Die Off.

Oil reached an all-time high today, at $122 per barrel, which is twice what it was one year ago.

A friend of mine introduced me to the unhappy world of Peak Oil and the suppositions that, soon, without oil, civilization will falter and fail. It’s a very unpretty picture that folks are painting but it’s not without its supporters (in government primarily) and those who believe it but can’t speak its name.

Anyway, if you’re at all curious, the one site that’s super gloomy but powerful is DieOff. I’m going to tread slowly on this territory but it’s interesting, to me, in particular because the signs of the related Olduvai theory are apparent. The bubble of reality that we all live in seems never so thin.

Postcript: I’m particularly curious about White’s Law, which Wikipedia argues:

For White “the primary function of culture” and the one that determines its level of advancement is its ability to “harness and control energy.” White’s law states that the measure by which to judge the relative degree of evolvedness of culture was the amount of energy it could capture (energy consumption). White differentiates between five stages of human development. In the first, people use energy of their own muscles. In the second, they use energy of domesticated animals. In the third, they use the energy of plants (so White refers to agricultural revolution here). In the fourth, they learn to use the energy of natural resources: coal, oil, gas. In the fifth, they harness the nuclear energy.

3 AM Girl.

The Clinton campaign apparently used stock video footage for her scary “3:00-am-who-do-you-want-answering-the-scary-phone” ad. Well, Hillary not only got called on the use of the stock footage (which is no crime) but it was done so by the child actor who was the actress in the footage eight years ago. And that child actor is a big Obama supporter. Doh. I imagine that there are a few creative directors in the Clinton ad campaign headquarters that are wishing they had hired a “real” actor to do the dirty work. Oy vey.

P.S. I use stock for my clients. Everyone does. There’s nothing wrong with it, inherently.

Dep.

Since the massive interest rate cuts by the Fed a few weeks ago, I’ve been thinking that the economy is far shakier than we are being led to believe. It wasn’t from the numbers (which I can’t say I understand) nor from some ideological belief about market economies (which I generally like). Rather, my worries about what the Fed knows and can’t tell us stems from the fact that the Fed can’t seem to stem the tide. The Fed cannot continue to bail out companies like Bear Sterns constantly, every week or every few days. If lending is shut down entirely, we will enter a massively scary economic crisis that could make 1929 look like fun. It’s truly scary. The Fed’s lack of transparency here or willingness to provide true oversight of these massively over-leveraged companies, combined with Mr. Bush’s blind confidence in their capacity, makes for lots of worries. No Fed leader wants to say the word “recession” let alone “depression” but those two words came out today for the first time (to my ears) from a number of pundits on NPR.

P.S. This piece from my pal, V.S., via Jon Stewart: “If you want to do the Jedi mind trick, you have to be a Jedi.”

Spitzer.

I’ve always had a lot of respect for Elliot Spitzer. You might as well take look at his current Governor of New York page, because it won’t be there for long, as his statement today is listed on the website as “Recent Events.”

I’ve been listening to the shock and awe of Spitzer’s announcement that he had a “private” mishap being involved with some kind of prostitution ring and/or being a john. But while the pundits are focusing on his poor family and wife, they seem to have forgotten that Hillary must be pissed off. As the Senator from New York and a Democrat closely aligned with the good works for the Spitzer administration and fund-raising machine, she must be livid. Additionally, the pundits I’ve heard are ignoring the possibility that he was targeted for this transgression by either the Feds or some kind of Republican apparatus, whether New York State-based or otherwise. Spitzer was dangerous to the Republicans and now, I think, he’s a danger to the Democrats.

Farc.

So, “Raul Reyes, a FARC leader, was killed in Saturday’s raid into Ecuadoran territory, which sparked the rising border tensions” among Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. The latter is now accused of providing $300 million dollars to FARC, which has for a long, long time, sought to overthrow the Colombia government in favor of a socialist-type government.

In lefty news, like Democracy Now, Farc is treated something like Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen organization. But it’s not. Farc is a malevolent organization, bent on kidnapping, hurting, and killing people in the name of their aspirations. The murder of Raúl Reyes, imho, should be applauded. While he was on the “diplomatic front” of Farc and not so much a military leader, he was also the public face to a very malignant organization that plants land mines, sells and profits on massive drug trafficking, recruits kids for killing, and punishes its own with more violence.

I don’t doubt that the U.S. and other countries were involved in the murder of Reyes and that Farc is only part of a reaction to U.S.-supported death-squads.

But Farc and its leaders deserve to be decimated. They killed my friend, Ingrid Washinawatok, who was in Venezuela on a peace mission exactly nine years ago in 1999, after kidnapping her along with two of her colleagues.

Hillary's SNL.

Hillary doesn’t have much of a chance this week but I give her credit for her SNL appearance last night.

You can tell, when asked about how her campaign is going, that she’s less than confident in her response. Maybe her campaign should have made a better video for her than this one, which looks like it was directed by a 14 year old who studied video production in Romania in 1992. It’s called “Hillary4U&Me.”

Zeitgeist.

I just watched the freely downloadable film Zeitgeist on my little laptop. It’s a very powerful, if deeply flawed film, that tries to tie together the ritualistic domination of religion, government, and corporations into one fell message: That the future will be theirs if we, as North Americans, don’t wake up. I won’t give away the semi-science fiction ending of the two-hour long semi-documentary. But I will say that the film makes a good case study for us to look at the hard reality of the world and not the one filtered for us by television, the media, the workplace, major corporations, tax and national regimes.

The film, with its retailored conspiracy theories and rehashing of religious history, doesn’t break a lot of new ground, but it does make me ask the bigger question of why we are in the state in which we are.

The film is immensely watchable and it make me really wonder if I should shut off my television for my family for one week or maybe two, look around, and read and love more deeply than ever before. It actively calls for a profound awakening among all of us to look at the world through the lenses of love and natural being rather than war and fear. As banal as that sounds, it reminds me of many of the messages of the early English Romantic poet, William Blake, who I studied and wrote about in college.

Here is just a sampling of quotes from the great Blake:

“The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.”

“To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.”

“I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Man’s. I will not Reason & Compare; my business is to Create.”

And the most powerful of them all:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”

If you want to see the movie the Googlopology, it starts here. More info about the movie and its critics can also be found, though, surprisingly, these seem few and far between.

Barack's Timeline.

The New York Times has crafted a smartly detailed timeline of Barack Obama’s political and non-political life. The thing is very well thought out, rich in different kinds of media (from photos to video), and shows what Flash can do in the right designer’s hands. Hey, check out Obama in Central Park in 1981!

Mount Airy.

I know that this is Super Duper Tuesday. Or Super Special Tuesday. Or Stuesday, or whatever. I’m very excited to see how the day turns out and I’m not making any bets.

But I do think that, as much as this race has been unusual, compelling, and complex -what with a racial minority, a woman, a Vietnam vet, a Mormon, and a pastor all competing for the highest office of the American land - this campaign has been very vacuous. What are the true policy initiatives of each of the candidates? Where do they really stand on Iraq, abortion, poverty, and race? Where is there a website that clearly delineates these aspiring pols’ differences, their similarities, their accomplishments on the behalf of those who they represent?

