What You Think You Know, You Don't Know

Someone finally admits it

2004-08-06T08:15:00.000-07:00

In an admission of what JFK had told us long ago, that "Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm", Mayor Williams is quoted in today's Washington Post saying:

"This is a city built on freedom, not on order and efficiency..."

I knew it! Finally, someone credible admits it. Yes, Kennedy was credible, but Williams' alliegances are with DC and he admits it anyway (plus, he wears a bowtie -- how can you not trust a guy with a bowtie?)

In the same story, you will note, the citizens of high-alert Washington aren't afraid, they're pissed. Thus, despite the final quote of the article ("I think the terrorists are winning"), my opinions below still stand: people aren't afraid. One more piece of evidence, this one personal: when I was on the metro this morning, and it stopped underground between Virginia Square and Clarendon, and the lights went out, nobody panicked, nobody thought we were under attack, everyone just whipped out their phones and started sending text messages. Actually, that was almost scarier than the prospect of an attack.

Winning the War

2004-08-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

Before the meat, some notes about this post: This post was written after prompting from a good friend (specifically, she wrote in an email: "UPDATE YOUR FREAKING BLOG" -- and who am I to blow against the wind?), and was written on a train back to Washington from New York on the very day the terror alert was issued. This prompted my mother to be somewhat (but not very) concerned. I reassured her by informing her that I was wearing my terror-proof shirt -- she replied that saying something like that wasn't funny. I maintain that what I said was funny. But, since I started to like what I was writing, I decided to polish it some and submit it as an op-ed to the Washington Post; therefore, I decided to remove "terror-proof shirt" references since the Post might find such things unfunny as well. Anyway, here's the entry more-or-less as submitted to the Post. Yes, op-eds are supposed to be "exclusive" so that they might only appear in one place, but they're not going to print it anyway, so at least this way 8 or 9 people might read it. So here you go. Enjoy.

The most recent terror alert -- be it legitimate, political, or some combination of the two -- has given us, the people of the United States, a good indication that we're making progress in the war on terrorism. We may not be winning the whole war, and the war may never be completely over, but we're winning at least part of it. We're not winning because we're one step ahead of our enemies, or because now we're only one step behind them instead of five. We're not even winning because of the impact that terror alerts have on the public, we're winning because of the effect they don't have.

There are no good quantitative metrics to tell us how the war is going. We can't look at a body count like we could in a conventional war, and we can't look at the number of terrorist cells we've shut down, because we don't know how many there were to begin with, or how many have formed since the war started. This is the nature of the war on terrorism: what constitutes success is ambiguous, victory is undefined and improvement is hard to measure. These are all things working against us in as we wage the war itself, and also as we endeavor to find out if we are succeeding in our efforts.

There is, however, some hope. The war on terrorism isn't just a battle against terrorists, it's also a battle against terror -- our terror. Thus, even if we don't know how we're doing versus the terrorists, or how much our conventional military victories are helping in the larger, unconventional war, we can know how we're doing in our battle against our own fear.By this measure, the best one we have right now, we are doing quite well.
After the terror alert was issued, many things happened: pundits began debating the motives for issuing the alert, physical defenses were erected at important locations, roads were closed, and armed men and women began manning checkpoints and patrolling the streets and subways. But, in contrast to past alerts, one thing didn't happen: nobody panicked, everyone stayed calm. There were no runs on bottled water or canned food, no deployment of plastic and duct tape, and no widespread truancy from work; people did what our leaders asked: they went into work, and went about their business as usual. There was a show of confidence and strength as Mayor Bloomberg rang the open bell at the Stock Exchange, but it was not just a show, it was a visible example of the strength and confidence that actually exists in the public at large. Even the news coverage was different this time. Stories were about the motivation and timing of the alert, the veracity of the supporting intelligence and the preventive, defensive measures being taken. There were very few news stories about the public reaction, and in those, few examples of fearful people. As those who protect us prepared for the possibility of having to do so, most people went about their day as they would have otherwise.

Terrorism is often called a tactic of the weak; indeed, the inability of individuals or groups to consistently carry out strong and damaging attacks is precisely why they turn to terrorism; they're in it for the terror. Without terror, without omnipresent fear -- actual fear, not vigilance -- terrorism has lost much of its power. Terrorists can still commit devastating acts of violence and destruction, but without the behavior-altering fear caused by the knowledge that another attack could come at any time, such attacks will only be as effective as our physical defenses allow them to be.

Winning the battle against terror by mastering our own fear does not guarantee victory in the war on terrorism. It does, however, substantially change the nature of the war. By taking the latest terror warning in stride, and refusing to change our daily lives because of it, we have robbed the terrorists the very thing that makes them terrorists. We have deprived our enemies of their most powerful weapon: our fear.

Free iPods anyone?

2004-07-19T21:45:00.000-07:00

Duke University, often called the "Harvard of the South" has decided to give its incoming freshmen free iPods:

"As part of a pilot program, Duke University plans to give iPods loaded with school calendars and other information to its 1,800 incoming freshmen. Students can download class materials to listen to anything from audio examples of textbook exercises to Spanish songs."

Let me provide a quick reality check on this: a 20 GB iPod, the smallest and cheapest goes for $299. With an individual educational discount, you can get it for $269. So $269 x 1800 = $484,200. Even if they got them for 50% off on top of that, that's still $242,100, which is not exactly pocket change. [Note: The iPod mini is only $50 cheaper per unit.] Think about all of the kids you could give financial aid to with that money... Well, I guess that's why there are public universities which are just as good.

I just saw the link to the article quoted above in a friend's away message and I just got back from Screen on the Green and have to work tomorrow, so this is all I've got for tonight. But, coming soon (tomorrow?): a review of The Rule of Four and some talk about guns, the Old Dominion and the little brother of a good friend.

Poor Bill Cosby

2004-07-09T14:51:00.000-07:00

I must start off by admitting that I haven't actually seen Bill Cosby's remarks alluded to in columns by Barbara Ehrenreich and Lexington. However, having read both of them I have been able to discern some things about what was actually said, and I have certainly been able to find problems with both.

Apparently Bill Cosby has been ragging on the poor black youth about its lack of achievement, respectability and so on. Lexington responds with:

Good on Mr Cosby. There is something of a conspiracy of silence about blacks' dismal performance in school: silence from black leaders who don't want to be accused of "blaming the victim", silence from teachers who don't want to draw attention to the biggest failure of American education. But the achievement gap between blacks and whites is a disgrace.

Lexington continues by backing up Mr. (ahem, Dr.) Cosby's argument saying that: "The teachers and black politicians blame three standard villains: poverty, prejudice and school funding." Lexington then provides some evidence for why these are not the causative factors of the problems Cosby observes.

Ehrenreich, on the other hand, goes straight for Cosby's jugular, saying the following.... Actually, she doesn't say much, other than to begin to ridicule Cosby and say that:

It's time to start picking on a more up-to-date pariah group for the 21st century, and I'd like to nominate the elderly whites.

Most of the remainder of the article just bashes elderly whites in order to make fun of Cosby's argument -- she talks about how "some seniors are cashing in their Social Security checks for vodka and Viagra." This sort of argument accomplishes nothing. To quote George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia:

It is as though in the middle of a chess tournament one competitor should suddenly begin screaming that the other is guilty of arson or bigamy."

This, incidentally, is what annoys me about overly-partisan debate.

But Ehrenreich's argument is also something else: either dishonest or offensive. She acts directly out of, as Lexington says, a fear of "blaming the victim." Thus, she draws this comparison with elderly whites, makes them look ridiculous using the "same approach" as Cosby. Since we know that there's nothing wrong with the actions she's discussing, there must be something wrong with Cosby's thinking or us, if we agree that Cosby is right about there being something wrong with the way young blacks are acting. But here's the problem: what Ehrenreich points out about elderly, white behavior is normal -- that's her point. But, by making her (non)argument this way, she's implying that the black behavior Cosby criticizes is also normal. The implication then, to look more carefully at Ehrenreich's "argument", is that young blacks doing poorly is school is just as normal as old white people buying medication with their social security money.

Lexington's analysis is more genuine (it actually addresses what Cosby has to say, rather than leaping on the first sign of something politically incorrect). However, Lexington still gets some things wrong. Look at this:

But the real problem with his broadside is that it is too narrow. It is not just black leaders who are failing to hold young blacks to higher standards. It is America in general; and, above all, the educational establishment. Teachers are far too willing to make excuses for black failure, and universities have institutionalised low expectations through affirmative action. Why should black children try as hard as their white peers if they can get into college with lower marks?

Well, in some measure, Lexington is talking about what is implied by Ehrenreich's argument: we've come to expect this from our young blacks kids. However, on affirmative action, Lexington cannot seriously believe that this was the intent of such programs, and it is very unclear whether the effect he imputes to affirmative action programs (while logically attractive) actually exists.

Through all of this, Cosby emerges as the real winner. First of all, he has the credentials to say something. As unfortunate as it is, being black gives him greater right to talk about the problems of other blacks. But more importantly, as Lexington points out:

Mr Cosby is well qualified to encourage this revival. He grew up in a poor area of Philadelphia and dropped out of school to join the navy. But he returned to university to take a doctorate in education, and continues to devote his energies to black improvement, writing books for pre-school readers and pouring money into black colleges.

Moreover, Cosby has a solution:

Black America once had a flourishing tradition of self-help: the tradition of Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery but became one of the great orators of his age, and of the army of self-educated blacks who came after him. This tradition was obscured during the civil-rights era as black leaders concentrated on dismantling the machinery of discrimination. But blacks desperately need to revive Douglass's belief in "self-cultivation"; if the civil-rights revolution is to amount to something more than a hollow legal shell.

Essentially, Lexington misunderstands Cosby. He (Lexington) sees it as much more about low societal expectations than about the people themselves. Ehrenreich, on the other hand, embodies just those low expectations, saying:

As the sociologist Michael Males, who monitors youth-bashing outbreaks, told me: "Younger black America today is struggling admirably against massive disinvestments in schools, terrible unemployment, harsh policing and degrading prejudices, and they're succeeding amazingly well. They deserve respect, not grown-up tantrums."

But it must be fun to beat up on people too young and too poor to fight back, or the elderly rich wouldn't do it. Cranky old rich people: now there's a demographic group that qualifies as a genuine Menace 2 Society.

So, in Ehrenreich's world, there is no problem, the problem Cosby sees is actually a sign of tremendous success, and exhorting people to do better is "beat[ing] up on people too young and too poor to fight back." Nice. True, part of the solution lies in fixing some societal problems (I don't believe Lexington is 100% correct when he suggests that poverty, prejudice and school funding aren't a big part of the issue); Regardless of any external (societal) circumstance -- be it low expectations or poverty -- Cosby certainly has a good point that self-help can do the most good.

The three act campaign

2004-06-28T18:52:00.000-07:00

The Economist's "Lexington" has an interesting (and rather insightful) take on Presidential electoral politics.

Most presidential campaigns are three-act dramas. Act I is a referendum on the incumbent. Voters look at the president and ask “Does he deserve four more years?” If the answer is a clear yes—as in 1984 or 1996—it barely matters who the challenger is; he may as well go home. This stage lasts until the party conventions. Assuming voters have not definitively decided on re-election—and, manifestly, they have not this time—Act II starts with the conventions and runs until about September. Voters then turn their attention to the challenger: is he ready for prime time? If he is, Act III, the real horse race, begins in September with the presidential debates. Then, and only then, do the head-to-head comparisons matter.

That's a really nifty way to think about it. It satisfies the desire for taking the fluid thing that is public opinion and electoral politics and forming it into discrete units, without relying on things like which potential First Lady has better recipies or whether the Redskins will beat the Packers. Furthermore, Lexington thinks Bush might be on the short end of this show:

Over the past few weeks, the economy has been roaring back. Mr Bush has won international support for handing over sovereignty in Iraq. The funeral of Ronald Reagan was a week of respectful observance for the last sword-wielding, tax-cutting conservative. Mr Bush has spent $100m on advertising, much of it aimed at Mr Kerry's solar plexus. Yet Mr Kerry is still in the lead, and Mr Bush's poll numbers seem to be going through the floor.
...
[I]t is clear that Mr Bush has done worse in Act I than an incumbent should. His crown sits all the more uneasily because the polls suggest that the vast majority of voters have already made up their minds (only one in ten say they are undecided). If he is to triumph in Act III, Mr Bush has a lot of crowd-pleasing to do. Mid-June might mark his electoral nadir; but it might also be seen as the beginning of the end of the Bush presidency.

Interesting, to say the least.

Cheney and the Post

2004-06-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

We all know about how I love the Post. Well, here are a couple more reasons. I was shocked (but kind of glad) that it printed Cheney's "fuck yourself", directed at Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) It defends its position (to print the word) today, as does Cheney (on using it). From the Post's defense of printing "fuck":

"When the vice president of the United States says it to a senator in the way in which he said it on the Senate floor," says Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., "readers need to judge for themselves what the word is because we don't play games at The Washington Post and use dashes."

Thank you. Also, I love the way the Post presents it. From the original article:

"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.
...
There is no rule against obscene language by a vice president on the Senate floor. The senators were present for a group picture and not in session, so Rule 19 of the Senate rules -- which prohibits vulgar statements "unbecoming a senator" -- does not apply, according to a Senate official. Even if the Senate were in session, the vice president, though constitutionally the president of the Senate, is an executive branch official and therefore free to use whatever language he likes.

The Washington Post: Quotes the way they said 'em, news as it happens, and a little something for the parliamentarian in all of us.

Funny thing (not really) overheard

2004-06-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

So, in the vein of "Funny Things Overheard", here's a funny exchange that someone else may have overheard, since I was involved in it (yes, I was involved in on of the earlier FTOs, but that was more about interjecting after the FT had already been O-ed).

[THE VIRGINIAN approaches a metal detector / x-ray screening station at the entrace to a federal facility. He is holding an opaque plastic bag containing a CHEESE DANISH]

GUARD: Sir, please put your bag through the X-Ray.

ME: Um... it's a danish. [I don't actually show the guard the inside of the bag.]

GUARD: Oh, go right ahead.

ME: Thanks.

So, I wonder howfar an innocent-sounding and properly inflected "It's a danish" will get you. Fortunately for me and my coworkers I was telling the truth and I was able to slip a cheese danish into the facility undetected as opposed to... an anthrax danish?

Yeah, this post has no point.

If this weren't so sad...

2004-06-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

There are many reasons I love the Post. Many center around it being more sarcastic and laid-back than the Times; also the fact that it covers national news. At all. So, this would be funny if it weren't so sad:

An Iraqi policeman, 1st Lt. Basim Ibrahim, said the bomb was inside a cardboard box that sat in front of a watermelon stand and exploded when a boy alighted from a donkey cart and picked it up.

First of all, alighted? Second, we have a watermelon stand and someone "alighting" from a donkey cart? Is this an improv skit? This doesn't seem like that place (both Journalism and specifically talking about people being blown up) to try out your fancy writing, but the Post does weird things sometimes. Here's another example; this article talks about things Bush said at a church in Philly:

Bush laced his 31 minutes of remarks with biblical references, as he often does when addressing black audiences.

Thanks guys, we care. But hold on, does it matter that the audience is black? I imagine the President would be likely to use biblical references when speaking at churches in general. I bet if he were addressing secular black groups he wouldn't be as likely to use biblical references.

I have some real things to say too, but I've been busy. Well, that's not totally accurate, but I'd feel bad blogging at work. I'm probably seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 tomorrow, so I'll have some things to say about that.

Things that scare me

2004-06-22T20:26:00.000-07:00

One thing that scares me is this. The next thing that scares me is that, in my fear, I feel libertarian urges. That link is to a Washington Post story about the recent Supreme Court decision in Hiibel. Basically, the police can require that you give your name, something which it was previously thought was unconstitutional (an abrogation of the right to remain silent so as to prevent self-incrimination). I agree wholeheartedly with one bit from the dissent by Justice John Paul Stevens:

As for the risk of self-incrimination from disclosing one's name to police, Kennedy said that would happen "only in unusual circumstances."

But Justice John Paul Stevens, in a dissenting opinion, called this assumption "quite wrong." Hiibel's name could have helped police link him to criminal activity, Stevens noted, so he "acted well within his rights when he opted to stand mute."

The Post has an unsigned editorial about the decision as well. Only the last paragraph is worth reading, since the rest of it is, well, a summary of the Post article linked to at the top of this post. Here's that last paragraph, with which I rather agree:

We believe that people generally ought to cooperate with law enforcement. But we also believe that targets of law enforcement have a right not to do so. Carving out exceptions, even seemingly innocent ones, is a bad idea.

As I read this on the Metro, I wondered to myself what a Crescatter would have to say. Well, Will Baude has something to say and, using his summer employment position, he's got a piece on TNR Online. It contains this rather pithy line:

Every case in the Terry lineage has pushed the line of privacy back a little further, because each new privacy exception has needed a new exception to enforce it.

Read the whole piece. It's quite good and not that long and (I think) pertains to something quite important.

Two things

2004-06-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

Two things quickly before I have to go do other things:

The Washington Post has an excellent op/ed today. It talks about adherence to the Geneva Conventions with regard to prisoners during the Vietnam War. Key sections:

Every soldier also received a plastic pocket card bearing the signature of our commander in chief, Lyndon Baines Johnson. It was headed "The Enemy in Your Hands" and summarized the conventions in simple, clear language. Item No. 3, "MISTREATMENT OF ANY CAPTIVE IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE. EVERY SOLDIER IS PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENEMY IN HIS HANDS," was followed by this unambiguous guidance: "It is both dishonorable and foolish to mistreat a captive. It is also a punishable offense. Not even a beaten enemy will surrender if he knows his captors will torture or kill him. He will resist and make his capture more costly. Fair treatment of captives encourages the enemy to surrender."
...
The signed order from President Johnson in our pockets was a critical element of accountability and personal responsibility. In the event that any of us might be instructed to treat prisoners in an inhumane manner, we were in a position to recognize and refuse an unlawful order that contravened a signed direct order from the president.

Also, a note to partisan bloggers of both sides, but moreso of the right: Yes, the media misrepresented what the 9/11 Commission about Iraq/al-Qaeda and/or/versus Iraq-9/11 connections. Moreover, this story in the Post indicates that there may, in fact, be an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection:

The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been told "a very prominent member" of al Qaeda served as an officer in Saddam Hussein's militia, a panel member said yesterday.

However, the media's misrepresentation is nothing like what some folks in the administration do. Moreover, the media's misrepresentation in the case of the 9/11 Commission findings cannot be held up as evidence of "liberal media" because of the fact that nobody (except Al Kamen) notices what the aforementioned administration folks do. From In The Loop:

June 17, 2004. Vice President Cheney talking to CNBC's Gloria Borger.

Borger: "Well, let's go to MohamedAtta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, 'pretty well confirmed.' "

Cheney: "No, I never said that."

Borger: "Okay."

Cheney: "Never said that."

Cheney: "Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9th of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down."

On Dec. 9, 2001. Cheney talking to NBC's Tim Russert.

Cheney: "Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that -- it's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack. Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don't know at this point, but that's clearly an avenue that we want to pursue."

Fair, balanced, late for dinner. Hasta luego...

In the clear

2004-06-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging for a while for security reasons, but I am returning to my usual blogging. In addition to more substantive posts, I will include a feature about odd things I've overheard -- it turns out that an office of the federal government and the Metro provide excellent fodder for this. So, here are two installments now:

Number one:
SCENE: On the red line, somewhere between Metro Center and Union Station, heading toward Grovesnor. Two CAPITOL HILL INTERNS and THE VIRGINIAN are standing in an area of about 4 square feet.

BROWN-HAIRED HILL INTERN: It was a little mistake.
BLONDE HILL INTERN: You could have looked it up.
BROWN-HAIR: I didn't know... I just saw he was from South Carolina and figured he was a Republican. I know most of them... like Lieberman... I know him.
BLONDE: I know man, but you could have looked it up.

