Evidence of a Democracy Malfunction:
(compliments of Symi)
-----

Will We Need a New 'All the President's Men'?
by Frank Rich October 17, 2004
The New York Times

SUCH is the power of movies that the first image "Watergate" brings to mind three decades later is not Richard Nixon so much as the golden duo of Redford and Hoffman riding to the nation's rescue in "All the President's Men." But if our current presidency is now showing symptoms of a precancerous Watergate syndrome - as it is, daily - we have not yet reached that denouement immortalized by Hollywood, in which our scrappy heroes finally bring Nixon to heel in his second term. No, we're back instead in the earlier reels of his first term, before the criminality of the Watergate break-in, when no one had heard of Woodward and Bernstein. Back then an arrogant and secretive White House, furious at the bad press fueled by an unpopular and mismanaged war, was still flying high as it kneecapped with impunity any reporter or news organization that challenged its tightly enforced message of victory at hand.

It was then that the vice president, Spiro Agnew, scripted by the speechwriter Pat Buchanan, tried to discredit the press as an elite - or, as he spelled it out, "a tiny, enclosed fraternity of privileged men." It was then that the attorney general, John Mitchell, under the pretext of national security, countenanced wiretaps of Hedrick Smith of The Times and Marvin Kalb of CBS News, as well as a full F.B.I. investigation of CBS's Daniel Schorr. Today it's John Ashcroft's Justice Department, also invoking "national security," that hopes to seize the phone records of Judith Miller and Philip Shenon of The Times, claiming that what amounts to a virtual wiretap is warranted by articles about Islamic charities and terrorism published nearly three years ago.

"The fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before," wrote William Safire last month. When an alumnus of the Nixon White House says our free press is being attacked as "never before," you listen. What alarms him now are the efforts of Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame-Robert Novak affair, to threaten reporters at The Times and Time magazine with jail if they don't reveal their sources. Given that the Times reporter in question (Judith Miller again) didn't even write an article on the subject under investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald overreaches so far that he's created a sci-fi plot twist out of Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report."

It's all the scarier for being only one piece in a pattern of media intimidation that's been building for months now. Once Woodward and Bernstein did start investigating Watergate, Nixon plotted to take economic revenge by siccing the Federal Communications Commission on TV stations owned by The Washington Post's parent company. The current White House has been practicing pre-emptive media intimidation to match its policy of pre-emptive war. Its F.C.C. chairman, using Janet Jackson's breast and Howard Stern's mouth as pretexts, has sufficiently rattled Viacom, which broadcast both of these entertainers' infractions against "decency," that its chairman, the self-described "liberal Democrat" Sumner Redstone, abruptly announced his support for the re-election of George W. Bush last month. "I vote for what's good for Viacom," he explained, and he meant it. He took this loyalty oath just days after the "60 Minutes" fiasco prompted a full-fledged political witch hunt on Viacom's CBS News, another Republican target since the Nixon years. Representative Joe Barton, Republican of Texas, has threatened to seek Congressional "safeguards" regulating TV news content and, depending what happens Nov. 2, he may well have the political means to do it.

Viacom is hardly the only media giant cowed by the prospect that this White House might threaten its corporate interests if it gets out of line. Disney's refusal to release Michael Moore's partisan "Fahrenheit 9/11" in an election year would smell less if the company applied the same principle to its ABC radio stations, where the equally partisan polemics of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are heard every day. Even a low-profile film project in conflict with Bush dogma has spooked the world's largest media company, Time Warner, proprietor of CNN. Its Warner Brothers, about to release a special DVD of "Three Kings," David O. Russell's 1999 movie criticizing the first gulf war, suddenly canceled a planned extra feature, a new Russell documentary criticizing the current war. Whether any of these increasingly craven media combines will stand up to the Bush administration in a constitutional pinch, as Katharine Graham and her Post Company bravely did to the Nixon administration during Watergate, is a proposition that hasn't been remotely tested yet.

To understand what kind of journalism the Bush administration expects from these companies, you need only look at those that are already its collaborators. Fox News speaks loudly for itself, to the point of posting on its Web site an article by its chief political correspondent containing fictional John Kerry quotes. (After an outcry, it was retracted as "written in jest.") But Fox is just the tip of the Rupert Murdoch empire. When The New York Post covered the release of the report by the C.I.A.'s chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, it played the story on page 8 and didn't get to the clause "while no stockpiles of W.M.D. were found in Iraq" until the 16th paragraph. This would be an Onion parody were it not deadly serious.

It's hard to imagine an operation more insidious than Mr. Murdoch's, but the Sinclair Broadcast Group may be it. The owner or operator of 62 TV stations nationwide, including affiliates of all four major broadcast networks, this company gets little press scrutiny because it is invisible in New York City, Washington and Los Angeles, where it has no stations. But Sinclair, whose top executives have maxed out as Bush contributors, was first smoked out of the shadows last spring when John McCain called it "unpatriotic" for ordering its eight ABC stations not to broadcast the "Nightline" in which Ted Koppel read the names of the then 721 American casualties in Iraq. This was the day after Paul Wolfowitz had also downsized American casualties by testifying before Congress that they numbered only about 500.

Thanks to Elizabeth Jensen of The Los Angeles Times, who first broke the story last weekend, we now know that Sinclair has grander ambitions for the election. It has ordered all its stations, whose most powerful reach is in swing states like Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, to broadcast a "news" special featuring a film, "Stolen Honor," that trashes Mr. Kerry along the lines of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads. The film's creator is a man who spent nearly eight years in the employ of Tom Ridge. Sinclair has ordered that it be run in prime time during a specific four nights in late October, when it is likely to be sandwiched in with network hits like "CSI," "The Apprentice" and "Desperate Housewives." Democrats are screaming, but don't expect the Bush apparatchiks at federal agencies to pursue their complaints as if they were as serious as a "wardrobe malfunction." A more likely outcome is that Sinclair, which already reaches 24 percent of American viewers, will reap the regulatory favors it is seeking to expand that audience in a second Bush term.

Like the Nixon administration before it, the Bush administration arrived at the White House already obsessed with news management and secrecy. Nixon gave fewer press conferences than any president since Hoover; Mr. Bush has given fewer than any in history. Early in the Nixon years, a special National Press Club study concluded that the president had instituted "an unprecedented, government-wide effort to control, restrict and conceal information." Sound familiar? The current president has seen to it that even future historians won't get access to papers he wants to hide; he quietly gutted the Presidential Records Act of 1978, the very reform enacted by Congress as a post-Watergate antidote to pathological Nixonian secrecy.

The path of the Bush White House as it has moved from Agnew-style press baiting to outright assault has also followed its antecedent. The Nixon administration's first legal attack on the press, a year before the Watergate break-in, was its attempt to stop The Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers, the leaked internal Defense Department history of our failure in Vietnam. Though 9/11 prompted Ari Fleischer's first effort to warn the media to "watch what they say," it's failure in Iraq that has pushed the Bush administration over the edge. It was when Operation Iraqi Freedom was bogged down early on that it spun the fictional saga of Jessica Lynch. It's when the percentage of Americans who felt it was worth going to war in Iraq fell to 50 percent in the Sept. 2003 Gallup poll, down from 73 that April, that identically worded letters "signed" by different soldiers mysteriously materialized in 11 American newspapers, testifying that security for Iraq's citizens had been "largely restored." (As David Greenberg writes in his invaluable "Nixon's Shadow," phony letters to news outlets were also a favorite Nixon tactic.) The legal harassment of the press, like the Republican party's Web-driven efforts to discredit specific journalists even at non-CBS networks, has escalated in direct ratio to the war's decline in support.

"What you're seeing on your TV screens," the president said when minimizing the Iraq insurgency in May, are "the desperate tactics of a hateful few." Maybe that's the sunny news that can be found on a Sinclair station. Now, with our election less than three weeks away, the bad news coming out of Iraq everywhere else is a torrent. Reporters at virtually every news organization describe a downward spiral so dangerous that they can't venture anywhere in Iraq without risking their lives. Last weekend marines spoke openly and by name to Steve Fainaru of The Washington Post about the quagmire they're witnessing firsthand and its irrelevance to battling Al Qaeda, whose 9/11 attack motivated many of them to enlist in the first place. "Every day you read the articles in the States where it's like, 'Oh, it's getting better and better," said Lance Cpl. Jonathan Snyder of Gettysburg, Pa. "But when you're here, you know it's worse every day." Another marine, Lance Cpl. Alexander Jones of Ball Ground, Ga., told Mr. Fainaru: "We're basically proving out that the government is wrong. We're catching them in a lie." Asked if he was concerned that he and his buddies might be punished for speaking out, Cpl. Brandon Autin of New Iberia, La., responded: "What are they going to do - send us to Iraq?"

