1) Watched internet videos of Queen performing live.
Freddie Mercury died of AIDS when I was five years old, denying me the opportunity to ever see him perform live. I regard this as a major loss. The man's energy is palpable even in video format. If I had a time machine, I would probably use it first to see the 1985 Live Aid performance by Queen, and only afterwards meet Abraham Lincoln. And I would probably only be able to talk about Freddie Mercury, the whole time I was hanging out with Lincoln.
2) Played video games.
I wrought electronic havoc, accomplished nothing tangible, yet felt nevertheless pleased. I can't imagine the mentality that went into pinball wizardry during the 1970s and '80s, but it must have been exactly the same thing. I spend time on an entertainment application which goes to nothing productive and illuminates nothing. What does this say about the futility inherent in the human condition?
3) Practiced drawing at work in the parking booth.
My friend Janani gave me an instruction book for drawing which was published in 1963 (or something) and contains quite dated instruction, which she picked out for her own reasons but is in fact exactly what I would have wanted! If I ever learn how to draw, ideally I would draw just like Jack Kirby. So the book is perfect. I practiced for about 2 hours aggregate (of a six hour shift I spent 2 hours reading history, 2 hours doing a NYT Friday crossword, and 2 hours drawing) and the improvement over my usual awful scribblings was tangible, even if I was using a pen instead of a pencil because I didn't have anything to sharpen with. I can draw my own portrait with some alacrity, and I tried to draw my friend Travis with minimal success. I think he may have a feminine jawline, though this is no judgment against his character. Maybe in subsequent revisions I'll be able to figure it out. I think I'll try to master the face and then move on, as the book suggests. Drawing is a frontier for me. Something that I can't do, that I want to learn how to do, that is probably possible for me to do. I'm looking forward to this.
4) Bought things with my Barnes and Noble gift cards, online.
I ordered a couple of graphic novels in the new Dark Horse "Conan" series, plus the deluxe version of Dethalbum, the album by the fictional cartoon Death Metal band Deathklok. I eagerly anticipate the arrival of these packages, lowbrow though they may be.
5) Slept 'til nearly 2:00 PM. And it was everything I thought it could be.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
I don't recall
Heres some fascinating news from MSNBC. Apparently the Reagan Library lost track of 80% of its inventory.
I find this just amazing and I am deeply impressed at the kind of administrative incompetence that would be required to allow such breathtaking theft. But isn't the Ronald Reagan presidential library the perfect place for kleptomania, piss-poor record-keeping, and plain forgetfulness? I think that this embarrassment is a more fitting capstone to the Reagan legacy than any amount of treasure could have been.
An audit by the National Archives inspector general concluded that the library in Simi Valley was unable to properly account for more than 80,000 objects out of its collection of some 100,000 artifacts, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site Wednesday night.
I find this just amazing and I am deeply impressed at the kind of administrative incompetence that would be required to allow such breathtaking theft. But isn't the Ronald Reagan presidential library the perfect place for kleptomania, piss-poor record-keeping, and plain forgetfulness? I think that this embarrassment is a more fitting capstone to the Reagan legacy than any amount of treasure could have been.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Thing I wrote
Here's a fake folk tale which I wrote for and performed at No-Shame Theater in Iowa City, reprinted here for the benefit of the people who read my blog, consisting of Bob and maybe my brothers:
On the coast of the Baltic Sea in the middle ages there was a place called Livonia, which is today the countries of Latvia and Estonia. There was a village in Livonia, where lived a girl named Kadri. Kadri was very pretty. Some said that she was the most beautiful girl in all the lands around the Baltic Sea. This would have been much to her good if she had not known of her beauty, but in fact she knew very well and never hesitated to exploit her charms to her benefit. She kept her parents’ heart-strings wrapped round her finger and they spoiled her as few children have ever been spoiled. She broke all the rules and treated all the other children very cruelly, but everyone tolerated her bad behavior because she was so beautiful.
Then as now, Livonia was a country of swamps and deep forests which lay only a few hundred feet beyond any village. Kadri was playing near there one day, when she looked up and saw a miraculous deer in the wood, which was all white with golden antlers, and its eyes were red as blood. She hurried back to her house and told her parents what she had seen, and she told her father, who was a hunter in the village, that he should go and kill the white deer for her, that she might have its pelt for a cloak.
Kadri’s father knew that such miraculous animals belonged to the druids, who were people in those days who had not become Christians, and instead kept to the old ways and lived in the woods practicing pagan magic. It was said among the people of the villages, that if a man went hunting after what belonged to the druids it would be him who was killed and eaten, his skin made into a drum and his skull into a drinking cup. He told Kadri that he would not go and hunt the white deer, but she screamed and yelled and held her breath ‘til she turned blue, until finally he agreed to go into the forest. He took his crossbow and went out each day, saying that he would hunt the deer she had seen, but he lied and instead hunted the other animals, which did not belong to the druids.
Finally, after several weeks, Kadri realized what her father was really doing, and she said that she would go with her father into the forest to make sure that he would catch the miraculous deer. He tried to tell her that she could not, and he made excuses like that she would frighten away the deer anyway, but she screamed and yelled and held her breath, and he gave in, and they went into the woods together.
Now it happened that the hunter had not been alone in the woods, and that the whole time he had been pretending to hunt the deer, there had been a druid following him to see what he did. Now when the druid saw Kadri, who as I told you was very beautiful, he thought that she would be good to eat. So he cast his magic on the father, who fell into a deep sleep, and he grabbed up Kadri and dragged her back to his cottage deep in the forest.
Kadri kicked and screamed and yelled, but no one heard her in the woods, and the druid paid no mind. But when he finally got her home, he poked and prodded at her flesh, and smelled her, and he realized that for as good as she looked, she would taste very foul, like a red shiny apple which has rotted all away inside. The druid asked Kadri what she thought he should do with her.
Kadri, who was so spoiled that she did not even think of the danger she was in, said that she wanted the white deer’s pelt for her cloak. Now it happened that the white deer was actually the druid himself, because such people had the power to take on the forms of miraculous animals. He was very offended by the presumption of this awful little girl, but he said that she would indeed have the cloak she wanted. He waved his magic wand and said a few words in the old language, which the village people like Kadri could no longer speak, and in an eyeblink she had turned into a white hind—that is, a female deer—with just such a snowy pelt as she had asked for. The druid then set her free, and in the shape of this doe she ran back to where he father lay, still sleeping.
It happened that she arrived at just the moment her father awoke, and seeing this white-pelted hind, he raised his crossbow and shot it dead. He hauled the carcass back to the village, where it was skinned and gutted and boned, the meat salted and smoked for the winter, and the pelt made into a cloak so beautiful that the Khan of the Golden Horde, which was a wealthy country far to the Southeast, bought it himself for one hundred gold pieces, this being far more than the worth of the entire village put together.
And no one ever saw Kadri again.
The moral of this story is that parents who spoil their children will only harm them in the end, and also that people should not covet the things that belong to others.
On the coast of the Baltic Sea in the middle ages there was a place called Livonia, which is today the countries of Latvia and Estonia. There was a village in Livonia, where lived a girl named Kadri. Kadri was very pretty. Some said that she was the most beautiful girl in all the lands around the Baltic Sea. This would have been much to her good if she had not known of her beauty, but in fact she knew very well and never hesitated to exploit her charms to her benefit. She kept her parents’ heart-strings wrapped round her finger and they spoiled her as few children have ever been spoiled. She broke all the rules and treated all the other children very cruelly, but everyone tolerated her bad behavior because she was so beautiful.
Then as now, Livonia was a country of swamps and deep forests which lay only a few hundred feet beyond any village. Kadri was playing near there one day, when she looked up and saw a miraculous deer in the wood, which was all white with golden antlers, and its eyes were red as blood. She hurried back to her house and told her parents what she had seen, and she told her father, who was a hunter in the village, that he should go and kill the white deer for her, that she might have its pelt for a cloak.
Kadri’s father knew that such miraculous animals belonged to the druids, who were people in those days who had not become Christians, and instead kept to the old ways and lived in the woods practicing pagan magic. It was said among the people of the villages, that if a man went hunting after what belonged to the druids it would be him who was killed and eaten, his skin made into a drum and his skull into a drinking cup. He told Kadri that he would not go and hunt the white deer, but she screamed and yelled and held her breath ‘til she turned blue, until finally he agreed to go into the forest. He took his crossbow and went out each day, saying that he would hunt the deer she had seen, but he lied and instead hunted the other animals, which did not belong to the druids.
Finally, after several weeks, Kadri realized what her father was really doing, and she said that she would go with her father into the forest to make sure that he would catch the miraculous deer. He tried to tell her that she could not, and he made excuses like that she would frighten away the deer anyway, but she screamed and yelled and held her breath, and he gave in, and they went into the woods together.
Now it happened that the hunter had not been alone in the woods, and that the whole time he had been pretending to hunt the deer, there had been a druid following him to see what he did. Now when the druid saw Kadri, who as I told you was very beautiful, he thought that she would be good to eat. So he cast his magic on the father, who fell into a deep sleep, and he grabbed up Kadri and dragged her back to his cottage deep in the forest.
Kadri kicked and screamed and yelled, but no one heard her in the woods, and the druid paid no mind. But when he finally got her home, he poked and prodded at her flesh, and smelled her, and he realized that for as good as she looked, she would taste very foul, like a red shiny apple which has rotted all away inside. The druid asked Kadri what she thought he should do with her.
Kadri, who was so spoiled that she did not even think of the danger she was in, said that she wanted the white deer’s pelt for her cloak. Now it happened that the white deer was actually the druid himself, because such people had the power to take on the forms of miraculous animals. He was very offended by the presumption of this awful little girl, but he said that she would indeed have the cloak she wanted. He waved his magic wand and said a few words in the old language, which the village people like Kadri could no longer speak, and in an eyeblink she had turned into a white hind—that is, a female deer—with just such a snowy pelt as she had asked for. The druid then set her free, and in the shape of this doe she ran back to where he father lay, still sleeping.
