The Above-Ground Men

Now if you shoot my dog, I'ma kill yo' cat

2006-12-28T14:32:00.000-08:00

Via Metafilter, an article in The Economist looks at Pushtun tribalism in the Mid-East.

What interests me is that Islamic law codes, when they arose, were really a response to the extremism of tribal law codes (with their sanctions of massive retaliation for insults). Indeed, the sharia law code was significantly saner, in many ways, than codes used by tribes similar to the Pushtuns.

Now, of course, the Pushtuns are seen as possible allies for their resistance to the Taliban in Afghanistan - but this is overly simplistic:

But once the Taliban restored order to most of Afghanistan, Pushtuns began recoiling against their rulings. Their public executions and other outrages to public decency were anathema to them. So too when the Taliban—despite their celebrated chauvinism—outlawed wich pur and advocated female inheritance. No wonder if the lives of the vast majority of Afghan women have not eased since the Taliban were bombed from power.

I'm reading George F Kennan's memoirs right now, and although he's a Soviet expert, he had some interesting things to say while on a stopover in Egypt. He saw that the Mid-East would appeal to Americans in the same way the American frontier did - and that we'd be tempted to make grand political experiments there in the same way we did in the west, and this worried him immensely.

Much as I support America's democratic intentions in the Middle East, the Pushtuns are but one reason that America could do with a touch more humility in the region.

*

A guy I can respect the hell out of

2006-12-18T20:01:00.000-08:00

This is a really fantastic story from the Wisconsin State Journal:

He doesn't offer any opinions on anything he hasn't personally experienced. He wears a Harley-Davidson T-shirt because he rides a Harley-Davidson. He didn't use the word "adventure" once during an hour-long interview about his under-the-radar trips to Vietnam and Iraq.
...
The way he explained his methods upon returning: "I try not to take political sides, but I will tell anyone interested what I saw and let them make their own conclusions. . . . I try to provide context.

"I was in the military when Vietnam collapsed. It was painful for me and the soldiers of that era.

"I have never been satisfied with someone else telling me how I should feel, and that's what I was getting about Iraq. Tie in the fact that this is what I heard during the Vietnam years, only this time around it was not good enough. I wanted to find out for myself," he said.

There is more at his website.

Notes from a scene part II: There's no line for the Joanna Newsom show

2006-12-10T15:51:00.000-08:00

Now that Joe and I are in different cities, our get-togethers tend to revolve around music. Yesterday, it was the much-anticipated Joanna Newsom show, with a stop at the Madison Pop Fest first.

We got to the Rathskellar around 6.30, in time to see The Bracelets go on. We'd seen them a year ago at the Orpheum Stage Door, and been quite impressed with their sparser-than-Godspeed You! Black Emperor ambient sound. The atmosphere of the Stage Door, combined with the slide show the band was running behind them, had also worked well in their favor.

Today's show was... different. The brightly-lit Rat didn't play to the band's atmospherics (although when the lights were turned down partway through the show, the band got appreciably better). Also, the band has apparently decided that they need to sing - an unfortunate decision, given the guitarist's general inability to sing, or really sound good at all with sound coming out of his mouth. If they don't go back to the lyric-less format, which isn't something necessarily dictated by their sound, they really need to go toward the laptop-tronica sampling format, and start working in samples of other people's voices. There is some real potential there, but the lead's voice is not the right path.

Ambulette also played, and did a fantastic job - as the reviews had promised. Lead Maura Davis's vocals are really amazing, and the general sound worked very well around that. I saw comparisons to the Cardigans, while Joe saw Pretenders influences.

We didn't stick around for the other bands, deciding that we'd get in line for Joanna Newsom early (around 8.15 for the 9.30 doors). However, an unfortunately awkward gent (whom we'd later dub "clueless George," for reasons that will become apparent) was turning everyone away - "We're not letting anyone form a line - Joanna wants a closed sound-check." So, okay, we wandered away, roaming the back halls of the Union, seeing clustered knots of bored-looking indie kids all over the place.

It was rapidly becoming apparent that this was going to be a huge event. I didn't realize a the time that Pitchfork had marked this show on its front page, nor that All Music Considered had just added Newsom, but I did know that the Isthmus had profiled Joanna on the cover of its last issue. More ominously, I overheard one hipster mentioning to another that "yeah, my friend said that even if you've never heard of Joanna, or you hate her, if you're at all cool, you'll show up." Clearly, a Big Thing was brewing.

A knot of people (not a line, remember - that was verboten - even though it was really to straight to be a proper knot) was forming around the main staircase on the 3rd floor - just under the Great Hall - and by 9 the area was getting pretty crowded. Clueless George came down every so often to remind us that they weren't permitting a line to form (maybe he was adapting to the situation on the ground?), and that we should all just go away until 9.30. This obviously wasn't happening, but there clearly was no backup plan. The indie mob began to get restless, slowly creeping up the stairs, only to be chastized and chased back down by George. Around 9.25, the now mob (remember: not a line!) of people decided to go up the stairs - there were far more indie kids that Union staff of any kind, and Clueless George really seemed to be the only Union rep. there at all. Finally the doors opened at 9.30 - at which time a very large mob of indie kids (horror of horrors!) began to make its last push into the Great Hall. At this point, we realized that there were actually two lines - one had also formed in the upstairs hallway, marking the true limit of George's power.

The mob-in to the Great Hall actually went off well, with no fatalities except for the one emo kid who "accidentally" cut himself on a very sharp hand railing, apparently. Anyway, no one was stomped on, and Joe and I formed a coat pile with some other indie kids who proceeded to get a slow clap started. That failed to produce any results other than a vague look of confusion on George's face. (Other kids tried to get a slow clap going later. Their work was totally derivative, and they are n00bs.) Anyhow, it slowly became apparent that Nothing Was Happening, and the indie kids again grew restless. This in itself should have worried George, because usually indie kids are just lethargic, but he was on his cell phone, and apparently didn't notice.

That was about the point that it was announced that Joanna and Bill Callahan were still eating dinner (hopefully in a wimsical, interestingly offbeat fashion), and would be late. It was at this point that I was really glad this wasn't a metal show. I'm generally thankful for that, as I'm averse to mullets, worn ironically or not, but in this case, there most certainly would have been large, uncoordinated violence (which is to say, we had a chance to make up for the lack of rioting on Halloween; yes, the Joanna Newsom show came closer to producing a riot than Halloween - isn't that sad).

To summarize a lot of standing around boredly, we stood around boredly until about 10.40, when Smog finally took the stage. I think I'd heard one of his songs before, but I was unprepared for his voice, which was quite fantastic. Unfortunately, his song writing and guitar work really didn't live up to the quality of his voice, and everyone really just wanted him to get off the stage and get on with the Joanna Newsom show (for which there had never been a line). Which he finally did.

