Better Late...

And late it is. What a strange day. I got up at 0400 this morning and watched a lot of C-SPAN, including Discovery’s safe return…in its entirety. I’m glad C-SPAN ran the NASA feed because I’d have missed it otherwise; no NASA Channel on basic cable in P-Town. I’d been up nearly six hours by the time The Return of Discovery was over, so I decided to lay down for “just a little while.” Ha! Two-plus hours later… And I’ve yet to make my rounds of the ‘sphere.

I caught an interesting installment of C-SPAN’s Q & A series this morning. Brian Lamb interviewed Steve James (producer and editor) and Sgt. Zack Bazzi, of the TriBeCa Film Festival Grand Jury prize-winning film, The War Tapes. Well worth watching, if only for the 19 minutes of footage from The War Tapes (out of a 94-minute movie). Here’ the blurb on the Q & A web site, brief as it is:

Steve James & Sgt. Zack Bazzi discuss "The War Tapes." This is a documentary featuring three New Hampshire National Guardsmen who were given cameras to record their year deployment in Iraq.

If you’re a regular reader of Laurie’s blog, you know all about The War Tapes. I learned some interesting stuff watching Mr. Lamb interview these two gentlemen, such as the New Hampshire National Guardsmen, using 20 Sony high-end consumer digital video cameras, shot over 800 hours of raw video while they were deployed to Iraq. Those 800 hours of video were edited down to a film that lasts only 94 minutes! I also learned that some of the guys deployed to Iraq had better internet service there than they have at home, something I can relate to, in a second-hand sort of way. The War Tapes will be available on DVD, too, so that eased my mind a bit. I was disappointed there’s no showing anywhere near P-Town, but now? No worries! Streaming video and a program transcript are available on the Q & A web site.

While we’re on about C-SPAN… Washington Journal featured back-to-back interviews with Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the US, and Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. The Syrian ambassador put on about as revolting a display of unmitigated Ba’athist Bullsh!t as one could ever hope to see or even imagine. And, in so doing, he took a direct shot (read that: insulting) at Mr. Kristol in response to the moderator’s question about Kristol’s editorial in this week’s Standard. The funny thing is this: Kristol followed the ambassador, as noted above. The ambassador was walking off the set as Kristol was walking on, and the stage microphones were muted. Words were definitely exchanged but the audience couldn’t hear them. As Kristol sat down, he and Peter (the moderator) exchanged a couple of words and grins, accompanied by a dismissive gesture from Kristol towards the direction of the departing ambassador. Oh, how I wish the mikes had been ON! (Links to videos of the interviews are available here.)

Speaking of microphones… Tell us how you really feel, Mr. President! Sad to say, this is news…but let me be just one guy in what is no doubt a chorus of millions: Way to GO, Dubya!

A Sultry Sunday

It appears that the Left was finding its voice on Israel as I wrote the post I put up last evening. A perusal of memeorandum this morning reveals several posts from the Left regarding Israel, but the Right still outweighs the Left by a fifteen to one ratio…my best guess. And, predictably, a lot of the comment on the Left looks like this:

I've noticed some clucking in the right-wing wrongosphere about silence from the major left-wing blogs on the situation in the Middle East. There hasn't been silence, but there has been humility in the face of a fast-moving situation that is difficult to understand. I know I believed awhile back that the foreign policy course Bush pursued was disastrous, but I didn't know how that disaster would unfold. In other words, we may be watching an unfolding new war in its initial stages, or perhaps cooler heads will prevail, but either way I have no special insight on which direction this crisis will roll. I do know that the Friedman's and right-wing pundits who talked of freedom on the march are idiots, and shouldn't be listened to, and those who recognized that Bush's war on terror was always a fraud and based on a disastrous strategy were right.

The “wrongosphere.” It is to laugh…

Other articles on the subject of Israel I found informative and interesting include… British blogger Eric Lee’s post “The Left should be supporting Israel in this war” (that would be the British Left, but applicable none the less to the American Left); Michael J. Totten’s Middle East Journal and several articles in The Jerusalem Post, including this interview with the Major General Eliezer Shkedy, the Israeli Air Force’s Chief of Staff, from which I’ll quote just a small part:

Maybe in the end we'll kill more people because we weren't ruthless enough at the start, because we encouraged them to become bolder? Maybe we're too moral, for our own good and theirs?

That's a very interesting philosophical question, with practical consequences. And yet I'll tell you something...

(Shkedy pauses here for a full 20 seconds.) Ultimately our strength is not solely our military power. That's part of our strength. The strength of the Jewish people in the State of Israel and the Land of Israel is first and foremost our profound moral strength. Everything stems from that.

If we were to lower our standards, not to find a solution that meets the highest ethical standards, that would be a mistake with far more, immense significance for us as a nation and a state and as people than the operational error.

That's the great strength that I believe in. That's how I educate the people [in the IAF], and that's what the air force does. And, still, I'm aware that this is war, with live fire, and things will happen that I don't want to happen. Because to protect your child and my child, that can happen.

That's some answer. But to ask again, though, solely from the moral perspective: we may end up being less moral because in the end we have to...

You always have to look at the overall picture. In accordance with the specific situation, in the context we are talking about with the Kassams, mine is the right answer. In extreme situations, you behave in extreme ways.

Ultimately you have the norms that you live by, the moral standards, and each issue has to be judged on its own basis.

The exchange above was prompted by a discussion about how difficult it is to hit terrorists because of the tactics they use, i.e., hiding among and behind civilians. Israel’s critics, cynics all, for the most part, will pooh-pooh the general’s response as nothing but PR, but I choose to believe what he says. The point has been made often by Israel’s supporters that Israel is a western democracy, and in so being it lives by and under western morals, values, and ethics. The general’s comments are proof.

There’s a tremendous amount of material on the subject at memeorandum; you can pick and choose and read all day, if you so desire.

So. My weird sleeping habits have resurfaced. To make a long story short, I awoke from an extended “nap” around midnite last night. I popped open a beer, stepped outside, lit a ciggie, pulled up one of my camp chairs and just sat…contemplating the quiet, balmy night. And it was balmy, indeed. 72 degrees at midnight. I thought, ever so briefly, about going back inside, grabbing the camera and tripod and heading out of town to take a few night shots away from the city (!) lights. I changed my mind once my eyes became accustomed to the gloom…there was a thin layer of cirrus clouds that more or less (a lot more than less) shot that idea in the ass, to wit: the stars weren’t all that visible. No matter. There will be other, clearer nights this summer. Suffice to say I simply enjoyed the quiet last evening… a lot.

