Author's posts
Oct 21 2007
Howard Kurtz Has a Blog
Clive James once decribed a particular best-selling bodice-ripper as like “a long conversation between two not very bright drunks”. Howard Kurtz’s blog, in which he promotes his promotional tour for his book Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War (don’t worry, he doesn’t mean Iraq), is like a short conversation between a especially dumb goldfish and a piece of fake seaweed.
I would much, much rather read Redstate. I would rather stare at a pile of sand.
At the Harper’s Magazine website, Scott Horton described Kurtz as “one of the dumbest figures in print or on the airwaves”. After reading Kurtz’s blog, I’m inclined to add “or in an oxygon-rich aptmosphere” to the list.
This must be seen to be believed.
Oct 21 2007
How We Should Understand the Relative Calm in Iraq
One of the saddest things about US political discourse is that both ends of the political spectrum have been afraid of Iraqis actually securing a peace for themselves in their country. The right has been afraid — correctly — that the current outbreak of peace might merely show the American people that we are not needed there. But the left has been afraid, too: afraid that calm in Iraq automatically equates to a victory for the Republicans; a technical knock-out for Bush and “the surge”. But the left only thinks this because the left is convinced of the overpowering ability of the right to shape narrative.
The truth is that the right-wing in the US doesn’t have a clue why Iraq has entered a period of relative calm. They want to credit, in some vague way, “the surge”, but at the same time they are wary of doing so, for fear that Democrats will then start saying, “Hey, we succeeded, let’s go home.”
But none of that is correct. In what follows I discuss the recent calm, the reasons for it, so far as they are understood, and what we on the left should be saying about it.
Oct 20 2007
Chess Problems
Here are four chess positions. All are white to move, mate in two. Some are kind of cute, so look close!
(All positions created using Apronus online chess editor.)
Oct 15 2007
The New Stupid
Glenn Greenwald points to some remarks Bill O’Reilly made on Thursday. After announcing that “Partisan politics bore me,” O’Reilly said the following:
So just talking about your personal security, would you support President John Edwards? Remember, no coerced interrogation, civilian lawyers in courts for captured overseas terrorists, no branding the Iranian guards terrorists, and no phone surveillance without a specific warrant.
I read this, and I wonder what television is going to be like, over the next, say, twenty years. I read this, and I see the coming of The New Stupid.
I see it in various places and in various forms: the attempt to drive the American population into a dreamspace of total ignorance of the world around them. A forced march from the observable into a land of faery.
Oct 05 2007
Comparing Two LA Times Pieces on Guantanamo and Torture
The LA Times is today running a news story and an opinion piece that together make for an interesting contrast.
The news story is about congressional efforts to obtain copies of the two recently revealed secret Justice Department memos. These memos, it appears, reversed an earlier abstention from cruel and painful treatment of terrorism suspects.
The opinion piece is by Clive Stafford-Smith, a lawyer for detainees in Guantanamo Bay. He describes some of the things he sees every time he visits his clients. That is, things about which there is no dispute at all, unread memos aside.
Reading these two pieces side-by-side leaves the reader slightly dizzy, bewildered. Congress is demanding memos which may disclose that Justice is secretly allowing the infliction of inhuman, painful, or degreading treatment of prisoners.
Meanwhile, Mr. Stafford-Smith sees inhuman, painful, or degrading treatment of prisoners every time he visits Guantanamo. For example, he is not allowed to bring throat lozenges to an imprisoned journalist whose anti-hunger-strike feeding tubes are inserted and removed twice a day by Guantanamo guards, unnecessarily, increasing the discomfort and pain he endures.
Let’s read snips of these pieces, side-by-side.
Oct 02 2007
WaPo/ABC Poll: “Helpless Dem” Story Working
BarbinMD alerts us to a new Washington Post/ABC poll, which indicates that 70% of Americans want the $190 billion war allocation reduced. That’s good news. Unfortunately, there’s some less-good news in there, too.
I wanted to point out some numbers in the raw data from the WaPo/ABC poll that are both interesting and deeply frusterating to those who want Democrats to be more assertive in confronting the Bush administration.
It seems to me that the obvious reading of these poll numbers — or at any rate an easily available reading of these numbers, and a reading which will surely be adopted by many Democrats in the captial — is that the “helpless Dem” narrative is working like a charm.
Oct 01 2007
If Nothing Else: A Semi-Manifesto
“So why did you do it at all?” he asks.
I never expected it to work in the first place, is what I’ve just got done saying to him. That’s why he asked me the question. And now I don’t know what to say.
