Nicecore!

A few pieces of pretty bad news

2011-09-25T11:33:00.000-05:00

Last night, I rode my bike around Glendale and listened to this song about a million times:

In between killing myself over how to study for the math portion of the GRE, trying to keep up with the ridiculousness of weekly GOP debates, and not losing my head at work, I've noticed that news is just getting more and more depressing. For your reading displeasure:

It's so frustrating when people meddle in our invasions. The Pakistan-based Haqqani network has been accused by Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, of carrying out the September 19 attack on the U.S. Embassy and NATO bases in Kabul. To make matters worse, U.S. officials accuse Pakistan's military and ISI of at best being too soft on the Haqqani network and at worse collaborating with it. Following imperial superpower standard operating procedure, unilateral military action has been put "on the table" (gotta love that table!). Unilateral military action is already a reality in Pakistan (ask the family members of innocent victims of drone strikes), but many are beginning to worry (or hope, depending on how much of a bastard you are) that troops on the ground may be the next step. Pakistani media sources are understandably freaking out, but those opinions, as always, don't seem to be of much import here. Can we now admit it was a bad idea to arm those guys with nukes and help them avoid signing the NPT, or will that come when all we are is radioactive dust in the wind?

Moving slightly west, although not so far west that our morals are compromised by illicit satellite programs depicting love triangles and wrestling competitions, some super bad news regarding Iran made only slight ripples here: A prominent Chinese scholar opined to Haaretz last week that he believes Chinese officials think that Iran is in fact pursuing nuclear weapons (the Haaretz article notes that China buys oil from Iran but refuses to help it build nuclear reactors or even sell it equipment for its nuclear program), that this is a bad thing, that the Chinese will for the near and probably distant future be in need of Iranian oil, and therefore would not mind so much if Israel struck Iran's nuclear reactors. Wait, what?

Chinese foreign policy is usually pragmatic to the extreme, but this really doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but if people didn't harass and threaten Iran with bombings, what excuse would they have to even build a bomb, let alone use one? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's notorious comments about Israel are either mistranslated by Western media or later contradicted by more powerful or influential Iranian voices and conveniently not reported here, and Iran hasn't invaded another country in over a hundred years. An Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would almost certainly lead to a regional war, so I don't understand how that option is better than a benign Iran that may or may not have built a nuclear weapon. Also, it's becoming more and more difficult for even the U.S. to ignore the hypocrisy of allowing Israel, Pakistan, and India to acquire nuclear weapons outside of the NPT while it insists Iran, a signatory to the NPT, should stop their nuclear program altogether.

Iranian officials talk big - often comically so - and yes, they have been known to Photoshop pictures of rockets, but it is widely accepted that they could make life very difficult for the U.S. and its allies throughout the region, actions to which the U.S. would almost certainly overreact, and we know how that would end, if it ever did. My country has been directly involved in war and violence in some form almost consistently since I was born, and well before that. I wonder if I'll ever live to see the end of it.

Iran Misinformation Season

2011-08-28T19:13:00.006-05:00

In the midst of trying my luck again with graduate schools, I'm trying to find a little time to practice some writing by making another handful of these entries. Here goes nothing!

U.S. officials and presidential hopefuls have been opening their mouths about Iran recently, an event which usually causes me significant distress and even brings on occasional bouts of quiet weeping in my cubicle. I realize that no influential decision-maker can know enough about every topic to always make the most informed decisions, but Iran is one of the few areas that I know just enough about to know when people are talking straight of their asses, and it's just so blatantly obvious with some of the latest stories I'm reading. Take this golden quote from presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, uttered without even cracking a smile (I didn't actually see the bastard say it, but I have a sinking feeling he did in fact maintain a straight face) at the Fox News debate a few weeks ago:

"Iran is a country that has been at war with us since 1979. Iran is a country that has killed more American men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan than the Iraqis and the Afghans have. The Iranians are the existential threat to the state of Israel."

This is wrong, wrong, wrong, and one of the oldest and laziest canards regarding Iran. In fact, the reverse is true: Among the least cynical and malevolent ways in which the U.S. has been torturing Iran are the economic sanctions, the presumption behind which is that life for ordinary people will eventually become so unbearable that they will overthrow their government, supposedly having either ignored or forgotten that the foreign powers had a direct hand in their decades of misery all along. Additionally, the meddling by foreign powers gives the government more excuses to crack down on social and political freedoms, making a bad situation worse. We openly supported Saddam in his war of aggression with Iran in the 80s, we've supported internal and international terrorist organizations, we've invaded and indefinitely occupied the two countries on either side of them, we've loaded the Persian Gulf and surrounding areas with nuclear subs and warships (Google "Diego Garcia") and we're backing them into a corner and violating the UN charter with threats of military action over the nuclear program issue while we let regimes of essentially the same stripe stock up on who-knows-what completely unchecked.

I suppose Santorum gets a point for getting the year of the revolution correct and presumably spelling his name correctly at the beginning of the debate, but forgetting the history of sanctions and threats of invasion after the revolution, as well as the decades of rule by the shah before that is a pretty big oversight and a classic example of our tendency toward highly selective memory. Santorum's concern for Israel is also unnecessary, unfounded and goes against the opinion of the Israeli Defense Minister.

Santorum's comment was in response to a statement by Ron Paul in which he stressed the need for the U.S. to withdraw from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and also made a simple observation, but nonetheless one which hadn't occurred to me: The Soviet Union may have been a much greater threat to the U.S. and certainly had nuclear weapons, yet we never attacked them. The unilateral, imperialist arrogance that has dominated our foreign policy and discourse for a decade or so now has become so normalized that nobody blinks when Santorum and others like him express indignation that another country would "interfere" with U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, as Jon Stewart and others have pointed out, a voice of reason on this issue is getting next to no airtime:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Indecision 2012 - Corn Polled Edition - Ron Paul & the Top Tier

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

Since substantive discussion of issues does not fit into the media narrative of the presidential hopefuls as the cast of the latest reality TV show, suggestions of actual policy changes will go unreported until the next election (and who am I kidding, after it as well), with the public none the wiser. The comments made by Santorum, as well as more sinister forms of drum-beating for military intervention, will continue to be posited as regular, acceptable discourse and given credibility for the next 14 or so months, the thought of which thrills me to no end.

President Ahmadinejad is due to speak at the U.N. in New York again fairly soon, something which always brings with it a torrent of misinformation, media deception/laziness, and manipulative propaganda from our elected (or would-be elected) officials and news media personalities. A colorful cast of characters has been pushing for the Mujahedin-e Khalq to be taken off of the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, a story which I will try to update myself on and summarize later this week.

Bad stuff to report, worse reporting

2011-04-18T18:40:00.025-05:00

Well hello, everyone. It's been a while. Clearly I can promise myself that I'm going to do this more often a thousand times, but it doesn't make a lick of difference. No promises from here on out, but I enjoy this immensely whenever I do it, so hopefully that'll keep bringing me back. Enjoy this classic album opener - it's only a minute long:

7 Seconds - Regress No Way

Now that you're awake, we can check out what's happening in the world. Oh, the entire place is falling apart. Budgeting fiascos, closing of programs, classified document leaks, protests, revolutions, upheavals...what a mess. Crummy reporting makes it especially hard to get the right information about what's going on. Take these budget cuts, for example. Politicians and news outlets alike are vying to prove that they alone are the voice of the American people (regardless of how far to the right of actual public opinion they all are on certain issues). You can find literally miles of crazy stuff, and all of it can be so easily distorted. For example, Fox reports here that "voters want to cut spending over raising taxes by 2-1." They cite a Reuters poll:

Weighing in on the Washington budget debate, 59 percent of Americans prefer to cut existing programs while 30 percent would rather raise taxes to reduce deficit spending.

That seems reasonable. However, when you look at the actual Reuters article, you find a small detail that Fox left out:

Weighing in on the Washington budget debate, 59 percent of Americans prefer to cut existing programs while 30 percent would rather raise taxes to reduce deficit spending.

And they prefer to cut defense spending rather than programs that affect them more directly like Medicare and Social Security.

What a difference that extra sentence makes! Now, I realize that Fox is sort of low-hanging fruit, but this is important when their news channel still is still blowing away the competition. In any case, the idea that the public might be overwhelmingly in favor of defense spending cuts is unmentionable in any mainstream media sphere, let alone a tentacle of the Murdoch empire, so they can simply not report that part and the reader is none the wiser.

Speaking of the fact that 59% of Americans might have some opinion on the state of Medicare, it's a sad state of affairs for opinion polling on health care reform - I found this survey a while back from the Commonwealth Fund showing that 72% of Americans think the health care system needs major overhaul. This, of course, was hardly reported anywhere, and now seems to sort of contradict a Rasmussen poll asserting that 52% of voters favor repeal of the health care law. Rasmussen is sort of shady, however, because of their tendency to selectively sample (they once published a poll about Sarah Palin in which they asked only voters who identified as Republican), so there's that. And yet, this story from last September indicates that most voters are opposed to health care reform not because it is too liberal, but because it isn't liberal enough.

While U.S. social policies and institutions suffer attacks from regressive, anti-people politicians, the Middle East is trying to move in the other direction. I won't even try and get into it here since you've probably already read everything you care to about it. However, it is funny to watch our leaders selectively praise the uprisings. Lots of love for Libya, not a peep on Saudi Arabia or Bahrain. Tyrannies more directly backed by the U.S. are taking advantage of the situation and taking steps to increase violence and repression; here's a good Al-Jazeera editorial on crackdowns on dissent and press freedom in Iraq.

Where can the U.S. get involved next? Syria.

What they don't tell us about Haiti

2010-10-24T09:47:00.007-05:00

Hey everyone, I hope you're doing well. Enjoy the sound of my junior year of high school:

Stereolab - Peng! 33

To distract myself from grad school applications, I did a little follow up on the situation in Haiti since reports of a deadly cholera outbreak have surfaced. Speaking of reporting on Haiti, it's generally been pretty weak. I know, let's talk about it!

So if you know where to look, it was previously reported that Republican Senator Tom Coburn was singlehandedly blocking all of the Haiti aid for reconstruction promised by the U.S. due to a $5 million provision (out of the total $1.15 billion) in the bill, and Jon Stewart also made quite a deal out of it. Now, if I wanted to find some evidence to back up claims that Senator Tom Coburn was holding back over a billion dollars in aid to Haiti, Senator Tom Coburn's website isn't one of the first places I'd visit, but it's a good thing I checked it out. It turns out Coburn is only blocking a bill authorizing $500 million in new spending for FY 2011, an amount to the tune of half of what he was reported to be blocking originally. According to this UN report, the final version of the legislation signed by President Obama on July 29th of this year included a total of $2.93 billion in aid for Haiti, a good chunk of which has already been spent. Here's the good stuff:

As of September, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) reported that more than $1.1 billion of the $1.642 billion for Haiti relief had been spent since the earthquake. But the $1.140 billion for recovery and reconstruction has remained in the US treasury because the vast proportion of this assistance cannot be disbursed until the secretary of state reports to various congressional committees on exactly how the money will be spent and how its oversight will be managed. Senator Coburn has nothing to do with the obstruction of this money.

Ah, so the secretary of state has to report to various committees and speak eloquently about the new homes that will theoretically be built before the new homes can actually be built! That makes sense, actually. It's kind of like at my job: because we use government money, I have to fill out three different vouchers, get three signatures on each one, make copies of two of them, file them in two separate places, and then get verbal approval from one of my supervisors before I can purchase a bed for a refugee.

Anyway, these failures to check facts (as well as the arbitrary hold-up of aid money, but that has nothing to do with the media) are annoying, but that is only the smaller of the two main problems I have with the Haiti coverage. The other, as usual, is the failure to provide readers with proper historical context for the current crises unfolding before our eyes.

What exactly do I mean? Without a doubt, the easiest example to point to is the coverage after 9/11. As per the Five Ws (and one H) of journalism, the who, what, when, where, and how were all covered, but not the why. In fact, any discussion about the why that insinuated anything even remotely deviating from "they hate our freedoms" was immediately silenced by good ol' fashioned "anti-American" accusations. To be more specific, coverage contained few to no details about the decades of U.S. support for brutal, dictatorial regimes and terrorism in the region, something which quite easily explains why a couple of maniacs might want to attack us. Thus, mainstream media (and the larger part of the American public) conveniently avoided dealing with any shred of American culpability.

The same model can be applied to the coverage of Haiti. In fact, you literally cannot talk about any point in the past 200 years of Haitian history without mentioning the U.S. Ever since declaring independence in 1804, Haiti has suffered tremendous abuses at the hands of the United States. In 1806, the U.S. placed a trade embargo on Haiti because they feared that Haitian independence would inspire massive slave revolts in other parts of the world, and they didn't formally recognize Haiti until 1862 (Frederick Douglass was sent as consular minister -- what a badass). In 1915, when the U.S. feared a French or German takeover of Haiti, they invaded and began a 19-year occupation of the country. They probably called it "Operation Haitian Freedom."

During the 20th century, Haiti's economy and political situation suffered under disadvantageous, obligatory treaties, "U.S.-approved" constitutions, and the brutal, corrupt, U.S.-backed kleptocracies of "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son. A few years after the ousting of Papa Doc's son in a popular uprising in 1986, Haiti saw its first truly democratic elections, which brought Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in 1990. He was overthrown a year later in a military coup in which the CIA was widely reported to have taken part. The military government ruling in the interim was led by the man chosen by the U.S. to be in charge of security in the 1990 elections and in 1994, a multinational force led by the U.S. forced the military leadership's resignation and reinstated Aristide. Incidentally, that operation was in fact called "Operation Uphold Democracy." I know, I know. Believe it.

This all has a great deal to do with the earthquake because Haiti, probably due in large part to decades of economic and political torture by the U.S., was in no position to deal with an earthquake to begin with, and it certainly isn't now. Homes and infrastructure were unprepared, hospitals were not properly maintained (and are now closing down due to lack of funds and supplies), and the government was financially unequipped to handle such a catastrophe, so the mountains of U.S. aid money still sitting in the Treasury are only part of the story. If media performed their duty properly and at least attempted to report stories like Haiti's in full historical context, the public might know the full extent of the U.S. role in catastrophes like the one currently plaguing Haiti, and then maybe they wouldn't allow such abuses to occur.

Miners, not minors

2010-10-22T19:15:00.015-05:00

In honor of both today's story and all the madness in France, here's some definitely non-violent French music played beautifully by a Chilean pianist.

Claudio Arrau performing Debussy's "Reflets dan l'eau"

So, have y'all heard anything else about the Chilean miners recently? Anything besides the fact that a few are getting married or juggling several affairs? Anything with any real weight to it?

If not, check this out: La Jornada reports in Spanish that one of the miners has been hospitalized after suffering severe symptoms of anxiety, while five or six others have been heavily affected by consuming alcohol in excess. Some are also getting sick of their overexposure to the media and one even went as far as to say he "was better off in the mine."

The miners, as nice as it is to hear that they are mostly okay (which is almost all you hear in Western media sources), should not be the focal point of the story anymore (nor should they ever have been, in my opinion). As Juan Cole smartly pointed out in a post on his blog a week ago, the mainstream media mostly treated the mine collapse as a human interest story and ignored the labor aspect, refusing to ask important questions about safety conditions in the mine or hold the mine owners accountable in any way.

For me, the interesting thing about La Jornada reporting on the hospitalization and alcohol excesses of the miners is that you can't find those aspects of the story mentioned in Western sources. I searched, and the only other source in which I could find the same story was the Sydney Morning Herald.

Why aren't they reporting it? I know they haven't simply lost interest in the story, because they're reporting on totally frivolous aspects of the aftermath (such as the love affairs mentioned above). It seems more likely that in order to stick with their original narrative, or possibly because they're lazy (and I'm only half joking), they are avoiding the more troubling aspects such as the hospitalizations because it may eventually force them to confront the more difficult questions cited above from Juan Cole's post. Knowing that most mainstream news media (especially cable television) are overwhelmingly owned or supported by big business and corporations, this is a very interesting example of how those interests can conflict with reporting the aspects of a story which may have negative long-term implications for the businesses (and their negligent practices) themselves.

In fact, it seems that simply ignoring the tougher aspects wasn't enough; Wall Street Journal deputy editor Daniel Henninger went as far as to say that due to the different machine parts and equipment produced by innovative companies around the world, the rescue of the miners was actually a "smashing victory for free-market capitalism." Yikes.

Iran and U.S. Terror

2010-10-17T11:24:00.009-05:00

"I'll take you just the way you are!"

Brand Nubian - Feels So Good

An interesting story emerged late last night, and it's surprising that it's getting as much coverage as it is, considering the implications it has for U.S. support of terrorism. I was able to find the story from a few major news sources, but I'll go with the LA Times, since this is kind of their 'hood. The story is that Reza Taghavi, an Iranian-American businessman from Tustin, California (a city in Orange County, which itself is home to a large Iranian population -- in fact, I'm there quite often for work) has been released from Evin Prison after being held there for over two years. He was arrested in Iran and accused of providing $200 to the LA-based monarchist organization known as Anjoman-e Padeshahi-e Iran (also known as API or the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, which I will say a bit about in a second), was never formally charged or tried, and claims to this day that he gave the money to the organization unknowingly. He is expected to be back in California sometime next week.

Since $200 would hardly be enough to cater lunch at a bi-weekly staff meeting, you might be wondering what all this API fuss is about. The API, originally founded in LA in the form of a TV station for broadcasting anti-Islamic Republic (and generally hateful anti-Islam) propaganda, is now a vast network of operations made up of loosely-connected (and often conflicting) units, all with the common goal of overthrowing the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to their website, they have tasked Iranians in search of the good ol' glory days of Cyrus the Great to carry out their five stage Tondar ("thunder" in Persian) movement, which first and foremost involves "subversive action." I would link to the website, but I'm a little paranoid about doing so (besides, it's in Persian).

Anyway, the trouble is finding some hard proof that this group is directly or indirectly responsible for terrorism (besides the inflammatory stuff on its website, of course). After the 2006 bombing at the Hosseinieh Seyyed al-Shohada mosque in Shiraz which killed 12 and injured 202, many Western and Iranian news sources reported that the API had claimed responsibility on their website shortly after the attack. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any trace of the statement on the main API website after some heavy searching and the Shiraz bombing Wikipedia article in Persian mentions that the API denied any involvement and cites an interview with Voice of America. Making things even more confusing, spokespeople have denied API involvement in terrorism and in even all but the most peaceful of activities, which contrasts pretty sharply with what's written on their website. In this BBC Persian report, a spokeswoman for the API denies any API involvement in terrorist activity, but in the next paragraph a spokesman from another group calling itself the API claims responsibility for violent subversive action.

Terrorism takes place in Iran and is the work of a variety of different groups with no singular, monolithic goal. There are all kinds of characters to be found across the landscape of Iranian political dissidence: Jundullah (Sunni Islamists, whose handsome leader Iran executed earlier this year), MEK (sort of Islamic socialists, although the organization is self-described as secular), Pejak (Kurdish militants), and Ahvazi Arab groups have all carried out terrorist attacks to upset the regime and all have different visions for the future of Iran. A common thread likely to be found running between them is U.S. financial support, discussed in this Telegraph piece from two years ago and this one from three years ago. In fact, according to the second Telegraph article I linked to, there was actually an open debate in Washington near the end of the Bush presidency about "when" (and not "if") to "unleash" Jundullah against the regime. Additionally, George Bush made an appeal to Congress in 2007 for $400 million to step up covert operations in Iran. Mmmhmm.

Anyway, this is all pretty well-documented stuff and I don't need to go on forever about it, but let's go back to the first story. Taghavi is planning to sue the man who asked him to transfer the money upon his return to the U.S. and is considering suing the API, so perhaps something will come of that. His lawyer, Pierre Prosper, was responsible for securing his release from Evin Prison and was formerly in charge of the State Department's Office of War Crimes Issues under George W. Bush. That's right, friends: George Bush, perhaps without even the slightest hint of irony, had an advisory committee charged with holding other states accountable for war crimes. What a wacky world we live in!

Anyway, my point was that not only has the U.S. been funding terror groups in Iran for decades, but they are allowing them to organize and operate from right here at home. However, this should not be shocking to anyone, as this is consistent with the official U.S. government stance on terrorism: it's not terrorism if it's against our enemies.

As a final, interesting linguistics aside, the word in Persian for terrorism is "terrorism," and the transitive Persian verb meaning "to assassinate someone" or "to murder someone in an act of terrorism" is "terror kardan," literally translating to "to terror(ize) someone."

Ahmadinejad Week

2010-09-23T19:18:00.013-05:00

Whoa, it has been a long, long while. I have been keeping up with current events pretty well, I'm glad to say, but I haven't written in this thing. It's a shame, because that devil of a GRE is approaching and doing a little writing every day would probably do me some good.

The Meters - Cissy Strut

So it seems we, these United States, have quite a gnarly guest hanging out this week. You might have heard of him. He's known for saying crazy things he didn't actually say.

During Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's latest visit to the Belly of the Beast, he has been making the rounds with various media clowns to share his...thoughts, or at least the parts that the networks will air. Instead of asking him questions to which he might actually give real answers, they have chosen to ask him astoundingly stupid questions which he can easily turn around, such as, "Why do you call for the destruction of a nation?" Seeing as I often ask that question of my own government, it seems like a plain ol' waste of time to ask it from someone who never really answers questions anyway. The owners of Guantanamo Bay criticizing the owners of Evin Prison is equally inane, as are the media who all but ignore the former while assuming some kind of righteous indignation at the latter. Since the job of US media is to relax us all into a physical confrontation in Iran, none of this is a real surprise to me, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing.

What's nice (or infuriating) about a week like this is that it gives each issue a chance to be brought out and beaten half to death. One story that's been picking up a lot of interest lately is that of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman originally sentenced to death by stoning for adultery but whose sentence was suspended following lots of international brouhaha (but Iran would prefer you not look at it that way). The story has been making fewer and fewer waves lately, but US leaders haven't noticed because they were too busy executing a borderline mentally retarded woman in Virginia. The two remaining hikers in Iran have also come up, as well as Iran's supposed attempt to build nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad has even been baited to say something crazy about the Cordoba Initiative (although he didn't; see below). Pointless, absolutely counter-productive, childlike antagonism from both sides abounds, but at least Ahmadinejad calls out the US on things it seldom, if ever, seems to call itself out on. Even when he does call us out rightly, we display the amazing ability to trick ourselves into believing he's wrong. Take this Time Magazine Newsfeed article, for example, on how Ahmadinejad called out the double standard over the Sakineh case. Here's my very favorite part:

It may be hard to see where the Iranian leader is coming from. After all, Iran was going to execute a woman for allegedly cheating on her husband in a reportedly lopsided case where Ashtiani may not have even understood the charges against her because of the dialect she speaks. On the other hand, Lewis was convicted of arranging the killing of her husband and stepson, a capital crime in Virginia.

Yes, it may be hard to see where the Iranian leader is coming from if your head is quite far up your ass. And if, in the case of this writer, the execution of a borderline mentally retarded woman as long as there is a good enough reason (read between the lines of the above quote), something the Iranian prosecution clearly hasn't been able to scrape together in their case, seems like a perfectly logical conclusion to you. For crying out loud, Iran even suspended the sentence; we actually look worse here. Even despite an appeal from the European Union, Lewis was put to death.

To see an example of Ahmadinejad running circles around reporters, check out his interview with Larry King the other night:

I gotta say, the man has a way with words. Or rather, he has a way around words. Don't get me wrong, I'm not rooting for anyone here; the people on both sides of these interviews are either lying through their teeth or so deluded it makes me uncomfortable.

I mean, really: Can you, as a voice from the only nation to use an atomic bomb and as an active enabler and supplier of arms (nuclear or otherwise) to radical/unstable/autocratic regimes in the region (see: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan), actually criticize someone else for maybe seeking to build a nuclear weapon? Can you? Where is the outrage at our own hypocrisy? Why can't we turn this anger into positive change at home first, before going out and swatting at beehives like we do?

Oh, and like the cherry on top of today, the US delegation marched out in a huff during Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN. Ah, how I love it when the grownups tasked with representing me on the world stage behave like children.

And thus, the good times continue to roll. The censors accuse the censors of censorship, the murderers accuse the murderers of murder, the distorters accuse the distorters of distortion, the arms dealer accuses the arms dealer of arms dealing, and the public is none the wiser.

Tomorrow, Shepard Smith is scheduled to interview Ahmadinejad on FOX News. In the immortal words of Ron Weasley: Murder me, Harry.

Responses too big and too small

2010-07-17T16:49:00.004-05:00

Amadou and Mariam - Pauvre Type

So this has nothing to do with what I usually discuss on this blog, but since the few people that read it probably wouldn't mind a personal detail or two (or three), I'll go ahead and force such details upon y'all now: I've been getting ready to start my applications for grad school, and tonight I realized that I was afraid to even visit the websites to remind myself of exactly what I need to be doing. A bad sign for sure, but one I can push aside for at least another day or ten. In the meantime I've been doing some reading by potential future professors, and that's not always encouraging, either. I don't know which ancient, dusty tome of a thesaurus Hamid Dabashi is packing, but it's epic, and it's been making me feel pretty terrible about myself lately. Also, his grumbling about the Eurocentricity of a singular idea of modernity and predatory bands of white colonialists disenfranchising the whole of humanity is good, but 97 pages of it in a book that's supposed to be about Iranian history is a tad much. Hamid, anyone willing to read a book by you already agrees with you on that front; just make modern Iranian history happen for me already.

Anyway, mostly what's been grabbing my attention lately (other than phone calls at 9:30 in the evening asking me to explain a phone bill that's not due for another three weeks) is this story about France's ban on face veiling. The bill just passed through the lower chamber of parliament. The numbers: 335 to 1 with 241 abstentions. And one very awkward walk from the chambers out to the parking lot. The case now heads to the upper chamber of parliament, where it is expected to pass with similar ease, and then President Sarkozy, with one glorious, liberating stroke of his pen, will free all Muslim women in France from the chains of oppression by enforcing a dress code upon them. Sounds about right. When he's not busy fearlessly fighting for the dignity of French culture and humanity, President Sarkozy spends his spare time being involved in campaign finance scandals.

I posted this on Facebook a while back, but for those of you that didn't see it, I highly recommend reading this. Martha Nussbaum absolutely owns the (lack of) logic behind the veiling bans springing up across Europe. Read it here.

In other news, suicide bombers at a mosque in southeastern Iran killed more than two dozen people two days ago. Sunni militant group Jundullah has claimed responsibility, saying the attacks were revenge for the recent hanging of their dashing leader Abdolmalek Rigi, the handsomest terrorist I've ever seen:

Abdolmalek Rigi - without the two guys in ski masks, this is just another Abercrombie and Fitch ad.

Naturally, a cleric in Iran has already implicated the US in the whole thing: upset about this whole Shahram Amiri ballyhoo, the US must have somehow coerced Jundullah into carrying out the suicide attacks. Must have. Speaking of which, the Shahram Amiri story is one of the most perplexing things I've heard in a while; the pieces just don't go together. In short, Amiri (an Iranian nuclear scientist) disappeared from Mecca in mid-2009. The Iranians claimed that the US abducted him and the US claimed he simply defected. In early June of this year, Iran aired a video in which a person claiming to be Amiri said, "I was abducted in Saudi Arabia! Help!" Mere hours later, another video surfaced on YouTube, in which another man claiming to be Amiri said, "No worries, I'm living freely in Arizona." The New York Times has a nice piece on what it might mean now that he's gone back to Iran, and what his possibilities are for the future. Was he a double agent? Did the CIA really kidnap him? Could his life end in a matter of seconds if he now says the wrong thing to his Iranian interrogators? I'm certain of the answer to at least one of these questions. Here's hoping he didn't overplay Iran's nuclear capabilities to US intelligence officers, which could lead to a preemptive strike by Israel a la Osirak '81 (that's the surprise Israeli bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor many years ago, not a music festival), which would then lead to a whole lot of nasty stuff, the least nasty of which would be the US shrugging their shoulders and going back to business as usual. I mean, let's get real: if the Israeli military can kill nine humanitarian aid workers, including a US citizen, and Obama and co. can just sit on it, I'm having trouble coming up with any hypothetical situation that would provoke a real US response at this point.

