Urban Legend Machine: make your own urban legend. “When you’re finished, e-mail it to everyone you know and see how long it takes to come back to you. Remember, when you’re connected to the Internet it’s important to believe everything that you read.”
Author Archives: FmH
From reading & writing:
‘…a reaction to my reading of the news about the “American aid workers” who have escaped from the Taliban. I’m glad they were not harmed. That said, the Taliban were right about them–they were whacko Christians from Waco, Texas who were caught with video & audio tapes that could have only one purpose: to convert Afghans to Christianity… I grew up among people like this, people who believe A) that there is a literal hell & B) You are going there if you don’t accept their religious beliefs. (Remind you of certain other people in the news recently?) Missionaries have done as much damage in the world in the last 200 years as armies–indeed, they are often the thin end of the wedge, the fat end of the wedge being colonial armies of occupation. So I have no sympathy for these “young women” & even less for their sanctimonious pastor in Waco who said on NPR this evening that they “were not afraid of death” because they believed in Jesus. Last night on NPR there was a story that quoted a young Muslim man as saying that his friend, who had died while on jihad in Afghanistan, was “already in Paradise with seventy black-eyed virgins.” He hadn’t been afraid of death either, nor was the speaker, unless it was mere bravado. I don’t see much of a difference between these two world views myself. None of these people have an irony organ. How about a crack team of secular humanists for Afghanistan? Ah, that wouldn’t work either, even with irony, as we should have learned in Vietnam & Iran with our self-serving attempts at “nation building.” ‘
Magical Thinking is forthcoming poetry from reading & writing‘s Joseph Duemer. An example:
Abandoned Bluetick Bitch
Numbed with self-loathing,
we abandon the emissaries
of grace. Chained to a tree
beside the empty rental
she hollowed out a den
for herself & her young.
By the time we found her
the water they'd left her
was a couple of days gone.
When it was gone she would have
slept, not dreaming, letting the pups
nurse her sparse milk
& when the smallest died
she ate it to keep
her strength & cleanse the den,
depriving coy dogs & foxes
an expedient scent.
It's likely there were two more
before we found her.
Ribs covered by a tissue of dry skin,
she was nothing -- a shadow
on the dirt & was just able
to raise her head & take
a little water from my hand
before turning to nose
her three live pups awake.
Reader, it is true, there is
horror everywhere worse
than this & cruelty that beggars
imagination, but this
is my horror, local & particular;
these were my neighbors did this,
who, without even the excuse
of racial or religious psychosis,
committed this wrong. Who live
in this same light & shadow I live in.
Let us kill one another
with heedless abandon -- we deserve it --
but not these poor relations
whose lives are without malice
& whose motives are transparent.
Let us kill one another.
Christopher Hitchens: Ha ha ha to the pacifists Guardian UK
Report: Al-Qaida Had Poison Formula: ‘Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network had a formula for making ricin, one of the deadliest known poisons, The Times newspaper reported Friday.
The Times said it found instructions for making the biological chemical ricin ? an untraceable poison that is twice as deadly as cobra venom ? in an al-Qaida safehouse in Kabul.’
Washington Post
Further into Ferlinghetti: gordon.coale was thinking about Lawrence Ferlinghetti when he noticed the snippet I used in my anniversary epistle below. So he dives in.
In observance of this site’s second birthday, I just checked in on my Bloghop account. To date, 34 people have rated me. Of those, nine think FmH either “sucks” or “hate it.” Now this may be a little like the joke in which I ask you to let me know if you don’t get this message; it’s not likely you’re still reading here. I sincerely hope not — life seems too short to waste your surfing time on something you revile. But on the other hand, there are some people who love to hate, and you fascinate me. So if you, or anyone else like you, is out there, why not write me and let me know what it is you don’t like about Follow Me Here. Is it my choice of subject matter? my manner and tone? my politics? my muddled thinking? my tortured language? my design sense? the slow load time of the page? or what? As an enticement, I’ll publish your comments here if you request me to. Use some choice adjectives…
“When I saw the dead and dying Afghani children on TV, I felt a newly recovered sense of national security. God Bless America.”
—Katie Sierra, 15 (Charleston WV)
Is there going to be an America left worth defending? From the westerby report, on the occasion of govt contemplation of the revocation of Posse Comitatus:
“I cannot name a single enumerated liberty that following September 11 has not been brutally interrogated and tortured either in that sham of democracy known as Congress or by the jibbering appartchiks of the op-ed pages. There has always been a huge gulf between the promise of America and its reality, but since September 11, the already rickety bridge between the two, is being burned. If the attack on freedom continues, America will come to exist simply as a morally empty, morally indefensible land mass between two oceans. I cannot send my children to die for that.”
Idiocy Watch: Readers’ Poll Results; the most inane things said about The Current Situation. The New Republic
Now, how much can US tighten the vise?: ‘…the Soviet Union controlled many Afghan cities and much of the country for years, yet came to grief in the mountainous redoubts to which the Taliban is now retreating.
But in their glory years, the mujahideen had both the civilian population and large stocks of US weapons behind them. Today, the fighting men in the caves have neither. Their adversaries include not only US special-operations groups, but also local warlords who sense that history is no longer on the Taliban’s side.’ Christian Science Monitor
Why Congress is quiet on Bush-Ashcroft domestic power grab Christian Science Monitor
RAWA’s appeal to the UN and World community: ‘The people of Afghanistan do not accept domination of the Northern Alliance!
Now it is confirmed that the Taliban have left Kabul and the Northern Alliance has entered the city.
The world should understand that the Northern Alliance is composed of some bands who did show their real criminal and inhuman nature when they were ruling Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996.
The retreat of the terrorist Taliban from Kabul is a positive development, but entering of the rapist and looter NA in the city is nothing but a dreadful and shocking news for about 2 million residents of Kabul whose wounds of the years 1992-96 have not healed yet.’
Demanding to Be Heard: ‘Advocates for Afghanistan’s women are pushing to ensure that women’s freedoms are protected under a post-Taliban government.
…As they have seized territory across northern Afghanistan, Northern Alliance officials have announced that women would no longer be forced to live under such severe limitations. Women, they announced, are free to return to work and girls would be allowed to attend schools once more. Still, it remains unclear whether the Alliance will actively protect and ensure women’s freedoms.
Given that most women’s groups have little if any political clout, their political concerns may be largely ignored by foreign diplomats and Afghan politicians alike.’ Mother Jones
Meanwhile, Dan Hartung, at lake effect, opines:
“Signs of defeatism: The defeatists will not recognize that there were Afghans who appreciated our intervention (however self-serving it was in ultimate purpose); who will play down Afghans’ newly reacquired freedoms to play music, watch television, fly kites (a reminder: not child’s play, but a traditional Afghan sport), discard burqas, or to use a soccer stadium for soccer instead of public stonings and executions; who will not celebrate the release of the aid workers (perhaps even legitimizing the nonsense “preaching” charges, which should be offensive to anyone who believes in liberal, secular democracy); who will not recognize the dramatically changed nature of the military operations; who will emphasize that the Taliban executed a “strategic retreat”, a trap into which we are walking (always possible; if so, bring it on); who will scoff at the notion that we are pursuing al Qaeda, even as we target them ever more precisely; who will attribute our strategy to secret plans and motives; who continue to demand “evidence” even as admissions and threats emanate from the cabal.
