nce there was a long-haired, overfair leaping gnome, who had a synthesizer, a 12-string electric-acoustic guitar, some freaky effects pedals and a four-speaker stereo system. He holed up in a stolen room in a New Jersey suburb with a bong, some bong-stuffing, and a couple of sheets of ant-acid (no, really--the blotter paper had a little ant on each square, all on a spiral march towards the center of the sheet). He played psychedelic quadraphonic guitar and far-out New Age electronic tuneage. He put the Major Arcanas of four different Tarot decks up on the baseboard heater-grimed walls. He made a pagan altar out of the thick cross-section of a pine tree that had been growing in a cemetery, burning a cardinal circle and the phases of the moon into its smooth-sanded top, and finishing it off with a dark stain from Minwax. He slept on a mattress on the floor and, later, on a much more comfortable massage table. He hung out with people who believed in energy and light and the power of pendulums. He sat in circle with these people and mispronounced Lakota Sioux words. He smoked a peace pipe. He sweated in sweat lodges, learned reflexology, and went to massage school. He was going to be a healer.

That leaping gnome was me, of course.

Lately, I've wondered where he's gone off to.

I have made a map of the geography of my dreams, and I carry it in my head. I plot new locations on it as I come across them while I sleep. It resembles a map from the front pages of any one of a dozen fantasy paperbacks, all emulating Tolkien's maps of Middle Earth: thickly-lined, with trackless empty spaces and blunt iconography for mountains, rivers, and cities. My dreamscape map is colorful, a bit cartoonish. Each individual place on it is represented by a little caricature, with tiny structures or natural features. Towards the bottom are the fields and forests that I've been to in my sleep, each reminding me of some location near my childhood home. Off to one side is the strange house I visited twice several years ago, dark on the inside, with the coruscating neon walls and the strange, feminine essence in the closed room at the top of the stairs. A bit to the right is another odd house I've visited, the Frankenstein-Victorian up on stilts with the oddly tacked-on additions and the cats in the windows. There are many other places...landscapes, strange vistas, towns, or sometimes just a nebulous area that appears different each time I visit, but occupies the same space on the map. Real places--like my house, or my old apartment--usually don't merit a place on the map. It's the symbolic places, the deep and mythic locations made up from my own self and mind, that end up there.

I've been adding to the map for many years, now, and I can usually take it with me while I sleep. There are only certain types of dreams in which I can consult the map--resonant dreams, in which I'm partially aware that I'm dreaming. Often in those dreams I'm able to plot a given location in relation to the other places I've been. My map is incomplete, like an early eighteenth-century cartographer's depiction of the East coast of America, where the Western shores of China are just beyond the narrow, imagined shore of the ocean that has replaced the rest of the continent. But my dreamscape map's incompleteness conveys a sense of progression, a journey that my sleeping self undertakes continuously, even while I am awake.

I find that there's a new place on the map, now, towards the top...a city of broad avenues and sprawling plazas, bounded by water, and dominated by either two shimmering towers or a vast, ruined crater in the ground. I visited that place again a few nights ago...wandering along the impossibly wide, pale-bricked plaza that surrounds those towers, looking up at their sheer-walled height and knowing that I needed to get away from them, quickly, now, before It happened. And then, transported by winged dreamfeet, I watched from a distance as the first tower, no bigger than my outstretched thumb, crumbled in isolation, surrounded by no other buildings. I watched it reassemble, a film run in reverse, then crumble and reassemble again, the shattered walls rising and reknitting, the plume of smoke sucking itself back into the tower like the inhalation of a Sophisticated Smoker. It was as though someone was jogging the shuttle on a video editor, back and forth, back and forth. Moving on dreamfeet once more I found myself among the wreckage with the recovery workers, walking along unsteady piles of ruined beams and shattered desks. The wreckage tumbled away from beneath me, and I was hanging from the side of the pit, which was made of cinderblock. The blocks offered a good grip, and so I hung there above the ruins, my feet dangling over empty space...frightened, but not overly so, because the rough surface provided such a strong handhold.

It's a truism that our idealism fades as we grow older...or, at least, it's supposed to, as the rough edges of the world bang up against us and wear us down. Many of those in my parent's generation tried to buck that trend and failed, but many others succeeded, and managed to transform idealism for idealism's sake into a worthy pursuit in our culture. As a result, there are many shouting in our public square today who are crippled by a privileged inability to apprehend the base, evil parts of human nature, and are at such a loss when truly confronted by that darker nature that their idealism becomes a deaf, dumb, and blind shield raised against unpleasant reality.

Recently, I purchased an acoustic-electric six-string guitar (see left), and a nice amp to go with it (see left again). I've played guitar since 1991, but for the past five years or so I've concentrated on playing with sophisticated electronic instruments of one kind or another, and also dabbled a bit with trumpets. But I could never sing while playing the keyboard. I could make cool noise--with a beat, even--but nothing that made me want to make my own noise, with my own throat. I purchased my trumpets on the strength of dreams, wherein music flowed from my breath and sounded out loud and vibrant. But the reality of the trumpet was an aching diaphragm and buzzing lips, with the silver tones of Chet, Miles and Louis far out of reach. But the guitar...man, I can bang on that. I can strum and chuff-chukka-chuff! and I can sing while I'm doing it.

I used to sing alot of songs with lyrics like

For the children and the flowers are my sisters and my brothers their laughter and their loveliness could clear a cloudy day And the song that I am singing is a prayer for nonbelievers Come and stand beside us now we can find a better way

I wrote that down from memory, because it's a song I grew up with. So, when I wrote my own songs, they contained lyrics like

As a child I dreamed of a place so fair There were rocks and streams and animals sweet fruit grew on every tree There were lovely flowers growing there strange and wondrous things to see but the dearest sight of all to me was the face of the Earth Mother

When I strummed my new Martin guitar, rediscovering the instrument, I played the songs I grew up with, and the songs I had written. I discovered a peculiar thing. Not only did my soft uncalloused fingers hurt, but my voice wouldn't reach the notes I used to be able to reach, full-throat. I've got a good voice. I've got excellent pitch, I know how to breathe, how to set my vocal cords spinning, how to project my tones to the walls and fill whatever space I'm in. But time and again, I couldn't hit the notes, because my throat would close and tremble, and my eyes would well. It wasn't because I was out of practice. And it wasn't only happening with the old songs I grew up with--it was happening with the songs I wrote in my early twenties, when I had hair down to the middle of my back, participated in ceremonial observances of the new and full moon alike, and owned an athame.

I started creating my dream-map when I realized that I was visiting places more than once in my dreams. It seemed a natural thing to do: to keep track of where you are, you need a map, or a GPS. GPSs weren't readily available to consumers in the early Nineties, and too complex to tote about in the dreamscape. A simple parchment map, rolled up, and tied with a strip of leather, is what I needed, so that's what I created. Likewise, the songs I wrote were simple things, words of little moment that carried the melodies that were meaningful to me, and felt good to power with my breath and my throat.

One night last week, as I struggled to sing the familiar songs inherited from my mother (such a fan that she has a cat named John Denver) and to sing the songs I had derived from that inheritance...it hit me. Struck me dumb. The realization--as so many insights are, in my life--was assisted by liberal draughts of wine. But I stomped down the steps, and plomped onto the couch, and tried to explain to Pea--faithful companion and all-around understanding soul--what was wrong. Later, she told me she saw it on my face: I wore such an odd expression as I came down the stairs, she said.

I began by trying to talk about Homer's account of Troy, and of battles fought more than three thousand years ago. About war, and the continual, senseless violence of men, and the differences between the City of War and the City of Peace that Hephaistos had forged into the new shield of Achilles. About how humanity has learned nothing, in all that time since the Argives tumbled into the dust of the plains of Ilium.

