Look For An Indian Tribe To Be Buying Land Near You

18. August 2004 · Comments Off on Look For An Indian Tribe To Be Buying Land Near You · Categories: General

Indian gaming on established reservations, while rapidly accelerating, is well established. But this is a new development (free registration req’d):

GARDEN GROVE – City officials have been quietly shopping around an idea to introduce Indian gaming to Harbor Boulevard.

The casino proposal came to light Tuesday when Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby publicly revealed at the board’s weekly meeting that Garden Grove officials, including Councilman Mark Rosen and City Manager Matthew Fertal, visited his office last week to gauge his support.

“I was taken completely by surprise,” Norby said, adding that he was told discussions involved the Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians, a small tribe located in northern San Diego County.

Council members also had met in Las Vegas with Steve Wynn, who operates several major casinos.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has recently discussed expanding gambling agreements that could pave the way for urban casinos. Casino operators, such as Harrah’s Resorts, have recently partnered with Indian tribes to develop gambling resorts.

This exposes the whole farce of Indian gaming. It’s time to end the monopoly of Indian tribes and governments on legal gambling.

Of Course!

18. August 2004 · Comments Off on Of Course! · Categories: General

Katharine Sealey has an answer to the military breast implant controversy:

Well here’s my compromise, a million dollar idea to help the female soldiers add some curves AND increase their military value at the same time: Kevlar breast implants, a nice set of bullet-proof boobies.

Or maybe some of those Austin Powers Fem-Bot doohickeys with machine gun action.

Now that’s what I call today’s Army.

Sloppy Ad Hominem

18. August 2004 · Comments Off on Sloppy Ad Hominem · Categories: History, Stupidity

I didn’t intend to get involved with the point-counterpoint between Michelle Malkin and her critics (Eric Muller et al). She can obviously handle that herself. I do find most objections to her book sounding more rhetorical than substantive, blatantly ignoring what she, you know, actually wrote in her book. But a bit more on that later, as I really want to address our long-lost favorite cheap-shot artist, Dave Niewert.

To recap, Michelle responded to a journalist’s question to President Bush at the at the UNITY conference in Washington DC. She felt the question was a cheap shot at her book. This is what Michelle quoted (the reporter) on her blog:

I wanted to ask you about protecting all Americans, as well. There are many Arab Americans and Muslims in this country who find themselves unfairly scrutinized by law enforcement and by society at large. Just yesterday we had arrests in Albany, New York. Immediately afterwards, some neighbors in the community said they feared that the law would come for them unfairly next. We have a new book out today that suggests perhaps we should reconsider internment camps. How do we balance the need to pursue and detain some individuals from not well-known communities, while at the same time keeping innocent people from being painted by the broad brush of suspicion?

Michelle sent an email to the reporter identified in the transcript as CBS News Anchor Julie Chen:

It is obvious from your ignorant question to President Bush at UNITY that you did not bother to read my book. In fact, you didn’t even bother to read the back cover of my book, which says, “Make no mistake: I am not advocating rounding up all Arabs or Muslims and tossing them into camps. But when we are under attack, ‘racial profiling’-or more precisely, threat profiling-is wholly justified.” [Emphasis added – S]

Now anyone who has really read the book (and I don’t mean those who’ve read it the way the Grand Inquisitor would a protestant tract) will understand why Michelle took offense at the mischaracterization of her work in front of the President of the United States, but it’s not befitting according to Mr. Dave (When I do it it’s Okay, but when you do it that’s bad) Niewert, who writes:

Just a reminder: The book’s title is In Defense of Internment. It clearly calls for a reassessment of the meaning of the World War II internment, evacuation and “relocation” process.

Does anyone else see a “cheap shot” there? Hm. Me neither.

This is a sloppy mischaracterization first of all, but right now I have something else to point out. Dave continues:

In any event, as you can see, Michelle promptly fired off a letter to Julie Chen — who among other slots at CBS, is the host of the game show “Big Brother” — outlining her thinking. Evidently, Michelle believes that writing a defense of the Japanese American internment and linking it to post-9/11 racial profiling should not lead anyone to conclude that she was suggesting that internment is an appropriate response in the current “war on terror”. Heavens no. She’s only laying down the dots. God forbid anyone would connect them.

Typical postmodernistic red herring. Dave is telling his readers “don’t believe what Michelle writes; I’ll tell you what she really believes.”

Well, in any event, before firing off her nasty letter, Michelle forgot to perform one of those good ol’ Journalism 101 functions: Double-check your source.

Just the way you do all the time eh, Dave?

Does this sound familiar? It should. Because this is the kind of approach to basic standards of factuality we’ve come to expect from Malkin.

More familiar all the time, just not the way you think…

Malkin was clearly working from the White House transcript, which as it turns out, misidentified the questioner.

Oh, my goodness, she trusted a written source. She actually believed what she read on paper! Terrible, how careless of her…

Had Malkin taken the time to, say, review the tape or double-check by placing a quick phone call with UNITY officials, she’d have discovered that the questioner was none other than CBS’s Joie Chen.

How awful, she criticized the WRONG person?!?! Goodness, it is not as if you’ve never done that, eh Dave? Like back in early 2003, when you didn’t notice that each post on this web site had an author’s handle, and they might be different? Remember how it took me three emails to get it through your head that it was I, Sparkey, not Stryker who wrote the posts you were so lamely critiquing. It so frustrated Stryker that he wrote this post:

To all those who link to various posts to disagree with whatever’s been written, I have a small reminder. We Have Several Authors Christ, do you know how stupid you look when you’re talking trash and flinging sarcastic remarks disparaging the intelligence of the piece when you can’t even get the name of the author right? Oh yeah, Mr. Smartypants, you’re a mental giant, all right. Each post is clearly delineated and contained within its own box with the name of the author at the very top! You’re like the guy trying to give a serious presentation, unaware that his fly’s unzipped and wondering why everyone’s snickering at him. Yeah, but why am I trying to correct you? Seeing a bunch of ill-equipped and uncoordinated numnuts trying to play the game is entertaining, to say the least. By all means, continue.