What "they" can do is try to intimidate, harass, discredit and prosecute news organizations that report stories like this. If history is any guide, and the hubris of re-election is tossed into the mix, that harrowing drama can go on for a long time before we get to the feel-good final act of "All the President's Men."

A while ago, I was working on a project that involved working with a guy who was located down in Metro Atlanta.

His name was Jim Crow.

Yes he is a real person. No, he wasn't pulling my leg.

I had to ask a few times to make sure I had it right but he wasn't fazed. Because he was having to go out of his way to something for the project, I didn't ask him specifically about his name but I'm still trying to figure out how something like that could have happened in earnest....

A very interesting article:

Deconstructing the War on Terror
by Pepe Escobar
October 13, 2004
The Asia Times

"Bush speaks of 'war', but he is in fact incapable of identifying the enemy against whom he declares that he has declared war." - Jacques Derrida, September 2001

Wales sinks into Irish Sea on EU map

Eh... Nobody could spell Welsh place names anyway--

It's amazing... the Bush administration can't find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but they're quite expert at leaving smoking guns around...

How the White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelligence

An Open Letter to the Heads of State and Government of the European Union and NATO
September 28, 2004

Very interesting. I wonder who specificially is their intended audience. More importantly, I wonder what all of these luminaries would recommend instead.

Finally, I find a real discussion about The Corporation, a documentary film and book that makes the case that the current status of the corporation within society is "psychopathic." It has, perhaps understandably, disappeared from theaters several months ago, after only about two weeks of very active promotion. I haven't seen or heard anything about it since. While I don't think I'd go as far as the movie seems to have done, the fact that it just disappeared really bothers me. I'm a firm believer in sunshine as being the most effective disinfectant.

But I just happened to stumble over this discussion on Radio Netherlands, an interview of law professor Joel Bakan, the book's author, and his responses to a few listener emails. The page opens onto a transcript of the discussion but you can find an audio link if you scroll down a little bit.

Does anyone out there know what happened to the film? I'd be interested to hear about it and what y'all think about the interview.

In case you missed it, here's the transcript of last night's "debate" between John F. Kerry and George W. Bush.

Ok, having grown up in a household that had a strong German hyper-diligent streak to it, I understand the phrase 'If you're going to do something, do it right' but this is just incredible.

Among the many foreign language versions of Deutsche Welle's homepage, somebody thought it would be funny to include something in the artificially developed Klingon language from Star Trek. But this goes waaaay further than just a few mentions....

A few happy birthdays to post--

First of all, many happy returns to DC Penguin on her birthday today--

What's this about my looking like I'm nine years old? That should make you, what? About four?? ;-)

Several other people have had birthdays in the recent past, who I don't think have blogs. (let me know if I'm mistaken)

Stuart Washington-- a truly remarkable guy who's pushing the bounds of science by, apparently, trying to read the minds of bats. I only found out about his birthday as it was hurtling by but warm wishes nonetheless....

Guy Jordan-- his birthday was last Thursday but I haven't had a chance to wish him well personally. If he stays at NTN tomorrow until I'm able to get there from my grad Russian class, I'll make sure that changes.

Congratulations all!

Happy Birthday to me... Happy Birthday to me...

Kind of torn about how to feel about today being my birthday. A lot of things have changed since I was born, though. 25 years is both too short and too long a time to be around...
(I was listening to this NPR story about the use of 'educational' filmstrips in the classroom. Damn, those recordings take me back. They were using those in my school district until the end of the 1980s!)

I'd like people to know about my birthday but don't want to toot my own horn about it. Doing that always seems to come across as expecting people to react in paroxysms of awkward congratulations. --Definitely not what I want.

In a perfect world, this kind of thing would somehow be more genuine, though I have no idea how it would work....

I guess I'm just being wistful... and rambling. Well, I'm a quarter of a century old and getting older, so tough! There's a lot more rambling to come.

Anger mixed with frustration mixed with sadness...

This is what you get when you blindly follow the 'free market.' Oro Grande is only about 50 miles from where I'm from.

The New York Times
September 17, 2004

Collapse of 60 Charter Schools Leaves Californians Scrambling
By SAM DILLON


Ken Larson was pacing the floor of his office in a tiny elementary school in Oro Grande, Calif., surrounded by the chaos of fax lines beeping, three beleaguered secretaries peppering him with questions and phone lines ringing for the umpteenth time.

It had been a month since one of the nation's largest charter school operators collapsed, leaving 6,000 students with no school to attend this fall. The businessman who used $100 million in state financing to build an empire of 60 mostly storefront schools had simply abandoned his headquarters as bankruptcy loomed, refusing to take phone calls. That left Mr. Larson, a school superintendent whose district licensed dozens of the schools, to clean up the mess.

"Hysterical parents are calling us, swearing and shouting," Mr. Larson said in an interview in Oro Grande last week. "People are walking off with assets all over the state. We're absolutely sinking."

The disintegration of the California Charter Academy, the largest chain of publicly financed but privately run charter schools to slide into insolvency, offers a sobering picture of what can follow. Thousands of parents were forced into a last-minute search for alternate schools, and some are still looking; many teachers remain jobless; and students' academic records are at risk in abandoned school sites across California.

Investigators are sifting through records seeking causes of the disaster, which has raised new questions about how charter schools are regulated.

"Until the Charter Academy went into its tailspin, few people predicted that these crashes could be so bloody, but this has been a catastrophe for many people," said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley. "The critics of market-oriented reforms warned of risks with the philosophy of let-the-buyer-beware, but in this case, buyers were just totally hung out to dry."

Jack O'Connell, the California superintendent of schools, said in an interview that a majority of the state's 537 charter schools were making a solid contribution to public education. But Mr. O'Connell has concluded from the disaster that the state must apply "tough love" in regulating them, "to keep this kind of near-bankruptcy and chaos from happening again," he said.

"If there's mismanagement and malfeasance, we'll come in and put you out of business," he said.

Back in 1999, the national movement to provide alternatives to parents through charter schools, which face less burdensome regulation than other public schools, was gaining steam. Many charter schools have since flourished, and experts say that some of them offer an excellent education. But in Southern California, there were signs of trouble soon after C. Steven Cox, a former insurance executive whose only educational credential was his brief service on a local school board, founded the Charter Academy.

State auditors are now scrutinizing Mr. Cox's financial records to determine whether he exaggerated enrollments and to sort out claims from a line of creditors, said Scott Hannan, director of school fiscal services at the California Department of Education.

"But our highest priority is securing the student records," Mr. Hannan said. That is a sore point with Mr. Larson, who said that thousands of students' immunization and academic records had been virtually abandoned all across California.

Mr. Larson, superintendent of a tiny school district in Oro Grande, a Mojave Desert village 88 miles northeast of Los Angeles that looks like a set for "Bad Day at Black Rock," has converted a storeroom at his school into a warehouse for the records. He has arranged for dozens of file cabinets holding student records to be trucked to Oro Grande from schools that have closed across the Mojave Desert, he said, but he has no way to collect records and equipment left behind elsewhere.

Mr. Larson said Mr. Cox approached him in 2001, preaching the charter school gospel that money spent on filing reports to government regulators would be better spent in classrooms, and asking the Oro Grande district to license him to found charter schools. The Oro Grande school board approved the idea, and two other California districts forged similar relationships with Mr. Cox between 1999 and 2001.

Mr. Cox eventually founded 60 satellite schools in low- and middle-income communities stretching from Chula Vista near the Mexican border to Gridley, 140 miles northeast of San Francisco, and under California's financing formulas the state paid him about $5,000 annually for each student he enrolled. As his business grew, he hired his wife, son, daughter-in-law and other relatives to work at his corporate headquarters in Victorville, near Oro Grande.

But by early 2003, Mr. Cox had become mired in several costly confrontations with the California Department of Education; one centered on whether 10 of his schools were in violation of a 2002 law barring charter operators from opening schools in counties they had not registered in. The state withheld more than $6 million that Mr. Cox had expected to receive.

Mr. Cox sued, seeking to force payment, but lost that battle after running up huge legal fees, and the state withheld money as a result of other disputes, too. By the summer, Mr. Cox's financial difficulties had grown severe, and on July 28, the trustees of one of the four charters responded to the mounting crisis by voting to close the schools they had licensed. Mr. Cox stalked out of that meeting and stopped responding to most phone calls.

Within a week and a half, trustees voted to close the rest of Mr. Cox's schools, and his second in command announced to scores of employees gathered at the Victorville headquarters that they were out of a job. Kim Ehrlich, a billing supervisor, said she spent the first half of August with workers dismantling the offices around her, phoning local utility companies across California to turn off the power at Charter Academy schools, then lost her job.

The sudden collapse blindsided even the charter school principals. Melody Parker, whose Village elementary school in Inglewood was one of the most popular schools in Mr. Cox's organization, said that although her budget had been slashed and Mr. Cox had grown aloof, she never imagined that his organization could fall apart.

