Dean's World

I don’t think we can consciously choose to fall in love with someone-- yet who we love is a direct result of who we are. Every decision we make, every fiber of our being, all of who we are dictates who we will love, and who will love us back. Which, when you stop and think about it, makes loving an alcoholic a terrifying sign of insanity...

I mention this because it is often over looked; alcoholics don’t just make their loved ones suffer, when two adults love each other, and one of them is an alcoholic, it is a sign that both parties have what we’ll call “issues”...

See, I grew up with an alcoholic mother. Daddy was crazy. (Dad figured this out and got better, Mom... hasn’t figure out that she’s crazy) Indeed, I spent my years from 15-21 as an Alateen. The stories I won’t repeat about the “sober” parent (that is, the non-alcoholic) would make you weep...

Alcoholism is a sign of a problem. Loving someone who is one is also a problem...

(come to think on it: how many of us here at Dean’s are either Alcoholics, the spouses of Alcoholics, or the children thereof? What about commenters?)

Heh.

Man, does local TV news suck or what?

(Thanks Jerry.)

I first discovered Dean's World through Instapundit linking to a cry for help from Rosemary over Dean's drinking problem. Although the link piqued my curiosity, I am not one who normally tries to intervene in people's affairs. My family has its own problems and I'm too busy trying to earn a living, being a decent parent and husband, and keeping the organization I founded, the ITPAA, going than to poke my nose where it really doesn't belong. People are complex, and their problems are complex; to think that you can help without spending a lot of time getting to the root of the problems is a bit of self-conceit if you ask me.

But I know addiction. I know how good a cigarette tastes after a meal and how uncontrolled your thoughts become when you haven't had one in a day or three. I know how wonderful a glass of Mondavi red smells, and also the smell of vomit and cold fear while searching my darkened memory, wondering how I made it home from a party. I kicked cigarettes cold turkey 9 1/2 years ago when I got tired of the Wife nagging me, and I kicked the booze 5 years later when she gave me the choice between keeping the bottle or my family. I chose my family, and it's a decision I have never regretted but one that hasn't been easy.

Dean isn't a big fan of AA. He's leveled some serious criticisms at the group which I understand and relate to. However AA isn't one "group" or organization; it's more of a collective of individuals having one thing in common: a desire to quit drinking. There is no central authority; no dictates from above that you must subscribe to. Instead what you have are a lot of people sitting in church basements. Some are desperate to stay sober; other's aren't. Some talk; others stay completely silent. Some groups are fun; others are boring, and still others are downright wastes of time. How do you know which is which? You don't until you go.

How did I quit? It was a combination of the Wife, my own will or conscience, Zen Buddhism and a loud elderly man by the name of John B.

If you want compassion, don't talk to John B. If you want to wallow in self-pity, then you really don't want to call John B. Why? Because John will give you an earful, tell you to stop thinking about yourself. He'll tell you that you choose to drink, and maybe it's time to make a different choice. He'll tell you to start by going to AA meetings to see what works for people. Then in the end, he says, if you think drinking works for you then by all means go for it.

John taught me drinking or giving in to any addiction is a choice and choice, as anyone living in our society where stores stock 150+ types of breakfast cereal knows can be a heavy burden to bear. When faced with a choice, people often take the easy way out to avoid it. For addicts that often means using, but addicts are not robots. Junkies have not lost free will. Drunks aren't victims of the bottle. Drunks drink because they choose to drink; I don't drink because I choose not to drink.

And there is power in that choice. There is strength in taking control of your life - and that's what John B. was trying to show me and which Dean tried to show in this post. It's about personal responsibility; I am not a victim of this disease because I choose not to be a victim. I like power too much, and beating addictions make you powerful.

While I was wondering what my higher power was I began reading Zen. The great thing about Zen is that it is a philosophy of action not thought. If you are thinking about Zen, then you really don't get it. "Chop wood, carry water." Focus 100% on your task to the exclusion of all else. There is no goal. There is no reason. There is no thought - just action.

For a recovering addict it is crucial to think about anything BUT yourself. Addiction is a selfish behavior. After all, a cigarette makes you feel good, not anyone else. Ditto a shot of vodka. Feeding that addiction makes one become even more selfish. Your drive to the liquor store costs you time with your children. Your "sanity (smoke) breaks" outside are borne by your employer or by your family (in cases where you are docked for the time). For some, that selfishness leads to the collapse of the personality into what I consider a psychological black-hole: the narcissist. These people are incapable of thinking about anyone other than themselves. Worse, like a black hole they will suck you into them and use your energy if you get too close to them. Harlan Ellison once described them as emotional vampires. That's too nice a description since Anne Rice's romantic vampires were set free to roam our imaginations at the term.

Addicts are collapsing personalities. Addiction deflates your spirit and makes it increasingly two dimensional. Quitting halts that process, and selflessness reverses it.

John B. said that it takes at least 2 years of sobriety to get your marbles back; I've gotten mine and am now doing everything in my power to keep them. For me that means helping others when I can, ignoring them when I can't, and working hard at learning the difference.

If that sounds like the Serenity Prayer it should.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

That prayer sits at the heart of Alcoholics Anonymous and no matter how you feel about it, or whether it's right for you, AA has taught me the beauty, power, and friggin' frustration in achieving what that little 3 line prayer sets out. For that reason I owe AA, and while I don't go to meetings much anymore, I'm glad they are around.

The ideas behind the 12 Steps are extremely complex and life changing yet they are stated simply, almost too simply. In fact I found an interpretation of the 12 Steps from a Buddhist perspective that may be easier for some who get caught up in the "God Language". Here is the essence of the first three steps as I see it:

1. I've got an addiction and can't fix it on my own.
2. There is help out there beyond me.
3. I choose to use this external help along with all my inner resources to control my addiction.

If anyone can do better, let me know. The bottom line is that they have helped me help myself - and that is what they are all about. God isn't going to save me. He's not going to send an angel stop me from going to a bar and tying one on - but my higher power is going to help me choose not to do such a stupid thing.

Industrial Bill has an excellent and very honest defense of AA.

I admit it, my wording was too strong. I know--know for a fact--that AA saves lives and helps people. It saved my father. So I do acknowledge that. One healthy thing the AA people will tell you is "take away what works, leave the rest." I get that. And in truth, I feel a little guilty attacking the AA program because I worry that someone will read those criticisms and decide not to get help.

Still, I've been consciously addressing my problem for some time now. Yes I still drink, but it's way, way, way, WAY less than it was a year and a half ago. I'll go a week without drinking. I have disciplined myself to be able to have a beer and then stop. Sometimes it's hard, and sometimes I say "ah screw it" and get s**tfaced. But I make sure not to get in the car, I make sure it's not an all-day affair, and so on.

My #1 problem with AA, my biggest beef, is the whole "powerless" mentality. My #2 problem is the "this is the only thing that works" mentality. When I first realized I had a problem, I sought the services of a substance-abuse counselor. As it turned out, she'd been an alcoholic and had been booze-free for about 15 years, and did it mostly without AA. She told me outright that she shared all my same reservations about AA. "It's good if you can talk to people who share your problem so you know you're not crazy, but those meetings can sometimes make things worse."

There is also this: since mentioning publicly that I like the sauce too damned much, I've heard from more than one person in email who was in absolute despair: they hated drinking and what it did to them, but they hated the AA meetings even more. At least two of them basically expressed this sentiment: I know I can't get this under control, I'm doomed. I hate boozing but I hate AA even more, so I guess I'll just die.

No. No, no no. You're not powerless. You're not doomed. You've got a problem with self-indulgence, depression, anxiety, and have gotten to the point where you don't know how to have fun without drinking. There are solutions to that problem. AA meetings might help, but if they don't please don't stop seeking help and seeking alternatives. If you need help from friends, ask for it. Seek a substance abuse counselor. Read Stanton Peele's book, Truth About Addiction and Recovery. Realize that you do have control, you are in the pilot's seat, it's your life and you make conscious choices. If those meetings work for you then go to them, but if you leave them feeling despair then look for something else.

You are not helpless. You are not.

