders of the leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade:
More pictures here:
With gunmen at Fatah rally:
At Jenin with commander of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Zakaria Zubaidi:
Posted by Jeremy at 03:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
"That dog is my God"
by JeremyA dog named Selvakumar saves the life of his human brother, 7 year old Dinakaran (via Tim Blair):
"That dog grabbed me by the collar of my shirt," the boy said from under some trees at Pondicherry University, where the family waits for relief aid. "He dragged me out."Sangeeta said she wept with joy when she saw her son walking up to her, with Selvakumar by his side.
[...]
"That dog is my God," said Sangeeta ? with Dinakaran sitting on the ground at her feet. Selvakumar slept on the warm asphalt next to him.
Posted by Jeremy at 02:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Buy Fair Trade Sumatran Coffee
by JeremyN.Z. Bear has quickly put two and two together and is urging people to find ways, in addition to donating relief funds, to support the ecnonomies of countries hit by the Tsunami by purchasing goods and/or services from those regions.
Sumatran coffee, if it comes from "fair trade" buying collectives, would seem to be a good way to do this. Mr. Bear has an extensive list of fair trade coffee sellers. (I guess this has been popular in places other than here in earthy-trendy Western Massachusetts). I clicked over to Dean's Beans, a local fair trade coffee company, and I do get the sense that buying fairly traded Sumatran coffee actually means you are supporting Sumatran growers who have been hit by disaster:
Our farmers suffered tremendous property damage in the mountains, many houses collapsed and roads were destroyed. To date, we know of only two deaths when a house collapsed on one family of farmers. The coffee warehouse in Takengon was partially destroyed, but the resourceful farmers turned the rest of the warehouse into shelter for the homeless families. However, we haven't received word of the damage in the outlying communities of the coop, as they are distant, there is no communication and the roads are impassable. We pray that those farmers and their families fared well, but we just don't know yet. The headquarters of and storage facility for our farmers is in Medan, in Aceh province and not far from Banda Aceh. While the damage was less severe in Medan, the road to the port was destroyed, so no coffee can leave (meaning no income for the farmers) and access for aid in that area is limited.
Look at N.Z. Bear's list, do your own research, but find a source for coffee that will help people in need. This is one issue on which Americans from across the political spectrum can agree on something. And feel free to think of yourself too. Each of these places will vary in terms of the quality of their roasting and so you might have to shop around until you find one that's as good as what you drink now. But this is not selfish since the goal is to set yourself up with a supplier you'll want to stick with for the long haul.
I haven't checked any of the other sites -- some advertise donations for each pound bought -- but Dean's Beans in Orange, MA sells Sumatran French Roast for a surprisingly modest $6.75 a pound. If you haven't been buying coffee this way this is sure as hell a good time to start.
Posted by Jeremy at 01:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 02, 2005
The Comments Are Working!
by JeremyFinally, finally I figured out why comments on this blog were so terribly broken! I have fixed the problem. My apologies to recent commenters who may have gotten tangled up in this incredibly annoying problem. Please come back! I've fixed a few other things too.
Now I can rejoin the world and start blogging again.
And re: my other difficulties...those mysterious stomach pills from Bangkok are working amazingly well. I feel much more like a normal person. I am much more able to eat food without feeling later as if I'd poisoned myself. The Zoloft ain't exactly kicked in yet, but the improvement in my digestion has made me a lot less depressed lately. A couple more weeks of the Zoloft might just make up the rest of the difference.
And no, the fact that my new stomach pills were mailed to me from a country that has been suffering an unfathomable human tragedy has not escaped me. It reminds me how small the world is becoming. Those are our neighbors grieving and dying and struggling to survive. I'm going to make a donation now.
Posted by Jeremy at 09:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Subscribe Now!
by JeremyWhether you use it for wrapping things or shooting them in a barrel, you'll want to consider the many benefits of subscribing to the print edition of the Guardian.
Norm delivers a brilliant medley of the lowest moments in his favorite newspaper's recent past. Get yours today!
Posted by Jeremy at 03:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Waiting Greyhound
by Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 02:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
