StalinKoba

Tequila

2008-12-21T13:16:00.000-08:00

Now, tequila may be the favored beverage of outlaws, but that doesn't mean it gives them preferential treatment. In fact, tequila probably has betrayed as many outlaws as has the central nervous system and dissatisfied wives. Tequila, scorpion honey, harsh dew of the doglands, essence of Aztec, crema de cacti; tequila, oily and thermal like the sun in solution; tequila, liquid geometry of passion; Tequila, the buzzard god who copulates in midair with the ascending souls of dying virgins; tequila, firebug in the house of good taste; O tequila, savage water of sorcery, what confusion and mischief your sly, rebellious drops do generate!

On one’s jealousy Over Another’s History --

2008-12-19T15:23:00.000-08:00

Recipe for Jealousy
Using organic emotion only
3 pt Fear
2 pt Anger1
pt Sorrow

A NOTE: I wrote this as a response to a close friend's blog who was enduring a brief exchange between two lovers regarding one's transgression via telephone with an x-girlfriend. A far less rambling or prosaic attempt at an explanation of my thoughts on the matter will either appear in a postscript edit to this blog entry or a future blog post.

Why does one's past forever threaten another's future? How are two concepts which are both intangeable and arguably unreal altogther allowed to so frequently corrupt the most truthful aspect of our existence?

A deadly way to approach your present happiness with maximum collatoral damage.

Isn't the present built upon and therefore absolutely dependant upon even the most infinitesimal detail of it's history? Would the same present exist at all with even the smallest modification to any event which lead up to it?

Is your lover not but what all his past lovers created and what you now decide to behold? Would he be the same lover gazing at you now if you removed but one piece of that history which conspired so sweetly to craft him? And you? Would you be able to recognize his beauty if he were to pluck those you loved before him from your experience and memories?

Would you respect him if he allowed you to erase even a single piece of him? Would you trust him if he chose to remove a piece of you? Would you feel as honored by his touch if he could only love a bit of you? Could you expect him to feel as warm in your embrace knowing that you would not wrap your arms around all of him to keep him from the cold? Could you expect him to stay if you warmed only those parts of him useful to you and left the rest of him to lie still and dark and out of view?

If he is a project with things still unacceptable to you, with things left to change then don't claim to love him now. Claim only that you could one day love him. Don't claim to love him wholly, but rather that you love only that thing your mind has created for you.

Now. Do you love him? Even all that which is beyond you? Doesn't it follow then that if you love this person now, then you must love all of those things which contributed to him? Which made him that perfect thing which you wouldn't change for the world? Aren't those things more responsible for his perfection than you are?

Didn't they break him in? Didn't they let him loose his awkward teenage lust upon them? Didn't they let him rant and rave and run and hide and return and apologize only to run and rant and rage again? Didn't they strengthen him rather than diminish him? Didn't they cry for him and teach him he mattered? Didn't they open their legs for him to teach him the tender trust of a woman? Didn't they let him batter his unbaptized and frenzied hips against theirs and whisper more love in his ear so he learned to trust? Didn't they want to die when he moved on to show him he mattered to someone?

He will not wound you quite as deeply because of them. He will trust you more willingly and more eagerly seek your trust because of them. He will hold you more tightly because of them. He will caress you in the right places more quickly. He will read your soft breaths and notice the slightest change in your breath more readily because of them. He will know when to treat you gently and when to treat you savagely as a result of them.

He is perfect only because of them. You feel safer with him because of them. You feel loved and trusted and honored and special because of them. You are that much more correct in choosing him because of them.

And you love him now only because of them.

Because you love him you will be inclined to see the beauty he sees. To see your own beauty he reflects back upon you. To see others through his eyes. Perhaps he will show you beauty that you wouldn't otherwise have seen. And you might even love him more for this. For the way he speaks passionately about those things you didn't know you cared about until just then. Just then when he cared enough about you to share them with you.

And so he loved them once too. Can they be so ugly if he had loved them once? Can they be so vile if they too had recognized that deep and smokey quality of his soul that burns your nostrils when you wake against his flesh?

Do you fear that perhaps he once found them as beautiful as he now finds you?

Does the thought of him having shared his passions and visions with another somehow diminish the beauty of their ring in your ears? That he has seen beauty in others diminishes that which he sees in you?

Does it diminish the beauty you see in yourself?

Does not your beauty sit aloft the multitude of others he has cherished? Aren't his tastes more refined, his eyes more keen and his heart less likely to engage in trifling matters now? Aren't you by definition the greater for all of his past? Aren't you by definition the most perfect person he has ever laid eyes upon?

