Saturday, July 30, 2005

Praise The Lord, And DON'T Pass The Ammunition

According to the Associated Press on Thursday past, "[t]he Irish Republican Army [has] announced . . . it will renounce violence and resume disarmament in a declaration designed to revive Northern Ireland's peace process."

Well, Hallelujah!

The IRA has said it will not disband, but will limit its actions (starting at 4 p.m. Irish time on the 28th) to the political process. The IRA further said it would allow both Catholic and Protestant clergy to observe its disarmament work, and that its members must henceforth avoid all violent activities. Indeed, it has promised to use "exclusively peaceful means" from now on.

It's about bloody time!

I know that Protestants in Northern Ireland are skeptical, but I think this is for real. Why? Well, look at the world-wide response to the the Muslim attacks in London. The IRA has finally figured out that even when it warns of bombs and tries to limit/avoid civilian injury, the violence will not get it what it wants. All the violence ever did was harden resistance to the IRA's goals of true power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

I can just imagine a bunch of IRA leaders sitting around in a pub, drinking stout and bemoaning the fact that the Muslim terrorists have given "real freedom fighters" a bad name. But at least the IRA leadership finally got the sense to bow to the inevitable.

The British are taking it seriously, too. A follow-up article said the British Army has already begun closing/demolishing military installations in Northern Ireland. Three BA army positions in South Armagh (near the border with the Irish Republic) are already disappearing. They will keep 7 watchtowers on the border with the Republic, but that is half the number that were in place in 2001.

Of course, the Protestants in Northern Ireland are saying it's too much, too soon. They say until there is proof to back the IRA's words, "it's criminally irresponsible of the [British] government to do this." But the Catholic minority in Armagh is tired of the occupation, knowing that the British Army used the watchtowers to monitor people's movements and high-tech microphones on the towers to eavesdrop on private conversations. The Catholics say any reduction in the "Big Brother is watching you" atmosphere in Armagh can but move the peace process forward.

It's wonderful news. The one thing that irritates me about this is that the Omaha World-Herald did not see fit to publish it earlier than page 7 (Thursday's paper) and the follow-up on page 9 (Friday's). At least the articles were "above the fold," as it were.

Here's hoping that at least one troubled place in this world finally finds lasting peace.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

If You're Rummy And You Know It, Raise Your Glass

Please tell me I am not the only person who thinks that Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld's lecturing the Iraqis earlier today on "politics requir[ing] compromise" is hypocritical bordering on ludicrous.

I can see it now--the Iraqis respond by saying that they watch how he and Dubya and all the minions behave in the US domestic political sphere, and inform Rummy that what they are doing is no different.

He then tells them that it is different, because he's just pandering to the extremists in his support base, that it's strictly for domestic consumption, and that when push comes to shove, he will compromise to get even part of his agenda accomplished (for "half a loaf is better than none") . . . and they respond by asking how that differs, exactly, from what they are doing.

Does anyone but me realize that the ironies of this situation are totally lost on the Rummy one?

I have a headache. I am going to take a huge quantity of Motrin (or a good stiff drink) and hide under a large pillow in a dark room. Wake me when the war is over.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Oh, Me Of Little Faith! And A Few More Cobwebs To Blow Out, To Boot

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.

**********

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.

**********

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

**********

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.

Friday, July 15, 2005

The Cobwebs In My Mind

Cleaning out the cobwebs in my mind is a lot more fun than cleaning out the cobwebs in my house, believe me! Which is why I am sitting here, posting this, and not doing my housework.

Anyway, cobweb the first: I am not surprised to hear that Chief Justice Rehnquist has said he will serve on the USSCt as long as his health will permit. Indeed, I suggest that you read that to mean "until his death." Don't forget that Rehnquist has an ego bigger than just about anything I can think of: after more than 200 years of tradition saying the Chief Justice is merely the "first among equals," who was the one and only (so far) justice to put chevrons on the sleeves of his judicial robes to make it plain that HE was in charge? Rehnquist, that's who.

I thought it was cheezy when he did it; I think it's cheezy now. But I have to admit, it does provide a useful bit of insight into our current CJ's mindset.

Cobweb the second: has anyone noticed how much Karl Rove and the late Senator Joseph McCarthy resemble each other? The same round head, the same double chin, the same evil mentality, the same desire to control by smearing the (in-fact) loyal opposition (OK, so McCarthy also had a receeding forehead and a permanent 5-o'clock shadow, whereas Rove has a high forehead and is just pasty-faced). Where, oh where, is our champion who will confront Rove directly and ask him, "At long last, sir, have you no decency?"

