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summer is over Yesterday I stood on my back porch overlooking little Honeymoon Lake. The sun was going down. It was backlighting the insects buzzing around my backyard and over the lake. The lake was smooth and there were two Mallards paddling away from me. It was a most bucolic moment. And then I realized that which was not there. Two weeks ago the air had been full of wheeling and darting swallows gorging themselves on the insects. The occasional swallow would dive-bomb insects on the surface of the lake with a small splash and then rise and continue their nervous flight. Swallows are my favorite birds to watch flying. They are the acrobats of the ariel world. Two weeks ago they would be everywhere as the sun went down. There is an alder in my back yard, at the edge of the lake. As if taking a break, Swallows would slowly gather in the tree and then, in unison, the would explode in all directions to continue their manic feeding. Yesterday evening there was not a single one. I will miss them. They've been replaced by the mallards which are recently returned. The days get shorter, the evenings cooler, and the birds of summer leave and make way for the birds of winter. One of the many projects that I have partially finished is noting the birds around Honeymoon Lake. I notice that it has been a year since I have mentioned my little bird buddies. Yesterday prompted me to honor these little suckers. The Mallards are easy to identify. Swallows are tricky. They don't hold still! Audubon had it easy. He would just shoot them. That made it easy for identification. Try looking for subtle differences in markings when the little son-of-a-bitches are just zooming by. I think there were two kinds of swallows this summer — Tree Swallows and Northern Rough-Winged Swallows. Below are links to information about these birds. Pay particular attention to the write-ups by Audubon. They are a treat. (Adubon referred to the Tree Swallow as the White-bellied Swallow.)
Rough-Winged Swallow
On the afternoon of the 20th of October, 1819, I was walking along the shores of a forest-margined lake, a few miles from Bayou Sara, in pursuit of some Ibises, when I observed a flock of small Swallows bearing so great a resemblance to our common Sand Martin, that I at first paid little attention to them. The Ibises proving too wild to be approached, I relinquished the pursuit, and being fatigued by a long day's exertion, I leaned against a tree, and gazed on the Swallows, wishing that I could travel with as much ease and rapidity as they, and thus return to my family as readily as they could to their winter quarters. How it happened I cannot now recollect, but I thought of shooting some of them, perhaps to see how expert I might prove on other occasions. Off went a shot, and down came one of the birds, which my dog, brought to me between his lips. Another, a third, a fourth, and at last a fifth were procured. The ever-continuing desire of comparing one bird with another led me to take them up. I thought them rather large, and therefore placed them in my bag, and proceeded slowly towards the plantation of WILLIAM PERRY, Esq., with whom I had for a time taken up my residence.
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The White-Bellied Swallow
 This Swallow often spends the winter months in the State of Louisiana, resorting frequently to the neighbourhood of the marshes that border the lakes of Pont Chartrain and Bayou St. John, near the city of New Orleans, an account of which I have already given when speaking of the Republican Swallow. At the beginning of spring, it spreads widely over the country, and may be observed skimming over the streets of our cities, as well as along the meadows in their neighbourhood.
Its flight is easy, continued, and capable of being greatly protracted. It is seen sailing, circling, turning, and winding in all directions, during the greater part of the day. Like all other Swallows, it feeds on the wing, unceasingly pursuing insects of various kinds, and in seizing them producing a snapping noise, which may be heard at some distance. So quarrelsome is this Swallow, that it is almost continually fighting with its own species. Yet they remain in flocks at all seasons, and many pairs are often seen to breed within a short distance of each other. It also attacks the House Swallow, and frequently takes possession of its nest.
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The Mallard
ALTHOUGH it is commonly believed that the Mallard is found abundantly everywhere in the United States, I have received sufficient proof to the contrary. If authors had acknowledged that they state so on report, or had said that in the tame state the bird is common, I should not have blamed them. According to my observation, and I may be allowed to say that I have had good opportunities, this valuable species is extremely rare in the wild state in the neighbourhood of Boston in Massachusetts; and in this assertion, I am supported by my talented and amiable friend Mr. NUTTALL, who resided there for many years. Farther eastward, this bird is so rare that it is scarcely known, and not one was seen by myself or my party beyond Portland in Maine. On the western coast of Labrador none of the inhabitants that we conversed with had ever seen the Mallard, and in New-foundland the people were equally unacquainted with it, the species being in those countries replaced by the Black Duck, Anas fusca. From New York southward, the Mallards become more plentiful, and numbers of them are seen in the markets of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond in Virginia, and other towns. Although they are very abundant in the Carolinas and Floridas, as well as in Lower Louisiana, they are much more so in the Western Country. The reason of this is merely that the Mallard, unlike the sea Ducks, is rarely seen on salt water, and that its course from the countries where it chiefly breeds is across the interior of the continent. From our great lakes, they spread along the streams, betake themselves to the ponds, wet meadows, submerged savannahs, and inland swamps, and are even found in the thick beech woods, in early autumn, and indeed long before the males have acquired the dark green colour of the head. Many of them proceed beyond the limits of the United States.
