A NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED today reminded me of the ongoing debate on the part of military forces over the growing effectiveness of "swarm" attacks — use of multiple, expendable attackers against a far larger foe to evade, degrade, and overwhelm its defenses — against peacekeeping forces designed to face similar-scale enemies. It also reminded me of previous coverage this issue has received right here.
Whereas the Iranian incident I cited a year ago eerily echoed a 2002 Navy wargame result, the current article, by author and Naval Postgraduate School instructor John Arquilla, takes as its points of departure two land assaults: the Mumbai attacks of November 2008 and last week's trio of government-ministry suicide attacks in Kabul. He fits these into a pattern that includes multiple al Qaeda actions since (and, in his thesis, including) 9/11. We've heard repeated warnings from commentators about the vulnerability of our industrial, commercial, and transportation hubs to attack from a team of guerrillas, small enough to evade the intelligence and counterterrorism hierarchies we've enhanced since 2001. Arquilla's point: We rightly ought to anticipate a swarm of such assaults.
How to counter such a nebulous foe? Arquilla credits use of smaller, widely distributed military strongpoints across Iraq with the recent drop in violence there. Our police forces would fulfill this role here, in similarly deployed "counterterrorism posts," along with agreements between state officials and the feds to ensure that if a situation requires the National Guard, arrangements for its deployment would be smoother than those that bollixed the Katrina response. He also argues that "Reserve and National Guard units should train and field many more units able to take on small teams of terrorist gunmen and bombers. Think of them as latter-day Minutemen."
I would want some clarification on this last point. At what point in the scale of a swarm attack, or the nature of the target, do we decide we need the Guard? A Mumbai-style action at the Mall of America? Pipe bombs along the parade route at Mardi Gras? Six simultaneous bank robberies in the suburbs of Denver? Perhaps the desire is to ensure a quick response in those areas of the country that lack the SWAT and counterterrorism forces and rapid-deployment capabilities America's major cities have developed, often with post-9/11 federal funding. Local communities often found it difficult to fit the mandate of these Washington dollars with their perceived terror threat (I believe Fahrenheit 9/11 brought this sort of thing to light).
If we want to defeat swarms, we have to assess and cater to local needs, and not impose a blanket defense plan across the entire United States. I think assigning SWAT-like duties to Reserve and Guard units — both straining as it is against the American national-disaster cycle and the demands of two wars — would lack the necessary nuance. The "clear rules in advance for using military forces in a counterterrorist role" that Arquilla cites ought to be used to define the needs of each area considered vulnerable across the land. Major farmlands might require local police to work more closely with the community airports more common away from big cities, to catch possible crop saboteurs via background checks of new pilots. Do the chemical plants and refineries from Edgewater to Elizabeth need to improve their grounds access? Maybe the police could set up a substation near critical sites if their station houses haven't already acquired CBW/hazmat gear and set up evacuation plans.
State and municipal police forces already have the distribution and intimate knowledge of their communities to sense something is amiss. It's their sensitivity we ought to enhance, rather than refocusing the rightly broader purview of domestic military forces. And always within the bounds and penumbra of the Fourth Amendment. Safety from clouds of nimble attackers means little if we're watching through the windows of our figurative cells.
Counterterrorism and national security planners play a cold game of math when judging the cost and effectiveness of responses to threats, versus the probability that such threats will manifest or even take the forms our defenses anticipate. Innovative tactics like agile swarms are the stuff of planners' nightmares. Arquilla is smart to highlight the expanded danger that swarm attacks could represent to the target-rich environment that a free and open society like ours presents. With some definition of role, his plan to apply the lessons of Iraq to America — via our existing police hierarchy — could be a minor investment, compared to the crippling catch-up cost that responding to an American Mumbai could incur. We would have to walk a thin line between effective defense and personal freedom, between concrete effectiveness and Schneier-style security theater, to ensure its success.
Showing posts with label current events. Show all posts
Showing posts with label current events. Show all posts
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Obama Blinded ME! With SCIENCE!!
COULD THIS OBAMA CABINET NEWS signify a return of respect for science to the Executive Branch? I speak of the President-elect's selection of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven Chu as prospective Secretary of Department of Energy. Not a political goon like Spencer Abraham or Bill Richardson, or a power-industry hack like Hazel O'Leary, but a SCIENTIST! The man has worked with LASERS and ATOMS, people. ATOMMMMMSSS!!!Seriously, it's refreshing to see a representative of the sciences ascend to such a post. It was a tooth-eroding grind to listen to the contortions of logic that the Bush Administration put forth to avoid admitting that global warming could pose a threat, or that destroying the landscape for a few years' worth of resources would be a good tradeoff. Hard decisions on energy need to be made in the next four years, and Dr. Chu's authority as a Nobel Prize winner ought to count for something when he cajoles a reluctant Congress to fund alternative energy projects . . . especially with crude oil back down to far more reasonable levels. He'll have to keep Congress focused on the long game, not just the temporary comfort of a cheaper gallon of gasoline. With that task and all others, I wish him all the luck in the world.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Royal Navy 2, Pirates Naught
FOLLOWING ON THE HEELS OF a report on NPR of the life of a Somali pirate — in which the reporter took considerable risk, and moral license, to interview one of the many seagoing thieves plaguing the critical sea lane through the Gulf of Aden — comes news that a British warship, aided by Russian vessels, finally took some hard action against these scum. From Wired Magazine's Danger Room blog:
Years ago, I recall reading a New York Times Sunday magazine article by Jack Hitt about modern-day pirates. I recall being surprised at how prevalent the problem had become. As evidenced by the first link in the quote above, Somalia's coast is now a hot zone for such crime.
I have no sympathies for the dead pirates, and I think it's about time such a clear signal was sent that this shit won't fly. One of the commenters to the article had the same thought I did: that the naval powers of the world should begin dispatching WW II–style Q-ships to begin throwing the Fear into these scum. I had an ambiguous reaction to the NPR report; though it was fascinating, I still felt like the world would've been better served had the story ended with the reporter emptying the pirate's skull with a shotgun. But that's a violation of journalistic trust, and let's face it, several of my favorite books were written by, or in collaboration with, Mafiosi. Still, if you look at the list of previous stories on the topic beneath the story behind the first link in the quote, this is clearly not a new problem, with over 100 incidents this year. Well, there are two pirates who won't be joining the next raid.
For years, Somali pirates have terrorized the waters of East Africa, with only the occasional spasm of opposition. But now, NATO has begun to patrol the area in force. And the pirates are starting to get smacked back. On Tuesday, the British Royal Navy "repelled a pirate attack on a Danish cargo ship off the coast of Yemen, shooting dead two men," the BBC reports.The pirates were given a chance to surrender, but after they fired small arms at the HMS Cumberland, the British sailors returned fire and dropped a pair of them.
Years ago, I recall reading a New York Times Sunday magazine article by Jack Hitt about modern-day pirates. I recall being surprised at how prevalent the problem had become. As evidenced by the first link in the quote above, Somalia's coast is now a hot zone for such crime.
I have no sympathies for the dead pirates, and I think it's about time such a clear signal was sent that this shit won't fly. One of the commenters to the article had the same thought I did: that the naval powers of the world should begin dispatching WW II–style Q-ships to begin throwing the Fear into these scum. I had an ambiguous reaction to the NPR report; though it was fascinating, I still felt like the world would've been better served had the story ended with the reporter emptying the pirate's skull with a shotgun. But that's a violation of journalistic trust, and let's face it, several of my favorite books were written by, or in collaboration with, Mafiosi. Still, if you look at the list of previous stories on the topic beneath the story behind the first link in the quote, this is clearly not a new problem, with over 100 incidents this year. Well, there are two pirates who won't be joining the next raid.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Racist Scum Jesse Helms Dead
WE'VE BEEN GIVEN A TRUE Independence Day gift: One of the most vile remnants of America's racist history, former Senator Jesse Helms (R–NC), died early this morning. From a position of great influence over a nation whose diversity is its most fertile virtue, he instead blocked progress toward greater harmony for all, and stigmatized those who were different from him to advance his philosophy and retain power. This, if nothing else, is the definition of evil.
He joins atavistic white supremacists George Wallace and Strom Thurmond in nonexistence. Our advance into this still-new century takes us step by cleansing step away from a time when such men became civic leaders by demonizing women, homosexuals, and religious and racial minorities.
At least this race-baiting homophobe got to see an African-American man and a woman vie for the chance to lead this country. Each vote for Obama and Clinton was a nail in the coffin of men like Helms and the sick vision of the American dream he promulgated.
Nearly two and a half centuries after that auspicious day in Philadelphia, that vision is finally dying. Let Helms's corpse be flung upon it.
He joins atavistic white supremacists George Wallace and Strom Thurmond in nonexistence. Our advance into this still-new century takes us step by cleansing step away from a time when such men became civic leaders by demonizing women, homosexuals, and religious and racial minorities.
At least this race-baiting homophobe got to see an African-American man and a woman vie for the chance to lead this country. Each vote for Obama and Clinton was a nail in the coffin of men like Helms and the sick vision of the American dream he promulgated.
Nearly two and a half centuries after that auspicious day in Philadelphia, that vision is finally dying. Let Helms's corpse be flung upon it.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Second Chance for Michael Vick's Abused Pit Bulls
THE NEW YORK TIMES HAS a heartbreaking story today about the pit bulls that bullethole-deficient asshole Michael Vick bred for dogfighting. Those able to be recuperated now live at an animal sanctuary on money Vick was forced to disgorge to support their upkeep and rehabilitation. But the physical and mental effects of the abuse their handlers and dogfighting opponents inflicted won't fade easily:
A quick survey of Georgia, a caramel-colored pit bull mix with cropped ears and soulful brown eyes, offers a road map to a difficult life. Her tongue juts from the left side of her mouth because her jaw, once broken, healed at an awkward angle. Her tail zigzags.I haven't even dared to check out the accompanying audio slide show.Scars from puncture wounds on her face, legs and torso reveal that she was a fighter. Her misshapen, dangling teats show that she might have been such a successful, vicious competitor that she was forcibly bred, her new handlers suspect, again and again.
But there is one haunting sign that Georgia might have endured the most abuse of any of the 47 surviving pit bulls seized last April from the property of the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick in connection with an illegal dogfighting ring.
Georgia has no teeth. All 42 of them were pried from her mouth, most likely to make certain she could not harm male dogs during forced breeding.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Wargame Swarm Conjures Boardgaming Past
SOMETIMES, BEING A WARGAME FREAK pays off. The recent approach of five small Iranian vessels on a trio of American warships back on January 6 evoked a subsequent Times story about how a similar scenario had been tested in U.S. Navy wargames, with far more devastating results . . . and which reminded me of my boardgaming past.
