kipple

Sun, 25 May 2003 07:35:10 GMT

The C.I.A. is snooping around itself and other spy agencies to see if prewar reports of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda were exaggerated. The suspense is killing me. The delicious part is that the review was suggested by Donald Rumsfeld, a main culprit in twisting the intelligence to justify a strike on Baghdad. It's like O. J. vowing to find the real killer.

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The plot was always to remake the Middle East, while remaking a Bush into a Reagan. And the Bushies were not above playing on American fears and desire for 9/11 payback.

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The Taliban and Al Qaeda are resurgent; Afghanistan and Iraq are a mess; the vice police are back arresting women in Afghanistan and looters are tearing up archeological sites in Iraq; Saddam and Osama are still wanted, dead or alive. Yet the MacGuffin has moved on. It is paradoxical that the hawks were passionate about breeding idealism by bringing democracy to the Middle East, but are unconcerned about breeding cynicism by refusing to admit mistakes or overreaching. By the time the C.I.A. delivers its report, it will be time to investigate how our intelligence was hyped in the prelude to the strike on Iran.

Sat, 17 May 2003 11:32:09 GMT

Five Days Old

Sat, 17 May 2003 11:19:55 GMT

5/14/03 11:31 pm -Five Minutes Old Once my pulse rate came down and I was certain neither K nor M were going to die (I know this sounds dramatic, but that's how irrational my thoughts were), I began to take some pictures. M's entire body was covered with vernix, giving her a silver sheen. Gradually over the next day or so, the dried vernix came off her skin. While it was still wet, it felt like the perfect emolient lotion.

Sun, 04 May 2003 02:25:03 GMT

Software Bullet Is Sought to Kill Musical Piracy. Record companies are financing the development of software that would sabotage the computers of people that download pirated music. By Andrew Ross Sorkin. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Sun, 04 May 2003 02:17:20 GMT

The End of Wilderness. On Friday, the Bush administration made a deal with Utah that is a reversal of four decades of federal wilderness policy. [New York Times: Opinion]

Under the settlement, Ms. Norton not only agreed to withdraw the 2.6 million acres from wilderness consideration but renounced the department's authority to conduct wilderness reviews anywhere in the country. In one stroke, Ms. Norton yanked more than 250 million acres off the table. Not all of those acres, of course, are worthy of permanent wilderness protection. But under the new policy settlement, those that are will no longer be placed in the pipeline for Congressional consideration.

Sun, 04 May 2003 02:12:06 GMT

Our New Baby. We just adopted a baby called Baghdad and this is no time for the parents to get a divorce. By Thomas L. Friedman. [New York Times: Opinion]

Friends, whether you like or hate how and why we got into this war, the fact is America [~] you and I [~] has assumed responsibility for rebuilding Iraq. We are talking about one of the biggest nation-building projects the U.S. has ever undertaken, the mother of all long hauls. We now have a 51st state of 23 million people. We just adopted a baby called Baghdad [~] and this is no time for the parents to get a divorce. Because raising that baby, in the neighborhood it lives in, is going to be a mammoth task. If both Republicans and Democrats don't start looking clearly and honestly at what is evolving in Iraq, we're all going to be in trouble.

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This is such an important moment in U.S. foreign policy. How people view American power is at stake in the outcome in Iraq, and Democrats can't be missing in action. They have to help shape this moment, and not leave it to the Bush Pentagon. But it won't happen if Democrats are sulking in a corner, just trying to point to everything that is going wrong in Iraq, and not offering their ideas for making it better. Why should Democrats trust the Bush people to win the peace in Iraq the way they won the war? It is clear the Bush team had no coherent postwar plan in place. This administration, with its deep mistrust for diplomacy and diplomats, may be way too ideological and Pentagon-centric for nation-building. We need alternative voices. What is the Democratic view on the proper role of the U.N. or NATO in rebuilding Iraq? How much emphasis do Democrats believe the U.S. should put into the Arab-Israeli peace process to support peace in Iraq? Is a principled and muscular internationalism now the private property of the Republican Party? If conservatives exaggerate what has already been accomplished in Iraq, they're going to misread how much more needs to be done and blow the opportunity to meaningfully liberate Iraq. If Democrats underestimate the importance of what has already been accomplished by Saddam's removal, and its huge potential, they are going to miss the opportunity to shape [~] and help make happen [~] one of the most important turning points in U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East.