Welcome to the Carnival of the Liberated, a sampler of some of the best posts from Iraqi and Afghani bloggers. This week we've got Newsweek, Thomas Friedman, car bombs, the weather, fresh fruit, and much more.

It looks like former Taliban are being brought into the political process in Afghanistan. More from Afghan Warrior.

I don't link to A Family in Baghdad very frequently for two reasons. First, the mom's, Faiza's, posts are translated so there's about a week's lag between the date the post was written and the actual posting date. It tends to lose currency. Second, multiple posts are aggregated into a single long, rambling post and it's not possible just to link to the good parts. However, I recommend you read all of this post. In this post Faiza writes on the Newsweek controversy, George Galloway's testimony before the Senate, and Guantanamo. Here's some of what she writes about Newsweek:

The Newsweek is a weekly magazine, and each time I buy it, every now and then, I prepare myself for the poisons it prints against Islam and the Muslims, I feel pain, and wonder at the Arabic silence towards what is issued by it, and other poisonous western media, (not all, but most).

Even moderates like Truth Teller of A Citizen of Mosul are starting to believe the story I've mentioned before: that Americans are responsible for the car-bombings.

Riverbend fisks a Thomas Friedman column.

There appear to be several differing opinions on the reason for the escalation of terrorist violence lately. As I mentioned above, A Citizen of Mosul is coming to believe it's the Americans. Riverbend believes it's the occupation:

It is outrageous because for many people, this isn't about Sunnis and Shia or Arabs and Kurds. It's about an occupation and about people feeling that they do not have real representation. We have a government that needs to hide behind kilometers of barbed wire and meters and meters of concrete- and it's not because they are Shia or Kurdish or Sunni Arab- it's because they blatantly supported, and continue to support, an occupation that has led to death and chao

Every day there are families in Saudi Arabia receiving news of their sons killed in Iraq. Thousands of them returned recently from Syria to Saudi Arabia (according Syria) and at least 300 Saudis are still arrested in Syria however this not meaning that Syria stopped its support but the reverse. Syria only stops its support for the insurgents after the Baath regime in Syria toppled.

I'd like to divide terrorists into two main groups; the hardcore Ba'athists and the Islamists who come mainly from outside Iraq. But these two parties are resented by the majority of Iraqis and have no real support. So how can they operate so smoothly at many times inside Iraq and why aren't Iraqis reporting them? To be more specific, why aren't the majority of Sunnis reporting these terrorists and Ba'athists and why are they silent and even sometimes supportive of their actions. I have so many Sunni friends who are far from being religious or Ba'athists and who are more westernized than the majority of Iraqis but who are watching everything going in Iraq as outsiders without supporting any party yet with more resentment towards the current Iraqi government and therefore to America as they see it as the one responsible for bringing this government to power.

The problem is that till now Sunnis have not found their representatives, as they don't have a Marji'ya like the She'at and they weren't oppressed just because they were Sunnis and therefore they didn't have such a tie to bring them together as one mass.

Omar of Iraq the Model has thoughts about Memorial Day. Mohammed comments on Operation Lightning.

Abu Khaleel of A Glimpse of Iraq has an interesting post on traditional weather-reckoning folkways in Iraq.

Alaa, The Mesopotamian comments on city and country in Iraq. I've written about this before. IMO one of the problems in modern Arab Muslim society is the breakdown of the urban religious intellectual elite that formed a counterbalance to rural imams under the pressures of socialist states.

Imad Khadduri's view of Operation Lightning differs.

Although I read a lot of them I'm inclined to avoid linking to the blogs of ex-pat Iraqis for the Carnival. But here's a good post from IraqPundit about Riverbend. How representative is she of Iraqis?

Salam Pax comments on the new Iraqi constitution.

There's an interesting tidbit of information in this post from Baghdad Bacon and Eggs:

After we unpacked and cooled off a little Fozzy and I stopped by my uncle's 'wakeel' (The wakeel is the guy that takes charge of a farm when the owner decides not to do it himself. when this takes place the wakeel gets the larger part of the owner's share of the harvest.). In the guest hall of my uncle's wakeel I learnt that alot of the young men in the farm have now got jobs. The uni graduates got government jobs and the strong guys got jobs with the police or the army. As a result of all this employment, the quality of the labourers has gone down, and the price has gone up 3 times.

Finally, a little good news from hnk:

This week was happy, your pray was useful for me. Well I want to tell you something but please don't laugh, I ate cherry for the first time in my life, Well there is not cherry in Iraq and now it look like they began to import It from out side.This is one of the positive things that happened after the war. Now you can choose from Iraqi oranges, Syrian oranges, Turkish oranges, and Egyptian oranges. And of course you will not choose Iraqi oranges because it is too small in comparison with others.

Dave Schuler posts regularly to his own weblog, The Glittering Eye. The Carnival was originally conceived by Ryan Boots.

StarWars: Check! Robert Jordan: Check!
Harry Potter: Check!
Harry Potter movie: Check!
George R. R. Martin: Check!!!

As my Girlfriend put it: everything that is in progress is progressing...

Now, if we can only get Steven Brust to finish something this year...

BTW: if you’re into epic fantasy, and you’ve not read anything by Mr. Martin, I do highly recommend his books, they’re probably the best in the field...

(Thanks to the Buffalo Bloger Jaquandor: Check!)

She came from Greece
she had a thirst for knowledge
She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College
That's where I caught her eye


She told me that her Dad was loaded
I said, "In that case I'll have a rum and Coca-Cola."
She said "fine,"
and in thirty seconds' time she said,

"I want to live like common people.
I want to do whatever common people do.
I want to sleep with common people.
I want to sleep with common people, like you."

Well, what else could I do?
I said, "I'll see what I can do."

I took her to a supermarket
I don't know why, but I had to start it somewhere,
so it started there

I said, "pretend you've got no money."
She just laughed, and said
"Oh you're so funny!"
I said, "yeah?
Well, I can't see anyone else smiling in here,

"Are you sure you want to live like common people?
You want to see whatever common people see?
You want to sleep with common people?
You want to sleep with common people like me?"

But, she didn't understand,

[Jackson]
She just smiled and held my hand!

Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school

But still, you'll never get it right
When you're lying in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your Dad he could stop it all
Yeah

[Shatner]
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view,
and dance and drink and screw

[Jackson and Shatner]
because there's nothing else to do

[Shatner and Chorus]
Sing along with the common people
Sing along, and it might just get you thru

[Chorus]
Laugh along with the common people

[Shatner and Chorus]
Laugh along, even though they're laughing at you

[Shatner]
and the stupid things that you do
'cause you think that "poor" is "cool"

[Jackson]
Like a dog lying in a corner
they'll bite you and never warn you
Look out!

[Shatner]
They'll tear your insides out
'cause everybody hates a tourist

[Jackson]
'Cause everybody hates a tourist,
especially one who thinks
it's all such a laugh

[Shatner]
Yeah, and the chip stains' grease
will come out in the bath

[Shatner and Jackson]
You will never understand
how it feels to live your life
with no meaning or control
and with nowhere left to go

You're amazed that they exist
and they burn so bright,
while you can only wonder why

Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school

But still, you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're lying in bed at night

[Shatner]
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you called your Dad he could stop it all
Yeah.

You'll never live like common people

[Shatner and Jackson]
You'll never do what common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
and dance and drink and screw
because there's nothing else to do

[Chorus]
I want to sing with common people, like you
I want to sing with common people, like you
I want to sing with common people, like you


(Click here to hear it. Then click here to buy it.)


Yeah. Shatner is cool.

As is well-known, I had a nervous collapse about a year ago that involved excessive use of alcohol. Since then I have tried to be completely open about the whole thing, because I felt I owed that to my readers.

Note this: when I say "owed it" to my readers, I totally admit that that was a self-chosen obligation: I was drinking too much, and it hurt me badly, and I felt that in saying so I owed something to people to share how this had come about. After all, I had been drinking too much, and it had hurt me and my family, and I felt I had to tell people about it.

Since that happened, I have had endless people trying to tell me about my addiction and how I had to deal with it. In fact, they thought they knew everything there was to know about me, based on the fact that I drank too much. Indeed, to them the problem was quite simple: I had to admit that I was powerless against this horrible disease, and I would get better.

