Ben A. Ben H. Doug Later
     
 
Robbery Technique Question

So, how exactly would one go about trying to stick up a suicide bomber? I mean, you can't exactly pull a gun on a guy and expect to steal the very item that reveals the victim's willingness to die! "Hand over you suicide bomb-belt, Mustafa, or I'll kill you!" does not make much sense, as threats go -- not unlike trying to get someone to give up masochism by menacing him with a spanking.
[Ben H.: 4/29/04 17:02]
 
 
The Accidental Mossad

Hamas said the bomber was on his way to try to infiltrate into Israel, accompanied by another Hamas member and a guide, when they were stopped by the armed men.

The robbers forced the bomber to lie on the ground and tried to steal the bomb, but the militant detonated it, killing all three. The other Hamas man and the guide escaped.

There have been cases of rival groups stealing each other’s explosives, but no group claimed the two gunmen, and their families did not go to the hospital to take the bodies, indicating that the two were not militants, who are revered in Palestinian society.

A Hamas official said that whatever their intention, the two should be considered agents of Israel.

“Anyone who tries to stop a fighter from doing his work is a collaborator,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.


Trust those tricky Jews to use moral luck to their advantage. Every time a bus driver side-swipes the suicide bomber, or a waiter who serves tainted mayonaisse to a Hamas kingpin, Mossad recruitment increases! And in the latter case, is not the kitchen staff implicated en masse? These Zionists get more devious by the minute!
[Ben A.: 4/29/04 14:28]
   
 
Do You Feel Lucky Punk?

Sometimes, a simple story can illustrate reality better than a dozen Foreign Affairs articles. Check out
this hilarious collision of Palestine's culture of death and its culture of corruption. Quite an explosive mix! It's amusing enough that a robber selects as his prey a suicide bomber. Heck, that's just Saturday Night Live kind of material. What only the Palestinian mind could come up with is this: having identified his victim as an armed suicide bomber, the robber tries to steal his bomb-belt!

Hat Tip: Bruno
[Ben H.: 4/29/04 12:50]
 
 
Implications

A regression analysis conducted by Bandalog scientists suggests that Yankees world series wins correlate with the presence of atmospheric nitrogen. For the Red Sox, victories ('03, '12, '14 (NL)'15, '16, '18) correlate with horrendous European slaughter and American progressivism. So it's a mixed bag for George W, I suppose.




[Ben A.: 4/29/04 12:50]
   
 
Feeding the Randy Cohen Obsession

A comprehensive deconstruction of our favorite
sophist-wannabe. [Ben A.: 4/29/04 12:42]
   
 
There's Always September

The Red Sox's dominance has me worried. Who knows what a Red Sox victory in October would portend: a sign of the beginning of End Times? Or maybe it would so disrupt the fundamental forces of the planet that the Gulf Stream stops and we suffer
a new ice age!

Don't count the Yankees out yet. Jose Contreras managed to survive five whole innings without completely imploding. Hey, we're almost at .500! That said, something has to be done about Jeter's 0-for-32 stretch, a drought of almost Winfieldian proportions. George is only spending $180mio this year in payroll, so he has plenty of cash left to buy some improvements later this spring, should it become necessary. How about Randy Johnson in pinstripes? [Ben H.: 4/29/04 12:40]
 
 
Invincible Juggernaut Watch

Another day, another dominating Red Sox win. Let me get on record early: this is the year.

Addendum: Tom Menino must issue an ordinance banning carping about Manny Ramirez's hustle, fielding, or haircut. He'll never remind anyone of Joe Morgan, but the guy is slugging 670. Let Manny be Manny!


[Ben A.: 4/29/04 12:30]
   
 
Picasso

That quote seems almost too good to be true. If I have time, I'll try to go look up the source.

First the Romans, now the Bostonians

I'm always in the market for reductive theories of human history.
This news about Boston's water supply could be the germ of an excellent explanation of Cantabridgian weirdness. Certainly, it can be elaborated with much greater conciseness than competing theories. [Ben H.: 4/28/04 12:45]
 
 
Magnificent, Revelatory Quotation

"In art the mass of people no longer seek consolation and exaltation, but those who are refined, rich, unoccupied, who are distillers of quintessences, seek what is new, strange, original, extravagant, scandalous. I myself, since Cubism and before, have satisfied these masters and critics with all the changing oddities which have passed through my head, and the less they understand me, the more they admired me. By amusing myself with all these games, with all these absurdities, puzzles, rebuses, arabesques, I became famous and that very quickly. And fame for a painter means sales, gains, fortune, riches. And today, as you know, I am celebrated, I am rich. But when I am alone with myself, I have not the courage to think of myself as an artist in the great and ancient sense of the term. Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt, were great painters. I am only a public entertainer who has understood his times and exploited them as best he could the imbecility, the vanity, the cupidity of his contemporaries. Mine is a bitter confession, more painful than it may appear, but it has the merit of being sincere."

--Pablo Picasso, Jardin des Arts (March 1964), trans.

Via this
fine gentleman. [Ben A.: 4/28/04 12:36]
   
 
Back from Caracas

Forgot to bring the digital camera, so no photo blogging. Suffice it to say, though, that the city is still ringed by mountain slopes crammed with appalling shanties.

I flew back through San Juan, Puerto Rico. Apparently, American Airlines has turned this airport into its Caribbean hub. I had to clear customs and pass again through security with a horde of tourists in beach attire. An interesting synnergy between new Homeland Security procedures and casual tourist travel kit. Many of the tourists wear shoes without socks. Homeland security makes travellers take their shoes off to pass through the metal detectors. Synnergistic result: cavalcade of toe-jam. From what I saw, America's podiatric health needs some work. Question: can a hypertrophied bunion be considered a "sharp object" banned from the aircraft?



Flag Mania

A guy on my team is obsessed with building monster probit regressions to try to find the determinants of sovereign defaults. I think flag score will definitely go in the next version.

[Ben H.: 4/27/04 23:02]
 
 
Do Not Try To Disprove the Four Color Theorem on Your Flag

Sage advice for the
Central African Republic. More drollery can be found here.

Actually, as I page through I find myself disagreeign with the ratings. Who on earth likes the UAE flag better than the Union Jack? Also, he slights Bhutan, one of my great favorites. (OK, it does look suspiciously lifted from Milton Bradley's Dark Tower [Ben A.: 4/27/04 15:34]
   
 
Chavista Get-Away

I'll am flying to Caracas tonight. I'll try to find some time for a post or two on the situation while I am down there.
[Ben H.: 4/25/04 13:34]
 
 
Cheesy Gift Cow

That cheese-shaped cow was an item in two of the Xmas 2003 gift baskets we received at work. A denizen of the desk, who I will allow to remain nameless, convinced himself that the cow sitting under the polyurethane wrap of the basket was made of white chocolate. He kept agitating to open the basket so he could get at the chocolate cow. We had a good laugh when he discovered it was cheese.

Question: a burger cooked in the shape of a cow would be, to my mind, somewhat ghoulish. Why is a cheese cow cute?
[Ben H.: 4/25/04 00:01]
 
 
Sweet

"A value-added, leverageable global knowledge repository."

"Repurposeable, leading edge thoughtware that delivers results-driven value."

"A future-proof asset that seamlessly empowers your mission critical enterprise communications."

Bullfighter could be all of these things. Except that we have no idea what any of these things are.

Bravo for Deloitte. Any consulting firm that develops such a product takes literally the GE maxim "destroy your business."


[Ben A.: 4/24/04 23:24]
   
 
The Clemens Camp

You're only in my camp, Ben H, if you liberally strew Clemens relics about your home. I revere the man. He got knocked around a bit at Coors field today, still picked up his fourth win. I also note that he has knocked in more runs on the season than Bernie Williams. Har!
[Ben A.: 4/24/04 22:49]
   
 
La-La-La-La! I am not listening!

At least, to anything Doug says about "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." That's becuase for the past five years, I have adopted the habit of knowing as little as possible about movies I intend to see. This practice has been highly satidfactory, and I commend it to you both. One early benefit was watching the first Matrix movie knowing *nothing whatever* of the basic conceit. This ranks among the top movie-viewing experiences of my life (it was also, I think, my first movie in the cathedral-like Mann Fox theatre in Westwood). So Doug, please excuse me if I delay my engagement with what I am sure are your insightful comments.

Rude Shock

I return from eleven days in Europe, open the fridge, and find
this staring back at me. I haven't dared to open the freezer compartment.



[Ben A.: 4/24/04 22:39]
   
     
   
Addendum on Eternal Sunshine

C.V. reports that I misidentified the speaker in my
remix of the plan-making scene. He also suggests that the director had in mind the same explanation for the plan's success that I was trying, via my added dialog, to make explicit. "Perhaps rather than counting on our laziness, Kaufman is counting on our coming up with exactly what you came up with." A good point; maybe it's just a matter of taste whether you like the explanation spelled out for you. I think the extra lines (mutatis mutandis) ward off a slight whiff of logical incoherence, but maybe it's a sign of my bad taste that I give such high priority to logical coherence. [Doug: 4/24/04 18:43]
 
   
My two cents on the progressive education/contrarianism topic

I have thought a lot about whether I am, or was, a contrarian, and about whether it is ever a good thing to be.

From roughly age ten to twenty-something, I identified myself explicitly as a contra, i.e. an opponent of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. This did not begin as a free-thinking provocation. We (my family, my parents, their friends, their kids) would go camping in northern Michigan. Part of this group (not my parents) were militant Republicans. Now one day I, John G., et al. were playing some variant of good guy/bad guy (Jedi/Stormtrooper, maybe) when someone, either my uncle Richard or Whitbeck (now chief judge of Michigan court of appeals), suggested that we play Contra, and use our tree branches to shoot down Sandinista helicopters. Under their tutelage, we developed this play mythos that was basically isomorphic to G.I. Joe, with Daniel Ortega as Destro, the Sandinistas as COBRA, and John's black lab Bluto as the head Contra. (Many of us still greet each other with the secret "Hail Bluto" sign.) The Contras were underdogs in this mythos, but you couldn't say that theirs was an "underrepresented perspective" where we were, namely in mid-Michigan public schools, since they simply weren't a topic at all there (unlike in Cambridge/Somerville schools). It wasn't until high school that the Contras became a tool of nonconformity for me. Not that my (suburban Philadelphia) high school enrolled many leftists. It was as preppy as public schools come. I was nonetheless becoming aware, mostly through Crossfire hosts and George Will's column, that there was a vapid liberal conformity paralyzing intellectual life in America. Whether this was true is a complicated matter (Reagan was president, after all) but the point is that I believed it, and was eager to go off to college and fight it, and went so far as to bleach "FDN" (the Spanish acronym of the main Contra force) onto my father's 1960's jean jacket and wear it around. (This is one of those details that belies my partitioning of my life into stages of Juvenile Seriousness, Ironic Anomie, California Epicurism, and Full Wisdom (the current stage). There's plenty of absurd gestures already in the supposedly serious high school stage.)

