THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT is a site worthy of your perusal. One bon-bon is "Spinning Caesar's murder", a book review by Mary Beard, who is a mavin on the era. The review is about the final book in a series on Republican Rome by T. P. Wiseman, "Remembering the Roman People Essays on Late-Republican politics and literature". Oxford University Press. £55 (US $110). 978 0 19 923976 4
This little chunk made me recall Dallas in November, for some reason:
The watching senators, several hundred of them, were at first stunned by the attack. But, as soon as Brutus turned away from the body to address them, they regained their wits and took to their heels. In their flight from the Senate house, they must have almost bumped into the thousands of people who were just at that moment pouring out of a gladiatorial show in a nearby theatre. Hearing rumours of the murder, this crowd too panicked and ran home, shouting “Bolt the doors, bolt the doors”. Meanwhile Lepidus, a leading Caesarian loyalist, left the Forum to rally the troops stationed in the city, just missing the blood-stained assassins who turned up there to proclaim their success – closely followed by three loyal slaves carrying Caesar’s body home on a litter, with such difficulty (you really need four people to carry a litter) that his wounded arms trailed over the sides. It was two days before the Senate dared to meet again, and perhaps another two before Caesar’s body was cremated on a bonfire in the Forum.
"The time has come," the Oliphant said, "To talk of many things: Of envelopes stuffed with wads of cash And if they came with strings-- Perhaps you only beat the rap Because the pigs were schwings*."
"But wait a bit," the Muldoon cried, "Before we have our chat; I have complaints to make," he said, "Regarding Steve the Fat." "No Hurry," said the Oliphant, "There's always time for that...
But was that 'pasta' money used To give Joe Clark the axe? Is turning noodles into LAVs A job for party hacks? Did you stash that $300,000 To avoid a fulsome tax?"
"O weep for me," the Muldoon said: "For all of it is lies." With sobs and tears he socked away His 2 million dollar prize, And held his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes.
* "After years of investigating Mulroney, the RCMP never found out about his job with Schreiber or the now infamous cash payments. However, the Mounties did chauffeur Mulroney to the hotel at Mirabel Airport where he picked up the first batch of thousand dollar bills." We still had to fork over $2.1-mil.
Who would say such a thing about the Stephen Harper party?
They are not good at reaching out. They are not good at broadening the tent. They are not good at getting beyond the bristling, mean way they view everyone who is an opponent. Even after their victories - they are in power, remember - the Conservatives of the Stephen Harper party, still radiate the sullenness of a party denied, a party - even though it is in power, is making the big calls, setting the agenda - nursing a sense of injury that they haven't been fully acknowledged, fully appreciated for the wonderful folks they are.
Can they not at least understand that it is precisely this attitude, more than any other factor, that has kept them frozen in the polls near the low 30s - that has denied them any measurable, sustained growth - from the moment of their first victory?
It comes mainly from the edgy, mean spirit that predominates in how they choose to present themselves. We saw it in the attempts to cut public financing for political parties last December. Any chance to kneecap their opponents and Mr. Harper's men start to salivate. It was surely present in the blitz of attack ads on Mr. Dion, which were unnecessary, and mean. Whatever those ads did to undermine the already weak Stéphane Dion is debatable. What is not debatable is how much they underlined the Conservatives', and Mr. Harper's, mean streak. There is some quality of the Conservative Party that gives the impression that they are always just about to have a temper tantrum.
Funny... Murphy used to think Harper and his pack of rabid animals was the neatest thing since sliced bread.
But, like a kid who is completely enthralled by the bright, shiney, toy electric train when he first opened the box, Murphy has become tired and fed up with the fact that it's the same thing, going around in a circle, and he can't seem to find any track that will fit to make it bigger and better.
The Harper party will always be like the little toy train on a circular track: capable of very little and simply repeating its route.
Many of us had that figured out ages ago, Rex. We've known that Harper and his reformers were no different than the nasty southern US Republicans on which they modelled themselves. We knew it before they ever gained power.
Can anyone deny what the NYT and Post are pointing out today? This is what happened this week alone in the realm of Obama's approach to "national security" and civil liberties:
Monday - Obama administration's letter to Britian threatening to cut off intelligence-sharing if British courts reveal the details of how we tortured British resident Binyam Mohamed;
Wednesday - Announced he was reversing himself and would try to conceal photographic evidence showing widespread detainee abuse -- despite the rulings from two separate courts (four federal judges unanimously) that the law compels their disclosure;
Friday - Unveiled his plan to preserve a modified system of military commissions for trying Guantanamo detainees, rather than using our extant-judicial processes for doing so.