But my instinctive answer was to say, "Bulls***. I like the sauce too much, and I have to get over it and get it under control."

Powerless? Bite my crank. I am not powerless. I've just gotten too self-indulgent. Don't tell me I'm powerless, because I'm not. The truth is, I'd just become a self-indulgent, self-obsessed jerk and I needed to get this s*** under control.

This weekend, I went up to my sister-in-law's house to celebrate Memorial Day. At that get-together, lots of people had booze. Beer and wine were everywhere. When I went there, I made a conscious choice: I could drink booze, but I wouldn't. Because if I had indulged that urge, I would have been a smarmy, self-indulgent ass. So even though several opportunities to drink presented themselves, I consciously chose to say, "Nah, I'd better not. I'll just be a jerk if I do, and while I might enjoy myself then, I won't enjoy thinking about it later."

Since coming out with the fact that I have some self-indulgence problems with alcohol, I have had an andless variety of people telling me they think they understand my problem. Indeed, quite recently, I got an email from a guy who said, "Are you sober, or are you still drunk?" To which my instinctive response was, "F*** you ass***e, is that all you think you know about me? I'm either sober or I'm drunk??"

I recently got an email that seemed to define it all for me. Here's what it said:

Subject: The Big Lie of Alcoholics Anonymous

Hi Dean, this is in response to the blog you started about going to A.A. meetings and struggling with the "program."

I was really touched by your post. I'm in the same boat as you, Dean. I went to A.A. meetings for over a year and ended up feeling crazier than I was while I was drinking and using. I eventually stopped going to meetings and ended up drinking and using again because I really believed I was "powerless" and that the "disease" was "cunning, baffling and powerful," and that it was useless to try to resist the charms of substance abuse on my own. It seemed like I couldn't win. Out of A.A. I was on the road to destruction with my drinking and drugging. Inside A.A. I was on the road to suicide with those guilt-inducing 12-steps, and having to tell myself how bad and stupid I was all of the time. ("HA HA, if I try to get in the driver's seat and take control of my life, I just f*** everything up! HA HA! I can't do anything right, God has to do it for me! And I can't forget to ask my sponsor what God's will is for me!") Not only that, having to go to meetings for the rest of my life with a bunch of weird, boring people who jabber the same statements over and over again like brainwashed parrots didn't exactly appeal to me when I decided to get clean and sober again.

It is WRONG to present A.A. and other 12-step programs as the "only way to get sober and enjoy life." The fact is that MOST people quit by themselves without the help of a support group. Havard Medical School's study of alcholism shows this clearly. Here is a page you might find really refreshing and entertaining — I did. And it helped free my mind from the destructive 12-step programming I was exposed to.

http://www.orange-papers.org

The truth is, you've had the potential to quit all along. You just never learned how to say no to that little addictive beast voice in your head. It's no surprise that self-control and discipline are compromised in substance abusers. That's okay, because I, like you, didn't know how to say "no" to that addictive voice in my head. I thought I was powerless over it and it wasn't even worth trying. But the fact is that addiction isn't cunning, baffling, or powerful at all. It's not a disease, it's a bad habit. The concept is quite simple - you felt bad in life, or were bored, and discovered alcohol and/or drugs could make you feel good anytime you wanted. And it's only natural for us to seek out things that bring us pleasure when we're generally disatisfied with our lives. Pleasure bad, pain good. You felt bad, and wanted to feel good, simple as that.

Your alcoholism was NOT caused by:

Inherited genes or sins

Resentments

Moral defects

Spiritual sickness

Control issues

... and the list goes on. That was just a sample from goofy "causes of alcholism" that are suggested in the big book and the 12x12. I am quite versed in the literature (I was a fervent 12-stepper in that year and two months I attended A.A. and N.A.), so if people care to challenge me on this, I can point out specifically where in the literature it says this.

Anyways, enough with the A.A. bashing. It may work for some. It doesn't work for me. The "one-size-fits-all" approach to recovery is WRONG because there are many viable and effect alternatives to 12-step groups. It might help you to learn about your "addictive voice" and how confront it...

http://www.rational.org/html_public_area/course_avrt.html

You have, and have always had the power to quit! The AVRT I learned from this and several other sites gave me a powerful recovery tool that is much more effective than the crappy "spirtual tool kit" shoved down your throat in A.A. So effective, I have been clean for 2 years and a month and my life has never been better. I get a tremendous sense of accomplishment and a boost in self-esteem knowing that I did it on my own without the help of Higher Powers, sponsors, steps, or any other of the techniques forced upon us in A.A. and N.A.

If I can do it (I was HOPELESSELY addicted to methamphetamine), you can do it to!

Believe in yourself!

I like the sauce too f***ing much. That's been the problem all along. 12-step programs may help some people, but honestly: they are bulls***. They really are.

Our friend Jane of the Armies of Liberation weblog has been writing regularly on the subject of Yemen. For example, see her recent religionjournal.com article.

In response to her fierce criticisms of the oppressive government in Yemen, the Yemen Times recently published a scathing criticism of her and her weblog, calling her a docile pupil of a monkey monk, and accusing her of being a "Houthi" (i.e. a follower of a "rebel" muslim cleric who the government there crushed).

Jane is both amused and proud.

Anyone who thinks blogs and bloggers don't accomplish anything meaningful really ought to be reading Jane's blog.

I have always viewed with some bemusement those who are afraid of so-called "Frankenfoods," i.e. genetically modified foods. Unless there's evidence that there are poisons in them--which can be verified pretty easily via chemical analysis--there's just no reason to worry about eating them.

Now I note something interesting: microbiologists have produced human antibodies against anthrax in tobacco plants. The method can be used to quickly generate anthrax vaccine if there is ever a widespread outbreak of anthrax due to terrorist attack or some other calamity.

I find myself wondering: would those who are afraid of "Frankenfoods" also be afraid of this sort of "Frankenmedicine?"

Today we honor those who fell in their nation's service. Wikipedia has a pretty good entry on the history of Memorial Day.

Our great cause as a nation today is our effort to bring democracy and human rights to the nation of Iraq, fighting against the fascist and insane theocrats who would deny these things to the Iraqi people. You can see a list of those who have given all for this cause at the Washington Post's Faces of the Fallen page.

It may seem overly geeky but in a recent discussion here on Dean's World, I had some thoughts in disagreement with some people regarding Star Wars Episode III that seemed worth reiterating here:

A frequent complaint about Episode III is that it is full of clunker lines. Furthermore, to many people, Anakin's fall to "The Dark Side" seemed poorly handled and hard to understand. Well maybe that is a weakness for some people, but it wasn't for me. Indeed, it was this part of the movie that I most deeply related to as a person--and as a man.

First off, as for the occasionally wooden dialogue: The clunker lines in the original Star Wars start with "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" and went on from there. The original movies were full of them: Han Solo bragging about how he made the Kessel run in 5 parsecs (or whatever), for example. And then there's practically everything Alec Guiness uttered in the first movie. Those movies are full of stilted an pompous lines. How about, "She'll die before she tells you anything!" "Leave that to me!" or "This technological marvel you have constructed is insignificant compared the power of The Force!" (Yeah right, like you ever blew up a planet with your force-powers, Vader.)

How about Luke grunting as he looked into space: "Faaaa-therrrr...!"

Then there's one of my all-time favorites, spoken by an Imperial officer with a sneer: "You rebel scum!" Pah!

Oh yeah, and then there's, like, every line that Jabba the Hut or Yoda ever spoke.

As for Anakin's fall: I guess it must just be me. I remember all too well being a surly, angry, resentful, rebellious teenager (and early 20-something). Me? I bought into the whole thing as a refusal to grow up and face your own demons--which to me is the ultimate in cowardice.

It was made pretty clear to me that Anakin never really loved Padme--he loved the idea of her. She, on the other hand, really did love him even though she often found him incomprehensible.

Maybe this all because I grew up with what they call "father issues." Growing up, I didn't really have a father so much as a series of men who sort of tried to fill that role in various half-measures.