He has built a bed and stacked mattress upon mattress for each and every one he cared for. You lay now with him at the very topmost of this edifice.

But you yourself have placed that pea beneath your back and blame him when it gauges at your flesh.

Perhaps knowing that you sit at the top upon all those past tears and sighs and quiet moments and breakthroughs and experiences indicates that you may not be the topmost rung for eternity. Maybe you dread a day when you might lie beneath another in his life's history. You will perhaps fade to him among his many and lose sight of that unique luster only he is able to remind you of.

That luster. That spark, that explosive genesis. That thing about him that makes your stomach hurt and heart pound and face flush at once. That thing that the other boys don't have which makes them merely toys and distractions. The only thing on earth which can truly remind you that you may not matter at all. If not to him, then to what? A toy?

That luster will surely die regardless of you or him.

They say that the luster will evolve between two people into something much more deep and meaningful. Perhaps. But that deep and meaningful thing will remain consistant and dependable. It will remain. The luster die and never return no matter how 'healthy' or long your relationship lasts with this man.

You will always remember it if you were lucky and aware enough. If you were present. It will eventually become your past even though he remains your present and possibly your future. Eventually though both your future will cease to exist and your present will only become someone elses past. You will exist only to some survivor of you both and only for a while.

Your past will whither and die intact and honor you if you are lucky. It will contort and pervert in the hands of those who choose to remember you in all likelihood. You will not own your past. You will exist only as that which is convenient to another. This is the bargain. You are remembered but only at the whim and to the advantage of those who choose to.

The future is an illusion and you do not own this either. It does not exist, cannot be proven beyond exaggeration of the past and will never actually be. When it arrives at your door and steps through your threshold it disappears into the present as surely as the sun is drown by the sea in that brilliant winter fire as I gaze out of my window on this cold night.

The only thing that is real is that split second when he gazes only into your eyes. That seemingly infinite string of microseconds as you gaze back and recognize how in awe he is of your very existence. As thousands of muscles in his face shift together in the most subtle and uncontrollable way - a dance impossible to practice or perfect by design - a pure and honest orchestra of love reflecting back upon you. Love on motor reflex.

Be careful.

You might miss it

Bhutto's Assaination -- or Am I Being Cynical Again?