But then, with choked words that tumbled forth--words that I cannot remember, now--it spilled from my guts: what I was actually upset about. How could they do that? How could they kill to take control of those jetliners? How could they pilot them with such cold intent? Knowing that they would kill thousands...hoping that they would kill tens of thousands? I dissolved into a drunken, shuddering mass of tears: They broke me. They broke me.

It felt as though all within me that reached the high notes, all of me that sang of flowers and of peace and of the sappy, simple things of my youth, had been crushed out of me on that day, tumbling down with the towering columns of dust, mixing with the smoke of burning metal and the persistent scent of taffy-twisted corpses.

And, most heinous of all: those fuckers put Mordor on the map of my dreams. Right there at the top, a place that I didn't create...a place of fire and smoke, of charred steel and death, a place that I know I will occasionally visit for the rest of my life.

I feel as though I have gained a better understanding of those who cling so fiercely to ideas like there is no way to peace: peace is the way, and who believe so desperately in the mystical notion that somehow, thinking good thoughts and visualizing white light can change the world, and those who can't wrap their minds around the notion that war is often a necessary precursor to peace. I understand why there are so few actors, artists, and singers who support the campaign in Iraq. Certain forms of creative expression--whether they happen on stage, in front of a canvas, or behind a guitar and a microphone--are intimately linked with innocence. They come from a childlike place within us, where the world rarely intrudes. They fill us up, and lend us power. It's magic, almost by definition: the art of causing change in accordance with Will. The change that is created is the creation itself; a melody in the air, an image, or a set of words that wasn't there before, something that is newly-existent through our efforts. The rush I sometimes feel when reaching for the good melody is the same rush I used to feel when grabbing for the Holy Spirit in my old church, or when I sat in circle banging on a drum to bring in the four directions or draw down the moon. That sense of connection to what is outside myself, that soul-deep belief that I can effect change in the world, is also what drives many of the creative idealists who speak so loudly for peace, love and understanding.

The nineteen men who killed three thousand Americans on September 11 believed that, too. They, too, sought to effect change in accordance with their wills, and their sacrificial magic spilled thousands of gallons of human blood onto an altar that was 1,000 feet high and sixteen acres in area.

That kind of magic doesn't respond to good thoughts. It can't be countered by peace. Its practitioners aren't swayed by drawing down the moon, banging on drums, or reciting angry, righteous poems.

It's Black Magic, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. It sweeps away all notions of personal creative impact. It strips the individual self bare, and exposes its futility.

This is what drives the rage of the reflexively anti-war. What to do when practitioners of the evil arts expose your impotence? You can either reassess your role in the order of things, or you can scream out loud and shudder with denial, seeking to have an impact on something...anything. Anything to protect your fragile, childlike self from the reality of a savage world. Anything to prevent evil from making its own place in your dreams.

I don't blame them, not one bit. The death of innocence--real innocence, deep innocence, the kind that is blissfully unaware of true, vicious evil--is painful and frightening. Trust me; I know. So do many, many thousands of others, who abruptly learned it with far greater clarity and force than I.

This, then, is my great challenge. I must find a way to bring forth anew the creative soul within me, the one that sings the high melodies, and I must find a way to do so within the context of a world populated by evil sorcerers who would kill me, set me on fire, and dance around my smoking corpse singing Allahu akbar.

This is also my great fear...because I haven't got the slightest idea of how to begin.

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This morning, I read the following from Cory Doctorow:

"Little did I suspect, when I slipped my pal Nelson a sheet-metal Bill of Rights, that it would be the source of a flash of horrible realization that we're in deep crap..."

Nelson is wondering how he's going to bring this little trinket home on his flight. After quoting the Fourth Amendment, he is stunned--stunned!--to realize that he is

"...stressing about what people would think about me having a copy of the Bill of Rights! It's a terrible thing we've done to ourselves."

To which, I reply: we live in a time when jetliners are hijacked with box cutters and bombs can fit into shoes. If you've got a 2.5" by 3.5" piece of metal on your person or in your luggage that's deliberately designed to attract the attention of security screeners, the issue is no longer "unreasonable search and seizure." The issue is, "What is that piece of metal that my wand scanner just detected?"

If you had a copy of the Bill of rights on a 2.5" by 3.5" piece of of card stock, would there be a problem? No. If you had it printed on a T-shirt, would there be a problem? No. If you shaved your head and tattooed it on your skull, would it be a problem? No. Or, at least, not much of a problem beyond simple aesthetics.

Via e-mail, Nelson told me that his concern was not so much being "found with a piece of metal," but being "found with a piece of metal designed to remind people about the Bill of Rights."

Really. Imagine this, for a moment:

You've got the thankless task of screening thousands of passengers a day. People get pissed off at you routinely for doing your job; the media is constantly telling you and everyone else that you're not doing your job, and your job, basically, sucks. It's boring and people are constantly annoyed by your presence.

Now, imagine you've just had to yank a passenger out of the line because your wand went off, or opened up a bag and search all through it it because something odd showed up on the X-ray.

And that "something" turns out to be some clever political statement on a piece of sheet metal.

How would you feel? Would you feel "reminded" about the Bill of Rights? I doubt it. Unless, of course, you're a bright progressive who just happens to work as a security screener. Then you'd get it. Because you're smart. You will so appreciate the irony that you won't at all mind wasting your time.

There's not much metal in a 79-cent plastic box cutter. Much less metal, in fact, than what's in a 2.5" by 3.5" piece of sheet metal that is unidentifiable until inspected.

This isn't about "unreasonable search and seizure." It's about the consequences of adolescent provocation and not, as Doctorow would have it, evidence of the "deep crap" we're in.

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We gots leafs in the gutters, Paw!!

Go n' git mah gun, Junior! And tell Ma to open up a likker jug! We got some shootin' ta do!
w
We had gutters put on the Manor about a month after we bought it, and fifty years after it was built. Fifty years without gutters does wonderful things to cinderblock foundations. In many places, fifty freeze-and-thaw cycles have revealed the blocks' cindery origins, as their surfaces flake and crumble into chunky gray powder...fortunately, there is QuickCrete. I plan to cover the entire house with a hefty layer of it.

Elsewhere, wayward rainwater has eroded the mortar and, occasionally, delightful rivulets of it audibly trickle down the wall inside. I sit down there with green tea and a potted bamboo plant and pretend I have a restful Japanese garden in my basement.

Owning a house involves a series of regularly scheduled tasks. Mowing the lawn is a fast-repeater in the sunny seasons. Gutter-cleaning is a slow-repeater: twice a year, if you're on top of things. Our new gutters haven't been cleaned yet, but they're now full of parti-colored leaves which will soon turn into rich, fragrant muck-mulch if not removed.

But we're still better off than our elderly neighbor, who I haven't actually met, despite living next door for over a year. I'm sure there are reasons for that...he was inside for most of that time, and I hardly ever saw him. His wife died at home a couple of months back, after what I presume was a long illness. He might have been tending to her. Since then, I've seen him outside more often: stooped and shuffling, but wielding hammers and circular saws to build a new picnic table or replace a set of basement doors.

He needed to build the basement doors because of the gutter above them, which has turned into a planter. It's choked with green growing things: small maple saplings, grown from seed, some pokeweed that's produced a nice crop of hanging purple berries. Needless to say, all this gutter-borne fecundity restricts the proper flow of rainwater, which has been dripping onto the basement doors below, rotting the wood. Come winter, the gutters will host spectacular sheets of glistening icicles.

I noticed recently that there's a bright blue tarp spread over a portion of my neighbor's roof, which means that the half-dissolved asphalt shingles have finally allowed so much water to reach the decking beneath that it's rotted out and is now letting water into the house. Like its owner, the place has settled into creaking senescence.

