Uh oh

In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.

David Brooks sets out to prove that he is both literate and financially savvy and ends up as usual doing doing just the opposite.

Leo Tolstoy wrote a lovely novella called "Family Happiness," narrated by a young woman who goes out for a walk with a man she loves. They talk about nothing in particular - frogs, actually - but exchange looks and gestures. "He said goodbye as usual and made no special allusion; but I knew that from that day he was mine, and that I should never lose him now."

They are married but grow apart. She likes parties, while he doesn't. Then one day they are sitting at home and her heart suddenly grows light. She looks around and realizes that the courtship phase of their relationship has ended, but it has been replaced by something gentler and deeper:

Brooks could stop here, make some inane comments on the sanctity of marriage, and end up no worse for it. But in true Bobo-esque fashion he isn't content to simply be inane.

Tolstoy's novella came back to me while I was reading, of all things, The Wall Street Journal. The paper's Work and Family columnist, Sue Shellenbarger, had a piece last week reporting that the number of couples who now have separate checking accounts is rising rapidly. Roughly half of all married couples now keep multiple accounts, according to a Raddon Financial Group survey.

(snip)

I'm not saying that people with separate accounts have marriages that are less healthy than anybody else's. I'm saying we should pause before this becomes the social norm. Private property is the basis for our market democracy. But private property in the home is an altogether trickier proposition.

For one thing, separate accounts can easily turn into secret accounts. A person's status and resources inside the home shouldn't be based on how much he or she is making outside it. A union based on love can easily turn into a merger based on self-interest, where the main criterion for continuing becomes: Am I getting a good return on my investment, psychic or otherwise?

Isn't it just like Brooks to read about separate checking accounts and think about Tolstoy? Isn't it just like him to look for the most innocuous thing upon which to blame the collapse of the average American marriage? Incidentally the use of Tolstoy here is so painfully ham-handed that I can only assume that Brooks is trying to be all big and cool like his pin-up girl Condoleeza Rice. And if he's looking for a literary marriage guru, Tolstoy is probably not the best choice.

Tolstoy himself tried to abide by his new beliefs, simplifying his life, living on his own labor, and giving up material possessions. His wife, however, did not share all of his beliefs, and their marriage suffered under severe strain during their last years together. In November 1910 relations between them had grown so tense that Tolstoy decided to leave home for good. He contracted pneumonia while traveling and died at the small railway station of Astapovo.

Herbert today

Maher Arar is a 34-year-old native of Syria who emigrated to Canada as a teenager. On Sept. 26, 2002, as he was returning from a family vacation in Tunisia, he was seized by American authorities at Kennedy Airport in New York, where he was in the process of changing planes.

Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen, was not charged with a crime. But, as Jane Mayer tells us in a compelling and deeply disturbing article in the current issue of The New Yorker, he "was placed in handcuffs and leg irons by plainclothes officials and transferred to an executive jet."

In an instant, Mr. Arar was swept into an increasingly common nightmare, courtesy of the United States of America. The plane that took off with him from Kennedy "flew to Washington, continued to Portland, Maine, stopped in Rome, Italy, then landed in Amman, Jordan."

(snip)

Mr. Arar was seized because his name had turned up on a watch list of terror suspects. He was reported to have been a co-worker of a man in Canada whose brother was a suspected terrorist.

"Although he initially tried to assert his innocence, he eventually confessed to anything his tormentors wanted him to say," Ms. Mayer wrote.

The confession under torture was worthless. Syrian officials reported back to the United States that they could find no links between Mr. Arar and terrorism. He was released in October 2003 without ever being charged and is now back in Canada.

I don't have the words.

I meant to have some post-SOTU thoughts up this evening, but find that having unexpectedly run into Dave Chappelle this afternoon in Greenwich Village has reduced me into a Beavis and Butthead-type (Heh heh, that was cool). And really what can one say? I find that I have finally reached the point of being used to the fact that everything Bush says is pretty much a lie. And ultimately that's all I'm left with. This was probably the best thing I saw regarding last night.

And yes, you didn't misread back there. I ran into Dave Chappelle this afternoon. New York is so effing cool.

