Some People Don't Like The President...

Some last minute thoughts before Big Tuesday:
In 2000, candidate Bush campaigned as "a uniter, not a divider." Since then, he has governed pretty much as a divider, not a uniter. Is this a flipflop? Or was candidate Bush lying? In either case, I think some of us kind of expected it to work out like this.
A lot of potential voters (as opposed to those who actually bother to vote) are distinctly anti-Bush. They're likely to vote more against the incumbent than for his opponent. Some hate the president for his policies. Some for his principles. Some for his disregard of their principles. For most though I think it's more that they're embarrassed that the president of their country is a putz, and they think it reflects badly on them personally. Kind of like being embarrassed to be seen in public with your wierd cousin (and, let's admit it, we all have one). You really should only be embarrassed if the wierd cousin is you.
In a try at lightening things up a little before D-Day, here's a copy of an online ad seeking a native English speaker for a school in north Thailand. Unfortunately, it ran sometime last year. Still, there may be an opening, so you might want to note the email address.
In case the wierd cousin gets re-elected...

Native English Speaker Needed
Info: Okay. Due to unreliable teachers leaving us in the lurch somewhat(they got better deals elsewhere) ,we desperately need two new teachers to fill positions for our outside primary school contracts.
Before I give you the all important details about the job, I need to get a few things straight. Firstly, the positions are at schools where the classes are large. One of the positions you will be dealing with around 25 semi-catholic rich fat kids, the other school has nearer 40 thin middle class Buddhist kids per class. Therefore, if you are not used to teaching this type of class then it might not be the job for you. For those who know what they are doing it's a breeze. Although we do have a short training program for people who are enthusiastic but dont have the experience. We have all the gear, flashcards and songs and activities and suchforth. For those used to teaching a hanful of kids in a small air con room these classes can be quite daunting. Right then, with that out of the way I will get down to some details. We need you to work from the 1st November until at least march. And if all is ship shape and Bristol fashion and you are happy then you will be offered a new contract for next year. Guaranteed. Our contracts include free medical insurance, work visa, end of year bonus, an extrememly friendly and informal atmosphere, a bloody nice boss by the name of khun lek, and a salary of 26,000 baht for 24 hours teaching a week. Since there is only around 4 months left until the end of the school year we cant offer you all these things. But we can offer you 28,000per month and a reduced bonus if you stay with us until march. It would be a good way to get your foot in the Chiang Mai door actually. It's allright up here. Pleeeeze, only people who are willing to stay and work until march apply. Officially you should have a degree and a Tefl, but to be honest we tend to overlook these requirements. If you have half a brain then that is enough. You can write to me and I will get back to you ASAP.
Date Added : 11th October
Job: full time - young learners
School: Nava Chiang Mai
Tel: N/A
CEmail: navachiangmai@yahoo.com

How not to handle a demonstration...

A long time ago, thirty-something years ago now, in the now fabled "Vietnam Era", There was a lot of unrest in America. People were demonstrating across the length and breadth of the oucntry. ALso from North to South and East to West. College campuses were esepcial hotbeds of this activity. In some places special police units were mobilized. In Berkeley we had the Alameda County swat teams, known as the "Blue Meanies". They were all really big and really intimidating. There was lots of tear gas in the air. There were also lots of bruises, and some broken bones. We were outraged at this. Of course, we were demonstrating because we were outraged in the first place.
In some places the National Guard was called out. One such place was Kent State University.
The result was a shocker. Also, in hindsight, fairly predictable. On May 4 1970, 4 students were shot to death, nine were wounded by concentrated fire from a squad of guardsmen. "A group of seventy National Guard troops advanced on the protesters with fixed bayonets in an attempt to disperse the crowd. The National Guardsmen were wearing gas masks in the hot sun (obscuring their vision and causing heat exhaustion) and had little training in riot control." This was caught live on television. The film is sometimes replayed today.
The newspapers next day all showed a picture of an anguished young woman kneeling over a very dead young man. With bloody hands. Won a Pulitzer, I think. Since then, Kent State has been the name of the event, not the school. If you want to talk about the school you have to say "Kent State; you know, where Kent State happened."
Last week there was a demonstration in the south of Thailand. In Thailand, as at Kent State, troops were called. Here, as there, people died. Predictably. Needlessly.

It's easy to understand why this should be if you just ask yourself "What are these troops trained to do?" If they're being trained for their proper job, they're being trained to kill. To go into combat against an enemy force and to kill the enemy. There couldn't possibly be a worse force to send to police a group of demonstrating citizens. Using military troops for crowd control is a hopelessly bad idea. Bad, Bad, Bad! They have no skills for the job, no training. Kills the civilian protestors and destroys the troops as far as ever being an effective force is concerned. Ask yourself what life has been like for the guardsmen who were at Kent State that day, and what it's like when they see themselves again and again on that film clip.
Next time (and there will be a lot of next times), call in the specially trained crowd control police unit. If you don't have one, create one. Today wouldn't be too soon to make a start.

"It's Not At All Certain..."?????

Dick Cheney
seems to parse reality differently than most of us. When he hears what he wants to hear, like 'intelligence' from the well known fabulist Ahmad Chalabi, nothing in the world is more certain. When he is told something he doesn't want to hear, like news of another military bumble in Iraq, like the failure to sequester a large store of explosives (at the very location he claims Saddam Hussein was "reconstituting his nuclear program"), this information is "not at all certain". Thinking about it, I suppose most of us practice this sort of denial to some degree. When it reaches this level, and the practitioner is so happy to share his deeply felt skepticism (read:fantasies) with the world, well, any total sociopath would be proud. I guess the only certain knowledge he possesses is the data that fits his preconceptions. Sort of todays version of "All The News That Fits, We Print". Anything he doesn't want to believe, well, it's just "not at all certain".
And then the Vice president calls John Kerry an "Armchair General"? Come on! This is the man who had "other priorities" when it came his time to serve in the military. Some of us think his other priority was to nestle deep in his armchair, where he was much less likely to get his ass shot off. Or become a victim of the ever popular "friendly fire".


Besides, Mr. Vice-Commander-In-Chief, the phrase is Armchair Admiral! You're in Pensacola! Pensacola's been a Navy town for longer than you've been a crooked politician! And that's a long long time...

I Could Use a Little Help Here...

Right now, especially with all these elections under way (assuming that most of them, at least, will in fact happen), there are just too many things going on. I'm overcome with, as the late great


Steve Allen once put it:

Too many answers are going unquestioned.

Here are some of the things I am hearing said, with precious little evidence being put forth in support of the assertions:

We Need Tax Cuts To Increase Employment...

This is a subset of 'Trickle-Down Economics'. Bush-wa. If money trickled down, there'd be a cycle where the rich would become poor, and the poor become rich. In fact (observably so), money trickles up. Except where it rushes up. Give the poor some money and they'll waste it on things like food and shelter, giving the money to the rich in the process.

The Economy Is Strong And Getting Stronger...

The same source, with the same lack of supporting evidence. The President appears to be positively phobic about facts, since he certainly never employs any to back his assertions. It's really quite spooky. I've known lots of people who happily demonstrate their ignorance, but never seen a successful politician ('til now) who does so.

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Would Hurt The Economy...

What do you suppose the increased energy in global weather is going to do to the economy? Four hurricanes in Florida. Ten (Ten!) typhoons in Japan. No harm to the economy there by God. Why would developing new technologies to change the way we interact with the environment be harmful to the economy? New technologies have always increased economic activity, though often at the cost of the environment, not to its benefit. New technolgies do, however, have a negative impact on obsolete businesses. The automobile was, as many have noted, a disaster to the buggywhip industry. Similarly, solar power might be bad for the oil industry. Bad for Saud. Dangerous stuff.

Foetal Stem Cells Have Never Cured Anybody...

Well, geez; before it was used, Jonas Salk's polio vaccine never worked, either. Why would anybody bother to do research on something that hasn't been proven to work?

Not the President this time, it's the First Lady who's parading her willful ignorance. Though, I'm ready to admit it's probably just to give cover to the First Husband. It's really hard for me to believe that someone who can walk and talk (albeit in Texas-speak) at the same time could be so obtuse.