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economy
The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus
 [more] The following is an interview that Calpundit did with Paul Krugman. This a must must read. Check out the comments on the interview. AN INTERVIEW WITH PAUL KRUGMAN
You probably think you know Paul Krugman, the liberal New York Times columnist with never a kind word for George Bush. Think again.
The Tax-Cut Con
7. What Kind of Country? If Grover Norquist is right -- and he has been right about a lot -- the coming crisis will allow conservatives to move the nation a long way back toward the kind of limited government we had before Franklin Roosevelt. Lack of revenue, he says, will make it possible for conservative politicians -- in the name of fiscal necessity -- to dismantle immensely popular government programs that would otherwise have been untouchable. In Norquist's vision, America a couple of decades from now will be a place in which elderly people make up a disproportionate share of the poor, as they did before Social Security. It will also be a country in which even middle-class elderly Americans are, in many cases, unable to afford expensive medical procedures or prescription drugs and in which poor Americans generally go without even basic health care. And it may well be a place in which only those who can afford expensive private schools can give their children a decent education.
But as Governor Riley of Alabama reminds us, that's a choice, not a necessity. The tax-cut crusade has created a situation in which something must give. But what gives -- whether we decide that the New Deal and the Great Society must go or that taxes aren't such a bad thing after all -- is up to us. The American people must decide what kind of a country we want to be.
US economic folly should worry us all In 2001, President Bush misled the American people. He said that a tax cut that was not designed to stimulate the economy would stimulate it. But it did not. He told Americans that the large surpluses that were part of President Clinton's legacy meant the US could afford to cut taxes massively. Wrong again. He did not warn Americans how dubious such estimates can be. This year President Bush again misled the American people about the economy. Weeks after persuading Congress to pass another tax cut - in some ways even more inequitable than the first - his administration revealed how bad the fiscal position had become. The $230bn surplus inherited from Clinton had turned into a $450bn deficit.
Now, after handing billions to rich Americans through tax cuts, the Bush administration is passing the hat around, asking for contributions from other countries to help to pay for the Iraq war. Even setting aside other dubious aspects of Bush's Iraq policy, the conjunction of misguided giveaways to America's richest people with an international US begging bowl is hardly likely to evoke an outpouring of sympathy.
astronomy This is a series of images of Saturn, as seen at many different wavelengths, when the planet's rings were at their maximum tilt of 27 degrees toward Earth. Saturn experiences seasonal tilts away from and toward the Sun, much the same way Earth does. This happens over the course of its 29.5-year orbit. This means that approximately every 30 years, Earth observers can catch their best glimpse of Saturn's South Pole and the southern side of the planet's rings. Between March and April 2003, researchers took full advantage to study the gas giant at maximum tilt. They used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to capture detailed images of Saturn's Southern Hemisphere and the southern face of its rings.
 [more] thanks to dublog
iraq
 thanks to Whiskey Bar Big lie on Iraq comes full circle
''War on terror'' is a metaphor. It is not an actual war, like the World War or the Vietnamese or Korean wars. It is rather a struggle against fanatical Islamic terrorists, exacerbated if not caused by the conflict in Palestine. When one turns a metaphor into a national policy, one not only misunderstands what is going on, one begins to slide toward the big lie. One invades Iraq because one needed a war. thanks to Eschaton Powell makes announcements on how well things are going when he has these kind of barriers between him and reality...
Powell's Baghdad Briefing Ignores High Price Of Failure We had to walk through a quarter of a mile of barbed wire to reach Colin Powell, the American Secretary of State, last night. We had to pass through four checkpoints, including three body searches. Apache helicopters circled the conference centre and Bradley fighting vehicles sat in the darkness outside.