I didn’t have any hope for it. I think the last time I had hope, back then and before back then, even growing up, hope about anything at all, was . . . no. I’m not sure I ever had any. I don’t remember it if I did. But I don’t say that out loud.
It’s thirty years on, now. 2037. I’m sixty-six years old — not an old man but hardly a young one. You’d think I’d have an answer to this question my friend has just asked me.
Why did I join the blogosphere?
Sep 30 2007
Mr. Death Squad in Charge of Blackwater Oversight
The sheer bonk-on-the-head idiocy of leaks put out by the Bush Administration are occassionally useful for the White House, in that they get the reporter and the reader to miss the one really salient fact being conveyed.
For example, in the midst of all of the mind-numbingly stupid leaks put out by the State Department over the past few days about Blackwater, no one seems to have noticed that State has put John D. (“The ‘D’ stands for ‘Death Squad'”) Negroponte in charge of Blackwater oversight.
— big snip —
The Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has asked Mr Negroponte to oversee the department’s response to problems with security contractors.
— big snip —
Sep 24 2007
The Allure of the Fake Everything
One
Let us all nod our heads sagely . . .
The Axiom of Existence: “Existence exists.”
The first axiom states that something other than one’s own consciousness exists. If it did not, according to Rand, consciousness itself would be an impossibility. Rand believes that this principle is self-evident (its truth is given in perceptual experience) and such that any attempt to refute it implicitly assumes it. This axiom entails metaphysical realism, the view that things are what they are independently of the mental states (beliefs, desires, etc.) of individual cognizers.
— exposition of Ayn Rand
Now . . . you tell me. I think I’ve just been told that a tautology entails “metaphysical realism”. In other words, if you’ve ever scratched your head wondering if maybe you haven’t lived your life in a dream, or in the Matrix, you can rest assured you have not, because, well, “existence exists” and whatnot. This is heady stuff! Ice cream headspike heady.
That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call ‘free will’ is your mind’s freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom. This is the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and character.
— Ayn Rand herself
I enjoy being told that my character is “determined” by my “only freedom” (drum roll please): the freedom to not think. Self-improvement with a good mallet. Well, it worked for Harrison Ford in “Regarding Henry”, though he needed a bullet.
On the list of sentences I get a real kick out of, the first was pointed out by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison: the Frugal Gourmet reminding us that “Irish immigrants came to this country wishing to maintain their love for the potato.” But, “Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival,” is a close second, for sheer moxie. Objectivists do like their “reason”, dontcha know.
One would have thought that a person willing to trumpet her view as “Objectivism” would have the decency never, ever, to say that “reason” is the “only source of knowledge”. The world can go take a hike, apparently — a hike in an objective park, I hope. Love dem objective boids.
(Continued . . .)
Sep 20 2007
Apparently [Not] Deleted LA Times Story on Blackwater [Update]
Update 7:37pm EST 9/20/07 by LithiumCola]: The article is available at LATimes, again, here.
[Update 7:36pm EST 9/19/07 by LithiumCola]: In the comments at Kos, silence says that according to Ned Parker the apparent deletion is a technical glitch. The information in the article is important enough for an essay, in any event.
[Update 7:54pm EST 9/19/07 by LithiumCola]: I can confirm that the original story is still on Lexis Nexis. This isn’t as big a deal as I thought. However, the story is hard to find on the net anywhere, so it’s good to have reference to it here, so I’m keeping the diary up. My apologies to readers, to Ned Parker, and to the LA Times about any mistakes or confusion on my part.
A search at the LA Times website for articles by staff writer Ned Parker shows that he filed two stories on September 19th (“Maliki insists U.S. replace Blackwater”, “U.S. limits diplomats’ travel in Iraq”), one on the 17th (“Suspect arrested in Iraqi sheik’s death”), and one on the 16th (“Iraq’s war makes intimate enemies”).
But Ned Parker also filed a story on September 18th; this story doesn’t appear on the search. It appears not to be on the LA Times site at all. It’s hard to find. This September 18th story is about Blackwater, and contains some startling claims made by employees of other contract security companies.
Sep 14 2007
Little Grey Orb
On Monday morning a little grey orb was floating three feet off the ground in the living-room of Judd Frimp’s apartment. Judd was late for work at the supermarket and didn’t notice.
When he got back that evening, sweaty and swearing, it was still there.
“Don’t put bags of groceries on top of watermellons, Judd,” Judd fumed as he came in the door. “Don’t smash carts into curbs to make a train, Judd. It knocks the wheels out of alignment, Judd.” He threw his green “Food Gnome” apron onto the 70’s-plaid couch and stormed to the shower, stripping clothes as he went. “I’ll knock you out of alignment you fat pig,” he said to his boss, who wasn’t there.
