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July 01, 2002
"Why should I be made
"Why should I be made to feel like an outsider?"
Ah, the whine of the perpetually disenfranchised...the cry of the eternally uncomfortable. Did I not say that Mike Newdow's concern was not for his daughter? In addition to challenging the theocratically fascist Pledge of Allegiance, Mr. Newdow also plans to ask the courts to remove "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency and end prayers at presidential inaugurations. While he's at it, he'd also like to eliminate gendered pronouns from the English language. That's very progressive of him, but I don't think he'll be able to pull it off. And, to be fair, he is on to something with his objections to family law...it is a terrible morass of bad legalese and antiquated ethical theory that needs fixing.
Regarding those two little words in the Pledge: I could care less. They probably shouldn't have put them in there in '54, unless they wanted to have a good laugh and piss off the Socialists who created the Pledge in the first place. All of the political grandstanding that's been going on over the past week is more than a little disingenuous. If I believed that even half of the squawkers were the persons of genuine faith they claim to be, I'd be satisfied that there was some integrity on display. But it isn't so, and all of the public Pledging and Outraging won't make it so. It's one thing to make an appeal to the general cultural milieu; it's quite another to be photogenically outraged on behalf of God himself. God does quite well on his own, I think.
What I object to, amidst all of this nonsense, is the personal philosophy underlying Mr. Newdow's no doubt excellently argued legal challenge. Somehow, Mr. Newdow believes that he has a Constitutional right to be comfortable. Nothing objectionable must cross his path while he moves in the public sphere. He must always feel included, never excluded. How that need translates into the obliteration of any and all mentions of anything even remotely godlike from all areas of that public sphere is beyond me. But then, I didn't pass the bar without studying for it, so what do I know?
It is this belief--that we all have the right to be comfortable, that our feelings must be sheltered, that our tender psyches deserve the full protection of the Government of the United States--that is responsible for so much of what is lazy and objectionable in our modern culture. Suing McDonald's for selling hot coffee assuages not just injury, but also the sting of stupidity that comes from driving with an open cup of steaming coffee in your lap. Hence: the warning sticker industry gets a boost, as thousands of consumer products must now bear big bright labels that read DO NOT FOLD UP CRIB WITH CHILD INSIDE or DO NOT USE HAIR DRYER WHILE STANDING IN BATHTUB and so forth. All because, in addition to having accordioned your child and electrocuted yourself, you'll just plain feel bad, and we can't have that.
Diversity is uncomfortable. Ideas diametrically opposed to your own are uncomfortable to hear. And hey, guess what? Sometimes, you may believe something that 90% of the people you encounter on a day-to-day basis disagree with. If that belief happens to be that people shouldn't be run through with kabob-skewers for jaywalking, then chances are that Right and Justice are on your side, and that's a thing worth fighting for. But mere ideas? Vocabulary? Words, that bear with them no physical threat, no hint of coercion? That might make you (gasp!) uncomfortable? Or even--that dread oppression--make you feel like an outsider? Guess what? Sometimes, we're all outsiders.
Get over it.
Now then. I'm off to file suit against Mr. Newdow, who has disturbed the digestion of my lunch.
July 02, 2002
You know, I used to
You know, I used to like Tom Cruise. I respected his drive and energy, and appreciated how he molded his career over the years. That in itself is a kind of talent, worthy of regard. I didn't necessarily flock to see his movies, mind you. But I liked him.
Now, alas, he must go sit in the Idiot's Corner with Alec Baldwin. Fox News is quoting him as saying that he thinks the "U.S. is terrifying," which "saddens" him. So, he's thinking about moving somewhere else, and taking the Cruise brood with him. Apparently, people here "are so irresponsible that human life holds such little value to them."
Oh yes, Tom! You are so right. The view from your home in Beverly Hills must be appalling: all of that death, carnage, and starvation...the bloated bellies on Rodeo Drive...the fly-blown corpses littering the sidewalks. Might I suggest that you move to Somalia? Or perhaps Afghanistan, I hear things are shaping up nicely there. Or, hey: how about Australia? A nice, big island, far away from everything. That way, you'll be the last affected after Islam has taken over the planet and then comes knocking on your coastal doorstep to assuage your fears and demonstrate the high value they place on life.
All together, now: Shut up, Tom!
Fox News is probably not the most, shall we say, reliable indicator of the true state of bracing Tom's feelings. But I always enjoy it when the rich and famous decide that they've had enough of America's fantastic wealth and opportunity, and can safely scuttle off with their big bags of cash. These people have absolutely no idea of what the real world is like. They don't even have to worry about health insurance, and we're supposed to believe they've got perspective on the world beyond the American city gates?
Wherever you go, Tom, it will be American troops that protect you, and American dollars that pay them. And pay you, for that matter.
Bon voyage, ya grinning fine-boned empty-headed yutz!
I love a day that starts with a rant about flaky rich and famous people. It's so refreshing after months of exploding and dying and yelling.
Odd with the dreams in
Odd with the dreams in the sleeping head last night. I was camping with Ted Nugent. Now, I'd be hard pressed to name a single song of his. But I read an interview with him a couple of weeks back and it's clearly stuck him into my brain. I could tell I was dreaming, though: Ted wasn't saying anything. That, and we were camping indoors. I was trying to jam the tentstakes into a carpeted floor.
Next, we were sitting on a small rise overlooking a parking-lot type patch of asphalt, with a road on the far side and beyond that, a river gorge. There were children playing. A young black kid was flying a small black and white remote control helicopter...way too close to me for my taste, so I batted it out of the air, and smashed it into the dirt, and threw the wreckage down onto the asphalt near the kid. I got the sense that Ted didn't approve--he didn't say anything, of course, because this was the weird alternate universe of dreamworld--but he gave the kid some kind of Nintendo Gameboy device, to replace the smashed helicopter.
Feeling guilty, I decided to buy the helicopter-flying kid some inflatable rubber playground-type balls, so that he and the other children could play with them. Suddenly (using interDream Transport, I expect) I was at the front of a store that I knew sold such things. It was run by Orthodox Jews, and for awhile the one behind the register ignored me. Then he pulled a black ski mask on, covering up his locks and his beard, and directed me to the big wire basket of balls in the back. I had already paid for three of the balls at $2.99 each, but I also saw a big red Jumbo ball, two feet across, and I absconded with it.
Back to the playground, sitting with Ted. I tossed the balls down...one of them bounced across the road, and I tensed, waiting for the children to chase after it and get creamed by a speeding car. But it didn't happen...and then I faded into wakefulness.
What does it mean? Perhaps that a military helicopter will be shot down somewhere, that there will be an incident of Jewish terrorism, an oppressed people will be granted a boon, and will be put in danger as a result. And Ted Nugent will achieve silent enlightenment.
What's the difference between Martha
What's the difference between Martha Stewart concentrating on her salad and George Bush concentrating on his war?
Everywhere I read, silence on this.
I'm not saying Krugman is right, because I don't know about such things, but I'd sure like to hear somebody say something about it. A well-reasoned refutation would be most welcome.
July 03, 2002
O! My gilded brain locked
O! My gilded brain
locked within its paltry frame
it displays itself
in gleaming hints of brilliance
now revealed
now obscured
but most of all
a soup of neurons
about the size
of a middling ham.
