Far too long and coherent to make it into the Wall Street Journal

In the interest of fairness and the truth, I find it necessary to address the many errors of omission in Mary Anastasia O'Grady's condemnation of John Kerry's stance on the Sandinistas ("With Friends Like These?" WSJ, July 30).

Without a trace of irony, she damns the Sandinistas for their use of secret police and "no small measure of brutality" in trying to maintain power. Yet nowhere does she refer to the four decades of unmitigated terror perpetrated by the Somoza family dictatorship and the unparalleled savagery of Somoza's National Guard. (Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega was one victim, tortured for seven years in a Somoza prison.)

Furthermore, O'Grady conveniently fails to mention the gross human rights abuses of the "anti-Sandinista forces" -- remember the Contras? -- she praises. Americas Watch, a nonpartisan human rights group, documented the ruthless acts of violence committed by the Contras, which included kidnappings, torture and murder of unarmed civilians. Many veterans of the wildly unpopular National Guard wound up in the ranks of the Contras, hardly endearing the Contras to most Nicaraguans. Plus, the Contras proved ineffective militarily. By 1984, they had received $150 million from Washington and taken control of exactly zero villages.

By 1985, it was becoming clear that the Contras were fighting a losing battle. Their blatant disregard for human rights appalled John Kerry, just as it appalled church leaders and other decent Americans who were paying attention to Nicaragua. But these abuses evidently don't appall O'Grady. To her, human rights take a back seat to "U.S. security interests." She's wrong, of course.

But O'Grady is right on one count. Revisiting Kerry's views on the Sandinistas does tell us a lot about his judgment. Kerry was right in 1985 on an issue that, with the benefit of nearly two decades of hindsight, O'Grady is still wrong on today.

Point, Kerry

So, I have to say, I read something (and in the Wall Street Journal of all places) about John Kerry that made me think he wasn't half-bad.

Essentially, there was an op-ed piece last Friday that chastized Kerry for his ties to "left-wing" political leaders in Latin America. The most dwelled-upon and thereby supposedly damning were the Sandinistas of Nicaragua. In April 1985, just after first winning election to the U.S. Senate, Kerry went to Nicaragua and met with members of the Sandinista junta. (For dramatic emphasis the Journal ran a picture of Kerry shaking hands with Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, because they normally run photos on the op-ed page, you know.)

The particularly incriminating gem was how, shortly after returning from Managua, Kerry introduced an amendment to an authorization bill to fund CIA aid to "anti-Sandinista forces" (ever hear of the "Contras"?) in Nicaragua. Kerry's amendment sought to restrict the money to humanitarian efforts, and he said: "If it's strictly humanitarian assistance, then it's OK for the CIA to do it. But if the CIA moves off to tangential activities, that would be a violation."

Letting pass momentarily the absurdity of sending the CIA to provide "humanitarian assistance," this amendment sounds like a real friggin' good idea. Lest anyone forget (like the writer of this piece), the Contras were pretty brutal. Exceedingly brutal. Kidnappings, torture and murder of unarmed civilians were all favorite tactics, or so says the human rights group Americas Watch. Needless to say, it wasn't very wise to give the Contras money and/for arms. (Iran-Contra was just another proof of this theory.) And then there was that little matter of the Contras being a spectacularly ineffectual military force. (By 1984, the Contras and I controlled exactly the same number of villages in Nicaragua. It took $150 million in U.S. aid for the Contras to enjoy that success, whereas I was but an infant operating exclusively out of my California nursery with only childproof toys and limited motor skills.)

But, no, says the author. She says that this "for anyone who doesn't already get it, helps explain why the CIA has become increasingly ineffectual over the past 20 years." Of course, she only said that Kerry introduced this amendment. Nowhere does she indicate whether it passed muster and became part of the final authorization bill. Nor could I find this out from Googling. And that seems kinda important to know. Because if you want to go blaming John Kerry for undermining the CIA on this, it might be good to know if he actually accomplished what he set out to do. For example, if his amendment had died, then it really didn't impair the CIA at all. Details, details.

