Punish Torture? Hollywood's Answer.

Punish Torture? Hollywood's Answer.

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Health Pandemics and Dissent

In light of the hell breaking loose on Mexican soil over the last few
days I thought I'd pose a question that occurred to me while listening
to the BBC in my car, "Could fear of a possible pandemic give a
government sufficient weight to stamp out dissent?" It seems highly
probable and I'm curious to find out if it has been tried in the past.
After all, an unpopular regime, especially one with some kind of germ
theory, could announce a new disease and then prohibit groups of 4 or
more. For those conspiracy nuts out there, I'm not accusing the
Mexican government of doing this, but I recognize the potential. Fear
is a prime motivator to sacrifice your rights, after all you can
always try and get back your rights, right?

Fwd: Column about US torture policy

An early edition of my dad's weekly column: 

Veterans News and Views

 

Justifying the Means

 

Jack Dragoni

 

In the discussions about the use of "harsh techniques"/torture by US interrogators, former Vice President Cheney and others have claimed that the use of these methods did result in the US gaining valuable information from terror suspects. That defense is, in effect, saying that the ends justify the means. The question this raises is whether we want a government that will utilize any methods to accomplish its goals? Further, what levels of government should we allow to do this and under what justification?

 

Should the police be allowed to use these methods on suspected violent criminals to extract confessions? After all, if these suspects are guilty, putting them in prison is in the public interest. Remember also that we prosecuted Japanese for war crimes after WW II for using waterboarding on US POWs.

 

The reply to this point is often that the terror suspects are not American citizens and their rights are not protected. Really? In other words, the statements that governments do not bestow rights and that rights are granted by the Creator are not true? Or is it that US government officials are permitted to refuse to honor rights granted by God? It also does not matter if members of congress were informed of government actions that restrict rights. If government actions are in violation of the US Constitution, congress cannot authorize a change in the US Constitution to legalize them. This must be done by amendment.

 

The individual rights we proclaim and celebrate make it more difficult to guarantee protection from all threats. That is the reason that some governments have limited those rights for the "greater good"/ national security. Fascist and communist governments have long allowed no limitations of searches and have denied legal representation and legal due process, prohibited the ownership of weapons, prohibited dissent, and restricted religious activities all in the name of national security. Are we to believe that justification is acceptable? What individual rights are protected from government restriction?

 

This is a serious issue that rises above partisan politics, and it deserves to be debated. Those who make the discussions about this a partisan issue ignore the fact that it is a legitimate constitutional question.

How Feasible Is Obama's Nuclear Disarmament Agenda?

How Feasible Is Obama's Nuclear Disarmament Agenda?

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How Did Obama Do in Latin America?

How Did Obama Do in Latin America?

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OAH 2009: Sam Wineburg Dares to Ask If the Teaching American History Program Is a Boondoggle

OAH 2009: Sam Wineburg Dares to Ask If the Teaching American History Program Is a Boondoggle

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From The Best of Times by Haynes Johnson

History of horrors for entertainment 141

Not that the phenomenon of exploiting tragedy and sensation is new. American, indeed human, history is replete with notorious examples, from Roman emperors offering their subjects bread and circuses in the form of staged brutal spectacles to divert them from other matters to Hitler applying that ancient lesson well by staging massive torchlight rallies before wildly cheering crowds, diverting them from horrors being committed by the Nazi regime. In every age, crowds gather instantly at scenes of suffering, and the greater the calamity, the greater the celebrated figure, the greater the crowds. Always accompanying them are the merchants of misery cashing in on the latest scandalous spectacle.

Lie to Me

The beauty of Fox's Lie to Me  is not lost on me. It oversimplifies science, dramatizes a profession, introduces sexy people into a not-so-sexy person job, and enables a 'job' to be finished within the span of an hour - this last point is cited often in TV shows because of the lack of chronology and continuity in the shows; the viewer has no conception of time. 

Yet, it does in simplistic terms what science sets out to do. Namely, unify us. Lie to Me claims that there are universal attributes that all people share and that these attributes are impossible to overcome and ignore. They make up the very fabric of our humanity. I realize that this is a simplistic rendition of actual psychology and body language but at the same time I believe that science tells us the same thing in much more complex terms. 

The Thirty Days of Barack Obama - The New York Review of Books

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22450

Great article on the first 30 days of Obama's administration. Critical but fair, I think. 

A Nation of Tax-Evaders

"What kind of civilized society can dispense with these things?"

