Fascinating---and heartbreaking---reading courtesy of Fausta.

Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal: The Frivolity of Evil.

When prisoners are released from prison, they often say that they have paid their debt to society. This is absurd, of course: crime is not a matter of double-entry bookkeeping. You cannot pay a debt by having caused even greater expense, nor can you pay in advance for a bank robbery by offering to serve a prison sentence before you commit it. Perhaps, metaphorically speaking, the slate is wiped clean once a prisoner is released from prison, but the debt is not paid off.

It would be just as absurd for me to say, on my imminent retirement after 14 years of my hospital and prison work, that I have paid my debt to society. I had the choice to do something more pleasing if I had wished, and I was paid, if not munificently, at least adequately. I chose the disagreeable neighborhood in which I practiced because, medically speaking, the poor are more interesting, at least to me, than the rich: their pathology is more florid, their need for attention greater. Their dilemmas, if cruder, seem to me more compelling, nearer to the fundamentals of human existence. No doubt I also felt my services would be more valuable there: in other words, that I had some kind of duty to perform. Perhaps for that reason, like the prisoner on his release, I feel I have paid my debt to society. Certainly, the work has taken a toll on me, and it is time to do something else. Someone else can do battle with the metastasizing social pathology of Great Britain, while I lead a life aesthetically more pleasing to me.

My work has caused me to become perhaps unhealthily preoccupied with the problem of evil. Why do people commit evil? What conditions allow it to flourish? How is it best prevented and, when necessary, suppressed? Each time I listen to a patient recounting the cruelty to which he or she has been subjected, or has committed (and I have listened to several such patients every day for 14 years), these questions revolve endlessly in my mind.

No doubt my previous experiences fostered my preoccupation with this problem. My mother was a refugee from Nazi Germany, and though she spoke very little of her life before she came to Britain, the mere fact that there was much of which she did not speak gave evil a ghostly presence in our household.

Later, I spent several years touring the world, often in places where atrocity had recently been, or still was being, committed. In Central America, I witnessed civil war fought between guerrilla groups intent on imposing totalitarian tyranny on their societies, opposed by armies that didn't scruple to resort to massacre. In Equatorial Guinea, the current dictator was the nephew and henchman of the last dictator, who had killed or driven into exile a third of the population, executing every last person who wore glasses or possessed a page of printed matter for being a disaffected or potentially disaffected intellectual. In Liberia, I visited a church in which more than 600 people had taken refuge and been slaughtered, possibly by the president himself (soon to be videotaped being tortured to death). The outlines of the bodies were still visible on the dried blood on the floor, and the long mound of the mass grave began only a few yards from the entrance. In North Korea I saw the acme of tyranny, millions of people in terrorized, abject obeisance to a personality cult whose object, the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, made the Sun King look like the personification of modesty.

Still, all these were political evils, which my own country had entirely escaped. I optimistically supposed that, in the absence of the worst political deformations, widespread evil was impossible. I soon discovered my error. Of course, nothing that I was to see in a British slum approached the scale or depth of what I had witnessed elsewhere. Beating a woman from motives of jealousy, locking her in a closet, breaking her arms deliberately, terrible though it may be, is not the same, by a long way, as mass murder. More than enough of the constitutional, traditional, institutional, and social restraints on large-scale political evil still existed in Britain to prevent anything like what I had witnessed elsewhere.

Yet the scale of a man's evil is not entirely to be measured by its practical consequences. Men commit evil within the scope available to them. Some evil geniuses, of course, devote their lives to increasing that scope as widely as possible, but no such character has yet arisen in Britain, and most evildoers merely make the most of their opportunities. They do what they can get away with.

In any case, the extent of the evil that I found, though far more modest than the disasters of modern history, is nonetheless impressive. From the vantage point of one six-bedded hospital ward, I have met at least 5,000 perpetrators of the kind of violence I have just described and 5,000 victims of it: nearly 1 percent of the population of my city—or a higher percentage, if one considers the age-specificity of the behavior. And when you take the life histories of these people, as I have, you soon realize that their existence is as saturated with arbitrary violence as that of the inhabitants of many a dictatorship. Instead of one dictator, though, there are thousands, each the absolute ruler of his own little sphere, his power circumscribed by the proximity of another such as he.{...}

Go read the whole thing.

While this gentleman doesn't have much empirical evidence to back up his opinion, I don't think it matters very much. I'll take informed anecdotal evidence any day of the week (and twice on Sundays) over supposedly objective empirical evidence. This man's story is compelling and while I realize it's probably better for his health and mental well-being to have left his work, it's nonetheless a sad thing because he will most likely be replaced by someone who doesn't care so very much. People who are able to remove themselves from the daily grind of their own little bureaucratic fiefdom to see the big picture are rare in social services.

I wish he was sticking around.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:58 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Didn't blog much yesterday.

Sorry about that.

I was more than ready to throw up a few posts yesterday afternoon. Alas, however, the mu.nu server went down and after being frustrated for a half-hour or so, I moved on to other things.

I have a feeling you all lived, though.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:48 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Don't be so hasty with your snap decisions! Some readers might have been despondent. Not me... Just "some" readers...

Posted by: The Maximum Leader at January 19, 2005 02:04 PM (jmfvP)

2 Good to know someone cares! Even if it's not you

Posted by: Kathy at January 19, 2005 02:32 PM (sQLe5)

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A tropical heat wave.