Moral? None, I guess. Or maybe that it is childish to identify with a cause. To advance a cause is fine (depending on the cause); it's when you weave it into your own self-image that it's dangerous, because then you can no longer think of it objectively.

In fact (if I may slip into gassy philosophical mode here) it is almost always bad to identify with one endpoint or another of any spectrum of human types or behaviors or opinions. Aristotle, Gautama et al. were right: wisdom is finding the middle course. This need not mean the median course relative to your time and place, the inoffensive "split-the-difference" position taken instinctively by the wishy-washy. The poles of debate here and now may have veered away from the absolute poles that you should steer between. The key is knowing when this veering has happened. For example, if you're French, and are arguing whether the government should control 70 percent or 50 percent of the economy, you ought to realize that it's happened. Likewise if you are an American ivy-leaguer deciding which of your talents, logical or creative, should guide your career choice -- meaning, toward corporate law or toward entertainment law -- your endpoints ought to be moved.

I have no idea where I was going with this, or even how I got started, but the wonder of the blog form is that I can remain guilt-free about this.

A much more focused, although equally pointless, observation

Today I walked past one of those "foot reflexology" places, with a chart in the window showing how every part of the body maps onto a part of the sole of the foot. To stimulate your kidney into better health, say, just squeeze your big toe. It occurs to me that there must be some bit you squeeze in order to stimulate the foot region. And there must be some topological fixed-point theorem proving that at least one node on the sole must stimulate itself. Shouldn't this cause a dangerous feedback loop? It's odd that you don't see more people's feet spontaneously combusting as they walk down the street. Unless, of course, the science of reflexology is not completely sound ...

[Doug: 4/24/04 17:43]
 
 
Now I'm In Your Camp on Clemens

Now I know the bitterness of betrayal that Red Sox's fans long ago tasted. The Rocket head-faked us! Retirement, my ass. Nobody who starts the season at 3-0 with an ERA under 1.00 is ready to hang up his cleats!
[Ben H.: 4/24/04 10:19]
 
 
Metric Freak-out

After ten days in EU hotels, eating rich food and getting no exercise, I decided to step on the scale to see the damage. I promptly misread 70 kg as 170 pounds. A bad 120 seconds...
[Ben A.: 4/24/04 00:34]
   
 
Humiliation

My team got schooled yet again. Jose Contreras was probably ex ante a good investment, but some good risk/reward trades turn out badly. A pitcher as erratic as Contreras has no place on a first-class pitching roster. Forget about sending him to Columbus: give him a raft and point him in the direction of Cuba. The Yankees new "murderers row" lives up to its name: its members manage to strangle any incipient rally in its crib. What other team -- even teams with one-tenth the Yank's payroll -- have a meat of the order without a .250 hitter? A-rod, though, did not wind up entirely useless. He served competently as a translator between Joe Torre and Contreras during their mound conferences.

It's not just that the Yankees are dreadful. The Sox look sharp. Lowe pitched a tight seven innings and the whole batting order beat on the Yankee pitching. If this team is a juggernaut now, what will it be when Nomar and Nixon return? Of course, in the end the Sox probably will fall before their greatest opponent: the month of September.
[Ben H.: 4/23/04 23:33]
 
 
Progressive Education

My grade school swung left-progressive* big time. I recall assemblies in support of the Sandanistas, and now it seems to have degenerated into PC parody (there's an "anti-racism education center"**).

Later in life, I discovered that the wife of one of my consulting colleagues taught at my grade school. She was flabberghasted to learn that any graduate "had a real job."

* Does this suggest that I am naturally contrary?
** Disclaimer: I oppose racism.

Haw Haw!

It's only the 7th, of course, but the invincible Red Sox juggernaut is rolling. And how about that Roger Clemens?
[Ben A.: 4/23/04 21:59]
   
 
Rumble in the Bronx

Tonight the expensive yet balky machine known as the New York Yankees takes on the Red Sox in the Bronx. I'll be watching closely in order to identify the moment (inevitably, it seems, before the 6th inning) when Jose Contreras undergoes the sudden metamorphosis from Cuban ace to fat-pitch dispenser. If the Bombers do manage to redeem themselves from the shame of last weekend's disastrous performance at Fenway, you, Ben A., can be sure to hear about it at length on this blog. If Contreras turns in another 7 earned-run stinker and A-Rod goes 1-for-5 (the one being a bunt single), then you'll probably log on tomorrow morning to find this post deleted...
[Ben H.: 4/23/04 13:31]
 
 
School for Scandal

NYT has a
somewhat arch profile of the retiring headmaster of the private school Bernie attended from first through twelfth grade. Among the distinguished alumni, they failed to number one of the Beastie Boys.

Notwithstanding the success of many of the students, it always struck me that St. Ann's embodied a lot of the problems of progressive education. You have to consider not just the outputs but the inputs, too. The student body was already screened for high IQ. The shocking thing was how many graduates flamed out in spectacular ways. Of her closest friends, only about half wound up graduating from college on time. One guy managed to spend 4 years on and off at Harvard without completing freshman year (though he eventually wound up a Brown, a wise move given the origin of his inability to perform). Many met the world of grades, deadlines, and inflexible requirements and simply refused to be bothered. [Ben H.: 4/22/04 13:39]
 
 
The Return of Explicitly Partisan Media

A while back, I speculated that McCain - Feingold would push interest groups into forming their own media outlets. It's happening faster than I thought. The NRA is starting up a Web TV operation. TCS has the story.

Watch, now, for the "reformers" countermove. Will they sacrifice 200 years of jurisprudence on prior restraint in order to close this loophole? If so, how will they try to tailor the restrictions? I can foresee the "reformers" trying to draw a distinction between "real" media and "partisan" media, possibly based on ownership. Of course, such a distinction is shockingly ahistorical, failing as it does to recognize the recent vintage of the journalistic objectivity fetish. [Ben H.: 4/21/04 09:49]
 
 
If You Want To Clear Customs at JFK Quickly...

..try to avoid landing 5 minutes after a packed mid-week flight from Santo Domingo. They ought to let passengers know in the D.R., before they board, that a Pathmark Discount Card is not an acceptable form of identification at a port of entry.
[Ben H.: 4/21/04 07:34]
 
 
Van Gogh's Progress

Your problem, Ben, is that you have exactly the same amount of ear cartilage as in 2000.

OK, that was obvious, but I you know I am weak...
[Ben H.: 4/21/04 00:25]
 
 
What Talent Means

In 1884, Van Gogh paints like
this and this.

Four years later, he paints this and this.

I, by contrast, am just as big a loser today as I was in 2000. [Ben A.: 4/20/04 20:59]
   
 
Kenneth Lumumba?

Who is he? A Pan Central-Africanist, somehow descended both from Patrice Lumumba of Zaire and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia?

One of the occupational hazards of EM is that it is filled with odd yet catchy names that can take over one's brain as effectively as the most unshakeable advertising jingle. One fellow we deal with has the family name "Furtado de Oliveira." This sounds to me like some sort of food (maybe because the first word sounds like "frittata" and the last word like "olive"). So every time my colleague or I receive a message from this fellow, we start asking each other, "would you like fresh pepper on your furtado de oliveira?"; or "hmmm, I'm in the mood for a furtado.. can I get with with oliveira andspam?" and so forth until we've wasted twenty minutes or so.

I am embarrassed to admit that after reading something about Afghanistan, I had the name "Najibullah" replaying over and over in my head to the tune of "Woolly Bully."

To get back to Kenneth Lumumba for a second -- one little game I play is to try to find pairs of EM political figures with similar names but who are as geographically divergent as possible. Examples: former Finance Minster of Romania, D. Traian Remes; former Finance Minister of Argentina, Jorge Remes. Former Governor of Venezuela state of Carabobo, Enrique Salas Romer; former Governor of Louisiana Buddy Roemer.
[Ben H.: 4/20/04 08:26]
 
   
The Parsippany Mistral

The hot winds are blowing tonight and I've been awake since 4 a.m. with thoughts tumbleweeding through my head: bits of Beethoven's seventh Symphony, the name "Kenneth Lumumba", sundry Java classes. What's worrying me most though is how evil you (Ben H.) have been here on the Mideast topic. I apologize for bringing this up again; I see that commendable efforts have been made in the GMT zone to get away from it, but I need to get this off my chest, and then I'm happy to talk more about peacock farms. Though I myself have stated that genocide might be warranted in extremis, our situation today with regard to the Arabs is not even in the suburbs of extremis. It occurs to me to declare you a monster and forswear further discussion (as you do to a half-billion Arabs). But my whole point has been and continues to be that you cannot do this (without being evil). Also, I think, Ben A. and I are in a privileged position to help you bring your monstrous views toward anonymous masses back into line with your more clement views toward people you've met. If only by exemplifying that care for doing good need not be moralistic puffery or "think of the children!" sentimentality. (And yet, come to think of it, it is worthwhile to think of the children while you write your proposals to kill them. I know you're imagining a clean zap-button process, because you said so, but this is just what makes your scenario kind of irrelevant. In real life you actually have to put them in the pit and shoot them.)