[At this point I realize that they are Senate interns, and that Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) was incorrecly identified by the brown-haired intern. I feel like I should speak up because I have a degree in Political Science, making me an "authority"]

ME: Yep, Fritz Hollings: most amiable guy in the Senate.
BLONDE: Oh... do you work for him?

[Note: They are both wearing full suits, pretty much required for Hill interns. I'm not even wearing a tie.]

ME: Nah, I'm just a fan.
BLONDE: What?
ME: Nevermind.

[I resume reading my copy of the Post and ignoring the uninformed (and unpaid) Hill interns.]

Number two:
SCENE: Cubicle pit.

GUY 1: Welcome to the 10th floor! If there's anything I can do to help you out, just let me know.
GUY 2: Great! Thanks! Where's your desk?
GUY 1: That's what I'm not going to tell you. [Exits.]

I'll have some more substantive things to say later, but I've been supressing blogging ideas due to the posting blackout self-imposed for security reasons.

Coming up: Newspapers.

In Memoriam

2004-06-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

Other people have done a far better job of eulogizing the genius of Ray Charles far better than I could, which is why I haven't added anything in this space. Of far less national note will be the death Sunday night of Ralph Wiley, 52. Mr. Wiley was a sportswriter, for many years of Sports Illustrated, in the last several years for ESPN.com's Page 2. Mr. Wiley happened to be one of my two favorite sports columnists (with Page 2's Bill Simmons) and one of my five favorite columnists in any discipline.

I admired his keen observations on sport, the way I admire in any sportswriter the elusive ability to see things mere mortals can't, the sorts of things that coaches and scouts are payed handsomely to see; I admired the way he saw things correctly more often than not, which isn't quite the same thing. The aspect I admire about Page 2 as a sportswriting venture in general is the way it acknowledges in its functioning the way sport intertwines with the rest of everyday life, which makes it particularly appealing to myself as a semi-casual fan (after basketball, I am at best an infrequent watcher of tennis and football). What the best sportswriting captures to me isn't merely that particular vision, but the intuition of what that vision says about the human, what we can learn - not in a soppy way, but in an observational one - from these men, who push one aspect of the human endeavor to its bleeding edge. The example I return to trying to explain this to people is from last year's NBA playoffs, when in the first game of the Sixers-Hornets series, Allen Iverson scored 55 points. His face, contorted in joy and exhaustion and pain and defiance, said something to me, about the way all those emotions could concentrate in one moment of hard-won victory. Ralph Wiley was excellent at communicating just this sort of information - not pure brain information, see, but human information, the way a kid's demanding father and the hitch in his backswing all intuit something about his person, the way you can see in a man's eyes if he will stand up or lie down, and what he believes about his ability to do so. The look in a man's eyes when he realizes he has done a thing he said he could do, but didn't actually beleive that he could.

Most of all, I respected and admired Mr. Wiley's way with words, his casual eloquence, above all the way he spoke in his own language without hesitation, used personal phrases and slang in such a way that they seemed obvious elements of the lexicon. He did coin "BillyBall", for one.

His last column, a typically broad endeavor that ostensibly dealt with the NBA Finals but which roamed off to topics of coaching and race in America, had an opening sentence that seems a particularly fitting thing to say on the occasion of his early death.

"All a man's got is the integrity of his work."

RIP, Ralph Wiley

Blogging the Finals

2004-06-14T01:10:00.000-07:00

In retrospect, my hesitance seems foolish, because I knew that the Lakers had been lucky to win Game 2 - the Lakers haven't played better basketball than the Pistons in any of the four outings so far. I was unable to watch Game 3, but while it convinced me that the Pistons might well win the series, I didn't take it to be saying much about the Lakers because anyone can get blown out on an off night. But this evening, a close game exposed the Lakers in all sorts of ways that made them seem small and sad.

(1) Shaquille O'Neal played a brilliant game and his team lost. The one thing he did wrong was miss free throws, but you know that's going to happen. What his team did wrong is not let him play an even more monstrous game. If he's going off, why not just give him the ball on every play? If he's able to set up in the paint, he's either scoring or going to the free throw line. That's automatic; watching Ben Wallace defend Shaq deep under the basket is like watching a video game (like, say, NBA Live - he just unwillingly glides backwards and gives up the dunk. Nothing to be done. And why the hell can't Shaq's teammates realize that he's the one unstoppable option they have, and why the hell don't they do anything about their habit of forgetting about him for five minutes at a time? If Shaq gets 50, maybe the Lakers won tonight.

(2) There's not really much room to fault Kobe; he needs perhaps a more finely tuned sense of when to force it and when to give it up; the key being that he give it up to Shaq, since none of his teammates can make baskets. This doesn't take away from the brilliance of Kobe's game; I wonder what Jordan would've looked like if he got triple-teamed every time he drove and didn't have a real teammate to pass to.

(3) Gary Payton's first quarter showed that he hasn't devolved nearly so much as everyone thought. Yes, he's no kind of Glove anymore, but he can dish the ball out and he's still a fine scoring guard when posting up and slashing to the basket. But he doesn't want to disrupt the structure of the Lakers offense, which is not remotely designed for a player with Payton's strengths, and so for the most part he struggles, regardless of whether he's playing the 1 or the 2.

(4) Phil Jackson was exposed perhaps most of all. It's often been said that he's more a manager of talent than a coach and to a certain extent I bought into the hype, but the fact is that Jackson has always used, highly effectively, a potent offensive system. The Triangle, a halfcourt offensive set so complicated that Jackson and Charley Rosen have authored a book on it (which I haven't read, though I'm curious) is extremely effective when it is supplied with intelligent, versatile, and skilled offensive players; one of its tenets is the idea that anyone can play any spot in the Triangle. But on these Lakers, there aren't many guys who are familiar enough - or, frankly, skilled and confident enough - to actually play the Triangle effectively. What confuses me about Jackson is that he's kept his lineup the same and kept his offense the same. Now it's certainly commonplace that a coach should stick with the players and plays that got him to the championship round, even if they're struggling, but Jackson's starting five and the Triangle aren't responsible for the Lakers being in the 2004 finals. Gary Payton ran the team as its only constant during the regular season, playing effectively in an offensive scheme that compromised the Triangle with his personal preferences, and the playoffs have been entirely about Shaq, Kobe, and Karl Malone's defense. With Malone so hampered as to be useless, I don't understand why Jackson doesn't run with Shaq and a small rest-of-team, relying on Fisher, Payton, Kobe, and George as his main unit; these are the Lakers best players (well, George is questionable, but there's also Walton and Medvedenko for when Devean doesn't want to drive the ball). And why on earth doesn't Jackson loosen up his offense? It hasn't worked so far; the only consistent offensive success the Lakers have had derives from pounding the ball into Shaq and letting him fly solo. Switch over to a more meat-and-potatoes offense, let Payton and Kobe work of screens and postups, and I think the Lakers have a better shot of taking a game here and there. That doesn't change the fact that the Pistons are better coached, more athletic, longer, deeper, more versatile, and (most shockingly) more unflappable and confident. I thought that tonight at last the Lakers would flip their switch and bring it, but Shaq (and Kobe, to an extent) were the only men on the floor for the Lakers tonight.

(5) I love Rasheed Wallace's turnaround jumper, always have. I love the way his spin is so quick and his fadeaway so profound that at the moment of release his body is at a 50 degree angle to the ground and it seems like he should fall over, but he doesn't. The ball leaves his hands so smoothly it's like he barely moved his wrists, he just willed it to fly straight and true. I also loved that Sheed got passionate tonight and played a monster game and went the last quarter and a half sans headband. He looked naked without it, but it made him seem even more intense and focused on the game.

It's Been Like Blao

2004-06-14T01:03:00.000-07:00

On Saturday the Virginian graduated from the University of Chicago; on Sunday morning I helped him load his things into a van and then bade him a good trip to his home. Congratulations; I'm going to miss you, but I look forward to keeping in touch, both here and (hopefully) in more informal fora.

It's an odd thing to have spent this past year living with two people who became so quickly some of the most important people in my life, and certainly gave me the best living situation I've had in college; and now I'm not going to be living with either of them, presumably ever again. Although strange things do happen. One of my new roommates is a good friend, and the other fellow seems nice enough, but I'm going to miss the dynamic of this past year. It was probably my healthiest socially - in some very odd ways - and probably my least fulfilling academically, at least in terms of feeling like I was honing in on some goal of study. I'm doubting whether I ought to be a philosophy major, not out of distrust of the discipline but for more pedestrian concerns. I ought to make use of my advisor, but I seem resistant for some reason.

I'm very much looking forward to this Wednesday-Sunday, during which time I will be camping in the far reaches of Wisconsin with a most lovely companion. On my return I will undoubtedly undertake yet again the notion that I can reinvent and reorient my life during the summer. It hasn't happened yet.

Alma Mater

2004-06-12T05:28:00.000-07:00

Today we gladly sing the praise
Of her whose daughters and whose sons
Now loyal voices proudly raise
To bless her with our benisons.
Of all fair mothers fairest she,
Most wise of all that wisest be,
Most true of all the true say we,
Is our dear Alma Mater.

Her mighty learning we would tell,
Tho' life is something more than lore;
She could not love her children well,
Loved she not truth and honor more.
We praise her breadth of charity,
Her faith that truth shall make us free,
That right shall live eternally,
We praise our Alma Mater.

The City White hath fled the earth,
But where the azure waters lie,
A nobler city hath its birth,
The City Gray that ne'er shall die.
For decades and for centuries,
Its battlemented tow'rs shall rise,
Beneath the hope-filled western skies,
'Tis our dear Alma Mater.

--Edwin H. Lewis, 1894

More NBA

2004-06-09T17:03:00.000-07:00

I really need to keep reminding myself that the Lakers will probably win in six/seven, reminding myself that the Pistons aren't going to quite be able to go the distance...but it's a tempting thought. (Last night watching the game one of my roommates asked me if I liked the Pistons or just disliked the Lakers. As a Celtics fan, I have historical reasons to dislike both teams, but the real answer is that I don't like theseLakers and I really like these Pistons - because I really like Rasheed Wallace and Larry Brown, I like Rip Hamilton's facemask, I like Ben Wallace, I like the defence, I like the scrappiness, I like that Tayshaun Prince is my weight but has arms like an octopus.) My two thoughts for the day on basketball are:

(1) The Pistons had that game last night. Everyone is complaining about how they should've fouled Shaq when he caught the inbounds pass with ten seconds left, and maybe so, but: when Detroit was still up six, Shaq caught the ball in the post and I yelled at the TV to "let him score! Don't foul him, just let him dunk it!" Even if the Pistons weren't able to score on the next possession (and they weren't), there wasn't enough time left for the Lakers to overcome a four point deficit. But Ben Wallace fouled Shaq, who dunked it anyway (duh) and got the three point play (because Shaq's right: he does make foul shots when it counts, or at least when he decides that it counts). What Detroit needs to do is not shake their heads and think "Damn! We could've had that!" and get down about it, they need to pound their chests and say "Damn! We almost took it from them!" They're facing up against two of the best players in history (and had to cope with an amazing coming-out demonstration by Luke Walton, who deserves his own verbiage some other time) and it required Kobe submitting a superhuman final seven minutes to lose. If Kobe can bring it every night, the Pistons are done anyway, but they can't assume that he will because he very well might not. Kobe's reaching for Jordan's status right now, but (a) he's not there yet, and (b) I'll take either of Jordan's supporting casts with the championship Bulls over the Lakers not named Shaq or Kobe (or Luke Walton!)

(2) Also, yesterday Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, LeBron James, and Carmelo Anthony were convened by Jim Gray (hack) to talk about bullshit Jim Gray things. Like greatness and rivalries and Magic v. Bird and LeBron v. Carmelo and the state of the league. Anyway, at some point Bird said the following:

"I think it's [having white stars] good for a fan base, because, as we all know, the majority of the fans are white America...And if you just had a couple of white guys in there, you might get them a little excited. But it is a black man's game, and it will be forever. I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American...The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me...I still don't understand why. A white guy would come out (and) I would always ask him: 'What, do you have a problem with your coach? Did your coach do this to you?' And he'd go, 'No,' and I'd say, 'Come on, you got a white guy coming out here to guard me; you got no chance.' For some reason, that always bothered me when I was playing against a white guy."

And apparently some people are offended by this. Which is a load of crap. Bird is absolutely right on every point: he doesn't say that having white stars is good for the fans, he says that they'd be good for a fan-base - having white stars would make the league more popular. And he's right. The disconnect between the players on the floor and the people in the stands is startling sometimes. Before the game last night, the Staples Center played Van Hagar's "Right Now" before introducing the home team, and I thought: "Hmm...I wonder how many guys who are gonna be playing tonight are really into pop-metal?" They're by and large black men under thirty, whereas the fans are by and large white men over thirty, and there's a disconnect there; the freaking Detroit Pistons play in freaking Auburn Hills. The only exception to the three-and-four-year-college-players-don't-get-taken-early-in-the-draft rule (which in itself is idiotic) is when there's a highly touted white kid like Keith Van Horn or Raef LaFrentz, both of whom have carved out nice careers and both of whom haven't remotely lived up to the hype created to justify their high picks. Teams want a superstar, but they'd really love it if they could get a white superstar. That's just facts, that's just what's good for business - not, and Bird never said that it was - what's good for basketball. It's like when Marc Cuban said the Kobe scandal would be good for the NBA; he was right, interest in the season has increased and people are talking about it. That doesn't make it an intrinsically good thing, or a good thing for the game of basketball.

He's also right that basketball is, has been, and will continue for the forseeable future to be a black man's game. Why isn't at issue; it is. Make a list of the best five, or ten, or twenty-five players in NBA history. Depending on length, the only non-African-American on that list is going to be Larry Bird himself. (Go above ten and you'll quickly have to recognize Bill Walton [white guy] and Hakeem Olajuwon [black guy from Africa], maybe Tim Duncan [light-skinned black guy from the Virgin Islands].)

As to getting annoyed when a white guy was brought out to defend him: it's an odd thing to say, and I frankly don't know enough about the league's rosters in the 1980s, but I suspect most of the white guys in the 80s were pretty lame, especially the ones not named Kevin McHale and not big enough to defend Bird. I mean, there weren't any Europeans around back then, and there weren't nearly as many athletic 6'10" swingmen as there are today. So can you imagine why (in today's terms) a coach would bench, say, Kevin Garnett and let Larry work his stuff against, say, Mark Madsen? Of course, it also needs to be said that Bird was and undoubtedly remains a cocky S.O.B., the sort of guy who routinely announced that he'd have a forty point game or walk over to the other team's bench just before the tip and point to the place from where he'd take the game winning shot. Thing was, he tended to be right. Still does.

Things I Didn't Learn in U.S. History

2004-06-08T13:50:00.000-07:00

This is troubling in the extreme. I certainly don't remember ever learning the idea that the president of the United States could choose to break the law willy-nilly, since the authority to do so is "inherent in the president."

No. No it isn't. I don't care if you're talking about the prosecution of a war or the defense of the nation or the theft of a twinkie: the authority to set aside the law is not inherent in the president. If it were, then we wouldn't have a triangular system of checks and balances. Modern opponents of what they gleefully term "judicial activism" ought, for consistency's sake, to equally condemn e.g. Andrew Jackson for driving the Cherokee out of Georgia in defiance of the Supreme Court. "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it," ought to be remembered as a low-light in American history. If the president can inherently set aside the law, that makes him essentially a king-in-waiting. Recall how during the Clinton presidency the phrase "rule of law" was bandied about like a talisman by right-wing spokesmen? Dozens of millions of dollars were expended on a witch-hunt which concluded that, in the end, the president had lied under oath about consensual sex with another adult: but he committed perjury, and therefore deserved punishment. The law is the law, even for the president. Remember?

The authority to set aside the laws is inherent in the president? No. It's not. Find the passage in the Constitution and I'll acquiesce. Find the legal precedent and I'll concede - and then argue that the Constitution is wrong and the any such precedent ought to be ignored. Giving the president such authority - even in the most extreme of times - quietly dismantles the fundamental basis of how our country is supposed to function. Presidents are executives and executives alone. They can ratify laws, but they cannot create them and certainly not choose to break them.

Josh Marshall has an excellent discussion of Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase, the gist of which is that: A president may find himself in a situation where he feels that for the good of the country he must break or bend an existing law, or exert authority in a way he is not empowered to do so. But inherent in this capacity is the requirement that the president must know that what he is doing may be illegal and that he (1) owes the public an explanation for his actions, perhaps even an apology, and (2) must be subject to the appropriate punishments should be judged unsympathetically. If I hunt down and kill a serial murderer in the belief that I must behave that way for the health of my community, the health of my community is equally dependent on my answerability for having broken a fundamental law.

The United States has ratified international treaties which state that "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture," and that orders from superiors "may not be invoked as a justification of torture". That's pretty damn clear.

The one other issue which troubles me is the definition of torture, which seems to legally rest in the mind of the inflicter and not the body of the inflictee. The federal torture statue defines torture as any act intended to "inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering," and the same DoD report (prepared by general counsels who should goddamn well know better than to say things like "the president has the right to break the law") states (courtesy of the above link):

"The infliction of pain or suffering per se, whether it is physical or mental, is insufficient to amount to torture," the report advises. Such suffering must be "severe," the lawyers advise, and they rely on a dictionary definition to suggest it "must be of such a high level of intensity that the pain is difficult for the subject to endure."

I don't know much about legal definitions of torture, but as a common sense application this seems foolish. Who is supposed to judge where the sufficiency line of physical/mental suffering is crossed? When we're splitting hairs about what is really "severe," then who is to say what the mind of a putative torturer contained at the moment of his ministrations? Can't he claim that yes, he intended to inflict pain, but not severe pain?

On A More Partisan Note...

2004-06-07T23:52:00.000-07:00

I don't like Michael Moore. Granted, the only movie of his that I've seen is Bowling for Columbine. I've skimmed Stupid White Men. I'm clearly basing this opinion on his interviews and televised appearances, therefore - lots of the things that come out of Mr. Moore's mouth seem too reactionary even for my taste, and I can't support a guy so un-pragmatic as to boost Ralph Nader in 2000. But Bowling for Columbine really cemented my dislike and wrapped it all up in a nice package. There was:

(1) The distortion of facts, both overtly and by omission.
(2) The way Mr. Moore presents himself as an Average Joe voice of the people and then spends long portions of the film using his power in the editing room to make average Americans who undoubtedly aren't nearly as well read as he is sound like idiots as a method of discrediting them. I have particularly in mind the scenes with the Michigan Militia and the small-town policeman relating the story of the dog which shot its owner; Mr. Moore seems to like to let his camera run just long enough for the subject the make himself sound like a buffoon and then cut away as if that was all you needed to know for a judgment.
(3) The flashier and emptier of his attention-getting tactics.
(4) The painfully didactic and heavy-handed cartoon history of America.

On the other hand, Mr. Moore does exhibit a positive flipside - he publicizes facts the mainstream media won't talk about, he does seem to genuinely want to stick up for the little guy, and in particular some of his stunts are meaningful and effective, frequently getting interviewees to say shocking things. (In Bowling for Columbine, see especially the Kmart sequence and the Charlton Heston interview, where Moore is a little nasty but Moses espouses some astounding and unpleasant beliefs.)

According to Roger Ebert's Cannes coverage, Fahrenheit 911 has toned down a lot of the things I happen to dislike, gone for less flash and more interviews, etc. I'm not sure if Kos is right that this is the best anti-Bush ad possible, but it's pretty friggin' great. It serves as a prime example of my divide about Mr. Moore's stunts - going around with Armed Forces recruiters trying to hand congressmen promotional materials for their children = cool, riding around in an ice cream truck reading the Patriot Act to congressmen = eye-roll. I don't like the trailer's pause on John Ashcroft's flabbergasting "Let the Eagle Soar" - I mean, I did send the link to all my friends when it first came online, but I don't think it serves any purpose in a serious movie other than to try and make Ashcroft look like a fool. What puts this trailer (and, I hope, the move) over the top is the footage: interviews with U.S. Congressmen, footage of businessmen at conferences talking about how to profit from the Iraq war, and most of all footage of President Bush. Things I've read about but never seen because this stuff gets buried, now live and in 3D. Classic G.W.Bush like:

"Some call you the elites. I call you my base."

and

"[Call for unity in the war against terror]...Now watch this drive."

