I never saw one minute of the Oscars, not one, don't care, it's the ultimate popularity contest. However, in my opinion there were only two errors in the outcome. Both at the supporting actor/actress category.
I love Alan Arkin but his performance in LMS could have been done by a number of people. Compared to his acting in "Wait Until Dark" or "Catch 22" it was nothing more than throw the guy a bone. He was much better in the hysterical comedy with Peter Falk, "The In-Laws". This was simply a sympathy Oscar. Eddie Murphy should have won (from the list of nominees) for his versatility in his portrayal of the James Brown like character in "Dreamgirls", a very overrated movie by the way. LMS was in my mortal opinion nothing more than a good made for TV movie. It just didn't do it for me. This was supposed to be how a real dysfunctional family acts and lives? Not for me, no one is gonna let grandpa prepare the final act, whacked out on heroin and fatalism. It just didn't do it for me, but that's what makes the world go round.
The best actor/actress category was a "no-brainier" for anyone that saw those two movies, simply mesmerizing performances, two of the best ever. Best picture, no contest, it should have been.
hortense
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Genie in a ...Garage?
Five years ago we did a remodel on our house. Among the things that changed were the garage doors and their openers. The old ones were basic, but they had a socket on the side which held a light bulb that would turn on every time the door opened--very helpful in the dark.
The new ones are much fancier, sleek black and white boxes with a nice chain drive--but for some reason, the damn contractor installed ones without lights. So you either leave the overhead garage lights on all the time, or you're going to fumble to the door in the dark after you've turned off your headlights.
How many times over the years have I muttered to myself about this?
Then, yesterday, something struck me. The black plastic housing on those boxes is opaque; but the white part is translucent. I got up on a step stool. Sure enough, up near the ceiling, there are two tiny screw connecting the two colored housings together. I unscrew them, the white part flips down, and sure enough, there are two lonely light sockets, just itching for their chance to shine.
How many other things in life are hidden in plain view, just waiting to be recognized?
diderot
The new ones are much fancier, sleek black and white boxes with a nice chain drive--but for some reason, the damn contractor installed ones without lights. So you either leave the overhead garage lights on all the time, or you're going to fumble to the door in the dark after you've turned off your headlights.
How many times over the years have I muttered to myself about this?
Then, yesterday, something struck me. The black plastic housing on those boxes is opaque; but the white part is translucent. I got up on a step stool. Sure enough, up near the ceiling, there are two tiny screw connecting the two colored housings together. I unscrew them, the white part flips down, and sure enough, there are two lonely light sockets, just itching for their chance to shine.
How many other things in life are hidden in plain view, just waiting to be recognized?
diderot
Monday, February 26, 2007
No-Bull Durham
If you've bothered to read the boilerplate to the left of this post, you know that the Three Guys cemented their life-long friendship on the baseball field of their Chicago high school. Maybe that means nothing to you...maybe you don't even like baseball.
But still, could it be that you once had someone convince you to watch the movie Bull Durham? And did you happen to identify with the Kevin Costner character--the older guy who vied for the affections of Susan Sarandon, pitted against the much younger and more virile Tim Robbins character? If baseball players were really like Crash Davis (Costner), instead of those spoiled, overpaid prima donnas, then maybe you'd care.
Well, guess what. Crash Davis lives.
Courtesy of Athlon Sports, here is a career snapshot of the real life Chris Coste, a catcher who finally got his chance with the Philadelphia Phillies last year:
diderot
But still, could it be that you once had someone convince you to watch the movie Bull Durham? And did you happen to identify with the Kevin Costner character--the older guy who vied for the affections of Susan Sarandon, pitted against the much younger and more virile Tim Robbins character? If baseball players were really like Crash Davis (Costner), instead of those spoiled, overpaid prima donnas, then maybe you'd care.
Well, guess what. Crash Davis lives.
