Low Ether

Bloomberg, and Bush the Post-Modernist

2007-06-25T20:50:00.000-07:00

I really don't see how anyone can look at the overwhelming blizzard of abuses, crimes, and foolhardy errors that have constituted the Bush years and then decide that what they're really sick of is partisanship:

... The forty per cent of the American electorate who regard themselves as Independents would also benefit. Their number has been growing in recent years, and they are increasingly joined in political sympathy by Republicans and Democrats who find their parties captive to a base, fringe, or interest group with which they have little in common. We are living through one of those recurring moments—1912, 1980, and 1992 were others—when disgust with the two big parties stirs a longing for an outsider of upright character, untainted by dirty money or political dealmaking.

Maybe I'm wrong in thinking that voters are sick of what I'm sick of, which is the actions of the current executive, and the actions of Republicans in the House and Senate (and now apparently the Supreme Court). If pressed, I could draw up a specific, and fairly inclusive, list of grievances against BushCo and against the GOP and other enablers. But maybe that's just because I'm on the high side of the news-awareness bell curve.

I can see how, in someone who doesn't spend a fairly significant portion of their waking life reading and digesting news information (this is a class issue as well, by the way; a good portion of the population doesn't have the leisure time or spare energy), my fairly specific dissatisfaction could manifest in a general 'screw the government' sort of feeling.

That it's so difficult for a casual news observer to distinguish between radicals and anti-radicals is also a damning comment on our broken media discourse. After all, most politicians sound the same as one another, they all yell and point when they get angry, and mostly they only are seen on television disagreeing with one another.

More often than not, our politicians are quoted side by side making mutually contradictory claims, and too often the media fails to point out factual falsehoods (because to point out a negative about a candidate or official without pointing out a symmetrical negative for the other side would be 'biased' and 'partisan,' perhaps).

I recall a commentator on CNN who, after the Bush/Kerry debates said that it would take a team of Kennedy School of Government fact checkers a week to verify or refute all the truth claims made in the debate. And in terms of substantive discussion, that was apparently it for CNN. All that CNN was prepared to do was identify truly glaring factual inaccuracies. The rest was about who was more effective in their message delivery, the little tics, the gaffes. Coverage shifted over to 'Spin Alley,' a name suggesting fluctuation between two poles, existing simultaneously without cancelling each other out, matter and anti-matter.

It's understandable for people to get sick of it. The lack of attention to substantive policy difference makes mainstream political discourse a cross between a beauty contest and a shouting match. The media itself isn't the least bit interested in changing the dynamic; it makes for good television (Crossfire! Liberal, conservative--debate!). It took Jon Stewart making his own good television to get the show off the air.

There's ambivalence to objective truth; theirs a post-modern feeling that the truth is unknowable and that things can be two mutually exclusive ways at once. Maybe it's best just to call it doublethink. And Bush and his supporters have been disconcertingly open about their post-modern thinking:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

That's a post-modern stance (in the sense where post-modern can mean "counter-enlighment". There are so many senses of post-modern that it's best to specifcy). When Bush and Cheney say, as they often do, that only History will be able to judge their Administration, they are really concurring with the above. The un-named aide quoted is just, you know, articulater.

Post-modernism made some sense when applied to literary conceits like Justice, Virtue, Love, and all the rest, but it is a terrible paradigm under which to build a functioning government, composed of bureaucrats and cops. It's nonsense to say that truth is unknowable in the context of governance. The government must operate under the premise that truth is knowable, or government policy is governed by nothing but competition to see which narrative is the most compelling.

There are a few issues where one side or the other is objectively correct, and they can prove it. There are a great many other issues where an objective observer would say that the preponderance of the evidence tilts one way or the other.

I don't know that anyone (except maybe that Bush aide) would disagree with that assertion, and yet our media often seems to operate on the premise that all viewpoints are created equal. That stance, more than anything, creates the conditions that I think will consistently allow a sufficiently visible third-party candidate who can "bridge the divide" to claim ten to twenty percent of the vote.

