Read my Lips

Q: How do you know Bush is lying?
A: His lips are moving.

American dependence on foreign oil is probably the single-most important threat to global security, human rights, and the environment. Everybody knows this who spends even 10 minutes thinking seriously about it.

Our Dear Leader in the State of the Union address called for a 75% decrease in oil imports by 2025, and investing in alternative energy sources like - wait for it - switch grass. Yep, you heard right, switch grass.

Of course, it turns out, the 75% decrease wasn't meant to be "taken literally". I guess it was some kind of lovely poetic license.

And switch grass? Turns out, Bush's 2006 budget called for a decrease in clean energy programs: "an 18 percent cut in the Biomass/Biofuels program ($88,099 to $72,164); and a 90 percent cut in the Hydropower program ($4,862 to $500).

Madness. Utter madness. Do we just not care any more if presidents lie to us? Do we automatically dismiss policy iniatives as mere rhetorical devices, and assume backroom deals are the best we can expect? To say I'm discouraged about the "State of the Union" would be understatement. What's after anger - despair?

Second-Graders Wow Audience With School Production Of Equus

Funniest thing I've read in a long time. Oh, c'mon. You know you love the twisty stuff too!

The Onion
Second-Graders Wow Audience With School Production Of Equus
January 25, 2006 | Issue 42•04

NEWPORT NEWS, VA—Second-grade students at Franklin Elementary School impressed parents, teachers, and fellow students with their recent production of Peter Shaffer's Equus Friday.


The avant-garde play, described by audience members as "adorable," was originally produced in London in 1973. The story revolves around troubled 17-year-old Alan Strang, played by Kyle Keever, 7, and his encounters with his psychiatrist after he blinds six horses with a metal spike. The play focuses on the causes underlying a seemingly senseless act of violence, and forces characters and audience members alike to confront questions of responsibility and ultimate meaning.

"The kids loved it," teacher and director Michael Komarek said. "Once they stopped screaming about horses getting their eyes gouged out and realized that it was just a launching point for more complex ideas about alienation from the modern world, they rolled up their sleeves and dug right in."

Read the rest

Molly Ivins Not. Backing. Hillary.

Molly Ivins has a great piece on the Democratic leadership black hole, in her usual inimitable style. Gotta love it.

Molly Ivins
01.20.06

Not. Backing. Hillary.
Equivocation in Democratic party has gone on far too long -- time for real leadership


AUSTIN, Texas — I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.
Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone. This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

Read the rest here.

And here's what Arianna has to say, calling Molly's piece a "bodyslam" to Hillary. Heh. Hillary in '08? NFW, or so they say.

Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind

After a unexpectedly long and eventful hiatus from blogging, I'm ready to jump back into it.

What has inspired me this time is a DVD I watched recently: Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind.

I hesitated for a long while before posting about it here, because the experience was so intensely personal. Was it appropriate to share about in a blog? Why would I want to? I still don't know, exactly, except some things must be said, whether or not we are able to say them directly, or as we would wish.

My birthmother, upon first meeting me when I was 21, gave several tapes she had made of the music that meant the most to her in her life. I fully understood the importance of the gesture - music has always functioned in that way for me as well - as carrier-wave of all that is inexpressible and vital in the evolution of the inner life. But I didn't understand the music itself: Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, especially. My musical and political world at the time was in a different solar system entirely, and as much as I wanted to reach hers, I couldn't then. That failure has haunted until the day I watched this DVD. Suddenly, I got it. Completely. I wish I could tell her somehow.

I hesitate to recap the experience of watching this DVD for you - probably less is more when it comes to this kind of intensity. But rarely has something reached me on so many levels at once: musical, visual, philosophical, emotional, poetic.

So, some snapshots that are indelible.

First, I had to listen with new ears to get past my Joni Mitchell=folk singer prejudice. What I heard astonished me, as did how she describes it regarding I Had a King and Circle Game:

The chord are depictions of emotions - chords of inquiry. They have a question mark in them. There were so many unresolved things in me that those chords suited me.

I had been such an idiot. I could have written you an essay on how this works in Wagner or Beethoven or Schoenberg. But here is this direct, wise, sui generis woman telling me so simply how it is, if only I could hear.

Joni, whose "heart was breaking" because she missed Woodstock, sits down to write "a little song" that manages to capture the meaning of that entire cultural moment for everyone who was there, or wished they had been there. My mother missed Woodstock: it was all over 10 days before she gave birth to me. I became familiar with the song Woodstock from Eva Cassidy's cover of it, but I never made the connection to Woodstock itself . I was too lost in the metaphors like "back to the garden" and "we are stardust" to see the forest for the trees, much less catch on that it was a Joni Mitchell song. Understanding its history was like an electric shock going through me. David Crosby said "she contributed more towards people's understanding of that event than anybody that was there," and I just marveled.

I've never seen a documentary where the talking heads are so eloquent and unreserved in naming genius. Tom Manoff, a classical music critic for NPR got me right in the gut when he said:

"Throughout her work, there is an effort to make the music be sky bound, to relieve the body of temporality. And when she gets there, whoa. You know, it's almost a chant. This need for release and transcendence, to ride above the culture, to be in the sky, to reflect. To not be in it, but to look down upon it.

But Joni herself was best explicator of her work, expressing painful, complex things with such gentle honesty, directness, and clarity of heart and mind. The writing has been an exercise to face the clarity. Its very hard peeling off layers of your own onion. When you get to the truth - do you really want to say that in public? So you're really doing a tightrope walk to keep you heart alive, to keep you art alive, to keep it vital and useful to others - this is now useful because we have hit upon a human truth.

There is so much more to be said. Rent the DVD and you'll see what I mean.

The Madness of King George

When I posted in November about the growing threat of fascistic power in America, I was worried I was indulging in a bit a rhetorical excess.

Check out this cogent and impecably reasoned blog entry today by Glen Greenwald.

Do Bush defenders place any limits on his "wartime" power?
Thursday, December 22, 2005

[excerpts below]

Virtually no serious Bush defenders claim any longer that the Administration's warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens was authorized by FISA. To the contrary, FISA expressly prohibited such surveillance. Thus, to defend George Bush they must literally claim that the President has the right during "wartime" to violate Congressional statutes which relate to national security. [...]

On its face, this theory that Bush as a "wartime" President has the right to break the law squarely contradicts their insistence that they are not advocating for monarchic rule. Once you advocate a theory that authorizes a President, even during times of an undeclared and endless war, to violate any Congressional laws he wants as long as he says -- with no judicial review possible --that doing so is for the sake of our security, what possible checks or limitations on Presidential power are left?

This debate is about the President's claimed wartime power to break the law, not his power to order surveillance. Put another way, for those who want to advocate this theory of unilateral executive power -- but who then also want to deny that they are foisting upon America the King it never wanted -- the question that must be answered is this:

Are there any limitations at all on what the President can do under the guise of national security and, if so, what are they? And, given this theory of the "wartime" President who can violate the laws of Congress and who can ignore the courts in areas of national security, what legal foundation could exist to argue for any such limitations? [...]

Once it is accepted that George Bush has the power to violate the laws of the United States (such as FISA) based on his status as a "wartime" President, there is no coherent way to claim that he is without the power to unilaterally impose still-greater intrusions. A theory that allows the President to violate Congressional statutes and which denies any role of judicial review is a theory which has no theoretical or legal ground for limiting the President’s conduct in any way during "wartime."

Mia, Guest Blogger

This is my baby sister Sophie. She doesn't believe in Santa. I don't really like Santa because he comes down the chimney. I heard on TV Santa come down the chimney, and he said "help, help!" because he got stuck. On Christmas I want to go ice skating. With a chair, because I don't really know how to ice skate yet.

[and Mia and Sophie's moms wish you all very Happy Holidays! Yes, holidays.]

Update: Dems Gagged, not Self-Muzzled?

Well, I should have read my dose of Daily Kos if I wanted to understand why Democrats didn't publicly object to NSA spying before now. But there still remains an important question: are the contracts signed by members of Congress who received intelligence briefings superseded by the Speech And Debate Clause of Article 1 of the US Constitution, which gives Members immunity for anything said from floor of the House or Senate? I found one CIA analysis that suggests Members are constitutionally protected, and therefore cannot be gagged. But does this mean they can voluntarily gag themselves, and give up their Constitutional right? That seems just plain wrong. How could a member have any meaningful "oversight" of intelligence if they have no constitutionally protected right to debate the issues? What would be the point of getting intelligence briefings at all? I guess I'm still very confused. Where is a constitutional law scholar when you need one?

Rockefeller and Pelosi COULDN'T Release Their Letters
by DHinMI
Wed Dec 21, 2005 at 12:30:34 PM PDT

It appears that one of the GOP talking points on the domestic spying scandal is to denigrate and eve ridicule Jay Rockefeller's and Nancy Pelosi's letters to the White House protesting the spying policy divulged to them in classified meetings. This morning on NPR I heard GOPRepresentative Peter Hokestra claim that if Senator Rockefeller was really concerned about the domestic spying program revealed last week by the NYT, then he could have done more than write a letter.

Bullshit.

Well, let me clarify that. Rockefeller could have publicized the existence and actions of the program, but if he or any of the other members of Congress briefed on the program went public with their opposition, they would have been breaking the law. To fail to acknowledge that anyone briefed on this program essentially had no way to oppose or publicize the existence of the program without breaking the law is bullshit.

Here's a response to DHinMI clarifying what agreement members sign:

Before being briefed, each of them signed an agreement not to disclose the information until it is declassified or for 70 years, whichever comes first. Signing is voluntary and no one can be punished for refusal to sign unless their job specifically requires it. In the case of being a member of the House and Senate Intelligence committees it is required for membership on the committee but not for membership in the House or Senate. If you don't want to sign, don't joint the committee. Once they assumed one of the "big 4" leadership positions they signed a further agreement and in most cases you sign one for any specialized single topic briefing (like the one in question). Their only option was to not sign and not be briefed. I have seen that done. Once they signed and were briefed they were bound by the agreement which carries stiff penalties
(jail, money). This is exactly what people are facing in the Wilson leak case and will be used as a hammer to get pleas to lesser offenses. Once the President spoke of it they had the ability to ask for a classification ruling which is exactly what Rockefeller and Pelosi did. They still need that release even if it has already been spoken of openly else ware because the agreement/contract is
individual.

by ksuwildkat on Wed Dec 21, 2005 at 04:07:44 PM PDT

However, there is an counter-argument that I haven't seen adequately addressed.

the Speech and Debate Clause would have given Rockefeller or Pelosi absolute immunity from prosecution had they chosen to reveal the existence of this illegality to their colleagues. Of course, the prudent thing would have been to do so in closed session, probably of an Intel committee. But even if they had gotten up on the floor of their respective houses and spilled the beans, they were completely immune from prosecution. Not necessarily immune from the political fallout, including the possibility (however slim) of censure, expulsion, etc. But of course taking political risks for the good of the country is kind of like, you know, their fucking jobs.
A good case on the Speech & Debate clause, involving the Pentagon Papers, is Gravel
v. United States. The "Gravel" was Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska. Here's a good quote from the Court on the purpose and scope of the Clause: "Rather, [Gravel's]insistence is that the Speech or Debate Clause, at the very least, protects him from criminal or civil liability and from questioning elsewhere than in the Senate, with respect to the events occurring at the subcommittee hearing at which the Pentagon Papers were introduced into the public record. To us this claim is incontrovertible. The Speech or Debate Clause was designed to assure a co-equal branch of the government wide freedom of speech, debate, and deliberation without intimidation or threats from the Executive Branch. It thus protects Members against prosecutions that directly impinge upon or threaten the legislative process. We have no doubt that Senator Gravel may not be made to answer either in terms of questions or in terms of defending himself from prosecution -- for the events that occurred at the subcommittee meeting."

Now, I think that, given the fact that the Bush administration tried to keep this secret by classifying the material, they and their wingnut proxies are in no position to criticize Rockefeller and Pelosi for abiding by that determination. I, on the other hand, am under no such disability, and I am extremely disappointed that they did not take steps to bring this to light when
they found out about it. Writing a pathetic CYA letter doesn't cut it when our country's very foundational values are at stake.
by Glenn in NYC on Wed Dec 21, 2005 at 03:53:25 PM PDT

Democrats Agreed to Roll Over and Play Dead

Latest on the Domestic Spying Scandal:

Spy Court Judge Quits In Protest
Jurist Concerned Bush Order Tainted Work of Secret Panel

By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; Page A01

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources. U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work.

Okay, here's what I completely fail to understand. Why did the Democrats in the House and Senate wait until the story broke in the New York Times - a year late and after the 2004 elections - to go public with their concerns about illegality? Senator John McCain rather cravenly made this same point in the Post article:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) suggested that [Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) ] should have done more if he was seriously concerned. "If I thought someone was breaking the law, I don't care if it was classified or unclassified, I would stand up and say 'the law's being broken here.' "

But Rockefeller said the secrecy surrounding the briefings left him with no other choice. "I made my concerns known to the vice president and to others who were briefed," Rockefeller said. "The White House never addressed my concerns."

Somebody help me out here. Why did the Democrats muzzle themselves on this one? What would the Administration have to do to actually get them to act - bomb Canada? Declare Bush King? I.just.don't.get.it.

Hamilton, The Federalist Society, and Violation of Public Trust

The conservative legal scholar Norm Ornstein said yesterday regarding Bush's authorization of NSA spying without a warrant: "I think if we’re going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed."

Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, no. 65:

"A well constituted court for the trial of impeachments, is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties, more or less friendly or inimical, to the accused. In many cases, it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will inlist all their animosities, partialities, influence and interest on one side, or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger, that the decision will be regulated more by the comparitive strength of parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt."

Interesting construction there by Ornstein: "intellectually honest." It begs the question of exactly how members of the much-vaunted Federalist Society view the issue of impeaching Bush for authorizing illegal wiretaps, given their hero Alexander Hamilton's clear position above. Whatever Democrats think of the political strategy of drafting articles of impeachment, it's clear the founders had this kind of situation in mind when they made provision for impeachment.

Posted today at Think Progress:

Conservative Scholars Argue Bush’s Wiretapping Is An Impeachable Offense

Conservative scholars Bruce Fein and Norm Ornstein argued yesterday on The Diane Rehm show that, should Bush remain defiant in defending his constitutionally-abusive wire-tapping of Americans (as he has indicated he will), Congress should consider impeaching him.

QUESTION: Is spying on the American people as impeachable an offense as lying about having sex with an intern?
BRUCE FEIN, constitutional scholar and former deputy attorney general in the Reagan Administration: I think the answer requires at least in part considering what the occupant of the presidency says in the aftermath of wrongdoing or rectification. On its face, if President Bush is totally unapologetic and says I continue to maintain that as a war-time President I can do anything I want – I don’t need to consult any other branches – that is an impeachable offense. It’s more dangerous than Clinton’s lying under oath because it jeopardizes our democratic dispensation and civil liberties for the ages. It would set a precedent that … would lie around like a loaded gun, able to be used indefinitely for any future occupant.
NORM ORNSTEIN, AEI scholar: I think if we’re going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed.
(Listen to The Diane Rehm show here. The segment above begins at 33:40)

UPDATE:
More from Knight-Ridder:
[Bush’s] explanation fueled more anger over the domestic spying, and some legal experts asserted that Bush broke the law on a scale that could warrant his impeachment.
“The president’s dead wrong. It’s not a close question. Federal law is clear,” said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and a specialist in surveillance law. “When the president admits that he violated federal law, that raises serious constitutional questions of high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Today from Roll Call:

Boxer Raises Impeachment

Democrat Asks ‘Full Airing’ of Spying Issue

On the seventh anniversary of the House’s decision to impeach then-President Bill Clinton, a pair of leading Congressional Democrats raised the specter of impeachment regarding President Bush’s authorization of domestic spying by the National Security Agency.

Best American Essays 2005: Susan Orlean

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start... [channelling my inner Maria]

There's something incredibly appealing and enticing about Susan Orlean's Introduction to The Best American Essays 2005. Which is entirely fitting - it's what a good introduction ought to do - entice the reader. How does she accomplish this? I think in a very womanly way: by asserting with clever wit that what we most want is to know each other and to be known, that "our voices matter to each other."

She gets a lot of whimsical mileage out of the metaphor of The Visible Cow. It's as if we can see her, contemplating it her office, and imagine that we might do something similar - she lets us in on the joke. She draws us in with her belief that if we pay attention to each other, we can see through to the heart of things. She calls essays, with their "elasticity" of form, "the most intimate of reading experiences," wherein we are "invited deep inside someone's mind." Seductive stuff, that. What's not to love?