Which is more than sad...it angers me, somewhat. Because the house is often full of relatives: a daughter, I think, and her kids, plus her friends or cousins, and an able-bodied teenager, another cousin, perhaps. They're content enough to hang out while the house falls down around grandpa's white-haired ears, to let a forest grow in his gutters, and allow his basement doors to collapse into the space below. After his wife died, the place was bustling. There were twenty-five people there for a couple of days, including half a dozen young fellows. Someone mowed the yard, cleared some brush, whacked some weeds. But the house itself remained as it was, with its dissolving roof and its plastic-taped windows and its skewed gutters.

Perhaps there's a reason for that. Maybe he's the sort of old man who doesn't want any help and refuses all offers. I don't really know. But when we got two feet of snow last winter, I shovelled his walk and his patch of driveway without ever having met the man, because it cost me nothing but some small effort and a little time.

My mother lives on the opposite coast, and is doing alright for herself. Still working, and paying the local handyman to build her a deck and enclose her garage. The things that I do around my own house--plumbing, painting, installing windows and such--I could do for her, as well. And would be, if not for the continent between us.

But you can be damned sure that if she lived next door, she wouldn't have trees growing in her gutters and a tarp on her roof to keep the rain out.

Sometimes, people just baffle me.

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My September 23 piece on blinkered Media in Iraq has been reprinted in the latest issue of Virtual Occoquan. Go there and read the other things as well, my minions! Go, and click in all your thousands!

Sigh.

I also notice that I'm on the same page as Real Live Preacher, and that's always a good thing.

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Who knows what proceeds, in the mind of a Cat? Thus spoke Flavius bar Knuckel on the occasion of his tabby Algernon's leap from a fourth floor balcony in pursuit of a wayward moth.

Yesterday, for reasons probably involving the savage pursuit of a strange cat that wandered into the general vicinity of her food dish, Bob the Cat vanished from the gated deck. This would have involved squeezing her considerable bulk through the small space between the bottom of the railing and the deck itself, and then a five-foot leap to ground. Once, shortly after we moved to the Manor, I saw her undertake such a leap in pursuit of another cat, and she was only brought to heel by my startled yelp. Yesterday, no one was around, and so she took off around 1PM.

Which was cause for great concern, for, being Fat and Domesticated, Bob is not wise in the ways of forest, skunk and motorcar.

Eventually, a downpour and merciless hunger brought her back around five AM, none the worse for wear.

Which was, honestly, a great way to wake up. Bob has been my boon companion for six years, now, ever since the night she wobbled out of the church graveyard like a witch's familiar and demanded that I take her home. I had resigned myself to the idea that she might exit my life as mysteriously as she had entered it, and was pleased that she decided that a warm dry house, a cat-shaped dent on the futon, and a regular supply of kibble--even Iams Diet Kibble--was preferable to a life of rain, mud, and strange creatures.

And then, this morning: driving winds along the river as I rode the ferry. The good, back-stiffening, blustery kind, that seem to blow through me and energetically cleanse me, as though my head is some sort of shiny Van de Graaf generator charged by the swift movement of the air.

(In case you haven't gathered by now, nothing of substance will be offered in this post)

And so, because of a missing Bob and a windy day, I feel somewhat lightened, today. No real reason, just as there was no real reason for several weeks' worth of heavy brooding and out-of-sorts-ness.

Hmmm...if I could put a missing pet and wind into a pill, I'd make a fortune...or, alternately, if I could restrain myself, I'd make more sense.

Avast!

To the oars!

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"Clinton warned Bush of bin Laden threat"

Supposedly, during the "exit interview" meeting between the outgoing Bill and the incoming Dubya,

"'...Bush had said he thought the biggest security issue was Iraq and a national missile defence,' Clinton said. 'I told him that in my opinion, the biggest security problem was Osama bin Laden.'"

Apparently, Bill, you found bin Laden to be such a huge security problem that you did...what, exactly?

Refresh my memory, Bubba, but I seem to remember that a World Trade Center bombing, an Air Force barracks bombing, two embassy bombings, and an attempt to sink a US destroyer all happened on your watch.

So...what did you do, to counter this "[big] security problem?"

For one thing, in your capacity as honorary chairman of a golf tournament held in October 2000, you extolled the virtues of golf as a "gentlemanly" rebuke to those who killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole.

Yessir, lob some random cruise missiles, blow up an aspirin factory and work on your swing. That'll teach 'em, by god.

While opening the tournament, Clinton declared

...that the course was a no-mulligan zone, outlawing the second-chance shots that he is known to use liberally on the golf links.

Mulligans aren't allowed when attempting to define a historical legacy, either.

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Today, Wired offers an interesting article about the increased use of technology by the oppressed of the world. Taliban executions of women and the mutilations of men are recorded by brave women concealing cameras under their burqas. Phillippino natives use cameras as shields against sugar company workers trying to forcibly relocate them. Camcorder evidence convicted some of those responsible for the slaughter of 7,000 male Muslims Srebrenica.

But woven throughout Wired's technological account is an attempt to link the struggles of some of our own American "activists" with those of the truly oppressed. From the Video Activist Network's web site:

The San Francisco Video Activists' Network presents the story you won't see on Fox News: an unflinching look at the Bay Area's radical resistance to an illegal and horrific war.

"We Interrupt This Empire..." is a collaborative work by many of the Bay Area's independent video activists which documents the direct actions that shut down the financial district of San Francisco in the weeks following the United States' invasion of Iraq. With the audio backdrop including the live broadcasts of SF Indymedia's Enemy Combatant Radio and the SFPD's tactical communications that were picked up by police scanners, the documentary takes a look at the diverse show of resistance from the streets of San Francisco as well as providing a critique of the coporate [sic] media coverage of the war and exploring such issues as the Military Industrial Complex, attacks on civil liberties, and the United States' current imperialist drive.

Do these people really care about anything but their own sense of moral worth, or their own public righteousness?

Did they actually watch the footage of the anonymous figure in the flowing blue burqa, kneeling in a soccer field somewhere in Afghanistan? Did they notice the bullet puff into the dirt in front of her after it passed through her skull?

The "United States' current imperialist drive" put a stop to that.

Craig Baldwin, Bay-area producer of "unusual and experimental film," called "We Interrupt This Empire"

...a clear picture of what's left of an American conscience in the midst of this national horror-show--this is the best damn doc I've seen on the local face of what might have been the largest anti-war movement in world history.

Again, I am forced to ask a question: what constitutes "an American conscience" to people such as Mr. Baldwin?

I find a profound disconnect between such professions of conscience and the atrocities we know have taken place in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Does this disconnect exist because there has been no footage of Iraqis going feet-first into the plastic shredder? Is it because there haven't been enough photographs of the mass graves in the desert, or of the men without tongues and ears?

Clearly not. The severed hands and bloodied dust of Afghanistan are well-represented by images both moving and still, and there is no acknowledgement by these "activists" that American action there was warranted for any reason. So, it must be something else. Perhaps it is some high moral standard--that if we act in the world, it must be selfless. Perhaps the "activist" ideology holds that where our national interests and the human interests of others intersect, we must avoid taking any action that would benefit us as well as those in need, and can thereby achieve some sort of societal moral purity.

I have realized, however, that even that twisted ethic doesn't quite explain the disconnect between professions of conscience and real-world atrocity that I perceive. I came to that realization while listening to Martin "Duct Tape" Sheen talk about himself on television recently.

I saw Sheen on Bravo's Inside The Actor's Studio. He is a well-known "activist," with somewhere around 40 protest-related arrests on his record. Being in an auditorium full of Incipient Thespians, this facet of his life was of course brought up for discussion. While describing his spirituality--a self-styled "Catholicism" that apparently involves "becoming heaven" when you die--he said something that I found to be one of the most self-involved, blinkered examples of the "activist" mentality I've ever come across.

I'll have to paraphrase it, because Bravo offers no transcripts. When discussing his protest activism, he said that although he was aware that he, himself, could effect no change in the world, he couldn't "not do it [i.e. protest] and still be [him]self."

