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Excellent Avatar Review

2010-01-09T14:43:00.006-05:00

Conor Friedersdorf is one of the most intelligent, clear thinking, and intellectually honest writers on the internet right now, and his review of Avatar is worth reading, especially if you want a more in-depth political/philosophical analysis than Ebert's or the NYT's reviews.

Once you've read that, I highly recommend you check out more of Friedersdorf's writing. More intelligence and rational, honest engagement than you can find in the op-ed sections of most major newspapers.

EDIT:
Another fascinatingly in-depth review, with a slightly different angle, here.

Thoughts on Avatar

2010-01-08T16:17:00.003-05:00

EDIT: Damn, had this one marked as 1/8/09 at first. That 10 does take some getting used to.

How does one begin to address a movie as immense and encompassing as Avatar? I’ll start by putting Roger Ebert and the New York Times’ reviewer forward as pinch hitters, both far better writers than I, and with that warm up I’ll proceed to my own thoughts.

I’ll start with visual effects so as to avoid spoiler warnings until later.

For me, the most important question concerning computer generated imagery (CGI) in an otherwise live action movie is whether I can tell which bits are CGI and which bits are real. Perhaps it’s due to technological limitations, or perhaps the director doesn’t really care, but whatever the reason, in nearly every movie I’ve seen that uses CGI, it's been painfully easy for me to sort out which of the visuals are physically real and which have been painted on by a computer. The Star Wars prequels and the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie (specifically, the storm/whirlpool at the end) contain some of the most glaring examples of this, though if I were to put my mind to it I could come up with multi-page list. The Lord of the Rings series did a surprisingly good job, considering the subject matter, of appearing realistic, most notably in the subtle CGI crowd simulations used for the Battles of Helm's Deep and Gondor in the second and third movies, respectively. Still, there were some glaring missteps, particularly the cave troll in the first one and the oliphants in the third.

Coincidentally enough (or not), the one movie I’ve watched that manages to pull this off really well is Terminator 2. While fantastical and unnaturally liquid and shining in appearance, the T-1000 was specifically intended to appear this way. With the help of the occasional old-fashioned prop/prosthetic, Robert Patrick's metal side appeared to truly exist in the real world. The digital effects served to bring the fantastic to life, as opposed to simply showing off just how powerful ILM's computers were.

Well, I can't truthfully say that James Cameron's latest opus completely satisfies the CGI question, as there are definitely areas where I could tell the difference. But I can say that Avatar comes far, far closer to nailing this category than any other movie out there. Avatar's Wikipedia article describes Cameron's fascination with the Lord of the Rings' hybrid CGI Gollum, and it really shows here. The blue-skinned alien Na'vi, brought to life with what I can only imagine to be a massively complicated combination of heavy makeup, prostheses, and judicious use of CGI (apparently the actors actually had miniature cameras attached to their heads and suspended in front of their faces in order to perfectly (95%, say the filmmakers) capture their expressions), really do appear to exist. Keep in mind that each one of these creatures is a 10-12 foot tall two-legged humanoid possessing "supermodel dimensions (slender hips, a miniature-apple rear); long articulated digits, the better to grip with; and the slanted eyes and twitchy ears of a cat," to quote the NYT review. And they move gracefully, yet naturally--realistic stumbling is probably harder for the effects people to well than preternaturally graceful walking, yet they do it here very, very well--so rest assured that this would have been literally impossible to do justice to without CGI. And back to my main point, you don't notice that it's CGI, you just see an alien being as if it had strode out of James Cameron's overactive imagination directly onto the screen.

Especially the faces (very minor plot spoiler, skip the brackets if you'd prefer not to see it).

SPOILER [[scientists in this movie actually link with and pilot/become Na'vi bodies grown specially for themselves in order to study the planet and interact with the natives, and seeing the resemblance between the human faces and corresponding Na'vi faces is really...I hate to use a cliche, but just mind-blowing.]] END SPOILER

I can't overemphasize just how incredible this looks.

And it's in 3D. That's right, 3D glasses-type 3D. Cameron apparently went all in for 3D in Avatar, far beyond the sort of novelty niche that 3D glasses movies generally occupy. I haven't seen any verbatim quotes from him to this effect, but based on other things he's said, the fact that he went to some lengths to get theaters on board, and the fact that even the video game based on the movie is intended to be viewed in 3D lead me to believe that he considers 3D the definitive way to see Avatar. Ebert probably sums it up best:

Cameron promised he'd unveil the next generation of 3-D in "Avatar." I'm a notorious skeptic about this process, a needless distraction from the perfect realism of movies in 2-D. Cameron's iteration is the best I've seen -- and more importantly, one of the most carefully-employed. The film never uses 3-D simply because it has it, and doesn't promiscuously violate the fourth wall.

Don't be put off by visions of horrid red-green 3D glasses, though. 3D viewing technology has come a long way since the 50s, and the colors and brightness appear as real and true as they would in a 2D movie.

And now to the story and characters. I'll have to put up general spoilers for this section, just so I don't have to constantly micromanage my writing to avoid giving anything away.

MEGA SPOILERS

I've heard the plot of this movie compared to Dances With Wolves, which I haven't seen, but after hearing a bit about that movie, it sounds more or less correct, with the major differences besides the general sci-fi setting and other obvious areas being the Na'vis' and the biosphere's actual neural connections with each other.

I hadn't seen Dances With Wolves, which probably enhanced my Avatar experience. I found Avatar particularly wrenching. It's hard to articulate exactly why it evoked such intense emotions in me; the closest I can come to even describing them is a vague hybrid of joy and sadness, as well as a strong sense of finality in many areas, like that of an old life left behind and a new one wholly embraced (not surprising considering the ending) but also an acknowledgment of eternity and one's own mortality, perhaps thrown into sharper relief by the adoption of the new life.

Spotty recollections of FernGully (the book most especially, though Wikipedia appears not to have a page for it) come to mind, and I can remember a somewhat similar emotional reaction to that book, which I read well before I was 10. There are definite parallels, mainly the environmental aware plus immersion in a wholly alien culture. I was quite the little dreamer in those days--I both felt for the natural world and conjured up my own fantastic ones with the sort of all-consuming ardor and passion that only a child has the time and undivided attention for. Deeply, deeply emotional--I had few if any friends in those days, which let me push even further into such feelings.

The only other creative work that also evoked the sort of emotion in me tapped by this movie was E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan, about a friendship between a boy and a swan who cannot sing but can communicate with humans via chalk on a slate and with fellow swans by using a trumpet. Beautiful book, and with the same sort of serene happiness at the end that seemed so perfect that I actually cried after finishing it. I was probably 11 or 12.

But back to Avatar. Again, I can't put my finger on any single thing or things that truly moved me in this film. There were many touching moments, many of them sad, but none of them really shook me emotionally—I felt no deep sense of loss when the Na'vi chief was killed during the felling of the Hometree, nor when Grace (Sigourney Weaver) died/melded with Eywa. In fact, at several points I found myself silently tsk-tsking Cameron for making the Na'vi a perfect amalgam of the Native American and African stereotypes of the Noble Savage, and gently ridiculing him for glorifying primitivism. There are other flaws I noticed that I point out at the end of the post.

Yet despite all of this, as the movie ended I felt the most bittersweet sort of feeling overtake me: joy at the new, more personally fulfilling and meaningful way of life Jake and the others would now lead, combined with the most exquisite, aching sort of longing, perhaps at the unblinking knowledge that this was all a dream, a spectacular parade of images of a world that will never exist in my lifetime or probably at all within our universe. But the sadness wasn't just a desire to escape to a fantastic dreamland full of lush forests, pure emotion, and noble savage aliens (a double whammy for the sci-fi environmentalist hybrid that I am). It was far more diffuse than that, I think. By the time the credits rolled, Cameron had done such a wonderful job of slipping it all past me--the fictional future, Pandora, the Na'vi, the whole story--that I found I had unwittingly immersed myself far more in the movie and its world than I allow myself to do with most things these days.

Immersive, yes, that's the best word for Avatar. And that's probably why the first things that came to mind afterward were two books. Movies may excite with sound and motion, but go pick up your favorite novel and tell me you don't feel more mentally and emotionally there than if you were to watch it on a screen. Avatar is almost like that. I just wish I could go back.

Flaws/loose ends:

*"fight terror with terror"--this line made no sense and sounded suspiciously like it had been inserted to push a contemporary comparison; the Corporation had just won a smashing victory against the Na’vi by destroying Hometree, and while the Na’vi had certainly been hostile to the humans before this, they could hardly have been said to have waged any sort of terrorist campaign against them. More like Vietnam--even in Iraq today we generally call the enemy 'insurgents,' switching to 'terrorists' only for propaganda purposes or if they strike at us outside of the combat zone. In Avatar, the entire planet is a combat zone.

*the ‘boss battle’ with the Colonel dragged on a bit, felt like Cameron was trying to milk as much hate from the audience as he could.

*related to the above, I felt slightly uncomfortable about the Colonel at times--just a bit too easily villainous, though Cameron could have done much, much worse.

*The film does get a bit indirectly preachy at points; I already mentioned the Colonel as a representation of Bush Administration arrogance, and there's also the primitivist and environmentalist stuff I discussed in the body of the text. It can get tiring, though perhaps a bit less so for me as I agree with most of the environmental stuff. Certainly Cameron could have really twisted the knife by adding that 'unobtanium', the mineral that the Corporation is mining on the planet and that goes for "$20 million a kilo" back on Earth, is, say, crucial to the manufacture of medical products that save thousands or millions of human lives. Far too ambitious in scope for a movie, though; try a book or perhaps a TV show.

NOTE: Cameron did acknowledge the primitivist angle and described his use of it thusly: "'the Na'vi represent something that is our higher selves, or our aspirational selves, what we would like to think we are' and that even though there are good humans within the film, the humans 'represent what we know to be the parts of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe condemning ourselves to a grim future.'" Well and good, but it still felt a bit too black-and-white.

*I understand how well the final transference of Jake’s soul to his Avatar served as the ultimate coda, but it did seem a bit odd that he wouldn’t have done so earlier, most notably after mating with Neytiri. Spiritually and emotionally, that was the point of no return for him, though he did seem a bit slow to catch on to the full social consequences of the act. Granted, the circumstances immediately following his awakening (Battle of Hometree, being perceived as a heartless spy by the Na’vi) would have made it impossible for him to conduct the transference until after he tamed the Toruk, at which point the attempt is made to transfer Grace. But why didn’t he make the transfer then, though? It seems odd that he would enter into the final battle against the Corporation as a full Na’vi warlord without addressing the glaring chink in his armor of remaining tied to his crippled human self, unconscious in an undefended trailer in the forest. [note: the more effects-oriented moviegoer in me was very disappointed that Grace's body transfer failed; perhaps it’s because she’s the only Avatar actor whose face I knew long before this movie, but again, I found Sigourney Weaver’s avatar particularly fascinating to watch.]

*probably minor: at the end, Jake narrates the departure of the Corporation with words like "back to their own dead planet, which they had killed long ago". I couldn't help but think that there are probably not a few people back on Earth who didn't make the trip to initially hellish Pandora but who would fit right in with the remaining scientists and their appreciation of nature. Still, what can you do? It also drove home the point that Jake's adventure and the overall story required an immense amount of technology, funding, and general overhead, what with the specially grown Na'vi bodies and interface system which must have cost ungodly amounts of money, plus the extreme bad/good luck of joining the mission at the last minute because your twin brother died. In this incarnation, at least, this is not at all a universal story or an adventure accessible to all, which detracts from it slightly.

*minor: the Na’vi’s Light Brigade-style charge into the fully automatic, high powered rifles of the ex-Marine mercs. Even if one concedes that Jake, himself a former Marine with full knowledge of the tactics and weapons of his old Jarhead Clan, was too busy with strategy and inter-clan diplomacy to drop a quick line to the Na’vi ground forces about basic tactics, it seems odd that the Na’vi themselves, after years of skirmishing with Corporation forces, did not realize the futility of a Pickett’s Charge and adjust their tactics accordingly. Simply attacking one or both flanks from the sides would have made a world of difference, though perhaps a chivalric emphasis on the ‘honorable’ frontal attack is part and parcel of the more angelic Na’vi psyche. Alternatively, one could argue that until now the Na’vi had only fought the mercs at the squad (10-20) or platoon (50-60) level, whereas engaging a full battle line of several companies (~100 each) requires altogether different tactics and an entirely new level of command and control.

