The Tyrant’s Demise

So many memories, Saddam. You there in your military jacket, standing in a whole crowd of other dudes who looked exactly like you, firing a shotgun into the air in celebration. The early days of the Kuwait invasion, the SCUD attacks, the hilarious sight of those too-serious American journalists struggling with their gas masks.

Those were good times.

You were not afraid to dream large. Sure, people poke fun at the statues and Soviet-style paintings – but you had a vision: To rise triumphant, in the mold of Hammurabi, to lead a pan-Arab state with Iraq at the center. And when you were soundly defeated by 14-year olds in the conflict with Iran – you didn’t let that get you down. You blew off some steam by gassing a few Kurds in Halabja, but then you were back in the game, with your eyes on the prize in Kuwait, never giving an inch to the UN Security Council.

Even in your later years there are fond memories: - the plot to kill Bush Senior, the Rather interview, and that crazy mix-up over the WMDs. Hire a thousand screenwriters and not of them could craft a villain with so much panache, so much machismo. Even the U.S. guards assigned to your cell talked about your great attitude – regaling them with stories while you munched Doritos.

They even said you were smiling and magnanimous when they finally led you away for execution.

Update: And you really appreciated fantasy painting too - a man of endless surprises. (Thanks John.)

Tags: Saddam Hussein

Mmm, Tastes Cloney!

Who hasn't finished a delicious bacon cheeseburger and thought to themselves, "Gee, I wish I had another bacon cheeseburger just like that one." Well, guess what? Thanks to the Food and Drug Administration, your wish has been granted. According to MSNBC:

After more than five years of study, the Food and Drug Administration concluded that cloned livestock is “virtually indistinguishable” from conventional livestock.

This is a cue for everyone with an activist mindset to repeat the word "virtually", and then make some poorly informed speech along the line of "what do we really know" about cloned animal meat - neglecting the first seven words of that excerpt. Then they will assert that it's really a capitalist plot to line the pockets of the greedy rich, somehow.

If anyone who is against cloned meat can give me a scientific explanation why it is wrong (without using Google to obtain hyped factoids) - then I will gladly listen. Otherwise you are simply falling prey to fear. Vague arguments about how it's "just wrong" do not count, and are especially tiresome if you are a secular materialist who thinks that any kind of moral judgement about the behavior of human beings is tantamount to fascism.

The food we eat, both vegetable and protein, has been screwed with left, right and sideways during the past 20,000 years. It's been happening ever since we stopped following animal scat because some nomad noticed how seeds dropped in a certain location yielded grain the next year. We've been cross-breeding, manipulating, preserving, and in some cases completely transforming everything that goes down our gullets. Given that tradition cloned meat is nothing new, and any dispute should take place on the grounds of science. The fact that genuine food and safety experts are employed by the FDA (and studied this nut for five years) should be worth noting.

Meanwhile, we've got a whole new meaning for the phrase "Double Whopper".

Tags: FDA, Food Cloning

The Strange, Angry Fear of Cincinnati

Perception, even distorted bias, is everything. A recent editorial from the Cincinnati Enquirer tackles the perception of downtown on the part of people from the region who live in the outer exurbs. Associate editor Byron McCauley relates the tale:

One of the students in a class I teach at the University of Cincinnati recently startled me when he said his mom, who lives in one of Cincinnati's outer-ring suburbs, won't step foot into Cincinnati for fear of being mugged, shot or killed.

This is a familiar scenario. The fact that we bought a house in a city neighborhood last year was met by stunned expressions when I told coworkers, some of whom seemed at first confused, then offended. "We think the city is really going downhill," said one guy.

The plural must have included his wife, who wasn't even part of the conversation. When pressed for detail he cited crime and lackluster city government. The second item I let pass - political ineptitude is hard to dispute - but when pressed for evidence on the second item he talked about gang and drug related violence in the core city neighborhoods. Then he admitted he'd never really lived in the city besides an apartment after college. Finally this same person made some thinly-veiled reference to “certain cultural groups” at which point I lost interest in hearing his perspective.

McCauly continues:

I live half my life downtown; the other half in the burbs. Both have their inherent advantages, but this column is about why we all have a stake in the future of a strong downtown.