--Lord Alfred "The Bastard" Wembsley
The terrible thing about working
The terrible thing about working in big towering buildings--and post-9/11 my building is in fact the tallest in downtown Manhattan--is that, in addition to being targeted by the occasional airborne maniac, the damn things continually make noise. It's not the shooshing of the elevator shafts or the creaking of the steel bones--the place groans like a galleon on windy days--it's the thuds and bangs that get me. They echo in a peculiar way, which sounds pretty much like you'd expect a large explosion in Midtown to sound. It's nerve wracking. Fortunately, my nerves are being soothed by beneficent chemical concoctions at the moment.
Which is an excellent thing: buying a house, it is said, is number three on the list of Life's Big-Ass Stresses, after divorce and death of a spouse or some such things. They weren't kidding. It's not a big smack-you-in-the-head kind of stress, though...it's a sneaky, squirmy kind of stress that creeps up on you (damn--more bangs...sonofabitch) and tells you that you really don't know enough about the contracts that you've just signed and they're going to take all your money and leave you with nothing, or, failing that, you simply won't get the house that you've just spent the better part of a year looking for.
But, as I said: beneficent chemical concoctions. Legal, mind you, with a proper prescription. Little... shiny... happy... pills! Gotta love 'em.
A temporary fix for what is, no doubt, a lifelong affliction etched into my very molecules. But right now, all I want is to not be afraid of mysterious booms and to get my damn house. No big thing, right? Not to much to ask, hey? Right?
Right.
It is hot today. It
It is hot today. It is so hot that my hyperboles have evaporated.
I am of the opinion that mixing 100-degree weather with black asphalt, concrete, twelve million air conditioners cooling off the inside while spewing heat back ouside, and the exhaust of four million automobiles makes for bad craziness. To illustrate this, I stole a Honda scooter on my lunch hour and tore uptown to go on a rampage through Central Park with my BFG-50A semi-auto and the SPAS 15 I brought back from the UK last year. Tons of fun; maybe you read about it on the AP wire.
But again: if there wasn't a projected heat index of 105 today, none of that would have been necessary.
July 04, 2002
Every American has read this,
Every American has read this, at one point or another. We all manage to get exposed to these words to a greater or lesser degree. How well we remember them depends, perhaps, on how interested we were in history when this document first came our way.
It is this declaration's civilized, reasonable statement of principle, and its firm announcement of the objectionable facts of oppression, that continues to define Americans not by blood or soil, but by an interconnected set of ideals that form a philosophy of life and governance. It is here that who we are as a people is spelled out, premise by premise. And it is the deliberate, methodical intent displayed here that sets these words and sentences apart and makes them powerful--unlike certain other words, isolated and devoid of context, which some people treat as magical talismans of oppressive discomfort that must be eliminated from the public sphere.
Today, on this day, read these words again. All of them. It won't take long.
July 08, 2002
*Yawn.* Or, more accurately, AAUGH!!!
*Yawn.* Or, more accurately, AAUGH!!!
That felt good, so I'm going to do it again. Bear with me.
AAUGH!!!
There. Now people nearby are furtively dialing 911, so that They can come and get me.
A long weekend of weddings and familial gatherings has put the Big Kabosh on your regularly scheduled Sunday Spew, which is just as well because my head wasn't quite in that peculiar Biblical space, anyway. I'm smack in the middle of William Propp's excellent commentary on and translation of Exodus 1-18. It's wonderful to thoroughly read a tale wherein the Very Important Protagonist (who happens to be God, but never mind) tells folks what to do, and when they don't, Very Bad Things happen to them, and I'm not just talking about onions falling on their heads.
This is rewarding and diverting because, in the course of buying a house, I have discovered that many, many people do not do what you tell them to do, and when they don't, nothing happens, except that you don't get what you want. I want a staff that I can turn into a snake, so that the house-buying process will proceed in accordance with my will. Let my mortgage application go! Or there will be bloody water and frogs and mysterious ailments of the skin for all.
Anyway. This commentary on Exodus is the first of two volumes, and the author tells me in brief correspondence that he's six years away from completing volume II. Big Brainus Interruptus, that, but it figures--he worked on volume I for 35 years. Hopefully, he won't die before volume II is finished. I'll have to grab ahold of another commentary for Exodus 19-40, so that I can move onward through the ancient literature.
And now: a mysterious noise.
*ping*
To which I might add,
To which I might add, Amen and Amen, because I myself have similarly smoten various screeching primates of similar troop, especially today. It took eight hours and the combined efforts of various lawyers, agents, psychiatrists, theologians, and advanced materials specialists, but now I sit at home comfy in the air conditioning, blogging with Blogger Pro which is up while Blogger Not Pro is 404'd. That is a good thing and right now it is worth the $35 despite the complete ignoring of every question I have ever asked of Evan.
Back when I was peddling various New Agey self-help books along with the Big Book (not that one...this one) and so forth, one of the stress relievers often recomended by various experts in the art of relieving and/or avoiding said stress was the News Blackout. Avoid news, avoid it wearing shoes, avoid it while at zoos drinking booze, avoid it all the time, sit and watch a mime rather than read, hear, or see the news. I mean, the brand spanking-new vice-president of Afghanistan was assassinated on Saturday and I didn't even know about it until this morning. Or perhaps on Sunday, I'm not sure. And you know what?
Heaven help me, I didn't care.
There was this big tremendous rush of expando-vision after September 11, a vast influx of all the crap that's Out There, taken deep into the In Here, all at once, day in, day out, you can read it if you traipse back through the Astonished Head archives. It lasted for months...all the Big Nasties, all the Death Mongers, all the We're God's Favorite And He Says We've Gotta Kill Yous...all swirling around with wild surly abandon 'neath my brow. Until, finally. I'd. Had. Enough.
Right about the time folks started sailing up into the air and garden gnomes took up residence in my courtyard, my neuronal chemical soup (that's the medical term for brain) began poking me in the kidneys and warning me. Hey! You can't fix it. And this obsession is bad for your liver. I realized this was true: the adrenal glands perch atop the kidneys and were overstressed from all the fight-or-flight, and the liver processes the alcohol and copious quantities of China White that soothe the nerves and keep the shotguns safely unloaded in the rack. Sooner or later, said Mr. Brain, something's going to give, and it would be best for all concerned if you found another hobby for awhile.
So around about the time that commuters started blowing up again in buses along roads the desert, I started to deliberately tune out. And I continue to do so, seeking once again the safe refuge of ancient words written long ago. Because, you see, in those words...are the causal plonks that give rise to present BOOMs.
So: I deal with the Now by following the idea-tree back to its acorn youth.
And that, as Mr. Fidget would say, appears to be that, don't it, cats?
By the way: Extra Special
By the way: Extra Special Astonished Blessings to anyone who knows from whence "onions falling on their heads" is paraphrased.
July 09, 2002
I started out the day
I started out the day somewhat perked up...methinks chemicals in my brain are shifting, because things were not appreciably different this morning than they were just last night...but who can tell. I pay too much attention to ephemeral flitting moods. In any event, I've spent the day staring into a computer monitor and reindexing dull, dull, desperately dull material, and am now on the tail end of a coffee-buzz with the ass of the day in my face. Ah well.
