I dream of things that never were and say, Why not?

Why the world of controversy over ports deal?

2006-02-27T18:32:33Z

It's rare that I take the Bush administration's side in anything, let alone an issue of national security or foreign policy. With regards to Dubai PortsWorld proposed takeover of several domestic shipping ports, though, I have to say my instincts fall in line with the administration's stance.

How is it any more than xenophobic, isolationist racism? DPW is owned and run by Muslims; it's a private company controlled by the Royal family of Dubai, a member of United Arab Emirates (UAE). And yes, a very small percentage of the world's Muslims are militant terrorists aiming to do God knows what—anything from undermining governments in Islamic natures to launching World War III. On that basis, must we assume that all Arab-owned companies must be in cahoots with that tiny group of terrorists?

The second-place bid for the British company that currently owns the port management contracts was from a company based in Singapore. DPW already owns the port assets of American company CSX. Should we strip them of those rights too because they are Muslim-owned? What about Emirates Airlines, also owned by the Dubai royal family? Should they fly to separate, secure airports from here on out?

The UAE is one of our allies. It's one of the few states that we can conscionably align ourselves with; it has an operational federal courts system and is one of the most liberal regimes in the Middle East when it comes to women's rights. Dubai is a cosmopolitan world capital and a tourist destination.

More business links with the Middle East is a good thing, not a bad thing. Trade is a good thing. Cooperation is a good thing. Backing out of business deals because the other side of the deal happens to be Muslim is not a good thing.

No one has suggested that American dock workers would be replaced or displaced; it's not like they're gonna put Osama bin Laden and a gang of dudes in turbans with AK-47s and pocket-sized nukes in charge of Port Newark. Hell, there might even be security advantages in having one of our Arab allies run some of our sensitive ports—but who would know whether that's the case or not?

I get where people's hesitation comes from, but it just isn't rational. The Bush administration should have anticipated that this would be an issue and got out ahead of it before it became a problem. What stuns me is that politicians on the left have been running each other over in a race to get in front of the cameras and be the first to play the "national security" card back in the Republicans' faces. It's short-sighted. It's isolationist, not internationalist. It further diminishes our already tattered reputation in the Muslim world.

Even Bush gets it, for once: "It would send a terrible signal to friends and allies not to let this transaction go through." Worse yet, it would give another shred of evidence to those who Muslims who hate America and the West that America and the West hates them back. It deepens the divide.

Our leaders should be giving us thoughtful guidance and substantive information about this deal if it is so important, not exploiting our fears for partisan gain. That's the lowest common denominator. Just because the Republicans used national security like a club to beat down the Democrats doesn't mean that the Democrats should try to do the same back, because in the end, it's never going to work—it's hollow scare tactics. The critics of the DPW takeover of ports must offer a substantive, rational argument as to why the deal is bad for American security interests—and propose an alternative that's both safer and practical (as it stands today, there are not nearly enough American companies to take over all port management operations).

Either the spin cycle is working or Americans truly fear the possibility of DPW taking over American ports—a Rasmussen survey showed 64% do not think the sale should be allowed (and, interestingly, 39% of those surveyed didn't know foreign companies already manage domestic ports and 46% were not sure if foreign companies managed domestic ports). Maybe I am the irrational one here, but until someone shows me some concrete reasons that DPW taking over port management duties in American cities is a risk to our national security, I'm not buying it.

>> Wikipedia on the Dubai Ports World Controversy

Irreverant and irrelevant rants

2006-02-27T18:30:15Z

Time to put down Tim the Tool Man

Have you seen the commercials for the latest Tim Allen horror show, Shaggy Dog? They should take a cue from Old Yeller and put Allen out of his misery. What's worse? The fact that a movie studio dropped $80 million on this steaming heap of garbage or the fact that enough people might go see it to make it profitable.

If it ain't white, it ain't right

One last rant. I was at a deli today, and the guy in front of me in line ordered a turkey sandwich and a "chowda." Chowda, in this case, meaning Manhattan Clam Chowder. I've lived in New York City for three years and been silent on this issue for too long. If it's clams dumped in a lousy tomato broth, it is not chowder, chowda, or anything like it. Chowder is white in color and ranges from "creamy" to "semi-solid" in consistency (I prefer a semi-solid chowder—thick enough that if you threw it at a window or wall, it would stick). Manhattan tomato and clam soup might be delicious, but it ain't white, it ain't chowda.

Legalized gambling? It's a ticket to nowhere

2006-02-23T22:47:17Z

After I saw the story on CNN.com about the eight workers from a meatpacking plant in Nebraska who won the recent record-high Powerball lottery jackpot, my heart was warmed for a moment. That moment quickly passed.

It's great that these nice, deserving folks from Nebraska (notably, the group included several immigrants) had fortune smile on them. What's troubles me is that this story, which is all over every newspaper and TV news program, gives people false hope. The chances of winning a lottery at all—let alone hitting it big enough to never work a day in your life—are slim to infinitesimally small, and yet, a frightening number of Americans feel like that lottery ticket is a genuine, plausible route to a better life. The statistics are stunning. "Among Americans with salaries of $25,000 or less, 38 percent believe the lottery is the way to go," according to one study. Sixteen percent believe winning the lottery is "a very important wealth-building strategy for all Americans."

Gambling is a vice that too often sucks cash out of those who cannot afford it, preying on those who hope for a better life. Yeah, most people probably understand that their chances are slim, we know the people who play the lottery the most aren't necessarily acting on a strictly rational basis. You don't typically see CEOs, corporate attorneys, and doctors spending an afternoon buying scratch tickets; a person who makes a six-figure salary isn't counting on that Mega Millions ticket as a way to a better life. Those who play the most play not for pleasure but for hope, they want more for themselves and their families, they work hard, and for that reason they're more eagerly persuaded to spend their hard-earned money gambling. It's a false hope.

Certainly, some people gamble for pleasure—and can afford to do so—and some people gamble competitively, and they're entitled to do what they want with their money and time. I enjoy the occasional game of poker myself. There are TV commercials in several states touting the merits of lotteries and casino gambling, pointing out that part of the revenue stream goes back to communities, either as taxes or lottery profits. The argument goes, if you play the lottery, you're helping fund our schools and put more cops on the street.

But let's not be deluded by the glamorization of Powerball and the World Series of Poker. Let's not pretend there aren't any victims here. Lotteries and legalized gambling are a tax on the poor and working classes, exploiting the desperate hopes of those who work hard just to keep their heads above water. Even if the revenues do pour into government programs, it's burden-shifting--the burdens of the wealthy to support the common good onto the backs of those who can least afford it. Cut taxes on the rich, and open up a couple new casinos or start a new lottery to suck the poor dry—it's taking from the poor to pay for the poor, Robin Hood gone wrong.

I picture a working-class woman walking out the door to work early one morning, on her way to a factory, just like the story of the 8 Powerball winners did every morning. And she sees this story on TV, and believes, hey, maybe next time, I'll be the one holding the winning ticket--the ticket to a better life. Is this really what the American Dream has become?

Crime and punishment at the State of the Union

2006-02-01T18:03:51Z

So, you tell me—did they kick out Cindy Sheehan and charge her with a misdemeanor for the fact that she was wearing a "controversial" T-shirt OR did they kick her out for the fact preceding the question on the T-shirt she was wearing – "2245 Dead. How many more?" – is true. Or was true prior to the speech—it's probably higher by the time I'm writing this entry.

I can see why the police don't want to allow disruptive behavior during the State of the Union, but that said, my gut instinct is that she did nothing wrong. She didn't launch an ad hominem attack on Bush; she just posed the question that our president should have answered in his speech but could not and did not try to answer. Sheehan didn't get up and start screaming during his speech. She wasn’t wearing a shirt filled with slander or obscenity. Perhaps she committed a fashion faux pas wearing a T-shirt to Congress, but in this country, that's hardly a crime—especially compared to the real crimes that transpire on Capitol Hill.

What's really chilling is that Sheehan's ejection sounds so familiar—a lot like the president's approach to keeping dissenting voices out of his campaign events during the 2004 presidential campaign. When it's Bush's campaign and he's paying for the events, to keep out any voices that disagree with you might be intellectually dishonest, but it's sort of his prerogative—it's his event. When opinions are squelched before the State of the Union, a tradition dating all the way back to our first president, in the Capitol Building rather than on the campaign trail, it's more than a little unnerving.

>> ABC News

>> Village Voice

The George W. "Reality" Tour

2005-05-09T22:08:40Z

W's just so damned easy to pick on that I resist the urge most of the time. But this article from the Times (Los Angeles, not New York, thanks to the Note) about a rare instance of the president dealing with (or rather, ducking) candid questions from CHILDREN reminds me just how much the president's attitude toward the press really gets under my skin, though. Thinking back to the children's book bit from Fahrenheit 9/11, you gotta wonder if the man's just easily shaken by kids.

