A Twitter exchange that begins here (expand the conversation) led me to contemplating the relative suckitude of U.S.presidents.
But it bored me, because I'm only thinking in terms of how much I hate each one.So let me just tell you about some presidents I really dislike a lot.
Jefferson, because he was a lying hypocritical slavefucker above all. I really mean above all.
Nixon, because Nixon.
Lincoln, because he was a lying skank who actually disliked brown people and, while he was acting to preserve the Union (as he should have), he took a big old shit all over the Constitution to do it, opening the door to future constitutional asswipe by none other than W Bush and President Dronzalot (among many others, both revered and not so much). In the words of the fantabulous Duane Ellison, Lincoln was only known as Honest Abe because he told every single person he ever met in his entire lanky motherfucking life that he was Honest Abe.
Reagan, because he was a lying motherfucker who just plain hated government, got elected on a platform of taking government from the people who needed it most, and permanently crippled the government's ability to govern. His sharpening of and focusing on executive power contributed to subsequent presidents' inability to deal with the legislative branch, but so did those presidents' collective and individual weaknesses--as is ever the cycle. It'll just be a fucking shame if the president who stops the waning power of the executive is fucking Chris Christie. On the other hand, my admiration for the waxing of the executive should be limited--all of my top four were guys who enjoyed, to one extent or another, executive primacy (yes, Nixon only until he killed it by his own hand).
There are others I'm not big on, but they pale in comparison, they're the Diet Coke of evil compared to these guys. It's not even worth ranking them. I suppose Jackson rises to near the top for his faux populism and his Hamilton-hating, but it was born of ignorance, not intelligent malice or any real understanding of how government ought be. There are others who were bad, but not so systematically bad by design that I'd bother to dislike them much; Buchanon comes to mind, far more hapless than evil.They were more products of time, circumstance, culture, and convention.
Other presidents started stupid wars for no reason; McKinley, Polk, Johnson, and more. It's hard to say how evil that makes them. It's easy to tag the Bushes (and, by extension, Obama) as evil for starting/perpetuating wars in the post-Vietnam era; we're supposed to know better. They're supposed to. Of course, every war in history has been followed by a lengthy period of a supposed desire for peace, suddenly overcome by circumstances deemed compelling. Are the Bushes worse than Woodrow Wilson? Perspectivized, it's hard to make the case.
Enough. I've conclusively proved my case, which is fuck Lincoln and his movie. QED. No, Whispers, that's it, I said QED.
Update: Alsotoo, LGM. Twice, actually, plus more if you scroll down. It's Weighing in on Lincoln Day at LGM. No Lincoln-lovers there, either, though it'd be a stretch to suggest that they share my abject disdain for the man, and Noon does a good job of mocking the Red Lincoln theory, which was best, most plausibly, most entertainingly, and most inaccurately plumbed by Harry Turtledove in his Southern Victory series (in which the South is not, ultimately, victorious).
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
A Birthday Wish
Alan Turing was born 100 years ago today, and here's my birthday wish for him: I wish he hadn't been hounded quite literally to death by small-minded idiots. If you know anything about Alan Turing, congratulations; you're not a complete fucking waste of protoplasm. If you worship Alan Turing...uhm, hi Sasha.
Turing was a brilliant scientist, a pioneer in computer science (those who are into such labels call him computer science's daddy) and information theory. He was a critical figure in British cryptanalysis during World War II. He was so fucking brilliant, so creative, and so important to the war effort that cracking the famous Enigma code used by the Germans may have been the least of his major accomplishments during the war.
Turing was responsible for two key (and related) concepts in information theory and computer science: the Turing Test and the Turing Machine. Oversimplified, the Turing Test is an experiment in which an interrogator attempts to determine, using natural written language only, whether he is conversing with a human or a machine. The classic definition of artificial intelligence refers to a machine that can fool the interrogator. Also oversimplified, a Turing Machine is a formal description of what we would think of as a simple computer, except it's gussied up with a whole lot of math and modeling that Alan Turing could master and command, in his head, while simultaneously making his grocery list, taking a dump, and deducing the location of the Bismarck at 7:52 AM British War Time on February 18, 1941 based on an abstract imaginary mathematical representation of Admiral Lutjens' hair color, three grains of sand on Brighton Beach, and the position of a randomly chosen link on his bicycle chain.
Turing killed himself in 1954, some time after being chemically castrated by the British judicial system following his conviction for homosexual acts. There have been some attempts at forensic revisionism, suggesting that his death by cyanide poisoning was the result of a scientific experiment gone wrong. The man was found dead of cyanide poisoning with a half-eaten apple in his hand. Grow up, revanchists.
In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized for the state's treatment of Turing; two years later, the British Minister for Justice declined to pardon Turing, contending that Turing was a big faggot who deserved what he got.
Turing is a fascinating figure, a man of incredible allure for information science junkies, engineers, and the formerly great writer Neal Stephenson, back before Neal was tragically lost to humanity while spelunking in his own ass for epistemological complexity. Turing was an instructional fable to Princess Nell in the still-amazing The Diamond Age, teaching Nell how to program computers by using an increasingly complex series of...yes, Turing Machines. Duh. Turing was also an active character in Stephenson's less ageworthy but still very fine Cryptonomicon, a colleague and mentor to one of the most central characters, Lawrence Waterhouse. For all I know Turing was also in The Baroque Cycle, to the extent that that pile of vocabulary drenched in Neal's ass was decipherable as literature--I honestly don't remember because I'm pretty sure I was either asleep or being tortured on a waterboard while I was reading it. I didn't read Anathem, because I heard he invented a language to write it, as if Klingon isn't good enough, and I decided I'd rather be rimmed by beavers than read that. I have heard that it's possible that his latest, whatever the fuck it's called, is something we might actually consider a book.
Wait, was I discussing something? Right, Alan Turing. Sorry, my bad. The point, of course, is that you should take a moment from whatever you're thinking about today, or tomorrow, or whenever you read this, to thank whatever you fucking consider holy that you got a chance to walk the same fucking planet as Alan Mathison Turing. Because, seriously? You're not fucking worthy.
I'd have missed Turing's birthday, if not for Slate, which clued me to this Vimeo gem by some Dutch guy calling himself Ecalpemos:
LEGO Turing Machine from ecalpemos on Vimeo.
Turing was a brilliant scientist, a pioneer in computer science (those who are into such labels call him computer science's daddy) and information theory. He was a critical figure in British cryptanalysis during World War II. He was so fucking brilliant, so creative, and so important to the war effort that cracking the famous Enigma code used by the Germans may have been the least of his major accomplishments during the war.
Turing was responsible for two key (and related) concepts in information theory and computer science: the Turing Test and the Turing Machine. Oversimplified, the Turing Test is an experiment in which an interrogator attempts to determine, using natural written language only, whether he is conversing with a human or a machine. The classic definition of artificial intelligence refers to a machine that can fool the interrogator. Also oversimplified, a Turing Machine is a formal description of what we would think of as a simple computer, except it's gussied up with a whole lot of math and modeling that Alan Turing could master and command, in his head, while simultaneously making his grocery list, taking a dump, and deducing the location of the Bismarck at 7:52 AM British War Time on February 18, 1941 based on an abstract imaginary mathematical representation of Admiral Lutjens' hair color, three grains of sand on Brighton Beach, and the position of a randomly chosen link on his bicycle chain.
Turing killed himself in 1954, some time after being chemically castrated by the British judicial system following his conviction for homosexual acts. There have been some attempts at forensic revisionism, suggesting that his death by cyanide poisoning was the result of a scientific experiment gone wrong. The man was found dead of cyanide poisoning with a half-eaten apple in his hand. Grow up, revanchists.
In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized for the state's treatment of Turing; two years later, the British Minister for Justice declined to pardon Turing, contending that Turing was a big faggot who deserved what he got.
Turing is a fascinating figure, a man of incredible allure for information science junkies, engineers, and the formerly great writer Neal Stephenson, back before Neal was tragically lost to humanity while spelunking in his own ass for epistemological complexity. Turing was an instructional fable to Princess Nell in the still-amazing The Diamond Age, teaching Nell how to program computers by using an increasingly complex series of...yes, Turing Machines. Duh. Turing was also an active character in Stephenson's less ageworthy but still very fine Cryptonomicon, a colleague and mentor to one of the most central characters, Lawrence Waterhouse. For all I know Turing was also in The Baroque Cycle, to the extent that that pile of vocabulary drenched in Neal's ass was decipherable as literature--I honestly don't remember because I'm pretty sure I was either asleep or being tortured on a waterboard while I was reading it. I didn't read Anathem, because I heard he invented a language to write it, as if Klingon isn't good enough, and I decided I'd rather be rimmed by beavers than read that. I have heard that it's possible that his latest, whatever the fuck it's called, is something we might actually consider a book.
Wait, was I discussing something? Right, Alan Turing. Sorry, my bad. The point, of course, is that you should take a moment from whatever you're thinking about today, or tomorrow, or whenever you read this, to thank whatever you fucking consider holy that you got a chance to walk the same fucking planet as Alan Mathison Turing. Because, seriously? You're not fucking worthy.
I'd have missed Turing's birthday, if not for Slate, which clued me to this Vimeo gem by some Dutch guy calling himself Ecalpemos:
LEGO Turing Machine from ecalpemos on Vimeo.
Monday, September 05, 2011
Labor Day
It's worth remembering why we have a day off here.