*very minor, but the plot was a bit too predictable overall, especially after Jake entered Hometree for the first time. Given the already massive length of the movie, though, I suspect that it would not have been feasible to add more to make it less predictable.

*****

LAST NOTE: I added 'Margaret Atwood' in the tags for this post because both she and Cameron are Canadian by birth and both write about/film pessimistic futures with a similar general tone.

Liang Qichao follow-up

2009-08-19T13:10:00.017-04:00

Yes, yes, it's been a long time coming. I've finally gotten around to it, though.

According to his wiki, Liang Qichao was an influential intellectual in many respects, but I am most interested in his historiography, his presentation of China as a single nation.

Liang Qichao’s historiographical thought represents the beginning of modern Chinese historiography and reveals some important directions of Chinese historiography in the twentieth century.

For Liang, the major flaw of "old historians" (舊史家) was their failure to foster the national awareness necessary for a strong and modern nation. Liang's call for new history not only pointed to a new orientation for historical writing in China, but also indicated the rise of modern historical consciousness among Chinese intellectuals.

During this period of Japan's challenge in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), Liang was involved in protests in Beijing pushing for an increased participation in the governance by the Chinese people. It was the first protest of its kind in modern Chinese history. This changing outlook on tradition was shown in the historiographical revolution (史學革命) launched by Liang Qichao in the early twentieth century. Frustrated by his failure at political reform, Liang embarked upon cultural reform. In 1902, while in exile in Japan, Liang wrote New History (新史學), launching attacks on traditional historiography.

All very interesting, but annoyingly vague. How exactly did "old historians" fail to foster national awareness, in his view? How did the historiographical revolution address this--what new perspective did it offer?

(You may have noticed that Liang's wiki is not one of the best written articles out there. Keep this in mind when considering its completeness and impartiality.)

His views on political philosophy come tantalizingly close to current received PRC/"East Asian" wisdom--"'Freedom means Freedom for the Group, not Freedom for the Individual. (…) Men must not be slaves to other men, but they must be slaves to their group. For, if they are not slaves to their own group, they will assuredly become slaves to some other.'" And they do dovetail nicely with Liang's stated wish to reconcile Confucianism with Western ideas--Hobbes seems to have been his preferred choice here.

But meeting and diagnosing the patient come before prescribing treatment, and those areas remain frustratingly hazy. Following the link to Chinese historiography proves equally disappointing, though Chinese nationalism bears some interesting fruit:

The official Chinese nationalistic view in the 1920s and 1930s was heavily influenced by modernism and social Darwinism, and included advocacy of the cultural assimilation of ethnic groups in the western and central provinces into the "culturally advanced" Han state, to become in name as well as in fact members of the Chinese nation. Furthermore, it was also influenced by the fate of multi-ethnic states such as Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. It also became a very powerful force during the Japanese occupation of Coastal China during the 1930s and 1940s and the atrocities committed by such regime.

Over the next decades Chinese nationalism was influenced strongly by Russian ethnographic thinking, and the official ideology of the PRC asserts that China is a multi-ethnic state, and Han Chinese, despite being the overwhelming majority (over 90% in the mainland), they are only one of many ethnic groups of China, each of whose culture and language should be respected. However, many critics* argue that despite this official view, assimilationist attitudes remain deeply entrenched, and popular views and actual power relationships create a situation in which Chinese nationalism has in practice meant Han dominance of minority areas and peoples and assimilation of those groups.

(*Allow me to clear up any Wikipedian ambiguity by noting that these "many critics" are, by and large, quite correct)

No mention of Liang Qichao here, but, interestingly enough, his wiki does mention a fascination with Social Darwinism, something I dismissed as irrelevant on my first read-through. After some thought, I realized that whoever wrote these articles doesn't define "social darwinism" the same way I do. I see it as applying the "survival of the fittest" concept to human society, with the implication that the best individuals are those who attain the most fame, money, and/or power, and vice versa, regardless of the tactics used--pretty largely removed from cultural comparisons, hence my initial dismissal of the term as used in these articles.

While that sort of social darwinism certainly isn't far removed from post-Mao China, what these articles are discussing could be more accurately described as "cultural darwinism." That is, assimilation of minority ethnic groups into the supposedly superior Han culture, as the quote describes.

According to Wikipedia, the proper Western anthropological term is cultural colonialism, the "internal domination by one group and its culture or ideology over others." The page goes on to use the U.S.S.R. as an example, noting its "domination...by Russian language and culture." As for official reasons, it notes that "The oneness of socialist internationalism was to unite all the republics and their peoples."

But cultural colonialism is not new in the world, nor is it really what Fear of a Red Planet meant by 'nationalism', is it?

As I mentioned in the previous post, the current, particularly intense brand of Chinese nationalism is largely couched in bitter memories of Western influence and control. Whatever his actual role may have been, Liang does appear to have drawn much of his motivation from a desire to see a strong, free China stand unmolested on the international stage, which in turn grew out of indignation and despair at its treatment by the West and Japan. Again, I would need to see what he wrote in greater detail in order to properly address this.

Was Liang so crucial in making this connection, though? Couldn't it be argued that the idea of a zhong hua min zu, a Chinese race, would have been a natural reaction among most Chinese to the humiliations of the 19th century? "Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately"--isn't that the basic gist of Liang's message?

Perhaps it's the combination of the abovementioned socialist internationalism and memory of past humiliations that has made Chinese nationalism so potent...I really must research this further.

The "China model"

2009-07-21T14:58:00.013-04:00

Courtesy of Sullivan, I happened upon a very insightful post by Fear Of A Red Planet concerning China's potential as an example to developing countries; that is, "a single-party dictatorship combined with relative economic freedom." Those of you with an interest in international politics may be familiar with the term "the China model." And, ceteris paribus, I have generally agreed that the China model can be transplanted to other countries looking for rapid growth without any pesky democratic constraints.

FOARP, however, argues that the "Chinese model" relies on factors unique to China, citing, among other things, the recent (19th-20th century) development of the idea of a Chinese national identity. A certain Liang Qichao ('Leeang Cheechow,' 1873-1929) apparently figured largely in this transformation, which I find particularly intriguing as I've never heard of him. The argument runs thusly:

Thirdly, this ignores the essential glue that holds together the Chinese state under circumstances not dissimilar to those which tore Yugoslavia and the USSR apart: nationalism. Firstly under the nationalists and now under the communists China has been subject to the greatest and most successful program of nation-building ever seen.

Whilst in India there are reportedly still whole villages in which nobody has ever heard of the country ‘India’, since 1912 the Chinese nation has steadily been built up, with ethnic and regional loyalties largely subsumed into the Chinese identity or race (中华民族 [zhong hua min zu]). Whilst it is generally believed in China that this identity has existed for thousands of years, it is in fact an invention of nineteenth century theorists like Liang Qichao (梁啟超), intended to replace an imperial system fairly similar to the one that existed in the Austro-Hungarian or Russian empires. This has largely succeeded, and it is only in those areas with ethnic identities so entirely different to that of the majority as to be incompatible (such as Tibet and Xinjiang) that it has failed.

The high level of nationalism in China (Australian China-hand Ross Terrill described it as “the nearest thing China has to a national religion”) has allowed the Chinese state to survive pressures which would shatter other countries, as such the Chinese model cannot simply be transplanted to countries with strong regional identities.

I'll definitely check out Liang Qichao. Fascinating thesis, as Chinese nationalism and its causes remain a subject of great debate. Additionally, this gels with what I know of it so far.

Which is: post-dynastic, pre-Japanese invasion (1912-1931~37) China was a chaotic, often lawless place where regional warlords regularly battled each other for supremacy. After the Japanese defeat in 1945, the Nationalists, or KMT, fought a bitter civil war against Mao's Communists for four more years before being driven off to Taiwan.*

The Chinese people, as much as they can be said to form a single entity--not counting the Tibetan, Uighur, and other official minorities, of course, so I guess I should say Han Chinese within China--have a very clear and bitter memory of the pre-1949 chaos, often lumped in with equally bitter memories of being divided up under colonial occupation. National unity and solidarity is considered paramount, and special hatred is reserved for secessionism or anything hinting of it.** Most of all at the governmental level, of course, but I know from firsthand experience that the average Chinese person (men more than women), while generally no foaming-at-the mouth xenophobe, will become firmly nationalistic if pressed. Significantly, the sort of insecure, reactionary nationalism often borne of past humiliation and shame, the bitter realization of status lost accompanied by the iron determination to regain one's rightful place. As such, more reminiscent of Putin's Russia than of the otherwise comparable India.

With this in mind, the poster definitely seems to be on to something here. I may post a follow up after reading about Liang Qichao. I'm still amazed I've never heard of him, which leads me to wonder whether FOARP is not giving him more credit than is due, but I'm keeping an open mind.

*Where they eventually developed into the current Republic of China and now form one of the island's two major political parties, the other being the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP.

**Hence the PRC's especially intense stance and violent rhetoric concerning Tibet (the Dalai Lama has "the heart of a jackal") and Taiwan (pro-independence former VP Annette Lu is "insane" and "scum of the earth").

Ross Douthat on Palin's resignation

2009-07-08T14:19:00.012-04:00

This excerpt from Ross Douthat’s latest NYT column may seem a bit bizarre at first:

Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

First, we have meritocracy positioned opposite democracy. Funny, I had thought that democracy was the best route to meritocracy, that the two generally complimented each other—electing, and more importantly reelecting,* people based on performance. Yet somehow Douthat finds them opposed.

In order to do that, he has to gut the phrase “democratic ideal” of its core spirit, at least as we know it—election based on popularity, itself due to performance**—leaving only the barest of shells: election based on popularity, itself due to…“success,” which he leaves undefined. Oh, but the important thing is, he tells is, that she stands as a representative of the working class, Real American Values. Just keep that in mind, everybody.

So, election based on popularity, itself based on…ah…what? Just popularity via, in Palin’s case, cultural identification? Republican pollster Alex Castellanos, of the (in)famous “white hands” ad, does admit that “…with Republicans her support is not based on her record as governor of Alaska.”***

It’s not a meritocracy, then, I’ll give Douthat that. And it is indeed a form of democracy; in fact, Plato himself considered this form—rule based purely on immediate mass appeal, whether due to identification with a certain class, pacification through “bread and circuses,” or other means—to be the most accurate definition of the word. The philosopher also ranked it as the worst possible form of government for precisely this reason, behind even oligarchy, rule by merchants (his definition).

Douthat’s passage makes sense, then, if you assume he’s talking about “democratic ideals” as a Platonian. For some reason, I don’t think he would agree...but rather than accuse such an esteemed thinker of intellectual dishonesty or inconsistency, let’s go with this reading.

Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story, rising by virtue of merit alone. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a charismatic, shallow, power-hungry egomaniac† without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

The man finally writes a column I can agree with! Good to be on the same side for once, Ross.

*Something that Palin, perhaps not coincidentally, has just taken off the table.
** Often correlated with some measure of intellect and open-mindedness.
***Full quote: “For independents and Democrats, [Palin's] already not their candidate, and with Republicans her support is not based on her record as governor of Alaska.”
†A universally human sort of success story--Ross was even careful enough to leave "American" out in the original piece

A niggling thought on godhood in general and Christianity in particular

2009-06-26T15:04:00.012-04:00

EDIT: Eva has reminded me that the various branches that make up Christianity have no set, universal definition of "God." The point is well taken; please do not take my use of the word "Christianity" in this post to mean "every single Christian denomination ever to exist." I use it to mean "the faith of conservative-leaning practicing Christians within the United States" (and the Vatican, I suppose).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_god#Christianity

“Christian theologian Alister McGrath writes that there are good reasons to suggest that a ‘personal god’ is integral to the Christian outlook, but one has to understand that this is an analogy: ‘to say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human, or located at a specific point in the universe.’”