At about midnight, Joanna finally took the stage. She opened with Bridges and Balloons, which I'd only ever heard covered by The Decemberists. It was, of course, wonderful - she played unaccompanied. After playing through two other songs, one of which was an old Scottish song, she brought on a band and played through Ys. It was truly astounding. The very sparse arrangements made for a somehow deeper sound than on the album - using accordion, drum (one big bass drum and cymbals, nothing else), guitar, an odd Ukrainian balalaika-type stringed isntrument, banjo, jaw harp, and, at the end, a singing saw, the depth and quality of sound was indescribable. It was truly an other-worldly experience, with Joanna's voice always standing out, even when harmonizing with two backup singers. Also, the band she was playing with were all fantastically professional (unlike Regina Spektor's studio-session goons).

So all in all, it was 100% worth every hassle we dealt with. Standing for 5 hours, being packed like sardines, first on the stairs and then in the Great Hall, the heat - all worth it. A truly incredible experience.

Let it snow...

2006-12-01T12:55:00.000-08:00

...Let it snow, let it snow!

Does this mean they don't support the troops?

2006-11-25T17:58:00.000-08:00

Now back in power, the Democrats have grand objectives - certainly going far beyond the rallying cries of Iraq and socialized health care:

Sen. Tim Johnson said in an interview that a top priority is the military lending measure, which caps at 36% the annual percentage rate, including fees, that can be charged to service members and their dependents. The South Dakota Democrat warned that the provision - intended to curb payday lending - may interfere with the credit system.

The measure "may have a lot of unintended consequences that will go far beyond just the payday industry," he said. "We are going to have to revisit that issue and make sure that the end result of this legislation isn't to deny military members and their families access to banking services that they've always assumed would be there."

The measure, written by Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., who narrowly lost his reelection bid last week, "flew through here awful quickly in a very political environment," Sen. Johnson said.

Though he said he was sympathetic to the problem, noting that one of his sons was an Army veteran, he warned that carve-outs for specific types of people could set a dangerous precedent.

"This time it's military. Who's to say it isn't going to be widows and orphans or other sympathetic groups in the future?" he asked. "We need to address the needs of people who have short-term, low-denominational credit needs, but I fear that the legislation we passed is going to have unintended consequences that were not fully thought through."

Wait, wait, wait - since when are the Democrats concerned about giving out special benefits to minority groups?

Realism from deep space

2006-11-25T16:07:00.000-08:00

I'm a great fan of Soviet propaganda posters (see this great collection for starters) - I find them beautiful in a very strange and expressive way, and much as I deplore what they stand for, the ability of the USSR and other Communist regimes to glorify, say, farmers or refrigerator makers is really amazing.

So naturally, my curiosity was piqued when I came across this collection of political billboards from Cuba (via Metafilter).

Bipartisanship?

2006-11-25T14:59:00.000-08:00

Ben over at Badger Blues made an interesting catch a few days ago:

The approach may be the first indication of how the Democrats plan to use their ability to control the House agenda as the majority power, setting the terms of debate while lifting the strict rules that Republicans used to curtail dissent. […]

Because House rules changes are, by tradition, party-line votes, breaking the package into its components would also allow Republicans to support individual amendments, even though they probably would vote against the package in the end.

The unorthodox approach, more reminiscent of the drawn-out legislating done in the Senate than the slam-dunks of the House, would also give Democratic leaders a chance to show that they plan to change the way the House does business, Democrats said.

Fast-track to problems?

2006-11-24T21:08:00.000-08:00

Kevin over at Lakeshore Laments has a good post on the rejection of two trade treaties by Congress:

It seems very likely that the new Democratic Congress will be one that kills free trade. The signs were already on the wall with the debate over CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) and Singapore Free Trade Acts, and those agreements passed on the skin of it’s teeth. With Majorities now in their favor, any free trade agreement in the next two years is clearly dead on arrival.

Returning to something a bit old

2006-11-24T18:21:00.000-08:00

I promised a little while back to give a quick digression on the differences I see between the right and left sides of the blogosphere, so since I'm posting anyway, let's do that.

I certainly continue to believe that the Lieberman victory was at the same time a major loss for the Kosack left - known primarily for its vitriol. This is in stark contrast to the major "conservative" (or more precisely, center-right libertarian and independent) bloggers - especially central figures like Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, and Dean Esmay. During the 2004 campaign, I saw their impact - in a race in which Rove quite pointedly ignored the center-right libertarian and independent vote, these major "right-wing" pundits were able to speak the language of the center to bring in voters.

I sense that as the Republican party continues to move away from the center, focusing increasingly on the perceived base of the hard religious right, even the relative centrism of these bloggers will be to increasingly little avail. But for a time, it worked well, and could again if the Republican party as a whole makes a move back toward the center.

Problems in Chi-com land

2006-11-24T18:13:00.000-08:00

It looks like banks in China may be rather less than stable* - a worrying prospect in a number of ways:

Foreign banks threaten to roil China's savings pool. They're scheduled to take deposits from the beginning of next year as a condition of China's accession to the WTO. That's bad news for the Chinese government, which needs the savings pool to fund the bad loans in the domestic banking system. That may explain why the State Council has issued regulations further delaying the date when foreign banks can take retail deposits.

The Chinese economy has a problem; the huge amount of bad loans - probably as much as $1 trillion, equivalent to more than 40% of GDP - that Chinese state banks have made to loss-making state-owned companies with political connections. So far, everything's been fine. Foreign investors have snapped up minority stakes in Chinese banks in IPOs this year, the most recent a record-breaking $21.6 billion operation for Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

Incidentally, look for lots of banking-related posts in the near future from me - not because I'm particularly interested in the subject, but because American Banker is the only thing I can really read to slack off on the job.

*No password? Try BugMeNot - they won't bug you!

Chris Rock PSA

2006-11-18T22:02:00.000-08:00

After yesterday's Taser incident, I have decided to help educate the community of Above-Ground Men with this helpful PSA: Chris Rock, How Not To Get Your Ass Kicked By the Police. Watch and learn folks.

Taser Time

2006-11-17T20:20:00.000-08:00

YouTube is often belittled by the MSM as something fun, a memory vault of music videos, Daily Show clip, and other fun and games, but not a serious tool for democratizing the media space.

That's starting to change.

The latest controversy involves a UCLA student getting repeatedly Tasered by campus police during an ID check at a computer lab. The student apparently didn't have an ID and "exchanged words" with the officers. He may also have "gone limp." The student gets handcuffed, Tasered, and then doesn't get up. He gets Tasered again, and again, and again.

Watch it. The videos pretty damn scary, and a little unclear, but it makes the point well enough. I don't normally play sidewalk superintendant to the police, they have a difficult job to do and sometimes, even the best cops, need to use force. That's why we pay them. As a former security guard, who was trained by ex-cops, however, the first rule we learned was to use the minimum of force necessary to de-escalate the situtation.

Sorry boys, Tasering somebody who is lying on the ground, convulsing in pain, limp, in handcuffs, doesn't count.

As the editorial says "after all, they are peace officers."

But thanks to YouTube, you can make up your own mind.
We report and decide.
But you can do the same thing.

Dance Dance Revolution

2006-11-14T18:03:00.000-08:00

...and not my co-blogger, either. I mean that Joe - and how and why he won rather fascinates me.

Today via Metafilter, two perspectives on the Lamont loss from campaign insiders Tim Tagaris and David Sirota.

