|
|
October 01, 2002
A reader writes, "Ratting out
A reader writes,
"Ratting out an employee....to her superior....w/ the intent of getting her fired or ruining a day or two of her life....doesn't sound like something you would do....why go over her head.....why not tell her directly? You're intentions are not to better her...or engage her...You want to hurt her....I find that sneaky and appalling....not cool man....to fall into the mentality of tow the line....ideologically....or I'll fuck w/ your life....isn't' American...
She's right: it was a brilliant maneuver....not since the Trojan horse have we seen something like 911...and she's also right....we've done a lot of evil to a lot of people for a very long time....you don't have to be Chomsky to see that....we've been hanging out all safe and warm....while we supplied the IRA w/ everything they needed to commit their evil acts....while we propped up the shah in Iran....to mention Israel is to omit some cruelty...the Saudis are in power because of us.....on and on...add it all up....and a lot of people got killed because of our direct involvement....or because of our indifference to a persistent evil -the IRA for instance- ....this can certainly be interpreted as begging for someone to get pissed off enough and smash us here or there...or what's closer to the truth....is that we didn't give a shit....we didn't think it could ever bite us in the ass....no matter how wrong some of the shit we did was.....say what you like about 911...but you knew it would happen....and you knew why it would happen....and you knew who was going to do it...to play gotcha w/ someone who's not towing the mainstream line of opinion....'us good....them bad'...is just not something I expect from you."
True: "We've done alot of evil to alot of people for the long time." But that's not why we got hit. American foreign policy has given a lot of different people the shaft over the past 100 years or so. But where are the Guatemalan terrorists, flying planes into our buildings? The Indonesian terrorists? The Vietnamese terrorists? The Korean terrorists? The African terrorists? The Chilean terrorists? The Native American terrorists? Why haven't the Irish hit us, for that matter?
We got hit because the Arab Islamic culture is a failed culture that has produced a medieval scourge. We got hit because they've developed a significant religious minority with a worldview that allows them to claim the murder of innocent non-Muslims as a definable good. Not regrettable. Not accidental. A deliberate good, something to be done as pleasing to their God, to be sought out, an act to be intended and planned. And that's the difference between "us and them," and between them and all the other peoples America has messed with over the years. It's a moral difference. It's a difference in how we define what is good, and right. We may not always do the right thing, but we don't celebrate our evil, and we have enough moral sense to hide it if we can, and be ashamed of it if we can't, because we know that people won't stand for it. "They" don't hide it, they're not ashamed of it, and many of their people celebrate it. Harriet echoed that celebration, only she called it "dispassion."
As far as the uniqueness of the September 11 massacre being grounds for assessing it: we'd never seen anything like the fire-bombing of Dresden before, either, but I seriously doubt that Harriet would describe that as "brilliant." We'd never seen a nuclear device used in combat before, but I doubt that she'd voice similar appreciation for Hiroshima.
As I pointed out in my later comments yesterday: voicing such an opinion in casual conversation to a customer in a retail establishment less than 70 miles from New York City is entirely inappropriate. I wasn't having a political discussion with her. I didn't want to know her opinion. I didn't ask for it. She wanted me to know. She offered her assessment unbidden, with no real context, as a "by the way." But this was "By the way, you have to be dispassionate about the brilliance of an act that killed 3,000 men, women and children."
Bullshit. I don't have to be dispassionate about it, and she's an idiot and an ass for telling me so.
All of that talk about how "America's done bad in the world" really means "We deserved it." Did all of these people deserve it? Did I deserve what happened to me, insignificant as it was in comparison?
No, and no. And I'm absolutely sick of people telling me otherwise in the guise of "just voicing an opinion." I won't stand for it.
As for whether what I did was "American" or not: I don't think that taking "dispassionate" satisfaction in the slaughter of our citizens is American, either. So string me up.
Another reader writes (excerpted, hacked-up
Another reader writes (excerpted, hacked-up and posted here entirely without permission, but, I hope, without causing offense):
"Sorry someone at the winery totally ignored the fact you and your girfriend required a little sensitivity and consideration of the issues you are trying to resolve on your move. Just a casual mention of where you used to live....and wow. What a comment.
[...]
The searing part is, you were busy trying to be a decent human being and a good non-descript customer with some neutral chit-chat and you wound up being treated to an embarrassing insensitivity that you never asked for. Not only did you NOT have it coming you were never even warned . The treatment you and your girlfriend received was undeserved and unwarranted in any way. Surprising even. Hope Harriet reads your letter to her boss at the winery. Good Luck."
Which raises a good point that needs 'fessing up to right now: I haven't sent the letter yet. It was printed out, signed, addressed and stamped when I posted my first blog entry yesterday morning, awaiting its journey into a mailbox and its appropriate NEW YORK, NY postmark.
Somehow, I didn't make it to a mailbox yesterday--I didn't leave the office. And, of course, I've slept since then.
So: do I send it? Do I send a different letter?
What, exactly, is the point of all this?
In other conversations, I've been encouraged to: "Think about what you want from this. Is it about Harriet, or the position?"
On the one hand, it's about Harriet. As an interpersonal exchange, that was right down there with meeting, say, David Berkowitz. The woman's son is a Green Beret, for crying out loud! Way to support your kid, there.
On the other hand, it's about her thinking, and those who think like her. I've been told that I might get more satisfaction writing an opinion piece about that issue, rather than personalizing it to the extent that I have.
And the winery does make some really good stuff...
Sigh.
Well, it's finally happened. Or
Well, it's finally happened. Or rather, happened again.
I've snapped.
Gone buggy!
Holy Psychological Disturbance, Batman!
Shut up, old chum! You'll disturb the leeches... in my tights.
I suspect I need a break from this mayhem of writing and ideas and putting myself in the Macy's window. Bit too far out there. Not prudent. Can't have that.
Just when you think you're starting to get over something...baff! comes the knock on the head, and you're down!
I think I need to spend some time in the old orgone collector, yes indeedy.
October 02, 2002
I have received some supportive
I have received some supportive mail regarding the whole Harriet thing. I suppose that I should post some sort of note about how I treat incoming mail--this is the most I've ever gotten on a subject, so I haven't really had to think much about it until now.