With the hope that this isn't getting too personal (I don't think I'm talking out of turn or saying anything secret here) I note that Solomon Mason loved Episode III as much as I did, and grew up in a similarly broken home. I suspect that as a result we both related to Anakin and his dark side almost instinctively. After watching Episode III I felt like I totally "got" Darth Vader. I thought, "Damn, yeah, if I were who I was back when I was 21, and I'd had that kid's powers, I could well have turned into Darth Vader."

That moment after Obi-Wan had defeated him in battle, and Anakin screamed, "I hate you!!!"--man, chills ran down my spine. He was filled with rage at Obi-Wan for not validating everything he wanted to believe about himself.

It does help if you keep in mind that Anakin was young--very young--and quite conflicted and alone most of his life. The Jedi Council was probably right that he was waaay too young for the responsibilities he was being given. But it wasn't just his youth: it was obvious from day one that Anakin was kind of a mess.

Maybe others who didn't grow up like that, or know anybody like that, can't relate. I don't know. Me, I thought it was beautiful. Especially in seeing how his son Luke, faced with many of the same problems and limitations, overcame them and became a better man.

To be painfully self-revealing here, I often hope my sons will be better men than I was at their age. In truth, I often guage my effectiveness as a father with that as my yardstick--not to push them or bully them or try to make them someone they are not, but because I was a train wreck back then. My boys are not me, and they have to make their own way and discover who they are. Indeed I often marvel at how wonderful they are as people, even in their imperfections. I am only an imperfect (to say the least) guide when it comes to being a good person.

Still: it was obvious to me that the self-conflicted mass of insecurities that was young Anakin was like clay in the hands of Palpatine. It was so obvious to me I didn't feel it needed any further explanations.

Maybe not to others. I don't know. All I know is, I "got" Anakin's fall. I understood it completely and at a visceral level.

As I've said previously, Episode III made me actually like Episode VI (the last one with Luke Skywalker) better. Luke overcame the problems his father could not.

Very powerful. For me, anyway.

That's it! This was a day when yours truly drove about 300 miles, did shows in two counties, plus the guest posting. But it all got done...

As mentioned below, this is my last day as guest blogger at Dean's World...and this is my last post. But it really, truly is no big deal. I'll still be reading and often linking to Dean's World. And from now on, after you visit Dean's World, come visit us at The Moderate Voice and join the thousands of readers on the right and left who let us know in the comments boxes how much they detest us.

For cyberwar...

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A: I don't know but they tried to give him a ticket for it.

NO JOKE:

RIDGECREST, Calif. (AP) A chicken that got a ticket for crossing the road has clawed his way out of it.

The $54 citation for impeding traffic was dismissed Friday after Linc and Helena Moore’s attorney argued that the fowl was domesticated and could not be charged as livestock.

State law restricts livestock on highways, but not domestic animals.

The chicken was ticketed March 26 for impeding traffic after it wandered onto a road in Johannesburg, a rural mining community southeast of Ridgecrest.

The Moores said they got the ticket because they were among several people who complained that deputies have done little to curb noisy off-road vehicle riders.

“For the last two and a half years, no one has been able to stop the kids riding their bikes in the middle of the road or the neighbors’ dogs running around our neighborhood,” Linc Moore said. “But when our chicken escaped and crossed the road once it became a huge issue.”

What's the big deal? The policeman just thought the chicken ran afowl of the law.

The Political Teen has video of a Fox News discussion on this topic. What do YOU think??

Oliver was apparently stoned....

....consider this.

A major push is underway by Iraqi forces to hunt and weed out insurgents:

Iraqi forces launched their biggest security crackdown since the fall of Saddam Hussein with the start of Operation Lightning on Sunday, a sweep by 40,000 Iraqi troops who will seal off Baghdad and hunt for insurgents.

Backed by the 10,000 U.S. troops in the capital, Iraqi soldiers will block major routes into Baghdad and search the city district by district, looking for foreign Arab fighters and Iraqi guerrillas, Iraqi officials say.

This kind of operation is usually successful because it can help decrease the enemy's ranks plus wind up getting good leads to info for future arests. More:

The operation comes after a sharp increase in suicide bombings and ambushes by insurgents who have killed around 700 people in the past month since a new Shi'ite Islamist-led government was announced.

At least 70 U.S. troops have been killed in the same period, the highest monthly American death toll since January when insurgents were trying to derail the Jan. 30 elections.

"The operation began today. The troops will block all entrances of Baghdad to prevent terrorists from conducting activities in the capital. It's a crackdown on the terrorism infrastructure," a Defense Ministry official told Reuters. A brilliant move? Not exactly: The operation was announced on Thursday — potentially giving insurgents the chance to flee Baghdad before it began.

Iraq's government has come under pressure from Washington to launch a decisive response to insurgent attacks, to try to restore public confidence sapped by relentless violence and the long delay in forming a cabinet after the elections.

So the Iraqi government did the right thing. Except it gave its targets a chance to get a headstart out of town...

FYI, today is my last day as permanent weekend Guest Blogger at Dean's World.

More than a year ago Dean invited me to Guest Blog on this site on weekends and there was a huge response. Despite that, he had me continue guest blogging.

Dean had contacted me out of the blue in an email saying: "The Internet needs people like you." And he promised that I could post what I want and would never restrict what I had to write. And, true to his word, he never did.

He said I could expose myself and I did. The nuns complained and probation ends next week.

Dean needed a bit of a break from blogging and in the message he mentioned that after a year I might feel it was time to just do my own thing. He contacted me about two months after I started my blog The Moderate Voice and figured I could do some posts on this site that would make readers think.

And from the emails, I know that has been the case. Readers have thought about strangling me, disemboweling me, or chaining me to a chair and forcing me to listen to 10 hours of Kathy Lee Gifford CDs.

Now it has been more than a year. The Moderate Voice is becoming known and reviled by liberals, conservatives, Democrats, and Republicans who want to strangle me, disembowel me or chain me to a chair and force me to listen to 10 hours of Kathy Lee Gifford CDs.

I get lots of hits, mostly when I meet my readers.

Dean is now antsy to start blogging again after taking a break on weekend and perhaps worrying that if he didn't get back to taking control of his own blog on weekends readers would want to strangle him, disembowel him, or chain him to a chair and force him to listen to 10 hours of Kathy Lee Gifford CDs.

On TMV, due to my travels and long stays in hospitals after meeting satisfied readers I now have several of my own guest bloggers. I also want to do some writing for $$$$ so I need to budget my time. I face a very mobile summer schedule. And, honestly, I see Dean has a host of excellent guest bloggers on weekdays and here I am hogging his blog when he and them would like to be posting.

When I'd guest blog I left a referring link to this site on my blog and basically shut my blog down on weekends. This worked for a while, until the blog grew a bit more, some readers complained and it was clear the weekend traffic dropoff was way below the decline most blogs experience on weekends. A few weeks ago I tried posting links to all of my posts here and doing two original posts on my blogging days here. That worked but it means that to properly maintain my own blog I have to essentially do a blog and a half on weekends.

So with all of these factors Dean and I decided the reasons why I guest blogged (to give him a break he no longer needs, to expose myself which meant I had to hire a lawyer for the trial, to help TMV grow...which it has) are really outdated.

And, to be honest, I have sensed in the past few months that Dean is chomping at the bit to get back to doing more on weekends and other times.

But, Dean, be careful what you write: remember those Kathy Lee Gifford CDs...

Art at Centerfield says yes:

Iran is truely sincere about its civilian energy needs, it should give up its uranium enrichment machines. All of them. And it should allow UN inspectors to verifty their absence at any reasonable time. In short, their surrender of uranium enrichers should be totally transparent.

In return, the West (probably Europe) will give Iran power plant-grade uranium to use in its reactors. This would cost the giving nations some money, but it would ensure both sides are satisfied with the honesty of the other. It would be an incredible good will gesture on both sides, and at little cost to either.

Now, this is all assuming Iran is as innocent as it says it is. If it were to turn down this offer, I would send the situation immediately to the security council.

Iran continues to be a dilemma for policymakers. Taking on Iran militarily would be a whole different ballgame than taking on Iraq. OR could some kind of military response come via Israel acting in a limited capacity and the U.S. looking the other way? All of this is speculation but it's hard to believe the situation won't come to more than a purely diplomatic head if it trends in the same alarming direction as it's going now.

