I got into a conversation at the gym today on the subject of Kim Jong Il and his proposed missile test. It was started by the wacko suggestion, mooted by William Perry and Ashton Carter, that if they do appear to be going to fire the thing, the U.S. should pre-emptively bomb the launch site and destroy it and the missile. The rationale seems to be that the U.S. shouldn't allow North Korea to develop a long range missile with which it could conceivably fire a nuclear missile at U.S. territory. My gym mate asked what I thought we should do, and my answer was, we should do nothing. We absolutely should not shoot at the thing.
Consider Kim Jong Il, if you can. There are a number of things we aren't sure of about him and his country, starting with do they actually have nuclear weapons and is the Taepodong-2 missile as good as they say it is. The one thing we are sure of is that this guy is a complete wingnut, and one of the ways he stays in power is by waving around the threat that the U.S. wants to invade North Korea. The last thing we should do is give him any support for that notion. The U.S. wouldn't have North Korea if they gave it away with a pound of tea; but of course Kim doesn't think that way. If we shoot at his missile, we've confirmed every paranoid fantasy he's ever had. No.
I've also heard an unnamed genius from the Pentagon say he's "very confident" that if North Korea does fire the missile, U.S. interceptor rockets can destroy it. Is he talking about our missile defence system? The one that's never had a successful intercept, even when we staged the whole test and in essence told it where to point? This is a really bad idea - we absolutely don't want to give the world the notion that if they shoot stuff at us, we can't take it down. Maybe he was talking about the Patriot, which actually did shoot down some incoming during the first Gulf War, although if you look at the analysis, the actual success rate is very unclear and depends strongly on who's counting.
Clearly, our best possible response is not to dignify the effort with a response, as my mother used to say, but just keep encouraging the North Koreans back to the six-way talks.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Future Warriors
The Economist's latest Technology Quarterly has an article on the "future force warrior" (which you won't be able to read unless you subscribe, unfortunately; but if you Google the phrase you'll come up with a whole list of public sites). The gist of it is that the U.S. military has decided it needs to protect its soldiers better (about time, too). The technology bug has bit them, however, and instead of just investing in more Kevlar body armor, they propose turning each soldier into a walking internet node (wireless, of course), complete with sensors to tell not only where he is but how he is (vital signs, asleep or awake, etc.), portable power sources, all under lightweight Kevlar armor plates (black, of course); and with a fully integrated night vision/heads up display with video feeds from robot drone scout planes, and a data link to every other soldier and vehicle.
I'm sorry, these guys have been reading too much science fiction. They have seen Matrix and Star Trek one time too many. I'm not suggesting that your basic GI can't handle all this; with training, he probably can. I am suggesting that the designers have lost sight of the K.I.S.S. principle, and of the fact that the more complicated a system is, the more likely it is to fail in unexpected ways. I do not think it's a coincidence that the picture of the proposed outfit looks exactly like an Imperial Storm Trooper, only in black.
These designers are the same people who thought the Star Wars anti-missile defense was a good idea, despite the fact that it would have required tens of thousands of lines of software code which couldn't be debugged except under fire. Virtually every computer programmer in the world thought it was a Bad Idea, and so is this. This "battlesuit" - yes, they use the term - is so complicated that the likelihood of system failures is quite high, and the early wearers of this will be, I'm sorry, sitting ducks. The only good thing is that they'll be sitting ducks wearing Kevlar armor. In addition, if the whole thing is based on the GPS and the wireless data link, what does our soldier in his battlesuit do if the other side comes up with some easy way to jam the transmission frequencies?? Or simply blow up the transmission towers? Wireless still required line of sight, last time I looked.
Go back to the video games, guys, and just buy the boys overseas some better armor. The lightweight Kevlar armor plates are the only good idea you've come up with. The really good idea would be to come up with some way to settle international disputes without shooting at people, but that's apparently way too far out.
I'm sorry, these guys have been reading too much science fiction. They have seen Matrix and Star Trek one time too many. I'm not suggesting that your basic GI can't handle all this; with training, he probably can. I am suggesting that the designers have lost sight of the K.I.S.S. principle, and of the fact that the more complicated a system is, the more likely it is to fail in unexpected ways. I do not think it's a coincidence that the picture of the proposed outfit looks exactly like an Imperial Storm Trooper, only in black.
These designers are the same people who thought the Star Wars anti-missile defense was a good idea, despite the fact that it would have required tens of thousands of lines of software code which couldn't be debugged except under fire. Virtually every computer programmer in the world thought it was a Bad Idea, and so is this. This "battlesuit" - yes, they use the term - is so complicated that the likelihood of system failures is quite high, and the early wearers of this will be, I'm sorry, sitting ducks. The only good thing is that they'll be sitting ducks wearing Kevlar armor. In addition, if the whole thing is based on the GPS and the wireless data link, what does our soldier in his battlesuit do if the other side comes up with some easy way to jam the transmission frequencies?? Or simply blow up the transmission towers? Wireless still required line of sight, last time I looked.
Go back to the video games, guys, and just buy the boys overseas some better armor. The lightweight Kevlar armor plates are the only good idea you've come up with. The really good idea would be to come up with some way to settle international disputes without shooting at people, but that's apparently way too far out.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Road Signs
I'm tired of politics. Let's contemplate a little Americana (well, North Americana, since some of this was Canadian). We're planning a driving vacation in July, up the Coast to the Cascades and then Vancouver (B.C.); driving vacations have always been my favorites (gas crisis be damned! apres moi, le deluge...), they being the way we could afford to vacation when I was a child.
One thing I always enjoy, and in fact, collect, are the advertising signs by the side of secondary roads, some hand-lettered. Most of you will have seen ads for "beer pool", but those are common. I have a small collection of rarities to share:
parking cherries (near Sebastopol, California)
diesel cheese (somewhere in Wisconsin, courtesy of my brother-in-law)
coffee minnows (on the road from Toronto to Sudbury, Ontario)
video worms (same road, a very good source)
fountain burrito gizzards (Newberg, Oregon - a deli and butcher...)
The drive to Sudbury was a fruitful source for these signs; I'm still trying to decide which is superior, coffee minnows or video worms. We also found the following which I feel qualifies for Honorable Mention:
Shoe repair and live bait
and a motel which advertised:
Cold Rooms Warm Beer Cozy Food (Oops!)
(Yes, "Oops!" was part of the sign.) How about some that you've seen?
One thing I always enjoy, and in fact, collect, are the advertising signs by the side of secondary roads, some hand-lettered. Most of you will have seen ads for "beer pool", but those are common. I have a small collection of rarities to share:
parking cherries (near Sebastopol, California)
diesel cheese (somewhere in Wisconsin, courtesy of my brother-in-law)
coffee minnows (on the road from Toronto to Sudbury, Ontario)
video worms (same road, a very good source)
fountain burrito gizzards (Newberg, Oregon - a deli and butcher...)
The drive to Sudbury was a fruitful source for these signs; I'm still trying to decide which is superior, coffee minnows or video worms. We also found the following which I feel qualifies for Honorable Mention:
Shoe repair and live bait
and a motel which advertised:
Cold Rooms Warm Beer Cozy Food (Oops!)
(Yes, "Oops!" was part of the sign.) How about some that you've seen?
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Mr. Jefferson Stays in Washington
Let me say up front that in the case of Representative William Jefferson, D-LA, I am in solid agreement with Nancy Pelosi (not always a given): he ought to step down from the Ways and Means committee until his guilt or innocence is established. The principle here is very old: "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." The members of Congress would get a whole lot more respect from their constituents, and the country in general, if they realized that they are in the position of Caesar's wife: it isn't enough for them to be innocent of wrongdoing. They must appear to be innocent of wrongdoing. For a public figure the appearance of venality is almost as bad as venality itself.
Mr. Jefferson has offered three arguments for staying on the committee: he's innocent; Louisiana needs the help he can give it while a committee member; and he's being picked on because he's black.
Since Mr. Jefferson hasn't yet been tried or even indicted, he is, of course, assumed to be innocent; but some very peculiar allegations have been published about him, and the Justice Department feels it has grounds for indictment. Not to mention that two of his former associates have pleaded guilty to bribing him. If Congressmen, like Caesar's wife, should be above suspicion, he's clearly failed that test. I've said before that I thought he had some explaining to do.
Louisiana certainly needs all the help it can get. But I have some reservations about how much it needs Mr. Jefferson's help.
I hardly know how to approach the suggestion, made by Mr. Jefferson and supported by the Congressional Black Caucus, that he's being victimized because he's black, because no white Congress members have been asked to step down from their committees. There certainly are white Republican members of Congress who, if this principle were equitably applied, should resign their committee seats; but Nancy Pelosi has no authority over Republicans, and I haven't seen any news articles about any other Democrats in just this equivocal position. In fact, Ms. Pelosi's point, which Mr. Jefferson appears to miss entirely, is that Democrats ought to hold themselves to a higher ethical standard than the Republican "culture of corruption."
