David Horowitz is a silly and dangerous man. He has an agenda and he will go to any length to promote it even if it means resorting to extreme incivility and the occasional lie. I first came across his latest plan of spreading hatred on US campuses a week or so ago. I had little substantive to offer as commentary except contempt. There was nothing in it that was out of character with what Horowitz has not done before on campuses or said on his execrable publication, Frontline. The story caught my attention mainly because of an item illustrating that even a well oiled hate machine can sometimes get sloppy in its eagerness. (Horowitz has since removed the spurious photo and replaced it with a real one.) I decided to post the story here after all when I read Brian Leiter’s appropriate response to Horowitz’s hate mongering.
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A recent article in the New York Times evoked a warm feeling of childhood nostalgia for me with an unlikely actor’s name: Boris Karloff. For most people, Karloff is the dangerous yet vulnerable monster of the classic horror film, Frankenstein (1931), which celebrates its seventy fifth birthday this year. His strongest association for me, however, is as the narrator in a recording of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf that I often listened to as a child. The friendly ghoulishness of Karloff’s voice, with its animation (his imitation of the dialogue between bird and duck is particularly entertaining) tempered by gentle, English inflections, and morbid undercurrents, brings an added layer of menace, excitement and camaraderie to Prokofiev’s didactic variation (written to introduce children to the orchestra) on an old Russian story of a disobedient boy’s encounter with a wolf in the big, green meadow.
The NYT story inspired me to do some internet surfing for information about Karloff, which turned up an unexpected and fascinating, as well as sometimes inconsistent, biographical portrait. All biographies agree that Karloff was born as William Henry Pratt in England in 1887. He emigrated to Canada in 1909, and adopted Boris Karloff as a stage name. After spending a period of time in low-paid theatrical touring, Karloff managed to make his way to Hollywood and silent film work, which was followed by a long career in talkies playing monsters, villains, mad scientists, executioners, etc. His IMDB Biography includes a number of interesting bits of trivia. Two items, in particular, caught my eye: that his great-aunt was Anna Leonowens, the nineteenth-century Englishwoman whose sensational memoir of her time in what is now Thailand, "Anna and the King," became the basis for the musical "The King and I"; also, the assertion that he had East Indian heritage through his mother’s side of the family.
The excellent Wikipedia entry for Karloff, among other sites, adds the information that his father, Edward John Pratt Jr, was the Deputy Commissioner of Customs, Salt and Opium, Northern Division Indian Salt Revenue Service– a title that seems to me to capture much about the British Empire. The Wikipedia entry repeats the information that his "dark looks" came from "East Indian" heritage on his mother’s side, adding that he often claimed Russian ancestry to explain his exotic looks, which may help explain why some sites insist Karloff was a family name. His official website, maintained by his daughter, Sarah, provides a family tree, which shows that Karloff’s heritage was Indian, not East Indian, and through his father, or perhaps both sides of the family. The Salt and Opium commissioner was the child of Edward Pratt, Sr. and an "Unidentified Indian Woman." A well-researched item about Anna Leonowens (another interesting, as well as rather shifty, figure) and her book by some angry Thai students helps resolve the discrepancy, by pointing out that Anna and her sister Eliza, Karloff’s grandmother, were also Eurasian, though Leonowens scrupulously worked to hide her Indian ancestry, to better establish her credentials as a civilized, English observer of "barbarous" subjects.
None of the accounts of Karloff that appear in conjunction with the current retrospectives mention his mixed heritage. Instead, they generally cast Karloff as a misplaced English gentleman (which, it would seem, is how he wished to be seen, and may have seen himself), the child of civil servants who could never reconcile themselves to his acting career (almost certainly false, since it appears from his family tree that several other family members were involved in the theater). Beyond the fascination of the way in which one man’s story can capture such a broad sweep of historic phenomena, there are a number of interesting analytic points to be drawn from all this: the symbiotic role of Hollywood and popular culture in casting dark features as both exotic and "monstrous," the peculiar way in which Americans indiscriminately perceive any English accent as both genteel (thank God we haven’t adopted the class-discriminating accent palate of the English!) and sinister, the boundary territories of class and race, and classism and racism, created by European imperial history; and the odd place of Eastern Europeans and Central Asians in this schema, which caused Karloff to aim to "partially pass" as a Slav. Unfortunately, I’m too sleepy to tease these out right now. I invite others to do so, though. In the meantime, I highly recommend Karloff’s version of Peter and the Wolf. It’s good stuff.
