Accidental Blogger

More than the cup you crave

A small news item in today's local paper caught my eye. In these hard economic times, a coffee shop in Maine has won the battle with the local city council to employ topless wait persons to boost sales. (The G-rated video here)

VASSALBORO, Maine  — Cup size has more than one meaning at a new central Maine coffeehouse.

Servers are topless at the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop, which opened its doors Monday on a busy road in Vassalboro. A sign outside says, “Over 18 only.” Another says, “No cameras, no touching, cash only.”

On Tuesday, two men sipped coffee at a booth while three topless waitresses and a bare-chested waiter stood nearby. Topless waitress Susie Wiley said men, women and couples have stopped by.

The coffee shop raised the ire of dozens of residents when it went before the town planning board last month. Town officials said the coffee shop met the letter of the law.

Capitalizing on the female anatomy to sell consumer items from cars to cruises is not remarkable. Topless women serving food and beverages to attract hungry men are not uncommon either. What drew my attention to this little story is the presence of the bare chested male waiter. Is that a selling point too?  Does the sight of well sculpted manly pectorals act as an appetite enhancer - for women and gay men, for example? Or is the man shirtless only to prove gender equality so that the cafe is not accused of exploiting female sexuality?  It looks like the latter to me. If the man were also a sexual selling point on an equal footing with the women, why does the sanitized video show the female employee covered up for the cameras while the young man at the coffee machine is blithely bare?  

Where in the world is Dubya?

Just over a month ago George W. Bush, our most incompetent president in recent memory became a private citizen.  Mr. and Mrs. Bush have moved to their new home in an upscale neighborhood of Dallas. The transition from being the most powerful man on earth to a Texas suburbanite must take some work. I was wondering what George Bush must be up to now that the boxes have been unpacked and he has had time to get familiarized with the new digs (Bush had not seen his new home before moving in). Laura Bush told ABC News that she and her husband are settling in and gradually finding the rhythm of their new life. I believe Mrs Bush when she says that the newspaper is not being delivered on time and that she has had to do little cooking, with friends bringing over food. But I do not believe that she simply forgot to watch President Obama's address to the nation and the joint session of Congress last Tuesday.

After years of having everything they wanted right at their finger tips, the Bushes are finding that sometimes the little things are the most difficult to get.

"The only thing we don't have are the newspapers. It has been slow to get The Dallas Morning News delivered," she said. "People bring the newspaper to us later in the day. It's just not being delivered yet."

Despite the lack of newspaper delivery at their new home, the former first lady said they are keeping up with the news back in the nation's capital but they certainly are not operating on Washington's clock.  In fact, Mrs. Bush said she did not watch President Obama's address to Congress on Tuesday night because she "totally forgot about it."

"The next day I thought it was so ironic that for eight years I would be a nervous wreck before the State of the Union, and for days before, as George would be preparing his speech, worried about it and thinking about what was going to be in the speech. And this time it came and went and I didn't even think about it."

Forgot?  More likely she deliberately avoided it knowing what a painful contrast it would be to listen to a coherent presidential speech after the eight years of drivel that her clueless husband had dished out. And what has George Bush been doing in retirement? Well, it is reported that he is looking for a "play group" in his new neighborhood of Preston Hollow. [link: Sujatha]

Open house at Pershing Elementary on Wednesday drew a dozen Preston Hollow-area parents to check out the prospects for their children. But the Dallas school's most prominent visitors didn't have any kids in tow. Only Secret Service agents.

George and Laura Bush have been little more than rumors the last few months, fleeting glimpses behind tinted windows of big, black Suburbans. But the kids got a first-hand look Wednesday when their new neighbors took a tour. 

The Bushes were scheduled to visit three classes but popped in on any room with an audience.

Ducking in one room, Bush asked, "Hey, kids, do you know who I am?"

Gasps all around, then someone blurted, "George Washington!"

"That's right!" the visitor said. "George Washington Bush!"

Well, the middle initial was the same, anyway.

In a dual-language class, Bush tried to introduce himself in Spanish. But it came off a little too twangy. He tried again. Blank looks. Even held up three fingers. You know, a "W." Still nothing.

Finally, Pershing's energetic principal, Margie Hernandez, stepped in with a proper Spanish introduction.

Ohhhhhhh.