It's also worth remembering, as we mock ourselves and each other for our complicity in electing a man who's either an incompetent sap or an evil mastermind, depending on your point of view (I'm still squarely down with sap, without dismissing the point of view that there's a systemic issue), that we weren't alone.
Or that the question's not all that settled.
Enjoy the day off. Remember how you got it.
Update: Why it's important. (h/t Edroso)
It's also worth remembering, as we mock ourselves and each other for our complicity in electing a man who's either an incompetent sap or an evil mastermind, depending on your point of view (I'm still squarely down with sap, without dismissing the point of view that there's a systemic issue), that we weren't alone.
Or that the question's not all that settled.
Enjoy the day off. Remember how you got it.
Update: Why it's important. (h/t Edroso)
Saturday, July 16, 2011
France 1-2 Sweden
Gratz to Sweden for hanging tough after going down to 10 players after the adorable but otherwise despicable Josefine Oqvist fouled the crap out of Sonia Bompastor after a clean and successful challenge, then tried to kick her in the head after Bompastor tried to get Oqvist's pudgy little Nordic body off of hers. The Swedish players' reaction was admirable--they went up a goal on the porous French defense. The Swedish fans' reaction was predictably shitty, jeering and whistling every time the blameless Bompastor--who intelligently took advantage of the whiny Oqvist's tendency to lose her shit over small stuff--touched or approached the ball. It's not surprising, really--when you think about it, it's a nation of self-serving assholes, possibly even more so than our own, and it's not really any wonder that their national teams (hockey and soccer) are bags of brutish, abusive, cheating shit. This was highlighted by the fans' reaction to Oqvist's perfectly correct dismissal, while the American referee Kari Seitz--who has been uneven throughout the tournament--allowed Sweden two obvious penalty handballs during the course of the game, and allowed the Swedes to break Louisa Necib's knee on a vicious challenge with no foul called. Sorry, folks, merely getting the ball does not make knee-to-knee contact okay, even if it's incidental to the challenge, and especially when the challenger is inserting a foot and leg between the ballholder's legs.
You can rightly say a lot about France as a nation of cheese-eating surrender monkeys, and that's fair. I like their food, I think some of their women are adorable, and I think that their national character is shit. Of course, I love their womens' football team. Go figure.
Now let's turn to the unaccountably more reputable Sweden. During the war that counted, the Swedes managed to retain their independence and remain unoccupied in their zeal to outcollaborate the French and supply the Germans with the wherewithal to imperialize the world, while making much hay out of their humanitarian concern for the Jews, of which they saved many thousands while supplying the Nazis with strategic materiel and denying the Allies much-needed support in Scandinavia out of concern for their own profit-engorged skins. So, y'know, fuck Sweden.
But serious congratulations to them nonetheless--it's not easy to get a winning goal after your team has taken a red card, and Marie Hammarstrom's winner was indisputably lovely. That the Swedes couldn't get a winning goal against the French before that is a bit of a mystery--once again, the French couldn't get it together when it counted, though players other than Bompastor showed up for a change (Elodie Thomis was outstanding, and Elise Bussaglia has howitzers for feet--both feet). Sadly for France, none of them, save Bompastor, was in defense--Laura Georges was wretched in the center for the second straight game, and Corine Franco made me wonder what the fuck the big deal was about her being too injured to play in the Cup up until this game. The downturn in Swedish attacking play against Japan and France is a bit odd, but unlike in the Japan game, they managed just enough this time, and under far more adverse technical circumstances.
So congratulations, Sweden, well done, and fuck you.
Fuck you also: Kate Markgraf, who is remarkably dimwitted for a former national team player, and Adrian Healey, who shows with each broadcast why the appallingly horrible Ian Darke is still the right choice (given the available pool) for ESPN's first string during this event. Your paired ignorant logorrhea made an otherwise interesting game--even one involving the Swedes, who I actually despise even more than the fucking Germans--well nigh unbearable. Fuck you.
You can rightly say a lot about France as a nation of cheese-eating surrender monkeys, and that's fair. I like their food, I think some of their women are adorable, and I think that their national character is shit. Of course, I love their womens' football team. Go figure.
Now let's turn to the unaccountably more reputable Sweden. During the war that counted, the Swedes managed to retain their independence and remain unoccupied in their zeal to outcollaborate the French and supply the Germans with the wherewithal to imperialize the world, while making much hay out of their humanitarian concern for the Jews, of which they saved many thousands while supplying the Nazis with strategic materiel and denying the Allies much-needed support in Scandinavia out of concern for their own profit-engorged skins. So, y'know, fuck Sweden.
But serious congratulations to them nonetheless--it's not easy to get a winning goal after your team has taken a red card, and Marie Hammarstrom's winner was indisputably lovely. That the Swedes couldn't get a winning goal against the French before that is a bit of a mystery--once again, the French couldn't get it together when it counted, though players other than Bompastor showed up for a change (Elodie Thomis was outstanding, and Elise Bussaglia has howitzers for feet--both feet). Sadly for France, none of them, save Bompastor, was in defense--Laura Georges was wretched in the center for the second straight game, and Corine Franco made me wonder what the fuck the big deal was about her being too injured to play in the Cup up until this game. The downturn in Swedish attacking play against Japan and France is a bit odd, but unlike in the Japan game, they managed just enough this time, and under far more adverse technical circumstances.
So congratulations, Sweden, well done, and fuck you.
Fuck you also: Kate Markgraf, who is remarkably dimwitted for a former national team player, and Adrian Healey, who shows with each broadcast why the appallingly horrible Ian Darke is still the right choice (given the available pool) for ESPN's first string during this event. Your paired ignorant logorrhea made an otherwise interesting game--even one involving the Swedes, who I actually despise even more than the fucking Germans--well nigh unbearable. Fuck you.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Feel Good Story of the Year
YFWP brings us an offbeat story that intrigued me when I saw the headline in an actual paper copy of the rag that I was reading while waiting for a bacon-and-egg sammich yesterday morning.
The Supremes' 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson was one that staid historians like to call a landmark, and that judgmentarian history geeks like me prefer to call a travesty. Homer Plessy, who was what was once called an octaroon back when people tracked such metrics, and what we would now just call a brown person, was arrested in Louisiana for refusing to leave a whites-only rail car. Louisiana law defined octaroons as brown people and limited them to their own damn rail cars. Hilarity did not ensue, as a state judge named Ferguson held that the state could so prohibit brown persons from occupying the same rail cars as those with less melanin. The case advanced to the Supremes, who held on a 7-1 vote that treating brown persons differently did not demean them. The original Mr. Justice Harlan was the lone dissenter, correctly labelling the decision as every bit as ridiculous as the Dred Scott case. The separate but equal doctrine that followed the decision (doctrinally--of course, in reality conditions were far from equal) held for 58 years, until Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954.
Fast forward to Plessy and Ferguson's descendants. Phoebe Ferguson, the judge's great-great-granddaughter, and Keith Plessy, one generation closer to Homer Plessy (his great-grandfather was Homer's cousin; you figure it out) organized a foundation to teach the history of civil rights through education, preservation, and outreach. It's a tremendous example of how we should all just shut the fuck up and get along.
So do that. Uhm, please.
Updated prior to publication: Jeebus, is Anthony Weiner ever a dumbfuck. On behalf of everyone who continues to believe that there is some difference, thanks for the cockpunch, asshole. Thanks for putting such an incredible, no, impossible fucking strain on the good feelings associated with this post (which I wrote about 4 hours ahead of Weiner's admission that no, never mind, he really did twittertwat pictures of his stuffed boyshorts to random babes, scheduled for publication some hours hence--now in the past with the post unpublished, for reasons I don't bloogergrok). Fucking dipshit.
The Supremes' 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson was one that staid historians like to call a landmark, and that judgmentarian history geeks like me prefer to call a travesty. Homer Plessy, who was what was once called an octaroon back when people tracked such metrics, and what we would now just call a brown person, was arrested in Louisiana for refusing to leave a whites-only rail car. Louisiana law defined octaroons as brown people and limited them to their own damn rail cars. Hilarity did not ensue, as a state judge named Ferguson held that the state could so prohibit brown persons from occupying the same rail cars as those with less melanin. The case advanced to the Supremes, who held on a 7-1 vote that treating brown persons differently did not demean them. The original Mr. Justice Harlan was the lone dissenter, correctly labelling the decision as every bit as ridiculous as the Dred Scott case. The separate but equal doctrine that followed the decision (doctrinally--of course, in reality conditions were far from equal) held for 58 years, until Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954.
Fast forward to Plessy and Ferguson's descendants. Phoebe Ferguson, the judge's great-great-granddaughter, and Keith Plessy, one generation closer to Homer Plessy (his great-grandfather was Homer's cousin; you figure it out) organized a foundation to teach the history of civil rights through education, preservation, and outreach. It's a tremendous example of how we should all just shut the fuck up and get along.
So do that. Uhm, please.
Updated prior to publication: Jeebus, is Anthony Weiner ever a dumbfuck. On behalf of everyone who continues to believe that there is some difference, thanks for the cockpunch, asshole. Thanks for putting such an incredible, no, impossible fucking strain on the good feelings associated with this post (which I wrote about 4 hours ahead of Weiner's admission that no, never mind, he really did twittertwat pictures of his stuffed boyshorts to random babes, scheduled for publication some hours hence--now in the past with the post unpublished, for reasons I don't bloogergrok). Fucking dipshit.
