How Obama Got the Nomination

Obama's win is not the result of luck.

He did it on purpose. And no one with any sense will claim he did it alone. He did it by selecting a winning team, inspiring a boatload of new people and never taking his eye off the ball. Any mistakes he makes will not be the result of hubris or lack of vision. This guy has no problems with the "vision thing."

Shortly before ten o'clock on the evening February 1, 2008, Barack Obama's chartered 737 took off from Albuquerque International Airport bound for Boise, Idaho, where the Illinois senator was scheduled to hold a rally the next day.

In just four days voters in twenty-two states would award 1,681 Democratic National Convention delegates, of which Idaho's caucuses would pick eighteen.

During the two-hour flight to Boise, Obama's press handlers tried to assure traveling reporters that the candidate had not taken leave of his senses. "It may not be California," an aide commented, "but smaller states like Idaho and Delaware add up."

Barack Obama will become the Democratic Party's presidential standard bearer in 2008 precisely because small states - particularly small caucus states - add up.

Details are at the link. I'm just happy to know that someone with this level of organizational focus has a chance at the White House. Until now I have considered Bill Clinton to be the most skillful politician of our day. Barack Obama is still on a learning curve, but if he keeps going he will pass Clinton.

Democrats' Dilemma: Poison in the Well

Dave Niewert says right-wing talking points have been swallowed by Democrats in the protracted contest between Obama and Clinton. I think he's right. I drank a little of that kool-aid myself and didn't recognize it til he pointed it out.

That's how right-wing crap works. It's not meant to advance or even partake of discourse; it's meant to end it. One can argue the worth of Hillary's policies or her voting record or her position on the war till the cows come home; but when she's reduced to being a bitch, that pretty much ends the discussion. And when it's as pervasive as it's become in the past decade, its effects are paralyzingly toxic.

And it's important to remember that the same holds true regarding right-wing attitudes about a black man like Obama winning the White House. The most polite versions of right-wing cant hold that Obama's not experienced enough to be president, but the underlying drumbeat of this meme has been all about his foreign-sounding name or his supposed Muslim ties or his "weakness" on national security ... about his being a black man.
[...]
So when you hear Hillary's supporters argue that American voters will not elect a black man president in 2008 -- and use that as a major reason to support their candidate instead -- they're just regurgitating old right-wing crap. Toxic right-wing crap.

Progressives need to wake up and realize they're being played and refuse to buy into toxic crap that they should not, must not, be about. At some point we need to stand back and take stock and realize that damage has been done and it needs repairing, both for the short and the long term.

Tracking Election 2008: Presidential, Senate and House

Via Dale Carpenter at VC, this newly found website: http://www.electoral-vote.com/

It tracks with Bloglines. I'll be looking at it whenever it updates.

This is from today's update:

Clinton's future may depend a lot on what she does in the next five months. If she endorses Obama and then goes back to her Senate work, hoping he loses so she can run in 2012, she won't look good and Democrats will never forgive her. If she really tries hard to get him elected, win or lose she will get a lot of credit with party members. If she really makes it to stage five, acceptance, [Reference here the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance] and sees that she is not going to be President, she could start thinking about where her future lies. There are a number of options. She could go the Ted Kennedy route and try to become one of the greatest and most influential senators ever. She could ask Obama for the job of Secretary of Health and Human Services and finally achieve the universal health care she failed to achieve as first lady. He'd agree in a flash to get her supporters on board. Likewise, she could ask to be appointed to the first vacancy on the Supreme Court and he'd probably grant that, too. She could ask for his support for a run for governor of New York in 2010. There is one obstacle there: Gov. David Paterson might decide to run for election, but Obama could help out by offering Paterson a job in his administration (and the threat that he would openly support Clinton in a primary). She has lots of options. It will be interesting to see what she does. Her gut instinct is not as good as Bill's, but she is a talented person and if she plays her cards right, still has quite a future.

Five ThirtyEight Dot Com is another tracking site. Their latest commentary talks about Brian Schweitzer, governor of Montana, as a possible VP choice for Obama.