Thank God the cold snap is finally over!

Of course it's going to snow today. Because that's what happens here when a cold snap is over: we get clouds, clouds mean warmth, but they also mean snow.

Which, of course, sucks. 1-3 inches is expected. But if it means I can just throw on a coat and go outside instead of having to add thermal underwear, two pairs of socks (one wool), a big hoodie sweatshirt, a hat, sheepskin lined gloves, a parka (with the hood pulled up and tied off) and a scarf to my repetoire, well, I'll take it.

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Wrong.

BUCHAREST, Romania - A 66-year-old woman has become the world's oldest to give birth, and she and her day-old baby daughter were in good condition in intensive care, doctors said Monday.

Later in the day, mother and daughter were expected to be reunited for the first time since Sunday's birth.

Adriana Iliescu, who was artificially inseminated using sperm and egg from anonymous donors, delivered her daughter Eliza Maria by Cesarean section, doctors at the Giulesti Maternity Hospital in Bucharest said. The child's twin sister was stillborn, they said. {...}

Far be it from me to get in the way of anyone's reproductive choices, but that's just not natural. She just gave birth and she sixty-six years old. After Nine years of infertility treatments she finally got pregnant. That means this woman was fifty-seven when she decided to seek treatment for infertility. God only knows how long she'd been trying to conceive before that. The general rule of thumb is if you've been trying for a year and have been unable to conceive, then you go to the doctor and chat about your options.

But that's for people of a normal reproductive age. Not someone who's fifty-seven.

What is up with these doctors that they apparently thought it was a good idea to jumpstart this woman's reproductive system when, in normal circumstances, by all rights, it should have been shut down for good? In fact, hers was shut down: the egg and the sperm had to be donated. Where was the doctors' common sense? Why didn't they just let her down gently, tell her she missed her chance, and let that be the end of that? I have friends who have had their children---and one in particular who just knows she doesn't want any---who have wanted their fallopian tubes tied off, or what is commonly known as female sterilization. Yet their various doctors have completely refused to do this procedure for them at their age---which has varied between thirty and twenty-five. They just won't do it. Why? Because they're too young. The doctors have one general reply: they've seen too many women change their minds and then have requested their tubes to be untied, years after the fact. They have also seen the resultant heartbreak when these same women are unable to conceive. This refusal is reportedly an "ok" thing to do. It's extraordinarily common. But in Romania, well, they just can't say "no" to anyone, can they?

I find this just to be so wrong. I can only get into her motives so much before veering into the land of pure speculation, but I'd wager that motherhood was just one more thing on her list that she wanted to do and needed to cross off before she "got too old." I saw an interview with her on FOX and that's pretty much what she thought. But, at sixty-six, can a woman ever be up to the challenges of a newborn? Particularly, when it appears she's a single parent. (I haven't seen mention of a husband anywhere.) Is she up to the challenge of motherhood, in general? Or did she just get pregnant to prove a point, like I suspect? But most importantly, what of the child? She is susceptible to many different risk factors simply because of the age of her mother and the fact she was born premature. It's a blessing she was born, don't get me wrong. But, Good God. What was this woman thinking? In a country where the average life expectancy rate for a woman is 74.82 years, is it fair to say that she will, automatically, live past that age? And to plan around it? While it's possible the mother might be hit by a bus tomorrow, it's more than probable that this woman has fewer years left to her life, not more. What will become of her child when she, more than likely, dies before her daughter reaches the age of maturity? Mothers are supposed to know best about what their child needs and to provide it for them. That, in some instances, means thinking ahead toward the future. Why is this woman ignoring the probabilities? Doesn't she care about her child?

Shame on her. Really. That sounds lame, but geez. What else can I tell her? The deed is done.

This whole scenario gives me the heebie-jeebies. I'm not saying that anyone who wants to have a child shouldn't seek help from the medical community. While I have religious issues with IVF and the like, I don't impose my worldview on people who resort to these means. If they're doing it for the right reasons-- they want to bring life into the world---who am I to deny them? Just because I know it's not for me, well, that doesn't mean it's not for someone else.

I, do, however have one main non-medical objection to fertility treatments and it is that people increasingly don't know when to quit. Their hopes and dreams and bank balances are wrapped up fulfilling this dream. And the medical community has bent over backwards to make this happen for people and encourages them to keep on hoping. It's a big business, and whenever you're dealing with someone's hopes and dreams and a buck is made off tweaking said hopes and dreams there is a chance for serious, serious errors to be made in judgment.

In this case, it's patently obvious that our bodies work a certain way for a certain reason. To rail against that so flagrantly just smacks of playing God.

What's really sad about this is how many people will think this is a good thing? Particularly those who have thought that their childbearing days were behind them? Those who gave up trying because it was too heartbreaking a thing to have to deal with? This woman might have given them hope and that's what I find despicable.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:23 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Ernesto Zedillo on Latin America:

Not every fiscal problem is the same throughout the region, however. Some countries raise high amounts of revenue but spend even more. Others spend more frugally but proportionally collect less in taxes. All spend too little on basic infrastructure. The general goal must be to achieve fiscal consolidations--either by axing current expenditures or by collecting more taxes. This would enable governments to apply countercyclical macroeconomic policies and to invest more in human and physical infrastructure.

