micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
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Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
The sport of trying to make sense of the "war on terror" The threat posed by "the terrorists" and weapons of mass destruction has been said to have been so great that the U.S. needed to invade Iraq and set up a new government in that country. One could be excused for being shocked by a report on 60 Minutes this past Sunday, which revealed that there is plenty of reason to believe that security at "the nine nuclear weapons factories and research labs" in the U.S. is not anywhere near what it should be: ...a recent investigation by the government's General Accounting Office found that... security at these sites is inadequate.In fairness to the Department of Energy, which is responsible for security at these plants, it isn't as if there was a Cold War or anything. (I haven't been able to find the GAO report but POGO has done work on this topic.) While a similar lack of interest in the dangers of weapons of mass destruction in a case where greater interest would not lead to another war on the part of the Bush Administration has been noticed before, perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for this. It might have been necessary to divert valuable resources to the effort to make sure the invasion happened. "A joint British and American spying operation at the United Nations scuppered a last-ditch initiative to avert the invasion of Iraq," Peter Beaumont, Martin Bright and Jo Tuckman write in an important story in Sunday's Observer. (More on this story can be found here.) Or those resources could have been put into making sure Bush doesn't read everything. In the February 12 edition of USA Today, John Diamond writes: A classified U.S. intelligence study done three months before the war in Iraq predicted a problem now confronting the Bush administration: the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction might never be found.It would be an error to think that the answer would lie in unglamorous possibilities. A desire to crackdown on porn could be the culprit. Officials said the appointment of Bruce A. Taylor, who worked in the department during the heyday of its anti-porn efforts in the late 1980s and early '90s, shows that Justice is serious about cracking down on porn after what critics called lax enforcement by the Clinton administration...In addition to being an overture to the Christian Right, a new effort against pornography to get the support of people who have noticed the lack of porn in post-apocalyptic stories and concluded that the utopian possibilities of this period must be tied in with that. Then again, maybe the explanation is that securing nuclear weapons sites doesn't amount to war and thus isn't any fun for George and the boys. *** The rest of this post is an attempt to clean out bookmarks and may lack in the area of organization. *** Bush spent some time with the people of NASCAR over the weekend. This would be preaching to the choir if not for how ungodly those musical types can be. *** "British soldiers called hooded Iraqi detainees by footballers' names as they kicked and beat them, The Independent on Sunday has been told," Andrew Johnson and Robert Fisk write in Sunday's Independent. *** "Iraq's U.S. administrator suggested Monday he would block any move by Iraqi leaders to make Islamic law the backbone of an interim constitution, which women's groups fear could threaten their rights," Robert H. Reid of the AP writes. *** John Dean doesn't think much of Bush's commission to look into WMD intelligence. *** "The White House is declining to make public the financial histories of the commissioners President Bush appointed to investigate U.S. intelligence failures," Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times writes. *** Jonathan Yardley on James Baldwin *** *** In a story from Friday, Gary Schaefer of the AP writes: Near where the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima, the faces of the victims silently appear and fade on a wall of television monitors in a relentless display of the attack's terrifying human toll.