These people are insane, and the compassionate approach should be to get them help immediately.”
I’m partly with you Dan, but, oh, at least half defeatist. You have clearly chosen sides, but keep your eyes open! Only time, not strength of fervency, will tell.
More defeatist news:
Victorious Alliance says: ‘We don’t want your peacekeepers’:
‘The victorious Northern Alliance provided a foretaste of trouble by insisting yesterday that it would take care of security in Afghanistan and that an international peacekeeping force was unnecessary.
Within the last 48 hours, the alliance has defied the US by capturing Kabul and has rejected calls from America, Britain and the United Nations to create a broad-based government that would include moderate elements of the Taliban.
The latest alliance rebuff and the re-emergence of feudal warlords in the south of the country dampened celebrations in Washington and London over the ease with which Kabul fell on Tuesday.’ Guardian UK
Massacre threat to Taleban’s foreigners:
‘Northern Alliance forces have threatened to massacre up to 6,000 foreigners fighting with the Taleban in the besieged province of Konduz.
Local fighters would be given a chance to surrender, but Alliance commanders said they had given their troops explicit orders to shoot every foreign fundamentalist ? including a handful of British Muslims ? among the enemy ranks.’ Times of London
Afghans Returning Home, Vindicated and Vengeful
:
‘Drenched with joy, shadowed by bloodlust, the self-repatriation of Iran’s huge Afghan population is under way. This border town, about 10 miles from Afghanistan, has for years been a way station for Afghans coming to Iran to work or escape persecution. Now the traffic is flowing the other way….
(Some) made clear that the war was far from over, and that it could continue on a disturbingly intimate scale. Some said they were going home to finish off the Taliban for good, and suggested that neighbors who had not sufficiently opposed the Taliban would also be called to account.
After their relatives had been killed, their property taken, their dignity assaulted, some returnees said it was impossible to simply go home and pick up their plows, pretending nothing had happened.’ NY Times [“FMHreader”, “FMHreader”]
Peres backs Palestinian state as tanks raid Gaza
Independent UK
ACLU Action Alert: Bush Administration Plans Threaten Protections Guaranteed by the Constitution — ‘Congress has already given the Administration virtually everything it asked for to fight terrorism. But in the days since a sweeping new anti-terrorism bill was signed into law, the Administration has continued to announce questionable policy after questionable policy. Congress must take action now to ensure that the President preserves the constitutionally guaranteed checks and balances that are so central to our democracy.’ One-click messaging to your Congressional delegation to oppose the military tribunals.
Stallone Interested in Reviving Rambo: “Watch out Osama, John Rambo is headed your way.” ABC
Feeling our way to democracy: review of philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s ‘cognitive’ theory of emotions as embodied in her Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions.
In Nussbaum’s view, our emotions are not mere inner forces that buffet us about, constantly threatening to unseat reason. They are themselves modes of responsive intelligence that express our conscious and unconscious judgments of what we value and what we believe will promote the flourishing of our lives.
All the evaluative judgments implicit in emotions, she is careful to say, connect to specific historical, social and individual life circumstances. San Francisco Chronicle
Without being Freudian, Nussbaum has an essentially psychoanalytic notion of emotion, viz. that it is essentially narrative in structure — “The understanding of any single emotion is incomplete until its narrative history is grasped and studied for the light it sheds on present response.” She also apparently makes a great case for compassion, discussed at length, dismantling conservative critiques which regard it as politically irrelevant.
Bruce Jay Friedman: Some Thoughts on Clint Eastwood and Heidegger: ‘As far as I’m concerned, he’s more alienated than the whole pack of them. I think he’s as every bit as alienated as Beckett himself; what do you think of that?’ From a witty essay that originally appeared in 1976 and now resurfaces in Friedman’s recent collection of nonfiction pieces, Even the Rhinos Were Nymphos.
In the American reportage of Afghanistan one byline stands out in the fog of war: Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker. In one scoop after another, the 64-year-old Hersh has thrashed his colleagues, including his old rival Bob Woodward, of the Washington Post and Watergate. Hersh led the pack on the intelligence failure on the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre; he had the best insider account of disarray at the CIA; he revealed US wiretaps on the ugly shenanigans within the Saudi royal family, he reported US contingency plans to disarm Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and, most controversially, he reported that a raid behind Taliban lines by US elite commandos was far from the “flawless” operation the Pentagon claimed. It was an “outrage” that left several US troops wounded, a military officer told Hersh. And all this from the freelance Hersh’s tiny, cramped Washington office. Guardian UK
Happy birthday to Ghost in the Machine, which celebrates its second birthday today too.
Happy birthday everyone — Follow Me Here, and following me here and there, are two years old today.
From The Daily Brew: “The really scary part isn’t the military courts, the wiretapping of lawyers, or the arrests without charges. We expected that. After all, the Republicans had sent a mob, hired and paid for with American taxpayer dollars, to seize power in the first place. If the GOP was willing to stage a riot in broad daylight to deny Americans their right to vote in Florida, it is hardly surprising they would use Executive Orders to deny Americans their right to a fair trial back in D.C.
No, the scary part is the almost complete silence that has greeted these actions! Americans, understandably shell shocked by one disaster after another, seem unable to as much as complain as one after another of their freedoms are stripped away.” [emphasis added]
Bin Laden’s nuclear secrets found: “Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network held detailed plans for nuclear devices and other terrorist bombs in one of its Kabul headquarters.
The Times discovered the partly burnt documents in a hastily abandoned safe house in the Karta Parwan quarter of the city. Written in Arabic, German, Urdu and English, the notes give detailed designs for missiles, bombs and nuclear weapons.” The Times of London
Seizing Dictatorial Power: ‘Misadvised by a frustrated and panic-stricken attorney general, a president of the United States has just assumed what amounts to dictatorial power to jail or execute aliens. Intimidated by terrorists and inflamed by a passion for rough justice, we are letting George W. Bush get away with the replacement of the American rule of law with military kangaroo courts.’ NY Times William Safire, bless his heart, adds his conservative spleen to the rising hue and cry about what it has occurred to some for the past several weeks to call the Bush Dictatorship.
Brain scans can reveal liars — ‘Brain scans can reveal whether someone is lying or telling the truth, US researchers have discovered. When people lied, fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans revealed significant increases in activity in several brain regions.
Daniel Langleben and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania hope fMRI could be used for more accurate forensic lie detection.’