As we read the essays, I think we would do well to keep in mind Orlean's idea of what an essay is, but more importantly, what it is for, in "taking a small notion and finding a universe inside it," and thereby revealing something soulful and true about human nature and experience. She likens the essay form to an "idiosyncratic conversation," but one whose purpose is to only connect. She values the subjective voice in that conversation, a voice that is able to articulate "one writer's jouney" with intelligence, grace, and honesty.

But as we read the essays with Orlean's vision of the essay form in mind, we can also look for some of the darker shades in the lovely picture she paints. She herself suggests some with her Visible Cow. What can be seen in her cow, so spectacularly transparent, is after all, only a cartoon cow. What can be seen are only its "most popular organs," only a vague representation of what someone thought were its important structural components. It is merely "a marvelous construction," not a cow. Think about another Visible Cow, one represented by a its profile on the periodic table of elements, or the Visible Cow as seen as a collection of commodities derived from it. Think about the cow that Picasso might have seen. Think about Ernie and Bert's cow.

If we are discover some bit of truth about human nature in these essays, some insight into intimate truths about each other, we can't imagine that what is advertised as "visible" is all there is to see. It's our pleasure as readers to look more deeply than that, to look for other structures and methods and stories that aren't immediately apparent. Without doing so, we run the risk of consuming a mere cartoon version of our desire for connection and understanding, and we impoverish the possibilities that stories have to offer.

Barack Obama and the Survival of the Fittest

In sparing with Toggle Switch about the better political system to maximize individual liberty and freedom, I've been looking for a voice more eloquent than mine to articulate my views. I think I've found it in Barack Obama and his 2005 commencement address at Knox College. Listen to his withering critique of the "ownership society," be inspired by the progressive alternative his so passionately lays out. Arianna Huffington believes the middle class wants to elect candidates who care most about national security. But I find it hard to believe Obama's message isn't exactly what the middle class needs and wants to hear. If not, then I just don't fundamentally undertand how middle class white people envision us moving forward and facing the challenges of the future.

Obama address excerpts:

"Like so much of the American story, once again, we face a choice. Once again, there are those who believe that there isn’t much we can do about this as a nation. That the best idea is to give everyone one big refund on their government—divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on.

In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it—Social Darwinism—every man or woman for him or herself. It’s a tempting idea, because it doesn’t require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say that those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford—tough luck. It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job—life isn’t fair. It let’s us say to the child who was born into poverty—pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes we will always be the winner in life’s lottery, that we’re the one who will be the next Donald Trump, or at least we won’t be the chump who Donald Trump says: “You’re fired!”

But there is a problem. It won’t work. It ignores our history. It ignores the fact that it’s been government research and investment that made the railways possible and the internet possible. It’s been the creation of a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits and public schools that allowed us all to prosper. Our economic dependence depended on individual initiative. It depended on a belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we’re all in it together and everybody’s got a shot at opportunity. That’s what’s produced our unrivaled political stability.

And so if we do nothing in the face of globalization, more people will continue to lose their health care. Fewer kids will be able to afford the diploma you’re about to receive.

Right now, all across America, there are amazing discoveries being made. If we supported these discoveries on a national level, if we committed ourselves to investing in these possibilities, just imagine what it could do for a town like Galesburg. Ten or twenty years down the road, that old Maytag plant could re-open its doors as an Ethanol refinery that turned corn into fuel. Down the street, a biotechnology research lab could open up on the cusp of discovering a cure for cancer. And across the way, a new auto company could be busy churning out electric cars. The new jobs created would be filled by American workers trained with new skills and a world-class education.

All of that is possible but none of it will come easy. Every one of us is going to have to work more, read more, train more, think more. We will have to slough off some bad habits—like driving gas guzzlers that weaken our economy and feed our enemies abroad. Our children will have to turn off the TV set once in a while and put away the video games and start hitting the books. We’ll have to reform institutions, like our public schools, that were designed for an earlier time. Republicans will have to recognize our collective responsibilities, even as Democrats recognize that we have to do more than just defend old programs.

It won’t be easy, but it can be done. It can be our future. We have the talent and the resources and brainpower. But now we need the political will. We need a national commitment.

And we need each of you.

Now, no one can force you to meet these challenges. If you want, it will be pretty easy for you to leave here today and not give another thought to towns like Galesburg and the challenges they face. There is no community service requirement in the real world; no one is forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and go chasing after the big house, and the nice suits, and all the other things that our money culture says that you should want, that you should aspire to, that you can buy.

But I hope you don’t walk away from the challenge. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own. Not because you have a debt to those who helped you get here, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate than you, although I do think you do have that obligation. It’s primarily because you have an obligation to yourself. Because individual salvation has always depended on collective salvation. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential."

"Take Off Your Emotional Clothes and Sing"

There are a number of blogs circling the landing field in my mind, but this is the one that really wanted to approach today. There I am, quietly reading the Sunday paper in my favorite little quirky coffee shop, and suddenly the tears come. Impossible to stop. This is the article I was reading, excerpted below (if you're not registered, let me know, and I'll email it to you). The stage is set when Barbara Cook, one of my favorite performers, enters a Julliard performance space to give a master class to young singers.

"Take Off Your Emotional Clothes and Sing"

By Charles Isherwood

Published: December 11, 2005

Ms. Cook, who gives several master classes a year around the country, opened the session with a brief, informal speech emphasizing that the key to good singing is making a real investment of feeling in each note. "Your own humanity," she said, "is your pathway to artistry."

Using a vivid metaphor that acknowledged the scariness of the enterprise, she explained, "We have to find the courage to take off our emotional clothes." Ms. Cook elaborated on that danger in speaking of the essential fear that crawls around in most performers' hearts, an anxiety that in a curious way may also be a motivating factor in the desire to become a performer: "We feel that we're not enough, that the world doesn't want us."

The students were hiding inside the music, inside their technique, and Ms. Cook set about dragging them out and making them lay bare their own truths, even if it meant awkwardness, embarrassment and some blunt criticism - leavened, in all cases, by sincerely delivered hugs and kisses. She put forth a telling paradox: "The place that seems most dangerous is exactly where safety lies." In other words, self-exposure and the abandonment of technical propriety, scary as it was, was the surest, the best, maybe the only way to communicate with an audience.

But the most arresting moment came when a svelte redhead named Ariana Wyatt came onstage. Radiating charm and confidence, she began to sing a little-known Gershwin song called "In the Mandarin's Orchard Garden," about a misfit flower. Ms. Cook clearly wanted to find the woman behind the poise. She tried the same techniques she'd used on the others, but still Ms. Wyatt seemed intent on delivering a perfectly manicured performance that was just what Ms. Cook didn't want to hear.

As frustration mounted on both sides, Ms. Cook finally turned to face her student and said, with real sincerity: "You are a beautiful young woman. You have a beautiful voice. You don't have to prove it to anyone." Ms. Wyatt nodded, and a couple of tears ran down her cheeks.

I'm afraid those words are paraphrased. The pen stopped moving when the heart stood still. Although it was not part of a performance, the moment may well linger as one of the most moving things I've witnessed in a theater. Ms. Cook dabbed the tears away, then watched a little dumbstruck as her student insisted on leaving the stage for a moment to gather herself. "This is a first," she said a little sheepishly.

And what had happened? It's hard to say. Maybe, in the unlikeliest of contexts - on a public stage - two people made a brief but meaningful connection. Certainly, an established artist gave a small gift of assurance - of love, even - to an unformed one. The serenity of age looked back at the insecurity of youth, which marshals technique and posturing to defend itself, and said, try to let it go. You don't need it. You are enough.
Ms. Wyatt returned to the stage, determined, and sat down, and sang. She was still riven with emotion, maybe a little too much. Ms. Cook asked her how it went. It was harder to sing this way, Ms. Wyatt confessed. Ms. Cook said it would get easier. The audience applauded her enthusiastically, wanting to honor both the progress she'd made and the discomfort she'd endured to get there.

When performers first step onstage, they may be looking for validation, for approbation in the form of nourishing applause. But the lesson Ms. Cook came to teach was that artists achieve their peak when they learn to stop proving themselves and simply, to borrow the Shakespearean phrase, let be. It's their humanity we respond to in the end, their ability to strip away the self-consciousness that locks us inside ourselves, and reveal the stuff that really boils in our souls.

The G Word in Darfur

It's been over two months since I returned from Yad Vashem, inspired to do something about the genocide in Darfur. But I have a written my congressmen? No.

This terrific blog posting woke me up again. Improbably, Jane Wells wittily manages to use gallows humor to talk about the "g" word, when the rest of us would rather be discussing the "g spot."

Last week in The New York Times Nicholas Kristof urged “ordinary readers to push for moves to end this genocide” reminding us that Senator Paul Simon said that if only 100 people had written to their Congressional district about the Rwandan genocide we might have stopped it.

Last weekend former Cpt. Steidle, speaking about this genocide at Harvard asked for only ONE member of the audience to write to their Congressman, imploring that one person CAN make a difference.

Last summer one mother took a stand on Iraq in Crawford Texas and got he whole world to notice.I had been thinking I must stop banging on about the genocide in Darfur, and get on with ‘real’ work. Hearing former Cpt. Steidle, and reflecting on what one marine, one mother, one voice, one more letter, one vote can do, I decided to keep on blogging, at least until this genocide is over and there are as many Google links to the greatest crime against humanity as there are to female sexual pleasure (and believe me I am all for that!)

Well, there's a challenge. Perhaps a simple phone call is easier than writing a letter. Here's how to make the call. Let me know if you do, and how it went. It will keep me accountable.

Check out the i-ACT blog and daily webcasts of 21-day direct visibility project from Darfur. The project has 4 days to go.

Just Overheard on the I-40

Area Cherokee In Violation Of Indian Removal Act Of 1830
The Onion, December 7, 2005

"When I told my wife that, under American federal law, we were going to have to leave everything behind and start over in Oklahoma, she was furious," Silvers said. "I blame myself: I totally blanked on the Indian Removal Act of 1830 when looking for a place to live." [...]

"We just ordered a new couch from Ikea," Silvers said. "Who's going to get that? The new white family? Maybe I can cancel the order."

I'd like a Neo Neo, Please

Yet another reason I like Thivai: who wouldn't want to hang with Jack Sparrow?

On the other hand, I'd like to register a small complaint. I think Neo is himself a bit of a simulacrum. Just. . . no. I'm not Neo, just because I like to dig around in Cartesian rationality. Please. I don't even own a cool pair of sunglasses, for pete's sake. I live in Boston! That should say it all! There's something wrong with being rated on a scale in which one does not even recogize all the superheroes. Maximus?

Now, whadda I hafta to do to up my Lara Croft score? Or just score Lara Croft? Oh dear. I must be bored, too! Strike that.

You scored as Neo, the "One". Neo is the computer hacker-turned-Messiah of the Matrix. He leads a small group of human rebels against the technology that controls them. Neo doubts his ability to lead but doesn't want to disappoint his friends. His goal is for a world where all men know the Truth and are free from the bonds of the Matrix.

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

Neo, the "One" 79% James Bond, Agent 007 67% Batman, the Dark Knight 63% Captain Jack Sparrow 63% Lara Croft 58% The Amazing Spider-Man 54% William Wallace 50% Indiana Jones 50% The Terminator 46% El Zorro 46% Maximus 38% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Book Club by Blog: Best American Essays 2005

I'm proposing an experiment here in the transcranial wasteland - Book Club by Blog. I'm sure it's been done before elsewhere, but what the heck, let's try it here. There's a method in my madness - I've begun reading the The Best American Essays 2005, and there are so many extraordinary essays I'm itching to talk about with someone! What I propose is that we take and essay a week and discuss it here. I'll get the ball rolling each week with a short reaction to an essay, given in the order they appear in the collection. I'll start next week to give you all a chance to pick up a copy. Wanna play?

Bush's Bunker Mentality

I recently saw the German film The Downfall, which portrays the final days of Hitler and his entourage in the underground bunker in Berlin. Critical reception of the movie has been mixed, and I myself was left a little cold by it. Perhaps it was too faithful in portraying the "banality of evil," although I would not have wanted to be entertained by a ginned-up, bathetic version of the story. That would merely be grotesque. Whatever the shortcomings of the film, it has struck a chord with me regarding the insularity and irrationality of political leaders who feel empowered by a messianic purpose, and those who allow such leaders to lead us all into destruction and death. Roger Ebert came away from the film with this warning:

What I also felt, however, was the reality of the Nazi sickness, which has been distanced and diluted by so many movies with so many Nazi villains that it has become more like a plot device than a reality. As we regard this broken and pathetic Hitler, we realize that he did not alone create the Third Reich, but was the focus for a spontaneous uprising by many of the German people, fueled by racism, xenophobia, grandiosity and fear. He was skilled in the ways he exploited that feeling, and surrounded himself by gifted strategists and propagandists, but he was not a great man, simply one armed by fate to unleash unimaginable evil. It is useful to reflect that racism, xenophobia, grandiosity and fear are still with us, and the defeat of one of their manifestations does not inoculate us against others.

It would be misguided indeed - not to mention intellectually lazy - to compare George W. Bush with Adolf Hitler. But it is equally mistaken to believe in Nazi exceptionalism - that strains of the "Nazi sickness" do not continue to plague us today. I had that in my mind as I read today Seymour Hersh's latest reporting in the New Yorker on Iraq and the Bush's leadership of the war. (Something tells me Arianna will never call Hersh just another dumb blonde, as she did Wooward. Sy Hersh is the real deal, it would appear. Call him the T-Rex of journalists, however - I fear his species is extinct.)

I'm excerpting his article at some length here. It's too important to miss. I think because we have lived with a version of this reality for so long now, it's become nearly normalized. We're not really engaging with the staggering implications. We have allowed ourselves to become distracted, inoculated, appeased, indifferent, and blase - as if were believed present course were merely a pendulum swing to the right. This too shall pass. In other words, if our democracy was truly being threatened by fascistic leadership, we wouldn't really notice.

UP IN THE AIR
Where is the Iraq war headed next?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSHNew Yorker Issue of 2005-12-05
Posted 2005-11-28

[...]"Current and former military and intelligence officials have told me that the President remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious to political pressure, even from fellow Republicans. They also say that he disparages any information that conflicts with his view of how the war is proceeding.

Bush's closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush's first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President's religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that "God put me here" to deal with the war on terror. The President's belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that "he's the man," the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his re-election as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose.

The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: "I said to the President, 'We're not winning the war.' And he asked, 'Are we losing?' I said, 'Not yet.'" The President, he said, "appeared displeased" with that answer. "I tried to tell him," the former senior official said. "And he couldn't hear it."

[...]

Many of the military's most senior generals are deeply frustrated, but they say nothing in public, because they don't want to jeopardize their careers. The Administration has "so terrified the generals that they know they won't go public," a former defense official said. A retired senior C.I.A. officer with knowledge of Iraq told me that one of his colleagues recently participated in a congressional tour there. The legislators were repeatedly told, in meetings with enlisted men, junior officers, and generals that "things were fucked up." But in a subsequent teleconference with Rumsfeld, he said, the generals kept those criticisms to themselves.

One person with whom the Pentagon's top commanders have shared their private views for decades is Representative John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, the senior Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The President and his key aides were enraged when, on November 17th, Murtha gave a speech in the House calling for a withdrawal of troops within six months. The speech was filled with devastating information. For example, Murtha reported that the number of attacks in Iraq has increased from a hundred and fifty a week to more than seven hundred a week in the past year. He said that an estimated fifty thousand American soldiers will suffer "from what I call battle fatigue" in the war, and he said that the Americans were seen as "the common enemy" in Iraq. He also took issue with one of the White House's claims - that foreign fighters were playing the major role in the insurgency. Murtha said that American soldiers "haven't captured any in this latest activity" - the continuing battle in western Anbar province, near the border with Syria. "So this idea that they're coming in from outside, we still think there's only seven per cent."

Murtha's call for a speedy American pullout only seemed to strengthen the White House's resolve. Administration officials "are beyond angry at him, because he is a serious threat to their policy - both on substance and politically," the former defense official said. Speaking at the Osan Air Force base, in South Korea, two days after Murtha's speech, Bush said, "The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. . . . If they're not stopped, the terrorists will be able to advance their agenda to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, and to break our will and blackmail our government into isolation. I'm going to make you this commitment: this is not going to happen on my watch."

"The President is more determined than ever to stay the course," the former defense official said. "He doesn't feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage 'People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.'" He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. "They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway," the former defense official said. Bush's public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. "Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House," the former official said, "but Bush has no idea."

Mia, Guest Blogger

Mia: Are we going to write something on the blog today?
Mom: Sure. Do you have anything you want to say?
Mia: mmmmmmm...
Mom: How about when we met the sea lion at the Aquarium last weekend?
Mia mmmmmm...
Mia: I know!
Mary: OK! Tell me. It could be anything.
Mia: I'm not going to tell you now. I'm going to wait until you're asleep. Then I'm going to whisper it in your ear, and then you'll dream about it. And then in the morning you'll know what to say.
Mary: [IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou]
Mary: That's a great idea!

