9 days; 15.12.2002. 17:00:56 Maiden Air strike in Iraq no-fly zone

The official Iraqi news agency INA says United States and British warplanes have struck civilian sites in southern Iraq overnight. The agency quoted an Iraqi military spokesman who said planes had bombed civilian installations in the Wasset, Missan and Zi Qar provinces before returning to their bases in Kuwait. In Washington, the US Central Command said US and British planes patrolling southern no-fly zones had struck three military targets after its aircraft were threatened. There have been almost daily incidents in the northern and southern air exclusion zones, imposed since the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Iraq does not recognise the restrictions.
BTW, Global Fact: Adolf Hitler was Time's Man of the Year for 1938.
· Snow Flake v Avalanche [Third World War?]

DOCUMENTARY SERIES - COMMANDING HEIGHTS: THE BATTLE FOR THE WORLD ECONOMY - The Agony of Reform – Pt I to Pt VI

ABC’s loss is SBS’s gain. Thanks to bloggers like Alex Robson Australia is blessed with a series of the year 2002. The maiden episode focuses on the rise and fall of the Soviet planned economy; the rampant bureaucracy planned economy nurtured in India; the fate of isolationist reforms in Latin America; the miracle the “Chicago boys” wrought in Chile; and the sad tales of perestroika and the “lost decade. (From the US, in English, Russian, Polish and Spanish, English subtitles). · All bloggers are equal (but some are more equal than others) [SBS]

The Pomp and Pageantry of Nicolae Ceausescu a.k.a. Premier of the Bear Pit?

It happened in the same year Queen of the Great Britain paid the devil respect. On a hunting expedition in 1978 Ceausescu shot the biggest bear ever recorded. The bear had actually been specifically imported from Canada and Ceausescu was such a bad shot that it had to be drugged so he could shoot it.

The horrific though also tragic and hilarious Ceausescu personality cult had ended and the final curtain had fallen on the stage show. But even today, Romanians still live with the realities behind the illusion. Ceausescu’s theatrical regime concealed the most backward economy in central Europe. The final act has been over for a long time, but Romanians still inhabit the stage sets and scenery of the drama – intellectually, physically, politically and emotionally.
· Silly, very silly, Queen & MI5 who in 1978 celebrated Ceausescu [SBS]

Hark, you heard what???

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. Everything has been figured out except how to live.
- Jean-Paul Satre (Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay On Ontology)

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,
Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen.,
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?

10 days Strolling carollers sang by candlelight.
Frosted store windows groaned with a cornucopia of Irish linens, Madras shawls, China tea, Moroccan slippers, Scottish whisky and Madeira wine.
Icy wharves yielded wagon-loads of Jamaica rum, Spanish cigars, East Indies chocolate (two kinds), plus many delicacies worthy of the fastest-growing city in the British Empire.Behind the festive scenes on King and Yonge Sts., immigrants languished in crowded slums. No mistletoe and plum pudding there.
· Many Silent Nights [Toronto Star]

The Difference Between 'Neo' And 'New'

At present there are two models of the future. One is the end of history model — that is to say, the view that we've pretty well settled the basic issues of politics and ideology. The other is the pendulum model, which means there's going to be a reverse of globalism sooner or later, if not another Great Depression.

A reverse of the pendulum could prove as catastrophic as the 1930s, with the rise of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Even if not catastrophic, it would no doubt signal the beginning of a pretty rough time for us in the West. A lot of our certainties and expectations would be overthrown. The odd thing, however, is that it might lead to some real change in the arts, a new seriousness, an end to self-consciousness. Maybe we could kill off irony for another few decades or centuries. That alone might be worth another Great Depression.
· The Pendulum [Toronto Star 2]

Politics Letters to a Young Conservative

To confront liberalism fully we could not be content with rebutting liberal arguments, he writes in the enemy's tongue. We also had to subvert liberal culture, and this meant disrupting the etiquette of liberalism. In other words, we had to become social guerrillas. Conservatives once wandered in the wilderness. Corpulent, confident young conservatives of today have never known life without political power.
· Power [The Nation]

To: Saddam Hussein,
Supreme Leader,
and Premier for Life

I just want to tell you how thrilled I am to be handling publicity for your upcoming novel, Report to UN Security Council on Iraqi Full Disarmament. I think it's dynamite - maybe even nuclear!

At 12,000 pages, it's a bit longer than our usual offering, but I couldn't put it down. Such imagination: vanishing Kurds, I love it! How do you authors do it? (The French are already eating it up. C'est magnifique!) There are a couple things I'd like to take up with you, though, as we prepare to market your novel for the tough American audience:

Let's think together about a new title. I like the comedy in the one you've suggested (full disarmament!), but the rest of it sounds so heavy, so policy wonkish, you know what I mean? Books about being a single woman are really hot over here now. Can we position your book in that direction somehow? Saddam's Diaries? Sects in the City?
...
Let me handle the reviewers. I've got the legal guys looking into it, but we probably can't kill the critics and torture their families - we just don't have the staff, but thanks for the suggestion.
· Positioning Irony & Lies [CS Monitor ]
· Stereotype [Toronto Star]

My fondest memories are selling books to people who want to talk about them. Ringing them up at the register is not fun, but putting a book you love in someone's hands is still very satisfying.
-Barbara Bailey Froogal Shopper

Literature War: The Reality That Defies Fiction

Men who have seen bloody combat rarely seem inclined to get romantic about it.
Unquestionably the war on terrorism is the strangest the nation has ever fought, mostly in the shadows rather than on the open field of battle.
· Battle [Washington Post]

Ghosts & Bunyips (sick)

When history's restless ghosts flare up and spark news, books often satisfy the urge for a deeper perspective. The trouble is that ghosts are unpredictable.
· The Trouble [Publisher Weekly]

Doubt

There are writers who swear they don't revise, who have absolutely no second thoughts about their ability. Norman Mailer would be a good name to drop here. However, doubt can be an asset to a writer. The myth of the writer with the crystal-cracking ego, the writer who, as Spark said, hasn’t got a difficult talent, is also alluring because it posits writing as a vast and natural force, like sex, that has only to be unleashed.
· Like Sex or Spark [Ploughshares]