More specifically, I wonder how well did Hillary Clinton do for upstate New York? How did Illinois fare under Obama’s senatorship? Are U.S. soldiers, sailors, and marines better off with McCain’s support of the war and the surge? Are Iraqis better off? How exactly is Romney’s business experience relevant to running a country? Where does Huckabee stand on issues of church and state?

Granted, the debates have been good and illuminate strategy, personality, persuasion, rhetoric, aspirations, ideas, and grace under pressure. They demonstrate that the American media is fully capable of posing good questions about a campaign’s given momentum and turn-out. But where are the issues? Am I wrong to think that this race is more high school than executive office?

Postscript: Obama’s site just gets more and more beautiful everyday. It’s a keeper, done by a real group of professional designers that actually care about their customers and Obama’s audience. If Obama hires designers the way he hires Vice Presidents and cabinet members, the U.S. will be in pretty good shape.

President.

I just watched, out of the corner of my eye, the President of the United States, give an address to Congress. Supposedly, it was a “State of the Union” but I didn’t hear any statesmanship. Instead, the President made references to his accomplishments; it was a sordid attempt to ensure his historical place, despite everything. Here are some questions:

1. Why is Mr. Bush signing autographs to members of Congress on his way out the door? Can’t Congresspeople get signatures from the President pretty much any day of the week? Is his signature worth much on eBay these days?

2. Why do Republicans like Mitt Romney need to praise the current President? Has he really done anything for them in terms of assisting their political strategy, helping their candidacy, or lending legitimacy to the party?

3. Is the economy really okay? It’s so hard to tell who is telling the truth, who is speaking lies, who knows nothing but looks knowledgeable, and who knows lots but needs votes.

Bushed again.

With George Bush’s constantly self-proclaimed presidency (e.g. “I’m the President,” “I”m the Decider,” “The Commander-in-Chief must…”) comes an ironic one as well. A new movie is coming out about the guy and, now, the famous painting in Bush’s office gets an airing in a recent issue of Harper’s. It turns out that the rider, who has a striking resemblance to Mr. Bush, is not a heroic figure charging up Lordly Mountain but a lowly thief, “fleeing his captors.”

Mountaintop.

It’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the US and I had the honor of listening to his entire I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech, delivered one day before he was murdered in 1968. King was prescient in almost every way: around race, democracy, American political structures and imperialism, global Marxism, gender, religion in the US, and, not least, his own death. His brilliance and challenge to all of us shines powerfully, 40 years late and later.

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Voting.

What with my last post and all, I thought it would behoove me to actually register to vote. Sure, I’ve voted in almost every U.S. presidential election since I was 18. But, when I left New York City in 2005, I also relinquished my ability to easily vote. And, unless I become a citizen of Canada, I can’t vote here.

After a bit of research, I found a great site, called Democrats Abroad (and there’s a “sister” site called Republicans Abroad as well). The site has a very nice, intuitive Web-based wizard that collects your information and spits out a well-formed PDF that is then ready to send to the Federal Voting Assistance Program, an agency dedicated to helping those overseas (including those in the U.S. military) to vote. It’s all rather cool, except that, before finding the Democrats Abroad site, the information on the Web and the FVAP site was confusing to the point of being obscure. It wasn’t clear, to me, what information on the form I needed to complete and where to send the form. For instance, did I really need to provide my full Social Security number or not? (For New York State, it turns out the answer is “not.”)

After printing the completed PDF, I faxed the pre-built cover page and associated application to the 703 number provided. I then mailed the cover page and application to an address in Kings County (Brooklyn) that was also provided. (This part was never truly clarified for me but, essentially, you register to vote with the county in the state where you last resided, regardless of your current state residency status. In other words, though I’m no longer a resident of New York State, I sent my application to Kings County in New York State, which, apparently, has been given the responsibility of caring for me in my voting old age.)

Long story short, if you’re overseas and you’re an American citizen and you want to vote (and you should), use the Web wizard found on Democrats Abroad, regardless of your political affiliation.

Dirty Hands.

While Americans are out shopping intensely for their loved ones, I’ve become very saddened that so little news appears about Iraq, from what I can tell. Only a few commentators nationally are saying anything of substance about the waste of lives and treasure there; on in particular is the inimitable Bob Herbert, who writes today a piece called Now and Forever. The expenditure of funds for the misguided war continues and, according to Herbert, might go to $3.5 trillion.

Do people know how much money that is and what that same amount of money could afford them? Free health care forever, stable bridges and infrastructure, energy independence, massive educational investments, even free child care! All of that would be possible if, somehow, Americans would stand on their feet and come to terms with the squandor of their own money and the jeopardization of their children’s futures.

I ask in seriousness and seriousness of purpose: Is there mass hypnosis going on in the States?

Disaster Capitalism.

I listened with lots of quietly anxious attention to author Naomi Klein today on Democracy Now. She is a powerful speaker and I’m looking forward to reading her new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism .

This is from today’s interview with Amy Goodman (and you can listen to the full interview at the first link above):

And we talk about torture so often in this country as being just about getting information. Torture is a tool of state terror. That is what torture is, and that is why it’s prohibited. It is about instilling — it’s a method of instilling terror in an individual, and it’s also a method of spreading terror throughout a whole society, saying we are willing to use these techniques; if you cross us, you will be subject to these techniques. So it is the science of terror. It is literally terrorism. You know, if you have somebody in your control, and your goal is to convince them that they are going to die, and as they gasp for breath their lungs are filled with water, what are you, if not a terrorist?

Easy War.

I finished watching the one-hour-and-ten-minute Sean Penn-narrated documentary War Made Easy. It hasn’t happened recently, but by the 57th minute, I found myself shaking in anger and anxiety, filled with a rage about the war that has been costly and useless. The film ingeniously makes use of now-historical footage from Vietnam and Iraq in which administrations and the media co-actively constructed the cause, needs, continuity, and deceipt of war.

The documentary ends with parts of Martin Luther King’s powerful 1967 speech Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence. Here are just some of the words he spoke, back then, over 40 years ago, just long enough for us to have forgotten:

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

And this:

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Oil.

Jim Holt, a newish writer I believe, wrote a very compelling piece eight days ago for the London Review of Books about the real logic behind the war in Iraq. I had to read it twice (nay, three times) because what he articulates is what every citizen of the world kind of already knows and what Alan Greenspan already spilled: “In terms of realpolitik, the invasion of Iraq is not a fiasco; it is a resounding success.”

Random Rots.

From my perch up in The North, the United States has been undergoing a tremendous upheaval politically, full of high crimes, misdemeanors, symptomatic illegalities, and impoverished will. But it’s been accompanied by, to my eyes, an American public that is more docile than I’ve ever witnessed. I’ve been in email conversations with some friends in the States about this and we’re trying to figure it out.

But I thought I’d make a list of some of the more, crazy, heinous or venal activities of the past year or so just so I’d have a record of it.

Here:

• Darfur, despite the word “genocide” being uttered by some in the Bush administration, continues to be a word that describes “genocide.”
• Democrats were elected to office recently in a fantastic “sweep” and it appears that the Congressional janitorial staff have done more in their offices than elected officials have.
• Polls indicate that both Americans and Iraqis (by a large majority) want the U.S. to calmly and intelligently leave Iraq; despite this, there is neither calm nor intelligence in Iraq.
• In nearby Iran, thumbing one’s dirty nose at the U.S. has become a national pasttime of the picking variety.
• Taking responsibility global warming have become industrial design terms for large corporations, indicating that the message to them is loud and clear and that they’ll shout back in quiet advertising.
• Michael Moore released a movie called “Sicko” a while ago. That was so cool that he made a movie again.