The kids laughed. The former president laughed. The principal laughed, out of relief, mostly.

So much for the ex-president and his wife. At least they can look forward to an idyllic retirement. The disgruntled cadre of right wing followers they have left behind on the other hand, are in the mood for an armed revolution!

  

Something called "volcano monitoring" (Joe)

What on earth was Bobby Jindal thinking?  Even for Republicans, this is off the deep end.  We shouldn't spend money monitoring volcano activity because if they explode with no warning hey man it's cool, potentially thousands of dead people and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property is no biggie.  I know that advanced warning of Hurricane Katrina didn't do as much good as it could have when it hit Jindal's state because of government incompetence, but seriously?  That's not a winner.  No one wants to see people becoming one with a flood of molten rock.

Boneheads

George W. Bush's aristocratic family boasted several dedicated Yalies, many of whom were members of Yale University's ultra secret Skull and Bones Society, home to a number of movers and shakers of America's establishment ruling class. A decades old adventure of one Bonesman Bush is now the basis for a modern day lawsuit. George Bush's grandfather Prescott Bush is said to have robbed the grave of the famous Apache leader Geronimo, for his "skull and bones" as a treasured prize for the  eponymous secretive fraternity. It is tempting to speculate that the same arrogance that plagued the grave-robbing Bush ancestor, may have manifested itself as an atavistic trait in his frat boy grandson whose monumental prank as president nearly turned the nation of Iraq into a graveyard. Geronimo  the warrior, who spent his life fighting against occupiers, can't even turn over in his own grave.  

They claim his body was taken by members of Skull and Bones, a secret student society, and are hidden at Yale University.

George W Bush's grandfather and two other members of the group are said to have taken the remains of the Apache warrior Geronimo during the First World War.

However, the society's repeated refusal to comment on the story, or on rumours that new members have to kiss the chief's skull, have prompted the extraordinary lawsuit.

In a court action that names not only Yale and the society, but also Barack Obama and Robert Gates, his defence secretary, 20 descendants of the famous American Indian leader are seeking to recover his remains so his spirit can be laid to rest in his tribal homeland.

Their legal action, filed this week in a federal-district court in Washington DC on the 100th anniversary of his death, will seek to determine the truth of rumours that Geronimo's burial at Fort Sill in Oklahoma was not his final resting place.

Three Bonesmen, including Prescott Bush, served at Fort Sill during the First World War.

The trio were rumoured to have dug up Geronimo's remains in 1918 and took some of them back to Yale where they are supposedly still kept in the society's hall – known as the "Tomb" – on the university campus.

The Skull and Bones, whose illustrious membership has numbered three US presidents including both Bushes, supposedly makes new members kiss the Chiricahua Apache's skull.

Then there is Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania whose right wing blather no longer reverberates on the senate floor but is unfortunately still to be heard on the speaking circuit where he continues to spread fear and misinformation about war and peace. On a recent tour of college campuses to "present his idea that Americans do not truly understand why the United States is at war," Santorum tried to explain the conflict in the middle east to students at the University of Nebraska. Mixing politics and religion to make his case, the senator proved that he is ignorant on both fronts.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum visited the auditorium of the Nebraska Union on Tuesday to present his idea that Americans do not truly understand why the United States is at war.

Santorum is passing through the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as a part of his college campus tour on which he describes to students what he believes are the dangers in not knowing what is going on in the Middle East.

“I talk to college students because I can have an intellectual conversation, and they usually don’t agree with me,” Santorum said. “I like to state my case (to students) and let them decide who to believe.”

Santorum was a member of the United States Senate from 1994-2007. He believes that the Bush administration made a huge mistake in not informing Americans exactly what’s happening with the wars and who America is fighting. He said the Obama administration is making the same mistake.

“America has little information and Bush went out of his way to mystify who the enemy really is,” Santorum said. “Is that true, are we really fighting ‘terrorists?’”

Santorum also gave the audience a lecture on Islam. When he asked the audience who knew the difference between the Sunnis and the Shi’ites, three audience members raised their hands. Santorum said this proved his point – America has been at war with Islam for seven years and doesn’t know the two branches.

Santorum said he supported the war when it was unpopular because he thinks not fighting could destroy western civilization. He said he believes that Muslims are America’s enemy because they read their religion literally and apply it to real life, instead of in historical context.

