Art Link Pencil and Wax
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September 2007 archive
Sep 06 2007
State of the Onion I
Sep 06 2007
The Morning News: RIP Pavarotti
From Yahoo News THE TOP STORY
Italian tenor Pavarotti dies at age 71
By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writer
49 minutes ago
| ROME – Luciano Pavarotti, whose vibrant high C’s and ebullient showmanship made him the most beloved and celebrated tenor since Caruso and one of the few opera singers to win crossover fame as a popular superstar, died Thursday. He was 71.
His manager, Terri Robson, told the AP in an e-mailed statement that Pavarotti died at his home in Modena, Italy, at 5 a.m. local time. Pavarotti had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year and underwent further treatment in August. “The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life. In fitting with the approach that characterised his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness,” the statement said. |
Sep 06 2007
Earth tones
Well, it’s a big change, but I want you to see just what a little change in background color can do.
The main color is based on Patriot Buff, but is even lighter- fffffa
This is the color of the outer border and the main column.
The Recent Diaries Column and the Menu Column are a little yellower than Patriot Buff- ffffee and they are now both the same color instead of one being darker than the other.
So this is ‘earth tones’ and browns, yellows, greens, and reds should work and play well.
I’d like you to live with it for a while (like today maybe) and we’ll try something different tommorow.
No, I’m not afraid of anything, why do you ask?
Sep 06 2007
The violence grows worse, and the Democrats won’t stop it.
Here’s the problem, as defined by two front page newspaper stories.
The Washington Post has a report that undercuts claims that violence in Iraq is dropping:
The U.S. military’s claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.
Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration’s claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.
Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers — most of which are classified — are often confusing and contradictory. “Let’s just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree,” Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.
Of course, cherry-picking the intel was one of the ways the Bush Administration sold the war to the gullible public, in the first place!
The article makes clear that compliant military officers have been questioning the methodology of the recent pessimistic GAO report and the similarly negative report in the recent National Intelligence Estimate. For example, the NIE reported on the worsening warfare between rival Shiite factions, while the military simply doesn’t track Shiite-on-Shiite or Sunni-on-Sunni attacks. Violence is apparently invisible and inconsequential if it isn’t perpetrated by pre-selected factions. One wonders if there’s an actual application form they’re supposed to fill out, before their murder and mayhem can be officially recognized. Similarly, acts of violence by Sunni tribesmen who have been recruited as U.S. allies aren’t counted at all. In other words, being a U.S. ally means never having to say you’re a murderer.
The December 2006 Iraq Study Group also reported that violence was being underreported, as the Los Angeles Times explained:
Bombings, sectarian slayings and other violence related to the war killed at least 1,773 Iraqi civilians in August, the second month in a row that civilian deaths have risen, according to government figures. An Associated Press tally put the August figure even higher, at 1,809.
And, according to that AP tally, those August casualties represent the second-highest monthly total of the year.
Sep 06 2007
Usernames
As people begin to drift in, I think we should establish a policy on usernames. Otherwise, we might end up with some of the games being played at peeder’s place. I think we should say, up front, in our Faq or whatever we come up with, that people who have established UIDs on other sites should be given the presumptive right to use them, here; and that if anyone takes the UID of someone well-known on other sites, they should make clear on their user page that they are not that person. I realize this is another subtle meta issue, but it’s another that I think needs clarification, before people start using UIDs to abuse their previous enemies. And they will. And it could create another type of headache that would disrupt the site’s smooth flow.
Thoughts?
Sep 06 2007
What falls away is always
I never mentioned to him, during those four years that we knew each other, that I was familiar with Theodore Roethke. I never recall Murray saying a word about Roethke to me. It is the greatest irony to me; a small thing to you, of course. But when you meet someone, and see them many, many times over the course of four years, and your lives cross paths in both big and minuscule ways, you’d think that “knowing” Roethke would have been a topic that might have been shared.
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Of those so close beside me, which are you? God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there, And learn by going where I have to go. |
Sep 06 2007
Harry Reid: Republicans Agree Senate is Where to End Iraq
Mr. Reid, I know you are tired of getting these letters, but I offer you a ray of hope tonight. I offer you validation from the Republicans in their Presidential debate this evening. When you are looking for justification for bringing a plan to end the mistakes of the Iraq War to the Senate floor, look no further than presidential hopeful, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul.
