Well, I'm going to be pretty damned depressed now for the rest of the weekend. Good movie, but. . . gah. And, for awhile, I had serious concerns that the movie had no intention of ending. I won't spoil the movie for those of you who have yet to see it, but Sean Penn looks and acts more like Al Pacino every time he gets in front of a camera. And why is it that Tim Robbins keeps playing characters that have been cornholed at some point in the movie? Well, anyway, on to the weekend.
Michele, over at A Small Victory, has a pretty damned good post up today.
The comment thread that follows the post is standard stuff, with some liberals feeling insulted that Michele painted with such a wide brush against "the left" despite a disclaimer explaining what she means when she says "the left."
I think it's easier to just say "The Angry Left," because that pretty much sums up those on the far left who hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE Bush.
As Michele points out, there's a palpable glee that seems to radiate from the Angry Left when news of a soldier dying in Iraq hits the wire, or when a series of bombs rips apart trains in Spain. Every tragedy that happens in the world simply HAS to be tied to Bush and his misguided foreign policy becasue, you know, Bush is EVIL.
Think I'm exaggerating? Consider this little bit of enthusiastic hand rubbing by Hesiod, a card carrying member of the moonbat Angry Left brigade.
It will be interesting to see how the warfloggers spin this one. Just after 9/11 and in the run up to the Iraq war, every act of terrorism, even the DC area sniper, was pinned on "Arabic," or "Muslim" extremists.
Now, when such a designation might be very uncomfortable for their position politically and morally, I believe they'll automatically take Spain's word for it that this was an ETA attack, and minimize any possible link to Al Qaeda.
I, for one, am not uncomfortable thinking that the Spain bombings were orchestrated by Al Queda. If anything, it would underscore, yet again, that the WORLD is at war with TERRORISM, but I can see where Hesiod is going with this.
In Hesiod's tiny little mind, if the Spain bombings are linked to Muslim extremists, it will be proof that we're LOSING the war on terror. See? They're still attacking us! We're losing! Bush is losing! And, what's more, they're attacking SPAIN, a member of the coalition of the williing! Whoa be it to our allies!
There's no reasoning with this kind of thinking, if you can really even call it thinking in the traditional sense. For Hesiod and his ilk, it's always about how wrong everything is, and then, after spittle-flecked tut-tutting and and nutball wrong "I told you sos," he never offers up anything constructive. He's more than happy to tell the world what he thinks is broken, but he sure as hell isn't about to say how he would go about fixing things. Well, except for getting Bush out of office. That, apparently, will fix everything.
Or, we could journey on over to see what Atrios has to say, which usually isn't as ape-shit crazy as Hesiod, but is pretty nuts all the same. What is his response to something as horrible as the Spain bombings? Well, appeasement, of course.
That said, the primer should make it clear - the Basques have been fighting for their existence for as long as the Celtic Irish, to whom they are thought to be linguistically related (as well as the Georgians of Russia) have been. It doesn't make this right, but perhaps someone should start listening.
Yup, once the bodies are all buried, we should get right down to the serious business of "listening." That's a humdinger of a response policy Atrios has got going there. Under that reasoning, the next time someone robs a convenience store and shoots the clerk, we should stop and ask how much money the robber really needs and send them on their way.
Such is the thinking of many in the far left. Everything wrong with the world can be solved with heavy doses of listening and being sympathetic to all causes. So long as everyone is being listened to and their grievances are being aired, then all is right with world. Or, as James Lileks so aptly put it, it's all about adhering to the PROCESS.
As the strongest nation in the world, we are apparently required to do what the weakest ones want, lest we waste their most precious commodity: sympathy. It's a common theme for those who value process over results and admire impotent international institutions whose primary output is thick, creamy paper stamped with interesting signatures and lovely official seals.
These people would rather the United Nations spend five years "engaging" Iran on its nuclear weapons program, even if the end result is a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv. Better that than a unilateral pre-emptive strike, which would destabilize the international order that let Iran build a bomb in the first place. Better the process fail than the process be ignored.
Exactly. In the wake of terrorist attacks, we're apparently supposed to look forever and always to the U.N., forgetting, of course, that the U.N., with all its deliberating and failures over the years, shares plenty of blame for the current state of international terrorism.
But, what do I know? It's Friday, and the magazine staff is going on a movie day in about half an hour, and we're going to see Mystic River. I hope the theater isn't bombed, because that would really suck.