This stuff looks just dreadful on tape because it's exactly counter to the image President Bush has carefully cultivated for himself.

I'm a little bit excited.

Knute Rockne - All American is a Fine Movie

2004-06-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a little odd for me observing the various reactions to the death of Ronald Wilson Reagan. My first awareness of politics was the: the United States had a boss called the president, currently the president was named Reagan, and my parents thought he was a very bad man. I've seen a lot of people on the internet who tend to have my political leanings struggle with emotions like "I really oughtn't feel glad that he's dead, and yet I have such a vested dislike for him..." I basically work the problem by noting - perhaps with the benefit of personal removal from the Reagan era, since I was too young to have firsthand experience of it - that my issue is with the man's politics and not the man, and furthermore that as long as he thought he was doing the best things he could for his country (and no one would dispute that he did), he has my respect.

Also: I have never seen an entire Ronald Reagan movie. In fact, the only movie I've seen with him in it isn't his movie; I've watched about two-thirds of Knute Rockne, All American in which Gov. Reagan plays George Gipp. It was very late at night and I was perhaps not entirely sane while watching, but I thought Gov. Reagan displayed a great deal of charisma, which he obviously kept during his political career - although my favorite parts of the movie were towards the beginning, when Knute Rockne was still a player and Notre Dame developed the forward pass as a potent offensive weapon, revolutionizing football and crushing the Army team.

(Incidentally, I refer to Gov. Reagan by that title for the reasons enumerated in the discussion here. Multiple parties [co-bloggers, girlfriends] have pointed out to me that the same logic of "there's only one President at a time" should leave him as "Mr." since there's only one "Governor [of California]". I maintain my position since the notion of the implied specific in Governor can be stretched indefinitely - to, for example, [Junior] Senator [from Massachusetts] Kerry"; so at some point we'd need to start calling everyone "Mr." and that's another discussion.)

So re: the late Gov. Reagan, the thing that interests me is that the last president who died within my memory was Richard Nixon, and the occasion of his death as I recall it was clouded by the fact that many Americans regarded him with resentment and dislike. The blemish of Watergate was powerful, and blemished the fact that he was such a fascinating, brilliant, idiosyncratic figure. For all the negative things about him, something compelled e.g. my grandfather (whose favorite president was Harry Truman) to vote for him. (On second thought, my grandfather's presidential estimations, thought liberal, were themselves idiosyncratic. He hated FDR, which is why he never mentioned serving in his [FDR's] funeral procession. He also loathed Al Gore and was a vehement Bradley booster. I think he liked the cockiness evident in an advertising campaign that trumpeted: "Rhodes Scholar. NBA All-Star. U.S. Senator. Basically the guy you hated in high school.")

Gov. Reagan, on the other hand, is supposed to be universally beloved. Eulogists fondly remember him as the most popular president of the modern era. Which is where my problems really set in. I have respect, by and large, for the man, but distaste for many facets of his legacy, and a greater distaste for the distortion of the truth which accompany his death. Procrastination in composing this post has rendered obsolete many of the points I originally intended to make. But he was not, in fact, the most popular president of the modern era. The last years of his presidency were darkened by the Iran-Contra scandal, which to my mind was a far more serious matter than Watergate (if for no reason other than that I think international scandals are always more serious than intranational ones). He followed what was then the biggest tax cut in U.S. history with what remains the biggest tax increase. His major contribution to the ending of the Cold War was not, in my (admittedly currently underinformed opinion) spending the Soviets into oblivion, but sitting down with Mikhail Gorbachev like sane men and talking about how not destroy the world. In a NYTimes essay, Mr. Gorbachev (how on earth do you address the former leader of a collapsed political entity?) agrees with me.

Much of the previous paragraph is of a piece with the sort of instablogging practiced by Atrios, Kos, and others on this site's blogroll, which The Virginian tends to dislike as a style because of the skewed snark : serious political content ratio. My defense of those sites is that they stem from the constant persecution of Gov. Clinton during his presidency, and the vengeful notion that if one president could be subjected to such intense and constant critical scrutiny, so should his successor. I'd lay a hundred bucks that if Gov. Clinton died tomorrow, no television news broadcast would observe that, according to Gallup polls, he had the highest average approval ratings of any two-term president since LBJ. (G.H.W. Bush crushes all the post-Kennedy competition, but he couldn't win re-election. Odd.) No one's going to be stepping up and naming things after Gov. Clinton any time soon, where the last decade has seen a scary binge of naming and renaming shit after Ronald Reagan, including a skeezy deal wherein National was going to be renamed for the Gipper while the Justice building was going to be named for Robert Kennedy, the latter half of which deal took far too long to go through. Naming things right and left after a living individual strikes me as somewhat creepy, although obviously the genesis was the weird sort of death-in-life Alzheimer's imposes upon the late-stage sufferers.

I think what I'm trying to say is that it angers me when a man is made more than he was, when things untrue are attributed to him, when the inevitable deficits that everyone has in some way are glossed for purer adulation, when a man's legacy is distorted to be co-opted for personal and political gain. A man's legacy ought to stand on its own, and - regardless of my distaste for his policies and methods, as well as my often virulent attitude towards his defenders (Dinesh D'Souza, I'm looking at you) - Gov. Reagan's life needs no embellishment. Requiescat in pacem.

[That was too long]

Stop Loss

2004-06-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, John Kerry gave a speech in which he characterized Stop Loss as a "backdoor draft" (NY Times coverage here and here). Despite criticisms (including this one, claiming he's illiterate or at least eligible for the 9th Circuit), he's pretty much right. First, I have to deal with the "illiterate" issue, which essentially consists of a problem with the phrase "backdoor draft". When you're giving a speech, you can come up with flashy rhetorical devices all you want: "Axis of Evil", "War on Drugs". Is the Axis of Evil actually an axis? Not really. Are they Evil? Well, that's normative, and it'd take at least a three-member U of C faculty panel to successfully obsfucate the issue. War on Drugs? You can't have a war on drugs, you have to have a war on Germany or something. But we accept these things, because we get the point.

Here's why comparing stop loss to the draft is alright. Stop loss is in effect because we need to make sure we have enough troops to support our military commitments. Usually when you don't have enough, you have to increase incentives for people to join (usually a strategy during peace-time) or you have the draft. Also, people who signed up for a certain time period have every expectation of getting to leave after that period is up. In fact, in gearing up for the Iraq war personnel whose commitment would have been up in the next year were rotated out of the units to be deployed. Now that we need more troops than we thought (well, than the people in charge of planning thought), they have to force people to stay in. So, like the draft, stop loss forces people to be in the (volunteer) military. People who finished active duty and then decided to continue serving in the Reserves and expected not to have to serve basically lost that gamble. But people who signed up for their two-year or four-year commitment and have served it out are being forced to stay involuntarily -- like the draft.

I will admit that I'm not sure what sort of precedent Stop Loss has, but it seems like a bad idea and unfair to some of our military personnel, and Kerry has every right to call it a "backdoor draft" without being called illiterate or any number of other things.

This is a good time to bring up the long-term deployment of the National Guard and the Reserves. While this is perfectly legitimate thing to do, it's not a good idea. First of all, these services aren't designed to be deployed because you didn't listen to the Army Chief and were cocky about how many troops you'd need. They're for emergencies not planned wars. Post-9/11, Afghanistan: emergency, Pearl Harbor: emergency. Fine. Iraq was planned (and I think a war of choice), so steps should have been taken to ramp up active-duty numbers. Also, the Guard is supposed to Guard the country itself. It's also supposed to be under State control, but I'm the only Anti-Federalist around anymore, so that's a lost cause. Back to the point, I wouldn't be surprised if about half of West Virginia's cops are deployed in the Reserves or Guard. That's really disruptive to the normal functioning of a lot of communities. I mean, we're in this mess now, but we should think about the consequences of our actions. We should think about what long-term deployment means. We should think about what it'll take to stabilize a country.

After Vietnam, General Abrams (of the eponymous tank), then Army Chief of Staff shifted the forces around so that certain critical forces were in the Reserves and Guard. This was designed so that a President couldn't take us into a larger-sized war (like Vietnam or Iraq) without calling them up and engendering debate. Now, this probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but Abrams' gambit failed, and now we have the problems described above.

Thus, let the record show that I'm uncomfortable with the idea of stop loss and it's draft-like qualities, and I fear that it brings us one step closer to the real draft. If the President wins reelection, this becomes a lot more likely. I guess it's a good thing I've started running regularly.

[Shakes Head]

2004-06-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

So, via Atrios (it's a ways down the page by now), I was pointed to this site which apparently is a sign up page to disseminate right-wing Spanish-language material to interested parties. The issue at hand is that the page has employment boxes with only four options: Armed Forces, Teacher, Senior Citizen (I was unfamiliar with the idiom "Persona de la Tercera Edad," but then I never claimed to know Spanish), and Rancher/Farmer.

(The Virginian wondered whether the whole thing might be a hoax. The URL is a little odd, but if it's a hoax it also fooled the Washington Post. Several people on the Atrios comments thread signed up, so I can wait and see what they report.)

Now, this is an issue near and dear to my heart. When I was applying to colleges, I figured I might as well check out Dartmouth (not that I probably had much chance of getting in) despite my skepticism about its historical political leanings. I didn't want to be on an aggressively liberal campus either, but I'll take that over a student paper defined by the ministrations of Dinesh D'Souza and Laura Ingraham (where Chicago falls as a campus on the political spectrum is an issue for another post). On something of a whim, I informed Dartmouth that I'd like some materials, and that I happened to be interested in what they had to say to Hispanic applicants (I wasn't, but comedy can strike from an unexpected source). So I received some information from Dartmouth which included a letter to me, in English, addressing me specifically as a Hispanic or Latino or whatever the preferred term was at the time. Letter was only in English, not Spanish - ok. And they also sent a letter concerning the same topics to my parents. In Spanish. No English. Because the parents of a potential Hispanic applicant don't speak English. Right. (Incidentally, UCLA sent me similar materials, but they did it the right way: everything was bilingual.)

So my initial reaction to "Abriendo Caminos" was: "Good Lord, these people are so ridiculous." And clearly, not having even an "otro" box to check is an oversight. After all, what about the maintenance men, maids, babysitters, and restaurant employees out there? The outrage over at Atrios, of course, is that there aren't any boxes for lawyers, businessmen, doctors, etc. After about ten minutes though, it occurred to me - any white collar individuals who are eligible to vote for president are also (I have to assume) literate in English. (Except perhaps for small business owners.)

I harbor some suspicions about the legitimacy of this website, but I also (while finding it offensive) don't think it's quite as horrendously so as it appeared at first blush. Still, I think someone ought to get fired over this. Of course, in the world of Bush, no one ever gets fired for making a mistake. They just resign to spend more time with their family...

Well damn

2004-06-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

Say goodbye to everyone's favorite Greek spymaster.

UPDATE: Don't watch the video of Bush's statement on the Times website. It will make you physically uncomfortable.

Dueling(?) columnists

2004-06-01T17:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, I took a break for the long weekend. I had two finals due Friday, I took the weekend off, and I didn't really have anything I wanted to post on Memorial Day. I did hear taps being blown at 3 o'clock, though, which was nice.

So, in today's New York Times, Brooks and Krugman go head-to-head (sort-of) on the Bush administrations economics.

In a lot of ways, the two talk past each other. However, there are a few things worth pointing out. First, Brooks tells you what to think in a situation in which you should be able to make up your own mind:

"As a group, the panel gave the Bush team a B-plus for short-term fiscal policy, a C-minus for long-term fiscal policy, a B for regulatory policy and a B-minus for trade and international economics. These aren't the grades that win you a Rhodes scholarship, but they're not too bad."

I'm concerned by a C-minus for long-term fiscal policy. I mean, I got a "C" in General Physics, and that was the end of my career as a physics major. Next, Brooks makes the good point that Bush didn't enter the White House with things being that stellar, and had to do what he could. True, but not an excuse for everything. Brooks then reverses course and attacks the tax cuts, and thank goodness. Then he says the following, which scares me:

"What I don't understand is why the administration doesn't now pivot and say: O.K., we had a potential crisis. We prevented it. Now the recovery is in full swing. Let's address the long-term problems. Let's talk about the consequences of the aging baby boomers. Let's talk about reforming the tax code to encourage domestic savings.

After all, this election will probably hinge on Iraq anyway. The Bush folks might as well roll the dice with some attention-grabbing domestic ideas. That way if Bush is re-elected, he'll have a mandate to do something big."

The first part I'm not so sure about -- there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus about what, if anything, was averted, and how skilfully it was done. And the last paragraph hints of the Messianic Second-Term President that I fear.

Krugman (a PhD-carrying economist rather than an armchair sociologist who has disowned the one thing that could give him intellectual cred), on the other hand, tells us about how the administration's tax cuts (for whatever good they may or may not have done) have definitely rooked the non-rich. Shocking, I know.

More sinster, however, is the evidence that seems to say that the benefits we're supposed to be getting back are going to get cut after the election. While every politician is trying to get reelected, it makes me wonder what Bush's agenda is. Societal reform? Getting rich and taking his cut before his C- in long-term fiscal policy catches up to whomever's in the Oval Office down the road? I don't mean to sound like a rabid lefty, but I've tried to think about this objectively, and (assuming that Bush and his people aren't totally incompetent, which is possible, but I think untrue) I can't figure out what the plan is; what the ultimate goals are. So I guess I'm with Brooks, I don't understand why the administration doesn't reverse course, seeing the trouble they're in. Well... my speculations are above.

So, while a little heavy Krugman's last three paragraphs bear thinking about:

"Does Mr. Bush understand that the end result of his policies will be to make most Americans worse off, while enriching the already affluent? Who knows? But the ideologues and political operatives behind his agenda know exactly what they're doing.

Of course, voters would never support this agenda if they understood it. That's why dishonesty — as illustrated by the administration's consistent reliance on phony accounting, and now by the business with the budget cut memo — is such a central feature of the White House political strategy.

Right now, it seems that the 2004 election will be a referendum on Mr. Bush's calamitous foreign policy. But something else is at stake: whether he and his party can lock in the unassailable political position they need to proceed with their pro-rich, anti-middle-class economic strategy. And no, I'm not engaging in class warfare. They are. "

Ideologues... reminds me of Cordesman.

As a final note, it's just weird that Brooks will criticize the Bush administration and then say "But I still believe in you! Even in areas in which you have done very little right! And even if you don't get it right (but somehow you will) it doesn't matter because you're swining for the bleachers on 'attention-grabbing domestic ideas' and I've got your back. Peace, Dave." Also, on Krugman, if everything he says is true, it seems awfully exclusive, emphasizing the "party of the rich" and pushing back the compassion. Speaking of compassion, not to hit this point too many times, but caring about this sort of stuff as well as whatever else is a great opportunity for Catholics to think about what "catholic" really means.

Academic identifiers

2004-05-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

In response to my post about forms of address, specifically about the "first-year, second-year, etc..." distinction in effect at the U of C and UVa, the good Mr. Aufderhaar of Georgia Tech informs me that such a distinction also exists there. Once again, precision seems to be the key. The reply continues:

"How else would you be able to tell the difference between 7th and 8th year management majors?"

Indeed.

Summer reading

2004-05-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

The New York Times has a story about two guys who wrote a book that has been compared to The Da Vinci Code. This is a good candidate for summer reading, but why do I care? Because the authors grew up in Fairfax County (my home) and went to the same high school as many friends of mine. After going to high school at a place where the smart go to get smarter, they attended college at institutions were the smart go to be told how smart they are (where they may or may not have been further educated). Sorry, I couldn't resist. Anyway, hooray for Jefferson, NoVA, and summer reading.

Forms of address

2004-05-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

Will Baude posts about the semi-false Chicago tradition of calling everyone Mr. or Ms. X, rather than Dr., Professor, Judge, My Lord Chancellor of the Exchequer, or anything like that. I agree with his analysis and experience as follows:

Short answer: No, the undergrads don't do this either. I think it's a rather nice idea, but a bunch of 18 to 22-year-old kids face with some of the top minds in their fields rightly err on the side of being too-formal rather than being too-informal or disrespectful. That's how the "first-year, second-year, third-year, fourth-year" designations (rather than "freshman, sophomore, junior, senior") manage to stick, but this does not. Too risky.

And incidentally, while I've occasionally had professors invite me to call them by their first name, I have never addressed a Professor as "Professor X" to have them correct me and say, "Please call me Mr. X," so it doesn't seem like they're longing to bring back the rule either.

However, as far as I can tell, proper address in society at large is to address individuals by title and last name unless they have requested or indicated that you should do otherwise. Thus, I start with Dr. or Mr./Ms. -- Dr. if the person has a PhD or MD (JD's, by custom do not go by "Dr."), and Mr./Ms. if the person does not have a doctorate (as has been the case with some of my instructors). I find "Professor" to be no good for a few reasons:

1. On occasion, the individual is a graduate student, not a professor of any stripe, nor a holder of a doctorate, thus "Mr." is appropriate.
Example:In the Spring of my first year, one class I was in was taught by one Edward T. Barrett, a graduate student. I addressed him as "Mr. Barrett", not "Dr." or "Professor" because he was neither (I suppose I could have called him Major Barrett, as he's an Air Force officer, but that is neither here nor there.)
2. Professor isn't a title so much as a position. It sounds improper and perhaps even a little Commie to call someone "Professor".
Example:In the Air Force, Mr. Barrett would be called "Major Barrett"; by his rank (title), not by his job: "Pilot Barrett".
3. "Professor" is imprecise. Sometimes these individuals are not professors, but rather Assistant or Associate Professors.
Examples:Professor Lipson, fine. Associate Professor Pape, weird. R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor Mearsheimer, totally bizarre.

I think my real concern is with precision and maintaining general social convention in the academy.

As a side note: I'm also in favor of maintaining general social convention in society. When phone solicitors call me and address me by my first name, I cannot express how much such rudeness annoys me.

Another note: I'm a big fan of the "first-year, second-year, third-year, fourth-year" designations, as they allow for more precision. I am a third-year, but also a senior as I graduate in June. Incidentally, the only other place I know of that does this with their undergrads is my new academic home, The University of Virginia.

David Brooks needs a vacation

2004-05-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

His need for a vacation is really the only plausible excuse for why he has written essentially the same editorial twice. In today's New York Times, Brooks talks about how the situation in Iraq is Bush's big gamble. While it may be fine for Bush to gamble his presidency on something that's one of his articles of faith, but I'm not sure this is the best thing for the country that has been more-or-less entrusted to him. Moreover, today's column seems to just be an extension of last week's column when he talked about our characteristically American manner of getting it right because we do it twice.

It seems that this repetition is not uncommon for Mr. Brooks. Reading this review of his latest book, it sounds like someone agrees with me. Although I haven't read the new book, from the review it sounds like a lot of it was cribbed from Bobos in Paradise.

To be fair, I'm aware that Tom Friedman can be somewhat repetitive as well. However, Friedman is less repetitive than he is formulaic (for the formula go here). But, I'd rather have repetition of form (Friedman) than repetition of content (Brooks), good or bad, and in this case, bad.

Things they don't tell you in high school biology

2004-05-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

This is just kind of hilarious (and blatantly stolen from a friend who works in a lab doing PCR):

"Would I have invented PCR if I hadn't taken LSD? I seriously doubt it. I could sit on a DNA molecule and watch the polymers go by. I learned that partly on psychedelic drugs."

- Kary Mullis, inventor of Polymerase Chain Reaction

Incredible.