There's a lot more to pick apart in this column, and I would've loved to have done so, though it would've mainly read like a primer on modern Nicaraguan history, and a lot like a primer on modern Nicaraguan history written by Walter LaFeber.

To come full circle, I was pleasantly surprised to read about Kerry taking such an evidently principled stand, and to learn that he at least didn't give blanket condemnation to the Sandinistas. It's almost enough to make me want to vote for him, but then, I doubt that he's really so principled today, or gives a damn about human rights in other countries like he ostensibly did then. (Plus, I'm still not sure I fully trust the Journal's reporting on this, but I digress.) For everyone's enjoyment, I'll post the full text of the letter I did fire off to the editor in a separate post, if only to preserve it for posterity (since I'm sure it'll never make it to print).

Just one of the ladies

Yesterday I made some copies for one of my co-workers, who replied, "Thank you, ma'am." She did catch herself, but it was amusing.

I'm still not sure what's more surprising: that she referred to me as "ma'am," or that it took this long before one of the women in the office made the slip of referring to the sole male on staff as a female.

John Kerry, what is he good for?

First, the disclaimer. I did not watch John Kerry's address at the DNC, save for a few brief stays as I flipped through channels, and some of the post-speech commentary and analysis as I waited to see if The Simpsons would begin.

That said, I think I'm really glad I didn't play the John Kerry drinking game, where you take a drink every time he invokes his military record. One, I didn't have nearly enough alcohol on hand for it (three bottles of beer, a bottle of champagne and two bottles of German wine). Two, I need to be not hungover so I can go to work tomorrow.

In the snippets of his speech I caught, he invoked his military record. I'm fairly certain that these random samples reflected the speech as a whole, though I hope he didn't devote it entirely to the military thing.

Evidently, according to U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), this address was to be Kerry's big sell for why people should want to vote for him, as opposed to against Bush.

And, well, I'm not sure this speech gave any compelling reasons. Opening by saying "John Kerry, reporting for duty" doesn't exactly distinguish from Dubya. More to the point, it seems simply to emphasize one of the very crucial reasons why I think George W. Bush belongs in the dock at the ICJ. So I'm not following how this makes me think John Kerry is better, or affirming.

It's just odd, convoluted logic. Bush is the war president. People didn't like the war. So I'm going to position myself as the new war president. Not so much.

And it's really, really sad. Absolutely I should vote, in the words of Ron Reagan, for the candidate with the best chance to defeat George W. Bush. But you really, really need to throw me a bone on this one. Give me some incentive to decide that Kerry's that much better, that he has enough a backbone to fight forr things that really matter to me. Because I'm not seeing it.

I can't decide what would be worse: four more years of Bush, or a Kerry presidency that saw him so eager to woo moderates, centrists and conservatives that he does all he can to avoid the mantle of liberalism by running away from it. Because I really fear that it could almost be worse under a Democrat. In the long term, at least. If you have a nominally liberal president under enormous pressure from the right to betray his left leanings, you're essentially going to end up with a situation in which nothing remotely liberal gets done and the whole agenda of liberalism gets further degraded to the point at which it's dead. Or maybe it already is dead. See Bill Clinton. "New" Democrats have brought a lot of this on themselves, I think. They became so obsessed with gaining power that they were willing to seek it at any cost, damn the policies. I see John Kerry as continuing this trend.

Perhaps I'm hopelessly idealistic. But then, I don't know that power's worth much if you don't use it for anything worthwhile.

So I remain deeply conflicted, perhaps even more so than before. I still haven't decided whether I'll vote for Kerry or if I'll even vote at all. I do know that I really hope Ralph Nader is on the ballot wherever I vote, because I like having him as a choice. I know what I'm getting with Ralph, I agree with him, I can feel pretty good with myself for voting for him. Granted, I wish I had a better sense of what Ralph's trying to do this time around, wish he had a more clearly articulated agenda, wish he injected some of the much needed new thinking he offered in 2000, wish he had won the Green Party nomination. But having Ralph -- mixed up and all -- on the ballot is a good thing. Good for democracy, good for the country.

