As seen from Just Above Sunset

Thursday, 25 November 2004

Topic: Photos

Thanksgiving

Off to the family thing down south - near Carlsbad, California.

Special thanks this year as Harriet-the-Cat, associate editor of Just Above Sunset, the virtual magazine, will recover from her illness. A trip to the local animal hospital yesterday was in order, and although the six-block drive there and back traumatized her, cats have short memories it seems, and she is now fine, or at least on the mend. But she had to be shaved - and now she's a temporary shorthair. I actually think she likes it.

Before -

After -

Photography Bonus: Bob Patterson, who writes for us as both The World's Laziest Journalist and The Book Wrangler, told me he was going to Pasadena last Sunday to attend the famous Doo Dah Parade - in Old Town, a block from where I work. I don't know if he did. This parade is, of course, the ironic and surreal response to annual Rose Parade that kicks off at dawn New Years Day and has something or other to do with the football game that follows, The Rose Bowl. I've worked on an off in Pasadena for many years. New Years Day is a good day to be somewhere else.

Bob may or may not have made it to the anti-Rose Bowl Parade. But a fellow who works for me did. Simon Zheng. He is a wonderful photographer and his gallery from the parade is here - and the top level of his photography site will lead you to other amazing galleries.

I feel like such an amateur. And he grew up in Shanghai and speaks perfect Mandarin and some Cantonese. And he's a super systems guy.

Ah well...

Now to drive down the coast for some turkey.

Posted by Alan at 08:52 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
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Wednesday, 24 November 2004

Topic: Election Notes

Election Analysis: The Triumph of Idealism

Today in History - November 24, 1859: Charles Darwin's 'Origin of the Species' published.

In an October 29 New York Times article on George Bush, Nicholas Kristof reports: "Characteristically, he does not believe in evolution - he says the jury is still out - but he does not actively disbelieve in it either; as a friend puts it, 'he doesn't really care about that kind of thing.'" (Also see in these pages May 9, 2004 - On your knees, America!.)

David Neiwert picks up the thread -

Intelligence on their designs

Science and fundamentalism are natural enemies, because they represent diametrically opposite models for understanding the world.

Fundamentalism begins with articles of faith, gleaned from Scripture, for which it then goes in search of evidence as support - ignoring, along the way, all contravening evidence.

Science begins with the gathering of evidence and data, which are then assembled into an explanatory model through a combination of hypothesis and further testing. This model must take into account all available facts, including contradictory evidence.

They are, in other words, 180 degrees removed from each other in how they affect our understanding of the world. One is based in logic, the other in faith. As methodologies go, they are simply irreconcilable.

Moreover, it's clear that the fundamentalists who are rapidly gaining complete control of the American government's reins of power fully recognize this natural enmity --and intend to use their rising power to curtail the influence of science on society: in government, in the schools, and in the media.

To do this, they are resorting to a combination of logical fallacies and propaganda techniques.

The key piece of illogic is one that has especially lodged itself in the media in recent years: The notion that a demonstrably true fact can be properly countered by a demonstrably false one - and that the two, placed side by side, represent a kind of "balance" in the national discourse. This is the Foxcist model of Newspeak, in which "fair and balanced" comes to mean its exact opposite.

[Linnaeus points out in comments that the logical fallacy at work here is the argumentum ad temperantiam: "If two groups are locked in argument, one maintaining that 2+2=4, and the other claiming that 2+2=6, sure enough, an Englishman will walk in and settle on 2+2=5, denouncing both groups as extremists."]

We've seen this dynamic play out constantly in the media over the past eight years or so: during the Clinton impeachment fiasco (when any kind of false rumor about Clinton got media play under these circumstances) to the 2000 election (from "Al Gore invented the Internet" to "machine counts are more accurate than hand counts") to the 9/11 commission hearings (notably Condoleezza Rice's testimony that the Aug. 11 Presidential Daily Briefing warning of pending Al Qaeda attacks contained just "historical information" and "did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks") to the 2004 election (especially the way the media depicted the fact-driven reports on George W. Bush's military record as the counterpart to the Swift Boat Veterans clearly specious claims').