In addition to being a strong speech-giver, Schweitzer is a gifted quote-machine. He regularly delivers the glib, funny ways of both explaining his position on policy and mocking his opponents for their unreasonableness. It's hard to think of a more effective way of developing popularity among voters who think of themselves as uncomplicated common sense types. His most notable one-liner is actually a counterpose to the legacy of national Clinton branding of the Democratic Party: "Gun control is you control your gun and I'll control mine." It's glib, it's memorable, it communicates exactly where he stands, it's populist.
[...]
One big advantage of adding Schweitzer to the ticket would be his ability to play the perfect VP role of constantly tweaking John McCain in the language that would reach the so called "working class white vote" that has the collective punditocracy up in "Oh Noesville!!1!!11!" Tweaking John McCain from two different rhetorical angles would resonate on a much wider platform. And tweaking thin-skinned John McCain drives John McCain out of his mind with rage. All you have to do is quote the guy accurately and he snaps. Brian Schweitzer would keep his cool. He's very hard to rattle. When Mike Lange memorably went on an end-of-session, profanity-laced diatribe against Schweitzer, Schweitzer played it masterfully by not taking the bait and emphasizing Mike Lange in a bad moment was not the Mike Lange he knew. Game, set, match.
[...]
Will an offer from Obama come? I am probably the only poker player who has the mp3 of this year's Mansfield-Metcalfe Obama speech on his iPod shuffle. When I hear that speech, it's clear from Obama's reference to Schweitzer that he has great admiration for the governor's skill. "And how about this guy?" is how he starts out. It's obvious Obama has great appreciation for Schweitzer's talent. Obama clearly sees Schweitzer's gifts. You know Obama's thought about him as VP.

Hilzoy, Yglesias on Obama

These little notes will be lost in the blizzard of punditry now pouring out everywhere, but I'm keeping them because they find an echo in my own thoughts...

Hilzoy's post makes me want to cry with pain and joy.

I suppose I live a sheltered life, but for some reason it hadn't crossed my mind that many African-Americans would think not just that it was very hard for a black man to win the nomination, but that it was impossible. But once it did, I found it horrible and heartbreaking, all the more so because, on reflection, I thought it was a perfectly reasonable thing to think. (At least in its milder form -- 'he can't win' -- as opposed to the more ominous 'they won't let him win.')

I thought: it is awful that people should think that no one who looks like them could possibly be nominated by a major party; that any candidate who looks like them has to be "some kind of stunt"; that if they tell their children that maybe they'll grow up to be President some day, they believe, in their heart of hearts, that they are lying. That should never, ever be true. Not in our country.

When Barack Obama won Iowa, the ground beneath that fear began to crack. Now it has been blown apart, in the only way it could have been. And whatever any of us think about this race, or Senator Obama, that is cause for celebration; as is the fact that it turned out not to be true.

Damn.
Just... damn.

And Matthew Yglasias waxes optimistic.
See my tagline! HOO-wah!!

...Obama thinks it's possible to accomplish things in the world. He thinks the United States faces a lot of serious international challenges, but doesn't see them as primarily driven by menacing and implacable foes. Obama thinks that a combination of visionary leadership and shrewd bargaining can greatly improve our ability to tackle key priorities without any great expenditure of our resources.

All in all, the pessimist in me sees it as an approach to politics designed to set us up for a hard fall when it fails... ...of course sometimes the pessimists are right, but unless you sometimes assume they're wrong then nothing's ever going to happen.

They don't call it a "crush" for nothing

Last night in Minnesota Barack Obama poured compliments on Hillary Clinton. Not just a couple of token remarks, but a substantial load of solid stuff. Publius at hilzoy's place captures the feeling.

I pride myself on being fairly cynical. Like any good child of the 90s, I’ve watched more than my share of Larry David. And I understand the frustrations that Clinton supporters and more hardened, cynical Obama supporters feel when they hear all the naive gushing praise for him — particularly from young people.

But they need to understand that many of us have never had a moment like this. We’ve never really been inspired — we’ve never “looked up” at candidates in a Paul Fussell “Romantic” sense. Candidates have never been bigger than us — we look down on them, we criticize, we tell dry jokes, we watch the Daily Show. We’re just not that inspired.

But for the first time, a lot of people are inspired. I don’t really remember 1992, and I didn’t exist in 1960. So I don’t know what this feels like. But I’m excited — I’m not in cult-like worship mode, but for the first time in my political life, I’m genuinely excited about the opportunities ahead. Maybe that will prove silly — maybe the proverbial 1968 lies just ahead. For now, though, I’m excited.

But even if 1968 lies ahead, who cares. When you see your teenage children experiencing crushes for the first time, you hopefully don’t call them over and say “these emotions you’re feeling now, they will soon be crushed.” You pat them on the back and wish their doomed enterprise well, and maybe savor a few youthful memories of your own.

