Oh, our lovely relatives and their warm embrace of the Christmas spirit! One-third of their Christmas newsletter was devoted to Barack Obama. Charming! You’ll see—
We live in a difficult time. We are sure many of you can echo this. What can we expect when our ‘gift’ to Washington DC got his training in Cook (Crook) County, IL. We have a God who still is in complete control. His Son told us as the time grows shorter we can expect the days of Noah and Lot to come. We close with the last prayer of the Bible, Revelations 22:20 and the last Benediction, Revelation 22:1.
My dear aunt and uncle… I am made ALMOST as uncomfortable by the fact of being related to you as you two are by the idea that you MIGHT be related to chimps!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
So we should walk softly and not assume too much.
How the press can prevent another Iraq from Nieman Watchdog.
Provocation Alone Does Not Justify War. War is so serious that even proving the existence of a casus belli isn’t enough. Make officials prove to the public that going to war will make things better.
Encourage Public Debate. The nation is not well served when issues of war and peace are not fully debated in public. It’s reasonable for the press to demand that Congress engage in a full, substantial debate. Cover the debate exhaustively and substantively.
God changes with the weather by Garrison Keillor
There is a countervailing faith that says that God is in and of the world and has bestowed vast gifts to be shared with others, and that our understanding of God is faint and incomplete and so we should walk softly and not assume too much.
Moments of Regret from On The Media
It’s from The Los Angeles Times, and here’s the correction: “An item in the National Briefing in Sunday’s Section A said a bear wandered into a grocery store in Hayward, Wisconsin on Friday and headed for the beer cooler. It was Thursday.”
Romeo and Juliet: Just as you misremembered it on NPR
"It is the East, and Juliet is the West."
The Wrong Debate on Torture from On The Media
I have to, therefore, ask you, isn't any reporting on the intelligence pros and cons of torture changing the subject in exactly the way that Dick Cheney wants it changed, from the morality and legality of torture to the efficacy of torture? Aren't you kind of being suckered by your very reporting validating the premise that effectiveness constitutes justification?
The degrading effects of terrorism fears by Glenn Greenwald
What makes all of this most ironic is that the American Founding was predicated on exactly the opposite mindset. The Constitution is grounded in the premise that there are other values and priorities more important than mere Safety. Even though they knew that doing so would help murderers and other dangerous and vile criminals evade capture, the Framers banned the Government from searching homes without probable cause, prohibited compelled self-incrimination, double jeopardy and convictions based on hearsay, and outlawed cruel and unusual punishment. That's because certain values -- privacy, due process, limiting the potential for abuse of government power -- were more important than mere survival and safety. A central calculation of the Constitution was that we insist upon privacy, liberty and restraints on government power even when doing so means we live with less safety and a heightened risk of danger and death. And, of course, the Revolutionary War against the then-greatest empire on earth was waged by people who risked their lives and their fortunes in pursuit of liberty, precisely because there are other values that outweigh mere survival and safety. These are the calculations that are now virtually impossible to find in our political discourse. It is fear, and only fear, that predominates. No other competing values are recognized. […] This isn't exactly new: many of America's most serious historical transgressions -- the internment of Japanese-Americans, McCarthyite witch hunts, World War I censorship laws, the Alien and Sedition Act -- have been the result of fear-driven, over-reaction to external threats, not under-reaction. Fear is a degrading toxin, and there's no doubt that it has been the primary fuel over the last decade.
Provocation Alone Does Not Justify War. War is so serious that even proving the existence of a casus belli isn’t enough. Make officials prove to the public that going to war will make things better.
Encourage Public Debate. The nation is not well served when issues of war and peace are not fully debated in public. It’s reasonable for the press to demand that Congress engage in a full, substantial debate. Cover the debate exhaustively and substantively.
God changes with the weather by Garrison Keillor
There is a countervailing faith that says that God is in and of the world and has bestowed vast gifts to be shared with others, and that our understanding of God is faint and incomplete and so we should walk softly and not assume too much.
Moments of Regret from On The Media
It’s from The Los Angeles Times, and here’s the correction: “An item in the National Briefing in Sunday’s Section A said a bear wandered into a grocery store in Hayward, Wisconsin on Friday and headed for the beer cooler. It was Thursday.”
Romeo and Juliet: Just as you misremembered it on NPR
"It is the East, and Juliet is the West."
The Wrong Debate on Torture from On The Media
I have to, therefore, ask you, isn't any reporting on the intelligence pros and cons of torture changing the subject in exactly the way that Dick Cheney wants it changed, from the morality and legality of torture to the efficacy of torture? Aren't you kind of being suckered by your very reporting validating the premise that effectiveness constitutes justification?