Democracy Is On The Move...

It seems to me that the word Democracy has been employed to such an extent, and in so many inappropriate contexts, that it has now become little more than a shibboleth. It has come to mean nothing more than a government President Bush approves of. It is defined by an open public election, won by a candidate favored by the United States.

We're Winning The War In Iraq...

(alternate claim: We're Winning The War On Terror)...
Again, we certainly don't want to crowd out the message by including anything even resembling a fact here. Those dismal reports from the congressional investigating committee, the CIA, the FBI, an assortment of other three letter acronyms? Well, those reports were written by beaurocrats, you know, so you can pretty much disregard them.

The Largest Coalition In The History Of The World...

This one by Donald Rumsfeld. Noted historian. How far back does his memory go anyway? I guess not even as far back as 1991, and the first Gulf War. That was a century ago, after all. On the other hand, maybe he's talking about the coalition of Rumsfeld-Cheney-Rice-Ashcroft. Now that's an axis to be proud of. Or frightened of.

I forgot: I should probably include the enforcer; Tom DeLay here.



These, and many other subjects need questioners. Many many questioners. You can help! Send me your suggestions, comments, whatever. Just click on the email me... link. Hint, if you're using the Firefox browser, things like the pics in the posts and the sidebar links might or might not show up. If I knew anything about HTML, XML, Javascript, and the like, I'd try to do something about it. Or not. I do have another life, after all. Hope to hear from you at:

Email Franksmaunderings

Is this any way to treat your best friend?

What a thing to do to your best friend! Your ally. The ever maladroit George Bush

wants his best (perhaps only) friend Tony Blair,to send British troops into the war zone in Iraq.
Of course, Mr. Blair will acquiesce to President Bush's 'request'. He has no choice. He's finding out what it means to be an 'Ally of the United States'. The request may already have been 'approved' by the time I post this. To turn down the the request (to disobey the order, rather) will make it clear that when Mr. Blair says attacking Iraq was "Absolutely The Right Thing To Do", he was, to use a wonderful Briticism, being economical of the truth. Not being entirely candid, as some would say.

Karl Rove, the Presdent's evil genius, knows this very well. Knows that there is no real choice for the Prime Minister. He is required to demonstrate his fealty. But for President Bush to treat his staunchest ally in this manner is almost beyond belief. It's like making your girlfriend 'prove her love' for you. That's probably exactly the kind of act Mr. Blair feels he is being asked to submit to. Sending British troops into harms way, and putting them under U.S. command to top it all, will expose Mr. Blair to a full frontal attack in Parliament, and probably end his hopes for a third term. For all his political skills, and his likability, to be exposed openly as the sycophant of the highly unpopular president of the United States, will almost certainly cost him his majority.
Wonder what is going to happen to the rest of the 'coalition of the willing'? Will Poland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Thailand, et. al., be ready to recommit troops to a place where their good friend and ally, the United States, might at any time require them to prove their fealty in a similar way?
Wonder also what will happen if in spite of all, George Bush endures the same fate as his father? Mr. Blair, in addition to being exposed as nothing more than an avatar of America, will also be shown to be the backer of a loser.

GM Crops: To What Purpose?

GM: Genetically Modified. Applying genetic engineering techniques to add/modify the DNA of economically valuable plants or animals. Sometimes referred to as making Frankenfood.

There is a pretty vociferous debate going on these days about the pros and cons of GM foods. There are the proponents, who claim a moral imperative to feed the starving masses, and the antis, who claim that these hi-tech foods, or Frankenfoods, can be dangerous to your health. I disagree with both of these claims. Perhaps this is not the best stand to take, but please bear with me.
To begin, the likelihood that GM foods will prove dangerous to the consumer is, let's face it, fairly remote. The creators of these altered plants are pretty knowledgeable people, and their purpose is not to poison their customers, but to make money from them. It's hard to sell food to dead people. And the testing needed to show dietary safety of food that is really not so different from stuff that's been around for a long time isn't terribly difficult.
However, the promoters of such stuff are being disingenuous. They're trying hard to distract your attention from the man behind the curtain. There are other issues besides food safety. Issues that go far beyond food safety. Especially given that there is no shortage of food in the world today. There is, as always, an economic problem: poor people can't afford to buy food. When people of means take note, they send food off to the poor starving . When their attention wavers, the poor return to being poor, and continue to starve. Sorry - different subject.
About frankenfood; there are definitely other concerns than just safe nutrition.
How about the environmental problems? For the most part, GM plants are being designed with three goals in mind. Disease resistance, pest resistance, and herbicide resistance. Crops with such characteristics can be grown more successfully, where success is defined as the greatest yield of a single crop measured in Tonnes/Hectare. A field where nothing except the desired plants can survive, the ultimate in monoculture, is the most 'efficient' of farms. The result of this kind of farming is, however, not unlike the current situation where increased use of chemical fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, have caused a tremendous increase in the level of contaminants in food, as well as degradation of watersheds and the environment that is dependent on uncontaminated water. Pursuers of this kind of efficiency are not unlike the landowner who dams the river flowing through his property, unconcerned with the damage to his downstream neighbors.
In the ultimate farm envisioned by these pioneers of GM cropping, the plants will unaided create a circle of death around themselves, destroying all other plants, destroying insects harmful, benign, and beneficial as well. Result: the farmland so used becomes infertile to any other crop except for this or another similarly engineered plant.
What does this mean in terms of economics? The farmer who has planted such a crop is now a client of the patentholder of the crop. The corporation now dictates the means and method of growing - and the price - of the seed, the fertilizer, the chemicals to be applied; the entire system from planting to harvesting. The farmer has just become a tenant, or sharecropper, on his own land! Of course, his crop yield will increase (probably). Ask any farmer or fisherman, or anyone at the bottom of the commodity production process. An increase in output goes hand in hand with a decrease in price. Grow more; sell for less. The profits are made by the people higher up the food chain. Of course, this is a description of the small family farm. Something that hardly exsists in North America. Agribusiness is the rule rather than the exception. Fields with but a single crop, as far as the eye can see. These businesses can deal quite well with GM crops. They grow them, take their price support money from the government, and invest it in the company that sells them the GM seed! Not a bad way to do business.
Not exactly related to the vision of Feeding The Starving Masses though, is it?
All the above is not at all an indictment of GM technology, nor of all applications of that technology. There is a lot of promise in genetic modification for creation of wonderful compounds for medical purposes. It seems to me that there's a very real possibility that genetic engineering can be used to help in environmental restoration as well. Perhaps to help corals and planktonic life adapt to the increased temperature of the oceans (yes, there is global warming, and no, I'm not blaming you in particular for it).
Using genetic engineering to search for new compounds, new biological entities, and new knowledge is a great idea. Even if it weren't, it's pointless to try to tell people to not know something they know. Sort of like telling them to forget how to make nuclear bombs, please!
Personally, I'd really rather not see plants, or animals, with odd assortments of genes from odd assortments of other life forms, set loose on a large-scale basis, with the near certainty of negative unforseen consequences. Those unforseen consequences that always seem to go along with any human endeavor.

Thinking about that conventional wisdom...