“The fact that deception requires extra work in a number of brain regions may indicate that the deception involves inhibition of the ‘default’ response – truth,” adds Langleben. “Interestingly, this agrees with the traditional definition of deception dating back to Saint Augustine: ‘Deception is denial of truth’.”
New Scientist
A particularly bad time for the development of such an intrusive technology, with the massive abrogation of rights underway in the US. And a saintly notion that there is nothing between total candor and outright deception, demonizing the private spaces between, won’t help.
Nuclear warhead reduction could leave plutonium at risk: ‘The US and Russia may have promised to take 9000 nuclear warheads out of service but they have no idea of how to dispose of the plutonium they contain, experts say.
Programmes for locking the plutonium into radioactive waste or burning it in nuclear reactors are being abandoned by the Bush administration because of their high cost. The default option, storage, could leave the plutonium more vulnerable to being stolen and made into bombs by terrorists.’ New Scientist
Jim Crace’s Being Dead was one of the most disturbing novels I’d read in a long time, unflinchingly looking at (literally) death and decay. Now his The Devil’s Larder, here reviewed in the London Review of Books by Ian Sansom, promises more of the same on the tip of the tongue.
Jubilation at the fall of Kabul and apparent collapse of the Taliban all over Afghanistan is rampant. It’s obligatory to mention Kabuli men’s headlong rush to the barber for a shave. But, hey folks, the war’s not over by a longshot, and it gets dicier from here, as the Taliban retreat to the Pashtun areas of the south where they have enjoyed popular support; and to the mountains and caves. On the other hand, there is word of indigenous uprising against the Taliban even in Kandahar, euphemistically referred to as their “stronghold” in just about every news report I’ve read; anti-Taliban sentiment may be widespread, and the Taliban may be fleeing population centers in general. However, this may not be a rout but rather a strategic regrouping either for a counterattack or the kind of protracted guerrilla war that defeated the Russians. Analysts caution about the perils of assuming things are as they seem. Northern Alliance capture of Kabul accompanied by atrocities and looting; Robert Fisk comments that we ought not be surprised, and Simon Jenkins wonders if we ought to regret having this tiger by the tail, reminding us that it was factional fighting among these same people, when they were the mujahideen fighting the Russians, that gave the Taliban their ‘in’ seven years ago. Here’s an interview with foreign correspondent Robert Kaplan, whose travels with the mujahideen in 1990 were chronicled in his Soldiers of God. International stabilization may be necessary in post-Taliban areas. ObL, of course, is nowhere to be found; perhaps it would be a good idea to ask the ‘remote viewers’ US intelligence is reportedly using to predict future terrorist attacks to tell us what cave he’s in? In fact, why not let the remote viewers act as spotters for US bombing runs? The US and the Northern Alliance seem to have it out for al-Jazeera, whose Kabul office was hit by two American bombs (it seems, because its coverage has been seen in some circles as pro-terrorist) and whose Kabul correspondent fled after threats that he would be killed if found in Kabul when the Northern Alliance arrived. I’d been wondering, but some undisputable good news is that the Western aid workers imprisoned by the Taliban in Kabul have been freed.
Woman pregnant twice — ‘An Italian woman is due to give birth in a hospital in Rome this week to a baby girl – before returning three months later to have triplets.
If both deliveries are successful, it is thought that this will be the first such case in history.’ BBC
For those who share my interest in art brut (‘outsider art’): The Mystery Gallery: ‘Van Freeman decorated his rented home with crosses and biblical mosaics, then vanished. What will happen to his work?’ Los Angeles Times
In Minnesota, “… a man arrested for shoplifting hundreds of dollars worth of Nicorette gum claimed he was recruited to steal the stuff so it could be sent to Pakistan to aid terrorism.“
Why ‘Gilligan’s Island’ and ‘The X-Files’ Hold the Key to America’s Global Reach
Paul A. Cantor is a strange creature: a conservative professor of English at the University of Virginia who specializes in Shakespeare, loves pop culture and is flat-out funny (he once referred to Mel Gibson’s “Hamlet” as “Lethal Bodkin”). In his new book, Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization, Cantor examines four of his favorite television shows–“Gilligan’s Island,” “Star Trek,” “The Simpsons” and “The X-Files”–and explores how they speak to America’s understanding of its place in the world. Cantor is a proponent of a thoughtful conservatism that should be interesting to liberals and instructive for conservatives, for he has the courage to say out loud that not everything on television is dross and that some of it is not only entertaining but significant as well. Los Angeles Times
America: Think of It as a Brand Name
Osama bin Laden is the greatest brand manager in the world. He has a niche product with limited appeal, a relatively small budget and limited distribution. Yet his Al Qaeda brand has 100% unaided awareness and is gaining share in a market segment that we should own: decent Islamic men and women in Kuwait, Egypt, Nigeria and even the U.S. Los Angeles Times
British Prime Minister Has ‘No Doubt’ of bin Laden’s Guilt NY Times. Haven’t we been reading news items similar to this around every week since Sept 11th? Doth the lady protest too much?
“Literally you are taking out a screwdriver and a pliers and a clippers and you are taking it apart in the reverse process of putting it together.”Where Warheads Are Made, and Where a Good Pair of Pliers Can Put Them to Rest NY Times
I love it! Coming back to this page after 24 hrs. away, it seems you are starting to use the ‘comments’ facility. Thank you, and keep it up.
Perhaps it was like this even before 9/11, but lately it seems as though every guy in every plane I’ ve been on is reading either a Tom Clancy novel, or one or another book by flag-waving historian, Stephen Ambrose. The hot sellers at the airport bookstores, and indeed bookstores in general, are tales of wartime heroism, with retrospectives on World War Two and the so-called “Greatest Generation” leading the pack.
This bodes well for the Bush Administration, which needs the public to continue thinking about victory and the triumph of good over evil (a constant in Ambrose’s history offerings and Clancy’s provincial spy stories), especially as the war on Afghanistan drags out, and weeks go by with no terrorists “brought to justice.”
Listening to commentators and everyday folks discuss the current war in Central Asia, one gets the distinct impression that Americans are in fact desperate for another “greatest generation.”
Tim Wise deconstructs the WWII analogies. AlterNet
Adbusters Magazine‘s annual anti-consumerist call for a Buy Nothing Day on the day after Thanksgiving runs headlong into post-nine-eleven patriotic shopping exhortations (“Shop While the Bombs Drop”) , polarizing its readers.
New Harrison Song A Telling Sign? — ‘When it comes to music, apparently, George Harrison isn’t afraid of “knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door.”