The Fourth Estate now a Gated Community

I recently asked why the mainstream media hasn't been more aggressive in exploring the apparent power struggle between the CIA's Counterproliferation Division (in which Valeria Plame was an operative) and Dick Cheney (whose former company, Halliburton, was doing business with an Iranian nuclear energy negotiator and diplomatic specialist.). I wondered, where is my generation's Bernstein and Woodward to expose the admininstrations's lies and stratagems?

Turns out, the actual Woodward is now so embedded with Cheney he hasn't changed the sheets since the first inaugural, and Bernstein is making clucking-hen type excuses for him.

Washing ton Post, November 17, 2005; 1:45 AM:

Bob Woodward apologized to The Washington Post yesterday for failing to reveal for more than two years that a senior Bush administration official had told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame, even as an investigation of who disclosed her identity mushroomed into a national scandal.

"I apologized because I should have told him about this much sooner," Woodward, who testified in the CIA leak investigation Monday, said in an interview. "I explained in detail that I was trying to protect my sources. That's job number one in a case like this. . . . "I hunkered down. I'm in the habit of keeping secrets. I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed."

Editor and Publisher, November 16:

Watergate legend Carl Bernstein warned critics to back off heir attacks on his former partner Bob Woodward following this week’s disclosures that Woodward had testified in the Valerie Plame case, and had failed to inform Washington Post editors for two years about a confidential
conversation he’d had with a White House official. “I think there is an awful lot of piling on,” Bernstein told E&P. “It’s outrageous to question Bob’s integrity as some seem to be doing. Anyone who looks at the record knows that it is the most distinguished journalistic record of our time.”

In Memoriam

Priscilla, 1991-2005.
Rest easy, my sweet kitty.

Arianna & Ahmad: The Movie

Here's a movie pitch I would love to make. Heck, it's a movie I would love to actually make!

Arianna Huffington grills Ahmad Chalabi on WMD over the remnants of sushi dinner. Think My Dinner with Andre meets IFC's Dinner for Five meets His Girl Friday.

If you don't think that would make for compelling cinema, just read Arianna's account at the Huffington Post. I love this:

"There is no way [Chalabi] is going to get Rumsfeld and Cheney, steeped in the neocon "you're either at the table or on the menu" ethos, to agree to limit the powers of the U.S. army."

[note to self: Netflix My Dinner with Andre again. Impossible to watch too many times]

Amber Davis Tourlentes: Queering the Family Portrait

I'd like to introduce you to Amber Davis Tourlentes, an artist whose work I admire incredibly. Her smart, warm, and humorous photography plays with representations of changing family and social relations in the very traditional domain of family portraiture.

I'll let her artist's statement speak for itself:

"Through photography and representation I investigate the possibilities for contemporary families to construct gender, sexual and class identities beyond the postindustrial traditions of the nuclear family. For eight years I have placed my gay and straight-parented homes at the center of my inquiries into the familial gaze and modern representation of family in visual culture.

My parents are the product of the post 1960s sexual, feminist and gay movements and the 80’s AIDS epidemic - a web of cultural vantage points that have informed personal and political notions of sexual identity, family and community. This multiplicity of subjective locations informs my process of research and image-making. My work challenges the portraiture and documentary cannon and family photographic practices and traditions with a visual critique drawn from contested theories of gender, identity and class.
Six years ago I began photographing families parented by gay men who had been a part of Boston's South End community when I was being raised there by my gay father. Many of these couples have moved to suburban Boston communities, where they are now raising children. In the past five years this project has extended to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered-parented families, and a growing national community of adult children of gay parents. The photographs are made in the intimate space of homes, and during public LGBT gatherings at traditionally safe gay vacation destinations all over the country. These events are organized by parents and coalitions that represent the LGBT community.

These Coalitions I work with and photograph include FamilyPride, GLAD, HRC, Families Like Mine and COLAGE. The coalitions serve the LGBT community with educational programming, family networking and social services, fundraising for lobby work and legal process, and building alliances with private and corporate funders.

My interest in the photographic representation of gay family culture began specifically with same-sex parents raising children. The photographic project has extended to a curiosity about the reworking of not only gender but also ethnic, religious and class roles for family and community members. Unexpectedly, so far in this body of work, economic conditions such as class, more so than gender, have emerged as a defining family social structure. The representations of class in my work also reflects the increasingly commercialized space of LGBT family events. As LGBT families have become more visible, they have increasingly become the focus of targeted marketing as consumers. I'm interested in exploring how the burgeoning corporate sponsorship of LGBT community events influences and synergistically generates media images of certain kinds of gay families."

In Search of the Intelligent Designer

Best blog of the day: Was the Universe "Intelligently Designed" ... by Satan?

Check out the comments for the great rebuttal: we all know the universe was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I feel like going to church today! Have any of you been touched by his noodly appendage?

Libera Elects the First Woman President in Africa: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

Just in from the BBC: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, known as the "Iron Lady", has claimed victory as the first woman to be elected president in Liberia, and Africa as a whole.

Read about this extraordinary woman's life at Women Waging Peace and at her campaign site.

Ellen on National Unity:
One of the reasons that Liberia is currently in turmoil is that we have permitted our differences, both ethnic and political, to divide us.

We believe that democracy and diversity are compatible. We believe that we do not have to be the same to co-exist. I believe that we can have differences of opinion without resorting to violence.

We will strive to respect and accept our history and I will promote a social and a political environment that unites all Liberians under the principle of “One People One Destiny.”

We will preach and practice national reconciliation and I will ensure that my government is one of inclusion, which reflects the diversity of the nation and grants equal rights and equal security to all.
Our goal is to lay a foundation for a new, strong and productive Liberia in which:

• The government reflects the social religious and cultural diversity of our nation.


• Every Liberian has a recognized role to play in national development.


• Opportunities are made available to everybody who is prepared to work.


• An extra effort is made to rehabilitate those who have lost hope and trust in their government and country, particularly our youth and ex-combatants, so long as they are truly committed to peace and development.


• Those who have been internally and externally displaced from their communities are reintegrated into society.


• There is an assurance for all Liberians within our borders of equal justice and protection under our laws.

To this end, we believe Liberia needs a successful program of disarmament, demobilization, reintegration and resettlement which will enable our children who had been forced into arms and who have been robbed of their childhood and youth, to return to the schools and training programs that will make them productive, constructive citizens. The same applies to the thousands of Liberians who have been made refugees and internally displaced.We believe that, together, we can make these things happen and that the future of Liberia depends upon our ability to work diligently toward these goals.

Bad Girls Recap: 1.1 "Them and Us"

Who knew this recap thing was so hard? Warning: this thing turned into a real monster! There's too much dialogue, perhaps, but that's one of the most enjoyable elements of the show for me - the extremely vivid language.

For great taste of the episode visually, check out the Photo Love Story (icky name, good snark).

The season opens with a bang – women in flashy, trashy costumes sashaying in a “Staying Alive” dance number, like a bad karaoke night in a drag bar in Provincetown. The scene is anxiety provoking, interrupted by short cuts of a woman screaming in pain – apparently for some other reason than the dangerously camp disco. The lights go up on the dance show, and we se that we are in Larkhall women’s prison, at a rehearsal for a “fashion show.” In the short opening scene we are skillfully introduced to nearly all of the major characters, save one. The editing and acting somehow manages to establish each character with just a few lines or looks. The guards (known to the prisoners as “screws”) are Jim Fenner, Sylvia “Bodybag” Hollamby, Dominic McAllister, and Lorna Rose. The women of G Wing include Nikki Wade, Shell Dockley, Denny Blood, Rachel Hicks, and The Two Julies.

Jim Fenner (played by Jack Ellis, who was superb in Prime Suspect) oozes a kind of malevolent, smooth menace that makes one think of a high-school principal with a thing for 14-year-old girls. He is odious. We immediately see him swooping down on Rachel Hicks, offering her his concern and affection. This girl had got the world’s worst instincts – hasn’t she seen even one teen horror movie? She’s more vulnerable and clueless than an albino rabbit in a room full of make-up testers.

We meet Nikki Wade, wearing more lipstick than the entire cast of the L Word, but also sporting a killer red, tailored shirt. If I’d been the judge, I would have convicted her for sure – that shirt is far from innocent. It’s also faintly ridiculous in context, but hey – now we know that Nikki is our Byronic hero. Filled with noble concern for the welfare of the prisoners, she confronts Hollamby, a cynical, burned-out, ill-tempered guard, about Carol, whom we suspect may be the screaming woman in the cell. Hollamby, tells Nikki to butt out, and she retorts, “You’d gas us all in our cells, wouldn’t you.” We get the feeling Hollamby might, if only she didn’t have to clean up the mess afterwards. The women call her “Bodybag,” which is a great description of her face and demeanor.

At lockdown Carol asks Bodybag for a doctor – we see that she’s bleeding. Hollamby callously refuses, accusing Carol of merely trying to get attention, or maybe sanitary pads, and locks down the wing for the night. We see that Carol begins to bleed profusely as though she were having a miscarriage.

It’s the next morning. We see a lovely young woman dressed in a dark suit over a red shirt (hmm – whose shirt does that remind me of? Is there some sort of – oh, I don’t know, connection being made here?), driving to work, obviously late, as she’s trying to apply her mascara at a stoplight.

Cut to the guards unlocking the cells for morning. Hollamby finds Carol unconscious in her cell, covered in blood.

The young woman in the suit arrives at Larkhall Prison, and after a strange look from a security guard, she sees that she’s rather comically misapplied her mascara. These quick scenes show us she’s a woman who has not quite got her act together; she’s pressured, and her masque is slipping a bit.

She’s the Wing Governor, Helen Stewart, who want to be called “Helen,” as she says to Fenner, who insolently calls her “ma’am.” “Please, I’m not the bloody queen, Jim,” she retorts. In an absolutely lovely Scottish burr that completely disarms me, I might add, but not Fenner, I suspect.

Fenner convinces Stewart to put Rachel on “enhanced” wing, where she’ll have her own room and more privileges. “She’s got victim written all over her, ” Fenner reasons. And yes, you might as well have tattooed it right on her ass, Fenner. Stewart doesn’t realize putting Rachel on enhanced is like staking her up alone in a room with a wolf.

Breakfast time. We see Carol being taken away by EMTs. The entire third tier is clumsily held in their cells while Hollamby orders the Julies clean up the blood. The women are yelling, demanding to know what’s happened. Nikki becomes increasingly concerned, and demands a guard tell her of Carol’s condition. Nikki is tough, unafraid, a natural leader. If they played women’s flag football in England, she would be the quarterback. Which they don’t. But I can’t make a soccer, or god help me, cricket, analogy that works. Just trust me, Nikki puts the bits in Alpha on G Wing.

Governor Stewart confronts Fenner and Hollamby in her office, but doesn’t seem to be buying their story that Carol didn’t ask for medical attention at lockdown. She tells them she’s decided have a meeting with the entire G Wing. Fenner thinks that’s a terrible idea – the women are too angry. Stewart replies, “We need to be seen to care right now.”

Hollamby and Fenner leave the office, and immediately start bitching about her – “typical graduate type,” and “a bit too much of the prisoners’ friend.” Battle lines are, as they say, drawn.

Fenner checks in on Rachel, who reveals to him her boyfriend is dead from an overdose. He silkily tells her, “From now on, I’m going to keep a very special eye on you, and that’s a promise.” OK Rachel, there’s naïve, and then there’s 19 going on 6. I can’t tell if her problem is that she’s been bubble-wrapped her entire life before getting busted for drugs, or if she ought to be bubble-wrapped until she’s, say, 60 or so. I vote for the second – she’s pissing me off.

The Two Julies are talking with Nikki on the wing. Both are middle-aged blondes, one short, and the other tall. They finish each other’s sentences and frequently talk in chorus. They’ve got comic relief written all over them. Julie S is wearing a “Hello Kitty” t-shirt - an inspired wardrobe choice. They are obviously concerned when they tell Nikki they heard Carol ask Bodybag for a doctor. Nikki vows to “take it to the top” if Hollamby is not held to account, and the two Julies say (together) that they’re calling “all us kitchen women out on strike.” Solidarity of the seriously ditzy – warms the heart of the hardest union buster!

We see Stewart striding onto the Wing, her face set and tough. She’s small in stature, but the energy is rolling off her in fierce waves.

The women are gathered all around on the three levels at the center of G Wing, making a terrible racket. It’s a very aurally and visually dynamic scene, unusually so by American TV standards.

Fenner yells to everyone to settle down, and Stewart begins to address them, trying to make herself heard over their voices. She tells them Carol has suffered a miscarriage in her cell wasn’t discovered until morning unlock. She says she’s very concerned, but after conducting a “through investigation,” has concluded what occurred was “a tragic set of circumstances,” using the exact phrase Fenner offered in her office in explanation. It’s an odd moment, and it doesn’t convince the women, or us.

Nikki Wade shouts down from an upper level, acting as spokeswoman for the prisoners. “A what? She nearly bled to death! You should all be sacked!”

Nikki comes barreling down the stairs to confront Helen on her own level. The Julies and others yell to Stewart that Hollamby knew Carol was bleeding, and did nothing. The women are getting extremely loud and restive. In my mind I’m starting to shout Riot! Riot! Riot!

But Fenner quiets them down again, as Stewart starts to explain that it was an accident. Nikki interrupts with an angry, impassioned speech about how none of the women are safe on G Wing, that they aren’t believed when it’s their word again a guard’s. Nikki points in Hollamby’s direction and says it was no accident - “that cow” let it happen.

Now the Greek chorus in my mind is shouting Moo! Moo! Moo! Good thing I’m not on G Wing – I’d be in segregation most of the time, I fear.

Nikki and Helen are starring at one another with ferocious intensity. Nikki tells Helen that if the women don’t get “respect from your screws,” they won’t help her by making her “look good in front of her VIP visitors,” to the fashion show. Nikki, getting really wound up, one-ups herself with “And you can shove your stupid fashion show up your arse!” The Greek chorus women erupt in cheers.

Helen approaches Nikki, stepping directly into her personal space. “Fine, consider it cancelled. This wing won’t be taking part.” Never taking her eyes off Nikki, jabbing a finger into her face, she barks, “You’re on a Rule 43.” We have no idea what Rule 43 might be, but Helen’s eyes are so angry and electrified, that we suspect it may include beheading.

Please, someone, I need a cigarette! There are some rocket fuels with less combustible chemistry than these two. On second thought, a “no smoking” policy around them is probably safest.

Fenner tells Stewart she’s making a mistake. “One thing you better learn about me, Jim, is that once I make a decision, I stick to it.” Wait a minute, I thought Nikki was the butch here? Stewart’s jaw is tougher than Washington’s on Mt. Rushmore.

Fenner insists that the women will become even angrier if she cancels the show. Helen is furious. “Do you think I believed all that shit from Sylvia? I had to face a near riot out there because of what she let happen, so don’t blame me for coming down heavy.” Great toss down there, Helen. Did they teach you this in management grad school?

The entire wing is being put on lockdown. Fenner locks up Shell Dockley, who is fuming that she’s “worked for weeks on her cosi,” and now can’t wear it. She threatens him that he’d better fix things “or else.” Ah so! Something is up between these two, and it’s clearly Shell that’s got Fenner in some sort of lockup.

We see what Rule 43 entails. Two guards are dragging a resisting Nikki to solitary confinement – “segregation.” Hollamby sneers “put her in strips, that will give her something to moan about.” When Nikki yells, “you vicious old bitch, I’ll…” she takes a hard one in the gut from one of the guards. Ooofff. I felt that.

Helen’s office. There’s a picture on the wall of a dove being cradled in nested hands. Ha! I love art with a subtle message. Helen receives a phone call in her office. It’s the “Number One.” “Can you pop up for 5 minutes, need to have a talk with you about the fashion show,” says a bureaucratic older man with posh accent. Helen, wearing an anxious expression, says she’s on her way. Oops. In trouble with the big daddy. We see “Number One,” Larkhall’s Governing Governor Simon Stebberfield, on his end of the line, speaking an aside to someone in his office, “Your name won’t be mentioned.” It’s Fenner. Office politics being played as a gender wars: it’s just so easy to hate these smug, self-satisfied men. OK, so TPTB are stacking the deck here, but I don’t care. It’s believable. It’s a scene being played out in some cigar smoke-filled room near you right this moment.

Stebberfield tells Stewart G Wing can’t be absent from the fashion show – there are too many VIPs attending, and it would look bad to have an entire Wing “banged up,” whatever her resolve and reputation for making decisions. “I assure you, this is about more than your personal pride.” Helen looks like she’s been spanked, which she has.