The main way to be 'visible' without joining a party is to have tons of your own dough to pour into television ads. That's what Ross Perot did in '92, and that's what Bloomberg will do if he ultimately decides to make a run. Hell, he may get more than 20%. Perot got 18, and he sure wasn't a popular and effective city administrator with a record of effective compromise.

The question, if Bloomberg runs, is who he will pull more votes from, the Republican or the Dem. To me, it looks likely to be a negative for the Democrats. So what Bloomberg needs to consider, if he's conscientious, is whether he wants to help someone likely Giuliani or Thompson ascend the throne of George the Second. I hope he doesn't run. If it looked like he would help the Democrats, I would be pulling for him all the way. I say this because I am not a political post-modernist--I think the Democrats have superior ideas and positions, and as a result, I want them to win.

How 9/11 Changed Everything for Giuliani

2007-06-19T20:13:00.001-07:00

By way of giving some actual content to this introductory post, I thought I'd note the recent revelation--at least, recent to most people, that Rudy Giuliani was slated to be a member of the Iraq Study Group, but quit to pursue his lucrative speaking career

This is notable on a number of levels. For one thing, this behavior on Giuliani's part--like so much about Giuliani--has been always been a matter of public record, and has been roundly ignored by the media.

The media would rather cover really substantive topics like Edward's hair and Obama's parking tickets. You would think this would be a bit of a big deal, but it isn't, because the media would rather stick to the benevolent demi-god narrative that they've been spinning out about Giuliani, despite all the facts against him, ever since he entered this race, and really ever since 9/11.

It's too much to hope that this will get wide-spread media attention now, but I imagine it'll come back to bite him should he make it into a general election.

It was a bad move politically for Giuliani to play hookie on the ISG in favor of raking in piles of dough for 'inspirational' speeches, but the real shame, as Steve Benen points out, is that Giuliani missed a golden opportunity to "learn what the hell he's talking about"

Just last week, asked about the future of the policy in Iraq, Giuliani said, “Iraq may get better; Iraq may get worse. We may be successful in Iraq; we may not be. I don’t know the answer to that. That’s in the hands of other people.” It came after we learned Giuliani is confused about the attack on USS Cole, he’s confused about the Fort Dix plot, he doesn’t know the difference between Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear programs, and he has no idea whether Iran and al Qaeda are Sunni or Shia. Asked recently for his thoughts on the efficacy of the president’s escalation strategy in Iraq, Giuliani said, “I don’t know the answer to that.”

Giuliani had a chance to become something of an expert on Iraq. In a presidential campaign, he could have had real experience to point to. Instead he gave vapid speeches for big bucks.

This is sort of a side issue, but Giuliani's friend Bernie Kerik, lately convicted of ethics violations and ordered to pay $200k, reportedly said that he "couldn't afford to be here" (in Iraq as police commissioner) because he was raking in money speaking about 9/11 for Giuliani's slush fund, pardon me, 'consulting firm.' Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book reports that Kerik did nothing as police commissioner other than give rosy, false reports about the state of the police force and wait to return to the states to continue cashing in on 9/11.

So when people like Giuliani and Kerik say that '9/11 changed everything' we know that they mean it, but we also know that the change they're referring to isn't a 'time to buckle down and really serve the country' sort of change; it's more like 'cash in quick before the magic wears off.' Actually, that could be the motto of Giuliani's presidential campaign.

Libby is a criminal, even without the gun and the mask

2007-06-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

To those who are currently mourning I. Lewis Libby and the 'harshness' of his penalty, let's try and put this in some perspective:

If a criminal robs a gas station at gun-point, he is liable to be put in jail for several years; in some cases, decades. What are the consequences of a gas station robbery? Loss of money from the register, possible damage to property, and emotional distress or physical harm to the individual that was threatened.