In preparation for a Middle East conflict, the Navy ran a simulation in 2002 between a group of American warships (Blue) and the naval and ballistic forces of an opposing Gulf power (Red). Red Team's skipper, retired Marine General Paul Van Riper, deployed a notably unconventional strategy:
Ogre was the first wargame Steve Jackson released at his new, eponymous company after he left Metagaming too many years ago. One player takes the side of an Ogre, a massive, soulless cybertank, sporting meters-thick armor and multiple weapons systems, rolling relentlessly across a nuke-scarred landscape toward a lonely command post. The other player must guard this post with an assortment of far smaller conventional and hovering tanks, missile units, and howitzers. Their numbers and mobility are a surprisingly close match for the Ogre, as they dart in and out of the cybertank's weapon range to knock out treads and guns and turn the Ogre into an immobile, disarmed hulk. With the right combination of units and a little luck from the gods of chance, the defender might just stand a chance of halting the beast.
It's too bad Blue Team didn't have at least one gamer geek of my generation in the room, else they might have had a chance against the Red hordes. We would've spotted that swarm shit a nautical mile away. I know people who would've met that threat with some sort of equally improvised counter-force and turned Red into fish food. Sadly, our kind is not welcome in the Pentagon. Their loss.
In preparation for a Middle East conflict, the Navy ran a simulation in 2002 between a group of American warships (Blue) and the naval and ballistic forces of an opposing Gulf power (Red). Red Team's skipper, retired Marine General Paul Van Riper, deployed a notably unconventional strategy:
In the simulation, General Van Riper sent wave after wave of relatively inexpensive speedboats to charge at the costlier, more advanced fleet approaching the Persian Gulf. His force of small boats attacked with machine guns and rockets, reinforced with missiles launched from land and air. Some of the small boats were loaded with explosives to detonate alongside American warships in suicide attacks.The result?
[T]he Blue Team . . . lost 16 major warships — an aircraft carrier, cruisers and amphibious vessels — when they were sunk to the bottom of the Persian Gulf in an attack that included swarming tactics by enemy speedboats.The mighty Felix tells me that this scenario is written up in greater detail in Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, which has been on my reading list for some time. But the idea of multiple small Davids swarming a single Goliath resonates with a certain vintage of wargame geek.
Ogre was the first wargame Steve Jackson released at his new, eponymous company after he left Metagaming too many years ago. One player takes the side of an Ogre, a massive, soulless cybertank, sporting meters-thick armor and multiple weapons systems, rolling relentlessly across a nuke-scarred landscape toward a lonely command post. The other player must guard this post with an assortment of far smaller conventional and hovering tanks, missile units, and howitzers. Their numbers and mobility are a surprisingly close match for the Ogre, as they dart in and out of the cybertank's weapon range to knock out treads and guns and turn the Ogre into an immobile, disarmed hulk. With the right combination of units and a little luck from the gods of chance, the defender might just stand a chance of halting the beast.
It's too bad Blue Team didn't have at least one gamer geek of my generation in the room, else they might have had a chance against the Red hordes. We would've spotted that swarm shit a nautical mile away. I know people who would've met that threat with some sort of equally improvised counter-force and turned Red into fish food. Sadly, our kind is not welcome in the Pentagon. Their loss.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Not Cueing Up "Don't Fear the Reaper" Just Yet
NOW COMES THE SUPERBUG. The news media has been infected with reports of the superdeadly form of Staphylococcus aureus, in particular the surprisingly high death toll attributable to this germ in 2005. JAMA published the results today, which indicated that this methicillin-resistant Staph. aureus, or MRSA, slipped through our standard antibiotic pickets to infect over 94,000 people two years ago, killing a fifth of them. Assisting this story's spread is news that a Virginia teenager succumbed to this bug on Monday, prompting a mass closure of schools in the area.
Drug-resistant infections are no joke but should be no surprise. You can expect to find bacteria-killing hand soap in just about every American kitchen and bathroom. Reports periodically filter out (sometimes sponsored by antiseptics manufacturers) on the nightmarish germ traps that our computer keyboards harbor. With this frantic all-front jihad against hostile microorganisms, it's simple Darwinism to predict that some bugs will survive. And now that a media connection to children at risk has been made, the nation will add another layer of bubble-wrapping to their already overprotected children.
A lot of dollars are being sunk into pointless overkill that is only making the problem worse. Common folks already possess a potent weapon against all bugs: Wash your hands with hot water and soap. No need to go apeshit with the preop-grade disinfectant. Just be smarter about controlling the most common routes of infection. Most people know not to touch their mouths after contacting germs, for instance, but they don't make the same connection when it comes to avoiding contact with other mucous membranes, particularly the eyes.
I'm not making light of this problem as it currently affects hospitals and nursing homes, to say nothing of prisons. Anywhere you have a static concentration of people, even a casino or cruise ship, you risk outbreaks of nasty shit like Legionnaire's disease and norovirus. Anyone who's seen the gruesomely septic poker chips at Atlantic City's Trump Taj Mahal will agree that too many hands can literally spoil the pot. But some casinos are already installing Purell dispensers, which have an advantage over the bactericidal soaps in that they destroy organisms with alcohol, rather than targeting their genetics or reproduction.
A local A&P recently relaunched itself as a food-porn Whole Foods clone. Visitors during its grand reopening received a generic bottle of alcohol solution. As a frequent casino habitué, and a player in a home game in which players don't let any medical condition save a missing accelerator foot stop them from playing each week, I happily accepted the gift. I don't intend to wall myself away from the horrors of MRSA, but I will stay vigilant with the simple hygiene expedients I was taught as a child.
UPDATE 10/18/07: Jim Macdonald, EMT and occasional medical commentator on the excellent Making Light blog, has a post up about the art and science of washing your hands. Aside from the trial and salvation of a newbie, there's some good discussion there on the topics on which I, above, only touch. Specifically, the main value of soap appears to be the ability to expedite the physical removal of germs by water. Also some hints about immunity in germs to the most common antibacterial compound in soaps touted for that purpose.
Drug-resistant infections are no joke but should be no surprise. You can expect to find bacteria-killing hand soap in just about every American kitchen and bathroom. Reports periodically filter out (sometimes sponsored by antiseptics manufacturers) on the nightmarish germ traps that our computer keyboards harbor. With this frantic all-front jihad against hostile microorganisms, it's simple Darwinism to predict that some bugs will survive. And now that a media connection to children at risk has been made, the nation will add another layer of bubble-wrapping to their already overprotected children.
A lot of dollars are being sunk into pointless overkill that is only making the problem worse. Common folks already possess a potent weapon against all bugs: Wash your hands with hot water and soap. No need to go apeshit with the preop-grade disinfectant. Just be smarter about controlling the most common routes of infection. Most people know not to touch their mouths after contacting germs, for instance, but they don't make the same connection when it comes to avoiding contact with other mucous membranes, particularly the eyes.
I'm not making light of this problem as it currently affects hospitals and nursing homes, to say nothing of prisons. Anywhere you have a static concentration of people, even a casino or cruise ship, you risk outbreaks of nasty shit like Legionnaire's disease and norovirus. Anyone who's seen the gruesomely septic poker chips at Atlantic City's Trump Taj Mahal will agree that too many hands can literally spoil the pot. But some casinos are already installing Purell dispensers, which have an advantage over the bactericidal soaps in that they destroy organisms with alcohol, rather than targeting their genetics or reproduction.
A local A&P recently relaunched itself as a food-porn Whole Foods clone. Visitors during its grand reopening received a generic bottle of alcohol solution. As a frequent casino habitué, and a player in a home game in which players don't let any medical condition save a missing accelerator foot stop them from playing each week, I happily accepted the gift. I don't intend to wall myself away from the horrors of MRSA, but I will stay vigilant with the simple hygiene expedients I was taught as a child.
UPDATE 10/18/07: Jim Macdonald, EMT and occasional medical commentator on the excellent Making Light blog, has a post up about the art and science of washing your hands. Aside from the trial and salvation of a newbie, there's some good discussion there on the topics on which I, above, only touch. Specifically, the main value of soap appears to be the ability to expedite the physical removal of germs by water. Also some hints about immunity in germs to the most common antibacterial compound in soaps touted for that purpose.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Democratic Primaries: Argle-Bargle or Foofaraw?
REMEMBER MY POST ABOUT the primary reshuffling for the upcoming prez dogfight? The plot has emulsified, both because of a new proposed shift by the Michigan legislature, and the wrath of the Democratic National Committee against its electoral minions in the state that set off the scramble, Florida.
First, Michigan. The State Senate began mulling a date move last week. The target: January 15. This would fall one day after the Iowa caucuses if that state moves to Tuesday, January 14. Typically, Iowa schedules its beauty contest 8 days prior to any other race, so this would suggest a different date on their part. More confusingly, according to the NYT Caucus Blog, different factions of Dems are pushing for different methods of polling; Clinton's goons want a primary, whereas the Edwards camp wants caucuses. The Republicans have less of a problem with this affair than the Dems, and one could actually benefit: Mitt Romney's father George was once Michigan's governor. One thing is clear: Michigan's had a history of wanting an earlier primary, and now, emboldened by the recent date shuffling, they're feeling brave enough to grab an earlier date.
The DNC's response to Florida's move might temper their fire, though. (See this Times article for more details.) Some months ago, they moved their primary to January 29 in compliance with the (Republican) State Legislature's vote and GOP Governor Crist's signature. Despite this compliance, this defied a DNC ruling allowing only South Carolina and Nevada to shift their primaries, while preserving the positions of Iowa and New Hampshire as first and second in the process.
As punishment, the DNC has given Florida officials 30 days to change their minds or lose their delegates at the convention. Although that Times article speculates the nominee could choose to override this and seat the Sunshine State's delegates nonetheless, it projects an image of discord the Democrats can ill afford, less than one year after seizing Congress and facing the incredible gift of an incumbent Republican president at the nadir of his popularity.
(All of this electoral froth leaving you yenning for a graphic? The NYT delivers.)
This has great impact on the candidates, who even now must allocate their logistical and advertising dollars. It also casts Florida in the role of seeming to queer another election, especially if the candidates begin sniping at one another and the Republicans, as they did in 1968 and 1972, allow the freaks to make a spectacle of themselves, and slide past it into office.
Why worry about the nuts and bolts of the election four-and-change months before the first lever is pulled? I am rereading Stephen Elliott's criminally neglected Looking Forward to It, which I had the privilege to read as live, emailed dispatches he sent while trailing the Democratic contenders across the country. One tends to forget, after a candidate is chosen, how that person got there, and this makes a chronicle like Elliott's (or Hunter Thompson's) critical in reminding one's self of the bumpy road the race follows. I don't know if Elliott is undertaking the same thing for 2008. His website doesn't say so, and MySpace pages make me homicidal so I won't check what he says there.