President Bush was in my neck of the woods today, although my personal awareness of him was limited to a chorus of wailing sirens at lunchtime, indicating that he was On The Move. Apparently he was here to urge Big Bad Corporate Bloodsucking CEOs to stop being being Big Bad Corporate Bloodsucking CEOs. There were some specifics...and that ubiquitous call for "higher ethical standards." All very well and good, especially for the President, who was able to operate when said standards were much lower and is thus fit to lead us in the charge towards a new standard of fiscal morality. I would guess that he's recovered from those ethically dubious financial lapses the same way he recovered from his alcoholism: with the help of God, the passing of youth, and the recognition of responsibility.
It must be said, though, that you don't get to stay drunk after you've quit drinking...
Here's a NYT story about
Here's a NYT story about the Israelis shutting down the offices of Sari Nusseibeh, an Oxford- and Harvard-educated Palestinian leader who would be an excellent replacement for Arafat.
And here's a Google search on Mr. Nusseibeh. Have a look, just quickly...pick a few articles...and see if you can figure out exactly how this Israeli move is supposed to support Bush's recent call for new, reasonable leadership for the Palestinians.
I certainly can't.
Somone over at Sassafrass Log
Somone over at Sassafrass Log likes me enough to permalink Astonished Head... thanks... whoever you are... there's a groovy-looking link there to some text about schizophrenia and "inner Apocalypse"... which looks to be my sort of thing. Can't read it now, though... tired... brain...
...fading...
*pof*
July 10, 2002
"Nusseibeh, who recently was criticized
"Nusseibeh, who recently was criticized by some Palestinians for being a signatory to a newspaper advertisement denouncing suicide bombings by Palestinians, was at a conference in Greece when, at 9 a.m., about 60 police surrounded the two-story office building that houses the administration of the multi-campus university."
This just gets better and better. Not only are the Israelis pouncing upon a Palestinian moderate, they wait until he's out of the country to do so.
Very brave of them. After all, underneath that Oxford-educated exterior and tweed jacket, Nusseibeh carries a Rambo-esque physique and is trained in twelve different methods of unarmed combat. He's Shibumi-don. He can kill you six ways with a piece of paper and disembowel you with a stapler. He would have held the IDF off for days. Blood would have run in the street.
And, oh--he would have gotten media exposure. Can't have that. Much better that we maintain the fiction that all of the Palestinians are bomb-wrapped suicide-monkeys.
And from Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Green, Mr. Reynolds, Ms. Girl...silence.
Folks, this is a man who has been advised by a fellow Palestinian academic to "associate more with his people, especially refugees, instead of right-wing Likudi Israelis."
This is a man who has said, "The average Israelis are just the same as the average Palestinians… and just as human."
This is a man whose family holds the key to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and has a really snazzy website to tell you all about it.
Isn't this the sort of man that Israel ought to be encouraging to seek office?
Or is the fact that he has rightly criticized the excesses of Israeli treatment of the Palestinian population just too much for them to bear?
Isn't this the sort of man that President Bush had in mind when he demanded new Palestinian leadership?
Or was that just empty rhetoric?
Clearly, I have unearthed my
Clearly, I have unearthed my head from the sand of my news blackout, for just a little bit...the Nusseibeh story was just too provocative.
And, if anyone happens to be wondering: you will find a full range of positions on Middle Eastern affairs blurted out onto these pages...from unsparing condemnation of Palestinians...to unreserved disgust with tribal Israelis...then back again...from high praise for the ethical riches of Jewish culture...to appreciation of the virtues of Islam. Well, not so much with that last one...there's something that's just wrong there, with their Big Holy Book.
At any rate: each view is expressed with poundings of the chest and great weeping, along with perfect conviction, until I write something diametrically opposed to it, when I will profess to believe that instead.
This is because I am in fact several people.
Difficult to understand, I know, but I've got some medication and the doctors say we're all doing just fine, thanks very much for asking.
And now: I will reconcile my devotion to complete government implementation of social justice with my total commitment to utterly unfettered capitalism. For this task, I believe I shall require a salad fork, a shaved Chihuahua, and a length of hard rubber hose.
Um...yeah. As much as I
Um...yeah. As much as I hate to even entertain the beginnings of an inkling about admitting it, MoDo may actually have a point today. Not the part about the degree of ethical malfeasance being somehow dependent upon the number of dollars packed into a sack, slung over the shoulder, and ridden off into the hills with ("His [Bush's] $848,560 stock cash-in made Hillary, the Cattle Queen of commodities trading, look like a piker for only taking home $100,000." Yeah, whatever, Mo). The part about obliviousness. Gotta admit, George: doesn't look good. It's the appearance thing. Gotta get that right.
Sure, there is important stuff going on right now: much more important, to be honest, than a shady stock deal over a decade old. But I want George in the driver's seat to take care of said important stuff. That means getting re-elected. So don't blow it, mmkay? Don't let this look like something it isn't--and if it is what it isn't, then figure out a way to come clean without lying your ass off or acting like a...well, a snobby, rich jerk.
"There needs to be a
"There needs to be a voice that will be raised to call on people to use their reason. This is the major issue, now that events are basically leading us into a trap of insanity, a whirlpool of vicious acts and bloodletting. Listening to the radical rhetoric on both sides now is terrifying. People need to be made to take decisions about the issues that seem irresolvable and which have become more entrenched during the intifadeh."
And finally, concluding today's Sari-fest,
And finally, concluding today's Sari-fest, here are a few stories related by Uri Avnery in January of this year, lifted wholesale from the Gush Shalom website. Gush Shalom (roughly, "Peace Bloc") is a self-described "extra-parliamentary organization" founded by Avnery in Israel in 1993. They are part of the "other 100%" of the Israeli population that's trying to find a different way out of their situation.
I find the following to be of great interest, because it opens a small window into the cultural divide between Arabs and Jews that makes the whole mess so intractable, and offers a glimpse of the internal Israeli debate that is virtually absent from major media reports here in the United States. There is of course room for argument and denial, as always. But my purpose in presenting this here isn't to claim justification, only to offer perspective.
"The Ongoing Blood Feud
Sari Nusseibeh, the new Palestinian commissioner for Jerusalem, tells an interesting story:
Once, driving under pressure because he was late for a lecture at Bir Zeit University, he inadvertently hit a woman crossing the road to catch a bus. He stopped, of course, helped the woman up and offered to take her to hospital. But she told him that she was quite alright and in a hurry to catch the bus. So he gave her his name and phone number, as well as the name of his insurance company, and forgot all about it.
Weeks later his father, the former Jordanian minister Anwar Nusseibeh, returned from abroad. He called his son and said: "You have done a very bad thing."
When Sari understood that his father was alluding to the almost-forgotten incident, he told him that it was not his fault and that the woman was not hurt, also that he had given her his phone number and the address of the insurance company. But the father said: "You have not done the main thing: apologized. In fact, you impugned the honor of their family and ours."
The father took his son, collected a few dozens notables and led a large convoy of cars to the village where the woman was living. Her family received them politely and graciously accepted their apologies. The honor of the aggrieved family was restored and everybody was satisfied.