So on the one hand, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, yet on the other, He is both willing and able to relate to beings which could charitably be described as ants before Him. I mean, of course, humans, as within the Christian framework there are no other gods and the Bible makes no mention of intelligent non-human mortals.* How to put this…it seems very fantastical and far-fetched, the idea that a single being can be both all-knowing, all-powerful, and ever-present, and yet also be able to genuinely relate to such puny things as humans. "God loves you"--really, when He's got an entire universe to run?

The natural reply is that such is God and we can never hope to understand Him—there are realms of existence, ways of thinking, logic beyond logic, that we could never hope to grasp, one of which explains this apparent contradiction. So, to my complaint that “this is inconceivable,” the devout smile and reply “you couldn’t be more right.” I can respect this sort of thinking--that there are concepts so disconnected from the human experience as to be impossible for human brains to understand. Enshrining the idea at the center of one's belief system, however, requires an awful lot of...well, faith. Must the Lord always and invariably “work in mysterious ways”?

This is by no means my primary beef with traditional concepts of a higher power, but it struck me very clearly and strongly while I was browsing that Wikipedia article. Besides, I find the idea of the literally inconceivable--for our brains, anyway--rather intriguing.

By the way, pneumatology is the study of "spiritual beings and phenomena," or within Christian contexts the study of the Holy Spirit. Pneuma meaning "breath" or "air" in Greek (pneumatic, anyone?), which in this case "metaphorically describes a non-material being or influence."

*All right, nitpickers, the nephilim qualify, but anyone who knows what a nephilim was will also understand why they're a meaningless outlier.

* * * * *

On a totally unrelated note, the John Birch Society’s web site is surprisingly slick. (Found it through a fascinating New York Times piece on the group, which makes the same observation).

More on Iran

2009-06-17T14:27:00.023-04:00

The previous post was heavy on background and short on current events, so I'll address more current issues in this one. All articles linked are courtesy of the Dish unless otherwise noted.

First, further analysis and news of the situation in Iran. It goes without saying that, considering the frustratingly murky nature of everything surrounding this election and its aftermath, most of the following should be taken with a grain of salt.

--Except for this: a statistical analysis of the official vote counts as reported by the Iranian Ministry of the Interior.

--Continuing in that vein, here's a good summary by the CS Monitor of the case that the election was rigged.

--Some have argued that rural Iranians, more traditionalist and conservative than their urban counterparts, went strongly for Ahmadinejad. However, one analysis of Iran's rural vote shows economic worries trumping everything else, to the incumbent's detriment. The report also emphasizes, though, that rural Iranian antipathy towards Ahmadinejad does not extend to the idea of the Islamic Republic, though certain reforms may be welcomed.

--Regardless of which side an Iranian may have initially taken in the election, polls indicate that respect for free speech and free and fair elections transcends party lines in Iran. As such, tactics like blatant vote rigging, using violence to suppress peaceful demonstrations, photoshopping pictures of his own rallies, etc. may backfire badly on Ahmadinejad, drawing comparisons with the suppression and unrest that preceded the 1979 revolution.

--Speaking of suppression and violence, never forget Moral High Ground Rule #1: do not be [seen as] the aggressor.* In the current unrest, restraint is key to legitimacy, a fact not lost on either side:

What we are witnessing, from afar and through contrasting methods of information control (the regime by filtering the flow of information, the opposition by not filtering it), is a struggle for power, where both sides' legitimacy depends upon not being the aggressor in the event of violence. That's why, notwithstanding the opposition's dramatic demonstrations and the regime's brutal but relatively limited repressive measures, both sides have essentially been playing for time. It's as if two armies were maneuvering in close proximity, knowing that the first one to open fire loses.

Mousavi, especially, benefits from this, as violence is a far riskier option for his side than Ahmadinejad's, which enjoys the backing of the Basij and probably most of the Revolutionary Guard. He appears to be milking this benefit for everything he can.

--An Iran expert writing for the New Republic agrees with the general analysis of that New York Times AEI op-ed, if not its conclusions. In his eagerness to take down Mousavi, Khamenei may be unleashing forces beyond his control.

--An abortive ~~olive branch~~ bid for time in the form of a recount proposal appears to be DOA. At this point, Mousavi stands to gain more by rebuffing and delegitimizing it than he would by agreeing. Aaaaaand it looks like he wasn't wrong to reject the 'limited recount':

According to the New York Times, Fars News Agency reports a partial “recounting” of votes has begun in Iran. But they are not being counted. They were not even counted the first time. Fars says the “recount” in the Kurdish province of Kermanshah shows “no irregularity.”
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has almost no support among Kurds whatsoever. Claiming he “won” 70 percent in Kermanshah is as outlandish as Dick Cheney winning San Francisco and Berkeley in a landslide.

This is followed by a quote from a Kurdish separatist commander "just on the Iraq side of the Iran-Iraq border near Kermanshah," saying that there was zero if any Iranian Kurdish participation in the elections.

Kurdish-inhabited regions, for reference:

I'll deal with the less time-sensitive American side of the equation in my next post.

One final note: for those of you receiving my posts by email, I edited my previous Iran post somewhat after I published it for the first time (which triggers the email). It's not substantially different, though I certainly hope it's an improvement over the emailed version.

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*This has held true throughout history. Tellingly, aggressors have occasionally gone to some lengths to play the role of innocent victim, even if only to muddy the waters and play for time until battle is joined. On the other end of the spectrum, some forewarned defenders have deliberately forsaken a preemptive strike in order to retain the moral high ground--generally for quite concrete reasons, of course.

The Yom Kippur War makes for a great case study of this phenomenon. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, made aware at the last minute of Arab plans for a surprise attack, intentionally allowed them to strike first. The thinking was that maintaining good international standing and ensuring an uninterrupted supply of American aid in the ensuing conflict was more valuable than any advantage gained by a preemptive strike. In Meir's words, "'If we strike first, we won't get help from anybody.'" [Do note, however, that this was by no means the optimal situation: "It was assumed that Israel's intelligence services would give, at the worst case, about 48 hours notice prior to an Arab attack," in which case Israeli strategy did call for a preemptive strike. Meir had barely 6 hours, an intelligence failure largely responsible for the postwar collapse of her government.]

Though initially costly, the war did end in an Israeli victory, a victory probably impossible without American aid--early on, the situation looked so grim that Meir actually authorized the crash construction of nuclear weapons. Additionally, for what it's worth, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger later remarked that "had Israel struck first, they would not have received 'so much as a nail.'"

Iran

2009-06-17T12:52:00.008-04:00

Islamic Republic of Iran

جمهوری اسلامی ايران
Jomhuri-ye Islāmi-ye Irān

Official language: Farsi (Persian)

As anyone who has managed to reach this blog will already know, things are shaking up in Iran right now. For background, check Andrew Sullivan; he's done a sterling job of covering the whole thing since the initial results were announced on Friday.

I've been watching the situation unfold with a mixture of joy, hope, and worry. On the one hand, it's always wonderful to see people, the people, standing up for themselves and their rights in the face of oppression, no matter what country. Iran's critical position in the Middle East vis a vis our own further appeals to my inner von Bismarck. Most powerful of all, however, is seeing this through the lens of our tortured history with Iran and its people.

***** (background follows)
The linked Wikipedia article will have more details, but to summarize, the Islamic Republic in its current incarnation is a result of Cold War meddling on our part during the early 1950s. At that time, Iran was a more or less healthy secular democracy, headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh (also spelled Mossadeq). Unfortunately for him, Prime Minister Mossadegh got it into his head that the wealth flowing from Iran's rich oil fields, then exclusively controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, should instead go to the state and people of Iran. So he nationalized the oil fields (boo! hiss! dirty marxist!). Unhappy with this development, Britain and the United States colluded in Operation Ajax to correct Mossadegh's little misstep and replace him with someone more pliable. National security, can't let the Reds worm their way in, that sort of thing. It went off without a hitch and we installed the Shah, a nice (to non-Iranians, anyway) man named Reza Pahlavi who cut a dashing figure in uniform and did exactly as we said.

Right: the Shah on a particularly dashing day

Unfortunately, the bothersome Iranian people weren't altogether happy with their new Shah--some silly rot about being ruled by an unaccountable dictator installed by foreigners--and in all honesty he didn't really help matters, setting up a secret police complete with cool acronym (SAVAK) to properly crush dissent. Add in the fact that he was completely tone-deaf to his own country's culture--he constantly played up the pre-Islamic Persian aspects while the Iranian people were and remain pretty solidly Shi'ite Muslim--and after 25 years of Shah Pahlavi, the Iranian people had had enough.

The Shah was overthrown and exiled in 1979, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was born, headed by the stern Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Unfortunately (see how often that word seems to pop up in this post?) for the Iranian people, the good Ayatollah decided that Western corruption was entirely to blame for that nasty business with Pahlavi, so why not ban it all straightaway and stick with [Khomeini's interpretation of] the Koran. What was good enough for the Prophet is good enough for us, and so forth. Right, Imam Khomeini?

"Absolutely! Oh, and while the Shah, cursed be his name, truly was a royal jerk, he had the right idea not to trust the people, though for the wrong reasons. He wanted to enrich himself and impose his personal vision of 'Persia' on all of us, dastardly fellow. We're merely concerned with moral purity, as laid out by the Prophet and, naturally, interpreted by us. Allah knows the common folk will fall into decadence at the first opportunity; they simply cry out for moral guidance--I can almost hear them now, poor things! Who to rule, then...well, since the Koran is the final word on everything, why not give power to those most familiar with it? That's right, the clerics! Headed by wise old me, of course, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. Oh FINE, quit whining, we'll give them a directly elected president and some other trappings of democracy, all candidates pre-approved by our learned selves, of course. Someone's got to lay down the law around here--remember, 'Allah did not create man so that he could have fun.'*"

So there you have it. Straight from authoritarian dictatorship to authoritarian theocracy with some democratic aspects. Since then we've had one hostage crisis, the good Iranians not forgetting our role in installing and propping up the Shah; funded one war against those ungrateful bastards, prosecuted by the ever so helpful and secular Saddam Hussein; and, more recently, we've been trading mean words and threats, interspersed every so often by that wonderful international expletive nuclear. Hmm, I suppose that was a hell of a lot more than a summary, but no matter.
*****

So now we have, at a glance, challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the reformist corner vs. everyone's favorite, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the...Ahmadinejad corner. Come to think of it, I have heard, note the emphasis, that Iranians seem to like Mousavi more by virtue of his not being Ahmadinejad than much else, so perhaps he's more in the...anti-Ahmadinejad corner? Mousavi served as Prime Minister from 1981-1987, and according to Wikipedia, "Mousavi refused to run for President in the 1997 elections, which caused the reformists to turn to his former Cabinet Minister, then a little-known cleric, Mohammad Khatami, who was elected by a landslide. During Khatami's administration, Mousavi served as the Senior Adviser to the President." Khatami served as a generally moderating force, softening restrictions and perhaps even some of the Great Satan rhetoric, though my memory is foggy on the particulars. Sane, intelligent people generally seemed to think he was a Good Guy, so I'll go with that. With that in mind, it's a fair bet that Mousavi probably wouldn't be too different, though I've heard things about his involvement in the founding of the Lebanese Islamist militia Hezbollah ~~(apparently now deployed against Mousavi's own supporters in Iran; I'm sure Mousavi has some very choice words acknowledging this little irony)~~ which might ordinarily give one pause, except, well, he's not Ahmadinejad.

I'm going to trample any remaining vestiges of impartiality here and side with Mousavi, just so you know where I stand. It's really not that hard, of course, especially after Ahmadinejad and his boss Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (who directly succeeded Khomeini when he died) pretty clearly rigged the election in Ahmadinejad's favor.** Having a base firmly planted in the traditionalists and the Revolutionary Guard, an elite wing of the Iranian military with its own ministry, army, air force, navy, etc. (think the Nazi SS, only bigger and more elaborate), doesn't really help, either. Ahmadinejad is himself a veteran of the Basij, a fanatical paramilitary force that reports straight to the Revolutionary Guard and which is believed to be largely responsible for attempts to crush the current unrest.

