Notes on how things seem to me from out here in Hollywood... As seen from Just Above Sunset
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Photos and text, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003,2004,2005,2006 - Alan M. Pavlik
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Consider:

"It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape."

- I. Compton-Burnett, letter to Francis King (1969)

"Cynical realism – it is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation."

- Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"







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Sunday, 4 April 2004

Topic: Photos

New issue of JUST ABOVE SUNSET MAGAZINE now online!

No blogging today.

Sunday is the day I do final assembly and post the week's new issue of this: Just Above Sunset Magazine.

Commentary here will resume tomorrow.

In the new issue of the magazine you will find items not here on the web log...

You might want to check out Conservative Aesthetics: Why are conservatives always so cheery and liberals always so glum? The case against gloom and doom.

And there's Martha's Secrets - new fiction from Deborah Vatcher.

Items you find there that look like items that have appeared here are extended with new links and commentary.

Check it out.

Posted by Alan at 22:04 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
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Saturday, 3 April 2004

Topic: Photos

No entries here today...

I'm off to Carlsbad, just north of San Diego - Rhett is turning five and there's a party. But for those who find this site, here's a pretty picture...

This is a side street in a village in Provence, Lourmarin, where Albert Camus retired - he took his Nobel Prize money and bought a place here, saying it was the most beautiful village in France. He was buried here, in the cemetery a bit to the southwest of the village. As I recall, this particular village is a bit north of Aix and a bit east of Avignon.

And the photo here has not been retouched. Those are the actual colors... This is from June 2000 on a very hot afternoon - after lunch in Aix on Cours Mirabeau a meandering drive north through the countryside....

In this modern world of course Lourmarin actually has a website - http://www.lourmarin.com/ - with music, and you can toggle between French, English and German... ? Lourmarin en Provence est class? parmi les plus beaux villages de France. Situ? dans le Parc Naturel du Luberon, le village de ... ?

Yeah, yeah.


Posted by Alan at 08:18 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Sunday, 4 April 2004 21:59 PST home

Friday, 2 April 2004

Topic: Election Notes

The GOD Franchise - Who Owns the Trademark?

Noted on this pages, Monday March 29 (see Interesting commentary...) a Bush administration representative has said that it was ""beyond the bounds of acceptable political discourse" for Kerry to mention Scripture in his rebuke of Republican policies.

Yep, on Sunday, just the day before, Kerry had delivered a speech at a church service and quoted James 2:14-17 -

"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, `Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

And Kerry then pretty much lit into the whole idea of compassionate conservatism. We get the conservatism. Where's the compassion part? Got my bible here. I see these words about making things better for people. I see God says you ought to do more than talk about it. So, where's the action to match the words?

Oddly enough, this echoes Clara Peller back in the mid-eighties - the woman who played a crusty old lady who slapped the counters of all sort of hamburger joints and loudly asked the probing question - "Where's the Beef!" This implied that the only place in town where she could get a hamburger with an ample portion of "beef" was at Wendy's. A clich? was born. And then Walter Mondale used the phrase "Where's the Beef!" in his 1984 presidential run against his rival Gary Hart.

Here Kerry is doing something parallel. Hey, George, where's the beef?

The Bush folk got very angry. Heck, they own the franchise on using Christian devotional references in political discourse. This was kind of like trademark infringement - a matter of branding. The "Faith-Based President" was being mocked.

Most curious.

And now we have Marina Hyde in the April 3rd Guardian (UK - thus the odd spelling below) on religion in American politics who does her riff on this. After explaining the Kerry bible quote blow-up she comments -
Take into account the burgeoning (if niche) appeal of a bumper sticker which reads "God Is A Democrat" in the States, and you've got what the politicians seem bent on making the key issue in the forthcoming election. Namely, who the hell's God backing?

Now, I'm not a theologian of the calibre of, say, Melvin Gibson, and am therefore wary of pitting myself against a bumper sticker, but I'd have to hazard on current evidence that God is a Republican.