The degrading effects of terrorism fears by Glenn Greenwald
What makes all of this most ironic is that the American Founding was predicated on exactly the opposite mindset. The Constitution is grounded in the premise that there are other values and priorities more important than mere Safety. Even though they knew that doing so would help murderers and other dangerous and vile criminals evade capture, the Framers banned the Government from searching homes without probable cause, prohibited compelled self-incrimination, double jeopardy and convictions based on hearsay, and outlawed cruel and unusual punishment. That's because certain values -- privacy, due process, limiting the potential for abuse of government power -- were more important than mere survival and safety. A central calculation of the Constitution was that we insist upon privacy, liberty and restraints on government power even when doing so means we live with less safety and a heightened risk of danger and death. And, of course, the Revolutionary War against the then-greatest empire on earth was waged by people who risked their lives and their fortunes in pursuit of liberty, precisely because there are other values that outweigh mere survival and safety. These are the calculations that are now virtually impossible to find in our political discourse. It is fear, and only fear, that predominates. No other competing values are recognized. […] This isn't exactly new: many of America's most serious historical transgressions -- the internment of Japanese-Americans, McCarthyite witch hunts, World War I censorship laws, the Alien and Sedition Act -- have been the result of fear-driven, over-reaction to external threats, not under-reaction. Fear is a degrading toxin, and there's no doubt that it has been the primary fuel over the last decade.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Practice resurrection.
Oh, I like Choco Rios at the Weary Traveler on a snowy Monday night. It was hot Mexican cocoa + alcoholic banana something + cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon. So good. Bernd tasted like grog the rest of the night. Just kissing him with grog on his breath burned MY throat—that’s how strong that drink was! Mine just deepened my feeling of settled, sweetly sleepy contentment.
My stuff moves home today and I move home tomorrow. I walk around campus and feel strange and severed. I was such a good student, and now I need to learn how to be a good somebody else. I don’t know where I go directly from here, but I keep thinking of a Wendell Berry poem:
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
My stuff moves home today and I move home tomorrow. I walk around campus and feel strange and severed. I was such a good student, and now I need to learn how to be a good somebody else. I don’t know where I go directly from here, but I keep thinking of a Wendell Berry poem:
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Gibetsky.
1) Courtney and I spent four or five hours at the Rathskeller debating American foreign policy, our national security interests and—most depressingly—the sorry state of the public sphere in the United States. We were under the influence of much too much sugar, caffeine and nicotine, and it was great. But now it’s five hours later and I still need to write this paper.
2) My dismaying rant basically went like this... extended over several hours and backed with (much, much) more evidence and more vitriol:
American global strategy changes
When civilian leadership changes
And civilian leadership changes
When the voting public feels SOME WAY about SOMETHING
AND THAT MATTERS!
It matters if Iraq barely registers when a man casts his only vote out of an overblown aversion to gay marriage
And it matters if his neighbor votes with an eye to rehabilitating our image abroad.
IT MATTERS. A LOT.
IT MATTERS WHAT WE ELECT PEOPLE TO CARE ABOUT—whether that’s restricting abortion or remaking Afghanistan!
It matters to troops when their home communities act and think like they’re not at war and it matters to policymakers whether or not the American people demand accountability or write a blank check for endless wars.
And it matters how we discuss foreign policy as a people—how often and how honestly!
IF we are not dying and killing and being bombed out of our homes, IF the electricity cooperates and the water runs clear and cool and drinkable, IF we know we will not pay the billions sunk in faraway wars, IF our interests stop at the end of our driveways or the limits of our school districts as long as our children are K-12, IF our compassion is critically limited by incuriosity, indifference and inattention, IF we have never met an Iraqi or wondered about him, we have denied him a share in our common humanity by not striving to understand and relate, IF we can’t locate Afghanistan on a map, IF the procession of distractions is endless, IF Nicole Richie has a new haircut—why should we care who kills and dies in our names on the other side of the world?
Sometimes I really hate us, honestly.
3) Honestly, sometimes I still date checks “2007.” This may have happened to me today.
4) Did you know if you type “honestly” with your fingers just slightly misplaced on the keyboard, you get “gibestky”? I like it.
2) My dismaying rant basically went like this... extended over several hours and backed with (much, much) more evidence and more vitriol:
American global strategy changes
When civilian leadership changes
And civilian leadership changes
When the voting public feels SOME WAY about SOMETHING
AND THAT MATTERS!