2008-01-10T19:28:00.000-08:00

Assassination of prominent political leaders, presumably protected by the best security, is no easy thing. It requires agencies of professional intelligence training to insure that the job is done and that no person is caught alive who can lead to those behind. Typically, from the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo in July 1914 to JFK, the person pulling the trigger is just an instrument of a far deeper conspiracy. So too in the assassination on December 27th, of Pakistani former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. Cui bono?.
What was behind the murder of Bhutto at the moment her PPP party appeared about to win a resounding election victory in the planned January 8 elections, thereby posing a mass-based challenge to the dictatorial rule of President Musharraf?
Musharraf's government was indecently quick to blame "Al-Qaeda," the dubious entity allegedly the organization of Osama bin Laden, whom Washington accused for masterminding the September 11 2001 attacks. Musharraf just days after, declared he was "sure" Al Qaeda was the author, even though, on US pressure, he has asked Scotland Yard to come and investigate. "I want to say it with certainty, that these people (Al Qaeda) martyred ... Benazir Bhutto," Musharraf said in a Jan. 3 televised address. He named Baitullah Mehsud, a militant tribal chief fighting the Pakistani Army, who has alleged ties to al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taleban. Mehsud denied the charge. Had he been behind such a dramatic event, the desired propaganda impact among militant islamists would require taking open responsibility instead.
By linking the Bhutto killing to Al Qaeda, Musharraf conveniently gains several goals. First he reinforces the myth of Al Qaeda, something very useful to Washington at this time of growing global skepticism over the real intent of its War on Terrorism, making Musharraf more valuable to Washington. Second it gives Musharraf a plausible scapegoat to blame for the convenient elimination of a serious political rival to his consolidation of one-man rule.
Notable also is the fact that the Musharraf regime has rejected making a routine autoposy on Bhutto's body. Bhutto publicly charged that the Government had refused to make followup inquiry after the October bombing which nearly killed her and did 134 followers near her auto. Bhutto accused Pakistani authorities of not providing her with sufficient security, and hinted that they may have been complicit in the Karachi attack. She also made clear in a UK television interview shortly before her death that she would clean out the Pakistan military and security services of corrupt and islamist elements.
In the same David Frost interview, Bhutto also dropped the explosive news that Osama bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh Mohammad, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, an ISI Pakistani intelligence operative, who 'confessed' to the killing of Daniel Pearl. He was arrested in February 2002. If Benazir's claim is correct, Omar Sheikh must have killed Osama before he was arrested in February 2002, which makes at least all the Osama messages after that date periodically delivered to western media clear forgeries.
Days after the Bhutto killing, Pakistani authorities published a photo alleged to be of the severed head of the suicide bomber who killed Bhutto. Severed heads, like a dead Lee Harvey Oswald don't talk or say embarrassing things. Also curious is the fact that Bhutto was killed in Rawalpindi, a garrison town, where every millimeter is controlled by the Army security complex. The murder weapon was a Steyr 9mm, issued only to Pakistani Army Special Forces. Hmmmm.
It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration has been maneuvering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the "war on terrorism" across the region.
Who was Bhutto?
The Bhutto family was itself hardly democratic, drawing its core from feudal landowning families, but opposed to the commanding role of the army and ISI intelligence. Succeeding her father as head of the PPP, Benazir declared herself "chairperson for life" — a position she held until her death. Bhutto's husband, Ali Zardari, "Mr. 10%," is known in Pakistan for his demanding a 10% cut from letting major government contracts when Benazir was PM. In 2003, Benazir and her husband were convicted in Switzerland of money laundering and taking bribes from Swiss companies as PM. The family is allegedly worth several billions as a result. As prime minister from 1993 to 1996, she advocated a conciliatory policy toward Islamists, especially the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Harvard and Cambridge educated Benazir had close ties to US and UK intelligence as well. She used the offices of neo-conservative US Congressman Tom Lantos when she was in Washington according to informed reports, one reason Vice President Cheney backed her as a "safe" way to save his Pakistan strategic alliance in face of growing popular protest against Musharraf's declaring martial law last year. The ploy was to have Bhutto make a face-saving deal with Musharraf to put a democratic face on the dictatorship, while Washington maintained its strategic control. According to the Washington Post of 28 Dec., "For Benazir Bhutto, the decision to return to Pakistan was sealed during a telephone call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just a week before Bhutto flew home in October. The call culminated more than a year of secret diplomacy -- and came only when it became clear that the heir to Pakistan's most powerful political dynasty was the only one who could bail out Washington's key ally in the battle against terrorism. . . .As President Pervez Musharraf's political future began to unravel this year, Bhutto became the only politician who might help keep him in power."
In November, John Negroponte, former Bush Administration Intelligence Czar and now Deputy Secretary of State was deployed to Islamabad to pressure Musharraf to ease the situation by holding elections and forming a power-sharing with Bhutto. But once in Pakistan, where her supporters were mobilized, Bhutto made clear she would seek an election coalition to openly oppose Musharraf and military rule in the planned elections.
A cynical US-Musharraf deal?
Informed intelligence sources say there was a cynical deal cut behind the scenes between Washington and Musharraf. Musharraf is known to be Cheney's preferred partner and Cheney we are told is the sole person running US-Pakistan policy today.
Were Musharraf to agree to stationing of US Special Forces inside Pakistan, "Plan B", the democratic farce with Bhutto could be put aside, in favor of the continued Musharraf sole rule. Washington would "turn a blind eye."
On Dec. 28, one day after the Bhutto assassination, the Washington Post reported that in early 2008, "US Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units," under the US Central Command and US Special Operations Command, a major shift in US Pakistani ties. Until now Musharraf and his military have refused such direct US control, aside from the agreement after September 11, extracted from Musharraf under extreme pressure of possible US bombing, to give the US military direct control of the Pakistan nuclear weapons.
The elimination of Bhutto leaves an opposition vacuum. The country lacks a credible political leader who can command national support, which leaves the military enhanced as an institution, with its willingness to defend Musharraf on the streets. This gives the Pentagon and Washington a chance to consolidate a military opposition to future Chinese economic hegemony—the real geopolitical goal of Washington.

"Hello, I must be going. I came to say I cannot stay, I must be going."

2007-08-20T17:16:00.000-07:00

"Please accept my resignation. I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member".

30 years ago yesterday (Aug. 19), Julius Henry Marx, better known as Groucho Marx, passed away. Overshadowed by Elvis' death just 3 days earlier, Groucho Marx died of pneumonia at the age of 86 Some of my favorite Groucho quotes:

"I married your mother because I wanted children. Imagine my disappointment when you arrived."