Now, whoever it was that was really responsible for the leak of Valerie Plame's identity (which, without a doubt, was secret) was responsible for a number of negative consequences:

- Valerie Plame's career was negatively impacted: she had presumably wanted to do fieldwork, and now it is impossible for her to do any further.
- Other agents who were known to work with the covert Plame have also had their identities compromised. Any fake companies or organizations associated with Plame's false identity were taken out of commission.
- If it's the case, as I've heard, that Plame was working in anti-nuclear proliferation, whoever leaked her identity increased, however minutely, the chance that tens of thousands of people will at some future point be killed in a massive fireball.

Ah wait, you say, but it wasn't Libby that's leaked the identity, it was someone else. Why should Libby be punished for another's offense? Well, back to the gas station robber. Someone who lied to protect the robber might be less guilty than the robber himself, but he is undoubtedly guilty, and I should like to see those that are weeping over Libby's fate call for amnesty.

One of the principle arguments that I've heard is that Libby's being made an example of, and that he is actually "smart as a whip" and has rendered "years of exemplary public service."

Number one, I'll point out that many of the people who whine that Libby is being made an example of are the same people that support the death penalty and who hold one of their principle justifications to be 'deterrence.'

What galls me more than that hypocrisy is the sense I get that what people are really saying when they assert as a defense that Libby is smart as a whip and public servant is that who prison is for, really, is poor people and drugged up celebrities. But prison isn't simply a holding tank for the unwashed proletariat. The whole idea is that anyone who commits a serious enough crime goes there.

The reason things are considered crimes is because they hurt people. There are crimes that are committed with violence, like robberies and assaults, and then there are crimes that are committed without violence, like the Enron scandal and Lewis Libby's willful lies to try and keep himself and his friends out of the clutches of blind old Justice, who is so crass as to not even discriminate between 'criminals' and 'politicians.'

One-liner

2007-06-03T23:35:00.001-07:00

Q: What does the Buddhist say to the hotdog vendor?

A: Make me one with everything.

Just one more Friedman!

2007-05-24T11:20:00.001-07:00

Glenn Greenwald debunks the claim that September is going to be a turning point in Iraq. It's just one more Friedman unit..

Yes! We Have No Bananas!

2007-05-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

You know what makes this fifty times as funny? The banana which we eat today reproduces asexually, which means that it can't evolve except through genetic mutation, which means that it's susceptible to being wiped out. This actually happened back in the first half of the twentieth century: the type of banana that was eaten then was entirely wiped out by a disease. The problem even inspired a popular song 'Yes, we have no bananas!'

After the banana was wiped out, scientists and banana growers like Dole started freaking out: the banana is the most popular fruit in the world, and tremendously profitable for growers. Scientists frantically began searching for the new banana, breeding and cross-breeding to find one that would be similar enough to pass muster with the populace.

They finally hit on the current variety, the one that we now eat. But according to most sources, the bananas we eat now aren't nearly as tasty as the ones wiped out by the plague all those years ago.

And now scientists and agronomists are again worried that our banana could be in danger. New bacteria threaten banana crops; whole fields are abandoned and destroyed to thwart the bacteria. But chances are that sooner or later, the banana that we now eat will be extinct (the species will not be extinct; types of bananas are like breeds of dogs).

So scientists are once again frantically breeding and crossbreeding to produce a banana that tastes and looks similar to the ones we eat now. There are more than 200 varieties to mix and match, but so far as I know they haven't had much luck yet. And today scientists are using the full modern tools of genetic analysis and modification. So Kirk Cameron and his friend are right. The bananas that we eat have an intelligent designer: us.

Heh heh. You'd think that if this guy was really serious about using the common banana to make an argument for creationism, he would have done this research!

(By the way, this is all based on an article in Discover magazine that I read, and on obsessive further reading on the subject)

Let's forget about Edward hair

2007-04-18T20:40:00.001-07:00

It really bothers me that our media has decided that Edwards can be dismissed as too 'feminine'--i.e., gay.

Ann Coulter impoliticly said flat out what the gist of the Republican message is when it comes to Edwards, "Fag." Of course there was a lot of sound and fury at the time, but I think that the focus of Edwards coverage of late shows that conservatives and their myriad allies didn't really disapprove of those comments; at least they didn't care about them enough to stop propagating the 'Edwards is a flamer' line.