It happened that she arrived at just the moment her father awoke, and seeing this white-pelted hind, he raised his crossbow and shot it dead. He hauled the carcass back to the village, where it was skinned and gutted and boned, the meat salted and smoked for the winter, and the pelt made into a cloak so beautiful that the Khan of the Golden Horde, which was a wealthy country far to the Southeast, bought it himself for one hundred gold pieces, this being far more than the worth of the entire village put together.
And no one ever saw Kadri again.
The moral of this story is that parents who spoil their children will only harm them in the end, and also that people should not covet the things that belong to others.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Zeitgeist
I've decided that I'm just about ready to give up on the news!
Here in the year 2007 I have to cling to the hope that the past six years, the first six years of the American Experiment in the Third Millennium, are some kind of aberration instead of a period that has really set the tone that's going to persist throughout my adult life.
We're talking about a period in which the favorite for the Republican Party's presidential nomination can say something like this little gem and have it be reported in subsequent days in this fashion, as a kind of gentlemanly disagreement about the rules of cricket.
McCain, whatever his recent failings, is a veteran and a former POW who knows what he's talking about. He was tortured regularly for an extended period! Giuliani is a plastic man, a cipher, who shrouds his egotistical will to power in a thin veneer of tough-guy posturing. Why does the New York Times pretend that these two people have anything approaching equivalency in a discussion about torture?
There's some kind of deep-seated sickness in the media with respect to the sin of taking sides, which we've seen not just on subjects like torture, but also with respect to Global Warming, the justification for the war in Iraq (and now a new conflict with Iran), the theory of evolution, and more. The American media is at best (and I mean discounting the kind of corruption and inbreeding that Glenn Greenwald spends most of his blog carping about) a huge forum for the expression of the Golden Mean fallacy. Forget that the facts don't take sides. Report the poles and decide that the truth falls somewhere in the middle.
When I read things like that article in the NYT I feel very angry but also very small, because there is nothing that I can do about something so stupid. This is the message going out to America: "The issue of torture is mainly concerned with politicians and representatives of the justice department discussing amongst themselves what actually constitutes torture, and whether or not torture yields useful information to stop terrorism. None of the assertions made by either side can be assigned any kind of value with regard to truthfulness."
But we're not talking about an abstruse political debate! We're talking about Khaled El-Masri, an innocent man abducted and renditioned to Afghanistan to be tortured for months. We're talking about real people, being waterboarded and deprived of sleep for extended periods right now, in secret CIA prisons.
Evan
Here in the year 2007 I have to cling to the hope that the past six years, the first six years of the American Experiment in the Third Millennium, are some kind of aberration instead of a period that has really set the tone that's going to persist throughout my adult life.
We're talking about a period in which the favorite for the Republican Party's presidential nomination can say something like this little gem and have it be reported in subsequent days in this fashion, as a kind of gentlemanly disagreement about the rules of cricket.
In a question about torture, he ridiculed the way newspapers portray controversial interrogation techniques like water-boarding and sleep deprivation.
If the media think sleep deprivation constitutes torture, Giuliani said, "On that theory, I'm being tortured running for president of the United States."
McCain, whatever his recent failings, is a veteran and a former POW who knows what he's talking about. He was tortured regularly for an extended period! Giuliani is a plastic man, a cipher, who shrouds his egotistical will to power in a thin veneer of tough-guy posturing. Why does the New York Times pretend that these two people have anything approaching equivalency in a discussion about torture?
There's some kind of deep-seated sickness in the media with respect to the sin of taking sides, which we've seen not just on subjects like torture, but also with respect to Global Warming, the justification for the war in Iraq (and now a new conflict with Iran), the theory of evolution, and more. The American media is at best (and I mean discounting the kind of corruption and inbreeding that Glenn Greenwald spends most of his blog carping about) a huge forum for the expression of the Golden Mean fallacy. Forget that the facts don't take sides. Report the poles and decide that the truth falls somewhere in the middle.
When I read things like that article in the NYT I feel very angry but also very small, because there is nothing that I can do about something so stupid. This is the message going out to America: "The issue of torture is mainly concerned with politicians and representatives of the justice department discussing amongst themselves what actually constitutes torture, and whether or not torture yields useful information to stop terrorism. None of the assertions made by either side can be assigned any kind of value with regard to truthfulness."
But we're not talking about an abstruse political debate! We're talking about Khaled El-Masri, an innocent man abducted and renditioned to Afghanistan to be tortured for months. We're talking about real people, being waterboarded and deprived of sleep for extended periods right now, in secret CIA prisons.
Evan
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Pop Art
Here's some stuff I made using the "Graffiti" application of the popular Facebook website, which I'm posting here for the enjoyment of people who don't use the Face-book but might read my blog. Which I think is something like three or four people. Maybe I should send out an e-mail to my family so everybody knows about that, but then again maybe people in my family would find my thoughts off-putting and offensive. It would be awkward at Thanksgiving.
This is the single composition that I'm most proud of.
There's something sublime about it, in the contrast between the heavy, earthbound monster at the right of panel, and the sprightly and whimsical creature at left. Obviously there's some limitations to it, mainly my complete absence of any talent for drawing, but I'm pretty happy with it.
I also drew an entire eighteen-page comic about a couple of colored dots expounding on the subject of modernist alienation, but blogger isn't letting me upload images at the moment, and in any case it might be a little too obnoxious to throw down a solid megabyte of images right here. We'll see, maybe later on.
This is the single composition that I'm most proud of.
There's something sublime about it, in the contrast between the heavy, earthbound monster at the right of panel, and the sprightly and whimsical creature at left. Obviously there's some limitations to it, mainly my complete absence of any talent for drawing, but I'm pretty happy with it.
I also drew an entire eighteen-page comic about a couple of colored dots expounding on the subject of modernist alienation, but blogger isn't letting me upload images at the moment, and in any case it might be a little too obnoxious to throw down a solid megabyte of images right here. We'll see, maybe later on.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Er?
I'm just going to pretend that there wasn't even a service interruption in my posting on this blog. It'll be a short one today, and we'll see if I have time in the future.
This was prompted mainly by confusion and outrage after reading one of Glenn Greenwald's own blog posts on the Salon.com. Greenwald is actually now the only political blogger who I read regularly, because he seems to have it together more than most.
Today his article is the second in a series about how the Anti-Defamation League and Simon Wiesenthal Center like to confront newsmakers for comparing current events and such to the Nazis, because that cheapens Nazism and the Holocaust. I think we can see this principle in effect today with respect to 9/11, because whereas I was very impressed by 9/11 the day it happened, lately I've just gotten tired of it. There was a 9/11 related episode of Law and Order (ripped from the headlines!) on rerun the other day, and all I could think about was the Giuliani campaign.
The problem that Greenwald has, is that the ADL doesn't do much denouncing of the neo-cons and Fox News people who throw "Nazi" around as a pejorative. He gives as his prime example a new book by Jonah Goldberg entitled Liberal Fascism, which features a smiley face with a Hitler mustache and apparently accuses all liberals of being Nazis.
From the blurb quoted by Greenwald:
'Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism. . . .
The modern heirs of this "friendly fascist" tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.'
Maybe it's the history student in me reacting with this confusion... but I confused as all hell by this book. I feel like I need to buy it, to understand what is going on in this blurb, or rather check it out from the library or steal it so that I can avoid giving any material support to this Goldberg person. The original Fascists were really on the left? Compared to who? My head is just swimming.
This was prompted mainly by confusion and outrage after reading one of Glenn Greenwald's own blog posts on the Salon.com. Greenwald is actually now the only political blogger who I read regularly, because he seems to have it together more than most.
Today his article is the second in a series about how the Anti-Defamation League and Simon Wiesenthal Center like to confront newsmakers for comparing current events and such to the Nazis, because that cheapens Nazism and the Holocaust. I think we can see this principle in effect today with respect to 9/11, because whereas I was very impressed by 9/11 the day it happened, lately I've just gotten tired of it. There was a 9/11 related episode of Law and Order (ripped from the headlines!) on rerun the other day, and all I could think about was the Giuliani campaign.
The problem that Greenwald has, is that the ADL doesn't do much denouncing of the neo-cons and Fox News people who throw "Nazi" around as a pejorative. He gives as his prime example a new book by Jonah Goldberg entitled Liberal Fascism, which features a smiley face with a Hitler mustache and apparently accuses all liberals of being Nazis.
From the blurb quoted by Greenwald:
'Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism. . . .
The modern heirs of this "friendly fascist" tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.'
Maybe it's the history student in me reacting with this confusion... but I confused as all hell by this book. I feel like I need to buy it, to understand what is going on in this blurb, or rather check it out from the library or steal it so that I can avoid giving any material support to this Goldberg person. The original Fascists were really on the left? Compared to who? My head is just swimming.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Water Bed
I have a water bed, and I'm moving into my new apartment sometime tomorrow, which means I need to make the water come out of the bed. The mattress bladder, when filled with water, weighs probably 600-1000 lbs and is sort of unwieldy.
The bed came with a panoply of pumps, faucet adapters, and manuals, but so far I can't remove the water. There is some kind of pump I'm trying to use, which uses what I assume to be Bernoulli's Principle, by hooking up to an ordinary faucet, and also to a hose which is connected to the water bed. The faucet is turned on, a siphon is started, and in 1-2 hours the bed is emptied. In theory. I've yet to make it work, for reasons I can't pretend to fathom. It's very possible--likely--that I'll fail utterly, have to call my friend Travis to help me (because he can make his hands do things), and be forced to find alternate sleeping arrangements. I'm on what will be my final attempt for the night right now, and the prospects are bad.
Watch this space.
UPDATE 1:20 AM
I thought the problem might be that the hose I bought at Wal-Mart has one of those awful plastic caps on it, that turns independently of the metal end and has a purpose I'm not familiar with. It might have been breaking the seal, so that the hose wasn't airtight, making it useless for siphoning. I pried a rubber gasket out of one of the pumps I wasn't using, and jammed it in there, hopefully to create a seal. This time when I started the pump, the hose began to wiggle slightly at my end. A good sign? I don't know!