*Knock on wood*

Iran Wars

2010-05-20T19:29:00.000-05:00

The world is wacky. I can't get over it. This week has been crazy stressful from almost every angle, and the news is no exception. I get stressed out just reading it. On that note, enjoy this extremely creepy video:

Animal Collective - Peacebone

First up today, I want to mention this "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" thing you might have heard about. Since my internet still randomly drops in and out (LA is split up into little mini-monopolies by the various crap cable companies, and there's really nothing worse than the monopoly of a crap company), I don't feel like tracking down a bunch of background articles and such, but the gist of the story is that a woman in Seattle was upset over the fact that Comedy Central censored the South Park episode that was supposed to feature the Prophet Muhammad in a bear costume, so as a joke (supposedly) she suggested that there be a national "Everybody Draw Muhammad" day during which people...draw Muhammad. As you might expect, there are a boatload of interesting and uninteresting opinions out there:

In the Chicago Tribune, CAIR executive director Ahmed Rehab thinks that just because you can doesn't mean you should.

For CNN, international human rights lawyer Arsalan Iftikhar is annoyed at Pakistan for banning Facebook and Youtube. Oh yeah, they totally banned Facebook and Youtube. Dude, banning websites is totally bad form. Almost everybody agrees on that.

Zeenat Rahman, Director of Strategic Partnerships for the Interfaith Youth Core (also for the Chicago Tribune) thinks it's counterproductive.

...and finally, good ol' Fox News thinks that the day is an insult, but is mainly pissed that Facebook is okay with religion bashing, but not racism. Fox, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

I think the original point of the movement was that since we live in America, we should be able to say or write (or draw) whatever we want, even if it might be very offensive to a very large group of people, and in this case, especially if it's very offensive to a large group of people. In any case, I pretty much agree with Rahman and Rehab (surprised?). I will defend free speech until my dying day, but when the free speech in question is solely for the purpose of pissing people off, my defense is suddenly going to be a lot less vigorous. I guess if you think some religion/philosophy/way of life is bogus, you should have every right to say so, but is it necessary to offend people just because you can? Rahman and Rehab are right, and I don't think the campaign even proves anything. Does anyone remember why the South Park thing was canned? Two people from one wack website made some crazy veiled threats, and that did it. There was no worldwide Muslim call to arms or outcry or anything of the sort; this whole campaign is a preemptive overreaction to an overreaction that never even happened. It's completely in bad faith and in bad taste, and it isn't even thoughtful or clever. It is counterproductive and finally, it just isn't nicecore. For shame!

So, the Iran saga is literally never-ending. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m almost getting tired of reading about it, and my interest really begins to wane significantly when I see our government shooting itself in the foot. Take this week’s news, for example: Iran finally agreed to a nuclear fuel swap deal arranged by Brazil and Turkey (random, anyone?) and the US decided that this was the week it wouldn’t take yes for an answer. Nope, my friends, Hilary Clinton announced the very next day that there was a party in the State Department’s pants over an exciting new round of sanctions. Ah, sanctions, my favorite thing to read and hear and dream about. Forget progress, forget the fact that Iran actually conceded something on the nuclear issue, forget the fact that three young Americans are imprisoned indefinitely and illegally in Iran (as well as hundreds of Iranians whose situations will scarcely improve under a further agitated government), what we need to show to the world is that we are tough. Yes, we need to show them that we are tough on Iran, even when Iran is prepared to give us what we originally asked for. Seriously, the whole thing is so predictable it’s disgusting; world leaders hate nothing more than getting along with each other.

In any case, I use the word “saga” without even a hint of irony, and the bloggers and news agencies freaking love it (myself being no exception, clearly). It features all the familiar elements of a saga, doesn’t it? You have the Evil Empire, seemingly headed by a deranged, power-hungry lunatic with a penchant for ludicrous speeches...

I saw my stack of votes myself; it was this big!

...but in reality run by a shadowy, bearded figure in dark robes who possesses unmatched lightning bolt force powers (or substantial religious/political clout, as the case may be):

He would have built the perfect Islamic Republic if it weren't for those meddling kids.

While the Evil Empire cracks down viciously upon any who would dare oppose it, a unified opposition movement emerges from the ashes of oppression, chooses a characteristic color, and begins to muster its forces in preparation for a final confrontation. The young, fearless leaders of the opposition movement are prepared to sacrifice everything for truth, justice, and the right to listen to American pop music without fear of lashings:

This young woman faces a severe beating for wearing Gucci sunglasses in public.

They are even led by an aging spiritual leader with a funny voice and powers even greater than the shadowy figure leading the Evil Empire, but due to some extenuating circumstance or vaguely defined personal condition, the aging spiritual leader is unable to face the leader of the Evil Empire directly:

Ayatollah Montazeri: "Learn to dodge flying teargas canisters, you must."

Once the spiritual leader passes into the next life, his catchy mantra remains with the young opposition and becomes embedded in pop culture for decades. Eventually, the opposition triumphs over the Evil Empire by blowing up their massive spherical space palace with little fighter jets. See, it’s almost the same exact thing!!

Anyway, I digress. So the USA isn't buying Iran's little Turkey/Brazil deal. Much to my disappointment, Obama is going right along with the whole game. This was his chance to make some actual progress, and he's choosing to show his strength rather than his ability to compromise, which is one of the main reasons I voted for him. Oh, well. Since the world is a place in which "big powers" get together and decide what "little powers" can and can't do, I guess this will all be pretty predictable. Actually, wait. Mark my words: Israel likes things unpredictable, and they'll make it that way pretty soon.

Arizonans

2010-05-19T17:25:00.003-05:00

I'm going to begin by deviating from my usual routine of offering thoughtful, intelligent commentary on current world affairs (ha) in favor of a bit of good ol' fashioned rambling. But first, a song I love to listen to while driving around in the evening. You will fall in love with this song:

Yo La Tengo - Let's Save Tony Orlando's House

Anyway, so I'm watching the Food Network while sitting on my carpet the other day, daydreaming about what it might be like to watch the Food Network while sitting on a couch, when suddenly a commercial grabs my attention: a different food channel, advertised on Food Network! The chefs were about equal parts men and women (to Food Network's credit, they almost feature as many male chefs as female chefs) and they were way "edgier" and "grittier" than the chefs on Food Network (You're using raw ingredients? What a badass). "It can't be," I thought to myself. "A competitor? Advertising on the incumbent's channel?"

Soon, however, I learned that this new food channel is merely an extension of the Food Network designed to net in those that up to now have simply found themselves too hardcore for the wussified offerings of Alton Brown, Paula Deen, and the others. I don't have much else to say about that; I just thought it was an interesting reminder of how networks and corporations spread their dirty little fingers all over the place.

I got rid of my cable last week, so I guess it makes no difference either way.

Anyway, so that bill in Arizona...yeah. I shouldn't have to describe it because y'all have undoubtedly noticed what a stir it's causing. Mexican president Felipe Calderon on a state visit (don't worry, he brought papers with him) criticized the new Arizona law - twice - from the White House. What a guy. If I may offer my opinion (hey, that's what you're here for, isn't it?), it is a pretty horrible piece of legislation. I mean, it's impossible to sugarcoat it and there literally is no need to exaggerate or reword the law to make it sound more horrible; I've read the main points a few times and I just can't see how someone wrote that and thought, "Why yes, this is totally consistent with a free democratic system in which people have the right to live in peace and happiness regardless of their race, sex, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation." The bigwigs from International Rescue Committee HQ in New York were visiting our office two weeks ago and I had the pleasure of inquiring about the possibility of a boycott, and they reacted favorably. That is, they laughed, which I'll take over a stern look and a reprimand any day.

But it goes on: Los Angeles is awesomely kicking around the prospect of boycotting the state of Arizona altogether. Arizona at first retaliated by threatening to boycott the city of Los Angeles, but when Los Angeles officials pulled out their maps to try and remember where this "Arizona" place was, an Arizona official went one step further and threatened to shut off the power in Los Angeles! Oh snap, he went there! That's right, Arizona Corporate Commission member Gary Pierce wrote in an open letter to LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa that since about 25% of the electricity used in Los Angeles is generated at plants outside of Phoenix, Mr. Pierce will simply just shut the party down if LA officials continue on with the boycott plans. You can read Mr. Pierce's love letter here. Here's an excerpt, if you don't feel like reading the whole thing:

If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation. I am confident that Arizona’s utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands.

Ha, what a snarky bastard. My 17-year-old self would have been proud.

This is kind of exciting, honestly. Even though I know it won't turn into anything and Mr. Pierce will probably just be at best severely reprimanded and at worst fired and asked for "papers please," I would still love to see an epic, bloody battle on some field between Angelenos and whatever they call people from Arizona. Maybe Texans will take advantage of the confusion and claim sovereignty again, and then I can bring my family here as refugees and Texas can keep its ass-backwards textbooks.

Iran tomorrow.

Back

2010-04-21T23:20:00.001-05:00

There are a few things I could sit here and complain about, like - wait, the point of that sentence was to not complain. In any case, what I mean to say is that the weather and general energy here in California make it hard to be too bummed about whatever it is I might have to be bummed about. Yes, my friends, spring is in the air: birds are singing happily again, a brilliant cascade of color is flooding back into the waking face of nature, and all of my favorite cooking blogs are inundated with infuriating rhubarb recipes. I say "infuriating" because I can never find rhubarb - there, complaining finished.

I haven't written anything here in a very long time, and even though I recently purchased a computer (it feels wonderful to be a part of the 21st century again), I'm going to go ahead and say it's unlikely that this will be a daily thing. I'm going to try and do it as often as I can because I enjoy it, but you know how it goes. Oh, before I forget, your song:

Caetano Veloso - Onde Andarás?

Speaking of things being in the air, I guess you heard about the toxic (maybe) volcanic ash making travel impossible in Europe until very recently. Obama and some other world leaders couldn't make it to Polish president Lech Kaczynski's funeral, thousands of people were stranded in airports, and here's a piece detailing a boatload of other potential woes down the road. Now that the mess is mostly over, here's a funny retrospective piece in the Guardian. It's downright insightful, actually. I recommend it.

I also caught wind (no pun intended) of a little nuclear gathering that happened here recently. In fact, I think it was the largest gathering of world leaders on US soil since the founding of the UN; even Goodluck Jonathan was there. Not surprisingly, Iran and their cute little selves had a nuclear summit of their own in which could be heard all of the usual "Great Satan" talking points, including some additional hilarious, outdated ways to describe the US. Take this, for example, from a piece in the LA Times:

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, described the United States as the world's "only nuclear scofflaw."

Scofflaw? Is anybody monitoring the people translating these things for US papers? Is Mr. Burns writing Ali Khamenei's speeches?

Look at them, Smithers. Goldbrickers...layabouts...slug-a-beds!

Little do they realise their days of suckling at my teat are numbered.

Anyway, I think it's all kind of funny, really. The US is making a more or less admirable effort to raise the issue and show that they're committed to decreasing their absurdly huge arsenal, but Israel, who definitely has nuclear weapons but hasn't signed the NPT, has gotten off scot free (or maybe not?) not even sending their leader to the summit. Oh, and I don't have to mention (and not only because I already mentioned it here once before) that the US is the only power to have actually used a nuclear bomb on another country - twice - so unfortunately, the Iranian leaders have at least a shred of a point. There's all kinds of wacky news coming out of there these days; you may have heard that a high-ranking cleric there also recently blamed promiscuous women for an increase in earthquakes. Hm, I guess that joke writes itself. However, Feministing points out that spiritual leaders in the US have said similar nonsense. Good times all around!

Speaking of generally ridiculous things, the Arizona state House has passed a bill that will require presidential candidates to show their birth certificate to be eligible to appear on the ballot there. Yeah...there are actually six states pushing this kind of legislation right now. You probably won't be too surprised to learn that these are states in which Democratic candidates wouldn't dream of doing too well anyway, so I don't really think it deserves anymore of anyone's attention.

Arizona is actually on a roll this week; they've also passed a controversial immigration law that will make it a state misdemeanor to be unregistered and without papers in Arizona. It also requires police officers to inquire about someone's status if they are "reasonably suspicious" that the people may be there illegally. Another thing I probably don't have to say too much about, but still want to.

Lastly, I'm not usually a fan of catty pundit news drama, but it's always nice to see Jon Stewart call out Fox News:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Bernie Goldberg Fires Back

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Hopefully both the quality and quantity of these posts will pick up in coming days.

Where Did I Go?

2010-02-23T15:39:00.003-06:00

Dear friends,

I apologize for the lack of posts! I just moved to Los Angeles and so I probably won't pick this back up for another week or so. I don't have my own laptop at the moment, so that's making it extra difficult to sit down and dedicate some time to doing this. In any case, I will likely be getting a computer within the next two weeks or so, at which point I will definitely resume Nicecore-ing.

Thanks!

You're a Peach

2010-01-30T13:00:00.009-06:00

Before Eric Clapton was, well, Eric Clapton, he had a pretty baller group with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce that sort of pioneered blues rock and paved the way for a lot of bands that would make an even bigger splash down the road. In fact, it was one of the first "supergroups," a group of already well-known musicians from other random bands who came together to bring the rock exponentially harder. I remember when I first heard this song in high school. I thought it was super, super lame, and I put the CD away for a few days, but I found that I kept humming that intro to myself. Finally I submitted to the awesomeness of the song and its great little mini solo by Clapton near the end:

Cream - I Feel Free

Today I'm writing to you from sunny Los Angeles, and I've been keeping up with current events as best I can, but something caught my eye yesterday and I'm really excited about it. President Obama apparently crashed the House Republican retreat the other day, and a lively debate ensued. They had an uncharacteristically frank exchange, and apparently each side actually presented their cases and argued their points with vigor, and everything was pretty civil, more or less.

In very, very broad terms (because unfortunately, that's how I work best), I think it's safe to say that a lot of people in America believe partisan politics are burying our country. Of course the people at the top can't agree on everything, but they do have to work together to see that some kind of progress is made, and right now they're disagreeing on everything on principle. Since the policies of the last party in power haven't worked, or haven't worked well enough, the party now in power should get a chance (okay, they should have gotten a chance -- losing Ted Kennedy's seat was a little more than a minor setback) to implement their policies and see how it goes, because it can only get worse if we continue down the path we've been on. I realize it's all more nuanced than that, but I think that fundamentally it makes sense, and I think a lot of people agree on that. Now, since there are a lot of politicians who would simply like to see Obama's ideas fail because they're just generally spiteful people acting in the interest of their party and not in the interest of the American public, it seems the best thing to do is to address all of the palpable partisan ire floating in the air.

Seeing the President stand up in front of the people trying to "bring him down" (their words) and say, "Hey, let's talk about why nothing is getting done, let's talk about healthcare, etc." can prove to people that politicians really do care about making positive changes that will benefit Americans instead of just ensuring that when things go horribly south (because at some point it became totally alright to just openly and publicly expect them to), their party can't be blamed. It will also inspire a little bit of confidence; seeing lively debates like this will prove to Americans that the people in charge actually know about the issues and really aren't just goons or ideologues.

And I hate to say it, but I feel like the slight element of sensationalism involved in the President arguing with top Republicans in a "House of Commons" style format broadcast on live TV would make for some pretty awesome television that might inspire more Americans to become better informed about these issues. I mean, have you ever seen the House of Commons? It's off the chain. I remember the first time I saw it; I actually thought it was a Saturday Night Live skit making fun of the House of Commons. I was like, "Man, that guy looks EXACTLY like Tony Blair, and he's nailing the accent too." It's not like Wrestlemania or something, but sometimes the debate is pretty heated, and it's a chance for British citizens to see their elected officials actually debate the issues with each other instead of just hearing snappy one-liners recorded from their offices. Here's a clip to give you an idea:

In any case, I really hope they run with this. Maybe MTV will pick it up; I think they exclusively broadcast reality TV now, anyway. Diddy can host it.

So we're selling $6.4 billion in weapons to Taiwan? Because it contributes to "security and stability?" And we're trying to make China cooperate with us on Iran and relax internet censorship? Sometimes our policies seem so fundamentally at odds with each other that I actually have nothing to say about it, except to repeat what I've read and then sit and just drool on myself for several minutes because the whole thing is so utterly confounding and frustrating. It's almost like the office who approved the sale of weapons simply didn't get the memo that we were trying to, you know, be friends with China and all. Oh well, so much for that little venture.

Finally, Foreign Policy has a nice piece on the way much of Ahmadinejad's support has fallen all around him, but how he's managed to maintain a very small, very loyal circle of allies. My favorite part is Ahmadinejad's quote about former Health Minister Kamran Baqeri Lankarani:

"He really worked hard. I like him in a very special way personally. He is such a clean and lovely person. I said somewhere that he is like a peach and you just want to eat him."

Hahaha, oh, you. See, people, this is why I wanted to go to Iran.

Tebow the Letter

2010-01-26T15:04:00.004-06:00

Hello, hello! I'm back with a first song that is probably a favorite of many, and I bring some interesting stories from today as well. This tune exemplifies a great first song in that it perfectly set the tone for the band in a very big, loud way. It also has awesomely cheesy vocals:

Van Halen - Runnin' With the Devil

First, we have news from France and their campaign to save Muslim women from themselves: President Sarkozy has reminded everyone that burqas and niqabs are "not welcome" in French society because they are a symbol of oppression, and a parliamentary committee has drawn up an almost 200-page report proposing a ban on face veils in hospitals, schools, government offices, and transport. It also states that people showing signs of "radical religious practice" should be refused residence cards and citizenship. I'm sorry, I have tried to look at this from all different kinds of angles and I realize what a complex, multi-faceted issue this actually is, but I just can't imagine how a ban on face veiling could be anything but xenophobic and discriminatory. Bad form, France.

Oh, and if you're interested, BBC News has a little piece on current issues surrounding the veil across Europe.

I guess this is just a day for news that pisses me off. I learned recently that a Super Bowl commercial paid for by evangelical group Focus on the Family and starring Tim Tebow will air that magical evening during which I typically spend about 15 minutes hovering around the chips before wandering off into a back room and falling asleep on something soft. Actually, I really enjoyed the last Super Bowl and watched nearly every minute. Oh, but I'm getting off track. Anyway, said commercial will tell the story of Tim Tebow's mother and how doctors recommended that she have an abortion. She refused to have the abortion, and lo and behold, her son turned out to be Tim Tebow, amazing college athlete.

That is indeed a nice story (especially for those who actually know what a "Tim Tebow" is -- sounds like the mascot of a hardware store to me), but there's something fishy going on here. Now, I'll admit that I know next to nothing about logic or what makes a sound logical argument, but something about denying women the right to choose what they do with their bodies because their baby might grow up to be the mascot of a popular hardware store seems a bit funny to me. In fact, denying a woman her right to choose what she does with her body because her child could grow up to be president doesn't seem any better. Incidentally, I also feel like there might have been better things for Focus on the Family to spend 2.8 million dollars on.

Actually, none of this upsets me too much because I know that this kind of stuff really only stirs up the people who were already behind it in the first place, and it will simply piss off most people on the fence, thus making them more likely to either stay on the fence or go to the other side, because you can generally count on people to be spiteful. Boy, that was pretty cynical. If you want to read a little more about it, I highly recommend a very thoughtful piece by Melissa McEwan in the Guardian.

Finally, it seems I've been taken in by all of Apple's obnoxious media buzz for whatever reason, so I feel the need to mention that tomorrow morning, Apple is likely to unveil their new tablet device! There are all kinds of fake images and ads floating around exciting all kinds of nerds in all kinds of inappropriate ways, but there are very few facts out there. I read one thing from a former Apple employee who apparently said that the way in which users interact with the tablet will be "very surprising."

Ooooooh.

Hm, one of the tags on this post seems somehow out of place.

There Will Be Uranium

2010-01-25T10:47:00.010-06:00

Well, I know it's not a first song, but I'm trying to compile a nice list of them so I can continue with this theme and offer a word or two about each of them. I need to go watch High Fidelity.

Bob Dylan - Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

After months of publicly questioning the results of last June's elections in Iran, reform candidate Mehdi Karroubi openly acknowledges Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. No word on the more popular candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, but I expect he's generally just working towards not dying. In any case, it's actually an even more meaningless declaration than I'm making it sound: The BBC has the story here.

More good times ahead in Iran: Ahmadinejad has threatened to produce "highly enriched" uranium if the West doesn't accept Iran's counterproposal to the U.N. Actually, let me back up a bit.

Last November, the deal offered to Iran called for them to trade about 80 percent of their domestically produced low-grade uranium for more highly enriched fuel from Russia and France. In the counterproposal, Iran wanted to trade on its own soil and not all at one time, for whatever reason. Apparently, nobody has been able to work anything out, because the end of January is fast approaching and Iran has given the West until the beginning of February to make up their minds. Iranian leaders have been playing on nationalist, anti-Western sentiments to try and unite citizens around the nuclear cause, but the nation is still divided over the amazingly healthy elections last June (but it's anyone's guess as to exactly how divided). Also, the anniversary of the revolution is coming up, so there's bound to be a party or two for that.

I'm having a devil of a time figuring out why, but Israel's apology to Turkey over the little spat I wrote about a post or two ago isn't convincing many Middle Eastern commentators. The BBC has a nice little rundown of the various reactions here.

I remember sitting in a journalism class during my freshman year of college when it occurred to me that we, the viewers, are actually the products being sold, not the shows. We're sold to the advertisers! It makes perfect sense, and I'm almost embarrassed that I hadn't thought about it this way sooner, but networks actually take shows with a lot of viewers and essentially say to companies, "We have 150,000 viewers on Monday nights at 7, you can show them your commercial if you pay us x dollars." Sociological Images had a good post on Hulu and targeted marketing that reminded me of this today.

Finally, Jezebel has an interesting post on what the recent Supreme Court decision about corporations donating to political candidates might mean for Roe v. Wade. One doesn't have to understand all the intricate details of Supreme Court decisions (I certainly don't) to see that a Court willing to overturn decades of legal precedent is a potential threat to a woman's right to choose.

First Songs and Photos

2010-01-13T16:27:00.000-06:00

There's no first impression like the first track off of any band's debut album. If you want to know how any artist really wanted the world to understand them when they first emerged from the tortuous obscurity that I'll likely be stuck in until my last breath, look no further than what I like to call a band's "first song." For the first half of high school, Jimmy Eat World's "Thinking, That's All" was my favorite first song, and I may have even posted it on here at one point. Eventually, I found others that I loved even more, but here's one of my favorites from college:

Brian Jonestown Massacre - Evergreen

I might run with this theme for awhile. So it seems Israel has apologized to Turkey (in a signed letter from Netanyahu, no less) over the infamous photo depicting the Turkish ambassador at a very low height. Believe me, I tried to find a way to word that sentence that didn't make the whole thing sound damn ridiculous.

Foreign Policy has a nice, thorough piece about the various historical schools of thought in American foreign policy, where Obama's ideas fit in, and why he might be revolutionary. Don't ask me to sum this beast up, just go give it a look-over; you'll be glad you did.

I want to direct your attention to two photo essays that I've enjoyed, one from Foreign Policy about daily life in Yemen, and one from The Boston Globe about the protests that took place in Iran a week or so ago. If you ever read my old Euro/Central America/Israel and Palestine blog, you will know just how fond I am of the photo essay format. When I start traveling again (or when I just start taking pictures of mundane things here at home again), I'm going to put a good song up, followed by a nice photo essay about either a day of adventure in the Middle East or maybe some pasta I made in Austin. Either way you win, right?

I shall be back tomorrow! Probably!

Love and Marriage and Humiliation

2010-01-11T18:43:00.005-06:00

Occasionally, those three things are more related than I'd like. Wow, I'm beginning to feel my energy for this thing slowly coming back! That may be a good thing, since I'm supposed to take the GRE pretty soon here. I like that no matter what happens in the world, I'll never run out of good songs:

Belle and Sebastian - You Made Me Forget My Dreams

It would've been awkward if I'd already posted that song before. Anyway, I want to keep going with this theme of being kind of frenetic and not really having a theme by bringing a particular social issue back to your attention. A few days ago, I saw a Feministing post containing two maps of the US, one showing states which allow same sex marriage and one showing states which allow marriage between first cousins. The purpose of putting these two maps next to each other is to show the hypocrisy of "sanctity of marriage" arguments against allowing same-sex marriages, and intuitively this makes sense because many people are rather grossed-out by the idea of first cousins marrying (even though this is standard practice in many areas of the world) and it's traditionally believed that if first cousins reproduce, their children are more likely to look like this. However, another website I love which posts about social issues (among other things), Sociological Images, put up a post about cousin marriage around the same time. Although they didn't provide links, they reference studies suggesting that cousin marriage does not come with an increased risk of birth defects or genetic disorders. These two websites occasionally reference each other, so I find it interesting when they also challenge each other a bit.

Not that I'm defending or condemning cousin marriage; I just found the two opinions interesting. Besides, there are many other reasons why the "sanctity of marriage" argument is hypocritical and I've discussed them before on here. Oh, and check it--divorce rates are higher in states with gay marriage bans.

I also found it interesting that Arkansas, considered by many to be historical cousin-marrying territory, prohibits cousin marriage, while California (who just overturned the law allowing gay marriage) and New York allow it. Also, a "bad form" goes to Maine and New Jersey for recently denying civil rights to gay people as well. I guess we'll have to wait and see how Perry v. Schwarzenegger pans out, and I'll try to keep myself from reading reports from the Catholic News Agency that make me want to punch a hole in the wall.

In Iran news, a renowned physics professor who had apparently come out publicly in support of the opposition, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb near his home. He was well-known and supported the opposition, which made him a target for the Iranian government, and he was a top physics professor, which made him a target for anyone wanting to sabotage Iran's nuclear ambitions. Naturally, the Iranian government is blaming the usual suspects, and the usual suspects appear to be insulted at the outrageous accusations.

The BBC is reporting a really amusing story involving Israel insulting a Turkish diplomat by making sure he was photographed on a much lower chair. Oh, no they didn't! The Israelis occasionally summon the Turkish ambassador over various Turkish television serials depicting Israeli intelligence agents kidnapping babies to convert them to Judaism (yes, that might be a little outlandish) and Israeli defense forces firing upon Palestinian children (this one, not so much). Come on, Israel, Hollywood depicts our own intelligence forces doing much worse stuff than kidnapping babies and making them read Torah. Lighten up a bit.

The BBC article includes a photo published in an Israeli newspaper which points out the height difference and carries a caption reading "the height of humiliation." Oh, snap. Apparently, Turkey has summoned the Israeli ambassador and plans to have him sit in a chair booby-trapped with a whoopee cushion and broadcast it on national radio. This is precisely why I want to do something with international politics one day.

My Five Cents

2010-01-11T17:43:00.001-06:00

No, that's not the title of a "Scrubs" episode; it will make sense later. Sorry about that last post, by the way; I promise this isn't turning into a tech blog. I know even less about technology than I do about politics or social issues, but sometimes I just find that stuff downright interesting. Mostly when it's something I can complain about.