Bush decisively demonstrates that masculinity isn't a useful criteria for Presidential effectiveness. Nothing beats flying a fighter jet onto an aircraft carrier when it comes to establishing he-man-warrior credentials. It's that same sort of fantasy of strength and virility, coupled with a desire to avoid 'humiliation' or signs of 'weakness' that's led to the erosion of civil liberties, mass death in Iraq, etcetera.

New 'strong leader' types are what are being advanced by the GOP in the primaries now. They've advanced yet another actor, Fred Thompson this time. Thompson joined the cast of Law and Order while he was still in the Senate. He's is extraordinarily good at portraying authority. In fact he's made his career playing authoritarians on television and in movies. And above all what conservatives want is someone who can play that role convincingly. They want their leaders to project aggressive power because the power reflects back on them. It makes them feel powerful.

Giuliani is another competitor in the casting call for Daddy-in-Chief. He stood up to the terrorists, and of course we've all heard that story. It's tremendously appealing. But people seem to forget how unpopular Giuliani was just before the 9/11 attacks. His family problems are clearly at odds with the moral authority being assigned to him and there is actual video of Giuliani performing in the drag and being kissed on the fake breast by Donald Trump. Now, I don't think that's problematic (although it's hardly dignified), but if conservatives were being honest with themselves, they would give it at least the same amount of coverage that Edwards' supposed visit to the 'Pink Sapphire' is currently garnering.

Giuliani is in favor of gay rights (he lived with a gay couple for some time) and abortion rights, and yet he's still the front-runner in all the polls. The reason that this is all excused in Giuliani where it wouldn't be excused in someone else is that conservatives think maybe Giuliani has the strongest narrative; maybe he can play that authority figure better than the others. As long as Giuliani can win, and as long as he pledges some allegiance to the tribe, then that's all fine. But there's good reason to think that Giuliani is willing to say and do whatever is convenient to gain power. And that once he gains it he relishes its use.

Of course I'm not saying that Democrats don't pander or pursue emotional, irrational politics (witness the Terry Schiavo debacle), but at this point I think it's clear that government power needs to be taken away from the people who have been playing at government like some kind of swords and sorcery RPG.

When it's real swords (and guns and bombs), it is also real blood and real suffering. That's something that the GOP never really understood and even now they'd like to continue their fantasy of actions without consequences (the most recent consequence the 170 men, women and children who just today were blown away). They can continue to promise 'victory' while casting themselves in the part of the misunderstood visionaries (just like Winston Churchill, another popular conservative storyline).

So I don't care about Edward's hair, or Obama's parking tickets, or Hillary's 'frigidness' or any of these other irrelevancies. In the last two elections the mainstream media has done us a disservice by focusing on Republican lines of attack. With Gore it was the invention of the Internet and a kiss with Tipper that was a little too long. With Kerry it was 'he speaks French' and windsurfing. But none of that stuff matters and people are catching on that they've been duped. And their angry, they are really annoyed. Even here in the middle of Kansas, where I live, the overwhelming feeling is anger at Bush and his band of his incompetents.

Vote for the Popular Vote

2007-04-12T20:07:00.001-07:00

Here is a letter I sent to the editor of the Wichita Eagle:

To the Editor:

During the 2004 Presidential campaign, John Kerry's campaign train was scheduled to come through Kansas. Kansas Democrats lined up at the train depot, waving signs and wearing T-shirts. But the train rolled right through the station. John Edwards later came back and gave a speech by way of apology, but it wasall too obvious to Kansans that the Kerry campaign didn't care to waste its time. Bush also ignored our state in 2004, except to do a little fund-raising. Democratic candidates consider our state lost, and Republicans consider it safe. As a result, Kansans are left out of Presidential campaigns and know that their votes have little power to effect the outcome of the election. Kansas legislators can restore our place in the electoral process by supporting the National Popular Vote bill, introduced by Sen. David Haley. The bill would guarantee the election of the Presidential candidate who received the most popular votes and would require candidates to pay attention to Kansas issues and earn our support.

