Links that deserve to be passed on
June 18, 2009
I have very little to say about each of these links except that it’s been a glorious week or so of online reading. I could not bring myself to close these articles from my Firefox tabs without recording them for posterity (as self-centered as I am, it appears I believe widely-circulated articles available on the Internet cease to exist when they leave my screen).
First, from The Atlantic Monthly (yes, I still call it that):
What Makes Us Happy? – By Joshua Wolf Shenk
An excellent, beautiful in that New Yorker-sorta way interrupted (by experiment subject narratives) interview with the man that has been behind the decades-old longitudinal Grant study at Harvard. It makes me think my Bachelors in Psychology isn’t such a scarlet letter after all.
George Vaillant, head of the study for the past 42 years tries to plumb from the disparate measurements and surveys conducted since 1937 – questions changing to reflect the interests and eras that the study has now outlived – and from the ups, downs, ups and downs again from the cohort of Harvard men the cues to living well and growing up.
The author of the article beautifully ties Vaillant’s near-theology – which often sounds little different than self-help pablum – to Vaillant’s own surprising neuroses and private scandals. Perhaps in doing so revealing a little known property of Psychologists (and Psychology students) outside of the discipline: Our interest in mental illness is entirely self-serving. Physician heal thyself.
And despite the shames of the researcher and the researched, the article lifted my spirits. The technical feat of the collection, the triumph-against-adversity of the project itself to remain fecund and funded, moreso than even the subjects, is story of a hero. Even if the hero is a collection of bits and bytes, papers in aged folders, and punch cards stuffed away in some filing cabinet monument in Boston.
Now from Chinese finance and economics magazine, Cai Jing (don’t worry, it’s in English):
Tight Spot for Fed, Blind Spot for Investors – Andy Xie
Mr. Xie provides what seems to me a very thorough and intuitively consistent synopsis of the state of American and international investment, with a US-centricity to his analysis despite the source of the article.
He provides a good anaylsis of the various push and pull forces active in the currency, Treasury, and commodities markets, tying his observations to current action within the equity markets and providing some broad predictions that may give pause to those on the sidelines (like myself) that have been failing to decipher all the noise of the market into something that resembles language.
On Mr. Xie’s implicit recommendation, I think I’ll invest in something loud with two wheels wrapped in Pirelli Diablo Super Corsa SPs. I think that’s what he’s saying, anyways.
And now for something completely different!
The Ninth Life of a Berkeley Boomer – John Dolan (single page view)
Mr. Dolan always writes wonderfully (though the low-rent site which I enjoy and frequent doesn’t seem to stress spellchecks) and has some especially fascinating insights into the life of the near-literati; the failed writers who became failed academics who became just plain poor.
Here he captures the story of a friend much like himself: talented, but lacking the good sense to slow his pace to stay within the proximal zone of his ‘betters’ that would ultimately judge him and decide his fate.
In its telling, he reveals the life of some of the members of the true American elite: The filthy rich and the chieftains of academia who rule their roosts. And even to them, a smart person cannot escape subjugation by them. And a crazy person doesn’t escape their useful purposes.
He describes a secret bit of life that I probably always lacked the talent to access, or at least the high school extracurriculars. And my entrance essays truly sucked.
… and the cow goes moo
NYT’s take on Iraq: It’s definitely sexist, but is it… true?
February 24, 2009
The New York Times daily e-mail highlighted a shocking quote from their article on the growing humanitarian crisis of Iraq’s war widows:
The article manages to provide a reminder of the crisis that will exist long after the war and insurgency end (wishful thinking, on my part?). And also the broader issues that condemn Iraqi women to continued subjugation.
The desperation that accompanies the loss of the family’s patriarch, in addition to the damanged national economy, leave war widows especially in untenable — and downright disturbing — circumstances:
“Officials at social service agencies tell of widows coerced into “temporary marriages” — relationships sanctioned by Shiite tradition, often based on sex, which can last from an hour to years — to get financial help from government, religious or tribal leaders.”
The only way I can interpret that statement is that widows have been forced into a form of blessed prostitution for survival in the absence of their husbands.