Most things you've ever heard about him suggest this. He's associated with territorial creations and divisions, smiting people, retribution - your basic liberal nightmares.

Indeed, a few years ago, Newt Gingrich went so far as to explain to a group of conservative students that there was only one thing separating them from evil tax-and-spend liberals: belief in God. "That is the core cultural issue of this society," he declared. "Are we in fact endowed by our creator, which then implies a whole range of implications about the nature of life, or are we randomly gathered protoplasm, temporarily together, seeking, in some situation-ethics rational way, to temporarily make sure we're not in pain? Now, those are two radically different world views." Yes - God v tax. Who says debate isn't what it used to be?

Meanwhile, there was a point where George Bush would specifically align himself with the priest figure when speaking to the nation (invocations to pray for the September 11 victims, for instance). Then he graduated to aligning with Biblical prophets (quoting Isaiah on the day of "victory" in Iraq). Now, he seems pretty much indivisible from the deity in some of his speeches (recent claims that justice "is ours"). In short, he's not a New Testament kinda guy, and not just because he hasn't read that far yet.

But Jesus - now here's hope for John Kerry, because Jesus just has to be a Democrat. Ask yourself this: would Jesus be more concerned with feeding the poor and sorting out education or earmarking another few billion for the global ballistic missile defence programme?

And yet Kerry's brave move to sink to Bush's level may still backfire. At this stage, it could all come down to the Holy Spirit. And who's to say that mystery-wrapped-in-an-enigma isn't voting for Nader?
Bush loves the idea of the Old Testament God of vengeance and power. Kerry seems to like the idea of Jesus and compassion for the meek and lowly (the wimp version). Mel Gibson likes to think long and hard about Jesus being tortured - as that gets Mel all worked up. Nader is probably a Buddhist.

What does it matter? The secular Europeans must think us mad.

So who does God favor?

Remember Randy Newman - "God's Song"
Man means nothing he means less to me
Than the lowliest cactus flower
Or the humblest yucca tree
He chases round this desert
Cause he thinks that's where I'll be
That's why I love mankind

I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
From the squalor, and the filth, and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayer you offer me
That's why I love mankind ...

I burn down your cities - how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why I love mankind
You really need me
That's why I love mankind
God, if there is one, probably isn't taking sides. He, or she, or it - your choice - is amused, and a bit bored with this all.

Posted by Alan at 19:16 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Friday, 2 April 2004 19:23 PST home


Topic: In these times...

More on maintaining the right attitude...

John McCreery comments here on this attitude business...
...on Americans who now believe that Bush has lied to them but still think that he has made the country more secure, a couple of thoughts occur to me.

First, I am reminded of abused wives who return to abusive husbands, ignoring the likelihood that what will happen is more abuse. Clinging to what you feel that you know can be less scary that stepping off into the unknown - especially if the unknown is someone who represents attitudes that you have learned to demonize. Or, as the clich? has it, "Better the devil you know...."

Second, there is the underlying belief my right-wing brother articulates, that acting tough makes us more secure. It's a nasty world out there and protecting ourselves means that, "We gotta be the baddest boy on the block." Us folks on the civilized left need to figure out how to combat that view, and not just intellectually.

There is plenty of evidence, from gang wars in the hood to Sharon-style Middle East "peacekeeping" that what being the baddest boy on the block gets you is resentment, hatred and shot in the back. But guys like my brother don't want to see it. The emotional appeal of "We gotta kick butt" is too strong.

The only hope I can see is to counter with Teddy Roosevelt's advice to "speak softly but carry a big stick." Speaking softly alone won't do. Reviving that old-fashioned hero who is quiet, polite, a real buddy to his friends AND can take down the baddy when necessary could be just what we need.
Yes, but as he says, the emotional appeal of just kicking the shit out of folks is strong. No one will mess with us, right? Ask Ariel Sharon about that.

Note - the remake of the movie "Walking Tall" opens this weekend. That's the original "take no prisoners and kill the evil guys" film - it defines doing good as kicking ass. A righteous movie. This remake stars "The Rock" - the former professional wrestler who, unlike Jesse Ventura, has decided not to run for office, yet.