Courtesy of Athlon Sports, here is a career snapshot of the real life Chris Coste, a catcher who finally got his chance with the Philadelphia Phillies last year:
- 34 years old, veteran of five years in the Independent League (i.e., pays minimum wage if you're lucky), as well as a player in five different countries
- Got married on the field while playing for the Fargo-Moorhead franchise in the Northern League (not as bad as it sounds--he was raised in Fargo, so at least he was close to home). While playing, he also worked in the front office, and did a radio show, for which he was paid $12 a day
- Previously signed and released by four different Major League organizations
- Has authored one book on minor league baseball, and another one is on the way
- Finally made his Major League debut last year, at age 33. In his first at-bat, he was hit by a pitch (and believe me, even though 'real' players never rub the wound, it 'really' hurts)
- Improbably, he hit .328 in more than 200 trips to the plate; that would have ranked him #3 among all catchers in baseball had he been granted enough plate appearances to qualify. After the season, the organization voted him 'most inspirational' player
- Despite that performance, he is listed as the #3 catcher this year for the Phillies, and is not even guaranteed a spot on the team
diderot
Educated, Intelligent and Smart
If ever a distinction needed to be made, it is that between the terms 'educated', 'intelligent' and 'smart'. They are often carelessly interchanged. This is dangerous.
To simplify, let's say 'educated' is just the measurement of the level of education you've successfully attained. Maybe just grade school or high school...or maybe a PhD in physics. In any case, I would suggest that we've all met people who were 'well educated', but whom we would not consider equally intelligent or smart.
Intelligent, as I understand it, is simply a measurement of the individual facility to learn and comprehend things--some of them inherently unintelligible, like calculus (OK, that's my bias speaking). It is popularly measured by "IQ" scores.
Finally, there is 'smart'--something entirely different from the first two. It is an immeasurable ability of people to understand how the world works. Who read between the lines. See ulterior motives. 'Read' people well. Become hard to fool. It is a trait the Three Guys often attribute to fellow Chicagoans.
Which leads to the discussion of comments made over the weekend by our country's Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice. She of a doctorate at the University of Denver and similar honorary degrees from half a dozen others; an apparently successful stint as provost of Stanford; and seats on the board of both Chevron and Charles Schwab. Certainly it would be impossible to argue either her education or her intelligence.
But her latest comments over the weekend, asserting that the overthrow of Saddam was equal to the defeat of Hitler, stops the train of tributes dead in its tracks. This is hardly her only stumble; she has been misstating reality and failing her country for the last seven years. One can only presume that a person of her accomplishment is not deliberately lying. Surely that tendency would have been noticed by someone before she was appointed the top person advising the President of the United States on intelligence matters.
Which leaves only one possibility. The chasm between her education and intelligence, on one hand, and her absolute void of 'smarts' on the other, makes her verifiably the stupidest person on Earth.
diderot
To simplify, let's say 'educated' is just the measurement of the level of education you've successfully attained. Maybe just grade school or high school...or maybe a PhD in physics. In any case, I would suggest that we've all met people who were 'well educated', but whom we would not consider equally intelligent or smart.
Intelligent, as I understand it, is simply a measurement of the individual facility to learn and comprehend things--some of them inherently unintelligible, like calculus (OK, that's my bias speaking). It is popularly measured by "IQ" scores.
Finally, there is 'smart'--something entirely different from the first two. It is an immeasurable ability of people to understand how the world works. Who read between the lines. See ulterior motives. 'Read' people well. Become hard to fool. It is a trait the Three Guys often attribute to fellow Chicagoans.
Which leads to the discussion of comments made over the weekend by our country's Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice. She of a doctorate at the University of Denver and similar honorary degrees from half a dozen others; an apparently successful stint as provost of Stanford; and seats on the board of both Chevron and Charles Schwab. Certainly it would be impossible to argue either her education or her intelligence.
But her latest comments over the weekend, asserting that the overthrow of Saddam was equal to the defeat of Hitler, stops the train of tributes dead in its tracks. This is hardly her only stumble; she has been misstating reality and failing her country for the last seven years. One can only presume that a person of her accomplishment is not deliberately lying. Surely that tendency would have been noticed by someone before she was appointed the top person advising the President of the United States on intelligence matters.