Now, truth be known, my guy in this fight is Ron Paul. And he, as I am sure you know, is against the war. Always has been. Well, tonight he got into a tangle with Huckabee as to if it is time to end this war. Huckabee, though a decent man, was using the old “you break it, you bought it” stance. Paul, as you know, is strict on the Constitution and wants out.
Let’s see how this played out:
Sep 06 2007
Midnight Cowboying – My Front-Porch Theory of America
Having the great fortune of growing up in place that was free and independent of the nothing we called the creeping American culture in Texas, I can tell you stories about people in my area that would make Faulkner blush and Roy Rogers laugh and do rope tricks. But the key to any good yarn is a community to base one upon, and I’m sorry I would rather look at Dick Cheney Glamour Shots where he wears a fluffy, all be it fun, red boa than listen to any more tales of suburban disturbance. People are under the spell of suppression through opulence, whereas the quality of life is up to such a level the populace is in fear of change in fear of losing their mall food courts which daily have banquets the Romans would have called decadent. But the sacrifice was a common bond with their neighbors; just because a city has a name, it is not a town until there are a people.
The alpha point for this culture was rather simple and, at the time, viewed as a keen idea. In the swell years of America, the post-war family explosion ignited a need for place for these fine Americans to call home. They would also have to be fast produced to accommodate both the baby boom, and a longer living older generation.
At this time it would be convenient time to discuss basic home building. Up until this era, all homes had a dominating front to the street, with a front porch as the primary portal into the home (See Figure 1). They also had nice front lawns with actually used lawn furniture and always with a Norman Rockwell shady tree. The front porch was a focal point of social interaction that can still be seen on stoop fronts of Brooklyn.
Sep 06 2007
NYT: Dems to Cave for ANY “Compromise”
Crossposted from Daily Kos. let me go for some substance this time
Well, this didn’t take long. Here’s a couple of paragraphs from the story to make you angry:
The willingness to consider alternatives represents a shift by Democrats and is a recognition of changing political and practical realities they face in grappling with Iraq and its future.
Democrats had been counting on more Republicans to make a clean break from the president after the summer recess, but the White House has managed, at least temporarily, to hold on to much of its support.
Got that, the Republicans aren’t caving in magical September, and the Democrats are SHOCKED. So what are we getting in place of a date certain?
Republicans and Democrats are also discussing ways to tweak a bipartisan plan by Senators Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, and Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee [. . .]
more
Sep 06 2007
The Texans Next Door
I was bummed several years back when some stupid, racist, loud, Republican Texans moved in next door. (There goes the neighborhood!!) They put up a 15-foot flagpole right in the middle of my view up the valley – an otherwise “pristine” view. Do I hate my country? Am I patriotic? Me, I think nations and empires are ephemera – they pass in the blink of an eye compared to the mountains that snag rain out of the clouds and send it down to water the landscape. How we all live has, should have, to do with things much deeper than lining up behind a flag.
I asked them to move the flagpole. Offered to pay for it. The reply? A nasty letter from a lawyer. And they hoisted Old Glory up, and left it there for two solid weeks – day and night, through storms including a hailstorm. They were gonna show me! Violate the basic rules of respect for the flag to spite me!
Lovely, life here in the bucolic countryside.
A coupla years later, in 2003, we had a medium-sized forest fire nearby which flared up on the 4th of July. Named the Encebado fire, it was started by lightning and burned about 5,400 acres.
Sep 06 2007
Bush Derangement Syndrome
I was going to do a Matt Yglesias imitation and consider the argument (implicit I think) presented by Megan McCardle about whether Paul Krugman is too well, anti-Bush. For us of course this is a silly argument. But Krugman is a New York Times columnist. Should he start his discussions of Bush policies from a more measured point and then argue why Bush is wrong?
It reminded me of Brad DeLong’s longrunning series of “serious” people who became “shrill.” And of course Krugman was the original “Shrill One.” Which THEN reminded me of a post I wrote at Daily Kos where I explained my own evolution on viewing the Bush Administration. I’ll reprint it on the flip.