Greg Djerejian and others comment on Saddam

(This is turning into a summary post of comments from a variety of sources. All are about the same topic, so I see no need to split them out into separate posts. Sorry, but it's about twelve or fifteen monitor screens in length.)

Djerejian at Belgravia Dispatch: (More at the link.)

I will shed no tears for Saddam Hussein. An odious genocidaire, he ranks high in the pantheon of 20th Century monsters. But it is clear as day that this judicial process, not least the rush to execution, positively reeked of victor's justice. This is not to say the trial could not have been even worse, as genuine attempts by some in the USG were made to assist the Iraqi authorities in putting together a credible tribunal. But, like the rest of the Iraq War, it was mostly a fiasco (see here for detail regarding some of the many shortcomings in the process).

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John F. Burns, writing in the New York Times: (Much more at the link. Very good article.)

Almost the only chink in his prideful armor showed when he demanded at the Dujail trial that he be shot by firing squad, the privilege as he told it, due to him as the — still legitimate, as he claimed — commander in chief of Iraq’s armed forces. That plea was quickly denied by the chief judge. It was a point never again raised by Saddam, who took, at the end, to proclaiming his eagerness to die as a “martyr” for Iraq, and his belief that this would earn his passage to paradise. But the plea to be spared hanging suggested that fear — of humiliation, if not of death — was a close companion during the 1,000-odd days he spent in solitary confinement in Camp Cropper.

Of other strains of humanity there was little sign. During the Dujail trial, and just as much during the Anfal trial that followed, at which Saddam and six other defendants were accused of murdering as many as 180,000 Kurds in the late 1980’s, he showed no hint of remorse as survivors of the torture chambers and the desert internment camps and, in the case of the Anfal campaign, the chemical weapons attacks and the mass graves, told their pitiful stories. Head to one side, hand pressed to his head, fingers splayed, writing detailed notes on yellow legal pads, Saddam listened impassively to the accounts of women hung upside down to be beaten, of sons holding wet cloths to their faces and finding the twisted bodies of mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers heaped in an agony of death from mustard-gas attacks, and of young men who scrambled back to life from beneath the bloodied bodies of fellow villagers in remote pits scraped from the desert wadis of Iraq.

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Saddam, prideful to the last, left much of the caviling over prison conditions to his erstwhile minions. And shortly before he was sentenced to death, he demonstrated, inadvertently, that in the shrunken world of his captivity he remained the leader who dare not be defied. An American official who worked closely with the Iraqi court told of watching on a closed-circuit relay as Saddam and other defendants in the Dujail trial waited one day in a holding room off the courtroom floor. At the time, Saddam had declared a hunger strike on his own and his associates’ behalf in protest of the Dujail case continuing after the walkout of the defense lawyers, who had been replaced by counsel appointed by the court.

At one end of the room, visible on the surveillance cameras, was a table laid with food, including cellophane-wrapped oatmeal biscuits of the kind available in every American military canteen in Iraq. Thinking his fellow defendants were distracted, one of the accused, Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former vice president renowned even among Saddam’s henchman for his brutality, slipped two pockets of biscuits into his pocket, only for Saddam to march on him demanding to know who gave him permission to eat. Mr. Ramadan, the American official said, denied he had taken anything from the table. “Empty your pockets, you betrayer!” Saddam demanded. Whereupon Mr. Ramadan lamely admitted his guilt and, with the sheepish deference born of two decades in Saddam’s inner circle, returned the biscuits to his basket.

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Blogger Mad Canuck calls the execution a "farce." And makes a good case. (More at the link.)

After Saddam is put on the trapdoor and the noose is placed over his neck, he begins to quietly pray. His prayers are drowned out by one of the executioners and some members of the crowd shouting, "Muqtada, Muqdada, Muqtada!"

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Saddam retorted from the gallows: "Muqtada? Is this how you show your bravery as men? Is this the bravery of Arabs?"

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Members of the crowd drowned out Saddam with calls of, "Straight to hell!", and "Long live Mohammed Baqir Sadr!"

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Finally, someone (perhaps one of the executioners) calls out to the crowd, "Please, I am begging you not to, the man is being executed."

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At this point the trapdoor opens, Saddam drops, and the crowd erupts in cheers.

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There are two things I find profoundly disturbing about this video. Firstly, is completely

unprofessional for an executioner or witnesses to an execution to taunt the condemned man, drowning out his prayers with vicious taunts. The condemned man is set to die - why does it need to be made cruel? Did these men taunt Saddam using the name of Sadr on purpose, knowing their taunts would be captured on video?

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In addition to the taunts, it is completely inappropriate for the crowd at the execution to be dancing and rejoicing. No matter how much one may dislike a man or his crimes, it is never right to rejoice over his death.

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The barbarity of Saddam's execution, the video of it quickly released to Iraqi television, and the execution timed to coincide with the start of a holy day for Sunni Muslims but not for Shias - all of these things seem to be a carefully crafted message from members of the Shia dominated government to the Sunni minority: we don't care what you think, we are running things now, and we will do whatever we want without regard to you. And, in conducting the execution in this spiteful way, the execution team has damaged and undermined some of the credibility the court worked hard to build up, and Iraq has taken a further step towards fractionalism, and sectarian alienation.

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A sad day for Iraq, for America, and for the world.

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In a very long post with many links, Juan Cole recounts USA-Saddam connections reaching back to 1959. America has been poisoning this well for decades and in the overall narrative the death of Saddam Hussein is just another footnote. Reading Cole's post makes me feel dirty as a citizen. Incidentally, anyone who wants to nit-pick needs to do so over at Juan Cole's place, not here. If you don't like what is posted here, just move on to someplace else. The following ten points are only snips with links disabled. Cole's post is full of supporting links.

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1) The first time the US enabled Saddam Hussein came in 1959. In that year, a young Saddam, from the boondock town of Tikrit but living with an uncle in Baghdad, tried to assassinate Qasim. He failed and was wounded in the leg. Saddam had, like many in his generation, joined the Baath Party, which combined socialism, Arab nationalism, and the aspiration for a one-party state.

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2) After the failed coup attempt, Saddam fled to Cairo, where he attended law school in between bar brawls, and where it is alleged that he retained his CIA connections there, being put on a stipend by the agency via the Egyptian government.

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3) In February of 1963 the military wing of the Baath Party, which had infiltrated the officer corps and military academy, made a coup against Qasim, whom they killed. There is evidence from Middle Eastern sources, including interviews conducted at the time by historian Hanna Batatu, that the CIA cooperated in this coup and gave the Baathists lists of Iraqi Communists (who were covert, having infiltrated the government or firms).

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4) In 1968, the civilian wing of the Baath Party came to power in a second coup.

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5) The second Baath regime in Iraq disappointed the Nixon and Ford administrations by reaching out to the tiny remnants of the Communist Party and by developing good relations with the Soviet Union. In response, Nixon supported the Shah's Iran in its attempts to use the Iraqi Kurds to stir up trouble for the Baath Party, of which Saddam Hussein was a behind the scenes leader.

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6) When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, he again caught the notice of US officials. The US was engaged in an attempt to contain Khomeinism and the new Islamic Republic. Especially after the US faced attacks from radicalized Shiites in Lebanon linked to Iran, and from the Iraqi Da`wa Party, which engaged in terrorism against the US and French embassies in Kuwait, the Reagan administration determined to deal with Saddam from late 1983, giving him important diplomatic encouragement.

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7) The US gave practical help to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War...

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8) The Reagan administration worked behind the scenes to foil Iran's motion of censure against Iraq for using chemical weapons.

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9) The Reagan administration not only gave significant aid to Saddam, it attempted to recruit other friends for him.

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10) After the Gulf War of 1991, when Shiites and Kurds rose up against Saddam Hussein, the Bush senior administration sat back and allowed the Baathists to fly helicopter gunships and to massively repress the uprising. President GHW Bush had called on Iraqis to rise up against their dictator, but when they did so he left them in the lurch. This inaction, deriving from a fear that a Shiite-dominated Iraq would ally with Tehran, allowed Saddam to remain in power until 2003.

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Along the same lines, Robert Fisk traces the origins of Saddam's horrible legacy to the US and its allies. (The "we" in this quote refers to Britain, not the US. This is from the Independent from the UK.)

Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our culpability.

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This piece by Josh Marshall is two days old, written prior to the execution, but it is getting a lot of traffic according to BlogsNow. I was impressed when I read it the first time. This deserves a link in this collection. It's twice as long as this snip, but you get the idea.

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This whole endeavor, from the very start, has been about taking tawdry, cheap acts and dressing them up in a papier-mache grandeur -- phony victory celebrations, ersatz democratization, reconstruction headed up by toadies, con artists and grifters. And this is no different. Hanging Saddam is easy. It's a job, for once, that these folks can actually see through to completion. So this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us.
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Try to dress this up as an Iraqi trial and it doesn't come close to cutting it -- the Iraqis only take possession of him for the final act, sort of like the Church always left execution itself to the 'secular arm'. Try pretending it's a war crimes trial but it's just more of the pretend mumbojumbo that makes this out to be World War IX or whatever number it is they're up to now.
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The Iraq War has been many things, but for its prime promoters and cheerleaders and now-dwindling body of defenders, the war and all its ideological and literary trappings have always been an exercise in moral-historical dress-up for a crew of folks whose times aren't grand enough to live up to their own self-regard and whose imaginations are great enough to make up the difference. This is just more play-acting.

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Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake pulls no punches. She is clearly sickened by the whole spectacle.

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...I had to turn the TV off yesterday in the midst of the ghoulish execution watch and today I feel a bit dirty. There's a funny taste in my mouth and everything feels wrong and out of sorts. Perhaps it is not the final coda to the events of 9/11, but it is most certainly some sort of interstitial bookend and I cannot help but feel that as a nation we failed.
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We are not what we pretend to be. As Americans we like to believe that we act with wisdom and good judgment, and those on the right who cheered on this war most vociferously did so out of a conviction that we are a nation possessed of indominable moral rectitude. Even as they claimed the right as the world's policemen to dethrone and execute Saddam Hussein for his crimes against humanity, they openly mock Jimmy Carter for his insistence that human rights be placed in the vanguard of American foreign policy considerations. For this he is considered weak and naive. In the end I just don't believe that more than one in a hundred Americans knew that Saddam was ostensibly executed for his role in the 1982 killing of 148 Shiite Muslims, nor did they care. I would be willing to bet more still believed that Saddam had ties to Al-Quaeda, a role in the 9/11 hijackings or god help us all, weapons of mass destruction. Somewhere in the distance between political opportunism and national bloodlust the reasons for his death can be found. It's a fetid pile of refuse I'm not particularly interested in picking at just now.
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Any sympathy I might feel for Saddam's plight would find him standing at the end of a very long line of victims of this war, and it's not even an abhorrance of the death penalty that moves me today (although I most certainly feel that this is nothing a civilized nation has any place engaging in). That sickened feeling in my stomach seems to mark some kind of new low to which we have fallen, murder as PR to inch the arctic approval ratings of the pathalogical boy king and his disastrous war incrementally upward. Codpiece justice and death-as-photo-op reign supreme. Perhaps this is just the last, gruesome swan song of a morally bankrupt right wing as it exits center stage, the perverse final chorus it sings in its death throes.

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Mark Lynch has collected a bunch of links from ME media sources. His take seems to be the event was not as problematical as the timing, but he has a plausible insight, that quibbling over the timing of the execution enabled American allies among the Arabs (such as remain) to avoid making public pronouncements about more substantive topics.

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Whereas I'd reckon that much of the anger among Iraqi Sunnis and the Arab public is genuine, I would also point out that this outrage over the Eid issue is very convenient for Arab regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan (precisely the ones which have spoken up most loudly): it lets them spout public - pleasing rhetoric over a side-issue without saying much of anything about the their unpopular positions on the deeper issues. Easy for them to score some cheap points by being on the "right" side of the Eid issue so that nobody pays attention to where they stand on the bigger Iraq or Iran or Palestinian or other issues. (Next thing you know, they'll find some tasteless cartoons about the execution published in an obscure European newspaper to get upset about.) And at the same time, by directing popular anger at the Shia-dominated Iraqi government, it also helps them fan the sectarian (anti-Shia) flames which many of these governments seem determined to ignite.

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Salam Adil may have the most realistic of all comments. His post is labeled The Mother of all Smokescreens.

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Bush is in a fix and needs time badly. The Iraq Study Group report is hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles. And after the split of the Sadrists from the Iraqi government, its unity is hanging by thread. The execution of Saddam Hussain will buy time. It placates the American public on one side and the Sadrists on the other. Saddam's execution is a big smoke screen to hide an ugly policy. As proposed by the American Enterprise Institute, a huge military surge as a last gamble to secure Iraq. By its own admission, this policy will cost billions and kill hundreds. .

But its the last desperate throw of a dying empire and after this, the only way is down.Saddam had his Mother of All Battles but nothing will be left of the Mother of All Smoke Screens after the wind blows it away. The emperor has no clothes and it's showing.

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Ouch!!

The Fat Lady Sings -- Death of a Tyrant

Found via a comment left at Wampum, this is worth keeping.

Saddam is dead. They hanged him just a few hours ago. That he deserved to die is true - Saddam Hussein was a sadistic sociopath; but there are many who deserve execution in our world today. I don’t like that we had a hand in it. I don’t like that it was video-taped for the slavering masses – his executioners shown dancing around the body, firing guns into the air. What makes them any different from all the others celebrating torture and death on the streets of Baghdad? His death makes me feel dirty; and it shouldn’t. But then I felt dirty when the bullet riddled bodies of his sons were shown all over the TV. This is America – not ancient Rome. Americans don’t parade dead bodies down Main Street – or at least we didn’t used to. But then it seems there are a lot of things we do now that used to be considered abhorrent. Frankly – I’m surprised they only hanged Hussein without drawing and quartering him as well. But who knows? Maybe when its Ahmadinejad’s turn we’ll have him eaten by lions.

And yes, I have added her to my blogroll. This is a creature after my own heart.

President Bush doesn't seem to have any qualms about either the execution or its consequences, moral or otherwise. This from the NT Times...

Before the hanging was carried out in Baghdad, Mr. Bush went to sleep here at his ranch and was not roused when the news came. In a statement written in advance, the president said the execution would not end the violence in Iraq.

A YouTube video to the event didn't take long. I don't care to embed the link but you can see it at Zayed's blog, Healing Iraq.

The fear is evident on his face as he struggles to appear calm. He reportedly tried to resist when American soldiers handed him over to Iraqi guards, but then grew quiet and calm as he accepted a fate that was expected. The last moment appeal to a U.S. judge by Saddam's lawyers to stay the execution was rejected.

The Shi'ite executioners and witnesses were reported to have danced around Saddam's corpse after he was hanged while chanting Shi'ite religious slogans. The same situation was reported from the Green Zone by Al-Arabiya TV reporters who said members of the current Iraqi government were also celebrating. Iraqis took to the streets in Sadr City, Najaf and Basrah. Some carried portraits of Muqtada Al-Sadr and Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, the new strongmen of Iraq.

Protests took place in Tikrit, Baiji, Fallujah, Ramadi and Garma, but so far there have been no violent reactions. Instead of visiting relatives or going out to parks, people had to stay home out of fear. According to an Iraqi law expert interviewed on Al-Arabiya TV, It is against Iraqi law to schedule an execution on an official or religious holiday, but he conceded that this was obviously a political decision.

I hope the execution of the tyrant brings relief to the families of his victims.

Michael J. Kelly, a law professor at Creighton University School of Law in Omaha, Nebraska, argues that the trials of Saddam Hussein should continue posthumously. He makes some very good points. Time permitting, read his whole post.

...although the great tyrant is dead, his trial should continue - even if posthumously, on the question of guilt for the Anfal campaigns. His co-defendants in that trial will remain co-defendants, but his counsel should remain at table. The law that will come out of it is important, and the quality of the trial, such as it is, will only be heightened if Saddam's more sophisticated counsel remain in the game instead of leaving it to the counsel of his co-defendants alone. Moreover, Iraq's Kurds deserve to have their
victimhood, and Saddam's role in it, as legally recognized as the Shi'ite population. To be sure, the full extent of Saddam's atrocities will not be as completely appreciated as if he physically stood trial for all his crimes. But at least by letting the Anfal trial move forward, the IHT would finish some of what it started.

H/T Grotian Moment blog.

The comments thread at that site makes for interesting reading. No need for me to elaborate here. Readers can find it themselves and come to their own conclusions. Unlike most threads, this one seems to come from several intelligent people who know what they are talking about.
Snips...

From a Muslim commentator:...All moslems today felt insulted by the assassination of our President Saddam Hussein on this particular day. I wish you knew arabic to read some of the comments. The general idea is this : Eid Al Adha which is the Greatest Feast, because in Islam there are two main Eids, one is Lesser "Eid al Fetr" that is "break-fasting" which comes after Ramadan, the month of fasting, and this Eid which comes after a major event i.e. the Pilgrimage. In both Eids and especially the Greater, it is forbidden to kill, fight or spell blood "other than the lamb". It is a Feast of reconciliation and forgiveness. Imagine to kill Saddam Hussein who is a moslem and viewed by all arabs and moslems as a legitimate ruler, and by many as a hero, at such a day. We all "even by people who do not like Saddam" consider this planned with intention to insult the Arabs and Moslems.

From Paul Wolff...Today, all Muslims are thinking about the Feast of Sacrifice. Astonishingly, the first sacrificial lamb was none other than Saddam Hussein, the ousted President of Iraq. He was executed at about 6:00 this morning,...The Iraqi people have today sacrificed Saddam Hussein to God. Not unlike the symbol of Jesus, said to have given his own life and died for our sins. Yet like Saddam, Jesus had little choice in the matter. The timing of Saddam's death suggests more than martyrdom - it suggests he may someday be viewed as a prophet.Blasphemy? Of course it is, but don't blame it on me. I didn't pick the execution day, and only explain how this event may be viewed by many Muslims, today and in the future. Has this occured by accident? By an odd twist of fate?...

Also from the Muslim commentator... there is evidence from the pics which are displayed that his body was mulitated after death. Is this what American Justice is ? is this what you call "human rights" ? remember? he was a POW !! what is more they refuse to give his body to his family , perhaps to cover the violiation done to his dead body.Mr. Curtis ,as his lawyer,what are you going to do about these abuses of his rights living and dead? why do not you go to the UN and speak to the members, perhaps you can shame them, or speak to the Red Cross. Do not just talk to us here, we are helpless.

It's still not too late for decisions making an international public relations disaster even worse.

Update, Sunday morning:

Zayed's blog now has another link to a cellphone video making the rounds, which shows the "drop." Someone left the link in my comments section and I removed it. A soundtrack records what was being said at the time and Zayed furnishes the following translation and remarks:

Saddam (as the noose is put around his neck): Ya Allah (Oh God).

Someone in the audience: Mercy be on those who pray for Mohammed and the household of Muhammed (Everyone repeats the prayer, including Saddam) -

Executioner and two people in the audience: And hasten his return (the Mahdi), curse his enemy and grant victory to his son, Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada! (This is a common Sadrist chant.)

Saddam (smirking): Muqtada?

NSA Muwafaq Al-Rubai'i: To Hell!

Saddam: (laughing)

Prosecutor Munqidh Al-Far'awn: Please, no.

Muwafaq Al-Rubi'i: Longlive Mohammed Baqir Al-Sadr!

Someone in the audience: To Hell!

Saddam (solemnly recites the Shahada prayer): I witness that there is no god but Allah, and that Mohammed is the messenger of Allah. I witness that there is no god but Allah, and that Mohammed is the- (trap door is opened).

Audience: Prayers for Mohammed and the household of Muhammed.

Someone: The tyrant has fell. May Allah's curse be upon him.

Someone: No. No. Stay back.

Someone: Leave him for 8 minutes. Don't take him down.

Someone: Everyone. Stay back.

There was no denouncing American and Persians after his last prayers, as this New York Times story says, but perhaps that was before he was led to the gallows. It utterly disgusts me that Sadr's supporters have infiltrated every level of the state, and that the witnesses, including Iraqi government officials, have made this look like a sectarian issue. They were doomed to repeat Iraqi history by hanging their former oppressor and labeling it as justice. In a perfect situation, Saddam's execution would have united Iraqis, but thanks to the actions of the new Iraqi rulers, it will only serve to divide further. I doubt any of them will prevail as much as Saddam did, though.

Wireless Internet in Africa...

...Rwanda, specifically. This is one of the most promising stories I have seen in a long time.

In Rwanda, among Africa's poorest countries, an American millionaire is developing one of the world's most modern wireless networks. The Rwandan government hopes the project will help make the country an African counterpart to the Indian high-tech city of Bangalore.
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"Africa offers many investment opportunities," says an enthusiastic Greg Wyler, a boyish-looking man in his mid-thirties. "We simply have to bring the Internet into each of these huts, and the rest will fall into place." Wyler, an American entrepreneur, hopes to launch an "African Renaissance" with his project. His recipe for success is simple enough: free software, high-speed fiber-optic networks and unrestricted entrepreneurship.