But the problem runs much deeper than just the wisdom falling from the mouths of babes. On a recent episode of The Daily Show, there was a short skit comparing a Tony Blair "town hall meeting" toward the end of the British parliamentary elections to clips of Bush's own "town hall meeting" experiences in the U.S. There was something nauseating about seeing how clearly sycophantic and rehearsed the questions were in the Bush clips. Watch it here.

During the last presidential campaign, there were several accounts of how the organizers of Bush's campaign events were very careful to keep out any protesters or members of the opposition. While I respect the Bush supporters' right to have their rallies without undue interference, the heavy-handed attitude toward any possible dissenters still doesn't go down easy.

I think this goes to the general uneasiness so many of us have about President Bush. Unlike President Clinton, President Bush the senior, or President Reagan, you simply have this feeling that President W. Bush is lying through his teeth--that even he doesn't believe what he's saying. One day, Bush tells us all that he thinks our armed forces can handle any conflict or situation that might arise. The next day, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff tells us that our military is stretched too thin to handle any more burdens--something most anyone who is paying the least bit of attention to what is happening in Iraq could probably surmise on their own (although even an unlimited amount of military power couldn't necessarily cure what ails that ravaged nation).

Clinton and Reagan obviously had their own issues with telling the complete truth--what politician doesn't?--but it seems like the only people who could ever buy the snake oil sold by our current president are the people who want to believe what he's saying.

There was a controversial Times (New York) article months back about the Bush spin machine and the bold statement of a Bush operative asserting that "We create our own reality." Last November, a plurality of American voters decided to follow our president through the looking glass for another four years. The President's continuing pattern of obfuscation makes it clear we're in for three more years of his own "virtual" reality.

Do panic

2005-04-29T18:08:22Z

One of America's most important entrepreneurs recently gave a remarkable speech at a summit meeting of our nation's governors. Bill Gates minced no words. "American high schools are obsolete," he told the governors. "By obsolete, I don't just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed and underfunded. ... By obsolete, I mean that our high schools - even when they are working exactly as designed - cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.

>> "What, Me Worry" by Thomas Friedman in the April 29, 2005 NY Times

Friedman goes right to the heart of the education crisis in America--which is no small accomplishment, given that most of the empty education rhetoric that flies around our country doesn't. He doesn't, however, propose any practical solutions. How do you redefine elementary and secondary education for the 21st century? That hurdle jumped, how do you implement the changes necessary to make it happen? Who foots the bills for all this? Who goes first?

It occurs to me that the federal government, and quite possibly even government in general, isn't well-suited to this task. The government is far from nimble enough to make dramatic changes in public education--a quintessentially local activity--and even if it could, it might not be appropriate or constitutional under our system of government. To me, there are large structural changes that could help--taking on the powerful teachers' unions, for one, and restoring funding control to the local level, for another.

The conceptual changes are the harder changes to tackle, and here's where recent federal and state government efforts may do more harm than good. Our political leaders have adopted a mantra of "it’s the results, stupid" so far as education policy. Anything that boosts the numbers--graduation rates, standardized test scores, whatever quantifiable figures you can cook up--is good enough for politicians to pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

The critical mistake is rushing to stand behind the silly notion that quality education can be quantified in numbers. As many are quick to point out, how much is that high school degree worth if the person who earns it can't really read, can't really understand basic arithmetic? Worse than that, there is no love of learning or intellectual cultural in our country--no drive to learn more and be the best educated country in the world. Looking to the future, you can't like what's on the horizon if Gates, Friedman, and so many others are right about what's happening in other countries.

Personally, I'm a product of private secondary and post-secondary schools, but I can recognize that there are many good public schools in this country. And it's also plain to see that there are far, far too many mediocre or worse public schools in this country--that's the reality. Friedman's right. Tinkering here and there, pushing a couple test scores up, cranking out a couple more diplomas--it won't fix anything. The system is fundamentally flawed and those who need it the most pay the price--those who will depend on public education because they don't have any other choice, no other way to a better life, no American dream.

Perhaps the market will ultimately take its course and "correct" American education, but by that point, it'll be too late. For international economic forces to prompt us to change our crumbling education system would mean that our economy crumbled to the point where we have no other option than to confront doing "something hard", to borrow Friedman's words, head on.

Respondeat superior

2005-01-07T04:33:56Z

The Associated Press headline that came over the wire yesterday said it all: "Gonzales Will Follow Non-Torture Policies."

You know how bad the situation is when the president's choice for attorney general has to formally pledge not to support torture anymore.

| From “Don't Torture Yourself (That's His Job)” by Maureen Dowd (1/6/05)

By using torture, we Americans transform ourselves into the very caricature our enemies have sought to make of us. True, that miserable man who pulled out his hair as he lay on the floor at Guantánamo may eventually tell his interrogators what he knows, or what they want to hear. But for America, torture is self-defeating; for a strong country it is in the end a strategy of weakness. After Mr. Gonzales is confirmed, the road back - to justice, order and propriety - will be very long. Torture will belong to us all.

| From “We are All Torturers Now” by Mark Danner (1/5/05)

Respondeat superior. “Let the master answer.” The term for the legal theory of vicarious liability, holding the owner, master, or superior accountable for the actions of her servants. In our nation, the people are sovereign – we are the masters, and the government is our servant.

When you treat people like animals, as if their lives and their dignity is irrelevant, you deserve to be treated similarly by those people. It’s the Golden and eternal rule that governs the political affairs of humankind. I’m not sure what’s more disgusting – the torture itself or the people who abide it in the name of “national security.”

Just remember – the American flag flies above Guantánamo Bay, above the prison camps in Iraq, and over every covert mission carried out by our government – and like it or not, we are as responsible for the actions directed by our superiors and carried out by our armed forces and intelligence agents as any master is for the criminal actions of his servants. One other thing I’m not sure of – should I be more ashamed of what has been done in the name of America to date, or afraid of the repercussions not yet seen? (Ironically, the Abu Gharib torture scandal was the topic that first provoked me to start up my own intermittent ‘blog. I’m sort of sad to see that the situation is far worse than I’d surmised at that time.)

I read it strictly for the articles

2004-12-31T05:57:09Z

Rolling Stone Magazine ran its "people of the year" crapola in its most recent issue, available here. I usually tend to avoid these year-in-review pieces; this year's been no exception, even with the painful, tragic collapse of the Yankees and the subsequent freezing over of hell that was the 2004 baseball season to look back on and celebrate. This one's worth a click because they let a couple interesting people speak for themselves--some might call it "lazy" journalism, but I like the idea that the reporter asks relatively good questions and the subject answers them. Barack, of course, got his two cents in... I have to say, if I didn't find him so incredibly genuine, I'd think he sounded like one arrogant junior Senator in this interview. Once again, Happy New Year to the servers at Livejournal and the rest of the ether.

One of my New Year's Resolutions, by the way, is to reduce the --s,...s, and ""s in all of my writing by at least fifty percent. Wish me luck...

Keep on Barackin' in the Free World

2004-12-30T05:02:39Z

"The Audacity of Hope" -- Newsweek profile of Barack Obama | Link
"The Candidate: Barack Obama" -- New Yorker | Link

Looking back at what turned out to be a rather depressing year politically, the newly-elected and very junior U.S. Senator from Illinois stands out as a story that gives me a little bit of hope. Never one to miss an obvious play on words, I have to wonder -- will Barack turn out to deliver more hype than hope? I think that at the time of the DNC, the liberal faithful knew that something was lacking in the Kerry campaign--it lacked any sort of soul. We cheered for Kerry because he's a good man, to be sure, but not because he got the blood pumping like your Bill Clintons, Barack Obamas, or even your Ted Kennedys. In the end, that missing intangible factor might have been worth a couple million votes, but to be honest, I doubt there was any Democratic candidate who could have defeated Bush in 2004. Perhaps the tree of American liberalism must be refreshed from time to time with the political blood of ... well, the entire party this time around. My New Year's wish is that Barack's hope is an omen of a shifting tide in American politics -- even if it takes several more election cycles to take full form, a truly renewed Democratic Party espousing liberal social and economic values would be worth the wait.

And then I listened to our sitting president explaining the logistical struggles of aiding the thousands of people suffering in the wake of the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia in his fumblin' bumblin' good ol' country boy English on the radio this afternoon. Suddenly, I can't wait for 2005. Happy New Year.

Innocent 'til proven decaying?

2004-12-27T22:08:38Z

Do you know why going to the dentist’s office sucks? If you were raised Catholic, it should be obvious to you—it’s the guilt. At least for the routine stuff—cleanings and cavities—it’s one of the few instances in life in which you receive medical care because of your own laziness. Accidents happen—and they often happen because people do incredibly stupid things—but accidents don’t always happen out of sheer laziness.