-Sam Jack, Goddard

We'll see if they print it, but I definitely support the effort.

Broder's latest

2007-04-10T19:37:00.001-07:00

David Broder:

But that logic does not overcome the fundamental fact of political and

governmental life -- that George Bush is committed to seeking victory

in Iraq and that the Constitution makes him commander in chief until

noon on Jan. 20, 2009. As long as he retains that office, and as long

as he is seeking that goal, no one can veto his orders to the armed

forces or dispute his authority to direct the generals in Iraq to carry

out his plans.

Uh, I'm disputing it. Congress can and should force Bush to agree to a time-table. See, the bottom line is that Bush and the Congress must come to some kind of understanding or the war will not go forward; it won't be funded.

Since it's Bush that wants the war to go forward, and a majority of Congress and the American people they represent who want to see it brought to a conclusion, the Congress would seem to be in a position of advantage in terms of the driving of hard bargains.

Lots of others have said it, but Broder's constant 'non-partisan' pose is really greating. He's really just Mr. Commonsense, Mr. Wisdom, isn't he? Give me a break. He's not above the fray anymore than anyone else who has an opinion.

Cadavers

2007-04-09T19:26:00.001-07:00

Oh, they're sleeping in their brittle bones,
those windowless basement rooms

Their skin is puddled between their legs
and around the skull

Their the heart is exposed
under paper-plate ribs

you can pass it around
and hold it in your hands

about fist sized--the liver
is three times the heart, at least

"They didn't seem real"
said everyone.

The towel over the face
we lifted tentatively

the lips had swollen--
were pressed shut

Mansfield's Manliness

2007-03-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

Should I consider taking classes from this Harvey Mansfield fellow? I haven't read his book 'Manliness', but the premise--that there is something rather excellent about this ill-defined masculine virtue that may be inaccessible to women other than Margaret Thatcher--laughable.

Reading in the NY Times that Mansfield's book references "the great explosion of manliness that took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries" didn't help either.

I find his policy of issuing 'fake' and 'real' grades, with the 'fake' going on the transcript and the real ones considerably lower a rather smug little pose. And he objects to student evaluation of his holy personage on the grounds that it would "introduce the rule of the less wise over the more wise."

I wonder how popular his classes really are, and who takes them. Perhaps he's a little more tolerable when he's talking about Aristotle or something, and not his idiosyncratic, self-important little ideological agenda?

The Great Farini

2007-03-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia:

"The Great Farini was born William Hunt. He invented the cinema flip-up seat and was the first white man to cross the Kalahari Desert and survive. He was also the first man to cross the gorge below Niagara Falls on a tightrope in a wheelbarrow. He was thought to be the first man to shoot a woman out of a cannon but this turned out to be a trick — he was actually the first man to shoot a man dressed as a woman out of a cannon."

This guy was awesome.

Question: "Do we deserve the privilege of existence?"

2007-03-14T17:29:00.000-07:00

Well, who decides whether we 'deserve' it or not? By the only objective, natural standard--survival--we -do- deserve to exist. It's us that managed to not go extinct in the past several billion years. The triceratops, by the same standard, do not deserve to exist, and hence don't.

By extension, I personally certainly deserve to exist: my parents survived to reproduce, and so did the parents of my parents, back to the beginning of time. Even if I were a serial murderer, I would still deserve to exist, even if I didn't deserve to propagate.

Of course this answer to the question doesn't have any moral dimension.

One who claims that humans don't deserve 'the privilege of existence' must also claim that the universe would be better if humans didn't exist. So what makes the universe better or worse? Nothing at all. The universe simply is, and will continue whether or not we observe it. But just as we don't make the universe better, we don't make it worse, and so if we're enjoying ourselves at all, mass suicide doesn't make sense.

If it's the case, the next question might be, that nothing we do makes much difference to the universe, what's the point of pursuing anything other than amoral pleasure?