So what else can sour your attitude?

Other news (some of it compiled nicely over at CURSOR.ORG) -

The New York Times reports that the White House is blocking release to the 9/11 commission of three-quarters of nearly 11,000 pages of Clinton administration files. Former Clinton aides say the files contain highly classified documents about the Clinton administration's efforts against al-Qaeda.

Say what? The Bush folks don't want to commission to know what Clinton actually was doing about terrorism? Why? How odd. The White House this morning backed off a little and said they might send some more of these documents over, but the documents would be carefully edited for only what Bush felt the commission really needed. Yep. Right.

Oh yeah, and I read in my local paper that after the White House refused to allow two Medicare officials to testify, House Republicans shut down an inquiry into whether the Bush administration acted illegally or inappropriately last year when it withheld from Congress its cost estimates for the Medicare prescription drug bill.

Hey, don't ask. Don't tell.

And this - Prosecutors in the Valerie Plame case have reportedly expanded their focus beyond the leaking of the CIA officer's identity, and are now looking into whether White House officials lied to investigators or mishandled classified information related to the case.

Man, just like Watergate - now they're looking into a cover-up. Not only a possible crime (outing a CIA agent out of spite and blowing her cover, and her contacts' covers) but lying about it to the original investigators. Damn. That's cold.

Finally, back to that business in Fallujah...

It seems a Washington Post article calls the four civilian contractors killed in Fallujah, "among the most elite commandos working in Iraq," and cites suspicions that their deaths were not random but targeted.

Something else was going on? Could they be a hit team that was exposed? The four were employed by Blackwater Security Consulting, which the Post says pays its armed commandos an average of $1,000 per day.

Who are these Blackwater people?

In March, the Guardian (UK) reported on Blackwater's hiring of Chilean mercenaries - many of whom had trained under the military government of Augusto Pinochet - to replace U.S. soldiers on security duty in Iraq.

Pinochet? That name rings a bell.

Okay, to cheer you up, a little on the press -

Another Guardian (UK) report on Israeli accusations of bias against the BBC states that, by comparison, "Israeli officials boast that they now have only to call a number at CNN's headquarters in Atlanta to pull any story they do not like."

Cool.

Had enough?

Try this from another left leaning UK newspaper:

'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'
Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent
Andrew Buncombe, The Independent (UK), 02 April 2004

Here's their scoop -
A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.

She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."
Well, perhaps she's lying to get her own fifteen minutes of fame, just like Richard Clarke. Perhaps not.

This is not good for Ric and Bush. Why do these folks keep coming out of the woodwork? Are they all so needing of public attention? Why do they all hate their country, as the conservatives often ask?

Here are more details.
... Mrs Edmonds, 33, says she gave her evidence to the commission in a specially constructed "secure" room at its offices in Washington on 11 February. She was hired as a translator for the FBI's Washington field office on 13 September 2001, just two days after the al-Qa'ida attacks. Her job was to translate documents and recordings from FBI wire-taps.

She said it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack. "Most of what I told the commission 90 per cent of it related to the investigations that I was involved in or just from working in the department. Two hundred translators side by side, you get to see and hear a lot of other things as well."

"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.

To try to refute Mr Clarke's accusations, Ms Rice said the administration did take steps to counter al-Qa'ida. But in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on 22 March, Ms Rice wrote: "Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and free US-held terrorists."

Mrs Edmonds said that by using the word "we", Ms Rice told an "outrageous lie". She said: "Rice says 'we' not 'I'. That would include all people from the FBI, the CIA and DIA [Defence Intelligence Agency]. I am saying that is impossible."

It is impossible at this stage to verify Mrs Edmonds' claims. However, some senior US senators testified to her credibility in 2002 when she went public with separate allegations relating to alleged incompetence and corruption within the FBI's translation department.
Well, this too will be spun by the Bush folks as just another disgruntled employee to whom we should not listen at all.

So much news? Will our press deal with it all?

Today's job report was good. That's what we'll see in the news, along with much more on Janet Jackson.