It seems to make the most sense to say that I may post, in whole or in part, notes I receive here at Astonished Head. I will do so anonymously, which I think makes things easier all around: no muss, no fuss, no lawsuits, etc. When I get Moveable Type up and running, I'll get a proper comments section, which will solve most of these issues.
That being said, a reader generously offers the following:
"I have to disagree with the writer [of 10/1]. This was a business transaction, not a political discussion. I have written letters like yours myself, and I have mailed them, for much more "dispassionate" reasons, i.e. when I felt I received poor customer service. In this case, from a business standpoint, the employee was doing her employer a disservice by alienating customers and losing potential repeat business. Anyone who has ever worked in direct contact with customers should know better. It would have been different if you had solicited her opinion, but at the very least, her comments were insensitive and offensive. Who knows how many other customers has she offended with her comments.
I commend you for not mailing the letter in order to spare a fellow human being an uncomfortable situation. I don't know that I would have been as kind."
Well...it may have been more due to the fact that I now live in a small town where everybody knows everybody else, rather than any intrinsic kindness in my nature, but I will take the compliment anyway. Compliments are soothing.
Another reader from somewhere in the middle of America makes the following point:
"[...] anyone who says that the attack was 'brilliant' or 'ingenious' or any other such, while condemning the US on our past problems, policies, etc.... is a hypocrite. Any such dispassionate observation about attacks we receive needs to be then leveled upon those that we dish out. If terrorist attacks against us are fine and dandy by moral equivalence standards, any attacks we dish out are also just fine and dandy using the same standards. This does not enter into their heads [...]
About Harriet, she is a representative of the winery, her job is to serve the customers and to make them want to come back and bring further patronage to the winery. Her actions are doing the opposite of that...you should inform the winery of your treatment, as you are most likely not the only one receiving said treatment.
PS. Many sympathies from the heartland, and assurances that not everyone out there is as nutty as Harriet."
That's certainly good to know.
I am also reminded of a point that Lileks (I think) made not too long ago regarding the "violence just breeds more violence" stance taken by so many anti-war folks: why is it that only American violence breeds more violence? Why isn't the Islamic violence of September 11 regarded as breeding "more violence?" Like a BLU-118/B down Bin laden's snout?
The answer is, of course, that only America can do evil in the world. Everybody else is just oppressed.
October 03, 2002
Today I attempt to wire
Today I attempt to wire up the place with CAT-5, in preparation for the installation of DSL and digital TV tomorrow. So I'll be fishing around in walls and snorting fiberglass dust in the eaves for most of the day.
October 07, 2002
Today, I am functioning on
Today, I am functioning on 3 1/2 hours of sleep. I attended a fine, fine wedding yesterday, but somewhere after the fourth blue martini I decided that a cup of coffee would be a really good idea. Which it was, until I tried to get to sleep last night.
So now, everything looks like a Jim Henson production and my head is a big bale o' cotton. Oh, Lordy!
I did receive yet another excellent comment about last week's improperly and immorally politicized winery visit, which I will address when my other brain cell begins firing.
In the meantime, please feel free to recoil in inexpressible horror from the Plush Cthulhu.
Woo-hoo! I've been ripped off.
Woo-hoo! I've been ripped off.
Yes!
A common Western monotheistic theological
A common Western monotheistic theological perspective regarding the nature of justice and righteousness is that there is no perfect justice to be found in this world, and that perfect righteousness belongs to God alone.
From one perspective, this is an unabashed declaration of the reality of both God and the next world. From another, it is a pragmatic recognition of a geopolitical truth: no nation has ever achieved perfect justice in its political dealings or been able to act with perfect righteousness.
Unfortunately, there are people—not pundits or politicians, but ordinary folks—who seem to believe that perfect justice and perfect righteousness are not only possible on this earth, but are to be expected. Folks like Thomas Ng, of Menlo Park, California, who writes in to the Wall Street Journal, and is approvingly quoted over at the aptly named 68.81.138.3:
“In his Oct. 2 editorial-page article, "It's All About Vietnam," Robert L. Bartley dismissed the anti-Iraq war stance of Al Gore and Ted Kennedy as being all about a Vietnam albatross hanging around the Democratic Party's neck. He went to great length to describe how the war in Indochina started and ended. However, he did not do the same for Iraq or Afghanistan. He did not mention how Washington propped up Muslim-extremist "freedom fighters" when the enemy was Russia, or built up Iraq's army and supported a dictator like Saddam Hussein when the other side was archenemy Iran.
How many more dictators and human-rights violators are we willing to support to further American short-term interests? Now that these U.S.-built forces have turned against America, it's too simple to use a lurking Vietnam syndrome to account for all anti-war sentiment. It's natural to be patriotic after losing at least 3,000 innocent lives. But amid an emotional situation, it takes courage for American lawmakers such as Sen. Kennedy to challenge the American attitude that the U.S. is the only rightful leader for the whole world.”
The best that can be said of Mr. Ng’s perspective is that it is naïve, perhaps irredeemably so. America’s “short-term interests” in both cases cannot be extricated from the 50-year context of the cold war with the former Soviet Union. It would indeed be nice, warm and fuzzy if the United States could manage what no nation in the history of the world has ever managed: namely, the perfect execution of its ideals, expressed by perfectly righteous behavior, resulting in perfect justice for all other nations with which it had contact.
That being said, there is not now, nor has there ever been, a nation that has come so close to that impossible goal as America. If Mr. Ng can present another method that could have been used to resist the expansionist totalitarianism of the Soviet Union, he should do so. We were right to resist that ideology, and we were right to use the means that we did, simply because those were, by and large, the only means available to us. Mr. Ng’s belief in the possibility of perfect righteousness and justice in American foreign policy is coupled with a belief that we should also have at our disposal a team of prognosticators and oracles who can foresee the ultimate end of every action that we take.
With missteps of varying moral consequence along the way, we buried the Soviet Union and dispelled the totalitarian oppression that it leveled against its citizenry. Not being godlike, we now have to deal with the consequences of the actions we took to achieve that goal. What Mr. Ng and others who think like him fail to comprehend is that leadership is different from governance. America did not want to dismantle the Soviet Union so that we could take it over; we wanted to dismantle it so that it would cease to be a threat to us and so that its people could govern themselves. Similarly, we have no interest in ruling Afghanistan or Iraq. We will lead the fight, and then leave the people to their own devices. It’s what we did in Germany. It’s what we did in Japan.