"If I hold you any closer, I'll be in back of you."

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know."

"Room service? Send up a larger room."

"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."

"You call this a party? The beer is warm, the women cold and I'm hot under the collar."

"A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running."

"A woman is an occasional pleasure, but a cigar is always a smoke."

"Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough."

"Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife."

"Here's to our girlfriends and wives; may they never meet!"

"Paying alimony is like feeding hay to a dead horse."

"How would you like to feel the way she looks?"

Happy Birthday Bukowski

2007-08-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

Charles Bukowski, one of the so-called "beat" poets: 1920 - 1994, would have been yesterday, age 87. A couple of his poems:

"MAN IN THE SUN" by Charles Bukowski

She reads to me from the New Yorker
which I don't buy, don't know
how they get in here, but it's
something about the Mafia
One of the heads of the Mafia
who ate too much and had it too easy
too many fine women patting his
walnuts, and he got fat sucking at good
cigars and young breasts and he
has these heart attacks - and - so
one day somebody is driving him
in his big car along the road
and he doesn't feel so good
and he asks the boy to stop and let
him out and the boy lays him out
along the road in the fine sunshine
and before he dies he says:
how beautiful life can be, and
then he's gone.
Sometimes you've got to kill 4 or 5
thousand men before you somehow
get to believe that the sparrow
is immortal, money is piss and
that you have been wasting your time.

"THE TRASH CAN" by Charles Bukowski

This is great, I just wrote two
poems I didn't like.
There is a trash can on this
computer.
I just moved the poems over
and dropped them into
the trash can.
They're gone forever, no
paper, no sound, no
fury, no placenta
and then
just a clean screen awaits you.
It's always better,
to reject yourself before
the editors do.
Especially on a rainy
night like this with
bad music on the radio.
And now--
I know what you're
thinking:
maybe he should have
trashed this
misbegotten one
also.
Ha, ha, ha,
ha.

Everything Was Beautiful, And Nothing Hurt

2007-05-21T18:14:00.000-07:00

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

God Bless You, Mister Rosewater

R.I.P.

Moral Panics

2007-05-21T17:53:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking out loud here, which is no sin on the Internets, apparently, so bear with me. There are certain risks that most rational people evaluate rationally. The relative risk of driving versus flying, for example. It certainly seems more dangerous to travel aloft in a big aluminum tube that doesn't really seem like it should stay aloft than it does to drive to Costco to pick up a case of Diet Red Bull. But most of us know that it's less dangerous to fly to New York from D.C. So we don't worry much when we're told to turn off our electronic devices and put our seats in the upright position.
But the flying versus driving risk calculus has no political/ideological backdrop that would skew our risk analysis. Also, it's a known quantity in the aggregate and easily checkable.
There are other risks that are more speculative and uncertain. And for some of them, our ideological preconceptions seem to crowd out any sort of rational calculus. Why are some of us worried about school shootings, while others treat that risk like the risk of dying in a fiery plane crash or getting Lou Gehrig's disease? Why do some of us worry about terrorism, while others stress about the risks of global warming?
Isn't the determining factor here our respective ideologically-charged narratives about American society and what may be wrong with it? Why in the 1980s did one side of the political spectrum panic about Alar on apples, while others waxed dystopic about Soviet aggression? How does your average Blue-Teamer decide that global warming poses enormous threats to our way of life? Has he (masculine as universal, sorry) examined the various scenarios offered by the IPCC and arrived at his position through a sober reflection on the evidence? Or do the most dangerous scenarios fit in with a general notion that late capitalist America consumes too much and too blithely and cares too little about long-term consequences? Why are so many Red-Teamers convinced, on the basis of one horrific strike on American soil, that we face a threat of enormous proportions, even though the post-September 11th world looks much like the pre-September 11th world in terms of terrorism on the home front? Could it be that the narrative of impending doom fits in with what conservatives have long felt about American society, that liberal societies are weak and vacillating and unwilling to defend themselves? Anyone who's spent much time in the conservative movement must be familiar with the sort of character who fancies himself a poor man's Whitaker Chambers, and flatters himself that his fellow countrymen do not recognize the grave threats to our way of life and lack the moral fortitude he's blessed with, to do what is necessary to defeat the Other. The concept of the "moral panic" is instructive here, as is the old line by H.L. Mencken, "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Stupidopedia on Jon von Neumann