As horrible as Mr. al-Shihan’s comment may seem (and the NYT’s choice to include his laughing before the comment in the article makes it clear that the sexism and callousness of Mr. al-Shihan’s remarks was intentionally passed on), one wonders if the sexism that appears to permeate the culture (though I’ve heard that the sexism pre-war existed to a smaller degree in Iraq than many other mideastern nations) has left thousands of Iraqi women uanble to fend for themselves and their families in absence of their patriarch?
As easy as it would be to simply condemn Mr. al-Shihan’s remarks, I clearly cannot rival his knowledge of the situation and would be loath to make claims contending such. But if he is in fact speaking truth — and not just being an asshole — then the humanitarian crisis taking shape in Iraq’s war widows will outlast the war by years if not decades.
[And this may seem minor but is frankly the most shocking information I found in this article:
"Efforts to increase the government stipend for widows — currently about $50 a month and an additional $12 per child — have stalled. By comparison, the price of a five-liter container of gasoline, used for cars as well as home generators, is about $4."
The paltry stipend is not a surprise at all. But why is one of the most oil-rich countries in the world charging more for a liter of gasoline than Canadian gas stations (approximately $0.80/L CDN now, or roughly $0.64/L USD)? How does that make any sense?]
… and the cow goes moo
If you believe all politics is local, this should come as no surprise.
The opening paragraph from the New York Times:
“A Pakistani court freed one of the most successful nuclear proliferators in history, Abdul Qadeer Khan, from house arrest on Friday, lifting the restrictions imposed on him since 2004 when he publicly confessed to running an illicit nuclear network.”
A.Q. Khan, who sold nuclear technology to Libya, North Korea, and Iran had been confined to a loose house arrest for the past four years for his acts, albeit non-criminal, that were deeply unpopular outside of the Islamic world. There has long been public pressure within Pakistan for its leaders to recognize A.Q. Khan as a hero as much of the Pakistani and Muslim public already does. To the best of my knowledge, Pakistani leadership has consistently expressed sentiment along those lines but kept Mr. Khan under house arrest at the behest of Western powers.
This apparent deference to Western hegemony over Pakistani sovereignty has added to the controversy within Pakistan, especially with Pakistan’s half-hearted involved in the Global War on Terror. Many within Pakistan and other Islamic nations view Pakistan’s involvement in the GWOT as contrary to Pakistan’s own wishes and a shameful act of obsequiousness towards its Western allies.
A.Q. Khan’s release, I feel, was a longtime coming. It seems, with Musharraf’s pardon of Khan and the revelation that Mr. Khan was in no way under house arrest (new Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari had already released some restrictions upon Khan, allowing him to visit restaurants and write for newspapers according to the NYT piece) that restrictions would be subtly reduced to placate the Pakistani public without bringing it to the attention of the obviously less-attendant Western public. That A.Q. Khan’s release was done in such a manner makes me wonder if this was an intended affront to the West. I would imagine allowing the open violation of his house arrest would be enough to make the local news in Pakistan, while still receiving a low-profile in the West. To have Khan, a merchant of nuclear weapons to the nations and dictators that pose the greatest threat to America, meeting throngs of adoring press and public outside of his home approaches provocation.
This may be an offensive comment to some, but it is difficult for me to judge the legality or the moral issues involved. Pakistan was never a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. I would interpret that to mean that Pakistan has every right to spread their nuclear technologies among other non-signatories, such as North Korea, and the signatories of the NNPT would have every right to ‘punish’ Pakistan’s actions with sanctions (which would likely further drive the leader and populace of the nation against the West and perhaps make them more reliant upon thier nuclear exports). Not exactly a wide range of options.
The moral issue is even stickier to me, and even less palatable. A nation should have every right to develop armaments to defend its people, and even trade such materiel to other nations for the same purpose. America’s role as the world’s largest military exporter suggest to me that most Americans would concur. Were A.Q. Khan a head of Pakistan’s Smith & Wesson, his name would be unknown to Americans.
It goes without saying that the reason why A.Q. Khan was under house arrest, not as a criminal, but as a prisoner of international politics, was of course that his occupation was the trade of devices capable of killing thousands, if not millions, at a time and shift political power in the process. As the creator of the Islamic Bomb (referring to the actual bomb, though more appropriately describing the birthrate), he brought the smaller nation of Pakistan to near-parity with India on the international stage. And more importantly, he brought Pakistan (and North Korea) to the point of true sovereignty. As America (and her partners’) actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, more recently and going as far back as Chile and Cuba (or perhaps earlier), and her inaction with North Korea and Pakistan, would attest, soverignty is only a theoretical concept if you cannot defend it.