But inside was air conditioning, brightness, optimism and Secretary Powell. He had just had a "very exciting meeting" with the new "Governing Council". He was "deeply impressed" by what he saw in Baghdad - "people hard at work rebuilding a nation, rebuilding a society". So forget the $87bn (£55bn) President George Bush needs to run Iraq for the next year, forget the dead Americans and the far greater number of dead Iraqis who pay the price each day for the folly of this occupation. Forget the American soldier killed near Fallujah yesterday when a bomb blew up beneath his Humvee, wounding seven of his colleagues. He didn't rate a mention from ex-General Powell. It was the Coalition of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Sure, there was the briefest of mentions of the latest catastrophe - the killing of nine Iraqi policemen by US forces outside Fallujah - and of the compensation that might be paid to their families. It was, as America's proconsul, Paul Bremer, put it mildly "a very regrettable incident" which "is still under investigation by our military". Tell that to the people of Fallujah who want revenge. If you want an account of what is happening in Iraq without *any* barriers, Riverbend at Baghdad Burning is a must read... Everyone is worried about raids lately. We hear about them from friends and relatives, we watch them on tv, outraged, and try to guess where the next set of raids are going to occur. Anything can happen. Some raids are no more than seemingly standard weapons checks. Three or four troops knock on the door and march in. One of them keeps an eye of the 'family' while the rest take a look around the house. They check bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms and gardens. They look under beds, behind curtains, inside closets and cupboards. All you have to do is stifle your feelings of humiliation, anger and resentment at having foreign troops from an occupying army search your home. Some raids are, quite simply, raids. The door is broken down in the middle of the night, troops swarm in by the dozens. Families are marched outside, hands behind their backs and bags upon their heads. Fathers and sons are pushed down on to the ground, a booted foot on their head or back.
Other raids go horribly wrong. We constantly hear about families who are raided in the small hours of the morning. The father, or son, picks up a weapon- thinking they are being attacked by looters- and all hell breaks loose. Family members are shot, others are detained and often women and children are left behind wailing. All of Riverbend's posts are a must read.
TIME TO GET REAL IN IRAQ Nearly 70 percent of Americans tell Newsweek that "the United States will be bogged down in [Iraq] for years without achieving its goals." Yet 61 percent tell the same poll that invading Iraq was the right thing to do. The reason for this weird disconnect: people think that we're in Iraq to spread democracy and rebuild the Middle East. They think we're The Good Guys. But the longer we keep patting ourselves on the back, the more we tell ourselves that the Iraqi resistance is a bunch of evil freedom-haters, the deeper we'll sink into this quagmire.
It's time to get real.
A hail of bullets, a trail of dead, and a mystery the US is in no hurry to resolve A human brain lay beside the highway. It was scattered in the sand, blasted from its owner's head when the Americans ambushed their own Iraqi policemen. A few inches away were a policeman's teeth, broken but clean dentures, the teeth of a young man. "I don't know if they are the teeth of my brother - I don't even know if my brother is alive or dead," Ahmed Mohamed shouted at me. "The Americans took the dead and the wounded away - they won't tell us anything." Ahmed Mohamed was telling the truth. He is also, I should add, an Iraqi policeman working for the Americans.
United States forces in Iraq officially stated - incredibly - that they had "no information" about the killing of the 10 cops and the wounding of five others early yesterday morning. Unfortunately, the Americans are not telling the truth.
Secret slaughter by night, lies and blind eyes by day I've been going over the coalition casualty reports from Iraq, and I have to say, Operation Feed Halliburton may not be the next Vietnam, but it looks like it's already a lot closer to becoming the next Vietnam than I had realized. It would appear the U.S. Army is now caught in a classic war of attrition -- precisely the kind of war the Pentagon has tried to avoid for the past 30 years.
First, a look at the numbers. Then some rough comparisons with the American military experience in Vietnam. Mistakes of Vietnam repeated with Iraq The president has declared "major combat over" and sent a message to every terrorist, "Bring them on." As a result, he has lost more people in his war than his father did in his and there is no end in sight. Military commanders are left with extended tours of duty for servicemen and women who were told long ago they were going home. We are keeping American forces on the ground, where they have become sitting ducks in a shooting gallery for every terrorist in the Middle East.
Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. Sorry you didn't go when you had the chance.
