Theodore Dalrymple has the best book about the Decline of the West, called Our Culture, What's Left of It, and perhaps one of the most illuminating chapters concerns Custine's famous monograph La Russie en 1839, an imitation of De Tocqueville's smashing bestseller of 1835 Democracy in America.
The Marquis de Custine arrived in Russia not speaking the language, stayed only three months, but wrote a book Alexander Herzen called the best ever written on the Czar's Empire---simply because the Marquis had lived through the totalitarian catastrophe of the French Revolution, in which his parents perished simply because of their aristocratic background.
Custine reminds me of Peter Fleming, Ian's more talented younger brother, in an amazing book called News From Tartary, in which Fleming and an Austrian female skier traversed China in the late '30s.
How to Read a Society is worth a look on just how the Soviet Union was made possible by Czarist autocracy.
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Friday, February 29, 2008
All Hail the Lowly Spud!
The United Nations isn't my favorite organization, but they may have got one thing right.
The Economist has much more in an article on my preferred veggie:
Erin Go Bragh!
The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato (see article). It hopes that greater awareness of the merits of potatoes will contribute to the achievement of its Millennium Development Goals, by helping to alleviate poverty, improve food security and promote economic development.
The Economist has much more in an article on my preferred veggie:
Unlikely though it seems, the potato promoted economic development by underpinning the industrial revolution in England in the 19th century. It provided a cheap source of calories and was easy to cultivate, so it liberated workers from the land. Potatoes became popular in the north of England, as people there specialised in livestock farming and domestic industry, while farmers in the south (where the soil was more suitable) concentrated on wheat production. By a happy accident, this concentrated industrial activity in the regions where coal was readily available, and a potato-driven population boom provided ample workers for the new factories. Friedrich Engels even declared that the potato was the equal of iron for its “historically revolutionary role”.
The potato promoted free trade by contributing to the abolition of Britain's Corn Laws—the cause which prompted the founding of The Economist in 1843. The Corn Laws restricted imports of grain into the United Kingdom in order to protect domestic wheat producers. Landowners supported the laws, since cheap imported grain would reduce their income, but industrialists opposed them because imports would drive down the cost of food, allowing people to spend more on manufactured goods. Ultimately it was not the eloquence of the arguments against the Corn Laws that led to their abolition—and more's the pity. It was the tragedy of the Irish potato famine of 1845, in which 1m Irish perished when the potato crop on which they subsisted succumbed to blight. The need to import grain to relieve the situation in Ireland forced the government, which was dominated by landowners who backed the Corn Laws, to reverse its position.
This paved the way for liberalisation in other areas, and free trade became British policy. As the Duke of Wellington complained at the time, “rotten potatoes have done it all.”
Erin Go Bragh!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Medvedev Transition from Putin Czarism to Democracy?
Dmitri Medvedev may have been the author of a note to me concerning a nasty blog excoriating Vladimir Putin as a warmed-over Czarist/Politburo autocrat in December. It was signed in his name from his official-looking weblog and was almost certainly penned by a helper, but curiously didn't defend Putin, but advised me to give Medvedev himself a chance after he was elected. Curious, because I didn't attack Dmitri, but was very harsh on little Vlad The Empoisoner. His blog has the perfect winning line for a skeptic like myself:
I hope Dmitri continues to think along these lines and eventually gets enough political power to actually implement a return to more representative government.
"We are well aware that no non-democratic state has ever become truly prosperous for one simple reason: freedom is better than non-freedom."
I hope Dmitri continues to think along these lines and eventually gets enough political power to actually implement a return to more representative government.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Yemen's Functioning Medieval Society
An NYT article points out another facet of Yemen's endlessly fascinating panoply of ethnic & religious caste/sects.
In the half-dozen times or so that I was able to visit this ancient complex country, I was able to visit the Red Sea Coast mentioned in the article above. On a visit to Mocha, eponymous town where coffee of the same name was grown, I was unable to get a cup of java---coffee plantations long ago were replaced by the national narcotic, qat, which gives the effect of a dozen cups of coffee when chewed.
As a footnote, the Ethiopian army with elephants referred to in the Quran which was defeated despite overwhelming superiority was the inspiration for Saddam's decision to stand up to GHWB. In one of his narcotic reveries, the brutal thug discovered that GHWB was a Republican, whose party was represented by a pachyderm. His confused conclusion was that another Quranic miracle would ensue, and the army "led by elephants" would be miraculously defeated. But I digress.
Another anecdote deserves recounting. In 1990, when JCS Chief Colin Powell & DoD SecDef Dick Cheney flew to Riyadh with Ambassador to the US Bandar bin Sultan, Bandar asked them to bring aerial photos of Iraqi MiGs on an airfield and leave the closure pitch to himself. When the meeting with King Fahd took place on whether to allow American troops into Saudi Arabia, the reluctant Fahd was finally persuaded when Bandar showed the aerial reconnaissance photos and said they were of Iraqi jets parked in North Yemen---meaning the Saudis were pincered already militarily. Remembering how the Yemenis single-handedly kicked Nasser's troops out of Yemen in the early sixties [helped by covert US airstrikes engineered by the Saudis in cooperation with JFK], Fahd immediately consented to American forces being based for Operation Desert Shield inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
I was told this story by someone accompanying Prince Bandar in the Saudi delegation from DC.
Of course, the follow-up is that Osama bin Laden went over to the dark side when the US & KSA decided to retain US bases in King Khalid Military City and elsewhere near the Iraqi border---pushing the religious UbL and his fervent AQ cadres into terrorist acts against the US and KSA.
Yemen of course, has a Jewish population of at least 4000 living in the old Royalist stronghold north of Saada. Ambassador Tom Pickering and David Ransom and myself discovered this group [I have photos from our '76 Jidda/Sana overland expedition] and Ransom & I spoke to the Jews in Arabic to ascertain their demographic and geographic extent. At the time, the Israeli-backed Near East Journal was claiming that all Jews had emigrated or been forcibly evicted from Yemen. The '76 State Dept discovery of Jews in Yemen was on Wikipedia, but mysteriously vanished a year ago.
I managed to travel with the German Ambassador Held and a Saudi friend Bernhard Von Der Planitz on another trip around Yemen. The city of Ibb was unique, as was Taiz where I purchased a lot of Bedouin jewelry.
Finally, the President of Yemen flew Ambassador [to Jordan at the time] Pickering and the rest of our small party to Marib, where we were able to purchase Himyaritic artifacts from BC and visit the famous dam. Here was where Solomon's bride Bilqis ruled and the Temples of Venus and the Moon were partly excavated by Albright before brigands chased them out in the early 20th century. The site is almost inaccessible now because of both terrorists and well-armed highwaymen who prey on wealthy foreigners attempting to visit the pre-Quranic civilization.
Now the PDRY [Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen] in Aden has united with North Yemen, but the Royalist Far North is still under the control of Abdullah Al-Ahmar & his Saudi-funded tribal alliances---I saw his cavalcade brazenly driving in downtown Sana once.
Yemen is Usama bin Laden's original family home, and the Yemenis still have a grudge about young Prince Faisal [later King] conquering Sana in 1930 and annexing most of Yemen [Asir, Baha, Najran, and other KSA areas] in the Treaty of Taif. Of the 15 "Saudi" passport holders in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, about a dozen were of Yemeni ethnic extraction co-opted by the strong Yemeni contingent in AQ.
This functioning medieval society has over 20 million people on an arid mountainous landscape populated by a male caste of narcotic-addicts who eat qat until noon and then "come down" drinking Scotch all afternoon. The deadly murderous knives with their rhinocerous-horn handles ["zambiyas"] are then deployed to settle scores and resolve disputes.
Oh, and by the way, better watch what you eat and drink. Montezuma's Revenge and Delhi Belly have nothing on the violent diarrhea eating on the economy can induce.
In the half-dozen times or so that I was able to visit this ancient complex country, I was able to visit the Red Sea Coast mentioned in the article above. On a visit to Mocha, eponymous town where coffee of the same name was grown, I was unable to get a cup of java---coffee plantations long ago were replaced by the national narcotic, qat, which gives the effect of a dozen cups of coffee when chewed.
