Where Have I Been?

I see I have not posted anything on this blog in over two weeks. That is, I fear, the annual tradition - pretty much all writing, posting to the internet, socializing, with anyone other than my family ends, around the holidays. The hope is that it starts back up in January. Hope is not a plan...

The big news this week has been the Tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean. There isn't much anyone can say about this. I know that isn't true - people have been talking about it all week - but nothing much you say means anything. Not about the Tsunami itself. Rather than blog, I imagine the thing to do is donate. There are lists of organizations at the link I posted - Amazon and Google and the like have links for donations.

And, of course, this is the end of the year - I certainly hope to post something of a year end (or new year) wrap up here - or several, including notes on Whither The Blog? but you know how that goes... hope is not a plan.

Sport Business Sanity

(Three words you don't see together very often.)

Looks like The Nationals are gonna be Les Expos again next year. From ESPN:

NEW YORK -- Washington's new baseball team shut down business and promotional operations indefinitely Wednesday as its move to the nation's capital teetered on the brink of collapse.

The decision by Major League Baseball followed the District of Columbia Council's decision Tuesday night to require private financing for at least half the cost of building a new stadium. The September agreement to move the Montreal Expos to Washington called for a ballpark fully financed by government money.

This is probably a very bad thing for Baseball - I should say, for Major League Baseball, the organization... But god, this is a great thing for the public at large. Someone stood up to the crap they sell. On something that makes sense, not the usual grandstanding Bullshit, like McCain on steroids. Jim Henley's Unqualifed Offerings has a couple posts up about it, and about the coverage of it. Jim Caple at ESPN agrees - and reminds us that the council still agreed to pay some $450 million, and that the real driving force here is MLB's desire to get all the sale money for the team for themselves. And after the fine fine job they've done the last couple years of raising the value of the franchise, who can blame them for wanting to make a modest profit off the deal?

Seriously - why should cities foot the bill? some of the bill, maybe, but all of it? No. And I should add - Henley quotes Mark Fisher uttering that old dead fish "Baseball was an opportunity to rise above those strains, to reach for world-class status, to lure suburbanites back into a view of Washington as the center, a place of pride." - a particular type of inanity I cannot abide . Baseball teams - basketball, football, what have you - do not make a place a world class city. Living in a city with some recent baseball success - winning the world series is great, but please - if we're a world class city, it's because of things like this, or maybe this (even if they are in a different city) - maybe even what lies across the fens from the baseball park. And, if we are a "world class city" - why the hell can't they get the trains running?

Ballad of the Hemp Beret

Check out comment # 10 on this post, over at Berube's blog - a high point, friends, of blogging commentary...

Mumia buttons on our chests
We’d all fail a urine test
One hundred crowd the hip café
But only three score the Hemp Beret

Thank you, thank you.

John, Paul, George, Ringo and Santa

Here is a Christmas gift to my 2 readers. The Beatles' Christmas songs, in mp3.

Via The Talent Show.

Probably the US Basketball Team

What on earth is this about?

In response to one or more indecency complaints, the Federal Communications Commission has asked NBC to send it tapes of its coverage of the Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies in Athens, the network confirmed late yesterday.

I guess there were people impersonating Greek statues - and the Greeks, the barbaric bastards, don't wear clothes. I guess. Hard to say. All told, this reflects badly on the United States. But will probably continue...

Pointless Evil

A bad day for rock stars, I guess. Last night, December 8, 2004, Dimebag Darrell (Abbott), currently of a band called Damageplan, but mostly of Pantera, a major player in the metal scene, as respected a heavy metal guitarist as there is out there, was shot dead, on stage, by a fan of some kind - who came in yelling about Phil Anselmo, but that seems rather beside the point.

It is very strange. Surreal and terrible. I am not a metal fan, I have heard the bare minimum of Pantera’s music - I remember it as being, like most thrash metal, kind of dull, with moments of flash that don’t quite justify its existence. But I don’t know how fair that is.