America's hidden battlefield toll Iraq WMD report shelved due to lack of evidence
astronomy The Chromolithographs of E.L. Trouvelot Etienne Leopold Trouvelot (1827-1895), a French-born artist and amateur astronomer, spent 15 years observing the heavens and making original drawings from his observations. He worked with the 15-inch refractor telescope at the Harvard Observatory (placed at his disposal by Admiral C.H. Davis), and the 26-inch refracting telescope at the University of Virginia, among others. "With a view to making these observations more generally useful," Trouvelot stated, "I was led... to prepare, from this collection of drawings, a series of astronomical pictures which were intended to represent the celestial phenomena as they appear to the trained eye and to an experienced draftsman through the great modern telescopes provided with the most delicate instrumental appliances... While my aim in this work has been to combine scrupulous fidelity and accuracy in the details, I have also endeavored to preserve the natural elegance and the delicate outlines peculiar to the objects depicted."
 [more] thanks to dublog
Driven Back to a Place We Would Rather Not Be Here is what you have to understand: Palestinians want a democratic, professional, institutionalized government. They probably want a leader who is not Arafat, and who is not influenced by Arafat. But such a leader must take us someplace and give us something new. For Palestinians want their freedom before everything else. A leader independent of Arafat who simply gives away the store to the Israelis is unacceptable. Arafat will not go away until public opinion shifts away from him. But there now seems to be only one way that can happen. The end of the era of Arafat will come with the end of the occupation. That's what Arafat stands for; if the occupation goes away, so does he. There will be no more need for him -- even he would agree. If the U.S. government were to force the Israelis to leave and give us our own state, I think all parties would be very pleasantly surprised by the outcome of the first Palestinian election. But instead, the United States ignores the whole situation. And the Israelis madly go after Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, not seeing the insult to the Palestinian people.
So, as a Palestinian citizen, I find myself in an impossible situation. I have to cheer for rulers I'm not convinced of only because the alternative -- the continued occupation -- is completely unacceptable. thanks to American Samizdat
Sharon's Intentions: Destroy the Moderates and Then Continue Occupation And what has Sharon been doing ever since he was elected? He is still misleading the Israeli public (and the US) in the pattern perfected in Lebanon. He is working to dismantle the secular Palestinian Authority and neutralize the secular civic bodies supporting Arafat, primarily Fatah activists. His war on Hamas is nothing but a war against Fatah and the pragmatic groups who in 1993 dared to enter a negotiation process with Israeli pragmatists to reach a historic compromise. The campaign against Arafat and the pragmatic forces entails encouraging Hamas and turning it into the dominant body among the Palestinians. I wish to emphasize here: This is not an inadvertent mistake by Sharon; it is the conception, over which we shall weep for generations to come. Sharon envisages only an all-out war against the Palestinians and their total submission. The moderate position of secular Palestinian circles thus creates a problem for him, because it exposes his extremist positions. That is why he must cunningly eliminate them politically and reject a cease fire (Hudna).
According to Abu Mazen, the Hudna was designed to counter Sharon's war strategy, his argument being that the Palestinians must stop terror and unilaterally embrace the Hudna in order to show the whole world that the real refusenik of peace is Ariel Sharon. That is why Abu Mazen's regime had to be eliminated, but not in a direct manner. Sharon accomplished this first by refraining from the release of prisoners and dismantling settlements and blockades. When that did not help, he began to serially liquidate Hamas activists and leaders. This was all done in order to topple Abu Mazen's government, supposedly through Arafat's fault. Ten years ago, Israelis and Palestinians agreed to recognize each other's national rights and separate peacefully. But Oslo failed utterly to accomplish what it set out to do: bring an end to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in return for peace. Instead, it divided the Palestinian territories into 202 separate cantons, diminishing the inhabitants' access to employment, health and education and reducing their gross domestic product by more than a quarter. The number of Israeli settlers doubled in the 10 years, and a complex network of bypass roads rendered the occupation irreversible.
How did such a dramatic turn of events come about? thanks to Aron's Israel Peace Weblog This audio interview starts 20 minutes into the show... An Israeli Paratrooper Investigates Illegal Settlements
 [more] This is a three part series that is a must read...
Ariel Sharon and the Geometry of Occupation: Israel’s ‘barrier’, ‘wall’, or ‘separation fence’ across the West Bank is the latest architectural expression of a twenty-year old political strategy. In a mind-opening three-part series that extends his renowned “The Politics of Verticality” into a new dimension, Eyal Weizman offers a penetrating analysis of how ideas about power, security and planning intersect with politics to shape the spaces in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict develops.