And so it goes…

I’m Not the Only One…

Today and yesterday I noted there was, and is, a dearth of comment on the Left about the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Iran’s proxies. I decided to do a bit of investigation into this lack of interest and I was about ten minutes into my link chasing when I came upon the post below by Kevin Drum in today’s Washington Monthly, a Left-wing publication.

Here’s Mr. Drum’s post, in its entirety:

ISRAEL AND THE BLOGOSPHERE.....Via email, Matt Yglesias suggests that I address the topic of why the liberal blogosphere doesn't write very much about Israel-related subjects. I can only speak for myself, of course, and my own reasons for light blogging on this subject are both predictable and banal. Still, here they are:

1. It sparks unusually vicious comment threads, something this blog hardly needs since comments here spin out of control often enough anyway. Needless to say, this phenomenon is fairly universal. For examples, see here and here.

(In case you're curious, the other subjects that seem to spawn more venom than usual are posts related to religion or feminism.)

2. The fight between Israel and the Palestinians is over half a century old and seems intractable. It follows the same rhythms decade after decade, full of hypocrisy and posturing from both camps, and there seems little to say about it that doesn't eventually boil down to, "Both sides need to ratchet down the rhetoric and rein in their own extremists." Aside from being pointless, there are only just so many ways you can say this.

(NB: This may be a plausible excuse for inaction coming from a pundit or a blogger, but it's worth pointing out that it's not a plausible excuse for a president of the United States. Are you listening, George?)

3. The conflict is fantastically complex, and the partisans on both sides are mostly people who have been following events with fanatical attention to detail for many decades. Ordinary observers can hardly compete in this atmosphere — do you know the detailed history and long-accepted norms of behavior that have developed in the conflict over the Shebaa Farms since 1967? — and this has produced an almost codelike language of its own over the years. One misuses this code at ones peril (see #5 below).

4. As with the conflict itself, punditry is heavily dominated by extremists on both sides. I normally take my cues on subjects I'm inexpert in from people whose sensibilities are similar to mine, but it's nearly impossible to figure out who those people might be in this case.

5. Related to 1 and 3, posts that display any sense of sympathy for the Palestinians run the risk of provoking a shitstorm of accusations of anti-semitism. (I gather that the opposite is more frequently the case in Europe.) Language is actually as big a problem as substance here, since words and phrases that are used innocently often have specific meanings to longtime partisans that are unknown to the rest of us.

I guess that's about it. As usual, however, I'd add that liberals have a bigger problem here than conservatives. As near as I can tell, most conservatives simply take the uncomplicated stance that Palestinians are terrorists and that Israel should always respond to provocation in the maximal possible way. The fact that this hasn't worked very well in the past doesn't deter them. Liberals don't really have a similarly undemanding position that's suitable for the quick-hit nature of blogging.

Of course, in the same email Matt pointed out that "you can't hermetically seal Israel issues off from Iraq issues or Iran issues or even really big-picture questions about what our general attitude toward the war on terrorism or the United Nations ought to be." True enough. Maybe we should all be trying harder and not letting feeble excuses like #1-5 get in our way. I'm not making any promises, though.

Fair enough, and a good beginning. Mr. Drum’s liberal bona fides are well known, and since he’s speaking strictly for himself, for the most part, I’ll take him at his word. I even find myself in agreement with three of his five points (points 2, 3, and 4). After all, it’s only been two days since I put up my first post, ever, on the Israeli – Palestinian conflict; in that post I maintained everyone has already chosen their side on this issue; and I tacitly admitted I have only superficial knowledge, i.e., what I glean from the MSM, of the issue(s). But I think perhaps there’s a little bit more to explain the Left’s reticence to comment on this issue.

First of all, only the bravest of souls on the Left wants to be the first into the pool with an opinion that may, just may, contradict mainstream liberal thought. Lefties are sensitive types, and they are especially sensitive to what their peers think of them. Consequently, in the absence of guidance from the Big Dogs (you can read that as talking points issued by the DNC, DLC, Pelosi, Reid, or Kerry, just to name a few; and to a lesser extent, the Big Dog Blogs), it’s a rare Lefty that will sail off on his own into uncharted waters. Why? Because the Left eats its own; dissent is not tolerated. Why risk excommunication? The powers-that-be on the Left have been, up to this point, largely silent. Matthew Yglesias:

Meanwhile, I totally understand why establishment liberal foreign policy types don't like to talk about Israel, but things are getting to the point where I don't think total silence in the face of dramatic goings-on is very viable.

Groupthink doesn’t work well at all when it doesn’t know what to think.

Second, and related to my first point, no Lefty wants to be seen as agreeing with the Bush administration, ever, either explicitly or implicitly. Were a Lefty to blog something as benign as acknowledging the threat Hezbollah/Syria/Iran represents, or Heaven Forbid!, speculating there may, indeed, be something to the theory Iran is behind this recent Mid-East escalation, that poor soul would be drawn and quartered in their comments section and bashed in other, more orthodox Lefty blogs. This hypothetical blogger would be buying into the administration’s “march to war” and wouldn’t even have to mention Dubya, the connection would be assumed or divined.

Lastly, and Mr. Drum mentioned this in passing, the Left can’t offer an alternative to the status quo when it comes to US policy towards Israel and the Palestinians, let alone Iran (unless one considers capitulation and accommodation as viable alternatives). But, you say, the lack of alternatives hasn’t stopped them from criticizing our Iraq policy! True enough, gentle reader. But the Left also doesn’t want to be seen as a bunch of anti-Semites, either, as Mr. Drum states in his fifth point. And I submit that thought process inhibits comment to a greater degree than one would generally think. Although commenter Kiril on Mr. Drum’s post disagrees:

Related to 1 and 3, posts that display any sense of sympathy for the Palestinians run the risk of provoking a shitstorm of accusations of anti-semitism.

Wow. I've read a few comments on this thread agreeing with this and I just have no idea where it comes from. Either online or in real life, when talking to fellow liberals I am often the only one to defend Israel, which I tend to (try to) do as calmly and objectively as possible while being screamed at by anyone in the vicinity. We must be hanging out in different places. Wanna switch?

Posted by: Kiril on July 15, 2006 at 2:19 PM

In closing I suggest you read the extensive comments to Mr. Drum’s post. They are illuminating.

A Few Good Links

Dunno how I missed this piece by James Lileks. Prolly because it wasn’t at James’ website, it's an op-ed at Statesman.com. And the fact I’m only an irregular reader at Real Clear Politics. The piece is a week old today, but it’s still timely and appropriate. Just to whet your appetite:

Outrage of the summer: The new "Superman" movie edited out "The American Way" from the Krypton immigrant's rally cry. The Daily Planet editor says Supe's now all about "Truth, Justice and all that stuff."