I spent a lot of time this year listening to folks cast doubt on living, working and playing in the central city. I also spent a lot of time hearing the opposite while walking and running about downtown, from Over-the-Rhine to its western, southern and eastern edges. I spoke with common folk and opinion leaders.

Almost to a person, they say perception is skewing reality. Those who live, work and play downtown want you to come and see before passing judgment. It's wise counsel. If I didn't have a downtown job, I'd be down here often for the urban vibe.

Perception ebbs into the most radical form of judgement so quickly: Here’s one blogger’s account of a discussion she (a Muslim woman) had with a neighbor about the city. If it sounds implausible – trust me it isn’t. And what baffles me about this mindset is that it isn’t content to merely move to Westchester, or Mason, or wherever. Many who make this decision want to convince you that you are nuts for making another choice – for taking a different position on the value of city life, and the risk/reward tradeoffs that come with an environment that isn’t a sub-development. And some are actually angry if you don’t see things the same way.

For some, variety is not the spice of life. Conformity is solace. I'ts hard for me to understand (possibly because I'm a conservative too, but one who hails from the East Coast) but think it has to do with a remembrance of a 1950s-like past that maybe seemed to exist longer in Cincinnati than elsewhere.

This is a city, of course, to which (Mark Twain famously observed) one could go when the world ended – because it’s always 20 years behind. Perhaps hardcore social conservatives can’t reconcile themselves to a Cincinnati that has changed. And might this be connected with the recent changeover of the city and county government to the Democrats? Have many old-guard Republicans evacuated to the ‘burbs, where, at the expense of a sterile, corporate anonymity, the perception of an environment like the 50s lingers?

Hat tips Brian and the Dean.

Tags: Cincinnati

Holidays, RSS, James (UPDATED)

(Scroll down for update.)

Belated merry Christmas and seasons greetings to all, even you godless secularists! Posting has been light in recent days since the Missus and I have been about our holiday tasks. We're enjoying this new baby of ours quite a bit and entertaining guests and visitors. Internet activity has been mostly limited to using Skype video to show off the little tax credit to remote family.

Regular posting should be resuming shortly.

Meanwhile there have been problems reported with the RSS feed for Spacetropic. This is new since I switched to Blogger Beta. If you are having trouble please take a moment to email me and let me know which feed-reader software you are using - I hope to have the problem fixed ASAP.

And farewell to the godfather of soul James Joseph Brown Jr.

American music is unimaginable without him. Soul, funk, rap - it would hardly exist today in the same form, and his incredible discipline, musicianship and energy should be an example to every aspiring star. Today I heard an interview with (Cincinnati native) Bootsy Collins talking about how joining the band with James was like going into the military - while everyone was freaking out in the late 60s and 70s with hippie clothes and long hair the James Brown band demanded pressed shirts, neat tailoring and shined shoes. And if you missed a few notes or watched the girls in the crowd instead of keeping your eyes on James for the cues he would dock your next damn paycheck.

Rest in peace Mr. Brown.

Update: All newsfeed (RSS) readers, please use the newly revised feed, located here. You may need to copy the link into your newsreader. This should eliminate some the problems I've been having, and it will remain current even with changes that may happen to this website.

Nuts, Sluts, and Role Models

The problem here is that the only model for success for young women seems to involve, at some point, acting like a dumb floozy with a drug or alcohol problem. The only way to be worthwhile is to be a celebrity of some kind. Talent is optional, a nice rack is not optional, and brains are a liability. And you must conform to the success story model, whereby you smash to the bottom on a debauched spiral with your privates splayed all over the camera.

The problem is this has become the only model, it's natural, and acceptable - and almost expected. Girls go wild, and every one of them fits the pattern of the E! True Hollywood story, where after the first rush of media prominence the demons arrive and take their toll.

Yes, we all want forgiveness. Yes, we all deserve a second chance. No, I'm not thunderously condemning Miss USA or Lindsay Lohan or whatever dumb bunny was caught by the cameras with her pants down and her tongue out. It's not a matter of saying these young women are wrong or wicked or filthy - although, in some cases, a handful of Cipro might not be a bad idea for any potential boyfriends.