It's not the fault of civil libertarians that Obama did all of those things, just in this week alone. These are the very policies -- along with things like the claimed power to abduct and imprison people indefinitely with no charges of any kind and the use of the "state secrets privilege" to deny torture and spying victims a day in court -- that caused such extreme anger and criticisms toward the Bush presidency.
Gee, isn't it great that we have this new President south of the 49th and everything is going to "change" for the better?
"A united effort of distinguished individuals from Mexico, Canada and the USA to provide sound economic and social policy guidance to the political leaders of the three countries for the prosperity of all peoples of North America.
In the aftermath of NAFTA and the SSP initiatives, a vacuum presently exists in developing a vision for North American prosperity. The lack of such a vision jeopardizes previous achievements in building strong economic ties across North America made during the past 15 years.
The Commission will be composed of up to 200 members from the 3 countries. The Commission will be governed by a Board of Trustees of 10 members per country and an Executive Committee of 2 members per country. The Commission will meet 3 times a year and will provide "A North American Prosperity" White paper to the leaders of the three countries upon conclusion of each session. Membership on the Commission is by invitation only.
Gosh that sounds familiar. Former President of Mexico Vicente Fox addressed the inaugural summit this week. A former Coca-Cola executive whose grandfather hails from Cincinatti, Fox was president of Mexico from 2000-2006 and signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership with Bush and Paul Martin in March 2005. From his May 12 keynote address to the N.A.2050 summit :
"If we are together‚ the U.S.‚ Mexico and Canada‚ no doubt we’ll be number one – the number one economy‚ the number one market‚ the number one consumer market – in the world. My dream is that we will not have a border."
This must be what got the Canadian deep integrationists all jacked up last week. Canada is falling behind, oh noes! Canada was represented at the summit by World Bank financier Dr. Peter Appleton, a Canadian who has gone south to become president of the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce, sponsor of N.A. 2050 :
"If ever there was a match in theory that was made in heaven, it is North America. Canada and Mexico both have the oil supply and the United States needs resources. Why can't we work together? Ronald Regan took down the Berlin wall and we've spent the last 10 years putting one up. Where's the logic in that? How is that fair?"
Um, yeah. Of course no deep integration project is complete without the guiding presence of Robert "I am a North American" Pastor to provide that vision thing :
"The European Union called on all people to unite. North America didn't do anything like that with NAFTA. We didn't have a spiritual vision past anything other than a business contract."
Yeah, bring on that "made in heaven" North American spiritual vision. Inaugural dinner - $1000US a plate. . Cross-posted from Creekside
One tangible point: It does little to instill confidence in the workings of the Harper government when his people are able to get attack ads out faster than infrastructure money.
This little nugget, which will have passed into the conservative memory hole, and which will be forever maintained by our madame industrieaux at DAMMIT JANET! should be regurgitated just in time to put the boots to Alaska's Iditarod Barbie when she announces her run for the US presidency.
You know she's going to do it. She's too stupid not to.
By the way, Ms Palin, journalism is an arts degree. Oceanography is a science degree. And yes, there is a difference.
For some reason I just felt compelled to share this. No particular reason... just because. Perhaps though it's because some mindless Harper worshiper once wrote in the comments section of this blog the words, Art is a hobby.
And would point out to running man, who will be reminded here as often as I see fit, that the reason he is able to admire a Shelby Mustang and dismiss a Model T is soley because of art. Unless the stupid sonofabitch really believes that the modern internal combustion engine is really that much different from the original.
Campbell and cabinet win third term By Monte Paulsen May 12, 2009 11:08 pm
VANCOUVER – Premier Gordon Campbell and his entire B.C. Liberal Party cabinet have been re-elected, giving the Vancouver native who led the centre-right party from opposition to government an historic third term in office.
The Liberals had won 45 seats to the NDP’s 32 as of 11 p.m., with an additional eight ridings remaining too close to call. Among those re-elected were John van Dongen, the solicitor general who resigned in the wake of several speeding tickets, John Les, the former solicitor general who resigned over suspicious land deal, and Attorney General Wally Oppal, who ducked questions about the BC Rail sale controversy throughout the campaign.