Now this model of illogic is being applied to our education system. Specifically, it's being used to inject religion into our schools' science education curriculum.

Neiwert goes on to discuss school board in Dover, Pennsylvania deciding to include so-called "intelligent design" programs in their schools' science curriculum, along advocates for "intelligent design" in the schools in Seattle and their a full-fledged embrace of creationism, and many other such examples.

There's something going on here. And it's bigger than the debate between the ant-Darwin forces of faith standing up to, and winning against, the die-hards who foolishly cling to the values of The Enlightenment, who prefer evidence to faith.

Those who founded the country, particularly that Deist dude, Thomas Jefferson, were in fact, at the dead center of enlightenment values - and that's a bit of a problem.

But put that aside.

We have a war of epistemology here. Facts versus faith. It's matter of a basic approach to life, of how one deals with, well, everything.

It's not just religious matters. As Harold Meyerson points out in The Washington Post -

Though his reelection campaign brilliantly marketed President Bush's anti-intellectualism, the truth is that his administration has trusted more to pure theory than virtually any modern president's. The Iraq war is a triumph of ideology over the facts on the ground (it's certainly not a triumph of anything else). And, as it's currently shaping up, Bush's second term looks to be even more theory-driven than his first.

Theory certainly is driving the administration's tax policies. In his first term, Bush took an ax to the taxes on dividends and mega-estates. In his second term, according to a story by The Post's Jonathan Weisman and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, the president is looking at eliminating taxes on dividends and capital gains and creating generous tax shelters for all investment income. The theory here is that investment, not labor, is the real creator of wealth -- so the taxes on investment income will be scrapped, while those on wages will keep rolling along.

And in the name of this theory, Bush seems willing to sacrifice much of the social compact that made America, in the second half of the 20th century, the first majority middle-class nation in human history.

So what we're dealing with is an odd sort of neo-platonic idealism. It would be foolish to call this fanaticism. It is more as if we are seeing a conflict between faith - a rejection of fact and evidence in favor of hope in theory - and reason - which can lead on to realistic pessimism, restraint and careful consideration of alternatives.

Choose your side. Are you with the dead white men of the late eighteen-century Enlightenment - the careful compromisers who would separate church and state and who so liked the chimera of science and evidence? Or are you with the idealistic and hope-filled neoconservatives of the twenty-first century - say Karl Rove and Paul Wolfowitz and Bush - who would mold reality, as best they can, to what it ought to be?

Are you clinging to the past, or part of the future? Realist or idealist?

That's one way to see what the recent election was about - damn the facts idealism versus uncomfortable realism. More folks wanted to be comfortable than wanted to face reality.

Posted by Alan at 22:05 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
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Monday, 22 November 2004

Topic: Iraq

It's not OUR fault!

The Washington Post gives us this on Saturday, November 20 -

Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government. After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from `wasting,' a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.

Eric Alterman says this the following Monday -

So the next time some one asks you if you're glad that we've removed Saddam Hussein from power, you might want to ask them if they're glad that, after we've spent 200 billion dollars and killed tens of thousands of people, 400,000 Iraqi children are now suffering from acute malnutrition. That and oh yeah, the world hates us and the pool of Al Qaeda recruits has been vastly increased. And oh yeah, I'm betting on a draft.

I say Eric has a bad attitude.

But he's not alone - Jeanne at Body and Soul adds this -

The main reason seems to be continuing lack of access to clean water, which can cause chronic diarrhea. Other things hurt as well: humanitarian organizations like CARE and Doctors Without Borders have had to leave as it became more and more dangerous to work there; Iraqi doctors are prime targets for criminals. But mostly children are malnourished because we've done a worse job than Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War in getting clean water to them.