Note from Ruchira: The very interesting post above was written by Anna Levine in February 2006. A couple of the links may have become inactive. But Anna’s post is self explanatory – her investigation into Karloff’s background reveals among other things that Frankenstein of the silver screen may have had Indian heritage. Not the kind that Karloff himself claimed but of the Desi (south Asian) variety.
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Inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent have traveled the world far and wide for centuries. Before colonial times the travel was mostly voluntary. Indian influence in the far and middle east spread mainly through trade and religion. Later during the British rule when Britain got busy expanding its colonial reach on several continents, Indian indentured labor was utilized in sugarcane and rubber plantations and for building the infrastructure of the new colonies. Small and large contingents of men of different religious and linguistic backgrounds, from several parts of the subcontinent were transported to different places – some closer to home in Burma and Malaya and others as far away as Africa, the Caribbeans and Fiji. Although the indentured servitude was originally planned as a temporary affair, many among the dislocated groups chose to stay on in the new countries. The laborers, living lives of privation and subjected to systematic exploitation were permitted to bring over brides and other family members from the home country. Sizable Indian communities thus grew around the labor colonies over time. Languages, religious practices and other customs were perpetuated down the generations (incorporating the inevitable organic and eccentric variations as is common to all uprooted populations), thus preserving an Indian identity which was not forgotten even as the scattered and sometimes insular communities learnt to adapt to foreign surroundings. Those early emigres from India and their descendants formed the bulk of the first significant Indian diaspora of the modern era. [See the history of some older Indian diasporic groups here, here and here]
The history of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent in North America on the other hand, is widely believed to be of relatively recent vintage. Until now I was under the impression that the earliest group of small but ethnically significant number of Indians to settle in the US were the Sikh farmers of Yuba valley in central California in the early part of the twentieth century. The next wave of Indians (and Pakistanis) to arrive were mostly doctors, scientists and other professionals in the 1960s when immigration laws were loosened to admit more non-Europeans into the US. Since then Indians have emigrated to the US in steady numbers, their demographics changing gradually to include small businessmen, financiers, bankers and IT personnel. Unlike some other groups of immigrants who have fled their countries due to dangerous political / ethnic /religious strifes, Indian immigration to the US has been and continues to be voluntary – largely undertaken for economic reasons. Until now I was not aware of "involuntary" transportation of south Asians to America. It was therefore extremely surprising to discover that Asian Indians were present in American colonies as early as the beginning of the 17th century, brought here by British colonists as their indentured servants or personal slaves.
Indian Slaves in Colonial America
Evidence of “East Indians” in 17th-18th century Virginia
The seeds of what was to become modern America were planted on May 13, 1607, when British colonists arrived at an island that they would come to call Jamestown in what is now Virginia.This first permanent English settlement in the New World would eventually become "the rightful birthing ground of America"; its soil sprinkled with the blood of Native Americans, European settlers, and their African slaves.
To this racial mix we must now include people from the Indian subcontinent.
That’s because, while preparations are underway for a grand commemoration of Jamestown’s 400th anniversary in May-June 2007, we have uncovered compelling evidence of the presence of people from the Indian subcontinent going as far back as 375 years in Virginia: people identified in American court documents of the time as "East Indians," "East India Indians," or "Asiatic Indians."
But unlike the indentured labor populations of Africa, the Caribbeans and Fiji, the newcomers to America were young, single men who either followed their English masters as servants or were poor ship hands shanghaied to the New World by mercenaries. The men had neither the opportunity to marry Indian women in America nor the wherewithal to travel back to India to bring over relatives. They thus lacked the critical mass of compatriots needed to form a community reflecting their cultural roots. Grouped together with other slaves, mostly from Africa, unable to keep alive an Indian identity, the Indian servants gradually "disappeared" into the African slave population.
As these South Asians melded into the population, they would be identified variously as "Mullato," "Negro," and "colored" in the ethnic cauldron that was evolving in America, thus losing much of their racial distinctiveness with each passing generation, merging into the African-American community, largely unaware of their Indian roots.
research into this early American history suggests that people from South Asia were transported as indentured servants or slaves— first by trading vessels belonging to the Dutch, French, and English; later, by captains of American vessels.