Nusseibeh applies the lessons of this episode to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Let’s assume that everything happened unintentionally," he said, "The Jews were fleeing from Europe and did not intend to hurt the Arabs. All they thought about was to set up a state of their own after all they had suffered. But the Arabs were hurt. Hundred thousands of Palestinians lost their all and became refugees. You must first of all honor them by asking for their forgiveness."
I remember similar things being said by the great British historian, the late Arnold Toynbee, some 40 years ago. He sent me the copy of a speech which, he believed, the President of Israel should address to the Palestinians. In it he was to ask for their pardon for the harm done to them, emphasizing that the Jews did not mean to cause it.
What we have here is a difference of cultures. Sari himself was educated in England (where his father served as Jordanian ambassador) and behaved as Europeans and Israelis would: exchange personal data and leave the rest to the insurance companies. It saves time and trouble, so one can rush on, as demanded by a technological society.
Arab culture is different. In it, honor plays a role, as part of an ancient and wise tradition, designed to prevent blood feuds and bloodshed that can go on for generations.
Nusseibeh has another instructive story. He was asked to join a delegation of notables after an accidental killing. The delegation, numbering some 70 persons, went to the home of the bereaved family, requested forgiveness and asked how much money the family demanded as consolation. The father of the man killed asked for 10 million dinars, a huge sum that the other family was, of course, quite unable to raise. But it was all a part of the ceremony.
"I relinquish 5 millions in the honor of President Yasser Arafat," the father continued, "I relinquish 1 million in honor of..." and so on, until it came down to a reasonable sum. Agreement was reached and bloodshed avoided.
The whole procedure is called Suluh Asha’iri, or tribal conciliation. The "Hudneh", which President Katzav proposed to offer in Ramallah (an initiative aborted by Sharon and Peres), is a part of this process. But this runs counter to the mentality of Israelis, especially Ashkenazis, which goes: "Never apologize, always deny everything, otherwise you will be asked to pay."
Clearly the Zionist enterprise, which sought to save the Jews and create a Jewish homeland, has caused grievous harm to the Palestinian people. The historian Isaac Deutscher tried to describe the course of events by giving an example: "A man lived in the upper floor of a building which caught fire. To save his life, he jumped out of the window and landed on a passer-by below, wounding him badly. Since then, there has been a bloody quarrel between them."
Even if this is not a perfect analogy (as no analogy can be), it is clear that the jumper must recognize the suffering he has caused and apologize to the man hurt. The Palestinian refugees, whose honor was trampled and who lost all, need this very much. An apology is a prerequisite to any practical solution. As the Bible tells us (Proverbs 28, 13): "Whoso confesseth and forsaketh (his sins) shall have mercy."
But this is the most difficult thing for Israelis to do. They are afraid to admit that they even inadvertently caused harm. They want to forget the whole thing and leave it to their insurance company (the United States) to pay compensations.
The insult felt by the Palestinians because of our ignoring the disaster we brought on them is one of the basic reasons of the blood feud, that goes on from generation to generation. It is still killing every day."
July 11, 2002
OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD.
July 14, 2002
Open your Bibles, if you
Open your Bibles, if you would, to Genesis, chapter 23. Read the words there, and travel back in time nearly 4,000 years, to the age of the patriarchs. This chapter concerns Abraham, who is not just any patriarch: he is a patriarch of all three monotheisms, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic alike.
Read More...
July 15, 2002
Back on June 25, the
Back on June 25, the last bit of debris was taken away from Ground Zero. Today, they've stopped looking for the remains of victims at the Fresh Kills landfill over on Staten Island, where all of the debris was taken. Workers there sifted through 1.5 million tons of rubble that arrived in 100,000 truckloads...they catalogued 50,000 personal effects...and so far, 1,200 people have been identified.
The enormity of the task ahead was staggering on September 12. That the task was completed with such rapidity does not lessen the immensity of the effort.
The emotional and psychological carnage of the aftermath among the workers and recovery crews will continue to reverberate for years to come. There are many nightmares ahead for many good people... sweat-tossed sleep interrupted by images all the more terrible for being remembered, rather than imagined... seemingly sourceless anger, lashing out at anyone available... relief sought in the blessed numbness of alcohol or drugs... even suicide, just to make the horror stop.
None of this is a measure of weakness. The task has been accomplished, in spite of the certainty that many would endure these subsequent traumas. The work was done because it needed to be done. The sacrifice of ease of mind was made because someone had to do it. Those who have endured this work deserve the gratitude of not just the victims' friends and family, but of the entire nation. They are civilians who exposed themselves to the horrors of war for the sake of a charred photograph, a bracelet, or an employee ID. Consider that the good thing to find was a piece of a body, because that meant that someone, somewhere, would have certainty.
How much stronger are these men and women of Ground Zero and of Fresh Kills, how much more courageous, than those craven attackers who felt ennobled by an instant's worth of pain, whose 'sacrifice' was over in a moment.
The sacrifice of the recovery workers will continue long after the last of them has left those sites of ruin, wreckage, and death.
"Individual investors," writes William Safire,
"Individual investors," writes William Safire, "Even in an era of pension funds and expert money managers, have a responsibility to assess their risks and to resist the roar of the crowd."
To which I reply faintly, hear hear. Fortunately, finances kept me from dumping money into the Bubble, and I will most probably be entering the market post-bursting...I'm one of Safire's contrarians. That's a good thing. What I find fascinating about the whole debacle--and Safire paints the market's portrait quite well--is that it's a sterling example of what works in this system. Witness the market punishing the ethical lapses of Arthur Andersen. Sure, companies are deserting Andersen for entirely selfish reasons, to avoid guilt by association, but look at the net effect: you do wrong, you get caught, you are punished. Bad company! No profits.
For a supposedly soulless system of supplies and demands, that's a peculiarly moral correction. The same goes for all the other mega-corporations that are even now plotting the best way to come clean, and can see the Wrath of The Market bearing down upon them to punish them for their iniquities.
This is exactly what's supposed to happen. And it started happening before Bush made his speech, before Congress adopted its posture.
None of which, of course, is a comfort to those who got burned...but Safire's got it right. They didn't even have all their eggs in one basket: they only had one egg.
Site maintenance is complete...for now.
Site maintenance is complete...for now. I had to move my archives and my blogfile to a subdirectory, because I suspect that Blogger is somehow screwing up my FrontPage extensions and causing endless headaches for me and my host's tech support folks.
Now, of course, the background image has gone missing from all of my archives. Without a trace! This doesn't make a lick of sense, because the archives and the blogfile are supposed to use the same template.
Hmmm...why am I paying $35 for this Blogger Pro business again...?
If I look out the
If I look out the corner windows on the West side of my building, I can look down into the small park on the other side of Broadway. Before September 11, it was full of trees, about 40 of them, arranged in neat rows, each with its own patch of dirt overlaid with a decorative iron grate set. Folks ate lunch there, played chess, and so forth, enjoying the shade and the green. After the 11th, the trees were taken down. Most of them had been knocked over by the twin concussions of the falling towers: trunks six or seven inches thick, splintered and broken. Then they put a chainlink fence up, and installed some trailer-offices for Tully Construction. It was also used as a parking lot by the workers.