UPDATE 3:00 AM
It didn't mean anything--I am completely incapable of siphoning anything out of this water bed. Total failure is the result of tonight's efforts. Hopefully, tomorrow will yield more.
UPDATE 2:38 PM
I managed to make it work, actually. It ran from about 4:30 AM to 6:30 AM and got it drained! Hoorah.
The bed came with a panoply of pumps, faucet adapters, and manuals, but so far I can't remove the water. There is some kind of pump I'm trying to use, which uses what I assume to be Bernoulli's Principle, by hooking up to an ordinary faucet, and also to a hose which is connected to the water bed. The faucet is turned on, a siphon is started, and in 1-2 hours the bed is emptied. In theory. I've yet to make it work, for reasons I can't pretend to fathom. It's very possible--likely--that I'll fail utterly, have to call my friend Travis to help me (because he can make his hands do things), and be forced to find alternate sleeping arrangements. I'm on what will be my final attempt for the night right now, and the prospects are bad.
Watch this space.
UPDATE 1:20 AM
I thought the problem might be that the hose I bought at Wal-Mart has one of those awful plastic caps on it, that turns independently of the metal end and has a purpose I'm not familiar with. It might have been breaking the seal, so that the hose wasn't airtight, making it useless for siphoning. I pried a rubber gasket out of one of the pumps I wasn't using, and jammed it in there, hopefully to create a seal. This time when I started the pump, the hose began to wiggle slightly at my end. A good sign? I don't know!
UPDATE 3:00 AM
It didn't mean anything--I am completely incapable of siphoning anything out of this water bed. Total failure is the result of tonight's efforts. Hopefully, tomorrow will yield more.
UPDATE 2:38 PM
I managed to make it work, actually. It ran from about 4:30 AM to 6:30 AM and got it drained! Hoorah.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Personal Data
I had my first day at the University Parking Ramp, wherein I sat in a box for 6 1/2 hours taking tickets and reading "Fast Food Nation" while my training instructor read Harry Potter and occasionally told me what to do. It was definitely the easiest job I've ever had.
The only significant occurrences follow--
Crazy Troll-woman
Around the middle of my shift a woman came through in an older model Buick bearing handicapped plates, and wearing a neck brace. I had a premonition that something would go wrong, because when she handed me her ticket to scan, it had no blue stick affixed to it. When a patient parks in the Hospital Ramp and then undergoes medical treatment of some kind at the Hospital, they can have their ramp ticket validated with a blue sticker, which means their parking is free. About 90% of the customers had these stickers. This woman, though clearly a patient, did not. On a side note, this woman was high up in the running for ugliest woman I've ever seen. Not so much obese as bloated, with maybe four teeth, but with plenty of acne scarring and warts to make up for the deficit.
I assumed there would be trouble, but I could not have anticipated what occurred. She gave me the ticket, I put it in the machine.
"One dollar fifty-five cents, please," I said.
"NO! NO! I don't pay anything! I just came from PT!" she was shouting from the word 'please,' maybe just an angry person.
I politely explained, "If you're a patient at the hospital you have to have your ticket validated in the hospital. Otherwise you have to pay money. Sorry."
"NO! I'm not paying. Just call up... just call up to physical therapy! They'll tell you! I don't have a dollar!"
My training guy took over at this time. "Well, they can't really help you with this over the phone, you need a little sticker. If you go back up there, they can give you one, and then we'll be okay."
"I--I can't go back up there! I'm handicapped! You're not supposed to treat handicapped people this way!"
"I'm sorry, we can't let you leave without $1.55."
"JUST CALL THE PT!"
"We don't have their number. You can fill out a form and we can bill you, or you can dispute it, whatever."
Unfortunately this form requires that they give their social security number for some reason, and I can tell from her demeanor that this woman does not give out her soc. Sure enough, she gets angry at the mere suggestion, probably believing us to be identity thieves, and she yells at us some more.
Training guy: "Let me just call my supervisor."
"Yeah, you call him so I can talk to him!"
My training guy calls the supervisor, but sort of spazzes out dialing so he has to try a couple of times. Once he gets the guy, the woman angrily demands to talk to our supervisor, so she gets the handset.
"Hi? Who--! Who is this?! What's your name?! What's your name?! What's your name!?"
(at this point the guy on the other end, not actually the supervisor yet, apparently believed that my training guy was putting him on with a practical joke. The supervisor was put on the line quickly, once it was determined to be otherwise).
The woman's conversation continued. "These two boys in your booth are being belligerent and telling me I have to pay a dollar because I don't have a sticker and they are VERY RUDE and I want them both written up." To my training guy: "What's your name?!"
He elected to give her only his cashier number, which was all she needed anyway. "I want him written up! Are you--are you writing him up right now! Because you should be, he's been rude and belligerent!"
A pause. "What--What's your name?! I'm going to write it down so I can call your supervisor! Let me... let me get something to write it down with!" A minute's search for a pen, and her silent accomplice in the passenger seat, also apparently handicapped, takes the name down. "All of you are gonna be out of a job!" the woman yells.
At this point the supervisor apparently informs her that we were completely correct and she can't leave the lot without paying. She gives us back the phone, which now smells of cigarettes and body odor, and reiterates her refusal to pay.
I should mention that, being as it's my first day and I'm being trained, I have no responsibility for this situation and I'm able to observe it. I am close to laughter for most of the ordeal, and when she loudly demands that we call the administrator of the hospital and "whoever runs this shitty parking ramp" I wink and quietly suggest to my coworker that we also call the President of the University for her.
At this point we're within an ace of having to call the police on her, because she won't pay and keeps demanding to leave, and in America we tend to exchange money for goods and services, as opposed to just stealing. Not to mention the fact that she is "belligerent," to borrow a word.
But she heads us off at the pass by yelling at passers-by to bum money from, which eventually gets a result, and she's able to leave on somebody else's $1.55. My trainer said that this was the worst encounter he had experienced in 3 years at the parking ramps.
Then later on about 8:00 PM it began to rain like the sky was falling and the county came under a tornado warning, so I got to hang out in a basement and then go home 30 minutes early.
A good first day.
The only significant occurrences follow--
Crazy Troll-woman
Around the middle of my shift a woman came through in an older model Buick bearing handicapped plates, and wearing a neck brace. I had a premonition that something would go wrong, because when she handed me her ticket to scan, it had no blue stick affixed to it. When a patient parks in the Hospital Ramp and then undergoes medical treatment of some kind at the Hospital, they can have their ramp ticket validated with a blue sticker, which means their parking is free. About 90% of the customers had these stickers. This woman, though clearly a patient, did not. On a side note, this woman was high up in the running for ugliest woman I've ever seen. Not so much obese as bloated, with maybe four teeth, but with plenty of acne scarring and warts to make up for the deficit.
I assumed there would be trouble, but I could not have anticipated what occurred. She gave me the ticket, I put it in the machine.
"One dollar fifty-five cents, please," I said.
"NO! NO! I don't pay anything! I just came from PT!" she was shouting from the word 'please,' maybe just an angry person.
I politely explained, "If you're a patient at the hospital you have to have your ticket validated in the hospital. Otherwise you have to pay money. Sorry."
"NO! I'm not paying. Just call up... just call up to physical therapy! They'll tell you! I don't have a dollar!"
My training guy took over at this time. "Well, they can't really help you with this over the phone, you need a little sticker. If you go back up there, they can give you one, and then we'll be okay."
"I--I can't go back up there! I'm handicapped! You're not supposed to treat handicapped people this way!"
"I'm sorry, we can't let you leave without $1.55."
"JUST CALL THE PT!"
"We don't have their number. You can fill out a form and we can bill you, or you can dispute it, whatever."
Unfortunately this form requires that they give their social security number for some reason, and I can tell from her demeanor that this woman does not give out her soc. Sure enough, she gets angry at the mere suggestion, probably believing us to be identity thieves, and she yells at us some more.
Training guy: "Let me just call my supervisor."
"Yeah, you call him so I can talk to him!"
My training guy calls the supervisor, but sort of spazzes out dialing so he has to try a couple of times. Once he gets the guy, the woman angrily demands to talk to our supervisor, so she gets the handset.
"Hi? Who--! Who is this?! What's your name?! What's your name?! What's your name!?"
(at this point the guy on the other end, not actually the supervisor yet, apparently believed that my training guy was putting him on with a practical joke. The supervisor was put on the line quickly, once it was determined to be otherwise).
The woman's conversation continued. "These two boys in your booth are being belligerent and telling me I have to pay a dollar because I don't have a sticker and they are VERY RUDE and I want them both written up." To my training guy: "What's your name?!"
He elected to give her only his cashier number, which was all she needed anyway. "I want him written up! Are you--are you writing him up right now! Because you should be, he's been rude and belligerent!"
A pause. "What--What's your name?! I'm going to write it down so I can call your supervisor! Let me... let me get something to write it down with!" A minute's search for a pen, and her silent accomplice in the passenger seat, also apparently handicapped, takes the name down. "All of you are gonna be out of a job!" the woman yells.
At this point the supervisor apparently informs her that we were completely correct and she can't leave the lot without paying. She gives us back the phone, which now smells of cigarettes and body odor, and reiterates her refusal to pay.
I should mention that, being as it's my first day and I'm being trained, I have no responsibility for this situation and I'm able to observe it. I am close to laughter for most of the ordeal, and when she loudly demands that we call the administrator of the hospital and "whoever runs this shitty parking ramp" I wink and quietly suggest to my coworker that we also call the President of the University for her.
At this point we're within an ace of having to call the police on her, because she won't pay and keeps demanding to leave, and in America we tend to exchange money for goods and services, as opposed to just stealing. Not to mention the fact that she is "belligerent," to borrow a word.
But she heads us off at the pass by yelling at passers-by to bum money from, which eventually gets a result, and she's able to leave on somebody else's $1.55. My trainer said that this was the worst encounter he had experienced in 3 years at the parking ramps.