Makes perfect sense. Consider the foreign markets, where "The American Way" means Abu Ghraib and McDonald's. Don't remind them! They might burn the theater. (If that's their way.) Besides, it makes sense to have a newspaper editor treat the line with gruff dismissal, because hard-bitten editors don't get starry-eyed over patriotic hogwash. Except when discussing the people's right to know the GPS coordinates of Superman's fort.

As it turns out, however, the omission was intentional. "The American Way" sounds Krypto-fascist. The movie's authors are the usual moderns, serenely above rude jingo pride: "We were always hesitant to include the term 'American way' because the meaning of that today is somewhat uncertain," said co-writer Michael Dougherty. "I think when people say 'American way,' they're actually talking about what the 'American way' meant back in the '40s and '50s, which was something more noble and idealistic."

Ah. Well, in the '40s, the American Way included incinerating German cities, nuking Japan, installing occupying armies and imposing our form of government — all the while referring to the enemy with hurtful ethnic slurs. All this plus forced relocation. If these actions are deemed noble and idealistic now, it'll be a handy sentiment the next time the United States gears up for total war.

As I’m so fond of saying: it just gets better. (via Real Clear Politics)

And this is just too cool for school!

Ms. American Spy
(Sung to the tune of Don McLean's American Pie)

A short, short time ago
I can still remember
How the "Plame Game" used to make me smile
And as I read those D-Kos rants
I got a big bulge in my pants
And thought maybe we'd get "Chimpy" for awhile

But then June 12th made me shiver
Fate became an "Indian Giver"
Bad news on the Internet
Precisely what I had fret!

Oh, I remember how I cried
When I thought of Wilson's "outed" bride
Something deep within me fried
The day that Fitzmas died

So don't cry, Ms. American Spy
We'll get Libby for his fibby
And then Cheney will fry
And that smirking chimp will finally wave us goodbye
Singin', this'll be the day donkeys fly
This'll be the day donkeys fly

Without a doubt the BEST political parody I’ve read in many a moon. And you can sing along! Mr. Right gives Scrappleface and Iowahawk serious runs for their money. (h/t: Lex)

A few good reads on the Israel/Hamas/Hezbollah war. To begin, William Kristol at the Weekly Standard: “It’s Our War.” Key grafs:

WHY IS THIS ARAB-ISRAELI WAR different from all other Arab-Israeli wars? Because it's not an Arab-Israeli war. Most of Israel's traditional Arab enemies have checked out of the current conflict. The governments of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are, to say the least, indifferent to the fate of Hamas and Hezbollah. The Palestine Liberation Organization (Fatah) isn't a player. The prime mover behind the terrorist groups who have started this war is a non-Arab state, Iran, which wasn't involved in any of Israel's previous wars.

What's happening in the Middle East, then, isn't just another chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. What's happening is an Islamist-Israeli war. You might even say this is part of the Islamist war on the West--but is India part of the West? Better to say that what's under attack is liberal democratic civilization, whose leading representative right now happens to be the United States.

[…]

For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.

The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.

Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey has interesting comment and links:

Lebanon asked for arab help, and the Arab League meeting is tomorrow. I can tell you what will happen right now: They will meet, drink tea, issue a resolution condeming Israel, then have lunch, then have a Press conference talking about the resolution condemening Israel, and then have dinner, and then they will go home and watch sitcoms or some shit. Lebanon, please, asking arabs to help is like asking Whitney to lay off Crack. I am sorry Doha, your fears are founded: Lebanon, unfortunately, is on its own.

And this is very interesting… From The CounterTerrorism Blog:

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated, as Hezbollah has conducted two sea strikes against an Israeli warship and an Egyptian civilian ship, possibly a cruise liner. While initial reports are stating an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was used to ram the ships, an anonymous intelligence official indicates the Egyptian ship was struck by a UAV launched antitank missile. According to the intelligence official, the Egyptian ship was hit with a Raad anti-tank missile (this is a different weapon than the Raad rockets fired against the city of Haifa.)

The two attacks occurred earlier today, as Hezbollah struck an Israeli Saar 5 navy gunship off the coast of Lebanon. Four Israeli seamen are missing and the ship has been damaged badly enough the Israeli Defense Force pulled it out of service. "It's the first time the terrorist group -- any terrorist group -- has used a drone in combat, as far as I know," said DefenseTech's Noah Schachtman. The current reports states an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle laden with explosives hit the Israeli warship.

Wretchard at The Belmont Club adds:

An attack at this distance, by night on a warship indicates a very high level of targeting skill. A capability beyond Hezbollah's own limited resources. This suggests that Iranian technical assistance to its client has been extensive and thorough. In some ways, this incident is reminiscent of the use of Saggers and integrated air defense by the Egyptian Army during the Yom Kippur War. Iran had anticipated what Israel would do and prepared for it. It is now not out of the question that Hezbollah may have MANPADs or very long range, perhaps even guided rockets. With what warheads we can only guess, but chemical is not out of the question. The stricken Israeli warship is major combatant on the scale of navies in the area. Although not sunk, it has been mission killed. This is a spectacular naval victory for Hezbollah.

But it also brings Israel and Iran closer to direct combat. With proof that advanced weapons are now in the hands of Hezbollah, it becomes absolutely impossible for Israel to consider Hezbollah in isolation from its armorers. The diplomatic efforts to date are now imperiled by this grave development.

Lefty comment on the situation, such as it is, is still very thin on the ground. I use the word “comment” loosely. Here’s a sample from Democrat Taylor Marsh:

Everyone needs to understand that the Middle East nightmare playing out before us has its roots in President Bush and his Administration not being able to make an honest case for war; cherrypicking what the Senate would have at their disposal, making sure the NIE was slapped together at the last minute, crafting whole new intelligence divisions so they could get the evidence they wanted, while systematically destroying the CIA, because the agents wouldn't give them the evidence they wanted; from Drumheller to Scheuer to Larry Johnson and far beyond, we now have the evidence.

There’s about a one-to-five relationship in Marsh’s discussion between Israel vs. Iran’s Proxies and the Lawsuit Pre-Ordained to Fail. But, hey. That’s how the Left works.

And finally…There’s this:

New York, New York (SatireNewsService) - In a stunning development that would appear to have broad implications for the independence of America's newspaper industry, New York Times Publisher, Edwin 'Pinch' Sulzberger today revealed that longtime President Bush advisor Karl Rove has been secretly running the Times' news and editorial operation for almost four years.

