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Saturday, December 06, 2003
posted by gbarto at 3:57 AM:
Here's Cicero on the judicial dictatorship. I'd like to call him overly pessimistic, but there are some tough nuts to crack in his reasoning. Most notably, what recourse does a people have when the leaders of our institutions turn to the institution deliberately set up to not respond to popular passions to set the tone for things that are very much the subject of popular passion.One place where I come out on the opposite side of conservatives is the question of rights. Conservatives are asking where all these rights are coming from; I think that rights should be more plentiful. But we agree on the judicial dictatorship question. It is my belief that the phrase, "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," taken from a founding document but not the Constitution, merits some study. Given its connections to the Lockean notion of property - i.e. what touches your life such as your existence, your movements, your actions and the fruits of your labor is your own stuff and no one else has a right to it - there's a suggestion that our founding fathers, though they would have been surprised at the enlargement of the personal sphere, would have intellectually understood that constricting our rights meant shrinking our right to our own property and should therefore be avoided. While socio-cons worry over certain rights - notably the right to abortion - I worry about the process. Marcus is right. The courts aren't responding to the Constitution, but to the contemporary prejudices of a small but influential swath of the population. Which means that you get abortion rulings with ridiculous language and bizarre reasoning and a host of other messes that frankly meet some of the tests for deciding a new revolution is warranted to restore power to the people. An abortion ruling should not be looking for anything peeking out from the shadows of the arcana of a 19th century amendment. It should be weighing whether the result of a government policy serves the government's primary obligation of securing our rights and if it can only do so for one group at the expense of another, etc. And in the end, in my view, it should probably decide that with the fundamental questions of life and liberty at stake and the lack of direct guidance in the Constitution this was an issue the several states would have to work out for themselves. As such, the laboratories of democracy could go to work determining whether this is baby-killing or protecting a woman's right to control her destiny. Instead, the courts did an end run around the people, giving abortion rights people and the pro-life people alike every reason to worry more about the composition of the courts than the views of their fellow citizens.
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posted by gbarto at 3:22 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: M. Chirac Rejects the Idea of Positive Discrimination. Interior Minister Sarkozy wants to set up a system of preferential hiring for immigrants in selected sectors for the purposes of integration. Chirac says no way.
Libération: Lille, City of Great Cultural Capital. The reference to cultural capital being a bit cunning, as it will become a cultural capital: one of Europe's for music.
Ouest-France has yesterday's story: Kamikaze Bombing in Russia: 40 dead.
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Friday, December 05, 2003
posted by gbarto at 7:02 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Europe-Maghreb: The Other Enlargement. There's a summit for the countries of the Western Mediterranean coming up and Chirac has been courting former colonies like crazy.
Libération has the real big international story of the day up top: 36 Dead In Bombing In Russia. A bomb was set off on a train near Chechnya. Putin has denounced the attempt to destabilize the country on the eve of parliamentary elections. One should, one remembers, only do things to stabilize the country in such circumstances, like reducing contention by arresting one's political opponents. This freelance stirring up of things, on the other hand, is unacceptable. The TurkeyBlog, for the record, is firmly against the bombing, an act of terrorism that should be treated as such. He is also against another act of terrorism, kidnapping, even when it is state sponsored, which is why he wishes the denunciations were coming from someone other than Putin.
Ouest-France: They Built A House for the Telethon. In the fight against genetic diseases, France is holding a telethon. The fine fellows on the front page took a strong interest: They built a house to be auctioned off to raise money.
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Thursday, December 04, 2003
posted by gbarto at 2:15 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Floods: Hope For A Lull. With 5 dead and 10,000 evacuated, things are finally settling down and the alert is now orange, not red.
Ouest-France: The South, Saturated By Water, Hopes For A Lull.
Libération: "The dike burst and I lost everything." Quote from a flood victim for Libé's headline.
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Wednesday, December 03, 2003
posted by gbarto at 9:17 AM:
Segways on the battlefield? Big deal. Amish Tech Support has the real tech problem that needs solving.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:09 AM:
Amish Tech Support has a Palestinian baby with a strange sort of stigmata and some rather bold comments on what he thinks of the whole thing.Dr. Weevil has a gentler run-down of the story and commentary relating what the boy's birthmark and the scratchings of a cow might have in common.