Via Blake Hounshell. If this works, even a little bit, it should qualify Greg Wyler for well-earned thanks and recognition.

Riverbend on the eve of Saddam's execution

Saddam is scheduled to be hanged in the next few hours. Most sources say the time will be six o'clock in the morning, Baghdad time. Riverbend posts her first comments since November 2. Her essay is very bleak.

A day in the life of the average Iraqi has been reduced to identifying corpses, avoiding car bombs and attempting to keep track of which family members have been detained, which ones have been exiled and which ones have been abducted.

2006 has been, decidedly, the worst year yet. No- really. The magnitude of this war and occupation is only now hitting the country full force. It's like having a big piece of hard, dry earth you are determined to break apart. You drive in the first stake in the form of an infrastructure damaged with missiles and the newest in arms technology, the first cracks begin to form. Several smaller stakes come in the form of politicians like Chalabi, Al Hakim, Talbani, Pachachi, Allawi and Maliki. The cracks slowly begin to multiply and stretch across the once solid piece of earth, reaching out towards its edges like so many skeletal hands. And you apply pressure. You surround it from all sides and push and pull. Slowly, but surely, it begins coming apart- a chip here, a chunk there.
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...Bush has effectively created more terrorists in Iraq these last 4 years than Osama could have created in 10 different terrorist camps in the distant hills of Afghanistan. Our children now play games of 'sniper' and 'jihadi', pretending that one hit an American soldier between the eyes and this one overturned a Humvee.

This last year especially has been a turning point. Nearly every Iraqi has lost so much. So much. There's no way to describe the loss we've experienced with this war and occupation. There are no words to relay the feelings that come with the knowledge that daily almost 40 corpses are found in different states of decay and mutilation. There is no compensation for the dense, black cloud of fear that hangs over the head of every Iraqi. Fear of things so out of ones hands, it borders on the ridiculous- like whether your name is 'too Sunni' or 'too Shia'. Fear of the larger things- like the Americans in the tank, the police patrolling your area in black bandanas and green banners, and the Iraqi soldiers wearing black masks at the checkpoint.

Again, I can't help but ask myself why this was all done? What was the point of breaking Iraq so that it was beyond repair? Iran seems to be the only gainer. Their presence in Iraq is so well-established, publicly criticizing a cleric or ayatollah verges on suicide. Has the situation gone so beyond America that it is now irretrievable? Or was this a part of the plan all along? My head aches just posing the questions.
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...Saddam no longer represents himself or his regime. Through the constant insistence of American war propaganda, Saddam is now representative of all Sunni Arabs (never mind most of his government were Shia). The Americans, through their speeches and news articles and Iraqi Puppets, have made it very clear that they consider him to personify Sunni Arab resistance to the occupation. Basically, with this execution, what the Americans are saying is "Look- Sunni Arabs- this is your man, we all know this. We're hanging him- he symbolizes you." And make no mistake about it, this trial and verdict and execution are 100% American. Some of the actors were Iraqi enough, but the production, direction and montage was pure Hollywood (though low-budget, if you ask me).

Whether or not we like what she says, there can be no doubt that she speaks for a lot of Iraqis. She speaks especially for non-combatants who have been injured or killed or lost a loved one in this war. Can anyone argue that the role of the US military has made the casualty count lower than it might have been otherwise?

This is why I like lawyer blogs

This post at VC is a riot.
Be sure to read the comments.

...I *did* see the Playboy pictures, which actually made her look less attractive than she did in her clothes. Just a little weird looking. Though as my boss would put it, if she ate crackers in my bed, I still wouldn't throw her out.

...According to the complaint (and her blog), it appears that the defendant was a part-time prostitute on the Hill while working fulltime as a Sen. Dewine staffer. Maybe the Republicans deserved to lose afterall...

And how about this couplet?

Comment: ...I'm a little freaked out at the amazon ad on this page for "Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats" - is it context sensitive?

Reply: I think the Amazon ads are determined by your Amazon cookie. At least they seem to be for things that I've been shopping for on Amazon. This can be kind of disconcerting if you have been Xmas shopping for people with a wide range of tastes. Shopping for my teenaged daughter, twenty something son, my wife, and my mother made for a really strange ad until I figured what was going on. No comment on the "Pimps, Whores, etc." and your shopping habits. NTTAWWT.

Totten is back from Lebanon -- Updated

December 21

Michael J. Totten has returned from a short "under the radar" trip to Hezbollah country in Lebanon. I'm looking forward to his report(s). If events of the last four years have done nothing else they have enabled a handful of able journalists to report what has happened up close and personal. Too many, sadly, have been killed in the process. Every time someone like Totten drops from view for a week or two there is real reason to fear for his safety.

...I went to Hezbollah’s southern “capital” of Bint Jbail, and also to their blasted-apart command and control center in the dahiyeh, the suburb south of Beirut. I’m on their “list,” so to speak, and it was both easier and safer to work without announcing my presence and giving them the chance to run interference.

I felt slightly ridiculous, like I was being too paranoid – the odds that Hezbollah would actually hurt me were miniscule. They haven’t committed any violence toward Westerners for many years. But they could have broken or confiscated my equipment and kicked me out of their area. Fortunately they did neither.

Guest blogger Abu Kais cross-posted to Totten's blog during his absence. Yesterday he posted this video pointing to the fractured political scene in Lebanon. It raises a question: When will the cedars of Lebanon become a single forest?


Added December 29

Totten's report reflects his customary excellence. It is much too long for any snips to do it justice, so go to the link for his on the spot pictures and narrative. It's worth your time.

He is having a lot of trouble with trolls in the comments thread, however, and dealing with it much more patiently than I would.

...don’t take the comments section too seriously. I have a bit of a troll infestation, a gift from the self-described Angry Arab who attacks me in part because of my race. A link from his site is a comments section destroyer.

Please don’t get the wrong idea. The axe-grinding reactionaries in the comments do not even remotely represent the people of Lebanon. They represent the readers of Angry Arab. (The name says it all.)

I don’t think the professor (yes, he’s a professor) realizes what a spectacularly bad job he’s doing of public relations for his country. I should not have to clean up his mess on behalf of his countrymen, but here I am doing it. You will really have to excuse his fans. Please. Lebanon is far kinder, more tolerant, and more intelligent than they are. I am sorry for having to say this.

I rather doubt that when I post interviews with Lebanese who were used as human shields in July, and with an Iranian-educated Shia cleric from the dahiyeh who staunchly opposes Hezbollah that he'll feel like linking me anymore.

If you would like to see what Totten and some other bloggers look like, take a look at the pictures Judith Weiss posted. Anyone who thinks blogging is not journalism needs to pay closer attention. These are the movers and shakers of our time.

Saddam's execution as entertainment -- Update

Saturday morning:
I'm not embedding the YouTube video, but here is a link to another summary post in which one can be found. It was on Iraq television. I expect our own networks won't be far behind. You know the saying...if it bleeds, it leads. Well, there's usually no bleeding at a hanging, so it may not have enough oomph to make the lead.

Friday morning update:

They're not messing around. NBC is reporting that Saddam is to be hanged in the next thirty-six hours, in time to start the Eid holidays.

What was that about circuses?

***

***

Martin Kaplan contemplates how the hanging of Saddam Hussein will be handled by the media.

It's not hard to imagine the Iraqi authorities allowing cameras at the gallows. Even if they don't, it's not unlikely that a cellphone or two will somehow manage to video the execution. In either case, thanks to the 'Net, footage of the hanging will conceivably be globally available. What will the networks do?

On one side of the ledger, there's the issue of taste, and of the possibility that children are watching, plus that pesky what-kind-of-society-are-we? question, none of which has so far prevented the mass media from depicting the most barbaric violence in their entertainment programming, or from covering car chases or hostage situations with the never-to-be-admitted hope of capturing a fatal money shot on tape.

On the other side, there's the this-is-news argument, and the deterrence rationale, and the fear that they'll be eating the Nielsen exhaust of a competitor who isn't so Emily Post about broadcasting judicial porn. Those who do air it may prefer to cloak their reasoning in public interest terms, but the lurid truth is that there's a centuries-old tradition of the public being extremely interested in watching executions.

My own objections to capital punishment seem more and more quaint, don't they? The scheduled execution or this despicable man is like the cherry on top of the dessert. This is the circus part of "bread and circuses."

50 Things We Know Now

Or, as the complete title says, 50 Things We Know Now (That We Didn't Know This Time Last Year) 2006 Edition.

Heads up, trivia buffs...

5. U.S. Protestant "megachurches" - defined as having a weekly attendance of at least 2,000 - doubled in five years to more than 1,200 and are among the nation's fastest-growing faith groups.

9. Scientists have discovered that certain brain chemicals in our tears are natural pain relievers.

25. Women gain weight when they move in with a boyfriend because their diet deteriorates, but men begin to eat more healthy food when they set up a home with a female partner. [No reports mentioned about same-sex partners. Is this where we get the term diesel dyke?]

38. Most of us have microscopic, wormlike mites named Demodex that live in our eyelashes and have claws and a mouth. [Probiotic Grace, anyone?]

50. Researchers from the University of Manchester managed to induce teeth growth in normal chickens - activating genes that have lain dormant for 80 million years.

...moving right along...

John Edwards on YouTube

No, I haven't decided yet.
Just keeping up.
Something tells me that YouTube is about to become a factor in politics. Big time.



Poor guy. He hasn't even started, and already some of the sharpest knives in the drawer are starting the death of a thousand cuts.

Pejman notes...

Stephen Bainbridge takes note of a major chink in the supposedly inspirational Edwards campaign story:

. . . "During his career of allegedly championing the helpless, he took no pro bono cases." This failure is especially noteworthy given that the North Carolina bar's rules of professional responsibility state that "The provision of free legal services to those unable to pay reasonable fees continues to be an obligation of each lawyer ...."

I certainly don't begrudge anyone trying to make a living--least of all, a lawyer. But really, enough with the claims that John Edwards is some sort of last bastion for the indigent. When it really counted, he did nothing to help the very people he claims to stand up for, the people in the lower half of the "Two Americas" Edwards always claims to decry.

Oh, and at hilzoy's place, von says...

A general distrust of my natural enemy -- trialius lawyerius -- does indeed extend to one John "Two Americas" Edwards. So I'll take this opportunity to declare my lack of support for his candidacy. Although I'm looking forward to the day that his agenda of "economic populism" causes him to go Lou Dobbs on all your asses and declare his support for a giant dome over the US to protect us from better-life-seekers and assorted work-wanters (funded, of course, by surcharges on the oil and pharmaceutical industries).

Regarding Gerald Ford's passing

Three quick points.

1. Gerald Ford has died at a time when Internet usage is at an all-time high. There is no way to know for sure, but the amount of commentary about him may set some kind of record. Dividing the short number of days he served into the millions of words now being written about him, commentary about Gerald Ford may proportionally exceed that written about JFK.

2. Anyone younger than forty will have no mature memories of the man. That's too bad because he is perhaps one of the most decent men ever to work in the Oval Office. Not great (as one headline said, "A Ford, not a Lincoln") but utterly decent. And that decency is made even more remarkable as it stands in contrast to the corruption of the administration at the time. Nixon's vice-president, Spiro Agnew, resigned under a cloud of scandal and Nixon had to replace him with someone clean as a pin. This was before the Watergate scandal would later sink Nixon's boat.

3. Joe Gandelman has the most comprehensive summary of blogger comments I have come across. Anyone who has the patience is welcome to go there to read more. I have seen all I care to read.

Addendum, December 28

Juan Cole has compiled a lengthy string of data about the Ford years, ending with this:

All presidents make errors, and some abuses occurred on Ford's watch, though they often were initiated by Kissinger. But Ford faced with no illusions the challenges of his era, of detente with the Soviet Union, continued attempts to cultivate China, the collapse of Indochina, the fall-out of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and the beginnings of the Lebanese Civil War. Ford was right about detente, right about China, right about Arab-Israeli peace, right about avoiding a big entanglement in Angola, right to worry about nuclear proliferation (one of his worries was the increasing evidence that the Middle East had a nuclear power, Israel, and India was moving in that direction).

Ford's challengers on the Reagan Right were wrong about everything. They vastly over-estimated the military and economic strength of the Soviet Union (yes, that's Paul Wolfowitz). They wanted confrontation with China. They dismissed the Arab world as Soviet occupied territory (even though the vast majority of Arab states was US allies at that time) and urged that it be punished till it accepted Israel's territorial gains in 1967. They insisted that the Vietnam War could have been won.

But despite its illusions and Orwellian falsehoods, the Reagan Right prevailed. Ford only momentarily lost to Carter. Both of them were to lose to Reagan, who resorted to Cold War brinkmanship, private militias, death squads, offshore accounts, unconstitutional criminality, and under the table deals with Khomeini, and who created a transition out of the Cold War that left the private militias (one of them al-Qaeda) empowered to wreak destruction in the aftermath. The blowback from that Reaganesque era of private armies of the Right helped push the US after 2001 toward an incipient fascism at which Ford, the All-American, the lawyerly gentleman, the great Wolverine, must have wept daily in his twilight years.

Yep. That's how I remember it as well. The Reagan Right did prevail. And with the passing of time the Great Communicator has been lifted to a pedestal approaching sainthood. Marc Antony was not entirely right. The evil that men do does not always live after them. It is sometimes the evil that is interred with their bones.

Added December 29

From Duck of Minerva:

...many of the familiar senior figures of today's foreign policy debate got their start in the Ford administration. It was under Ford that a young Dick Cheney became the President's Chief of Staff and Don Rumsfeld became the youngest Secretary of Defense. Brent Scowcroft was National Security adviser and George Bush was director of the CIA. The experience of these men, and many others from that time, continues to have a profound impact in shaping US Foreign Policy. One need look no farther than the strong alliance between Rumsfeld's Pentagon and Cheney's office of the Vice President in shaping Iraq policy, an alliance forged in the Ford Administration.

Second, Ford really began the era of intelligence oversight by issuing Executive Order 11905. The order is perhaps most famous for its ban on assassination by US government agencies. Since their founding in the early years of the Cold War, the US intelligence agencies, notably the CIA and NSA, gave themselves a wide mandated to fight the Cold War. Some of this activity became rather questionable, and included spying on US citizens in violation of US law. However, until the mid-70's, there was no Congressional oversight of the Intelligence Community. Following high-profile investigations by Congress, several laws were passed establishing the legal framework for Intelligence oversight that we have today. Ford's executive order was the first in a series of steps to regulate what sort of spying the US can and cannot do. The order banning assassination remains in effect to this day, having stood the test of time across administrations of varied political leanings. The Global War on Terror has renewed the debate over this ban, yet it remains in force. Now, the US government still targets individuals, such as Saddam Hussein on the first day of the 2003 Iraq war, or various Al Queda terrorists. But, because of Ford's order, these efforts must pass through a complicated legal framework and justification as legitimate military targets, not assassinations. One can debate the point of this, but the fact that that debate is there at all is part of Ford's legacy.

Finally, Ford signed the Helsinki Final Acts in 1975. The Helsinki accord was formally about the end of World War II in Europe, recognizing and fixing the borders of European states, in particular the changes made by the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. However, one "basket" of the accords contained key provisions about the importance of Human Rights, and when the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites signed the accords, they committed themselves, formally, for the first time, to upholding basic human rights. At the time, this was not seen as a major issue, but it would perhaps be the longest lasting legacy of the Accords. This moment marked a the entry point of Human Rights as a key issue in US foreign policy and helped end the Cold War. While subsequent Presidents, notably Carter and Reagan, would put Human Rights at the forefront of US foreign policy, Ford's signing and ratification of the Helsinki Accords made it possible for them to do so in a meaningful way. Having the USSR as a signatory to the document gave them a touchstone against which to measure Soviet treatment of their own people. Even more importantly, the Accords led to the foundation of many NGO's dedicated to monitor their implementation. In the West, the best known is Human Rights Watch (originally founded as Helsinki Watch, to "watch" the signatories adherence to the accords). In the Soviet Bloc, groups such as Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia were formed, inspired by the Helsinki Accords. These groups ability to hold their governments accountable for human rights abuses by highlighting the standards to which the governments had agreed in Helsinki was one of the key beginnings of the end of the Cold War. The modern discourse of Human Rights, government policies to uphold human rights, and international network of NGO's who monitor human rights issues owes much of its existence to the Helsinki process, a process that Gerald Ford was willing to stand up for, sign, and incorporate into US foreign policy.

Its certainly not a Truman or Reagan, Kennedy or even Eisenhower-esque legancy, to be sure, but as much of the discussion of Ford's life and Presidency will most certainly focus on Nixon, its important to remember a few of the important things he did accomplish in his brief time as President.

Grandpa Stopped Driving

Trite but true -- lots of old people don't want to give up driving, even when safety becomes more important than convenience. We have all seen this reality. Mention the subject and most people can rattle off stories running from amusing to tragic.

A few wise individuals are exceptional, however. They understand that they have two options: either make the choice themselves or wait until it is made on their behalf by factors out of their control.

(Giving up driving is a matter of control but most people never realize that real control is that which is delegated. Successful politicians and business people know this because they trust themselves to be good judges of other people. Unfortunately, most people never develop that level of self-trust. They probably know know how untrustworthy they are themselves but that is another line of thinking.)

A very wise resident where I work once said, "I'm a good driver. I never had any accidents. ButI stopped driving when I was ninety-seven. I knew if I was ever in an accident it would be my fault because I was ninety-seven. Even if it wasn't my fault it would still be my fault because I was ninety-seven, so I decided it was best to stop driving." This remarkable woman is now past 102 and is a model of grace, wit and cheerfulness to everyone around her. And no one could pick her out of a crowd of people under seventy. I think she ages more slowly because she makes good personal decisions about everyday matters.

My wife's Grandpa was cut from the same fabric. After he died this note was found among his writings. It is a draft copy of a notice he sent to his insurance agent after a minor driving incident that was a wake-up call he was able to hear.

Bradenton, Fla.
Dec. 21, 1973

Mr. Stewart Rogers
Nationwide Insurance
Kenton, Ohio

Dear Mr. Rogers:

This note is to inform you that I have changed my position in the car to the right side. My wife Mary will be the principle driver. Her driving record is excellent. No accidents in the 31 years of our marriage. She is only 73 years old and very alert.

Life is activity, and time takes its toll. It is regrettable that for some of us who tarry too long, must be realistic and phase out our former activities one by one and replace them with other avocations, which we may safely do, and keep us happy and usefully occupied until the great transition.

Sincerely,
F.M.Smith
Age 86

I didn't change the syntax of that last sentence because it captures exactly the mood of the letter as it stands. Besides, that is exactly what he wrote. Notice he never said plainly that he was not going to stop driving, but it is clear from what he wrote that even at 86 he was able to recognize and accept the limitations of age as they came along.

Nouri Lumendifi is off to college

Been watching this young man most of this year. Apparently he's leaving home to go to college. His reflections make wonderful reading. In my experience teens simply don't think or write like this. Give him another ten or fifteen years and he will be one of the country's most valuable intellectual assets. New Haven, Connecticut has left a mark on Nouri. He may change, but he will never forget. Good luck, Nouri. The world is your banana.

Item: I am kicking a soccer ball down the street, when it hits the wrong side of my foot and hits the window of a pretty blue house. I hear the rattle and the barking of a large dog. The ball stops rolling back to me half way down the lawn. An “ADT” security sign warms me that should I trespass here I will be prosecuted. I panic. The door opens, and a little old man sticks his neck out the door and shouts “Who’s done it!”

I confess, and the old man grows angry. “Whaddaya goin’ to do that for? What’er you doing around here?” Going home, sir. He is dissatisfied, and waddles over to my ball. “This yours, boy?” I am scared, the old man is wearing an undershirt, swimming trunks, a coat of white fir, and loafers; he is rather unsightly. My ball is in his hands now, and I cannot help but as for it back. I am very sorry for hitting his window. “When did you come here?” I haven’t the slight inclination as to what this buzzard is talking about, and I do not answer. He asks again, if I tell him, I am told he will give me my ball back. “I don’t know.”

This bitter looking, wrinkly buzz-cut old man, puts my soccer ball under his hairy arm and turns around, and goes back into his house, slamming the door behind him. He looks at me from the window and closes the curtains, with the look of “Good riddance!” on his pruney face.

***

My city was my making. The city’s greenery, its Mediterranean restaurants covered in New England snow, its poverty, and its seasons are not easily left behind. In Boston, there are millions. In New York there are millions still. In New Haven, there are perhaps a few hundred thousand, if that. There is pizza the world tells you to like and places that claim to have invented the hamburger. There are probably comparable claims made in other cities, but none of those are my city. I did not read Lenin on the steps of the public libraries of Boston; I did not witness white flight in Brooklyn Heights; and I did not have my first date on the real Broadway. I did all of this in New Haven. Loyalties of citizenship, religion, and ethnicity aside, I am from New Haven. Not genetically, but by an accident of geography.