Part one: Border versus frontier But that, too, is only part of the truth. Some 60 Israelis were killed during the first five months of the intifada, or 12 per month, while Ehud Barak was Israel's prime minister. In the 31 months since March 7, 2001, when Ariel Sharon took over, the death rate has exploded to nearly 25 per month, or about 770 deaths in all. Three per month under the Oslo accords. Twenty-five per month under the Sharon plan. Those are the numbers. To be sure, we would not dream of suggesting that Israel's prime minister is guilty of the deaths of those 770 victims of terrorism. The victims of terrorism were killed by terrorists. To suggest otherwise would be to pervert history. Sharon is no more guilty of the deaths of the Israelis killed on his watch than Yitzhak Rabin was guilty of the deaths of the Israelis killed when he was prime minister, or Yitzhak Shamir when he was prime minister before that. It's become fashionable among conservatives in Washington and Jerusalem to blame the spectacular failures of their governance on near-forgotten episodes in history. Republicans have lately begun blaming the economic disaster of the Bush administration on the policies of Jimmy Carter, who was president between 1977 and 1981. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's finance minister, recently announced that the troubles of the Israeli economy are the fault of Berl Katznelson, a Labor Party theoretician who died in 1944. And everyone likes to blame the spiraling violence that now plagues Israel on the diplomatic initiative undertaken in the fall of 1993.
But the numbers don't add up. #24 U.S. Aid to Israel Fuels Repressive Occupation in Palestine thanks to Aron's Israel Peace Weblog A long and excellent background piece. A must read...
One of the main flaws of the Oslo accords was the assumption that the Palestinian Authority would be a subcontractor regime, working to maintain Israel’s security, while all other issues would be subject to endless rounds of negotiations with every concession depending on Israeli generosity. This approach proved futile. In addition, the collapse of the Oslo process showed that the long period of ‘trust building’ caused mainly mutual distrust and offered plenty of opportunities for internal projectionist forces to sabotage any agreements. A minimal requirement of a realistic peace plan is to give the Palestinians some possibility of achieving one of their major aims: a sovereign state over 22 per cent of historic Palestine. An explicit statement of this goal could create a greater symmetry among the parties and provide incentives for settling all the additional issues such as Jerusalem, refugees, the division of water resources and so on. Finally, the Road Map includes two contradictory demands on the Palestinians, as preconditions for a settlement: on the one hand, they are to establish an authoritarian regime to fight dissident terror organizations; on the other they are to democratize their polity. Again, the understanding of the causality at stake needs to be reversed, if this is not to be simply a hypocritical pretext for avoiding any agreement—for a settlement itself, with popular backing, might be the best means to accelerate the democratization of all the parties involved. Without, at the very least, such adaptations as these, the Road Map merely points the way to the continued politicide of the Palestinian people under the umbrella of a Pax Americana. thanks to Altercation
these are the real houses of the blues Welcome to Junior's Juke Joint! I'm a cultural anthropologist who lives in the Mississippi Delta, Louisiana side, and I spend lots of time in Delta juke joints. You're about to take a trip inside the places where the blues began. I'm not talking about white people blues bars filled with college students. I'm talking about edge-of-a-cotton-field juke joints filled with real Delta folks. Here in Junior's Juke Joint you'll find pictures of, stories about, and even maps to Delta places the local chambers of commerce never heard of. (Heck, let's face facts: if the chambers knew about those places they'd want to shut them down.)
ZZ's Lounge
 Here's the front of ZZ's. That's ZZ Dunmore on the left and Herbert Williams from the Disco 86 in Waterproof on the right. The front door of ZZ's is on the side of the building, just beyond the right edge of the photo. When I took this photo I was standing in the middle of Bayou Drive, a narrow and winding street. A few steps backward, and I would have tripped over the guardrail and went for an unexpected swim in the bayou.
ZZ is mad at me because I didn't give her time to move that garbage sack filled with beer cans. thanks to plep
the great republican electronic voting theft Diebold Internal Mail Confirms U.S. Vote Count Vulnerabilities Scoop has obtained internal mail messages from Diebold Election Systems which clearly and explicitly confirm security problems in the GEMS vote counting software that were highlighted in reports published on Scoop.co.nz and widely elsewhere in July. In the internal mail Diebold Election Systems principal engineer R&D Ken Clark - then working for Global Election Systems before Diebold took the company over - responded to an internal query over a security problem. The official certification laboratory responsible for assessing the voting technology company software's robustness had noticed a problem, and a staff member was seeking Clark's advice.