A moment later Judd reappeared from the bathroom, naked, gawking at the orb. One of his socks had landed on it.
“Flubuck?” he said. “Huh?”
The orb was about a half-a-foot in diameter and unblemished . . . aside from the gym sock. It hovered motionless above the coffee table in the living room. Judd had bought the coffee table at a Target Superstore and put it together using the stupid little hexagonal tool that came in the box. He’d hurt three of his fingers in the process. Stupid hexagonal tool. Stupid hexagonal Chink tool.
More importantly, though, nothing was holding the orb up. It hung in mid-air, next to the lamp on the table.
Judd shuffled toward it warily, squinting. He expected lighting bolts or maybe laser beams to shoot out of the orb and fry him. He reached and grabbed his sock. The orb was unperturbed.
Judd tapped it with his finger. Tap tap tap. Nothing. He tapped harder. Tap tap tap. The orb didn’t move at all. It was as though it were lodged in the oxygen. Fixed. Fast. Frozen.
It was reflective. Judd saw himself in the orb — a funhouse-mirror skinny self. Looking at his own eyes, Judd imagined the orb or the Smurfs inside it could see him. He covered his privates with the sock.
“Devil’s own business,” he mused.
Phone in kitchen. Back up slow. Dial. Bart.
“Hullo.”
“Hey Bart.”
“Yeah?” Bart sounded groggy.
“You ever see a little grey orb?”
“What?”
“A orb.”
Waking up some: “The fuck are you talking about? Is this Frimp?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, fucker,” Judd said. “Like a ball.”
“Have I ever seen a ball?”
“Yeah.”
“Well lemme think on that, Frimp. Yeah, yeah. I believe so.”
“No shit? Floating?”
The orb sat in the air, silent, reflecting a Dokken poster on a wood-panel wall.
“You high, Judd? Get ya some bad shit?”
“No, man, I was gonna ask if you had it in –“
“Yeah, I had it in,” Bart said, mimicking him. “I been holding it for you all weekend. You didn’t go buying that shit Harriet sells, did you?”
“Naw, no, Bart.”
“That shit’ll make you see things.”
“No Bart, I’m straight at this exact moment. Look I’ll be right over.” Judd hung up. He got dressed and went over to Bart’s. He didn’t want to piss off Bart; Bart sold the California shit.
__________________________
Suzie at work agreed to a date for Friday. Judd invited her over to his place at nine. At eight, he sat on the couch, watching television on his thirty-inch flat screen, changing channels. The orb was still there.
Judd had heaved on the orb, tried to shove it, beat it with a tennis racket, all week long. The orb never budged. It was a rock. A rock floating three-feet off the ground in the living-room of his apartment with wood-paneled walls. It was a true-to-life bitch, is what it was.
But Suzie was pretty, so Judd sat there and contemplated the matter. He had to hide the orb from her view, so that when she came over in an hour, she wouldn’t see it. It was some embarrassing shit, having an orb in your place.
Judd took the lamp on the table and tried to arrange it so that the lamp shade covered the orb. The lampshade was puke-orange and fairly translucent, but Judd figure it would do if he could arrange it correctly.
He’d left the TV absently on channel 43, the science Discovery channel. A guy was speculating on higher-dimensional objects, and what would happen if they protruded into the known universe. Only three of their many dimensions would be apparent, of course.
Judd messed with the lampshade and the lamp and got it about right — the shade was a bit askew but it covered the orb. He looked down into the shade from above and he could see the orb there. Good enough. He changed the channel to a Friends rerun and drank a beer and smoked some weed.
Suzie came over looking nice in a jean-skirt and sweater and they made out. But Judd made the mistake of trying to turn on the lamp at one point to help her look for an earring. This sent the lamp twirling about and cast a weird dancing shadow of the orb onto the walls.
Suzie freaked out and left. Judd kicked the orb a karate kick and hurt all five of his toes. He drank himself into a daze and then crashed on his bed at two o’clock in the morning.
____________________________
When Judd woke up, the little grey orb was gone. He thanked God loudly and took a numb, hung-over shower. He went to work at Food Gnome where the boss yelled at him again.
The most amazing thing that ever happened in the history of the world happened in Judd Frimp’s apartment, but he was stupid and so nothing ever came of it.
Sep 13 2007
The Shock Doctrine — A Short Film by Cuaron and Klein
From the Harper’s Magazine website.
Alfosno Cuaron and Naomi Klein present a short film based on Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
At the end are options for viewing further video of Klein and her thesis.