Once again, under the guise of “dispassionate” consideration of the events of 11 September, an ordinary American opines that all America truly seeks is hegemony and empire. Nothing could be further from the truth: in fact, we were so unwilling to govern Afghanistan that we—mistakenly, it now turns out—withdrew entirely from the region once we had bled the Soviets enough.
America is the undisputed leader of the free world. Citizens of every country on the globe vote with their feet, coming here to enjoy what we have to offer. Perhaps, in some Star Trek future where replicators supply the material needs of all mankind, we can maintain our freedoms and way of life while acting with perfect righteousness and achieving perfect justice among the nations.
Perhaps the utopian Mr. Ng thinks that we should cede that mantle of leadership to people like Sadaam Hussein. Perhaps he can achieve heaven on earth, where we have failed.
Somehow, I doubt that. I suspect that 20,000 nerve-gassed and genetically damaged Iraqi Kurds would probably agree with me.
On a related note, I
On a related note, I listened to an NPR broadcast of Ted Kennedy's speech on the Senate floor last week, in which he outlined all of his reasons for opposing the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, including: we need a national debate (which we've been having for, oh, the past four months), Iraq is not a threat (never mind the bio-weapons, the nuke program, the financing of terrorists, and the provision of Iraqi military expertise to al-Qaeda), and—my favorite—we should not commit the nation to war with Iraq until we've tried alternative means of achieving our goal of eliminating his WMDs and his WMD programs.
That last one was so ridiculous that I burst out laughing: where there hell have you been for the past decade, Ted?
Then I realized that it must be very difficult to keep track of events in the outside world from the bottom of a bottle of Chivas.
October 08, 2002
A short sampling of online
A short sampling of online homepage leads covering Bush's speech last night in Cincinnati:
The New York Times
Stern Tones, Direct Appeal
"The long list of demands that the president laid out in a purposeful speech set a very tough standard for avoiding war."
Typical. In Raines' World, the speech was about "avoiding war" instead of "avoiding a million incinerated Americans."
The Washington Post
Bush Targets Doubtful Public
"President offers a lawyerly refutation of many doubts Americans have about a confrontation with Iraq."
Hmm. I'm not sure that "target" is the appropriate word to use in this context.
The Los Angeles Times
Bush Tells Nation the Iraq Threat 'Is Simply Too Great'
"Warning that Iraq 'stands alone' as a threat to America because 'it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place,' the president seeks to answer skeptics."
I thought there was much more answering than seeking going on in the speech, but that's just me.
The Guardian (U.K.)
America's great misleader
"Bush's arguments strain the limits of plausibility to justify war on Iraq, and this, says Simon Tisdall, means regime change is imperative - in Washington."
I...oh, why bother.
In related news, the official count of World Trade Center massacre victims has dropped to 2,797. It turns out that Maria Bengochea of Manhattan, Nikola Lampley of Brooklyn, and Germaan Castillo Garcia, also of Brooklyn, aren't actually dead.
October 09, 2002
From Sullivan, I read in
From Sullivan, I read in the Observer that Ron Rosenbaum is as disturbed by the Harriets and Mr. Ngs of the world as I am, although his Harriets and Mr. Ngs are of a different order than mine. It's a good read. I like this bit about ill-considered anti-Americanism:
"The point is, all empires commit crimes; in the past century, ours were by far the lesser of evils. But this sedulous denial of even the possibility of misjudgment in the hierarchy of evils protects and insulates this wing of the Left from an inconvenient reconsideration of whether America actually is the worst force on the planet. This blind spot, this stunning lack of historical perspective, robs much of the American Left of intellectual credibility. And makes it easy for idiocies large and small to be uttered reflexively."
It's that reflexivity, so pervasive that I can't even buy a bottle of wine without encountering it, that bothers me the most. As I've written, my first impulse these days seems to be to retaliate: How dare you abuse the end-product of a million years' worth of neurological evolution by spouting such idiocy? Have at you!
However, as a regular reader and dear friend recently reminded me, "the larger cultural problem...[is] that people who have a desire to honor civilized moral values lack the essential tools needed to know how to do so."
I'll let the Rosenbaums and Sullivans and Hitchens of the country deal with the high-flying pundits and pop-academics who sail blithely onward, propelled by the hot gasses of their own stale, blinkered ideologies. As for me, and the others down here among the hoi polloi (which is simply Greek for "the Many;" no elitism intended...not much, anyway): what to do about the dunderheaded citizen who wants to engage morally with the world but has no idea how to do so in a way that is anything but comfortable? Whose interest is not so much in attempting to discover the truth of a thing as it is in feeling good about themselves? Who is, quite simply, asleep--and likes it that way?
None of which is to imply that all who disagree with me are comfortable idiots with too much self-esteem, mind you. However, I must say that a perusal of Harriet-minded websites and comments made by a multitude of readers seemingly opposed to the very idea that America just might be the best guarantor of liberty the world has ever known does not give me a great deal of confidence that such folks are doing the mental work required to truly adopt and examine their chosen positions.
Sigh. More on this later. Right now I have to go pick up some steroids.
For my ear, wise-ass.
October 11, 2002
Astonished Head is a window
Astonished Head is a window pane that looks really, really good!
Who'da thunk it?
Try it yerself.
There will be various twiddlings
There will be various twiddlings and clunks behind the scenes today, as I attempt to do the whole Moveable Type thing.
October 14, 2002
Uh...OK.
Well. I have wrestled with Moveable Type. I won, but am not unbloodied.
Things seem to be up and running, but (obviously) I'm using a stock template at the moment; archives are not up; some older Bits are not accessible; God knows if comments are working or not.
So I stumble onwards. Apologies for the aesthetic shock of the temporary template.
October 15, 2002
This could take a few days...
Please bear with me while I revamp the site. When it's done, it will be...oh, 27% more fabulous than before. No, wait: 30%. Shoot the moon, that's what I say!
Whoa. Snazzy!
Archives are now up. I really like this here Moveable Type thing. Free! Free from the Evan-handed shackles of Blogger! Now everything's on my own server. It's all there...all mine...mine...my precioussss...
*hic*
Anyway. Astonished Head is now a mutant chimera made up of its old and new selves, lurching through the dark and misty forest looking for a friend. Please don't mob up and chase it with torches; it's a good site, really. It's just misunderstood.
