|
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
What to do when there's not much you can do . . .
I spent most of the afternoon in New Jersey, but I got back in time to contemplate the utter devastation in New Orleans. There's not much I can do except give money, and fortunately, Glenn Reynolds made it easier by providing lots of links to the various charities. I decided to give to Catholic Charities, because I worked with them years ago in San Francisco (at the peak of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s), and they were great. I'm not Catholic, but I was impressed because they didn't proselytize, and they didn't judge anyone. On top of that, they didn't have the lavish offices and big salaries which some of the other, more media-savvy charities have. New Orleans is a heavily Catholic city, so I figured my money would go farther if I gave through Catholic Charities. Not that I'm trying to convince anyone to use Catholic Charities, mind you. Just GIVE.
posted by Eric at 11:58 PM | Comments (11)
| TrackBacks (0)
Taking demonization seriously
I'm taking a bit of time not thinking about the Hurricane to address this delinking campaign against Glenn Reynolds. While I hate having to take something like this seriously (especially at such a time), I can't ignore it -- especially because one of my posts might have helped start the fire. It's tough to know just how to analyze something like this, so I'll start by being as serious as I can under ths circumstances. Glenn Reynolds dared to voice a couple of slightly sympathetic sentiments about the ACLU (even though he also criticized them). And he dared to actually side with them about the criminalization of glow sticks, and even had the gall to assist with a brief defending electronic music alleged to be drug related! For these offenses, he's being subjected to a delinking campaign. For daring to deviate however slightly from someone's agenda. I'm sorry but this is so silly it sounds like he's being... SHUNNED! For failure to demonize -- a crime almost as bad as not buying a particular brand of politically correct, shade-grown coffee. Or even wearing a politically incorrect T-shirt! The man behind the delinking campaign appears to be Jay Stephenson -- the primary author of the blog Stop the ACLU: Glenn sends his readers here telling them we are delinking because he said that “demonizing the ACLU is silly.” We don’t think it is silly at all. And Glenn is entitled to his opinion. We just no longer wish to link to someone that supports an anti-American organization.Wait. They don't think demonizing the ACLU is silly? So, that means demonizing the ACLU is serious? Is that all this is about? Glenn thought demonizing the ACLU was silly and Stephenson (or whoever's behind him) didn't? And what's with the anti-American business? I mean, if the ACLU is anti-American, and if Glenn Reynolds said he's willing to work with them, why, that must mean Glenn Reynolds is anti-American, right? That's almost as bad as calling me a liberal! Or a conservative! Or accusing Glenn Reynolds of being behind the "RADICAL RIGHT-WING AGENDA." (No really; check it out.) Not long ago, Eugene Volokh reviewed a letter he received from these same people, which he demonstrated to be misleading. His conclusion: ...stop calling them "criminal" for exercising their constitutional rights. Stop calling their lawsuits "frivolous" when the lawsuits bother you precisely because they may well prevail. Stop calling them "pro-terrorist" when there's absolutely no reason to think that they indeed favor terrorism, and lots of reason to think that they favor (whether soundly or misguidedly) legal rules -- such as limits on government power to search -- that unfortunately sometimes protect terrorists while at the same time protecting law-abiding citizens. (It's far from clear to me that random searches are going to do much good at stopping suicide bombers, or that bans on random searches will help terrorists; but I acknowledge that some constitutional rules that the ACLU defends do at times protect terrorists as well as protecting law-abiding citizens.)(More on this outfit at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.) Let me admit my biases here. I don't trust the ACLU, but even less do I trust the people who'd like to knock the ACLU out so they can crackdown on sexual freedom. That's a primary, stated goal of Alan Sears and the Alliance Defense Fund -- principal leaders of this charge. I worry about the Second Amendment freedoms as much as my First Amendment freedoms, and my biggest single problem with the ACLU is their near total lack of support for gun owners' rights. (I'm also very worried about what seems excessive support for dangerous terrorists.) Nevertheless if Glenn (or someone like him) gets gun lovers and libertarians to infiltrate the ACLU and turn the place around, I think that would that be a good thing. For the country and for our freedom. Not these delinking guys. They are unable to tolerate the slightest deviation from their singleminded campaign against the ACLU. They promise links and more to all who delink the evil Glenn Reynolds: If you agree, and delink Glenn let us know and we will add you to the list. If you have never linked to Glenn for whatever reason, we will add you to the list as well. If you have a post about this, send us a trackback and it will appear as a link below. If it gets big enough I’ll start a blogroll.(Whoa, delink Glenn and we might give you a little traffic! Such a deal for the newer bloggers. Take on the Big Bad InstaPundit and get a leg up on the sphere! Show off your supreme, posturing, coolness!) I don't mean to suggest that all the delinking blogs are small blogs; one of them, Junkyard Blog once threatened Glenn with confiscation of his LEGOs. But I suspect this delinking has an strong appeal to bloggers who think they deserve more attention. I can't help noticing that links to Alan Sears' book and his organization are prominently displayed by both Stop the ACLU.org (the parent site) and Stop the ACLU.com (the blog). Because I devoted most of a long post to Sears, and because the post was linked by Glenn not long before the delinking began, it has crossed my mind that the people supporting the book might have seen my post. And not liked it. Let me say right now that if anything I said in any way entered into their delinking thinking, I humbly offer my blog Classical Values to be officially delinked instead! (Yes, I'm willing to be the sacrificial lamb....) All those who delinked Glenn can blogroll him again, and then link me in order to delink me! (Don't laugh; it's happened before!) But who, I must ask, are these people? There's a site (described as the parent organization) called Stop The ACLU.org, which features a link to Alan Sears' book's web site with a picture of the book prominently displayed, and both that site and the Stop the ACLU.com blog link Sears's organization, the Alliance Defense Fund, prominently. The parent organization's director, Nedd Kareiva, is a member of the Constitution Party who has devoted himself singlemindedly to stopping the ACLU: The Stop the ACLU Coalition has one goal: to end the ACLU's tangible existence. We will achieve this by every lawful means possible, including but not limited to:I think number 6 might be code language referring to the Constitution Restoration Act, especially considering Stop the ACLU Coalition Director Nedd Kareiva's remarks in a letter to supporters: To do so, visit the home page www.stoptheaclu.org and scroll about a fifth of the way down to where the image of the 10 Commandments is in the left margin. Follow the instructions on the page and ask your Congressmen to support Congressman John Hostettler's bills HR 2679 & HR 1100.This is misleading, as there's no right not to be offended, and it isn't a sound basis for a lawsuit. But the Constitution Restoration Act (of which I'm not much of a fan) would do far more that protect from lawsuits against "being offended." Speaking of being offended, in the Stop the ACLU newsletter, Director Kareiva seems pretty offended by the sex life of the ACLU's director: ....the ACLU's Anthony Romero, an avowed and practicing homosexual, as its director for the past 4 yearsWhat's with "avowed" and "practicing"? When was the last time anyone "avowed" or "practiced" heterosexuality? I mean, what's to practice? If you're into something, you're into it. You don't need to "avow" it either. The words seem calculated for effect. For whose and how, I don't know. Jay Stephenson (blogmaster and post writer at Stop the ACLU.com), also promotes his blog in his capacity as a FreePer named "Jay777." In one robust thread of his, he attacks the ACLU for supporting gay inmates who'd complained of being abused in prison, and he posted the original story: LOS ANGELES The Los Angeles sheriff's department is investigating claims by the American Civil Liberties Union that gay inmates have been mistreated at a county jail.Following that, he plugs his blog (complete with the logo), as well as Alan Sears' Alliance Defense Fund. In the comment thread which followed, Jay is slick enough not to specifically endorse the abuse of gay prisoners, but nonetheless attacks the ACLU for daring to defend them: To: Jay777 Needless to say, the gay prisoners are relentlessly ridiculed. Some of the juicier comments: I condone bad things that happen to bad people, and good things that happen to good folks. Details don't concern me in the least. OH the horror, don't these guys stand around naked in bath houses or rest stops? What's the difference? ACLU disgusts me, if these were just regular white guys no mention of this would be made. Damn the ACLU to hell!There's more of that stuff, if you like it. I suspect without supporters like these, Jay777 wouldn't be getting as much attention. Frankly, I'd be honored to be delinked by him. But it's an honor I'll never get, because I don't think he's ever going to link me. As to Glenn, there's that old saying that a man is judged by his enemies. . . Were I he, I'd consider it an honor. As to actual demonization, I was quite taken by comment Jay Stephenson left at Rapture Ready: ....I see prophecy unfold daily. We fight evil in our own ways. My focus is on the ACLU.The Headquarters of the anti-Christ spirit in America? And to think that Glenn said demonization was silly! There's nothing silly about this, because if the ACLU is the anti-Christ HQ, and Glenn Reynolds is an avowed, practicing minion of the ACLU, how far up the chain of beasts might this go? Could it be, Glenn Reynolds, Anti-Christ? In the past, I've carefully considered his status as an apocalyptic advocate of one party rule, but this? I mean, this is the real thing! It's, like, totally APOCALYPTIC! Who said demonization was silly?
Let me stress an important point I don't think should be missed -- and that is the manifest unfairness of spinning Glenn Reynolds as some sort of pro-ACLU hack. Far from it! Here are some examples of remarks which I'd venture would be enough to get Glenn placed on some sort of ACLU "enemies list" (if such a thing exists): Hey wait a minute! What kind of person would crack jokes about a serious thing like burning ACLU membership cards, anyway? (Did we really need more evidence of Reynolds' close ties to the RADICAL RIGHT-WING AGENDA?)
The above list is not intended to be exhaustive; they're just what I could find easily, and no doubt a left wing dirt digger could come up with more. But (as if the genocidal T shirt wasn't enough) haven't I just proved to the world the true reality of Glenn Reynolds? Why is he allowed to masquerade as a liberal when the record shows he is little more than a bigot and a cracker? What we ought to be asking is whether it's time for a left-wing delinking campaign. UPDATE: Eugene Volokh weighs in (in his customary fearless and articulate manner): Given {the delinking campaign against Glenn Reynolds], I think that people ought to know that (1) I am working with the ACLU now on a free speech case in Michigan, (2) I've worked with them on opposing the anti-flagburning amendment and the victims' rights amendment, (3) I have defended them from what struck me as unwarranted attacks here, here, and (4) I have praised their positions here, here, and, I'm sure, elsewhere as well.While that might have been phrased in the language of full disclosure, the way things are going in the blogosphere, why, it's tantamount to a full-blown admission of heresy! MORE: And now for a little self disclosure. By way of explanation (if not apology), I must state for the record that I'm just not in the mood for PhotoShopping more law professors into Anti-Christs. (Or Communists.) AND MORE: A lingering, disturbing question in my mind is more along the lines of psychology than the merits of either the ACLU or the propriety of a delinking campaign. And that is: why now? The nation is in the middle of the worst horror since September 11, 2001. Might something about this horror have sparked a conflict between the rightist and libertarian elements of the blogosphere? Or is it a coincidence? posted by Eric at 11:30 PM | Comments (8)
| TrackBacks (2)
I'm not an atheist, but I can't see this as an act of God
Paul at Wizbang reports that there are an estimated 100,000 people trapped in New Orleans (which is of course in imminent danger of destruction by flooding). "Biblical," opines Paul. The 100,000 figure is confirmed here as well as in the Shreveport Times. Ominously, I just heard on the radio that "the body count is alleged to be in the thousands," and that "the news media are asleep." (I hope this is not true, but what do I know?) What else is there to do than hope and pray? Again send money is the only thing I can think of. UPDATE (08/31/05 -- 2:20 pm): Via Fox News, I just saw a report that the Mayor of New Orleans now says New Orleans casualties may number "in the hundreds, if not thousands." MORE: As of 2:53 pm, the Mayor's statement is now reported as "probably thousands dead." MORE (03:19 p.m.): Right now I am watching (on Fox News) the sad spectacle of people pouring onto freeways from flooded housing projects with nowhere to go (there's no place for them), without food or water, or protection from the sun in 90 degree heat, with police cars driving by saying nothing. (They tried to stop a police car with a human chain to no avail, and I just saw an officer ignore repeated pleading questions from reporter Fox's Shepherd Smith. It's disturbing to say the least.) It makes me very angry that they can't even drop some food and water from a helicopter to these people. I now see a military truck coming through with water. People are simply helping each other ("thousands of people coming for two days" as Smith said). Smith keeps asking what's happening, but he's not getting answers. Says Smith: "Someone needs to come to Interstate 10, Exit 235, the Orleans exit! There are thousands of people here!" I hope bureaucracy isn't standing in the way of common sense, and I'm glad it's on national TV. MORE: I have no training in engineering, but I don't understand why dropping sand bags would fix the breached levee on Lake Pontchartrain. Earlier someone or another mentioned barges. The break is three blocks long, and I think they'd need to float in a series of barges to whatever length is needed, tie them together with cables, then cement them together to make a patch. I note that Lake Pontchartrain is only 12-14 feet deep, so the barges could simply be sunk into place once they're secured together, and if need be, a second "layer" floated in and sunk on top. (Tie them together, punch holes in them, sink them, and fill them in.) I think any kid who'd played with a LEGO set would understand. But what do I know? UPDATE: I got Paul's name wrong and I now see that I also misread his use of the term "Biblical": There'll be plenty of time to show off your 20/20 hindsight next week. For now, accept this for what it is... a natural disaster of biblical proportions.My apologies. Paul (who lives in the area) also has some solid advice on what to do: If you want to do something, quit yer whining and do what blogs and bloggers do best... Use information to change the world.It's tough to talk about stuff you care about and know nothing about except what you hear on TV and radio, and read in the blogosphere. It's the same reason I try not to do too much war blogging. The thing is, if you say nothing, people assume you don't care. But if you say something, people will say you don't know! posted by Eric at 11:22 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0)
Brewing an Inciteful Carnival
I'm a little embarrassed. That's because John Beck (who's hosting this week's Carnival of the Vanities at his super blog Incite) ranked my post way too highly -- giving me second billing only to Laurence Simon's Carnival of the Cats! (This week's Carnival of the Cats is hosted by the charmingly named Annoying Little Twerp -- The Annoying Little Psycho Girl Next Door. I note that her picture looks disturbingly like Coco's boyfriend Tristan.) Here's the justification John gave for assigning me such an undeservedly high ranking: ...unlike any other blogger featured here today, I know for a fact that Eric has good taste in German Brewhauses. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is an ideal criterion by which to judge a blogger.I'm flattered by the honor, but I think it's fair to point out that John also has equally good taste in German Brews. And good taste in Carnivals! After seeming to regret that the Carnival contains "fewer than 50 posts," he methodically, humorously goes through 48 -- without so much as a burp! (Which is fewer than the number of German brews he went through the other night, so I think John could have handled more!) Anyway, I don't have the responsibility to review all 48, but the following stood out as particularly flavorful: I realize that tastes in blog posts, like tastes in brews, will vary according to the individual drinker/reader, and so I seriously suggest you go directly to Incite, and drink to your heart's content! posted by Eric at 08:01 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
Opportunistic homeland insecurity
In an Editor & Pubisher article titled "Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?" a series of Times Picayune editorials are cited for the proposition that the devastation caused by the Hurricane should be blamed on ("Bush's") war in Iraq: after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.I think we can expect more along the lines of "we can no longer afford the adventure in Iraq when our country is falling apart here!" It's a golden opportunity. For political opportunists. posted by Eric at 06:26 AM
| TrackBacks (0) Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Fever Dreams
When I was twelve, I had a fever dream. I saw a few things that couldn’t be real, and they frightened me. Some background may be in order. What nobody knew when I first felt ill was that I was suffering from an infection of the meninges, the membranes that wrap around the brain and spinal cord. Meningitis...it’s not necessarily a death sentence, but for a while there it was definitely touch and go. It happened much like this. I had gone home from school one Thursday afternoon with the worst headache of my life. Going straight to bed seemed like just the ticket. Aspirin proved totally useless, as did hot water bottles. All I could do was lie in bed and moan. Friday morning, I felt no better. I pled illness to my parents and was allowed to stay home for the day. Unbeknownst to my parents, my mild 99 degree fever would eventually burgeon and grow strong, achieving a respectable 104 plus. Time passed. Now, when your brain commences toasting itself, many interesting symptoms can manifest. For me, they would eventually include severe disorientation, vivid hallucinations, uncontrollable mood swings (mostly between despair and terror), intermittent memory loss, and of course, unconsciousness. It was my great good fortune that the infection was bacterial, not viral, and that it was caught in time. After a diagnostic spinal tap, a course of intravenous antibiotics was promptly administered, and it worked beautifully. Within a couple of (for me, quite long) days, I was my old self again. Sort of. The kindly doctors had saved my life. Naturally, I was weak as a kitten. I missed a couple of weeks of school and then spent most of spring break flat on my back. Much bed rest was prescribed. Normal life resumed when vacation ended, but I went back to school a different boy. My bout with delirium had left quite an impression on me. I thought about it at great length. One thing about a fever dream is that it’s not like sleeping dreams. In sleeping dreams you often are aware in the back of your mind that you are, in fact, having a dream. Bad, scary things may happen but the logic of dreams is such that you often know there’s no real danger. But a fever dream can crawl right out of your head and into the real world, where it will sit, bold as brass, looking at you. And you needn’t be asleep to have one. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit it, even at this late date, but one of the things I saw was little men. Well, they weren’t exactly men. But they were most certainly little, and they were looking at me. They were sitting on the foot of my hospital bed, looking at me, and they were as real as real can be. But, I get ahead of myself. As I recall, my dad was the one who drove me to the hospital. I remember sprawling bonelessly across the back seat of his sedan, barely able to place one coherent thought on top of another. I remember him picking me up and carrying me into the building. It was the first time that he had lifted me off the ground in several years and I still remember the feel of it. I remember being put down on one of those examining room tables, the kind where a roll of crackly white paper extrudes to cover the table's surface. And then, with the exception of a singular occurrence, which I’ll touch on later, I don’t remember anything at all, for the next thirty odd hours. When I finally came back to reality, it wasn’t all at once. There were a few stutters in the reboot process, leaving gaps in my memory of a few hours each. My first clear memory was past midnight, early Sunday morning. Or was it late Saturday? I wasn’t tracking too well. I had no idea where I was or how I had gotten there. I was alone in a hospital room in the middle of the night, having temporarily misplaced the memories of my arrival. I was also tied to the bedstead, with minimal freedom of movement. All I could do was lie there and wonder what was going on. Though I have no memory of my first day and a half of treatment, I was apparently thrashing about and hollering with a fair degree of vigor. It would seem that I was “fit to be tied”. So that was exactly what they did. Anyway, I was blacked out for most of that time, so I had no recollection of it at all. How had I arrived in this place? Where were my parents? Where was anybody? After what seemed an eternity of miserable introspection, I began to notice something peculiar about my room. The ceiling kept expanding downward toward me. This struck me as bizarre and sinister. Ceilings should not thrust bulging paraboloidal extensions toward the occupants of their rooms. It was a bit like watching a gigantic amoeba. I tried reaching up toward it. I was certain I could have touched it if I hadn’t been tied down. It was that close. Eventually, I noticed that threads of shiny green fiber were floating around in midair. They reminded me of spider silk, or thistledown, drifting here and there in the air currents. These threads slowly and subtly adhered to one another, forming bodies of greater and greater solidity. Eventually I realized that they were fish, silky green fish with ornate diaphanous fins, swimming about in the air above my bed. Now, this troubled me deeply. The bulging ceiling, on the other hand, had ceased to be a problem. Close inspection had shown that it was a gigantic flexible lattice of construction paper, no doubt assembled as a decorative project by the schoolchildren whose treble voices were wafting into my room through the transom window. A window thoughtlessly left wide open, generating a draft, which in turn caused the lattice to undulate... Of course, there was no transom. No breeze, either. No children. No bizarre construction paper project draped overhead. It was all just a little story my brain told itself, trying not to be afraid. I actually find that rather touching, today. In the midst of chaos, tumult, and unreason, there’s a little part of our brains that bravely soldiers on, trying its best to make sense of things. The flying fish however, proved an insuperable challenge for it. Watching the fish, it occurred to me that I was probably hallucinating, which meant that I was probably very sick indeed, perhaps even dying. These thoughts preyed on my mind for quite some time. John M. Ford once observed that there are places where the night goes on forever, and boy was he right. Eventually the morning did come, and with it, a measure of relief. I felt cooler. My head stopped hurting. Time began to flow normally again. In some mysterious, unfathomable way my parents showed up, not just then but also in retrospect (one of them had been close by me or in an adjacent room the entire time). And of course there were doctors, nurses, orderlies, the entire panoply of hospital humanity. Explanations were made and I understood them. I had been very sick, out of my head sick, but I was getting better. I would be okay. This gave me a tremendous sense of relief. I would be okay! However, as if to tweak me for unfounded optimism, my delirium managed to crank out a parting shot, those little not-men I mentioned earlier. They were the final vivid hallucination of my illness, so naturally I remember them best. Thinking that I was on the mend, I found their appearance especially disturbing. They were present in broad daylight, while I was awake. The first one was an animated tiki carving, perhaps a foot and a half tall. It looked like it was made of palm wood, carved and stained red, with some ivory inlay work. And even though it had no real eyes, only carvings, it looked at me. I could feel that it had a mind, that it knew I was there, and it was perching on the end of my bed, staring at me. Again, this was very distressing to me, and on more than one level. First, no one likes to be eyeballed by a monkey-demon, even under the best of circumstances. Second, and more importantly, I had thought that I was getting better. If this was true, then why was I still seeing things that couldn’t possibly be there? These creatures may sound utterly ridiculous as I describe them to you, but the sense of immediacy they projected was undeniable at the time. They looked so solid, so real in every detail. They didn’t seem at all dreamlike. They terrified me. So you can imagine with what a sense of relief I observed the monkey-demon transforming into my blue and white diamond-patterned pajama sleeve. What an idiot I had been. I was staring at my own forearm! I had mistaken my own pajama-sleeved forearm for a Tibetan monkey-demon! And by the way, the creature really did give off a Tibetan vibe. It was unmistakable. Luckily, it wasn’t real. It was just an optical illusion, magnified by my illness. Just a bad dream after all. Here were my good old familiar pajamas, and I could safely go back to sleep, which after some consideration, I proceeded to do. When I awoke again, some hours later, I realized that I wasn’t wearing pajamas and never had been. It was just that good, brave little brain part, still soldiering on. Well done, thou good and faithful cortex. So what did I take away from all this, that hadn’t been there before? First and foremost, it made a skeptic of me regarding the validity of religious revelation. Not too surprising, I suppose, as I was already inclined that way. Though I had been brought up as a Christian, and was a devout believer till I was six or so, I had long since lapsed. Dinosaurs killed my faith. Galileo and Giordano Bruno helped them out a little. My hallucinations were the final coffin nail. I'm not dogmatic about it. Perhaps there really is more to this world than what we perceive. In fact, taking the pedant's perspective, there most certainly is. But the fact that we can't see x-rays or infrared isn't what I'm talking about here. Rather, I'm talking about my distrust of, or disbelief in, what for lack of a better term I'll call the spirit world. My hallucinations helped make a materialist of me. Sometimes, when people of faith have tried to explain their lives and choices to me, they have made an argument from personal experience. They've said they had a feeling. They sensed a presence. No, they didn’t actually hear the words of thunder or see the angel's wings unfolding in molten glory, but they had a very strong impression of presence and communication. Well. They had an impression. It hardly seems fair, does it? The Israelites got Burning Bushes...Parted Seas...Pillars of Fire. When God spoke, he shouted, and there was no room for misunderstanding. As a child, I longed for that kind of certainty. I wanted my own Pillar of Fire. Not the Salt though. Please, not the Salt. In place of that simple certainty, we moderns have had to settle for subtle inner voices, and our faith has evolved from received wisdom about "what everybody knows" into a kind of test of character. How well can we hold on to our faith, in the absence of clear and convincing evidence? Faith, we are now told, is belief without evidence. So we are reduced to grasping after feelings. I'm afraid that's just not enough for me. I mean, I saw flying fish, and it wasn’t on the bloody Road to Mandalay, either. Does anyone believe those fish were really there? I saw little man-things at the foot of my bed, and they looked just as real as my day nurse. Does anyone seriously entertain the notion that those creatures were really there? A week later, I realized I'd seen the tiki thing a year and a half earlier, at Disneyland. I don't know where the hell the monkey-demon came from. If a few mites in the meninges can cause such spectacular apparitions, how then can we be be certain of other, equally improbable perceptions? Do our brains always have to run hot before we generate (tactfully, now) dubious inputs? I'll bet they don't. That singular occurrence I mentioned earlier? I dreamt that I was floating in air, looking down at my own body. This was shortly after my dad brought me into the hospital. So, I guess I’ve had an out of body experience. I'm sorry to report that there was no white light, no tunnel, no welcoming presences. Nor did I feel any great sense of comfort or easeful rest. I was just hanging near the ceiling, looking down at myself. Then I lost myself, and the world, for the next day and a half. Should I trust the evidence of my own senses and believe that my soul temporarily left my body? I think not. When I had recovered a bit in the following days, I recalled that peculiar vision and concluded that it was just a dream, my first major hallucination. A harbinger of the many more to come, most of which, mercifully, I will never recall. Reliable observers have assured me that I was not having a good time. They also inform me that I was intermittently lucid and capable of brief conversations. I don’t remember that at all. But if I accept the disembodied soul hypothesis as real, what then am I to make of the flying fish, the transom, and the little men? Nobody else saw them. This puts me in a peculiar position. I have actually experienced one of the defining, gold-standard mystical experiences, and I just didn't believe it. There's no pleasing some people. My tentative conclusion, then and now, is that we are our brains. When our brains stop working properly, so do we. Pneumococci invaded my brain-lining and the world went crazy. Reality went away, then came back twisted. In the following years, I've seen nothing that changes my mind about that. We are our brains. Which has led me to certain other conclusions, some of which you know.
posted by Justin at 11:57 PM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
"And Now For Something Completely Different"
I am a huge Leon Kass fan. He is a gentle, humble, kind and wise man. Knowing the he is a man of influence and significance is good for our human future. I sleep better knowing people like Dr. Kass are in this great debate of what it means to be human... More here. posted by Justin at 09:27 PM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
How dare I agree with you?
The ACLU seems to be one of those hot button issues about which it's riskier and riskier to speak one's mind freely. The email sent to Glenn Reynolds, while civil in tone, reminded me of the far less civil criticism accorded Eugene Volokh, because they're both evidence of an inability to disagree in a thinking manner. Instead of explaining what they disagree with, people are resort to labels, insulting characterizations, and (as with the email to Glenn) the equivalent of a boycott. (I think that "you lost another reader. Just now disappeared from my Bookmarks" is the equivalent of delinking a blog, and the gratuitous use of "another" is as presumptuous as it is insulting.) It's as if both Reynolds and Volokh committed thought unpardonable thought crimes; the former for daring to speak a kind word about the ACLU, and the latter for even speculating that some homosexuals might quite naturally want to encourage sexual "conversion" of gay-curious bi or heterosexuals. It makes no difference what I think of the ACLU or converting people to homosexuality. What bothers me is this intellectually stultifying idea that you have to be careful lest you offend someone's sense of ideological purity, and you have to expect that they will not merely disagree with you, but they will call you names, do the equivalent of hang up on you (and other unfriendlier things), without even bothering to seriously address your argument. There's a lack of serious thinking displayed by people who get roped into positions based on considerations like who holds them, whether the holder can be labeled "liberal" or "conservative," and whether they're in alignment with ideological laundry lists. Over the years, expressing simultaneous support for gays and guns has often proved ideologically challenging for me, because these issues are (irrationally, in my view) seen as coming from different "sides" of the political "spectrum." (If you think it's bad now, you should have seen what it was like in the early 1980s....) While there's no logical reason why it isn't perfectly consistent to be just as opposed to gun control as penis control, the emotion-driven "bases" of the two major political camps don't see it that way. Only recently has the label of "gay gun nut" emerged, but even that makes light of a more serious problem: the constantly increasing ideological rigidity which attempts to hound people into compliance by means of exclusionary threats. Typically, these threats take the form of conservatives calling people "liberal" if they don't toe the line, and liberals calling people "conservative." Ordinary people don't want to lose their "friends," and they defend themselves by (lamely and ineffectively, in my opinion) explaining "Hey, I'm no liberal! I support the war!" or "I'm no conservative! I support gay rights!" Eventually, I hope, people will realize that there is no need to defend against these labels, because there is a right to think what you want to think on each and every issue. When someone refuses to address your argument and instead resorts to labeling, that ought to be a clue that he is threatened by it, or is unable to address it on the merits. The resort to labeling is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate, to bully, and it indicates either a small mind, or massive insecurity. In any event, the problem is in the minds of the bullies, and not in the minds of those attempting to think freely. As an example of how easy it can be to agree with the "wrong side," Atrios (someone I agree with maybe 10% of the time) voiced a sentiment today I agreed with wholeheartedly: that FCC regulation of cable is terribly wrong: Yes, this is an awful idea. And, yes, sadly, the Democrats will likely end up being on the wrong side of it.The Atrios link goes to Pandagon, with whom I agree that allowing the FCC to regulate cable is a terrible idea, but with whose ad hominem analysis I disagree: this isn't just about not being offended. This is about using the power of the state to silence political views. "Good taste" is synonymous with Republicanism (which as we all know from watching how delegates dressed at the GOP convention is about as wrongheaded as you can get), and all other views must be excised from the public sphere lest they cause disagreement, which is tantamount to recrucifying Jesus just so you can stare at his peepee. Remember, folks - the most destructive and corrosive element in our republic are the people who think that the First Amendment applies to speech, rather than established facts like the Christian nature of the United States and abortion as the modern-day Holocaust.Pandagon forgets that many Republicans (including, I suspect, some of those who want to censor graphic sex) would vehemently oppose using the FCC to impose social views, religious views, and even standards of attire (not sure what attire that might be), on Americans. He also forgets (unlike Atrios) that this attempt at regulation will likely include both Republicans and Democrats. (And why wasn't there any discussion of the unconstitutionality of the powers the FCC seeks?) I don't think Pandagon's ad hominem style is persuasive (although it's nothing new for me). Still, I agree with Atrios and Pandagon on their basic point about the FCC. (Not a new topic for this blog, either.) I've learned from experience that when you agree with someone who is in a definite ideological camp, such a point of agreement can serve as an entry point for ideological examination -- and by both sides! Ideological leftists will naturally tend to see any agreement on any point as an invitation to agree with them on other points, while ideological rightists will see any agreement with the left as a sign of deviation, or weakness. ("Going wobbly" will do.) In this game of point scoring and laundry list checking, what tends to be forgotten is that there might be a person who thinks what he thinks independently, who isn't being herded or told to think by one side or another, and who might not want to be herded. Or graded. Or excoriated as guilty. (As if anything I've said absolves me for "vigorously championing an immoral war based on lies, supervised by a leadership class corrupted by ideological cowards and incompetents.") UPDATE: Funny thing that I'd mention delinking, as there's now a conservative movement to do just that to Glenn (who, mouthful though it is) actually linked the delinking movement. It strikes me as a very rude way to express disagreement. But as someone who's never delinked anyone, I guess I wouldn't understand. posted by Eric at 02:14 PM | Comments (6)
| TrackBacks (0)
Glad to be back
Hey, the blog is back, and I'm really delighted! My blog's server seemed to be down for most of the morning, but whatever it is, I'm glad they fixed it. Considering the horrible news like this (more here via Glenn Reynolds), I shouldn't complain about anything so trifling as a slowdown in blog service. The important thing is that it's fixed, and many other bloggers are back on line. I hope this will help assist with the ability to communicate in the wake of hurricane devastation. posted by Eric at 02:07 PM
| TrackBacks (0) Monday, August 29, 2005
"Why did you destroy my city?"
As Hurricane Katrina rages through the Gulf Coast, the usual top scientists and assorted experts are in a rush to blame global warming: Warm ocean temperatures are a key ingredient for monster hurricanes, prompting some scientists to believe that global warming is exacerbating our storm troublesEtc. It's all so predictable. Almost scientific (from a political perspective that is). The experts agree. And we know who is responsible, don't we? First he went after Iraqi cities . . . UPDATE (06:45 p.m.): The global warming/blame-Bush meme is not limited to leftist blogs or Time magazine. It's already major enough for Fox News, where I just saw Brit Hume discussing it with Fred Barnes. Sooner or later, you'd think people would get tired of it. FWIW, I don't like the timing. UPDATE (08/31/05): James K. Glassman exposes the opportunistic demagoguery which would blame this tragedy on "Global Warming": ....the response of environmental extremists fills me with what only can be called disgust. They have decided to exploit the death and devastation to win support for the failed Kyoto Protocol, which requires massive cutbacks in energy use to reduce, by a few tenths of a degree, surface warming projected 100 years from now.(Via Glenn Reynolds.) I've been looking at television footage of looters, and while it's always horrible to see exploitation of tragedy for personal gain, people like Robert Kennedy Jr. ought to know better than to make comments like this: "Now we are all learning what it's like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and - now -- Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children."That's pretty low. (Whether it's lower than looting depends on your moral perspective, I guess.) posted by Eric at 06:00 PM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
ACLU selects its enemies?
While I think a good case can be made for the proposition that there are many problems with the ACLU, couldn't their opponents have found a better author to write this book (The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values) than Alan Sears? The latter is a leading crusader against what he believes are the two most ruinous evils to face America -- pornography and the evil homos -- and he (along with co-author Craig Osten) also wrote The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today -- a tract purporting to document such things as the "connection" between homosexuality and pedophilia (illogical on it's face, except for homosexual pedophiles), and a supposedly monolithic "gay agenda" -- the goals of which are shared by "homosexual activists." The agenda? According to the authors, it's a six point platform articulated by two little-known activists back in the 1980s. While I probably should have read through it by now, it somehow escaped my full attention until today, but I now feel duty-bound to report this agenda to my readers. So here it is at last; the long awaited Official Homosexual Agenda: 1. Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and often as possible. (Through sheer perseverance the opposition will be worn down)Imagine! After all these years, I've finally been given my marching orders -- and from a devout moral conservative. The problem here is that I feel a bit the same way I do when I find myself being accused of being a liberal or a conservative. I don't like the labels. And I don't share the above "agenda." Yet Sears and his ilk would label me as a "promoter" of this "homosexual agenda." Here's Alan Sears on censorship: Enforcement of state and federal laws prohibiting the distribution of proscribed forms of pornography is not censorship.While I do not doubt that Sears really and truly believes that Americans are victims, I don't think most Americans see themselves that way. His goal of imprisoning people for this form of entertainment is anything but mainstream. In fact, I'd be willing to bet he loathes the mainstream. I also think that if he started getting his way and prosecutions of establishments like these (link via InstaPundit) went into full swing, the ACLU would start getting a lot more mainstream money. Here's more from Sears on pornographic temptations: This Alan Sears makes me want to send in a check to the ACLU today. (I say this, of course, as the former owner of a "so-called gay bar" -- a "criminal enterprise" which I, in my capacity as a "manipulative individual," ran for the sole purpose of "making a buck off the weaknesses of others.") I haven't sent the ACLU money for a while -- mainly because I abhor the ACLU's inconsistent failure to support the Second Amendment (as fundamental a liberty as those they do support), as well as their tendency to support radical Islamists. They're a bit shrill where it comes to certain leftist causes ("overly partisan in recent years" as Glenn put it). But I think they may be getting some inadvertent help from Alan Sears. If the ACLU wanted to play Karl Rove for a day and select an enemy most likely to produce a pro-ACLU backlash, they'd have been hard pressed to do better. (Well, there's always Fred Phelps. But I'm not sure he's literate enough or credible enough. Politics remains the art of the possible.)
