Arthur Chrenkoff, commenting on the "only happy when it rains" attitude of Senator Kerry and his comrades towards Iraq, as demonstrated recently by his putdown of Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's speech at the U.N.
Gregory Djerejia ("Belgravia Dispatch") isn't too happy with Kerry, either.
If the United Nations does not think of America as a model of freedom to be followed by others around the globe -- if America is merely one among many nations, neither better nor worse but only different -- then maybe the U.N. should seriously consider relocating itself to some place such as…oh, maybe Libya. Any nation responsible enough to chair the United Nations Human Rights Commission should be responsible enough to host the United Nations, right?
Or maybe the United Nations might move to Sudan? It might be instructive: when the Human Rights Commission meets to discuss violations of human rights, they could simply look out the window to witness beatings, gang rapes, and enslavement. What could make their discussions more edifying?
How about it, Kofi? -- It's been said that "absence makes the heart grow fonder."
Journalists in the mainstream media had imbibed these ideas with their education, and had melded them with the enthusiasm and hero-worship they had lavished on the intrepid reporters of the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals. But in the process, fact-checking, critical editing, and sound research had all begun to erode. . . .
The new tone that entered the blogosphere was a sense of responsibility to the truth. The bloggers looked around themselves and saw that nobody else had the powerful means, the democratic and distributed organization, the robust egalitarian truculence, and the absence of interest conflict to act as the truth's final guardian and court of appeal. The mainstream journalists had abdicated their responsibility, the political parties were obviously willing to bend the truth, the academy had philosophically repudiated the concept of truth, the courts were increasing based on adversarial rhetorical virtuosity, rather than the establishment of fact. So it was up to the bloggers.
Cartoon by yours truly; inspired by blogger Tim Blair.
Quick! Warn your friends! -- buy the postcard!
greeting cards also available).
Then again, perhaps it is a concession to reality, to the words that people use in real life. This is not politics. It is a matter of simple humanity. Faced with this kind of tragedy, loved ones and public servants do not tell journalists "we lost a fetus."
No, they lost the baby. They lost a child, an "unborn child." It is awkward or even cruel to say anything else.
TMatt, from the blog "Get Religion" (Ghost in the stylebook: Death of an unborn child).
"Why Queens Matters", by Stephen Malanga.
City Journal Summer 2004.
I thought Bill Clinton called you from the hospital and advised you to cease and desist with all references to Vietnam?
Please, it's really getting old.
Here is a second photograph of the incident.
Andrew C. McCarthy comments at the National Review:
I would note this, though: I don't know if I'd be holding my breath waiting for Turtle Bay to plumb the depths of the Syria/Sudan chemical-weapons partnership. Reflecting its deep concern for the human condition, the U.N., you may recall, has an esteemed component it portentously calls the "United Nations Commission on Human Rights." The U.S. was, indeed, a founding member. But a while back, we could not garner enough votes from member nations to maintain our seat. We were replaced by...Syria.
"U.N.: What Is It Good For?", NRO. Sept. 16, 2004
I am not gay. That is certainly no reason to hide. I am not a person of color. That prejudice should have been erased from our national consciousness decades ago. I don't carry any disease microbes that I am aware of. I don't even smoke.
But the information that I will now transmit has caused people to shout at me, brought dinner parties to an abrupt end on less then polite terms. It has even ended long friendships.
Here it is. I will just say it. I am a Republican.
The article has provoked quite a response from readers of The New York Sun, resulting in numerous letters to the editor from like-minded sympathizers.
KERRY: Yes, it actually does make sense.
IMUS: Explain it. Help me out here. . . .
Senator Kerry proceeded to lay his "policy on Iraq" out on the table for the befuddled Imus (transcript). Eventually, things came to a head:
IMUS: We're asking you because you want to be president.
Don Imus would later reflect on the occasion (Kerry's Iraq war comments leave backer Imus confuse" Dallas Morning News Sept. 15, 2004):
"I was just back in my office banging my head on the jukebox," Mr. Imus said. "This is my candidate, and ... I don't know what he's talking about."
(Thanks Tim Blair).
How many other Science Fiction authors do you know who are this unabashedly Republican?
Wintersoldier.com on John Kerry's manipulation of Vietnam Vet Steve Pitkin:. . . Pitkin appears several times in the documentary film "Winter Soldier," where he comes across as vague and somewhat stunned, especially while being questioned by John Kerry in a preliminary interview. He seems overwhelmed at having to relive his harrowing experiences in Vietnam. But Steve Pitkin says today that what the film actually shows are his efforts to avoid answering Kerry’s questions at all.
During the formal hearings, Pitkin started to slam the press for misrepresenting what GIs really did in Vietnam, but a woman he believes was Jane Fonda shot him an astonished look and started to stand up. Steve could see other members of the group getting ready to cut him off, so he changed course and made up a few things he thought they would be willing to accept. "Everything I said about atrocities and racism was a lie. My unit never went out with the intention of doing anything but its job. And I never saw black soldiers treated differently, get picked out for the worst or most dangerous jobs, or anything like that. There were some guys, shirkers, who would intentionally injure themselves to get sent home, so I talked about that for a while. But the fact is I lied my ass off, and I'm not proud of it. I didn't think it would ever amount to anything."
It's said that Saaed Mortazavi, the same judiciary officials who has allegedly been directly involved in the death of Canadian photographer, Zahra Kazemi, is leading all this crackdown. It was also him who first ordered to filter the two reformist websites last year.