Mostly.
Monthly archives are up. That crazy calendar thing, and the recent entries gizmo over there, aren't working.
But I don't really care about that, because all of that stuff's going away anyhow.
God's Pushing Up Daisies
Andy over at the monkey-ridden World Wide Rant has had a loss of faith. Or, rather, his faith shrivelled up, sloughed off and drifted into the corner with the dust and cat dander.
I don't blame him. This notion of a God who operates in history, and affects the course of human events, is one of the more harmful ideas to survive the cauldron of the ancient Near East. From it springs the ethos of the Chosen People, the violence of Jihad and Crusade, and a few dozen other unpleasant mass human behaviors. Such instances of Monkey Mind are the flip side of prayer: for some folks, believing that God listens to you means that it makes sense to listen to God, and if your God tells you to shave off all your body hair, hop aboard a jetliner with a box cutter, and fly that sucker into a tall building, then you'll do it.
I don't believe in God, either, but I still pray. That's not quite the paradox that it seems to be, because God is just a word. A construct, best illustrated by the monotheistic myths, their polytheistic counterparts, and all of the other legends, creeds, and spooky beliefs produced by cultures the world over for untold millennia. All of them, it seems to me, are attempts by ambulatory packages of proteins and amino acids to explain the wrenching, terrifying, inexplicable experience of being aware of being. Rocks and doors and canisters of frozen orange juice don't get to indulge themselves in such fashion, and even if they did, we'd never know about it because they don't have the means of passing their knowledge of the Divine Inanimate on to others. That's the crucial bit, particularly for the text-based religions. Their idea of God survives independent of any one person's musing, and accretes onto itself thousands of years' worth of human culture and experience.
But that crusty verbiage isn't what I pray to, if I can be said to pray to any "thing" at all. Like Andy, I don't think it makes much sense to beseech the God-word to help you out of a jam: either you'll get out of it or you won't, and it's highly doubtful that the mighty being who toasted the top of Mount Sinai is going to change his plans just for you. Well, shoot: I was going to have Sally get broiled in jet-fuel this morning, but she's praying so nicely that I think I'll clear the smoke a bit, let her find her way to the remaining stairwell and get out just in time. But not that guy Andy. He is so dead. Peace out!
So what's the point of prayer, then?
It depends on what your sense of place in the universe is. For my part, I'm pretty amazed that my consciousness springs from a repeated pattern of atoms arranged into a twisty coil of of a molecule that directs the processes of protein synthesis. To me, that's miraculous. I think about the organization there, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Which doesn't mean that I'm praying to a watchmaker, mind you. But it means that I acknowledge the order of things. I try to be aware of it. Sometimes, I can tell when I'm working against it: I call that sensation "swimming upstream." Often, I can make choices and take actions in my life which relieve that sensation. Other times, I can't, or won't. A bit of praying helps me to figure out what needs doing, or, sometimes, what I should stop doing. And even if I get nothing out of it, I've acknowledged the order of things. That, to me, seems like a good thing to do.
So, what's prayer for?
Several things. It's not a kneel-by-the-bedside-and-primly-fold-the-hands thing that I do. It's an on-the-fly, intuitive, groove-with-the-great-river sort of thing: If it's OK, if it's the way things are supposed to unfold, I'd really like to be able to find my bike in the midst of this choking cloud of dust, and ride out of downtown on it, and find my girlfriend, and make it home to my apartment before they decide to nuke us or crash another plane onto my head. I consider that an effective prayer because, as it turns it, it was OK, and exactly the way things were supposed to unfold. The prayer kept me focused, kept me from dropping and losing the keys to my bike locks, kept me from turning the wrong way in the suddenly black morning and crashing into wreckage or some such thing. Very cool.
So yeah, I talk to God. Sometimes, God talks back, which is a different order of experience and one I won't go into right now, because it's freaky and probably means that I need a neurologist pretty damn quick. But I don't make the mistake of thinking that God's 'plan' is anything that I would like, or want, or need, or understand, or could possibly have any influence over. God's not hanging out in the sky keeping track of the sparrows and bodies as they fall. God's not hanging out anywhere, really. Which can be sad, and lonely, and small. But sometimes, like on a windy day five years ago when I heard a voice ask me Are you ready? and I answered Yes...I think, it's joyful, and expansive, and infinite.
October 16, 2002
AL BUSAYYAH, Iraq, Oct. 16--
AL BUSAYYAH, Iraq, Oct. 16--
Residents of this small town in southern Iraq's Al Muthanna province were startled to hear of Iraqi President Sadaam Hussein's unanimous victory in yesterday's referendum.
"We were confused by the ballot," said 54-year old Abdul Majid Janabi. "So many of us mistakenly cast our ballots for Al Gore."
Anticipating war, Mr. Janabi and his neighbors have spent the past six months educating themselves about the American system of government. "We wanted to better understand our enemy," he explained. "But gradually, we came to realize that the Americans had a pretty good idea." The students of democracy were particularly taken with the idea of a 'write-in candidate.'
When the referendum was announced, they decided to apply their knowledge. "We knew that your Democrats David Bonior and Jim McDermott had been to Baghdad, and were guests of Sadaam," said Kamil Najaf, 38, grocer and neighbor of Mr. Janabi. "And we also knew of the difficulty that the Democratic leader, Al-gore, had when our enemy Bush took over the American government by coup. So we thought that we would assist him by voting for him here."
Mr. Janabi and Mr. Najaf both admit to being unsure about the exact nature of the American voting process. "We assumed that a ballot was a ballot," said Janabi. "We felt that we could support Sadaam by expressing support for his American guests and their defeated leader. The enemy of our enemy is our friend, yes?"
"Apparently, this is not how the ballot works here in Iraq," added Mr. Najaf.
As of this morning, neither Mr. Janabi nor Mr. Najaf could be located for further comment, and Al Busayah has been quarantined by Iraqi defense forces due to a sudden virulent outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease in the region's goat herds.
October 17, 2002
Hmm.
I see that traffic is up for some reason, which is a shame because (as always) the site's not quite up to snuff, what with being halfway between the New Super Spiffy Astonished Head and the Old And Busted Astonished Head. Soon there will be more niftiness. I promise.