Like the love for Southern California, the joy of tweaking liberal pieties is something that unites the three of us. As I took the first to an unhealthy extreme, you relish taking the second as far as it can go, with far more genius then I could ever muster. And I don't use the word "genius" lightly: watching you destroy liberal pieties is like watching Ali, terrible and fascinating (moreover, terribly funny), and anyone who's met you knows that the small-screen adaptations here, lovely as they sometimes are, don't capture the full effect. I just wonder if you ever consider the cost at which you've honed this skill. I just finished reading Ravelstein, Bellow's portrait of his friend Allan Bloom, and though I don't expect I'll retain much from it, this much came across: you only perfect the persona at the expense of the person. Bellow is not, of course, insisting that this bargain should never be made. He's just saying that there's a cost, and it's a point that you, as an acute economist, ought to be receptive to.
[Doug: 4/20/04 07:05]
 
 
Alegoria Futbolista

You may have seen the news that Argentine Futbol hero (and, due to his
"Hand of God" cheating in the '86 world cup, UK villain) Diego Maradona wound up on a respirator in intensive care after suffering a sudden collapse. It's not that surprising given his long and very public history of massive cocaine abuse and his morbid obesity. Maradona served as a standard-bearer for Argentina in its moment of sporting triumph. Equally, in his fall he embodies his nation's flaws. This is what I wrote in my daily update:

The big news in Argentina, however, is national hero Diego Maradona's collapse. The portly cokehead has managed to snort his way into intensive care. Maradona is the perfect allegorical representation of his country. Once, long ago, he was strong, skillful and rich. However, his arrogance got the better of him, he fell into progessively worse condition, and ultimately became incapable of competing on a global stage. He turned to addictive substances (in his case drugs, in Arg's case debt) to keep himself happy. He tried to revive his fortunes by relying on a Cuban model (Maradona befriended Castro and underwent some detox quackery there; the Arg government cozied up to Cuba and lurched left domestically). Ultimately, a bloated wreck, he crashed completely. Alas, for Maradona, the IMF cannot arrange a heart-lung transplant.
[Ben H.: 4/20/04 06:42]
 
 
UK Plumbing

UK bathrooms annoy me. The sinks at our office have two faucets. One dispenses hot water, the other cold water. In order to wash one's hands in appropriately warm water, one must plug the drain and fill the sink with a mix of hot and cold water; or, if one is lazy like me, turn on both taps and oscillate one's hands back and forth really quickly in order to create the sensation of washing in warm water.

This time, I expressed my bafflement at this arrangement to my London colleagues. Of course, I assumed they would just point out to me that the building stock is old and that technological limitations of the epoch of its construction required the two-tap configuration. Surprisingly, I got a very different answer. "Mixer taps," they unanimously declared, are unsanitary. "Mixer taps?" In the U.S., we don't need a word for "Mixer taps" -- all faucets are of the "mixer" (single) variety, making the distinction lexically otiose.

According to my colleagues, drinking from the hot water tap is like sipping from the septic tank. Therefore, they enforce strict separation (to my mind, though, a well-constructed "mixer tap" should allow one to shut off the hot water flow completely, but I'll leave that objection aside). One faction here maintains that the fact that the water has been sitting in a tank for a few minutes makes it dangerous. Another claims that the hot water somehow soaks up lead. One woman suggested that "dead birds get into the hot water tank," as though aviary infiltration is endemic in Albion. Is it just me, or is this weird?
[Ben H.: 4/20/04 06:14]
 
 
Guess OBL is an Chelsea Fan

Based on this story
about a suicide bomb plot at a Man United match, maybe OBL put out a fatwah declaring that all good Muslims will root for Chelsea. [Ben H.: 4/20/04 06:02]
 
 
Indulge Me In One More Point, Free of Rhetorical Flourishes, Then On To The World's Peacock Farms, I Promise

Ben A., you correctly identify the two axes of the possibility frontier when it comes to dealing with terrorists: deterrence vs provocation. Of course, it is impossible to know exactly how a policy will work in advance of carrying it out. Yet, I think one can make an informed estimate based on what one knows about the target. Does the target have an articulated, realistic political goal? How has the target motivated its followers? What degree of control can be exercised over these followers (is there just a gas pedal or a gas pedal and a brake)? If the answers are "yes", "through making a strong case for the justice of its claim" (and not through whipping people up into a frenzy of hatred for whoever oppose them), and "a high degree of control", then clearly negotiation is worth a try. Let's take a couple of examples, and contrast them to the Arab one.

Let me start with one which has featured levels of brutality at least as high as the Middle East's, so that the difference can't simply be chalked up to the lower intensity of the conflict. The Tamils want either a higher level of autonomy or outright independence for a northern part of Sri Lanka. In that portion of the island they form an overwhelming majority. Their aspirations may lead to a dimished state of Sri Lanka, but in no way represent an existential threat to the Sinhalese. To motivate their followers they have pointed to how the Sinhalese have made advancement difficult for Tamils and Tamil-speakers by various unfair policies (Sinhala-only language policy in government, for example). Notwithstanding some recent fissiparousness, LTTE has functioned as a fairly coherent militia. As a result, one side of the political spectrum in Sri Lanka has advocated and advanced negotiation, which culminated in a cease fire. The leading hard-liner, Mrs. Kumurutunga, seems motivated in her instransigence more by personal grudge than anything else. Pop Vellipulai and my guess is you do very little to end the conflict and probably just motivate Tamils to carry on the fight.

Or, take the AUC (rightist paramilitary) in Colombia. AUC want the government to ensure the physical safety of Colombian landowners in zones which, up to now, the government has not made its authority felt. The state has surrendered the legitimate monopoly of force to "rebels" and criminal gangs in these areas. AUC has built paid paramilitary forces in these areas to take on the rebels and criminals. The government has recently gotten them to start decommissioning. They didn't achieve this through killing Carlos Castano. Instead, the Uribe government has stepped up spending on the military and has begun to reassert the power of the state in areas plagued by rebels and criminals. That, plus promised help in re-integrating AUC fighters into society proved sufficient.

Now, let's contrast that with another non-Middle East situation that I think illustrates a case where it was pretty clear ex-ante that killing the enemy was the only hope. The Shining Path of Peru wanted to turn Peru into something like Pol Pot's Cambodia. This goal was completely incompatible with the most basic aspirations of the vast majority of the Peruvian people. Shining Path's goals posed an existential threat to much of Peruvian society. Its fighters were organized in a loose cell structure and were motivated by brainwashing into a bizarro ideology. The charismatic and mysterious figure of Abimael Guzman held it all together. Negotiating with these guys would go nowhere. Taking Guzman out of the picture dispirited many of the members of these scattered cells and caused the organization to wither.

I think the Palestinian situation looks more like the last one than the former two. The true goal of the Palestinians represents an existential threat to Israel (we all know the true goal is "Palestine" from the Jordanian border to the sea). The Palestinian people have been motivated by a steady diet of loony, blood-libel style propaganda about Jews. The leadership has long ago smashed any "off-switch," such that the way to persuading the followers to change their behavior is not through the leadership. And we have ample evidence from the repressive Arab societies that oderint dum metuant works extremely well at bringing to heel this particular population: witness Mubarak, Assad, King Hussein and his "Palestinians", Sadaam Hussein, the Saudis, etc.
[Ben H.: 4/20/04 04:34]
 
 
Hydra Fallacy, Hydra Reality

I did not mean to imply, Doug, that force cannot backfire. Sometimes violence does beget more violence, and killing a terrorist (or criminal, or dissident) encourages others to carry his banner.

What I regard as fallacy however, is the elevation of this insight into universal law. Organizational skills are rare, leadership likewise. For every Bin Laden killed, encourages two replacements of equal ability, legitimacy, and stature. As I put it in an earlier post: if you kill every NFL quarterback Monday, expect a lot of running plays Sunday.

So I agree with Ben H that assassinating an organization's leadership will reduce its effectiveness. Whether that effect can be offset by other consequences seems like a very hard question to answer. To gesture towards even-handed, let me remark that while the right makes the same error about deterrence the left makes about incitement. It’s the policy that never fails! For hawks, killing terrorists always scares off potential Al Queda plotters (bonus phrases: “Better to be feared then loved” or “In that part of the world, all they understand is…”); for doves killing terrorists always incites innocent Arab bakers to drop rolling-pins and pick up RPGs. Even specific applications of these generalizations are rarely substantiated. The whole argument makes me tired.

As for the dehumanization of Arabs. It will not surprise you, Ben H, that I do find your causal call for mass slaughter repellent. I’d be more forceful, but am loath to fall into the (habitual) role of straight man responding to your hyperbolic flourishes. Well, maybe I’ll go part way down that path after all. We all saw those cheering Palestinian crowds after 9-11, and I doubt I am the only one in whom those images evoked the simple thought: gatling gun. But I recognized this impulse as an evil one, as, thank heaven, did those with more power than I. Those cheering did not kill anyone, nor, I think, would most take the opportunity if given. Yes, they are dangerous to us, and wish us ill. But most will not become killers, and given the opportunity, will express common humanity.

You know this, of course, but raise the rhetorical stakes to support the generalization of the “no man, no problem” solution: either Arab civilians die indiscriminately, or it’s an eternity of thralldom to cannibal Morlocks. It cheers me immensely that this is not the view taken by Likud, by Sharon, or by the IDF, who in the event took great care to minimize the risk the assassinations of Rantizi and Yassin posed to non-combatants.

I can’t imagine I’m telling either of you anything you did not know, or indeed that could not have been produced by a 4k “Ben A” emulator. So I leave off by renewing my pleas that we drop Middle East politics as a topic here. Surely in a world of wonder we can find other things to talk about: for example, three days ago I was chased a mile through Cheshire by a fat white dog, finally shaking him off at a peacock farm. Maybe we can build on that.
[Ben A.: 4/19/04 21:33]
   
 
The Mythical London Weather

My London weather experience has reached the point of absurdity. I've often remarked how my visits here typically coincide with periods of glorious sunshine. I have begun to suspect that rainy London is just a myth. Today I am enjoying mild temperatures and cloudless skies. Perhaps London residents, frustrated with already sky-high real estate prices, have conspired to scare away possible immigrants with tales of endless fog and drizzle.
[Ben H.: 4/19/04 12:22]
 
 
The Mythical Hydra

It seems to me, from the presence of organized bomb factories, multi-national funding networks, and dual-track organizations ("separate" politcal and military wings) that most terrorism relies on more extensive infrastructure than you credit. "Hate" may ramify and replicate itself, but actual mass killing relies on careful tending. Look at, say, Bosnia (to take an example on my mind, since I saw the government present at the EBRD meetings yesterday). The Serbs and Bosnians still hate each other. Yet, with Karadic and Mladic put to flight, and their organization scattered, nobody is lobbing mortars into marketplaces in Sarajevo.