Which leaves only one possibility. The chasm between her education and intelligence, on one hand, and her absolute void of 'smarts' on the other, makes her verifiably the stupidest person on Earth.
diderot
Sunday, February 25, 2007
The Political Cookout
In considering a Presidential candidate, for the sake of argument, let's say that the voting public in America is divided into three roughly equal segments. A third will always vote for more liberal candidate, a third for the more conservative, and a third is in the middle, alternatively labeled the 'independent' or 'undecided' voters. But these are two entirely different animals.
The truly 'independent' are perhaps the most discerning and open minded of voters, earnestly studying a candidate's background and positions to determine which might better lead the country. The undecided are, in many ways, the polar opposite. These are voters who are so disconnected from the entire process that they will ultimately cast their ballots on an entirely different basis.
Enter the Political Cookout.
Imagine that you're hosting a barbeque in your backyard on a summer night, and your spouse has invited several people that you don't know. As you're standing over the open flames sizzling your burgers and chicken wings, one of those strangers approaches with a beer in hand, ready to say hello and get acquainted. You're the cook--you can't excuse yourself from your station. You're going to have to stay and talk. How will that conversation go?
This is how most of the 'undecideds' ultimately do decide their vote. For them, 'studying up on the candidates' is confined to paid TV commercials, maybe a couple of soundbites on the news, or even catching part of one debate. From that input, a visceral conclusion is drawn--which of these people do I think would be the most bearable to me, trapped in front of that grill?
It's pointless to judge why their contact with the political process is so limited--it just is. And the perverse genius of the Lee Atwaters and Karl Roves of the Republican Party is that they have never looked down their noses at the 'undecideds'--they've embraced them, because in the majority of elections, they're the folks who will decide the winner. I'm hardly the first to make this observation, but when you consider the perceived persona of Eisenhower vs. Stevenson, Kennedy vs. Nixon, Reagan vs. his opponents and Clinton vs. his, I would submit that the undecided voters overwhelmingly determined that they'd rather have that beer and talk with the guy who won instead of the guy who lost. (Carter vs. Ford, you say? I believe that in this case, the ultimate 'unfairness' of the Nixon pardon swung even a huge share of the undecideds against Ford, even if Ford was seen to be the more 'regular' guy. )
When Rove stood his candidate up against both Gore and Kerry, he knew that he would never win among the independents. These were as close as you could get to mismatches in terms of experience, credentials and IQ. His only hope was to win the Political Cookout test, not only by making his own foil seem more personally likable, but more importantly, by making the opponents look as geeky, out-of-touch and generally unlikable as possible. Would you really want to have that beer with a guy who was delusional enough to think he was the role model for A Love Story? Or worried about changing his wardrobe from 'power colors' to 'earth tones'? Or a guy who married some divorcee for her money, and was so unpatriotic that he flung his own war medals into the trash? Of course not. Vote for my guy. He's more 'real'.
Which brings us to the current posse of hopefuls. Each candidate has his or her own set of handlers, deciding which is the best persona to project. And of course, the political calculus is different at this stage, since the necessary appeal now is only to voters of your own party in a handful of states. But at the same time, the media is already projecting how these personalities will play in front of the full electorate more than 20 months into the future. And voters across the nation, even the now-and-future undecideds, are already picking up cues.
For the GOP, this mission is especially dangerous right now. Giuliani, the Hero of the Horror, has a set of lifelong positions from abortion to social welfare that make him a real threat to the Democrats--but currently, he isn't running against any Democrat. What most threatens him is that the right wing of his own party never gives him a chance. So his answer, thus far, is to try and change the subject. And for the time being, it's working, because the majority of attention remains fixed on McCain.
And what a tragic figure he's become. His reputation, even among members of his own party, is rapidly moving from 'guy who survived a prison camp' to 'guy who didn't survive the prison camp very well'. He has politically abandoned previous positions faster than Anna Nicole Smith switched lovers. Whether he can temporarily accomplish Bush's miracle-- "hey, don't worry about my past!"--it will come back to haunt him should he win the nomination, turning the Kerry 'flip-flop' vocabulary against him, in spades.
Romney has exactly the same problem, but it's being subsumed so far by confusion about his 'Mormon-ness'. The subject of religion in this election is fascinating, but a topic for a future post.