Next in importance is guaranteeing the rule of law, under which falls the protection of property rights and the relentless fight against corruption. The rule of law is an essential requirement for the development of credit markets and other important aspects of a modern economy. Finally, the removal of internal and external barriers to competition must be part of any must-do list of public policy. Latin American economies need fewer and better regulations and must be more open to foreign competition and investment.

{Emphasis mine}

Yeah. I'd agree with that. But only if it came from some other horse's mouth.

Particularly the bit about, "the relentless fight against corruption." That's a laugh.

You have to admit that I might be allowed a wee bit of incredulity when it comes to anything Zedillo says. If the name Ernesto Zedillo isn't ringing a bell, well, let me inform you: he was the last PRI (The Institutional Revolutionary Party---an oxymoron if there ever was one) President of Mexico. The guy that Vincente Fox replaced. He was also the guy who lost control of the government for the PRI, which is why he's hanging out in New Haven now, as the Director for the Yale Center For the Study of Globalization, and not in Mexico City. I can't think that Mexico is a good place for him to be right about now. Good thing Yale coughed up a job, eh?

Remember the days in Mexico when elections were rigged, the state treasury was a bank account for anyone other than the people of Mexico, revolts were slapped down quickly, Rambo-style, and drug dealers told the politicians what to do as long as some cash changed hands? Well, that was the PRI's fault. It wasn't so much "Institutional Revolution" that they were peddling, but rather institutional corruption. Systemic, top to bottom, institutional corruption. Ernesto was a member of the PRI. He was their last president, and while he knowingly did do some things to weaken his own party to bring about its demise, he was still a party man. And knowingly participated in the raping and looting of his own country.

Why Forbes gives this guy column inches, I haven't the foggiest idea. I don't believe a word he says.

{Hat Tip: Fausta}

Posted by: Kathy at 12:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In the time it took for thirteen people to visit the Cake Eater Chronicles, my dad drove my mom to the hospital where she was put under anesthesia, had cataract surgery, subsequently came up and out of her anesthesia-induced fog and was driven home again by my father.

She now, at age seventy-two, has perfect vision in both eyes.

Talk about adding some perspective to your daily grind, eh?

*idea shamelessly pilfered from here.

Thanks Dr. Townley for taking such good care of my mom's eyes! You're a good guy!

Posted by: Kathy at 11:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Throw this one into the "I wish I'd written that" category.

Martini Boy's right. Every last little word in this piece is right on the money.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Fausta Delivers

Man, that's upsetting.

While what he said was upsetting in itself, it's that this man who is a master of portraying the undercurrents of human life in his novel is absolutely, positively clueless as to how this would come across that's really bothering me.

If you've never read a Perez-Reverte novel, know that it is truly a wonderful experience. While he works within the thriller genre, his prose is absolutely wonderful. That his books are translations and his prose doesn't get lost in the translation makes me wonder if he isn't actually better in Spanish, but that's neither here nor there. His words are wonderful, but the feelings they evoke are even better. You, as the reader, are pulled into the character's world. Even if that character is a not-too-bright unemployed merchant marine, or a somewhat off-the-rails art restorer who spends too much time by herself, or a priest who is having issues with his servitude to a Church he's no longer sure he believes in, it doesn't matter: he brings their world alive in such a way that you would have to be an emotional incompetent to not feel what they are feeling. He is a master of the carefully chosen word. As a result his novels are not just thrillers, they are a meticulously crafted insight into the human mind and condition.

For example:

He went down into the garden with his jacket over his shoulder and breathed in the night air. She was waiting. The moonlight cast the shadows of leaves over her face and shoulders.

"I don't want you to leave," she said. "Yet."

Her eyes shone, the teeth between her parted lips gleamed white, and the ivory necklace was a line of white around her tanned neck. The day was very hot. Thin slits of afternoon sun filtered through a bling onto the naked body of a woman. Carmen the cigarette girl rolled tobacco leaves on her thigh, tiny drops of sweat beading a dark triangle. There was a soft breeze. The leaves of the orange trees and bougainvilleas moved over Macarena Bruner's face, and the moonlight slid down the priest's shoulders like a coat of mail being taken off and falling to his feet. The weary Knight Templar stood straight and looked around, listening to the rumble of the Saracen cavalry heading toward the hill of Hattin. He heard the stormy sea thundering against the breakwater as the fragile little boats struggled to return to port. And a woman dressed in mourning held a child's hand. Soup boiled while an old priest sat by a fireplace declining rosa, rosae. And, lost in a world that guided itself by starlight five centuries old, the little boy's shadow was cast on a wall that protected him from the bitter cold outside. His shadow moved closer to the other shadow waiting beneath bougainvilleas and orange trees, until he could breathe in her fragrance and her warmth, and her breath. But a second before he ran his fingers through her hair to escape loneliness for a night, the shadow, the boy, the man watching the naked body in the sunlight filtered through the blind, the exhausted Knight Templar, they all turned to look up at the dimly lit window of the pigeon loft, where an old priest, unsociable, skeptical, and brave, deciphered the terrible secret of a cruel sky, in the company of a ghost searching the horizon for a white sail.

{Excerpt taken from Chapter XI, Carlota Bruner's Trunk, The Seville Communion by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Copyright 1995. All Rights Reserved. English Translation by Sonia Soto, Copyright 1998. All Rights Reserved.}

And so is the condition of Father Quart on the night he breaks his vow of chastity. All of his life is laid out in one paragraph. How he sees himself during the various stages of his life, knowing that these various incarnations of himself led him to this very place. I could go on, but I think you get the gist. That you find this wonderful prose, this fantastic character development in what is, essentially, a mystery novel, is extraordinary.