Well, the simple fact is that whether we like it or not we're bound by the law of selection on the basis of survival: that which does not lead to the production of offspring perishes.

So we as a species will -not-, I almost might say do not really have the freedom to, pursue amoral conduct, at least not when that amoral conduct does not lead to reproduction and continuation of lineage. Those that engage in such pursuits are systematically removed from the gene pool--Mussolini on the hook, Hitler with a bullet in his head. I'd also say that any conduct that does not impact negatively the survival of the species is not -really- immoral; at least not in any meaningful sense. So murder is immoral, but bestiality in itself really isn't, even if we find it repugnant.

We've developed a Neat Trick: a capacity to think rationally about the likely consequences of our actions. So our responsibility is to use that capacity in order to ensure survival of the species and to spread our aesthetic sense and consciousness through the universe. If we don't, then it l, like any other energy wasted, will be evolved out of us.

And if our enjoying ourselves isn't good for the universe (just as it isn't particularly good for a stone), at least it's good for us. So like I said, what's the point of putting a bullet through our heads?

Edit: I wonder what philosophy this is.

Heh heh.

2007-03-04T20:52:00.000-08:00

Distributing the Opiates of the Masses

2007-02-23T13:55:00.000-08:00

Little Green Footballs is doing their all Shari'a all the time coverage of this little dust-up in Pennsylvania as their latest effort to hijack the mainstream media and divert everyone's attention from the issues that actually matter in this country-- and these are all issues in which people like the LGF commentators have shot us straight to hell.

It's probable that this (small) group of Muslim extremists is wrong. But LGF and the rest of the conservative blogosphere who has decided to fixate on them did so to create the newest scapegoat on which they can all focus as justification for the war on terror.

It's what's called a STRAW MAN: These Muslim wackos oppose the war in Iraq. The left opposes the war in Iraq. Therefore the left supports the Muslim wackos, shari'a law, the commoditization of women, etcetera.

Is this a valid argument? NO!

Instead of rooting on these group-think echo-chamber flacks, we should be demanding that they stop the BS and write about things that actually matter. The reason that they are manufacturing CONTROVERSIES and OUTRAGES is because on issues of substance they are wrong; they are so dead wrong that all they can hope to do is distract the United States long enough to tie it up and fling it into war with Iran and North Korea, beginning the cycle of 'patriotic' wartime authoritarianism anew.

2007-01-25T15:48:00.000-08:00

Most career politicians harbour dreams of a Presidency. Lyndon Johnson, for example, wanted to be President from the time that he first entered politics as a 25 year old kid. When he was in the doldrums in the House of Representatives and it looked as though he would never realize his ambition, he fell into deep depression. He spoke on the House floor only twice in his entire tenure. He did virtually nothing. And then when the next election came around, he ran like crazy.

Little has changed. Politicians still sprint for the next election, the next rung up the ladder. Actual public service is only an incidental necessity, to avoid being thrown out.

Over the past week, many politicians who had previously been playing the coy game of expressing interest in running but not too much interest finally said they were in. So here’s a look at some of the candidates who have announced and one who seems virtually sure to announce.

Sam Brownback: Brownback is a native son of my home state, Kansas, but that doesn't stop me from thinking him pretty creepy. According to Rolling Stone and other sources, he’s a member of a secret society of senators, representatives and other powerful figures called ‘The Fellowship.’ In The Fellowship, all of the power-brokers sit around, pray, and then do whatever they convince themselves that God has told them to do. Brownback is convinced that he needs to deny civil liberties to homosexuals. We’ve already had one president who believes he gets instructions straight from God; we don’t need another.

Rudy Giuliani: Giuliani has the highest positives in the polls and is relatively moderate on social issues, but his popularity is not predicated on his abilities (which admittedly exist). His popularity comes from his status as an icon of patriotism in the wake of 9/11. Without Giuliani’s hero status, he’s just a mayor towards the end of his tenure-- and one who was not very well liked before his 9/11 leadership. The flag-waving and patriotic duty talk from the Republicans will not be subtle if Giuliani is the nominee. The Spirit of 9/11, unlike the Spirit of ‘76, is not one that we really need to carry with us for the next two hundred years; increasingly it seems to be a spirit of fear and intimidation rather than one of determination and pragmatism.