Still, it doesn't help me decide if I should vote for Kerry and hope for a benign (or less malignant) administration, or if it's worth bothering with the process at all. John Kerry just doesn't make it easy for me to choose.

Plus, I'm a bit bitter at Kerry at the moment because his speech preempted The Simpsons. D'oh!

Out of place

So, a couple of weeks ago, the billboard on a building in view of our office changed. Previously it had been an adidas ad featuring Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood who, despite being without the familiar Cubs logo on his cap and jersey, was instantly recognizable to 99.9 percent of the people who saw the ad. (This is, after all, the North Side of Chicago.) It then changed to something generic for Ray-Ban (I think) that wasn't particularly memorable.

But then, as I mentioned, it changed again recently. It's another adidas ad in their "Impossible is nothing" campaign. (This campaign has featured the famous black-and-white photo of Muhammad Ali standing brazenly over a fallen Joe Frazier and, my favorite, a picture of English and Real Madrid midfielder David Beckham with the tagline "Impossible is nothing" printed above his groin -- this came out right before several allegations surfaced about Becks having cheated on wife Posh Spice, making it seem all the truer that, well, you know where this is going.)

Anyway, to attempt to get somewhere with this, the new billboard has a picture of German and Bayern München goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, with the text "Impossible can't appreciate 0-0."

Now, I know who Oliver "King" Kahn is. I know that he's an incredibly talented and equally insane keeper who very nearly carried Germany to a World Cup victory two summers ago. And I've seen his mug enough on the Guardian's Web site to know what he looks like (and to know what he looks like with his head Photoshopped on King Kong's body).

But it's safe to say I'm in a relative minority here. At least, as far as the people who are likely to see this billboard go. Because the picture just shows Kahn, in typically King Kahn facial contortions, from the torso up. You can just barely start to make out the top of the T-Mobile ad plastered on his chest, but only barely. And if you didn't know that T-Mobile was the uni sponsor for Bayern, or weren't intimately aware with the T-Mobe logo that you could recognize it just by seeing a small portion, you wouldn't know. Admittedly, you can also see the small Bayern logo at the upper corner of his torso, but even that is difficult to make out unless you go looking for it, as I did.

This ad doesn't face the El, so it's not like a lot of people, especially soccer-savvy minorities and immigrants, are likely to pass by it. In fact, it appears really just to be visible from a very small cluster of office buildings and condos that happens to include where I work. I'm willing to guess that in the two weeks this ad has been up maybe a half-dozen folks, myself included, have seen it and recognized the person on it.

All of which is to say, this seems like it's an especially ineffective ad. Unless adidas really, really is trying to target me specifically. In which case, they could've done far better and saved a lot more money had they simply given me tickets to today's match between Bayern and Manchester United at Soldier Field in Chicago, where I could've actually seen Kahn in the flesh.

Sort of like Osama

Tatarsky thought it must be one of those military construction projects begun in the seventies that had failed to save the empire, but had instead shaped the aesthetic of 'Star Wars'. He recalled Darth Vader and his asthmatic wheezing and marvelled at what a wonderful metaphor he was for the career communist: probably somewhere on his starship he had a dialysis machine and two teams of cardiologists, and Tatarsky recalled vaguely that there had been hints at something of the kind in the film. But in his present state thinking about Darth Vader was dangerous.

-- Victor Pelevin, Babylon [Homo Zapiens], 38

Fighting the crime that matters

You gotta hand it to the cop for firing a warning shot first.

Someone's gotta record it for posterity

U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), speaking on the House floor:

"I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again. Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world."

Her remarks were stricken from the record after a 219-187 vote of House members.

It's nice to see an old axiom about the past being undetermined in the Soviet system gaining renewed currency in a "democracy" such as this.

Broadcast "journalists" on the defensive

So, it seems that the big network TV news anchors are taking umbrage with "Fahrenheit 9/11," or at least with any criticism of the TV media that may result from the film.