Harrison, 58, who was reported to have undergone more cancer treatment for a brain tumor in New York recently, has recorded his first song since radiotherapy. It’s part of musician Jools Holland’s new album, and the song’s publishing credit is RIP Ltd. 2001.’ Thje Boston Channel
A Yugoslav journalist’s advice to US media: ‘Jasmina Teodosijevic-Ryan is a broadcast journalist with an extensive background in Yugoslav media, and served as an analyst for the United Nations Liaison Office in Belgrade’:
“How and when does journalism become propaganda? As a writer, broadcaster and media analyst from the former Yugoslavia, I have observed the process first-hand. It starts slowly, then spreads like a stain.” Tompaine.com
Heard on my local NPR station one day last week: “One morning late this summer, Turners Falls
poet Patricia Pruitt woke up and wrote a poem full of abstract, disturbing,
apocalyptic images. She says she has no idea what prompted her to write it, but she didn’t think too
much about it until she found the poem again in late September. Suddenly,
those strange images had an almost eerie significance in the post September
11 world.”
Attempt
August 28, 2001
The last mark
the red mark
was decisive
It oblit....(O don't say
obliterated again.)
START OVER
The last mark
the red mark
was decisive
It hit walls
and sidewalk
It fell from
helicopter
propellers
dripped out
of concrete into
the bulldozer's maw
it became the sole
color
day and night
A kind of red weather
and.. (Not and. Not decisive. It was not
decisive.)
START AGAIN
The last mark
the red mark
created red weather
Day and night
It was the sole color
A sort of rain
or fog
envelopping cafes
Graves everywhere
No one could make it STOP
Not the ones with power
The ones without STOP
we're or were helpless
roofs in the dark...
START OVER
The hard thing
can't be held
or tied down,
turned off or
on This red
weather eludes
helicopters
floats alone
out of reach
As roofs
ones with
ones without
START AGAIN
The last mark
Red walls
sidewalks slid
into concrete maw
Rooves cafes powerless
ones with
ones without
can't be held
tied down
It floats everywhere
helpless STOP
NOT HELPLESS NOT POWERLESS
start over
The ones with
the ones without
can't be held
or tied down
turned off or on...
Good. Stop There.
“A struggle for the soul of the 21st century”: ‘Conservatives blasted former President Clinton for this Nov. 7 Georgetown University speech, after a Washington Times story said Clinton called Sept. 11 the “price” the U.S. had to pay for its misdeeds. Here is the full text of Clinton’s speech.’ Salon
Study says touch-tone phone systems could be used to help detect callers’ dementia
Automated touch-tone phone answering systems could help screen older callers for early signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, researchers say.
In a study of 155 patients, a touch-tone system identified warning signs in 80 percent of patients who had been diagnosed with mental impairments by their doctors. It also gave passing grades to 80 percent of patients diagnosed as normal.
The results appear in Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine.
Participants were given recorded instructions such as “Spell ‘fun’ on the touch-tone pad,” and “Press ‘1’ if the following sentence makes sense: ‘We wanted to cut down the tree in the yard so we went to the garage to get a hammer,”‘ said psychologist James Mundt, a research scientist at Healthcare Technology Systems Inc. in Madison, Wis., and lead author of the study. SF Chronicle
William Safire: Prague Connection: Czech counterintelligence has revealed it was tracking Mohammed Atta as he met in Prague in April, 2001 with the Iraqi consul to the Czech Republic; their assumption is that the consul was trying to recruit Atta to blow up the headquarters of Radio Free Europe, whose ideological influence on the Iraqi opposition apparently irks Saddam Hussein. But Safire prefers to believe Iraq was assisting Atta with his Sept 11th plans. Not only what they talked about, but whether the Czechs informed American intelligence agencies at that time, remains in question. Safire explains that Saddam’s assistance might have been incognito, as ObL has no high regard for the Iraqi regime but it would be in Saddam’s interest to facilitate an attack on the US. Safire also mentions “an unpublished report” suggesting that Saddam facilitated a leading Iraqi physician’s trip to minister to ObL in Afghanistan in May, 2001.
In other coverage of Iraq, Defectors Tell of Kuwaitis
in Secret Jail in Baghdad: “Two Iraqi
defectors, veterans of the country’s
intelligence service, say they worked in a secret
site outside of Baghdad where 80 Kuwaitis
captured during the 1991 war were detained in
an underground prison.” One of the defectors, who had befriended several of the prisoners despite strict orders not to fraternize and to refer to them only by number, provided names of four detainees which Kuwaiti officials have confirmed are among the missing from the Gulf War. NY Times [“FMHreader”, “FMHreader”]
One of a series of ‘songs for the City’ written for the New York Times Magazine:
‘Laurie Sadly Listening’ by Lou Reed
Laurie if you're sadly listening
The birds are on fire The sky glistening
While I atop my roof stand watching
Staring into the spider's clypeus
Incinerated flesh repelling
While I am on the rooftop yearning
Thinking of you
Laurie if you're sadly listening
Selfishly I miss your missing
The boundaties of our world now changing
The air is filled with someone's sick reasons
And I had thought a beautiful season was
Upon us
Laurie if you're sadly listening
The phones don't work
The bird's afire
The smoke curls black
I'm on the rooftop
Liberty to my right still standing
Laurie evil's gaunt desire is
Upon we
Laurie if you're sadly listening
Know one thing above all others
You were all I really thought of
As the TV blared the screaming
The deathlike snowflakes
Sirens screaming
All I wished was you to be holding
Bodies frozen in time jumping
Bird's afire
One thing me thinking
Laurie if you're sadly listening
Love you
Laurie if you're sadly listening
Love you
Editorial: Active euthanasia and physician assisted suicide should be legalised British Medical Journal [via EurekAlert]
Bin Laden: “Yes, I did it” Telegraph UK
Oh, no, Kesey is gone at 66. New York Times obituary
“As I’ve often told Ginsberg, you can’t blame the President for the state of
the country, it’s always the poets’ fault. You can’t expect politicians to
come up with a vision, they don’t have it in them. Poets have to come up
with the vision and they have to turn it on so it sparks and catches hold.”–Ken Kesey
Web woos Nessie — ‘Fans of the Loch Ness monster who hope to catch a glimpse of the legendary creature could be in luck thanks to a moving Webcam now filming the murky depths of the Scottish lake.’ globetechnology.com
Better Killing through Chemistry: ‘Buying chemical weapons material through the mail is quick and easy… “It’s a cinch” to obtain off-the-shelf chemicals needed to make sarin nerve gas, as Scientific American editor George Musser found out.
Study reveals self-esteem inflation among US kids: ‘According to the report, in a recent issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review, self-esteem among America’s youth in general and college students in particular has been on the rise for the past 30 years. Meantime, societal indicators that these feelings are warranted, such as higher SAT scores and lower rates of teen pregnancy, have not kept pace with attitudes.’ Self-esteem ‘based on nothing,’ as the study’s author puts it, sets people up for disappointment. ‘(He) blames the trend on the self-esteem movement in schools, which teaches children slogans and affirmations such as “I am lovable and capable.” ‘ Reuters Health
Terminally ill patients spend too much time alone with few visits from medical personnel or family members, researchers report. Reuters Health
Call for Action – Safeguard Communications Privacy:
- President Bush has asked the head of the European Union to
amend privacy laws in Europe so as to allow law enforcement
access to records of personal communications - The proposal is contrary to international human rights norms
and has been rejected by European Privacy Commissioners and
by Members of the European Parliament - The proposal also adversely impacts the privacy interests
of US citizens
- US and European groups are asked to endorse the letter to
EU President Guy Verhofstadt expressing respectful but
firm opposition to proposal - To endorse: send name of organization and URL, email and fax
for contact person to eu_letter@epic.org.