There is considerable evidence to suggest that "lascars" or seamen were recruited from Indian ports by European trading ships, and, on reaching Europe, succumbed to the promises of agents who enlisted indentured workers for the New World. Or else they were taken as servants by East India Company officials who amassed their fortunes in India, and subsequently returned home to England and thence to their newly established colony in America, where they took their servants with them as a sign of their wealth and status as "nabobs."
Documents recently unearthed by researchers looking into the history of Jamestown and Williamsburg in Virginia point to the presence of Indian indentured servants or slaves in the 17th and 18th centuries. Postings such as this [click on the picture on the left; note the reference to the teeth] in the Virginia Gazette, reporting the escape of one such Indian man, is similar to newspaper items relating to slaves in the American South. Another ad in the same paper placed by a man named William Brown on July 13, 1776, who reported the escape of a servant/ slave reads:"Servant Man named John Newton, about 20 Years of Age, 5 feet 5 or 6 Inches high, slender made, is an Asiatic Indian by Birth, has been about twelve Months in Virginia, but lived ten Years (as he says) in England, in the Service of Sir Charles Whitworth. He wears long black Hair, which inclines to curl, tied behind, and pinned up at the Sides; has a very sour Look, and his Lips project remarkably forward. He left his Master on the Road from Williamsburg, between King William Courthouse and Todd’s Bridge, where he was left behind to come on slowly with a tired Horse — "… he is a good Barber and Hair-Dresser, it is probable he may endeavour to follow those Occupations as a free Man. Whoever takes up the said Servant, and secures him in Gaol, giving me information thereof, so that I may get him again, shall have eight dollars Reward; and if delivered to me at Westwood, in Prince William, further reasonable Charges, paid by William Brown."
With these findings documented in 18th-century American newspapers, Indian Americans, or South Asian Americans, or Desis, as many of them like to call themselves, stand on the cusp of rewriting their history by acknowledging the full complement of their heritage—
Amazing findings – I had no idea! The full article here. [Cross posted at Shunya’s Notes. Thanks to Namit Arora for the link]
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Not another day goes by, but a new recall is announced for yet another toy manufactured in China, on the grounds of excess lead content in the paint. The media floodgates started with this Aug 2 release with toy giant Mattel recalling its Sesame Street and Dora dolls. The list (and media reports covering these) has been growing longer and longer, since then. Even fledgling senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio got in the act and called for investigation into lead levels of common toys in this Halloween season, with an investigation uncovering, you guessed it, more lead in more toys.
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Eugene Volokh notes that Barack Obama used to wear an American flag lapel pin, but no longer does (h/t Eric Muller). Obama’s explanation: "Shortly after 9-11, particularly because as we’re talking about the
Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which
is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national
security." Apparently, Volokh doesn’t buy into Obama’s argument:Wearing a flag pin is not supposed to be an explanation or an
argument, just as "I love you" is not supposed to be an explanation or
an argument. It’s supposed to be a traditional statement of affection,
powerful because it’s cliché.If you’re in the sort of relationship in which you’ve never made
such a statement — and here flag pin wearing is a little different than "I love you," since most citizens who love their country don’t
routinely say it — then you can indeed show your love in other ways.
Returning to the analogy, you hear occasionally of old-fashioned
couples who’ve never fallen into the "I love you" habit, but who love
each other nonetheless.Yet if you used to say this and then you stopped, the symbolic
message is pretty powerful. And that’s true even though many people say ‘I love you’ without meaning it (just as there are some who wear the
flag pin but are just opportunists, not patriots). Even if this abuse
of the phrase weakens its symbolism, an outright renunciation of the
phrase retains its symbolism just fine.The American people want a President who loves their country and who
expresses that love, at an emotional as well as an intellectual level.
For better or worse, a President Spock won’t get elected. Candidate
Obama should know that.What a bizarre response.
First, Orin Kerr posts a follow-up post in which he suggests that Volokh is simply saying it’s a bad political move by Obama, then disagreeing, because Obama’s trying to get the Democratic nomination, not the Republican one. If that really is all that Professor Volokh is saying — that Obama’s decision will cost him political points among gun-toting idiots who still believe Saddam Hussein masterminded 9/11 — then yeah, he’s right, but he also forgot to tell us that apple pie is delicious, television character Greg House likes Vicodin, and snow is cold and sometimes also slippery.