When you consider the Democratic field (for the moment, at least, just two contenders), not only does Obama win the cookout test, but with more and more exposure, he's going to pull even further ahead on this count. His facility for saying things directly and honestly is not just appealing, it's the perfect tonic for the toxicity that's enveloped Washington for the last four election cycles. Like any good marketers, political consultants measure both awareness and favorability. Obama so far is in the happy position of knowing that as the first rises, so will the second.
Which leaves us, at last, with Sen. Clinton. Among political junkies, I would submit that for the last half century, the political campaign you'd most like to be inside of --just to observe the advice and argument--is hers, right now. As a candidate who's always been over-advised and over-coached, the natural reaction to the Obama threat is to do more of the same. But for her, that's pure poison. Her ability to compete, particularly in a general election, will largely be determined in how she responds right now to the cookout factor. Presently, the persona she projects is not one that would make you turn and say, "hey, how about you grab us a couple more beers?" And if she continues beyond the first exploratory steps of trying to drag down Obama rather than raising herself, she will never be invited back to this barbeque. The undecideds simply won't have her.
The lesser known of the Steely Dan duet, Walter Becker, once wrote a line of lyrics, "tomorrow's for squares, tonight is for real".
Hillary had better decide to get real now, or there won't be a tomorrow.
diderot
The truly 'independent' are perhaps the most discerning and open minded of voters, earnestly studying a candidate's background and positions to determine which might better lead the country. The undecided are, in many ways, the polar opposite. These are voters who are so disconnected from the entire process that they will ultimately cast their ballots on an entirely different basis.
Enter the Political Cookout.
Imagine that you're hosting a barbeque in your backyard on a summer night, and your spouse has invited several people that you don't know. As you're standing over the open flames sizzling your burgers and chicken wings, one of those strangers approaches with a beer in hand, ready to say hello and get acquainted. You're the cook--you can't excuse yourself from your station. You're going to have to stay and talk. How will that conversation go?
This is how most of the 'undecideds' ultimately do decide their vote. For them, 'studying up on the candidates' is confined to paid TV commercials, maybe a couple of soundbites on the news, or even catching part of one debate. From that input, a visceral conclusion is drawn--which of these people do I think would be the most bearable to me, trapped in front of that grill?
It's pointless to judge why their contact with the political process is so limited--it just is. And the perverse genius of the Lee Atwaters and Karl Roves of the Republican Party is that they have never looked down their noses at the 'undecideds'--they've embraced them, because in the majority of elections, they're the folks who will decide the winner. I'm hardly the first to make this observation, but when you consider the perceived persona of Eisenhower vs. Stevenson, Kennedy vs. Nixon, Reagan vs. his opponents and Clinton vs. his, I would submit that the undecided voters overwhelmingly determined that they'd rather have that beer and talk with the guy who won instead of the guy who lost. (Carter vs. Ford, you say? I believe that in this case, the ultimate 'unfairness' of the Nixon pardon swung even a huge share of the undecideds against Ford, even if Ford was seen to be the more 'regular' guy. )
When Rove stood his candidate up against both Gore and Kerry, he knew that he would never win among the independents. These were as close as you could get to mismatches in terms of experience, credentials and IQ. His only hope was to win the Political Cookout test, not only by making his own foil seem more personally likable, but more importantly, by making the opponents look as geeky, out-of-touch and generally unlikable as possible. Would you really want to have that beer with a guy who was delusional enough to think he was the role model for A Love Story? Or worried about changing his wardrobe from 'power colors' to 'earth tones'? Or a guy who married some divorcee for her money, and was so unpatriotic that he flung his own war medals into the trash? Of course not. Vote for my guy. He's more 'real'.
Which brings us to the current posse of hopefuls. Each candidate has his or her own set of handlers, deciding which is the best persona to project. And of course, the political calculus is different at this stage, since the necessary appeal now is only to voters of your own party in a handful of states. But at the same time, the media is already projecting how these personalities will play in front of the full electorate more than 20 months into the future. And voters across the nation, even the now-and-future undecideds, are already picking up cues.