Microsoft's Bill Gates almost always gets happy news -- of a growing reputation for his products and a growing empire. But there is a blip on the screen:

Winn Schwartau switched his office from PCs to Macintosh computers, a seemingly simple move that created an overwhelming reaction in the online world.

Schwartau is no mere computer user. He's a nationally known technology security expert from Seminole, so when he wrote in his online blog that he was tired of unreliable technology and fending off virus and spyware threats to his office PC he triggered a torrent of attention.

"I just didn't know this was going to be controversial," Schwartau said.

In a column titled "Mad as Hell," posted Monday at the Network World Web site and his blog (securityawareness.blogspot.com) on Wednesday, Schwartau declared that systems using Microsoft's Windows software and Intel processors are "a threat to the national economic security of any organization or nation-state that relies (upon) it."

The Macintosh community, always on the lookout for good news about Apple Computer and its products, started a flood of reaction. Schwartau's blog tracked 9,000 visitors Wednesday, 40,000 Thursday and 12,000 by midafternoon Friday. In a month, it usually gets 4,000 visitors.

And you figure on a post like that, people will pass the link onto their Mac friends, or those who use PC. More from this St. Petersburg Times piece:

According to Greg Hoffman, chief marketing officer for Schwartau's Security Awareness Co., responses were running 10-1 in favor of and praising the switch, which occurred last month.

Some in the Linux operating system community sent notes recommending it, and some fans of Windows and Intel systems, known as WinTel in shorthand, responded with some less than charitable comments. Macintosh computers are less susceptible to spyware and other forms of computer chicanery in part because of the way they're designed and in part because Apple has such a small share of the computer market that spyware code writers don't bother with it.

But, Schwartau says, it's too early for people to draw conclusions about what his switch really means. For one thing, he says he has posted only the first two installments of what he says will be a 30-part series on the subject. Second, he hasn't abandoned WinTel, though he doesn't want to give away the end of his tech saga.

This will be interesting to watch...and read. However, it certainly seems an obvious observation to say the race is basically over between Macs and PCs. It's hard to believe -- at this point -- that any security concerns or anything else is going to reverse the trend in user numbers. One day Bill Gates could be worried about slightly slumping sales....but not of being overtaken or seriously challenged.

Certainly even with layers of virus protections PCs can be a swift pain. Some months ago I spent over $300 for a long session with a computer tech who installed several spyware and virus checkers. He urged me to use Firefox unless I absolutely need not to. I've since had some minor problems and will be calling him back to make sure there is no hidden visitor.

Friends with Macs report none of these problems ... just getting certain versions of software. And if I add it up, I would have SAVED buying a Mac since I wouldn't have had to pay for all those tech visits. Meanwhile, talk to a kid in elementary or middle school and he/she will almost invariably talk to you about Macs, since so many of them were donated or sold at cheap rates. Yes, some schools do use PCS (I visited one in Texas that was peppered with Dells). But the new generations are getting to know Macs there.

Even so, unless someone can make an argument otherwise: Mac is not the "street" system. It is the computer Nordstrom's to the PC's Target.

Or would you? Science Blog reports this:

Pre–K students are expelled at a rate more than three times that of children in grades K–12, according to a primary study by researchers at Yale on the rate of expulsion in prekindergarten programs serving three- and four-year-olds.

Led by Yale Child Study Center researcher Walter S. Gilliam, the study, titled "Pre–kindergartners Left Behind: Expulsion Rates in State Prekindergarten Systems," is based on data gathered in the National Prekindergarten Study (NPS). The paper reports on expulsion rates by program setting (public school, Head Start, private providers), gender, and race/ethnicity. The pre–K report also presents expulsion data from all 40 states that fund prekindergarten programs.

Pre-schoolers these days are very dangerous. In my neighborhood recently there was a drive-by fingerpainting. MORE:

The study found that although rates of expulsion vary widely among the 40 states funding prekindergarten, state expulsion rates for prekindergartners exceed those in K–12 classes in all but three states. Prekindergarten expulsion rates vary by classroom setting.

Expulsion rates are lowest in classrooms located in public schools and Head Start, and highest in faith–affiliated centers, for–profit childcare and other community–based settings. In classrooms where the teacher had no access to a psychologist or psychiatrist, students were expelled about twice as frequently. The likelihood of expulsion decreases significantly with access to classroom–based behavioral consultants that provide teachers with assistance in behavior management.

"No one wants to hear about three– and four–year–olds being expelled from preschool, but it happens rather frequently," said Gilliam. "Pre–K teachers need access to the support staff they need to help manage classroom behavior problems. Without this support, we are setting up for failure both our children and their teachers."

Exactly. There should be zero tolerance for unruly pre-school behavior.

When the little students are expelled, they should be made to write 100 words on what's the proper way to act in pre-school...No WAIT: They can't write.

OK. When the little students are expelled, explain to them how in the long run teh absences will hurt them if they want to go to college...No WAIT: They don't know what college is.

Well, then just tell them Barney thinks they're bad.

We appreciate the fact that some partents try to give their kids everything they want, but perhaps this is taking it too far:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A mother faces criminal charges after she hired a stripper to dance at her 16-year-old son's birthday party.

"I tried to do something special for my son," Pharris said. "It didn't harm him."

About 10 people under the age of 18 were at the birthday party in September, including minors who were not related to the family, authorities said.

Police spokesman Don Aaron said minors are not permitted in adult establishments.

"A person shouldn't be allowed to circumvent that law by hiring a stripper, a lady who took all her clothes off and spent a good amount of time dancing around minors," he said.

Anette Pharris took photos at the party and tried to have them developed at a nearby drug store. Drug store employees notified authorities, police said.

"Who are they to tell me what I can and can't show to my own children?" the mother said.

Oh.

The setting: hishis role in the compromise that nixed the "nuclear option" on judicial filibusters. But will this prove to be good or bad for him?

...and guess what? Doing comedy isn't. So we need to say "thanks."

....but did they work?

Hold onto your hats. A mainstream media publication has praised blogs. USA Today on military blogs:

This Memorial Day, as Americans remember the dead in all wars, Whitman's poetry is both a touchstone and reminder that for all the changing technology, from muskets to heat-seeking missiles, each war weaves a similarly complex web of impact on soldiers, families and communities. And, by extension, on the nation.

In most wars, it takes time for the country to digest and comprehend that full impact. Creative evocations of the war experience - such as Ernest Hemingway's World War I novel A Farewell to Arms, the World War II movie Saving Private Ryan, or Jarhead, Anthony Swofford's memoir from the first Iraq war - usually take years or decades to emerge.

The current Iraq war is similarly opaque right now, with as yet no clear outcome. But an under-the-skin picture of the personal and emotional repercussions is already coming into relief.

Military bloggers are recording their experiences, reactions, hard realities and raw emotions. Operation Homecoming, a project sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), is encouraging soldiers to tell their stories now, rather than wait for years for a great novelist or poet. Two dozen writers - including novelist Tom Clancy and Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down - are crisscrossing the country, teaching workshops and encouraging poetry, memoirs or any kind of writing that records the experiences. An anthology of the best is planned.

They are doing a real service.

For no matter how mixed Americans may be in how they view the war, the evocations unquestionably tie the experiences of this generation of soldiers with those in conflicts going back to the Civil War. In the process, they help us gain a fuller appreciation of those fighting, and dying, in a war so far away and requiring so little sacrifice at home.

The Internet blogs and the NEA project replay familiar human themes and personal reactions of past war literature: patriotism, the pain of family separation and war's impact on the soul.

There's more in that editorial. But that's the crux. And it's a nice thought.

PS: USA Today, as far as blogs go, remains one of the most underrated newspapers. It's a skillfully edited and written great read and is packed with tons of information. It should be linked to MORE (most blogs even on the right seem fixated with the New York Times, a paper that since high school I have personally found pompous and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzworthy.)

A Japanese security consultant missing since May 9 has reportedl been killed. Diggers Realm has the full details and (warning) some graphic photos.