But I am aware, from reading various magazines, of Dimebag’s importance in that world. And the culture of metal is interesting in a way - it’s like superhero comics - something that I don’t much care about in itself, but which can be fascinating to think about from outside. And sometimes from inside. So somehow, this comes off all disproportionate to the place he had in my life. I mean - it is always horrible when something like this happens, when someone is shot and killed - but usually, even famous people are strangers to me. This is not like John Lennon’s death - not someone I, personally, cared about in any special way. But for some reason, it looms very large.

Larger, say, than Tupac - who, like Dimebag, I had heard of, heard some music by, considered good enough in his area, just not something I cared all that much about. I don't know why, but Dimebag's death seems more significant, somehow. Is it because it happened yesterday? December 8? Is it the fact that it was a bloodbath - a guy jumping on stage and opening fire on the band and the crowd? Is it because I’d read so many references to Dimebag? Or was I jaded about Tupac, after his arrests and stabbings and feuds and everything, his death came as the logical next step - while this comes completely out of the blue?

Probably a little bit of all of it. What this reminds me of is when I heard that Peter Tosh had been shot, back in the 80s. Tosh was an artist I’d heard a little, heard of a lot more - he represented a whole genre of music (far more than Tupac could) that I respected without knowing much about. And his murder was shocking and strange, came completely from left field - it was very discomfiting, it made me very aware of the sense of losing something I never had. It’s that odd sense of vertigo that comes from having someone who had been a vague presence I should know more about suddenly become real by dieing.

That's how I feel about Dimebag. I don't know how else to describe it. It's absurd and horrible all out of scale with what I knew of him when he was alive.

Heil Santa!

You know, I like Christmas. A lot, actually. For a whole swarm of reasons that I may, if you (my loyal reader(s)) have been really bad this year, I might relate at mind numbing length... And that's in the teeth of, and indeed largely because of, its religious (specifically, Christian [and pagan, after all]) significance - since I generally hold the view that the Universal is found primarily in the Particular. And this generally filters down to not quite approving of efforts to take the Christmas out of Christmas - if you want to be inclusive, I say, be inclusive - put up hanukkah displays, Kwanzaa displays - more is always better, I say....

But then you come across things like this, at (shockingly) Michelle Malkin's blog. She's harrassing, and encouraging others to harass, businesses, cities, etc. who change Christmas specific signage and celebrations to more generic signs and parties. There is a word for what she is doing, and it has 7 letters, starts with f, ends with "ism" and is derived from the Italian word for a stick (as used in the symbol of the relevant political party, a bundle of sticks - symbolizing the old adage, one stick is easy to break - a bundle of sticks is hard to break.) Nor is this assertion of mine debatable. It is the case.

This is a link to something called The Committee to Save Merry Christmas.

You know, when I was a kid, the bad guys - Burgermeister Meisterburger and company - were always trying to stop Christmas. Now... ah yes... what times we live in. When roving bands of evildoers stroll the company demanding we sing "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" on demand. Christmas is a good thing - things like this will put you off your gingerbread...

Why Yes, He Is On My Fantasy Team; Why Do You Ask?

Meanwhile, back on Old Eyrth....

I have to write something about Barry and Jason. Dumbfucks. But then again...

It has been a strange fall for this sports fan. The one greatest thing I could possibly ask for happened - since then - it's been nothing but bad. The big brawl ruined basketball for me. There hasn’t been much baseball news - until today, with Giambi and Bonds (and Sheffield and a couple others) exposed for their steroids use). Hell, even my softball team is embroiled in controversy...

On Ron Artest and company - I think that while I have no problem with what happened to Ron Artest, I also think it is disgraceful that the fans were not punished. Oh, a couple dinks were banned from the Palace - whatevah! What should have happened is that the fans - and the Palace - should have gotten the same kind of punishment the players did: in the wallets. Ban alcohol for a month or so. I think it is reasonable to hold the fans (and the forum - someone should be keeping the peace) to the same standards as the players - being rich should get you no privileges - not being rich ditto. The players got, roughly, what they deserved - the fans involved - and the forum - were just as responsible for the brawl, and should get what they deserve as well...