And who knows, maybe this time, the good guys will win. Maybe in this version, there is no Nixon -- no 1968. Maybe Mercutio survives. It’s a historic and exciting time — progressivism appears to be in an intellectual revival. The Democrats — having shed its Dixiecrat wing — are poised to command the most progressive majority in American history. And there’s a very real chance that Barack Obama could be leading that majority come next year.

To be sure, Clinton and Clinton’s supporters will play an important and necessary role in making all this happen. That’s why I hope that personal anger will soon give way in the face of the more promising future that is within reach. It’s not guaranteed — McCain is a strong candidate. But there’s a chance — a very real chance — that America is on the verge of something quite special.

I was there in 1968 and it was terrible. We have been paying the price ever since. The Clinton years were the culminiation of all that was good and all that was bad from the Sixties. I, for one, am glad it's finally over. Whatever happens next can't be as bad as what has happened since Clinton left office. And I'm not talking about terrorism. I'm talking about how terrorism has been used as a manipulative political tool in the name of patriotism and so-called democracy.

Puppies Behind Bars

This program was featured on the NBC Evening News tonight, courtesy of New York Times.
The Times has a different video, but this one from YouTube is just as good. (These folks have figured out how to get the word out, by the way. I look for this program to be well-known soon. Hopefully it will also be copied elsewhere.)

Okay, not related, but while we're doing dogs, this is a cute one not to miss. French bulldog puppies. And what's not to like about puppies?
Not really very important unless you need a pick-me-up for the next three and a half minutes of your day...

Leon Hadar on Sexism

Dr. Hadar scores a few telling points in his argument that sexism has nothing to do with Mrs. Clinton's bumpy political road.

...her rise to political power as a democratic senator from New York and now as a leading presidential candidate had everything to do with her being a woman - the wife of the popular man who occupied the White House for two terms and the sympathy that many Americans, and especially women, have felt towards her in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky affair (during which many of them accused her husband of being a misogynist).
[...]
In fact, most political analysts would agree that if Hillary Clinton had been a male Democratic presidential candidate with no chance of winning enough delegates to be nominated by his party, he would have withdrawn from the race a long time ago and pledged his support for Barack Obama. The reason that the Democratic Party's leaders continue to tolerate Mrs Clinton's behaviour is because she is a woman and they, indeed, don't want to be accused of sexism.

Ouch!
More at the link, including...

...male public figures have always been mocked by hostile voters and a cynical press, claiming that they had no hair on their head or too much hair, they were too short or too heavy, too macho or too pretty or too 'wimpy'.

It goes with the territory of dirty politics. Male and female candidates don't win brownie points by playing the role of the victim. No one expects that a male politician losing an election would accuse his opponents and the media of sexism or 'anti-manism'. That would sound as either pathetic or ridiculous, or both.

James Fallows -- Obama minutia

Fallows, a man who pays attention to a multitude of details, credits "reader Rachel" with noticing an unmistakable parallel between Obama's Weslyan graduation speech and another speech delivered by Senator Kennedy years ago.

...Obama was there in place of the ailing Teddy Kennedy. Kennedy had given Obama a huge boost in the legitimacy-and-legacy category by endorsing him, even if it didn't help much in the MA. primary. And Kennedy's most famous speech was his "concession" speech at the 1980 Democratic convention in New York, when he brought the house down (I was there) with his defiant reassertion of the liberal values that he thought the doomed incumbent, Jimmy Carter, had abandoned. His speech ended with these words:

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end.
For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

The structure of Obama's speech, these 28 years later, built toward praise of Kennedy's legacy and record, and ended with these words:

That is all I ask of you on this joyous day of new beginnings; that is what Senator Kennedy asks of you as well, and that is how we will keep so much needed work going, and the cause of justice everlasting, and the dream alive for generations to come.

As Rachel points out, this ending was an allusion so subtle that Kennedy himself might be the only person who caught it. Obama took the speech of Ted's lifetime... and put the three key words - work, cause, dream - into the last line of the text. Poetry into prose, a private tribute to the man whose endorsement took Obama from runner up to winner.

What is so elegant about this touch? Precisely that Obama did not feel obliged to spell out all the links. ("And what I ask of you, in Senator Kennedy's own unforgettable words...")