Pushing aside his prose, Perez-Reverte's novels also make you think. They invariably revolve around a big idea and how that big idea comes to fruition in everyday human lives. This is the dilemma he crafts his novels around. These big ideas are where the conflict comes in. He handles these conflicts deftly and generally rails against the postmodern idea of never making judgments based upon what one values. His characters make the call and act according to their consciences. So, knowing this, knowing that he gives his characters the correct sort of ideals even if they struggle to practice them, why Perez-Reverte refuses to make the call that anti-Semitism is, indeed, wrong, makes one wonder just how inbred that disgusting philosophy is in Europe today. While this might seem like a big leap, to my mind it's a small jump.

To explain: I don't believe Perez-Reverte would ever allow one of his contemporary protagonists to be an anti-Semite. The language he employed in that article wouldn't be good enough for one of his characters. The ideas wouldn't be good enough for one of his protagonists. Why he let it fly from his own fingers, to represent his own views, I don't know. None of his protagonists would be so crass and uneducated. His antagonists, yes. But not his protagonists. That's why I find it so hard to swallow that he actually wrote that. It's why the repulsion is so strong. It's such a large disconnect from his work and the ideals he promotes in said work that I actually goggled when I read that paragraph. That he apparently thought he would get a hale and hearty "hear, hear!" as the audience response is even more shocking. Did he have a clue as to how this would come off? Did he just not give a damn? Does he regret his words? I don't know, but that he wrote that in the first place does seem to indicate that he believes he's penning words that represent the voice of popular opinion.

All of this makes me, again, wonder just how deep are the anti-Semitic waters of Europe today.

I don't want to sound like a rube. I know Europeans are blasting Israel and Jews, in general, left and right. I would, however, like to think that, just like the election here in states a few months ago, it's only the fringe loudmouths who are getting the most press. That the normal European who minds their own business, who goes to work and then goes home to be with their family at the end of the day, doesn't espouse such views, but doesn't get the opportunity to voice their dissent either. That would be my hope. It's a hope that is getting fainter and fainter as the months go by, but I'm still trying to have faith that they haven't forgotten the genocide of sixty-years ago that occurred, quite literally, on their doorsteps. Whether this hope of mine is a naive Anne Frank-ish sort of dream will shortly, I believe, be borne out in the months and years to come. I can only wait and see if these views we see coming out of Europe are truly representative of the whole.

I have no idea if this is making any sense, so I will cut it off here. To sum up: Arturo, Arturo, why hast thou taken the easy road of cheap and popular hate and vile beliefs and forsaken us in the process?

I honestly thought you were smarter than that.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:31 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Robbo is a sick, sick puppy, says she, gleefully.

I, for one, wouldn't have it any other way.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...I adore Fausta.

I truly believe we were separated at birth because it's positively freaky how much we agree on certain things. We hold some of the same views about everything from Colin Firth being the one, the only, the true Darcy, to enjoying lambasting Blaque Jacques Chirac. I also think she's intelligent, wonderful and produces some of the most interesting commentary in the blogosphere. I consider myself to be very lucky that I have her friendship, but more importantly, I consider myself to be extraordinarily lucky to have her readership, because she doesn't suffer fools gladly. Hence, since she spends some time here at the Cake Eater Chronicles, and her opinion has generally been favorable, I can throw myself into the non-fool category. I am thankful for this. Because---really and truly---I wouldn't want to be on her shit list.

Well, I might make it there with this post. We'll have to see how she takes this. But you all understand that I truly respect and admire the lovely lady from Princeton, right? I made that abudantly clear, right? Ok.

HOWEVER, there is one thing about her blog that drives me nuts. And I'm really sorry for it, but when she responds to something only in Spanish (or French, because she's one of those disgustingly clever trilingual people) it drives me ABSOLUTELY INSANE! It appears she does this to respond in the native tongue of whomever she deems an idiot. While clever, this does me absolutely no freakin' good. I know the content is going to be good, because after all, it came from Fausta's mind. It has to be good. But I CAN'T FREAKIN' UNDERSTAND IT BECAUSE I DON'T SPEAK OR READ SPANISH!

I feel like that damn dog in the Beggin' Strips commercial who doesn't understand that the Beggin' Strips are not, indeed, bacon. Unlike the dog, however, I don't even get the thrill and payoff of eating the fake bacon.

I understand that this is really my own fault. I am an idiot when it comes to learning other languages. I scraped through two and a half years of Latin in high school and that's as far as I got. I would've flunked had I not had mad buzzer pressing skillz during our statewide Junior Classical League, "how much mythology do you know?" contests. (Yes, indeedy. Despite my complete lack of any and all athletic abilities, I was the dumb jock at one point in time.) I also tried to take Russian in college and I still have a four credit "F" on my transcript. A four credit "F" which knocked my GPA down by two tenths of a point, I might add, which was just enough to forever prevent me from doing many different things with my life.

I read somewhere once that it's been estimated that around six percent of the entire world population is simply incapable of learning another language. I truly believe I am one of these people. I've tried to learn. Believe you me I HAVE TRIED. I just can't do it. I sweat over it. (eew!) I struggle. I twist. I turn. I have nightmares, still, about being tormented in front of the entire class because I'd been called on to recite the Russian alphabet and was laughed at because I goofed the order of "beh" and "veh." I'm not going to go into the dreams I have about Latin class. But the point is clear: I am tormented by the failure of my own intelligence.