A joke

2004-05-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

In the course of writing a paper about development in the Indian state of Kerala, a joke occurred to me, which goes as follows:

Three Empiricists and David Hume are in a car, driving through the Scottish countryside when one of them spots a black sheep in a field. He says: "Look, a black sheep! Now we know there are black sheep in Scotland." The second empiricist replies: "No, all we know is that there is at least one black sheep in Scotland." The third empiricist disagrees, saying: "Not so. In fact, all we know is that there is at least one sheep in Scotland that is half black." At this point, Hume chimes in and says: "You're all wrong. The most we know is that there is at least one sheep in Scotland that is half black some of the time."

This is not the joke most people expect when you say "I have a joke about David Hume [or any Scotsman, really] and sheep." But that's why I'm here, to break down stereotypes and build bridges through education.

Kandyland?

2004-05-23T02:10:00.000-07:00

It appears that I've screwed myself over in several avenues regarding my future academic pursuits. Not due to poor grades - due to absent mindedness, laziness, and apathy. I'm not at all happy with myself about this.

Memo to self: at some more reasonable hour, write a post about modernism and aesthetics.

I spent this evening at a fine bar named Guthrie's, which among other commendable qualities has a stock of board games for the usage of its patrons. Games played included Scrabble, Clue, Candyland, and a bastardized trivia session using the questions from a game without instructions. I continue to be baffled by my relative shoddiness as a Scrabble player. My verbal intelligence, standardized testing and anecdotal evidence would indicate, is fairly strong, and yet I routinely get schooled at Scrabble. Ms. Jones equates her skill at Scrabble with her skill at crosswords - another arena in which I'm fairly weak. Perhaps it's the imaginative/spatial element of both that stymies me. I've never tried my hand at Boggle, but I'd probably suck. This is all in fact a preamble to my thoughts on Candyland.

Candyland is, admittedly, a game to be playable by children who are barely (if at all) literate. Its rules must therefore be simple, relatively nonverbal, and the game ought not to require much in the way of skill or strategy. I had also never played Candyland before this evening. Although I fared decently, I didn't enjoy the game at all, because I had nothing to do with it. I was a passive participant in a series of events entirely determined by the shuffling of a card-deck. And it occurred to me that I don't enjoy, or even understand the enjoyment, of a single game of chance. The idea of playing a slot machine for any extended period of time bores me. Due to the late hour, I'm failing to come up with other examples of games which rely most heavily on chance, but I'm sure there are many to be found among the youth-oriented games of Milton Bradley et al. Why would a person engage in an activity in which he played no effective part? I'm not speaking of passive media consumption, but the gathering of a group of people to sit around and pretend that they have something to do with the events unfolding inside their circle.

The allure of money - and the attendant thrill not only of gaining it but of losing it, depending on your nature - is obviously powerful for some people (although most truly-random gambling situations, like the roulette wheel, concern brief events which rely upon repetition to create the promise of future success. Maybe the ball landed on Red 32 this time, but the game's starting over in a second and who knows where it's going to land?! I can't imagine anyone but the most pathologically desperate gambler laying money down on the outcome of a game of Candyland). Similarly, small children may derive pleasure from the colors, the activity of moving their pieces, the sugary overtones of the game - although I wonder if I would've found that rapdily boring as a child. I was an odd child in some respects, and for one example I remember Tic Tac Toe losing much of its lustre when my father explained to me that above a certain modest skill level the game was essentially unwinnable, a fact I learned long before I actually achieved that level of facility.

I don't particularly understand gambling, but I understand gambling on sports or poker much more than I understand gambling on roulette, to return to a previous example. Sports gambling posits that (a) there are overall predictable forces at work in a contest and (b) that I have enough understanding/insight into the contest to predict its outcome (I still feel confident that the Pistons will win the series, incidentally, despite their loss tonight). Poker or any number of other games even more directly involve betting on my skill at whatever is relevant. I can't imagine betting on roulette more than once or twice. I can't imagine ever wanting to play Candyland again, unless it was with a small child for whom I held a great deal of affection. I don't get games of chance. Perhaps I just have insufficient belief in the small scale powers of luck. Over long periods of time I waver between believing in karma vs. chaos; over short periods of time I just don't buy that there's any such thing. But maybe that's just because I have bad luck (despite doing alright at Candyland, I was in last place when the game was decided, because other people had the luck to get cards which enabled them to jump long distances ahead of me; the one such card I received actually reversed my progress).

Also: Candyland's board has such an intense focus on alliteration that it posits King Kandy as lord of the Candy Castle. Way to confuse the kids about spelling, guys.

Remember your Clausewitz

2004-05-22T15:35:00.000-07:00

With reference to the new military strategy document I mentioned in the last post, there are a few things to be said. First, let's all remember that, as Clausewitz tells us, "war is an extension of politics by other means." It seems, then, that the JCS has finally wised up to this fact in issuing this new document:

"The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has approved a new national military strategy that makes clear to the nation's war planners that they must pay greater attention to preparing for the complicated and dangerous transition between the end of major combat operations and the return of civil authority."

Because war is an extension of politics, after war, you must return to politics. That is, the aftermath of war is just as important as the combat, if not more important. Therefore, as the (former?) neo-con Dr. Cordesman reminds us (see my first post today):

"WE MUST NEVER AGAIN TREAT FORGING A PEACE AS 'PHASE IV,' OR TALK ABOUT 'POST CONFLICT OPERATIONS' AS IF IT WAS A SECONDARY OBJECTIVE. OUR WAR PLANNING SHOULD MAKE REACHING A SUCCESSFUL PEACE ITS PRIMARY GOAL FROM THE START, THE EFFORT TO WIN THE PEACE SHOULD BEGIN AS A POLITICAL STRUGGLE BEFORE THE FIRST SHOT IS FIRED AND IT SHOULD CONTINUE TO HAVE PRIORITY THROUGH EVERY DAY OF COMBAT."

This is something we should have known from the beginning, unless you actually believe David Brooks when he says that screwing up and muddling through is the "American way". Anyway, it's good to know we're fixing that problem, although the greater problem (as opposed to the specific problem-in-itself) is precisely that we're doing this now as opposed to sometime before March, 2003. All joking about the new strategy aside (such as one of the "three core missions for war-fighting commanders" being "to prevail against adversaries"), it hammers home obvious (although, apparently not to this administration -- cf. Rumsfeld's willful ignorance of the requirements of post-combat stabilization) yet critical facts about war-fighting. I leave you with one of those, in the words of General Meyers, Chief of the JCS:

"From a military standpoint, we can't lost militarily, but we can't win with the military alone...[Victory will require efforts on] the political and the economic fronts as well."

So if anyone is thinking of gifts for members of the Bush administration, a handsomely bound copy of On War would be a good choice.

Basketball

2004-05-22T15:17:00.000-07:00

Avoid if you're uninterested in basketball

So a long time ago, at the beginning of the season, I made a series of predictions about what was going to happen, who was going to go to the playoffs, etc. Adjusting for several major trades, I'd rate myself at about 60% correct (which is, in my opinion, just on the right side of respectable). Other than not realizing how awful the Celtics were going to become under Danny Ainge this year, my biggest error ends up having called the Spurs to win the championship. I really thought they were going to do it. And if Derek Fisher doens't make that improbably shot with 0.4 seconds left in Game 5 of the Lakers series, they probably do (I want to try catching and shooting in 0.4 seconds; I'm skeptical).

So, starting with the East, here's my take on the Conference Finals -

Detroit is going to win in five or six. Probably six, but that depends on Jermaine O'Neal proving for once and for all that he's made the leap into greatness. Because he's going to match up with Rasheed Wallace, who is longer, at least as strong, probably quicker, and a lot more experienced (if less intrinsically stable). And if Jermaine can outbattle Rasheed, there's still Ben Wallace, probably the best off-the-ball defender in the league, hanging around. Jeff Foster, the other Pacers bigman, is probably not going to occupy a lot of Big Ben's attention. O'Neal may prove better than one Wallace, but not both of them. At point, Chauncey Billups ought to just devour Jamaal Tinsley. And I think the Pistons have a matchup advantage at the wings as well. Say Artest matches up with Tayshaun Prince, shuts him down. There's NO WAY Reggie Miller can keep up with Hamilton. So Artest matches up with Rip: he's not going to shut him down, just slow him up a bit, and Tayshaun is just going to smother Reggie Miller. I don't think Miller can defend Prince better than adequately, and Prince's wingspan will just take Reggie out of the game. This might all be moot (or at least subject to change) if Miller is benched in favor of Al Harrington, but the latter Pacer hasn't played well, and I don't have any clue of what happens when Prince drags him to the perimeter.

I'm not laying out a games prediction on a series that's already begun, but the Lakers are winning this one. Sam Cassell's foot just hurts too much for him to explode the way he has all season, which means that it's on KG and Latrell. Only one of whom showed up to play last night. If KG doesn't shrink into oblivion, and if Wally gets his shit together, I believe they can score with the Lakers - especially on the run. But I don't see them being able to defend LA...there's just too many weaknesses. No one on the Wolves can stop Kobe, unless Trenton Hassell has the game of his life. Shaq is going to toy with whatever big man the Wolves send at him; Olowakandi is probably the best option, but he's not stopping the Diesel. And when the Wolves overcommit on doubleteaming Shaq and Kobe, the other guys spot up and knock down the jumpers. If I were Flip Saunders, I'd say: Fuck it, the one way they're NOT going to beat us is with Shaq (since he's the most dependable Laker weapon, when he wants to be. And right now he wants to be). And then I'd go well at KG and tell him he's going to guard Shaq. Yeah, he gives up a lot of weight (has an edge in wingspan, I'd say). Yeah, he's not as strong. But KG is clever, he's a good defender, he's going to do as good a job or better on Shaq as Olowakandi is. He just needs to believe (like Webber, like the other O'Neal, like Duncan and Rasheed) that it's his job and his place to step into the middle and start bodying with O'Neal. And let's say he doesn't stop him? Well, if KG's playing center, the Wolves have a smaller lineup, which means a faster lineup, and in Minnesota's case a more effective offensive lineup on the floor. Even if Shaq still gets his, wouldn't it be better to be able to match that with some steady contributions from (the surprising) Fred Hoiberg? Plus, I really want to get to watch Mark Madsen play Karl Malone. It's just a funny idea.

Daily military intelligence

2004-05-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times on a new military strategy document:

"The military is also ordered to achieve 'decision superiority,' the ability 'to make decisions better and faster than an adversary.'"

Wait. Was this not the case before?

I actually have more to say about this strategy document, but that'll have to wait.

The Iraq transition

2004-05-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday (the 19th), Tony Cordesman of CSIS testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding the Iraq transition. His oral opening statement is here (in PDF format). You should read the whole thing, but here's his an extended section that is particularly good (apologies for the all-caps -- I just cut-and-paste):

FIRST, IT IS SIMPLY TOO LATE TO DEAL WITH THE MOST SERIOUS PROBLEM WE NOW FACE: THE FACT THAT A SMALL GROUP OF NEO-CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGUES WERE ABLE TO SUBSTITUTE THEIR ILLUSIONS FOR AN EFFECTIVE PLANNING EFFORT BY PROFESSIONALS USING THE INTERAGENCY PROCESS.
SOME 40 YEARS AGO, I ENTERED THE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE AT A TIME WHEN AN EQUALLY SMALL GROUP OF NEOLIBERALS WERE ABLE TO DO THE SAME THING.

THESE “BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST” TRAPPED US INTO A LOSING WAR, AND THEIR NAMES ARE WRITTEN INVISIBLY ON THE BODY BAGS OF EVERY AMERICAN WHO DIED IN THAT CONFLICT.

THIS TIME IT IS NEOCONSERVATIVES, NOT NEOLIBERALS, WHO TRAPPED US INTO WAR WITHOUT SETTING REALISTIC AND OBTAINABLE GOALS, AND WITHOUT A REALISTIC AND WORKABLE APPROACH TO CREATING STABILITY AND SECURITY, AND DEALING WITH NATION BUILDING. THE END RESULT IS THAT, ONCE AGAIN, WE FIND THAT INCOMPETENCE KILLS JUST AS EFFECTIVELY AS MALICE.

THE MESSAGE IS SIMPLE. WE NEED AN INTERAGENCY SYSTEM THAT WORKS, A NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL THAT FORCES JOINTNESS ON MILITARY AND CIVILIAN ALIKE, AND AN UNDERSTANDING THAT IDEOLOGUES OF ANY STRIPE SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO FUNCTION IN SENSITIVE POSITIONS IN THE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT, AND CPA WITHOUT ADEQUATE CONTROLS AND CHECKS AND BALANCES.

Yes, indeed. After this, he talks about our chances for different outcomes in Iraq, and he seems to think that there is hope. But, this is quite a way to open testimony. Read the whole thing; it's excellent, and it's short.

Dogs

2004-05-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

If you like dogs and you like science, and you like things that are cool, you should read this article. Apparently the breed of a dog can now be determined through DNA. Nifty.

Blind men, elephant

2004-05-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

The totally inability of the average person to know what the hell is going on in Iraq is staggering. So, yesterday, the compound of former Bush administration Superfriend Ahmad Chalabi was raided by a contingent of guys, including US troops (read about the raid here and our buddy Chalabi here). This is really confusing, because Chalabi was our guy -- he and the INC were like the London Poles of WWII for the Iraq war. Of course, we've known for a while that despite all the money we were throwing at him, he was giving us bum intel. However, there's a difference between cutting off someone's allowance and raiding his compound (confiscating documents and computers, and also breaking things at random) for no apparent reason. A few possibilities emerge here:

1. As the New York Times' unsigned editorial page contends, that this is the beginning of Operation Iraqi Scapegoat; that it's a "ham-handed" attempt for the administration to distance itself from Chalabi. I find this theory totally unconvincing precisely because it was so ham-handed. Also, the Bush administration has sought to blame everyone except its people (like the SecDef who, as the Times unsigned points out, made the "decision to send too few troops to secure the country after Saddam Hussein fled") and Chalabi. It's blamed intelligence analysts publicly, but it quietly cut funding to the providers of the bad intel, Chalabi and the INC. Besides, the way to discredit him is just to lay blame like they've been doing, not show that he's somehow up to something that would warrant compound-raiding (so, something besides taking money to tell people what they want to hear). Thus, I think the Times is way off base in its conclusions about the raid. Although, on second though, that editorial may not be about the raid -- it makes a few points that are marginally related, but are dead on. Maybe the raid-link was just a launching platform?

2. The US agents aren't US agents at all! From what I can tell (again, see the title of this post) the men weren't in uniform. So maybe this is like the scene in The Hobbit where voice-throwing is employed to turn Bilbo's captors against each other. That is, it's designed to sow mistrust in the US/Chalabi relationship.

3. Chalabi had his own compound raided. This is like in The Princess Bride where Humperdink has Vizzini (a third party) start a conflict to give Humperdink causus belli. Chalabi realized that being anti-American is where it's at and decided to stage a raid so that he could be martyred. This would also explain why random things were broken, rather than just confiscated. Seriously, it has the feel of a Production: the broken 80-some-year-old portrait of Chalabi's grandfather, and the image of a confused, hurt, broken and angry Chalabi (now no longer in bed with the Americans) saying the following: "My message is let my people go, let my people be free," Let my people go? Are you kidding me? This has got to be staged.

4. A variant on 3, but where the US was actually responsible for the raid, but it was all done with Chalabi's knowledge. Thus, Chalabi can become the anti-American demagogue he needs to be to lead the new Iraq (note the following quote: "We are grateful to President Bush for liberating Iraq, but it is time for the Iraqi people to run their affairs.") while secretly still being buddy-buddy with the Americans. Thus, we can play the both sides. Have Bremer play the hard line, Chalabi speak out against him and have the whole thing wonderfully orchestrated. It's like astroturf.

5. Something else totally different is going on. Chalabi is crooked in some way we don't have any clue about. Someone got the wrong address. Who knows. It's so hard to tell.

Oh the possibilities.

In An Interstellar Burst...

2004-05-21T00:42:00.000-07:00

As best as I can tell my previous post happened on March 25th. That's quite a hiatus. Although I certainly continued to spend far too much of my time on the internet in that period, I otherwise sort of retired from online life - no AIM, no blogging, no LiveJournal, no nothing. Such an experiment (not that I began it as a conscious experiment) would undoubtedly be more successful if I could similarly walk away from the websites I tend to read, but...

In any case, at least one person has expressed regret that I refrained from posting even when The Virginian resumed the blogging, so here we go. In particular, I'm somewhat curious to see what amount of coherence or balance will be maintained as I continue to be an undergrad at Chicago, and my associate heads off to graduate school.

A few comments on recent posts:

(1) I highly recommend this website; I've rather enjoyed trying to figure out how the parents of people I've gone to school with have distributed their money, and checking whether or not I was surprised by the results. People I've gone to school with tend to not donate much money to just about any cause as of yet, although that hasn't stopped either my high school or the institution where I did eighth grade from hitting me up for cash I don't have. If I ever donate money to one of my former schools, UHS will get some. Cathedral will not. (Among other reasons, Cathedral is far more aggressive.)

(2) As The Virginian states below, I do not care for square-toed shoes (or squares in general; I have a decided negative preference towards boxy automotive design, boxy architecture, boxy people, and boxy clothing). My position on ties and collars is not an equally vehement affirmation of the joys of the wide collar and the Windsor knot - I merely don't object to the wide collar, think in certain situations and on certain people it is flattering, etc. And when confronted with a wide collar, it is necessary, lest one risk looking entirely foolish, to respond with an appropriately beefy (but not boxy) tie knot - namely, the Windsor. I myself have only an intellectual knowledge of how to execute the Windsor, relying on the more pedestrian four-in-hand, since my personal shirt collars tend to be sufficiently narrow in angle. As to the neckerchief, though: no. An ascot is one thing (and in this day and age I'd certainly feel inclined to mock anyone I saw wearing an ascot for non-theatrical/ironic purposes) but a neckerchief demands an equally piratical puffy blouse. Just unbutton your damn shirt and let it go. Or, like me, you could sport what my roommates charmingly refer to as my "Jesus bling".

Jennifers results

2004-05-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Though intially fooled by the hope of social scientists that three is a trend, I am pleased to inform you that not all Jennifers have "Ann(e)" for a middle name. Some non-Anne middle names: Sue, Leigh, Marie (x2), Carter, Michelle, Claire, Cynthia, Nicole, Joyce. Now, the Jennifers Cynthia and Nicole are personal friends of mine one of whom I play poker with on a semi-regular basis and the other whom I've known since 4th grade. The Jennifers Anne were in my mind because I had spoken to or about all of them recently. So, there you have it, in case you were wondering, which you weren't. Thanks to the esteemable Messers Baude and Aufderhaar and the lovely Miss O'Connor for your replies. What can be taken from all of this is that while "Anne" is not the only name to come after "Jennifer", it is one that makes for a rather sonorous combination.

Fascinating thing of the day

2004-05-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

To do penance for my last irrelevant post, here's an irrelevant post that's really quite fascinating and, dare I say, addictive. There's a website that allows you to search by name or zip code to see who has donated how much to which presidential campaign and where they live. Amazing.

This link was blatantly stolen from OxBlog. Whatever. I have some results from my Jennifers post. They'll be along later today whenever I get bored next.

This is a terrible idea

2004-05-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

While Will Baude made remarks earlier this day about women's fashion, a greater fashion concern has reared its ugly head. First of all, the idea that you need something to wear around you neck when you have your collar unbuttoned is stupid. It's just a different, more casual look. Second, it will not replace the tie. This isn't a way for guys who don't like ties to create a parallel dress code. Essentially, the neckerchief is not a tie substitute in a dress code sense, and it looks idiotic. Now, I realize that, specifically in opposition to the Quarterican, I like square-toed shoes, and don't like windsor knots or wide, European collars. However, I think we can all get behind the idea that neckerchiefs are stupid. I mean, they even specifically avoid calling them ascots, which would give them some vestage of (albeit old) respectability. The last time I wore a neckerchief was when I was in the Boy Scouts, and even then, I preferred to wear my collar open US Navy work-khakis style. Of course, I was never into the paramilitary, quasi-facist aspects of the Boy Scouts. The final blow is, of course, that these neckerchiefs are ridiculously expensive. They cost $30 or $65 or, no, wait: $155 dollars. The Times helpfully reminds us that you can buy a bandana for about $2, but I'm sure this would be a major fashion faux pas.