Dr. Hadar on Surge Therapy

Are you having one of those days?

.

Who are the "shites?" And the "Sunimis?" I wish Dick was here...

.

Are you irritatedibalized? I really have to go to the potty...

.

Can't find your way?

.

The WMD's are in Rummy's tuches..heee...heee...

.

Well, that's what happens when you occupy countries in the Middle East for a very long time. You are probably suffering from post-occupation depression (POD). And when you need a Surge, you take Surgpill™! Indeed, the anti-POD Surgpill™ stimulates the birth of new brain cells in rats jumping from ships aka Ken Adelmans, scientists have found. A similar effect in humans might explain how the drug has helped hundreds of of emperors world-wide to cope with POD. There are no sexual side-effects!

.

One in five members of the Bush Administration are likely to suffer from POD in the next two years, yet medical opinion is divided as to its cause. Some believe it is a genetic disease (stupidity) or a chemical imbalance (recovering alcholics), while others claim it is triggered by environmental factors, including insurgents, IEDs, crazy Shiites, murderous Sunnis, mismamnaged Pentagon, etc. Treatments for the disease include counselling by PM Tony Blair and in extreme cases electric shock therapy such as midterm Congressional elections. But it is Surgpill™, which has been taken by the Soviet leaders after their Afghanistan POD and the Israeli leaders during the Lebanon POD, that has been hailed as revolutionising sufferers' lives. AND There are no sexual side-effects!

.

Surgpill™ one of a group of drugs known as selective anti-Baker/Hamilton re-uptake inhibitor (ABHRUHIN), which make the mood-enhancing brain chemical, or spins-mitter, tipping-point more available in the brain. AND there are no sexual side-effects!However, you need to take 20,000 to 50,000 of the surgpills™, and the drug takes weeks to have an effect, and scientists do not know the exact mechanism by which it helps to combat POD. But IT DOESN'T AFFECT YOUR SEX LIFE!

.

Nature magazine reports that researchers Langley, set out to examine the impact of Surgpill™ on the brain. They knew that depressed emperors have a smaller than usual dick-cheney, a structure involved learning and memory. They also knew that chronic stress can reduce the birth of brain cells, known as neocons-genisis, in the brains of rodents - and that stress is a contributing factor in POD. The Langley researchers found that activating a particular receptor for realism in rats' brains increased the birth of brain cells. So they decided to see if ABHRUHINs like Surgpill™ would have the same effect. They found that five rats injected with Surgpill™ for 3001 days had 69% more new brain cells than another injected with Rovism. The researchers believe that the rise and fall of brain cell birth may be an important factor in explaining why people become depressed and respond to ABHRUHINs. And there are no sexual side-effects!

.

Chief researcher Professor John McCain, said it could explain why Surgpill™ takes time to improve mood. "The time needed for these newly generated cells to mature and make appropriate connections provides an explanation for the 'therapeutic lag' in surgism therapy," he said. "People usually become depressed after a severe life event, like occuppying Vietnam or Iraq, they are unable to form a relationship, they lose a significant elections, suffer bereavement and loss (Rumsfeld), or have a bullying boss (Cheney)," McCain said, adding: "What we need to know is whether traumatic events make people depressed via brain cell death. If they do, we could then identify which events are most damaging and take measures to avoid them."

...

This post is stolen without permission from another site. Dr. Leon Hadar is one of America's preeminent researchers on a wide range of political diseases and proposed remedial actions. He blogs with great additional illustrations at Global Paradigms. Dr. Hadar, I am at the mercy of the court. Under the circumstances, if you want this post deleted I will gladly oblige.

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech

If you have never watched this, take a few minutes to do so. Just under fifteen minutes. You won't regret it. I watched it once but forgot. Thanks, Motion Abbey.

Steve Jobs delivering three very inspiring stories for commencement speech to the graduates of Stanford University in 2005. This is one of the icons of our time speaking. What he says is worth hearing.

Stephen Bainbridge on Russell Kirk

So you have opened the presents, had too much to eat, taken a nap and given up on teevee. Time now to feed your mind...

Here's a meaty but satisfying little post that will help you discern the difference between Conservative and Libertarian thought. The kernel of the idea I already understood, but Bainbridge brings it into focus better than I thought possible, introducing (at least to me) one Russell Kirk, a thinking Conservative of out time whose legacy needs to be remembered and studied.

This sparkling gem flashed in the post. It is from a third party, but shines like a glint of sunshine in the rear-view mirror.

The most fundamental difference between conservatism and libertarianism is one of ideology. Libertarianism is an ideology based upon abstract ideas and doctrines such as the free market, absolute liberty, and radical individualism. The libertarian foolishly believes that if his abstract ingredients are properly mixed within the social cauldron, an earthly utopia will bubble forth.

Indeed.

Doc Searls' Christmas wish -- an end to software patents

Little chance this will happen, but I also like the idea.

All I want for Christmas is death to software and business method patents

It is anti-productive, anti-competitive, anti-market, anti-freedom, anti-liberty and simply wrong for the U.S. (and for any country) to continue instinsting that 1) ways of doing business, and 2) the ever-growing periodic table of natural building materials we call software, should be patentable. They should not. We should write business method and software patent laws out of existence and start watching growth and progress happen all over the place.

Yeah, I know. Patents expire and all that, but aside from the techie issues, there is also the crazy idea that genetic tinkering and other results of scientific research, notably new drug formulations, should be denied those in need because R&D costs must first be recovered. So they say. I can't recall any instances of global drug giants filing for Chapter Eleven protection.

While we're on the subject, Google now has a patent search capability, still in BETA.
So if you have a great idea and want to do a patent search, go there and find out how many others beat you to the punch.

Christmas Eve, 2005

Christmas Eve, 2006.

It is now one year later and this post still carries a powerful message about the pain and suffering that war brings to all it touches -- casualties, survivors, family and citizens.

All sides are affected.

Solemn reading indeed for a Christmas Eve, but worth the time it takes to reflect on how best we might avoid war and its consequences.

***

***

This is odd. It is early morning of Christmas Eve Day and I find myself dwelling on a subject that seems inappropriate, the official notification of families/next of kin by the military when one of their children in uniform becomes a casualty of military service. A post by Donald Sensing at One Hand Clapping caught my attention last night and reading it triggered a recollection of a similar description I came across last year.

In a season when we celebrate the birth of Jesus with cheerful greetings, happy reunions, a mood of gaiety, smiles and greeting of "Merry Christmas" -- looking at the dismal job of telling families they have lost a loved one is morbidly incongruent. Nevertheless the duty remains. I have an idea why the impulse struck Rev. Sensing. He alludes to it in his post. But I don't know exactly why his post caught my attention. Last night I was in conversation with my brother-in-law about the war in Iraq and I was telling him of my ongoing contact with Abu Khaleel. Perhaps that prepared me to be open to this story. I don't know. There is certainly a lot more stuff that I could be contemplating but without knowing exactly why, here it is...

I am linking first to his post.

That's what got my attention. Very compelling description of how...
No spoilers here. Go read it for yourself.

He tells it better than I can.
Apparently it was triggered by a photo essay in the current Time Magazine.
I suppose if a national publication of their reputation can do that story during this season, I can dedicate at least one post to the same theme.

Next, I am capturing here (in my cyber-scrapbook) the account of LtCol. George Goodson, USMC retired, from the archives of Marine Corps Moms.

One reason for copying it here is that something happened to the punctuation in the archive that has nothing to do with the content. In order to make his account more readable, I am taking time to clean up the format so that it can be read here without distraction.

August 13, 2004
A casualty officer's retrospective

BURIAL AT SEA

LtCol George Goodson, USMC retired

In my 76th year, the events of my life appear to me, from time to time, as a series of vignettes. Some were significant; most were trivial.

War is the seminal event in the life of everyone that has endured it. Though I fought in Korea and the Dominican Republic and was wounded there Vietnam was my war. Now 37 years have passed and, thankfully, I rarely think of those days in Cambodia, Laos, and the panhandle of North Vietnam where small teams of Americans and Montangards fought much larger elements of the North Vietnamese Army.

Instead I see vignettes: some exotic, some mundane:
*The smell of Nuc Mam.
*The heat, dust, and humidity.
*The blue exhaust of cycles clogging the streets.
*Elephants moving silently through the tall grass.
*Hard eyes behind the servile smiles of the villagers.
*Standing on a mountain in Laos and hearing a tiger roar.
*A young girl squeezing my hand as my medic delivered her baby.
*The flowing Ao Dais of the young women biking down Tran Hung Dao.
*My two years as Casualty Notification Officer in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland.

It was late 1967. I had just returned after 18 months in Vietnam. Casualties were increasing. I moved my family from Indianapolis to Norfolk, rented a house, enrolled my children in their fifth or sixth new school, and bought a second car.

A week later, I put on my uniform and drove 10 miles to Little Creek, Virginia. I hesitated before entering my new office. Appearance is important to career Marines. I was no longer, if ever, a poster Marine. I had returned from my third tour in Vietnam only 30 days before. At 5'9", I now weighed 128 pounds 37 pounds below my normal weight. My uniforms fit ludicrously, my skin was yellow from malaria medication, and I think I had a twitch or two.

I straightened my shoulders, walked into the office, looked at the nameplate on a Staff

Sergeant's desk and said, "Sergeant Jolly, I'm Lieutenant Colonel Goodson. Here are my orders and my Qualification Jacket."

Sergeant Jolly stood, looked carefully at me, took my orders, stuck out his hand we shook and said, "How long were you there, Colonel?" I replied "18 months this time." Jolly breathed, "Jesus, you must be a slow learner Colonel." I smiled.

Jolly said, "Colonel, I'll show you to your office and bring in the Sergeant Major." I said, "No, let's just go straight to his office." Jolly nodded, hesitated, and lowered his voice, "Colonel, the Sergeant Major. He's been in this G*dd@mn job two years. He's packed pretty tight. I'm worried about him." I nodded.

Jolly escorted me into the Sergeant Major's office. "Sergeant Major, this is Colonel Goodson, the new Commanding Officer." The Sergeant Major stood, extended his hand and said, "Good to see you again, Colonel." I responded, "Hello Walt, how are you?" Jolly looked at me, raised an eyebrow, walked out, and closed the door.

I sat down with the Sergeant Major. We had the obligatory cup of coffee and talked about mutual acquaintances. Walt's stress was palpable. Finally, I said, "Walt, what the hell's wrong?"

He turned his chair, looked out the window and said, "George, you're going to wish you were back in Nam before you leave here. I've been in the Marine Corps since 1939. I was in the Pacific 36 months, Korea for 14 months, and Vietnam for 12 months. Now I come here to bury these kids. I'm putting my letter in. I can't take it anymore."

I said, "OK Walt. If that's what you want, I'll endorse your request for retirement and do what I can to push it through Headquarters Marine Corps."

Sergeant Major Walt Xxxxx retired 12 weeks later. He had been a good Marine for 28 years, but he had seen too much death and too much suffering. He was used up.

Over the next 16 months, I made 28 death notifications, conducted 28 military funerals, and made 30 notifications to the families of Marines that were severely wounded or missing in action. Most of the details of those casualty notifications have now, thankfully, faded from memory. Four, however, remain.

MY FIRST NOTIFICATION

My third or fourth day in Norfolk, I was notified of the death of a 19 year old Marine. This notification came by telephone from Headquarters Marine Corps. The information detailed:

*Name, rank, and serial number.
*Name, address, and phone number of next of kin.
*Date of and limited details about the Marine's death.
*Approximate date the body would arrive at the Norfolk Naval Air Station.
*Strong recommendation on whether the casket should be opened or closed.

The boy's family lived over the border in North Carolina, about 60 miles away. I drove there in a Marine Corps staff car. Crossing the state line into North Carolina, I stopped at a small country store /service station/Post Office. I went in to ask directions.

Three people were in the store. A man and woman approached the small Post Office window. The man held a package. The Store owner walked up and addressed them by name, "Hello John. Good morning Mrs. Cooper."

I was stunned. My casualty's next-of-kin's name was John Cooper!

I hesitated, then stepped forward and said, "I beg your pardon. Are you Mr. and Mrs. John Cooper of (address)?"

The father looked at me--I was in uniform--and then, shaking, bent at the waist, and vomited. His wife looked horrified at him and then at me. Understanding came into her eyes and she collapsed in slow motion. I think I caught her before she hit the floor.

The owner took a bottle of whiskey out of a drawer and handed it to Mr. Cooper who drank. I answered their questions for a few minutes. Then I drove them home in my staff car. The store owner locked the store and followed in their truck. We stayed an hour or so until the family began arriving.

I returned the store owner to his business. He thanked me and said, "Mister, I wouldn't have your job for a million dollars." I shook his hand and said; "Neither would I."

I vaguely remember the drive back to Norfolk. Violating about five Marine Corps regulations, I drove the staff car straight to my house. I sat with my family while they ate dinner, went into the den, closed the door, and sat there all night, alone.

My Marines steered clear of me for days. I had made my first death notification.

THE FUNERALS

Weeks passed with more notifications and more funerals. I borrowed Marines from the local Marine Corps Reserve and taught them to conduct a military funeral: how to carry a casket, how to fire the volleys and how to fold the flag.

When I presented the flag to the mother, wife, or father, I always said, "All Marines share in your grief." I had been instructed to say, "On behalf of a grateful nation." I didn't think the nation was grateful, so I didn't say that.

Sometimes, my emotions got the best of me and I couldn't speak. When that happened, I just handed them the flag and touched a shoulder. They would look at me and nod. Once a mother said to me, "I'm so sorry you have this terrible job." My eyes filled with tears and I leaned over and kissed her.

ANOTHER NOTIFICATION

Six weeks after my first notification, I had another. This was a young PFC. I drove to his mother's house. As always, I was in uniform and driving a Marine Corps staff car. I parked in front of the house, took a deep breath, and walked towards the house. Suddenly the door flew open, a middle-aged woman rushed out. She looked at me and ran across the yard, screaming

I hesitated. Neighbors came out. I ran to her, grabbed her, and whispered stupid things to reassure her. She collapsed. I picked her up and carried her into the house. Eight or nine neighbors followed. Ten or fifteen later, the father came in followed by ambulance personnel. I have no recollection of leaving.

The funeral took place about two weeks later. We went through the drill. The mother never looked at me. The father looked at me once and shook his head sadly.

ANOTHER NOTIFICATION

One morning, as I walked in the office, the phone was ringing. Sergeant Jolly held the phone up and said, "You've got another one, Colonel." I nodded, walked into my office, picked up the phone, took notes, thanked the officer making the call -- I have no idea why-- and hung up. Jolly, who had listened, came in with a special Telephone Directory that translates telephone numbers into the person's address and place of employment.

The father of this casualty was a Longshoreman. He lived a mile from my office. I called the Longshoreman's Union Office and asked for the Business Manager. He answered the phone, I told him who I was, and asked for the father's schedule.

The Business Manager asked, "Is it his son?" I said nothing. After a moment, he said, in a low voice, "Tom is at home today." I said, "Don?t call him. I'll take care of that." The Business Manager said, "Aye, Aye Sir," and then explained, "Tom and I were Marines in WWII."

I got in my staff car and drove to the house. I was in uniform. I knocked and a woman in her early forties answered the door. I saw instantly that she was clueless. I asked, "Is Mr. Smith home?" She smiled pleasantly and responded, "Yes, but he's eating breakfast now. Can you come back later?" I said, "I'm sorry. It's important, I need to see him now."

She nodded, stepped back into the beach house and said, "Tom, it's for you."

A moment later, a ruddy man in his late forties, appeared at the door. He looked at me, turned absolutely pale, steadied himself, and said, "Jesus Christ man, he's only been there three weeks!"

BURIAL AT SEA

Months passed. More notifications and more funerals. Then one day while I was running, Sergeant Jolly stepped outside the building and gave a loud whistle, two fingers in his mouth (I never could do that) and held an imaginary phone to his ear.

Another call from Headquarters Marine Corps. I took notes, said, "Got it," and hung up. I had stopped saying "Thank You" long ago.

Jolly, "Where?"

Me, "Eastern Shore of Maryland. The father is a retired Chief Petty Officer. His brother will accompany the body back from Vietnam."

Jolly shook his head slowly, straightened, and then said, "This time of day, it'll take three hours to get there and back. I'll call the Naval Air Station and borrow a helicopter. And I'll have Captain Tolliver get one of his men to meet you and drive you to the Chief's home."

He did, and 40 minutes later, I was knocking on the father's door. He opened the door, looked at me, then looked at the Marine standing at parade rest beside the car, and asked, "Which one of my boys was it, Colonel?"

I stayed a couple of hours, gave him all the information, my office and home phone number and told him to call me, anytime.

He called me that evening about 2300 (11:00PM). "I've gone through my boy's papers and found his will. He asked to be buried at sea. Can you make that happen?" I said, "Yes I can, Chief. I can and I will."

My wife who had been listening said, "Can you do that?" I told her, "I have no idea. But I'm going to break my ass trying."

I called Lieutenant General Alpha Bowser, Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force Atlantic, at home about 2330, explained the situation, and asked, "General, can you get me a quick appointment with the Admiral at Atlantic Fleet Headquarters?" General Bowser said, "George, you be there tomorrow at 0900. He will see you."

I was and the Admiral did. He said coldly, "How can the Navy help the Marine Corps, Colonel." I told him the story. He turned to his Chief of Staff and said, "Which is the sharpest destroyer in port?" The Chief of Staff responded with a name.

The Admiral called the ship, "Captain, you're going to do a burial at sea. You'll report to a Marine Lieutenant Colonel Goodson until this mission is completed."

He hung up, looked at me, and said, "The next time you need a ship, Colonel, call me. You don't have to sic Al Bowser on my ass." I responded, "Aye Aye, Sir" and got the hell out of his office.
I went to the ship and met with the Captain, Executive Officer, and the Senior Chief. Sergeant Jolly and I trained the ship's crew for four days. Then Jolly raised a question none of us had thought of. He said, "These government caskets are air tight. How do we keep it from floating?"

All the high priced help including me sat there looking dumb. Then the Senior Chief stood and said, "Come on Jolly. I know a bar where the retired guys from World War II hang out."

They returned a couple of hours later, slightly the worst for wear, and said, "It's simple; we cut four 12" holes in the outer shell of the casket on each side and insert 300 lbs of lead in the foot end of the casket. We can handle that, no sweat."

The day arrived. The ship and the sailors looked razor sharp. General Bowser, the Admiral, a US Senator, and a Navy Band were on board. The sealed casket was brought aboard and taken below for modification. The ship got underway to the 12-fathom depth.

The sun was hot. The ocean flat. The casket was brought aft and placed on a catafalque. The Chaplain spoke. The volleys were fired. The flag was removed, folded, and I gave it to the father. The band played "Eternal Father Strong to Save." The casket was raised slightly at the head and it slid into the sea.

The heavy casket plunged straight down about six feet. The incoming water collided with the air pockets in the outer shell. The casket stopped abruptly, rose straight out of the water about three feet, stopped, and slowly slipped back into the sea. The air bubbles rising from the sinking casket sparkled in the sunlight as the casket disappeared from sight forever.

The next morning I called a personal friend, Lieutenant General Oscar Peatross, at Headquarters Marine Corps and said, "General, get me the fuck out of here. I can't take this shit anymore." I was transferred two weeks later.

I was a good Marine but, after 17 years, I had seen too much death and too much suffering. I was used up.

Vacating the house, my family and I drove to the office in a two-car convoy. I said my goodbyes. Sergeant Jolly walked out with me. He waved at my family, looked at me with tears in his eyes, came to attention, saluted, and said, "Well Done, Colonel. Well Done."

I felt as if I had received the Medal of Honor!

Posted by Deb at August 13, 2004 09:25 AM

Southern Appeal blog says Goodbye

Southern Appeal is shutting down. I have linked to this site a number of times because we seem to have a lot of the same tastes. Good-bye and good luck, ya'll.

***William F. Buckley reading his This I Believe Essay
***Something there is that doesn't love a Newt
***Toddlers and today's Dads

Sara Robinson on Journalism

From Orcinus, Dave Neiwert's blog...

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. Her lifelong interest in the social effects of authoritarianism have most recently led her to pursue the MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. She's also a student member of the Association of Professional Futurists, and member of the Accelerated Studies Foundation advisory board on social and cultural issues. For fun, she raises kids and travels.

Today's essay is another gem. She traces how the profession of journalism has morphed from a fairly coarse but specialized, rough-and-tumble craft to the insipid world of commerce-driven platitudes it has become. As I read I think of how the food business has undergone much the same change. The similarities are not as odd as one might think. When I began thirty-five years ago the idea of "cooking" or "butchering" were everyday jobs, and retailing was so fragmented that imported cheeses were only sold in specialty shops. The same cheeses are now sold in any good grocery store, butchering and cooking are becoming lost arts and our children not only have no idea where food comes from, they no longer care.