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posted by gbarto at 8:58 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: M. Chirac praises the M. Ben Ali's Tunisia. Which just happens to be the next Maghreb (North African) country Chirac is visiting (on Dec. 3) in his efforts to patch up things with former colonies. Chirac will celebrate the country's opening economy and modernization efforts. Human rights groups aren't so impressed with the way politics are run there.
Le Figaro: Storms in the South of France: Fifth Victim Retrieved.
Libération: Red Alert in Hérault, Chirac in Bouches-du-Rhône. That's the region where the storms are; the President of the Republic is paying a visit to the region.
Ouest-France has a local story: The 407, The First Peugeot Produced at Rennes - where Ouest-France is published. Cute little car by the looks of it.
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posted by gbarto at 8:33 AM:
From the e-mail comes a look at some of the good we've done in Iraq:DON'T GET TOO DISCOURAGED BY ALL THE NEGATIVE NEWS ABOUT IRAQ:And some of the bad we've stopped:
Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...
...the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.
... over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
...nearly all of Iraqis 400 courts are functioning.
... the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
...on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts”exceeding the prewar average.
...all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
... by October 1, Coalition forces had rehabbed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than their target.
...All 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
...pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
...the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq's children.
...a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 Kilometers of weed-choked canals. They now irrigate tens of thousands of Farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.
...we have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.
... there are 4,900 full-service connections. We expect 50,000 by January first.
...the wheels of commerce are turning. From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.
...95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.
... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
...the central bank is fully independent.
... Iraq has one of the world's most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.
...Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to his zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games...murdering critics.And where the liberation of the Iraqi people leades:
...children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.
...political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.
...Saudis will hold municipal elections.The e-mail does end on a slightly sneering note though:
... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.
... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.
NOT BAD FOR A BUSH ADMINISTRATION:I didn't list all the accomplishments mentioned in the e-mail, but this list gives an idea. Incidentally, apologies for not crediting the e-mail. I got it at the end of a stream of forwards and could not definitively determine the originator.
1. WITH NO PLAN.
2. WITH NO DIRECTION.
3. THAT WAS GOING TO BE SLAUGHTERED GOING INTO BAGDAD.
4. THAT WAS ONLY IN THIS FOR THE OIL.
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Tuesday, December 02, 2003
posted by gbarto at 3:23 AM:
Very sharp post on America's relationship with Islam for the last quarter century from the Captain's Quarters. Seems that we've been pretty patient and pretty generous. But patience and generosity can become exhausted when 3000 people are vaporized before one's eyes.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:51 AM:
Drumwaster responds to a Den Beste post on whether the US would exercise the nuclear option if it came to that (the answer is, "Duh") and the comment thread is something to see. Best quip on whether Bush's war in Iraq is the embarrassment some on the left say:I also want to point out that we took out Iraq in less time than it took Janet Reno to capture the Branch-Davidian compound. I'd say we're doing pretty well.
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posted by gbarto at 2:37 AM:
A Dog's Life has the latest Erin Brockovich fraud and le mot juste on the matter. There's also a charming joke and a quip about the French diplomats being on strike. Incidentally, you haven't seen the last in the French news headlines because it has not been a top headline in France. This means, of course, that in this one instance the French media has shown greater perspective on the relevance of French diplomacy than the American media.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:28 AM:
French news headlinesLiberation: GPs as Scape-Goats. The Minister of Health said their handling of everyday medical problems was the cause of the overburdening of the health system. He's backpedaling now.
Le Monde: Same story - General Practicioners Called Into Question By Mattei. Apparently the specific gripe is that they're worrying after kids with runny noses and tummy aches while the emergency systems suffer. Hmm. Guess he's not worried about the parent vote in the next elections.