It may fall to a skilled selection of blogs and newspaper links for me to get the same sort of daily-fix dosage of political wisdom that Elliott or Thompson offered. It may also be why I am noting these bizarre parliamentary manuevers on the part of the state caucuses, to have some record of the process written somewhere besides the shifting sands of public sentiment and fading memory.
First, Michigan. The State Senate began mulling a date move last week. The target: January 15. This would fall one day after the Iowa caucuses if that state moves to Tuesday, January 14. Typically, Iowa schedules its beauty contest 8 days prior to any other race, so this would suggest a different date on their part. More confusingly, according to the NYT Caucus Blog, different factions of Dems are pushing for different methods of polling; Clinton's goons want a primary, whereas the Edwards camp wants caucuses. The Republicans have less of a problem with this affair than the Dems, and one could actually benefit: Mitt Romney's father George was once Michigan's governor. One thing is clear: Michigan's had a history of wanting an earlier primary, and now, emboldened by the recent date shuffling, they're feeling brave enough to grab an earlier date.
The DNC's response to Florida's move might temper their fire, though. (See this Times article for more details.) Some months ago, they moved their primary to January 29 in compliance with the (Republican) State Legislature's vote and GOP Governor Crist's signature. Despite this compliance, this defied a DNC ruling allowing only South Carolina and Nevada to shift their primaries, while preserving the positions of Iowa and New Hampshire as first and second in the process.
As punishment, the DNC has given Florida officials 30 days to change their minds or lose their delegates at the convention. Although that Times article speculates the nominee could choose to override this and seat the Sunshine State's delegates nonetheless, it projects an image of discord the Democrats can ill afford, less than one year after seizing Congress and facing the incredible gift of an incumbent Republican president at the nadir of his popularity.
(All of this electoral froth leaving you yenning for a graphic? The NYT delivers.)
This has great impact on the candidates, who even now must allocate their logistical and advertising dollars. It also casts Florida in the role of seeming to queer another election, especially if the candidates begin sniping at one another and the Republicans, as they did in 1968 and 1972, allow the freaks to make a spectacle of themselves, and slide past it into office.
Why worry about the nuts and bolts of the election four-and-change months before the first lever is pulled? I am rereading Stephen Elliott's criminally neglected Looking Forward to It, which I had the privilege to read as live, emailed dispatches he sent while trailing the Democratic contenders across the country. One tends to forget, after a candidate is chosen, how that person got there, and this makes a chronicle like Elliott's (or Hunter Thompson's) critical in reminding one's self of the bumpy road the race follows. I don't know if Elliott is undertaking the same thing for 2008. His website doesn't say so, and MySpace pages make me homicidal so I won't check what he says there.
It may fall to a skilled selection of blogs and newspaper links for me to get the same sort of daily-fix dosage of political wisdom that Elliott or Thompson offered. It may also be why I am noting these bizarre parliamentary manuevers on the part of the state caucuses, to have some record of the process written somewhere besides the shifting sands of public sentiment and fading memory.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Electoral Date Creep for our Elected Creeps
IN CASE YOU HAVE been screening out the rising jabber about the American electoral process in favor of more mellifluous sounds, such as the sonic backdrop of a slaughterhouse, you may not have noticed some date creep in the electoral calendar. Specifically, the primaries have moved, as a group, closer to the beginning of the year. The old March "Super Tuesday" comprising the electoral dates of eight states has now metastasized into a 20-state scrum in early February. Although this is a boon for New Jersey voters, who were long marooned in June, after most of the horse-dealing in recent elections has been settled, this might create a wildly top-heavy and early peak to the electoral cycle.
Naturally, the concept of "early" is moot if you realize that the campaigns began months ago, if only as "exploratory committees," even before all of the currentprostitutes candidates had declared. Stumping, posturing, and saber-rattling in the name of fundraising has been proceeding since the beginning of the year. But the mass public does not have to show up somewhere on a Tuesday to influence that process. Come 2008, they do.
Or possibly come December 2007. I caught a report on NPR this week about how the state electoral boards are now playing date-hockey in the hopes of regaining their distinct position in the cycle, what with the new February Super Tuesday.
South Carolina decided this week that both of its party primaries would be held on Saturday, January 19. (The NPR report explains that Florida's primary move to January 29 triggered this shift.) Not only does this place it on the same day as the Nevada primary, but it also leapfrogs the New Hampshire primary, currently on Tuesday, January 22. The Iowa straw polls traditionally precede New Hampshire by 8 days, which would place them on January 14, 2008.
Now, by state law, New Hampshire's primary must remain first in the nation. They are now obliged to move to a date prior to South Carolina's primary, now tentatively identified as January 8. This, in turn, forces the organizers of the Iowa caucuses to shift their date. There now stands an excellent chance that you will see the stereotyped TV news shots of candidates harassing Iowans in diners, at churches, and about their polling places in late December.
It was difficult enough to focus the attention of the American electorate on primaries not in their own states in the old schedule. Now, with the formal launch of the presidential race possibly slated for the holiday season, the hugely influential New Hampshire primary wedged into the NFL postseason, and this new mega-Super Tuesday pegged 2 days after the Super Bowl, the next 4 years of the Republic will be defined amid a deeply distracted time. If the current chaos in the housing and credit markets triggers a shortfall in the all-important consumer spending cycle between Halloween and New Year's Eve, you can add to the media noise all manner of doomstruck predictions for the stock market.
What's more, by that season, there's a good chance that Americans will be sick of hearing from whatever candidates survive the current cash scramble and claw their way into the fall. Hopefuls are sniping at one another, both within their parties and at their rivals across the ideological divide. Few have listened to their early debates or followed their recent straw polls. It takes an interactive or color-coded table to tell these bastards apart.
And then, what of the rest of the campaign? Gone are the days of 1972, when the frontrunner's supposed lock on a state could hinge on the favor of a local party boss or the caprice of a delegation at the convention. Only by reading contemporary reports like Thompson's or Stephen Elliott's road's-eye view of the 2004 contest, Looking Forward To It, can one recall the shifting status of temporary idols and fallen hopefuls as polls, rumors, and money toss their fortunes to and fro. And by the current day, primaries are more like coronations, at which point the intraparty strife is forgotten save for some brief thumb-wrestling over the Right vice president.
With the campaigns peaking in March, giving us two near-lock names for the finals in November, doesn't the general election become a distant afterthought? Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 lead one to question if the popular vote even matters any more. You can expect the negative campaigning and the Monday morning quarterbacking on the part of talk radio and to suffuse the entire spring and summer leading up to the nominating conventions. By the time the debates finally get scheduled after the traditional backroom knife-fight between the two corner teams over format, moderator, venue, and the like, we shall be thoroughly sick of the entire process . . . a malaise we can ill afford at that point in history.
This seems a lousy way to choose a leader with one of the most thankless to-do lists since the one Harry Truman inherited when FDR died.
Naturally, the concept of "early" is moot if you realize that the campaigns began months ago, if only as "exploratory committees," even before all of the current
Or possibly come December 2007. I caught a report on NPR this week about how the state electoral boards are now playing date-hockey in the hopes of regaining their distinct position in the cycle, what with the new February Super Tuesday.
South Carolina decided this week that both of its party primaries would be held on Saturday, January 19. (The NPR report explains that Florida's primary move to January 29 triggered this shift.) Not only does this place it on the same day as the Nevada primary, but it also leapfrogs the New Hampshire primary, currently on Tuesday, January 22. The Iowa straw polls traditionally precede New Hampshire by 8 days, which would place them on January 14, 2008.
Now, by state law, New Hampshire's primary must remain first in the nation. They are now obliged to move to a date prior to South Carolina's primary, now tentatively identified as January 8. This, in turn, forces the organizers of the Iowa caucuses to shift their date. There now stands an excellent chance that you will see the stereotyped TV news shots of candidates harassing Iowans in diners, at churches, and about their polling places in late December.
It was difficult enough to focus the attention of the American electorate on primaries not in their own states in the old schedule. Now, with the formal launch of the presidential race possibly slated for the holiday season, the hugely influential New Hampshire primary wedged into the NFL postseason, and this new mega-Super Tuesday pegged 2 days after the Super Bowl, the next 4 years of the Republic will be defined amid a deeply distracted time. If the current chaos in the housing and credit markets triggers a shortfall in the all-important consumer spending cycle between Halloween and New Year's Eve, you can add to the media noise all manner of doomstruck predictions for the stock market.
What's more, by that season, there's a good chance that Americans will be sick of hearing from whatever candidates survive the current cash scramble and claw their way into the fall. Hopefuls are sniping at one another, both within their parties and at their rivals across the ideological divide. Few have listened to their early debates or followed their recent straw polls. It takes an interactive or color-coded table to tell these bastards apart.
And then, what of the rest of the campaign? Gone are the days of 1972, when the frontrunner's supposed lock on a state could hinge on the favor of a local party boss or the caprice of a delegation at the convention. Only by reading contemporary reports like Thompson's or Stephen Elliott's road's-eye view of the 2004 contest, Looking Forward To It, can one recall the shifting status of temporary idols and fallen hopefuls as polls, rumors, and money toss their fortunes to and fro. And by the current day, primaries are more like coronations, at which point the intraparty strife is forgotten save for some brief thumb-wrestling over the Right vice president.
With the campaigns peaking in March, giving us two near-lock names for the finals in November, doesn't the general election become a distant afterthought? Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 lead one to question if the popular vote even matters any more. You can expect the negative campaigning and the Monday morning quarterbacking on the part of talk radio and to suffuse the entire spring and summer leading up to the nominating conventions. By the time the debates finally get scheduled after the traditional backroom knife-fight between the two corner teams over format, moderator, venue, and the like, we shall be thoroughly sick of the entire process . . . a malaise we can ill afford at that point in history.
This seems a lousy way to choose a leader with one of the most thankless to-do lists since the one Harry Truman inherited when FDR died.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Rebuilding Iraq While America Collapses
BOB SCHIEFFER, THE HOST of CBS's Face the Nation, made a fine point last week. While speaking with the hosts of the drivetime CBS 880 radio broadcast, he contrasted the eroding American municipal and transportation infrastructure — symbolized by the recent Minneapolis bridge collapse — with the money we're laying out for the reconstruction of Iraq. He cited in passing a spending rate of $200,000 per minute on various projects there. In a short opinion piece on CBS News.com, Schieffer — whose stint as anchor of the Evening News was far too brief — provides additional detail on how America is pouring cash into an ungrateful nation on projects that are either unwanted or mismanaged by their new Iraqi owners.