Even though I would love to be able to speak another language, and am envious of those who can, I just can't do it.

What's worse is that everyone thinks I'm full of shit on this one, too. The husband (Mr. I Speak German) and Mr. H. (another lover of the Germanic tongue), other friends who speak Spanish and French (including one who is a professional translator) and even my parents (neither of whom spoke English before they started attending school) always tell me that, "if I just put my mind to it, I could learn another language." Bullshit. I can't do it. My brain doesn't work that way. I'm sorry, but the reason I didn't drop Russian---even when it was readily apparent that I wasn't doing so hot---was because I, too, bought the line that if I just worked hard enough it would come to me.

Well, it didn't.

Russian 101 was an hour long, M-F class. I felt like a damn dolt in that class. I, who hate sweating, would come out of that class with pit stains on my shirt because I'd been so nervous during it. Everyone got it but me and I was a wreck by the end of the class. My lovely teacher (bitch!), who used to translate for Gorbachev, told me to work harder. So I did. Since I shared a room with two other girls at this point in time (and they really didn't want to listen to Russian tapes), this meant for four hours a night, between the hours of ten and two, you could find me in our room in our sorority house, listening to tapes, studying the textbook, and learning how to write in Russian. I couldn't do it. I was frustrated. My teacher was frustrated. My fellow students, who all seemed to want to learn Russian not for some required course credit, but rather because they wanted to read Dostoevsky in the mother-tongue, were frustrated because I didn't get it. I just couldn't do it. This experience, combined with my Latin experience in high school, has convinced me that I simply am not capable of learning another language. It's just one of those things I cannot do.

So, you have to understand that when Fausta, who is brilliant, publishes a little treatise in Spanish about one of my favorite authors, Arturo Perez-Reverte, and calls him an, "antisemitic bigot," in English, but only links to articles and blogs that are written in Spanish, and goes no further in her English explanation of why he's an antisemitic bigot, it's a bit frustrating.

I love ya, darlin', but on behalf of the monolingual idiots of the world, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE STOP DOING THIS!

Posted by: Kathy at 02:55 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Wow, I didn't know you felt that strongly about it! My heartfelt apology. I'll have to atone, by means of translating Perez-Reverte's awful article, which I'm sure he thought was clever and funny. More on this to come.

Posted by: Fausta at January 15, 2005 05:18 PM (LtiJz)

2 Bless your little heart. Thank you As you will have do doubt realized, my problem resides with me...and not you. I love reading your sruff, so I'm frustrated when I cannot partake because I'M A FRIGGIN' IDIOT!

Posted by: Kathy at January 15, 2005 05:41 PM (sQLe5)

3 Have you tried Babelfish? It helps me to sometimes feel a little more "smrt". Aheh.

Posted by: Margi at January 15, 2005 06:11 PM (zalxZ)

4 You did JCL tourneys in high school? Me, too. Latin Lit and History were my buzzer-smacking fortes. Non semper ubi sub ubi!

Posted by: Robert the Llama Butcher at January 15, 2005 09:33 PM (ywZa8)

5 Certamen, baby! I still have my little JCL pin in my jewelry box, too.

Posted by: Kathy at January 15, 2005 10:55 PM (sQLe5)

6 Your wish is my command! http://badhairblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/revulsed-by-prez-reverte-updated-last.html

Posted by: Fausta at January 16, 2005 09:25 AM (LtiJz)

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I, just like Undercover Brother, enjoy a good catfight. I enjoy pulling up a chair, opening a beer and just watching two people go at each other for shits and giggles. Is this bad of me? Probably, but it's good fun nonetheless, so I don't see why the hell I should have to stop myself.

Currently there's a bit o' debate about whether C.A. Tripp's book, The Intimate Life of Abraham Lincoln is the real deal and our 16th President was actually gay, or is a bit of poorly researched, historically inaccurate, predrawn-conclusioned garbage being foisted upon the masses.

In this catfight, we will assign the role of Philip Nobile to Aunjanue Ellis and Andrew Sullivan will be portrayed by Denise Richards. The accompanying catfight language goes something like this:

Nobile: "Bitch, please. I know my man Abe better than anyone else." {Insert fro stability here}

Sullivan: "Oh, no you don't. I'm gay and I say you're bigoted." {Insert toss of golden tresses here}

Nobile: "I'm no bigot. Why don't you read what I wrote, because then you will see that you deserve the ass-whooping of Biblical proportions I'm going to give you." {Insert rough yanking of Denise's tresses here}

Sullivan: {Speechless}

*

Posted by: Kathy at 02:33 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Well, that was fast.

Abbas hasn't even been sworn in and already the Israelis are refusing to deal with him.

Not to downplay the seriousness of the attack that occurred, or the loss of life involved, but this seems unreasonable. For me, it simply screams that the Israelis were just waiting for something like this to happen so they'd have an excuse not to deal with him. I don't know that this is the case, but that's what it seems like to me.

While I don't think negotiating with Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist groups is bound to go anywhere, at least Abbas is actually working on the damn problem in the first place. Which, I might remind you, is something Arafat absolutely refused to do. Disagree with Abbas' means all you want, he's at least tackling the problem.