UPDATE: Whoops. I guess James Lileks already pretty much said everything I said here and, of course, as is usually the case, he says it all better. I suppose there are worse things than to be buzzing on Lileks' brain wave.
Back in my halcyon days of college journalism classes, where we learned big and important concepts like the Inverted Pyramid and human interest stories, I had a little rule hammered deep and hard into my skull.
Namely, you don't mess with direct quotes. If you're quoting someone in an article, it had better be accurate, damn it, or it could come back to bite you. Because I wasn't keen on committing libel, I took this quote rule very, very seriously, and it served me well through two newspaper gigs.
The thing is, when people talk to you, 2/3rds of the time they sound dumb as a stump. But, because it was THEIR words, I dutifully transcribed them as intact as I could, except for, of course, disposing of the multitude of "uhhhs" and "ummms" and other such verbal throw aways.
Here at the magazine I now write for, I exercised the same diligence regarding direct quotes. Even if an high ranking IBM exec sounds rock-hard stupid in some of their quotes, I left the quotes intact. Even though I know what they mean to say, I don't feel it's my place to interpret and fix their quotes. Then it wouldn't be a direct quote any more, right?
Well, because this magazine is basically a marketing tool for IBM and is beholden to IBM for much funding, we here at the magazine take a few liberties with the rules of journalism. Namely, after I finish writing an article, I send the rough draft out to the sources whom I quoted so they get a chance to "undumbify" their quotes. Not surprisingly, most articles come back to me awash with quotation changes and remarks that basically say they can't believe how dense they seem when they see the spoken word in print. That doesn't mean they're dumb by any stretch of the imagination. Far from it. I mean, I like to think of myself as a somewhat smart guy, but when I hear myself on tape or see me quoted somewhere, I think "Gawd, I sound like a gibbering proto-human."
Anyway, because my sources are the ones making changes to their own quotes, I really don't have a problem with them changing them. In the end, their quotes are still their quotes, even though they were allowed to pretty them up.
Well, today I got into a discussion with my managing editor about this. She was giving me a little crap, all in good fun, about having such high ideals, and that I shouldn't have any problem with doctoring quotes to make them sound better.
"But," I said. "Then they wouldn't be THEIR quotes any more. It would be me divining what I think they mean and making it concise and intelligent-sounding for them. I have a problem with that. That wouldn't be a direct quote."
"How is that different from them getting a chance to clean up their quotes?" asked Evelyn.
"Because, it's still THEIR quotes."
"Okay. But, let's say you clean up their quotes and then send them out for their review, and they return the copy and are happy with the changed quotes? Isn't that just easier for both you and them?"
"Well, easier, sure, but what's the point of even having quotes then? If I'm basically taking what they said, interpreting their words for them, and changing them as such. . . I don't know, it just seems as if the whole point of putting quotes in a story is misleading somehow to the reader."
"If you know what they meant to say, and you can make them sound better, and they want you to make them sound better, there really shouldn't be any problem. If we were a newspaper, yes, I'd say you have an obligation, morally and legally, to quote them as directly as possible. But here, we're in the business of making IBM sound good."
"I understand that, but. . . oh, nevermind."
I'm not sure why, but this has been twisting around in my head all day. Really, what's the point of using quotes if they're basically reworded versions of the original quote, authored by me? I can't accept that and, given the choice, I'll continue to allow the sources to clean up their quotes rather than making them sound smart for them.
I don't know. What do you people think?
Evelyn says: Bizarre article: http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4655532.html
Ryan says: From what I understand of history, Rochester filed for, and received, exemption status from the Emancipation Proclamation.
Evelyn says: What?
Ryan says: Joke.
Ryan says: Commence laughter. . . NOW!
Evelyn says: Oh, sorry, thought you were serious there for a minute.
Ryan says: I gathered.
Excerpt: The U.N. is the only voice of reason and ordor (sic) in this world. It's a voice for peace when countries by themselves are intent on war. I'm curious how you can so quickly dismiss it offhand while your nation pursues its unilateral ambitions.
I'm called upon to explain my disdain for the U.N. with a regularity that would make Metamucil envious, mainly because I was once a staunch supporter of the U.N., almost to the point of lunacy. I mean, if you look at what the U.N. is SUPPOSED to represent, it's tough to really oppose it. After all, the concept of international law, and outlawing war, and enforcing the belief in basic human rights, and stamping out poverty, and on and on and on. . . it's all pretty damned convinving on paper.
On paper.