Of course you could have exercised good Journalism 101 and double-checked your source by emailing the author, or maybe just maybe, actually reading the post. Oh, but wait, you eventually apologized on the basis that you’re “a bit new at this blogging game…” That makes it all better, because you couldn’t read my handle off the stinking web page because you were an arrogant newbie. Now you’re just an arrogant blowhard taking Michelle to task for making a mistake in more forgivable circumstances, just so you can score worthless debating points and inflate your own self-importance. Leave it to a postmodernist like Dave to specialize in the sloppy ad hominem attack.

Now let’s return to Dave’s earlier sloppy mischaracterization, the book title. Seeing how he has difficulty reading what other people actually put down on paper, I reiterate, the title of the book is not “In Defense of Internment” it’s In Defense of Internment: The Case for “Racial Profiling” in World War II and the War on Terror. That is a very important difference, one that Dave is desperate to cover up.

The collective group think on 1942 has so distorted history that our nation is now going to great lengths to avoid any profiling whatsoever. This leads to absurd situations where two obviously Middle Eastern men can board a flight without so much as a second glance whereas my blonde, blue eyed, 8 year-old son is searched not once, but twice for the same flight. Had 911 been perpetrated by the Baader-Meinhof Gang that might make some sense, but it wasn’t. Instead of prudent filtering to the threat, we have a colossal waste of both public and private resources that takes away penknives and 7/16th open ended wrenches without making us one iota safer. Despite protests to the contrary, the rehabilitation of the histography behind the 1942 evacuation order is not a call for a round-up, but rather for a logical policy of allocation of resources in a time of some very direct threats.

The proposition that the 1942 Evacuation was all about racism forces one to ignore certain factoids from history, the first of which is that the people of warring nations tend to not like one another. However, the purveyors of victimology would have us believe that just because people from a belligerent nation living in the United States who have documented divided loyalties like dual citizenships, that are educated in nationalistic schools centered on and financed by the “mother” country, and hold to a faith that teaches of their ethnicity’s divine and holy destiny (Shinto) are de facto and a priori benign. You have to trivialize, marginalize, and suspend thousands of years of human history to conclude that a people coming from such a background would automatically have allegiance to the United States and not the land of their parents’ birth.

Though he be a gentleman, remember, Eric Muller is also lawyer. His critiques of Michelle’s book reflect his “legal brief” training: spray a bunch of stuff out there, hope no one looks too hard at the substance (nits, tons of nits), and pray something sticks (above all convince people to not read it to begin with). Scholarship is like detective work–outliers do not by themselves disprove a thesis, because one must look at the totality of the record; however, to a lawyer pointing to outliers can bring reasonable doubt – the truth isn’t his concern, winning his case is.

Historically, the evidence is there: Imperial Japan weaponized its expatriate populations, and when the opportunity presented itself, large segments (i.e. the majority) of those populations assisted the Empire. The failure to acknowledge or address this on a logical or historical basis is the failure to consider the real world ramifications of such a stance, that one’s theoretical “fears” may prevent one from addressing a very real danger. One that wants to display our severed heads on TV.

Now excuse me, I have a real job to do, I have a weapon sensor to finish. It’s not as if there isn’t a war on ya’know? (Just in case you’ve forgotten – and some seem to have – and if you do happen to take offense at that then maybe, before objecting to me, you should ask yourself why you feel that way.)

Attic Marathon: The Final Stretch

17. August 2004 · Comments Off on Attic Marathon: The Final Stretch · Categories: General

The trouble was the Athens/Saronic side of the Attic Peninsula was not that great for sea bathing. The English-language newspapers often published disconcerting notices, forbidding swimming or wading at such and such a place on the western shore, at such and such a distance from the sewage outfall. Not having the expertise to do tests on the waters at various beaches myself, I took their word for it; and conformed with my own eyes that the beaches between Vouligmeni and Sounion tended to be— even when not thickly crowded— strewn with trash, either brought in by the tide from all the ship traffic, or just dropped by the careless. Even the water looked murkier, to me.

And so, if I wanted to get out of Athens, this summer day, and spend it at the beach, I would head south from Glyphada, but take the road inland at Vula for Koriopi and Makropulion; a narrow, two-lane country road that meandered over the top of the hills that made the spine of the blunt spear-point peninsula, a road which wandered past a tall, medieval tower in the middle of a farmer’s field, between stone walls, and olive trees, and ended in the salt-marsh flats on the eastern shore by Vraona…
There were the ruins of a seriously crumbled classical temple complex there, so ruined that there was very little left above ground, the artifacts and remains of which put the lie to the assumption that the Classical Greeks didn’t artistically portray children. It seemed to have been a sort of dedicated shrine and boarding school for children, to judge from the sculpture found there, all the largest remaining bits were on display at a museum— a very fine, marble-floored museum, run up to a standard 1960ies architectural pattern, and on the occasion that my daughter and I visited it, almost completely deserted.

There was a tractor with some sort of agricultural implement hitched to it, in the otherwise empty parking lot. Presumably, the driver was the older man taking a bit of leisure in the foyer, chatting to the other man who seemed to be an old friend, and also concierge, ticket-taker and security, all in one. I paid over the couple of hundred drachma notes that gained us admittance, and the one-man museum authority waved us on, into the deserted, marble floored galleries, after a little admiration and sanctioned head-patting of my daughter. Children in Greece are universally cherished, admired, ritually adored and petted by all adults, all children— even the ones in the difficult stages of toddlerhood, who are apt to be snappish on occasion. My daughter is gracious and charming, having learned in the last few months that all local nationals—especially the older ones— are particularly soft touches, apt to deal out pieces of penny-candy, a drachma-coin, or a bit of extravagant adoration at the drop of a hat, or a blond eyelash.