Tagaris has the tone of a campaign staffer - I've been there, and I know the bar talk on E-day +1. The fascinating thing is that via Tagaris, it all finally comes out. It's too long to really excerpt, but here's the people and groups he calls out:

The Democratic Party writ large (for failing to properly talk Joe out of running an "indie" (Tagaris's word, not mine) campaign).
Barak Obama.
The DSCC.
Bill Clinton. (Snarky aside: wait, he can do wrong in the eyes of a Democrat? Mostly confused aside: what's with calling him President Clinton?)
Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer.
Senator Edwards.

I think this says two things, both important for Dems to hear. First, it says that lefty bloggers alone cannot win an election. It's effectively the final plot point in the Dean-Kerry-Lamont graph. Tagaris goes on at length about Lamont's inability to get prominent Dems to help him raise money and volunteers; that, by implication, means that blogs were left to pick up the slack - which they were obviously unable to do.

I also what it implies about Dean's "50-State Strategy," and how much that influenced funding. I haven't seen much dissection of the vaunted program post-election, unfortunately.

But Sirota vehemently disagrees with my first conclusion:

Finally, there is the myth circulating that Lamont’s loss means the Internet is not a potent political weapon. Again, this is utterly silly. With the help of top Internet political strategist Tim Tagaris, we raised millions of dollars online, created the revolutionary Family, Friends and Neighbors tool, and brought in thousands of volunteers through the Internet. Sure, it wasn’t enough to overcome the aforementioned structural challenges we faced—but without the netroots and Internet activism, the Lamont candidacy never would have gotten off the ground in the first place.

I'm not sure that's entirely convincing - especially considering it's been said after every candidate strongly supported by the far-left blogosphere has quite failed. That isn't to say, of course, that the Internet is irrelevant - I'll have another post shortly about the right side of the Internet. But Sirota is off-base if he thinks that simple "blogger-power" is going to single-handedly turn the Democratic Party around. The Party, as both Sirota and Tagaris make clear, had no particular interest in Lamont - and that hamstringed him.

Sirota's other interesting point is that the Dems may get something out of Lieberman's victory after all:

He can never again purport to speak for the Democratic Party, because he no longer even has a nominal claim to actually being a Democrat. He officially left the Democratic Party when he ran under his own party in the general election, and his candidacy relied primarily on Republican votes, money and institutional support. That means while he can still be a gadfly and still draw attention to himself, his days of being able to fundamentally damage the image of the national Democratic Party are over.

Except that the point of much of both rants was that, you know, the Democratic Party still more or less supported Lieberman. If they continue to do so once things get back in session, it will indeed present an interesting situation.

To close, in the style we seem to have adopted: Exodus Damage, by John Vanderslice, from whence the title of this post derives.

Beaten to the punch

2006-11-11T15:02:00.000-08:00

I was planning to wax intellectual and explain just why the Democratic victory isn't necessarily a victory for the Democrats per se, but rather a backlash against Republicans who have failed to live up to promises of good governance, small government, and accountability, but Althouse beat me to the punch - and has a selection from David Brooks that sums it up nicely:

So voters kicked out Republicans but did not swing to the left. For the most part they exchanged moderate Republicans for conservative Democrats. It was a great day for the centrist Joe Lieberman, who defeated the scion of the Daily Kos net roots, Ned Lamont. It was a great day for anti-abortion Democrats like Bob Casey and probably for pro-gun Democrats like Jim Webb. It was a great day for conservative Democrats like Heath Shuler in North Carolina and Brad Ellsworth in Indiana....

I do think that Lieberman's victory was one of the most important events of Tuesday night, and signifies a great deal about where America really is right now.

The Win

2006-11-08T16:14:00.000-08:00

Democrats take the House and are poised to win the Senate, depending on the results of a possible recount in Virginia. The box score: House, 229 to 196, Senate 50 to 49 (1 undecided), Governorships 28 to 22. Nationally voters managed to confuse the chattering classes by raising the minimum wage and banning gay marriage across several states. See the Wikipedia article for even more information.

In apparent reaction to the defeat Rumsfeld falls on his sword at the prospect of being used as a bi-partisan punching bag. Good riddance, Don.

Meanwhile a wild night in Wisconsin as voters check boxes all over the ballot: Doyle keeps the governorship, VanHollen over Falk for AG, and Kagen beating Gard in the open house race. The Constitution is amended to ban gay marriage.

The Democrats, having been written-off by many of their own members, have returned.

Saddam to Hang!

2006-11-05T01:49:00.000-08:00

The verdict everyone knew was coming has finally arrived. Saddam Hussein, everyone's favorite thug, is going to meet his maker at the business end of a rope. I'm no fan of this war or capital punishment, but it couldn't happen to a worse bastard and I'm pleased he's getting his due. Ramsey Clark, get out!

The 50 Best Albums You've Never Heard

2006-11-03T22:50:00.000-08:00

Because I still can't think of anything reasonable to say about the election, except show up and vote, I found this list at The Guardian, the aforementioned 50 best albums you've never heard. Build your indie street-cred with this one.

And, for the fans out there, more DPRK. This one seems to be a music video, the camera work is just too professional for an in-house job, not laugh out loud funny, more scary in a Triumph of the Will type way.

PS, if you actually want a look at what its really like in North Korea, watch this. Even more clips here.

Eenie, meenie

2006-11-03T18:51:00.000-08:00

I really think I was at the UW for the glory days of the Daily Cardinal's comics section. There was real brilliance there (three of the better strips can be found here, but aren't often updated), and the best of them all was Everyone Drunk But Me.

I was perusing the archives of the comic, and found this:

...and it pretty much exactly sums up how I feel.

Colbert, Now More Than Ever

2006-11-02T23:52:00.000-08:00

I should be writing an endorsement for my favorite candidates this year. Of course, that would assumes this blog has any readers that I would influence one way or another. Instead, and this seems to be my excuse for almost everything, lets watch some more YouTube.

Today, Colbert's performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, you may have seen clips, but you need to watch the whole thing for the full effect. If you were like me, and missed it the first time around, watch and learn. Part 1 (he goes after bush), Part 2 (he goes after everyone else. . .and Bush), Part 3 (somewhat funny spoof video, Colbert plays press secretary).

A Powerful Point

2006-11-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

The NYT posts this Central Command PowerPoint slide describing the current situation in Iraq. Read the article here. Best military euphemism in the article "spontaneous mass civil conflict."

Gray Ending to Iraq?

2006-10-30T17:44:00.000-08:00

In the most recent issue of Newsweek Fareed Zakaria writes "Rethinking Iraq" an attempt to explain how the United State can create a "gray ending" in Iraq, one that "that is unsatisfying to all, but that prevents the worst scenarios from unfolding, secures some real achievements and allows the United States to regain its energies and strategic compass for its broader leadership role in the world." It is an article well worth reading for anyone interested in the current Iraq debate, as a member of the foreign policy establishment Zakaria's views will probably be echoed in the post-election Baker report.