Sun, 04 May 2003 01:50:32 GMT

I've already made a few purchases. The selection needs to be fleshed out, though. Apples New Online Music Service. Apple made its long-awaited entry into the online music market this week with its iTunes Music Store. How good is it? By David Pogue. [New York Times: Technology]

Sun, 04 May 2003 01:45:47 GMT

Spam Sent by Fraud Is Made a Felony Under Virginia Law. In the toughest move to date against unsolicited commercial e-mail, Virginia enacted a law imposing harsh new felony penalties, including prison time. By Saul Hansell. [New York Times: Technology]

Sun, 04 May 2003 01:40:50 GMT

Bought and assembled a crib. Bought twin bed mattress for the bed we've ordered. (No more sleeping on the couch for me!) Selected paint colors to match the crib bedding we were given by my dad and step mom. Next weekend, paint...

Sun, 27 Apr 2003 06:49:00 GMT

The Empire Slinks Back. Why Americans don't really have what it takes to rule the world. By Niall Ferguson. [New York Times: Politics]

Americans yearn for the quiet life at home. But since 9/11 they have felt impelled to grapple with rogue regimes in the hope that their overthrow will do something to reduce the threat of future terrorist attacks. The trouble is that if they do not undertake these interventions with conviction and commitment, they are unlikely to achieve their stated goals. Anyone who thinks Iraq can become a stable democracy in a matter of months -- whether 3, 6 or 24 -- is simply fantasizing.

Sun, 27 Apr 2003 06:22:39 GMT

Baghdad Blasts at Arms Dump Kill at Least 6. Military officials said a group of attackers had fired a flare into an ammunition dump guarded by American troops. By Jane Perlez and Michael R. Gordon. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

The military, concerned about the reaction from the Iraqi public, began radio broadcasts tonight saying that the attack had been by people trying to undermine Iraq's future, and that Americans had been trying to help Iraqis by collecting arms from around the city and adding them to the cache.

Fri, 25 Apr 2003 03:32:42 GMT

I guess free speech has its price: Tech writer axed for thinking. SF Chronicle dumps Norr [The Register] Which reminds me of the local PTA that wouldn't allow a peace protest at a school because they refused to support un-American activities. Sigh...

Fri, 25 Apr 2003 03:28:55 GMT

Sigh... I'm tempted to mail this to my father.

Wed, 23 Apr 2003 17:56:15 GMT

A topic near and dear to me. More on this later... Traffic Safety Officials See Sharp Rise in Motorcycle Deaths. Both the fatality rate of motorcycle riders and the actual number of deaths have hit their highest levels in more than a decade. By Danny Hakim. [New York Times: National]

Sat, 12 Apr 2003 22:53:54 GMT

War Casualty Photos Distateful but all too real. The US needs to see what this war is doing.

Sat, 12 Apr 2003 22:09:03 GMT

The last place we liberated. The White House calls Afghanistan a success story. But the failure to commit needed resources has left it a chaotic, increasingly dangerous country where violent warlords run amok. Are we going to repeat our mistake in Iraq? [Salon.com]

Sat, 12 Apr 2003 22:07:10 GMT

Sanitized for our protection. The rest of the world is shown far more graphic war images than the U.S. media allows. Is the American public being insulated from the true horrors of the battlefield? [Salon.com]

To be sure, there have been deeply troubling pictures, but sometimes even they have a sentimental overlay. Perhaps the most famous battlefield photo to date, one that ran on newspaper front pages across the country, is a haunting shot of an Army doctor in full military gear squatting on the dirt and holding a young Iraqi girl in his arms just minutes after her mother had been killed in crossfire. The New York Times, Time magazine, CNN.com and others have, occasionally, run photos that featured more jarring looks at the injured and dead. But those are exceptions. While newspapers, magazines and newscasts have overwhelmed us with stylized photographs of American soldiers either in battle, helping civilians, enjoying each other's camaraderie, or showing off the latest in war technology, the violence of war has often been treated as a danger zone, forbidden, an afterthought. Few argue that the U.S. press should follow lead of the Arab press -- Al-Jazeera in particular -- by singling out Iraqi civilian casualties and using gruesome footage to illustrate them. That, too, leads to a distorted view.