For the GOP, this mission is especially dangerous right now. Giuliani, the Hero of the Horror, has a set of lifelong positions from abortion to social welfare that make him a real threat to the Democrats--but currently, he isn't running against any Democrat. What most threatens him is that the right wing of his own party never gives him a chance. So his answer, thus far, is to try and change the subject. And for the time being, it's working, because the majority of attention remains fixed on McCain.
And what a tragic figure he's become. His reputation, even among members of his own party, is rapidly moving from 'guy who survived a prison camp' to 'guy who didn't survive the prison camp very well'. He has politically abandoned previous positions faster than Anna Nicole Smith switched lovers. Whether he can temporarily accomplish Bush's miracle-- "hey, don't worry about my past!"--it will come back to haunt him should he win the nomination, turning the Kerry 'flip-flop' vocabulary against him, in spades.
Romney has exactly the same problem, but it's being subsumed so far by confusion about his 'Mormon-ness'. The subject of religion in this election is fascinating, but a topic for a future post.
When you consider the Democratic field (for the moment, at least, just two contenders), not only does Obama win the cookout test, but with more and more exposure, he's going to pull even further ahead on this count. His facility for saying things directly and honestly is not just appealing, it's the perfect tonic for the toxicity that's enveloped Washington for the last four election cycles. Like any good marketers, political consultants measure both awareness and favorability. Obama so far is in the happy position of knowing that as the first rises, so will the second.
Which leaves us, at last, with Sen. Clinton. Among political junkies, I would submit that for the last half century, the political campaign you'd most like to be inside of --just to observe the advice and argument--is hers, right now. As a candidate who's always been over-advised and over-coached, the natural reaction to the Obama threat is to do more of the same. But for her, that's pure poison. Her ability to compete, particularly in a general election, will largely be determined in how she responds right now to the cookout factor. Presently, the persona she projects is not one that would make you turn and say, "hey, how about you grab us a couple more beers?" And if she continues beyond the first exploratory steps of trying to drag down Obama rather than raising herself, she will never be invited back to this barbeque. The undecideds simply won't have her.
The lesser known of the Steely Dan duet, Walter Becker, once wrote a line of lyrics, "tomorrow's for squares, tonight is for real".
Hillary had better decide to get real now, or there won't be a tomorrow.
diderot
Friday, February 23, 2007
Movie Review: Breach
Yes, if you follow the news you know what's going to happen, but it carries great suspense anyway.
Yes, the casting and direction are superb.
But the conclusive reason you should see Breach which you may not know is that the real-life main character, Robert Hanssen, went to the same high school as the Three Guys. (But we did NOT slip him any state secrets.)
diderot
Yes, the casting and direction are superb.
But the conclusive reason you should see Breach which you may not know is that the real-life main character, Robert Hanssen, went to the same high school as the Three Guys. (But we did NOT slip him any state secrets.)
diderot
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Media Sins: What is Journalism?
I took my first paying job in journalsim 37 years ago. It seems almost impossible to put into words how the perception of what a journalist should be has changed. But this link does a great job of explaining how the profession has gone wrong.
diderot
diderot
Monday, February 19, 2007
A Chicago Story
My first job out of college was working as a cub reporter for the City News Bureau. This was like a minor league Associated Press, covering every little incident in King County, thus acting as a scouting service for the big papers who therefore didn't have to commit a more expensive reporter of their own. We tended to things like the City Landmarks Commission, which determined important issues like whether the addition of an awning would despoil an otherwise 'pristine' example of a dingy, 1920's meatpacking warehouse.
I did well enough to work my way up to the weekend evening beat covering not just an area police headquarters, but the main headquarters itself, at 1121 S. State. At that time, I always thought the placement of this building was the equivalent of a fort in medieval times, situated at the outpost of 'safe' territory, standing ready to repel invaders. As a white boy growing up on the Northwest side, you may not have known a lot about the city, but you knew that you didn't voluntarily roam south of Police Headquarters.
Covering this building was an OK beat on weekdays, when the building was full. It was a graveyard on weekend evenings, when all of the police brass was out on the town.
But one Saturday night, there was some ongoing crime that needed attention, so I didn't leave until about 2 am. I walked down the steps underground to the subway platform, and it was the first time I had ever seen it absolutely deserted. The only sound was the soft 'whooshing' of some train a couple of miles away. I could hear myself breathe--and nothing else.