The decrepitude of our infrastructure was driven home again this Friday, when lightning struck and disabled the power at the water-treatment facility that serves my area of New Jersey. Both the main plant's juice and its backup generators were knocked out, forcing 800,000 Bergen County and northern Hudson County residents to curtail outdoor water use and boil anything they drink or use for cooking. Between this practice, the mass shutdown of restaurants to avoid contamination, and the mad rush to the stores to buy bottled water, Northern New Jerseyans got to spend a day or so with a little taste of how citizens countries with trashed public works fare. The only problem is that we don't have a rich foreign sugar daddy to bail us out.
At this rate, we don't have to worry about terrorists disrupting our transportation, financial, or agricultural networks. The acid of time and the poison of neglect will get the job done without anyone having to get Semtex under their fingernails.
The decrepitude of our infrastructure was driven home again this Friday, when lightning struck and disabled the power at the water-treatment facility that serves my area of New Jersey. Both the main plant's juice and its backup generators were knocked out, forcing 800,000 Bergen County and northern Hudson County residents to curtail outdoor water use and boil anything they drink or use for cooking. Between this practice, the mass shutdown of restaurants to avoid contamination, and the mad rush to the stores to buy bottled water, Northern New Jerseyans got to spend a day or so with a little taste of how citizens countries with trashed public works fare. The only problem is that we don't have a rich foreign sugar daddy to bail us out.At this rate, we don't have to worry about terrorists disrupting our transportation, financial, or agricultural networks. The acid of time and the poison of neglect will get the job done without anyone having to get Semtex under their fingernails.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Never Tell Me the Odds!
WINDY NIGHT TONIGHT. I am watching branches bend outside my window, obscuring the Christmas lights that decorate the new yoga studio across the street. I was almost blown bodily across the street when I disembarked from the train, and after I purchased a Mega Millions ticket on the way home, I stashed it carefully in my jacket pocket. It would not do to have a potential $355 million payoff ripped from my hot little hands by an errant gust.
I am not normally a lottery customer. When I see those scratch cards, I am reminded of the old saw of how lotteries are a tax on the ignorant, or at least of those ignorant of statistics. Two occasions lead me to take a plunge on the Mega Millions: job dissatisfaction and a high jackpot. When I've had a withering week of bullshit, the temptation to snag a ticket pops up, but I usually don't indulge it unless the top prize is over $100 million. With the lump sum option, something like $5 mil, after being chopped into the lump and savaged by taxes, it's barely enough to retire on. The barbarity of it!
It may sound hypocritical for a man who visits Las Vegas and plays poker to disparage another form of gambling. The reality is, you can choose not to play any hand, and sit there at the table paying blinds for hours, never risking money except on the highest-value starting hands. I have stood on the lottery-window line at the Hoboken train station, during a $200 million-plus frenzy, while some hapless dipshit at the front purchased well over 50 tickets, both for the Mega Millions and various Pick 3s and 4s, like some plunging policy player in 1940s Harlem. Another time, I purchased a ticket at a deli at which regular players stored their bet slips, with all their arcane combinations of numbers, in plastic sleeves at the deli and when these regulars entered, the clerk knew enough to grind out their tickets, in some cases as much as $20 worth.
One local lottery dealer gave me a fright when he mistook me for one of these degenerates. During a stretch in which both of my conditions were met, I played my numbers twice in a week. The agent returned my bet slip and ticket, and gave me one of these plastic sleeves. I reacted with bemusement until I realized he was mistaking me for someone who was going to pour large amounts of good coin into this game.
I am reminded of my friend Matt's attitude toward playing the lottery. He's well aware of the shitty odds, but when the prize gets huge, he'll spend a buck for a ticket. His reasoning is that few dollar expenditures will bring such a cheap and harmless thrill. Well put.
Snagging a ticket at this juncture does carry the remote — very remote — possibility that I will deliver my valediction on this job from a press conference next to a giant novelty check. That's a sweet concept to roll about one's mind. I've got no realistic thought that it might occur. The true dick move would be to wait until my severance had paid out, then drop the news on a curious public. Plenty of time to get a financial adviser, indemnity insurance, and lawyer cued up in case the lure of easy money draws the douchebags out of the woodwork. I'm sure some sort of charitable foundation would be in order, to manage a regular channel of cash to worthy causes. Certainly after investigating them to ensure that they're stand-up legit operations. (When I heard a big Powerball or Mega Millions winner declare, shortly after Hurricane Katrina, that she would donate money to the recovery efforts, I put the estimate on how much of that cash would make it to actual needy hands at something like 10%.)
Other than that, however, I envision myself following Peter Gibbons's program from Office Space and doing nothing.
I am not normally a lottery customer. When I see those scratch cards, I am reminded of the old saw of how lotteries are a tax on the ignorant, or at least of those ignorant of statistics. Two occasions lead me to take a plunge on the Mega Millions: job dissatisfaction and a high jackpot. When I've had a withering week of bullshit, the temptation to snag a ticket pops up, but I usually don't indulge it unless the top prize is over $100 million. With the lump sum option, something like $5 mil, after being chopped into the lump and savaged by taxes, it's barely enough to retire on. The barbarity of it!
It may sound hypocritical for a man who visits Las Vegas and plays poker to disparage another form of gambling. The reality is, you can choose not to play any hand, and sit there at the table paying blinds for hours, never risking money except on the highest-value starting hands. I have stood on the lottery-window line at the Hoboken train station, during a $200 million-plus frenzy, while some hapless dipshit at the front purchased well over 50 tickets, both for the Mega Millions and various Pick 3s and 4s, like some plunging policy player in 1940s Harlem. Another time, I purchased a ticket at a deli at which regular players stored their bet slips, with all their arcane combinations of numbers, in plastic sleeves at the deli and when these regulars entered, the clerk knew enough to grind out their tickets, in some cases as much as $20 worth.
One local lottery dealer gave me a fright when he mistook me for one of these degenerates. During a stretch in which both of my conditions were met, I played my numbers twice in a week. The agent returned my bet slip and ticket, and gave me one of these plastic sleeves. I reacted with bemusement until I realized he was mistaking me for someone who was going to pour large amounts of good coin into this game.
I am reminded of my friend Matt's attitude toward playing the lottery. He's well aware of the shitty odds, but when the prize gets huge, he'll spend a buck for a ticket. His reasoning is that few dollar expenditures will bring such a cheap and harmless thrill. Well put.
Snagging a ticket at this juncture does carry the remote — very remote — possibility that I will deliver my valediction on this job from a press conference next to a giant novelty check. That's a sweet concept to roll about one's mind. I've got no realistic thought that it might occur. The true dick move would be to wait until my severance had paid out, then drop the news on a curious public. Plenty of time to get a financial adviser, indemnity insurance, and lawyer cued up in case the lure of easy money draws the douchebags out of the woodwork. I'm sure some sort of charitable foundation would be in order, to manage a regular channel of cash to worthy causes. Certainly after investigating them to ensure that they're stand-up legit operations. (When I heard a big Powerball or Mega Millions winner declare, shortly after Hurricane Katrina, that she would donate money to the recovery efforts, I put the estimate on how much of that cash would make it to actual needy hands at something like 10%.)
Other than that, however, I envision myself following Peter Gibbons's program from Office Space and doing nothing.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Stock Spaz Welcomed With Open Wallet
THE FINANCIAL MARKETS DID their best imitation of a sake-crazed kamikaze pilot today, with the Dow alone dropping 416 points. The other major indexes followed suit, with sellers outnumbering buyers on the order of 20:1. The folks gathered on the podium balcony at the NYSE looked distinctly relieved when the session was rung to a close.
Strangely, I am unworried. As a 401(k) investor, I have an interest in seeing my mutual funds grow. I certainly checked them when I returned home. But I wasn't panicked. This represents a reversal of demeanor from what I would have exhibited less than 10 years ago. Expensive lessons learned from the dot-com rollercoaster have given me a distinctly longer view, and a greater appreciation for index funds and diversification, than I had as a fledgling investor last decade.
In October, when I flipped my old 401(k) money into my current (and soon to be former) company's fund, I let it enter the money-market option. I then spent the rest of the year moving the lump sum into the specific mutual funds in preset chunks each week. I wanted to take advantage of dollar-cost averaging and buy lots of the funds at lower prices if I could. This way, if 2007 represented an end to the rally roaring along since July 2006 and, more broadly, the beginning of the Iraq War, I at least bought some of the lots more cheaply.
This worked well. The market ascended through the end of the year, so when 2007 hit and I was able to begin depositing new cash into my 401(k), I had already realized a gain. I have been contributing the maximum, to get as much of my remaining paychecks under the shelter of the tax-advantaged plan, and if I had had the option, I'd have deferred each paycheck between now and my layoff into the 401(k). Alas, they max out your per-check contribution at 50%. Pansies.
By coincidence, last Friday was a payday, and our 401(k) funds deposit after market close the following Tuesday. This means my purchases tonight will be at a significant discount to the fund prices I paid a fortnight ago. (Yes, I typed fortnight.) It says something about me that I went home smiling about this prospect.
After losing significant amounts of money in the tech crash, I finally accepted the wisdom of allowing index funds with low expense ratios represent the backbone of my portfolio. I do intend to fill out those larger indexes with exchange-traded funds that capture the Russell small-stock indexes. This is not to say ownership of individual stocks is wrong. I simply don't have the time to research, build, and monitor a properly diversified portfolio. With joblessness looming, what cash I have is best kept liquid. As for short-term ownership, I try to scotch those get-rich-quick urges by applied financial-probability research in the guise of my weekly poker game. Jim Cramer is absolutely right when he writes that, as emotional, impulsive human beings, we all need a speculative owning in our portfolio to satiate our urge to gamble. Mine would probably have the ticker symbol POKR.
This summer, I tested myself to see if I had the demeanor to own a single security and not monitor its progress all day. I bought a small amount of a large-cap tech stock shortly after it issued positive earnings. I kept checking the price via a Mac desktop stock widget, reading about it on the Web, and calculating how much I would make if I sold it at a certain point. I eventually decided enough was enough and sold for a small profit after 3 business days. As is typical for quick in-and-out buyers, the stock spent the next 4 months adding 6 more points, indicating that either I had to own multiple, diversified companies, or merely do what I was doing and let index funds and dollar-cost averaging do all the heavy lifting.
I don't intend to touch my 401(k) money for a good 30-odd years or so. The gyrations of the past 10 years have shown me how consistent, measured purchases across time are better suited to my attention level and temperament. I'm tickled pink to get more chunks of shares tonight at a discount price, because long term, these shares will go up with the indexes they track. Should I find myself with more time and a more comfortable cushion of cash, once my job situation stabilizes, perhaps then I will fill out my retirement income with some securities purchases. I'm in no rush, though. Treasury bonds are returning an annualized 5.268%. You cannot beat that with a stick. I believe I'll take that risk-free five points and let the market mayhem play itself out as it may. With, of course, my weekly nighttime daytrading in POKR shares.