Actually effecting real change is no goal of his, because he thinks it's impossible.

Now, one interpretation of this is that he views himself as "one voice among many." But he made no mention of that, and never alluded to the necessity of the involvement of others. It was all about him. All the protesting, all the public declarations of righteous indignation, all the labeling of America as the "land of the lunatics"...all of it is rooted in his self-definition. In his sense of who he is. In his conception of his spirituality. It is an expression of his rights. Of his desire to "improve America."

When describing a film that portrays a bound man's throat being brutally slashed apart by Islamofascists, the author of the Wired article writes that it

...is one of many such clips that the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan published online to document atrocities committed by Islamic fundamentalists long before extremists flew airplanes into buildings Sept. 11, 2001.

But where does actually stopping these atrocities fall within the set of some Bay area "activists'" priorities?

Apparently far below depicting the "diverse show of resistance from the streets of San Francisco," or achieving self-congratulatory coverage of "the largest anti-war movement in world history." A movement, it should be noted, that not only failed to stop the war, but failed to do anything at all to ease the suffering of the people with which the movement was ostensibly concerned.

For twelve years, Peter Gabriel's Witness organization has been providing the means to capture evidence of atrocities ranging from the systematic rape of children in Africa to the oppression of indigenous people by oil companies in the Amazonian basin. Mental Disability Rights International used imaging technology to close psychiatric clinics in Mexico that were rife with abuse. The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan showed the world what the Taliban mullahs were really all about.

And what do groups like Video Activist Network do?

Record themselves being righteous in public.

They don't belong in the same article as organizations like Witness, the MDRI, and RAWA.

Shame on Wired, for conflating the naïve, privileged ethics of spoiled Americans with the ethics of those in the world who are truly suffering. And shame on those Americans who, because of their irrational hatred of a single man and their neurotic opposition to the very concept of an American national interest, would let thousands suffer and die in perpetuity so that they can better serve their own moral satisfaction.

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This started out as a little teeny paragraph in response to Reader Kate's comments in this post, and then grew because I fed it some Wheaties, so I just went with it

I've recently discovered that a good way to avoid the trap of endless references supporting or denying the evilness of Dubya is to think more in terms of principles and policies, rather than individual personalities. Thus, it becomes a matter of a) whether the principles and policies are sound and b) if so, whether this or that person is acting according to that principle or properly executing that policy. I was being a bit flip about Clinton's "mulligan" comment, but my flipitude is rooted in certain beliefs about the use of force and the nature of diplomacy.

Reader Kate writes,

Ranking "action" (i.e., military action) over diplomacy is also tricky business...

Often, yes, but not in this case.

Al-Qaeda doesn't have an embassy in Washington, and neither do the other organizations that form the core of Islamic theocratic fascism. That changes the rules. The other Arab countries do have embassies, of course, but the citizens that actively support and finance al-Qaeda and other groups are not necessarily at the beck and call of their national diplomatic corps, and, in many cases, are part of the diplomatic corps or of the ruling governments.

In any case, diplomacy without credible threat of force is just empty rhetoric, and always has been. Think about it: if you're negotiating with someone and you know that if you refuse all of their demands they can't or won't actually do anything about it, are you more or less inclined to meet their demands?

Similarly, if you decide to threaten someone with a proven track record of not responding to threats with suitable force, are you more emboldened, or less?

I believe that diplomacy between adversaries is not an end in itself; and that effective diplomacy is always backed up by an implied credible threat of force.

That's why the UN is the ineffective organization that it is: those who defy it know that nothing will come of it. That's exactly what Hussein did for 12 years. And the House of Saud has been relying on our own supposed impotence in the face of its economic clout for decades.

Reader Kate also asks,

Many of the countries (including NK) that have developed or are developing nukes have done so because they know it will make them largely invulnerable to the type of incursion we made in Iraq. I have seen KIS quoted as saying as much. So do our 'pre-emptive' policies help us or hurt us?

Well, the current major nuclear powers--in order of number of warheads--are Russia, the US, China, France, and the United Kingdom. Russia was worried about us, but probably isn't, now. China is still worried about us a bit, but was probably more worried about us in the past.

Other nuclear powers include Israel, which is justifiably worried about its neighbors, and India and Pakistan, who are more worried about each other. South Africa was clearly worried about something at some point, because it had a nuclear weapons program at one time, but it dismantled the program with full public disclosure of the process. Iran is working on nukes, and it might justifiably fear an American invasion, but was probably far more worried about Iraq when it started its program. By and large, it seems, the "new" nuclear powers developed their weapons in reponse to regional, rather than global threats.

As far as North Korea goes, of course they want nuclear capability. With it, they can invade South Korea with impunity, and even threaten Japan (which is, by the way, also considering a nuclear program in response to regional security concerns). Despite their insanely bombastic rhetoric, I don't believe that the North Korean government wants nuclear capability just to fend off supposed American aggression; they want it to back up their own aggression, supposedly free from the threat of an American response. It's also important to remember that in 1994, the Clinton administration brokered a diplomatic agreement with North Korea under which the North Koreans were to freeze their nuclear weapons development program. Diplomacy, in this case, failed completely. The North Korean government took billions of American dollars and continued on with their program.

Do we want to let them continue to do so? It's not that we'd attack North Korea "just because;" we'd attack because their leadership is composed of Stalinst homicidal lunatics who, if they had the means, would threaten the entire population of Southeast Asia. More to the point: it's not really America they have to worry about. It's China, which would have far fewer compunctions than America about just blowing the hell out of everything north of the 38th parallel.

Except for the importance of China as a key player in the region--and a nuclear one at that--the Korean situation is analogous to Iraq. Even ignoring the possibility of weapons provision to non-state terrorist entities: do we allow Hussein to wait until the UN inevitably lifts the sanctions, and sit back and watch as he and his sons funnel vast oil revenues into sophisticated nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs? We know that he would do this, because he maintained the programs in a stand-by state even while under sanction, using money provided by the UN's ineptly administered "oil-for food" program.

A nuclear-armed Iraq would mean a near-unfettered ability to sweep across the entire Arabian penninsula, with, it should be noted, significant support from a culture that feels itself humiliated and craves the respect it believes such nuclear strength will gain it.

Quite simply, that wouldn't be good for anyone in the world.

Hussein embarked on that very campaign in '91 without nukes, and it wasn't because, as various conspiracy sites would have us believe, ambassador April Glaspie gave him a "green light." He did it because it was in his nature to do so.

The harsh truth is that the destructive technologies now present in this world mean that we can no longer let certain kinds of foreign leaders follow their natures. It's not safe for us, and it's not safe for the rest of the world.

The kind of leaders we're concerned about are precisely the kind of leaders who don't respond to anything but credible threat of force or, failing that, actual use of force. Hussein's megalomania allowed him to hold off the soft diplomacy of the UN for a dozen years because he bet that the US--as always, the potent fist in the UN's weak glove--wouldn't get involved again. And, if 9/11 never happened, we probably wouldn't have gotten involved, much to our regret in another decade or so.

But 9/11 did happen. Contrary to the tinfoil hat brigade's assertions, we didn't wallop Hussein because the Bush administration claimed or even believed that he assisted with that specific operation. We walloped him because he was the key to avoiding future catastrophe in the region and here in the US. By taking out someone who never responded to diplomacy anyway, we have firmly established the credible threat of force that will drive successful diplomacy with the other states in the region that offer support to non-state terrorist organizations. And, if diplomacy fails: we're right next door.

As a final example of the difference between diplomacy and use of force, consider this: in 2002, there were 199 international terrorist attacks (i.e., attacks involving the citizens and/or land of more than one country.)

That's the fewest number of attacks in 20 years, and drop of 43% from the previous year; it's also 27% fewer attacks than the lowest number of attacks during the Clinton administration (274 in 1998). I suggest that this precipitous drop wasn't the result of diplomacy.