America’s bloody history of intevention in the rule of other nations is certainly of (to the say the least) ‘arguable’ malevolence or benevolence. As is Pakistan and Abdual Qadeer Khan’s efforts to arm other nations with nukes. Of course, two wrong don’t make a right. And neither do ninety-nine. But the arithmetic is clear: If what you have can be taken away by the USA, then you don’t really have anything at all. If you have nukes, however, than you can public exonerate and celebrate a man perceived abroad to be among history’s greatest criminals, with little fear of retaliation.
Even if you hate him, or think him as a criminal and a mass-murderer-in-waiting, you cannot question his popularity among Pakistanis. He freed his nation, among others, from Western rule. His fathering of 100+ Pakistani nukes provided his nation with the means to confront aggressor nations, and to liberate the potential father of a million deaths in the face of worldwide outrage.
… and the cow goes moo
Why We Hate Them: Part XI. Shoe Pitchin’ Superhero!
January 30, 2009
You remember that thing about that Iraqi journalist who deftly (great accuracy and speed on both throws. Do you think he had his shoes in his hands before he got up or did he reach down to remove them in between tosses or what?) whipped two shoes at now ex-President George W. Bush? You remember that part about how he’s practically apotheosized (if that’s not a word, it should be) in Islamic culture now, as anyone who does anything in attempt to humiliate George W. Bush is now considered a warrior of Islam? Well, they were not kidding.
Yahoo! News. They built a fucking shoe statue to commemorate him and his wonderful footwear! A fucking copper “sofa-sized sculpture” of a fucking loafer! On a four-foot tall pedestal of flowing fabric like some Adonis of Shoes.
I can understand hating George W. Bush (really, I really, really, really can), and I can also understand being outraged on behalf of Iraqi widows and orphans. And I can even understand throwing shoes at our ass-kicking, fighter jet landing ex-President. But building a statue of a … shoe? I couldn’t find a swoosh anywhere on the monument, but I can still only imagine that this is some ridiculous publicity stunt for a new Yankee President-humiliating brand of shoes. Otherwise you’d think they’d make a statue of… you know… the actual guy who threw the shoes, because I doubt the shoes were beaten and imprisoned afterwards but Muntadhar al-Zeidi probably got his ass royally kicked by security.
My favorite part from the article:
“Bush dodged both shoes, but the image was extremely powerful in Arab culture, where throwing shoes at someone is a sign of extreme contempt. Iraqis whacked a toppled statue of Saddam following the U.S.-led invasion with their shoes and slippers.”
I’m glad Yahoo! News pointed that out because I’m Chinese, and in Chinese culture, throwing your shoes at someone’s face while screaming in Arabic about Iraqi widows and orphans is a traditional marriage proposal in Chengdu. Needless to say, the article made a lot more sense upon second reading.
Bonus material: The Yahoo! article also has links to a video of the shoe statue being a shoe statue. Go watch now!
… and the cow goes moo
Why They Hate Us: Part MMXVIII. CIA Super-Rapist
January 30, 2009
You know how some people think everything the CIA does is to create this world order under US hegemony, destroying regimes and economies willy-nilly, while spiriting away innocent dissidents on the behest of sympathetic and docile-to-American-power totalitarian regimes?
Well, apparently even the CIA takes their Sundays off. And what do they do to relax? Why, rape the wogs, of course!
The opening paragraph at ABC News:
“The CIA’s station chief at its sensitive post in Algeria is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping at least two Muslim women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug, U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News.”
Although the article/blogpost (?) is replete with typos, it’s definitely a good read. Let’s see what slap-on-the-hand treatment this American civil servant receives for his globetrotting date-rape video-making. Let’s see if they lighten his sentence in light of his achievements fighting the Global War on Terror.
Full disclosure of my massive prejudices: The second I opened that page and saw Andrew Warren’s picture, I thought “date rapist”. Really, I don’t know what it is exactly, but Andrew Warren looks like the dictionary definition of a date rapist to me. The shaved-head jock stuffed in a suit look, with the shit eating grin? I’m not sure what it is exactly. He’s like a Botticelli. I don’t know why I love the look of The Birth of Venus exactly, but something about it is supremely beautiful. And I don’t know why Andrew Warren looks like such a rapist to me exactly, but just looking at him makes me 100% convinced that he absolutely raped those two women. And that he has probably been drugging and raping women all his life. Honestly. I’m not sure why I feel that way.