Zakaria's has a pretty good understanding of events on the ground, that we are not winning, and therefore are loosing, the war against the chaotic poverty, the Sunni insurgency, and the sectarian violence that define the current state of Iraqi politics. He outlines the intra-communal "deal" (division of oil revenue, amnesty, distribution of jobs to all three communities, disbanding of Shia militias) that appears to be the consensus among US foreign policy experts on how to solve the current situation in Iraq. He also explains that this deal probably won't happen, because both the Sunni and Shia communities would rather fight it out than make peace (see the US/al-Maliki rift). Meanwhile Iraqi leaders denounce the presence of US soldiers in order to win favor with their communities, while quietly assuring America that they support our continued involvement. The main goal of his article, however, is to explain what the US needs to do, assuming that Iraq's leadership does not go through with "the deal." His suggestion:

Currently we have 144,000 troops deployed in Iraq at a cost of more than $90 billion a year. That is simply not sustainable in an open-ended way. I would propose a force structure of 60,000 men at a cost of $30 billion to $35 billion annually. . . The core national-security interests of the United States in Iraq are now threefold: first, to prevent Anbar province from being taken over by Qaeda-style jihadist groups that would use it as a base for global terrorism; second, to ensure that the Kurdish region retains its autonomy; third, to prevent or at least contain massive sectarian violence in Iraq, as both a humanitarian and a security issue.

Zakaria then proceeds to undermine the relationship between his proposed reduction in force and achieving the two remaining goals that most American's would support the fight against Al-Qaeda and protecting Kurdistan. First, he argues that most Sunni's and Shia hate Al-Qaeda and would probably clean out the minority of jihadists once they made a deal (or, as he implies, if the Shia win a civil war). Second, he claims that since the Kurds can provide their own internal security, a major presence of US troops may cause more problems than it solves.

Thus, the reader is left to assume that most of the 60,000 men would be, in essence, managing a civil war (training the Iraqi army, guarding bases/supply lines, conducting limited offensive operations, etc). This is deeply troubling, on the one hand a "butcher's bill" that would likely stand at $30 billion, likely 500-600 American dead, 5000-6000 seriously wounded, and an endless source of jihadi propaganda inflaming Muslims worldwide, every year, for a decade. On the other, what exactly would we accomplish, given that as Zakaria admits, the Al-Qaeda and Kurdistan issues could be managed at a far lower cost?

Zakaria never makes that clear what America would receive for that painful, politically unpopular sacrifice he proposes, except some ability to shape the new government (so we can have "our" favorite Shia thugs in office?, to keep our bases?, to deter the Iranians?. . .) and prevent regional chaos. How exactly does Zakaria propose to sell the American people on to paying the aforementioned "butchers bill" so that Iraqi refugees don't destabilize our dear friends in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia?

If this is the best case for staying in Iraq that the establishment crowd can come up with, then, if I were an Iraqi, I would be making my reservation on the last helicopter out of the Green Zone.

And now for somethingcompletelyy different, today's YouTube Clip: the Dreseden Dolls Girl Anachronism.

You are powerless to resist

2006-10-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

The Isthmus has a round-up of what went down on State St. last night. It looks like the police are planning on being colossally stupid tonight - the claim is that about 15,000 tickets have been sold. This means that the entire rest of the student population is going to go somewhere else - where the police are not - to celebrate Halloween. Personally, I'm pulling for Langdon Street - and I'm hoping the ensuing riot burns the whole street to the ground.

There is also a link to one of the dumbest things I've ever seen - a quote from former UW Sociology Professor Jane Piliavin:

In a crowd, a group mind takes over and you have no ability to resist becoming irrational.

Yep. Resistance is futile!

Electioneering!

2006-10-24T17:23:00.000-07:00

Well, not really, but folks are worried. Jib wonders whether

...Republican pessimism over the midterm elections [will] become a self fulfilling prophecy? Hand wringing can get the base to the polls, but it can also turn off those independent and right leaning Democrats.

I'd expect there's an easy way to measure that - take a look at where moderate and libertarian-leaning Republicans are going this year. Instapundit aside, many centerists are really not sure where to go - and even Reynolds at least had doubts. Althouse was soliciting advice a few days ago. I personally am at the point of considering third-party protest votes - no politician in any race in this state seems to have earned the job.

But that kind of thinking might - and this is a long might - help Democrats. Andrew Sullivan notes that the New Jersey Supreme Court will issue a decision on "marriage equality" tomorrow. Depending which way it goes, that could have major reverberations - and drive a lot more of the religious right to the polls.

So, loathsome as it is to say, turning off the socially liberal Republican voters could be a real boon to the Republicans this year. God knows they've been trying to get rid of that part of the party for a while anyway, so I guess it works out.

Banned

2006-10-23T14:18:00.000-07:00

Wigderson raises an interesting question - would this humble blog be banned if the gay marriage amendment passes?

I guess that's why I'm voting "no".

He's also got an excellent reason to vote "no" on the death penalty question.

Toward an effective American public diplomacy in the Middle East

2006-10-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

Abu Aardvark is exploring the effectiveness of American public diplomacy, using the recent comments by Alberto Fernandez (think "arrogance... and stupidity") as a jumping-off point:

This is a way of establishing credibility and a reputation for candor with Arab audiences - two things that almost all American spokespeople who stick to the administration's script lack. His humility treats those audiences with respect, rather than trying to force talking points crafted in Washington down the throats of skeptical listeners who live in the region and know better...

For all that it is demonized by too many Americans, al-Jazeera is still by far the most watched and most politically influential Arab television network. Its programs are the most important place where Arab views of the United States and American policy are formulated. Those arguments about America can happen with or without American participation. All America's absence from those debates accomplishes is to cede the field to its enemies, to allow hostile arguments or allegations to go unchecked, and to give speakers on those programs no incentive to take American perspectives into account.

Szabadsag

2006-10-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Hungarian Revolution. On this day fifty years ago, students took to the streets, demanding political and economic changes. Within a day, demonstrations had become violent battles, with Soviet tanks firing on unarmed protestors, and Hungarian partisans attacking Soviet troops stationed in Budapest. (The BBC has an excellent timeline of events up.)

This wasn't without precedent, of course. In 1848, the Hungarians rebelled against Austrian domination of the country. The Petőfi Revolution, as it is known (for the poet whose National Song was the rallying cry of the day and is now the national poem), was only put down after the Austrians asked the Russian Tsar to send troops into the country. The only non-Slav people of Central Europe, the Hungarians have always been wary of the Russians, with their focus on building a pan-Slavic empire with Moscow (or, at the time, St. Petersburg) at its center, and their defeat at the hands of Tsarist troops was doubly crushing. 1956 was very much informed by this history.

America was also complicit, of course. Radio Free Europe encouraged the Hungarians with talk of American support - support which never materialized, sadly. The Hungarians are still touchy about this, but some understand that the tensions of the Cold War bound America more tightly than she might have liked.

There were still bullet holes in some buildings, left from the fighting in 1956, when I lived there in 2000. Hungarians would point to them proudly, and recount the glory of those brave men and women who fought in the face of all odds, and even won a Soviet withdrawal - even if it was only temporary.