2007-03-05T15:37:00.000-08:00

While just about everyone on SciBlogs and elsewhere has been having fun at the expense of Conservapedia, the Wiki site set up by conservatives to further isolate their followers from reality, I thought I’d just do a quick search on what entries they had up on computer science. That’s where and when I found an article on John von Neumann.
Now, you might be thinking that any article on von Neumann should focus on his major contributions to quantum mechanics, pure mathematics, economics (game theory) and computer science (the now standard serial electronic computer model). But here is the only specific part in the article about von Neumann outside of the intro:

Not religious most of his life, von Neumann surprised friends by requesting to see a Catholic priest on his deathbed.
While other physicists such as Robert Oppenheimer were criticizing the atomic bomb they helped create, von Neumann was unapologetic. Oppenheimer remarked that physicists had “known sin” by developing the first atomic bombs. Von Neumann cleverly replied that “sometimes someone confesses a sin in order to take credit for it.”

So we have quote mining in the second paragraph (making it look as though von Neumann’s intent with the quip was theological, when in all likelihood is was no less metaphorical than Einstein’s “God does not play dice” motif) and a total irrelevancy in the first. In their mind it seems that a scientist’s most important work is done on his deathbed, when in failing health and heavily medicated (von Neumann was under military guard and surveillance at the time to make sure he never gave out military secrets while inebriated). This leads me to believe that Conservapedia articles on computer science (and everything else) will work hard to educate everyone on a shitload of nothing.

So You Know That Really Beautiful Girl You See and Want to Know?

2007-03-05T15:11:00.000-08:00

When she laughs bells tinkle and angels gasp. Because you know that she's clever and lovely and passionate and doing something far more amazing than you. And you just hope that maybe if, a few moments after she's passed you, then you can touch your toe in some of the sparkle dust that she's left in the trail of her shadow. Because yes, she's so much person that even her shadow leaves a trail.
And she's intense. And you always feel a little bit of a fraud when she talks to you. Like surely you can't be cool enough for this amazing person to be talking to you. But she does. Because she's awesome and sincere and nice. Genuinely nice. And even if you do feel a little insecure enough to want to find some reason to dislike her, you just can't.

Nope. Nothing.

Tiny Truths...

2007-03-02T17:29:00.000-08:00

In the southern hemisphere summer of 1848, twenty-three-year-old Thomas Henry Huxley was sailing Australian waters as Assistant Surgeon on HMS Rattlesnake. He was head-over-heels in love with a young woman he had met Down Under, and drifting into the critical skepticism about matters of religion he would later dub "agnosticism." Other than young Henrietta "Nettie" Heathorn, the main thing on his mind was jellyfish, of which he had netted hundreds. As the ship sailed up the Australian coast he worked at sorting out the relationships among his many specimens, and between the jellyfish and other marine organisms.

Huxley's biographer Adrian Desmond writes: "Nettie, a sensible girl who liked Schiller and penned love poems, must have asked 'Why jellyfish?' And he must have led her self-importantly from these pulsing 'nastinesses' to the great problem of existence, contrasting the tiny truths of creation with the great sandcastle sophistries for which men were willing to die. The tiny truths were real bricks which would build a palatial foundation to Truth. They were stanzas of Nature's great poem; and only by reciting the ultimate sonnet could we gain a rational set of mores and a real meaning to life."

Darwin grand synthesis, that would make sense of Huxley's jellyfish observations, was still more than a decade away, and Huxley would eventually enter the lists and make a name for himself as "Darwin's Bulldog." But here in the South Seas we see him formulating his own important contribution to the human story: The idea that we have something important to learn about human mores and meaning from even the lowliest blob of protoplasm afloat in the sea. He had already decided that eternal truths, if they were to be found, would be discovered in the Book of Nature, not from the hands of Anglican high divines, as a patient accumulation of individually minute observations. The only knowledge worth having was secular, not theological, and "was not to be delegated by episcopal patrons, but seized by plebeian hands." The jellyfish represented common knowledge, by and for the common person.

Gram-Schmidt in Factor

2007-03-02T16:44:00.000-08:00

Here is the Gram-Schmidt algorithm in Factor:

: proj ( v u -- w )
[ [ v. ] keep norm-sq / ] keep n*v ;
: (gram-schmidt) ( v seq -- newseq )
dupd [ proj v- ] each-with ;
: gram-schmidt ( seq -- orthogonal )
V{ } clone [ over (gram-schmidt) over push ] reduce ;
: norm-gram-schmidt ( seq -- orthonormal )
gram-schmidt [ normalize ] map ;

I coded this because I thought I needed this for something I'm working on, and it turns out I did not, so I made a blog entry from it instead. Pretty freaky, huh? However if this ends up being useful, I'll re-implement the numerically-stable variant.