Rio Hungary

I am reading Lukács's essays and cry. Why? Because he is the first critic I have met in my life whose philosophy, transcribed into those essays, bruises and bloodies one. Paul Riomfalvy agrees, purgatorilly (sic) speaking.
· The Antinomies of Melancholy & Tears [Other Voices]

Dual, Triple Pseudonym of Life Love us or hate us, we humans are an odd lot

Here are some of the things human beings do to each other: recognising the possibility of an advantage to themselves - political, financial or emotional - people shamelessly exploit the vulnerability of others, taking advantage of their innocence, or their insecurity, to close a deal, win a vote, or even to exert emotional control. If they achieve the result they want, they'll usually end up being despised by those they've manipulated ... and then bleat about not being appreciated.
· Human [Sydney Morning Herald]

Arts How lords wrecked war-time effort to save art

Author unearths secret history of aristocratic greed in the blitz
· Secret Story [The Guardian UK]

Film The Loveably Untrue
It's good to be yourself, but it's better — way better — to be someone else.

If Hollywood is merely America's most idealized projection of itself — and if no country has culturally institutionalized the creative and infinite reinvention of oneself quite so deeply as the United States — it should come as no surprise that nothing would love a liar more than a movie would.
· Great fakery is the coin of the Hollywood realm [Toronto Star 12/13/02]

Demand v Supply
All of the major movie studios used to have development offices that searched for potential movies in new book releases, but lately the supply hasn't been overwhelming.
· Demand [Observer UK]

A lie told often enough becomes the truth
- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin; Sadly, Vladimir is getting widely read & practiced today ...

Media ... Only a tame media has let him last so long

This time he may have to pack his bags and shuffle on home. We'll see.

The "he," of course, could be anyone, anywhere, inside any company board or political party which provides fertile soil for statements along this lines: ‘The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy. Let's take it in the right direction, and our children will be the beneficiaries.’

In the name of true equality brotherhood, I wish Brothers like Lott a daily hot iron or two. He would then better understand the Negro, the Refugee, the Powerless ...
· Powerless [NY Daily]

Loaded with Political Kama Sutra.

It's just like the good old days, when men's magazines set out to shock.
· Posters [Guardian]

The U.K. government will launch an investigation into the BBC's online services following charges that its managers are brazen hussies.
· BBC [Guardian 2]

Business 2.0 is launching a new weekly online column, Media Dragon a.k.a. Notes, by Jimmy Guterman of Media Unspun.
· B 2.0 [Technology]

Politics Single Tone

Be warned. Should you feel some politician or other grievously abuses/defames you under parliamentary privilege, do not expect an automatic right to defend yourself in the official written record of parliament. The politicians themselves say yea or nay. Do not even expect your grievance to be taken up by anyone, unless, maybe, you are a judge of the High Court.
· Right of Reply [SMH]

The Pure Essence of Stupid
· Truth [Out]

Absolute Corruption
· A new global index dishes the dirt on government dishonesty. Can the Net help clean it up? [Wired]

Spank the Donkey

Start talking to people and building things
Stop defining "citizenship" by the mere act of voting.
Stop fearing what will happen if you give up on the Democrats.
Stop pretending the system isn't broken.
Stop pretending the Democratic party is interested in fixing it.

Time to give up on the Demoeratic party once and for all. How much longer can we listen to all the plaintive, futile pleadings to "change the system from within," to make the party wake up and smell the electorate? This is a wish, not a strategy; it hasn't come true and it won't. That so many people do still cling to the Democrats is testament to the power of a myth--several myths, actually, but the one I have in mind is the fiction that the Democratic party turned right because the country turned right.
· Start Reading [City Pages]

You have no idea how scandalous this letter of yours will sound to some blairing ears.
· Letter from Real Italy [City Pages 2]

Pinter

There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false. I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?
· False or True [HP]

12 Days I'm Dreaming of a Write Christmas

Robert Birnbaum has become disillusioned, haven't we all?, with the cultural arbiters, the people who we are supposed to turn to for what to read, what to watch, what to listen to. This seems to be the latest entry, 8 December 2002, of a series on his own cultural wanderings, and it deals with the books of the year he enjoyed but no one else talked about.
· List of Lists [ID Theory]

Schlocky world of Christian mechandising

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen?
· Nowadays you can be cool and Christian.
[Weekly Standard]

Trends Little Water

What does the word 'vodka' mean?
It derives from the Russian word 'voda,' That means 'water.' With 'ka' added, it becomes 'little water.' Recently, vodka has been coming along like a house afire, rising from nowhere to fifth place in this country. This year's sales of vodka are expected to double those of last year, when Americans downed more of the stuff than they had in all previous years combined.
· Vodicka, littlest water [New Yorker]

Literature Litterateur
I don't think I could have written this book earlier. I'm well into my fifties now, and things change for you as you get older. Time begins slipping away, and simple arithmetic tells you that there are more years behind you than ahead of you - many more. Your body starts breaking down, you have aches and pains that weren't there before, and little by little the people you love begin to die. By the age of fifty, most of us are haunted by ghosts. They live inside us, and we spend as much time talking to the dead as to the living. A young person can't understand this.
· Aches [Fail Better]

Goatty Lament

People who want to get published think that publication will give them self-esteem, and peace of mind, make them feel whole and redeemed.But it's a fantasy, like thinking that marriage, or weight loss, or money will make you well. You only look forward to publication and touring the first two times. Then, even thinking about it is like anticipating periodontal work. It's like weeks and weeks of labor, waiting to see if your baby book will look like the next Alice Sebold, or a goat.