Further, I suggest that it was the result of Dubya's actions. Because of this, I support him in his admittedly flawed execution of a particular policy I agree with: don't wait until an obviously growing threat becomes imminent or actual before dealing with it. I also support any actions he takes that that are in accordance with a particular principle I believe to be worthy of upholding: a credible threat of force is a necessary precursor to any attempt at diplomacy in general and in the Middle East in particular.

Similarly, I believe that with regard to these policies and principles, Clinton failed.

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Today, more web-based terrorism. You may or may not be aware that Hosting Matters, a hosting service that provides a home for InstaPundit, Little Green Footballs, Spleenville, and others, has been subject to yet another DOS attack. [A denial of service attack floods the host servers with so many page requests that legitimate requests cannot be fulfilled, thus shutting down the website]. The actual target, apparently, was a pro-Israeli site hosted by Hosting matters.

But DOS attack also takes down all the other sites hosted on a particular server.

It's the mentality I would expect, really. If your opponent is the Israeli government, blow up a cafe and kill as many Jews as possible, whether they agree with the government's policies or not. If your opponent is a website that supports Israel, crash the whole server, whether the other sites on that server support Israel or not.

What we need now is the hacking equivalent of the US Marines, to go in, find the DOS enemy, and take them out.

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One John Kusch has responded to a recent post of mine. If you're interested, read his reply here. My response is in his comments section, and below.

---

To be honest, I fail to see how your numbered observations are germane. I don't recall suggesting that I am to be pitied more than the dead.

Secondly, my post was intended to be about my "internal experience," and despite your "problem" that experience is not, I think, so impressive as to blot out the obvious and cruel reality of the human condition as found elsewhere in the world and throughout history. Furthermore, the entire purpose of the post was to depict the painful loss of personal innocence that I experienced, which gave me a better understanding of those who--lacking even my slight acquaintance with evil--continue to hold on to a sunnier version of reality in which the reasonable can always prevail with reasonable means. This experience also gave me a somewhat keener understanding of evil in the world at large and did not, as you imply, provide the sense that the evil I experienced was somehow more vast or more important than that experienced by others.

I find it odd that you claim the comparatives "more powerful, more symbolic, more destructive" for events of which you have no experience, particularly when you are comparing those events against a day of which, again, you have no experience. Objectively, of course, six million dead in camps or ten million killed by starvation and purge do rate those comparatives.

But this wasn't an objective piece. It was entirely subjective. Whatever academic comparison you choose to make to the slaughters of history will always be just that...abstract, objective, an intellectual exercise. And whatever understanding you claim of the events of September 11 will, likewise, remain abstract.

Your reply is grounded in a moral relativism that I, personally, find abhorrent: in the grand scheme of things, 9/11 wasn't that bad...after all, many more people have died in other atrocities elsewhere. By this you seek to minimize the events of that day in the guise of an all-encompassing empathy. You do so without having been touched by evil, while living untested in your own dream.

Although you claim that Americans "could only be reached by a tragedy that befell people we could actually imagine knowing or being," you, it seems, have not been reached, except insofar as you have found something that you may use to accuse Americans of a lack of conscience, pity, or mercy.

You are of course free to make such accusations, and to profess such beliefs. Kindly do not use my experience as the springboard for such exercises.

---

[Kusch has made since made some 700 words' worth of well-written replies, which seem to have little to do with my own response, and rather more to do with a need to assert the validity of his own experience of evil, and to accuse me of a lack of understanding of the "rules" of the blog game, whatever they happen to be. To that last, all I can say is: his title set the tone.

I've said what I needed to say, and don't feel a real need for further reply (other than this brief indulgence).

As for the rest of you...feel free to dive in, of course. Be nice. ;-) --IAW]

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The Gematriculator is a service that uses the infallible methods of Gematria developed by Mr. Ivan Panin to determine how good or evil a web site or a text passage is.

Basically, Gematria is searching for different patterns through the text, such as the amount of words beginning with a vowel. If the amount of these matches is divisible by a certain number, such as 7 (which is said to be God's number), there is an incontestable argument that the Spirit of God is ever present in the text. Another important aspect in gematria are the numerical values of letters: A=1, B=2 ... I=9, J=10, K=20 and so on. The Gematriculator uses Finnish alphabet, in which Y is a vowel.

Experts consider the mathematical patterns in the text of the Holy Bible as God's watermark of authenticity. Thus, the Gematriculator provides only results that are absolutely correct.

And, thus, the absolutely correct gooditude quotient of Astonished Head is 71%.

God and numerology be praised!

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AS I WAS SAYING...

Recently, I attempted to put into practice a different way of dealing with political issues, by deliberately focusing on policies and principles, rather than personalities. It's not really a novel way of thinking, but then, as geniuses go, I'm not so bright.

I've felt for a long time that the personal animosity directed towards Bush was distracting us all from something, but I wasn't quite sure what.

Today, I read the following well-articulated bits in Keith Burgess-Jackson's "The Natural History of Bush-Hating":

The depth and breadth of animosity toward President Bush astounds me. It is also dismaying, for it distracts attention from matters of principle and policy in which all of us have a stake.

As I explain to my Ethics and Philosophy of Law students, politics can and should be the most noble of human endeavors. It is the means by which citizens forge their collective destiny -- and identity. But the politics we actually have falls far short of this ideal. American politics today has become the politics of personal destruction. Temperate comments are the exception rather than the rule. Reason gives way to emotion, and not just any emotions, either: the very worst of them, such as spite, anger, envy, greed, and hatred. Politics has become warfare by other means. Anyone who loves this country has to be saddened.

That pretty much sums up the current state of affairs, as well as the state of affairs during Clinton's two terms.

Unfortunately, our leaders lead whether they're good leaders or not, if that makes any sense. Every muckraking ad by a local Congressperson, every dirty tricks campaign by a national political organization or party, every snarky comment and flip put-down contributes to the overall degradation of the political environment. Even the former First Lady and the mother of our current President contributes, calling the current crop of Democratic presidential hopefuls a "sorry group."

Now, I'm sure that anyone with far too much time on their hands could dig through the Astonished Head archives and find many examples of my own contribution to the trend, and there's a reason for that: it's easy to do. Sarcasm is easy, snarkiness is easy, partisanship is easy. For a dim-witted while, I mistook those things for political commentary: the clever quip, the righteous put-down. That's certainly a staple of many of the political commentary blogs that are so popular today, and is the bread and butter of several nationally-syndicated columnists, radio personalities, and television pundits across the political spectrum.

But after reading through those popular political sites, I observed that such commentary tended to attract annoying trolls and their equally-fevered troll-killing counterparts. I saw that the resultant clashes were often pointless, insult-laden festivals of base irrelevance and inanity. Much of the newspaper readership and the radio and television audience are probably likewise inspired. I belatedly realized that there must be more to political discourse than the endless repetition of ill-sourced would-be facts frosted with cleverness.

Burgess-Jackson is right: politics should be the most noble of human endeavors. The degree to which I have defended Bush on these pages is actually the degree to which I have sought to minimize the cult of personal hatred that passes for current public political discourse. The degree to which I have demonized Clinton and others is the degree to which I have failed in that endeavor.

As an example of the hating trend in what passes for political discussion, Burgess-Jackson presents New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. I agree with his assessment, and I also agree with his total lack of interest in anything that Maureen Dowd has to say. Furthermore, I think that his suggestion is a good one:

"...the first step in this redemptive process is for people to refuse to read Krugman's columns -- and to let the editors of The New York Times know about it."

I'm not saying that you should specifically boycott Krugman or Dowd (but...well, you should, so I guess I am). But what's more important than condemning specific writers of a certain political bent is holding any writer or public commentator to a higher standard. If our political leaders have difficulty with the concept, then let us make it clear to the opinion makers and the pundits and the publicly clever: stop producing crap and start thinking, or we're simply going to walk away.