MORE: A commenter below drew my attention to some highly critical, insulting comments directed at Eugene Volokh (left at these posts) accusing him of anti-gay bigotry. That kind of thing is at least as appalling as the nonsense spouted by Sears. I had written two posts attempting to grapple with the conversion issues Professor Volokh raised, but I think calling him "homophobic" for his honest speculations is beyond the pale. Am I alone in thinking that it's getting harder and harder to just think whatever it is you think -- without being slammed by various thought police for ideological errors? (I still try to think of the blogosphere as a place where reasoned disagreement is possible.) UPDATE (08/30/05): Follow up post here. posted by Eric at 02:30 PM | Comments (10)
| TrackBacks (0)
"Damn near everything"
This week's RINO Sightings Carnival is posted at Big Cat Chronicles. Host Roaring Tiger begins with the results of his research into RINOs -- and rhinos: we RINOs get our moderate reputation because our animal counterpart is a gentle giant, despite his aggressive reputation. Don’t let his size fool you into thinking he’s slow, though, because rhinos are agile blokes and are quite the chargers when needed — just like their human counterparts. And because of their size, adult rhinos have no natural predators, although babies are at risk from tigers, lions, or hyenas — and you can expect RINOs to be equally protective of the young and underdogs.How true! And so, if you want to know damn near everything about everything, I suggest you go and read damn near every post! Here are a few: I can't link to damn near everything, so go read the rest! posted by Eric at 11:11 AM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Intentionally not listening? (To history?)
Si vis pacem para bellum. (If you want peace, prepare for war.) - Roman Maxim. Wars are caused by undefended wealth. Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity. -- Leon Trotsky In an earlier post, I was bothered by hidden implications I saw in the phrase "willingness to learn." The idea that "learning" should be redefined to mean not so much learning, but actually agreeing with people strikes me as such a distortion of the definition of learning, that I thought I should, er, learn more! (I mean, there were -- and still are -- places where people are sent to learn how to agree called "reeducation camps.") These concerns were on my mind as I stumbled onto an entirely new method of learning which is based on Intentional Communication (IC): Intentional Communication is a dimensional tool for self-reflection, offering training support for effective conflict transformation across the divides of perception. It is dimensional in the sense that it includes the complexity of human development in its assessments. When we communicate with each other, we take into consideration our ability to be present to the exchange based on a combination of identity factors on the personal, social and cultural levels.Hmmmm.... Does that mean if you don't subscribe to the above communitarian jargon, you're not communicating "intentionally"? More probably, they'd say it means I'm intentionally not listening. Because, of course, we cannot intentionally communicate unless we intentionally listen. Here's the definition of Intentional Listening. Intentional Listening offers training to explore the intention of our listening to one another and to self, leading to enhanced awareness about responsible choice and action.We develop the skill to stay present and examine supportive conditions for good listening in the physical, emotional and mental realms.OK, folks, is that clear? Remember, in order to intentionally listen, you can't just open your ears; you must open your heart, and listen to another person's heart: Letting Youth Have a Voice in a Silencing WorldHad enough yet? The organization which has devoted itself to intentional communication is fanning out all over the country in a campaign to get teachers to show a documentary move called "Voices in Wartime." The film -- which purports to be an "educational effort" replete with seminars and teacher training -- actually originated with a group of anti-war activists who considered themselves snubbed by Laura Bush. (I suspect that the First Lady failed to intentionally communicate, failed to intentionally listen, and worst of all, failed to open her heart to provide the requisite "safe voice space.") What bothers me about all of this is that they're marketing this antiwar film as unbiased. Of course, if you disagree with them, I'm sure they'd think it means you're not listening. I watched the film, and it failed utterly to convince me that war is always wrong, that war is never the answer, or that problems can be solved by "intentionally communicating." Query: didn't Neville Chamberlain try intentionally communicating with Hitler? Didn't he listen with his heart? I think their fundamental mistake is in forgetting that most wars start not because of the mere presence of an aggressor, but because of a lack of preparedness for war. (As MacArthur said, "undefended wealth.") Which means that if you aren't capable of self defense, you're a likely target for attack. (Hitler, of course, thought he could get away with it.) As I say the above, I realize that this is my opinion, and even if it is shared by such modern figures as MacArthur as well as the ancients, that does not make it right. Opinion is not fact, and I don't offer my opinion as fact -- no matter how much I might believe in it, or how much support it finds in history. But the promoters of "Voices in Wartime" don't seem to understand the difference between fact and opinion. Instead, they behave as if their view of war is some sort of inherent truth. Perhaps they should try a little intentional listening to the other side, because a good argument can be made that they're actually encouraging the very thing they claim to oppose. The bad guys -- the aggressors -- would then attack. Which means war would have been triggered by naive attempts to prevent it. posted by Eric at 09:25 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0) Sunday, August 28, 2005
Disaster in New Orleans
New Orleans is one of my favorite cities, and I am shocked to see the scope of the disaster which is rapidly descending on it. A monstrous Hurricane Katrina barreled toward New Orleans on Sunday with 160-mph wind and a threat of a 28-foot storm surge, forcing a mandatory evacuation of the below-sea-level city and prayers for those who remained to face a doomsday scenario.The article describes "perfect conditions" for creating a monster. It doesn't seem as if enough is being done, and I agree with Glenn Reynolds that this might be a result of overhyping previous hurricanes. Glenn has collected some of the best links, so go there for information. I was going to relax and enjoy HBO's new "Rome" series, but this is very disturbing. Can't do much more than hope and pray. (I notice that even James Wolcott has retracted his previous post.) MORE: Glenn Reynolds points out that Wolcott's supposedly pulled pro-Hurricane post is still there. Normally, I'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt (because sometimes a deleted post remains on the server until the blog's "rebuild" goes through). Except there's a troubling addition -- in the form of this introduction: (THIS HAS PROVEN TO BE MY MOST POPULAR POST AMONG RIGHTWING BLOGGERS. I HAVE COME TO CONSIDER IT MY GIFT TO THEM--OR YOU, IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE ONE OF 'THEM.' WHENEVER A NEW STORM BREWS, I FEEL CONFIDENT YOU WILL RETURN HERE TO QUOTE IT YET AGAIN.Considering the characterization of the post as a "gift" (along with the kisses and the twinkling thoughts) I'm worried that Wolcott might consider himself duty-bound by that time honored principle of etiquette that it is rude to take back a gift. (Could it be that he's doing this for the attention?) posted by Eric at 09:15 PM | Comments (9)
| TrackBacks (0)
Human interest items
After discussing the hoopla over the "new ruralism" and such things as the "fluffy mountain lion syndrome," spoilsport Glenn Reynolds made the following insensitive remark: Nobody's going to want to settle in a place where they're worried about kids being eaten.Oh, come on, Glenn. Get with the program! Not only are we going to reintroduce predators, but there's a new movement: people belong in zoos: LONDON - At the London Zoo, you can talk to the animals - and now some of them talk back.Omitted from what the Inquirer passed off as a mere cutesy human interest story was a vital detail of the London exhibit. Human beings are billed as the "plague species": LONDON (AFP) - London Zoo unveiled a new exhibition -- eight humans prowling around wearing little more than fig leaves to cover their modesty.For a more local view, here's London's "Independent": The spectacle of five of the planet's most advanced great ape species hanging about in swimwear on Bear Mountain, the 91-year-old Grade II-listed terraces that once housed polar bears and grizzlies, is the opening salvo in a campaign by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), which runs the zoo, to highlight humanity's status as a "plague species". Nearly 15,600 separate species are believed to be threatened with extinction caused by human activity.Well, what do we do with disease carrying animals? As I said in my discussion of "predator" salesmanship tactics, new ideas take time!
Personally, I think the Eloi were cuter. But these things are all a matter of, um, taste. MORE: This "see the bad humans at the zoo" meme fits quite well into the current theme of children teaching parents -- breathlessly explored in today's Inquirer: ....in addition to teaching their parents how to deal with new technologies, kids today also are teaching them profound ethical lessons about protecting the natural world and respecting themselves and others. Here are some of the examples I have heard from schoolchildren that go beyond technology or popular culture: A girl: "I taught my mom to recycle." A boy: "I taught my dad to enjoy rap." A boy: "I taught my mom to be independent." A girl: "I taught my dad not to interrupt me." A boy: "I taught my dad not to make cracks about gays."There's more, for those who want to learn! Regarding willingness to learn, the author offers a new The slogan I use is, "You are not what you know but what you are willing to learn." Willingness to learn demands respect for others across difference. Puzzling and even disturbing ideas are invitations to curiosity, and the greater the difference the more there may be to be learned. The world is a rain forest of variety full of promise that is at risk of being lost. If one teenager could give his father an appreciation of rap, another may be interestingly articulate about body piercing and baggy clothes. I have argued that the willingness to learn is a form of spirituality. It is a stance of humility, because there is so much to be learned.I think willingness to learn is being confused with willingness to agree. And, of course, this discussion begs the question of who taught the children what "they" are teaching their parents. In fact, I'd love to learn more! MORE: I just, um, learned that the Mary Catherine Bateson, the author of the above, is the daughter of Margaret Mead. (Some of her famous quotes are assembled here.) UPDATE: Similar "education" here. UPDATE: Thank you Glenn Reynolds for the InstaLanche! Welcome all. BTW, I agree with Glenn's final observation about armed property owners. What's being forgotten by the people promoting this sentimentalized view of nature is that self defense itself is natural. For humans, of course, it takes the form of being armed. UPDATE (08/29/05): Readers might enjoy my latest post, which further explores "willingness to learn." posted by Eric at 11:12 AM | Comments (8)
| TrackBacks (0)
Can't get no f---ing respect!
Tom Lasseter's reports from Iraq are frequently spiced with Vietnam references, and he really can't be accused of making this stuff up -- because he uses direct quotes from the soldiers themselves. From today's Inquirer: "I don't think of this in terms of winning," said Col. Stephen Davis, who commands a task force of about 5,000 Marines in an area of 24,000 square miles in the western portion of Anbar.Later, he quotes Marine Major Nicholas Visconti: "If it were just killing people that would win this, it'd be easy," said Marine Maj. Nicholas Visconti, 35, of Brookfield, Conn., who served in southern Iraq in 2003. "It's just like in Vietnam. They won a long, protracted fight that the American public did not have the stomach for... . Killing people is not the answer; rebuilding the cities is."They (I assume "they" means the Communists) won? Yes, but that was only after they'd lost the "long, protracted" part of the fight. America had beaten them into signing the Paris Peace accord, and only years after America had pulled out (and Congress refused to support the government of South Vietnam) did the enemy win. At that point it wasn't a long protracted fight; the Communists went in virtually unopposed. Assuming Major Visconti is quoted correctly (something I have no way of knowing), I'd wonder where he's getting his history lessons. Major Visconti is quoted again along with Marine Captain James Haunty in an accompanying piece titled "Inability to pin down foe severely stresses troops": "I tell the guys not to lose their humanity over here, because it's easy to do," said Marine Capt. James Haunty, 27, of Columbus, Ohio. "I tell them not to turn into Col. Kurtz."Wow. Apocalypse Now? (As I pointed out previously, Tom Lasseter's last piece seemed to be itching for that "love the smell of Napalm in the morning" quote.) Still, as apocalyptic war quotes go, the above isn't bad: I'll put the gun in his mouth and kill him myself. Hey, the whole world is watching! It might be, but what I want to know is why the whole world doesn't get to see the same Lasseter piece in its entirety. (At least, not if the whole world consists of Philadelphia.) The Yahoo version of the above story is except for the title, word for word the same, but the following additional paragraphs (in bold text) are added: "It's a lot like it was in Vietnam, when the VC's (Viet Cong) would come out and pretend to be your friends," said Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Vidler, 23, of Syracuse, N.Y. "You're fighting an enemy on his home ground and you don't know who's who." Here's the heavily redacted Inquirer version: Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Vidler, 23, of Syracuse, N.Y., said: "It's a lot like it was in Vietnam, when the VCs [Viet Cong] would come out and pretend to be your friends. You're fighting an enemy on his home ground, and you don't know who's who."The only explanation for this editorial censorship is that the story might have been seen as inconsistent with the accompanying front page piece, which uses the term "mujahedeen" in a much more respectful manner: Instead of referring to the enemy derisively as "terrorists" - as they used to - Marines and soldiers now give the insurgents a measure of respect by calling them "mujahideen," an Arabic term meaning "holy warrior" that became popular during the Afghan guerrilla campaign against the Soviet Union.Why, that's so respectful-sounding it's almost PC! I can see why the "f---ing muj" reference was omitted from the other story. I wonder what else is being omitted. Certainly, nothing about Vietnam. Lasseter clinches both versions of his story with an artfully quoted rhetorical question drawn from another soldier: "There's been reports of a .50 [caliber] sniper rifle out there. Maybe they called this in just to get us out here and take a shot. A .50-cal would go straight through our [body armor] plates," Coffey said, looking at the buildings across the river. "Why do I feel like I'm in a... Vietnam movie?"Considering the attention the antiwar people are getting, I should ask the same question. MORE: Michael Yon, also on the ground with U.S. forces, calls terrorists "terrorists," and explains why. MORE: Charles Johnson looks at this Lasseter story (which is the same as today's front page Inquirer Story), and the Vietnam meme, and characterizes Lasseter thusly: the courageous “guerilla fighters” have a staunch ally in Tom Lasseter of Knight RidderWas I being too kind? Thanks to LGF, once again I see that the Inky is redacting the Lasseter story (or else Lasseter is issuing different versions): Here's the Wichita Eagle version: "If it were just killing people that would win this, it'd be easy," said Marine Maj. Nicholas Visconti, 35, of Brookfield, Conn., who served in southern Iraq in 2003. "It's just like in Vietnam. They won a long, protracted fight that the American public did not have the stomach for... . Killing people is not the answer; rebuilding the cities is." And here's the Inquirer again: "If it were just killing people that would win this, it'd be easy," said Marine Maj. Nicholas Visconti, 35, of Brookfield, Conn., who served in southern Iraq in 2003. "But look at Vietnam. We killed millions, and they kept coming. It's a war of attrition. They're not trying to win. It's just like in Vietnam. They won a long, protracted fight that the American public did not have the stomach for. ... Killing people is not the answer; rebuilding the cities is.""They" does mean the Communists; it wasn't clear until now. Might it be worth asking Nicholas Visconti exactly what he meant?
Lasseter also doesn't paint the troops as the kind of heroic, larger-than-life action figures that make the fighting keyboarders drool with barely suppressed homoerotic envy. (Via James Wolcott.)What I'd like to know is what, precisely, does "homoerotic envy" have to do with war? Does he mean to suggest that "fighting keyboarders" (presumably this means war supporters who blog) are envious of the warriors because of unfulfilled homosexual attractions? If so, then what has envy to do with it? I mean, it might be possible for a male blogger to be in an envious homosexual rage because someone he's attracted to is in combat, but I think it's a bit of a stretch. If the assertion is that there's a "barely suppressed" attraction to the soldiers, how does Billmon know that? How is Lasseter avoiding an appeal to "homoerotic" elements? And who is writing these homoerotic war pieces? (Believe me, I know homoeroticism when I see it -- barely suppressed or not -- and I haven't seen it in war coverage anywhere.) If there's something homoerotic about combat, it's not spelled out just what that would be, either. (I'm barely able to suppress my suspicions that someone is projecting.) All in all, homoeroticism avoidance seems like a very odd thing to praise Lasseter for. posted by Eric at 08:20 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0) Saturday, August 27, 2005
Why did Curt Weldon use the word "sinister"?
I don't know what the hell is going on with the Able Danger matter, but posts like these (via Glenn Reynolds and Tom Maguire) make me very suspicious. Someone needs to take a close look at these tin foil sites, and see whether any of their allegations pan out. There are allegation that Michael Chertoff represented Magdy Elamir, a doctor with substantial al Qaida ties, who even worked with nuclear materials. He has a brother named Mohamad Elamir (which was Mohamad Atta's name and his father's name), although as AJ Strata (of Strata-Sphere) suggests, it's probably a name as common as John Smith. What bothers me is that professional politicians like Curt Weldon do not normally use words like "sinister" to describe simple government negligence. But Weldon did. You can read the stuff I copied by clicking below. It ought to be possible to verify independently the Bergen New Jersy newspaper stuff, as well as whether or not the NBC "Dateline" show ever aired. This stuff goes on and on, and unfortunately most of the links are to paranoid conspiracy sites (like David Duke, reporting for Indymedia). I wish reporting by nutjobs made the reports automatically wrong. There's more at the All Spin Zone, at Mad Cow Morning News, and at the University Star. Strata-sphere has done a great job bringing this to light, and his posts are collected here. Dr. Elamir certainly exists, and the problems he created are still generating controversy in the medical comunity. Enough tin foil for one day. I'm very skeptical about this, and there's probably a reasonable explanation for most of the allegations -- especially about Chertoff (who is, after all, a lawyer). But the bottom line is that Fox News has confirmed through a third source the presence of Atta in the United States at least year before 9/11, and verified this by examining connections to Omar Abdul Rahman. And it does appear that this was covered up. Why? I don't know, but in any case, my spirits are much lifted by Mickey Kaus's optimistic skepticism: Why do I feel that through the power of the blogosphere we are asymptotically approaching the truth? ...First there were two Attas; now four Elamirs. Why do people have to have names that shift with the sands? Once again, thank God for the blogosphere.
In Iran! Continue reading "Why did Curt Weldon use the word "sinister"?"posted by Eric at 07:11 PM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0)
InstaBirthday Multi Kultur Kampfire celebration
I thought I would write a simple little post in remembrance of Glenn's birthday, but that proved quite impossible, because he has too many competing fans -- in too many surprising places. Much as I try to be democratic and forward-thinking, I couldn't hope to keep track of all the progressive forces round the world who are thinking of Glenn right now (especially all the world wide, um, InstaWatchers). There is no way a to impart to Comrade Glenn's birthday celebration the full Internationalist fervor with which the restless masses are clamoring everywhere around the world. That is because we American bloggers are forced to live in the United States, a fascist minded police state, a place of much misinformation and slander orchestrated by lies spread by the Imperialist Press, The Fascist Minded Bush Clique and other Imperialist Bourgeoisie human scum, which all conspire to slander the noble and beautiful progessive forces of the world. We must denounce these lies boldly, and declare our willingness to stand side by side in solemn and profound celebration of Glenn Reynolds' birthday -- by any means necessary. Nothing, not even our very blood, will move us and our beloved comrades from celebrating the historic occasion set before us. I have humbly designed the following card as a way of showing the International solidarity in support of the wondrous occasion that is Glenn Reynolds' birthday: I can't keep track of well wishers and InstaWatchers I found, because they're all over the world and all over the Internet, but here are some of the most important voices to weigh in: What a distinguished group! To see so many great leaders display such emotion on this occasion is a very touching and moving thing by any standard -- be it Collective Liberation, Insurgent Patriotism, or Proletarian Internationalism! I'll let the Glorious Chairman of the Glenn Reynolds InstaBirthday Internationalist Brigade, Comrade Kim Jong Il, close with a toast: Happy Birthday Glenn!
Can't please everyone, I guess.... MORE: One of our anonymous but intrepid reporters managed to track down Ward Churchill (who was on the college lecture circuit), and asked him whether he cared to comment on Glenn Reynolds' birthday. He responded with a baffling remark which has been faithfully transcribed:
posted by Eric at 12:18 PM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) Friday, August 26, 2005
Disarming silence
Anyone remember Janet Reno, the infamous Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), and their pliant allies in the MSM? I had thought that stuff like harassing gun shows and shaking down people who'd broken no laws was mostly behind us, but this incident evokes memories: Annette Gelles, owner of gun show sponsor Showmasters.us, told Cybercast News Service that at least 30 agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) along with nearly 500 Virginia State Police, Henrico County Police and Richmond City Police officers were assigned to the ATF operation targeting her gun show on Aug. 13 and 14 at the Richmond International Raceway and Fairground Complex, outside Richmond, Va.Remember, this was a perfectly legal event. On top of the above, the ATF engaged in heavyhanded police state tactics against legal gun buyers: Gelles explained that, when gun dealers took the paperwork to the Virginia State Police on-site office to complete the background checks on prospective buyers, ATF agents copied the names, home addresses and telephone numbers of the applicants.Jeff Soyer has more. So does RedState.org, and, doubtlessly, other blogs. But so far, the MSM has a big fat nothing. A news blackout, perhaps? Brings back more memories. (In the old days, of course, there'd have been faxes and emails sent from gun nut to gun nut.) It would be redundant to ask why this is happening under a Republican administration, but I'm beginning to think that things like this have little or nothing to do with who's president. After all, if President Bush lacks the power to fire the bureaucrats who handed visas to Mohammad Atta and company, what could he possibly do to discipline a government agency which has been fraught with problems for many years? I don't think Bush is fully in charge, and I can't think of a better argument against the Patriot Act (especially the attitude in law enforcement it tends to encourage) than the conduct which occurred here. It really doesn't matter what you think about guns, either. The law enforcement agents behaved illegally, exceeded their authority, and without obtaining warrants, harassed innocent citizens who were never accused of committing any crime. All it would take, I'm afraid, would be one dirty nuke, and our freedom would topple. That's because agencies like the BATF couldn't care less about the Constitution, and the Patriot Act has given them powers with which they cannot be trusted -- and a green light to use it. Fortunately, the courts still function, and that plus the theory that the new laws are intended only to fight terrorism have tended to restrain the use of the Patriot Act (and its accompanying Homeland Security apparatus). I've tried to support expanded powers to fight terrorism, because we are at war, and they are needed. But when I see innocent Americans being treated like this, I'm worried about the long term. Because, if this country's enemies manage to trigger a dirty nuke -- even a small one -- all bets are off. The psychological aftershocks will be so profound that it will mean a crackdown on freedom everywhere and in every sphere. Funny thing I'd say sphere. As things stood after 9/11, the bad guys almost could have done it. Almost everything was in place for what might have been a new power grab involving a government partnership with Big Media. Had there been more 9/11 type attacks, terrified citizens would have been left with the television and their daily newspapers as their main sources of information. A one-way stream of whatever the newly restructured powers that be might have deemed fit to broadcast. The blogosphere as we know it today sprang into being just in the nick of time. By a hair. I really believe it was that close. That's one of the reasons the blogosphere is so feared. The government cannot team up with big media and monopolize the information/communication game all to themselves. They are being monitored and supplemented by the citizenry. Wait! I almost left out talk radio. In many ways, talk radio anticipated the blogosphere, because it was two way communication and allowed not only the dissemination of information from alternative sources, but direct participation from the citizenry. But talk radio is subject to control, even what borders on censorship -- not only by government (via the FCC) but by organized political groups who can succesfully silence alternative voices in ways the government could not do directly. Talk radio host Michael Graham -- whether you agree with him or not -- was yanked permanently off the air by his company, even though his listeners liked his show and it was commercially viable. His company caved to pressure from the Islamist advocacy group, CAIR. (More from James Joyner.) But -- CAIR or not -- private companies can do anything for any reason (including making sweetheart deals with the government). Michael Graham was silenced in ways bloggers cannot be. Yet. They might try, but I'd say the blogosphere is ready. UPDATE (08/31/05): When I said "the blogosphere is ready," I wasn't engaged in hyperbole. Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that Michael Silence and Ravenwood have already produced the goods on the BATF. (See this FOIA pdf document.) Say Uncle has been on this story for a while, and Blake Wylie asks, after his analysis, what do you do when a Federal agency breaks the law?(SayUncle says he has feathers. . .) The BATF (which long operated under the Treasury Department) is supposed to be a revenue agency, not a SWAT team. Their charged with making sure that cigarettes and alcohol (and certain firearms) are taxed, and since 1968, with making firearms licensees pay their taxes. They were never intended to be a SWAT team, and they've been out of control for far too long. In 1982, the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution excoriated the ATF for engaging in: conduct which borders on the criminal... Enforcement tactics made possible by current firearms laws are constitutionally, legally and practically reprehensible... Approximately 75 percent of BATF gun prosecutions were aimed at ordinary citizens who had neither criminal intent nor knowledge, but were enticed by agents into unknowing technical violations.This has gone on for far too long. As a result of post-9/11 fallout, the Homeland Security administration moved this rogue agency from the Treasury Department to the Justice Department. Considering that their previously poor track record hasn't changed, I'd say a good case can be been made that the BATF has utterly failed to earn the new power with which they've been entrusted. They're a liability to the Justice Department, and a disgrace to Homeland Security. I'd vote for sending them back to Treasury, taking away their guns, and putting them back to work collecting taxes. posted by Eric at 04:35 PM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (2)
"A boring, tedious part of my day that I can dread, or even put off..."
Coco is very confused by a web site called Pitbull Clothing. There are no canine fashions whatsoever (much less attire designed for or about pit bulls) -- just run-of-the-mill humanwear. She's thinking of filing a complaint like this. While the complaint above was based on alleged plagiarism of a phrase -- "Often exercising can be a boring, tedious part of your day that you can dread, or even put off" -- Coco is more concerned about the misappropriation of her breed name to sell human attire. Coco is informed and believes, and thereon alleges, that there is no pit bull-oriented attire for sale at the aforesaid web site, and is further concerned about the modern human trend of attempting to copyright -- even trademark -- ordinary words and phrases. She believes that there may be a conspiracy by various members -- known and unknown to her at this time -- of the species Homo sapiens, to misappropriate the word "pit bull" to the point where it might no longer be available or allowed to describe her breed. She is therefore faxing her DMCA complaint to the appropriate authorities:
(Fortunately, she makes an exception in my case, but I'm still on probation.) What I cannot put off is my long drive to New Jersey today, and I doubt I'll be back at a reasonable time. But I'm sure I'll be back at an unreasonable time, hopefully with more unreasonable observations. posted by Eric at 07:10 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0) Thursday, August 25, 2005
Smuggling in a former American birthright
Somewhat related to the question of consensual sex between adults is the idea of consensual financial transactions between adults. What I'm unable to fully understand (in the philosophical sense) is why the former should be freely legal, but the latter is subject to government regulation. I'm not talking solely about direct exchange of money for sex. Prostitution is only one form of criminal financial transactions. There are many others. The so-called "underground economy" is growing by leaps and bounds. As to why, an article in Barron's provides a few clues: Growth of the underground economy is partly a result of corporate downsizing, which has forced many former employees to go out on their own. I'm wondering whether the rapid growth of this burgeoning underground economy might be directly correlated directly with the rise in completely insane government regulations with which normal Americans are unable to comply. Am I alone in considering it absurd that the federal government -- while it might let me have sex with my gardener in my bedroom -- nonetheless wants to force me to verify his identity if I pay him to cut my grass, become a revenue agent for the federal government, and send me to prison if I don't? Lest anyone think I'm engaged in hyperbole, take a look at an ordinary accountant's description of what I must do if I pay the guy for gardening: If you do hire someone who will receive more than $1,100 this year, and you insist on doing the paperwork yourself, here are a few things you should do:And don't expect to get a job as head of Homeland Security, either. Furthermore, as the accountant also points out, the requirements aren't limited to nannies: The so called "nanny tax" does not only apply to babysitters. It applies to any household or domestic employee. To quote the IRS Regulations Section 31.3306(c)(2)-1(a)(2),This stuff is so crazy that few people (except anally retentive nuts and people running for office) comply with it, but the point is, Americans are no longer free to engage in arms-length employment transactions. I don't think they like it, and I think it is an unacknowledged reason for the popularity of -- what should I call them? -- undocumented workers? illegal aliens? While the standard argument is that illegals work for less money, or perform the sort of work Americans don't want to do, I think there's more to it than that. I was thinking this over the other day as I contemplated two things: my own yard work, and a lawsuit a friend is facing because he made the mistake of hiring an American with a strange psychiatric disability of which the employer was unaware (and which causes the employee to deliberately make mistakes on the job). This same friend also employs aliens (supposedly legal) through a "temporary" agency, and of course he's never had any trouble with them. The psychiatrically challenged American, though, not only "knows her rights," she feels a sense of extravagant entitlement, which in her mind, gives her the right to be incompetent and the right not to be fired for being incompetent. The legal system, of course, works with her to enforce these "rights." In Mexico, if you're walking down the sidewalk and (as happened to me once) a six-foot-deep ditch appears in front of you without any warning signs or guardrails, and you fall in, the attitude will be "you should have looked where you're going." You won't be able to sue anyone, as you'll get nothing. Nada. Who wouldn't prefer to hire a person who comes from such a culture? Anyway, as I contemplated yard work, I realized that the hourly wages had nothing to do with it. Let's assume that the going wage for hacking out brambles and pulling up weeds is $15.00 per hour. If you hire an American, it's not an arms-length transaction. You have special duties to take care of his taxes and all that other fussy legal stuff. And what if he gets hurt and sues you? It isn't worth the risk, and the potential hassles are endless. The hourly rate is in my view a secondary, not a primary, factor. Seen this way, I think that illegal aliens represent something much more important and compelling than a source of "cheap labor." They're a glimpse of that American freedom which was once our birthright. In this country, there was a time when you could just agree with someone that in return for doing a certain thing, you'd pay him. And if he did the work, you could pay him, and that was that. That's the way it was when I was a kid, and with aliens, it's still that way. Under the present system, of course, they're considered to be "stealing jobs from U.S. citizens." But has anyone stopped to ask why there wasn't an "underground economy" in the days of American freedom? (It used to be a term generally reserved to describe private transactions in the Soviet Union.) NOTE: Lest readers misunderstand me, I do not advocate open borders. Not by a long shot. I think the border should be closed ASAP, because illegal immigration is out of control. My point is that I think over-regulation is fueling the demand for these aliens, and I'm not sure that more draconian penalties against ordinary Americans will be the best way to help the economy.
It doesn't take a degree in economics to see that the more things become criminalized, the more "crime" there will be! posted by Eric at 08:20 PM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
What turns you on might tee me off
More on conversion. I realized that I barely scratched the surface of the "conversion" issue, as the dynamics of the phenomenon are everywhere. Responding to Eugene Volokh's post (about whether straight-to-gay conversion is a myth), Orin Kerr brings up that exquisite perversion known as "golf": If I understand Eugene's response, his argument boils down to the belief that people will try to convert others to do whatever they themselves really enjoy doing. For example, if I get a great deal of pleasure from golf, then I will encourage others to try it. If I meet someone who mentions that he is thinking of picking up golf, then I will try to "convert" him to be a golfer. (It's human psychology, the argument would run: if golfing makes me happy, then why wouldn't I attempt to get others to try it?)There are a lot of other analogies which could be made, and I already discussed religion. How about drug addiction? Many people would argue that drug addicts "convert" each other, but again, if someone is "looking to be converted" (how most drug addicts get started, in my experience) is this not an attempt to blame Person A for the conduct of Person B? Is the drug "pusher" responsible for the addiction of his customer? If so, is the bartender then responsible for the alcoholism of his? Many years ago, Art Linkletter's daughter committed suicide by jumping out a sixth story window. Alleging she had taken LSD before her death, Art Linkletter blamed the Beatles as the "leading missionaries" of an LSD culture which had made her want to take LSD. Assuming that the Beatles glorified the drug as psychedelic "missionaries," can they be said to have "converted" her? Are missionaries responsible for the subsequent conduct of their "followers"? Even people they never met? I don't think so. To maintain otherwise would negate free will. If the Beatles promoted an unhealthy lifestyle and others followed it, so be it. That is no more the Beatles' fault than obesity is the fault of McDonalds and Burger King. Even assuming direct, one-on-one proselytizing, I still don't think people are really converted by others, barring duress. They convert themselves. (With homosexuality, there's arguably less of a conversion issue -- at least if we assume sexual desire is more deeply rooted than an attraction to fatty foods.) Interestingly enough, last year, I related my own experience with a "pusher" of golf, and I think it bears repeating: Well after my adolescent crisis had passed (but before my midlife crisis had been fully developed), a well-meaning relative honestly believed that I should play golf even though I hated it. He thought that it was socially the right thing to do, that it would advance one's career, and all that morally righteous stuff. But the bottom line for him was that he loved golf! So, he could carry on all he wanted about how golf was good and even virtuous, but the fact remained that it was fun for him, and torture for me. The odd thing is, when I was a kid I noticed that many of the harder working men used to criticize men who enjoyed playing golf as shirkers of their responsibilities. (Like the doctor out whacking a golfball while his patient dies from complications.)The golf analogy is far from perfect, though, because sexuality is far more personal, but there's still the basic question of likes and dislikes, and who is in charge of them. It is my decision what I like, not anyone else's. Someone can show me something, urge me to try it, but whether I try it and like it is up to me, and should not be blamed on someone else. This is not to suggest that Eugene Volokh ever maintained that proselytizers are responsible for the subsequent conduct of those they influence. I think he's just remarking the obvious about a common enough phenomenon. Here's Eugene Volokh's reply to Orin Kerr: The phenomenon that I was describing was not supposed to be shocking or unusual. It's just human nature, which is why I think it's such a plausible hypothesis. What strikes me as being implausible is the claim -- against which I was arguing -- that it's somehow a "myth" that gay and lesbians (not every such person, but many) are interested in converting some people to gay or lesbian behavior. As I pointed out, it's highly unlikely that they're trying to convert heterosexuals generally. But, as I argued, it does seem likely that they're trying to convert the orientationally bisexual but behaviorally heterosexual into at least exploring their homosexual sides: "[T]he [gay rights] movement . . . necessarily, and I suspect intentionally, also helps people who are attracted to both sexes be more willing to explore the homosexual facets of that attraction."Common sense and personal experience suggest to me that what Professor Volokh is talking about here is the phenomenon of gay guys hitting on straight guys. (Or on bisexually inclined men whose homosexuality is still unexplored.) It happens all the time. In fact, there are plenty of gay men who would much rather have sex with straight men than with other gay men (Ah, but the catch is that once they "get" it, they lose what they get, because their partners cease to be "straight.") Hence the word "conversion." But how about the "straight" men? If they were interested in reciprocating, could they truly be said to be "straight" at that point? Then how can they truly be said to have been "converted"? I admit these words are silly, and they fail me. Which means that I cannot make a coherent argument because of an inability to define the undefinable. (As I keep saying, I disagree with the labels.) Would the word "conversion" be used if a straight man hit on a uninterested woman? Even if she was a virgin? How about a lesbian being hit on by a straight man? Would that be an attempted conversion? A "fag hag" hitting on a gay man? I've never heard the word applied in these cases, and I have my doubts about whether it applies anywhere. I am, I admit, resolutely opposed to the notion that Person A can convert Person B in the absence of force or duress, because of free will. Indeed, the word "convert" was first used in the religious sense, and it clearly implies action by someone other than Person B -- and (unless I am mistaken) a lack of fully free choice, because of this external, converting, action: convert (v.)Since we seem to stuck with having to use religious terminology to analyze sexual matters, I guess religious examples are as good as any. Again, my problem with that is that any discussion of religious conversion (and thus, I fear, conversion in general) is hopelessly mired in communitarian notions of Person A being responsible for Person B. Typically, one who converts someone else in the religious sense, not only admits to having responsibility, he wants responsibility! It's communitarian thinking, and I fear it's at the root of the problem -- because it's at the root of the word. I don't think that way, and I know I can't change the minds of people who do. Nor would I want to change their minds, because I'd then be guilty of conversion, and I don't want the responsibility. If you agree with me, it's not my fault. (Interestingly, Augustine blurred the distinction between force and free will with the doctrine of "compel them to come in" -- but that's another, more heretical topic.) posted by Eric at 08:52 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (1) Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Converted to death?