Monday, June 06, 2011
Millstone, Milestone, Milestone
Who knew this blog's 500th post would fall on one of its three four holy days?
Happy birthday, such as things go, to my good friend William Wallace. Our day will come again, buddy, and I'm sorry my time has been so hideously constrained when you need it most. Hopefully the dark spaces are more and more behind you, and the dark alleys absolutely behind us.
Now go be good minions and read about D-Day, please. Any June 6 post in the archives will do for a start, and you can also never go wrong by checking out the great Wiki in the sky, as long as you only believe bits and pieces and you read the discussion page to find out what Wikitards are obsessing about.
Happy birthday, such as things go, to my good friend William Wallace. Our day will come again, buddy, and I'm sorry my time has been so hideously constrained when you need it most. Hopefully the dark spaces are more and more behind you, and the dark alleys absolutely behind us.
Now go be good minions and read about D-Day, please. Any June 6 post in the archives will do for a start, and you can also never go wrong by checking out the great Wiki in the sky, as long as you only believe bits and pieces and you read the discussion page to find out what Wikitards are obsessing about.
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Good Intentions
I fully intended to take on a task I nearly promised to a friend, but I find that I can't do that today, because it's one of three dates I keep holy. I'm essentially on the record here as being against time, as a concept, and the record bears out that time just makes me a weepy, maudlin pussyboy. Despite my stalwart opposition to time, practical reality demands that I live in respect of it. But I don't have to like it.
Anyway, June 6 is, for me, a holy day, and I keep it so on this blog, though I appear to have had my head up my ass on June 6, 2008. Nothing I can do about that now except make up a phony post for that date. So I won't.
Key elements of my D-Day thesis: World War II was the last good war; don't even dream of comparing what our country is doing with its military these days to what those men and women did starting about 70 years ago; and don't tell me I hate the troops because I disapprove of the way our political leadership uses them.
I don't think I've blogged about this before, but the scale of the enterprise is also worth remembrance. The Cornelius Ryan book is a gold standard, I think, but there's far more out there to read. Overlord is worthy of its place as one of the most studied military operations of all time.
So futbol tomorrow, maybe.
Anyway, June 6 is, for me, a holy day, and I keep it so on this blog, though I appear to have had my head up my ass on June 6, 2008. Nothing I can do about that now except make up a phony post for that date. So I won't.
Key elements of my D-Day thesis: World War II was the last good war; don't even dream of comparing what our country is doing with its military these days to what those men and women did starting about 70 years ago; and don't tell me I hate the troops because I disapprove of the way our political leadership uses them.
I don't think I've blogged about this before, but the scale of the enterprise is also worth remembrance. The Cornelius Ryan book is a gold standard, I think, but there's far more out there to read. Overlord is worthy of its place as one of the most studied military operations of all time.
So futbol tomorrow, maybe.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
What If You Knew Her?
I couldn't go with the iconic image, because Minions isn't about violence pr0n. But then again:
Do we now sing "one of these things is not like the other?" Yes and no. The young person who's about to get tased did, actually, in a narrow and technical sense, commit a crime. The young person who may or may not be about to get shot? Probably not so much. Should agents of the state be brandishing weapons in either case? Definitely not so much.The first pic was taken 40 years ago today. I was 9 years old. There are those who believe that my personal relationship with rage traces back to that day. Others believe that there may have been something about a hamster that John the Daftist left outside in the tool shed. Others still believe I'm just lazy and want something to blame for all the debauchery. I'm sure they're all correct.
Here's the big joke: damn, these kids today have weird hair.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
June 6 Revisited
I blogged three years ago about this date, and that post remains relevant, because my prose is pretty timeless that way. Go read it.
It bears repeating that false equivalence remains a popular way to evidence one's argument, especially if the argument is too moronic to stand on its own (that doesn't render my side immune to the temptation). The false equivalence is likely to mount, what with that centrist fraud we elected President traipsing about Europe for the 65th anniversary of D-Day, reflecting (as he should) on the horror and the sacrifice and the necessity and that which followed.
Think today about the men and women who worked and fought and died and sacrificed 65 years ago for a less threatening world--by which I mean a world that was actually less threatening, in a very real way, to millions of people. Think about the advances in quality of life, for billions of people, that ensued. And think about what it will take to advance, even in a small way, the quality of life for the four fifths of the world's population that have yet to enjoy much of that prosperity, and hope or pray, as suits you, that humanity has what it takes to make even some fraction of that happen. There's not a damn thing about that equivalence that's false. At this point in my thinking, the certain fact that the President is a centrist fraud diminishes a little in importance, because fraud though he is and will remain, at least he's not a dick (in this regard), and I do believe that he has some glimmer of hope and concern for that four fifths of humanity.
And that's what D-Day means to me.
It bears repeating that false equivalence remains a popular way to evidence one's argument, especially if the argument is too moronic to stand on its own (that doesn't render my side immune to the temptation). The false equivalence is likely to mount, what with that centrist fraud we elected President traipsing about Europe for the 65th anniversary of D-Day, reflecting (as he should) on the horror and the sacrifice and the necessity and that which followed.
Think today about the men and women who worked and fought and died and sacrificed 65 years ago for a less threatening world--by which I mean a world that was actually less threatening, in a very real way, to millions of people. Think about the advances in quality of life, for billions of people, that ensued. And think about what it will take to advance, even in a small way, the quality of life for the four fifths of the world's population that have yet to enjoy much of that prosperity, and hope or pray, as suits you, that humanity has what it takes to make even some fraction of that happen. There's not a damn thing about that equivalence that's false. At this point in my thinking, the certain fact that the President is a centrist fraud diminishes a little in importance, because fraud though he is and will remain, at least he's not a dick (in this regard), and I do believe that he has some glimmer of hope and concern for that four fifths of humanity.
And that's what D-Day means to me.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
The Sainted Dead
I'd have to say that I was a fan.
I think that LBJ was a severely underrated president. The man had a hard run. He suffered mightily for a series of bad decisions that led him to cave in to the then-strong impulse to fight Commies. No one had yet disproved the Domino Theory (for some real fun, read the Wikipedia article on the same topic). Postwar babies were fueling all kinds of scary stuff like cultural upheaval and civil rights. Johnson himself was a product of smoke-filled rooms, of ticket-balancing, and of the yellow-dog era of Democratic politics.
And yet? He propelled forward his sainted predecessor's civil rights agenda, the single most important sociological development of the century, let alone the decade. He guaranteed himself a place where he could be reviled by peaceniks and racists alike.
Into all this stepped his lovely and gracious wife--an early political manifestation of the nascent environmental movement, among other things, a woman who sealed her place in the American consciousness as the person comforting a blood-soaked Jackie Kennedy on the day every boomer remembers. No one could hate Lady Bird and still face their God in the morning. It just couldn't be done.
Now, some might say that putting up with a rattlesnake-and-bunny-rabbit-dicked motherfucker like Lyndon Johnson and holding a blood-stained Bible on America's Bad Day, Part One, were funny ways for a nice old Southron lady to achieve a state of grace in the hearts of the American people. But it was a funny time. And there's no cause to hold anything against her. Rest nice, Lady Bird.
I think that LBJ was a severely underrated president. The man had a hard run. He suffered mightily for a series of bad decisions that led him to cave in to the then-strong impulse to fight Commies. No one had yet disproved the Domino Theory (for some real fun, read the Wikipedia article on the same topic). Postwar babies were fueling all kinds of scary stuff like cultural upheaval and civil rights. Johnson himself was a product of smoke-filled rooms, of ticket-balancing, and of the yellow-dog era of Democratic politics.
And yet? He propelled forward his sainted predecessor's civil rights agenda, the single most important sociological development of the century, let alone the decade. He guaranteed himself a place where he could be reviled by peaceniks and racists alike.
Into all this stepped his lovely and gracious wife--an early political manifestation of the nascent environmental movement, among other things, a woman who sealed her place in the American consciousness as the person comforting a blood-soaked Jackie Kennedy on the day every boomer remembers. No one could hate Lady Bird and still face their God in the morning. It just couldn't be done.
Now, some might say that putting up with a rattlesnake-and-bunny-rabbit-dicked motherfucker like Lyndon Johnson and holding a blood-stained Bible on America's Bad Day, Part One, were funny ways for a nice old Southron lady to achieve a state of grace in the hearts of the American people. But it was a funny time. And there's no cause to hold anything against her. Rest nice, Lady Bird.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
Treason In Defense Of Slavery
It's Confederate Heritage Month, or some such blather, and as is our American way, the war is still being fought. Absolutists of both stripes are having themselves a hoedown. I've commented on this before; because of my unwillingness to commit to an absolute anti-Confederacy stance, I have been accused of racism, fascism, terrorism and, what is worse (to my thinking), being unreconstructed.
Lawyers, Guns, and Money got me thinking about all this; they're running a marvelous series of posts over the course of the month on Treason in Defense of Slavery. I'll be frank; their stance is pretty absolutist for my taste. They are not interested in applying historical filters; to their thinking, treason is treason and racism is racism, regardless of the style of the day. I think that's some pretty harsh shit to lay on our ancestors (your ancestors, actually--as best I can tell, mine were still in Germany, Scotland, England, Ireland, and Wales, although some of the Germans may have arrived in time for the party), who aren't around to argue the point, or to be confused by the perspective with which decades of progress in gender and race relations have imbued us.