Helen asks Hollamby to see to a returning prisoner with a “particularly difficult hygiene problem.” “Not Smelly Nelly Snape!” Hollamby exclaims. “If you could check her top and tail for parasites – we certainly don’t want an infestation, do we?” Ah, revenge is – sweet. Hollamby knows Helen didn’t buy her story, but also knows she doesn’t have the political cards to play to do much about more about it. “Yes Ma’am,” she responds, knowing Helen hates to be called “ma’am.” This is more fun than watching monster trucks play tug-of-war.

Fenner is next. “So, you thought you’d go over my head, Jim – man to man, the way the prison system loves best.” Ha! An economical put-down – at once clever and snarky – why is that just so damned attractive in a woman, Helen in particular?

Helen asks Fenner what his problem is with her, “My age, my background, the fact that I’m a woman? Tell me to my face when you’ve got a problem with me.” Fenner takes the hit and smoothly responds, “I did tell you what I thought of your decision, and I still haven’t heard you admit that you made a mistake. Maybe we could meet and discuss it over a drink sometime.” He walks out on Helen. Trumped her.

“Bastard,” she mutters. That round goes to Fenner.

Touching scene with the two Julies. Julie J is upset over Carol’s miscarriage, and missing her children. She’s in tears, Julie S comforting her:

Julie S: You promised me you’d stay hopeful. You don’t have to say “I” anymore. Why? Julie J: Because we’re the Two Julies
Julie S: And who can come between us?
Julie J: Nobody, nothing, never.

Only two women as “nutty” as the Two Julies could get away with this. I love it.

They cheer themselves up by tearing up a sheet, filling it with sweets for Nikki, and swinging out the window to the next cell.

Fenner comes in and tell them their strike plan will only cause them to loose their privileges and get put on report. He expertly takes the wind right out of their strike solidarity sails. Fenner clearly has a gift – he missed his calling as a Republican House Whip.

We see Nikki in segregation, wrapped in a blanket. Shell, delivering dinner, taunts Nikki that the fashion show will be back on, that she’ll be wearing her dress while Nikki goes naked. She leaves without giving Nikki any food, but the prisoner assisting Shell slips Nikki the bag of goodies from the Two Julies.

Helen at home, fresh from her shower, drying her hair. In walks a floppy-haired, tall man – think of a soggy, pale version of Hugh Grant. “Hiya, baby,” she says with a smile. Ewww. I hate that! Baby! In one second flat I know I’m going to hate this relationship. I can already feel my lip starting to curl.

She walks into his arms, kisses him, looks into his eyes, and says, “let’s get pissed tonight.” A romantic, that Helen. I also like that in a woman. Pulling out a bottle of Stoli, she expects Sean to join her while she moans about work, but he says he brought home some work to finish. She’s annoyed. “What’s the point of being freelance if you can’t set your own hours,” she says as she begins to laugh. It’s an odd scene – it looks as though it should have been outtake. Why the heck is she laughing – shouldn’t Sean only be that ludicrous to me? “You sulky bitch,” he teases, “you need a damn good thrashing.” “Mmmm,” she smiles. Ewww again. These two are just – wrong.

Sean rubs her feet while Helen sips on red wine. She says “Oh well, it’s only a sodding job, who cares,” envying him for his job satisfaction, lack of stress, and autonomy – working with plants, not people. She’s obviously working very hard to pretend she doesn’t care. She’s just as obviously unsuccessful at setting aside her day, despite the puppy dog lapping at her feet.

Sean tells Helen a customer of his asked him what she does for a living, and responded “How very sexy” to his answer. Has she met Myra Hindley, the customer wants to know. “You ignorant tosser, is that all you think women’s prisons are about,” Sean rather improbably describes his response. Sean, Sean, Sean, this is not about what a sensitive guy you are. Please, put her foot down, back away, and consider what it would be like to treat her like an actual grown-up woman. Sheesh.

He kisses her big toe then moves on top of her. “Fancy a shag?” “No,” she says with a smile. I am not smiling. Just put him out in the back yard where he belongs, Helen. I’m sure there’s a doghouse out there somewhere.

Next we see Fenner and Shell snogging in Fenner’s office (see, I’m really getting into this – snogging!). She says, “Wait to see what I give out when I’m in my dress.” OK, so that’s how it is. It’s all depressingly, crystal clear.

Sean and Helen arguing the car the next morning. “So you think I made a mistake also,” she baits Sean regarding the fashion show. She looks pinched and stressed – not like a woman recently pleasantly engaged in drinking and shagging. Something – perhaps lots of things – just aren’t working for Helen Stewart.

Fenner lures Rachel into making a clumsy pass at him, then showily backs away. “Just calm down” he sooths her, with a predatory look in his eye that we see and she does not. His performance his masterful; Rachel is either so dense or so congenitally damaged that it’s mostly wasted on her. He had her from hello.

[A commercial for Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice has just popped up: all chiseled jaws, blowing hair, fireworks. “You have bewitched me, body and soul.” Have even the English gone Disneyland now? Is there nothing sacred? Well, what can you expect from an actress named Keira Knightley.]

Nikki in her empty cell, sitting cross-legged on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. She seems as implacable as the Buddha. Helen enters, and turns back enraged to the guard, shouting, “What the hell is she doing in strips!” The poor little guard looks abashed. “Well, go get her clothes here immediately.’ I love that – it sounds like immeGEEately – so authoritative.

She closes the door behind her. “I’m sorry, that should not have happened,” she says with serious concern and sincerity. The scene is nicely shot, over Helen’s shoulder from above, looking down on a vulnerable Nikki, who seems anything but.

Nikki is unbending. “Happens all the time, didn’t you know.” “Well, it won’t in the future.” “Why, you going to let us lot out and lock up your screws instead?”

Helen approaches Nikki, and sits on the bed, very near to Nikki on the floor. “Look, I intend to make a lot of changes here, but I need your cooperation.” “Co-op-eration,” Nikki sneers. “You’re right, I can’t run things here without your help,” Helen responds in earnest.

Nikki: I don’t even know how people like you sleep at night if you believe in a system that locks up pregnant women.
Helen: Well, you’re just going to have to trust me. I don’t.

Nikki gives Helen a very searching look.

Trust? So soon? Helen is asking for a great deal. Another quality I love in a woman.

Shell is practicing her spastic dance moves in front of a very appreciative Denny, who leans her against the wall and says “I’d love to see you in that dress again, Shell.” The whole thing has a sordid feel about it, as if Shell really wanted to be in a production of Sweeny Todd, and Denny will soon be on the menu.

Nikki’s cell, where she’s finishing dressing. Helen is still alone with her, her back turned as she faces the window, giving Nikki a bit of privacy. The scene is beautifully framed, Helen in the far corner, her face bathed in light, and in the foreground, Nikki listening and intent in her corner.

Helen speaks. “It’s up to you. Either we both climb down together and make something positive out of this, or we all lose out to the old boy’s network.”

They turn to look at one another. Nikki looks unsure, and uncomfortable for the first time.

Helen’s got her cards on the table, but Nikki has no way of knowing if Helen is playing her. What will Nikki do? OK, really, is there any doubt? There’s angst, and then there’s being recruited by Helen Stewart. If Nikki resists her, then God doesn’t make little green apples. Temptations indeed.

Later, we see Nikki return with Carol to dining hall, Stewart behind them. “What she doing out of seg already,” Fenner mutters. The women are excited to see Carol again, who is looking remarkably recovered.

Nikki takes the floor in the center of the dining hall and asks for the women’s attention for an important announcement. Helen is watching her, quiet and tense, from the corner of the room. She begins to pace a little.

Nikki, hands insouciantly in her pockets, says the fashion show is back on. “Seeings as how I helped get it cancelled, I personally guaranteed to Miss Stewart,” giving Helen a quick glance, “that if they let us back in, G Wing would give it our best.” Fenner gives Helen a baleful shake of the head and cruel little smile. Match point and game goes to Stewart. “So if that’s OK with you babes, go out and strut your stuff!” The women cheer, showing their support for Nikki and relief that the standoff is over. Helen quietly slips out as Fenner mutters, “canny bitch.”

Denny to Shell, “it’ll be you they clap for tomorrow night, Shell.”

Cut to fashion show, where they are indeed clapping for Shell who is rather inelegantly strutting her stuff, tasseled bra and fringed mini shaking like a Jell-O salad. Stebberfield, sitting next to Helen, looks pleased, but Helen is remote, until she gives a ironic half-smile to the onstage antics. As Stebberfield escorts his easily-impressed VIP guests out, Helen quickly catches up to Nikki, who is returning to the wing. Nikki looks like a million bucks, again in her perfectly tailored red shirt and matching red lipstick. It’s too much for my taste, and I still hate her haircut, probably because it’s how I imagine my haircut looks on a bad hair day. But these are quibbles. Nikki is all that.

Helen, hair flying, actually skips ahead to catch Nikki, who turns around when she hears Helen say “Nikki,” in a softer, gentler tone than we’ve heard her use the entire episode, “I just wanted to say, thanks again for helping me out.” Nikki’s not having it. “Don’t think I did anything for you, Miss,” she retorts cheekily, and continues on her way. Helen looks slightly abashed.

Lockup. We hear Shell threatening little Rachel – “deep down I’ve got a great big soft spot for you … and I can’t wait to gob it in your face.” Shell, you’re so amusing, in that schoolyard bully sort of way. Maybe you could watch South Park for insult inspiration.

The camera pans to Rachel in the next cell, whose hair is being pulled aside by sinister hands, her next exposed to a vampire-like approach. You guessed it, Fenner. Dum dum dum…

The camera moves outside the prison, looking at the windows, from which we hear the women’s goodnights to one another. It’s a wonderfully ironic and obscene homage to The Waltons. The women hurl expression of love through the bars, “I bloody love you,” “Carol, you’re gorgeous;” some exchange menacing threats for the following day. Nighty-night, you bad girls, you. See you next week.

From the Department of Guilty Pleasures: Bad Girls

Woo hoo! I'm heading home tonight to snuggle up in front of the TV and indulge in one of my favorite new guilty pleasures: Bad Girls on BBC America.

There are tons of reasons to watch this smart, sexy, soapy show, but rather than convince you, I've decided to throw recaps at you. Look for the first tomorrow!

(I've seen the first season on DVD, so I know what a treat the rest of you are in for!)

OK, one reason to convince you: the show is written by actual lesbians - talented lesbians, at that - among them, Eileen Gallagher, the CEO Shed Productions. Here's what the NY Times says:

Shed's wildly popular shows have always had a tabloid brain and a progressive heart, and nowhere is this more obvious than in ''Bad Girls,'' which is set in a women's prison. The company's debut production (shown since 1999 on ITV in Britain, but making its BBC America debut on Nov. 8), it was created by Ms. Gallagher, Ms. Chadwick and Ms. McManus. No matter how far-fetched the plots get, the show is never exploitative, and over the years it has also featured an
extraordinary gallery of well-written female characters, including several who are gay and many who are still matter-of-factly sexual in their 40's and 50's, a casting opportunity that Ms. Chadwick said was part of the inspiration behind the company.

If that doesn't grab you, check your pulse. And after that, take a look at the review of the first season at afterellen.com - if you don't mind being spoiled, that is.

Governor Stewart, I'm ready for my lock-up now!

Dunkin Donuts Compassion

There are a many people in my neighborhood I think of as "homeless." I'm not sure where they actually go at the end of the day. Shelters? Assisted living? Subsidized housing? Many are clearly mentally ill, some are disabled, all are ill-kempt. Some will ask me for money occasionally. At least 4 of them say hello to me every day, and sometimes we exchange thoughts about the weather or my daughter. One woman, an older lesbian who is schizophrenic, will update me on the frightening, sad, fascinating movie going on inside her head.

Today one older woman asked me for money for a cup of coffee and a cigarette, while I was waiting for the bus. I was incredibly embarrassed to tell her I had no money in my pocket - which was true. But I had to say so while holding the cup coffee I had just bought with my last two dollar bills. It wasn't strictly true that I didn't have money - I could have gone to the trouble to cross the street, go to the ATM, get a $20, break it, and give her $5 for coffee. Why didn't I? I told her I would catch her next time. And I will - but still. I was holding a frigging cup of coffee.

These people are my neighbors. The live every day on the streets that I call home, in the very place where I feel I belong and am known and cared about. What is my responsibility to them?

Perhaps it wasn't one big thing that landed these people on the street. Maybe it was lots of little things that went wrong. Most of us, myself included, live on the financial edge - one major depression or car accident or lost job away from not making the rent.

Whatever went wrong, it must be that somewhere along the way someone could have intervened, but didn't. Someone must have failed them at some point, or many points. Lots of little points are cumulative. The tipping point is reached, and a life is ruined.

So that's my question: what is my responsibility? My role is tiny, perhaps even inconsequential, but it's real. These are my neighbors. I don't want to be just one more person who failed the lady who had simple request: a cup of coffee.

I found an extremely interesting article at Killing the Buddha, a site that I greatly value.

The writer, Peter Smith, wants to take part in a Zen retreat where "participants will live on the streets of New York experiencing homelessness first-hand, having to beg for money, find places to get food, shelter, to use the bathroom, etc. By bearing witness to homelessness, we begin to see our prejudices directly, to recognize our common humanness."

Smith wants to participate as a writer covering a "story," but he can't afford the fee retreat, and becomes embittered about the point of the retreat:

"My attempt to cover an educated, middle-class descent into poverty was nothing new. From Agee and Ehrenreich to hippie communards and New Left journalists, the downwardly mobile -- writers, bohemians, and postmodern Buddhists -- have never really exposed much more than personal desire, often a desire to become classless. Who needs a retreat to experience poverty? After all, the streets have always been full of the poor. It's nearly impossible to walk around without bearing witness to homelessness, class difference, and poverty.

That knowledge carries a burden of guilt, and an experience like a street retreat actually relieves it."

I think Smith is really missing the point here. Perhaps some are paying to relieve their guilt and indulge their desire for a classless society. But that's the point of any Zen retreat: to encounter and confront the constant arising of "self" that we would rather ignore or anesthetize. How else can we learn how to love our brothers and sisters who are living in such pain - to love the degradation within ourselves - without first fully receiving whatever is we are experiencing?

I still don't know what my responsibility is to my neighbors. I do know enough to know it's not about me or my guilt or my desire to see myself as responsible and compassionate. But what should I actually do?

Lakshmi Singh's Head Cold

I've been listening to Lakshmi Singh read the news all day today on NPR.

Does it sound like she has a cold to anybody else?

OK, this is weird, I know. I know! But I have this thing about the voices to which I listen regularly on the radio - I immediately notice when the vocal quality has changed from day to day, and I worry about the state of their health. Terry Gross sounds like she has a head cold today, too. Terry, you feeling OK? Need some hot lemon water?

I used to go through this watching Xena: Warrior Princess. For several shows every season poor Lucy Lawless sounded like her turbinates called in sick to work. I always worried. "Gabrielle, get your princess some Sudafed, quick," I wanted to say.


Am I the only one out there with these kinds of worries?

<--- (and wouldn't this be a nice way to get over a head cold? Oh yeah, I forgot - it ends badly (-; )

Initiatives for the Taking: G-CAPP's Doula Project

Today's progressive bright idea:

Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (G-CAPP)

"I remember looking into the eyes of a 14-year-old girl in a hospital in Albany, Georgia, who was in labor with her second child. I was told she lived in a shack that lacked running water and electricity. I knew intuitively that unless one could change the conditions of her life there would probably be more children to come. Even assuming there was a family planning clinic accessible to her and affordable, what would motivate this child to use these services? What future could she see for herself that would be compromised by having children so soon?" G-CAPP founder, Jane Fonda

I'm especially impressed by G-CAPP's model Doula Project:

What is a Doula? A doula is a woman from the local community, recruited and trained to provide emotional and physical support to both the teen mother and baby during pregnancy, delivery, and the weeks after birth.

• Doulas are extensively-trained paraprofessionals whose primary function is to offer non-clinical support for both the young mother and the child.


• Doulas counsel the pregnant teens and their families on the birthing process, breastfeeding, encouraging the mother-child relationship and child and infant development.


• Doulas do not replace a midwife, the father, or the grandparents, but they enhance the experience of childbearing.


• Doulas live where they work. The advantage of having a doula who is recruited from the same neighborhood is her ability to understand the spoken language, and share values, attitudes and experiences with the girls she serves.


• Doulas impact health care. With a doula's support and knowledge of the birthing process, young women can better access prenatal care, develop a birth plan, and choose to breastfeed.

