December 2007 archive

Read Loaded, an essay by Garret Keizer.

I hope that I shall never have to confront anyone with my gun, but owning a gun has forced me to confront myself. Anyone who owns firearms for reasons other than hunting and sport shooting (neither of which I do) has admitted that he or she. is willing to kill another human being – as opposed to the more civilized course of allowing human beings to be killed by paid functionaries on his or her behalf. Owning a gun does not enhance my sense of power; it enhances my sense of compromise and contingency – a feeling curiously like that of holding down a job. In other words, it is one more glaring proof that I am not Mahatma Gandhi or even Che Guevara, just another soft-bellied schlimazel trying to keep the lawn mowed and the psychopaths off the lawn.

If the authorities attempted to confiscate my gun in a house-to-house search, I believe I would offer resistance. What I would not offer is a justifying argument; the argument is implicit in the ramifications of a house-to-house search. But all of this is so much fantasy, another example of the disingenuousness that tends to color our discussion of guns. The Day When All the Guns Are Gathered Up – what the paranoids regard as the end of the world and the Pollyannas as the Rapture – it’s never going to happen. There are nearly 1.4 million active troops in the US armed forces; there are an estimated 200 million guns in private hands. The war over the proper interpretation of the Second Amendment is effectively over. The most reasonable and decent thing that gun groups could do at this point is to declare victory and negotiate terms with the generosity that is so becoming in a victor. Five-day waiting periods? Agreed, but our sense of honor compels us to insist on ten. (Oh, to have been born in a time of so many guns and so little gallantry! Perhaps we ought not to have shot Sir Galahad after all.) No assault rifles owned by civilians – also agreed, so long as, no assault rifles are used on civilians.

Of course, none of this is going to happen either. It would require a confidence that scarcely exists. One need only peruse the ads and articles in gun magazines to see the evidence of its rarity – to see that poignant, ironic, and insatiable obsession with overwhelming force. That cry of impotence. The American Rifleman I recall from my boyhood was closer to Field & Stream than to Soldier of Fortune, more like Popular Mechanics than National Review. My father and my uncles were do-it-yourself guys; their guns were just something else to lube. When I was a kid, I thought a liberal was a person who couldn’t fix a car. But the cars aren’t so easy to take apart anymore; the “check engine” light comes on and only the dealership has all the codes. As in Detroit, so in Washington: the engineering works the same. I am not the first to point out the sleight of hand that bedevils us: the illusion of power and choice perpetuated to disguise a diminishing sphere of action, A person dry-fires his Ruger in the same reverie of preparedness as another aims her cursor at her favorite blog. What precision, what access, what an array of options! Something’s going to happen one of these days, and when it does, man, I’m going to be ready. In the meantime, just listen to that awesome sterile click.

As the 2008 Presidential Race heats up, one of the largest issues looming in front of all candidates is the question of healthcare: how much, how should it be implemented and funded, who should it cover, what will it cover, where will the money come from, who will provide oversight, yadda yadda yadda.

I recently came across a post with a link to a tool that apparently provides the capacity to compare candidate healthcare plans four-at-a-time; I’m not directly familiar with the plans supported by any of the candidates, nor with the ins and outs of each plan, so I’m posting this here for people to examine and respond to.

Below the jump, read an excerpt of the post I read, follow the link, and check out the tool. I’ve got four questions at the end that I’d like readers to answer in comments. (Hat-tip Delphooie)

Crossposted at Invictus

Blogger Deep Harm over at Daily Kos did a nice job of writing up a review on Mark Benjamin’s recent article at Salon.com, Inside the CIA’s notorious “black sites”. Benjamin’s article details the case of CIA Yemeni prisoner (now released), Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah.

Mr. Bashmilah was held for 19 months in a succession of prisons, trapped inside the CIA’s secret worldwide gulag. Now the one-time CIA torture victim has filed a declaration as part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Company, and implicated in secret CIA rendition flights.