Strangely, I am unworried. As a 401(k) investor, I have an interest in seeing my mutual funds grow. I certainly checked them when I returned home. But I wasn't panicked. This represents a reversal of demeanor from what I would have exhibited less than 10 years ago. Expensive lessons learned from the dot-com rollercoaster have given me a distinctly longer view, and a greater appreciation for index funds and diversification, than I had as a fledgling investor last decade.
In October, when I flipped my old 401(k) money into my current (and soon to be former) company's fund, I let it enter the money-market option. I then spent the rest of the year moving the lump sum into the specific mutual funds in preset chunks each week. I wanted to take advantage of dollar-cost averaging and buy lots of the funds at lower prices if I could. This way, if 2007 represented an end to the rally roaring along since July 2006 and, more broadly, the beginning of the Iraq War, I at least bought some of the lots more cheaply.
This worked well. The market ascended through the end of the year, so when 2007 hit and I was able to begin depositing new cash into my 401(k), I had already realized a gain. I have been contributing the maximum, to get as much of my remaining paychecks under the shelter of the tax-advantaged plan, and if I had had the option, I'd have deferred each paycheck between now and my layoff into the 401(k). Alas, they max out your per-check contribution at 50%. Pansies.
By coincidence, last Friday was a payday, and our 401(k) funds deposit after market close the following Tuesday. This means my purchases tonight will be at a significant discount to the fund prices I paid a fortnight ago. (Yes, I typed fortnight.) It says something about me that I went home smiling about this prospect.
After losing significant amounts of money in the tech crash, I finally accepted the wisdom of allowing index funds with low expense ratios represent the backbone of my portfolio. I do intend to fill out those larger indexes with exchange-traded funds that capture the Russell small-stock indexes. This is not to say ownership of individual stocks is wrong. I simply don't have the time to research, build, and monitor a properly diversified portfolio. With joblessness looming, what cash I have is best kept liquid. As for short-term ownership, I try to scotch those get-rich-quick urges by applied financial-probability research in the guise of my weekly poker game. Jim Cramer is absolutely right when he writes that, as emotional, impulsive human beings, we all need a speculative owning in our portfolio to satiate our urge to gamble. Mine would probably have the ticker symbol POKR.
This summer, I tested myself to see if I had the demeanor to own a single security and not monitor its progress all day. I bought a small amount of a large-cap tech stock shortly after it issued positive earnings. I kept checking the price via a Mac desktop stock widget, reading about it on the Web, and calculating how much I would make if I sold it at a certain point. I eventually decided enough was enough and sold for a small profit after 3 business days. As is typical for quick in-and-out buyers, the stock spent the next 4 months adding 6 more points, indicating that either I had to own multiple, diversified companies, or merely do what I was doing and let index funds and dollar-cost averaging do all the heavy lifting.
I don't intend to touch my 401(k) money for a good 30-odd years or so. The gyrations of the past 10 years have shown me how consistent, measured purchases across time are better suited to my attention level and temperament. I'm tickled pink to get more chunks of shares tonight at a discount price, because long term, these shares will go up with the indexes they track. Should I find myself with more time and a more comfortable cushion of cash, once my job situation stabilizes, perhaps then I will fill out my retirement income with some securities purchases. I'm in no rush, though. Treasury bonds are returning an annualized 5.268%. You cannot beat that with a stick. I believe I'll take that risk-free five points and let the market mayhem play itself out as it may. With, of course, my weekly nighttime daytrading in POKR shares.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Democratic Dogfight or Darwinistic Demonstration?
MANY INNOCENT KEYBOARDS ACROSS this great land are now being pounded in anger as the blogosphere weighs in on the Great Obama–Clinton Flap. Harnessing this energy might prove a better solution than the Great Biofuel Revolution also much in the news, if only it didn’t generate unbelievable amounts of hot air.
When I first read about this, I got upset. Why are the candidates wasting time on this? Why do they retain goons on their payroll who insist on fanning the flames of picayune distractions offered by over-moneyed sybarites? If even a hundredth of the energy being expended on this ridiculous internecine sniping were directed toward (a) correcting society’s ills, (b) grooming a dynamic new generation of progressive-minded leaders, or (c) restoring our status as a trusted ally with those nations we’ve needlessly antagonized over the past 6 years, this would be looked on as the beginning of a golden age.
Some of the criticism has been ridiculous and merely points out the obvious. I take particular amusement from complaints that Hilary Clinton is “ambitious.” Folks, it takes a larger-than-normal ego merely to declare one’s run for the White House. Actually campaigning, raising money, appearing on 60 Minutes — these are the hallmarks of deep-seated ambition. To level this accusation betrays grievous historical ignorance. Thomas Jefferson, one of our most highly regarded Americans, was an inveterate political infighter and not shy about using the press to attack his enemies. He embodied ambition at each ascending step of his career.
I was also pissed because this sort of distraction gives the Republican operatives a chance to rebuild their strength and find new ways to target the nascent Democratic candidates. We need to look at the Congressional elections of 2006 as the end of the Second Age. Sauron was dispelled, but not destroyed. For there is an Eye that never sleeps in Washington, that of the Dark Lord, Karl Rove, even now setting into motion plans designed to continue Republican leadership in the executive and recapture as many Congressional seats as can be won, finagled, or stolen in 2008. It’s not that the Democrats won’t also hire soulless political ronin to groom and package their heir designate. It just always seems like that party dithers internally and cedes critical time and talking points to the Repubs, then squanders even more time before the election defending itself against meaningless charges. Witness Senator Kerry’s too-little, too-late reply to the Swift Boat critics. (Can’t recall it? No surprise.)
Yet there’s still part of me that feels this early strife is the only chance we as an electorate have to find a truly virtuous candidate. Some of these goons should be weeded out. Let them attack one another. Let America identify the opportunists and support the truly impassioned. Let their true ethics finally emerge past the stage-managed listening tours and the focus-group-tested campaign platforms. Let the Democrats shun the kingmaking charade and find someone who is not merely electable, but inspirational.
Until that person appears, keep well in mind the advice of arch-cynic newspaperman H. L. Mencken: “The only way to look at a politician is down.”
When I first read about this, I got upset. Why are the candidates wasting time on this? Why do they retain goons on their payroll who insist on fanning the flames of picayune distractions offered by over-moneyed sybarites? If even a hundredth of the energy being expended on this ridiculous internecine sniping were directed toward (a) correcting society’s ills, (b) grooming a dynamic new generation of progressive-minded leaders, or (c) restoring our status as a trusted ally with those nations we’ve needlessly antagonized over the past 6 years, this would be looked on as the beginning of a golden age.
Some of the criticism has been ridiculous and merely points out the obvious. I take particular amusement from complaints that Hilary Clinton is “ambitious.” Folks, it takes a larger-than-normal ego merely to declare one’s run for the White House. Actually campaigning, raising money, appearing on 60 Minutes — these are the hallmarks of deep-seated ambition. To level this accusation betrays grievous historical ignorance. Thomas Jefferson, one of our most highly regarded Americans, was an inveterate political infighter and not shy about using the press to attack his enemies. He embodied ambition at each ascending step of his career.
I was also pissed because this sort of distraction gives the Republican operatives a chance to rebuild their strength and find new ways to target the nascent Democratic candidates. We need to look at the Congressional elections of 2006 as the end of the Second Age. Sauron was dispelled, but not destroyed. For there is an Eye that never sleeps in Washington, that of the Dark Lord, Karl Rove, even now setting into motion plans designed to continue Republican leadership in the executive and recapture as many Congressional seats as can be won, finagled, or stolen in 2008. It’s not that the Democrats won’t also hire soulless political ronin to groom and package their heir designate. It just always seems like that party dithers internally and cedes critical time and talking points to the Repubs, then squanders even more time before the election defending itself against meaningless charges. Witness Senator Kerry’s too-little, too-late reply to the Swift Boat critics. (Can’t recall it? No surprise.)
Yet there’s still part of me that feels this early strife is the only chance we as an electorate have to find a truly virtuous candidate. Some of these goons should be weeded out. Let them attack one another. Let America identify the opportunists and support the truly impassioned. Let their true ethics finally emerge past the stage-managed listening tours and the focus-group-tested campaign platforms. Let the Democrats shun the kingmaking charade and find someone who is not merely electable, but inspirational.
Until that person appears, keep well in mind the advice of arch-cynic newspaperman H. L. Mencken: “The only way to look at a politician is down.”
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Dystopian Speculation in an Ethanol Future
LET'S SEE WHAT ONE possible future might hold if we began to derive a substantial percentage of our automotive fuel from agricultural biomass.
- Issues relating to mass production, storage, and transportation of ethanol are resolved.
- Automotive and marine engine designers produce models better able to exploit ethanol blends.
- As with hybrid vehicles, the Federal Government and some states with poor air quality offer tax incentives to buyers of vehicles optimized for ethanol.
- Ethanol is adopted in all 48 contiguous states, slowly at first, then more swiftly as stations adapt (again, perhaps with Federal tax incentives) to handle the fuel.
- Over the next few years, petroleum drops in value by 50%. Smaller OPEC powers collapse, devouring themselves in riots.
- The larger OPEC countries take note and conspire to engineer a biological weapon — a fungus, a gene-ripping virus, something — capable of destroying ethanol-biomass crops.
- Overly focused on security theater, the U.S. government continues to fight the most recent threat and fails to authorize protection for future ones. As with 9/11, foreign operatives take flight lessons, this time for light, crop-dusting aircraft.
- Land is purchased around the now-massive grain- and switchgrass-producing regions of America, hangars are discreetly built, and planes are purchased with OPEC money.
- Those in the know buy oil futures.
- One clear day, scores of Cessnas take wing and crisscross a complacent nation. . . .
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Schizohedron Bullet Points! for 11/8/06
- ICING ON THE CAKE: As a nice topper to last night's Democratic election wave, today came the news that the architect of the failed Iraq war, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, had announced his resignation. I can still remember, in the early months of 2001, how "Rumsfeld's Rules" were being bruited about as a pragmatic lesson on applying business leadership to government and military bureaucracy. In practice, this approach revealed Rumsfeld's tin ear for constructive criticism and dissent, and cost the Cabinet and the Pentagon a number of voices who might have helped close the Afghan campaign with authority and either approach Iraq with a definitive, massive, multilateral force — or shunned it as the quagmire that studies and simulations showed it might become. Rumsfeld's departure from the sinking ship of the Bush Administration has the feel of Martin Bormann sneaking out of the Führerbunker in the last weeks of World War II, with Soviet guns thundering ever closer and a sure trip to the gallows awaiting him. Some believe Bormann escaped the Reich, and managed, for decades, the secret network of flight capital as he restored Germany to its economic power. If modern political necromancy has taught us anything, it is that Rummy will find a new grave to haunt — though certainly none of those of the men and women who died in Iraq on his watch.