… and the cow goes moo
Mexico going to shit: Juárez vigilantes cleaning up the trash
January 30, 2009
Mexico’s steady decline into lawlessness is not news, but I have to say this is a exciting development:
The elpasotimes.com has a tantalizingly fictional-sounding-but-actually-true lead paragraph:
“A group calling itself the Juárez Citizens Command is threatening to strike back against lawlessness that has gripped the city for more than a year by killing one criminal a day until order is restored.”
I’m very reflexively pro-vigilante justice, due to my distrust for organized bureaucratic structures, my enthusiasm for individual judgment and action, and my Schwarzenneger movie-cultivated childishness.
But how the heck is this supposed to work? Assuming the chaos in the city is caused by organized drug cartels, how is a citizen’s brigade of even very talented and driven vigilantes going to function? Even with mass popular support and the economic support of small businesses, it seems to be that they cannot possibly compete in numbers, firepower, or willingness to cause damage than the cartels.
Considering the costs that I imagine would be necessary to cause enough damage to the gangs to effect their bottom line and change their behaviour, could the vigilantes be suffocated by the cartels if the cartels attacked their source of funding?
The article makes it clear that that funding purportedly comes from small businesses, which makes sense. Hopefully small, anonymous businesses. But hard would it be for the cartels to make some assumptions about which businesses are likely donors and destroy those businesses to make an example of potential funders of vigilantes? By those acts of terrorism, could they not discourage other funders and potential funders, thereby starving the vigilantes?
As much as I sympathize with the vigilante groups trying to take control of their city in the absence of functioning government, even by such brutal means, this seems like an exercise doomed to failure. I hope I’m wrong though because, from my safe suburban home in Canada, this sounds totally awesome.
… and the cow goes moo
Cernig is a regular contributor to the very, very large Liberal politics blog Crooks and Liars, generally focusing on the War on Terror and other international affairs (which are often highly US-centric, but as I believe he is a European contributor, he generally provides a bit of an outsider’s perspective). His posts tend to be very comprehensive, but I cannot say I often agree with the passion he has for some of his subjects. Or some of the scattershot conjecture that I feel weakens his arguments (as they tend to detract from the incisive primary crux of a post, at times). I find him to be consistently, along with the blog’s founder, the rarely-posting John Amato, to be the strongest contributors to the very popular politics and media site.
Today, on the otherhand, he breaks what may be a minor story in this time of economic hardship and political transition in the US: Pentagon Pushes Debunked “Returning to Terror” hype. I would highly recommend reading the post in its entirety if the fairly representative title interests you.
It never ceases to amaze me how willing certain factions (perhaps comprising the majority) of the US government is willing to mortgage its credibility to attain short term goals of convincing (and further radicalizing) the already convinced, covering their own asses, and providing talkshow fodder to those who are commited to defending The Cause.
If the data presented in Cernig’s is accurate, there is little doubt that the Pentagon is doing more than just massaging data to provide a shocking statistical argument in support of Gauntanamo’s existence. Worse yet, the type of data (and how easily the data seems to fall apart under Seton Hall’s scrutiny) suggest this is meant to be applied judiciously in a non-critical setting, where no claim is likely to be reviewed (think the Sunday morning political talk shows, the roundtable ‘debates’ on many political and news shows, and even many of the print editorial pages).
That those who believe in Gauntanamo’s efficacy or even torture’s efficacy would wish to support the existence of Guantanamo Bay and related facilities and policies=, I understand. But doing so by advancing what appears to be a thinly disguised misinformation campaign is shocking. Of course, no names will be attached to this shame beyond George W. Bush (perhaps) and The Pentagon as a faceless entity, so none will suffer personally from this claim. But this disregard for fact and this disrespect for the inquisitiveness of those who are fed this information is shockingly cynical. Albeit the misinformation campaign will likely be effective, it is also doubtlessly dragging discourse down further by obtaining increased support for the current anti-terror methods and policies with smoke-and-mirrors data presentation.