"It hit us like a tornado," Ms. Parker said. On Aug. 12, she informed teachers that their jobs were gone, and the next day she told hundreds of parents gathered at the school that it would not open for the fall term. Many had still not found schools by the second week of September, she said.

"The collapse was so disheartening,' said Dwayne Muhammad, who works in a funeral home and whose daughter Aisha was to attend the Village's fourth grade this fall. "Everybody began rushing to find alternate schools."

Mr. Muhammad has visited eight schools in the weeks since, all of which have been full, he said Monday. "We've been left by the wayside."

The nonprofit California Charter School Association said in a report this week that 80 percent of the students displaced from Mr. Cox's schools had since enrolled in other charter schools. Some teachers, like Maria Boatwright, who taught first grade at the Village, have found new jobs at other charters.

But teachers all across the state have reported difficulties in finding new teaching positions because most schools had hired their staffs by the time the academy collapsed, Mr. Larson said.

At the interview in Oro Grande, he produced a stack of letters from distraught, jobless teachers. Travis D. Taylor, who taught art and science to students at a Charter Academy school in Gridley, wrote to say that he had not been repaid the hundreds of dollars he spent on books and science equipment for his students.

Mr. Taylor's mother, Shelly, said that since the collapse, Mr. Taylor had been unable to find another teaching job. With his debts mounting, he has been harvesting rice "to keep his head above water," she said.

Mr. Cox did not respond to requests for an interview left on his voicemail, sent by e-mail and relayed through former employees. Mr. Larson has not been able to reach him either, he said.

One of Mr. Larson's secretaries interrupted the interview to announce that the landlord of a school forced to close in Los Angeles was threatening to dump desks and student records in the street to make way for a new tenant. Mr. Larson wrestled with the notion of driving a truck to Los Angeles himself to fetch the assets.

"There's 100 desks down there," he muttered. "What would we do with 100 desks?"




http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/education/17charter.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

For those of you confused by the cover of "The Economist" I posted a few days ago:

Look at this for background.

So... I was at work the other day and get a strange call on my cell phone... my brother!? I hadn't heard from him in at least 6 months. Apparently Los Angeles hasn't swallowed him up.

In fact, he's coming to DC tomorrow night! Still a bit stunned myself but I'll manage. Any recommendations as to what to do with him?

Now I've just got to get rid of this cold... Blech!

Quite possibly could be lost footage from Office Space... or maybe not...

The guys in this video probably worked about as hard as Peter did, at least.

Search for chair_test.wmv if it doesn't open automatically.

Absolutely perfect....

Bizarre--

Mood of Blagoveshchensk customs officers should improve

Aromatherapy lamps are to be installed at customs posts in Blagoveshchensk, Amur Oblast, Vostok-Media news agency reported in July. In an effort to improve the mood of customs officers, maintain their psychological well-being and reduce stress, their union has initiated the aromatherapy drive. Customs officers will also be able to take aromatherapy courses.

-- Russian Far Eastern News (September 2004)

(Keep in mind, Blagoveshchensk is on the border with China, north of Manchuria.)

People who own white Sport Utility Vehicles should be whacked upside the head. No... probably worse. Just like any parent who decides to name their child 'Chastity.'

Yaay! Redheads finally get a little more respect! And so cute!!

Red Letter Day for Red-Heads at London Zoo

LONDON (Reuters) - They say blondes have more fun, but redheads will have the edge on Sunday when they get into London Zoo for free to view a rare new-born ginger-coloured monkey.

The endangered south east Asian Francois Langur monkey, called Laa Laa, has typical baby orange fur which in six months will turn a glossy black.

London Zoo said 9,500 red-heads had already downloaded free vouchers from its Web Site.

"It has been very popular. We will accept all shades of red, auburn, titian, ginger, you name it," a Zoo spokesman said.

Ginger Sunday will also allow red-heads, often the butt of jokes in Britain, to win some friends since the vouchers allow them to bring a friend, be they brunette, blonde or even bald.

Britain has one of the highest concentrations of redheads in the world, but a recent survey showed that 9 out of ten were teased at school about their hair colour.

A national utility company even decided to poke fun at redheads when it ran an ad campaign during 2000 which showed a family of gingers above the caption - "There are some things in life you can't choose".

You've got to hand it to this guy---

Ghana: Opposition party wants US to pay for 1966 coup

GHANA BROADCASTING CORPORATION RADIO 1
Saturday, July 31, 2004

(FBIS Transcribed Excerpt)

The EGLE (Every Ghanaian Living Everywhere) Party has asked the US government to make amends for derailing Ghana's progress through the sponsorship of the 1966 coup d'etat that overthrew the government of Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

According to Mr Danny Ofori-Atta, chairman of the party, the Central Intelligence Agency's recent declassified files clearly admit the role of the United States played and it was only fair that it made up for causing Ghana's economy to stagnate ever since.

He has, therefore, called for a total cancellation of Ghana's 5bn-external debt and the setting up of "credit guarantee for a private company capitalized with 5bn which will be in the form of a 30-year US Treasury insurance guarantee to back the capital of the private company to be listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange". (Passage omitted)

(Description of Source: Accra Ghana Broadcasting Corporation Radio 1 in English -- state-owned, government-controlled radio)

I wish this were a surprise-- but it unfortunately was only a matter of time:

Bombs rock American and Israeli embassies in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Well, the whole Democratic convention has been and will be analyzed and hyped so there isn't much original I would add.

The only thing I can say is that I am extremely glad to see them reaching across party lines to formulate "American" policy instead of "Democratic" policy. I know it's only talk until it is lived up to but it puts a lot of momentum towards turning the corner from the 50-50 stalemate we've been stuck in.

We'll see.

Just when you thought North Africa didn't need any more problems, with grinding poverty, Islamic extremism and the crisis in Darfur....

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has launched an urgent appeal for $83 million to curb a deadly locust plague ravaging north and western African crops. Government ministers from Algeria, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal and Tunisia met in Algeria this week to discuss efforts in their countries to deal with the problem before drafting a plan at regional level.

News clip from today's Global Development Briefing by the Development Executive Group

 
Unfortunately, my blog is one of the first things that has to go when I get busy but here's something to show that I'm still around....  

US Cuts Off Aid to Uzbekistan

It was a slow day and the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all

The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry, don't cry

It was a dry wind and it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers and the automatic earth

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all

The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry, don't cry

It's a turn-around jump shot
It's everybody jump start
It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts

Medicine is magical and magical is art
The boy in the bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all

The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry, don't cry

"The Boy in the Bubble" by Paul Simon
Graceland album

This has been running through my head as I hear the news and (try to) deal with a lot of stuff that has been coming up in my life recently. Hope to be posting a bit more soon.

"Holy Men in Tights!"-- A Superheroes Conference

A call for papers at a conference hosted by the Cinema Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia

I know a few people who could submit papers here no problem....

Interesting:

Global Dispatch: From Turkey to Tibet
The Guardian, Monday February 23, 2004

Brian Whitaker tries to pin down the boundaries of the Middle East and discovers that over the years it has been all things to all (self-interested) people

I have been writing about it in the Guardian for almost four years and I'm fairly sure that I have been there, but I have to confess that I don't know for certain where the Middle East is.

The only consolation - for me, if not for those on the receiving end of US Middle East policy - is that the state department, the Pentagon and the military are as confused as I am.

Read the entire article

This is disturbing:

Spying Commonplace at the UN, Diplomats Say

It reminds me of a story one of my former professors used to tell. A native of Ceaucescu's Romania (one of the more paranoid Communist satellites), she was celebrating the new year with her family in Bucharest when she, knowing her phone was being monitored, said simply into the phone (without dialing or having it ring):

"Happy New Year"

and a man's voice on the phone responded:

"Happy New Year to you too."

and no, that last post wasn't an april fool's joke...

Happy April Fools Day!

This came out at least a week before but this is just too funny to be true...

Canada Could Ditch Winter Blues by Annexing Caribbean Paradise Some Canadians (including members of Parliament) are lobbying for Canada to annex the Turks and Caicos Islands!

Here's the site they put up to promote the idea

The Turks and Caicos is a small island group near the Bahamas, thousands of miles from even the closest point in Canada. They've got a population of not even 20,000 people and they're talking about making it a possible new province?!

Where I come from, life is unfit to be lived. Given the strong winds and poor public transport, whatever you plan to do turns into an immensely arduous undertaking. At the age of fourteen you are already incredibly weary, and you don't get a proper break until you're fourty-five. Very often people go out shopping and don't come back, or else they write a novel and on page 2,000, they suddenly realize how confusingly out of hand the whole thing has got and start all over again from the beginning. It is a timeless life, one of the gtreat achievements of which is the chance to die in one's own bed.

