blog.marcwiesner.com

I love the logic in this matter.

Problem: The USA isn’t secure.

International Solution: We all know what a cluster fuck that is.

Domestic Solution: Pass the Patriot Act so the government won’t have to worry about pesky things like privacy interfering with investigation or arrest of persons suspected of being a threat to the nation.

Domestic Result: 9/11 Commission reports that we are not any safer today than we were at the time of the attacks.

Reaction: Extend the Patriot Act.

Look, if it isn’t working, why support it? Clearly other steps need to be taken. Maybe if the USA and Britain weren’t such asses about dividing up the Middle East in such an exploitive manner we wouldn’t be such easy targets for hate. And it’s too bad we didn’t throw a fraction of what this war is costing into research or alternative fuels to resolve that reliance on oil.

I’m sure this will solve everything though. Fifty years from now, smooth sailing….I wonder how much a bunker three miles under the equator would cost? hmm…

All opportunities for pardon being exhausted, Tookie Williams, notorious for the creation of the Crips gang, was executed this morning (time of death, 12:35 AM).

Given, the Crips gang, and ensuing gang tensions, have claimed countless lives either as murders or just being turned to garbage through drug use, to kill Tookie for the murder of four people almost three decades ago just seems like an emotional reaction to his role in founding the Crips. Yeah, bad shit to establish what is now a major gang, but if he’s in jail though most of their career (where he was rehabilitated, wrote children’s books, and became and advocate AGAINST gang violence) how much can he be blamed for the organization and leadership to turn a few thugs into such a major gang?

By denying clemency for Tookie, the only thing we express is how quickly our burn-him-at-the-stake, eye-for-an-eye, Christian vengeance emotions can take over our minds. Of course, I’m using ‘our’ in the general sense. Does not religion teach mercy and forgiveness as the highest ideal? First, if Tookie is reformed and actually advocating for a positive change in society, doesn’t that make him better than those with hate and contempt in their hearts for him? Second, do we punish the crime or the person who committed it? If the person has changed and his past action is what being punished at what point do we forgive?

Perhaps that level of benevolence is beyond most of us. Should that be true, the State of California may have executed a man who attained a superior spiritual posture through his incarceration.

Any body who knows that I’m a vegan should not be surprised if I go off on an offended rant of the merits of setting one day of the year aside to ritualized the slaughter of those poor birds, the turkeys. The USA already has one of the most meat intensive diets in the world (According to 2002 social statistics, North America consumes about twice as much meat as Europe, per capita, and about as much as Europe, Asia, and Africa Combined), must we continue to pile on sins with our endless gorging on Turkeys, an animal who’s value has been popularly reduced to the once-a-year Thanksgiving Day meal? I was in line at Albertsons and they had girl scouts on the store PA singing, urging customers to buy and donate Turkeys for the needy. For crying out loud? Is it proper to abate suffering with suffering??? No! That’s just shifting-the-buck. Tomorrow I’ll be enjoying a wholly vegan Thanksgiving. Tofurkey is delicious and fulfilling and easy to bake. Try one…please.

By the way, the gap between posts is due to the increasingly oppressive workload at Santa Clara. I hope to be back on the ball shortly but quality over quantity, you know.

How would you like it if you worked for years on that law degree, landed a big-name client, and were then gunned down on your way to work to defend him. Gunned down by a car full of gunmen who may never see justice. Now how about if you were the second one to be killed because of this client in a month. Now…how would you feel if you were the one called in to replace this murdered lawyer? Saddam Hussein’s defense team is just in this situation after the latest murder of a lawyer defending the former dictator.

I find it amazing that after spending so much money to bring this criminal to justice, as Bush and his cadres claimed they were doing when they thought he was hiding weapons of mass destruction the USA has let his trial become such a spectacle while it’s held in a foreign country; like many detainees that are being secretly held, any rights that he would have had can be comfortably ignored. What intimidation do the killers of his lawyers hope to achieve I wonder? Shouldn’t it be clear that the intimidation of the USA would already guarantee that Saddam will be spending a very long time is a very dark hole?

Is any body surprised that the oil companies have posted record profits? Any excuse that prices at the pump are proportional to oil cost may now take a flying leap out the window. The business practices of these companies is clearly a case of price gouging; taking advantage of the limited supply and increased demand to disproportionately drive up prices.

Real blame, however, should fall on two places; the government and the citizenry. The government should have long ago realized the dangers of becoming so dependent on a commodity and yet oil remains a key component in energy production and transportation. Had the government crafted policy to reflect the advice of environmental scientists the ecological and economical impact of our current situation could have been avoided. America also has one of the worst public transit systems of any of the developed nations. This is largely due to the lobbying power of the automobile and oil producing companies who have long been responsible for the replacement of rail lines with roads to encourage consumption. If the government had structured tax incentives to encourage the purchasing of alternative energy or more fuel efficient vehicles as opposed to offering huge incentives to people buying SUVs the demand among the general population could have been curtailed.

The people, for their part, should not have to wait for government to take initiative (that’s one of the things our government is worst at). If people are so sick of paying so much for gas they should take it on themselves to buy alternative energy vehicles and demand better public transportation. They should hold elected officials to energy promises.

Personally, I would much father see my money at the pump going back into initiatives that help the environment and the energy situation. There are many countries that deter excessive fuel consumption by increasing taxes on fuel and automobiles; thereby keeping the people who use roads paying for them, making available funds to maintain and enhance the public transit system, and ensuring that the environmental impact of the auto industry can be kept in check. I’d much rather have the tax on gas raised to help public transportation than the public transit fares raised to support roads for for drivers.