Of Montreal - Neat Little Domestic Life

On that note, I want to direct your attention to one more tech-related story. One thing you may not know about me is that I'm really only interested in the world of technology and gadgets when something comes along indicating that our world is finally moving in the direction of 80s/early 90s science fiction films, like freakin' sweet Japanese dome houses, phones powered by Coke, or this story that I saw today: Panasonic and LG are going to integrate Skype into their HD televisions. I'm still not going to club an elderly lady for one next Black Friday, but at least the possibility will be out there. 1984-style "telescreen" parallels aside, the only real negative I see here is that one would have to remember to put on pants before walking into the living room.
Irritating: Wal-Mart and H&M branches in Manhattan, where a third of the population is poor, take their unworn clothes and rip them apart with machines and box cutters to ensure that they aren't resold. Well, of course they do!

How embarrassing: a few weeks ago, University of Texas professor Alan Kuperman called for bombing Iran, and the New York Times published his editorial. Yeah, that sounds about right. Juan Cole, one of my favorite commentators on Middle Eastern politics, points out the faults in Kuperman's argument and takes on NYT's problematic coverage of recent events there regarding the protests and the nuclear issue. Part of the trouble, he says, is that this is kind of the way things looked before the US invaded Iraq, and we all saw how that turned out. Come to think of it, it still hasn't turned out.

It does seem a bit odd to ask, "If their intentions are peaceful, why are they building underground?" after having called upon the US to bomb Iran's above-ground nuclear facilities in practically the same breath. Cole makes this and many other good points in the piece which can be found here.

In the “stumbling block to peace” department, Israel must think all of this Iran stuff is awesome, because it’s allowing them to continue to build settlements like there's no tomorrow. This seems appropriate, because if you're most Palestinians, there really is no tomorrow. If I had a nickel for every time I read that Saeb Erekat is "playing down hopes," I'd be sitting on a pretty fat stack of nickels; it's a wonder the guy keeps his job, what with all of the despairing he has to do. Pakistan's The News International has a recent report on the (lack of) progress in the negotiations here, and here's my favorite part:

Clinton backed the key Palestinian aim of creating a state along the borders
that existed before the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, but said the lines would be
modified through mutually agreed land swaps, presumably to account for some
Israeli settlements that would remain.

"Mutually agreed land swaps," huh? Does it strike anyone as odd that the Palestinians are consistently the ones having to "play down hopes?"

George Mitchell, special US envoy and antihero of the Middle East (I want your job, George), is due back in the region near the end of this month and has said that peace talks should not last more than two years. Upon hearing this, Israeli ministers remarked, "We're in no rush."

Dumbphones

2010-01-05T19:04:00.002-06:00

Ok, so I can't do this every day. That much is clear.

João Gilberto - Me Chama

Anyway, I'm feeling a little apathetic today (boy, is that an understatement), and I'm hoping this will help. I saw an interesting editorial from the Guardian today about the "iPhone generation." First of all, this is some of the most quirky, British writing I've ever seen, so get your American selves ready to go back and reread a few sentences. And while a future in which everyone walks around, staring down into little screens, and occasionally bumping into each other is a little disturbing, I don't really think we're headed there. However, I think buried somewhere in all of the author's meandering wackiness are some interesting points. It's not very long; give it a read, if you get the chance.

I found this interesting because in a family of six, I am the only member with a "dumbphone" (I didn't know they were called that, and I have to say I'm rather offended) and I do see some of what she's talking about. My grandfather has a Blackberry and the other day at dinner my whole family plus my grandmother carried on a conversation about him for five minutes while he read his e-mail. He didn't hear a single word. I don't mean to indict anyone, though; it's the iPhone's fault for being so damn cool. In any case, my "dumbphone" is the only one that always works. I'll admit, I feel smugly satisfied about that from time to time. Oh, stop it, just go enjoy your hundreds of apps; I'll go play with my calculator.

Speaking of phones that do everything (and sometimes nothing), Google released its new phone, which can be obtained for one easy payment of $530 USD or loads of payments to T-Mobile over the course of two years. Wow, that's a sizeable mountain of money either way. People will still pay for it, though. Check it:

Yeah, I guess I'm shilling for Google's products now. I'm a pretty benevolent guy (and a huge celebrity to boot), and it looks like they could use the help; I think the trillion hits an hour they get from their search engine alone barely cover the cost of manufacturing one of these new phones, and I want to make sure they become the real life Buy N Large as quickly as possible.

On that note, here's a nice review round-up for anyone interested in getting one of these potential iPhone killers (ooh, he went there). I have to say, it looks pretty cool. I'm glad somebody went ahead and just fully ripped off the iPhone layout and all; those other attempts were just downright embarrassing (Ooh, it makes cool click noises; your days are numbered, iPhone!). They even ripped off the commercial: simplistic background, catchy tune, the device smoothly sliding around. My great-grandfather had a saying: "Good commercials a good product do not make." I confess, I didn't really know any of my great-grandfathers, but one of them could have very well said that at some point. Anyway, I'm starting to think he may have been wrong about it. I guess we'll see how all of this goes. Oh, me? I won't be buying one; I like buying groceries a bit too much. It's kind of a therapeutic thing for me.

Yeah, I don't care about Iran today...but I know somebody who does.

Ending the Decade

2010-01-01T11:32:00.007-06:00

Happy New Year, everyone! It's good to be back, after a long period of rest, relaxation, and a general lack of motivation:

Yo La Tengo - Nowhere Near

So, what's been happening lately? Too much. If I want to get back into the swing of this, I suppose the best way to go about it is to just pick a few random things I've noticed over the past few days. I'm going to take it slow.

First, this struck me as interesting. A San Francisco appeals court upheld a previous ruling that Apple iPod earbuds cannot be held responsible for hearing loss. Just turn it down, people.

This came almost completely out of nowhere: niacINsight reports that the Obama administration is pursuing targeted sanctions against Iran's government rather than the "crippling" (love that word) sanctions that would affect innocent Iranians. That's a good resolution for the new year--don't directly screw over the people you say you're trying to help. How ironic that up to now, the US sanctions have pretty much only affected the Iranians getting beaten and murdered in protests while crying for various reforms, one of which is a normalization of relations with the US.

What exactly are "targeted" sanctions? Gee, I'm not sure. Everyone is being pretty vague about it (could it be because they have very few ideas?). Apparently, there are ways to force certain elements of the Iranian government to the negotiating table without punishing the Iranian population at large. A major contractor that channels millions of dollars into the Revolutionary Guard Corps might be a target, for example. Or maybe phone companies that give the Iranian government the means to cut off communication and spy on people? The other problem is making sure the Iranians understand that their isolation is the result of the government's actions, and not the US (which of course is the view that the Iranian government will be pushing). I'm sure somebody from marketing will get right on that.

Oh, them, denying my visa request and making me all cynical and stuff. What will that zany bunch do next?

One of my favorite blogs about gender issues, The Sexist, has two interesting posts you should check out:

The Decade in Femininity

The Decade in Masculinity

I had totally forgotten that boy bands were big in 2000.

I promise I'll start doing this daily again.

Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting

2009-11-06T16:31:00.014-06:00

Well, hi there. I really can't remember if this has been on here before, but oh well:

Sly and the Family Stone - If You Want Me To Stay

So a lot is new, huh? You've probably heard about the soldier that killed 13 and wounded 30 in Fort Hood, Texas by now. Interestingly, he was shot four times by a police officer, taken into custody, and was reported to be in stable condition that night. Why is that interesting? I don't know; I guess it just occurred to me that for all of the shootings we hear about (I could go somewhere with that, but it's another post) pretty much all of them end with the death of the shooter, and this one didn't.

Oh yeah, the guy is also a Muslim, so of course the media are having fun with that; the Washington Post makes sure to include in their headline that he is a "devout Muslim." The BBC at least waits until the second or third paragraph to mention it along with his full name, and...well, I didn't even check FOX news, but you can imagine.

Fortunately, I've seen a great deal of good writing on the topic. Columnists are attempting to make people aware of the potential problems for the Muslim-American community as a result of the coverage this story is going to be getting for awhile, as well as pointing out the unfair nature of some of the coverage. It's interesting too that Muslim groups in America have come forward to condemn the soldier's actions, even though it's a little sad that they feel like they have to do that at all. When Christian fundamentalists firebomb abortion clinics, I don't have to step out and say, "That's not my religion," for fear of some kind of major backlash against Christianity. But you know this already, and how much coverage the condemnation will get is another issue altogether, I suppose.

Another big piece of news that you've probably seen involves health care reform. A major health care bill passed by the House had a restriction on abortion coverage attached to it, meaning anyone who uses the government-run health care program will have no abortion coverage. Of course abortion will still be legal, and we're all cool with that, but its status as something for rich people or people lucky enough to have employers who provide abortion coverage will be essentially cemented. Yeah, that sounds like the natural progression of things. Oh wait, a lot of people are really pissed:

Taylor Marsh at the Huffington Post:

The first female Speaker of the House makes history by passing a health care bill that not only doesn't have a robust public option, but also sells out women's civil rights.

Rachel Maddow calls it "the biggest restriction on abortion access in this country in a generation."

I could go on, but you get the idea. For some reason, I'm annoyed with the rhetoric of a lot of politicians; I feel like they treat the whole issue like it's some kind of game. I'm talking about all of the "bring down Obamacare" and "battle it out to the end" stuff. This isn't an Arnold Schwarzenegger film; civil rights are at stake here. Maybe Republicans wanting to "slay the evil Obamazilla from hell" (okay, I may have made that one up) decided that if they do whatever they can to make the lives of American women as miserable as possible, they'll eventually lose faith in Obama and the Democrats. Then when everyone hates the Republicans and everyone hates the Democrats, maybe we can have a no-party system and cast no votes for nobody. That would be so punk rock.

Before I stray off too much into the ridiculous, I also found this amusing: Congressman Pete Sessions of good ol' Texas (hey, I can make fun of it, I was born here) suggested in a Rules Committee meeting a few nights ago that treating female-related health conditions is comparable to insurance companies imposing restrictions on smokers. When someone asked him why women should pay more, he said, "Well, we're all different. Why should a smoker pay more?" Yep.

So ladies, maybe next time you'll think twice when choosing what reproductive organs you're born with. I mean really, it's not like it was multiple choice or something.

The shadiness doesn't end there, the bishops also got involved at the highest level. Check it:

At the funeral of Senator Edward M. Kennedy in August, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, stole a private moment with Mr. Obama to deliver the same warning: The bishops very much wanted to support his health care overhaul but not if it provided for abortions. The president “listened intently,” the cardinal reported on his blog.

Sigh.

Cutting up Afghanistan and Too Much TV

2009-10-12T14:24:00.005-05:00

I haven't forgotten this thing altogether. It sucks though, because a lot of interesting stuff has been happening that I should be writing about, if only for my own benefit (let's be frank, it is pretty much only for my own benefit). But first, an appropriate song:

The Beatles - Long Long Long

I've always, always loved this song. Anyway, what's been going on? A whole lot. The air is turning colder (if only to tease us for one or two days at a time before bringing back the heat for several more weeks), my apartment is beginning to smell cinnamon-y, my job search is getting slightly more desperate, and I'm fighting the urge to put up all my Christmas lights ludicrously early.

One of the things I've found interesting recently is this article on BBC News, more specifically the map at the bottom of it. In fact, even if you don't feel like reading the whole article, I recommend you scroll to the bottom and take a look at that map. It's really very interesting; we know there are combat units from many different nations (more than 40, actually) hanging out in Afghanistan, but it's sort of surreal to see all of their flags spread out across a map of Afghanistan like that. Nothing says "quagmire" like this map.

I pointed this out to some people last week - Shirin Ebadi (oh snap, I met her) wrote a piece for the Guardian in which she very clearly spells out the basic ways in which women have de jure status as second-class citizens. If anyone was at all interested in where the women's rights movement in Iran is coming from, or where it's at currently, this is a really good, concise piece to start with.

Indexed (a blog that posts simple, funny, and often insightful illustrations on post cards) had a good one today; it hit home with me because even when I was in 3rd and 4th grade watching my evening TV lineup (Fresh Prince - Home Improvement - Simpsons - Home Improvement - Simpsons...wow, I can't believe I got away with watching that much TV every night), it used to piss me off how Tim Allen's character on Home Improvement was such an idiot and consistently screwed up in the same stupid ways every episode, and Jill had to pick up the pieces because she was the only capable one. You know it was bad when even my 3rd grade self picked up on it. My dad was nothing like that, so why did this negative stereotype have to be played out every weeknight on my TV?

Alright, that's all for now. I feel like there was something else I wanted to post, but it's slipped my mind. See you soon!

Al-Quds Day and Breaking Obama

2009-09-18T12:13:00.014-05:00

So I'm not proving that I can continue to keep this thing up daily, but hey, I'm doing better than I was a month or so ago. You look like you need a good lo-fi jam:

Guided by Voices - My Kind of Soldier

So two main things are on my mind today, one being the Al-Quds Day events in Iran, and the other being health care (wow, I've hardly ever mentioned domestic policy here).

First, a quick bit on Al-Quds Day: After the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini urged all Muslims around the world to unite together in solidarity for the Palestinians on the last Friday of Ramadan (Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem and translates to "the holy"). So every last Friday of every Ramadan since the founding of the Islamic Republic, there have been parades/rallies/etc. opposing Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories (as well as all of what most Israelis refer to as "Israel," I expect) and the continued occupation, oppression, and social and political marginalization of the Palestinians by Israel.

In a sort of funny and ironic (but not altogether unexpected) twist, thousands of people took to the streets of Tehran, not in protest of Israeli oppression, but the Iranian government's oppression, censorship, and inhumane treatment of prisoners following the June elections. Check it:

The BBC has a good article with a nifty little time line near the bottom-right. I like the BBC because they always deliver with the context and the details.

Okay, next thing. I'll be honest, I haven't gone really in-depth with my study of the current health care debate, mainly because I don't really understand the finer financial and far-reaching points of public vs. private health care, insurance rates, and stuff like that, but this clip from Rachel Maddow's show the other night spoke pretty loudly to me:

As Maddow points out, it does seem strange that the most vocal opposition to universal health care is coming from the states with the highest rates of teen pregnancy, premature births, and infant mortality, as well as the lowest birth weights and lowest rates of HPV vaccination.

I particularly love that quote by Jim DeMint:

"If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

I'm not quite sure what he means by "break him," but this is the kind of stuff I used to say in the midst of an all-night Super Smash Bros. battle in 7th grade. I was just playing a game then; there weren't any consequences and the lives of women and newborn babies weren't at stake like they are here. It's too bad Senator Jim DeMint and others like him are choosing partisan hackery over making real strides in our nation's health care system.

So, if some politicians are more interested in stubbornly pandering to a rapidly-dwindling power base than in women's reproductive health and health care in general, I guess people here will continue to suffer needlessly. Sure, women are dying of a preventable cancer and one out of every five people will go on without health insurance, but we need to "break" Obama, to prove something. What, we're not sure yet, but something.

Finally, finally back

2009-09-12T10:30:00.003-05:00

Goodness, I'm sorry for you loyal readers out there; even if I can count you on one hand, you are as important as you would be were you just a handful in a sea of millions. Hm, that was oddly and unintentionally poetic. Anyone else need a song?

The Supremes - Mother Dear

It's been a long time, yes, and I've been consumed by school, apartment stuff, psycho landladies, deadbeat ex-roommates, and fruit flies. It's true, I'm even starting to feel bad as I realize I've murdered a fruit fly on every flat surface in my apartment.

Something big has happened though, at least as far as the subjects I normally discuss go. I've been reading the appropriate blogs and it seems as though the Iranian authorities have more or less clamped down (I feel like "clamped down" is the only way to describe it at this point) on the major unrest, and now the opposition will have to conduct itself in a more low-key manner. Unfortunately, low-key is not usually a defining characteristic of social and political upheaval and revolution, but hey, anything can happen.

But wait, something MIGHT happen, not necessarily related to the post-election unrest, but related to US-Iranian relations. Or maybe Everybody-Iranian relations. This has been a big week. On Wednesday, Iran submitted a package of proposals for talks with Western nations, which the US scoffed at because they didn't even mention the nuclear issue. Ahmadinejad was reported to have said, "We were kind of hoping they'd forget about it, what with all that healthcare hoopla going on." Well, there is a lot of hoopla around healthcare at the moment, but unfortunately, it hasn't distracted US leaders from the nuclear issue.

What's weirder is that only days before submitting this package, Iran vowed that there would be no further discussion on the nuclear issue, but now that the US has apparently accepted Iran's offer to begin direct talks, Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said that there is a possibility of talks about the nuclear issue. Come on people, let's be adults and make some real decisions here and stop teasing and messing with each other. Oh, what I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall at that first meeting, though. How awkward.

In other people-acting-stupidly news, two rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel. Invoking the age-old "eye-for-an-eye" principle, but forgetting their basic arithmetic, Israel responded by firing eight rockets into a fruit plantation near the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon. Why anyone would still fire a rocket into Israel at this point is seriously beyond me. I really don't even have anything else to say about it; I'm just that confounded.

I want to write more, but since I have to go start my homework (assassinate me), I want to leave you with this interesting post from one of my favorite blogs discussing the history of the "Don't Mess With Texas" campaign. It's about tailoring messages for specific audiences and it's especially interesting if you live in Texas.

Alright, I promise to write more often. Really.

George Washington's Love Letter

2009-08-19T14:58:00.004-05:00

Oh my, it's been awhile. I've been moving around Texas quite a bit, but I'm finally back in Austin for what I expect will be a good, long while, so here's an appropriately Austin song:

Explosions in the Sky - First Breath After Coma

They're from Austin, if you were wondering. Anyway, it kind of sucks when I don't do this for awhile, because this is partly what keeps me in touch with some of the big things that are going on, and if I'm not writing about them a little, I sort of fall out of the loop.

But oh snap, those Afghan elections are happening tomorrow. The Taliban have vowed to crash the party and are telling people not to vote, because the results have apparently already been decided by Obama and co. That may be true (not to be like, cynical or anything), but come on, guys. Just come on.

Wow, the British film heads have actually denied a rating for a Japanese film because of how grotesque it is. Oh, wait, the film is actually called Grotesque. Well, that explains a bit; when you're just so obviously trying to push everyone's buttons, I guess I can see how that might rub a few people the wrong way. But considering some of the other stuff that's been let through, I'm almost curious to see how bad it is. Not that I would be able to sit through even 5 frames of it, I'm sure.

The BBC had an interesting bit today on the last two women to serve as ministers in the Iranian cabinet (since there are apparently two women candidates for Ahmadinejad's cabinet, I believe). One was executed back in the day and the other lives in the US, and the article says a little about the turn women's rights in Iran took following the Islamic Revolution.

Alright, y'all are going to think this is like, really strange, but I saw it today and it really touched me for some reason. I was looking around Wikipedia (as I sometimes do when I should be doing other things), and I eventually stumbled across this letter George Washington wrote to Martha after he was elected by Congress to head the army that would fight the British. Here's some from the first bit:

My Dearest,

I am now set down to write to you on a subject which fills me with inexpressable concern--and this concern is greatly aggravated and Increased when I reflect on the uneasiness I know it will give you--It has been determined in Congress, that the whole Army raised for the defence of the American Cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the Command of it. You may believe me my dear Patcy, when I assure you, in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment I have used every endeavour in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the Family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my Capacity and that I should enjoy more real happiness and felicity in one month with you, at home, than I have the most distant prospect of reaping abroad, if my stay was to be Seven times Seven years.

Pretty cool, I thought. You wouldn't look at that old picture of George Washington and imagine him saying that. The last line is the best. And don't complain, I don't make any promises about what gets written on here! Alright, I'm spent. I'm gonna go watch the Simpsons.

Sanctions are Here to Stay, part II

2009-08-07T12:43:00.010-05:00

Today, your song actually comes from Afghanistan (I think), and there's kind of a funny story behind it; the newscaster at the beginning of the clip will tell you more. Watch the video too, it's way interesting. Oh, if you don't speak German, you won't understand what the newscaster is saying (haha, eat it):

Burka Band - Burka Blue

Now that you're sufficiently weirded out, let's start by covering that beloved topic of this blog, Iran. The fresh push for sanctions by Congress (and people who probably shouldn't have any say in what Congress does in regards to Iran - I'm looking at you, AIPAC) is only going to get worse next month, apparently. According to this brilliant post on the NIAC blog, Congress hopes to blockade Iran's foreign oil supplies. Why would this be bad, you ask? Doesn't Iran already have tons of oil? Yes, but Iran has been in the unfortunate position of not necessarily having the refining capacity to deal with all of their own oil, so they've historically had to actually ship oil out to be refined, and then buy it back. Iran imports 40% of its refined petroleum, so it really would hurt them a lot.

Anyway, Congress hopes that this will cause a rise in gas prices, which in turn will cause the Iranian people to revolt. Wait, this is one of those ironic, funny plans, right? So we've been watching Iranians die in the streets in the name of freedom and democracy, and now we're hoping they'll go out and kill themselves over rising gas prices? This is pretty damn cynical, even for me.

Probably the most important point the post makes can be found here:

Next, even if the sanctions were effective in harming the Iranian economy, there isn’t a single historical example of economic sanctions translating into a desirable change in the Iranian government’s behavior.

Thank you! It's true; there is no proof that these sanctions have ever worked and there is no reason to believe they will this time. I will apologize to everyone if they do, but that's just how sure I am that they won't.

And as the post points out (like so many others have before), the sanctions wouldn't hurt the Supreme Leader, Ahmadinejad, or the mullahs (lots of them have turned on the Supreme Leader anyway, at this point), it would hurt the common people...the ones we were so vigorously supporting a few weeks ago.

So it's people like Senator McCain, who has recently said this...

"The United States of America must, and this body must, affirm our support for fundamental human rights of the Iranian people who are being beaten and killed in the streets of Tehran and other cities around Iran. We are with them."

...who are now pushing for "crippling sanctions" that will "bring the Iranian economy to its knees." When asked whether or not he realized that the "Iranian people" he was referring to actually lived in Iran, Senator McCain fell asleep. Bad form, Senator McCain. Okay, I haven't got the patience for this right now.

Sanctions are Here to Stay

2009-08-04T18:44:00.005-05:00

I realize these are getting more and more infrequent, but as soon as I get back to Austin, the apathy will slowly slink away and I'll return to doing this pretty much every day. A 12-hour semester should allow that, hopefully.

Frank Sinatra - Love is Here to Stay

I honestly can't remember if I already posted that one. I'm pretty sure Sinatra's already been on here, but if I actually did this one song before...well, I'm not sorry; it's a really good song, maybe it wouldn't hurt you to hear it more than once.

Anyway, I found a few interesting things in my perusing over the past few days. First of all, I discovered what I think is a feminist blog (there's really no statement of any kind; the author just covers many feminist issues and links to a lot of other feminist reading, and I happen to like the presentation - very bare bones) a few months ago called Tiger Beatdown. I know this isn't a new thing and I think it gets actually a ton of readers, since I found it from a much bigger site. I don't know why any of what I just said is important at all, but what is important is the article posted today. It talks about the "ironic" racism and sexism and how it's - what a shock - still racism and sexism. She singles out "hipster racism" too, which was a learning for me since I've spent the last several years trying to know as little about hipster-ism as possible. Anyway, I appreciate the author's writing style because it's pretty funny and what I imagine they sound like in person.

This is really old, but I found it interesting: Paul Eedle wrote a piece for the Guardian predicting the future of the Middle East - all the way down to the death of Osama bin Laden in North Korea! It's so specific, I almost want to see if he's a time traveler. Obviously, everyone is likely to find something to disagree with, but I think it's an interesting read nonetheless.

Wow, Bill Clinton randomly showed up in North Korea and they released the two US reporters on the same day!? I don't even know what to say about that. You really never know what to expect from those guys. Maybe Clinton got Kim Jong-Il out of some massive jam years ago and he was calling in the favor? Obama, if you're reading this, I'd like to volunteer to go get those hikers out of Iran. Just give me a bouquet of flowers and some sweets, I know what those Iranians like.

Bad form, America: Apparently we're leading the charge for fresh sanctions against Iran. Since the last sanctions worked so well, it actually makes a ton of sense to pile on new ones, right? They're not in any particular need for airplane parts or anything so it should all be good. I know they're being a little stubborn on the whole nuclear negotiation thing, but let's not give them more reasons to retreat into their shell, at the same time giving Israel more justification for striking their nuclear facilities, which in turn will make the Iranians rush to build a nuclear weapon, if that is in fact what they're doing. Ah, and to think things were looking up for a brief moment or tow.

To Defend or Not to Defend

2009-07-29T20:34:00.005-05:00

Oops, it totally slipped my mind that I even have this thing.

The Rolling Stones - Indian Girl

The Stones feature way too heavily on here, sorry. They just have a ton of good songs. Anyway, I think I'm mostly going to pass on the news and politics for this post and point out some things that I think are of cultural/social significance. First of all, I saw an interesting article titled "The dos and don'ts of defending Muslim women." The author has apparently experienced a lot of prejudice and arrogance in the way some people have spoken to and about Muslim women, often in perhaps well-meaning but misguided attempts to defend them. She makes a few interesting points that I will admit I hadn't really thought about...but then again, I'm not a woman or a Muslim (for those of you still confused), so it's hard for me to make any sort of informed or thoughtful comment on women (I have enough trouble as it is making thoughtful comments to them), Islam, or any combination of the two that would actually come from real experience.

She touches on the clothing issue, which has been sort of a hot-button lately, especially with all the legislation and proposed legislation in France which I've mentioned here. I also thought this bit was rather insightful:

Liberation is not a cookie-cutter deal. It looks different to every single woman in the world, and Muslim women are no different. There are Muslim women for whom liberation looks like a miniskirt, or a headscarf, or a university degree, or a well-paying job, or a husband, or a house, or debt wiped clean, or a divorce, or a reliable source of clean water, or opportunities for her children, or different combinations of these, etc. Forcing one model of liberation on anyone isn’t liberating; it’s just as oppressive as other paternalist or patriarchal forces in a Muslim woman’s life.

Damn, good call. So yeah, give the whole article a read-through if it interests you at all. I also found an interesting article about that movie Bruno (can't find the umlaut button on my keyboard, sorry) that came out recently. My first impression was that it seems to use extremely exaggerated gay stereotypes to poke fun at homophobia. I haven't seen the film, but the impression I've gotten is that while it definitely calls out homophobia, it still plays off of the cliches about homosexuals, so maybe it's a double-edged sword and actually still hurtful to homosexuals in some way? I don't know; the whole thing just doesn't seem very nicecore. It just makes me uncomfortable because somewhere, someone's feelings are being hurt. Anyway, this article I mentioned can be found here in the Huffington Post, and the author claims that the movie is actually a huge stride forward for homosexuals. She makes some very good points, and it's an interesting perspective so I recommend that one as well.

I found some more sexist commercials and unfortunate Fox News clips in my exploring, but I'm starting to feel like putting non-nicecore stuff up here is actually sort of counterproductive. And anyway, you don't need me to go and find that stuff for you, you're all sitting on mountains of it every day. More news and whatnot tomorrow, hopefully!

50th Post!