Then later on about 8:00 PM it began to rain like the sky was falling and the county came under a tornado warning, so I got to hang out in a basement and then go home 30 minutes early.
A good first day.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Scooter Libby
The type of generic Cheerios that I favor are called "Scooters." Is there such a thing as coincidence, or do we live in a holistic universe, where nothing is coincidental?
Bush recently commuted the 30-month prison sentence of convicted criminal and Vice Presidential aide Scooter Libby. Personally, I had never believed that Bush was going to allow one of his hatchet men to endure so much as a week behind bars, so count me among the many unsurprised observers. My guess will be that not only will Libby not serve a day in prison, he will also not have to pay his fine, and he might not even be disbarred in the end.
I think what went into the decision was partly a reward for service and loyalty, and partly an effort to undermine the ability of the prosecutor to exert pressure on Libby to secure testimony implicating people higher up. Bush's official rationalization (that Libby had been sentenced to an excessive prison term) is ludicrous. From start to finish the investigation and trial were conducted by Bush appointees, and the Bush "tough on crime" Justice Department routinely inflicts maximum punishment.
The New Times finds some spine.
This article doesn't go so far as to actually call the president a hypocrite, they leave that to the quoted experts. This is a tough article and I'm glad to see the paper of record hitting Bush on this issue.
The Times does skip over an issue that Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com spends a lot of posts on, being the elitist Washington culture. Bush is arguing that the 30-month sentence was excessive, not because the sentence is always excessive for that crime, but because Scooter Libby was his Friend and a member of the president's Movement, so the rules don't apply to him in the same way that they applto a peasant like you or me.
Enter David Brooks with a stunningly awful column (Times Select only).
Scooter Libby is a plain, straight-dealing man, the only pure actor in the "farce" that is his prosecution, beset and victimized by an army of liberal media figures and overweening judges and prosecutors. Joe Wilson is a rotten bastard clawing for media attention, the outing of his wife was completely unimportant and certainly not a crime, the sentence was excessive, and not only were all the Liberal Media Figures totally overreacting with their anger, but it is so unreasonable to be angry about Libby's activities that even they weren't actually mad--they were cynically faking the whole thing!
Throw in a couple of pointless reference to the suffering of Scooter Libby's family (let's forget the original crime, which was an attempt to punish an administration opponent by ruining his wife's career) and to the Clinton episode (lying about a major felony != lying about a blowjob) and you've got a turgid piece of s**t column, one of the worst I've ever read--and I've seen a lot of stinkers. This column is so bad, so logically flawed, and so venomous that it makes me irritated in the same way as getting a parking ticket, that feeling of deep annoyance and irritation that I can feel in the back of my skull, something no columnist apart from Cal Thomas has been able to do.
Bush recently commuted the 30-month prison sentence of convicted criminal and Vice Presidential aide Scooter Libby. Personally, I had never believed that Bush was going to allow one of his hatchet men to endure so much as a week behind bars, so count me among the many unsurprised observers. My guess will be that not only will Libby not serve a day in prison, he will also not have to pay his fine, and he might not even be disbarred in the end.
I think what went into the decision was partly a reward for service and loyalty, and partly an effort to undermine the ability of the prosecutor to exert pressure on Libby to secure testimony implicating people higher up. Bush's official rationalization (that Libby had been sentenced to an excessive prison term) is ludicrous. From start to finish the investigation and trial were conducted by Bush appointees, and the Bush "tough on crime" Justice Department routinely inflicts maximum punishment.
The New Times finds some spine.
This article doesn't go so far as to actually call the president a hypocrite, they leave that to the quoted experts. This is a tough article and I'm glad to see the paper of record hitting Bush on this issue.
The Times does skip over an issue that Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com spends a lot of posts on, being the elitist Washington culture. Bush is arguing that the 30-month sentence was excessive, not because the sentence is always excessive for that crime, but because Scooter Libby was his Friend and a member of the president's Movement, so the rules don't apply to him in the same way that they applto a peasant like you or me.
Enter David Brooks with a stunningly awful column (Times Select only).
Scooter Libby is a plain, straight-dealing man, the only pure actor in the "farce" that is his prosecution, beset and victimized by an army of liberal media figures and overweening judges and prosecutors. Joe Wilson is a rotten bastard clawing for media attention, the outing of his wife was completely unimportant and certainly not a crime, the sentence was excessive, and not only were all the Liberal Media Figures totally overreacting with their anger, but it is so unreasonable to be angry about Libby's activities that even they weren't actually mad--they were cynically faking the whole thing!
Throw in a couple of pointless reference to the suffering of Scooter Libby's family (let's forget the original crime, which was an attempt to punish an administration opponent by ruining his wife's career) and to the Clinton episode (lying about a major felony != lying about a blowjob) and you've got a turgid piece of s**t column, one of the worst I've ever read--and I've seen a lot of stinkers. This column is so bad, so logically flawed, and so venomous that it makes me irritated in the same way as getting a parking ticket, that feeling of deep annoyance and irritation that I can feel in the back of my skull, something no columnist apart from Cal Thomas has been able to do.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Stem Cells and more
The New York Times reports on President Bush's recent Stem Cell Veto.
My perception of the stem cell tempest in a teacup is that it's a purely ideological issue. The anti-abortion camp doesn't want to use stem cells because they have committed ideologically to the idea that life begins at conception, therefore they must, in defiance of reason, oppose this medical research with potentially life-saving applications. I actually find it hard to articulate a coherent response to people who side with Bush on this issue because of how unreasonable their position is, like Flat-Earthers. Embryos which are going to be thrown away and will never be people can be used to save lives? I'm on for that, definitely.
Also, I learned from a blog that my Uncle Bob pointed me to that the Bible does not consider a fetus a person. Exodus 21:22 (KJV) says
Something from David Brooks here. This column is a fantastic mess, because all he does is briefly summarize the positions of two academics, and conclude by saying that they're both right and the truth was somewhere in the middle. How utterly useless of you, Mr. Brooks.
"The veto, only the third of Mr. Bush’s presidency, puts him at odds not only with the majority of voters, according to polls, but also with many members of his own political party."Why should this issue be any different from all the others?
My perception of the stem cell tempest in a teacup is that it's a purely ideological issue. The anti-abortion camp doesn't want to use stem cells because they have committed ideologically to the idea that life begins at conception, therefore they must, in defiance of reason, oppose this medical research with potentially life-saving applications. I actually find it hard to articulate a coherent response to people who side with Bush on this issue because of how unreasonable their position is, like Flat-Earthers. Embryos which are going to be thrown away and will never be people can be used to save lives? I'm on for that, definitely.
Also, I learned from a blog that my Uncle Bob pointed me to that the Bible does not consider a fetus a person. Exodus 21:22 (KJV) says
"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine."
This is right in the middle of the whole "eye for an eye" section of Exodus. Moses carefully notes that murder shall be punished by death, and that in case of a man injuring another so that he can't work, compensation equal to the loss of income over that time shall be paid. It's pretty clear, then, that the bible doesn't consider killing a fetus the same thing as killing a person. It's also no reason to assume that in the Israelite camp intentional miscarriage was any less common than it is in any other primitive community.
The passage is also troubling because it isn't completely clear on whether beating your slave to death counts as murder, and also cursing your parents is punishable by death. But this shouldn't be a problem for the pro-life crowd, because after all they're the ones who are setting so much store by that book, not me.
Opposition to Stem Cell research doesn't make any sense, because it's a separate issue from abortion. The embryos from which stem cells are being harvested are already dead; they will be disposed of whether they are used for research or not. I think this just goes more to the spitefulness of the pro-life movement, like I looked at in my previous blog entry about the Informed Consent laws. The pro-lifers are angry because they have no prospect of outright banning abortion, so they want to make it as inconvenient and uncomfortable as possible, and strangle a highly beneficial medical research field because of it's vague association with abortion.
Something from David Brooks here. This column is a fantastic mess, because all he does is briefly summarize the positions of two academics, and conclude by saying that they're both right and the truth was somewhere in the middle. How utterly useless of you, Mr. Brooks.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
I am an Internet Failure
A whole week with no new blog posts? For shame, Evan. I'd like to claim I've been busy, which is only partially true. Full honesty would be to admit that I've been flaking out on more than one thing this summer--so it is admitted. But, despite delays, here is more news that strikes my fancy!
Bush Rebuffs Germany on Emissions
There's something about the sweet little romance between George W. Bush and Angela Merkel that pleases me immensely. For those who hadn't heard, George W. Bush went to a G-8 meeting which was Angela Merkel's (the first female chancellor of Germany) first diplomatic event of that magnitude and gave her an unwanted shoulder rub which resulted in a panicked and disgusted rebuff from Merkel. I consider this my all-time favorite moment of Bush's administration, because in less than five seconds he managed to insult another head of state, insult her entire country by disrespecting said head of state, demean women in general, and make himself look like a total frat-boy idiot. That's talent.
So, whenever they pop up in the news together, I have to smile. This time the news is not so sanguine, however: the typical Bush administration treatment of the Global Warming problem. The more I learn about Global Warming the more I think that it is the key issue of our time, shadowboxing with terrorism and the very unfortunate Iraq war being sideshows in comparison. We're talking about unprecedented changes in the world as we know it, after all.
My favorite part of the story was the quote from our President:
So... the United States can serve as a bridge between Germany et al. and... the United States? It's annoying that the New York Times completely bought into the canard that India and China are the countries that we need to wag our fingers at. In the future they will be a problem that needs solving, but for now the United States is the biggest offender and also the nation with the greatest potential for finding solutions. The research infrastructure and resources that the USA could put behind a campaign to improve energy efficiency and decrease greenhouse gas pollution would dwarf the rest of the world combined, if only we had an executive branch that took the problem seriously!
Moreover, we do know that the Chinese government is in fact very interested in being part of the solution on global warming. Personally, I think it's a pragmatist issue for them; all indications are that China will become more and more influential and powerful in the coming years, but unchecked global warming would turn the entire world upside down. Why should they want something like that to check their nation's progress? India I know less about, but I doubt very much that they are as actively hostile to the Global Warming issue as the Bush administration.