Le Figaro: Paris in Ivory Trap. Big demonstrations at French sites in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. French troops dispersed protesters with tear-gas grenades. The bigger problem, however, is that France is between pro- and anti-government troops and at the moment relying on the moral authority of the UN to keep them apart. Gee, and this is a full year after the French took control of the capital to prevent the civil war from spreading. Sounds like a quagmire to me. Or would if I were as cynical as some are about US actions around the world. In fact, the French are doing their best with a crappy situation and one hopes they pull it off. Africa doesn't need another bloody civil war in a former French colony; they've had enough of those to make one seriously consider the merits of the return of colonialisation, which at least united whole countries against the French instead of leaving them rent asunder by tribal and other divisions.
Ouest-France: Israel-Palestine: Virtual Peace. Apparently it would be a great treaty, were there anyone who was going to sign it. I'll give the actual summary text (translated, of course), just because I can't decide if it's blithely hopeful or just sarcastic. The article, likewise, is open to interpretation:
The Geneva initiative proves a detailed accord is possible
Israel-Palestine: Virtual Peace
Presented Monday amid great media fanfare, the "Geneva Pact" for Israeli-Palestinian peace is a virtual agreement, not having been signed by any governments. However, never has any text on the subject been negotiated and redacted with such precision.
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Monday, December 01, 2003
posted by gbarto at 1:54 AM:
Here's Steve Den Beste on literature and what lasts. He's springboarding off an ongoing web conversation. Den Beste's basic diagnosis is absolutely right: what endures is good storytelling, not high art. Looking back to the 19th century, one notes that it is Jean Valjean (and Captain Nemo) who gets mentioned for the French. Den Beste says he's rooted in the 19th century and [I'll assume he meant to preface "the reverberations of"] the French Revolution. True enough. Fortunately, Marius and Cosette aren't and the story has taken off as a musical precisely because the French Revolution, the 1832 revolt and the whole of the century create just the sort of garish nonsense perfect for a period soap opera about a young couple, the father who's learning to let go, etc. I think the French Revolution diagnosis nails it though. I've heard countless people put Les Miz at the time of the French Revolution, when the meat of the story came almost half a century later. Nobody cares about the Revolution, per se. The story's the thing (to paraphrase) and those who care about Les Miz are not those who care about French history but those who get worked up by a few enduring ideals about liberty and justice when you throw in a love story. End comment stream.The big debate, though, goes to a larger problem: It's not just that those writing "literature" are producing, as a rule, pedestrian, omphaloskeptic crap; those who teach literature are too often offering the same sort of thing. The focus of literary studies is not on good stories well told because you don't need a PhD and a deep-seated need to feel clever in order to engage them. In this regard, I feel privileged to have worked with a few professors who taught the enduring classics of French literature and gave us a feel for why they were classic. I've known students from other universities who weren't so fortunate, and it's really a shame that they missed out on greats from Rabelais to Moliere to Victor Hugo, cheesy novelist (as opposed to Victor Hugo, magisterial poet) so that they could emerge more clever about the fads of the day rather than "merely" more profoundly moved by what has stood the test of time.
In looking for great storytellers, I think Den Beste and company - and Stephen King - are right to look to our popular authors. Though I'm not Stephen King's biggest fan, there's no denying his ability to tell and tale mesmerizingly well (Though I wasn't big on Carrie, etc., I loved the Eyes of the Dragon and the Gunslinger series and recommend them heartily; King is at his best in these). Conan Doyle will, unquestionably endure. I have a small hope that Wodehouse's Jeeves cycle will last - it's been outdated 100 years and is still on the shelves, so who knows. As for Tom Clancy, he's done some fairly serious stuff with the seriousness called for, while Patriot Games had light touches in just the right places for a book that ran the full gamut of human emotions by the end including seeing one's child on the edge of death. I can't get Jane Galt to come up at the moment to see all her comments, but I'd add Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, a dash of Orwell, a dot of Huxley and some Kipling to round out the literature column. The only literary author of the era who has ever done much for me, on the other hand, is Salman Rushdie. Recommended: The Ground Beneath Her Feet.
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posted by gbarto at 12:43 AM:
Cicero hits the nail on the head about Bush's Thanksgiving visit to Iraq. It was with the troops alone because it was for the troops alone. And rightly so.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:37 AM:
White House to Repeal Tariffs on Imported SteelMove to avert foreign trade war could produce political backlash against Bush in steel-producing states.