Some mild observations of no particular importance:
During an NPR report on yesterday's bomb explosions in the Philippines, the BBC correspondent mentioned that the acts are being blamed on the Abu Sayyaf group. He then went on to say, "America considers the organization terrorists because of their association with Osama Bin Laden." You could almost hear the sneer-quotes.
Actually, we consider them terrorists because they do things like bomb cathedrals, massacre Christians, and kidnap people and cut off their heads. Another punch in the head for the BBC, please.
In the course of the NYT's story on North Korea's admission to makin' the Big Nasty Boom-Booms, we get this paragraph:
"The idea of a North Korean nuclear arsenal immediately alters the delicate nuclear balance in Asia and confronts the Bush administration with two simultaneous crises involving nations developing weapons of mass destruction: one in Iraq, the other on the Korean Peninsula."
Can you hear it? See? We told you! Look! Now there's two parts of the Evil Axis to deal with! What're you going to do now, you dumb cowpoke?
Well, if the North Koreans had produced a sect that was knocking down American skyscrapers and punching holes in the sides of our destroyers with explosive rubber dinghies, I'd be a bit more concerned. But they haven't, and won't, so I think we can avoid the terribly complicated "prospect of fighting a two-front war."
Sigh. Back to spackling.
October 18, 2002
Cringey Days
Wednesday was a cringey day. Any time that I was outside, particularly as I walked along the chain-linked corridor that borders the Southern edge of Ground Zero, I cringed. I felt my face scrunch up in anticipation, and the side of my body that faced a potential threat--a panel truck, or trashcan, or the yawning foundation of the WTC--turned slightly away, ready to hurl itself to safety if necessary. Wednesday was also a stormy, rainy, windy day, so I bolstered my soul by standing atop the ferry at the end of the day, facing into the cold driving rain. It made me laugh aloud: Yes! Everyone else rode below decks, in shelter, so I was alone with the river, the rain, the wind and the foggy mists. I was wearing a heavily lined black leather trenchcoat and my prescription sunglasses (because I've lost my regular glasses), so I probably looked like quite the loon, grinning and hatless in the weather.
Today, back in the city for an extra day, I read of CIA Director George Tenet saying, essentially, Hey! We may have screwed up last summer, but man, these terrorist guys are bad-asses! Multi-theater bad-asses! They're attacking! They'll attack again! Look out! Threat color infrared! He might as well wear a hat with a revolving red light on it and do a little dance on the table, going Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!
So more cringing, today, as I leave my Pea at the Hoboken ferry docks so she can hop aboard a crowded PATH train and head into SoHo while I take my morning boat ride, confronted with the truncated skyline at the bow. In DC there's a loon of undetermined nationality with a rifle popping random people in the head. In Kuwait they're taking potshots at our troops. In the Gulf they're blowing up oil tankers. In Bali they're blowing up Australians, and in the Philippines they're blowing up Shop-O-Rama customers.
Make no mistake about it: it's a bad time. It's not even interesting in the ironic Chinese sense. Just tense. I've a good friend who's seen a lot of life--including WWII--who told me that a few months ago. It's a bad time. This from a guy who remembers the original Axis, along with Korea, Cuba and Vietnam. His main point was that previously, particularly in WWII, we had Allies. They stood with us, or rather, we stood with them. Today, only Britain remembers, and Australia will now do what it can. The rest of the world snipes and sits on their asses and hopes that it will all go away, and, in its darker heart, fondles the idea that when it does go away, perhaps it will take us with it.
So, once again, America will do what needs to be done, shed our blood, spend our money, fire off our ordnance.
Meanwhile, I avoid walking too close to the Stock Exchange, and the Federal Reserve, and large panel trucks, and outdoor trash cans, and...
Getting Squashed
Go read about Deb and her maybe-Zumpkin. It's a cringe-counteragent.
Mucking about.
I'm working on the site for awhile, so don't be distressed if it explodes.
Ha! My first smallish victory in my battle against the vicious template beast. Avast! Have at you! Oof! Take that! And that!
Scurvy code, I thrash thee with thy own variables!!!
Looks like I foshed the Commentarium. Apologies.
Oh, my wretched head...I am bested, for now. I will have to leave this ugliness in place for the weekend, then return to repair it next week.
October 21, 2002
"Bones, there's a...thing out there."
--Captain J. T. Kirk
Sigh. Nope. Better, but not quite right.
It's appropriate that, while I struggle with the bits and bytes of template HTML and Moveable Type's nifty Perl modules, I am also--still--in the process of painting rooms and refinishing floors. Late yesterday I removed the last of the horribly misplaced linoleum from the ground floor hallway.
Linoleum should only be in two places: the kitchen and the bathroom. Nowhere else. Ever. When we moved in, there was linoleum in the kitchen, the bathroom, the hallway outside the bathroom, and the bedroom. The bedroom. Utter lunacy. Fortunately, like so much of the other "work" that had been inflicted on the place, the bedroom linoleum was poorly installed, just tacked down along the edges. This prompted a gleeful orgy of linoleum-ripping less than half an hour after we closed on the house.
Not so the hallway. There, inexplicably, former owner Drunken Biker had decided to use many, many nails to fasten the underlayment to the oak flooring beneath before applying the terrible self-adhesive squares to it. So, I was forced to deploy the amateur home renovator's ultimate weapon, the clandestine North Korean nuke of tools:
The Stanley Wonderbar. Model 55515.
With this bar I peeled back well-adhered lineoleum. I smashed three-layer plywood. I wrenched inappropriate nails from their oaken embrace. I held it aloft and danced upon the splintered remains of my enemy floor surface.
You should get one, just to have around. Even if you don't have anything to renovate just now, it's good for smashing skulls and prying apart frozen porkchops, too.
Woo-hoo! Monthly archives are up. The Biblical Pedantry button works, too.
I'm just swimming in functionality, here.
October 22, 2002
Biblical archaeology has a long and colorful history, full of intelligent people with conclusions, digging in the Near Eastern dirt for evidence to support them. The latest discovery is no exception.
An empty ossuary--essentially, a bone-box--has been discovered, bearing the Aramaic inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." Actually, it wasn't discovered so much as 'revealed;' it was purchased by a still-anonymous collector from an Arab antiquities dealer some 15 years ago. The type of Aramaic, and the fact that Jerusalem-area Jews practiced ossuary burials only between 20 and 70 AD, puts the ossuary squarely in the first century AD.