The lecture continued when Santorum pointed out what he thought were the main differences between Christians and Muslims. Santorum said Christians, who believe in Jesus Christ, never governed or conquered anyone, but Mohammed was a warrior and killed people.

Santorum said he believes Muslims’ religious views cannot be changed or altered, so Middle Easterners reject American, democratic ideals.

“A democracy could not exist because Mohammed already made the perfect law,” Santorum said. “The Quran is perfect just the way it is, that’s why it is only written in Islamic.” (emphasis mine)

Someone needs to inform the senator that the Quran is NOT written in Islamic. Just as the New Testament is not written in the Christian language, the Torah in Jewish, the Gita in Hindu ... nor by the way, the US Constitution in American. And also, Santorum conveniently forgot Christianity's messy Crusades, Inquistion and colonialism.  

Name that fallacy... (Joe)

In a New York Times op-ed, the co-authors (one for same-sex marriage, one against) propose the obvious compromise: replace the federal Defense of Marriage Act with something slightly less beastly, and moderately less constitutionally infirm.  Basically, federal civil-union or domestic-partnership law.  Same-sex couples still can't get the name marriage for federal purposes, but they can get the civil benefits offered by the federal government if they are given marriage or civil-union status under state law.  (To be fair, the more obvious compromise [still beastly, but less so, and no longer constitutionally infirm] would be full-fledged federal civil-union law: same-sex couples are guaranteed the right to create civil unions, period.)

Anyhow, I support same-sex marriage because I'm not a horrible person, but as a political matter, federal recognition of civil unions is certainly worth talking about, and is a plausibly reasonable compromise.  What bugs me about this op-ed is that they think federal legislation here should include a "condition":

Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill.

This seems to come up a lot: "We need protection for religious freedom, laws creating same-sex marriage could force churches to change religious doctrine!"  This is flatly ridiculous.  I believe it's what you would call a red herring, although I could be wrong on that -- my philosophy days are long behind me.  My law days, however, are not, and it's clear that discussion of religious-freedom exceptions both distracts from real issues and gets people worrying about something which is actually impossible.

The First Amendment protects the freedom of religion, forbidding state establishment of religion as well as state infringement on the free exercise of religion.  As a factual matter, I am not aware of any state with same-sex marriage which has purported to require religious recognition of same-sex civil marriages (nor am I aware of any state without same-sex civil marriage which recognizes, for civil purposes, same-sex religious marriage).  More important, as a constitutional matter, neither a state nor the federal government could do so.  If the First Amendment means anything, it means that religious organizations cannot be forced by government to recognize same-sex marriage.  (There are also judicial doctrines, such as the ministerial exception, which protect the freedom of religious organizations and preclude judicial inquiry on marginal issues such as employment discrimination.)

This type of sophistry, even if well-intentioned, in fact distracts from any real debatable issues and functions to get the socially conservative base riled up.  I'm sick of hearing about the need for statutory protection of religious freedom, which falsely makes it seem as if that protection is not existent and fully secure.  Church-state separation on this issue is probably as doubt-free as anything in the Bill of Rights.  So let's stop talking about it as if it's even debatably in need of aid, okay?

A brave little tank defends itself against a menacing twelve year old. (Joe)

Who could have known that I would agree with the mysterious Fafblog! author -- or in this case, specifically the Medium Lobster -- on the subject of Israeli self-defense?  I know, it seems unlikely.  Still, here we are.

A lesser nation might have wavered in the face of a merciless Palestinian onslaught of pleading and stump-waving, but Israel realizes this is a war between good and evil, right and wrong, civilization and those too poor to afford civilization. True, it's far from a fair fight - Israel has a mere three hundred nuclear warheads while the Palestinians have countless rocks to throw - but somehow the pluck and determination of this scrappy regional superpower has prevailed over the deadly horde of orphans, beggars and amputees who threaten to live next to it.

