Best analysis yet

John Berger has written the best analysis of Fahrenheit 9/11 that I've seen, examining it not only as art, but in terms of what Michael Moore has set out to accomplish with his film. It's brilliant and insightful, and I think really does a great job of encapsulating the broader implications of Fahrenheit, and it does justice to the film as a political statement with a specific agenda.

We beg to differ

Boy, did Air Canada ever screw up.

It seems the airline opted not to send the Stanley Cup on a connecting flight from Vancouver to Fort St. John, B.C., deeming it in excess of the weight limit on checked baggage. This despite the fact that the airline's agents were duly informed that the article being checked was none other than Lord Stanley's Cup.

Fitness gym owner Brian Lock, who was to have viewed the Cup Sunday night, was suitably disgusted.

"It's not like it's a brown paper bag; it's the holy grail," he said. "It's probably the most important non-religious artifact in Canada."

But really, is there even a religious artifact in Canada that trumps the Cup? I don't know, but I'd find it hard to believe there's a Shrine of Our Lady of Moosejaw that's considered more sacred north of the border than hockey's Holy Grail. Seriously, let me know if such an artifact or object exists.

Denny

The Onion: Republicans peeved by Metallica documentary.

In other news, when did Metallica ever kick ass?

Turkmenbashi the Insane

I really want to like Saparmyrat Niyazov, the president of Turkmenistan. You may also know him as Turkmenbashi the Great, his self-designated title as Turkmenistan's first post-Communist leader. (FYI: "Turkmenbashi" means "leader of all Turkmen")

In Lutz Klevemann's excellent book on the politics of oil interests in Central Asia, he titles the chapter on Turkmenistan "Stalinism Goes to Disneyland." I really want that to be true. Niyazov has one of the greatest personality cults of all time, on par with that of Stalin or Mao or Reagan.

Beyond the usual self-flattering iconography and ridiculous, massive monuments (a 300-square meter rug dubbed "The 21st Century: The Epoch of Great Saparmyrat Turkmenistan" anyone?), we have some good old-fashioned indoctrination. Schoolchildren recite a daily oath of allegiance to Turkmenbashi (no different than our pledge of allegiance, eh?). University pupils are required to attend lectures with titles such as "The Domestic and International Politics of Turkmenbashi." (Mao Zedong thought anyone?) Still, he's seen a comparatively benign as a megalomaniac, despite the ubiquity of the secret police.

But you really have to think he's gone off the deep end. He wants to build a palace of ice in Turkmenistan. You know, a desert country that's one of the world's hottest. Granted, he wants to construct it in the mountains outside the capital of Ashgabat, which should help, but it'll still be difficult to get the ice to stay frozen even there.

What a nutter.

Carpetbagging

It's official. The Illinois GOP has gone totally off its rocker.

Reeling from the Jack Ryan creepy (make that "avant-garde") sex club scandal and the invincibility of Democratic wunderkind Barack Obama, the GOP have tabbed the bombastic Alan Keyes to run as the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate.

And in case you haven't picked up on it, Keyes doesn't even live in Illinois. He has no ostensible ties to it. This is the same Alan Keyes who blasted Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2000 for running for the Senate in New York because it violated the principles of federalism or something like that. In fairness to Hillary, the Clintons did at least buy a home in New York well before she announced her candidacy. Keyes, on the other hand, still has to move to Illinois (or at least establish residency here) in the two-plus months prior to Election Day.

In his acceptance speech he spent a lot of time rationalizing his decision to run in Illinois and admitting a lack of knowledge of Illinois. Call me old fashioned, but that seems kind of important. At least if you have any intention of representing the people of Illinois. And not of representing Alan Keyes.

I'm disappointed to learn that he's vowed not to pay himself a salary out of his campaign coffers, like he did back in 1992 when he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in Maryland. But maybe he'll still jump into a mosh pit for a campaign contribution, which Michael Moore got him to do back when Keyes ran for president in 1996.

Compassionate conservatism

From the "I swear I'm not making this up" department:

These supporters - some of whom have raised $200,000 or more for President Bush or the party - are being charged a "convention fee'' this year of up to $4,500 per person for themselves and each guest, according to a Web page run by LogiCom Project Management, the company handling the events and travel arrangements.

And it gets better.

"A lot of us looked at that thing and said, whoa!'' said Bruce Bialosky of California, who raised $100,000 to become a Pioneer fund-raiser. He estimates that the convention will cost him and his family $15,000. "A lot of people just can't afford that.''

But the real tragedy is how this is tearing apart families.

While Democratic fund-raisers got into parties free during their national convention in Boston, some Republicans - even the most well off - are experiencing sticker shock. A few said they called campaign officials to complain. Others are looking into leaving their spouses behind, sharing hotel rooms or taking other measures to cut costs. Almost all said they have heard grumbling from their friends in fund-raising circles.

Still, they're pragmatic enough to realize that "it's a cost of doing business." Even if the Bush campaign is so notoriously stingy that it serves hot dogs and similarly unadorned fare at fund-raising events.