Hopefully he'll make up for it with votes from the economically sane.
I do wonder, though, coming from Michigan, how some of this plays out. While the auto unions (which wanted tariffs on imported cars) had their role to play and have their role to play in the state's politics, John Engler came to the governorship three times based at least in part on outstate Michigan's animosity toward Detroit and toward all state policies being based on taking care of Detroit. There is a way for Bush to end the tariffs and improve his political position. He must explain the following: 1) The WTO is threatening heavy duty sanctions that would put a lot more jobs at risk than just the steel jobs. 2) Short term tariffs can help shield an industry while it regains its footing (hence he was right to put them in) but 3) long term tariffs merely protect inefficiency and raise prices for everyone (hence he's right to remove them now) and 4) if the fat cats running the steel industry haven't done anything to improve their competitive position, he can't ask the hardworking people of America to keep paying more for their cars, having already given the fat cats in the steel industry three years to modernize. In short, bash a segment of corporate America that really does need bashing (and doesn't exactly tilt right anyway) while purporting to stand up for the little guy by protecting the specific little guys in the mills as long as he could but realizing that now is the time to protect all the little guys, first by getting steel prices down and second by making the fat cats who run the steel business accountable since they abused our goodwill. Will he do it? Probably not. Not clever enough to make Rove feel the boy genius he likes to think himself. But it would be nice.
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posted by gbarto at 12:24 AM:
Here's the relatively more subdued Fox News write-up for our French headline of the night:Push for Mideast Summit
Palestinians, Israelis trying to arrange meeting between leaders
The Washington Post doesn't even seem to have a story.
So, are Americans out of touch? Or just more realistic about this?
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posted by gbarto at 12:17 AM:
French news headlines:Libération: The Peace Pact Enthroned In Geneva. This is the plan that was mentioned earlier (still up top for Le Monde with the headline, Middle-East: A Peace Plan Relaunches the Debate) here. Put together by independant Palestinians and Israelis. One big difference, of course, is that one has a much smaller chance of being shot, lynched, etc., for taking the line that your people needs to renounce its cause or give up more if you happen to be Israeli, (put in joke about "Israeli: in my land, we can criticize the government without fear of reprisal. Palestinian: in my country, too, we can criticize the Israeli government without fear of reprisal). One suspects that the independant Israelis went to state their beef with their government in some cases, not likely for the Palestinians. In any case, the Israeli government hates the plan, and enthroned though the press sees it, it's going nowhere other than the headlines for those who think Israel and Sharon need a little more time under the hot lights.
Le Figaro: Middle-East: Hope of Peace Reborn in Geneva.
Ouest-France: In Cambodia, the course away from death. The country is with South Africa in terms of its ravaging by the AIDS epidemic. But Doctors of the World is bringing retrovirals to the land and things are looking a little better.
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Sunday, November 30, 2003
posted by gbarto at 2:07 PM:
Renee Zellweger Dismisses 'Fat' TalkThe hullabaloo relates to her putting on weight for Bridget Jones 2. Saw "Love Actually" last night, from the same producers, and there were comments there relating to the weight of one of the female characters. One suspects they get the joke, though - she was the prettiest girl in the movie and won the Prime Minister's heart.
As for the TurkeyBlog, he thinks Zellweger was a bit scrawny in Chicago. Tastes differ, I guess.
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posted by gbarto at 2:02 PM:
Sunday headlines from Le Monde:Middle-East: A Peace Plan Relaunches the Debate. But the peace process is another matter. This was a group of a couple thousand people meeting in Geneva and throwing together what they thought should be done. The relevant parties were not, apparently, consulted. In any case, Israel was appalled. Which brings the big question: Why is it front-page news that a group of people with no standing came up with a plan that's going nowhere that involves not the people for whom it was made but merely their own wishful thinking?
Series of Deadly Attacks against Foreign Forces in Iraq. Al-Qaeda and Baath are back on the warpath. But the Americans have got a lot more generators going, hospitals working, etc. In spite of the war. Mayhap because Baath and Al-Qaeda care as much about the people of Iraq as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda cared about the people of Afghanistan, whereas America, if less than successful, at least intends well for them.
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