As a footnote, the Ethiopian army with elephants referred to in the Quran which was defeated despite overwhelming superiority was the inspiration for Saddam's decision to stand up to GHWB. In one of his narcotic reveries, the brutal thug discovered that GHWB was a Republican, whose party was represented by a pachyderm. His confused conclusion was that another Quranic miracle would ensue, and the army "led by elephants" would be miraculously defeated. But I digress.
Another anecdote deserves recounting. In 1990, when JCS Chief Colin Powell & DoD SecDef Dick Cheney flew to Riyadh with Ambassador to the US Bandar bin Sultan, Bandar asked them to bring aerial photos of Iraqi MiGs on an airfield and leave the closure pitch to himself. When the meeting with King Fahd took place on whether to allow American troops into Saudi Arabia, the reluctant Fahd was finally persuaded when Bandar showed the aerial reconnaissance photos and said they were of Iraqi jets parked in North Yemen---meaning the Saudis were pincered already militarily. Remembering how the Yemenis single-handedly kicked Nasser's troops out of Yemen in the early sixties [helped by covert US airstrikes engineered by the Saudis in cooperation with JFK], Fahd immediately consented to American forces being based for Operation Desert Shield inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
I was told this story by someone accompanying Prince Bandar in the Saudi delegation from DC.
Of course, the follow-up is that Osama bin Laden went over to the dark side when the US & KSA decided to retain US bases in King Khalid Military City and elsewhere near the Iraqi border---pushing the religious UbL and his fervent AQ cadres into terrorist acts against the US and KSA.
Yemen of course, has a Jewish population of at least 4000 living in the old Royalist stronghold north of Saada. Ambassador Tom Pickering and David Ransom and myself discovered this group [I have photos from our '76 Jidda/Sana overland expedition] and Ransom & I spoke to the Jews in Arabic to ascertain their demographic and geographic extent. At the time, the Israeli-backed Near East Journal was claiming that all Jews had emigrated or been forcibly evicted from Yemen. The '76 State Dept discovery of Jews in Yemen was on Wikipedia, but mysteriously vanished a year ago.
I managed to travel with the German Ambassador Held and a Saudi friend Bernhard Von Der Planitz on another trip around Yemen. The city of Ibb was unique, as was Taiz where I purchased a lot of Bedouin jewelry.
Finally, the President of Yemen flew Ambassador [to Jordan at the time] Pickering and the rest of our small party to Marib, where we were able to purchase Himyaritic artifacts from BC and visit the famous dam. Here was where Solomon's bride Bilqis ruled and the Temples of Venus and the Moon were partly excavated by Albright before brigands chased them out in the early 20th century. The site is almost inaccessible now because of both terrorists and well-armed highwaymen who prey on wealthy foreigners attempting to visit the pre-Quranic civilization.
Now the PDRY [Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen] in Aden has united with North Yemen, but the Royalist Far North is still under the control of Abdullah Al-Ahmar & his Saudi-funded tribal alliances---I saw his cavalcade brazenly driving in downtown Sana once.
Yemen is Usama bin Laden's original family home, and the Yemenis still have a grudge about young Prince Faisal [later King] conquering Sana in 1930 and annexing most of Yemen [Asir, Baha, Najran, and other KSA areas] in the Treaty of Taif. Of the 15 "Saudi" passport holders in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, about a dozen were of Yemeni ethnic extraction co-opted by the strong Yemeni contingent in AQ.
This functioning medieval society has over 20 million people on an arid mountainous landscape populated by a male caste of narcotic-addicts who eat qat until noon and then "come down" drinking Scotch all afternoon. The deadly murderous knives with their rhinocerous-horn handles ["zambiyas"] are then deployed to settle scores and resolve disputes.
Oh, and by the way, better watch what you eat and drink. Montezuma's Revenge and Delhi Belly have nothing on the violent diarrhea eating on the economy can induce.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
North Korean Genocidal Maniacs Garner NYT Plaudits
The NYT doesn't mention today the two million deaths by starvation in the nineties due to Dear Leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jung Il's guns-with-no-butter-or-rice-or-comestibles policies to strengthen the N. Korean armed forces and build a nuclear device.
Indeed, the NYT more or less likes the sort of coercive social engineering that Communist autocrats like Castro, Saddam, Arafat, Kim Jung Il, Chairman Mao and earlier during the NYT's Walter Duranty days, old Uncle Joe and his Purge Trials, where millions died because to cook an omelet, you had to break eggs. But it was for a cause many NYT readers on the Upper West Side have a soft spot for, so as for the journey by the NY Philharmonic to the capital of mass-murderer Kim Jung-Il, Loren Maazel's little foray into Mordor is covered by NYT ink-stained wretches with its customary moral indifference.
Just by chance today, while the power outage raged, I was sitting in the sun at my backyard pool reading the stemwinder [from a moral outrage position]Our Culture, What's Left of It by Theodore Dalrymple. On p. 114 of the paperback version, TD recounts his visit to Pyongyang in 1989 when he was approached surreptitiously by a young Korean who said:
Dalrymple writes that the kid melted back into the crowd and called it "the most searing communication I have ever reeived in my life."
This in Dalrymple's chapter on Huxley and Orwell called "The Dystopian Imagination."
North Korea remains hell on earth and the NYT functions towards Kim Jung Il more as an enabler than a therapeutic intervention agent.
Indeed, the NYT more or less likes the sort of coercive social engineering that Communist autocrats like Castro, Saddam, Arafat, Kim Jung Il, Chairman Mao and earlier during the NYT's Walter Duranty days, old Uncle Joe and his Purge Trials, where millions died because to cook an omelet, you had to break eggs. But it was for a cause many NYT readers on the Upper West Side have a soft spot for, so as for the journey by the NY Philharmonic to the capital of mass-murderer Kim Jung-Il, Loren Maazel's little foray into Mordor is covered by NYT ink-stained wretches with its customary moral indifference.
Just by chance today, while the power outage raged, I was sitting in the sun at my backyard pool reading the stemwinder [from a moral outrage position]Our Culture, What's Left of It by Theodore Dalrymple. On p. 114 of the paperback version, TD recounts his visit to Pyongyang in 1989 when he was approached surreptitiously by a young Korean who said:
"I am a student at the Foreign Language Institute. Reading Dickens and Shakespeare is the greatest, the only pleasure of my life."
Dalrymple writes that the kid melted back into the crowd and called it "the most searing communication I have ever reeived in my life."
This in Dalrymple's chapter on Huxley and Orwell called "The Dystopian Imagination."
North Korea remains hell on earth and the NYT functions towards Kim Jung Il more as an enabler than a therapeutic intervention agent.
Monday, February 25, 2008
End-Game Analysis of Clinton Campaign Stool Samples
The Washington Post analyzes the Hitler's-Bunker mentality of liberal fascists like Harold Ickes and Phil Singer [Mandy Grunwald was kept in her death cage] as the metaphor of slowly swirling Clinton-campaign remnants in the porcelain bowl prepare for the tunnel trip to where Bubba's love-life dwells.
Perhaps having a campaign spokesman who believes SNL more influential than Drudge reveals why the Clinton folks seem about ready to suffer the old stage hook and get yanked off the proscenium.
Ickes is in a certified-dotage mode as he plaintively inquires which month the PA primary is going to be held. He was old when I worked for him in '68 in NYC---now he is far beypnd the alloted biblical three-score and ten:
Read the link on top for the entire freaking over-the-top meltdown.
Meanwhile a national CBS poll shows Obama 16 points up over Clinton and pulling away. Even more interesting:
And the New York Times describes a five-point "kitchen sink" fusillade about to be unleashed on Obama from the Clinton armada.