More pertinent is the political flavoring of the modern debate. The TIDOS folks (and please--my position is far closer to theirs than to anything unreconstructed) recognize that this historical discussion isn't about history. It's about now. Their reaction to any defense of the Confederacy--and they label any such defense as "Lost Cause Mythology"--is real similar to my reaction to another blogger's post characterizing someone as using abortions as a substitute for the pill. It is rooted in a conviction that to discuss a thing in anything but one's own terms is to give that thing hope. It is why abortion opponents call themselves "pro-life" and we call them "anti-choice."
I'm not denying the existence of Lost Cause Mythology, and I'm not denying that for many people, there is some equation between the Lost Cause and modern times. It is indulged by people who persist in referring to Chappaquiddick (let's remember that Laura Bush killed someone in a car accident, once upon a long time ago), or in calling Massachusetts (a state that, until the recent election of Deval Patrick, had elected a string of asshole Republican governors, one of whom is now a presidential candidate trying to fight off a ludicrous general inference that his very association with the state has tainted his conservative cred) Taxachusetts, or in belaboring the notion that the media are overwhelmingly liberal.
That is to say, it is indulged by idiots with an agenda. That's why LGM and others who are heavily blogging about TIDOS Month are so very persistent in their own memery. And there is some justice in their position; I don't care who you are or what you're selling, if you're flying the Confederate flag, you're a hater. Period, no question, no mitigation, no absolution.
And that's why I'm a tad bothered by the absolutism of LGM and others. Let's deconstruct the TIDOS label a little bit. I got no quibble with the treason part. Secession was, by any measure, and through any filter, treason. The only reason any debate on this point persists is because there are those who find the Tenth Amendment a convenient vehicle for their blindingly inconsistent assertions about the relative roles of the federal government and the states. These are the same people who see an activist in every judge, and who are incapable of reading the Constitution and understanding that there are three branches of government and that the Executive and Legislative branches cannot, in fact, do Whatever The Fuck They Want.
I've written before about the roots of the Civil War. Let me say first that denying that slavery is one of them is the moral and intellectual equivalent of denying the Holocaust. Arguing that slavery wasn't foremost among the causes is sketchy, at best. But pretending that slavery was the only cause of the Civil War is either pig-ignorant or deliberately deceitful. There were other serious issues, partially laid out in a comment to the referenced post (sale and distribution of western lands, internal improvements, tariffs, and the various National Bank controversies). Some of these--the disposition and statehood of the West, and tariffs--were clearly related to slavery, but remained issues independent of their entwinement with it. My point is that while it's fair (in a legal and historical sense) to characterize secessionists as traitors, it's a stretch to accuse each and every Southron of seceding for the sole purpose of defending slavery.
And that's what the TIDOS language does. It's the same rhetorical tactic that anti-abortionists use when they force us to defend so-called "partial birth abortion." You pick the most extreme and repugnant thing that your opponent's position allows, and you harp on it endlessly, turning it--rather than the more reasonable full range of issues--into the sole topic. It's intellectually dishonest when anti-abortionists do it, and it's even more intellectually dishonest when those who have a passion for and understanding of history do it. (See update, below)
And yet, I have trouble reaching the conclusion that they're absolutely wrong. Their cause is, after all, marked by some justice. There is unequivocally a connection between those who defend many of the ideals of the Confederacy--and let's make no mistake, there's a racist basis for a lot of it--and I believe that, in their hearts, the TIDOSers are reaching out to take that on. Their fervor is a reflection of the other side's fervor. They are perfectly right and principled in their presentation and interpretation of much of the material they're highlighting--see, for example, Old Hickory's very fine and well-reasoned post on the Dred Scott decision (hat tip to LGM for the link). But there is a level of disingenuity here.
LGM characterizes TIDOS month as purely responsive to some states' celebration of Confederate Heritage Month. I am familiar with the rationales that heritage equals hate, and that it does not. Both are extreme. Robert Farley at LGM completes the trip over the top here:
"In all honesty, I look forward to the day when Confederate nostalgia is every bit as respectable as fond remembrance for Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or Imperial Japan."
Wow. I don't think I could better sum up historical absolutism. I don't think I could better illustrate what happens when the victors write the history. Is it too kind to recognize that not all Germans from 1933-1945 were evil, that while the human cost of Soviet Russia was unbearable, World War II could not have been won without the sacrifice of the Soviet people, or that while the Imperial Japanese Army perpetrated many grotesque excesses, the confluence of cultural and international political factors and events set in motion when Matthew Perry "opened" Japan may well have been the only way Japan could have matured as a modern nation? I think not, and I don't think that considering the whole balance sheet is pointless, disrespectful , or inappropriate.
You know I'm no moderate. You know I'm no secessionist. It is within the range of rhetorical possibility that I am a racist, but as you may know, it is my feeling that everyone is so permeated with the language and culture of racial distinction that it's impossible to avoid being a racist at some level or in some way--no one in our culture can be absolutely free of that taint. You know that I have nothing but contempt for those who would abuse 19th-century readings of the law to somehow delegitimize modern rulings. And you know that I have strong feelings about many things, American history among them. It all colors my distaste for an absolute view of just about any historical event or trend.
I object to the politicization of what should remain a purely historical debate. Nobody's winning any converts with this.
All that said, I do much prefer the TIDOS label to the usual War of Northern Aggression meme.
UPDATE 2 PM 4/13/2007: On unprompted (as yet) reflection, it occurs to me that "intellectually dishonest" is a harsh charge to level at people of good faith like Robert Farley of LGM and Erik Loomis of Alterdestiny (and other people who are participating in TIDOS month), and the way I wrote what I wrote above certainly and unequivocally shotguns both of them with that slur. For that, I very much apologize. I'm not going to pretend I didn't write it, because I did.
What I'm complaining about is here is a monolithic approach: "Since the underpinnings of what you are espousing are repellent, it is okay for me to adopt a rhetorically absolute position to combat your malignant pretense of good faith, regardless of the likely shadings of fact." In the context of the TIDOS posts--which, I repeat, are outstanding, entertaining, generally informative, and generally accurate--it's overharsh to characterize that approach as "intellectually dishonest." I'd prefer a milder epithet, and I'm truly sorry that I didn't take the time to think of one before committing my thoughts to electrons.
Lawyers, Guns, and Money got me thinking about all this; they're running a marvelous series of posts over the course of the month on Treason in Defense of Slavery. I'll be frank; their stance is pretty absolutist for my taste. They are not interested in applying historical filters; to their thinking, treason is treason and racism is racism, regardless of the style of the day. I think that's some pretty harsh shit to lay on our ancestors (your ancestors, actually--as best I can tell, mine were still in Germany, Scotland, England, Ireland, and Wales, although some of the Germans may have arrived in time for the party), who aren't around to argue the point, or to be confused by the perspective with which decades of progress in gender and race relations have imbued us.
More pertinent is the political flavoring of the modern debate. The TIDOS folks (and please--my position is far closer to theirs than to anything unreconstructed) recognize that this historical discussion isn't about history. It's about now. Their reaction to any defense of the Confederacy--and they label any such defense as "Lost Cause Mythology"--is real similar to my reaction to another blogger's post characterizing someone as using abortions as a substitute for the pill. It is rooted in a conviction that to discuss a thing in anything but one's own terms is to give that thing hope. It is why abortion opponents call themselves "pro-life" and we call them "anti-choice."
I'm not denying the existence of Lost Cause Mythology, and I'm not denying that for many people, there is some equation between the Lost Cause and modern times. It is indulged by people who persist in referring to Chappaquiddick (let's remember that Laura Bush killed someone in a car accident, once upon a long time ago), or in calling Massachusetts (a state that, until the recent election of Deval Patrick, had elected a string of asshole Republican governors, one of whom is now a presidential candidate trying to fight off a ludicrous general inference that his very association with the state has tainted his conservative cred) Taxachusetts, or in belaboring the notion that the media are overwhelmingly liberal.
That is to say, it is indulged by idiots with an agenda. That's why LGM and others who are heavily blogging about TIDOS Month are so very persistent in their own memery. And there is some justice in their position; I don't care who you are or what you're selling, if you're flying the Confederate flag, you're a hater. Period, no question, no mitigation, no absolution.
And that's why I'm a tad bothered by the absolutism of LGM and others. Let's deconstruct the TIDOS label a little bit. I got no quibble with the treason part. Secession was, by any measure, and through any filter, treason. The only reason any debate on this point persists is because there are those who find the Tenth Amendment a convenient vehicle for their blindingly inconsistent assertions about the relative roles of the federal government and the states. These are the same people who see an activist in every judge, and who are incapable of reading the Constitution and understanding that there are three branches of government and that the Executive and Legislative branches cannot, in fact, do Whatever The Fuck They Want.
I've written before about the roots of the Civil War. Let me say first that denying that slavery is one of them is the moral and intellectual equivalent of denying the Holocaust. Arguing that slavery wasn't foremost among the causes is sketchy, at best. But pretending that slavery was the only cause of the Civil War is either pig-ignorant or deliberately deceitful. There were other serious issues, partially laid out in a comment to the referenced post (sale and distribution of western lands, internal improvements, tariffs, and the various National Bank controversies). Some of these--the disposition and statehood of the West, and tariffs--were clearly related to slavery, but remained issues independent of their entwinement with it. My point is that while it's fair (in a legal and historical sense) to characterize secessionists as traitors, it's a stretch to accuse each and every Southron of seceding for the sole purpose of defending slavery.