This may be the complaining of an old guy looking backward and not wanting to embrace the future, but I know that before my eyes I have seen part of our culture vanish, never to be recovered, except for the eccentric few who stubbornly cling to part of the past. As an aside, my Wife just asked me as I wrote about asiago. She is planning something special for Christmas and is thinking about some kind of home made bread with asiago cheese. Sounds excellent, but my guess is that not one person out of a thousand has ever heard of asiago, much less used it in cooking. Sigh. ...but I digress.

Go read Why I Blog: A Romance by Sara Robinson. She's excellent. (As you read, think of what that idiot wrote the other day that actually appeared on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal.)

Dave and I, here on the cusp of geezerhood ourselves, are probably as young as you can be and still have any memory at all of those old working-class reporters. My college newswriting teachers were among the last of this breed, mostly LA Times and NBC warhorses who'd been put out to pasture to teach us new cubs the basics. (I'm remembering the Times' Nieson Himmel, a vast and legendary gnome of a man who had provided the Times' coverage of the Black Dahlia back in the 40s-- a notorious curmudgeon who left ashes from his stogie alongside his red pen marks on my Newswriting 101 papers.) And it's possible that, as rural kids who came to the trade without much more to our credit than a way with words, we have more in common with the reporters of that lost generation than we do with the smooth and politic journalists of our own.

Unlike Dave, my newsroom years were limited and undistinguished. I decamped early on for the brothels of corporate communications, with occasional dips into magazine work. The kind of newspaper work I'd set out to do was rapidly vanishing anyway; and as the years passed, I realized that my old professors had lived through some golden years that were gone, and would not likely be coming back again.

No, that's not the end. Sara Robinson has a happy ending and bloggers everywhere can take heart. As that line in Desiderata has it "...even the dull and ignorant. They, too, have their story." Hoots the Dull signing off here. Have a nice day.

Real Live Preacher -- Gordon Atkinson

So that's what he looks like!

RLP is now vlogging.

I remember seeing the famous Dr. Karl Haas once in person. Her emerged from a door at the front of the church were he was about to speak and perform, a gnome of a man, looking even older than he sounded on the radio.

His first words were, "That's alright. I didn't know what you looked like, either."

Before I forget, go read the Preacher's dramatization of a scene from the New Testament.

It was Jesus who suggested they get away for a few days. He thought the south side of the Sea of Galilee might be nice.

Peter pulled him aside.

“It won’t work.”

Jesus tilted his head a little and said, “What do you mean?”

“Trying to get away from people. It won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Because of who you are. I’m not saying I know who youare, because I haven’t figured that out yet. But everyone wants something from you. Those who are sick think you can heal them. Others want to hear you teach and speak. It’s the way you do things, something about it. Even the ones who don’t like you are curious enough to come for a look.”

Jesus put the pad of his thumb in his mouth and sucked on it gently. Then he chewed his thumb as his eyes traveled down Peter’s robe to his sandals and back up again to his eyes.

“Hmm” was what he said, and he dragged the word out for several seconds.

“Let’s try it anyway.”

They got into a boat and headed out into the center of the Sea of Galilee. The weather was horrible and caused them great distress and trouble, but eventually they reached the other side. The waterlogged disciples leapt out of the boat and dragged it up onto the shore.

This land was as unfamiliar to them as if they had landed on another continent. None of them had been there before, but they had heard legends of the barbaric, Gerasene Gentiles that populated the south shore. They could have landed anywhere up and down a five-mile strip of shoreline. Unfortunately, they pulled ashore within sight and smell of a large herd of pigs that were grazing on a hill with a steep slope that led down to the water. No one said anything, but most of the disciples looked over at the pigs and took no trouble to hide their disgust.

“Okay, that’s just sickening. Look at them. Wallowing, filthy beasts. Why would anyone eat them?”

Peter was tying the boat to a large rock. He said, “Oh they love pigs in these parts. Love to eat em. Yum, yum. They eat snakes too, or so I hear. Snakes on a stick. The people are civilized enough though; occasionally the women wear tops. And take heart, it’s rumored that they bathe at least once a month.”

The others burst into raucous laughter, and even Jesus smiled in spite of himself. Peter had such a funny way of saying things. Then his face got serious, and he said, “Okay guys, knock it off. Be nice. People are people, wherever you go.”

“Check it out,” said Andrew, motioning toward a wild grove of scrubby trees and bushes. “Welcoming committee.”

About a hundred feet away a man in rags lurched out of the bushes. He seemed to have been heading for the shore, but he stopped when he saw Jesus and the disciples standing beside the boat. He stood staring at them, swaying slightly. He was twitching the fingers of his right hand and talking to himself. His head moved with a funny, jerking motion.

“He’s a big sonuvabitch, idn’t he?” said Phillip. He reached into the boat and laid his hand on a hook that was used to pull in large fish.

The man started walking toward them. Phillip tightened his hand on the hook. Andrew reached into the boat and pulled an oar close to the side.

As the man came closer, they could see that he was indeed very tall, close to six feet. Powerful muscles flexed beneath the rips and shreds of the rags he was wearing. He was carrying a large bone that had a chunk of unidentifiable meat clinging to it. Flies were buzzing all around him.
James, who was standing near the front with Jesus, turned around and said, “That’s nice. That’s what you wanna see. I know, let’s go to the south shore of Galilee and get our heads beaten in by a lunatic who uses a bloody bone for a club. Remind me to vacation with you fellas more often.”

“Shhhh,” hissed Jesus, for the man had drawn close.

He stood about 25 feet away, watching them. Then he tilted back his head and let out a mournful and twisting wail. It was deep and guttural, but it had a sharp edge to it as well, almost a scraping kind of sound. It was the most frightening and inhuman voice any of them had ever heard. The man raised the bone above his head. The little swarm of flies followed the meat upward and buzzed around it furiously. He began to whirl his horrific weapon around in a threatening manner.

The disciples out front instinctively moved back into the edge of the water near the boat. But Jesus shocked them all by walking toward the man with bold, unafraid steps. The man whirled the bone faster. His face had a strange look to it. He was not angry or afraid. He looked like a wild animal seeing something it had never seen before. His eyes showed no spark of intelligence or emotion.

Jesus walked right up to him and shouted in a very loud and authoritative voice. The sound of it startled all of the disciples. Andrew pulled the oar out of the boat and held it in front of him, trembling.

“Daimon Beelzebul, hear the sound of my voice. It is an ancient sound and you know it well. I command you in the name of the Lord God Most High to come out of this man at once!”

Vali Nasr on "Surge"

That's the new buzzword: surge.
From what I gather, it means one final, desperate effort to bring order out of chaos in Iraq by an increase in troop numbers coupled with more and louder cheer leading.

I have bought Vali Nasr's book and will get into reading it after Christmas, but this piece at Josh Marshall's place is spot on.

...in the grander scheme of things, it is not Iraq that needs a troop surge, but Afghanistan. As Barnett Rubin points out in his excellent essay in the latest issue of the Foreign Affairs the country where the 9/11 plot was hatched and the international terror threat started may well collapse into chaos and violence, and produce another terrorist threat if the U.S. does not commit more troops and resources to shore up its government and economy, and contain the Taliban. Surging in the wrong country at this time will make the U.S. more vulnerable in the coming years. Ignoring Afghanistan will take that country back to where it was before 9/11 while the cycle of surges and insurgencies in Iraq will further limit our ability to respond to Afghanistan. What should Washington do: Surge in Afghanistan if you surge anywhere, and as for Iraq, focus first on a political roadmap.

Nasr is from Iran, very well-educated and no body's fool. One might say he is looking out for his mother country, but I think he is just stating the obvious. Aside from his obvious academic credentials, he comes across as calm, clear-thinking and reasonable. I am mystified why the administration seems to have missed (or ignored) the counsel of well-informed sources such as he. I don't think the president is delusional, but I'm beginning to wonder...

Tobacco Barns in Kentucky and other places

Radio blogging here.

Looking for something else at NPR I noticed this great little story in the sidebar: Tobacco Barns: Stately Relics of a Bygone Era. A little under eight minutes, it takes me back to my childhood in Kentucky with descriptions of stripping rooms, barns and the tobacco culture in general. My Dad's family were mostly tobacco farmers and I know the smells and scenes of every stage of raising burley tobacco. One of the great advantages of being a kid is that you're too small physically to be much help, so its okay to just observe and ask questions (if you don't ask so many you get on people's nerves when they are trying to work or have a conversation about something else).

Not recommended for everyone, but for anyone whose roots are even a little bit rural, this snip will transport you to another time and place. Garrard County and Poosey Ridge in Madison County make cameo appearances. These are places in easy driving distance from Richmond, Madison County, where I was born and reared.

Rago and Sutherland -- Compare and Contrast

HOO-waaah!!

One Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal cuts loose on blogs and bloggers this morning.

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.

More success is met in purveying opinion and comment. Some critics reproach the blogs for the coarsening and increasing volatility of political life. Blogs, they say, tend to disinhibit. Maybe so. But politics weren't much rarefied when Andrew Jackson was president, either. The larger problem with blogs, it seems to me, is quality. Most of them are pretty awful. Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling.

Every conceivable belief is on the scene, but the collective prose, by and large, is homogeneous: A tone of careless informality prevails; posts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic; writers traffic more in pronouncement than persuasion . . .

There is more. Quite a delightful little pile of it. He must have had more milk of magnesia than anyone should have taken. No need for me to reply. I'm sure he is being drawn and quartered all over the internet more capably than anything I might say.

Next, take a look at what one John Sutherland of the Guardian said of our man Peter of YouTube, aka geriatric 1927. Seems to me he embodies some of the best qualities of the chattering classes to whom Mr. Rago so condescendingly refers.

When future historians look for the epithet to describe our times (as in "The Aspirin Age", "The Me Decade") the term that will fit best is "Banality". Peter of Leicester is the Napoleon Brandy of Banal. One unkind respondent (the millions-strong majority have been effusively kind) suggested that old farts like him should be locked up in a nursing home where they could quietly stink each other into euthanasia.

...He had a family, most of whom seem to have been a credit to their parents, without starring. He served as a health inspector in Leicester - a city happily unravaged by plague for 400 years. He is now widowed, lonely, grumpy and on the verge of Lear's fourscore years - but without Lear's ranting rage against the universe. His bulletins promise to "tell all" - but in fact he divulges tantalisingly little. The reticence adds to the addictively narcotic effect.

The Napoleon Brandy of Banal, said he. Great turn of phrase. Cute, no?

I regret that Peter has not given permission for his videos to be embedded into other sites, so you must go to the link to hear his reply. (Watch out for the volume. The opening music is too loud and Peter speaks very softly. It's better after the opening.) I can't possibly do justice to his eight minute response. Besides, reading the words isn't quite the same as hearing them from the man who said them.

Rago and Sutherland are two peas from the same pod. Each in his own way says the same thing and suffers from the same myopic lack of imagination. And both seem to be well-placed in their respective publications and pay their bills by being professionals. Such a waste of time and energy. I have nothing further to add to this little tempest. Peter said it better than anyone else.

A military draft will resume -- Updated

This post was put together in June, last year. I see in this morning's NY Times that the president is now advancing the idea that "we’re going to need a military that’s capable of being able to sustain our efforts and help us achieve peace." In this case the word capable means bigger, as in, greater numbers. He was not contemplating better methods of "waging peace." That requires a level of understanding repugnant to both military and political minds.

The president didn't use the D-word, but there are those in Washington who will jump at the opening to bring up the subject again. One way to build up recruitment in the glamorous branches of service (Air Force, Marines, Navy, etc.) is to scare young men subject to conscription to enlist in the other branches in order to avoid being drafted.

The draft is only used to beef up the Army. The other branches of service are more selective. That may be why it's called "Selective Service." The draft actually de-selects a population of young men who are earmarked as cannon fodder.

The Times article has this and more...

Speaking in an interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Bush did not specify how large an increase he was contemplating or put a dollar figure on the cost. He said that he had asked his new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, to bring him a proposal, and that the budget he unveils at the beginning of February would seek approval for the plan from Congress, where many members of both parties have been urging an increase in the military’s size.

There is no reason to wait for those of us who want to spread the word about being a conscientious objector to war. At least two generations of young men have been born since the last time a draft was in force. Most young men who would be eligible to be drafted have never heard the term Conscientious Objector, much less know what it means. If it is mentioned in classrooms it is sure to be coupled with the wrong ideas so it is probably best that most instructors don't bring it up. I have asked a few young people if they have ever heard of a conscientious objector and received only blank stares.

My purpose in posting this message is not to make anyone into a conscientious objector. That is not an appropriate status for everyone. Most people, in fact, are better placed as warriors. That seems to be true in human populations worldwide and throughout history. Warriors need one another to maintain the human ecosystem. I know this to be true because I served in uniform for two years and observed that mind-set first hand. No amount of discussion on the part of anyone will ever change that basic fact of human nature.

But by the same token some of us will never be good warriors. Whatever the reasons, in the same way that short people are at a disadvantage on a basketball team, those whose principles and temperament lead them in toward conflict resolution and peaceful alternatives to violence are also an important ingredient in the human recipe. I believe that is what may have been meant by Jesus' reference to salt. That small minority deserves to know that legal, patriotic alternatives exist to the "with us or against us" mentality that has been propogated lately. The nuance may escape the president, but it nevertheless still exists in the law.

***

***

Not this week, maybe not this year, but in time a military draft will resume.
Predicting the return of the draft is like predicting the weather. Say anything you want and it will eventually happen. Just be careful not to be precise about timing. Conscription is as old as warfare itself, a historical reality true all over the world.

And like the weather, just as thunderstorms cause umbrella sales to increase, a military draft will make a lot of young men more realistic about their attitudes about being warriors. Many, if not most, will be excited about the idea. The notion of going through training, wearing a uniform and becoming part of a band of brothers like they have admired in movies and books will be very appealing. Many will be less enthusiastic, but will see the draft as a signal to enlist before they are drafted in order to get a better deal.

Unless the next draft is different from those in the past, no one will be drafted to be in the Navy, Marines, Air Force or National Guard. Those more glamorous branches will have their populations increased by "volunteers" who don't want to be drafted into the Army. It is the Army that requires the most in numbers. And it is the Army that has experience training ordinary, reluctant young men to be soldiers.

From last week's Washington Post...

Rarely in the more than 30 years since the draft was abolished has the Selective Service triggered such angst. Two years into the Iraq war, concern that the draft will be reinstated to supplement an overextended military persists -- no matter how often, or emphatically, President Bush and members of Congress say it won't.

In this atmosphere of suspicion, the Selective Service System, the Rosslyn-based agency that conscripted 1.8 million Americans during the Vietnam War and 10 million in World War II, quietly pursues its delicate dual mission: keeping the draft machinery ready, without sparking fear that it is coming back.

Further into the article was the following...

So conscientious objectors need to be ready, she [peace activist J.E. McNeil, executive director of the Center on Conscience and War] warned. The key to convincing a draft board, she said, is to document the objections before conscription is ever reinstated.

"If you're trying to prove a belief or a feeling, you can't rip open your chest and have the words written on your heart," she said.

An objector, she said, has to be able to answer the question: " 'How did you come by your beliefs?' Not all of us wake up at 5 years old and say, 'I'm a conscientious objector.' " It won't work to tell a draft board "you think it would be icky to kill people," she said.

She also warned the group that the Selective Service shares names and addresses with military recruiters.

Creative minds have been at work seeking ways to supplement our national military needs. I doubt that the following plans would be politically feasible, but who knows?

"There's not going to be a draft." Political leaders can't seem to say that enough. But if there were to be one, it could be of specific skilled professionals rather than general conscription, Flahavan said. That could mean women would be included -- and the cutoff age could be extended past 25 years.

Since 1987, at Congress's request, the Selective Service has had a plan to register male and female health care workers ages 20 to 45 in more than 60 medical specialties in case the country suddenly needed more doctors or nurses. The proposal would require the authorization of Congress and the president.

More recently, the agency has talked about reinventing itself by registering all sorts of professionals whose expertise could be helpful in an emergency. That way, the Selective Service could become a national "repository or inventory of special skills," according to the agency's annual report.

The "special skills" draft could give the government the option of calling up people in a variety of specialties, such as linguists, computer experts, police officers or firefighters, Flahavan [associate director of Selective Service for public and intergovernmental affairs] said.

Other government agencies besides the Department of Defense could draft those workers, the report states. They could include U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The agency knows what angst such a program could cause, and Flahavan repeatedly stresses that it is "just a concept" that would require authorization from Congress.

"We're not advocating that it should be done," he said. "All we're saying is . . . we've been in this business for [more than 60] years. We know how to run a draft."

* * * *

* * *

My instinct is that the political will does not exist to allow women to be drafted. It is clear, however, that increasing numbers of women are participating in all segments of the military. Casualty statistics are hard to come by, but it women are being killed and wounded in Iraq along with men. Women have historically been a sort of resistance to the draft during wartime, holding on to their husbands, sons and brothers while urging that others to go or be sent in their stead. So this component of our national conscience is being blunted in recent years.

.

Due to the religious flavor of today's conflict, the role of professional clergy in resisting the draft is also being muted. Anyone speaking words of caution about military actions risks being branded as unpatriotic, at best...cowardly, at worst. Ministers and teachers connected with churches have in the past been part of a quiet but important conversation that kept alive the seeds of reconciliation so necessary to healing in the aftermath of war. But today's conflict, deriving from the excesses of religious extremism, also serves to blunt the religious component of our national conscience.

Advent Wish by John & Yoko

If I listen to this music and think of the Iraq adventure it makes tears come to my eyes. There seems to be such a gulf between where we are now and where we have been. Sunday evening I caught a portion of an Ira Glass story on the radio, one of his usual excellent audio-verite sketches. This one was about a first generation Palestinian girl's tragic experience among her peer group at a school in the heart of America, describing how social pressure eventually brought her and her family to tears and depression, not because of anything they did wrong, but simply because of who they were. I didn't catch the start and didn't care to hear the rest. I already knew the story. I've been ranting about it in one form or another since I started this blog. Oh, the happy music and fun YouTube stuff make for light escapes, but when I allow myself to think seriously about how tough, mean and indifferent the people around me are becoming it makes me want to cry.

No one wants to be uncaring or detached, but when a relentless negative message is played repeatedly the impact is overpowering. From radio talk shows to pulpits to sports bars to blogs to news channels and all the way to Washington there is a message that dulls the spirit and assaults our moral impulses, giving tacit permission for people in high places to get away with irresponsible decision-making. Through it all I still believe we are better than that. At least for the next few days, while Christmas is being celebrated, surely it will be okay to dream about a time when we look for peace instead of war...and don't point the finger of blame at others for actions we have initiated ourselves in the name of preemption or defense.




Thanks Wampum for the link.

While you're there, take a moment to read Dwight Meredith's story about extended warranties, how important they are to retail profits, and how he got put on an inelligible list, much to the puzzlement of a clerk one year.

Encore!! Encore!! Pearl Fishers' Duet! Bravo!!!

I blogged this before but that was before I could embed YouTube in my blog.
Besides, nobody ever reads the archives anyway.
I have more treasure buried there than will ever be seen again, but at least I know where to find it.
Meantime, relax and enjoy this fantastic piece of operatic beauty. If you have IE7 open another tab and read about it at the same time. Oops, sorry about that...somebody was doing a search in Spanish, I think. That's what reminded me of it. Here's the original post.

The Career Manifesto

From gapingvoid and elsewhere...

1. Unless you’re working in a coal mine, an emergency ward, or their equivalent, spare us the sad stories about your tough job. The biggest risk most of us face in the course of a day is a paper cut.

2. Yes, your boss is an idiot at times. So what? (Do you think your associates sit around and marvel at your deep thoughts?) If you cannot give your boss basic loyalty, either report the weasel to the proper authorities or be gone.

3. You are paid to take meaningful actions, not superficial ones. Don’t brag about that memo you sent out or how hard you work. Tell us what you achieved.

4. Although your title may be the same, the job that you were hired to do three years ago is probably not the job you have now. When you are just coasting and not thinking several steps ahead of your responsibilities, you are in dinosaur territory and a meteor is coming.

5. If you suspect that you’re working in a madhouse, you probably are. Even sociopaths have jobs. Don’t delude yourself by thinking you’ll change what the organization regards as a “turkey farm.” Flee.

6. Your technical skills may impress the other geeks, but if you can’t get along with your co-workers, you’re a litigation breeder. Don’t be surprised if management regards you as an expensive risk.

7. If you have a problem with co-workers, have the guts to tell them, preferably in words of one syllable.

8. Don’t believe what the organization says it does. Its practices are its real policies. Study what is rewarded and what is punished and you’ll have a better clue as to what’s going on.

9. Don’t expect to be perfect. Focus on doing right instead of being right. It will simplify the world enormously.

10.If you plan on showing them what you’re capable of only after you get promoted, you need to reverse your thinking.

This is from the Email Forwarding Department, I'm sure (Is it just me, or does everybody have a few people in their life who think that everything they get needs to be forwarded to everyone they know?), but it hits several nails on the head.