I just finished with my (almost) annual physical. Results: excellent. As the Dr. said, "You should thank god for your health. Worth more than money." A good thing too, because I have lots of good health (thank god), but not lots of money. Along with what they call a check-up here, I got a free breakfast. Free in the sense that it was included in the price of the examination. About two kilocalories of good old American style breakfast, only without the potatoes. Within minutes, I was hungry for more. It's probably going to take all day to walk that free breakfast off.
Got me to thinking about that old, conventional wisdom. "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." "It gives you energy so you can do a good day's work." In keeping with this recieved wisdom, millions of Americans, and people worldwide, eat good hearty breakfasts, then get into their cars, drive to work, and sit at a desk for the rest of the day. Except for the lunchbreak, when they eat another good hearty meal. Go back to the desk and sit some more. What happens to all that energy you consumed to allow you to do a good day's work? Gets turned into fat, is what. So it will be available if you ever decide to do a good days work. Work in the sense of the world of physics. Work = Force X Distance; something like that. Exertion. Exercise. Etc. The kind of work most of us do not do in this post-industrial society except as a hobby.
I used to be a member of the Seattle downtown Y. A wonderful old 1914 vintage building, with classic but worn tile floors, a great basement natatorium, great gym facilities. Even had convertible squash/handball courts, you could reconfigure with a hand crank on the back wall. In the mens locker room there was a classic old balance type scale; also vintage 1914 I'm guessing. On the pedestal of the scale was an old ideal height/weight table. For me, the correct weight (it said) was around 215 lbs. I recall also that the table showed that a woman 5'6" should weigh around 145-150. Doctors today say those weights are too high, by about seventeen per cent. How come our ideal body sizes have changed? I don't think it's so much in response to the supermodel women in the fashion magazines. You know, the ones who look like one woman famines? I think it has more to do with weight trend than with actual weight. Today, the problem is to avoid gaining weight. Ninety years ago, the problem was more likely to avoid losing weight. That healthy five foot six woman who weighed one-forty-five was well nourished, and had the strength and stamina do do a day's (1914 day's) work. Before the advent of all the labor-saving devices, which aren't labor saving at all - they just shift the labor from actual labor to working longer hours at a desk to make the money to buy the devices - a work day involved physical activity. Laundry meant washing the clothes, not dropping them into a machine. If you wanted to eat some ice cream, you'd better figure on some serious cranking on the ice cream machine. Probably, you'd have to expend more calories making the desert than you'd get from eating it. So, the problem, if problem it was, was eating enough food to keep your weight up, rather than eating little enough food to keep your weight down. Calories were in short supply rather than too easily got.
Conclusion: If you're going out into the fields to pick, dig, hoe, plow, lift, carry, sweat and strain, eat a big ol' two thousand five hundred calorie stick-to-your-ribs breakfast; if you're going to sit at a computer (as I am doing at this very moment), eat a two hundred calorie breakfast. That's enough energy for sitting down. Or, if you're worrying about your weight compared to your height, find a scale with a hundred year old weight table...

Campaigning --- in Florida?

I see that Sen. Kerry has been campaigning in Florida.

That's really a shame. A waste of time and resources that could be put to better use elsewhere. As it stands, he has as much chance of getting an honest count in the State of Bush as Richard Nixon had of getting an honest count from Mayor Daly in Cook County in 1960. The fix is in. The Florida deck is so frozen the oranges are trying to flee north.
If the Senator wants to capture Florida's electors, he'd better be prepared to hire a ton of lawyers to file suit in every precinct in the state, asking to have the ballots sequestered for a total hand-and-eyeball recount.
Oops. Sorry. forgot, there are no ballots! If you really want, Senator, you can look at the computers we used for the count. Best we can do. At least, you know, we don't have any of those pesky chads this time!

Superman is dead...

Christopher Reeve died on Sunday. Too soon.
I admired Mr. Reeve. As I admire anyone willing to invest himself (or herself) so completely in carrying a message to those in need of hearing it. Whether they want to her it or not.
You were very eloquent. I'm sorry you didn't get to walk again. We will all miss you.

Waxing Poetic

As some of you know, I am currently teaching at a small university in Bangkok. English, yes. I'm trying to invent myself as a teacher at the moment. I hope I'm not sailing under false colors to too great a degree. Sometimes I like to show my students a picture, and ask them to write something about it. They're not very English-proficient, but they can be very poetic. Here are some recent examples:

"When I look at this picture. I feeling to the natural. It's beautiful so much. It's amazing in Thailand because the other nationalitys are rarely gives feel to green. It's for me when I don't happy time. It looking for my friend when I'm alone. I feeling want to live near river. I want to look out from confuse of the city. I want to live with my family, father, mother, sister and brother, It feels hapy for me. I hope it gives me to happy everytime."
Or this one:

The Chinese Old man likes fishing along the river. He loves to do it everyday because fishing is his hobby. He feels happy when he's waiting for the fish. Sometimes if he can get the big one, he will cook and eat it.
Sometimes he can't get anyone but he still sits and relaxs with the nature. The happiness in life is not the money, The true happiness in life is to do the thing that you like.

Couldn't have said it better myself - Miss Rossukol appears to be a sort of modern-day Thai Isaac Walton.

Irony Unleashed

I can only imagine that Charlie Rangel (Congressman from NYC) must be chuckling to himself. Last year he decided it would be educational for the nation to have a dialog about racial/social/economic equality. Or lack of same.

He chose aseemingly appropriate means to initiate the chat, by introducing a bill to reinstate the miltary draft in the congress. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Things have changed in this world of high technolgy. Warmaking is no longer for the cannon-fodder conscript. Warfighting requires highly trained, highly skilled, highly engaged professionals. Or highly angry, highly motivated, willing-to-die amateurs (guerillas, insurgents, whatever you care to call 'em).

Donald Rumsfeld
said as much in response to the draft proposal. I guess you could actually call it a draft draft proposal. Mr. Secretary Rumsfeld is right.
However; while warfighting is now the province of highly trained, etc.; if the United States is to pursue its present course, it will need a large army of occupying troops. As has been historically the case, these occupying forces have been the poorest and least effective troops the occupier has. The weakest of the conscript forces will suffice to patrol the streets of subject countries and shoot insurgents or others who anger them. So, irony of ironies, Rep. Rangel set out to raise a ruckus over the exemption of the privileged from doing the dirty work of war, and is now the author of a bill which will begin to enable the country to occupy any country that makes the mistake of offending our (easily offended) President.

On becoming reradicalized

I hate it, but it appears that I am being rapidly re-radicalized. Returned to the emotional state of my adolescenthood. It probably started when I joined an anti-war march in January of last year. Marching along Market (I think) in San Francisco, I found myself marching under a banner that said Berkeley Students Against the War. Remarkable! I mentioned to one of the banner-bearers that I'd marched under that same banner back in 1970, and that the only difference seemed to be that this time there wasn't (yet) any tear gas in the air.
I'd like to insert parenthetically here that among letters to the San Francisco Chronicle and other papers in the following days, there appeared to be a number of writers who accused the marchers around the country of being 'naive' for thinking they could stop the war. I responded by pointing out that for me, at least, I was simply establishing my right to say I told you so later, when the venture degenerated into the fiasco it has now become. I wish I'd said then that the naive ones, in my opinion, were those who thought there could be a successful conclusion to this cynical, hegemonic war. I always think of the good retorts too late to use them.
Now about that phrase so much in the news today:

Precision Bombing.
Precision bombing, along with Body Counts, Captured Enemy Documents and Hearts and Minds was a phrase coined back during the Vietnam war by DOD publicists to describe how we were winning that war. It belongs in the lexicon of war right up there with Collateral Damage as a misleading and obfuscatory way of sanitizing the death of unknown numbers of people.
Let's look at the precision we have achieved. In March 2003, the grand enterprise began with huge numbers of cruise missiles being fired at Iraq. Most of the missiles did, in fact hit their target (Iraq), but numbers of them also hit: Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia! Hundreds of the missiles completely missed a country the size of (we are often reminded) California! The DOD estimate finally was that approximately 80% of the cruise missiles hit their targets. This news tidbit was not greatly noticed, as at the time we were "winning" the war. Eighty per. cent. is actually not too bad for an obsolete system that we had to use up anyway, as the missiles were approaching their bar-coded "best used before" date. Honestly, our military "consumables" as they are euphemistically called, have expiration dates.
Of course,now that we control the skies of Iraq, we can target our, mmm, targets much more reliably. Especially if we venture close enough to use laser targeting. We can achieve absolute to-within-a-third-of-a-meter accuracy in hitting the XY coordinates of our goal. That's how we came to pinpoint the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade so exactly. Oops. Some of our targets seem to be cases mistaken identity. Must have something to do with military intelligence.
It's remarkable to me that there are so many people who believe that the government is completely inept when it comes to domestic issues, like making them pay taxes, while that same government is infallible in its judgements about killing people (other than themselves). Then there is the problem that, while one can strike at the predetermined X and Y exactly, it's not possible to know who will be at that location when the bomb goes off.