But the thing is, I don’t think that’s what Volokh is saying. First, he wrongly assumes that it’s possible and not merely an absurd delusion to love one’s country. But now isn’t the time for a "patriotism is bad and also stupid" rant. Volokh only hears occasionally of old-fashioned couples who aren’t in the habit of repeatedly saying to each other "I love you," and only they can indeed show their love for each other to each other in other ways. In what universe is that "old-fashioned"? And more to the point, why can’t other people show their love in other ways besides emptily proclaiming it?
And then, well, I must have missed the class in school where we learned that cessation of repetitive saying qualifies as a symbol. Perhaps he means to say that it’s a "pretty powerful" message by negative implication. But okay, the flag as a signifier signifying something approximating "I <3 USA" is no longer worn — that’s a far cry from the signification of the hearting of the USA being "outright [renounced]." Especially since Obama, you know, expressly stated that he does heart America (and explained that he doesn’t want to cheapen his true love by using the empty or corrupt signifier which false patriots have made their own). That is, (if one wanted to get cute with words, one might say that) Obama outright renounced Volokh’s imagined outright renunciation.
Also: isn’t the common understanding that clichés are not powerful? That they’re empty and meaningless? "He gave 110% out there today" is a common sports cliché. "Laughter is the best medicine" is a common well-being cliché. Drugs are better medicine than laughter, which is not in fact medicine at all, and 110% effort out of a possible 100% is an athletic impossibility (unless we add points for steroid use for people like Barry Bonds?) — boy. yeah. powerful.
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I have made it abundantly clear in several posts and comments that I am restless and dissatisfied with the Democratic presidential slate for 2008. Unfortunately it appears that it will come down to the unpalatable choice of "the lesser of the two undesirbles" for me – never a good feeling. But there is not much I can do.
I am increasingly fascinated by one Democratic politician whose Democratic credentials are of recent vintage and given his background and bio, I would have never figured on him capturing my attention, much less my admiration. Jim Webb, macho military vet, Reagan Republican and a man of mercurial temper ran on the Democratic ticket from Virginia on an anti-Iraq war platform and was swept into the US senate in 2006 largely riding the wave of anti-Macaca sentiment generated by his experienced sure shot opponent, Senator George Allen. Right at the beginning of his tenure, Webb delighted me with a populist editorial in the Wall Street Journal and a few months later, by offering to slug George W. Bush. In the editorial he said, among other things: (See more here)
The most important–and unfortunately the least debated–issue in politics today is our society’s steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America’s top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.
A relentless critic of the Iraq war and determined to prevent further reckless misadventures by Bush-Cheney, Webb is ever vigilant. Worried that Bush might try and extrapolate the 2002 congressional resolution authorizing force in Iraq to justify invading Iran, Webb has introduced a bill to cut off funding for military action against Iran except under a very narrow set of circumstances. Webb has argued: [link]
"This presidency has shot from the hip too many times for us to be able to trust it to act on its own," Webb told reporters Monday. "It’s not the way the Constitution was designed. We need Congress to be involved in any decision to commence military activities absent an attack from the other side or a direct threat."
"What I’m saying today is, clearly, that we should not give up any of our positions diplomatically, with respect to Iran, but I believe it is not in the power of the president himself to decide to take unilateral military action there," he added.
He is also extremely worried that given half a chance, Bush-Cheney might decide to begin in Iran what they couldn’t finish in Iraq. On the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, a neo-con sleight of hand to facilitate the invasion of Iran, which passed the senate with overwhelming majority (Hillary Clinton’s yes vote among them), Webb had this to say and he is right on the money: [link]
We are about to vote on something that may fundamentally change the way that the United States views the Iranian military, and we haven’t had one hearing. This is not the way to make foreign policy. It’s not the way to declare war, although this cleverly worded sense of the Congress could be interpreted that way.
Those who regret their vote five years ago to authorize military action in Iraq should think hard before supporting this approach, because in my view, it has the same potential to do harm where many are seeking to do good. The constant turmoil that these sorts of proposals and actions are bringing to the region is counterproductive. They are regrettable substitute for a failure of diplomacy by this Administration.
I do not believe that any serious student of foreign policy could support this amendment as it now exists.
This proposal is Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream. It’s not a prescription for success. At best, it’s a deliberate attempt to divert attention from a failed diplomatic policy. At worst, it could be read as a back door method of gaining congressional validation for action with one hearing or without serious debate.