Given that nugget above about CNN and Israel, is it little wonder one must go to the UK sites to get a few of these other items?

Posted by Alan at 10:47 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
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Thursday, 1 April 2004

Topic: World View

Why do they come to hate us so?
What exactly have we done?
Didn't they beg us to come rescue them from Saddam Hussein?
Doesn't everyone really, secretly, admire us for getting rid of the big bully - even the French?
Shouldn't they be proud to be occupied by a loving and just Christian nation?
It is not just Fallujah...


Well, in the Weekly Standard cover story of April 5 Fred Barnes says democracy and capitalism are blossoming in Iraq. Really. Honest. Don't look at those charred body parts hanging from that bridge, and the cheering crowd. Not to worry. Fred's argument is that these Iraqi folks just need "attitude adjustment." His words. The Marines are now vowing that the folks in Fallujah had better watch out. We've had enough. We're now going to PACIFY that city, big time, whether they like it or not. That's a curious threat, linguistically speaking, of course.

Well, put Iraq aside for a moment. Folks seem also to resent us for pulling out of treaties - Kyoto, The International Tribunal, that set of conventions on limiting land mines, the ABM Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Control Conventions and so on and so forth - as if we expect THEM to comply with all this but WE don't have to. Well, that's a pretty haughty way of saying we're the bad guys. Wouldn't any of them do the same if any of them were the most powerful nation on earth? As the conservatives say - it's sour grapes. They have a bad attitude.

Just a note - they called us on this again. Picky, picky, picky....

See World Court Rules U.S. Should Review 51 Death Sentences
MARLISE SIMONS and TIM WEINER, The New York Times, Published: April 1, 2004

Basically we hold, now, fifty-one foreign nationals in various states, and plan to execute them when all the paperwork and appeals are cleared up. We're not talking terrorism or Guant?namo Bay or any of that. This is basic Class One felony stuff - murder, kidnapping and that sort of thing. Crime, not war.

The problem is we agreed to international conventions that say these folks have the right to chat with their own governments, and we kind of forgot to let them speak to their own embassy folks. Imagine you get locked up in, say, Portugal, and ask to speak with someone at the American embassy to have your country come to bat for you. The idea is they would let you do that, and if the American embassy folks thought there was something wrong going on, they'd lodge a diplomatic protest and make a fuss and help you out. Actually, it does work that way. Or should.

It's that in fifty-one cases we decided (or forgot) to allow these foreign folks that right. Oops. And the International Court of Justice called us on it.

So what do we do? No telling quite yet - as the Times reports:
It is unclear whether American courts will heed the ruling, and federal officials reacted cautiously, saying they needed time to study the list of decisions. "It's a very complex ruling," said Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman. "We'll decide, based on studying it, how we can go about implementing it."
Hey, what's so complicated?

Well, maybe we never recognized the authority of this World Court? No. That's not it. The Times reports that we do acknowledge the jurisdiction of this court "to resolve disputes between nations arising under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations." That allows people arrested abroad to meet with representatives of their governments and explicitly says detainees must be advised of this right. Way back in the sixties we agreed to that. And the Times notes that we regularly invoke this 1963 convention to visit Americans in foreign jails.

So what's the problem? Well, there's states rights:
Although the laws of an international treaty should prevail over national law, the Bush administration has often criticized the application of international law. Even if it bows to the ruling, federal officials may not be able to compel states to heed the court. Gov. Rick Perry, who succeeded President Bush in Texas, has said that "the International Court of Justice does not have jurisdiction in Texas."
Ah. Texas.

All this does not make us look good. And folks do get angry. Do we seem arrogant - a bit high-handed? Well, our usual response - Go pound sand, Frenchy! - is not impressing these International Court of Justice people.

Should we worry? Probably not. So people hate and resent us - that bad attitude thing. Can that really ever hurt us?

We report. You decide.

But back to Iraq and events in Fallujah ...