Finally someone said it. I'm so happy I've been ranting about this for days. 

http://hnn.us/articles/62344.html

Kindle for the iPhone

I recently purchased a Kindle 2, my insatiable need to have all that's
new and pretty. Yesterday, I received an email regarding the release
of the Kindle app for the iPhone. I wasn't as furious as might be
expected. One, the current app is rather limited. Two, I love the
simplicity of my Kindle it does what it's built to do, and it does it
quite well. Three, annotations are much easier with actual buttons to
press - no nonfiction is out. As for now, I'm using my iPhone at the
gym to read fiction.
I'm a little discouraged by some of the reviews. Many compare the
Kindle app to the Kindle itself, they also compare the Kindle app to
the features of other reader apps (eReader). This is fair, but one
buys a toaster for toast. I buy an e-reader to read books. Amazon as a
massive library readily available to iPhone users. Plus, the books are
a lot cheaper. It's obviously a work in process but the library
itself, available to all these new users will, I hope, stimulate an
even greater expansion of the library Amazon has.

02/27/2009 - Stimulus protesters rally at the Gateway Arch - STLtoday.com

Like the idiots of the Whiskey Rebellion, these people think the colonists fought a war over taxes. It was a war over representation! To quote the Scottish rebel, "No taxation WITHOUT representation." My fellow constituents are represented by one of the most conservative members of the House, Todd Akin. I think the conservatives of St. Louis County can claim adequate representation so the Tea Party thing is moot. 

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/D3FFA37E8AF777BA8625756A00642DC0?OpenDocument

One Big Unhappy Family - The New York Review of Books

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22412

Interesting review of The Bin Ladens by Steven Coll as well as a in-depth discussion of Saudi history. 

Here's an excerpt: 

"Here the point is very well made by Coll that the origins and development of Osama's thinking are not to be found in anything traditional or scriptural, but are, rather, a response to the tensions of modern Saudi Arabia and of the Middle East as a whole."

N. Korea, terrorist watch list

Just saw a story about a Japanese family who have had loved ones
abducted by North Korea. They are calling for Sec. Clinton and Pres.
Obama to add North Korea back onto the Axis of Evil.
Not only is this contrary to Obama's campaign and presidential rhetoic
it's simply unwise. Unless Korea does something illogical we should
not act illogically. Refusing diplomatic relations with a country is
one step short of all out war. Americans don't want to fight North
Korea, many forget that we have already. Of course, now, China is less
ideological so the prospect invasion is considerably less. Regardless
it would be a mistake and I'll be shocked if Obama does anything of
the sort.
I symapthize with the families, I do not know the solution but most
idiots can see a bad solution.

Vatican Voices « World in Motion

Beautiful description of the use and legacy of the Catholic Church. I often lose myself in rants and forget that the Catholic Church helped 'Western Civilization' be reincarnated after the fall of Rome.  

http://scotterb.wordpress.com/2009/02/14/vatican-voices/

C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership

C-SPAN has had historians rank all the Presidents. Most interesting to me is their comparison of the last time they did this back in 2000. Bill Clinton has certainly gone up (or down if you want to be technical) in rank. Now he is no.15. Not bad and I'm not posting this to start a debate. It's interesting to me that he has done so much better in 2009 than in 2000. Do the years afford more objectivity, or is this simply a comparison to Bush (no. 36)? I think its a little of both. 

http://www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/default.aspx

Different rhetoric?

In the past, this would say, "Your gonna burn in..."  

IMG_0052

 

H-Net Review Publication: 'How Do I Know? The Bible Tells Me So'

Is it wrong that I love such snobbish rhetoric? I hope not.