Meanwhile, the results of a recent poll show that internet is the most trusted medium among Iranians.
Edward B. Veatch, Aristotle: A Contemporary Appreciation, 1974.
If the CBS execs who approved the running of this story aren't concerned about their job security, they oughtta be. I wonder who's the next Jayson Blair?
In other news, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin denounced President Bush as a liar for misrepresenting the facts regarding his servince in the National Guard.
But, as Instapundit shows, Harkin's one to talk -- having been exposed as a fake Vietnam Vet himself.
The Kerry Campaign could certainly do a lot better.
If Rage Against The Machine thought they were doing the teen masses a favor by recommending a book chiefly composed of hastily cobbled together recipes for do-it-yourself explosives, they ought to check out the author's words of wisdom on Amazon.com:
I conducted the research for the manuscript on my own, primarily at the New York City Public Library. Most of the contents were gleaned from Military and Special Forces Manuals. I was not member of any radical group of either a left or right wing persuasion. . . .
The central idea to the book was that violence is an acceptable means to bring about political change. I no longer agree with this.
During the years that followed its publication, I went to university, married, became a father and a teacher of adolescents. These developments had a profound moral and spiritual effect on me. I found that I no longer agreed with what I had written earlier and I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the ideas that I had put my name to. In 1976 I became a confirmed Anglican Christian and shortly thereafter I wrote to Lyle Stuart Inc. explaining that I no longer held the views that were expressed in the book and requested that The Anarchist Cookbook be taken out of print. The response from the publisher was that the copyright was in his name and therefore such a decision was his to make -- not the author's. In the early 1980's, the rights for the book were sold to another publisher. I have had no contact with that publisher (other than to request that the book be taken out of print) and I receive no royalties.
Unfortunately, the book continues to be in print and with the advent of the Internet several websites dealing with it have emerged. I want to state categorically that I am not in agreement with the contents of The Anarchist Cookbook and I would be very pleased (and relieved) to see its publication discontinued. I consider it to be a misguided and potentially dangerous publication which should be taken out of print.
The threat of rave culture was that it was an alternative economy. The kids were no longer going to the mob-run nightclubs, the police weren't getting their cut, and the liquor distributors weren't making any money. Those of us involved in rave - or at least many of us - didn't realize that's why they were such a threat.
Likewise, I believe the greatest power of the blog is not just its ability to distribute alternative information - a great power, indeed - but its power to demonstrate a mode of engagement that is not based on the profit principle.
I saw a rather interesting film the other day on the Independent Film Channel -- Das Experiment ["The Experiment"] -- the feature film debut of German TV director Oliver Hirschbiegel. Made in 2001, it was based on the novel Black Box by Mario Giordano, which in turn was loosely based on the original "Stanford Prison Experiment", a psychological experiment that took place at Stanford University in 1971 under the direction of Prof. Philip Zimbardo, investigating "he power of roles, rules, symbols, group identity and situational validation of behavior that would repulse ordinary individuals":Details of the experiment are well known. . . . In summary:
On Sunday morning, Aug., 17, 1971, nine young men were "arrested" in their homes by Palo Alto police. At least one of those arrested vividly remembers the shock of having his neighbors come out to watch the commotion as TV cameras recorded his hand-cuffing for the nightly news.
The arrestees were among about 70 young men, mostly college students eager to earn $15 a day for two weeks, who volunteered as subjects for an experiment on prison life that had been advertised in the Palo Alto Times. After interviews and a battery of psychological tests, the two dozen judged to be the most normal, average and healthy were selected to participate, assigned randomly either to be guards or prisoners. Those who would be prisoners were booked at a real jail, then blindfolded and driven to campus where they were led into a makeshift prison in the basement of Jordan Hall.
Those assigned to be guards were given uniforms and instructed that they were not to use violence but that their job was to maintain control of the prison.
From the perspective of the researchers, the experiment became exciting on day two when the prisoners staged a revolt. Once the guards had crushed the rebellion, "they steadily increased their coercive aggression tactics, humiliation and dehumanization of the prisoners," Zimbardo recalls. "The staff had to frequently remind the guards to refrain from such tactics," he said, and the worst instances of abuse occurred in the middle of the night when the guards thought the staff was not watching. The guards' treatment of the prisoners such things as forcing them to clean out toilet bowls with their bare hands and act out degrading scenarios, or urging them to become snitches "resulted in extreme stress reactions that forced us to release five prisoners, one a day, prematurely."
Source: "The Stanford Prison Experiment: Still powerful after all these years", by Kathleen O’Toole.
Das Experiment mimics The Stanford Prison Experiment to some degree. Despite it's heightening of the action and clearly exaggerated ending (nobody was kidnapped, raped, or died at Stanford) it comes across as believable and made for a captivating two hours. However, according to Meredith Alexander (article noted below), the movie's fictional exaggerations were lost on the German audience, and Prof. Zimbardo was the recipient of "hundreds of e-mails from Germans asking how he could have allowed such things to happen." In return, Zimbardo, who was never informed of the movie's production, fought to have distribution of Das Experiment blocked in the United States, and is "negotiating for an American made-for-TV movie" to tell his version of events.
Those who found the movie intriguing might enjoy perusing the official website of The Stanford Prison Experiment. The scandalous incidents of Iraqi prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib have instigated a renewal of interest in The Experiment, and the website has been conveniently updated to address the parallels.
Additional links:
Goethe, "The Four Ages of Man" 1817.
Wonder what Goethe might have thought regarding the advent of blogging, and the internet in general?
Just musing.