However, this evening's cable and network news all comment on just how little impact Clinton's claim of "35 years of public service" and counting her First Lady as "experience" is having on audiences, Democratic audiences. Indeed, the touting of being the wife of a governor [while practicing law for a top-notch Arkansas firm] and tallying her White House years as "experience and public service" appears to be having a backlash effect, as it reminds prospective voters that Hillary's candidacy, like her "experience," comes attached to the outsized and controversial Bubba---who as Mitt Romney reminded viewers, would be lurking in the White House "looking for things to do," surely the most subtle euphemism for his bad habits and lack of discipline yet devised.
The Lincoln Bedroom werewolf has yet to be dispatched with a silver bullet.
Many voters appear to think that Obama will relieve us of this national disgrace with a wooden stake or silver bullet that allows Bubba to shuffle off his political mortal coil.
First came Harold Ickes, who gave a presentation about Hillary Rodham Clinton's prospects that severed all ties with reality. "We're on the way to locking this nomination down," he said of a candidate who appears, if anything, headed in the other direction.
But before the breakfast crowd had a chance to digest that, they were served another, stranger course by Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer. Asked about an accusation on the Drudge Report that Clinton staffers had circulated a photo of Barack Obama wearing Somali tribal dress, Singer let 'er rip.
"I find it interesting that in a room of such esteemed journalists that Mr. Drudge has become your respected assignment editor," he lectured. "I find it to be a reflection of one of the problems that's gone on with the overall coverage of this campaign." He went on to chide the journalists for their "woefully inadequate" coverage of Obama, "a point that has been certainly backed up by the 'Saturday Night Live' skit that opened the show this past Saturday evening, which I would refer you all to."
The brief moment explained everything about the bitter relations between Clinton's campaign and the media: Singer taunting the likes of Broder, who began covering presidential politics two decades before Singer was born, with a comedy sketch that showed debate moderators fawning over Obama.
"That's your assignment editor?" responded Post columnist Ruth Marcus.
"That's my assignment editor," Singer affirmed.
Perhaps having a campaign spokesman who believes SNL more influential than Drudge reveals why the Clinton folks seem about ready to suffer the old stage hook and get yanked off the proscenium.
Ickes is in a certified-dotage mode as he plaintively inquires which month the PA primary is going to be held. He was old when I worked for him in '68 in NYC---now he is far beypnd the alloted biblical three-score and ten:
Yesterday, Ickes played the good cop. "We think we are on the verge of our next up cycle," he reported, even suggesting the apparent impossibility that Clinton "may be running even" with Obama when all the contests are over. "This race is very close," he judged. "This is tight as a tick."
The reporters were dubious. The Monitor's Dave Cook mused about the consequences of Clinton "battling after there's not much chance."
"For the love of God, we can't say there's not much chance here," Ickes maintained.
David Chalian of ABC News reminded Ickes that Obama's lead in delegates is now of the size Ickes had said would be "significant."
"As we all know in this city, I have a very short memory," Ickes answered.
At one point, he warned of "a bitter and potentially very divisive credentials fight" at the Democratic convention. At another point, he compared the race to 1972, when a strong front-runner, Ed Muskie (now played by Clinton), was upended by an antiwar candidate, George McGovern (now played by Obama), who lost to the Republicans. "The fact is he could not carry his weight in the general election," Ickes argued.
But Ickes could suspend reality for only so long. He referred to Clinton's opponent at one point as "Senator Barack," swapped 1992 for 1972 and Michigan for Vermont, and said of the Pennsylvania primary: "Um, what month is it?" Eventually, Carl Leubsdorf of the Dallas Morning News drew a confession out of Ickes: "I think if we lose in Texas and Ohio, Mrs. Clinton will have to make her decisions as to whether she goes forward or not."
Ickes's return to Earth seemed only to further outrage Singer.
Read the link on top for the entire freaking over-the-top meltdown.
Meanwhile a national CBS poll shows Obama 16 points up over Clinton and pulling away. Even more interesting:
When all registered voters were asked who they favored in a head-to-head general election match up between Obama and McCain, Obama led by 12 percentage points, 50 to 38 percent.
In a Clinton-McCain match up, registered voters were evenly split, with 46 percent backing each candidate.
Obama beats McCain by 10 points among independents, while McCain beats Clinton by 17 points among that group.
And the New York Times describes a five-point "kitchen sink" fusillade about to be unleashed on Obama from the Clinton armada.
Clinton advisers said the attacks were partly an effort to knock Mr. Obama off balance before the debate on Tuesday.
They also said they were sending a signal to supporters that Mrs. Clinton was still resolutely fighting to win the presidential nomination, despite news reports in recent days about her dispirited campaign operation and her own somber outlook on the race.
To bolster her case at the George Washington speech, Mrs. Clinton stood on stage with a half-dozen retired military officials, including Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who introduced her. “I’m convinced that when the going gets tough, Hillary Clinton will never let America down,” General Clark said.
Mrs. Clinton pointed to her time in the Senate and in the White House as the first lady as evidence that she was the candidate who was most knowledgeable and prepared for the presidency.
However, this evening's cable and network news all comment on just how little impact Clinton's claim of "35 years of public service" and counting her First Lady as "experience" is having on audiences, Democratic audiences. Indeed, the touting of being the wife of a governor [while practicing law for a top-notch Arkansas firm] and tallying her White House years as "experience and public service" appears to be having a backlash effect, as it reminds prospective voters that Hillary's candidacy, like her "experience," comes attached to the outsized and controversial Bubba---who as Mitt Romney reminded viewers, would be lurking in the White House "looking for things to do," surely the most subtle euphemism for his bad habits and lack of discipline yet devised.
The Lincoln Bedroom werewolf has yet to be dispatched with a silver bullet.
Many voters appear to think that Obama will relieve us of this national disgrace with a wooden stake or silver bullet that allows Bubba to shuffle off his political mortal coil.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Myer-Briggs and the Candidates: Obama another Lincoln? Jefferson? Eisenhower?
Slate blogress Emily Yoffe does an MBTI [Myer-Briggs personality type] piece and got my attention, along with many readers in a n online Q&A follow-up:
You have to read the entire piece, but I can attest from my days in the corporate stratosphere at Amoco, at least, that the MBTI is taken mighty seriously by people who can boost or deflate your career tire-pressure.
Yoffe says that Hillary is a "Guardian Supervisor" according to the David Keirsey Corollaries to the MBTI, which sort out the Jungian personality types the Myer-Briggs typology derive from a further declension.
According to Keirsey, 85% of Americans are either Guardians [Hillary] or Artisans [McCain], while a tiny fragment are Idealists [Obama]. But the 15% "Rational/Idealist" slice of the presidential pie has yielded two Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, and Eisenhower. Or as Yoffe notes:
Interestingly, the MBTI has 16 "types" and the ESTP that McCain has is shared by Teddy R. & FDR, JFK, GWB, and Winston Churchill, just off the top of the deck. Again, the MBTI has about 60% of all leaders in the USA [other countries and cultures have vastly different configurations] in the tiny 4% of the population who are INTJ or ENTJ. The USA is lucky to have so many Guardians and Artisans, but the Rational Idealists like Obama are the "out of the box" types who dream dreams---only in exceptional circumstances do they rise the top:
Hillary is the Field Marshal Supervisor [ESTJ or ESTP], Obama is almost the dynamically opposite ENFP, an INFP with pizzazz.
No wonder Obama's success is driving Hillary nutso bananas!
Check out the multiple links, which are fascinating in their different takes. And the "cognitive psychology" moonbats are in a tizzy to be sure!
You have to read the entire piece, but I can attest from my days in the corporate stratosphere at Amoco, at least, that the MBTI is taken mighty seriously by people who can boost or deflate your career tire-pressure.
Yoffe says that Hillary is a "Guardian Supervisor" according to the David Keirsey Corollaries to the MBTI, which sort out the Jungian personality types the Myer-Briggs typology derive from a further declension.
According to Keirsey, 85% of Americans are either Guardians [Hillary] or Artisans [McCain], while a tiny fragment are Idealists [Obama]. But the 15% "Rational/Idealist" slice of the presidential pie has yielded two Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, and Eisenhower. Or as Yoffe notes:
Chicago: Have there ever been a Rational president? Why do you think there have been so few?