Does the Black Caucus really believe African Americans ought to be immune from the consequences of their behavior, because their ancestors were forced into slavery? Does the Black Caucus really think that African Americans don't want their elected African American representatives to be held responsible, if they act as Mr. Jefferson appears to have acted?
The Republican Party leadership has spent the last few years disgusting the electorate with its corrupt and arrogant behavior. One of the strongest arguments the Democrats can make in the fall elections, if they can pull it off, is that they are honest public servants. Mr. Jefferson seems to feel that his personal privilege is more important than his party's advantage.
Mr. Jefferson has offered three arguments for staying on the committee: he's innocent; Louisiana needs the help he can give it while a committee member; and he's being picked on because he's black.
Since Mr. Jefferson hasn't yet been tried or even indicted, he is, of course, assumed to be innocent; but some very peculiar allegations have been published about him, and the Justice Department feels it has grounds for indictment. Not to mention that two of his former associates have pleaded guilty to bribing him. If Congressmen, like Caesar's wife, should be above suspicion, he's clearly failed that test. I've said before that I thought he had some explaining to do.
Louisiana certainly needs all the help it can get. But I have some reservations about how much it needs Mr. Jefferson's help.
I hardly know how to approach the suggestion, made by Mr. Jefferson and supported by the Congressional Black Caucus, that he's being victimized because he's black, because no white Congress members have been asked to step down from their committees. There certainly are white Republican members of Congress who, if this principle were equitably applied, should resign their committee seats; but Nancy Pelosi has no authority over Republicans, and I haven't seen any news articles about any other Democrats in just this equivocal position. In fact, Ms. Pelosi's point, which Mr. Jefferson appears to miss entirely, is that Democrats ought to hold themselves to a higher ethical standard than the Republican "culture of corruption."
Does the Black Caucus really believe African Americans ought to be immune from the consequences of their behavior, because their ancestors were forced into slavery? Does the Black Caucus really think that African Americans don't want their elected African American representatives to be held responsible, if they act as Mr. Jefferson appears to have acted?
The Republican Party leadership has spent the last few years disgusting the electorate with its corrupt and arrogant behavior. One of the strongest arguments the Democrats can make in the fall elections, if they can pull it off, is that they are honest public servants. Mr. Jefferson seems to feel that his personal privilege is more important than his party's advantage.
Death of a Terrorist
I can't feel too sorry at the loss of Abu-Musab Al-Zarqawi. He wasn't a nice man, and you couldn't call him an ornament to society. Still, I thought the photos of his dead face, plastered all over the news media, were a little much. Frankly, it reminded me of my dear, and late, aunt; except that she had better taste. We visited her once, shortly after her husband had died; and she showed us a photo of him in his coffin. Given the family history, I assume she wanted some definite proof that he was really dead and she was finally rid of him. She, however, didn't publish the photo in the newspaper to make her point.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Damn, Now I'm Really Mad
If you've read the link from where cooper posted it at Fanatical
Apathy, you can skip this post; cooper, you already know all this.
Did you ever wonder why John Kerry lost so solidly in 2004, when the exit polls said he had it nailed? Well, folks, the answer is simple and sad, and it's laid out in extreme detail, with footnotes and documentary evidence, in the article published last week in Rolling Stone, by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The answer is fraud. The Republican administration in the state of Ohio, fraudulently prevented tens of thousands of Democratic voters from casting ballots; connived at tampering with voting machines so that votes cast for Kerry actually went to Bush, or weren't counted at all; imported goons from Texas to threaten and intimidate minority voters. These people make Kathleen Harris, in Florida in 2000, look like a chocolate cupcake.
Make no mistake: they succeeded. They swung the election. The wrong man is in the White House. The Republican machine is nothing if not efficient. Honest, no; honorable, no; but efficient. This is vote-rigging on a scale not seen in America since Tammany Hall, except maybe in Chicago on occasion.
It's a long article, but everyone should read it, and then everyone should write to their elected representative and urge them to Get Those Bastards Out Of There. Jimmy Carter, where were your election monitors in Ohio in 2004, when we needed them? This is the sort of shenanigan I associate with Belarus, or Zimbabwe; the only thing they left out were the armed goon squads actually shooting opposition voters.
Apathy, you can skip this post; cooper, you already know all this.
Did you ever wonder why John Kerry lost so solidly in 2004, when the exit polls said he had it nailed? Well, folks, the answer is simple and sad, and it's laid out in extreme detail, with footnotes and documentary evidence, in the article published last week in Rolling Stone, by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The answer is fraud. The Republican administration in the state of Ohio, fraudulently prevented tens of thousands of Democratic voters from casting ballots; connived at tampering with voting machines so that votes cast for Kerry actually went to Bush, or weren't counted at all; imported goons from Texas to threaten and intimidate minority voters. These people make Kathleen Harris, in Florida in 2000, look like a chocolate cupcake.
Make no mistake: they succeeded. They swung the election. The wrong man is in the White House. The Republican machine is nothing if not efficient. Honest, no; honorable, no; but efficient. This is vote-rigging on a scale not seen in America since Tammany Hall, except maybe in Chicago on occasion.
It's a long article, but everyone should read it, and then everyone should write to their elected representative and urge them to Get Those Bastards Out Of There. Jimmy Carter, where were your election monitors in Ohio in 2004, when we needed them? This is the sort of shenanigan I associate with Belarus, or Zimbabwe; the only thing they left out were the armed goon squads actually shooting opposition voters.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
June is Busting Out All Over
No, this isn't about June, or busts, or anything rational. I can't think of a subject, so maybe I'll just vamp for a bit.
The California primary elections are over, and most of who/what I voted for lost. (Come on, folks - rejecting library bonds?) No one is sure about the hot Oakland mayoral race, though, because Alameda County went back to paper ballots (carefully marked by filling in the ovals with a black felt pen), and they've been counting for 24 hours now and they still have almost 40,000 absentee and provisional ballots to go. Ron Dellums thinks he's got it sewed up but with a margin of 125 votes past the line labeled "Runoff", it's not sewed very tight.
The "dangerous" date of 6-6-06 is over, and the English lady who rescheduled childbirth to protect her child from being born on that Satanic date (the birthdate of the Beast?) can sigh with relief. Based on the Chronicle's review of the remake of "Omen", I won't bother to see this one either.
The administration is getting weirder and weirder. The anti-gay marriage amendment never had the chance of a celluloid cat in Hell, but they shoved it through the Senate anyhow, so they could point at it and "energize the base" to turn out for the election. If your base is fanatical Christian theocrats, and some of theirs is, you end up doing some very odd things to make them happy.
And I can't find the reference, but I'm sure I heard some govmint authority on the radio the other day, confidently predicting that there will be a major terrorist attack in the continental U.S., sometime in the next year. Unstated but there: vote for us Republicans again in November, and we'll protect you, just like we did the last time. Yeah, right.
Meanwhile the FBI wants to subpoena all of columnist Jack Anderson's papers, now that he's dead - they never did this while he was alive - they say, to protect any classified documents that may have been leaked to him. I think, to find out what he really knew, especially about J. Edgar Hoover...
Finally, according to Scientific American, the world has 4 "super-volcano" locations. These are places that, when they blow, spit out 750 cubic kilometers of magma all at once, eliminating the landscape, anything living on it within a radius of about 300 KM, and the entire world climate for at least decades. Mt. St. Helens blew out less than .5 cubic KM. Think Bishop tuff, those of you who know California geology. And of these 4 places, 2 of them are in North America (Yellowstone National Park, and Long Valley in California); how do we rate? Actually I don't think I want to know the answer to that. Fortunately, they don't blow very often.
The California primary elections are over, and most of who/what I voted for lost. (Come on, folks - rejecting library bonds?) No one is sure about the hot Oakland mayoral race, though, because Alameda County went back to paper ballots (carefully marked by filling in the ovals with a black felt pen), and they've been counting for 24 hours now and they still have almost 40,000 absentee and provisional ballots to go. Ron Dellums thinks he's got it sewed up but with a margin of 125 votes past the line labeled "Runoff", it's not sewed very tight.
The "dangerous" date of 6-6-06 is over, and the English lady who rescheduled childbirth to protect her child from being born on that Satanic date (the birthdate of the Beast?) can sigh with relief. Based on the Chronicle's review of the remake of "Omen", I won't bother to see this one either.
The administration is getting weirder and weirder. The anti-gay marriage amendment never had the chance of a celluloid cat in Hell, but they shoved it through the Senate anyhow, so they could point at it and "energize the base" to turn out for the election. If your base is fanatical Christian theocrats, and some of theirs is, you end up doing some very odd things to make them happy.