Campbell bound triumphantly up the stairs of the gleaming new Vancouver Convention Centre – itself a controversial legacy of his party’s profligate spending in advance of the 2010 Winter Games – and pressed through an adoring crowd waiting in a glass-walled conference room.
It is interesting to see Cheney running to get in front of the cameras and claim that "torture worked". It doesn't. And even if it did, torture is immoral, illegal and uncivilized - whether it works or not is irrelevant. Arguing about whether or not torture works is like arguing about whether you can get rich making kiddie porn or whether eating live babies cures cancer (or helps wins majority governments).
I've read a lot of missives and tomes on the war in Afghanistan. Far too many of them are protected with a celluloid wrap which limits their usefulness in determining what is really going on. Written by well meaning people, each one seemed to drive off the road just as it was coming out of the curve. The telling part was that everything was just rosy. Everything. And, with no apology to those scribes, that is impossible.
Finally, from a US Army captain, comes an assessment of the mission in Afghanistan that makes sense. I wanted to find the right highlight to entice you to read it, but the whole thing is so good, so straight to the point, that it's impossible to pull one paragraph as highlighting the entire paper. So, I'll give you thepdf link, and you can read the whole thing for yourself.
If you don't read it, you'll be that much the poorer for it.
Oh yes. It's an American paper written by an American soldier. If that generates some small repulsion in your gut, perhaps making you want to move on, then I would suggest you start at Flit, a blog written by a Canadian who has just returned from a deployment on an Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.
BruceR takes the good Captain's words and adjusts them to put them in the context of his experience.
You need to read that too.
Edit: Link colours changed to blue bold. We believe even stokers and ERAs should be well informed.
Toronto's "newspaper of record" the CTVglobmedia owned Globe and Mail has come out with a resounding endorsement of Gordon "I won't sell BC Rail" Campbell.
From W.A.C. Bennett and Dave Barrett to Bill Vander Zalm and Glen Clark, British Columbia was long known for its colourful and often dysfunctional politics. The greatest achievement of Gordon Campbell, who will seek his third term as premier on Tuesday, is to have brought a measure of calm and stability to his province. That is reason enough for British Columbians to resist any impulse to change government, at a time when economic tumult calls for a steady hand.
Coming from a newspaper that endorses the Harper party federally, that's something. Dysfunctional indeed. Look around your own newsroom Mr. Greenspon.
But to suggest that Gordon Campbell has brought "calm and stability" to British Columbia?! That goes beyond the pale.
Recessions always pose a risk to incumbent governments. But British Columbians could make matters considerably worse by forgoing Mr. Campbell's calm leadership in favour of a party that is mostly telling them what it thinks they want to hear. Now is not the time to risk a return to erratic governance.
Return?!!! We have an erratic government in BC. From one minute to the next, one never knows what Campbell and his "Bought and paid for by big business" party are going to spring on unsuspecting British Columbians.
There's nothing calm or stable about it.
I personally dislike all other options available but that doesn't elevate Gordon Campbell to a position of favour. To suggest that Campbell is anything but a lying, arrogant elitist, out to give away everything he can to his big-business buddies, is a deviation from the truth.
For a list of Campbell's real accomplishments, go visit Creekside.
And for further adventures of how Campbell is in the pockets of big-media, follow the links at The Gazetteer.
In the meantime I have a suggestion for the G&M's Toronto-centric Greenspon and Geiger: Put your faces back where they're comfortable.
JALOPNIK is a car site that has a somewhat oblique perspective. Here's an article about some very serious Japanese creations. As reported by by Mark Arnold, the classic Detroit look is still the pinnacle . . . . as the grille on the MicroDodge shows, these dudes went all the way.
And that is going to be pretty tough to do after CanWest Media Inc. pumped tens of thousands of dollars into the BC Liberal Party for the 2005 election, at the exclusion of all others.
Then we get the Vancouver Sun endorsing Campbell and his "Liberals". The problem is that the endorsement is accompanied by the worst kind of biased bullshit. And by bullshit I mean fabrications, misrepresentations, statistical manipulation and outright falsehoods.
When challenged by the Georgia Straight's Charlie Smith on CanWest Media's 2005 $50,000 donation to the BC Liberals, Campbell insults every thinking British Columbian by suggesting that it has no influence... at all. Then he really screws the pooch by making the suggestion that government advertising revenue is spread around... "... the fact of the matter is that we have two major daily newspapers."
Huh?!
Let's assume for a minute that he's talking about the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province. Just for good measure, let's throw in the Victoria Times-Colonist. They are all owned by CanWest Media Inc.!!!