Strangely, the plazas of Hungary today bear a remarkable resemblance to those of 1956, with Hungarians again taking to the streets to voice political outrage. Socialism still drives a deep wedge through Hungary (indeed, I was once yelled at by an older gentleman - times were better when Hungary was Communist, he informed me). But today, no one is firing on the protestors. They will be able to be heard - in the streets today, and eventually at the ballot boxes. And that, at least, is a victory.

Iraq, The Lost Year

2006-10-22T19:37:00.000-07:00

The escalating bloodshed in Iraq continues. This headline could have been written on any number of days, in any number of weeks, in the past three years, and it is as true now as it was then.

My best advice for at least asking the right questions about the policy debate in Iraq stats with a chilling documentary, The Lost Year in Iraq, presented by Frontline last week (watch it free, here). It is a film that presents clearly, in the protagonists own words, the first year of United States occupation and its ultimate failure. The film does not lay out the standard Leftist-laundry list of concerns and criticisms about the Administration and its policies in Iraq, instead it focuses on just four crucial moments: the lack of planning for the occupation and the transition of power, the failure to provide security and prevent looting for over a month after Saddam fell, the destabilizing effects of de-Baathification, and the decision to disband the Iraqi army.

In retrospect, it is clear that these mistakes led directly to two of the wars that we face in Iraq today: first the war between common criminals and peaceful citizens that emerged in the lawlesness of the early occupation, and a second the war between the central government and Sunni/Baathist insurgents removed from the Iraqi power strucutre. These failures also paved the way for the emergence of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (as allies of the Sunni insurgency) and the eventual devolution of power from the central government to the warring sectarian militias that have filled the security vacuum.

The United States now faces four wars in Iraq; in nearly four years we have made little progress in winning any of them. The question that must be asked then: given the failures in our policy is it possible for the United States to achieve any of its objectives in Iraq. If so, what will be the cost?

PS. Frontline and its counterpart Frontline World have a treasure trove of other documentaries, all available for free and viewable with a broadband internet connection. They also have interviews and other goodies.

You can't argue with that logic

2006-10-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

What with Joe's Youtube prowess, I've been feeling a bit insufficient lately. Thankfully, I've found a remedy! It's a bit late, but via Logan, here's the greatest music video ever.

I especially dig the guitar riff in the chorus - they might as well be doing the school-yard nyah-nyah-nyah you lost! And you can't argue with the logic of this verse:

Ted Kennedy – wrong!
Cindy Sheehan – wrong!
France – wrong!
Zell Miller – right!

Right on!

You like us - you really, really like us!

2006-10-22T00:17:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note - thanks to Logan over at Among Giants for the link!

And also a belated thanks to Mark Murphy for being the heppest cat on the block, and being the first to notice this humble blog's existence. Rawk.

Notes from a scene - pt 1

2006-10-17T21:52:00.000-07:00

As we mentioned, this blog isn't all about politics - so when cool stuff happens, we'll blog that, too.

As such, I have to say that Regina Spektor's show at the recently-troubled Majestic theater was absolutely fantastic.

Regina was 500% more charming than on her records, which, if you've heard her, is really saying something. She was absolutely delightful tonight, apologising for her (really not at all bad) guitar playing and happily cursing when she messed up one of her last encore songs. She played about a third of the show by herself, then brought on a band - a bunch of session musician schmucks who looked like they should have been in some crappy top-40 radio band. But they knew how to play instruments, and gave our dear Regina the ability to really rock out on some of the cuts from Begin to Hope. And the theater itself is gorgeous inside - far too beautiful to waste on hip-hop nights, certainly. It's far more ornate than I had expected, and is quite crowd-friendly, with a nicely sloping and terraced floor that makes for easy viewing of the stage, even from the back. I wish I could give you some photos or something too, but a.)my camera is pretty crappy, and takes bad pictures in anything less than blazing sunlight, and b.)cameras weren't allowed in anyway.

So, I'll leave you with some good advice from the charming lady herself:

Well maybe you should just drink a lot less coffee
And never ever watch the 10 o'clock news
Maybe you should kiss someone nice or lick a rock or both
Maybe you should cut your own hair cause that can be so funny
It doesn't cost any money and it always grows back
Hair grows even after you're dead

People are just people
They shouldn't make you nervous
The world is everlasting
It's coming and it's going
If you don't toss your plastic
The streets won't be so plastic
And if you kiss somebody
Then both of you'll get practice

You brute!

2006-10-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

Having graduated, I find that I almost immediately stopped reading the campus papers. But finding myself with some time on my hands today, I picked up a copy of the Badger Herald and found a pleasant surprise - an article about my favorite campus building, Humanities:

Many students, faculty members and administrators agree that on the University of Wisconsin campus, no building matches the Humanities Building when it comes to character. Of course, nearly all would be quick to point out that saying Humanities has character is a nice way of calling it ugly and out-of-place.

5 Minute Europe

2006-10-17T21:37:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of much user created YouTube content. Why, because once you've seen one mindless rant, one pointless photo-montage, one stupid gag, and a half-assed film school project, it feels like you've seen them all. If anyone needs a reason why we pay people obscene amounts of money to make movies, watch enough YouTube and you'll realize how much effort, skill, and ultimately, luck, goes into making something remotely watchable.

But this film, a fast montage of a multi-day trans-Europa soft drug bender, works as a terrific little piece of cinema, a spoken word piece, even a satire on Hunter S Thompson style Gonzo journalism. If you've ever wanted to wander across Europe in a drunken stupor, or wondered what it would feel like, you can do it for 5 minutes and $0.

Red Rain on Dr. Phil in Baghdad

2006-10-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

The LA Times finds this pearl of wisdom: Tense Baghdad Residents Find Oasis in Dr. Phil.

Suhaili doubts Dr. Phil can help him or Iraq.

Maybe he'd suggest a vacation or a hobby. "If you compare our problems now with the problems he is talking about, it is very big difference," he says, with a chuckle." He's addressing psychological problems, how to deal with people," he says. "Here you are dealing with big problems. You are dealing with insurgents and terrorists.

"How would Dr. Phil disarm a militia?"

Today's YouTube Clip: Red Rain, featuring Peter Gabriel with Natalie Merchant and Michael Stipe.

RIP: Gillo Pontecorvo director of the Battle of Algiers.

Will the "intensity gap" be enough?

2006-10-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

The New York Times is getting excited about Democrats' prospects in '06:

Voter intensity is a critical element in politics, especially in midterm elections, when Americans’ interest and turnout are typically much lower than in a presidential election year. Pollsters say enthusiasm among Democrats is particularly high this year — significantly higher, by several important measures, than the intensity of Republicans.
...
Conservative voters have many reasons to be less enthusiastic this year, analysts say, including their party’s deficit spending and the scandal over Mr. Foley’s conduct toward Congressional pages, not to mention an array of local Republican scandals in Ohio. But if the Republican get-out-the-vote drive, known as the 72-Hour Project, lives up to its billing, said Andrew Kohut, head of the Pew center, “the turnout consequences for the G.O.P. might not be as dire as these poll numbers suggest.