Never mind that Bush has blown away all records for fund-raising in his presidential runs and has amassed war chests in excess of a quarter-billion dollars. Nope, let the corporate elite pay a little more for the privilege.

I really hope that Bush is pulling an Alan Keyes and paying himself a salary out of his campaign coffers. Because it would just go to show that Republicans really are that greedy, even when it comes to dealing with their ostensible friends or "business partners." If there's any hope for the world, it's that the Darwinian struggle for individual survival that they keep waging will end with them all killing themselves in the process.

On the other hand, I have to say this is dissuading me from becoming a Ranger for Bush, given that after raising $200,000 for Dubya, I certainly won't be able to fork over the $4,500 to be properly wined and dined in New York.

Steamed hams

An excellent clincher to this New York Times piece on "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" to underscore the low esteem with which this country holds the original claimant to burger royalty:

Even Mr. Hogan, the author and White Castle historian, sounds conflicted about his area of expertise. "I sort of cringe when people say I'm the pre-eminent expert on White Castle," he said. "I mean, it's not exactly
the most prestigious subject matter."

On the other hand, a scholar has to have some area of specialization.

Protest chic

A delicious parody of activist pretension.

My kind of town

Two and a half weeks. That's all the time I have left in Chicago after being a full-time resident of the area for most of the past five years.

And I still don't feel like I've begun to scratch the surface of the city or been able to fully appreciate the town. For that I'd need a lifetime. A long, fruitful, ambitious lifetime.

Sure, the weather sucks much of the time (either too hot or too cold) and I won't miss that. But it's an underappreciated city, one that seems to have no hangups about its status as the Second City. Instead of loudly shouting that we're the greatest in the world when it comes to every little thing from pizza to dental floss like New York, or being phony and superficial like L.A., Chicagoans just go out and do it well without braggadocio. They're down to earth yet proud, accomplished yet unassuming.

There's a lot to miss. Uno's deep dish sausage pizza (far and away the greatest pizza the world has known and I will be eternally grateful to my childhood dentist for recommending it). Wrigley Field (is falling down, falling down). The El (I'll pretend that it was punctual most of the time). Lake Michigan at sunset. The forest of skyscrapers stretching across the skyline. A polyglot patchwork of ethnic communities. All the awesome intimate concert venues that draw big acts. Culture up the wazoo. Navy Pier. The Loop. Goose Island beer. The Goose Island brew pubs. The Goose Island brewery tour.

Feel free to add your own.

Seattle promises to be an interesting place to learn and live. I can't say that I know that much about it, having only been there for a few days and having much less indirect knowledge of it than I had of Chicago before plopping down here. It's a beautiful city with lots of greenery and breathtaking vistas, great nature sights and plenty to see and do. I know Pike Place Market holds a lot of promise, especially down the road when presumably I'll have a vehicle or some better way of trekking down there on weekends to load up on fresh produce or to get my fill of fresh seafood.

Granted, the weather's partly cloudy and rainy 360 days of the year, but I can deal with that. I spent a long weekend in the low countries and didn't see the sun until shortly before I flew out, and I think that was a lot worse, or would be much worse to endure all winter. Yes, clear, bright sunny days are few and far between. But the rains are intermittent. The clouds come and go. And the temperatures like to stay more within my comfort zone, never getting too hot, and usually the right level of cool for my tastes. The hilliness will take some adjustment, especially as I traverse the city by foot and bike, but it'll just be good exercise. And I think it's not wholly cliched to say that it seems like a good fit for me in terms of the casual lifestyle. Of course, I don't drink coffee or use Microsoft Windows, and I remain fiercely loyal to my Southern California teams, so I might clash a bit with the natives. But it should be good.

Still, it'll be interesting to see how it pans out. I know it's not fair to either city to make comparisons to the other, though they're inevitable. There's certainly a different ethos to each, both perfectly valid and respectable. I think I'll really enjoy my six or more years in Seattle, just as I've really had a blast during five years in Chicago. But when that's over and done with, it'll be interesting to see which city I think I'd prefer to choose as a home. Not that it'll be anything but an academic exercise as I'm unlikely to have either as a realistic choice, but I'm curious to see which one wins me over.

Documentary history

Currently I'm reading Ask Me Anything: Our Adventures with Khrushchev, a memoir by William Randolph Hearst Jr., Bob Considine and Frank Conniff, three reporters from the Heart Newspaper Group who were among the first American journalists to not only travel extensively in the Soviet Union but also interview Khrushchev during his tenure as Soviet premier.

The book was published in 1960, on the heels of Nixon's groundbreaking visit to the Soviet Union, which featured his "kitchen debate" with Khrushchev. I made a remark yesterday to some friends about how it was really interesting to read as a historical document because it's such a snapshot of that particular moment in time. The authors gush about Khrushchev's rise and seem blissfully naive of the trouble spots that would plague him in the near future, things like the SIno-Soviet split, the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc.