It's a just frightening to think 13 year old girls see so few young women in the media pantheon that attained fame with a college degree, tough standards, intellect, or talent that they worked hard to develop. It's a shame that we have come to be filled with resentment and and a jonesing for hypocrisy when anyone is the same person before and after they "make it" as a celebrity, whenever they appear to have solid character.

It's not a matter of liberal or conservative either. Staunch religious people are the most obviously troubled by this media model, but why not the hardcore secularists and the people who value the intellectual life? And what about anyone who claims to have even the slightest amount of interest in feminism? Are Lohan and Spears and the latest drunk pageant queen headed off to rehab really the best we can do for our daughters?

Tags: Tara Conner, Lindsay Lohan, Brittany Spears, Katie Rees

Screwing With Free Markets

Writing in the Wall Street Journal today (in an unlinkable article) Michael S. Malone describes the a grim new trend in America's business climate: Since the introduction of Sarbannes-Oxley legislation and "Regulation FD" very few companies have decided to go public by making an initial public offering (IPO).

Small price to pay, right? Let's make damn sure those greedy corporate fatcats keep their hands off the retirement funds of hard-working wage earners! (Your supposed to cheer at this point and wave your pitchfork in the air.) The problem is, it's having an effect that meddlesome congressional regulators and their enablers never intended, one that is bad for businesses, for markets, for workers, and even cat food-eating pensioners - so let's put it in bold: It's sending business offshore, discouraging small business, and concentrating more money and power in the hands of larger and larger corporations.

Goodness me, how could that happen? One, because businesses love barriers to entry, which is exactly what Sarbox creates. The large companies complained wholeheartedly about the expense involved in putting in place the medieval, redundant and bizarre financial controls that were required for a public company. But potential competitors, small companies getting larger, must shoulder obscene expenses in order to make a compliant public offering. So guess what? It has become much easier and more profitable to become a London or Hong Kong based business, where investment can take place and jobs can be created in environments that (hmm, funny) have no more or less corporate malfeasance than U.S. markets do today.

But, the Dow Jones looks swell right? That's because - as Malone explains at length - big, public American companies (who have already taken one in the shorts under the new regulations) are finding plenty of companies that are willing and ready to be acquired. These days every startup in Silicon Valley has a business plan that ends with getting asked to the crystal ball by Google, getting bought, and living the fantasy that was most recently exemplified with YouTube. This creates less value for the owners and the public, and it also means that fewer bright minds are attracted to small, startup American business - traditionally the engine for jobs and wealth in America. And, in the ultimate irony - it creates bigger, fatter companies - risk and power concentrated in fewer economic giants.

Markets are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination - but government regulations have an astonishing, paradoxical tendency not just to fail to achieve a stated goal, but to actually create new, worse problems.

Tags: Sarbox, WSJ, Free Markets, Economy, IPO

User-Created Justice (Frosty's Revenge)

Matt Williquette from Colerain Township and his inflatable Frosty have gone quickly from a local story to a national item via Chris Jansing on MSNBC, who was playing the video clip. (Because the media, this week, discovered user-created content.)

Why are they in the news? Well, after two acts of vandalism in which the lovable snowman was slashed and deflated - along with the Christmas spirit of the local children - Mr. Williquette decided to install a WiFi camera to catch the criminals in the act.

It takes a special kind of stupid to repeat the same crime three times in the same location, but these young men rose to the occasion, and now they are on national TV, knifing the snowman in a fit of idiotic maliciousness. They can be seen clearly - and when they are caught I'm expecting we will discover yet another pair of daddy-free teens with little concept of a future.

Now what's the problem with video cameras again? They seem like the only folks they inconvenience are people who rely on the fact that nobody is watching when they break the law. Politically liberal cities as wide-flung as London and Chicago have deployed municipal cameras to good effect. Civil libertarians will always raise the same familiar complaints, but I'm not seeing any downside to watching our public spaces. In fact, I suspect the complaint has more to do with who is making the suggestion. If the surveillance proponent looks like John Ashcroft, well we're on a slippery slope to a police state! But if he or she is a compassion-drunk Democrat who talks about the children's safety it's a different story. Bring on the cameras.

This blogger doesn't live on a cul-de-sac in the exurbs. In my neighborhood if you leave a $20 bill on the front seat of your car while parked on the street month after month sooner or later some passer-by will try the door. And I've got a webcam - it takes great pictures. Why not have some fun? Maybe it'll be on YouTube.