This isn't a novel. There are real people, children, noncombatants, people who just want to be left alone, who stubbornly insist on wandering into the bomb zone. When the DOD figures this one out, I want to know about it. I can't even imagine the feelings of people who hear the planes, see the planes, feel the explosions, and are completely powerless to prevent the death and destruction from occurring. My imagination says anger, rage, vengefulness. But that may be too mild a description of the way the people we are bringing freedom-and-democracy feel about us.

I wouldn't count on any future government of Iraq being friendly to the United States. Not unless we own it. How the perpetrators of this disaster ever thought they could re-create Iraq, and the middle east, is beyond me. Hey! It was a play you idiots! George Bernard Shaw wrote it as a comedy!

A Tip of the hat (or whatever)

A tip of the hat to the young lady in Strasbourg France who shaved her head!
Caught between the Scylla of her religious obligations and the Charybidis of the French law, she chose a third way. Rather than comply with one, but not both, of the competing forces, the young Muslim girl has found a way to be in compliance with both religious and secular rules. As a shave-pate, she displays no hair (very important, somehow, for observant Muslims), while not wearing a headscarf (very important, somehow, for the French gov't). With perhaps a touch of sarcasm, she has stepped outside the conflict. The message I get, and which I hope others get as well, is that both sides in this dispute have opted for form over substance, while ignoring the needs of the individuals involved. Rather than think of the needs of the collectivist institutions, religious and secular, perhaps it is time to turn our attention to the needs of the people, spiritual and educational.
Her solution is vastly superior to a suggestion I made to the French government a few months ago. Seeing that the law called for a ban on 'large crucifixes, skullcaps (yarmulke) and headscarfs', I proposed that the law should go on to define just what dimensions of the specified items ought to be. My opening suggestion was: crucifixes, no more than five cm in the long axis; yarmulke, no more than 5 cm in diameter; headscarves, no more than 10 cm square. Properly displayed, I believe these could all become popular fashion articles. In fact, if one were so disposed, one could wear all three simultaneously!
However, my suggestion went unheeded. Instead, we can hope to see large numbers of shaven heads in the schools of France in the near future. I hope the young ladies do not forget to apply sunblock to their scalps.
I wonder what the observant Jewish young men can come up with as clever as this?

And the winner is...

I managed to watch the Great Debate this morning (my time). The candidates belied the title (candidate). Candid they were not. They both remained on message, stubbornly so it seemed to me. Lots of lost opportunities to actually say something. That might well have caused coronary problems with the staff though, so it's probably best they just read from the prepared statements.

However, I was pleased at the performance of one person. I was cringing at the thought that I was going to have to witness Jim Lehrer struggling to be right-down-the-middle-to -the-second fair to both uncandidates. He far exceeded my expectations. He has grown so much since his previous outing in 2000 that I am tempted to either nominate him for an Emmy, or vote for him!
For the rest, it seems that there is much confusion between a 'war on terrorism' and a 'war on Iraq'. How the two have become confused is puzzling to me. Aside from the fact that the occupation of Iraq is creating large numbers of rank and file terrorist soldiers, that operation has as much to do with overcoming terrorism as Vietnam (sorry to bring it up) had to do with halting the spread of Communism. That is, it has nothing to do with it at all. However, I do believe I was wrong in January of 2003 in my belief that the President wouldn't be able to keep the electorate believing that things were going okay in Iraq. If he'd waited 'til 2004, maybe, but over 18 months, I thought the results would be pretty easy to see.
I guess I was wrong about that, too.

Let's Talk!

The Great Presidential Debate of ought-4 is about to begin. For me, the broadcast time will be early Friday morning. An ideal time to watch. Before breakfast. It's not certain, but I'm guessing that the actual content of the candidate's statements will be as near zero as makes no difference. Likewise the media post-mortem analyses. The prognosticators will ignore what was said, not said, should have been said but wasn't, shouldn't have been said but was; all in favor of deconstructing the appearance, tone, and facial tics of the candidates. Entirely form over substance, in other words. After inspecting the entrails, the high priests of teevee will pronounce a 'winner'. Not, one guesses, the American voter.
Oddly, I believe this a-logical focus is not inappropriate. The sad fact is, even as evolved as we suppose ourselves to be, we really don't apply logic to our selection of a leader, or vote our own best interests. We go with our gut instinct. At the end, what we are really looking for is the man (yes, man, not woman) who we trust most to lead us to success in the Mammoth Hunt. Or the raid on the next tribe over.
All of which explains why political campaigns look the way they do; schoolground exercises in bluffing. Snorting and pawing the ground. Sometimes colloquially referred to as 'weenie-wagging contests'. I can't wait to see it!

Oh; congratulations Hua Mei, on becoming a mother of twins! Here's an impossibly cute baby picture of Hua Mei in San Diego, where she was born.

I Really Hope It Was Like This

A Great Story...

A long long time ago, during an era known as The Vietnam War, I was doing my time (as it was called then) in the United States Navy, as an enlisted man.

Now, the Navy and I were not a great fit, but in spite of the limited use to which I could be put, the Navy insisted I remain 'til the end of my enlistment. The Powers in the Pentagon seemed to think it their moral duty to retain all personnel in spite of... well, in spite, I believe. Besides, in those days we still had a large component in the military that could best be categorized as "cannon fodder", just like in the good old days of the World Wars (I and II). I see I've drifted a little.
At any rate, there I was, finally, consigned to duty as a shore patrolman in Yokohama, Japan. As duty stations go, I must admit it wasn't too bad. I was a free-spirited malcontent, though, so I wasn't considered a "good shipmate" by any means. Had a tendency to complain. Now, this happened to be at just about the time some of the soldiers in Vietnam started to desert. In fact, this was exactly the time the first two United States Army soldiers deserted. They had been sent on R&R to Japan and decided, when their leave was up, that it really wasn't in their best interest to return to the bullet-infested jungles of Vietnam. I really do sympathize with that view, but at the time, of course, nabbing those deserters was the Number One priority of the Yokohama Shore Patrol. What a coup! What kudos we'd recieve!
As part of the plan of these deserting soldiers, they'd contacted a radical element of the Communist Party known as the Japanese Red Brigade, which happily housed, fed, and displayed the two men at various rallies. We would naturally hear about these appearances and, red lights and sirens going, we'd race off to capture the miscreants. Faring as far as Kamakura, Fujisawa, and even Hakone once. Never did catch them, of course.
Interestingly, there was a sailor who lived in the Yokohama area who bore a striking resemblance to one of the deserters. He was stopped, it seems, about every two blocks whenever he ventured out onto the streets of Yokohama. It got to where he pretty much just kept his ID in his hand, and whenever he saw a SP truck he'd just come on over and say hi. We used to chat a little from time to time. He seemed to take it all pretty well. He was a JO2 (Journalist second class) at Kami Seya. I even remember his name. It was Doug Shuitt. I remember some time later seeing his byline in the Los Angeles Times. I do not know where he is or what he is doing now.
To digress for a moment (I promise, this will have a bearing on the story). Since I appreciate all things maritime, I used to watch the papers for notices of passenger liners sailing from the Yokohama docks. The French Indochina Line (yes, French Indochina Line, with three ships: SS Vietnam, SS Cambodia and SS Laos), home port Marseilles, ran a passenger route from Marseilles through the Suez Canal, around India, up to Singapore and Bangkok, around to Saigon, Hong Kong, Yokohama, and finally to Khabarovsk. The ships were tiny, but pretty. Which is more than you can say about the bloated horizontal high rise hotels polluting the oceans today. Okay, so I'm biased. These were actual passenger ships, however, used by people to go places, not just for expensive vacations. My sister arrived in Yokohama aboard the SS Laos

one time while I was there. I helped her smuggle a Honda Motorbike into Japan. But that's another story. Anyway, when I saw that one of these ships was departng, I used to go down to the dock, join in the throngs (like the ships, the throngs were small), throw confetti, try to catch an end of those paper spirals the passengers threw at the dock, generally have a good time.
Well.
Eventually, those two deserting soldiers left Japan, travelled across Russia, and wound up in Sweden, where they became posterboys for the antiwar movement. Judging by the dates, and the route, and so on, it seems to me entirely possible that those soldiers left Yokohama by way of the SS Laos, on a date when I was not only waving goodbye, but since I was on duty at the time, I was at the dock with my battleship gray Shore Patrol truck, and wearing full SP regalia, including helmet, nightstick, and .45 Colt Automatic pistol! If the soldiers were on that ship, I surely hope they weren't hiding out below. I hope they were at the rail, wondering why that shore patrolman was there waving goodbye to them! I really hope it all happened that way.
It would be a great story, wouldn't it?