Hillary Dining.

It's not yet embeddable (the campaign needs some Web smarts still) but I actually enjoyed watching this video of Hillary and Bill parody the Sopranos ending. All new.

Michael Moore on Government.

I guess this is politics week here at Deckchairs.

I can't say enough good things about Michael Moore's recorded speech to the California Nurses Association on Tuesday about the realities of health care in the United States. It's completely on and is a must-listen (or -read) for anyone confused about why contemporary health care in America is provided inequitably. He's so completely coherent, funny, and smart that I think the guy should be considered for a Nobel. Who else is willing to say publicly that American government can be reconstructed to provide real health care for all Americans, regardless of income level?

One beautiful quote: "Ask your grandparents if that Social Security check comes every month. It not only comes every month, my Dad said, it comes on the same day. Through the government-sponsored US mail. And remarkably it is the same amount every month! They actually get the check right. How do they do that? Tens of millions of seniors every month get a social security check on time for the exact amount!"

Hamas Rules.

So 1.5 million Gazans now have the lovingly hooded Hamas government to thank for taking over their schools, infrastructure, and nationhood. A fiasco.

Let's see who might be to blame here. I'll write a list:

1. The United States (for saying little and doing nothing)
2. Gazans (for voting Hamas in)
3. Fatah (for idling)
4. Israel (for denying)
5. The United Nations (for handsitting)
6. Saudi Arabia (for funding)
7. Syria (for financing)
8. Iran (for supplying)
9. Egypt (for organizing)
10. Jordan (for ignoring)
11. Russia (for laughing)
12. Lebanon
13. Kuwait
14. Bahrain
15. Yemen (these four, for fomenting and abetting)

Andrew Card Carded.

Speechless:

The Vice President in a Goddamn David Lynch Dream Sequence.

Much thanks, yet again, to V.S. via Wonkette: This is one beautiful long shot.

House of Cards.

Libby is going to jail. Bush is sending more troops to Iraq. Cheney may resign in the coming days. Military hospitals, the Katrina clean-up and Middle East affairs are being run poorly. The house of cards built by the Bush family and their supporters in 2000 and 2004 is starting to crumble under the weight of its own ineptitude and hubris. Even more importantly, it's falling because the administration has, since January 2002, demonstrated a careless disregard for the people it governs. History will likely be more ruthless to this administration than any other; as many have noted, even Nixon's reign will look okay, in retrospect. As my own dad would say, "It couldn't have happened to nicer people."

Thomas Friedman has a thoughtful, if reductive, piece in today's Times. It's called Don't Ask, Don't Know, Don't Help, but the last part of the headline should be "Don't Care." This is the best three paragraphs in the column:

From the start, the Bush team has tried to keep the Iraq war “off the books” both financially and emotionally. As Larry Diamond of Stanford’s Hoover Institution said to me: “America is not at war. The U.S. Army is at war.” The rest of us are just watching, or just ignoring, while the whole fight is carried on by 150,000 soldiers and their families.

In an interview last Jan. 16, Jim Lehrer asked President Bush why, if the war on terrorism was so overwhelmingly important, he had never asked more Americans “to sacrifice something.” Mr. Bush gave the most unbelievable answer: “Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night.”

Sacrifice peace of mind watching TV? What kind of crazy thing is that to say?

Rudy Runs.

My former landlord in Brooklyn wrote a very large and very scathing book about Rudy Giulani, former Mayor of New York City. My landlord met Rudy many, many times and simply referred to him as "Rudy." I was always afraid our house would be firebombed. But I won't get into it because the Onion basically summarized the story of Rudy this week. Here's an excerpt:

Giuliani To Run For President Of 9/11

NEW YORK—At a well-attended rally in front of his new Ground Zero headquarters Monday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially announced his plan to run for president of 9/11.

"My fellow citizens of 9/11, today I will make you a promise," said Giuliani during his 18-minute announcement speech in front of a charred and torn American flag. "As president of 9/11, I will usher in a bold new 9/11 for all."

If elected, Giuliani would inherit the duties of current 9/11 President George W. Bush, including making grim facial expressions, seeing the world's conflicts in terms of good and evil, and carrying a bullhorn at all state functions.

"Let us all remember how we felt on that day, with the world watching our every move, waiting on our every word," said Giuliani, flanked by several firefighters, ex-New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, and Judith Nathan, his third wife. "With a campaign built on traditional 9/11 values, and with the help of every citizen who believes in the 9/11 dream, I want to make 9/11 great again."

Andrew Hawk.

I can hardly believe I'm writing this but here I am writing to, essentially, support the call for more troops being sent to Iraq. After four years of destroying the country's political and social economy, President Bush has determined that he has one last chance to do right by Iraq and its people. I, and all Americans, should hold Bush responsible for ruining the country by, at the very least, not following the advice of critical generals and State Department advisors at the very start and, before that, aiming to invade a tortured nation for no reason except some kind of misbegoten, frat-party imperial exceptionalism.

Having said that, in my opinion, Bush has no choice but to throw more troops at the problem. Pulling soliders and materials out of Iraq precipitously could exacerbate a civil war that could lead to a region-wide conflict, one that could at some point, turn into full-out nuclear war. The military and logistical support already exists in the region to supply this last-ditch endeavor with possibility. The last thing the world needs is a conflict among Israel, Iran, Syria, Egypt and Saudia Arabia over the resources and security of the Iraqi nation-state.

There are a lot of "ifs" in this equation that Bush has made: If 20,000 troops is enough to pacify and quiet Baghdad and other critical areas of the country; if the baby Iraqi government can get its act together to agree upon shared sovereignty; if already exhausted American troops aren't too cynical to keep fighting; if the Bush administration can work diplomatically to get countries like Iran and Syria to be part of some solution; if the most angry elements of Iraq aren't further inflamed by the American presence; if the President tells the Iraqis that the US will not have a permanent presence in their country; if the new "surge" can happen over a period of two months and security becomes more real over a period of six months, if Americans and their newly elected Democratic representatives can stomach more violence; if a sustainable plan for economic development can be stabilized in the country, then, maybe, there's a chance that Iraq will not fall apart. There must be a timetable, however, and this table should be provided in weeks, not months.

I recognize the inherent naivitie in all of this. But it's based on the knowledge that the United States too often abandons the messes it clearly makes. I sincerely wish the newly appointed troops luck and the administration something else.

Canada Elections Act.

As my newly adopted country readies itself, possibly, for another election for the office of Prime Minister, the Government has put out an ad campaign in local newspapers explaining that contributions to political parties is now extremely limited. I don't claim to know all of the ins and outs of the new regulations, but the Elections Canada section essentially explains the following information (quite incredible to a tired political water from the States) that was highlighted in today's Winnipeg Free Press ad:

There are limits to what you can give. As of January 1, 2007, only individuals can make federal political donations.

• As a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada, you can give up to $1,100 in total per year to each registered party.
• In addition, you can give up to $1,000 in total per year to the registered associations, nomination contestants and candidates of each registered party.
• You can give up to $1,100 in total to the contestants in each registered party leadership contest.
• You can also give up to $1,000 per election to each independent candidate.
• You can no longer make a cash donatino of more than $20.
• Corporations, trade unions, associations and groups can no longer make political contributions.