That means writing to your local papers and the television networks and letting them know when their nationally syndicated columnists and talking-head commentators fail to contribute to the betterment of political discourse. This doesn't mean writing the publisher or producer to argue about facts, figures, and minutiae. It means writing and telling them that there are ways to argue that are respectful, principled, and constructive. It means letting them know that columnists and writers who routinely demonstrate a fixation on that which debases the public political discourse in this country will not have you for an audience.

Then again, I am running a fever at the moment (because I'm on vacation, natch). Maybe this is a pointless, skyborne-pie demand.

Nevertheless, I think I will attempt to create resource on this site by which members of the disgruntled polity can easily complain to their Media Overlords.

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Sigh.

Big, congested, stale-mucous laden sigh.

Initially, plans for this week involved removing walls. Stapling insulation! And new wall-sconces, oh, yes! Perhaps even refinishing a floor...!

Then, the reality of relative energy levels sunk in, and the projects were reduced to gutter-cleaning and replacing the remaining basement windows. Maybe measuring the lengths of the half-century old copper crap that passes for our plumbing in preparation for replacing it with shiny new pipes made from recycled Stormtrooper armor.

Then, I got sick. Starting, of course, the last day before my vacation was to begin, and continuing until, pretty much, right now. The sore throat has gone, the grand bolii (that's the plural of bolus, you know) of unmentionable lung-glue have restricted themselves to a few early-morning appearances, and the random fever spikes have vanished.

But, I still feel like a well-abused sock...damp...a little smelly..scruffy...mrrgh.

So, the gutters are now linear baskets o' autumnal cheer, with small flashes of yellow and red peeking over their edges. The remaining two examples of fine iron-framed basement window style remain in place, dappled with condensation and rimmed with the yellowed ExpandoFoam! I used last winter in a desperate attempt to keep the outside air, well, outside.

Even the grass needs mowing, for Baal's sake.

Never mind making the matching doors for our offices; that's right out.

Outside it's chilly, gray, a little windy. Matches my mood nicely, actually.

I think I'll go to my Local Music Store, and see about some trumpet lessons.

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Via Den Beste, here's an AP report on modern American unilateralism.

Currently, there are around 15,000 non-American troops in Iraq, including contingents great and small from:

Albania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Czech Republic, Denmark, Georgia, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, and Macedonia.

As Den Beste points out, that's 13 out of 25 current or prospective members of the EU (representing 57% of the total population) and 10 out of 18 NATO members.

According to the AP article, financial commitments made prior to the upcoming Madrid conference include $1.5 billion from Japan for the first year, and $3-$5-billion over five years from the World Bank.

And from the European Commission, representing the fifteen member nations of the European Union, a whopping $230 million for 2004.

To put that in persepctive, that's about $15 million per member state.

But there are mitigating mathematics, here: the UK, Italy, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Portugal have all made troop or non-combat personnel contributions. Some more than others, of course, but let's remove all of them from the equation. That puts the average contribution of the represented member states who have not supplied personnel at $25 million.

To put that in perspective, South Korea's gross domestic product is about 22% of the combined GDPs of the nine non-contributing members of the European Union. Yet South Korea has contributed 60% more than those members this year alone, and has committed to spending more than twice the European Commission's contribution for the next four years.

And, by the way, South Korea has also contributed 675 non-combat troops, with more on the way. The UK, which has contributed more than 7,000 combat troops, has also contributed $300 million a year for the next three years.

I suspect that the definition of "unilateral" has become quite post-modern these days...as has that of "ally."

---

UPDATE: of course, the real way to do this would be to compare SK's GDP to each member state's individually. Which makes this post, regrettably, a bunch a bullshit.

Never was much good at math. More of a "Verbal" guy.

My stupid bad.

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BTW--some of us Commentarium denizens were recently discussing the situation in North Korea; Den Beste has also put out an admittedly incomplete list of various scenarios in the region, which is worth a look for those interested.

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Man, every so often I just get the OVERWHELMING URGE to like leap around the place tearing off my shirt and going B-B-B-BO-GABANJII-HOOO-WABEEEE!!! And there would be lots of pancakes involved and bottles of vodka and small explosive devices and crates of mangos and the occasional monkey, plus an assortment of colorful party favors and flying vegetables that would startle the cat and alarm the neighbors. By GOD, it's time to get the autogyro out of the shed and wing spinning naked through the sky, because I'm damned if I'm going to let the Governor forget that he owes me a weekend in the guest wing at the North Fork estate, and if I show up with a boxcar full of booze and trollops then it's his own damned fault!!! Yes! Yes! Bring it on! Unintelligible manna from the heavens is the next best thing to having a really well-groomed rose bush at the center of your hedge maze, and if there's one thing I've learned from three decades in the service and four wars it's that no one...no one turns down a stiff belt in a muddy foxhole filled with the bits and pieces of your buddies-in-arms!

By god, let's make this an election year to remember!!!

And your little dog tooooo!

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I like him.

But this week's made-up word goes to classicist raisin-farmer Victor Davis Hanson, for gloomfy.

I know what he meant.

You know what he meant.

We all know what the typographers missed.

But Christ almighty, a pillar ought to show some damn respect for the language.

[Note: I am not a pillar, nor a classicist raisin-farmer. Therefore, the language is but taffy in my hands. And gloomfy is pretty cool.]

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Every so often I will ignore the advice of my freshman Poetry professor and "out-clever" myself. Or it seems that I do...perhaps I am actually heeding his advice, and not doing so, by being well-attuned to the possibility. Or not.

Whether I am doing so (or not), the psychological symptoms are the same: anxiety, a dread feeling of overexposure, and an acute sense of the utter futility of my contribution towards a solution to any of the world's problems.

It's all neurosis, I'm sure, but that doesn't stop me from being surly and combative, or surly and withdrawn, or just surly.

At times like this, news and events pile up and collapse into total disorder. The ostensibly anti-war organization ANSWER offered unconditional support to the "the Iraqi anti-colonial resistance," which means that ANSWER is all for blowing up the Red Cross and killing Iraqis, as long as it's done in the name of resistance. President-cum-czar Vladimir Putin might be systematically expropriating Jewish property on a scale unseen since 1930s Germany. Krugman's half-a-good-point is once again lost in the midst of his jerking knees. Meanwhile, significant portions of the West and massive portions of the East lend credence to the idea that the Joooos Run The World, those who rushed to put "human shields" in front of Sadaam are nowhere to be found while the Red Cross gets car-bombed, and Ted Rall just hates Dubya because that's what's really important...and all this is just one minor part of the Big Slog of crap! that the monkeys are doing and saying and jumping around the jungle about today.

Right now all I feel absolutely justified in saying is *PFBTHBFTH!*

And there you have it.

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The Islamic holy month of Ramadan began on Sunday. Here's how the American military leadership regards this Muslim tradition:

Sensitivity Training Coalition Forces in Iraq Told to Respect the Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 28 — As the most sacred month on the Muslim calendar, Ramadan, is being observed in the presence of 130,000 American troops, there are concerns about a potential culture clash.

[...]

Just to make sure, all soldiers in the 82nd all received a pamphlet titled "Ramadan: A Guide for Soldiers." It explains the religious significance of Ramadan — to honor Allah — and provides helpful tips. "After sundown when the fast is broken," it reads, "do not be alarmed if you see large groups gathering to share a meal."

Here's how our adversaries in Iraq regard this Muslim tradition:

Suicide Bombers in Baghdad Kill at Least 34

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 27 — Suicide bombers who drove carloads of explosives into five buildings around the capital on Monday killed at least 34 people and wounded more than 200 in a coordinated assault that spread mayhem across the city and appeared to open a new phase in the guerrilla war against the American occupation.

The bombers struck on the first day of Ramadan, the monthlong Muslim holiday.

The depth of this disparity is astounding.

