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June 19, 2004

Disgust, long overdue

: The Observer points to statements by two firebrand Islamic clerics against "random atrocities" performed by al Qaeda and reports (or speculates) that, finally, at long f'ing last, we have reached the edge of their tolerance:

The statement last week was part of a phenomenon which, though its outlines are barely discernible, give us a glimpse of light at the end of 'the war on terror' tunnel. For, though it is gaining in many areas, the radical Islamic militant movement labelled 'al-Qaeda' is beginning to lose public support in others.

So 3,000 dead doesn't do this. But a few distasateful beheadings and "collateral damage" of dead Muslims does. Whatever.

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Shampoo by Prell

: I've not seen this before: In the full-page ad for July's De-Lovely, the movie story of Cole Porter with Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd, the second big production credit -- after music and lyrics by Cole Porter himself -- is "Style by Giorgio Armani." All style, no...?

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Beer for Democrats, gin for Republicans

: Rochester-area Democrats plan to give away beer to voters who register. [via Tom Watson, MP]

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Not a cocoon

: Underlying the 9/11 Commission's unrelenting coulda/shoulda/woulda criticism of government action before, during, and after the 9/11 attacks is an unstated -- and dangerously wrong -- assumption:

That government could and should prepare to protect us against every possible form of attack.

Oh, would that that were possible and true. But it's neither. This is, instead, a rhetorical trick makes it so damned easy to turn the 9/11 attacks into a hammer to attack ourselves.

Yes, sure, it sounds good to say, for example, that if the orders had been communicated only 13 minutes earlier, fighter jets could have shot down the passenger jets the terrorists had turned into their bombs. It makes it sound as if our government messed this up. It makes it seem as if our government now shares some responsibility for the horrid toll. But let's be realistic! There was not enough time; there was no way to know where there jets were going until it was quite literally too late; and imagine the consequences if one jet had managed to follow Cheney's order to shoot down civilian Americans.

Under the logic of the 9/11 Commission, though, government should be preparing for every contingency. By this thinking...
: Every parcel carried by every passenger on every train should be searched in detail lest some murdering terrorist nutjobs, like the ones in Spain, should decide to set off exploding backpacks on the 5:55 to New Rochelle.
: All our mail should be hermetically sealed in case some murdering terrorist nutjob choose to fill a half-dozen letters with magic anthrax dust.
: Every building should be retrofitted to keep traffic at least a half-mile away lest some murdering terrorist nutjob choose to drive a trick filled with explosive fertilizer to the front door and set it off.
: And, moving from experience to speculation, Times Square -- the epicenter on every media map of possible fallout from a dirty bomb -- should just be shut down in case it should attract a murdering terrorist nutjob as a symbolic target. Ditto Disneyworld. Ditto every mall. Ditto Wall Street. Ditto Hollywood.
: And every American should be equipped with gas masks and geiger counters and bulletproof vests and steel necklaces to guard against beheading by murdering terrorist nutjobs.
: And every American should be told never to go overseas, lest we be targets of murdering terrorist nutjobs there.

That is the logic of the 9/11 Commission. They would expect government to turn America into a cocoon. They would expect the impossible. And they are holding government to that impossible standard.

This is not to say that we cannot learn many lessons from 9/11 and do many things better when, God forbid, we are attacked again. But that's not what the Commission is doing. Instead, it is using "mistakes" of 9/11 to beat up many in power, from the Bush Administration down to the NYPD.

And media reporting of those "findings" only amplifies the effect: COULDA/WOULDA/SHOULDA shouted from the headlines.

Now the truth is -- as some reasonable souls say -- that the only real way to fight terrorism is not to unreasonably armor our facilities but is to stop the terrorists from coming into this country and conspiring and arming themselves. By that logic, we should be applauding the Patriot Act and a government commission should be recommending a Constitutional amendment to take away any ambiguity and allow government to spy on, hunt down, capture, question -- and, yes, even strip naked and mock -- terrorists. But we don't want that, do we?

I resent this. Not to sound egocentric about this, but in a sense, I of all people should be hanging on the words of the 9/11 Commission. I came within minutes or feet of death that day. I'm paranoid and nervous for me and my family.