Emily Yoffe: Yes, according to the book, Presidential Temperament by Ray Choiniere and David Keirsey, there have been a few: John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, Eisenhower. For one thing, there aren't very many Rationals in the general population. Eighty-five percent of people are either Artisans or Guardians according to Keirsey. For another, rationals are more abstract thinkers, so they can be kind of a baffling type to more concrete thinkers.
Interestingly, the MBTI has 16 "types" and the ESTP that McCain has is shared by Teddy R. & FDR, JFK, GWB, and Winston Churchill, just off the top of the deck. Again, the MBTI has about 60% of all leaders in the USA [other countries and cultures have vastly different configurations] in the tiny 4% of the population who are INTJ or ENTJ. The USA is lucky to have so many Guardians and Artisans, but the Rational Idealists like Obama are the "out of the box" types who dream dreams---only in exceptional circumstances do they rise the top:
Taking the ESTJ example above:
* Extraverted function is a Judging function (T-F) because of the overall J preference
* Extraverted function is dominant because of overall E preference
* Dominant function is therefore extraverted Thinking (Te)
* Auxiliary function will be the less dominant Perceiving function - intraverted Sensing (Si)
* Tertiary function is the opposite preference to the Auxiliary - Intuition (N)
* Inferior function is the opposite preference and attitude to the Dominant - intraverted Feeling (Fi)
The dynamics of the ESTJ {Hillary, par excellence] then, are founded in the primary tension between the extraverted Thinking dominant and introverted Feeling inferior: The dominant tendency to order the ESTJ's environment, to set clear boundaries, to clarify roles and timetables, and to direct the activities around them, is underscored by an attraction to the sentimental, the heartwarming, and the precious. ESTJs, for instance, may enjoy making memory scrapbooks or other such personal crafts. Though the ESTJ can seem insensitive to the feelings of others in their normal activities, under tremendous stress, they can suddenly express feelings of being unappreciated or wounded by insensitivity.
Looking at the diametrically opposite four-letter Type, INFP:
* Extraverted function is a Perceiving function because of the overall P preference
* Introverted function is dominant because of the overall I preference
* Dominant function is therefore introverted Feeling (Fi)
* Auxiliary function is extraverted Intuition (Ne)
* Tertiary function is the opposite of the Auxiliary, Sensing (S)
* Inferior function is the opposite of the Dominant, extraverted Thinking (Te)
The dynamics of the INFP rest on exactly the same fundamental tension of introverted Feeling and extraverted Thinking, though in reverse. The dominant tendency of the INFP is toward building a rich internal framework of values and toward championing human rights, often devoting themselves to causes such as saving the environment or civil rights. However, because of their tendency to avoid the limelight, their inclination to not rush into decisions, and to maintain a reserved posture, they rarely are found in executive director type positions of the organizations that serve those causes. Normally, the INFP dislikes being "in charge" of things. When not under stress, the INFP exudes a personal warmth that is unspoken and sympathetic, but under extreme stress, they can suddenly become rigid and directive, exerting their extraverted Thinking erratically.
Hillary is the Field Marshal Supervisor [ESTJ or ESTP], Obama is almost the dynamically opposite ENFP, an INFP with pizzazz.
No wonder Obama's success is driving Hillary nutso bananas!
Check out the multiple links, which are fascinating in their different takes. And the "cognitive psychology" moonbats are in a tizzy to be sure!
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Upper West Side Robbery of $150K in front of Starbucks
WNBC-TV has the most hilarious article about a broad-daylight robbery in midtown Manhattan. But if you read it, the robber is described as everything except his skin color. A cab driver is not quoted in the NBC version:
Compare the NBC-TV version with the CBS-TV version:
So it was a "BLACK MAN" in the CBS version, while the NBC version has every detail except one.
Last night, an ABC-TV 20/20 piece on peoples' willingness to report a crime turned into a race issue by a weird reporter from Mexico---blacks were reported as being more suspected of perpetrating a crime than other ethnic persuasions in the scripted gotcha "journalism" piece.
Any study of crime statistics will show that it is no urban legend that blacks commit more crimes than other ethnic groups, with Hispanics a close second.
TV "news" reports that try to gloss over that fact---and south Florida is rife with the same sort of evasive reporting on ethnic background and illegal immigration status---demonstrates again that "news" is not what the MSM conveys in it propaganda war on reality.
Police were searching a suspect they described as a man between 25 and 30 years old who was wearing a black parka, black pants is about five feet 9 inches tall.
Zafer Incekara, a limousine driver from Lyndhurst, N.J., said the gunman fired a shot at the man before he fled.
"I saw the guy running out to Sixth Avenue" with the black bag after leaving the man in the street, said witness Amado Delacruz, 34, of Bayonne, N.J.
"You don't expect this. Not on 56th Street. Especially in front of Starbucks," Delacruz said.
A woman who answered the telephone at the Starbucks hung up on a reporter's call Friday.
The investigation is on-going.
WNBC.com will provide more details as soon as they become available.
Compare the NBC-TV version with the CBS-TV version:
"My heart is just racing … The black man was dragging the guy with the bag," said limo driver Zafer Incekara, who witnessed the bizarre scene. "And all of a sudden he just started hitting him with something. I didn't see at first but then I saw it was a gun and he shot the guy in the head."
So it was a "BLACK MAN" in the CBS version, while the NBC version has every detail except one.
Last night, an ABC-TV 20/20 piece on peoples' willingness to report a crime turned into a race issue by a weird reporter from Mexico---blacks were reported as being more suspected of perpetrating a crime than other ethnic persuasions in the scripted gotcha "journalism" piece.
Any study of crime statistics will show that it is no urban legend that blacks commit more crimes than other ethnic groups, with Hispanics a close second.
TV "news" reports that try to gloss over that fact---and south Florida is rife with the same sort of evasive reporting on ethnic background and illegal immigration status---demonstrates again that "news" is not what the MSM conveys in it propaganda war on reality.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Obama and Ayers/Dohrn Criminals Old Buddies?
Bill Ayers was someone I knew slightly back during a silly session I spent with SDS for a couple of months in early '69. I even met his beautiful girl-friend Diana Oughton shortly before her life ended when a bomb went off in the West Village just down the street from a rent-control apartment of an aunt of mine.
Anyone who knows him knows Ayers is a colossal asshole/prick so self-centered and morally autistic that this spoiled-brat son of the head of Chicago's ConEd resembles Joran Van Der Sloot in complete solipsistic autonomy. To give you an idea of the mindset of Ayers and his biyotch slut ho' Dohrn [whom I never met though the slut hails from Milwaukee like myself]:
Obama might want to share his impressions of these two rich spoiled maggots who of course have jobs in the Academicide elite of Chicago---such as it is.
Anyone who knows him knows Ayers is a colossal asshole/prick so self-centered and morally autistic that this spoiled-brat son of the head of Chicago's ConEd resembles Joran Van Der Sloot in complete solipsistic autonomy. To give you an idea of the mindset of Ayers and his biyotch slut ho' Dohrn [whom I never met though the slut hails from Milwaukee like myself]:
"Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at." He also omits any discussion of his wife Bernardine Dohrn's famous reaction to the Manson killings, as conveyed by journalist Peter Collier: "Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach! Wild!"
Obama might want to share his impressions of these two rich spoiled maggots who of course have jobs in the Academicide elite of Chicago---such as it is.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Chavez Strangling the Golden-Egg Goose PdVSA?
The Economist continues to be the best magazine, bar none, on the planet for clear, concise, lucid explanations of tortuously complex political and economic issues. Here is the best explanation of the almost suicidal position Hugo Chavez is approaching as he turns Venezuela into a subsidiary of its oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A.