And I can't find the reference, but I'm sure I heard some govmint authority on the radio the other day, confidently predicting that there will be a major terrorist attack in the continental U.S., sometime in the next year. Unstated but there: vote for us Republicans again in November, and we'll protect you, just like we did the last time. Yeah, right.
Meanwhile the FBI wants to subpoena all of columnist Jack Anderson's papers, now that he's dead - they never did this while he was alive - they say, to protect any classified documents that may have been leaked to him. I think, to find out what he really knew, especially about J. Edgar Hoover...
Finally, according to Scientific American, the world has 4 "super-volcano" locations. These are places that, when they blow, spit out 750 cubic kilometers of magma all at once, eliminating the landscape, anything living on it within a radius of about 300 KM, and the entire world climate for at least decades. Mt. St. Helens blew out less than .5 cubic KM. Think Bishop tuff, those of you who know California geology. And of these 4 places, 2 of them are in North America (Yellowstone National Park, and Long Valley in California); how do we rate? Actually I don't think I want to know the answer to that. Fortunately, they don't blow very often.
Monday, May 29, 2006
More joy from Global Warming
And the latest report from the National Academy of Sciences says that, as the level of carbon dioxide in the air grows, the poison ivy grows bigger and leafier (3 times the size, they said), and produces a more toxic version of urushiol - that's the stuff that makes you itch, in case you wondered.
They didn't mention poison oak, which is the version we get here in California, but I can't believe it reacts any differently...
They didn't mention poison oak, which is the version we get here in California, but I can't believe it reacts any differently...
Saturday, May 27, 2006
What have we done to our soldiers?
In case anyone had any last, lingering doubts that Iraq is a parallel to that notable quagmire, Vietnam, we've just had the Iraqi equivalent of My Lai, in a place called Haditha. As with Abu Ghraib, it looks like the military command plans to blame it on the guys on the ground. And they wonder why they aren't meeting their enlistment quotas. Enlist, go to Iraq, a country where every household is allowed to have a Kalashnikov because there's no effective police force. Be in constant danger from IEDs and snipers, be entirely unable to tell the neighborhood regulars from the insurgents, and when you finally crack under the strain of losing one more buddy and shoot every Iraqi you can find, including an old man in a wheelchair and a 1 year old girl, it's your fault, and we'll send you to jail for it.
We did this to them, we the people of the United States. Even if we didn't vote for Dubya, and I didn't, we've sat by and muttered, and let this farce go on. These are our boys (leaving aside actual gender for a moment; besides, if there's been a woman in that squad I think it would have made the news). If they're like most Americans, they're kind, well meaning people who want to do the best job they can. Since they're Marines, we can further assume they are tough, seasoned professionals. They're even my neighbors: they're from Camp Pendleton, in California. And yet they did this: because we've put them in an impossible situation and left them there until they couldn't bear it any more.
When are we going to stop this? When are we going to impeach the President who got us into this? When are we going to admit that whatever happens in Iraq from now on is not up to us, and cut our losses? And by the way did anyone else notice the Iraqi foreign minister backing Iran's right to enrich uranium?? So much for a stable, democratic U.S. ally in the Middle East.
We did this to them, we the people of the United States. Even if we didn't vote for Dubya, and I didn't, we've sat by and muttered, and let this farce go on. These are our boys (leaving aside actual gender for a moment; besides, if there's been a woman in that squad I think it would have made the news). If they're like most Americans, they're kind, well meaning people who want to do the best job they can. Since they're Marines, we can further assume they are tough, seasoned professionals. They're even my neighbors: they're from Camp Pendleton, in California. And yet they did this: because we've put them in an impossible situation and left them there until they couldn't bear it any more.
When are we going to stop this? When are we going to impeach the President who got us into this? When are we going to admit that whatever happens in Iraq from now on is not up to us, and cut our losses? And by the way did anyone else notice the Iraqi foreign minister backing Iran's right to enrich uranium?? So much for a stable, democratic U.S. ally in the Middle East.
Friday, May 26, 2006
What a Week
This must be the week for legal extravaganzas. The most obvious, of course, is the Enron trial. The conviction of Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling is extraordinarily satisfying; as a colleague of mine said on a conference call yesterday morning, "Maybe there is justice after all." From what I've read about the trial, the worst move either man made was to take the stand in his own defense. I've never believed, on the face of it, that either man could have gotten where he was and still be so stupid as not to realize what was going on; and from first hand observation of the two on the witness stand, evidently neither could the jury.
But if I'd been on the jury, one remark of Mr. Lay's would really have stung. This jury was middle America doing its civic duty: a school principal, a dairy farmer, a personnel manager, a dental hygienist. These were people whose entire net worths were less than Ken Lay's debts. And to this audience he had the gall to complain that "It was difficult to turn off that lifestyle like a spigot."
On balance, the jury decided that if they could be responsible to their employers, and keep their jobs and their families going (at night after the trial) for four months, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling ought to have been able to be responsible to their employees and shareholders. And I think that says it all.
And then we have legal extravaganza Numero Two-O (to quote the inimitable Molly Ivins), the honorable (?) representative William Jefferson, D-La., whose House office the FBI searched last week for evidence of bribery. Mr. Jefferson, as is his right, insists that he is innocent; but let's keep in mind, folks, this wasn't one of those NSA warrantless wiretaps. The FBI had gone to court with probable cause, and they had a warrant. Moreover, they have a videotape of Mr. Jefferson accepting $100,000 in cash from an FBI informant (who was also wired for sound), and they found $90,000 in cash in Mr. Jefferson's home freezer, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "cold cash". (I couldn't resist.) Unless you can think of a rational reason why someone would store that much loose money in a freezer, I think Mr. Jefferson has some explaining to do. He claims there are "two sides to this story", but he doesn't seem inclined to offer his side now. I will merely comment again that the price of Congressmen seems to have gone up since the Abscam affair in the '70s; the Abscammers sold out for a mere $25 grand apiece.
Mr. Jefferson's personal rectitude, or lack of same, however, is much less astonishing than the reaction of the rest of Congress. The immediate response of certain Congressional leaders was to complain that the FBI had no right to search a Congressional office, and to demand the return of the seized documents. Nancy Pelosi gets a point for asking for Mr. Jefferson to step down from the Ways & Means Committee; she loses one for being right there with Denny Hastert asking for the documents back. This whole incident is being shouted as a threat to the separation of powers, which is the most ridiculous claim I can imagine. And Mr. Jefferson seems to think that his seat on Ways & Means is some kind of personal fief, to which he has a right, whereas in fact that membership is a privilege, which he has just jeopardized.
You know, you couldn't make this stuff up. Do the members of Congress actually think they should be immune from criminal investigation?? Or only from criminal investigation by the FBI, because it's part of the Executive Branch? I suppose the overworked Washington, D.C. police department is supposed to investigate bribery of a Congressman, in between drug busts. Many of us have been saying for months that nobody, not even the President, is above the law, and Rep. Jefferson, that includes you.
And on top of all of this, President Bush steps in and seals all the documents from everybody for 45 days, putting them in the solicitor general's custody. I didn't think he had a dog in this fight, but he says he's giving everybody "time to cool down." If it was anyone else, it would almost sound like a rational statement; but given the source, I'm suspicious of the motive. Maybe I'm being unfair.
But if I'd been on the jury, one remark of Mr. Lay's would really have stung. This jury was middle America doing its civic duty: a school principal, a dairy farmer, a personnel manager, a dental hygienist. These were people whose entire net worths were less than Ken Lay's debts. And to this audience he had the gall to complain that "It was difficult to turn off that lifestyle like a spigot."
On balance, the jury decided that if they could be responsible to their employers, and keep their jobs and their families going (at night after the trial) for four months, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling ought to have been able to be responsible to their employees and shareholders. And I think that says it all.
And then we have legal extravaganza Numero Two-O (to quote the inimitable Molly Ivins), the honorable (?) representative William Jefferson, D-La., whose House office the FBI searched last week for evidence of bribery. Mr. Jefferson, as is his right, insists that he is innocent; but let's keep in mind, folks, this wasn't one of those NSA warrantless wiretaps. The FBI had gone to court with probable cause, and they had a warrant. Moreover, they have a videotape of Mr. Jefferson accepting $100,000 in cash from an FBI informant (who was also wired for sound), and they found $90,000 in cash in Mr. Jefferson's home freezer, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "cold cash". (I couldn't resist.) Unless you can think of a rational reason why someone would store that much loose money in a freezer, I think Mr. Jefferson has some explaining to do. He claims there are "two sides to this story", but he doesn't seem inclined to offer his side now. I will merely comment again that the price of Congressmen seems to have gone up since the Abscam affair in the '70s; the Abscammers sold out for a mere $25 grand apiece.