Can I take up a few more lines to repeat that last item?

• Corporations, trade unions, associations and groups can no longer make political contributions.

In the States, this bullet point would cause bloodsheed, a constitutional crisis, and perhaps a shutdown of Government. I'm a bit incredulous that this law, as far reaching as it is, has received so little notice either here or in the U.S. Election reform, long promised but never delivered in the U.S., has taken place in Canada. Amazing.

Borat's Politics Are Mine Now.

The funniest thing I've seen in months.

A New American Order

It's hard to believe, but after all these years in the desert, the Democrats took it (almost all, waiting for Virginia) back today. I'm amazed and excited for the country. It's obvious and corny but nonetheless true: American democracy is a privileged and imperfect system but it astoundingly tends to work. The country's health, measured by yesterday's election, is stronger not because of who got elected but because they were elected and because change is considered a good thing in America.

I think the Democrats should gloat, grin, shake their fists, stick out their tongues, moon the pundits, and sing heroic "We Are the Champion"-type songs. It's deserved and Howard Dean should get loads of credit. A Muslim was elected, a black candidate was elected in the South, a woman may soon be House Speaker. These things are not trivial. A shout should be shouted.

But then I hope that the Democrats roll up their newly pressed sleeves and get to work. A lot of the world is poor, malnourished and living in fear and there's not a lot of time to lose.

The Last Drop Drips.

I have to hand it to the editors and publisher (Conde Nast) of the New Yorker. While print journalism is increasingly going "walled garden," allowing only paid subscribers to access their content, the New Yorker continues to publish its often superb pieces online. I'm a long-time New Yorker subscriber, even here in Winnipeg, and though it's expensive ($90 per year!), it would take a lot for me to give it up.

In last week's issue, Michael Specter wrote a frightening article called "The Last Drop: Confronting the possibility of a global catastrophe." It's worth in its entirety and reviewing it in detail will not do it justice. But, essentially, Specter makes a provocative yet realistic assessment of the world's coming shortage of water. We're in trouble. Here are just a few quotes from the first half of the piece:

There is no standard for how much water a person needs each day, but experts usually put the minimum at fifty litres. The government of India promises (but rarely provides) forty. Most people drink two or three litres—less than it takes to flush a toilet. The rest is typically used for cooking, bathing, and sanitation. Americans consume between four hundred and six hundred litres of water each day, more than any other people on earth. Most Europeans use less than half that.

China has less water than Canada and forty times as many people. With wells draining aquifers far faster than they can be replenished by rain, the water table beneath Beijing has fallen nearly two hundred feet in the past twenty years.

If a large bucket were to represent all the seawater on the planet, and a coffee cup the amount of freshwater frozen in glaciers, only a teaspoon would remain for us to drink.

As people migrate to cities, they invariably start to eat more meat, adding to the pressure on water resources. The amount of water required to feed cattle and to process beef is enormous: it takes a thousand tons of water to grow a ton of grain and fifteen thousand to grow a ton of cow. Thirteen hundred gallons of water go into the production of a single hamburger; a steak requires double that amount.

Folly.

Rarely do I post anything on politics and international misbehavior, which is always rampant, and therefore, hard for me to dissect. The recent Israeli entree into Lebanon again is grotesque. The hundreds of people who are dying there are dying in vain. Israel will not solve the persistence of its Arab neighbors' hatred through bombing.

Then there's the but(t). Israel is, was, and always has been stuck in an international milieu in which very wealthy Arab countries support tyrannical governments that prevent cultural, social and political developments from developing internally. People who live in Israel's neighbor countries, including Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Syria and further places like Iraq and Iran and Qatar and UAE live at the whims of their rulers. Israel, because of its birth amidst the destruction of European Jewry, is held to a Western standard that these other countries are not. And so, again and again, Israel is condemned, scorned, hated and villified because it needs to defend itself. The country, which is the size of the state of Delaware, is held together by raw history, American support, and sheer luck, not necessarily in that order. And the country does horrible things, no question, like every country has ever done. But, as Rex Murphy points out in his editorial in yesterday's Globe and Mail, no other country is required to live among neighbors who constantly threaten to run it into the sea.

Would Pakistan, constantly threatened by Indian military prowess, allow India to lob missiles over its border and not take any action? Would Pakistan allow a militarized Hindu terrorist organization to sit on its border and not demand that India reign in the "revolutionaries"? Would Pakistan sit down and talk with Hindu revolutionaries if they refused to even acknowledge its very existence? Doubtful.

The point is that it's all too human to criticize Israel for being a proxy, a stepchild of the United States, a progressive democracy amidst totalitarian Islamic states, or a Jewish religio-state. (No other country in the region has 20% of its population not belonging to the country's dominant religion, by the way.) Israel and its actions are constantly headlined in every newspaper in every country not because its actions are that disproportionate or overwhelming or even interesting. Israel is simply held to a hypocritically higher standard of justice so that anti-Semtism can be psychologically, liminally or politically legitimated. In this way, countries can vilify Jews generally, condemn them to non-state status, relegate them to another historical dustbin, or otherwise hope for their demise. It's a 5000 year old and excitingly baneful aspiration of world culture that drives the (admittedly sad headlines): Delete the Jews and the world will suffer less.

Rex Murphy says it better in his "A doctrine of cruelty and folly":

Proportionality, as the word is currently understood, appears to me, anyway, to be a kind of code. The state of Israel is allowed now and then to respond to those who are unlawfully attacking it or abducting its soldiers, but it must on no account do so in a manner that might actually end the attacks and permanently stop the abductions. It must fight terrorists according to rules that do not, by definition, apply to terrorists.

To accept this understanding of proportionality is to accept that Israel is in a perpetual war of attrition, that it is always obliged to contain what force it has so that it is always balanced, even to ideal equivalence, with the force enjoyed by the rogues and terrorists who attack it.

I cannot think of any other state in the world that is asked and, by the truly high-minded, expected to live in a perpetual dynamic of attack and response -- with the initiative always understood to be with its enemies.

Such is proportionality. It is a doctrine of cruelty and folly, but, more significant, it is a doctrine designed for the only state in the world that has to seriously worry about the fact of its own existence.

Lately, it has more reason to do so than has ever been the norm for that battered country. One of the other ruder messages coming out of this current crisis is the number of voices starting to remind us that maybe Israel was a mistake to begin with. In Western opinion, this thought is but a whisper, but how common a whisper it is becoming.

Matthew Parris of The Times, no less, gave the thought its most weary expression: "My opinion -- held not passionately but with little personal doubt -- is that there is no point in arguing about whether the state of Israel should have been established where and when it was because it has become a fact. To try to remove it now would be at least as great an injustice as the one originally done to the Palestinians."

What an interesting thought: Clear away the clutter and the ennui and what it says is that Israel was a mistake, both where and when, and if it weren't so much trouble, maybe we could fix it.

Well, there are others on this globe who don't mind the trouble involved in fixing it, among them Hezbollah, al-Qaeda (which has jumped onside with Hezbollah) and the Iranian President, who speaks with such fervour of wiping Israel off the map. The latter is building a nuclear arsenal, and is likely not as dispassionate as the weary Mr. Parris.