As Glenn Reynolds pointed out, it was "gay day" at the Volokh Conspiracy the other day, and I was quite fascinated to read about the idea of conversion. (Eugene Volokh takes issue with the idea that gays converting straights is a myth. Well, sort of.) But I'm -- really and truly -- too damned tired to post about it now. I don't know what the hell is wrong with my energy levels lately. I think I'll drink some Korean voodoo juice and go running. Maybe that'll convert my energy levels.
Anyway, there's a lot of misunderstanding about what the word "conversion" means, so I should probably begin by trying to define it in the sexual sense. Maybe begin and end -- as I don't know if I can. I'll start with what Eugene Volokh said: I know that if I were a heterosexual in some hypothetical future overwhelmingly homosexual society, and I were asked similar questions about "converting" people who were open to heterosexuality but had so far had only engaged in homosexual behavior into practicing bisexuals or heterosexuals, I'd say "yes." If you think some behavior can be proper and, for some group, very rewarding, you would naturally want people who aren't sure whether they fall into that group to try it out.Responding to an email in an update, Professor Volokh elaborates on the word "conversion": A bunch of commenters think I shouldn't use the word "convert," for various reasons. The reason I'm using it is that I'm responding to an alleged "myth": People claim that it's a "myth" that gays and lesbians try to convert or recruit others, and I am arguing that this "myth" claim is "likely itself something of a myth, or at least quite incomplete." If you prefer to describe this not as "converting," but as something else (e.g., "influencing the person to change his practices"), that's fine. But if my analysis above is right, then one still shouldn't deride claims of conversion as "myth," even if one thinks that the word is slightly imprecise or has a bad connotation.My problem with the heterosexual/homosexual dichotomy is well known to regular readers. I don't talk about my own sexuality as much as I possibly should, perhaps because I dislike debating these things, perhaps because it strikes me as exhibitionistic. But I think I should make an exception to my usual pattern and state that: I say this because I don't think truly consensual sex can be said to be a conversion. If you do something for the first time with another person, and you do it voluntarily, how can that person be said to have "converted" you unless influence or pressure was applied? I am in no way arguing that there are not people who have converted (or attempted to convert) the sexuality of others, either for political or for personal reasons. Nor do I mind the analogy to religious conversion, because a number of people have attempted to convert me to their view of religion, and I am sure that were I sexually naive, people would attempt to convert me to new things that I had never done before. (In this sense, experimenting with things like S&M at the urging of the more sophisticated must also be said to be a form of conversion.) There are degrees of this, and my analysis is further complicated by my strong belief in free will. I think that if someone does something absent force or duress, that he should not be heard to complain. I have previously touched upon the issue of sexually "tricking" someone into sex under false pretenses (a man pretending to be a woman to score with another man), but that is a very different issue, and even there, it's neither voluntary, nor a "conversion" to anything. I'm not saying that no one ever attempted to convert me. In my youth I was approached by older males a number of times without my reciprocating, and I have no doubt that "conversion" may have been the intent of these individuals. But as to my first sexual experiences -- with teens my age, male and female -- I can honestly say that there never was any conversion, as I tried to keep an open mind about what I was doing, and I think -- I hope -- that others did too. This was a long time ago, and it was the age of Free Love -- when sex and drugs ruled. I can state more confidently that I was never converted to anything than I can state that I never converted anyone else, because as to the latter I can only say it was never my goal. I hope it never happened, and I'll explain what I mean. A major problem with me is that I cannot handle having responsibility for the actions of other people, because I can't control them, and it just isn't a fair thing to expect of me. If I thought I had "converted" anyone, it would be a bit like having a child. I would always feel responsible. And I run like hell from such responsibilities. But there's a real world out there, and when you're young, hot and horny, and there are other people running around, there are naturally going to be occasions when one of them is naive, yet willing. Looking to be converted -- to put it in Volokhian terms. Such types -- apparently heterosexual, but what you might call "bi-curious" -- used to regularly come on to me, and they'd scare the hell out of me, because I could not have handled the responsibility. Fortunately, I had a house full of openly gay men which I used to use as a "dumping ground" for the wannabe converts. All I needed to do was get them into the house, sneak out the back door, and drive away. The rest was not up to me. Am I guilty? If so, what am I guilty of? Putting person A in contact with person B has always been one of my specialties, and I don't see how I bear any blame. Especially considering my rejection of the gay straight dichotomy. The problem was that I felt guilty anyway, because my flippant attitude was often what had activated the "bi-curious" phenomenon. I felt even guiltier to see some of the people I had unloaded contract AIDS (they'd run amok in orgies with the people I had introduced them to), but if I never had sex with them and never had the virus, was it my "fault"? Anyway, I've been plagued with guilt for years, but that's just a feeling. A feeling that never quite goes away. (Imagine, if you can, feeling responsible for the deaths of others, and being told -- as I was -- that you were.) My fierce belief in libertarianism, in individualism, helped get me through some of this guilt, but when you watch people die, the rational side is not enough to stanch the emotional bleeding. No matter how I look at it, the word "conversion" evokes responsibility of the communitarian sort. The type that the rational side of me must reject resolutely. If I am to live with myself. As a defense to the arguments which others might raise, what is wrong with allowing individuals to make up their own minds about what they do, without moralists accusing them of converting each other? At some point in the life of most human beings, a time will come when they will want to have sex. With someone. If that someone is a member of the opposite sex, why would that be a conversion any more than if the someone were of the same sex? Why does the argument only seem to be about "straight to gay" conversions? What about gay to straight? Couldn't that be a conversion too? Seen this way, not only would the Exodus people be seen as trying to "convert" homosexuals to heterosexuality, but the first heterosexual experience of any virgin individual would have to be every bit as much of a conversion as it would were his first experience a homosexual one. I see no way to limit the word "conversion" to homosexuality alone. But what this would means of course, is that all people who have had sex were at some point converted. If that's the case, then the word "conversion" has no meaning -- which is why I tried to stick to the Volokh definition of the word as meaning heterosexual to homosexual only. This discussion is, I admit, very frustrating, as it touches on my abhorrence and avoidance of responsibility, and it is very personal. I mean, here I am, saying I don't believe in "conversion," yet I admit to have gone out of my way trying to avoid converting people because I didn't want the responsibility that rationally speaking I wouldn't have had anyway. It's a hopeless contradiction, I know. I wish I could find an easier example. Hey, how about conversion to Islam? Unlike the cowardly homos (who deny that they'd ever convert anyone), Muslims really know how to convert a guy! Why, it's even stated in their holy book to be a religious obligation. Unlike the craven homosexuals, Muslims need not feel any guilt over the fate of the converted. They are converts for life. If they try to go back the other way, there's this thing called the death penalty. For apostasy. I know of no homosexual equivalant. Gays who join Exodus can freely return to the joys of penile-vaginal intercourse, and no one will kill them for it. Which lifestyle is more dangerous? Hell, don't ask me. I never converted anyone to Islam either. (But suppose I meet someone who's Islam-curious. And suppose there's a mosque right around the corner . . .)
posted by Eric at 01:43 PM | Comments (8)
| TrackBacks (0)
Horn and hide
I almost missed this week's RINO Sightings Carnival, hosted by Nicholas Schweitzer at The World According to Nick. This is rapidly becoming my favorite carnival, because RINOs pull no punches (probably because they're best known for refusing to follow party lines.) A few examples: when it comes to shoehorning science and medicine in order to fit an ideological agenda, misrepresenting risk and utilizing hyperbole, you're doing the public debate a serious disservice, doing your readers a disservice and emulating the worst flaws of the mainstream media: combining a distorted ideological narrative with superficial analysis of complex issues.The post generated a huge debate; be sure to check the comments. All the rest are good too; so do yourself a favor and go read them. Long may the RINOS rage! posted by Eric at 12:43 PM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
"Generate harmony in style and elegance." (No ifs, ands, or buts!)
Sean Hackbarth discovered a wonderful all-purpose gift idea -- a genuine seventy nine cent
I can't think of a better gift idea -- especially for people in need. Order a dozen or more and save on shipping. Still plenty of time before Christmas! Hmmmm.... Are batteries included? Or don't they come that way? MORE: It turns out that Sean (in the comments to his post) is denying responsibility, and blaming Glenn Reynolds. (But the latter is mainly warning about workplace safety issues.) posted by Eric at 11:47 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0)
What's an idiotic remark got to do with the price of oil?
What the hell am I to make of Pat Robertson's latest outburst? In all honesty, I don't know. For starters, I don't even know what to call him. Is the man labelable, and should he be labeled? Glenn Reynolds and James Lileks both seem comfortable with the term "idiotarian," and I much enjoyed the latter's take on popular labels: The term “wingnut” is not as harsh and cutting as you might expect. Personally, I don’t like any of these terms – moonbats, repugs, democraps, etc. (Except for “idiotarian.” I like it because it’s ecumenical.)As Lileks goes on to note, the nuts have two wings -- which is a hell of a lot better than a wing with two nuts. (As the queen of "Grade B Wingnuttia," I'm feeling almost ready to bolt.) Anyway, Idiotarian Robertson is staring me in the face as the pressing issue of the day (right there on the top of the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer), and I'm wondering what's on his mind. What is the man really thinking when he calls for the assassination of Hugo Chavez? Here's the Yahoo version of current events: Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested on-air that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."The Inquirer mentions Robertson's "history of startling statements," including linking the 9/11 attacks to homosexuality, and the utterance that "liberal judges" are a bigger threat than "a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," but, oddly, Robertson's last notable attempt to inject himself into U.S. foreign policy was left out. I can't stand Hugo Chavez, and I'm sure a good argument could be made for taking him out. But this isn't about the merits of Robertson's idea. Besides, such things are done covertly. (As the Wicked Witch of the West would say, "handled delicately....") Especially discussions of them. By sounding off like this, Robertson has probably helped guarantee Chavez's continued tenure, because the latter will use the threat as a sympathy ploy, boost his internal security apparatus, crack down on dissidents -- the whole nine yards. Hell, the first thing he did was to fly to Cuba to get some victim love and hugs from another dictator who has never stopped kvetching about U.S. attempts to kill him. Here's the lovely sight:
How many men have the power to make tyrants embrace? Back to his previous attempt to intervene in U.S. foreign policy. Liberia was suffering under the rule of a brutal dictator named Charles Taylor, and far from advocating his assassination, Robertson did his level best to protect the Taylor regime -- and (coincidentally?) his own investments in it! Pat Robertson Hammered for Stance Toward LiberiaIn the case of Liberia and Taylor, of course, Roberston made trouble for Bush by supporting a brutal dictator, whereas in the instant case, he's making trouble for Bush by opposing a brutal dictator. If the motive was money in Liberia, might there be more to this than the idiotarian political philosophy? I think the well-educated, (and politically well-briefed) Robertson is smart enough to know the consequences of his meddling. He's been around a long time, and these things are very predictable. If you've finished digesting the touching photo of love and hugs from the geriatric tyrant, consider the following facts about Venezuela: How major? Here's Venezuelanalysis: Over the past few weeks there have been some signs that Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez has backed down from his earlier confrontational posture towards Washington. According to the Venezuelan foreign minister, Chavez has no intention of reducing oil exports to the United States. The economic importance of oil in terms of Venezuelan-U.S. relations cannot be overstated. Venezuela is the fifth largest oil exporter in the world and the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States after Canada, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. Last year, Venezuela’s state owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) accounted for 11.8% (1.52-million barrels a day) of U.S. imports. (Emphasis added.)That was written in March. Is this a good time to buy stock in companies that import Venezuelan oil? Or would it be better to buy stock in Mideast importers? Or maybe sell short? What do I know? In my case, it matters not at all how much of an idiotarian I might be, because nothing I say can affect the price of oil. AFTERTHOUGHT: Robertson aside, it occurs to me that if the voicing of opinions can affect world events, anyone with a large audience might be considered an "insider" for SEC purposes. (Fortunately, that's an irrelevant consideration in blogging.) MORE: Speaking of oil-induced idiotarianism, here are some clever bumpersticker suggestions: send me your best ideas for anti-SUV bumper stickers. One reader already suggested: "How many soldiers-per-gallon does your SUV get?" Another ofering: "Osama Loves Your SUV." Got a better one?(via Michael Demmons) How many soldiers-per-gallon? Har! I get it now! But why do we have to get cute when the old "NO BLOOD FOR OIL" will do just fine? (As regular readers know, I've long advocated banning SUVs. . .) I'm almost tempted to ask whether Hugo Chavez might love SUVs at least as much as Osama, but I don't want to confuse the issue. UPDATE: Robertson now says he's being "misinterpreted.": Take him out could be a number of things including kidnapping.Sure. And "assassinate" might mean character assassination -- by means of ad hominem attacks. ("Misinterpreted" also might be what I'm doing by attributing to intelligence something more easily explained by simple stupidity.) posted by Eric at 09:24 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
... parry ... thrust!
A review of medical evidence by a group of researchers in California concludes that fetuses likely don't feel pain until the final months of pregnancy, a powerful challenge to abortion opponents who hope that discussions about fetal pain will make women think twice about ending pregnancies. And just now a mass of fascistic christers busily judging their neighbors and legislating morality stand slack-jawed in disbelief at this masterful refutation of everything they believe. Well, maybe not. But following the logic of the counter-argument I'm not a murderer if I anesthetize you first. Neither side aims to or can resolve the fundamental issue. Fetal pain is a desparate attempt by the anti-abortion crowd to 'win the hearts and minds' of those who have been brainwashed into believing that abortion is a rights and not a moral issue. The thing is that people are much more responsive to pain than to philosophical questions. Even a godless atheist like me recognizes that morality is the real issue. posted by Dennis at 07:19 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0) Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Food for thought . . .
Well, I guess after the Baghdad Bob business, I was asking for something like this. My dog Coco has been dragged into the Air America war.
I hope this won't be considered a form of dog abuse, but after all, she's only reached the still young and tender age of nine months, and I really haven't had time to sit down and discuss either the nuances of the Air America scandal or the psychological impact that celebrity status might have on her. Come to think of it, she's never listened to Air America, although she has heard Al Franken interviewed on another show. Then there's the issue of the Kool-Aid product placement. I'll have to chew on this for a while. posted by Eric at 04:23 PM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0)
WARNING: this post carries fairness beyond the call of duty!
Recently, a friend tried to interest me in the Green Party, and urged me to attend an upcoming convention in Washington. This startled me a bit, as I make no secret of my political views, which I think are not especially compatible with either the Green Party, nor with the views of most members of that party. But I do try to keep an open mind about everything, so I decided to do a little research. After all, I regularly test my libertarian compatibility; why not find out just how much of a match there is between Eric Scheie and the Green Party? The first factoid to hit me in the face was that as of August 2005, there are at least 224 Greens holding elected office in the United States: in 27 states and the District of Columbia. Geez. How do you suppose that compares to the Libertarian Party? Here's a Wikipedia entry: Following the 2002 elections, more than 300 Libertarians held elected state and local offices; following the 2004 elections, at least 221 Greens hold elected office. Though twelve Libertarians have previously been elected to state legislatures, none hold that office currently, unlike the Greens (one in Maine), the Independence Party (one in Minnesota), the Progressive Party (six in Vermont), the Republican Moderate Party (one in Alaska), and the Working Families Party (one in New York). Some Libertarian candidates for state office have performed relatively strongly in statewide races.The Greens dispute this, claiming they are a bigger political party. Interestingly enough, the two parties teamed up to demand a recount of Ohio votes in the last presidential election. (I suspect that the Greens have caused more headaches for Democrats than the Libertarian Party for Republicans.) But I'm not a formal member of the Libertarian Party as I'm not much of a joiner and I don't agree with them on everything. I suspect I agree with the Greens on less. Believe it or not, there has actually been a debate between these two philosophies, (in which Libertarian Mike Kole debated Green Natalie Davis) which is posted at BlogCritics.org. There was a surprising amount of agreement (on things like drug legalization and the Iraq War, although Kole supported the Afghanistan War), but the disagreement over economics ran head-on into profoundly, insurmountably, different philosophies: Natalie Davis: Which takes us back to the point discussed earlier -- too many people are unwilling to do (what some consider to be) the right thing. Greed is the prevailing American ideal.I suspect that the Green Party's economic philosophy is hopelessly and irreconcilably different from mine, too. As to the Iraq War, I have a major problem with the failure of the Libertarian Party to support a war I consider to be ultimately grounded in self defense. (Bush's attempt to transform the war against elusive, free roaming terrorists into a conventional ground war by simultaneously renewing a fight against a long-neglected but sworn enemy is a theory acceptable to my standards of national self defense -- even if it doesn't go far enough towards ultimately destroying all sources of support for the radical Islamist enemy.) But even that depends on how national self defense is defined, and I suspect the Greens are more unalterably opposed to self defense than the Libertarians. (For starters, there's gun control....) Conspicuously absent in the interview was an airing of the differences between these two parties on environmentalism. (A difference I suspect would be major and irreconcilable.) So what the hell is the Green Party platform, anyway? The best encapsulation I could find was -- guess what? -- the official Green Party USA Platform. I'll start with part of the Preamble: Green politics is an ecological approach to politics that links social and ecological problems. Ecology studies the relationships among organisms and their environment. Political ecology brings human institutions and ideologies into this holistic perspective.Frankly, that looks ominous. It seems loaded with the type of leftist jargon and code language which would translate into confiscation of property. Theft from Person A to give to Person B. EDITORIAL NOTE: For ease of reading this long, laborious post, all Green Party platform titles are colored green (as they are at the Party web site), and are addressed in the same order they appear -- with the exception of "Human Rights and Social Justice" -- left out because I am too callused to care, and so detest the phrase "social justice" that I deem it unworthy of serious discussion.) Ahem. The Green Party's official economic platform -- the Economic Bill Of Rights -- strikes me as little more than a call for a socialist welfare state: An Economic Bill of RightsAnd who pays for all this? The government. From where do they suppose "the government" gets its money? They have to take it from people who own it. That's unacceptable, and confiscatory -- unless you make the erroneous assumption that property is itself a form of theft. Which I don't. It doesn't look like I'm ready to join. But I'll read on. Their proposal for "Grassroots Democracy" would appear to abolish the United States Constitution: * Community Assemblies: Ground political representation in a foundation of participatory, direct democracy: a Community Assembly in every neighborhood, open to all of its residents, acting as a grassroots legislative body, with its own budget for local administration, and the power (in concert with other Citizens Assemblies who share a representative) to monitor, instruct, and recall representatives elected to municipal, state, and federal office.That's interesting, but it would destroy a vital aspect of the checks and balances the founders of this country intended to create, by replacing it with a "single chamber." I prefer the existing inefficiency, as it slows down hare-brained government schemes which might be whisked through under a single chamber. Similarly, the "Fair Elections" proposals (including Proportional Representation and dictating equal media access time) would require more messing with the Constitution, and I see no evidence that Proportional Representation would improve on what we have. I'm not enamored with the Greens' "Ecological Conversion" plank either. A few examples: That type of antipathy to technology borders on outright Luddism, and I could never being myself to vote for a candidate who took such positions. Now I'm even more afraid to join the Greens, lest my money be used to fund the sort of crackpots who devote their time to fighting technologies which could end Third World starvation. But there's more. Under "Sustainable Agriculture," is listed a proposal evocative of Maoist "land reform": What business is it of the government how many acres someone owns, or whether they live there? Either your property is your property, or it is not. Apparently the Green philosophy is that it is not. Even more evocative of Communism (listed under "Economic Democracy")are the proposals to effectively expropriate large and small businesses in favor of "the people": Any idea what that would do to the U.S. economy? We'd be on the fast track to the Stone Age. (How the hell did I manage to get myself so mired in reading through -- much less analyzing -- this mess, anyway? I tried to start this day being fair minded, and I feel that I'm up to my neck in Communist quicksand.) Well, as the saying goes, the only way out of a hole is to keep digging, right? So it's onward and downward to Taxation (called "Progressive and Ecological Taxes"): Well, at least they're being honest. Their stated goal is simply the confiscation of all wealth, and the creation of a socialist welfare state. I'm beginning to wonder whether my friend who asked me to come to the Green Convention was playing some sort of practical joke on me. (It's been known to happen, and I probably deserve it.) But there's nothing wrong with learning something, and today, I feel that I'm starting to know the Greens. But I might as well finish what I started. Under "Criminal and Civil Justice Reforms" the Greens propose refocusing crime prevention efforts on rehabilitation, freeing "prisoners of racial injustice" (not defined) and political favorites: No explanation of why "corporate criminals" are singled out as more worthy of punishment than, say, Ted Bundy, but I'll continue my increasingly difficult attempt to be fair. The party's "Labor Law Reforms" would restructure labor laws, and establish a "right to freedom from discharge at will," thus completely transforming the voluntary nature of the employment contract into a state-mandated entitlement system, under which employers would be caretakers of all employees for life. (The idea must be to prevent private employment, for that would be the result.) The "Revitalize Public Education" plank would abolish school vouchers and give far more money to the existing educational bureucracy, and would require: I like free higher education, and free food and medical care for all children, but again, with what money, and at whose expense? Obviously, at the expense of everyone, by means of confiscatory taxes extracted by government force. The goal of "Free, Diverse and Uncensored Media" looks appealing, but again, the Greens propose to accomplish that by applying state power: If media are not allowed to pursue profit, that's a form of censorship at least as onerous as McCain-Feingold. For without profit (also known as money), how are they to fund whatever it is that goes out over the air? If funds come from the government (or, as is said elsewhere, "funding to exceed existing support for for-profit media"), how can it be said that no strings would be attached? (I'm a bit too cynical to believe such a thing would be possible.) If enough people want to hear, see, or read something, doesn't that tend to be reflected in that thing's profitability? I see this antipathy towards the free market as fatally flawed for its failure to recognize the inseparability of the free market ideas and the free market. So I don't think it's suprising that the Greens call for complete government regulation of the airwaves: Regulate Public Airwaves in the Public Interest: Reassert the public's right as owners of the electromagnetic spectrum used as broadcast airwaves to regulate their use in the public interest. Re-appropriate 6 prime-time hours a day of commercial broadcast time on each station for real public service broadcasting: ad-free children's and news/public affairs programming. Fund this liberated time by charging commercial broadcasters rents for the bandwidths they use, a tax on sales of commercial stations, and a tax on advertising. Program this ad-free time under the control of artists' and educators for the children's programs and journalists for the news and public affairs programs. Restore the Fairness Doctrine. Free time for all candidates for public office. Prohibit paid political ads or require free ads of equal time for opponents. Redistribute substantial bandwidth concessions to public, nonprofit, and locally owned commercial stations, including low-power stations. Increase stakeholder representation on and public accountability of the Federal Communications Commission.I'm sorry but these are little more than calls for massive restrictions on free speech, dwarfing anything in McCain Feingold. What about the First Amendment? Have they read it? Do they care? Last but not least is "International Solidarity." Among other things, the Greens would make national self defense as we know it impossible. Near total disarmament, a 75% cut in the military budget, and a complete restructuring of United States foreign policy: We call for a fundamental shift in US foreign policy, from supporting repressive regimes in the interests global corporations to supporting the pro-democracy labor, social, and environmental movements of the people.I can't believe I got to the end, but there it is. The end. Of the United States as we know it. If the Greens get power. Where do I not join?
Sigh. Wikipedia has an entry on the split here. MORE: The Platform of the Green Party of the United States is over 34,000 words long, and is divided into innumerable topics. I'm sure it's well worth fisking whenever I can spare a month or two. . . It's also worth noting that the ten values are substantially the same in both "parties." MORE: While it's too large to address in its entirety, I've read through the platform of the Green Party of the United States. In general, it's more watered down, less strident in tone, and much, much longer. And it gets into details about things the Green Party USA neglects entirely, such as nanotechnology, which the Green Party of the United States wants to ban: Nanotechnology - the science of manipulating matter at the molecular level - is poised to provide a new industrial revolution with vast social and environmental consequences. Like nuclear science and biotechnology, nanotechnology is being pursued largely outside of public debate, risking great harm and abuse in its use and application.Again, there's too much stuff in this 76 page document to analyze in a blog post. Will I join either party? The answer isn't no; it's HELL NO! And as Raging Bee reminded me, no one should forget that there's another, possibly even more important Green Party! Seniority counts! Platform here! You will read it! posted by Eric at 10:39 AM | Comments (14)
| TrackBacks (0) Monday, August 22, 2005
Partisan political war?
Unless I am reading him wrong, Professor Bainbridge seems to think that success in the Iraq war should be measured by whether it benefits partisan (in this case conservative) politics: The conservative agenda has advanced hardly at all since the Iraq War began. Worse yet, the growing unpopularity of the war threatens to undo all the electoral gains we conservatives have achieved in this decade. Stalwarts like me are not going to vote for Birkenstock wearers no matter how bad things get in Iraq, but what about the proverbial soccer moms? Gerrymandering probably will save the House for us at least through the 2010 redistricting, but what about the Senate and the White House?I'm sorry, but I think this is fundamentally the wrong way to look at any war. The country is supposed to be at war, and ideally, all citizens should be in support of it. The war is not being waged for the benefit of the "conservative" cause -- or any other cause other than the cause of freedom. I must be missing something. Is Professor Bainbridge suggesting that this is a war for conservatism? I hope he isn't, and I hope it isn't. UPDATE: Rick Moran has a very thorough refutation of Professor Bainbridge's post. (Much more thorough than mine.) posted by Eric at 11:26 PM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0)
The callused applause of "little Himmlers"?
Via Bill Hobbs, a post by Bob Krumm led me to Peggy Noonan's recent piece on abortion (in this case, reactions by a modern audience to an older play): An important moment in the plot is when a character announces she is pregnant, and considering having an abortion. In fact, she tells her mother-in-law, she's already put $5 down with the local abortionist. It is a dramatic moment. And you know as you watch it that when this play came out in 1960 it was received by the audience as a painful moment--a cry of pain from a woman who's tired of hoping that life will turn out well.Peggy Noonan is right about abortion being a tragedy. Whether that is an argument for imprisoning the mother is of course highly debatable. Still more debatable is whether taking the "morning after pill" like RU-486 is a tragedy, and if so, whether the tragedy rises to the same level. Yes, matters of personal tragedies have now become highly political, with grandstanding and cheerleading on one side, and moral scolding on the other. The result has been a near-deafening chorus of political hyperbole on both sides. The idea of publicly applauding a decision to have an abortion is sickening. As Bill Krumm says, it's a callous change. Yet calluses take time to develop, and I'm not altogether sure that these calluses were produced solely by shrill groups of angry feminists waving coat hangers. I've previously posted about an incident in which local college-age girls went into their student lounge to be confronted with huge placards of mutilated fetuses. This is intended to have "shock value" and it takes an emotional toll (at least it did on the girls there at the time). "Desensitization" is, I believe, the expression which is used. If you stick enough gruesome images into people's faces, it is only natural that they will no longer have the desired effect. The effect can backfire, and "desensitization" can morph into backlash. (At the time, it seemed more likely that the offended girls would be motivated to drive to Washington to fight the sign wavers than support them. And I wouldn't be surprised if such "calluses" helped them do things like cheer at inappropriate times.) When RU-486 is likened to Zyklon-B, and the drug companies and doctors involved are compared to Himmler, is it any wonder that the people who are not persuaded (or who feel maligned) by these comparisons might become more cynical? More callused? Few people liked Ward Churchill's "little Eichmanns" remark, but I'm now looking back at some of the callused things I wrote. I cracked insensitive jokes -- directly as a reaction to his ridiculous hyperbole. At the risk of asking a callused question, am I not supposed to laugh at my own calluses?
I wouldn't even applaud aborting tiny dog fetuses. I'd actually feel sorry for the canine mother. (That's probably just an example of misplaced anthropomorphism -- something for psychoanalysts to ponder. I'm too callused.) posted by Eric at 09:38 AM | Comments (8)
| TrackBacks (0)
How to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain . . .
I'm wondering whether sexism is raising its ugly head in New York's Senate race: ALBANY, N.Y. - Is this a Senate race or country music?This puts Hillary in a bit of a dilemma, because she has far greater name recognition, but she's also vulnerable to the charge that she's been coat-tailing on her husband's name. So, if she maligns Jeanine Pirro's husband, that gives Pirro an opening to make the election about Bill Clinton. Yet if she ignores Mr. Pirro's felon status, she might miss a valuable campaign opportunity, and avoiding "the husband issue" might be seen as grounded in a desire to avoid talking about her own husband. A possible no-win for Hillary -- unless she has others do her dirty work for her. (The Cindy Sheehan crowd has helped Hillary too, by making her look moderate, even hawkish.) What fascinates me about this is that wives are rarely the subject of inquiry in a race between two male candidates. Going after an opponent's wife (even when there's dirt) is seen as dirty politics -- if not "unmanly" behavior. There's always the ancient technique called praeteritio -- bringing up something by saying you won't bring it up -- but voters are sophisticated enough to catch it, which means it should be used sparingly. And subtly. Hillary could object that she won't allow "them" (that's the VRWC) to "smear" her husband, that she's running on her own issues, and that husbands and families should not be a proper focus of a campaign. This would remind voters that "the husband issue" is there, but that Hillary doesn't think it's right to dwell on it. (Specifically refusing to dwell on her own husband, of course, evokes her opponent's husband without mentioning him at all.) For extra effect, she could add that she's "paid no attention" to whatever is being paid attention to, and that no one else should either! Gotta keep this race clean, and focused on the real issues.
posted by Eric at 09:03 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) Sunday, August 21, 2005
The gravest possible threats
Pandagon has responded to my last post: If you're going for grade-B wingnuttia, Classical Values shows off the humorless, clueless, mildly dishonest weaseldom that conservatives do so well.I'll start by misreading the humorless clueless weasel stuff. Pandagon is hereby banished to Teletubby Trackbackland for saying such things. As to "conservative," well, lots of other people probably would call me a liberal (and this test calls me a libertarian), but liberal and conservative are just labels -- of less and less value to anyone except those who believe in them. It's name calling and it speaks for itself, and I don't think it's any more persuasive than it would be if I replied the same way. For what it's worth, I think it was extremely rude to call La Shawn a "dumbass," and I think it speaks highly of her that she has maintained a sense of humor. (At least I think Teletubbies falls into the humor category, even for those who imagine a "serious" gay theme.) So who spilled the Tubby Custard on me, anyway? Was it that mean Pandagon man? As to the contention that La Shawn "has literally made her blog unreadable to anyone except those who agree with her," that simply isn't true. She may be playing a game with someone who insulted her, but even if she redirects links from a particular site, anyone can read her blog by entering the URLs directly because it's on the Internet. Or am I misreading "literally unreadable"? I'm still trying to misread the part about the "general approach towards criticism on the right that LaShawn embodies, which is to throw out threats of lawsuits and grave bloggish vengeance." Yes, the general approach is very grave: And threatening: Better get used to it. UPDATE: I'm being throttled again, and I'll take Pandagon at his word that he didn't do it. However, this is what my Activity Log says: 2005.08.22 03:30:20 xxx.xxx.xxx.xx Ping 'http://www.pandagon.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1153' failed: HTTP error: 403 ThrottledIf there's one thing worse than being called names, it's being throttled. Can anyone help? UPDATE (08/27/05): As La Shawn Barber notes, allowing comments can get you sued. (Via InstaPundit.) Another reason why the criticism of La Shawn's comment and trackback policies is unreasonable. posted by Eric at 10:25 PM | Comments (8)
| TrackBacks (0)
Right wing stifles another cherished American right!