Cobweb the third: baseball, like all sports, provides useful instruction in how to approach life's more critical situations. Consider one example: the Cubs have been playing generally stinkily except when they are not expected (by even themselves) to win. Then, since all hope is already gone, they play loose, do not press, and behold! A miracle! They win! They have been losing a lot of the games their talent suggests they should win because then they are playing tight, as if they have something to lose . . . and so they do. Lose, that is.

So no matter what confronts you, act as if there is already no hope, and be loose. You may well be surprised at how favorable an outcome you'll then get. It's a Zen thing, really.

Cobweb the fourth: is anyone as ticked off as I am about how the media report the daily stock market fibrullations? What seems to matter most, as the media report in breathless tones, is whether the market went up or down on any given day. But wait! If you listen for the actual closing NUMBERS, the market is essentially flat. The media seem to believe that closing at 10,500 is a bad thing if the market went down to get there, but a good thing if it went up to get there. What the heck is wrong with this picture?

I think we'd all have a lot less uncontrollable stress in our lives if we looked more at the actual numbers and less at the day-to-day, moment-to-moment fluctuations of the market.

After all, despite what people say about businesses being rational, the market reacts quite emotionally to news of the day, every single day. Even the media recognize this whenever they report on the reasons the market did what it did on any given day. "Traders worried about high fuel prices . . ." is a classic. It is better to take a longer, calmer view. Zen strikes again.

Cobweb the fifth: I wonder whether the neocons will ever grasp the concept that while their means and methods differ, their aims are not dissimilar from any other fundamentalist group, even ones like the Muslim terrorists which they claim to hate. Each and every one of them wants everyone else to think just like they do, to be just like they are, and act only as they permit, or to suffer the consequences. A conundrum results. How can we tolerate the intolerant? Better yet, how can we get them to tolerate us?

Cobweb the sixth: Whenever people complain about "evolutionists" being reluctant to debate "creationists" or "proponents of intelligent design" or whatever they are calling themselves this week, I cringe. How can you have a rational debate with people whose essential precept is based on faith, on something that cannot be demonstrated experimentally in the first place? Especially when the creationists refuse to acknowledge correctly the evolutionists' positions. I am going to vomit the next time I hear someone dismiss evolution because "we did not descend from apes."

That is NOT what evolution posits. The anthropological and paleontological EVIDENCE indicates that both the apes and humans descended from a common ancestor that was neither exactly ape nor human.

So, all you creationists out there: get your facts straight, and then we may talk.

Besides, as I have said before, there's really no conflict between science and religion in the first place. Science asks "How?" Religion asks "Why?" What we could all use is a little more clear-headed thinking and a little less emotionalism. Look out! More Zen!

In any event, it's only the insecure who are so adamant about being the bringers of Revealed Truth on any subject. The only people who insist that their world view is the only correct one, no matter what that world view is, are the ones who deep inside are shakiest about whether they are correct. The only way they can find to live with their secret, inner doubts is to forestall any and all debate. Most of them probably don't even realize on a conscious level that this is what they are doing. The rest of us, however, are capable of living with some uncertainty and ambiguity. I ask again, how can we tolerate the intolerant? Moreover, how can we get them to leave us be?

Cobweb the seventh: How in the world can Dubya be so intractibly stupid? By continuing to claim that we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep from having to fight the terrorists here, he is not only insulting the British in the wake of the London bombings, he is utterly refusing to acknowledge the role that his own approach to US policy has had in heightening the risks of terrorism we all face in the first place.

Garry Trudeau is currently visiting "Rummyworld," and he makes the cogent point that our own (official, as a country) behavior is the best recruiting tool al-Quaida has ever had.

Which leads me to cobweb the eighth: this is not unlike the traditional British inability to see that their own behavior produced a lot of the IRA crap "up with which they had to put."

Do not get me wrong: I do NOT have any truck with terror or violence anywhere. I am a firm believer in non-violent resistance to social inequities. But I can understand why the violent react as they do. And I am sorry, Mr. Rove, but that doesn't make me an unpatriotic liberal wimp. It makes me a wise liberal thinker. It makes me someone who is capable of finding a real solution to the problems of terror, not someone whose intractibility knee-jerkingly increases the risks of terror to us all.

Cobweb the ninth: "popular" and "high quality" are not mutually exclusive terms, though in the short term, they can be. This is why we need a longer view--that's where we get history, literature, and great art, among other things, as opposed to the fads of the moment.

In other words, the test of time is the true test of greatness.