One thing: it's interesting how the terrorists in Iraq have seemingly backed off the barbaric beheading that they were doing with such an intentional public splash last year. This would suggest that they got some backlash from other quarters. Or they discovered it proved to be counteproductive and lost them support. But notice how the beheadings stopped?

Gee, I wish my former employers were like this at the newspapers for which I worked — where if you screwed up you could be put on probation, demoted or fired:

Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key intelligence failure on Iraq — the claim that aluminum tubes sought by the Baghdad government were most likely meant for a nuclear weapons program rather than for rockets — have received job performance awards in each of the past three years, officials said.

The civilian analysts, former military men considered experts on foreign and U.S. weaponry, work at the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), one of three U.S. agencies singled out for particular criticism by President Bush's commission that investigated U.S. intelligence.

The Army analysts concluded that it was highly unlikely that the tubes were for use in Iraq's rocket arsenal, a finding that bolstered a CIA contention that they were destined for nuclear centrifuges, which was in turn cited by the Bush administration as proof that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

The problem, according to the commission, which cited the two analysts' work, is that they did not seek or obtain information available from the Energy Department and elsewhere showing that the tubes were indeed the type used for years as rocket-motor cases by Iraq's military. The panel said the finding represented a "serious lapse in analytic tradecraft" because the center's personnel "could and should have conducted a more exhaustive examination of the question."

Pentagon spokesmen said the awards for the analysts were to recognize their overall contributions on the job over the course of each year. But some current and former officials, including those who called attention to the awards, said the episode shows how the administration has failed to hold people accountable for mistakes on prewar intelligence.

Now, wait a minute. That can't be true. Surely the people who screwed up in the pre-911 days on intelligence and other matters, the people who reportedy gave GWB bad info about weapons of mass destruction — all of those people have faced some kind of career consquences? Right. Weeelllll:

Despite sharp critiques from the president's commission and the Senate intelligence committee, no major reprimand or penalty has been announced publicly in connection with the intelligence failures, though investigations are still underway at the CIA. George J. Tenet resigned as CIA director but was later awarded the Medal of Freedom by Bush.

The president's commission urged the Bush administration to consider taking action against the agencies, and perhaps the individuals, responsible for the most serious errors in assessing Iraq's weapons program.

Washington lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste, who was a member of the Sept. 11 commission and whose government experience goes back to service as a Watergate prosecutor, said it is important for the administration to hold the intelligence community accountable for mistakes.

"It matters whether it was carelessness or tailoring [of intelligence], whether it was based on perceived wants of an administration or overt requests . . . It is time now to demonstrate the need for the integrity of the process," Ben-Veniste said.

In its report, the commission, chaired by former appellate judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.), said "reform requires more than changing the community's systems: it also requires accountability."

As Daffy Duck would say: "Accountability ashmountability...what does it matter because no one can force us to do it..."

Doug Petch makes the case that there may be one who is out there, getting ready and falling underneath the radar. Actually, he IS visible...but in other ways. Can you guess? WRONG. Here's the answer.

As border security has reportedly tightened along the U.S.-Mexico border in the Southwest a new factor has emerged: growing violence.

Assaults against U.S. Border Patrol agents along a 260-mile stretch of the Arizona/Mexico border known as the Tucson sector, a desolate expanse of territory that is the nation’s major artery for illegal immigration, are on a record clip. In the first eight months of fiscal year 2005 there have been 163 recorded acts of violence against border agents compared with 118 for all of fiscal year 2004, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Border patrol officials in other sectors contacted by MSNBC.com had no figures readily available; however, all those contacted acknowledged that violence is on the increase.

The reason, according to MSNBC: a crackdown on border security launched last month called " the Arizona Border Control Initiative Phase II which, “is nothing less than a full court press,” according to Richard Bonner, commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection unit.MORE:

A major cause of the violence, say Border Patrol officials and agents, is that crackdown efforts are making people more desperate. Drug smugglers and human traffickers have become increasingly aggressive as their losses mount, border patrol officials said.

The violence “is indicative of the desire by the type of people coming here” to protect their illicit cargo, said Shawn Moran, a border patrol agent and San Diego local union official. “[President] Bush likes to say just good hearted people are trying to come across our borders,” Moran said, “but a number of them are hardened criminals with a criminal past and they are willing to do anything it takes.”

This puts U.S. officials and policymakers in an extremely delicate situation. If they don't respond to the border problem they get accused of ignoring illegal immigration and leaving an open door for terrorists. If they do respond, they can then be criticized for overreaction, underreaction or of racist motivations by some groups. And:

The State Department also is warning U.S. citizens about the violence, alerting the public about “the continuing unsettled public security situation” along the border. The warning says there is “violent criminal activity fueled by a war between criminal organizations struggling for control of the lucrative narcotics trade” and that the “criminals are armed with an impressive array of weapons.”

“Make no mistake, these [criminals] are organized,” said George McCubbin, a border agent and southwest vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing border agents. “They will try and create a confrontation in one area as a diversion, knowing we’ll send agents to respond, in hopes that they can sneak through uncovered areas,” McCubbin said.

The violence against border agents runs the gamut from physical assaults, where a suspect actually fights with an agent, to “rockings,” in which agents and their vehicles are pelted with rocks or chunks of cement blocks, to vehicles being used to try and run agents down, to shootings.

The “rockings” have gotten so violent that border patrol agents now ride in “war wagons," vehicles that are custom fitted with steel screens, said Joe Brigman, a border patrol spokesman in the Yuma, Ariz. sector.

Outlook: until a consistent and well-thought out immigration policy emerges, this issue will remain where it has been...essentially stalemated. And a powder-keg for policy makers, no matter what course they choose to take.

How some Homeland Security officials spend their time...

I got a letter from Vice President Dick Cheney inviting me to dinner!

Saw it. It was beyond awesome.

I thought the handling of Anakin's fall, showing it to be (like I believe most evil is) based on weakness and selfishness and cowardice, was perfect. It managed to do something I've never seen a prequel do: make a later episode seem better. The tale of Luke's refusal to go to the dark side, and Vader's redemption at the end of "Return of the Jedi," now seems less cheesy, much more moving and much more believable.

I also have to say some of the slams on the film simply miss the point. These movies--all of them--are fables first and foremost. If you don't relate to them as fairy tales, you're already ruining the experience for yourself.

(And when I say "fairy tales," just remember that the old folk fairy tales were far more gritty and dark than the sanitized ones we see from the likes of Disney.)

Complaints about stilted dialogue? No, the stilted dialogue is exactly right for the fairy tales that these are--and by the way, going all the way back to the original film in 1977, can you name a time when Jedi and their friends didn't speak in stiff, wooden dialogue?

Back when Star Wars came out, some left-leaning critics panned it, seeing it as an allegory to the Cold War and slamming it for oversimplifying that conflict. That was nonsense then. It's nonsense now for right-wingers to think that this is any serious allegory to current politics--this or that line aside, it's about a civilization taken over by an evil manipulative person. What more do you need to know?

These are fairy tales. If you aren't watching them with that first and foremost in mind, you've lost the point. If you're complaining about corny or contrived parts, you've especially missed the point.

I thought the whole thing was beautiful.

Note to George Lucas: all is forgiven. Thanks man. You made me love the entire series all over again. And my 7 year old thought it was awesome. Driving home, he even told me he couldn't get the sound of light sabers out of his head.

Heh. Me neither.

(By the way, I stand by the recommendation to see it in digital. It was absolutely gorgeous. One tip though: don't sit too close to the screen, or it's like sitting too close to a TV; you'll occasionally spot little jaggies. Sitting a third to halfway back in the theater should be about perfect though.)

Via College Humor So much cuteness!

With an eerie, almost Elmer Fudd-like precision, the UN, their related NGOs and Democrats like Howard Dean and George Soros have been hunting Wepublicans for years.

Like Fudd, they believe that their prey is stupid. They believe they have the superior intellectual firepower, but these Fudds always go home empty handed. Why?

Maybe their concentration is off. Be vewy, vewy quiet.