John McCain: Ah, McCain and his Straight Talk Express. McCain lost the primary in 2000 because conservatives balked at his moderate positions on social issues as well as some other issues. He knows he would have won the general election, so his focus this time around has been on appeasing Christianists. George Bush ran a spurious smear campaign against McCain, but Bush is in power now. I used to really like McCain, and 6 years ago I supported him for President. But I've been disgusted by his calculated pandering, and the Republicans that are being pandered to are probably equally disgusted.

McCain wants us to believe that he just loves Bush. In fact, he loves Bush so much that he gave Bush a great big hug. And Bush loves McCain right back. Bush loves McCain so much that Bush adopted McCain’s escalation plan, a plan that McCain never expected to see enacted. McCain just wanted to be seen as a hawk so he would be able to say, “I told you so.” But Bush was stupid enough to actually enact the plan that McCain proposed instead of the bi-partisan rescue mission that was the Iraq Study Group. So now McCain will be judged on his plan, which is almost certain to be a failure, and we’ll know that it’s a failure by the time of the next election. McCain is dead in the water.

Who do the Republicans elect, if they want to be back in the White House in 2008? McCain’s support for the escalation plan makes him a dead duck. Brownback and his stem-cell research opposing friends wouldn ’t be able to garner enough popular support. I think that of the current front-runners, Rudy Giuliani is the most appealing to Republicans. He’s a tough talker, a shoot from the hip kind of guy. And he gets solutions-- to the New York crime problem and otherwise. Plus, he’s a hero. A real, patriotic, flags waving and bands playing hero. 9/11 rhetoric allowed Republicans to secure a second term for Bush; they may try to extend their run and stand on rubble again.

By arbitrary emotionless

2007-01-21T21:48:00.001-08:00

By arbitrary emotionless
backwards moving
patricide I've condemned
yourself to eternity

of backwards moving
looped fourves, up,
see how we all come around again
we come around again

I spun to the face
of the outside wall
the outside wall
where I looked up

and down and there was
three of those others
like you, who condemned
to glance peripherally

see those three others
of you, who you could
pull up if only you could
reach far enough down your throat.

Tulane

2007-01-10T12:41:00.000-08:00

I have, for some reason incomprehensible to me, received over 200 e-mails from Tulane University. About 100 e-mails ago I used their form to tell them in no uncertain terms that I was not interested. And they are still sending me daily 'reminder' e-mails for Priority this Final Deadline that.

As far as I know, Tulane is a reputable college, so why are they sending out endless spam?

You, u, eww.

2007-01-08T23:41:00.001-08:00

I noticed in the top ten books of Amazon.com that four out of the top ten, including the top three books contain some variant of the word 'You' in the title. You on a Diet, Younger You, Love Your Body Love Yourself, and YOU: The Owner's Manual.

I just wonder why it should be that I am such a compelling subject all of a sudden. Why should Time Magazine use that flattering pronoun for their person of the year?

I just find it terribly patronizing for these mass-produced books and this mass produced magazine to address their commentary and critique specifically to me, as if the writers knew me personally. I am the person of the year because I have been noodling with computers. Perhaps I have been part of the Web 2.0 'revolution,' but my grandmother has not.

The use of 'you' is a promise to readers that the media they are consuming will be directly related to them and to their world. It would be hard for a book about the Darfur Genocide, say, to use 'you' in the title, i.e., "You and Your Genocide." Any book about a topic like that would have to be unquestionably about them.

I think there is really a fear of being exposed to unwanted knowledge. This fear is what has kept my Father from watching 'An Inconvenient Truth' even after I checked it out and even after it was clear that he had time available. He abstained from watching the movie not because he anticipated violent disagreement with the points made, but because he did not want to change his personal habits and assumed that Inconvenient Truth would provide reasons for him to change his habits that would be difficult to refute.