The problem is, they all seem to think that they're paragons of journalistic integrity and objectivity. Take ABC's Ted Koppel:

"'Nightline' is not nearly as entertaining as 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' " Koppel said. "We're never going to be as entertaining as '9/11.' We're never going to be as entertaining as the movie 'JFK.' But there is still, I think, a desperate need for down-the-middle news."

Agreed. And the problem is, the major media -- especially television -- don't make a serious attempt to play it down the middle. They just regurgitate official pronouncements and the like.

But they -- or at least NBC's Tom Brokaw -- don't quite see it that way.

"It's really easy to turn back the clock now and say, 'Oh, it was the fault [of the media], especially of the electronic media, that we went to war because they jumped on the bandwagon,' " Brokaw said. "If you do a fair review, we gave a very vigorous accounting of what was known and what was not known at the time. ... The American news networks and the newspapers, for the most part, did as well as they could under the circumstances."

Well, maybe. If you consider the aforementioned repetitions of bland administration propaganda to be a "very vigorous accounting." Sure, Brokaw went to Iraq before the war. He wasn't the only celebrity "journalist" to do it. Dan Rather interview Saddam pre-invasion. But they didn't exactly go about trying to do much objective, or even nominally original reporting. It was more background that fit the "Saddam-is-evil" mantra to set the impending invasion against.

Anything to the contrary ... well, those are just inconvenient facts we can sweep under the rug.

"I had a lot of people come up to me and, quietly, at some risk, say: 'When are the Americans coming? We can't continue to live like this,' " Brokaw said. "And the only scenes we saw in Michael Moore's film ... were children sliding down playground ramps and so on.

"That was not an accurate portrayal. This was one of the most repressive regimes in history. Was it an appropriate excuse to go to war? That's a whole other debate. ... [But] the idea of using Michael Moore's very artful, very strong point of view as some kind of gold standard, I think, is just wholly inappropriate. I really do."

Look, I don't think anyone claims that Michael Moore is the standard bearer for journalism. Although if some folks are holding him up as such, I think that speaks volumes to the pathetic, inadequate, piss-poor job the mainstream media have been doing. If you keep telling folks that all is peachy keen when clearly it's not, they're going to drool over someone who at least tries to point out that things are pretty rotten. Even if it's over the top.

And the whole montage of children playing? It's ridiculous that this is something people are finding so much fault with. Moore wasn't trying to portray life in Saddam's Iraq as some kind of idyll. But it wasn't all torture chambers and suffering either. It's pretty damn difficult to impose total, incessant, 24/7 misery on an entire society. But you wouldn't know that from watching network news coverage. Some things are universal. Americans die. Iraqis die. Americans suffer under their government. Iraqis suffer under their government. And despite it all, American children still fly kites. So do Iraqi kids. It's an essential dimension of Iraqi life, another side to the story. And in the context of TV news saturation and hype, you don't need to present the same side that's been rammed down everyone's throats since we decided we hated Iraq more than a dozen years ago. It's implicit, stupid.

Wasn't the EU supposed to prevent this?

Ah, the European Union. That dynamo of international governance renowned for tearing down the artificial barriers that separate nations in an effort to promote transnational cooperation and European peace.

So, naturally, the EU is doing just the opposite of that with two of its newest members, mandating that a proper, physical border be erected between the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Bringing the nations of Europe closer together? Say what?

To understand the absurdity of this measure, consider that never -- never -- has there been a proper border between these two regions. Obviously not during the 70-odd years they were both part of Czechoslovakia, and not in the 11-plus years since the "Velvet Divorce" that created the two countries. But not even prior to the creation of 1918. In the centuries that it's been possible to speak of meaningful polities of a modern scale, these two regions have been part of the same empire, state or political amalgamation for its entirety, excepting the time from January 1, 1993 (the date of the split), to May 1, 2004 (when both acceded to the EU). And even then, Czechs and Slovaks could cross the border freely.