Until that sound came. Footsteps. A single set. Walking down the same marble stairs I had come d0wn a minute or two before. I didn't dare turn to see who they belonged to, so I sat on the bench, staring at the tracks.
Slowly, they came closer. And closer. And then, I realized this someone had sat down right next to me. So close I could smell the booze on his breath. So I finally turned. And sure enough, it was a large black man. Looking right at me. I couldn't detect the weapon immediately, but there was something tucked under his arm. I couldn't help but thinking, 'here I am, literally steps from police headquarters, and this is happening to me.'
He just looked at me for a minute, and then he said softly, "hey, man, you know what a lesion is?"
"A what?"
"Lesion--something like that. You know anything about it?"
My brain raced. "Well, yeah, I think it's a cut...or a scar--or something."
We both paused. Did he intend to inflict a lesion--or several of them--on me?
Sure enough, he reached under that arm. But what he pulled out was not a weapon, but a long, large manila envelope. And from it, he extracted a single X-Ray. "Doc says these are my lungs, and this here is a lesion." He pointed to a dull white spot.
I said I didn't know what that was. I suspected it wasn't good news, but it didn't seem responsible to hazard a guess.
"OK, well thanks," he said, and he stood up and walked a few steps away, where he remained until his train came, taking him...and his lesions...to the southside.
Mine finally came and I boarded, in the opposite direction.
But from that day, I could never quite envision the southside as quite so hostile.
diderot
I did well enough to work my way up to the weekend evening beat covering not just an area police headquarters, but the main headquarters itself, at 1121 S. State. At that time, I always thought the placement of this building was the equivalent of a fort in medieval times, situated at the outpost of 'safe' territory, standing ready to repel invaders. As a white boy growing up on the Northwest side, you may not have known a lot about the city, but you knew that you didn't voluntarily roam south of Police Headquarters.
Covering this building was an OK beat on weekdays, when the building was full. It was a graveyard on weekend evenings, when all of the police brass was out on the town.
But one Saturday night, there was some ongoing crime that needed attention, so I didn't leave until about 2 am. I walked down the steps underground to the subway platform, and it was the first time I had ever seen it absolutely deserted. The only sound was the soft 'whooshing' of some train a couple of miles away. I could hear myself breathe--and nothing else.
Until that sound came. Footsteps. A single set. Walking down the same marble stairs I had come d0wn a minute or two before. I didn't dare turn to see who they belonged to, so I sat on the bench, staring at the tracks.
Slowly, they came closer. And closer. And then, I realized this someone had sat down right next to me. So close I could smell the booze on his breath. So I finally turned. And sure enough, it was a large black man. Looking right at me. I couldn't detect the weapon immediately, but there was something tucked under his arm. I couldn't help but thinking, 'here I am, literally steps from police headquarters, and this is happening to me.'
He just looked at me for a minute, and then he said softly, "hey, man, you know what a lesion is?"
"A what?"
"Lesion--something like that. You know anything about it?"
My brain raced. "Well, yeah, I think it's a cut...or a scar--or something."
We both paused. Did he intend to inflict a lesion--or several of them--on me?
Sure enough, he reached under that arm. But what he pulled out was not a weapon, but a long, large manila envelope. And from it, he extracted a single X-Ray. "Doc says these are my lungs, and this here is a lesion." He pointed to a dull white spot.
I said I didn't know what that was. I suspected it wasn't good news, but it didn't seem responsible to hazard a guess.
"OK, well thanks," he said, and he stood up and walked a few steps away, where he remained until his train came, taking him...and his lesions...to the southside.
Mine finally came and I boarded, in the opposite direction.
But from that day, I could never quite envision the southside as quite so hostile.
diderot
The Swamp Fox
When I was a kid, I simply could not get enough of the Landmark Books. Biographies of athletes, inventors, politicians and other legendary figures. Histories that recounted the battles of King Arthur, Napoleon and D-Day. And among them, probably my favorite was the heroic depiction of Francis Marion--known better (at least to some) as the Swamp Fox.