God bless Cernig for catching this one, as I and probably many others who might normally be attentive to these issues are focusing on the innumerable other crises that seem more pressing right now.
This appears to be yet another case of egregious data manipulation and bald propaganda which has become so commonplace in recent years.
… and the cow goes moo
UPDATED – NYT’s Kristof: Torture forces the smile on the faces of Asian sex tourism workers
January 2, 2009
(for more of my comments on the subject, and links to an earlier article on the subject by Nicholas Kristof, please follow this link)
One of the unenviable area of focus of Nicholas Kristof’s writings is one of the most overlooked atrocities occurring on a daily basis, combining slavery, kidnapping, rape, torture, murder, and pedophilia into one act of human degradation. As heinous as each of those acts are to Western, and I’d assume, all observers and the strong reaction any one of these acts would produce should it occur to a middle-class blond from Ohio, the well-practiced and almost perfected business of sex slavery, combining all of these crimes, goes largely unnoticed by all but Kristof readers.
His latest article can be found here, continuing on the article I mentioned in a previous post linked to above, follows yet another victim/survivor of the Cambodian sex trade. Not content to add just one more personal story and one more name to the list of victims of the deviancy and perversions of Asian and Western businessmen and women, Kristof focuses on the ongoing threat and use of torture that is practiced to create the veneer of coquettishness and willingness of the captives of Cambodian brothels.
Those of us who are disgusted by torture and condemn acts such as waterboarding may have a more intense reaction to the acts described by Kristof and perpetrated on not suspects of terrorism, but kidnapped children who resist to selling their bodies to strange men for money they never see (please skip the following quote if you intend to read the entire article as it is perhaps the key anecdote in the article. Otherwise, HIGHLIGHT the blank space to see the text):
“As in many brothels, the torture of choice was electric shocks. Sina would be tied down, doused in water and then prodded with wires running from the 220-volt wall outlet. The jolt causes intense pain, sometimes evacuation of the bladder and bowel — and even unconsciousness.
Shocks fit well into the brothel business model because they cause agonizing pain and terrify the girls without damaging their looks or undermining their market value.
After the beatings and shocks, Sina said she would be locked naked in a wooden coffin full of biting ants. The coffin was dark, suffocating and so tight that she could not move her hands up to her face to brush off the ants. Her tears washed the ants out of her eyes.”
We know these things happen, in great numbers, and continue on a daily basis. We know that a large part of the problem is on the demand side, contributed to but not exclusively by Western businessmen (likely reasonably wealthy travelling businessmen travelling alone to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and other Asian nations). And we know, and I believe can agree on without equivocation, that the act may not be the most pervasive, but is certainly among the most perverse and heinous of any act being perpetrated on this Earth today or that has been in the past hundred years. Then why can’t we make an effort to stop it at least on our side of the equation, where we have a right and responsibility to control it?
There seems to be a ununanimous but significant passive support for screening terrorism suspects and restricting their travel. Even mideastern friends of mine exhibit a fair level of acceptance to the reality (I am paraphrasing, but one response I received from an ethnic Persian friend a few years ago, during the height of the War on Terror, was: “we know who is responsible for the attacks, so of course Mideasterners are going to be targeted. What else can you do?”).
I don’t necessarily condone this or would support such a policy being enacted, but why isn’t a similar profile being used to stamp out the supply-side of sex slavery? Is it because sex slavery didn’t cause towers to fall on national television? The nation has not be adequately scarred to disband civil liberties for this particular offense and criminal group?
Is it because the victims of this act are not Americans, but brown-skinned Asians, dying out of sight in brothel dungeons, on motel room beds at the hands of an abusive John, or quietly of AIDs on the other side of the world?
Or is it because the ‘victims’ of this profiling would perhaps be overwhelming white and well-to-do males, pillars of local business communities, family men, and otherwise known to be respectable folk who have the courtesy to practice their most profligate sexual deviancy on dark-skinned children?
Or another reason entirey? I hope Kristof and others who live wholly or halfway in this world of medieval bondage continue to explore this topic and demand an answer. No doubt those who enslave these girls and pay for their services are the most vile. But I would like to know how disgusting the rest of us are for being less than outraged.
UPDATE: Kristof has a new article up continuing on the travails of sex slaves in Cambodia, detailing more gruesome tortures inflicted on the teenage captives.
… and the cow goes moo