And for good reason. Under the terms of the "divorce settlement," the two peoples were promised an open barrier. It had always been that way and there wasn't a compelling reason for it to change. Czechs and Slovaks are closely related in terms of ethnicity, language and history. The differences between the two lands are modest (though at least perceived as real enough to merit discrete political entities).

But such an arrangement, giving Czechs and Slovaks free access to each other's countries, is "discriminatory," the EU says. Why? Because the citizens of other EU countries don't enjoy such a privilege. So they have until 2007 to rectify this "discrimination." Of course, citizens of nations that have signed the Schengen Agreement -- such as France, Germany, etc. -- enjoy free movement between members of the Schengen Group. The Czechs and Slovaks, not allowed membership in the Schengen Group immediately upon entry into the EU, don't enjoy such privileges. But hey, that's not discriminatory.

And, bear in mind, in a few years when the Czech Republic and Slovakia do become part of the Schengen Group, then that new border between the countries will become superfluous.

To recap: The EU says Czechs and Slovaks need to build a barrier between them that has no antecedents and abrogates the agreement on movement put in force by the split between the two countries. This because the EU finds this free movement "discriminatory" toward the non-Czech and -Slovak citizens in the EU, many of whom already enjoy free movement within other EU countries that is currently denied to Czechs and Slovaks. And all this so the border can be dismantled in a few years when the Czechs and Slovaks can finally enjoy those rights.

Three (Bronx) cheers for bureaucracy!

Because you can never be too petty

The war on evil, dastardly condiments continues.

Sound familiar?

Before me lie several issues of provincial and territorial newspapers published on the same day. Above all, one is arrested by the striking similarity of the papers. Like twins, they can hardly be distinguished from one another. If it were not for the names of the papers and the names of districts, factories and collective farms which are mentioned in them, any one of the papers could be substituted for another, and neither the reader nor the staff itself would notice.

-- From a critical survey of the Soviet press by a high official of the Central Committee's Propaganda and Agitation Department, April 1955

Everyone out of the carpool

An interesting short piece about the introduction of carpool lanes in the UK.

Carpool lanes are fairly prevalent around Southern California, though not ubiquitous. But they always strike me as something of a SoCal phenomenon, at least insofar as I can't recall coming across any other region with them.

Speaking from experience, I can say that carpool lanes don't act as much of an inducement for commuters to start carpooling. They're more of a surprise bonus for folks who just happen to have someone riding shotgun with them at that time. No one, and I mean no one in Greater L.A. ride shares for the purpose of cutting down on traffic congestion or trying to do a favor to the environment. These factors simply never enter into drivers' consciousnesses. Instead, you get lots of instances of folks driving somewhere and coming to the pleasant epiphany that, "Hey, I've got someone with me; let's take the carpool lane!" Or, another favorite, someone will seek out a person to ride with for the express purpose of being able to use the carpool lane. That is, someone who otherwise would've stayed at home and not been on the road. This is popular, at least among my family, for making airport runs where there'd otherwise be just a driver for one leg of the trip.

Not to beat a dead horse, but it'd be really swell if a fraction of the dollars that went to such projects as adding carpool lanes (especially the "flyover lanes" where the carpool lane is elevated high about the rest of the roadway) and other highway construction went instead to building and expanding local and regional train lines, and other public and mass transit systems. Seriously, if the CTA or Metra had more lines and ran their trains more frequently, it would help Chicago a lot more than anything else. Instead, we have the latest news that due to underfunding, the CTA may have to hike fares (again) or cut back on service, or both, to address its budget crisis.

Or everyone could start riding a bike. Anything to have one less car on the road.

Par 11,880

It would be a grave disservice to this blog, given its theme, if I neglected to plug Golf Mongolia, a chronicle of one man's bizarre desire to hit a golf ball (or several hundred of them) across 2.3 million yards of Mongolian landscape. Undoubtedly it's one way to experience the country, though you have to worry about the precedent André Tolmé is setting. Do we really want to encourage this sort of thing?