When the hygienist is hovering over your mouth, scraping out last Christmas’s turkey and stuffing, cursing to himself and sucking blood and spit out of your mouth with that little vacuum thing, you know that you are being judged. It’s just embarrassing – you’re incapacitated, you can’t talk or respond to anything the dentist says to you because your mouth so wide open, you’re breathing in the dentist’s face, and they are scraping crud out of your teeth. You can see it in their eyes – they are thinking to themselves (and sometimes muttering out loud), “Did this person grow up in West Virginia? Do you think he can even wipe his own ass properly, because he sure as hell didn’t manage to floss these teeth all the way at the back of his mouth at any point in the last year?” Having never had one myself, I maybe shouldn’t invoke this particular metaphor, but the cleaning seems like a gynecological exam for your face.

After the X-rays are taken and that surprisingly heavy lead vest is lifted from your chest, the weight is replaced with the far heavier opprobrium of the dentist and hygienist reviewing the shots and deciding on a plan of attack. In fact, when the dentist herself finally gets involved is when the real guilt sets in. “Haven’t you been flossing?” “Been awhile?” “You’re completely fucked.” No matter how inevitable a cavity is, you still feel about four years old—that occasional night that you just didn’t feel like brushing thoroughly or those two days you forgot to floss are back to haunt you, in whirring, thumping, mechanical form. As the dentist leers over your mouth with her mighty Novocain needle in hand, you realize you only have one person to blame – yourself. No other medical profession can hang this guilt over your head like a dentist can.

If you a break a leg, you’re not a bad person. If you have dry skin, it’s not your fault. If you’ve got the flu, it’s nothing you did—everyone’s catching it. But when the dentist hands you that little plastic bag with the free toothbrush and Glide floss sample, you feel about five years old all over again—and you nod like a guilty little child when you promise to brush and floss more before the next time. Maybe there’s a reality show in this—God knows there’s one for everything else unpleasant in life (dating, dieting, parenting, traveling, male modeling)—The Cleanest Teeth. Watch as twelve toothy adults compete for the whitest choppers—and more importantly, the moral approval of their dentists.

The new racism?

2004-11-05T23:34:01Z

My first stop on the Web just about every day is Slate.com. For my money, it's the best site on the Web--hell, I would actually consider paying for it if they decided to charge. More or less uniformly well-written news and commentary on the political and the cultural issues of the day with a edgy, wise-ass tone. Slate has done a particularly great job in the wake of the election--going beyond mere complaining or dreadful predictions about the next four years to examine the important insights that can be gleaned from this election. Whether you're liberal or not, it's worth checking out. The story linked below interprets the causes of this election's results in an intriguing way: Religious "values" are the new racism in America.

Link | "Morality is the new race" by Diane McWhorter

ask_why_not @ 2004-11-04T17:45:00

2004-11-04T22:47:23Z

So much good writing came out of the post-election haze--where was all this insight before November 2? I also have to admit -- much to my chagrin -- that I've become an avid reader of Wonkette in recent days. So sue me.

Link | "Two Nations under God," Thomas Friedman in the 11/4/04 New York Times

ask_why_not @ 2004-11-04T16:58:00

2004-11-04T21:58:49Z

Link | “The God Gap,” An article by Alan Wolfe from the 9/19/04 Boston Globe

I sometimes joke that the most useful thing that came out of four years at Boston College was my well-known ability to drink responsibly. That’s only a joke, though—the first four years of my Jesuit educational experience bore many fruits, adding or challenging my character and my knowledge.

In the aftermath of Tuesday, many people on both sides have started to recognize that the changing role of religion in American politics was an essential – arguably the definitive – factor in the 2004 Presidential election. Karl Rove was right. There were a couple million Evangelical Christians who apparently did not come out to vote for President Bush in 2000; those voters were the difference this time around.

My senior year, I registered for a class with Alan Wolfe, one of BC’s “celebrity” professors. He was and is the director of Boston College’s Boisi Center for Religion and American Life. Professor Wolfe didn’t teach many big courses at BC, at least to the best of my recollection, and his teaching style was not exactly what I would call “student-oriented.” That said, the course – and Prof. Wolfe – taught those who paid attention some amazing lessons – lessons that predicted with eerie accuracy how the 2004 election was decided and the future landscape of American politics.

The first lesson was simple—thinking about the major religious affiliations in America, and how those affiliations define (or don’t define) their followers as a group. When Prof. Wolfe asked what an Evangelical Christian was, not one of the mostly Catholic students in the room could offer a viable answer. Prof. Wolfe's pupils found that we did not know what made Evangelicals unique from other Christian sects.

Simply put—and I am far from well-versed in this subject—Evangelicals believe they are born again through their faith. Their faith in Jesus Christ is ideally embodied in every aspect of their lives. It’s incredibly important to note that George W. Bush among the members of this born again group. My way of describing Evangelicals would be to call them true believers – they see God and Jesus Christ in their lives on a daily basis.

Once you have some handle on the nature of American Evangelicals, it’s time to move on to the second big lesson. The Evangelical population is growing fast, for a variety of reasons too numerous and beyond my knowledge to discuss here. It’s growing fast in America’s heartland, in the so-called red states. And it’s getting political. Coming full circle with America’s historical roots as a religiously-charged state, the Evangelical effect on this election is obvious. Values drove the election. Gay marriage and abortion were touchstone issues. People voted for a man they believed hears the word of God, just like them—they did not vote for him because they agree with his economic or foreign policy stances.

This point has been emphasized by every pundit and blogger from here to Hawaii but it can’t be hammered home enough: Evangelicals will continue to grow as a demographic, cultural, and political force in the coming decades. Their agenda is in direct conflict – if not in response – to the progressive social positions typically associated with liberals. If this past election indicates anything, it is that these social issues are the engine driving socially conservative voters to the polls and the Republicans to overarching power in the federal government.

I’m hardly prepared at this point to offer ways to respond. Acknowledging what led to the result of this election is an important first step though, and this issue of religion influencing politics must be addressed. To simply label conservatives as stupid, immature, ill-informed, or whatever you might want to call them is fruitless, because we learned last week there are probably more of them than there are of us liberals. Respecting what makes them conservative might be a way of understanding how to sway people who can be swayed back to liberalism.

Many have noted that reframing the debate is the best way for liberalism to fight back – to convince Americans that their morals and values, inspired by religion or otherwise, should not dictate public policy. It sounds like a sensible approach, but how do you achieve that goal? True believers will not be easily dissuaded from doing what they believe is the work of their god.

And there’s the big problem. “God” and religion have always played a role in our society. To pretend otherwise is to ignore all of American history. But, ideally, it shouldn’t just be about your god or my god or their god, because once it is about a specific god, a specific religious group, then our United States loses the pluralism and tolerance that makes it the greatest nation in the world. It is that we are not a theistic society that sets us apart from our European ancestors, from the countries of the Islamic world; it is what has allowed us to throw open our nation’s doors to people from all ethnicities and backgrounds, to build one of the most diverse nations that will ever exist.

Once it becomes about what someone’s God wants, we lose all that. If my insights – courtesy mostly of Prof. Wolfe’s hard work – hold any water, November 2, 2004 was a signal that our country is picking up speed in that most unfortunate of directions, toward a society where God and state are essentially intertwined. Maybe I should send a set of Prof. Wolfe’s books to Terry McAuliffe. He might have some time to read in the next few months.

Soul searching

2004-11-04T14:55:45Z

I shut off the TV and went to bed at about midnight on Election Day (or the day after Election Day, I guess). There was really no need to watch. Whatever the outcome in Ohio—and the writing on the wall was pretty obvious even at that point—the roughly three million vote gap in the popular vote was more than sufficient to keep me from actually getting any sleep. Ironically, I dreamt that Kerry miraculously closed the gap in Ohio—narrowed it down to just a couple hundred votes—ironic because even if Kerry were to win Ohio and thus potentially the Electoral College, it would never seem legitimate in light of such a lopsided popular vote.

My tossing and turning wasn’t just due to the outcome of the election. It was a series of revelations and epiphanies—many far more troubling than simply losing—that left me groggy and subdued on Wednesday.

My ramblings will flow out over the coming days as I sift through my thoughts and ramblings about this election and the elections yet to come. They are in no particular order.

The Democratic Party simply has no soul. In light of comments made below on the appropriate role of religion in American government and politics, it might seem like an odd complaint, I think it’s a helpful way of thinking about the results of the 2004 election. Whichever political party (or candidate, I suppose) happens to tap into the soul of the nation at that moment—or a slight majority thereof—wins. Clinton did it. Reagan did it. This time, Bush did it, and it’s hard for me to argue in my own mind that there was ever any real spirit behind the Democratic Party, its message, or its standard-bearers. As capable of a president as John Kerry might have been, he didn’t seem to stir many hearts.