But enough... what about Bonds and company? None of it is surprising - it’s all been coming. It’s interesting too - was Charles Pierce telling the truth? That these things were legal - weren’t even against the rules? I do believe what he says about Len Bias - an overreaction to a terrible thing led to more bad things... I don't know enough here. I don't have any doubt that things like this - John McCain sticking his nose where it isn't wanted - are all bad. Worse - I can say that without reservation - than anything Barry Bonds or Jason Giambi or Ron Artest (for that matter) have ever done. The government has no place in this. It's bad enough that the NFL is testing poor Ricky Williams for pot - why is that relevant to the NFL? Of course, the fact that pot is illegal is highly troubling, and fairly ridiculous. But this is about sports...

The truth is, I am not sure what to think here. Why, exactly, are steroids illegal? (If they're illegal.) (are they illegal for you and me? if not - why should they be illegal for Barry Bonds?) Or against the rules? Medicine isn’t against the rules - they all get cortisone shots - why should cortisone shots be legal and not steroids?

That is a serious question - though I don’t know who could answer. I don’t know the answer. Why are steroids illegal? The harm they cause people? Maybe - though I don’t know what harm they cause. And why would steroids, with the potential for long-term damage, be banned, and - say - Curt Schilling's ankle surgery - never tried before, so who knows the possible after-effects? - not? And the harm steroids cause - do they? We’ve all heard about it, though steroids seem to have been evolving - at what point do they become safe enough to allow, if that is the issue? And if that isn't the issue - are they banned because of the competitive advantages they give? Well - how is that different from laser surgery - cortisone shots - weight machines - protein supplements - all the things that athletes are allowed to use? The busybodies - the John McCain's - talk about the "integrity of the game" - but what the hell is that? it's purely arbitrary, in cases like this. They're athletes - their livelihood depends on doing certain things as well as those things can be done. You can't single out some of those things and ban them without good reasons, reasons beyond an abstract notion of "integrity". If steroids cause significant health problems - of a different order than, say, 27 knee surgeries - then ban them, yes. If not - maybe the answer is to face the facts and deal.

The second best argument (after the harm they cause) is technological - it may be justifiable to ban steroids for the same reason that MLB bans, and other levels of baseball limit, aluminum bats. (And golf regulates balls and clubs, and tennis regulates rackets and so on.) The game was designed to be played on a certain sized space - if the technology gets to be too good, it becomes dangerous, or non-competitive, to play in that space. That, I suppose, is what is (really) meant by the "integrity of the game" - to keep the technology within certain limits. (The semiotician in me sees this and wants to note: see how long it is before someone refers to this as a "technological" issue in public. They will frame it in abstractions - "integrity" or "cheating" - second order words at best (it's only cheating if it is illegal - the question here is, why is it - why should it be - illegal?). Even when technological issues are discussed directly - corked bats, say - they are always framed as questions of integrity, not technology...) It will be interesting, I think, in coming years, when the Mechanists start impacting the games as much as the Shapers. It's a matter of time, I'd guess, before someone comes up with machines that improve performance - then what? (More of the same - who's kidding? even when every schmuck on the street can get some nifty toy that lets them see out of the back of their head or something...)

All right, all right.... Getting back to the point.... If steroids were legal - what would that mean? Probably that to compete in the game, you would have to use them - to some extent. And that - I suspect - would not be a good thing. For all kinds of reasons. But - at some point - I have to guess it will happen. Though if you get enough rules in place, the athletes will be the weakest people on the planet - everyone else will be using the cream and the clear and only poor Barry Bonds III will be getting in trouble for it...