>
> Lori Anne Ferrell. The Bible and the People. New Haven Yale
> University Press, 2009. 288 pp. $32.50 (cloth), ISBN
> 978-0-300-11424-9.
>
> Reviewed by Arthur Williamson (California State University-Sacramento)
> Published on H-Albion (February, 2009)
> Commissioned by Brian S. Weiser
>
> How Do I Know? The Bible Tells Me So
>
> Lori Anne Ferrell presents a briskly written discussion of the
> Bible's shifting role and significance within major Anglophone
> cultures. Her trajectory is a long one. Beginning with the early
> Norman Gundulf Bible, she proceeds to the thirteenth-century portable
> Paris Bibles of the traveling mendicant orders, to the Wycliffe
> scriptures and the Lollards. Naturally enough, the Reformation
> figures prominently and, most centrally, the King James Version, her
> study continuing through the world of the Enlightenment, the
> Victorians, and into the present moment. The book closes with a
> discussion of the eighth-century Lindisfarne Gospels and modern
> reproductions of the manuscript, thus joining the medieval world with
> the present and reflecting with Walter Benjamin on "authenticity,"
> reproduction, and text--the central theme of the volume.
>
> The book, therefore, at once offers a history of a book as well as a
> history of what a "book" meant, an undertaking inherently involving
> scribal and print culture studies. Here surely lies a daunting
> challenge for both author and reader. Or does it? Ferrell wears her
> learning lightly. _The Bible and the People_ visibly seeks to be
> accessible, for Ferrell writes in a chatty, self-regarding style that
> many will doubtless find engaging. The formidable complexities lie
> beneath the surface awaiting for those who wish to pursue them.
>
> The thesis is straightforward: throughout its history in the West,
> the Bible has rarely appeared ever in its original languages, has
> been continuously "translated" in every sense of the word, and still
> the text has remained remarkably, even amazingly, stable over the
> centuries. Thus, the Bible has, at times, found itself transformed
> from a working book to a venerated item. It has been universalized
> through vernacular translations. It has been sliced, diced, and
> reassembled by figures as different as the pious Nicholas Ferrar and
> the Deist Thomas Jefferson. It has been gender selected and pared
> down, most notably by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It has been inflated
> and overwhelmed with Victorian illustrations. It has been made
> available in parcels through subscription. It has appeared in
> disposable magazine form. This "impossible book"--unique in the
> Western experience--can never be gotten right, and yet has always
> contrived to be right. It has spoken in a near infinity of voices
> and yet maintained a common coherence. That, for Ferrell, is its
> mystery, its wonder.
>
> Along the way, Ferrell makes a number of interesting observations.
> As she rightly points out, the renowned King James Authorized Version
> (1611) needs to be seen as a reactionary document that sought to undo
> the radicalism of the Geneva Bible (1560). The latter's commentary,
> with its historical vision of human experience--so well suited to
> that revolutionary decade--was stripped away. The word "church"
> replaced the far less hierarchical and less clerical "congregation."
> Further, "congregation" might also carry classical political
> meanings. Scotland's revolutionary leaders in 1559-60 called
> themselves the "Lords of the Congregation," unimaginable as the Lords
> of the "Church." The King James Bible arose during a period of
> deepening conservatism in Britain and throughout Europe. Small
> wonder the Geneva Bible persisted in radical Scotland well after
> 1611. And yet the language of the King James Bible was harnessed to
> revolutionary causes right into the 1960s and beyond. Its cadences
> eventually reached so deeply into the Anglophone mind that more
> accurate renderings of the original could only seem "inauthentic,"
> not "really" the Bible. The well-known line from Isaiah 1:18
> (reputedly Lyndon Johnson's favorite) ran, "Come now, let us reason
> together." The New English Bible (1961) gave the passage, apparently
> closer to the sense of the Hebrew, as "Come now, let us argue it
> out." The accurate and the authentic palpably diverge.
>
> Ferrell's approach to the Bible and its multiple Anglophone
> incarnations is decidedly conservative, one characterized by awe,
> splendor, wonder, and reverence rather than critical distance.
> Higher criticism of the late nineteenth century barely surfaces,
> while the anticlericalism and anti-scripturalism of Anatole France,
> Robert Ingersoll, or even the Quakers run completely counter to the
> spirit of the book. Theirs is a vanished world, however much of the
> people, and out of tune with late twentieth-century sensibility.
> Ferrell notes the Tridentine prohibition of any vernacular version of
> scripture or any Latin version other than the Jerome's Vulgate. But
> she declines to consider the fraught confessional conflict about
> understanding the Bible, where skepticism emerged as the great weapon
> of the Counter-Reformation.[1] It is hard to imagine a more central
> dispute about spirituality and its connection to the sacred text.
>
> Perhaps surprising, neo-Catholic revisionism also informs _The Bible
> and the People_ in important ways. We encounter sixteenth-century
> "Reformations" rather than a single coherent Reformation. In
> contrast, the medieval world emerges as an integrated, almost organic
> structure from which heretical departure occurred only inadvertently.
> The Reformation itself was backward looking. Protestants were
> simply wrong to claim that the Middle Ages did not know the Bible;
> medieval people learned Bible stories (and messages) through plays,
> images, and clerical reading aloud.
>
> Ferrell does comment at various points that medieval literacy was
> "discouragingly low" (e.g., p. 38). But, we might well ask,
> discouraging to whom? It did not discourage the Middle Ages because
> salvation did not require scripture but a sacramental system--derived
> from scripture, to be sure, but much more as well. That, of course,
> was the reformers' point. The Reformation proposed instead a
> historical vision of salvation, founded on scriptural prophecy, that
> was altogether unprecedented and that confronted the atemporal
> symbols of the medieval period. The sacred drama, the unfolding of
> the apocalypse--the story of the rise of Antichrist--underwrote the
> Reformation and Protestant piety, working a far-reaching
> temporalization of European culture.[2] Ferrell mentions Antichrist
> and the apocalypse but neither concept informs her argument (pp. 82,
> 153). Her preoccupation with transcendent mystery, no less than her
> ambivalence about the Reformation, does not bespeak confessional
> choices, but instead suggests deep reservations about modernity. The
> book is very much a part of our increasingly sacralized post-1960s
> age.
>
> None of this can take away from the book's achievement. Whatever its
> assumptions or implications, _The Bible and the People_ succeeds in
> drawing together a vast range of material within a comfortable
> compass; in combining extraordinary learning with an almost folksy
> accessibility; and in introducing highly abstruse concepts with
> grace, wit, and often considerable charm. Such a book inherently
> required high levels of selectivity, and the selections have largely
> proven to be wise. To conclude in the style favored by the author:
> way to go Lori Anne!
>
> Notes
>
> [1]. Richard Popkin has provided the foundational discussion of the
> early modern debate about the authority and interpretation of
> scripture, in T_he History of Skepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle_
> (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
>
> [2]. There now exists an enormous literature on this subject. For a
> recent survey, see A. H. Williamson, _Apocalypse Then: Prophecy and
> the Making of the Modern World_ (Westport: Greenwood, 2008).
>
> Citation: Arthur Williamson. Review of Ferrell, Lori Anne, _The Bible
> and the People_. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. February, 2009.
> URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23532
>
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
> Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
> License.