The statues in the museum gallery are nearly as charming. The two most complete are a little girl, in classical draped robes, her hair gathered into a bun on the top of her head— but a little girl, cuddling a tame rabbit in her arms, and a little boy with a pair of pet doves, and a small dog at his heels— he holds one of the doves teasingly downwards, and the dog is sniffing at it, eaten up with curiosity. Such a little boy— snips and snails, doves and puppy-dog tails, realistically observed with wry humor and affection, and the little girl, cherishing her rabbit, borne up safely in her four or five-year old grasp. Children, they who are our dearly beloved hope for the future and our hostages to fortune, now and in the 5th century BC.

After the Vraona museum, I would go south a little, after a little time on the beach, for a late lunch in Porto Rafti. Kyrie George, my next-door neighbor tells me that a large portion of the British forces in Greece evacuated from Porto Rafti after the WWII German invasion—an evacuation as spectacular and dramatic as Dunkirk, even, and that Porto Rafti should have been as important a seaport as Athens, only it was a shallow-water port, and so fortune passed it by. Perhaps fortune did it a favor, leaving it small, and edibly charming, with a couple of built-up streets, and a small square, and a short esplanade where the fishing boats tied up every morning.

Kyrie Georgios had a theory that the very best food came from places where the cook had served as a cook in the Greek Navy. His theory is open to question and discussion; my own theory of gustatorial delight was that there was a powerful correlation between excellent food and the presence of thriving potted plants in a Greek restaurant. A place which displayed exuberantly thriving potted plants was, ergo, a place where they paid attention to small things…. After all, the best meal I had in Porto Rafti was eaten in a storefront restaurant, which boasted a fifteen-foot tall ficus by way of décor. Or it was the best until Penny and Georgios took me on a Sunday to their favorite, a tiny place with a large outdoor eating area, a place with tables under shady trees, a little way up from the quay and harbor, a place with a simple and uncomplicated menu: salad and crusty fresh bread, and fried potatoes… and fish.

At the edge of the paved dining area, there was a single table stacked with platters and metal tongs, next to a large metal chest of drawers, each drawer filled three-quarters full of crushed ice, and shoals of silver fish, ten or twelve inches long. Their eyes are still slightly bulging, and there is only the faintest smell of the salt sea from the drawers of fish.
“They buy every morning from the fishermen, right over there,” Georgios tells us, “And when the fish runs out… pffit. That’s it. They are closed for the day.”
He heaps a platter generously with fish, and hands it to the waiter, who vanishes in the direction of the kitchen. On a day like today, most everyone prefers to sit outside, under the trees in the open air, where it is always cool, and the light ocean breeze blows away most of the smoky smell from the kitchen.

In a very few minutes, the waiter brings us back the platter of fish that Georgios had selected so carefully, grilled to perfection, accompanied by nothing more than a couple of lemon halves. The silvery skin, lightly charred from the grill slides off easily, and the delicate flesh underneath is the essence of the sea… an utterly sublime and simple meal, eaten in the most perfect place for it imaginable. And that is where I would go, given a day in Greece this week, just to avoid the crowds— a simple meal in a quiet little place by the sea.

The Case For Medical Marijuana Expands

17. August 2004 · Comments Off on The Case For Medical Marijuana Expands · Categories: Drug Prohibition

It now appears that marijuana is beneficial in the treatment of brain cancer:

Marijuana Ingredient Inhibits VEGF Pathway Required For Brain Tumor Blood Vessels
Cannabinoids, the active ingredients in marijuana, restrict the sprouting of blood vessels to brain tumors by inhibiting the expression of genes needed for the production of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF).

According to a new study published in the August 15, 2004 issue of the journal Cancer Research, administration of cannabinoids significantly lowered VEGF activity in laboratory mice and two patients with late-stage glioblastoma.

“Blockade of the VEGF pathway constitutes one of the most promising antitumoral approaches currently available,” said Manuel Guzmán, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, with the Complutense University in Madrid, Spain, and the study’s principal investigator.

“The present findings provide a novel pharmacological target for cannabinoid-based therapies.”

Glioblastoma multiforme, the most aggressive form of glioma, strikes more than 7,000 Americans each year and is considered one of the most malignant and deadliest forms of cancer, generally resulting in death within one to two years following diagnosis.

The disease is usually treated with surgery, followed by conventional radiation alone or in combination with chemotherapy. However, the main tumor often evades total destruction, surviving and growing again, eventually killing the patient. For this reason, researchers are actively seeking other therapeutic strategies, some of which might be considered novel.

This, and other scientific evidence, gives lie to the federal government’s listing of marijuana as a “Schedule I” narcotic (those with no valid medical use). It’s time for the drug warriors to stand down on the marijuana front.

Hand Me That Tiny Violin

17. August 2004 · Comments Off on Hand Me That Tiny Violin · Categories: Military

Oh we’ve heard this before. Communities around the world are crying crocodile tears over the economic impact of US troop redeployment:

“The town would bleed to death,” said Peter Lang, mayor of the southern Germany town of Baumholder, where two-thirds of the town’s 18,000 residents are Americans posted to the nearby military base.

Lee Myeong-seok is the head of a merchants group in the district around the massive U.S. Yongsan Garrison in downtown Seoul. The proposed American redeployment would abandon the base and the estimated 6,000 Korean employees who work there.
“Business is already bad, but after the U.S. troops leave, the local economy will collapse,” Mr. Lee told the Singapore Straits Times last month.

Their fears are unfounded. History shows that American communities have, on the whole, weathered the initial economic hardship from base closings, and come out stronger than before in the long run.