The hyperbolic, cartoonish intensity of their frustrated efforts to bag the big Wepublicans was exemplified by Howard Deans' cartoonish Yeeargghhh! But that Fuddy bleat of despair is now surpassed by this pathetic effort from Amnesty International. This bold yet peacefully ineffective defender of Human Rights worldwide has just published an official Annual Report that is, literally, a cartoonish expression of rage.

(Amnesty's cartoon is thanks to someone named Morin, who is no Tex Avery)

In their Cartoon report, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, Irene Khan, had a Yeeaarggh! moment when she called Guantanamo "the gulag of our times"

Michael Totten discusses Khan's harebrained comparison:

I have read some of the work of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. And I once (briefly) met a man who survived both a Nazi concentration camp and one of Stalin’s slave labor camps in Siberia. It would be a bit much to say I "know" the gulag, but I do have a bit of a clue about what went on there. It was no Guantanamo, as anyone who has ever bothered to study the subject well knows. For one thing, if Guantanamo were the new gulag, Irene Khan would be languishing in it herself right about now – and so would her family.

But she isn't, she never will be, and she knows it. What she doesn't know is the gulag.

I once said of Senator James (more outraged by the outrage) Inhofe of Oklahoma that "it takes a special kind of person, really it does, to think anger at torture is worse than torture." All Irene Khan is doing here is encouraging the Inhofes of the world by crying "wolf" instead of properly crying foul. It is, as a certain Secretary of Defense would put it, not helpful.

Anyway, the gulag of our times is in North Korea.

In Amnesty's universe, Americans are omnipotent, hyperpower Gods. All intermational peons must bend to our will.

So, if we're responsible for everything bad that happens, we must be responsible for all the good things too, like the Independence of Lebanon, India's economic boom, the improving Chinese economy and the Canadian government's recent entertaining antics.

If we were responsible. But, since this is the real world, we're not.

When hysteria-prone Fudds like Dean are threatened, they fly into bigger and better hysterics. Since the 2004 elections, their anti-Bush hysteria has been turned to 11. The screamers at Amnesty have just turned the loony tunes up to 12.

From William Schulz, Amnesty's Executive Director:

At the launch of its 2005 Annual Report, Amnesty International called on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating U.S. officials implicated in the development or implementation of interrogation techniques that constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. While the U.S. government has failed to conduct a genuinely independent and comprehensive investigation, the officials implicated in these crimes are nonetheless subject to investigation and possible arrest by other nations while traveling abroad, the organization said.

The human rights organization warned that at least one dozen former or current U.S. officials are vulnerable to this action. The individuals, who, to date, have either dodged investigation or escaped sanction, include those at the highest levels of government, such as President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, as well as Attorney General Gonzales and former CIA Director George Tenet.

Q: Why did the Bush administration ultimately carry out its Iraq policy the way it did? Do you subscribe to any of the more cynical views commonly voiced by the left, for example that the war was simply a big oil grab?

Schultz: I think it reflects a rather wholesale disregard for international institutions, for a multilateral framework in which to conduct U.S. foreign policy. I don't think it's only about oil. That may be part of it, but fundamentally it's about American power. The United States has articulated in the National Defense Strategy - with its precursor being the Project for a New American Century - the desire to make sure American military power is preeminent, and will stay that way 100, 200 and 500 years from now. That will be accomplished by asserting American unilateral military power - and economic power, though the two in some measure go hand in hand — wherever it's needed around the globe

In his Salon interview, Schulz ignored the enemy that Amnesty is NOT fighting - oppression, slavery and human rights violations around the world.

He's still ignoring them. Did Mr. Schulz threaten the genocidal President Omar Hassan A. Al-Bashier of the Sudan with arrest? Did he mock Bashier with a cartoon? Of course not. He doesn't care about Bashier. President Bashir doesn't threaten Schulz's power.

Fear of American hyperpower and fear of their own loss of power motivates Amnesty's bumbling efforts to hunt and curb American power. It also motivates their lack of equivalent concern for every other human rights issue around the globe. In their worldview, I suppose this makes sense. If we are omnipotent Gods who control every earth-event, hunting us is the only reasonable course of action.

In Amnesty's cartoon universe, their motivation is clear. I understand that, but what I don't understand is - why should anyone pay for their obsessive loony-tunes hunt?

There's something screwy going on around here.

Quoted:

Over the past 20 years, I've seen the libertarian right become more receptive to arguments about the importance of the values that underpin the endurance of their freedoms. I've also seen quite a few social conservatives become more conscious of the importance of the freedoms that underpin the endurance of their values. As Os Guinness puts it, pithily:

"Freedom requires virtue. Virtue requires faith. Faith requires freedom."

* I have some thoughts for liberals and secularists to ponder.

* And I have some thoughts for religious conservatives to ponder.

Faith, Freedom, Virtue: Some Thoughts for Liberals and Conservatives

...and I think discussion in the blogosphere would be great.

Indeed.

Today's Wall Street Journal has a dynamite piece of social history by political scientist James Pierson. While it is ostensibly on the role of conservative foundations on American politics, it is a pretty good and concise history of the conservative intellectual movement in America from the middle of the 20th century onward.

It's also a good antidote to a lot of the scaremongering we see on the left of how evil and sinister and dangerous and pernicious these organizations are. Or the silly claims that they have no counterpart on the left. As Pierson notes:

In one recent year, the five leading liberal philanthropic organizations--the Ford, Rockefeller and MacArthur foundations, the Pew Trusts and the Carnegie Corporation--reported combined assets of $24 billion and annual expenditures of $1.2 billion. By contrast, the combined assets of the five largest conservative foundations do not exceed $1.5 billion, and their annual expenditures barely reach $100 million. Yet they were able to achieve a great deal with focus and discipline, and by allying themselves with an unusually talented generation of writers and scholars.

But more important than such details is the meat of the article. Pierson starts by noting the enormous influence of two of the 20th century's most influential liberal lights, John Kenneth Galbraith and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (two men everyday people don't know but who were incredibly influential on many Presidents and other powerful political figures), then says:

The long descent of liberalism in recent decades has, no doubt, been not just a painful but a perplexing development for those once convinced that the future would be shaped by their ideals. The rise of conservatism must seem doubly perplexing. Mr. Galbraith himself had remarked, in 1964, "These are without doubt the years of the liberal. Almost everyone so describes himself." And both he and Mr. Schlesinger had dismissed conservative thought in the most derisive terms as without intellectual substance of any kind. Today, not only has conservatism risen to prominence in the electoral sphere, but conservative thought has seized the initiative in the world of ideas as well.

Of course, there have been attempts by liberals to account for this reversal of fortune; but few have been accurate, thoughtful, or constructive. During last year's presidential campaign, the general tone was well captured in liberal assaults on George W. Bush as a "liar" or an "idiot" for pursing precisely the sort of cause--deploying American power on behalf of liberty and democracy in the world--that liberals like Messrs. Galbraith and Schlesinger once championed. Addressing the rise of conservatism, the left resorts to explanations that stress manipulation and trickery, with corporate payoffs to politicians looming large in the story. Conservative ideas play but a minor role in the account, and are themselves generally characterized as mere stalking horses for corporate interests. A particularly sinister role is ascribed to those conservative philanthropies that have helped fund thinkers, magazines and research institutions--on the assumption that no one would advance such self-evidently meretricious ideas unless paid to do so.

Indeed, the left has displayed a near-obsessive interest in conservative philanthropies. Several Web sites are devoted entirely to charting the activities of the "right-wing foundations established by major corporate polluters," as the environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., describes them in his book, "Crimes Against Nature." Similarly, the journalists David Brock and Eric Alterman have devoted much energy to "exposing" the projects supported by these institutions as well as their links to other organizations and their place in the broader constellation of conservative activism. Reports by People for the American Way and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy dwell with heavy emphasis on the supposedly nefarious strategies and tactics employed by the foundations to advance their highly dubious cause.

Invariably, these broadsides ignore the substance of the ideas themselves, quite as if John Stuart Mill's famous characterization of conservatives as "the stupid party" were still the rule in the early 21st century. But the plain fact is that modern conservatives have been engaged with the world of ideas to a far greater extent than most modern liberals. The columnist David Brooks has observed that, asked to name influences on their thinking, most conservatives are able to list a number of books or authors, while liberals have difficulty identifying any. This lively engagement with a coherent body of ideas forms a crucial if much overlooked aspect of the rise of conservatism, and one in which conservative foundations have played a central role.

