TOTALITARIANISM TODAY
Thursday, December 26, 2002
Obits.
Roderick Long's obituary for John Rawls is definitely worth reading. Among others to emigrate to the netherlands this year...
* 103-year-old trivia expert Joseph Kane passed away this September. Kane wrote over 50 books of factual information and trivia including five editions of Famous First Facts. His Hollywood connection started as the host of a radio version of "Famous First Facts" in the 1940s. He later worked for TV games shows, such as "The $64,000 Question," "Break the Bank" and "Double or Nothing" as a question writer.
* British born writer James Mitchell, who wrote over 70 spy novels during his lifetime.
* Statesman Cyrus Vance, who served as US Seccretary of State from 1977 to 1980. Vance also served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, practiced law as a profession, and was an esteemed member of the American Bar Association, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission. Vance received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969.
*Senator Paul Wellstone perished with his wife Sheila and daughter Marcia in a small plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota, that also killed three staff members and two pilots.
* A 24-year-old South Korean man died after playing computer games nonstop for 86 hours, according to Korean police sources.
* German film star Hildegard Knef, who immortalized the 1952 films The Snows of Kilamanjaro and Diplomatic Courier with her talent.
* Zoologist, Harvard professor, and writer Stephen Jay Gould who, along with Niles Eldredge, a paleontologist at New York’s Museum of Natural History, developed an evolutionary theory called "punctuated equilibrium," where long periods of evolutionary stability are broken by shorter spurts of evolutionary change, perhaps sparked by external events such as climate change or the impact of a comet. The theory contrasts with more traditional evolutionists, who believe evolution is a slow, steady process occurring at a nearly constant rate.
* Jazz chanteuse Rosemary Clooney.
* Paleontologist and fantasy writer William Anthony Swithin Sarjeant, who used the nom de plume Anthony Swithin, and also gave interesting talks on the geology of Middle Earth.
Wednesday, December 25, 2002
Changes in the SEC.
William A. Thompson expresses skepticism over Bush's choice to replace Harvey Pitt with William H. Donaldson as new chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Thompson's concern over the "political football" played by SEC chairs should not be overlooked.
True, administration spin doctors tout a record number of cases filed this year (given the pervasive fraud, one would hope so) and the adoption of a series of tough rules as a rebound by the agency. Those close to the situation, however, note that the commission's divisions are still losing ground. The New York Times recently reported that the agency's enforcement division and office of compliance inspections were understaffed by hundreds of officials, its corporate finance department couldn't begin to keep up with the deluge of filings, and the market regulation division – having tried for years – still couldn't persuade the agency's five commissioners to adopt rules on the way markets set stock prices.
According to the BBC, Harvey Pitt's resignation centered on the fiasco surrounding the appointment of a new auditing chief to supervise US accountancy firms. He came under fire for his failure to disclose to fellow SEC board members sensitive information about the man chosen to head the new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board - William Webster. Mr Pitt has also been criticised for having launched an internal investigation into Mr Webster's appointment after the scandal broke - in effect an investigation into his own behaviour.
Apparently, however, many were surprised by the choice of Donaldson as the new chair. Granted, Donaldson's resume fits the bill, as the 71-year-old heads his own New York-based investment firm, and is best known on The Street as co-founder of Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette (DLJ), the nimble investment bank that was especially adroit at underwriting junk bonds.
Essentially, however, the markets depend more on psychological perception than precise figures-- the most adept businessmen described their decision-making processes as "visceral" rather than rational or calculated. Donaldson has promised to return confidence in markets, thereby improving economic prospects for businessmen in 2003. There may be reason for hope in this, but there is certainly no room for conclusions.
Wednesday, December 25, 2002
A must-read right now.
Oscar Gonzalez's sharp satire, "Piece of Earth" even made my dog, Honey, bark with amusement:
Concerned that messages of love and peace may be hampering its War on Terrorism, the Bush Administration is calling on Americans during this holiday season to think "Piece Of Earth" instead of "Peace On Earth."
Read the rest.
Wednesday, December 25, 2002
"Break Me To Prove I Am Unbroken" by Sophie Cabot Black
You say you will come
Again; this time I will wait through
The extra burning, the vicinity of your
Tongue making a slow way toward beginning and this
Then becomes the argument, the only one
In the collar of moonlight as finally I cause you
To answer your several names. It is all
About return, enough faith to live
On whatever remains. While your hand looks
For the broken glass of what has not
Happened yet, it breaks everything
Along the way. The old vines tighten
Around the untended kingdom while some still sleep
And the long approach
Of no footfall becomes the road I hurry home on
To a place where I learned to leave the body
Not so much in safety but with the best intentions,
And into the smallest space I crawl, a taste of mud,
An edge of light into the room so each morning the world
Can solve itself against our abandoned stones.
Wednesday, December 25, 2002
Waiting for a sign from one of my kind.