Back in the day, I used to visit Venezuela while Int'l Editor of the Oil Daily with Jim Tanner, the fabled oil editor of the Wall Street Journal. The joke then was that PDVSA was an Italian arm of the country of "Little Venice." Now it appears the latest "caudillo" foisted on the Ven people is turning the oil company into a parallel state-within-a-state. My Ven experts, who are populating Westonzuela in Miami-Dade County at a rapid rate, tell me that the army despises the little mestizo and he must count on PdVSA to balance against elements in the military who want him gone---with extreme prejudice.
AFTER winning a new term as president by a landslide a year ago, Hugo Chávez decided that it would be a nifty idea to squeeze the remaining private oil companies operating in Venezuela. So he ordered the tearing up of the contracts they signed in the 1990s, under which they were investing to develop deposits of super-heavy crude. In their place would come joint ventures in which Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state oil company, would wield the controlling share. A year on, however, one of the multinationals, Exxon Mobil, is fighting back. This has prompted Mr Chávez to complain that the United States is waging “economic warfare” against his country. But such fiery talk cannot disguise the fact that both he and PDVSA are in a swamp of trouble.
On February 7th Exxon announced that it had obtained interim court injunctions in the United States, Britain, the Netherlands and the Dutch Antilles preventing PDVSA from disposing of over $12 billion in assets. It had sought the freeze as a preventive measure, to ensure that PDVSA could pay Exxon's claim for compensation for the seizure of its operation in the Orinoco heavy-oil belt.
Several rivals accepted the government's new terms. Exxon, along with ConocoPhillips, another American firm, chose to invoke the arbitration clause in its contract (which had over two decades to run). More than the money, it is reputed to want to send a firm message to the world's resource nationalists. Or, as Venezuela's deputy oil minister, Bernard Mommer, put it, to “intimidate other producers”.
Such procedures grind slowly. The International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, a body linked to the World Bank, has yet to convene the panel that will hear the case. In parallel, and seemingly without PDVSA's knowledge, Exxon sought the court rulings. The Venezuelan government insists that the freeze applies directly only to one American bank account (with $315m) belonging to PDVSA. That ruling was upheld at a full hearing in New York on February 13th.
Mr Chávez responded, not for the first time, by threatening to halt oil exports to the United States. These run at around 1.2m barrels a day (b/d) and represent about three-quarters of Venezuela's total export earnings. Under Mr Chávez, Venezuela's economy has become heavily dependent on imports, especially of food. Few believe he can afford to implement his threat, and the oil price rose only slightly.
Not so PDVSA's bonds, whose value dipped sharply on investors' fears that lenders may face a higher risk of eventual default. On the face of things, that makes little sense. With around $100 billion in assets worldwide, including refineries in the United States, the Caribbean and Europe, PDVSA can easily pay any compensation award, which is unlikely to total more than $6 billion at most.
But there are many signs that the once-mighty PDVSA may be running short of cash. Since January 8th, for instance, its customers have been required to settle their bills eight days after shipment, rather than 30 days after receipt, as is customary. By the end of the month it was offering eight super-tanker loads of fuel oil at below market price for cash. In 2007 the company's debt burden rose from under $4 billion to over $16 billion. The uncertainty caused by the Exxon dispute means its borrowing costs may rise.
PDVSA is no longer just an oil producer. Mr Chávez has made it into what Elie Habalian, a former Venezuelan governor of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), calls a “parallel state”. The company has transferred billions of dollars to funds controlled by the president, and directly finances and runs a range of social projects. “There's a ministry of education—but PDVSA educates too,” says Mr Habalian. “There's a housing ministry, but PDVSA builds houses, and so on.” In response to shortages of basic foodstuffs, last month Mr Chávez ordered PDVSA to create a new subsidiary to distribute food, most of it imported.
At the same time, PDVSA's investment spending has been slashed, leading to a decline in oil output, the motor of the economy, for ten consecutive quarters, according to José Guerra, a former Central Bank director. A much-trumpeted government plan to increase oil production to 5m b/d by 2012 does not seem to have got off the ground. Officials claim that daily production is holding steady at over 3m barrels, but other sources (including OPEC) put the figure at less than 2.5m, and falling. Venezuelans use more oil themselves, thanks to a consumer boom and Mr Chávez's reluctance to raise the price of petrol. Officially, consumption is 600,000 b/d; it may be a third higher, reckons Ramón Espinaza, a former chief economist for PDVSA. Meanwhile, Mr Chávez is shipping 300,000 b/d to Caribbean neighbours (notably Cuba) at subsidised prices.
No important new deposits have been found since the president took office in 1999. Officials admit that PDVSA is short of drilling rigs for exploration (though Mr Chávez recently loaned two rigs to Ecuador). Much therefore hangs on the development of the Orinoco belt, with its estimated 250 billion barrels of heavy crude. But many of the companies recently invited (without competitive tender) to take part in these projects are state-owned outfits from countries, such as Iran and Belarus, whose governments are friends with Mr Chávez; most lack both the expertise and the financial muscle to develop them.
Several years of high and rising oil prices, along with PDVSA's policy of secrecy, have helped conceal its difficulties. With a slowing world economy making a further rise in the oil price unlikely in the short term, concealment will get harder. Waiting in the wings is ConocoPhillips, with a compensation demand much higher than that of Exxon. Venezuela's oil company will “fall apart the moment that prices drop to realistic levels,” Mr Habalian says. Unless he changes course, so might Mr Chávez's government.
Back in the day, I used to visit Venezuela while Int'l Editor of the Oil Daily with Jim Tanner, the fabled oil editor of the Wall Street Journal. The joke then was that PDVSA was an Italian arm of the country of "Little Venice." Now it appears the latest "caudillo" foisted on the Ven people is turning the oil company into a parallel state-within-a-state. My Ven experts, who are populating Westonzuela in Miami-Dade County at a rapid rate, tell me that the army despises the little mestizo and he must count on PdVSA to balance against elements in the military who want him gone---with extreme prejudice.
Even EU-Mandarinate Questions Ethanol & other Biofuels
Ethanol made with corn [maize] is widely seen as a political scam by farm-belt states to boost the price per bushel. Hence Bob Dole was called the Senator from Archer-Daniel Midlands behind his back. Here's a tidbit on how the ever-so-politically-correct Euroweenies are sorting it out:
Even the much more cost-effective Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane costs close to the petroleum equivalent, and US corn-based ethanol costs more to make than it delivers in BTUs. God gave the Euros an attitude, but little natural resource bases onshore except coal.
And the US is the Saudi Arabia of coal.
ARE WE living at a high point of support for biofuels, at least in Europe, as a means of tackling climate change? The signs are pointing that way. Officially, the 27 nations of the European Union are still committed to a (wildly ambitious) target of using fuel from plants to provide 10% of all the fuel needs of EU's transport sector by 2020 (biofuels account for about 2% of transport fuel at the moment, and even that is concentrated in a handful of countries).
The agriculture lobby remains gung-ho for this target, part of the wider EU climate change package agreed with much fanfare last March. Whole swathes of central Europe are turning yellow, as farmers ramp up production of oilseed rape, with a view to selling to biodiesel manufacturers.
But the chorus of dissenting voices is not just growing, it is changing in nature. At first, the main opposition came from NGOs and environmental groups, worrying that biofuels were not as green as they were cracked up to be, and backed by a number of scientists. Then the scientific credentials of the doubters started to improve, with some serious journals publishing worrying findings about previously unsuspected indirect damage caused by planting biofuel crops on grasslands, or scrubby areas.
Last month, a leaked report by scientists from the European Commission's own research body said there was it was impossible to say with any reasonable degree of certainty that biofuels actually saved on greenhouse gas emissions. The same month, a House of Commons committee in Britain came out against biofuels. Now, it emerges that the British government is launching a major review of biofuels, and whether they do any good. The review comes from the transport ministry, and the wording of its announcement makes pretty clear that the government is having second thoughts about the whole EU target.
According to the British government announcement:
"A number of new research papers have come out in recent weeks and months (including in particular a recent article in Science magazine "Use of US croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse gas emissions through emissions from land use change") which suggest that the indirect impacts of biofuel production have not always been taken into account in earlier carbon saving calculations."