And that's what the TIDOS language does. It's the same rhetorical tactic that anti-abortionists use when they force us to defend so-called "partial birth abortion." You pick the most extreme and repugnant thing that your opponent's position allows, and you harp on it endlessly, turning it--rather than the more reasonable full range of issues--into the sole topic. It's intellectually dishonest when anti-abortionists do it, and it's even more intellectually dishonest when those who have a passion for and understanding of history do it. (See update, below)
And yet, I have trouble reaching the conclusion that they're absolutely wrong. Their cause is, after all, marked by some justice. There is unequivocally a connection between those who defend many of the ideals of the Confederacy--and let's make no mistake, there's a racist basis for a lot of it--and I believe that, in their hearts, the TIDOSers are reaching out to take that on. Their fervor is a reflection of the other side's fervor. They are perfectly right and principled in their presentation and interpretation of much of the material they're highlighting--see, for example, Old Hickory's very fine and well-reasoned post on the Dred Scott decision (hat tip to LGM for the link). But there is a level of disingenuity here.
LGM characterizes TIDOS month as purely responsive to some states' celebration of Confederate Heritage Month. I am familiar with the rationales that heritage equals hate, and that it does not. Both are extreme. Robert Farley at LGM completes the trip over the top here:
"In all honesty, I look forward to the day when Confederate nostalgia is every bit as respectable as fond remembrance for Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or Imperial Japan."
Wow. I don't think I could better sum up historical absolutism. I don't think I could better illustrate what happens when the victors write the history. Is it too kind to recognize that not all Germans from 1933-1945 were evil, that while the human cost of Soviet Russia was unbearable, World War II could not have been won without the sacrifice of the Soviet people, or that while the Imperial Japanese Army perpetrated many grotesque excesses, the confluence of cultural and international political factors and events set in motion when Matthew Perry "opened" Japan may well have been the only way Japan could have matured as a modern nation? I think not, and I don't think that considering the whole balance sheet is pointless, disrespectful , or inappropriate.
You know I'm no moderate. You know I'm no secessionist. It is within the range of rhetorical possibility that I am a racist, but as you may know, it is my feeling that everyone is so permeated with the language and culture of racial distinction that it's impossible to avoid being a racist at some level or in some way--no one in our culture can be absolutely free of that taint. You know that I have nothing but contempt for those who would abuse 19th-century readings of the law to somehow delegitimize modern rulings. And you know that I have strong feelings about many things, American history among them. It all colors my distaste for an absolute view of just about any historical event or trend.
I object to the politicization of what should remain a purely historical debate. Nobody's winning any converts with this.
All that said, I do much prefer the TIDOS label to the usual War of Northern Aggression meme.
UPDATE 2 PM 4/13/2007: On unprompted (as yet) reflection, it occurs to me that "intellectually dishonest" is a harsh charge to level at people of good faith like Robert Farley of LGM and Erik Loomis of Alterdestiny (and other people who are participating in TIDOS month), and the way I wrote what I wrote above certainly and unequivocally shotguns both of them with that slur. For that, I very much apologize. I'm not going to pretend I didn't write it, because I did.
What I'm complaining about is here is a monolithic approach: "Since the underpinnings of what you are espousing are repellent, it is okay for me to adopt a rhetorically absolute position to combat your malignant pretense of good faith, regardless of the likely shadings of fact." In the context of the TIDOS posts--which, I repeat, are outstanding, entertaining, generally informative, and generally accurate--it's overharsh to characterize that approach as "intellectually dishonest." I'd prefer a milder epithet, and I'm truly sorry that I didn't take the time to think of one before committing my thoughts to electrons.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Song of the South
Suddenly, everyone has a Fucking Calendar; Sasha points out Robert E. Lee's upcoming 200th birthday, tomorrow (if I correctly understood her, she got the date wrong, but since I was juggling dinner and a particularly awful child at the moment she called, it's eminently possible that I got her wrong).
My feelings about Robert E. Lee are way too fucking complicated to go through here, without sincerely offending people in a way that I care about. The possibility of misunderstanding is about one hundred percent.
I've think I've written before that I used to be quite romantic about the Civil War, in a way that young men tend to get. That is to say that I was drawn by the allure of the Confederacy. I have taken many a beating, in an academic context, about my views on the causes of the War--some of which actually have only tangential connections to the slavery issue, or murky, chicken-and-egg relationships with it. This invariably leads to misunderstandings--mostly with people who aren't all that knowledgeable, and who mistake me for an unreconstructed Southron.
It's impossible to ignore the depth to which Lee remains enshrined in Southern culture. People legitimately have varying views on this, and the symbolic connection between Lee and darker symbols such as the Confederate battle flag--which I have truly come to view as a symbol of hatred--are unfortunate, but real.
Despite his four years of service to the Confederacy--which may or may not have been a "real" country--Lee was a great American. His service in the U.S. Army up to 1861 was exemplary and innovative (for the time). His field command of Confederate armies was legendary--perhaps a bit overmuch. Certainly his presence had more morale value than did his tactical genius, and it's plain that his tactical reputation gained much from the incompetence of many generals who faced him in the field.
And that's about all I have to say about it. The Civil War remains the most controversial issue that American historians face, and rightly so. I'm not interested in fanning those flames, any more than I already have here. Which ought not be too much.
My feelings about Robert E. Lee are way too fucking complicated to go through here, without sincerely offending people in a way that I care about. The possibility of misunderstanding is about one hundred percent.
I've think I've written before that I used to be quite romantic about the Civil War, in a way that young men tend to get. That is to say that I was drawn by the allure of the Confederacy. I have taken many a beating, in an academic context, about my views on the causes of the War--some of which actually have only tangential connections to the slavery issue, or murky, chicken-and-egg relationships with it. This invariably leads to misunderstandings--mostly with people who aren't all that knowledgeable, and who mistake me for an unreconstructed Southron.
It's impossible to ignore the depth to which Lee remains enshrined in Southern culture. People legitimately have varying views on this, and the symbolic connection between Lee and darker symbols such as the Confederate battle flag--which I have truly come to view as a symbol of hatred--are unfortunate, but real.
Despite his four years of service to the Confederacy--which may or may not have been a "real" country--Lee was a great American. His service in the U.S. Army up to 1861 was exemplary and innovative (for the time). His field command of Confederate armies was legendary--perhaps a bit overmuch. Certainly his presence had more morale value than did his tactical genius, and it's plain that his tactical reputation gained much from the incompetence of many generals who faced him in the field.
And that's about all I have to say about it. The Civil War remains the most controversial issue that American historians face, and rightly so. I'm not interested in fanning those flames, any more than I already have here. Which ought not be too much.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
But Now That I Think On It...
Alexander Hamilton was the most important of the founding fathers of our great nation. Thomas Jefferson was a fucking pussy, not unlike Phil Rivers. In fact, I'm going to say that Thomas Jefferson was the Phil Rivers of his time.
Thomas Jefferson was a slave-fucking asshole. Phil Rivers is a cheerleader-fucking asshole, and is cheerleaderdom all that far removed from slavery? Besides, Phil Rivers would fuck slaves, if there were any.
Alexander Hamilton, by contrast, was a member of the New York Manumission Society. While his behavior was not entirely aboveboard (evidence conflicts as to whether he held household slaves, and it is possible--again, evidence conflicts--that he was involved in slave trading, a legitimate business of the time), if one views him through the filter of moral relativism that is necessary to properly appreciate the figures of the time, he may as well have been Al Sharpton.
Thomas Jefferson was a France-loving Communist. Phil Rivers is a Marty Schottenheimer-loving fascist. I fail to see a distinction.
Alexander Hamilton, by contrast, was a veritable Royalist. While he was a little too close to George Washington for my taste, he at least had the good sense to deduce that government was too important to be left to the vagaries of democracy, a principle soundly borne out in the last two presidential elections.
Thomas Jefferson was not a Yankee. This is the nicest thing I can say about him. Phil Rivers is also not a Yankee.
Neither was Alexander Hamilton. Technically. He was born on the island of Nevis in the West Indies, and hence of even more Southron origin than either the French-loving Jefferson or the abject failure Rivers.
Thomas Jefferson fucked slaves and never told anybody about it. Phil Rivers failed to beat the Maryland Terrapins in four attempts and has not, to my knowledge, publicly admitted that, because of this, he is forevermore a tainted pussy.
Alexander Hamilton nailed some dude's wife, paid him to keep nailing her after he found out about it, and publicly admitted the adultery when the fucker tried to blackmail him with allegations of corruption. While there are no pictures available of Maria Reynolds (the whore/adultress), I can only assume that, since Hamilton was 34 and she was 23, she was as babelicious as it got back then. A 10-year age difference is certainly just about perfect (until I'm a few more years into cootdom, at least), and I can think of no better testament to Mister Hamilton's giant clanging balls.
So, Ilse? Do please remember to update your Fucking Smartass Calendar of Morbid Weepiness. While once a year is not often enough for me to extol the virtues of this Great American, it may have to do.
And happy belated birthday, Zander, greatest of American political heroes, personal inspiration, sometime alter-ego, and brother in cradle-robbing.
Fuck Jefferson. Punkass bitch.