Also at the G-8 summit there were some riots. Quelle horreur! Rioters at a G-8 summit? Who would have guessed?
Next:
David Brooks, anyone?
One thing that writing a blog does is that it gives me an excuse to force myself to read things I would otherwise ignore. David Brooks would be one example. I have no idea why he is a featured columnist for the New York Times. He is awful awful awful, and I have never read a column from him that has caused me to think his opinion meant anything. Him working at the NYT is like the Yankees having a catcher who just drops the ball five or six times a game. The only explanation I can think of for his employment is that the New York Times has some bias-related obligation to employ at least one right-leaning columnist, and they choose to retain one who is drab, unskilled, and unconvincing so as to prevent to right-wing looking good in their pages.
This editorial is not so bad, to the point that I'm almost glad I read it. It's just two-dimensional, is all. David Brooks tells us that bad things are happening in Iraq, and briefly describes how it is happening. In fact, he doesn't tell me anything I didn't know at this time last year. Thanks, David Brooks, for your pseudo-commentary.
I'm thinking that in the future I'll keep reading his work and commenting, hounding him as it were, in this blog. We'll see. I'm also considering a little fiction thing that I might write to submit to the UofI rags, and put bits of it here. We'll see what happens with that. I always feel very enthusiastic about that sort of thing but little comes of it.
Bush Rebuffs Germany on Emissions
There's something about the sweet little romance between George W. Bush and Angela Merkel that pleases me immensely. For those who hadn't heard, George W. Bush went to a G-8 meeting which was Angela Merkel's (the first female chancellor of Germany) first diplomatic event of that magnitude and gave her an unwanted shoulder rub which resulted in a panicked and disgusted rebuff from Merkel. I consider this my all-time favorite moment of Bush's administration, because in less than five seconds he managed to insult another head of state, insult her entire country by disrespecting said head of state, demean women in general, and make himself look like a total frat-boy idiot. That's talent.
So, whenever they pop up in the news together, I have to smile. This time the news is not so sanguine, however: the typical Bush administration treatment of the Global Warming problem. The more I learn about Global Warming the more I think that it is the key issue of our time, shadowboxing with terrorism and the very unfortunate Iraq war being sideshows in comparison. We're talking about unprecedented changes in the world as we know it, after all.
My favorite part of the story was the quote from our President:
He said the United States “can serve as a bridge between some nations who believe that now is the time to come up with a set goal” and “those who are reluctant to participate in the dialogue.”
So... the United States can serve as a bridge between Germany et al. and... the United States? It's annoying that the New York Times completely bought into the canard that India and China are the countries that we need to wag our fingers at. In the future they will be a problem that needs solving, but for now the United States is the biggest offender and also the nation with the greatest potential for finding solutions. The research infrastructure and resources that the USA could put behind a campaign to improve energy efficiency and decrease greenhouse gas pollution would dwarf the rest of the world combined, if only we had an executive branch that took the problem seriously!
Moreover, we do know that the Chinese government is in fact very interested in being part of the solution on global warming. Personally, I think it's a pragmatist issue for them; all indications are that China will become more and more influential and powerful in the coming years, but unchecked global warming would turn the entire world upside down. Why should they want something like that to check their nation's progress? India I know less about, but I doubt very much that they are as actively hostile to the Global Warming issue as the Bush administration.
Also at the G-8 summit there were some riots. Quelle horreur! Rioters at a G-8 summit? Who would have guessed?
Next:
David Brooks, anyone?
One thing that writing a blog does is that it gives me an excuse to force myself to read things I would otherwise ignore. David Brooks would be one example. I have no idea why he is a featured columnist for the New York Times. He is awful awful awful, and I have never read a column from him that has caused me to think his opinion meant anything. Him working at the NYT is like the Yankees having a catcher who just drops the ball five or six times a game. The only explanation I can think of for his employment is that the New York Times has some bias-related obligation to employ at least one right-leaning columnist, and they choose to retain one who is drab, unskilled, and unconvincing so as to prevent to right-wing looking good in their pages.
This editorial is not so bad, to the point that I'm almost glad I read it. It's just two-dimensional, is all. David Brooks tells us that bad things are happening in Iraq, and briefly describes how it is happening. In fact, he doesn't tell me anything I didn't know at this time last year. Thanks, David Brooks, for your pseudo-commentary.
I'm thinking that in the future I'll keep reading his work and commenting, hounding him as it were, in this blog. We'll see. I'm also considering a little fiction thing that I might write to submit to the UofI rags, and put bits of it here. We'll see what happens with that. I always feel very enthusiastic about that sort of thing but little comes of it.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Whence Frank Thompson, and whither?
New York Times
Gaze upon the jowly, saturnine face that is apparently the future of American conservatism. My guess, as an unlettered political animal, is that if Fred Thompson runs for the Republican nomination, he will win. If I turn out to be right, I'll take full credit, and if I'm wrong, I'll pretend I never said it. This is how the internet works.
My reasoning goes like this: the current front runners are piloting poisoned campaigns.
McCain has no pull among the party elite, his fevered toeing of the party line in the past few years has failed to win broad GOP support and has alienated the moderate vote (his only chance all along), and his aversion to torture will probably hurt him as well--the stony silence that greeted his strong stand against torture in the Republican debate was as frightening as it was enlightening.
Giuliani is Catholic, Italian, pro-Choice, an associate of luminaries like Bernie Kerik, and publicly reviled by firefighters. With America's hazy memories of 9/11 all he has going for him, and the FDNY chipping away at even that, he doesn't really have a serious chance. Even if he did get the nod, evangelicals would stay away from the polls in droves and he'd go down to a crushing defeat.
Romney is also pro-choice (his extremely recent Saint Paul-style conversion notwithstanding) and a Mormon. Polling indicates that being a Mormon is nearly as bad as being an atheist, electorally. So far, he's drubbing the other candidates in the money race, being the only Republican keeping anything like even pace with the Democrats, but that's probably because the deep pocket Republican donors think he's the only chance they've got. If a better candidate shows up, they'll leave Romney in the lurch.
Fred Thompson certainly seems to have the momentum. Multiple quotes in this NYT article compares him to Reagan in a favorable light. In conservative vernacular, "strong, almost Reagan-esque communication skills" is exactly equivalent to saying he wears a halo and heals the lame. The nay-sayers in the article talk about how he's too far behind in the money race, or that their candidates are stronger, but this is silly talk. Thompson has great grassroots buzz, the other candidates are very weak, and he has nine months before primary season starts. This is plenty of time to pick up the slack, especially since he'll be taking all of that money out of the other guys' pockets. He's also getting a lot of free publicity from the "is-he-or-isn't-he" game that news outlets like the New York Times are playing.
The quote from the Romney rep amused me most. He's talking about how the Romney charisma outweighs anything that Thompson brings to the table, so Mitt ain't scared. The spectacle of a member of such a shambling campaign praising the Romney magic pleases me, and I hope to see more of this kind of thing as the campaign goes on. The sublime incompetence of Romney's hunting/varminting episode has already made Romney a joke (which McCain cannily exploited for a good stomping), and as I mentioned above, he's a Mormon who was pro-choice until the day before he decided to run for president. Also, from what I understand, while Mitt is photogenic as all get-out, he is not actually very good at working the crowd.
The kicker of this whole thing is that Thompson isn't actually that strong a candidate. He has the right stands on the right issues, but he's still got the Iraq millstone around his neck, and the plain fact is that he's only so strong because people don't know anything much about him except for what he's told them so far. Looking into his senate record and plank, he seems to be a pretty standard old-school conservative. The status of the Republican party these days made even "Nasty Newt" Gingrich look good, so it's not surprising that a fairly average candidate would look like gold.
Of course, whichever Republican candidate wins the nomination, he'll be sailing against gale-force winds and will probably go down in a defeat of Goldwater-esque proportions.
Gaze upon the jowly, saturnine face that is apparently the future of American conservatism. My guess, as an unlettered political animal, is that if Fred Thompson runs for the Republican nomination, he will win. If I turn out to be right, I'll take full credit, and if I'm wrong, I'll pretend I never said it. This is how the internet works.
My reasoning goes like this: the current front runners are piloting poisoned campaigns.
McCain has no pull among the party elite, his fevered toeing of the party line in the past few years has failed to win broad GOP support and has alienated the moderate vote (his only chance all along), and his aversion to torture will probably hurt him as well--the stony silence that greeted his strong stand against torture in the Republican debate was as frightening as it was enlightening.
Giuliani is Catholic, Italian, pro-Choice, an associate of luminaries like Bernie Kerik, and publicly reviled by firefighters. With America's hazy memories of 9/11 all he has going for him, and the FDNY chipping away at even that, he doesn't really have a serious chance. Even if he did get the nod, evangelicals would stay away from the polls in droves and he'd go down to a crushing defeat.
Romney is also pro-choice (his extremely recent Saint Paul-style conversion notwithstanding) and a Mormon. Polling indicates that being a Mormon is nearly as bad as being an atheist, electorally. So far, he's drubbing the other candidates in the money race, being the only Republican keeping anything like even pace with the Democrats, but that's probably because the deep pocket Republican donors think he's the only chance they've got. If a better candidate shows up, they'll leave Romney in the lurch.
Fred Thompson certainly seems to have the momentum. Multiple quotes in this NYT article compares him to Reagan in a favorable light. In conservative vernacular, "strong, almost Reagan-esque communication skills" is exactly equivalent to saying he wears a halo and heals the lame. The nay-sayers in the article talk about how he's too far behind in the money race, or that their candidates are stronger, but this is silly talk. Thompson has great grassroots buzz, the other candidates are very weak, and he has nine months before primary season starts. This is plenty of time to pick up the slack, especially since he'll be taking all of that money out of the other guys' pockets. He's also getting a lot of free publicity from the "is-he-or-isn't-he" game that news outlets like the New York Times are playing.