*** "Iraq's deposed dictator Saddam Hussein is unlikely to stand trial for at least another two years, the Guardian has learned," Rory McCarthy writes in yesterday's Guardian. "The Iraqi special tribunal for crimes against humanity is months away from hearing its first case, and when the trials begin in October or November the first defendants to appear will be high-ranking Ba'ath party officials." *** Tessa DeCarlo of The New York Times profiles Sophie Crumb. *** Mahmood Mamdani's "Why the US practises double standards" is a bit weak on dates and, much more importantly, implies that the U.S. did not support authoritarian rightist regimes prior to Reagan's presidency. *** The Central Intelligence Agency and terrorists that are part of "the terrorists" *** Larry David's "My War" is entertaining, and I say that as someone who does not like Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm. (I strongly dislike the former, FWIW.) *** *** *** "Christians, Let's Take Back Our Nation" *** Jeff Jarvis is apparently unable or unwilling to see that "terrorism" and the U.S. are connected in ways that go beyond being adversaries. I just hope we can survive what Jarvis calls "Mexican soccer holligans." *** "The teenagers of Ardoyne talk about suicide in the most shockingly matter-of-fact way, recalling the friends who have killed themselves. Many also talk of how they often think of killing themselves," David McKittrick writes in today's Independent. "The Northern Ireland war is supposed to be over but this tough north Belfast Catholic ghetto goes on counting its dead, with young people continuing to go to early graves because of the remnants of paramilitarism." Militarism is always dangerous due to its ability to become the one thing it should not be, a way of life. At the same time, events in Haiti show the fallacy of believing that an outside force is capable of entering and forcing a solution upon societies that have no resolved on their own. (This idea shows up in a variety of place, including the argument that democracy in Iraq will lead to democracy throughout the Arab world and Slavoj Zizek's in many ways brilliant Welcome to the Desert of the Real (Verso, 2002). Sometimes a society has to sort its self out. *** With remarkable speed, renting videotapes has become passé. Instead, buying DVDs has become popular. You can play them anywhere, on portable devices, in the minivan, on your laptop. You can burn copies with a computer or digital recording device. And DVDs are comparatively cheap. By the time you go to Blockbuster, rent a movie, and pay the late fees on the video you forgot to return, you're half way to owning a DVD. Driving to a video store—twice—to deal with a single movie is a supremely inconvenient transaction.I don't understand people. *** Bryan Curtis of Slate on "The roots of Bush's Daytona strategy" *** The BBC writes (February 10): Foreign troops must target traffickers if Afghanistan is to win its war on drugs, a senior UN official says.Mother Jones has more. *** Jane Mayer on "What did the Vice-President do for Halliburton?" *** Here are some interviews with Gilbert Achcar, Kathy Acker, Sami Al-Deeb, Theodore W. Allen, Tariq Ali, Isabel Allende, Martin Amis, David Aguilar, Gregg Araki, Hanan Ashrawi, Sherman Austin, Anthony Aziz, Jean Baudrillard, Greg Bear, Walden Bello, Peter Berger, William Blum, Neve Campbell, John Carlos, Margaret Cho, Larry Clark, Sofia Coppola, Roger Corman, Ernest Crichlow, Barry Crimmins, Clare Danes, Gretta Duisenberg, Johanna Drucker, Umberto Eco, Ntone Edjabe, Barbara Ehrenreich, Carl Elliott, Norman Finkelstein, Joe Gage, Neil Gaiman, John Gerassi, Paul Giamatti, Terry Gilliam, Adam Goldberg, Fe'lix Guattari, Che Guevara, Günter Grass, Michael Hardt, Louise Hassing, Peter Hedges, Edward Herman, Jaime Hernandez, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Hudson, Eric Idle, Fredric Jameson, Ben Katchor, Sam Keith, Paul Krassner, Nancy Kress, Jean Laplanche, Geert Lovink, Rahul Mahajan, Sarat Maharaj, Mike Marqusee, Ray McGovern, David Meggysey, Russ Meyer, Evo Morales, Tom Morello, Johan Norberg, Tim O'Brien, Patton Oswalt, John Pilger, Melinda Rackham, George Ritzer, Edward W. Said, Danny Schechter, Hideaki Sena, Wallace Shawn, R.U. Sirius, Sam Smith, Annie Sprinkle, David Suzuki, Serj Tankian, Alex Villar, Sarah Vowell, Malcolm X, Michael Yates, Patrice Zappa and Slavoj Zizek UPDATE: Tom Izzo once again shows himself to be a class act. From today's Lansing State Journal, Joe Rexrode looks at Shannon Brown and "Spartan fast break: A weekly wrap-up and look ahead." *** Robert Chalmers profiles Randy Newman in this past Sunday's Independent: A front of cynicism - in the music, as in the man - conceals a smouldering rage at injustice and bigotry. In 1972 he released his study of US foreign policy, "Political Science": "No one likes us, I don't know why/We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try/But all around even our old friends put us down/ Let's drop the big one and pulverise them/ Asia's crowded and Europe's too old/Africa is far too hot and Canada's too cold/And South America stole our name/Let's drop the big one, there'll