La Shawn Barber has had it with annoying trackbacks, and I don't blame her. I don't like them either, but I'm sure she gets far more than I do because of her status as an outspoken black conservative. Lots of bloggers don't allow trackbacks, but if you do, prepare for annoyances. Anything from spam trackbacks, trackbacks from abusive posts, parasitic trackbacks that link to posts not mentioning the post they've tracked back -- and all of these take up space at your blog. Whether to have trackbacks at all is a personal decision. How La Shawn might deal with them should be no one's business but hers. Anyway, her policy is simply not to allow (in addition to spam and non-referring links) libelous or insulting linkings to be appear as trackbacks on her blog: 4) Trackbacks leading to offensive, ad hominem-laced, and/or libelous posts where I’m the subject will be deleted. Habitual offenders will be permanently banned.For most bloggers, the idea that anyone should have the right to put a trackback on someone else's blog would be absurd. Not to La Shawn's critics (Pandagon and Atrios). They seem to think they have a right not only to savage her and libel her, but to require her to help facilitate the insults and the libels. Huh? Let me try to make sense of this if I can. Here's Pandagon: Permanent banning from having LaShawn Barber readers attack other blogs for her being wrong? Glory be, what's this world coming to?I'll let you know when I find out. But right now I'm having a lot of trouble understanding know what is meant by "readers attack[ing] other blogs for her [La Shawn] being wrong." What the? La Shawn never said anything about that, nor would she, as it makes no sense. Suppose I thought La Shawn was wrong. I might disagree with her (for example, on whether the Iraq War should be analyzed in terms of whether it harms conservatism), but why on earth would I "attack" another blog for anything La Shawn said? (If I did, it would be clear evidence that I'd developed full-blown Alzheimers.) Anyway, Pandagon continues: I tell you - back when I started blogging, we had to deal with real trolls - people who sat around posting upwards of a hundred comments a day on every post you wrote, almost never doing anything other than attacking you personally. As it is, the standard on the conservative side of the blogosphere for "attacking" seems to have devolved to "disagreement".It has? I suggest that disagreeing with Cindy Sheehan, however rationally, is one of the best ways to be accused of "attacking" -- a phenomenon I saw similarly at work with the uproar over Jamie Gorelick. I think most fair minded people can see the difference between disagreement and personal attacks, but I also think politics invites the blurring of this distinction. What I do not see is any evidence that La Shawn's trackback policy in any way defines disagreements as "attacks." Insulting language, ad hominem attacks, and libels are not mere disagreements, and libel goes way beyond ordinary political attack, even of the ad hominem variety. I've been deleted and/or banned from several conservative blogs for simply disagreeing, not because I was "vulgar" or "profane", but simply because I showed up, had a different opinion, and dared to actually put it on their site.While I don't know the details of how Pandagon got "banned from several conservative blogs for simply disagreeing," what does it have to do with La Shawn's trackback policy? And where are La Shawn's "hurt feelings" to be found? How did La Shawn say that she would tolerate nothing "other than degrees of agreement"? There are certain sites that I hold responsible for their commenters - LGF, for example, which despite Chuck J.'s implorations to the contrary, does everything in its power to promote rabid and violent hatred as a matter of course.Isn't there a contradiction in holding LGF responsible for commenters, while slamming La Shawn for wanting to do the same thing? I'm also wondering precisely how anyone would go about doing everything in his power to promote what he implores people not to do, and I'd like to know, but it's getting off topic. As is any discussion of LGF commenters, really -- for what have they to do with La Shawn's trackback policy? Most other sites, though, I just don't care. Pandagon is hard enough to enforce, and we're not a comment machine like other sites. Trying to enact Barber's policy on a site like Atrios or the Washington Monthly, for example, would be a headache of the utmost degree, particularly given the definition of libel that includes a lot of shit that's in no way libelous.That's an interesting definition, but it's contradictory, as libel is a legal definition. I looked at the definition La Shawn cited (rather straightforward as legal definitions go), but "a lot of shit that's in no way libelous" just didn't stare me in the face. I guess the big question now is how offensive do we need to be before no liberal blog is allowed to trackback to LaShawn Barber again? And when can we start?At the risk of sounding like a Nazi, since when did anyone -- liberal, conservative, moderate, libertarian, anarchist, atheist, Muslim, or Pagan -- have even the slightest entitlement to trackback to La Shawn Barber? This "if you don't allow trackbacks you're stifling dissent" approach is almost comical, but the reason I'm taking it seriously is that it touches on the old idea of forcing blogs to allow so called "fair comment." It's a terrible, unconstitutional idea that won't go away, and I have zero tolerance for it. Why, I wouldn't even impose the rule on the link-avoiding James Wolcott, whose penchant for refusing to link even to the very words he criticizes I've complained about before. (And who, much like the stiflers of dissent on the far right, allows neither comments nor trackbacks.) But Wolcott is the opposite extreme. Most bloggers -- left, right, or center, at least link to stuff they criticize. Interestingly enough, I've been criticized for linking to to stuff I disagree with, which only demonstrates the huge spread of opinion on the mechanics of criticizing blog posts. The bottom line here is that La Shawn is perfectly free to treat trackbacks any way she wants. Deleting trackbacks she deems insulting or libelous is in my view a moderate, reasonable approach to what I am sure is a major pain in the ass. There's no right to freely advertise your insults on my blog. People who feel shut off or censored can criticize her the old fashioned way. In their own blogs. If they don't allow me to trackback, I won't feel censored. IMPORTANT AND URGENT UPDATE: The dark and ugly forces of tyrannical trackbackicide have struck again. Just look at what happened when I published this post: 2005.08.21 19:38:55 ###.###.##.## Ping 'http://www.pandagon.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1153' failed: HTTP error: 403 ThrottledYou see? The left and the right are already working in collusion to stifle dissent at Classical Values! I'm feeling, like, way censored. (As the activity log says, throttled!) MORE: Anyone who still thinks La Shawn's rules are too severe should read the The Classical Values Eleven Rules of Etiquette for Commenters. Oh what the hell. I'll reprint them again, as a public service: (With rules like that, little wonder I get so few comments.) posted by Eric at 01:55 PM | Comments (13)
| TrackBacks (0)
I hate lawyers for making me stay on this planet!
Moments after writing the last post about San Francisco's political rejection of a historic U.S.S. Iowa, my attention was drawn to Glenn's link about the feasibility of constructing a space elevator. Technologically, it's a solid, practical idea, but my concern is that it might be more politically impractical than it initially seems. Bradley Karl Edwards recognizes that building such a thing -- a giant cable, literally piercing the heavens -- will carry political costs: Costs associated with legal, regulatory, and political aspects could easily add another $4 billion, but these expenses are much harder to estimate.Here on the East Coast, politics prevents building or widening roads. When environmentalists team up with wealthy NIMBYs, the most simple things simply don't happen. Pennsylvania's Blue Route is a good example. It took nearly forty years of legal wrangling to build it, and that took place mostly before the rise of environmentalism. I can only imagine the outcry over a giant cable. Assorted Luddites, socialists, religious nuts, greenie weenies, anti-globalists, a public fearful of terrorist threats, and a whole bunch of people who like to cite "all the problems we have on earth" as a reason not to do things space related -- all of these will coalesce. A dramatic thing like a cable to heaven would be seen as a symbol of All That Is Wrong With Man. Symbols drive emotion and ignorance, which in turn drive politics. I have serious doubts as to whether this could ever happen, and if it proved politically impossible, I'd blame lawyers more than any single group. My admitted hatred of lawyers is probably a form of self hatred -- something probably confirmable after a few years of analysis.... The odd thing is I don't hate lawyers as individuals; I only hate what they do as a group. (I could say the same thing about the tyranny of rule by emotion, I guess. Too many lawyers seem to use human emotion as economic fuel.) posted by Eric at 11:11 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
U.S. out of San Francisco! In a brazen display of Michael Moore style triumphalism (and a slap in the face of all World War II veterans), the San Francisco City Council has refused to allow the historic U.S.S. Iowa a home in San Francisco's maritime museum: The USS Iowa joined in battles from World War II to Korea to the Persian Gulf. It carried President Franklin Roosevelt home from the Teheran conference of allied leaders, and four decades later, suffered one of the nation’s most deadly military accidents.There's nothing surprising about it. What is surprising to me is to see San Francisco continue to allow the presence of an attack submarine guilty of racist war crimes against the valiant forces which opposed white supremacy and imperialism. (Amazon link here.) MORE: Ross Mirkarimi, the supervisor quoted above, is a gun-toting gun-grabber (yes, there are such things) who takes his lessons in Constitutional Law from Michael Moore films: “Supervisor-elect Ross Mirkarimi, who himself owns two handguns because of his job as an investigator in the district attorney's office, said he supported the ordinance. MORE: Considering the title of this post, it occurred to me that the polite thing to do would be to at least provide a link to San Francisco's secessionist movement. UPDATE (08/23/05): August 20, 2005 seems destined go be a date which will live in political infamy, as many Republicans are on record as agreeing with Dianne Feinstein. Writing for GOP Bloggers, Jason Smith (in a piece called "Mark this date: I Agree With Diane Feinstein!") supplies this list of how San Francisco supervisors voted: Tell them what you think: DID NOT SUPPORT the Permanent Berthing of the U.S.S. Iowa as a Museum at the Port of San Francisco:
MORE: Eugene Volokh correctly describes the supervisors' action as appalling: Just appalling. This ship helped protect America and the Free World from the Japanese and the Nazis. It helped protect the South Koreans from being overrun by the North. Yet somehow that's all outweighed in the Supervisors' minds by the Iraq war and of the military's policy on homosexuality. What a shocking lack of perspective and lack of respect for the institution that has helped (and continues to help) to protect San Franciscans -- and, I should mention, gay and lesbian San Franciscans, who would have suffered far worse than exclusion from the military in the hands of our WWII-era enemies, or of our modern enemies -- alongside all other Americans. (For more on a similar lack of perspective on the part of law schools that refuse to let the military interview on campus, see here.)It's political correctness carried to a monstrous extreme. What I find most appalling is that these attitudes now typify smug San Francisco, and are considered trendy. The facial expressions of the attendees at this exhibition of "vintage" Black Panther art -- reviewed by S.F. Supervisor Mirkarimi -- in my view typify the trendy smugness. Maybe I'm wrong; should I have said "smug trendiness"? posted by Eric at 10:07 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (1)
Now On Loan To The AEI Collection: King Tut
My fishing expedition is far from over, but this item was so good I just had to come back and tell you about it. I've been remiss in letting so much time elapse, but better late than never, eh? The following is an eye witness account of a Kass sighting at the American Enterprise Institute. I believe it to be genuine. Apparently, the parched mummy of the once brilliant ethicist was wheeled out on stage, where it proceeded to champ its wizened jaws and expel what was variously described as a "fell miasma", or "dessicated wisdom granules" liberally mixed with finely ground sacred tanna leaves. No, really. I wouldn't lie to you. Last night I went to the annual intern dinner at the American Enterprise Institute. Leon Kass...delivered the keynote speech. Our intrepid reporter Anastasia hails from Liberty Belles, a Catallarchy affiliate. Her observations are a telling little gem regarding the Former-Boy Philosopher-King. He didn’t say anything contentious for most of the speech, probably because he wasn’t there to deliver a policy lecture but to be agreeable and interesting. Besides, he was preaching to his choir anyway. Yeah, that's just what we need... ...in order to engage the public in a debate, and he framed his research in terms of “human dignity.” He referred to Huxley’s Brave New World at least seven times...I think he relied more on that book than on solid science to support his vision of the future... This is actually datapoint two in a series. Time out for testimony from a different witness at a different event, a Kass Q&A at Harvard... Markus Meister...brought up a good example of a technology that has completely changed our lives: telecommunications. A hundred years ago one could have argued that it would be highly unnatural for us to be able to talk to people out of earshot, much less across the globe. Hey, one more and I can plot a curve! And now, back to Anastasia... A few of the AEI interns came up to me later and expressed their concern that Kass’ answer was rude. I suppose it was, but I wasn’t insulted. I just wanted an actual answer. Nor do I. Loyal commenter Clara, a fellow witness to the Philosophe, had this to add... Anastasia is too modest to describe Dr. Kass’s immediate reaction for you: For the better part of a minute, he just opened and closed his mouth, unable to form a single word in response to her question. It's difficult to reconcile your embarassingly contradictory moral imperatives in a public venue, especially on the fly, especially as you near your dotage. Had it been me up on that stage, I might have tried to pass over the moment with a lame witticism, or perhaps a wee, wee dram of measured bluster. Oh, right. He did. posted by Justin at 12:27 AM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0) Saturday, August 20, 2005
Repentance comes again
Here's a local event which is becoming national. Talented anti-gay activist and former Clinton White House intern Michael Marcavage is now claiming that "Christians" defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, by making them lose: A Philadelphia-based Christian group is claiming victory over the Phillies after displaying an anti-gay banner at the team's annual Gay Day game.It's a little hard to follow the logic here, but then, the only thing which seems logical about Marcavage is his ability to get headlines. I've repeatedly predicted he'd go far, and he seems to be doing just that. Not to be left out of the fun, Atrios is generously supporting an effort to send Marcavage to Iraq. No word from Mikey on whether he's going, but considering the way he talks about President Bush, and the way he sounds in this interview I think it's a safe bet that he's at least as much against the Iraq War as Atrios. Politics loves strange bedfellows, and this has all the makings of an orgy. posted by Eric at 08:53 PM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Search ended for LaToyia Figueroa
Bad news. The search for pregnant mother LaToyia Figueroa (a search which activated the blogosphere) is over, as police have found her body. Boyfriend Stephen Poaches is being charged with murder: PHILADELPHIA - A former boyfriend of LaToyia Figueroa, a pregnant woman whose month-long disappearance attracted national attention, will be charged with her death, authorities said Saturday.It was a horrible crime, and I hope they have a solid case against him. My sympathy goes out to the family. posted by Eric at 03:57 PM | Comments (7)
| TrackBacks (0)
Categories of smear
I have repeatedly questioned the fitness of Jamie Gorelick to sit on the 9/11 Commission because of what I see as a conflict of interest. I now see (via InstaPundit) that Ann Althouse has gotten into trouble with an angry left wing chorus accusing her (and Glenn) of engaging in a "smear." What I want to know is: precisely what is a smear? Is it a smear to raise questions about a possible conflict of interest? Even when they turn out to be well founded? If that's a smear, then what should we call hurling accusations of murder or fascism, or making repeated comparisons to Adolf Hitler? What's the proper term for accusing libertarians of promoting the far right agenda? I can't help noticing that the posts accusing Glenn Reynolds and Ann Althouse of smearing are placed in a category called "RADICAL RIGHT-WING AGENDA." Why are there no similar categories appearing at the blogs of either Smearmeister Reynolds or Smearmistress Althouse? Where's the "RADICAL LEFT-WING AGENDA" category? I hate to say it, but I think Glenn is "dropping the ball in the 'continual smear' department." (Either that or he's a predatory hawk who likes to smear his prey before eating it.)
A warm welcome to InstaPundit readers. UPDATE: Readers who are interested in the distinction between disagreement and attacks (and the mischaracterizations of one as the other for political gain) might enjoy my latest post. posted by Eric at 12:20 PM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
A tough sell?
Glenn Reynolds (who has repeatedly complained that he doesn't want to be prey), has today linked to Ann Althouse (also a spoilsport where it comes to "re-wilding" America by introducing predatory animals). Here's the "huge issue": "Obviously, gaining public acceptance is going to be a huge issue, especially when you talk about reintroducing predators," said lead author Josh Donlan, of Cornell University. "There are going to have to be some major attitude shifts. That includes realising predation is a natural role, and that people are going to have to take precautions."Like lock your doors, don't leave the house, and never keep a gun handy because you might be tempted to use it illegally against a protected animal? The "attitide shifts" involve more than merely taking precautions. Donlan, the scientist who's proposing this, has obviously done a little market research into this delicate matter: Donlan concedes that lions would be a tough sell to Americans.I'm not sure that I'd characterize the sticking point as being along the lines of how we view the predators, because it's uncontested that predators are predators -- a fact Donlan does not deny. Rather, I think he's talking about how we view ourselves. Most Americans aren't accustomed to seeing themselves as prey -- as being part of the food chain. I think that's the tough sell. Some sort of educational campaign is needed. "Join the food chain!" might sound a bit insensitive at first, but if the benefits are explained carefully, people might get used to the idea. There's already an environmentally friendly death movement, and people are warming to the idea of being naturally eaten after death. As one future thinker opined: To me, the idea that I could become worm food is an honor.Worm food, lion food, when you're dead, you're dead! New ideas take time. posted by Eric at 11:04 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
"the children of the privileged should be doing some of the dying"
So says Bob Herbert -- who is particularly upset that President Bush has been spotted riding a bicycle: Mr. Bush is the commander in chief who launched a savage war in Iraq and now spends his days happily riding his bicycle in Texas.Well, the president is a known physical fitness buff. I'm wondering whether Bob Herbert's objection is to the president's regular exercise, or whether it's to his choice of a bicycle as an inappropriate form of exercise. If Bush took Mr. Herbert's advice and lost the bike (or used an indoor stationary bike), would that make everything OK? I don't think so, because he seems to see the bike riding as a symptom of a national disease. We're all guilty of enabling this frolicking, fun-loving president, because we don't care: If the nation really cared, the president would not be frolicking at his ranch for the entire month of August. He'd be back in Washington burning the midnight oil, trying to figure out how to get the troops out of the terrible fix he put them in.Well, shame on her! And shame on me for going out last night! I'd love to ask Bob Herbert whether he indulges himself in such decadent exercises as bicycle riding, swimming or running, or has any kind of personal physical fitness program. Has he, or has anyone in his family acting on his behalf, been shopping in any stores recently? If he has or they have, then I have more questions, because I demand answers! I don't think I'm any more likely to get answers from Mr. Herbert than Cindy Sheehan is from Bush. That's the way it is when you're dealing with rich, powerful elites. Sigh. Anyway, speaking of privilege -- and bicycles -- what about Manhattan's Upper West Side, where Bob Herbert lives? There are plenty of bicycles there, and the Upper West Side's City Council representative wants more of them! “I love bikes and I don’t love cars,” Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side, told the crowd. “I look forward to working with you to make sure there are fewer cars and more bicycles.”What? Upper West Siders ride? While others died? posted by Eric at 09:42 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0)
Classically Inciteful evening
Just made it back from an evening of dinner and drinking with John Beck of Incite and yours truly of Classical Values. After hooking up at Philadelphia's 30th Street train station, John and I went to "Ludwig's" -- and old German bar with mounted animal heads on the wall. It's a charming place with great food and beer, but the lighting was absolutely terrible for photos. I thought I'd try to photograph John next to the moose head, but the neon light from a jukebox overpowered half of John's head, and I think the moose was trying to overpower the other half.
To take the last outdoor photo, I had to balance my camera on a utility box, set the shutter timer and hop into the picture just in time for the camera to photograph both of us:
While I can't say two bloggers constitute a "blog swarm," it was a very fun evening. Stuff like this should happen more often.
I only had three beers, but they were roughly 2 pints each, and German beer is about twice the alcohol content of American beer.But that's not the same story he gave the police! posted by Eric at 12:43 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (1) Friday, August 19, 2005
the path to impurity?
Every once in a while I like to check my political litmus -- stuff like whether I'm still a libertarian, or how much of a libertarian I am, or how I score in tests purporting to tell me that. So once again, I took Bryan Caplan's Libertarian Purity Test (which I found via Incite). My all time high on this test was a score of 105 on March 11, 2004. I don't know wy I was so high that day, but this time I only scored 100 -- out of a possible perfect score of 160. 91-130 points: You have entered the heady realm of hard-core libertarianism. Now doesn't that make you feel worse that you didn't get a perfect score?Not really. I find myself more and more inclined to resist such external judgments. I suspect I'd find the type of person who'd score 160 to be a bit on the impractical side. The kind who like to argue late into the night over things like whether handguns should be sold to children in elementary school vending machines, who'd open the borders to the entire world, and who'd eliminate national self defense. While I have no objection per se to libertarian purity, and I think it's good that there are such people, that kind of libertarianism would be a national suicide pact if implemented. Most of my friends -- whether liberal, moderate or conservative -- would probably fall into the 50 through 80 range. Which means I'm still a bit of a kook from the standpoint of most of my friends, as well as a less-than-pure sellout from the standpoint of libertarian purists. Can't please 'em, can't join 'em. posted by Eric at 02:13 PM | Comments (13)
| TrackBacks (0)
A fake war against authenticity?
If there's one thing I hate, it's writing an authentic film review (that's why I prefer to write film reviews about films I've never seen). But if there's one thing I hate more than writing a film review, it's when I have to write about a film I hate. Unfortunately, that's the case with Me and You and Everyone We Know. It must be the fact that I'm an old crank, but when a film gets glowing reviews by leading critics like Roger Ebert, when it wins at both the Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals, I sort of expect that it might be at least entertaining; maybe even good. I didn't get what I expected. Instead, the film reminded me of some of the regrettable 1970s drivel I had to sit through thirty years ago. Poor writing and rank amateurism, syruped over with long musical interludes no doubt intended to be "artsy" -- in the hope you either won't notice there's nothing there, or (better yet) you might be distracted into thinking it's great art. Before I was even twenty minutes into the film, I began to ask myself who on earth could possibly have written such insipidly boring, profoundly uninspiring dialogue. In the interest of fairness, I should point out that I don't share the stated philosophy of the director/writer/star, Miranda July: The movie is the product of someone brought up in a household that revered authenticity — to a fault, she implies — and who has since devoted her life’s work to questioning its value. “I was raised with this fear of fakeness,” says July over lunch on the patio of a Beverly Hills hotel, “this fear that I might become fake. But what is fake? Like the bird picture in the tree at the end, does fake really matter if we’re really able to connect? That’s the human condition.”And, sure enough, the film is authentic. Um, unique, even. More about the Miranda July here. (In addition to her new career as a director, she's a musician and blogger.) Again, I'm sorry to be displaying hostility, and I know my geriatric jadedness is showing. But years ago I lived with a performance artist, and I knew some of San Francisco's legends before their notoriety. Not that they weren't often very talented, very nice people. (How I'd love to drop a few names and tell a few stories, but natural caution and legal training forbids.) The problem is, I never liked their art, but I didn't want to hurt their feelings, so I engaged in my usual self-censorship. (An excellent way to hurt the feelings of yourself and others, by the way. Of course had I said what I thought that would have been hurtful too. Which would not have been OK. OK?) Anyway, had I taken the time to check out the author's performance art, I might have saved the time and money spent on the film. Well, I did this morning, and here's her description of Love Diamond: Love Diamond In this full-length performance piece, Miranda July, with the accompaniment of composer Zac Love, fully utilizes the complex circuit of language that she has built over the course of her performing, moviemaking, recording career -- a circuit defined by its charged transmissions and sharp dialogues. These dialogues take place not only between characters (performed simultaneously by July), but between mediums. Machines and humans speak: video talks to audio talks to slides talk to audience members talk to each other.No. No! NO! EVERYTHING IS NOT OK, OK? IT NEVER WILL BE OK, OK? Give me even a shlock war movie over this any day, OK? Look, I realize these are matters of taste, and in matters of taste there can be no disagreement. It's just not my taste, that's all. Save your money, unless you want to think the country is falling apart and want to understand why. There's not a hero or a villain, nor anyone with whom I could identify. Instead (except for an especially brilliant little boy who fakes being an online pervert), the characters are mediocre in the extreme. Socialist realism, the glorification of the mundane (sure to make elitist audiences feel "in touch with the common man"), and copies of copies of Diego Rivera murals all come to mind. If you want heroes, villains, handsome lead males, beautiful lead women, or real action look elsewhere. (As to "action," even the scene in which the lead male character sets himself on fire manages to be about as exciting as a documentary I saw on tongue splitting. I mean, how is it a great revelation to know we've been increasingly out of touch with pain since the invention of anesthesia?) I am not OK, and you are not OK. If you want to see the film, well, that's OK with me. I'm just too paranoid about the beautification of mediocrity, as it threatens my optimistic gloom. The film aside, I enjoyed reading the director's views on blogging: You yourself have a blog now, and then in the film itself there's a hilarious running story around computers and instant messaging. I was wondering if you had a particular interest in the way technology affects society?There's no way to do it. It's already too much for me, even though I'm not a public figure and I find talking about myself tedious. So here's a truly tedious tidbit about myself: I blew my big chance as a performance artist when I turned down a role I was offered as a "fishy." I was asked if I would dress as a fish and lay on the floor while sticking my head through a draping of fake water, while being fed by the artist who would later "net" me. No. No! NO! A career-ending mistake. (I've been an anti-performance art bigot ever since.) posted by Eric at 12:34 PM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0)
The Hitler-Churchill axis
While I'm on the subject of apologizing for crimes committed in the past, here's another meme making the rounds: the United States as the inspiration for Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust. As God commanded in Deuteronomy, Americans destroyed sacred Indian poles and shrines and Germans destroyed sacred Jewish books and temples. If Aryan Americans had conquered a continent, Hitler would use the same techniques to conquer a world.Exactly the same as the Holocaust. Wounded Knee = Auschwitz. When you've seen one Holocaust, you've seen 'em all. Naturally, these historians link liberally to each other, and drag in as many respected authors as possible: David Stannard eloquently summed up the Holocaust's origins in his book American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World:Elie Wiesel is right: the road to Auschwitz was being paved in the earliest days of Christendom. But another conclusion now is equally evident: on the way to Auschwitz the road's pathway led straight through the heart of the Indies and of North and South America. Nowadays, our genocidal policies are a bit more covert and closety, but the "little Eichmanns" are everywhere at work -- even at your local shopping mall: Since the extremes of the American and German holocausts, Western civilization has pulled back some. Our leaders have decided physical conquest is bad—disposing bodies requires too much paperwork, perhaps—but economic conquest is another matter. To build our factories and shopping malls, we exploit the world's poor people, suck up their natural resources, and demolish the earth's environment.Jeez. I'm feeling so overwhelmed by guilt right now that I just don't know what to do. We more than deserve the severest possible punishment. 9/11 was a mere trifle considering the magnitude of our crimes against humanity. If only a righteously indignant oppressed group could really do something to get our attention! At any rate, Hitler might as well still be in charge of the evil Amerikkka that inspired him (and vice versa). The meta-message of this Euro-American drive should be obvious by now. Hitler wasn't an aberration. He was the ultimate product of Western civilization, the über-American. We have met the enemy, and he was us.And we must therefore wage war against the enemy -- which of course is us! There's more there, and at other similar web sites, and not surprisingly, Ward Churchill is quoted liberally. A leftist scholar at Columbia University shares his insights: Scholars estimate the North American Indian population at 15 million at the time of Columbus's arrival. In 1900, the US census found that there were 237,000 Indians in North America. This dwarves anything that Hitler ever did. What is interesting about the American architects of genocide is that they don't even feel the need to use euphemisms. They openly called for the "extermination" of the Indian, while nobody can find a single statement by Hitler that is so blunt.Yes, the United States is incredibly guilty. Not only did we inspire Hitler, but we've claimed his mantle forever into the future. E Pluribus Fuhrer! posted by Eric at 10:25 AM | Comments (10)
| TrackBacks (0) Thursday, August 18, 2005
Dead to rights?
Here's a gutsy report from the New York Times: Despite the objections of Florida's Anatomical Board, an exhibition of 20 cadavers and 260 body parts, stripped of their skin to show their muscles, organs and blood vessels, opened a scheduled six-month run at the Tampa Museum of Science and Industry yesterday, The Associated Press reported. Premier Exhibitions of Atlanta, the promoter of "Bodies, the Exhibition," said the state board, which supervises the use of cadavers in medical schools, had no jurisdiction over the museum. Similar exhibitions have attracted millions of viewers around the world despite the criticism of religious officials and medical ethicists. Premier said that the corpses were those of Chinese people whose bodies were unclaimed or unidentified before they were sent to Dalian Medical University in China, and that the university had certified that they had died of natural causes and had not been prisoners. The board, in voting 4 to 2 against the exhibition, took the position that neither the dead nor their families had given formal permission for their use in a museum. In a letter to the board, Brian Wainger, a lawyer for Premier, said the bodies had been "obtained legally and handled properly." A spokeswoman for Florida's attorney general, Charlie Crist, said, "It is up to the board to seek enforcement through the courts, or the museum to seek permission through the courts." The bodies in the exhibition are preserved by a process that replaces human tissue with silicone rubber. Arnie Geller, the president and chief executive of Premier, said their display was no different from an exhibition of mummies.I'm dying of lack of sleep right now, so this issue will have to await further dissection. In an earlier post, I discussed an attempt in San Francisco to block this same type of exhibit, by means of a logically questionable emotional appeal (along racial or ethnic grounds), which similarly failed. posted by Eric at 10:21 PM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
If at first you don't secede . . .
I've posted before on secession, but that involved a small minority of fringe type people moving to a state in the hope of making it secede. (In reality they stand little chance of seeing it happen.) Today I see a new idea: secession by means of multiculturalism. That link is very tough to open, so here are some excerpts (it's an NPR interview by reporter Martin Kaste discussing Senator Akaka's "independence" bill, SB 147): KASTE: Earlier this month, thousands came out to protest a recent appeals court decision striking down the Hawaiians-only admissions policy at a prominent private school. Illegal racial bias, the judges said. The problem is favoring natives is the whole point of the Kamehameha Schools, which are funded by the estate of a 19th-century princess who wanted to help her fellow natives.Needless to say, some of the activists think the proposal doesn't go far enough: KASTE: But for some native Hawaiians, the Akaka Bill doesn't go far enough.Hawaiian self government? Whatever the hell that means. (There's more here.) Next, I suppose it'll be native Pennsylvania self government? The first step, of course is to apologize for William Penn's sons swindle of the Indians. Then there's the long-overdue apology for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, to be followed by an apology for the fascistic Gadsden Purchase.) One step at a time. posted by Eric at 09:40 AM | Comments (15)
| TrackBacks (1) Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Lost nuts, angry eunuchs, and "heat crimes"
While I'm on the subject of "activism," I thought I'd try to make sense out of modern trend which is loaded with communitarian emotion, and that is the castration of dogs. In the past twenty years, times have changed so dramatically that what were once normal and commonplace -- dogs who still have their nuts -- are a rarity. They're so rare that my luscious female Coco has just finished her entire cycle of being "in heat" without being bothered by a single male dog. Considering that the pheromonal odor of a bitch in heat can be detected up to three miles away, that's saying something. In the days of Coco the First (Puff's grandmother, born in the mid 1970s), being in heat presented logistical problems. Dogs would surround the house and camp out all night, sometimes howling in the wee hours of the morning. Taking the dog out to pee was like taking a stroll in the occupied West Bank; I'd have to leash her, carry something to ward off potential suitors, and be ready at all times to physically pick her up and make a dash back inside. That was part of owning dogs in those days, and it was why most people who owned females would spay them sooner or later. Perhaps the old system was overly sexist, but for whatever reason, castration of male dogs (something once considered a cruel and unnecessary thing to do) wasn't much done. Over the years, it became more and more of a trend, though, until today it's not only the "in" thing to do, if you don't do it, some puritanical nut-checker will come up to you and give you a stern lecture about your "responsibilities" as a dog owner. (Why did I just type "god owner"?) This may sound controversial, but I think that if I own a dog, my responsibility is to see that the dog is well cared for, has as good a life as I can provide for it, and does not bother other people or other animals. If I walk the dog, I should obey leash laws, and if the dog wants to roam, I should not allow it, because I am responsible for what the dog might do. This includes tying up with a bitch in heat! If my male dog did that, I should be held to answer in damages, and I think a reasonable case could be made that my uncontrolled dog should be neutered. But if I am minding my business and controlling my dog, from where derives this notion that my "responsibilities" include doing something to him that would be considered an atrocity if done to any human being? The arguments are threefold, and I'll start with argument number one. There are too many dogs. There may very well be too many dogs. This argument is often advanced by professional animal control people, and we all accept without argument that it is true. Where these dogs are, I don't know. I'm assuming that most of them must be in the animal shelters, because I don't see them running around in the streets (and my recent experience shows that not even a bitch in heat drew a single dog from this vast overpopulation). While I don't know how many of the dogs in animal shelters are turned in by owners as opposed to being "arrested" for running around in an unwanted state, this web site makes a very damning if true claim: The bread and butter of animal activism is fomenting a perception of crisis. To promote their current interest in breeding control ordinances, activists seek to create an impression that the pet population is exploding and the death toll at shelters is escalating out of control. But, in July 1992, the Animal Agenda, published by the Animal Rights Network, reported that there had been a drop from 20 million to less than 6 million shelter kills in the last 10 years. The American Humane Association presents similar statistics confirming this report. The Animal Agenda notes that many activists feel it is better not to mention this dramatic reduction to the public.I have no idea where to obtain these statistics, but I think there's a conflict of interest in that the people who advocate castration are the ones charged with the statistics they cite to justify it. What's more, dog and cat statistics are typically lumped together like this recital of a figure of 70 million "stray dogs and cats." This is highly misleading, and it's improper because of the well-documented problem of a large free-roaming cat population. Regardless of what should be done about these feral and semi-feral cats, there simply is no canine equivalent, and the arguments that might apply to cats are largely inapplicable for many reasons. (Google "stray dog population" and you'll see it's chiefly a problem in underdeveloped countries.) In a book titled How We Can End Pet Overpopulation and Stop Killing Healthy Cats and Dogs, author Bob Christiansen suggests that canine overpopulation may be exaggerated: For the past decade and more, national and local animal organizations have blamed puppy producers for euthanasias in shelters and promoted sterilization as the only way to decrease shelter deaths. Slowly, over the past five or six years, university studies have put forth a different picture: it’s not the puppies, they say, it’s the adult dogs that are picked up as strays or surrendered by owners that populate shelters and die for lack of a home. With few exceptions, however, the news has not translated into innovative strategies to educate potential dog owners before they buy or fail to train.Among his conclusions, “The overwhelming majority of the dogs killed are not puppies (as would be the case if there were true dog overpopulation) but young adults that were once owned.”I have no idea of how to obtain the detailed statistics I'd need to decide whether there is a major canine overpopulation problem in this country (although there sure doesn't seem to be one in my neighborhood), but even assuming that all statistics cited by castration advocates are true, what does this have to do with me? I should "fix" a totally normal dog because other people are unwilling to control theirs? To put it in purely personal terms, isn't that the same as telling me that I should be castrated because there are too many people in the world? And I'd like to know how this can logically be squared with the philosophy that animals have rights with which no man has the right to interfere. In that regard, many of the same organizations clamoring for castration also maintain that cropping of dog's ears (such as Boxers and Doberman pinschers)should be prohibited by law. Why? Because it's cruel. (Anyone bother to ask the dog whether he'd rather have floppy ears or hanging testicles?) The same organizations demanding the castration of dogs routinely seek to abolish declawing of cats, horse racing, and dog racing on the grounds of cruelty. But castration is seen as kindness. Another reason frequently given for castrating dogs is behavioral control. Unneutered male dogs are said to be more aggressive than neutered male dogs, as well as more prone to territorial marking (the lifting of the leg). While this is undoubtedly true, it boils down to another hopelessly communitarian argument, based on the notion that society should make decisions about how individuals should run their lives. People who want less aggressive dogs might be better off getting a female, because females are less aggressive than males, but shouldn't it be up to them? If people want a male and they want it intact, of what business is it of others to decide that because of some statistic about canine aggression? A decision like that is personal, and again, unless the dog messes with other people, it should be up to the owner. Fascinatingly, there's more and more evidence (not being given the attention it deserves, IMHO) that neutered dogs are more aggressive to unneutered dogs than are unneutered dogs to neutered dogs. In a Salon.com interview, castration authority Gary Taylor (author of "Castration: An Abbreviated History of Western Manhood") makes this observation about a more and more frequent phenomenon: I feel like every day of my life I'm involved in castration culture because my dog still has his balls. There's a big dog myth that intact dogs are aggressive, but my dog is incredibly cooled out. It's castrated dogs that get enraged and attack him because of canine rage and jealousy.Mr. Taylor is not alone. His view finds confirmation by a commenter at this discussion group, who hypothesizes a possible explanation: Yes, males can be aggressive towards one another, but it is often neutered males that attack unneutered males because of lack of tolerance over mistaken identity, or 2 unneutered males attacking each other over dominance issues. I found further confirmation among the many comments on this long (often-irrationally-communitarian) discussion, was another dog owner who noted the same thing: we just neutered finley two weeks ago.Oddly, the commenter blames the dogs which haven't had their nuts cut off: if you're in a city and will be encountering other dogs -- most of whom are neutered -- PLEASE neuter yours.Does that mean the eunuchs are in charge? (I mean the canine eunuchs, of course....) This explains an incident in Berkeley last winter with Puff. Another dog came charging up to him, and the owner immediately expressed irritation that Puff wasn't "fixed," as she explained that her neutered male dog would only attack male dogs with testicles. (I didn't engage her in any discussion because I just wanted to get Puff out of there, as I never allowed him to defend himself. That's because I long ago learned that if you own a pit bull, you are in the wrong if anything happens. Period.) But I wonder how many vets are warning their clients about this "angry eunuch" phenomenon. While I've read they're only rarely performed, I'm fascinated by this web site, which advocates vasectomy instead of castration: Why is neutering unethical?I'd like to give the animal rights advocates their due for caring about animals, but as usual I'm having problems with the logic involved. I'd like to ask a simple question. If it is true that man should not have dominion over animals, how does it follow that only certain people -- namely those who subscribe to this philosophy that man should not have dominion over animals -- should therefore be given dominion over animals? Further, how does it follow that they should be given dominion over other people? Even if we assume that my dog is my companion animal and not my property, the fact is that my dog lives with me. Assuming that we are living together in harmony with each other and not harming others, what gives a total stranger any right to dominion over my companion? Why shouldn't I (or my dog) be the ones to decide? posted by Eric at 03:43 PM | Comments (11)
| TrackBacks (0)
Rated V for Vanities
The 152nd Carnival of the Vanities has been posted by Will Franklin at WILLisms.com. Will has an original idea (at least I don't think I've seen it before) of actually rating each post. They're rated 0 through 10 -- something sure to displease bloggers who rated lower than a 10. Will explains the system: 0 = One of the most awful posts I have ever read.No one got a 10, although this post got a 0, which means it will probably be much read out of curiosity. (I agree that it was a poor post, but at least "Hypnyx" linked to this U.S. Army website. And in other posts, the same blogger praises Benjamin Netanyahu, and accuses Daily Kos of "mimicing the leaders of freeperville," so I think "Hypnyx's" brain has to rate higher than the Carnival post submitted.) There are three posts Will considers to be must-reads: I suggest that everyone check out the rest of the posts and the ratings. Any further analysis (such as whether the grades conformed to any "curve"), I'll have to leave to the experts. posted by Eric at 12:36 PM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0)
No way!