Jennifers: A totally irrelevant post

2004-05-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

A couple totally irrelevant things:

1. Drezner needs to learn about spheres of influence (see last paragraph). Have I encroached in Salma Hayek territory? No, I haven't. Also, why is she wearing so much eye makeup? And where does he even find these pictures? Besides, Jennifer Garner and I have things in common that she and Drezner do not: being born in Texas in April, growing up in (West (or not)) Virginia, and going to college in the Midwest! (Okay, so she and Drezner are both in their 30s) But anyway, enough of that...

2. Speaking of Jennifer Garner, her middle name is "Anne". So what, right? Well, going through my mental catalog of "Jennifers I Know" all of them (so, three, including Jennifer Garner) have the middle name "Anne" (well, in one case it's "Ann"). But still, what's up with that? I welcome email about the middle name(s) of any Jennifers anyone who reads this blog might know.

Weird rowing incident

2004-05-19T05:31:00.000-07:00

A few remarks about rowing and finding yourself one minute in your shell, and the next minute hanging by your feet, upside-down, underwater*:

Singles** will flip if you look at them funny, doubles will flip, although it's harder (believe me, I've flipped a double -- on my 17th birthday, no less -- although I still maintain that one Mr. Justin Levenstein is entirely to blame for that incident). I've seen some girls flip a 4x** although it's because they were being foolish and were unlucky. However, I have never even heard of anyone flipping an 8+ -- until now. That's right, as the article says: "the city's Police Harbor Patrol pulled eight rowers and a coxswain from the river". Eight rowers and a cox -- that's and 8+. Now, granted, I rowed on the much more placid Occoquan, and not the Potomac, but still: they flipped an 8+ -- unbelievable.

*When you row, the seat you're on slides on tracks. Also, ~60% of your power come from your legs. Thus, it's good for your feet to remain attached to the shell. This is accomplished by putting your feet into shoes mounted to a board that runs the width of the shell, and then tying them in. Therefore, when you flip over, unless you have advance warning that you're going over (see Levenstein, J. T. and events of 7 April, 2000) you end up hanging by your feet, upside-down underwater, and have to untie yourself (some shoes are velcro) and surface.

**Racing shells are numbered with a number (1, 2, 4, or 8) and a sign (+ or x). The number indicates the number of rowers (there may or may not be a coxswain), the sign indicates whether they are sweeping (one oar each) or sculling (two each). Sweep boats are called by the number of rowers, scull boats by the multiplier. Thus: 4+ = "four" but 4x = "quad". Therefore, 8+ = "eight" (8x doesn't really exist -- it's impractical and way too fast, and you'll never see one except at a sculling championship regatta) and 2x = "double" and 1x = "single". The exception is 2+ = "pair". 1+ doesn't exist because you'd never get anywhere -- think about it.

On studying

2004-05-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

A friend, currently a PhD candidate in Political Science at the U of C, on studying for her Political Theory comprehensive exam:

"My brain feels like it's at an all you can eat buffet of books, and it's just not hungry anymore."

Eloquent.

Daily military intelligence

2004-05-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

US Army Capt. William Thomas Burns on the AC-130 Specter gunship:

"Things blow up when they engage targets, and they blow up pretty big."

Yes, sir. A modified cargo plane with 105mm and 40mm cannons will do that.

Hedging his bets

2004-05-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

David Brooks is hedging his bets early with his column today. I think this:

"Remember, the most untrue truism in human history is that there are no second acts in American life. In reality, there is nothing but second acts. There are shakeout moments and, redundantly, new beginnings. The weeks until June 30 are bound to be awful, but we may be at the start of a new beginning now."

is designed to be pointed back at after things go south. I imagine that eventually the US will get out of Iraq is some sort of quasi-dignified manner, at which point Mr. Brooks can say to the naysayers: "See! Insurgency, phooey; it was just a bump in the road, an apocalypse to make the world new again."

It just freaks me out when Iraq optimists like David Brooks are writing themselves wiggle room for what they know is trouble ahead. It's not that I have a problem with Brooks admitting there will be trouble or with him saying that it's worth it (if that's what he believes). I just have a problem with its representation as the American way. As his column begins:

"There's something about our venture into Iraq that is inspiringly, painfully, embarrassingly and quintessentially American.

"No other nation would have been hopeful enough to try to evangelize for democracy across the Middle East. No other nation would have been naïve enough to do it this badly. No other nation would be adaptable enough to recover from its own innocence and muddle its way to success, as I suspect we are about to do."

Muddle it's way to success? I don't think that's what the planners had in mind for Iraq, and I don't think we would've had the same kind of support for the war if someone had said: "We're going to do this US of A style: be naïve, screw it up and then 'muddle' our way to victory."

Crossword puzzle

2004-05-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

The University of Chicago's very own Mr. Ethan Cooper is the author of the crossword in today's New York Times. The crossword is something I usually do when I'm just idling around. But today I set about it with determination. It was not too difficult, but good and enjoyable. It was very "cute", two of the big across words were "BROWNVBOARD" and "OF EDUCATION" and another pair were "THURGOOD" and "MARSHALL". Nifty. So congrats to Ethan on a good puzzle.

Daily Clausewitz

2004-05-16T17:52:00.000-07:00

Food for thought: Clausewitz would remind us, with much prescience in our current times, that war is an extension of politics by other means. In Trachtenberg's book, Eisenhower is quoted as follows, regarding the presence of US troops in Europe, post-WWII:

"We cannot be a modern Rome guarding the far frontiers with our legions if for no other reason than that these are not, politically, our frontiers."

Quote from Eisenhower to Bermingham, February 28, 1951, Eisenhower Papers, 12:76-77. Emphasis in original.

Another architecture post

2004-05-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

If you ever needed a reason to go to Seattle, here it is. The new Central Library there, designed by Rem Koolhaas looks amazing, and also looks like it can only be truly experienced in person (the Times piece says pretty much this as well.) The review is bizzarely gushy, so I imagine the building is a sight to behold. The review itself is worth reading, too, if you have interest in architecture.

As suspected, the movie business is strange

2004-05-15T16:15:00.000-07:00

As I have always suspected, the movie business is an odd little world. In response to this earlier post, the esteemable Mr. George C. Austin has communicated to me the following:

"I just watched the Garden State trailer...Actually - some starting (or even established) directors or production company's [sic] will actually plan and shoot a five minute trailer for a non-extant film in order to show off their skills - my friend... recently premiered a five-minute trailer for a film that isn't even written."

Interesting, but weird.

A step in the right direction

2004-05-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

Secretary of State Colin Powell (my second favorite high-level official in the Bush foreign policy establishment) has taken a step in the right direction. According to the New York Times:

"Powell was joined by the foreign ministers of Britain, Italy and Japan on Friday in declaring that they would honor any request by Iraq's new government to withdraw foreign troops after June 30, when it is to receive limited sovereignty."

Excellent. While the article goes on to say that Mr. Powell doubts that the request will come, this is still good news. While it'd be great if they asked us to leave, allowing us to make a graceful exit, if they ask us to stay we'll be there at the request of a sovereign government, which is better than being occupiers. I'm sure we'll still be seen by some as occupiers, and I'd personally like us to leave as soon as we can to minimize further casualties, but I don't think we can underestimate the impact of the legitimacy this will give us. The real question is whether the President will hold the Department of Defense to this promise, or whether this declaration will be written off ex post as some fantasy of a rogue State department. If so, I think they should settle it by having Powell fight Rumsfeld, and Armitage fight Wolfowitz. I think the boys from Foggy Bottom would thoroughly trounce their counterparts across the river. It would be awesome.

Voting Catholic

2004-05-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

Amy Lamboley is dead on with her post in response to the New York Times article which says that:

"The Roman Catholic bishop of Colorado Springs has issued a pastoral letter saying that American Catholics should not receive communion if they vote for politicians who defy church teaching by supporting abortion rights, same-sex marriage, euthanasia or stem-cell research."

Despite Miss Lamboley's claim that: "Now, this entry is some uninformed speculation on a topic about which I know fairly little." She hits the nail right on the head with this thought:

"given the fact that there is no party in U.S. politics that takes the 'Catholic line', many decisions on which politician to support will involve weighing a number of different factors, and making unfortunate tradeoffs, it seems terribly misguided to reduce the decision to a few-issue test."

She couldn't be more right. Abortion is such a big issue in the eyes of those who want to tell Catholics how to vote that they overlook the other part of the Catholic mission to alleviate suffering. Social justice and caring for the less-fortunate are also part of the Catholic mission. Supporting a just and non-reckless foreign policy should also be of concern for Catholics.

So, even if you think the Republicans are "right" on abortion, the Democrats are "right" on capital punishment, welfare and health care provisions, among others. So, it's true, without an explicity Catholic party (which may or may not be allowed under the establishment clause -- thoughts anyone?) tradeoffs must be made. In that case, you have to (or at least, I do) consider what is possible; what can be done. If you think that banning abortion is impossible, or that there are more effective ways to reduce the number of abortions in this country, it would behoove you to vote on issues other than abortion. If you can move beyond the abortion issue for these reasons, you can vote for candidates that will support programs and intitiatives that will care for the needy, and promote the Catholic mission in these areas. It's unfortunate that many Catholics do (and are actively encouraged to) vote on the abortion issue alone, which most of the time asks them to ignore other important things about being Catholic.

I may post at some point about being Catholic and voting for Democrats and how to move beyond the abortion issue, but right now I have to get back to Trachtenberg. But, let me say again, Miss Lamboley's entire post is right on, it's worth reading more than just what I quoted.

Signs of trouble

2004-05-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

As a benefit to whatever readers I may have, I will list a few "signs of trouble" to watch out for when setting about to read a book. The following are taken from the preface of Marc Trachtenberg's A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement 1945-1963:

1. The author apologizes for the length of the book, and tries to absolve himself of guilt in this regard: "This is a long book, much longer than I would have liked"

2. "Many readers, moreover, are going to find some of the central claims advanced here hard to accept; this again means that the evidence has to be massive."

3. "In order to keep the argument in the text on track, various ancillary issues are dealt with in the footnotes. Some of these became so long and unwieldy that they were made into appendices, which appear not in this book, but in an internet supplement"

When 2 & 3 are combined, they form a deadly combination. Dr. Trachtenberg felt it necessary to provide "massive evidence" to make his argument (occupying over 400 pages), and still needed to put his footnotes on the Internet? Actually, only some of the footnotes are on the Internet; some are still in the book itself. In fact, on some pages his footnotes in the book take up half the page. So what this means is that he really should've published two 400-page volumes, one of the text, and one of footnotes. This is disgusting. I'm in trouble.

Ugly campus architecture

2004-05-13T06:33:00.000-07:00

I'm certainly aware that someone from the U of C griping about other schools having ugly buildings is the pot calling the kettle black, but MIT has some truly ugly buildings. The NY Times has a story about a new building there, which looks pretty fantastically ugly (you can see a few good shots of it on the slideshow on the Times website.) Now, I realize that not everyone likes gothic architecture or colonial collonades, but the interior of a building should at least be well-lit (see the second slide.) I'm sure that the lighting was done by someone really important and artistic, but I really don't think I could get anything done in that building. This reminded me of the new dorm at MIT that I read about just a few months ago, which is also supremely ugly (exterior and interior.) The inside of that building looks either incomplete or like it was stolen from an aircraft carrier. People are supposed to live in that thing? The two girls sitting at the table would lead us to think so.

Once again, I'm well aware of the Chicago's less-than-pretty architecture, such as the Brutalist Regenstein Library and the (colorful?) Max Palevsky dorms. But, there are two reasons why MIT's violations of good taste are more egregious. First, the Reg isn't Ugly in the same way that the buildings at MIT are Ugly. The Reg is like "hi, I'm not so pretty..." The buildings at MIT are like "LOOK AT ME, I'M UGLY" Palevsky is also like this, BUT, the rooms inside Palevsky are of a reasonably size and shape, and quite well-lit. Other than the color scheme, Palevsky is a decent enough dorm.

Maybe in architecture, like in some other matters of style, I'm just kind of old-fashioned, preferring the works of someone like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Or maybe, these buildings are just ugly.

Movie trailer as art

2004-05-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

The trailer (it's actually a teaser, I think) for Garden State is truly amazing. It is one of the better arguments for movie trailers (and teasers) having become their own art. As a whole, it is a beautiful, amazing thing. Go watch it.

It's a new look for a new day

2004-05-12T16:28:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why I stopped posting for almost a month. I could come up with a bunch of clever excuses, but I won't. So, I gave the blog a new look, which is actually just one of the default choices, but it's quite good-looking. Having the blog has helped me. Some of my friends have read it, and send me email with comments, which is really kind of fascinating because, well, I have smart friends. One of them said he liked reading it because it was "like having a conversation, albeit, a one-sided one with me." He did not make the totally justified leap to "although, even talking to you in person, it's often a one-sided conversation" because I don't, in fact, shut up. Having this blog (or maybe just 3 years at the University of Chicago) has allowed me to crank out 3-5 pages of quality writing in about an hour. This is great. So, in the interest of keeping my writing skills up, not losing all of my readership (hi Nicole, Ian, Eric, Tara) and having something to do over the summer other than work for the Feds, play poker and read books (wait... that actually sounds pretty good.) Okay, rather, I'm trying to start again so as not to lose my writing skills over the summer, because I'll need them in grad school. Yes, that's it.

Below the minimum

2004-04-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

If I am required to take 42 courses at the University of Chicago in order to receive by Bachelor's degree, and I take fewer than 42, I have not met even the bare minimum for completion of my degree. (Since I'm graduating in 3 years, I will have exactly 42 when I graduate). Now, I could have more, but the point is that bare minimums are just that, the lowest standard or the least amount that still meets whatever standard.

Why am I talking about this? Jane Galt posts saying:

"Anyone who's been arguing that Arab/Islamic/war-torn countries just can't do democracy just got a massive dose of disconfirming evidence: Algeria, which is only slowly emerging from a horrifying civil war, just re-elected its president (who came to power in 1999 when the other six candidates resigned before the election to protest massive fraud) in a clean election."

While I do agree with her that "anyone who's been arguing that Arab/Islamic/war-torn countries can't do democracy" is probably speaking too soon or from not enough information. (I'm thinking about doing some research pertaining to this in grad school next year -- so I'll get back to you on whether or not these people are damnable fools or damnable fools who happen to be right). However, I don't agree that Algeria is a good example. Why? Part of the bare minimum for a democracy to be consolidated (which is really what counts) is that the party in power loses re-election. Sure, competition is a big part of democracy, but if the party that wins never loses, and stays in power forever, that's essentially a one-party system; there could theoretically be a change, but until there is one, we won't know. So, I'm withholding my assent on considering Algeria a "massive dose" of evidence of democratic success.

Dog bites man

2004-04-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

This is the most ridiculous headline I've seen in a long time: "Kerry Attends Easter Services and Receives Holy Communion". Really? That's so fascinating! A Catholic goes to Mass on Easter and receives Communion? What an astonishing development. Amazing that they would offer Communion at chuch so "nontraditional" as to describe itself as: "'a worship community of Christians in the Roman Catholic tradition"... which attracts people drawn to its dedication to 'family religious education and social justice.'" Yes, that differentiates it from other Catholic communites how? But enough sarcasm...

The article goes on to say that:

"Mr. Kerry's decision to receive communion amounts to a challenge to several prominent Catholic bishops, who have become increasingly exasperated with politicians who are Catholic but who deviate from Catholic teaching."

Well, if you read Cardinal McCarrick's quotes later on, they seem pretty antiseptic and tolerant. Indeed:

"In a television interview on Sunday, Cardinal McCarrick indicated that depriving a Catholic of communion would be a last resort that he, for one, would be reluctant to take."

If they were really after Kerry, they'd just excommunicate him. More importantly, taking Communion is a personal choice. If you are guilty of sin and receive Communion, it is at your own peril (this being in itself a mortal sin.) The responsibility, as far as distribution of Communion, of the celebrant and auxiliary ministers of Communion is, at the most, to prevent non-Catholics from receiving. But ultimately, it's a personal choice. Moreover, I doubt the Times bothered to take note of the fact that the one time a year that the Church asks that you receive Communion is on Easter.

Even if you accept what the article says, it could at least have a better headline.

Why June 30th is important

2004-04-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

June 30th remains the date for the US to hand over authority to the Iraqis. We need to stick to this date and, moreover, withdraw forces with all due haste as soon as sovereignty is transferred. Comparisons to Israel's occupation of Lebanon and the Vietnam war forget this one important detail: the US has set a date to be done and get out of town. That can be used to our advantage -- if we miss the date, we will have a enormously higher chance of getting stuck there. But as of right now, it's not too late.

It's difficult to discern what the people of Iraq really want. It seems that many are glad that the US got rid of Saddam, but now see the US as an enemy. Obviously, we would have been condemned had we gone in, toppled Saddam in 21 days and then withdrawn. While it would have been easy enough to do, it would have been totally irresponsible. However, it's difficult to see what the Iraqis would have had us done. Either because Iraqis don't know what they would have had us do, or because they won't tell the Western press, or because the press won't print it, we have only a hint of what they want to happen now. In this New York Times story, one man says:

"The time has come for American forces to yield to a neutral force, like one attached to the United Nations."

Also, the BBC has a number of pithy quotes from Arab newspapers regarding this question. One of them moves beyond condemnation and makes a useful suggestion:

"Operations carried out by the Iraqi opposition are legitimate retaliation against the foreign occupation and all the crimes perpetrated against the Iraqis... If the foreign occupation forces had any sense, they would leave Iraq to the UN and the Arab League."

So here's the deal folks: we need to hand over sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30th as planned. Since sovereignty is about controlling the legitimate use of violence within your borders, if the Iraqis can't do this, let's take the two-and-a-half months we have to get the UN and the Arab league on board. This shouldn't be hard; Kofi Annan has been exceptionally forgiving of US as far as its treatment of the UN, and Iraq's neighbors certainly have a vested interest in seeing it stabilized.

Okay, so why is June 30th so important? First, it's not too far off in the grand scheme of things. In light of this, our forces should try to keep their heads down and minimize casualities (both Coalition and Iraqi) until the 30th. Second, part of the problem in Vietnam, which is becoming the problem in Iraq is the issue of "resolve." We don't want to show that our resolve has weakened and that we are moving in response to recent attacks. As much as it seems sick that we should stick around just to show that we're not wimps, resolve and reputation are extremely important in international politics. If people believe you'll make good on your promises or threats, you may not have to follow through on them. Invading Iraq showed that we're serious about our threats, and that rulers like Saddam who fail to comply will be punished. Failing to withdraw on schedule would show that we allow ourselves to get bogged down and diminish the credibility of our ability to succeed in such operations. Conversely, if we leave on schedule it will show that we came to get rid of Saddam and hand over power to the Iraqis, and have no desire to be imperial occupiers. Most of all, it is important to leave on June 30th because then we will be leaving on our terms. If we leave before then, it will show that terrorism and guerilla attacks are effective tactics against us and will only encourage our enemies. As this news analysis in the Times says of Israel in Lebanon:

"The continuing Hezbollah fire claimed, on average, fewer than 31 soldiers' lives annually. But Israel could not vanquish the group, and as political pressure grew at home it finally left southern Lebanon after 18 years. Its retreat from Lebanon in May 2000 might have contributed to the Palestinian uprising by persuading Palestinians that Israel would respond only to force, analysts say."

Those are the problems with withdrawing before June 30th, in response to the recent attacks. But we would be worse off not withdrawing by June 30th, because then we will remain in Iraq with resistance intensifying because of our broken promise to leave. Fears of permanent US rule will increase and with them, anti-US sentiment. Worse yet, we will have even less of an exit strategy then we do now, and any withdrawal would be characterized unfavorably, perhaps as a response to attacks or as being informed by election-year politics. Even if we pass the June 30th date, and set another one, hardly anyone will believe us.