Give the man a chance. Then if he fails, you can cut off all ties. But this means having patience and not cutting off said ties before the man is even sworn in. While I don't doubt that it's a bitch to live in Israel and be attacked by all sides constantly, if the Israelis really want peace, they're going to have to have a little faith in Abbas. All they've really done with this move is to give Abbas props with Hamas and the other terrorist organizations operating in the occupied territories, and honestly, is that good for anything?

Posted by: Kathy at 01:30 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 I wonder if you have any idea who it is we are dealing with in Abu Mazen. Do you remember the Munich Olympics? Abu Mazen was responsible for the financing of the Munich attack. Abu Mazen's relationship to Yasser Arafat has been approximately that of Heinrich Himmler to Adolph Hitler. Abu Mazen is a holocaust denier who authored a book titled: The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement. Do you believe it is possible that after 30 years as a Jew hating terrorist, Abu Mazen is all of a sudden a moderate who wants peace with Israel? Give him a chance to do what Kathy? Preach peace while Jews are blown in buses and restaurants? Didn't we have enough of that with Arafat? What did he ever do to earn the benefit of the doubt, especially when giving him that benefit will likely only mean more Jews will be killed by terrorists?

Posted by: LindaSoG at January 15, 2005 03:19 PM (duP9h)

2 Linda, I believe I do understand who Abbas is. I'm not denying anything you wrote up there. He is NOT a good man. I don't believe he is a moderate. I believe he wants peace simply because it would be best for his people and not because he suddenly loves Jews. And I didn't write or imply that anywhere in this post. What I am saying is that the Israelis have to give the man a chance to get things under control. If Sharon didn't want him in office and wasn't going to deal with him if he did so, Sharon should have said so from the get go. He didn't. Though tentative and extremely hesitant at the possibility of dealing with Abbas, Sharon nevertheless did not pull away from the potential. Abbas needs time to do what he says he's going to do. Undoing all of the damage Arafat wrought is not going to happen overnight. If Abbas doesn't do it, which is not only possible but probable, then cut off ties. Fine. Go right ahead. If peace is to be obtained, a little faith has to be given, and it has to be given even to people who are not the optimal candidate for the job. The point here is getting a deal done. Do you only want to ever deal with angels? Knowing full well that the angels, despite their goodness, simply can't wrangle a deal? Or are you perhaps interested in doing a deal with the devil if the devil can get the job done? This is the case in every peace deal that has ever been signed. Ask the southern Sudanese if they believe the northerners---who are still led by Omar Bashir, who prosecuted that war since Day One, over twenty years ago---will stop attacking them now that the cease fire has been signed. They're probably pretty doubtful, but they at least have a bit of faith. The only way any peace deal, let alone one between the Israelis and Palestinians, can ever be proved is if the people in charge not only give faith, but return it as well. It seems a bit preemptory on the part of the Israelis to pull their willingness to deal with the man before the man is even---technically speaking---in charge of the whole shebang. If that attack had happened next week, instead of this one, well, I would think differently on the whole matter. That it happened this week, makes me wonder not only about the intentions of the Israelis, but also about just what Abbas is capabable of getting done and how much support---from all sides---he's going to get in the meanwhile.

Posted by: Kathy at January 15, 2005 04:58 PM (sQLe5)

3 Your reply to my comment makes me see that I am jaded about the topic. I want to share your hope and I find it difficult to do so. That is no reason for me to try to shatter someone else's hope and I apologize for giving you a hard time about it. You are right. Hope and faith are both good things and without them, we are lost. Regards, LindaSoG

Posted by: LindaSoG at January 16, 2005 04:55 PM (duP9h)

4 No biggie, Linda I hope that he lives up to his end of the deal and we can finally have some sort of resolution that allows people to be able to leave their houses without worrying about being killed. That's ultimately what this is all about and it's what I would really like to see happen. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but my eyes are wide open Thanks for stopping by.

Posted by: Kathy at January 17, 2005 10:20 AM (sQLe5)

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Yeah. I know. Wrong planet. Wrong moon. But it's still way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, so the analogy fits.

DARMSTADT, Germany - A European space probe has landed on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan after a seven-year journey, a space official said Friday, buoying hopes that the mission could shed light on the origins of life on Earth.

Mission controllers were confident the Huygens probe made a soft landing by parachute because it was transmitting steadily long after it was to have landed, said David Southwood, the European Space Agency's science director.

"We know that it has landed based on the laws of gravity," Southwood said. "It simply cannot still be flying. It's got to be on a solid surface, and it must be soft."

Southwood later announced that the probe had relayed scientific data — expected to include pictures and atmospheric measurements — to the Cassini mother ship orbiting Saturn and the information had been transmitted back to Earth.

Applause erupted at mission control in Darmstadt in western Germany at news of the data transmission. The data are expected to shed light on what Titan's atmosphere and surface are made of — and possibly on the origins of life on Earth.

"The scientific data we are collecting now shall unveil the secrets of this new world," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA's general director. "This is a fantastic success for Europe." {...}

Yeah. Well done, Europe. And I sincerely mean that.

Can't wait to see the pictures.

And I'll betcha anything that those big black thingys will be all over the place.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:52 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Wouldn't it be cool if the first photo of the ESA probe's view of Titan showed a big banner reading: "Welcome to Titan, Home of the 3rd Armored Division. Hell on Wheels" or "No Taxation Without Representation" Dan

Posted by: Dan Patterson at January 14, 2005 12:15 PM (nhmvs)

2 Why, yes, Dan, it would be cool. Very cool indeed.

Posted by: Kathy at January 14, 2005 12:45 PM (sQLe5)

3 Hmmm...actually, I think that in Clark's novelization of the film, they were in orbit around Saturn when they encountered the big black thingies. But I lost my paperback some years ago, so I can't check, and I'm too lazy to Google. Anyone?