He was afraid that it would be too inconvenient.

The proliferation of 'you,' most prominently in the brand name of the now multi-billion dollar company YouTube is a declaration that the media is tailored for convenience, and that any unwanted content can be filtered.

Hussein's Death

2007-01-01T22:13:00.000-08:00

The cable news network, in the interest of not offending the delicate sensibilities of us Americans, has not shown the footage of Hussein actually dropping. But the tape is available, and of course people have been coming in hoards to watch it. I just think it's barbaric. Do we really need this kind of eye for an eye justice? What does it do other than make us feel better? The rush to the gallows was unseemly, and probably damaging.

Apparently the Sunnis celebrated a religious holiday on the day of Hussein's execution; a holiday that the Shi'ites placed on a different day. So it comes off as a deliberate slight, and makes any kind of unity that much more unlikely.

Gordon Smith's speech

2006-12-31T15:17:00.000-08:00

Gordon Smith gave a good, sober speech last night. The video can be found here.

It's the kind of reasoned, non-partisan tone that it would be nice if more Republicans would adopt. The criticism that I've heard is that he didn't take responsibility for his votes for the war, and said that he'd been 'silent' on the war, glossing over the role that he had in advocacy.

From BlueOregon:

Another troubling thing about Smith’s “conversion” is that even in “conversion,” he did not adopt a firm position on the war. He said that he could support either a reduction in troops or (to quote last week’s R-G story) “a U.S. "troop surge" strategy advocated by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., among others, to add 10,000 or 20,000 soldiers.” It wasn’t until the last few days that he elected to distance himself from that idea, too.
Bizarrely, however, so far, politically speaking, Smith’s indecisiveness seems to be working for him. He now has both conservative columnists like the Oregonian’s David Reinhard and liberals like Russell Sadler eating out of his hand.

Smith could have said – as former Senator John Edwards did a year ago - “I was wrong; I apologize.” Instead he, he wants credit for criticizing President Bush, while taking no blame for himself. That is not courage. That is rather breathtaking cynicism. And Oregonians should see it for what it is.

I don't quite agree with this; from listening to the speech it seemed as though Gordon Smith was advocating the pull back to the borders and draw down the troops strategy, which is one of the two in play right now. I think that he's right; a 'surge' won't work.

Now it is night

2006-12-28T23:52:00.001-08:00

Now it is night,
it is two in the morning

wake at three
with dust in the eyes,

and then will go and do
as you tell me.

You will tell me where to go,
perhaps, or what to do

I will do as you say, perhaps
hanging from rods perhaps

high above the street,
knowing my stomach-fear, knowing

that false is as real--
sounds from behind do not need sources

especially not at night, the false sun
is silent too.

Flat in my bed
it is hard not to sleep.

Dangerous Roads

2006-12-28T23:22:00.001-08:00

I am so afraid of heights that just looking at this makes my heart race.

the roads go straight

2006-12-25T21:59:00.000-08:00

The roads go straight for miles and miles and if the world were truly flat
you'd see them rise up through the Flint Hills
to the west and then into the mountains, straight,
the trees and dirt varying in rows, the row tree house in the edge,

Snapping through the hedge-row forest on each side a field of dirt and grass
the forest is a narrow thing, but I have my fallen log to sit on there,
the one that I placed years ago, and tied with string to mark the place

I reckon it is still there now even though I have forgotten about it.

and also the pond, over the fence, it dries in spring and kills the fish
and the scent washes up to our door, mixed with the dung of cows and the exhaust
that blows off the highway.

the paddleboat is mired in muck at the shallow harbor we put up,
the leeches in the water suck our dogs who don't bathe often

Blogger beta

2006-12-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

I just switched to the new Blogger beta thing, and it looks all right, I suppose, although I'm not quite sure what it does. Integrates with all the other Google services in some way? And it looks like a label function has been added.