And here is Webb during an exchange on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews about Blackwater, Bush-Cheney’s thuggish mercenary outfit in Iraq: [link]
MATTHEWS: What do you make of this Blackwater situation? You‘ve been in combat. What does it make sense to have these thousands of men over there, and women, I guess, fighting out of uniform on our side? What do you make of that policy?
WEBB: It is a very, very dangerous precedent for our country, and it‘s one that we have never been in before, this particular engagement. The numbers that I‘ve seen were back even just in Gulf war 1, I think the ratio between the troops and the contractors was 50 to 1. Now we have 180,000 contractors in Iraq against 161,000 actual troops.
They make a lot more money. They have a different legal structure on them. People are getting rich over this, the people who are running these companies. And most importantly, we‘ve got a quasi-military. Our country was founded on citizen soldier concept and on people stepping forward to serve, if there was an urgency. It‘s a very dangerous thing.
Webb is not only concerned with foreign wars. He is worried also about wars at home caused by poverty, lack of education and a troubled society. He is set to conduct a hearing that will examine the incarceration rates in the U.S. criminal justice system: "Mass Incarceration in the United States: At What Cost?"
Wow! A breath of fresh air in the musty halls of the US senate and the back rooms of cowardly Democratic politics. No wonder the establishment Dems and the DLC don’t like him. In 2004 and 2006 I made monetary contributions to several Democratic candidates in local and national races. I wrote a check to Jim Webb also. I didn’t know much about him and the little that I did learn, didn’t sit too well with me at the time. My contribution to his campaign was purely a token of protest against George Allen’s cocky frat boy mouth. My feelings for the candidates I supported have been mixed in the aftermath of both those elections. Senator Webb has surprised me – he has turned out to be the best return for my money by far.
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From the Boston Herald:
IN THE PAST few weeks, the secretive nation of Burma suddenly landed on the world’s front pages, as small demonstrations by monks spiraled into massive protests and triggered a violent crackdown by the military government.Such an impromptu uprising surprised many observers. Searching for explanations, some have cited the rising price of fuel, which is subsidized in Burma; this summer, the regime allowed the price to skyrocket, adding to the economic misery of average Burmese people.
But behind the unrest also lies a larger explanation, one that makes the isolated country a critical test of foreign policy. Burma’s brutal ruling junta, which has long kept power through force and fear, is taking the next step and transforming itself into one of the world’s few totalitarian regimes.
It has recently moved beyond its years of authoritarian rule, in which it controlled politics but allowed some degree of personal freedom, toward more absolute control of its citizens’ lives. As totalitarian regimes die out in other parts of the world, Burma has been clamping down on the last vestiges of dissent, creating a personality cult around the junta’s leader, and isolating itself by moving Burma’s capital away from Rangoon to a remote town.
It is true that the attention the small, poor and forgotten country of Burma (Myanmar) has received in the past couple of weeks is unprecedented. Radio, TV, print and web media have been all over the news "out of Burma." Major US TV networks have begun their evening newscasts leading with Burma. News agencies have smuggled in correspondents, established contact with Burmese activists via cell phone and the Internet in order to get the update on the latest situation there. The UN Representative in Burma has met with democratic activist Aung San Suu Kyi. Anyone who has even the slightest idea on what goes on behind the impenetrable Bamboo Curtain installed by the brutal military regime in Burma, has been interviewed by the media. Even those who don’t know much but have shown some interest in the fate of Burma, are deemed quasi-Burma experts. Much to my astonishment (and the amusement of my family and co-bloggers), BBC Radio contacted me to comment on Burma! The invitation was based solely on a timely blog post when events were still unfolding there at a rapid rate. This shows the paucity of available experts on Burmese affairs (and confirms my sneaking suspicion that if you pretend to be a pundit, you eventually become one).