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Compared to its counterparts around the world, the American press tends to be more reluctant to use graphic images of bodily destruction and death that are the inevitable -- and intended -- byproduct of war. "It's seen as in poor taste, uncivil," says Hanson, who now teaches journalism at the University of Maryland. But in a culture that's becoming increasingly drenched in violence, it seems odd that war imagery is being treated more and more timidly. When a country goes to war, shouldn't Americans understand what's being done in their name?

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Time's picture and graphic description highlights another peculiar press standard, the reluctance to show death and severe injury. If it must be shown, the U.S. media will show foreigners first, and then, as a last resort, Americans. For instance, this week when several foreign journalists were killed after the U.S. shelled a hotel that many call home in Baghdad, virtually all the American TV news channels, and scores of print outlets, ran images of frantic friends dragging the wrapped body of a injured photographer through the halls of the hotel in search of medical help. He later died. But the war has produced no standout image of a gravely wounded or dead American.

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three weeks into the war and U.S. television coverage seems almost immune to the notion of covering, let alone caring about, civilian bombing victims. Take the most recent assassination attempt on Saddam, where a U.S. bombing attack left a 60-foot-deep crater in the Baghdad neighborhood where he was said to have been Monday night. The attack raised serious ethical questions, such as whether the U.S. military, which has insisted it's doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties, should have dropped four 2,000-pound bombs on a Baghdad neighborhood, damaging 20 homes and dozens of shops, and doing so on a single eyewitness tip that Saddam may have been nearby. "When the broken body of the 20-year-old woman was brought out torso first, then her head," the AP reported, "her mother started crying uncontrollably, then collapsed." But American talking heads, busy playing the what-if game about Saddam's whereabouts, never seemed to give the issue any thought. Certainly they did not linger on images of the hellacious human carnage left in the aftermath.

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By limiting and sanitizing the range of issues, the press may be reflexively trying to avoid charges that it is delivering antiwar propaganda in a news package.

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Today's climate raises the question whether there is now any circumstance under which the American press would show images of American soldiers killed during wartime. The answer may very well be no. Even if it wanted to, the press today can't take its traditional pictures of flag-draped military coffins, since the Pentagon has banned journalists from the airbase in Germany where bodies are flown.

Sat, 12 Apr 2003 21:19:17 GMT

How to look at different views? A block away, about 30 people are holding up signs and American flags in support of the war. Cars driving by are honking. People are screaming and yelling. When I drove by, I noticed that one of the signs being held up was a hand drawn version of the Gadson flag and its famous "Don't Tread on Me" slogan. I have to wonder how Iraq actually tread on us. According to Bush, this was a preemptive war to protect America from weapons of mass destruction. Oh, and yes, free those poor Iraqi people. Somehow, as the lack of any WMD has played out, the spin emphasises that the war is for Iraqi freedom. Also, we mustn't forget that the administration has, through careful manipulation of the media, convinced an amazingly high percentage of the populace that Saddam is somehow linked with Al Quada. Even if this is so, how many American and Iraqi lives was the cause worth? Many innocent people were killed. Thousands of Iraqi troops, who, unlike the US and British troops, were forced in to service, lie dead and rotting after out bombing raids. We, quite simply, decimated them. Then we need to consider the collateral damage. From misguided bombs to cars mistakenly destroyed on the highway, the death toll will affect our relations with Iraq and the rest of the world. The other day, as I talked with another friend who is also against the war, she said that, in order to keep from becoming a reactionary like many people on the pro-war side, I need to try to see the conflict from their perspective, to consider what other alternatives there were. Of course, since these people don't think sanctions and inspections were working, those options could not be considered. I'm stymied. I don't know how to approach this. How do I resolve the fact that there are evil people in the world who would not think twice about ending another person's life? My beliefs about murder or killing (since according to the laws of war, what happens on the battlefields between combatants is not murder) are so strong that I can't get past my feelings that what's happening in Iraq is terribly wrong. So, how are we, as a country, as a race of people, supposed to respond to the evil in the world? And how do we do it without somehow becoming evil ourselves?