UPDATE: Nabbed, thanks to the video.

C'est Moi (Person of the Year)

Time Magazine named me person of the year.

Apparently I am so articulate and influential that even one of America's most prominent old media publications is forced to admit it. Okay, let's dispense with the false modesty: I am awfully impressive. The media I create as the "user" in this networked society of distributed information –it may seem repetitive, smart-alecky, trivial, or even self-referential. But according to Time, I’m the number one guy.

Don’t be intimidated. I mean, if we run into each other at a party I don’t want you to be weird, like I’m some sellout who was once cool and quirky and authentic before I became popular. We can still be buds, okay? Now that I’m person of the year I’ll be busy with product endorsements and speaking engagements, but I’ll try to remember your name and say 'hi' before my entourage moves me away.

But let’s be truthful - honesty is one of my many wonderful qualities – you and I won’t be at the same parties anymore. We're not quite in the same league. I’ll be in the front of the plane, of course - unless I’m on the Gulfstream - or in the Town Car with the shaded glass at the back entrance. I’ll try to pause for a moment or send a message through one of my many underlings, but I'm busy. Still, I’ll probably use you as an example of how I stay in touch with “real people” when I am trying to impress all of my other beautiful celebrity friends – even though we haven’t spoken in years.

I’d like to thank Time Magazine for this award and congratulate them on the wisdom of their selection. They couldn’t have made a better choice. Truly, it’s an honor.

Tags: Time Magazine, Person of the Year

Arteriovenous Malformation Blues

Lo, fragile humanity. It would be a surprising reversal of fortune if the U.S. Senate goes back to evil Republican control because of a brain hemorrhage. Still, in the Washington Post, the well-wishers have responded:

In a one-sentence statement, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said, "All of our thoughts and prayers are with the Johnson family and people of South Dakota as we pray for a full and complete recovery for Senator Johnson."

Sure, Ken. Sure. Look everyone, a chinchilla just came dancing out of Ken Mehlman’s ass wearing a silly hat and singing patriotic songs. Ha, funny chinchilla.

The article continues. With regard to the victim:

The two-term senator was rushed to the hospital early yesterday afternoon, shortly after becoming disoriented during a conference call with news reporters. He underwent "a comprehensive evaluation by the stroke team," his office said, and eventually was diagnosed with the brain hemorrhage, the severity of which has not yet been announced to the public.

This could mean that the aforementioned stroke team is still comparing notes and collating data, while the patient watches TV and recovers in his hospital room. Or, conversely, it could mean that the distinguished Senator from South Dakota has gone the way of Ariel Sharon and a squadron of DNC-funded attorneys is now gathering strength to somehow litigate their way around the process in the event the Republican governor does what he would otherwise naturally do – and has the authority to do – which is to appoint whoever he pleases to the post – presumably a Republican.

Regardless of how it turns out, the Senate is still the most useless part of our government. Preening vanity, blowhard speeches, and parliamentary incompetence are central to the institution, and always will be, regardless of who runs the shop. It would be entertaining to watch the political fire drill that would ensue in the event this Senator is incapacitated, but (despite what craven politicos may really hope) we must listen to our better angels, and pray for a different outcome – we really wouldn’t wish this tragedy on anyone.

Tags: Senator Tim Johnson, Ken Mehlman

Selling the Corporate John McCain

Is Senator John McCain the "inevitable" Republican nomination?

This concept will evoke snorts of disgust and eye-rolling from any "base" conservative -- but, in a way, it's an artifact of a certain strait-laced, corporate mentality that has guided the machinery of the Republican party through several election cycles. Whereas the Democrats brainlessly gravitate towards the next handsome-y populist (Obama, these days) - the Republicans have a tendency to default on the most recent old whitey in the line of succession, the vice president whose been at the firm long enough. It's the Dole Effect. And according to this line of thinking (opines Robert Novak, in a recent column) - McCain is the "corporate" choice.

Ed at Captains Quarters thinks that all of the corporate guys who earned the nomination in the past had one thing McCain does not, which is a reliability on the issues that inspires confidence among party elders, financiers, and roots. Mavericks make nice television viewing, but party folks want to know what they are buying - and McCain's track record is far too riddled with sudden bursts of defiance. McCain-Feingold, the Gang of 14, guest worker programs - heck, he even got all uppity about detention and torture (for some crazy reason).