2009-07-19T19:20:00.004-05:00

It may not be that big of a deal, but it seems like sort of a milestone, doesn't it? Anyway, sorry I have been slacking on the updates recently, this summer is taking it quite out of me. Enough complaining, though, I've got another Bollywood song for you today:

Usha Khanna - Aao Yaro Gao

So, what has been going on lately? Haaretz had a report that really grabbed me last week about the recent investigations of the Israeli offensive in Gaza. It has testimony from Israeli soldiers that say Gazan civilians were used as human shields. Well, that's kind of the opposite of what we hear over here, isn't it? Here's a bit from the article:

"The practice was not to call it 'the neighbor procedure.' Instead it was called 'Johnny,'" the soldier said, using IDF slang for Palestinian civilians. The IDF employed this practice extensively during the second intifada, before it was outlawed by the High Court of Justice in 2005.

At every home, the soldier said, if there were armed occupants, the house was besieged, with the goal of getting the militants out of the building alive. The soldier said he was present at several such operations.

In an incident his commanders told him about, three armed militants were in a house. Attack helicopters were brought in. "They ... again sent the [Palestinian] neighbor in. At first he said that nothing had happened [to the armed men]," the soldier said.

"Again they brought in attack helicopters and fired. They again sent in the neighbor. He said there were two dead and one still alive. They then brought in a bulldozer and began to knock the house down on him until [the neighbor] entered." The soldier said he had been told that the only militant remaining alive was captured and turned over to the Shin Bet security service.

So of course people have accused Hamas of using human shields too, and maybe they have, but there are some pretty compelling arguments that suggest otherwise (I found Israeli activist Uri Avnery's assessment here very interesting - he goes into the role that propaganda plays in the conflict too). At any rate, I guess this looks pretty bad for the IDF. The BBC also had a good piece on some of the same stuff. They even link to a copy of the official report from Breaking the Silence (a campaign group made up of Israeli soldiers) on Operation Cast Lead.

Meanwhile, things aren't getting any easier in the settlement department: Binyamin Netanyahu has rejected US calls to suspend a planned housing project in East Jerusalem. While I don't think the US should be telling other countries what to do, this seems like it might be sort of an exception since pretty much every other country in the world has been calling for the same thing for years now and the settlements are still illegal under international law (last time I checked).

Oh snap, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president of Iran, powerful and influential cleric, and a supporter of Mir Hossein Mousavi, delivered the Friday sermon at Tehran University two days ago. There were more demonstrations in which people were tear gassed and batoned. Reza Aslan has been giving some good insight and analysis about the events in Iran and he has a good analysis of Rafsanjani's sermon here. Rafsanjani pretty much directly criticized the government's handling of the post-election drama (or is trauma a better word?) and actually hinted that he's making some progress in reaching some kind of deal with people. As vague as that sounds, apparently it's all that anyone can come up with as to what on earth he's talking about. The crowd seemed to be yelling slogans and shouting throughout the sermon (mostly pro-Mousavi, anti-government, "death to the dictator" type of slogans), so I guess they're still pretty angry about the whole government killing people thing. It'll still be a matter of whether the reformists can turn the appropriate wheels of government or whether the government can actually deceive the people enough to make all the anger go away. The government has already proven with their communication lockdowns, newspaper shutdowns, and state television propaganda that they are pretty serious about it. Still, it's a lot of wool to pull over a lot of eyes.

Alright, that's all for now. Back to biology.

A Brief Intermission

2009-07-16T18:09:00.002-05:00

The Beach Boys - Surfer Moon

I'm sorry, folks, I've just been actually really busy with summer school junk. One of my classes is about to finish (hopefully) tomorrow, but even if it doesn't, I'm going to go ahead and make a good update on Saturday. I actually have something to talk about this time. Enjoy this summer jam in the meantime, though.

Cheney, Cheney, Cheney

2009-07-13T19:09:00.000-05:00

It's been a rough Monday, and weekend for that matter, so here's a chill song from the good ol' days of high school (for me, at least):

Mogwai - Cody

Well, lots of stories are unfolding. Dick Cheney is being further implicated in a massive post-9/11 CIA operation that became illegal when Cheney himself restricted CIA officials from briefing Congress about it. While nobody seems to be surprised at all by this, prepare to be even less surprised when he gets away without even a slap on the wrist; if he hasn't been caught for any of his shadiness yet, there's no reason why he should eat it this time. And good grief, considering some of the stuff Congress has approved, one can only imagine what this particular plan involved.

The UK is revoking some export licenses to Israel's navy because of the war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. Yes, Hamas and Israel both committed war crimes, but the UK didn't sell weapons to Hamas (not directly, anyway), so that's their reasoning for cutting the arms sales.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman had this to say:

"We've had many embargoes in the past...We can manage. This shouldn't bother us."

Well, you have to hand it to Lieberman, at least he doesn't act totally unaware of the atrocities like US leaders would. We would have gotten all huffy and offended if someone stopped selling us weapons because we committed war crimes, but it's totally water off a duck's back for this guy.

I haven't seen any huge, breaking updates on the Iran business either. Mousavi is apparently still trying to form a new political party (I'm personally not clear on how that would help unite the reformists, unless they're all willing to unite under him in one party?), but they're saying he'll be banned. Otherwise, I guess things are basically getting more and more authoritarian over there.

Man, my eyes hurt.

Just Like a Settlement

2009-07-09T13:18:00.008-05:00

You get a sexy one today:

Sly and the Family Stone - Just Like a Baby

A few interesting things today...The Daily Star is reporting (or at least, I think there's some reporting somewhere among all those advertisements, geez) that Israel has "won agreement" from the US to continue with 2,500 settlement projects in the West Bank. I haven't seen this anywhere else (even al-Jazeera, which is actually kind of suspicious), so I don't know what all that is about. If it is what I think it is, then I am not altogether surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.

The high and mighty group of 8 industrial democracies (don't you wish you could be in their prestigious club?) known as the "G8" voiced their official concern over the post-election violence and clampdown in Iran. French president Nicolas Sarkozy continued with his recent stream of awesome sayings with this:

"We want to give negotiations every chance. If that works, then great. If that leads nowhere, then that won't be without consequences."

I guess we'll see what he's talking about when negotiations don't work, because they almost certainly won't. Wow, I promise I'm not normally this cynical. But seriously, I'm just going off history here.

Am I the only one who finds this whole "Biden-giving-Israel-the-green-light" thing very interesting? Now, NOT that I think a deterioration in US-Israel relations is a necessarily good or bad thing (I don't think frosty relations between any two countries in the world can be particularly beneficial to my vision of an ideal world; I do, however, think our often unconditional support of Israel throughout the years has definitely hurt us), but this seems like another step in that direction. The fact that we have now basically gone back on Biden's comment and said, "No, we did not give Israel any green light, they do not have our permission to attack Iran" means that everyone knows if Israel goes, they are going alone. I can't imagine even the most deluded Iranian officials would be able to successfully implicate us now in the event of an Israeli attack (please, please, please let there be no attack).

This is from Fox News; they are discussing a study which found that mental health is positively related to marriage in Finland and Sweden. Also, Fox News wants you to know that interethnic marriages are bad:

Note how he says we are marrying other "species and ethnics." Man, I just...don't even know what to say. How is this on TV?

It Drags On

2009-07-07T19:03:00.004-05:00

This summer is shaping up to be an especially boring one. Here's a song I listened to today while making hummus and pitas (which actually puffed up):

R.E.M. - 7 Chinese Bros.

Speaking of Chinese brothers, what's going on in China right now? In very broad, oversimplifying terms, it's dealing with a bit of "colonial stress," to put it lightly, I suppose. Beijing has apparently been accused of trying to "dilute Uighur influence" (the Uighurs are an ethnic group in Xinjiang province of China; they speak a Turkic language, are Muslims, and consider themselves to have more in common with Central Asian nations than with China) in a variety of ways. One includes the encouragement of a large number of Han Chinese (the ethnic majority in China) to move to Xinjiang province. Riots have historically been carried out by Uighurs wanting independence (among other things), which have gotten violent at times. This particular time, things did get violent. Han Chinese, who were outraged by the violence, responded with more violence, and so on. When asked about why these events are occurring, China responded by blocking the website you're currently reading.

What else...Michael Jackson's memorial service was today. I didn't watch, but based on what I heard and some of the Facebook statuses I saw, it looked more like the Grammys than someone's funeral. But hey, apparently that was the man's style, so I won't hate. It would be unfortunate, however, if his memorial were turned into a social/commercial event, but I suppose that was inevitable.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in an almost hilarious move, rubbed a little more salt in the wound by claiming that his election was "the most free election held anywhere in the world." Gosh, I just don't know whether to be outraged or chuckle heartily.

Speaking of Iran, the little diplomatic spats are worsening: Joe Biden's untimely and maybe slightly irresponsible comments about Israel bombing Iran and us doing nothing to stop them (I think I believe his intentions were good, but I just wouldn't have mentioned it at all) have pissed off Iran and now their Speaker of Parliament has said that it will blame the US for any Israeli attack on Iran. Well, that's so downright silly I don't even have any kind of witty response to it.

I want to shift again to maybe a more cultural observation now, because it's been a great deal of interest to me lately. Okay, maybe it's still slightly political. Feministing has a nice take on the whole stepping down of Sarah Palin thing that I found interesting.

I also found this simple pie chart at Sociological Images, which I kind of liked. It answers all the people who say Obama is a "socialist:"

So yeah, interesting stuff.

Summer

2009-07-06T20:44:00.004-05:00

Boy, am I tired, among other things.

Frank Sinatra - It Never Entered My Mind

So I'll admit, I'm losing a bit of steam for this as the summer is dragging on. And boy is it dragging now. It's just online class and occupying my time from here on out. You'd think that would be the perfect opportunity to write a whole lot for this thing but lately my well of inspiration seems to have run dry. But at any rate, let's see what's been going on...

Obama is going to meet the the Czar of Russia, Vladimir Putin, tomorrow. That's apparently big because it's a first, and hopefully the beginning of a mending in the relationship between the two empires. They both agreed to reduce their stockpile of nukes today, which is a good thing. I guess we'll see where things go.

A lot of people are freaking out because Joe Biden may have "given Israel the green light" to strike Iran. I don't really think that's what he did; I think he was just reiterating the fact that our approach to Iran is going to be diplomatic, and that nobody is going to attack Iran with America's help. It may be one of the smartest things Biden's ever said - we actually can't stop Israel from doing whatever they want. There are also rumors that Mousavi might be looking to form his own political party.

It's not directly news-related, but Sociological Images has a great set of maps I thought I'd share with you. I'm still not sure how to give proper credit for this stuff, but here's the original post, with the maps posted below. The top one represents countries according to how much they contribute to global warming, and the bottom one shows which countries suffer the most from global warming. Read the actual post too, it's got more good info:

Anyway, I guess that's all for now, see ya soon!

Happy July 4th!

2009-07-04T20:00:00.000-05:00

Sorry it's been awhile...but at any rate, happy July 4th to everyone! Here is your song:

Bob Dylan - Girl From the North Country

Boston's The Big Picture has some compelling photos of the Honduran coup d'etat up, and they have a nice little description for each one, as well as a kind of summary about what actually happened. Basically it's a kind of internal split between governmental elements and elements of society as well. Zelaya's unpopularity is sort of understandable as he is apparently largely seen as a kind of authoritarian figure within Honduras and he has had dissenting journalists harassed and murdered (gee, sounds like some other government we've been hearing a lot about lately). I believe nearly every country that's been asked about it is considering the move by the military a coup and is not recognizing the new government. From my understanding, coups are generally pretty undemocratic by nature so they might have a point.

Kim Jong-Il wants to ruin your 4th of July barbeque with his missiles - he issued a warning for boats to avoid an area in the Sea of Japan at certain times between June 29th and July 9th due to a military exercise of some sort. Well, that actually sounds like advice worth taking.

My policy towards people I am hoping will slowly burn out into history and not be heard from again generally includes an effort to not mention them on here, but it is a curious story so I feel compelled to mention that Sarah Palin is stepping down as Alaska governor. I'm not sure why that is, or what it means, but I assume the editorials will come rolling in before too long.

Lastly, the Iranian government has stepped up its attacks against Mousavi and his supporters; now they're saying Mousavi is a foreign agent and is responsible for treason, among other things. Further weakening the once unquestionable position of the Supreme Leader, a highly influential clerical group from Qom (a very religious city in Iran where most of the top clerics reside, study, and work) has denounced the elections and said that Ahmadinejad's government is illegitimate. It seems like good times all around in Iran. So guys, don't worry about like, patching things up there soon or anything so I can go ahead and come on over for awhile. Yeah, no rush. Happy Fourth!

Caught Unawares

2009-06-30T22:05:00.003-05:00

I have been swamped with little things to do before I go home, so I unfortunately haven't had time to keep up with lots of news over the past day or two, so here is your song:

The Rolling Stones - Send it to Me

Again, I apologize, but I've been out of touch the last day or so. We finally got our air conditioning fixed and after sitting in the 98 degree heat for several days, I'm suddenly 4 pounds lighter, which is a little suspicious. At any rate, I did mange to notice a few things. Al Franken was finally awarded his seat in the Senate, officially giving the Democrats the majority. Now we'll see if all of those plans go through (well not now, but at some point - government only works one way: slowly).

We pulled out of Iraqi cities. Although Obama may have voted against the war, he has apparently (or at least, not that I am able to find) not actually said that he is against the war ideologically - I believe he has only called it a "strategic blunder." But in any case, he said that the Iraqi people are "rightly treating this as a cause for celebration." That says to me that he might understand that us being there was (and is - don't forget we're still there) a serious infringement on their sovereignty and that the majority of Iraqis actually weren't happy that thousands of innocent civilians were dying as a result of the violence. Of course, even on the various news shows I flipped through tonight, the only things they talked about were the deaths of American troops. Of course, they mention the various bombs that have gone off in crowded city centers because they have to, but the only thing we are constantly reminded of is the total number of American casualties. Not to say that one death is more important than the other, but I don't see why we aren't reminded of the total civilian deaths which we are either indirectly or directly responsible for in the same way we are reminded of the US armed forces deaths. Any death is a tragedy, so every death is a casualty.

In other news:

Settlements, settlements, settlements.

Iranian firm helping out North Korea's nuclear program?

Oh Iran, you silly goose.

So Hot...So Very, Very Hot

2009-06-28T20:52:00.005-05:00

Holy crap, it is literally 98 degrees in our apartment (really, the air conditioner is broken and that's what the thermostat says), so this is going to be a quick one. The keys are going to melt to my fingers and start coming off soon:

Spacemen 3 - Hypnotized

Man, remember when MTV used to actually play stuff like that? I don't.

Oh Iran, you are like a girl I used to know. Things gets more and more interesting, and then you suddenly start to withdraw, so I respect your right to your own life and privacy. Ever so gradually, I start to move on as I see there is no hope of your return, and as soon as I have all but completely lost interest and have even started talking to your cute neighbor Armenia, you come back in full force to toy with my emotions again.

Now, what I meant to say with that creepy metaphor is that even though I was emotionally prepared to start complaining about other things, events sort of flared up in Iran again today - there was another protest, again quelled violently and with all the bells and whistles (tear gas, helicopters, you know); even a couple of high-ranking clerics and presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi made an appearance, and although Mir Hossein Mousavi was supposed to be there, he was stuck in Tehran's notorious traffic (kind of a funny image actually - I can totally see him banging on the dashboard and getting all flustered).

You can find all sorts of stories about it today so I'll just let you all go to whichever news source publishes the political views that most closely align with your own if you want more details. More is likely to develop over the next few days, but I can almost promise you that I will have nothing to say about it until this air conditioning is fixed - I'm literally sweating a pound a minute just sitting here in my bed.

Anyway, if you're interested in seeing some videos of what went on today, they can be found here. Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to go try and lay still...as still as possible...

Condemning the Egregiousness

2009-06-27T15:37:00.007-05:00

I don't really feel like a track 1 today, so here is a classical piece I really love by Rachmaninoff; this is one of those songs that I can absolutely promise you will enjoy:

Sergei Rachmaninoff - Concerto No. 2 - II. Adagio Sostenuto (part 1 of 2)

What's new on the Iran front? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ironically been accusing Barack Obama of "meddling" because of his strong condemnation of the violence. Obama's criticism of violence may be hypocritical, but he could be doing a lot worse (see topic: the last 8 years). Ahmadinejad, whose shady election and immediate, violent clampdown on the media and any form of opposition constitutes the biggest act of "meddling" in the affairs of the Iranian people since the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadeq, actually has no room to talk this time, but I still personally don't think Obama should have said anything after his first statement ("This is an Iranian affair, etc.), if anything at all.

It's not to say that I don't "support" the protesters - even though that's completely meaningless in the first place; I can't very well get up and go to Iran (as much as I'd like to) and "support" them any more than I can support them here by wearing a green wristband and bringing it up in casual conversation with my roommate while he plays Civilization IV. When I was a young lad, my mom would ground me for doing various stupid things. I could "condemn" her egregious actions all I wanted but it would either have made her laugh or extend my sentence (depending on how big of a fit I threw). This doesn't exactly parallel the positions of Obama and Ahmadinejad, but they each have just as much power over the actions of the other - that is to say, no power at all.

I don't have to provide links for you to see what I'm talking about; just look at what has actually happened: Obama's condemnation of the clampdown on the opposition and the violence has 1) not put a stop to any violence, 2) actually given the government further justification for the clampdown against the foreign "meddlers," and 3) made us look like even bigger hypocrites because I'd be willing to bet that more people die every day as a result, direct or indirect, of our current wars than have died during the last two weeks in Iran (but I haven't seen any of these highly-paid, highly-respected columnists bringing up this little tidbit because the idea that our wars have a negative impact on humanity does not exist in our national political discussion). All this little "condemnation" episode has really been is a game designed to score points with various partisan bases. When you're president, even the president of the US, sometimes there just isn't anything you can do except tell the partisans that maybe if they were up to the task, they might have been elected to our nation's highest office. Anything else you do is going to be counter-productive when you're dealing with an authoritarian government in the midst of a military coup. And while we're at it, let's do something about #3.

I'm going to go ahead and move on to other topics; I suppose things are just going to get more and more Orwellian in Iran for the time being. This is what frightened governments look like:

Yes, It Would

2009-06-26T15:48:00.002-05:00

I'm in a pretty good, romantic mood right now so here's a great number one from a couple of decades ago:

The Beach Boys - Wouldn't it Be Nice

I realized I have been reading too many news articles lately, so it's all starting to blend together and look something like this:

"Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal refuses to recognize Michael Jackson as the newly elected Iranian president in the midst of fierce rhetoric over North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il's affair with an Argentinian woman."

Phew...I just took my nutrition midterm and now I've got a weekend of relative relaxation, so maybe some of the sanity will kindly return (please). So there are whisperings that a "compromise" of sorts might be reached soon if Rafsanjani's alleged secret efforts pay off at all. The plainclothes militia, the riot police, and any other weapon-wielding guys responsible for the violence there seem to have crushed everyone's spirits and rid the streets almost completely of protesters as the general consensus seems to be (based on what I'm reading) that most people agree that it's unsafe to even go outside if you aren't totally stoked about the election results. Anyway, it's speculated that the compromise might involve a run-off election between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi, and although that all sounds very romantic and showdown-at-high-noonish, you'll have to forgive me if I'm feeling just a tiny bit cynical about the whole thing now.

Meanwhile, more and more videos of people dying are coming up and it's starting to look more like the basic plan is to make sure that if there is ever any kind of compromise made (hopefully in the form of a runoff election), enough of Mousavi's supporters will have been killed so that Ahmadinejad can score a legitimately easy victory.

As with any case like this, there are roughly a million different side stories opening up in which people who have less to do with the conflict than they ought to find all kinds of wonderfully creative ways of attacking each other; particularly interesting is the one involving the girl named Neda, who I probably don't need to say anything else about. There are opinions all over the place, including one I saw which stated that since Neda was young and pretty, the Western media are obsessed with watching her die over and over. I guess that could be the case (I don't have the intimate understanding of the singular, monolithic hive mind that is "the Western media" like this particular writer seems to), but at any rate I also think it's just because it's an extremely graphic video and those tend to get people riled up.

In other news, the "Quartet" for Middle East peace, which includes the EU, the UN, the US, and Russia, called upon Israel to freeze settlement in the West Bank, to which Israeli leaders responded, "But how can we freeze it when it's so hot outside?" and then broke into fits of boyish laughter while giving each other high fives.

Particularly interesting is this quote from former UN Middle East envoy Alvaro de Soto:

"You can't recognise a country while you are being occupied by it. It's just not a request that's operative."

Well, duh.

Wondering What Else is Going On

2009-06-24T16:52:00.005-05:00

Here's another favorite track one of mine, again from a Brazilian album. Clara Nunes' 1978 album "Guerreira" is pretty tight and this is the first track (and the title track) off of it:

Clara Nunes - Guerreira

Anyway, so what else is going on? I want to try to avoid talking about that one place I've been spending a lot of time on recently to kind of quickly run over some other stuff since I've actually got a ton of work to do.

Less than a week before US soldiers are supposed to turn control of Iraq's cities over to Iraqis, a bomb goes off in a crowded marketplace in Baghdad, killing at least 69 people. I'm trying to learn a bit more myself about the implications of the US withdrawal and what it means for Iraqi civilian life; if anyone has any insight I'd appreciate it.

A four-year diplomatic absence in Syria is coming to an end for the US! We are sending a diplomat there, although it will take some time. No names have apparently been brought up and they would have to be approved by the Senate.

Around 1,370 Palestinians were killed in Israel's 22-day invasion of Gaza, and another 5,000 were injured. The blockade is still on for Gazans, so here are some statistics I pulled off of the BBC article provided by UNRWA and the World Food Bank:

- 40% unemployed
- 750,000 (that's out of only 1.5 million people) are getting UNRWA food aid.
- No petrol or diesel has been allowed in since November 2008, except for UN vehicles.
- Virtually no building materials are allowed in

I particularly like that last one - no building materials allowed in. Now, I wonder why it is that the Israeli authorities wouldn't want Gazans to rebuild?

Well, I can't help it, because I saw this in the middle of writing. In what is surely the final nail in the coffin of my plans to go to Iran after I graduate in December, the US has withdrawn its invitation to Iranian diplomats to attend parties at US embassies around the world on July 4th in light of the government's refusal to make any sort of compromise with the protesters. They were the first invitations extended since 1979.

In the meantime, the leaders there repeated how much they love and support those awesome election results, and how nobody will be allowed to protest, disagree, huff and puff up the stairs, be able to talk to any of their friends via telephone or internet, or be able to see what's actually going on anywhere else in the country than what they can see out their window without being viciously beaten and possibly shot. Meanwhile, politicians in the US are trying to score points with their respective bases of support by making grandiose, sweeping, symbolic statements about freedom and democracy that are likely made for more self-serving reasons rather than protecting the lives of innocent people. Good times.

Amor de Burqas

2009-06-23T22:38:00.000-05:00

Another great track 1 comes from Jorge Ben's 1967 album "O Bidu/Silencio no Brooklin." Enjoy:

Jorge Ben - Amor de Carnaval

So, what is going on right now? I actually want to say one or two things unrelated to Iran first before I get to that. First of all, I noticed that the veil debate in France has heated up now that Nicolas Sarkozy has had this to say:

"The burqa is not welcome on French territory. In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity."

Spot on, Mr. Sarkozy. By forcing these women to be liberated from these burqas and forcing them to act more like French women, who are not forced to wear the burqa but in fact will soon be forced not to wear the burqa, we will force a reality upon these Muslim women in which they are forced to fit our definition of free, liberated women, free to act as they please. Oh wait...it seems there is a flaw in this logic somewhere.

My ability to relate to this issue or make any kind of informed comment on it is basically limited to what I can read, but it seems to me the best course of action is to just let everyone live their lives as they please, that way you avoid stigmatizing France's Muslim community and maybe coming off as kind of sexist. Just let 'em be.

Anyway, so it seemed as though not a lot happened on the Iran front today. I was at my place of work and they had Fox news turned on for awhile, which tends to raise my blood pressure a bit. Obama answered a lot of his Republican critics, who seem dedicated to making sure many more Iranians die or are imprisoned and tortured in the current atmosphere, which is exactly what will happen if Obama gives them his full, official support. Here is what he threw down today, check it:

I love Obama for standing up to those goons. The really ironic part is that these are some of the same people who have very recently condemned Iran and used language indicative of the fact that they don't really separate the people from the government, and all of a sudden they are trying to make Obama speak out for the pure, democracy-loving Iranian people. Uh, really? Weren't you some of the guys who wanted to go to war with Iran recently? Anyway, it's unfortunate that Obama condemns violence against civilians while our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and what is essentially our war in Pakistan) are still killing lots of civilians and have been for quite some time.

Anyway, CNN has a picture of some mullahs in a protest march, which is actually pretty interesting I think. Also, there's supposed to be another protest tomorrow at 4 pm (Iran time) that has been more organized and talked about, so maybe it will be bigger than what we've seen the past two days. If a lot of people show up, we'll see how the government responds. If they've learned any lessons from the Shah, it won't be with more violence.

Are You Getting Tired of Reading About This Yet?

2009-06-22T18:14:00.001-05:00

Alright, #2 in a series of my favorite track ones, an absolutely classic track by Gil Scott-Heron. I picked the version off of "Pieces of a Man" because even though the older version has the cool back-alley feel, I really like the instrumentation on this one. Dig:

Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

So, before I start on today's events (yeah, this is basically an Iran blog for the time being until something more interesting happens elsewhere), I want to share a kind of cool video with you that's been circulating around. Some riot police are manhandling some protesters and then a whole sea of people comes shouting and shaking their fists, sending the riot police running in the opposite direction. I don't know when it's from, but I'm pretty sure it's from Saturday. Leave the song above on and make sure you watch the whole thing; the end is quite possibly the punkest thing ever:

Battle w/ Police - Tehran, Iran - June 20th 2009
by mightier-than

Wow, right? Anyway, I saw this late last night: apparently the spokesman of the Guardian Council (responsible for overseeing fairness of voting if I'm not mistaken), Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, has gone ahead and made this announcement, which sounds like something straight out of the mouth of Springfield Mayor Joe Quimby:

"Statistics provided by the candidates, who claim more than 100% of those eligible have cast their ballot in 80-170 cities are not accurate -- the incident has happened in only 50 cities."

Immediately after making this statement, Mr. Kadkhodaei said, "D'oh!"

Anyway, apparently it's not a big deal after all because people are allowed to vote in places other than where they are registered, just like here. But at any rate, that too was reported by Iranian state TV (remember the Tom-and-Jerry style struggle from yesterday's post?), which makes it even more interesting. What is going on??

Andrew Sullivan, who's reporting is getting more and more cheez-wiz with all of the hero talk as the days go by, has now reported that Rafsanjani has a letter with signatures from 40 out of the 86 members of the Assembly of Experts calling for the annulment of the election. Nobody else has speculated this (so I could very well just be wrong), but if he could only get 40 signatures on that letter, that seems to rule out the possibility that he was going to go for some kind of "impeachment" of Khamenei, at least this early on. We'll see where things go - there is supposed to be a national strike beginning either tomorrow or Wednesday, a huge rally mourning the recent deaths is supposed to take place on Thursday, and I am somehow supposed to take my Nutrition midterm on Friday. Well, that's just wonderful.

A Suspicious Slowdown

2009-06-21T16:54:00.002-05:00

Today's song comes from a three-disc album by The Magnetic Fields called "69 Love Songs," and this is the first track off of it. I don't have any idea what the deal with the video is, but you're not supposed to be watching it anyway...this gives me an idea, I might do some of my favorite track ones over the next few days, High Fidelity style:

The Magnetic Fields - Absolutely Cuckoo

Before I get started, I want to point out something kind of funny about the buzz that the whole "social networking" phenomenon is getting with the way it's exposing lots of the stuff going on. It leads to some slightly awkward (but humorous) scenarios. Take, for example, these two Facebook statuses that appeared within seconds of each other yesterday and stayed next to each other all the way down the newsfeed:

Facebooker 1 : people of Iran, we are standing by you, may no more of your blood be shed!