If, Doug, you are right that terrorism is hydra-headed, then we have nothing to choose from but total capitulation and your #3. And, to be totally, brutally honest with both of you, to reveal something you'll both no doubt find repellent, if a daemon granted me the power to bring about #3 with a snap of my fingers, I would snap them before a heartbeat had passed.
[Ben H.: 4/19/04 04:26]
 
   
The Vanishing Center

Had to walk to a second deli to get regular orange juice: the world seems to have polarized into "no pulp" and "lots of pulp".

Also, we seem to have moved from 50-degree weather to 70-degree weather directly, skipping the moderate period of 60's that used to be called "spring".

Brunchez-vous?

I feel I have to mention, a propos of nothing, that we had full-fledged brunches Saturday and Sunday.
[Doug: 4/19/04 00:01]
 
   
The Definitive Explanation of Why You Should Not Dehumanize Your Opponents

... is not going to be written, at least by me, in the near future, so I'll have to content myself with a few observations I had intended to include in it.

1. The idea that every person is intrinsically valuable, that all human souls have some par value before God, that there is a universal right to life and the pursuit of happiness, is a chief glory of our civilization, and one of its foundations. If you deny this idea by saying that Arabs are genetically (or at any rate irredeemably) scum, it seems to me that you are throwing out a tremendous lot. I won't even begin to defend this idea here. It is often, as a matter of sociological fact, tied up with religious ideas that I don't believe. And maybe I could not come up with a completely cogent philosophical replacement for these religious underpinnings. Still: if you junk this idea, where are you left?

2. Granted that it will not make much difference, when you are confronted by a berserk ululating Palestinian with a dyamite belt, whether you call him a potentially valuable human with the bad luck to have been born into a debased culture of death, or an outright pig-dog: it has to matter in the long run (for questions of peace and stability) which thing you say about his people.

3. ... unless, of course, you kill all his people. You cannot kill all however many million Palestinians; it would be evil. From the media reports I see, 90% of Palestinians are mean, wretched, and small-souled. These are not capital crimes, though. A very small proportion are guilty of capital crimes, even if most of the rest dance in the streets upon their commission. "No man, no problem" may apply to, say, Jeffrey Dahmer. A five-million-member tribe is a different story.

4. This brings us to the hydra-headedness of terror groups. Ben A. is on record (I think; I didn't look for the post) as suspecting that this is a fallacy. Ben H. seems to agree. It has to be a good indication of hydra-headedness, though, when Rantisi's followers literally anoint themselves with blood from his mangled corpse. More importantly, I think your time horizon is too short. Killing these guys harms Hamas in a 6 or 12-month horizon, but leaves the whole Palestinian people (and, increasingly, all Arabs) with an even more vicious and implacable blood-lust for Israelis (and, increasingly, Americans).
[Doug: 4/18/04 23:49]
 
   
"No Man, No Problem"

Are you sure Stalin said that? I thought it was a Bob Marley song.
[Doug: 4/18/04 22:53]
 
 
Guess Money Can't Buy Victory

Well, Ben A., I will do my best to give the lie to the Yankees' reputation as the evil empire by being gracious in my team's defeat. The Red Sox have looked much stronger than the Bombers. At this point, I'd rather have paid for Manny Ramirez's numbers than Alex Rodriguez's.
[Ben H.: 4/18/04 16:53]
 
 
Carpet-licker Not(=) Rug-muncher

No group should take over more than its fair share of epithets. I did consider the possibility of confusion, but I decided to rely on the power of context.

As for the wisdom of killing Rantisi, we should recognize that different traditions shed different hues of light on the question. The Buddha says, "hatred is not ended by hatred." Note Stalin's (no slouch in the practice of power politics) gloss on the matter: "Death solves all problems. No man, no problem."

By the way, looks like the attack got Rantisi's son, too. I guess that's what they mean by extirpating terrorism "root and branch."

I thought that the language was spelled "Paali."
[Ben H.: 4/18/04 13:00]
 
   
I Know You're Innocent until Proven Guilty

... but anyone who
changes his name to Danton has some bloodlust issues. [Doug: 4/18/04 00:38]
 
   
Critic For A Paragraph

[
Addendum on this point, April 24]

Liked Eternal Sunshine. Quibble (and perhaps plot-spoiler, although I think it only spoils a part of plot that's rancid to begin with): During the central section of the movie, when Joel is running around inside his own memories and becomes conscious that he is doing so, he discusses with Clementine how best to avoid the erasure of these memories, as though Clementine were actually there with him. That's fine, since people in our dreams do speak to us, and since dramatic imperatives preclude making this whole section a pure monologue by Joel ... but it's only fine until the end of the section, when Joel and Clementine devise a plan to meet somewhere after he wakes up. And later, in the real world, Clementine meets him as planned. Whatever independence dream-Clementine may have as a fragment of Joel's scattered mind, she is clearly part of his mind, and cannot transmit ideas to the Clementine in the real world. Unless, I guess, the filmmakers are suggesting some occult link here. But they manifestly aren't. They are just counting on viewers' mental laziness to leave this flaw hidden, hoping that the dramatic need for the lovers to set a plan will be so strongly felt that its logical impossibility will be ignored. Suggestion for a DVD remix: add the following lines after Joel says "Meet me in Montauk":

CLEMENTINE

But Joel, I'm not really Clementine. I'm just a part of your mind.

JOEL

Well, if you're a part of my mind it's because I've gotten to know the real you so well. And if this particular plan occurs to me, maybe it's because I know it's the same plan you'd think of, if you were in my place, if we were inside your head. That is, if you would want to think up a plan at all ...


I think that ties everything up nicely. Incidentally, it should be taken as a tribute that I bother trying to fix this at all. 99% of the mind-warp/time-travel/brain-in-a-vat flicks I see are so incoherent that to critique their handling of their premises would be like looking for holes in the Teletubbies' backstories. Eternal Sunshine keeps its gimmick under control, and never lets it overshadow the characters. It does what I said Murakami's Bird Chronicle failed to do -- it uses a magical premise to shed new light on real life.

[Doug: 4/18/04 00:15]
 
   
Ben, I have to object to your use of the epithet "Pali" for Palestinians. Pali is the South Indian (Sri Lankan?) language in which the oldest, and by most accounts most faithful, transmissions of the Buddha's words were written. I don't want a language of peace dragged into this war!

And please don't try to mollify me by calling the Palestinians "carpet lickers" instead. Everyone knows that that epithet should be used to denigrate lesbians.

Seriously, I will take up your Arab-bashing in a serious way soon; for now, let me say that I don't question Israel's right to kill this guy, but I do wonder about the wisdom of doing so. That the Buddha's saying "hatred is not ended by hatred" has become trite does not make it less true.
[Doug: 4/17/04 22:50]
 
 
Buh-Bye

Israel
pastes mass-murdering co-monotheist Abdel Aziz Rantisi, head of Hamas. Of course, over here, BBC is letting one of his Pali bloodsucker friends hold forth about how the "fanatic Israeli government" killed him because he was a moderate. Riiiight. It seems like from the hysteria of the Palis since Sharon's withdrawal plan, they realize they have over-reached. Unilateral separation + Targeted Assassination = Game Over.

Yassir, watch your back!
[Ben H.: 4/17/04 15:43]
 
 
Tyranny of the Calendar

I'm heading out to London today for the
EBRD meetings. The busiest day of meetings takes place Sunday. As has been the case every year the EBRD holds the meetings in London (every other year), it shares this date with the London Marathon. Not that London is the easiest city to get around under ordinary circumstances, but with the marathon going on it is completely paralyzed. One year, the main site for EBRD was nestled inside a dense loop of streets blocked off for the race. I couldn't figure out a way in other than jumping a barrier and running across the racecourse. [Ben H.: 4/16/04 08:34]
 
 
The Last Bubble

The bond market is in free fall, spreads are widening, the dot-com boom is but a distant dream, but New York real estate continues its inexorable ascent. The average Manhattan apartment sale fetched the once-proud sum of
one million dollars. In a textbook case of "money illusion" people still think of a million as the threshhold of wealth, but the Fed has so revved up the printing presses that there are way more millionaires in NYC than there are apartments for them to live in. But don't worry, if we all pretend there's no inflation, then there's no inflation, right?

What will it take to prick this most durable of bubbles? Doug, I think you suggested it. This bubble might be impervious to anything short of -- literally -- a nuclear blast. Apparently, a few hundred thousand pounds of jet fuel proved inadequate to the task. [Ben H.: 4/15/04 07:21]
 
 
The Truth Is What Works

Even under loose pragmatist standards, religions involving
snakehandling are utterly false. That said, it's really a shame snakehandling isn't part of al-Sadr's version of Islam. [Ben H.: 4/14/04 11:32]
 
 
There's No Inflation...

The mantra of the easy money crowd may lose some of its persuasive power after today's CPI print. Certainly, the bond market isn't so easily soothed anymore. And several banks have moved up their timetables for the beginning of the Fed's tightening cycle from December to August or September. Still too late, if you ask me...
[Ben H.: 4/14/04 08:53]
 
 
Kipling The Seer

You can forgive him his anti-German vitriol; he lost his only son to the Germans in the disastrous Battle of Loos.