So now what? Well, it's a developing story, but again, although it's immensely uplifting to see the people of Iran protest en masse against this apparent coup d'etat, without the support or at least neutrality of the army, as occurred in the 1979 revolution, there's not much they can do to actually change things. And even if the army flips, the protestors' main man Mousavi is himself a member of the clerical establishment, a moderate only in comparison with Ahmadinejad. As such, I don't hold out much hope that he'd demand the truly fundamental changes that, from what I've heard, many of the Iranians want. True self-determination, at least, seems unlikely.

President Obama has rightly noted that any U.S. attempts to weigh in on things would help Ahmadinejad more than anyone else, though it's clear who's side he's on. Of course, the...alternate view is also readily available. If you want me to go into detail to refute these last, let me know, I'll not clutter this post up with back and forth arguments.

Speaking of musings and predictions, the NYT has an intriguing little op-ed which grimly describes the the coup as a virtual fait accompli (let's see how much French I can squeeze in here!). It despairs that we are now seeing "the consolidation of power by a ruthless regime and the transformation of a theocracy to an ideological military dictatorship." Sullivan blasts it as "outright hoping for the coup to succeed," and he has a point, as it's authored by a couple of neocon AEI drones and is especially transparent in its conclusion:

What does this mean for President Obama and the policy of engagement he hopes to pursue? Some will argue that Mr. Ahmadinejad may be in a conciliatory mood because he needs talks with the United States to underscore his own legitimacy, but that can only be read as a self-serving Washington perspective...[The new] Iran neither needs nor wants accommodation with the West.

However, the overall analysis nonetheless seems depressingly plausible, as far as I can be the judge of plausibility in a country I've only experienced through books and articles.

If only, if only...to think that we are ultimately responsible for this whole mess, all due to [simple greed masquerading as] early Cold War paranoia. It's maddening! One would hope we would have learned to appreciate a lighter touch, and thankfully Obama does, but the size, influence, and unholy persistence of the hawks is still chilling. Every problem a Gordian Knot, every tool a sword.

Anyway, here's hoping that by some miracle the Iranian protestors do prevail and implement some real reform. At the very least, Americans now have a vivid image of them as fellow human beings rather than simply targets on a map.

A few interesting notes:
-[In]famous torrent site The Pirate Bay has changed their logo to reflect solidarity with the Iranian demonstrations
-As linked above, the State Department prevailed upon Twitter to postpone downtime originally scheduled for the middle of the day, Iran time (Iranian protestors have been making extensive use of the service, as the government has shut down most opposition websites and newspapers)
-Andy Samberg, gold as usual

*An actual quote. Longer form (source): "Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious. Islam does not allow swimming in the sea and is opposed to radio and television serials. Islam, however, allows marksmanship, horseback riding and competition..." :(

** Proof (again, Sullivan is a good place for details and sources): Ahmadinejad won landslides in solid Mousavi and Karoubi (another reformer) strongholds, including ethnic Azerbaijani ones (Mousavi is Azeri); Ahmadinejad's lead remained perfectly consistent throughout the night the results were tallied; the Iranian government's own election commission declared the results suspect; Mousavi and Mousavi-allied newspapers were told by the government to prepare for victory shortly before the final results were out, and even admonished not to be too exuberant in the interests of national unity; Khamenei rushed to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his victory, rather than waiting the traditional 3 days; and so on. Just to clarify, the vaunted "2 to 1 Ahmadinejad lead" poll from the waning days of the campaign, which the Washington Post irresponsibly ran an op-ed on, actually showed the incumbent with ~30% support compared to Mousavi's ~15%, with a huge chunk of voters undecided. Some lead.

Oryx and Crake

2009-05-28T15:08:00.008-04:00

Just finished Margaret Atwood's novel Oryx and Crake yesterday. Fascinating and deeply troubling book. I put my take on it up on GoodReads, and I'll repost it here.

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fantastically written, crushingly depressing. I love and hate this book. Searingly pessimistic view of human nature.

I have a friend who charges Atwood with being 'anti-science' in The Handmaid's Tale and has expressed similar concerns about Oryx and Crake. I haven't yet read the former, nor she the latter, so that leaves us at a bit of an impasse. Oryx and Crake isn't anti-science polemic, though. "Science is a way of knowing, and a tool. Like all ways of knowing and tools, it can be turned to bad uses...But it is not in itself bad," in the author's own words.

In Oryx and Crake, Atwood presents a ghastly future portrait of humanity having succumbed to the baser aspects of our nature, collectively degrading and destroying ourselves through an unholy alliance of tribalism and greed. Old foes, certainly, but new weapons, new tools twisted to...well, "bad uses" doesn't begin to describe it. And such tools--the awful plausibility of it all is what takes the book from bad dream to waking nightmare. The part about the coffee plantations...if you read the book, you'll know what I'm referring to. That's when it hit me: this really isn't that far off, is it...

As for the writing, Atwood is a master. Concise, clear, yet quite vivid prose, few or no cliches. She displays a particular talent for maintaining an atmosphere, to the point that I once had to put the book down for a week before I could muster up the emotional energy to finish it. I don't mean that negatively--books that can hold this sort of grip on one's emotions are rare enough to be precious.

Some slight flaws, as other reviews have noted, but overall a magnificently tragic glimpse into the future.

View all my reviews.
********
(many thanks to GoodReads, which has a great "Add this to your blog!" function)

It's been a long time since a book has touched me so deeply--brought back memories of middle and some high school. College, well, I had a hard enough time doing the required reading in college. Plus, as a Political Science major who never set foot inside the English department, what I did read catered to the mind rather than the soul.

But now I'm out, that's over, and Oryx and Crake marks one of the first halting steps back into reading for fun. Well, reading Serious Literature for fun. When not reading Atwood, I've been buried in Abnett. More specifically the thrilling Gaunt's Ghosts series, set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe (no, I don't buy the bloody models, just the books!). That's another post, though. My point is, while I thoroughly enjoy Abnett's books, they are not, nor are they intended to be, on the same level as Oryx and Crake. "Dessert books," I call them.

Anyway, it's marvelously refreshing to be so jarred emotionally by a book, even if the emotion in question is sadness and despair. Mentally, I feel like I'm stretching out stiff muscles and joints after years of disuse. It really has been far, far too long.

Pic of the day

2009-05-07T17:11:00.009-04:00

One of the better photoshops I've seen (click for big).

For those curious, the image on the left is the Carina Nebula (fellow nerds may remember the Eta Carinae system from Star Control II, which if you haven't played you should, download for free here).

Again, click for big. BIGGER. NOW.

(hat tip--ugh, must I use this bloggy lingo?--one of the denizens of the Something Awful forums.

For nuke-proof paint, buy American!

2009-05-06T16:17:00.007-04:00

Got into Fallout 3 recently, much to the detriment of my free time. Awesome game, but I won't spoil anything here, except to say that Bethesda Softworks have done a far better job than their previous abortion The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. There's still some modified level scaling, but nothing unrealistic or disruptive, and no more cookie cutter dungeons/caves this time around! And many other awesome things besides, of course, but again, this isn't a review, and I digress...

Of course, I can't play it at work (have to do something about that...), so I have to content myself with wiki'ing anything and everything related to the game--tricky business if you're midway through and don't want spoilers--or related to nuclear warfare or fallout in general. In the midst of my browsing, I stumbled across a little gem called The House in the Middle. I'll just go ahead and quote the whole thing:

The House in the Middle is a 1954 short (12:09) documentary film produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration and the National Clean Up-Paint Up-Fix Up Bureau, which attempted to show that a clean, freshly painted house is more likely to survive a nuclear attack than its poorly maintained counterpart. It recently was included in the first issue of the DVD magazine, Wholphin.
In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The film was actually produced by the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association.[1] The likelihood that repainting a house would be effective in protecting it from the extreme heat and blast force of a nuclear explosion is questionable, and the film all but ignores the status of the structure's occupants during the event.

The article also lists a link to a copy of the film. I'm watching it as soon as I get home.

Is 'bombast' a necessity?

2009-04-16T18:11:00.004-04:00

Caught an interesting NYT article on the economic and diplomatic inroads that China quietly made in Latin America during the Bush years. For those unfamiliar with the state of relations between that Administration and our southern neighbors, let's just say 'antarctic' wouldn't be far off. Indeed, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, love him or hate him, probably owes a good part of his career to the seething contempt for Bush that characterizes the region.

One thing jumped out at me near the end.

Despite forging ties to Venezuela and extending loans to other nations that have chafed at Washington’s clout, Beijing has bolstered its presence without bombast, perhaps out of an awareness that its relationship with the United States is still of paramount importance. But this deference may not last.

“This is China playing the long game,” said Gregory Chin, a political scientist at York University in Toronto. “If this ultimately translates into political influence, then that is how the game is played.”

This seems to imply that the default or preferred state for a superpower, or any power at all, is 'bombast', the lack or absence of which is considered 'deference'. Notwithstanding that this strikes me as a false dichotomy, how is bombast anything more than a luxury, indulged at one's own risk? China is strengthening its hand in real terms, whether it trumpets this to the skies or not. Even if it were the biggest fish in the pond, I fail to see how this sort of bragging could do anything to advance its agenda. If anything, it would hurt their interests.

I'm curious; is this sort of thinking a product of the past 8 years--though they should have been enough to show anyone the folly of bombast in foreign relations--or is it simply a generally accepted principle? Were I to helm a superpower, I would do my utmost to keep everything as simple and low profile as possible; attracting attention and riling people up would only hinder my cause in the long run. Something to ponder, anyway.

That final paragraph reminds me a bit of why I'm such a fan of Machiavelli and Sun Tzu; I'll make a follow up post at some point to discuss those interests in greater detail.

Gates recommends F-22 be axed

2009-04-06T14:04:00.004-04:00

Just in: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has officially recommended a halt on all future orders of the fabulously expensive F-22 (see earlier post). This comes amidst general plans for an overall reorganization of Pentagon spending priorities.

Secretary Gates made this announcement just 20 minutes ago on live television, but here is a general overview of how things are going.

On a second viewing of Watchmen

2009-03-31T19:00:00.002-04:00

After a simmer and a rewatch, the movie has brightened in my eyes. My main complaint before, the ending...well, I still have my quibbles with that, though much as I hate to see movies used as psychological tools, it's understandable that the filmmakers didn't want to put too bright of a shine on mass slaughter, even if it were done to avert a greater slaughter. Reading some quotes on Ozymandias from Alan Moore, the author of the original graphic novel, also changed my mind somewhat. I'll put them up if I can find them again.

On this second viewing, what stuck out was the Comedian--his role, his world view, him as a character. That scene in the room where Ozymandias (originally Captain Metropolis or some such other in the book) tried to plan an organized effort by superheroes to help save the country, and then possibly the world. The Comedian chuckles, flicks his lighter out and puts Ozymandias's grand map to the flame, saying something along the lines of "People have been killing each other for thousands of years. Now we actually have the tools to finish the job. That some people could be stubborn and stupid enough to sit in a room and talk about somehow stopping that--that's the real joke." As I said, a paraphrase. The Comedian understands the nature of humanity, and more specifically, man, and revels in his role as the embodiment of its greatest extremes. Torturing, raping, murdering, general brutality--all part and parcel of being human, and the Comedian is the audience's constant reminder of that. The 'joke' aspect of it...that, I don't quite understand. Perhaps that human society tries so hard to disassociate itself from these worst aspects, and the Comedian laughingly brings them back into sharp relief?