On Barring the Stars and Bars

2007-03-02T08:36:00.000-08:00

Historian John Steele Gordon responds to Hillary Clinton's call to remove (purge?) the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol grounds:
What everyone — except serious historians of the Confederacy and vexillologists — thinks of as "the Confederate flag" in fact is no such thing. It is the battle flag. And, as far as I'm concerned, it is ruined as a symbol by its post–Civil War associations, just as no one can look at a swastika — a design of great antiquity — without thinking of the Nazis.

So why not fly the national flag of the Confederacy instead? From above:

Top left: The Confederate battle flag.
Top right: The first flag of the Confederacy.
Bottom left: The second flag of the Confederacy.
Bottom right: The third flag of the Confederacy.

The stars and bars [top right] would certainly serve as a memorial to those who fought under it and its successors, but it is free of the stain of twentieth-century racism. Most people, I fancy, seeing it flying from a pole on the capitol grounds in Columbia would have no idea what it was and go on about their business. But those who cared most certainly would recognize it as an honorable emblem of their ancestors' "blood-bought immortality."
Two hasty stitches:

--Why should policies cater to people who "have no idea" about the policy itself? Since when do historians embrace the politics of "Ha ha, I know a secret!" and favor accommodating the ignorant? Since when is the goal of a debate to placate those who have no understanding of what you're debating in the first place?

--Either way, I think Gordon has it exactly backwards. If we are going to engage in the Civil War version of "support the troops but not the war" politics, then let's at least be historically accurate about it — by embracing the Confederate battle flag at the expense of the "Stars and Bars."

If the typical Confederate foot soldier owned no slaves and cared little about abstract notions of secession, federalism and "states powers," but simply felt a (patriotic) duty to defend his homeland, then why sully that "forgotten honor" by embracing the flag, not of the Confederate soldier, but of the Confederate politician — the very same politician who ruined, or cost him, his life — for interests that were not even his to begin with?

"So as not to confuse the uneducated" is not a legitimate answer. Either educate them or unconditionally surrender to them and have no antebellum emblems whatsoever (which seems to be the prevailing view anyway). In which case the issue really will devolve down to "Ha ha, I know a secret."

TODAY'S INSURGENTS IN IRAQ ARE TOMORROW'S TERRORISTS

2006-12-04T17:51:00.000-08:00

When the United States started sending guns and money to the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s, it had a clearly defined Cold War purpose: helping expel the Soviet army, which had invaded Afghanistan in 1979. And so it made sense that once the Afghan jihad forced a Soviet withdrawal a decade later, Washington would lose interest in the rebels. For the international mujahideen drawn to the Afghan conflict, however, the fight was just beginning. They opened new fronts in the name of global jihad and became the spearhead of Islamist terrorism. The seriousness of the blowback became clear to the United States with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center: all of the attack's participants either had served in Afghanistan or were linked to a Brooklyn-based fund-raising organ for the Afghan jihad that was later revealed to be al Qaeda's de facto U.S. headquarters. The blowback, evident in other countries as well, continued to increase in intensity throughout the rest of the decade, culminating on September 11, 2001.
The current war in Iraq will generate a ferocious blowback of its own, which -- as a recent classified CIA assessment predicts -- could be longer and more powerful than that from Afghanistan. Foreign volunteers fighting U.S. troops in Iraq today will find new targets around the world after the war ends. Yet the Bush administration, consumed with managing countless crises in Iraq, has devoted little time to preparing for such long-term consequences. Lieutenant General James Conway, the director of operations on the Joint Staff, admitted as much when he said back in June that blowback "is a concern, but there's not much we can do about it at this point in time." Judging from the experience of Afghanistan, such thinking is both mistaken and dangerously complacent.