From Russian Disco by Wladimir Kaminer (Ebury Press; August 1, 2002)

With all the stories of crises and bad things happening throughout the world, I thought it would be good to post something positive for a change:

Participatory Government: A New Reality Slowly Emerges in Tajikistan (January 2004, from the Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative of the American Bar Association)

According to the State Department,

"More democracy is the best antidote to terror."
-- Richard Boucher, State Department Spokesperson

Powell Offers Help in Uzbekistan Probe

Funny how our democratic freedoms in this country are continually eroded with things like the Patriot Act.....

Taking a quick break during a crazy day at work.....





Which Homestar Runner character are you?

this quiz was made by jurjyfrort

To explain the puzzling absence of recent blog postings, I present this rant:

Argh--

I finally get my computer fixed after fighting with Dell to get my warranty recognized, my requests getting lost twice because of computer problems on their side, long delays in actually having the repairman come to perform surgery, and digging up a strange OS that my system had never run to reboot my computer to find that the firm I took it to initially for data retrieval had stuffed an entirely different harddrive into my defunct machine!

(try to say all that in one breath)

So where does that leave me? I've been basically computerless for 2 months, using only a klunky system here at work, trying to get my system back in order and I'm stuck with a messed up piece of hardware running the memories of some AU Washington program student whose most pressing computer need was downloading pictures of Matt Damon...... Argh! [sorry Tim ;-)]

So bear with me as I plunk down a big wad of cash (that I don't really have) to get operational again. I should be more digitally active when that comes...

Lots of upheaval here, made worse by an ongoing battle to make the electronic gadgets in my life work. I've succeeded in resolving problems with my phone and now the long saga of my string of computer problems seem like they will (hopefully) come to a close soon. (We'll see if the repair person comes when they said they would)

In the meantime, here's something bizarre that caught my eye:
(from RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 8, No. 30, Part I, 17 February 2004)

PUTIN ENCROACHING ON SANTA'S SPHERE OF INFLUENCE. A boy living in Ufa who sent Russian President Putin a letter saying he "does not believe in God but believes only in the president" has been given a computer, an RFE/RL Ufa correspondent reported on 12 February. The gift was reportedly paid for by local authorities. Another child from Bashkortostan reportedly wrote to Putin asking for a puppy. The 8-year-old girl from Ufa received a reply saying her request was forwarded to the Bashkortostan authorities. Ufa's Sovietskii Raion administration, which was tasked with dealing with the issue, determined that the girl's family is too impoverished to support the puppy. However, raion officials said that they cannot avoid giving the child a puppy because it was an order by the Kremlin. JAC

I'm glad this story is finally percolating up through the Western media but it has hit a brick wall of late--

Trial Could Dredge Up Sordid Role of US (in Iraq)

I'm looking for the transcripts of American officials commenting on the Halabja chemical weapons attack-- surprising nobody has brought those up in view of recent events...

And it's also interesting that Bill Frist is the recipient of this ricin attack, or whatever it turns out to be ...
Why him and (apparently) only him? There are plenty of more government officials that would give extremists on any side more "bang for the buck" without running into that much security. Frist has kept a relatively low-profile and am just confused as to why this is happening to him specifically instead of a more random or high-profile target.

(as a disclaimer, I have friends who work in the Senate offices that have been evacuated and am therefore extremely serious in my condemnation of this and any other terrorist attack)

Instead of having to deal with the tedious process of nurturing democratic institutions in Iraq, the United States should solve the whole controversy about elections by sending out a ballot asking "Should Saddam Hussein be recalled?"

Bursting with gratitude for their benificent liberators, the United States, Iraqis of all political backgrounds would undoubtedly embrace democracy as totally as it is in the US. Arnold Schwarzenegger would surely win in a landslide.

California would be bursting with gratitude too.

It's me again-- Still plagued with computer problems and much more...

Have lots of things to write on:

Like why you should avoid American Express-- especially financial services.

How the toppling of the Shevuardnadze regime in Georgia demonstrates the operation of a very interesting activist movement in many of the former Soviet republics.

How the Republican junta running our country is finding even more ways to run it into the ground.

All this and much more, when I actually can dedicate time to writing!

In the meantime:

Check out al3x.net, a site maintained by Alex Payne; who I had the pleasure of meeting recently.

Read this article to get a little perspective on how many people still see Stalin.

And watch me indulge my love of maps, this one of the states I've visited (thanks, Tricia). Anyone want to show me around the south or the midwest?



create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

More soon.....

It's one of the most overused cliches of the universe but you really don't know how much you use something until it's gone. Without warning, my computer has stopped working entirely; not even responding to being plugged into the wall. I?ve done as much as I can to figure out what's going wrong to no avail. Hardware problems are beyond my experience and I?m trying to figure out where to go from here. Lots of mitigating circumstances, complications and headaches.

So, I have another quibbling excuse for not writing as much as I have material.

But, here are a few things that have caught my eye recently:

Growing up in a family of teachers, I can tell you that this is all too true:

Talk the Edutalk

Take a look at this interesting and revealing story about a focus of real power behind the president:

The Strong, Silent Type

I also got this email forwarded to me and thought that it deserved to be distributed to the paltry readership of my blog:

The American Family Association, an anti-gay organization, is doing a poll on gay marriage. They are going to present the results to Congress, hoping to gain support for the federal constitutional amendment to define "marriage" as solely a heterosexual union. However, anyone can take their poll, so please pass this URL far and wide. (I doubt they expect anyone but their own, anti-gay members to answer it.)

Marriage Poll

Note: If the link doesn't work, go to www.afa.net and in the upper right corner of the web page is the poll link.

The Bush Administration: The model of financial responsibility....

The United States is running up a foreign debt of such record-breaking proportions that it threatens the financial stability of the global economy, according to a report released Jan 6. by the IMF, noting the rising U.S. budget deficit and ballooning trade imbalance. The report warns that the United States' net financial obligations to the rest of the world could be equal to 40 percent of its total economy within a few years-"an unprecedented level of external debt for a large industrial country," according to the fund, that could play havoc with the value of the dollar and international exchange rates.

(From the Global Development Briefing for January 8, 2004-- Published by The Development Executive Group)

It’s been a long time since I have posted anything—too long. And, you know me, I’ve got a few (thousand) thoughts and ideas scribbled down on little scraps of paper…..

Time to do some… well—whatever the digital equivalent of scribbling is…

Happy Birthday to two great people!

We're just coming up to a state holiday in Borealum as its favorite son and Answer Guy is getting just a little bit wiser than before. Happy Birthday, Tim!!! :-)

And warm wishes go out to another friend, this time a chick-- or should I say Rotisserie Gold? ;-) Happy Birthday Michele!!

Here's a submission for the 'least exciting title in government' competition:

Associate Administrator for Administration for the Federal Highway Administration

I guess the only thing I can say about this posting on one of the listservs I subscribe to is -- huh? I'm half tempted to ask for more information. But, then again, the other half has more sense.

1 -- Crazy Boy - Empowered By Girls (MD/DC/VA)
Reply to: anon-19244216@craigslist.org
Wed Nov 12th

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If interested, please e-mail us and we will give you information on our next workshop.

Peace and blessings!

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests this is in or around MD/DC/VA
This posting can be found at:
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/grp/19244216.html

Things have been absolutely crazy these last few days-- should have a few hours or so to breathe a little..

Got to hear the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni tonight at the "premiere" of the new travelogue he has produced with the help of the Discovery Channel. Of course, things were swept up and they only gave the most optimistic view of his rule and country but his time in power actually hasn't been all that bad for the Ugandans. (He came to power in a coup overthrowing Idi Amin but has now held generally free and fair elections.)

It should be showing on the Travel Channel in mid-December sometime. It's well done-- but don't let his role as the gruff guerilla leader and African head of state fool you-- he's really funny!

Going to crash soon, but this warranted a mention:

The German Post Office and Weltbild, a German publishing company, have teamed up to provide "witching hour delivery service" for the next German installment in the Harry Potter series. German Harry Potter fans can sign up for a service that will have the book delivered to their homes at the witching hour-- midnight-- of the day it is released to the public (Nov. 8).

No word yet on how many owls they're going to employ....

There is a small, metallic ladybug balloon with little legs and a bright red carapace trapped up in the vaulted ceiling of the 'Metro Center' station. When I saw it up there last week, I could just imagine a toddling little one losing grip of this sparkling treat in the onward crush of DC's metro system and seeing this wide-eyed balloon with its exaggerated antennae float out of reach to be trapped in the sprawling concrete arches.

Today, I happened to be walking through the same part of the station and the balloon was still there--its little legs dangling and body dented by lack of air.

I could see a little face, hanging up there in the arches. Deflated.

And now for a little bit of fun:

The stuff this guy/gal scripts is amazing!
I especially recommend checking out the eye and face scripts.

And in celebration of Halloween, here is an interview with Bill Kelly, Vice-Chairman of the Jelly Belly Company. It starts out talking about candy corn but listen for some insight into the mystery of the buttered popcorn jelly bean.