Politicians shouldn't be obscure. But a willingness to assume good things about the public -- its knowledge, its understanding, its ability to rise above the most immediate appeal to pocketbook or prejudice -- is part of what makes a politician into a leader. Even if the intended audience for this close was strictly the Kennedy family, it is an impressive bit of craftsmanship.

This guy is too good to be true. I'm starting to think he doesn't have a chance because he's simply not dull enough or deceitful enough to act plebeian and make it look convincing. This kind of subtle intellect is almost impossible to hide. He's courting the wrong bunch. Dog whistle politics is supposed to appeal to a different population.

Fr. Michael Pfleger and the latest flap

I already blogged about that guy, back in April when he took a Fox reporter to the cleaners.

So here's a clip of part of his sermon at Jeremiah Wright's church. Obama is running for president so he can't say it, but I'm not and I can:

Get over it.

Pay attention to all the people in the congregation. They loved what they heard.
And so did I. I've heard much more offensive stuff on television.
But that's not real, you say. Right?
Exactly.
Think about it.

To quote Fr. Pfleger from the Fox News interview, "...when white people criticize America they're critical...when black people criticize America they're haters of America."

Resurrection and faith as a love story

I stole her post title because I'm in a hurry.
Good post.
Go read.

And drill into the links.

Brzezinski on Iran

Zbigniew Brzezinski has been around for a long time. I first became aware of the name from a footnote in Alvin Toffler's Future Shock about 1970, a brilliant book that deeply impressed me at the time. Brzezinski's Between Two Ages has been in my library since it was published and I may be one of the few people who cast a vote for Jimmy Carter in part because he had selected Brzezinski as an advisor. Yeah, I'm that kind of old-school liberal. Get over it.

If the reader hasn't yet slammed the door in the face of these revelations, I now refer you to a column in the Washington Post. Thankfully I'm not alone in regarding this man's opinions as worth noting or he wouldn't still be publishing and writing.

A successful approach to Iran has to accommodate its security interests and ours. Neither a U.S. air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities nor a less effective Israeli one could do more than merely set back Iran's nuclear program. In either case, the United States would be held accountable and would have to pay the price resulting from likely Iranian reactions. These would almost certainly involve destabilizing the Middle East, as well as Afghanistan, and serious efforts to disrupt the flow of oil, at the very least generating a massive increase in its already high cost. The turmoil in the Middle East resulting from a preemptive attack on Iran would hurt America and eventually Israel, too.

Given Iran's stated goals -- a nuclear power capability but not nuclear weapons, as well as an alleged desire to discuss broader U.S.-Iranian security issues -- a realistic policy would exploit this opening to see what it might yield. The United States could indicate that it is prepared to negotiate, either on the basis of no preconditions by either side (though retaining the right to terminate the negotiations if Iran remains unyielding but begins to enrich its uranium beyond levels allowed by the Non-Proliferation Treaty); or to negotiate on the basis of an Iranian willingness to suspend enrichment in return for simultaneous U.S. suspension of major economic and financial sanctions.

Such a broader and more flexible approach would increase the prospects of an international arrangement being devised to accommodate Iran's desire for an autonomous nuclear energy program while minimizing the possibility that it could be rapidly transformed into a nuclear weapons program. Moreover, there is no credible reason to assume that the traditional policy of strategic deterrence, which worked so well in U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and with China and which has helped to stabilize India-Pakistan hostility, would not work in the case of Iran. The widely propagated notion of a suicidal Iran detonating its very first nuclear weapon against Israel is more the product of paranoia or demagogy than of serious strategic calculus. It cannot be the basis for U.S. policy, and it should not be for Israel's, either.

He concludes the piece with a passing reference to gas prices, noting that...

...American sanctions have been deliberately obstructing Iran's efforts to increase its oil and natural gas outputs. That has contributed to the rising cost of energy. An eventual American-Iranian accommodation would significantly increase the flow of Iranian energy to the world market. Americans doubtless would prefer to pay less for filling their gas tanks than having to pay much more to finance a wider conflict in the Persian Gulf.

Yo, Mr. President...Senator McCain...ya'll getting this?
What?
Appeasement, you say?
Better mention that to Israel. Sounds like international diplomacy to me.

Confident Ignorance vs. Confident Confusion

Two unrelated links in my surfing merit coupling. The first is a post from 2006 by Fr. Karl at Summa Contra Mundum. The other is a YouTube video. Both underscore the same point. See what you think...