The Dems certainly want it this year, to use an irritating sports cliche. And having seen the 72-Hour Project up close and personal - I worked on the Bush '04 campaign - I see real flaws to focusing exclusively on the program. By focusing purely on the most fundamentalist Republicans - identification calls have already been done to weed out any potential Democrats and even "soft Republicans" who might not vote the right way - the 72-Hour Project not only drastically skews the voice of the religious right, it also cuts any libertarian-leaning types and moderates completely out of the equation. That plan may backfire - libertarians seem to be getting the message that they're not wanted in the GOP.

Moderate Republicans have plenty to be turned off by, and it's beginning to show, while the Dems are apparently starting to leverage discontent into actual votes. With a number of Wisconsin conservatives against even the gay marriage amendment, and faced with craptacular choices at most every level of state elections, the Dems have a decent shot.

Of course, Howard Dean's 50-State strategy will play a major role - whether for good or ill is yet to be seen. This retrenchment, coupled with a purge of not-really Democrats like Joe Lieberman, is probably a good thing for the Dems long-term, but may hurt their chances this year. If history is any indicator, the Dems are quite good lately at losing spectacularly.

Someone gets the divide

2006-10-13T11:46:00.000-07:00

I usually don't agree with Dick Armey - he's rather too religious for my tastes. But apparently he and I agree on more than I thought:

Freedom works. Freedom is a gift from God Almighty, and we have a responsibility to protect it. Christians face a temptation to power when we are fortunate enough to have a majority of support in Congress. But government can never advance a faith that is freely given, and it is corrosive to even try. Just look at Europe, where decades of nanny-state activism— including taxpayer support for churches and for religious political parties— have severely eroded the faith. In America today, too many of our Christian leaders fail to recognize the temptation to power and the danger it holds for our society and our faith.

And so America’s Christian conservative movement is confronted with this divide: small government advocates who want to practice their faith independent of heavy-handed government versus big government sympathizers who want to impose their version of “righteousness” on others through the hammer of law.

Minus that "gift from God" stuff, this is exactly why I no longer claim affiliation with the Republican Party. It's gone totall off its axis, and is lost in a swamp of religious conservatism that has nothing to do with the founding of the party.

Some Strangelove From the DPRK

2006-10-09T20:24:00.000-07:00

It looks like the North Korean government, perhaps heartened by the display of propaganda on this blog, (sorry folks!) decided to go ahead and test their very own atomic bomb. While reports are still filing in, it looks like this is serious. This is opposed to as the not so serious, "sorry guys we only meant to give
you a good scare" atomic bomb test. We know those happen all the time.

While everyone is covering the story, the wikipedia page on the subject, seems to be doing the best job of aggregating all of the content.

After the Democracy Bomb (US), the Communist Bomb (USSR) the Fish and Chips Bomb (UK), the Wine and Cheese Bomb (France), Asia's Bomb (China), the Jewish Bomb (Israel), the Hindu Bomb (India), the apartheid Bomb (South Africa), and, of course, the Islamic Bomb (Pakistan), we have,the Fourth World Bomb or, if you like, the Backyard Nuke.

If North Korea can do it, so can you.

The reason that I'm joking about this very unfunny business is simple, there's not much that we, as citizens of the (more or less) free world, can do.

The NYT, in its great habit of stating the obvious, leads off with an editorial that states:

Let us all agree: North Korea's government is too erratic, too brutal, and too willing to sell what it has built to have a nuclear bomb.

This is true, but Stalin also brutal and so was Mao, indeed if the Purges and the "Great Leap Forward" showed us anything, they were also pretty irrational. Yet we learned to live with their bombs. North Korea is unstable, but so was South Africa when it built its weapons and so is "Major non-NATO ally" Pakistan today. Yet the US and India live with the "Islamic Bomb" only a few minutes as the Scud flies from New Deli.

At this point, in my opinion, the "best of worst actions" is inaction. Here's my "idiot's guide" to our chocies.

Option A: Sanctions on everything except minimum food and fuel oil. Result: Kim makes due with less cognac and starves his people some more, the status quo endures. US credibility takes a hit, Iran takes note.

Option B: Complete sanctions. Result: Kim threatens to send a horde of starving grandmothers over the border at gunpoint, Chinese reconsider sanctions, US protests, China threatens to dump Treasury bonds, US reconsiders bullying its chief creditor. Sanctions fail, status quo ensues.

Option C: Armed response. Result: Kim starts burning Seoul with his big guns. General War. 50,000 dead Americans, 1 million dead Koreans.

Option D: Deterrence. Send Kim congratulations for joining "the club" and a pair of gold launch keys as a token of our esteem. Invite him over for talks at the ranch now that he is "in the neighborhood." Also include an autographed photo of the Minuteman missilee wing targeted at his palaces, just a little reminder that since he is now a MAD man, he is also a marked man.

Option D is purposeful inaction, also known as deterrence. We can, and should, supplement this with talks, indeed offer the DPRK a "Grand bargain" if he is interested and we can verify that he is keeping his word. Otherwise we should just let Kim&Co know that if he takes his new toys out of the sandbox, or shares them with his "friends," his ass is glass. It may not be pretty, and it doesn't give us any room for lofty rhetoric, but it has worked for 60 years, and I believe it will work now.

And now, direct from the newest part of the Imperium Google, YouTube, some good old fashionedd Strangelove. This one's for you Kim.

PSA Away!

2006-10-07T21:52:00.000-07:00

So on my last post, I served up a slice of North Korean propaganda, on this post, in the interest of equal time, I'd like to share some from our side, the great public service announcement or PSA.

The first is a World War II cartoons from Disney, the classic, Der Fuehrer's Face , featuring the Donald Duck we know and love dreaming of being a Nazi slave laborer.

Saturday Night Live mocks its parents NBC and General Electric in the style of Schoolhouse Rock.

The US launched an anti-suicide bombing PSA this year (see the MSNBC article about it). Watch it and compare with 200, a psychedelic (yes, as in mushrooms) Bicentennial cartoon made by the US Information Agency.

And, finally, director David Lynch does the scariest anti-littering ad ever.

You may not believe the hype, but some of it is pretty funny, or at least really freaky.

A party in a ghost town

2006-10-07T10:15:00.000-07:00

The news cycle moves fast, and the war in Lebanon has already been largely forgotten about - indeed, it's ancient in comparative terms. But this reporting, from the discussion thread at Robert Young Pelton's website Come Back Alive is very much worth reading. The site's boards are one of the few discussion boards worth reading on the Internet, especially if you're into dashing deeds of derring-do - his bio on the website states

His recent journeys have taken him inside the seige of Grozny in Chechnya, the battle of Qala-i-Jangi in Afghanistan, the rebel campaign to take Monrovia in Liberia, inside the hunt for Bin Laden in the Tribal Areas with the CIA, with insurgents during the war in Iraq, and running RPG Alley every day for a [sic] two weeks with Blackwater in Baghdad.

So what do those who were actually there think about Lebanon?

This all seemed to me to be a culmination not so much between Hezbollah and the Israeli state but rather a proxy war between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States. One could cynically say that while on the surface another war between Arab and Jew, the driving forces underneath were a confrontation from an emboldened Iran looking to assert itself over weakened American neoconservative policy... Was the war here in Lebanon part of Jordanian King Abdullah's predicted "Shia Crescent"? While this current war can be viewed in several different hues depending on one's political and too often ethno-religious outlook, the deification of Secretary General Nasrallah was absolutely undeniable.