Recovery from military base closures has proceeded fairly smoothly even in these exceptional cases where local impact was severe. Consider the case of Ft. Ord, in Monterey, California. In 1992, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the area’s unemployment would increase by as much as 8% due to the closure of this facility. The actual results are more modest: unemployment increases of less than 1%. Local population and housing values have remained stable, and local retail sales actually grew.

The most telling economic fact is not captured in these statistics: Monterey has created a diverse economic base to replace a potentially dangerous economic dependence on a single employer (in this case, the U.S. Army). A diverse economic base is the key to a community’s long-term economic prosperity. Public support for base closure communities has helped diversify the economy in towns and cities across the country. Indeed, the effort to support base closure communities is an unparalleled success story in economic development.

This move has been inevitable. And, in my opinion, it’s at least a decade overdue. The Cold War deployment is, of course, archaic. But beyond that, the US spends more on it’s military than the rest of the world combined. It is ludicrous for us to take responsibility for the defense of wealthy and technologically advanced nations.

YESSSS!!!!

16. August 2004 · Comments Off on YESSSS!!!! · Categories: General

The most beautiful words in the English language are indeed the words “Check enclosed”!
I have recieved as of last week my very first royalty check on The Book, which was completely and totally thrilling, even though I have gotten payments for writing and for voice-work. This is for “The Book”— even though I happen to know that my daughter bought three copies herself… still! The Book!
(happy and rapturous sigh inserted here)
I will be spending this check, alas, all in one place— to buy a number of copies to use as gifts for friends and family, to offer for review, and to market to one or two local bookstores which are *ahem* supportive of local writers, and for those who want an inscribed, author-autographed copy.
(This is your cue, for those who have asked for it. Paypal works for me, thanks- same price + shipping)
Oh, and it seems that someone has been publishing, and has made a certain name— using my real name for the last ten years or so… so, in order ro reduce confusion all around, I have taken a pseudonym, which mercifully hardly turns up hardly at all when googled— that is why the name on my e-mails doesn’t quite match the name on the front of “The Book”.
And thanks to all of you who have bought a copy! (MWAH!)

Is It Real or Is It Photosbhop?

16. August 2004 · Comments Off on Is It Real or Is It Photosbhop? · Categories: Domestic, Local

Go look at this set of pictures showing how a river tow boat used a rather unorthodox method to navigate a river hazard. That tug Captain shouldn’t waste another dime on the lottery he’s already won his.

No More Burning Eyes

16. August 2004 · Comments Off on No More Burning Eyes · Categories: General

Here’s an exciting new use of an old technology: saltwater swimming pools.

Help A New Mom

16. August 2004 · Comments Off on Help A New Mom · Categories: General

If you should need some web design, or hosting, Sarah, from One Starry Night, could use your business.

hat tip: Instapundit

A Reality Show I Can Really Get Into

16. August 2004 · Comments Off on A Reality Show I Can Really Get Into · Categories: General

The Next Great Champ – coming to Fox this fall. Perhaps this is just the shot-in-the-arm boxing needs. I just hope it’s not fixed like Last Comic Standing.

Actually, there are a few reality shows I’ve enjoyed, among them Colonial House, on PBS, Amish In The City on UPN, and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy and Blow Out, on Bravo.

Cool Cartoon

15. August 2004 · Comments Off on Cool Cartoon · Categories: General

I just saw a great cartoon: Greedy Humpty Dumpty (1936):

Humpty Dumpty- seen here as a greedy and abusive monarch- wants to acquire the gold from the sun. He forces his subjects to build his palace’s golden walls higher, so that he can reach the sun. When they do reach the sun, King Humpty tries to crack it open with his battle axe. He is overcome by the sun’s awesome power. The walls of his palace and the castle itself are destroyed, and the miserable monarch is sent crashing to the ground, a heap of broken eggshells and a busted crown.

I’m simply going to have to get more familiar with Max Fleischer’s early work.

Playboy’s Women Of The Olympics A Boost For Feminism

15. August 2004 · Comments Off on Playboy’s Women Of The Olympics A Boost For Feminism · Categories: General

In today’s NYTimes, Diana Nyad is convinced that we have redefined “what is sexy”:

Fair enough, but there is no denying that a double standard exists when it comes to male and female athletes posing for magazines. Derek Jeter can look sexy on the cover of GQ, but we don’t really see him any differently than we do when he rounds the bases in Yankee Stadium.

Even Jim Palmer, stripped down for the old Jockey underwear ads, was still the Orioles pitcher in his body language and the twinkle in his eye.

But the stream of Anna Kournikova posters and calendars do not suggest a world-class tennis player: instead they show a demure, even submissive girl with a sly, come-hither grin. The feminist interpretation is surely that this is no longer the athlete Anna Kournikova — no longer the strong subject of the photo, but a mere sexual object.

So I was expecting the worst when I picked up the September issue of Playboy, which features the latest of these photo spreads. Amy Acuff, a high jumper on the Olympic team in Athens, is on the cover. I braced myself for depressing cheesecake, but instead found 12 elegant, full-page photographs of female Olympians who are decidedly more athletic than they are sexy. Or, rather, they are both athletic and sexy — the new sexy.

The definition of sex appeal seems to have gone under the knife, and it is athletes — not just plastic surgeons — who are carving out the new look. Back in the 1960’s, when I was a swimmer in high school with sizable shoulders and triceps, wearing a sleeveless blouse inspired unconcealed shock and dismay. Today, the running-back physique of Serena Williams may be setting the standard for a new femininity.

I Always Thought Colin Powell Was A Pretty Cool Cat

14. August 2004 · Comments Off on I Always Thought Colin Powell Was A Pretty Cool Cat · Categories: General

I bet the catbloggers are going crazy over this:

That Colin Powell, he’s a top cat. We’re not kidding. He nabbed the Cat of the Year award from the Cat Fanciers Association.

The comment section is now open for cat puns.