If questions, contact Cedric Laurant [chlaurant@epic.org]. [via Declan McCullagh’s Politech newsletter]
Journal issues treatment guidelines: ‘Anthrax infection became part of doctors’ daily repertoire yesterday as the world’s most influential medical journal published detailed guidelines on diagnosing and treating the deadly bacteria.
Doctors are now expected to consider anthrax as a possible cause for the thousands of skin lesions and flu-like symptoms they encounter every day.
The guidelines [link lead to .pdf of article –FmH], published yesterday on the New England Journal of Medicine‘s Web site, are based on close study of the 17 Americans stricken with the disease in recent weeks.
…”Most physicians haven’t ever seen a case of anthrax. [The article] was to bring people up to speed in a medical sense,” said the article’s author, Dr. Morton Swartz of Massachusetts General Hospital’s department of medicine.’ Boston Globe
U.S. Army gassed the turnpike in ’50s
For two decades, from 1949 to 1969, the federal government conducted biological warfare experiments without warning in locations stretching from the New York City subway to San Francisco Bay. Instead of a deadly germ, the Army used dust or bacteria that were thought at the time to be harmless.
But some of the substances ultimately turned out to be not so harmless after all – with one death and 10 additional cases of pneumonia or related infections often blamed on a fog spewed over San Francisco in 1950. Philadelphia Daily News
New York wildlife group calls hunting a terror threat. Protesters call for the suspension of New York State’s hunting season this year; ‘aghast that being armed and disguised in camouflage is legally permitted in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Hunting “is just a wonderful opportunity for someone who would want to do a terrorist act,” (Anne Muller of Wildlife Watch) said. “They don’t have to report their whereabouts and can be lurking anywhere. They can lurk in groups.” ‘ Fox News
Charles’ ‘attacker’ could get 15 years: ‘The schoolgirl who slapped Prince Charles round the face with a flower faces a draconian 15-year sentence for her protest.’ This is London
Orlando Sentinel columnist says: America needs a briefing consolidation: ‘There will be hell to pay if, in the process of trying to topple an extremist Islamic government in Afghanistan, we inadvertently install one in Pakistan, which has a fine army and nuclear weapons. That?s why the president of Pakistan is urging us to move fast. He knows that the longer the bombing campaign goes on, the stronger the opposition will grow.
Unfortunately, the picture emerging in Washington is one of confusion. One day the Pentagon says that we bombed Red Cross food warehouses a second time by mistake and that central command is investigating to determine how the mistake was made. The next day the central command says we bombed the warehouses on purpose because the Taliban is stealing the food. Don?t the joint chiefs know what the central command is doing? Apparently not.’
Red Cross Collected Unneeded Blood — too much to store; thousands of pints of blood collected after the emergency, perhaps 1:5 of the pints collected overall, will be destroyed now they’re reaching the end of their shelf life. Washington Post
Police state: A coalition of liberals and conservatives begins to coalesce around disquiet about the absurdly-named USA PATRIOT — “Uniting and Strentghtning America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” — (honest!) Act.
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, one of only three Republican lawmakers to buck the House leadership and the Bush administration to vote against this legislation, is outraged not only by what is contained in the antiterrorism bill but also by the effort to stigmatize opponents. Paul tells Insight, “The insult is to call this a ‘patriot bill’ and suggest I’m not patriotic because I insisted upon finding out what is in it and voting no. I thought it was undermining the Constitution, so I didn’t vote for it ? and therefore I’m somehow not a patriot. That’s insulting.”
Paul confirms rumors circulating in Washington that this sweeping new law, with serious implications for each and every American, was not made available to members of Congress for review before the vote. “It’s my understanding the bill wasn’t printed before the vote ? at least I couldn’t get it. They played all kinds of games, kept the House in session all night, and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of staffers actually read it, but the bill definitely was not available to members before the vote.”
And why would that be? “This is a very bad bill,” explains Paul, “and I think the people who voted for it knew it and that’s why they said, ‘Well, we know it’s bad, but we need it under these conditions.'” Meanwhile, efforts to obtain copies of the new law were stonewalled even by the committee that wrote it. Insight Magazine
King of Jordan calls for all-Arab deal with Israel: ‘The Arab world must be prepared to offer a collective guarantee of Israel?s security and integration into the Middle East in return for the setting up of a Palestinian state, King Abdullah of Jordan told The Times yesterday.’ Times of London
Why Trade Center Towers Stood, Then Fell — ‘Exactly which failure began the sequence — which occurred under extraordinary conditions never envisioned in the buildings’ design — remains a matter of intense debate. Some analysts hold that too much evidence was destroyed in the collapses to say for certain.
But a leading theory has emerged as teams have sifted through the wreckage, examined photographs and videos and run computer simulations on aspects of the disaster. Many engineers now believe that relatively lightweight steel trusses holding up the reinforced concrete floors sagged in the heat and failed first when the connections that held them to the tightly spaced palisade of steel columns on the outside of the buildings gave way.’ NY Times [“FMHreader”, “FMHreader”]
Britain placed under state of emergency Observer UK
Britain placed under state of emergency Observer UK
“Sheep may be brighter than we think.
According to British scientists, they probably experience some degree of emotion and could even be capable of conscious thought. [So… referring to us as a “nation of sheep”, as has been fashionable in certain sociologically but apparently not ethologically astute circles since William Lederer’s seminal book by that name in the ’50’s, actually is disparaging… to the sheep?? -FmH]
This astonishing verdict is based on the ability of sheep to remember old faces, be it a member of the flock or even a shepherd.
Sheep may be capable of using the same system (as humans) to remember and respond emotionally to individuals in their absence…
New studies have revealed that sheep can remember up to 50 sheep faces as well as familiar human faces, such as their shepherd.” BBC
Why Are Deep Thinkers Shallow About Tyranny? NY Times [“FMHreader”, “FMHreader”]
Fathers urged to bath baby: ‘Babies who miss out on regular baths by their father are more likely to grow up with social problems, a survey has revealed.” BBC
FBI Press Briefing on linguistic and behavioral analysis of the anthrax letters by the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. We now have a catchy media-friendly title and a glitzy logo for our anthrax alarm — look at the web page. By the way, could the perpetrator have been a weblogger?? To wit:
He may have exhibited significant behavioral changes at various critical periods of time throughout the course of the Anthrax mailings and related media coverage. These may include the following:
- Altered physical appearance.
