Shorts for a Long World 

Appointing a Government in Iraq

As someone who was opposed to the most recent invasion of
Iraq, I've been watching its aftermath with interest, to see
if I was right. This is the way in which I try to be
open-minded; continuously re-evaluating my opinions and
beliefs in light of what seem to be facts; trying to
recognize, as The Dude might say, when my thinking about
this case has become very uptight.

Many people "on my side" of this line in the sand have said
that although they were initially opposed to the invasion,
they are now glad to see the Iraqi people liberated and safe
from the murderous threat of Saddam Hussein. This is a very
pragmatic position. I'd like to agree with it. Watching the
way things are developing, however, I am beginning to
believe that this may only be a temporary respite for the
Iraqi people. Democracy is probably a good thing. But we
don't have democracy here in the United States, and we're
not building it over there in Iraq.

I think many people are under the impression that we are
organizing elections in Iraq, so that the Iraqi people can
choose their own leaders. This is not the case. This week,
we appointed a twenty-five member group to run the
country. We being the United States military. Many of these
people have not lived in Iraq for a number of years. They
were appointed because of their affiliation with various
exile groups.

People have also been kicked out of the new club due to
their religious affiliations. It is ironic that the United
States government, which was founded by people seeking to
escape religious persecution and eliminate religious
discrimination, has now imposed a government on another
country using religion as a criterion for who may and may
not hold office.

The people appointed have been appointed because their
position at the intersection of various characteristics has
brought them to the attention of the powers-that-be. Money
and status are an important part of this profile, making
this a new class of elites, something else that our own
founders were opposed to.

The idea that we are now handing freedom to Iraqis in the
form of democracy is thus a complete charade. We may do a
better job of keeping them alive than Hussein did, but we
show no intentions of allowing them to vote for, or more
importantly, to _be_ their own leaders.

Do the benefits of staying alive outweigh this? Quite
possibly. The question is who gets to make that
decision. The people who founded the first United States
government made the opposite decision; that freedoms were
worth dying for. In the context of this history, we should
not be so paternalistic as to assume that because we have
eliminated one scourge, what we are now doing is
automatically right.

Here, people won't even tolerate having school board
officials appointed by the state. So how can we stomach the
appointment and imposition of a new Iraqi government?

Stay tuned for future profiles of who has been chosen to run
the Iraq government. I can't claim any insider information,
this is no drudgery report, but I'll collect all of the
details that I can. Leave any relevant tips here in the
comment box.


Not the smoothest silk in the drawer,
John

The Big Sleep and the Big Lebowski

I had heard the Coen brothers mention the influence of film noir detective movies on The Big Lebowski before. I had some idea of the typical elements of film noir when I heard them say this, most notably the wildly convoluted mishap-packed plots, but seeing The Big Sleep, with Bogart and Bacall really made the parallels and influences apparent.

Whether any of these things were intentionally done or not, I don't know. But they stood out to me.

-> The title. Big and Big.

-> The rich gentleman in the wheelchair. Called "the General" in The Big Sleep and "Mr. Lebowski" in The Big Lebowski. They both speak in high philosophical terms, prone to oratory.

-> The butlers belonging to these gentlemen.

-> In the Big Sleep, one of the General's daughters, Carmen, behaves much like Bunny in the Big Lebowski. Throwing herself at Bogart. As when Bunny propositions The Dude.

-> The use of the term 'shamus' to denote the private detective. This is in movies other than The Big Sleep too, but the scene in which it is used in both Bigs is very similar in other respects.

-> The reading of the ransom note. Bogart reads the note to himself, mumbling while the note is shown on screen, same as the Dude does. Though Bogart is not "doing a j" while he reads.

-> The ubiquitous presence of alcohol. Bogart, always drinking. The Dude, always drinking. How people got anything done in those days, I'll never know.

There are more, just getting started, but I'm out of time. Feel free to add more of your own.

First Entry - A little dated

Just switched to this blog service. I did so because the last one went crazy on me (blogspot/blogger). So I'm going to repost an entry that's a little dated, just to get going.

The entry never got posted at the other site, because the other site went crazy (see above).

-/-

AN UPDATE on the entry about certain U.S. American attitudes toward the French. Maybe it is good that they have decided to boycott "French" foods, since the U.S. American obesity rate is three times the French rate. Thirty percent versus ten percent (and it just hit ten percent). This according to Greg Crister in the New York Times, 5/18.

-/-

DID YOU catch Cornel West's cameo appearance in The Matrix Reloaded?

It is heartening to see Dr. West remaking the model of the model scholar. He's had other recent cameos, sometimes without making an actual appearance. A recent episode of Law & Order (was it Criminal Intent? - this is a blog, no time for fact-checking!)featured as part of its mix-current-events-and-stir plot a black professor in a dispute with his department chair over the professor's release of a hip-hop record. Then there he was in person on the Chris Rock show.

Now he's in one of the year's biggest cinematic events. It's not that he's good at all of these things -- it's that he is turning the ivory tower into a ranch house. He's giving people a reason, people who may not care and may actively refuse to care about the doings of a Ivy-League-professor-type a reason to care, maybe even a reason to go out and pick up a copy of _Race Matters_.

There is also a danger in this celebritizing of the intellectual, the emphasis on personal charisma at the expense of merits of ideas. But this danger is not a reason to not branch out, only a reason to be careful. From what I have seen of Dr. West, he is not really selling his ideas on his charisma. I recognized him in The Matrix Reloaded partially, after all, on the basis of the gap between his front teeth.

There is something different about his approach, something about the way he has constructed a scholarly reputation, then proceeded to show that he doesn't care much for many of the norms attached to the maintenance of such a reputation, while at the same time making himself visible to people who may then take interest in his scholarly reputation.

I haven't heard the CD he put out. The reviews I read of it were not great. Anyone heard it?

No time for review of the rest of the movie. Worth seeing on the big screen with the chest-compressing bass. Complaints: too heavy-handed on the philosophical dialogue, especially given its predecessor's emphasis on subtlety. Fight scenes too long and ridiculous in their one-sidedness. This complaint is also a little ridiculous. Computer animation at times in the slow-mo parts too obvious and bitmapped -- if I wanted to see blocky Street Fighter faces, I'd go to the arcade and look over a fourteen-year-old's shoulder, if he'd let me.

There are positives too; but I already elaborated on those in the form of $8.50.

-/-

WE'VE LOST a number of great poets this last year. Ted Joans is the most recent. He died at age 74 on May 7. He was a fan of jazz and poetry and the potentials of combining the two. This is the topic I wrote my MFA thesis on, and I remember quoting a poem of his from the Jazz Poetry Anthology. Unfortunately, another poet I quoted from in that paper, June Jordan, also passed away during this past year.

Just wanted to mark Mr. Joans' passing and encourage folks to check out his work. I will be doing so myself.

-/-