The quote from the Romney rep amused me most. He's talking about how the Romney charisma outweighs anything that Thompson brings to the table, so Mitt ain't scared. The spectacle of a member of such a shambling campaign praising the Romney magic pleases me, and I hope to see more of this kind of thing as the campaign goes on. The sublime incompetence of Romney's hunting/varminting episode has already made Romney a joke (which McCain cannily exploited for a good stomping), and as I mentioned above, he's a Mormon who was pro-choice until the day before he decided to run for president. Also, from what I understand, while Mitt is photogenic as all get-out, he is not actually very good at working the crowd.
The kicker of this whole thing is that Thompson isn't actually that strong a candidate. He has the right stands on the right issues, but he's still got the Iraq millstone around his neck, and the plain fact is that he's only so strong because people don't know anything much about him except for what he's told them so far. Looking into his senate record and plank, he seems to be a pretty standard old-school conservative. The status of the Republican party these days made even "Nasty Newt" Gingrich look good, so it's not surprising that a fairly average candidate would look like gold.
Of course, whichever Republican candidate wins the nomination, he'll be sailing against gale-force winds and will probably go down in a defeat of Goldwater-esque proportions.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Iran?
I've been at my cousin's wedding all weekend and change, hence no updates. Here's something! Thanks to Janani for pointing me to this fine website.
Commentary?
Is it just me, or is there some very special kind of arrogance that goes into giving your publication a name like "Commentary"? Is this word, unalloyed by any declamatory embellishment, meant to indicate that you will provide the reader with the definitive commentary on any subject appearing within its pages? Or am I reading too much into titles? Questions, questions.
The article I examine here comes courtesy of their editor-at-large, Norman Podhoretz.
Mr. Podhoretz begins by informing us that he considers the Cold War to have actually been World War III, and that this means that the current Global War on Terror is really WWIV. This rhetorical flourish bothers me, so Podhoretz succeeds in pissing me off in the first two sentences of his article. An auspicious start.
Forgive me for my ignorance, but I was under the impression that a "World War" required that a fairly hefty portion of the world be directly involved, and also that a war should be going on. I tend to think that the second requirement is more critical than the first--after all, World War I is undisputed as a World War, thought it was pretty much a European affair. So, calling the Cold War, which amounted to a lot of diplomatic posturing and arms racing plus a handful of proxy wars (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.) WWIII might be exaggerating. By that sort of logic we can say that, due to the diplomatic maneuvering taking place prior to August 1914, WWI actually went on from ca. 1905 to 1921 (counting the Russian Civil War as a direct outgrowth).
As for the putative WWIV, America and Britain plus loose change versus a lot of Stateless Jihadists and also Iraq fall rather short of requirement number one, and requirement number two is foggy. If one subscribes to the notion that a cultural and ideological struggle constitute a war, then definitely we're in a bit of a scrap, maybe the biggest since the American Civil War of 1830-1877.
Kidding aside, Podhoretz is just engaging in a completely empty saber-rattling rhetorical exercise. By asserting that we're in a World War he instantly ratchets up the issue and escalates the language, which is always a good position to be in. When a fuzzy-headed liberal insists that we need to stop and think, then you can tell him that it's time to fight the Good Fight in WWIV. Maybe it's the lack of any direct American experience with the toll that a real war, on home territory, exacts on a nation that allows people like Podhoretz to make fatuous statements like this.
I've also noticed a marked strategy of the Neo-Conservatives to reference to long, hard struggles. Podhoretz informs us that WWIV is "likely to go on for decades." By speaking in long timescales and the language of hard struggle, they're achieving two goals. First, this is a long war, so Americans should not be dismayed if there are no results for five or six or twenty years. Second, this is a tough fight, and Americans always rise to the challenge.
Let's not lose our heads, Norman. I'll grant you that eradicating terrorism will be a long fight. The roots of this guerrilla movement within the Muslim world are deep, and while cutting the weed down helps (viz. our invasion of Afghanistan) it's going to take a long time to dig up the roots--economic, political, and ideological--that drive the Jihadists. But as unfashionable as it might be to say this, terrorism is not that great a danger to America in general. Terrorists are very scary--it's in their name, for Christ's sake!--and every death is a tragedy, but exactly how much damage did the 9/11 attacks do to America, to the sinews of its Great Power status, in the realistic analysis? It hurt us substantially less than the invasion of Iraq did, militarily, economically, and diplomatically.
For a long time people were afraid to say things like that, for fear of being accused of "making light of terrorism" or otherwise minimizing the threat. But I think it's beginning to dawn on a lot of people that they've been bamboozled. Certainly Osama bin Laden or any of his thugs would like to kill me if he met me in person. But the concrete likelihood of me, here in the Midwest, being killed by a Jihadist is substantially less than my likelihood of being struck and killed by a drunk driver. Get ready for WWV, the War on Alcohol.
Rather than semantics-mongering about World Wars Three and Four, maybe we should examine the problems of terrorism and radical Islamism on their face and come up with real solutions. Treating them as struggles of national intelligence and law enforcement and economic/cultural change, respectively, would be a start. Of course people like Podhoretz would insist that This is a War unique in human history, and that I'm being a flippant, unrealistic ivory tower liberal by saying that we can handle this with Kid Gloves--we must throw the full force of the immense American Military-Industrial complex behind WWIV. My feeling is that if your house is infested with rats, you should try poison and traps before grabbing gun and shooting holes in all the walls.
Moving on.
Podhoretz follows up this up with typical Iran-based fearmongering. To prove how dangerous Iran is, he cites a State Department annual report about terrorism that says Iran is the main sponsor of global terrorism. The State Department of course being an entirely neutral party as regards Iran. Being as Mr. Podhoretz is a leading neoconservative, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and member of some important neoconservative committees, and being as the Bush administration and State Department are shot through with neoconservativism, isn't there some rule against him citing them? Can I cite myself and my friends as a source as well?
There some kind of cognitive disease at work here, as well. Iran as the leader of global "Islamofascism" is hard to swallow, because Iranians are Shi'ites and most everyone else are Sunnis. And the jihadists of al Qaeda et al. are not only Sunnis, but super-Sunnis who foam at the mouth and so on. Are the Ayatollahs who run Iran sad when al Qaeda and other Sunni terrorist groups kill Americans? Clearly not. They probably pop open their non-alcoholic champagne on just those occasions. But the aims of Al Qaeda and co. are completely anathema to everything the Ayatollahs hold dear; what the radical Islamists want is one Muslim state, the Caliphate, which will encompass all Muslim countries from Morocco to Indonesia in one glorious, utopian superstate. For Persian Iranians, this means permanent occupation and horrific religious persecution at the hands of Sunni Arab zealots. Not exactly an ideal outcome, and reason enough to belief the State Department might be making more out of this than actually obtains.
Podhoretz then moves from this mind-bending on to Nuclear panic. For my part I subscribe to the leftist lie that Iran mainly wants nuclear capability for the purpose of generating power, and secondarily for bombs to make themselves even scarier. Iran, despite being a petroleum exporter, lacks refining capacity and has to import gasoline. Nuclear power would alleviate a lot of their problems. It's also hard to believe that Iran wants to attack anybody with nuclear weapons. There's a lot of mileage on the idea of The Bomb in the hands of a Madman, but I have my doubts. If nobody up till now (including Stalin and Mao, legendary for their mental stability) has deployed the nukes, why would Ahmadinejad be the first?
It's also egotistical to think that the Iranians would be willing to go down to certain annihilation in the face of America's colossal nuclear arsenal, irrevocably destroying a 4,000 year old continuous cultural history of which they are tremendously proud, just to maybe kill a few hundred thousand Americans. Do we really think that other nations want to commit suicide just to deal America a few grim but easily survivable blows?
Then there's the more concrete question of whether Ahmadinejad would actually have to power to exercise the use nuclear weapons in any capacity. The answer is no, for reasons that pretty much undo the entire thrust of Podhoretz article. Ahmadinejad is a popular figure in the western media. "Look at the crazy President of Iran. He wants to destroy Israel!" This springs, I think, from an American delusion that the office of President is the same in Iran as it is in the USA. It isn't. Ahmadinejad exercises executive power at the pleasure of the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollahi Khamenei, and his decisions can be overruled at any time. Ahmadinejad's role is mostly ceremonial.
Following Podhoretz, we then move into some kind of bizarre Cold War paranoid fantasy.
The article continues to degenerate with a kindly reference to the nonspecific "British Press." Who does Norman indicate with that moniker? Is the Times of London? The Guardian? The Daily Mirror? The Sun? Or (my own guess) a letter to the editor from some East Anglian village newsletter? That counts as the British Press--it came out of a printing press located somewhere in Britain! A few paragraphs later, we run into "some observers". I am a great fan of "some observers", they always have such fascinating things to say. Already some observers are warning that the American government (or "Zionist Occupational Government" or ZOG as they call it) is controlled by a shadowy camarillo of International Jew Bankers whose sole objective is the mongrolization and destruction of the white race.
Only a quarter of the way through this trainwreck and already I'm tired of Podhoretz. It's late and time for bed. Perhaps I'll revisit him in the future, but don't count on it.
Evan
Commentary?
Is it just me, or is there some very special kind of arrogance that goes into giving your publication a name like "Commentary"? Is this word, unalloyed by any declamatory embellishment, meant to indicate that you will provide the reader with the definitive commentary on any subject appearing within its pages? Or am I reading too much into titles? Questions, questions.
The article I examine here comes courtesy of their editor-at-large, Norman Podhoretz.
Mr. Podhoretz begins by informing us that he considers the Cold War to have actually been World War III, and that this means that the current Global War on Terror is really WWIV. This rhetorical flourish bothers me, so Podhoretz succeeds in pissing me off in the first two sentences of his article. An auspicious start.