According to well-placed insiders on the Times' Board of Directors, a shaken Sulzberger made that announcement in a hastily convened meeting of the Board of the Times' parent company, The New York Times Corp. Sulzberger reportedly told the board that the discovery was made last week.

"During an internal investigation, we reached the regrettable conclusion that Karl Rove has been running this newspaper since at least August, 2002," Sulzberger reportedly stated. "His intention is clear - to ruin the reputation of the newspaper and the party that our editorial policy supports."

Hmmm. Makes sense to me! (via Real Clear Politics, where you can find all sorts of interesting reads!)

Interesting times.

Jeez, I Forgot...

Happy Birthday to La France! Liberté, Fraternité, Equalité!

Israel and Iran

This is good news…White Sands Missile Test Phenomenal. What sort of missile, you might ask? It was a THAAD — Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile, an integral part of our evolving ICBM defense capability. Nice accompanying photo, too.

Further on Israel/Hamas/Hezbollah…which more correctly should be called Israel/US/Iran. Robert Tracinski, writing for Real Clear Politics in an essay titled “The War Comes to Us,” leads with:

If, in the face of repeated threats and provocation by an aggressive dictatorship, you refuse to go to war, the war will eventually come to you.

That's the meaning of Iran's de facto declaration of war against Israel--which is, ultimately, a new war Iran is waging against the US. Iran is so desperate for war with the West that it is bringing the war to us, openly and willfully initiating a regional conflict that may soon involve three of Iran's proxies--Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria--fighting against America's proxy, Israel.

The danger for us is that, in seeking to avoid an unavoidable war with Iran, we have allowed Iran to start the conflict on terms that it believes will be most favorable to it.

Mr. Tracinski then proceeds to iterate and reiterate, most logically, what most Israelis and a minority of Americans know to be true: sooner or later we must deal with Iran. Unfortunately, Iran’s leaders appear to be operating under the misconception that they, not us, have the upper hand in this conflict.

Finally, all of this is a distraction from the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons program. Just at the point when the US is trying to get the UN Security Council to condemn Iran, Arab and European nations are now trying to get the Security Council to condemn Israel. More broadly, Iran is trying to make itself and its proxies into champions of Islam in its long jihad against Israel. The Iranians believe that they can head off a war with America by initiating a war with Israel.

For all of these reasons, Iran thinks it has the upper hand. It thinks it can re-assert control over Lebanon and gain the support of the Arab and Muslim nations--while Israel and the US are paralyzed and fail to do anything about it.

But the Iranian regime, blinded by fanaticism, has a tendency to miscalculate and especially to overestimate its own advantage. The situation may rapidly get beyond their control, and it may--and certainly should--hasten American action against Iran.

And finally, Mr. Tracinski closes with…

Iran has revealed its hand, challenging the US and its allies and openly demonstrating its desire to dominate the Middle East through force and terror. While we have been trying to delay the war with Iran, it has brought the war to us, in a manner so obvious that even the mainstream media cannot evade it.

In doing so, they have made their threat to America and its interests more obvious and more urgent--providing a stronger case for war than their nuclear program could provide. There can be no question here about whether Iran really has aggressive designs in the Middle East, whether it really seeks the weapons to attack the US and its allies, and how long it might take for such a threat to materialize. The threat is here and Iran's newest war on the West has already begun.

Iran is risking everything on this new strategy, and the only hope they have of success is the expectation that, as they bring the war closer and closer to America, we won't fight back.

But that means that we have an easy way to blow their strategy to smithereens.

All we have to do is to start fighting back.

All good, no, excellent points. Unfortunately, there are a significant number of Americans that do not take the Iranian threat seriously. In my travels around the left side of the blogosphere this morning I see that if the Left bothers to comment or opine on the Middle East at all, it’s usually in the context of “Bush will use this as a rationalization to attack Iran.” I need to emphasize the “if they comment at all” part. Leftie comment is pretty thin on the ground regarding this subject. But, there is some comment. Maha, for instance, states:

The fact that righties think more war is just the thing to straighten out the mess — and that the Bush Administration is just the crew to carry out the plan — sorta brings home the importance of reality. Some of us are living in it, and some of us, um, aren’t.

And here’s Billmon:

One response, of course, is to try to shift the blame to “outside agitators” – Iran and Syria, in this case. The usual sources are spinning the usual conspiracy theories, and even journalists who should know better are seeing the Iranian devil lurking behind every fresh disaster. It’s not impossible, of course, that the Revolutionary Guards really are giving the Cheneyites a taste of what could be in store if the showdown over Iran’s nuclear program is pursued to the bitter end. Somebody certainly seems to have enhanced Hezbollah’s ballistic capabilities anyway. But imagining that the entire downward spiral of events (many of them initiated by the Americans or the Israelis) is the product of some secret plot by Damascus or Tehran is either the ultimate neocon job or an outbreak in Washington of the kind of hyperactive paranoia the Middle East is justly famous for.

“Reality.” “Paranoia.” Um… as the ol’ saying goes: “It ain’t paranoia when the bastards are really out to get ya.” And they really ARE.

Aiieee!

Israel

Have you looked at memeorandum today? I count 65 separate wire reports and blog postings on the current Middle East conflict. Sixty-frickin’-five. And while I have no delusions of ever seeing EIP linked on memeorandum, I’m going to subject you to Item Number 66 on this issue.

This is a difficult post for me to write, and a first, of sorts. I’ve never commented on the Israeli – Palestinian conflict, and there are a number of reasons. First and foremost, this conflict has been going on for so long (ever since the very day Israel came into existence, back in 1947) that it’s scarcely news; the conflict ebbs and flows, flares up and then recedes, as it has done for the duration of my entire adult life. The conflict also has every indication of being supremely intractable, i.e., there appears to be no solution. Secondly, I feel most everyone has an opinion on this issue, everyone has chosen their “side,” so any thoughts I have to offer will only elicit vigorous head-nods in one direction or the other. Unless, of course, you just emerged from a 30-year coma or have been living in a cave all these many years. And lastly, it’s difficult for me to collect my thoughts, given their scattered and fragmented nature, into a set of coherent statements. But I’m going to try.

Here’s what I know:

Israel withdrew from Gaza about a year ago, handing over complete sovereignty over the territory to the Palestinians.

In the year since Israel withdrew from Gaza, the Palestinians held general elections and elected a government run by Hamas, to the dismay of nearly everyone (the US, the EU, the Israelis) except the Palestinians. Hamas, as is well-known, has embraced violence as a means to achieve their goals, including suicide bombings and direct military attacks on Israeli territory. And Hamas continues to wage war against Israel. Case in point: there have been over 1,000 rockets launched into Israel from Gaza since the Israeli withdrawal.