Thomas Jefferson was a slave-fucking asshole. Phil Rivers is a cheerleader-fucking asshole, and is cheerleaderdom all that far removed from slavery? Besides, Phil Rivers would fuck slaves, if there were any.
Alexander Hamilton, by contrast, was a member of the New York Manumission Society. While his behavior was not entirely aboveboard (evidence conflicts as to whether he held household slaves, and it is possible--again, evidence conflicts--that he was involved in slave trading, a legitimate business of the time), if one views him through the filter of moral relativism that is necessary to properly appreciate the figures of the time, he may as well have been Al Sharpton.
Thomas Jefferson was a France-loving Communist. Phil Rivers is a Marty Schottenheimer-loving fascist. I fail to see a distinction.
Alexander Hamilton, by contrast, was a veritable Royalist. While he was a little too close to George Washington for my taste, he at least had the good sense to deduce that government was too important to be left to the vagaries of democracy, a principle soundly borne out in the last two presidential elections.
Thomas Jefferson was not a Yankee. This is the nicest thing I can say about him. Phil Rivers is also not a Yankee.
Neither was Alexander Hamilton. Technically. He was born on the island of Nevis in the West Indies, and hence of even more Southron origin than either the French-loving Jefferson or the abject failure Rivers.
Thomas Jefferson fucked slaves and never told anybody about it. Phil Rivers failed to beat the Maryland Terrapins in four attempts and has not, to my knowledge, publicly admitted that, because of this, he is forevermore a tainted pussy.
Alexander Hamilton nailed some dude's wife, paid him to keep nailing her after he found out about it, and publicly admitted the adultery when the fucker tried to blackmail him with allegations of corruption. While there are no pictures available of Maria Reynolds (the whore/adultress), I can only assume that, since Hamilton was 34 and she was 23, she was as babelicious as it got back then. A 10-year age difference is certainly just about perfect (until I'm a few more years into cootdom, at least), and I can think of no better testament to Mister Hamilton's giant clanging balls.
So, Ilse? Do please remember to update your Fucking Smartass Calendar of Morbid Weepiness. While once a year is not often enough for me to extol the virtues of this Great American, it may have to do.
And happy belated birthday, Zander, greatest of American political heroes, personal inspiration, sometime alter-ego, and brother in cradle-robbing.
Fuck Jefferson. Punkass bitch.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Viva Max
I'm usually not a big fan of Maryscott O'Connor. But My Left Wing got something right yesterday, a day that should, metaphorically, have been (and was) about revolution, and I missed it.
So happy belated birthday, Emiliano Zapata. Whatever the hell you were.
So happy belated birthday, Emiliano Zapata. Whatever the hell you were.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Party Like It's 1499
Does anyone know if the Netherlands and Portugal ever actually went to war, back when they were both huge imperialist colonializing influences? I mean, I know Portugal and Spain got their dicks all tangled up and some Pope had to draw a line in 1497 or so to keep them each in their own corners. But watching today's knockout game (won by Portugal, 1-0), you'd have thought these two had been at war for 500 years.
There is a lot of invective being hurled at the referee, who was some poor Russian bastard whose name I can't be bothered to look up. Stunning, that whole invective thing. It wasn't his fault. I mean, there's been a parade of stoplight-colored cards throughout the tournament, and FIFI has pretty much affirmed that this is the appropriate way for officials to act this time around. It was beginning, at times, to look like the game would finish up with each side playing 7 men.
But the poor Russian was keeping control of the game as best he could. You see, the Portos are bastards, just stone cold diving pussies who get up and take a swing at someone when the dive doesn't go their way, and swing and bite and kick when it does. They may well top the Italians for sheer diving pussitude (I will work to invent a scoring system for this, using the Italians and the Los Angeles Galaxy as benchmarks). Luis Figo is a fucking tramp, a painted, unpantied slut trolling for fouls. Deco, who as far as I could tell got red-carded for picking up the ball and trying to run away with it as a time-wasting measure after a foul was called on Portugal, is Figo's sister in gang-bangery.
The Dutch, on the other hand, are Nazis, and the combination of a one-goal deficit and all those swarthy Portuguese swaying their asses just drove the poor Gouda-gobblers plumb crazy. The result was one of the dirtiest but most entertaining soccer games I've ever seen, made the more so because I seriously dislike both teams.
I now have a new result to hope for, beyond underdog upsets or flaming meteors. I am now rooting for sheer, medieval hostility among Eurotrash teams. It's really a fucking shame that England and France can't play before the final.
There is a lot of invective being hurled at the referee, who was some poor Russian bastard whose name I can't be bothered to look up. Stunning, that whole invective thing. It wasn't his fault. I mean, there's been a parade of stoplight-colored cards throughout the tournament, and FIFI has pretty much affirmed that this is the appropriate way for officials to act this time around. It was beginning, at times, to look like the game would finish up with each side playing 7 men.
But the poor Russian was keeping control of the game as best he could. You see, the Portos are bastards, just stone cold diving pussies who get up and take a swing at someone when the dive doesn't go their way, and swing and bite and kick when it does. They may well top the Italians for sheer diving pussitude (I will work to invent a scoring system for this, using the Italians and the Los Angeles Galaxy as benchmarks). Luis Figo is a fucking tramp, a painted, unpantied slut trolling for fouls. Deco, who as far as I could tell got red-carded for picking up the ball and trying to run away with it as a time-wasting measure after a foul was called on Portugal, is Figo's sister in gang-bangery.
The Dutch, on the other hand, are Nazis, and the combination of a one-goal deficit and all those swarthy Portuguese swaying their asses just drove the poor Gouda-gobblers plumb crazy. The result was one of the dirtiest but most entertaining soccer games I've ever seen, made the more so because I seriously dislike both teams.
I now have a new result to hope for, beyond underdog upsets or flaming meteors. I am now rooting for sheer, medieval hostility among Eurotrash teams. It's really a fucking shame that England and France can't play before the final.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
June 6
Much will be made in the blogosphere today of comparisons between events and currents 62 years ago and those of the here/now. All of them are crap. There's no parallel at all, except to the extent that then, as now, our military was called upon to do violence. Honor your fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers--those whose generation dropped everything to go fight the true face of evil.
Why was that a good war? I'm certainly invested in the notion that it was, and that it was, in all likelihood, the last good war. It's surely the last war about which there's any certainty as to the rightness of our country's actions and choices. Those who argue that evil is evil, in any of its forms, and who would compare the fundamental, world-sweeping evil of Nazism to the evil of today are missing a point of scale.
It is hyperbole to suggest that terror looms as the same kind of threat to our way of life as did Nazism. Globally, more infants die needlessly in a day--every day--than the number of people who died in the horrors of 9/11. Between 40 million and 60 million people were consumed by World War II, depending on whose figures you believe. The scale of the threat of terrorism is miniscule by comparison.
That doesn't make terrorism right, or something to be ignored; it means what it says, that the threat needs to be viewed in scale. More people died in auto accidents in 2001 than died in the World Trade Center. It may be a hard idea to confront, but by way of scale, terrorism is a pretty mundane threat.
This matter of scale tends to diminish the war metaphor, but more importantly, I think (and certainly today), it diminishes other--real--wars, and it's a bit of an insult to those sacrificed in them. Like World War II, which took a significant step toward ending, 62 years ago today (I'll spare you here my usual argument about the suffering of the Russian people in making a more significant contribution toward bringing about that end).
Does this itself diminish the contributions of those Americans who've died or otherwise suffered grievously in Afghanistan and Iraq? Of course not. They are brave people who signed on to serve their countries and followed the orders they were given in doing so. It doesn't demean them to suggest that their political leadership was flawed; in fact, it's a compliment to their patriotism and professionalism.
Today should be a day for contemplating the deeds of the generation that won World War II. Please don't spoil it by comparing our invasion of Iraq to the deeds done by those magnificent men and women.
Why was that a good war? I'm certainly invested in the notion that it was, and that it was, in all likelihood, the last good war. It's surely the last war about which there's any certainty as to the rightness of our country's actions and choices. Those who argue that evil is evil, in any of its forms, and who would compare the fundamental, world-sweeping evil of Nazism to the evil of today are missing a point of scale.
It is hyperbole to suggest that terror looms as the same kind of threat to our way of life as did Nazism. Globally, more infants die needlessly in a day--every day--than the number of people who died in the horrors of 9/11. Between 40 million and 60 million people were consumed by World War II, depending on whose figures you believe. The scale of the threat of terrorism is miniscule by comparison.
That doesn't make terrorism right, or something to be ignored; it means what it says, that the threat needs to be viewed in scale. More people died in auto accidents in 2001 than died in the World Trade Center. It may be a hard idea to confront, but by way of scale, terrorism is a pretty mundane threat.
This matter of scale tends to diminish the war metaphor, but more importantly, I think (and certainly today), it diminishes other--real--wars, and it's a bit of an insult to those sacrificed in them. Like World War II, which took a significant step toward ending, 62 years ago today (I'll spare you here my usual argument about the suffering of the Russian people in making a more significant contribution toward bringing about that end).
Does this itself diminish the contributions of those Americans who've died or otherwise suffered grievously in Afghanistan and Iraq? Of course not. They are brave people who signed on to serve their countries and followed the orders they were given in doing so. It doesn't demean them to suggest that their political leadership was flawed; in fact, it's a compliment to their patriotism and professionalism.