That said, there’s no sense in blaming John Kerry—the Democratic Party seems to lack a direction, an essence, a reason for being. Even if the Kerry ticket had eked out a victory over Bush in this election, that same problem would cast a shadow over his administration and the future of liberalism in America. The fact that some of the most fervent “Kerry supporters” sported Anybody But Bush buttons says wonders about why the Democrats fell short. It’s political nihilism and accomplishes just that in our present-day political landscape. Compare that attitude to the fervor and spirit of Bush’s supporters. Today was a day when I woke up and realized for the first time that something serious was missing from my political life, from the party I choose to support. To win, you gotta have soul, and we don't have it.

Poll-y Crap

2004-10-07T23:11:57Z

Do voting preferences lead to poll results? Or do poll results lead to voting preferences? What’s the difference between a voter, a likely voter, a registered voter, and votive candle? Can you be a likely voter even though you haven’t registered at this point? Which sensory deprivation chamber has this mass of undecided “swing” voters been trapped in for the last six months? (In my opinion, if you don’t have a decisive inclination toward one candidate or the other at this point, your voter registration card, your credit cards, and quite possibly your Blockbuster card should be revoked immediately. I’d add “passport” to that list but something tells me the swing-voter group doesn’t include many globe-hopping world travelers. Kerry and Bush are as least as different as oil and water to anyone who’s thought about a question deeper than “Would I have a beer with him?” And to a point, I’d ask those people: Do you really want the drunk from your local tavern calling the shots from the Oval Office? But I digress.)

I’ll be damned if I know, but if you’ve been suckered in by the pollster’s game, then these two Web sites should wear out your “Refresh” button over the next month.

>> PollingReport.com’s “Trial Heat Summary.” All the latest poll results that are fit to print, side by side for your comparison. Updated constantly.

>> Even more fun is the Current Electoral Vote Predictor. These folks take the latest state polls and predict the actual outcome of the election based on the Electoral College.

>> Compare the current electoral map above to this map of locations for Xando Cosi restaurants. If you’ve never been to a Cosi, think “Starbucks with flatbread sandwiches and overpriced salads for the young urban professional crowd.” It corresponds almost exactly to the current electoral map. Coincidence, or should we call Time-Life Books? Speaking of which, are Time-Life Books even around any more?

Long and the short of it is this: John Kerry just needs to open up a Cosi franchise in Dallas in the next month and he’ll be good to go…

Games Vice Presidents play

2004-10-07T16:57:50Z

“Cheney: Weapons Report Justifies Iraq War”

So the report concluded that there was “no evidence that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991” and further, that no significant efforts were underway to produce WMDs. The Bush administration responded the only way it could: by taking another step back into the corner.

Leave aside the fact that the Vice President artfully avoided the gist of the report in his attempt to spin an ugly report for the Bush camp into at least a push. Cheney relies on the notion that Saddam “had every intention of going back" to try and build WMDs if the opportunity arose. It occurred to me that in our own nation’s criminal justice system, we rarely punish people for intent alone. Thinking about robbing a bank isn’t a crime. Thinking about running a red light isn’t a crime. Wanting to rob a bank or to run a red light isn’t a crime either. Rightly, our nation’s laws almost always require concrete steps toward actually breaking the law—not just an inclination or desire—for a person to be charged with a criminal offense. People are not punished for merely wanting to do bad things; it’s inconsistent with the fundamental principles of the American system. Even when people agitate or state that they want to do these bad things, they haven’t committed a crime until they actually cross the line between intent and attempt.

And yet, retrospectively, the Bush-Cheney administration justifies the War in Iraq on Saddam’s intent, his desire to have weapons of mass destruction. A thinner string to hang such an albatross on one cannot find. How many leaders of nations would like to have nuclear or chemical weapons? Will the barometer of whether a nation wants weapons of mass destruction be the test we use in deciding where to next flex our military might? He’s really grasping at straws here.

Will this game still play with the American people? No weapons. No serious or remotely successful efforts underway to make weapons. In other words, there was no imminent threat.

Bush justifies this war as self-defense; after 9/11, we are entitled as a nation to defend ourselves—preemptively if necessary—against future terrorist attacks. Imminent as in immediate and impending, not as in “possible if X, Y, and Z happen and Saddam has a couple years to work unimpeded on his weapons.” Many nations are threatening in general; it’s no secret that we have enemies as a country. (We used to have friends too, but that’s a story for another day—don’t worry, I’m not forgetting Poland here.) But vaguely threatening is not the same as an imminent threat, and the imminent threat posed by Saddam and his WMD programs was the principal argument advanced by the Bush administration to get Congressional and public support for the war.

Turns out the claims of an imminent threat were so much dust in the wind. Faced with an election less than a month away, the administration seems to be backing slowly into a corner—at least in terms of rhetoric. Will they withdraw our troops from Iraq after the election? Surely—there won’t be another Republican administration for a couple decades if American GIs continue to die by the dozen every week. But for now, Bush and Cheney are rejecting the possibility that they could fess up to the reality of the situation and say they’ll do what needs to be done. Electoral prudence dictates that they circle the wagons, admit no mistakes until Election Day.

Here’s what I’d ask Vice President Cheney: If the most recent report were released two weeks before the invasion of Iraq, would the war have ever even happened? Would the death of over a thousand American troops and countless Iraqis still be justified if there were no imminent threat whatsoever, if the sanctions were working and effectively preventing Saddam from producing WMDs? Most importantly, how many more people will die because your administration mistook Saddam’s pipe dreams as a serious threat?

ask_why_not @ 2004-10-06T14:04:00

2004-10-06T18:08:00Z

Ask Why Not has been on an unannounced but completely justified hiatus for the last month or two as its author continues his quest to seek gainful (or at least well-paid) employment for next summer. We apologize to our reader(s).

Every time I read or see any news related to Iraq, some thoughts along these lines boil over in my mind. The most frustrating part is that I apparently just don’t get it: Why is failure somehow okay if you’re too stubborn to concede your failings?

George W. Bush's campaign is clearly the greatest "faith-based initiative" in the history of American politics. In spite of repeated reports suggesting that every aspect of the Iraq War--from justifications to execution to future planning--is flawed in egregious ways (with dire consequences for Americans at home and abroad not to mention Iraqis), half the country still thinks it right to stay the course and have faith that Thoughtless Leader will come through in the end.

This election ain't a track meet--it's a marathon

2004-09-07T20:18:28Z

Update (9/8/04 2:06 p.m.): Check out William Saletan's piece on Slate.com regarding the latest polling numbers. Worthwhile reading--also be sure to start your day off right with Slate's Daily Papers digest (which I cannot link to, unfortunately).

John Kerry’s said it several times that I can remember, and I’m sure George W. has spit it out himself one way or another: The upcoming presidential election seems to be the most important election of our lifetimes. Watching as my preferred candidate looks up at the incumbent president in the polls for the first time in awhile, I feel a little dismay, maybe a hint of panic. Check out all the polls. For too many reasons to recount here, the president we elected this November could have a profound effect on many aspects of our lives—and depending on who wins, it could be a very long four years before we get another chance to choose. Polls or not, I don’t think this race is close to over. To agree with the somewhat obvious observations of many pundits, how many people wrote off John Kerry just a week prior to the Iowa caucuses last spring? To handicap this tight race at this point in time, just days after the balloons dropped at the RNC, would be as foolish as betting the farm on a Red Sox taking home shiny new World Series rings this November. A lesson I’ve learned time and time again (ironically, often attributed to a former New York Yankee in one form or another): It ain’t over till it’s over.

I’m not at all surprised at the recent Bush spike in the polls. The race is too close for him to not make at least one big push this summer. Bush spent private donations freely throughout the month of August while Kerry had to conserve his government-provided $75 million check for the fall race. MSNBC. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth fired off the first of what will likely be several predictable character assassination attempts on Kerry. And the dog and pony show that was the RNC did an admirable job of scaring the living crap out of average Americans, leading people to the untenable conclusion that a vote for anybody but Bush was akin to laying out a welcome mat for Islamic terrorists to take aim at all we hold dear. Bush made a strong push, and eked out a slight lead—not even outside the margin of error in polls of registered as opposed to likely voters—in the immediate wake of his convention.

What could Kerry have done to resist the August Bush Push? Squander his bankroll to push back at Bush at a time when he was getting much free and relatively favorable publicity? Respond to manifestly unreliable accusations regarding his war record from a GOP-funded fringe group as if they had even a sliver of truth to them? In retrospect, Kerry may have been best served by what he did—sitting on the sidelines, biding his time and preparing a counterattack on his own terms.