Longtime readers know that Spacetropic has some interest in McCain, but it mostly manifests itself in wondering, on occasion, how much better the past eight years might have been if he won the nomination in 2000 instead of W. (Yeah, I said it.) These days I have been stunned by the degree of resentment that I have seen directed towards McCain by social conservatives. He has probably done irreparable harm to his relationship with these folks - and a speech at Fundamentalist University isn't going to bridge the gap.

McCain's campaign staff needs to know this: It's possible to circulate for a very long time in the rare air of the beltway establishment and media without knowing the real pulse of America. McCain still enjoys broad support among the military too; still, this isn't the base. It's true there is no strong social conservative alternative yet - but that doesn't make anyone inevitable.

Tags: John McCain, 2008 Election

Botched Travel Planning

The single worst job in the political universe right now is the media person for Senator John Kerry.

Because the Senator from Massachusetts, who was once a few hundred thousand Ohio votes away from the presidency, is, I kid you not, planning a trip to Iraq. Kerry intends to meet with the troops, and military and civilian leaders. And the media person (who is, in all likelihood, savvy enough to understand the impact of the recent gaffe) must be busy trying to plan a schedule where Kerry will meet as few actual troops as possible. All it will take is a crowd of average soldiers and a few journalists in the same location. There will be heckling, signs, and a incisive sarcastic response from the men and women in uniform, people who, despite the counter-spinning, feel like they were having their intelligence insulted by an arrogant, bitter politician who still (brace yourself for the punchline) thinks he might get elected in 2008.

It's almost too darkly funny. I'm sure they have tried to convince him not to go - but Kerry, of course, thinks that all of this was just a big flap invented by conspirators on the Right.

Open Source Comedy (With Manatees)

Conan O'Brien, by way of a throwaway joke, may have inadvertently open-sourced late night comedy. After mentioning a fictitious website during a comedy routine it seems NBC decided it was wise to actually purchase the address to protect itself from Liability. According to the New York Times:

In explaining to the audience the next night what he and his writers had done, Mr. O’Brien marveled, “For $159, NBC, the network that brought you ‘Meet the Press,’ Milton Berle and the nation’s first commercial television station became the proud owner of www.hornymanatee.com.”

And now the joke has legs. Everyone is riffing on the 'horny manatee' idea - there are poems, skits, cartoons, even a 'Manatee and Colmes' spoof of the Fox talker. What was funny briefly on O'Brien's show has become funnier at the hands of an involved audience, who continue to milk it for creative laughs.

Eventually it will become stale, of course, but that isn't the point. NBC has accidentally uncovered one of the most revolutionary implications of a networked population. When you turn things over to the masses - product design and development, consumer taste, media and content creation - it will often (though not always) do a better job than one centralized establishment. Some of the side effects will be frivolous and poor quality (cf. the blogosphere) - but the best of it will be better than the media would have otherwised produced.

Not to beat to death the metaphor, but it is that Army of Davids all over again. Or maybe an army of kids in the hall. The amateur, loitering jokewriters of yore - this group now pretty much includes the whole damn planet.

Tags: Conan O'Brien, NBC, Horny Manatee, Army of Davids

Meacham On Sacramental Faith

John Meacham from Newsweek - possibly the smartest and most generous mind in our national media - has an article in a feature section from the Washington Post's website called "On Faith". In it he writes lucidly about the difference between a God revealed and experienced though sacraments - and all of the doubt, mystery, and historicism that are bound up in these rituals - and the more Evangelical notion of a "personal relationship" with Jesus Christ.

Rituals have been with us from time immemorial. But Christian sacraments, in particular the Eucharist, are largely constructed on a passage in the bible from the Last Supper, in which Christ tells his followers "do this in memory of me". Meacham observes:

It is this constancy that I hope to give my children, this habit of heart and mind to be disposed always to give the testimony of what the epistle to the Hebrews calls the “great cloud of witnesses” the benefit of the doubt. I do not want them to live an unexamined faith. I want them to question and poke and prod, to doubt like Saint Thomas—but, in the presence of convincing evidence, to fall with Thomas to their knees, and be thankful. For what, in the end, is my religion, but love for one another, and belief that once, long ago, upon a cross, a father committed the ultimate, unthinkable act of love, giving his son’s life for all others?