His speech is quite prescient, colored by animus though it may be, with respect to the future of the Germans. On the French, his views were perhaps a touch optimistic, but one might expect that given the venue.
[Ben H.: 4/14/04 08:06]
 
 
The Deep, Immense (and Not Discreet at All) Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Bully for your lovely new placemats! As should be no surprise, I defend the bourgeoisie adamnatly at any opportunity, and so will provide a site-appropriate Kipling remark:

Now the ancient and immemorial fairy-tales of France and of England are of a charming simplicity. There is always a young man who goes out into the world to seek his fortune. On the road he is kind to a beggar, an old woman, or, perhaps a cat. This, though he knows it not, is a good investment. Very soon, he falls into the hands of giants or sorcerers. He is cast into prison, or compelled to perform impossible tasks. At that moment, the beggar, the old woman, or the cat whom he had befriended, comes to his rescue, tells him the magic word, that opens the prison door and achieves the impossible task; or gives him the magic sword which destroys the giants at one blow. In consequence, the youth possesses himself of all their treasure and, equally, he marries a Princess—that Princess which exists always in the dreams of youth. He becomes the Head of a Kingdom, and, in due course, the head of a family.

You perceive, do you not, that our national fairy-tales reflect the inmost desires of the Briton and the Gaul? Thus:—

There was a young man, who through lucky investments, became a wealthy rentier, consolidated his social position by a desirable alliance, and founded a family. You may say that the ideal is bourgeois, but on the pursuit of that ideal, as our youth has pursued it eternally, is based an enormous proportion of the progress and the continuity of our civilisation

The whole
speech is fun: it starts out on fairy tales, and quickly moves onto bashing Germans.
[Ben A.: 4/13/04 14:43]
   
 
In that case, more champagne, guv? [Ben H.: 4/13/04 13:47]
 
 
It's company money. The exchange rate could be seventeen guilders to the doubloon and I wouldn't care. Or rather, as an empowered employee owner, I would. [Ben A.: 4/13/04 13:42]
   
 
The Swedish Model

Swedish place-mats are not an extravagance. They outperform American and Chinese place-mats by a considerable margin in crash tests.
[Ben H.: 4/13/04 13:40]
 
   
Sorry

... about not posting for a week or more. I'll resume spewage one of these days. For now, on the subject of Sweden I do have one attestation: our designer placemats just arrived from there via airmail. Le réembourgeoisement est achevé, paraît-il ...
[Doug: 4/13/04 09:21]
 
 
Prepare to Experience Relative Poverty

Ben A., I don't know when you last visited the U.K., but you should mentally prepare yourself for sticker-shock. Sterling is now over $1.80 and everything seems to cost at least as many GBP there as it costs USD here. (Side note: Bloomberg reported that a house in Kensington traded for GBP70 million) I have to admit that I cannot figure out how the U.K. manages at this exchange rate. It hardly strikes me as a paragon of high productivity. One theory that a few friends who live there have advanced is that the U.K. is a haven for dirty money (not least from our co-monotheists who live astride the Persian Gulf), the inflow of which pushes up the exchange rate.

I am heading over to London on Friday for a few days. Of the hotels that are on my approved list, I can't find one that will come out to less than $400/night. We're not talking about The Four Seasons or Connaught, either. If the USD doesn't bounce back, how will I hold up the tradition of the Ugly American?
[Ben H.: 4/13/04 09:20]
 
 
You, Too, Can Be A Hero

Before every retail sales number, I rally the other guys on the desk:

Joe Schmoe saw a DVD player and he bought it! He didn't think about the huge balance on his credit card. He didn't whine about the mortgage payment past due. He didn't quail before his weak job prospects. With a laser-like focus, he marched up to the counter and plunked down his plastic. Joe Schmoe is a hero! An American hero!

Looking at the retail sales release today (including the Feb revision), consumption heroism is much in evidence. The bond market now must show its mettle. I fear that the only sort of heroism it will have room to exhibit is that of the defenders of the Alamo in the face of Lopez de Santa Ana... If these strong economic numbers keep up, Kerry and the Dems may find themselves in the role of Davy Crockett & Co this November.



[Ben H.: 4/13/04 09:06]
 
 
My Trip to Aslan Pharmaceuticals

Like most business travelers, I loath leaving home. And over the next ten days I'm on a particularly gruelling itinerarry, happily, it seems to consist largely of imaginary places. For example, in England I stay in "Mottram St. Andrew; Prestby, Cheshire." This, clearly, is a joke name. There's no such place outside Evelyn Waugh. Nor, am I convinced of the reality of Aachen, Germany.

And while I have heard tell of Malmo, Sweden itself has always been a dubious entity. Do we have documentation of Swedish interaction with the rest of the world that postdates Gustavus Adolfus? I am skeptical.

Expect (yet more) sporadic posting.

Doug, I'll have plenty of time in airports to read Allison...
[Ben A.: 4/13/04 09:06]
   
 
Do Your Like Your Gerontocracy Swathed in Mao Suits or Black Robes?

No Supreme Court Justices are
likely to retire this year. So who's older now? The Supreme Court of the U.S. or the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party? If you compare the list for the 15th Central Committee with that of the 16th (above), you will find quite a bit more turnover than we get between Supreme Court terms... [Ben H.: 4/12/04 15:13]
 
 
Not All Monotheists Go To Heaven

Interesting
Dalrymple piece on why some branches of monotheism spawn more medieval-minded violent thugs than do others. He sees militancy as a sign of weakness. I hope he is right, though I remain unconvinced. [Ben H.: 4/12/04 14:56]
 
 
But How Will The Leaders of Tomorrow Learn to Reason Morally?

More evidence that Larry Summers was an inspired choice for the presidency of Harvard. It looks like at long-last the intellectually bankrupt Core Curriculum is
going to be liquidated. About time. For those who worry that without the Core, the leaders of tomorrow will not learn moral reasoning, I suggest that all freshman could receive a little pamphlet at registration.

Moral Reasoning: Observe the faculty; do the opposite. [Ben H.: 4/12/04 10:49]
 
 
Our Fine Fellow Monotheists

Blowing up reconstruction workers, kidnapping people, threatening to behead hostages, threatening to blow up churches, killing Red Crescent workers -- our fellow monotheists have had a
really busy Holy Week! Just because they practice a Religion of Peace doesn't mean they're not always on the go, go, go! They put the rest of the global monotheist community to shame.. I mean what did the rest of us accomplish this week? Hiding pieces of matzoh, chowing on hardboiled eggs; or messing around with palm fronds and praying. We really need to get busy... [Ben H.: 4/11/04 11:08]
 
 
Against All Enemies, The Movie: The Al-Terminator

I hope they leave in the part where the Caliph sends back a robotic jihadi from the 23rd century to kill Clarke's mother, Ms. Sarah Connor, so Dick is never conceived and can never warn the President about 9/11 and thereby prevent the rise of the World Empire of Islam.
[Ben H.: 4/11/04 10:59]
 
 
Now Can We Attack His Character?

"Against All Enemies" -- the
movie.

[Ben A.: 4/11/04 10:15]
   
 
Uncanny!

Chandler Bing or Catherine the Great? [Ben A.: 4/11/04 10:14]
   
 
Paper Money Is a Mug's Game

You've both razzed me for my tendency to shed coins the way cats shed hair, and I take your point. When I moved back to New York several years ago, I decided that I would more carefully husband my metallic currency. I set up a bowl on my bedroom window seat into which I deposited loose change. Over time, the bowl filled up and the coins began to occupy adjacent space on the window seat. By the time I moved out, most of the window seat lay under a coin-mail sheet; and, unfortunately, I didn't have any less loose change on the floor than I had in my previous apartments. I just went back to drop off the keys to my old apartment as well as to collect this little treasure trove of coins, which I brought to a
Coinstar machine at Food Emporium. The tally ran to $125 dollars. That does not include all the foreign money. In sterling alone, I had almost $25 more. I had to shovel coins into the machine for nearly 15 minutes. At some point I noticed a hovering presence behind me. Some poor lady had shuffled in with a small bag of change. Not wanting to make her wait an inordinately long time, I did not reinsert the seemingly valid coins the machine kicked out, which themselves probably would have added another $10 or so to the tally. When I walked away from the machine, you would have been able to tell that I had been there... there were loose coins all over the floor... [Ben H.: 4/10/04 18:01]
 
 
The Crackup

Jeff Skilling
loses it in public. Has his guilty conscience driven him to delusions, like some sort of financial Lady MacBeth? Or has the clever ex-consultant done a benchmarking study of other obviously guilty perps' endgames and decided to try the Vincent "The Chin" Gigante defense? Hint to Mr. Skilling: your wardrobe should include a tatty bathrobe. [Ben H.: 4/9/04 18:56]
 
 
I'm No Midrash Master, But...

I am always a little uncomfortable aligning myself in a doctrinal dispute in which I have no important stake. There is something grating and insincere about all these non-Catholic newspaper scribblers instructing the Vatican about how it should deal with paedophilia among the priesthood by changing its doctrine in specific ways. As an atheist, then, I hesitate to opine too freely on most aspects of the contemporary practice of religion, even the Jewish religion into which I was born. However, I do attend my family's Seder every year, so I suppose I am entitled to weigh in on the innovations wrought on the Seder by the so-called "Reconstructionist" tradition. Stuff like Miriam's Cup. Miriam's Cup? I mean, ok, Elijah happens to be an XY, and he gets a cup. But he's an imaginary person. Somehow it is prejudicial to women's equality that we don't leave a cup of wine for an imaginary woman, too? What have we come to when we debate affirmative action for imaginary people? Maybe we should leave cups of water along with the wine out of solidarity with recovering imaginary dipsomaniacs. Modernizing Jews seem to have a singular knack for traducing the meanings of the holidays they seek to update. Giving gifts on Hanukah as a concession to Christmas: nice, isn't the whole point of the holiday resistance to syncretism? Passover reminds us of our connection to a little tribe that escaped bondage in Egypt many thousands of years ago; it is about continuity. This is last place to introduce innovations from 20th Century feminism or gay rights.

Like I said, I feel a little weird making the argument, since I have no brief to defend the integrity of what I consider to be a complete waste of time, but if the Seder is bunkum, then Miriam's cup is bunkum squared, a rational redesign of something fundamentally irrational.

[Ben H.: 4/8/04 11:50]
 
 
How Not To Be A Progressive

In the early 1980s, the Hillel Foundation invited me to speak on a panel at Oberlin College. While on campus, I came across a Haggada that had been written by some Oberlin students to express feminist concerns. One ritual they devised was placing a crust of bread on the Seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians ("there's as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of break on the Seder plate").

Ah, that delicate line between integrating oneself into a tradition and challenging the tradition. And
Oberlin activists exhibit the light touch in this regard we would expect. Why not just use a giant pig trotter?