The gloves are off now (if they were ever on), and both sides are spoiling for a fight to the finish. The words of the inimitable Ice Cube ring true when it comes to this election: This election ain’t a track meet, it’s a marathon. Swing voters will still be swung and there’s a little more than sixty days left to do it. I’m not hitting the panic button just yet; hopefully, the recent Bush Push wasn’t a surprise to Kerry, rather a well anticipated effort by Bush accounted for in Kerry’s strategy for the stretch run.

ask_why_not @ 2004-08-25T17:24:00

2004-08-25T21:27:58Z

Bush and Cheney make a play to both teams

Talk about playing to all fields. Dick Cheney quietly lets slip his belief that same-sex marriage is a question best left to the states; not too surprising, given that his daughter is openly lesbian and his wife has expressed similar opinions in the past. USA Today. His opinion is thoughtful and not too far off from what the majority of people probably believe, but I can’t help but focus on the implications for Bush-Cheney 2004.

W had to throw some meat to the far right when the same-sex marriage debate was stoked by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s landmark decision allowing same-sex marriage in the Commonwealth. But Cheney’s statements soften W’s tough position on same-sex marriage, potentially satisfying the socially moderate wing of the GOP and maybe even snagging a couple swing voters. Instead of creating an appearance of strife within the party, Cheney’s compassionate comments regarding same-sex marriage just might defuse some of the tension; from the very beginning, the issue always struck me as a grenade that could explode in Bush’s face if not handled with great care.

Quoth the Veep: "With respect to the question about relationships, my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to. The question that comes up with respect to issue of marriage is what kind of sanction or approval is going to be granted by government if you would to particular relationships. Historically that's been a relationship that's been handled by the state. States have made that fundamental decision as to defining what constitutes a marriage. I made it clear four years ago when I ran, this question came up in the debate I had with Joe Lieberman that my view was that that's an appropriate matter for the states to decide. That's how it ought to best be handled."

Catch Mitt while you can

Wait a sec—Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney returned to the great Commonwealth and now it seems like he’s making his move to step into the national spotlight at this week’s Republican National Convention. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect maybe—just maybe—the corner office on Beacon Hill is just a pit stop on Mitt’s way to bigger and better things in, say, 2008. I suppose we of Massachusetts should just be honored that he stopped by for a few years; I mean, the winters are a lot better in Utah, or for that matter, Washington, D.C.

Amber alert

One of my guiltiest pleasures is reading The New York Post on a daily basis. A measly quarter buys at least a solid hour of conservative-tinged news, gory photos, celebrity hijinx, an unfortunately high number of stories about the New York Yankees, a fortunately high number of pictures of Lindsay Lohan (and other talented young thespians), and in recent months, at least a full page covering the Scott Peterson trial. Watching the Petersen trial unfold in pictures and that wonderful Post prose has me flipping through the pages every morning looking for the latest on the trial. Another pleasure of mine is watching The West Wing; hardly a guilty one, in my opinion, although it’s certainly not for everyone. (A quote from The Family Guy about Aaron Sorkin’s other “hit,” Sports Night, might
apply equally to The West Wing: “Dude, I finally understand Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night. It's a comedy that's too good to be funny.”

Amber Frey (left) and Donna Moss (right): Separated at birth?

What do these two things have in common? Not much, except what I think is a creepy coincidence: Amber Frey, Scott’s mistress and prosecution star witness, bears a startling resemblance to Janel Moloney, better known as Donna Moss from The West Wing. Is Scott guilty? Hard to say, but as far as this alleged resemblance goes, I’ll let you be the judge.

ask_why_not @ 2004-08-17T13:53:00

2004-08-17T17:57:20Z

May the wind be at your back

Florida’s pain might be Bush’s gain. It’s a golden opportunity for him to get free face time down in Florida, to dole out some cash to those stricken by Hurricane Charley and score some votes in the process. The crisis leaves Kerry on the sidelines: How can he knock on voters’ doors when those doors are a couple hundred yards away from the house? Kerry had been leading by a slight margin in the Florida tracking polls prior to Chuck blowing a sizeable number of retired Americans from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic. I’m gonna watch the Sunshine State closely over the next few months. Florida will be decisive in the 2004 race: As we’ve seen in the past, it’s the Electoral College that matters, not the popular vote. With that little elephant lingering in the corner of the room—you know, that whole nastiness in 2000—it should turn nasty as soon as the dust settles from Charley.

Incidentally, Bush spent only a few hours touring the destruction in Florida. I, for one, am glad he was there personally, because I can't imagine that the state could have gotten by without the hands-on leadership he's famous for.

Avid Weather Channel fan George W. Bush heads out on the campaign trail.

MSNBC: In an election year, hurricanes, too, are political

It figures it’d be the “Garden State”

Jersey politics: It’s the best reality show on television today. Maybe they’ll install some hidden cameras when Corzine takes office. When I first heard about Governor James McGreevey’s resignation, I was predictably a little peeved: Why does the fact that he’s a gay American affect his ability to lead the state of New Jersey? If he got up and revealed that he was raised by wolves in the Meadowlands and could only read at a third-grade level, I’d reckon he’d still be qualified to lead the state of New Jersey—his taste for younger Israeli men surely has no impact on his ability to govern.

But wait a minute. Would McGreevey have had a chance to win the top job in Trenton if he were openly gay? That’s an easy one to answer—hell’s no. You gotta have a little bit of sympathy for this guy. His dream was to be a leader, but he (correctly) knew that coming out of the closet would probably relegate him to the sidelines of politics, even in the most liberal of states.

Maybe McGreevey got away with a helluva bargain in the long run. By all signs, this guy was going down (insert a fellatio wisecrack here) – if not in the near future in connection with the numerous corruption scandals, then at least by the next election. McGreevey may have swapped a reputation as a corrupt, bumbling governor for that of America’s first gay governor.

McGreevey stepped forward and said something that very few politicians—and even fewer of his national prominence—have ever said: “…I am a gay American.” Full text of his speech. His speech got my respect. Americans, gay and otherwise, should look to his words and realize that a minority sexual orientation doesn’t inhibit a man or woman’s ability to serve the public any more than the color of one’s skin or the God one prays to.

It took courage, no matter what else McGreevey’s done wrong. The people of New Jersey have many valid complaints about their governor. There are more than a few pieces missing from this puzzle and they will come out in good time. His infidelity alone hardly reflects the character the people of New Jersey want and deserve from their governor. But at the end of the day, despite McGreevey’s many other faults and mistakes, the story will be that our nation had its first openly gay governor and it was James McGreevey.

“I do not believe that God tortures any person simply for its own sake. I believe that God enables all things to work for the greater good. And this, the 47th year of my life, is arguably too late to have this discussion. But it is here, and it is now.

At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world, not as we may want to see it or hope to see it, but as it is.

And so my truth is that I am a gay American. And I am blessed to live in the greatest nation with the tradition of civil liberties, the greatest tradition of civil liberties in the world, in a country which provides so much to its people.”

Sixty years later, it’s the same old story

2004-08-08T02:15:02Z

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." --Elie Wiesel

Saturday night finds me sweating away on the cross-trainer at New York Sports Club and watching a television program on CNN about the Warsaw uprising of 1944. In this case, the TV was more than just a necessary distraction from the painful struggle to complete my workout program—it was educational, inspirational, and in a way, infuriating.

I can’t retell the story of the Warsaw uprising, so you’ll have to read about it or catch the CNN Presents program in reruns. Watching members of the Polish Underground Army, outnumbered, outgunned, and out-everything-elsed struggle to free themselves from the Nazi terror was almost unbelievable. Starving, injured, scared people of all ages and genders stretched the limits of human capacity in an ultimately futile effort to drive the Germans out. Twenty-hour marches through the sewers of Warsaw, neck deep in sewage, to retreat from the never ending onslaught of Germans, people never wavering because they knew that even this twisted version of freedom was better than being Nazi subjects. The Soviets, British, and Americans sat on the sidelines, knowing very well what was happening, and either watched silently (in the latter two cases) or quietly approved (in the Soviets’ case, especially horrifying given that they were across a river from Warsaw).

And that’s just a microcosm of what took place during World War II. Nazis killed thousands of people a day at some points, a historical fact I can’t even begin to comprehend no matter how many books I read, television shows I’ve seen, or classes I’ve taken on the subject. Inhumane is the only word that comes to mind, and it barely serves to capture the concept.

Look at America’s role in the world in context of the story of the Warsaw uprising. Our leaders talk about our role as a leader of the world. Depending on your political inclinations, you talk about how our society deserves to be safe and free of tyranny and terror. Or you talk about how this is a time of war. Or about how it is our national duty to spread freedom throughout the world.

And it’s all a bunch of lip service. Ever heard of a country called Sudan? Without clicking the link, can you name its capital, its principal languages, or even describe where it is the world? I couldn’t until the past few weeks, when stories of the unrest in Sudan started to make headlines in American papers, and I’d bet the house that the vast majority in this people don’t know what or where Sudan is and could care less. How about a region of Sudan called Darfur? Not exactly a household name.

Thirty-thousand dead. One million driven from their homes. Sources within the U.S. State Department say up to 300,000 more could die in the next year. That’s Darfur, Sudan, where a campaign of ethnic cleansing has been labeled genocide by our own Congress, and where the only “action” taken to date to avert a total disaster has been a U.N. resolution threatening sanctions if the Sudanese government doesn’t end the unrest.