Diebold Election Systems technical writer R&D Nel Finberg wrote to the "support" list on 16th October 2001: "Jennifer Price at Metamor (about to be Ciber) [this is the certification lab responsible for certifying all United States voting software] has indicated that she can access the GEMS Access database and alter the Audit log without entering a password. What is the position of our development staff on this issue? Can we justify this? Or should this be anathema?" Clark: "Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new. In VTS, you can open the database with progress and do the same. The same would go for anyone else's system using whatever database they are using. Hard drives are read-write entities. You can change their contents.
Now, where the perception comes in is that its right now very *easy* to change the contents. Double click the .mdb file. Even technical wizards at Metamor (or Ciber, or whatever) can figure that one out." Yolanda Flanagan sent me the link to this audio interview with Bev Harris...
Dennis Bernstein talks with Bev Harris from Black Box Voting with Diebold persons meeting regularly now with George W. Bush. in the Crawford Family Compound. The strange case of the 57 voting machines which appear to have automatically phoned home to Diebold in the middle of an actual state primary election in San Luis Obispo County, in California in 2002. Ms. Harris feels that people who contribute heavily to George W. Bush should not have unquestioned autonomy and unfettered access (without oversight) to the elections process including voter registration and tabulation. For an earlier story by Flashpoints on this subject click here... This story just won't go away! More information regarding efforts to understand the deeper underlying issues such as, "Just because they gave me a printed receipt how does that in any way reflect certainty that my electronic vote inside the voting machine was recorded for my choice, or tabulated correctly for my candidate, or transmitted correctly for my candidate to the central computer, or purloined at any number of locations along the way and altered?". How do 8 million people who have their receipts and suspect vote count fraud come together for a recount??? How do you organize that in the face of a victorious loser pushing hard to bulldoze the concerns of the voters? Sound familiar?
prints There are printmakers and printmakers, and then there is Erik Desmazieres, a Frenchman who stands in a class by himself. A powerful, old-style draftsman whose work runs from fantasy to superrealism, he manipulates the techniques of etching and aquatint to produce masterly effects of space, light and shadow.
 [more] thanks to cipango Erik Desmazières thanks to cipango
a tale of two empires The collapse of the Roman republic in 27 BC has significance today for the United States, which took many of its key political principles from its ancient predecessor. Separation of powers, checks and balances, government in accordance with constitutional law, a toleration of slavery, fixed terms in office, all these ideas were influenced by Roman precedents. John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams often read the great Roman political philosopher Cicero and spoke of him as an inspiration to them. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, authors of the Federalist Papers, writing in favor of ratification of the Constitution signed their articles with the name Publius Valerius Publicola, the first consul of the Roman republic. The Roman republic, however, failed to adjust to the unintended consequences of its imperialism, leading to a drastic alteration in its form of government. The militarism that inescapably accompanied Rome's imperial projects slowly undermined its constitution as well as the very considerable political and human rights its citizens enjoyed. The American republic, of course, has not yet collapsed; it is just under considerable strain as the imperial presidency – and its supporting military legions – undermine Congress and the courts. However, the Roman outcome – turning over power to an autocracy backed by military force and welcomed by ordinary citizens because it seemed to bring stability – suggests what might happen in the years after Bush and his neoconservatives are thrown out of office. Obviously, there is nothing deterministic about this progression, and many prominent Romans, notably Brutus and Cicero, paid with their lives trying to head it off. But there is something utterly logical about it. Republican checks and balances are simply incompatible with the maintenance of a large empire and a huge standing army. Democratic nations sometimes acquire empires, which they are reluctant to give up because they are a source of wealth and national pride, but as a result their domestic liberties are thereby put at risk.