- Pronounced anxiety.
- Atypical media interest.
- Noticeable mood swings.
- More withdrawn.
- Unusual level of preoccupation.
- Unusual absenteeism.
- Altered sleeping and/or eating habits.
Today’s New York Times op-ed columnists suggest aspects of Bush Administration (or, after Counterpunch, “Bush Dictatorship”) cluelessness:
- Frank Rich: War Is Heck:
“Disingenuous official claims
of our allies’ strengths and
our enemies’ weaknesses
will come back to haunt the
administration if all does not
go smoothly.” - Anthony Lewis: Ideology As Usual:
“George W. Bush has not yet
understood what a wartime
president has to do at home:
Put aside ideological politics
so he can be president of all
the people.”
Bin Laden Has Nuclear Arms, He Tells Paper — ‘A leading
Pakistani newspaper published an interview with Osama
bin Laden today in which he said, “We have chemical and
nuclear weapons as a deterrent and if America used them
against us, we reserve the right to use them.” ‘ He declined to answer an interviewer’s question about how and where he had obtained the weapons.
(A)sked… if he could justify the deaths of “innocent
people,” including hundreds of Muslims, in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on
the United States, Mr. bin Laden called this a “major point of jurisprudence,” replying that,
“America and its allies are massacring us in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir
and Iraq. The Muslims have the right to attack America in reprisal.” He
said, “The Sept. 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children. The real targets were America’s
icons of military and economic power.”Mr. bin Laden blamed the “entire America” for “anti-Muslim policies.”
“The American people should remember that they pay taxes to their government, they elect their
president, their government manufactures arms and gives them to Israel and Israel uses them to massacre
Palestinians,” he said.Late in the interview, Mr. bin Laden allowed that “there are many innocent and good-hearted people in
the West.” But, he said, “The Jewish lobby has taken America and the West hostage.”
[US analysts, while recognizing that bin Laden has made efforts to acquire nuclear materials, consider it unlikely that he has succeeded. How much can we rely on such assurances, especially in the face of such a convoluted reasoning that would rationalize and propel their indiscriminate use?]
Ananova, admittedly one of those more sensationalistic British media sites, goes further:
Bin Laden may have shipped nuclear bomb to US: “Osama bin Laden may have already shipped weapons of mass destruction to the US.
Pakistan’s Frontier Post says the Al-Qaida network has transported nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons there.
It claims at least two briefcases containing nuclear weapons may have reached US shores.
The report says Pakistani and US investigators have been able to identify that at least one such weapon has been acquired by Al Qaida from Central Asian groups.
The device of Russian origin, can be activated through a timer or cell phone command.”
Pakistani Leader Seeks ‘Gestures’ for Backing U.S.. In the face of a general strike over Pakistani support for the US (oops! “coalition”) war effort, (which he deflected neatly by declaring yesterday a Pakistani national holiday to explain widespread business closings — which, to be fair, may have been in fear of rather than support of fundamentalist rioters), Musharraf wants us to resume fighter sales withheld after Pakistan developed nuclear weapons. Pakistan has felt, he articulated, that until the recent “war on terrorism”, the US had cold-shouldered Pakistan after the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from its invasion of Afghanistan had diminished Pakistan’s usefulness to the US as a strategic partner. Other gestures “should include
major debt relief, military assistance, and more understanding for the
sensitivity of the Pakistani public on the issue of its nuclear weapons.”
With the Northern Alliance’s reported capture of Mazar-i-Sharif, the US may be able to set up forward bases there with a lifeline to Uzbekistan to the north, and may again need to rely less on Pakistan for support of the war effort. NY Times [“FMHreader”, “FMHreader”]
Iran’s Leader Says Muslims Reject bin Laden’s ‘Islam’, After a videotaped message from bin Laden denouncing the UN and branding Islamic leaders who participated in it as ‘infidels’, Iran’s President Mohammed Khatami, in New York to address the General Assembly, agrees to first interview with a Western newspaper since he assumed office in 1997. Although he faces an uphill battle in creating an anti-terrorist image of Iran (branded a major exporter of terrorism by the US State Dept for its support of Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah), he held up his country as evidence that an ‘Islamic republic’ model can a role model and condemned the portrayal of Islam as a religion of anti-Western hatred. In a significant concession, he said Iran would respect the wishes of the Palestinian people with respect to the recognition of Israel. NY Times [“FMHreader”, “FMHreader”]
Agency Looks Into Claim Doctor Had Skin Anthrax: ‘Should the case of the cardiologist, Dr. Gerald M.
Weisfogel, turn out to have been anthrax, it
would be of considerable interest to investigators.
It precedes the first batch of anthrax letters that
was sent out on or around Sept. 18 and would
indicate a new and earlier source of exposure.’
In other anthrax news, ‘Postal
investigators said today for the
first time that other mail containing anthrax
bacteria was probably sent here last
month in addition to the one letter that has
been found, the one sent to the office of
Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota.
“We’re thinking there may be one more
letter and maybe more than one,” said
Kenneth Newman, the deputy chief postal
inspector for investigations.’ NY Times [“FMHreader”, “FMHreader”]
British Take a Blunter Approach to War News. The New York Times contrasts American and British press coverage, finds a “wider scope” and “less defensive tone” in the latter, “an essential supplement to (American) tunnel vision”. [via randomWalks]. In contrast, rc3 points to a Trevor Butterworth article in Salon Premium suggesting that British journalistic standards are lower than at major US papers because they have to attract readers in a more highly segmented and competitive market. ‘No facts, please — we’re British…
Americans are flocking to feisty British papers for news about the war. But there’s a reason the U.S. media fails to follow up on the Brits’ “scoops” — they’re frequently not true.’
Hanan Ashwari: ‘It’s time for U.S. to broker Mideast peace’. ‘(The) longtime Palestinian leader and spokesperson for Yasser Arafat called Monday on the United States to immediately broker a peace settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Asserting that the unresolved plight of the Palestinians was “one of the major causes of extremism in the world,” she asked, “How do we move beyond the pain of the moment towards an American involvement that is positively intrusive?” (She also) ‘… tells Osama bin Laden he does “not have the right to use” the Palestinian plight “for your ends.” ‘ Salon
Officers kill militia voice; deputy shot. ” William Milton Cooper, 58, whose apocalyptic, constitutionalist shortwave radio programs were a major influence on Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, was shot to death after Cooper shot and critically wounded an Apache County sheriff’s deputy who had tried to arrest him, officers said.” Via the null device, which adds that Cooper’ “is perhaps best known for popularising the greys/MJ-12/alien-contactee world-government conspiracy mythos, and was an influence on the likes of X Files creator Chris Carter.”