There’s no mincing words: a genocide is occurring before our eyes in Sudan. Look at some of the pictures and read some of the accounts. I remember seeing this one picture in the New York Post of an emaciated child drinking raw sludge, reading a story in another newspaper about the militias that swing through the villages of Darfur, murdering, raping, and pillaging with unadulterated viciousness.

Let’s put the issue of how the situation in Sudan could be dealt with in practical terms aside. What infuriates me is that no one seems to care. This isn’t even on most people’s radars. There’s plenty of guilt to go everywhere on the ideological spectrum. People on the right talk big talk about doing what’s right in the world and how we toppled dangerous regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq with preemptive action. But no one on the right cares when it’s a bunch of poor Africans, when there’s no perceived threat to our immediate safety. Funny that the fervent Christians, the so-called “religious right” aren’t demanding immediate action in Sudan—been raised a Catholic, I can’t imagine that Jesus would turn a blind eye to a veritable holocaust because our “national interests” weren’t really at stake.

If we’ve chosen to be our brother’s keepers, to be the policeman of the world, we can’t consider America to be righteous if we pick and choose when we preemptively intervene based on which scenarios are the most economically or military advantageous for our nation. If American lives are at stake in a military action, it should be for the noblest of causes. There aren’t many nobler than saving an innocent people from certain destruction.

If you need a self-serving motive, remember a more recent history lesson: the nations where we once allowed tyrants to rule brutally and to ethnically cleanse their nations are the breeding grounds of international Islamic terrorism today.

People on the left talk about how we should be a beacon of freedom, and yet we avert our gaze from these horrors. Others will say how no war is just. Is leaving someone who is being brutally raped and murdered on the street behind your apartment just when you can do something about it? I know it’s easier said than done, but the complete apathy, the lack of sympathy or even acknowledgement of the plight of Darfur saddens me.

Actually, it embarrasses me. Why haven’t we learned from the mistakes of the past, those times when we could have intervened early and saved thousands of lives? Where is our notion of sacrifice, of acting on behalf of our fellow man for his sake, not for our own?

As a nation, many of us, myself included, feel we’re living our lives under the threat of terror, but I don’t think we have the slightest idea of what it’s like to live in fear. Insecure isn’t knowing there’s a distant possibility of an isolated terror attack. Insecure is wondering when—not if—your door is going to be kicked down by a militiaman, when you’ll be murdered in front of your family, when your wife will be raped in front of your children, or if you’re lucky, when you’ll be driven out of your home and into a refugee camp. Insecure is knowing that no one in the world is coming to help you because no one cares.

As we stand by and watch in silence, our inattention and inaction as a nation suggests we’ve clearly forgotten the story of the Warsaw uprising, only 60 years past. If we had a duty to intervene back in 1939, or 1944, or in Afghanistan in 2001, or in Iraq in 2003, we damned well have a duty to take notice and take action to avert further tragedy in Sudan. Check out the blog linked below to learn more. Then ask yourself a simple question: Are we a nation of conscience or callowness?

---

NY Times | Unicef (with photos) | Sudan: The Passion of the Present (blog)

Silence and stigma, shields and swords

2004-08-07T23:08:32Z

“Rape is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused.”
--Freda Adler

“Evidence of specific instances of the victim's or a witness' prior or subsequent sexual conduct, opinion evidence of the victim's or a witness' sexual conduct, and reputation evidence of the victim's or a witness' sexual conduct shall be presumed to be irrelevant.”
--Excerpted from Colorado’s “rape shield” law

“Bryant attorney Hal Haddon questioned defense DNA expert Elizabeth Johnson at length, establishing through her testimony that sperm and semen from a man other than Bryant — referred to as "Mr. X" in the transcript — was found on swabs taken from the accuser's vagina, inner thigh and other parts of her body at a medical examination about 15 hours after the alleged rape.”
--Excerpted from Newsday’s coverage of the Kobe Bryant trial

Sophomore year of college, I’m watching TV in my dorm room and shooting the shit with my roommates. The conversation, surely of some high-brow intellectual topic, was captivating and I quit flipping through channels, stopping arbitrarily on some dated-looking movie. A few minutes later, the conversation fizzled and we turned back to my lovely 13-inch Sylvania TV.

I’d usually continue channel-surfing but the random movie had caught our interest. As I remember it, it was a bunch of youngish-looking white guys in a bar, one of them manhandling a young woman. Someone throws her on a table. The assembled men begin hooting, hollering, and chanting in approval as they gang rape this woman. One guy hesitates but the rest of the gang exhorts him to do his worst. Eventually, he does.

The only thing you could hear in the room at the end of the scene was the heating ducts. It turned out the scene was from The Accused. IMDB link. I ended up watching the movie from the beginning a few days later, and have seen the rape scene in question several times since, but four years later, I distinctly remember watching that scene for the first time.

My perspective was forever changed. Aside from murder, rape is among the most horrific crimes one person can inflict on another. But the crime of rape never seemed so real, violent, and vicious as it seemed to me in that movie. Yet we as a society rarely contemplate (at least publicly) how we should deal with rape, judicially and socially.

Some of my other college experiences help highlight the issues we encounter in dealing with rape, and why they are so important.

My college, like most, made some efforts at rape education. They held some mandatory educational programs for the freshmen, threw some statistics our way and encouraged victims to come forward. Students held a “Take Back the Night” rally every year. Still, it wasn’t something people talked about a lot. Not many victims come forward and many speculate that rape is deeply underreported on college campuses (which I think is an accurate assumption). I took a course called Feminisms, one of only two or three tripods to take part in the class. We talked about rape in a candid and open way. We studied and discussed the causes and effects of rape and sexual violence. We watched that same scene from The Accused in class. I’m not sure why, but I was barely able to watch it this time around.

As a student journalist, rape was among if not the most sensitive and important campus issues we ever tackled. Fierce debates took place over how reporters should refer to people who had been raped. Some people on and off the newspaper’s staff pushed us to use the term “survivor” instead of “victim.” Personally, I always fought for victim for two reasons: firstly, a person who is raped doesn’t invite this crime upon herself or himself and secondly, a person who is raped doesn’t emerge stronger and better for having been raped.

Openly discussing rape helps erode the stigma attached to it. We should focus the full weight of society’s judgment squarely on the backs of the cretins who commit rape, rather than the victims, who never deserve to have their rights violated in such a heinous way.

I myself am not a rape victim and thus I feel awkward, maybe even a little out of line writing about my opinions on these topics, but I think more people – especially men – need to talk about rape. While we can’t, at least in my estimation, eliminate rape, a more positive attitude toward women and sexuality would go a long way toward reducing rape and other sex crimes.

The fact that the term “rape” is casually bandied about in the vernacular by educated people stuns me when you think about what the term means. When someone cracks that they got raped on that exam or that they’d love to rape that girl or that some girl is just begging for it, do they really mean to say what they’re saying? Does such a person think about what hearing that term means to someone who was raped? It shows, sadly, how society still thinks of rape in less than serious terms at best and with coldhearted disdain at worst. The threat of rape lingers over every college campus, every dark alley, over any woman, whether she is a victim or not. The possibility that women I know and care have been raped sickens me and for that reason, I choose not to ignore it as one of the most atrocious crimes committed in our society. You shouldn’t ignore it either.

---

The prosecution of Kobe Bryant for rape, a story that’s made more than a few headlines in the past year, triggered these ramblings. The progression of the Bryant case isn’t too far off from the aforementioned movie, The Accused. Just on its face, the Bryant case is a stunning exhibition of rape as an intersection of power, in the forms of celebrity, money, and physical presence, and sexuality.

The stakes are high for both parties here. If the accusations are false, Kobe’s reputation is tarnished even if he isn’t convicted, and his life as he knows it essentially over if he is convicted. If the accusations are true and Kobe is not convicted, it is a gross miscarriage of justice. But what if it’s not as simple as true and false? The trouble with rape is that the crime is predicated on a lack of consent, and consent is not always a clear-cut issue.

Rape’s a tough crime to define in specific situations because there are often only two witnesses to a purported rape—the accused and the victim. Many have said that rape is the easiest charge to make and the most difficult to prove. Our society places the burden of proof on the prosecution, representing the accuser, but that’s a helluva burden for a victim to meet, even with recent advances in DNA testing, physical exams, and other evidence-gathering techniques.

Relating to that conundrum is a challenge similar to that faced by journalists—to what degree and how do we protect the accuser, the alleged victim of rape? The accusations alone can do great damage to an alleged rapist. Kobe will always have a cloud of doubt hanging over him, even if he is acquitted. Shouldn’t the accused be confronted openly and publicly by his accuser, as is the case with most other crimes (exceptions for crimes against minors aside)? Or should the accuser’s name and personal background be kept out of the public eye? Should the courts consider only evidence relating directly to the rape, or is other evidence, such as that relating to the character of the accuser or her recent sexual history, relevant?