Facebooker 2 : spent the day on a boat :] @ lake travis ... Now drinkin at trudys !!

Well, you know what they say...different strokes for different folks. Anyway, on to the main event!

Bloggers and reporters alike are still jumping all manner of guns by optimistically forecasting the awesome, totally rock 'n roll downfall of the Islamic Republic, but even Mousavi himself has been saying he wants to "restore" the Islamic Republic, not change the system fundamentally, so who knows.

So apparently there wasn't one gigantic, wave of people descending on Tehran today and the streets were relatively quiet, albeit very tense. I mean, I wasn't there, but that's what I've read. There are some interesting reports that the Assembly of Experts actually approves of Khamenei's statements the other day. That's interesting because the head of that assembly is supposed to be one of the fiercest rivals of Ahmadinejad and a critic of Khamenei, but that report did come from the Iranian state media, so maybe it should be taken with a grain, or perhaps a nice big block of salt. If it were true, that would be a huge setback for the protesters and it would prove that Rafsanjani, despite all the buzz about his inevitable crunkness, actually just dozed off in his La-Z-Boy a few days ago and he forgot to set a little alarm and now four of his close relatives have been arrested. (Update: they were arrested but are now released; apparently they were only held briefly)

In another interesting development, Speaker of the Majlis (Iranian parliament) Ali Larijani, on Iranian state TV no less, said that "a majority of people are of the opinion that the actual election results are different than what was officially announced." I can imagine a hilarious Tom and Jerry-like struggle to maintain control of the cameras and microphones at Iranian state telvision, because some of the stuff they're reporting isn't really flowing with the whole clamp-down-on-the-population thing.

Right now, Mousavi's Twitter page is reporting (I feel more and more like a douchebag every time I write that) that his news site has apparently been hacked and to "await further instructions." There's really no telling how many people are actually still willing to go out and fight, because they'll definitely have to fight now - the Iranian authorities have made it clear that no peaceful protesting will be allowed. Meanwhile, videos and images continue to circulate, including the horrific one of the girl from yesterday, which is on a few major news sites, including CNN. Things like that are bound to provoke some kind of reaction.

In the last bit of news I want to share about the Iran situation today before I delve into hours upon hours of mindless, absolutely pointless and frustrating work from my online nutrition class, there is still talk about that sneaky old trickster Rafsanjani pulling some kind of fast one over at the Assembly of Experts. There's really no telling because homeboy is being rather behind-the-scenes about the whole thing, which seems wise, but what that means to us is that we have absolutely no idea what will happen, or if anything will even happen at all. I guess we'll see whether or not he can get those knuckleheads at the Assembly of Experts in line over the next few days. I mean, it is a pretty big task...we're talking about a guy trying to oust the Supreme Leader of Iran, here. That would be so punk rock. In the meanwhile, Al-Jazeera has an enlightening report:

Wow, what an interesting accent that reporter has. As it is, I want to apologize for the increasingly cynical tone of these posts. I was sort of actually hoping to, you know, go to Iran at some point, so I guess I'm just a little bothered by all of the cosmic upheaval of my plans. Hopefully my tone (as well as other things) will improve over the next few days as my focus shifts to different issues...if that's even possible.

Nerdy Parallels

2009-06-20T14:16:00.006-05:00

It's been an interesting weekend already. First, in honor of Blur getting back together (Woo Hoo!!!), here is your song for today. Enjoy:

Blur - Chemical World

Where to begin? Yesterday Ayatollah Khameini got up and basically said, "I approve of the election results, they are divine and wonderful, and if any of you no-goodniks continue to stir the pot, we can't be held responsible for the violence inflicted upon you." I do believe he actually mentioned the possibility of bloodshed, too. Now, based only on what I've read from history (I'm no Supreme Leader myself), it's usually not a good idea to say to a crowd of screaming, angry masses, "Go ahead, punk, make my day." To complicate matters further, Khameini called out Mousavi specifically and basically threatened him pretty harshly if he kept stirring up the protesters to go out and tear it up even more. So Mousavi's choice yesterday was this: Give up on those in Iranian society wanting reform, who had already been deeply disappointed by Khatami's presidency 10 years before to keep his political career, or press on in direct, full opposition to his own government, basically presenting a challenge that must result in the death (either political or actual) of one of the two sides. Mousavi announced his choice on his campaign's official Twitter page:

"I am prepared for martyrdom, go on strike if I am arrested."

Wow. So I guess he is going to take this thing as far as it will go. I myself have no opinion about what anyone should or shouldn't do because I don't know all the details, except for that the government is digging itself deeper and deeper in with its continued use of violence. There are some pretty downright gruesome videos and photos circulating around from today, including a particularly horrendous one of a woman being shot through the chest and bleeding to death right on the pavement as protesters shout around her. Now, thanks to modern technology, these kinds of images can definitely be expected to reach the masses, and now that Mousavi has publicly announced that he is basically willing to die for the people and their cause, I believe this probably gives him a certain kind of status among his numerous followers that makes disposing of him much more difficult than it would have been a few weeks ago. What I mean is, if he is killed or imprisoned by Khameini's government, that will certainly push the people to their breaking point and then there will be no turning back. Mousavi, like the fictional hero shown below, might become even more powerful in death than he was in life:

"If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

Ah, I believe that properly elucidates the matter in a way my high school self would have highly appreciated. In addition, I want to applaud Barack Obama (because I know he checks this site impulsively) for continuing not to heed the calls of Republican politicians who for some reason want to give the reform movement in Iran the kiss of death by giving it official US support. It's so strange, because it's actually in Republican politicians' every interest to see a reform movement take hold in Iran, but they seem to be working so hard against it. Just don't make no sense. Anyway, we'll see how things unfold tomorrow.

A Short Summary

2009-06-18T20:44:00.006-05:00

Yes, because I would love to write a lot more but I don't have a ton of time. Here is your song for today (yes, yours), and you really should listen to the whole thing. It's wonderful:

Ella Fitzgerald - I've Got a Crush On You

Well, what has been going on? The last bit of relevant news I've heard from the Iran situation is that there was a massive rally to mourn the victims of the violence over the past week. The Supreme Leader will address the nation tomorrow (apart from the standard cynical ideas in my head I have no idea what he'll say), and he is supposed to meet with the candidates on Saturday, followed by 9 brisk holes of golf on Sunday morning.

Forgiving my unnecessary editorializing and speculation about the Supreme Leader's day-to-day activities, we can move on to other events. People have been throwing in their two cents on the Iran situation and among them is Senator John McCain:

"He should speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed sham of an election, and that the Iranian people have been deprived of their rights," Senator McCain said. "We support them in their struggle against a repressive, oppressive regime and they should not be subjected to four more years of Ahmadinejad and the radical Muslim clerics."

Senator McCain manages to kill two birds with one stone as he expresses his opinion about what Obama should do while at the very same time reminding us all why he himself was not elected president. McCain, who represented nothing less than four more years of the U.S. version of Ahmadinejad alongside the radical Christian clerics, would do well to look at what he says in writing and see if it fits in anywhere with the way the people out there actually making progress are behaving.

A few things in brief before I walk alone to Central Market for what must be the fifth time this week and try not to cry into a kids' size serving of gelato:

Afghan civilians are still dying as a result of the war we brought to their soil.

Israel is pressuring Arab states to push the PA to resume peace talks after a lot of them are upset over Netanyahu's speech on Sunday. It wasn't an actual Palestinian state that he offered them by any means, but it was a step in the right direction, and that's better than the last 60 years.

And finally, if you are still a bit unclear on Iran right now, read this article in the New York Times, it's good stuff.

All That I Don't Know

2009-06-17T20:56:00.001-05:00

So a few things - first, here is today's song:

João Gilberto - É Preciso Perdoar

Yeah, definitely trying to put both feet on the ground over the Iran thing now - frankly, I don't even know what a lot of people are hoping for and that makes it difficult to feel one way or another about it. These blog feeds are misleading because it makes you feel like every single person in Iran is marching against the government, but they aren't! The information is so mixed up or concealed or just plain nonexistent, which makes things even more difficult. I mean, it's very likely that a ton of people actually did go out and vote for Ahmadinejad; it's naive (and almost kind of offensive) to assume that people were only voting for vague notions of "increased social freedoms," especially when a lot of Iranians I've talked to here don't seem to associate Mousavi with those ideas very much. I just don't know; it seems unlikely that supporters of Ahmadinejad voted in favor of less freedom and equality; I feel like the issues are just not that simple. The point is, there are other factors to be considered; it's still careful we don't jump to conclusions. It's well-known that Ahmadinejad is loved by many for being perceived as a strong leader; he's cultivated an image of himself as an everyman free of corruption and as a fighter for the people, and whether he actually is that or not is irrelevant as he still has tons of supporters, especially in the rural areas:

The Iranian countryside, where the slogans you're more likely to hear might include, "Where is my goat!?"

Additionally, all of this makes me wonder: What actually is it that people following these events want, myself included? People aren't just expecting something to happen, they are hoping something will happen. I'm sure the ideas are all over the place, but it's interesting to remember as we watch and read and talk to people that everyone interested in this does in fact have some kind of ideal resolution in mind.

At any rate, I feel like not enough time has passed for any real evidence to be looked at or considered. All we really know is that Iran is trying to keep information locked down tight, and obviously that is bad, and that people have died, which is tragic, but we really don't know anything else. I hate to sound smug, but it almost kind of pleases me a bit in these kinds of events when people come out and throw their big ol' opinion out there about exactly what will happen, because there's always a fairly good chance it won't. Take for example, this article that mentions a quote by Richard Bulliet, Iran expert at Columbia University. Check the quote by Professor Bulliet:

“The regime will quell the discontent."

Wow, homeboy nailed it. So definitive...almost like he knows something! But seriously, I don't think it's good to make such definitive statements just because you're an "Iran expert." I'm not an anti-intellectual or something, but I think someone can be an Iran expert but maybe not an expert on other things, like human psychology or government or religion. All three of those things are major factors in the events happening now, so someone like Professor Bulliet might actually be sort of limited in their expertise when it comes to straight-up predicting the future. It's usually just better not to call it either way. Let's just hope more people don't die.

Oh yeah, tomorrow I shall bring pictures of the protest that took place in Austin today!

Starting to Sober Up

2009-06-16T14:33:00.001-05:00

Sorry about the lack of songs, that is just uncalled for:

Chet Baker - Tenderly

So my friend helped me get a little essay on altmuslim.com (ooh, and it's right up there on the front!), so feel free to go check that out. I have never had a thing published on a site that was read by more people than just my parents and my roommate, so this is new for me. It also was unfortunate that all of my attempts at humor had to be stripped from the article, but alas, this is the nature of writing actual news and analysis. It feels kind of soulless in that regard, but at least my main points are still there, more or less. Plus, now I'm totally guaranteed at least one or two accusations of being an imperialist, which seems to be the standard response to any non-Iranian writer making even the most seemingly vague, insignificant comment about Iran. So that'll be new for me, too. As it is, I'm also probably guaranteed to never get into Iran. I guess I can ask them to take my name down from the site when I apply for my visa.

Anyway, so headlines all over this morning are saying that the Guardian Council has ordered a "partial recount" of the votes. Unfortunately, this is not what Mousavi and the protesters were calling for, as a partial recount could mean anything. What, are all the votes just sitting safely in a warehouse somewhere, waiting to be recounted? You're telling me none were lost or will now be hard to relocate? In any case, I think this move has made it clear that the government is not going to concede as easily as the protesters hoped. They are probably banking on things going the same way they did with the last two big protests (in 1999 and 2003), in which things settled down after about 10 days. We'll see. All in all, I think this cartoon by Nikahang Kowsar speaks pretty loudly:

The Persian says, "You'd better carefully examine Mousavi's letter!"

My suspicion about the Western bloggers covering the events is growing. There is a definite "democracy rocks!" filter going on here that is sort of unsettling. They are even starting to fight with each other, criticizing each other for either not supporting the protesters enough or for getting too wrapped up in all the blog wankery even though they have nothing at stake. It's not nicecore, so I don't approve. Of course, since nobody actually reads this one for live updates (or any reason other than to tell me they saw it as they pass by me on the way to the bathroom), my blog doesn't really count in all of this. Ha! But seriously, tomorrow maybe a little more on this, then my thoughts on Netanyahu's speech the other day.

Iran-ran doo-ran, Iran-ran da-doo

2009-06-15T19:05:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the title; absolutely nothing remotely intelligent came to mind today. So the mainstream media is finally starting to catch up - protests, riots, and now some shots fired, so I imagine things are generally not going very well in Iran at this point.

In my opinion, the main question is still this: Was the vote actually rigged? We still haven't seen that definite piece of evidence or heard that one statement...and as it is we're very unlikely to. I'm not a history buff or anything, but I've never heard of a government admitting to something like that no fewer than 20 to 30 years after the fact.

So the evidence that supports election rigging is widely available, but I want to point you to an article that has been discussed on the news by Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty which suggests that Ahmadinejad may have actually won the election fairly. The strange thing is, even if he really was favored by most Iranians, why were the results of an election with almost 40,000,000 paper votes announced two hours after the polls closed? That is the main one that sticks out to me, but there are still others. Something is definitely really, really fishy here...that's all I'll say.

Anyway, here's a response to the Ballen and Doherty article. The crappy thing is, everyone on both sides here actually makes pretty good points, and now the situation is getting more complicated as people are accusing the press as well as each other of ulterior motives as they either support the protesters (which means you must be an imperialist!) or assert that the protesters might be protesting in vain (which means you must be an asshole!). My parentheses are pretty much directly from readers' comments; occasionally there is wisdom in there, but alas, often there is not.

Anyway, the BBC has an analysis up which is important and answers a few of our questions while we wait for the truth to come forward.

There are reports going around that on IRIB Channel 2 (a channel inside Iran), the head of the Guardian Council announced that he received a letter from the Supreme Leader asking him to investigate fraud in the election. He vows to send Khameini the results of his investigation in 10 days time. 10 days, eh? So...you can just make what you will of that. I probably don't need to say anything else. Except for that 10 days when you're holding public demonstrations and getting the snot beaten out of you by police is a pretty long time.

Oh, one more thing: Obama has spoken, and it was great. Check it:

Obviously, all of us have been watching the news from Iran. And I want to start by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be, that we respect Iranian sovereignty, and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran...

Obama, you are the man and that's why I voted for you.

Iran is Burning

2009-06-14T10:56:00.004-05:00

No song today; for those of you interested in the events unfolding in Iran right now, here are a few ways to stay on top:

Mir Hossein Mousavi's official campaign Twitter.

The National Iranian-American Council liveblog of events from Tehran.

The Daily Kos has a great liveblog too.

Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish is a good resource.

Here's another Twitter that has been good with updates.

It seems the hardliners in Iran have really dug themselves into a hole this time. Apparently, there really was a massive turnout in favor of Mousavi as there are violent demonstrations in every major city and even many smaller ones. A lot of what I'm reading is that many Iranians who gave up on politics after Khatami's presidency in the late 1990s threw their chips in with Mousavi after seeing change take place elsewhere in the world, as well as the fiery debates before the election that made everyone feel like the people really would have a choice this time. Nobody can really say if Mousavi was actually chosen by the majority, but it begs the question: Where are all the Ahmadinejad supporters celebrating their victory in the streets? Afraid of getting beat up? Possibly, but it's hard not to be cynical as more and more evidence of fraud keeps flooding in. Even if the government can subdue the people by cutting off all communications and using brute force as they've been doing, the repercussions are likely to stretch farther than just today or tomorrow. Some really interesting pieces of news have already surfaced: 120 members of Sharif University have resigned and are holding demonstrations at the university. Also, Grand Ayatollah Sanei has declared Ahmadinejad's presidency illegitimate, which proves that this has reached the highest levels of Iran's government.

A friend sent this article to me late last night; it should probably be taken with a grain of salt but it is suggested reading for anyone who is dying of curiosity about what will happen next (as I am).

Here is an article in Foreign Policy where three Middle East experts discuss where the situation could go next. NIAC (mentioned above) president Trita Parsi's thoughts are the most striking:

Clearly, the anti-Ahmadinejad camp has been taken by surprise and is scrambling for a plan. Increasingly, given their failure to get Khamenei to intervene, their only option seems to be to directly challenge -- or threaten to challenge -- the supreme leader.

Here's where the powerful chairman of the Assembly of Experts, Mousavi supporter Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, comes in. Only this assembly has the formal authority to call for Khamenei's dismissal, and it is now widely assumed that Rafsanjani is quietly assessing whether he has the votes to do so or not.

It may be that the first steps toward challenging Khamenei have already been taken. After all, Mousavi went over the supreme leader's head with an open letter to the clergy in Qom. Rafsanjani clearly failed to win Khamenei's support in a reported meeting between the two men Friday, but the influential Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, who heads the vote-monitoring committee for Mousavi and fellow candidate Mehdi Karroubi, has officially requested that the Guardian Council cancel the election and schedule a new vote with proper monitoring.

Wow. So I guess anything could happen. Here's a nice video for you to check out...at about :23 the police ride through on motorcycles and smack people with batons. The people then begin shouting "death to the dictator" and eventually storm the police and awesomely light their motorcycles on fire. Dig:

More updates as they come.

Update @ 11:14 AM - Apparently there is a massive victory rally of Ahmadinejad supporters in Tehran going on now, and thousands of people are present. I will be spending the next few hours removing my foot from my mouth.

Getting Used to Disappointment

2009-06-13T11:33:00.000-05:00

Bill Evans - Who Can I Turn To?

So if you turned on the news at all last night, you probably saw something about the Iranian elections, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's apparent landslide victory. I'm not going to lie (and because I'm not a journalist or a politician, I don't have to), I'm pretty unhappy about it. One of the oft-cited reasons for Ahmadinejad's success among the average Iranian people is that he defies the West in speech and action, even when it seems unnecessary, and so as a guy hoping for some kind of move forward in Iran-US relations in the near future, I'm more than a little bothered by the results. Of course, it is still going to depend equally on both parties to not mess each other around and treat each other right, but this election might indicate that it's pretty much officially more in Iran's interest to thumb their nose at us than pursue a rapprochement. The US doesn't necessarily depend on Iran for any obvious economic reasons, but our strategic interests there are increasingly vast. In contrast, Ahmadinejad and his supporters seem to only gain more power and credibility at home every time they piss off the US.

It's a funny thing though. If you had been reading stories mostly out of the Western media in the weeks leading up to the election, you'd have imagined a landslide victory for Mousavi, and now all of those same journalists are questioning the validity of the elections. I get it, nobody likes to be wrong about stuff. Nonetheless, there are some significant "irregularities," as Mousavi himself has called them, already on the record, and maybe some people are hoping more will come to light in the coming days. Already there are reports that at several polling stations in pro-Mousavi camps, there was a mysterious shortage of ballots and many stations were closed early without explanation, even with long lines snaking around them. During the day of voting, many pro-Mousavi websites were suddenly inaccessible, and text messaging, seen as a way for especially the young Mousavi supporters to spread news and organize, was blocked altogether. After the election results were announced, Mousavi's campaign headquarters were closed down by police and kept under heavy guard. The few protests that started in the streets of Tehran were dispersed with batons and arrests. The committee that had overseen the voting and counting of votes from the very beginning was controlled by Ahmadinejad. Of course, every election all over the world probably has a long list of stuff like this, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating this time, does it?

Anyway, if that vote displays the true will of the Iranian people, then nobody has anything to complain about. But I was really hoping to get an Iranian visa at some point. At any rate, I'm glad to say that Mousavi has declared he will make sure that fairness has been implemented, in whatever ways he can. There's the hard part - the real muscle of the government (the armed forces and the Supreme Leader) are pretty much on Ahmadinejad's side. So, "whatever ways he can" is pretty much limited to saying a whole lot and watching dramatically as nothing happens, I think. I don't want to sound too cynical here, but...well, I don't really know how to finish that.

In slightly less depressing news, George Mitchell, the US envoy to the Middle East, has been quietly making his way around the region meeting with the Palestinians, the Israelis, and the Syrians. The Syrians are on board to resume talks with Israel. The Palestinians are officially committed to the "road map" from 2003. Benyamin Netanyahu is giving a speech tomorrow that is supposed to address this entire issue. I'll be back with something on that tomorrow or Monday.

Update @ 11:31 AM Central - The BBC reports that clashes have broken out in the streets. The police are beating people up.

Here is a video of the Iranian police beating the snot out of people.

Here's a link to a Flickr page with photos from the streets of Tehran today.

Waiting on Lots of Things

2009-06-10T18:29:00.008-05:00

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Lots of stuff is going down. Here's today's song:

Jagjit Singh - Shaayad Main Zindagi Ki Sehar

Man, Indian love songs are the bomb. Anyway, I'm sorry I haven't made any updates for awhile. I had to come back to school for some summer courses and work (boo), but it's all good. Some exciting stuff is happening in the next few days. The one I'm most excited about, the Iranian elections, will be taking place on Friday (actually late tomorrow night, since they are so many hours ahead of us). In light of that, here is a Los Angeles Times article basically describing how many traditionally very conservative elements are so unhappy with Ahmadinejad (and some of their other fellow conservatives) that they are actually working together against him. It also seems to predict a spectacular defeat of Ahmadinejad at the hands of Mir Hossein Mousavi on Friday.

Meir Javedanfar in the Guardian smartly points out that US-Iran relations actually depend more on the Supreme Leader than on the president, even though he is the traditional face of Iran's government on the international stage. The article is interesting and the similarities it draws between Ahmadinejad's effect on the conservative movement in Iran and the latest string of GOP leaders on that party in the US are stark. Wow, as I read over the article again I realize just how stark they are. Pretty stark, indeed. I don't even know if that's the right word but it seems to fit. Anyway, moving on...

Javedanfar makes a good point in this fine paragraph:

Even if Ahmadinejad is not elected again, talks with Barack Obama could deepen divisions within Iran's political hierarchy. With oil prices falling and demonising America no longer being a useful tool, negotiations with the US would make rightwingers isolated, thus energising them more to take on reformists and moderate conservatives. This makes it imperative for Khamenei to tread a slow and fine line in talking to the US, as a way to maintain cohesion among the different political factions.

Whoever gets elected on Friday, let's see to it that we don't continue to harass them about the nuclear thing when we were already making such good progress; just make sure everyone sticks to the treaties we all signed without throwing a lot of other accusations around and things should be fine. Now, about those economic sanctions...because I'd really like to visit one of these days...

What else is going on? An editorial in the New York Times caught my eye the other day; it says that President Obama's choice for the next military commander in Afghanistan is quoted as saying what should have been said several years ago (I'm sure it was, but I still believe it isn't said enough): Success in Afghanistan can only be measured by the number of Afghans that are shielded from violence, instead of the number of enemies that are killed. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Coming soon: Iranian election results and Benyamin Netanyahu's Sunday speech on the two-state solution!

Following Obama through the Middle East

2009-06-06T16:54:00.001-05:00

Wow! A lot is going on at the moment. I feel like hearing a song that has absolutely nothing to do with the events discussed below:

Belle and Sebastian - Slow Graffiti

Ahh...anyway, Obama threw loads of people for various loops the other day with his speech at Cairo University (full text here), reports have come out of North Korea saying a successor to Kim Jong-Il has been chosen, Chinese officials have been doing their best to make sure nobody remembers Tiananmen Square, the Iranian presidential debates are happening, and the Lebanese general elections are taking place this coming Sunday. Time magazine, whose preachiness generally annoys the heckfire out of me, put up this interesting and funny blog post about the style of advertising used in the coming Lebanese elections by the different political parties. Based on the little reading I've done on the elections, it seems like much of the campaigning is based on reminding people of past atrocities befallen them at the hands of the other parties. But then, that's a universal principle of getting elected to any office, isn't it? It's much easier to remind people what the other guy has done than to win people over with the merits of a serious argument.

My personal reflection about Obama's speech: It wasn't life-changing, wonderful, or breathtaking, but considering the way U.S. leaders have been speaking to and about the region and its inhabitants as a whole over the past 8 years, it was awesome! It seems like there is a sincere tone of respect there that anyone will be able to appreciate, and I feel like it's part of Obama's personality and he's incorporated it into his politics. That's right - Obama just might be nicecore. Also, many have been saying (and I agree) that it is still a bit too early in the game to call whether or not Obama is a success or not as far as Middle East peace is concerned. I know none of the citizens interviewed on the BBC or Al-Jazeera are reading this, but just in case: Try not to be cynical! I think this guy really believes what he is saying and he is going to take steps as best he can to make things happen that will benefit everyone.

The BBC quotes a religious student from Israel who had this to say:

I think he's trying a little too hard to win over the Arab world. I think he's intentionally leaving us out a bit and we're paying the price for his attempts at friendship with the Arab world.

I truly, honestly don't understand this. First of all, not wanting the Arab nations to get along with the US because it somehow puts Israel at immediate danger is flawed logic. It's my recollection that Israel was at much greater danger when the US supported it blindly and deliberately thumbed their noses at the Arab countries, giving them all the more reason to hate the US and their "51st state," Israel. I don't understand why we are only allowed to have one ally and that's it, why we have to choose only one side and support them no matter what.

Here's my guess as to why you often hear these kinds of sentiments from the Israeli side: The Israeli leadership, as well as those who don't see a problem with the way they handle the Palestinians, are used to absolutely unconditional US support of their actions. The Palestinians and the other Arab nations have accepted that we're always going to choose Israel if we are forced to make a choice (for what reason anymore, nobody really knows) and that we'll give them the overwhelming financial and ideological support as long as we have the money (and even if we don't, like now), so this is nothing new to them.

I can almost, just barely understand someone who says, "Well, an organized and defensible Palestinian state might pose a threat to Israel if hardline elements took it over," but then I really can't because an organized and defensible Palestinian state is really all the majority of Palestinians want, and the idea that the Arab states around it would let "hardline" elements roam free is laughable - go read the Wikipedia entries of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt or Bashir al-Assad of Syria (or his father Hafez). I can't imagine that the majority of Palestinians want all Jewish people to leave Tel Aviv, Haifa, or even Jerusalem; most of them have accepted after 60 odd years of oppression that all they are going to get, if they get anything, is the West Bank and Gaza. Frankly, they'll be lucky if Israel ever stops treating the Arabs living within its borders like second-class citizens. And thanks to the Israeli government building all those settlements along the Jordan River, even what will happen in the West Bank is anybody's guess. But there are some people on both sides who will never, ever be satisfied, so I can't waste any more time on them. Speaking of which...

Leaders in that one country with the upcoming elections that I shouldn't say too much about because I'd like to visit it very soon were quick to discredit Obama as well as his "beautiful and sweet" words, and although the flattering words "made our cheeks turn red like ripe summer cherries," they reminded their people that the US is still deeply hated in the region and that only serious actions would begin to change the minds of the people. Okay, I made up the cherry stuff, but "beautiful and sweet words" is an actual quote. It makes a lot of sense; that particular set of leaders have based a lot of their regime on a strong hatred of the US and its wicked ways, and we've basically given them a lot to be angry about up to now. We are still badgering them about their nuclear program (although we're showing signs of progress there) and we still haven't eased the completely pointless and counter-productive economic sanctions, but our newest president has gotten a lot of people in that particular country excited about a possible reconciliation with the US. Good times ahead!