I teach Plato for a living. One of the main points to be made from any reading of the early Socratic dialogues is the benefits of confusion. Socrates doesn't pretend to know what piety is, but he knows that he doesn't know, and he wants to get Euthyphro to join him in a productive confusion. He doesn't claim to know what virtue is or if it can be taught, but he wants to play torpedo fish and get Meno as confused as he is. This is because confusion is better than confident ignorance. I diagram it like this:

Wisdom
Confusion
Confident Ignorance

Wisdom is the best state, of course, and confusion is good because it is directed toward wisdom. Once I know that I don't know, I will ask questions in order to know. The slave boy doesn't know the answer to the geometry problem, butas long as he thinks he knows, he will never really know. Confident ignorance is the worst state, since one is likely wrong, and will never come out of the ignorance because of the confidence. "Yes, I know all about piety. Just ask me!" says Euthyphro. As long as he thinks this, he will always remain ignorant about piety, and will never have any hope of wisdom.

I was thinking about this the other day, and I think I have made a discovery. We do not have many people in states of Confident Ignorance anymore. No-one claims to know anything about the forms, about moral matters. We all claim confusion. In fact, we are Confidently Confused. We don't know anything except that it is impossible for us to know anything. It is, as Cardinal Ratzinger put it somewhere, the unquestioned dogma of the age.

Confident Ignorance was better, because Socrates could shock people out of that state by dismantling their confidence. What would Socrates do today, when people are so confident that they are confused? To reduce them to confusion via the Socratic method only confirms what they already think! I don't know the solution. How does one puncture dogmatic doubt? Perhaps like the rabbi who, when confronted by an atheist, says "Despite all that, perhaps it is true." (I get the rabbinical story from Cardinal Ratzinger's Introduction to Christianity, where he quotes Martin Buber.)



You can color me, by the way, "confidently ignorant." It seems to get worse the older I get, but redemption is always a possibility. God save me from confident confusion.

H/T Scott Ferguson for the YouTube link

Women in Films

And in your memories...
Via 3Quarks Daily (Which won another award for excellence, this time "Favorite Blog to Embrace All That’s Smart" from The Morning News, online magazine.)

glumbert - Women in Film

Okay, then.

I wanted to know, too.

Here's a list from someone in the comments thread:

Pickford

Gis

Swanson

Dietrich

Shearer

Harlow

Hepburn

Lombard

Davis

Garbo

Stanwyck

Leigh

Garson

Lamarr

Hayworth

Jones

Kerr

Bergman

Crawford

Rogers

Young

Garland

Baxter

Bacall

Hayward

Gardner

Monroe

Kelly

Turner

Taylor

Hedren

Hepburn

Dandridge

Maclaine

Wood

Lollabrigida

Leigh

Bardot

Loren

Ann Margaret

Andrews

Welch

Weld

Fonda

Christie

Dunaway

Deneuve

Bisset

Bergen

Rosselini

Keaton

Hawn

Streep

Sarandon

Lange

Pfeiffer

Weaver

Turner

Foster

Bassett

Moore

Stone

Ryan

Roberts

Hayek

Bullock

Lane

Kidman

Zeta-Jones

Jolie

Theron

Witherspoon

Berry

Biggest drawing in the world by Erik Nordenankar

After ignoring this video for several days I decided to take a look.
More impressive than I anticipated.
(Somebody has too much time and money on their hands...)
He's getting beat up pretty bad in the comments. Some are calling it a hoax, marketing ploy, etc.


Link to the main site.

Adland general comment (not specifically about this video)...
The reason marketeers want to do viral ads is because you can do it cheaper, reach more people (perhaps not the right ones however) and be a little naughtier than you can on TV... And for all those reasons it's so easy for people to grab their own camcorder and create a hoax viral of their own. The spread of fake virals - which to the end viewer looks exactly the same as a real viral - ends up threatening the integrity of everything else. Especially when even industry commentators fall for them. I don't blame the adbloggers for that - I do blame the creators of viral ad campaigns and their need to be secretive. We never wrote about the Beta-7 viral campaign here as the only way it was submitted was by one single link. No word on who created it. No explanation. Nothing. I understand that the creators of Beta-7 wanted people to get sucked into the story - and many did - but don't expect adbloggers like myself to be your seeding tools when you don't give us the full story.

...but Adland looked at the project and was impressed.