That kind of whisper is the tuning of an orchestra we do not want to hear. Nor do we wish to view, even in our dreams, the horrid proportionality its strains would most likely evoke.

This is not to excuse Israel's folly. It is to say that Israel cannot sit around hoping that other countries will play nice someday. Unfortunately for the world, Jews have had no historical experience of this.

Stormy Weather.

I've been idly sitting by my computer reading the political headlines, and ooooh, it's going to be a messy week, and not for the weak. There's nothing scary or particularly new in any of this; it all could have been easily predicted (and was) by my more conspiratorial friends. What is a bit frightening is that Mr. Bush and team, like cornered wolves, may try to do something truly nutty—declare war, declare martial law, resign, or worse.

IMF acts to avoid markets meltdown

CIA leak probe looks at Cheney writings

Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators

NSA Whistleblower To Expose More Unlawful Activity: People Are Going To Be Shocked

Granted, the parallels are extreme: The Bartlet Administration Comes to a Close.

Postscript: I was wrong, completely wrong.

Colbert's Cojones.

Last night Stephen Colbert had the gall, cojones, and vision to joke at the President Bush's expense. For me, it was incredibly uncomfortable watching the video of Colbert, line by line, taking the presidency down a few notches - almost six feet under.

Oh, and I couldn't help but appreciate his line: "This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring If anything, they are re-arranging the Deckchairs on the Hindenberg."

The Retaliation.

It goes without say (in the mainstream media) but Israel's retaliation for today's suicide bombing and the subsequent political support by the reigning Ph.D.s in Hamas is going to be immense. It's a truly bloody perfect storm coming in the next few days or week: A new and untested Israeli government and prime minister, a vocal and posturing (and elected) Hamas leadership, a taunting (but inept) Iranian government, a soon renewed (but inept) White House administration, and the decision on the part of multiple (inept) Arab governments to fund the Hamas government will, assuredly and sadly, lead to major bloodshed. I cringe.

The Street.

The Muslim world has gone nuts over the past few days because of a pretty ugly series of cartoons. I don't blame them for being pissed. Jews get pretty angry when Saudia Arabian and Lebanese and Syrian papers, for instance, publish heinous editorial cartoons of Jewish leaders looking like Nazis. This happens pretty much every day in strictly Muslim countries.

But more shocking than Muslims burning down the Dutch embassy in Beirut is that the liberal media (who I read with pleasure) has said absolutely nothing of meaning about this. Is their Street closed? Nothing of import and no headlines in Salon, Slate, The Nation, etc. Take a look a look. It's not unlike a few months ago when France and other parts of Europe were burning (or at least vehicles there were). Are they afraid of their offices being torched? Do they, like the US Government, not have enough "translators" to follow the story? Perhaps they don't have an opinion about thousands of people burning buildings, cars, and effigies?

Canadian Conservatives.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about Canadian politics.

There's a very strange thing going on in Canada right now with the election only a week or so to go.

I don't get it. The Canadian press and all polls show the Conservative party winning this next election and the new Canadian Prime Minister will be Stephen Harper. Why? It's time for a change. It's total bullshit, at least to me. The Liberals, which are essentially the Democratic party of the States, have had 12 years of good economics, sound fiscal policy, strong deliberation and stands against U.S. foreign policy, same-sex marriage legalization, general overall political and national unity, and healthy immigration. There's this scandal, concretized by the Gomery Report, that Canadians seem very upset about wherein money changed hands wrongly in Quebec and there was definitely some mismanagement of taxpayer money.

But now even the left-leaning newspapers like The Globe and Mail have issued new editorials stating that Canadians should kick the Liberal bums out of office because, well, there is a need for somethin' new.

It doesn't add up. From my experience in the States, conservatives and conservative parties have done a phenomenal job of convincing mass numbers of people that they have a better way of getting things done by killing government programs and then telling them, when government doesn't work well, that government doesn't work. It's brilliant, no doubt. It has an elegant internal logic in terms of public appeal that kept George Bush in the White House a few months ago. And now the Conservatives in Canada, which seem to essentially a "lite" version of Republicans, are making the case that they have "new ideas" such as tax cuts, Kyoto-defiance, healthcare privitization and space militarization that might actually be neat if they could be implemented. Canadian polls show that they don't like the current Prime Minister, Paul Martin, because he doesn't seem to connect with their concerns and he had a chance to do something great and they haven't seen it, yet.

There's absolutely no assurance that a Conservative government in Canada can do anything except make the nation a U.S. backwater which rationalizes its best policy, intellectual, and national assets away. Conservatives are billed as change agents while the Liberals are viewed as old, sitting ducks. I feel sorry for Mr. Martin, who honestly seems committed to pushing forward a European/American-style approach to good government.

Finally, I can't help but think, as a new American immigrant in Canada, that the Conseravtive party must be getting lots of very nice financial and strategic help from their buddies in the States, who, in turn, are looking to make life easier for themselves with a conservative northern neighbor. I have little doubt that Karl Rove and other friends of the right are rubbing their sweaty palms together, awaiting the kingship of Conservatives in Canada who can begin to dismantle the nation's "welfare" statehood.

The Cynic

I hate being cynical. It's a total waste of time. Except when it's fun to be realistic and cynicism is the only out. In the name of realism and in the hope of connecting some lost dots, I've attempted to create a list item rondo that will explain the viscious circle of contemporary cynicism:

1. Life is too short for anyone to be truly kind.
2. Individuals have no ability to self-police.
3. Businesses are, as the tax laws state, fundamentally individuals.
4. Government has a reason to be self-organized for itself.
5. Communities organize around delusionally common attributes.
6. Organizations act on their own behalf.
7. Financial institutions act as a lever to consolidate wealth.
8. Travel is inherently colonialist and escapist.
9. Building is destructive.
10. Staying in place is anarchic.
11. Life is too short for anyone to be truly kind.

NK

My daughter is collecting her pennies and nickles and dimes to give to the poor here in Winnipeg. It's through a program called Pennnies from Heaven. She gets a penny or two for things she does around the house and then has collected them in a small container. We'll be putting the coins in a collection jar at school on Friday.

I just finished watching Seoul Train, the independent documentary about the many hundreds of North Koreans who escape their poverty and plight by fleeing to China every month. The hateful Chinese refuse to honor these families as refugees or give them asylum and return them to the North Korean government. The Koreans then imprison, torture, and kill these people. Despite China's paper commitment to the UNHCR, it refuses North Koreans admittance. It was an incredibly moving portrait of a few families who braved everything they had (which was only their lives) to have freedom. Real freedom. Not the kind that is spouted about by politicians or academics. The freedom that these North Koreans are seeking is of the most primal sort: the capacity to live. That's all they want and the film makes very clear that there are 20 million people in the country who do not have just that.

Here in Canada, the Conservatives (capitalized because it is a party not an ideal) are wanting to cut down the national tax from 7% to 5% over the next few years. The adline goes "Stand Up for Canada."

I got a call from the financial arm of the automotive company from whom we purchased our car a few years ago. The message left said "Mr. Boardman, please call us as soon as possible about an ... important financial matter." With much anxiety (and under the assumption that I somehow owed them thousands of dollars), I called the number left and the company representative told me they need my address to mail me a check for $29.37.

One of the cats has been throwing up. It appears to be happening every other day.