The Death of the Democratic Party

What's gone wrong in the Democratic Party? Will we ever win another election? This whine has been aging for a while into a very vinegary vintage - but there it is, still being poured out everywhere. Here's the thing: the data suggests things are even worse than I thought.

Just ran across this stark report from Third Way: Strategy Center for Progressives:

Unrequited Love: Middle Class Voters Reject Democrats at the Ballot Box

Here are the key findings from the 2004 elections:

• White middle income voters (who constitute three-quarters of the middle class and one-third of the entire electorate), delivered landslide margins to Republicans


• The economic tipping point – the income level at which whites were more likely to vote Republican than Democrat – was $23,700, not far above the poverty level


• Democrats carried low income married women by 15-points, but lost middle class married women by 15-points
  

"The only middle class voters that Democrats can count on are blacks, unmarried women, and those with a graduate education – roughly one-third of the middle class electorate. This group of middle class voters kept Democrats within shouting distance of Republicans in the last election. Democrats talk and legislate a great deal about issues that they believe are of concern to the middle class, such as better schools, affordable health care, and job security. This has not translated into middle class votes. Assuming these issues are truly important to middle class voters (and there is no reason to believe they are not), it could be that Democrats have a set of flawed messages that do not reach the middle class. Or, the middle class may simply believe that their schools will not be better, their health care will not be more affordable, and their jobs will not be more secure should Democrats run the Congress and control the White House. Whatever the reason, the self-described party of the middle class has a crisis with the middle class."

What the hell is the white middle class thinking? Surely this can't all be about WMD. Can anyone explain this to me? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Even better, can anyone tell me what the damn Democrats are thinking? Come on, you brain-trust types, where's our winning strategy when we most need one?

The Politics of Polarization

This Third Way paper identifies four myths to which Democrats have fallen prey:

• The myth of mobilization is the belief that the key to Democratic victory is to energize the base and bring them to the polls in record numbers.



• The myth of demography is the view that long-term, ongoing changes in the U.S. population - such as an increase in the number of Hispanic voters and female professionals - will secure a Democratic majority for decades to come.



• The myth of language holds that the problem with the Democratic Party is not what it advocates, but rather how it speaks.



• The myth of prescription drugs is shorthand for the theory that the Party can win national elections by avoiding cultural issues, downplaying national security, and changing the subject to domestic issues such as health care, education, and job security in the post-9/11 world

Fruitcake, Progressive Women, and Ms. January

Here's yet another thing I wish we had in America:

The Women's Institute

As Helen Mirren says in Calendar Girls, "It's not just a load of middle-aged women standing mysteriously behind fruitcakes, you know." The WI has an unrivalled reputation as a campaigner on women's issues. In its 90-year history, the achievements of its members are staggering and worthy of report. They helped facilitate women's suffrage. They pressed for the greater availability of cervical smears. They called for the recognition of rape within marriage. In 1943, they demanded equal pay for equal work; in 1973, they convinced local authorities to provide a full and free family planning service. In 1975, they were on the case of battered women, urging state provision of refuges across the country. Did I mention that the WI was instrumental in the introduction of the family allowance, and in particular that it be paid direct to the mother? Or that it was a founding member of the Fairtrade Foundation? No wonder Jane Fonda, herself no slouch in the campaigning department, recently called the Women's Institute "an awesome organisation."

Best line:

"Mrs Jenkins? Blogging? Whatever next?"

Semiotics as Conspiracy Theory

Update from deep cover:

Well, I think I've cracked the code, but not the nut.

Here's a briefing:

There are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands of these blogspot.com blogs with stereotypical names like Trinity Goodrich Blog and Brianna Clapp Diary and Christian Ashford Comments, all established in August 2005. Each post in each blog is posted three times in a similar blog. The original post always comes from a blog at spaces.msn.com/members, from the blogs of apparently real teenagers and young adults (although this is in question!).

If one has a prosaic mind, one would think this is an example of Splogging, or spam blogging.

But this is where it gets funny! Most splogs are either links spamming (containing mostly links to commercial sites, many that return a profit to their owner when clicked), or keyword enriching (to fool search engines into listing the site higher in the search results). However, these blogs doesn't seem to contain links, ads, or keywords. If there are search-optimizing keywords in there, they're subtle - almost random.

One big clue that these are splogs is their construction. A simple programming bot generating new blog accounts and poaching text for content could account for their similar form.

But what if these blogs are not splogs, but instead are posing as splogs, so as to be discounted or ignored (cue threatening music soundtrack)? Hmmm? What about that?

OK, I'll come clean. What most interests me about these blogs, besides their mysterious purpose, is how they function as texts to be interpreted. The act of reading these things and creating meaning becomes a fantastic literary Rorschach test, more fun than mostof those silly personality tests out there. I think it also shows the power of tools like cultural and literary semiotics and narratology. The games exposes some of the same basises as the Implicit Associations Test.

And given the current climate, how could we not respond to such evocative raw material as the following:

November 03
Haytham Abd El_Hamid Hamdy.
Where do I go ? What do I do ? I can't deny I still feel something And I wish you could say you feel the same You've broken the bond I gotta move on But how do I end this lonely feeling? You've gone, I'm here, alone I guess it's time to grow Haytham

July 17
well this is it
well im still single and staying in every night so that sucks but i did find out that i ship out for basic training on june 29th of 2006 which is awsome i go to Ft. Knox Kentucky for basic training and then for A I T (advanced individual training) i go to Aberdeen Proveing Grounds in Maryland i am doing Armerment repair so i get to fix all the Weapons then play with them to make sure that they work. So am know known as Private Calvin Heath Wynne or Private Wynne as my recruter calls me. well that all for know im going to go back to being bored out of my mind i will talk to you later. peace out
Pvt wynne

Off the Grid

Toggle Switch just sent me an interesting article from the WSJ by the incomparable Francis Fukuyama regarding the Theo Van Gogh murder in The Netherlands, modernity, identity, and Islamic radicalism (I recall reading a similar article in a recent New Yorker).

But now I know I've flipped out, because now I'm re-reading Brianna Rowley Notes, where in the last hour an ominous post in Dutch has appeared. I roughly translated it with Babel fish, and after closely parsing some of the other deeply bizarre postings, I'm just a bit freaked out (in that kind of excited, nerdy way). What if I've stumbled upon a terrorist communication network?

Here's one alarming post from Brianna about trying to board a flight:

Chicago believes in tears
After we boarded twice, and was kicked off the plane twice, I began to realize how serious the situation was. Our flight was cancelled due to air traffic, and 200 passengers on this plane needed to be re-booked. I really didn't know what the chance was that I would be able to fly to NJ tonight. So I ran back and forth among the main customer service center and all ATA gates, trying to catch a shorter line. I was wearing high-heel; my foot hurted and soon got worn-out. Have you ever imagined someone who dragged 3 bags, ran in the concourse as if s/he were in a race, BAREFOOT? Well I did it. :( Finally I was in front of an ATA representative, and she told me:"Sorry there're no more seats." "I understand there are no more seats available on this 6pm flight, but how about the 9pm flight? How about any flights to LGA? to JFK?" I got straight "no"s to all the questions I asked. "What am I supposed to do then?" I was really desprate -- I don't want to go downstairs, got my 200lb luggages and went back to Hyde park! "I don't know", so said the representative:"all I know is that there are no more seats." The guy who stood besides me was obviously worried too. He talked to the representative:"I really need to leave tonight. My whole family is travelling with me --- my wife and two kids, one is 5-year-old and the other is seven. I need four seats...." Surprisingly enough, the representative thought for a while, took his old boarding passes, and issued him 4 new ones:"it is boarding in 10 minutes. you will board first since you have kids." The guy took a quick glance at me, full of pity, and left in a hurry. The representative turned to me:"I am sorry, but we do not have more seats now." Well, I am travelling by my own, I don't have a wife, and I don't have kids, but, I have tears. One second later, I was wearing a crying face. "Calm down, QQ, calm down", I said to myself:"You are annadult!" but I heard myself begging in a crying voice:"any flight that could get me to New York tonight, please!" I got a new boarding pass.

And guess where this leads?

Isaiah Channing Comments, exact same post, dated Tuesday, September 27, 2005. When did this blogger account open? You guessed it, dear reader: August 2005.

Here's a sample of his ominous posts:

Sunday, September 25, 2005

"This site is under some heavy Construction"

I am currently a retired/student @ ISU. I was wounded while in the ARMY and I was medically
retired(sortof)and given the opportunity to get retrained--so I am going to be an Electrical Engineer. Well on the side I fix, build, manage and/or IT consult computer systems and small office networking solutions. I hope to find some time to get back here and do a little more work in the near future. I spend most of my repair consulting, getting rid of viruses. As long as there are (inexperienced users) idiots using P2P or any other spybot inclusive program--there will always be a need for me, keep them viruses coming

And another:

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

08.2005 - DC3 Renaissance Hotel
AnniePohaoRenaissanceNT$5000PohaoNT$2000Check in King SizeNon-Smoking
RoomAnnieKing Size(-Queen Size Bed-) (Fitness Center):
5:30AM11:00PMAnnieAnniePohao11 Annie...5:30AnnieAnniePohao AnnieNon-Smoking
RoomKing Size Bed() Renaissance Washington, DC Hotel 999 Ninth Street NW,
Washington DC ~Annie

His "Leaving Toots" post is an exact repost of another MSN Spaces blog site (just like the Cloud Atlas repost from the MSN site "Homewards")
Xplorer's Funtastic Adventure Center

August 14
Leaving Toots
The National Weather service has issued a mood swing watch effective until September 7 for everybody's favorite Carolyn.
It’s not that I think I'm going to end up acting like a real bitch for the next month or anything, but there is definitely an increased chance of strange behavior. Since I'll probably be going home either Saturday or Sunday, it means that I'll probably be seeing a lot of people for the last time for a while this week. I guess it's not so bad since I'll definitely have a chance to see everyone again next year, but it does make me a little sad.But to contrast with my sadness is excitement. This is the sort of thing an explorer dreams of. Though with every opportunity taken, you end up turning something else down. It's great to be going to Japan, but I already know I would still
have fun if I stayed here. It’s a little depressing to think of the good times I will miss over the next year, but if I stayed, I wouldn’t know what would happen over there. Actually, I might not get that sad when I say goodbye to people this week. It's still a while until I actually leave, so it's hard to feel like it will really be that long until I see everyone again. But then again, I might get sad. Then I might get sad when I leave Toledo, and I might get sad when I go toPennsylvania,and I will probably get sad when my parents leave Chicago, and then I'll probably get sad when I say bye to my brother. Then even though I will probably end up going to the airport by myself, I have a feeling I'll be pretty torn apart there too. But on the plane I'll probably get excited again. It’s the start of an adventure, and there's no reason to feel bad about that!
For now I will just try not to get overly excited or sad.

Alright, a little calm here. Before I start calling "terrorist" in crowded theater, I think I'll just play around with this some more and try to map this thing a bit better. Can you all tell I've seen 3 Days of the Condor 3 too many times?

"The people were resonating with the bridge"

Loveliest story in the news today:

Revealed: Why London's Millennium Bridge wobbled

"The phenomenon was that people who were walking at random, at their own favorite speed, not organized in any way spontaneously synchronized."


Terrific book to read: Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order

The beauty is in the mathematics - order out of chaos, no Führer or Duce need apply.

An Atlas of Spies: In which Weltatem lets her imagination run off the ranch

Sometimes I think I'm living in a dream. Or maybe I'm just seriously distracted.

WTF is she talking about, you ask? Dear reader, I have not lost it. Quite yet.

What has happened is that several little turbulent eddies of my reading life and thought life have just flowed together into a funny stream. I feel must share, if you will indulge.

So, on background: I'm almost finished reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which is brilliant and wonderful (blog coming on soon - achew!). Recently, I watched the BBC miniseries Cambridge Spies, which was quite soapy and over-cooked, but reminded me how much I loved the subject, so I hunted down the recent Anthony Blunt biography (first-rate and completely absorbing), and re-read Spycatcher (not nearly as good I remembered). Then, of course, there's the whole Valerie Plame Affair (and what an affair it would be!).

Here I am, today, unsuspectingly wandering in the blogosphere, when I happen upon this delightful entry at William Trelawney Notes :

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Lolling about in Cambridge
August 3: Wednesday Quiet day today. Spent some time trying to confirm details of a long stay visa for France or Spain. None of the email addresses for Spanish consulates in Australia work, and the London consulate will only see UK nationals. Appears to be a similar situation with
French consulate, and they state that minimum processing time for a visa after an interview is 2 months!! Returned to Cambridge for a quieter day without weekend tourists. Spent a good chunk of time absorbed in David Mitchell's wondrous book Cloud Atlas, while sitting by the river. Some bargemen on the other side quizzed me loudly about Bondi's details, but he zzzzzzed through most of it. A passing black swan had a hook piercing its beak with river weed hanging off it, and a three way conversation about how to extract it triangulated between a punt of tourists, an Australian puntsman on the shore, and myself. I suggested contacting the Queen since she owns them. Rounded out the day with a kilometre of swimming laps at a Cambridge gym.

The rest of William's blog entries - although fascinating, especially on the topic of dyslexia - are written in a completely different voice.

Dear reader, my curiosity was aroused.

I googled the post, and found "William's" was the second re-posting.

The first re-posting was from Brianna Rowley Notes on September Tuesday, September 06, 2005. Her voice is eerily reminiscent of William's, and her blogging style similar. They both joined Blogger in August 2005. The content of both is equally as odd and fascinating as text:

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

The Wait

I am waiting for time to pass To help me cary on Get over the block in the road Time is too slow and I am only getting old Give me strenght to stand tall Even though everything else has fallen I need to be strong Soon things will come my way If they don't then the only thing I can say Is just to wait and let time pass agian

I believe I found the orignal post here, at "Mike and Bondi's" site, a man and his dog "rambling through Europe." The site's name? "

Homeward
is a labyrinth of skyscrapers & multi-coloured towers connected by a fantastic network of tunnels, secret passages, water chutes, lifts & railways.It is so large that parts of it are unknown to its owner.

Dear reader, the water chutes in my mind came together, babbling with the three voices not unlike the six of Cloud Atlas. I believe I may have stumbled upon an elaborate spy ring that uses the blogosphere as a drop box and posts, lists, and pictures as code.

Whoa.

If I'm still here in the morning, it means I'm probably wrong (unless I've been replaced by a double!). In which case, I think it would be a great plot for a quick novel. Maybe I'll start one now - I'd be in good company with the poor saps now tearing their hair out in the NaNoWriMo.

Anyone care to sleuth this with me some more?

"I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain"

Did you know that science hasn't yet been able to tell us why we sleep?

Check out this week's journal Nature, devoted to the science of sleep. This is the preeminent weekly science journal in the world, and this issue is freely available online - a rare occurrence.

Here's a bit to pique your curiosity, from Dr. Jerome Siegel:

Saying that it is desirable to be well rested and that the body seeks lost sleep with a vigour comparable to or greater than that displayed for food or sex does not answer the question of the functional role of sleep. Why do we spend one-third of our lives asleep? Why has our body evolved to press us relentlessly to make up for lost sleep? Can we separate the drive for sleep, manifested in sleepiness, from the function of sleep, as we can separate hunger from the benefits of food consumption? Why do so many species habitually sleep much more than humans, and others much less, and how do species that sleep for only short periods accomplish the functions of sleep in less time? Why does the daily sleep amount decrease from birth to maturity in all species of terrestrial mammals? And why do we have two kinds of sleep, rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM (NREM) sleep?

I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain,
Let fall the tear of time; the sleeper's eye,
Shifting to light, turned on me like a moon.
So, planing-heeled, I flew along my man
And dropped on dreaming and the upward sky.

-- Dylan Thomas

High Noon for Roe

Alito was the judge in the famous Planned Parenthood v. Casey who argued that married women must notify their spouses before obtaining an abortion. His opinion was struck down by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision. Sandra Day O'Conor was the swing vote in that decision.

This is how the Big Boys want to play this game. It's High Noon time in the Senate. The irony is that both the Democrats and the Republicans want to play Gary Cooper, in the role of Husband-Protector to Grace Kelly. Who will blink first? Will the women in the Senate strap on their six-shooters and play by the same script?

Tick, tick, tick. Time is running out on Roe.

From Naral's Bush v. Choice blog:

Alito took pains to distant himself from the longstanding constitutional requirement that abortion restrictions must have exceptions when a woman's health is in jeopardy. He did so when ruling on a law that effectively banned abortion as early as the 12th week of pregnancy and lacked an exception to protect women’s health. The health exception is a fundamental tenet of Roe v. Wade, and the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments about the need for the health exception this fall. Should Alito’s vote replace that of Sandra Day O’Connor, a fundamental right will likely be lost by next summer.