So let's use the biggest advantage we have right now: the June 30th date. It's our only currently visible way out, and the only way to leave Iraq on our terms with minimal damage. If we leave before it, or worse yet, let it pass, comparisons with Vietnam and Lebanon will become more and more accurate, international and Iraqi condemnation will increase, and it will become harder and harder to leave.

Sovereignty and prevention

2004-04-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

Now that I have an RSS reader, I never get anything done, but I stay remarkably well-informed. I also read more blogs than I used to, one notable addition being that of U of C alumnus Pejman Yousefzadeh, who falls into the category of "smart people with well thought-out and clearly articulated positions with which I usually don't agree" -- all the more reason for me to read them.

Anyway, there's a post today about "our new European pre-emption advocates", in which he implies that the Europeans who opposed US action in Iraq and condemned us for it, have seen the light and are employing "pre-emption" themselves.

First of all, there is an important distinction between pre-emption and prevention. They both involve striking before your enemy. However, pre-emption is an action undertaken in response to identifiable, operation-level signs that an attack is imminent so that you may strike the first blow. Prevention, on the other hand, is an action undertaken to prevent your enemy from attaining a capability, or preparing that capability for use. To use an analogy, cribbed from Bob Pape: You're a gunfighter. You face off against your opponent, you see him reach for his gun, you draw and fire -- that's pre-emption. In another scenario, you see your opponent preparing to enter a gun store to purchase a gun and you shoot him dead -- that's prevention. Under international law and Just War theory, pre-emption is okay, prevention is not. The most recent invasion of Iraq was preventive -- not pre-emptive -- war; any commentary to the contrary is a result of the obsfucation of terms committed by the Bush administration in the National Security Strategy.

So, when Mr. Yousefzadeh and the New York Times refer to "pre-emption" in this context, we're really talking about prevention. That aside, my main point is that what the Europeans are doing now is not the same as what they condemned the US for doing in Iraq. The governments in question are taking these actions within their own countries, where they are the sovereign power, meaning they have a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within their borders. Presumably these police actions (rather than military actions) are legal under the laws of these countries, whereas the action taken against Iraq was the action of one sovereign power against another in opposition to international law. That is, the French and British are conducting anti-terror business within their own borders in concordance with the law -- they have not come over to the Bush Doctrine of illegal preventive war against sovereign powers.

More on Iraq

2004-04-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

Continuing the thoughts in the two Shia-related posts below, as well as the one about Josh Marshall's anxiety over the recent events in Iraq, I must say that Sadr and his army are engaging in little more than a power grab. It has become clear that Sadr has not been successful in exhorting the Iraqis to rise up, but is largely relying on a private army he put together last March (NYTimes stories with information about the Mehdi army here and here). Pejman Yousefzadeh says the following, which I completely agree with:

"Sadr's only power may be to cause domestic political problems for Tony Blair and George W. Bush. This is not inconsiderable, to be sure. But it is a far cry from stating that the transition that is supposed to take place to Iraqi governing officials on July 1st of this year is somehow imperiled by Sadr. He may have the capability to confront the American and British governments with unflattering and politically charged pictures of what is happening in Iraq. But he has yet to prove that he can actually alter the balance of power in Iraq on his own, or make himself into a prime political player on the level of those ready to govern Iraq after the July 1st handover, or on the level of senior clerics like Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani."

Once again I'll say (this time with more support) that while the current events are a big problem right now because people are dying, they will have little effect on the overall disposition of the country. Domestic effects have yet to be seen, and will largely depend on how long this continues.

Results on G-Mail

2004-04-06T17:04:00.000-07:00

I wrote below about G-Mail, and the privacy issue that has been raised with regard to it. While Will Baude denies that his thoughts are more articulate, they are more extensive. Also, his response to this issue makes me slightly less afraid of libertarians.

Mr. Baude also busts on this blog's name saying:

"[T]his is an example of an unwise blog title for those who are seeking fame and popularity from their weblogs-- it is both low in alphabetical order, and incredibly cumbersome without a snazzy abbreviation (WYTYKYDK). Of course, blog title matters so much less than blog quality, it probably doesn't much matter."

Although, come to think of it, it's not really a knock, since I don't seek fame and popularity from my weblog, I really just started this thing to do some writing on a more regular basis than three times a year during finals, and in a format that allowed for things shorter than five pages. In other words, I'm thrilled that people read the blog, but my real concern was self-improvement, since I need all of the potentially marketable skills I can lay my hands on.

Josh Marshall had too much coffee

2004-04-06T05:28:00.000-07:00

Josh Marshall has a post from the wee hours related to the Shia-led violence in Iraq. While it is certainly something to be concerned about, I think Dr. Marshall is unnecessarily alarmed by what it might mean. He says:

"In an urban warfare context there's obviously not always a bright line between all out war and isolated guerilla attacks. But this sounds a lot more like the former than the latter. And especially in areas where there aren't large concentrations of American troops, these sound a lot more like standoffs or worse than situations where coalition troops can quickly mobilize and stamp out the attacks.

We really do seem to be on the brink here. Like a top, once its even spin turns into a reckless wobble, these things can be very, very hard to right once they fly out of control."

Of all the things that these incidents do tell us (we should've formed a tighter alliance with the Shia, we should have planned for something like this, we should have handled the occupation differently...) I don't think that they are the beginnings of the country descending into all-out urban war (or as above: descending into "an urban warfare context"). I'm not totally confident about the turnover of power, but I never was; but that's far from seeing doom on the horizon that Josh Marshall does. I think he's reading way too much into what, while they may continue, are incidents that won't affect the overall determination of the country.

Two quick things

2004-04-05T15:43:00.000-07:00

A thought in reference to two posts down: if our enemies really hated freedom, and hated us for who we are, it must just be a big coincidence that al-Qaeda has attacked and threatened only those countries that aid us. The have attacked Spain, but not France or Germany. They've even threatened Norway. The Norwegians take an entirely novel interpretation of why they were threatened:

"The hope of the authorities was that al-Qaeda simply got their geography wrong and did not mean to threaten Norway at all"

In all seriouslness, the Norwegians probably realize they've been threatened because of the handful of troops they have in Afghanistan.

Google's GMail sparks privacy "row": So Google wants to send you ads targeted to message content. Some say this is a breach of email privacy, Google says it's all automated and only humans can snoop. I say big deal, GMail has better features than Hotmail and Microsoft is probably reading your mail and getting all sorts of information off of your computer through whatever MS software you have and just not telling you about it. Although, I'm sure Microsoft told you about it at some point, like when you clicked "I agree" without reading anything about what you were agreeing to. I'm sure Will Baude would have more articulate thoughts on the privacy issue here.

The Shia developments -- specifics

2004-04-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

The fact that the most recent attacks on Americans in Iraq have been carried out by Shia Iraqis under the direction of a Shia cleric struck me as odd at first. Weren't these supposed to be our friends? Aren't these the guys we most directly liberated from Saddam? (the Sunni benefited the most from his regime, and the Kurds were semi-autonomous). Weren't these the guys were counted on to rise up against Saddam after the 1991 war? Well, here's the good news: just like not all Muslims carry out attacks on Americans and the US, not all Shia Iraqis are behind al-Sadr in attacking Americans in Iraq. This report, from the BBC, states the following:

"The trouble is coming from supporters of the radical young cleric, Moqtada Sadr, who has 10%, maybe 15% of Shias behind him."

That's the good news that may be obscured by the coverage of these events in general. Of the several articles I read on this, aside from the one just cited, and a comment from Scott McClellan (who is not 100% credible) that "the uprising by [al-Sadr's] followers did not have broad support among Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population." in this Washington Post piece, I found no mention of the fact that this wasn't a general Shia uprising against the US occupation.

What's suprising about the situation caused by these attacks by the Shia is that it exposed the assumption that the Shia were supposed to be our friends. We then discover that most of them are still at least okay with us. But, as Patrick Belton points out, we didn't seem that interested in befriending our likeliest friends. While even-handedness is admirable, when you're faced with a situation as tough as Iraq, it would have been a good idea to pick some people that you could ally with and help out, in the hopes that they would help you back, rather than simply alienating everyone. On a related not, Josh Marshall might respond that this oversight was just one of many deficiencies in planning. Nonetheless, those in charge of the invasion and occupation would have done well to heed Lincoln's addage about how often you can please the people and picked some people to please early on based, of course, on strategic utilitarian reasoning.

The Shia developements -- generalized

2004-04-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

It's pretty well known by now that Shia Iraqis, under the direction of Moktada al-Sadr an "anti-American cleric", have started attacking US forces (articles here and here) The Bush administration responds to this in typical fashion: it's because they hate freedom. Read it for yourself:

"[W]e are being challenged in Iraq because there are people there that hate freedom," Bush said.

Moreover, violence against the US in Iraq is the result of an individual, nevermind all those who follow that individual. From Scott McClellan:

"What you're talking about is one individual who is seeking to derail democracy and freedom for the Iraqi people," McClellan said. "This is one individual who is seeking to undermine the transition process to sovereignty. . . . This is an individual . . . that has pledged solidarity with terrorist organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah."

Here are a couple problems with this: First, if it's an individual that is responsible for what's going on, those following him are doing so because he exerts some sort of control over them because they can't make decisions for themselves. If the administration thinks this way about the Iraqis (like the paternalistic colonials of yore) then why is democratization on its agenda? Second, it's ridiculous to think that the Iraqis that are against us are against us because they "hate freedom." Quite the opposite -- they love freedom, and they don't feel free under US occupation. Those who want Saddam back want him back because under him, they were free, and under a new system they may be less free, particularly by comparison to other newly-empowered groups. Look at the rhetoric of al-Sadr -- he doesn't denounce the Americans as "freedom-bringers", he denounces them as "tyrants", removers of freedom:

"I'm accused by one of the leaders of evil, Bremer, of being an outlaw," the Reuters news agency reported [Sadr said]. "If that means breaking the law of the American tyranny and its filthy constitution [for Iraq], I'm proud of that that, and that is why I'm in revolt." [emphasis mine]

The important thing to understand about this is not that the Bush administration is wrong when it talks about how the Iraqis attacking us "hate freedom" or how al-Qaeda "hates our way of life"; the important thing to understand is that this belief is essential for Bush's policies to have coherence. His solution to the problems of our Islamicist enemies is to make them democratic. The current struggle against terrorism, the anti-US Iraqis, and whomever else is one of civilization vs. backwardness, of democracy and liberal ideals vs. autocracy and a theocratic society.

On the other hand, if our enemies hated us because of, say, our policies, the solution would not be to transform the world, but to change our policies. Thus, in order to allow us to pursue whatever policies we wish, we must characterize our enemies as hating us for who we are not what we do thus allowing us to "solve" the problem by changing them (since we, ourselves, cannot change -- since we are "right" and the keepers of the ideals of the Enlightenment, which we must bring to the rest of the world). In short, the only coherent way to deal with our new enemies without changing our traditional policies (and attitudes in general) is to characterize our struggle as existential rather than issue-specific.

Gas prices

2004-04-01T20:05:00.000-08:00

Gas in Chicago is pretty expensive -- about $2 / gal. for the cheap stuff (hey, even air costs at least 50 cents). But this is true only by US standards, as Andrew Sullivan reminds us. I take issue with his argument's basis on comparing US to European and Japanese gas prices. The US has a pretty massive domestic oil industry and proximity to ports and oil-producing regions results in price differentials even across the US. Josh Chaftez also talks about geography as a reason for this comparison being unfair. He writes:

Most places in Europe were built before the car was invented and are therefore navigable without cars (indeed, many are barely navigable with cars). The same goes for the Northeastern U.S. But I grew up in Houston, which is most emphatically a city built around the car. So is Los Angeles. So are a lot of cities in the Southwest and the West.

Moreover, it is true that the mass transit systems in these larger and (let's say) "western" cities are such that it is quite hard to get around without a car. San Francisco is really an "eastern" city -- it's not a sprawl like LA. If you include the metro area in "DC" (and let's be honest, if you picked up just the District and moved it to the middle of Kansas it would be a drastically different place -- example: no Tysons) it's a "western" city -- a sprawl. In sprawl cities mass transit is a hard thing to do. Boston and New York are the only cities in which I've felt that it's totally reasonable not to have a car. Even Chicago seems a little too big for it's transit system -- particularly if you live on the South Side.

My point is that Mr. Chafetz's argument is well-taken, and this conjecture is not too unimaginable:

A significantly higher gas tax would hit the working poor (and the working lower-middle class) hard in cities like those. In some cases, it might actually force people onto welfare, as driving to work becomes too expensive.

However, Dr. Sullivan's reasoning is good:

an easy way to help ease the budget deficit, increase our fuel efficiency, wean us a little off Middle East petroleum and generally help the U.S. economically and in foreign policy.

But also, he rightly says that:

the very idea of raising taxes on gasoline is regarded as so completely anathema you might as well propose nominating Osama bin Laden for president.

True, but that's the case for raising taxes on anything. I, of course, am the odd one out (apparently not 100%) because I'd favor an increased gas tax. Of course, I'll go on the record as saying that I've voted for a tax increase in the past. But an increased gas tax is good not because we've been taking it easy with artificially low gas prices, but primarily (in my mind) because it will produce innovation in fuel efficient vehicles, and force people to engage in more reasonable ground transit (buying fewer gas-guzzlers, taking public transit more often, &c.)

Strange in a few ways

2004-03-31T14:56:00.000-08:00

There's a story today in The New York Times about a Buddhist monk who had his cloth bag stolen at a Starbucks in Manhattan. The first strange thing is that this was front-page (below-the-fold) news today. I could come up with so many better things to have been there, and I'm so confident of this, that I won't bother to suggest any. The other strange thing is that in the picture accompanying the article (on the front page of the print Times and the first picture on the website) you can see a couple kissing in the background (you need to click "enlarge this image" to see it). I feel like the stodgy New York Times wouldn't want a couple kissing on the front page... oh wait, unless it's on the Sunday edition, of teenagers, relating to an article about abstinence, and HUGE (like a few weeks ago). Anyway, the article has both a happy ending and this funny passage that shows my fascination by and the Times' somewhat paternal contempt (aw... look at the cute little Buddhists) for non-Protestant or Jewsih religions:

Venerable Kassapa, 41, is a forest monk in Sri Lanka. He usually lives alone or with a few other monks in rock-shelter huts, where he depends on the charity of villagers. He eats one proper meal a day, does not carry money, and devotes much of his celibate life to meditation, contemplation and the study of Buddhist texts. People often bow before him.

First of all, I like the idea of there being "forest monks" as opposed to, you know "mountain monks", "subterranean monks", "tree monks" or whatever else. Second, I like the addition of the sentence "People often bow before him."

Awesome.

More on Spain

2004-03-29T16:45:00.000-08:00

I posted earlier about the attacks in Madrid and their victory-for-whom status. But there's another consideration which I hadn't thought of (in relation to these bombings in particular) before I read this editorial in an old issue of the Times that was in my bathroom. Unfortunately, it's now more than two weeks old, so you have to pay to read the whole thing, but you could probably find it on some sort of online archive for free if you're academically affiliated.

Anyway, the editorial talks about how Al Qaeda is appearing to be becoming less of a semi-centrally organized cell-based organization, but rather a bunch of cells that use the Al Qaeda name and its cause. This would be like making some bum car and calling it a "Ford" (wait... the Edsall...) just so people know it's a car, it takes you from place to place, it runs on gasoline, etc... Now, this is a somewhat symbiotic relationship. Al Qaeda has very little outlay for these groups -- all it provides is its name, and (to a greater or lesser extent) its mission. Daniel Byman gave a talk here at Chicago about "Al Qaeda as an adversary" and he talked about the group and its affiliates, their level of integration, participation, etc... He mentioned that Al Qaeda provides an infrastructure for other groups. You run a group that needs small weapons training -- well, you're brother-in-law's dentist once had coffee in Nicosia with a Qaeda guy who can get your people to a camp in Afghanistan (or wherever... things aren't like they used to be...) to get said training from Qaeda folks.

But these affiliations can go further than just resources. The really interesting idea here is the co-opting of the mission, ideals, techniques, and most importantly the "brand name" of Al Qaeda. It lends a sense of fear -- and thus legitimacy to your operations. You think Al Qaeda, you think of the group that got the US where it hurts -- you hear that the job was done by the Eastern Mohammadean Coalition of Jihadists, you don't care. The most interesting question is whether this will start to water down Al Qaeda. Will there be some botched ops by groups just using the Qaeda name? Will this anger the central core of Qaeda guys and cause infighting? Is all jihad good jihad? Things to think about....

Richard Clarke

2004-03-27T13:11:00.000-08:00

I think the whole Richard Clarke's book thing is interesting, but I don't have the time to devote to writing about it. Fortunately, Josh Marshall is all over it. In a serious way -- like six ways to Tuesday. I'll just say two things:

1. I'm think it's weird (and typical) the the Bush administration is responding in every way possible except responding to the accusations directly. The problems with this are self-evident.

2. I saw a guy that looked exactly like Clarke at a Starbucks in Tysons.

That is all.

Hey, look at this

2004-03-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

I just want to bring this to everyone's attention. I'm not sure I would've campaigned hard for it, but I'm not terribly upset by it either. Now, for the Democrats-know-what's-going-on and the Republicans-are-lying segment of today's story:

[Senator Diane Feinstein] said a federal statute declaring that life begins at conception could ultimately lead to a court finding that "embryonic stem cell research becomes murder and abortion in the first trimester becomes murder as well."

Yep. Probably. Give the lady from California a gold star.

"It's not about abortion," said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and an advocate for the bill in his previous years in the House. "It is about criminals who attack pregnant women."

That's kind-of a lie. If it were really about attacking pregnant women, the bill would increase the consequences for attacking pregnant women just like there are increased penalties for hate crimes. I mean, let's be honest here Mr. Graham. (Note: there may be something else at work here -- I have noticed on occasion that Senator Graham himself looks kind of like an unborn fetus.)

But on to lighter things, it's 79 degrees here, and I'm eating dinner at this place. It will be excellent.

No, You're Not

2004-03-25T07:14:00.000-08:00

Re: spanking - according to my parents' testimony, I was spanked twice as a child. Both incidents occurred well before the period whose memories I still retain, both times the "spanking" was a single swift smack on the behind, both times this was sufficient to shock and dismay me (because it was so rare, I never expected it), both times it was sufficient to make my parents feel guilty (feeding their initial resolution that I was not to be spanked). Now, this is also no doubt aided by my parents' testimony that I was an excessively obedient, good tempered, un-trouble-causing little kid, and I'm not going to get up and say that I was that way (which, within the period of my memory, is certainly an accurate description, and I have no reason to believe that I was by way of contrast a hellraiser of a two-year-old) because I was never spanked.

But the point is, I've lived and made friends for an extended period of time in both Massachusetts and northern California, and while I never took a poll, my memories of discussions lead me to believe that anyone who was spanked w/regularity would have been in the extreme minority. Now, these are odd places. They're both (at least socially) rather more liberal than the national average. So I'll posit that these places, both more susceptible to social change than, say, the South, were probably on the leading edge of the changes The Virginian describes. So I'd say that he's more of a regional anomaly than a national one - since I think it's also fair to say that the southern states are going to be on the trailing edge of whatever social change I've just glibly posited the north and west are pioneering.

I am more different than I thought

2004-03-24T19:05:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, a friend had a question in her AIM away message about whether or not you were spanked as a child and what for, and would you spank your children. Apparently, I am the only person who responded who was raised in the South (in particulary: raised in Virginia, by Texans -- not some peace-loving dopers from Vermont or some other Yankee-types) who was not spanked as a child and doesn't think my friend is crazy for not wanting to spank her children -- I was only one of three people who wasn't spanked overall. While I don't know the total sample size, this is still kind of shocking. At the time that kids about my age were born, it was a new day: mothers were giving birth without anesthesia, they were breast-feeding their kids, and so on -- the old order was out, it was a new day in child-rearing. I wasn't spanked, I wouldn't spank my kids. I thought these would at least be the circumstances of the majority, if not almost everyone. I felt like child-spanking was closer to wife-beating than bottle-feeding -- that is, some people did it, but it wasn't really condoned. I was wrong. I'm just kind of suprised, that's all.