Fiscal and Social Conservatives

There was, and I believe within a small minority there still is, a distinction in the country between fiscal and social conservatives. We now use an umbrella term for both, because most politicians are both. The difference being that Fiscal conservatives may oppose this bailout but not civil unions for homosexuals. Why? Because a fiscal conservative's argument may be that he opposes government intruding into the lives of its citizens more than absolutely necessary. Obviously, one who says such a thing than proceeds to vote on some bill dictating what a person can or cannot do in the privacy of their own home is not just contradictory, it is hypocrisy. 

I can oppose a fiscal conservative and still speak to them with a general amount of respect. Social conservatives I have a much harder time having a coherent conversation with. Note that this discussion leaves out the abortion, and if I must, capital punishment debates. I'm discussing religious, political and sexual freedoms. Because I agree that the government should have it's limits and those limits should stop, at least, at the bedroom door. We should not be a nation of gossipers. We should be a puritanical national that obsesses over whether or not our citizens are using the missionary position, birth control, or even bothers to find a member of the opposite sex to engage in 'carnal relations' with. We should not be a nation that feels the need to take loyalty oaths everyday in school. The first one, when becoming a citizen, should be more than enough. 

We should not be a country that worries about the faith of each other's children instead of the faith of our own. Fiscal aid to the poor is generally decried as government paternalism while social controls are described by the same flock as reinforcing the moral fiber of our country. It is time that we look to the individual once again to instill morality on his off spring. Government is intended to ensure our safety while effecting our freedoms as little as possible. I recognize that my opponents believe I'm the hypocrite. That I cannot argue that, "That government is best which governs least." while at the same time advocating government spending, welfare, bills and amendments which specify certain rights and potentially attack others. That is the beauty of debate, we can both shout, we may both be wrong. I can uphold Paine and Smith at the same time, just as they can, hell, just as Reagan did. We both use a philosophical buffet. I accept laissez-faire while advocating government spending because I acknowledge the exceptions Smith made. I can quote Paine as I have, and will continue to do, because I recognize that he upheld government subsidies for the young and the poor. 

Barack Obama sends bust of Winston Churchill on its way back to Britain - Telegraph

Do you know how you know you elected a liberal to the White House? When he throws one of the most famous conservatives in history out of his office! 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4623148/Barack-Obama-sends-bust-of-Winston-Churchill-on-its-way-back-to-Britain.html

How Catholics calculate purgatory sentences. - By Nina Shen Rastogi - Slate Magazine

http://www.slate.com/id/2211167/?from=rss

I wonder if there are any German priests just fuming at the moment...? "Prepare the nail, hammer and long list of grievances!" 

What to do about teens and their dumb naked photos of themselves. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine

It's disgusting that as,  Dahlia Lithwick puts it, "Child pornography laws intended to protect children should not be used to prosecute and then label children as sex offenders." There is a difference between consensual sex and rape, there is a difference between shared 'sexting' and child pornography. Younger and younger children are becoming sexualized, this is something that needs to be addressed, but our system is entirely out of date. 

http://www.slate.com/id/2211169

Stimulus Passed

100 Billion for Schools.

19 Billion for digitizing medical records.

Maybe this is a sign that our country will become more like Western
Europe (culturally, socially developed) than China (stratification of
society, enormous military).