News like this continues to stun me because even though I opposed the war, and even though I realized, after reading about the neglect of Afghanistan, that no one in the Bush administration knew or cared anything about humanitarian work, and even though I worried about the way they were undercutting NGOs before the war even began, I thought that repairing the infrastructure would be a high priority - one that we paid more than we should for, because there had to be a little sugar on top for the FOGs (otherwise known as the Friends of George), but nevertheless I was certain that even the FOGs realized that they had to do a better job than Saddam Hussein at filling basic human needs.

I was horribly na?ve. I thought they were con artists, not thugs.

The war fans will whine that there's nothing we can do while we're under attack, but that's getting everything backwards. If you're taking credit for "helping" Iraqis then the first priority - the only real priority - is getting food, water, and medicine to people who need it. Nothing else matters if you don't succeed at that. No excuses are acceptable.

... the only interest this story has generated is among conservatives condemning the Washington Post for blaming America for problems caused by insurgents.

So it's not OUR fault - if you believe the guys we reelected for their moral values.

Yep. Right.

And this?

It Hurts, but Don't Stop
Michael Kinsley, The Washington Post, Sunday, November 21, 2004; Page B07

Has there ever before been a war that so many people disapproved of but so few wanted to stop? Have the reasons for starting a war ever been so thoroughly discredited without turning into reasons for ending it?

[ ... fascinating body of text follows that argues there is no anti-war movement because after Vietnam we decided we had to "support the troops" and now we cannot oppose, or even criticize, any war we get into, however stupidly we get into it, no matter how badly it's run and no matter how much real damage it does, because we have to support the troops ... ]

... The lead headline in last Monday's Los Angeles Times was "Iraqi City Lies in Ruins." That would be Fallujah, a metro area of 300,000 people that many Americans had never heard of until we felt impelled to destroy it. And our reasons were neither trivial nor contemptible. They followed with confident logic from the premise that Saddam Hussein was an intolerable danger to the United States. If so, he had to be taken down. And if that destabilized the country, we had to occupy it for a while and calm it down. And you can't run a national occupation with rebels occupying a major city, so you have to besiege the city and kill a lot of people and leave the place "in ruins."

An American general in Vietnam famously said, "We had to destroy the village to save it." This has become the definitive expression of the macabre futility of war. Last week we destroyed an entire city to save it (progress!), but our capacity to find that sort of thing ironic seems to have become shriveled and harmless.

We've been here before. We're here again. But we have no antiwar movement. But we have messed up. Big time.

Time to start a revolution, and line them all up against the wall.

Posted by Alan at 20:55 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
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Tuesday, 16 November 2004

Topic: Photos

Going dark -

Since returning to the workforce fulltime on 4 October I have found it increasing difficult to post once or twice each day to this web log. My new position leaves only a few hours each evening for a review of current events and assembling commentary, and the new job involves frequent trips to Northern California that make even a glance at the commentary in the domestic and international press on those travel days difficult.

Rather than post here daily, my efforts will from this point forward be directed to the weekly parent site Just Above Sunset - the online magazine-style site with addition features like multiple pages and extensive photography sections - and a complete archive with a search feature.

The latest edition of Just Above Sunset was posted to the web two days ago, and that would be Volume 2, Number 45 for Sunday, November 14, 2004.

There you will find political analyses - like a discussion of whether the United States should split in two so no one is unhappy - along with comments on the new uses of religion, and a incisive commentary from one of our readers. And more.

Bob Patterson this week shifts from politics to cars - and Two Lane Blacktop was, by the way, a really awful movie. His Book Wrangler column covers the French and the Germans in startling ways.

Two items from Paris - one on why French women are so slim and the other on, well, beekeeping at the opera.

The photography? In keeping with Bob's shift to automotive journalism - actually cultural musings - one of the two photography sections covers Hollywood cars. It's a guy thing. There's a pretty flower in the other section for this distaff side.

Here are the direct links to specific pages.