More soon.

In the line of fire:

One of my mom's first graders described the fire-line as the edge of a lava flow-- glowing and leaving ash and charred wreckage behind. We're not being affected, thank goodness, but we're just over the pass from the San Bernadino fires and not too far from the others. Some of my friends, however, aren't as lucky. This tragedy is more than blood red sunsets and huge clouds of smoke ringing the edges of my home valley. All of you are in my thoughts--if you need anything, I'm here.

The scary thing is that, for all the destruction they have wrought, the fires have only burned a fraction of the fuel that's out there. All the "Old" fire needs to do is hop over a ridgeline and there's a whole other set of heavily populated valleys full of dead, dry trees with hot, dry winds making things worse. It was 99 degrees at home a couple of days ago-- a pretty toasty end to October, even in the desert.

Here's what it looks like:



Keep in mind that this map is about 150 miles west to east.

*&!!@??!!^%!! Damn Dubya! Either he and his advisors are even bigger idiots than I thought or he is simply satan's spawn.

When the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, another ultra-conservative politician, was at Dubya's ranch in Crawford, TX, Dubya made a big show of praising Howard in general and specifically for his support for the invasion of Iraq and the "war on terr." (sic)

One of Bush's biggest ways of talking up his Australian counterpart was to call him a "man of steel."

Not a good man. Not a great leader. Not even a visionary. Specifically a "man of steel!!"

If you don't understand what I'm getting so worked up about, consider a certain someone who killed millions of his people by both enforced starvation and direct killing. Whose name is synonomous with extreme repression and brutal tyranny. He was also US enemy number one for a good chunk of the 20th century.

Consider the name Joseph Stalin. People who know Russian history or a little about the politics of the time will remember that "Stalin" was actually not his real name. He was born Iosip (Joseph) Djugashvili but started to use the surname "Stalin" for political effect.

What does "Stalin" mean? You guessed it. It translates into "Man of Steel."

And what did our current president call one of his closest allies in a speech yesterday in front of the Australian Parliament?

Five months ago, your Prime Minister was a distinguished visitor of ours in Crawford, Texas, at our ranch. You might remember that I called him a "man of steel." (Laughter.) That's Texan for "fair dinkum." (Laughter.) Prime Minister John Howard is a leader of exceptional courage, who exemplifies the finest qualities of one of the world's great democracies.

He even has the stupidity or gall to bring it up again!

Why does it feel like my life is a concerted attempt to thwart Occam's Razor?

Tomorrow will come. But the question is-- How will it leave us?

oy-- I hate office politics. Does anyone out there know of foreign policy openings that might fit? Thanks.

California Recall Results

Still in shock. Dreading the hangover.

Realize too though, California is a huge part of the rest of the country and the world. It's the most populous and has the largest representation in Congress. It's also the 5th largest economy (by itself) in the world.

This is not just a funny headline.

Congrats to all those Red Sox fans out there!

It was a nail-biter, as nearly all Sox games have turned out to be, but they atypically won.

The Sox closer, Derek Lowe, said, "It's not like anything I've ever felt before. It's a win for Boston, for the Red Sox nation.''
(Yahoo Sports 100603)

It's interesting for someone to mention specifically the possibility of a 'Red Sox nation.' And I'm not sure that it's that far from the truth either..

I've not been lazy in not writing-- quite the opposite. Things have actually been a bit overwhelming. Lets just hope they come out positive in the end.

Please let the voters of California make a sane decision tomorrow. Please let the voters of California make a sane decision tomorrow. Please let the voters of California make a sane decision tomorrow.

Wait a minute! What am I saying?

Please let there be a miracle! Please let there be a miracle! Please let there be a miracle!

Ahhh-- this is my first time that I've been able to log on to my blog in over a week, in what looks to be a problem with my cookie settings...

Lots has happened, so I'll prolly be putting up a long entry one of these days :-)

Be well!

I had a good time at a reception at the Chinese Embassy this evening. The ambassador made a good speech, the "cultural presentation" (film) was interesting, and they had a very good spread of Chinese food-- prawns, marinated beef, lots of fruit, fruit dumplings (all very delicious) and........ waffles. There were inch-square pieces of what looked and tasted like commercially produced waffles with little dabs of butter on top. It wasn't bad-- just different. Still strange seeing a platter of waffle pieces surrounded by dinner foods...


And as I was walking back to the metro from the embassy, I saw something that literally made me do a double-take. Imagine walking by a bus stop and seeing the following ad out of the corner of your eye:

Enjoy Better Sex!
Legalize and Tax Marijuana!

If you don't believe me, follow the link.

Speaking about marijuana-- read this story about how government-produced marijuana in Canada has been rejected by the terminally ill patients for which it was grown-- on the basis of its quality.

Going to find some hatches to batten down before Hurricane Isabel gets here....

Johnny Cash died early this morning in Nashville.

(from Folsom Prison Blues)

Well, if they freed me from this prison,
If that railroad train was mine,
I bet I'd move out over a little,
Farther down the line,
Far from Folsom Prison,
That's where I want to stay,
And I'd let that lonesome whistle,
Blow my Blues away.

Enjoy your freedom, Johnny.

0

Curiouser and curiouser....

Freeze! FBI!
(Washington Post 090803)

Odd things, really odd things, can happen in Las Vegas. Take the case of FBI agent John T. Hanson III, who works out of the FBI's training center in Quantico.

Back on May 15, Hanson, 35, was visiting Las Vegas for an accounting seminar. At some point, he walked into the kitchen of the Barbary Coast casino, pulled out his .45-caliber Glock and squeezed off two rounds into a walk-in freezer, according to a police report.

Authorities say he allegedly was drinking. After he was collared, the police report said, "the suspect stated that he did not remember firing his weapon at any time." It was not clear what the freezer had done to offend or if service that evening had been slower than usual.

In any event, Hanson was detained and issued a citation for discharging a weapon in public. He surrendered his weapon to a local FBI agent.

Hanson pleaded guilty in June to a misdemeanor. Last month he paid a $65 court fine, $45 for Alcoholics Anonymous and more than $12,000 in restitution for damaging the freezer.

Local folklore has it that the bullets hit frozen lobsters, Todd Palmer, a spokesman for the FBI in Las Vegas, told our colleague Allan Lengel. But Palmer said it was not certain if that was the case, only that the freezer was full of frozen foods.

Clark County District Attorney David Roger said, "As far as the case is concerned, he got treated like anyone else under similar circumstances."

The FBI said it is conducting an internal probe, which could result in discipline or even dismissal.

Maybe the freezer was trying to get away?
===
Speaking of getting away and freezing:

Man Ships Self in Air Crate to Dallas

DALLAS (Reuters 091003) - A New York man trying to save a few dollars on his air fare is under investigation for stowing himself in an air cargo crate that was delivered to his parents' home near Dallas, authorities said on Tuesday.

Investigators suspect Charles McKinley of taking a two-day, 1,500-mile trip from New York to Texas, with a stop or two along the way, hidden in a wooden crate.
[...]

Sources in the air cargo industry said it was lucky for McKinley that he was traveling in pressurized cabins with climate control, because he could have easily been killed if he flew in a cold, unpressurized compartment.

(read the entire story)
===
Here, Democratic presidential aspirant Al Sharpton to a group of minority contractors, the Central Virginia Business and Construction Association, in Richmond the night of September 6th:

"We must not be in a relationship with a Democratic Party that takes us for granted. We must no longer be the political mistresses of the Democratic Party. A mistress is where they take you out to have fun but they can't take you home to mama and daddy. Either we're going to get married in 2004 or we're going to find some folks who ain't ashamed to be seen with us."
(Washington Post 090803)

Ok-- maybe that last post was a little too daunting. How about an anecdote about people's foibles and personal appearance?

This morning, the usually hazy process of my getting up in the morning got a jolt when my old electric shaver not only died, it literally fell apart-- plastic, rotors and casing all over the place. Well, that just meant I had to go and pick up a replacement at the local CVS and drop it back at home (only a few blocks away).

But, perhaps unsurprisingly, the phantom shaver I followed the clerk around the store for ended up not existing. It was a regular stock item, the store manager promised even though their shaver shelf was bare. The Radio Shack down the street didn't open for another 2 hours.

Exhausting my neighborhood's potential shaver-vending establishments and with time passing, I decided to try my luck at the CVS down the street from work (in the middle of DC, for those keeping score).

Perhaps it was just a reaction against the thought that humans might have once needed to fend for themselves or (gasp) do without their triple mocha frappo-latte in the morning but when I got on the metro, I became nearly immediately a furtively-viewed roadside attraction. Come one, come all! See the caveman in dress clothes masquerading as one of us! Hearken back to the time when we humans hunted wooly mammoth!

The only time I've caught that many smirks and slightly longer than normal glances on the metro was when I (under the influence of an insomnolent night) misbuttoned my shirt. I know, I know. You think I'm being paranoid. But sitting across from the door, I could see a good number of people’s faces over the top of my newspaper.