Alito has argued that significant restrictions on a woman's right to choose are constitutional. In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, Alito argued that all of the proposed law’s restrictions on a woman's right to choose – including a spousal notification provision struck down by the Third Circuit and, later, the Supreme Court – were constitutional. Alito dissented in part because he would have gone even further than the rest of the court.

Alito would uphold state laws that place significant roadblocks in the way of women seeking abortion care. Alito concurred with the majority’s opinion in Casey that concluded that “time delay, higher cost, reduced availability, and forcing the woman to receive information she has not sought,” although admittedly “potential burdens,” could not “be characterized as an undue burden.” This opinion practically ensures that he would never find any burden to be undue.

Linda Greenhouse at the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 - The 1991 abortion case on which the confirmation of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court may hinge arrived at his Philadelphia-based federal appeals court at a moment of great ferment in the development of abortion law.

The Supreme Court's 7-to-2 majority for abortion rights, as expressed in the 1973 Roe v. Wade opinion, had eroded to the vanishing point. The center of gravity was held by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whose position was difficult to parse and appeared to be evolving toward an uncertain destination.

The question facing Judge Alito and his colleagues on a three-judge appellate panel was the validity of a 1989 Pennsylvania law that placed various obstacles in the path of women seeking abortions.

All three judges agreed that most of the provisions were constitutional, as the Supreme Court itself eventually did. But on one important point, a requirement that a married woman notify her husband before obtaining an abortion, Judge Alito found himself at odds with his two colleagues, and ultimately with the Supreme Court's ruling, which sparked a debate on the high court that remains unresolved today.

The Tyrannous Strategy of Low Expectations, Act Two

Now I have people to invite to my crazy conspiracy theory tea party!

Kathleen Reardon over at the Huffington Post asks "Was Harriet Miers A Stalking Horse?"

I was thinking back on my Harriet theory this weekend, discounting it because I don't credit Shrub with that much strategic genius. Harry's nomination seemed too transparently a case of Bush's insularity and need for affirmation.

It doesn't seem beyond Rove, however, to let Bush think he is choosing Harriet, let Harriet "fall on her sword" Scooter style, and then nominate they guy they really want, Scalia - oops, I meant Alito.

This neatly neutralized calls for a Sandra Day O'Connor type nomination from the white-shoe wing of the Republican party, and reassures the Church of Rove - the Bush evangelical base. The Democrats, as usual, can go screw themselves. Rove is just waiting for them to "go nuclear."

I still haven't given up wondering what Cheney had to gain by blowing the entire Brewster Jennings & Associates "energy consultants" CIA cover for the Counterproliferation Division. Valerie Plame was just one agent who used this cover. Their mission was to track down nukes where there shouldn't be any, like, say, in maybe, Iran? Here are some possible motives for Cheney:

Halliburton Secretly Doing Business with Key Member of Iran's Nuclear Team
Halliburton's Man in Iran
Could Cheney have had a vendetta against Brewster Jennings?

A Highway of One's Own

I've been thinking a great deal these days about traveling, alienation, and a sense of place. This article by A. O. Scott in the New York Times on October 23rd brought into sharp focus the disquiet I've been experiencing about mythologizing "place." The article, Gas, Food and Therapy on the American Road is a comparison of role of the cross-country American road trip in Elizabethtown and Land of Plenty.

About Elizabethtown, Scott says:

Drew's road trip allows him to have both, since the main destination on this kind of trip is not a particular place but an idea of place. If your iPod and your GPS navigation system achieve the right synchronicity, you may find yourself transported to an authentic, mythic America - without Wal-Marts or Starbucks or strip malls. The purpose of the trip is not only to re-establish a connection, however glancing, with that old, reliable America, but also, this being America, to find yourself, to heal.

And about Land of Plenty:

At the end, Lana and Paul, fulfilling the dying wish of Lana's mother, set out on a cross-country drive to discover the beauty and variety of America, from Truth or Consequences, N.M., to Down East Maine. As in "Elizabethtown," this concluding montage is moving, in part because it answers a deeply felt, almost mystical need to believe that the beauty of the American landscape has the power to soothe even the ugliest divisions within American society.

I've taken many epic round-trip drives through America, twice by myself as an adult, and many as a kid in a motor home with my parents, brother, and assorted dogs and cats. Each was an occasion to encounter American history, and invitation to mythologize age-appropriately. Perhaps most importantly, as a kid, these trips were attempts to "soothe divisions" not within the American society, but within one very typical American family.

But now, as an adult, I resist the idea of the landscape of having the power to reveal the self, to shape the contours of identity, and to heal. I find that a potent dream, not a reality - a dream so real and reliable that Hollywood and Madison Avenue can sell it time and time again.

In 2000, I found myself taking a very similar journey as the one portrayed in Elizabethtown. Imagine it as a collection of scenes with a corny soundtrack:

Alone on Skyline Drive off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Shenandoah National Park, December 21. Classic mountain driving road, with twists and turns and spectacular scenic overlooks. They've closed the road behind me - the park ranger said there was supposed to be a freezing rain soon. He looks at my sleek, fast car and says, "Enjoy." And I do - feeling each turn with my entire body, feeling as though the road was made for me alone. I stop at one roadside overlook. I get out, climb over the wall to a scale an enormous boulder perched over a 1000-foot drop-off, and sit there for an hour with the mountains endlessly rolling out below me, the valleys filled with fog, interrupted only by an occasional spark of remaining autumn foliage. I feel myself disappear - no breath, no thought, no body. There was just stillness.

There thousands of other moments. The chain link fence around the site of the bombed Federal Building in Oklahoma City. In it were woven pictures, poems, letters, flowers, stuffed animals – a spontaneous people’s memorial for the for victims of American terrorism, and a mememto mori meant for all of us.

Driving west along the old Route 66 listening to an audio book of the Grapes of Wrath.

Waking up before dawn in the high desert outside of Albuquerque, watching the desert turn deep rose and orange as the sun rises on the fresh dusting of snow that has fallen during the night. Again, I am alone as the "blue highway" ribbons ahead of me, the desert completely transformed in each new moment with light slanting, refracting from every snow-touched mesa.

Sunset, December 31st, 2000. I'm standing alone on the beach in "Surf City USA", Huntington Beach. There are clumps of quiet people around me, some holding candles. We're all watching the sun as it flattens and finally melts into the Pacific. It's as though we're trying to isolate that one moment, between one heartbeat and the next, before the sun slips under the edge of the world. I stand rooted in the sand, silent and quiescent in my inability to grasp the moment. To grasp its meaning for the mass of humanity celebrating it in their time and space, at each slipping of the sun. To grasp its meaning in the frame of my space and time. To grasp at its meaning for absent loved ones. And the evening and the morning were the last day.

To grasp at meaning. To will a mythology from the land. To construct whole-cloth out of the realm of the senses, from the no man's land between embodiment and longing, to bridge the chasm between self and not-self: this is to believe in an American mythos.

As if projected on the big screen at the cineplex, each of these moments were fraught with meaning. We are trained to read them at the same time as we experience them, in a sort of visual mytho-poetic language. We are not deaf and dumb - we hear the stories. Indeed, we cannot, nor should we, shut the stories out. But must we experience ourselves as utterly mediated by them?

My dream is to travel prior to this language, to twist and turn with the road, to join with it in silence.

No Invitations to Dinner from the New Hampshire Same-Sex Marriage Commission

Today in the Advocate.com:

"A New Hampshire commission on same-sex unions dealt a series of defeats Monday to proponents of same-sex marriage. The panel voted to urge state lawmakers not to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, not to recognize out-of-state same-sex unions, and not to set up a domestic-partner registry for couples who cannot legally marry. "

Concord Monitor, October 25, 2005:

"Despite voting on five other recommendations to include in the commission's Dec. 1 report to the Legislature, a majority of commissioners agreed on only one: that no one should have to perform a marriage that "offends his or her conscience."

The only thing the commission was able to reach consensus on was the "conscience" issue. Brilliant. By that standard, anti-miscegenation laws would still be permissible.

Democracy at its best: the "conscience" of the majority trumps civil rights.

From the 1967 unanimous Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia:

"Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law."

The day is coming when the US Supreme Court will regard sexual orientation as an "unsupportable basis" on which to deny fundamental freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution. The New Hampshire commission represents one step backward in the inevitable two steps forward. However, this sort of thing can be expected from state legislatures, which can be notoriously reactionary. The Alabama legislature didn't get rid of its anti-miscegenation law until 2000. The Massachusetts legislature still has not repealed a 1913 law supporting historic anti-miscegenation laws of other states, and is now applying it to same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts.

I'll not rely on your conscience to guarantee my civil rights, thank you all the same.

History's Actors

As an obsessive reader of the New York Times, I couldn't wait to see how last night's Cheney story was going to play out. I'm interested in the subtext of this story: the main stream media vs. the bloggers. Among a segment of bloggers, criticism of the MSM and the moral and technical superiority of blogging is as important as the content. I'm typically not drawn to that sort of debate.

The New York Times let me down today, in a serious way. And it's bloggers who are most clear about how and why.

Here's a great example from Trey Ellis:

"If you read Nicholas Kristof's New York Times column today you were as puzzled as I was. A usually thoughtful man was suddenly parroting the Republican talking points most recently uttered by Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison when she called the possibly forthcoming perjury indictments in Plamegate 'technicalities.'"

Today's front page article contained the following dubious spin:

"It would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom are presumably cleared to know the government's deepest secrets, to discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to impede the inquiry."

How is it that Grey Lady is being taken on such a ride? Who benefits?

Let me add my little voice to those who think Plamegate is worse than Watergate. Nixon wanted to punish the leakers of the Pentagon Papers, who shed a negative light on his administration's running of Vietnam War. His keystone cops broke into apsychiatrist'ss office to steal notes he hoped would discredit the leakers.

Scooter Libby blew an entire CIA operation in attempt to accomplish what Nixon tried. It's simply not a defense (nor even remotely plausible, frankly) to say he didn't know Plame was an undercover agent - he was in a position to know. It's also not plausible to think Cheney didn't authorize the leak. Nor is it plausible to think Cheney didn't mislead the federal grand jury and the press regarding his role in the debacle.

Bush's only defense is to say he didn't know what was going on. It worked for Reagan in Iran-Contra, after all. If Scooter is successful in shielding Cheney from indictment, then surely Cheney will be successful in shielding Bush from responsibility. But when the full story is told years from now, the truth will be every bit as ugly as Watergate, probably even more so. And the lack of consequences for the President and his party will look even more so like the American people slipping into a defensive fog of apathy and unreality. By then, Americans will have lost whatever will they had to participate in a Republic of the Real.

Journalist Ronald Suskin, writing in the New York Times (how did they let this through?) on Saturday 17 October 2004, right before the election:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend - but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

W's What-When Moment

I'm trying to follow this a bit before it hits the MSM news cycle in the morning (natch, CNN right now is totally Wilmafied).

Most of the postings on the serious blogs I'm reading say the Cheney didn't commit a crime - he simply shared classified information with his Chief of Staff, who also has security clearance. I think that's wrong, and thanks to Jane Hamsher for spelling it out: "Cheney lied. Under oath. Put any Republican (and a few DINOs) in the wayback machine, and they will tell you -- this is an impeachable offense."

Now it's WWW time: What did W know, and When did he know it?

Let's review:

Wednesday, February 11, 2004 Posted: 1:46 AM EST (0646 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Tuesday he welcomes a Justice Department investigation into who revealed the classified identity of a CIA operative.

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.

"I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job.

"I want to know the truth," the president continued. "Leaks of classified information are bad things."

He added that he did not know of "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information."

Bush said he has told his administration to cooperate fully with the investigation and asked anyone with knowledge of the case to come forward.

"Did somebody order a smoking gun?"

Knock at the door an hour ago. "Smoking gun? Did someone order a smoking gun?"

Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Notes Show

By DAVID JOHNSTON, RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: October 24, 2005 10:12 PM
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war.

I've been wondering for a while now, as apparently has padraig pearse at Daily Kos, if this had less to do with getting even with little Joseph Wilson and more to do with the White House needing to shut down the anti-WMD covert CIA operations run under the cover law firm in Boston, Brewster Jennings & Associates (Plame worked on these operations). I thought my speculations were in the 3 Days of the Condor territory, so I spun the conspiracy theory stuff just for the amusement of my family. But now I'm not so sure.

Why would Cheney blow that entire CIA operation, one that presumably was meant to provide exactly the intelligence needed to fight the "war on terror", by revealing Plame, simply for simple political revenge? It didn't make a whole of sense to me.

Pearse at Daily Kos says: "It's the kind of irrational motive, the desire for vengence, that seems to run in the veins of these maniacal types and so often predicates their downfalls." Perhaps once again I'm giving these guys more credit than they deserve, but surely they're just a bit smarter than that? Cheney isn't Nixon, after all. I would bet discrediting Wilson was opportunistic, and outing Plame the icing on the cake. The real reason must of been to blow the Brewster Jennings operations. That's what my conspiratorial mind is whispering, anyhow. On respondent on the thread offers a suggestion: was the CIA somehow blackmailing Cheney by threatening to make this widely known?

"Scandal-plagued Halliburton -- the oil services company once headed by Vice President Cheney -- sold an Iranian oil development company key components for a nuclear reactor, say Halliburton sources with intimate knowledge into both companiesÂ’ business dealings. Halliburton was secretly working at the time with one of IranÂ’s top nuclear program officials on natural gas related projects and sold the components in April to the official's oil development company, the sources said. "

Or perhaps the Brewster Jennings operation simply revealed, incontrovertibly, that Cheney and Rumsfield were misleading the world about WMD in Iraq. Time will tell. Stay tuned for book deals and movie rights.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking more about a play I want to write that I'm researching right now. The idea is to use direct transcripts of tapes made in the Oval Office and State department during the Nixon administration discussing bombing dikes in North Vietnam, and the possibility of using nukes in Vietnam. I'd simply have the characters of Kissinger, McNamarra, Nixon, etc., repeat what they actually said - explicatives included. However, they roles would be played by women, and the setting would be the sunken living room and the upstairs den in the 1970s Brady Bunch California ranch house. I think it could work. I was hoping to draw implict parallels to the way representations in our current popular culture of the Presidency, gender roles, and American military power are still radically divorced from the current realities. However, I think this point may be being made for me, starting tonight. Is a play necessary, or is it just harping? At least it would be funny. Think of the possibilities for Alice (played by a man in drag), and commericals playing on Brady living room TV. Well, I might amuse myself with it, anyhow.

Fool me Once, Condi

Fool me once, shame on me...

I was one of those hand-wringing liberals who initially supported the Iraq war for the humanitarian reasons that Tony Blair and others so eloquently articulated. I saw Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime as the latest iteration of fascist, genocidal totalitarianism. I thought the UN was powerless to intervene, given that France and Germany were more interested in creating an EU counter-balance to oppose the US unipolar "superpower" status than they were in solving problems in the Middle East. If the international community was unwilling to act to end Saddam's reign of terror, then why not let the Bush and Blair administrations try? Wasn't that better than doing nothing to stop the spread of Islamo-fascism?

Boy, was I wrong.

Shrub, the failed Texas oilman, and his oil cartel cronies were never the men for the job. Even when they send a woman to do it, as happened yesterday when Condi testified to the Congress yesterday that Syria is now in the administration's cross hairs.

Haaretz is the voice of reason on this issue, although I fear their faith in Condi, charming as she is, is misplaced. We've been down that road before, with the "moderate" Colin Powell.

"Assad is not an enlightened ruler who does good for his people, but the alternative to his regime would not necessarily be any better. The regime's opponents represent extremist ideologies, both religious and nonreligious. An American invasion of Syria - even if it had British and French support along with UN approval - would be liable to create a second Iraq, this time on Israel's border. In the aftermath of a western invasion, the terror trickling from Syria into Iraq might also start trickling south and east, into Israel. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted this week that the military option is always on the president's desk. But for now, it must be hoped that the diplomatic approach led by Rice, who is more moderate than other voices in the Bush administration, will achieve the desired results without any military entanglements." Haaretz editorial, 10-21-2005

Sleepless in Sudan

Just found this extraordinary blog:

Sleepless in Sudan. Uncensored, direct from a dazed & confused aid worker in Darfur, Sudan


Saturday, October 15, 2005
"News that the United Nations is pulling all non-essential staff out of West Darfur sends my mother into hysterics again today. It takes me a while to understand what the faraway voice on the other side of the satellite phone is going on about, but finally I remember that I heard about this in one of the aid agency coordination meetings. "Mother, I spoke to some friends in Geneina (the capital of West Darfur) yesterday. NO ONE has left - they've still got the same 15 or so people there that they always do. Yes, I'm fine, well, at least nothing has changed in the place where I'm working."