Questions We Hope To See In The Debates...

(but I don't think we will)

Mr. President:

When you were a student at Phillips Academy, did anyone explain to you the difference between democracy and plutocracy? Could you define either or both for us?
(If the president attempts to define plutocracy as the Plutonian form of government - ask for a followup!)


Sen. Kerry:

Do you think that your wooden appearance causes people to ignore you?
Followup: I'm sorry Senator, could you please repeat that?


Mr. Nader:

We all know what a pyrrhic victory is - are you hoping to establish your place in history by becoming known as the creator of the pyrrhic defeat?
Alternate: Mr. Nader: Do you believe any of your adherents still really believe there is no difference between Al Gore and George Bush; or do they insist on saying that so they aren't forced to shoot themselves in the head instead of the foot?

In Pursuit of Big T

I see they're at it again with the tobacco companies. This time the government is taking BigTobacco to court for being evil slimy lying crooks. Which is accurate, I believe.
However, a few points really should be made here. I've said all this before, but don't think I ever found anyone with a sense of humor on this subject. Here's hoping!
One: I personally never bought any tobacco product from a "Tobacco Company", nor do I know anyone else who has. We bought our cigarettes from Safeway, from Thrifty, from convenience stores and liquor stores. They're the drug pushers - why doesn't the government go after them?
Two: This is a little bit metaphysical, so please bear with me. If someone tells you something, but you know it isn't true, are they lying to you? Well? The sound of one hand clapping. When I started smoking, and yes, I became addicted most likely with that first inhale, everybody KNEW cigarettes were bad. In my dorm when we wanted to bum a smoke we asked for a coffin nail, or a cancer stick. Gallows humor for youths who believed themselves immortal. I remember feeling vaguely sorry for old folk who had to quit smoking because their health was too frail to permit them to continue the pleasures of smoking tobacco.
The tobacco executives took an oath, then lied to congress. Are there any former tobacco addicts who will go to congress, take an oath, and then honestly say "I believed those tobacco people; I believed that those cancer sticks were harmless." Will people who so testify be prosecuted for (obvious) perjury? Or have their testimony struck for being too doofus to be believed?
Three: This is pretty much all window dressing anyway. Past behvior indicates that the tobacco companies will simply reduce the amount they pay the tobacco growers (another group not being pursued legally) by the amount they are being penalized, and the government will use the money collectd from the tobacco companies to subsidize the tobacco growers so they won't go broke. Or, so they'll vote for the incumbent. Instead of the money going from smoker to store to marketer to grower, now the money will be rerouted through the federal government; in effect making all of us stakeholders in BigTobacco. How's it feel to be profiting from a deadly drug?
I just recalled: on October 11 I will be sixteen years smoke free; except for the smoke my government blows in my face.

A Bad Time For Democracy

September 19, 2004. Evening
I'm watching a press conference with

Tony Blair

and

Ayad Allawi

Tony Blair is telling us what the Iraqi people want. How Mr. Blair comes by his expertise on the aspirations of the people of Iraq is unknown to me.
In fact, considering the state of governance in former satrapies of the British Empire, I do not believe the British government can lay claim to any expertise whatsoever as regards the inculcation of Democratic ideals anywhere or anytime. Consider: Sudan, Burma, Palestine, Afghanistan. What hath England wrought? Heck, how about Iran and Iraq? I sometimes suspect the continuous English meddling is due to a guilty conscience about the state they left their former empire in.
As for the President in Washington, I do not know if he was MIA from his Guard unit, but I suspect he was MIA from his civics classes in school. Or, perhaps at Phillips Prep they confused him with the difference/similarity between plutocracy and democracy. You, Mr. President, should be banned from even saying the words freedom and democracy! Until you have read the United States Constitution, at least.
You should be quiet, Mr. Blair; you and your colleague in the White house are giving democracy a bad name.

Now about that purple heart (Part 2)...

And about those missing service records...

I do believe that each election tosses up (or perhaps throws up) at least one debate point that is so totally irrelevant that it becomes an object of fascination to the candidates, and eventually to the electorate as well. Sort of like those who gather at the site of a train wreck, we are unable to avert our gaze from the disaster. The candidates, sensing that at last they have our attention, proceed to fight along this wierd line if it takes all summer - and all autumn. Which it does. To me the only significance remaining in the record of John Kerry is that he saw, and acknowledged, that the Viet Nam war was a mistake. The only significance of the record of George Bush is that it leaves room for supposition that he received special attention. To those who are astonished that the rich and powerful catch a break; get conscious!
Now, however, we are in serious danger of having these irrelevancies foist upon us in the debates. A hundred million people spending an hour watching a spitting contest about these paleontological events means 100,000,000 person-hours of lost productivity. The possibility of this caused me to harken back to the dawn of television. Yes, I remember the ultra-famous Kennedy-Nixon Debates! The only thing I remember, aside from Richard Nixon's sweaty visage, is that most of the action seemed focused on the question of just which candidate would go to greater lengths than the other to defend The Tachen Islands And Quemoy And Matsu. Anyone remember them? You could look it up. Be aware though, that the names have changed. You will need to look for Jinmen and ... Now the importance of these places, best I can remember, is that they were occupied at the time by troops from Formosa (remember Formosa?). Our stalwart presidential hopefuls wanted to assure, and reassure, and rereassure, the American People that they stood foursquare ready to lend all necessary assistance to keep the Army of the Republic of China (Formosa) on those islands. This in spite of the fact that a sniper on the mainland could do a pretty fair job of picking off the soldiers, if they didn't keep their heads down. And in spite of the fact that the islands were totally indefensible if China really wanted to take them over instead of merely throwing a hissyfit over them. And in spite of the fact that they had no value whatsoever by any stretch of the imagination.
After November 1960, no one ever heard of those islands again. Somewhere along the way, they reverted to mainland China. I don't know when, how, or why. Nor do I care. But, back in those now halcyon days of the Cold War, and the Red Menace, and the Missile Gap, and the Space Race, and the First Televised Presidential Debates, those little pieces of land became symbolic of all that was foremost in the minds of the presidential hopefuls.
Let us hope that after November 2nd, as with the Tachens etc. in 1960, we will no longer hear about who better served his country back in the dark ages of the second millenium. I bet we can count on it.

A simple, but apparently overlooked, fact about the way humans are

If it pays, people will do it, if it doesn't pay, people won't do it.
How simple is that?
As long as terrorism pays, there will be terrorists. "Professional Terrorist" is a career choice in some parts of the world, right up there with Doctor, Lawyer, Fireman, Teacher. It has high income potential, status, power, prestige. What more could an ambitious young man wish for?
We are now well into the third generation of professional terrorists in the middle east, where Israel provides an endless resource for those who wish to motivate others to kill and die. The Israeli government can be counted on to stir the pot whenever things calm down. Create a Kodak moment of bullets and bombs, film at eleven, edited to emphasize the proximity of large well-armed Israeli soldiers to small Palestinian boys with rocks. I don't know why the voters of Israel continually fall for the demagogues who promise to end the violence by escalating it 'til the enemy gives up. The enemy gets richer and more powerful every time the bombs are dropped. Fifty seven years of examples exist to prove this, but wishful thinking appears to have more power to persuade than observed fact.
The United States (America, to the rest of the world) has now entered into the equation. Being more powerful, and more remote, and more mythically engendered with invincibility, it has greater power to stir terrorist passion even than Israel or Russia, or any of the lesser foci of terrorism. We have reached a phase now where the American government can give a boost to terrorists just by talking; it doesn't even have to drop bombs, or send tanks into the streets. Just to make sure, however, the present commander-in-chief continues to send 'his' planes and tanks in to whatever areas are the most prolific recruiting grounds for new young terrorists. As when he was governor of Texas, he continues to show little concern for those who die as a result of his actions.
By making terrorism profitable, America is insuring that terrorism will continue, and continue to burgeon.
You would think a capitalist who supposedly understands the profit motive, like Dick Cheney would know this.
Perhaps he does.