These not-particularly-original comparisons are inspired by the current situation of the United States, with its empire of well over 725 military bases located in other people's countries; its huge and expensive military establishment demanding ever more pay and ever larger appropriations from a supine and manipulated legislature; unsolved anthrax attacks on senators and newsmen (much like Rome's perennial assassinations); Congress's gutting of the Bill of Rights through the panicky passage of the Patriot Act – by votes of 76-1 in the Senate and 337 to 79 in the House; and numerous signs that the public is indifferent to what it is about to lose. Many current aspects of our American government suggest a Romanesque fatigue with republican proprieties. After Congress voted in October 2002 to give the president unrestricted power to use any means, including military force and nuclear weapons, in a preventive strike against Iraq whenever he – and he alone – deemed it "appropriate," it would be hard to argue that the constitution of 1787 is still the supreme law of the land.
design 1926 Waters-Genter Toaster
This was the first pop-up toaster, called the Toastmaster. It was introduced in 1926 by Waters-Genter Company, formed in 1921 to produce the invention patented by Charles Strite in 1919. The first Model 1A1 was designed by factory superintendent Murray Ireland. Since it automatically turned off the toaster when toast was done, and toasted both sided of the bread simultaneously, it revolutionized the time-consuming chores of watching the toast, and turning it when one side was done. The company was acquired later in the year by McGraw Electric Company, later to be known a McGraw-Edison, and later still as Toastmaster (see below). thanks to dublog
japanese poetry Here are a couple of pieces about Japanese poetry. The are both a must read. Even if you are afraid of poetry. The first one also heralds the triumphant return of that silver tongued devil — the Wonderchicken. The blogosphere is better for it.
Japan rocks.
No, really. I have a few friends, virtual and otherwise, over there, and they are quick to jump up the ass of anyone who's drunk the kool-aid and open their umbrellas. You know the type of travel-fanboys I mean, and my friends love to hate - men, mostly, who go to or end up in Japan to find something that they're missing for some reason, something they can't find wherever they are. These guys tend to fall in love - with the mythos, with a woman, with the culture, with the history, ex post facto or otherwise - and either sooner or later begin to buy into the casual Japanese certitude that the Japanese are just better than you. Better, stronger, faster, with tentacle and dismemberment porn that makes the next best tentacle and dimemberment porn offerings look like Curious George Goes To The Hospital. These fellows tend, in time, to become those annoyingly smug expats-in-Asia who are determined to overlook anything unpleasant in their adopted home, to blame the outsider, to spout platitudes that regardless of their high-minded elegance come down to 'it's not better or worse, it's merely different.' You know - the kinds of guys you want to bust in the fucking chops half the time, if only because they speak the language better than you do.
Japan rocks. Back to the capsule hotel I went, almost skipping with glee. I dropped my shoes in a locker this time, dropped the locker key at the front desk, retrieved my wristband key from one of the desk clerks, and rode the Super Fun Luxury Lift to the 6th floor. I figured I'd drink a couple of Asahis, then go exploring.
Back at the room, I closed the accordion door, climbed the metal ladder into my top-bunk capsule, leaned back, switched on the TV that protruded organically from the plastic wall of my coffin, cracked a can, took a deep and almost orgasmically satisfying pull of my long-anticipated Asahi, set it down on the little extruded-plastic shelf to my right, grinned and sighed. From Jonatha Delacour... Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Sadness The exhibition catalog for Seasons: The Beauty of Transience in Japanese Art has as its epigraph an excerpt from Ki no Tsurayuki’s preface to the Kokinsh?, the first imperially-sponsored collection of Japanese poetry, published around 905 AD:
Japanese poetry has the human heart at seed and myriads of words as leaves… the song of the warbler among the blossoms, the voice of the frog dwelling in the water—these teach us that every living creature sings. Yet the reluctance or inability to express one’s true feelings is not only a Japanese problem, although it was a Japanese—Ki no Tsurayuki—who 1100 years ago elegantly and succinctly portrayed this aspect of human frailty:
To the distant observer [more]
photography
Floodgates presents special retrospective exhibition
 [more] thanks to gmtPlus9 Floodgates thanks to gmtPlus9
the hurrieder i go the behinder i get
Just trying to keep up with life. I took Zoe off island to see her Gastroenterologist on Tuesday. We have more tests scheduled and her doctor gave her some new meds to try and said she could try some food. We spent 6 hours at the emergency room yesterday. Zoe's back on a liquid diet. I'm trying to catch up on work. I hope to be back soon.
A Disaster Foretold So now it is official: the government of Israel has decided to assassinate Yasser Arafat. Not any more to "exile". Not any more to "expel or kill". Simply to "remove". Of course, the intention is not to remove him to another country. Nobody seriously believes that Yasser Arafat will raise his hands and allow himself to be marched off. He and his men will be killed "during the exchange of fire". This would not be the first time. Even if it was possible to expel Arafat to another country, nobody in the Israeli leadership would dream of doing so. How come? Allow him to make the rounds of Putin, Schroeder and Chirac? God forbid. So the plan is to remove him to the next world.