Today should be a day for contemplating the deeds of the generation that won World War II. Please don't spoil it by comparing our invasion of Iraq to the deeds done by those magnificent men and women.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Shut The Fucking Fuck Up
This is really not a very complicated thing. There are a series of facts in play here, to wit:
If you shoot someone--that is to say, if a gun goes off and hits someone, and you're the person who pulled the trigger--it's your fucking fault. The gun didn't shoot someone. You did. Just ask the fucking NRA. Ought to be easy enough; you're funding them. There is no explanation, there is no justification: it is your fault. You done wrong.
When you are a public official, and you shoot someone, and you deliberately contrive to keep the story out of the news for 24 hours, you have done a wrong thing. There is no explanation, there is no justification: it is your fault. You done wrong.
The Vice President shooting someone has nothing to do with Ted Kennedy being drunk 37 years ago, or with Bill Clinton smearing an intern's lipstick, or with Vince Foster's suicide (the latest in a pathetic series of non sequiturs raised by fascist apologist and self-loathing racist nightmare Michelle Malkin). If you see any connection between these events, I humbly suggest that you shut the fuck up before someone sensible deprives you of your privilege of communicating with the rest of humanity. Seriously. You're an embarrassment to protoplasm. Shut the fucking fuck up, you lying shitbird.
Historical comfort: the last Vice President to shoot someone while in office was also an unmitigated scumbag.
If you shoot someone--that is to say, if a gun goes off and hits someone, and you're the person who pulled the trigger--it's your fucking fault. The gun didn't shoot someone. You did. Just ask the fucking NRA. Ought to be easy enough; you're funding them. There is no explanation, there is no justification: it is your fault. You done wrong.
When you are a public official, and you shoot someone, and you deliberately contrive to keep the story out of the news for 24 hours, you have done a wrong thing. There is no explanation, there is no justification: it is your fault. You done wrong.
The Vice President shooting someone has nothing to do with Ted Kennedy being drunk 37 years ago, or with Bill Clinton smearing an intern's lipstick, or with Vince Foster's suicide (the latest in a pathetic series of non sequiturs raised by fascist apologist and self-loathing racist nightmare Michelle Malkin). If you see any connection between these events, I humbly suggest that you shut the fuck up before someone sensible deprives you of your privilege of communicating with the rest of humanity. Seriously. You're an embarrassment to protoplasm. Shut the fucking fuck up, you lying shitbird.
Historical comfort: the last Vice President to shoot someone while in office was also an unmitigated scumbag.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Personal Growth
Owing to strict adherence to my personal principles, I had managed, for over 45 years, to avoid cleaning up other persons' medical waste. My principles have been heretofore bolstered, late in my thus-far life, by an Ironclad No-Diapers Policy, under which I get to periodically bang Ilse like a screen door in a hurricane at a cost not involving really even thinking about little Bam-Bam's diapers, except to the extent that the little poop machine occasionally makes me wrinkle my nose with one of his less pleasant deeds. And it's a net benefit to Ilse on those rare occasions when I'm around to notice such things, because honestly? Her sense of smell ain't all that sharp. Not so I could count on it; I mean, I only hang out in strip clubs where the dancers don't wear perfume.
All things must pass, however, and yesterday, phony history and Ilse's parents conspired to topple my principles like a statue in Dzerzhinsky Square (also known, apparently, as Lubyanka Square--who knew that Iron Feliks merely lent a nickname to this place beloved of Ian Fleming and Tom Klancy?).
See? That's real history, albeit of a populist sort. Columbus Day, while no less populist, is certainly a welcome holiday, but hardly much of a commemoration of real history. The guy found islands. The guy never really knew where the hell he was. The guy got run out of Italy (whose American sons and daughters now embrace him fervidly on the second Monday of each October, and well they might, given the bounty of Americanness which has descended upon the millions of descendants of Italian immigrants to this country) and basically soaked the Queen of Spain for a job. He died syphilitic and useless. Okay, I made up that last sentence, but given the prevailing winds of the times, I estimate a 70-percent chance that it's actually true. I'm sure that Minions' official history grad student will be along to advise on this shortly, having earned beaucoup bonus points with his agreeable assessment of this writer's theories--dismissed by many of you as purely Frenchified lunacy--about George Washington. Who has a holiday of sorts, too.
Columbus Day, then, deserves a certain amount of disrepect as a holiday. We don't go around hammering this home on our fervidly Italian friends; why rock their boat? They're entitled to their worldview, and I'm entitled to an official U.S. Government holiday. Everyone can remain happy without causing anger and hurt and conflict. Which are bad.
Even schools in My Local Neighboring State of Gilead respect this holiday. As do day-care centers. Sadly, this lofty example is not followed by many Gilead employers, including Ilse's. This left a slight void in the child-care department, since Databoy and Bam-Bam, Ilse's wee persons, are not noted for their ability to sustain themselves.
Fortunately, this void was filled by Ilse's parents, to whom I shall decline to assign a moniker. They were able to watch the Ilseissue until about mid-afternoon, but were on their way to somewhere and had to be gone by then. So I stepped in to care for the little crackers, because I am, after all, The Good Boyfriend.
Upon my arrival, Mrs. Ilse's Mom told me that little Bam-Bam's personal hygiene system had just been cleaned and recharged, and I greeted this news with much joy and glee and salaaming. I even promised, silently, to be nice to the Jesus for a short time in honor of Mrs. Ilse's Mom, who thinks that such things are important.
And I was nice to the Jesus for a short time, refraining from throwing Databoy, Ilse's smartass punk seven-year-old who thinks he's unassailably cute, out of any windows or other egresses for a good 15-20 minutes after his grandparents/bodyguards left town.
In truth, the little peckerwood was reasonably well-behaved, needing no corporal punishment and only one short term of imprisonment during my stewardship, and that only after a half hour of very nearly good behavior preceded his sudden and unexpected infraction. Usually, Databoy is a slow learner, but his seven-minute confinement convinced him that his most reliable forms of verbal communication were limited to "Yes, SIR!" and "No, SIR" and "I don't know, SIR!" For Databoy, this is the equivalent of monkeys speaking Mandarin, so we're gonna put that one in the win column.
We played our version of living-room soccer, which consists of Databoy trying to hit a target with a soft soccer miniball while I guard said target from a thoroughly encouched position. Databoy thinks this is soccer, and pretends to be his hero, Brian Carroll.
Yeah, everything's a fucking conspiracy, innit?
Bam-Bam, who is five and is, as you may know or recall, autistic, spent his time weaving through the room, or off in his own room, bouncing and shrieking. Bam-Bam is built like a linebacker/tight end/fullback--I can't decide yet which role he'll best fulfill, but the need to settle that just now isn't great--and likes to do about five things: shriek, run, bounce, chew on or play with strings, and eat. This last, of course, has consequences.
After a time, I noticed a rubbery odor. I ascribed this to the fact that Bam-Bam was chewing on three rubber bands, the closest thing to strings upon which he could manage to lay his grimy little paws yesterday. But after a time, he began to emit demanding shrieks that were not diminished by offerings of grape juice and potato chips. I investigated and discovered that my time was at hand.
I'll leave the details to clinicians. Suffice it to say that this was a five, count 'em, FIVE babywipe event. I emptied the babywipes box and started a new one, which created a convenient depository for the remains of the day. Later, upon hefting the hermetically sealed package, Ilse pronounced a birth mass of about five pounds. For my part, I am convinced that priceless hoards of Japanese war gold discovered in the Philippines have weighed less.
I recovered from the sensory assault in time to choke down some dinner. And it is actually moderately horrifying, in a tribal responsibility sort of sense, that I managed to go 45 years without changing a diaper. But I am no longer entertained by my own farts. Little Bam-Bam's weapons of mass destruction have robbed me of my innocence.
All things must pass, however, and yesterday, phony history and Ilse's parents conspired to topple my principles like a statue in Dzerzhinsky Square (also known, apparently, as Lubyanka Square--who knew that Iron Feliks merely lent a nickname to this place beloved of Ian Fleming and Tom Klancy?).
See? That's real history, albeit of a populist sort. Columbus Day, while no less populist, is certainly a welcome holiday, but hardly much of a commemoration of real history. The guy found islands. The guy never really knew where the hell he was. The guy got run out of Italy (whose American sons and daughters now embrace him fervidly on the second Monday of each October, and well they might, given the bounty of Americanness which has descended upon the millions of descendants of Italian immigrants to this country) and basically soaked the Queen of Spain for a job. He died syphilitic and useless. Okay, I made up that last sentence, but given the prevailing winds of the times, I estimate a 70-percent chance that it's actually true. I'm sure that Minions' official history grad student will be along to advise on this shortly, having earned beaucoup bonus points with his agreeable assessment of this writer's theories--dismissed by many of you as purely Frenchified lunacy--about George Washington. Who has a holiday of sorts, too.
Columbus Day, then, deserves a certain amount of disrepect as a holiday. We don't go around hammering this home on our fervidly Italian friends; why rock their boat? They're entitled to their worldview, and I'm entitled to an official U.S. Government holiday. Everyone can remain happy without causing anger and hurt and conflict. Which are bad.
Even schools in My Local Neighboring State of Gilead respect this holiday. As do day-care centers. Sadly, this lofty example is not followed by many Gilead employers, including Ilse's. This left a slight void in the child-care department, since Databoy and Bam-Bam, Ilse's wee persons, are not noted for their ability to sustain themselves.