The Best Rant of The Day Award goes to Eric Alterman at Altercation for this opening paragraph to his column today...
Those awful pictures from Fallujah are a necessary part of Americans' education and must be shown to them just as frequently as the deliberate deceptions the media so gullibly passed along when the president was misleading us into war. As horrific and inhuman as these actions may be, Bush asked for this. He invaded another country in near complete ignorance of its history and traditions, in defiance of world opinion, and on the basis of dishonest and trumped-up arguments. What's more, he and Cheney ensured the failure of the post-war plans by refusing even to consult with experts who knew something about the region, even those in our own government. The result has been an unending series of easily predictable catastrophes that are worsening by the day. Knowing the ways of the all-powerful Karl Rove, I predict he will instruct Bush to cut and run before Election Day. The question is, will Cheney second the motion? Will the media allow them to get away with it?
Wow. Talk about needing an attitude adjustment! I wish I didn't agree with him.

For a more nuanced view you might check out this:
Iraq Hawks Down: Is Fallujah Iraq's Mogadishu?
Fred Kaplan, SLATE.COM - Updated Thursday, April 1, 2004, at 4:11 PM PT

Kaplan opens with this -
Pentagon officials view Wednesday's horror in Fallujah as the Iraq war's Mogadishu incident: a disaster that may be a turning point for American policy. We will not flee, as we did in Somalia, but Fallujah should teach even the administration's most die-hard optimists that the mission is deeper and muddier than they'd imagined, that the country they have conquered is far uglier and far less pliant than they hoped, and that a new course of policy is necessary if we want to sustain the occupation.

Many are wondering how President Bush will retaliate for the brutal slayings of the four American contractors who were shot, beaten, dismembered, dragged down the street, and strung up on bridge poles. The universal feeling is that some response is necessary to let the insurgents know they can't get away with this. The question is what kind of response?
Well, that's good question.

As Kaplan asks -
So, what do we do? Bomb the place till the rubble bounces? The U.S. Air Force briefly tried this approach last November with Operation Iron Hammer, in which we bombed buildings that the insurgents had been using, to no effect. The Israelis have been raining missiles and bombs on their own local terrorists for years, also to no effect. The danger of massive bombardment is that it kills the wrong people, angers their friends and relatives, and sires new insurgents as a result.

Do we cordon off Fallujah? To what end? To keep terrorists from entering? That assumes that the insurgents come from elsewhere, when most of them seem to be natives. Fallujah has long been the hot point of the Sunni Triangle, a stronghold of pro-Saddam sentiment. At least since last April, when U.S. soldiers killed 15 Fallujah residents in a demonstration, the city has been bitterly, hatefully anti-American. Besides, we don't have enough troops to close off the borders.

Do we send in more troops to "pacify" the Sunni Triangle? From where? As several Army generals warned before this war started (prompting ridicule and, in one case, the dismissal of the truth-telling commander), Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's battle plan did not provide enough troops. As it turned out, there were enough troops to defeat the Iraqi army and occupy Baghdad--but not enough to accomplish the war's strategic goals. One year later, American forces are stretched thin throughout Iraq, throughout the world for that matter.
Well, that's a dismal list of non-options.

Perhaps there are other, non-military options, and you can read Kaplan on that.

I'm not sure we do those any longer - that political, diplomatic stuff. We don't believe in that any longer, or at least our government doesn't believe in such things any longer. Just as Ariel Sharon has brought peace to the West Bank and Gaza, and made the Palestinians love and respect him and leave Israel safe, so we will do the same in Iraq.

Mao knew that power comes from the barrel of a gun, and Ariel Sharon knows peace comes from targeted assassinations, and we know that Jeffersonian democracy comes from the belly of a B-52 (The BIG Pacifier) whether you want it right now or not.

Well, perhaps these angry Iraqis will have an attitude adjustment. It could happen.

It is a reflection of my own bad attitude that I'm skeptical about such a change of heart.

But at the White House they have faith this could, maybe, possibly, perhaps happen. I guess you do have to admire their optimism.

Posted by Alan at 21:29 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Thursday, 1 April 2004 21:54 PST home

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