Not immediately. The Americans forbid it. It may make Bush angry. Sharon does not want to annoy Bush. So when will the planned assassination be carried out? When some big suicide attack will take place in Israel, one so big that an extreme reaction will be understood by the Americans, too. Or when something happens somewhere to divert world attention from our country. Or when some dramatic event, something comparable to the destruction of the Twin Towers, makes Bush furious. What will happen afterwards?
Arab leaders say that there will be "incalculable results". But, in truth, the results can be calculated fairly well in advance. I finally got around to reading today's New York Times editorial on the Israel/Palestine question, and I have to say, I was actually impressed: The longer Israelis continue to settle in the West Bank and Gaza, the harder it will be to cleanly divide the land between two nations with separate identities. Talk of two states will end. Two options will remain: an apartheid state run by a heavily armed Jewish minority, or a new political entity without a Jewish identity. The conclusion is clear. Israel must begin to plan its exit from the West Bank and Gaza not only to permit the creation of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state but to preserve its own future. The Times goes on to chastise Holy Joe for ginning up his phony argument with Dean, and tries to frame the issue as a question of what's in Israel's best interests -- which is probably the only way an American audience can accept it. You do not have to believe in Mr. Arafat's sincerity or the Palestinians' good will to grasp the need for a radical course shift. You need only understand the meaning of self-preservation. Given the history, the audience and the political leanings of the New York Times, this is gutsy stuff. Maybe -- finally -- the pack ice is breaking around the frozen hull of American policy in the Middle East.
But there is another question lurking under the ice: What if it's too late?
There's no reason to complain to the prime minister and the defense establishment. The present policy is exactly what Ariel Sharon, the chief of staff, the government and the leaders of the settlers think is correct and desirable. They know this policy has a price and they are willing to pay the price with eyes wide open. Their hearts are rent at the sight of the tragedy in Cafe Hillel, on the No. 2 bus in Jerusalem, or at Tzrifin, but to them those who are murdered are soldiers who fell in battle. International community supports a deluxe occupation
The publication of Amnesty International's report on the humanitarian crisis in the territories this week would not have attracted attention even without the latest bloody events. The fact that about 60 percent of West Bank residents live below the poverty line, and the conclusion that the economic and humanitarian crisis was caused by the blockades and the sieges, would not have shocked anyone, even less so when the headlines scream, "We'll smash them." Twilight Zone / Birth and death at the checkpoint
Rula was in the last stages of labor. Daoud says the soldiers at the checkpoint wouldn't let them through, so his wife hid behind a concrete block and gave birth on the ground. A few minutes later, the baby girl died Here is a blog about life in the occupied territories. I doesn't have permalinks so you have to scroll down the page for the posts. Under The Fig Tree - Horia from Laura (scroll down) EXTRACT: "She was eight years old and she would have started her school year the next day. She was so smart, so sweet, y'achti, look at her." (The photos passed around, Ayya looking bright and determined in a red sweater her hair high in pigtails)." It was Yom il-Jumaa (Friday) and she had been fasting all morning with me. I gave her some money and told her to go buy something to eat, she was only eight and there was no reason for her to fast. She went on her bicycle. She bought wafers, chips, and a popcycle and rode back.
A tank was shooting from the Neve Dekalim settlement which borders their neighborhood. It shot her through the heart, she fell from her bicycle, we found her covered in blood, all the snacks she had just bought to break her fast, covered in blood, her hands still holding onto them..." Boy of 17, shot by Israeli soldiers, left bleeding overnight to die The bullet ridden corpse of Mohammad Abdullah Abu al-Husni, was found yesterday morning near the town of Jabaliya, where he lived in Gaza. According to local medical sources, 17 year old Mohammad was shot several times in his legs on Saturday evening, while walking past an Israeli military post in Gaza. As he lay on the ground Mohammad used his mobile phone to call an ambulance, however, Israeli soldiers held back the ambulance, preventing the medics from attending the boy.
As he lay on the ground, emergency medical staff tried to communicate by phone how best to attend his own injuries, but each time Muhammad attempted to move soldiers in the nearby military post shot again at his legs. thanks to Rafah Kid Rambles
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