the past is another country
Saturday, September 29, 2001
Slate's Inigo Thomas has a chilling speculation on Osama bin Laden's master plan in the 9/11 attacks: force America into Afghanistan, then use a resulting anti-American backlash in Pakistan as cover for a raid on Pakistan's nuclear weapons supply. Thomas quotes the Christian Science Monitor's description of Pakistan as a "powder keg". Pakistan's army and immensely powerful Inter-Service Intelligence agency may not be able to stand by and let the Taliban, their most successful creation be destroyed; America may not be willing to let them do anything else. (more...)
11:36 pm 
Thursday, September 27, 2001
Is the CIA capable of investigating an Islamicist terrorist movement? One former operative says no, quoting a former member of the agency's Near East Division: "The CIA probably doesn't have a single truly qualified Arabic-speaking officer of Middle Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist who would volunteer to spend years of his life with shitty food and no women in the mountains of Afghanistan." There are, of course, dissenting opinions; a different foreign operative argues that "it's easy to find anyone if you're willing to pay enough money", although he makes the rather dubious case that Congressional oversight and CIA reluctance to recruit badguys handcuffed intelligence operations. Given American backing of the various murderous right-wing regimes during the Cold War (as well as the more specific rebuttals linked above), this is somewhat hard to believe. But as William Saletan argues, anti-terrorism, like anti-Communism, is soon going to create its own moral framework in which smaller considerations (such as not dealing with murderous zealots) fall by the wayside. (more...)
1:40 am
Saturday, September 22, 2001
I went to watch the Orioles beat the Yankees last night, and there were spontaneous chants of "U-S-A! U-S-A!" And it was weird, but not as weird as J.R. of Painted Land's remarkable trip to beautiful Fenway Park on Thursday.
On my way to the subway, I encounter many peers wearing the now infamous KILL BIN LADEN t-shirt. They are large, beer laden men.
#1: Fuckin' A. Fucking, somebody said, "That shirt's sick."
#2: I'll show them what's sick. Probably a gay. Or a chick!
#1: Yeah, I think it was a chick. Fuckin' send them to Af-gan-ee-stan, see how sick it is.
#3: Fuckin' torture 'em to death, see how sick it is.
3:48 pm
Monday, September 17, 2001
War, war, war. The declarations that we are "at war" are coming furiously now -- at war with an unknown enemy, at war on a battleground of the whole world. But we aren't at war; what was done to New York (those poor dead secretaries and lawyers and janitors and insurance brokers; those poor brave fire fighters and police) and Arlington justifies military action, unilateral or multilateral, in a way that I think nothing in Kuwait ten years ago did. But is it war? (more...)
10:06 pm
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
As a followup to Jason's advice, you can contact the Red Cross for information about the nearest location to give blood. Their server is completely overloaded, and I can't get through to 1-800-GIVE-LIFE, but they're going to continue to need blood over the next few days. (The eligibility guidelines are very slow coming up at the moment, but if you're above 110 pounds, don't have a tattoo or bloodborne diseases, aren't currently sick, and haven't spent more than a few months in Europe in the last few years, you're probably fine.) Here is the Google cache of their page; I hope that when things are slightly calmer, I can get through, find a location, and donate on my lunch hour.
3:13 pm
I'm simply stunned by the events of today. I don't think there's anything that can be said at this point in time, except Jason of Queso's sensible comment:
If you're in Manhattan, think about something seriously for me -- there was already a major blood shortage, and there will be an immense need for blood. Most hospitals have set up ways for you to walk in and donate blood today; please, if you're OK, and your family is OK, and you are just glued to your television, think about ungluing yourself, walking to your nearest hospital, and donating blood.
12:19 pm
Sunday, September 9, 2001
Man is a classifying animal. The urge to break things down into their component parts is an ancient and honorable one. Witness, for instance, the dietary laws delivered by God to Moses and Aaron in Leviticus:
These may ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, that may ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of all the living creatures that are in the waters, they are an abomination unto you...
The folk etymology of the word "barbarous" -- non-Greek speakers, whose languages sounded like "barbarbar" to the Greeks -- suggests one of the problems with early classifications. For the Greeks, separating the world into those who spoke Greek and those who didn't (and then further refining it: non-Greeks versus Greeks, and then Greeks from particular regions of Greece) was a natural one (for the ancient Greeks, at least), but it doesn't work very well for other classifications. How do you classify, say, a rat? Is it a Greek-speaking rat? Perhaps a Greek-speaking rat from Egypt? (more...)
10:50 pm
Tuesday, September 4, 2001
What do you call something that's big? Real big? Bigger than big? Maybe it's mammoth, from the Russian mamut. Although the wooly mammoth have been extinct for approximately 10,000 years, it inspired art from Cro-Magnon days until modern times: times: "The mammoth roared again like thunder, / And charged as only mammoths can." (Mammoth links from the Field Notes Macropedia, where yet more can be found.) (more...)
10:34 pm