According to Mark Benjamin, Mr. Bashmilah — a businessman who had travelled from his home in Indonesia to Jordan to help arrange a surgery for his mother — was subjected to extreme psychological torture and physical maltreatment, first by the Jordanians:

Recently, there was something of a scandal that took place on several blogs.  Accusations were made that Oprah Winfrey, a major supporter of Barack Obama’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President, was an anti-union employer.  This was in rather short order, proved untrue, although many people voiced concern that the creative staff of Oprah’s talk show are not members of the Writers Guild of America, as is common for the staffs of most talk shows.

This was of particular concern to me.  I am a member of the WGA, but for a longer time and more importantly, I am a member of the International Association of Theatrical Stage Engineers, or IATSE.  It has been demonstrated by others that Oprah does employ members of the IATSE, but I called the offices of IATSE Local 2, which represents stagehands in Chicago, and IATSE Local 476, which represents studio mechanics there.  Both offices confirmed that Oprah employs members of both unions.

Another major issue regarding the WGA and the strike happened yesterday, as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with Conan O’Brian announced that they would resume airing, without writing staffs, this January.

As this is a major issue, for pretty much everyone, since whether or not you are a supporter of unions (and if you read this site, you almost certainly are) you are probably a consumer of television and film.  To do this, I must explain some basic things about unions in my industry, film and television.

I was probably the world’s worst scout.  I was with 2 troops, each more horrible than the other and was never anything but a Tenderfoot, though I did earn some merit badges.

The first was full of the grossest reprobates and drunks at the Methodist Church (also home of the teen sex club youth group) the kind of guys who would fart in a glass and try and light it on fire at patrol meetings.

They were in fact a bunch of rip roaring pyromaniacs who would try and light just about any damn thing on fire, the bigger the better.

We were winter camping in a state park.  Not such a bad experience if you have a decent sleeping bag.  I will warn you that if there’s any snow pack at all (and this site had about 8 inches) you better watch your first step out of the tent in the morning because the residual heat from a small cook fire can melt a crater 20 feet across.  My peg was dangling when I woke up.

It was a small fire because it was put together by responsible sane adults since earlier in the day my dad had to drive one of the older wise ass patrol leaders to the hospital.

They had gone off to get wood and this rocket scientist thought it would be just as easy to hack up a picnic table.  He  was some surprised when his ax bounced off it and bit him in the leg I betcha.

It was pretty late in the day and we were all set up so they didn’t pack us all in the cars and drag us home, though I imagine they were sorely tempted.

Such a catchy title. Gotta work on that.

Lots of politickery today, and stories about late-night shows returning after the new year. Leno and Conan seem to be being forced back writer-less, and Letterman (who owns his production company) is negotiating his own interim agreement with the WGA. No word on the Daily Show/Colbert Report yet. Plus some action links, below.

Crossposted from dKos, where we’re chatting while desperately missing Jon & Stephen.

Fidel Castro, the leader of the Cuban Revolution and head of state, has hinted that he will not hold on to the reigns of power in his country!

With FISA Deform again imminent, discussion has focused on telecom immunity, Senator Reid’s inexplicable refusal to honor Senator Dodd’s hold, and Senators Clinton, Obama and Biden following Senator Dodd’s lead, in at least attempting to filibuster. In purely electoral terms, this has been one more reason why it is too bad Senator Dodd’s candidacy likely won’t have any impact on the presidential campaign. It is also further proof that we need him to replace Senator Reid, as Majority Leader.

But the real story is still about domestic spying. The real story is still about the Bush Administration breaking a law that was specifically designed to stop abuses of government that had been going on for decades, but most egregiously by the Nixon Administration.

As mcjoan wrote:

The illegal activities of the telcos in aiding our government in domestic, warrantless spying extends far beyond 9/11 and preventing another terrorist attack on the U.S. Not that that was a valid justification for the government to overthrow the rule of law in the first place, but what a cynical effort by this administration to deceive.

Congress should not be voting on any amnesty for the telcos until full investigations of these new revelations have been conducted. The pending legislation on FISA, or at least this provision of it, should be shelved until Congress has a full picture of what these companies have been doing on behalf of our government.

Just so. It’s not only about shielding the telcos for having violated the trust of their customers, and possibly the law, it’s about preventing a full, fair accounting of what exactly the Bush Administration was doing, spying on the American people. The Constitution, the law, history, and the concept of individual privacy demand this accounting. That’s the real story, here.