So to conclude this [very hesitant and waffling] rant... Just a note on their actual effects. I guess if you take someone who is already the best hitter of his generation and give him drugs to make him stronger - well. We see the results. The truth is - I don't know how much difference these things make, in the long run. I mean, they change things - they make these guys bigger, and add a lot of distance to their hits - but, even looking at the other guys who were using... Sheffield and Bonds were hitting way back in the 90s - unless they were using all along, all it did was keep them going a bit - though Sheff isn't much better than he ever was. None of the other overmuscled brutes were able to maintain the level of achievement Bonds did. Hacks like Jeremy Giambi could use all the dope they wanted, they never hit like Barry - or Jason. (Couldn't hit enough to keep himself in the game.) The dirty secret is that, when you get down to it, it's still the skills that count the most.

Though if you have that, and have a magically enhanced body to boot - I guess the results are terrible to behold.

Sygns of the Family?

I have started reading Samuel Delany. Started for a class - Triton was on the syllabus (actually, Trouble on Triton, but I had an old Bantam paperback on hand, and figured I'd save a couple bucks. I don't know what that lost me - a Kathy Acker introduction, which may or may not be worth the expense - and possibly something at the back? I compared them - they both had the appendices, and they looked alike - but are they? I have heard rumors of something by Leslie K. Steiner - a Delany alter ego - in the new version - but is it so? I am haunted...)

I've lost the plot. This is the point. I started reading Triton for a class - read it - liked it, very much (did I love it? in a way. But Delany is an odd case - I have tried reading his science fiction in the past, and not been able to keep at it; something about the self-consciousness of it, makes it, somehow, seem smug - he's too good - and somehow too smug about what he's doing... But that's not fair,a nd part of the point of this post is to note how I lost that feeling.) (So did I love it? in a sense - yes - but Delany's books tend to split, a bit - on one side, a text - sentences running together, creating a story and a world and people - all of this utterly engaging; on the other side something of a treatise on Science Fiction, or The Paraliterary, or, The Novel, or... not that that bothers me as such - I like metafiction as much as the next man, but...)

I can't get this started. And the irony is, originally, I wrote this not to discuss Samuel R. Delany, and still less, my (emotional? or critical?) reaction to him - but because I was reading Delany, and some criticism of Delany, and - coincidentally - via Pandagon - found this: Gender News - a conservative site about gender issues. A week or so ago (getting on to 2 weeks now, I think - I started this note almost a week ago), they had an article up called Deliberate Childlessness: Moral Rebellion With a New Face - which basically says it all. Reading within, one finds:

The church must help this society regain its sanity on the gift of children. Willful barrenness and chosen childlessness must be named as moral rebellion. To demand that marriage means sex--but not children--is to defraud the creator of His joy and pleasure in seeing the saints raising His children. That is just the way it is. No kidding.

With that, I'd say, we are halfway, at least, to the line of thought presented in Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (which I have started reading in the wake of Triton: (as described in this essay by Earl Jackson Jr..) "In such a circular patriarchal theology, nonreproductive sexuality becomes associated with blasphemous treason." That's not far from what our Gender News writer, R. Albert Mohler, Jr., said - not far at all. The blasphemy part is there. The treason is implied - but those guys (the religious right) are increasingly pushing for a union of blasphemy and treason.

And doing it all in terms that Delany parodied 20 years ago. They're a creepy lot.

(Jackson cite via Long Story, Short Pier - specifically, this post from almost 2 weeks past...)

One man was chosen...

... and only one man could play him...

Don Knotts in Dubya The Movie - coming soon!

(Via Crooked Timber.)

Despair and 10 Salutes

Today I must mourn the passing of a dear friend - my old Mac 4400/200 PC Compatible. It has served me well, loyally and effectively, since somewhere in the vicinity of September 1997. I have invoked this delightful machine before - in this paeon to Word 5.1 namely - for good cause. I have blogged from it, once or twice! It was - until this week - still rolling along.

It was a matter of time, of course. All it needed was something like what happened this week - a blown fuse - and now, it won't do a thing. No life. That is typical - these machines, macs from the mid to late 90s, were notorious for that very problem. Actually, for two problems - losing the ability to power up, and hard drives that stop spinning. This is the second 4400 in my experience to suffer this fate - the power supplies stop working.