Mr. Jefferson's personal rectitude, or lack of same, however, is much less astonishing than the reaction of the rest of Congress. The immediate response of certain Congressional leaders was to complain that the FBI had no right to search a Congressional office, and to demand the return of the seized documents. Nancy Pelosi gets a point for asking for Mr. Jefferson to step down from the Ways & Means Committee; she loses one for being right there with Denny Hastert asking for the documents back. This whole incident is being shouted as a threat to the separation of powers, which is the most ridiculous claim I can imagine. And Mr. Jefferson seems to think that his seat on Ways & Means is some kind of personal fief, to which he has a right, whereas in fact that membership is a privilege, which he has just jeopardized.
You know, you couldn't make this stuff up. Do the members of Congress actually think they should be immune from criminal investigation?? Or only from criminal investigation by the FBI, because it's part of the Executive Branch? I suppose the overworked Washington, D.C. police department is supposed to investigate bribery of a Congressman, in between drug busts. Many of us have been saying for months that nobody, not even the President, is above the law, and Rep. Jefferson, that includes you.
And on top of all of this, President Bush steps in and seals all the documents from everybody for 45 days, putting them in the solicitor general's custody. I didn't think he had a dog in this fight, but he says he's giving everybody "time to cool down." If it was anyone else, it would almost sound like a rational statement; but given the source, I'm suspicious of the motive. Maybe I'm being unfair.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
High School Daze
Judge Robert Freedman of the Alameda County Superior Court has just slapped some 380,000 California high school students in the face. This is the 89% or so of students who studied hard, did the work, made the extra effort, and passed the California high school exit exam. Thanks, Judge Freedman. You've just told the entire world that a high school diploma in California is nothing more than a gold star for attendance. Park your butt in the classroom long enough and you can graduate. You may not be able to read, or speak English, but by God, you're a high school graduate.
Judge Freedman says the 47,000 students who haven't passed the exam have not had an equal opportunity to learn because their schools are terrible. This is probably true; the California school system is a disgrace. But - how many kids in those terrible schools did pass the exam? I can't find the numbers school by school, but for the kids in the low-end schools who passed the exam, this is a terrible insult. They've just been told that their hard work was worthless.
The young woman who filed one of the lawsuits was quoted as saying, in Spanish because her English is so bad, that she was happy because now that she'll get her diploma, she can go on and become a nurse, as she wants. I hope to God I'm never a patient on a ward where the nurse doesn't speak English. I wonder how she thinks she's going to complete nursing school in Spanish?
If the schools are so terrible that only 89% of students can pass the exit exam (which isn't that bad if you think about it), the solution is not to eliminate the exam for everybody, to accomodate the 11%. The solution is to improve the damn schools, and hold the 11% to the mark of completing the exam. I'm sorry, I think at least some of this is just a desire to walk up and get the diploma with friends; and I have very little sympathy for it.
Judge Freedman says the 47,000 students who haven't passed the exam have not had an equal opportunity to learn because their schools are terrible. This is probably true; the California school system is a disgrace. But - how many kids in those terrible schools did pass the exam? I can't find the numbers school by school, but for the kids in the low-end schools who passed the exam, this is a terrible insult. They've just been told that their hard work was worthless.
The young woman who filed one of the lawsuits was quoted as saying, in Spanish because her English is so bad, that she was happy because now that she'll get her diploma, she can go on and become a nurse, as she wants. I hope to God I'm never a patient on a ward where the nurse doesn't speak English. I wonder how she thinks she's going to complete nursing school in Spanish?
If the schools are so terrible that only 89% of students can pass the exit exam (which isn't that bad if you think about it), the solution is not to eliminate the exam for everybody, to accomodate the 11%. The solution is to improve the damn schools, and hold the 11% to the mark of completing the exam. I'm sorry, I think at least some of this is just a desire to walk up and get the diploma with friends; and I have very little sympathy for it.
Friday, May 05, 2006
On turning 60
I'm still not sure I want to write this. I'm not sure what I want to say; or even what I think.
I recently had my 60th birthday - the "Big Six-Oh". When I turned 40, I told myself that I was aging as a good brandy does: mellowing, improving with age. It helped that I got married again that same year; nothing like a good love affair to give one confidence! I suppose I can still say that, but there's less confidence behind it. And yet: I don't look 60. My hair isn't gray (just the occasional silver thread; I get that from Dad's side of the family). My face isn't especially wrinkled (lots of expensive moisturizer, religiously used!). Since my first knee replacement, I've exercised regularly; I haven't been in shape this good for years (still overweight, though). I don't think I act 60, whatever that means. Why am I so unsettled?
I look at people and wonder how old they are - and I suddenly realize they may be younger than me. This is very unsettling. I was the oldest child of the youngest son of a large family, so I was usually the youngest person in the room (except my sister); I skipped the first grade because I could read, so I was always the youngest person in the class. I'm used to thinking of myself as the youngest person - although the last few years working with 20 and 30 something computer kids has gone some way toward curing me of that! How did I get to be older than so many people?
What have I done with the time? I didn't have children; too late for that now. Not for me the thousands of dollars and months of discomfort, trying desperately to beat the biological clock. It was already too late with my second marriage, I didn't want to have a teenager in my fifties. That means, whatever happens at the end, it's up to me to cope. Not having children seemed like the right decision at the time; these decisions always seem right at the time. One doesn't always see through to the end; maybe one gets through by deliberately not seeing through to the end. I took care of my mother in her last years; who will take care of me? My husband is eight years younger than I am; does that mean he'll be around to do it? Is that fair to him? And anyway, just having kids doesn't mean they'll take care of you when you're old.
I've had two careers; I've done the best I could at them, still working on the second one. People tell me they think I'm good at what I do. I've recently gone back to singing, and I know I'm good at that - not solo quality because of the asthma, but a good solid choral singer, able to hold the part and keep the beat, and anchor weaker singers. I'm beginning to think perhaps I can write. I don't feel I've made a difference; the world isn't necessarily a better place because of what I've done. On the other hand, I don't think it's a worse place. Maybe that's enough. But what do I do next? When I retire (and when do I retire?), then what? I don't have an answer yet.
The time - where does it go? The older you get, the faster it goes by; I don't think anyone under 50 really understands the lyrics to Harry Belafonte's "Turn Around", or to "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof. I just turned around and it's May; wasn't it January yesterday? Where did it go? And the the less you have left, the faster it goes. We only get so much. No matter how you measure it, more than half of mine is gone. Now what?
"But, Mother of God, where are they then? And where are the snows of yesteryear?" Francois Villon, 15th century.
I recently had my 60th birthday - the "Big Six-Oh". When I turned 40, I told myself that I was aging as a good brandy does: mellowing, improving with age. It helped that I got married again that same year; nothing like a good love affair to give one confidence! I suppose I can still say that, but there's less confidence behind it. And yet: I don't look 60. My hair isn't gray (just the occasional silver thread; I get that from Dad's side of the family). My face isn't especially wrinkled (lots of expensive moisturizer, religiously used!). Since my first knee replacement, I've exercised regularly; I haven't been in shape this good for years (still overweight, though). I don't think I act 60, whatever that means. Why am I so unsettled?
I look at people and wonder how old they are - and I suddenly realize they may be younger than me. This is very unsettling. I was the oldest child of the youngest son of a large family, so I was usually the youngest person in the room (except my sister); I skipped the first grade because I could read, so I was always the youngest person in the class. I'm used to thinking of myself as the youngest person - although the last few years working with 20 and 30 something computer kids has gone some way toward curing me of that! How did I get to be older than so many people?
What have I done with the time? I didn't have children; too late for that now. Not for me the thousands of dollars and months of discomfort, trying desperately to beat the biological clock. It was already too late with my second marriage, I didn't want to have a teenager in my fifties. That means, whatever happens at the end, it's up to me to cope. Not having children seemed like the right decision at the time; these decisions always seem right at the time. One doesn't always see through to the end; maybe one gets through by deliberately not seeing through to the end. I took care of my mother in her last years; who will take care of me? My husband is eight years younger than I am; does that mean he'll be around to do it? Is that fair to him? And anyway, just having kids doesn't mean they'll take care of you when you're old.
I've had two careers; I've done the best I could at them, still working on the second one. People tell me they think I'm good at what I do. I've recently gone back to singing, and I know I'm good at that - not solo quality because of the asthma, but a good solid choral singer, able to hold the part and keep the beat, and anchor weaker singers. I'm beginning to think perhaps I can write. I don't feel I've made a difference; the world isn't necessarily a better place because of what I've done. On the other hand, I don't think it's a worse place. Maybe that's enough. But what do I do next? When I retire (and when do I retire?), then what? I don't have an answer yet.
The time - where does it go? The older you get, the faster it goes by; I don't think anyone under 50 really understands the lyrics to Harry Belafonte's "Turn Around", or to "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof. I just turned around and it's May; wasn't it January yesterday? Where did it go? And the the less you have left, the faster it goes. We only get so much. No matter how you measure it, more than half of mine is gone. Now what?
"But, Mother of God, where are they then? And where are the snows of yesteryear?" Francois Villon, 15th century.