Waiting for Tet

Been there. Done that.
I was gonna put together yet another rant about the irrational exuberance madness going on in Iraq, but it would be a waste of energy. I'll just link to another good article instead just to piss off a few shallow-minded patriotic sorts.

But Bush resists, and despite public protests of many a retired general, something not seen since Douglas MacArthur’s insubordination forced Truman to fire him. Bush seems still in control of Iraq policy. He and his cabal, reports Robert Dreyfuss in the December 18 issue of the Nation, recently considered supporting a coup against Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Malaki. Better a general, a strong man, to set things straight, they reasoned. But, alas, no Diem he. Apparently, al-Malaki had heard the news too. After initially snubbing Bush, he showed up in Amman on November 29 for his half-hearted anointing by Bush “as the right guy for Iraq.”

So Bush still has his war, but he has not yet had his Tet offensive. The wise men strive in vain: there can be no consensus on their terms or Bush’s for the resolution of the Iraq War. There is no basis for their consensus, as there is no basis for their success. Just like Ho Chi MInh thirty-nine years ago, no one now is going to give the United States an out.

Fun Two, Guitar Whiz, with Pachelbel’s Canon

I blogged this before, but now Google and YouTube make it easy to embed the link.
I really like it, so here it is again.
Go read the Times article and you'll see why.

Iran elections update -- Updated again..

Updated, First posted a week ago.

News is coming in now that the elections in Iran show Ahmadinejad is far less popular than the US press would have one believe. It rather takes the wind out of the sails for those who would advertise the Muslim/Arab world as a single mass of evil. (They aren't all Arabs, to begin with. The Iranians are anything but, and have little use for Arabs.)

From the BBC...

Iran's moderate former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has won election to Iran's powerful clerical body, the Assembly of Experts, results show.

With more than half the votes counted, Mr Rafsanjani, who was defeated in the 2005 presidential election, had a clear lead at the top of the list.

The election - and simultaneous local polls - was seen as a test of support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Early results suggest liberals and moderates have regained some influence.
Official results have not yet been announced in either of the two elections.

Displaying what correspondents describe as a new lease of political life, Mr Rafsanjani led the poll with 1.3 million votes as counting continued. He is almost half a million votes ahead of the second placed candidate. His main rival, Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi - seen as a political mentor to President Ahmadinejad - is trailing in sixth place, but with enough votes to retain a seat on the Assembly of Experts.

Mr Rafsanjani's strong performance has exceeded his supporters' expectations after his humiliating defeat in 2005, the BBC's Sadeq Saba in Tehran says. The assembly of 86 theologians supervises the activities of Iran's supreme leader and chooses his successor when he dies.

Mr Rafsanjani's success was helped by an unexpectedly high turnout and by a new alliance between him and the reformists, our correspondent says.

Thanks Cernig for the link.

***

***

Ahmadinejad is not universally admired at home...

Hundreds of pro-reforms students burned pictures of hard line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad, booed him with chants of “Ahmadi Nezhad, symbol of discrimination and dictatorship” and threw firecrackers in an effort to disrupt his speech at a university on Monday, according to eyewitnesses and reports from several Iranian independent news agencies. [Look at a Google Blog search already.]

It was the first time that the fanatic president who was elected last July on promises to fight corruption and hardship for the poor, had faced such open hostility from students.

But a spokesman for the Government said the President was not deterred and completed his address. “While he was speaking today they tried to interrupt but they couldn’t and they even burned his pictures while he was speaking and they threw firecrackers but Ahmadi Nezhad continued his speech, undeterred”, he added.

While the spokesman claimed “50 to 60 students were involved”, eyewitnesses said hundreds of students chanted “Death to the dictator” as basiji students and forces as well as units of presidential guards clashed with anti-Ahmadi Nezhad students at the Amir Kabir University in Tehran. At least two students had been wounded and taken to hospital, sources said.

Despite severe security measures, the protesting students apparently avoided security guards who tried to prevent them from attending the speech at Amir Kabir University, according to the student news Web site, “AdwarNews”.

“As Ahmadi Nezhad approached the podium to speech, the members of the Islamic Students Association began booing and chanting, while some even burned pictures of the Iranian president”, Adwar confirmed.

“As students chanted “Liar, Get Out”, Ahmadi Nezhad got so angry that he accused the students of being agents of the United States and being on the American’s payroll. He then threatened to punish them harshly”, one student told Iran Press Service, adding that officials from the University had filled the auditorium with basij volunteers and women clad in black chadors, posing as students.

More at the link, including a photo or two.

Amir Taheri is not expecting anything but trouble for Ahmadinejad at the polls.

(Amir Taheri bio link.)

While trying to project his image as a world leader offering an alternative to "American hegemony", President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran may be heading for his first major political defeat at home. In fact, some analysts in Tehran expect his defeat to be so decisive as to puncture the super-inflated image created by his friends and foes, albeit for different reasons.

It is in the context of two sets of elections, to be held on Dec. 15, that Ahmadinejad's defeat is expected to materialize.

The first election will be for local government authorities throughout Iran, deciding the fate of thousands of village and town councils that provide the day-to-day interface of the Khomeinist regime with citizens.

***

The two sets of elections are important not because they reflect the true wishes of the Iranian people. Elections in the Islamic republic are more like primaries within the same party in the United States. Also, since all election results could eventually be cancelled by the Council of the Guardians or the "Supreme Guide", the possibility of genuine opposition figures coming to power through elections is almost nil.

Nevertheless, elections in the Islamic republic must be treated as important for two reasons. The first is that they provide a more or less accurate picture of the relative strength of the various rival factions within the regime, thus providing an insight into the current mood of he ruling elite. The second is that the "Supreme Guide" and his security services could arrange every election in a way to reflect the new mood and open the way for policy changes. In 1997, for example, the "Supreme Guide" and his services felt the need for a smiling face and arranged for Khatami to be elected president. In 2005, shaken by student revolts, workers' strikes and growing American pressure in the region, they decided that a return to radicalism would be the better ticket. That helped Ahmadinejad become president, despite the fact that his initial mass base consisted only of five million votes, out of 46 million eligible voters.

A setback for Ahmadinejad in the two elections next week may not necessarily signal a desire on the part of the ruling elite to step back from the brink of an open conflict with the US. But it would provide a warning to Ahmadinejad not to become too big for his boots, either at home or abroad. It would be interesting to see how Ahmadinejad and his radical base might respond to their first major setback at a crucial time.

Excuse me, but you have a bit of egg on your face...

For those who have been following the story about five Muslims being burned alive after leaving worship, here is the latest wrinkle. Lindsay Bayerstein and David Neiwert have the goods. I'm trying hard not to be smug here, but not very hard.
I have a recipe for crow around here somewhere...

(If you haven't been following the story, don't waste your time. Nothing to see here. Just keep on surfing.)

Iran Elections Monday -- Updated

Update Sunday, December 17:
This post first published Dec. 8, now moving to top...
Ahmedinejad is not showing well in the Iran elections. Their system is not anything like ours but it is a representative democratic form. (Certainly much closer to representative than many of the tyrants the US has allied with in the past and continues to be in bed with. Of course the monarchies and dictatorships we support are all nice guys, so their constituencies are well cared for, right?)

This from Wampum. Go to the link for nuts and bolts.

Things are looking up. Bush is a lame duck. Olmert is a lame duck. Ahmadinejad is a lame duck. Broken elections, fake wars, phony controntationalism simply are non-salable products, at least when presented a second (or third) time to the market.

Where in the world is the US media, anyway?
That's what I wan----
Forget it. Nobody's interested anyway and they have to pay the rent just like everyone else.

***

***

News reportage is an odd business. Virtually no one in the Western press is writing about next Monday's elections in Iran where there is also an official blackout.

Many websites including Amazon.com and YouTube had access from Iran shut down as ordered by the senior judiciary officials reported The Guardian this morning. Also, 10 newspapers have been threatened with closure following promotion of candidates before the official municipal election campaign, opening on Thursday, which contradicts electoral law.

The ten newspapers may be shut down for the whole month of December or at least up to the elections on 15 December 2006. Turnout last year was just 10% where conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a surprise victory.

With 7.5million surfers (the highest in the Middle East after Israel) many citizens have started blogs to overcome the recent suppression in media restriction of free speech. Perhaps this will increase with the imminent ban of the newspapers if current reporting trends don’t cease.

.
What if Ahmadinejad had a poor showing? I don't know how elections work in Iran, if there are opposition candidates, coalitions or what, but no matter how they work, elections are an index to the strength or weakness of whatever group or individual is in control.

I find it interesting that only ten percent of eligible voters even bothered to vote. That sounds like a comfortable, fairly detached population more or less disinterested in politics. I bet they now rue the day when so few people were paying attention.

Do we know any place where participation is equally unimpressive? Or where a large population is more interested in pop stars, fashion trends and sports than civil liberties?

Wiley Sanderson, Pinhole Photography and Me

This is a story made for blogging: my most extraordinary experience of 2006.

About a week ago I was talking casually with a woman visiting her mother at a holiday open house. The conversation drifted from one topic to another and I mentioned thinking about setting up a darkroom in the basement for making my own photographic prints. She pointed out that with today's technology darkrooms are no longer necessary. Cameras do everything, including interfacing with a printer to produce any print you like. I agreed but remembered I have some negatives older than me and would like to see what kind of prints they would make. We talked about old photo techniques and I recalled seeing glass negatives from a very old camera, and she said she had developed glass negatives used in electron photography at the University of Georgia. When she mentioned the University of Georgia, I asked if she knew of Wiley Sanderson, thinking perhaps his influence might still be remembered after all these years. She looked at me surprised.

"How do you know that name?" she said, "He's my father!"
"Excuse me," I said, "Your father?"

I cannot describe the feeling, meeting someone after forty years who not only knew this man, but was part of his family. I have a good imagination, but never would I have dreamed of anything such as this. Since his name is not a household word and his craft is going the way of arm garters, crystal radios and gas lights I decided to put at least one post into the blog world about him. I just checked and a Google Blog Search returned Your search - "wiley sanderson" - did not match any documents. This post will change that to at least one result. (A regular Google Web search returns a number of references including a bio, but nothing yet in a Blog Search.)

This is the story...

***

***

I can't recall the date, but sometime before I left home, between 1960 and 1963, I had the privilege of learning about pinhole photography from a man who is among a handful of experts on the subject, Wiley Sanderson.

For those who have never heard of pinhole photography, here is a brief explanation. Because of the physics of light, a photosensitive surface in a box with a tiny hole opposite the sensitive side will produce a picture. A simple box can thereby be made into a primitive camera. Using print paper instead of film, the box is loaded in darkness, the hole covered until time for exposure, and the pinhole camera is ready to be used for picture-taking. No lens, no F-stop -- just a box with a piece of photo paper and a hole, ready to make an exposure.

Here is the tough part. The camera only makes one picture at a time. And the exposure is much longer than a regular camera. This is because the hole must be very small, the smaller the better. Since there is no lens, the focus of the picture depends on how small the opening is, and even then the finished picture will have a shimmering quality unique to pinhole cameras. On the positive side, however, there is infinite depth of field and everything in the picture is equally in (or out of) focus.

The interested reader can explore further and learn about pinhole photography. At this point all you need to know is that it is totally basic, easy to understand and teaches the principles of photography in a way that they will never be forgotten. One learns quickly, for example, that if the camera or subject move during an exposure, the picture will capture that movement and look smeared. The angle of the camera is critical to the framing of the picture: aim too far up, down or to the side and you miss the target. Most of all, you learn that you only get one chance for each shot. After every precious picture, the camera must go back to the darkroom, the result developed, and a contact print made to see one picture, which means that using a pinhole camera makes the photographer very, very careful about every move he makes.

Wiley Sanderson taught photography at the University of Georgia and noticed in the early years that when he made an assignment his students turned in pretty good results, but those who had the means were not coming up with their pictures the same way as those who couldn't afford to shoot up a lot of film. What was happening, he noticed, was that students would take as many pictures as they could afford for an assignment, then sort through them and turn in only the best.

Here is where Sanderson had an educational stroke of genius. Selecting the best shots from a pile of prints was editing, not photography. His aim was to teach photography, so to level the field all his first-year students were required to build and use pinhole cameras. All of them. This meant that it made no difference if you could afford the most expensive manufactured camera. Everyone was starting from square one. The result, he said, was that his students were learning the basics of photography by hands-on experience. They learned that the smaller the opening, the longer the exposure...but the better the focus. They learned to be very selective when they framed the image and pay close attention to light sources, angles and shadows. They discovered that if the pinhole were perfectly drilled the result would be better so sometimes they took great pains to find the tiniest of drill bits and the thinnest of metal to make the critical opening. In short, they were learning everything they needed to know to become photographers, not editors.

In a single afternoon I listened to this man talk and looked at a gallery of his work. There were spectacular images he had made with a pinhole camera. Still lifes, portraits, cityscapes, landscapes, nature photography...both black and white and color. It was an amazing experience for me because it would be several years later that I would get my hands on a camera. When I was listening to Sanderson my experience with photography was the same as with painting, sculpture, music, collecting, or any other expression of creativity... a journey in the mind. I was in no position to really do any of these things, but nothing prevented exercising my imagination. Without knowing it I had been taught in one afternoon all I would ever need to know about photography.

Later, in the Army, I bought an economical but excellent Yashica range-finder and shot roll after roll of 35mm slides and prints. Because I was an x-ray technician I knew about developing, "fixing" and finishing film. I had access to a darkroom for GI's to develop their own film and prints. I was able to put into practice what I had learned from Wiley Sanderson, and I never forgot that valuable learning session in an art gallery years before. By the time I graduated to a Nikon I felt completely at ease taking pictures and took pride looking at a roll of film that only a few had to be tossed because I screwed up.

(My only regret is that I never learned to use a flash. Everything I shoot is available light because that is how I learned to take pictures. A flash may supply enough light to make a technically correct exposure, but I never figured out how to predict where shadows would appear until it was too late. If I had it to do over I wouldn't do anything differently. Technology now delivers the capability to take pictures much better than in the past, and everyone knows the magic of photo shopping.)

I am told that Mr. Sanderson is still alive but not in good health, close to ninety years old. It is a testimony to his imagination and creativity that in his later years he had to have a glass eye made following a bout of eye cancer. According to his daughter he may not remember it now, but with his new eye if he lifted gently on that eyebrow and looked down, the eye also showed his logo. Anyone with that measure of independence and imagination deserves at least a footnote in the internets.

Thanks, Wiley Sanderson, for inspiring me to love and practice making good pictures. In the short space of a few hours you taught me more than I might have learned elsewhere in a year of formal study. If any of your former students happen on this post, I hope they will leave comments and share stories. And if any comments are disrespectful, it is my privilege as blog master to delete such comments.

Wikipedia has a Pinhole Camera article with links.
More on pinhole photography at this link, including a wonderful picture that is at the Smithsonian, taken by a tiny pinhole camera from inside some one's mouth, looking out.

With a film cartridge pinhole camera tucked in his mouth and his finger as a shutter, Justin Quinnell immortalizes his bath.

Have fun! Go learn about pinhole photography.

Highly recommended reading: Pinhole Photography – History, Images, Cameras, Formulas By Jon Grepstad
A comprehensive, clearly written and well-organized site with enough original content and links to keep the reader busy for a long time.

Grandma's Auschwitz Hanukkah Miracle ...

Kids' parties can become a tiresome drag for the mother who already has too much on her plate. There's a lot to do this time of year and sometimes you have to fake being cheerful. This story is to vaccinate the reader against getting pooped out with kids' parties.

The invitation sent home for the upcoming Hanukkah party assumed its traditional place of honor on the refrigerator door, where three other invites immediately joined it. One shaped like a menorah, the second a dreidel and a third the spitting image of a sufganiya (traditional Hanukkah pastry).

The only common denominator between all of these invitations is that parents are invited to all of the events. I check the dates. I have to take off work for four mornings in a row this week – even though, of course, just as Hanukkah approaches, work is busier than ever.

True, the nursery schools should be praised for accomplishing the amazing feat of coordinating all of their Hanukah parties so that none overlap the other. But alas – why couldn't they just coordinate them with my boss so they don't overlap with my work. To be honest – can't we all do without the parties? The teachers will celebrate with the children and we will be released from the baking, costuming, gifting, line coaching and stage-fright sedation?

Some of my children have a somewhat chronic habit when it comes to holiday plays; when the curtain goes up and the spotlight is turned on, they tend to regress by several years and assume the fetal position between the folds of my skirt. I've already learned not to be disappointed by this, and enjoy just watching the play with them, but why abuse the grandmothers who were so expecting to see their grandchildren and only wind up being let down.

And so the grandmothers may usually forgo this particular duty, but when my own grandmother, visiting from abroad, asked if she could attend one of the children's parties, I of course agreed.

Everything was normal; the songs, the tunes, the dances, the costume changes, flashes glared from all around us. And then, between one flash and the next, my grandmother leaned towards me and whispered: "Mali, I'm so excited…"

Another camera flash and again a whisper: "Mali you know, I'm not very young and I'm a survivor of the camps... When I sit here, with my great-granddaughter, before all these little girls singing about the land of Israel – sweet beautiful little girls – I feel as though it is my small victory against the Germans. Small, but crushing!"

Then and there I choked up. All too often I forget that this noble woman with the light blue eyes, who I call grandma, is a Holocaust survivor who lived through the hells of Auschwitz. She, the girl whose mother and sisters were murdered before her eyes, is the brave woman who raised a family so that "the strength of Israel will not lie" (1 Samuel, 15:29).

I would never presume to say that I changed in that moment, but I can tell you that when the party ended I asked to say a few words.

I rose from my seat, cleared my throat and began: "Dear teachers and guests, do you see this woman beside me? This is my grandmother, who survived Auschwitz, who endured hunger and loss, abuse and labor and the death marches. She was blessed with what six million others were not, she lived. And all that has been worth it, if only for the party that you, dear teachers, are responsible for. It's difficult for her to speak now, but I can assure you that she has enjoyed every minute, and she will treasure these moments in her heart forever."

And without shame I let the tears run down my cheeks, as the tears of other mothers and the teachers flowed with mine.

Suddenly I find myself, yes, me the anti-party mother, waiting expectantly for the next holiday.

.....

.....

Mali Green, 33, is a full time writer and journalist. She and her husband have nine children. H/T Allison Kaplan Sommer

Ronald Reagan Tribute Video

No comment needed.

H/T Pejman, Sullivan and many others, I'm sure.

Happy Feet Comments and Clip

I knew they were cute. So did Gerard Vanderleun.
And from time to time I see somebody else is looking for the Penguin Batting post I put together. (The link sees to be broken, incidentally.)
We now have the dancing penguin Gloria under the Christmas tree and she has to perform for everybody who comes to visit.

Go figure.

This Happy Feet movie is symptomatic of our national need to escape the empty, savage reality of events over which we seem to have no control. My wife and I were in New York with another couple in October, 2001, just after the WTC attack. While we were there we escaped into a performance of Mama Mia which had just opened. One of our friends was an entertainer in her early years and made an inciteful observation. She said that Oklahoma the musical was an escape at the time it opened from the horrors of World War Two. Here's a poignant thought: As a social metric, I can understand this penguin film as being to the Iraq nightmare what Oklahoma was to the Second World War.




Well, crap.

My wife tells me that the film is politically "controversial."
"What are you talking about?"
"Some Christian families have walked out. Something about homosexuality."
"I see. Probably has something about those two queer male penguins in a zoo I read about who formed a pair, bonded, found an abandoned egg, hatched it and raised a baby penguin."

I guess we have to wait to find out if the penguin hatchling turns out to be a three-dollar bill. I'm sure there are people watching and waiting with great expectations, not sure whether to pray for the baby penguin to turn out heterosexual, for his sake, or gay, to prove some kind of perverted point -- if you will excuse the term. (Oh, yes. There's also a book. Go get the matches.)

Gimme a break. I looked it up and sure enough she's right. There are those who want to use this animated film to bash everything from fags to Gore. Go read about it for yourself, if you're drawn to that sort of thing... [Advisory: spoiler here if you haven't seen the film.]

It's the Christmas season, but Scrooge isn't gone by a long shot.

BBC Beatles Documentary

Documentary film featuring never before seen footage of the fab four. This unique program reveals the truth about why, at the height of their fame, the band performed their last live concert and never toured again following the 1966 US sell-out shows.

What more do you want? It's by the BBC. This is the real thing, and it's 46 minutes long.

This one's for you, Cat. They were unbelievably young, clean as a pin, and disarmingly down-to-earth. I'm listening and watching as I write this post and already I know it is a must-see for anyone who has even the slightest interest in the history of the Beatles. Watching makes me feel young again.

The documentary has great unseen-before footage and narrative recollections by key people who were part of their story. There is a sad forboding that the end of the story will be less than the viewer might like, but it must be remembered that these guys were mega-stars of unprecedented stature. As one witness recalled, "The modern touring industry was invented about fifteen minutes after this tour ended." The Candlestick Park show was to be the last of the big outdoor performances for the Beatles, but it was their experience that paved the way for the next chapter in popular music.