The CVS downtown was packed, so the clerks (democratically) nominated the 24 hour photo technician to spring the lone shaver from what seemed to be a maximum security appliance prison in a steel-reinforced glass case. After the tech closed the case and hustled back to the photo kiosk, I got in the checkout line and, finally being able to fully read the intentionally vague packaging, realized that what I had in my hands was actually a mustache and beard trimmer. My hair grows quickly, but not that quickly.

In exasperation, I walked up to the counter, returned the box and decided to see if the Radio Shack a couple of blocks away was open. I only had about 15 minutes before I was supposed to be at work. The Radio Shack clerks’ faces went blank when I asked about an electric shaver. One recommended helpfully that I try CVS. In a last ditch effort, I took his advice and ducked into another nearby CVS (in near Starbucks-like proximity to the other one). Again, nothing.

Perhaps DC had declared electric shaver rationing. Or maybe Bush had sent them all to Iraq and Afghanistan to shear the beards off Muslim clerics there.

I like electric shavers because with them I can focus on more important things as I’m shaving—focusing on the news or perhaps getting my last few seconds of shuteye. It had been over six years since I had shaved “unplugged.” Besides, those of you who know me understand what a bad idea it is for me to have anything as sharp as a razor blade.

Given no alternative, though, I bit the bullet and bought a razor with packaging that would have looked more natural on an Air Force recruiting poster.

Thankfully, not many people use the bathroom on my office’s floor. If there were, I would have a hard time explaining to them why there were so many paper towels speckled with blood. It wasn’t like a bad horror movie, but I did knick myself once or twice—just small things—but with the head being the most vascularized area of the body, it was hard to get them to stop bleeding. Damn the little swivel head!

Finally rid of that pesky stubble (and a few little pieces of epidermis), the caveman that had entered the office bathroom emerged as the regular researcher that comes to work every day. I only have three or so self-inflicted little red spots on my face, which I’ve had a couple of people mistake for pimples. Great…as if I needed people to think I am any younger. ;-)

And all this before the craziness of the workday began. Blargh. I got a lot done but, as one of my colleagues said, “this place is too small for office politics."

Does anyone know of any IR/research jobs I might be able to transition into?

(this posting was written last night but I had problems posting it then)

I've been reading the newly released transcripts of closed-door hearings held during the "Red Scare" by Joseph McCarthy and his cronies. Really scary. And definite echoes for the present. (Read them here) Here are a few excerpts from the interrogation of a Mr. David Ayman, who was in the Signal Corps and as of this session (Friday, October 23, 1953), teaches at Samuel Tilden High School. He also served as a "teacher-advisor" for the Teachers Union of New York that was itself under investigation for having Communist leanings. Here we pick up the questioning before the Committee on Government Operations Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations with "The Chairman" (Joseph McCarthy R-WI); Roy Cohn, General Counsel to the Subcommittee; and Robert Jones, Research Assistant to Senator Charles Potter (R-MI) asking him about his views on Communism in the public schools and other things. Just read this and think about what's happening today:

[...]

Mr. COHN. You don’t think somebody who refuses to answer the question of whether or not they are a Communist, you don’t think that furnishes reasonable grounds to believe that person is a Communist?
Mr. AYMAN. It is hard for me to make a judgment of a thing like that. There are things a person may believe in. He may feel this type of thing doesn’t involve this type of activity.
Mr. COHN. Do you believe Communists should teach in the New York school system?
Mr. AYMAN. I believe a person ought to be judged.
Mr. COHN. Do you believe a Communist party member should teach in the New York City school system? That is a very simple question. Just answer ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no.’’
Mr. AYMAN. Well, my own feeling about this, that answer is not quite as simple as you put it.
Mr. COHN. Answer ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no,’’ then you can make any explanation you care to give us.
Mr. AYMAN. My answer would be ‘‘yes,’’ provided, of course, this person did not engage in activities in the school system in which he used his position to officially propagandize for the Communist party or any other group.
Mr. COHN. Do you think that a member of the Communist party would not use any position he held to propagandize and attempt in every way to aid the cause of the Communist party?
Mr. AYMAN. Well, I would say this. Any person who believed strongly in any position he held, it might be possible for him, not necessarily and I believe necessarily that he would not actually use his position to do that. It is possible for him to do that.
Mr. COHN. Do you believe it is possible for a Communist party member not to use any position he holds?
Mr. AYMAN. I wouldn’t be in a position to answer that?
Mr. COHN. I think you should be. You are teaching children in the public schools in New York.
Mr. AYMAN. My function as advisor was to see that these people don’t get rattled. I am not legal counsel. I can give them no legal advice. They wanted somebody to go up there and make sure they were represented.
The CHAIRMAN. Is it your position that a man who is a member of the Communist party should not be barred from a teaching job unless it is first proven that he is using his membership-unless it is proved he is teaching communism to his students?
Mr. AYMAN. No, sir. That was not my position.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that mere membership in the Communist party and nothing else should bar him from teaching?
Mr. AYMAN. Off-hand, I would say no.
The CHAIRMAN. You would say it takes more than that?
Mr. AYMAN. That is my opinion. My feeling is this.
The CHAIRMAN. What more would it take?
Mr. AYMAN. Some act, some either technical act as a teacher in the classroom or in connection with the school system which he used to actually propagandize in one form or another about this proposition that should cause him to be eliminated.
The CHAIRMAN. You realize the more clever the Communist is, the less possibility of catching him in the acts?
Mr. AYMAN. That is possible.
The CHAIRMAN. You might catch the dumb ones, but the clever ones you wouldn’t catch. You would say that unless you catch the Communist, know that he attended Communist meetings, unless you catch him in the overt act of propagandizing, unless you catch him doing something like that, you should keep him on as a teacher?
Mr. AYMAN. Not only Communist, anybody else. Fascists. I believe in some other kinds of systems, the same thing is true about those individuals as well.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you know anything about the Communist movement?
Mr. AYMAN. Not enough to make judgment about it.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you know what is meant by being under Communist party discipline?
Mr. AYMAN. Well, in my mind, under discipline, he accepts the dictates from the Communist party. I assume it means——
The CHAIRMAN. Do you mean in good standing of the party and must obey orders?
Mr. AYMAN. I can’t make such a statement. I am not a member.
The CHAIRMAN. If you were told now—witnesses have testified over and over, witnesses the government considers reliable men, who were active in the Communist party—Bella Dodd whom you knew testified such is the case; that a member in good standing is under Communist discipline and obeys orders. Would you have any reason to doubt that? Do you have any information to the contrary?
Mr. AYMAN. No, sir. I do not have information to the contrary.
The CHAIRMAN. Don’t you think a teacher, regardless of how good a teacher he might be, should be a free agent and should not be under the discipline of any organizations, particularly the Communist party dominated by Moscow?
Mr. AYMAN. Yes, sir. I believe that not only about those but everybody else.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you still say someone under Communist party discipline should be allowed to teach, realizing they are not free agents, no freedom of expression but expression of the Communist line. Do you still say you think such a man should be teaching our children unless he is caught in the overt act?
Mr. AYMAN. My own feeling is, as I said before, that is a belief I have. Whether it is a good belief or a bad one, it would be a question of somebody besides myself to be able to answer.
The CHAIRMAN We are not trying to change your beliefs. We are just curious as to what your beliefs are on communism. We are not concerned with your other beliefs. We are concerned with your belief or attitude toward the international conspiracy.
Mr. AYMAN. The international conspiracy, I am not in a position to make judgment. I am not sufficiently well acquainted with it. It is not in my field. If it is, I think government officials knowing these facts, being aware of it, they ought to take appropriate action. If they can show that persons have performed acts as part of this conspiracy, well, obviously they ought to do something about it.
Mr. JONES. Are you married?
Mr. AYMAN. No, not now.
Mr. JONES. You were before?
Mr. AYMAN. Yes.
Mr. JONES. Was your wife a member of the Communist party?
Mr. AYMAN. I have no way of knowing.
Mr. JONES. Do you have any children?
Mr. AYMAN. No, sir.
Mr. JONES. I assume if you did have children you would not object to them receiving their entire education under a Communist teacher?
Mr. AYMAN. I wouldn’t say that.
Mr. JONES. You said it.
Mr. AYMAN. If these people were Communists and if they did not use their position to propagandize for their beliefs, I would have no objection to them any more than a person who is a Fascist not using his position. I would say it was perfectly all right, American principal. If they were using that position, then I would say that person should not be permitted to teach my children or anybody else’s.
The CHAIRMAN. In other words, you wouldn’t object to having a Communist teacher teach your children?
Mr. AYMAN. No.
The CHAIRMAN Would you have any objection to having a man convicted of rape a number of times, even though be was not caught committing rape in the classroom——
Mr. AYMAN. I don’t think you can make that comparison. I assume a man convicted of rape would be sentenced to jail for a number of years and not permitted to get a license. I don’t see how those two things are relevant.
The CHAIRMAN. Suppose he did not advocate rape in the classroom, but had been convicted several times; that he was not in jail. Would you have any objection?
Mr. AYMAN. I don’t know how he would get a license. If he didn’t use his position in the classroom, I don’t see what the objection would be.
The CHAIRMAN. If you were looking for a babysitter, you and your wife were going out——
Mr. AYMAN. I would think twice before using him as a babysitter.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you still have a reserve commission in the army?