In mosques great and small from Mecca to the hinterlands of Afghanistan and beyond, Americans are denounced as the enemies of Islam and all Muslims.

Yet, while we distribute pamphlets to our soldiers instructing them on how to properly respect the traditions of Muslims, our enemies wish their fellow Muslims a joyous and contemplative Ramadan by killing them.

I will wait, with bated breath, for the FREE IRAQ! crowd to condemn this blatant trampling of the sacred traditions of Islam by its brutal oppressors.

Incidents like this are ideological litmus tests. They offer a set of near-experimental controls, allowing you to observe the truth or falsity of a professed belief. Here, we have an objective test condition: the month of Ramadan, which commemorates those weeks in 610 CE when the very first verses of the Koran were revealed to Mohammed. During this month, Muslims are expected to fast in body and mind alike from sunrise to sunset.

As with all traditions rooted in religion, Muslims may feel more or less involved in the spiritual aspects of the holiday.

And, in keeping with the multiplicity of interpretations of all things Islamic, the fasting of Ramadan has been said to accomplish everything from increasing one's empathy with the poor and hungry of the world, to increasing one's awe of an omniscient God who is always aware of our actions and innermost thoughts. Doubtless there are those who focus on these spiritual aspects over the grumblings of their stomachs. But for the next month in Muslim towns and cities from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia, from the Muslim sections of Detroit to Los Angles, sunset will be an occasion for gathering and feasting, sometimes until just before dawn. The month is as interwoven with the culture of Islam as it is with the religion of Islam.

And yet, there are those who reject not only the spiritual meaning of the month, but also the cultural meaning, emphatically, with bombs and with the shed blood of their fellow Muslims. Remember, these attacks were suicide attacks--"martyrdom operations." This means that, somewhere, there is a mullah or religious teacher who said to these men, "Yes, it is Ramadan, when Allah first revealed the Koran to the Prophet, peace be upon him. But Allah has said..." followed by some assortment of Suras from the holy book, carefully arranged to give not only Allah's blessing to murder, but his blessing to the murder of Muslims, and to the defilement of the first day of the holy month. Of course, these quoted Suras will also provide assurance of eternal paradise for the murderers.

There is an Islam within Islam, which does not even have the respect for Muslim cultural and religious tradition that many of us nonbelievers demonstrate whenever practicable.

And so, when faced with this simple situation--American sensitivity training versus Arab bombs--the priorities of The Loud become clear.

The self-described "anti-war" group International ANSWER has devoted its page to...itself. End the Occupation, Bring the Troops Home. And...what? Leave Iraq to the tender mercy of Ramadan suicide-bombers, I suppose.

The Independent Media Center, supposed "democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth" and all-around fomenter of civil dialogue, leads with, basically, itself:

On the heels of peace demonstrations in the U.S. on Saturday, and the attempted assassination of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense (sic), Paul Wolfowitz in Baghdad on Sunday, the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan brought the bloodiest day in the Iraqi capital since US-led forces in invaded last spring. [emphasis mine]

Any comment about even the irony of a bloody attack on the first day of Ramadan? Nope. Because what's more important than that is making sure we know about the righteous protests for "peace;" exposing the "advocates for corporate globalization...descending on the remains of Iraq to divide up the spoils of war;" uncovering the "Bush regime's 'good news' media offensive, its blatant censorship;" and, of course, reminding us all about "Vietnam."

The top news at the Muslim American Society? "Democrats Blast Bush on Foreign Policy in Debate," "Protesters Rally against Iraq Occupation," a helpful section titled, "Fasting and Ramadan," and a "Daily Thought:"

To Allah belongeth all that is in the heavens and on earth. Whether ye show what is in your minds or conceal it, Allah calleth you to account for it.

Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Pages outlines the purpose of the Ramadan fast in this way:

Quran Surah al-Baqarat verse 183 states that the purpose of the fast is to develop a quality called in Arabic "taqwa". Taqwa may be defined as, "Worshiping God as if you see Him because if you don't, He sees you." It is thus a kind of awe or God-fearingness, an awareness that God is always watching. Nobody but God and the person fasting know if that person actually observed the entire fast or secretly cheated. Thus, in order to resist the temptation to cheat, one has to remember that God is always watching and will see any lapse.

In this information age, we, too, see many things, albeit imperfectly. All of us, pro-Bush and anti-Bush alike, know about the events in Baghdad on the first day of Ramadan. And all of us, whether we support the effort in Iraq or not, color those events, either by our choice of media outlet or, if we're media producers, by our choice of descriptions and by our focus.

I ask: why is it so difficult, even if you hate Bush and call the bombers and Baathist remnants "the Iraqi resistance," to condemn what is clearly a cultural and relgious desecration? What would it cost? What reasoning is at work, here, that prevents such simple recognition?

I can only conclude the obvious: it's not about being for the Iraqis. It's not about supporting Muslims.

The coloring of the words, the focus of the accounts, and the chosen, demonstrable priorities of certain organizations and individuals belie any such claims...and you don't have to be Allah to see the truth of that.

---

AS I WAS SAYING:

From Photodude, Via Sensing:

Remember a couple of years ago when we were told it would be considered an insult to Muslims to attack Afghanistan during Ramadan? So, what do you say to those who launch a series of bomb attacks to coincide with the first day of Ramadan?

Read the whole thing.

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UC Berkely linguistics professor George Lakoff, author of "Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think," has a theory to explain the current bafflement within the Democratic party. Lakoff's interviewer sums up for us:

Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them, says Lakoff.

The work has paid off: by dictating the terms of national debate, conservatives have put progressives firmly on the defensive.

Of course, there's more to this than conservatives "dictating" the terminology used in the national debate, just as there's more to the interviewer's use of the word "dictating" to summarize what Lakoff actually said. When asked why progressives haven't been able to match the conservatives' long-term linguistic and language-framing strategies, Lakoff answers

There's a systematic reason for that. You can see it in the way that conservative foundations and progressive foundations work. Conservative foundations give large block grants year after year to their think tanks. They say, 'Here's several million dollars, do what you need to do.' And basically, they build infrastructure, they build TV studios, hire intellectuals, set aside money to buy a lot of books to get them on the best-seller lists, hire research assistants for their intellectuals so they do well on TV, and hire agents to put them on TV. They do all of that. Why? Because the conservative moral system, which I analyzed in "Moral Politics," has as its highest value preserving and defending the "strict father" system itself. And that means building infrastructure. As businessmen, they know how to do this very well.

Meanwhile, liberals' conceptual system of the "nurturant parent" has as its highest value helping individuals who need help. The progressive foundations and donors give their money to a variety of grassroots organizations. They say, 'We're giving you $25,000, but don't waste a penny of it. Make sure it all goes to the cause, don't use it for administration, communication, infrastructure, or career development.' So there's actually a structural reason built into the worldviews that explains why conservatives have done better.

Two things need definition, here, and I'll let Lakoff do that:

...the progressive worldview is modeled on a nurturant parent family. Briefly, it assumes that the world is basically good and can be made better and that one must work toward that. Children are born good; parents can make them better. Nurturing involves empathy, and the responsibility to take care of oneself and others for whom we are responsible.

And:

The conservative worldview, the strict father model, assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, tells his wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from wrong. The only way to do that is through painful discipline — physical punishment that by adulthood will become internal discipline.

Got that? "Progressive" equals "nurturing empathy." "Conservative" equals "physical punishment." Progressives love children. Conservatives think children are bad and need to be beaten. Keep in mind that this is part of the worldview that informs Lakoff's "nonpartisan" think-tank, the Rockridge Institute.

Lakoff's foundation in linguistics informs his political thinking. As seen in the passages above, and elsewhere in the interview, he believes that the conservatives have trumped the progressives because of the highly effective methodology they use in framing language. "Over the last 30 years," Lakoff says, "[the conservatives'] think tanks have made a heavy investment in ideas and language."