Fighting the flagrant hope to find something funny on this hap-hap-happy holiday. Scavenging the web for a jolly good time is like skipping desert-- may never happen, but is certain to fail on Christmas. I started to realize this when my search retrieved a story about a father who embraces Christmas with full cognizance of its cliche-riddled flavor. Yet this fantastic, awed belief in the impossible, or the thoroughly-commercialized, is what makes Christmas so "magical" to those who believe in Santa. After all, if you sit down and calculate it, to deliver his gifts in one night, Santa would have to make 822.6 visits per second, sleighing at 3,000 times the speed of sound. At that speed, Santa and his reindeer would burst into flame instantaneously.
Alas, solace lies in the living room, with my family, which keeps the surreal common. There are things less believable than Santa Claus. For example, December is the most popular month for nose jobs. And some girls are bigger than others. Also, the average American takes six months to pay off holiday credit-card bills. So savor tonight while you can, as the consequences are far from rosy. And if you can't seem to catch that ever-so-wicked "holiday spirit", don't bother trying to find it on the web.
The cocktail of pitiful Christmas jokes, like this one, leaves little room for laughter.
On the brighter side, "Twas the night before Christmas", as told by an attorney in the NEA journal, circa 1960, pulls forth a strained cackle. Maybe I just know too many people in law school.
Twas the night before Christmas in jail deserves quotation for two reasons. In the first place, it reminds me of police officers in Alabama-- in fact, it seems almost so familiar as to be deja-vu. In the second place, it contains the kind of gratuitous obscenity that only the ACLU or Al Bundy could appreciate.
'Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the cells
The convicts were locked up
All madder than hell
Except for the lifers
Kicked back in their bunks
Heads filled with visions
Of fat little punks
When suddenly from the roof top
There arose such a roar
That the bulls thought it was
A riot for sure
The goon squad ran in
And stood ready to hit
A big guard yelled out
Who started this shit
It came from the roof top
Sniveled a snitch
It must be a breakout
Oh, son of a bitch
They climbed to the roof
By way of the stairs
Found a fat little freak
In red underwear
No, No yelled the dude
I bring you good cheer
Damn said the Captain
We found us a queer
Alright mother fucker
Get your hands on the wall
They shook him down good
Asshole and all
They beat him and threw him
Into the hole with a kick
Well so much for Christmas
They locked up St. Nick
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Cold comfort.
For those planning to spend their holidays chastely, I feel your pain, as my Christmas promises much lack of the same. Rather than mourn the missing love, scour Dan Savage's Christmas sex disaster compendium.
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
The best Christmas present I ever recieved.
December 1989, when Ceausescu and his wife Elena were finally removed from this earth. Contra some classical liberal positions, I do not support capital punishment; I do not believe the state should have the authority to kill its citizens under almost any circumstances. But I do believe in family honor. And I would have felt priveleged to pull the trigger on the Ceausescus myself.
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Fourteen points that don't amount to much.
I confess to a sly smugness when reading about Woodrow Wilson's not-so-secret racism. Wilson is the man who made the world "safe for democracy", translate-- "safe for nation-building". It's amusing to discover the limits to his love of self-determination.
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Business as usual.
James Surowiecki comments on what he describes as "the long faces as the top" of the corporate world, while Businessweek devotes extra attention to management guru Peter Drucker's impact on contemporary business practices.
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Changing courtship or changing our expectations of courtship?
In an interview for Harper's, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, the author of Why There Are No Good Men Left, discusses the challenges facing today's single women, and argues that the contemporary courtship system needs to be transformed to meet changing social norms and expectations. What did Whitehead discover about current male/female dysfunctions?
What she found was that at the time in their lives when they feel ready for a partner, young women are at a loss as to how to find one. Contemporary young women, she points out, have been raised to seek fulfilling careers rather than husbands. And upon college graduation they want to spend time out on their own, making their mark on the world, rather than pairing off right away and exchanging their independence for family life.
The problem, she explains, is that when these women reach their late twenties or thirties and at last become interested in settling down, the large pool of eligible young men to which they had access in college—with backgrounds and ambitions similar to their own—has disappeared. A woman at this stage in her life is likely to be trapped in a somewhat narrow routine that includes work, working-out, and socializing with a circle of friends. Her odds of encountering her future spouse in these limited spheres are extremely low.
Whitehead points out that many women have problems admitting that successful careers may require compromise if a good marriage or raising children is also a goal. Aristotle, that dear old Greek, advised moderation. We should strive for the compossible, the compatible, and the time to enjoy both.
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Last minute gift ideas.
Gentlemen, if you still haven't found a gift for that special someone, look no further than Mattel's Lingerie Barbie. And girls, if your man already has season tickets to his favorite team sport, then see if he needs a new bass guitar, a wah-wah pedal, or a subscription to the beer-of-the-month club.
If you are stumped for family members or friends, an all-around interesting gift might be that of a flight manual, which comes with a free grand jury subpoena to sweeten the deal. Not to mention the Nation's gift list for radicals of all shapes and sizes.
Monday, December 23, 2002
Arousing patriotism.
Ladies, you too can demonstrate a little patriotic hurrah by volunteering for one of the latest studies commissioned by the US government. Consider it magnanimous.