Officially, the European Commission (under heavy pressure from farmer-friendly nations in the block), is still keen on the biofuels target. But leaders left themselves a get-out clause when they agreed the plan last year. The biofuels target kicks in only if environmentally sustainable biofuels are available. The commission and the current holders of the EU rotating presidency, Slovenia, are reportedly working on sustainability criteria at the moment. Expect serious horse-trading, and much lobbying, as those criteria are worked out: the way they are worded will probably make some forms of fuel viable in the EU, and others not. Battlecamps are already forming. There is the biodiesel lobby, the lobby for buying ethanol from hot and sunny places like Brazil, the lobby for palm oil from Asia, and all the rest of them.
It would not be astonishing if Britain ended up leading one of the opposing factions in this debate. As a big country that likes to think of itself as a leader, generally, in the climate change debate, it is also run by a government that is pretty deaf to appeals from its domestic farming lobby.
If this reporter had to make a prediction, the EU will still end up with some sort of biofuels target, because the farm lobby in Europe is so powerful, but it will not be anything close to 10%. Talking to an official about all this today, they made the good point that any big cut in the biofuel target would cause another, follow-on problem, because it would put the transport sector under pressure to find another way to cut greenhouse gas emissions. We have not heard the last of this.
Even the much more cost-effective Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane costs close to the petroleum equivalent, and US corn-based ethanol costs more to make than it delivers in BTUs. God gave the Euros an attitude, but little natural resource bases onshore except coal.
And the US is the Saudi Arabia of coal.
US Elections All Part of a French Plot? Or Vice Versa?
French President Sarkozy is either masterminding American politics, or remarkably prescient:
A bon chat, bon rat.
AS Barack Obama widens his lead over Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination, it is worth recalling a trip that Nicolas Sarkozy made to Washington DC in September 2006. That visit is remembered in France mostly for the photograph that Sarkozy managed to arrange of himself with George Bush at the White House. He was then the French interior minister, and not even officially a presidential candidate, so for him it was a real coup. For the French back at home, however, it was baffling: why did Sarkozy want to cosy up to a leader widely reviled in France?
What is less well-known about the trip is who else he met. I've just looked up the official programme that I brought back, as one of the journalists accompanying him on that visit, to make sure my memory isn't playing tricks. Besides other members of the Bush administration, while in Washington Sarkozy met only two other American politicians: astonishingly, they were Barack Obama and John McCain.
According to my hastily scribbled notes from the time, after Sarkozy met the American senator in his office on Capitol Hill, Obama stood in front of us and said: "I shouldn't be predicting French elections, but I've been following the minister's career, and I know that he has a good opportunity to lead France in the future."
In Paris-Match magazine recently, Obama recalled that visit, and promised to return the favour if he won the nomination. It looks as though both had impressive foresight, or at the very least were well advised. That Sarkozy picked two men, neither of whom at the time were front-runners as presidential candidates, is pretty remarkable. I suspect that it reflects the advice of Jean-David Levitte, French ambassador to Washington at the time and in charge of Sarkozy's schedule for that trip; he is now Sarkozy's diplomatic adviser at the Elysée in Paris.
A bon chat, bon rat.
UMiami Stuns Duke Blue Devils 96-95
Duke committed 23 turnovers en route to a loss to U of Miami in Coral Gables. Miami's slim hopes for an NCAA invitation to the 64-team big dance stayed alive with the win.
Bob Bennett Refutes NYT McCain Smear: Jon Stewart Tells Larry King Dead Story Sux
McCain doesn't need to worry much as serendipitously the huge audience of Hannity/OtherWeirdDud had booked Robert Bennett to tout his new book. Democrat Legal Beagle Bennett had been Chief Counsel to the hilarious oxymoron known as the Senate Ethics Committee when the original Keating Five investigation came up over twenty years ago. Bennett found that Republican McCain & Dem John Glenn were not involved enough to prosecute---leaving three Democrats [DeConcini, Riegle, Et Al] to sleuth after. Since the Dem Senate didn't want to prosecute or investigate its own criminals, the three presumably guilty Dems were let off the hook. Bennett says this is the only time such an event has ever occurred in the Senate Ethics Committee, dropping a case after cranking it up [because a halfway-honest lawyer was Dem Counsel].
Bennett called the story a complete smear based on anonymous sources.
Jon Stewart all but told Larry King when abruptly presented with the breaking news that the McCains were "fine people" and the NYT had "used up its integrity capital" or some words like that.
When two leftish types agree that the Gray Lady is an over-the-hill hooker, that's a notable day for truth, justice, and the American way.
Bennett called the story a complete smear based on anonymous sources.
Jon Stewart all but told Larry King when abruptly presented with the breaking news that the McCains were "fine people" and the NYT had "used up its integrity capital" or some words like that.
When two leftish types agree that the Gray Lady is an over-the-hill hooker, that's a notable day for truth, justice, and the American way.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
NYT Downloads Toxic Sludge on McCain, Rielle Hunter Still Preggers
Liberal Death Star has devolved or "suffered a declension" as historians once put it, to a nadir where being used in an outhouse as backwipe paper suits it best.
The toxic-waste dump on the Hudson unloads its entire cargo of sludge into the political slipstream, hoping that some will stick to McCain.
Nothing new here, nothing McCain has to respond to. Capt. John has more integrity in his left pinkie cuticle than most Senators, and far more than the loathesome spouse of Bubba, whose high negatives have earned her an "also ran" in the history textbooks. She earned those negatives over her years of "public service. Now that she's road kill, Obama's path ahead only has McCain to avoid.
Will someone at the NYT use the superior investigative journalists at the National Inquirer to ascertain just when Rielle Hunter is coming to term with John Edward's baby?
And Michelle may not keep getting away with her Omarosa moments much longer. She seems to have a chip on her shoulder & Barack could be harmed if she doesn't mind her tongue.
The toxic-waste dump on the Hudson unloads its entire cargo of sludge into the political slipstream, hoping that some will stick to McCain.
Nothing new here, nothing McCain has to respond to. Capt. John has more integrity in his left pinkie cuticle than most Senators, and far more than the loathesome spouse of Bubba, whose high negatives have earned her an "also ran" in the history textbooks. She earned those negatives over her years of "public service. Now that she's road kill, Obama's path ahead only has McCain to avoid.
Will someone at the NYT use the superior investigative journalists at the National Inquirer to ascertain just when Rielle Hunter is coming to term with John Edward's baby?
And Michelle may not keep getting away with her Omarosa moments much longer. She seems to have a chip on her shoulder & Barack could be harmed if she doesn't mind her tongue.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Wisconsin Primary Forty Years Ago
William Kristol makes a semi-disparaging remark about finding an Orwell classic in a Milwaukee airport bookstore, as the cosmopolitan disdain almost drips from the New Yorkese columnists lips.
Kristol doesn't realize that the average Wisconsin native is probably more widely and more quantitatively read than citizens of the black Gotham he lives in and writes from. But I digress....
Forty years ago, I was a grad student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on a draft deferment. I was very anti-war and joined the Students for McCarthy [Gene] and due to the fact that I was ancient at the age of 26, was deemed and anointed "Head" of Students for McCarthy. Our first project was raising money for a bus to take Michigan students to actually canvass several precincts in Wisconsin, which was my native state, having been born and raised in Milwaukee's environs.
We set up buckets for contributions on The Diag, the long diagonal walk from the Engineering School past the UGLI across a huge student green where undergrads congregated on good-weather days. We were hoping for about $500 dollars to send about fifty students in a rented Trailways bus which I was delegated to rent for a four-day round trip to Milwaukee. Then the news of Gene McCarthy's stunning second-place, but-oh-so-close finish in New Hampshire and suddenly the buckets went from $15/day to $200/day and we were looking at enough money to send five busloads and over 200 "Clean For Gene" kids to Wisconsin to canvass. But where would the kids stay, who would feed them, and other logistical snarls began appearing as the project grew like Topsy.