NITE OWL II: Whatever happened to the American Dream!?
COMEDIAN: It came true.
What do we do once...what, precisely, is the Comedian referring to? I don't know, I can't delineate it so scientifically and exactly...just an intense feeling I got, a feeling that I instinctively understood him. What do we do once society, capitalism, all that, reach adulthood? Does that question even make sense? I can understand such sentiment during the 1980s--"America In Decline" and all that, though Doctor Manhattan's existence would certainly have put a damper on such gloomy feelings, at least as far as America's place in the world.

Essentially, the movie is about human nature. Another review I read spoke disparagingly of it, as though it was nothing but a relic of unreconstructed Cold War anti-Reagan liberalism. It is that, in some respects, but this other review went on to assume that this fact rendered it irrelevant, which it does not. Human nature, the best and the worst of us. Not even quite the best, but a miracle as recognized by Dr. Manhattan, out of the Comedian and Sally Juspeczyk, Laurie--perhaps the 'greatest improvement' award? That's something, anyway.

Oddly enough, watching the movie helped me understand the book better. That somehow reeks of sacrilege, but I'll take greater understanding over ignorance regardless of the package.

On grad school and being a twentysomething

2009-03-31T12:26:00.011-04:00

Eva submitted a marvelous post from another blog in the comments section for an earlier post here. I know I'm biased as it relates to my current situation, but I found it so fascinating (and heartening) I figured I should give it its own post. Here's the intro:

A recession is typically a good time for graduate schools. Their application pool goes up because people see them as safe shelter from the storm. The scariest part of a down economy is the idea of having no income. Of course, graduate school does not solve for that. But graduate school does solve the second most scary thing about a bad economy: lack of a learning curve.

The more desperate you are for a job, the more likely you are to take a job that doesn’t teach you what you want to learn. And then you get to that job and you think, “Grad school could solve this problem.” But in fact, grad school creates larger, and more insurmountable problems. And some the problems you’re trying to solve with grad school might not be problems at all.

Well, check it out!

Edit:
After some further perusal, this site is pretty damn good. Check it out, click around--I have 7 or 8 tabs I keep opening up from each entry that I read. That's wikipedia-level tabbing! Perhaps it's just that this site really scratches an itch for me right now, but I'm really loving it.

The State of the Military: An Introduction

2009-03-24T15:08:00.007-04:00

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience... We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

...Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

--President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, 1961

Eisenhower's worst fear, total dominance of government by the arms industry and its political backers, has not been realized. However, the military-industrial complex plagues us still.

While its unwarranted influence may not be responsible for the subversion of our domestic or international political goals, it has undoubtedly reinforced and disseminated its requirements across American society to the point of impeding our government’s ability to achieve its political and military goals.

With the beginning of the Korean War and the reformation of the U.S. armed services following their post-World War II drawdown, the US military elite began to see the need for a fully formed professional army, ready to serve at a moment’s notice. The years of a tiny peacetime military had ended, and the burgeoning Cold War and its accompanying arms race required massive military spending that inevitably encouraged an environment of waste and complicity at the Pentagon.

Even by Cold War standards, however, the past eight years have left an army once capable of flexible, worldwide response now hamstrung, eroded, and overstretched. Yet vastly expensive weapons programs designed to fight yesterday’s battles continue to plod along in the bowels of the Pentagon, sucking up valuable funding and resources. Meanwhile, the services of America's military faces dramatic tasks of a seriously different nature.

The Obama administration has found its power projection capability outside of Iraq and Afghanistan hampered, up to the point that its ability to conduct strategic diplomacy in general is seriously impeded. On top of this, President Obama has given himself perhaps the most difficult task of all: a complete overhaul the entire defense procurement process, the military-industrial complex itself.

The years preceding George W. Bush's presidency marked a period of simultaneous decreases in military spending and increases in the number of military operations abroad. While President Clinton is said to have been reluctant to deploy the U.S. military to intervene abroad, international events often forced U.S. intervention. In such cases he employed a flexible response, often involving the use of cruise missiles and the Marines.

This strategy, however, made for a poor match with available U.S. military forces, but the lessons of such conflicts never managed to penetrate the walls of the Pentagon. As such, development of weapons systems irrelevant to these conflicts and the tactics required to fight them continued.

We at the Internet Bullhorn plan to run a series of posts on these issues and how the Obama Administration might best address them. Each issue can be roughly divided into two parts: reorganizing military forces and procurement methods in order to craft a more efficient and effective fighting force, and the interplay between this process and the United States’ role on the international stage.

An Obama Military
The latest copy of Obama's budget plan for the Department of Defense provides for a 4 percent increase in funding. Among other things, this includes funds for a larger Army and Marine Corps, increased benefits for enlisted families, continuing operational costs for the two major theater operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and plans intended to 'leverage allied support to help struggling states such as Pakistan, which are the keystones for regional stability.'

However, this 4 percent rise in defense spending also masks an overall reallocation of spending to focus on operational costs, as opposed to purchasing new weapons systems. This then implies budget cuts, at least for the Navy and Air Force.

Overall, the focus of defense spending under an Obama administration looks to be based on pragmatism and logistical practicality, stressing the tactical needs of counterinsurgency warfare insofar as they secure strategic goals. This may well exclude the need for major technological spending on programs like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, freeing up money towards increasing troop levels, improving the integration of theater command, and ensuring all troops in current war zones are properly equipped.

On March 4th , President Obama officially opened the door to the axing of one or more of these high end weapons systems with a memorandum giving the Office of Management and Budget the ability to cancel any development program or contract it deems wasteful.

The Road Ahead
The United States can only afford a foreign policy that is backed with teeth, and if it cannot afford the armed forces that serve as those teeth, it must reexamine its foreign commitments. An inability to project power abroad stilts any administration's ability to respond to international events and threatens the international status of our Union.

Military power exists solely to produce political results, war being merely an extension of politics. A military unable to meet the requirements set by political necessity is no longer a fully capable armed force. Determining which programs are prime candidates for cutting, and which programs stand to ultimately ensure national security in proportion to cost will be the objective of this study.

Moan and groan, doom and gloom

2009-03-23T18:58:00.015-04:00

A large part of the media and modern thought in general is devoted to bemoaning the decadent, decaying times in which we live, often invoking a past golden era for unfavorable comparison. While this is not unwarranted in some areas, such as education, the wealth inequality gap, global warming, etc., much of it often turns out to be alarmist drivel, like as not thought up for lack of better things to expound upon. If nothing else, bad news sells.

It would be merely annoying if not for the fact that people develop a tolerance for it after a while and start seeing truly important issues as the next flavor of the week...but I'll stop there, lest I become guilty of my own sin.

At any rate, I found an interesting example of this sort of hysteria via...damn, I can't recall at this point, Sullivan or Yglesias, I think. Anyway, it's about "the Age of Commodified Intelligence"--essentially, as the writer puts it, "a time of conspicuously consumed high culture in which intellectual life is meticulously measured and branded." It's actually an interesting read, despite (because of?) such hilariously broad doozies as this:

Of course higher education has always meant a chance for greater economic success, and more careers now require such certification. But degrees are also more readily pursued as status symbols. We are not growing more intelligent, only more obsessed with its outward markers.

We engage in an elaborate credentials kabuki. Our graduate schools are filled with students forcing out narrow, irrelevant dissertations. They labour to be professors, not to spend lives devoted to their fields. Writers and librarians now seek graduate degrees to prepare for jobs that have existed for thousands of years without such hurdles. Even dogwalkers take classes for certification. We’ve become so reliant on checklists of accomplishment that we’ve lost our ability to make independent judgments. We no longer pursue passions or interests without quantifiable reward.

My first instinct would be to demand some kind of source for all of this doomsaying, especially the second two sentences of the second paragraph. Somehow, though, one senses that this was never meant to be taken as a measurable, provable, solvable phenomenon so much as savored in its all its elegant pessimism, given a pass for its stylish evocation of doom and gloom. After all, if it's bad news, it's probably true, right? Numbers? Proof? How dare you disturb my beautiful ennui!? Back off, my man, I have credentials kabuki! Credentials kabuki!

Perhaps the writer is intent on proving his point through example...

Is it really that bad, though? Dogwalker certification, huh? Sounds more like a growing service industry than the rotting of a society from within. Writers and librarians? Some jobs require certification, but the writer has conveniently neglected to mention just which ones you're talking about. Graduate schools? Perhaps you've been stuck in the humanities or social sciences cocoon a bit too long; I have a few aspiring scientist friends who would debate that point. Ah, but that's anecdotal, right. Lovely hiding places, anecdotes.

The writer ends thusly:

There is nothing innately wrong in gobbling up great art, important novels and educational credentials. Attending a performance of "The Rite of Spring" does no one harm. But if we fail to distinguish between attendance and appreciation, we may end up poorer for it, left with a corporate caricature of our cultural richness. The “intelligent” masses will work hard mining the store of culture artefacts, but will they read the texts and learn from them, or only use them as objects for trade?

Eh, since when in history have the masses, "'intelligent'" or not, ever really improved themselves, ever truly changed, at least to the satisfaction of the elite of this or that cultural sphere? If they ever did, who would be the "masses"? Would we have only elites? Somehow I don't think it works that way, but I'm rambling.

If you ever feel that you have truly appreciated something or fully apprehend an experience like few others ever do, take a hint from that wording. For various reasons, you probably won't be able to spark a mass, deep--however you define that--appreciation for Rembrandt or Liszt. At least in ages past the elite didn't have to worry about hordes of unwashed poseurs pretending to appreciate...ah, but there I go again!

"Dammit, if that's the price we have to pay, let's pay it"

2009-03-18T09:49:00.017-04:00

(via Andrew Sullivan via The American Conservative) Found an excellent and highly revealing post by Philip Weiss about the growing chasm in the Jewish-American political sphere on the Israel-Palestine issue between traditional AIPAC-style neocons and the more liberal J Street types. (For those of you less familiar with the battle lines here, the former see the conflict through a pretty hardcore pro-Israel lens, which they justify by noting that Israel is the sole liberal democracy in the region and far more worthy of support than Hamas-led Palestinians, while the latter are more evenhanded in their treatment of the two sides).

(General background of my views on the Israeli-Palestinian issue at the end of this post)

As Weiss notes, one of the great maxims of foreign policy is "that the strategic interests of two states inevitably will diverge." This is where my largest beef with Israel and its American boosters begins.

Ever since its turbulent founding in 1948, Israel has relied heavily upon U.S. government aid, generally in the form of weapons, for its continued security--well, for its continued existence, really. So heavily, in fact, that in 1973 the Israeli government chose to weather a massive Arab attack rather than risk losing U.S. aid by making preemptive strikes against the forces building up along their border.

It is less clear, though, exactly how much the United States benefits from its end of this relationship. Certainly our military and intelligence agencies cooperate extensively (though we are by no means completely trusting of one another), and without checking I'll assume we have some excellent trade deals worked out. Not to mention the general good will which has always prevailed between the populations of our two nations.

As anyone with a basic grasp of U.S.-Arab relations knows, however, our unwavering support for Israel is a major sore point among its neighbors and is one of the biggest, and, outside of Iran and prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, was arguably the biggest reason* for Arab popular hostility toward the United States.

You can see where this is heading. But I discovered in Weiss's post, though...well, I'll post my reaction after the quote.

Eric Alterman is a well known, fairly mainstream columnist for The Nation, one of the most influential left-leaning magazines in the United States. I have agreed and disagreed with him at various points in the past, but in general he has struck me as a serious, thoughtful writer. He took part in the panel discussion described in the linked post as one of "'the left,'" as Weiss puts it.

Alterman cited the maxim of foreign policy that the strategic interests of two states inevitably will diverge and said, "Sometimes I'm going to go with Israel" when its interests and the U.S.'s interests diverge. Because the US can take a lot of hits, but Israel can't.

You heard that right, boss. To her credit, Eisner asked Alterman to name a situation in which the two countries' interests diverge. Alterman offered: that bin Laden and the 9/11 terrorists were "to some degree inspired" by the U.S. relationship to Israel. The general environment of "terrorist attacks" and their "pool" of supporters in the Arab/Muslim world obviously draws on the the U.S.-Israel relationship.

"Dammit, if that's the price we have to pay [for the special relationship], let's pay it... But let's be honest about it."