***

***

Motion Abbey is my video aggregator. I can't say enough about how good they are he is. Andrew Baron is the power behind the throne. Clearly a very smart guy. Here is what he says about YouTube:

About 6 or 7 years ago, everyday when I was at work, I would goto CNN.com for my news. I went to the home page at least six times a day and I didn't really go anywhere else.

Now I go there only on the rarest of occasions, maybe a couple of times per month.

I have so many places to go to get personalized, relevant and diverse news along with so much smart commentary, I can count on "being alerted" if something really big is happening. I don't need any supplement from CNN.

During a national or worldwide breaking news story, however, I tend to forget about my niche sources for a moment and go right to CNN. That's where I expect helicopters, vans, satellite equipment and ground crews to be there to bring it to me live, first.

One wouldn't go to Rocketboom to find out about the London Bombings for example on that day. The expectation might be that we have commentary or that we find some video or perspective after the fact but if you wanted to really see what was going on, you would likely turn right to a major news network like CNN.

On the other hand, lets say for example the time is now, after the fact. If you wanted to see some video on the London Bombings today, CNN would not be the likely destination.YouTube is the most likely destination.

Or, say, you noticed a weblog post about Kramer from Seinfeld who was recorded and shown to be racist. If you wanted to see this, just knowing that a video existed, where would you go first? Not to CNN.

The destination is YouTube.

If it's out there, it's most likely on YouTube - It's the first place I go to SEARCH. YouTube fills the role of that place to get prerecorded video in the same way CNN fills the role of live news.

Currently, no other site comes close to enough critical mass needed to serve the value of this entry point.

The TV guide of the future is no longer TVGuide. iTunes, Tivo, Network2 and Blip are all examples of entry points that are more progressive and important. They are places to discover and find what you are looking for.

The value to these sites is not in the ownership of content. None of the above mentioned sites own any content. They compete for ownership of the entry point.

Google knows the value of this entry point really well, proven again by their acquisition of YouTube.

Portable, Speaking Currency Reader for the Blind

No, there isn't one...

YET...

When I first heard the story of advocates for the blind suggesting that paper money be made more user-friendly for blind people I thought the idea was so odd it would go away. That same day a blind person called a local talk show and affirmed my thinking, that she had been getting along just fine for decades, thanks, and it wasn't necessary as far as she was concerned. And she owned and operated her own business, for crying out loud!

The story has "legs" now that a judge has given it life, so the blog world is off and running, mostly rooting for the underdogs, railing against the vending machine industry and government dolts as stubborn, stupid and uncaring.

Sorry, but I have to come down on the unpopular side of this one. This is a problem looking for a technological solution, not a reinvention of the wheel...er, printing press.

Machines read paper money as it is.

If technology can make cameras, TV's and phones small enough to fit into an ear or a pocket, then why cannot there be a portable currency reader that speaks? Greeting cards can sing and speak. Phones can play music. Jeez! This is a no-brainer. For the price of redesigning the whole mint we could furnish every blind person who wants one a device for every place one might be needed, personal or private. Heck, they might even be disposable. Will somebody please start thinking out of the box?

A portable speaking currency reader is the answer.

This is a great opportunity for the right entrepreneur. Failing that, then let's follow up with a political remedy.


Don't like gizmos? What then shall we do about hearing aids, canes, walkers, motorized wheel chairs, dental bridges and corrective lenses? (Then there's arch supports, key chains, nail clippers, dental floss, CD players, GPS toys, smoke detectors....you get the idea. Gizmos are not a mark of punishment. They are a means of convenience to those who want or need them.)

That's my two cents worth. I doubt it will catch on.
Not sexy enough. Just old-fashioned pragmatism from an old guy blogging.

Update:
Two minutes later, and I stand corrected. There already is a device.

The Note Teller is a very useful currency reader for blind and visually impaired people that reads both old and new series U.S. paper currency. This battery-powered device uses patented optical sensing and image technology to scan, read and announce the denomination of paper money in English and Spanish and includes simple instructions on audio cassette, in large-print and Braille. It features adjustable volume, includes a headphone jack for privacy and announces when the 9-volt battery needs replacement. An enhanced model is available for hearing-impaired users that provides sequences of vibration pulses to indicate the denomination.

Truthout blog Subpoenaed by an Army Tribunal

One of my daily blog checks, Truthout, has a story about itself that disturbs me. As a reader I feel indignant. As a blogger I feel threatened. And as a citizen I feel insulted by an inappropriate gesture on the part of the military showing a blatant disregard for good public relations. I am reminded of those haunting lines from WWII by Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Social Democrats,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Social Democrat.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew,
Then they came for me, and by that time there was
no one left to speak up for me.

No, we're not there yet. Our country is not anything like pre-war Germany. But the reason it is not is that there are people and organizations like Truthout that guard against that kind of tyranny. Expressions like the nose of the camel come to mind. Go read their report, see the video clip and make your own judgement. I think they are on to something and it stinks.

In a case that cuts right to the heart of the First Amendment, a US Army prosecutor has indicated he intends to subpoena Truthout Executive Director Marc Ash, a Truthout reporter, and two of the nonprofit news organization's regular contributors, to authenticate news reports they produced and edited earlier this year that quoted an Army officer criticizing President Bush and the White House's rationale for the Iraq War.

Captain Dan Kuecker, the Fort Lewis, Washington-based Army prosecutor, has stated his intent to compel Ash, Truthout reporter Sari Gelzer, and contributors Dahr Jamail and Sarah Olson to testify at the court-martial of First Lieutenant Ehren Watada. Kuecker is actively seeking the journalists' testimony so he can prove that Watada engaged in conduct unbecoming an officer, directly related to disparaging statements the Army claims Watada made about the legality of the Iraq War during interviews with Truthout and his hometown newspaper, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, in June.
***
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who for years has been arguing in favor of a shield law to protect journalists from testifying against their sources, said what's distressing about the Watada case is that the government is trying to use a reporter to build its case.

"The last thing a reporter wants to be identified as is an investigative arm of the government." Dalglish said.

The writer is Jason Leopold, a former Los Angeles bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswire. He has written over 2,000 stories on the California energy crisis and received the Dow Jones Journalist of the Year Award in 2001 for his coverage on the issue as well as a Project Censored award in 2004. Leopold also reported extensively on Enron's downfall and was the first journalist to land an interview with former Enron president Jeffrey Skilling following Enron's bankruptcy filing in December 2001. Leopold has appeared on CNBC and National Public Radio as an expert on energy policy and has also been the keynote speaker at more than two dozen energy industry conferences around the country.

Oops! "President Bush has lost control "

Go read Josh Landis.

The flood gates are opening and President Bush has lost control of his isolate-Syria policy. Congress is defying the President and heading for Damascus. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida met today with Asad in Damascus. Others are on their way, including John Kerry, D-Mass., Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Arlen Spector, R-Pa.

Bush put out a heated statement about how Syria must become democratic and release prisoners. This is his last stand on holding back the tide waters, to shame them on the human rights front, but the damage is done for Bush. Congress will begin to put its shoulder to foreign policy. Not just democrats are going, republics are headed toward Damascus as well. Arlen Spector wrote an impassioned article in the Washington Quarterly in the December issue, explaining why he would head for Damascus and how he was able to get things accomplished in past visits. Here are some articles.

More at the link.
Lots more.
Thanks, Nur.

Hitchens on Pinochet

Good-bye and good riddance to a reprehensible old criminal. Hitchens is at his acerbic best as he scans the tawdry details of the Chilean dictator's power trail. It's too late to ameliorate the impact of his sins, but it's not too late to avert a whitewash. I used to be surprised when tears flowed at the death of a tyrant, but not any more. I have found profound ignorance among so many of my peers that nothing is any big surprise. If I recognize ignorance among those I know and love, how likely is it not part of the human condition? Thanks, 3Quarks for the link.

Pinochet ended up like Spain's Gen. Francisco Franco, with a series of deathbed farewells that were obscenely protracted and attended by numerous priests and offerings of extreme unction. By the end, Chileans had become wearily used to the way in which he fell dramatically ill whenever the workings of justice took a step nearer to his archives or his bank accounts. Like Franco, too, he long outlived his own regime and survived to see his country outgrow the tutelage to which he had subjected it. And, also like Franco, he earned a place in history as a treasonous and ambitious officer who was false to his oath to defend and uphold the constitution. His overthrow of civilian democracy, in the South American country in which it was most historically implanted, will always be remembered as one of the more shocking crimes of the 20th century.

Humanizing Jews in the Saudi Media

Crossroads Arabia links to this story, positive on several levels. First of all, it is unusual for Jews to be shone in a positive light in Arab media. Second, it illustrates a point that most Americans take for granted, that in the courtroom justice often, if not usually, trumps prejudice. Finally -- and this strikes me as the most important point -- it underscores the historic reality that Jews and Arabs have more in common than either group is apt to admit.

This two-part account of how a man accused of being a terrorist was finally vindicated by the evidence is written by his attorney, Randall B. Hamud. I recommend reading both parts. I agree with the comment at the link. "The story is interesting enough in its own right. Even more interesting, though, is that the Saudi Arab News sees fit to run a two-day story about Jews helping an Arab. That's a pretty big step, I think, toward humanizing Jews, who are often vilified in popular media and textbooks."

Osama is a Muslim-Arab who immigrated to the United States from Jordan in 1999. Born in Venezuela and reared in Jordan, he is the son of naturalized US citizens. He came to the States to further his education and become a citizen.

He is a devout Muslim who believes in the literal truth of the Muslim holy book, the Qur’an. The Qur’an teaches him that the forebear of the Jews was Isaac, son of Abraham; Isaac’s brother, Ishmael, was the forebear of the Arabs. By blood, Jewsand Arabs are cousins. The Qur’an also teaches him to respect the Jews as worshippers of the one God. As a practicing Muslim, Osama unquestioningly accepts these teachings.

***

To most people, the obvious lesson of the case was that the justice system was still intact in South Manhattan. After all, a Muslim-Arab who had been acquainted with two of the 9/11 hijackers had gotten a fair trial just a few blocks from Ground Zero.

But to me, a far more important lesson was taught: Osama’s Semitic cousins had saved him. Jesse, Liz, Sarah, and the other members of the defense team had not hesitated to come to his defense; a courageous Jewish judge had applied the law to the facts in spite of the potential fallout on the far right; a lone Jewish juror held out for six days against a tide of prejudice sweeping through the jury room; and finally, Mimi had put a human face on “Sam.” To all of them, Osama and I say, “Shuk’ran,” Arabic for “Thank You.” And we urge all of our Arab brothers and sisters and our Semitic cousins to take a close look at Osama’s case. We two peoples can accomplish much more as friends than as enemies.

Pew Forum -- Pentecostals, Charismatics, and others

From October, this is a comprehensive look at Christendom's most important development in recent years, the global explosion of Pentecostalism which has led to a historic wave of conversions to the faith.

Just last night I was with a group of friends talking about immigration, new churches and other current trends. Someone reported having talked with an employer planning to turn over his business to someone else as he reached retirement age. The Anglo subordinate he had picked as the most likely recipient wasn't interested because he was making a lot more dealing drugs. So he redirected his attention to one of his Latino workers instead. This is the interesting part: his experience was that when he employed immigrants he always looked for Pentecostals, in-your-face Christians whose faith was unmistakable. He said they were most likely to be dependable, honest, work hard, and remain faithful to the schedule. Faith, a reliable work ethic and close family values went hand in hand.

This is nothing new. I experienced much the same phenomenon in my own career. I often said that when Mexicans came to take over my dish room I thought I had died and gone to heaven. No more fussing, broken dishes, wasted time on the clock, etc. And I told my wife several years ago that immigrants from the South, whether documented or not, seem to be God's way of saving America from her diseased and deteriorating sense of family values. They have shortcomings to be sure -- substance abuse, violence, exploitation of women, infidelity, and anything else you want to name, all the human shortcomings. But as a population, immigrants represent a level of energy, commitment, religious faith and tight family values that seems to have gone missing among too many Americans whose families have been here for generations.

This report, 233 pages pdf format, looks to me like an indispensable resource for anyone wanting to be informed about this important trend. I'm not going to read it myself because I don't expect to find anything new to me. But I pass it on to anyone who may be interested. As far as I can tell the taxonomy is correct. There is no reason to suspect their data is presented with any hidden agenda.

By all accounts, pentecostalism and related charismatic movements represent one of the fastest-growing segments of global Christianity. According to the World Christian Database, at least a quarter of the world's 2 billion Christians are thought to be members of these lively, highly personal faiths, which emphasize such spiritually renewing "gifts of the Holy Spirit" as speaking in tongues, divine healing and prophesying. Even more than other Christians, pentecostals and other renewalists believe that God, acting through the Holy Spirit, continues to play a direct, active role in everyday life.

Despite the rapid growth of the renewalist movement in the last few decades, there are few quantitative studies on the religious, political and civic views of individuals involved in these groups. To address this shortcoming, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, with generous support from the Templeton Foundation, recently conducted surveys in 10 countries with sizeable renewalist populations: the United States; Brazil, Chile and Guatemala in Latin America; Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa in Africa; and India, the Philippines and South Korea in Asia. In each country, surveys were conducted among a random sample of the public at large, as well as among oversamples of pentecostals and charismatics.

In this report, the term pentecostal is used to describe individuals who belong to classical pentecostal denominations, such as the Assemblies of God or the Church of God in Christ, that were founded shortly after the famous Azusa Street Revival in the early 20th century, as well as those who belong to pentecostal denominations or churches that have formed more recently, such as the Brazil-based Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.

Charismatics, by contrast, are a much more loosely defined group. The term generally refers to Christians who have experienced the "in-filling" of the Holy Spirit but who are not members of pentecostal denominations. Indeed, most charismatics are members of mainstream Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox denominations. In the surveys, respondents were categorized as charismatic if they met one of three criteria: (1) they describe themselves as "charismatic Christians"; or (2) they describe themselves as "pentecostal Christians" but do not belong to pentecostal denominations; or (3) they say they speak in tongues at least several times a year but they do not belong to pentecostal denominations.

"Renewalist" is used as an umbrella term throughout the report to refer to pentecostals and charismatics as a group

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Chocolate Coins Video

Jewish rap?
I suppose so.
Happy Hannukah, ya'll.



H/T Allison Kaplan Sommer at Israelity. I was about to drop her from the blogroll because her other blog was going dark, but she redirected readers at the last moment. Thanks, Love.

d b fletcher expanding round table

Too, too cool.
I want one but have no reason to get one.
Dang.

Vali Nasr -- The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future

Yet another book on my to-do list.

Leila Abu-Saba is reading it and says good things about it.

I am already aware of the author and have a lot of respect for him.

And he has a raft of good reviews at Amazon, including this...

November 20, 2006_

The Shia Revival by Vali Nasr is a well-written and timely analysis of the history and nature of the greatest division within the Muslim world, that of the 1,400 year old split between Sunnis and Shiites, a division existing from practically the beginning of the faith, each sect viewing itself as the "original orthodoxy."

Though stressing that the Shias (like the Sunnis) are hardly monolithic, varying in degrees of piety and because of different cultural and economic backgrounds, Nasr listed a number of key characteristics of Shias worldwide.

Though Shias are a minority of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims (comprising 130 to 195 million people or about 10 to 15% of the total Muslims in the world), they are as nearly numerous as the Sunnis in the Islamic heartland from Lebanon to Pakistan and around the Persian Gulf comprise 80% of the population.

The Shia-Sunni split dates back to the succession crises after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Sunnis came to accept the notion that successor caliphs to the Prophet (perhaps individuals chosen by the community) need not possess exceptional spiritual qualities but merely be exemplary Muslims who could direct the religious and political affairs of the community and still later accepted future rulers so long as they maintained order, protected Islam, and left religious matters to the ulama (religious scholars).

What became the Shiites disagreed with this, feeling that the true leaders of the community should not be "ordinary mortals" but should instead be Muhammad's family - popularly known as the ahl al-Bayt or people of the household - as the blood of the Prophet ran in their veins along with the spiritual qualities invested in him by God.

Similarly, Sunnis and Shiites differed widely on matters of religious interpretation. Sunnis came to believe that all believers are capable of understanding religious truth in a way and to a degree that makes special intermediaries between God and man unneeded, while Shiites came to feel that there were outer and inner, hidden truths in religion, and that without the right leadership the true meaning and intent of Islam will be lost. Shiites believed that there is hidden and esoteric knowledge, inaccessible to the average believer without help.

The Shiites placed a great deal of emphasis on the history of the early rightful successors to the Prophet and on Shia saints and consequently also have a great love for visual imagery depicting these individuals and their struggles (most of which ended in martyrdom). This love of imagery grates on Sunni sensibilities, who often view it as "possible inducements to, if not outright expressions of, idol worship." Related to this is the great Shia festival of mourning, remembrance, and atonement known as Ashoura, a religious festival and drama akin in many ways to Christian festivals such as Good Friday "Way of the Cross" processions. As Nasr put it, while Sunnism "is about the law and the "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" of Islam, Shiism is about rituals, passion, and drama." Sunnism and Shiism differ not so much because of divergent practices but because of the spirit of their interpretation of Islam.

Shias, much like Christians, have a strong millenarian streak as well. They believe that the line of imams (descendents of Ali, son-in-law of Muhammad, first rightful successor to him) continued through the tenth century, when the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi (the Guided One) was taken by God into a miraculous state of occultation in 939. His return will be the "end of time and the advent of perfect divine justice." This messianic framework of belief (along with the martyrdom of the imams and of Shia saints) have been key influences on Shiites and resonate in events today, such as Shiite views of the Iranian revolution, the disappearance in Lebanon in 1978 of the popular leader Imam Musa al-Sadr (some felt he had been miraculously occulted), and in the actions of Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq (who named his militia the Mahdi Army, implying that his cause was that of the Twelfth Imam).

The key reality of the Middle East today is the Sunni-Shia conflict. The most important outcome of the war in Iraq, its "central legacy," has been that Iraq has become the first Arab-majority country to be ruled by a democratically-elected Shia majority, tipping the scales against the long Sunni domination of the Middle East. Though the Shia revival began with the Iranian revolution and Hezbollah gains in Lebanon against Israel, today it is about "protecting and entrenching" Shia gains in Iraq. Shia success there will lead to greater ties among Shias throughout the Middle East, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and increased Shia demands for a greater political role everywhere. This Shia revival rests on three pillars; the newly empowered Shia majority in Iraq, the rise of Iran as a major regional power, and the empowerment of Shia populations in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Bahrain, and Afghanistan.

This revival will result in a huge Sunni backlash - as shown by the actions of such Sunni organizations as the Taliban and al-Qaeda - and if anything will strengthen anti-Americanism in the region, as the revival comes at a time of rising Sunni extremism. Anti-Shia feelings and actions by the extremists will hurt the U.S., as anti-Shia feelings will solidify Sunni public opinion and expand the influence of groups such as al-Qaeda.

Nasr does see hope though as well. Shiites will be much more likely to work with the U.S., as both the U.S. and the Shiites share a common enemy (Sunni extremists) and greater democracy in the region (a stated U.S. goal) will add Shiite empowerment throughout the region. The U.S. has already been of great aid to the Shiites, removing Saddam Hussein and empowering the Shia majority in Iraq (efforts at de-Ba'thification in Iraq have really been de-Sunnification efforts) and taking down the "Sunni wall" around Iran, as for a time Iran was constrained by Sunni-dominated Iraq to the west and a Pakistan-Taliban-Saudi axis to the east.
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I have been haunted by something I read here:

"...Iraq has become the first Arab-majority country to be ruled by a democratically-elected Shia majority, tipping the scales against the long Sunni domination of the Middle East."

It may not have been a very good expression of "democracy" but that's how it was advertised. That was the stated intent of the administration. That is what they are claiming... Besides, Shiites are a majority...

All I can think is Oh. My. God. What have we done???

Matthias Küntzel on Ahmadinejad

Küntzel is a German political science professor. I have linked to his writing in the past, but I see that piece is now gone for some reason. He advances the compelling argument that a good deal of ME anti-semitism has European, specifically German, roots.

John Rosenthal translates. Here is a recent link to some of his other work.

Mark Bowden is the author of Blackhawk Down and Guests of the Ayatollah, a detailed look at the hostage crisis of 1979.

This link is essential background reading for anyone curious about the man whose rise to power in Iran is perhaps the most important international political development of the decade. Whether or not the US was well- or ill-advised in the past in dealing with Iran, the die is cast. Latter-day name calling is a pointless waste of energy, so read and learn before it is too late. Suffice it to say I regard Ahmedinejad as one of the world's most sinister, complicated and potentially dangerous characters. It will take more than military might to defeat this man. If there is no other lesson to be learned from the last two years in Iraq, it must be that a military occupation makes complicated political situations worse, not better.