And this one's a keeper in the ongoing discussion of Michiko Kakutani: This is my ninth book and I have never gotten a daily review in the Times -- not that I am bitter. Nope, nope, nothing could be further from the truth. It's just that I secretly believe that if Michiko Kakutani likes your work, it means you are a real writer, and you will be happy and and wealthy and stable forever. The one little problem with Michiko, though, is that if she doesn't like your book, she will kill you -- cut your head off with a surgical knife, and play hacky-sack with it until she grows bored. Then, maybe in the last paragraph, she'll pour acid on it.
· Surgical Knife [Salon, Pub, Inn]

Politics Soft, but fresh

Why is it that we test a government's arithmetic but we don't test its heart?
Mr Brogden said that after eight years it was time the Labor Government stopped blaming others, usually the Commonwealth, for its problems and allowed itself to be judged properly.

Bob Carr says Andrew Refshauge's over-developments in Sydney are the fault of immigrants.

Carl Scully says the trains are late because of acts of God.

Craig Knowles says the hospitals are full because there are too many old people in them.

John Watkins blames John Aquilina and Eddie Obeid ... he just says, 'It wasn't me'.
· The Blaming Game [Sydney Morning Herald]

MPs flout frequent-flyer rule

FOUR in five federal MPs are ignoring Prime Minister John Howard's orders to use their frequent-flyer points to reduce the Government's soaring travel bill.
· Flyers [Herald Sun]

Identity Identity thieves

Identity theft is not just a Hollywood horror movie premise, but a genuine and growing threat.
· Tax System Integrity [CTSI]

Wilston School: Primary School Graduation Ceremony

Alexandra Imrich, Age Champion Swimmer of the Years 2001 & 2002

Milestones of Life Teary farewell to seven years

TAKE a sackload of tissues, I'd warned my wife. You'll be wailing your head off before they're halfway through the ceremony.

Men, of course, don't cry. Only women sniffle and sob in public, particularly at primary school graduation ceremonies.

There'd been the swimming carnivals and athletics and the netball and soccer and a well-intentioned but doomed attempt to enlist me in schoolyard grass-cutting duties.

There'd been that time they'd ill-advisedly put me on bar duty at a function and that time when, her bloodstream well aerated with champagne, Herself had manned the public address system at the fete.

Our lives had slowly become ruled by the school calendar, each morning the chaos of getting one small person from the bedroom to the classroom, each afternoon the three o'clock pick-up, one of us waiting in the car park for our child to appear. I must have done it hundreds of times over the past seven years and my joy at seeing her face, sometimes smiling, sometimes frowning, has never lessened.

There'd been tantrums and tears, disappointments and jubilation, triumphs and defeats, my wife and I feeling every blow to her pride and feelings as she made her way to Year 7. So I sat there and let the thoughts roll, unable and, maybe in my heart, unwilling to stem the tide of nostalgia.

Seven years! A friend once told me that his 80-year-old mother's last words had been: I never thought it would all go so fast. It was an emotion that gripped me now. It had all gone so fast. Year 1 and then Year 7. Where had the days, months and years gone?

So we sat and watched as they sang of their future and I wondered who among their number would find happiness and fulfillment and long life and who – and there would be a few – would be less fortunate, praying to God that our daughter would be among the blessed.

As they sang, I watched Herself dipping deeply into the handbag, hauling out fistful after fistful of tissues, as the tears started in earnest. Women! I thought.

Then we moved into the church where hung a large screen on which was projected a series of montages, one for each child, composed of photographs they had brought from home.

I was fine until the screen lit up with a shot of myself, and then wife and child and then a headshot of our daughter on which she had written: Always shoot for the moon, for if you fall short, you'll land among the stars followed by a Goodbye to the children who had been her mates for the past seven years.

My eyes filled and the tears rolled down my cheeks. You wouldn't have a spare tissue, would you? I whispered to Herself. I seem to have something stuck in my eye.
· Year 7 [Courier Mail]

The Girl, the Dog, and the Book

A girl is riding on the back of a dog.
In his mouth, the dog is carrying a book,
on the first page of which, a girl is riding

on the back of a dog. As the story goes,
it’s the dog who chose the girl, and she’s held on
ever since. Her small hands tighten with handfuls

of short hair. The world, a cool place, blurred forms,
colors that fly by as they ride, and the girl
has made a home for the wind in her hair. She

wears no clothes, and the dog, huge dark energy
beneath her, his panting like the pumping
of her heart. The dog, for a moment, larger

than a mountain, the girl, hugging a hair, lost
in the woods on his back. She builds a house, starts
her fire, brings the dog back down to size. She sleeps

in a cavity, in the corner of his mouth, swimming
in and out, from the white page to the yellow stones
of his teeth. White foam rises, warm waves breaking

all around her. She spins herself a great nest,
cocoon woven from her long hair. And inside,
a girl is riding on the back of a dog.

In his mouth, the dog is carrying a book,
over the first pages, the girl’s hands rapidly moving.
- Edward Bartók-Baratta

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise
-James Russell Lowell.

DARK AGES: military tactics

The group's anger has shifted from Indonesian Christians to Westerners.
· Indonesia [BBC]
· Indonesia [ABC]

Internet A dark day for the internet: Lawyers, Asses & Arses

That's right. One of the world's leading financial news services posts an article on its website in New Jersey, but publication – and hence liability for defamation – is deemed to be anywhere in the world where the article is subsequently downloaded and read by an individual reader.

All this high legalism may be beautifully consistent with defamation law flowing back, as stressed in the judges' decision, to an 1849 case involving the manservant of an English duke dispatched to procure a back issue of a small-circulation newspaper.
· Manservant [The Australian]

Nick of Hague Time

I'm going to make youse an offer youse can't refuse. I want to tell youse about an article. This article talks about how one court in the land of Oz was told about the 7000-word article, also available to Dow Jones' Internet subscribers, which portrayed Gutnick as a devious businessman given to stock scams, money laundering and fraud. Gutnick denied the claims and sued for defamation.
· Guts of the Story [The Age]
· Akademic [Parish Pump]
· The transcript of arguments [Law Library]
· Aktie Auslosungsanzeige [Actien]
· article: Internet Libel Laws In Limbo [OJR]
· Might reach out and grab you [Duanemorris]