I hate it when I have to repeat myself but here we go again. 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, about whose conflict of interest I've complained for years, is once again being criticized -- by others who had also warned about her conflict of interest. The real story here folks is that when "Able Danger" passed the information about Atta and al-Shehhi to the FBI in 2000, with a recommendation to shut the cell down, the Defense Department and FBI turned them down.The "Able Danger" story has generated such great blogosphere interest that via Glenn Reynolds, I see that Austin Bay is now saying the president must address it. More links here, and "MAKES YOU WONDER WHAT ELSE THEY TOSSED OUT" makes me wonder too. The 9/11 Commission spokesman's official explanation is looking incredibly lame: There was no way that Atta could have been in the United States at that time, which is why the staff didn't give this tremendous weight when they were writing the report. This information was not meshing with the other information that we had.No way? Except it turns Atta was in the United States at the time. I think it's more likely that "no way" means that there's no way the investigators wanted anyone to believe (or know) this. I'm especially wondering whether this will lead back to that other stuff about Atta. Like the "discredited" story that William Safire was talking about. No way? Or other stuff described as previously discredited: NEW intelligence reports suggesting that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta arrived in the US in late 1999 or early 2000 - six months earlier than previously thought - are likely to spark a reassessment of public servant Johnelle Bryant's incredible story of a face-to-face meeting with the terrorist.No way? Redstate.org speculates about whether there's an Iraqi elephant in the corner: The elephant in the corner of the 9-11 Commission’s report has always been the perfunctory way in which they dismiss the allegation that Atta met with the intelligence chief at Iraq’s Prague embassy, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, on April 8-9, 2001. This meeting was discounted on the strength of Atta’s cell phone being used on April 6, 9, 10, and 11 and an ATM photo on April 11… and the fact that they can’t find a record that Atta bought plane tickets with presumably any of the 63 drivers licenses the hijackers possessed.No way? I think "MAKES YOU WONDER WHAT ELSE THEY TOSSED OUT" is a kind way of putting it, and I'm inclined to agree with the conclusions of Mark Steyn: Maybe we need a September 11 Commission Commission to investigate the September 11 Commission. A body intended to reassure Americans that the lessons of that terrible day had been learned instead engaged in at best transparent politicking and collusion in posterior-covering and at worst something a much darker and more disturbing.Political? No way! posted by Eric at 10:26 AM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Restraint is activism, and activism is restraint!
Before the Supreme Court issued the notorious Kelo decision, Institute for Justice's Chip Mellor warned of an unholy alliance between "judicial activism" and "judicial restraint" (in which freedom is the loser): Without realizing it, liberals and conservatives are working from opposite ends of the political spectrum, under opposing rationales, to reach the same end: expanded government power. As a result of the political push and pull between those advocating judicial activism and those favoring judicial restraint, two fundamental American rights—the right to earn an honest living and the right to own private property—have been stripped of vital constitutional protection, leaving entrepreneurs and small property owners especially vulnerable to backroom deals and majoritarian whims.How tragically prescient of Mr. Mellor! (Readers are reminded that he and his Institute for Justice shepherded the Kelo case into the Supreme Court, and fought hard for an opposite result.) The result of this unholy alliance is ever more encroachment of freedom, with ordinary citizens getting it from both ends. In effect, we now have a federal appeals court giving a green light to the rankest form of cronyism and favoritism. Despite the starkness of the 10th Circuit’s unanimous ruling, in March the Supreme Court declined to review the case.We've departed so far from the doctrine of "a man's home is his castle" that not only has the government expropriated personal and family life behind the breached castle walls, but citizens who don't like that can find the battered remnants seized and given to someone else. (Move aside, Magna Carta!) Courts are not to interfere with this process, lest they be accused of "judicial activism." But wait a minute! In Kelo the court didn't interfere, and now it's being accused of judicial activism! Yet in reality (and in logic) the holding was based on judicial restraint! An anomaly so odd that today's Philadelphia Inquirer quoted Ann Althouse on the subject: We all want judges to do some things and not others. One of the things the speakers complained about was the Kelo case, but that was an example of restraint, not activism. The Court declined to enforce a right. And these speakers don't like too much Establishment Clause enforcement, but I'll bet they moan about not enough Free Exercise protection.I'm sorry, but "we all want judges to do some things and not others" is not the standard the founders had in mind. Calling things judicial activism which aren't judicial activism is not helpful. Nor is calling them judicial restraint. If a state or local government adoption agency decided (or refused) to place babies with gay couples, I am sure that activists would demand that the Supreme Court put a stop to the government action they hated. Regardless of how you might come down on the merits, demanding that a court intervene to stop something is activism. I suspect misuse of language arises from conservatives being annoyed by professional "activists," and this makes them use the term to describe all judicial results they don't like with the catchphrase "judicial activism." At the rate I'm going (with my incessant demands that political activists be logical), I'll need to be actively restrained. Much more here, including an intrguing quote from Randy Barnett: Is discovering and enforcing the original meaning of the Ninth Amendment activism? Or is it activism to characterize this inconvenient piece of text as an "ink blot" on the Constitution, as Robert Bork did in his infamous confirmation testimony?What's with this "original meaning" stuff? Sounds passé by what passes for today's standards. (Must be a new doctrine of "legal passivism" or something.) Perhaps someone like Mr. Barnett could consider writing a "Freedom Restoration Act." The problem is, what one person defines as freedom, another person defines as taking away freedom. The freedom to take away freedom sounds as oxymoronic as the tolerance of intolerance. I know that it's no fun to conclude that nothing makes any sense, and I apologize. I'll try to make less of more sense in the future. posted by Eric at 08:49 AM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0) Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Can it be love?
I think so. Although James Wolcott doesn't seem terribly in love with John McCain. Not if this venom-dripping screed is any indicator: I'm watching "maverick" John McCain on Fox News Sunday.There's more such lovey dovey sweetness: McCain will hear none of this defeatist talk. "We can't afford to fail," he emptily intoned, and then cleaved to Bush, claiming that Bush is no cold-hearted monster with no time for a Cindy Sheehan, no:I've been more disappointed in McCain than in any politician ever before (McCain-Feingold came close to high treason), but Wolcott's making him look downright attractive. He's making me like McCain against my better judgment. No question about it; Nightingale Wolcott really can write! But is this any way to help Hillary? Such blind devotion is so touching that I'm almost touched. posted by Eric at 10:39 PM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
Major discount riot
I like the convenience of having a laptop computer, and mine was a good deal at $400.00. But even if it had been a total steal I don't think I would have been willing to die for it. Much less wet my pants. RICHMOND, Va. (AP) A rush to purchase $50 used laptops turned into a violent stampede Tuesday, with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over. One woman went so far as to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line.I'm not sure what "hospitantation and fly back" is, but I'll let you know if I find out. Anyway, here's a picture of the "riot": Doesn't look unlike the restive Mideast "street." Back in the old days, I remember the word "riot" being used to advertise super discount sales. (Well, I see that occasionally, it still is.) Considering that prices start at $249.00 for iBooks of the vintage described, the $200.00 saved would be more than offset by lost sleep, the cost of medical care, torn clothes, dry cleaning, Post Traumatic Stress, etc. To say nothing of "hospitantation and fly back." Sheesh. posted by Eric at 04:55 PM
| TrackBacks (0)
murderous meme
Iraq War blogger Michael Yon makes a very good point about the misuse of words like "martyr": In an effort to be culturally sensitive and almost compulsively polite, we've mangled the meanings of words like: "martyr," and "suicide" to such a degree that we're using them to label mass murderers. While American and foreign media collectively increase the suffering of babes through their current fashion of cynicism, others seem to have a case of "parents' guilt." Unable to give the Iraqi suffering the undivided and ameliorative attention it requires, reporters instead rush at any sign of distress and hyper-focus on the negative. In the process, they create more problems than originally existed, shoveling out body counts and masquerading them as reports.I think he's right. He goes on to explain further how this empowers terrorists: Calling homicide bombers martyrs is a language offense; words are every bit as powerful as bombs, often more so. Calling murderers “martyrs” is like calling a man "customer" because he stood in line before gunning down a store clerk. There's no need to whisper. I hear the bombs every single day. Not some days, but every day. We're talking about criminals who actually volunteer and plan to deliberately murder and maim innocent people. What reservoir of feelings or sensibilities do we fear to assault by simply calling it so? When murderers describe themselves as "martyrs" it should sound to sensible ears like a rapist saying, “she was asking for it.” In other words, like the empty rationalizations of a depraved criminal.A typical example of the murderer-as-martyr meme can be found in a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle -- here describing as a "martyr" a young man's ongoing attempts to murder Jews: Fifteen-year-old Abdel Kareem Mohammed Abu Habel sits in an Israeli prison after he tried and failed to martyr himself last year. Would he do it again? Without a doubt, he says.On to a description of his "matrydom" plan: A week after he was released, Abdel made plans for martyrdom. He purchased the components -- explosives, belt, detonator -- to make a suicide belt, using money he had earned by making gold bracelets for sale. It cost about 1,000 Israeli shekels -- approximately $250.(Via LGF.) "Jabiliya," the refugee camp from which young Abdul hails (a place portrayed as part of the overall picture of his despair) has a long history as a wannabe "sister city" of Berkeley, California. City officials sought the sister city designation, but opted for a ballot measure, which -- fortunately -- was defeated at the polls. A similar attempt by activists in Madison, Wisconsin, to designate Rafah as a "sister city" is ongoing. Here's a picture of the place (Jabiliya): Berkeley hasn't looked that way for a while... (Well, a number of the graying Jabiliya activists did turn out to demonstrate against the public display of a terror-bombed Israeli bus, and displayed signs of "martyrs" but that's another story. I guess.) I'm a bit cynical, but I wonder about the connection between the morphing of "murderer" into "martyr" and these sorts of ongoing propaganda campaigns. I mean, why would make a "sister city" out of a place which is governed by Hamas? (Via Stefan Sharkansky.) Here's how the Al Mezan Human Rights Center (responsible for coordinating the Madison-Rafah sister-city deal) uses the word "martyr": Rafah largely depends on relief organizations, such as the Al Mezan Human Rights Center, which would be responsible for coordinating the sister-city arrangement if passed by the Madison City Council.This is not surprising, considering the perspective of the sister city project's founder: Israel is an offshore US military base and weapons testing ground. It is a westernized colony for white supremacists seeking ways to discreetly dispose of its nigger population. It is an American franchise for the new global economy, a consumer outlet, an ad for Disney-World-gone-native, a terrorist training camp for Jewish fundamentalists, the most well-funded terrorist organization outside the mainland United States, a strategic foothold in the Middle East for oil-thirsty, power-hungry neo-cons.(Wow. Wouldn't want to "mess" with her. She can write.) I suppose that once the leap is made from terrorist murderers to "martyrs," it's a small step to calling them (and their supporters) "peace activists." (Maybe even "antiwar activists.") Language can be almost as depressing as politics. posted by Eric at 11:15 AM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0) Monday, August 15, 2005
And that's the way it was ... honest!
The couple's eldest son, Casey, was killed in April 2004 in Iraq while serving in the U.S. Army. His mother has emerged as a leading critic of the war in Iraq by pitching a tent near the Bush ranch and refusing to leave until he speaks to her. Quoth a nameless Reuters writer. Pardon me. I'm just setting up camp by a copy of the Iliad. A few nights of this and I'm tenure-bound. A Sather Lecture awaits. The latest meme, that of one grieving and noble woman's rise against heartless tyranny, is kept alive in a piece assuring us that Cindy Sheehan's impending divorce has nothing to do with her The ancien régime is fond of narrating the present [1] and is loath to footnote or hyperlink, and this constant barrage of undocumented factoids masquerades as experience and truth in much the same way that mimesis allows us to experience any range of false realities in art. This is the way you—or at the very least everyone but you—felt. And this is the story of Cindy Sheehan, updated daily without all the filler! [1] Near-contemporary history is also a favorite: consider how often we read about the nation's reaction to the fall of the towers or the last election, or the tidy binary oppositions created for any number of issues. And all the while we feel left out of the narrative which in time can be overwhelming.
posted by Dennis at 11:21 PM | Comments (6)
| TrackBacks (0)
Blog aids justice
I don't know if this is a first or not, but according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, a local blog is being used to solve a hit and run case: For almost a month, dozens of people protested outside the East Falls home of Susanna Goihman, a restaurateur and owner of the 2002 white Lexus that police say struck and killed 15-year-old Kayla Peter on June 19.It's interesting, and I share the grief of the victim's family. The legal problem, of course, is that no one has been charged with the crime yet. Even though the car was implicated, the owner isn't talking. It looks mighty suspicious, and I wouldn't be surprised if the blog -- by building pressure and facilitating communication between activists who support the victim's family -- contributes to solving the crime. There's been some discussion about whether the demonstrations will (by decreasing customer revenue) hurt the people working in the restaurant, but I don't see that as a reason not to do it. The owner of the car is the same as the owner of the restaurant, and if it is determined that she committed the crime, then the restaurant would probably be sold anyway. The employees will either stay or go, and there is such a thing as unemployment insurance. Also, the restaurant is now for sale, and if the demonstrations interfere with the sale, such a disruption in the status quo might cause the owner to cooperate. The goal is to get her to cooperate with the investigation. I notice there's now a grand jury investigation, and the car owner is expected to be subpoenaed. If she's covering up for someone else, she'll be forced to talk. If instead she invokes her Fifth Amendment rights, the police will work to build a case against her. The fact that a blog has been started will probably keep up the focus on the District Attorney to see this through, and to ensure justice is done.
The restaurant, Azafran, is being sold to former Le Bec-Fin executive chef Daniel Stern, who signed an agreement of sale on April 1 - 21/2 months before the death of Peter, who was crossing Ridge Avenue in East Falls when she was struck and killed. The restaurant, on South Third Street near South Street, and Goihman's home in East Falls have been the scenes of vigils - silent and noisy - for more than a month.This makes any case against her more difficult, because if the Grand Jury wants to question her, she'd have to be designated as a "material witness" -- which (according to the Uniform Act to Secure the Attendance of Witnesses From Without a State in Criminal Proceedings) would seem to mean hearings in Florida: All fifty states have adopted the Uniform Act to Secure the Attendance of Witnesses From Without a State in Criminal Proceedings,(208) which enables their courts to obtain live testimony of out-of-state witnesses in criminal cases.(209) This statute permits a court of record to certify under seal that a criminal prosecution is pending in the court or that a grand jury investigation has commenced or is about to commence,(210) and that a person outside the state is a material witness whose presence is required for a specified number of days.(211) The trial state court presents the certificate to any judge of the court of record in the county in the state where the witness is found.(212)This means more legwork, and (in my view) it decreases the odds of a Grand Jury indictment. At this point, while I haven't researched any of the statutes (and I do not offer legal advice), I don't see anything to stop the owner of the car from leaving the country. UPDATE (08/19/05): An arrest warrant is being prepared against Susanna Goihman: PHILADELPHIA -- An arrest warrant is being prepared for an East Falls chef and restaurant owner at the center of an investigation into a deadly hit-and-run.(HT Mrs. P.) I think the public attention that's been brought to bear in this case has to have been a factor. However, the Philadelphia Inquirer's website notes that the DA's office says no charges were filed as of last night: Authorities are preparing an arrest warrant for restaurateur Susanna Goihman, charging her in the June 19 hit-and-run death of 16-year-old Kayla Peter.The matter takes on additional urgency in light of this Inquirer report that Goihman might flee the country from Florida: The law-enforcement official said it was a concern that the East Falls resident might try and flee the country from there, possibly to her native Venezuela. UPDATE (08/20/05): As of today, the warrant still has not been issued: No warrant was issued yesterday for the arrest of the woman whose Lexus killed a teenager in June, but a spokeswoman for District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham called the case "a very aggressive investigation." UPDATE (08/23/05): The warrant was issued and Susanna Goihman has turned herself in: Susanna Goihman, a Philadelphia restaurant owner whose white 2002 Lexus struck and killed 15-year-old Kayla Peter in a hit-and-run accident on June 19, turned herself in to police today after a warrant was issued for her arrest.It's too early to say the case is closed, but it's getting closer. posted by Eric at 02:12 PM | Comments (8)
| TrackBacks (0)
Creatively sighted RINOs
This week's RINO Sightings Carnival has been posted by super blogger John Cole. John says he doesn't have creative bone in his body, but that didn't stop him from posting a couple of RINO pictures, which are not only artistic, but which might be considered, well, sexy. (I mean, to another, er, RINO... But is that second RINO wearing white lace panties, or I am seeing a mirage? RINOs are supposed to have bad eyesight, of course. Is John being more creative than he admits, or am I a blind RINO seeing things that aren't there?) All the posts are excellent, and here are a few favorites: If you're a RINO, or thinking about becoming a RINO (or if you're merely RINO curious), be sure to check the rest out! posted by Eric at 12:58 PM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Not all chirping is beautiful
"let readers decide who sings most like a nightingale." In a comment recently, blogger "Slartibartfast" left a friendly warning (which reminded me of the probationary nature of my blogging): I wouldn't mess with Wolcott if I were you. I mean, that guy can write.How true. I replied that Barbra Streisand is a much better singer than I am, that John Lennon was a better writer AND singer, and while I might be musically and verbally unable to counter, say, the nonsense in the song "Imagine," that does not make "Imagine" right. Nor does Wolcott's writing ability breathe truth into his thoughts. It's not my goal to "mess" with Wolcott, whose abilities as a superior writer I respect. However, when I disagree with something strongly enough, well, I ought to say something, or else why blog at all? If I think something is ridiculous, should I not say so? Should the fact that a superior writer said it deter me from disagreeing with it? I don't see why. I say this with full awareness of my limitations. I know I'm not all that great of a writer, and my style (notwithstanding Steven's compliments), well, it just doesn't hold a candle to the New Yorker/Vanity Fair/James Wolcott style, and I know it. I do think I have stuff to say, and I do try to make it interesting, but I'll never be published in any showcase for superior writing talent. Hell, that's why I'm writing in this blog, and I suspect others blog for the same reason. Because this came up in the context of Wolcott's repeated attacks on Michael Totten, let me also say that I don't think my writing is as good as Michael Totten's. (Which means Wolcott will and should ignore me and would probably consider my readers lower on the evolutionary scale than Michael Totten's readers, whom he labels "tottentots." Har!) But the statement -- "I'll let Michael Totten play with his nuances" -- shows what a gracious gentleman Wolcott is. Should I be thankful that he's allowing me to play with my nuances? As the blogosphere's reigning (and unchallengeable) nightingale aspirant, Wolcott shouldn't feel the slightest threat from me, because I'm an admitted loser. I don't plan to enter the nightingale contest, and it never occurred to me that anyone would blog for such a reason. I'm more like a lowly cricket, chirping away annoyingly. Much as I hate to compare the thoughts of Russell Kirk to the thoughts of James Wolcott, I reserve my right to chirp, as often as I want, as long as I continue blogging. (Until somebody fumigates, I guess....)
Hmmm.... That probably explains the last factoid. All things considered, I don't think I'd want to be a nightingale. And where's the rule that says I should try to sound like one? posted by Eric at 10:20 AM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0) Sunday, August 14, 2005
Is there a Moore's law for propaganda?
John Beck links to a brilliant post by Done with Mirrors* contrasting Hollywood propaganda of World War II to that of our present war in Iraq. Here's what he said about Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11: How ironic is it that the most significant piece of Hollywood propaganda produced in this current war is lauded by the people who would burn Hollywood to ash and sow its soil with salt if they had the chance? The religious authorities in Iran scrapped the scheduled program at the Farabi Cinema complex in Tehran to put Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" on display. "This film unmasks the Great Satan America," a spokesman said. "It tells Muslim people why they are right in hating America. It is the duty of every believer to see [this film] and learn the truth."He also praises Americans for avoiding crude caricatures of our enemies, and while I think he's right, I'm still in no mood to apologize. * Never sure whether to call this blogger "Vernon Dent" or "Callimachus." (The former a classical Three Stooges character; the latter's a classical librarian....) posted by Eric at 06:57 PM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0)
Making idiocy turnkey ready . . .
Colby Cosh has penned the ultimate "primer on Drug War panic for morons in journalism." The list is quite comprehensive, and just about every known and unknown feature of every known or unknown drug is covered. All you need to do is identify one of the drug's features, and viola! The spin's ready to go. Here's the formula: IF A RECREATIONAL DRUG:Etc. The list is quite long, and very funny. I love it, and I am reminded of the way a true believer in the Drug "War" will always view the statistics as justifying his position, no matter what. On the other hand.... Which reminds me of that old Russian joke about Communism. Boy to babushka: "Grandma, what is the difference between Capitalism and Communism?" Babushka: "Under Capitalism, man exploits man! Under Communism, it's the other way around!" I love it when life is easy. posted by Eric at 05:05 PM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
"Nothing to start a civil war over"
Yeah, that's what I keep saying -- not only about same sex marriage (or "gay marriage" for those who demand inexactitude), but about the whole issue of tolerance for homosexuals. Ridiculous as it may be to consider starting a civil war over these things, at the rate things are going with certain scholars on the left and the right, the "gay issue" will be a dagger aimed at the very heart of any and all future discussions of the American Civil War. That's because the simmering debate over whether Abraham Lincoln was homosexual is becoming a raging debate. For both "sides," it matters greatly. I think it matters too much. Way too much. At the outset, let me admit my bias. I think the private sex life of Abraham Lincoln -- regardless of what it might have been -- was and is wholly irrelevant to the much greater questions of the Civil War, of slavery, and his place in history. I realize that this puts me at odds with the sexually obsessive nature of this country. It's inescapable that once a meme like this gets going in the collective mind of an ignorant, media-programmed, sexually preoccupied public, why, they might not ever look at a five dollar bill the same way again! (Whew! Such a thing might even have a devastating impact on petty civilian economic activities.... Ah, yes, I can hear it now! In fact, I see it now, in the form of a Google phrase, "Queer as a five dollar bill?" And to think I imagined I'd come up with an original phrase.) Anyway, the book itself, C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, has generated a firestorm of controversy. Leading critics assembled by the Claremont Institute make a reasonable case that the book's central premise is hokum, but the story is everywhere with countless textual tidbits like this poem by Lincoln fed up for public consumption: I will tell you a Joke about Jewel and MaryThat might appear damning, but according to this New York Daily News article, there's evidence that Lincoln wrote the poem to insult two brothers he didn't like. (The Daily News summarizes a lot of pro and con arguments.) Much, for example, is made of Lincoln's unhappy marriage -- but considering his wife's documented mental illness (and the fact that very few people liked her), I think that provides pitifully poor evidence of his sexual tastes one way or another. There's also plenty of apparently incriminating evidence to titillate modern readers: It also includes a diary excerpt by one upper-class Washington woman who wrote of Derickson: 'There is a Bucktail soldier here devoted to the President, drives with him, and when Mrs L is not home, sleeps with him. What stuff!'I don't want to lose myself in the intricacies of modernistic interpretation, but what I've seen satisfies me that these letters can be read both ways. I've seen nothing I'd consider to be overt declarations of sexual lust by Lincoln towards any of the men he slept with. The problem with this whole "debate" is that it forces people to take sides on something which can never be conclusively known barring the appearance of graphic and specific admissions to specific sex acts by Lincoln himself, or by a reliable person actually claiming to have had sex with him. And it would be surprising to find any such evidence -- regardless of whether or not Lincoln had been a secret criminal "sodomite." (Yes, in Lincoln's time, illogical and vague terms like "sodomite" and "the unspeakable crime against nature" were standard legal lexicon for homosexual sex acts -- whether per os or per anum). I don't think it requires much imagination to grasp that Lincoln -- a shrewd lawyer -- would have been well aware of the elements of these criminal offenses, and would have had the common sense (if not political acumen) to avoid admitting to them in any writing. Especially if he did them! Now, putting aside all communitarian considerations of whether the sex life of this one man would wreck the republic (a tough sell for some, I know), let us assume for the sake of argument that Lincoln did have some sexual relations with men. We already know that he had sexual relations with women, as he sired a number of children (and artificial insemination wasn't available in those days). So assuming he had sex with men too, how would that make him gay? Gore Vidal, long a theoretician of Lincoln's sexual non-conformity, sees him as bisexual (although along with Tripp he debunks his much-touted heterosexual affair with Ann Rutledge). Scholar Allen C. Guelzo feels differently: ....as Richard Taruskin once remarked (in a review of several books on Tchaikovsky), in the 19th century, homosexuality did not "essentialize" a person, "did not typecast, or stereotype, or render one's nature darkly and irrevocably Other." Homosexuality was regarded as a vice, and particularly an upper-class one, but it was no more revealing about one's behavior or emotional life than any other form of libertinage. That makes it even more unlikely that a strait-laced, teetotaling, bourgeois male like Lincoln would have found anything even passably interesting in 19th-century homosexuality. And it underscores how completely the idea that sexuality is the key to Lincoln's "intimate world" is a product of Tripp's culture, not to mention Tripp's own personal and professional inclinations, rather than Lincoln's.I'm not sure of the logic there, as Lincoln doesn't strike me as someone whose innermost interests would have been dictated by other people's views on what it was that constituted "vice." While a teetotaler (not unexpected for a man whose father appears to have been a drunk) Lincoln was nonetheless a sharp critic of proposals to prohibit alcohol. [Prohibition] goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.Just had to figure out a way to squeeze in that quote, folks! Not only do I like it, but it's solid evidence of Lincoln's libertarianism, and little wonder why it isn't much reported by those Steven calls "moral collectivists." His "strait-laced" libertarianism aside, so far as I know, Lincoln was never quoted one way or another on "sodomy" -- but again, he probably had enough common sense to recognize that some things went on which you just didn't (or couldn't) discuss. I realize this sheds little light on his sexual tastes, but I don't think any more of a solid case can be made about what he may not have done than about what he may have done. It should be noted parenthetically that the Claremont Institute has been accused of being highly emotional about Lincoln -- to the point of resorting to ad hominem attacks on dissenting historians. Now, while I'm not about to embroil myself in a defense of DiLorenzo (or his Lincoln book), if his characterizations of the animus are true, I think the emotions might be grounded in an irreconcilable disconnect arising out of Lincoln's undisputed greatness. (It may boil down to this position: if Lincoln was in any way tainted by the slightest sign of homosexuality or bisexuality, then because homosexuality is an inherent evil, Lincoln cannot have been a great man. I suspect that any imputation of homosexuality to any proven great man would be considered a Christopher Hitchens-style "denigration of political greatness" which is "an essential aspect of radical ideology." This makes Lincoln's homosexuality impossible by definition. Otherwise, in the eyes of those who define greatness and homosexuality as mutually exclusive, American civilization -- and the entire West -- must fall. Much as I consider this absurd, there's no escaping the fact that there are people who think this way -- but it's a reason why I started this blog. There are too many great men in history to allow such petty, medieval-minded smears to go unchallenged, I reasoned.) This is all so contentious and pointless that I wonder what prompts me to write posts like this. But the fact is, the Claremont piece came to me in the mail, and one of my weaknesses is that it's tough to ignore things that are physically in front of me. Which is not to say that I'm at all impressed by the evidence. At best, the case for Lincoln's homosexuality is a circumstantial one. And even that circumstantial evidence is being taken out of context. Hard as it might be for contemporary Americans to understand, in the 19th century, men routinely slept together without having sex. (When I toured Andrew Jackson's Hermitage residence, I was suprised to learn that in his lonely old age, he'd put up dozens of houseguests at a time -- with as many as seven men being forced to share a single bed. Something retired presidents other than possibly Bill Clinton simply would not do today.) Lincoln (who had a known mischievous streak), had a penchant for flowery language, and it is not surprising at all that such references in his letters might lend themselves to a sexual interpretation today. The bottom line is that this is unknowable and unprovable, and I am wondering why it matters. One thing is clear: sexual relations were not discussed, and the taboo on homosexuality during Lincoln's time was so strong that its occurrence would have been unsuspected and unmentioned. Remember, this was long before even Oscar Wilde described homosexuality as "the love that dare not speak its name." If it happened, it happened, but no one was the wiser, and I can easily imagine that sexual encounters took place which would be shrouded with complete denial -- never to be acknowledged by either partner. (Something very tough to understand today, unless we look at the Mideast, where homosexuality is not considered homosexuality unless it is admitted.) In any case, there's nothing "gay" about it by modern standards. So why the need to out a dead man without genuine, uncontestable evidence? Is there a self esteem movement by gay activists along lines similar to the "Africanizing" of ancient culture? If so, I think it's dishonest and only likely to create insecurity. Because, at best, what they have done (in the case of Lincoln and other great historical figures similarly "outed") is to create as "gay role models" people who were not known to be homosexual, who never said they were homosexual, and whose homosexuality is debatable. What kind of role model is that? A role model for staying in the closet, if anything. So why would gay activists promote it? Anyway, I don't think the Lincoln-was-gay case has been proven at all, although the intriguing details which have been uncovered certainly assist with our knowledge of the man's complexities. Of course, Lincoln's status as one of history's great men remains unchanged by any reasonable standard. Still, I wonder whether the human tendency to enjoy salacious gossip, coupled with the usual American adolescent focus on things like homosexuality, might cause people to put largely irrelevant historical details ahead of what's important. But alas! Political activists always seem to set the ground rules for what is considered important. But that's the Culture War. It's always lots of no fun. AFTERTHOUGHT: It must be remembered that the laissez faire position on private sexual matters (that a thing like homosexuality should not matter) is actually a greater threat to the moral collectivist philosophy than that of the gay activists. That is because the latter at least agree with their sworn enemies on one thing: homosexuality does matter. The gay activists (especially the more unsavory of them) are thus seen as America's last and best hope for preserving some sort of stigma. posted by Eric at 09:21 AM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (1) Saturday, August 13, 2005
So don't absolve me then!
Notwithstanding his claim to be a peacemaker, James Wolcott has been repeatedly insistent that he's onto some new form of NeoCon evil, which strikes him as a form of dishonesty: Totten and compadres seem to think that I consider anyone who simply voted for Bush as morally culpable for everything Bush has done since on the foreign and domestic fronts. But I made it clear that I was referring specifically to bloggers who support Bush's War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq, bloggers who slant conservative Republican in the overwhelming of majority of their posts and--As if that absolves you? What is this? Who was asking to be "absolved?" Absolved of what? I think what I think about drugs and the war, and I am not looking for absolution from anyone. The use of that religious term makes no sense unless Wolcott believes that: It would be one thing if I had carefully staked out some sort of political potpourri in order to raise funds or run for office, but this idea that I owe a duty to follow a party line makes no sense. Additionally, Wolcott is saying that I might as well favor sodomy laws, laws against anti-stem cell research, or drug laws, because some of the people who support war do. I think he'd like to say that and more (i.e., that only the antiwar crowd should be allowed take such positions) but I think he realizes how foolish that would be, so he must resort to the charge of opportunistic political insincerity. Somehow, the accusation is that I (and people who might think like me) only pretend to favor legalizing drugs in order to pose as Democrats and build up support for the war or something. (But even that wouldn't hold up unless the Democrats favor legalizing drugs.) I admit, Wolcott's argument might induce shame among those who either feel guilty about supporting the war (and thus have some insecure need to be given liberal credentials on credit) or who live in constant, deathly fear of being called "conservative," or "Republican." Well, I couldn't care less. I know that a lot of liberals who abhor my philosophy, and I also know there are a lot of conservatives who do likewise (the latter are right wing equivalents of Wolcott who'd accuse me of being as evil as "liberals" for working in "common cause" with them -- and who'd maintain I'm not "absolved" by supporting the war). What's the threat? That I'll be (gasp!) "exposed"? I'm not hiding my political philosophy. So go ahead, say I'm in bed with Falwell. (I'll laugh as hard as I would if some right winger said I was in bed with Michael Moore.) Besides, I've admitted repeatedly to being on Karl Rove's payroll. Hail Satan! posted by Eric at 03:18 PM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
There is no authority but Bob!
(...but I'm afraid Classical Values is stuck with being his prophet...) Well, I am glad to see it's finally official. Via a link at LGF, I see that Baghdad Bob has been officially designated as the spokesman for Air America! The fellow who recognized Bob's authority was also kind enough to stick pretty closely to the text of his words of last April: "There is no scandal in Air America. No, never! Be assured. It is safe, protected. I can assure you that those infidels will recognize, will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place."Yes, the words are true. Then and now. For poor Bob been issuing such utterances tirelessly in his job as chief Air America spokesman -- a position he's held since April 15, 2004. On that date, the famed InstaLiar Reynolds was forced to recognize him as Air America's true spokesman (although Captain Ed was also beaten into submission more recently). It's been a long time coming but I join Bob in expressing relief that others have finally acknowledged his true authority. It's official! All must bow before him!
posted by Eric at 08:39 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) Friday, August 12, 2005
Driving away rumors
During the usual course of things, August is one of those months in which not much happens. (Last year was decidedly different, because of the frenzy over the upcoming election.) However via InstaPundit (Michael Totten, guest blogging), I did find an interesting new Iraqi blog, where I found this post explaining a mystery I posted about in June of the girl allegedly turned into a dog for disrespecting the Koran. As it turns out, the rumors were triggered by this Italian sculpture of a monstrosity which looks like a cross between a dog and a girl. I have to say I am relieved. I was starting to worry about Coco: Girls that young really shouldn't be driving. . . posted by Eric at 09:31 PM | Comments (6)
| TrackBacks (1)
special rights?
