I am so tired of fear. I am so tired of those who manipulate through fear.
My biggest gripe right now is that those who pose as the protectors against terrorism and terrorists actually sound like the most fearful people in the world. These are threats that we need to take seriously, but I can think of no less serious response then for those who aspire to power to play on a nations worst fears. Seriousness does not equal fear and fear does not equal seriousness.
This is perhaps the best point that Michael Moore makes in Bowling for Columbine, it is illustrated in this cartoon.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Nixon, labels, otherism
There are no major revelations in the book Nixonland, especially if you are familiar with Nixon's career. What it does well is articulate how Nixon refined his political tactics as he moved towards the presidency in 1968. It is easy to forget how unlikely this scenario seemed after his 1962 loss in the California gubernatorial election, announcing to the press -- "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore."
Nixon was elected to the Senate in 1950, defeating Helen Douglas. During this campaign he was able to define Douglas as someone so left and liberal that she was "pink right down to her underwear." Tactics like this were nothing new, especially in a time where genuine fear of the Soviet Union and China existed. Nixon certainly knew how to exploit that fear, coming off as less ham-handed and pugilistic then McCarthey. If Nixon had not been chosen for the Vice-Presidency, I am not sure if he ever would have developed beyond a one issue politician. While he certainly served Eisenhower as an attack dog, he did so within the cloak of the administration, which bestowed a certain statesmanship on Nixon, whether it was deserved or not.
His defeats in the elections for president in 1960 and for the governor's house in 1962 almost ended his political career. Somehow though, Nixon learned a transformative lesson in the Sixties, enabling his election in 1968. This was the fear of the other. While this is not so different from the specific fear of the communist, or the fear of the blacks that had been so successful in elections past, it was different in that Nixon was able to see that their definition of themselves revolved around their fear of the other. It did not really matter what the "other" was, it mattered that they were not it.
It is not a difficult task to convince people that their faults are actually caused by others. People in a sense became defined by what they felt that they were not. They were not hippies, black, anti-war, liberal, or even a part of the media and by proxy, the elite. The labels are interchangeable. And because people are defining themselves by what they are not, these labels do not even have to be true. They can be even more effective when they are not true.
It is remarkable how similar the campaigns in the last forty years have been. Reading Hunter Thompson's account of the 1972 election reveals the exact same tactics, if not the exact labels and scapegoating that were used in this election.
I am hoping that this election moves this country past those same tactics. I am hopeful that fear ceases to be effective after a certain amount of time. Maybe we have labeled everything and scapegoated so much, that eventually it is losing its effectiveness. Maybe when you run and rule by fear, you don't develop any good ideas to govern on and that eventually becomes apparent. I don't know. I can only hope and wish.
Nixon was elected to the Senate in 1950, defeating Helen Douglas. During this campaign he was able to define Douglas as someone so left and liberal that she was "pink right down to her underwear." Tactics like this were nothing new, especially in a time where genuine fear of the Soviet Union and China existed. Nixon certainly knew how to exploit that fear, coming off as less ham-handed and pugilistic then McCarthey. If Nixon had not been chosen for the Vice-Presidency, I am not sure if he ever would have developed beyond a one issue politician. While he certainly served Eisenhower as an attack dog, he did so within the cloak of the administration, which bestowed a certain statesmanship on Nixon, whether it was deserved or not.
His defeats in the elections for president in 1960 and for the governor's house in 1962 almost ended his political career. Somehow though, Nixon learned a transformative lesson in the Sixties, enabling his election in 1968. This was the fear of the other. While this is not so different from the specific fear of the communist, or the fear of the blacks that had been so successful in elections past, it was different in that Nixon was able to see that their definition of themselves revolved around their fear of the other. It did not really matter what the "other" was, it mattered that they were not it.
It is not a difficult task to convince people that their faults are actually caused by others. People in a sense became defined by what they felt that they were not. They were not hippies, black, anti-war, liberal, or even a part of the media and by proxy, the elite. The labels are interchangeable. And because people are defining themselves by what they are not, these labels do not even have to be true. They can be even more effective when they are not true.
It is remarkable how similar the campaigns in the last forty years have been. Reading Hunter Thompson's account of the 1972 election reveals the exact same tactics, if not the exact labels and scapegoating that were used in this election.