Tuesday, October 18, 2005
"The Canadians have been kind enough to provide the troops with some important gear at this crucial moment - and if the international community could now push just a little bit more to make sure these trucks actually arrive in the place where they're meant to have an impact, that - for me - would be a small solution in today's minefield of problems."

Masada, Liebestod, and Myths to Live By

My recent trip to Israel was nothing if not intense - but it was my visit to Masada that has raised the most questions in my mind.

I knew nothing of the story before I went on a day tour of the Dead Sea region. However, it took all of 10 minutes or so to bring me up to speed on the overwhelmingly dramatic nature of this World Heritage Site. Alarm bells began ringing in my mind before we ever ascended to the top of the fortress on the cliff. The film shown to tourists in the interpretive center at the cliff's base unequivocally presented the archeology as telling a mythic, heroic narrative of Jewish struggle against oppression and slavery. It wasn't at all subtle - perhaps it didn't want to be - how else to explain the intercutting of scenes from the Peter O'Toole miniseries?

The moral of the story is so simple it can be echoed on New Hampshire license plates: Live Free or Die. It is a story so compelling and simple that it is the thing that most captured the imagination of my 4-year old upon my return: "show me pictures of the Romans, Mom!" (I'm afraid she was disappointed by the pictures I did have - of mosaics and pigeon holes - not nearly as dynamic as battering rams!)

I was primed to be moved by the story of Masada - its use to the young Jews of Palestine, its use in the claims of Zionism, its refutation of the ugly anti-Semitic canards of Jewish weakness and degeneracy. My visit the day before to Yad Vashem left me especially open to the experience.

It wasn't until my return to home, to my habitual postmodern skepticism and credulity, that I thought to investigate further.

As it turns out, the story is about the Power of Myth, not about what can be known about what happened there in the year 73 CE. I'm moved by the idea of those kids struggling up the Snake Path in the 1940s, to emerge on top with all of Judea laid out before them. I can begin to feel what this site meant to the Zionist youth movement. I can even admire the Superhero the story has inspired. But I also can feel how the excesses of some, fed in part by this myth, affect the Palestinian people every day.

Hebrew literary critic Robert Alter says

"Torch-lit military ceremonies on top of Masada are, I fear, a literal and dubious translation into public life of a literary metaphor and a Prime Minister's subsuming Holocaust, pogroms, and Israel's present state of siege under the rubric of Masada might be the kind of hangover from poetry that could befuddle thinking on urgent political issues."

In retrospect, Masada for me is about accepting the contradictions of history, evidence, myth, and the will to survive, without becoming "befuddled" by the lure of poetry.

I've tried to highlight those contradictions in the title of this blog "weltatem" - world breath. Many have asked me what this means. It's what Isolde sings at the moment of her death in Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde. This is Isolde's struggle - to overcome the contradictions of reality and desire, in her wish to leave behind separateness and struggle by surrendering to the unending unity of the world's breath. But what she accepts is self-destruction and death - not freedom, and certainly not transcendence. No matter how beautiful the music.

Masada, dramatic visually and in the imagination beset by fear and longing, becomes yet another site not only contest meanings, but a place to take a stand on how best to live in - and with - the world.

"History is in itself an act of interpretation. [...] All of us are shaped by appropriated images, and it is a salutary lesson to reflect on the construction of meaning and tradition in a political reality which is beset by emotional appeals to questionable meanings." from Gwendolyn Leick's review of The Masada Myth

Masada reminds me of one of my tasks here: not simply to question meanings or debunk myths, but to explore the myriad ways that "all of us are shaped by appropriated images."

Initiatives for the Taking: Supporting Rape Prevention in Darfur

Mood of the day: apocalyptic.

No, not my mood, although you may not know it from all the oh-s0-dramatic gloom-and-doom in this young blog.

It's that old black magic, the zeitgeist. That hoary old ghost has been rather one-note lately on the supposed intellectual bankruptcy of the Democratic Party. This specter is haunting left, right and center, as does any good zeitgeist, but it was framed in it's most timely form by Charles Krauthammer in his Washington Post column :

"What has happened to the Democrats over the past few decades is best captured by the phrase (coined by Kevin Phillips) "reactionary liberalism." Spent of new ideas, they have but one remaining idea: to hang on to the status quo at all costs. This is true across the board."

Zeitgeists always make me want to get a new watch.

So, in that spirit, I'm starting a little feature here at weltatem - let's call it Initiatives for the Taking.

I'm inspired by the free spirits of Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Cornel West who insist that

"motivated, sustained and cumulative tinkering with institutional arrangements is an indispensable tool of democratic experimentalism, of improvisational reform, of jazzlike public action.

To be a Progressive is to, above all, insist on public action. It is to insist on reforms that lead to greater freedom and quality of life. It is to believe that improvisation means doing better. It is to do better.

Here's one specific example of how we can do better in Darfur.

Today's Initiative for the Taking: the Genocide Intervention Network.

GI-Net is supporting the radically underfunded African Union peacekeeping mission to help protect the citizens of Darfur. One concrete example of what they are supporting is rape prevention by helping the AU personnel provide armed escorts for women and girls as they search for firewood outside refugee camps in North Darfur.

The solution for Darfur, by Romeo Dallaire (The Ottawa Citizen , June 24, 2005)

"Based on my experience as commander of the United Nations Force in Rwanda in 1994, and everything I have learned since, I believe the best hope for Darfur right now is for the wealthy countries of the West, like Canada, to do all they can to support the African Union in its efforts to bring security and stability to Darfur....in the areas where the African Union Mission (AMIS) is deployed the security situation is vastly improved -- reducing fear among the local populations and permitting humanitarian aid to get through. The AU force is extremely effective in the areas in which it is present; but they must be supported and reinforced so they are able to increase their presence across the region. What the AU forces lack are the "force multipliers," tactical mobility, as well as the strategic airlift that would make them most effective. They require helicopters, and armored vehicles. And the commanders of this mission require the resources that would allow them to establish a proper headquarters with communications to improve their command and control function. The Darfur mission needs exactly what I needed in Rwanda --but did not get."

What can Americans do? Call their senators and representatives to urge their support for the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act . That is merely a start. Think about divesting. Think about hosting a Dinner for Darfur. Get informed, get involved.

"Never again" isn't just a nice idea. It's not a slogan. It's taking action.

Music of the Spheres: On Dr. Atomic, Masculinity, and Mushrooms Clouds

There was a glowing (ahem) review yesterday in the New York Times of John Adams's new opera Dr. Atomic. I read it with great interest, especially after Alex Ross's exquisitely written review in The New Yorker (October 3, 2005). Ross says "In Adams's telling, the bomb bears down like Fate incarnate, inevitable and irrevocable. Sellars [the director] sees unexpected grace and hope blossoming around the explosion." Two things I would love to do: write a review as good as Ross's, and develop an undergrad interdisciplinary history class called "The Culture of the Bomb." Well, three things, if you count going to San Francisco to hear this wondrous opera.

The reading list for that imaginary course:

Richard Rhodes: The Making of the Atomic Bomb (one of the best books I've ever read, incidentally)
Paul Boyer: By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age
Elaine Tyler May: Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin: American Prometheus : The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Thomas Powers: Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb

Michael Frayne: Copenhagen

Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964)
Fail-Safe (1964)
The Atomic Cafe (1982)
The Day After (Made for TV, 1983)

One of the themes of this course would be how ideas of masculinity and weakness are used to manage fears of nuclear annihilation. This analysis would serve to highlight how these ideas and techniques are still dominate today. Just two pithy quotes from The President of the United States:

"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof - the smoking gun - that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." (George W. Bush, October 8, 2002)

"If Al Qaeda and their ideologues were able to secure a nuclear arsenal, then your children would grow up under the threat of nuclear blackmail. I think you would look back and say, 'Why did George Bush not hold the line?' We cannot show weakness in this world today, because the enemy will exploit that weakness. It will embolden them and make the world a more dangerous place. " (George W. Bush to Matt Lauer, Today Show, September 2, 2004)

Here's an interesting look at the problem from Lisa Fuller: George W. Bush in From Baghdad with Love: The Exploitation of Masculinity in Marketing the War in Iraq to the American Public

Tiburon Remixed

Zephoria's thoughts on remixing has gotten me thinking about how I might do this with poetry. An attempt:

Scrunched by the window
on the 39 bus,
distracted from the New Yorker -
glancing my reflection I
read the lines

Tiburon

How sweet to lie just once like a painter,
propped at the top of that hill on my elbow,
considering the conundrum of breath.

Grasses blow among my limbs
as if wisdom ad been withdrawn
for safekeeping into the library of fragments.

I have no purpose except to return
back down towards a eucalyptus I love.
Its petals are filled with the terrible weight

of careless reversal, grief without consequence.
It burns with such ease.
Just to stand there below it, dreaming of union,

all trembling and scent and colors of the moment,
is like living inside a flower
while making a study of winter.

Blue span that leads to a gleaming city,
you cannot be crossed by longing.

Matthew Zapruder, were you there
that day in the park
I was 11

perhaps, or
is this unexpected reminder of childhood
nostalgia for nostalgia?
Ostalgie, Westalgia

The bus window begins to fog
as if in sympathy with
that city by the bay

Partly sunny, partly cloudy
Always this distance, this distance.

["Tiburon," by Matthew Zapruder]

The Mystery of the Megaflood

Another rainy Saturday. But not just any rainy Saturday - there's major flooding now in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Today might be a good day to get out those ark blueprints.

Which reminded me of this fantastic episode of Nova I saw on PBS a few weeks ago - The Mystery of the Megaflood.

It had all the elements I love - a great history of science sleuthing story, a disaster movie, gorgeous photography, and one of those ideas that truly boggle the mind and challenge one's imagination.

I also love the story because it recalls to me the many hours of argument with my mother about Noah's Ark and geological time. My poor mom, she puts up with a lot from me. (-; She lives near Portland, Oregon, and these landscapes are so familiar, and something like sacred to her. She passed that love of the landscape on to her kids. It's such a kick to see them in the mind's eye as part of a cataclysm, not just home. I'm strange that way. Maybe it's one way growing up with Noah's story affected me. But the Megaflood - now there's a flood I can understand!

There's legislation proposed in Congress that the National Park Service establish an Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail. I think that would be like, totally cool, you know? I would love to someday take my daughter on that trip. Just the drive from the plains of Eastern Washington down the Columbia River Valley Gorge Highway, heading west and arriving at Crown Point just as the sun is beginning to set - just that is one of the greatest scenic drives in America. How much more fun to take to the road with the vision of the flood waters in your mind's eye, and an understanding of the spectacular geology around you enhancing the beauty. Good times.

Harriet Miers, Supreme Court Nominee and New Blogger

Now I understand why W. loves Harry!

Click on over to Harriet Miers's blog, and I think you'll want to vote to confirm as well. The best blog ever!!!

Thanks, Harriet, especially for this - it warms my heart, and makes me less nervous about cases from Texas like Johnson v. Johnson that you might have to rule on when you're confirmed (BTW, don't worry about that whole hearing thingy - W. put in a good word with The Man Upstairs).

The Log in My Own Eye: The Implicit Association Test

After implicitly castigating entire subpopulations of the continent of Europe, I decided a little self-critique is in order.

Do we always recognize hatred and fear within ourselves? Can we admit to our biases?

These are necessary first questions I ask myself.

"Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone but only his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind." Dostoyevsky Notes from the Underground (taken from the IAT site)

Malcolm Gladwell's interesting book Blink first suggested to me a way to test my biases. It's the Harvard Implicit Association Test. Check it out. If you register, you will also be helping the researchers to collect data (good karma!).

Turns out my unconscious strongly prefers Canadians to Americans, gays to straights, order to chaos, for a start. I'm curious about your reactions to the test - what do you think of having your unconscious dragged into the harsh light of day? Is knowledge power?

Here's Insight Junkie's interesting take on the test from the perspective of Buddhist notions of the self and dualities.

And for the even more pathologically curious, "Fear Race and the Unconscious" explores the cognitive neuroscience behind the test.

Mapping Hatred

Here was my wake-up call for today, a fillip to my tendency to idealize socially liberal and tolerant Europe. Philip Dhingra has posted his "visualization of the spread of anti-Semitism in Europe" on his wonderfully-titled blog Philosophistry. It's a bold deployment of Cartesian rationality against irrational hatred - a gutsy move in this postermodern era, especially for someone like himself who equates Plato and the Sophists.

Progressivism: Exciting and New, Come Aboard...We're Expecting You

I've been mulling over the implications of calling myself a political Progressive, especially in response to my earlier post on Obama and the political rhetoric of centrism.

I can see that I'm being driven to produce my very own "Progressive Manifesto: Why I Stopped Worrying and Embraced the Idea of Progress."

OK, so it's not quite ready yet. It's still driving. Lots of bumps and swerves still to be taken.

But until then, I like Andrew Leigh's take on Obama's essay. In a nice turn of jargon, Leigh calls it a "progressive rationale for evidence-driven policymaking." He excepts this part of Obama's essay:

Let me be clear: I am not arguing that the Democrats should trim their sails and be more "centrist." In fact, I think the whole "centrist" versus "liberal" labels that continue to characterize the debate within the Democratic Party misses the mark. Too often, the "centrist" label seems to mean compromise for compromise sake, whereas on issues like health care, energy, education and tackling poverty, I don't think Democrats have been bold enough. But I do think that being bold involves more than just putting more money into existing programs and will instead require us to admit that some existing programs and policies don't work very well. And further, it will require us to innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise (including market- or faith-based ideas that originate from Republicans).

OK, except for the detestable "let me be clear," that's great stuff. Rhetorically speaking, that is.

Watch this space for the Manifesto scratching to get out. It'll it be bold and innovative - I'm thinking John Dewey and the Suffragettes. Cutting-edge and experimental! Invest now, while it's just an IPO.

Yad Vashem: Naming, Remembering, and Acting

I visited the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC nearly 15 years ago, and the memories are still indelible. So I thought I would be prepared for what I would find in my visit to Yad Vahsem, last week in Jerusalem.

I was not. Surprisingly, it was the building itself that stunned me. I've never experienced a space so evocative in its starkness, so inexorable in its narrative line.

At times I found myself going numb. At times I merely evaluated the exhibit materials with historian's objectivity and questions about the curatorial choices. But time after time the building stopped me short. It led me not only to better understand, but to bear witness.

The building led me in many ways, especially in revealing the survivors' courage in telling their stories in powerful, first-person video narratives. Their faces and their words will not leave me. But it was the collection of empty shoes that undid me. I had been doing fairly well at maintaining a sort of solemn, scholarly reserve until those shoes. It was the number of them exactly my daughter's size that stopped me short, rooted to the spot for a seemingly unending moment. I felt as if I could not go on.

At last the building drew me forward, opening into an upsurge of daylight framed in concrete. I stepped out into a cantilevered view of the Land of Israel.

I understood for the first time.

********

I am haunted by what our tour guide said as she led us to the building's entrance. She said "Please, never, ever forget this: it didn't have to happen."

One person who isn't letting us forget is the NYTimes columnist Nicholas Kristof. His column last Saturday "Walk the Talk" reminded me the things is to do something, not just to fret after dutifully reading with concern books like Samantha Power's "A Problem From Hell: American in the Age of Genocide." (see here for Powers on Rwanda and Darfur)

Yad Vashem challenged me: the land is spread out before you. You have the knowledge. What shall you make of it?

Obama and the Politics of Rhetoric and Truth

Barak Obama's blog entry of September 30th, "Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party," articulates exactly the kind of message I like to hear in politics and in life:

I am not drawing a facile equivalence here between progressive advocacy groups and right-wing advocacy groups. The consequences of their ideas are vastly different. Fighting on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable is not the same as fighting for homophobia and Halliburton. But to the degree that we brook no dissent within the Democratic Party, and demand fealty to the one, "true" progressive vision for the country, we risk the very thoughtfulness and openness to new ideas that are required to move this country forward. When we lash out at those who share our fundamental values because they have not met the criteria of every single item on our progressive "checklist," then we are essentially preventing them from thinking in new ways about problems. We are tying them up in a straightjacket and forcing them into a conversation only with the converted.

I've also heard Hillary articulate this message in the past. The question in my mind is if their trust in the "American people" is largely wishful thinking. I think the point is extremely well-taken for those of us with committed, passionate political opinions. But is there really a significant group of voters out there open to new thinking if only the debate was elevated to some other, somehow more widely preferred and preferable plane?

Or is this a lovely bit of pandering to the self-considered reasonable, a claim to be the candidate of the adult wing of the Democratic party?

Can this lovely rhetoric change any of the colors on the electoral map?