The struggle over the naming of accusers is evident in the Bryant case. The accuser may quit cooperating with prosecutors on this case as a result of her name accidentally being divulged and large chunks of her personal history being made public. There’s even talk of threats made against the accuser. On the other hand, her lawyers insist that she may pursue a civil action even if the criminal case against Bryant is dropped. Just the hint of a “screw the criminal charges, I’ll go for the cash” attitude casts a shadow of doubt on her accusations in my mind.

Rape is an intensely personal violation, perhaps the greatest invasion short of murder, and the stakes are high for both accuser and accused. I’d rather not think that anyone would ever level a false rape accusation, but realistically, it happens. And then there is a broad grey area when it comes to consent, cases where the accused believes he had consent and the accuser believes he did not and should have known as much.

Rape shield laws, including the Colorado statute applied in the Bryant case, attempt to answer these tough philosophical questions about how our society deals with rape, with mixed success. On the one hand, a strongly enforced rape shield law encourages victims to come forward. It’s not hard to see why someone would be reluctant to accuse a person of rape if their own name would be dragged through the mud. Psychologically, the effects must be akin to rubbing salt into a freshly opened wound. Furthermore, it’s questionable whether evidence relating to an accuser’s general character is relevant, in general or to a particular case—to put it bluntly, just because someone is promiscuous doesn’t mean that they can’t be raped. But evidence of someone’s sexual history could certainly sway jurors, who might decide the charges on their moral judgments of the accuser’s past conduct rather than the facts of the particular incident.

Yet there are potential drawbacks when it comes to rape shield laws. Most obvious to me is that rape shield laws impede an accused’s right to defend himself to the best of his ability. Cynical as it may sound, there’s an obvious possibility that a shield law could be used as a sword. There’s some degree of unfairness to being confronted by an accuser effectively hidden from the public. If it’s a “she-said, he-said” situation, evidence of character might be essential to weighing each side’s testimony.

Look to the Bryant case. With recent revelations regarding the accused made public, it looks like criminal charges might be dropped and/or the odds of a conviction are declining. Without the opportunity to bring forth relevant evidence relating to the accuser’s sexual conduct, where would Bryant be in this case? The judge decided that some evidence relating to the accuser’s sexual past (specifically, immediately before and after the alleged rape) is relevant, but under the Colorado statute, he could have decided otherwise. Then again, the admission of said evidence could drive the accuser herself out of the case, rightly or wrongly.

Rape shield laws may also feed the stigma of rape in the same way that referring to a victim as a “survivor” sends the wrong message. The laws suggest that rape is a crime where the victim must be especially protected, hidden from the public view because it’s so grossly disfiguring, that the stigma is so painful that it could never be overcome. The shame should be solely on convicted rapists, not on victims, whose rights are hopefully vindicated to whatever degree is possible by the judicial process.

Do rape shield laws help bring more rapists to justice? Are the laws fair to an accused rapist? I don’t know. Do rape shield laws truly offer victims needed protection or do they perpetuate the unfair stigma attached to being a rape victim? No easy answers there, either. Bryant’s case sheds some long-deserved attention on these conundrums, but it doesn’t resolve them. There’s still a lot left to talk about.

Live by the sword, die by the sword

2004-08-04T00:21:30Z

"If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles," or as Sun Tzu's wisdom is more popularly known, "Know thine enemy as thy self." It’s an old maxim, and perhaps one forgotten by President George W. Bush’s administration in its foreign policy pursuits after 9/11. (One would think that a "war president" who thinks about "war" constantly might pick up a copy of The Art of War, but he's probably too busy reading that great new mystery/thriller, "The 9/11 Commission Report.") Since the attacks, Bush and Co. have paid much attention to enacting new domestic security policies necessary to prepare for and prevent further terror attacks on our soil. At the same time, the administration has seemed oblivious to the unique, complicated threat posed by of Islamic extremism in terms of foreign policy.

A recent column by David Brooks in The New York Times makes my point for me. Decidedly unofficial link. Brooks lays out what the current presidential administration cannot or will not understand. “We’re not in the middle of a war on terror … We’re not facing an axis of evil. Instead, we are in the midst of an ideological conflict.”

There is a very real threat from terrorists, but responding to that threat isn’t nearly as simple as waging a war. To insist otherwise is to deceive the American people into believing that our military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever else are enough to remove (or at least stymie) the threats to our national security when that is far from the case. Too few dispute the Bush administration’s dogmatic assertion that we’re deeply engaged in an inescapable “War on Terror,” nor do enough people openly question Bush’s pursuit of said war as the lynchpin of our foreign policy.

When will we achieve victory in this War on Terror? Which nation’s capital must fall? What land must we control? Which leader must be killed or captured? If and when we capture Osama bin Laden, will the rest of the terrorists throw up their hands in defeat and crawl back into their “holes”? Let’s just talk numbers: How many people need to die for this war to be won? How can we possibly “win” a war with no finite goals and no end in sight?

The threat of terrorism cannot be countered successfully by force of arms or intimidation. Terrorist groups are not nations. There is no capital to capture, dictator to topple, or map lines to redraw. There isn’t even a bargaining table at which to negotiate a peace. These terrorists willingly sacrifice their lives for a cause they believe in with profound fervor. The terrorist’s goals are clear: Instill fear and disrupt the lives of their enemies and drive Western elements from their own societies. There’s nothing our armies can do to deter Islamic extremists, save for taking their lives and the lives of their fellow citizens. One need not look too far into the past to realize that terrorists are all too happy to sacrifice their lives. They’re not afraid of our demonstrations of military might—they’re inspired by it.

A certain level of intellectual sophistication is required to understand that force doesn’t always resolve conflicts. Sometimes it’s just the opposite. Shove someone during a minor argument and that spat is almost certain to escalate into a brawl. Knock someone down but don’t knock them out and there’s a damned good chance they’re gonna come back at you with everything they’ve got. Unless you kill everyone, violence breeds more violence. Most people master this basic principle of “conflict resolution” by about age three.

Not to suggest that violent force is never an option, but sensible people use force judiciously because it’s not always necessary—or even sufficient—to resolve a conflict.

Our nation’s future depends on understanding the real conflict we’re facing, and using that understanding to wage and win the real War on Terror, an ideological struggle over the fate of Muslim nations in our shrinking world. The United States must lead by example, not through force and fear, ready to use our power when it’s necessary but not relying on it as our sole tool to influence the world. Strength without foresight is no strength at all.

The Bush administration makes force or the threat thereof the centerpiece of its foreign policy. The “Bush doctrine” of preemptive military action is rapidly becoming the beginning, middle, and end of our nation’s approach to the world’s problems. Resorting to military force to resolve the challenges our nation faces abroad is a sign that our leaders aren’t creative enough to develop better approaches, approaches that hope to diminish the prospects of further violence in the long term and that don’t inevitably cost the lives of soldiers and innocents on both “sides” of the conflict.

We’re now in up to our eyeballs, rebuilding two nations and likely facing further military conflicts in the Middle Eastern and Central Asian hotspots. America needs thoughtful leadership: More “walk softly and carry a big stick” and “beacon on a hill” than “smoke ’em out of their holes” and “axis of evil,” if you will. We should demand and take pride in a foreign policy that doesn’t rely on force alone, for our greatness as a nation has always been about a lot more than military might.

The time’s right for leadership that keeps America’s sword at the ready, but only draws it when necessary. John Kerry possesses the wisdom and foresight to navigate our nation through what is an increasingly dangerous, complicated world. His approach to foreign policy will help us achieve our basic goals as a nation – peace, prosperity, security, and the spread of democracy and a better life throughout the world – without sacrificing unnecessarily lives (and our American way of life) in the process. Kerry offers an appealing alternative to the Bush doctrine, a model in which our military strength is wielded only through wise, deliberate, and thoughtful action and in concert with our economic and cultural strengths.

A president who pulls the troubled nations of the world up to walk alongside to us toward a peaceful and prosperous future will truly make our nation a safer place. A president who alienates, intimidates, and futilely attempts to crush our shadowy enemies beneath his cowboy boot will find out the hard way what past “superpowers” have learned throughout the course of history: He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.

Great hair is on the way!

2004-08-04T00:20:11Z

Conventional wisdom, part I

Bill Clinton looks finger-lickin’ good these days. Kerry’d be a damned fool not to use him. Al Gore looks and sounds like something out of a Stanley Kubrick movie. Might be better to sedate him or send him on sabbatical for the next few months.

Three nights into the convention, we finally realized that someone has to come up with an Election 2004 Drinking Game (for those of us not lucky enough to partake of the convention-related festivities in person). Submit your suggested rules to the comments section below. Maroon tie and dark suit? Drink. John Edwards repeats something three times in a row? Drink. White politician comes out to a hip-hop song he or she has never heard before? Check. Cate Edwards and Alexandra Kerry? Drink.