Blogger Weirdness
I just learned something. If you start a post and don't publish it, and then do another one on a different subject, and then go back and finish the first one and publish that, the post that you published second will be below the one you published first, because it's saved under the date you started it, and Blogger won't let you change the date. Bizarre. Obviously the people who built Blogger value linear thinking.
There. Now it's in the right order.
There. Now it's in the right order.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
"The Immigrant Uprising"
Anonymous David asked, in his last comment, "What does the immigrant uprising look like from your vantage point?" This is a serious enough question that I think it deserves a post, not just another comment.
First of all, David, go back and read the comments under my post "Walls and Borders" (March 21), especially Boggart's long comment on the view of the situation from a residence 11 miles from the Mexican border. I don't necessarily agree with everything in it, but most of Boggart's points are really well taken.
I saw the immigrant uprising from the viewpoint of my office on the 6th floor of a building near a main street in northern California. It was amazing to watch - at least 10 visible blocks of people, filling the sidewalks about 3-4 abreast, walking quietly onward for another 4-5 blocks before they turned right toward a park where they gathered. When I saw them they were stopping for traffic lights, although some of my co-workers said they didn't at first. I didn't see any flags, just all those white T-shirts. That was the day the garbage guy didn't come around to my office to empty my wastebasket, and the cleaning lady didn't refill the toilet paper dispensers. Nobody was really inconvenienced; the office building is immaculately maintained.
If you mean, what do I think about all this, I don't know. As Boggart pointed out, there aren't any easy answers here. So I'll just give some random impressions, please don't expect these to be consistent or to make sense:
I read an English translation of the Spanish version of the anthem, Nuestro Himno, and I was tremendously moved. It's a staggering compliment to our country, our flag, and our ideals. You'll find the translation at the bottom of the article at the link.
James Sensenbrenner is freaking insane, absolutely barking mad, if he seriously thinks he can classify 12 million people as felons and then do anything realistic about it. We can't handle the prison population we have now.
Not to mention making felons of teachers who teach their children and doctors who heal them; I guess the good Christians of today want to throw the Good Samaritan in jail. Besides which, you can catch an infectious disease from an illegal immigrant as fast as you can from a good Murrican citizen; faster, in fact, because they don't have health insurance and so don't go to the doctor until they're REALLY sick. Once upon a time we had a concept called "public health" but we seem to have forgotten it.
This country was built by immigrants who came here with nothing but their hands and their work ethic; we didn't limit immigration until 1924 (except for the Chinese). The undocumented illegals are a whole lot closer to those immigrants than to some of our current citizens. "I lift my lamp beside the golden door" - but the golden door isn't on the Mexican border, apparently. Some people seem to think, my family is aboard, now pull up the gangplank, and that gives me kind of a queasy feeling.
On the other side of the coin, it takes years to become a citizen legally, and granting these people amnesty will skip them to the head of the line, and that's not fair to the people who've tried to obey the law. Do we have all these illegals because Reagan granted an amnesty in the eighties?
On the third side of the coin (sort of like the third half of the show on Car Talk), the urge to not let people in because they're not like us is not only racist and xenophobic, it's boringly racist and xenophobic. All the things they're saying about the Mexican illegals now have been said, in the past (in only approximate reverse order), about: the Poles. The Slavs. The Italians. The Irish (for generations, "No Irish need apply"). The Swedes and Norwegians. The Germans (and that was Benjamin Franklin, ranting that they refused to learn English and they bred like rabbits, and haven't we heard this before?). Which of those were your ancestors? The real question is, why don't we want them to come here? Why do we feel so threatened by them?
Finally, a little full disclosure, so to speak: it's very likely my lace-curtain Irish, boned-lace-choker grandmother was a wetback (as we used to call them before it became politically incorrect), all 5 feet 2 inches of her. A Canadian wetback: she came to the country in 1921, and just never bothered to become a citizen; and sometime in the 40's she insisted on going home to Toronto to see the relatives, and they had to smuggle her back across the border because by then you needed papers. She's dead now, God rest her; if they want to deport her they'll have to dig her up.
So I don't have any answers. I can't argue with Boggart's points about the load on our services, and the taxes they don't pay, it's all too true; but this whole country is built on immigration, right back to the "Native" Americans whose ancestors came over the Bering Strait in the last interglacial, or whenever. The only continent in the world with people who really can't be called immigrants is Africa, it's the only place the species evolved. Everybody else is an immigrant at some level; and I think we need to quit arguing about who has the "right" to be where, and start trying to think of the practicalities that we all need to deal with, like educating children and preventing epidemics.
First of all, David, go back and read the comments under my post "Walls and Borders" (March 21), especially Boggart's long comment on the view of the situation from a residence 11 miles from the Mexican border. I don't necessarily agree with everything in it, but most of Boggart's points are really well taken.
I saw the immigrant uprising from the viewpoint of my office on the 6th floor of a building near a main street in northern California. It was amazing to watch - at least 10 visible blocks of people, filling the sidewalks about 3-4 abreast, walking quietly onward for another 4-5 blocks before they turned right toward a park where they gathered. When I saw them they were stopping for traffic lights, although some of my co-workers said they didn't at first. I didn't see any flags, just all those white T-shirts. That was the day the garbage guy didn't come around to my office to empty my wastebasket, and the cleaning lady didn't refill the toilet paper dispensers. Nobody was really inconvenienced; the office building is immaculately maintained.
If you mean, what do I think about all this, I don't know. As Boggart pointed out, there aren't any easy answers here. So I'll just give some random impressions, please don't expect these to be consistent or to make sense:
I read an English translation of the Spanish version of the anthem, Nuestro Himno, and I was tremendously moved. It's a staggering compliment to our country, our flag, and our ideals. You'll find the translation at the bottom of the article at the link.
James Sensenbrenner is freaking insane, absolutely barking mad, if he seriously thinks he can classify 12 million people as felons and then do anything realistic about it. We can't handle the prison population we have now.
Not to mention making felons of teachers who teach their children and doctors who heal them; I guess the good Christians of today want to throw the Good Samaritan in jail. Besides which, you can catch an infectious disease from an illegal immigrant as fast as you can from a good Murrican citizen; faster, in fact, because they don't have health insurance and so don't go to the doctor until they're REALLY sick. Once upon a time we had a concept called "public health" but we seem to have forgotten it.
This country was built by immigrants who came here with nothing but their hands and their work ethic; we didn't limit immigration until 1924 (except for the Chinese). The undocumented illegals are a whole lot closer to those immigrants than to some of our current citizens. "I lift my lamp beside the golden door" - but the golden door isn't on the Mexican border, apparently. Some people seem to think, my family is aboard, now pull up the gangplank, and that gives me kind of a queasy feeling.
On the other side of the coin, it takes years to become a citizen legally, and granting these people amnesty will skip them to the head of the line, and that's not fair to the people who've tried to obey the law. Do we have all these illegals because Reagan granted an amnesty in the eighties?
On the third side of the coin (sort of like the third half of the show on Car Talk), the urge to not let people in because they're not like us is not only racist and xenophobic, it's boringly racist and xenophobic. All the things they're saying about the Mexican illegals now have been said, in the past (in only approximate reverse order), about: the Poles. The Slavs. The Italians. The Irish (for generations, "No Irish need apply"). The Swedes and Norwegians. The Germans (and that was Benjamin Franklin, ranting that they refused to learn English and they bred like rabbits, and haven't we heard this before?). Which of those were your ancestors? The real question is, why don't we want them to come here? Why do we feel so threatened by them?
Finally, a little full disclosure, so to speak: it's very likely my lace-curtain Irish, boned-lace-choker grandmother was a wetback (as we used to call them before it became politically incorrect), all 5 feet 2 inches of her. A Canadian wetback: she came to the country in 1921, and just never bothered to become a citizen; and sometime in the 40's she insisted on going home to Toronto to see the relatives, and they had to smuggle her back across the border because by then you needed papers. She's dead now, God rest her; if they want to deport her they'll have to dig her up.
So I don't have any answers. I can't argue with Boggart's points about the load on our services, and the taxes they don't pay, it's all too true; but this whole country is built on immigration, right back to the "Native" Americans whose ancestors came over the Bering Strait in the last interglacial, or whenever. The only continent in the world with people who really can't be called immigrants is Africa, it's the only place the species evolved. Everybody else is an immigrant at some level; and I think we need to quit arguing about who has the "right" to be where, and start trying to think of the practicalities that we all need to deal with, like educating children and preventing epidemics.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Movies You Never Heard Of - Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night - isn't that a play by Shakespeare? Well, yes - and in 1996 director Trevor Nunn made a movie out of it which is great fun to watch, and even more fun to shake your head over. This is one of Shakespeare's "twin" comedies: it starts with a great shipwreck in which twin brother and sister Sebastian and Viola are separately cast ashore in "Illyria", and each thinks the other is dead. I won't go into the plot any deeper; you can always look it up in Cliff Notes if you haven't got time to read the play.