Recall that Plato, seeking the form of Truth, still cannot answer the Rhetorician Gorgias without rigging the debate. Gorgias asks:

"What is there greater than the word which persuades the judges in the courts, or the senators in the council, or the citizens in the assembly, or at any other political meeting?-if you have the power of uttering this word, you will have the physician your slave, and the trainer your slave, and the money-maker of whom you talk will be found to gather treasures, not for himself, but for you who are able to speak and to persuade the multitude."

Mia, Guest Blogger

Today's guest blogger: my four year old daughter, Mia. This is a picture she took of me, which I think shows precocious talent, as well as a good idea of how tall she is. (I'm exercising my obnoxious parent prerogative here, clearly!)

Mia's entry for today:

"Today is a really pouring pouring rainy rainy day. Jus' a minute, I have to go to the bathroom."

Women Posting at God's Letterbox

One of the most intense moments from my day in Jerusalem last week happened at the small corner of the Western Wall reserved for women. I approached the Wall overwhelmed by conflicting feelings. I had spent the morning bombarded by childhood memories of the stories I had imbibed daily of just these mystical places. My child's mind didn't imagine these places as real. My adult perception was awed by the human scale of the stories, the vibrant living aliveness of the people's ongoing engagement with the patriarchs' love for and struggle with the One True God. I've never experienced a place in the world so continuous with its past. Life here was being live at an exponentially high intensity level. I felt it strongly as I approached the Wall, the place religious Jews feel God to be most present on the earth. And yet, I felt in my lack of faith and rejection of the God of Abraham strangely apart from it all. Irreverently, the question passed through my mind if this is how straight people feel at gay pride parades.

However, as I quietly moved with the women worshipping at the Wall, I was suddenly filled with a sense of unity, of the mistakeness of the idea of division. I felt overwhelmed with love for these women and for each of the prayers they offered at the Wall, written on tiny bits of paper so carefully tucked into its crumbling crevices. I have never been amongst such a diverse group of women, if measured in terms of visible identities, yet a group enacting such an ancient ritual.

If I'm wrong, and the God of Abraham is still taking messages, he'll laugh at the hubristic little truism I offered. All around our feet were tiny scraps of paper with prayers written on them, scraps that had come dislodged from their places of refuge on the wall. I pick one up, noted its prayer in a language and script I didn't recognize, and wrote mine on the opposite side: "We are all one." I tucked it back into the Wall, aware of projecting my own desires onto that Wall, aware of the absurdity, and profoundly grateful to be amongst generation after generation of women to do so.

The Tyrannous Strategy of Low Expectations

Stewing today over the implications of the Senator Miller Tale, I've been cooking up nightmares of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" flavor.

In Tuesday's Dallas Morning News, a former campaign manager of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers was interviewed regarding Miers' views on abortion:

"She is on the extreme end of the anti-choice movement," said Lorlee Bartos, who managed Ms. Miers' first and only political campaign and said they discussed abortion once during the race."

"I think Harriet's belief was pretty strongly felt," Ms. Bartos said Monday. "I suspect she is of the same cloth as the president."

Ms. Bartos said Ms. Miers was supportive of abortion rights in her youth. She said Ms. Miers then underwent "a born-again, profound experience" that caused her to oppose abortion.

Here's where things get fishy. The Morning News predictably spun this story in the same direction as most of the news cycle: it was conservatives who should be nervous about Miers' anti-choice reliability. The article was entitled "Ex-aide: Miers opposed abortion in 1989; stance now is unknown." Today's New York Times op-ed piece by Francis Wilkenson entitled "Another Republican for Roe?" bolstered those fears by saying:

But no group will have more cause for suspicion than the anti-abortion stalwarts who make up the backbone of the Republican Party. They've suffered multiple betrayals at the highest level. But they keep putting their faith in Republican presidents just the same. And like that most faith-based character of all, Charlie Brown, many of them still seem to believe that, one of these days, their friend in the White House, like a penitent Lucy, really will let them kick that political football named Roe.

What if, similar to Senator Miller's performance today, the Bush nominating strategy is to produce a great big flashbang of misdirection? What if, when smoke clears and the hysteria abates, what remains then looks like the soul of moderation? Sure, conservatives might momentarily look a little foolish in the eyes of those inclined to see them as right wingnuts anyhow, but losing the battle of one news cycle might very well mean winning their war.

And you know, just for the record, Hillary was right about that "vast right-wing conspiracy" thing, when it was all said and done.

My Womb as a Trial Balloon

Well, apparently the Senator Miller saga may still be happening, but not quite in the same way. Late yesterday afternoon, the same afternoon the blogosphere erupted with this story, Senator Miller withdrew the bill from her committee, issuing a short statement: “The issue has become more complex than anticipated and will be withdrawn from consideration by the Health Finance Commission.”

What's interesting about this, and deserves our close attention, is that some in the Hoosier state are suggesting this may be part of Senator Miller's overall legislative strategy. Especially of interest is Marla Steven's blog entry yesterday, "Indiana as Fundamentalist Dystopia or Patricia Miller's Real Life Handmaid's Tale -- Expanded Hoosier Strategy Version."

You just know this kind of national attention will garner support in some quarters for a Miller bid for the US Congress or Senate.

Ripped from the Headlines: Senator Deauthorizes My Womb

Today’s Indianapolis Star article, “Assisted-reproduction bill would bar singles, gays” has left me chilled and shaken, and not in that good martini way.

When were the Jews certain it was time to get out of Germany? Over-reaction, you say, but hey, that’s what’s going through my mind right now.

Indiana State Senator Patricia Miller, Republican from Indianapolis, introduced a draft of the bill to the Heath Finance Committee, which she chairs (she is pictured to the left). The Committee will vote by October 20th whether to recommend the bill to the full Legislative Assembly.

According to the bill, assisted pregnancies must first be “authorized,” says the The Indiana Law Blog.

“A doctor can’t begin an assisted reproduction technology procedure that may result in a child’s being born until the intended parents of the child have received a certificate of satisfactory completion of an assessment required under the bill.”

Such assessment requires “A description of the family lifestyle of the intended parents […], including individual participation in faith-based or church activities.”

And oh yes, the "intended parents" must be one man, one woman, living in wedded bliss.

Senator Miller authored the recently enacted abortion bill requiring a “a health care provider to provide a pregnant woman with information regarding the availability of ultrasound imaging and auscultation of heart tones of a fetus before performing an abortion on the pregnant woman. Allows a pregnant woman to view the fetal ultrasound imaging and hear the auscultation of the fetal heart tone before an abortion is performed.”

This is really happening.

Damsels in Distress

I promised you the story Andromeda and Perseus, but the question is, whose story?

So there I am, on the beach late at night in Tel Aviv, sprawled in a deck chair with my feet in the gentle surf of the Mediterranean, sipping on a Guinness. The Guinness is making me muse again about Andromeda’s Rock in the harbor, and the bubble of Western “civilization” that I seem to live within all around the world. I would love to fancy myself a “citizen of the world,” as the traveling classes from Victorian Great Britain and New England did a century before me, but it’s manifestly obvious, sitting there, that my cosmopolitan pretensions are just that. Waiter, another Guinness, please.

As my knee jerks, I continue to muse about the problem in terms of gender, and my mind turns to another Bostonian, Thomas Bulfinch, whose Mythology reveals less about that rock in the harbor, and more about 19th century ideas of women and culture. I’ll let him tell the tale – the language is priceless:

Perseus, continuing his flight, arrived at the country of the Ethiopians, of which Cepheus was king. Cassiopeia his queen, proud of her beauty, had dared to compare herself to the Sea-Nymphs, which roused their indignation to such a degree that they sent a prodigious sea-monster to ravage the coast. To appease the deities, Cepheus was directed by the oracle to expose his daughter Andromeda to be devoured by the monster. As Perseus looked down from his aerial height he beheld Andromeda chained to a rock, and waiting the approach of the serpent. She was so pale and motionless that if it had not been for her flowing tears and her hair that moved in the breeze, he would have taken her for a marble statue. He was so startled at the sight that he almost forgot to wave his wings.

As he hovered over her he said, "O virgin, undeserving of those chains, but rather of such as bind fond lovers together, tell me, I beseech you, your name, and the name of your country, and why you are thus bound." At first she was silent from modesty, and, if she could, would have hid her face with her hands; but when he repeated his questions, for fear she might be thought guilty of some fault which she dared not tell, she disclosed her name and that of her country, and her mother's pride of beauty. Before she had done speaking, a sound was heard off upon the water, and the sea-monster appeared, with his head raised above the surface, cleaving the waves with his broad breast. Andromeda shrieked, the father and mother who had now arrived at the scene, wretched both, but the mother more justly so, stood by, not able to afford protection, but only to pour forth lamentations and to embrace the victim. Then spoke Perseus: "There will be time enough for tears; this hour is all we have for rescue. My rank as the son of Zeus and my renown as the slayer of the Gorgon might make me acceptable as a suitor; but I will try to win her by services rendered, if the gods will only be propitious. If she be rescued by my valor, I demand that she be my reward." The parents consent (how could they hesitate?) and promise a royal dowry with her.

And now the monster was within the range of a stone thrown by a skillful slinger, when with a sudden bound the youth soared into the air. As an eagle, when from his lofty flight he sees a serpent basking in the sun, pounces upon him and seizes him by the neck to prevent him from turning his head round and using his fangs, so the youth darted down upon the back of the monster and plunged his sword into its shoulder. Irritated by the wound, the monster raised himself into the air, then plunged into the depth; then, like a wild boar surrounded by a pack of barking dogs, turned swiftly from side to side, while the youth eluded its attacks by
means of his wings. Wherever he can find a passage for his sword between the scales he makes a wound, piercing now the side, now the flank, as it slopes towards the tail. The brute spouts from his nostrils water mixed with blood. The wings of the hero are wet with it, and he dares no longer to trust to them.

Alighting on a rock which rose above the waves, and holding on by a projecting fragment, as the monster floated near he gave him a death stroke. The people who had gathered on the shore shouted so that the hills reechoed the sound. The parents, transported with joy, embraced their future son-in-law, calling him their deliverer and the savior of their house, and Andromeda, both cause and reward of the contest, descended from the rock.

For another priceless version, this one from a Victorian poet writing for children, check out Charles Kingley's Adventures of the Greek Hero Perseus.

Why all the musing, apart from the Guinness? It’s probably because on that day alone I was hit on by four different Israeli men. Trust me, this simply does not happen in Boston, or very commonly elsewhere in my travels. I immediately understood this wasn’t about me, but about the customs of the place. But the sense of “difference” I with which I walked around, being continually stared by men at and not wanting to meet anyone’s eye, made me feel paradoxically foreign and yet quintessentially “woman” in a not-quite Western city.

The men who hit on me were all total strangers. They had an odd kind of graciousness and respect – I never once felt threatened, and they all politely took “no” for an answer. I asked my colleagues what was up - was it my paranoia, or is it that Israeli men really do stare at women? They laughed uproariously, and said this was well-known, but I should take it as a compliment, which was obviously their way of being, once again, gracious.

So, what does a damsel in distress look like? On a tour to the Dead Sea a few days later, I met two women, one American and one from New Zealand, who had deeply frightening experiences with Arab (?) men while walking alone in Jerusalem. One woman told of being taken forcibly into a shop by the merchant and led to a back room. He told her “you be good to me, and I’ll be good to you.” She wasn’t able to leave until she had spent $300 on trinkets. Whatever was going through the man’s mind, she was extremely shaken by the experience.

The view of the ancient world and the Holy Lands as seen by the Victorians is still alive within us and in the world, but in a world made even more complicated by the ever-increasing twists and turns of modernity. One thing is certain: a woman needs to struggle keep herself off those rocks, no matter if they lead to a permanent place amongst the stars.

So, there I am, sitting in the old port of Jaffa, dining on baked sea bream stuffed with kalamata olives and marigold leaves, drinking a lovely Israeli cabernet sauvingnon, looking out at the Mediterranean. My companions are telling me the story of Jonah and the Whale. Legend has it that Jonah washed up on the beach just below where we are sitting. That's how hold Jaffa is. Not just old, but mind-bogglingly old. In fact, it's the oldest port in the world - 4,000 years old. People have sat in this spot, eating fish, drinking wine, and telling stories for so long that I can't quite get my head around it.

My delightful dinner companions, four Israeli engineers, are telling me another story - this one of the Perseus' rescue of Andromeda. Our restaurant overlooks Andromeda's rock, out in the waters of the port. This story bears careful telling - I'll save it for my return to the more prosaic shores of the Atlantic.

Tomorrow, Jerusalem.

Promising land

There's a lot to be said for staying flexible! (not only in the downward-facing dog sense, that is) Imagine my surprise when some colleagues of mine asked if I could come to spend several days with them working on a project with them... in Israel. Leaving... tomorrow.

Sure!

Above is a picture of the hotel where I'll be staying in Tel Aviv. I don't think we'll be working on the beach...

I'm such a kid about travel - I get all giddy with excitement, and leave the worrying to my loved ones left at home.

I'll try to blog from the Holy Land - I just love the myriad implications of that act. It's just so Tom Friedman.

Meanwhile, back at the raunch

My buddy Toggle Switch just drew my attention to the Wall Street Journal review of Ariel Levy’s new book , Female Chauvinist Pigs : Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. I saw the rather uninspired review in the Sunday Times Book Review this week; it passed through my mind like it had a speedpass to Whatever Land.

I mean, where’s the mystery in the question of why women sexually objectify each other and themselves? We live in a sexist, sexually unliberated culture. It’s like asking why rich people live on the high ground and poor people live below sea level. It’s the system, baby.

However, Toggs got me to read another review, and reconsider the question in the light of the exchanges we gang of snarkers at Television Without Pity have been having about this very problem (problem?). Levy is looking at the “jigglefest” of Charlie’s Angels, among other lovely examples, but we’re really grasping the nettle and looking at The L Word, where female chauvinism abounds in the writers’ room, on the screen, and in the audience, amongst of all people, - gasp - lesbians. Levy’s questions are unavoidable if you want to even dip a toe into shark-infested waters of lesbian chic and voyeuristic pleasure.

So, perhaps this book is worth keeping on the radar screen after all – at least in so far as it inspires more dialogue. Maybe I’ll even read it! If any of you have, or haven’t and still want to talk about it, there’s that little button right there.

We Believers

If you are an overeducated (or at least a semi-overeducated) youngish person with a sleep disorder and a surfeit of opinions, the thing to do, after all, is to start a blog. (A. O. Scott, “Among the Believers,” New York Times Magazine, September 12, 2005)

Imagine my surprise, laying sprawled and quiescent upon my couch while reading the Sunday Times, to receive this gentle jab in the ribs, a reminder of the

desire to rescue thought, feeling and ambition from the quotation marks that seem perpetually affixed to them, to recover the possibility of earnest emotion, ethical commitment and serious thought. That desire can find any number of outlets, one of which might be -- why not? -- starting a literary journal, a small magazine. (Scott, September 12, 2005)

How ironic is it that this was the jolt I needed to start, not a literary journal, but a blog? Already, “ambition” is in quotation marks as I begin, but a blog is an outlet of desire, surely. If the literary journals to which Scott refers, The Believer and n + 1, seek to spur intellectual engagement, then here’s my little giddy-up.

Just so you understand, I’m going to crib their courage from them, from their faith in the possibility of connection and transcendence through engaged thought and sincerity. I needed a timely example of temerity such as theirs, to approach once again the stinking-to-high-heavens idea of progress.

Is it possible to think and read and discuss a way towards belonging and connecting?

Does the possibility of transcendence flow from merely showing up? Is transcendence even real?

Can one simply breathe in the world breath and forget the self, the self who longs and longs to become?

Can these pursuits deepen one’s sensitivity and responsiveness to the suffering of others?

Will this be anything more than a slow pile-up at the intersection of sentimentality and self-indulgence?

Will there emerge from the wreckage anything like verities, elegant and bare (precisely not of the sort parodied here)?

The questions are foolish. The longing to know is dangerously naïve.

Open mouth - already mistaken, as the Zen master says.

OK, so that’s how it going to be: mistakes ahead. At least the company is good.

On my refrigerator door I have a magnet and clipping, as if I could imbibe their wisdom by opening the door to get the splash of milk for my morning coffee (see, already with the mockery!). One is Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet, admonishing me

to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

There is something pleasantly perverse about blogging one’s way towards living the questions rather than searching for the answers. But Scott’s profile of the bright young things of the new literary journals, and their unapologetic commitment to progress through engagement, put me in mind of my other refrigerator oracle, Keats’ familiar ode to “Men of Achievement” in literature, who possess that magical

Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason

So, I’m getting up off the couch – just for a moment – long enough to plug in the Mac and pour a cup of joe, and taking up the challenge of the fridge door, The Believer and n + 1, and blogging my way into the conversation. Join me and the rest of the hopefully bewildered – it might just be fun.