Robert Fisk: Hypocrisy, hatred and the war on terror
: ‘So why on earth are all my chums on CNN and Sky and the BBC rabbiting on about the “air campaign”, “coalition forces” and the “war on terror”? Do they think their viewers believe this twaddle?”Independent UK
‘Tourist Guy’: Is He or Isn’t He?: ‘After the Sept. 11 attacks, the tourist guy became the subject of dozens of doctored photographs. Inspired by the original picture that put him at the WTC attacks, Web surfers quickly turned him into the Forrest Gump of the Internet, placing him at the scene of major, minor and just plain inane events in history.’ Wired
Splits open in UK-US alliance Private frustration expressed by gov’t ministers “…over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the bombing strategy; perceived lack of US consultation with its allies; and insufficient US focus on the humanitarian crisis… There is also rising anxiety within Whitehall that after Afghanistan the Bush administration may turn its sights on Iraq.
Mr Bush said on Wednesday that the bombing of Afghanistan was just the start of the war on terrorism.” Guardian UK
Tactics readied for a smallpox fight. A centers for Disease Control conference, with many of the infectious disease experts who participated in the effort to eradicate smallpox more than twenty years ago, has pulled together a protocol to deal woth an outbreak scenario. The CDC will make the plan public in 2-3 weeks after final revisions by public health officials around the country. The controversial — and perhaps unworkable — aspect of the plan is to vaccinate not only the ring of people who had come in contact with an infected individual or individuals, but to identify and vaccinate a second ring — those who had come into contact with the first circle of people. CDC officials say it is essential. Boston Globe
Meanwhile, the Shrub administration seems intent on vaccinating the entire populace. HHS Sec’y Tommy Thompson is pushing pharmaceutical companies to gear up manufacture of smallpox vaccine to have enough on hand for everyone. Shrub revelaed during yesterday’s visit to the CDC in
Atlanta that he is considering making the immunization program compulsory Times of London, despite the fact that hundreds would likely die from the vaccinations themselves.Smallpox immunization ended in the US in 1972; studies vary on whether those vaccinated 30 years ago would have any lingering protection against new exposure. The last naturally occurring case of smallpox occurred in Somalia in 1977, although two English laboratory workers were infected with smallpox in 1978 after an accidental exposure. Current stockpiles of smallpox virus are known to exist only in the US and the former Soviet Union.
WTO: Splinter Groups Breed as Activists Fracture — ‘Activists worldwide are hosting solidarity protests this weekend against the World Trade Organization meeting in Qatar. The demonstrations are occurring under the shadow of a zero-tolerance policy taken by European and American security officials since the Sept. 11 attacks. But activist groups are under greater threat from internal rifts, which may lead to the formation of a more violent anarchist faction.’ StratFor
The ‘war on terrorism’ is a war on freedom (ours): U.S. Will Monitor Calls to Lawyers: Most egregious action yet by Ashcroft; I agree with stunned defense attorneys who have characterized this as a blatant assault on constitutionally guaranteed right to counsel and a “terrifying precedent.”
The Justice Department has decided to listen in on the conversations of lawyers with clients in federal custody, including people who have been detained but not charged with any crime, whenever that is deemed necessary to prevent violence or terrorism.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft approved the eavesdropping rule on an emergency basis last week, without the usual waiting period for public comment. It went into effect immediately, permitting the government to monitor conversations and intercept mail between people in custody and their attorneys for up to a year at a time. Washington Post
Equally frightening, this proposal, which has been mentioned before but now appears to enjoy the support of the heavyhitters of the airline industry, represents a step toward an all-encompassing central database:
The airline industry on Thursday formally called for a massive screening system that would subject passengers to intensive background checks, providing a boost to one of the more controversial security ideas under discussion since Sept. 11.
Under the Air Transport Assn. proposal, all reservations would be checked against a new government database that would include arrest records, intelligence information, immigration files and financial data. This master database, constantly updated, would be used to identify individuals who merit closer screening at the airport. LA Times
The CIA is gaining sweeping new centralized authority over intelligence gathering, in a proposed reorganization:
(A) presidential panel prepared to recommend an overhaul of U.S. intelligence agencies. The plan would consolidate often disparate and competing spy resources under the stewardship of the CIA director, officials said.
The panel, expected to deliver its recommendations to President Bush next month, would give the CIA new authority over spy satellites and electronic intercepts, officials said.
The CIA chief would gain control over three large military intelligence agencies that now are part of the Defense Department, according to a U.S. official familiar with the draft proposals.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the agencies include the National Security Agency, which oversees electronic intercepts; the National Reconnaissance Office, which designs and operates intelligence-gathering satellites; and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, which interprets satellite photos and creates military maps.
And the FBI is going to be recast on a (permanent?) war footing, Ashcroft assures us. New York Times
London urged to give Dome to New York: “The troubleshooter brought in to rescue the Millennium Dome urged Tony Blair last night to give the structure to New York to conceal the horrors of the salvage operation at the World Trade Centre site.” The Times of London
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor under President Carter: A New Age of Solidarity? Don’t Count on It: “Is it, therefore, the dawn of a new age, born in the ruins of the World Trade Center and the exploding bombs in Afghanistan? A closer look justifies a great deal of skepticism. The solidarity is genuine, but it is a solidarity more of words than of deeds. Moreover, the underlying realities of power have not been changed… There is no Europe as such that is joining America in its long-term campaign; individual European states are doing what they can… While Putin was sympathetic, it is still an open question whether Russia has made a historic choice in favor of the West or is seeking to exploit America’s preoccupation to extract specific concessions… In the Middle East there is nothing even remotely resembling the anti-Iraq coalition of 1991.. In brief, the “coalition” against terrorism does not even share a common definition of the threat…” Washington Post
“They digitize, we scrutinize”: Fox comes up for contemptuous reactions after its broadcast coverage of the World Series included the insertion of “virtual billboards”, set against the backstop, advertising the network’s other fare.
London’s Harry Potter world debut, two weeks ahead of the US opening, through the eyes of the Washington Post‘s TR Reid, who reserves special praise for Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid. I just found Coltrane a memorable presence in From Hell (to which, unlike Harry, I did not take my children, needless to say…) as well. [via randomWalks]
Great media news tidbits courtesy of the null device. First, the New York Daily News gossips about a doomsday tape Ted Turner reportedly had made for CNN to show if it was ever determined the world was about to end.
Turner, it seems, has been a doom-and-gloom kind of guy from the very day in June 1980 when he launched the cable network. He said then, as only he could, “We gonna go on air June 1, and we gonna stay on until the end of the world. When that time comes, we’ll cover it, play ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ and sign off.”
Keeping with the eschatological theme, when Disney recently acquired Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Family cable to add to its ABC family, along with the deal came a contractual obligation to air Pat Robertson’s 700 Club in perpetuity “(or until the Rapture, whichever comes first)”, as MarketWatch puts it.
Murdoch could well be included on Robertson’s blacklist of people who pollute popular culture, but he didn’t often pop up by name.