Cobweb the tenth: to whomever it was on NPR the other day who claims that all the recent home run and other baseball records should be stricken from the books because it's obvious that they were all steroid-driven and thus tainted: WHOA! Whatever happened to the concept of fair play? That everyone is innocent until proven guilty? That just looking at a lot of amazing numbers in the books is not, in and of itself, evidence of wrongdoing?

Did Babe Ruth take steroids? His records, in their day, were are remarkable and shocking as the more recent records are now. Did Lou Gehrig? Did Joe DiMaggio?

The fact is, when one considers the history of the game (there's that pesky historical perspective again!), every generation or so gets a lot of large leaps in the level of the records set. One cannot presume that all home run records are tainted and steroid-induced. Pitching is more diluted now than it was 50 or 60 or 70 years ago . . . there are a lot more teams, and the talent is more spread out than ever before. There are also a lot more people playing the game. Who knows what kind of records we'd have seen in the 1930s if there had been as many major leaguers from as many ethnic groups as there are today . . . conversely, there have been times when pitching dominated. Do the names Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax ring any bells?

The game changes over time. In its current incarnation, almost no one in the game steals bases the way Maury Wills did in the 60s.

Besides, the nature of what the fans want to see has changed, too, producing a "natural selection" of big fly hitters being at a premium in this day and age.

I am not saying that steroids are not and have not been a problem. I am saying that there are any number of other plausible explanations for at least part of the recent home run explosion, and that we cannot condemn anyone until we have actual evidence of steroid abuse. So let's just let the facts be determined, and let those facts be our guide, before we start trashing the record books because we can.

Cobweb the last (for the moment): and I do sincerely and deeply apologize for what I am about to say. My first reaction to the London bombings last week was to spend several tense hours tracking down my cousin who is in London taking some graduate international studies courses. Thank God she's OK . . . but she was in King's Cross Station less than an hour before the bomb there went off, so it was a close thing.

My second reaction, and the one for which I am so sorry, is that my next thought on hearing of the bombings was, "Well, Tube Steak has just taken on a whole new meaning."

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Saturday, July 02, 2005

And I Thought I Was Good At Coming From Left Field!

Associate Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has announced her retirement from that esteemed bench--sort of. She will continue to sit until her replacement has not only been nominated, but confirmed.

Justice O'Connor caught me, as she did nearly everyone else (including those in the White House if the news reports are correct), off guard. I fully expected ailing Chief Justice Rehnquist to resign soon, but not her.

The next several months will be fascinating. To begin, O'Connor, as the first female Supreme Court justice, probably cannot be replaced by an old white man. Dubya's going to have to find a nominee who can pass his litmus tests (otherwise he won't nominate that person) and yet not undo the Court's current gender and ethnic diversity. Most likely, Dubya will have to broaden it further. (Remember, everyone, the Court unofficially has a "Jewish" seat and a "black" seat and a "Catholic" seat and at least one "female" seat . . .) About the only way Dubya can nominate a man to replace O'Connor is if he gets yet another ethnic group into the mix. I thus suspect that he may push for current Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales to accept nomination even though Gonzales has already indicated he doesn't want it.

Back in 1981, when President Reagan appointed O'Connor, I felt (and still feel) that it was more important to women to have someone--male or female--of open judicial mind and temperment appointed than it was to have just any woman appointed. I was less than thrilled by her ascention to the nation's highest court. Nevertheless, she has proven to be reasonable and moderate in much of her judicial output. Indeed, in the vast majority of the Court's most provocative cases over the last 24 years, she was the crucial swing vote preserving key civil rights gains established in earlier Court decisions.

In other words, having a judicial conservative on the bench is not all bad when conservation means not overturning prior decisions willy-nilly. And most certainly by the standards of Dubya's favored potential nominees, O'Connor is downright moderate . . . hence, unacceptable.

Therefore, her resignation is much more troublesome than would have been CJ Rehnquist's. Dubya could nominate a replacement for him and it wouldn't change the Court's balance of power. Take away one neocon and add one neocon and you get one neocon. But take away one moderate and add one neocon, and you have trouble with a capital "T." O'Connor's replacement may be able to do tons of damage, especially if s/he does not care a whit about judicial restraint in its classic sense. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Finally, with the Senate's filibuster rules and "nuclear option" powers still in play (ref. my earlier post about when is a compromise not really a compromise), the confirmation process for whomever Dubya nominates is guaranteed to turn brutal.

But this is where O'Connor was smart. She isn't giving up her seat until her replacement is confirmed. She might still be on the bench come October, 2005. I never thought I'd say this, but that is not a bad thing.

Buckle your seatbelts, boys. It's going to be a bumpy flight.