[...]
Inquiry continues to go all over the map.

This is what the government gets for so often cutting music instruction out of the schools:

Pentagon Approves Push-Button Bugle

Chronically short of musicians for military funerals, the Pentagon has approved the use of a push-button bugle that plays taps by itself as the operator holds it to his lips.

Only about 500 buglers are on active duty on any given day, but about 1,800 people who have seen military service die each day and are eligible for honors ceremonies, said Air Force Lt. Col. Cynthia Colin, a Pentagon spokeswoman. So the Defense Department worked with private industry to invent the "ceremonial bugle," which has a small digital recording device inserted into its bell. The vast majority of families endorsed its use in a six-month test from November to May in Missouri, where 50 prototypes were distributed to military units and others who provide funeral honors, the Pentagon said in a statement. A real bugler will be used when available. Otherwise, the family of the deceased service member will be offered the ceremonial bugle as an alternative to pre-recorded taps, often played on a boom box. Use of the $500 instrument "is intended to enhance the dignity of military funeral honors," the Pentagon said.

(Washington Post 090603)

Whee!

Here's an article in the Nation written in March by one of my professors and friends at Dartmouth, Juliet Johnson. As an undergrad at Stanford, she took a class from the one and only Condi Rice, "then just a lowly associate professor," called The Role of the Military in Politics. One of the most useful parts of the class was a simulation in which student teams were split up into several groups mirroring the foreign policy branches of the US executive branch and tasked "to resolve an emerging international crisis peacefully if possible, by force if necessary." (read the article for more detail.)

The article mentions three important things Juliet learned from Professor Rice:

1. Rhetoric Matters

2. Seek International Support

3. Maintain Credibility

Kudos to you (now Dr.) Johnson! You actually learned something that our now National Security Advisor supposedly "taught." The first point especially needs to be made a lot more frequently and forcefully.

"In short," Juliet concludes, "Rice's class taught us that C students rush to war, while A students work diligently and patiently toward peaceful solutions to international problems."

That pretty much says it all.

So I was on the Hill for a good part of the day today and I noticed that things seemed strangely deserted after the summer interns have left.

Taking a shortcut through one of the underground Congressional parking lots, I came across a parking space reserved from none other than California Congressman Darrell Issa. I have to admit that I was sorely tempted to bounce his car to get back at the person largely responsible for the gubernatorial recall but also to give the 'car alarm czar' a taste of his own medicine.

Whee!

My home town (OK-- it's two towns down from that) finally gets into the national news and what is it called? Mecca, California is "a desolate farm town" in "a bone dry desert" near the "freakishly overgrown wetlands of the Salton Sea." It's actually an interesting story about how California is monitoring and trying to deal with the spread of West Nile Virus. Listen to it here: California Prepares for West Nile.
Home, sweet home!

A while ago, I saw an advertisement in the Pentagon City Metro Station for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Museum that was pretty good:
Visit the DEA Museum and Visitor's Center. Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists, and You!
I wonder how long it took them to come up with that one.

I was reading the front section of yesterday's Wall Street Journal (090303) that I found on the metro and there was a teaser for a story about how one school district is charging students $60 to join the high school band and similar fees for "school activities and services that once came at no extra charge." Not having the section where the actual article was printed, I tried to look it up on the internet but had no success. Does anyone else know about this? I'm curious.

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Yea, verily: Who is that, skulking out of the fields! It is Hradcany, hands clutching a vorpal blade! And with a bloodthirsty roar, his voice cometh: "Ares, God of War, be praised! I swear that on this night, you shall dine in hell!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

My vorpal blade goes snicker-snack!

There is a girl in New York City
Who calls herself the human trampouline.
Sometimes when I'm falling, flying, tumbling in turmoil,
I say, woah! So this is what she means!

Paul Simon Graceland

======
"You are what you eat" does translate into Russian:

Meals You Eat Reveal Your Character
(Pravda 082903)

The moral of this story: Spicy meals lead to "love deeds."

======

D'oh!

London and its surroundings are struggling to recover after a half-hour power outage swept the region.

I seem to think something similar just happened, but I just can't put my finger on it....

Walking around the mall last weekend during the celebrations of MLKjr's March on Washington got me thinking about the history of the area. I've also been doing a project involving the National Archives and stumbled onto this nice set of photos that make the point nicely:

Panoramic photographs taken east from the Washington Monument (1916 and 1996)

People assume The Mall was always there-- especially when reinforced by scenes in Forrest Gump and other movies. But just look 80 years back-- easily within a person's lifespan-- and things look radically different.

Speaking of DC changing, take a listen to this group of stories NPR did about Walter Pierce Community Park in Adams Morgan. (that's right, Tim!)

=====
And on a different note...

Why do bagpipers always walk when they play?
-- They're trying to get away from the noise.

Given this flawless piece of musical wisdom, it's unsurprising that we hear (or perhaps not) the same thing from the proverbial horse's mouth:

Bagpipes hit sour note for hearing

By: James Doherty

FOR many a Scots regiment, the Highland bagpipe was as potent in the advance toward battle as artillery and rifles.

But a survey conducted by Piper & Drummer magazine has revealed the resonating force of the pipes can damage more than the morale of enemy troops.

Half of those surveyed reported hearing loss and repetitive strain injuries after years of playing.

Some 10 per cent also reported that their passion for the pipes had led to the break-up of marriages, while 84 per cent claimed to know pipe-band members who are alcoholics.
(excerpted from The Scotsman Magazine 082503)

Got to head out... More to come...

For someone whose horse came out from under him at about 30 mph, my dad is actually in good shape. Now that some of the swelling has gone down, x-rays don't show any broken/cracked bones; just a bunch of tendon and ligament damage; especially in his rib cage, shoulder and hip. I guess that's the risk of working with horses, but this is pretty much like a car wreck. You don't expect it but know vaguely that it might happen. Still, it could have been much worse.

Got to roll with the punches-- just like DC did last night with the storm front that came through. It was so self-contained and concentrated into a crescent-shaped band, striking just at the evening rush hour, knocking down trees with 50 mph winds and knocking out power to a good chunk of the metro area. And all this crammed into two hours. With DC the only major population center the storm hit, it almost seems like the weather was taking a swipe at Washington for all the crazy stuff coming out of here. Well, I guess it might make a good premise for a science fiction novel.

Anyway, got to run. More soon.

And congratulations to "It's Academic!" for being the longest-running quiz show on television! It's a kick to think that some of the HS and college players I've worked with in this and other similar competitions will likely make the same impact as some of the people listed below, especially with me helping them out!

It's No Longer Academic -- It's a Fact
(Washington Post 082103)

It's official. The high school quiz show "It's Academic" has been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running TV quiz show in the world, with a whopping 42 years (and counting) on the air.

"We received an e-mail telling us that a British show had started a year after we did, so we had beaten them out," said an ecstatic Sophie Altman, the executive producer and founder of the show. "The fact that we're getting old also went through my head -- but overall this is fantastic!"

And you can bet that throughout its reign, "It's Academic" has tested the minds of many, including New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton -- "She was part of the show as an alternate in 1964-5," says Altman -- ABC's George Stephanopoulos, former Maine governor Angus King, CNN anchor Leon Harris and The Post's own Donald Graham. "All of our people are good people," she assures.

We wonder when Mac McGarry, quizmaster since the show's 1961 inception, will get his own Guinness recognition (hint, hint).

Sigh. It's getting to the point that I don't tell anyone that I'm from California any more-- That half-grin and narrowing of the eyes every time I say those few syllables and a mocking question whether I'm going to be voting for AH-nold. True, I'm going to xerox my absentee recall ballot and keep it as a souvenir but more as a testament to how a conservative car alarm magnate, movie stars, well-dressed chimpanzees, and hawkish zealots can rip the American democratic process. Politicians and issues may come and go, but the true core of the American way of life is a dedication to fair, transparent, and unbiased processes of the Federal government all the way down to our everyday lives. We even package it for international consumption as the "rule of law." Largely due to the current administration, that which has sustained us for over 200 years and acted as a model for the rest of the world is unraveling.