For him faith and doubt are closely related in our human experience, and our universe evolves with uncertainty as an integral component. We won't quite know God directly, or constantly, or in the same type of "personal" relationship with which we know our fellow men and women. But it's that love for one another - and consideration of that ultimate, unthinkable act - this is how we get close to transcendence. And this, too, is what I believe.

Meacham also cites Flannery O'Conner, one of my all-time favorites, who once described sacraments as the "center of existence". And her short story, "Revelation" is a supremely crafted examination of the mind of one who has certain, fundamental faith in a God who also, conveniently, mirrors her social attitudes and convictions but angers her, sometimes, with contradictions. Our society has become quite familiar with that mode of Christianity in politics and public discourse - and it's good to know folks like Meacham are speaking up on behalf of another kind of tradition.

Tags: Christianity, John Meacham, Newsweek, Faith, Sacraments, Flannery O'Conner

The headline on MSNBC: "New Moms at Risk for Range of Mental Problems"

A good transition topic from my more personal blogging about the birth of our new child to the events of the day. But this is hardly true news - from ancient Medea to Andrea Yates we've seen various permutations of everything from baby blues to psychosis.

MBC

Our daughter already looks very different. This picture was taken not long after she arrived in the world the old-fashioned way, crushed out headfirst by Mommy into the shocking new light. Most of us begin puffy, red, and surprised by the sudden and confusing tumult of sounds and images flooding into our formless brains.

They say we can hardly differentiate ourselves from the world at first - we are one with creation. Until we find out, gradually, that shapes and sounds and people are actually separate, and our role is to distinguish and strive towards these other things using whatever facilities we've got at our disposal. If you're lucky - and I think MB is lucky - then you have parents and family to move you along, to guide and provide.

And so here we are on a Tuesday morning. The two other voices she hears are the bigger sisters getting ready for school. Lucky to have them too – although eventually she’ll run headlong into the thicket of emotion that comes between girls, which even now has disrupted and upset the sister who had been the youngest until only last Saturday.

So Dad makes breakfast one-handed, carrying you like a football, while Mom finally rests in the other room after sleepless night. The golden retriever, accustomed and content with his omega place in the pack order, follows behind, a few guarded paces. And while your sisters munch strawberries and waffles we all look back at you quietly – you with the dark bright eyes, taking in everything, and new.

Anticipation Weather

You wonder what the King is wishing tonight
He's wishing he were in Scotland fishing tonight
What occupies his time while waiting for the bride?
He's searching high and low for some place to hide
And oh, the expectation, the sublime anticipation ...

-- Camelot, the Musical

Thanks to the genius of Lerner and Lowe audiences everywhere have delighted and the too-human response of King Arthur, hiding in the woods on the eve of his blessed nuptials. It's the endearing, big stage version of the evolutionary flight response that is baked into the deepest part of our limbic brain, one which strikes at major events like marriage or an impending birth - or sometimes no reason at all: Dad said he was going to the store for a gallon of milk - and then, without warning, he moved to Alberta with a dance instructor and sends a card every Christmas with a picture of his new family. (Plenty of grist for the creative writing workshop mill when you get to your mid-20s, kids! Be sure and 'cc' Dave Eggers.)

No I'm not leaving. But I'm nervous as all hell.

Tomorrow is the day we go to the doctor and - well, here I'm sketchy on the details, but 'inducing' a childbirth may entail pressing a button under the dashboard or some kind of voodoo ritual, followed by drugs (but none for me) followed by all sorts of confusion leading to a live childbirth. If all goes well there will be no trips to surgery, no specialists, and no sudden, mad rushing into the room of a half dozen besmocked strangers. The infant will be weighed, measured, and checked for proper coloring - then delivered to my wife's arms for an interlude of weeping and photography. Then we have 18 years to prepare the critter with the mental and emotional fortitude to survive independently and prosper.

During which time I will not be departing to Alberta.

More news as events develop. Blogging may be light in the next few days, but there will be some kind of notice when the big event happens ...

Tags: Childbirth, Fear, Family