So anyway, apparently Obama will have to like, actually do stuff to follow up on those beautiful speeches he's giving. What a drag. He does make beautiful speeches, though; I think we can all agree on that, but come on, buddy! Let's start getting crunk on some issues here!

Also, I'd like to point out that all of the Fox news reporters and other commentators and TV personalities who tried as hard as they could to bring up any Muslim elements of Obama's past in a shameful and disgusting effort to smear his campaign but only resulting in even more harm to Muslims last fall are now trying to call him out for mentioning it in his speech in Cairo. He couldn't talk about it during the election because you, Fox news and all of your cronies, tried to play off of the fear and bigotry in America by using that information to try and hurt him. It was bad enough to exaggerate and make up stuff, but the broader implications made about Muslims with those attacks were pretty despicable. Criticizing Obama for bringing it up half a year later while trying to extend an olive branch to the world's Muslims is really hypocritical and I wish anyone with attitudes like that would kindly remove themselves from the political process; the adults are trying to figure things out and you're only making this harder for people who want to see actual progress.

I'm sorry, but I have to go on - those same commentators took it a bit farther, criticizing Obama for what they perceived as an apology for the US role in the 1953 coup in Iran. Yes, you read that right. They are upset that someone may have apologized for something that has helped to divide and hurt people for decades. I don't understand; when is there a bad or wrong time to apologize? Madeleine Albright already officially apologized for this back in 2000 and I'm sure some of these same people were just as annoyed. Why? Can some of the people here a bit older than me and with a bit more experience explain to me why there are people dedicated to making sure that nobody gets along, especially when they don't even appear to profit from it? Why haven't these people learned that the best way to get things done is to own up to your mistakes, admit them, and move on, so actual progress can be made? Alright, I just need to calm down or I'll stray from the path of nicecore and into hateful cynicism, which would just be bad form.

I tried to find a funny Fox News clip to post at the end of this, but pretty much all of them contain the classic characters (Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly) which are not so much journalists as self-parodying partisans, so instead I'm just going to try really hard not to mention them anymore. If I have the energy one day I'll try and find some good articles about how cable news has gone completely down the drain to share with you.

Trying to Make Sense of the Abortion Rights Debate

2009-06-04T14:43:00.002-05:00

"Trying" is the key word here - no matter what someone's opinion is about it, I feel like most people agree that it's an extremely dense issue with so many things to consider that a proper debate about it could go on for days at a time. Lately I have gone through another phase of reading and research and reflection about it, and I want to try to just discuss my own personal observations. I don't necessarily plan to argue one side; I think I'm hoping this will aid in my own understanding a bit. But first, a song that actually has to do with what I'm talking about:

Digable Planets - La Femme Fetal

The following are my initial observations before doing a great deal of reading. Abortion, like equal rights for homosexuals, is another of the unfortunate issues in America in which the laws have the potential to be largely written and implemented by people with little frame of reference with which to empathize with those whom the law affects. It occurred to me that although this issue affects men too (insofar as men are one half of the parties necessary to make a baby), women's bodies are actually at stake here and they are the ones who must carry the baby to term and more often than not, live with the consequences - obviously we can't look at every single incident but the facts speak for themselves: In 1998, 84% of single-parent families in the US were headed by mothers (source). Okay, of course that stuff didn't "occur" to me like, in the shower yesterday or something; those are fundamentals of life that I have understood since my parents handed me an awkwardly-titled book when I was in about 3rd or 4th grade in lieu of having "the talk," but what I mean is, it occurred to me that those facts have tremendous importance in the context of any discussion on abortion rights, or the wider set of issues discussed below.

So why is this still an issue? Roe v. Wade was passed years ago and said that state bans on abortion were unconstitutional. Well, part of it isn't an issue, for me at least. I've done enough reading about the trial and why they ruled the way they did, I've read both arguments and the arguments in favor of a woman's right to choose speak to me more so I'm satisfied (not that I would feel right giving any kind of opinion otherwise - it's not my body we're talking about and as my mom has said, "If men had babies, this would never have been an issue"). However, there are many people who would like to have Roe v. Wade overturned and are actively campaigning to do so. Secondly, the debate still rages on as there are apparently loads of laws perceived by many to be discriminatory as they block many women in low-income communities from safe and affordable birth control, and other things argued to be necessary for a woman's overall reproductive health.

Anyway, the more I read about it, I realized that this issue is often presented in a problematic way - a way that I feel has been too narrow and that doesn't really give much of a nod to the fact that this is also a women's rights issue. Attempts are being made by the United Nations Population Fund, the World Health Organization, and other organizations to show that reproductive rights, including issues such as the right to safe, legal, and affordable contraception, access to family planning services, sex education, good quality reproductive healthcare, and living a life free from the threat of violence and discrimination are issues of women's rights. They propose that the issues should not single out parts of a woman's body, but rather look at her life experience as a whole. They resonate with me because these other issues which are just as important (they too include the overall well-being of women) have become all but lost in the chaotic and divisive debate simply over abortion.

Furthermore, these ideas are now being linked to social justice. The National Organization for Women (NOW) gives a nice definition for "reproductive justice," an idea linking the overall reproductive health of women to social justice, as they say that a woman's reproductive health is inextricably connected to her socioeconomic status, race, and nationality:

Reproductive justice is a framework to advance our discussion about how women's health, access to medical care and economic justice are all political issues that must be connected in the minds of our elected leaders and reflected by their actions. We know that women of color and poor women's reproductive options and self-determination are restricted in many aspects. Reproductive health is directly tied to the economic conditions in a woman's community, including environmental factors and experiences of women of color vis-a-vis race, class, and gender.

-source

Sounds pretty good to me. Where exactly they want to go from here is anyone's guess. I have read several different articles and am still largely unable to wrap my head around a lot of the concepts because they are so dense and layered, and there are so many different actors involved. I'm not sure if the ultimate goal for some people is simply for a new national dialogue to start taking place (or at least for a shift in the tone of the dialogue), or for most of these services to one day be offered to women by the government, or any number of other scenarios. There might be a comprehensive list of the laws people are proposing somewhere that I simply haven't found yet. I really have no idea, but something tells me that at the very least, awareness needs to be raised. I would encourage you (especially the ladies) to give me your views or observations on this as it's something I am trying to fully understand. The one thing I'm sure of is that it should definitely be addressed.

A few articles helped a little in my attempt to make some sense of these issues, and I would encourage you to give them a read also, if you get the chance:

Reproductive Justice by Eveline Shen

Reproductive Justice is Every Woman's Right by Zenaida Mendez

The Real Issue Behind the Abortion Debate by Jeanne Flavin

Tomorrow: Obama's speeches to "the Muslim world."

Speaking Generally

2009-06-03T13:19:00.002-05:00

Does anyone else think that a big problem with proper, productive debate in America is all the name-calling and generalizing that goes on? This is something that has occurred to me over the past few days and something I want to take a brief look at, but first:

Pedro Infante - Mañana

Oh, what a beautiful song. Anyway, it occurred to me that as I read editorials and essays and papers and opinions here and there, and then the comments posted on them, that there is an absolutely sickening amount of hatred directed at the extremely broad categories of "liberals" and "conservatives." There are others, of course, but lately these are the two that I have seen the most of. It's bad enough that supposedly respected writers for various high-powered newspapers are throwing these broad terms around, but when most of the comments by readers also display a lot of this type of language, it bothers me because it makes me feel like the focus is shifting away from the issues and more on the perceived battle between two disagreeing sides.

Case in point: I have a younger brother who used to love getting under people's skin; he was good at it and people like me were dumb enough to respond to it time and time again so he always got a great kick out of it. Furthermore, he has always really enjoyed having a vigorous argument about even the most mundane of subjects (he once carried on an epic argument with other members of my family for several months on whether or not water has a taste), and me being someone unable to keep their emotions in check, I often took the bait and would jump into the fray of fruitless, emotional argument. After awhile we would forget what it even was we were arguing about as the dialogue would veer off into some other topic, and eventually we realized that we were really just arguing because we were angry with each other - no longer was there any semblance of respect for the other party's position; it didn't matter what one of us said because the other would disagree simply on principle.

It may seem like a stretch to you, but just think about it for a second. Don't you see a lot of that going on in our public forums nowadays? It's a silly but nonetheless pertinent example, but does anyone remember all the nasty Facebook statuses going around during the Obama/McCain election? Did any of that actually tackle issues or change minds or work for the greater good?

Do people on the news who say things like, "What the Democrats want is for America to be unsafe," or "the Republicans are just so confused and scared that their party is falling apart" really have the best interests of the nation at heart? No - they sound more like they are trying to win a board game than trying to help the nation unite during the tough times we're facing. Those editorialists and commentators on the news aren't the "voice of America," we are. We are "the people," not the Bill O'Reillys or the Keith Olbermanns. They are the spokespeople of the news media which, let's not forget, are also businesses with their own interests. Since their idea is that fierce, angry debate and controversy will raise ratings and attract advertisers, that is all they have to offer. As a result, the responsibility of fair, honest, open, and mutually respectful debate has passed to us. I think we all know that America is not made up solely of "liberals" and "conservatives," or "Democrats" and "Republicans."

The generalizing extends beyond this issue as well. Robert Satloff in the LA Times points out what might be problematic about Obama referring so much to "the Muslim world:"

First, there's the fact that he continually refers to "the Muslim world," which horrifies many Muslims who know this as the language of Al Qaeda and other radical Islamists, an unintentional echo of the concept that Muslims are really best viewed as members of a single, transnational community of believers rather than loyal citizens of their various nation-states.

I've got my issues with the rest of Satloff's article, but that's not really for this post. Anyway, another fresh example is all this hoopla over the nomination of the "Hispanic" Sonia Sotomayor. There are some interesting articles written about why it's problematic to just call her "Hispanic" or "Latina," but they don't give a lot of attention to the obvious one - those labels, like the ones mentioned above, are extremely broad and don't represent some kind of collective consciousness or national psyche. For example, one of my roommates for the past two years is Colombian. If you were to ask him "what he is," I am roughly a billion percent sure he would answer "Colombian" before he ever dreamed of answering "Hispanic" or "Latino." Sotomayor is of Puerto Rican descent, and the fact that I actually had to look that up says something to me about the way this is being reported. There is only one more syllable in "Puerto Rican" than "Hispanic," so I don't think it was an issue of timing or breath for the reporters. Anyway, I just realized I don't really know where I was going with all of this, but what the hell - my original point was that sweeping generalizations, labels, heated arguments, and a lack of respect for diverse viewpoints are tearing this country apart and we need to remember to keep a cool head when engaging our fellow citizens of the world in any kind of debate. It's just more nicecore.

I want to end this by sharing with you a saying that I like to...say...and it goes like this: You can never, ever speak in absolutes. Except for that.

Anyway, I applaud you for making it to the end of this awkward, whiny post. I am currently working (at the expense of the things I should be doing) on a post that explores the pro-life/pro-choice debate in America. See you next time!

North Korea vs. Everyone

2009-06-01T20:25:00.000-05:00

Since the world needs to calm its nerves a bit, I think we should listen to the most well-known Korean folk song. I think it's a beautiful song - here it is performed by the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang, North Korea:

New York Philharmonic - Arirang

Anyway, so what exactly is going on in North Korea? Like everything else, there's a long history involved but this time it's not super necessary to get really into. It's the standard stuff - imperialistic powers meddling in a nation's affairs, reactionary forces rise up and take control, and depending on who you ask, take way too much control, and of course that is ridiculously oversimplified but it puts us where we are today. North Korea is an isolated country that has been called a wide variety of interesting names, like "the hermit kingdom," for example. It is ruled pretty much by one person who has absolute power and there are other details that have been proven and recorded but North Korea has pretty much remained the most enigmatic and mysterious country in the world up to today. To make matters more interesting, North Korea has an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Or at least, they definitely claim to, and their claims have pretty much been confirmed by intelligence reporst from around the world if I'm not mistaken.

In addition, there is a lot of evidence suggesting that the overwhelming majority of North Korea's population lives in poverty and barely gets by with the massive amount of foreign aid given to North Korea's government by countries around the world. Obviously I don't know myself, but among all the U.N. reports and investigative interviews and weird documentaries, I think that's the prevailing opinion. There's also this interesting satellite photo taken in 2003 that circulated around a few years ago. Check it, the top part is North Korea:

Creepy, huh? I mean, theoretically the whole nation could have gone off on one giant weekend trip to Lake Tahoe, but the government's policy of forcing people to stay in the country against their will would seem to rule that out. There is some speculation that the little spot of light near the West coast is Kim Jong-Il's palace. Now, I wouldn't necessarily write that on a research paper for school or anything, but it's an interesting theory. As a matter of fact, I can't imagine what else it could be. In this world, it would make almost perfect sense for a dictator who claims to do everything in the name of the people, the nation, and the greater good to live in his own gigantic palace while his people starve. Maybe instead of Kim Jong-Il's palace, it's a giant, lit-up statue of Kim Jong-Il? Who knows. This reminds me that North Korea is unique in that it's unfortunate situation is ridiculed almost the world over. I don't even have to post any links (but I'm also feeling lazy today); you can click on any comment section in the website of any major newspaper and without a great deal of searching find an editorial taking an almost late-night monologue tone while describing North Korea's latest antics.

Anyway, I'm not an expert on this or any other subject I amateurishly bumble and stumble through on this blog, but it's an issue I'll be following now because there are bound to be some developments soon. Some have speculated that the wrong moves could trigger a huge regional conflict, and since there are lots of overlapping alliances at work here, I don't have to tell you what that has led to in the past. Obviously, let's hope for none of that...hopefully people are smarter nowadays, but I've been wrong before.

What Peace Looks Like (Or Doesn't)

2009-05-31T13:07:00.002-05:00

Today I want to write a bit about the latest news on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and speculate a bit (because that's all I can really do) about North Korea tomorrow. But first, enjoy this classic joint by KRS-One:

KRS-One - Outta Here

Before I start though, there is a bit of a wider story here and I want to point to a Guardian editorial by Simon Tisdall published yesterday to open up. Tisdall says that with coming elections in Iran and Lebanon, Obama gearing up to speak to the Muslim world from Cairo, and a growing and very obvious rift between the US and Israel over several issues, the Middle East is headed for a watershed moment. Watershed moments are generally pretty good, so I guess I'm more or less stoked about that. Anyway, apparently a big goal of the Obama administration in the Middle East in the immediate sense is to get a sort of Arab coalition against a nuclear Iran. Sounds easy enough, but will the Arabs cooperate as long as Obama is being more or less kind of soft on Israel? It's one thing to "demand" a stop to the settlements, but how are you actually going to get that to happen? Many are saying he's being tough on Israel, but not tough enough - we'll see where he carries things next.

Of course, there are hints of things that bother the crap out of me, even downright pissing me off at times. Take, for instance, Joe Biden's recent visit to Lebanon. As Tisdall reminds us, the official reason for his visit was "to reinforce US support for an independent and sovereign Lebanon," but he was clear that future US aid will depend on the orientation of the new government. That is to say, we support a free and independent Lebanon, but only a free and independent Lebanon that suits our needs. Um, what? Can we stop with that nonsense already? If the government which includes Hezbollah is elected, we will have to work with them because they have been elected by the people (theoretically anyway, and as we've seen, popular will sometimes doesn't mean jack), not alienate them and beat them over the head with threats and rhetoric. A big chance for Obama to prove to the world that he is for change is approaching quickly.

So, what does the Obama administration really want from both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? He's made his first demand of Israel very clear over the last few weeks: Stop the settlements and openly dedicate yourselves to the active pursuit of a two-state solution - and he wants this thing to be worked out in less than four years. Israel's counter-demand is that the US dedicate itself to stopping Iran's efforts to develop nuclear energy to provide power to its people. Of course, they probably couldn't care one way or the other if Iranians have hot water and lights that turn on, but what they say they're worried about is the potential development of a nuclear weapon. Remember: Israel and the US and their buddies in their little "nuke club" get to have nukes, but nobody else does. Unless you're North Korea, but that's a different issue.

I suppose what Obama is going to want from the Palestinians here is for them to reign in Hamas, who are still trading blows with Israel, and so that just needs to be stopped (keeping with the status quo, however, Israel is free to attack when it feels the need to defend its people). Anyway, Hamas still refuses to recognize Israel as an independent Jewish state. While I outlined why this "recognition" is problematic in an earlier entry, I also recognize that the reality of this situation basically means that Hamas is going to have to recognize Israel, disappear, or never, ever, ever get peace or their own state. They're going to have to lay down their arms because Israel's arms are bigger and will be bigger for a long time into the foreseeable future. I can refuse to look at the giant, angry man in front of me with bigger weapons and many more friends staring down at me, but that doesn't make him go away. I think Hamas is going to realize that the best thing for the people it is sworn to protect isn't continuously attacking Israel, who will just grossly over-retaliate as history has shown time and time again, but to man up and just accept the reality.

The problem here is that Israel only really wants one thing from the US (besides the financial aid it is basically guaranteed for life) - support against Iran. It's unreasonable since all evidence points to an actually peaceful nuclear Iran and the US's open insistence that Iran only wants to develop nukes to use them on Israel or whoever is another of the failed policies of the Bush years, in my opinion. I would love to see Obama and co. stop attacking Iran's nuclear program because doing so would make things go a lot smoother for us and we really don't stand to lose anything, even the slightest shred of dignity, but I'll admit I have some pretty wacky dreams sometimes. As we have seen, all of the accusations and threatening with sanctions during the Bush years didn't make Iran play any nicer with us diplomatically speaking and it definitely didn't stop them from developing nuclear power; I haven't heard the latest but last I heard they had oodles of centrifuges and enough yellow cake to make the next 60 or 70 of my birthday parties, as long as their historic chocolate icing reserves are still in good shape.

Corny cake jokes aside, Israel is now saying that they will only consider slowing down settlements when the US deals with Iran. This is troublesome because as I said earlier, while Israel only wants one thing from the US besides aid, the US wants several things from Israel. It wants a stop to settlements, ultimately a two-state solution, and a bunch of little concessions in between, like the status of Jerusalem and the right to return of Palestinian refugees. Okay, those are actually not "little concessions" but the things that have pretty much been the main sticking points in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for 30 odd years, but still.

Anyway, the US seems helpless here but they're actually not. Far from it, in fact - some of you might remember from that obscenely detailed Intro to Middle East class you just had with me that George H. Bush once threatened Israel with the cancellation of a loan of roughly $400 million if they didn't agree to freeze the building of settlements. Even though Bush eventually blew our financial leverage out the window by giving the loan after Israel only partially froze settlements (only to resume them ASAP when he left office), this proves that the US is not totally powerless to the will of Israel. Someone just has to put their foot down.

So, in short, nobody seems to have any idea what peace in the Middle East is finally going to look like here, or what it really means. The situation seems to get more complicated every day and people seem to have lots of different ideas. Some people have always believed non-peaceful methods to get to peace are fine and dandy. There are a lot of unpredictable characters in these stories so for now we will just have to wait and see how the story will unfold. Is anyone else starting to feel rather helpless?

Proposition 8

2009-05-29T14:14:00.007-05:00

A lot has happened since I last wrote and it's difficult to process it all, but I want to begin with a song that always calms me down. It would probably depress me if I understood what he was saying:

João Gilberto - Estate

As I said, a lot has been going on. Things have gotten rockier with North Korea (and they are on the path to becoming rockier still), Obama nominated a judge to the Supreme Court and met with Mahmoud Abbas, and the California Supreme Court ruled to uphold Proposition 8, making same-sex marriages illegal in California once again.

I want to use this entry to discuss the issue surrounding Proposition 8 and a following entry probably coming tomorrow to speculate a bit about Obama's meeting with Abbas and the possible future of the North Korea issue.

Anyway, on to Proposition 8. If you don't know what it is, please go read about it just a bit; it's a very important issue that poses some serious questions about what kind of society we are and should be living in. I want to examine some of the arguments made by people who support it (in other words, people who oppose the legalization of same-sex marriages) based on what I believe to be a well thought-out essay I read by freelance writer Scott Bidstrup.

I will paraphrase a few responses to some of the traditional arguments against allowing same-sex marriages from Bidstrup's essay and link to it at the bottom if you wish to read it for yourself. I believe he makes a lot of good points that I had never thought of before reading his essay.

1) Marriage is an institution between a man and a woman - He raises a good point here: Who has decided what marriage is and who can be "married?" Even the Constitution, that oft-cited document of American history (or certainly, at least, in maudlin courtroom dramas), doesn't even mention marriage, much less its definition. Of course many have and will answer this question (who decides what marriage is) with "The Bible," and things like that. Well, that's true, the Bible does go into detail that is hard to ignore. However, we don't live in a theocracy, or even an officially Christian nation sworn to protect the values of Christianity. You can't say that our society is based entirely on Christian values and laws either, because our laws allow adultery and divorce, two things which (if I'm not mistaken) are pretty explicitly forbidden in the Bible. In Bidstrup's own words:

It seems to me that justice demands that if the straight community cannot show a compelling reason to deny the institution of marriage to gay people, it shouldn't be denied. And such simple, nebulous declarations, with no real moral argument behind them, are hardly compelling reasons. They're really more like an expression of prejudice than any kind of a real argument. The concept of not denying people their rights unless you can show a compelling reason to deny them is the very basis of the American ideal of human rights.

Even Jesus didn't mention homosexuality, but was very clear about divorce and remarriage. It's wrong, but people still do both every day and US law allows it. I'm not debating the Bible's stance on homosexuality; that's a different issue altogether. But if homosexuals are denied this right on a biblical basis, why do they have to follow the laws of the Bible if nobody else in the US is? Furthermore, if you grew up in Sunday school like I did, you'll remember that Jesus shared meals with prostitutes and thieves, forgave a woman caught in adultery, and stayed in the house of a leper, an unspeakably taboo act at the time. Obviously I wasn't around for those particular years, but based on what I've read and heard since I was a baby, I don't imagine that Jesus, a man who regarded everyone as equals and equally loved by God, would have done something as mean-spirited as voting to ban same-sex marriages before voting to ban anything else. Jesus, I'm rather proud to say, was far too nicecore for that.

2) Same-sex couples aren't a good environment in which to raise children - There are a few problems with this one, mainly the fact that our legal system allows for convicted murderers, rapists, and even child molesters to marry and have children. So, Bidstrup argues, if people are worried so much about the children, why the double standard here? I don't understand the logic of denying an otherwise completely capable same-sex couple the right to raise children in a legally recognized, monogamous marriage when murderers, rapists, and child molesters are given that right and nobody bats an eye. Could all this be because people are really more uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality than worried about children? I can't say; I don't read minds. But nonetheless, it's interesting. He links to many studies indicating that the outcomes of children raised in the homes of gay and lesbian couples are just as good as those of straight couples.

In addition, people like to say that the only families fit to raise children in are those with a mother and a father. Okay, so what about the countless people raised by single mothers and fathers all over the place? Are the opponents of same-sex marriages going to fight for laws restricting single parents from raising children? Didn't think so.

Besides, tons of same-sex families already exist out there, and they are actively raising children. Why continue to make half of the partners legal strangers to the children they are trying to help raise? In this case, I'd argue that by continuing to deny homosexuals the right to have the same marriages that heterosexuals already have, you're actually making it difficult and awkward for the tons of children out there already growing up with same-sex parents.

3) Same-sex marriages would threaten the institution of marriage - I have often wondered about this one. As Bidstrup points out, it's rather silly to think that allowing more marriages would actually threaten the institution of marriage. If homosexual people are allowed to marry each other, then it stands to reason that there would be fewer heterosexual marriages ending up in divorce courts. If people are going to continue to be denied a marriage to someone they really love if they happen to be homosexual, they are more likely to be pushed into a heterosexual marriage that they feel ultimately uncomfortable and unable to express themselves in. The result is that there is a chance for more innocent children to be brought into families with tons of problems. And we're really worried about children, isn't that right? Also, let me remind everyone that the US sports one of the highest divorce rates in the world (number 2 or 3 if I'm not mistaken), with over half of the marriages here ending in divorce, and I believe it's on the rise. It's interesting to me that we're freaking out about a possible threat to the institution of marriage as it dissolves for unknown reasons right under our noses. Why not extend civil rights to another disenfranchised group of Americans, make marriage even more widely available, and at the same time give marriage a big ol' shot in the arm by reinforcing its importance in our culture and society? Geez, you can kill like, a hundred birds with one stone! Awesome! Seriously though, don't kill birds with stones.

In an interview with The Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, columnist Jonathan Rauch has this to say:

The signal we need to send now is that everybody should be getting married. The big cultural problem with the family in America is not that gay people want to get married – it’s that straight people are not getting married or not staying married. And to me, one of the important cultural effects of gay marriage will be to send a very strong signal that marriage is something that is available to and expected of everybody, not just a few.

He has a good point - allowing more people to get married will reinforce the importance of marriage in our culture, not threaten it. Gay people are not godless, amoral, or interested in operating on the fringes of society; they are as nuanced and diverse as anyone else and they too want and deserve to have the same loving, fulfilling, and long-lasting marriages that straight people enjoy.

4) Same-sex marriages would start us down a "slippery slope" towards the legalization of all kinds of horrible things (incest, bestial marriages, etc.) - This is a funny one which simply doesn't stand up when it's actually examined a bit. There are a lot of good reasons to be against bestial marriages and incest that would probably be debated if it came up, but what logical connection does that even have to same-sex marriages? That's not being debated here; it's not even remotely on the agenda of anyone in favor of allowing same-sex marriages, nor does it even have the slightest bit to do with same-sex marriages. Homosexuals are only asking for the one thing that straight people have that they don't, and nothing more. A straight guy can marry any consenting woman in the world except his sister or his mother, but a homosexual person can't marry anyone.

As Bidstrup points out, the whole "slippery slope" thing is an argument calculated to freak people out and, what a surprise, it's worked beautifully. There are other countries in the world where same-sex marriages have been legal for a long time and there has not been even the slightest hint of demand for the legalization of these other things, proving that they simply aren't even connected.

Radical Christian clerics like Pat Robertson love to continually remind us of the terrifying "ultimate conclusion" of allowing same-sex marriages, but let's not forget that these people used the very same arguments to argue in favor of the anti-miscegenation laws until 1967. Anti-miscegenation was all about racial purity (Nazi Germany, anyone?) and it made marriages between whites and any other races illegal.

Religious activists and politicians back in the day argued that God made the races separate for a reason and therefore they were not meant be mixed (and they quoted scripture too). They also said it would threaten the institution of marriage and that a multi-racial home was no home for children. However, we can now see that those peoples' worst fears were realized, as the "ultimate conclusion" of the repeal of anti-miscegenation law and allowing blacks and whites to marry and raise children has culminated in something truly horrifying for them:

Oh snap. Anyway, it's just interesting to see the parallel. Moving on...

5) Legalizing same-sex marriages means that businesses now have to provide the same benefits to them - Wait, is this actually an argument? Yes, they will provide the same benefits, why wouldn't they? If a situation should arise in which they aren't legally discriminated against by our laws as they are now, they can start to be treated equally and fairly in other areas of the law, right?

Anyway, I'm not much for business mumbo-jumbo, but apparently many companies already do provide benefits to same-sex couples. I'd really rather just quote Bidstrup here, as he explains why the cost of providing benefits is no big deal:

This trivial cost is usually far more than offset by the fact that the company is seen as being progressive for having offered these benefits - making its stock much more attractive to socially progressive mutual funds and rights-conscious pension funds and individual investors, and thus increasing upwards pressure on its price. This is why so many corporations, including most of the Fortune 500, already offer these benefits without being required to do so - it's just good business sense.