And you heard it here first: Ben Affleck will run for governor of Massachusetts someday.

More musings on the Democratic National Convention IS ON THE WAY!!!

A Heartbreaking Tale of Staggering Banality

Every advertisement I see for Napoleon Dynamite makes me want to set my arm hair on fire. Thanks MTV—there’s never been a movie where a screwball, geeky, social outcast of a character turns out to be a genuinely cool person. What a heartwarming fable for our modern age. They get snaps for setting the movie in Idaho, solely because it’s the first time I’ve read or seen anything relating to that state in years and I’d almost forgotten about it.

Keeping up with the Nielsens

There’s a raging debate here in New York City over Nielson Media’s plans to install Local People Meters. Yahoo! News. The rub is that LPMs yield lower ratings for “minority” program than the typical logs kept by Nielsen survey participants. This discrepancy could be explained a couple ways, but my common-sense conclusion is that people are mistaken, intentionally misleading, or otherwise inaccurate in filling out their logs. I’m no statistician, but assuming that the sample is more or less a fair representation of the target demographics, then what could possibly be wrong with obtaining more accurate data using LPMs? Just because the improved accuracy happens to affect one group in a negative way doesn’t mean we should plod along with inaccurate ratings. Delusional data suggesting that more people are watching certain programs than past Nielsen ratings have indicated serves no one. It’s particularly unfair to advertisers, and ultimately, not fair to consumers of the media either (maybe it’s not the rating system that’s the problem—it could be the programs).

Terror alert level: Soybean

From a New York Post article on post-9/11 anti-terrorist funding:

“But just hours after the report was released, several powerful Republican lawmakers expressed doubts about adopting the recommendations.

Sen. Kit Bond (Mo.) pointed out that “there’s a lot of other targets,” adding, “Should homeland security focus only on Washington and New York City, you can be sure terrorists will strike elsewhere.”

“We need to worry about agri-terrorism,” Bond added.

Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas agreed that the threat from terrorists to Kansas corn, wheat, and soybeans is “very real.”

Somewhere in Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden is pouring over Farmer John’s crop rotation plans, gleefully anticipating the effects of a major disruption in America’s tofu industry.

If you can’t beat ’em, beat ’em

The general inappropriateness of violence in professional sports aside, the slugfest between the Red Sox and Yankees a couple weekends back was simply sublime. Taken in the context of last winter’s A-Rod trade debacle and all the other history between the two teams, watching Sox catcher Jason Varitek take a nice clean shot at A-Rod set my heart aflutter. It’s right up there with Pedro and Zimmer last fall. And in response to the inevitably lame comeback from all you Yankee “diehards,” would anyone outside of the state of New York really be dumb enough to take off his or her catcher’s mask during a fistfight?

On another Sox note, Nomar had to go. Might as well get something out of him before he ships off to California or another point west of Beantown. For years, it was entirely apropos and factually accurate to taunt Yankees fans with “Nomahhh’s better” chants. Statistics aside and soccer-star wives aside, though, I’d happily take Jeter’s toughness and ability to win over the watered-down Nomar of recent days. That aside, best of luck to him and Mia in the Windy City… and trust me, Nomar, the hometown fans there are every bit as harsh as the Red Sox Nation when things go awry.

She's still Jenna from the Block

2004-07-17T22:52:11Z

Harlem’s the place to be these days. First Bill Clinton, then yours truly, and now Jenna Bush (First Daughter? What does that make the other kid? Second Daughter? First Deputy Daughter?). The word north of 96th Street is that recent University of Texas grad Jenna scored a job as a teacher’s assistant at Harlem Day Charter school, starting in September. Read all about it in Gothamist, a fantastic Web site to check out if you’re attached to a desk somewhere here in NYC from 9-5. (FYI: I didn’t steal their humorous take on this story. Great minds just happen to think alike.)

Cynics might call it a publicity ploy by the Bushes, the school, or both. It’s indisputable that Jenna’s arrival in Harlem will bring much more than a spike in business at local liquor stores (from her, not her dad, I’m assuming). The security measures necessary to protect Dubya’s daughter will doubtlessly annoy if not truly inconvenience the school and likely everyone who lives within a mile of it, especially if the people at the Secret Service happened to catch the last couple seasons of The West Wing. The attention and excitement focused on the nation’s most famous teacher’s aide could be a huge distraction from the sometimes-overlooked goal of educating students.

Hot for teacher? I swear she has her father's smile in this picture. The one where the lips turn down at the edges.

I wouldn’t side with the cynics on this story, though. Most importantly, Jenna’s new job will shine the spotlight on inner-city education, an issue that receives a lot of lip service from politicians but seldom shows actual progress. The condition of our nation’s public school systems hover somewhere between mediocre and tragic in most major cities, and New York is certainly no exception. If nothing else, Jenna’s venture into the New York City public schools should bring urban education much-deserved attention from politicians, the media, and average people. Reaching that last group is most important, because without popular support for improving city schools in and outside of the cities themselves, political leaders simply aren’t going to use their clout to make it happen.

Jenna’s certainly not the only recent college grad to land a teaching job in New York City schools. She’s one of many young, passionate people who come to New York to teach – a daunting challenge for any young twenty something. NYC Teaching Fellows, Teach for America, and similar organizations inject youthful energy and talent into troubled schools locally and around the country. Knowing a couple peers who are engaged in such a capacity myself, I’d predict that Jenna’s in for an uphill battle. For anyone, a public school teaching job is a challenging, grueling and frustrating experience. For someone who could be fresh off four years of keg parties and sleeping ’til noon, I can’t imagine what it takes just to get through a day. But they do it, and if Jenna does too, more power to her. Just because she’s a president’s daughter doesn’t mean she can’t do what she wants with her life (although her security detail will probably piss a couple people off along the way). If Jenna follows through, she should be proud of herself, because it’s a hella tough job.

Teacher's pet, indeed.

The best perk, of course, is that Jenna will have someone great to bring to school on Show and Tell Days. Maybe if Jenna teaches English, her dad could stop by and give a couple guest lectures. You know: World literature, grammar and spelling, and of course, diction and public speaking. With any luck, he’ll have plenty of free time next spring to help his daughter make out her lesson plans. Week one: The Pet Goat.

More on Bush and The Pet Goat: Google Answers | Video clip.

Big Whoop

Whoopi Goldberg’s wallet just got a little lighter. Slim-Fast dropped her from their latest ad campaign last week. She got her walking papers after a “furor” arose in response to her appearance at last week’s John Kerry fundraiser concert at Radio City Music Hall. As I alluded to in my ramblings on the concert, her monologue comparing Bush, prez to bush, hair wasn’t just borderline inappropriate – it wasn’t very punny (funny?) at all.

That being said, she expressed her opinions as she saw fit in an adult atmosphere. Ill-advised, perhaps, but completely inappropriate, I think not. I saw her performance in person and in context, and then formulated my opinion. The national outrage over her comments – which were more playful than vicious and certainly not offensive in a racial or other stigmatizing way – comes from people who definitely did not see or hear her Bush-bush banter. How do I know this? Because the Kerry-Edwards camp didn’t allow tapes of the event to be broadcast or distributed, save for a few clips doled out to media outlets. Lest you think the Dems were the only ones keeping their campaign functions under wraps, it’s a regular practice on both sides of the partisan aisle to not release recordings of fundraisers.

Every day this week, The New York Post’s opinion section has featured a daily spew of vitriol condemning Goldberg (and the Kerry campaign) for her concert comments. (Come to think of it, the entire damned newspaper is an opinion section, but it’s still worth the quarter just for Page Six.) Can’t link every letter, but you can get the gist of it by clicking here. Letters | Editorial | News article.

Very few of those people really know what she said or how she said it: All they know is what they read in the newspaper. Frankly, even reading her comments as recounted in news accounts does, I can’t see how the public outcry is anything more than people seizing an opportunity to be reactionaries. Her jokes were certainly no worse than Cheney’s “Go fuck yourself, Senator Leahy.” People in glass houses, as they say…

People are, of course, entitled to be offended by what Whoopi said, just as much as she was entitled to say it. Her jokes came close to if not leaped over the line, and she didn’t even get many laughs in the process (at least from my seat). What gets under my skin is that most of the people who express such extreme indignation at Whoopi’s statements probably have no idea what she actually said, save for a couple sentences from a reporter with a quote or two thrown in for good measure. It makes me wonder whether Whoopi’s castigators are more irritated with the jokes she made, or the reasons that she made them.

More coverage (if you’ve got more, post a link in the Comments section puhleese)

Rolling Stone Magazine

Associated Press

OfficialWire

More care of Google News (carefully note that the Post turns up the greatest number of hits on this search…)