Via CT.

[Ben A.: 4/8/04 09:49]
   
 
Don't Smear the Japanese

State Shinto and aggressive militarism were political innovations to Japan that ultimately did not have deep roots. The analogy to Islam -- or even to Wahhabi Islam -- is not apt, since it was born as a chauvinistic fighting religion and has long persisted as such. Veneration of the emperor, though, did have deep roots and, what d'ya know, that's still around. Unfortunately, the obnoxious aspects of Arab-style Islam are woven into the very fabric of religion. There's a much better chance that I wind up a puddle on post-apocalyptic Park Avenue within the next twenty years than that the Arab countries become as peaceful, productive, and free as Japan.

I like
LGF by the way, although I think this site tends to be even a little more unvarnished in its truth-telling.

Better than both of these, though, is the brilliant Oriana Fallaci, who has a new book out, The Force of Reason, which expands on the argument she made in The Rage and The Pride. I'm so touched by the 5 cent gesture you have planned for my shade, Ben A., that if you remind me of your mailing address, I'll send you both books. [Ben H.: 4/8/04 06:20]
 
 
Capitalist Catechism

Many Americans, comfortable with their dollars, believe that Capitalism is monotheistic. However, if you had spent more time on international finance, you would realize that Mammon only covers USD. The Capitalist pantheon is quite broad, encompassing one god for each currency. I am resolutely polytheistic and, as you can imagine, my particular cult membership switches around quite rapidly.
[Ben H.: 4/8/04 06:13]
 
 
Monotheism

I thought you had firm commitment to Mammon?


"Come and Learn What Laban the Aramean Tried to Do to Our Father Jacob"

There's no doubt the islamism of Bin Laden represents a horrendous threat. But so did Japan forty years ago, now not so much. And I know you love the Japanese, what with all your Hello Kitty paraphenalia.

However, if it makes you happy, I hereby pledge $0.05 to the
little green footballs tip jar in the event of your nuclear inceniration.


[Ben A.: 4/7/04 22:32]
   
 
Out of Consideration for You...

... I'll just contain my opinions about the Muslim Arabs (who I do not consider my fellows in any respect). Just promise me this: after I and mine wind up vaporized by a nuclear device set off by one of these upstanding monotheists (a group of which I do not consider myself a member), you'll admit that I was right about the sort of threat their civilization posed to ours.

Poor T.E. Lawrence had it backwards, as far as I can tell. I've had nothing but wonderful interactions with the Turkish people I've dealt with (including a really invaluable member of my team at work), and had nothing but grief from the Arabs.
[Ben H.: 4/7/04 22:07]
 
 
Ben H, I know you approach this blog with the same spirit of vitriol-tinged whimsy that you bring to donut-eating and milk-gallon-chugging contests on the trading floor, and I can likewise attest to your sterling (really!) personal qualities and moral probity.

Those who know you less well, however, will likely find your comments on our co-monotheists (and, often, fellow citizens) of Arab descent over the top. Insanely, wildly, sanity-questioningly over-the-top, actually. So much so that one acquaintance of mine wondered if you shared a personal history with Muslims on par with T.E. Lawrence’s Turkish experience.

That can’t be good, right? And who wants to have an Arab friend click to the site and find their family referred to as ‘carpet-lickers’? Not me. So can I ask that we tone down/class up/or perhaps just table our discussion of Middle Eastern politics?
[Ben A.: 4/7/04 19:35]
   
 
French Govt Opposes Turkish Entry Into EU

The new French Foreign Minister just told Reuters his government opposes Turkey's accession bid. News flash: the Turks are the good Muslims. Maybe you should have found your inner chauvinist a while back, before you let in all the lunatic Muslims from North Africa (and they didn't wait for EU accession to come over).
[Ben H.: 4/7/04 11:18]
 
 
Biological Development: Similar, Yet Different

Really? Aren't the Arabs darker than the palefaces of Idaho? You're not telling me it's a suntan, are you?

OK, I'll be serious for one paragraph. One should be wary of historical analogies, for the captious ones outnumber the good ones, but I'll take the risk: Al-Sadr's "uprising" is the Iraqi Tet Offensive. We are going to slaughter a lot of carpet-lickers and destroy his pathetic "Madi Army." However, in the few days it takes to do so, the newsmen on the scene will witness lots of big explosions, injuries, and property damage. These pictures they will transmit to the American public. Let's hope that this time the American public does not allow itself to be duped about the significance of the events.
[Ben H.: 4/6/04 17:10]
 
 
Biological Development?

Let me suggest that genotpying of Riyadh and Boise will yield similar results.

You're not going paleo-con on us, are you Ben H?
[Ben A.: 4/6/04 16:32]
   
 
That Depends

If more troops means more dead Arabs, I'm all for it. If it means more guys in the Reserves pulled away from their jobs to dig wells for ungrateful wogs, then I oppose it. We have been far too gentle. As I said at the beginning of this adventure, we needed to make the truculent segments of the Iraqi population feel like they had been soundly thrashed, such that their will to resist would be effectively broken. Instead, we let Al-Sadr get away with murder, we let looting Sunnis get away with goods of every description, and as a result we let the momentum get away from us. I hope that we really make an example out of Fallujah. I do not believe that doing a Guernica on these fuckers will somehow rally the rest of Iraq to their defense. The Kurds, the Turcomen and the Shia all hate the Sunnis and would be glad to see them suffer; at the same time, the mischievous among these other groups would not miss the message of the futility of resistance.

The first best choice, of course, would be to build a liberal polity through peaceful means. We should not ignore the possibility that Arabs, at this stage of their historical and biological development, are simply incapable of living together in a free society. In that case, we should fall back to our second-best set of objectives -- namely to ensure that Iraq does not again become a regional threat and does not, on the other hand, turn into a failed state. To achieve this goal, we might need to beat refractory elements of the population into submission and to install a strong, relatively undemocratic, pro-American regime. You know, people use the Shah of Iran as the avatar of all that's wrong with that approach, but he served his purpose for several decades and only faltered when Jimmuh Carter ordered him to behave like a Western European monarch.
[Ben H.: 4/6/04 14:10]
 
 
More Troops

About time, don't you think?
[Ben A.: 4/6/04 10:44]
   
 
Unilateral Disarmament

How does the U.S. Civil Rights commission recommend we deal with
mad Arab bombers? Apparently, pretend they don't exist. [Ben H.: 4/4/04 15:08]
 
 
Sounds like Paul Anka is irritable. A contemporary B-list celebrity, Mr. Robert Young, would surely diagnose an overdose of caffeine as the culprit. Mr. Anka, switch to Sanka! [Ben H.: 4/2/04 22:11]
 
 
Yes, Mr. Anka. Yes, Mr. Anka

Don't make him
angry. [Ben A.: 4/2/04 16:27]
   
 
Four More Years

Monster employment report: +308K. Somewhat puzzling simultaneous drop in wages and hours worked...
[Ben H.: 4/2/04 09:51]
 
   
The Unspoken Argument

I realize this morning that I left out the reason why I didn't buy Kant's Compatibilism. Among the three of us it goes without saying. Here, for others, is the argument against academic philosophy that I currently prefer:

<BenStein>At this point it behooves us to distinguish between two forms of strong/weak distinctionalism, strong strong/weak distinctionalism and weak strong/weak distinctionalism ... </BenStein>

The Unclothed Emperor

That reminds me of my current argument against contemporary art, which again hardly needs to be spoken:

<JamesMcCretin>Great, fantastic. What this painting is doing, it's questioning the boundaries ... between boundaries, and questioning. I mean, it really puts into question the boundaries of the whole question of boundary-questioning! Greeeeeat!</JamesMcCretin>

The Unsnapped Picture

I had to trot out that argument last night à propos of a friend's friend, who (apparently) is a Palestinian artist with a piece in the Whitney biennial. Anyway that whole conversation was due to our just having attended the gallery opening of our mutual (non-Palestinian) friend
Jane Mount in Williamsburg (the hip corner of Brooklyn). It was fun to see all the design-side folks from early Concrete Media days. Also saw Dan Pelson (the CEO as well as Jane's ex-boyfriend) who is always fun so long as he is not actively trying to sell you something. Actually, no, he can even be fun when he's selling you something, and that may account for his success. (It would, in any case, take a trained novelist to capture all the personalities of that company, which makes it sad that Emma McLaughlin, who worked there near the end, has chosen to write her sophomore novel about something else (and rumor says it's so bad that the publisher, despite the huge advance, may not even print it).)

Jane's Art was swell (she actually has talent and does not seem to be questioning any boundaries that I can see) but what was absurdly beautiful was the other people at the gallery opening. You know my friend Jason, who worked for a while at Concrete -- his wife Rachel always bitched about how pretty and well-dressed everyone was there. I thought she was just being bitter/resentful, but in retrospect it was a little weird. I mean, who locates their software company in Soho? Last night brought the whole aesthetic back. And it wasn't just the girls -- there was this group of three guys who I swear just walked off the set of Zoolander. I was going to ask them to do the "magnum" ... well no, I wan't, but I was going to take a discreet digital photo, only my friends wouldn't let me.

The Unending Loop

Except for the gallery opening, the last couple days have been a big drag. The project I'm doing at work keeps crashing because of an infinite loop in the XML parser I'm using. The world seems to have standardized on an open-source parser for Java, in javax.xml.parsers, which avails itself of some code in the package org.apache.crimson.parser, which itself seems -- the comments are a little vague but I'm inferring -- to have been written by a pimply teenager with a 2-liter of Code Red Mountain Dew in Skokie, Illinois at 3:15 a.m. I mean an infinite loop, hello? Who writes infinite loops? People have asked if I'm giving it well-formatted XML. But if it's invalid XML just give me an error message! Look, I should be able to stick my pasty white ass into an XML parser without it crashing my computer! Christ.

Of course, the reason I'm worked up is that the infinite loop is a metaphor for my whole work life now. Write some code, look at nytimes.com, get some junk food downstairs at the deli, check my mail, write a little more code ... my brain has worked up such momentum that I woke up at 5:00 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. Probably should have meditated, but wrote all this instead. My loss. Possibly yours too.