Real Politics Public left in sacking's dark
The royal commission emphasised the need for easier processes to sack rogue cops. But there is a flip side to the Carr Government law permitting summary dismissal. What happens when a police hierarchy wants to dispose of an officer because he or she is honest and courageous, an irritant to cosiness, cronyism and corruption? No one suggests this was the case here. But the question alone illuminates the pitfalls of keeping the public in the dark. Like justice, police service administration must not only be free of improper entanglements, it must be seen to be so. The state's often sorry recent police history has sharpened public alertness to the potential for undue influences. The cards should be upturned, for everyone's benefit.
· Please [Only in Sydney]

Rocky Politics

If the Rockdale saga taught us anything, it showed the need for transparency when councillors make their decisions on developments.
· Show Me the $ [Sydney Morning Herald]
· Keating's Wisdom about Temptation & Corruption [Sydney Morning Herald 2]

Never give up your disbelief

I wish I were a writer, but all I have is how I feel about the big, scary nightmares that face us, and a growing despair that we will continue to spiral down into the blackest pit of us and them, with only hollow lies to cling to. All the while without a clue as to who are we, and who are they.
· Disbelief [Webdiary]

Monopoly

Just as there is scope within the taxi industry for some innovation
the banking industry still allows room for differentiation between
members of the cartel. Given a choice between big business and free markets, socialism always seems to favour big business.
· Cartel [OLO]

Go North, young man

Despite being closer to the likely 120 or so Million Indoinvaders, it seems Queensland has replaced NSW as the destination of choice for Australians and Europeans families on the move. I know my family is safe; with Darwinian Academics like Ken Parish in charge JI has no way of making it in this land of opportunities.

PS: Young Labour, Liberals, Democrats, even Greens are likely to get serious about family friendly policies - paid maternity leave is a good, solid, logical start. Don't make the same mistake of thinking like some Premiers that if you populate you perish, or that mothers can spent too much time with their children or they are adding more value by slaving for HIH, or OneTel or some other meaningless cartels.

The big contributors [become] the major shareholders. The rest of the population is just left to vote, to affirm the management.
— Joe Scott, political consultant (The Wall Street Journal, 3/2/1994)

Politics Purge a first step only

A bystander is entitled to the conclusion that the dominant NSW Right has been dragged kicking and screaming to this reform agenda.
Branch stacking is practised in all political parties but ALP sections made it a fearsome sword for personal or factional supremacy. Through the installation of people who care little or nothing for the organisation's core beliefs, it allows perpetrators to manipulate policies and offices, particularly prized endorsements for parliamentary elections. Branch stacking not only skews a political party's representation and batters its public standing, it excites the potential for retaliation and pushes genuine rank-and-file members from the fold, thereby compounding dominance by the few. Democracy is the loser.
· Democracy is the real loser. [Sydney Morning Herald ]

Airbrush

Power "produces reality" before it represses. Equally it produces truth before it ideologizes, abstracts or masks.
- Gilles Deleuze, Foucault

History will eventually tell us why John Newman’s funeral was ignored by so many key players in the Labour Party. It reminds me of Stalin airbrushing Trotsky out of the photos.

These are hair-trigger times, with well-manicured barbarians at the wheel.
-Philip F. Berrigan, the former Roman Catholic priest who led the draft board raids that galvanized opposition to the Vietnam War in the late 1960's, died on Friday in Baltimore after a lifetime of battling the American Empire, as he called it, over the morality of its military and social policies.

Energy Brush

A federal judge on Monday rebuffed congressional efforts to gather information about meetings that Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force held with industry executives and lobbyists while formulating the administration's energy plan.

U.S. District Judge John Bates said the lawsuit filed by Comptroller General David Walker against the vice president was an unprecedented act that raised serious separation-of-powers issues between the executive and legislative branches of government.

No court has ever before granted what the comptroller general seeks, wrote Bates, an appointee of President Bush.
· President Brush [Cheney]

Are we swapping one tyranny for another?

Has the moment finally arrived? When Europe's "iron curtain" fell in 1989, we couldn't wait to be part of the big wide world again. Next week's historic Copenhagen summit will issue the invitations to ten new members of the European Union. By May 2004, we will be fully part of the European club. Our leaders promise us a bright new future of jobs, opportunity and progress. The world will be told what we always believed - that Prague, Warsaw and Budapest are as much part of Europe as Paris or Berlin. This should be a moment to celebrate once again.
· Iron Brush [Observer]

Media Journalists losing touch with the man on the street
Reporters and editors at large dailies are losing touch with middle class Americans. At best, they're out of touch. At worst, they've become elitists. Most are well-educated and paid better than average salaries, pulling them away from blue-collar populations. Frankly, he's right, but it's not something that education and money alone cause. It happens because we let it happen, and we don't work hard enough to connect with readers who aren't necessarily like us.
· Preditors & Spinners [LA Times]

Literature How Bad Reviews Linger

Good reviews are forgotten; bad reviews remembered; and the very worst are etched with acid in the victim's mind. It's odd that, although one hates getting them oneself, bad reviews (even of one's dearest friends) are good reading. Nothing like the smell of hot blood in the morning as you open your literary supplement. So long, that is, as it's not spurting from your veins.
· Guilty Pleasures [Human Brush]

The Secret Bestsellers

Yes there's the prestigious New York Times Bestseller List. And the names that appear on it are generally known to one and all. But talk to the people who are actually in the bookstores selling books, and you hear about an entirely different list... Are these the real worstsellers?
· No 1 WorstSeller [MobyLived]

Life Daddy

A Note for Daddy is the story of a little boy who sent a balloon into the air for his father, and a reporter and news researcher who tracked it. After the balloon drifted into her life, she couldn't get her mind off the little boy. Who was he, and where was his father?
· Airbaloon [SP Times]

Rush of life A Parable for Today, If Not Tomorrow
To the banquet, to life, to love. And all are called, all are chosen...
· Para [Able]
· Some Story Re Going Back To Confession [Joy, Jesus, Others, You ]

Being a newspaper columnist is like marrying a nymphomaniac - it's great for the first two weeks.
Lewis Grizzard
1947-1994

Media First thing first: A man exposing himself at the White House

News, it seems, is becoming a lot more like life, just one damn thing after another.
· Good News [NY Times]

All languages seem to contain proverbs along the lines of ‘the best laid schemes of mice and men ...’ By now, the connection between men and mice has become as well-known for its genetic connection as for the failure by a real person to ensure his own life follow a particular pattern. Such attempts invariably come unstuck and the result is either comedy or tragedy

Politics Media Time Capsule: Looking Backward at 2002

Fiddling with the gas mask on her face, the child wishes that Americans back then had paid more attention to the content of communication and less to the technology of it. If the media preoccupations had been different a few decades ago, maybe now she wouldn't have to wear a gas mask every time she went outside.
· Ti me _& Tragedy [Fair]

Lifestyle Life is too hard.