The US and the EU withdrew financial support for the Palestinian government after Hamas refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Even under severe economic pressure, Hamas, to this very day, still refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist and continues to wage a low-intensity conflict against Israel.

The current madness began in Gaza, when Palestinian forces (terrorists, militia, whatever) tunneled into Israel, assaulted an Israeli Defense Force position, and kidnapped an IDF corporal. Without embellishment, this was an incursion of a sovereign nation by hostile forces. Israel had every right to march into Gaza to (a) try and free the captive corporal and (b) establish a buffer zone to prevent further rocket attacks on Israeli territory from Gaza.

And then Hezbollah escalated the conflict by launching a raid into Israel from Lebanon and taking two IDF soldiers hostage. Israel is holding the Lebanese government responsible for the actions of Hezbollah and has initiated military actions against Hezbollah strongholds.

And here we are. It certainly appears this conflict is going to escalate into yet another full-scale war.

Why did Hezbollah get involved? Some say the Iranians, by unleashing their Hezbollah proxies, are behind the escalation of the current conflict. Chester has a well-reasoned analysis of this theory. He says, in part:

But even if Iran didn't set in motion the current crisis, there's no reason to believe it doesn't want to profit from it.

If Larijani is in Damascus, my guess is they're trying to keep Israel from declaring war on Syria at all costs. Consider:

-Syria is militarily extremely weak compared to Israel
-Iran is not only weaker than Israel, it has no easy method of threatening Israel, save with missiles of questionable accuracy.
-Israel can strike Syria from the air with impunity.

Now consider: from the Iranian and Syrian standpoint, the best course of action is to vex the Israelis as much as possible via their Hamas and Hezbollah proxies. So long as this happens, Israel does take the headlines, and the attention span at the G8. But as soon as Israel declares war on Syria, or commits an act of war, which might be the same thing, then events start to turn sour for the Iranians:

-Iran will have to declare war on Israel or risk losing face in the region, since it has pledged to defend Syria
-Syria's government would likely fall; what might follow it is anyone's guess; what does follow might not be nearly as close to Iranian interests
-Israel and the US have never fought on the same side at the same time, but Lord (and Yahweh) knows they'll help each other in other ways. If a three-way war breaks out, and Israel requested US permission to use bases in Iraq for strikes against Iran, even for refueling, the US might grant them their wish. Alternatively, it was rumored long ago that Israel had set up a deal with the Kurds to use Kurdish bases for strikes into Iran. The same might be true of Turkey, which has no love for Iran either.

Interesting theory, that. Interesting in the sense that the Iranians, and to a lesser extent, the Syrians, feel the time is ripe to provoke the Israelis and engage them once again. Interesting in the sense that actions by militant proxy organizations further the ultimate goal of destroying Israel. Interesting in the sense that Iran and Syria used to understand the US will not let Israel be destroyed. Interesting that the Iranians and Syrians (apparently) feel the US has been sufficiently weakened by the Iraq war that our intervention is improbable. I can further speculate this reasoning is no doubt encouraged by things the Iranian leadership read in, say, the New York Times. Public opinion, and all that.

All arcane conspiracy theories aside, one is left with the following question: Just how much can the Israelis take? Just how much should they take before they say “enough is enough” and unleash the dogs of total war? Israel is a democracy. Israel has built a successful and vibrant nation under the most trying circumstances imaginable. Israel has never launched a “war of aggression;” in the past they have only responded to their neighbors’ invasions, from the 1947 war, to the Six-Day War, to the Yom Kippur War. They have been remarkably restrained in their response to the Palestinian Intifada(s). All this in the face of implacable foes whose stated aim is the eradication of Israel, whose culture glorifies jihad and whose government (?) force-feeds the masses anti-Israeli rhetoric 7x24. The Palestinians do not negotiate in good faith, they do not want a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and they refuse to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

I repeat: How much can the Israelis take?

Update: 07/13/2006 1555hrs MDT. Haifa hit by rocket attack.

In its July 13 rocket attack against Haifa, Israel, radical Shiite Islamist movement Hezbollah likely used Fajr rockets that the group was thought -- but never proven -- to have received from Iran several years ago. In fact, rumor had it that Hezbollah had obtained both the Fajr-3 and the Fajr-5 rockets. Fajr-3 has a range of 28 miles, giving it the ability to hit Haifa from southern Lebanon.

Wandering Around on Wednesday

Some days I cruise around the ‘sphere and don’t find much of anything that tickles my fancy. Today is not one of those days.

Cassandra is good today, very good. I encourage you to go by her place and read her “Must Read of the Day,” an address by General Michael R. Lehnert, the Commanding General of Marine Corps Installations West, to The Military Affairs Advisory Council in San Diego. Gen. Lehnert begins his speech with…

Eight days ago, I was present in the audience when Tom Brokaw addressed the 2006 Stanford graduating class. After the initial pleasantries and one-liners, Mr. Brokaw said something unexpected.

He told the class that they were the children of privilege, fortunate to be attending one of the finest educational institutions in the country, the anointed because they had both the test scores for admittance and parents who were able to afford their tuition. He noted that they could likely expect rapid advancement in almost any endeavor they choose and that they were destined to lead the most powerful country in the world.

The class was beaming.

And then Brokaw reminded them that the liberties and freedoms they enjoyed were being defended by young people their age that did not have their advantages. That at this time thousands of men and women were fighting, dying and suffering debilitating injury to ensure that the rest of us could live the American dream.

There was an uncomfortable shifting in the seats, followed by slow but growing applause from the audience.

When we sent my son to Stanford four years ago, we filled out a form asking for demographic information. One of the questions for the parents said, what is your profession? After it was a list of about thirty professions including doctor, lawyer, congressman, educator, architect. Military was not listed so I filled in "other"

My son was the only graduate who had a parent serving in the armed forces.

As I was introduced to his friends parents, it was interesting to watch their reaction. Few had ever spoken to a member of the military. One asked me how my son was able to gain admittance with the disadvantage of having to attend "those DoD schools". Many voiced support for our military and told me that they'd have served but clearly military service was not for their kind of people.

This year of the so-called elite schools, Princeton led them with nine graduates electing military service. Compare that with 1956 when over 400 of the Princeton graduating class entered the military. Most of the other Ivy League schools had no one entering the military this year.

I assume the emphasis is Cassandra’s, but no matter. The speech just gets better, and better, and better. I know a speech like this is “preaching to the choir” for you, constant reader, but please: do go read. And share it with your friends.