The Perfect Christmas Gift

2006-11-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

Okay, I told myself yesterday I wasn’t going to weigh in on this issue, but three things swayed me and now I just can’t stand it. First, Jewel and I had a long talk about it over the phone last night and she ramped me up about it; second, I produce a fund raising event for the Toys for Tots program in Seattle and not only like the program, but the local Marines I work with as well; and third, it dawned on me once again that no one ever reads my blog anyway (which is how I like it, btw) so what the hell...
If the Medi-Share crap wasn’t a large enough example of spiritual selfishness for you, then take a gander at this. The Associated Press reports that the Marine’s Toys for Tots program had to turn down an offer by a company called one2believe, which wanted to donate 4,000 one-foot dolls. Sounds big-hearted? Well, not quite: the talking dolls were Biblical, and included a speaking Jesus who pressures people to convert.
Toys are donated to kids based on financial need and the Marine Corps and Toys for Tots doesn’t know anything about their background or their religious affiliations. As a government entity, Marines don’t profess one religion over another, and this has always been the policy. As a spokesman said yesterday, “We can’t take a chance on sending a talking Jesus doll to a Jewish family or a Muslim family.”
Michael La Roe, director of business development for one2believe, said the charity’s decision left him “surprised and disappointed.” “The idea was for them to be three-dimensional teaching tools for kids,” La Roe said. “I believe as a churchgoing person, anyone can benefit from hearing the words of the Bible.”
Mr. La Roe, I understand that you’re all hopped-up on Jesus-vapors, but come on. You can’t be that stupid. It might be one thing if the Jesus doll spouted nondenominational platitudes like Gandhi. But this Messiah likes to rip off such classics as, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
Toys for Tots serves families who are in such desperate financial straits that they can’t afford to give their kids a decent Christmas. That anyone would think of piggybacking on their plight in order to score a few more notches on their conversion bedpost is deplorable. If you want to minister, fine. But keep your ministry out of your charity. Not that adherents of other faiths are any better. In my experience, most professed Buddhists act kindly and charitably out of ulterior motives: a desire to be “enlightened”, to achieve an auspicious rebirth, to feel like they’re “being a good person”. Humanity has a knack for pretending that God’s will is synchronized with its own. Few people (myself included) are dedicated enough to realize Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s insight that “[e]nlightenment is ego’s ultimate disappointment”.
That's it...I'm done.

2006-10-17T16:29:00.000-07:00

Moscow is now the most expensive city in the world. Teenagers walk down Tverskaya Boulevard with stylish new cell phones pressed to their ears; they stop before shop windows that could line Madison Avenue; they treat themselves to ice cream and coffee at a wide spectrum of new foreign and domestic establishments. Restaurants of every sort serve every kind of food from pizza and hamburgers to sushi and the finest pre-Revolutionary lamb. “Moo-Moo,” with its enormous polyethylene black and white Holstein out front, “Shesh-Besh,” “Shashlyk-Mashlyk,” “Yolki-Palki” with their colorful ethnic trappings in full display announce themselves where but ten years ago nondescript storefronts presented signs that read simply: “Shoes,” “Furniture,” or “Women’s Clothing.” Ordinary shops are packed with expensive foreign goods. Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs, and mammoth SUVs converge on all the boulevards, and, in traditional Moskvich style, do not recognize the rights of pedestrians to enter their privileged world of speed and power.
All this is clear evidence that Vladimir Putin’s plan to “consolidate the vertical power of the government” is paying off: the oligarchs are intimidated, in jail, or in exile, and much of their carefully constructed empires has fallen into government hands. The ruble is more or less stable, and vast wealth is beginning to pervade Russian society, at least the top strata of Moscow society.
Little of this opulence is evident in the countryside, however, where economic depression, social malaise, and severe depopulation, particularly of men, continue unabated. Villages are often so devoid of men that the old women who remain are simply unable to transport the heavy sacks of potatoes at harvest time into their cellars. In some areas paper money is not even used to purchase goods—there isn’t any. In July, a suggestive, if dubious, article appeared in a Moscow newspaper about a man who had petitioned the State to allow him to marry his cow. Why? There were no women left in his village and he needed companionship.
In Moscow, however, women are available day and night at bargain basement prices, some advertised to look just like famous Russian tennis stars and beauties. But the sad truth is that for every ten women today there are only seven men and of these seven, two or three are alcoholics. Real estate is as expensive in Moscow as in New York, perhaps more so, but scruffy packs of wild dogs run everywhere, along the sidewalks and in the parks. Outside the percolating center one feels the oppressive weight of many years of destitution and neglect in the unkempt squares and shabby high-rises whose inner courtyards are lined with entryways that resemble bank vaults rather than doors through which people come and go, intent on normal daily affairs, where mangled children’s play equipment rusts amid heaps of broken glass, and broken-down cars are worked on in the shadows.
The astounding contrasts between opulence and poverty recall the opening pages of Crime and Punishment in which Dostoevsky describes St. Petersburg with the houses of the rich on one side of the street and hovels for the poor on the other. A glass of beer can cost 7 USD, but the salary of a professor of history friend of mine at a major Moscow university is 150 USD per month.
Under these conditions, it is no wonder that despite Putin’s efforts at stabilization Russian society is still experiencing grave uncertainties about the future. Behind this remains the huge underworld of its unexamined past. When Putin recently rebuked President Bush at the St. Petersburg G-8 meeting by saying that he didn’t wish democracy in Russia to resemble what had been achieved in Iraq, he scored political and rhetorical points around the world. But the kind of democracy he does wish Russia to achieve remains in doubt.
The divide in Russian society, however, is not simply between rich and poor, democrat or Communist, the haves and the have nots. Economic stratification is not simply a matter of economics, and wealth does not signify simply the amassing of worldly goods, prosperity, and well-being. It signifies an orientation much more fundamental. Wealth is the future. Age-old Russian poverty is the past. Between past and future lies a deep and perilous gulf.