be no one left to blame us..."Maybe Rummy attended too many Lakers games. Newmans's official site, randynewman.com, features a journal. "The wind is howling outside my window and I must take it to the streets," he says. *** "As the violence continued in Iraq yesterday, the head of the American occupation administration admitted the US was waiting for the United Nations to find a way out of the impasse on handing over power to Iraqis. Speaking on two American talk shows, Paul Bremer admitted the US was now pinning its hopes on the UN, an organisation it had written off as irrelevant at the time of the invasion of Iraq. Rejected by the Americans and forced to flee Iraq last year after two bombings, the UN is suddenly back in the frame in Iraq," Justin Huggler writes in yesterday's Independent. *** "Plans to plough up to €2bn (£1.3bn) a year of EU cash into defence and security research were presented yesterday, raising the prospect of Europe spending as much as the US Department of Homeland Security," writes Stephen Castle in today's Independent. *** "Tony Blair's plan to lower the burden of proof for prosecuting terrorists and gangland criminals will lead to innocent people being sent to prison, the head of the body that reviews miscarriages of justice has warned," Robert Verkaik writes in yesterday's Independent. "Professor Graham Zellick, the new chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), said the move would mean a return to the flawed convictions of the 1970s and 1980s." Brendan O'Neill of Spiked has more on Britain's defense of freedom, as does the BBC. *** Peter M. Nichols looks at some movies that have just made it to DVD in today's New York Times. I'm amazed that Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar (1954) is only available as a region 2 DVD. I mean I know the French love Ray, as they should, but that doesn't excuse the rest of us. *** Michael E. Grost's "Classic Film and Television homepage" is worth a look if the subject matter described in the title interests you. Grost argues that the study of auteurs and genres are can got together in "Auteurism and Genre Studies." What's interesting about this is I, a younger person, never doubted this and in fact consider some of the great genre projects such as Charlie Chaplin's mutual shorts, John Ford's The Searchers (1956) and Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle (1960) to be the work of auteurs. Could there be a conflict? Yes, of course, but given the similarities of the recording material and the source material, there is plenty of room for overlap. *** In today's New York Times, Marc Lacey writes: It was 10 years ago that members of Rwanda's ethnic Hutu majority went on a rampage, killing their countrymen in a 100-day fury that left bodies strewn along roadsides, floating down rivers and piled up in churches, stadiums and schools. An estimated 800,000 people, Tutsis and moderate Hutus, died in the frenzy of ethnic animosity, fueled by an extremist government known for the motto "Hutu Power."*** Human cloning may still be a long way off, Stephen S. Hall reports in today's New York Times. *** I wish I could make sense of this. *** riverbend marks the Amiriyah Shelter massacre, which happened 13 years ago. *** In an AP story from this past Friday, Ken Guggenheim writes: The Bush administration is hampering efforts to improve intelligence by clinging to the false hope that weapons of mass destruction may be found in Iraq, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector said Thursday.*** *** "Most members of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council no longer support the Bush administration's plan to choose an interim government through caucuses and instead want the council to assume sovereignty until elections can be held, several members have said," Rajiv Chandrasekaran writes in today's Washington Post. They want more power. Fancy that. I suspect they will "their way." (more) *** *** The first is to expand the Governing Council from 25 to 100 members to make it more representative.