Old folk sayings describe life as "a vale of sorrows," "a woeful trial," "a kick in the teeth," "not worth living," and so on. Like much common wisdom, these sayings turn out to contain more than a little truth.
· Wisdo m [Shouts]

The American psychologist Mary Pipher recently wrote about refugees being resettled in the United States in her book The Middle of Everywhere (Harcourt, 2002). Human beings will not be denied their consolations; and one of the consolations of being poor migrant has always been faith in the fact that while the rich may be more comfortable, they are morally degraded:

She was poor but she was honest,
And unsullied was ’er name,
Till the local squire came courtin’—
Now the poor girl’s lost in shame.

It’s the same the ’ole world over,
It’s the poor what gets the blame.
It’s the rich what gets the pleasure,
Ain’t it all a bloomin’ shame?

On this day in the year of the escape of 1980: Former Beatle John Lennon is shot dead.

Politics New tyrants for old
Sir, I have just returned from a book promotion in Poland, where even those MPs who had been in the forefront of opposition to the Communists told me that they found the EU far more oppressive and dismissive of Polish nationhood than their previous Soviet masters.
· Masters & Slavs [Samizdata]

One Man In His Time

In 1983, Phillip Adams wrote that Adolf Hitler was "not the Fuhrer of the Third Reich so much as the ventriloquist doll of an entire people". It's a popular notion today, and it says that one man and his prejudices can't influence history. It says that when a man acts in the name of his country, his entire race is behind him.

It suggests that what happened 60 years ago in Europe couldn't possibly happen again, for we're smarter now; we move carefully and see the world in all its colours - unlike those Movietone extras, who waddled stupidly through their black-and-white lives.

To think so is to forget that there have been only 14 Olympic Games since Hitler besieged the civilised world. Nazi Germany is no more a quaint, irrelevant relic than the Sydney Harbour Bridge - a product of the industrial world over which we still move. Marian Pretzel lives near the Harbour Bridge, and he remembers European Nazism vividly.
· Ageless [The Age, Australia]

Union of Solidarnost

The fate of rights we do care about — of race, gender, age and disability — is intimately linked to the fate of rights we don't care about. For instance, at a Sprint office in San Francisco during the early 1990s, Latina employees suffered humiliating indignities. They had to raise their hands and ask permission to go to the bathroom. Supervisors regulated their access to drinking water. Wages were low. When they tried to organize a union in order to advance their rights, as women and as Latinas, they were fired. But where black workers at Shoney's were able to win $132 million in a highly publicized racial discrimination suit against the popular Southern restaurant chain in 1993, the unionizing Latinas ended up with nothing.
· Two Steps Backward and One Step [Forward]

Enlisting writers for good old propaganda

With a government like the one we have, when not even 50 percent of Americans voted for the president, the diversity of opinion is not represented.
The Bush administration has recruited prominent American writers to "write about what it means to be an American writer" for a State Department anthology to promote America culturally around the world.
· Old Tricks [The New York Times]

Media The Unbiased Truth About Media Objectivity

The reporting of the news is supposed to be objective, a dispassionate recitation of the facts. But of course it never is and never has been. What's more, it never will or could be.
In this, the postmodernists are right. The truth does exist somewhere out there, but we are incapable of perceiving it except from our own inherently skewed points of view.
So we're stuck with our versions of events or a plethora of competing versions of the same events, none of which adds up to the real McCoy. A lot of effort, however, is put into maintaining the illusion that they do, especially when it comes to the news.

· A free press doesn't always sit on the fence. [LA Times]
· What will the rest of us do about the new bias? [Washington Post]

Information highway at a crossroads

As old media corporations hog-tie the Internet, they will kill the golden goose, not just for themselves, but also for democracy.
This week marks one of two things for the Internet: Either it's the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.Whatever. The bottom line is ... the bottom line.
· The Bottom [Toronto Star]

Civil Liberties The Kafkaesque Police State of the USA-Patriot Act

After the photographer Mike Maginnis took his pictures in downtown Denver near Cheney's hotel, a cop confronted him. He demanded Maginnis hand over not only his film, but also his camera. When he refused, Maginnis was thrown down on the pavement and arrested. He was taken to the police station and locked in an interrogation room for two hours. Finally an SS agent arrived and told Maginnis that his "suspicious activities" made him a threat to national security, and that he would be charged as a terrorist under the USA-Patriot Act. The agent tried to get Maginnis to admit he was taking photos of Cheney's hotel as part of some nefarious terrorist plot intended to "cause terror and mayhem." The photographer refused to admit this. The SS agent responded by calling Maginnis a raghead collaborator and a dirty pinko faggot. No doubt it would've been great for the SS agent's career if Maginnis had admitted he did something wrong.
· Agents of Terror [Counter Punch]

Gang Rule

A database of organized crime figures and gangs; lots of images, including of original newspaper articles; documents and articles; and bibliography, links, and contact info.
· Organised Chaos [Gang Rule]

Political Money Line's Federal
Lobby Directoryis the most comprehensive US directory of lobby firms, lobbyists and organizations that lobby on the Federal level.
· Lobby Links [Political Money Line's]

Crime statistics links
· Punishment [Poynter 1]

How They Got the Story

Poynter.org has a new feature, How They Got the Story, in which reporters describe the work that led up to a significant story or series. Four award-winning McClatchy newspaper teams describe the work behind their pieces.
· 5 Ws 1 How [Poynter 2]