And I'm back

2004-03-23T20:31:00.000-08:00

I have returned to the blog-posting world, but as I have to ease myself back in, I'm going with the good-old shotgun method.

Anti-binary: At first I was hacked off at the people who called the Madrid attacks a victory for the terrorists. But with some guidance from one of my favorite interlocutors and best friends (currently attending an unnamed institution of higher learning founded in 1701 in the Nutmeg State) and The Economist I realized the problem. My argument was: "It wasn't a victory for the terrorists, the Spanish people went and voted in a regularly scheduled election and got rid of the government that cooperated with the cowboy Americans and put them at risk -- this was a victory for democracy, not terror." Oh how foolish I am, oh how innundated by Bush administration rhetoric. THIS IS IMPORTANT: "Victories" for terror and democracy are not binary conditions. Al Qaeda probably looks on the Madrid attacks as a victory, and rightly so: Aznar is out. However, the Spainards probably look on it as a victory for democracy: things in their country proceeded as planned, elections were not postponed, martial law was not instituted and so on. It is our instinct to call something so tragic and murderous a victory for terrorism. However, persevering in the face of such an event is a victory for democracy and the rule of law. In secula seculorum. Amen.

Sit down and shut up: I'm sick of people complaining about things written on T-shirts. Yeah "Voting is for old people" is dumb, so is "It's all relative in West Virginia". What's dumber is people getting all in a huff about it. What's dumber is the statment Abercrombie & Fitch issued in response. Seriously, I've seen a similar shirt with the outline of the Commonwealth of Kentucky on it, with similar lettering saying: "Gettin' Lucky In Kentucky" or "I Got Lucky In Kentucky" or something like that. Did people flock to Kentucky after seeing this shirt in the hopes of getting some action? No. I mean... not to my knowledge, and I sure as hell hope not. We all know that not all West Virginians are inbred. Take Jennifer Garner for example: not inbred; and if she is: here's to more inbreeding (don't look at me, I'm an only child). You may say: "But she was born in Texas." Yeah? Well, so was I. Miss Garner and I are Texans, too. But we're still [West (or not)] Virginians. But I digress. My point is: It's all stupid. Just like West Virginians... I mean, no... nevermind.

Look Pa, I Learneded Something!

2004-03-18T03:24:00.000-08:00

I'm about two-thirds of the way through my final assignment (an 8-10 page paper) of the quarter. It's very late, I'm tired, and I'm might not going to go to bed until this evening, which will be the second time in five days that I go 24 hours without sleep, an occasion to which I am unsued and react poorly. Hopefully, I'll find some time to sleep, and also the vaguely interesting things I have planned for my day will distract me from the desire to collapse.

The thing, though, is that I don't mind. First of all, I've been working my way through a half-gallon of chocolate milk, which is excellent paper-lubrication. Second of all, I'm interested in what I'm writing about. Third and most importantly, I feel like I'm actually learning something in writing this paper. I didn't carefully read the essays I'm writing on the first time around, so I've had to imbibe what seemed relevant and then spin it back out in a manner that was both coherent and pit them against each other. For the first time in at least a year and a half I honestly don't know, two-thirds of the way through, what my conclusion is going to be. I'm going to have to swig some chocolate milk and actually think about it, make up my mind, allow the things I've written to persuade me. This isn't going to redeem the past quarter, but up until tonight the best thing I had to show for the previous ten weeks was the development of high facility at throwing sharp objects into horizontal surfaces, as well as an appreciation for how much easier that is as compared to throwing the same sharp objects into vertical surfaces (though I'm improving at that as well). This is kind of cool. I might be wrong (about what I write in my paper, not my enthusiasm about being interested in it), but I'm just the slightest bit excited about working out my ideas, and I feel a little less jaded.

Also: I've been listening nonstop all night to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness for the first time in a long time. Smashing Pumpkins were my first Favorite Band, and still the ones closest to my heart.

Youth is wasted on the young.

Yes, I know I should be working

2004-03-14T13:03:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'm on blogging hiatus for finals, but.... I.... the...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

First, they take the Cavaliers - fine, whatever, it was a classic 2nd half Wahoo choke; the Terps overcame a double-digit deficit to win it. I wasn't happy, but whatever. But DUKE! Gah! Stupid turtles...

Just remember guys, on March 18th, politics stops at the ACC's edge.

The System Has Become Interactive

2004-03-14T09:39:00.000-08:00

Last night I took a break from paper-producing to have dinner with a friend's parents, who subsequently took us to see the Blue Man Group, which they had been quite interested in doing. I was considerably less enthused, but I wasn't about to turn down some free (for me) entertainment. I hadn't been looking forward to the show that much because I tend to be less enthralled than others by physical antics (I was maybe one of three kids in grade school who didn't think the Cirque d'Soleil was cool beyond belief). So, first off, I should say that the show was great, I laughed a lot, it was funny and clever and a good (albeit quite expensive [though, thankfully, not for me]) time. But I had a couple of thoughts relating to the show...

(1) There was a mostly gentle, sometimes more forceful, undercurrent of social commentary to the show. I don't know very much about the Blue Man Group's history, other than what was explained for me in the Playbill, but it appears that they got started putting on Happenings around New York City in the late 80s. I sort of felt like some of the more critical elements of the show seemed like gestures towards the politicized aspect of doing something like a Happening, and maybe half-hearted ones. I feel this way because of the three major segments of the show in this vein, I only thought one was really clever - a voiceover/video presentation about a "nearly invisible network that connects millions of people, a system so vast and complex that no one can estimate its size," etc., etc. That system is...plumbing. (All information in this system, no matter where you are in the system, flows AWAY from your interface terminals. When there is an informational clog, and data starts flowing out of your interface terminals, the system has become...interactive.) What I liked about this was that it had a subtlety to it - you could just take it as funny, without any particular critical content - and it was inventive. The other two such sections of the show were (a) the Blue Men interacting with another voiceover/video presentation about how to be a Rock Star in the modern age (hint: lots of choreography, little talent), and (b) an explication of the nature of the Internet Coffee Shop, where people drink their coffee and communicate with people who aren't there while ignoring the people at the next table (walking home from the show, we passed such a coffee shop, and noted that in fact people were in physical conversation with each other, in defiance of the Blue Men). While both these segments were funny, I found them less satisfying than the plumbing thing because they were both so...obvious in their critical target. No one needs to have it pointed out to them that pop music at the moment is dominated by an emphasis on choreography. The NYTimes can't go two weekends without another item on the prevalence of lip-synching - and yet, as those same items point out, no one much seems to care. If they did, it wouldn't be popular at the moment. No one needs to be informed of the potentially isolationist tendencies of internet use, of the vague ridiculousness in public internet use. The last six to eight years have seen an argument between studies proving or disproving the antisocial influence of wasting hours online. This was the difference between when Seinfeld (as opposed to the slightly different animal that was Seinfeld) is great as opposed to amusing: the difference between revelation and recognition. Telling people things they already know is easy, and might get laughs, but...it's not nearly as satisfying as showing them something they haven't seen before.

(2) I had things to say about audience participation, but this has gotten sort of long and I'm hungry, so I'll post that later (if ever).

Busy; Also, "Marriage"

2004-03-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

We're heading into finals week here at the University of Chicago, which means that the impetus to post becomes sparse as the impetus to bury oneself under a ton of sand and papers becomes all-consuming. I envy The Virginian, who will be done with his work a full two and a half days or so before I am...but anyway.

Since I was trying to think of something to throw up here as a stopgap, I remembered that at one point I indicated I would post on gay marriage, or as it's fashionable to refer to it in some circles, gay "marriage". I guess I've got the monopoly on gay marriage posting here, because as my blogging-cohort told me, "I've already written a post on abortion; I don't wanna touch that with a ten-foot pole." I imagine the Virginian overestimates both the size and the reactionary tendencies of our readership, but in the interest of filling space:

It has become apparent over the last two months that the Virginian and I unexpectedly share pretty much the exact same position on the issue: the federal government should not be in the business of handing out anything called a "marriage". The federal government should be in the business of handing out domestic partnership contracts to any pair of people who desires one (and frankly, I don't care if they hand them out to three or eight people either), and marriage should be left as an institution of religious organizations. We have seen no argument in favor of restricting civil marriage to heterosexuals that does not reduce in the end to an appeal to this country's Christian-normative foundations, and those are not foundations which we feel can dictate policy. If the Catholic church doesn't want to marry gay people, that's the Catholic church's business, but the federal government can't parade around these Defense of Marriage mockeries and pretend that civil marriage still exists as anything other than a contract which is relatively easy to get out of. U.S. Gov. Out Of My Wedding Ring, I say.

Yes, it's finals time

2004-03-08T15:46:00.000-08:00

So, real quick:

This is weird: This college in Purcellville is getting lots of attention - it educates home-schooled kids, and seems like a kind of scary, conservative, evangelical Christian place. What's odd is that it got coverage in The Economist last week, and got coverage in the New York Times today. Strange.

Good news: Well, the interim Iraqi constitution got signed. Good, but I still have my doubts about the ability of the Iraqis to take over in the security department anytime soon. I hope these doubts turn out to be wrong.

Immigration and labor

2004-03-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

Among those with protectionist sentiment, there's a feeling that immigrants into the US will take jobs away from Americans and (at the least) lower wages. We've known this for a long time. But I just recently meaningfully made the connection between these long-standing fears, and the relatively new European fears about immigration.

With the EU expanding on May 1st, a lot of Eastern (poorer) European countries are joining, and since part of the EU's charm is the relatively free mobility of labor, the wealthier Western European countries (existing EU members) are freaking out. The problem is potentially scarier in Europe since these countries have social saftey nets far more expansive than those in place in the US. Now all of the existing EU members have taken measures to cushion the effects of Eastern Europeans (they're particularly afraid of the Roma) flooding their countries and soaking up social benefits.

The Economist addresses this here and here. In its coverage, it has a puzzling line:

Mr. Dustmann's research also suggests that wages among existing workers have not been materially affected by immigrants; if anything they have risen. This conclusion, based on a small sample, runs counter to the general presumption, backed by emperical findings in America, that immigration lowers wages.

Something's going on here - I doubt that there's something fundamentally different in Britain than in the US that makes this the case. There's not any information about the study itself, just its findings, but maybe Mr. Dustmann isn't look at changes in real wages? I don't know. Anyway, my point is that this study aside, there are some interesting things here about the different types of immigration in Europe and North America, and how it will affect the economic big boys on each continent. This would be really neat to look into, but I have to, you know, pass my classes.

Since it is Friday, I'll end with a bit of levity. Since the current EU members have done their fair share of Roma-bashing (the Roma are the gypsies, by the way -- the (figurative) red-headed stepchildren of Europe, who mostly live in the East, although there are plenty everywhere) here is a quote from the esteemable Mr. Peter Jaffe of Stanford University, currently in Florence, Italy:

I have to say, I'm impressed: those gypsies are tenacious little fuckers. They just huddle together to escape the freezing cold in corners on the Ponte Vecchio. They survive conditions that would have kicked me out of the gene pool years ago. It's almost enough to make me feel human sympathy and toss them a Euro.

Since you may not know Peter, if something is "almost enough" to make him feel human sympathy, it's a big deal. This is probably the closest you'll get to seeing something nice about the Roma in print.

Nuke runners

2004-03-04T16:12:00.000-08:00

Nukes
All this nuclear trade stuff is getting really interesting. The New York Times has been running pieces for a while about A. Q. Khan and B. S. A. Tahir, but today there's an editorial about Dubai's role as a big transshipment point for the goods. The Economist also has a special feature on the nuclear trade. The more I read about this the more interesting it becomes.

Other things:
More cool war on terror stuff: Al Qaeda's loyalty to Swisscom SIM chips gets them in trouble.
An Catholic-related op-ed not about The Passion: If you missed Andrew Greeley's op-ed yesterday, it was really good. Go read it.

On a personal note:
I heard from my first grad school today, and.... I've been accepted to UVa's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in the Department of Politics. Hooray!

More on Huntington

2004-03-03T12:25:00.000-08:00

My thoughts on Huntington are below, but anyone interested would do well to give Dr. Drezner's TNR piece a look. It's considerably better-informed, as it appears that he has engaged in this "research" thing I keep hearing about. I guess that's why he writes articles and I write email.

Conclusions

2004-03-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

After discussion with The Quarterican, I feel like I need to clarify my point, a point upon which we agree. The point is that scrutiny of the CIA or any secretive intelligence body is not a bad thing necessarily, but the way it's being done right now is. That is, all the 9/11 and WMD "intelligence failure" investigations seem to be all about blame, and not about fixing problems.

Yeah, I Live Here Too

2004-03-03T09:02:00.000-08:00

I don't entirely disagree with my comrade's post on the CIA, but I have several points to make.

(1) Yes, it is (I would imagine) understood that the point of having a secret intelligence agency is that, when it's working, you don't know that it's working. The CIA is a mysterious piece of machinery under the hood of my car, or inside my computer - I barely knew it was there until it started acting up. That doesn't mean, however, that the CIA should be exempt from public scrutiny. Whether current investigations are proceeding in ideal fashion or not (and I frankly haven't been paying enough attention to have an opinion), I believe that public investigation of CIA failures not for the purpose of assigning blame, but for the purpose of assessing what went wrong and how such catastrophe can be averted in the future is necessary. The CIA may be an exemplary organization and my understanding of its inner workings is nonexistant, but: if I were informed about a theoretical government office which had important work to do in secret, which was frequently successful but occasionally un-, and which was never held up for public investigation of how its failures came about, I might worry that such an organization would shrug off its periodic failures as inevitable without attempting to learn from such events. I'm not interested in getting people fired; but I'm not enough of an optimist in human behavior to assume that even the CIA would change its ways without being told to by a more powerful body to whom it's answerable.

(2) By the same token, most people who have either being paying sufficient attention over the last few years is probably aware of two facts: (a) Any attempt to blame the CIA for failure to discover WMDs is pure political hogwash, since it has been readily apparent from the beginning that the CIA was not a big booster of the intelligence upon which our administration siezed, and it certainly did not endorse the fashion in which that intelligence was used, and (b) the CIA can't reasonably be blamed (from Pacepa's list of current indictments of the agency) for failure to anticipate 9/11. On that mark, here's an interview from Salon, and here is the only worthwhile piece of investigative journalism Time has done in years.

(3) The upshot of the two links just posted is that, as regards 9/11, the blame cannot be laid at the feet of the CIA, or any other individual intelligence agency, but we can reasonably postulate that had the various national agencies been willing and able to fully share both their intelligence and their suspicions, they might have more successfully anticipated what was coming - this is, after all, the ostensible reason we have a Department of Homeland Security, mismanaged and laughable as its actual incarnation might be. And also, as Time so ably points out, it was the administration that ignored the entire possibility of Osama bin Laden as a threat until days before 9/11, it was the administration that disregarded the advice of the departing Clintonians, who had all become frightfully obsessed with Al Qaeda - which is why partisan critiques of Clinton that claim he ignored the terrorist problem make my blood boil. But that's for another post.

So, returning from digression, I understand Ion Mihai Pacepa's concerns (and, more locally, The Virginian's), but I believe that (a) perceptive individuals who have been paying attention to the news over the last few years (and in that category I hopefully submit there ought to be the sort of people thinking of becoming CIA assets) will recognize that many of the current attempts to scapegoat the CIA are political posturing, and (b) public scrutiny of our intelligence agencies is in fact necessary, although such scrutiny can be co-opted for political gain and clumsily utilized.

The Scapegoats of Langley

2004-03-03T06:45:00.000-08:00

I've made the point in conversation a few times that all this "intelligence failure" business is nonsense, especially with regard to 9/11, which is different because it happened to us, rather than having been done by us. First of all, the "failure" of intelligence that allegedly led to the September 11th attacks is a silly notion. Intelligence is an imperfect science, we live in a world where information asymmetries abound -- usually the CIA is on the heavy side, but they've never claimed to be omniscient. Second, even if this was a failure, it's been generealized into a all-encompasing "the CIA blows" sentiment. Look: the CIA gets it right all the time, we just don't find out about it. That's what having a secretive intelligence agency is all about. You really only see the failures. Furthermore, the CIA knows when failures happen -- it knows much better than a commission that starts at square one investigating -- and I'm sure CIA takes such failures quite seriously. What's going on now seems to amount to some kind of public bitch-slapping in order to lay blame, and will actually end up fixing nothing.

So, beyond the foolishness of the political scapegoating that's going on right now, this article in the National Review makes the point that potential defectors will lose confidence in the CIA and makes an excellent recommendation for what should happen now:

The gleeful public scapegoating of the CIA can easily hurt more than it helps. The CIA is by far the world's best intelligence organization. It contributed decisively to America's victory in the Cold War against not only great odds, but also in the face of domestic political pressure. Over the past 25 years I have worked with a number of CIA officers. All have been good professionals and devoted patriots, ready to go to any lengths to protect our national security. They do not need more public investigations. These are often the productions of non-experts playing at reinventing the wheel of espionage management. America does not need yet another bulky Commission report to reiterate the obvious to its security agencies. What it needs is to let the CIA get back to work quietly regaining the trust of its potential sources abroad. Trust is the most valuable asset of any espionage service.

I agree wholeheartedly. Also, thanks to John Lovejoy (my conservative source) for the link to the article, (we Center-Left folks don't usually read the National Review.)

I agree with Rhodes scholars

2004-03-02T19:50:00.000-08:00

I just want to take this moment to make an insignificant post to agree with two posts by Messrs. Adesnik and Chafetz.

Adesnik: [On suicide bombings in Iraq in which 140+ Iraqis were killed]: "This mindless violence achieves nothing."

Chafetz: "Contrary to popular belief, using a bigger font or more capital letters does not make you any more persuasive."

Sometimes you need smart people to state the obvious.

La invasión hispanica -- gasp el horror!

2004-03-02T16:24:00.000-08:00

The following was written on Sam Huntington's Foreign Policy article "The Hispanic Invasion" in response to the following email from a friend:

Have you read Huntington's new article in Foreign Policy?

I have edited this to some extent, but it's still very off-the-cuff:

I have, in fact, read Huntington's piece. In fact, I denounced in class last week. I actually mention it in my post from Saturday as an example of how being well-known and well-credentialed allows you to get stuff published that would usually get canned without a second thought.

Anyway, my thoughts on it basically amount to the opinion that even if you move beyond the level of criticism that says "Gee, this makes Sam Huntington look like a bigot" (which he is), it's still garbage. Even if you accept his intial assertions (backed up by a couple of quotes from some guy in New Mexico) that Latinos don't assimilate (which I think is false, but anyway...) and that they're basically a bunch of lazy wetbacks with neither aspirations nor work ethic, the argument falls flat. Basically, Huntington fails to draw a logical line of arugment between the putative characteristics of Latinos and deleterious effects on society. He makes an attempt when he talks about cities like Miami being taken over by bilingual brown people and how all the white folk had to leave, but he fails to explain why this is a problem. A higher premium placed on bilingual workers? White people moving out of Miami proper? So what. Market forces at work, pal.

It would seem that either this article is a total failure because the argument stops about 60% of the way to its conclusion, or it's supposed to be self-evident why these developments are a problem. That is, Huntington is trying to get people riled because they think that a Latin takeover is, in itself, a bad thing.

[Digressive comments regarding Sofia Coppola removed]

Oh yes: Huntington's piece flies in the face of a good deal of evidence that shows positive externalities of immigration. Immigrants are usually some of the hardest workers, and the most likely (as a group) to aspire to moving up. The "Anglo-Protestants" he talks about, and even native black Americans, have a sense of entitlement, and won't take the lousy jobs that immigrants do -- with no immigration, either they'd get paid less, since they'd have to do these jobs, or the jobs would have to pay more, making all kinds of things more expensive for everyone. Immigrants are usually thrilled as sweet fuck-all to be in this country, they'll take whatever job they can get with hopes that they'll move up after a while.

