The Senate is teeming with courageous souls these days, most of them Republicans who have taken that brave step of following the opinion polls and abandoning their president in a time of war. Meanwhile, one of the few senators showing some backbone in the Iraq debate is being shunned as the skunk at the war critics’ party.
Sen. Russ Feingold held a hearing this week on Congress’s constitutional power to shut off funds for the Iraq war, and followed it up a day later with legislation that would do just that. The Wisconsin pacifist might not understand the importance of winning in Iraq–or the cost of losing–but at least there’s an element of principle to his actions. He’s opposed the war from the start and his proposal to cut off money after six months would certainly end it. It also happens to be Congress’s one legitimate means of stopping a war.
Mr. Feingold’s reward for honesty was to preside over what might have been the least-attended hearing so far in the Iraq debate. And those of his Senate colleagues who did bother to show up looked like they couldn’t wait to hit an exit door. “If Congress doesn’t stop this war, it’s not because it doesn’t have the power. It’s because it doesn’t have the will,” declared Mr. Feingold. Ted Kennedy–one of two Democrats who put in an appearance–could be seen shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
That’s because Sen. Feingold is coming uncomfortably close to unmasking the political charade playing on the Senate stage. Critics of President Bush want an unhappy public to see them taking action on the war.
Category: History
The Sarajevo Moment
A PROPOS the Sarajevo moment, which might bring to an end this latest of age of globalisation.
It wouldn’t be a political killing, I imagine, since there is no one figure whose death at the hands of a deranged assassin would turn the great powers against one another. But a terrorist strike against a cluster of essential Saudi oil installations might have the necessary economic and geopolitical repercussions.
Whatever the Sarajevo moment might be, everyone seems to be talking about it. As if we know in our hearts that these asset prices are too good.
A Traveler’s Look at Russia, Via its Airports
WORKING as a journalist in Russia, with its eleven time zones, its endless steppe and perpetual taiga, means spending a lot of time in the air. It involves flying in planes so creaky that landing in one piece is a pleasant surprise —then disembarking in airports so inhospitable that some visitors may want to take off again immediately.
But, if he has the strength, beyond the whine of the Tupolev engines and the cracked runways, a frequent flyer can find in Russia’s airports a useful encapsulation of the country’s problems and oddities. In their family resemblances, Russia’s airports show how far the Soviet system squeezed the variety from the vast Russian continent; in their idiosyncrasies, they suggest how far it failed to. They illustrate how much of that system, and the mindset it created, live on, 15 years after the old empire nominally collapsed. Russia’s awful, grimy, gaudy airports reveal how much hasn’t changed in the world’s biggest country—but also, on closer inspection, how much is beginning to.
Traveling in Mexico many years ago, I remember purchasing a ticket at an airport for an AeroMexico flight to the Pacific Coast city of Mazatlan. Walking away from the counter, I glanced at my paper ticket and noticed that there was no seat assignment. I quickly turned around and inquired as to where I might be sitting. The flight (horribly delayed) was sold out. I asked why he sold me a ticket? “There might be another flight…”. And, there was, 10 hours later.
The Art of Conversation
An excellent article from the Economist:
The Brown and Levinson model says, roughly speaking, that Person A probably does not want to be rude to Person B, but in the way of things, life may sometimes require Person A to contradict or intrude on Person B, and when that happens, Person A has a range of “politeness strategies” to draw on. There are four main possibilities, given in ascending order of politeness. The first is a “bald, on-record” approach: “I’m going to shut the window.” The second is positive politeness, or a show of respect: “I’m going to shut the window, is that OK?” The third is negative politeness, which presumes that the request will be an intrusion or an inconvenience: “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I want to shut the window.” The fourth is an indirect strategy which does not insist on a course of action at all: “Gosh, it’s cold in here.”
Guns to Caviar Index
Reading the news, it’s easy to get the sense that the world is at war: strife in Afghanistan, chaos in Iraq, genocide in Darfur, upheaval in Lebanon, and a variety of insurgencies and border squabbles around the globe. Reading the news, it’s also easy to get the sense that the world is in the midst of a golden age of peaceful prosperity. Each year, tens of millions of Indians and Chinese join the middle class. Latin America and South America, previously dominated by authoritarian regimes and civil wars, are now generally democratic and enjoying steady growth.
So, which is it? Is the world more peaceful or more warlike? Since Americans are doing the lion’s share of the fighting and military policing, it’s difficult for us to answer the question objectively. Fortunately, there is an unbiased global economic indicator that sheds some light on the question: the Guns-to-Caviar Index.
A History of Information Processing
TO FIND A SITUATION COMPARABLE TO THE PRESENT WE NEED TO REVISIT THE LAST GREAT INFORMATION REVOLUTION WHICH TOOK PLACE MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
This timeline is revised and expanded from the timeline available in the printed edition of From Gutenberg to the Internet, and widened greatly in scope. It is a work in progress, continuing the research which I began in the printed book. This is one of an untold number of timelines on the web. Even so, the approach that I am taking in building this growing timeline is, as far as I know, unique, at least for now. Thus some explanation may be in order. These introductory remarks, which I began writing in December 2005, first concern From Gutenberg to the Internet and then address issues involved with studying the history of information recorded in physical form in relationship to the history of information in digital form. They are a result of my continuing studies since the book was published, and they are evolving into another book. Your comments would be appreciated.
Iraq Update
To some, defeat implies a victor. North Vietnam and its allies in the South defeated us thirty years ago. Nothing like that has occurred in Iraq. The collapse of Iraq has no obvious victors. Even Iran might suffer if the instability spreads across the Middle East’s porous borders.
But there are other ways to lose. We’ve found one.
Pearl Harbor Revisited
Here, 64 years late, is the full text of Robert Trumbull’s 15,000-word, six-part series on the salvage effort at Pearl Harbor.
Revive Care Packages?
I may spend too much time thinking about this, but how is it one reverses the hatred of a people after war? WWII was no doubt very different. But interestingly, Germans talk about this a lot — about the brilliance in the American strategy after the war to rebuild (what we weirdly call) “friendship” between the German and American people.
That strategy had a government component (2% of the GDP spent on the Marshall Plan) and a private component. The private component came largely through the delivery of “CARE Packages.” As described on CARE’s website, these packages were originally surplus food packs initially prepared to support a US invasion of Japan. Americans were invited to send these packages to victims of the War. Eventually, over 100,000,000 packages were sent by Americans over the next two decades, first in Europe, then throughout the world.
A German friend this afternoon was recounting this story to me — he too is obsessed with how to reduce Iraqi anger. But the part he emphasized that I had missed originally was how significant it was to Germans to know that these packages were sent by ordinary Americans. It wasn’t the government sending government aid; it was American volunteers taking time to personalize an act of giving.
A good idea.
A Few Words With Jerry Brown
Then how would you describe yourself politically?
I’m very independent. There’s a great line from Friedrich Nietzsche: A thinking man can never be a party man.