I may get it back someday - or find a working chassis and move the hard drive... But I am resigned to accepting the end. I loved this machine, as much as one can love a machine. I have not used it in the last year - this one (17 inch i-mac - another fairly wonderful machine, that has given me no trouble and better, is a positive work of art) is actually fast enough that I can stand to use it for routine word processing. Amazing. Anyway, in honor of the passing of this wonderful machine, I will post my top 10 favorite pieces of computer related hardware and software. Appalling sentimentality! but if you can't be sentimental at a time like this, when can you be?

1. Microsoft Word 5.1b - this is number 1. Other than spelling, it is still the best word processing program I have ever used. I would probably still prefer it to Word for OS X if it had comparable spelling and macro features. Hell, it had them, back, pre OS 7 or 7.5, or something - somewhere in there, the add ins I was using stopped working. That was when I had to move to another machine to be able to spell... But even without it - it ran on that 4400 as well as Word for X runs on this machine - and probably (with its complete customizability and its magnificent full text searching) had a better feature set. It is by far the best piece of software I know of.

2. Mac 4400 - this machine lasted 7 years. I used it for 3 years at work, then brought it home (we switched to Windows), and used it 4 more - 3 of those years as my main writing computer. I switched tot he internet on other machines maybe about 2001 - but used the 4400 to write on. Great machine. Reliable, fast... it did have power problems sometimes, so I left it running all this time... I knew it could not last forever. I managed to wean myself from it okay - but I will miss it. And - it had word 5.1 on it - and I will miss that more.

3. Mac II-ci: I had one of these for a couple years at work. Most of those early 80s macs had their issues - some because of their architecture (something about their bus capacities, I think); some had bad hard disks, some had unreliable power supplies.... This machine did not give me trouble. I beat on it - I crammed everything I could get into it, used it hard - the system got corrupted every 6 months or so and I would have to reinstall everything - that was a fact of life in those days. But the machine - wonderful thing. Reliable, and probably just as quick with word 5.1 as the machine I have now is. I had to give it up when the powermacs came out - I was disappointed. Partly because I knew that getting the first powermacs off the line meant I would have all the problems, and be the last one to get a new, good one - but partly just because I loved my CI.

4. I have to give props to what I have, though - this 17 inch i-mac is perfectly reliable, and by god - it is beautiful! It really is. Every couple years apple comes out with something just stunning. This is the model. And it works.

5. Powerbook 170 - these were sweet machines as well - great keyboards, reliable, sturdy. I still have one, sitting around somewhere. Unlike my beloved 4400, it still boots up. And runs word like a charm. Surprise surprise!

6. Compaq Armada: There is not much in the windows side of the world that I think is even remotely worth using - but this machine is one. Looks like one of those old PB170s - black, blocky, kind of heavy, but indestructible, reliable, powerful enough. You can’t break them. Great computers. And the last machine of any importance with both floppy and CD bays built in. There are times, even now... Thank you Compaq!

7. SE30. Indestructible little things, quick, functional, and you could get a real monitor on it with a little work. But even without it - those luggable macs had some merits. I would not turn one down now.


8. My new 12 inch powerbook. I know. I love it. Sorry. Tiny, sleek, quick, beautiful. Wonderful machine.

9. Hypercard - this is one I would have to think about some. But when I started using computers - macs - at the end fo the 80s - this was a hell of a program. You could do things with hypercard - I remember building my own spreadsheets, back when I was starting out, and didn't have excel for some reason. I built databases that still work better than databases built in access. It was a great piece of software... I did end up using it mostly to build databases - these days, File Maker has a lot of the same functionality and works about as well - efficient, quick, reliable, easy to work with. I don't know if I can put FileMaker here, but it has a lot of the same appeal. Especially compared to crap like Access.

10. Mosaic. Less because it was a perfect piece of software than because it did things that pretty fucking literally changed the world. The way we interact with the world. Obviously, the way you and me right now are interacting in the world. There may be software that did this back in the 80s - excel maybe - but since I started using computers, this is the one program that, single-handedly, just changed things. And hey - it worked. It did what it did.