Also, I thought this whole "Protestant work ethic" thing had been long-ago dismissed as some sort of bigoted sophistry -- guess not.

Anyway, those are more or less my thoughts on it, since I figured that was probably why you wrote -- I mean, it'd've been a lame thing to just respond with "yes".

Also, I received an email from another friend that had attached what was billed to be a picture of "Huntington flanked by research assistants." It was, in fact, a picture of Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York flanked by his gang. If you saw the movie, you'll get it.

Thoughts on the Oscars

2004-03-01T06:37:00.000-08:00

I watched most of the Oscars last night. I didn't mean to, but I went over to a friend's apartment to have some coffee and take a break from writing a paper, and it was on. I didn't see nearly all of the movies that were nominated for things, but I did see Lord of the Rings. Okay guys, it was impressive, it was cool, it was huge. But I really felt like Mystic River and Lost in Translation spoke to me more.

Without getting into what "art" is supposed to be, I feel like Best Picture should go to a movie that leaves you sitting there stunned, because it hit you hard and deep down. Lord of the Rings made you leave saying: "Whoa! That was crazy! Did you see when the guy... with the dead people... and the.... AAAH! That was incredible!" Okay, that's because it was A MOVIE, a blockbuster. Amen, I say to you, you have already received your reward in Art Direction, Costume Design, Makeup, Music, Sound, and Visual Effects. Blessed is the movie that isn't as flashy and produced to the hilt.

Lost in Translation and Mystic River were great movies that didn't rely on shock and awe to be great movies. If the continue to run the Oscars like they have been run for a while, whoever picks up all the early-in-the-evening awards will win Best Picture -- there's something about that, that doesn't quite sit right with me. I'm glad that Mystic River got recognition with Sean Penn (I would have been happy with him or Bill Murray) and I'm also so glad that Sofia Coppola got the Oscar for Best Writing.

Other notes:
Drezner batted .800 on his "will win" predictions. His "should win"s show a bizzarre obsession with Finding Nemo -- ah yes, he has a young son.

Sofia Coppola and Jennifer Garner both looked gorgeous as always.

A short essay on education

2004-02-28T14:38:00.000-08:00

Education is a puzzling thing with regard to what it bestows on one who has it. It seems that being extremely credentialed in a field like political science gets you pretty much nowhere in conversation. As far as most people are concerned, your knowledge isn't particularly specialized -- everyone has his own opinion. To put it simply: have a quality education in political science (like one from the University of Chicago) doesn't allow you to speak with the same authority in your field as an individual similarly credentialed in some other field, say physics.

There are really two sides to an education in a specific field. There's the actual knowledge: theoretical paradigms, analytical tools, and so on. Then there are the more superficial externalities -- things you've picked up learning the actual knowledge. These are the things you know that have a high cocktail party value.

First to the superficial information. Say you've got a good education in political science, you could rattle off every NATO leader at the drop of a hat and recognize the date January, 30, 1933 more readily than your own birthday. While it may be amusing for your friends to be able to yell at you across the room "Hey, who was the 14th President of the United States?" and you to respond "Franklin Pierce." It really doesn't give you any kind of credibility -- and usually impresses nobody.

As far as the actual knowledge, lets rewind to this time last year. Now, say you're really well-educated on security matters. You're talking with some people about the possibility of war in Iraq. You could have a really well thought-out rationale for why we should or should not go to war, you could have thought about it in terms of just war theory, you could write 16 pages on it. Aside from being able to throw in terms like "stable deterrence" into your part of the discussion but nobody will take your ideas any more seriously because you have a degree in political science. Everyone has his own opinion and someone who reads a few pages of the New York Times everyday will sound about as educated on the topic as you do.

In contrast, not many people have much to say about Brownian motion, or string theory. If someone with a degree in physics tells you how relativity works, you believe him. But if you lay out an explanation of comparative advantage, people feel like there are corners of the explanation to which they can grab hold and argue with you. On the other hand, most people might remotely care about international trade. The saving grace of this disparity is that what a political scientist studies makes for better conversation over coffee than what a physicist studies.

There is an exception to this rule, which creates a reversal. While a PhD in political science may not make your thoughts any more credible than those of a suburban dad who watches Fox News, if you're an old and well-known enough political science PhD, you can have foolish ideas ride on nothing more than name recognition. Sam Huntington, for example, got his logically inconsistent (and bigoted) article published in Foreign Policy. If a non-name-recognizable individual had submitted such an article, I have doubts as to whether it would be published. (Since I actually believe that someone with a PhD will have more interesting things to say on this than I do, I direct you to Dan Drezner.)

Usually it's frustrating seeing more well-informed ideas put on par with those less-informed, but I will admit that on occasion there will be deference. This happens more often in discussion on foreign affairs because unlike domestic politics, policy doesn't come down to normative beliefs nearly as often. But then again, what do I know...

Quagmire

2004-02-26T13:46:00.000-08:00

So I know that there's at least one avowed fan of Quarterican-blogging out there, so in his name, I'll make a half-hearted attempt to keep The Virginian from totally overrunning this territory.

First, I'd like to register a complaint. I just installed Mac OS 10.3.2 on my (aging) laptop, and discovered the following information: (1) my computer is just old enough that it can't quite run Garage Band, which, OK, fine, I can deal with that; (2) I successfully sent exactly one email from Apple's new Mail program before it decided it didn't want to send anymore. This is a recurring problem I have and may not be related to any of the actual programs on my computer, but I currently can't communicate via Apple Mail, or Webmail in any of an assortment of browsers; (3) Safari and IE both fuck up the format I like for blogging, and IE outright crashes Blogger w/some consistency; Mozilla is browser that doesn't fuck up my preferred blogging format, but it fucks up downloading files (although I'm told I should make sure I had the absolute most recent version of Mozilla); Mozilla and Safari have tabs, which IE doesn't. Why can't I find one damn browser? (4) Reasons why I should walk away and breathe before making hasty decisions: in anger at not being able to discern exactly where my hard-drive space went, I started deleting items left and right as I deemed them unnecessary. In retrospect, I don't know that I could recall everything I deleted, and don't know that I knew exactly what everything did before I tossed it in the Trash. Grr.

But there's other things to talk about, right? Right. Because the fundamental question before us today, ladies and gents, the fundamental question this country has to answer, is: What Would Jesus Do? WWJD about Jews, gays, people wanting to get married, people wanting to crucify Him, people wanting to make movies about crucifying Him, people wanting to use Him and His message for their own political ends, His involvement in the everyday workings of an ostensibly secular government...

Bleh. As regards The Passion of the Christ, I'm (of course, like any reasonable person) reserving judgment until when/if (probably when) I see it, but from everything I've read written by people who actually saw it, you'd have to (a) be a pretty ridiculous person to walk away without a sense that certain people behind making the movie aren't 100% behind the ongoing project of Judaism, (b) be a pretty ridiculous person to walk away thinking the movie was blatantly or even subversively anti-Jewish, (c) have a pretty strong stomach to see what Roger Ebert calls the most violent movie he's ever seen. The Virginian's post downstream about this is interesting - less relevant to Catholics like him and (theoretically) myself than to Protestants, since I feel that there's been less cleansing of the violence in the Gospels from the Church of Rome than from the various Scions of Martin Luther, but the Gospels also aren't that violent. I can't recall where I read this, so I apologize for not providing a link, but someone who had seen the movie wrote that one problem they had was its apparent desire to make the crucifixion of Jesus the most violent and horrific thing ever done by one person to another, which, frankly, isn't the message of the Gospels. I've always been of the opinion that the important thing isn't how He died, but that He did, and that He rose again three days later. He suffered, but so did the men on either side of him. There is no glory in crucifixion; it was the punishment for common thieves. Mr. Gibson seems to have an affinity for extensive pain, though. Remember the end of Braveheart?

I don't think I quite have the energy to deal with gay marriage right now. But I will return to school all your asses later.

Morning funny

2004-02-26T05:44:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman has been telling us for a while that the unemployment numbers fail to include those individuals who have just given up looking for jobs -- some people don't buy this, however. So, in honor of Dr. Krugman's role as Cassandra, here is a cartoon. Link via a good friend attending this school.

...et in pulverem reverteris

2004-02-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

This New York Times editorial is quite good for a few reasons. First of all, it has (to some extent) allayed my fears that the discussion of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ would be all about anti-Sematism and cinematic Jew-baiting. Second, it's main point is an excellent one -- many Christians have forgotten, or choose to ignore parts of the whole picture of Christianity. The Passion is the watershed moment of Christ's mission and indeed, an often marginalized moment. No, it's not pretty to see a body hanging from a cross, which is probably why many churches have bare crosses or what my grandfather called "flying Jesuses" above the altar. However, coming face to face with the realities of your faith is important. On Passion Sunday I hate speaking the words "crucify him!" but that's the idea. Christianity isn't all lavender and lace, nor should it be; so, good on the Times for letting someone say so.

Drug slang

2004-02-24T20:51:00.000-08:00

I have an odd hobby. I'm really interested in figuring out the differences between the English spoken in different regions of the US. So...

I was telling The Quarterican a story that involved knowledge that the following analogy obtained:

Tripping : Acid :: Rolling : Ecstasy

He had no clue of which drug "rolling" implied use. Thus, in pursuit of my hobby, I took a survey among people born between 1982 and 1985 (thus, in high school when this slang came into currency), asking the following question: "If someone told you that he had been 'rolling', what drug would you think he had been using?" Here are the responses I received, with the region in which the respondant went to high school:

Baltimore - Ecstasy
New Orleans - Pot
Upstate NY - Pot*
San Francisco - No idea
Florida - Ecstasy
Virginia (northern) - Ecstasy (x4)
Virginia (northern) - Crack*
Virginia (norther) - Pot or Acid*
Virginia (Salem) - Ecstasy
Cincinnatti - Pot*
Nashville - Ecstasy
Boston - Ecstasy
NYC - Ecstasy
DC - No idea
Colorado - Ecstasy

(* indicates a guess, having no particular association with the word)

So, these results would indicate, that most people I polled (granted, many were Virginians) associate "rolling" with ecstasy use. There appears to be a slight Southeast preference, and a definite East Coast preference, although I have very few non-eastern data points. If you remove all the guesses, it becomes clear that everyone who had a notion of what "rolling" was (with the exception of one) associated it with ecstasy use. So, what I'm trying to say is, the data is pretty inconclusive.

This is just kind of weird

2004-02-24T20:10:00.000-08:00

Well, another blue law goes down the tubes. Part of me says "guys, you should be able to wait until Monday to buy booze, and if you can't make it until Monday, then you should wait until Monday because you have a problem that needs be addressed." But then, another part of me says "An additional 2 million dollars per year! Boy do we need that money!"

Hey, here's an idea... let's let the stores in Charlottesville and Blacksburg be open on Sunday -- screw that, let's make them 24-hour.... and let's tack on a delivery service. Then, let's take all the extra money from ABCs being open all the time and throw it into education, which got screwed over when Gilmore tried to get rid of the car tax. That way, UVa and Tech kids will essentially pay for their own education. This is brilliant! Get me Mark Warner!

Drezner's at it again

2004-02-23T14:12:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's been a week-and-a-half since his last post of this kind, so Dr. Drezner is obliged to post another. The Carmen Electra post (of 12 February) was ostensibly about IGOs. This post, about Veronica Varekova, ostensibly fits into the "academia" (geeks=academia?) and "pop culture" (pictures of hot women) sections of Dr. Drezner's blog. Josh Chafetz points out that this could be an "international affairs" post, as Pani Varekova is, in fact, from Olomouc, a city in Moravia in the Czech Republic.

I therefore feel that it is my place, as a student of both international affairs and the Czech language and culture (you can tell, because I call her "Pani" not "Miss" -- a sign of education (or maybe pretention?)), to explain why she picked Charlie Rose as the person she'd most like to meet. The answer, which has nothing to do with international affairs or anything Czech is that she was obviously inspired by this General Electric ad (low-qual Quicktime, high-qual and low-qual Windows Media) featuring supermodel Yamila Diaz-Rahi and (the probably fictional) Dr. Nathan Parker (Professor of Nanotechnology) falling in love, getting married, and having a child that, like GE products, is the ultimate combination of beauty and brains.

On a side note "Dr. Nathan Parker" looks frighteningly like my friend Ben Collins, who is a student at Georgia Tech (nanotechnology, anyone?) and is engaged to be married to a girl who while quite pretty, is sadly (for this comparison) not a supermodel.

John Edwards: Charmer

2004-02-23T10:16:00.000-08:00

Everyone is on the bandwagon now. Much as The Quarterican started the "snark" meme, I'd like to take credit for the "John Edwards is charming" meme. I remarked in conversation last week that he "seems to be a crowd charmer, and I mean that in the sense of 'snake charmer.'" Being a good social scientist in-training, I have data to back it up. The New York Times had exit polling data (the goat bones and tea leaves of the 21st century) showing that some really big number of Edwards voters had made up their minds in the week before the primary. This supports what I said, as well as Josh Marshall's observations back in January.

The NYTimes is now on the bandwagon, as is The Economist which concludes:

An unusually charismatic campaigner, Mr Edwards does best where voters have enough time to get to like him. Again, that would be an advantage in the long general election campaign.

Initially, I would disagree with this being to his advantage. Unlike Padre Pio and St. Anthony of Padua, Edwards can't bilocate (I think). Thus, if Kerry carries (hah) better on TV and Edwards needs face time to work his charm (see the snake charmer analogy now?) this will hurt him in the general election because, let's face it, this is a HUGE country. The Economist seems to realize this in a select case, saying of Super Tuesday:

On the face of it, it is a problem now. In the next big round of contests, on March 2nd, ten states vote at once: no time for Mr Edwards to weave his magic, especially in the two biggest states, California and New York, which are expensive to campaign in.

Alright guys, how will this be a problem tomorrow, but an advantage in the general election? This is why Edwards' successes are kind of phony -- they work because he's able to have that one-on-one contact which, when he gets it, gives him a huge advantage. I think, therefore, that it will be his downfall both tomorrow and in the general election, should he make it that far.

Lord Byron on hangovers

2004-02-22T23:06:00.000-08:00

In the vein of my somewhat vapid weekend posts, I'll post something that borders on vapid, but also borders on literary. So here, ladies and gentlemen, is Lord Byron on hangovers:

Man being reasonable must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication...
But to return. Get very drunk, and when
You wake with headache, you shall see what then.

This brought to you via two of my favorite Wahoos.

I have a question

2004-02-21T16:18:00.000-08:00

The Washington Post has an op-ed from yesterday entitled: "Questions For Mikheil Saakashvili" detailing four questions the Bush administration should ask of the new Georgian president (and US-educated ex-DC and NYC lawyer). These questions all pertain to concerns that Georgia will not be truly democratic -- largely they concern consolidation of power in the Presidency.

Well, I have my own question for President Saakashvili: "Sir, are you a CIA mole?" The answer is probably "yes". In which case it should become clear to everyone that the Bush administration won't ask the four questions outlined in the editorial, because consolidation of power in the hands of Our Man in Tblisi is a good thing. Game over.

Yes, this is a semi-ridiculous post. Yes, it is because it's the weekend. Good evening.

The Economist

2004-02-21T15:49:00.000-08:00

This week's Economist addresses Ambassador Schnabel's comments (pointed out below) as follows:

Come again? By the mid-1930s Germany had passed laws excluding Jews from state employment and forbidden marriage between Jews and gentiles. Nothing like this is happening in Europe now.

Also, they corrected an error from last week that I had noticed, but they do it in their own uniquely hilarious style:

Last week, in our piece on troop rotation (“Fearing Fort Bragg”) we inadvertently rotated Fort Bragg to South Carolina. It is still in North Carolina.

I got linked!

2004-02-20T16:29:00.000-08:00

I believe that Will Baude has the distinction of being the first person (that I know of) to link to me. True to my remarks about his considerateness and consideredness, he cites me as a "point of substance." Excellent. I could respond yet again with a clarification, but I really don't have a great desire to get involved in posting on abortion. As Mr. Baude says:

given how little anybody can productively argue about those starting assumptions, the abortion debate will largely be won and lost on fronts other than reasoned logic. It will be public sentiment, moral intuition, and (especially) political force that carries the day. Which makes bickering about abortion on blogs sort of silly.

Indeed. Thus, I will say thank you for the link, and goodnight.

Today's news

2004-02-20T12:23:00.000-08:00

So here's a maybe-not-so-quick roundup of things relevant to today:

Alvaro de Soto: Superpimp
If you have the print edition of today's New York Times go look on page A10, in the "World Briefing" section. The man in the left in the photo (which you can't get online) is Alvaro de Soto, the UN envoy to the Cyprus negotiations. The man is wearing a wide-lapelled suit with high-contrast pinstripes, and a checked tie. Moreover, his collar is extremely wide, he's got at least 150 degrees on that sucker. Wow. Those Peruvians...

Rockwell Schnabel: Official US Dunderhead in Brussels
The New York Times reports today the following:

Earlier this month, the American ambassador to the European Union, Rockwell Schnabel, a political appointee who is a friend of the Bush family, said that anti-Semitism in Europe was "getting to a point where it is as bad as it was in the 30's."

A spokesman at the American Embassy said later that the remarks were "neither a personal opinion of Ambassador Schnabel nor the view of the U.S. government."

First off, what were you thinking? Second, if Mr. Schnabel's statement was neither his personal opinion, nor the view of the US government, then where did it come from? Whose opinion was it? What? This is obviously an instance of the embassy going to bat for their boss, even if it does require a total logical inconsistancy.

I seem to remember my friend who worked for State at the EU in Brussels last summer saying that, on occasion, she had to remind the Ambassador what the EU was, what its goals were, and so forth -- now I understand. I mean, I realize that most high-level diplomatic assignments, particularly in places like Europe, are political appointees (buddies or big contributers to the Pres) but if we're trying to smooth things over in Europe, maybe we should break with tradition and get a career diplomat over there. Less feet in mouths, eh?

Mayor Daley: Sick of it all
The following is the latest bon mot from Chicago's mayor (taken from this NYT story): "Marriage has been undermined by divorce. So don't tell me about marriage." Thank you, sir.

Jews for Jesus
On page A19 of today's NYT, there is a full-page ad, consisting of "An Open Letter to Mel Gibson from a Jew for Jesus". As much as Jews for Jesus is a confusing organization (although a great example of astroturf) this letter is just strangely written. Just to scratch the surface, here is the opening line: "Dear Mel (is it OK if I call you Mel?)," and also my favorite "how can anyone be blamed for the death of a person who is in fact alive?" I'm not trying to belittle the views of the author of this letter, but merely pointing out that I have no idea what these views are. This only contributes to my conviction that I am unable to understand modern advertisements.

Tarantino, your ass is mine
As much as intense and well thought-out hypothetical discourse is what makes the University of Chicago special, I've found some reluctance to engage in such conversations. Individuals in my Czech class this morning were unwilling to discuss the prospects of Me vs. Quintien Tarantino man-to-man and mano-a-mano. I believe that the intellectual tradition of this univeristy has been dealt another blow. However, since "the life of the mind" appears to have limited reach, and I could find no willing interlocutors in class, I will post my thoughts here:

When I saw Kill Bill: Volume I in theaters at the end of last year, I was promised Volume II in February because you know why? It was already done back then. I'd been waiting for Volume I ever since I saw the NYTimes article last spring with the picture of Tarantino lounging on a couch. But no, he's pushed back the release date until April, so that it'll come out at the same time as the viedo of Volume I. Screw that. So, I'm up for giving QT a beatdown. He may be a little bigger than I am, but I definitely have the quickness advantage. I mean, have you seen this guy "run"? To quote my father: "He looks like he's never had to run before in his life." If you doubt this observation, go watch Episodes 13 and 14 ("The Box: Part I" and "The Box: Part 2") of Season 1 of Alias. Yeah, I could take Tarantino.

Now key the music, because I feel like dancing.