I wonder: how many Americans would share that view? (And where's the dual?)[in 'dual loyalties' -- Peter]

I had to force my eyes back over this several times just to be sure I hadn't misread the post. The US can take a lot of hits, but Israel can't...if that's the price we have to pay, let's pay it.

I'm happy that Eric Alterman would prefer Israel's supporters be honest about the war into which he just admitted Israel has dragged the United States. However, I can't figure out what, apart from a Rorschach-level devotion to transparency, could be motivating this bizarre level of honesty. Perhaps he's only paying the lip service to the idea--he couldn't actually believe that's a majority opinion, surely...? I'll go Weiss one further on skepticism here and assert that a solid majority of the American public would favor leaving Israel twisting in the wind if they thought it would mean a substantially reduced risk of Arab terrorist attacks on Americans.

The reality is far more complicated, of course. At this point, we're in a bit too deep to simply drop everything and leave, and there remains the nagging issue of oil supplies from the Gulf States, though it's not as though OPEC is doing us any favors.

The sheer presumptuousness of Alterman's words, though...he would put the safety of 300 million of his (apparently ostensibly) fellow countrymen at risk for the sake of 5 million Israelis? And he is counted as one of the liberals! Does this mean AIPAC would rather see a terrorist nuke hit the United States than Israel? After all, "the U.S. can take a lot of hits, and Israel can't." People are entitled to their views, but remember, this is widely acknowledged to be the most influential lobby in Washington. If I didn't know better, I might conclude that he was purposely trying to confirm the worst of the anti-Semitic paranoia currently confined to the dregs of Stormfront and its ilk.

Regardless, the Israel lobby seems to be taking an awful lot for granted recently in terms of American support, even by its usual standards. That may have flown with the past Administration, but it looks to be changing. Even their technical victory in the Charles Freeman affair came at a cost of raising their public profile, something anathema to any effective lobby.

*Neoconservatives like to cite Sayyid Qutb as evidence of innate Muslim/Arab hostility to America independent of our support of Israel. I see this as at best a gross distortion of Qutb's influence based on wishful thinking and at worst a canard intended to exaggerate his influence. Even discounting our support for Israel, Western (and at points Soviet, which to Qutb is identical in its toxicity to true Islam) support for brutal, authoritarian regimes across the Arab world including Qutb's own Egypt gave him fertile ground in which to plant his ultra-orthodox, anti-modernist doctrine. Nutcases and fanatics exist in all human societies, and widespread support for them should be taken as evidence of deeper problems rather than proof of true popularity of their brand of extremism. Hitler, too, received broad adulation throughout Germany, but we rightly attribute this to the worldwide economic crash of the 1930s and lingering bitterness over World War I than innate Germanic anti-Semitism or megalomania.

******
BACKGROUND

A quick rundown on my previous thoughts on this issue may be in order here. Israel is an amazing country, and the progress it has made in the mere half-century since its founding is little short of miraculous. A liberal democracy with a robust economy, outsize contributions to science and technology, and a large cultural influence as well as fantastic music of which I count myself a fan--all that with less than 5 million people on a glorified beach on the Mediterranean. Imagine what we could do with a world of Israels!

I do not by any means believe Israel is blameless in its conflict with the Palestinians. On the land issue, particularly, I am inclined to side with the Palestinians--just because you happen have a book which claims that God promised your people this land a few thousand years ago does not, in my mind, give you the right to summarily seize it from its current occupants. I do, however, recognize that simple eviction of one or the other side from the area is an impossibility, and in a nutshell I'd favor a complete withdrawal to the 1967 borders, but Israeli-Palestinian relations are for another post.

One final word, however. Regardless of whether one wishes Israel good or ill, it cannot continue the status quo if it wishes to survive as a liberal democracy. Absent a massive deportation effort that would likely turn Israel into a true international pariah, demographics project that in a few short decades it will be a majority Arab state. The IDF can shell Gaza into the Stone Age and AIPAC can dump as much money as it likes into our political process, as is its right, but this fact remains.

BACKGROUND ENDS
******

Watchmen film thoughts, or "Zack Snyder has no balls"

2009-03-10T09:05:00.013-04:00

Caught Watchmen last night. I'm a big fan of the book (more on that in a bit), and was quite skeptical about efforts to bring it to the big screen, especially with Zack Snyder of 300 directing.

For the most part, it actually wasn't bad. Had to be cut waaaaay down just to fit under 3 hours, and perhaps the frantic pacing needed to cram in as much as possible will leave non-Watchmen readers' heads whirling. My sympathies, but here I'll discuss my own impressions.

*******SPOILER WARNING*******

Really, everything leading up to the end was handled solidly enough, such that with a properly climactic ending, all the previous flaws could have been excused. But the ending... (skip to PLOT REHASH OVER if you know the background)

For those who don't know and don't care about spoilers, the setting is an alternate-history 1985. In 1959, the United States accidentally transformed one of their nuclear scientists into a being with near-godlike powers of teleportation, matter manipulation, and temporal distortion. This "man" was called Dr. Manhattan (the glowing blue guy). Dr. Manhattan's existence vastly imbalanced the Cold War--he could knock thousands of nuclear missiles from the sky in an instant, and when Nixon called upon him to aid in Vietnam, Dr. Manhattan won the war within a week.

By 1985, the U.S. enjoyed near-total veto power over the world, although the U.S.S.R. remained and had built vastly more nukes in the hope of overwhelming Dr. Manhattan through sheer numbers if need be. Then, in the events of the Watchmen book, Manhattan abandons Earth for various reasons, both personal and political. With the United States' trump card gone, the Soviets eagerly push in to Afghanistan, daring fifth-term President Nixon to respond. (Why would Nixon immediately resort to nukes? It's a good bet that, due to Manhattan's existence, the U.S. never dropped its policy of massive retaliation in favor of flexible response--the former nearly led to a nuclear war over some islands off China in the 1950s, hence Kennedy's historical decision to drop it).

Enter Adrian Veidt, or Ozymandias. Formerly a member of the Watchmen, a team of superheroes including Dr. Manhattan--though Manhattan was the only one with actual super powers--Veidt, the "smartest man on Earth," parleyed his fame into a massive fortune after the Keene Act outlawed superheroes.

Seeing the nuclear Armageddon humanity was preparing to visit upon itself, Veidt secretly struck first, razing several of the world's major cities from his antarctic base. In the book, he elaborately constructs a gigantic fake alien, pieces of which he then teleports into the cities to fool humanity into thinking they are under extraterrestrial attack; in the movie, he frames Dr. Manhattan. Either way, the intent is to unite humanity by convincing the world that it is collectively under attack. "Killing millions to save billions."

The plan works, as Nixon is seen on television lamenting the devastation and pledging to work together with the Soviets and all the nations of the world to defend against future attacks.

PLOT REHASH OVER

One of the most magnificent, truly bold things Alan Moore did with Watchmen the book was to paint Adrian Veidt and his actions in a sympathetic light. At first horrified at the slaughter their onetime comrade has perpetrated, the remaining members of the Watchmen, having arrived too late to stop him, reluctantly agree with his decision, promising never to reveal the true nature of the attacks. Save Rorschach, the psychopathically principled vigilante: "Never compromise. Even in the face of Armageddon." He tries to leave but is blocked, then disintegrated by a reluctant Dr. Manhattan, all the while defiantly screaming "What are you waiting for!?"

In the movie, however, Dr. Manhattan is the only one to truly accept Veidt's decision, offering understanding while neither "condemning nor condoning" his actions. After Rorschach's death, the rest, as represented by Nite Owl, violently attack Veidt before collapsing in tears, declaring that his deception has not "saved humanity, but deformed it."

Deform humanity? What exactly does this mean? The concept of ostensibly sworn enemies banding together in the face of a greater external threat is as old as human history. Even older; witness the symbiotic relationships enjoyed by the clownfish and sea anemone as well as ants and the Central American Acacia.

Is the deception the main issue? Veidt has ensured that no one will ever know the truth of the story. But what good is this one truth in a world where a multitude of less grandiose lies have led us to the brink of nuclear suicide?

The death toll? Don't even bother bringing it up. Veidt wiped out the centers of many of the world's major cities (out of New York City, only downtown Manhattan), whereas Nixon admits that they'd be lucky to only lose the entire East Coast in the event of a war--and those would just be the American casualties.

So why the refusal to fully embrace Veidt's solution? The first thing that springs to my mind is that director Zack Snyder and his backers were afraid to be seen as openly endorsing mass murder, even to avert a nuclear holocaust. Thus they let Dr. Manhattan, the blue-skinned quasi-god, speak in Veidt's defense, while putting their own voice in the human, audience-identifiable Nite Owl: "I don't care what the facts are, there's just something inherently wrong about all this!"

What a missed opportunity! They flirt with some truly weighty moral issues but at the last second refuse to take the plunge, retreating to spout stereotypically Good Guy stuff and in the process dropping all pretensions of true depth, portraying Veidt in the end as a naive crackpot visibly rethinking his actions. Oh, all the facts remain the same, but killing innocent people is bad no matter what, we certainly can't break that rule.

For all its other faults, it could have been a truly deep, bold, thought-provoking movie; not quite along the lines of the book, but in its own way. See this, audience? Moral and ethical issues! Gray areas! This man killed millions, but under the circumstances, that makes him the good guy. Think about that!

Ugh, I can't spit any more out. I may return with some edits or add-ons.

*******END OF SPOILERS*******

A colonial upstart

2009-02-25T11:53:00.013-05:00

Went in with my coworkers to a law firm yesterday for a lesson on U.S. trade law and how it's made, plus U.S. civics in general. It was mainly for their benefit, though I learned a few new things that I hadn't known about the way we handle treaties and trade agreements before. Surprisingly interesting, actually, especially to note the incredulity and confusion many of my coworkers felt toward our system, "our way of doing things."

I'll talk about the substance of it in another post, but near the beginning I was struck when the presenter emphasized these differences, noting that citizens of nations with parliamentary governments often get confused by "our different system."

"Our different system"...only 239 years old, and we command such influence! I have read others making this observation many times before, but for some reason it felt more clear at this point than it ever had for me before.

Was our system at all made with the thought that we might one day be so dominant? Unlikely. No young or small nation bothers with that sort of thing. Even today, do we make our laws with a mind to their vast, often indirect, influence? There's certainly a tug-of-war there as far as whether to sacrifice even small gains for ourselves that we might make a better impact on the rest of the world, with the internationalists vs. the neo/paleocons--the internationalists vs. the nationalists, really, though putting it like that sounds somehow stupid.

My instincts lie with the internationalists, though I'm not so naive as to advocate throwing ourselves completely at the mercy of the U.N. in its current state, where China and Russia still exercise veto power. However, the sentimental "city on a hill" and other American exceptionalist drivel that the nationalists so love to spout gets zero sympathy from me.

We are a country of human beings, just like every other state on this earth. We happen to be blessed with certain democratic and meritocratic tendencies--some enshrined in our government, others existing purely by tradition--as well has a vast amount of living space* and natural resources. If pushed far enough and scared well enough, the American people are just as capable of enabling evil as the German and Russian peoples have historically been. Perhaps our institutions would serve as a speed bump on the road to hell, but in the end analysis, our government, just like any other government, really is one of men rather than laws, to contradict President Ford.

At any rate, sovereignty is a purely practical, and hopefully temporary, concern. As I point out above, when put to the test, the "American" prefix has little to do with the "people" that follows it. More on that in another post.

*the comparison to the loaded Lebensraum (edit: as the Nazis used it -- thanks Greg) is apt, I think, considering the way we viewed it when the natives still occupied it.

Nuke the Moon!

2009-02-10T18:41:00.008-05:00

Even the uber-dry Wikipedia editors can't resist--the entry is "Project A119", but check out the URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuke_the_moon.