Now, it's mostly empty. I remarked awhile ago that I wanted them to replant with proper trees, not dinky little saplings. The idea of scrawny stripling trees, struggling to grow when all those other trees had already put in so much effort, seemed to me to be just about the saddest thing ever, for some reason
I was wrong.
Looking down into the park just now, I could see the squares of dirt where each tree used to stand. They've started to fill them in with concrete.
July 16, 2002
I love this. It concerns
I love this. It concerns a "stock lockout letter" that Bush signed in April of 1990, agreeing to delay sale of his Harken Energy Corporation stock until at least six months following a planned public offering of that stock. Bush sold his shares two months later.
Even though that public stock offering never happened, even though such letters are often formalities, the claim of a single Houston attorney seems to make this into an "item" of some sort. The lawyer, Thomas R. Ajamie, is part of a firm that is currently advising companies that did business with Enron, and in the past has represented shareholders in stock fraud cases. And, whoops! Among the clients of Schirrmeister Ajamie, LLP is a little company called Halliburton. Which means nothing in and of itself, of course. The site doesn't say what the firm did for Halliburton or when. But it is interesting that Ajamie is trying to skewer Bush while his firm has represented the company that's giving Cheney such headaches at the moment.
According to Ajamie's bio,
"He is sought after as an authority by the media and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, BusinessWeek, Newsweek, Texas Lawyer, Houston Business Journal, and in the book FOOLS' GOLD: THE MAKING OF A GLOBAL MARKET FRAUD."
Just so.
But wait! Carr Bettis, an Associate Research Professor in Arizona State University's Finance Department and an expert on insider trading, is quoted as saying that stock lockout letters are no big deal--executives can get permission to sell even after signing such letters. Certainly, the mere fact that Bush signed one and then sold his shares does not constitute an ethical lapse, which seems to be the suggestion raised by whoever is waving that particular piece of paper around. According to Bettis' bio,
"He is frequently cited as an academic and industry expert on insider trading in popular business press such as the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Smart Money, Dallas Morning News, The Economist, CNN, CNN-fn and CNBC, MSN/Money, and ThomsonFN.com."
So, take your pick. A lawyer who represents shareholders in stock fraud cases while working for a firm associated with Halliburton or an academic economist tucked away in the desert.
All of this quoting and hemming and hawing gets especially funny when you know that Bush sold his stock for $4 a share on June 22, 1990, and that the stock price rose to over $8 a share in 1991. So, even though he sold before the stock dipped to $2 at the end of 1990, if had waited a bit he could have cleared $1.6 million. Surely a savvy insider would have known that, don't you think?
I'm beginning to fail to see the problem, here.
Great heaving sacks of boredom
Great heaving sacks of boredom have been upended onto my flipped-out head. Tiny mites of anxiety hop on my desk. I swat them; they are replaced by infinitesimal amoebas of terror, which is an improvement, but not by much, because if ingested they cause the amoebiasis of despair. I'll wash my hands often today, and think anti-microbial thoughts of the future.
What I need is to be assaulted by a crack-happy squirrel so I's can bust out wid my Glock and pop a cap in its rodential ass. That's what I need. That, and this coffee that I'm drinking here. That's all I need. And some SSRIs, but that's it. You betcha.
Steward! Bring me my Valium and a carton of Luckies. And be quick about it!
*click*
July 17, 2002
From today's Washington Post: "'I've
From today's Washington Post:
"'I've always thought that he's run by big money and that we'd have problems with big business if he won, and now we have them," said Richard Portmann, 65, a retired college instructor who lives in Fergus Falls, Minn. "I think we've got good enough laws to get them if we really want to. But I don't think Bush wants to.'"
I certainly hope that Mr. Portmann wasn't a professor of logic. He seems unaware of the fact that the accounting abuses in question began during the terms of the previous President. Repeat after me, Richard: coincidence is not causality... coincidence is not causality... coincidence is not causality...
However, it does seem that, by and large, the country is keeping this in perspective. Folks think that better enforcement of existing laws is the answer, rather than the creation of a slew of new regulations. They think that Bush has flubbed this one to a certain extent, but that he's still worth their trust. They also think there's more important stuff going on at the moment, like bringing down the hammerfist of righteous American fury upon our enemies and turning them into fig paste. Way to prioritize, America! Woo-hoo! They're also in favor of throwing thieving multimillionaires in jail, putting their immediate family to work in the fast food industry, and taking all their stuff and giving it to Gary Coleman.
July 18, 2002
Huh. The 20th hijacker, who
Huh. The 20th hijacker, who couldn't make it onto his flight and join his brethren in glorious martyrdom, turns out be be a complete moron. What are the odds?
And...well, gosh, that's pretty much
And...well, gosh, that's pretty much all I have to say at the moment. That, and: leave the tower footprints open. Don't build anything on the spaces where the World Trade towers actually stood. Build around, even between...but not on. Only one of the six mostly atrocious plans for rebuilding the WTC does this, the rest totally or partially obscure those spaces.
The memorial ought to be two vast, empty squares of fine green lawn, perhaps delimited by a border of mirror-polished black marble etched with the names of the 2,800 who died that day. So that future visitors can walk to the center of each vast, empty space, look up into the sky, and imagine 110 stories towering above them.
There. That's all I have to say at the moment. Now I'm going to go watch Powerpuff Girls.
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! --The Management
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
--The Management
July 19, 2002
Holy O'Moses what a Xanax-munching
Holy O'Moses what a Xanax-munching day this is, already. Actually, today's stress began last night; hence the extended Argh (TM). Again with the pesky humans trying to communicate and failing. A dozen people are involved in the buying of this house, and words and meanings all fall by the wayside in a slow-moving slurry of garbled intent. That's how it seems, anyway. I'm sure the reality of the situation is very different. After all, I'm just one perception-locus, and I don't have all the data yet. What I do know is that when I show up at the office on my day off, just to be here when a package arrives, intending while I wait to make required phone calls early in the morning to resolve myriad real-estate related problems, and the telephones are out of service... well, that's just more evidence that God, if there is such a thing, loves giving me the Big Thumb In The Eye. And that he thinks that's funny.
Which it is, really. But that's probably just the tranquilizers talking.
However: all of this is mitigated, helped out, and generally made better by the reality of having a Really Swell Partner, who is able to step up to the plate in the midst of her own ball of stress and handle things. Woo! How's that for a frappéd metaphor?
What was intended to be
What was intended to be a short morning at the office filled with stressful phone calls while waiting for a box of goodies from Amazon has turned into a whole day at the office filled with relieving phone calls (the phones work now) while still waiting for a box of goodies from Amazon.
And so it goes.
July 21, 2002
Sunday Spew will be delayed,
Sunday Spew will be delayed, if not pushed off until next week entirely. Today's "rest" will consist of high-tailing it up to my new town and meeting with the Bank People. Fun, fun, fun 'till daddy took my savings away...
In the meantime, do enjoy MoDo's latest offering. She thinks that you're a lowbrow idiot, and that if you watch network television your tiny mind is being corrupted by all-powerful program executives pandering to your basest impulses. She never quite gets around to explaining why it is the responsibility of privately held media corporations to edify the individual.