Israel's critics will forever bicker over the spilled milk of Israeli policy - a few thousand homes demolished here, a few thousand corpses over there - but we must allow that Israel has a right to defend itself, and we must also allow that defending itself necessarily entails the indiscriminate bombing of thousands of screaming refugees. After all, if an implacable terrorist enemy had been launching rockets at one of your villages, wouldn't you do everything in your power to stop them? And once those same implacable terrorist enemies agreed to a cease-fire, wouldn't you break that cease-fire by bombing them and their families, reasoning that they are, after all, implacable terrorist enemies, and not to be trusted? And when you went to bomb those terrorists and their families, wouldn't you also bomb everyone and everything around them, reasoning that only a terrorist would live near, go to school with, or be hospitalized in the same vicinity as a terrorist? And when you went to bomb everything around them, wouldn't you be sure to plan that bombing months before the event that nominally precipitated it? And before planning that massive bombing campaign, wouldn't you be sure to cut the entire population off from terrorist food, militant medicine, and jihadist electricity for months in advance? And when that population retaliated against your pre-retaliation retaliation by launching rockets at one of your villages, wouldn't that merely confirm their nature as implacable terrorist enemies who must be destroyed at any cost?

. . . As much as we might all yearn for peace, history has shown that Palestinians understand only violence. Well, violence and Arabic, but Arabic is notoriously difficult to learn, while most of us can become fluent in violence in just under a semester.

It is indeed difficult to argue with the notion that Israeli self-defense "necessarily entails the indiscriminate bombing of thousands of screaming refugees."

Will Obama's Stimulus Package Be Big Enough? (Andrew)

I sure hope so -- but the book I reviewed in this week's Observer suggests that the big problem in the Depression was that aggressive deficit spending didn't go far enough to overcome the fear and pessimism of bankers, workers, and employers. 

The book reminds me of one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's notes: "My estimate of America, which sometimes runs very low, and sometimes to ideal, prophetic proportions.  My estimate of my own mental means and resources is all or nothing: in happy hours, life looking infinitely rich; and sterile at others."

The gyrations between perhaps irrational exuberance and deep self-loathing that Emerson saw in himself and in his country seem very widely shared among Americans in our time.  For one tiny example, check out the "black panther" in the Observer comments section who concluded from the review that the fall of capitalism and World War III are upon us.

The Mom Song

With my children all grown up, I no longer have the opportunity to sing the Mom-Song on a regular basis. But the Wife-Song I sing for my husband (to his great chagrin), sometimes sounds awfully close to it. (thanks to Razib for uploading the video on You Tube and my friend Nancy for sending me the original link)

A-Rod! (Joe)

I want to comment on Alex Rodriguez, who, you've surely heard by now, was part of the steroids-in-baseball conspiracy, which seeks to dishonor a game in which grown men are paid millions of dollars to wear ridiculous outfits and stand around while one guy throws a little white ball to another guy and a third guy in a differently colored ridiculous outfit swings a stick at the ball and, if really good, intercepts it about 30 percent of the time. 

I actually don't have anything against baseball.  I used to enjoy watching it until the Red Sox won the World Series, at which point it became difficult to continue caring.  I do, however, have a problem the refrain, repeated ad nauseam, that A-Rod "disrespected the game" by taking performance enhancing drugs in order to secure for himself approximately $500 million in contracts handed out by the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees.  People take performance enhancing drugs in law school, but no one seems to mind.  Caffeine.  Amphetamines, only somewhat less commonly.  Sleeping pills and alcohol are even performance enhancing in their own ways.  But it's a world crisis only when athlete-entertainers take drugs that make them stronger and effectively healthier, allowing them to hit more of the home runs that spectators are always happy to see.  Yeah.

Anyhow, there are two aspects of this "scandal" that I intended to comment on when I decided to write this post.  First, A-Rod's claim that he took steroids because he was "young and stupid and naive."  It was actually an intelligent move, since it probably made him tens of millions of dollars.  But anyway, according to his official story, he took steroids from 2001 to 2003, his years in Texas -- when he was 26, 27, and 28 years old.  Again, to relate this to my own peer group, there are a lot of lawyers who are 26 years old.  Some of them even have significant decision-making responsibility.  I have a friend who's going to be a physician at age 26.  You don't get to play that card.  19 year olds are young and stupid; 26 (or 28) year olds are not.