I am hoping that this election moves this country past those same tactics. I am hopeful that fear ceases to be effective after a certain amount of time. Maybe we have labeled everything and scapegoated so much, that eventually it is losing its effectiveness. Maybe when you run and rule by fear, you don't develop any good ideas to govern on and that eventually becomes apparent. I don't know. I can only hope and wish.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Baseball is over . . .
at least for the sox. So I reminded myself that I actually work at a university -- with access to a tremendous amount of books. We'll see if I get through them.
Nixonland by Rick Pearlstein: I really have heard terrific things about this book. I am not even looking forward to it from a Watergate perspective. I think that it actually depicts the environment of the country at the time of the rise of Nixon. These books always reveal political landscapes that are more similar to today then I think we realize. Reading Hunter Thompson's book about the campaign in 1972 really drives that point home. So many of the divisions are the same. While we use different code words and different scapegoats -- we are really still fighting taking on McCarthy, sadly without a Murrow.
The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux: This is not the recent book by Theroux, but the original, from 1973. He takes a train from London to Japan and back. First on a southerly route, through much of the land that is in our current chaos. He returns traveling through the Soviet Union. If I enjoy this book, I am sure that I will read his current follow-up. For the same reasons that he wrote it. What makes them most interesting (if they are) are the differences that have taken place.
My pretentious pick for the day is, What is Literature by Jean-Paul Sartre. Kind of on a whim. I used to enjoy Sartre's writing, but haven't visited in a while. I am guessing I will not finish this, but thought I'd give it a shot.
Nixonland by Rick Pearlstein: I really have heard terrific things about this book. I am not even looking forward to it from a Watergate perspective. I think that it actually depicts the environment of the country at the time of the rise of Nixon. These books always reveal political landscapes that are more similar to today then I think we realize. Reading Hunter Thompson's book about the campaign in 1972 really drives that point home. So many of the divisions are the same. While we use different code words and different scapegoats -- we are really still fighting taking on McCarthy, sadly without a Murrow.
The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux: This is not the recent book by Theroux, but the original, from 1973. He takes a train from London to Japan and back. First on a southerly route, through much of the land that is in our current chaos. He returns traveling through the Soviet Union. If I enjoy this book, I am sure that I will read his current follow-up. For the same reasons that he wrote it. What makes them most interesting (if they are) are the differences that have taken place.
My pretentious pick for the day is, What is Literature by Jean-Paul Sartre. Kind of on a whim. I used to enjoy Sartre's writing, but haven't visited in a while. I am guessing I will not finish this, but thought I'd give it a shot.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
a cross between Annie Oakley and Joan of Arc
so said Michael Gerson of Sarah Palin. The name Gerson rang a bell -- now that I see his face on the Washington Post site, I remember reading various inane ramblings.
The New Yorker has an article on the choosing of Palin.
The New Yorker has an article on the choosing of Palin.
Sartre - my favorite quote
The quote ends Peter Novick's book -- That Noble Dream -- a history of the notion of objectivity in the American Historical Profession and is originally from Sartre's Between Existentialism and Marxism.
"In the domain of expression success is necessarily failure. It is impossible to succeed, since at the outset you set yourself the goal of failure (to capture movement in immobile objects, for instance).
The moment comes when you just can't take the work any further ... At this point, my friend Giacometti explains, you can throw your piece of sculpture in the rubbish bin or exhibit it in a gallery. So there it is. You never quite grasp what you set out to achieve. And then suddenly it's a statue or a book. The opposite of what you wanted. If its faults are inscribed methodically in the negative which you present to the public, they at least point to what it might have been. And the spectator becomes the real sculptor, fashioning his model in thin air or reading the book between the lines."
"In the domain of expression success is necessarily failure. It is impossible to succeed, since at the outset you set yourself the goal of failure (to capture movement in immobile objects, for instance).
The moment comes when you just can't take the work any further ... At this point, my friend Giacometti explains, you can throw your piece of sculpture in the rubbish bin or exhibit it in a gallery. So there it is. You never quite grasp what you set out to achieve. And then suddenly it's a statue or a book. The opposite of what you wanted. If its faults are inscribed methodically in the negative which you present to the public, they at least point to what it might have been. And the spectator becomes the real sculptor, fashioning his model in thin air or reading the book between the lines."
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Paul Theroux
I listened to this podcast the other day -- Paul Theroux on the Leonard Lopate show. I linked to the podcast below, but it doesn't seem to be appearing -- here is a link to a page with the interview.
He recently wrote a book Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar, retracing a trip he took and wrote about in 1973. The trip is from London to Japan.