Yup, that's exactly what it sounds like. During the earlier days of the Cold War, before we had gotten quite used to (or used to suppressing) the fact that nuclear annihilation at the ends of our sworn enemies awaited us around every corner, we seem to have had some rather...interesting ideas. Take the Ford Nucleon, for example. Yes, a nuclear powered car. For civilians. Never got past the concept car stage, but still! And don't say a word about 'mileage benefits'--this was clearly "macho male symbol (car) + NUKES = atomic car" BEAT THAT, COMMIES!

Whelp, nuking the moon was the military equivalent. "Haha, we nuked the fucking Moon! The Moon! Every time you Reds look up at night, you'll see the AMERICAN crater on the Moon! Woohoo!" Couch it in all the scholarly diplomatic and military language you like, the social mechanism of deterrence rests on a pretty basic part of the human mind--that of cowing your opponent enough to make him back down: "'...the theory was that if the bomb exploded on the edge of the moon, the mushroom cloud would be illuminated by the sun.'" Interestingly, this whole idea appears to have been borne largely out of concern that the U.S. was perceived to be losing the space race, thus a public display of power was needed to reassert America's status. Hmmm, insecurity breeding desperate bravado, sounds familiar...

Dr. Strangelove wasn't too far off, mixing Freudian male neuroses with nuclear technology. Ugh, never have I seen a clearer contrast between the scientific and emotional extremes of the human mind: nukes + sex! How we haven't vaporized ourselves in the past 60 years...I won't jinx it, sorry.

Fun fact: a certain young physicist named Carl Sagan apparently worked on the project before it was shelved, calculating projections of dust flow from the blast.

Word cloud creator

2009-02-10T16:16:00.009-05:00

This may be old news, but it's a first for me. You know those word clouds that are all the rage nowadays? Well, I came across a do-it-yourself word cloud utility. I generally view word clouds as...damn, can't think of the word, "giving an appearance of depth and insightfulness while in reality offering nothing of the sort" (not "pseudointellectual," it's more concise and carries more meaning than that). Argh, it's on the tip of my tongue!

Anyway, the point is I don't set much store by word clouds, but they can make for interesting art.

Edit: Guess who! (click for big)

When dying just isn't enough...

2009-02-09T14:30:00.006-05:00

The Cadaver Synod of, who else, the Catholic Church. It takes a special breed of institutionalized, bureaucratic crazy to go to all the trouble of not only exhuming and desecrating a dead body but also putting it on trial.

War, firsthand

2009-02-05T11:12:00.001-05:00

Check out these fascinating firsthand accounts of life on both sides during a campaign in World War II.

The campaign in question is Operation Market-Garden, which is interesting for many reasons but most of all because it was the last German strategic victory (in the sense that they prevented the Allies from accomplishing their main goal, seizing a bridge on the Rhine river) on the Western Front in WWII. Yes, we were the losers on this one; an entire British airborne division was annihilated in the Dutch city of Arnhem after holding out for 4 days against an SS force many times its size. Out of roughly 10,000 men, only ~2,300 escaped across the Rhine river back to Allied lines--the rest were all killed or taken prisoner.

You may have heard of the book and subsequent movie, A Bridge Too Far, based on this campaign. I myself have several video games based on the campaign, as well.

Yesterday I somehow stumbled upon a quote by the commanding officer of the German forces at Arnhem, SS (!) General Wilhelm Bittrich, lamenting his own victory, saying it was his biggest regret of the entire war as it needlessly prolonged a clearly losing conflict. I'll try to find it again.

Market-Garden, explained quickly:
The main line of defense for Germany is based around the Rhine river, which runs from Germany's south up along its border and into Holland (difficult to see, thin blue line running through Arnhem on this map). Securing a bridge over the Rhine would bypass this defense and allow the western Allies to make a quick, deep thrust into the heart of Germany, bringing the war to a rapid close--no later than Christmas 1944, while in actuality the war in Europe dragged on until May 1945. Arnhem, a Dutch city, has such a bridge.

Allied tanks (XXX Corps) break through the German front lines at Eindhoven (A), final destination Arnhem (C). American and British (and, eventually, Polish) paratroopers drop in along the planned route. The Americans drop in to secure bridges just north of Eindhoven and in the city of Nijmegen (B), while the British drop in to secure the bridge at Arnhem (C). The original plan is for XXX Corps to reach Arnhem in two days. In reality, due to blown bridges and heavier than expected German resistance, after five days XXX Corps has only just taken the bridge at Nijmegen (B), and the British in Arnhem (C) are finally crushed, despite a Polish drop just south of Arnhem in an attempt to reinforce the British there.

(ignore the white dots along the route; the intervening 60+ years have seen the construction of several highways altering the fastest route)

View Larger Map

Christian Bale: "do you want me to FUCKING TRASH YOUR LIGHTS?"

2009-02-03T11:52:00.007-05:00

GRAAAH! At a director of photography (DP) on the set of Terminator 4 for moving around and adjusting lights during takes. Apparently this is a huge no-no in Set Etiquette 101, so it's particularly egregious during a big-budget Hollywood production. I'm not passing judgment on Bale either way (disclosure: I'm a huge fan of him as an actor), but I also hear that shooting films, especially large ones like this, can be very very stressful, too, and the occasional outburst is not unusual.

What most interests me is the way Bale shifts seemingly randomly back and forth between the All-American John Connor accent to his native British English. I've read that in interviews and public appearances leading up to the release of Batman Begins, Bale kept the American accent so as to keep the Bruce Wayne image consistent, and I know he takes acting and accents very seriously in general. I wonder what exactly was going through the accent-managing part of his brain at this moment. Funny that it would be a Terminator movie, as I'm reminded of the frantic shapeshifting of the dying T-1000 from Judgment Day.

As promised, a real New Year's

2009-02-01T22:20:00.006-05:00

Not particularly safe, but definitely fun. Felt like a warzone at times (two solid weeks of nonstop fireworks everywhere, day and night). All hail the Year of the Dog!

Sunday New Year's

2009-02-01T16:55:00.004-05:00

Just got back from Washington, D.C.'s Chinese New Year celebrations. My Taiwanese coworkers at TECRO (Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, in lieu of an Embassy due to the Taiwan-China dispute) encouraged me to go. I assumed we'd all stand on the sidelines and watch the procession of dancing dragons and such go by. Turns out we were part of the parade!

Not the dragons, of course, but simply marching with lines of alternating Taiwanese and American flags. I initially felt a bit self-conscious, as I was the sole white guy in a sea of Chinese, but then I remembered the 8 months I'd spent in exactly the same position while studying in China, and it was easily shrugged off. I'd never been in any kind of parade before, either--it was neat to try out the opposite perspective. And so many people! Perhaps in New York or San Francisco I would have expected a big deal, but we actually had a pretty good turnout.

The parade appeared to have been organized and put on entirely by the Taiwan Chinese population of the District, with the only sign of the mainland being a large PRC (People's Republic of China) flag on display at a souvenir stand. I must admit I felt a few brief pangs of worry that taking part and associating myself so visibly with the ROC (Republic of China) flag might affect my chances of future employment on the Mainland, but barring an unexpected downturn in currently upbeat cross-straits relations, I highly doubt it.

The parade ended with several speeches by Taiwanese and D.C. government dignitaries, including one surprisingly interesting one by a D.C. "senator" whose name escapes me. This fellow spoke of the lack of official representation from which D.C. and Taiwan both suffer, and gave a rousing call to action for both parties. I'm not sure I'd give much for Taiwan's chances of representation, what with the current government's stated desire somewhere between "don't talk about it" and "eventual reunification", plus a very large neighbor threatening instant annihilation or at least invasion at the first sign of declared independence, but it was a nice thought. Sigh, and for all that, D.C.'s chances are probably pretty equivalent, so I suppose it was an apt comparison.

I did see current Council member and former mayor Marion Barry up there with the officials, and I'd never seen him before despite having heard so much about him, so that was kind of cool.

The whole event was scheduled to end with an awesome Chinese firecracker display so long that it had to be held up by a crane, but the DCFD came along at the last minute and cancelled it. Admittedly, there may have been some hidden issue of which I was unaware, but come on guys, it's just a bunch of gunpowder packed in paper held up by a crane. They even pushed the crowd back far enough to form a good-sized empty circle before the DCFD showed up, which probably wasn't necessary. If the fire department thought this was dangerous, they would have had a collective heart attack at the week-long celebrations in Beijing (videos forthcoming!).

Ah well, still a fun time in the parade. Happy Year of the Ox!

Tymoshenko <3

2009-01-30T21:45:00.006-05:00

Found it! Click for big.

Oh Something Awful, how would I waste my time without you...

The real deal:

I guess I haven't mentioned it so far, but she is the current and former prime minister of Ukraine.

Friday afternoon comic relief

2009-01-30T15:46:00.006-05:00

Via my good friend Andrew, Austin prepares for the worst.

And this is a bit old but I've never seen it before. Good to know the "Nailin' Palin" instinct isn't unique to America.

I have a great (non-porn!) anime rendition of Tymoshenko, I'll have to dig that up...

States: America's SEZs?

2009-01-30T10:52:00.005-05:00

Fascinating article in today's New York Times about Obama's openness to '"progressive federalism."' That is, where 'governors and activist state attorneys general...try to lead the way on environmental initiatives, consumer protection and other issues.' The article quotes Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis describing in 1932 how each state can '"serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."'

Upon reading that quote, I immediately thought of China's Special Economic Zones (SEZs), which Deng Xiaoping established in the early 80s to experiment with market capitalism without committing the entire country to wide-ranging reforms with uncertain consequences.

There are, of course, important differences. Deng's de facto dictator status and the Chinese central government's total power enabled him to impose the SEZs wherever he deemed best, so for China the process was very much an experiment directed from the top. Once it proved successful, Deng expanded the reforms to include the entire country (though important differences still exist between the SEZs and the rest of the PRC).

Progressive federalism, on the other hand, is driven by democratically elected state governments impatient with the federal government's slow pace or badly applied regulations. It's not clear whether some of these initiatives, if successful, will be taken up by Washington and applied on a national level, though the fact that it will have taken a state to try them in the first place leads me to believe that Congressional passage would be difficult at best. Plus, if the state is large enough or if enough states adopt the same reform, it may become more profitable for affected companies to treat it as though it were a federal law rather than maintaining separate production lines for different states. I anticipate Republican complaints about large blue states like California setting the regulatory pace for the entire country, as it already seems to be doing.

Krauthammer: pettiness and insecurity

2009-01-30T09:08:00.014-05:00

Charles Krauthammer splutters with indignant outrage at President Obama's 'apology' interview with the Dubai-based al-Arabiya cable network. (NOTE: outside of block quotes, I use single quotes to denote Krauthammer's words and double quotes for sayings or anything not from the column).

[Obama was] needlessly defensive and apologetic.

Is it "new" to acknowledge Muslim interests and show respect to the Muslim world? Obama doesn't just think so, he said so again to millions in his al-Arabiya interview, insisting on the need to "restore" the "same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."

Astonishing. In these most recent 20 years -- the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world -- America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved -- and resulted in -- the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Krauthammer continues in this vein, angrily maintaining that even in the face of repeated abuse from the 'Muslim world', such as the OPEC embargo and all kinds of 'cold-blooded' terrorism, the United States has done nothing but seek to alleviate the plight of Muslims around the world.

Perhaps the past eight years have made it hard for Krauthammer to remember, but what Obama is doing is called "diplomacy." Regardless of how one-sided our relationship with the 'Muslim world' may be, if indeed it is, it is their perception of us that really matters. And currently, we are seen as the firm, unyielding backbone of the hated, land-stealing, baby-killing Zionist menace. That description may be significantly at odds with reality--and the additional hatred brought on since March 2003 may be even more at odds with Krauthammer's reality--but if our goal is to engage with the Muslim Middle East, that is the view with which we must engage, at least to start out with. The goal being, of course, to change it.

Keep in mind, Obama has made no actual concessions nor promises to the 'Muslim world' or any individual majority-Muslim Middle Eastern country. But reading Krauthammer, you'd think he gave away the world:

If Barack Obama wants to say, as he said to al-Arabiya, I have Muslim roots, Muslim family members, have lived in a Muslim country -- implying a special affinity that uniquely positions him to establish good relations -- that's fine. But it is both false and deeply injurious to this country to draw a historical line dividing America under Obama from a benighted past when Islam was supposedly disrespected and demonized.

