Dubai, or Not Dubai?
Well, now that the Dick Chaney fiasco has settled down, the Bush administration has lurched into yet another public-relations disaster. This time, it's the leasing of our five biggest ports to a company from the United Arab Emirates. This has caused a firestorm on both the Right and the Left. This deal has left pretty much every American shaking his or her head about what Jay Leno called last night, "Crazy George's Fire Sale."
My own opinion is that the company's UAE origin doesn't matter a whole lot. While one of the 9/11 hijackers came from there, the vast majority were Saudis, and we don't see any attempts to boycott Saudi business. Even the recent cartoon riots don't seem to have touched Dubai or Abu Dhabi.
The real story here is two-fold. The first is the Bush administration's penchant for secrets. The deal smells fishy. The company in question has dealings with the Bush family. Was the whole thing a quid pro quo for Bush-family private business? The seething firestorm could have been avoided, if the administration had just bothered to seek congressional advice ahead of time. In that respect, it sounds a lot like the NSA wiretap scandal. Second, Bush complained yesterday about the "double standard" in our dealings with port-operating companies. Nobody complained when a British company had the contracts, the President pointed out. This is true, but then again, Britain is our second-oldest ally (after France), and hasn't attacked our soil since 1812. Why shouldn't we play a bit of favoritism with our closest friends? That assumes, of course, that no American company is competent enough to operate our own ports.
It seems to me that the best way to operate our ports--and maintain national security--is not to outsource the operations. But we can't expect much from an administration that has stood idly by while whole native industries are sent packing to India and China. The controversy ultimately devolves into the continuing story of the Wal-Mart-ization of America.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Saturday, February 18, 2006
The Torturous Tale of LOST
The Torturous Tale of LOST
Last Wednesday's episode centered around Sayid, and how he became a torturer for the Republican Guard. Just in case we didn't get that point, the writers had Sayid announce, "My name is Sayid Jarrah, and I am a torturer."
As the flashbacks unfolded, it became apparent that the CIA taught Sayid to torture. Clancy Brown, of the late, lamented Carnivale, played the evil American government agent. He tricked Sayid into applying the screws to his commanding officer--although why the agent went through all that trouble was not made apparent.
Anyway, the questions about when and whom to torture were posed with a certain degree of artistic merit. Sayid's decision to torture the captive were not laid out in simple, black-and-white terms, the kind of terms you find in a lesser work, such as 2004's disgusting and depressing Man on Fire. It says a lot about our country today that torture is now the topic du jour. Whatever happened to all that "freedom" and "democracy" that Bush is always touting? Do "free" people torture?
The usual fallacy I hear from people who approve of Guantanamo is that "we have to torture those guys to protect ourselves." Then they pose the argument from fear that if a captured terrorist had information about an atomic bomb hidden in a US city, wouldn't we approve of torture to prevent the bomb's detonation? Worst cases make a bad argument. Evidence has surfaced that most of the captives at Guantanamo were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or--even worse--were brought to the prison based on the delirious testimony of those already out of their minds from torture.
The latest Abu Ghraib photos are even more disgusting than the earlier ones. Rumsfeld says this is old news and that the people responsible have already been punished. I say, the people responsitble--Bush, Rumsfeld, Chaney, Wolfowitz and Bolton--will never face punishment in this world. They have rigged the game so that only the low-born and petty dictators who have garnered their disfavor face the world's tribunals.
Last Wednesday's episode centered around Sayid, and how he became a torturer for the Republican Guard. Just in case we didn't get that point, the writers had Sayid announce, "My name is Sayid Jarrah, and I am a torturer."
As the flashbacks unfolded, it became apparent that the CIA taught Sayid to torture. Clancy Brown, of the late, lamented Carnivale, played the evil American government agent. He tricked Sayid into applying the screws to his commanding officer--although why the agent went through all that trouble was not made apparent.
Anyway, the questions about when and whom to torture were posed with a certain degree of artistic merit. Sayid's decision to torture the captive were not laid out in simple, black-and-white terms, the kind of terms you find in a lesser work, such as 2004's disgusting and depressing Man on Fire. It says a lot about our country today that torture is now the topic du jour. Whatever happened to all that "freedom" and "democracy" that Bush is always touting? Do "free" people torture?
The usual fallacy I hear from people who approve of Guantanamo is that "we have to torture those guys to protect ourselves." Then they pose the argument from fear that if a captured terrorist had information about an atomic bomb hidden in a US city, wouldn't we approve of torture to prevent the bomb's detonation? Worst cases make a bad argument. Evidence has surfaced that most of the captives at Guantanamo were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or--even worse--were brought to the prison based on the delirious testimony of those already out of their minds from torture.
The latest Abu Ghraib photos are even more disgusting than the earlier ones. Rumsfeld says this is old news and that the people responsible have already been punished. I say, the people responsitble--Bush, Rumsfeld, Chaney, Wolfowitz and Bolton--will never face punishment in this world. They have rigged the game so that only the low-born and petty dictators who have garnered their disfavor face the world's tribunals.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Work and Money
Work and Money
This week, I started working part-time for Manual Labour, doing technical writing and editing. Bonni has hired me on under a 1099 to do a contract job--and several more are in the works. So far, I've found the work challenging enough, and the people have been good to work with. I'm hoping this is the start of more employment, and income, in Clementsville.
LOST last Wednesday night was both good and bad. It was entertaining to watch Sawyer's Machiavellian machinations as he pitted Jack against Locke, but I didn't buy into it. It seemed to be a character shift. For months they've been softening up Sawyer to be a bad boy with a heart of gold. Now we're supposed to believe he steals the guns and heroin, disrupts the morale of the camp and weakens their position against the Others, just over an ego trip and some old pain pills? Doesn't seem likely. The Hand of the Writers was clearly too visible here.