- WORK INSANITY GROWING: As recorded here, pressure over our impending switch in how we produce newsletters and journals is rising. My immediate supervisor has been trying to point out flaws in the process that could bite us in the ass on schedules, printing, or resourcing this shit online, for which she is slowly being made a pariah. The manager of this switch has pawned her off onto a consultant — no doubt well compensated — for all answers. Trouble is, this consultant knows next to nothing about the way we currently do things. The managers who set this system up are not designers, and have shown declining interest in hearing why there might be snags. The switch to the new, in-house printers has been a nightmare of pointless, cc: everyone passive-aggressive email abuse on the part of the customer "service" rep with whom we've been saddled. And our new boss is more or less saying, "Just lie back and enjoy it." Contrary to what I believed in the other entry, the company is not paying her education tab, so she is free to bail as soon as she feels financially able. With her instructors being wheels in the magazine and packaging design industries, she could get work in a heartbeat. Now I am wondering how long I will want to stay, whether she leaves or not. She actually exerts a quiet, unconscious mellowing effect on me, whereas by this point I would have forced confrontations for the answers we don't seem to be getting. Should my boss leave, it will cost the company dearly to retain me if I am not given full, Ace Rothstein–style free rein over my sphere of influence.
- NEW MEMORY HOLE: I bought a new shredder this weekend. My previous unit seized up after ingesting a heavy bundle of junk mail. You would not believe the load of shreddable shit that built up in the 3 weeks between losing that one and buying the new one. With the threat of identity theft always in the air, it seems like everything has to go down the chute, even the empty envelopes for bank statements and mailed pay stubs. Can't have sifting thieves determine that someone in this complex uses X Bank of Y or gets car insurance from that company with the lizard! I understand I could arrest the flow of junk mail with access to a certain trade commission's website, but last time I visited, it seemed like I had to provide an SSN. Why should I trust them any more than I do the whoring credit card companies and cable monopolies that seek to pick my pocket? These fuckers should subsidize my shredder, or at least pay my bail when I burn their missives in my parking lot.
- REVELING IN THE AGONY OF PIE: This pie looks denser than neutronium, loaded with more sugar than the Hello Kitty works in Japan, and potentially delicious while still warm from the oven. It is the "Schadenfreude Pie," "the pie to enjoy while you are reveling in the horrible misfortunes of others. Cast your eye on its mocha might and the diabetes-inducing list of ingredients on author and blogger John Scalzi's page. I can see a scoop of vanilla ice cream dropped on top of a warm slice of this pie jumping off and running behind the couch with a cartoonish "Yipe yipe yipe yipe!" Were I guaranteed to have some co-consumers cued up to help me consume it — for Scalzi warns of the danger of eating large chunks of this murky dessert — I might be tempted to whip one of these up. Though there's a chance it will end up dropping through my floor like the pinpoint black hole in Larry Niven's "The Hole Man." Well, at least it might hit my downstairs neighbor.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Wesley Snipes To Go on Ice Again?
ONE OF THE SLEEPER classics of the mid-Nineties was the film Demolition Man. In it, Wesley Snipes (and, through Snipes's character's machinations, Sylvester Stallone) plays a criminal who, after being apprehended in the present day, is cryogenically frozen for decades in a new rehabilitation initiative. Of course, the subliminal retraining that was supposed to make him docile is replaced by a suite of skills that read like a GURPS Black Ops character sheet, and Sly is thawed to deal with the swath of chaos Snipes carves across a pacifist future.
Well, Snipes may have occasion to be put on ice in real life. News today alleged that Our Mister Blade has neglected to pay his not insubstantial taxes for some time. From the Orlando Sentinel:
This news comes right after I spent a late Saturday night/early Sunday morning (yes, I lead an exciting weekend life) reading Richard Yancey's riveting memoir, Confessions of a Tax Collector, which details his career as a revenue agent for the IRS. They have a direct mandate: Collect the tax. Whether it be via payment plan, or an auction of the delinquent payer's businesses or homes, Yancey executed the will of the government with increasing zeal in his career, reserving special attention for scam artists and revenue-libertarians who use pettifoggery and Constitutional chop-logic to claim that the income tax system itself is invalid. In the end, few escape, and the author is transformed by his job in alarming ways. The book reads like Brazil via Heart of Darkness and I recommend it strongly. All in all, it tells me that Wesley Snipes doesn't have a chance in hell of winning.
Why do people think they are immune to the law? Especially revenue laws, at a time when every penny that moves through the system can be followed as it goes or traced? Even the most Byzantine money-laundering schemes are eventually foiled, or at least suspected of existing even as their walls are slowly scaled by ever-more sophisticated forensic accountants and computer wizards. Joe Louis coined it, Wez echoed it, and I believe it: You can run, but you can't hide. Though I'm not saying I agree with every program my revenue funds, I do know it's coming out of that paycheck or some Agent Smith–looking motherfucker is gonna drag my ass into a fluorescent-lit sweatbox, stretch on a rubber glove, and go hunting up and down the length of my fiscal colon. And if I really wanted attention to that area, hell, there's places in the West Village'll help a man out for a few bux and a peck on the cheek.
Well, Snipes may have occasion to be put on ice in real life. News today alleged that Our Mister Blade has neglected to pay his not insubstantial taxes for some time. From the Orlando Sentinel:
Snipes, according to the indictment, sent bogus checks worth about $13 million to the IRS for his estimated tax liability. Snipes also attempted to receive, but did not get, tax refunds worth more than $11 million for tax years 1996 and 1997, according to the indictment.Nobody really likes to pay taxes — though having to shell out a pile on Snipes-level coin would feel like a backhanded compliment to me — but hell, if you're a celebrity, known to pull down seven-figure paychecks, you gotta know the spotlight is going to be on you with greater vigor than on a shlub like me. And Snipes isn't even the first guy to short the Feds like this. The first Survivor winner, Richard Hatch, somehow convinced himself that CBS was covering the tax on his million dollars, an excuse that fell apart when he also ducked tax on a few other goodies and paychecks he picked up after the win. Hatch is now bouncing off the walls of a Federal clink. Will Wesley Snipes be one cell down?
This news comes right after I spent a late Saturday night/early Sunday morning (yes, I lead an exciting weekend life) reading Richard Yancey's riveting memoir, Confessions of a Tax Collector, which details his career as a revenue agent for the IRS. They have a direct mandate: Collect the tax. Whether it be via payment plan, or an auction of the delinquent payer's businesses or homes, Yancey executed the will of the government with increasing zeal in his career, reserving special attention for scam artists and revenue-libertarians who use pettifoggery and Constitutional chop-logic to claim that the income tax system itself is invalid. In the end, few escape, and the author is transformed by his job in alarming ways. The book reads like Brazil via Heart of Darkness and I recommend it strongly. All in all, it tells me that Wesley Snipes doesn't have a chance in hell of winning.
Why do people think they are immune to the law? Especially revenue laws, at a time when every penny that moves through the system can be followed as it goes or traced? Even the most Byzantine money-laundering schemes are eventually foiled, or at least suspected of existing even as their walls are slowly scaled by ever-more sophisticated forensic accountants and computer wizards. Joe Louis coined it, Wez echoed it, and I believe it: You can run, but you can't hide. Though I'm not saying I agree with every program my revenue funds, I do know it's coming out of that paycheck or some Agent Smith–looking motherfucker is gonna drag my ass into a fluorescent-lit sweatbox, stretch on a rubber glove, and go hunting up and down the length of my fiscal colon. And if I really wanted attention to that area, hell, there's places in the West Village'll help a man out for a few bux and a peck on the cheek.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
The Bear Emerges from Hibernation
THOUGH I AM MORE of a cynical centrist politically, I subscribe to The Wall Street Journal. Back in 2000, I chanced upon an item about Anheuser-Busch splitting its stock and posting good earnings, which led me to snag 50 shares prior to the split date. Based on the results, I decided to subscribe to see if I could spot any other decent opportunities. As a side effect, I got a closer view of the dotcom rise and fall and the whole Enron disaster that followed.
I read the opinion pages, though I don't always agree with them. This morning, there was a riveting piece by Sergei Ivanov, Russia's deputy prime minister and minister of defense. I don't have a subscription to the reputedly excellent online Journal, but if you do, check it out on OpinionJournal.com. It carries the attention-getting title, "Russia Must Be Strong."
Some time ago, in a discussion with friends about current and past communist states, I was overruled when I said we might have concern over a resurgent Russia. They believed China was the greater threat. In light of recent events — its military overtures toward Taiwan, its aggressive stance over the collision between our plane and theirs some years ago, its omnivorous drive to build up its economy and access natural resources — I concede their point. But this article suggests that Russia might bear not only scrutiny, but comparison to a certain Western nation.
Here are some quotes and points from Ivanov's article:
After mentioning the need to upgrade the aging Soviet war machine, Ivanov asks, "What would a modern fighting force look like?" Observers on the train would have seen me zero in on the paper at this point: "Our best option is a mobile force in which the air, and probably space, component will be a decisive factor in success. What is also clear is that the winner in a future war will be capable of forming an integrated, real-time intelligence picture. . . ."
The space part arrested my attention. The second sentence of that quote may suggest that the space component represents satellite assets, which is nothing new for any major power. However, when Ivanov begins ticking off the priorities of the "Military Development Plan for 2006-2010" (oh, those Russians and their five-year plans!), I wondered: "The first is to maintain and develop a strategic deterrent capability minimally sufficient for guaranteed repulsion of contemporary and future military threats." He then lists two nuclear ballistic missiles that have ranges of about 7,200 miles and a new type of nuclear-missile sub. "And this is just the top of the list. Needless to say, these are not aimed at any particular target. We have always honored our commitments . . . including those . . . on reductions and limitations of strategic offensive weapons."
Considering the range of the missiles in question, this could also be the space component Ivanov cited. I doubt these will be needed for killing well-masqueraded Chechen rebels in their lairs. Of local threats on whom these missiles might be needed, I come up with China, North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Especially Iran, which has just broken the seals on its Natanz nuclear-research lab in the same sort of bird North Korea flipped us by turning off the IAEA cameras at Yongbyon and firing up the works to produce plutonium.