I owe them an apology about the shipwreck, though. When we were watching, I though, Oh, God, they've seen Titanic: but they hadn't. This movie came out the year before Titanic. Maybe James Cameron had seen this one...
The most delightful thing about it is how astoundingly alike Sebastian and Viola are. Because this is also a "breeches" comedy, Viola decides to survive after the shipwreck by gluing on a mustache and dressing as a young man, whom she calls Cesario. Late in the show, of course, Viola/Cesario and Sebastian meet again, dressed exactly alike, almost the same height, both wearing the little blond mustache, and while you can tell them apart if you've been watching, you really have to look twice. I wonder whom they found first, Sebastian or Viola?
Shakespeare didn't, of course, have to worry about these issues, because his "actresses" were young men; but I did wonder how Cesario managed, for three whole months, never to get caught where she had to explain why she couldn't pee into the bushes like all the guys. Especially since she becomes Duke Orsino's good buddy and drinking companion, spending most of her time listening to Orsino whine about why he's dying of love because Olivia won't have him, and how men's love is more important than women's because women aren't capable of passion.
Orsino is a Victorian (originally Elizabethan) male chauvinist ess-oh-bee; however, Viola falls for him, and is therefore pining for him while he pines for Olivia. Isn't chemistry great? It gets better when Olivia falls for Cesario/Viola. The poleaxed look on Olivia's face, late in the movie when she sees Sebastian and Cesario together, having just married Sebastian thinking he was Cesario, is worth any price of admission - it's just wonderful. She can't tell them apart either. Helena Bonham Carter is a really fine Olivia.
It never seems to occur to anybody that Cesario's tight black uniform pants are on a behind that isn't, well, shaped like a normal guy's - it's the one part of the female anatomy that you really can't hide when dressing like a man, especially a late Victorian military man. (Null has set it around 1885-1890.) She does have a very small tush, but still.
And in three months she has to have had three periods - how do you hide that when you're faking being a man? This is why you have to suspend your disbelief at the theater, I guess. I suppose if none of the servants ever notices that she peels her mustache off at night and sticks it on the mirror, they'll slide right past anything else. Actress Imogen Stubbs makes a wonderful Cesario, though - half the time you look at her and catch yourself thinking, what a handsome young man.
Shakespeare would have liked this, I think; it's the way he would have done it himself if he'd had the resources.
I owe them an apology about the shipwreck, though. When we were watching, I though, Oh, God, they've seen Titanic: but they hadn't. This movie came out the year before Titanic. Maybe James Cameron had seen this one...
The most delightful thing about it is how astoundingly alike Sebastian and Viola are. Because this is also a "breeches" comedy, Viola decides to survive after the shipwreck by gluing on a mustache and dressing as a young man, whom she calls Cesario. Late in the show, of course, Viola/Cesario and Sebastian meet again, dressed exactly alike, almost the same height, both wearing the little blond mustache, and while you can tell them apart if you've been watching, you really have to look twice. I wonder whom they found first, Sebastian or Viola?
Shakespeare didn't, of course, have to worry about these issues, because his "actresses" were young men; but I did wonder how Cesario managed, for three whole months, never to get caught where she had to explain why she couldn't pee into the bushes like all the guys. Especially since she becomes Duke Orsino's good buddy and drinking companion, spending most of her time listening to Orsino whine about why he's dying of love because Olivia won't have him, and how men's love is more important than women's because women aren't capable of passion.
Orsino is a Victorian (originally Elizabethan) male chauvinist ess-oh-bee; however, Viola falls for him, and is therefore pining for him while he pines for Olivia. Isn't chemistry great? It gets better when Olivia falls for Cesario/Viola. The poleaxed look on Olivia's face, late in the movie when she sees Sebastian and Cesario together, having just married Sebastian thinking he was Cesario, is worth any price of admission - it's just wonderful. She can't tell them apart either. Helena Bonham Carter is a really fine Olivia.
It never seems to occur to anybody that Cesario's tight black uniform pants are on a behind that isn't, well, shaped like a normal guy's - it's the one part of the female anatomy that you really can't hide when dressing like a man, especially a late Victorian military man. (Null has set it around 1885-1890.) She does have a very small tush, but still.
And in three months she has to have had three periods - how do you hide that when you're faking being a man? This is why you have to suspend your disbelief at the theater, I guess. I suppose if none of the servants ever notices that she peels her mustache off at night and sticks it on the mirror, they'll slide right past anything else. Actress Imogen Stubbs makes a wonderful Cesario, though - half the time you look at her and catch yourself thinking, what a handsome young man.
Shakespeare would have liked this, I think; it's the way he would have done it himself if he'd had the resources.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
I'm tired of George W. Bush
How much are we going to put up with from this man?
He lied to us about the reasons for invading Iraq; in fact, he lied several times, making up new fake reasons as the old fakes were exposed. Because of those lies, tens of thousands of people have died; Iraq is a shambles, slouching toward a Shiite theocracy, a training ground for every anti-American fanatic in existence.
He claims to be above the law due to a "war on terror" that he invented, after the Sept. 11 attacks, to bolster his power. Sure, there are terrorists out there, who would like to harm us. What he's doing isn't making them any less likely to attack us; quite the opposite.
He has authorized warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens (4th amendment, unreasonable searches and seizures), declared that he can hold suspects indefinitely without trial (6th amendment, speedy and public trial, confrontation of witnesses), and claims the right to "try" them before military tribunals (7th amendment, trial by jury). He ignores pretty much all the international treaties previous administrations signed in the twentieth century, including the Geneva Convention, just because.
And now we find that he feels his godly power as Commander in Chief allows him to declassify sensitive information on the spot, when he needs it to make the opponents of his policy look bad, and without letting anybody else know. I wondered when Mr. Libby would finger someone in the White House; well, he has. There's been some backing and filling, but the initial response was unbelievable: yes, the president was the source of the leak and he has a right to be... This is the man who was so self-righteous about leaks when the question was who told the NY Times about his wiretapping campaign.
Enough. Write your Congressman. Write your senators. Demand impeachment. I have. By God, if Bill Clinton can be impeached for lying about a blow job, surely a man who takes us to war on a lie is impeachable.
The argument against impeachment is that it would leave Dick Cheney in charge. That is daunting. The answer, then: impeach them both. Both are complicit in this mess. Get them both out, and put a caretaker in for the next few years. It's what we got after Nixon resigned; and you know, Gerald Ford looks pretty good right now.
On one level, I don't even care if it does leave Dead-Eye Dick in charge. I want that man to know that the American people believe he is a criminal and should not be in office. It is outrageous when you cannot believe a word the President of the United States says.
He lied to us about the reasons for invading Iraq; in fact, he lied several times, making up new fake reasons as the old fakes were exposed. Because of those lies, tens of thousands of people have died; Iraq is a shambles, slouching toward a Shiite theocracy, a training ground for every anti-American fanatic in existence.
He claims to be above the law due to a "war on terror" that he invented, after the Sept. 11 attacks, to bolster his power. Sure, there are terrorists out there, who would like to harm us. What he's doing isn't making them any less likely to attack us; quite the opposite.
He has authorized warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens (4th amendment, unreasonable searches and seizures), declared that he can hold suspects indefinitely without trial (6th amendment, speedy and public trial, confrontation of witnesses), and claims the right to "try" them before military tribunals (7th amendment, trial by jury). He ignores pretty much all the international treaties previous administrations signed in the twentieth century, including the Geneva Convention, just because.
And now we find that he feels his godly power as Commander in Chief allows him to declassify sensitive information on the spot, when he needs it to make the opponents of his policy look bad, and without letting anybody else know. I wondered when Mr. Libby would finger someone in the White House; well, he has. There's been some backing and filling, but the initial response was unbelievable: yes, the president was the source of the leak and he has a right to be... This is the man who was so self-righteous about leaks when the question was who told the NY Times about his wiretapping campaign.
Enough. Write your Congressman. Write your senators. Demand impeachment. I have. By God, if Bill Clinton can be impeached for lying about a blow job, surely a man who takes us to war on a lie is impeachable.
The argument against impeachment is that it would leave Dick Cheney in charge. That is daunting. The answer, then: impeach them both. Both are complicit in this mess. Get them both out, and put a caretaker in for the next few years. It's what we got after Nixon resigned; and you know, Gerald Ford looks pretty good right now.
On one level, I don't even care if it does leave Dead-Eye Dick in charge. I want that man to know that the American people believe he is a criminal and should not be in office. It is outrageous when you cannot believe a word the President of the United States says.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Globalization, or, what happened to the boats?