Erik Nordenankar doesn't do things half-assed. In fact, he's created The Biggest drawing in the world with a little help from a GPS device and DHL. This was his end of school project at Beckmans and I'm willing to bet money he'll land an awesome job pronto. In fact, if DHL doesn't pay him some money to us this as the viral campaign it already is, I'm going to get mighty peeved. YOU HEAR ME DHL?

Memorial Day Weekend, 2008

Welcome New York Times readers. I'm honored to be linked. What you have found is a trove of stuff written over the last four years, by me and a few other people, all of which resonates in some way with the idea of memorializing the dead. It will take a long time to read it all, especially if you drill into all the links. So if your time is limited I recommend skipping to the last two links.

If time permits, please look around. Check the sidebar post titles and if any catches your interest, give it a click. Thanks for visiting.

I have said enough about this observance. Here are links to past posts inspired by Memorial Day.

2005 Memorial Day Post

2006 Memorial Day, 2006

2007 Memorial Day Weekend

2007 Memorial Day, 2007

Inasmuch as we are remembering the dead, here is another link to one of the most moving accounts of military sacrifices I have come across, the personal remembrance of LtCol George Goodson, USMC retired, whose Burial at Sea is worthy of a TV series.

Christmas Eve, 2005 (reposted in 2006)

The Donald Sensing link is broken. In case I don't get around to fixing it, Death notifications is his post from 2005. Highly recommended reading.

"5 reasons to love high oil prices"

Via urbanmennonite.com

Good things that could come from $200/barrel oil:
1. Your Prius is actually appreciating in value. Maybe even more than your house!
2. Gay marriage in California? I have not a care for that of which you speak.
3. We’ll all be able to talk fondly of the good ole days when oil was only $133/barrel
4. Congressional Democrats get to go all butch and kick some oil executive ass
5. It’s past time for Mad Max fashions to come back in style. And who doesn’t love the Thunderdome!

Of Tigers and Tides

This morning's reading and reflection led me to a string of trivia. One comment following the tragic flooding that continues to devastate Myanmar mentioned that the tragedy was made worse by the destruction of the mangrove forests that once offered some protection from tidal waves and winds that come with tropical storms. The reason given was that much of the delta was converted to shrimp farming. Shrimp for affluent tables makes a better cash crop than the subsistence fishing that comes with the mangroves.

Bangladesh, by contrast, is among the most impoverished of the world's countries, but following a similar national tragedy three decades ago that cost the lives of millions that country took measures to restore and preserve mangrove coastal forests which offer more protection against typhoons as well as a more diverse economic base. The forests of Bangladesh are habitat for the largest population of Bengal tigers in the world, once a threatened species.

The phrase "rise of the rest" is a phrase I heard several times lately, referring to economic and social improvements made by developing countries as their leaders and populations develop ways to swim better with the sharks in global waters which historically have advanced more exploitation than development. Rhyming with rise of the West, the line was made current by a book by the same name published a few years ago. The contrast of Bangladesh and Myanmar can be seen as a case in point, at least regarding the protection/devastation of mangrove forests.

The Bengal tiger reference comes only days after hearing a great review of The Life of Pi by Yann Martel which I read the year after it was published (2001). It is the unlikely story of a teenage boy who finds himself sharing a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger for several months in the Pacific. (Don't ask, but believe me when I say that Yann Martel makes this totally incredible story line plausible...but that's not why I'm writing about it.) Two unrelated references to Bengal tigers don't occur often in the same week, so I did some research. This is what I came across at Wikipedia...

The Sundarbans [the largest single block of tidal halophytic mangrove forest in the world] are home to approximately 500 Bengal Tigers as of 2004, one of the largest single population of tigers. These tigers are well-known for the substantial number of people they kill; estimates range from 100-250 people per year. They are not the only tigers who live in close proximity to humans. In Bandhavgarh, villages encircle the tiger reserves, and yet attacks on people are rare. However, owing to various measures taken for safety, there is no report of single death since 2004 in Indian portion of the Sundarbans.
[...]
There are several speculated causes as to why these tigers maul humans:
►Since the Sundarbans is located in a coastal area, the water is relatively salty. In all other habitats, tigers drink fresh water. It is rumored that the saltiness of the tiger's water in this area has put them in a state of constant discomfort, leading them to be extremely aggressive. Freshwater lakes have been artificially made but to no avail.
►The high tides in the area destroy the tiger's scents which serve as territorial markers. Thus, the only way for a tiger to defend its territory is to physically dominate everything that enters.
►Another possibility is that these tigers have grown used to human flesh due to the weather. Cyclones in this part of India and Bangladesh kill thousands, and the bodies drift out in to the swampy waters, where tigers scavenge on them.
►Another possibility is that the tigers find hunting animals difficult due to the continuous high and low tides making the area marsh-like and slippery. Humans travel through the Sundarbans on boats gathering honey and fishing, making an easy or accessible prey. It is also believed that when a person stops to work, the tiger mistakes them for an animal, and has, over time, acquired a 'taste' for the human flesh.
►It has also been hypothesized that the tigers in this area, due to their secluded habitat, avoided the brunt of the hunting sprees that occurred over the course of the 20th century. ►Tigers inhabiting the rest of Asia developed a fear of humans after these events, but tigers in the Sundarbans would never have had reason to stop seeing humans as a prey item.