Except for sporadic news of Ms Suu Kyi’s arrest, re-arrest and winning the Nobel Peace Prize, we have heard little over the years about this tiny nation, incredibly rich in natural resources but very, very poor in the quality of its leadership. But I doubt that it was just the spontaneous outburst of public demonstrations in Burma that caught the eye of the world. I suspect that for once, George W. Bush may have inadvertently exerted a beneficiary influence on a foreign nation striving for democracy and freedom. As I speculated in my post (Let’s Talk Burma … and Baloney!) Bush’s motive in putting the spotlight on Burma most likely, was less than pure. He probably mentioned the turmoil there in order to deflect attention from Iraq. However, his words have played a part in turning the attention of the world on that languishing corner of the world. Now the focus is on Burma and the role of other more powerful nations, some of them its neighbors, who have quietly and unscrupulously aided, abetted and otherwise chosen to look away from the human rights abuses and oppression by the Burmese military junta. China, that perennial patron of rogue nations (specially those with natural resources like gas, oil, gems and timber) has emerged as the chief culprit. Russia, another authoritarian regime, is also involved. But sadly enough, not wishing to be left behind in the self serving geo-politics of exploitation and power struggle, democratic India too is implicated as an enabler of the Burmese government. Thailand, which borders Burma and houses many of its refugees is an active trading partner.
George Bush like most presidents, is concerned about his legacy – to be favorably remembered for the mark he leaves on the world. He tried to manufacture a triumphant legacy by invading Iraq. Iraq will be his legacy of course, but not of triumph and vision but as a miserable failure. (Will he now take another stab at valor by invading Iran?) But if his UN address, directed at the unrest and oppression in Burma indeed ends up tweaking the world’s conscience and resolves matters there in favor of democracy, that may indeed count as a positive historical event. With his Baghdad legacy in tatters, Bush may now inadvertently benefit from a successful Rangoon revolution. Who woulda thunk?
Note: I hope Burma is freed and I wish its citizens the best. But I won’t hold my breath. It has been under military rule since 1962. The current regime is particularly thuggish and doesn’t give a hoot for world opinion. A civilian uprising consisting of monks and an unarmed rag tag population is hardly likely to rattle its steely resolve. Change will only come when the sponsors (China, India, Russia, Thailand) who trade with it and arm, fund and train its soldiers, withdraw their support.
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The 2008 presidential election is about change. So we have been told. If the candidates’ public pronouncements and debate performances are any indication, nothing much will change – at least not in foreign and war policies. And I am not speaking of the Republicans. The three top Democratic contenders, Clinton, Obama and Edwards, despite their verbal opposition to Bush’s War, would not commit to complete troop withdrawal from Iraq. All three have indicated that US troops might (will?) remain in Iraq "at least" until 2013. Clinton, particularly seems reluctant to change much of anything, even supporting continued combat operations to deal with Al Qaida in Iraq. We are in the vise grip of the two party system of government which is mostly Tweedledee- Tweedledum of the ruling class.
Clinton has raised a lot of red flags for me already. She is determined to be the establishment candidate and like Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher, may try too hard to prove her "manhood" as a leader. She has not yet explained her 2002 vote giving Bush the authority to invade Iraq. Last week she voted for the Kyl-Leiberman Iran Amendment (Biden, Obama and Dodd did not) which many are calling the first step in granting George Bush the authority to attack Iran. She has also refused to lay out her plans on domestic matters by deflecting specific questions mostly with generalities and occasionally, a disconcerting laugh. As of now, she is most likely to be the Democratic nominee. Many are calling her the dynastic candidate, the second Clinton in a potentially depressing Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton series. But seeing her choreographed and calculating performance, it is hard to tell which dynasty she will represent – Clinton or Bush! I don’t know if I will hold my nose and vote for her if she is the eventual nominee or sit out the 2008 election. I was planning to write a detailed post on this scary development in Democratic politics. Frank Rich of the New York Times has summed it up nicely although Rich fears that Clinton might fail in her candidacy … while I am afraid that she won’t.Some 13 months before Election Day, the race’s dynamic seems immutable. Americans can’t wait to evict the unpopular president and end his disastrous war. As the campaign’s poll-tested phrasemaking constantly reminds us, voters crave change above all else. That means nearly any Democrat might do, even if the nominee isn’t the first woman, black or Hispanic to lead a major party’s ticket.
So nothing can go wrong for the Democrats. Can it? …
The Beltway’s narrative has it not only that the Democrats are shoo-ins, but also that the likely standard-bearer, Hillary Clinton, is running what Zagat shorthand might describe as a “flawless campaign” that is “tightly disciplined” and “doesn’t make mistakes.” This scenario was made official last weekend, when Senator Clinton appeared on all five major Sunday morning talk shows – a publicity coup, as it unfortunately happens, that is known as a “full Ginsburg” because it was first achieved by William Ginsburg, Monica Lewinsky’s lawyer, in 1998.