[Doug: 4/2/04 09:15]
 
   
Speaking of Kant, I swear I almost bought Kant's Compatibilism by Hud Hudson (professor at Western Washington University) at the Strand the other day, for $12.95 new. I mean, how does Kant reconcile free will and causality? But then I got hold of myself. Incidentally, the guy's name resonated for me because H.K., who in her capacity as head information architect of the company I work for makes lots of web-site storyboards, always makes demonstration user names like "John Johnson", "Jill Jillson", "Adam Adamson", etc. [Doug: 4/1/04 19:22]
 
 
California Prescriptivism

Ben, it is indeed true that California life is not free of imperatives. It has its own imperatives, which differ from those on the East Coast. Yet, one cannot deny a difference of degree, as well. One can more easily shirk the duty of abdominal firmness in Los Angeles than one can ignore obligations of the east coast. When I lived in California, I used to repeat my theory that space is the foundation of many social virtues. In New York, citizens must live under extensive constraints because citizens must live together in the most basic physical sense. You had better work hard and grow rich, because if you don't, then our building can't raise its fees and make itself more posh. You need to raise your children to be perfect little angels because if you don't they are going to make noise hopping around upstairs from me or will bump me on the sidewalk. In California, one's can live a quite insulated life, unburdened by others' behavior and likewise untroubling to them. The density of California permits a laid-back attitude. In fact, one would have to be unusually censorious or zealous to feel justified in imposing duties on others in ways we find routine on the East Coast.
[Ben H.: 4/1/04 15:49]
 
 
Immanuel Kant Sweeps the Southland!

Let me depress war talk further down on the page and riff on the elusive SoCal X-factor mentioned by Doug. And who knows California better than Immanuel Kant?

A third [man] finds in himself a talent whose cultivation could make him a man useful in many respects. But he finds himself in comfortable circumstances and prefers to indulge in pleasure rather than to bother himself about broadening and improving his fortunate natural aptitudes. But he asks himself further whether his maxim of neglecting his natural gifts, besides agreeing of itself with his propensity to indulgence, might agree also with what is called duty. He then sees that a system of nature could indeed always subsist according to such a universal law, even though every man (like the South Sea Islanders) should let his talents rust and resolve to devote his life entirely to idleness, indulgence, propagation, and, in a word, to enjoyment. [AK 423]

Kant, of course, takes a hard anti-Islander line, but the point is that he’s describing Southern California. Just bedeck the population of Westwood in grass skirts and you’re there. The magic of SoCal, or at least the dream version we’re concerned with here, consists not in the removal of rain, sleet, and ugly people, but in the seeming suspension of the imperative to self-perfection.

It’s a dream version because that imperative doesn’t actually get suspended; California imposes quite stringent demands. The forms these demands take -- the imperative to be young, for example –- just don’t typically register with pasty East coast transplants. For the New Englander in LA, the absence of the familiar requirements to kill at work and to feign interest in Don DeLillo give the illusion of freedom. It rarely occurs to him that he has acquired a new obligation to develop rock hard abs.


[Ben A.: 4/1/04 01:43]
   
 
I blame myself for raising the topic, as it resists attempts at consensus building. But perhaps I’ll gesture in that direction. It’s true, as Ben H says, that all sorts of objections can be raised to the conduct of the war on Iraq. And it’s true, as Doug says, that we can find areas where we think the administration bungled.*

But can the main main thing, the truly remarkable thing about the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq really be the Administration’s incompetence? The current situation amazes me: the Taliban is out, Saddam is out, Uday and Qusai are dead. That's a stop-the-presses result, a history-changing result. If you had told me in 2000 that the state of play four years later would be Hamid Karzai ensconced in Kabul and Saddam in jail, I’d have been staggered. Hell, I’m not sure I would have believed that prediction in October 2001.

Yes, it’s one ugly, clumsy, bear, but the sucker is dancing nonetheless.

* Perhaps I am too slow to attribute incompetence to the administration. If so, it’s because I find it really hard to know how to assess these immensely complex decisions. What’s the standard for competence? Example: Bush and co decided to make an ally of Pakistan, the Taliban’s major patron, and then deposed the regime via special forces, air-strikes, and the northern alliance. Was this a terrible screw-up, allowing al-Queda brass to escape? Or was it in fact so obviously the right strategy that the administration should get no credit for following it? I have, frankly, no idea how to assess this beyond the basic belief that knocking off the Talban quickly, with little loss of American life, seems like a major accomplishment. Could it have been done better/more thoroughly? No idea.
[Ben A.: 3/31/04 18:48]
   
 
Yeah, that makes total sense. The mad Saddamite Sunnis of Fallujah would have gladly welcomed those who robbed them of their illegitimate privilege had only their expropriators come from a broader coalition. Give me a break.

If you want to criticize the execution of the occupation, I think you can find grounds on which to do so cogently. We relied too heavily on exiles without a consituency; we disbanded existing Iraqi institutions too hastily; we didn't set up concentration camps in the Sunni triangle or allow the other ethnic groups in Iraq to take their well-deserved vengeance on the Sunnis and thereby emasculate them. All fair suggestions for how the occupation could have been managed better. You might, for entirely different reasons, have preferred a Security Council imprimatur, mainly having to do with the U.S.'s image in the rest of the world and the stability and relevance of multilateral institutions (I happen to think unilateral was the way to go, but I can see arguments on both sides). But I do not believe it would have made a whit of difference with respect to the specific problem you cite, namely Islamofascist atrocities against foreign aid workers, soldiers, etc.
[Ben H.: 3/31/04 15:12]
 
   
With due respect to Ben A. and the fellow apologist he cites, the remarkable thing about the Iraq war is how badly the Bush team has waged it.

You say things have gone as planned, but I don't think
this is what was meant by "Iraqis cheering the Americans."

Maybe if the governing principle of the war had been the-world-versus-Saddam rather than America-saying-"Choke-on-these-nuts", things might have been better. [Doug: 3/31/04 14:46]
 
     
 
Red Sox Seize First Place

For the first time ever
in March, I believe. [Ben A.: 3/30/04 13:32]
   
 
He Said What I Thought, But Better. No Fair!

"But like Samuel Johnson's talking dog, the remarkable thing is not that the Bush administration carried their campaign out so badly, but that they carried it out at all. A year after it began, it is still possible to believe that the military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq are working pretty much as intended."

--David
Warsh, former Boston Globe economics columnist, and currently smart guy. [Ben A.: 3/30/04 12:54]
   
 
Burger Chauvinism

I've written before about obsessive New York "best-ism", that is, the tendency to spend a lot of time thinking about and arguing about who in the city is the best purveyor of this or that commodity. New York bestism devotes more attention to hamburgers that the city's ostensible commitment to haute cuisine would lead one to expect. Which places get tipped for "best burger" reveals one possible explanation of the prominence of burgers in the bestist ideology. So many people rave about Jackson Hole's offering. Have you guys eaten there? They serve up sodden lumps of grayish beef on soggy buns, loaded up with all the usual, unremarkable toppings. On no objective basis could one honestly maintain they serve even middling burgers. I think that proponents of bestism see the hamburger category as a way to disclaim their natural over-refinement, to show that they are down with the people, capable of deriving pleasure from the pedestrian. Jackson Hole is the ultimate pedestrian hamburger, emphasizing mass over quality; plus, Jackson Hole's atmosphere is aggressively prole.

As for myself, I think the city's expensive hamburgers are often worth the money. We've had Bobby Van's (the steakhouse) send over rather pricey hamburgers on special occasions at the office, and they are way better than Jackson Hole (which itself is not that cheap) and even (forgive me for saying so) In-and-Out.
[Ben H.: 3/30/04 12:03]
 
 
Annals of Science

Apparently, my mother
owes me an apology. Which of the four food groups would you say boogers belong to? [Ben H.: 3/30/04 10:39]
 
   
In Iraq, Bremer and Co. have shut down a major media outlet for stirring up violence, by reporting lies and rumors and misattributing terror deaths to their enemies.

No word on whether Fox and CNN will appeal.
[Doug: 3/30/04 10:21]
 
 
Almost Home

I have left lousy Lima behind a bit early. Monday meetings didn't look particularly useful, so I decided to try to get home early. The press of New York financial bigwigs at these meetings filled up all the available seats to the Big Apple and even to Miami. I had a brainstorm, though: Dallas! There is a 2am direct from Lima to Dallas. I arrived in the Big D this morning, have spent the day at HQ, and am flying back to New York tonight.
Admittedly, my itinerary exhibits a certain tortuousness, but the alternative was to sit in my hotel room all day and admire the "ocean view." Said ocean looked sickeningly like cappucino -- sort covered with brown-streaked foam, the sure sign of raw sewage discharge. In fact, I could almost swear that I could see bubbles near the beach when I flushed the toilet.


[Ben H.: 3/29/04 17:23]
 
   
My Friend Zoe Launches Italy Travel Website

"The biggest problem with Italy is that it's filled with Italians."

It ain't Frommer's.