*** The Feminist Majority Foundation is calling on people to "Send a message to the Bush Administration that the recent move to cancel current family laws and to place family law under the jurisdiction of Islamic (sharia) law [in Iraq] is unacceptable." There is undoubtedly something unsavory about feminists, or anyone else from the outside, trying to make sure that Iraq turns out as they want it to. At the same time, such a process is going on, so those who attempt to move things into a better direction are arguably not the cause of the problem so much as they are a product of U.S. control of Iraq in the same way that a vaccine is a product of a disease. It wouldn’t exist if not for which it is designed to ameliorate or destroy. *** "U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that almost all of the Iraqi defectors whose information helped make the Bush administration's case against Saddam Hussein exaggerated what they knew, fabricated tales or were 'coached' by others on what to say," Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay of Knight Ridder write in a story from Saturday. (If that link is expired, you can try to find the story by clicking here.) *** In Sunday's New York Times, Elaine Sciolino writes: RAN is embroiled in one of the most serious crises it has faced since clerics seized the palaces of kings in Tehran and declared an Islamic republic a quarter century ago.*** *** "Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian crisis in Haiti, which is on the brink of a civil war between rebel forces and armed supporters of the president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide," Tash Shifrin of The Guardian writes today. "In a joint statement, 15 UK and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including ActionAid and Oxfam, have warned that the economy is collapsing, with a threat to food supplies as transport breaks down exacerbated by a doubling in the price of petrol." *** "[M]ob rule" exists in the Haitian city of St Marc, according to Gary Younge's first-hand report in Saturday's Guardian. *** "Haitian rebels seeking to topple President Jean-Bertrand Aristide have brought in reinforcements from the neighbouring Dominican Republic, including an alleged former death squad leader [Louis-Jodel Chamblain] and a former police chief [Guy Philippe] accused of fomenting a coup, according to witnesses," Ian James writes in yesterday's Guardian. "The rebellion, which broke out nine days ago in Gonaives, 70 miles (112km) northwest of Port-au-Prince, has so far killed some 50 people. Although the rebels are still thought to number less than Haiti's 5,000-member police force, their ranks have been strengthened by paramilitary leaders and police living in exile in the Dominican Republic." *** ...Haiti is one of those places where the news is usually either bad, or very bad. At present, amid an upsurge in violent attempts to unseat President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, it falls into the latter category. Looked at up close, Haiti is a deeply depressed, deeply dysfunctional society. Its people live, for the most part, in abject poverty. Two-thirds of the 3.6m workforce has no formal jobs and no skills. About half the 8m population is illiterate; less than 70% complete primary education. Average life expectancy is 52 years; only 3.7% make it to 65 or over, and HIV/Aids infection rates are rising. Haiti has few natural resources; its economy is mainly agricultural. Its budget is in deficit and its external debt runs into billions of dollars. Haiti receives a mere $120m in annual economic aid. Britain chips in £125,000.One could hope that this insignificance could open up a space for Haiti to develop and solve its own problems, but the simple fact is that self-sufficiency is impossible. Control and neglect may lead to different results, but either way the story is sad. 4:25 p.m. 02/17/04 UPDATE #2: It wasn't beautiful but Michigan State beat Purdue 62-55 tonight. *** Somebody needs to tell Jeff Shelman that even the best of Tom Izzo's teams looked left for dead at some point. *** Ward Sutton's cartoon "Bush Answers Questions With More Questions" is highly inaccurate. The press doesn't point out that Bush is dodging their questions. *** Joy Press of The Village Voice invasive t.v. programs From the same publication, Cynthia Cotts on capaigndesk.org and J. Hoberman on The Magnificent Ambersons *** "The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, yesterday angrily accused the United States of being behind a 2002 coup and of helping continuing opposition attempts to overthrow him," Alexandra Olson writes in tomorrow's edition of The Independent "Mr Chavez said the US Government was providing millions of dollars to Venezuelan groups." I love this part of Olson's article: A visit to Venezuela on Monday by Peter DeShazo, US deputy assistant Secretary of State for western hemisphere affairs, was part of the campaign "to try to destabilise Venezuela", Mr Chavez said. The US official urged the election authorities not to use technicalities to invalidate petitions demanding a recall referendum that could lead to a new presidential election.Listen you stupid spics, it is not enough to have a democracy. You have to do it our way! 10:04 p.m. 02/17/04 |