At some point - and I really think that point has already come - it will be quite necessary to make hard choices about what we're doing in the Middle East, and where our priorities must lie. Unfortunatley, the spineless cowards in Washington refuse to make any choices at all.

DPRK Is Invincible Paradise

2006-10-02T21:40:00.000-07:00

Praise the Dear Leader!

In this season of campaing advertising: negative, postive, and just plain weird, let us give thanks that we have elections.

The propaganda of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) is the hardest of hard-core political humor porn, so disturbing in its blissful disconnection from reality, common sense, and logic, that it just has to be seen to be believe.

And now, thanks to the wonders of YouTube, you can.

Did you know that Pyongyang is the Capital Of Paradise 0r that General Kim Jong Il is Son Of Partisans , or that the DPRK Army is Invincible, me neither, but now I do. And now, my fellow running-dog-Yankee air pirate-imperialist-war-mongers, so can you.

Duck And Cover

2006-09-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

I've been busy recently, unfortunately some problems in the "real" world have distracted me from blogging. Nothing serious, I'm not going to die, but when one lives with others, especially ones family, one must deal with their issues first.

No pun intended, but today's YouTube Video is Duck and Cover, that's right, the 1950's civil defense classic, often imitated, never equaled. Know what to do kids in the event of Global Thermonuclear War, watch this video!

Marching in the vanguard of the Republican Revolution

2006-09-20T20:02:00.000-07:00

School's back in session, and that, of course, means that the Mendota Beacon is once again marching in the vanguard of the Party, staunchly defending all that is right and good in the world.

I really wouldn't even mention this, except that I was on campus the other day and picked up a copy, and was almost excited by one of the articles. Because the Beacon is the Beacon, I cannot link you directly to the story in question (although here is a .pdf version - the story I'm talking about is on the top of page 4), but it really isn't important, because I'm more interested in what the story didn't mention.

The article was about the Orthodox Christian Fellowship - a group of students of the Orthodox faith (apparently all branches of Orthodoxy mingle here). Now, anyone who has spent any time in Madison, or at anyone who has seen the Orthodox church out on East Wash, should be expected to have really only one burning question for this particular group: "So, what's it like going to a church that's next to a porn store?"

This pertinent issue is not so much as mentioned.

Gaffe Cult

2006-09-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

The BBC has decided, in honor of the ongoing crisis caused by the unfortunate remarks of the Hungarian PM ("We screwed up. Not a little, a lot," Gyurcsany was heard saying. "No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have.") to post an article on other famous political gaffes. I think this takes the cake.

In Britain the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth's husband, is notorious for making jokes that might offend the recipient and make bystanders cringe - many of them based on old-fashioned racial stereotypes.
His comments have included: "It looks as if it was put in by an Indian," when being shown an old-fashioned fuse box; "Still throwing spears?" to an Australian Aborigine; and, to a Scottish driving instructor, "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?"

today's YouTube clip is two songs from Cloud Cult, an awesome band that the pundit saw in Madison on 9-15, check them out at their website.

Not the gorilla in the room, but the whale in the square

2006-09-16T21:31:00.000-07:00

The film Werckmeister Harmonies is very much worth your time:

Hungarian director Bela Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies begins with the image of a flame being doused out. This is significant, because in this political drama, the conflict between light and dark provides much of the thematic fodder. In an astonishing opening scene, the camera smoothly zooms and pans around a dilapidated pub, as János, the film’s hero and an amateur astronomer, uses his drunken compatriots to demonstrate a solar eclipse.

Some reviews (and the Wikipedia entry) will tell you that it is a parable of Fascism - but that is far from true. It's a story of any political philosophy born of fear and anger, in the shadows of bonfires in the public square, of an unwillingness to see the truth that stands before one, of any time and place in which small-mindedness and fear-mongering rumor trump truth. It is also the story of hope betrayed:

János Valuska: You are the sun. The sun doesn't move, this is what it does. You are the Earth. The Earth is here for a start, and then the Earth moves around the sun. And now, we'll have an explanation that simple folks like us can also understand, about immortality. All I ask is that you step with me into the boundlessness, where constancy, quietude and peace, infinite emptiness reign. And just imagine, in this infinite sonorous silence, everywhere is an impenetrable darkness. Here, we only experience general motion, and at first, we don't notice the events that we are witnessing. The brilliant light of the sun always sheds its heat and light on that side of the Earth which is just then turned towards it. And we stand here in it's brilliance. This is the moon. The moon revolves around the Earth. What is happening? We suddenly see that the disc of the moon, the disc of the moon, on the Sun's flaming sphere, makes an indentation, and this indentation, the dark shadow, grows bigger... and bigger. And as it covers more and more, slowly only a narrow crescent of the sun remains, a dazzling crescent. And at the next moment, the next moment - say that it's around one in the afternoon - a most dramatic turn of event occurs. At that moment the air suddenly turns cold. Can you feel it? The sky darkens, then goes all dark. The dogs howl, rabbits hunch down, the deer run in panic, run, stampede in fright. And in this awful, incomprehensible dusk, even the birds... the birds too are confused and go to roost. And then... Complete Silence. Everything that lives is still. Are the hills going to march off? Will heaven fall upon us? Will the Earth open under us? We don't know. We don't know, for a total eclipse has come upon us... But... but no need to fear. It's not over. For across the sun's glowing sphere, slowly, the Moon swims away. And the sun once again bursts forth, and to the Earth slowly there comes again light, and warmth again floods the Earth. Deep emotion pierces everyone. They have escaped the weight of darkness.

Mr. Hagelmayer: That's enough! Out of here, you tubs of beer!

János Valuska: But Mr. Hagelmayer. It's still not over.

The tragedy is that - and I can say this without really spoiling the movie for you, gentle reader - after two and a half hours, it is over for János.

Technical update: on further reading, that first link isn't really the greatest - it does a lot of extrapolating that isn't necessarily justified, and doesn't know enough about Hungarian to be able to tell you that calling people "aunt" or "uncle" generally is less than revelatory regarding family ties. These terms are generally just signs of familiarity.

Ghosts and Machines, 9-11 2006

2006-09-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

As I write this, 9-11 2006 is almost over in the central time zone, by the time I post, another anniversary will have passed into our collective memory books and memorial holes.

If you really want to relive what happened, the New Yorker has opened up this article from their archive. Also get the 9-11 Commission Report, in comic book form.

All day long I was thinking about writing one of those "war on terrorism, where are we now?" articles that have been cropping up but decided against it. You can use every History Channel adjective you like: heroic, long, bloody, bizarre, complicated, expensive, divisive, but none of them really captures the scope of events that have unfolded since then.

One interesting response has been Slate's invitation to various cultural figures; What art has helped you make sense of 9-11? I could go on this theme for awhile; instead I'll close with the opening lines of Invisible Sun, written by The Police about "the troubles" in Northern Ireland for the 1981 album Ghost in the Machine.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life
Looking at the barrel of an Armalite
I don't want to spend the rest of my days
Keeping out of trouble like the soldiers say
I don't want to spend my time in hell
Looking at the walls of a prison cell
I don't ever want to play the part
Of a statistic on a government chart

To see video for Invisible Sun, check it out on YouTube.