But I really understated the impact of that. This morning, as I was reading more on my way to work, I came across this hilarious passage that couldn't have been any funnier had it been written with total foreboding of the future (and indeed is all the more amusing because of the temporal irony):

Two other Presidium members deserve special mention because of their power and influence, although neither, for varying reasons, has any chance of becoming Khrushchev's successor.

The first of these is Leonid I. Brezhnev, a hatchet man.

You know, the guy who succeeded Khrushchev.

Military justice

What seems really alarming about the whole prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq is the line of defense being given by the guilty parties, namely "We were just following orders."

Why this is disturbing is the way it directly clashes with the Nuremburg precedent. Back after World War II, the Allies decided they'd bring the major surviving Nazi war criminals to justice with special tribunals at Nuremburg. While it's easily arguable that this was a case of victor's justice (as such extraordinary tribunals tend to be), a very important principle handed down in the judgments was one of individual responsibility: claiming you were just playing a good soldier and following orders didn't matter. Now soldiers were expected to exercise their better judgment when told to do something they knew transgressed the normal conventions of warfare.

And yet, that seems to have gone entirely out the window. The Good Soldier routine seems to be popular with the perpetrators of Abu Ghraib, despite an established precedent that it doesn't hold water. Or shouldn't.

It's worth noting that the United States has only ever really paid lip service to ideas of international justice and military justice, and that it hasn't even done this much when it comes to itself. (See the impassioned efforts to have Americans exempted from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court whenever U.S. intervention is afoot.) After all, while we cry and scream and angrily demand justice whenever Americans are wronged, we're all too willing to deny the privilege to any foreigners thusly wronged by Americans. Because, damnit, we have to have it both ways.

Passing the buck looks especially ineffective given the refusal of those high-level officials who either issued the orders or were at least aware of the abuses to acknowledge their complicity.

Proving once again how inaptly named the Democratic Party is

And the Democrats are back in the act:

While Mr. Nader digs in his heels, the Democrats are trying to sideline him. The party has enlisted Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, who has declared an "extraordinary emergency" to stomp out Nader votes. And some former associates of Mr. Nader are organizing an extensive, well-financed national campaign against him. Organizers include Toby Moffett, a former congressman from Connecticut and onetime "Nader Raider," who lost a close race for the Senate in 1982 after his former boss endorsed his opponent.

This is more than mere sour grapes. Democrats just seem incapable of getting it. Trying to silence Nader, launching unjust personal attacks, fighting vigorously to keep him off the ballot wherever possible -- it's not only disturbing, but also a fairly ineffective way of trying to win an election.

No, Nader's not going to win. He might not concede that point, but he's smart enough to know how realistic his chances are.

But Nader's candidacies, past and present, have never been about winning office for himself. They've been about raising awareness of important, underreported issues and broadening the political discourse, fighting for the silenced masses and reinvigorating American democracy. I believed in that four years ago and I believe in it still today.

There are also more significant reasons why Nader appeals to plenty of voters and non-voters. He's definitely an outsider, a lifelong member of the opposition, the kind of agitator that this country needs to question authority and place sorely needed (and lacking) checks on the powerful. He has made a brilliant career of this as an ascetic policy wonk and consumer advocate, and all Americans owe an unnoticed debt of gratitude to him and his life's work. He is without pretension, refreshingly candid and unafraid to put himself on the ledge for his country. Whereas other candidates talk of working for their country or serving the country ("reporting for duty," as it were), Nader goes out and does it without trying to draw attention to himself.

Yet for this he is demonized by blindly obedient Democrats because Nader appeals to many voters deemed "liberal" whose votes, so think the Dems, should be theirs by birthright. It's an arrogant, condescending attitude that does much more to turn off Americans from voting and active participation in politics, and greatly undermines democracy. Instead of courting voters in more substantive ways -- proudly adopting some genuinely progressive positions would be a refreshing change -- Democrats set out to appeal to the lowest common denominator, demonizing Nader and doing their damnedest to keep him off the ballot.

I've beaten this horse to death, but it's always worth repeating: having Nader on the ballot is good for democracy. And if Democrats are so fearful of the consequences of his candidacy for their own horse, then that just speaks volumes to the inadequacy of their own candidate.

As Nader said himself to petitioners trying to get him on the ballot in California, "The question you ask people is, 'Do you think California voters who want to vote for Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo should be able to?'" Absolutely.

I remain undecided as to whether and for whom I'll vote. But learning of tactics such as these employed by Democrats (and they hardly seem like "rogue" types from whom John Kerry and the party leadership would distance themselves) does nothing to win me over to their side. It simply instills a lot of hostility in me and makes me want to vote for Nader just to spite them. And I can appreciate the call for "unity" the Dems are making, and their desire to avoid factionalism that will make a two-term Bush more likely. But they seem bent on going about this through "repressed conformity" than genuine pluralism within the party.

So until the Dems change their ways and do more to be welcoming to the dissatisfied progressives whose votes they evidently want, I have just three words:

Run, Ralph, Run.