Fortunately, this void was filled by Ilse's parents, to whom I shall decline to assign a moniker. They were able to watch the Ilseissue until about mid-afternoon, but were on their way to somewhere and had to be gone by then. So I stepped in to care for the little crackers, because I am, after all, The Good Boyfriend.
Upon my arrival, Mrs. Ilse's Mom told me that little Bam-Bam's personal hygiene system had just been cleaned and recharged, and I greeted this news with much joy and glee and salaaming. I even promised, silently, to be nice to the Jesus for a short time in honor of Mrs. Ilse's Mom, who thinks that such things are important.
And I was nice to the Jesus for a short time, refraining from throwing Databoy, Ilse's smartass punk seven-year-old who thinks he's unassailably cute, out of any windows or other egresses for a good 15-20 minutes after his grandparents/bodyguards left town.
In truth, the little peckerwood was reasonably well-behaved, needing no corporal punishment and only one short term of imprisonment during my stewardship, and that only after a half hour of very nearly good behavior preceded his sudden and unexpected infraction. Usually, Databoy is a slow learner, but his seven-minute confinement convinced him that his most reliable forms of verbal communication were limited to "Yes, SIR!" and "No, SIR" and "I don't know, SIR!" For Databoy, this is the equivalent of monkeys speaking Mandarin, so we're gonna put that one in the win column.
We played our version of living-room soccer, which consists of Databoy trying to hit a target with a soft soccer miniball while I guard said target from a thoroughly encouched position. Databoy thinks this is soccer, and pretends to be his hero, Brian Carroll.
Yeah, everything's a fucking conspiracy, innit?
Bam-Bam, who is five and is, as you may know or recall, autistic, spent his time weaving through the room, or off in his own room, bouncing and shrieking. Bam-Bam is built like a linebacker/tight end/fullback--I can't decide yet which role he'll best fulfill, but the need to settle that just now isn't great--and likes to do about five things: shriek, run, bounce, chew on or play with strings, and eat. This last, of course, has consequences.
After a time, I noticed a rubbery odor. I ascribed this to the fact that Bam-Bam was chewing on three rubber bands, the closest thing to strings upon which he could manage to lay his grimy little paws yesterday. But after a time, he began to emit demanding shrieks that were not diminished by offerings of grape juice and potato chips. I investigated and discovered that my time was at hand.
I'll leave the details to clinicians. Suffice it to say that this was a five, count 'em, FIVE babywipe event. I emptied the babywipes box and started a new one, which created a convenient depository for the remains of the day. Later, upon hefting the hermetically sealed package, Ilse pronounced a birth mass of about five pounds. For my part, I am convinced that priceless hoards of Japanese war gold discovered in the Philippines have weighed less.
I recovered from the sensory assault in time to choke down some dinner. And it is actually moderately horrifying, in a tribal responsibility sort of sense, that I managed to go 45 years without changing a diaper. But I am no longer entertained by my own farts. Little Bam-Bam's weapons of mass destruction have robbed me of my innocence.
Friday, July 08, 2005
The Last War
Toots and I were talking, as we often do, and she reminded me of a thing I often say in another context: don't get wrapped up in fighting the last war.
That aside for the moment, there are some fundamental principles involved in fighting successfully. Well-educated military types will likely have a better handle on much of this than I do. But here's something that's real important if you're gonna win a war, in addition to what I often say in another context:
Know your enemy: This is so important, and so transparent, that it's a cliche. Understanding the foe, in and of itself, will not win a war. But not understanding the foe will lose one every time. Examples are too numerous to list: everyone who's ever tried to invade Russia; Hitler's assessment of the British in 1940; every Western power that got involved in Vietnam; the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
One problem with declaring a "war" on terror and terrorists is that it's so very hard to know the foe. You are using a mechanism (a metaphor, really) that doesn't apply, because using tactics of terror isn't a war mechanism; it's a criminal mechanism. You don't fight criminals with war, you fight them with law.
Wingnut quibblers might point out that we go to war on national regimes that support terror. Fine. Finish one before you take on the next. The U.S. failure to stabilize Afghanistan before moving against Iraq in the name of the so-called war on terror was an abysmally stupid overreach, and the resurgence of terrorist activity in Western capitals is a linear result of that stupidity.
Wingnut haranguers might claim it a waste of time to apply logical principles to knowing one's enemy in this war. This foe, the argument goes, only respects strength. This foe is insane and has no regard for humanity. There are innumerable problems with these arguments, starting with the age-old issue of most warfighters thinking that the enemy is insane or irrational. That's stone arrogance, is all. Of course the foe has perfectly good reasons for fighting a war. War is horrible. If you're fighting one with your foe, then your foe has concluded that the horror of fighting a war (or committing what are pretty rightly characterized in a modern context as "barbaric acts") is, on balance, more attractive than rolling over. Your foe is not the tiniest bit irrational--your foe has you reacting to his every move, imposing huge inconveniences on your society in response to each of the creative attacks he inflicts upon you. There's not a damn thing irrational or stupid about it. But your steadfast refusal to confront that? Maybe some irrationality there, ayup.
The strength argument is also pretty self-defeating, if only because in this case, the foe is striking at the embodiment of geopolitical and military strength. Clearly one of the base problems is that the foe does not, in fact, respect strength. And bloviation about "coddling" and "therapy" is just testosterone-driven, chest-pounding idiocy, propaganda targeted at the confused and shocked. At another level--and when it's undertaken by officials of the state, like for instance Karl Rove--it's just more state-sponsored terrorism, in a different name. I mean, really...bellowing at people about their patriotism because their response to grief and shock and terror isn't as bellicose as yours? Go back to whacking girls with sticks in an effort to get them to show you their boobies. It's abundantly possible to mourn without lashing out.
One of these two principles leads to t'other. Or they're in a weird symbiotic feeding frenzy; we don't know our enemy because we're busy reacting, and we're busy reacting because we don't know our enemy. Any military type can see it, and you can bet that at least some of ours do. Either they don't know what to do about it--and there's nothing shameful about having trouble breaking out of an old paradigm--or they're not being listened to by those who make decisions about how to conduct this "war." Given the competence and professionalism that has increasingly marked our military leadership since the end of the draft (and more on that another time), it's hard to believe that the only problem is the former.
And more on the principles of war later on.
That aside for the moment, there are some fundamental principles involved in fighting successfully. Well-educated military types will likely have a better handle on much of this than I do. But here's something that's real important if you're gonna win a war, in addition to what I often say in another context:
Know your enemy: This is so important, and so transparent, that it's a cliche. Understanding the foe, in and of itself, will not win a war. But not understanding the foe will lose one every time. Examples are too numerous to list: everyone who's ever tried to invade Russia; Hitler's assessment of the British in 1940; every Western power that got involved in Vietnam; the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
One problem with declaring a "war" on terror and terrorists is that it's so very hard to know the foe. You are using a mechanism (a metaphor, really) that doesn't apply, because using tactics of terror isn't a war mechanism; it's a criminal mechanism. You don't fight criminals with war, you fight them with law.
Wingnut quibblers might point out that we go to war on national regimes that support terror. Fine. Finish one before you take on the next. The U.S. failure to stabilize Afghanistan before moving against Iraq in the name of the so-called war on terror was an abysmally stupid overreach, and the resurgence of terrorist activity in Western capitals is a linear result of that stupidity.
Wingnut haranguers might claim it a waste of time to apply logical principles to knowing one's enemy in this war. This foe, the argument goes, only respects strength. This foe is insane and has no regard for humanity. There are innumerable problems with these arguments, starting with the age-old issue of most warfighters thinking that the enemy is insane or irrational. That's stone arrogance, is all. Of course the foe has perfectly good reasons for fighting a war. War is horrible. If you're fighting one with your foe, then your foe has concluded that the horror of fighting a war (or committing what are pretty rightly characterized in a modern context as "barbaric acts") is, on balance, more attractive than rolling over. Your foe is not the tiniest bit irrational--your foe has you reacting to his every move, imposing huge inconveniences on your society in response to each of the creative attacks he inflicts upon you. There's not a damn thing irrational or stupid about it. But your steadfast refusal to confront that? Maybe some irrationality there, ayup.
The strength argument is also pretty self-defeating, if only because in this case, the foe is striking at the embodiment of geopolitical and military strength. Clearly one of the base problems is that the foe does not, in fact, respect strength. And bloviation about "coddling" and "therapy" is just testosterone-driven, chest-pounding idiocy, propaganda targeted at the confused and shocked. At another level--and when it's undertaken by officials of the state, like for instance Karl Rove--it's just more state-sponsored terrorism, in a different name. I mean, really...bellowing at people about their patriotism because their response to grief and shock and terror isn't as bellicose as yours? Go back to whacking girls with sticks in an effort to get them to show you their boobies. It's abundantly possible to mourn without lashing out.
One of these two principles leads to t'other. Or they're in a weird symbiotic feeding frenzy; we don't know our enemy because we're busy reacting, and we're busy reacting because we don't know our enemy. Any military type can see it, and you can bet that at least some of ours do. Either they don't know what to do about it--and there's nothing shameful about having trouble breaking out of an old paradigm--or they're not being listened to by those who make decisions about how to conduct this "war." Given the competence and professionalism that has increasingly marked our military leadership since the end of the draft (and more on that another time), it's hard to believe that the only problem is the former.
And more on the principles of war later on.
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