While we’re on about Cassandra, she also pointed James Lileks to this miserable column by the totally clue-free and supremely irritating Joel Stein. Remember Joel? If the name is faintly familiar, he’s the guy who wrote another miserable little column titled “I Don’t Support the Troops Warriors and Wusses.” (FWIW, I commented here.) This time he’s showing his ass thusly, and on the Fourth of July, no less:

I WALKED out Saturday afternoon to discover an American flag planted outside my house, like the work of some incredibly stupid explorer.

My first panic was that, like the North Pole or the moon, the United States was laying claim to my house. I was finally getting payback for not reading those long, boring articles about eminent domain. But my bigger panic was over what to do with it. I'm not a flag-waving kind of guy, but I knew damn well that I couldn't just throw it in the trash. Throwing away a flag is very, very bad. It's just as bad as burning it, which, I believe, brings 30 years of bad luck to your country, leading it to repeat the same mistakes. Like sending troops abroad to fight in open-ended civil wars.

So I was going to have to keep this flag for the rest of my life.

Much like you, at about this point, my wife, Cassandra, got sick of this conversation. So she plucked the flag out of our planter and threw it away, not even in the recycle bin. This is a woman who hates both political parties.

Mr. Lileks was just a little bit offended and devotes a goodly portion of today’s Bleat to ripping Mr. Stein a new one. The Lileks closes with this:

I suspect, perhaps unfairly, that “I love being American” (ed: Stein’s comment) is as deep and profound a statement as “I love the warm feeling of freedom I get when I pee in the pool.” Not that he would want public urination in a communal locale to be the sole basis of his identity, of course, but that’s how I see him now: one guy bobbing in the water, alone among many, a private smile on his face, thinking: like I’m the only one.

Hanging a flag is a sign of an unquestioning, tribal, us-versus-them, arrogant mentality, eh? FDR would have stood up from his wheelchair just to walk across the room and slap you silly.

That’s “just” the end. Like a lot of other things in life, it ain’t the destination, it’s the journey that counts. There are few better at the art of the takedown than James; once again, do go read.

For what it’s worth, I’ve never met an individual like Mr. Stein, and by that I mean a person who would be offended by the very sight of an American flag on his lawn. Never. Perhaps I move in society’s lower circles, or perhaps I don’t get out often enough. I tend to think it’s neither of those reasons; I’d like to think that Mr. Stein is a member of an incredibly small minority, a minority that gets too much attention from the majority. And I’ve already given that SOB waaay too much of my time today.

About the terrorist attacks in Bombay… The death toll is now 200. The very first thing that crossed my mind was “Why Bombay? What have the Indians done to offend the Islamofascists?” Neo has an answer to my question that is hard to refute. Along with some good links to other opinions and information on the subject.

Applause, Aggro, and Astonishment

It’s been awhile since I sang the praises of Radio Paradise, and there are a couple of reasons for that. Number one: their playlist was beginning to get on my nerves. I was hearing waaay too much Arctic Monkeys and sensitive, whiny, singer-songwriters (of both genders, but the males irritate me the most). Number two: I had about a two week run of extremely unreliable and erratic ‘net connectivity, which, in turn, made listening to internet radio impossible due to drop-outs and buffering issues. Well, my ‘net connection has been pretty reliable these last few days and RP’s playlist has evolved, or changed, or moved on…whatever. They’re sounding very good once again, and as such have reemerged as the soundtrack of my life. Where else will you hear a song-cycle like this?

5:24 am - Glenn Miller - A String of Pearls
5:19 am - David Byrne - Hanging Upside Down
5:16 am - Los Lobos - This Time
5:11 am - Bob Dylan - Most of the Time
5:08 am - Split Enz - One Step Ahead
5:05 am - The Jam - That's Entertainment
5:01 am - Tom Petty - Saving Grace
4:55 am - Ray Charles - What'd I Say (Parts I & II)
4:52 am - Thelonious Monk - Straight, No Chaser
4:45 am - Joni Mitchell - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter

This is more than eclectic…it’s fantastic!

About my ISP… The service is frustrating, what with the occasional outages and the frequent slow-downs. I pay for a 384Kb connection, but there are times when my connection speed drops down to 9.6Kb, or less, and stays that way for an hour or two or four. Then it comes back. Then it goes away. I’ve had a few conversations with the techies at my ISP and they’re at a loss to explain but are always quick to suggest the issue may be on my end, e.g., some nasty virus, a Trojan, a bad network card, etc. Sorry, Guys, but I’ve heard all that sort of stuff before, and have used most of those excuses myself, back in the day when I ran a Site Operations Center for a living. Intermittent computer problems, whether on the desktop or on the network, are the most difficult issues to resolve. I should cross my fingers or knock on wood as I write this, because I’ve had no connectivity issues for the past week or so.

Hopefully all those issues will go away by the end of the year. My ISP has a large on-going project to provide “fiber-to-the-prem” for the entire city of Portales, and the project is due to be completed by the end of the year. The last I heard the project was actually ahead of schedule, which is highly unusual for any IT project. I can’t wait. A direct fiber connection should give me multi-megabit connectivity to the outside world, which means streaming video, which in turn means instant access to those C-SPAN programs I wanted to see but missed in real-time, web pages that load in a snap, and so on. I’m wondering how much I’m gonna have to pay for this luxury, but in the end I’ll pay, whatever the cost. Well, within reason, of course.

Yesterday I mentioned being astonished by the fact the Japanese publicly announced they were considering whether or not their constitution permitted a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. There are a few reasons for my astonishment, first and foremost was the absolute frankness of the announcement. The language of international diplomacy, at least among the civilized world, is about as murky, vague, and non-specific as language can be. The classic example is the post-meeting description of high level diplomatic exchanges as “frank,” as in “we had frank discussions.” This, of course, is code for “he insulted my mother and several junior members of the negotiating team had to be restrained from leaping across the table and bludgeoning the opposition to death with water carafes.” This rule doesn’t apply to certified nut cases like Ahmadinejad or Jong-il. I did say “civilized.”

The second reason is the basic nature of the Japanese, their culture, and their language. The Japanese are anything but blunt, and are quite possibly the most nuanced culture on earth, rarely uttering a direct statement on or about anything, unless it’s ordering dinner. But in affairs of the heart or affairs of international diplomacy they are most circumspect. Thus: astonishment.

And lastly, to use the street vernacular, you "don’t let your mouth write checks your ass can’t cash.” The simple fact is the Japanese can’t cash the pre-emptive strike check right now. They have next to nothing in the way of offensive capability at the moment. But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t ramp up very quickly; they most certainly could. Names like Mitsubishi and Kawasaki Heavy Industries used to be famous for a helluva lot more than spiffy little cars, stereos, TVs, and motorcycles. The Japanese have the technology, they have the industrial capacity, and they have the financial wherewithal to become a regional military power almost overnight. The issue is “do they have the will?” I think the answer is “yes, provided there is a clear and present danger.” The danger is real, indeed.