Mrs. Clinton was in complete control. Forsaking TV studios for a perfectly lighted set at her home in Chappaqua, she came off like a sitting head of state. The punditocracy raved. We are repeatedly told that with Barack Obama still trailing by double digits in most polls, the only way Mrs. Clinton could lose her tight hold on the nomination and, presumably, the White House would be if she were bruised in Iowa (where both John Edwards and Senator Obama remain competitive) or derailed by unforeseeable events like a scandal or a domestic terror attack.
If you buy into the Washington logic that a flawless campaign is one that doesn’t make gaffes, never goes off-message and never makes news, then this analysis makes sense. The Clinton machine runs as smoothly and efficiently as a Rolls. And like a fine car, it is just as likely to lull its driver into complacent coasting and its passengers to sleep. What I saw on television last Sunday was the incipient second coming of the can’t-miss 2000 campaign of Al Gore.
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Here at Accidental Blogger, we can’t boast of being the biggest, funniest, most interesting or influential blog. But happily, we can now lay claim to the rare distinction of having on board two co-bloggers who have married each other during their simultaneous blogging stints here!
Accidental Blogger is delighted to announce the recent nuptials of Anna Levine and Andrew Rosenblum who tied the knot yesterday, September 30, 2007 in Woodbridge, Connecticut. The newlyweds will honeymoon in Barcelona and upon their return, resume regular blogging :-) Congratulations and our very best wishes to Anna and Andrew! Note: Accidental Blogger does not take the credit for arranging the matrimonial match. Anna and Andrew knew each other long before this blog came into existence.
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Lester Hunt is in the mood for Kurt Vonnegut – revisiting a favorite book from his youth and its iconic author. He recently re-read Cat’s Cradle after a gap of many years and enjoyed it the second time around. In a very good review, Lester grants the book its place on the "classics" pedestal but he is critical of Vonnegut’s world view. Wishing to make amends for the harsh words directed at the author in his first post, he elaborates further and ends up saying more negative things. But Lester really wants to be kind to Vonnegut whom he admires as a writer but doesn’t agree with as a social commentator. In his third and final post, he takes the safe route by saying less about Vonnegut and instead, show casing what Vonnegut himself had said about sundry matters. This time Lester was determined to not let his negativity show. You decide if he succeeds entirely. According to Lester:
Some authors are very quotable (Mencken, Mark Twain, Emerson), while others who may have great virtues of their own are not quotable in that way at all (Melville, Hawthorne, Whitman). (In the latter case, it may be that they write in paragraphs rather than sentences.) Vonnegut was definitely one of the quotable ones.
Here is a list of Vonnegut quotes that Lester found compelling.
- Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!
- Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand
- Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
- We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
- There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
- Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.
- If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don’t need an enemy.
- People don’t come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.
- True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
- Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?
- I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, "Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency."
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Sam Fentress is a Jack Kerouac of sorts. He travels the roads of America looking to find not himself but Biblical signs and bill boards – messages to praise and persuade. In his many sojourns he has found farmhouses, grain silos, restaurants, hair salons, gas stations and even traffic signs bearing Biblical messages. An artist and a photographer, Fentress first started photographing roadside biblical messages when a student in his class brought him a picture of a barn covered in Scriptures. Fentress was stunned."It just knocked my socks off as a picture," he said. "The boldness of the farmer in covering the roof, the sides — every square foot of the barn had some sort of Bible quote, Old Testament, New Testament, Gospels, Epistles, Revelation."
Fentress has photographed an urban billboard which rotated its message to read among other things.
- God is like Coke: He’s the real thing.
- God is like Pan Am: He makes the going great.
- God is like Tide: He gets the stains out that others leave behind.
- God is like-VO-5 hair spary: He holds through all kinds of weather.
- God is like Alka Seltzer: Try him, you’ll like him.
Behind the billboard was a building with a big sign, "Furniture Factory Outlet World." God and mammon jousting for attention.
Now Fentress has a book out of his collection of photographs titled "Bible Road" which he edited for what he hopes is, "interesting both theologically and aesthetically."Sam Fentress has spent the past 25 years crisscrossing America’s highways and byways, stopping along the way to snap shots of religious signs in every state except Hawaii. He found everything from John 3:3 on a farm silo in Ohio to "Obey God or Burn" scratched into a rock in Harlem….