Current Events ________

Out of Outrage: Election Fraud? A Draft? Ah, such pathetic losers...

Religion: The Limits of Being Snide

Tribal Warfare: So what happened this month with Alabama Amendment Two?

Irreconcilable Differences: Should Certain States Now Be Forced Out Of The Union?

Counterargument: Rick Brown on why what was said last week was wrong, or inadequate...

Sidebar: British Busybodies

Bob Patterson ________

WLJ Weekly: Automobile museums and suggestions and other assorted car related material. (For taking our minds off politics...)

Book Wrangler: S?sslichschmerz und Ceux de le Resistance (CDLR)

Features ________

The French Paradox: One more time...

Paris Notes: But George Feydeau was talking about a flea in her ear - not a bee!

Photography: Today's Botanical and Signs

Automotive Photography: California Cars

Quotes: Of the automotive sort...

And from this week's issue...

Posted by Alan at 21:30 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
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Tuesday, 9 November 2004

Topic: NOW WHAT?

Out of Outrage

Scanning the November 10 issue of The Onion you will find three items that capture a malaise that is spreading this week on the blogs.

The first?

Bush Promises To Unite Nation For Real This Time

WASHINGTON, DC--A week after winning a narrow victory over Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, President Bush promised to "unite the divided nation, but for real this time." "Just as I pledged in 2000, I promise to bring the two halves of this nation together--only this time I'm really gonna do it," Bush said Tuesday. "I'll work hard to put an end to partisan politics. Seriously, though. This term, I will." Bush then requested the support of all Americans for his agenda of cutting taxes and extending America's presence in Iraq.

Funny? Maybe not. Just more of the same. Sometimes it is hard to differentiate satire from straight news.

Then there is this...

Liberals Return to Sodomy. Welfare Fraud

BERKELEY, CA--No longer occupied by the 2004 election, liberals across the country have returned to the activities they enjoy most: anal sex and cheating the welfare system. "I've been so busy canvassing for the Democratic Party, I haven't had a single moment for suckling at the government's teat or no-holds-barred ass ramming," said Jason Carvelli, an unemployed pro-hemp activist. "Now, my friends and I can finally get back to warming our hands over burning American flags and turning kids gay." Carvelli added that his "number-one priority" is undermining the efforts of freedom-loving patriots everywhere.

And this sounds like a straight news item on Fox News these days. Did I say straight? Sorry.

The there is this...

Political Blogger Mass Suicide To Be Discovered in Two Weeks

BOSTON--By examining web-traffic data for left-leaning DailyKos.com, researchers have predicted that the mass suicide of 14 political bloggers will likely be discovered sometime in mid-December. "After months of doing nothing but sit alone in our rooms at our computers, trying to get our message to the people, we lost the election anyway," read the still-unread suicide pact posted Nov. 3. "We'd rather be dead than live in a country as fucked up as this one." The bodies will most likely be found by property managers, long-estranged parents, or neighbors returning copies of Joe Trippi's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

Ah yes. Bob Patterson, ace columnist for Just Above Sunset did warn about this. Once the election is over what is there to say? Indeed, it is hard to get inspired. Perhaps a week or two of not talking about it all is called for.

Things one could examine?

One might be was the election "stolen" or some such thing. Over at MSNBC you will see that Keith Olbermann is addressing that. And you can catch his investigation and interviews on his show, Countdown. But that's a dead end.

As one fellow (Atrios) explains here -

Yes, there are serious problems with the way we count the votes in this country. Yes, no electronic voting machines without paper trails should exist. Yes, all machine counted votes should have random audits to ensure their reliability even if the election isn't thought to be close. Yes, no one should stand in line for 4 hours to vote. Yes, the media should be demanding, and the authorities providing, answers to obviously legitimate questions about various anomalies, such as more people voting in a county than were apparently registered. And, yes, I'm sure I can think of a few more things.