Witness now the unraveling of the Republican Machine. First Myers pulls out of the nomination process. Now we’ve gotten the first of what I hope to be many indictments of that republican right that has been such a global malfeasance.

What I want to know is where is our inquisition? Clinton lies about sleeping around (something that’s none of the Federal Government’s business anyway) and he gets reamed by Ken Starr. Bush and his clique sends us to war in Iraq under the lie of weapons of masdestruction (of which there are NONE), then they violate national security by naming an undercover CIA agent. I could give a damn that Clinton got some on the side, it’s not like he killed Monica after he messed around with her. Where is the justice for the tens of thousands killed as a result of Bush’s perjury?

Now that the ball is rolling on inditing members of the hard-line Republican Right I prey that it keeps going. I prey for momentum. I prey for justice.

Another milestone in the debate over what constitutes journalism is close on the horizon. Yahoo!’s working on revamping their news search feature to include results from blogs. Listed as “citizen journals,” blog posts will appear along side results from mainstream news sources.

I love how protective professional journalists are about their domain. Like theirs is a priestly duty not suitable for the tainted hands of the common people. What network did John Adams work for? Was it Fox or the Times that published the Federalists Papers? No No No, these were PEOPLE writing for people. That’s what networks are afraid of; that their lack of integrity and dedication will be exposed throughly once a truly independent piece of writing can be viewed along side one of the kiddy-gloved pieces from Murdock’s Machine

Let’s break down the news, shall we? Looking at TV and newspapers we can distinguish the type of operation by its size; larger (national) operations and smaller (local) operations. National news outfits cost more money to run so they either have to have owners with deep pockets like Rupert Murdock and/or sell air time as commercials, both options make money contingent upon what they report, that is to say that if a source of funding finds a story you’re about to air objectionable you don’t want to air it or you’ll lose your funding. Bigger operations have more money so they can afford a shiner appearance.

On the other side, a smaller stations cover more local news partially because it’s what’s missing from national sources. As a result they may engrandize local events and exaggerate an event that happens within their locality. With less funding, a local outfit may cut a few corners or hire staff (both in front of the camera and behind) who are fresher on the scene.

So you have to be careful about believing the news from a big station because they’re whores for their money and you have to be careful about the news you get from a small station because of their focus on the local. The bigger station may distract you with their shiny effects while the smaller station may make you laugh when a newscaster stands in front of an LCD featuring the weatherman she’s introducing who, in turn, is standing in front of an LCD with the weather he’s going to be describing. The big difference is the sensationalism. Both local and national news sources (especially in the case of TV) are prone to being over saturated with sensationalist stories of a trivial event. The small stations will do this because it’ll boost viewership and it’s usually cheap to cover since they can send one reporter out to one place for 20 minutes worth of news instead of three to different places to fill that time. The bigger stations are the tricky ones though. They’ll hold on to a trivial story a lot longer. They can entertain themselves for at least six hours day talking about an airplane that’s crashed (if it’s a domestic plane). The reason for this is misdirection. By keeping the cameras on the airplane people are tricked into thinking that this is news. It’s not, it’s repetition. Events that you haven’t heard of are news. They distract you from what’s really going on: war, genocide, government corruption, unethical corporate practices. That’s news, the rest is polished trickery.

Given, as a history major I may be a bit more sensitive than others about claims that are either absolutist or poorly documented, especially when they’re extraordinary claims. Maybe this is because of the course that western historiography has taken through the late 20th century or maybe I’m just picky, but when describing a far time and a distant culture (especially a distant culture) have sources ready; history didn’t happen in a vacuum and your knowledge doesn’t come from there either.

One of my course readings this quarter is a book by a French historian named Pierre Francois Souyri. The book is titled The World Turned Upside Down: Medieval Japanese Society. Fair warning: this book is poorly documented and Souyri is prone to making sweeping statements such as Japan has an intrinsic industrial and military superiority over the other Asian nations (p 3, trans. Kathe Roth, 2001). While the book is a fairly smooth read (once you get past the awkwardly phrased sentences which, to be fair, may be a snag of the translation), I have a very hard time appreciating it as a history book and would urge other readers to consider it is the same way once would view a movie based on true events; closer to entertainment that true illumination. I would have expected more from a historian hailing from the country in which the Annals school sprouted.

A couple of books that I’ve read recently on Asian history that I would eagerly recommend are Fitzgerald’s Fire in the Lake detailing American involvement in Vietnam which also incorporates a good deal of the country’s older history, politically and culturally, within the framework of neighboring countries as well as Yale history faculty Jonathan Spence’s The Search for Modern China. Modern China focuses on the last several hundred years of Chinese history starting in the mid-late Ming and moving up to the modern day. Spence’s book has been well received within the history community for its thoroughness and within the general population for his lively writing style. Fire in the Late, by contrast, is thick reading but extremely well researched and laid out.

As soon as I find a Japanese history book that I truly enjoy I’ll pass the word along.

This is what I can’t stand about mainstream news. Did anyone from the major news networks blink away from jetBlue Flight 292? Now I wasn’t watching the whole time, but if I believe the newscasters (and I’m very hesitant to do so) they spent about three hours covering the plane circling LAX. Yes, it’s a dire situation but we don’t even get one hours coverage of the unconstitutional war in Iraq. With war and genocide in the world, with the degradation of the environment, with critical junction of the supreme court, the elections in Germany we are suffering the effects of the networks sensationalism when we tolerate a news channel that lets real news pass by while one story sits stagnant on the airwaves. The same sensationalism that led the news networks to spread panic and superstition more than information and insight following the 9/11 attacks. When we allow ourselves to be fooled by entertainment that masquerades as news we allow ourselves to live under under from of censorship that is made unknowable more harmful by its subtlety.