Eee to Italy « World in Motion

Great chronicle of technological advancement during the span of a lifetime: 

http://scotterb.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/eee-to-italy/

FiveThirtyEight.com: Politics Done Right: Obama Sells Stimulus; People Buy

Apparently it was worth it: 

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/obama-sells-stimulus-people-buy.html

Fox News Caves To Media Matters On Stimulus "Report"

If we're surprised that Fox News is the conservative mouthpiece of America and the PR spokesmen for the Republican Party than this would be a sad day. I, for one, am no longer shocked by what Fox News pretends to do, whatever that is, while calling it journalism. 

The major misconception of other outfits is that they are the mirror image of Fox, that say, CNN, is the Democratic mouthpiece. But this simply is not true. It's not because CNN is more moral, they just appeal to a wider audience. Their only God is money and they'd rather rake it in than score political points. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/11/fox-news-caves-to-media-m_n_166066.html

So Geithner Thinks He Has Problems?

A socially stratified society, where the rich are afforded protection and the poor are sent to prison. Sound like the past? Maybe.

http://hnn.us/articles/61476.html

Man arrested with rifle said he had delivery for Obama - CNN.com

It's not that they hate him that surprises me. It's not even that they wish to kill him that surprises me. It's the fact that they are so stupid that continues to shock me. New levels of stupidity reached everyday. 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/10/obama.threat/?iref=mpstoryview

Such a lot of Pain on the Earth « World in Motion

Great blog post. How can you explain this terrifying world to a child? 

http://scotterb.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/such-a-lot-of-pain-on-the-earth/

Great Cat Massacre

"To protect a new house, Frenchmen enclosed live cats within its walls
- a very old rite, judging from cat skeletons that have been exhumed
from the walls of medieval buildings."
~Darnton p.95

Darnton: Great Cat Massacre

Early versions of the folk-tale 'Puss 'n Boots' Puss was not a cat nor
did he wear boots. But he did fight primogeniture. ~Darnton p. 29.

HNN Blog: Times on the Tapes

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/61023.html

Robert KC Johnson discusses his views on the the Watergate Tapes controversy which reached a new level earlier this week when it graced the front page of the New York Times. 

While the whole post is worth reading my favorite part, a good mantra for any up and coming historian (one day I'll be 'up and coming') seems to be: 

Historians using the tapes should always go back to the source—especially since the tapes now are all available, in digitized form, on the Miller Center website—rather than rely on published transcripts. Kutler's book definitely shouldn't be considered an "official transcript" in that respect.

It seems like a statement that almost requires a "well duh" reply. Sadly it's apparently not as obvious to the general reader that a historian should go to the source when available not a edited copy. You read, hear and smell (don't ask for an example) for yourself; you don't have another do it for you. If historians are using Kutler's version as a primary source then their book should be about Kutler, if not they're being lazy. 

The Obama Effect

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/61060.html

Robert KC Johnson blogs on how other politicians are learning from the Obama grassroots movement. Irrespective of ideology the truths learned from the Obama campaign will undoubtedly be long lasting:

It is not tax cuts or tax hikes but YouTube 

It is not pro-choice or pro-life but YouTube

It is not diplomacy or war; hawk or dove; Republican or Democrat; Red or Blue; ecclesiastical or secular, for our generation it is YouTube. 

Deborah Lipstadt’s Blog: The Vatican Gets the Message and Tells Williamson to Recant

http://lipstadt.blogspot.com/2009/02/vatican-gets-message-and-tells.html

Lipstadt has been following the recent controversy around Williamson. She makes a controversial statement that I don't necessarily disagree with: 

"I do not think the Pope is the least bit antisemitic. I do think he was willing to tolerate these views in the name of Church unity."

The Watergate Transcript Controversy: The Story Behind the Story

The Watergate Transcript Controversy: The Story Behind the Story

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The anti-intellectual

Just saw a McDonald's commercial about their new coffee. They mocked
two intellectual snobs who should be acting like real men. Typical of
current American culture anti-intellectual to the core. I thought the
election of Obama signalled a new shift. Guess not.

Character pledge cont.

For my USA network Character pledge I decided to simply quote Thomas Paine. I pledge because: we are all citizens of the world.

I pledge...

Characters Unite::The Pledge

Currently trying to come up with my pledge for USA network's new Characters Unite movement against prejudice.

d'Alembert's Dream

Diderot: Conversation Between D'Alembert and Diderot (E-text)

Just beautiful:

D'ALEMBERT: That's what it seems to

me. I have only one remaining difficulty.

DIDEROT: You're wrong. There are a

lot more difficulties.