Today there is an election in Iran. From all accounts there is no reason to think that the controlling hands of Ahmedinejad and the clerics who support him are threatened in any way. There is opposition, to be sure, but I'm not sure the alternatives would be any more desireable. Despite my tagline, I am no confidence that even if Ahmedinejad were tossed out by a landslide anyone in Washington would know how best to respond.

On November 4, 1979, 400 Khomeini followers, armed with sticks and chains, broke down the door of the American embassy in Tehran, stormed the compound, and took hostage all the Americans on the grounds. It was in fact these hostage-takers who in 1979 would pose for the cameras next to a poster with a caricature of then American President Jimmy Carter and the slogan “America cannot do a damn thing.” Khomeini did not release his prisoners until January 1981. Could America really “not do a damn thing”?

This is the key question raised by Mark Bowden’s gripping account of the hostage crisis in his new book Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War With Militant Islam. The “guests” in question obviously were no guests. Not only were the Americans robbed of their liberty, but they were subjected to mock executions and beatings. Hardly any of them believed that they would get out of the compound alive. But in this “first battle,” the battle was never really joined either. Bowden’s account clearly reveals the helplessness of the Carter administration: the more assiduously President Carter sought compromise, the more contemptuously he was mocked by Khomeini.

Today, we are not only facing a second major conflict with Iran, but the West is confronted by the same theological regime, the same ideology of martyrdom – and indeed by some of the same persons. In 1979, a 23-year-old Mahmoud Ahmadinejad figured among the core group that prepared the seizure of the American embassy. According to then Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Ahmadinejad was not only present in the occupied compound, but served as liaison between the hostage-takers and Ali Khamenei, at the time one of the most important Friday preachers in Tehran. Khamenei himself, today Iran’s Supreme Leader, visited the hostage-takers repeatedly in the compound. Ali-Akbar Rafsanjani, today Iran’s third most important political figure, was in 1980 the chairman of the Parliament and in this capacity he shared responsibility for the prolongation of the hostage crisis.

As Bowden rightly puts it, the hostage-taking was “a crime against the entire civilized world.” Nowadays, when the sacking of embassies by Muslim fanatics has become a nearly daily occurrence, this assessment might not seem so obvious. But even at the height of the Cold War, it would have been unthinkable for the Kremlin, for instance, to attack the American embassy in Moscow and take its employees hostage. Such an action would have amounted not only to a declaration of war against the U.S., but indeed against the whole world. The free and secure movement of diplomats is the first form of civilization in the conduct of nations. Any nation that violates this rule, places itself outside the community of nations, since it substitutes war for diplomacy and chaos for international law. Khomeini’s approval of the hostage-taking made clear already in 1979 that Islamism represented for the West an opponent of an entirely different nature than the Soviet Union: an opponent that not only did not accept the system of international relations founded after 1945 but combated it as a “Christian-Jewish conspiracy.”

Vanderleun recalls John Lennon's death

They remain, frozen in time, those eternal moments we all know. Not the same for everyone, but always vitally important. These are the anchor points on which we hang the curtains of life.

Read Gerard Vanderleun's moving remembrance of the days and hours evoked by the death of John Lennon.

"Here's what has to be done and done now. The footage we shot in the park is now the last footage ever taken of John. It is sitting in a film lab in Manhattan. We've got to get control of it, all of it, and secure it until everything is sorted out. There can't be a bootleg copy floating around for the tabloids and the television shows. It's probably the property of Yoko but we'll sort that out later. For now, you've got to get it out and safe."

The call ended and I stood up. Slowly. Dressed even more slowly and watched, as I dressed, the unfolding of the end of Lennon's life as reported, beat by beat, by all the television stations on the dial.

The next 24 hours are a blur. I remember sitting rigidly in the back of a limo learning to hate the potholes of the New York streets with a passion as each one slammed another heated needle deep into my neck. I somehow got the film out of the lab and took it to a midtown bank and placed it in a safe-deposit box. There were lawyers and paperwork to deal with, phonecalls and more instructions.

In the end, I took the keys to the safe-deposit box and the paperwork to the Dakota apartment of John Lennon to turn them over to Yoko's assistants.

hilzoy on Louisiana-style Democracy

Wish-I'd-said-that department...

Sometimes I just despair.

Not for long, usually: the world is too complicated for overall despair to be at all plausible, and after a certain amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth, it occurs to me that it would be better to find something worth doing and do it, and of course buy some new unrent garments and wash the ashes out of my hair.

Still.

Striptease as Art...Condoms, &c.

I'm trying to decide what this has to do with "foreign policy" but it came from FP Magazine's blog...

A Norwegian appeals court has ruled that striptease is an art form and should therefore be exempt from value-added tax (VAT).

The owners of the Diamond Go Go Bar in Oslo had refused to pay VAT of 25% on entry fees as tax authorities demanded.

The local authority had taken the club to court over its refusal to pay tax.
Lawyers for the club's owners argued that striptease dancers were stage artists just like sword-swallowers and comedians and deserved the same status.

"Striptease, in the way it is practised in this case, is a form of dance combined with acting," the judges ruled, according to AFP news agency.

The court's ruling upholds an earlier verdict of May 2005.

"One can suspect there were moral scruples behind the tax authorities' claim since all forms of stage dance are free of value-added tax," Reuters news agency quoted the club owners' lawyer as saying.

The court ordered the state to cover the court costs of the owners of the Diamond Go Go Bar.

...as well as this little (no pun intended) factoid.
Sex sells, I guess.

Pejman Yousefzadeh on the Iraq Study Group

This is why Pejman stays on my blogroll. I have no intention of trying to parse what he writes. My few readers would be bored and whatever I might write would be redundant. But for anyone who wants to know more about what's going on in their face that they cannot otherwise understand, here is a source that is clear, calm and comprehensive.
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...we should be prepared to ratchet up the pressure on the regimes in Iran and Syria by introducing the principles of the Helsinki Final Act as part and parcel of our negotiations to deny the regimes in Iran and Syria credibility and to hasten the day when reform can reach Iran and Syria as it did the Soviet Union... [This link is important. Don't skip it.]
***
Accession to international organizations like the WTO is certainly an attractive carrot since it holds out the promise of economic prosperity for both Iran and Syria. But accession to international organizations will not be enough to jump start the Iranian and Syrian economies. Internal reform of those economies will be needed more than the beneficial effects of joining any international organization before dreams of economic prosperity can be realized. Absent such reforms, membership in the WTO amounts to rather little, or at least, less than what could be realized if vibrant market reforms took place. Does anyone believe that the current leadership structures in fundamentalist Iran or Ba'athist Syria are prepared to implement such reforms?
***
...did you know that we already negotiate with Iran and Syria? C'est vrai, mes amis. C'est vrai...
***
To enter into negotiations, a clear head and a clear articulation of rationales and interests is necessary. Such is not provided by the ISG. Again, I stress my recognition that one must talk to one's enemies to make peace and to engender a just form of stability. But the argument won't make itself. Advocates must make and advance it in the course of forming and presenting an honest rundown of the security interests involved in such negotiations. On this score, the ISG fails.

No, that's not the end. There's a lot more at the link. If you're not hooked by now, move on. Otherwise, keep reading.

Guantanamo Update

Le Monde dscribes an important US-controlled Carribean destination. Sounds like a flourishing business to me.

Avant 2002 et la "guerre mondiale" contre le terrorisme, Guantanamo était une base navale assoupie, louée à Cuba depuis 1903. Elle était peuplée des marins de l'US Navy et de leurs familles, au total quelque 2 300 personnes. En janvier, la prison va avoir 5 ans.

La population est maintenant de 8 000 personnes. "Le plus difficile est de trouver un logement pour tout le monde", dit le commandant de la base navale, le capitaine Mark Leary. Le département de la défense vient de finir un lotissement de 200 lits pour les personnels militaires. La phase II va commencer, avec 600 lits supplémentaires. "Nous sommes freinés par la pénurie de main-d'oeuvre", regrette le capitaine. Les ouvriers de la construction sont environ 2 000. Ils ont été amenés par charter de la Jamaïque et des Philippines. Le soir, on les croise à la bibliothèque, avec leur webcam. Ils communiquent avec leur famille sur les ordinateurs publics, contrôlés par l'armée. Ils sont plus nombreux que les personnels de la "task force" qui est en charge de la prison (1 800 soldats).

Interesting reading in any language. It's too bad more Americans don't read the foreign press. In response to anti-American news reports we look at the TV with blinking eyes and attribute such reports to some domestic political agenda instead of what they really are, the image of America that everyone in the world sees but us. There's an old joke about a guy coming home from a date, wondering why the girl was so unresponsive to his advances. Glancing in the mirror he flashed his biggest smile, and there on one of his front teeth he could not miss a piece of spinach almost as big as the tooth. No wonder his date didn't want to kiss him goodnight.
.

Before 2002 and the "global war" against terrorism, Guantanamo was a drowsy naval base, rented from Cuba since 1903. It was peopled with US Navy sailors and their families, some 2,300 people in total. In January, the prison will be five years old.

Now, the population is 8,000. "The hardest part is finding lodgings for everybody," says the naval base commandant, Captain Mark Leary. The Defense Department has just finished a 200-bed housing development for military personnel. Phase II is about to begin, with 600 additional beds. "We're slowed down by the lack of manpower," the captain regrets. There are about 2,000 construction workers. They've been brought by charter from Jamaica and the Philippines. At night, one sees them in the library, with their webcam. They communicate with their families on the public computers controlled by the Army. They are more numerous than the "task force" personnel in charge of the prison (1,800 soldiers).
***
The United States devotes 95 million dollars a year to Guantanamo's upkeep. After they've replaced the metal bars with PVC fixtures, the military have other projects. They dream of a judicial complex on a level with the event they hope to hold there in 2007: the first American trials for war crimes since the Second World War. Without waiting to know how the Supreme Court will rule on the new exceptional tribunals, the US Navy launched calls for bids at the beginning of November. It plans to construct three courtrooms so they can hold several trials at the same time, lodgings for close to 1,000 military, lawyers, and journalists, a garage for about 100 official vehicles and an 800-seat cafeteria ... to be completed before July 1, 2007. Congress is supposed to examine the project. Human rights organizations are impatient to know whether the Democrats - who have not taken an official position with respect to the closing of Guantanamo - will authorize the $125 million requested.
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Sleep well, America.
Enjoy your holidays.
And thanks to Truthout for the translation.

UAE Community Blog -- Today's post

Today is Decembe 7.
Remember that date? The date which will live in infamy?
What an appropriate date for everybody to be pouring over the just released report of the Iraq Study Group.

Voices from abroad are looking over the shoulder of America, trying to figure out what she might do next. For many it must be very much like being held hostage in a home invasion or armed robbery. If you fail to cooperate with the armed perpetrator, your very life is at risk. Things have certainly changed since that other December 7.

This is a disturbing link.
Go there only if you have the nerve. But make a note of this...

"An Aside: In support of free speech and freedom, none of the US cable companies are willing to carry the English broadcast by Al Jazeera."

The commentary and video make for an interesting study in international relations. Little by little I am beginning to grasp how so many people in that part of the world only see the USA through an Israeli lens. Which country is nearer, geographically? Which country, the US or Israel, is culturally more real? When does the US ever pay any attention to the Middle East?

It's not rational, I know, this Arab anti-Semitism. It is becoming, however, easier to understand. Read the comments. Read the text. I find just as much puzzlement there as vitriol. Ignorance as well. But who can be held responsible for that? Has US activity in the region during the last two years had anything to do with this behavior? If and when the US departs, what will be the reminders of what happened when we were there? Purple fingers or missing limbs?

Ink wears off but missing limbs and scar tissue remain.

Glance at the ISG

I have had neither the time nor inclination to read the report of the Iraq Study Group. Too much, too late by too many politicos with too little expertise. What little I have read just makes me mad. The only situation I have to compare in my personal experience is when a piece of heavy equipment has to be moved for rapair. Invariably there is a filthy mess where it was located. No need to describe the walls, floor and corners that have been unseen, untouched and uncleaned, in some cases for years. All we hope to do is clean the mess up, quick, before the health department pays a visit.

This is excerpted from part of Greg Djerejian's workmanlike effort to make sense of it...

...there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq. The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases. A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn’t hurt U.S. personnel doesn’t count. For example, on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals.

I have had Today in Iraq on my blogroll almost from the start. If you want to get a taste of what this paragraph refers to just take a look about any day. I don't read it often because, like this report, it leaves me angry, sad and feeling helpless. Even now that the dirt under the rug is being found and swept, I am still amazed that so much could go on so long unnoticed. As I write, I feel as close as I ever come to using profanity in disgust.

Time to look for something else to blog about. If I dwell on this too much I will no longer be writing like a gentleman.

Fr. Konrad Fuchs, 109

Working in a retirement community makes me read obits more than I once did. Or maybe it's just getting nearer the time for my own...

Father Konrad Fuchs, who has died aged 109, was reputedly the world's oldest living Roman Catholic priest; he was also the second oldest living German and one of only eight known remaining German veterans of the First World War.
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At his 109th birthday celebrations, for which he said mass in the convent chapel where he spent his last years, Fuchs joked about his fragile start in life. "My mother told my father: 'Let's just give him your name — he's only going to die anyway'," he recalled. The baby was so tiny and frail his mother was convinced he could not survive.
***
Described by his parishioners as a down-to-earth, deeply religious clergyman, Fuchs cited as his great passions the liturgy, especially choral music. He took his motto from the Benedictines to whom he always felt a strong connection: "God is exalted in all things".

Noticed by Andrew Sullivan whose remarks on Mary Cheney's pregnancy resonate with more simple humanity than most comments I have read. Too, too many cheap shots for my taste.

...these statements, once you see them directed at an actual couple with an actual unborn child, are deeply, deeply hurtful. They violate what should be a joyous moment in any family's life. But perhaps they can therefore serve a greater purpose: to reveal quite how hurtful and callous the religious right can be.

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An actual couple with an actual unborn child. I recall many years ago an unplanned teen pregnancy which was looked upon as a terrible misfortune by the grandmother-to-be. As the weeks and months passed this already pretty young woman became the absolute picture of glowing beauty that only an expectant mother can radiate. When she was taken to the hospital to be delivered, the expectation and word from both her and her mother was that the newborn would be released for adoption. Nobody was critical of this decision, but I didn't catch any supportive remarks either.

When word came that "B's decided to keep her baby!" there was a spontaneous outpouring of excitement, relief and approval by everyone who had been working with her, watching her belly grow during the preceding weeks. I never forgot the moment. It was a real baby with a real new mom. And it was less than seventy-two hours later that the new grandmother was just as enthusiastic and proud as everyone else. Only the meanest, most heartless observer can speak of adoption of a newborn unless the baby's future is truly threatened by by the circumstances of its birth.
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Fr. Fuch's birth mother had no way to know he would live to be a centenarian. What sane person with even a shred of humanity dares to speak mean words aimed at an actual couple with an actual unborn child?

I am tempted to raise questions about the morality of in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, sperm or egg donation, the obligations of paternity, the myth of the "single parent family," the importance of both male and female role models in child development... and a string of other themes. But the actual fact of an actual new baby transcends all these questions and clarifies them for exactly what they are: academic discussions adding little or nothing to the prospects of a promising new life in the world.

Who's the Bible's Donald Rumsfeld?

From the Blogging the Bible series...

The Book of 2 Samuel

Chapter 20The long-simmering conflict between Judah and the other tribes explodes into civil war. The problem seems to be that David strongly favors the Judahites, and his patronage system rewards them with all the best jobs. (Think: Saddam's Tikritis.) A resentful Benjaminite named Sheba rallies the rest of Israel against David and his Judah loyalists, splitting the kingdom.

David dispatches his army against Sheba. But before they march off to war, his top commander, Joab, takes care of some personal business. In the last entry, I grudgingly admired the blunt effectiveness of Joab and called him the original Israeli. He's more like the original Donald Rumsfeld—an utterly ruthless bureaucratic infighter. Joab, you'll recall, offed potential rival Abner a few chapters ago. Now Joab fears he's being supplanted by rival general Amasa, so he assassinates him as well. (Just imagine Rumsfeld murdering Robert Gates and then getting his Pentagon job back. Come to think of it, that's not so far-fetched, knowing what we now know about Rummy.) But give this to Joab: He is a darn fine general. He besieges Sheba at the town of Abel. An Abelian woman realizes she and all her townsfolk will be killed if Joab sacks the city. So, she asks Joab what he wants. When Joab tells her he's just seeking Sheba, the woman persuades her self-preservation-minded neighbors to turn on the rebel. The Abelites cut off Sheba's head and chuck it over the wall, ending the siege.

(Remember how Absalom slept with David's 10 concubines? When David reclaims his city, he locks those unfortunate ladies in the palace, keeping them under house arrest till they die. The sexual taboos were rough, back in the day.)

I recall from elementary school history class that when the Vulgate was first released it was not received well by the authorities because it made it possible for everyday people to read what the scripture said for themselves rather than having it filtered and portioned out by the more educated church fathers. Prior to that, the Bible was only in Latin or Greek, not understood by everyday folk. The word "vulgar" and Vulgate come from the same Latin root, meaning "common place." It doesn't necessarily mean "dirty" but dirty is not ruled out altogether.

"Blogging the Bible" seems to be in the historic tradition of making scripture more meaningful to people who might not otherwise read the Bible. In this case the appeal might attract a few Democrats who would certainly benefit from Bible study.

Ryan T. Anderson on The Quiverfull Movement

This First Things piece is a more nuanced, certainly more sympathetic take on the Quiverfull Movement than my earlier post.

...though the media has just recently given them special attention, they’re only one of the many groups of people, and notably young people, rethinking and recapturing the moral and human logic of sexuality.

They take their inspiration, and their name, from the Psalmist: “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them” (Psalm 127:3–5).

And they describe themselves in this way: “We exalt Jesus Christ as Lord, and acknowledge His headship in all areas of our lives, including fertility. We exist to serve those believers who trust the Lord for family size, and to answer the questions of those seeking truth in this critical area of marriage.” “Dedicated to providing encouragement and practical help to those who are striving to raise a large and growing, godly family in today’s world!”

Some Christians will undoubtedly take issue with their understanding of trust in God’s providence (describing their attitude as presumptuous) and wish they would place emphasis on discerning God’s will for family size and come to see Natural Family Planning as a responsible way to avoid conceiving when spouses have good reasons to postpone pregnancy. Be that as it may, the Quiverfull movement does embody a powerful reaction against a contraceptive mentality that views children and childbearing as inconveniences in adult life, to be planned around adult desires, using whatever means necessary.

In the light of opinions such as these over birth control I am glad to be in the population for which such questions are academic. I cannot imagine how my wife and I would have been able to rear a larger family. The one we had was enough, thanks. One thing is certain -- being foster parents would definitely have not been an option.

First Things is, of course, the preeminent Catholic voice for Catholics that could be called "left leaning." That doesn't mean they are about to embrace heresy and this commentary is a case in point. The writer makes no reference to how the Quiverfull Movement puzzles together with home schooling in general and the propogation of the teaching of Creationism. He never put the two together in this piece, but I wish he had. Retrograde thinking is okay by me as long as it doesn't look dangerous. And the mixture of Quiverfull and Creationism via home schooling strikes me as pretty dangerous.

Orca Said "No"

In case you missed it, a story popped up last week about an amusement park whale that deliberately tried to drown a trainer.

A killer whale that dragged a trainer underwater during a show at SeaWorld Adventure Park, breaking his foot, may be allowed to perform again, park officials said Thursday.

For most people this is the kind of story that makes for coffee break small talk, but David Niewert, whose excellent blog I count among the top three or four in my collection, takes the matter more seriously. His observations are worth a few minutes of your time.

By way of background you might first take a look at why he calls his blog -- are you ready for this?-- Orcinus... Without getting all New-Age-y and stuff at some level he identifies Orca, for reasons he puts into (many) words, as his spirit animal.

They do not, however, mess much with humans. In fact, even though they sit atop the oceanic food chain, and are actually some of the most vicious and powerful predators in the world, the only time they have been known to attack humans is when they are being held captive. And even that is rare. There was one recorded accidental attack on a surfer, who evidently was mistaken for a seal and promptly released after a chomp on the leg. They seem, if anything, rather curious about us.

This is one of the incredible things about encountering them in the wild. They are huge creatures, weighing up to 13 tons, but extremely graceful, and powerful and precise swimmers. In a stationary kayak -- it's important not to paddle into them, not to harass them, to rap on the hull of your boat so they know your location, and to simply let them come to you, if they're going to -- they will glide gracefully under and around you. If they do stop, they'll spy-hop up and examine you. Believe me, you know you've been looked over when an orca does it.

Getting back to the story, it seems this event is not as uncommon as the average reader might imagine. Nor is it without explanation.

...I can date my own daughter's love of all things orca back to a visit to SeaWorld in San Diego we made back in the spring of 2003. At all of 20 months old then, she wanted mostly to spend the day at the big glass windows to the orca tanks, and of course I had to buy the stuffed orca doll. Even today her toy and book collections are riddled with killer whales.