Pretty grim, huh?
How about this?

I have no deep reason for this post other than to keep track of that string of tiger trivia. Like empty coffee cans that pile up in the garage, one never knows when they might come in handy. After all, they make for an interesting footnote to an otherwise mundane story of yet another tragedy.

Typhoon vs. Huricane -- Compare and Contrast

Crawford Kilian looks at the Chinese response to the earthquake, comparing that country's impressive response with the mind-blowing stupidity of the state-controlled non-response, that of the Burmese authorities, to another national tragedy resulting from a different natural disaster.

Before we start wagging our heads judgementally, it might be prudent to recall Washington's non-response to Katrina three years ago. Here's another post to check.

There may have been an effort to erase the evidence. The Army Times link from Crof's blog now says "The story you are looking for cannot be found" but take a look at this Google search:

"This place is going to look like Little Somalia"

I got over eight hundred responses.
The comparisons are worth noting.

(Incidentally, I also found the Army Times link via a different search. It didn't get erased...just moved.)

Negotiation or Appeasement?

The air is polluted with accusations of appeasement hurled at those favoring negotiation rather than military strikes. The president's oblique remarks to the Knesset...

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

...quickly snatched up by Senator McCain and tossed at Barack Obama, who picked it up like a snowball and threw it back, have poisoned the well in the presidential campaign.

Read now what the Israeli's are saying and doing as Tony Karon points out in today's post.

...Elsewhere, Hamas and Israel are negotiating a truce, with Egypt playing the mediating role once adopted by the U.S. in talks between Israel and its neighbors. The Israelis won’t call it a truce, or admit to talking with Hamas — which Bush, in his fantasy world, likens to talking with Hitler, despite the fact that two thirds of Israelis support such talks — but everyone knows that’s what they’re doing. Bush’s posturing is all very well, but Israel needs a truce with Hamas, so in the realm of practical politics, Bush must simply be sympathetically humored, and ignored.
[...]
Israel is also forced to ignore Bush’s adolescent militancy when it comes to Syria. Washington has, under Bush, refused to engage with Damascus, insisting that it be isolated. But despite Bush’s reservations, the Israelis have opened peace talks with Syria, using Turkey to play the mediating role traditionally assumed by the U.S. — but vacated under the Bush Administration.

I report. You decide.

Pop TV Talks Immigration

David Neiwert posted this video at his blog today together with another lengthy column describing the panic-mongering popular media voices from both Fox and CNN.

Sometimes I wake up in the wee hours of the moring and watch a little TV waiting for sleep to return. If I'm tired enougn, C-SPAN is normally boring enough to make me go back to sleep, but I also check out ABC and CNN in case anything important might have happened since I went to bed. Whenever I see the faces of Glenn Beck or Lou Dobbs I can't keep watching. I cannot believe there is a market for that swill, but what do I know? I'm part of the lunatic fringe.

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Lou Dobbs replies, more or less:

Neiwert comments.

If I write a book and 98 percent of it is good material, but 2 percent of it contains libelous and false material, perhaps plagiarized material taken from a white-supremacist website, then it should not surprise me if the public and critics decide to discard the remaining 98 percent as unreliable. Journalists should always strive for complete accuracy and reliable, responsible sourcing, and understand that when they fail, it mars the rest of their work -- and moreover, good journalists recognize that, cop to their mistakes, and move immediately to correct them.
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But with Dobbs, the equation is actually reversed. His show is such a major font of misinformation on immigration that it's fair to say that probably only about 2 percent of it is either reliable or responsible. And Dobbs not only never cops to his mistakes -- he says he does, but in fact the record shows otherwise -- but he badgers and attacks the people who call him on them...