Within the pure recesses of her correct mind, it seems, she believes that the kidnap, rape, and murder of five year old Samantha Runnion has something to do with network television. Perhaps the television version of the Twinkie Defense is right around the corner. I'm sure MoDo will be all for it. See! Tiny Mind! Manipulated! Think Of The Children!
Way to go, MoDo: use this tragedy and the unfathomable anguish of Samantha Runnion's family to make your moralistic little point about television. Now that's entertainment.
July 22, 2002
Interesting. The NYT reports today
Interesting. The NYT reports today that Israel has agreed to withdraw from Sari Nusseibeh's offices, saying that the action had "brought Israel a rebuke from the Bush administration." They described Nusseibeh as a "moderate," which he is. The article also mentioned that Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, has announced that Israel is prepared to withdraw from some West Bank cities and release 10% of the $600 million in Palestinian funds it froze 22 months ago.
The WaPo also reported the withdrawal from Nusseibeh's offices, but did so in the context of the Peres announcement, putting the Nusseibeh item about a third of the way into the article. The WaPo characterized Nusseibeh as "the chief representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Jerusalem," and offered a detail about the agreement signed with Israel in exchange for reopening his offices: he is not to use the premises for political activity.
The Jerusalem Post quotes Nusseibeh as saying,
"I signed an affirmation that this university is a non-governmental organization, an academic institution. It will not be a representation office for the Palestinian Authority."
They've only inconvenienced him, however. He said he would continue his activities elsewhere. Basically, it boils down to this: Israel is harassing the man. Is it because he shows promise as a possible successor to Arafat, a successor who will be reasonable, intelligent, and humane? In short, a serious partner for peace? I hope not. That would certainly give the lie to any number of Israeli statements about the desired outcome of the situation, especially considering Sharon's repeated (and quite justifiable) insistence that he will not deal with Arafat.
Or are they harassing him because, at the time of the IDF action at his university offices, Nusseibeh was:
"...holding secret talks in Greece with Ami Ayalon, a former chief of the Israeli Shin Bet security service. During the informal meetings, Nusseibeh and Ayalon discussed compromise proposals on some of the thorniest issues dividing the two sides, including the refugee issue. The draft is now being considered by Palestinian intellectuals."
One of the things observers remarked upon during the last-ditch efforts by Clinton to achieve some sort of legacy-making Middle Eastern peace accord was how well the heads of the Israeli and Palestinian security forces got along with each other during the marathon negotiations at Camp David. Not the heads of the military forces, mind you, but of the local police. The people who actually have to implement all of the orders and commands and schemes that the politicians come up with on a day to day basis. Those are the people in the streets, dodging the rocks, firing the bullets, and making the arrests, day in and day out. Those are the people with real, first-hand, practical knowledge of how things are for the ordinary citizens on both sides of the conflict.
And those are the people Nusseibeh is trying to work with.
You can read a translation of a recent interview with Nusseibeh here. It's quite clear that the man is being very, very careful with the words he speaks in Arabic. If, as he claims, Israel is out to crush the Palestinian enterprise, then he's probably a target of the Israelis. If that's not true, then he's still a target of several Palestinian factions and in danger of getting a bullet in the head and being hung by his feet from a lamp post. He's well aware of that.
In Jerusalem, reliable on-the-scene observer Tal G. wrote on July 15 (1:27PM), nearly a week after the IDF closed Nusseibeh's offices:
"I haven't had much to say about the Sari Nusseibeh affair - that's partly because the media here hasn't been giving it a lot of attention. The weekend papers were much more interested in the now dead 'Jewish village' bill. It might be that Nusseibeh has a higher profile abroad than he does here."
Fascinating. A Palestinian of great intellect and insight walks on a razor's edge, putting his life in danger by voicing reasoned opinions about the nature of the conflict and its possible resolutions, and the Israeli media makes nary a peep.
There also wasn't much of a peep here in America about the White House statement concerning Israel's actions of July 9. This is the "rebuke" mentioned in today's NYT, and it was issued on July 10:
"The recent closure of Mr. Sari Nusseibeh's Al Quds University offices in Jerusalem is a troubling event. The President has called for opening the political landscape to moderate voices. This action does not contribute to the fight against terror, does not promote reform of Palestinian institutions or advance the other goals outlined by the President in his June 24, 2002 speech. We are discussing the situation with the Israeli Government."
Which answers the questions I asked on the same day:
"Isn't this the sort of man that President Bush had in mind when he demanded new Palestinian leadership?
Or was that just empty rhetoric?"
The answers seem to be: yes, he is, and no, it wasn't.
July 23, 2002
Having recently lambasted MoDo for
Having recently lambasted MoDo for using a tragedy and the unfathomable anguish of victims' families to make little points, I will now proceed to do much the same thing. Because I am accountable to no one! And I'm not syndicated all over the bloody planet.
With that in mind, let's look at some leads about today's assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Salah Shehada.
From the Washington Post:
"An Israeli F-16 warplane fired a missile into a Gaza City neighborhood tonight and killed at least 15 people, including a militant Hamas leader, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials. More than 100 people were reported injured in the blast."
Number of times "children" are mentioned: two (once in a photo caption).
From the New York Times:
"An Israeli warplane fired a missile early this morning into the Gaza City home of a top leader of the violent group Hamas, killing at least 15 people, including several children, Hamas and hospital officials in Gaza said. Officials said more than 140 people were wounded in the attack."
Number of times "children" are mentioned: five.
From the Jerusalem Post:
"In a targeted strike, Israeli Air Force jets bombed a building in Gaza City early Tuesday killing Hamas military commander and terror mastermind Saleh Shehadeh and 14 other people, including nine children, military sources said."
Number of times "children" are mentioned: three.
From the BBC:
"The militant Palestinian group Hamas has confirmed that the leader of its military wing has been killed in an Israeli air strike on a residential building in Gaza City. Sheikh Salah Shahada was among at least 15 people killed, including eight children, in the missile attack."
Number of times "children" are mentioned: two.
From the Guardian (U.K.)
"Britain, the EU and the UN today condemned Israel's missile attack against the leader of Hamas, as the death toll from the strike rose to at least 15, including at least eight children."
A few hours later, after White House Press spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters, "This heavy handed action does not contribute to peace," and rejected any comparison to civilian casualties incurred during the American action in Afghanistan, the Guardian lead was changed to:
"The US president, George Bush, has joined Britain, the EU, the UN and Arab nations in condemning Israel's missile attack against the leader of Hamas, as the death toll from the strikes rose to at least 15."
Number of times "children" are mentioned in the original story: five. In the revised story: four.
The only paper to mention the fact that Shehada's wife and children were not, in fact, killed in the blast: the New York Times. The only paper to quote Sharon's approval without quoting his expressed regret at the loss of civilian life: the Guardian.
The Guardian also presents us with a screaming purple example of hypocrisy by quoting Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo: "We warned the Israeli government against attacking civilians. The Israeli government is playing with fire."
Now then: this is just a small sampling of accounts from five newspapers in the U.S. and in England. The information is flying fast and furious, changing every couple of hours. Still, the magical incantations of language are visibly at play. Who wants us to know what?