The Anti-Lincoln

Here is a rather interesting headline: President moves to rein in 2 agencies. I guess that's one way to put it.

After years of finger-pointing and tension within his foreign policy agencies, President Bush is moving aggressively to tame the two most unwieldy agencies -- the CIA and the State Department -- by installing reliable allies at the helm with instructions to clamp down on dissenting career officials, advisers to the president said.

I suppose no one will disagree witht he basic facts and basic interpretation of the facts in that statement, but the evaluation of those facts and interpretations will vary widely. Joshua Michael Marshall, for example, offers a somewhat different slant than the White House insiders quoted in the Globe article:

There has been a running battle along these 'political appointees' versus 'the professionals' lines at the Pentagon, the CIA and, to a much lesser degree, the State Department for more than three years. And by and large the Bush administration's 'political appointees' have been wrong almost every time. There are a few exceptions at the Pentagon -- the early stages of the Afghan campaign being the best example. But at the CIA it's really been pretty much a shut-out. And a number of those screw-ups have been ones of catastrophic proportions.

* * *

And the upshot of all that we've seen, the result of all those struggles over the last three years is that the 'appointees' are purging the 'professionals'. Another way to put it is that the folks who were always wrong and often catastrophically wrong are rooting out the folks who were often right and sometimes somewhat wrong. The answer to politicized intelligence, it turns out, is a more thorough politicization of intelligence and the elimination of those who resisted political pressure.

Given that -and it seems pretty much the truth - it's hard to read about the President "reining in" anyone without a feeling of dread.

(Should I explain the title? I may. The north during the Civil War was plagued by politically appointed generals. On the whole, they may not have been any worse than the regular army generals and various volunteers who rose to power, but at the top, they were a disaster. A few of them - some purely political, some regulars who were in the politicians' pockets - held real power, and made hash of it. Benjamin Butler - John C. Fremont - quite a few more. The story of Lincoln winning the war was the story of the political generals being replaced by professionals. So - Bush - compared, in some circles to Lincoln - follows roughly the opposite track. For while the balance of competence is about the same in the civil war - political generals are incompetent and dangerous to our cause, professionals (while they cover a range of abilities, and are often an unimaginative lot) more or less do what they are supposed to do - the direction and results are the opposite. The story of Bush losing the war is the story of Bush purging the professionals for the politicians.

Walking the Plank

I see that Colin Powell is resigning as Secretary of State. Powell has not covered himself in glory in this administration, going against a lot of things he had said in the past in the process of supporting them through their foreign policy misadventures. Still, he represents the grown ups in the administration, the possibility, somewhere, of maturity and integrity, and something like good sense. If he is gone --- reading the tea leaves - this looks like a sign that whatever sense there was will be purged. Coming on the heels of the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General, with its attendant message about the United States' respect for International Law (heck - Law itself!), this does not bode well.

UPDATE: Looks like Powell's replacement is going to be Condeleeza Rice. I'm sure Bush could have done worse, though perhaps the greatest indictment of this administration is that there's simply no one anywhere near the white house who would be a good choice. It's not as bad as Gonzales, I guess.

Masters of War

Another story that makes you glad to be an American alive in 2004. A Colorado high school band gets a visit from the FBI for singing a Bob Dylan song. Granted, they should probably not try to claim the song is not political - still... still.

The Luxury of Paranoia

I am not one for conspiracy theories, but neither is Kevin Drum, but he's got a post up on evidence about polling irregularities, which in this day and age is hand in glove with voting fraud, so I can link to that. This is obviously an issue that needs to be examined, with a good deal of care. If it's there - let's find out. If not - better to have good evidence for it. In any case - Drum is not up to conspiracy theory hijinks - he is the epitome of the Supremely Reasonable Pundit, and he is Supremely Reasonable here - blaming the exit pollsters, you know. And he's right - if the problems he cites (from a paper by one Steven Freeman) are caused by some kind of systematic flas in exit polling methodology, then - he's right - the pollsters should explain it. And maybe can. If not - if they don't - does that mean they can't? If they can't...

