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Monday, October 15, 2001
Questioning the unquestionable 
| | I had not seen this photo gallery, comparing Belgrade in 1999 with New York in 2001. Let's look at the world through other people's eyes. OK. It's not about the emperor's clothes, imho. We thought we were doing good in Yugoslavia. OK, let's look at the pictures, but after that, will you tell us what you would like us to do in the future when peace is threatened by a despot like Milosovic. |
| | I'd like us to keep talking, no matter what else we do. |
| | As for that photo gallery, I did see it. A reader pointed it out, I suppose expecting me to do the Pacifist Thing and point it out on the blog. I didn't. And the reason is that I don't want to take sides. |
| | When sides are drawn, conversation tends to stop and relationship ends. Soon enough, enemies are made, even between friends with opposing opinions. We don't need to talk, we tell ourselves. We know they're wrong. But then, as Craig likes to say, distinctions start to collapse. The other side isn't just wrong, but also evil, bad and ugly. It isn't just right to hate them. It's good, noble and beautiful. |
| | "We're fighting evil," George W. Bush said the other day. Well, so were the guys who flew planes into buildings on September 11. |
| | Taking sides is what war is all about. That's why, if I want to take a side at all, it's against war, and against the non-conversation that makes war possible. That's extra hard when war seems to be the only reasonable choice, after all the unreasonable alternatives, including war, have been rejected. |
| | Was war the only choice in Yugoslavia? Is it the only choice now? It seems that way, but is that reason enough to not answer Dave's question? |
| | Let's look some other questions: |
| | Is peace only threatened by despots like Milosovic and fanatics like Usama bin Laden? What is it that makes us rationalize violoence? Is it just that some people are bad and others good? Are we all born one way or another? Who is born evil? Should we kill them in their cradles before it's too late? |
| | There is something in us that makes us want to kill bad guys for good reasons, and to stop asking questions once the sides are drawn and the killing begins. |
| | Even if we can't stop killing, we also can't stop asking why. |
| | Because there's something in us that makes us want to do that too. |
Gonzorolling
| | After the hamsters return to full power, I'll make sure the right nouns in the last paragraph turn blue (which, as you now see, they have). Meanwhile, let me deconstruct Flogging Bloggers, which went out yesterday to several thousand of Chris' best-connected friends. |
| | Then Chris says this about the very blog you're reading now: |
| | Doc Searls gets full credit for The Cluetrain Manifesto's "markets are conversations" tagline. Even more to his credit, though, Doc has pinned the blogger form to floor and made it cry Uncle! Add him to your list of sites to check out each morning before donning the corporate leg irons. And his blog will give you a much larger list of other worthwhile bloggers.... |
| | So Doc, how about adding Jeneane? New voices, new blood. Now more than ever, we need all the help we can get in end-running the empire. |
| | Yes, flattery will get you somewhere (especially with Leos like me). So by the miracle of Manila, she has been added, by first name, to the blogrolling list on the right. |
| | And then there's our friend Christophe Ducamp, whose Elanceur Weblog is now a leading member of the growing French weblog community, which seems to be organizing around Froglog, which seems to be doing gonzo stuff. My French, unfortunately, is barely up to reading menus (and barely improved over the months I worked there in the mid-90s). But hey: I'm just digging the fact that the doors are off French journauxisme too. |
| | The official release date for Gonzo Marketing is tomorrow, by the way. Go buy one. |
Makes me feel secure
| | NetIntercept, it says here, has something that can capture and store internet traffic, letting law enforcement folks come through it with their fine teeth if they feel like being suspicious. It's kinda like copying every truck, car and bus crossing the George Washington Bridge and searching through them for ... whatever. |
The doctor is on
| | Hunter S. Thompson's column may have moved from print to pixels and from news to sports, but what he's saying these days on ESPN2 is never far from his two favorite topics: politics and delusion. Here's a sample from his latest: |
| | The 22 babies born in New York City while the World Trade Center burned will never know what they missed. The last half of the 20th century will seem like a wild party for rich kids, compared to what's coming now. The party's over, folks. The time has come for loyal Americans to Sacrifice. ... Sacrifice. ... Sacrifice. That is the new buzz-word in Washington. But what it means is not entirely clear. |
| | Winston Churchill said "The first casualty of War is always Truth." Churchill also said "In wartime, the Truth is so precious that it should always be surrounded by a bodyguard of Lies." |
| | That wisdom will not be much comfort to babies born last week. The first news they get in this world will be News subjected to Military Censorship. That is a given in wartime, along with massive campaigns of deliberately-planted "Dis-information." That is routine behavior in Wartime -- for all countries and all combatants -- and it makes life difficult for people who value real news. Count on it. That is what Churchill meant when he talked about Truth being the first casualty of War |
How about a Wish I Didn't Know list?
| | Bill Safire has a Dunno List that's not what I want to read before I go to bed (which I am about to do). |
| | Especially after watching fifteen minutes of CNN International, once again covering the "America Strikes Back" story as if it had no context other than September 11. For that, however, I found something of an antidote: America Under Attack, Media in Crisis, by Aung Zaw, writing in the Thai magazine Irrawaddy Times. One excerpt: |
| | CNN¹s coverage of the attacks has been especially lacking in balance. Anchors and journalists at CNN and their associated television networks in America hardly raised the question of why this happened. Instead, they focussed on the issue of how the terrorists carried out their attacks, and how America would retaliate. |
Pat bin Falwell
| | Based on what they say, (not how they look or talk on TV) can you tell the difference between Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Usama bin Laden? I couldn't when I took this test here. Scored a whopping 5-for-20 (after the first several questions I just guessed and did worse than chance, which kinda defines all three of these guys are anyway). |
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