Internet Specialty Search Engines
For those times when you want to find more than just web pages and web sites, some of the topical search engines will prove useful.
· Search [Engine Room]


Literature From Cold River To Hot Air Review of 2002

For my family, the only book of entire 2002 was Jozef Imrich’s Cold River. Tim Lott kickstarted 2002 with Rumours of a Hurricane (a bleak novel set against a backdrop of Thatcher’s Britain that puts paid to the lie about contemporary novelists not engaging with the political), but sadly didn’t herald a revolution of any kind.
· Double Dragon of Two Zero Zero Two [Book Munch I]

Opal Fruits of 2003
For us, 2003 starts with the got-damn TITAN that is E. Annie Proulx (and we will continue to use the “E” despite the fact that 4th Estate have ignominiously dropped it . . . as it were). She’s back with her first novel since the masterful Accordion Crimes way back in 1997 and to say we’re looking forward to it, to say we’re salivating like a dog with a packet of Opal Fruits in its mouth . . . Well, that’s just plain old understatement and no mistakin’.
· Titan [Book Munch II]

The Writer's Almanac

A daily program of poetry and history hosted by Garrison Keillor, can be heard each day on public radio stations throughout the country. Boys waxed their cars, got new hair- styles, read books -- anything to impress her. But Cecilia hated Lunenburg and thought the boys
were stupid and dull. She thought the girls were even worse.
· Perfection [Almanac]


Travel Tired of traveling?

Visit world landmarks without leaving your computer. 360-degree tours. Includes several Miami landmarks...or for even more unusual travel, tour the U.S. with Mr. Toaster.
· Tour [Toaster]

99% Truth Mice, men share 99 percent of genes

When it comes to DNA, it turns out there's not that much difference between mice and men.
· Rats in the ranks [CNN]

No one likes us-I don't know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the big one and see what happens

We give them money-but are they grateful?
No, they're spiteful and they're hateful
They don't respect us-so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them

Asia's crowded and Europe's too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada's too cold
And South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one
There'll be no one left to blame us

We'll save Australia
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an All American amusement park there
They got surfin', too

Boom goes London and boom Paree
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it will be
We'll set everybody free
You'll wear a Japanese kimono
And there'll be Italian shoes for me

They all hate us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now
Let's drop the big one now

Political Science by Randy Newman
· Lets not [Randy Newman]

Politics World's most powerful leaders subvert parliaments

Ever wondered how some of the world's most powerful leaders subverted parliaments and over-powered Politburos in their maniacal pursuit of power? Jeff Schubert compares the contemporary CEO to their historical counterparts.
· Maniacal pursuit of power [Crikey via Victory Over Want]

Media Chickenshit American journalists applaud courageous colleague, then pull punches
Colombian journalist Ignacio Gomez told a roomful of America's most influential journalists Tuesday how Washington-supported Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is connected to drug traffickers and how U.S. military trainers helped organize a massacre in his country.
· Gomez [American Reporter]

Publishing: Future's in our hands
Developments in technology may signal the end of mass communication and the rise of more personalised media. It's not the news that AOL/Time-Warner or News International want to be told; but unless they move out of media into advertising franchise control, they're doomed.
· Personalised media [Independent]

The Internet is Bad for Democracy

We are still lulled by complacent enthusiasm for e-democracy, claims oure-Democracy editor JAMES CRABTREE. Unless we are vigilant, we could have
a monster on our hands.
· A Monster [Open Democracy]
MY FAVORITE ARTICLE ON ARTS & GOD

Arts The secret life of us
We censor it, sentimentalise it, treat it as a commodity. But we can't reduce its power.
We experience an art that is disinfective. What precludes its relationship to the life world is its identification with the art world. By experiencing the act as art, it loses its potency as something necessary. Art is seen as a luxury. Formal expression is viewed as a mode of leisure, not urgency.

Art is a different value system. Like God, it fails us continually. Like God, we have legitimate doubts about its existence but, like God, art leaves us with footprints of beauty. We sense there is more to life than the material world can provide, and art is a clue, an intimation, at its best, a transformation. We don't need to believe in it, but we can experience it. The experience suggests that the monolith of corporate culture is only a partial reality. This is important information, and art provides it.
· Art is a different value system. [Guardian]

Philosophy Neither Lenin nor Lenon, but both
Ivan Illich is both a pilgrim and an intellectual pioneer. Through nearly 40 years as a churchman, social critic and historian, he has exposed to radical criticism such contemporary institutions as education, transportation, medicine and technology. In recent years he has written on economics, gender and the history of literacy. Ideas writer/broadcaster David Cayley prepared this series from extensive interviews with Illich.
They hunger for a self that comes into existence through the respectful love of an Other. This longing is specifically characteristic of 1996, utterly different from the spirit of commitment we witnessed in 1968. That generation awoke to a thirst for justice. They wanted to atone for privilege by making the Other an object of development; they wanted "to help" through various programs of economic, pedagogical or ideological transformation.
· Celebration of Awareness [Wood]

Is Poetry a bad thing?

Now, a materially minded person might suggest that in market terms, what we have is a serious imbalance between supply and demand. In other words, a lot more people are writing poetry than are reading it.
· Inevitable thing [Los]

Politics The Double Dose of Political Realism
What is the right side of history at this point in history ?
The concept of a right side of history is derived from Marxism, and it is founded on the belief that there is a forward advance toward a socialist future that can be resisted, but not ultimately defeated. But does anyone believe this anymore? Does anyone take seriously the claim that the present state of affairs will be set aside and a wholly new order of things implemented in its place, and that such a transformation of the world will happen as a matter of course?
· Multiple of Reality Czechs [Policy Review]

Talking Back To Talk Radio - Fairness, Democracy, and Profits
Turning the dial again, we found a convicted felon ranting about the importance of government having ever-more powers to monitor, investigate, and prosecute American citizens without having to worry about constitutional human rights protections. Apparently the combining of nationwide German police agencies (following the terrorist attack of February 1933 when the Parliament building was set afire) into one giant Fatherland Security Agency answerable only to the Executive Branch, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, was a lesson of history this guy had completely forgotten. Neither, apparently, do most Americans recall that the single most powerful device used to bring about the SS and its political master was radio.
· Is history repeating itself? [CommonDream]