I am not sure I will ever read this, but I did find a few points very interesting. He feels that some of the old soviet-bloc countries are in worse shape today then when he was there previously. This is not because things were good then and are not now. It more has to do with the fact that their identity then had to do with freeing themselves from the oppression of the Soviet Union. That was their sense of purpose. Now it seems, they have lost their identity -- and are so western focused that they have lost a sense of self. And since I feel like we have lost our own identity, I can't imagine that much can be gained by gazing in the distance at what the west has become. We have become a country where our westerness is about the things that we have and the consumption we are addicted to. We are removed from the ideals that we once aspired to. And when you, yourself no longer aspire to be a greater nation, it is impossible to expect to inspire others to wish to be greater themselves. They are left in worst possible circumstances. They are envious of our economic prosperity (relatively speaking) and as uninterested in the ideals of our republic as our own people are.
Not sure where all this is going. I will try to revisit soon.
He recently wrote a book Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar, retracing a trip he took and wrote about in 1973. The trip is from London to Japan.
I am not sure I will ever read this, but I did find a few points very interesting. He feels that some of the old soviet-bloc countries are in worse shape today then when he was there previously. This is not because things were good then and are not now. It more has to do with the fact that their identity then had to do with freeing themselves from the oppression of the Soviet Union. That was their sense of purpose. Now it seems, they have lost their identity -- and are so western focused that they have lost a sense of self. And since I feel like we have lost our own identity, I can't imagine that much can be gained by gazing in the distance at what the west has become. We have become a country where our westerness is about the things that we have and the consumption we are addicted to. We are removed from the ideals that we once aspired to. And when you, yourself no longer aspire to be a greater nation, it is impossible to expect to inspire others to wish to be greater themselves. They are left in worst possible circumstances. They are envious of our economic prosperity (relatively speaking) and as uninterested in the ideals of our republic as our own people are.
Not sure where all this is going. I will try to revisit soon.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Pasta Salad
Marinated zuchini and bow-tie pasta:
3 tbspns olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 lbs zuchini cut in half length-wise -- quarter inch slices
2 1/2 tspns salt
3/4 lb plum tomatoes -- seeded and diced
1/2 cup chopped basil
5 tbspns balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 tspns pepper
1/3 cup olive oil
1 lb bow-tie pasta
heat 3 tbspns olive oil, add garlic, zuchini and salt. Cook, stir occasionily until tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer to large bowl. Stir in tomatoes, basil, vinegar and salt and pepper. Cook bow-ties. Toss with dressing, adding 1/3 cup of olive oil.
3 tbspns olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 lbs zuchini cut in half length-wise -- quarter inch slices
2 1/2 tspns salt
3/4 lb plum tomatoes -- seeded and diced
1/2 cup chopped basil
5 tbspns balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 tspns pepper
1/3 cup olive oil
1 lb bow-tie pasta
heat 3 tbspns olive oil, add garlic, zuchini and salt. Cook, stir occasionily until tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer to large bowl. Stir in tomatoes, basil, vinegar and salt and pepper. Cook bow-ties. Toss with dressing, adding 1/3 cup of olive oil.
Flank Steak
Flank steak with garlic, oregano, orange and cumin
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tbspns olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbspn fresh oregano (may use dry if marinading longer)
1 tspn cumin
1 tspn kosher salt
1/2 tspn orange zest
1/2 tspn pepper
1 flank steak 1 1/2 lbs.
Blend all ingredients until smooth. Pour marinade over steak, let sit over night -- covered in the refrigerator. Brush off excess marinade solids, grill over high heat, turn once, cooking 3 minutes per side for rare. Slice thinly across the grain.
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tbspns olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbspn fresh oregano (may use dry if marinading longer)
1 tspn cumin
1 tspn kosher salt
1/2 tspn orange zest
1/2 tspn pepper
1 flank steak 1 1/2 lbs.
Blend all ingredients until smooth. Pour marinade over steak, let sit over night -- covered in the refrigerator. Brush off excess marinade solids, grill over high heat, turn once, cooking 3 minutes per side for rare. Slice thinly across the grain.
Mango Salsa
one mango, peeled, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup red pepper
1 red onion
2 tbsn cilantro
1 jalepeno or chili pepper
2 tbspns lime
1 tbspn lemon
small can of crushed pineapple optional
Mix ingredients. Cover and sit for 30 minutes. Season to taste.