Via Megan McArdle (guest blogging at InstaPundit), I see evidence of a disturbing new trend: an apparent claim -- by gay activists, no less -- that marriage should be restricted on the basis of sexual preference. This tired issue (same sex heterosexual marriage) is by no means new to this blog. As I said previously: I hate to inject logic into something so emotional, but homosexuals are already allowed to marry. They are allowed to marry either heterosexuals or other homosexuals. The only restriction is that the partner must be of a different sex. That does not mean that the marriage is necessarily heterosexual, or between heterosexuals. Thus, it is not logically accurate to say that only heterosexuals are allowed to marry.In the incident cited by Megan McArdle, gay activists areapparently claiming that two heterosexuals should not be allowed to marry each other if they are of the same sex. Yet nowhere have I heard "heterosexual activists" making a similar argument (that homosexuals should not be allowed to marry each other if they are of the opposite sex). Clearly, there's a lot of misunderstanding -- both about existing marriage laws, as well as laws which would legalize same sex marriage. What gives? Via a Joe's Dart Blog link recently, I found an argument against gay marriage which seems to highlight this misunderstanding: Where the special rights come in is in the fact that gays want the exception to be given to them and only them. They want marriage to be tweaked in their favor, and to create special circumstances for them. What about other unions that also desire to be included in the marriage definition? What about people who fall in love with their siblings, should they be allowed to marry also? What about polygamists, should we now include marriage to include multiple wives? What about multiple husbands? Do these other groups not get ‘equal rights’ too? No, of course not, only gays get them, and not these other groups.Not quite. Same sex marriage, if allowed, would be allowed for everyone, not just gays. As I've pointed out before, under the "Opposite Sex Marriage" system, any man -- hetero or homosexual -- can marry any woman -- heterosexual or homosexual, or vice versa. No proof or test of heterosexual orientation is required. Similarly, were same sex marriage allowed, no proof or test of homosexuality could or should be required. Any man could marry any man, and any woman could marry any woman. I think that any official inquiry into the sexual preferences of marriage license applicants would be illegal, and I'm sorry to see gay rights advocates even raising this issue. Megan McArdle's characterization is right. The gay activist in question is: Trying to restrict marriage to his tired, outworn definition! This is yet another reason why I'm unsympathetic to the argument that marriage laws discriminate on the basis of sexual preference, unless they specifically say so. They might discriminate on the basis of sex, but then, that seems to be bound up with the whole marriage idea. While I don't think same sex marriage would destroy the fabric of society (or the "institution" of marriage) and I remain vehemently opposed to criminalizing "incidents of marriage", I still don't see why a "right" to a piece of paper (a marriage license) is so obsessively defined as a fundamental right of citizenship. As I've warned many times, such government "rights" can carry onerous responsibilities, and I'll summarize my views again: I have discussed the backlash issue regarding gay rights, and the win-or-lose nature of these "Culture War" arguments many times. I have expressed reservations that same sex marriage might become involuntary. The issue is certainly a contentious one, but no matter what happens I don't think any of it is worth another civil war.(The idea of a "gay test" for same sex marriage only highlights my previous concerns.) UPDATE: Do not miss Sean Kinsell's wickedly brilliant insights on this matter. posted by Eric at 12:48 PM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (2)
Indymedia offers better coverage than MSM!
I don't like to dwell on stuff like this unless I can't help it. So I tried to ignore the pathetic picture in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer of one Cindy Sheehan, who believes that she can end the Iraq War by meeting with President Bush. I looked at her picture (another one at Drudge) and found myself suspecting that her purpose might not be to reason with Bush and present logical arguments against the war (as is claimed), but, rather, to scold him. While the newspapers and the MSM have portrayed her as a grieving mother with legitimate questions for the president, the new reports have been rather long on descriptions of the mother and her plight, but short on the specific details of her questions. To find these details, I had to look in places other than the Inquirer and the New York Times. According to Indymedia, as of August 7 (the date national media attention was drawn to her visit to Crawford), Ms. Sheehan lists the following questions for President Bush: Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, is holding vigil in Crawford, Texas until she gets a meeting with George Bush. She has some simple questions to ask him: “Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for? If the cause is so noble, why don’t you send your twins?” She also has a clear demand: “Honor our sacrifices by bringing our nation's sons and daughters home from a war based on lies and deceptions.”I agree. These are simple questions. And the leading question, once again, is Why did you kill my son? Regardless of whether Bush should be forced to answer these questions (or submit to a Nuremburg-style tribunal), what I'd like to know is why weren't all three, very simple questions listed in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer? The primary question (why Bush killed her son) was dropped entirely along with the second question, leaving only her third question about whether the Bush daughters have been encouraged to enlist: Sheehan has spent several days talking to reporters, hugging fellow protesters, and taking brief breaks to eat sandwiches and fruit from supporters.I'd say things are getting pretty pathetic when I have to get the full story from Indymedia. This New York Times piece on Sheehan is more than twice as long as the Inquirer's, and, although it calls her case "compelling," also inexplicably fails to mention Ms. Sheehan's most pressing questions. What is going on here? Why is the MSM editing the most important questions which this latest anti-war celebrity wanted to ask? And why is it that only Drudge seems to be reporting this statement from the rest of the Sheehan family? The Sheehan Family lost our beloved Casey in the Iraq War and we have been silently, respectfully grieving. We do not agree with the political motivations and publicity tactics of Cindy Sheehan. She now appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the the expense of her son's good name and reputation. The rest of the Sheehan Family supports the troops, our country, and our President, silently, with prayer and respect. Drudge might be "developing," but is anyone else? Considering the disappearance of the story from Ms. Sheehan's local (Vacaville) newspaper's website, I'd swear the rest of the family's story is being suppressed. Intrigued by all of this intrigue, I began to wonder whether Ms. Sheehan has previously had other questions for Bush, which might also not be getting the attention they deserve. Sure enough, her campaign goes back to at least November of 2004. If you Google the name "Sheehan" along with the phrase "AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE BUSH," and you'll get links to the following widely circulated letter (which turns up at web sites like these): November 4, 2004I understand that this woman feels very strongly about this, but I think most people would characterize her tone as accusatory, argumentative and scolding. (I don't think I need to dwell on the lack of logic in her many assertions, either.) But is it reasonable to expect that by forcing the president to meet with this woman, anything would be accomplished? I know I wouldn't want to meet with her, and if she was my mom, I'd probably want to get as far away from her as humanly possible. But I can't speculate about unknowable matters. What I do know is that once again, the full story is not being reported by the mainstream media. (Am I allowed to thank Indymedia and the various left wing news sites? Or would that be in bad form?)
I think this is something that was bound to happen when the son or daughter of a leftwing Bush-hater volunteered to go to war (and I think we can draw some conclusions about whether or not Casey agreed with his mother's agenda from this) and then did not make it back home.Researching the above further, I found this site which offers a lengthy account of the mission leading to Casey Sheehan's death: First Sgt. Carson reported that “word got around (at Camp War Eagle) fast that the patrol was in trouble.” He said that their public affairs officer, Captain O'Malley, said this:It doesn't appear to me that Casey Sheehan was tricked into going on that mission (or tricked into serving in Iraq) as his mother maintains. If she is mischaracterizing her son's service to his country, I don't see how that honors what he apparently stood for."They had guys who normally don't fight who volunteered to help their buddies. There were guys fighting to get on that convoy."This is substantiated by the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan. She has said that:“And the sergeant said, 'Sheehan, you don't have to go,' because my son was a mechanic.' And Casey said, 'Where my chief goes, I go.' " MORE: And here's Instapunk: This is perversion. And it's time somebody said it out loud. Cindy Sheehan, your son died a hero. Go home now and find some meaning in it that isn't just about you and the politics of those who hate their country. AND MORE: Joe Gandelman thinks that vicious criticism of Cindy Sheehan will create a backlash (which may well be the case). I try to be respectful of everyone, but I think I've shown that the MSM has not presented the full story. At minimum, from what I've seen they've edited out her number one, highly argumentative question about whether Bush "killed" her son. I think her questions to George W. Bush (as well as her November letter) constitute unreasonable scolding, and I do not think it is vicious to say so. UPDATE: Commenter Sigivald provides this link to the family statement in question. And in another story, Mrs. Sheehan has made it clear that she wants more than a meeting with the President; she's demanding that he answer her "questions." "I don't want his compassion or his sympathy, because I know it's not real," Sheehan said. "What I want is answers to my questions."An answer to "Why did you kill my son?" Is it possible for anyone to imagine the public reaction to a question like that had it been asked of FDR during World War II? Were I in President Bush's position, I'd meet with her. (But I don't think she'd like my answers....) MORE: Here's Jon Henke (with whom I'm inclined to agree): Nor should the President entertain every grieving mother or agitated activist demanding an audience with the President. Imagine the downward spiral that would create, with every activist group in the country camping on the White House/Crawford lawn until 2009, at which point they'd be replaced by different activists camping on the White House/(somewhere else) lawns.The politics of this one have been brewing for some time. I just wish the MSM would give us the full story. And how about all the versions of the story? AND MORE: Be sure to check out Darleen Click's posts on Cindy Sheehan. Darleen thinks Sheehan is a "classic cult victim." And Jeff Goldstein has the goods on the so-called "Crawford Peace House." (Frankly, I'm surprised no one's thought to blame HumVee for Casey Sheehan's death; after all Caterpillar has been blamed for the death of "peace" activist Rachel Corrie. Connect the dots, people!) UPDATE (08/14/05): The Philadelphia Inquirer's Trudy Rubin, in a Sunday editorial, has not only written President Bush's answer to Cindy Sheehan, she has rewritten Sheehan's question: [Sheehan] would want to know why 140,000 U.S. soldiers are stuck in Iraq more than two years after the fall of Baghdad. She would demand answers that go beyond "Freedom is on the march."Huh? What ever happened to question number one -- "Why did you kill my son?" By making up new questions from Ms. Sheehan, and writing new answers for President Bush, Ms. Rubin has relegated the original story to the realm of complete irrelevance. Who needs news, anyway? MORE: Connie du Toit reminded me of something I think most of us tend to forget as we obsess over facts: a lot of other mothers are being forgotten. .... for all the fuss over this one mother, I think we might need to remember the other mothers. Focus away from the mad one and give our time and attention to the others. You know the ones. The ones who say nothing. The ones who, after losing their boys, continue to work with the other families they know—continuing to support the war effort and the families who are shouldering its burdens.We can argue about the facts, and over the accuracy of media coverage, but grief is real -- for Cindy Sheehan and for many others. UPDATE (08/14/05): Via Ann Althouse at InstaPundit, Joe Gandelman now has a much longer post with many links, pro and con. Fair and thorough. (I particularly liked Dean Esmay sharing an Iraqi mother's perspective on this. But my main objection is not to Cindy Sheehan, but to the MSM's increasingly common omission of important facts.) In this case, emotion may be at war with facts. MORE: Speaking of emotional facts, here's Cindy Sheehan, quoted at a speech in Dallas last week by Counterpunch: “And the other thing I want him to tell me is ‘just what was the noble cause Casey died for?’ Was it freedom and democracy? Bullshit! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East. We’re not freer here, thanks to your PATRIOT Act. Iraq is not free. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism,” she exclaimed.Once again, thank God for the left-wing press! But seriously, if she keeps saying stuff like this, people are going to start wondering whether this is all another Karl Rove operation.... UPDATE (08/16/05): I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one to be thinking about FDR ("Is it possible for anyone to imagine the public reaction to a question like that had it been asked of FDR during World War II?"). Via Glenn Reynolds, here's Michael Barone: Question: How much coverage would the press have given a World War II-era Cindy Sheehan who camped outside Hyde Park or Warm Springs demanding to meet with President Roosevelt?Hey, wasn't there a war on?
"We are not waging a war on terror in this country. We’re waging a war of terror. The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush!"And they've made this woman a media heroine? Somewhere Karl Rove must be smiling. As is so often the case, James Lileks ought to get the last word: Some people think that any time you argue back, you're Stifling Dissent. For them, merely discussing Ms. Sheehan's views is the rhetorical equivalent of sending her to Abu Ghraib.(Via Glenn Reynolds.) I want to conclude this much-too-long post by asking a very simple question. How can I be "stifling dissent" by wanting to see it reported? MORE: Dave Kopel sees the Sheehan affair as involving a failure of the MSM to engage in simple reporting. Instead, they did their best to sanitize Sheehan. (And now that she's faded from the screen, her full message will remain unreported, in the hope that she'll be remembered as just another ordinary mom who lost a son in Iraq.) posted by Eric at 09:20 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0) Thursday, August 11, 2005
Forgotten quagmire?
Analysts opposed to the Iraq War love to speak of a quagmire, and they cite the Vietnam War in support of their theories. Two-plus years into this war, American deaths number some 1800, and there will be many more. Whether they'll approach the Vietnam level of 58,000 killed is highly debatable. (And, I think, highly unlikely.) You'd think that if experts were looking for historic quagmires, a better place to search than Southeast Asia might be, well, Iraq. While we hear a lot about the Vietnam "Quagmire" (the one war we're said to have "lost"), we don't hear much about the most recent war we won -- not in Vietnam, but in Iraq itself: Gulf War I. The actual ground war started on February 24, ended on February 28th, 1991, and a total 148 Americans were killed. Not that there's much of a parallel between a four day, in-and-out war and a protracted campaign like the present one, but isn't the recent military history of wars in Iraq at least as relevant as an older one in Vietnam? What I find more remarkable is that we're hearing so little right now about another Iraq War, the 1980-1988 Iran Iraq War, which really was a quagmire by most objective standards. Here's a pretty good summary of how it started: Iran-Iraq War, an armed conflict that began when Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980 and ended in August 1988, with an estimated total of 1.7 million wounded and 1 million dead. The underlying cause of the war lay in the long-standing regional rivalry between Persian Iran and Arab Iraq.Most of the same factors are present today -- a notable exception being Saddam Hussein and his arms race (which of course we're told never happened). The war solved little: At the end, virtually none of the issues which are usually blamed for the war had been resolved. When it was over, the conditions which existed at the beginning of the war remained virtually unchanged. The UN-arranged cease-fire merely put an end to the fighting, leaving two isolated states to pursue an arms race with each other, and with the other countries in the region.Both articles are worth reading, and appear largely accurate. With things heating up vis-a-vis Iran, I have no idea why this older, truly Iraqi quagmire has escaped the attention of so many MSM analysts. (Might there be an assumption that "Vietnam" is the only quagmire we understand?) I'm not arguing that the current war in Iraq is headed for anything like the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. With U.S. forces there and Saddam Hussein out, how can it? Such things might be preventable, if we can at least remember that they've happened before. And if we remember that many of the same tensions still exist. While it's indisputable that history repeats itself, it strikes me that those who make that claim (or love to quote Santayana on Vietnam and Iraq) might take into account the history that most bears repeating. What's going on in Iraq right now is often called a "civil war," and that may very well be the correct label. I do not claim any expertise at all, and the reason I dislike war blogging is because I am not in possession of more than a small fraction of the relevant facts in Iraq. But if history is to be a guide in analyzing the Iraq War, and if it is a civil war, how can we be so sure that Vietnam (or the American Civil War) are better starting places than the Iran Iraq War?
Lacking the equipment to open secure passages through Iraqi minefields, and having too few tanks, the Iranian command again resorted to the human-wave tactic. In March 1984, an East European journalist claimed that he "saw tens of thousands of young boys, roped together in groups of about twenty to prevent the faint-hearted from deserting, make such an attack." The Iranians made little progress despite these sacrifices.The boys were given little plastic keys stating that the Ayatollah had given them permission to enter heaven: Their mission is to detonate mines and draw fire in preparation for full-scale attacks Iraqi lines. The boys carry plastic keys to heaven. They have been assured by their leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that if they are killed on the battlefield they will go directly to paradise. "The purest joy in Islam," Khomeini has explained, "is to kill and be killed for Allah."(While it's a bit off-topic, for the sake of argument, if there is a god who rewards such behavior, I'd be proud to go straight to Hell.) AND MORE: I think it is significant to note the the "Badr Brigades" (which are creating many problems in Iraq right now) date back to the Iran Iraq War, when the organization was formed by Iraqi "defectors" loyal to Iran. UPDATE (08/13/05): James Wolcott, of all people, is making the case for war with Iran. (Whether he knows it or not.) I just knew there had to be a reason why Drudge links Wolcott.... UPDATE (08/13/05): Henry Kissinger weighs in on the Vietnam analogy: Vietnam was a battle of the Cold War; Iraq is an episode in the struggle against radical Islam. The stake in the Cold War was perceived to be the political survival of independent nation-states allied with the United States around the Soviet periphery. The war in Iraq is less about geopolitics than about the clash of ideologies, cultures and religious beliefs. Because of the long reach of the Islamist challenge, the outcome in Iraq will have an even deeper significance than that in Vietnam. If a Taliban-type government or a fundamentalist radical state were to emerge in Baghdad or any part of Iraq, shock waves would ripple through the Islamic world. Radical forces in Islamic countries or Islamic minorities in non-Islamic states would be emboldened in their attacks on existing governments. The safety and internal stability of all societies within reach of militant Islam would be imperiled.While the battlefield is everywhere (and the U.S. experience in Vietnam provides a valuable lesson on avoiding psychological defeat), I think the Iran Iraq War can provide invaluable assistance towards understanding the dynamics facing the U.S. now. posted by Eric at 02:53 PM | Comments (10)
| TrackBacks (1)
Something nice.
My mom always tried to say nice things about people, as she believed in that old fashioned saying that "if you don't have something nice to say about someone, don't say it." This same rule applies all the more to the recently deceased. I offer this by way of explanation for my silence about Peter Jennings death, but I've finally thought of something nice to say about him. In his own way, I think he did a lot for the blogosphere. (Maybe not as much as Dan Rather, but then, no one is perfect.) That was nice, wasn't it? posted by Eric at 10:10 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0)
Forgotten war?
Did you complacent people out there know that there's a war on? That people are being killed? And how could I have forgotten that there's a war going on? Well, I'm being scolded for precisely that -- and today's Inquirer woke me up to the hard reality I've been avoiding: Has the war finally hit home? While the headline certainly did, the problem is that I didn't want this war to start. I can't say I was doing just fine, but up until September 11, 2001, the war really hadn't hit home, and I really didn't want it to. Sure, over the years I'd watched the emergence of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the American hostage crisis in Tehran, the emergence of Hezbollah and Hamas, the assassination of peacemaker Anwar Sadat, the Beirut barracks bombing, the killing of American peacekeepers in Somalia, the first World Trade Center bombing, al-Qaida's declaration of war on America, the Khobar Towers bombing, the African embassy bombings, the U.S.S. Cole, but until the planes struck the towers on September 11, it just didn't quite feel as if the war had really hit home. On that day, the long, cruel war finally hit home for me. I'll never forget it. So what exactly was the purpose of today's newspaper headline? To tell me what I already knew? If I didn't know any better, I'd almost swear that today's headline was more along the lines of "antiwar movement hits home." I'm probably being hypersensitive, though, because the stuff I read on the Internet doesn't hit home with as much of an impact. (I guess that's because it doesn't hit my driveway with a thud.)
Is there a war between facts and emotions? Anyone know who's winning? posted by Eric at 08:49 AM | Comments (6)
| TrackBacks (0)
Mushrooming generation gap?
Via Daniel Rubin, I got quite a chuckle out of Instapunk's reappraisal of the 60th Hiroshima reappraisal by the new 60-something generation: The history may not be so important anymore, because nobody cares about history since the baby boomers reduced it to a pulpy list of crimes against political correctness. What is important is what happens now that the most narcissistic and self-indulgent generation in American history embarks on the great adventure of aging. It's not going to be pretty. The same folks who demanded that the world be remade in their image when they got to college in the '60s will insist -- just as they have in every other tedious phase and fad of the past 40 years -- that meeting their needs is all that matters. Look for the country to be transformed into some kind of senior citizen's amusement park, a 50-state implementation of St. Petersburg, Florida, with a wheelchair ramp at every strip club and free bus transportation to every reunion of septuagenarian Deadheads.Instapunk has more, and he predicts that this self-absorbed, heavily-medicated generation will be an expensive one: As for the rest of you, get ready to pay some real taxes in years to come. The baby boomers' appetite for drugs has always been legendary, and they're going to need pills for blood pressure, and body aches, and the pain of post-cosmetic surgery, and erections, and depression, and all the new syndromes that will be invented by a population of sissies who are growing old without ever having grown up. And they're going to want it all for free.If I could add anything, it would be that my parents were proud members of the World War II generation. They didn't complain much, and they didn't grow old without growing up. I can easily understand the rage that anyone might feel at having to pay for parents who never did much for them and who now demand everything in return, but none of it applies in my case, as both of my parents are dead. I feel even less responsibility to subsidize that portion of the 1960s generation Instapunk describes -- people I remember mostly for having a holier than thou attitude, and an ability to deliver endless moralistic scoldings because they were "at the front lines" in the demonstrations against the Vietnam War. But whether I want to pay anything doesn't change the fact that there's this ugly thing called an entitlement. And they're more entitled than their kids, simply because they're hitting that phony "age of retirement." No wonder so many of them like socialism. Look what's in it for them. As I say this, I realize that I am guilty of bashing an entire generation for the mindset not exhibited by all. The people who bragged of being on the front lines against the war, for example, often overlook the fact that others in their generation not only supported the war, but were in the actual front lines of that war. This latter group was not treated as well by their fellow Americans who brag they "ended" the war. Yet all share the same public entitlement. Neither group is more "deserving" -- even if the ones who fought against the war are more prone to brag about their self sacrificing behavior (despite evidence that their behavior prolonged the war) than the ones who fought in it. Who ever said socialism was fair? posted by Eric at 08:02 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0) Wednesday, August 10, 2005
The Neo-Con Deal?
The government is creating jobs and aiding industry! Social! I mean capital! "Highways just don't happen," Mr. Bush went on. "People have got to show up and do the work to refit a highway or build a bridge, and they need new equipment to do so. So the bill I'm signing is going to help give hundreds of thousands of Americans good-paying jobs." Something tells me the President has never read Hazlitt. It's an easy read: George, click the link already. Nothing like public works to please the people. posted by Dennis at 10:20 PM | Comments (6)
| TrackBacks (0)
150th Anniversary of the First Carnival of the Vanities
Yes, that's what this week's Carnival of the Vanities is called, and it has it all. Host Greg at Generic Confusion does a great job with a staggeringly large number of posts which he divides into six categories: Politics, Business and Advice, Current Events, Culture and Life, Blogging, and Humor. All in all, a crisp, clean, clear, and concise Carnival! There's no better and easier way to familiarize yourself with the blogosphere, so go do it. posted by Eric at 05:55 PM
| TrackBacks (0)
Every tired corpuscle makes me laugh -- till it hurts!
Via Michael Totten (guest blogging at InstaPundit), I found another gem from James Wolcott: The fact is that by subscribing to Bush's War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq with every corpuscle of your tired body you've made common cause with Republican conservatives, neoconservatives, and Christian fundamentalists who are dedicated to destroying those parcels of liberalism on which you stake your tiny claims of pride.Michael Totten replies that replies that politics is not binary, and while I agree, I'm glad Wolcott has once again provided some much needed humor. Now I get to play reverse-Wolcott, and rephrase what he said: The fact is that by opposing Bush's War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq with every corpuscle of your tired body you've made common cause with the Revolutionary Communist Party, Hezbollah, al Qaida, and assorted Islamic fundamentalists who are dedicated to destroying those parcels of freedom on which you stake your tiny claims to be an American.But let me confess -- I really don't think that. It's pitifully bad logic. If "making common cause" in supporting a war is to be so interpreted, then every free market Republican who supported World War II favored New Deal socialism, and every Democrat who supported the Vietnam War was in cahoots with the Watergate burglars. And so on. It's fun to lump people together though, and I think it's become a trend. Increasingly, moderates are being lumped in with people who aren't moderate, while radicals are being repackaged as moderates, and lumped together. It all makes sense, in an odd sort of way. In my long response yesterday to Wayne Pacelle's anti-cloning editorial, my point was not so much to dispute what I consider an absurd idea, but to highlight the fact that Pacelle is a radical who is being repackaged as mainstream, as moderate. Looking back at the piece, I don't think it was funny enough. Whether it's humorous or not, a similar case can be made about the constant attempts to portray Islamic radicals as moderates. How to make it funny is similarly challenging, I'm afraid. With his "common cause" argument, Wolcott at least identified the core argument: that support for the War in Iraq really ought to put all war supporters into the same category as right wing nuts. From there it's not all that great of a leap to simply declare that they are right wing nuts. An example of that was the recent ad hominem lumping of Glenn Reynolds, Eugene Volokh, Dean Esmay, and Jeff Jarvis (moderates by any normal American standard) in with the Nazis (and Volkischer Beobachter) via favorite leftist targets Charles Johnson and Michelle Malkin. The whole group was of course either stupid, evil, had tits, or perhaps questionable sexuality. While half the bloggers would fall into the conservative category, none of the group are actually radicals (not if their views are compared to the voting public at large). I can't dismiss this as the work of a single anonymous blogger, because the post was linked with approval by the big guys on the left. The problem is, now I can't use that example, because the author has since apologized, explaining that the post was intended as humor, which means I am not allowed to take it seriously. But James Wolcott still takes himself seriously, even if the business of making moderates into radicals is considered a joke by others. Remember, as Beautiful Atrocities observed, some day we'll all get to be Hitler. (Not Glenn Reynolds, though, whose Mussolini ties have been exposed for all the world to see.) Not that I'm one to mind playful Nazi comparisons, but I also see that the anonymous jokester who had fun turning moderate bloggers into Nazis is upset about the lack of humor in the right wing of the blogosphere: Is there a genetic link between humor and political outlook? Is there just some birth defect that prevents right-wingers from being funny?I should ask Frank J.. Or perhaps Jeff Goldstein. Or maybe even Jeff Percifield. But, seriously, let's get serious. The anonymous humorist goes on to seriously argue that there's a connection between a lack of humor and, um, a lack of humor, and that all humor is liberalism (and if I am reading this right, that all that which is not liberal, while it may be funny, is not humor): In my apology yesterday, I sarcastically asserted there was such a connection, but now I think I may have been right at that. Perhaps people who are born with a natural disposition to see the humor in life, and to be able to laugh at themselves, may develop a sense of empathy and compassion that leads them to liberalism. The key to successful humor, after all, is to be able to see things from other people's perspectives - a liberal trait that conservatives deride variously as "relativism" or "objectively pro-terrorist".I don't know. I'm an admitted relativist, and I just hate to think that my attempts to understand the thinking of some of the various terrorists, socialists, people who hate gay gun nuts, and assorted moral conservatives who perplex me -- I sometimes call them the "religious right" while Steven Malcolm Anderson calls them "moral collectivists" -- that all of this might make me "objectively pro-terrorist." Well then, I guess I'm feeling objectively guilty! It must all be in the genes: So conservatives may have a genetic makeup that makes them less able to appreciate what's funny, and consequently take themselves very seriously and see the world as a dour, threatening place, with all these other people having a good time and laughing - sometimes at them. This explains a lot, I think, and deserves further research.(Actually, I think there's already been some research in that area.) I plead guilty to seeing the world as a dour, threatening place, but sometimes that makes me laugh at it. (Or vomit while laughing at it.) I mean, can't we all see the humor in this? Maybe I should question my premise that the world is a dour and threatening place. Because after all, if these guys can have such a good time slicing their heads open in front of a portrait of that funny old bearded man, well, I shouldn't be such a stick in the mud!
posted by Eric at 05:02 PM | Comments (13)
| TrackBacks (0)
Lists that make me pissed!
I'm not up to snuff on the intricacies of Geek Law, which is obviously a still emerging field. But I have a legal question which is also a philosophical and ethical question, and I don't know where to go with it, so I thought I'd start with this blog. Hopefully, there are readers better versed in cyber law than I am. For reasons which are not entirely clear to me, people with whom I disagree have placed me on email lists which send me barrages of email which is sent simultaneously to many other people on the lists. I have asked to be removed from one of these lists, not because I'm more offended by the nonsense it proffers than I am by any other nonsense, but because the HUGE graphics take up a lot of bandwidth, and threaten to fill up the limited storage capabilities my service provider gives me. My polite request was ignored, and I continue getting gigantically large emails (along with everyone else on this list). Anyway, this morning, a thought struck me as I struggled through another one of this man's logically incomprehensible diatribes. As it happens, I also get annoying emails from someone on the opposite side of the political spectrum, and I have had my struggles with them too, because a couple of the people on the list are friends, and I've occasionally been stupid enough to answer particularly egregious charges. (My answer greatly disturbed one of the list readers I DON'T know -- who demanded I take his name off the list -- a list I never started!) Anyway, I'm tired of all this "list" business, and my idea is this: am I allowed to forward each list to the other list, thereby starting an email list war? Everyone on both lists would be incredibly pissed off, but my questions are: Would this be ethical? Would it be legal? Would it invade anyone's "privacy"? Indeed, do people who find themselves on these long lists have any anticipation of privacy? posted by Eric at 09:29 AM | Comments (6)
| TrackBacks (0)
Fearing the fear of fear?
The Philadelphia Inquirer's Trudy Rubin is blaming the Iranian nuclear program on the war in Iraq (the latter is a "quagmire" of course): President Bush's gross miscalculations about Iraq have emboldened Iran's mullahs. The cost of these mistakes was in full view this week.I'm curious about a couple of assumptions there. First, is there a quagmire? While I've discussed the "quagmire" topic previously, I'm still curious about these assumptions. First, is there a quagmire? Second, if there is, precisely how has it "deprived" U.S. forces of their ability to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. I guess I'll have to read on. There is good reason to be worried about Tehran's nuclear program, despite Iranian claims it is only for peaceful energy purposes.Agreed. I'm glad to see such apparently unanimous agreement on such a crucial point, and I'm hoping to see Ms. Rubin on the roof of the Inquirer building rejoicing (ululating would be a bit much to expect, I suppose) as soon as the first reactor is bombed! Will it happen now? Or do we need a female president with the balls do do it? But the U.S. presence in Iraq has made it more, not less, likely that Iran would go all out to develop weapons. Hawkish U.S. pundits boasted that Iran was the next regime that would topple after Saddam fell. Iraq was seen as a perfect base for overt or covert pressure on Tehran. Iraqi democracy was supposed to inspire Iran's restless Shiite population to topple the mullahs.Wait a second. Is the Iraq War really the motivation for Iranian development of nuclear weapons? Even assuming that Iran feels threatened by U.S. troops, of what tactical use are are nuclear missiles against conventional forces in the field? I think it's far more likely that the weapons would be intended as a blackmail device vis-a-vis Israelis nukes -- or to be diverted to terrorists for use in the United States. More likely, the Iranian goal is along psywar lines. They claim it's unfair that the Israelis have nukes, and they could use their leverage in an attempt to force "nuclear disarmament in the Mideast." Whether the mullahs are insane enough to supply nukes to terrorists or actually deploy them against Israel is of course unknown. But neither of these scenarios strike me as connected to the Iraq War. Considering that the current Iranian nuclear program dates back to the 1980s, I think they'd be doing exactly what they are doing now, even if Saddam Hussein were still in power. With Saddam still in power, the mullahs might be working even harder. As the last article points out, Saddam Hussein's forces destroyed Iran's nuclear reactors in the 1980-1988 war. While his capabilities were substantially impaired by the United States after Gulf War I, there's no question that he was still in power, and a growing threat, with a documented history of aggression towards Iraq. Now, I know it's tough to know exactly what is going on in the minds of the mullahs. But I think it's a mistake to see everything in the context of this war without considering the not-so-distant past. It could just as easily be argued that leaving Saddam Hussein in power might have provided a stronger impetus for nuclear development than the current scenario. In any case, it would be logically impossible to look at Iran's decades-old, ongoing nuclear program, and lay blame on the current situation in Iraq. Ms. Rubin (obviously a competent analyst) must realize this, so she offers more: But there are additional reasons why the Iran theocracy feels it can take this gamble. For one thing, flawed elections just returned a conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian public has shown no interest in an uprising; they fear Iraq-style chaos.No interest? There are some 75,000 Iranian bloggers now, along with countless activists agitating tirelessly against the mullahcracy. While one can debate the precise meaning of demonstrations like this, to maintain that there is "no interest" in an uprising, and to blame this on "fear" of "Iraq-style chaos" only seems to reinforce the mullah view that the demonstrators are "anarchists." But regardless of the strength of the mullahcracy's opponents, where's the tie-in between that and the nukes? The goal is toppling the mullahs, and I don't see Iranian anti-nuclear activism as being much of a cause there. The people who are agitated want freedom and democracy. If they get it, I'm sure they'd be just as amenable to having nuclear power as any other country. Whether they'd want nuclear weapons is probably about as relevant to them now as cloning sheep. Somehow, I just can't see the mullahs' covert nuclear development decisions being influenced in any way by worries about reactions in the Iranian "street." Another reason for nuclear development is said to be Iran's ability to harm U.S. troops in Iraqi (and other) battlefields: For another, Iran's regime has thousands of agents inside Iraq who could cause havoc for U.S. troops there if they chose to. They could do the same in Afghanistan.Sorry, but they (working in alliance with al Qaida) are already causing havoc for U.S. troops in Iraq. Ms. Rubin has just made a good case for invading Iran (much less taking out the nukes), whether she admits it or not. Far from being a deterrent, Iranian activity in Iraq should in theory make a U.S. strike more, not less, likely. Unless, of course, the Iranians are defeating us with psywar tactics. Again. Which leads to one of Ms. Rubin's best points: And then there is the fact that Iraq's government has developed the closest of ties with Tehran. Iraq's Shiite leaders know they'll need Iranian support if U.S. troops leave - to prevent a return of Sunni Baathists.Much as I see the point (and much as I think it's a good one), I don't think any of this United States paralysis was caused by the Iraq War. Rather, the United States is pathologically afraid of Iran, and I think it comes down not to real strengths and capabilities, but to the success of the Iranian psychological warfare machine. If the United States is in fact unable to do anything about the nukes, about Iran's involvement in Iraq, it is because time and time again we have allowed ourselves to be beaten by a system based on medieval but magical superstitious nonsense dating back to the arrival on a plane of that psychotically religious man, (quite possibly half British, as Stephen Green notes), the Ayatollah Khomeini. Our world hasn't been the same since. Too bad the Iranians didn't laugh the son of a bitch out of their country. His rotten corpse lives on. Magic works that way. (And I'm afraid it may take a female president to have the balls it takes to go after a dead white man.) MORE: Via Michael Totten, guest blogging at InstaPundit, I see that Iranian proxies are growing bolder by the day, and this time they've seized Baghdad's municipal government. Via Drudge, I see that Iranian proxies are terrorizing merchants by means of "militant vice squads." I'm not surprised by any of this. It is to be hoped that U.S. forces will at least fight the mullahs' proxies in Iraq? (After all, didn't they really start this whole thing nearly 26 years ago?) posted by Eric at 08:43 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0) Tuesday, August 9, 2005
Has Jagger attacked Bush yet?