There was no Iowa Caucus nor South Carolina primary nor any other primary after New Hampshire and before Wisconsin in those days. Nada. Rien de tout. Kein stuecke... Wisconsin suddenly loomed as the first real head-to-head front-page over-the-top confrontation between LBJ and lonely Gene McCarthy. And suddenly also, Bobby Kennedy started talking non-stop about running, and may have already announced his intention to run by the time the wheels-up roll-out to Wisconsin took place on Friday the weekend before the Tuesday voting.
By this time, I was being interviewed by Nan Robertson of the NYT and a fellow named Shumacher for ABC-TV News as the Student Rep for Clean-for-Gene Kiddie Korps legion heading for Wisconsin. The air was electric with the aura of change----more-so than anything I've seen since until Barack Obama this year......
Sunday night, my mother agreed to host a party at our Wauwatosa home for some of the McCarthy kids from Ann Arbor, who by this time were spread all over Milwaukee County and Waukesha County canvassing the urbs, suburbs, and exurbs like Waukesha and Elm Grove---a few places my memory harks to. I had a car and was constantly shuttling kids around and recall trying to find one frightened girl her crash-shack in Elm Grove for over two hours after midnight. But enough kids showed up at our house to make the party attendance close to one hundred young hungry thirsty party-party crew slurping down beer [the drinking age in Milwaukee was eighteen, unlike 21 in Michigan] and the students dug into their pockets repeatedly as I went several times to our local liquor/beer store and bought dozens of six-packs on top of a few cases for the thirsty kiddees. No carding going on in our basement....!
Finally the five buses began the return trip to Ann Arbor Sunday afternoon, as I recall, and we were at a stop near Battle Creek Michigan on I-94 in a Bob's Big Boy when the ugly mug of LBJ came on the TV screen and announced he would not be a candidate in '68 for president. THE EPIPHANY OF THE COMBINED MAGIC OF MOMENT AND MOMENTOUS VICTORY OVERWHELMED US AND THE BOB'S STAFF HAD TO EVICT US AFTER FIFTEEN MINUTES OF NON-STOP CHEERING!! As I recall. Or so it seemed.
The final three hours of the ride back to Ann Arbor were full of singing "We shall overcome" and other radical or movement hymns and ditties. The adrenaline didn't subside for days, and I was soon asked to join the McCarthy National Staff and head down to Indianapolis to staff up for the Indiana Primary where Gene and Bobby would go head-to-head for the first time.
From then on, it was an unbroken string of defeats as McCarthy lost, but not overwhelmingly, each primary that I participated in, including Indiana, Nebraska, California [where Bobby met me in Watts/Compton where I was inexplicably appointed chief organizer until a revolt by Gene's black staffers finally replaced me with, a fatal mistake, with a black woman instead of one of the black males---a woman who makes Hillary's most obnoxious distaff staffers look tame in comparison. I was made a "troubleshooter" and given a vehicle and worked out of Westwood HQ on the UCLA campus & was invited to the RFK victory celebration by Rick Grandjean---I demurred and was at the Beverly Hilton ballroom when Bobby's assassination was announced just minutes after his victory speech had been projected on a giant movie screen. Eva Marie Saint was next to me and burst into hysterical tears----a bunch of other stars including the entire cast of Mission Impossible, the #1 TV show back then, broke into tears. We were on a jet plane back to NYC when RFK's death was announced by the pilot, and slept in El Morocco Restaurant on banquettes against the zebra-skinned walls that night. I went to the funeral at St. Patrick's three days later. And then on to the Chicago Convention, where I was in the Hilton Hotel on the fifteenth floor when the Chicago cops dragged the McCarthy workers out of their rooms [mine was double-locked] and beat them up, with unforeseen consequences.
But of course, the wonderful three-day canvass of the Wisconsin Primary will always remain as a sort of Wordsworth-type
"twas bliss to be alive..." experience. Forty years ago. But only yesterday....!
Kristol doesn't realize that the average Wisconsin native is probably more widely and more quantitatively read than citizens of the black Gotham he lives in and writes from. But I digress....
Forty years ago, I was a grad student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on a draft deferment. I was very anti-war and joined the Students for McCarthy [Gene] and due to the fact that I was ancient at the age of 26, was deemed and anointed "Head" of Students for McCarthy. Our first project was raising money for a bus to take Michigan students to actually canvass several precincts in Wisconsin, which was my native state, having been born and raised in Milwaukee's environs.
We set up buckets for contributions on The Diag, the long diagonal walk from the Engineering School past the UGLI across a huge student green where undergrads congregated on good-weather days. We were hoping for about $500 dollars to send about fifty students in a rented Trailways bus which I was delegated to rent for a four-day round trip to Milwaukee. Then the news of Gene McCarthy's stunning second-place, but-oh-so-close finish in New Hampshire and suddenly the buckets went from $15/day to $200/day and we were looking at enough money to send five busloads and over 200 "Clean For Gene" kids to Wisconsin to canvass. But where would the kids stay, who would feed them, and other logistical snarls began appearing as the project grew like Topsy.
There was no Iowa Caucus nor South Carolina primary nor any other primary after New Hampshire and before Wisconsin in those days. Nada. Rien de tout. Kein stuecke... Wisconsin suddenly loomed as the first real head-to-head front-page over-the-top confrontation between LBJ and lonely Gene McCarthy. And suddenly also, Bobby Kennedy started talking non-stop about running, and may have already announced his intention to run by the time the wheels-up roll-out to Wisconsin took place on Friday the weekend before the Tuesday voting.
By this time, I was being interviewed by Nan Robertson of the NYT and a fellow named Shumacher for ABC-TV News as the Student Rep for Clean-for-Gene Kiddie Korps legion heading for Wisconsin. The air was electric with the aura of change----more-so than anything I've seen since until Barack Obama this year......
Sunday night, my mother agreed to host a party at our Wauwatosa home for some of the McCarthy kids from Ann Arbor, who by this time were spread all over Milwaukee County and Waukesha County canvassing the urbs, suburbs, and exurbs like Waukesha and Elm Grove---a few places my memory harks to. I had a car and was constantly shuttling kids around and recall trying to find one frightened girl her crash-shack in Elm Grove for over two hours after midnight. But enough kids showed up at our house to make the party attendance close to one hundred young hungry thirsty party-party crew slurping down beer [the drinking age in Milwaukee was eighteen, unlike 21 in Michigan] and the students dug into their pockets repeatedly as I went several times to our local liquor/beer store and bought dozens of six-packs on top of a few cases for the thirsty kiddees. No carding going on in our basement....!
Finally the five buses began the return trip to Ann Arbor Sunday afternoon, as I recall, and we were at a stop near Battle Creek Michigan on I-94 in a Bob's Big Boy when the ugly mug of LBJ came on the TV screen and announced he would not be a candidate in '68 for president. THE EPIPHANY OF THE COMBINED MAGIC OF MOMENT AND MOMENTOUS VICTORY OVERWHELMED US AND THE BOB'S STAFF HAD TO EVICT US AFTER FIFTEEN MINUTES OF NON-STOP CHEERING!! As I recall. Or so it seemed.
The final three hours of the ride back to Ann Arbor were full of singing "We shall overcome" and other radical or movement hymns and ditties. The adrenaline didn't subside for days, and I was soon asked to join the McCarthy National Staff and head down to Indianapolis to staff up for the Indiana Primary where Gene and Bobby would go head-to-head for the first time.
From then on, it was an unbroken string of defeats as McCarthy lost, but not overwhelmingly, each primary that I participated in, including Indiana, Nebraska, California [where Bobby met me in Watts/Compton where I was inexplicably appointed chief organizer until a revolt by Gene's black staffers finally replaced me with, a fatal mistake, with a black woman instead of one of the black males---a woman who makes Hillary's most obnoxious distaff staffers look tame in comparison. I was made a "troubleshooter" and given a vehicle and worked out of Westwood HQ on the UCLA campus & was invited to the RFK victory celebration by Rick Grandjean---I demurred and was at the Beverly Hilton ballroom when Bobby's assassination was announced just minutes after his victory speech had been projected on a giant movie screen. Eva Marie Saint was next to me and burst into hysterical tears----a bunch of other stars including the entire cast of Mission Impossible, the #1 TV show back then, broke into tears. We were on a jet plane back to NYC when RFK's death was announced by the pilot, and slept in El Morocco Restaurant on banquettes against the zebra-skinned walls that night. I went to the funeral at St. Patrick's three days later. And then on to the Chicago Convention, where I was in the Hilton Hotel on the fifteenth floor when the Chicago cops dragged the McCarthy workers out of their rooms [mine was double-locked] and beat them up, with unforeseen consequences.