I've lost touch with a lot of friends and colleagues in New York.

Need a cookie.

Falling Governments

As you probably already saw, the Canadian government yesterday actually fell.

And I can't help but think that this seems to be such a useful tool that could be exported to America. If publicly elected officials doesn't have "confidence" in one's government officials, the superstructure is simply disbanded and the rest of the organizational institution continues to run smoothly - its social, security, defense, communication, leadership and cultural programs work fine without a Parliamentary structure in tact. In fact, there's something very self-sacrificing about the no-confidence vote held in Ottawa, Canada's capital; Ministers of Parliament not only actively disband the government's policy producing body but they also send themselves home to be re-elected by the populace.

Fascinating. In part, it's because of its apocalyptic nature to me. In the States, if the Government fell, funding would stop immediately, the overall leadership structure would collapse, state governments would have to take over and there would be lawlessness and localized military and militia control. (Elected officials in the U.S. are, by default and now more than ever, intimately entwined with everything the nation does or can do; the gap between elected officials and bureaucrats in the Government has been closing. We saw a glimpse of this back in the mid-1990s when budgets wouldn't get passed and the country was essentially held hostage by new Republican legislators. Gee, remember that?

As one friend noted, it's odd that the Parliamentary system appears so much more advanced than the American system. I remember learning over and over in Junior High and HIgh School that the federal system we had in the U.S. was an advancement over that of our British ancestors - that our system of checks and balances among the Executive, Judicial, and Legislataive branches would keep any one set of people from gaining too much power or privilege.

As anyone can tell from recent polls on the Presidency, a clear majority of Americans now think that the current Executive branch has too much concentrated power which has, in turn, lead to major mistakes, lies and criminal acts. The closest we got in recent memory to "felling" the U.S. Government was when Mr. Clinton was impeached. And I guess that this is the closest we'll ever get.

Rats.

I'm sitting here writing while watching the Wall Street Journal Editorial Report on Prairie Public Television. Paul Gigot and three similarly aged white men have now articulated, a few times, that it could have been a lot worse for the White House today because Mr. Rove was not indicated (though Mr. Libby was).

"On the other big story of the week, the news was not good, but not disastrous. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald decided not to seek an indictment of the President's top aide, Karl Rove, in connection with the leak of a CIA officer's identity. True, an indictment did come down against Vice-President Cheney's aide, Scooter Libby. But that was not the political blow an indictment of Rove would have been." "I'm guessing that Rove is in the clear." "It could have been a lot worse for President Bush." "This is not, what it comes down to it, an accusation of a major cover-up." "There are obvious weaknesses in the White House operation, and I think they need to be addressed."

These men, to a one, look like a league of rats on a ship that sprung a leak at sea that is without life buoys and without a connection to a media which smells blood and wants some meat.

Synagogue Sin

The occupation of Gaza (and the vast majority of the West Bank) was a torrid piece of Israeli and Jewish history. It was not helpful to anyone, least of all the Palestinians, and it placed tremendous strain on Israel and the United States to maintain some semblance of political optimism about the future of the Palestinian nation. It essentially helped to bankrupt those living in the Palestinian territories while providing unnecessary fuel for extremists (Muslim, Jewish, and Christian) to aid the murder of innocents. Superbly wealthy countries like Saudi Arabia (friends of Americans like Mr. Bush) used the poverty of the Palestinians as a whip against the West and will continue to do so. Meanwhile, Palestinians themselves remained uncritical of their own leaders and allowed their schools to become recruitment zones for killers and hate mongers.

I saw a fascinating BBC documentary the other day that showed how, previous to 1935 or so, Arabs in the region were very tolerant of Jewish settlers and Christian tourists. During the rise of the Nazis in Europe, very strong ties were developed among them and powerful Arabs in the region and the rise of tyrants throughout the area can be directly tied to European fascism, anti-semitism, and state control. These Arab countries used the Nazis and then the Soviets to maintain power over their subjects and ensure that oil was critical to the success of the West.

What is atrocious and generally unspoken is that the synagogues left in Gaza were burned down by the Palestianians for no reason other than spite. It's understandable that their hatred has become fierce. But in Israel and other Western nations, the burning of a place of a worship is crime of massive proportions. It's not acceptable to burn (even abondoned) sites of devotion. Israel protects all houses of worship.

When I visited Poland ten years ago, those synagogues that remained after World War II were rarely used by Jews there; they couldn't be because there are only a few thousands Jews in Poland out of a population of 40 million. (The Jewish population, pre-war, was about 25% of the total.) But the Poles (almost never) burned the buildings down and instead used them most recently as churches, libraries, gymnasiums or banks.

Old New Orleans

Here in the mittle of Canada, things look very odd way South. I've seen and read the news to the point of almost nausea about N.O. and it continues to be the saddest story of the year, in part because it could have been prevented, in part. But here are a few weird news-worthy tidbits I've seen and read, none of which are confirmable, and all of which add up to a stranger story. Radio silence from the official U.S. Government caters to these oddities:

• There are between 5,000 and 10,000 dead in N.O.
• Cuba is publicly offering 1,500 doctors to be immediately sent to the region
• Despite Bush's grin when he said "Send Cash" a few days ago, that's actually what non-profits and others need
• Texas has put a limit on either 250,000, or 350,000, or more, "refugees" from coming to Texas
• Residents now homeless are not only "refugees," but they are "victims," "civilians," and "Mississippians"
• Other states like Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Indiana and West Virginia are taking smaller numbers of residents into their statewide arms but the secret among U.S. state governors is essentially, "We don't want them."
• AIGA, an advocacy organization for designers, posted this on their site Hurricane Katrina has brought unexpected devastation to the design community in the Gulf Coast region. This is bizarre.
• Some say that the entire city will need to be leveled.

If it's true that the first casualty of war is truth, it's also true today that the first casualty of disaster is truth.

Londontown

I wish sincere condolensces and solidarity to everyone directly and indirectly affected by the blasts in London today. While it's easy to say that it was "inevitable" as so many bloggers are saying, it remains an outrage that cowards feel it's their duty to kill in the name of any higher cause. These were very cowardly acts and there's no real justice that can be had out of this.

Fortified Base

Let's face it: The new Freedom Tower, designed by a series of mishaps, committees, politicans, and egoist architects is a superbad idea. Today, The New York Times today shows some examples under the banner headline Redesign Puts Freedom Tower on a Fortified Base. The base itself looks shimmery and light but the reality of it is that it's made to withstand heavy duty terrorist activities.

It's not necessary to make the case this is a collosal waste of money. There are still no takers for office space in this tower and I can't think of one person who lives in New York who would eagerly go to work every day in this Freedom Tower. It's too big a target, too rarified a structure and too high in the sky for any sane person's self-interests.

The best critique I've read of the plans for the area is by Ron Rosenbaum in his piece called Ground Zero Hype: Is Giant Skyscraper A Freedom Folly? in the Observer.

I do understand the general desire of polticians and heros to "buck" the terrorists and stand up to their depravity by building something bigger and better than the Twin Towers. I also understand the interests of a few to make a clear pronunciation that the Freedom Tower is a sign of our willingness to transcend, to embrace "life," and to construct anew. But what better way of signalling this is there than to use the entire area as a public arena - a museum, a park, a memorial, a preserve, a place of rest and repose and a symbol of our belief in living?