But, in fact, I am first and foremost grateful for the good work of the NYPD that day; because of them I did survive. I wish the Commission would also spend more time -- they have spent some -- praising what was done right that day, for we can also learn lessons from that. And I do not -- I cannot reasonably -- blame government, top to bottom, for what happened to us that day. They cannot protect us from every possible nightmare concocted by murdering terrorist nutjobs; they simply cannot.

The 9/11 Commission has perverted its work and, in my view, committed the unpardonable sin of politicizing 9/11 and turning the attacks of mudering terrorist nutjobs into a litany of things we did wrong, things that are our fault.

No, 9/11 is the fault of murdering terrorist nutjobs and the only solution to this is to hunt down and capture or kill every one of them we can find wherever we find them -- yes, even in Saudi Arabia, even in Iraq, even in Pakistan, even in New Jersey. I wish I heard the Commission giving us a few more suggestions about how to do that.

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The review is in

: The NY Times' Michiko Kakutani delivers a dull blow to Clinton's kidney (or more like a kick to his balls) with her review of his autobiography:

The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull — the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history.

One of her complaints:

Mr. Clinton confesses that his affair with Monica Lewinsky was "immoral and foolish," but he spends far more space excoriating his nemesis, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, and the press.

Well, duh. What do you want, Michiko, a -- pardon me -- blow-by-blow description of the affair? Of course, he's going to devote ink and paper to going after those who went after him; it's his turn.

I'll be buying the (shortened) audio version to hear on my iPod.

: Here's Newsweek's Cliff's Notes after reading the book.

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Spirit of America update

: Founder Jim Hake is back from Iraq with an update.

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Exploding TV: Moguls v. geeks

: Jim Kramer explains why Viacom is sinking. He says it's about moguls v. geeks. But it's also about big v. small. And closed v. open. And finite choice v. infinite choice. And control in the hands of companies v. control in the hands of consumers. And about old v. new. And slow v. fast.

No, to find out why Viacom’s stock sank to the 52-week-low list, all you need to do is look to the 52-week-high list, where the winners are: video games, satellite radio, video-on-demand, and Internet search engines. Those are the companies with the better models, the better technology that has, in an incredibly short period of time, stolen massive amounts of the fuel that powered Battleship Viacom: the viewers themselves....

Viacom was and is run by moguls, people who want to make deals and who aspire to be machers. Machers aren’t geeks; they laugh at geeks....

Yet in the end, every one of the challenges that have sprung up for Viacom since its merger with CBS was the product of pure geekdom, and unless you were a geek, you couldn’t see the tech two-by-four that hit you until you went to the videotape.

Mel Karmazin’s legacy is that he kept Viacom’s numbers from falling apart despite the company’s outdated business model. Now his departure will stop masking Viacom’s real weaknesses, and Redstone and company will have to face them head on. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe they’ll call in the geeks.

Who are only an email away, eh? [via Fred Wilson]

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Exploding TV

: More exploding TV: Amazon is looking for a product manager to sell "digital products." What do you want to watch tonight, dear? Let's go look and see what's at the TV store.

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Teacher, is this blog going to be on the final?
: Educators using computers are getting together in New Orleans and look at all the sessions about blogs. [via Will Richardson]

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Kosher

: Two good finds on Steven I. Weiss' very good blog for The Forward:

: A blogger named Esther at My Urban Kvetch writes:

Madonna says, "Call me Esther."
I say, "Call me Madonna."

: And Laurence Simon blogs about Juneteenth (wimpy asterisks mine):

Blacks get freed, and they celebrate with some of the best cooking around. Cornbread, blue crabs, crawdads, greens, BBQ pork and brisket... you name it, they cook it up and celebrate their asses off.
On the other hand, the Jews get freed, and we celebrate with this shitty food? Boiled egg, parsely, cracker-like bread, salt water... WHAT THE F***? I'd rather still be building pyramids than choking down this crap every year.
F*** this shit. I renounce being Jewish. From now on, I'm black.
Deal with it, but give me a plate of those cornbread biscuits and gumbo gravy first.

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