Thursday, June 17, 2004
All Are OneIn response to the 9/11 Commission's conclusion that no "credible evidence" links Iraq to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, today George W. Bush insisted that Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorist network were "connected," because al-Qaeda had attempted to communicate with Iraq on several occasions.
In other news, I've recently learned that Kevin Bacon is "connected" to both Saddam and Osama bin Laden by less than six degrees of separation. It's not yet clear from White House statements whether Bacon is a suspect in the attacks, and if so, whether he's being held in one of several secret detention facilities which, according to administration officials, may or may not exist.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must tell you that I am, by Bush administration standards, "connected" not only to John Kerry, to numerous US Senators and Representatives, to the governor of this state and to former President Bill Clinton, but also to Mr. Bush himself. And I'm only four degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, due to my longtime association with Chris "Chip" Chapman. However, rumors that we're dating are completely false (Kevin Bacon and me, that is; the idea that I might be dating W is just silly).
Bush administration officials promise to issue more confusing and misleading statements as the elections draw nearer.
Posted by Me at 22:49 link
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Do You Hate America?A better question might be: "Which America do you hate?"
Because two distinct (US of) Americas exist today in uneasy parallel. The divide roughly follows political lines: Right/Left, Blue State/Red State, Republican/Democrat, Conservative/Liberal—but also Fundamentalist/Secularist and True Believer/Rationalist.
Before 1980 and the "Reagan Revolution," Americans of faith generally allied with the more compassionate Left, guided as they were by conscience on issues such as Civil Rights and the War on Poverty. The Right looked out for the more secular Rich, and worried less about what was morally right than about what worked to maintain their interests. The Left concerned itself with always doing the morally right thing, with looking out for the rights of all Americans, especially those of the less powerful: the poor, minorites and women.
But because the Left's moral center was secular, based on Reason rather than Faith (or maybe you could say it was based on faith in Reason), many fundamentalists felt deeply disatisfied.
Enter Reagan, who presented a Good-vs-Evil worldview (conservatives were Good, of course), and did much to make Faith the moral center of America. But it's a very strange Faith, seemingly more concerned with winning the culture wars for Jesus than with loving our neighbors as ourselves—or indeed, even with making sure our neighbors have enough to eat, or that they have adequate health care.
After Reagan, the Right still looks out for the Rich, but draws tremendous support from the less wealthy (but more numberous) fundamentalist Christian community. Their America is a simple place, where if you're not with Jesus, you're with Satan. Debate and reasoning are not necessary, because all the answers can be found in the Good Book. Facts are less important than Faith. Science is always suspect. Non-believers must be converted or, barring that, defeated. This America gets its news from Fox and is more afraid of Big Government than of Big Business. This is Bush's America.
And yeah, I hate that America.
Posted by Me at 22:29 link
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Reality Check15 days until the handover of power in Iraq.
139 days until the November elections. Results of a Recent Coalition Poll in Iraq:- 92 percent of Iraqis consider the United States an occupying force
- More than half of Iraqis believe all Americans behave like those portrayed in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos
- 55 percent of Iraqis would feel safer if U.S. troops immediately left
[full article]
Review of the book I'm currently reading, ethicist Peter Singer's The President of Good & Evil Despite the fact that Bush employs the language of morality, of Right and Wrong, perhaps more often than any other president in American history, Singer demonstrates, quite powerfully, that on a host of ethical issues — equity, individual rights, honesty, the rights and responsibilities of power, etc. — Bush's actions don't line up with his statements, which don't line up with each other. After reading this book, it's hard not to conclude that Bush's moral instincts are as tangled as his syntax. Considering that he is the most powerful person in the world, this is, to say the least, alarming.
Still, my reaction was, Well, duh, and that, I think is the book's main weakness. That our president is a sloppy, self-serving moralist will fail to surprise many readers. But, as Singer points out, "Bush represents a distinctively American moral outlook....Tens of millions of Americans believe that he is sincere, and share the views that he puts forward on a wide range of moral issues." Will these Americans read this book? Doubtful. And if they did, would they find Singer's logic convincing? Again, doubtful.
Despite the fact that our political system grew out of one of the great intellectual flowerings in history, there is also in American culture an undeniable and deeply-rooted distrust of complex thinking (not to mention that taste for violence we like to hide from ourselves). Singer has ably demonstrated that these tendencies are currently holding the reins in American politics. But those who will agree with him already know this. What we don't know — what I would like to understand — is why.
Why at this particular moment in history are Americans so hungry for a leader who reduces the complexity of the world to a childishly simple, and logically incoherent, tableaux of black and white? Why do we tolerate a president who tells us that we are "the kindest nation on Earth," and "the greatest force for good in world history," then systematically — and blithely — destroys our hard-won international reputation? And where did that peculiarly American fetish for "innocence" come from, an idea that is not part of the Christian tradition? And how is this idea related to our seemingly endless desire for retribution?