Now about that purple heart...

All the fuss about John Kerry's Purple Heart decorations (perhaps if Dick Cheney had one, we wouldn't be having to hear about this) reminded me of a conversation I had just about the same time Sen. Kerry was getting his decorations. I encountered an acquaintance of mine, a Marine Sergeant, somewhere in Yokohama. I think it was at the New Zebra Club, but, after all, it was a long time ago. We had worked together sometime earlier, and I had gone on to a post in Yokohama, while he had continued on at the detachment in Yokosuka.
When we ran into each other (at the New Zebra Club, I'm pretty sure), he was wearing a leg cast, and sported crutches. Naturally, I asked what had happened.
This is the story: ...I went TDY to DaNang with two of the other Marines in the detachment for sixty days. We were assigned the night shift in the Radio Shack. We pretty much ignored the nightly mortar shelling because nobody seemed to care much about it one way or the other. Last month, a round hit the roof of the shack. A chunk of cement (from the roof) hit my foot, and broke my toe.
I said I was sorry to hear it.
He said: Hey, I really got lucky. Think about it - a Purple Heart, thirty days recuperation leave, and ten points toward my next promotion!
I said I thought he was pretty lucky.
He agreed.
My point, if I have one, is that in a conflict, people view things in a different way than in peacetime, or in civilian life. At that time, in that place, Vietnam was a place where you went to a.) Make More Money. b.) Get A Promotion. c.) Re-Enlist With A Double Re-Up Bonus. d.) Some Or All Of The Above. The grander, more abstract, idea that we were invading, occupying, and pretty much destroying a foreign country in order to protect oil companies' interests in the South China Sea (see Domino Theory), wasn't generally given much thought. Neither was the situation of the Vietnamese people, who had been thoroughly dehumanized, as is required by the necessities of war, to allow one to kill without remorse or even much thought. Where in WWII the enemy were called Japs, Nips, Krauts, Nasties, etc., in Vietnam they were called Charlie, or VeeCee, or by a number of more derogatory terms. Just as today, the Iraqis are referred to by words that place them outside the pale. That's why the troops in Vietnam referrred to everywhere else as "Back In The Real World". Vietnam didn't seem real. It was all just a bad dream.
But I digress.
Considering a.-d. above, what kind of reaction will a participant in combat have when he gets a boo-boo in course of same? Why, he's going to put in for a medal. It's the Way Things Are Done.
If John Kerry hadn't Played The Game properly, he would have been sneered at, and his ability to command anything or anyone would have been totally lost. He really had no choice but to work the system for whatever it would give him. I really doubt that he gave that any consideration though. It's a different time, and a different place, and a different existence. Though Bob Dole says he doesn't believe Sen. Kerry "bled for his country", I bet he will agree with that statement.
Those like the Swifties for Truth, who try to pretend that moral considerations and motivations were the same then as they are now, are either still in the morass of thirty five years ago, or they are being completely disingenuous (read, lying).

Sometimes in the News ...

Sometimes, the news just seems to display a remarkable confluence of related items. Here's what appears at the moment on Yahoo's Top Stories page (September 1, 0315 GMT)

First Lady Hails Bush Anti-Terror Record
AP - 15 minutes ago
Republican National Convention co-stars Laura Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger commended President Bush to the country Tuesday night for four more years, hailing him as a man of strength and compassion. "You can count on him, especially in a crisis," ...

Bush Recants, Says Terror War Will Be Won
AP - 6 minutes ago
President Bush said repeatedly on Tuesday that the United States will win its war against terrorism, trying to contain political damage from the doubt he expressed a day earlier.

Two Bus Blasts in Southern Israel Kill 16
AP - 4 minutes ago
Palestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses in this Israeli desert city Tuesday, killing 16 passengers and wounding more than 80 in an attack that ended a six-month lull in violence.

Suicide Bomber Kills 10 at Moscow Subway
AP - 31 minutes ago
A woman strapped with explosives blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station Tuesday night, killing at least 10 people and wounding more than 50 in the second terrorist attack to hit Russia in a week, officials said.

12 Nepalese Hostages Said Slain in Iraq
AP - 37 minutes ago
A gruesome video posted on a Web site purported to show militants beheading a Nepalese worker and shooting 11 others in the first mass slaying of foreign hostages during the Iraqi insurgency.

U.S. Seeks to Throw Out Terror Convictions
AP - 39 minutes ago
The Justice Department has asked a judge to throw out the convictions of a suspected terror cell in Detroit because of prosecutorial misconduct, reversing course in a case the Bush administration once hailed as a major victory in the war on terrorism, legal sources said Tuesday.

Add earlier reports about conditions in Afghanistan, where Americans have been advised to stay off the streets, and Doctors Without Borders and the United Nations have abandoned efforts to accomplish anything positive. Add reports about growing anti-'coalition' and anti-'interim government' actions in Iraq. You might arrive at the conclusion that the President was correct when he said the War on Terrorism cannot be won.
I'm pretty certain that it won't be won by the kind of actions he is taking, at any rate.

Wretched Excess - Doubled!

Well, now that one of the two quadrennial exercises in wretched excess has ended, it's time to look back and consider how everything worked out. I think, in the spirit of the Modern Olympics (Higher, Faster, More Expensive), I should present my own medal winners.
Herewith:
The Bronze - Goes to Samsung of India, which is now running television ads featuring Indian Medallists - from the Sydney Olympics. The ads wish them success in their quest for gold in Athens. It is to be hoped that the athletes did not schedule their Athenaid using Samsung's calendar. After looking at their medal results (one, silver), perhaps they did. If they show up next week, perhaps they can stage a sort of Mini-Games. Just for Samsung (of India).
The Silver - To the Director of the Greek Olympic Committee.
For the aplomb with which he assures us that the 2004 Olympics will turn a profit wigthin a very few years, as money pours in from lease income from the many fine venues created for the Games. I guess there is profit to be made from swim meets at the Natatorium. And then, the Velodrome is pretty sure to be a real cash cow.
Now for The Gold! - The Gold goes to the Greek Minister of Finance. For his clarity of thought in pointing out that the Olympics will cause an immediate improvement in the Greek national budget: for Next Year; because there won't be any Olympic Games next year. This means an immediate savings of around two or three billion dollars, which is what the country has been spending yearly for the last several years. A total (guesstimated at around thirteen bazillion US$) which approximately equals the annual GDP of Greece.

Sadly, the other Quadrennial Wretched Excess is nowhere near its end. It's barely begun in fact. It is scheduled to finish on November 2, or as soon thereafter as we can manage. However, since the 2000 Presidential Election is only now being laid to rest (a necessity, so that we can focus on this year's election), it might be time to start worrying about the schedule for the current Celebration of Democracy.
And be sure to keep a paper record of your vote.

The Bill of Rights,a new Interpretation

I read that New York Supreme Court Justice Jaqueline Silberman ruled that the people can't assemble in the park because "It would hurt the grass."
I guess the language below doesn't impress the good Justice very much:
The Bill of Rights
"These amendments were ratified December 15, 1791, and form what is known as the 'Bill of Rights.'
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
...(From the National Archives)

It impresses me though, a lot. Perhaps because I'm old fashioned. They didn't split infinitives in those days! Or maybe because I think the government really is supposed to come from the consent of the governed. I don't know.
Jaquy also says security for the gathering can't be guaranteed. She doesn't seem to worry about that with regard to the Republican National Convention, where a President sworn to do all in his power to harm the American People will be nominated for re-election. Talk about a security risk!
It also seems wrong to me that, apparently, cows have rights superior to the people. Talk about hurting the grass; take a look at the state of the grass in places where cattle are gathered into feed lots (Harris Ranch, along I-5 in California comes odoriforously to mind). If cattle are allowed to peaceably assemble, why are people forbidden to do the same? Perhaps the cattle are Republicans.
(Apologies for "odoriforously", sometimes a word just begs to be used!)