Posted by: Pious Agnostic at January 15, 2005 04:13 PM (ubR8q)

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David Skinner over at the Galley Slaves is a wee bit miffed about what new National Museum of the American Indian is accepting for their collection.

{...}When I visited recently, I was impressed only by the architecture, and the lobby especially, in which you enter a vertiginous central cavern that goes all the way to the buildingÂ’s ceiling. The "collection," if you can call it that, is scattered about on floors extending outward in a circular fashion, not unlike the GuggenheimÂ’s setup.

But what they have on display is pathetic. In one window case, there were some everyday crafts by a Canadian tribe (speaking of which, there is absolutely no uniformity or even thoughtfulness behind the museumÂ’s use of terms like tribe, nation, people, etc.), including, on one shelf, a coke can and an ordinary hot beverage thermos. Whether these had been left behind by construction workers or were deemed, somehow, illustrative of Indian culture I cannot say. The signage for the display ignored most of its contents. In fact, the museumÂ’s collection properly speaking receives only a fraction of the attention that is lavished on the subject of living Indians of North and South America. Head-dresses, weapons, totem polls, all the beautiful, intricate ceremonial pieces one associates with this massive indigenous civilization are little in evidence.{...}

I wonder if they'd accept these for their collection...

...or if they'd deem them too "warlike" and "not contemporary enough"?

If you're interested in the story of these, read on after the jump.
more...

Posted by: Kathy at 12:48 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Even if you do manage to remove Joe Buck from calling Sunday's game against Philadelphia, you're still not going to make it to the Superbowl. Sorry, kids. It's not going to happen...again.

So, leave Joe alone, eh? He's a good guy who does his job extraordinarily well. After all, if Joe can sit next to Tim McCarver for the entire baseball season and still manage to restrain himself from beating the crap out of his broadcasting partner (particularly when McCarver soooo deserves it) that should show you something of his professionalism.

That and Randy Moss was actually being "disgusting" when he mooned the fans at Lambeau. You're getting yourselves worked up over nothing.

And just for the record: I'm not a Packers fan.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As in the one that says "College" across it. Go read this, then this.

I have to say I'm with Smallholder on this one. It's unfortunate, but it's true. A Harvard grad---even if their rich daddy made the call to get them in---will have more and better opportunities in life than will the community college graduate. This isn't to discount hard work or making luck happen in your life or any of those other factors that designate where you will end up. But admission into a top-flight school automatically shoots you ahead in the queue.

I'm sorry for stating the truth.

This is not to say if you don't want to have the CEOship of a Fortune 500 company handed to you, but rather your goals are more---shall we say---realistically minded, a community college might just be the place where your fortunes are made. It could very well be the thing that puts you over the top.

It is, however, unrealistic to say that a community college will prepare you just as well for the CEOship of that Fortune 500 company as would Harvard.

I do not doubt that community colleges are getting better by the day. I know they are. They've been forced to get better. Why? Because four-year schools are pricing themselves out of the market. Hence they are moving in to provide a service to a market that has announced itself. While this is great, that's not the issue.

The issue is that it's a subjective judgment call that Harvard would provide a better start to a career than would a community college. Why do we make this subjective judgment? Because Harvard has cache, baby. It's Ivy. If you go there, you will network with the future great googly mooglies of America. You will get to know one another and if you're ever in need of anything they will help you out. It's all about making contacts, kids. The best people to know are at the better schools. They can do more stuff for you. The rich people know this, which is why they perform backflips to get their less-than-stellar kids into premier institutions, even if those institutions are pricing themselves out of the market and are making themselves less relevant by hiring wacky faculty. Until the entire paradigm changes, this is the way it will be.

If academics were all that mattered, well, the smart people would be ruling the world and as we can see they aren't. It's the networkers that rule. They may be smart, but it's their social skills and who they know that put them ahead.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:32 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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In what appears to be a singular and life-altering act of devotion to his Lord and Master, Pat Boone, Protein Wisdom has decided to alter his language accordingly.

He apparently is willing to do anything and everything to get that much coveted invitation allowing him entry into the Big Tent O' Republicanism.

The lengths the man will go to serve his Lord and Master amazes even me. Although, I have to wonder how he's actually going to manage it. Methinks he'll have to put a rubber band on his wrist and snap it every time he falters, because painful negative reinforcement is the only way he's going to pull this one off.

Which means, of course, Jeff's hand will simply fall off his wrist sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And their lovely loos.

I would acutally support that Sitzpinkel movement, however.

Clean up after my brothers once and you will be wanting every man in every nation to sit the hell down, too. It's got nothing to do with fighting the patriarchy for me. It's because my brothers are SLOBS! Filthy buggers. How the hell they managed to get their stuff everywhere (including behind the bowl) I have no idea. I just know that---as a girl in the Zabawa household, whose chores were relegated strictly to the inside of the house---that I had to clean it up and I didn't like it. Methinks they were purposefully aiming for it, but they cried foul when it was suggested.