Information Awareness Office Is Right Out Of '1984'
The New York Times' John Markoff was the first reporter to break the news, on Feb. 13, that retired Adm. John Poindexter, national security adviser to President Reagan, has returned to the Pentagon to direct a new agency that is developing technologies to give federal officials instant access to vast new surveillance and information-analysis systems.
· Surveillance Efforts Threaten Freedom [Editor & Publisher]

Media Europe approves new law for financial journalists
European Union finance ministers have approved a controversial new insider trading law that would punish journalists for publishing false or misleading information.
· insider trading [Media Guardian]

Off the record? In the right? The jury is out on column case
If a Nov. 1 insider trading on Cape Cod was intended to improve the uneasy relationship between judges and journalists, it can safely be called a failure. Instead, details from the off-the-record seminar showed up in a Boston Herald column that attacked one jurist, generated one apology, provoked two journalists into accusing each other of playing fast and loose with the truth, and did absolutely nothing to make the judges feel one iota better about the news media.
· insider trading [Boston Daily Globe]

All the Journalist's Sources
Bob Woodward, blackmailer?
Bush at War, by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster). This "instant first draft of history" provides juicy access to the Bush war room—and provokes debate about Woodward's leaky research techniques. In the Los Angeles Times, Edward N. Luttwak calls it "a type of journalism that virtually amounts to tacit blackmail: Talk to me, spill your share of secrets—or at least your personal touchy-feely confidences—or I will cast you as the villain." But in the Washington Post, Fouad Ajami asserts that if historians quibble, "readers keep coming back for more. Eventually, the historians will have their day ... Their prose will be richer, their accounts fuller. But for now, we are fortunate to have this richly detailed view of our nation's central policy command." (Buy Bush at War.)
· leaky research techniques [Slate]

Lifestyle High and Mighty

Have you ever wondered why sport utility vehicle drivers seem like such assholes? Surely it's no coincidence that Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Dem-ocratic National Committee, tours Washington in one of the biggest SUVs on the market, the Cadillac Escalade, or that Jesse Ventura loves the Lincoln Navigator. Well, according to New York Times reporter Keith Bradsher's new book, High and Mighty, the connection between the two isn't a coincidence. Unlike any other vehicle before it, the SUV is the car of choice for the nation's most self-centered people; and the bigger the SUV, the more of a jerk its driver is likely to be.
· most self-centered people [Washington Monthly]

Literature Baddest sex awarded . . .

The third time was the charm for novelist Wendy Perriam, who won the not–so–coveted Bad Sex in Fiction Award in London last night.
'Yes!' she whispered back. Dorsal subluxation ... flexion deformity of the first metatarsal ... 'Oh yes!' she shouted, screwing up her face in concentration, tossing back her hair. 'Yes, oh Malcolm, yes!'.
· London's In and Out Club [Moby Lives]

Kafka, the happy office worker? . .

Kafka worked hard for his company, The Workers' Accident Insurance Company for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague, and his superiors at the insurance company attested to his excellent conceptual power.
· a talent for being an office worker [Moby Lives]

Blog Obirtuary Media Dragon is sad to read, but The Cat is Dead (really)

All good things must come to an end... and so too must mediocre things like this blog. The sound was faint and distorted at first but now it's clear and loud - the phone is ringing and reality is on the line.

Of course you always try and ignore it and snooze on, but sooner or later your eyes are open and the horror and tedium of real life await. So, like a Martian wub, the blog must die.

This is the final entry @ http://donarthur.blogspot.com/
posted by Don Arthur at Thursday, December 05, 2002 [Cat Dead, really]
· :( [geek]

I used to be offended, but now I'm just amused ...
-based on a line from the Elvis Costello song Red Shoes (in the year of the Charter 77)

Double Politics Doublespeak
Citizens need to be able to look under the skirts of their government, not the other way around.
· Newspeak [Seattle Times]

Politics Australian Animal Farm
Currently, George Orwell's Animal Farm is being adapted for the stage in China. You may be wondering how that got past the censors. Well, Shang Chengjun's adaptation doesn't emphasize the corrupt leaders; instead it focuses on the danger of apathy in the masses. It wasn't the pigs fault, after all, that they were oppressing the other farm animals. Chengjun noted that he wanted to criticize them (the masses) for being selfish, indifferent, ignorant, fatuous and lazy.

This unselfish and thoughtful piece comes from Australian Webdiary:
I think there was much more to his outburst: Margo had hit at least two raw nerves, with her attacking Carr's developer links, as well as with the publishing of WTO protest material in Webdiary. The connection with the latter is possibly the following. Paddy McGuinness - who idiotically likened the protesters to Nazis - is a good friend of Carr's. I have a suspicion that McGuinness influenced NSW police policy towards the protesters. If Carr indeed talks to PP about these things, then I'd advise him to seek better counsel.

McGuinness despises ‘the inherent authority that is superior to that of the people and parliaments’ (SMH 16/3/2000) which people like the WTO protesters evidently claim to have. He believes in absolute democracy. If "the people" elect national socialists, then so be it. The "will of the people" is sacred - and our elected leaders are the incarnation of God. We must obey unquestioningly, and have faith in the State.

The Australian's Editorial (28/11) echoes this sentiment: Australians ‘should have more confidence in the robustness of Australian democracy.’ But an important pillar of this robustness will be chipped away by the NSW anti-terror legislation, when the police minister himself is given the power to decide, for instance, whether the anti-terror measures are to be implemented for additional lengths of time. The decision to extend the period should be made by an independent authority.

While it remains true that the police minister, along with the government that appointed him, can be voted out of office - the anti-terror measures don't ban elections - the government would be given a free pass to create mischief while in office, and extra power to manipulate the electorate towards its own ends.

The clash of civilizations in Australia is not between political left versus right. It's between those for whom the ground level details loom large and who build their cathedrals of principles from the ground up in a disordered sort of way; and those whose cathedral building blocks somehow get born into the world from transcendental heights, and are fashioned into shape through experience and questioning.