D'ALEMBERT: But one main one. It

strikes me that we can think only about one thing at a time and in order to form

a simple proposition (since I'm not talking about those enormous chains of

reasoning which include thousands of ideas in their development) we'd say that

it's necessary to have at least two things present, the object which seems to

sit there under the eye of our understanding which at the same time is busy with

the quality which it will affirm or deny about that object.

DIDEROT: I share that concern. And

it's led me sometimes to compare our organic fibres with sensitive vibrating

strings. A sensitive vibrating string oscillates and resonates a long time after

one has plucked it. It's this oscillation, this sort of inevitable resonance,

which holds the present object, while our understanding is busy with the quality

which is appropriate to it. But vibrating strings have yet another property—it's

one that makes other strings quiver. And thus the first idea recalls a second,

and these two a third, then all three a fourth, and so it goes, without our

being able to set a limit to the ideas which are aroused and linked in a

philosopher who meditates or who listens to himself in silence and darkness.

This instrument makes astonishing leaps, and one recalled idea sometimes is

going to set in motion a harmonic at an incomprehensible interval. If the

phenomenon is perceptible between resonating strings, inert and separated, how

could it not take place between vital points linked together, between continuous

and sensitive fibres?

Citizen Soldier

I've seen a few movies recently and I can't help but feel uncomfortable when artists like 3 Doors Down and Kid Rock decide to do a commercial for National Guard recruitment. Now I have no problem with the National Guard just the types of ads. At the same time, art serves as a good critique, a check if you will, on the state. To have popular artists serve up propaganda is kind of disturbing. If Bob Dylan was dead, he'd be rolling over in his grave.
There is of course another principle here, these commercials, like all commercials, romanticize everything it is selling. I was in fact shocked to see an explosion in one of the ads - no one was hurt. Often these service ads tend to ignore the purpose of service in say, the Army. Its a dirty job but people need to be aware. The current use of the National Guard in Iraq typifies this. They are not firefighters. They are infantry. Of course even if action was actually shown, this would also be romanticized. Still. Its an odd nation when the Dixie Chicks are being berated for being anti-war and one of the few rock bands left happens to be doing these commercials.

Stealing Sperm

Apparently the Devil lacks sperm so...

“However, because the incubus did not possess his own sperm, the human female had to steal it from her unsuspecting husband in order to copulate with the devil.”

Poor guy.

Blanning's Pursuit of Glory

Blanning claims that the illegitimacy rate on the Continent and in England range from 1-4%. That's insane! I still haven't finished his explanation but the options for keeping it that low seem to be: birth control, social mores, the Church, infant mortality, pregnancy death. A combination of all of the above is my guess. With two and four being my favorites.

coffee-induced impotence

I was listening to James Schmidt's audio lectures on The Enlightenment
when I came across Schmidt's description of the first coffeehouses in
England. Schmidt describes the resistance coffee met from 'concerned
citizens' who argued that coffee caused impotence, quite literally
drying patrons up. A letter warned that men faced being "cuckolded by
dildos" if they did not stop drinking coffee.

Google & the Future of Books

Google & the Future of Books - The New York Review of Books

Darnton writes in The New York Review of Books an article on the future of the library and by extension the future of knowledge itself. Highly recommended.

Manual for Letter Writing

I think I'll buy one:

"Aspiring English correspondents could find advice on how best to plead their cause in love or business in, for example, 'W.P.' 's A Flying Post with a Packet of Choice new Letters and Complements: containing a Variety of Examples of witty and delightful Letters, upon all Occasions, both of Love and Business (1678).", [Tim Blanning, The Pursuit of Glory]

Interesting note

"One important advantage enjoyed by the transport industry in the British Isles was the absence of internal customs barriers or tolls (apart from turnpikes). In most of Europe they were ubiquitous. Especially in rural areas where cash was hard to come by, transient merchants were tempting targets. When they crossed a frontier, entered a town, forded a river, passed over a bridge, ascended a mountain pass, or whatever, there was often someone exacting a fee.", [Tim Blanning, The Pursuit of Glory]

Wow...this is really pretty accurate

Saturday Night Live - Bush State of the Union - Video - NBC.com

Kudos to Andrew Sullivan at the Dish for pointing this out.

HNN: Is Gaza’s Islamic University an Educational Institution Academics Should Be Defending?

Is Gaza’s Islamic University an Educational Institution Academics Should Be Defending?

Article posted for next week's editorial page on HNN which offers an interesting view on the recent ban on Israeli scholars in light of the bombing of the Islamic University in Gaza. While I don't necessarily agree to the 'loyalty oaths' Israeli academics are being held to in order to visit Ontario university campuses for many of the obvious reasons I can see what I presume their thinking is behind this maneouver.