The New York Times and the Guardian want to make very sure that we know that the Israelis killed children in the process of carrying out the assassination: they mention the word five times, and that's not including mention of Shehada's daughters. The New York Times, especially, wants to hammer the point home by quoting someone who "had seen the body parts of several children." The Jerusalem Post also wants us to know about the young victims, but makes it clear that the attack was a "targeted strike."
In its revised story, the Guardian places more emphasis on the American condemnation of the attack, indicating that they want Europeans to know that America Shares Their Outrage.
Who was this Shehada fellow? In a May 27 interview, he is quoted as saying, “We do not target children, the elderly, hospitals, schools or temples, although these temples openly call for killing Muslims." The irony! But most of the references to the man contain some version of the following: 1) Shehada is currently considered as the head of Hamas in Gaza; 2) Security sources say Shehada is close to Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and is in effect the main contact between the organization's political and military wings; and 3) Shehada is personally responsible for most of the attacks carried out by Hamas from Gaza.
Israel wanted to get this guy. So they got him. In the process, they killed seven or eight children and some adult civilians. We all know that "dead children" is a bad thing, no matter whose side you're on. Therefore, the Just The Facts Award goes to The Washington Post. They tell you what's what, then move on, assuming you can make your own judgments and inferences. The Let Us Do Your Thinking For You Award is shared between the Guardian and the New York Times, although the New York Times still thinks that it was nominated for the Just The Facts Award. The Jerusalem Post and the BBC share the We're Restraining Ourselves Somewhat Award.
With all of the carefully couched moralizing and fact-flinging, it is left to Ha'aretz, the Israeli daily, to casually mention the most important tidbit of the day:
"The [Israeli] cabinet was not informed of the decision to assassinate Shehada, and the decision was made by Sharon and Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer alone."
Read that again, if you would.
Although Yitzhak Levy, a Minister representing the National Religious Party, condemned the assassination because the Cabinet wasn't convened, Ha'aretz reports that "several months ago the cabinet gave Sharon a cart blanch [sic] to carry out assassinations without convening the cabinet beforehand."
As a society, Israel has placed the moral burden of extrajudicial assassination--and indeed, of the entire conflict--on one man. There is no due process, here. Prime Minister Sharon is, in effect, General, Judge, and Jury. He occupies a civilian position, yet has been given sole authority over the use of military assets in the pursuit of individuals deemed to be enemies of the state. He will do all of the distasteful and morally questionable things that must be done during this conflict. And, like the generals of other ethical societies, when the war is over he will be shed like an evil cloak and sent off into the desert, bearing the sins of his people with him.
I almost feel sorry for the man.
Almost.
Ooo...ahhh! By way of the
Ooo...ahhh!
By way of the omnipresent clean-toothed Mr. Reynolds comes this forthright bit of sense from The American Prospect about why the Afghanistan/oil/Unocal pipeline conspiracy theorists are full of shit up to the eyebrows. Author Ken Silverstein just lays it out, saying (essentially): it's the economics, stupid!
Like the squinty-eyed idiotic fatheads who think that the American government arranged for the demolition of the WTC and the Pentagon, however, devotees of such theories are unlikely to be convinced by small things like facts and cogent arguments.
Sometimes, I just wanna smack people around, you know? With a ball-peen hammer. Or maybe bit of two-by-four, with some good nails in it.
Whatever's handy.
July 24, 2002
This morning, Ha'Aretz reports: "Senior
This morning, Ha'Aretz reports:
"Senior officials said Wednesday that had Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer known that innocents were in the vicinity of the attack, they would have put off the assassination of Hamas military chief Saleh Shehadeh."
In 1996, Israel's security forces assassinated Yahya Ayyash, known as "The Engineer." Ayyash was a master bomb-maker for the Palestinians. The method? They managed to pack a cell phone in one of his hideouts with 50 grams of high explosive. He took a call, and the phone-bomb was detonated by remote control from a plane flying overhead when Ayyash's voice was positively identified. Horrible. And very, very clever.
Six years later, they can't figure out that dropping a one-ton bomb onto a residential apartment building is going to cause civilian deaths? I don't think so.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom is quoted as saying:
"Anyone who thinks or imagines that the prime minister, the defense minister, or the army chief of staff would have decided on and approved carrying out this attack in this place knowing that this would harm innocent people, simply has no idea what he is talking about."
I watched Dan Rather interview Sharon on CBS in April, shortly after a visit with Colin Powell. Rather asked how the meeting went, and Sharon responded in that muddy voice of his, the words flowing easily: "It was a friendly meeting. I welcomed him to Jerusalem, the capitol of the Jewish people for over 3000 years, and the united and undivided capital of the state of Israel forever." Rather's question was simple. But Sharon's response was a statement of immovable ideological principle. It was unrelated to the subject of the query, and in no way connected to the concerns or curiosity of the man sitting in the chair across from him. I watched him say it, and it rolled off his tongue like a mantra, a memetic incantation, almost a prayer.
I think that Sharon, as one poster at Tal G has written, "made the moral calculus that it was worth civilian casualties in order to kill this Hamas leader." The poster said that "someone" made that calculus. But it was Sharon. Every time something "regrettable" happens in Israel, I think back to April, and his smoothly rhythmic statement. He is, and always has been, a man who will do what is necessary, regardless of the concerns of those around him. People who pretend otherwise are fooling themselves, and need only look at Sharon's long military career to see repeated examples of his necessary actions.
The Israeli people know this. That's why they put him in power: they're frightened, justifiably so, and they want security, which is their right. As a martial culture they appreciate the value of a leader who will take on the moral burden of command and do what needs to be done. They put Sharon in storage after the Lebanon War, and brought him out again when he was needed.
It's a very old, very sad, and very human story.
Mmrgh. Today, all of my
Mmrgh. Today, all of my coffee was soft. Don't know how else to describe it. My ear hurts. Like an incipient ear infection, which I haven't had since I was 11 (for those who think ah, well, no big deal: said ear infections typically ended when my eardrum perforated. That means burst. Popped. Yes, it hurt. A lot.). The weather is good. Not as hot. Rained yesterday, a brief deluge that broke the heat and got my hat wet.
So again, mmrgh. After a brief bit of enthusiasm in the morning, the day has sagged and fallen flat.
Which is a blessing, really, because that's really the worst of my troubles, which means I must live somewhere in the First World with potable water, decent shelter and adequate supplies of food. Everyone should be so lucky.
But: mmrgh.
I DON'T KNOW NOTHIN' ABOUT
I DON'T KNOW NOTHIN' ABOUT BIRTHIN' NO BABIES!!!!
Excuse me. I just had an overwhelming urge to shout that.
July 25, 2002
As it turns out, I
As it turns out, I do have an ear infection of some kind. Deaf on one side. Many thick distasteful fluids seeping. Pain. Must go doctor now. Be back later, write about moral equivalencies.