We certainly are living in interesting times.

Monday's Mundane Musings

It was an interesting weekend, in a perverse sort of way. Saturday was completely wasted. I was up all night Friday evening (note the time on Saturday’s post, I hit the hay shortly thereafter) and as a result, slept most of the day Saturday in an off-and-on manner. Thankfully I’m back to what passes as normal these days, i.e., turned in just after midnite Saturday evening, awoke around 0500 Sunday, watched Washington Journal, made my rounds, and then went out and made some real, as opposed to virtual, rounds. And they were good. Nothing exceptional, mind you. Just a great day for a drive at exhilarating— read that: excessive— speeds on two-lane highways with the top down and the Rolling Stones UP, way up, startling the farm animals (and a couple of farmers, too) as I blew by.

When it comes to convertibles there’s a definite comfort window, and that window opens around 65 degrees and closes just below 90 degrees. Above and below that window sensible people put their tops up and engage their on-board climate control systems, as God intended. Yesterday was just about dead-solid perfect, being as how the temp was in the low 70s when I embarked and only hit the mid-80s by the time I got back home in the early evening. I’ll bet convertible people living in San Diego rarely give this phenomenon a second, or even first, thought, seeing as how their temps rarely deviate from the optimum 72 degrees, ± 3 degrees. Ah, but they pay for that climatic luxury, both in terms of filthy lucre and in having to deal with the large numbers of unbalanced interesting people that sort of weather seems to attract. (Present company excepted, Bec!)

Lileks has updated his on-going series, “Bathing Beauties.” He’s up to the end of the Sixties now, having added the 30s, 40s, and 50s since I last pointed you in his direction. You can begin here, if you so desire, as the “index” link is broken. While the photos are great, it’s his commentary that really makes it, for me. The 60s high-fashion bathing suits are a real hoot! Leather!

Why is it that high-fashion of the past generally invokes laughter, rather than a wistful “those were the days” sort of reaction? Your mileage may vary, of course, but I always feel semi-stupid when I look at pictures of myself and friends from, say, the 70s. It’s as if we were habitually on our way to some sort of costume party…and that was our (my) everyday mode of dressing, not “high-fashion.” The one possible exception to this rule is the 1930s. I’ve always thought men and women looked rather elegant in those days, at least those men and women portrayed in 30s era movies and magazines.

There’s just one item in today’s news that caught my attention:

TOKYO - Japan said Monday it was considering whether a pre-emptive strike on North Korea's missile bases would violate its constitution, signaling a hardening stance ahead of a possible U.N. Security Council vote on Tokyo's proposal for sanctions against the regime. The vote itself could be delayed for several days, a news agency reported.

[…]

Japan was badly rattled by North Korea's missile tests last week and several government officials openly discussed whether the country ought to take steps to better defend itself, including setting up the legal framework to allow Tokyo to launch a pre-emptive strike against Northern missile sites.

"If we accept that there is no other option to prevent an attack ... there is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense. We need to deepen discussion," Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said.

Whoa! Let me say that again: Whoa! Say what? I agree with Tigerhawk, this is astonishing:

Did you see that as it whizzed by? The Japanese are talking publicly about a preemptive sneak attack. Astonishing.

Captain Ed opines:

Abe wants to put pressure on Beijing with this announcement, not Pyongyang. Kim is too irrational to care about Tokyo; he has his eyes fixed on Washington. Hu Jintao operates on a more rational basis, however, and he will have a choice between propping up the North Korean nutcase or losing trillions of dollars to an arms race on which he had not counted. Japan wants Jintao to understand just how expensive Kim Jong-Il will become in the next few months and years unless Beijing puts a leash on their boy.

The Captain has a point. It’s bound to get Beijing’s attention when the Japanese start rattling sabers. China’s gerontocracy still has personal memories of World War II and those memories certainly aren’t good or pleasant. Without belaboring the point (atrocities, and all that), the last thing China would like to see is the reemergence of a militaristic Japan, or even a Japan with a military that is not constitutionally-bound to self-defense, and only self-defense. The semi-belligerent statements by the Japanese may be just what’s needed to get Beijing off the dime and actually do something to rein in that Jong-il idiot. Let us pray.

A Summer Sunday

(click for larger)

And it looks just like this. I think I'll get out in it. In other words, I don't have anything to say today...other than I'm going to be out and about.

See ya tomorrow!

Further to “She Said”

Well now, that post was a downer, wasn’t it?

For what it’s worth, I feel compelled to assure you that I am, in fact, ≥95% fully-functional. I am not paralyzed by grief, I have not become a misogynist, and when I get depressed it’s usually mild and fleeting. In other words: life goes on. Appointments are made and kept, El Casa Móvil De Pennington gets cleaned, meals are cooked and consumed on something resembling a fixed schedule, and my relationships are in good order (mostly). What I was on about in that post was those times in the early morning when the sadness surfaces, and it’s a solitary thing these days. One thing I’ve learned is that there is a limit to tolerance in others towards your personal misfortune. Immediate family has the most, close friends are next, and strangers don’t give a damn. But even family expects you to “get on with it,” at some point in time. And so you do. Or pretend to, if you can’t.

Gerard wrote:

After some years had passed it surprised me to realize that I had not really thought of her for months. It was surprising to notice that my once nightly mantra of secret thoughts centered on all the wrongs done, and all the years of my child's life stolen from me, had retreated to a much more infrequent pattern. I was relieved that the thoughts that always spiraled down into the dark (where I would imagine the worst sort of things happening to the woman I once loved above all others) had faded to a sometime thing.

I’m not quite there yet, as in not thinking of her for months. The best I can claim is days. She is still my frame of reference. How could she not be? I spent over half my adult life with the woman, if one defines “adulthood” as beginning at 18, that much more than half if adulthood begins at 21, and if you want to double-down on adjectives, three-quarters of my “responsible” adult life. Her presence is felt every morning when I sugar my coffee from the dispenser she nicked from the Notre Dame dining hall as an undergrad. She picked out the wine glasses in my cupboard, handled every piece of silverware in the drawer, cut the top off the gallon Italian olive oil can that serves as the repository for my ladles, tongs, spatulas, and whisks. My butter dish was a wedding gift…and on, and on, and on. And that’s just the frickin’ kitchen! I won’t begin to go into music, because that’s the worst.