Unions Laugh At Campaign Finance Reform

14. August 2004 · Comments Off on Unions Laugh At Campaign Finance Reform · Categories: General

Labor unions are pulling out the stops to get John Kerry elected:

The AFL-CIO and its two largest unions are spending $157 million alone on labor get-out-the-vote efforts. That figure doesn’t include funds from the federation’s other 58 unions or the multiple labor-backed, partisan groups known as 527s because of the tax code section they fall under.

With this looking like, by far, the most costly Presidential election in history, it should be obvious to all that McCain-Feingold is a joke.

Attic Marathon

14. August 2004 · Comments Off on Attic Marathon · Categories: European Disunion

So it is that the Athens Olympics opened last night, and Oh, I am so glad that I am not there. I hope for the best for everyone involved, but am prepared for the worst; bombs and gunmen and terrorists oh my. I have thin hopes for the Greek law enforcement authorities keeping a lock on any planned mayhem for the next fortnight; after, all I have seen them direct traffic. I also saw them in action in the early 1980ies, when the N-17 gang seemingly operated at will, and various Palestinian terrorists had the run of the country and no hesitation— as the saying goes— about crapping in their own mess-kit. Greece to me is a schizophrenic country, a place that I loved beyond all rational reasoning, and a place that I looked every day over my shoulder and checked the underside of my car for explosive devices; my daughter insists that that is one of her earliest memories. She waits on the stoop of the door to the apartment building at the corner of Knossou and Delphon, Ano Glyphada, and watches me solemnly kneel down and look underneath the chassis of the VEV, looking for trailing wires and strange and unexplained devices.

If I could, though, there are places I would go back to; a time before genocide against Americans was only enforced against those few of us who wore a uniform, or worked for the State Department, the places that I frequented when I lived in Athens, and thought myself lucky to have the opportunity to do so.
Of course, I would not go to any of the Olympic events, were I magically transferred to Greece this weekend; the unatheletic nerd that I am automatically forbids any interest in that sort of thing; besides, I don’t like crowds, especially hot, sweaty crowds, driven into a tightly controlled venue.

Given unfettered freedom of movement this weekend, I would go to the Kassiriani Monastery, first, a Byzantine monument high on the piney mountaintop overlooking Athens— from there the Akropolis looks like a miniature carved from ivory, the hillside below the monastic complex is thick with rosemary and lavender, delirious with bees. On a higher peak above the Kassiriani is a concrete platform, a brutally modern bit of infrastructure left over from the Second World War, an emplacement for German anti-aircraft guns. Not visible is a cave in the slope of the hill, dedicated to the Greek pantheon, but with evidence of pre-historic occupation; the entire sweep of human history, visible and manifest in a small space.
Penny and Georgios, my neighbors, take a collection of plastic jugs with them, when they visit the Kassiriani; there is a spring-fed fountain on the grounds— the water is pure and sweet-tasting; they fill their motley collection of jugs and bring it back to their house in Ano Glyphada. Water from the mountains, uncorrupted by such things as pipes, pumps and faucets. (There is another such spring above the shrine of Apollo at Delphi; clear spring water flowing out of the mountain into a crumbling stone basin, half sheltered by gnarled little trees; to drink of this fountain is to acquire the gift of poetry, or so it is believed. Or at least, remarked a skeptical Danish tourist when I was there, a howling case of dysentery.)

Having gone in that direction, roughly north-east from metropolitan Athens, I would head over the mountain backbone of the Attic peninsula towards Nea Makri and Marathon, first on a modern highway that looked eerily familiar; deep cuts into chaparral covered hillsides. We took a picnic lunch the first time we ventured in that direction, but half our sandwiches only made as far as a scenic pull-out on the mountainside, with a view of the folded dark-green hills for miles. There was no one else at the overlook but us, and the VEV on a weekday midmorning, only a pathetically skinny dog. The dog came up and looked at us, cringing at any sudden move, but begging in that silent way that dogs have. We could not see a house anywhere near, so we laid two ham on brown bread sandwiches on the dusty ground and drove away as the dog devoured them avidly. We ate the rest of our lunch—the remaining sandwiches and a small bag of fresh cherries, sitting on a marble bench under the tall monuments and cypress trees at the site of the Marathon battle, listening to the spring birdsong. We were the only people in the place; incredible to think there had ever been a battle here, from which fleet-footed Phedippides had run all the way to Athens bearing the news of Miltiades’ victory over the Persians—all along the route we had come by car— to bring news of victory. Greece was so stiff with history, cheek by jowl and elbow to elbow with it, thirty centuries worth. To the west of Athens, in the other direction, Leonides and his 300 Spartans made a last stand against Xerxes and the Persians again in the narrow pass at Thermopylae. The Persian envoy had given Leonides a chance to surrender, and threatened so many arrows that their volleys would block out the sun, and Leonides was reported in the histories to have defiantly replied, “Very well, then, we’ll fight in the shade.”

Almost too much history; sometimes the only way to live with it is to take a break and go to the beach. The long white-sand beach curved in a gentle arc between Marathon and Nea Makri, and the water was clear and green, and on this early summer day the light breeze hardly kicked up any surf at all. The beach sloped so gently, it was as shallow as a swimming pool for a long way out, perfect for babies and small children— who in Greece (and Europe generally) did not have to wear swimsuits, and frolicked like pink tadpoles in the mild shallows.

Oh, where we would go, if we were in Athens this weekend, and wanted to avoid the crowds: perhaps down the coast road to the temple to Posidon at Sunion, at the very tip of the peninsula; another place almost always nearly deserted when we went there; the worn marble colonnade on a high scrub-brush covered knoll overlooking the sea— which really is as dark as wine. In classical times, sailors rounding the peninsula and coming up into the Saronic Gulf on a clear day, could see the bright gold glint that was the sun on the spear of the statue of Athena that stood outside her shrine on the Parthenon hill. Dark red corn poppies grew among the tumbled stones and between the cracks of the paving around the temple: until quite recent times sailors and travelers could bribe the attendant to look the other way and carve their name onto the stones. Lord Byron was supposed to have done so, at any rate: I have a picture still of some names on the foot of one of the crumbling columns: “Geo. Longden” “J.S. Barton, London” “R. Laing, Aberdeen 1885” “ C.J. Young, NYC 1885” “ J. Davis —-pool, 1893″
”, a jumble of intials, names pecked out in Cyrillic, dates, 1902, and some long scratches that may merely be wear and tear.