I will editorially interject (for what else is a blog?) and say that this is the second Axis of Evil power to take steps that could lead to crafting and perfecting a nuclear weapon. No, the second one isn't Iraq. What's more, Iran — swimming in petroleum — hasn't had to resort to bribery and smuggling to get the resources it needs as North Korea has, or as Iraq was suspected of doing. It can flat-out fucking buy triggers and centrifuges and yellowcake. I do not believe that we should have invaded, or should contemplate invading, Iran or North Korea, even after their intentions became plain. However, if we had exercised the effort and invested the money we used in the entire Iraq misadventure, from the Niger-memo forgery through this day, we could have convinced at least one of these powers to return to negotiations, or erected a cordon sanitaire around them, to deny their access to the dangerous tools of nuclear-weapons design. (We could also have hired a damn good hitman to take out that traitorous fuck A.Q. Khan and his network once and for all. Beatrix Kiddo, please pick up the red courtesy phone.)
I also point out that the Bush Administration has chafed against the test bans recently, desiring to advance work on the small "bunker buster" nukes, even as we're dismantling and decommissioning older weapons. So Russia's not the only one taking stock of what sort of nuclear weapons it might need to face what it considers its potential opponents.
As to those Chechen insurgents and the steps Russia might take in defending itself, Ivanov says:
Ivanov closes by citing Russia's desire to use its professionally trained troops to assist in peacekeeping work and to resume theater-level combat exercises in its sphere of influence. At this point I wondered if Russia would return to giving grand May Day parades of its latest missiles and sharpest soldiers, while Putin gazed down from the Kremlin wall. Perhaps this closing sentence might guide us: "Russia deserves a fighting force of the 21st century, a force that will look into the future but will at the same time continue its glorious military tradition."
If we are lucky, and if someday have more deft leadership and diplomatic representation than we currently field, perhaps we can come to some new partnership with a resurgent Russia as its neighbor to the south, China, becomes a greater economic threat; or perhaps as a way to leverage Iran and North Korea into understanding the error of their ways. But as I said, I am a product of the 1980s, and part of me wonders if Russia will get itchy to use its shiny new military in ways other than defensive and counterterrorist. To cite and modernize the old Chekhov axiom, you can't put a loaded Kalashnikov on stage unless you intend for it to be fired.
At whom, and by whom, should receive the attention of our more clairvoyant foreign-policy sages. Or, as they used to be called, Kremlinologists.
I read the opinion pages, though I don't always agree with them. This morning, there was a riveting piece by Sergei Ivanov, Russia's deputy prime minister and minister of defense. I don't have a subscription to the reputedly excellent online Journal, but if you do, check it out on OpinionJournal.com. It carries the attention-getting title, "Russia Must Be Strong."
Some time ago, in a discussion with friends about current and past communist states, I was overruled when I said we might have concern over a resurgent Russia. They believed China was the greater threat. In light of recent events — its military overtures toward Taiwan, its aggressive stance over the collision between our plane and theirs some years ago, its omnivorous drive to build up its economy and access natural resources — I concede their point. But this article suggests that Russia might bear not only scrutiny, but comparison to a certain Western nation.
Here are some quotes and points from Ivanov's article:
We have seen a steady trend pointing at a broader scope of use of military force recently, not least because more challenges to national security have emerged. Chief among them is interference in Russia's internal affairs by foreign states — either directly or through structures that they support — and the attempts of some countries, coalitions, and extremist terrorists organizations to develop or gain access to weapons of mass destruction.As a child of the 1980s, I get twitchy when I hear about Russia looking to strike out at perceived threats. I don't doubt that it felt that way to old-line hawks now in their closing years in the Beltway and salted away, Nixon-like, in exclusive condominiums across suburbia. But this is really Russia following President Bush's example. Bush made it clear after 9/11 that he was going to act against terrorists in any country, with that nation's assistance or not. which was the government's rationale in its (justifiable) operation in unseating the Taliban and killing or capturing leading al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan, and has been the continuing justification for our war in Iraq. So the Administration can't really get in a swivet over Putin working to strike potential terrorists like those who hit the school in Beslan and the opera house in Moscow in (to cite the article) "some members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the club of former Soviet republics, and the regions around them." [italics mine]
The primary task for the armed forces is to prevent conventional and nuclear aggression against Russia. Hence our firm commitment to the principle of pre-emption. We define pre-emption not only as a capability to deliver strikes on terrorist groups but as other measures designed to prevent a threat from emerging long before there is a need to confront it.
After mentioning the need to upgrade the aging Soviet war machine, Ivanov asks, "What would a modern fighting force look like?" Observers on the train would have seen me zero in on the paper at this point: "Our best option is a mobile force in which the air, and probably space, component will be a decisive factor in success. What is also clear is that the winner in a future war will be capable of forming an integrated, real-time intelligence picture. . . ."
The space part arrested my attention. The second sentence of that quote may suggest that the space component represents satellite assets, which is nothing new for any major power. However, when Ivanov begins ticking off the priorities of the "Military Development Plan for 2006-2010" (oh, those Russians and their five-year plans!), I wondered: "The first is to maintain and develop a strategic deterrent capability minimally sufficient for guaranteed repulsion of contemporary and future military threats." He then lists two nuclear ballistic missiles that have ranges of about 7,200 miles and a new type of nuclear-missile sub. "And this is just the top of the list. Needless to say, these are not aimed at any particular target. We have always honored our commitments . . . including those . . . on reductions and limitations of strategic offensive weapons."
Considering the range of the missiles in question, this could also be the space component Ivanov cited. I doubt these will be needed for killing well-masqueraded Chechen rebels in their lairs. Of local threats on whom these missiles might be needed, I come up with China, North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Especially Iran, which has just broken the seals on its Natanz nuclear-research lab in the same sort of bird North Korea flipped us by turning off the IAEA cameras at Yongbyon and firing up the works to produce plutonium.
I will editorially interject (for what else is a blog?) and say that this is the second Axis of Evil power to take steps that could lead to crafting and perfecting a nuclear weapon. No, the second one isn't Iraq. What's more, Iran — swimming in petroleum — hasn't had to resort to bribery and smuggling to get the resources it needs as North Korea has, or as Iraq was suspected of doing. It can flat-out fucking buy triggers and centrifuges and yellowcake. I do not believe that we should have invaded, or should contemplate invading, Iran or North Korea, even after their intentions became plain. However, if we had exercised the effort and invested the money we used in the entire Iraq misadventure, from the Niger-memo forgery through this day, we could have convinced at least one of these powers to return to negotiations, or erected a cordon sanitaire around them, to deny their access to the dangerous tools of nuclear-weapons design. (We could also have hired a damn good hitman to take out that traitorous fuck A.Q. Khan and his network once and for all. Beatrix Kiddo, please pick up the red courtesy phone.)
I also point out that the Bush Administration has chafed against the test bans recently, desiring to advance work on the small "bunker buster" nukes, even as we're dismantling and decommissioning older weapons. So Russia's not the only one taking stock of what sort of nuclear weapons it might need to face what it considers its potential opponents.
As to those Chechen insurgents and the steps Russia might take in defending itself, Ivanov says:
The second priority is the development of conventional forces — high-alert units in the army, air force, navy, and airborne force, manned only by professional soldiers, that will form the backbone of deployable task forces. . . . All this explains the need for rearmament, new military acquisitons, . . . R&D . . . and the optimization of the national defense industry to find a balance between the commitment to arm the Russian military and an opportunity to export arms to countries not subject to U.N. sanctions.It's understandable that Russia wants to use some of its newfound oil wealth to reconstruct its crumbling, demoralized military, particularly its equivalent of our Special Forces, the Spetsnatz, the "high-alert units" to which I assume Ivanov's referring. Interesting to see, though, that it wants to continue its historic role in the international arms trade. The Soviets gave away millions of its iconic AK-47s to Third World revolutionaries and licensed the production of it and other weapons to its client states in Eastern Europe. Now it wants to come up with new, attractive defense gear — sold, of course, only to those states not on the UN's shitlist. Again, nothing we're not doing, nor the Belgians with their FN-FAL rifle, nor the Israelis with the Uzi. War sells.
Ivanov closes by citing Russia's desire to use its professionally trained troops to assist in peacekeeping work and to resume theater-level combat exercises in its sphere of influence. At this point I wondered if Russia would return to giving grand May Day parades of its latest missiles and sharpest soldiers, while Putin gazed down from the Kremlin wall. Perhaps this closing sentence might guide us: "Russia deserves a fighting force of the 21st century, a force that will look into the future but will at the same time continue its glorious military tradition."
If we are lucky, and if someday have more deft leadership and diplomatic representation than we currently field, perhaps we can come to some new partnership with a resurgent Russia as its neighbor to the south, China, becomes a greater economic threat; or perhaps as a way to leverage Iran and North Korea into understanding the error of their ways. But as I said, I am a product of the 1980s, and part of me wonders if Russia will get itchy to use its shiny new military in ways other than defensive and counterterrorist. To cite and modernize the old Chekhov axiom, you can't put a loaded Kalashnikov on stage unless you intend for it to be fired.
At whom, and by whom, should receive the attention of our more clairvoyant foreign-policy sages. Or, as they used to be called, Kremlinologists.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Boots on the Ground Safe and Sound
EXCELLENT NEWS. Rich, the Army major I detailed in this post, has returned to native soil safe and sound. He came back to Fort Dix, NJ earlier this week. His mother, wife, sister, and infant daughter were there to greet him. I can only imagine how happy they all were. No college homecoming of mine could ever equal the feelings of relief they all must have shared.
The war is not over. Keep your thoughts and prayers focused on those who have not returned so that they, too, might excel, survive, and return to their loved ones.
The war is not over. Keep your thoughts and prayers focused on those who have not returned so that they, too, might excel, survive, and return to their loved ones.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Dizzy Mofo No Mo'
IT'S JUST OVER A week since I went to the doctor for my persistent dizziness. I am happy to report that the condition has cleared itself up. The drug I was given was more of a palliative for the symptoms than a cure for the underlying cause. Amusingly, one of the many warning stickers on the side of the pill bottle was that it could cause dizziness. Had I been seasick, these would have reduced the nausea.
I found a specific exercise on the Internet that — as much as the passage of time — may have helped speed the departure of the vertigo. I basically had to slump sideways on my bed, with my head cocked at a 45º angle, and hold it for 30 seconds, then rise to a sitting position for another 30, then slump to the other side, head cocked in the opposite direction, and so on, for five total slumps on each side. As slumping onto my bed is an inborn reflex, this was an easy therapy to enact. Over the weekend, I only felt dizzy once . . . after I took one of the pills.
I actually had adapted to the vertigo fairly rapidly. I only really noticed it was gone when I walked around. I had grown accustomed to feeling my weight lean out along the edges of my feet as I walked, as though I were on the deck of a gently rolling watercraft. Seeing as much of my volunteer duty at the WFMU Record Fair was going to be walking, I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to complete that part of the shift, even with the adaptation I had made (e.g., not making fast corner turns, not stopping short, etc.).