Marion was despised by the British during the Revolutionary War because he and his small band of men would win battles, at times, without ever being seen. They would pick off the redcoats from behind the thickets of swampland...intercept traveling parties under the cover of darkness...and build their reputation by whatever means necessary as the greatest scouts of that, and perhaps any other, American war.
Oh, how the British hated him! Winning or losing, they claimed, was incidental--at least the man should have the decency to obey the rules of modern warfare!
Of course, it's been impossible not to think of the Swamp Fox recently. Last week a U.S. general chastised the Iraqi terrorists for 'being afraid to face us on the battlefield'. We have heard the arguments about the need for our military to equip and train itself for 'a new kind of warfare'. And yesterday, that oily prevaricator, Tony Snow, assured a Sunday morning talk show host that certainly the suicide and IED attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq were 'unprecedented'.
I guess, from the historical perspective of the U.S., you can't have it both ways. Either Marion was a 'terrorist', just like the opponents in Iraq--or those Iraqis would have to be construed as wily and inventive 'freedom fighters', doing what they need to do to repel foreign occupiers.
I wish I had written down the name of the retired U.S. general I saw on TV two or three years ago, when it first became evident that what was going on in Iraq was an organized opposition, not just random acts of violence. His assessment, to paraphrase, was, "that's it. We've lost. There is no way we can beat this kind of opposition because we'll never be able to find them. The only question remaining is how long we'll take to admit it, and how many more lives we'll lose in the process."
I can't be sure, but I assume he was thinking of the Swamp Fox.
diderot
Update: Today President Bush compared his position in Iraq with that of George Washington fending off the British during his time. As usual, absolutely, 100%, 180 degrees wrong by Bush. The British invaded America. We invaded Iraq.
Marion was despised by the British during the Revolutionary War because he and his small band of men would win battles, at times, without ever being seen. They would pick off the redcoats from behind the thickets of swampland...intercept traveling parties under the cover of darkness...and build their reputation by whatever means necessary as the greatest scouts of that, and perhaps any other, American war.
Oh, how the British hated him! Winning or losing, they claimed, was incidental--at least the man should have the decency to obey the rules of modern warfare!
Of course, it's been impossible not to think of the Swamp Fox recently. Last week a U.S. general chastised the Iraqi terrorists for 'being afraid to face us on the battlefield'. We have heard the arguments about the need for our military to equip and train itself for 'a new kind of warfare'. And yesterday, that oily prevaricator, Tony Snow, assured a Sunday morning talk show host that certainly the suicide and IED attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq were 'unprecedented'.
I guess, from the historical perspective of the U.S., you can't have it both ways. Either Marion was a 'terrorist', just like the opponents in Iraq--or those Iraqis would have to be construed as wily and inventive 'freedom fighters', doing what they need to do to repel foreign occupiers.
I wish I had written down the name of the retired U.S. general I saw on TV two or three years ago, when it first became evident that what was going on in Iraq was an organized opposition, not just random acts of violence. His assessment, to paraphrase, was, "that's it. We've lost. There is no way we can beat this kind of opposition because we'll never be able to find them. The only question remaining is how long we'll take to admit it, and how many more lives we'll lose in the process."
I can't be sure, but I assume he was thinking of the Swamp Fox.
diderot
Update: Today President Bush compared his position in Iraq with that of George Washington fending off the British during his time. As usual, absolutely, 100%, 180 degrees wrong by Bush. The British invaded America. We invaded Iraq.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Olbermann
For about a year, Countdown with Keith Olbermann has been the best news show on television--exponentially.
Today he got his reward in the form on a nice contract from NBC, in which the guys who count beans for a living at GE acknowledged that Olbermann's approach is creating a lot more beans.
For years many media pundits believed only the Limbaughs and O'Reilly's of the world could turn a profit.
In Olbermann, the other side of the spectrum has a viable voice.
diderot
Today he got his reward in the form on a nice contract from NBC, in which the guys who count beans for a living at GE acknowledged that Olbermann's approach is creating a lot more beans.
For years many media pundits believed only the Limbaughs and O'Reilly's of the world could turn a profit.
In Olbermann, the other side of the spectrum has a viable voice.
diderot
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