We had a splendid salad, in a little one-room restaurant, near Sunion, nothing but the plain village salad; chopped tomatoes oozing their own sweet juice, cucumber slices, topped with a creamy-salt slab of feta, and a dribble of rich green olive oil over all… but the tomato, ah, that luscious perfect tomato. I had friends there that swore they had never liked tomatoes, but that was before they came to Greece and tasted real tomatoes. The tomato in this salad was fresh, straight off the vine and still warm from the sunshine; I suspect the waitress took our order, ran out the back door to pick it, and there it was… a perfect tomato.

(to be continued)

Is It Just Me…?

14. August 2004 · Comments Off on Is It Just Me…? · Categories: sarcasm

Am I the only one who finds the Olympics boring since the demise of Soviet Union?

My family is in the TV room watching the opening ceremony right now, and I’m, er, well, you know…

In The Annals Surf Music

14. August 2004 · Comments Off on In The Annals Surf Music · Categories: General

Is there any more consummate song than The Ventures’ theme from Hawaii Five-O? The only other contenders I can think of are Wipeout, or Sleepwalk, which is arguably a jazz number.

Kerry’s Wild Imagination

13. August 2004 · Comments Off on Kerry’s Wild Imagination · Categories: General

I thought I caught John Kerry in another lie today, when I heard him claiming that George Bush’s actions in Iraq have added “about $10” to the price of a barrel of oil. On checking my facts, I find Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) estimates the “security premium” to be between $6 and $10 per barrel. Although I have gotten other estimates closer to $5/bl.

However, Kerry has stated in the past that, where he president, he would also have deposed Saddam, just as Bush has. The only difference being that he would illicit more “international support”. What I would like to know is, even if Kerry could have managed to gain the cooperation of France and Russia, how would that have lessened the terrorist threat to oil supplies. Indeed, perhaps Russia’s involvement would put their own oil production capability at greater jeopardy? After all, we must remember that they have a substantial Islamic terrorism problem of their own.

Surely, every politician takes great license with reality when on the campaign trail. But, thus far, I have yet to hear ANYTHING from Kerry that wasn’t totally from through the looking glass.

Word For The Day:

13. August 2004 · Comments Off on Word For The Day: · Categories: General

triskaidekaphobia \tris-ky-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh\, noun:
a morbid fear of the number 13 or the date Friday the 13th

I HATE LOTUS NOTES!

13. August 2004 · Comments Off on I HATE LOTUS NOTES! · Categories: General

I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!
I HATE LOTUS NOTES!

There, I feel much better now….

(Notes is our Corporate email tool, and it stinks!)

News “Legs” and the Swiftboat Veterans

11. August 2004 · Comments Off on News “Legs” and the Swiftboat Veterans · Categories: Media Matters Not

It looks like the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth campaign will indeed have legs, but not the hoped-for seven-league boots clad news legs that carry a story from “60 Minutes” to the front page above the fold “NY Times”, and the major talk shows and back again. Oh, dear me no, JFK part deux is the major media’s own anointed, and the solemnity of the election occasion will not be disturbed by the rioting mobs of blogger peasantry with our torches and pitchforks, outside the major media palace gates. The high media nobles will draw the velvet curtains, and look forward to the coronation, hoping that it will bring back that lovely golden September 10th world, where the news audiences could be easily distracted with …ooohhh, pretty, shiny!

My local newspaper has pretty well ignored it; a couple of brief mentions embedded in campaign coverage (in the back pages) and an editorial cartoon featuring a toy swiftboat stuck in a bathtub drain with an elephant on the deck. I think it means the cartoonist is writing the swiftboat veterans off as stranded partisan hacks, but god only knows what the average reader thought, given the very little that the SA Express News has reported.
NPR mentioned it twice in the last week— and one of those two mentions was a letter from a listener who complained that the swiftboat veterans were stranded partisan hacks.

Considering that I have known about this group for simply months, since after posting this entry, and that their news conference was noted by a couple of major condervative media sources, and now the book is way at the top of Amazon’s sales, I am left shaking my head at the major media silence. What on earth are those highly paid investigative reporters being paid to do these days, I thought political scandals were their bread and butter, their reason for living, the Holy Grail of another Watergate, bestowing undying renown and fame everlasting unpon the aspiring hack reporter.

Alas, in these degenerate days, they wait for the next story to drop on them like a gentle rain: even the ever floggable dead horse of Abu Ghraib was tied up in a nice pink bow and dropped into a receptive lap, not found out by journalistic curiosity and effort. Actually doing a bit of investigative work seems a bit infra dig for our major media nobles…. and now the testimony of a wide variety of veterans who served in Vietnam at the same time as John Kerry, testimony which may call into question his fitness for the highest office in the land…. is dumped in a big, steaming pile right in the middle of the assembly hall in major media’s grand palace.

And they flap their lace hankies, and hold their noses and mumble sotto-voice about the nerve of those peasants, and look away, and never realise the story does have legs— a thousand little legs, like a centipede. They do not sense the depth of anger among Vietnam War vets at how they were slimed, vilified and castigated by the anti-war movement, at how deep the hurt was felt by those who felt they had done their honorable duty. They do not, I think, even realise the depth of unease among other veterans, both older and younger, about certain aspects of the Kerry saga.