On paper, the U.N. aspires to the ideal human experience of Star Trek, where poverty, inexplicably, is no longer a problem, and wars can usually always (I intended the "usual always," because it sounds funny, but anyhoo. . . ) be circumvented through the diplomatic skills of a bald French starship captain. I'll admit it: I bought into it. I love Star Trek and, by extension, I got sucked into the belief that the U.N. was somehow the U.S.S. Enterprise and Kofi Annan was Capt. Picard. It's easy to believe in perfect ideals such as that; it's much harder to face the cold hard glare of reality.
The reality? The U.N. has become ineffectual. The U.N. is corrupt, perhaps more than any "Dick Cheney Fellates Halliburton Execs" conspiracy theorists could ever imagine. It's hard to see, really, because I think most minds in the Big Media have a default setting that says "U.N. = Good" and they're not interested in questioning that nearly as much as they're interested in questioning whether Janet Jackson's nipple indicates the collapse of the modern American society.
For some reason that continually escapes me, when a country like Syria is put on a U.N. committee dedicated to fighting terrorism, most everything I read tends to have a slant that says "See? The U.N. encourages countries who disagree to come together," rather than, maybe, you know, exposing the appointment as Syrian window dressing to veil the reality that their third most lucrative export is terrorism. And, even in the case of humanitarian efforts, such as the "Oil For Palaces, er, Food" programs, the U.N. proved itself to be astonishingly corrupt.
In the months following 9/11, and the lead-up to the (resumed) war in Iraq, it became painfully obvious to me that the U.N., as a serious arbiter of world affairs, had become irrevocably incapacitated due to political machinations going on outside the U.N. walls. France, Germany and Russia all opposed military intervention in Iraq and, since France and Russia had veto authority, well, that was that. Never mind that high-ranking officials in all those countries had been doled out considerable bribes by Saddam and Co., to ensure Saddam's political longevity.
In other words, the U.N. looks less and less like Star Trek every day, and more and more like The Godfather. I'm reminded quite often that America is guilty of breaking international law, as set forth by the U.N. (including the U.S), and we're being criminally hypocritical in our pursuit of the war on terror. It sounds so awful, being criminally hypocritical. It sounds so awfully awful. But, then I see footage of 9/11, and I remember that the U.N. waffled while armed with the most damning of evidence, and I can't help but feel that that's incalcluably more awfully awful, like watching someone beat someone else with a baseball bat and doing nothing because that might somehow infringe on the attacker's right to carry a baseball bat and, by extension, beat people with it. Oh, and the attacker paid them up front for the right to initiate the beating, so there's that.
So, no, I don't have a lot of time for the U.N., by which I mean I guess I can stomach the headquarter's presence in New York and pay $1 billion in renovation fees and all that, but as the grand vision of world order and law that it was founded upon, it has failed miserably. Can it be fixed? I like to think so but, until it is, I refuse to think of it as anything more than corrupt, irrelevant and ineffectual.
It looks great, but only on paper.
UPDATE: For Joshua, who likes Saddam_oil_vouchers_040129-1.html">evidence to be linked.
Finally, somebody explains it.
By the way, Dave Barry has his own blog, and you should check it out just in case you're bored.
Driving to work this morning, the radio guy informs me, with great glee, that it was going to be over 40 degrees today and sunny, sunny, SUNNY! Booooo, to winter! Boooooo! Depart vile season of snow and cold! Begone!
Come noon, there's a freakin' inch of snow on my car, with plenty more cascading from the skies. And, you know what? No sun! Of the sun, no rays are shining. Only cold, grey, unfeeling clouds, loosening their watery frozen bowels on the hapless Rochester inhabitants.
I actually got mad at the snow. I was in my car, skittering along the slippery roads (the road crews hadn't been out in force yet, because I'm sure they heard the radio guy and figured they could sleep in), and I found myself actually cursing the snow. I mean, I'm okay with a March snowstorm or two, or even three, but not when they happen right on top of each other. We had a massive dumpy-doo of snow on Friday, and a slight additional dusting Saturday night, so being greeted with MORE SNOW after the radio guy promised SUN, SUN, SUN, just pissed me off somehow.
Ah, but do the meteoroligical powers that be offer up retractions and apologies for their false hope? No! They just go on talking about how it's snowing out, and that caution is advised, and that the flurries could continue on into the evening. They just wipe the slate clean. No, they didn't make a mistake. Couldn't have. Forget what we said before; this is what's happening now. You see where we had the happy smiley sun up there? Well, we're just going to put a big old mean angry cloud there instead. You didn't see nothin!
Lousy, stinking snow.