Turned out not to be necessary. I was feeling a lot better by Friday, and only the pill-induced dizziness kept the weekend from being asymptomatic. I'm going to renew the prescription anyway, just in case I need it on short notice. I've never had any problem on airplanes, but on the off chance it decided to manifest itself on my next trip to Las Vegas, I want to be prepared.
I did take time to vote today. For once, we had some New Jersey elections to share time with the big story across the river. It throws me for a loop that Jersey elects its governor in odd-numbered years. Because of the presidential-election schedule, I associate elections with leap years, not half-assed years like 1997 or 2005. Yet that's what we have here. Fortunately, there is no opportunity for anyone not in a coma to avoid the carpet-bombing ad schedule on the radio and TV here. (As for the dead, they apparently know when to get to the polls.
The results of the New York City mayoral race are not in doubt. Mike Bloomberg could have beaten a nun to death in Times Square in between hits on a crack pipe this morning and still have looked forward to a good 35-point margin of victory. I do not like Bloomberg. I began working in NYC in 1999, after the iron fist of Rudy the G had driven all traces of Dinkins-ism out of the five boroughs. No way in fucking hell would I have taken a job right out of college, in 1991, anywhere in Chelsea, unless I had majored in chemistry and knew how to cook heroin.
I find Bloomberg to be colorless technocrat, a caretaker mayor who continued enough of his predecessor's anticrime measures to meet the second-biggest concern of the city's voters (the first being antiterror measures). Every time I hear him speak, with that petulant spoiled-boss lilt to his voice, I want to push him down a flight of stairs in his Aeron chair. This is the putz who wants to restore — and increase sixfold — the city "commuter tax" on non–NY resident workers. I know I would sleep well knowing that such vital civic practices as NYPD bag searches in the subways and mass arrests of cyclists during the Republican National Convention would receive even more funding from New Jerseyans, folks from Connecticut, and, who knows, maybe even the Amish who come in from Pennsylvania to sell pies at greenmarkets.
He is no Giuliani, which makes some folks very happy, and he is no Ed Koch, which makes others happy, and he is no Fiorello LaGuardia, which proves there is no God. But in my thinking, the big brash sprawl of New York City needs a personality, not a CEO, running things. If you're the mayor of New York and you're not actively hated by some interest group, you're not doing your job.
But of course, I am a spectator in all of this, having deposited my nectar of suffrage on the hive on this side of the Hudson. The amusing thing is that when I approached the rear entrance of our building (yes, near that famous corner), I saw a woman with a NY1 microphone and a cameraman. When I caught her eye, she smiled and asked if I was going to vote. I apologized and said I wasn't a New Yorker. I should have said I would still vote for Fernando "Jorge McGovern" Ferrer. Poor bastard needs a break.
I found a specific exercise on the Internet that — as much as the passage of time — may have helped speed the departure of the vertigo. I basically had to slump sideways on my bed, with my head cocked at a 45º angle, and hold it for 30 seconds, then rise to a sitting position for another 30, then slump to the other side, head cocked in the opposite direction, and so on, for five total slumps on each side. As slumping onto my bed is an inborn reflex, this was an easy therapy to enact. Over the weekend, I only felt dizzy once . . . after I took one of the pills.
I actually had adapted to the vertigo fairly rapidly. I only really noticed it was gone when I walked around. I had grown accustomed to feeling my weight lean out along the edges of my feet as I walked, as though I were on the deck of a gently rolling watercraft. Seeing as much of my volunteer duty at the WFMU Record Fair was going to be walking, I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to complete that part of the shift, even with the adaptation I had made (e.g., not making fast corner turns, not stopping short, etc.).
Turned out not to be necessary. I was feeling a lot better by Friday, and only the pill-induced dizziness kept the weekend from being asymptomatic. I'm going to renew the prescription anyway, just in case I need it on short notice. I've never had any problem on airplanes, but on the off chance it decided to manifest itself on my next trip to Las Vegas, I want to be prepared.
I did take time to vote today. For once, we had some New Jersey elections to share time with the big story across the river. It throws me for a loop that Jersey elects its governor in odd-numbered years. Because of the presidential-election schedule, I associate elections with leap years, not half-assed years like 1997 or 2005. Yet that's what we have here. Fortunately, there is no opportunity for anyone not in a coma to avoid the carpet-bombing ad schedule on the radio and TV here. (As for the dead, they apparently know when to get to the polls.
The results of the New York City mayoral race are not in doubt. Mike Bloomberg could have beaten a nun to death in Times Square in between hits on a crack pipe this morning and still have looked forward to a good 35-point margin of victory. I do not like Bloomberg. I began working in NYC in 1999, after the iron fist of Rudy the G had driven all traces of Dinkins-ism out of the five boroughs. No way in fucking hell would I have taken a job right out of college, in 1991, anywhere in Chelsea, unless I had majored in chemistry and knew how to cook heroin.
I find Bloomberg to be colorless technocrat, a caretaker mayor who continued enough of his predecessor's anticrime measures to meet the second-biggest concern of the city's voters (the first being antiterror measures). Every time I hear him speak, with that petulant spoiled-boss lilt to his voice, I want to push him down a flight of stairs in his Aeron chair. This is the putz who wants to restore — and increase sixfold — the city "commuter tax" on non–NY resident workers. I know I would sleep well knowing that such vital civic practices as NYPD bag searches in the subways and mass arrests of cyclists during the Republican National Convention would receive even more funding from New Jerseyans, folks from Connecticut, and, who knows, maybe even the Amish who come in from Pennsylvania to sell pies at greenmarkets.
He is no Giuliani, which makes some folks very happy, and he is no Ed Koch, which makes others happy, and he is no Fiorello LaGuardia, which proves there is no God. But in my thinking, the big brash sprawl of New York City needs a personality, not a CEO, running things. If you're the mayor of New York and you're not actively hated by some interest group, you're not doing your job.
But of course, I am a spectator in all of this, having deposited my nectar of suffrage on the hive on this side of the Hudson. The amusing thing is that when I approached the rear entrance of our building (yes, near that famous corner), I saw a woman with a NY1 microphone and a cameraman. When I caught her eye, she smiled and asked if I was going to vote. I apologized and said I wasn't a New Yorker. I should have said I would still vote for Fernando "Jorge McGovern" Ferrer. Poor bastard needs a break.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
The Curse Strikes Again!
REMEMBER HOW I OBSERVED that I worked adjacent to a star-struck street in Chelsea? Boy, did it ever come true again today. I am going to count this because you could see this from the corner of which I have written.
I take the PATH train to 14th Street to get to work. (Dizziness update: Still there, but I'm no longer panicking about my heart going up like a grenade.) Even as I was mounting the stairs, I could smell smoke on the wind. Being the sort to savor a smoky breeze in the fall, I smiled, imagining how nice it would be to have a fireplace going on a cool autumn morning.
If only that were it! When I finally made it out to the surface, I could hear sirens in the distance, out west — the direction I was headed. Looking down 14th Street, I saw not the fringe of Jersey, but a grey smudge . . . in what seemed to be the vicinity of my building.
I called home to see if my parents had heard anything on the radio. They reported a parking garage was on fire on 15th Street and Ninth Avenue. This is right across the street from where I work! I kept walking, assuming I would know by the throngs of my coworkers if my building had been evacuated as a precaution.
Emergency vehicles passed me in haste as I finally reached Eighth Avenue. Nobody was standing outside, aside from the usual cancer cluster sucking down a quick nail before punching in. But the smoke from this distance was black and menacing. Fifteenth and 16th were blocked heading west, and I could see flame licking from some distance structure of unknown use.
From inside the building, I couldn't smell anything — surprising, as the stench (no longer a romantic wood smell, but the acrid tang of combusting gas and tires) was pervasive outside. Possibly everyone on the window side had closed up before heading home Tuesday night. (Yes, I work in a 1930s building with windows you can open. Not that I have an office.) Had they been open, the whole office easily would have smelled of it.
The horrific fact is that dozens of cars were destroyed, and in many cases, their gas tanks were exploding. I am led to understand that, contrary to what Hollywood action films would have you believe, gas tanks are far more stable in car wrecks than they seem on screen. They require a spark or high temperatures to touch off. And the latter was present in spades at this parking garage. It must have been bitter duty for NY1, which is based in the Chelsea Market complex right next door to the fire, to report that many of the news channel's employees, and the company itself, had lost vehicles. Can you imagine sitting at your desk and wondering if your car was still intact? Does insurance even cover such a thing?
So the cursed corner of Chelsea has struck again! I fully expect the follow-up to be a horde of snakes or perhaps a plague of locusts.
I take the PATH train to 14th Street to get to work. (Dizziness update: Still there, but I'm no longer panicking about my heart going up like a grenade.) Even as I was mounting the stairs, I could smell smoke on the wind. Being the sort to savor a smoky breeze in the fall, I smiled, imagining how nice it would be to have a fireplace going on a cool autumn morning.
If only that were it! When I finally made it out to the surface, I could hear sirens in the distance, out west — the direction I was headed. Looking down 14th Street, I saw not the fringe of Jersey, but a grey smudge . . . in what seemed to be the vicinity of my building.
I called home to see if my parents had heard anything on the radio. They reported a parking garage was on fire on 15th Street and Ninth Avenue. This is right across the street from where I work! I kept walking, assuming I would know by the throngs of my coworkers if my building had been evacuated as a precaution.
Emergency vehicles passed me in haste as I finally reached Eighth Avenue. Nobody was standing outside, aside from the usual cancer cluster sucking down a quick nail before punching in. But the smoke from this distance was black and menacing. Fifteenth and 16th were blocked heading west, and I could see flame licking from some distance structure of unknown use.
From inside the building, I couldn't smell anything — surprising, as the stench (no longer a romantic wood smell, but the acrid tang of combusting gas and tires) was pervasive outside. Possibly everyone on the window side had closed up before heading home Tuesday night. (Yes, I work in a 1930s building with windows you can open. Not that I have an office.) Had they been open, the whole office easily would have smelled of it.
The horrific fact is that dozens of cars were destroyed, and in many cases, their gas tanks were exploding. I am led to understand that, contrary to what Hollywood action films would have you believe, gas tanks are far more stable in car wrecks than they seem on screen. They require a spark or high temperatures to touch off. And the latter was present in spades at this parking garage. It must have been bitter duty for NY1, which is based in the Chelsea Market complex right next door to the fire, to report that many of the news channel's employees, and the company itself, had lost vehicles. Can you imagine sitting at your desk and wondering if your car was still intact? Does insurance even cover such a thing?
So the cursed corner of Chelsea has struck again! I fully expect the follow-up to be a horde of snakes or perhaps a plague of locusts.
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