Both my Dad and William, the GWWIKC (the Gentleman With Whom I Keep Company) are veterans, and seperatly had the same reaction when I mentioned that those three Purple Hearts had not involved any hospital time; an astonished, disbelieving “What!!????”. Indeed, William himself has a Purple Heart; he served as combat aircrew, and a piece of shrapnel cost him some months in hospital. They are both generally well disposed to fellow veterans, and inclined to give the benefit of doubts… but not this time.

This story does indeed have legs, and shall grown all the many and longer, for not being addressed at this most important time by those who claim it to be their duty and their right. So, don’t mind us if we do so now. Your legs are longer, you’ll need them to catch up later.

Later

10. August 2004 · Comments Off on Later · Categories: Site News

Have you ever been the only sober guy in a room full of drunks? It sucks. See you after the hangover.

I’ll be over here if anyone needs me.

I Used To Be a Feminist….

09. August 2004 · Comments Off on I Used To Be a Feminist…. · Categories: General

I used to be a feminist, a long time ago and another century, when it used to mean that you were bright and adventurous, and the life choices presented to you— the options that your mothers and grandmothers had were about as appealing as a plate of cold gruel. My Grannie Dodie opened the campaign for that conventional life almost the minute I graduated high school: my clear duty was to marry a man with a well-paying job, immediately bear a certain number of appealing children— all of which would earn her bragging rights in the battle for status among her peers, since the number and quality of great-grandchildren counted for much— keep a spotless house, which would be beautifully and tastefully decorated, cook plentiful and appetizing meals (on a budget), dress myself and the hypothetical children in understated elegance (also on a budget), and – oh, crap, just look at the latest edition Martha Stewart or the other womens’ magazines. It all looked – well, not very interesting, not next to the options available for boys, which offered lashings of adventure, interesting work, and substantial paychecks.
Trust me, there was really only one choice on the block in those formative years, in the eyes of my parents, my teachers and society in general. And a lot of the limitations we felt were really in our own heads. Those few far-scattered female movers and shakers available as role models were, we were given to understand, very rare and special and brilliant: Madame Curie, Queen Elizabeth I, Jane Addams, Amelia Earhart. When I looked around in my high school Honors and AE classes and saw only two other girls besides me – well, that said something. What it said was “Forget about romance if you are brainy and driven and competitive and don’t want to hide it, ’cause guys don’t like being beaten at anything by a girl.”
It wasn’t just at school that the limitations applied, the ones in our heads and those imposed by tradition. There were just so very few places where a woman could go, and have a real career, even fewer where you could work after marriage and children. While there were always women who broke those conventions, they were rare exceptions. They were extraordinarily talented, or lucky, or very, very driven; us ordinary girls were not encouraged to very much more than being a teacher, or a nurse, a secretary, or in sales: everything else, everything that looked daring, or adventurous, or well-paid or just plain fun was beyond a thin, gauzy veil with the words, “No, girls can’t do that.”
Feminism changed all that in a thousand ways: any number of interesting and challenging careers are now open to pretty much anyone qualified and interested, it is now possible to have credit, a business, a house in your own name, a medical appointment with a woman doctor— all of which were almost unimaginable, save to some visionaries in the 1960ies. You don’t even have to wear those damned high heel shoes, unless you want to; you can organize your professional and personal life in whatever arrangement works for you. Now there are few barriers preventing women from acquiring the skills and credentials which will give them an astonishing degree of economic and political freedom, and equality, our world is changed for us, but the movement which spearheaded those changes hasn’t. Instead it is insular, reactionary, petty and increasingly doctrinaire—- even irrelevant to most of what would be their natural constituency.
Increasingly, a number of matters began to bother me: how conventional courtesies like opening a door for a woman were somehow conflated with economic and political injustice, and how being a feminist in good standing meant having to meet an increasingly rigorous set of strictures. Reading through MS Magazine, as I did devotedly during the years that I was in active service, the message became clearer and clearer: you weren’t really counted as a (large capital) feminist in good standing unless you were a vegetarian-pagan-lesbian-single-parent-of-color-employed-by-a-university-and-serious-victim-of-the-patriarchy, and also eschewed leg and armpit shaving and makeup into the bargain – and if you had the misfortune to be white and middle class, better get down and do a lot of groveling apologies for it.
So, as I had internalized the early principles of strength, independence, and freedom of choice, the feminism of the later period brought about a certain amount of cognitive dissonance: You mean, I have fought my way into a twice male-dominated field (broadcasting and the military), borne and raised a child on my own, built a fairly happy and successful life— and you want me to insist that I am a desperately unhappy and downtrodden victim? That the military, which was really rather accommodating about medical benefits, child care, and family requirements was this horrible patriarchal, brutal establishment dedicate to squashing the sisterhood? There was nothing said about how damn good it felt to exercise authority, what an absolute kick it was to go out and make things happen; it was all sitting around with the sisterhood, moaning about how downtrodden, and how very superior it was morally to be a perpetual victim.
Mind you, the military was not one vast warm fuzzy support group that the traditional feminists envisioned as their ideal society; it is rather a brutally efficient meritocracy; do the job, get the perks, earn the pension and the status. Over twenty years, I worked with the people who were incompetent ninnies, and people who were who were totally squared away professionals. There was no correlation between competence and possession (or absence) of a dick.
There were a number of the free-standing variety, however, as well as other challenges. As a military woman, I dealt with them directly, neatly and efficiently, and without involving my commander, the legal office or the womyn’s support group, and without thinking of myself as a poor, pitiful victim of patriarchal oppression, but as an adult and a professional. I mean, if there was any oppression going around, I was far more likely to be administering it. Playing by the rules laid out for us by the doctrinaire, die-hard feminists seemed more and more stultifying, useless… and worse than that— no fun at all.
Having only a circumscribed set of pre-approved choices to live your life… well, that was just what we had started with, wasn’t it?
After all of this, maybe I am a post-feminist; holding to only a few simple strictures for organizing women’s lives. The same access to educational opportunities, to be judged in the classroom and the job by the same standards, and to be paid the same for the same work. Arrange anything else— your child-bearing schedule, your profession, and your living arrangements in the manner which brings you and yours blessings and happiness.
And if you wanna wear four-inch spike heels, or goth makeup, or go totally vegan… well, whatever, sister. It’s a big world, and the possiblities and the choices are endless.