1/4 cup red pepper
1 red onion
2 tbsn cilantro
1 jalepeno or chili pepper
2 tbspns lime
1 tbspn lemon
small can of crushed pineapple optional
Mix ingredients. Cover and sit for 30 minutes. Season to taste.
Grilled Chicken Breast with lemon and thyme
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tspn thyme
1/2 tspn red pepper flakes
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tspn salt
1/4 tspn pepper
4 bone in breasts
Combine ingredients, coat chicken with mixture. Marinade for a couple of hours. Grill breasts over medium-high heat ten minutes or broil 8 - 10 minutes on each side in the oven. Boneless breast, five minutes per side.
1/4 tspn thyme
1/2 tspn red pepper flakes
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tspn salt
1/4 tspn pepper
4 bone in breasts
Combine ingredients, coat chicken with mixture. Marinade for a couple of hours. Grill breasts over medium-high heat ten minutes or broil 8 - 10 minutes on each side in the oven. Boneless breast, five minutes per side.
Lemon Pepper Shrimp and mustard
Haven't tried this, but it sounds good.
1/2 cup butter
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup white wine
1 tspn lemon pepper
2 tbsps yellow mustard
1/4 tspn red pepper flakes
1 tbspn fresh parsley, chopped
2 lbs fresh shrimp, peeled
Melt butter in skillet, medium heat. Sautee garlic in butter 1 - 2 minutes, add wine. Add lemon pepper, mustard, and red pepper flakes. Stir in shrimp and cook five minutes. Sprinkle parsley before serving.
1/2 cup butter
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup white wine
1 tspn lemon pepper
2 tbsps yellow mustard
1/4 tspn red pepper flakes
1 tbspn fresh parsley, chopped
2 lbs fresh shrimp, peeled
Melt butter in skillet, medium heat. Sautee garlic in butter 1 - 2 minutes, add wine. Add lemon pepper, mustard, and red pepper flakes. Stir in shrimp and cook five minutes. Sprinkle parsley before serving.
Great Shrimp Recipe
Just had this for dinner at my mom's -- wonderful flavor -- and easy.
Basil Shrimp:
2 1/2 tbsps olive oil
1/4 cup melted butter
1 1/2 juiced lemons
3 tbsps brown mustard (dijon an okay substitute)
1/2 cup fresh basil
3 garlic cloves -- minced
salt and pepper to taste
3 pounds, fresh shrimp peeled
Mix oil and butter -- stir in lemon juice, mustard, basil, garlic. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Add shrimp to marinade and toss. Cover, refrigerate one hour.
Skewer shrimp, discard marinade -- oil grill and grill shrimp 4 minutes until shrimp is opaque -- turning once.
Basil Shrimp:
2 1/2 tbsps olive oil
1/4 cup melted butter
1 1/2 juiced lemons
3 tbsps brown mustard (dijon an okay substitute)
1/2 cup fresh basil
3 garlic cloves -- minced
salt and pepper to taste
3 pounds, fresh shrimp peeled
Mix oil and butter -- stir in lemon juice, mustard, basil, garlic. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Add shrimp to marinade and toss. Cover, refrigerate one hour.
Skewer shrimp, discard marinade -- oil grill and grill shrimp 4 minutes until shrimp is opaque -- turning once.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Too much pluribus, not enough Unum
Can't remember hearing this before, Ken Burns referenced it in an interview at the New York Public Library with Robert Stone. It is available at Itunes.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
JFK and the Unspeakable
I am currently listening to this talk about the assassination. I am currently reading David Talbot's book Brothers and will try to read this Jim Douglass book. He tries to link the JFK, RFK, Malcolm X and MLK assassinations. All of the following are Douglass' claims, I am noting them to look into later.
Secret service men block grassy knoll? Look into.
Joe Marshall -- smelled gunpowder behind fence. Man showed him he was a secret service agent.
Ed Hoffman also saw phony secret service men. Lacked hearing -- but saw what happened. Walked, could look down from the freeway. Could see railroad bridge. Absorbed with two men behind fence in grassy knoll. Suit man -- railroad man. Men working together? Saw puff of smoke from the suit man -- firing of the rifle. Tossed rifle to railroad man, who ran north toward tracks. Suit man confronted by police. Hoffman ran to his car -- visited FBI and police, who ignored him. Was threatened by the FBI? Hard to evaluate, since those who deny that he gave coherent testimony are those who would lose if what he said is true.
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