I've been a regular reader of the Economist for some years now. They write competent, challenging, college grade English, and it's interesting to read an outsider's view of American politics. The Economist believes firmly in free trade and globalization; rich countries shouldn't protect their agriculture and industries with tariffs, because it starves people in poor countries who would like to produce agriculture and industrial products for less money, were it not for the tariffs. The mantra is that the rising tide of prosperity raises all boats.
They argue the case persuasively; but I don't live in a poor country whose boat will be raised by the rising tide. I live in the richest country in the world, and around me I see boats stranded by a tide that seems to be going out, as the manufacturing jobs go to China and Mexico, the coffee is grown in Vietnam, and the beef comes from Argentina. And oh, yes - the computer and call center jobs are going to India. The Americans who used to work in factories, or on farms, or for that matter do several kinds of skilled and semi-skilled work which don't necessarily involve a college degree, are now doing - what?
The February unemployment report says unemployment is 4.8 percent, or 7.2 million people, down from 5.4 percent and 8 million people a year earlier. That's a lot of people who'd like to work and can't; but it's OK because it's only 4.8 percent, so we aren't in a recession or anything. Still, there were another 1.5 million people who aren't even trying to find a job; they've given up. And yet: the trend is up. More people are working. What are they working at? Greeting people at Wal-Mart? Flipping hamburgers?
Free trade may be good for the poorer countries of the world; but the net effect in the United States seems to have been to shut down a lot of factories because it's too expensive to pay people the amount that Americans need to make to live on. You can only manufacture things that are cheap enough for Americans to buy, if you pay the people who make them so little that Americans can't live on the wage. What's wrong with this picture? Henry Ford understood that his business would prosper more if he paid his workers enough that they could afford to buy his products. Somehow that idea has gotten lost, in the race to be the cheapest.
Another piece of this puzzle turned up in a recent Chip Johnson column in the San Francisco Chronicle: local companies can't get high school kids to consider jobs as refinery technicians, assembly line workers, or construction guys. Of course, the ones who will consider it often can't pass the math and science parts of the employers' entrance exams; but that's another rant. I've read other articles about construction bosses who say the American kids they try to hire, won't show up, can't be bothered to do the job right, don't like the hard work. So maybe it isn't just that there aren't jobs.
Some of us discussed this in another thread: Americans seem to have decided physical work is beneath them. Working with your hands is no longer a "good" job. People who chopped their own wood and churned their own butter built this country; now, nobody wants to do vocational training; they want a white collar job. Hey, folks: there's nothing wrong with manual work if you do it carefully and with pride, the way my dad did it for 31 years. Somebody has to tune the engines, fix the plumbing, run the factories (now a species of computer job that you do wearing a hard hat and steel toed boots). So there are two issues:
1. Nobody wants to pay a living wage for blue collar work.
2. Nobody wants to do blue collar work.
I don't know what the answer is; but it worries me. It's not a good world where a few people are really really rich and everybody else is unemployed and broke. France was that way, around 1789; and the 25 years or so after that in France were not amusing at all.
They argue the case persuasively; but I don't live in a poor country whose boat will be raised by the rising tide. I live in the richest country in the world, and around me I see boats stranded by a tide that seems to be going out, as the manufacturing jobs go to China and Mexico, the coffee is grown in Vietnam, and the beef comes from Argentina. And oh, yes - the computer and call center jobs are going to India. The Americans who used to work in factories, or on farms, or for that matter do several kinds of skilled and semi-skilled work which don't necessarily involve a college degree, are now doing - what?
The February unemployment report says unemployment is 4.8 percent, or 7.2 million people, down from 5.4 percent and 8 million people a year earlier. That's a lot of people who'd like to work and can't; but it's OK because it's only 4.8 percent, so we aren't in a recession or anything. Still, there were another 1.5 million people who aren't even trying to find a job; they've given up. And yet: the trend is up. More people are working. What are they working at? Greeting people at Wal-Mart? Flipping hamburgers?
Free trade may be good for the poorer countries of the world; but the net effect in the United States seems to have been to shut down a lot of factories because it's too expensive to pay people the amount that Americans need to make to live on. You can only manufacture things that are cheap enough for Americans to buy, if you pay the people who make them so little that Americans can't live on the wage. What's wrong with this picture? Henry Ford understood that his business would prosper more if he paid his workers enough that they could afford to buy his products. Somehow that idea has gotten lost, in the race to be the cheapest.
Another piece of this puzzle turned up in a recent Chip Johnson column in the San Francisco Chronicle: local companies can't get high school kids to consider jobs as refinery technicians, assembly line workers, or construction guys. Of course, the ones who will consider it often can't pass the math and science parts of the employers' entrance exams; but that's another rant. I've read other articles about construction bosses who say the American kids they try to hire, won't show up, can't be bothered to do the job right, don't like the hard work. So maybe it isn't just that there aren't jobs.
Some of us discussed this in another thread: Americans seem to have decided physical work is beneath them. Working with your hands is no longer a "good" job. People who chopped their own wood and churned their own butter built this country; now, nobody wants to do vocational training; they want a white collar job. Hey, folks: there's nothing wrong with manual work if you do it carefully and with pride, the way my dad did it for 31 years. Somebody has to tune the engines, fix the plumbing, run the factories (now a species of computer job that you do wearing a hard hat and steel toed boots). So there are two issues:
1. Nobody wants to pay a living wage for blue collar work.
2. Nobody wants to do blue collar work.
I don't know what the answer is; but it worries me. It's not a good world where a few people are really really rich and everybody else is unemployed and broke. France was that way, around 1789; and the 25 years or so after that in France were not amusing at all.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Our Ports Are Safe...
You couldn't invent this stuff. Honest, you couldn't.
About a month ago, everyone was all stirred up, because the British firm that managed about 6 U.S. ports was being bought out by Dubai Ports World, which is owned by the government of Dubai, which is an Ay-rab country. Congress and the media went ballistic, being embarrassingly racist, and leaving our Fearless Leader standing up saying (which was perfectly true), "But they're a very reputable company and they're our allies!" (I admit, that was amusing.)
OK, here we go again: today's AP wire has a reassuring story about the gummint's attempts to protect us from radioactive materials in shipping cargo. They're wrapping up a contract to put a sophisticated radiation detector in the Bahamas, 65 miles from Freeport. A no-bid contract. Which will allow the contract firm to run the equipment without the presence of U.S. customs officials. (Of course, the Bahamas isn't U.S. soil; but the whole purpose of this is to monitor cargo headed for the U.S.) And what doughty red-white-and-blue American firm gets this contract?
Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. That doesn't sound very American - where is Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. headquartered? Well, in Beijing, in China. In fact, Hutchison Whampoa belongs to Li Ka-shing, who is China's richest man, and on very close terms with the Chinese government, and the senior officials of the Chinese Communist party. Like Dubai Ports World, this is a highly respected international ports operator. Of course, three years ago when Hutchison tried to buy part of Global Crossing Ltd., the administration blocked them on national security grounds. I guess the administration now figures it's all right to let them do this. Without soliciting bids.
How much of this do we have to see before we conclude that the present administration has no more idea how to manage national security than your front doorknob? The Democrats, I admit, have been acting like the gang that can't shoot straight; but can they possibly be worse than this??
About a month ago, everyone was all stirred up, because the British firm that managed about 6 U.S. ports was being bought out by Dubai Ports World, which is owned by the government of Dubai, which is an Ay-rab country. Congress and the media went ballistic, being embarrassingly racist, and leaving our Fearless Leader standing up saying (which was perfectly true), "But they're a very reputable company and they're our allies!" (I admit, that was amusing.)
OK, here we go again: today's AP wire has a reassuring story about the gummint's attempts to protect us from radioactive materials in shipping cargo. They're wrapping up a contract to put a sophisticated radiation detector in the Bahamas, 65 miles from Freeport. A no-bid contract. Which will allow the contract firm to run the equipment without the presence of U.S. customs officials. (Of course, the Bahamas isn't U.S. soil; but the whole purpose of this is to monitor cargo headed for the U.S.) And what doughty red-white-and-blue American firm gets this contract?
Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. That doesn't sound very American - where is Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. headquartered? Well, in Beijing, in China. In fact, Hutchison Whampoa belongs to Li Ka-shing, who is China's richest man, and on very close terms with the Chinese government, and the senior officials of the Chinese Communist party. Like Dubai Ports World, this is a highly respected international ports operator. Of course, three years ago when Hutchison tried to buy part of Global Crossing Ltd., the administration blocked them on national security grounds. I guess the administration now figures it's all right to let them do this. Without soliciting bids.
How much of this do we have to see before we conclude that the present administration has no more idea how to manage national security than your front doorknob? The Democrats, I admit, have been acting like the gang that can't shoot straight; but can they possibly be worse than this??
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Walls and Borders
I've seen this now in two different articles on the subject of the border, and immigration policy, and I can't stand it any more: pictures of Hadrian's Wall, which the Romans built "to keep out the Scots."