Israel is seen as a modern state, it is thus held to the standards of a modern 'civilized' nation. The fair treatment of prisoners, the waging of only defensive wars, avoiding civilian targets when at all possible. Those under occupation after the war ends are expected to be able to have a number of rights and privelges. Israel because it is at times in a life or death struggle has been known to overreact on occassion which has stirred international outrage. I tend to think that the international community holds Israel accountable for bombing UN convoys, villages and universities while Palestinian outrages are ignored because we see a case of Rome vs. the Barbarians. The current fear among my politial ideology in America is that we will become just as bad as the fundamentalists who seek to destroy us in the course of our own protection. We seem to expect more of Israel than we do of Hamas and I think they inturn contribute to civilization more than Hamas but at the same time when outrages occur (on both sides) the international community has an obligation to react. While I don't support the expulsion and ban of Israeli academics who are being forced to choose between their country and their academic field I think that the state of Israel and the Palestinians should not be allowed to descend into barbarism. With that high-minded statement, I have no solution to the crisis.

HNN: Bush's Final Approval Rating: 22 Percent

And they said he couldn't do it.



History News Network

Man arrested for threatening to assassinate Barack Obama - Telegraph

Man arrested for threatening to assassinate Barack Obama - Telegraph

Wow. At this rate the entire Republican Party will be in jail by June.

PNG to act on 'sorcery murders'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7825511.stm


I'm taking a Witches & Vampires in Western Civilization seminar and came across this story added earlier in the week by the BBC. Apparently Paua New Guinea is trying to get a handle on the so-called 'sorcery murders' that are plaguing the nation. Superstition is being used by believers and the non-believers alike as an excuse to commit murder.

Bush Farewell Address

As a future historian I think that its important to keep up to date on current events that towards the end of my life will be rightly called History. George W. Bush is obviously going to be history and his farewell address will be one of the many sources historians use (less if the White House can't come up with these emails). I'd like to hear his farewell, yet even in the Information Age I can't find it anywhere. Its painful to listen to the man but still I feel an obligation yet all I can find are clips! Its seriously disconcerting.

Lincoln and Television

The more I read of Abraham Lincoln the more I experience this gradual epiphany. It comes to be in spurts, flashes of enlightenment like a storm with lightning. I'm slowly discovering that this man could have been great if he lived in our time. His legacy for his own people not just posterity would have been cemented. Few of those who met Lincoln in person, of those cited in Team of Rivals, ever come away from him with a harsh opinion.
Granted, party-lines prevent the most amiable of men from being liked, but at the same time I think that the more people Lincoln talked with in private the more votes he cemented. Television is much more personal than the radio, it presents the illusion that the speaker is actually in your living room. Once there, I think most Americans would have easily fallen into Lincoln's trap.

Mail.app and my University Email, finally defeated!

Ever since I bought my Mac about a year ago I've been trying to get the local OS mail program, coyly named 'Mail' to work with my university email. The best I have managed up until today is complete access (sending & receiving) on campus and partial access off-campus (receiving).

By making use of the NTLM feature for only the outgoing server and setting up my Exchange email account as a POP3 I've managed full access at home.

This allows me to now sleep at night because I tend to get obsessive.

“So Help Me God”: A George Washington Myth that Should Be Discarded

“So Help Me God”: A George Washington Myth that Should Be Discarded



I agree with Mr. Henriques that the myth should be discarded and I would like to add that the practice should be as well. As Henriques claims that Washington was a constitutional literalist it may do our country some good to have a few presidents who also strive to be a constitutional literalists.

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History News Network

Former UN prisoner to run for Macedonia presidentSource: IHT(UK) (1-11-09)A former Macedonian interior minister who spent more than three years in detention while on trial at a United Nations war crimes tribunal has announced that he plans to run for president.Ljube Boskoski, 48, was the first person to officially announce his candidacy for the elections, which are to be held March 22.Boskoski was welcomed as a hero in his native Macedonia in July after the UN tribunal in The Hague, acquitted him on several charges for war crimes.Boskoski spent more than three years at the tribunal's detention unit on trial over a 2001 police attack on an ethnic Albanian village that killed seven people. He was detained in Croatia in August 2004 and then sent to the UN tribunal in March 2005.The March presidential elections will be the fourth since Macedonia gained independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and officials say it will be crucial to the country's hopes of joining the European Union.

History News Network


One wonders if electing a UN prisoner will bolster or hurt their chances for membership in the EU?

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HNN: Japanese reading of WWII history stirs debate

Though their stated goal was accomplished one must remember the atrocities committed by Japan's military aristocracy during the war.