I think it takes a long time to obliterate the memories that come with 23 years of a bonded life, if it’s even possible. Gerard is correct: it’s a relief when your visits to the well become a sometime, rather than a constant, thing. When I think back to the first year or two after the breakup, the time when I went to that well and never left, I marvel at the fact I was able to hold on to my job. I did the therapy thing for a while, but quit when the best thing my therapist could offer was “sometimes bad things happen to good people.” The woman was good at what she did and we got along quite well. We reached a point, however, when we both acknowledged it was all up to me, she’d done all she could do.

I also spent some time on anti-depressants, an experience I wouldn’t recommend to anyone except those with serious depression, e.g., suicidal types of disorders. Anti-depressant drugs simply make you numb and the sexual side effects are intolerable. Any street pharmacologist has better and more fun drugs that accomplish much the same thing, without the nasty side effects (unless you get busted). In the end, it’s time and time alone that heals. Or perhaps it’s memory loss. Hell, I don’t know!

But really: I’m OK. It’s just that Gerard hit a nerve, and that nerve still happens to be close to the surface.

She Said

Gerard van der Leun has posted a provocative and very introspective essay on lost love, vengeance, and the internal dialog that transpires at the dread hour of 4:00 a.m.

Gerard:

Nothing good ever transpires in an argument carried past 2AM, and it grows almost lethal as it winds on until 4. It doesn't matter whether or not the argument is with another or just with oneself, let it run that long into the night and you will know -- cold and stained -- the darkest secrets of the self. And you will drink them down as night after night and year after year they are drawn up from the heart's core. And the water will be dank and false and carry an ever increasing taint of poison into your soul. Tasted once, you will have a ceaseless thirst for more of it.

I've been drinking my dark bitter glass from my secret well of hate in the dark hours on and off for what is now going on fifteen years. That's a strange measure since it marks just about the same length of time that I loved the woman and was married to her.

His essay hit me where I live. There are strong parallels between Gerard’s experience and my own, but although our experiences are similar, they are not identical. I’ve lived the “victim” role he writes about so well. I know of the rationalizations, the denial, and the projection of selfish motive and pure guilt upon the other. In those 4:00 a.m. fantasies we ourselves are always guilt-free, innocent, wrongly done. Whereas Gerard admits to thoughts of hateful revenge that afflicted him for such a long time, my fantasies concern themselves not with revenge but with restoration, of a return to what once was but will never, ever be again.

My fantasy always seems to begin with words “But she said…” And yes, she did say. Often. Many times each day. Sometimes tossed over the shoulder, sometimes murmurmed secretively, but always with feeling. And at one point in time, for years and years and years, actually, she meant what she said. But then it changed, she no longer believed, she no longer said, and then she was gone. But here’s the problem: I never ceased believing, even after she stopped saying. In the face of all I know to be true, in the face of all evidence, of things said and unsaid, of legal complaints filed and adjudicated, of new vows taken…in short, in the face of incontrovertible cold hard fact, I still cling to what she said, once upon a time.

Gerard’s tale describes his epiphany, how he came to resolution, and it ends on a positive note. But for some of us, there is no answer. There’s only “but…she said."

Mostly TV

It’s no secret: I’m a big fan of C-SPAN. Last night C-SPAN began a re-run of its three-day series on the U.S. Capitol, originally aired May 31 – June 2. I watched the first installment last evening and will be there for the next two installments, as well. The program is a real tour de force with first-person interviews, extensive film tours of the Capitol, and history…lots and lots of history. The shows run for three hours each night. Here’s a blurb from the web site:

Through original interviews with members of Congress, historians, curators and journalists, learn about the building's history, the art inside it, and the people and issues that have defined not only a building, but a country through the legislation passed inside the Capitol.

Recommended. And check out the website, too. If you have broadband you can watch streaming video of these shows from the web site (requires RealPlayer [free] and a fast network connection – faster than I’ve got!).

So. Unbeknownst to me, Dubya and Laura were on “Larry King Live” while I was watching “The Capitol.” Damn. Missed it. The interview transcript and a link to video highlights are here. A snarky NYT review of Dubya’s performance is here. Good to see the NYT is back up to speed, eh?

Snippet of This Morning’s Brief Conversation with a Park Maintenance Guy:

PMG: So when did Hawaii become a state?
Me: 1959, I think. (I was right)
PMG: So, when were they bombed in WW II?
Me: 1941
PMG: Were you in the service then?
Me: (Incredulous look)
PMG: When did you retire?
Me: 1985
PMG: I was three then…

I must look a helluva lot older than I think I do...

Forgotten Blogging, Part XIV. Meant to write about this last Saturday, but forgot. I caught Robert Plant on PBS’ “Soundstage” last Friday evening and he put on a damned fine show. He’s looking his age, but who among the Boomer’s leading edge isn’t? His voice isn’t quite what it used to be, but it’s still an impressive instrument. Those trademarked wails (“Whole Lotta Love” comes to mind) don’t have the range they used to, but they are entirely adequate. Lest you think I’m damning Mr. Plant with faint praise, let me assure you that isn’t my intention at all. He was great. Fantastic even. From the Soundstage web site:

His Soundstage performance is a must-see for longtime and novice fans of rock ‘n’ roll alike. The retrospective set includes Zep classics like opener “No Quarter,” which receives a more tribal treatment, a funkified “Black Dog” and “Four Sticks,” which is dedicated to former Zep drummer John Bonham, who passed away in 1980. Other gems include songs from Plant’s solo albums, like the political “Freedom Fries” and the cover of “Hey Joe,” which was immortalized by Jimi Hendrix. The show’s finale, a stretched-out bluesy rendition of “Whole Lotta Love” is not to be missed.

No hyperbole, that. It’s all true. Plant isn’t just cashing in on Boomer nostalgia and “going through the motions” with note-for-note reprises of the old Zep classics (and he could not, actually, since Jimmy Page isn’t part of the new band). No, Mr. Plant has assembled a great backing band, the Strange Sensation, and his (their?) arrangements of old Zeppelin classics are bluesy, fresh, interesting, and above all: they ROCK. As do the songs from Plant’s post-Zep solo efforts. The inevitable rerun is well worth seeking out. In the meantime, there’s a video clip at the link above.

Haven’t said much about the weather of late, and that’s because it’s been good. No, check that: great. Moderate temperatures (low to mid 80s) and more than a little bit of rain has been the order of the day for the past week. We’re supposed to get back to oppressive heat next week, and there’s a 103 degree day in the forecast for Friday-next. We’ll see if that materializes. Long range forecasts are typically less than accurate.

And so it goes…