A student at a fundamentalist Baptist school that forbids dancing, rock music, hand-holding and kissing will be suspended if he takes his girlfriend to her public high school prom, his principal said.
Despite the warning, 17-year-old Tyler Frost, who has never been to a dance before, said he plans to attend Findlay High School's prom Saturday.
"Ministry of Environment officials sometimes face "substantial pressure" from IPP [Independent Power Project] proponents to exempt them from wildlife and habitat protection regulations that apply to the forestry sector -- and ministry staff are recommending that requests for exemptions be passed along to politicians rather than dealt with by civil servants"
"Recommended Option : If a Regional Manager does not wish to issue the exemption, it would elevate to the Minister."
What? You mean the same Liberal politicians who have received $800,000 in political donations from that IPP industry and its supporters over the past 8 years would be making the call on whether specific IPPs are exempt from environmental regulation? Good lord.
Hannity floated his mustard fest in an attempt to get noticed by America's Finest News Source. Of course The Onion has standards. The ability to manufacture something witty while tackling the truly bizarre is a basic requirement. If you can do a story which others actually believe... well, here's your new desk.
The Onion has some other stipulating requirements for employment. One of the most stringent being that when you make a story out of nothing, the nothing can't really be a real-life nothing event. It has to be a big thing which can be turned on its head or absolutely impossible and turned into a story - which stupid people believe, gets blogged all over the place and goes viral. (Fox News fans are most accustomed to this... for some reason. Suspicion is that they are unable to differentiate between the veracity of a Fox News broadcast and an Onion headline. Go figure.)
I digress.
The Onion has rejected Hannity's test. It seems he suffers from inconsistency. While the mustard story looked like a good first step for a budding Onionista, it turns out he was unable to explain how he missed the fact that his White House hero also consumed stuff that was, ahem, fancy... and definitely not home-grown American.
The Onion has suggested that Hannity keep trying. Perhaps we'll get something really bizarre, like a drunken vice-president mistaking his hunting partner for a duck and shooting him in the face. Wouldn't that be a hoot?!
Rush Limbaugh couldn't have skewed two unrelated concepts into one any better. The United States committed a heinous act in the nuclear bombing of Japan. Torturing one person is less heinous than killing 160,000 people.Therefore, torture is perfectly alright.
No context, no circumstances. Just compare apples and oranges and sit back... unchallenged.
We could go on all day over the moral aspect of blowing entire cities, and their populations, off the map in a few seconds, but that's actually another subject. Let's stick to torture and the right-wing "Hiroshima defence".
Buchanan and his shrinking legions need to go to the library. The book is War In The Pacific, Volume 1, by Jerome T. Hagen. The reader will go immediately to chapter 25, page 159 of the book.
The title of the chapter is: The Lie of Marcus McDilda.
On August 9th, 1945, the Japanese Imperial cabinet was still debating whether to accept the terms of surrender in the Potsdam Declaration. Neither side, (continue to fight vs surrender), dominated the table despite the fact that the US had now twice attacked Japanese cities with atomic bombs.
One of the arguments put forward by the "fight to extinction" faction was the feeling that the US had just shot their wad. The Japanese were aware of the enormous difficulty in producing atomic bombs and many believed the US had no reserve arsenal of such weapons.
The War Minister, Korechika Anami, in the "surrender immediately" faction, disagreed - and he had an ace to play.
Anami told the cabinet that a recently captured B-29 pilot, 1st Lieutenant Marcus McDilda, while undergoing torture, had told his tormentors that the US possessed 100 atomic bombs and that Tokyo and Kyoto were next on the list of targets.
Except that it wasn't true. McDilda had indeed told his interrogators the story but, in fact, he knew nothing of the Manhatten Project, knew nothing about the US atomic bomb arsenal and knew nothing about any targetting plot. In an attempt to end his torture he had told the Japanese what they wanted to hear. McDilda was immediately classified a high-value prisoner - something which probably saved his life.
In truth, the US had no ready use arsenal of atomic bombs and would not have another bomb ready for almost two weeks. After that, a fourth bomb would not be ready for use until mid-September.
McDilda's information, obtained through torture, was completely false. Yet it solidified the position of one faction of the Japanese cabinet.
The Japanese played the right-wing's "ticking time bomb" scenario and proved it a useless tool.
Buchanan's comparison fails and the moral deficit of those who promote torture as a means of defending their country stands.