Well, now that I've messed up one post today, let's see if I can get this one, uh, straight. The Rolling Stones (one of my favorite bands) are accused of bashing Bush and Rice in a new song, "My Sweet Neo-Con." According to Drudge, here's the story and the lyrics: JAGGER ROCKS BUSH, RICE: 'HOW COME YOU'RE SO WRONG, MY SWEET NEO-CON'OK, first of all, since when has it become mandatory to bash the Secretary of State along with the president? Wasn't the big bad Cheney big enough and bad enough? Our last Secretary of State (Madeleine Albright) didn't merit all this attention. Nor did Haig, Shultz, Baker, Eagleburger, or Christopher. So why the fuss about Condoleeza Rice? And Bush was reelected less than a year ago, so it's not as if there's a presidential race or something. Anyway, I can't find the exact reference to Condoleeza Rice in the song. Perhaps someone can clue me in. For the Stones' part, their publicist denied that the song is about Bush: Britain's New Musical Express publication, which calls itself "the world's biggest-selling rock weekly," reported last week that Sweet Neo-Con "is believed to be an attack on the politics of George Bush and the Republican administration." Various other publications have made similar reports, and the Rolling Stones Fan Club of Europe says Virgin Records has been telling people the song has "a political message about moralism in the White House."Not sure what they're saying now. Several recent British accounts (and this Australian account) repeat essentially the same story as Drudge, but without any reference to Condoleeza Rice. Reading through the stories as carefully as I can, other than in the headline texts, I am at a loss to find any actual references to Bush at all by the Stones or the lyric. For the sake of argument, is it possible that the word "Neo-Con" might refer to a particular person other than Bush? Is Bush supposed to be the "sweet Neo-Con"? Is Rice? Or is it someone else? The only specific Bush reference I could find was here, and I don't know how reliable it is: The Rolling Stones are getting political on their new album, A Bigger Bang. Mick Jagger tells Newsweek that the new tune "Sweet Neo Con" is a dig at George W. Bush. With lyrics like "You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite/You call yourself a patriot, well I think you're full of s—t," Jagger says it is a direct attack on U.S. politics. He tells Newsweek, "Keith [Richards] said, 'It's not really metaphorical.' I think he's a bit worried because he lives in the U.S., but I don't."Without confirmation from Newsweek, how are we to know? I find it hard to believe it's just a coincidence that the Stones' upcoming tour starts August 21, and I know Mick Jagger is a pretty shrewd businessman. If I were him, I might backpedal a bit. Claim to have been "misunderstood" while basking in the publicity this is already generating. (After all, his publicist has already laid the groundwork for him....) UPDATE: Here at last is Newsweek (August 15) -- supposedly the source of the stories: The Stones' new music sounds more spontaneous than most of their recent efforts, and Jagger sounds angrier than he has in years. Since the band's last studio album, Jagger has ended his 23-year relationship with wife Jerry Hall, and was taken to court over an illegitimate child he fathered with a Brazilian model, which may explain such lyrics as "Oh no! Not you again, f—-ing up my life/It was bad the first time around/Better take my own advice." But the most searing moment, on a song called "Sweet Neo Con," isn't personal but political. "You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite/You call yourself a patriot, well I think you're full of s—t." "It is direct," Jagger says with a laugh. "Keith said [he breaks into a dead-on Keith imitation], 'It's not really metaphorical.' I think he's a bit worried because he lives in the U.S." Jagger smiles. "But I don't."Huh? What, no Bush? No Rice? Is this soon to be a major misunderstanding? MORE: Looking at the lyric again, it occurs to me that there are people I could honestly say that about who aren't George W. Bush, or Condoleeza Rice, or anyone in the Bush administration and who don't even support Bush. (I don't think I have to name names.) AND MORE: Newsweek also notes that the concert is not yet sold out: Want a ticket for this year's tour, which kicks off in Boston on Aug. 21? Hurry, it's almost sold out.Hmmmm.... (I'm tempted to ask whether this is any way to promote a tour, but I've already made enough mistakes for one day, so I'll leave the temptation alone.) UPDATE (08/10/05): My assessment of the situation seems to have been largely vindicated-- and by Mr. Jagger himself: NEW YORK -- The Rolling Stones' upcoming album contains a song seemingly critical of President Bush, but Mick Jagger denies it's directed at him, according to the syndicated TV show "Extra."Sigh. Might it be about me? (Many people think I'm sweet.) AFTERTHOUGHT: Has Mick Jagger betrayed his apparent former disdain for politics? Actually, considering that he long ago confessed to harboring a secret desire to become a Member of Parliament, an interest in politics at this stage of his life might not be as far fetched as it would seem. Add to that the fact that the much younger Tony Blair was called a "Mick Jagger wannabe" (by the Times, no less) and the intrigue grows. posted by Eric at 03:45 PM | Comments (7)
| TrackBacks (2)
Bullets or ballots?
I had to delete a previous post written in haste, in which I accused Greg Palast of advocating the assassination of Bill Frist. He did not do that, and I thought it would be irresponsible for me to leave it up. What I thought I saw (via a link from my blogfather Jeff Soyer) was columnist Greg Palast apparently wishing for the assassination of Bill Frist: It's not nice to say, but there's only one way to stop Doctor Death. In 2008, I hope to see the headline, "Senator Frist Slain in a Hail of Ballots." Ballots are not bullets. Accordingly, my post was deleted in a deliberate, intentional coverup. (Rather than cover up my coverup, I thought I should write this post.) My apologies for any confusion created by my mistake. posted by Eric at 03:28 PM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0)
Hitler hired Jews, claims respected Stalinist!
Here's Harry Belafonte on Adolf Hitler: Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich. Color does not necessarily denote quality, content or value.(Via the G. Gordon Liddy Show) Belafonte's statement is an outrageous lie, but it was intended as an attack on black conservatives, so I don't expect to see it mentioned in my local newspaper -- or anywhere else in the Mainstream Media. NOTE: If it appears in the Philadelphia Inquirer, I promise to correct myself. Anyway, Belafonte's remark drew an immediate protest from Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies: "Some entertainers simply don't know much about history," said Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, a research and education institute focusing on America's response to the Holocaust. "The fact is that there were no Jews in Hitler's hierarchy, the policies of America and Israel are not similar to those of Hitler, and African-American conservatives are not comparable to Nazis."In another interview, Dick Gregory allowed that black conservatives have the "right to exist," but analogized them to Nazis: "They (black conservatives) have a right to exist, but why would I want to walk around with a swastika on my shirt after the way Hitler done messed it (the swastika symbol) up?"I realize that Belafonte and Gregory are supposed to be entertainers, but I don't find such appalling ignorance entertaining in the least. Considering allegations that Belafonte is an unreconstructed Stalinist, though, so I can't say I'm surprised. I'd be surprised to see him apologize. posted by Eric at 11:14 AM | Comments (11)
| TrackBacks (1)
Latest mainstream meme?
If you thought the debate over human cloning was bad, read on.... Today's Philadelphia Inquirer features an Op Ed by Wayne Pacelle, President of the Humane Society of the United States. In a piece called "Cloning is cruelty to animals and people" Pacelle comes out swinging against animal cloning: [W]ith millions of healthy and adoptable cats and dogs being killed each year for lack of suitable homes, it is a little frivolous to be cloning departed pets.If it's frivolous to clone because there are unwanted animals, isn't it just as frivolous to breed? (Yes, I'm coming to that.) And where is this leading? Agriculture and research? Heaven forefend! If that wasn't Kass-like enough for you, Pacelle has more: Behind every heralded success are hundreds of monstrous failures.Hmmm.... Couldn't that be said about almost any human innovation? Repeated failure followed by success? How is that an argument against trying? Pacelle doesn't say. Instead, sounding like a moralizing Kass/Rifkin hybrid, he calls for more laws: As all of this has unfolded, policymakers have stood idly by, placing almost no legal restraints on corporations and scientists tinkering with the most fundamental elements of biology.Is there any serious debate that meat is meat? That a clone is a twin? What logic underlies the argument that the government should allow me to eat a hamburger made from Cow A, but not from a twin of Cow A? Unless there is something intrinsically evil about eating meat, it just doesn't follow. But it does follow if you read on, for in the next sentence, Pacelle makes it clear that what he seeks is a meat moratorium: Farmers already produce so much meat that they must find export markets to turn a profit. As for the animals in our factory farms, cloning is the final assault on their well-being and dignity.Obviously, he thinks there is too much meat on the market, and he fears that cloning techniques will allow the evil farmers to produce more. Now, I'm a thinking person, and I do love animals. I understand that there are many valid arguments against the way factory farms raise animals. What I cannot understand here is how cloning would have any effect on things like overcrowding on feed lots or poultry farms. Cloning is a method of reproduction, and unless we attribute human thoughts and emotions to them, the animals that are cloned have no idea how they got here. And the techniques which produced them have nothing to do with how they are ultimately treated on farms. Quite ironically, Mr. Pacelle forgets that the technologies which could evolve from cloning could lead ultimately to huge meat factories in which edible meat could be grown without the need for any animals: In a paper in the June 29 issue of Tissue Engineering, a team of scientists, including University of Maryland doctoral student Jason Matheny, propose two new techniques of tissue engineering that may one day lead to affordable production of in vitro - lab grown -- meat for human consumption. It is the first peer-reviewed discussion of the prospects for industrial production of cultured meat.Imagine! No slaughtering, no suffering, no breeding! After all, Pacelle is on record as being against killing chickens for food. Why, if we consider the future of the technological developments he opposes, there'd be no need for humane policing of slaughterhouses -- because there wouldn't be any slaughterhouses! Mr. Pacelle could retire. (Might that be what he's against?) In any event, he doesn't seem ready to retire, as he's busy working full time for all the federal legislation and regulations it is humanly possible to pass. Back to the Inquirer: When the FDA held a public consultation on animal cloning in November 2003, researchers reported a graphic list of problems for clones and their surrogate mothers in cattle, pigs, sheep and goats - a string of developmental abnormalities and a host of deaths before, during and after birth.Progress has been defined -- and in truly Kassian language. But I'm wondering.... Does Dr. Kass's moral philosophy about cloning really apply to animals? Many of the ethical concerns raised by human cloning apply here? Forgive me, but I thought the ethical concerns (expressed by Leon Kass and many others) about human cloning were grounded in the very distinction between man and animal (i.e. that man is not an animal, and that human life is sacrosanct). The morality of human cloning is of course fiercely debated, and without getting into the human aspects of cloning in this essay, claiming that the ethical concerns are the same with animals as with humans makes little sense -- unless of course there is no moral distinction between humans and animals. I suspect that this lofty language is intended to persuade the ordinary meat-eating American that there's something evil, something hidden and lurking, something being done by pointy-headed mad scientists, to the very food we eat, and which only the government can keep pure. But what neither Pacelle nor the Inquirer disclose is that Pacelle's agenda is far more radical than preserving the integrity of the public's supplies of meat. As John Hawkins points out, if Pacelle had his way, there wouldn't be any domestic animals at all: We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding. ...One generation and out. We have no problems with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding...Wayne Pacelle - Former National Director of Fund for Animals.Wayne Pacelle is one of those vegans I've criticized as not being content to merely eat what they eat, but who want to force others to adopt their lifestyle. (Indeed, he claims that "nothing is more important than promoting veganism" and is placing self proclaimed "abolitionists" in top positions at HSUS. He's also hired J.P. Goodwin -- a former ALF activist with a history of picketing executives' homes, and publicly advocating the torching of processing barns. (These people all have a right to their opinion, but do contributors to the HSUS know what causes their money is funding?) NOTE: In the interest of fairness, it should be pointed out that Pacelle seems to have helped ALF radical Goodwin clean up his act. In an article they co-wrote, Pacelle and Goodwin weigh in on the murder of Pim Fortuyn by an animal rights activist. (While they characterize Fortuyn as "the leader of a marginal right-wing political organization that had been outspoken in its sympathy for fur ranching," they admit that the murder was a bad tactic because it "prompted a wave of sympathy" and "caused average citizens to associate animal activists with extremism and violence." I guess it's relieving to know that they're thinking about these things, but I should also note that it is by no means settled that Fortuyn's assassin was motivated by animal rights.) In this interview with Vegan.com, Mr. Pacelle describes his background: Out of college I became an Assistant Editor and later Associate Editor of The Animals' Agenda, the national magazine of the animal rights movement. And I also started a group in Connecticut called the Animal Rights Alliance. I ran under the green party for city council, and raised issues of animal rights during the campaign. Then I joined the Fund for Animals as National Director, and served there for five and a half years. We did a lot of work on wildlife issues,particularly against sport hunting, and we were also in the mix on a broad range of animal issues. We did a lot of field protests against hunting where we would walk with hunters and talk with them about hunting. And in the process they were seldom able to make a kill (the distraction and six people tromping with a hunter scared away the animals). We also challenged the constitutionality of state hunter harassment laws, and there are some close parallels there with the food disparagement laws that are emerging in agricultural states.This man is no longer a college animal rights activist; he's president of an old, respected, mainstream organization. Are his views mainstream? I guess that depends on how we define mainstream. Considering that the Humane Society of the United States is the largest animal rights organization in the country, if mainstream is defined by size, then veganism and opposition to hunting and fishing must now be considered mainstream. Pacelle's opponents disagree. From an article in the Washington Post (appropriately titled "Vegan in the Hen House"): Pacelle took charge promising to use those deep pockets to take the HSUS into the new era of animal protection advocacy. "I think they wanted the aggressive approach," he says. "They wanted someone who was going to think things up. And they got him."For some reason, the article spent more time discussing Pacelle's handsome, John F. Kennedy Jr. appearance than asking him about statements like these: "If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would."-- Associated Press, Dec. 30, 1991.And: "We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States… We will take it species by species until all hunting is stopped in California. Then we will take it state by state." – Wayne Pacelle, quoted in an interview published in the magazine Full Cry, October 1990.I believe him. However, I don't think Pacelle would be considered mainstream by most people, and I thought a little fuller disclosure would be in order. Otherwise, his calls for a ban on animal cloning might seem mainstream. Even reasonable.
Can tyranny of the ridiculous be stopped by logical scrutiny and serious criticism? Or is ridicule the best weapon against the ridiculous? posted by Eric at 09:43 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0) Monday, August 8, 2005
The latest rage
The (Raging) RINO Sightings Carnival has been posted at Searchlight Crusade. (A blog which champions the value of being able to disagree without being disagreeable.) So much insolence and heresy is displayed by outraged RINOs that I couldn't begin to link to them all, but a few stood out: Plenty to rage about; read 'em all! posted by Eric at 10:39 AM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0)
Making cruelty humane
Next time you mumble "it can't happen here," take a look at the situation in Denver, Colorado, where I'd be a criminal for owning Coco: Zena the buff, brindle-colored pit bull had been living the outlaw life, her fate haunted for nearly a month by the possibility of a death sentence.(For this incredible "underground railroad" story, I am indebted to blogger Alan Kellogg.) There's not much to say, other than to express my profound disgust that something like this could happen in a still free country. That these nameless, faceless, armed dog-grabbers would take my puppy and kill her, and imprison me for owning her -- all because of some crackpot canine racial theories and the idea that I should be punished for the deeds of others -- does not set well with me, especially because I am still grieving the loss of Puff. I guess that makes me particularly emotional about this issue. Perhaps I should be. Anyway, I'm glad there's an underground railroad. It beats the killing rooms for the damned operated by -- well I don't know who's operating them in Denver, but I hope it's not like the Canadian situation, where the Humane Society is apparently killing the same dogs they'd adopted out: Just last month we had a lab-boxer cross that was going to be euthanized because someone thought she looked a little like a pit bull. The couple who had adopted the dog from the same Humane Society that was now prepared to kill her had to scrounge up money for a lawyer to point out things like webbed toes.(It appears that Denver's killing facility is owned and operated by the city itself.) As to what to do if you're in Denver, well, there are still animal rights activists who don't spend their time killing animals. Instead, they're offering legal advice: From a handful of members who met, in part, after calling the Seattle-based American Canine Foundation, the e-mail list has grown to more than 200, says Dias, a 30-something mortgage banker who lives in Denver.From a legal standpoint, the railroad, of course, is engaged in a criminal conspiracy to interfere with law enforcement efforts (a crime in itself). Denver's finest are tasked with preventing crimes like this: ...Quintana dotes on Zena. He says the neighbors like her, but he worries that a passer-by will report her during one of her backyard romps. She has not been on a walk since the ban kicked in.Can't have that going on, can we? For readers who might be in the Denver area, here are the contact numbers: OrganizationsAs to legal specifics, while I haven't located the text of the law, this article describes it as appearance-based: But Denver's ban applies to any dog that looks like a pit bull.As SayUncle pointed out, so many breeds "look like pit bulls" that even trained experts would be hard pressed to tell the difference. If you don't believe me, try to spot the "pit bull" in this test. I hope that there are enough motivated dog owners who will organize to get this thing thrown out as unconstitutional, following which aggrieved owners of seized and killed dogs might be able to sue for damages. (Lawsuits seem to be the only language anyone understands anymore.) posted by Eric at 09:26 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0)
"Doing big things."
Today's Inquirer has a piece on an issue I've covered before -- an attempt in Ardmore, Pennsylvania to condemn private property (in this case, charming older commercial buildings), and hand it to private developers. It's now looming large as an election issue -- without respect to ordinary party politics: Eminent domain is about as popular these days as taxes and jackhammers.While misuse of eminent domain alone is grounds to vote against those who did it, there's more to it than that. I think that what really has the voting public ticked off is the way they went about doing it. Instead of honestly admitting that they wanted more tax dollars and could get it by taking property from Owner A and giving it to Owner B (bad enough it itself), they claimed Ardmore was "blighted." This doesn't set well with voters, for two reasons. One is that people don't like being tricked and lied to. There's nothing "blighted" about Ardmore. It's one of the wealthiest areas in the Philadelphia suburbs, and yes, the commercial buildings are older, but they have irreplaceable charm that people like, thriving businesses that have been there a long time, and few to no vacancies. The idea of calling it "blighted" is comical, and people who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their homes have been having fun telling people they live in a "blighted" area. (Such comic relief, however, does not translate into votes for those whose rhetorical manipulations provided amusement...) Of course, there's another group of voters who aren't quite as cynical. Maybe they lack a sense of humor, but they just don't like the idea of being told they're living in a "blighted" area in which they've gone into debt to live. Add to that cranks like me who read the daily newspaper. I didn't especially like the characterization of those opposing the misuse of eminent domain (and misuse of the word "blight") as "anti-development," as I've never thought of myself as opposing development. I just don't like Big Brother style central planning or misuse of power and language. I'm glad there's an election and eminent domain has become a question. I'm also glad it doesn't involve party politics. Public sentiment is running 9-1 against misuse of eminent domain -- a situation which frightens both Democrats and Republicans: But if the candidates who oppose the use of eminent domain in Ardmore win in the wards representing Rosemont/Villanova, South Wynnewood/East Ardmore, Bryn Mawr/Haverford, and Penn Wynne/Wynnewood, Option B might not survive.I don't think the issue is "doing big things," so much as who does them. I'm not saying that all things big are necessarily bad. But big business is one thing; Big Brother is another. When the two get in bed together, it's not just that they do "big things" that's the problem. They do big bad things. (I'm glad so many of the "little people" seem to agree.) posted by Eric at 09:01 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0)
Who's making them hate us?
Here's Tom Lasseter writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer over the weekend: Talking to a truckload of troops, sitting in the predawn darkness in a desert staging area yesterday, Sgt. Marcio Vargas Estrada made the point in plain language to the men of his squad from the 3-2.This, of course, has been picked up by a variety of outraged bloggers: Combat is ugly and violent, and I don't doubt that things are said in the heat of battle in other than carefully chosen words. Still, whether this Marcio Vargas Estrada would have wanted millions of Americans to read what Tom Lasseter quotes him as saying is at least open to question -- even assuming Lasseter got the quote right. But I guess this is an adversary game, so soldiers ought to be more careful what they say in combat, right? Are we to assume that mainstream media journalists wouldn't make mistakes in the heat of battle? That they'd never suffer from selective hearing any more than the rest of us? It always bothers me to see someone being indicted without having an opportunity to speak up in his defense, so I Googled "Marcio Vargas Estrada" to see whether there's been anything written in his defense (or, for that matter, whether there's any information or any other quotes from him or about him). All I could find were the Lasseter piece, and reactions to it like the above. While one blogger wonders aloud whether Vargas will be disciplined for talking like that, the consensus seems to be that he's guilty as charged, but that he's only speaking the truth about the Marine Corps and U.S. policy of "death and destruction to half of f*cking Iraq." As the saying goes, if this Vargas didn't exist, you'd have to invent him. (Along with his words.) Hey, it could have been worse. At least he wasn't quoted as saying that he loved the smell of Napalm in the morning! posted by Eric at 08:00 AM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0) Sunday, August 7, 2005
AGREED: the religious right is crucial!
Via an email from Newsmax.com, I found myself drawn to an interesting argument that Hillary Clinton will win the election by splitting the Republican Party: “We’re not making a flat prediction, but a plausible case can be made that she will become president on Jan. 20, 2009,” writes Greg Valliere, chief political strategist with the Stanford Group Company, a research group.The problem with this argument is that it ignores the inverse: if the religious right wins the nomination, "the mainstream" might do more than sit at home; they -- along with the "swing voters" -- might vote for a woman who's already got a head start in packaging and selling herself as a moderate (and who by then will have established such solid moderate credentials that those who cite her far-left past will look like right wing cranks). As to the religious right votes which are called so "crucial" to Bush, where were they in California during the Schwarzenegger phenomenon? They had voted for McClintock, and if it had been up to them (as it normally would have been in a conventional primary), McClintock would have had every single one of these "crucial votes." And McClintock would have lost another crucial election, just as the Republicans did before him. How are we to define "crucial?" Sure, it's desirable for any candidate to get as many votes as he can. But it seems to me that crucial means the difference between getting elected and losing. It worries me that the religious right see themselves as crucial, AND Hillary also sees them as crucial. She wants to have a Republican opponent from the religious right just as much as they do. This agreement is, I think, crucial for her victory. I'm also worried that many on the religious right would prefer to see Hillary Clinton as president than a "mainstream Republican." As I've said before, when enough people want something to happen, it will happen. The reasons are less crucial than the reality. MORE (08/08/05): In a lengthy political analysis today, the Philadelphia Inquirer's Dick Polman portrays Senator Santorum as the be-all and end-all of the future of the Republican party: Republican pollster David Winston, who works with Santorum and the Senate GOP on policy issues, said the other day: "This is the race of 2006, with huge long-term national implications. If Santorum, for the third time, can win as a conservative in a blue state, if he can demonstrate that his brand of 'compassionate conservatism' can play well, that clearly would tell us that Pennsylvania will be in play for us" in the next presidential campaign.Oh yeah? Well who is us? posted by Eric at 09:51 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0)
That breath of fresh air can be misleading
Donald Sensing (and, no doubt, many other bloggers) linked to Michael Crichton's observations about environmentalism as religion. Excerpt: certain human social structures always reappear. They can't be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people---the best people, the most enlightened people---do not believe in any religion. But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.And so on. (If you haven't read it, it's a classic.) While there's nothing new about this discussion, every time I drive out to the country I am reminded of what it is that causes these religious urges to spring forth in the minds of people who otherwise could care less about religion (or actively hate it). I think most of us who live in noisy urban and suburban environments tune out the cacophony of noise so that it becomes inaudible "white noise." This noise is still there, however, constantly bombarding us. Naturally (if I may use that word), when we take a long drive out to the countryside, take a long walk in the woods, we tend to experience surprise and relief when we notice the total absence of "white noise." Instead, there's an unbelievable silence. The slightest sound -- a bird chirping, an animal walking, a dog barking, will sound magically clear and unfiltered. Yet there's nothing magic about it. Nor is it "better." It's just different, and we don't get it as often as our ancestors did. Those of us who live in spiritual voids might tend to sentimentalize these things, and that, in my view, is how the forces of environmentalism-as-religion get a toehold. "Man is evil!" "Look how he has despoiled the world!" People are then ready to jump on bandwagons to "save" the things they've sentimentalized, and it doesn't take much of a spiritual leap to start seeing the felling of a tree not as merely a bad idea (or an inadvisable thing to do to this particular forest right now) but as a profoundly evil thing. This is a logical mistake, because it replaces a rational view of the world with the projection of one's emotional reactions, and feelings. Someone who spends 60 hours a week in an office, plus ten hours a week in traffic jams to get to and from the office, might very well be expected to have intense reactions on those few occasions he visits "nature" -- that it is virginal, it is superior, and above all, that it is threatened. Most likely, the "threats" take the form of an anonmymous "them," and he can fill in predictable blanks about who "they" are. Nameless corporate bosses loom large, of course. But anything urban or suburban can eventually become a convenient scapegoat for those forces that keep him toiling the 60 hours a week -- and stuck in horrible traffic to get there! How nice it would be to see such people actually quit their urban jobs and move to rural locations! That way, the "magic" could wear off, the sun's rays, the mosquitoes, the wasps and the ticks could have a go at their skin, and they could see firsthand how much work it is to keep the pristine growth from swallowing up the roads they still need to have to get in and out with the food that has to be obtained somewhere (and brought in by evil truck from somewhere else). The magic might wear off, and they'd have a little perspective. Instead, all too often, the emotions cause an unconscious, unacknowledged religion to find root in the frustrated, discontented areas of the brain. Activists who specialize in cultivating and nurturing this emotional overgrowth dare not admit that what they are pushing is religion. A mistake frequently made by certain religious analysts who refer to environmentalism as "paganism" is that while there might be paganistic elements, environmentalism cannot be called true paganism because of the fact that it is not acknowledged as religion! Environmentalists dare not do so, for they tend to be atheists who indignantly deny any religious connection. This gives their quasi-religion far more power, making environmentalism the ideal religion for atheists, and in my experience there's no better way to infuriate an atheist than to accuse him of holding spiritual views. What I think is going on is that the people who are vulnerable to this are so self absorbed (and so lacking in appropriate boundaries) that they cannot separate their own views of what is desirable from an absolutist belief that their own desires are grounded in the difference between right and wrong, and of course that they are right, and everyone else is wrong. (It helps to be told by some well-funded chorus of politically motivated "scientists" that their desires are based on "facts.") It's a little like a vegan who has discovered the virtues of a meat and milk-free diet, and believes he is not only "healthier" but morally superior. It is not enough merely to practice these dietary habits; they must be imposed on other people -- by force if necessary. I'd never restrict anyone's right to be a vegan, any more than I'd restrict the right of a woman to cover herself from head to toe with a veil. (I've heard these women make oddly similar claims about veiling too; safety against lechery means healthier, happier, better adjusted lives.) The problem is, there are certain types of people who do not see these things as "rights" but as duties to be imposed ultimately on others. And what better way to do that than by invocation of superstition? ("Not only is the veil good for you, but God commands it!" "Scientists and leading astronauts have proven that we're running out of air!" "Because bicycles are healthier, we must get rid of cars!") So, while there's nothing wrong with liking nature (or liking anything, or just thinking something is good for you) if you like -- or dislike -- anything too much it can lead to erroneous thinking. None of this is to argue that religion is right or wrong, or that one form of religion is better than another. But I prefer freedom of choice in matters of religion, and there's nothing free about covert, unacknowledged spirituality. Whether this is "paganism" or not is a red herring; just as a good an argument can be made for environmentalism as Christian puritanism as for paganism. My complaint is with it's covert nature. Religion in camouflage only looks natural. posted by Eric at 09:18 AM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0) Saturday, August 6, 2005
late night flow away post
Long drive way up river. Coco had a great time, and she's getting pretty good at the famous "pit bull grin."
MORE: Oh what the hell! Here's Coco's real time reaction to this post, as I sit here feeding up the pictures. (Precisely what I should be doing.) posted by Eric at 11:26 PM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0)
Time off from Hiroshima shame game
Long drive North (and NO I am not running away from the dirty bomb attack predicted in certain quarters), so no posting till much later, if at all today. Meanwhile, I thought this Brookings Iraq survey (via Glenn Reynolds) is well worth a look. Because I know people don't like to click on links, here's an interesting paragraph: I don't expect to see this widely reported amidst the scolding which generally passes for news. OK, I'm running late -- it's blast off time! posted by Eric at 09:17 AM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0) Friday, August 5, 2005
Maybe this time, denial can be made to work
I don't know whether it's tougher to close an open mind or open a closed mind, but I want to re-examine a premise I tend to take for granted, and which I expressed this way: ....if there's one thing I can confidently predict, it's that -- nukes or no nukes -- eventually we'll all die.Countdown to eternity? My problem may be that I'm too old and too cynical and have seen too many things which made me cynical. I plead guilty to being more cynical about life and death than most people. And "life extension" is one of those things which touches my cynical button. I "came of age" in (lived through is more like it) the 1970s, and I considered it to be a rather tedious period, full of a lot of people who were quite full of themselves living quite full (to the point of self-indulgent) lives. My intellectual libertarian friends of that period were gaga over "life extension," yet all they had to show for it were a bunch of hypotheses about the future (which they quite shrilly insisted were absolutely inevitable), and (in the early 80s) a silly-looking book loaded with inflated claims (the book's rear cover totalled the combined ages of the two authors and claimed they were that old). I had no argument with life extension then, nor do I have now. What I have an aversion to is denial. Most of these same friends contracted AIDS, and I watched them die. The borderline-obsessive interest in life extension "life extension" seemed to collide -- and actually reached a crescendo -- with the ugly, malevolent birth (in 1983) of AIDS. I remember it well -- and what a cruel mockery it was seeing fanatic advocates of life extension suddenly sentenced to die while only in their late twenties and early thirties. (None of this was their fault, I hasten to add; those infected with AIDS before the disease was known to exist cannot in fairness be accused of "asking for it." Not that the people who accused them of "asking for it" had fairness in mind -- but that's a whole different rant....) Little comfort were the "life extension" books, insistence on organic or vegan diets, or crackpot ideas like taking Niacin till you feel like you're on fire -- or beta-carotene till you turn orange. Short of watching my friends die, the most horrible aspect of the process was to throw myself into denial along with them, while we all grasped for one miracle cure after another. I worked at an "underground" AIDS drugstore ("buyers clubs" they were called), and made countless trips to other countries bringing back drugs which the FDA wouldn't allow AIDS patients to buy here. We defied the blasted FDA, and We All Believed. Believers or not, those with AIDS all died. Nothing worked. Not even the denial. The founder of the particular AIDS buyers club with which I was associated was a charming, high-energy man with AIDS but with a desire and zest to fight for life (his own and others) which I'd have to characterize as infectiously maniacal. He used to go on television and debate FDA officials and local physicians, and fought like a tiger for patients' right to have access to medically unapproved treatments. Finally, the disease caught up with him, in the form of repeated KS lesions in his lungs, which finally proved unresponsive to treatment. I'll never forget the last time I saw him. (It was to say goodbye, and we both knew it.) I told him how much I admired him, how we'd work to carry on what he'd started, how we'd redouble our efforts -- and he cut me short with a firm, gentle, smile. That kind of serenity which comes from knowing you are truly letting go.... "It was all denial!" he said. Denial. All his work. All our work. DENIAL! (It was pretty tough to take at the time.) He was right. Yet I'd have done the same thing again. In situations like that, you have no choice. And believe me, nothing motivates like the fear of death. I'll never forget my horror at hearing a leading national AIDS specialist tell a largely gay audience, "A diagnosis of AIDS is a death sentence." I was furious, as were most of the people I knew. I hated the guy, and considered him to be some kind of sinister pig agent working for the anti-sexual Forces of Control. (He was just a gay physician, saying what he thought needed to be said. And you know what? He was right. It was a death sentence. All of the people I knew with AIDS in that period died. When you're facing death, denial kicks in big time, in much the same way that when you hit 40, suddenly "health" is a big deal. I am acutely sensitive to the type of denial activated by the fear of death, and I can almost smell it. Sorry to voice these darker, innermost thoughts, but I can't help them. (Might even be a form of Post Traumatic Stress for all I know, much as I hate to sound like a whiner.) Anyway, my denial detecter tends to go off when people carry on about life extension. It has the same ring as did the belief in experimental drugs which weren't there, and I wonder how many True Believers will die anyway, waiting for the Big Cure. This was all much on my mind when (thanks to a video link from Glenn Reynolds and Fight Aging) I watched Charlie Rose's interview with Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil was so persuasive (and his enthusiasm so sincere) that I decided to buy his book. Yet I had this same creepy feeling that I was just being dragged into more of that same old 1980s denial. I just can't shake the feeling. It's there, and I have to acknowledge it. However, now we come to my steadfast refusal to close my open mind. It occurs to me that logically speaking, the following things are all possible: Denial is a powerful motivating factor, and even assuming that someone is in denial, that person might still be able to accomplish a great deal. AIDS, after all, is now a treatable disorder. It's still fatal in many cases, but the lifespan has been greatly prolonged to the point that it's like having treatable cancer. (In my childhood, "cancer" was "the 'c' word" -- a topic which caused people to lower their voices and look around before discussing in public.) It's frustrating to see that there's really no available life extension technique which actually works now, though. Patience is challenging when you feel like you're watching a replay. I'm struggling to keep my mind open (because after all it would be nice to live forever). Hell, I'd even settle for fifty more years. Ray Kurzweil speaks of a 15 year wait, and says that if we can stay alive for fifteen years, there's a real chance of workable, real, life extension. Might it just be true? This time? The fact is, despite my talk of replaying 1980s denial, at the time of all the useless remedies and experimental drugs, genuine workable AIDS treatments were only fifteen years away. The tragedy was that in those days, none of my friends had the fifteen years to stay healthy and wait. Their denial had at most only a couple of years before it (and they) died. They were young and did not "go gently into the good night" the way older people are supposed to. (Many a young man with AIDS died an angry, raging death.) But despite my cynicism, and my hypersensitivity to denial of death, considering the stakes, fifteen years of denial doesn't strike me as unreasonable, or even illogical. It might even work! (Besides, there are plenty of enemies who want us to die....) posted by Eric at 06:31 PM | Comments (13)
| TrackBacks (0)
Seemingly strange surprise
Yesterday when I commented on evidence that Iran was winning the Iraq war, I hadn't seen this NBC report on "the number one killer of American troops in Iraq: roadside bombs." Military officials say there’s only one use for shaped charges — to kill American forces — and insurgents started using them in Iraq with deadly effectiveness three months ago.Regarding the "seemingly strange alliance with Sunni insurgents," I see nothing strange about it. Why is it being forgotten that al Qaida is an umbrella group which has always included Iran (and Iranian Hezbollah)? Osama bin Laden and Imad Mughniyeh have had a working relationship for many years now, and there's nothing mysterious or surprising about it. The religious differences are nothing compared to the larger goals. This report (already a year old) documented Mughniyeh's ongoing role in Iraq: During our delegation's one day in Basra, we spotted a building that openly advertised the offices of Hezbollah. Members of this organization insisted that their Hezbollah was not tied to Tehran, and that the name, which means "Party of God," is a common one. According to one report in the Arabic paper al-Hayat, Iran sent some 90 Hezbollah fighters into Iraq shortly after Saddam's Iraq fell. The group now receives financing, training and weapons from Iran, and has a rapidly growing presence in the Shi'a south. Western intelligence officials also allege that the man who planned the recent suicide attacks in Basra is Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah operative responsible for bombing the U.S. embassy in Beirut in the early 1980s.Another report (via Winds of Change) documented Mughniyeh's role in training Muktada al Sadr's militia: Western intelligence officials have uncovered evidence that the attacks are being co-ordinated by Imad Mugniyeh, a leading figure in Lebanon's extremist Hizbollah Shia Muslim terror organisation.It looks like they're on the road to success. I'm not so much trying to overstate the importance of Mughniyeh (even though he's an especially vicious man, who enjoys killing and torturing with his own hands, he is, after all, only individual) as I am trying to show that there's no reason for anyone to be surprised -- least of all NBC News Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski. As I've pointed out many times, the Iranian al Qaida connection is an unbroken, longstanding one. Any skeptics wanting more depth should read Wretchard's "The Wider War." What this means, I suppose, is that choruses of "experts" will now have to busy themselves trying to deny the obvious (and what's been known for years). At the rate things are going, I wouldn't be surprised by a common (bipartisan) effort to "declare victory and get out." MORE: Of course, what if Iran is winning the war in Iraq while losing the war in Iran? Stranger things have happened. (Via InstaPundit, who doesn't seem surprised by the Iranian claim that "anarchists" are responsible for the unrest.) posted by Eric at 08:05 AM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0) Thursday, August 4, 2005
Keeping New Jersey unsafe
Charles Hill has the goods on an appalling story from New Jersey. One of that state's appeals courts has decided to revoke a cruise ship captain's concealed carry permit, even though that had been previously issued on the grounds that the ship might be a target of terrorism. Reason? Other targets of terrorism might obtain permits! Ruled the court: If such were the test, then conceivably every airline flight attendant, every bus driver, every truck driver transporting hazardous materials, every person employed by or with access to potable water reservoirs or fuel storage facilities, would be legally entitled to carry concealed firearms.Ye gods! We can't have that, can we? Better thousands die than a single man be armed! Charles speculates that the court's "reasoning" might be grounded in the fear that "Trenton can't figure out how to extort the requisite amount of graft for something so simple as a concealed-carry permit." That may be. What I want to know is why this story wasn't in the Inquirer. From now on I'll have to read Oklahoma blogs to get my Jersey news. Not that I could blame anyone for not wanting to write about hideous legal developments in New Jersey. This is the same state which recently proposed a horrendous piece of unconstitutional legislation actually authorizing asset forfeiture of the homes and businesses of citizens who might want to possess firearms to defend them: This bill would authorized the forfeiture of any motor vehicle, building or premise in which a firearm was unlawfully possessed. Under current law, forfeiture actions are limited to contraband and property used to further unlawful activity or illegal acts. Under this bill, the motor vehicle, building or premise could be seized if an unlawfully possessed firearm was found within it, even if the firearm was not possessed by the owner of the motor vehicle, building or premise.Unlawful possession in New Jersey means almost any possession. (More at WorldNetDaily, which also does a better job than the Inquirer of reporting New Jersey hanky-panky.) The bill (A-3998) is moving right along. Yes, in New Jersey they're getting tough about keeping citizens unsafe. posted by Eric at 05:38 PM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0)
New space mission: Save the air?