5) Same-sex marriages would force churches to marry same-sex couples when they have a moral objection to doing so - This one doesn't really stand because there's nothing saying that any church anywhere will have to support and marry same-sex couples. Many never would, but there are many who have openly declared that they have no problem with it. Churches can and often do refuse any couple they wish the right to be married in their particular church on many bases besides the fact that the couple is of the same sex. Go figure, offering churches the opportunity to legally marry same-sex couples actually improves religious freedom in the US, not stifles it. What a wacky world!

Anyway, that's that. Of course there are other things I didn't go into because my hands are starting to hurt from all this typing, but you get the idea. I think those are some of the biggest ones people have always said.

I found it interesting yesterday that a poll showed that US opposition to same-sex marriages is around 57%, but US support of Roe v. Wade is somewhere around the upper 60s. Now, that interests me because some of the very same arguments (namely the moral/religious ones) are used in these two debates - but why do Americans support one and oppose the other? My mom pointed out that Roe v. Wade is around 30 years old, whereas the same-sex marriages issue, while not necessarily an old one (homosexuality has been around forever, folks), is definitely still fresh in American public life. What that tells me is that this issue probably just needs more time. The polls show that young people are the most approving of same-sex marriages of any age group, and I don't even have to check because I'm just that positive it was the same way during the age of the anti-miscegenation laws, and look what happened there.

However, right now the majority of American society seems to have spoken for the type of society it wants to live in. I won't argue against the democratic process itself if the people have spoken fairly, but I believe a change in attitudes is in order. People are being affected by this daily and it's simply not fair to deny someone a right that others enjoy just because they happen to be attracted to the same sex. I don't think anyone is being asked to be more personally or privately comfortable with homosexuality or same-sex marriages, but denying homosexuals the right to get married because one is uncomfortable with it or because of one's private religious sensibilities is simply not the way our nation works, or has ever worked. Case in point: Wouldn't it bother a lot of people in the US if Jews and Muslims here started demanding for laws against pork or Hindus for laws against beef? In regards to those who argue against allowing same-sex marriages "for the good of society," I have done a lot of searching and reading, and I have yet to find any compelling counter-arguments to the points made by Bidstrup and which have been emphasized here.

Readers (all three or four of you), I can't make any specifically scientific or legal arguments using impressively-named documents littered with words I saw on the national spelling bee last night, but I think if a wider appeal is to be made, it should be to the side of a person that knows despite whatever personal, moral, or religious convictions they might have, they might ultimately believe in the universal equality offered to every American spelled out in the Constitution. America is not a theocracy. It is not ruled by the laws of Christianity and we can't say that it is or it should be because our laws ignore other fundamental rules for a Christian life. Marriage will not be threatened by allowing more marriages to take place. Homosexual people are just like their heterosexual counterparts except that they are attracted to members of the same sex, and denying them the same fundamental rights heterosexual people enjoy is simply mean-spirited and ultimately not nicecore.

I strongly encourage everyone to read Bidstrup's article, because I didn't go into even half of what he discusses and he makes many, many good points in addition to what I discussed. Also strongly recommended is the interview with Jonathan Rauch. If you're interested, here is the counter-point to the Rauch interview as well. I hope this was somewhat informative and I shall return tomorrow!

Short and Sweet

2009-05-24T13:46:00.007-05:00

Hello everyone! This song was a favorite of mine last summer, and I still love it:

The Twilight Sad - Cold Days from the Birdhouse

Anyway, I will be out of town for the next four days so I wanted to write something quick today because a few interesting things have come up.

First of all comes some interesting news out of Iran: for the first time, they will have individual televised debates between the presidential candidates! The BBC has the schedule here and reports that the campaigns are looking more slick and professional. In related news, Iran has blocked access to Facebook in an apparent attempt to stop supporters of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi from using it to their advantage during his campaign. If I'm not mistaken, Mousavi is seen as the candidate with the most support behind him as far as the reformists are concerned, and I've read several articles saying he actually has a decent chance of winning the election.

The Iranian elections are on June 12th and I'm interested to see how they turn out. I'll try and find a way to see those debates with subtitles if it's possible...I hope everyone has a good week!

Changing Attitudes and Elections

2009-05-22T14:36:00.002-05:00

Your song today comes straight from Bollywood. Behold:

Asha Bhosle and Kishore Kumar - Nahin Nahin Abhi Nahin

So I know it's not real news (but sometimes I think it should be), but The Onion had a hilarious news short the other day. It's really funny and it relates to what I wrote about yesterday. Here's the article if you get the chance.

Anyway, a few issues have been catching my eye today - first of all, my friend Hooman posted this great video on Facebook so I wanted to share it with you. As we've been seeing recently, with the Roxana Saberi case as a small example, there seems to be an emergence of the opinion in Iran that some kind of rapprochment with Western powers (specifically the US) might not be a bad thing and in fact beneficial to Iran's interests in the long run. It's probably safe to say that nobody in Iran wants a return to the imperialistic relationship associated with the shah's rule, or any kind of situation involving a disruptive imposition of Western or American culture on Iran, but it seems as though a larger number of people in Iran (and in the US) are recognizing that all the animosity and bad blood helps nobody but politicians and it's time for change (I know it's a cliche now, but there are only so many ways of saying that). Anyway, this is a clip of Tehran University political science professor Sadegh Zibakalam talking on IRINN (Islamic Republic of Iran News Network), and he's saying what I think a lot of people in Iran and the US might be thinking. Take a look:

Nice, huh? I feel like this could be important because I'm not sure if the Iranian government would normally allow talk like this on one of their official stations. Maybe I don't know all the details (and maybe someone could help me out), but at any rate it seems like somewhat of a break from the norm which is interesting. Also, if I'm not mistaken (but I usually am), this professor's last name is a meeting of Persian and Arabic words which I believe roughly translates to something like, "of beautiful speech." That's quite crunk, if you ask me.

In my love of all things universally nerdy, I tend to follow NASA news. Although I was much more energetic about it in the past, my once full interest waned slightly as I realized that my mind was less like the steel trap that is Saturn's moon Titan, with its dense atmosphere, stable bodies of liquid, and prebiotic environment rich in complex organic chemistry, and actually more like that of one of the smaller gas giants: relatively featureless, uninteresting, and largely incapable of sustaining any sort of organic life that would have anything intelligent to add to a political discussion. I didn't have the cranial capacity to really understand what on earth all of those scientists were talking about, so I decided to just watch NASA's YouTube channel instead while I clapped my hands and sipped my apple juice. Anyway, I found a story that is quite interesting. Phew, there are a lot of space puns in that last paragraph:

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California aims to demonstrate the feasibility of nuclear fusion, the reaction at the heart of the Sun and a potentially abundant, clean source of energy source for the planet.

That's just the first paragraph of the article. Are you hooked!? Go read the rest! It's good stuff. A clean, alternative energy source for the planet? Awesome! No, Iran, you can't have any.

Speaking of Iran, four candidates have been approved to run for president. The elections are next month and I will be following them closely. Ayatollah Khameini has come out in support of Ahmadinejad, and is also encouraging people not to vote for the two reform candidates! Wow! That kind of blows. I guess we'll see what happens. Or what doesn't.

Be Afraid...Be Very Afraid

2009-05-21T14:21:00.000-05:00

Before I start, here's the song for today:

Spiritualized - Broken Heart

Obama stood up and made it clear this morning in an address at the National Archives in Washington that he is determined to close down the prison at Guantanamo Bay. His administration didn't come up with a comprehensive plan in regards to what to actually do with the detainees beforehand so his request for funds to get the job underway was shot down in the Senate. Obama is doing all he can to convince people that national security is a top priority of his, but as is written in the Constitution, justice and a fair trial is as well.

Then Dick Cheney, the out of touch, deluded, corrupt old war profiteer grabbed the spotlight and reminded everyone how afraid we should all be. This has been a fundamental of Cheney's rhetoric since day one - it's partly how they justified our disastrous war with Iraq (which he didn't mention by the way), and it's how they justify their horrendously inhumane interrogation techniques. By the way, does it creep anyone else out that Cheney is so blatantly, obviously pro-torture? I mean...pro-torture? I seriously don't think Cheney could be any more movie-villain like, or I would start to believe it was all a big joke. Anyway, Cheney's torture stance is especially perplexing considering that there is literally tons and tons of evidence suggesting that torture simply doesn't work.

Furthermore, it makes us look like bigger hypocrites than we already are. Cheney reminded us of how many thousands of lives have been saved as a result of the interrogation policies of our government and our holding of hundreds of suspected terrorists without giving them any kind of trial. Since Cheney can't accurately state exactly how many lives he has saved by having suspected terrorists waterboarded 185 times or whatever the number was, that argument is null. Merely the fact that we still maintain a large military force in the region is enough to piss people off, and it has. I honestly can't understand why people are still confused at the anger directed at the U.S. throughout the Middle East...we are causing hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, people!!! Does anyone remember that our president got a shoe thrown at him by an Iraqi reporter!?

Speaking of the lives that have been saved - let's just look at the numbers. On September 11, 3,017 people died. As a result of Bush and Cheney's war in Iraq, our "war on terror," a war designed to protect us, no less than 4,296 American troops have been killed. Yeah, there hasn't been another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, but at what cost? Have we solved all our terrorist problems or just made them worse? Sometimes I feel like politicians have zero foresight - it's literally like nobody stopped and asked themselves why terrorists attacked us in the first place. In addition, countless insurgencies and militias have sprung up in Iraq to fight the ongoing U.S. occupation and the way our government is restructuring Iraqi politics, which has led to an explosion of long-standing sectarian tensions in Iraq and now it's practically chaos. Dick Cheney wants you to be afraid of terrorists, but if you are an Iraqi civilian, you should be afraid of Dick Cheney. Estimates differ but as far as total deaths in Iraq as a result of our invasion they go from 150,000 to just over 1 million. And I repeat, Cheney didn't mention the war in Iraq.

Dick Cheney and those who think like him appear to be completely bent on deepening the wounds of partisanship that plague our political system and our society by further dividing loyalties and splitting our country right in two at a time when it needs to unite the most. I don't know about you, but I'm starting to see who the bigger threat to national security is here.

A Few Quick Updates

2009-05-20T05:07:00.000-05:00

It's a fine Wednesday outside (at least in Houston), so I feel like briefly pointing out/summarizing a couple of stories that have made headlines today. I don't know what the weather has to do with that but it seemed to make sense. Before I begin, I want to present to you a classic song from "the band that was punk before punk was punk," a band formed in 1971 in Detroit by three brothers who had started out R&B but took a quick turn into punk territory and recorded 7 awesome songs in 1975. Here's one of my favorites:

Death - Keep on Knocking

Anyway, while you're enjoying that, check out what has been hitting the fan this morning.

- First of all, Iran out of nowhere decided to test launch a medium-range missile that is apparently capable of striking Europe:

This makes me uncomfortable because it gives more clout to Israeli politicians' fanatic claims that Iran is bent on their total destruction. It also certainly won't help the renewed chances of diplomatic relations between Iran and the US, which are already barely struggling to stay alive. Things like this won't help, because if Israeli politicians or European or Arab leaders start freaking out, US politicians are going to fall on whatever side is condemning Iran and well, that just spells more alienation, more deadlock, and more frustrating crap for the average person trying to travel or just live their life.

- Next up - one of President Obama's big ol' campaign promises that had a lot of people excited (including yours truly) is being blocked by his own people in the Senate. The Democrats in the Senate will not pay for the shutdown of Guantanamo Bay until they know exactly where the inmates will be sent - and they've made it very clear that they don't want these "dangerous people" in American prisons. Considering that most of these guys haven't even been charged with anything, I don't see how that's fair, but whatever. Besides, isn't that what prisons are for, "dangerous people?" Apparently it costs $80 million to not pay people to guard a prison anymore and move 240 inmates from Cuba. Really? $80 million? Does that seem high to anyone? Why would the Democrat majority leader suddenly say things like, "We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States." Who's releasing them? Aren't they just going to be given fair trials like everyone else? Am I missing something here?

Republicans, who think having people rot away in remote prisons for years without charging them or giving them a fair trial (that's unconstitutional, by the way), have been trying to block Obama's efforts to close Guantanamo and now they are stoked. Moving on...

- Benjamin Hartman at Haaretz wrote an interesting article predicting Netanyahu's fall and Tzipi Livni and Kadima's rise if Netanyahu continues to refuse to negotiate a two-state solution and Obama doesn't buy into all the Iran hype like he wants him to. Obama, unless he decides to go back on his word, has made it clear to Netanyahu that the US is not going to discuss Iran's nuclear program with them unless Netanyahu declares his support for a two-state solution and makes some "concrete changes" to the status quo. If I may be slightly cynical, the status quo NEVER changes. Okay, maybe once in awhile, but more often than not it remains. Despite that, I am slightly hopeful. Basically, it appears that Netanyahu's hard-line stance is going to put him at odds with the rest of the world as people are like, actually talking to each other and making peace deals and stuff. Anyway, I particularly like this one part of the article:

Let's say that Bibi and his economic team cannot gain a tight grip on the reeling economy, Gilad Shalit remains the hostage of Hamas, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is an international pariah. The favorite Israeli response when in this situation is to hold elections.

We'll see what happens.

- Lastly, the UN inquiry as to whether or not Israel (or more specifically the IDF) and Hamas committed war crimes in Gaza is going to go ahead despite Israel's vow to not cooperate. Let's face it, it doesn't really matter who the committee is made up of, Israel is going to call it biased and say that their findings are invalid because the IDF knows what they will find. Hamas too - I hope they find all the evidence they need to condemn the both of them. They have both acted in fanatical, despicable ways which have been proven time and time again to be totally pointless and only result in civilian casualties, so nuts to both of them for putting politics ahead of human lives which can never be replaced. It won't make a difference in the Western media, but whatever. Hamas will be condemned in our news and by our government and Israel will be curiously unmentioned as they are found in violation of even more international laws, but how do you arrest a guy with bigger and better guns than you, and when his best friend is the USA? You can't...all you can do is keep shaking your fist at him.

Obama and Netanyahu

2009-05-18T20:27:00.004-05:00

Here we go...some fairly interesting stuff happened today. But first, a beautiful, sad song that has nothing whatsoever to do with the following story.

Peggy Lee - While We're Young

Anyway, President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu had their first official meeting since both of them took office today, and I suppose it went kind of as expected. The BBC reports that Netanyahu "was ready to start peace talks immediately but refrained from endorsing a Palestinian state." I'm not sure how that can be; there seems to be little left to negotiate, save the settlements, and now Israeli leaders have begun looking externally (Iran). Oh wait, there is one other big thing...they go on to report that Netanyahu is saying that Israel is ready to live 'side by side' with Palestinians and resume talks immediately, but that any agreement depends on Palestinian acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. Since Hamas' victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections, this has been a condition constantly parroted over and over again by Western and Israeli leaders for peace talks with Palestinians to resume. Even our own beloved President Obama and his administration have threatened to cancel a $900 million aid pledge to the new Palestinian unity government if they don't "recognize Israel's right to exist." So what? Why won't they just recognize them and get it over with already?

In attempting to explain, I want to use an interesting opinion piece by John V. Whitbeck in addition to a few other sources as a frame to discuss why I believe this is problematic. Take, for example, what I mentioned above about Netanyahu conditioning negotiations on Palestine recognizing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. For starters, UCLA professor of English and Comparative Literature Saree Makdisi says in a piece in the LA Times:

First, the formal diplomatic language of "recognition" is traditionally used by one state with respect to another state. It is literally meaningless for a non-state to "recognize" a state. Moreover, in diplomacy, such recognition is supposed to be mutual. In order to earn its own recognition, Israel would have to simultaneously recognize the state of Palestine. This it steadfastly refuses to do (and for some reason, there are no high-minded newspaper editorials demanding that it do so).

Wait...Makdisi is right! Israel doesn't recognize the right for the Palestinians to exist on any piece of land. I mean...that's not fundamentally fair, is it? I want to turn to Whitbeck's article for an observation on why the whole "recognition" thing is silly to begin with:

"Recognizing Israel" or any other state is a formal legal and diplomatic act by one state with respect to another state. It is inappropriate – indeed, nonsensical – to talk about a political party or movement extending diplomatic recognition to a state. To talk of Hamas "recognizing Israel" is simply to use sloppy, confusing, and deceptive shorthand for the real demand being made of the Palestinians.

Democracy Now! points out a little more of the hypocrisy:

No such conditions have been imposed on Israel (to acknowledge Palestinians' right to exist as a a nation). The Israeli government refuses to renounce violence and has never recognized the right of Palestine to exist. Palestinians have also criticized the demand they recognize Israel’s “right to exist” because it forces them to go beyond recognizing Israel within secure borders, but in fact affirm the legitimacy of their dispossession and ongoing occupation.

So, back to Whitbeck - what else is wrong with demanding recognition?

"Recognizing Israel's existence" appears on first impression to involve a relatively straightforward acknowledgment of a fact of life. Yet there are serious practical problems with this language. What Israel, within what borders, is involved? Is it the 55 percent of historical Palestine recommended for a Jewish state by the UN General Assembly in 1947? The 78 percent of historical Palestine occupied by the Zionist movement in 1948 and now viewed by most of the world as "Israel" or "Israel proper"? The 100 percent of historical Palestine occupied by Israel since June 1967 and shown as "Israel" (without any "Green Line") on maps in Israeli schoolbooks?

Israel has never defined its own borders, since doing so would necessarily place limits on them. Still, if this were all that was being demanded of Hamas, it might be possible for the ruling political party to acknowledge, as a fact of life, that a state of Israel exists today within some specified borders. Indeed, Hamas leadership has effectively done so in recent weeks.

There is another thing - Israel has indeed not defined its own borders; that would make their unilateral, internationally illegal capture and occupation of territory and subsequent settlement building and subjugation of the peoples in said territory seem even more shameless than it already is. Whitbeck then basically outlines the real demand being made of Palestinians:

There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence" and "recognizing Israel's right to exist." From a Palestinian perspective, the difference is in the same league as the difference between asking a Jew to acknowledge that the Holocaust happened and asking him to concede that the Holocaust was morally justified. For Palestinians to acknowledge the occurrence of the Nakba – the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinians from their homeland between 1947 and 1949 – is one thing. For them to publicly concede that it was "right" for the Nakba to have happened would be something else entirely. For the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, the Holocaust and the Nakba, respectively, represent catastrophes and injustices on an unimaginable scale that can neither be forgotten nor forgiven.

To demand that Palestinians recognize "Israel's right to exist" is to demand that a people who have been treated as subhumans unworthy of basic human rights publicly proclaim that they are subhumans. It would imply Palestinians' acceptance that they deserve what has been done and continues to be done to them. Even 19th-century US governments did not require the surviving native Americans to publicly proclaim the "rightness" of their ethnic cleansing by European colonists as a condition precedent to even discussing what sort of land reservation they might receive. Nor did native Americans have to live under economic blockade and threat of starvation until they shed whatever pride they had left and conceded the point.

There you have it. It's a good point about the Native Americans, too. I've thought about it and thought about it, and I can't wrap my mind around how Israeli leaders have been getting away with this for so long. Now, the unfortunate position Hamas and some other Palestinian resistance groups have put themselves in is that they have utilized suicide attacks against civilians, something pretty much the entire world condemns. Needless to say, it doesn't get you a lot of sympathy. The IDF has fired upon civilians with their amazingly advanced US-bought weaponry more times than I can count, but they are not villified, at least in our media, nearly as much as Hamas is. Whatever they do is seen as a righteous defense of a terror-stricken people where anything Hamas says or does is written off as radicalism and the entire civilian population of say, Gaza, has to pay for it when the IDF brings in the tanks and ground troops. Naturally, I disapprove of any tactic involving the deaths of civilians but it ticks me off when it's okay for one group to do it and not okay for someone else.

Evidently, hard-line groups like Hamas are going to have to realize that their stances are somewhat obsolete as Israel is pretty much one of the most powerful nations in the world and they simply don't have to negotiate if they don't want to. That is to say, nobody in the Middle East is going to force them to because Israel is simply more powerful, and the only nation with the influence to force them to negotiate simply won't (the US). This coupled with the demands placed upon Palestinian leaders to continually negotiate from positions of weakness (i.e. barriers, blockades, embargos, settlements, power outages, curfews, arbitary arrests, refusal to be met with by other nations, etc.) makes for a tough job for anyone, let alone a group bent on the destruction of a state which, let's face it, would be basically impossible to destroy anyway. I'm hoping and praying as hard as anyone that Hamas and the IDF will both stop firing upon each other until things can be really talked about. Who knows, maybe this time the stars are aligned in everyone's favor. Everyone says God is on their side but it seems as though God's mind is not yet made up.

The aforementioned piece by Saree Makdisi in the LA Times ultimately attacked the Times' alleged use of the "language of Israel," and in essence taking Israel's side. Makdisi's piece was then critiqued in a piece by Judea Pearl in which she outlined a "deep ideological resistance by Palestinian Arabs to accomodate any form of a Jewish homeland in any part of Palestine since the end of World War I, accompanied by a persistent denial of any historical connection between the Jewish people and their national birthplace."

I can't (and would never) address Pearl's ethno-specific assertions about Palestinian Arabs and their apparently deep-seated "national feelings" towards Jews and their homeland in historic Palestine, but when she then reminds us that Arabs have consistently rejected two-state solutions (she mentions the Peel Commission recommendation of 1937, the UN 1947 decision, and the 2000 Camp David offer), she ignores the fundamental reality of Palestinian life post-Nakba (up to 750,000 Palestinians fleeing or being expelled from territory claimed by Israel in 1948) and under Israeli occupation and their apparent obligation to acknowledge that what is being done to them is morally right. Sorry, but if it were happening to you, you wouldn't be able to ignore it either.

Wow, I got kind of off course there. More on this as stuff develops!

Sources:

Some News is Good News

2009-05-17T18:53:00.009-05:00

Today I wanted to post a few short news items, some of which are interesting and some of which are uplifting (in my opinion). I also am going to try and start a new thing here at Nicecore...I want every post to include a cool song that I like which you can play (or not play) while you read the story. Also I will be able to share some nerdy music that I love! It'll be good times. Leading off this post is an old favorite of mine by a band pretty much everyone has heard of, take special notice of Thom Yorke's hair.

Radiohead - Stop Whispering

Now, onto the news. The first story that caught my attention this morning was the Sri Lankan government announcing that it has defeated the Tamil Tigers and ended the decades-long conflict. Although the whereabouts of the original leader of the Tigers is unknown, they have agreed to lay down their arms, and so the fighting is apparently over. But at what cost?

Four women have been elected to Kuwait's 50-member parliament, which makes me feel downright warm inside. Here's the clip from Al-Jazeera:

Barack Obama will start talks with Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu tomorrow. Apparently at the top of Obama's list is the whole Israeli-Palestinian thing, while at the top of Netanyahu's list is NOT talking about the Israeli-Palestinian thing, so he will be prepared with many horror stories about a nuclear-armed Iran. Amazingly, some in the Western media are actually starting to pick up on the fact that Israeli politicians' waving around of the Iran thing is an attempt to distract US leaders from continued settlement of Palestinian lands and the refusal to discuss a two-state solution. People are still throwing around this supposed quote by Ahmadinejad in which he claimed he wanted to see "Israel wiped off the map," or "Israel wiped off the face of the earth," or some other such saying that actually doesn't even exist in Persian. I have been super curious about what it was he actually said, so I went and looked it up. I tried to write the original Persian here but my computer didn't take to that very nicely, so I will just link to this interesting article about it on Anti-War.com. It basically describes how the Persian word for "map" doesn't even exist in the original statement by Ahmadinejad, and that the actual quote, translated exactly as it was originally said, would be something like:

"This regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of history."

That is actually very different from, "Israel should be wiped off the map," isn't it? Lots of Western journalists and Israeli leaders don't know, or don't care. The inconsistency of our media is staggering at times - a New York Times article published by a journalist who I believe is Iranian amazingly ignored the fact that Ahmadinejad did not actually say that Israel should be wiped off the map, and then that same reporter contributed reporting to an article a year later that examined what Ahmadinejad actually said. That second article hints at some kind of deep-seated anti-Semitism within Ahmadinejad or Iran as a whole that I believe is kind of unfounded. Iran has the largest number of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel and they are protected by the Islamic Republic of Iran's constitution. The ones remaining there today are constantly pressured to leave by people in Israel and the US but have stayed because, as research has shown, they are Iranians and proud of it. Of course, the article didn't mention that either.

At any rate, the shared hatred between Ahmadinejad and the West(ern media) hasn't gotten us anywhere in so many years, but you already knew that. More on Israel and nuclear Iran - tomorrow will come another update!

The Venerable Island, part II

2009-05-16T11:05:00.005-05:00

Al-Jazeera is reporting this morning that the Sri Lankan military has "defeated" the Tamil Tigers. I just want to take this opportunity to say that sometimes Al-Jazeera's use of quotation marks in their headlines can be absolutely hilarious. It's hard to come up with examples unless there happens to be one up on any given day, but just imagine a really sarcastic reporter typing it out - if I had to give you an example it would probably look something like this:

Cameron "studies" in the library for his upcoming final Thursday.

or maybe:

Your hair looks "great" today.

Anyway, it really tickles me. But moving on, Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa was quoted as saying,

"I am proud to announce... that my government with the total commitment of our armed forces, has in an unprecedented humanitarian operation, finally defeated the LTTE militarily..."

Uh, what? Killing isn't humane. Killing civilians definitely isn't, but who am I to argue with the president of something? Anyway, you can theoretically defeat a military force, but defeating an ideology is different. You usually just throw more fuel on the fire by defeating the military force, while the ideology can just get stronger. We'll see what happens. Well, I suppose we already did.

In other news, I noticed that Barack Obama picked the U.S. ambassador to China. Utah Governor John Huntsman will be taking up the post and actually speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese, which is great. Why is that a big deal, of course he speaks Chinese! Well, you would think speaking the language would be an obvious requirement - how else are you really going to relate to the people you are an ambassador to unless you can communicate with them without a go-between? Knowing a language is the first step to really knowing a people. I'm saying all this because a month or so ago, Obama appointed Christopher Hill (former ambassador to South Korea, Poland, and Macedonia) as ambassador to Iraq. Christopher Hill doesn't speak Arabic. I'm sure he's a talented negotiator and an otherwise extremely talented and qualified person, but wasn't there someone out there who speaks Arabic? Anybody? What does it say to an entire country when the main person you send over to represent you to that entire nation of people doesn't even speak their language? This appointment is like a metaphor for the entire war...he should just be called "U.S. Ambassador to the Green Zone."

The Venerable Island

2009-05-14T13:15:00.002-05:00

From the Sanskrit meaning "Venerable Island," Sri Lanka is just that, an island located about 20 miles off the southern coast of India. It's currently being wracked by a civil war and the recently intensifying humanitarian crisis has started to get more attention again. It doesn't get a lot of coverage here in the states for reasons that will hopefully make sense below. Either way, you've probably been hearing about it at least a little in the news lately if you read BBC or any other European or Middle Eastern news source. I wanted to try and understand this issue better for myself and hopefully if you are as in the dark as I am, this will be helpful to you too.

If any particular story involves heavy use of phrases like "ethnic conflict," "humanitarian crisis," or "civil war," odds are good that it has its roots in the British Empire (or possibly the French, if we're talking about the Lebanese Civil War, for example). This story is no exception.

Sri Lanka has a Buddhist Sinhalese majority (today it's about 74%) with a sizable predominantly Hindu Tamil minority (roughly 14%) as well as a few other minority ethnic and religious groups. Now, I'm mentioning their religions merely as a point of interest; unlike other stories in which the conflicts are drawn along religious lines, this conflict is actually an ethnic one and from my understanding has less to do with religious differences.