It matters if Iraq barely registers when a man casts his only vote out of an overblown aversion to gay marriage
And it matters if his neighbor votes with an eye to rehabilitating our image abroad.
IT MATTERS. A LOT.
IT MATTERS WHAT WE ELECT PEOPLE TO CARE ABOUT—whether that’s restricting abortion or remaking Afghanistan!
It matters to troops when their home communities act and think like they’re not at war and it matters to policymakers whether or not the American people demand accountability or write a blank check for endless wars.
And it matters how we discuss foreign policy as a people—how often and how honestly!
IF we are not dying and killing and being bombed out of our homes, IF the electricity cooperates and the water runs clear and cool and drinkable, IF we know we will not pay the billions sunk in faraway wars, IF our interests stop at the end of our driveways or the limits of our school districts as long as our children are K-12, IF our compassion is critically limited by incuriosity, indifference and inattention, IF we have never met an Iraqi or wondered about him, we have denied him a share in our common humanity by not striving to understand and relate, IF we can’t locate Afghanistan on a map, IF the procession of distractions is endless, IF Nicole Richie has a new haircut—why should we care who kills and dies in our names on the other side of the world?
Sometimes I really hate us, honestly.
3) Honestly, sometimes I still date checks “2007.” This may have happened to me today.
4) Did you know if you type “honestly” with your fingers just slightly misplaced on the keyboard, you get “gibestky”? I like it.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Evil.
How should the United States military think about counterinsurgency operations as it moves forward in Afghanistan and the wider GWOT [Global War on Terror]?
Professor Suri! I can’t wrap my head around the immensity of this subject! I want to devote weeks and months and years to digging into it. The answers (if there are any) are always shifting, always evolving. My bedroom is littered with scraps of paper where I’ve recorded miscellaneous thoughts. I have twenty-six journal articles open in Adobe Acrobat, which makes my poor overloaded laptop decidedly unhappy. I have forty books scattered around me, some in my bed and—let me tell you—it was not comfortable trying to sleep on that many books. One or two - no big deal. I rolled over on three or four books as I tried to sleep last night.
I could talk about this subject for hours. But I can’t write about it. Just the act of writing something down assumes a degree of certainty, and the more I read, the more I discuss this, the more I know I don’t know and the more I’m tempted to keep reading and learning more forever. My big problem with academic essays (especially this one) is that I never know when to stop researching, pull my nose out of my books, press ‘pause’ on great discussions, and say, “Okay, I don’t/can’t know everything, but I know enough to write this paper!”
I am all about learning and digging. I'm all about that part of the process. I'm not sure I can produce any kind of polished, finished document on this subject that I won't want to tear to pieces immediately for its ignorance and shallowness and necessary incompleteness!
Professor Suri! I can’t wrap my head around the immensity of this subject! I want to devote weeks and months and years to digging into it. The answers (if there are any) are always shifting, always evolving. My bedroom is littered with scraps of paper where I’ve recorded miscellaneous thoughts. I have twenty-six journal articles open in Adobe Acrobat, which makes my poor overloaded laptop decidedly unhappy. I have forty books scattered around me, some in my bed and—let me tell you—it was not comfortable trying to sleep on that many books. One or two - no big deal. I rolled over on three or four books as I tried to sleep last night.
I could talk about this subject for hours. But I can’t write about it. Just the act of writing something down assumes a degree of certainty, and the more I read, the more I discuss this, the more I know I don’t know and the more I’m tempted to keep reading and learning more forever. My big problem with academic essays (especially this one) is that I never know when to stop researching, pull my nose out of my books, press ‘pause’ on great discussions, and say, “Okay, I don’t/can’t know everything, but I know enough to write this paper!”
I am all about learning and digging. I'm all about that part of the process. I'm not sure I can produce any kind of polished, finished document on this subject that I won't want to tear to pieces immediately for its ignorance and shallowness and necessary incompleteness!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Killing a woman is like killing a bird.
What did I take away from Obama's speech? We can't 'win' the way the previous administration dreamed we would (indeed, we're not even going to delude ourselves into believing that's possible), and we can't leave. The situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is precarious, to put it mildly, and we do care what happens there. But we need to be realistic about what we can achieve in Afghanistan. The new outlook for Afghanistan that Obama outlined last night no longer entertains any pretensions of being a righteous mission. It's realistic--depressingly so. Heartbreakingly so.