2006-10-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

У меня запой от одиночества - По ночам я слышу голоса... Слышу - вдруг зовут меня по отчеству,- Глянул - черт,- вот это чудеса! Черт мне корчил рожи и моргал, А я ему тихонечко сказал:

"Я, брат, коньяком напился вот уж как! Ну, ты, наверно, пьешь денатурат... Слушай, черт-чертяка-чертик-чертушка, Сядь со мной - я очень буду рад... Да неужели, черт возьми, ты трус?! Слезь с плеча, а то перекрещусь!"

Черт сказал, что он знаком с Борисовым - Это наш запойный управдом,- Черт за обе щеки хлеб уписывал, Брезговать не стал и коньяком. Кончился коньяк - не пропадем,- Съездим к трем вокзалам и возьмем.

Я устал, к вокзалам черт мой съездил сам... Просыпаюсь - снова черт,- боюсь: Или он по новой мне пригрезился, Или это я ему кажусь. Черт ругнулся матом, а потом Целоваться лез, вилял хвостом.

Насмеялся я над ним до коликов И спросил: "Как там у вас в аду Отношение к нашим алкоголикам - Говорят, их жарят на спирту?" Черт опять ругнулся и сказал: "И там не тот товарищ правит бал!"

...Все кончилось, светлее стало в комнате,- Черта я хотел опохмелять, Но растворился черт как будто в омуте... Я все жду - когда придет опять... Я не то чтоб чокнутый какой, Но лучше - с чертом, чем с самим собой.

2006-09-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

So I've been sitting here in this wonderful airport lounge for the past 2 hours, paying way too much for a quality microbrew that I can get for free in Seattle because the Master Brewer is a friend of mine. (Good news though...you can actually 'supersize' those airport beers for only a dollar more...did you know that? What a great country we live in, really.) My thoughts have been wandering of late, so it wasn't all that surprising to me that I began thinking about an old high school chum that had been a roommate of mine in college and afterwards. Feeling a bit adventurous from the beer, recent travel, and the rather sulty (I think) hostess, I decided to see if I could hunt him down somehow on the Internet.

I couldn't. At least not yet. What I did find was a bit more startling for me, since it was completely unexpected. While searching old high school records and contact information, I ran across another name from the same era, a girl I went to high school with. Not a girlfriend, but just someone that for a very brief period ran in the same small, intellectually elitist snob circle that I did during my senior year at North Central High School in Spokane, of all places.

Honestly, I don't think about those times very often and have never really tried to find anyone before, but suddenly here I was thinking about her. From there, it was a simple matter to locate another classmate, a friend of hers at the time that I found intriguing on a variety of levels.
From there, I found her blog on this site (She hasn't posted in a year, it looks like). There wasn't an email address, so all I could think to do was post a comment to her posting about our old town, Spokane. In order to do that, it was necessary to become a member of this site. Is this how stalking begins?

After that, I still had over an hour before my flight, so what the hell. My first blog...at the tender age of 42. Lots of firsts in the past few years...websites, Myspace pages, blogs. I don't know if A. Leach will ever read the comment I posted, or ever see this blog, but I tend to doubt it. I do just find it a bit wierd that I'm sitting in an airport lounge, presumably only a few miles from where she now lives in Los Angeles, and because my flight was delayed and the beer was strong, I'm suddenly a blogger writing about a woman I haven't seen in 24 years. And writing poorly, I might add (I did mention the strength of the beer).

Serendipity I suppose.