The Washington Post reports that Andre Lemaire, the French scholar who has published his findings in Biblical Archaeology Review, said that it is "very probable" that the inscription refers to Jesus of Nazareth.
Later in the same article, Lemaire estimates that although the three names on the ossuary were commonplace, "only 20 Jameses in Jerusalem during that era would have had a father named Joseph and a brother named Jesus."
Um...doesn't that mean, then, that right off the bat there's a one-in-twenty shot? That's 5%. The probability goes up because of the unusual naming of the brother on the ossuary, but that still doesn't account for the possibility that this particular Jesus just owned the tomb, or conducted the burial, and didn't get nailed to a tree for our sins and so forth.
Then, the penultimate paragraph:
"Lemaire, who was raised Roman Catholic, said his faith did not affect his judgment, since he studies inscriptions only 'as a historian – that is, comparing them critically with other sources.'"
Uh-huh. I'm sure that faith had nothing to do with claiming an anonymously-owned ossuary with absolutely no provenance for the past 19 centuries as a reference to Jesus Christ. Neither did academic ambition, or any of the other myriad human foibles that enter into such investigations.
That's what's cool about hard science: it's all about replication of results. Pass that old bone-box on to others, Andre, and let them have a look.
I'm with Herschel Shanks, the editor of BAR, on this one:
"Something so startling, so earth-shattering, raises questions about its authenticity."
[Of course, Herschel Shanks did publish Lemaire's results, so I think his comment was intended to explain the skepticism, rather than express his own doubts.
D'oh! --IAW]
October 23, 2002
Of course, one of the downsides of being free from Blogger is that when things aren't working right on the server-side, it's entirely my responsibility.
The A-Head server, located in lovely arid Utah, seems to be a little flaky today, so be prepared for unexpected total lack of working-properly-ness.
I'm also trying to repair the Commentarium, which I destroyed earlier this week while defending the earth from an invasion of HTML-based alien lifeforms.
Thank you for your patience, and that box of parti-colored petit-fours that someone sent.
And yes, I know that the Monthly Archives section is goofy-looking. I'll fix it later.
Mmm…disquiet.
And fatness! Too much eaten today, and it compliments the slow languid motions of my brain. An uncomfortable conversation with a co-worker, a fellow 9/11 witness who today seemed to have retained her pre-massacre worldview to the point that the tropes fell easily from her lips: "Bush...hasn't made the case...administration marinated in oil...lining their pockets..." and so forth. This is not a dumb person, mind you, far from it, but it took effort for me to resist visiting the wrath upon her that I should have visited upon Harriet the Chomskyite Winery Woman.
What, exactly, does the nebulous charge that the administration "lines its pockets" have to do with Sadaam Hussein? What, exactly, is the "case" that you would like to see made? Does it involve fallout over Seattle or Miami, perhaps?
This is unusual because, in the past, there has been a great deal of commiseration between the two of us, based upon our shared experience of that day in September. We've had many good and meaningful conversations about the experience, and about the way the world--personal and otherwise--has changed since then. But today, I trailed off back to my desk, out of sorts.
In all honesty, I think the state of the world is making her tired. She has children, a husband, and unlike me cannot simply pull up stakes and flee to safer realms surrounded by peacenik wineries and picturesque misty morning hills. The sniper, in particular, seemed to be adding to her malaise this afternoon. I do understand what she means: it's all gone bad, it seems. The world is now obviously well-populated with rampaging evil lunatics. Before last September, such denizens were theoretical abstractions. Now, they knock down buildings and put bullets into peoples' heads as they pump gas or wait for a bus. There's no hiding from it; it's everywhere. It's not enough to get thrown to the ground when 100,000 tons of skyscraper hits the street; it's not enough to get your lips bashed open and your head cracked against the sidewalk. Now the evil wants to get itself in the papers every day, to get in your face, to thumb its nose at you and fart.
That's sort of how evil works. Many have said that evil shuns the light, but I think that's only true for a time. Eventually, evil, particularly human evil, seeks disclosure. It needs to be observed, and it doesn't like to be alone. Good is a radiant outpouring. Evil is a black sucking maw. It drags you in and tries to soil your clothes and smear your face with dark muck, it wants to muss your hair and make you sick and nauseous. Evil wants to make you like it is, it seeks to make you resemble it. That's why the portion of the anti-war crowd that accuses the war supporters of liking war, of desiring it, of seeking it out, is such a reprehensible, smarmy group. Theirs is a clunky thinking that cannot parse the greater evil from the lesser, cannot make the distinction between terrible necessity and pure utopian idealism. To accuse those who have resigned themselves to taking action against Sadaam Hussein of warmongering is, essentially, ad hominem. It's an accusation based on the fatuous notion that one can only be moral if one disavows war, one can only have a conscience if one refuses to take a violent stand. Perhaps in some distant future when we've discovered how to get abundant energy from the radiation of deep space, and can grow grain from stones, such an ethos might have a practical chance in hell. But not today.
I think that I understand my friend: brushing up against evil in so thunderous a fashion has changed her. It clings to her, as it clings to me. It gnaws, and seeks to stifle her. There's a lunatic with a rifle threatening to shoot children: again, the gnawing, the smothering. And so it is with war, also an evil, but of a different sort. No matter what the cause or justification, the notion also gnaws, and soils. She wants to turn away from it, which is a good and decent impulse.
But she can't, not really. None of us can. And that, I think, is the enduring, infuriating legacy of last September: evil has dragged us into its cave, and we're going to get thoroughly filthy as we struggle to get back out.
October 25, 2002
Hey hey! The Commentarium is now working. Doesn't look the way it should, but it least it's operational. Big late-night pat on the back for me.
Of course, in the process of rejiggering that, I fotzed all the graphics for the monthly archive pages. But at least I know how to fix that.
But I won't, not now. Sleepy. Must...rest...bat-head!
So far this morning, a talking-head on CNN has wondered aloud about the lack of attention being paid to Muhammed's Nation of Islam connection. Then, via Our Friends at NPR, I heard a former associate of Muhammed's--with whom he opened a karate school--remarking in a telephone interview that Muhammed "was not happy with the government, I could tell that." Also noted was Muhammed's Gulf War service; he was described as a "good soldier," and had receieved a commendation.