But of course, the wonderful three-day canvass of the Wisconsin Primary will always remain as a sort of Wordsworth-type
"twas bliss to be alive..." experience. Forty years ago. But only yesterday....!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Robert Fisk Freaks Out on a Writer Worse than He is.
Robert Fisk is a notorious Brit auto-hater and has at one point joined blogosphere language for a verb meaning "bogus" or "inaccurate," as his Arab-loving, West-hating pieces are chock-ful1 of rumor, innuendo, and plain BS.
But he does get his snoot out of joint when someone writes a book even worse than his spurious prose and puts "Robert Fisk" on it as the author. Click the link & see him get his dander up.
But he does get his snoot out of joint when someone writes a book even worse than his spurious prose and puts "Robert Fisk" on it as the author. Click the link & see him get his dander up.
Denmark Happy as It Burns---60 Minutes Morley Safer Says
Denmark
has experienced eight [8] nights in a row of firebombing in its Islamic neighborhoods.
Hilariously, last night 60 Minutes had Canadian fraud Morley Safer spew his unctious potty-mouth on a how bad the USA is about human services [on a piece concerning how "happy" Denmark comes up in a world-wide poll].
We should send that spurious joker to Denmark and have him live in a Muslim neighborhood with the ragheads. Bet he'd skedaddle back stateside in an instant.
60 Minutes again outed as a completely anti-American liberal robo-spew auto-massage vibrator.
[Of course, those nasty cartoons of the M-prophet were not noted, as that would be journalism, and sybarite Morley stays away from journalism.]
has experienced eight [8] nights in a row of firebombing in its Islamic neighborhoods.
Hilariously, last night 60 Minutes had Canadian fraud Morley Safer spew his unctious potty-mouth on a how bad the USA is about human services [on a piece concerning how "happy" Denmark comes up in a world-wide poll].
We should send that spurious joker to Denmark and have him live in a Muslim neighborhood with the ragheads. Bet he'd skedaddle back stateside in an instant.
60 Minutes again outed as a completely anti-American liberal robo-spew auto-massage vibrator.
[Of course, those nasty cartoons of the M-prophet were not noted, as that would be journalism, and sybarite Morley stays away from journalism.]
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Harold Ickes is a Lying P.O.S.
Hillary Clinton is surrounded by people of low character and dubious morals, as her lying cheating husband typifies. People like Grunwald and Penn and Wolfson simply are hacks who deserve banishment into political limbo.
But Harold Ickes is a special case. Way back in the day I worked for him in the N.Y. Primary out of a Columbus Circle office. I was sent by Ickes with young John Podesta as my assistant to work in the most conservative state district in New York, we were told, Bay Ridge where the Norwegian population almost outnumbered Oslo and the shipping magnates had huge palatial estates facing the Verrazano Bridge.
Back then, Ickes was touted as a Karl Rove of the left. However, his skill level never exceeded mediocre and his nasty personal politics left him the perpetual bridesmaid as the Democrats again and again missed the brass ring. And when they did succeed, as in '92, much more talented and personable types like John Podesta were elevated to the senior levels, while Ickes was relegated to a backstairs junkyard dog role doing summary executions, carving up the political cadavers, and disposing of them with his customary ruthlessness.
I'm happy to see him still out there punching while the media barely conceal their contempt for this nasty piece of work. It's no secret the media despises Ickes:
My guess is that even if Hillary were somehow to lie, cheat, and finagle her way to get the Democratic nomination through the dirty tricks of scumbags like Ickes, she would not win the general election.
And in the ultra-remote possibility she won, Ickes would once again be kept in the back room, unlike his distinguished father who served as FDR's Secretary of the Interior.
You really want to keep sausage-making gurus like Ickes behind the scenes...
But Harold Ickes is a special case. Way back in the day I worked for him in the N.Y. Primary out of a Columbus Circle office. I was sent by Ickes with young John Podesta as my assistant to work in the most conservative state district in New York, we were told, Bay Ridge where the Norwegian population almost outnumbered Oslo and the shipping magnates had huge palatial estates facing the Verrazano Bridge.
Back then, Ickes was touted as a Karl Rove of the left. However, his skill level never exceeded mediocre and his nasty personal politics left him the perpetual bridesmaid as the Democrats again and again missed the brass ring. And when they did succeed, as in '92, much more talented and personable types like John Podesta were elevated to the senior levels, while Ickes was relegated to a backstairs junkyard dog role doing summary executions, carving up the political cadavers, and disposing of them with his customary ruthlessness.
I'm happy to see him still out there punching while the media barely conceal their contempt for this nasty piece of work. It's no secret the media despises Ickes:
Ickes also said Clinton didn't vote on the DNC rules. But Ickes did. And he voted in August to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates as a sitting member of the Rules and Bylaws Commission.
“There’s been no change,” Ickes said, adding that he was then acting as a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee “not acting as an agent of Sen. Clinton. We had promulgated rules -- if Florida and Michigan violated those rules” they’d be stripped of their delegates. “We stripped them of all their delegates in order to prevent campaigns to campaign in those states.”
In fact, however, that was not why Florida and Michigan were stripped of their delegates. They were stripped of their delegates because they violated party rules by moving up their contest dates before Feb. 5. A pledge to not campaign in those states did not come about until one was put forward by the four early states allowed to go before Feb. 5 by the DNC -- Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. Clinton was the last to sign this pledge.
“Those were the rules, and we thought we had an obligation to enforce them,” Ickes acknowledged today on the call even while trying to convince members of the media that Florida’s and Michigan’s delegations should not only be seated at the convention, but should also have full voting rights and that delegates should be allocated based on voting that took place in those states -- even though in Michigan, Obama’s name did not even appear on the ballot and uncommitted got 41% of the vote to Clinton’s 55%.
My guess is that even if Hillary were somehow to lie, cheat, and finagle her way to get the Democratic nomination through the dirty tricks of scumbags like Ickes, she would not win the general election.
And in the ultra-remote possibility she won, Ickes would once again be kept in the back room, unlike his distinguished father who served as FDR's Secretary of the Interior.
You really want to keep sausage-making gurus like Ickes behind the scenes...
Indian Head Highway Smashup Kills Seven
The midnight drag race that killed seven last night took place on Hwy 210 or Indian Head Hwy, just south of where I lived for two years in Ft. Washington MD. The folks 'round Accokeek sort of reek of trailer-park chic. These would be descendents of the side that lost the Civil War, though they lived north of the Potomac. Now that high school football season is over....
One of the victims was an adult male, 61 yrs. old. Should've been home watching the Wizards or Jay Leno.
Strangely, my only memory of Accokeek is riding a bicycle down the Indian Head Hwy and coming across a large turtle with a cracked shell still crawling down a side road. Also, the male Maltese father of our dog Dexter, named after Dexter Manly, lived near Accokeek. As the mother of our cat Dumpling lived near DeKalb IL before we bought her as a kitten [Marengo, to be exact].
Life goes on within you and without you.
One of the victims was an adult male, 61 yrs. old. Should've been home watching the Wizards or Jay Leno.
Strangely, my only memory of Accokeek is riding a bicycle down the Indian Head Hwy and coming across a large turtle with a cracked shell still crawling down a side road. Also, the male Maltese father of our dog Dexter, named after Dexter Manly, lived near Accokeek. As the mother of our cat Dumpling lived near DeKalb IL before we bought her as a kitten [Marengo, to be exact].
Life goes on within you and without you.
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