But, irregularities and questionable results are not necessarily "proof" of "fraud" and "proof" that the "election was stolen. " If people want this issue to be taken seriously they need to stop thinking that any of the information floating around right now - and yes, I've seen it all multiple times - provides proof of any such thing. Yes, legitimate questions have been raised, but I fear people on "our side" have started to confuse the legitimate questions with the answers to those questions they've imagined. I'm fully ready to believe that everything was corrupt in Florida, Ohio, and elsewhere, but thinking and knowing are different things entirely.

It is entirely true that there are a sufficient number of either weird or clearly unacceptable things which happened during this election. It's entirely true that the media should be following up more of these stories; the integrity of our democracy is seriously at stake. But, the cause is not helped by touting inconclusive statistical studies as "proof" or screaming, "Kerry won! Kerry won!" every five seconds.

A "smoking gun" may yet appear, but until that time we need to differentiate between legitimate questions and manufactured answers. And, the cause of improving things by '06 is not helped by turning legitimate questions into conspiracy theories.

There's never anything wrong with raising questions. There is something wrong with believing you have answers to those questions that are not supported by the evidence.

And so far? It's all bullshit.

That's a dead end.

And then there is this "overwhelming majority" business about the election - and the best review of who is echoing that is here. The Bush victory was NOT and overwhelming majority vote - it was, damn it, a tad more than fifty-one percent. But what does it matter? That's the current meme.

So what to consider? A federal appeals court stops the Guant?namo tribunals, cold. This is just illegal, under our laws and under international laws. The Bush administration is asking for a stay - we need to get these guys, even if they are the wrong guys and the process is fascist and we're being stupid. Hey! These are the bad guys, we think. Well, the could be the bad guys.

Yawn. Playing fair is so pre 9/11 and all that.

I suspect we just have to deal with this. The election is over. Playing by the rules is for losers.

And note this -

Two days after the worst election defeat in decades for Democrats, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger referred to them as "losers" in response to a reporter's question about tax increases.

... `Why would I listen to losers? the governor asked. "Let's be honest."

Okay. That's the playing field now.

There lots of talk on what the Democrats should do now - see this and this for example. But it doesn't matter much.

Of course Attorney General John Ashcroft announced his resignation saying this: The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.

Right.

And the neoconservative National Review has started the call to pressure the Bush administration to name Zell Miller the new Secretary of State, replacing the traitorous Colin Powell.

Whatever.

Hunker down. Say little. Let it all play out.

And we will take Fallujah. And then?

Topics not covered? Economics and the dollar. The privatization of Social Security - where shared risk is dumped din favor of individual responsibility.

And on it goes.

But I should mention the war and its implications - a draft, as we are running out of troops.

Bob Patterson throws this in the mix -

If Bush starts up the draft again, will gays be drafted?

If they are going to be the object of nation wide disapproval, is it a good idea to put them into military units? Should there be all gay units just like the all Japanese Nisei battalion in WWII?

If they are not wanted in the military, then you will have a strange situation where the straights will be fighting and dying for the right to exempt gays and pass a constitutional amendment forbidding gays to get married (and possibly even forbidding civil unions for legal purposes?)
How would that make the straights feel?

Will gays be drafted when the draft starts back up? (Is there any doubt that it will not become necessary to start the draft up by next summer? If anyone has any reasons for serious doubt about that, then that might be a new topic, but I think the crux of the question is: will gays get drafted or will they be exempt.

And Nico in Montr?al replies -

If America drafts gays, will gays be willing to answer the call to be the first-line of defense as second-class citizens, or will they start pouring over the border into Canada, along all the other disenchanted northern democrats?

Fewer liberal minded people will further weaken America's ability to mount any political alternatives and entrenching the Bush dynasty into perpetuity.

If you exempt people from the draft for being gay, it will become fashionable to be gay, and that wouldn't sit well with Bush and all those supporting moralists in Jesusland.

Yep. An issue.

But what to make of it all? The die are cast. Four more years.

Posted by Alan at 22:11 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
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