Of course, he was trained as a combat engineer, and not a sniper. There's already information floating around (with a handy diagram provided by CNN) that he had converted the Chevy Caprice in which he and Malvo were found into a prone shooting position. He had two holes in the trunk, through which the rifle barrel and scope could protrude, and took his shots by folding down the rear seat and strecthing out in the trunk.
So: the sniper is a nomadic African American who converted to Islam 17-years ago, served in the Army from '85 to '94, served in the Gulf War, provided security at the '95 Million Man March in DC, and has been through a couple of nasty divorces. At one point, it was reported that the person the police were talking with via telephone was demanding millions in cash. The victims were of all ages and races.
I think what we've got here is a loon with a gun. A miserable, insane son-of-a-bitch who hated the world.
The thing that always struck me about Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the September 11 thugs, was his eyes. Have a look. There's something about them, isn't there? Creepy. Sort of dead-looking.
Below is the sniper suspect. Check out the eyes. This is an old photo, from his military service days. But there's something similar, there.
Perhaps it's the set of the face. Then again, maybe it's just that I know they're both murdering bastards.
Images are funny that way: a bunch of neutral pixels, arranged just so, can become a repository for the perceptions of the viewer. Would I think that either image was cold and creepy if I didn't already know that the person depicted therein was cold and creepy?
Andrew Sullivan really wants to call Sniper Muhammed an Islamic terrorist, but he's restraining himself...slightly:
"So we have a Muslim convert, sympathetic to the murderers of 9/11, terrorizing the nation's capital, and coming close to shutting its daily life down. I don't see that it matters whether he was formally a member of al Qaeda or some other group. In fact, it's more disturbing if he is not."
Actually, it does matter. A formal member of a terrorist group has accomplices, access to funds and planning resources, and is able to do things like hijack airliners and fly them into buildings. Muhammed appears to be an unstable individual who decided to become a self-styled terrorist. His accomplice was a 17-year old Jamaican boy. His capital outlay was maybe $1500 for the gun (I'm guessing) and $250 for a Chevy Caprice bought at a seizure sale. His total was 11 dead and 2 wounded.
A wackjob who suddenly decides to puff himself up and solve his anger management problems by becoming a terrorist fellow traveller is a bad thing, no question. But an organized cell of five or more ideologically driven religious fanatics with access to large amounts of cash and terrorist military training is altogether different.
I'm far more disturbed by a purposefully organized movement dedicated to the murder of as many Americans as possible than I am by a lone psychopath driven over the edge by ugly events in the world. Lone psycopaths can snap anywhere, at any time, and don't need to be Muslims to do so. They're like natural forces, almost, representatives of the wrong end of the human psychological bell curve. Organized terrorists are of a different order entirely. An organized Fifth Column of American terrorist sympathizers is similarly different, but that's not what we've got here.
[Not even $1500 for the rifle. More like $800, says the NYT. -IAW]
Reynolds and others are wondering what a homeless unemployed man was doing flitting off to Jamaica, and where he got the money for the trip, not to mention the rifle and Caprice.
Good question.
And, as if to accompany the recent slew of human evil, evil fate drops by to say hello: Senator Paul Wellstone, along with his wife, his daughter, and several staffers, died in a plane crash just a few hours ago.
I don't know a damn thing about his politics, really, but the death of any leader of our nation is occasion for pause, and grief.
October 28, 2002
There seems to be some trouble with the A-Head server, with much reduced performance for certain functions. Apologies. Hopefully, this will be tended to when the folks in Utah arrive at work.
OK...everything seems to be in order now. Except my head. Too late to pontificate, and so forth.
October 29, 2002
One morning, some proto-human staggered out from his cave, scratched his hairy evolving ass, looked up at the big big sky with an inquisitively squinted eye and said, “Mrrrrgh…” This was the beginning of religion and, eventually, science. Mrrrrgh is the primordial phoneme of human curiosity. It is also the noise of getting up much too early in the morning and being confronted with a world that seems not-quite-ready to be experienced or observed, which in turn necessitates the ingestion of vast amounts of water that has been filtered through a coarse powder made from the half-burnt berries of the Coffea arabica plant. Such is the state of my pancake-bloated brain and sleepy belly this morning, having wandered through Hoboken, crossed the river and plopped down before my computer monitor with little or no detectable electrical activity in my synapses.
Please, say it with me: mrrrrgh.
October 30, 2002
Sullivan writes a bit about the "loony left" in today's Salon, marking the first time in several months that I've found something worth a read on the pages of that penny-stock online rag. He focuses on journalism professor Michael Niman's I'm- not- saying- Wellstone- was- murdered- but- if- he- was- it- was- by- the- thuggish- unelected- Bushite- regime- and- we- need- to- know theory, which he characterizes as "perfectly within the orbit of respectable left-wing opinion."
I myself get hives and twitches every time I venture forth into the label-laden minefield of contemporary American politics, but--because the universe revolves around me--Sullivan's miniature snarkfest reminded me once again of Harriet the Chomskyite Winery Woman. Sullivan makes no attempt to refute Niman's wackiness, but that's sort of the point: it's Self-refuting Wackiness (plus, if you act now, get a free 64-ounce tub of easy-to-apply Conspiratorial Blathering!).
Nevertheless, this sort of thing drives me loopy. I feel like something ought to be done about such nonsense-spouters, which is probably a character flaw. They need to be grabbed by the shoulders and shaken like a red-haired stepchild until something snaps in their brains and the light of reason illuminates the wacky recesses of their thinking. But I was so saturated with the Very Progressive Worldview that inundated each and every academic institution I attended that a small voice continually peeps up and chides, Well what is 'reason,' anyway? Who are you to go about shaking people and snapping their brains, hmmm?
I'd retreat into Socratic interlocution--a solid, worthy method and a redoubt of rationality--but, to be honest, I just can't maintain the fiction. The dirty-footed Athenian gadfly steadfastly maintained his ignorance, and sought the truth of a given position by posing questions designed to expose the flaw of the argument, all the while seeking to be taught. I thought of his pug-nosed methods when I came across this random bit of fluff--ostensibly a discussion about shrinking liberties in America--in which one participant dances, bobs and weaves, tossing little packages of dung onto the mat labeled "America is fascist" while rhetorically directing attention elsewhere, never quite saying what his position is. But that position is plainly visible: America is morally corrupt and terrorism is a direct result of the American worldview, which is "power for the few and suffering and labor for the many." All of the arguments stem from this apparent axiom, yet they are so couched in florid turns of phrase and distracting rhetorical fillips that I can say, with near-total certainty, that any attempt at some semblance of Socratic dialogue would be completely, utterly pointless. Not to mention annoying. I don't have the patience to undergo the process, which, admittedly, would probably be instructive, if only in a methodological sense.