Forgive me for my ignorance, but I was under the impression that a "World War" required that a fairly hefty portion of the world be directly involved, and also that a war should be going on. I tend to think that the second requirement is more critical than the first--after all, World War I is undisputed as a World War, thought it was pretty much a European affair. So, calling the Cold War, which amounted to a lot of diplomatic posturing and arms racing plus a handful of proxy wars (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.) WWIII might be exaggerating. By that sort of logic we can say that, due to the diplomatic maneuvering taking place prior to August 1914, WWI actually went on from ca. 1905 to 1921 (counting the Russian Civil War as a direct outgrowth).
As for the putative WWIV, America and Britain plus loose change versus a lot of Stateless Jihadists and also Iraq fall rather short of requirement number one, and requirement number two is foggy. If one subscribes to the notion that a cultural and ideological struggle constitute a war, then definitely we're in a bit of a scrap, maybe the biggest since the American Civil War of 1830-1877.
Kidding aside, Podhoretz is just engaging in a completely empty saber-rattling rhetorical exercise. By asserting that we're in a World War he instantly ratchets up the issue and escalates the language, which is always a good position to be in. When a fuzzy-headed liberal insists that we need to stop and think, then you can tell him that it's time to fight the Good Fight in WWIV. Maybe it's the lack of any direct American experience with the toll that a real war, on home territory, exacts on a nation that allows people like Podhoretz to make fatuous statements like this.
I've also noticed a marked strategy of the Neo-Conservatives to reference to long, hard struggles. Podhoretz informs us that WWIV is "likely to go on for decades." By speaking in long timescales and the language of hard struggle, they're achieving two goals. First, this is a long war, so Americans should not be dismayed if there are no results for five or six or twenty years. Second, this is a tough fight, and Americans always rise to the challenge.
Let's not lose our heads, Norman. I'll grant you that eradicating terrorism will be a long fight. The roots of this guerrilla movement within the Muslim world are deep, and while cutting the weed down helps (viz. our invasion of Afghanistan) it's going to take a long time to dig up the roots--economic, political, and ideological--that drive the Jihadists. But as unfashionable as it might be to say this, terrorism is not that great a danger to America in general. Terrorists are very scary--it's in their name, for Christ's sake!--and every death is a tragedy, but exactly how much damage did the 9/11 attacks do to America, to the sinews of its Great Power status, in the realistic analysis? It hurt us substantially less than the invasion of Iraq did, militarily, economically, and diplomatically.
For a long time people were afraid to say things like that, for fear of being accused of "making light of terrorism" or otherwise minimizing the threat. But I think it's beginning to dawn on a lot of people that they've been bamboozled. Certainly Osama bin Laden or any of his thugs would like to kill me if he met me in person. But the concrete likelihood of me, here in the Midwest, being killed by a Jihadist is substantially less than my likelihood of being struck and killed by a drunk driver. Get ready for WWV, the War on Alcohol.
Rather than semantics-mongering about World Wars Three and Four, maybe we should examine the problems of terrorism and radical Islamism on their face and come up with real solutions. Treating them as struggles of national intelligence and law enforcement and economic/cultural change, respectively, would be a start. Of course people like Podhoretz would insist that This is a War unique in human history, and that I'm being a flippant, unrealistic ivory tower liberal by saying that we can handle this with Kid Gloves--we must throw the full force of the immense American Military-Industrial complex behind WWIV. My feeling is that if your house is infested with rats, you should try poison and traps before grabbing gun and shooting holes in all the walls.
Moving on.
Podhoretz follows up this up with typical Iran-based fearmongering. To prove how dangerous Iran is, he cites a State Department annual report about terrorism that says Iran is the main sponsor of global terrorism. The State Department of course being an entirely neutral party as regards Iran. Being as Mr. Podhoretz is a leading neoconservative, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and member of some important neoconservative committees, and being as the Bush administration and State Department are shot through with neoconservativism, isn't there some rule against him citing them? Can I cite myself and my friends as a source as well?
There some kind of cognitive disease at work here, as well. Iran as the leader of global "Islamofascism" is hard to swallow, because Iranians are Shi'ites and most everyone else are Sunnis. And the jihadists of al Qaeda et al. are not only Sunnis, but super-Sunnis who foam at the mouth and so on. Are the Ayatollahs who run Iran sad when al Qaeda and other Sunni terrorist groups kill Americans? Clearly not. They probably pop open their non-alcoholic champagne on just those occasions. But the aims of Al Qaeda and co. are completely anathema to everything the Ayatollahs hold dear; what the radical Islamists want is one Muslim state, the Caliphate, which will encompass all Muslim countries from Morocco to Indonesia in one glorious, utopian superstate. For Persian Iranians, this means permanent occupation and horrific religious persecution at the hands of Sunni Arab zealots. Not exactly an ideal outcome, and reason enough to belief the State Department might be making more out of this than actually obtains.
Podhoretz then moves from this mind-bending on to Nuclear panic. For my part I subscribe to the leftist lie that Iran mainly wants nuclear capability for the purpose of generating power, and secondarily for bombs to make themselves even scarier. Iran, despite being a petroleum exporter, lacks refining capacity and has to import gasoline. Nuclear power would alleviate a lot of their problems. It's also hard to believe that Iran wants to attack anybody with nuclear weapons. There's a lot of mileage on the idea of The Bomb in the hands of a Madman, but I have my doubts. If nobody up till now (including Stalin and Mao, legendary for their mental stability) has deployed the nukes, why would Ahmadinejad be the first?
It's also egotistical to think that the Iranians would be willing to go down to certain annihilation in the face of America's colossal nuclear arsenal, irrevocably destroying a 4,000 year old continuous cultural history of which they are tremendously proud, just to maybe kill a few hundred thousand Americans. Do we really think that other nations want to commit suicide just to deal America a few grim but easily survivable blows?
Then there's the more concrete question of whether Ahmadinejad would actually have to power to exercise the use nuclear weapons in any capacity. The answer is no, for reasons that pretty much undo the entire thrust of Podhoretz article. Ahmadinejad is a popular figure in the western media. "Look at the crazy President of Iran. He wants to destroy Israel!" This springs, I think, from an American delusion that the office of President is the same in Iran as it is in the USA. It isn't. Ahmadinejad exercises executive power at the pleasure of the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollahi Khamenei, and his decisions can be overruled at any time. Ahmadinejad's role is mostly ceremonial.
Following Podhoretz, we then move into some kind of bizarre Cold War paranoid fantasy.
"And in the realm of domestic affairs, Finlandization would mean that the only candidates running for office with a prayer of being elected would be those who promised to work toward a sociopolitical system more in harmony with the Soviet model than the unjust capitalist plutocracy under which we had been living.Hippies and libero-commie politicians were all prepared to bring down the capitalist system and force us all to live under soft-pedal Stalinism, but Lech Walesa, the Gipper, and the LORD rescued us at the very doors of defeat. What a spectacular world these people live in, of narrow escapes and secret conspiracies.
Of course, by the grace of God, the dissidents behind the Iron Curtain, and Ronald Reagan, we won World War III and were therefore spared the depredations that Finlandization would have brought."
The article continues to degenerate with a kindly reference to the nonspecific "British Press." Who does Norman indicate with that moniker? Is the Times of London? The Guardian? The Daily Mirror? The Sun? Or (my own guess) a letter to the editor from some East Anglian village newsletter? That counts as the British Press--it came out of a printing press located somewhere in Britain! A few paragraphs later, we run into "some observers". I am a great fan of "some observers", they always have such fascinating things to say. Already some observers are warning that the American government (or "Zionist Occupational Government" or ZOG as they call it) is controlled by a shadowy camarillo of International Jew Bankers whose sole objective is the mongrolization and destruction of the white race.
Only a quarter of the way through this trainwreck and already I'm tired of Podhoretz. It's late and time for bed. Perhaps I'll revisit him in the future, but don't count on it.
Evan
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
More News
Most of my blogging is going to come from the New York Times online, because they're kind enough to give me full access for free, just because I am a student.
Abortion Foes See Validation for New Tactic
The article in the NYT today that caught my eye was this one about the grand old abortion debate, the favorite stomping grounds of the Falwells and Dobsons, and the famed litmus test for all GOP candidates. It concerns the evangelical infatuation with their new strategy of claiming that abortion isn't just bad for fetuses/babies/martyred saints, it's bad for women, too.
I have a few immediate problems with this argument:
1) On the issue of psychological harm, well, duh. Of course it's a difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy, only made worse by the vitriolic disapproval from the anti-abortion types. The people who say they only want to look out for the health of both baby and mother are the same people who camp outside the clinics and call the women seeking abortions whores and murderers. Anti-abortion groups assert that there is a psychological disorder called Post Abortion Syndrome which is related to PTSD, but unfortunately this isn't recognized by the psychological or psychiatric communities and isn't to be found anywhere in the DSM-IV (the bible of mental disorders). So, PAS exists in the same murky ground as claims that homosexuality is a mental defect.
2) As for the claims that abortion is a severe danger medically, well, the evidence doesn't obtain. When you're making a medical argument this total lack of reputable, peer-reviewed research is a serious problem. In reality an abortion performed by a doctor in a clinic (e.g., a legal abortion as opposed to the back-alley jobs that would be necessitated by a renewed ban) is safer than childbirth.
3) Finally, the entire argument is flawed. Even if abortion were as dangerous for a woman as claimed, where is the justification for state intervention? Divorce can be an emotionally damaging, difficult experience. Should the state force married couples to undergo counseling before they're allowed to file for divorce?
Then there's the matter of the actual content of these state-mandated "informed consent" sessions and counseling procedures. As reported by the Times, the South Dakota informed consent law (under legal challenge) states that abortion kills a
(South Carolina also wants to force women to look at the fetus via sonogram before having the abortion. I don't think this will work because it is illegal to force people to undergo medical procedures without their consent, but it is a nice touch. Maybe they can also make a law saying that the doctor has to slap the woman across the face and yell "It's a child, not a choice!" before starting the procedure.)