SOTU Lands on Groundhog Day
George Bush pulls his head out of his ass to speak to a joint session of Congress. This explains the excrement-filled speech. (do you kiss Joe Lieberman with that mouth, sir?)

I'm not sure what happens if he sees his shadow.

SOTU: Some Initial Thoughts


I don't what was worse. The actual SOTU or the limp Democratic Response. Reid and Pelosi inspire no confidence. Their quite disapproval does nothing to drown out the screams of "We're fucked!" in my head. Let me brood this for an evening. I'll get back to you later.

Did he just invoke Roosevelt? FDR should haunt him till he goes mad.

It's over thank God. Recap to come.

Oh man he's sending Condi to Middle East.

"We must confront nations who support terra." If he says Saudi Arabia, I'll name my firstborn George Walker.

"..fighting terrorists in Iraq so we do not have to face them at home." Flypaper theory, that's an oldie. New ideas people. I'm tired of recycling my outrage.

And now we reach the "terra" portion of the evening. Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction but other countries may, and I'm gonna route out all the evil do-ers except for Osama Bin Laden, because he is like Voldemort and saying his name will make me wet my pants.

We are going to build a NEW coalition, because the OLD one won't return our phone calls.

I can't follow this so-called Social Security reform idea. Somebody explain it to me later.

"Gay Marriage" and the heartland goes wild.

Wow! Christopher Reeve's wife it there. And there he goes stepping all over stem cell research.

Ugh! He winked. Make it stop.

Ashcroft looks pained. Must be the cumulative effect of all of those voodoo dolls.

Laura has some massive helmet hair going on.

A whole 15 seconds devoted to AIDS. Compassionate.

There are a lot of empty seats on the Dems side.

"Social Security WAS a great moral success in the 20th Century." Ah yes excellent rhetorical method. Talk of it as if it is already a relic. Soften up the public before you kick them to the curb. Kudos to the Dems for refusing to clap.

I am still struck by how frightening Cheney's face looks hovering over Bush's shoulder.

Did the Dems's just boo? Rock! Shout"liar", shout "liar"!

SOTU

I know, why bother? We all know how empty and soul-crushing the next hour or so, but one must do it, because--well--because one is a masochist at home this evening. One would rather watch Law and Order but one can't. So as our National Embarrassment walks down the aisle I ready my keyboard, take a swig of Beajoulais and wonder why in the hell am still here doing this.

I'm not holding out a whole lotta hope that we can avoid four years of Condo as Secretary of State, but I signed this anyway, and you should too.

I intend to stand up and ask Condoleezza Rice the tough questions that Americans deserve to have answered. Questions like:

Why did the United States go to war in Iraq based on misleading -- if not false and fraudulent -- evidence?

Why did we divert valuable resources and intelligence personnel to Iraq, taking them away from Afghanistan and the pursuit of Osama bin Laden?

Why did you mislead the American people into thinking there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida before September 11th?

I'd add one more question: Just what is going on between you and the president?

To say that I'm not looking forward to this inauguration is like saying that the apocalypse may ruffle my feathers. Bad enough that it's happening at all, but Bush seems also intent on raping the corpse.

President Bush's second inauguration will cost tens of millions of dollars -- $40 million alone in private donations for the balls, parade and other invitation-only parties. With that kind of money, what could you buy?

--200 armored Humvees with the best armor for troops in Iraq.

--Vaccinations and preventive health care for 22 million children in regions devastated by the tsunami.

--A down payment on the nation's deficit, which hit a record-breaking $412 billion last year.

If you need me I'll be at the bottom of a bottle of Merlot.

Sweet Jesus

What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out.

For for those of us young-uns who are too young to remember what a fabulous undertaking El Salvador was, here's a bit of a lesson.

The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States changed American policy in El Salvador dramatically. The new U.S. administration worried about Communist expansion in Central America and viewed the El Salvador military government as a potential barrier against Communism. The Reagan administration substantially increased both military and economic aid to El Salvador.