Because of this sort of thinking, I've been accused of being arrogant, condescending, and an ass, all of which have probably been true at one time or another. It's a mistake, or at least the foundation of neurosis, to grapple with the problem of how to engage such firmly-rooted ideologues while regarding the goal of such engagement as a dialectical confrontation with the inherent wackiness of the ideology in question. Even if properly done, such engagement is, unfortunately, not something suited to my current temperament, although that could change as the medications kick in.
I think it must offend my sense of order in the world: to know that there are Harriets and Nimans out there, spinning their fluffy ideas like tasty nutrient-deficient cotton candy, getting everything all pink and blue and sticky with wackiness; knowing, also, that there's really nothing I can do to prevent it that doesn't involve the Gestapo or something like it. We certainly can't have that, so I'm left with a sense of frustration and the vague hope that someone else will take care of it, or that events will simply smack people in the head and convince them through the sheer, unavoidable force of reality.
And there's that little, irritating, sophomoric voice again: Yeah, but what's reality?
I've always said that if I ever have a conversation in bar that degenerates to the point where someone poses that question, I will drain whatever beer I'm drinking, and smash the bottle upon the head of the questioner. That's reality, I will say to them.
And the light of reason will dawn as they slump to the floor.
But that's just a fascist fantasy of mine, I guess.
The Religious & Political Buffoonery, Biblical Pedantry, Miscellaneous Verbiage and Monthly Archives buttons are now functional. There's nothing that's actually new there, mind you. Apologies.
October 31, 2002
Today, I want to talk about coffee. Or rather, the un-coffee. The Budweiser-piss of coffees. I'm referring, of course, to the FLAVIA® Beverage System.
We used to have coffee grinders here at the office. Dump a pound of shiny oily beans into the big big bin. Pop a snow-white filter into the filter cup. Slide it into place under the grinder spout, and push the button. Wonderful crunchy mechanical noise ensues, and equally wonderful freshly-pulverized coffee pours into the paper filter, a beautiful fragrant bounty of stimulating goodness. Extra-tired this morning? Hit that button again! Then scoop about half of the extra grounds out, so that the resultant brew doesn't remove the lining of your esophagus. Save those leftover grounds for tomorrow. Grab a coffeepot full of water from the water cooler (Never make coffee from faucet water. Faucet water has chlorine and a billion other things in it that make for an evil brew). Pour that water into the shiny, three-burner Bunn brewer. Watch while pleasant gurglings and friendly steam ensue. I always stuck my cup under the spout, to catch the first, freshly-dark outpourings, then *fwip* swapped my cup for the coffee-pot, ultra quick-like. For all that, I only needed a half, or maybe three-quarters of a cup...four, maybe five ounces. But: Mmmm...caffeinated.
Compare that to:
"Every FLAVIA® beverage is brewed fresh on the spot - from fresh gourmet coffees...which have been sealed, free from oxygen, in our unique FLAVIA® Filterpacks."
Filterpacks? What modern horror is this? I'll tell you. A "filterpack" is an utterly non-recyclable flat pouch made from a layered plastic and mylar. At the top is a small plastic knob-nozzle device. An insufficient amount of preground coffee is hidden away inside. Select a coffee variety--say, French Roast--from a rack of dozens of these packets, each tray conveniently labelled with a "Strength/Force" rating, on a scale of 1 to 5, which I suppose is intended to convince us that there's some difference between "French Roast," "Columbian," and "Costa Rica." Then, approach the machine. It... sort of looks like a coffee-maker. There are three buttons: "Coffee or Tea," "Espresso-style Coffee," and "Choco." Warily push the "Espresso-style Coffee" button. Look out! A small hatch springs open with a Star Trek servo whir. Don't be alarmed: it wants the filterpack. Put it in. Close the hatch. There are various clunks, hisses and gurglings. Inside the machine, hot city-supplied water is injected into the filterpack through the small plastic knob-nozzle device. The filterpack expands, revealing the "filter" part of the technology: it's hidden in the bottom of the pack. The coffee is being brewed in the filterpack. Finally, an anemic, pale-brown fluid dribbles forth, slowly and first, then with a bit more energy, finally spluttering out, spent. A pause, then a mechanical crunching as the spent, bloated filterpack is sucked into the bowels of the machine. Repeat the process: the "Espresso-Style Coffee" button provides perhaps three ounces of somewhat drinkable coffee-style fluid, and more is required to achieve the requisite stimulant dosage. For an on-the-edge experience, mix French Roast Espresso-style coffee with a filterpack of Irish Creme Espresso-style coffee, or some Hazelnut Espresso-style coffee.
I don't know what the "Coffee or tea" button provides. It can't be good. And "Choco?" Mostly sugar, with some cocoa processed with alkali, a dash of dipotassium phosphate, some silicon dioxide. Good, European-style cocoa, just like Grandma Bloch used to make.
This entire mechanized industrial coffee delivery system was created in 1985 by Mars, the candybar folks. There is a "FLAVIA® Way," which, while not requiring me to learn levitation skills from a small green swamp-bound puppet, is apparently intended to "satisfy my thirst for individuality." Unfortunately, such thirst is not quenched by a selection of identically-styled plastico-metallic filterpacks filled with asphyxiated preground coffee from a factory in Philadelphia.
I repudiate the FLAVIA® Way! I turn to the dark-roasted side! I give in to my anger and hatred of the whole new method of approaching office beverage and coffee service!
But they took our grinders and Bunn machines away. Now I am forced to endure the FLAVIA® Way. FLAVIA® caffeine is different from fresh caffeine, I am certain. Too much of the old, fine coffee gave me pangs of anxiety and twitchiness. Too much FLAVIA® makes me sweaty and feel like I need to go out and get some crack before the stuff wears off.
I suppose I could buy a cup from one of the two Starbucks around here...or the two or three other, non-Starbucks-style coffee joints.
But the FLAVIA® is free.
Mmmm...complimentary low-quality caffeine...
|