Big Health Businesses

Totally could be wrong on this one, but I have a small prediction to make, partly in light of the last post on Deckchairs a few days ago:

"In the next year or three, big business will begin to petition the administration for long-range and transformative heathcare changes that will not be called National Health Care but will feel like it when they're provided to citizens."

Here's the logic: Companies can no longer afford to provide good health care for their employees. It will soon be nearly impossible for even companies like GM to continue lining the pockets of the insurance industry. They recognize that all other countries to the North and South and to the East and West provide healthcare and that they can no longer compete by providing what is essentially two salaries to every American employee. They will argue for a nationalized plan that will ration health care (and probably pretty poor care at that) to the working and middle class and will allow them to cut down dramatically on their insurance premiums.

I'm assuming that there will be an industrial consortium or PAC that will get this done and that the name of the plan will be something Orwellian like "Health for America" or "Heart America."

I'm also assuming that the average worker will be paying for part of the plan through increased taxes.

I'm also assuming that the new plan will offer less overall insurance to Americans but it will guarantee that employed (not self-employed, those on Medicare or Medicaid, illegals, or generally just plain poor) citizens will have a modicum of healthcare during their lifetimes. I also imagine that the plan would go along with a national ID system to make sure that citizens are in the "system" and are not abusing it; this national ID system (used in many other countries as well) with be a persuasive component of the new laws.

The funds will probably have to come out of additional tax revenue from businesses, but the lionshare of the burden will be on smaller companies because they will be perceived as getting the biggest "break."

All of the very smart, able, and excellent activist health and labor organizations like Working Today will need to quickly provide education to the media about these initiatives and weigh out the public versus private benefits. Big business, in hand with the Administration seeking to make a dent in its domestic policies before 2008, will be depicted as the saviors of the American economy and the American workingman.

The Bubble Bubble (or Double Bubble Trouble)

I'm not trying to be cute (well, that might be hard at this point) but the number of stories in The New York Times about housing, market, economic, and other types of bubbles is starting to reach grand or grandiose proportions. I've long thought that residential housing was a big ol' bubble just waiting to burst and still think it is in most of the metropolitan areas of the country but it does seem that the hype of bubble myth-making will have its own bubble.

Here are just a few pieces in The Times lately. Each on is more persuasive than the other. Our new deficits, now owned and managed by the Chinese, coupled with massively over-financed housing, tied with over-leveraged families with credit debt and no savings, wrapped around an economy based on a war-time footing rather than an investment-side caravan, strapped together with shaky free-trade markets and a speculative oil and gas system does indeed seem like disaster waiting to happen. The house of cards has to fall at some point.

But I also wonder out loud whether the bubbles that all these journalists are prognosticating are actually missing a larger piece of the puzzle that we're not thinking about. I don't know what that puzzle piece is - perhaps it's AIDS or avian flu or terror or just some new technology - but my guess is that something else will make the cards fall and not the house itself. In other words, it will take some outside force to push the the thing over; cards themselves have no desire to change their position in the fine hierarchy of various advantageous positions.

The bubble stories are coming fast and furious but they, too, probably represent a bubble that can't see the next prick on the horizon.

The Power of Nightmares

My friend V.S. sent to me a few months ago the bone-chilling BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares. This link will take you to a small version and a BitTorrent file of the documentary, which is in three parts.

I've only seen two so far, but the documentary brilliantly makes the case that the neo-cons and the sleazy men of Al Qaeda formed out of the political liberation and economic reconditioning of the 1950s in the U.S. Two male intellectuals, Sayyed Qutb and Leo Strauss, end up changing the face of the planet because of their overwhelming desire to form minds out of ideas and provide fantastic logic to their populations.

See it. While it's conspiratorial edge is sharp, it will help explain the illegitimacy of Clinton's supposed downfall, the rise of anti-Soviet policy which was based on America's own propaganda, the political use of terrorism to control minds and hearts, and the odd juxtaposition of Jewish intellectuals sucked into the desires of evangelical Christians.

Big BTW: What ever happened to the terrorism alerts that Homeland Security used to issue regularly in 2004, before the election? Did we all forget? Did the media forget to remind us that there have been (I believe) no new alerts since November 2?

West Winging

Last night I tuned into The West Wing, a fictional tele-communication that, for the past few (Republican) years, shows what it might be like if a smart, hard-nosed Democrat ran the Oval Office and the Oval Nation. It's a pretty enjoyable show and it has its flaws but overall, it's a wonderful fantasy.

Others have written about The West Wing, but I keep thinking that the Hollywood television industry has been out to lunch since 2000. In the show last night, which was the season finale, it depicted the inimitable Jimmy Smits (as Matthew Santos) announcing his candidacy and winning the Democratic nomination. I was excited to watch him pronounce, at the convention, his allegiance to democracy with a small "d," to Democrats with a large "D," and to veracity, leadership, and popular honor. It was a slightly impressive little speech he gave, better than any Kerry had given in retrospect, perhaps, and it made me want to vote.

The U.S. one day will look to a candidate like Santos, but it's a long ways away right now. Santos is too good-hearted, too clean, too minority, too composed, too smart, too strong, and too good-looking for 2005 or 2006. He is the other-Bush, the one who probably should be in office and who would be in office of Hollywood writers had their say.

For me, the questions mount: Is this just wishful thinking on the part of Hollywood? Is this entertainment a fantasy based on our collective real desires? Is The West Wing literally out on a wing or does it reflect a secondary reality that liberals inhabit on their better days? Will there one day be a minority candidate? Most importantly, when does the new season begin?

The Individual

For the life of me, I can't figure out why our great and powerful Government has lately turned to the insane, inane and profane for its legislative activities. Today, a Sunday, the Senate passed legislation that will keep a poor, completely damaged woman on life support. This is what Republicans mean by pro-life? A few days earlier, our vaunted Government found it very important to bring some of baseball's most celebrated athletes to a select House committee to learn about steroid use among this self-selected group of wealthy individuals. And a few days before that the President decided to slap a bunch of multi-lateralists in the face with his selection of Paul Wolfowitz for leader of the World Bank and John Bolton to "help" the United Nations.

It's as if our Government has decided to redefine the words "millions" and "billions" as being applicable to money and not to populations.

Owner Ship

I was listening to the radio today and there was a news segment on a Michigan insurance company that is testing workers for smoking. If they are found to be positive as smokers, they would be asked to leave the company. Four employees left, all presumably committed smokers.

On the segment, a question arose about the First Amendment. Granted speech and smoking are not the same; however, the assumption is that legal behaviors are legal in the workplace. We're taught in school and on television and in the movies that you have a right to say and do whatever you want so long as it doesn't harm others in the process. Of course, there are many shades of gray around the First Amendment and these shades of gray dutifully employ many lawyers and nonprofits. One shade of gray, of course, is whether overweight people, those who skydive, and motorcylists should also be held up to rigorous employment standards.

But what isn't so gray is that employers don't have to give a damn about your freedoms. One of the commentators on the radio show said explicitly, and I quote, "You have no right to freedom of speech where your employer is concerned. The First Amendment only concerns your rights that apply to the Government." I did not know this. The commentator mentioned that last year, a woman in Alabama was fired for driving to work with a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker.