At some point in the late ’70s or early ’80s, Fentress realized the farmer wasn’t alone. Wherever he looked, he saw religious signs along the roadside. He started to methodically photograph thousands of such images over the next two decades. Along the way, he also became a Catholic.
Fentress, 52, has a master of arts from the Art Institute of Chicago and his work is collected by museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the St. Louis Art Museum.
The religious roadside signage is particularly American, he said, given the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and religion and the country’s religious diversity.
"Americans are told they can say whatever they want," he said. And people feel free to say it — or perhaps, show it — whether on their front lawn, barn or business.
Fentress said he was intrigued by the juxtaposition of landscape and religious message. Some images capture signs on businesses, which he attributed to a capitalist tendency to co-opt religion into something that can be marketed and sold. But he also recognized the impulse to spread the "good news" wherever possible.
In Las Vegas, he spotted Glorified Bodies Inc., a collision repair shop with the Christian fish symbol on its signpost. He noted the relationship between Jesus’ resurrected body, as described in the New Testament, and restoring damaged cars. [Link]
For some samples of Fentress’ photos see here.
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Myanmar’s fledgeling Orange Revolution, now turning bloody red, couldn’t have come at a more propitious time for George W. Bush. Bush addressed the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. His customary delusional take on the state of the world was once again on display. Going through the speech in a hurry in order get out of the UN (a place that he and his cohorts despise but exploit for their own agenda), Bush delivered a speech which was unconvincing, platitudinous and puzzling. He called on the United Nations to join a "mission of liberation," using its power to free the world’s people of tyranny and poverty. At great pains to point to hot spots around the globe where "freedom and democracy" are in short supply but not wishing to draw attention to the chaos of his own making, G.W.B. went through a painful charade of playing the champion of liberation.
Bush mentioned Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe as places under the control of thuggish dictators. He named Belarus, North Korea, Syria, and Iran as regions where "brutal regimes deny their people the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration." Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Morocco earned his praise thus : "The United States salutes the nations that have recently taken strides toward liberty –. " The countries which Bush wants us to help are: "The people of Lebanon and Afghanistan and Iraq have asked for our help. And every civilized nation has a responsibility to stand with them."
But the most bewildering was Bush’s sudden compassion for "Burma" to which he dedicated two whole paragraphs. This is what he said:
Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma, where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear. Basic freedoms of speech, assembly, and worship are severely restricted. Ethnic minorities are persecuted. Forced child labor, human trafficking, and rape are common. The regime is holding more than 1,000 political prisoners — including Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party was elected overwhelmingly by the Burmese people in 1990. The ruling junta remains unyielding, yet the people’s desire for freedom is unmistakable. This morning, I’m announcing a series of steps to help bring peaceful change to Burma. The United States will tighten economic sanctions on the leaders of the regime and their financial backers. We will impose an expanded visa ban on those responsible for the most egregious violations of human rights, as well as their family members. We’ll continue to support the efforts of humanitarian groups working to alleviate suffering in Burma. And I urge the United Nations and all nations to use their diplomatic and economic leverage to help the Burmese people reclaim their freedom.
Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma? Since when? My experience shows that many Americans don’t know anything about Burma / Myanmar. Those who do, hardly give a rodent’s rear end for the sorry fate of that poor and ramshackle nation, brutally repressed by a thuggish military junta for nearly two decades. (Americans should be outraged about "Burma" but they really aren’t — no matter what Bush would have us believe.) So, why did George Bush tell the world this whopper? Was it because he wanted to deflect attention from regions like Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Pakistan and entities such as Al Qaida and Taliban, with whom the US has had major military and diplomatic entanglements, with little or no success? But Myanmar is one ravaged place in the world, the responsibility for which can not be laid at Bush’s (or America’s) doorstep. Is that why he showcased the conflict in "Burma" – the hot spot that no one can challenge him on?
Between Bush and Columbia’s Bollinger, Iran’s Ahmadinejad sounded like a voice of reason!
Note: You may be wondering why George Bush referred to Myanmar as Burma throughout his speech. No, this wasn’t a case of his habitual carelessness with details. The United States is one of a handful of countries which has refused to officially recognize the name change from Burma to Myanmar as a token of protest against the military junta which instituted the change.
Accidental Blogger 