This week, I started working part-time for Manual Labour, doing technical writing and editing. Bonni has hired me on under a 1099 to do a contract job--and several more are in the works. So far, I've found the work challenging enough, and the people have been good to work with. I'm hoping this is the start of more employment, and income, in Clementsville.
LOST last Wednesday night was both good and bad. It was entertaining to watch Sawyer's Machiavellian machinations as he pitted Jack against Locke, but I didn't buy into it. It seemed to be a character shift. For months they've been softening up Sawyer to be a bad boy with a heart of gold. Now we're supposed to believe he steals the guns and heroin, disrupts the morale of the camp and weakens their position against the Others, just over an ego trip and some old pain pills? Doesn't seem likely. The Hand of the Writers was clearly too visible here.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
The Stupor Bowl
The Stupor Bowl
I drove over to Bill and Vicki's this afternoon for the big game. Really, Mark Johnson drove me, which was very kind of him. I still haven't gotten back into the driving saddle yet.
The game itself was deadly dull. Clearly, Pittsburgh was the anointed team this year. The "all star" officiating crew blew two key calls in the first half--the offensive interference call against Seattle and the bogus touchdown for the Steelers. Still, even though the 21-10 score belied it, the game never really seemed as close as it appeared. Kind of like objects in the rearview mirror.
The companionship at the party was what made the game. My parents came, as did the Cazins, Mark Johnson, Fred Beecher, the Klinzings, Ruben Ruiz, and some of Bill's old buddies from work. The weather was great, and most of us stayed on the back patio after the barbecue, watching the game on a rabbit-eared TV.
Later, we went inside after the sun went down and the weather cooled off. I left for home about 7:40, as the game was over and all else were taking their leave. When we got back to my place, Mark and I said our goodbyes. He's heading back to Sioux Falls on the 6:30 AM flight tomorrow. He really doesn't look different from the old days, except his hair is grayer now. It almost seemed as though he hadn't been away from Mira Mesa for the past 11 years. I did miss Ellen, his late wife, who passed away in 2004.
Certainly the tinge of mortality hung heavy in the air tonight. Admittedly, most of these friends are older than I am (by 2-10 years), but you know you're getting old when one of the main topics of conversation is everybody's illnesses. Two of the people present have deadly cancers, and as Bill joked, "scar night" is just around the corner.
I drove over to Bill and Vicki's this afternoon for the big game. Really, Mark Johnson drove me, which was very kind of him. I still haven't gotten back into the driving saddle yet.
The game itself was deadly dull. Clearly, Pittsburgh was the anointed team this year. The "all star" officiating crew blew two key calls in the first half--the offensive interference call against Seattle and the bogus touchdown for the Steelers. Still, even though the 21-10 score belied it, the game never really seemed as close as it appeared. Kind of like objects in the rearview mirror.
The companionship at the party was what made the game. My parents came, as did the Cazins, Mark Johnson, Fred Beecher, the Klinzings, Ruben Ruiz, and some of Bill's old buddies from work. The weather was great, and most of us stayed on the back patio after the barbecue, watching the game on a rabbit-eared TV.
Later, we went inside after the sun went down and the weather cooled off. I left for home about 7:40, as the game was over and all else were taking their leave. When we got back to my place, Mark and I said our goodbyes. He's heading back to Sioux Falls on the 6:30 AM flight tomorrow. He really doesn't look different from the old days, except his hair is grayer now. It almost seemed as though he hadn't been away from Mira Mesa for the past 11 years. I did miss Ellen, his late wife, who passed away in 2004.
Certainly the tinge of mortality hung heavy in the air tonight. Admittedly, most of these friends are older than I am (by 2-10 years), but you know you're getting old when one of the main topics of conversation is everybody's illnesses. Two of the people present have deadly cancers, and as Bill joked, "scar night" is just around the corner.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Ann Coulter's Fallacies
For this week's essay, let's look at the latest column by Ann Coulter. It's penned in her usual sweet, elegiac style and she titles it, poetically, "Alito ... Boo!" Certainly, if I cannot find a fallacy or a hundred in a column by the woman who recently called for rat poison in John Paul Stevens's cereal, I cannot find fallacies anywhere.
In her op-ed piece, Coulter's point seems to be that Democrats are wimps--or something. One is never quite sure of Coulter's point, because she strings so much invective together that there's hardly a simple, declarative sentence in any of her essays. Not one to beat around the bush (or the Bush), Coulter starts right off comparing the Democrats in Congress to "Saddam Hussein's vaunted 'Elite Republican Guard'-- the ones who ran like scared schoolgirls...." Further on, she talks about "NARAL ladies running around Capitol Hill with machetes." And she makes sure to mention Joe Biden's "hair plugs."
Her whole essay is one shoddy, yet juicy morsel--fear and loathing served on a platter of blood and iron (in the Bismarckian sense). There are so many straw men, arguments from outrage and ad hominem accusations in Coulter's essay that it seems she really isn't trying to convince her audience of anything. Hers is a pseudo-essay, no more interested in truth value than were the speeches of Joseph Goebbels in the Reichstag. These scurrilous attacks purvey a pulsing, pounding, prurient form of rhetoric. It's so egregious that I have coined a new name for it: the Ann Coulter Fallac-io.
Works Cited
Coulter, Ann. "Alito ... Boo!" Ann Coulter.com. 2005. <http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/welcome.cgi>.
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