Pierson rightly notes that the conservative intellectual and philanthropic movement eventually yielded very dramatic political results, and has been shifting from a reformist philosophy to a governing philosophy. Therein probably lay the seeds of its demise: like the liberalism of the last generation, today's ascendant conservative movement will not stay ascendant forever. But to have an idea where we're really going, it's often useful to see where we've been, and the hidden history of the conservative movement is still one most people don't know about. Pierson's article is a great starting point on that, so I suggest you click here and read the whole thing.

I don’t climb onto the Pagan-wagon too often, so I hope you’ll excuse my doing it just this once. If it helps, please understand that I don’t care much for Wiccans, finding them much too Green for my own comfort level. Nonetheless, I do understand that from where your typical holder of “mainstream religious beliefs” wouldn’t be able to see much of a difference from where they are sitting. Fair enough. Anyway, onward:

An Indianapolis father is appealing a Marion County judge's unusual order that prohibits him and his ex-wife from exposing their child to "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

The parents practice Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion that emphasizes a balance in nature and reverence for the earth.

...

"There is a discrepancy between Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones' lifestyle and the belief system adhered to by the parochial school. . . . Ms. Jones and Mr. Jones display little insight into the confusion these divergent belief systems will have upon (the boy) as he ages," the bureau said in its report.

What’s truly upsetting here is that the judge ruled without being asked by anyone, and did so because he felt the child’s psyche might be damaged by being exposed to both Christianity (at school) and Wicca (at both his parents’ houses)...

I can’t even begin to express my outrage at this. It is rulings such as this which begins to make people nervous about impending theocracy. I fully expect this ruling to be overturned (or at least explained much better, in ways which having nothing to do with the religion per se), but there simply is a large part of the population which will see nothing wrong with this ruling as it stands. And, yes, that is terrifying...

The question is: in a nation where around 75-80% of the citizens claim a belief in some form of Christianity is it even possible that something else might be granted status as “mainstream”? What about the Mormons, are they “mainstream”? Episcopalians? Perhaps this ruling could be used to keep children out of the clutches of Jehovah’s Witnesses...

The thing to understand is that the American (and Western) legal and political tradition places strong boundaries along church/state lines specifically so we can avoid the sorts of bloody sectarian wars over the “proper” way to worship the deities of our choice that caused so much destruction during the 17th and 18th centuries. Our system is deliberately apathetic on this issue specifically so that the apparatus of government won’t be a prize to be fought over and ripped to shreds...

When this judge creates new legal categories of “mainstream” and “non-mainstream” religious views, and states that the two cannot be safely co-taught to the same child, and states that only the “mainstream” can be taught, a rather large prize is created...

I am not saying that this is leading down a slippery slope to hellish theocracy. I am saying that this is about the worst, most un-American ruling the judge could have possibly made. I have every faith that it will be overturned on appeal...

(via A Stitch in Haste)

(Update: Fixed link)

Reader John Dibble recently emailed me this: a proposed bill to force members of congress to read all legislation before they vote on it.

Most people don't know this, but congressional legislation these days routinely runs several thousand pages, and almost no member of either house of Congress reads even a fraction of them. They're largely drafted by congressional staff members.

The proposal is interesting. I have long found it disturbing that our government is so complex and elaborate that no human being could possibly keep track of all the legislation that's passed. I doubt if such a bill could ever pass though, or be enforced if it was. The Federal budget alone runs hundreds of thousands of pages.

I left this comment in response to an apparently sincere leftist over at right wing nuthouse and thought it worth slightly editing and expanding and reprinting here:

Can you explain in a straightforward way why, as you say, the left, aided by the liberal media, want to undermine the war effort?

The “left” generically speaking (there are always honorable exceptions) either opposed the war effort from the beginning or turned against it the moment it looked like mistakes and other bad things were happening. Worse, due to their general ignorance of military matters and of history, many of these people actually seem to think there has sometime, somewhere been a war where there were no screwups, nasty surprises, embarassments, frustrations, terrible things done by some of our own people, or unforeseen consequences.

The left also frequently tends to lack that form of patriotism which sincerely says, "I opposed this war but now that we're in it I want us to succeed, so I'm not going to be party to people who slander our armed forces, nor will I seize on every setback or mistake as proof that the whole enterprise is evil and doomed to failure." They didn't used to be so unpatriotic that way, but that's the way many people are today.

Anyway, the media has an overrepresentation of such people in it. Add to that the institutional anti-military, anti-government cynicism that’s pervaded the press since the Watergate days, the “if it bleeds it leads” profit motive, and the general shallowness and laziness of most news organizations, and you have the mess we see today. (Oh, and by the way: being shallow and lazy in war coverage when your own troops are on the ground is unpatriotic all by itself.)

On top of all that, there's the fact that so many shallow, stupid people conflate “supporting the war effort” with “supporting the Bush administration” and you’ve got the perfect recipe for what we have now: a shallow, cynical, negative, stupid, and reflexively anti-American press corps that rarely even stops to think about whether American interests will be harmed by printing half-assed allegations, by printing anonymous rumors, or by showing events in a context that makes isolated crimes look like rampant and pervasive evil.

It’s not hard to explain any of this. Nor is it unfixable. But you can’t fix something that you won’t admit is broken. Step #1: Admit that you have a problem. Step #2: admit that reporting good news and success does not equal "touting the Bush administration line" and that reporting good news is legitimate journalism. Step #3: Admit that objectivity isn't possible, and that being fair to your own fellow Americans when there's life and death at stake is an honorable practice. Step #4... I'll leave it to others to suggest a few others.

The Ace of Spades, in his generally negative review of the film, says, "I still find the digital video fairly low-res and blurry and I miss the crispness of actual film." I may be wrong, but my guess is that he saw the film in its 70mm-transfer version, and that if he saw it in an actual DLP theater this particular complaint would vanish. (His other complaints would still stand of course.)

I haven't seen the film yet. I don't really need to to comment on it; like being born Catholic, the whole Star Wars phenomenon is sort of steeped in my character. All my friends have seen it and told me all about it, why they loved it or hated it, given me the plot summary, etc. "Spoilers" do not bother me, and I expect no surprises. I expect to enjoy the movie even while already expecting its many flaws.

One of the reasons I held out on going right away is that I wanted to be sure to catch it in a Digital Light Processing (DLP) theater. These theaters--and there are only about 250 of them nationwide the last I looked--download the movie via satellite to a local file server, then project it digitally straight onto the screen. And since these last three Star Wars films have been shot entirely in digital, you lose absolutely nothing in the transition.

You might wonder how much difference DLP can make. I certainly did; 70mm film is wonderful stuff. Still, I recall that when Episode II came out, I first saw it on 70mm. Then I read complaints (complaints I shared) that the film seemed muddy and dark in parts. I read some reviews which mentioned that this was because of the transfer from digital to 70mm, and that if you saw it in a digital theater it was almost like watching a different movie. So, even though I didn't love the second film, I went out of my way to find a digital theater and see it a second time there.

The critics were right: it was a different movie in digital.

While there are some detractors to the technology, I have to say that Star Wars Episode II in a DLP cinema was easily one of the most visually beautiful things I have ever seen on a movie screen. So crisp it was almost three dimensional, and so different in how it worked that it seemed almost as startling as the transition from black & white to color film. I suspect that cinematographers in coming years will have to reinvent the way they do things as this technology becomes more common, much as the move from black & white to color did. (For old-time computer geeks: remember how startling the transition from EGA to Super-VGA was? Yeah, it's about like that. No kidding.)

Anyway, now that the shows aren't all sold out solid, I finally got our tickets (online of course--how space age!) and I'm going to be taking my son to see Episode III this afternoon. It'll be something of a rite of passage, at least for me if not him, since one of my most vivid memories of childhood will be when my Uncle Eddie took me to see the first film, when I was all of 11 years old.

There's no way it'll have the impact on my son that that first film had on me: the world has changed too much, and special effe