I feel dumb, confused and bamboozled by my own ignorance. I'm less "mad" at the Government than at the educational system that tells us our freedoms are sacrosanct. Where did the educational system go wrong in telling us that we had the freedom to speak our minds? How did employers become immune to First Amendment law? Where does the "ownership society" take us if it is our employers that own us?

Public Notices

Here are a few random things I've noticed while riding the subway almost all morning, going to and fro from client to client and back again:

• There seems to be an increase in the number of designers relying upon outlined fonts to make their words display better. Perhaps the most seen and diagnosed version is used in the new and now old The Life Aquatic.
• I don't remember a State of the Union address that has received as much attention as the one tonight to be given by our President George W. Bush. This must due, in part, to the immense following Mr. Bush has from both the right and the left. It goes unreported but there will be probably just as many red state beer-drinkers tonight watching Mr. Bush as there will be wine-swilling blue staters. I hand it to the President for giving the people what they want -- even the 49% percent who didn't want him.
• For a number of reasons, I've had to deal with some state and city government bureaucracies lately and to a tee, all of the people I've been in touch with (either on the phone or in person) have been pretty nice, straightforward and easy to deal with. As much as we all bash our government custodians of civil society, I've been impressed with the efficiency and carefulness of their work.
• There was a small news item in today's newspaper about the largest Canadian t-shirt maker, Gildan Activewear, Inc. shutting down their plants in Canada and will move some of its operations to the United States. This may be one of the first examples of offshoring Canadian work to lower paid Americans.

PBS Buster

Interesting. Two days ago I posted a comment noting that I was surprised that the U.S. Government has not been policing the Public Broadcasting Service and Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I knew it was only a matter of time.

Today, the Education Secretary has criticized a kids show for depicting lesbians. The show, which I've seen many times, is called "Postcards from Buster" and it features the wiley Arthur character Buster filming people, including religious Jews and country farmers, and their lifestyles, habits, and families. Apparently, PBS has already pulled the plug on the show's episode but a station in Boston will air it. Pathetic.

Europhilia

I'm here listening to the United States Senate lob nice, gentle questions to Condeleeza Rice, the person who could not anticipate any terrorist acts against the country despite her access to every bit of intelligence the country held. It's amazing to me that Rice is treated so kindly and thoughtfully and that the Democratic Senators perceive themselves as having so little "political capital."

What's the point? The point is that today, while these hearings are going on, Airbus has released the massive and immensely fascinating Airbus A380 family of planes. A collaboration among almost every major European country, the new airplane is supremely fuel efficient, can carry 555 passengers, and will be available for service in 2006. The airplane has two decks and (in typical European fashion) three classes. The development and production of this airplane is an indication of Europe's new economic, technological, and monetary strength and stands in sharp contrast to the more-of-the-same coming out of our Washington, D.C.

Interestingly, one of the U.S. Senators today mentioned a new book by a journalist named T. R. Reid called The United States Of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy. I finished this book yesterday and it's an absolutey must read for anyone concerned about the future of these United States.

Reid, a Washington Post writer, has written a book that demonstrates how Europe has quietly constructed a powerful new United States that is quickly becoming more economically instrumental in the world while maintaining its high quality of living and social security. The twenty-five nations that banded together to form the European Union have spent their entire "political capital" to ensure that their collective nationality can not only become an effective economic force but maintain its high standards for health, human rights, and transportation. Reid is careful to point out that the extraordinary amount of money used to support the European welfare state comes in part from the subsidies of the U.S. over the past 50 years in the form of military and other assistance. But Reid's overall point is that the new U.S.E. has created a political, cultural, and social powerhouse despite its darkly divided historical record -- and it's done so with very little recognition on the part of most Americans of prominence.

The Other Tsunami

The past few weeks have demonstrated an incredible outpouring of support to those victims of the Tsunami disaster. The results are impressive:

• 3 of 10 Americans have dug into their pockets to help.
• Blogs are everywhere on the subject, most of them focused on relief and personal experiences and all of them asking for money.
• Corporate behemoths donated $125 million in cash and in-kind help.
• The U.S. government itself has pledged $350 million to help.
• The U.N. has stated that over $2 billion in country aid has been promised.

Now is not the time to stop giving where it's needed. But I believe it's also the time to ask the hard questions as to why this disaster has trumped all disasters. In particular, it's distressing that an entire continent far closer to Europe and the U.S. and wealthy Arab countries is being decimated by AIDS and virtually nothing is being done nor said. Here's a list of stats about AIDS in Africa, lifted off of CNN.com:

• 5.4 million new AIDS infections in 1999, 4 million of them in Africa.
• 2.8 million dead of AIDS in 1999, 85 percent of them in Africa.
• 13.2 million children orphaned by AIDS, 12.1 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Reduced life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa from 59 years to 45 between 2005 and 2010, and in Zimbabwe from 61 to 33.
• More than 500,000 babies infected in 1999 by their mothers -- most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
• The U.S. Census Bureau projects that AIDS deaths and the loss of future population from the deaths of women of child-bearing age means that by 2010, sub-Saharan Africa will have 71 million fewer people than it would otherwise.

According to the BBC, AIDS kills 6,000 people each day in Africa. The sheer racism of this cash infusion to Asia is grotesque and needs to be called for what it is. This is not in any way to denigrate the true suffering of those families massacred by the hands of the tsunami. Nor is it in any way to knock the massive donations pushed from West to East. But it seems to me that it's time that international organizations begin using their newfound spotlight to show donors -- individual, corporate, and national -- the more massive, more ongoing, and more outrageous disaster occurring on the African continent.

Son of the Year

Somehow or another, the grade-C student, war dodger, and all-around good-ol-boy became TIME Person of the Year 2004.

It's not astonishing. What is fascinating is that Time, in its infinite (pun not intended) wisdom, decided that George W. Bush was a historical marker of some sort -- that he represents an American achievement on some order and therefore even greater recognition. Mr. Bush won a narrow majority, has "the lowest December [approval] rating for a re-elected President in Gallup's history," and has already gone back on his recent acceptance pledge to be a re-uniter.

The real question is who should have been picked. According to the posts on Metafilter, every U.S. President in office (except or Mr. Ford) has been covered since 1932. If not the President, who? Certainly, the Democrats fell flat on a race that was theirs to lose, religious figures are divisive, the array of media anchors are publicly seen as failures, business leaders have not led, the military is failing to win publicly accepted wars, and local governments receive no national attention. Internationally, the Europeans and the U.N. have not stood up to genocide while the Russians have failed themselves. In Asia, China has grown but the cost is unknown.

Who?

The Shock and Awe of It All

This will be the last political post for perhaps some time as I seek to re-transition myself and the blog to other, more pressing matters like design, the use of the color brown, the latest Palm handheld, and the dearth of good museums today.

Actually, I don't mean to jest. Politics, for almost everyone I know, has taken center stage in their lives and the way they live, act, work, eat, and, probably, sleep. Some state it outright while others suffer quietly and with the conviction that others are enduring similar angst and dolor.

I think what I find most disquieting (pun intended) right now is the presence of tremendous -- but unexpected -- sadness among many I know and others I don't. It's as if no one expected Mr. Bush to win the election -- or if he did, that his winning would be less triumphant somehow. This inexplicable (to me) feeling of collective sorrow is not like anything else I can remember during my lifetime.

I certainly don't mean to act like some sensor of the