Given widespread opposition to intervention in Iraq, Bush went on record saying he "respectfully disagree[d]" with the people he was supposed to serve and pointedly disregarded any arguments that he didn't agree with. Texas republicans decided that they wanted to redraw congressional districts simply because they wanted to take political advantage of their being in power. A system that was designed to adjust for population growth and movement based on the decennial census was wrenched into change only about a year after it was adjusted for the 2000 census. The Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee rewrote a bill to his liking and then tried to stuff it down the Democrat's throats with the help of the Capitol Police. The Vice President's office still refuses to tell even other branches of the government who the administration talked to when writing up the country's energy policies. Bush also pulled out of important treaties and ignored the rest of the world just because he didn't like what they said. And, of course, there's AH-nold and the California recall. I'm just waiting, like Huey of the Boondocks said, for John Connor to run.

Speaking of the comics, this one is pretty telling:

Hagar the Horrible
The King doesn't want you to think of his tax collectors as cruel, heartless monsters.... As a matter of fact, the King doesn't even want you to think!

Having a little fun in the context of Nation States, specifically the "QB Alliance." Here's a small excerpt from the international traveling corps of storytellers the government of Teresh sent to the Dezzan court:

In a land far, far away, there is a benevolent dictator named Garba who is renowned for his legendary oratory. With incredible dedication, he is able to uplift his, the Tereshi, people from their squalid existence. Beset on all sides by fierce and shadowy enemies, Teresh stands defiant. Garba's upright carriage and richly embroidered robes give added clarity to his face, at once animated and impassive, warning that all those foolish enough to move against the Tereshi nation "shall know our velocity!"

But wait! From far across the water and well beyond the soaring mountains of Teresh comes-- It can't be!-- a challenge?

One who fancies himself a scribe of "staggering genius" has stepped forward and shown his cowardly hand. For, this pretender indeed shows not his face but a scribbled missive itself frantically attempting to remake itself in Garba's image. This shadow boxing worm who calls itself Eggers and has barely the wit to parrot a true master has clumsily snatched at Tereshi honor, entitling his mere rags "You shall know our velocity." Blasphemer!! He must be taught the lightning fang of the Tereshi people! He must be dispatched forthwith!

So this is what a rubber chicken feels like....

I'm pretty much asleep already, so take these with a nice big salt block....

Is it just me, or would it be a good thing for W to read Robert Fulghum's book All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten? Sure, it's oversimplified and, in this case, used primarily in sarcasm but there's just something about a book that relies on such subliminal religiosity and moral certitude that makes it a perfect way to put the government's current policies in perspective.

Here are the things Fulghum has learned and some, W has too:

Share Everything
Play Fair
Don't Hit People
Put Things Back Where You Found Them
Clean Up Your Own Mess
Don't Take Things That Aren't Yours
Say You're Sorry When You Hurt Someone
Wash Your Hands Before You Eat
Flush
Warm Cookies and Cold Milk Are Good For You
Have A Balanced Life-- Learn Some and Think Some and Draw and Sing and Dance and Play and Work Some
Take A Nap Every Day
When You Go Out Into the World, Watch Out For Traffic, Hold Hands, and Stick Together
Be Aware Of Wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
And then Remember the Dick and Jane books and the first word you learned- the biggest word of all- LOOK.

Another interesting news story that's flying under the radar: Bush has taken the Sudanese government off the hook, saying that despite military actions "primarily but not exclusively by the government" and a lot of instability in the country, he would not declare sanctions on Khartoum.

Not that I think what either of the (generally) two sides of the Sudanese civil war, or any side in any other situation is necessarily more or less worthy of international attention than another, but I find it interesting that W’s all of a sudden trying to make nice with a country that not only hosted Osama bin Laden for a long time, but is also an Islamic theocracy waging a formal war with Christians in the south of the country.

Bawk!

Any of you out there know of a good deal on a scanner and/or printer? Or maybe your input on things I should look (out) for. I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

This was just so unusual, I felt like I had to put it up, despite not liking the tone all that much. But, maybe against my better judgement, here it is:

This is from a DC listserv I'm on that, among other things, runs something like the "I Saw You" ads in the Washington City Paper and elsewhere. If you're not familiar with them, someone would post one of these classified-like ads when they saw but didn't approach a cute guy or gal that the poster is still interested in.

Enough with the intro already! Here's the post and 'response':

6 -- To the tree that fell on my car - 29 (Capitol Hill)

Reply to:
Thu Aug 7th

I couldn't quite make out what type of tree you were because of the
way you shattered when you fell on my trusty Saab. But don't worry -- you
DID make quite an impression. I had just picked Saab-o up on Friday
after paying $1400 in repairs -- so your timing was impeccable. Had you
fallen in the same spot while my car was being repaired for that nasty
incident of my front right tire coming off the car while I was driving it
-- well, then, we never would have met.

I also thought the way that you fell on my car while I was attending
church on Sunday morning was a nice touch. Nothing says, "The world is
out to get you" like a tree falling on your car, smashing your
windshield, hood, roof and both (!) front doors while you are at worship.

It's cool, though, because I don't have many other exciting things
going on in my life -- like the mold and mildew that is keeping me from
sleeping in my own bedroom. I actually enjoy sleeping on the sofa on the
main floor with my roommate Loudy McLoud banging pots and pans around 10
feet away in the kitchen when she comes home drunk at 4:00 AM.

And that frantic apartment search was actually made easier by not
having a car. Oh wait, actually that's not true.

But, again, thanks for the introduction. Because I had to pay for
repairs for our little encounter, I wasn't able to go to LA for the premier
of my best friend's new movie or go see for the first time my six-month
old nephew in Denver. But it wasn't like I even wanted to do either of
those things, you know?

So, yeah, it was nice meeting you. And I hope things are well. If you
want to catch up, let me know. Maybe one of your buddies can, like, drop
by/into my house while I pack up and move.


it's NOT ok for trees to contact this poster unless they're just
offering fruit or shade. This is in or around Capitol Hill

The Response

11 -- From the Tree that fell on your car - 90 (wood chipper)

Reply to:
Thu Aug 7th

You know, it really rakes me the way you think I fell on your car
intentionally. That wasn't my doing. And now that I'm down, you want to
kick me? Take it easy buddy.

And since when do pornos have premieres? And don't worry about the
nephew - it's not really your brother's kid anyways.

By the way, all trees are Jewish - so we don't care that you were at
Church worshiping your false god. Now leaf me alone - you're barking up
the...well you know.

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial
interests this is in or around wood chipper

Big news! Azerbaijan's government is imploding. The 80 year-old strongman and apparatchik Geidar Aliyev is in Turkey suffering from a "terminal illness, the current Prime Minister suddenly resigned and was replaced by Ilham Aliyev (or Aliyev Jr.). I'm exhausted so I'll add why this is so important in the morning but this is huge. Look at this in the meantime:

Government Changes in Azerbaijan

My grad class in Russian was good. Again, more in the morning.

Two trailblazing researchers:

Ladder of the Law: Another Side of Bob Dylan



Kansas is Flatter Than A Pancake

With Bob Hope, Strom Thurmond, Katherine Hepburn and many other famous (or infamous) Americans being eulogized recently, it's a pity that the American public has overlooked one of its true heroes:

Arnold Nawrocki, Cheese Innovator

If you don't learn from history you are doomed to repeat it.

Here's the last line of the appendix written by Nobel Prize Laureate Richard Feynman to the Rogers Report on the 1986 Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster:

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

The entire text of Feynman's Appendix can be found here.

The front page of the Rogers Report can be found here.

I'm curious about your ideas about this one:

If someone could wave a magic wand and "win" the "war on terrorism," what would actually happen?

One of the things that jumped out at me in today's Washington Post was in an article quoting a 'source' about new reports of airline hijacking threats:

"It's the most specific I've seen since we entered this new world" after the 2001 hijackings, the source said.
from "Memo Warns of New Plots to Hijack Planes" Washington Post 073003

Does the American public, or at least the administration, really believe that we've entered some kind of 'new world,' as opposed to before? That somehow the fundamental nature of the world changed on a September morning? Is there something more than our own shaken sense of ourselves?

And as for our sense of ourselves:

Enemy Combatant Vanishes Into A 'Legal Black Hole'

It is incorrect to say they were "defending" him, because he hadn't been charged with a crime. "What we aspire to, our hope, is to be able to defend Jose Padilla," Patel said. He scoffed at the Mobbs Declaration, the sole piece of public evidence that supports the detention. Mobbs's own footnotes conceded that the government's "confidential sources" probably were not "completely candid," that one source subsequently recanted and another was being treated with drugs, and that their information may have been an attempt to mislead interrogators.

"Someone who's a confirmed liar and someone else who's on drugs and one of the two has recanted," Patel snorted. "You really think someone should be locked up for a year in solitary confinement based on that?"

"What we're asking for Mr. Padilla," he said, "is something I consider a very core American value: A guy's entitled to his day in court. That's how we do things here. We don't just throw people in jail because we think or believe they're bad."

Washington Post 073003

Much more to come