Under British administration (the original name of the island was Ceylon - that will be familiar to any of you tea drinkers out there and explains why the British had an interest in it), the majority Sinhalese began to complain of what they saw as favoritism towards the Hindu Tamils and eventually a Sinhalese nationalist political movement rose up and gained independence from the British in 1948 through peaceful negotiations. Well, kind of.

They became the "Dominion of Ceylon," and as part of the British Commonwealth (there was still a British "governor general" in much the same style as the infamous Lord Cromer of Egypt) things were largely peaceful for awhile, but the minority Tamils started to complain of discrimination when it came to getting jobs in civil service or acceptance at universities. They may have had a point - the hard line Sinhalese party in power in 1956 enacted a bill making Sinhala the only official language of Sri Lanka.

Anyway, one of the major actors in the current story, the "Tigers of New Tamil" militia, was formed in 1972 as a result of this perceived discrimination. In 1976 they changed their name to "The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam," otherwise known as the "Tamil Tigers."

The Tamil Tigers are basically a Tamil nationalist group. Their ultimate goal is an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The Tigers have carried out many suicide bombings on both civilian and military targets, many of which result in anti-Tamil riots in which hundreds of people are killed. In a situation somewhat similar to that which has been going on in Israel and Palestine for quite some time, the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers have basically engaged in "tit-for-tat" skirmishes since the 1970s up until today, with various international peace efforts here and there, various ceasefires both sides claim the other didn't support, and an official death count of around 80,000 people since 1983.

To give this a little perspective - The U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. Since then most estimates for civilian deaths in Iraq put the number at around 100,000. That means more people have died as a result of U.S. occupation in Iraq in just 6 years than in a 26-year long civil war in Sri Lanka. I can't find any exact numbers or facts that go before around 2000, but even the body count of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict likely pales in comparison to this. The body count of the roughly 6-year Darfur conflict is staggering - a 2006 UN estimate (which they later said might have been underestimated by 50%) put the mortality rate at 400,000 people. It doesn't get media coverage in the U.S. because it doesn't have anything to do with our global economic and strategic interests.

Anyway, back to Sri Lanka - up to now the government has only said they will grant more autonomy to the Tamil areas but not full-scale independence. Naturally, the Tamil Tigers aren't satisfied with that so the fighting goes on.

The reason why this is suddenly making news is that since the escalation of fighting in 2005, this is apparently as hard as the Sri Lankan Civil War has ever been fought. This can be traced to hard-line president Mahinda Rajapaksa's campaign in November 2005 in which he totally ruled out autonomy for the Tamil areas.

Like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is a situation in which it is nearly impossible to say who-hit-who-first anymore. Recently the Tamil Tigers have been pushed back farther than in recent years, and as they try to defend the last of their territory, civilians are paying a heavy toll. Basically you have another familiar situation in which the army is accidentally (or not) firing upon civilians in order to kill the militants, and the militants may (or may not) be using the civilians as human shields. Who knows?

Analysts are saying that the Tamil Tigers are actually very near defeat this time around. It's one thing to crush a group of people, but it's hard to crush a nationalist ideology - you basically have to crush the people themselves. Of course, the real issue here is the humanitarian side. In wars, innocent people who would rather not get involved pay the highest cost.

New News and Old News

2009-05-13T11:51:00.009-05:00

I apologize for having been gone awhile - exams have been eating everyone's lunch here and I literally just got back from my toughest one not half an hour ago so this is my way of recuperating from it.

So quite a bit has been going on - the attention has thankfully shifted largely away from swine flu (and the market has been steadily climbing - what a FREAKIN' coincidence!). I wanted to share this because I thought it was kind of funny. I think we all agree that the media was blowing swine flu up pretty hardcore, so I thought this picture was hilarious. It's apparently a University of Delaware student protesting the media's exaggerated coverage of swine flu:

Awesome. Anyway, as expected, many acted in a rather embarrassingly racist fashion during the swine flu scare, notable incidents including radio talk show host Michael Savage telling listeners, "No contact anywhere with an illegal alien! And that starts in the restaurants...you don't know if they wipe their behinds with their hands!" and Boston radio personality Jay Severin saying that emergency rooms had essentially become "condos for Mexicans."

Documented international anecdotes include China holding 70 healthy Mexicans in humiliating isolation, Paris airport baggage handlers refusing to touch bags from Mexican planes, and Mexican soccer player Carlos Vela scoring a goal in the English premiership only to be met by teammates that shied away from hugging him. Good to know that people out there are still this shamefully, embarrassingly ignorant and that it will continue to hurt innocent people.

Moving on before I become angry, I wanted to mention Roxana Saberi real quick. She was released on Monday, which was cool, but we can't forget about all of the other journalists and bloggers still in Iran's jails that just happened not to be part of whatever political game is going on right now. Some commentators are saying that this incident was indicative of the divide in Iranian government between those who are keen on improving ties with the West and those who are content with upholding the status quo. Of course, there's also a third aspect to consider - Ahmadinejad would like to get reelected. It's convenient that he spoke out on behalf of a fair trial for Ms. Saberi in what surely seems like a nice gesture towards the US, only a month before the Iranian elections. We'll see how he does - expect a lot of updates pretty soon!

In other news, the pope has been traveling around the Middle East doing his thing. I'm sure there have been lots of awkward moments, like when the pope declined to visit a particular room at Yad Vashem (the Holocaust memorial museum in Israel) which had a plaque discussing the Catholic Church's refusal to recognize the Nazi genocide of Jews.

Anyway, the pope has earned a few points in my book - he has been officially endorsing a Palestinian state left and right, which in light of the official Israeli visits to the US coming up makes things a little more interesting. I don't really care why he did it, but the fact that he did it is good. Granted, the pope is really more of an influential voice than an actual political leader, but his influence can't be ignored.

Benyamin Netanyahu, who still hasn't mentioned a Palestinian state (and let's be honest, the man has publicly stated that he hates the idea in the past), is coming to Washington next week. The Times has this interesting article discussing the coming visit. It's not too long, you should give it a quick glance.

It could be a very interesting month or a very depressing one.

Stuff to Talk About

2009-05-05T19:10:00.000-05:00

Well, finals are coming down on me right now, so unfortunately I don't have tons of time to write for this thing. Also, I need a little more time to think about stuff so I don't just write about Israel, Palestine, and Iran the whole time (as much as I'd love to). I want to do a little research into what is happening in the Swat Valley region of Pakistan, also I'm going to pursue a bit of reading on our current immigration reform proposals.

And of course, May 18th is still coming. I'm sure something interesting will happen there. We'll see...good luck to you if you are taking finals! If you're not, lucky you!

Jerusalem and May 18

2009-05-02T18:03:00.000-05:00

Here's where we are now (and I mean in regards to Israel and Palestine, an issue that is gaining salience as Obama is meeting with Israeli leaders soon): Israeli leaders say they will not start any kind of negotiations or discussions about anything with the U.S., anything at all, without first solving "the Iranian problem." Our leaders, pretty much across the board, say that if Israel wants help with Iran they will have to get moving on the two-state solution. This is the last issue Israel wants to approach, even after dealing with Iran.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has had this to say:

"The biggest obstacle to a comprehensive solution is not Israel. It's not the Palestinians. It's the Iranians."
Source

Well, coming from the same man who once said this:

"The only way to solve the problem (between Jews and Arabs) is to lower the friction between the two peoples. There can't be peaceful coexistence in one national state, we can't live together in the same apartment. So there should be a separate Jewish state and Arab state.”
Source

I'd say anyone who really believes something like that is themselves a pretty substantial obstacle to peace. And I mean anyone, Israeli, Palestinian, American, whoever.

I guess May 18th is the day I've been reading that Obama will meet with Israeli leaders. To be honest, I'm expecting more of the same laudatory stuff we've heard from pretty much all past U.S. presidents with maybe a little bit of, "...but Mr. Obama urged Israeli leaders to start a dialogue in regards to the Palestinian two-state solution..." and that might be the end of it. Hopefully not, but I guess we'll see.

Shirin Ebadi at UT, continued

2009-04-28T15:56:00.000-05:00

I went to Shirin Ebadi's lecture at the AT&T Conference Center tonight. Wow, that place is super nice. I need to look up the other events that go on there and see if I can get some more free food. Okay, stop talking about free food, you are embarrassing yourself.

Anyway, if you don't know who Shirin Ebadi is, I encourage you to take a look at her Wikipedia entry, but I will say a bit about her here.

Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian-born lawyer and human rights activist. In 1975, she became the first female judge in Iran. After the Islamic revolution, she was demoted to a secretarial position and although she and other female judges protested, her situation hardly improved and she eventually retired early and did not return to law until 1993. You can read more about the kinds of cases she was worked in on her Wikipedia but another reason she is important is that she is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Her talk tonight was in a fairly large lecture hall in the AT&T Conference Center and there were probably 300 or so people present. The room was packed and some people had to sit in another room and watch a live feed. She mostly discussed the current state of the rights of women and religious minorities in Iran, which are apparently not good. She talked about the irony of societies who claim to be democratic but are actually not democratic in principle. She also stressed the importance of remembering how many interpretations of Islam there are across the Middle East and how an interpretation that provides for the equal rights of women and religious minorities should be implemented into the political system in Iran, and she argues that Islam is totally compatible with a free democratic system, despite how it's been portrayed in the Western media. Beyond that the details are hazy and I didn't think about taking down some notes, and I took my camera but we weren't allowed to film anything. But it's okay, I found a cool interview with her talking here, she was saying basically a lot of stuff similar to this. Each part is only about a minute or so long:

Anyway, the talk was really great. Afterwards I ran into one of my friends from my Arabic class who had an invitation to the reception upstairs and her invitation said she could bring a guest! So I sort of tagged along with her and got myself a name tag (like a pimp) and then made my way to the short line forming around Dr. Ebadi. Dang, my legs were shaking, I was so nervous. It's just that I had read a lot about this woman and she is so internationally known and respected, I didn't want to embarrass myself. I went up to her and said some stuff in Persian, including how I loved her speech and was glad she is doing what she does, and also that I want to go teach in Iran some day and she is very inspirational, things like that. She made this face and said, "Wow, you speak Persian really well!" I was so stoked, you wouldn't believe it. Check it, I even got myself a photo:

Baller.

Anyway, then I made my way over to the free food where, rest assured, I got fully crunk. I then ran and came home, and I was smiling the entire time. I still am. It's cool when a Nobel Peace Prize winner says anything to you, let alone that you speak Persian well. Snap.

The Future of Palestine

2009-04-27T15:08:00.016-05:00

And by "future," I hope I mean within four years - these are the terms in which Barack Obama has been framing recent comments on the Israel-Palestine issue, one which I'm kind of interested in (in case you haven't noticed). Don't worry, I promise to write about something else soon enough.

Many Palestinians were disappointed at the results of the recent Israeli elections in which Likud party leader Benyamin Netanyahu was able to form a majority government and become the prime minister. Why were they disappointed at this? Many will recall that he ran for prime minister in 1996 at a time when the Oslo Peace Process was falling apart (many thanks to hardlining radicals on both sides - you all made great strides in the interest of peace with suicide bombings, massacres, and assassinations of prime ministers) and ran his campaign basically on a platform of putting an end to the peace process that seemed to be failing...never mind that Israeli authorities had been bulldozing Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank throughout the entire process, even as negotiations in Oslo were taking place in 1993.

Anyway, now they (Israeli and U.S. leaders) are at an impasse because Obama has stated many times his dedication to a two-state solution within four years. Based on recent news stories I have been reading, Israeli officials and diplomats have been pushing this idea that there should be "two economies" for two peoples, not two states for two peoples. Uh...what? Are you guys just making stuff up now? To be quite honest, I think it's just that - there is a ton of observable evidence to suggest that Israeli officials refuse to negotiate and meet with Arab or Palestinian representatives on the Palestinian issue because they know they don't have the moral high ground, and they are running out of excuses. And they need to continue building settlements for reasons explained below. In addition, their little invasion in December that sparked protests around the world could not have come at a worse time - look at this quote from Rahm Emanuel, apparently to a high-ranking Israeli official:

"In the next four years, there will be a final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, based on 'two states for two peoples,' and we couldn't care less who the prime minister is."

-Rahm Emanuel, source 1, source 2

What a baller. And what a dramatic turn of events, frankly, considering Emanuel himself is Jewish, is the son of an Irgun member born in Jerusalem, and has had family members die in clashes with Arabs. Many sighed heavily and rolled their eyes when his appointment as Chief of Staff was announced; it seemed like an odd appointment for someone like Obama who claimed he would approach the issue in a fair and unbiased manner, but this is surprising and quite frankly, it makes me smile a bit. Israeli National Union Party leader Yaakov Katz had this to say in response:

"It seems to imply a dismissive attitude towards the Prime Minister and his positions, and towards Israeli public opinion. This is not the type of treatment Israel expects to get from a true friend like the United States and certainly not from an Israeli Jew who has attained greatness and has been appointed Chief of the White House Staff."

-Yaakov Katz, source

Well, I hate to disappoint, but Israeli leaders have acted with "dismissive attitudes" towards our leaders and pretty much every other leader in the world more times than anyone can count, so I guess you should have expected this at some point.

Right now I have to say, in the past few weeks I have come to really understand something, like, it has really sunk into me. That is, a lot of Israelis believe that the whole land of Israel belongs to them, even the parts they are not living in and have no interest in; it's simply mandated by God that they inhabit it in their modern nation-state, I guess. Of course, I've kind of known that as a fact in the back of my mind since I started really looking at this situation, but it hasn't sunk in as much as it has recently. The problem with that is that for so many years, Arabs have been living there too. And quite frankly, Arabs and Jews lived peacefully among each other before all of this nonsense - there really is no evidence to suggest any kind of ancient conflict going back to biblical times. Arabs nowadays don't necessarily claim the same kind of "mandate from God" thing that some Jews do (except for groups like Hamas with their waqfs), but the fact is that they have been living there, and you can't just violently "move" people out of an area as Israeli authorities have been doing for years for any reason.

Unless, of course, you are more powerful and have more support from the West than they do. Then you can demolish the homes of the other side, build up your own homes and establish settlements so that all the areas contain now deeply-rooted communities of people from your side, and then when it is time to make peace, claim that most of the land is and has been inhabited by your side, so that land goes to you. I have searched myself, I have searched others, I have searched news, stories, books, and articles, and that is the only thing Israel could possibly be doing.

Benyamin Netanyahu is visiting the U.S. in May. Let's wait and see what happens.

Shirin Ebadi at UT

2009-04-27T10:06:00.005-05:00

I'm sorry I didn't make an update this weekend. I wanted to but I got caught up working on papers and homework and stuff (that's probably for the better anyway). There are only two weeks left of classes and most of my finals will happen within those two weeks so the work is starting to pile up. At least it'll be over soon...for about 2 and a half weeks.

Anyway, today I'm going to try and go to the first of several lectures by Shirin Ebadi at UT. If you don't know who Shirin Ebadi is, please read about her here. She's a human rights lawyer and the first Iranian to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. I will try and film some video or something and post it here as well as my thoughts on what she has to say. Her lecture tonight is called, "Democracy in Iran and the Middle East." Tomorrow she has a book reading and signing at Book People which I plan to attend and use as an excuse to then go nuts on free samples at Whole Foods, which is within walking distance of Book People. Here is a list of events for you who might be in Austin and want to check her out.

Anyway, more to come later.

Non-American Commentary (Not Un-American)

2009-04-24T17:42:00.016-05:00

So, lately it's been nearly impossible to find opinion like this written in American newspapers. I regret not bringing this up way earlier, but I actually found this several months ago before I had ever thought about doing a blog for this kind of stuff. I still think Mark Steel's article is relevant, and unfortunately it will be relevant for awhile I'm afraid. In case you don't feel like reading it, here are some highlights:

For example, Condoleezza Rice, having observed that more than 300 Gazans were dead, said: "We are deeply concerned about the escalating violence. We strongly condemn the attacks on Israel and hold Hamas responsible."
Someone should ask her to comment on teenage knife-crime, to see if she'd say: "I strongly condemn the people who've been stabbed, and until they abandon their practice of wandering around clutching their sides and bleeding, there is no hope for peace."

Before this he basically wonders what condition Western officials have that they see terrible pictures of violence and make totally backwards conclusions about them.

Here's another good one:

The gap between the might of Israel's F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters, and the Palestinians' catapulty thing is so ridiculous that to try and portray the situation as between two equal sides requires the imagination of a children's story writer.

Here's the last one:

Or there's the outrage that Hamas has been supported by Iran. Well that's just breaking the rules. Because say what you will about the Israelis, they get no arms supplies or funding or political support from a country that's more powerful than them, they just go their own way and make all their weapons in an arts and crafts workshop in Jerusalem.

There's a detail in there that seems to be left out of the general narrative of this overall story as it's constantly portrayed in the U.S. - this is not a conflict between two equal sides. Palestinian leaders have always either had to negotiate from a position of weakness (like Yasser Arafat) and have usually gotten little to nothing in return or they've been corrupt and more interested in padding their personal fortunes, top-heavy bureaucracies, and dense security forces (like Yasser Arafat). Israeli leaders have simply never had to give anything up. Arafat had to capitulate to maintain the loyalty of the stateless Palestinians, but Israeli leaders have had a much firmer grip on power in their own nation and they've got more power than just political power. It all makes perfect sense, too - there is nobody to punish them if they don't negotiate. They have proven their military strength time and time again and the U.S. has given them little to no trouble over it. And out of all of this, the people who suffer in the end are the citizens - Palestinian and Israeli. It's hard to ignore the ridiculous imbalance between the number of Palestinian and Israeli casualties, but I personally believe that even one life lost is a tragedy. So what's my point? Not to complain about this or that continued injustice; I think we're all aware of it by now. My point is that I think it's important that we remember how a certain story is and has always been told here in the U.S., and how it's told nearly everywhere else in the world. There's a stark difference that is kind of scary. That's all I'm saying.

So, what's in store for the Palestinians? I'll offer my thoughts about it tomorrow.

Just to be sure, the quotes above came from this article.

Roxana Saberi and "Great Satans" Throughout History

2009-04-23T18:30:00.002-05:00

So I wrote something about the half-Iranian, half-Japanese, and pretty attractive Roxana Saberi for The Eyeranians awhile back that y'all might be interested in if you've been following her case. Then I saw this article and it got me thinking a bit about the bigger picture here.

What I mean is, what is actually going on here? If you didn't go look at the article, it basically says that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Roxana Saberi to be able to present her full defense in a fair and just manner, and even though he won't (and can't, I imagine) personally intervene, he is urging for fairness in the case. He even encouraged the courts to give Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, who has been in jail since November for insulting religious leaders, the chance to defend himself in a fair trial. So does he actually care? Is he trying to make it look as though he cares? Does he really want to salvage the good momentum that Iran-US relations had going for a brief, glorious moment? Did that fiasco at the UN on April 20th then have to occur? Do we have to keep threatening each other and walking out on each other and trying to piss each other off?

The feeling I can't shake off is that a lot of Iranian and US leaders don't really want anything to change between Iran and the US. Ayatollah Ali Khameini has been suggesting that despite our diplomatic overtones, nothing has really changed as far as US leaders are concerned. Technically, I guess he's right as far as Iran is concerned, because we haven't stopped giving our full support to Israel (but I shouldn't speak too soon - more on that to come), we are still upholding the sanctions (but we're relaxing them on Cuba), and we are still insisting they halt uranium enrichment for the time being. It's...a start? It's better than nothing.

The other thing it's tough to forget is how much Iran's leaders need a "Great Satan." It's how they rallied their support from the very beginning and they need a "Great Satan" until the very end. That's why Obama's diplomacy is the only thing that works - if someone has fed off of your hatred forever and you start being nice to them, they have no idea how to respond. But before I get too far, let me step back and say that America's leaders have done the same thing. Remember the "Axis of Evil?" The more I think about that I still can't believe Bush ever said it. Axis of Evil? What is this, Star Wars?

My point is that all of these little games and dances around actual diplomacy and progress annoy the snot out of me because it hurts the normal people so the leaders can glorify themselves (or make their enemies look foolish), and even besides the leaders, there are always these elements in administration that want to impede progress and hate the idea of people getting along for whatever arbitrary reason. Take, for example, the fact that Obama is apparently having to defend the fact that he was actually friendly with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez at a summit of Latin American leaders in Trinidad. I'm sorry, we're pissed that leaders are starting to get along? "Don't talk to them or give them any attention, it legitimizes their corrupt and undemocratic government!" Well, since not talking to them or outright antagonizing them has worked so very well, you're right, I don't see why any change of course is necessary. Furthermore, I'm so glad we have the most uncorrupt and democratic government in town, I would hate to be, like, a hypocrite or something. Anyway, I just have trouble understanding why someone could be upset about this, and then I realize there are people who make money when people don't get along.

My feeling is, leaders throughout history have likely used mysterious or evil enemies across the sea to keep their people scared and behind them in whatever decisions they've made, but that doesn't stop it from bothering me any less.

Coming soon, Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel on Israel and Palestine.

Oh yeah, and as Rivers Cuomo once said, "God damn you half-Japanese girls!"

Hillary Clinton Ruins Everything

2009-04-22T15:42:00.006-05:00

Why, may I ask, are we still letting Hillary Clinton speak to Iran?

The BBC has reported that she is threatening Iran with "very tough sanctions" if it rejects offers of engagement over its nuclear program. Are we still doing that? Are we still threatening people with sanctions? After all this? You can't introduce more-or-less peaceful overtures like Obama did with his Nowruz message, saying things like, "...but your place on the world stage will not be attained by threats," and then make threats to increase sanctions which are already crippling the Iranian economy and making average people who have nothing to do with this silly conflict suffer. Iran might be making nuclear weapons, but they might not be. Stop assuming, stop assuming, for the love of God, stop assuming. Remember what happened with Iraq in 2003? You are digging us into an already deep enough hole.

Let me go a little further: by signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is perfectly within international law to have nuclear power provided they observe safeguards. Repeated IAEA inspections have found no evidence of anything out of the ordinary and all nuclear material is repeatedly accounted for. Western powers (namely the U.S.), realizing they are making fools out of themselves, have tried to make bigger fools out of Iran by bringing their case to the UN, where they can declare Iran a "rogue state" that has no place developing weapons, because they will only use them to nuke Israel. Ironically, Israel has struck at other peoples' nuclear reactors before without warning (Osirak, anyone?) and they have threatened multiple times to strike at Iran's facilities. Man, I really hope they don't.

Anyway, my point is that no proof exists that they are developing weapons, only speculation by Western powers who like to decide who can have nuclear power and who can't. Iran is not like North Korea, where they expel inspectors and develop nuclear energy in secret facilities, and actually loudly proclaim that they are in possession of nuclear weapons. In fact, Ayatollah Khameini (the Supreme Leader of Iran who can pretty much have the final say in all matters, foreign or domestic) actually declared a fatwa against nuclear weapons. From what I understand, if you must know one thing about the Ayatollahs, they don't really mess around when it comes to fatwas. Hillary Clinton, please stop being so blatantly and pointlessly biased towards Israel's leaders at the expense of our own standing in the world, look back at your own country, consider what's at stake, and think for five minutes about how counterproductive you are being. If you don't cease this behavior, consider yourself banned from Nicecore for five years.

Also, since we just remembered the Holocaust, a terrible tragedy in which millions of innocent Jews were systematically killed in concentration camps throughout Europe, let's go ahead and take this opportunity to remember another tragedy in which innocent people were killed. And while the U.S. government is all so busy freaking out about other people having nukes, let's remember who the only nation to ever drop an atomic bomb on someone else is:

David Horowitz and IPJ

2009-04-21T13:21:00.006-05:00

So, for those of you unfamiliar with writer and activist David Horowitz, I encourage you to peruse his Wikipedia entry briefly to get an idea of some of his views. He's pretty much a conservative writer and commentator whose writings have a distinctly anti-feminist, anti-Islam, anti-liberal, and occasionally anti-black slant. He might even be anti-Frosted Flakes, but we're fact checking that. He's also very fond of this theory of his (and he's published several books on it) that all professors on campuses across the US are left-wing radicals that are indoctrinating poor, helpless college students who just don't know any better.

Leaving aside why that's offensive to me as a student, I want to move on to why this is relevant at all. David Horowitz came to give a talk at UT a few weeks ago and a few members from the only campus group that I'm an active member of, Iranians for Peace and Justice (I pretty much just attend their free film screenings and show up at events), went to his talk to protest with signs and stuff. They didn't get rowdy or anything, they just sat at the top with signs and cheered and clapped at the appropriate times. Well, Horowitz went and wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal, and he mentioned IPJ! I recommend reading it, it's pretty hilarious. My parents will find it especially great, as it IPJ and its members are accused of being Hezbollah and Hamas supporters. Wow, my first accusation of supporting terrorists, and it's in the Wall Street Journal, no less!

Anyway, the article Horowitz is referring to which was written before his talk is here, by my friend Hooman Hedayati. It was published in the Daily Texan the day of the talk.

Horowitz also attacked UT Associate Professor of Communication Studies Dana Cloud, who stood up in response to Horowitz during the Q&A of his talk:

Here is Professor Cloud's response to Horowitz's WSJ article.

Now, my take on all of this is that to me, David Horowitz is kind of like Ann Coulter, or Bill O'Reilly. Sure, there are a few people that really buy what they say, and really think they know everything and have it all figured out, but thankfully those people are few and far between. The best way to "defeat" David Horowitz would be to simply leave him alone. If nobody pays him any mind, he won't be able to write articles in the Wall Street Journal about what a martyr he is.

This would be all fine, except as soon as I read the WSJ article, I remembered that there are Iranian students in IPJ that do not have green cards and are here as students, and may possibly seek work or citizenship at some point. They had nothing to do with this and don't need this kind of negative attention directed at them in the current political atmosphere. I wrote to the editors of the "Firing Line" at the Daily Texan refuting Horowitz's statement about us, and they published it in the print edition today! Here's what I wrote, along with my responses to some of the comments:

The Daily Texan

So I also went to the Wall Street Journal's website and posted on their comment board, and I'm going to send the same thing to their editor in hopes of getting it published as well. It's unlikely as all get out, but hey, it's worth a shot. Mine is the long one with my name at the bottom:

The Wall Street Journal Forums

Now, people have made the rather valid point that by protesting Mr. Horowitz's speech, IPJ and others limited his own right to free speech. However, I would make the point that this, like many issues, is an issue of perspectives. From the students' point of view, Mr. Horowitz's attempt to limit the kinds of thoughts and ideas that are allowed on university campuses was in and of itself an attempt to limit free speech. Truly, Mr. Horowitz believes liberal thought on college campuses is a bad idea and is suppressing other beliefs (he has written books about it), but at the same time he believes in a "free exchange of ideas." First of all, his assertion that liberal thought is suppressing other kinds of thought is baseless, and secondly, his crusade against ideas not in line with his own while claiming to be fighting in the name of free speech is hypocritical.

Lastly, he has also openly supported going to war with and overthrowing the current government of Iran, which IPJ as a pro-peace organization is obviously opposed to. Also, if Mr. Horowitz would open a history book, he would know what happened last time we overthrew a government in Iran.

Anyway, just my thoughts. I'd like to conclude by saying first of all, it's badass that my organization got mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. Secondly, I'd like to remind everyone of the wonderful message of love from our brothers in Culture:

Culture - Stop the Fussing and Fighting