Well, no, they didn't. They built Hadrian's Wall, and its northern neighbor the Antonine Wall, to keep out the Picts, who lived in Scotland in the first couple of centuries AD and didn't like the Romans very much. If you're interested, you'll find a good article on the Romans in Scotland here, see p. 4 of the article for the history of the walls. Or you can read Rosemary Sutcliff's classic novel, Eagle of the Ninth, which will be a lot more fun. It's classed as a "young adult" novel but I can read it still.
In fact, the "Scots" or Scoti as they're sometimes called, came to Scotland from Ireland, where they settled around the third or fourth century AD; they moved to Scotland and united with the Picts against the Saxons and Danes, around the 7th-8th century AD. You'll find a rather wordy history of the Scots at www.electricscotland.com. I'm not sure how much I trust their scholarship but it repeats stuff I've read elsewhere.
Getting back to borders with walls on them: we just don't learn, do we? Walls don't keep people out; they just make them mad. The people who smirk and quote Robert Frost, "Good fences make good neighbors", haven't read the whole poem. Frost was extremely dubious about fences.
This particular set of proposed walls is not just expensive, ineffectual, and stupid; it's expensive, ineffectual, stupid, and racist.I observe nobody's proposing a wall on the Canadian border, even though it's quite as porous as the Mexican border and a whole lot easier to walk across in the summer. And as I mentioned in my post on the Dubai Ports World mess, we're at a whole lot more risk from stuff smuggled into a seaport in a container, because only 5% of them are ever inspected. They could put a whole Al Qaeda strike unit inside, an Islamic Trojan horse, and who'd know?
And at least a third of the people who enter the country illegally each year don't come from Mexico at all, and if they do, don't sneak across the border: they come in legally on a visa, and they just never go home. We'd do far more for national security to spend the money on beefing up port security.
Well, no, they didn't. They built Hadrian's Wall, and its northern neighbor the Antonine Wall, to keep out the Picts, who lived in Scotland in the first couple of centuries AD and didn't like the Romans very much. If you're interested, you'll find a good article on the Romans in Scotland here, see p. 4 of the article for the history of the walls. Or you can read Rosemary Sutcliff's classic novel, Eagle of the Ninth, which will be a lot more fun. It's classed as a "young adult" novel but I can read it still.
In fact, the "Scots" or Scoti as they're sometimes called, came to Scotland from Ireland, where they settled around the third or fourth century AD; they moved to Scotland and united with the Picts against the Saxons and Danes, around the 7th-8th century AD. You'll find a rather wordy history of the Scots at www.electricscotland.com. I'm not sure how much I trust their scholarship but it repeats stuff I've read elsewhere.
Getting back to borders with walls on them: we just don't learn, do we? Walls don't keep people out; they just make them mad. The people who smirk and quote Robert Frost, "Good fences make good neighbors", haven't read the whole poem. Frost was extremely dubious about fences.
This particular set of proposed walls is not just expensive, ineffectual, and stupid; it's expensive, ineffectual, stupid, and racist.I observe nobody's proposing a wall on the Canadian border, even though it's quite as porous as the Mexican border and a whole lot easier to walk across in the summer. And as I mentioned in my post on the Dubai Ports World mess, we're at a whole lot more risk from stuff smuggled into a seaport in a container, because only 5% of them are ever inspected. They could put a whole Al Qaeda strike unit inside, an Islamic Trojan horse, and who'd know?
And at least a third of the people who enter the country illegally each year don't come from Mexico at all, and if they do, don't sneak across the border: they come in legally on a visa, and they just never go home. We'd do far more for national security to spend the money on beefing up port security.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Mr. Morford Forswears Violence
And good for him, you may say? What's going on? Mark Morford is a blogger/columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. I don't follow his blogs but I do read his column in the paper (how retro of me); and on March 15 he published an extremely interesting column entitled "I am Done With Violence." I recommend you read it; he says it very well.
He isn't forswearing violence personally; reading his columns, I suspect the most violence he ever inflicts on anyone is to tear into them with his (metaphorical) pen, which is not a negligible weapon. But in this screed he describes how he has come to the conclusion that there is Too Much Violence in American culture, specifically in TV and movies; and that he is suddenly, personally revolted by it and can't stand it any longer. To which I say: congratulations, Mr. Morford. Welcome to civilization. What took you so long?
Violence is a major reason I quit watching movies thirty years ago, and one of the reasons I have quit watching television (the other reasons for deserting television being a general intellectual level corresponding to an IQ of about 14, and the advertisements, which are even worse; but that's another post). In fact, I could barely endure to stay and watch all the way through A Clockwork Orange, and compared to some of the movies that have come out since, A Clockwork Orange is practically a ladies' sewing circle. I remember reading reviews, in the late seventies, of Sam Peckinpah's movies; and thinking, well, I can live without seeing those. And in the interim, it's gotten worse. The movies I watch now are carefully chosen, and very few of them are modern. Thank God for DVDs and Netflix.
Mr. Morford is quite right that one of the basics of most great religions, including Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam (yes, Islam; the Prophet once cut off his sleeve rather than disturb a cat that was sleeping on it), is that one should forgive a slight (the outmoded concept of "turning the other cheek"), and not go after the slighter with a semi-automatic. But it's stranger than just falling away from the tenets of a religion. In America, sex is forbidden, horrifying, not to be shown to small children; but violence - violence is good. We like violence, as a people; we even seem to worship it. But we're horrified by sex. You will never see a movie rated X, or even PG12, because of violence. You could take your 9 year old to see Saving Private Ryan, although I don't recommend it. But one exposed nipple, and the whole world goes bananas.
This, incidentally, is one of the reasons adolescents get into so much trouble with sex (apart from the fact that adolescents + sex = trouble, and right here in River City too): their parents are so conflicted, so embarrassed, so completely unable to talk about sex that they never discuss it with the kids at all, and therefore never warn them of any of the things they would need to know to protect themselves. If parents could be relied on to talk to their children about sex, we wouldn't have to worry about sex education in the schools; but they can't. And the fondness for violence is one of the reasons rape is so common, since rape isn't a sexual act at all but a power trip.
Well, Mr. Morford has seen the light; but he's only one man. Still, he's an intelligent and literate man, and a lot of people read his column. I know, because they all write letters to the editor either complaining or praising. Maybe enough people will read his column, and act on it, to some small effect. We can hope. But I'm still going to screen movie reviews very, very carefully.
He isn't forswearing violence personally; reading his columns, I suspect the most violence he ever inflicts on anyone is to tear into them with his (metaphorical) pen, which is not a negligible weapon. But in this screed he describes how he has come to the conclusion that there is Too Much Violence in American culture, specifically in TV and movies; and that he is suddenly, personally revolted by it and can't stand it any longer. To which I say: congratulations, Mr. Morford. Welcome to civilization. What took you so long?
Violence is a major reason I quit watching movies thirty years ago, and one of the reasons I have quit watching television (the other reasons for deserting television being a general intellectual level corresponding to an IQ of about 14, and the advertisements, which are even worse; but that's another post). In fact, I could barely endure to stay and watch all the way through A Clockwork Orange, and compared to some of the movies that have come out since, A Clockwork Orange is practically a ladies' sewing circle. I remember reading reviews, in the late seventies, of Sam Peckinpah's movies; and thinking, well, I can live without seeing those. And in the interim, it's gotten worse. The movies I watch now are carefully chosen, and very few of them are modern. Thank God for DVDs and Netflix.
Mr. Morford is quite right that one of the basics of most great religions, including Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam (yes, Islam; the Prophet once cut off his sleeve rather than disturb a cat that was sleeping on it), is that one should forgive a slight (the outmoded concept of "turning the other cheek"), and not go after the slighter with a semi-automatic. But it's stranger than just falling away from the tenets of a religion. In America, sex is forbidden, horrifying, not to be shown to small children; but violence - violence is good. We like violence, as a people; we even seem to worship it. But we're horrified by sex. You will never see a movie rated X, or even PG12, because of violence. You could take your 9 year old to see Saving Private Ryan, although I don't recommend it. But one exposed nipple, and the whole world goes bananas.
This, incidentally, is one of the reasons adolescents get into so much trouble with sex (apart from the fact that adolescents + sex = trouble, and right here in River City too): their parents are so conflicted, so embarrassed, so completely unable to talk about sex that they never discuss it with the kids at all, and therefore never warn them of any of the things they would need to know to protect themselves. If parents could be relied on to talk to their children about sex, we wouldn't have to worry about sex education in the schools; but they can't. And the fondness for violence is one of the reasons rape is so common, since rape isn't a sexual act at all but a power trip.
Well, Mr. Morford has seen the light; but he's only one man. Still, he's an intelligent and literate man, and a lot of people read his column. I know, because they all write letters to the editor either complaining or praising. Maybe enough people will read his column, and act on it, to some small effect. We can hope. But I'm still going to screen movie reviews very, very carefully.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)