And give the seaquariums credit: it was their exposure of orcas to the public through such venues that transformed the public perception of them from that of dangerous killers to cuddly sea mammals.We were reminded this week, however, that the friendlier stereotype can be nearly as destructive, and that you cuddle them at your mortal peril...

The Humane Society of the United States, which opposes keeping orcas in captivity, issued a statement Thursday suggesting SeaWorld may one day have to kill a whale to save a person's life. "Simply put, keeping these powerful and intelligent marine mammals in captivity and allowing people to swim with them is utterly inappropriate," said Naomi A. Rose, marine mammal scientist for the society.

Rose has more than a point, because the double-edged sword of public exposure to captive orcas is that we get to see all too clearly that keeping these large wild animals penned up in limited concrete tanks is not good for the animals. And even worse is forcing them to perform stunts for the sake of entertaining crowds of people.

Certainly, that was our experience. Having seen them in the wild, I was disturbed by the limited nature of the captive orcas' existences: circling, circling, circling constantly in a featureless concrete tank whose sides constantly echo. For a creature whose primary mode of perception -- its echolocation -- is predicated on sound, seaquarium life must represent a kind of sterile hell. Particularly for a creature accustomed to roaming open seas at will. As much as I was pleased with her interest, I was disquieted by what we saw the orcas forced to endure.

Take your time. This is a long post.
If you don't have time to spend now it's best to come back later when you have a few minutes to reflect on what he says.

F. Gregory Gause, III on the US in Iraq

Okay, then.

It takes about twelve minutes, but to keep informed about developments in the Levant this interview is a must-listen. The link is from John Burgess. Totally credible source. If he says it's important, then it's important.

Professor Gause of the University of Vermont speaks his mind in a very candid and clear phone interview that explains some of the intricacies of the mess we have managed to get tangled up with in Iraq.

He's not arguing and neither am I. It is plain that the consequences of a rapid US withdrawal from Iraq has regional implications to which most people, both supporters and opponents of the occupation, do not give enough weight.

Surprise! The price of oil is on the list.

So, too, is thinly-veiled blackmail on the part of the Saudis to put their money where their arms aren't but others are: Sunni militias and the like.

Video - Amish Paradise

I hope my Amish friends will forgive me for linkng this.

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Actually, I have no Amish friends, but if I did, I would have to ask for their forgiveness.

(Something tells me, though, that Amish folk are probably less threatened by stuff like this than a lot of other...how do we put this...? Groups. How's that?)

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My youngest offspring (much more informed than I about such things) immediately recognized this video as a take-off on the popular "Gangster's Paradise" video found elsewhere.

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Looking at the lyrics I am struck by the serious, even sinister nature of the content.

There is an element of tragedy in rap music that undergirds a whole way of looking at the world. I am not cut from the right fabric to appreciate the form, but my instinct is that a deep and painful need for healing is exposed.

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As I walk through the valley of the shadow of deathI take a look at my life and realise there's not much left...I'm the kinda G that little homies want to be like >On my knees in the night, saying prayers in the street light...Death ain’t nothing but a heartbeat away >I'm living life do or die, what can I say >I'm 23 now but will I live to see 24 >The way things is going I don't know >Tell me why are we so blind to see >That the ones we hurt are you and me.

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This is poetry. Tragedy in free verse. When I read the words it makes me want to offer words of hope and reassurance where there seems to be nothing but despair. As one of my black friends said, "They're all up in the Cool Aid and don't have no idea what flavor it is."

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When you think about it, the Amish takeoff is a lot more healthy.

Today, December 3, is the First Sunday in Advent

EWTN has put together a pretty website explaining the Advent Season and traditions. Click on the links as your curiosity leads.

The Convergence Movement is bringing lots of Christians to a deeper appreciation for matters liturgical. Without making too fine a point of it, I simply note that Advent is for me the beginning of the Liturgical Year, even though there really is no beginning or end as it flows endlessly from season to season. As a former Baptist I really like the idea of a season officially dedicated to the anticipation of Christmas.

Only later did I learn that Christmas is more than that one day. It is yet another season leading to Epiphany, which centers on the arrival of the Wise Men.

Epiphany is normally celebrated on January 6, although it can be celebrated on the Sunday between January 2 and 8, as is done in the United States and many other countries. It may also combine the celebration of all three epiphanies ("showing forths") of Christ – His epiphany to the Magi at His birth, His epiphany to St. John at His baptism in the Jordan and His epiphany to the disciples and the opening of His public ministry by the miracle of Cana.

However, its primary significance is the closing of the Christmas season with the celebration of the visit of the Magi to the manger (Matthew 2:1-12). The Messiah is thus shown to have come to all people, not just the Jews. The three kings represent the three major races: Melchior, an old white man with a long white beard,
bearing the gift of gold for Christ’s royalty; Caspar, young and of darker hue, carrying incenses for Christ’s divinity; and Balthasar, a black man, offering myrrh for Christ’s suffering and death. The names of the wise men are not given in the Bible, but were supplied by later story tellers to enrich the meaning and celebration of the Epiphany.

As we look at the traditional crèche displays including the Famous Three, let's not be too judgemental about belief systems. Everyone I know grew up believing that there were three Magi, even though Scripture has no indication of how many there were. Moreover, they didn't get there for the actual birth of Christ, but probably came along a year or more later. That's why Herod ordered the killing of not just infants but all children under the age of two. By the time he got word of the birth of what was seen as a threat to his monarchy it was a couple of years later.

It's easy to believe what we have been taught from childhood. Tough to let go of those stories and come to terms with newly-learned facts. But it can be done. And presented in the right way it doesn't hurt all that much.

Glenn Greenwald on Thomas Friedman

Like it or not, up-to-date readers following this war must come to terms with Glenn Greenwald's takedown of Friedman. It is a metaphor for everything that has gone wrong and continues to go wrong. As you read, forget that he is writing about Friedman because Friedman is only an image. His contradictions and shortcomings are more than character flaws, they represent a mindset, an attitude typical of many (if not most?) who have anything to do with either waging or supporting this war.

The link is widely distributed, but I got it from Blake Hounshell's blog, American Footprints, where Eric Martin's excellent remarks are also worth reading. I love the post title: We're All Liberals Now, but it's really nothing more than a cute play on words. Waking up to the insanity of what America is perpetrating in Iraq hardly qualifies anyone to be called "Liberal" in my book.

Those of us who have watched this horror show for the last two years -- long after passing those other "preemptive first strike" and "regime change" stages -- are mentally at the point of wanting to slap a yapping, disrespectful, out-of-hand child full in the face simply to get his attention. We are constrained from doing so because though it might feel good, it is only child abuse. Damn, I really feel ready to slap someone from time. But I digress. Go read the links...

To support a war that you know is going to be executed in a destructive manner is as morally monstrous as it gets. The fact that there is some idealized, Platonic way to fight the war doesn't make that any better if you know that that isn't what is going to happen. We learn in adolescence that wanting things that we can't have -- pining for things that aren't real or possible -- is futile and irrational. To apply that adolescent fantasy world to war advocacy is the hallmark of a deeply frivolous and amoral person.

***

Establishment Washington is concerned right now with only one thing - saving their own credibility and reputation. The reason why The Washington Post's David Ignatius said recently that Chuck Hagel was "right about Iraq and other key issues earlier than almost any national politician, Republican or Democratic" -- even though Hagel favored the invasion and many "national politicians" opposed it from the beginning -- is because the Washington Establishment still thinks that those who opposed the war from the beginning don't count, that they're still the unserious, know-nothing losers who should be ignored.

***

Establishment Washington really is not interested in how to end this horrendous and despicable debacle we unleashed in Iraq. They are not interested in how to maximize U.S. interests. They are only interested in how to find a way to bring this disaster to some sort of slow resolution that looks as though it is a respectable and decent outcome -- anything that makes it seem like it wasn't a horrendous mistake in the first place...

...what is being done now is exactly what Tom Friedman did before the war -- we continue to endorse a policy (staying in Iraq) even though we consciously know that no good can come from it and that it will produce nothing but bad results, and we justify that based on the fantasy that we could, in theory, improve things. Tom Friedman is a morally bankrupt narcissist whose only devotion is to the self-love of his own genius. He emphatically advocated the war beforehand but included every caveat possible so that, no matter what happened, he could claim to have been right, which is exactly what he has been doing.

But tragically, there is nothing unique about Tom Friedman. What drives him is the same mentality that enabled the administration's invasion of Iraq and, so much worse, it is the mentality that is keeping us there and will keep us there for the indefinite future. We stay in Iraq in pursuit of goals we know are fantasies, because to do otherwise requires the geniuses and serious establishment analysts to accept responsibility for what they have done -- and that is, by far, the most feared and despised outcome.

The invasion of Iraq was a huge mistake. But the behavior of our political and media leaders after that, and now, reveal that they are not just bereft of judgment but entirely bereft of character.

In Your Eyes Only Sadness

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Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Scenes from a far-away place that some people say is still not having a civil war.
This link is from Salam Adil. His blog is a blizzard of Iraqi blogging in English. Reports such as this are pouring out of the country day in and day out. It looks like a long post, but it is but the tip of the iceberg. My guess is that the Iraq Study Group would have little of interest to say
to this blogger. Ah, well. I see where the president is also not interested, though for different reasons.

The curfew is over. People are sneaking out of their homes after nights of terror. Streets battles are breaking out in smaller and smaller areas . Every singles area in Baghdad had been engaged in some sort or another of combat the last couple of days; armed men attacking , mortar missiles falling on houses and car bombs . The new buzz is that; people are seeing in different areas of Baghdad, trucks appearing out of nowhere, unloading armed men, who spread in groups and vanish , they even have a name now ( Afghan), whether these armed men are actually Afghanis “which I doubt” or it is just to state that they look strange… , news conflict on that one. May be it is just to make it more spooky, you know it is more terrifying, when you don’t know exactly know who is going to kill you!.

Before the curfew was announced and even before Al Sader city massacre, there was something in their air. All schools in Baghdad had received a direct or indirect threatening ordering them to close down, and kids were sent home.

It is a hopeless situation, the stage now is not to philosophise or anything, the stage we reached is; “just try and find ways to save your own life”. No causes needed here, we have already milked that joke enough; the issue now is consequences and nothing more than consequences.
I too crept this morning to the office quietly. I sat at my desk for about an hour. The Boss was late cause his area was under siege all night long. I waited for a while for the others, who came in one by one.

As I was sitting, Abu S... was in his kitchen chatting to another employee. I was not paying much attention at the beginning, until what they were saying became a bit interesting. Abu S… was saying to the other fellow:
- Do you have a low or a high wall at the back of you house? I mean can you easily jump to your neighbour’s house if necessary ?
- I suppose so.
- Good, that will be the women's escape . As soon as they attack you, get the women to cross over , then you and your brothers and father go upstairs as fast as you can, and shoot down on them from your roof, and remember son ; never ever open the door for them even if they shoot or even if they bombard your garden, don't give them an access .

At that point I sprang out of my chair and went to the kitchen. Abu S... and M … were having their breakfast and drinking tea. Abu S… was standing holding his cup and eating a cheese sandwich, and M… was sitting listening attentively and eating .

Here, I intervened saying :
- Abu S…, my oh my, I've known you long enough, yet this is the first time I see the “General Casey” side of you, what the hell are you teaching the boy !.
- ‘Hello Dear‘, he said slicing some cheese and wrapping it with a piece of bread, handing it over to me .
– ‘ M ...’s area is being attacked daily’, Abu S.. explained, ‘And yesterday his next door neighbour was attacked. The bastards stormed in and the poor man was beaten up in front of his children and wife. Everything was stolen and as if that was not enough they took him away somewhere. I tell you they are taking the whole area in turn. A man has to do what a man has to do, one must fight for his house at least..
- ‘Who are these people? do you have any idea’ I asked M...
- Who cares any more, you see our area has been practically invaded, people driven out, the houses left empty and any one can just break in. My area has been taken over by people who claim to have been driven out from their own houses. And they are forming now the majority and are carrying out raids on the old tenants. It is happening now everywhere.
- ‘And what are you going to do?, I mean besides the D-day plan Abu S... has formulated for you?’, I said smiling at Abu S…
- What is their to do!, I'll move maybe. The whole country is on the run.

I guess it is a matter of time before it will reach every single one of us.

- Why don't you bring your family to my place. Bring them all and I will “ put you all in my eyes-an Iraqi expression, meaning I'll take good care of you and protect you.
- Really I mean it. said Abu S.. sincerely.
- Thank you uncle. but your area is not safer is it ?
- No, but even judgement day with company is a festival, as they say
- the Arabic equivalent of the more the merrier-.- ‘Let's all go to the green zone!’ I jumped between them.
- Oh, yeah, as if they would take the likes of us in. said Abu S… clearing the table.
- You know if they just kick out the government from the green zone, it would all be solved. They will run faster than light speed to England or Iran or wherever and the country will be government-less, which is not so bad don’t you agree? I said picturing a stampede of black turbans, white turbans and suits trying to get on a pick-up truck as fast as they can, before anyone gets to them first, on a background of black smoke, rampaging fires, toppling date palms, and American troops folding the stairs of their giant giant super giant plain just seconds before the pick-up truck reaches there… and me watching from my roof top laughing hysterically and ….. enough of that .
- ‘You bet ‘ they both agreed dreamingly.

After a while I heard Abu S... pals shouting from the street bellow, calling him to come down. I ran to the window next to Abu S… cause I always enjoy these dialogues. I just love it when these old men start .

Abu S… opened the window and looked down at Abu M….
-a shop keeper and a friend of his-, trying to look as serious as possible .

- Why are you shouting, huh ? where do you think you are? at some sort of a market place? , please try to be more civilized.
- Abu S...Habibi = dear, come down and have breakfast with us .
- I said don't yell! people are trying to work here.
- Come on, it will get cold .
- What are you having ?
- Kahi and Kaimar (a rich traditional Iraqi breakfast, consisting of fried puff pastry, rich cream and honey or syrup, most delicious when warm and fresh) I brought it just now .
- ‘No’ , abu S… said capriciously ‘I just had my breakfast.’At this point the rest of his battalion came out; another shop keeper, a carpenter, a photographer and I think a merchant who has an office a block or two away. And they all started to shout to get Abu S… down, a woman smiled as she passed by.
- What did you have? shouted Abu M…
- A cheese sandwich. Replied Abu S… .
- Ah, for the prophet Mohammed’s sake, what are you ?, a sixteen year old school girl or something?. Come down at once and get a man’s breakfast inside you!.Abu S.. considered the issue for a moment and then said Ok

He went down to his friends, I watched them joke and shove Abu S.. inside a shop below us .

Meanwhile I could hear sporadic bullets sounds and explosions coming from far away .
Abu S.. lost his son not long ago , Abu M… had a brother brutalized and killed, one of the other men’s son was wounded and left invalid for life at the tender age of fourteen , another one of the group lost his old father after a shock related to the kidnap of his niece. All that in less than three years, Yet breakfast must go on, as they say.

War on Drugs update

The War on Drugs is being lost.

It's as simple as that.

M. Simon says so.
So does Neal Boortz.

These guys are not punks or old libruls like me. They're clean and respectable.
(I think.)

I agree with them on this issue.
Just thought I'd mention that.

What's that...?
Snowballs? Where...? Hell, you say?

The FBI's "Roving Bug"

Surveillance is getting smaller and more sneaky all the time. If I understand this article correctly, a cell phone can be converted into a listening device without the owner's knowledge, even without anyone touching the instrument at all. According to the article, "the FBI [is] able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors' OnStar to snoop on passengers' conversations." This is not news. The technology has been around for three or four years.

The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone."

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone--all without the owner knowing it happened. (The FBI declined to comment on Friday.)

"If a phone has in fact been modified to act as a bug, the only way to counteract that is to either have a bugsweeper follow you around 24-7, which is not practical, or to peel the battery off the phone," Atkinson said. Security-conscious corporate executives routinely remove the batteries from their cell phones, he added.

H/T John Robb

Blegging from Cairo -- the price of getting too many hits

Elijah Zarwan needs money. Soon.
I don't have any to spare, but I do have my little blog (free, thanks to Blogger and low stats).
Perhaps one of my readers knows someone who knows someone...

It seems he linked to a pdf document that is getting so much traffic that the extra bandwidth charges are more than his rent.
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When I started this blog, I never really thought anyone would read it. I was surprised and dismayed to find people did. Now I’m really dismayed.

About two months ago, I posted a link to a .pdf compiling satellite imagery of Bahraini royal palaces from Google Earth sent to me by a Gulf-based correspondent who said this was why Bahrain had briefly blocked Google Earth. By way of a circuitous trail of links, and thanks in part to an unusual interest in Bahrain because of that country’s parliamentary elections, that link wound up on Boing Boing.

a7a.

The Boing Boing link resulted in a few newspaper articles. Now so many people are downloading that heavy .pdf that I owe my hosting company $618 in charges for extra bandwidth. That’s three months’ rent on my apartment here in Cairo.

So I say again: “a7a.”

It was a cool little .pdf. But it’s now the cool little .pdf that’s burning me out of house and home, one gig at a time. I didn’t even make the damned thing (contrary to the allegations of one senior editor at Foreign Policy, who now thinks I’m some sort of quaint Marxist). So please: Everyone who already downloaded it (Bahraini royal family?), post it. I can’t afford to host it anymore.

Zarwan's blog, The Skeptic, is one of my favorites. Erudite, timely and to the point. It's no wonder someone noticed what he posted. This most recent post is a case in point. He knows a good scoop when he sees it.

Blind Blogging

"Scheduled outage at 3PM PST."

Interesting. That's what appears beside the little yellow triangle with an exclamation point inside.

According to the screen I can "Save as Draft" or "Publish" but without colors, block quotes, bold face, italics, spell-check, or hyperlinks. Doesn't make for very interesting content.

Is this what they call "writer's block"?

Yep.
wysiwyg.
What you see is what you get.

I am reminded of Jack Nicholson's line from "As Good As It Gets."

"You make me want to be a better person."

Blogging the Bible

Chapter 18

This chapter has one of the Bible's most thrilling me-against-the-world, cinematic climaxes. When the chapter starts, the drought is still raging. There are also much worse, man-made crimes occurring in Israel, as a parenthetical note informs us. The note tells us that Ahab's chief of staff, Obadiah, is a holy man: "When [Ahab's wife] Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took 100 prophets, hid them 50 to a cave, and provided them with bread and water." The queen was committing mass propheticide! Jezebel, we've already learned, worships Baal. The parenthetical makes it clear what kind of royal couple we're dealing with—a Lady Macbeth with a somewhat wicked, but mostly weak, husband.

Elijah visits King Ahab. As soon as Elijah walks in the room, the king and prophet start slinging insults like they're playing the dozens. Ahab greets the prophet, "Is it you, you troubler of Israel?" To which Elijah responds, "I have not troubled Israel, but you have." Elijah explains the reason for his visit. He wants a showdown with Jezebel's priests, her 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah. So, Jezebel's prophets and the people of Israel gather at Mount Carmel. Elijah issues his challenge—my God vs. yours, for all the marbles. "How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." Elijah proposes an incineration contest. He'll get one bull and the 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah will get another. Both will call on their gods, and whichever incinerates the animal is the true Lord.

The rival priests go first. They shout to Baal all morning long, to no effect. Elijah interrupts their fruitless prayers with perhaps the first insult-comic routine in history, a hilarious, sardonic attack on Baal and his silence. "At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, 'Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.' " Reading this, you can imagine exactly what kind of man Elijah was—brilliant, blunt, and sarcastic. (Have you ever heard Barney Frank interviewed? That's what Elijah sounds like.)

(Update, Nov. 29: Several readers have e-mailed me this glorious, pungent detail. When Elijah scoffs that perhaps Baal "is on a journey," that may actually be an ancient euphemism for "he's in the bathroom.")

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Go the the link for the exciting conclusion, from a series in Slate, Blogging the Bible.

Thanks, Abbas, for the pointer.

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Those of us who have already known about the drama, poetry, history and, yes, spiritual inspiration of the Good Book are not too exercised. But it's good to know there are still readers out there ready to take a look.

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This passage particularly caught my eye thanks to having once been in a choral production of Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah. Even in English translation the drama and excitement of the story come alive with the performance. Gifted poets, writers and composers have a sense of what it takes to make an audience "be there" in the telling. The chorus "Baal, we cry to thee..." is one of the most exciting parts of the production, almost sacreligious in its exuberance. (Herod's song in Jesus Christ, Superstar can also be great fun to hear and sing. Listening to the words as you perform makes you know the real meaning of "guilty pleasure.")
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Let's pray that Blogging the Bible will keep the words of scripture exciting for the Internet Generation. I am particularly interested in this project because my maternal grandfather's only book was dedicated to telling Bible stories in a manner meant to attract readers from the street. I posted a snip of his writing a couple of years ago. Also, I had the privilege of meeting Clarence Jordan many years ago on an overnight visit to Koinonia Farm. His Cotton Patch Gospels is another example of popularizing the Bible.