We're not there on a charity mission but are there to advance what we think are our interests. That's why some of the most oppressive governments in the Middle East will continue to be our most stalwart allies. GLENN GREENWALD.
The sad fact is that in Afghanistan, killing a woman is like killing a bird. The United States has tried to justify its occupation with rhetoric about "liberating" Afghan women, but we remain caged in our country, without access to justice and still ruled by women-hating criminals. Fundamentalists still preach that "a woman should be in her house or in the grave." In most places it is still not safe for a woman to appear in public uncovered, or to walk on the street without a male relative. Girls are still sold into marriage. Rape goes unpunished every day. MALALAI JOYA.
But Obama is more realistic about our limitations or at least more honest about his intentions than the previous administration when he acknowledges that we can't afford to define our national security interests so broadly that these interests include installing free and democratic governments by force. That isn't working for us. We're no good at it. Humanitarian interventions in moments of crisis are one thing, but we can't force countries to act and think along certain lines. We can't afford to engage in nation-building in Afghanistan: we can't afford this in terms of money, people, time, patience, energy, will, imagination or even attention. Maybe when the fighting dies down, maybe when the population is secure, maybe when the troops start pulling out, maybe when (if) we're not stretched so thin--maybe then other avenues to ensuring human rights in Afghanistan will open themselves to us. We can only hope.
We can only hope the surge works and that the US and our partners (however much we wish we had better partners in Afghanistan) become the big brand-name in security, food, water, education and Not Getting Blown To Bits in the eyes of the Afghan people, or else there's really very little optimism to be had.
We're not there on a charity mission but are there to advance what we think are our interests. That's why some of the most oppressive governments in the Middle East will continue to be our most stalwart allies. GLENN GREENWALD.
The sad fact is that in Afghanistan, killing a woman is like killing a bird. The United States has tried to justify its occupation with rhetoric about "liberating" Afghan women, but we remain caged in our country, without access to justice and still ruled by women-hating criminals. Fundamentalists still preach that "a woman should be in her house or in the grave." In most places it is still not safe for a woman to appear in public uncovered, or to walk on the street without a male relative. Girls are still sold into marriage. Rape goes unpunished every day. MALALAI JOYA.
But Obama is more realistic about our limitations or at least more honest about his intentions than the previous administration when he acknowledges that we can't afford to define our national security interests so broadly that these interests include installing free and democratic governments by force. That isn't working for us. We're no good at it. Humanitarian interventions in moments of crisis are one thing, but we can't force countries to act and think along certain lines. We can't afford to engage in nation-building in Afghanistan: we can't afford this in terms of money, people, time, patience, energy, will, imagination or even attention. Maybe when the fighting dies down, maybe when the population is secure, maybe when the troops start pulling out, maybe when (if) we're not stretched so thin--maybe then other avenues to ensuring human rights in Afghanistan will open themselves to us. We can only hope.
We can only hope the surge works and that the US and our partners (however much we wish we had better partners in Afghanistan) become the big brand-name in security, food, water, education and Not Getting Blown To Bits in the eyes of the Afghan people, or else there's really very little optimism to be had.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
It doesn't feel like the first of December (sun and blue skies, 50F), so it simply can't be. It must be November first. I'd even believe you if you said, "It's the first of October, but don't forget to bring a sweater!" My memory has collapsed the last three months into an untidy heap. I have no idea where the time went, only that I spent that time happy and happily worn out from late-night walks in the city and every kind of amusement (good people, good coffee, good music, good dancing, good travels, good risks, all worth it). My last semester of university has been wilder and sweeter than I could have imagined. There are a few too many (read: many too many) things competing for my attention right now--all of them pressing--and when I think about it, I realize I'm neglecting virtually every area of my life in some way. After graduation, I need to make some reparations: to my family, who I have visited too infrequently; to my old friends, who I miss too much; to my body, which craves a good long sleep and has tolerated too many meals on the run and not enough lovingly prepared and leisurely paced dinners... and that's just to name three!
A short list of jobs I am not qualified for, as posted on the UW Student Job Center:
- Shotput and discus coach
- Russian-speaking customer service representative
- Canine groomer
- Piano instructor
- Cross-country ski instructor (it looks like fun, but my attempts at skiing have been marked by a wicked magnetic attraction to tree trunks)
A short list of jobs I am not qualified for, as posted on the UW Student Job Center:
- Shotput and discus coach
- Russian-speaking customer service representative
- Canine groomer
- Piano instructor
- Cross-country ski instructor (it looks like fun, but my attempts at skiing have been marked by a wicked magnetic attraction to tree trunks)
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