Searching for Bobby Fisher

I feel ever so much safer now that the notorious chess terrorist Bobby Fisher is to be returned in irons to the United States. His career as a rogue chessplayer is now over. Never again will he terrorize the Balkans with his Ruy Lopez. His capture must be a great relief to Tom Ridge , too. He can now rest easier at night, knowing he has done his job well, and made good use of the tax dollars he has been entrusted with.
Now, if we can just get that Charlie Jenkins army deserter guy, and punish him for having spent the last 39 years in North Korea, living the easy life in that gardenlike nation. I am sure that with enough time, effort, and money, the U.S. Army can manage to take custody of him and return him, also, to justice in the U.S.A.

Lose the Nuance, Please!

According to a number of pundits, The Question of The Debates, for John Kerry, is going to be "What would you have done differently in Iraq?" So far, he has been pretty vague with his responses to this. It's not surprising; this is a complicated situation, and needs to be considered with respect to a rapidly changing environment. As an actual thinking man, Senator Kerry can be expected to respond accordingly, talking about things that are, that aren't, that might be.
A nuanced answer, in other words.
Bad Idea!
Remember, George Bush won a lot of votes, and became President (not, mind you, entirely because of the votes), by reciting simple answers to complicated questions. It appears very much as if the American Voter wants a simpleton for its president. Perhaps that's true. I hope it isn't.
Anyway, when The Question is asked, I hope Senator Kerry adopts the simple approach taken by George Bush, and simply says: "I wouldn't do what you did, Mr. President; I wouldn't go off half-cocked." Thus Sen. Kerry can both appear a little John Wayneish, and at the same time completely divorce himself from the President's disastrous approach to foreign affairs.
Without seeming to be "sensitive" or "nuanced".
Also, importantly for the future, should he have to make presidential decisions regarding Iraq, he won't have committed himself to some inappropriate course.
Bottom line, Senator Kerry, KISS!

Each time, we say it can never get any worse...

... than this.
And, four years later, it does!
It begins to look as though this years version of the Presidential Sweepstakes will be decided pretty much on the basis of what people believe about what John Kerry did, and in what manner he did it, in Vietnam, in a different time, in a different place, in a different world. The current debate might be called mud-slinging, but it really isn't. Its more like a spitting contest: Did not! - Did So! - You're a Liar! - You're Another!... Absolutely no attention to where we are now, what we need to be doing now, what needs our attention now. Nothing about the Other Candidate whatsoever. Nothing about "a referendum on the President's performance."
It's really sort of interesting, in a multiple-car-crash sort of a way. Lets spend all our attention on an irrelevancy, and let our impressions of a long past event, and the claims and counterclaims the candidates make about the event, the centerpiece of the presidential campaign. Use an old issue as a surrogate for todays issues that no one really wants to try to campaign on anyway. Trade an uncertain response to a past event for an uncertain response to current events.
It might not make any difference to the outcome anyway.
That's what bothers me, I think.

What an amazing man...

...is Paul Wolfowitz! Amazing in that the taxpayers of America are still paying his salary! That is, however, a paltry sum compared to the billions of dollars his Iraq venture is costing us.
Now, having completed his demonstration project in the use of naked force in Iraq(They'll Welcome us! They'll Cheer Us! They'll Throw Flowers At Us!), Wolfowitz is resurrecting another idea from the days of empire: hire bandits as mercenaries. Now, this has worked pretty well over the millenia. A lot of empires have had a lot of success in getting bands of armed men to do their dirty work for them. Of course, it has often wound up being a bad thing. As in Rome, where the Vandals eventually decided to go for the Goose instead of settling for the Golden Egg. They sacked Rome, when they'd been hired to protect it.
We, too, have on occasion tried to use 'militias' to help us out. We don't seem to have the knack, however, like the English and the French and the Germans and Spanish(to a lesser degree) had a few centuries ago. Our experience hiring the Khmer Rouge to clean up after us after we had bombed Cambodia into chaos is one example. Heck, we hired the Taliban to fight the Soviet Union! That little foray has wound up costing us a bundle of money, a lot of lives, and the heartbreak of September 11. Then there is Chalabi and Associates. They told us they could run Iraq for us, if we paid them enough. Somehow, that didn't work out either.
No, given our track record at hiring surrogates to do our fighting for us, I think we should tell Mr. Wolfowitz "Thanks, but no thanks."

Wht the @#$% is going on?

So, according to the latest news in the War on Terrorism, so called, "United States authorities" refuse to allow German courts to question prisoners held in U.S. prisons, because it might lead to "critical secret information being divulged." It is not even allowed to confirm-or-deny if a particular individual is even a prisoner. So much for Habeas Corpus.
On the other hand, the name of the man (Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, to wit) who was cooperating with the CIA by collecting information directly from al Quaeda (a terrorist organization, I believe) was given to the New York Times by the National Security Adviser of the United States!
Incredible!
Could the identity of this man, a (now former) focal point of al Quaeda intelligence, be a less valuable resource than people who have been in jail for the last two years?
One of the most frequently cited rules the U.S. government has for deciding what information shall be classified is: "No information shall be classified simply for the purpose of avoiding embarrassment on the part of the government, or of any individual."
If I were a member of this government, at this point in time I'd probably be frantic to prevent people from learning how badly I'd screwed up the entire episode of
Captured Enemy Combatants - a neologism that eerily reminds one of the fabulous Captured Enemy Documents of the Vietnam war.
A more maladroit war on terrorism would be difficult to imagine.

This time, I believe the President

President Bush's latest malapropism puts me in mind of a story in the Golden Ass of Apuleius, where there's a relevant conversation between two travellers.
Traveller 1: "In olden times, when new rulers came to power, they were required to swear an oath to do all in their power to harm the people, but they don't do it anymore."
T2: "You mean they don't do all they can to hurt the people anymore?"
T1: "Oh, no, they still do that; they just don't swear that oath anymore."
I guess our president is regressing to olden times.

How Productivity Software Saved the Day

I have spent the last several days in a kind of limbo. Or, if you prefer, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Its a sort of penance for having done something the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn't like. Anyway, I've been walking a lot, rubbernecking, dodging motos and beggars (I notice that the Geckoes are active in the daytime too, here). I've also been watching a lot of teevee in the heat of the day. I just saw Shakespeare in Love earlier today. It really is a good movie, I am happy to report. The thing that got me to thinking though was the last scene, where Shakespeare is beginning to pen Twelfth Night.
Now, I have several computers, not counting the one I am currently typing on. This one is in an internet cafe next door to my hotel. Costs r2000/hour (50 cents). My primary computer, despite being a well-aged five years, is fully loaded with Productivity Software. With my computer I can Process Words; I can Spread Sheets; I can Base Data, in many wonderful ways. I can even Point with Power. Isn't the modern world amazing!
My point? Will Shakespeare wrote 55 plays, and a number of sonnets (78 is a number that comes to mind, but it's probably wrong), and the only productivity software he had was a blotter. Or perhaps they still used sand to blot the ink on the paper back at the beginning of the 17th century. I don't really know. At 55 plays, Master Will is approximately ummm, 55 plays ahead of my production. So much for Word Processors, Spell Checkers, Grammar Checkers, Plot Outliners, and all the assorted canned writing aids of today. Of course, I am no Shakespeare, you might say. You are correct. In fact, there are very few such. One is the correct count, I believe. Still, there are lots of other people in history, recent times, and today, who have created rather prodigious bodies of intellectual work. I haven't heard of any who can be said to have had their productivity improved by Productivity Software.
Of course, without such software, I wouldn't be writing this, so that's something, I guess.
The only other example of the utility of Productivity Software I can think of immediately is that when my secretary (this was in the early '80's) came into possession of a Word Processor, the monthly report she submitted from my group to the main office grew in a few months from a seven page document, on average, to a seventy page document, also on average. She stopped typing, and started cutting-pasting-inserting-overtyping. Nothing ever got taken out.
Sort of like the tax laws.
Oh: everything has been smoothed over with the Thai Ministry of etc., so I am returning to Bangkok tomorrow. All has been forgiven.