"We know that we don't have much air, we need to protect what we have."So says astronaut Eileen Collins, Shuttle Discovery Commander, on her Fourth mission. "We would like to see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used," said Collins, who was standing with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi in front of a Japanese flag and holding a colorful fan.I guess astronauts know more than the rest of us idiots down here on earth. Does this mean the space program is now tied to Kyoto or something? (Just asking.) posted by Eric at 03:15 PM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
Does everything have to be a gay issue?
How could I have known? But that's what they say: THANK YOU!!!! YOU SAVED ME FROM A 190 gB video project that went bizerk because I was loosing gigs and gigs on my drive. Norton is Gayness!!! I wish I had known!! Someone should post this on a huge FAQBut for that posting I don't think I ever would have known about this. All I knew was that a mysterious problem was making my hard drive appear to have way less free space than it should have had. No matter what I deleted, it didn't seem to affect anything, and the hard drive's free space kept shrinking. I kept moving huge amounts of material to the other machine, with absolutely no reduction in the amount of used space. I forgot that I had Norton Utilities, though, and the above web site clued me into the fact that what Norton does is simply protect all deleted files by putting them into a "Protected" Recycle Bin, where they'll stay forever, taking up space on your hard drive unless and until you delete them manually. It was very annoying, and I am glad to be free from the feature. Phew! And I'm trying to be logical about this. But will someone please tell me what's gay about a cluttered hard drive? posted by Eric at 01:56 PM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0)
"One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day."
So says Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily fame, recently interviewed by Front Page Mag's Jamie Glazov. In the interview, Farah warns that Al Qaida plans to use its "existing nuclear arsenal" on major American cities -- and he highlights the critical importance of dates to Al Qaida: Dates are very important to al-Qaida, as we have come to know, and one of the dates mentioned in connection with this "American Hiroshima" plan is Aug. 6, the anniversary of the U.S. nuclear attack on Hiroshima in 1945. No year has been set, but it is worth noting that this Aug. 6th is the 60th anniversary of that attack.Obviously, he's not dumb enough to explicitly predict that the attack will happen this Saturday, but many will read it that way. I wouldn't be surprised to see a run on survivalist goodies. Of course, if Farah is right, it will be "I told you so!" time, and he says he hopes he's wrong. (Well, he's certainly been wrong before.) Stating that "reports indicate the nuclear devices came across the Mexican border" (reports I am unable to locate, but which a number of Freepers say consist of Farah citing Farah), Farah blames Bush, and "groups like the Council on Foreign Relations": FP: Why wouldn’t the Bush administration secure our borders? What are the advantages of leaving them unsecured? Is it too politically incorrect to secure them?Is this report worthy of a blog post? If the reports are false, and this is hysteria generated by Farah in order to get hits, then I should feel almost as dirty as the bombs we're all afraid of for even mentioning it. But then, if I am not to mention bad things, if I am not to inquire, if I cannot even express skepticism about conspiracy claims, then why blog at all? If August 6 passes and no dirty bombs go off, will that debunk these claims? Not to a true believer. Doomsday scenarios are constantly revised to fit changing times, and I'm sure this one will be too. But if there's one thing I can confidently predict, it's that -- nukes or no nukes -- eventually we'll all die. So, may the countdown begin. posted by Eric at 08:36 AM | Comments (6)
| TrackBacks (0)
"War should never be political!"
Steven Vincent's death (especially his fatal op-ed piece) has reminded me that what might make sense militarily (invading Iran now, or at least neutralizing them militarily by other means) is often impossible -- even unthinkable -- politically. General George S. Patton was thought insane for wanting to go after the Russians in the last days of World War II: Eisenhower had told the Russians that Prague was in "their" zone and that the Americans would halt on a pre-arranged line west of Berlin.Similarly, Douglas MacArthur was fired by Truman for wanting to expand the Korean War against China. Here's the U.S. State Department on the matter: MacArthur conceived of the Korean war as a holy war; he kept talking about "unleashing Chiang Kai-shek," then holed up in his island fortress on Formosa, and launching atomic strikes, all of which made Truman, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the other UN countries involved very nervous. For Harry Truman and the Joint Chiefs, Korea was an exercise in containment, but that made it a very frustrating war for many Americans. It meant that in this war the United States was not aiming for total victory, but for more limited, and more ambiguous, results.The idea, of course, is that war must be controlled by politicians (cf. the Clausewitz maxim that war is the continuation of politics by other means). There is always a delicate balance between winning a war and the political survival of those who conduct it. Anyway, I'm neither a politician, nor a warrior, nor a war blogger. But for some time, I've been seeing clear evidence Iran is winning the Iraq war. And the U.S. is letting them win. (I think the moribund Republicans may be poised to let Hillary have the presidency in 2008, but's that's off subject. And it has nothing to do with war, of course....)
US to invade Iran before 2005 ChristmasThis Indian news site takes the report seriously, and makes an intelligent case against invading Iran: The US burned its hands with Shah Pehlavi of Iran, and in a sense was responsible for the Khomeini revolution, and the late former US president, Ronald Reagan, had to put himself out in his first term in the early Eighties to restore American morale. If it intervenes again, it is absolutely certain it will not be able to improve the situation – Iraq shows America has not the depth or patience to create a new civil society – and will only make matters worse. You have the Sunni Bathists and Shias up in arms in Iraq, and to that will add the Shias of Iran, and anyone who joins the battle will be exposed to sectarian fighting, as for example, pitched battles between Shias and Sunnis in Pakistani streets if Pakistani bases are used by American warplanes. Like wildfire, the Middle East and Muslim Asia would be engulfed by holy wars, and they will explode on the world with Al-Qaeda terror. It is frightening, the unfolding consequences of attacking Iran after the mayhem in Iraq.Were Patton and MacArthur right? Or must war yield in the end to civilian politics? The lingering question for me (despite my appalling ignorance) is whether an Islamic regime which tilts towards Iran is an idea worth its cost in American lives. (I'm also worried that it might become a major election issue.... Such a thing could prove unendurable!) UPDATE: I don't know how much to make of this, but Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett (who just lost a close race in Ohio) was allegedly avoided by Hillary Clinton during the race: Hillary was in Columbus but she stayed away from Hackett. This is probably because Hillary is sooooo unpopular in OH2 even Hackett knows to keep his distance at least right here in Red State country.I don't know whether the report is reliable, or what it might mean. MORE: Lastango at Daily Pundit is a lot more upset than I am, and he's issued a blistering indictment. Excerpt: Preemptive war? If Saddam had disarmed he would still be in power in Iraq – only stronger, because UN sanctions would have been lifted. In view of the "out" the Administration offered the Iraqi regime, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the Administration had no commitment to remove Saddam or gain a strategic position on the borders of Syria and Iran.Hate to sound cynical, but I'm afraid the only "resulting catastrophe" which will get their attention will be not the loss of the war -- but the loss of the White House. UPDATE: Welcome InstaPundit readers! Thanks for coming, and many thanks to Glenn for the link. MORE: A more recent post here on Iran's strategy for winning the war. posted by Eric at 08:05 AM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0) Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Defending the indefensible?
I've been joking about the Air America scandal -- in a post and in an Air America parody. Certainly, it's beyond dispute that things don't look good for Air America, either. While I agree that if this were a right-wing network there'd be a lot more coverage, whether this is really being "kept out of the major media" is at least debatable; after all, I first read that Air America was in trouble in the Philadelphia Inquirer (albeit in a highly sanitized writeup). I've had fun with the story, but right now something is bothering me about it, and that's the kneejerk assumption by so many people that Al Franken is somehow culpable. I haven't seen any evidence that he is. If the guy is working for (or employed by) Air America, even if Air America is a corrupt, cynical organization that swindles the poor, how does that make Franken guilty unless he's an executive of the company or on the Board of Directors? I understand that people dislike Al Franken's politics (I know I do), but at the risk of appearing moronic, I'd like to pose a question: Does anyone know what he's accused of actually doing? Might be payback, I suppose.... "Frankengate" is funny (and just wait Mr. Snitch, you'll roast in Hell for coining the term!) -- but is it really up to the level of really serious scandals like "Gannongate"? Or "Nadagate"? posted by Eric at 06:11 PM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0)
Hard core misrepresention
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's when people mischaracterize what is said on this blog. The only thing worse than that is when such mischaracterizations are used to harm someone else. Which brings me to the topic of my latest rant. While the subject can be considered funny in a way (because it is funny) in another way it's not funny at all. This is sometimes a humor blog, and sometimes a serious blog. I engage in satire on a regular basis, and whenever possible I try not to take myself (or other bloggers) too deadly seriously. I try my damnedest to avoid insulting people or engaging in profanity or obscenity, although as I admit, I am not perfect. But when another blogger's job worthiness is being attacked (in the course of a threat to report him to the authorities!) because of "a picture of two dogs having sex," well, I must protest. It is obvious that the complainant (who claims to be a teacher named "Sandy Smith") did not read the post she is mischaracterizing, did not look at the pictures very carefully, and hasn't much understanding of the mechanics of canine sexual intercourse. The pictures show nothing more than ordinary "humping" behavior, which is not "dogs having sex" and which any dog owner will attest goes on all the time. If "humping" constitutes "having sex," what does that suggest about the many dogs that will hump human legs if they get the chance? Is that bestiality? If Sandy Smith's definition prevails, I guess so. While I may have done so in an overly cute manner, I made it quite clear that no penetration ever occurred. Indeed, it would not have occurred, for penetration can only occur if the following conditions are present: I made it very clear that sexual intercourse did not, and could not, have taken place between Coco and Tristan, and I don't think that any reasonable person could construe the pictures as depictions of canine sex -- much less pornography or obscenity. And even if I had featured pictures of dogs having actual intercourse (or "tied up"), would that have really been inappropriate for teenagers? MORE: I have to admit, stuff like this (the "Breasts not Bombs" demonstration which so offended "Sandy Smith"), is pretty tough to look at. As I've said before, disgusting displays like that make me want to vomit. But Darren was objecting to it, for God's sake. (It's no more pornographic than a medical textbook on pathology.) Adults only are encouraged but not required to read a standard definition of sexual intercourse which follows below. UPDATE: Via the Carnival of Education, I see that another teacher (in The Daily Grind) has weighed in on Darren's predicament. : Frankly, I am tired of living in a world where we cannot speak if it doesn't match-up with what others are looking for. It doesn't matter to me whether you are religious or not, politically to the right or to the left; we need to be able to have a voice of affirmation or dissent.If free thinking teachers are fired for speaking their thoughts in a blog, it does not bode well for teaching. (Or blogging.) Continue reading "Hard core misrepresention"posted by Eric at 12:02 PM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (1)
Murderous ideology
This blog is great. And the blogger -- Steven Vincent -- is dead. Murdered by Shiite gunman dressed as police (and driving a police vehicle), he's the first American journalist to be killed in Iraq. (Links via Glenn Reynolds.) He deserved to be more than an adorable little rodent in the Ecosystem (which is what his blog says he was). Reading through his blog, I was struck by his honesty, sincerity, and refusal to bow to political ideology: Sickening. It's easy to see why he was killed. The primary reason seems pretty well explained by TigerHawk: He said he fully supported the Iraq war, believing it was part of a much larger campaign being waged by the United States against "Islamo-fascism." But Mr. Vincent said he was also disappointed by the failure of the United States and Great Britain to enforce their visions of democracy here in Iraq, instead allowing religious politicians to seize power across the south.TigerHawk asks us to honor him today. I'm trying. I wish I could do more. MORE: Jamie Glazov's interview with Steven Vincent is a must read. A central thesis of his well-thought-out philosophy is that Islam has been corrupted by tribalism. Excerpt: Why is even the thought of a woman’s right to do what she wants with her sexuality and body something that makes Islamists and Arab tribalists start acting like the possessed girl in the Exorcist after holy water is sprinkled on her?And here are some insights into malignant narcissim: Malignant narcissists—or, the members of tyrannical death cults—are terrified of the feminine. The ecstasy of death mirrors the bliss of the womb, and the narcissistic warrior’s worst enemy is his secret desire to regress to infantile nonexistence. His moral rigidity, lack of imagination and obsession with physical and religious purity are attempts to suppress this Oedipal desire--think of Mohammad Atta’s burial instructions to wrap up his genitals and allow no women to approach his bier.I can't imagine any of this would have endeared Mr. Vincent to the homicidal Iranian government (or their proxies in Iraq.) I can only hope we chose the right enemy. MORE: Please DONATE HERE in Steven Vincent's memory. UPDATE (08/04/05): Here's the Philadelphia Inquirer on Steven Vincent's murder: BAGHDAD - An American journalist who had been examining the rise of Islamic extremism in southern Iraq was found shot to death in the port city of Basra, U.S. and Iraqi officials said yesterday.Later in the same piece: On Sunday, Vincent published an opinion piece in the New York Times in which he quoted others accusing Shiite police officers in Basra of revenge killings of members of Saddam Hussein's former Baath Party, which brutally oppressed Shiites for decades. Vincent also criticized the British military for allowing Islamists to control the city. He told other reporters in Basra that he was too frightened to name any of the Islamic militias - such as that of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr - in his reports.That's unclear? I suppose it is -- to people who refer to right wing death squads as "insurgents" and "militia." MORE: Anyone who hasn't read Steven Vincent's New York Times Op-Ed should do so. And weep. ....one young Iraqi officer told me that "75 percent of the policemen I know are with Moktada al-Sadr - he is a great man." And unfortunately, the British seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Am I alone in wondering whether this newly arising Islamofascist state is what Americans fought and died to bring about? MORE: Michael Yon warned about Iraqi police with guns back in March. MORE: Glad to see (Via InstaPundit) that Iraq has sent a woman ambassador to Egypt. Plus, she's working for women's rights. That's a hopeful development; I hope it means the mullahs aren't as in charge as we're constantly being told. (I'm thinking also that maybe Steven Vincent's death should not render every pessimistic thought he had about Basra the one and only standard from which to judge all of Iraq.) AND MORE: I hope this report proves wrong (or at least exaggerated): As the deadline for a constitution approaches, the United States and the international community must redouble their efforts to ensure that an Iran-like theocratic state is not established in Iraq.How about letting Eugene Volokh supply the Iraqis with a draft? UPDATE: Roger L. Simon is also worried about shortcomings in the Iraqi Constitution, and links to The Middle Ground for information on how to help. posted by Eric at 09:51 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0)
Busting up illegal unions?
The fight against same sex marriage is heating up, with opponents now trying to do away with domestic partnerships in the guise of "protecting marriage." Here's the text from a leading California ballot initiative which would amend the state's constitution: SEC. 1.1. a) Only marriage between one man and one woman is valid or recognized in California, whether contracted in this state or elsewhere.Note the phrase "rights or incidents of marriage." That's what this is really about, as there is no legal same sex marriage in California, and it's doubtful there will be any time soon. Nonetheless, the initiative's advocates are in a legal tussle with California Attorney General Bill Lockyer over the official ballot summary -- which the advocates claim should stick to the protection of marriage issue and not highlight the elimination of domestic partnerships. Most likely, this is because experience shows that most voters will only read the summary, if anything at all, so they're hoping that "protection of marriage" will be the only words on voters' radar. Here's the San Mateo Journal: The attorney general summarizes measures before they are added to the ballot, but one of the amendment’s official sponsors said Lockyer was “inaccurate and prejudicial” and vowed to challenge it in court.(More here from the initiative's sponsors.) Lockyer is accused of misleading voters by telling them too much about what the measure would eliminate: While noting that the amendment would "provide that only marriage between one man and one woman is valid or recognized in California," it goes on to state that the measure "voids and restricts registered domestic partner rights and obligations" in areas ranging from inheritance and adoption to insurance benefits and hospital visitation."Sigh. Like it or not, an ill-informed electorate seems to be a way of life in California. What ought to matter is not what the summary says, but what the initiative says, and this legal debate seems to be centered around the anticipated intellectual laziness of the voters. Anyway, this initiative is a perfect example of what's known as a backlash, and I think the gay activists (and Gavin Newsom) mostly brought it on themselves. Certainly, there's nothing fair about it; California has gotten along quite well with domestic partnerships. They're voluntary, and no one is obligated to enter into them. Making them illegal violates the individual right to enter into private contracts, and will open a can of worms I hope will come back to haunt those who are promoting this odious amendment. (My thoughts on prohibiting "incidents of marriage" here, here, and here.) Meanwhile, there's yet another competing ballot initiative which limits itself to a single sentence (to be added to the California Constitution): Sec. 7.5. A marriage between a man and a woman is the only legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.The second initiative is supported by a wide coalition (including Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, Pacific Justice Institute, and Concerned Women For America). It's probably more likely to pass, because it's easier for voters to understand. But is the phrase "legal union" easy to understand? Googling the phrase gave me over 28,000 hits. What if you're in an "illegal union", or an unconstitutional common law marriage? Vagueness often masquerades as simplicity. posted by Eric at 08:53 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) Tuesday, August 2, 2005
Inflammatory talk beats colorless totalitarianism
There's much I'm missing these days. The 150th Carnival of the Vanities was posted at Riding Sun before I even thought to submit an entry. And it's a great carnival too, written by an American motorcyclist in Japan. So go read it. And while I'm busily documenting my own carelessness, there's something else I missed: an opportunity to submit names for a list John Hawkins has compiled of the "least favorite people on the right." A whole bunch of right-of-center blogs voted, and here's the list of the top vote-getters (number of blog votes are in parentheses): 18) Tom Tancredo (4)Much to my surprise, James Sensenbrenner didn't make that list. Why not? I don't mean to sound like a scold, but I have to ask, are bad opinions uttered by people in the headlines the worst thing we face? For example, right now, a lot of people are worked up over whether Intelligent Design should be taught in public schools. As I've said before, I think that for the government to quantify what is in the mind of God probably violates the Establishment Clause: The bare assertion that evolutionary theory is an anti-religious value judgment against divine "intelligence" does not make it so -- any more than the failure of geology to teach that God made rocks is an assertion that he didn't. Intelligent design thus strikes me as a gratuitous -- and circular -- assertion that evolution denies intelligent design or is at war with it. (One might as well assert that teaching human reproduction negates "gay theory" or that teaching English negates Swahili.) To not assert something is not to deny something not denied, nor does it mean being at war with it.Nothing that President Bush said today has changed my opinion about the proper role of government. He voiced his opinion, but I don't think he proposed any legislation. Which is a far cry from the sort of thing James Sensenbrenner is doing, and I can't believe he isn't getting more attention. Is the man too boring? This is a man who's not merely spouting opinions with which we may disagree. He's actually working to do the following: (There's more here.) Moreover, Sensenbrenner already helped make into law the statist REAL ID Act. A true believer in his own laws, Sensenbrenner recently wrote an ex parte letter to a judge demanding he increase the sentence of a drug defendant from eight years to ten. I would have assumed that he'd have at least made it to the top twenty on John Hawkins list, and I feel very guilty that I failed to participate. Sensenbrenner's mandatory informant law alone is an absolute disgrace to the American tradition of freedom. To threaten to imprison people for five years if they don't call the police on other citizens -- that is totalitarian stuff which is un-American, and Sensenbrenner makes me as ashamed to call myself a Republican. (Which is why I wrote this post.) Why more people aren't alarmed, I don't know. Probably, it's because unlike Ann Coulter, Congressman Sensenbrenner doesn't issue inflammatory statements, doesn't grab the headlines, and slips past everyone's radar as not being, well, "interesting." Yet what he does is far worse than what these others merely say. Much as I disagree with what the windbags on the list have to say, words are not deeds. If the government imprisons me for five years because I didn't inform on my neighbor, that's a deed, not a disagreement. If a group of citizens did that (threatened me with force unless I betrayed someone) that would be extortion, if not something worse. (Something which if I said it I'd run the risk of being accused of political hyperbole, and playing into the hands of the enemy.) In short, Sensenbrenner wants to use government force to make me talk. I only wish there were some way to get him to talk. Yes talk! Like Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson! Anything would be better than having him legislate. But for all I know, the man is boring, and wouldn't make it as an on-the-air media personality. He might even put his colleagues to sleep. Huh? Like while Congress slept, freedom wept? posted by Eric at 07:25 PM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (1)
Keeping Moderate Muslims in the closet?
People keep talking about "moderate Muslims," but I haven't read much about who they are, where they are, or how to find them. Now I read about Israel's plans to talk to them: JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli diplomats will court moderate Muslim leaders in Europe to counteract the sway of Islamists hostile to the Jewish state, a Foreign Ministry official said on Thursday.I like the idea. There are moderate Muslims, but when they dare to do things like demonstrate against terrorism, it isn't much reported by the MSM. Why not? Certainly, it's possible to read the words of moderate Muslims. A lot of them are speaking up. But for the most part, their words only get play at web sites like MEMRI. Why is that? I mean, you'd almost think they were out there demonstrating for Bush or something. AFTERTHOUGHT: Is support for Israel's right to exist considered moderate? (I hope so.) MORE: Dean Esmay and Baldilocks have written posts about an organization of moderate Muslims called the Free Muslims Coalition. It looks great to me and I'm only too glad to encourage this effort in any way that I can. Dean said, "I wish more bloggers would write about these guys." (Thanks, Dean. This one just did.) UPDATE: It has occured to me that a principal reason moderate Muslims are ignored is because they are perceived as lacking in power. According to CNN, the first senior international leader to meet with Hezbollah terrorist chieftain Nasrallah Nasrallah was Kofi Annan, who met with him in Beirut. The BBC called the meeting a "de facto recognition" that Hezbollah was the main force in the area. While there might be plenty of moderate Muslims in the area too, meeting with them might get you killed by Nasrallah's forces. The MSM respects power, and after all, no reporter wants to incur the wrath of the strong by interviewing the weak. The result is all too predictable: I realize that this power formulation doesn't take into account possible political biases, but when they're factored in, well, the result becomes even more predictable. MORE: In a business context, Glenn Reynolds offers some thoughts about the big guy empowering the little guy. I think this approach might be very helpful in understanding how and why to advance the cause of moderate Muslims. UPDATE: This article by Cliff May (Islam doesn't prevent Muslims from joining Free World) is a must read. I think the problem with recognizing the existence of moderate Islam is that it might be seen as aiding democracy in Iraq. Which in turn is seen as aiding Bush. Thus, those who oppose Bush think they must oppose freedom. What a tragedy that Bush is on the side of freedom! posted by Eric at 12:48 PM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (4)
I'm into fighting in wars I'm against too! (But they won't let me!)
A soon-to-be-an-Iraq-war-veteran, Specialist Leonard A. Clark, has been punished for violating operational security and for 11 counts of disobeying orders: Clark violated Article 92 by "releasing classified information regarding unit soldiers and convoys being attacked or hit by an improvised explosive devices on various dates, discussing troop movements on various dates," according to the statement.According to the article, Clark is a candidate for office. [True. Here's Clark's Legislative Candidate Questionnaire.] (Via Juan Cole, who complains that, "you're not allowed to blog about the Iraq War critically if you are an active duty serviceman over there.") Clark is campaigning for public office, which is apparently prohibited: Campaigning for public office without permission from the secretary of defense while on active duty in the Armed Forces is a violation of Defense Department regulations.Certainly, there's no question that Clark is against the war. In an audio statement here, he calls the war "morally and ethically wrong," while in an email reproduced at Daily Kos, he attacks his Commander in Chief: Well, happy days are here again! Our great Attorney General Gonzales flew into the Ultra Safe Green Zone and gave a speech at the embassy. You remember our Attorney General, the one who a chief counsel to the President, said it was quite alright to use certain torture methods that might get by the Geneva Convention, Washboarding, beating, etc. It's all there, folks, and our great maniac executive strongly supports him.Hey, the guy is as much entitled to his opinion as I am to mine. But should that allow him to broadcast details about troop movements, and about "tactics, techniques, procedures and rules of engagement"? Am I crazy, or does common sense suggest that he might in a bit of a conflict of interest vis-a-vis his job? For example, should someone who is unalterably opposed to what we call "the Drug War" (or to all drug laws) be working in the DEA? Take me as an example. I not only believe all federal drug laws are unconstitutional, I think they're immoral. (Yes, evil.) I also think the "Drug War" is a grotesque lie. If the bureaucrats in the Justice Department were dumb enough to hire me and put me in the DEA and I started a blog devoted to "ending the immoral Drug War," while supplying details of bungled or immoral anti-drug operations I'd gleaned from my position as an insider (in addition to campaigning for office), could I legitimately expect nothing to happen? (Bear in mind that military personnel have even fewer rights than government employees.) GreyHawk wonders out loud whether we've heard the last of this story. No we haven't. I don't think antiwar Iraq war veterans will fade away. They'll just run for office. posted by Eric at 09:16 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0) Monday, August 1, 2005
MORE SUV VIOLENCE -- when will it end?
As if we needed any more proof that SUVs are dangerous, I see that one of the evil things wreaked havoc right at my local Berkeley Starbucks! An SUV driver battered his vehicle through the doors of the Starbucks at Solano and Colusa avenues Tuesday morning, scattering a dozen or more customers who leapt out of the way and jumped through open windows as he backed up and tried it again.Fortunately, no one was killed (and fortunately this took place at a place best known for oppressing Palestinians) but this is not the first time an SUV has behaved in a deliberately evil manner. Why, it was just in April that I demonstrated that SUV's can kill people without even having to be started! Doubtless, the SUV lobby will argue that the individual driver was responsible. I say that the carnage was caused by brazen feelings clearly brought on by the presence of the SUV. "Cars don't cause accidents; people cause accidents," claims the SUV death machine lobby. Would a human being without an SUV have been able to do this? Among the vehicle parts left behind were a front bumper cover, a lower front quarter panel covered in burgundy paint and the remains of a parking light.Yet maniacs like this are allowed to just walk into any auto dealership and buy one of these apocalyptic devices of doom. What will it take to restore some sanity? SayUncle has recognized the nature of the problem as well as the need for action, and he has called for an SUV ban. The answer is clear, we must ban them. For the children. These implements of death were only designed for one thing:These machines of violence and death have absolutely no legitimate civilian purpose. But don't expect a ban to happen any time soon. The SUV lobby is too powerful, and they have Big Oil behind them. And Karl Rove. For now, I'm afraid the best we can hope for is a system of background checks, a limitation on the number of SUV purchases allowed, and a waiting period. I'm open to suggestions, of course. If we could save just one child.... UPDATE (08/04/05): A KILLER SUV STRIKES AGAIN!: Two children were injured, one seriously, when they were hit by an SUV driven by a 13-year-old acquaintance in Doylestown Township yesterday.See what I mean? Clearly SUVs are a direct threat to all children everywhere! posted by Eric at 03:54 PM | Comments (6)
| TrackBacks (0)
The day the RINOs refused to die!
Everyone, please go check out the Raging RINO Carnival at All Things Jennifer. I've never seen anything quite like this. Jennifer has taken each post and folded them into an updated version of Don McLean's "Miss American Pie." Musical sample: Helter skelter in a summer swelter. Truly impressive feat. Don't miss it! posted by Eric at 02:49 PM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0)
Iraq war
I'm not much of a war blogger (because I don't think war should be a debate). But there's this one seemingly neutral, war-related phrase I've been seeing so often that it's now making my antennae go up every time I see it, because I'm suspicious of the sneaky way it's misuse is creeping into the lexicon. The phrase is "Iraq War veteran." Nothing political or manipulative about that, and on its face it doesn't seem as if it would be subject to political ownership by one "side" or another -- any more than, say, "World War II veteran." But remember "Vietnam War veteran"? For many years if not decades, that phrase was a catchword for a variety of social ills such as drug addiction, alcoholism, homelessness, post-traumatic stress, and even crime to the extent that crimes were committed by this gigantic, omnipresent population of untreated misfits. In reality, most Vietnam vets were and are surprisingly normal. But problems get the attention, and few people ever bothered to check whether there was a causal connection between a problem and service in Vietnam. Or even whether the problem person in fact served in Vietnam as alleged. Google the phrase "Iraq War veteran" and you'll get over 30,000 hits. While I know this is not scientifically conclusive, I tried adding more words to the phrase to to search for correlations with various topics of interest. The latter association interested me, and I discovered that several Iraq War veterans have acheived quasi-celebrity status for anti-war activism: Before this morning, I had never heard of Delgado, Mejia, or Benderman, and I really didn't want to. I could be wrong, but the whole thing is striking me as a possible product of the old "Vietnam Veterans" antiwar machine -- as if graying activists are trying to find and fill a new ecological niche. (Indeed, Googling "Iraq War veterans" and Vietnam yields another 11,000-plus hits.) This is getting off track, and I think that's enough about celebrity activists I'd rather not have ever heard of. Back to "Iraq war veteran" Google associations. I also found: Not wanting to limit my search with things which would be considered overly negative, I also tried Googling a couple of words many would associate with "positive" stereotypes (perhaps what many veterans might want associated with themselves) but came up a bit short: I know. It's a bit silly, but my concerns relate to negative stereotyping, so why not at least make a stab at a search for the other side. (Hey, at least I'm not Googling for "Iraq war veterans" Mom "the flag" and "Apple pie." Oh, what the hell! I tried them together, and I got six.) Anyway, I know this isn't scientific, but if you searched only on the Internet, you'd think that anyone who fought in this war was either an activist against it, or someone needing professional care of some sort. This makes me wonder out loud (and rhetorically) whether the Internet reflects actual reality, or activists' reality. I mean, in the last election the troops -- and military veterans -- voted overwhelmingly for Bush (and, presumably, for the war). And that was despite the fact that Bush insulted them by serving up plastic Thanksgiving turkeys. Can a phrase like "Iraq War veteran" be owned by anyone? Is it a proprietary thing destined to occupy a niche like "Vietnam War Veteran"? Of might this be tied to the ultimate fate of the war itself? I don't know, but I hate it when ordinary words become insider code language. (I'm almost tempted to say that it goes against my values, but I won't dare....) posted by Eric at 09:39 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) |
|
June 2009
WORLD-WIDE CALENDAR
Search the Site
E-mail
Classics To Go
Archives
June 2009
May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 May 2002 AB 1634 MBAPBSAAGOP Skepticism See more archives here Old (Blogspot) archives
Recent Entries
What to do when there's not much you can do . . .
Taking demonization seriously I'm not an atheist, but I can't see this as an act of God Brewing an Inciteful Carnival Opportunistic homeland insecurity Fever Dreams "And Now For Something Completely Different" How dare I agree with you? Glad to be back "Why did you destroy my city?"
Links
Site Credits
|
|