Link:

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/59570.html

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Neoconservatism dies in Gaza

Neoconservatism dies in Gaza

Article by Juan Cole @ Salon.com. I agree with Professor Cole that Neo-Conservatism's Foreign Policy has largely contributed to the current state of affairs in the Middle East. I don't expect President Obama to achieve 'Peace in the Mid-East' but I hope that he doesn't go out of his way to actively screw up the region.

Marco Polo's India

Marco Polo's India

3quarksdaily

I liked this article. A good defense of Polo's views which are summed up at the end of the second to last paragraph; "He had no role models in his writing and the result such as it is, warts and all, is nothing short of a miracle."

In the Middle: ITM: now, learngasmic

In the Middle: ITM: now, learngasmic


I agree Online Degrees are falling, and falling quickly. But at least they're erotic.

Digg

I am now submitting HNN headlines to Digg. You have to categorize each submission and the options for say, Entertainment are: Celebrity; Movies; Music; Television; Comics & Animation. Does it say something about us as a people that the word 'Book' does not appear under any of the categories?

‘Lawfare:’ Another Weapon in the Jihad Against Israel

‘Lawfare:’ Another Weapon in the Jihad Against Israel

Though I don't necessarily agree it is an interesting new take on how International Courts are one-sided in the case of Israel. A wit may claim that the Palestinian state will be tried once one exists.

I'm very confused on this subject and though I fully acknowledge the pain and depth of the Holocaust and the need for the Israelis to now protect themselves I think the line, "only democratic state" is telling. Israel certainly has committed its own crimes in the past and I fear that we sometimes turn a blind eye because it is our only 'success' with the Great Western Experiment in the Middle East.

Coffeehouses

Coffee amazes me. It has for sometime now. Not only is it my personal drink of choice, but to me it also resembles so much in this world. A symbol of globalization, manual labor, empire, democracy, the public sphere, not to mention aroma and flavor.

Coffeehouses are similarly notable. While the men waiting at Lexington for the British passed the time in a tavern, the seeds of revolution are born in such coffeehouses. Why? Because of the ancestor to the iron newspaper stand sitting across from me. Coffeehouses became a communal place for people to read the news (or have it read to them) and then discuss it. A bloke (I like British slang) pissed at the government only discovers that he's pissed because of the coffeehouse.

I'm starting a reading course this semester where I will study various pieces of literature dealing with the 18th Century (primarily focusing on the French Revolution) one book will deal with Coffee, another the public sphere - the two are inseparable. Coffee is and has always been a commodity. As such it was not grown in Europe and had to be imported. Namely from the Turks. So now we have globalization. The Middle East has given Western Civilization so much, one wonders why they are not counted in the picture - it would certainly lead to a more interesting picture of Western Civilization. But I digress.

A reference to James Schmidt's audio commentary on the Enlightenment seems due. He has greatly influenced my thoughts on the subject. As Schmidt points out, coffee had its opponents then as it does now. They used to argue it caused impotence and was not nearly as communal as a pint (it was too expensive to buy a round for everyone) now usually the detractors are parents, most will let you drink your weight in Mountain Dew but not touch coffee. One wonders though, if there is something in this warm brew that causes a spark in the synapse and leads one to think outside the box. Wish for change, hope for it, and then fight for it. Maybe the Reign of Terror was then simply a caffeine high, or conversely a symptom of withdrawal.

Much of this sounds ridiculous but I'd be willing to bet someone who reads this will eye his fellow patron at Starbucks a little differently, probably while calling the ATF or FBI.

The Death Feud

I just finished reading Nelson DeMille's The Lion's Game, featured prominently in the book is an old Arab war song (pre-Islam):

Terrible he rode alone,   With his Yemen sword for aid; Ornament it carried none   But the notches on the blade.
ATTRIBUTION:	The Death Feud. An Arab War-song

Though I'm certainly not condemning the Arab people, there are certainly worse practices than feuds in the world, I think it helps one get into the mindset of an Arab who is a cultural and religious fundamentalist. While distorting Islam and expounding upon this song the fundamentalist finds all the justification in the world. For them it is not moral relativism it is simply justice.

Obama considers linking Defense Dept. with NASA | Cutting Edge - CNET News

Obama considers linking Defense Dept. with NASA | Cutting Edge - CNET News


I have mixed feelings on this. As an agnostic I have the benefit of not making up my mind on anything. I'd like to point out that no one seems to have read Dan Brown's Deception Point. According to the book, NASA doesn't want to be apart of the defense establishment.

On the one hand, the military (in all countries) has been the source for countless scientific advancements. I do feel the need to point out the argument put forward in Mr. Brown's book, that we will never go to Mars if NASA is under the defense department. Unless, of course, we are fighting over it.

Something to keep in mind.

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