Actually the clash is not between these two ways of thinking - there's no reason why they shouldn't agree, since they're working in the same reality - but between corrupted versions of them.

Corruption happens when people stop asking questions, cease engaging with the facts, but nevertheless keep wielding power. This holds in all cultures - Japan, for example, too.

Then the disordered, ground-level conscience weakens the other's already brittle, orderly cathedral (or golden pavilion): it is vehemently rejected.
· Animal Hunger for Power [Sydney Morning Herald]

Democratic tax dollars at work . . .

The U.S. government went to extraordinary lengths to spy on novelist Graham Greene, according to an article in The Guardian based on documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
· Animal Hunger for Spying [Guardian - London]

Arts Artist Hopes Dairy Herd Makes Poetry
Some writers have to be handled with kid gloves. For his plan to paint words on cows, then let them wander around to see if they could compose poetry. Nathan Banks originally wanted to paint a word on both sides of each cow. However, They're used to being milked from the same side all the time and they didn't like being approached on the other side.
· Animal Hunger for Poetry [Yahoo]

Literature

Salon has a very nice piece explaining why books cost so much.
· Cost-a-Books [Salon]

Salmon

Everyone told me how hard it is to sell your book, to get a review, to get some kind of notice. A beaten author friend describes the period between finishing a book and publishing a book as the calm before the calm. I knew all this. It's a rough game. But I never thought I'd get arrested for trying to give my book a fighting chance.
· Calm before the Calm [NY Times]

Swimming Stroke-by-Stroke

Lightning, whirlpools, petrochemicals, poisonous snakes, towering barges and plain old physical exhaustion are just some of the challenges that 47-year old Martin Strel faces in his quest to be the first man to swim the entire length of the Mississippi River.
· Mississipppppi [Strel - Shoot]

Real Page-Turners

Greed! Egomania! Back-stabbing! Temper tantrums! Vicious office politics! Ah, I love stories about press galleries. In order to protect the guilty names of trickiest minders and situations have been changed.
· Inside Parliamentary Press Galleries? [Queen of Nice]

Ramius: I remember the days of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, when the world trembled at the sound of our rockets. Now they will tremble again, at our silence.
-The Hunt for Red October

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
- Frédéric Bastiat

Overheard in a cafe: Lady, you wouldn't know a blawgger if he popped out of the toilet and bit you on the ass.

Power Elite Shaking the tree, rattling the cage, clipping the wings.

We hear evidence that HIH’s lawyers did not provide any opinion on the legality or probity of the decision by Ray Williams to invest $10 million of HIH money into a trust controlled by Rodney Adler – another HIH director – and which money was used to buy shares in Adler Corporation, despite knowing of the circumstances and transactions. The reason? They weren’t asked to!

The HIH story is one of power elites, in C. Wright Mills’ terms. The intimacy of old associates and school friends and the use of financial ‘incentives’ kept everyone in line. It created an environment in which a culture of managerial enrichment and recklessness was possible.
· Pocketful of Posers [OLO]

Terror The value of compassion

For many Australians, the horror and injustice that saturate our world suddenly became real this month. For some it was a profound shock to realise that we are not insulated from the pain and death that accompany life at every point and in every person. We are just ordinary humans – searching, fearful, loving and vulnerable, and we will never grow up, never learn justice and compassion, and never understand spirituality, unless we face the reality of suffering. Instead of replacing false securities with fake religion, instead of setting out, with grim determination, to make sure this atrocity does not alter our "carefree Aussie lifestyle", can we learn to love one another enough, and love life enough, to sit together and face the horror without running away?
· Searching [OLO]

Internet B(l)egging for $

I came to a realization that I've been mulling over ever since: a lack of money is hindering the growth and potential of blogging. Free--or personal--blogging can only take us so far. Ken Parish might consider adding blegging to the jargon of bloggers.
BTW, who owns http://www.hillarybray.com? 100 Crown REWARD offered ...
· Blogging [O'Reilly]

Where would most of the Blawggers be in the Adolf’s 30s?

German doctors were unusually supportive of the Hitler regime and Nazi racial ideology. Forty-five percent joined the Nazi party, 33% joined the Nazi Physicians’ League, 26% were members of the SA (stormtroopers), and 7% joined the elite and comparatively small Schutzstaffel (SS). Physicians outranked in representation every other professional group except in the SS (there, lawyers had them beat), says a review in JAMA of Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices, Legacies. Another fact: It was under the Nazis that the world’s most aggressive crusade against smoking took place.
· Another Evidence [JAMA]

Politics of Irony Dirty 30: Real Gough can live at the bayside of Darling Point but still can't walk on water

The chaos and incompetence of 1973 returns to America. It's fine for the French Foreign Minister to accuse the White House of "simplisme", because those idiot Americans are far too simplistic to know what simplisme means. It's safe for "senior British civil servants", in this newspaper, to dismiss Bush as "a bear of little brain", because those frightful Yanks are too ill-educated to recognize such a subtle intellectual literary allusion. It's okay to sneer at the President, as is done routinely at dinner parties in London, Paris, Winnipeg, all the great cities, as "not the brightest bulb in the chandelier", because such concepts as metaphor and analogy are almost certainly unknown to the birdbrain.

Had she done any of the above, Franoise Ducros would still have her job. But instead she cut to the chase. "What a moron!" she scoffed, speaking in Prague to a CBC reporter. The CBC guy barely noticed the remark: I mean, what's the big deal? Everyone knows Bush is a moron, don't they?
· Australian Bush [Sydney Morning Herald]
· Autralian Paddy [SMH]
· American Bush [Telepgraph London]

Tax Taxpayers Bill of Rights

Paul Marks points out that it is the spending rather than the taxing which is the root of governments woe
· Colorado - not missing the point [Samizdata]

Sexy Scotch What lies beneath?
The vast majority of Scotsmen still choose to wear nothing beneath their kilts, according to a survey out today. The survey of men north of the border revealed that 69 per cent of kilt-wearers prefer to - go commando.
· Comando [This is London]