Or...maybe not. My head is,
Or...maybe not. My head is, how you say, fuzzy at the moment. Good old Tylenol #2! I'm now a walking juggernaut of antibiotic activity. Germs wilt and pop into tiny bits of slime when I breathe on them. My immune system is being bolstered by the awesome capitalist science of American pharmaceutical research. Do you know what a Z-Pak is? It's this thing they've got now: instead of taking a 30-day course of some antibiotic, which means a month of severe intestinal warfare, you take a high-tech time-released five-day course of Azithromycin. Better, faster, cheaper...almost out of control. Downright bionic. The Z-Pak is a clever four-part folding card, with all of the pills in handy blister-bubbles labeled Day 1, Day 2, etc., and all of the instructions are right there for your infected reading pleasure.
Needless to say, I'm still not in much of a mood to write piercingly brilliant bits of commentary. But walking past the TV just now, I heard that businesses in downtown Manhattan are being turned down by insurance companies. Ridiculous. The only major target downtown has already been blown to shit. This, I think, would be the downside of capitalism. But I'm sure they'll work something...out...
Ooo...pretty.
Butterflies!
July 26, 2002
Last night, I dreamed that
Last night, I dreamed that all of the gods returned to earth. Seems they had gone off on holiday for a week, and when they came back two thousand years had passed. There were the really big cheeses like Yahweh, and Allah, but there were also the long-forgotten ones, like Tiamat, and Marduk, and Anubis, along with the more famous Zeus and the rest of his crew. But most of them were has-beens, vaguely remembered for smiting this or that city or increasing the harvest in the fields of some nameless ancient king.
They strode this way and that across the face of the earth, searching for and visiting their various priesthoods. Yahweh accidentally killed the Pope just by showing up: his old ticker just burst like an overripe plum, which, if you're the Pope, has got to be a great way to go. He also visited all of the Jewish Orthodox here in Brooklyn, and they didn't fare too well. "You all look ridiculous." Imagine hearing that from your god when you've done your damndest to fulfill every jot and tittle of the Law. Then it was over to Israel, where he and Allah needed to talk some things over. Allah, for his part, had been running rampant throughout the Near and Far East: "It's just a book, you freaks! And Mohammed got half of it wrong because the man couldn't read!" Then he got into a tussle with Asar, Anbay, Gad, and that whole crew from pre-Islamic Arabia. You could see the dust and smoke from New York.
The most poignant, though, were the ancients: Alilat, Damu, En-uru, Aya, Kamrusepa, Hendursanga, Ama-arhus, Ebech...all of those, remembered now (if at all) only as an inscription on the odd bit of broken brick from a wall long turned to dusty rubble, or as careful incisions on a piece of clay tablet that's behind glass in a museum somewhere. They found each other in the remote deserts of central Africa and got drunk. They talked about old times, when the sacrifices were plentiful and nations rose and fell in accordance with the degree of their faith. The endlessly parched open spaces around them grew verdant with green wheats and burst forth with fruiting trees as the night wore on.
But it was a certain group: Ahriman, Belial, Afrit, Agas, Asmodaios, Edem and Jarri, Iblis and of course Saitan--all of the ones who shouldered the burdens of evil and calamity for so many millennia--who were most glad to see one another. They didn't hang out with the others in the desert. Instead, they shot off to somewhere quiet in the steppes of Central Asia, and they plotted. Most disturbingly, they had gathered with the old war gods--Attar, Chemosh, Burijas, Jamm, Wurunkatte, and the like. They all spoke long into the night, and the next day, and the night after that.
While the other gods were partying, glad to be in one another's company on this earth once again, and checking in to see just how badly their followers had mucked things up in their absence, this last group kept to themselves. They wanted to see how far along their old plans had gotten. And of all the old gods, they were the most pleased with how things were going.
July 28, 2002
We regret to announce that
We regret to announce that due to the sudden onset of pedantic banality, today's scheduled "Sunday Spew" on the subject of Exodus 21 and the recent assassination of Salah Shehada has been delayed. The author is being beaten, and will return to his task as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.
--The Management
July 29, 2002
Yes! I am a temperamental,
Yes! I am a temperamental, half-crazed American! 'Ware my wrath, my PlayStations, my corporate scandal, my laser-guided bad-guy-seeking unilateral missiles that cost more than the GNP of Paraguay! Each! Lo, though I am depressed by the sight of Ground Zero, yet will I cleverly fill the air around mine enemies with volatile aluminum powder and ignite it in their faces! And I will do so with crass, proto-human-browed disdain for twilit European culture, and with elephantine recall of the beaches of Normandy! Ha! And so forth.
If you checked in with Mr. Sullivan this AM, you've probably already read this. If not, then do: Victor Davis Hanson on European attitudes towards America.
In his Ha'Aretz Op-Ed, Defense
In his Ha'Aretz Op-Ed, Defense Editor Ze'ev Schiff attempts to formulate a response to the IDF's assassination of Shehada. Perhaps it's the translation from the Hebrew, but the results seem muddled to me. He notes what I considered last week to be a very important tidbit of information:
"The Gaza incident raises serious questions about the decision-making process during the prosecution of a war. An important decision was made in which the only person actively and directly involved was the prime minister."
But he concludes:
"Now, after two large-scale operations by the IDF, the two sides can be likened to passengers in a car without a driver, with no one to stop it."
It seems to me that Ariel Sharon may actually be in the front passenger seat, if not actually behind the wheel. His ability to take effective action is manifest. Arafat, on the other hand, may or may not actually be in control of anything. Certainly, any action that he takes seems blunted, muddled and ineffective, whether it is the reining in of extremist elements or the organization of free elections.
Schiff also notes that:
"The response to the criticism being directed at Israel suffers from confusion because of the analogy Israel is drawing when it lashes out at its critics by citing the actions of the Palestinian murders who do not balk at snuffing out the lives of infants and the elderly. They deliberately seek out civilians, especially children, to attack, Israel says - whereas we are sliding into a situation in which we don't care if Palestinian civilians are hurt."
I'm not sure that "confusion" is the best word to use here. The lack of regard for human life demonstrated by Palestinian suicide bombers ought not to result in a comparable lack of regard for human life on the part of the Israelis. I say, of course, "ought not." It's quite easy to toss about "oughts" and "shoulds" and moral theories about the respect due to all humanity but, as a friend recently reminded me, we are dealing with human beings here, and they are imperfect, volatile creatures. They cannot be expected to demonstrate Christ-like compassion for their enemies, if I may be forgiven an utterly inappropriate allusion. The moral high ground does not carry the same practical weight as the elevated earth of the Golan heights.
The crux of the matter, it seems to me , is this:
"[...] it should be clear that the murderous behavior of the Palestinians does not justify disregard of the killing of Palestinian children, even if unintentionally [...] there is a contradiction between this disregard of the damage done to the civilian population and another approach espoused by the IDF, according to which the attitude taken toward the Palestinian civilian population will affect the outcome of the campaign and the future of the relations between the two peoples."
So often we hear about the "dignity" and "honor" of the Palestinian people being trampled under the boots of IDF soldiers. Like the aforementioned "oughts" and "shoulds," dignity and honor are ephemeral things, of little practical value. But so much of what has given rise to the most excessive violence in this conflict are things that are of little practical value: the ruined wall of a 2,000 year old temple...the perceived sanctity of the courtyard paving stones of a mosque. Indeed, it can be said that dropping a one-ton bomb to kill a single wanted man is e |