The civil war raged on in El Salvador, fueled by U.S. aid to the Salvadoran military. The government harshly repressed dissent, and at least 70,000 people lost their lives in killings and bombing raids waged against civilians throughout the countryside. The country's infrastructure had crumbled, and the nation appeared to be no closer to its goals of peace, prosperity and social justice than when the process began. Then, in 1989, the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America shocked the international community into action.

Ladies and gentlemen, George W. Bush's Free Iraq. God forgive us.

Sigh

Sen. John Kerry, whose seemingly shifting positions on the U.S. war in Iraq plagued him throughout his presidential campaign, came to this war- torn capital Wednesday to see for himself whether the country was moving toward stability or deeper into chaos.

Kerry, who repeatedly charged during the presidential campaign that President Bush had botched the war effort, was greeted warmly by U.S. soldiers in Baghdad.

(snip)

U.S. soldiers approached Kerry inside the restaurant of the Rashid Hotel, asking him to pose for photographs and sign T-shirts. The star-struck restaurant manager insisted on serving Kerry the restaurant's specialty, a plate of grilled chicken and lamb.

(via Kos)

Iokiyar

It looks like Krugman is back in full force, which I'm going to take as my cue that I've got it snap out of my own post-election, pre-inauguration funk.

How did we find ourselves living in a bad novel? It was not ever thus. Hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels have always been with us, on both sides of the aisle. But 9/11 created an environment some liberals summarize with the acronym Iokiyar: it's O.K. if you're a Republican.

I'm still spinning my wheels on how to cope with this newer yuckier version of reality that we find ourselves in. But Krugman is right about not rolling over and playing dead regarding the confirmation of Gonzalez and Kerik when he states, "when the Senate confirms Mr. Gonzales, it will mean that Iokiyar remains in effect, that the basic rules of ethics don't apply to people aligned with the ruling party. And reality will continue to be worse than any fiction I could write. "

These days it's NOT okay if you are a Republican. We need to remind people of this.

Well I'm back from a black hole of paper writing and holiday traveling. The problem with extended blogging breaks is that it's incredibly difficult to pick up a topic. And as my news consumption has been slim to none lately, I can't really claim to have anything substantial to say.

But I will hopefully come up with something. For now, Happy New Year y'all. Start the year and light a fire under Bush's ass concerning tsunami relief.

Shepards quake

And they're not the only ones.

...Jesus described his mission as being to "preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and to set at liberty those who are oppressed". He insisted that the social outcast be loved and cared for, and that the rich have less chance of getting into heaven than a camel has of getting through the eye of a needle. Jesus set out to destroy the imprisoning obligations of debt, speaking instead of forgiveness and the redistribution of wealth. He was accused of blasphemy for attacking the religious authorities as self-serving and hypocritical.

Giles Fraser has a great piece in the Guardian describing the Christ we were meant to follow:

...it should be perfectly obvious to anyone who has actually read the Christmas stories that the gospel regards the incarnation as challenging the existing order. The pregnant Mary anticipates Christ's birth with some fiery political theology: God "has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly, he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty", she blazes. Born among farm labourers, yet worshipped by kings, Christ announces an astonishing reversal of political authority. The local imperial stooge, King Herod, is so threatened by rumours of his birth that he sends troops to Bethlehem to find the child and kill him. Herod recognised that to claim Jesus is lord and king is to say that Caesar isn't. Christ's birth is not a silent night - it's the beginning of a revolution that threatened to undermine the whole basis of Roman power.

Tender and mild my ass.

Just to put things into perspective...

As of 2004
• only 82 years have passed since women were finally granted the right to vote;
• 40 years since Congress passed the Civil Rights Act that outlawed sexual discrimination;
• 31 years since women got the right to choose a legal abortion;
• 18 years since the Supreme Court declared sexual harassment a form of illegal job discrimination;
• 10 years since the Violence Against Women Act passed;
• and just 7 years since the Supreme Court ruled that college athletics programs must involve roughly equal numbers of men and women to qualify for federal support.

This is from Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner's new book, The F-Word: Feminism in Jeopardy

I came across it in the latest Utne.