It's obvious from his own choice of terms--not to mention his place of employment--where his sympathies lie. And--like Noam Chomsky, another linguist who has moved somewhat beyond his expertise--Lakoff's politics are based on the assumption that ordinary people, lacking his expertise in language and what words really mean, are easily duped. In his linguist's mind, the reason that conservatives are ascendant is not because of the quality or appeal of their ideas, but because of their wizard-like mastery of the incantations of language. Only such massive manipulation of the public debate can account for the failure of an obviously morally superior ideology to catch fire with people who are, after all, naturally good.

However, by Lakoff's own admission, the conservatives have made a systematic and highly effective effort to define their intellectual and moral positions, to refine the ways in which those positions are expressed, to educate and support those who represent their ideas, and to submit their ideas to the public square for absorption and debate. Furthermore, Lakoff maintains that this success, and the progressives' subsequent befuddlement, has its foundation in the very essence of each respective ideology.

To be fair: Lakoff, hopefully, develops his ideas with more detail and subtlety in his longer written works. But it is often in spoken comments that a person reveals what comes most easily to his or her mind. And, while Lakoff has made ample terminological choices which indicate that he finds conservative ideology to be less than desirable (i.e., "strict," "painful," "punishment," etc.), there is no acknowledgement whatsoever that there is any value at all in discipline or in the deliberate assumption of moral authority. Both the "discipline" and the "moral authority" that Lakoff invokes are caricatures, intended to resonate with the progressives' fear of patriarchy, misogyny, and abuse of power.

The irony is that it is a lack of discipline and authority at the core of what Lakoff calls progressive ideology that accounts for the failure of that ideology to be persuasive in the public debate. According to him, progressives failed in this crucial task due to their overwhelming devotion to "the cause," which is "helping individuals who need help." The progressives' focus on "the cause" instead of the improvement of individuals who might best promote that cause has combined with their neglect of those who seek to be convinced by argument rather than by a demonstrated devotion to some supposedly self-evident morality. The end result? Progressives are actually failing to serve their own cause, by minimizing both the persuasiveness and pervasiveness of their ideas.

As Lakoff has said, this failure has its roots in the very core of the progressive ideology. He also maintains that the propagation of a worldview is the conservatives' only goal, and that this goal comes at the expense of the true and proper morality that is the object of the progressives' devotion.

The problem is, by placing their idealism above the practical realties of political interaction and intellectual ferment, those who profess what Lakoff calls a progressive ideology are merely satisfying their own moral sensibilities, rather than effecting real cultural and political change.

I am neither a "progressive" or a "conservative," in any of the senses stated or implied by Lakoff. His definitions are theoretical constructs, with few connections to the real world outside of his university campus. In that world, people want their leadership to be able to effect change. They don't want leaders who are burdened by an ideology that is so internally crippled that it cannot even promote itself, let alone run the country.

That's why the Democratic party is floundering, and until it reconnects with the practical realities of this culture and this nation, it will continue to do so.

---

AS I WAS SAYING...

"The conservative movement has really built up an infrastructure of not just ideas, but the ability to kind of get out there and do the kind of hard communications work to sell to the American public."

So says John Podesta, former Clinton chief of staff and founder of--you guessed it--another new progressive think tank, the Center for American Progress.

That's twice in two days.

I think there's some strategizin' going on here.

I wonder what they'll say in 30 years if, after all the think-tanking, infrastructure building, and so forth, the American polity still rejects the "progressive" platform? We'll see when we get there, I suppose.

Via cut on the bias.

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Recently, some brilliant critters in Congress throught it would be a good idea to make Iraq pay back some of the costs of reconstruction.

Now: this.

The commander's emergency response program (CERP) allocated money to folks like Major General Petraeus (previously mentioned on this site here, here, and here) to spend on vital, boots-on-the-ground infrastructure repairs such as road building, sewage and water main repair, trash collection, school reconstruction, etc. It was what allowed American soldiers to make any of the good impressions that they made:

Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st, said the money has been critical to keeping people employed and providing tangible evidence the occupation powers are helping the populace -- which he believes keeps his soldiers safer.

"Money is the most powerful ammunition we have," Petraeus said in an interview.

Now, according to a Reynolds reader in the military,

Yes, it was the most powerful tool commanders have had. But as of now, it has been cut off. LTG Sanchez has informed all the resource managers this past week that the funding is done and there will be no more. All of our humanitarian projects we had going are now stopped and some projects (including those in the troubled Sadr City) are put on hold.

Now, this is somewhat at odds with the WaPo story, which says that

About $100 million has been allocated so far and the 101st Airborne Division, which oversees northern Iraq, has spent about $31 million of it.

That would mean that there's still about $70 million in the pot for Northern Iraq, at least.

But if Reynold's tip is accurate, and we're leaving jobs half-finished, then our rather tight-lipped administration had better come up with a damn good reason for this. Soon.

One such good reason might be that they're going to start bringing in civilian specialists to continue the work in some areas and, if that is the case, then it would certainly belie Standard Media's portrayal of the entire country as a dangerous, monolithic mass of chaos and destruction. If it's safe enough for civilians in some parts of Iraq, then things are clearly improving.

Alternately: they might just be cutting off funding in Baghdad, where stuff keeps getting blown up.

But I'm just guessing. We'll see how this one pans out.

---

And it looks as though it may pan out like this:

Provided further, That up to 1 percent of the amount appropriated in this paragraph may be transferred to 'Operating Expenses of the Coalition Provisional Authority', and that any such transfer shall be in accordance with the regular notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations and section 634A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961:

That's from the current text of the Iraqi reconstruction bill, HR 329 RDS. It provides for about $180 million or so for discretionary use of the CPA, which is pretty much what CERP is.

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Bwaa-ha-ha-haaaa! Folks are maybe getting a bit of a clue about Mr. Moore: he's an actor, not an activist.

From Sullivan.

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Little or no soup today; apologies. Gots to pay da bills.

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I drove home from Connecticut, facing into a wall of orange sky the whole way, a towering, California ash-fed spectacle pierced by the highway ribbon in front of me and bordered by the trees to either side. Hypnotic and time-rending, it carried me back ten years or so, and I felt my head nod to one side as the Cocteau Twins on the tape deck orchestrated the mood.

Which is not so good when you're barrelling down the Thruway at 80+ miles per hour. Every time the ephemeral toot-toot flutes of drifty time-neutral sensation would buoy me, I'd come to and realize that I'd gone up a slight grade and slowed down by 15 mph or so, and that people in the fast lane were riding my ass, and that if someone ahead of me had thrown a tire or something I'd be chewing an airbag.

This was hammered home when I passed by a left-lane three-car pileup involving a minivan that had become one with the guardrail and two other well-smahsed cars that had spun around and were facing me from the shoulder amid glittering bits of themselves. Everyone was out and walking around and cell-phoning, but it was enough to make me snap-to, for awhile.

Then the towering colored atmospherics would kick in again, offering acute sensations of looking across the surface of a planet through a thick layer of its atmosphere and then out into space where the sun's photons shower. I felt youthful, and even though I was hurtling along in my Honda o'doom I puffed the feeling up, trying to loft it like a lung-filled balloon, to keep it from vanishing and bringing me back down to earth.

Because that feeling, whatever it was, the sheer sensation of hey, look at that! reminded me of a drastic void in my life, something that I lost along the way, something that I put down in the haste of the past five years or so, and left behind in a small box in a closet somewhere. I wanted more of it, I needed more of it, and so I traded several minutes' worth of 80-mile per hour safety to experience it, to hold it gently, to get into it, so that I would know what it felt like, and could find those things in my life that would create more of it.

I kept it up until the sun sank behind a black hill speeding by, leaving a patch of pumpkin-colored sky behind it.

Must search that feeling out.

Must find the things in my life that bring it forth.

Must...

must...

must.

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