Something else I enjoyed:
Abortion Foes See Validation for New Tactic
The article in the NYT today that caught my eye was this one about the grand old abortion debate, the favorite stomping grounds of the Falwells and Dobsons, and the famed litmus test for all GOP candidates. It concerns the evangelical infatuation with their new strategy of claiming that abortion isn't just bad for fetuses/babies/martyred saints, it's bad for women, too.
I have a few immediate problems with this argument:
1) On the issue of psychological harm, well, duh. Of course it's a difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy, only made worse by the vitriolic disapproval from the anti-abortion types. The people who say they only want to look out for the health of both baby and mother are the same people who camp outside the clinics and call the women seeking abortions whores and murderers. Anti-abortion groups assert that there is a psychological disorder called Post Abortion Syndrome which is related to PTSD, but unfortunately this isn't recognized by the psychological or psychiatric communities and isn't to be found anywhere in the DSM-IV (the bible of mental disorders). So, PAS exists in the same murky ground as claims that homosexuality is a mental defect.
2) As for the claims that abortion is a severe danger medically, well, the evidence doesn't obtain. When you're making a medical argument this total lack of reputable, peer-reviewed research is a serious problem. In reality an abortion performed by a doctor in a clinic (e.g., a legal abortion as opposed to the back-alley jobs that would be necessitated by a renewed ban) is safer than childbirth.
3) Finally, the entire argument is flawed. Even if abortion were as dangerous for a woman as claimed, where is the justification for state intervention? Divorce can be an emotionally damaging, difficult experience. Should the state force married couples to undergo counseling before they're allowed to file for divorce?
Then there's the matter of the actual content of these state-mandated "informed consent" sessions and counseling procedures. As reported by the Times, the South Dakota informed consent law (under legal challenge) states that abortion kills a
'“whole, separate, unique, living human being,” and that it carries a variety of psychological and physical risks to the woman.'It becomes rather clear what the "informed consent" law really is. Abortion foes can assemble across the street from an abortion clinic and yell abuse at women who enter. But, sadly, they can't follow the woman into the clinic and continue to verbally assault her. This where the God-fearing South Dakota state legislature comes in, because now you are directed by law to stop and listen to a state-mandated official tell you that abortion is murder before you're allowed to go into the operating room. How splendid, and might I add, it is wonderful to hear that in the state of South Dakota the government mandates officials inside a medical clinic to make false statements about the medical safety of a procedure.
(South Carolina also wants to force women to look at the fetus via sonogram before having the abortion. I don't think this will work because it is illegal to force people to undergo medical procedures without their consent, but it is a nice touch. Maybe they can also make a law saying that the doctor has to slap the woman across the face and yell "It's a child, not a choice!" before starting the procedure.)
Something else I enjoyed:
"But Allan E. Parker Jr., president of the Justice Foundation, a conservative group based in Texas, compares the campaign intended for women to the long struggle to inform Americans about the risks of smoking. “We’re kind of in the early stages of tobacco litigation,” Mr. Parker said."Now, see, the difference here would be that tobacco has been established by decades of unanimous scientific evidence to be dangerous, and that there isn't any strong evidence that abortion is particularly dangerous medically or psychologically.
Monday, May 21, 2007
College!
At the University of Iowa, you need 120 credit-hours to graduate. There is also a regulation that says, of those 120, a maximum of 50 can be derived from any one department. I have run up into that barrier with history classes. The field that I have majored it, the only field in which I have genuine, unalloyed interest (I like German, but as sort of an adjunct to my history work), must now stop contributing credits to my graduation.
This is not going to stop me from graduating, and it's not going to stop me from taking history classes. I have 104 credits right now, and of the 15 I'm taking next semester 9 will apply toward my total. Seven non-history credits in Spring 2008 will be a breeze. I am annoyed, however, partially because I can't divine any purpose to this rule. How did they arrive at the figure of 50 credits from any one department? Arbitrarily, I'm certain. I dispute the legitimacy of this number. Fie on it.
This is not going to stop me from graduating, and it's not going to stop me from taking history classes. I have 104 credits right now, and of the 15 I'm taking next semester 9 will apply toward my total. Seven non-history credits in Spring 2008 will be a breeze. I am annoyed, however, partially because I can't divine any purpose to this rule. How did they arrive at the figure of 50 credits from any one department? Arbitrarily, I'm certain. I dispute the legitimacy of this number. Fie on it.
First Post
Because of encouragement by a couple friends I've decided to try to keep a blog. Hopefully I'll be adding to it daily, but we'll see. My main purpose will be to look at news stories and use my brain to formulate a type-written response, available for your tube-driven internet perusal. Here's my first effort, starting with something from the New York Times week in review.
The article concerns the claims which are apparently being made about the conservative movement being in its death throes. Right away this gives me pause, because I don't know who's talking about that. Apparently, "many" are behind this line of thought. I wonder how "many". I don't really know anybody who has said that the conservative movement is finished, maybe because all the liberals I know are too pessimistic--or realistic. Or maybe the "many" don't actually exist, and are merely a straw man fallacy, created and held up so that it can be knocked down. Unidentified multitudes say that the conservative movement is over, thus giving us a perfect opportunity to talk about how wrong they are.
The gist of the article is, of course, correct. The conservative movement isn't finished. It's actually very hard, maybe impossible, to kill an ideology. The Nazis were complete and utter failures whose efforts accomplished nothing but the utter ruination of their homeland and stained German history forever, yet there are still swastika-toting goons to be found in any country one cares to look at.
The problem with the article is it's uncritical placement of Wolfowitz and Falwell in the same category. Since both supported the Republican party, the reasoning goes, they're similar enough to talk about them as one. But if you look at what the two actually supported you find they have almost nothing in common. For Falwell social issues (homosexuals, fetuses, condoms, and indecent television) were paramount; Wolfowitz didn't care about anything but invading Iraq. There are multiple movements within the Republican party which scarcely bear resemblance to one another and are allied for political convenience--to whit, Falwell's fundamentalists with their foam-at-the-mouth social agenda, Wolfowitz's neo-conservatives with their military adventurism, and the Eisenhower school exemplified by Arlen Specter or John McCain circa the 2000 campaign (these days he's just another goon). America being a two-party system, these elements overlook their wildly divergent goals and focus on their similarities.
The reason for Reagan's success and his saintly image in the Republican party today was his capacity to make all the different parts of the GOP feel loved by him (he was an actor, after all). Still, making reference to a conservative movement exemplified by both Wolfowitz and Falwell is a little odd--shouldn't a "movement" tend to move in one direction? Maybe Tanenhaus was thinking more about the similarities in rhetorical strategy, with both F and W having plenty of contempt for truth, logic, and the rule of law.
Finally, a last nitpick
"The unpopularity of the Iraq war is nearing Vietnam proportions, and President Bush’s plummeting poll numbers resemble those of Mr. McNamara’s boss, Lyndon B. Johnson."
With margin of error, and depending on what poll you trust, Bush's approval ratings are actually right around Lyndon Johnson's deepest valley of 35%, and have at times dipped even lower. Newsweek polls reported a 28% percent approval rating at the beginning of the month.
Polling Report
Another prominent difference would be that Bush's abysmal poll rating has held steady for quite a long time, whereas Lyndon Johnson's numbers dipped severely after the Tet Offensive and then climbed back to just under 50% by the time he left office. The jury is still out on whether Bush will recover to lofty 40% territory or not, but it doesn't look too good.
NYTThe article concerns the claims which are apparently being made about the conservative movement being in its death throes. Right away this gives me pause, because I don't know who's talking about that. Apparently, "many" are behind this line of thought. I wonder how "many". I don't really know anybody who has said that the conservative movement is finished, maybe because all the liberals I know are too pessimistic--or realistic. Or maybe the "many" don't actually exist, and are merely a straw man fallacy, created and held up so that it can be knocked down. Unidentified multitudes say that the conservative movement is over, thus giving us a perfect opportunity to talk about how wrong they are.
The gist of the article is, of course, correct. The conservative movement isn't finished. It's actually very hard, maybe impossible, to kill an ideology. The Nazis were complete and utter failures whose efforts accomplished nothing but the utter ruination of their homeland and stained German history forever, yet there are still swastika-toting goons to be found in any country one cares to look at.
The problem with the article is it's uncritical placement of Wolfowitz and Falwell in the same category. Since both supported the Republican party, the reasoning goes, they're similar enough to talk about them as one. But if you look at what the two actually supported you find they have almost nothing in common. For Falwell social issues (homosexuals, fetuses, condoms, and indecent television) were paramount; Wolfowitz didn't care about anything but invading Iraq. There are multiple movements within the Republican party which scarcely bear resemblance to one another and are allied for political convenience--to whit, Falwell's fundamentalists with their foam-at-the-mouth social agenda, Wolfowitz's neo-conservatives with their military adventurism, and the Eisenhower school exemplified by Arlen Specter or John McCain circa the 2000 campaign (these days he's just another goon). America being a two-party system, these elements overlook their wildly divergent goals and focus on their similarities.
The reason for Reagan's success and his saintly image in the Republican party today was his capacity to make all the different parts of the GOP feel loved by him (he was an actor, after all). Still, making reference to a conservative movement exemplified by both Wolfowitz and Falwell is a little odd--shouldn't a "movement" tend to move in one direction? Maybe Tanenhaus was thinking more about the similarities in rhetorical strategy, with both F and W having plenty of contempt for truth, logic, and the rule of law.
Finally, a last nitpick
"The unpopularity of the Iraq war is nearing Vietnam proportions, and President Bush’s plummeting poll numbers resemble those of Mr. McNamara’s boss, Lyndon B. Johnson."
With margin of error, and depending on what poll you trust, Bush's approval ratings are actually right around Lyndon Johnson's deepest valley of 35%, and have at times dipped even lower. Newsweek polls reported a 28% percent approval rating at the beginning of the month.
Polling Report
Another prominent difference would be that Bush's abysmal poll rating has held steady for quite a long time, whereas Lyndon Johnson's numbers dipped severely after the Tet Offensive and then climbed back to just under 50% by the time he left office. The jury is still out on whether Bush will recover to lofty 40% territory or not, but it doesn't look too good.
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