Steve Forbes Is A Bright Guy

08. August 2004 · Comments Off on Steve Forbes Is A Bright Guy · Categories: General

In this month’s issue of Forbes Steve Forbes takes Alan Greenspan’s management of the Fed to task:

Alas, There’s No Way We’ll Get the Best Way

Alan Greenspan recently declared that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates rapidly if inflation really heated up; otherwise, rates will rise according to his assessment of the state of the economy. The time has come to ask a fundamental question: Is raising the nominal cost of money truly the best way to fight inflation?

Sadly, the Fed, Fed watchers and economic policy makers won’t even think to raise this question. Too bad. The American and global economies and the financial markets would benefit enormously if the Fed fundamentally changed its modus operandi and adopted an approach that would really give us monetary stability. Instead, we’re going to continue to chart an unsteady course that will keep uncertainties festering, which will, in turn, inhibit us from going full-speed ahead.

Thanks to Milton Friedman, most people now acknowledge that inflation is a monetary phenomenon, i.e., it results from the printing of too much money. Determining the right amount of money for the economy is the trick. The supply of money is only half the equation; the other half is demand. If animal spirits are weak because of excessive taxation or other factors, a low supply of money can still be inflationary because demand could be even weaker. Conversely, a healthy, robust economy will increase the demand for credit, and meeting that demand will not be inflationary.

The way the Fed handles money supply is to the economy what a carburetor is to an automobile: Insufficient gasoline stalls the engine, too much floods it, and the right amount makes the engine purr. At the moment, our central bank uses no reliable fuel gauge. We’re on a Greenspan standard. However the Sun King chairman sees the world is what determines the stance of the Federal Reserve. Rare is the individual who becomes a high Fed official or governor without Alan’s assent. As far as one can fathom, His Majesty still seems to think economic growth determines the rate of inflation. He hasn’t read his Friedman. In Alan’s mind the way to control inflation is to fine-tune economic activity. If the economy grows around 3% a year, all will be well. Thus, raising interest rates makes sense–the higher cost of money will slow down the economy, preventing it from going into overdrive.

But economic activity doesn’t determine inflation–price indexes, yes, but not currency debasement, i.e., inflation. The chairman and too many economists confuse price changes that are triggered by a debasement of the currency with price changes that come about from normal activities in the marketplace. Wal-Mart is always figuring out how to charge less for its products: That’s not deflation, it’s productivity. A more vigorous magazine and newspaper industry may cause paper prices to rise (assuming there’s no additional capacity coming online). But that’s not inflation; it’s the interplay between supply and demand. Price changesare good because they signal what’s dear and what’s excessive.

There’s a simpler, better way for the Fed to conduct its monetary operations. Commodity prices as a whole–gold, in particular–will tell you instantly if the central bank is doing its job right. For a variety of reasons gold is to monetary policy what the North Star is to determining location. Gold’s intrinsic value hardly changes. Its price fluctuation in dollars reflects not a change in the value of gold but a change in the real worth of the greenback. This is absolutely basic.

Understand that, and Mr. Greenspan’s job becomes infinitely simpler, and uncertainties virtually vanish. Take the 10- or 12-year average price of the yellow metal–anywhere from $330 to $340 an ounce–and use that as your benchmark. (For safety’s sake, better use $350 to $360 an ounce.) If gold goes above that range, then the Fed should pull dollars out of the economy through its open-market operations. If gold falls below that range, the Fed should pump more dollars in. Day to day, the Fed should print or extinguish dollars to keep the price of gold steady in dollar terms. If the economy is robust, it will create more dollars; if it is weak, fewer dollars will be created. The dollar should be similar to any fixed measure of value or volume–there are 12 inches in a foot, 60 minutes in an hour, 16 ounces in a pound, and so on.

Short-term interest rates? Under this model the Fed can ignore them. Let ’em float in the marketplace. The discount rate can be tied to T-bills.

There’s not a proverbial snowball’s chance in hell that such a direct, sensible course will be adopted. And though no one would want a commercial airline pilot to fly without instruments, that’s exactly how the Fed is operating. Thus, investors must always keep their seat belts fastened and hope the Fed doesn’t get into an accident–as it has so often in the past and may be doing again.

While I personally think the gold standard is archaic, given today’s technology, the idea that monitary policy should follow the economy, not lead it, is particularly wise.

Krugman vs. O’Reilly

08. August 2004 · Comments Off on Krugman vs. O’Reilly · Categories: General

Let me say here that, while I grant Bill O’Reilly his measure of respect, I am no particular fan of his. But Monday night, he interviews the lying weasel Paul Krugman ; this should be interesting.

War Quotes

08. August 2004 · Comments Off on War Quotes · Categories: War

I’ve seen the following quotes attributed to Goebbels:

This war is a defensive war. It was forced upon us by our enemies, who wish to destroy our nation. The only thing we cannot afford to lose in this war is our freedom, the foundation of our life and our future. No one has the right to complain about limitations on his personal freedom caused by the war.

…

Why of course the people don’t want war. But it is the leaders who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

What I’ve never seen is the source material for these quotes. Were they from personal diaries, newspaper interviews, or Party speeches? I’m just wondering, because I’ve always wanted to read the rest of the text that was originally placed about these particular sentences.

Here’s one from Caesar:

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor. The citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader. How do I know? For this is what I have done.

Where’s this one from?

« Older articles
Newer articles »