I don't expect this issue to be laid to rest for some time. Bev Harris is up in arms. (So is Black Box Voting, a different site doing the same kinds of things. I'm not sure what their relationship is, or was...) The meme stays alive in cyberspace (Greg Palast say; Long Story, Short Pier - where Kim seems convinced.) I don't know. I worry, though, that the fact that the election results can be ascribed to other things, that they weren't absurd on the face of them, that the Voices of Reason will insist that we have to Move On and stop indulging in Wishful Thinking. All that may be true - but prove it. At least, let's get as much information out there, where we can look at it and think about it ourselves...

Theater of Operations

James Wolcott being brilliant again - or citing Emmanuel Todd in After the Empire being brilliant.

. . . Contrary to those Le Monde intellectuals who see the US as a super-superpower, a hyperpuissance, Todd, a French demographer and author of a book correctly foreseeing the fall of the Soviet Union, says the US has become a "big little bully" incapable of picking on anyone its own size. It makes a show of force attacking the weak--dirtpoor countries with no air defences, such as Iraq and Afghanistan--because a "show" is precisely what it is.

"These conflicts that represent little or no military risk allow the United States to be 'present' throughout the world. The United States works to maintain the illusory fiction of the world as a dangerous place in need of America's protection."

Wolcott cites this in the context of the Fallujah assault - "Operation Phantom Fury" apparently. Wolcott at length:

The US assault on Fallujah is a prime example of what Todd calls "theatrical micromilitarism." I mean, calling it "Operation Phantom Fury"--it's a sick joke. What's "phantom" about it? For months the US has been touting this incursion and publicly built up forces outside the city for weeks, giving the enemy plenty of time to rig explosives and/or skip town. Billing it as a "decisive battle"--another fraud. Guerrilla warfare operates on an entirely different set of rules; as has been oft pointed out, America won every major battle during Vietnam and still lost. What's unfolding is not a decisive moment but a ghastly production that trains hellfire on a symbolic target and "plays well" to American citizens as a flex of muscle, as witness the NY Post cover today of an American soldier with a cigarette dangling from his mouth with the headline "Marlboro Men Kick Butt." Civilian casualties, the destruction of homes and livelihoods, the absence of any significant capture of insurgent ringleaders, these are secondary to getting good action footage over which benedictions can be said.

He is right. This war from the beginning had the stink of being fought because it would be easy to win - not that this comes as any great shock. There's a lot of tough talk from the Bush administration about our foreign policy goals, but even in the middle of the tough talk, there always seem to be a few of the wonkier ne-cons smugging around the sidelines explaining how invading Iraq would send a message to someone that we weren't to be trifled with. That it sent the message to make sure you have working nukes seems to have slipped past these giant brains...

What it means? In the end, it means that these guys really do run everything as theater - as long as they keep the American casualties relatively low, as long as they keep the pictures of American dead off the TV screens, they figure they can hang on to power at home. Use real heroism (and whatever you say about the war, the people on the ground fighting it are running risks and deserve respect) to prop up the image of our strength. Good old "Decisive George Bush" again. Maybe they think they are also projecting power abroad, though Wolcott and Todd don't think so, and I have to suspect they are right. Which is a source of some comfort, since it means they (I mean, Bush and company) are not likely, tough talk aside, to start up any new wars. Just try to flog the one they have. And keep gettign reelected, because Americans don't want to think about the reality of politics or war or the rest of the world. Well - 51% of Americans...

Structural Changes!

Yes indeed! 10 new links on the "blogroll" - 5 in each category. It has been oh so many moons since I have done anything cosmetic to this place. Addabitospiceyknow. Anyway, I try to keep it varied - some science, some law, some politics, some art. We'll see. Into the breach.

Update: Already! changed my mind! added another 5 sites! Culture! A Libertarian! A Real Live Preacher! Enjoy!