Disney, on the other hand, has been publicly blasted from Robertson’s electronic pulpit on various occasions. Among its sins, he believes, are its gay-friendly employment policies and its tolerance of gay and lesbian celebrations at its Orlando theme park. The latter were even supposed to bring down fires, floods and pestilence (or at least butterfly ballots) on the good people of Florida.
Straw’s diagnosis is subjected to re-examination. Letters to the editor of the
Guardian take exception to the British foreign secretary’s characterization of ObL yesterday as a “psychotic and paranoid.” No joke, from my perspective as a psychiatrist, to say that this is insulting to my patients.
“Oprah Winfrey recently withdrew her selection of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections for her book club. What did Franzen do to get dropped?” The Onion
Is there anyone left who doesn’t believe that the US bungled the Oct. 20th commando raid in Kandahar, the first highly touted ground assault of the “war”? [Or that Pentagon spokes lie through their teeth in their briefings about this? About other aspects of the military effort?] Read Seymour Hersh’s account here The New Yorker He’s been all over the media following up on this story — interviewed on CNN on Monday and NPR’s Morning Edition today. The Guardian corroborates Hersh’s findings (largely based on his American military informants) from Pakistani sources:
The debacle, which saw US Delta Force soldiers come under intense fire from the Taliban, prompted a review of special forces operations in Afghanistan and seems to have led to a delay in similar behind-the-lines operations.
The ferocity of the Taliban resistance caught US commandos unawares and showed that 13 days of bombing had failed to break the Taliban’s morale. It sparked a debate in the Pentagon on the advisability of such missions in the absence of clear intelligence.
Soon after the October 20 raid, the US switched its military strategy, throwing its weight behind the opposition Northern Alliance and relying on it to provide ground troops for the campaign.
The day after the raid the Pentagon hailed the operation a success that proved that US forces could strike anywhere at any time, in the manner of their choosing.
But, in fact, no one in American command counted upon the speed and intensity of the Taliban response. Both Hersh and the Guardian suggest the leadership of Gen. Tommy Franks, an artillery officer apparently enamored of the doctrine of warfighting via overwhelming force who commands the US war effort, is in question. Or will he be a convenient fall guy for a more pervasive failure of American military doctrine? like the same one we made in losing the Vietnam War a generation ago? It should be noted that US military spokespeople, e.g. on Sunday’s Meet the Press, dispute this account, insisting there was only “light resistance” and a “planned extraction” instead of a “hasty retreat”.
Cheryl Seal: Bush nominees may spell beginning of the end for the Environmental Protection Agency: ‘This past week, Bush quietly nominated two people to EPA posts — so quietly in fact that the only place you’ll probably see it is here. And with good reason. These two nominees make it painfully obvious that Bush wants to convert the agency into a big hollow barrel he can fill with corporate pork.’ Unknown News [via Booknotes]
“…the fact that Ecstasy is a hot commodity among some teen-agers should not impede research.” FDA approves first clinical test of Ecstasy since drug was criminalized: ‘Researchers have gained government approval to test the drug “Ecstasy” as a treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder for the first time since the drug was criminalized in 1985.
The decision was made this week by the Food and Drug Administration and marks a shift for the agency, which has virtually banned the drug from researchers for more than a decade.’ San Francisco Chronicle A proposed study at the Medical College of South Carolina is being funded by MAPS (the Medical Association for Psychedelic Studies), which advocates therapeutic use of hallucinogens (More properly, Ecstasy or MDMA has been described as an “entheogen”.) Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, responds, “I know of no evidence in the scientific literature that demonstrates the efficacy of Ecstasy for any clinical indication.” [Uhhh, could it be, Mr. Leshner, that the research would have to be done before the results would appear in the literature?]
Welcome to the era of drive-by hacking. ‘BBC News Online has been shown just how lax security is on wireless networks used in London’s financial centre.
On one short trip, two-thirds of the networks we discovered using a laptop and free software tools were found to be wide open.
Any maliciously minded hacker could easily join these networks and piggy back on their fast net links, steal documents or subvert other machines on the systems to do their bidding.’
I was sent this link to the AndGor Toy Company, which will make your own personalized action figure from your photo, by a reader who says he thinks of it as the “analogue equivalent” of yesterday’s ‘Phizzheads’ post. [thanks, Miguel]
The Mathworld site is back after a year in which Eric Weisstein’s consummate mathematical resource was kept offline by an intellectual property dispute with his erstwhile publisher. [thanks, Abby]
An FmH reader says I’m wrong about what I called “moral relativism” in my post yesterday about torture:
I don’t think this constitues moral relativism. Relativism is a doctrine
that rejects the possibility of mediation between competing moral
frameworks, a doctrine that often leaves its proponent with an ‘to each,
his own’ blandness. To the relativist, there is no such thing as the Right
for any given situation. However, the above-referenced discussion about
torture proceeds from a distinct moral framework, a crude
pragmatism, which holds that morality (Rightness) is not a feature
of acts but a feature of the consequences of those acts. A
consequentialist says that it’s Right, absolutely, to kill one to save
many, a relativist says that there is no such thing as absolute Right and
Wrong. The philosophical term for the system you wish for, one in which
there are acts that are absolutely right or wrong, regardless of their
consequences, is called deontologism or imperativism. If you’ve got a
four-man lifeboat with five people, the consequentialist says it’s right
to kill one to save four, the deontologist says it’s wrong to kill,
period, and the relativist says that there is no trustworthy way to judge
Right and Wrong.
In related news, Alan Dershowitz says that consideration of unthinkables such as “truth serum and turture warrants” ought to be on the table at this juncture.
Harvard Ass’t Prof of Philosophy James Pryor: How to Write a Philosophy Paper
…pretend that your reader is lazy, stupid, and mean. He’s lazy in that he doesn’t want to figure out what your convoluted sentences are supposed to mean, and he doesn’t want to figure out what your argument is, if it’s not already obvious. He’s stupid, so you have to explain everything you say to him in simple, bite-sized pieces. And he’s mean, so he’s not going to read your paper charitably. (For example, if something you say admits of more than one interpretation, he’s going to assume you meant the less plausible thing.)
Dave’s Quick Search Taskbar Toolbar Deskbar: I can’t use this, since I shun M$ Internet Explorer, but it otherwise sounds very useful.
All N.J. Anthrax Cases Said Linked — ‘Contaminated mail that passed through a regional mail processing plant
in Hamilton Township, near Trenton, appears to be the common thread in
all seven infections in New Jersey, said Dr. Eddy Bresnitz, the state’s
epidemiologist.
That finding eases fears that other, unknown sources could have
contributed to the state’s anthrax outbreak. Bresnitz said any mail
contaminated by the anthrax-laden letters had probably been received
and opened, and any other infections caused by that contamination
probably would have surfaced by now.’ NY Times [“FMHreader”, “FMHreader”]
The next three blinks courtesy of Spike Report:
Michael Kinsley: TV News Killing Our Precious Verbs Washington Post