To believe in Hell, ...

I noticed a report from Reuter in the local paper the other day. It said that there was a positive correlation between a populatioon's "belief in hell" and the honesty of said population. Now, correlations of avowed beliefs and behavior are pesky things. I have noticed for instance that measures of human society have a marked tendency to find that ten percent of the population is (fill in the blank). It seems almost every possible percievable difference in people contains at least one subset of humanity that amounts to 10% of the whole. I find all this suspicious.
And I think many, perhaps most, people who claim high moral character also have some caveats. "I'm considerate and respectful of other people." - Unless I don't like them. "I always do my best at work." - Unless I'm not feeling good. "I don't lie, cheat, or steal." - Unless I'm sure no one is looking.
One might imagine that there is something about what, or how, the social scientists choose to measure things.
In this particular case, an outfit calling itself "Transparency International" determined that people who belive in hell have a lower "corruptionn rate" (?), and that this somehow corresponds to a higher GDP for the society or country in question.
My personal feeling about this is that people who have more, have more to lose, and tend not to pursue criminal activites as blatantly as those who have nothing to lose. This, I think, is why lower unemployment rates correspond so well with lower crime rates. Police Chiefs and Governors disagree, claiming that it is their bold anti-crime initiatives that make the difference, but the evidence is mostly on my side. So there!
Seems to me, it's mostly a matter of who is measuring these things. I don't know who exactly Transparency International is, but given their results, I have reason to doubt their methodology. What are they looking at to determine rate of corruption? Example: Thailand (indeed, all Southeast Asia)is sometimes thought of as a fairly corrupt society. Lots of bribery, kickbacks, and the like. Still, there are some in America who have single-handedly swindled more people out of more money than all the criminals (both blue and white collar) in Thailand put together.
Murder, rape, assault, robbery; these are common blue-collar crimes in America. Embezzlement, false tax filings, perjurious legal claims; these are common
white-collar crimes in America.
Perhaps "Transparency International" doesn't consider these practices to be corrupt. Maybe because the perpetrators "believe in hell", they get a free pass?

Totally Botched!

Due to the president's attention deficit disordered foreign policy, Afghanistan has now achieved the distinction of being in a worse state than it was when run by the Taliban. Given their (the Taliban's)ignorant, luddite (actually, pre-luddite might be appropriate), and retrograde governance, this is no mean feat. To be fair, there is a patina of increased freedom in the country. However, since the freedom often involves being killed by unrestrained terrorist or "militia" groups, it is of little value to most people. Things have become so bad that Medesins San Frontieres, which has managed to remain active in Afghanistan throughout the war with the Soviet Union and the reign of the Taliban, has been forced to leave the country; the opium trade is now so robust (remember when Rush Limbaugh praised the Taliban for their effort to end the cultivation of Poppies?) that Afghani heroin has largely priced the traditional Golden Triangle out of the heroin business. Fortunately for the people of that regionn, it has been easy to switch to factory production of methamphetamines, which are enjoying a boom in sales in South East Asia...
To return to the original topic, President Bush, feeling he wasn't getting enough column inches in the major newspapers, decided he was "Mission Accomplished" in Afghanistan, and turned his attention to Iraq. Actually, I suppose, he always intended Iraq as his major objective. Having little-to-no ability to see consequences, he overthrew the government of Iraq, which proved not so very hard to do, militarily inconsequential as they were, and then decided that Iraq, too, was a "Mission Accomplished". I truly believe that to this day he doesn't understand that simply ousting Saddam Hussein doesn't fix anything. Post-Saddam, there is an entire country (yes, we know; The Size of California), filled with Real People, that requires resources, governance, the full panoply of societal infrastructure that the president ignorantly believes occurs by default. His neo-cons, being more evolved, believed (I think) that with the Iraqis throwing flowers, and with Halliburton pumping oil, everything would work out. Infrastructure to the laissez-faire capitalist means banking, and nothing else.
So now, with Afghanistan in stasis, and Iraq approaching that state, what do we do next?
The choice is clear: New Tax Cuts, or New President.

It's Convention Time!

The Dem's convention is going on this week. Naturally, commentators are commentating like crazy. For years now, one of the favorite themes of commentators of a certain type is the motivational psychology of William Jefferson Clinton. It has become an article of faith with them that he is unable to utter any statement, no matter how simple, without parsing and reparsing it, calculating several levels of interpretation, and examining his utterance for potential personal image enhancement. They deconstuct his every sentence and claim to see only ego, never substance. For people like these, the appearance of his book atop the best seller list must be causing a severe acid reflux reflex.
In the last week or so I've seen a lot of "analyses" of the effect on the assembled Democratic Party's mental health of the convention speech of the ex-president. Apparently, he must be articulate, but not too articulate. And interesting, but not too interesting. And, of course, there is the appearance of candidate-in-waiting Hilary Rodham Clinton. She also must be energizing and riveting, but not too much so. Her book, sitting next to husband Bill's at number two, must also be galling to the commentators of the right. I'm delighted, even though I can't afford either book. I confess to doing a lot of shopping at the remainder tables of bookstores, where I do not have the opportunity to buy a Clinton book, but where I can always pick up a copy of Rush Limbaugh, should I so desire. The relative salability of these books gives me great hope that the size of the army of enraged radio talk show caller-inners, and their influence, is a lot smaller than one is inclined to believe from their loudness. Perhaps, like my tendency to write numerous letters-to-editors, the callers are not as much numerous as persistent. A few hundred determined malcontents endlessly calling into talk shows can create a large impression. Just as a few letter-writers (such as myself) can. This is a good thing, even if I find those particular malcontents irritating (which I admit is the case only because they do not agree with me).

I guess I was wrong...

Okay, I give up. According to a report whose provenance I have misplaced, 20% (that's 1 in 5) of the people in the United States who have received spam email (that is to say, 20% of all Americans)... have made purchases via spam "opportunities". Incredible! No wonder those spammers aren't withering on the vine. I guess I was wrong when I claimed that spammers were people without redeeming qualities. If they add value to that many lives, then I think we need to reevaluate our efforts to curb them. If one in five decides as a result of those emails that there is something they need to purchase that they didn't know about before, we'd better not stifle those entrepreneurs of merchandising. Or, spammers.
I admit to being a little miffed though, when I put a block on, e.g. viagra, only to find email offering me an amazing opportunity to purchase v1agra, or perhaps vi@gra, or some like catenation of similar symbols. I don't really think that someone who receives such a solicitation is very likely to suddenly say: "OH, MY! I certainly would like to get some of that! I'm so happy they got past my filter!" But then, there is that 20%. That's about the same percentage of Americas that vote! So, therefore, I am going to stop railing against these pioneers of marketing, and be silent about their evil ways.
I still think those who click on spam should have their hard drive reformatted, though.

Encouraging terrorists

The Phillipine military has left Iraq in a body. Totally abandoned the "Coalition of the Willing". Left a major gap in the flank of the occupation troops. All fifty one soldiers. Only good thing about it, it was pretty easy from a logistical sense. Spain, Nicaragua, P.I. One is inclined to ask just how willing some of these coalition partners really were. Given that most of them have a few hundred troops at most, and those forbidden to engage in actual combat, I have a vague notion that these partners are going along with the United States desire for some window dressing in hope of gaining some present or future favors from Uncle Sam. Or, seeing how vindictive the current administration can be, perhaps these partners are simply hoping to avoid an unpleasant payback.
Now the Phillipine government is certainly coming in for a lot of criticism for their departure. The U. S. State Department (among others) says that if you do what the terrorists want, you'll only encourage more terrorist acts. I guess somebody must have been doing quite a lot in the last year or so to encourage them, since there is more terrorism going on than you can shake a stick at lately. Perhaps dropping bombs on people doesn't make friends so much as piss them off. That's what the Iraqis keep saying anyway. The Palestinians say that too. And they certainly do seem to have an unlimited supply of terrorists in their midst.
I would claim there is a connection, but the president, who claims he has more intelligence than me, says that's not so. It's all that evil going around out there that's to blame.
I'll stick to my theory.