Again, it may be false, especially from Krauthammer's point of view, but it's the perception within the Muslim world that matters. More to the point, though, 'deeply injurious'? Really? How exactly does it hurt us as a nation for our president to apologize for perceived wrongs? For myself, I would add "especially when there is some substance to the complaints," but even if you take Krauthammer's view that we have done nothing but good, how exactly does it hurt us to simply apologize?

Hurt George W. Bush's legacy, perhaps, though by all accounts the former President needs no assistance there. But the United States 'as a country'? Again, even if this amounts to 'gratuitous disparagement of the country he is now privileged to lead', as Krauthammer continues, I fail to see how exactly that leaves us weaker as a nation.

On the contrary, owning up to one's own mistakes, real or perceived, and apologizing for same costs us nothing. In fact, I would argue that it makes us look more powerful. "Being the bigger man"--notice the word "bigger"?

Let's try a different tack. Ever see a Porsche commercial that loudly asserts their number one status? How about Johnny Walker--"Keep walking", what kind of an ad is that? Nothing in there about what makes their brand superior to that of other scotch.

Openly flaunting one's power and wealth creates the impression of insecurity and hidden weakness.* There's a reason that "nouveau riche" is considered an insult. A lesson certainly lost on the supremely patriotic and testy Bush Administration, and apparently on Charles Krauthammer, too. Or do is America really so fragile that a few apologies is enough to bring her down?

*In fact--and I can't find an exact quote at the moment--far better writers than I have observed a certain shabbiness associated with the truly wealthy, those with absolute security and a total lack of self-consciousness about their status. I have seen this mentioned more often in connection with the British rather than the American upper classes, which I assume is due to the greater length of British history allowing the upper classes to grow more accustomed to their greater means. (A quick Google search turns up this (search for "shabbiness") and this, just to provide a few examples). Of course, this also meant greater social stratification and less social mobility in general, as opposed to the rags-to-riches American Dream. Might these other characteristics also apply to countries as well as people? Perhaps, but, I would argue, not nearly as inevitably, and anyway that's another post.

Conor Friedersdorf

2009-01-29T22:10:00.003-05:00

An intelligent, thoughtful blogger if I ever read one. I had an on-again off-again relationship with Culture11 (R.I.P.), and while the trolls plus Joe Carter and Ericka Andersen often drove me off, Conor was the reason I kept returning. I hope he starts blogging again, whether independently or with another organization.

"And if you cut them down...do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

2009-01-29T21:53:00.008-05:00

Caught a beautiful A Man For All Seasons quote from the Dish. God, I need to read more Serious Literature, there's a damn good reason it survives the deluge of history. What was true then still holds today. And such a perfect mix of style and substance--the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts. Damn!

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Sullivan calls Roper the Yoo of his day, but I think Cheney or Addington would be more appropriate. Also, seems the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. (Damn, this is from 1988? Augh, such advance warning, so useless now!)

Lee Kuan Yew is awesome

2009-01-29T21:49:00.004-05:00

Old school Machiavellian.

Man after my own heart. Note the British during the run-up to Iraq...poor devils, never considered we might actually be serious about all that instant democracy talk.

"It'll be 1945 Germany all over again, I swear it or my name isn't Reuel Marc Gerecht"

2009-01-27T18:58:00.016-05:00

Via Jeffrey Goldberg, Reuel Marc Gerecht defends Israel's recent foray into Gaza. As for the move itself, I'm not going to comment just now; I have heard many competing speculations as to Israel's goals and motives, and an honest exploration of them would require its own post.

I do, however, take issue with Gerecht's reasoning. Broken down, his argument runs thus:

***
"Islamic history is full of examples where terrorists/bandits/outlaw zealots were neutralized only through overwhelming force."

"This mechanic continues to hold true. Whether the Americans and the Israelis can bring themselves to use the amount of force necessary here is another matter, but it would work just as well now as it did then. It worked in Germany in World War II too, didn't it?"

"[vague hints at violence inherent in Islam], Israel had better be prepared for a long fight."
***

Gerecht is framing things incorrectly, whether by accident or design, I won't speculate. You can trot out all the Islamic history you like, but the issue here is a much more basic one: forcing a people to collectively accept their defeat, thereby allowing themselves to be defeated.

His mention of Germany is the closest he comes to touching on the real issue, and not coincidentally it throws his errors into particularly harsh relief. Germany was defeated because the German people realized they stood alone on the brink of existential collapse. Her allies were either defeated or nearly so, and enemy armies occupied every inch of her territory.

Obviously, there are key differences between Germany in 1945 and Gaza in 2009--the religious aspect of the current conflict, plus the fact that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people as a sovereign state, and I'm sure there are many more. But Gerecht's comparison has already run off the rails in the area that counts most. The Israelis can crush Palestinian fighters in every battle they fight from now until eternity, but as long as the people of the surrounding Arab states remain sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, the Palestinians will never stop fighting. The moral support provided by fellow Muslims and Arabs, be they Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Saudi, Iraqi, Yemeni, etc. enables the Palestinian cause to easily endure the most crushing assaults Israel is willing to mount against it.

In effect, the Israelis are trying to make the entire Arab world accept defeat by repeatedly crushing a very small part of it. A more apt World War II comparison would be Germany's siege of Leningrad; no matter how much they pounded the besieged city, its inhabitants never gave in while there was a Soviet Union out there still fighting. Germany knew this, of course; they counted on the U.S.S.R.'s eventual defeat, rather than a costly direct battle for the city, to compel Leningrad's eventual surrender. They exhibited somewhat less wisdom in their incursion into Stalingrad, and paid dearly for it.

Now, Gerecht can easily align his 'overwhelming force' proposal with reality, as you readers may already have guessed. However, I doubt Gerecht himself would have the stomach to propose, let alone carry out, what would truly be necessary for an Israeli 'victory.' There are actually two routes Israel could take, both of them equally impossible in 2009.

First, they could massacre every single Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza. Aside from the difficulty of the logistics of this (NBC weapons would affect Israelis and Israeli land; conventional weapons would be very hard pressed to do a sufficiently thorough job), modern communications plus international politics--and, one would hope, basic human morality--rule out this approach.

Second, Israel could invade, occupy, and isolate every single Muslim Middle Eastern country. 'Isolate' meaning the total communications and media blackout necessary to engender the sort of hopelessness-inducing loneliness required to properly pacify a conquered population. Again, even if the Israelis had the manpower to make this approach work, international opinion renders it a non-starter.

If it's a military solution you want, anything less than either of these is doomed to failure from the beginning. I hope Gerecht is simply wrong rather than purposely deceptive; I can't imagine why anyone would deliberately advocate for a policy using reasoning they knew to be faulty and incorrect. If he still believes in it, I'd like to hear a proper reason.

Mirror's Edge

2009-01-25T21:05:00.011-05:00

Decided today would be a good Lazy Sunday, so I played through Mirror's Edge, a very recent release. A little note up front: skip the second paragraph if video game mechanics bore the hell out of you. Onward! The Wikipedia entry gives the lowdown; basically, it's a game based around parkour (or parcours, if you prefer non-bastardized French, although the French parkour Wikipedia entry also uses the k, so I'll throw my hands up in defeat on that one). It's all about being a courier for dissidents and rebels in an unnamed, dystopic near-future Matrix-y metropolis where surveillance is omnipresent. A hot, lithe Asian-American (or American-accented) courier--standard nerd fare, of course.

Fun game--plenty of wall-jumping, sliding, ziplining, drainpipe shimmying, and regular old climbing. Combat is mainly melee as you start with no weapon (all possible weapons are present-day guns), and though you can pick them up from downed enemies, you can't pick up or carry ammo and your speed and acrobatic skills are hampered significantly while toting a gun. Additionally, except for two or three set-piece encounters in the game, it's quite possible to play without fighting at all--you're mainly running to or from something, and you're so fragile that attempting to dispatch more than one enemy at a time is near suicidal.

As for the plot, again, standard "f*** the system!" Matrix-ish nerd stuff. Your normally independent character, Faith, doesn't start out overtly ideological, though--while she has no love for the Man, she's resigned to his existence, and she's mainly out to make a buck, at least until sister and good-girl cop Kate is framed for a crusading politician's death. Then it's all-out to save Kate, and though some ideological backstory is filled in (we discover that the sisters' mother died in one of the riots against encroaching Orwellization "18 years ago"), the game ends with the sisters reunited atop the towering skyscraper that serves as the Mayor's office/residence. No change in the System (though the city's main surveillance servers are toast, collateral damage from Faith's rampage to rescue Kate), nor any sign of the Mayor himself.

Although I enjoyed myself, the story seemed to have quite a bit of wasted potential. I know, I shouldn't expect anything grand from a video game plot, but it played like the game developers themselves had held that mindset while making the thing. "Don't mess around with story, keep it tight, simple, and mainly as a vehicle to show off the sweet mechanics we have here." Something like that.

At one point, Faith reminisces about the "November Riots" in which her mother perished, musing "They said it [the increased surveillance and authoritarianism] was for the greater good. But 'good' and 'right' are two different things." That's the extent of the political philosophy we get.

Perhaps a good thing, too, because what the hell? If you take issue with something, obviously it's not "good" to you. You cannot split "good" and "right"--they really are the same thing. What you think is, "No, it's not for the greater good--it may enhance security and stability for everyone in the short term, but in the long term it will inevitably be abused, so no, it's not 'good.'" This is assuming, of course, that Faith was casting "good" as "security, stability"and "right" as "principles of civil rights"--given the context of the statement, I'm almost positive she was.

What a discredit she does to her own side! Dick Cheney couldn't have asked for a better strawman...er, strawwoman? We do not have laws guaranteeing civil rights and privacy simply because it's the "right" and principled, though annoyingly self-handicapping, thing to do. We have them because they ensure our long-term security and stability far better than any ham-fisted crackdowns could.

How much trouble would it have been to put words like those into Faith's digital mouth? Then again, perhaps they were going for realism--what would an intelligent, principled member of the opposition be doing jumping off of rooftops, dodging bullets, and shimmying up drainpipes for cash? They are implied to be the (paying) clients Faith serves. Yet increased intelligence and critical thinking are never anything but positives as far as the protagonist/player character is concerned. After all, who wants an unquestioning lunk for an avatar? There are games which specialize in that, but Mirror's Edge does not advertise itself as one of those.

Again, though, imagine what a joyous surprise it would have been had Faith been actually thinking as well as running that whole time. Perhaps we could have learned more about the sinister Orwellian measures so constantly alluded to. Perhaps they were sincerely felt to be justified at the time of their enaction, in the face of serious threats to the people of Unnamed City? What is the world outside City like? What is the purpose of a city government, anyway--to ensure maximum security, stability, and prosperity? Chinese-style market authoritarianism? Most of the city signs are Firefly-style bilingual English/Chinese, too, which sets up another great aspect to explore...if the game devs had bothered to put in the effort. Instead, it's just more surface nerd-appeal--no background on it, and all dialogue is in American- or British-accented English. Mostly American.

Imagine if they had bothered to put someone on this, if only for background--no change needed to actual gameplay, just a bit more dialogue to record for background newscasts, a bit more art for newspaper headlines and open emails on computers. A few more and more intelligent musings for Faith. Perhaps the outside world really is dangerous enough to warrant such measures--perhaps she's conflicted about her role? Perhaps she might even come to sympathize with her pursuers--or perhaps the whole city plunges into riots again with the shutdown of the surveillance and security apparatus, a la late 2003 Iraq, and she comes to question her actions? I know, Dick Cheney eat your heart out, but I'm not sympathizing with this "emergency authoritarian" view. I simply wish some effort had been made to inject some real-world grey into the black and white of Faith's world, make her a critically thinking individual. Coincidentally (or not?), it is literally quite beautifully monochromatic, if you look at screenshots.

A damn fun ride, but it could have been so much more...