[full review] I thought along similar lines this afternoon, as I examined the funny looks I got from the others in the outpatient surgery waiting room (my mom had shoulder surgery—which went very well).
Were they irked that I was- - Reading a book critical of Bush?
- Reading a book supportive of Bush? (The book's cover could suggest either one.)
- Reading a book?
More likely, they were, as I was, concerned about their loved ones and just looking at everyone funny. Still, from their insipid conversations, you'd never know our country was at war, or indeed, that anyone in America had more pressing concerns than where to eat lunch or how best to landscape their yards.
Is it boring of me to find such relentless banality soul-crushingly depressing?
Posted by Me at 22:30 link
Monday, June 14, 2004
Simple Joys of the In-Between DaysLife is just too cool.
I discovered today that I can edit my MP3 files. Yeah, I know! I can cut out the annoying 45 seconds of crap after they drop the beat, I can make that annoyingly-quiet song as loud as the rest of the songs—I can even add bass to that "what-were-they-thinking" production job that had ruined an otherwise-wonderful song. Man, oh man: I need a job.
I didn't find one today, but I did work on it. Why does government or academic computing seem so appealing compared to the corporate jungle? Maybe it's the (seemingly) greater level of job security, or the benefits, or maybe it's that they actually have explicitly entry-level positions. I'd always heard the pay wasn't that great, but what I've seen so far looks pretty good. Of course, I've been living in a cave, subsisting solely on discarded peanut shells for the last eight years. Well, almost. So what do I know? Absolutely Nothing. Each day I realize more that I know even less than I thought I did. Probably this is good, but I'm tired of it.
At least in these in-between days, I can play with my music and surf the Web, and sell stuff on ebay and even read books! For pleasure, even. Currently I'm (re-)reading John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley, which, honestly, isn't nearly as good as I'd remembered it from 20 years ago. Still, it's much more entertaining than N. Gregory Mankiw's Principles of Economics or Patrick Carey's Creating Web Pages with HTML and Dynamic HTML or any of the other hastily-digested works that gave me such "literary" indigestion.Music In My Head"99" is much better at 3:30 long than at 5:15—at least for working out.
Posted by Me at 22:47 link
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Big Brother is Watching Me ShopMy curiosity overwhelmed my paranoia.
Yesterday, sya offered Gmail invitations to the first folks to contact her, and I couldn't resist. Gmail is Internet search giant Google's free e-mail service—and it's an interesting creature, to put it mildly. It's still in beta testing, and for now the only way to get an account is by invitation.
On the plus side, instead of the usual 4-10 MB of mail storage, Gmail offers a whopping 1000 MB—a full gigabyte of mail storage. Also, it features a search feature (predictably enough) that should make locating particular e-mails easy, another big improvement over other free-mail providers.
On the negative side, Gmail scans your e-mails and hits you with targeted sidebar ads based on the content (just as Google does with your search terms and results). They promise that no human eyes will read your mail, but it's still kind of creepy. As sya rightly points out, though, any time you do anything on the Internet, you should be concerned about your privacy. The last time I Googled myself, I was surprised to find many comments from online political petitions I'd signed last year. Good thing I hadn't vented too much! My advice is never to say anything online you wouldn't feel comfortable saying on live TV—and that should probably go for e-mail, too, especially if you're on the computer at work, school or another public place.
If you feel like it, send me something nice at my new Gmail address: b*u*d*s*t*e*r-[at]-g*m*a*i*l-[dotcom] (be sure to remove all the bot-foiling asterisks and dashes). And Now a Word from our CensorsLately, I've been finding it increasingly hard not to despair at the stranglehold consumerism has on our society. I know, old news; I should probably get a job/take a bath/cut my hair/go back to Hippiestan where I belong—but I'm not some Luddite crying out against inevitable change here. Really. I spent half the weekend looking for jobs and the other half cataloging my enormous CD collection. I'm just a fine, upstanding patriotic consumer who thinks enough is finally too much.
Blame NPR, specifically John Powers's critique of The Control Room, a new documentary about the Al-Jazeera network's coverage of the Iraq war. Powers's take is that, while Al-Jazeera may well be biased to favor Arab points of view, American networks are biased towards selling more stuff, and therefore biased against anything that might turn our tender stomachs (e.g. dead bodies, or any other of war's "gross" realities) and make us less likely to buy from their advertisers. This stands in (at least apparent) stark contrast to the days of Edward R. Murrow, or even of Cronkite/Huntley/Brinkley, when we could at least believe we were getting the truth straight-up.
Consumer-friendly bias, shared by CBS and Fox (to name only two) threatens us more than would political bias, as it creates a fantasy world, where missiles are launched but never seem to land, and where everyone must be okay, since only the survivors are ever shown.
I wonder if that's what Peter Gabriel had in mind when he sang about "Games without frontiers / War without tears"?
Posted by Me at 22:23 link
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