Fortunately for me, I have a nice, neat husband who puts the seat back down. He even apologizes when he misses. I have to think God was throwing me a bone by sending me this kind, kind man after having to clean my brothers' bathroom for so many years.

All you have to do is be neat, boys, and women won't ask you to sit down. Hell, we might even give up the cause and stop asking you to put the seat down. Evaluate your toity habits (and by that I mean, ask yourself this simple question: would you want to clean that up if the culprit was someone other than yourself? If the answer is no, well, you know where you need to start.) and reform your wicked ways if you're in need of doing so.

{Hat tip: The Pious Agnostic}

Posted by: Kathy at 02:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Surprisingly, France 2 has been very supportive of the American military's effort in spreading relief from the tsunami, whilst criticizing their own government.

Start here with Douglas' fabulous commentary-cum-transcription of Monday night's broadcast. Then read what Fausta has to say about it.

Fausta follows up today with a report on Tuesday's broadcast:

{...}One could argue whether there's a political agenda -- to shame the Chirac government's deadly inefficiency. For instance, David Pujadas (this week's anchor), who has been doing a great job, clearly asked pointed questions whose answers directly contradict the official party line: "the field hospital is ready." Bernard Coq, the reporter in Aceh, started by saying, "while clearly one won't contradict Mrs Defense Minister,"{then went on to report} the field hospital is obviously not ready since at least half the supplies and nearly half the staff have no means of getting to the disaster area. The helicopter the French government sent is yet to be assembled.

What is clear, however, is that France2 news has presented a factual, and objective, record of what the USA has done well. France2 has also done an excellent job reporting the daily travails of the survivors, and the tsunami itself. If you have the time, it's worth watching the entire broadcast even if you don't understand the language.{...}

Highly interesting. And very welcome, too.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:56 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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As the Cake Eater Father was always saying during my youth: why would women want to be equal when they're already superior?

While I'm fairly certain my dear old Dad was trying to get around the feminazi movement in a clever way with this statement, and that equal pay for equal work wasn't really at the top of his mind, the man's got a point. We bring life into the world and nuture it. Men, no matter how hard they try, simply can't do that. Furthermore, we keep men from killing one another for sport. We keep them in line and our society is better as a result. There is already great power in this, yet most feminists refuse to see it. They only see what they don't have, instead of exploiting the power angles that we already possess.

I've long said that if we women really wanted to rule the world, all we would need to do is have a day like the Great American Smokeout, but only we'd call it the Great American Flash-o-Rama or something similar. It's a pretty simple concept, really. Heterosexual men lose all train of thought when their eyes light on a pair of boobs. If every woman in the country took off their shirt for a day, we could take over while the men were busy looking at our boobs and could fix most of the problems with a little ingenuity and some elbow grease by four p.m.

This would take some sacrifice on our part. Women generally don't enjoy acting like strippers. This is fine, too. After all, women are better than men: we don't want to act like them. Men are constantly acting in reference to their perceived penis size. God only knows what havoc would result if cup size came into it. But I digress---the reason women would never do something like this is because we have men where we want them already. If we have to throw them a bone---like handing over the keys to the kingdom---every now and again, fine. So be it. Strife only enters the equation when you want to balance the equation not realizing it's---ahem---already balanced.

So, no I don't consider it to be a big deal when a man opens a door for me, or pulls out my chair or stands at the table when I'm in the process of sitting down. I like it. While I fully recognize this sort of act is mostly a matter of common courtesy, and not an act of deference to my sex, I sort of like the thought that it might be an act of deference to me as a woman. What is wrong with that, I ask you? Men wouldn't be here if we women weren't around: why not pay homage to that? Why would some woman get upset over having Neil Cavuto let her off the elevator first, and then hold open the door for her? Why is Cavuto's act automatically some demand for submission to the ruling patriarchial world order?

The chick's got problems if a chivalrous man causes her that much bother. There are women, all over the globe, who have serious problems with men who could teach this woman a thing or two about the real struggle for female equality. These are the women who are ritualistically raped by their male neighbors and then are stoned for having committed adultery---even if they're not married. If they're not stoned, they're told that---because of something they had no control over---they have brought shame upon all the male members of the family and are treated accordingly. Which means being beaten to within an inch of their life. Sometimes they're even murdered because of this shame---and the men get off when they're charged with the crime because said shame is an ok excuse for murder.

These are the women whose genitals are mutilated when they are small girls because their male family members do not ever want them to experience sexual pleasure as it might morph them into a loose, libertinious woman.

These are the women who are not free to divorce an abusive spouse, but whose husbands are free to divorce them simply by saying the words "I divorce you" three times.

These are the women who are wrapped up in yards and yards of black cloth to prevent men from being tempted by their wares.

These are the women who are not free to leave their house without the accompaniment of a male relative because no other man is allowed to have contact with them unless that man is there. And not because the male relative is afraid of the sexual ambitions of some unknown man---he's afraid that this woman might lure the man into temptation. He's protecting the man and not the woman to whom he is related.

These are the women who are legally banned from driving a car because if it broke down, who would be able to help them?

These are the women who today, at the beginning of the twenty-first-century, still have no say in how their government runs because they do not have the right to vote.

I could go on, but I think you get the gist. This chick doesn't have a clue as to what's really important, and if she thinks that she's showing solidarity with her oppressed sisters across the globe by refusing a kind gesture, she's kidding herself.

In other words, save your resistance to the patriarchial hegemony for when it's really needed and will really make a difference.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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