Today

2006-09-11T17:52:00.000-07:00

Last night I was trying to think of what I was going to say today.

Driving to work today, the first thing on the radio was the two morning DJs talking about what they remembered from 5 years ago, followed by a "9/11 tribute" song. I immediately changed the channel - to WSUM, which was emphatically not playing 9/11 tribute music at the time.

Then I began to think again about what to write. After all, the blogosphere is abuzz with remembrance today. Instapundit is swimming in the stuff. So is the Cheddarsphere. So I'm expected to have an opinion. But what to write? Post my memories of the day? Maybe a link round-up - "here's what other, more articulate folks are saying"? Should I play politics with it? "I'm a Republican, so I'm durn sure gon' lissen to that Toby Keith song about puttin' a boot up yer ass! Hoo-ah!" Should I memorialize the soldiers fighting the aftermath of September 11, 2001?

My reaction has been to turn the station today, so to speak. Not because I don't want to remember - but because I don't want to be told how to think.

But if you do want to think, this might make you.

What's Going On, Above Ground At Least

2006-09-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

The NYT reports that the Democrats are continuing to pressure ABC to give up on airing The Path to 9-11. I can't blame them, tactically, after the right-wing blogosphere forced The Reagans off of prime time; I'm sure it struck them as a case of "turn-about is fair play."

As usual, however, the amount of hype this issue has gotten is pretty depressing. With a handful of exceptions, the public square and corridors of power, was preoccupied with other things. From Kosovo, to "Dow 36,000", Y2K, and a certain blue dress, we, the people, had other things on our minds. Could, Clinton have done more in the late 90's, I would say yes, in retrospect. However, I certainly didn't see GW or his advisors playing Paul Revere about the Al Qaeda on the campaign trail in 2000. My impression at the time was that Bush&Co were more worried about the boys in Beijing and Baghdad, if anything, given a Republican foreign-policy space was leaning towards isolationism and away from "Clinton Wars".

None the same, this debate is another depressing comment on the state of our countries political discourse. When every film, every news broadcast, every organization and every activist gets fed into the hype machine of our "for us or against us" political culture, it elevates the loud-mouths and blowhards, the Michael Moores and Ann Coulters, and alienates the rest of us from politics. The Dems, for their sake and ours, would have been better to leave it alone and treat The Path for what it is, a made for TV movie, and let it rest in blissful ignomity.

PS. For some random examples, if you really need any, of loud-mouths, blowhards, and hype, here are a couple YouTube vids: MM on the O'Reilly Factor, and AC on Jeremy Paxman. You have been warned, view at your own risk. . .

Now to chill out, Today's YouTube Pick! A masterful concert performance by Marvin Gaye of What's Going On/What's Happening Brother taken from an out of circulation 1973 film, Save the Children, and cut with evocative vintage footage of inner-city Chicago.

I always feel like somebody's watching me

2006-09-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

The Internet has been a crazy place for privacy this past week.

On Sunday night, Facebook underwent a fairly large change, adding a feature called the News Feed. The Feed allowed students to see every change their friends made. The changes were, quite frankly, somewhat frightening. The world of Big Brother relies on keeping the doors to the control room closed - but Facebook had thrown them wide open.

Overawed with the sheer power of Facebook, students freaked out. Certainly, the smarter ones had to have known that such a tool as the News Feed was possible (and the frat boys and sorostitutes wouldn't have thought about it anyway), but when it came down to it, we were content to allow the benevolent dictator to control the information so long as no one else had access to it. When Facebook made the actually quite logical step of throwing open the doors to the control room, as it were, letting students see the same monitors that Facebook staff had used to track activity, students couldn't handle the creepiness of having that much information.

So fresh from fighting the forces of the digital Big Brother to which I had already gladly surrendered so much, did I come to my senses and stay the hell off the Internet, where my private life has become little more than another plot point in someone's massive database? Nope, I joined an Internet dating site. And I came to another realization about the way the Internet often works. It turns out, everyone comes off as a complete tool when given a tiny box of text to give a self-description. People's interests come out looking conceited or stupid, but rarely interesting.

Defeated by the cruel sting of dating-site homogenization, I began to wonder if others had had better luck elsewhere. But then I discovered this scam.

So what's the lesson here? It's true to the point of nearly being a cliche that the Internet has done a tremendous job at blurring the lines between public and private. People are social creatures, and we want to share information about ourselves - we want other people to know who we are. But we still expect privacy. We want to post on our friends' Facebook profiles, but we don't want the world to know we've done so. We want to reply to sex ads with our personal information, thinking that nothing bad could possibly happen.

I think there is a better way, though, and this is why I'm really a fan of the "blogging revolution" (which is a silly thing to call it, but it is what it is). The blogging medium acts much the same way that personal relationships used to work - rather than finding out the facts of someone's life distilled through idiotic love tests or a Facebook interests section, blogs are a slow reveal, with the picture being built out of the thousand details of a post. But the blogosphere - and here we need to distinguish between not-really blogs like MySpace and real blogs like Althouse's (or this one!) - also tends to be self-selecting, weening out both the idiots who would send naked pics from their work addresses and the staggeringly horrible people who would put out fake sex ads and post the results. So I guess the point of this already too-long post is this: thanks for stopping by the blog. We look forward to getting to know you.

In the Beginning, Axis of Babylon

2006-09-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

As the inaugural post on this blog I would just like to give you, dear reader, a quick introduction to my perspective on we are and where we are coming from.

Steve and I share a long history, going back to the great Bradley Learning Community (or Liquor Cabinet) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, fall of 2001. Stranded at the point furthest from human contact on the campus, we began discussing, debating, and occasionally arguing about contemporary politics, culture, and the big picture ideas of our contemporary world.

I have generally been the "Democrat/left" member of the conversation, best exemplified by the events surrounding the 2005 Bush inaugural. I took a bus to DC to protest, Steve organized the counter-protest that gave a "friendly" send off to myself and the other protestors. The night before, he stored the placards in our apartment, (we were roommates at the time) and, after exchanging a couple of looks, and breaking open some cold PBR, we had a couple of laughs and started figuring out better slogans.

We have our differences, and we don't talk past them like Brooks and Shields, but we've learned over time that we work best as a team, taking on the pompous, the overwrought, and the inane on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Equally important we share a love of music, movies, and other pop artifacts, ranging from the highbrow to junk. Hopefully we'll have a chance to share that with you as well.

On that note, check out the Axis of Justice radio archive and podcasts, a left-wing community radio show hosted by System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian and guitarist Tom Morello of Audioslave and Rage. They have managed to get most of the big names on the Left at one point or another (Noam, Naomi, Zinn etc). Equally important they have impeccable taste in protest music of all genres and eras. For those of you that like the music, but not the politics, they have a bunch of shows sans guests.

Also check out my YouTube video for the day: The Richest Man in Babylon from Thievery Corporation.