Between the ridiculously high heat we've had here in Eastern Nebraska over the last few days and the Cubs winning their series against the Cardinals in St. Louis, I am thoroughly exhausted.
The heat index has been around 110° for the last three days. I have studiously avoided going outside to confirm that. But we are supposedly in for some big thunderstorms later today, and if we are lucky, things may go back to normal. That is, normal for this time of year. That is, highs in the high 80s and extremely muggy. I'm still not going to go outside if I can help it. Heck, once it's warmer than about 70°, it's too hot for me!
This year's edition of the Cubs will give me heart failure yet. It wasn't just that they took the series from the Cardinals; it was the way they did it. Last night's game is the perfect example. They go down by 3 runs early; they take the lead in the top of the 8th, only to lose it as St. Louis ties the game in the bottom of the 9th (with two out, by the way) . . . and then they get a grand slam in the top of the 11th and hold on to win 8-4.
Just thinking about it is exhausting!
Exhilirating, nevertheless
Boy, I hope they make the playoffs this year. Better yet, I hope they make the World Series this year. If they WIN the World Series this year, I will die from shock . . . but I will be a happy camper.
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Cobwebs? We don't need no stinking cobwebs!
Anyway . . . I've not yet commented on Dubya's nomination of Judge John G. Roberts to the USSCt vacancy lately created by Justice O'Connor's retirement announcement. There isn't a lot to say, except that I have to admire Dubya's instincts to play political hardball.
Judge Roberts is just the sort of jurist the Democrats cannot put up too much of a fight against, or they will pay for it come the next round of elections. As an advocate, Judge Roberts did what he had to do: articulately state the most extreme version of his client's positions (e.g., see his briefs on Roe v. Wade while in the US Attorney General's office during Bush pater's reign). As an appellate court judge, his opinions have been much more circumspect. Thus, Dubya has kept the radical right wing of the Republican Party happy, but he hasn't so outraged the Democrats and the populace in general that they can stridently protest Judge Roberts' nomination to fill O'Connor's seat.
Politically, the only way it could have been better for Dubya is if Judge Roberts had been a Latina.
And Roberts seems to know how to do the Senate-schmooze thing really well, too. He is no wild-eyed philosophically adamant Robert Bork . . . or at least, he doesn't come across that way . . . and thus his nomination most probably will be confirmed after some resistance. But the resistance cannot rise to much above the token level, or else Dubya's minions will have a lot of extra ammo to shoot at the Democrats come 2006.
I do think Dubya could have done better; I am forced to admit that he is getting exactly what he thinks he needs, politically, out of this nomination.
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And for all the people out there who say that passing laws banning all fireworks, say, "will do no good because people will just break the law," you are missing the point. Laws exist to give society an ostensibly rational way to deal with those who choose not to live in accord with general social standards of (dare I say it?) civilized behavior. Laws do not usually change people's behavior. The real reason Prohibition failed was that the system could not cope with the ridiculously vast numbers of people who chose to break that law.
Worse, due to the unwritten Law of Unintended Consequences, Prohibition gave organized crime the hook it needed to become the organized behemoth it since became. If people had in fact stopped drinking once Prohibition was the law, organized crime had nothing to organize around. But people wanted their booze, and if they couldn't get it legally, they'd get it howsoever they could. And so the mob bosses stepped in and supplied the demand. QED
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I just finished reading a book called History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History, by Dana Lindaman and Kyle Ward. Please let me commend it to your attention.
Reading the Cubans' version of the Cuban Missile Crisis is eye-opening, as is reading the North Koreans' version of the Korean War. Eye-opening and frightening, because they both are so totally at odds with what we think we know. And yes, both countries' official textbooks read like propaganda more than history . . . but that doesn't mean we can just ignore them. After all, this is what they are teaching their people. How in the world can we begin to improve our country's relations with these places when we are just talking past each other from the get-go?
Along those same lines, the Arab textbook telling of US history in the Middle East is downright scary. Even our putative allies present us as little more than 21st century Crusaders, bound on destroying them, their belief system, and their way of life. I dare to suggest that for most of us, the Crusades are "ancient history," old news, something to which we do not relate at all. But to the Muslims, the Crusades are quite immediate and still entirely relevant to how they perceive and interpret the West.
And that is deeply frightening. Because of their framework for their history, we cannot have any credibility with them at all, especially when we say we just want to "live and let live." That concept is foreign--literally--to their experience, and they will not believe us no matter how often we repeat it. And so they interpret our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq NOT as ending the threat of terror to us all, but as a means to impose our way of life on them. It doesn't help when we say we are just trying to strengthen democracy around the globe. They don't want it.
It doesn't make them right . . . but it does explain why we have so much trouble accomplishing our official aims. And while we officially interpret internal dissent as our strength, they interpret it as moral weakness, meaning we do not deserve to tell them what to do or how to do it.
This also demonstrates the trouble of our notion of establishing Arab peace with Israel. Arabs and Hebrews have been fighting each other for thousands upon thousands of years. It is naught but arrogance on our part to think that we can go in, wave the magic wand of "democracy," and solve everyone's problems.
We collectively need to get a better grasp of how the rest of the world sees us before we go running around telling everyone what to do and how to do it. Even though we do have the most bombs. Or else we are nothing but the playground bully much of the rest of the world already thinks we are.
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