[Doug: 3/28/04 02:40]
 
   
East Village Animal Style

FYI, "Blue 9 Burger" on 3rd Ave. between 12th and 13th (i.e. steps from my place) is attempting to recreate In-N-Out -- the food, if not the mystique. I didn't try the fries or shakes, but the burger (animal style by default) was up to snuff. It's $2.35 as opposed to $1.45 at In-N-Out. Think of the local context though -- at Star Food, the hipster-kid mecca on 1st or 2nd street that a friend recently suggested, I paid $14 (with tip) for a burger no better than Blue 9's.
[Doug: 3/27/04 21:31]
 
 
Greetings From Disgusting Lima, Peru

Just got into Lima, though I almost didn't make it. As I've written before, each year I become more averse to trekking to these IFI annual meetings. I have been looking for an excuse to cancel all week. My experience in getting here illustrates how the subconscious will try to achieve what the conscious mind desires but chooses not to pursue. I kept forgetting to book my flights with the result that no directs remained available by the time I had to purchase my ticket. Today, my colleague and I rode together to the airport for the first leg to Miami. I booked a car to LaGuardia. Of course, my flight departed from Kennedy. My colleague thwarted my subconscious mind's brilliant plan to derail the trip. At Miami, we had a three hour layover. We camped out at the LAN lounge until the very last minute. We then boarded the plane, where I discovered, to my chagrin, that my seat, 6F, did not exist. The stewardess, after going out to check, returned with the news that I had boarded the wrong flight. As it turns out, there are two flights from Miami to Lima that leave at exactly 11:50pm, one LAN and one American. I need not tell you that their gates lie at opposite ends of the airport. My colleague had indeed bought a ticket on the LAN flight, and I just assumed our itineraries were the same. Score another one for the subconcious. Alas, my dutiful conscious mind steered my out to the gate agent, where by dint of insistent wheedling, I convinced him to honor the American ticket. The funny thing is that back at the LAN lounge, the agent gave me a hard time about entering. Her english was quite poor, but she kept saying that my ticket was American. I said, yes, it was booked through American, and I came down on an American flight to Miami, but the Lima leg was code-shared through LAN. She disappeared with my ticket and my colleague's and came back saying that we should wait an hour or so for the next agent to arrive and ask for new boarding passes. My colleague went up and checked at that time and was told everything was in order. Of course, his ticket was in order; only I needed a new boarding pass! My sneaky subconscious allowed me to assume that whatever went for my colleague went for me, too...

Lima, by the way, is a total dump. I thought maybe it had changed since I last visited, by no dice. There seems to be a casino every three or four blocks. We're not talking Monte Carlo. They are mostly squat, cinderblock structures with a little neon thrown on for effect, and they advertise most prominently bingo and slots. I love the spanish word for slot machine: tragamonedas. It literally means "it swallows coins." With a name like that, you would think it would be a difficult amusement to sell. Apparently, not...
[Ben H.: 3/27/04 07:51]
 
 
Pang of Nostalgia

Be still my heart! My beloved Asia Noodle lives! I think I can actually see my old apartment in the background of your picture of Trader Joe's. The mall of my life had a few haunted spots, to which whatever business foolish enough to move in inevitably succumbed. That spot was one of them. Before it was a Trader Joe's, it was an Irish Pub of some kind. Before that, it was a nasty Mexican restaurant where Bernie's friends had a weekly Friday happy hour during their first year of grad school. Le Diplomat has always been in that mall, though I never frequented it. The mall has also changed its name yet again. Nevertheless, it's essence remains untainted. I miss it...

Obviously, Fashion Island is a much more impressive mall, but I don't have quite the same attachment to it. Living next door sounds grand. A competitor of ours has his office within Fashion Island, and from time to time he sees fit to send me taunts about the great view and even greater weather. As for me, though, if I could have my office in that small building at the center of the University Mall, I would take that over Fashion Island. I remember well the CPK -- and the Swedish chick -- whose name, by the way, was Liesl.

[Ben H.: 3/26/04 11:52]
 
   
Southern California: Reality

Ben A's post prompts me to dump my trip log, which is good as it's already bloated.

Dao and I flew Jet Blue to Long Beach for a long weekend. We'd planned this months ago, mainly to visit our new nephew Nicholas, and also Andrew and Sophie, who, although no longer new, have by that very fact escaped the stage where they look like E.T. (In fact they are
absurdly cute.) Their parents and (maternal) grandparents (i.e. my mother- and father-in-law) recently moved from Garden Grove to a bigger house in Newport Beach. A fourth generation also made the move: Dao's maternal grandmother.

As it happened, she passed away, peacefully, while we were there, at the age of 94. She may have been the most formidable person never to reach five feet. One look and you knew where the tinge of matriarchy in all her descendents' families came from. And her black teeth did nothing to soften her appearance. (Upper-class Vietnamese used to consider white teeth vulgar. Incidentally, this gives Tom and Vien a foolproof way to make their kids brush: "If you don't, your teeth will look like great-grandma's.")

As Bà was a serious Buddhist, the thought of death didn't freak her out. Indeed she had planned everything out and bought space for her photograph to be maintained at one of the main pagodas in Little Saigon. At least I think she's still slated there; a lot of people stopped going there after the head monk (?) was seen cavorting with some chick. I remember meeting the guy at Têt last year and he did seem a mite too jolly. Maybe they should blacken monks' teeth so that they repulse women. Anyway, that year we also visited the makeshift pagoda to which many of the devout switched after the scandal, and that was interesting. It was a little bungalow in a mainly non-Vietnamese working-class housing tract; we had to park far away because the neighbors were getting annoyed at all the cars and the weird noises. Têt goodies were set up in the garage while flies buzzed around and the monks chanted in the living room. I was heartened. These guys were clearly in it for the enlightenment, and not for the fast money and glamorous women of the "establishment" pagoda.

Chanting is big in Vietnamese Buddhism. Bà had a tape player on continuous loop next to her sickbed and it kept going after she died. You could just hear it from the family room; one section had a loud backbeat that, from afar, reminded you of club music. What they were chanting is "Namo a di da phat", a Buddhist devotion apparently transliterated from Sanskrit. It's catchy and I've had trouble getting it out of my head as I work.

If you include their spouses, Bà now has 43 (I think) descendents, and a lot of them were in California last week. One can't keep them all straight, but I had interesting discussions with Dao's cousins Arthur (an aspiring novelist and MFA candidate at the New School -- one of the only people in the whole extended family not on the white-collar-professional track) and Lisa, who I'd remembered as a rambunctious terror who shrieked but never spoke, now, at age 10, remarkably sharp and articulate.

From my family we saw my uncle Stasys and aunt Irena, two of my favorite people in the world; the greatest tragedy in their house at the moment is that the beer keg in Stasys's bar ran out. I wish I had inherited more of the natural cheerfulness from that side of my family. We had lunch at Fashion Island Mall. Which brings me to ...

Mythic Southern California



Some of our readers may not know that Southern California, like Havenhurst college, is something that links the three of us bandarloggers together, each of us having spent a few years in Mallhalla post-college. I was going to say that Southern California is a common obsession of ours, but only for me did it really become an obsession. Every time I go back I feel a need to explain what Southern California means. For it means something very very important. Only it is hard to say exactly what. This frustrates me even more than my other obsession, the reconciliation of free will and causality, because I am at least working on an explanation of that, however slowly. Whereas I left California in 1997 without ever fully conveying its importance. I wrote some poems that I still like (I'll try to find and post them) and that capture the mood of what I want to convey. This is not a trivial thing; the So-Cal mood is what I prized most about my life there. But the poems don't explain much.

Southern California means, in the end, epicurism. The epicurism of Epicurus, I mean, not the luxury-connoisseurship caricature that's been made of his him (even during his own lifetime, apparently). This epicurism agrees with Buddhism that the important thing is to end suffering, and that nonattachment is crucial for that. The Californian has banished physical causes of suffering like rain, cold, and poverty, as well as a main mental cause, the obsessive attachment to work that plagues the East Coast. "Dude, relax." The Golden State is the end state of Fukuyama/Kojeve: human history has crossed the finish line here, and there is nothing for us to do but bask in the sun like happy dogs.

There is obviously something enervating about this way of thinking; it made me very happy for a year or two, and then radically depressed me, whereupon I moved back east.

Now I believe Buddhism lets you avoid this enervation far better than epicurism can, but an argument for that will have to wait.

Now, the slide show of Mallhalla.

A mall in Irvine dear to me and even more to Ben H:



I believe that dance club where the Asian would-be gangsters went has turned into a Trader Joe's. But I may be misremembering; maybe you can tell from the building on the right, which I believe is part of the complex you used to live in:



Several new (?) French-themed establishments, e.g. "le diplomate":



You'll be glad to know that Asia Noodle Cafe is still around:



Here is where we had lunch:



Sadly, In-N-Out has totally lost its exclusivity since we last posted about it. (As Ben A's post shows.) Everyone on the East Coast is hip to it, meaning it's not hip at all. Still, good cheap burgers, though our fries were soggy.

Now check this out. This is the view from Tom and Vien's new house. It's across the street from Fashion Island, and I am so not even kidding. The thought of moving in with them crossed my mind more than once. (Also, look carefully and you'll see "Newport Pain Management". I took this as a sign that I must complete a book explaining Californian epicurism.)



The koi pond.



"Forever 21" is near the koi pond. It was jarring, not to say funny, to leave bà's bedside with the chanting and the noble acceptance of death, and come here and see the liposuctioned 50-year-olds shopping for skimpy dresses.



Had lunch here too; their classic Thai chicken pizza. Was it to mark your return to the east, Ben H., that we came here with Joel, and were served by that absolutely stunning 16-year-old Swedish girl named Heike, whose beauty seemed to mock our idiotic decision to leave Mallhalla?

Unfortunately, we had filled our camera's memory by the time we visited Dr. Schuller's Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, site of the "The Hour of Power" and of the first drive-in church. There's a new Richard Meier visitors' center. What was really striking, though, was the old bell tower that looks like wreckage of the WTC.
[Doug: 3/26/04 10:55]
 
     
 
Unbelievers Penetrate Inner Sanctum

Curses! [Ben A.: 3/26/04 10:25]
   
 
Heading Out

Flying to Lima tonight. With each successive set of IFI meetings (these are the IADB meetings) my enthusiasm flags. I would have almost certainly bagged it if I had not, unwisely, agreed to speak on a panel. Now I have to go to Lima, that shithole, and undergo the ordeal of public speaking.
[Ben H.: 3/26/04 10:08]
 
 
Speaking of Africa...

The Ivory Coast peace accord
has collapsed. Chirac, that damned imperialist, has led his country into a quagmire!

Ivory Coast was, as you say, Doug, one of the few examples of a relatively stable, prosperous polity in Africa. I visited Abidjan back in 1998, just before the country fell apart, and I have to say that "relatively" is a key word in the claim.

Coincidentally, I am right now reading Norman Rush's Mating, which takes place in Bostwana. The novel does not traffic in the post-colonial sentimentalization of Africa, but rather presents a fair, unvarnished representation of Africa and Africans as seen through the eyes of a sympathetic, but by no means deluded, narrator. No "Magical Negro" rears his sage head here. [Ben H.: 3/26/04 09:17]
 
     
 

 

 

Ben A. Ben H. Doug Earlier