And We Can Do It Without a Draft, Too, I'll Bet!

Early nominees for the next set of Darwin awards - via TAPPED here's some comment on the American Enterprise Institute's panel on Foreign Policy in the Second Bush Administration. According to one Thomas Donnelly:

The election proves that the goals set forth in the Bush Doctrine essentially reflect what most Americans want their government to do.

With this mandate, the goal of the second administration is to put actual meat behind the lofty goals expressed by the Bush doctrine. By Donnelly’s estimation, this means expanding the Bush doctrine beyond the greater Middle East and -- here’s the kicker -- integrating our China policy into the Bush Doctrine. While the Bush administration confronts rogue regimes in the greater Middle East, the likelihood of a future great-power confrontation with China is increasing substantially -- so we must act.

Ah, the American Enterprise Institute! Where else could we turn for such wisdom? There's more - after calling someone "Panda huggers", Donnelly adds, “Negotiating with ourselves over China,” said Donnelly, “is even dumber than negotiating with Democrats over social security or tax reform.” He is not, apparently, likely to claim the Reality Based Community as his own...

Wars and Rumors of War

We have begun our attack on Fallujah, delayed until after the election, in case things go wrong (the cynicism of our government is boundless). Accompanied by attacks by the insurgents and the declaration of martial law by the Iraqi government. Wonderful. (Juan Cole of course is following the story.) One thing though - I'm reading the lead paragraph:

U.S. Army and Marine units thrust into the heart of the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah on Tuesday, fighting fierce street battles and conducting house-to-house searches on the second day of a major assault to retake the city from Islamic militants.

Why are the people we are fighting called "Islamic militants"? This is odd - granted, they are Islamic, and they are obviously militants - but is that an innocent combination? Because Al Qaeda, for example, are clearly "Islamic Militants" - their militancy and their religion are inextricably linked. But the Iraqi insurgents are motivated by other things, aren't they? Nationalism or tribalism or their own desire for power or whatever it is - including some degree of Islamic ideoloty... I don't know. Semantics and war are a dangerous combination, but it seems likely that terms like this carry some pretty strong propaganda implications, that I'm not sure I like.

Out in the Real World

Good afternoon. This is not going to be a long post, just a post, without even bothering to put any links in. A new bad habit, I guess, though I am not here to whine. Just to maintain the habit, as it were. There's still plenty of politics I could be posting about - I have not yet worked out a full bore How We Lost The Election and How We Can Win The Next Once post, though I've got one simmering. I have 2 years to work on that, so I'm not going to kill myself. I will note what I hope I do, now that the election is over - write more about other stuff - the arts, movies, music, comics, maybe books. Get back to the real world.

I will take this opportunity to note what I have seen recently, very briefly: Sideways - quite funny at times, interesting enough, even if it is about another 40ish white guy moping about self-inflicted wounds. Thought his guy is affecting - maybe in the ways he comes off as more real than most people on movie screens. Being played by Paul Giamatti is always an advantage, but it's more than that - it's details, like his apartment, his car, the fact that he doesn't have a cel phone. And the wine. Wine is what is best and worst about the man - his passion, but a passion he can't quite indulge in without lording it over people, and a passion which hides, not too subtly, some nasty stuff (the fact that he is a drunk.) So this may not be brilliant, but it is a fine movie, with many surprising virtues... And many big virtues - especially the performances, universally fine.

And Undertow - new film by David Gordon Green, starring Jamie Bell and Dermot Mulroney. Very nearly a remake of Night of the Hunter - here the villain is Josh Lucas as Mulroney's brother, just out of the pen - he shows up, tries to act ingratiating, Mulroney tries to do the right thing - but it doesn't take long for the two of them to be fighting over their father's "treasure" a collection of gold coins. This does not end well, and soon Bell takes to the road with a little brother. They pass through a really down and out south, a step or two ahead of Lucas' thug, passing out books as they go. It's a little bit too derivative, but quite gorgeous and moving anyway.