Second, it's such an intriguing "confession."  Reporters found out that he had tested positive for a banned substance in 2003.  He could have said it was a one-time thing, but because he's so immensely unpopular, people wouldn't have been willing to accept that fiction (like they did with Andy Pettitte).  So he said that, because he had just signed a $252 million contract with Texas, he felt pressured to be at his best all the time and responded to that pressure by chemically enhancing himself.  He subsequently admitted that he injected himself with something (which he knew was "not Tic Tacs"; people are giving him grief over not naming which particular steroid it was, again, because he's unpopular) two times per month during those three years.  That's an unprecedented confession.  It's positively huge.  That's a lot of doping!  And three years, in response to pressure, is believable, right?  Except that, no, it's not, because it's unfathomable that a baseball player would NOT do anything when he's 25 and about to become a free agent and hoping to sign a contract for hundreds of millions of dollars, but WOULD take steroids after signing for a guaranteed $252 million.  I would bet my iPod that he was juicing while in Seattle.  Seriously, I'd bet it against a Diet Coke, and feel comfortable with that bet. 

He obviously said what his agent and his lawyer and his other people (whoever they may be) told him to say.  But why did they tell him to admit to only those three years?  He confessed to a lot, but won't even gain credibility points because of the way he did it.  So either he should have said that he also took steroids before those three years in Texas, or he should have just said "I took steroids; the report of a positive test is accurate. I apologize to my fans" and left it at that.  I just think this is fascinating.  Alex Rodriguez admitted much more misconduct than any other professional athlete ever has, and yet he's being attacked by columnists (who have praised those other athletes for their own forced, incomplete disclosures) for not being forthcoming enough.  He admitted to more than the reporters had evidence of in order to make his story believable, and as a result no one believes his story.  How does this happen?

Belief in evolution can turn you into a serial killer!

Astounding? No, not according to some anti-evolution, Intelligent Design proponents like Kelly J. Coghlan whose op-ed piece appeared in Houston Chronicle's opinion page last Sunday.

Jeffrey Dahmer, America’s most infamous serial killer who cannibalized 17 boys before capture, gave a final interview to Dateline NBC before his death and explained: “If a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we died, you know, that was it, there was nothing….”

Wow! Jeffrey Dahmer as the expert against Charles Darwin! I am confused as to why the religious right is so focused on the theory of evolution. Is it because scientists are still debating certain aspects of it that the obscurantists feel emboldened to enter the forum with their own fond views of things? Coghlan, generously cedes ground on micro-evolution but goes ballistic when it comes to the macro part. His outburst is in response to the Texas state board of education at last becoming bold enough  to unshackle itself from religious bullies and leaning toward eliminating the "strength and weakness" approach to the teaching of evolution - the Trojan Horse of the Intelligent Designers.

In describing evolution, there are two distinct categories: Micro-evolution and Macro-evolution. Micro-evolution is defined as small changes within the same species such as bacteria becoming resistant to drugs, birds’ beaks changing size and moths changing color. It makes perfect sense that a good designer would design each creature with built-in abilities to adapt to survive. I suspect we are all micro-evolutionists. The debate before the Board is not over micro-evolution.

Macro-evolution, on the other hand, is one species becoming an entirely different species such as a fly becoming a mosquito. Science has never observed macro-evolution; neither has science observed life arising from non-living matter. The debate before the Board is whether macro-evolution and life origin should be taught without “weaknesses.” The answer is no.

The validity of  scientific theories and evidence comes to naught for the believers unless they can relate it to their deistic view of the natural world. But where is the room for conflict in their minds? I don't see it. If after all, one believes in a supreme creator / god, then everything is his /her will. Where is the problem? Why don't they just think of scientists as diligently engaged in deconstructing god's design and treat the science class room as an extension of a theology seminar?  Just leave the rest of us in peace. Problem solved. But since the obscurantists don't seem to have many quibbles with most other scientific theories that explain natural phenomena, one has to wonder about their obsession with the theory of evolution.  Could it be that it has little to do with god but everything to do with ego and their own sense of exceptionalism?  Perhaps not even the man-monkey link bothers them as much as black-white-brown equality of man does? Take a look at this news story about a right wing political cartoon and decide.   

Austin Sky Limits

A strange thing happened over the weekend in Texas. Last Sunday morning in broad daylight, a fireball appeared in the sky over Austin. Apparently, it was also visible over Houston but no one I know saw anything. People were both scared and thrilled to spot the unusual phenomenon that was "competing" with the sun, as one man observed.

Fiery debris burned through the Texas sky Sunday morning, alarming some and enchanting others but resulting in no apparent injury or damage.

From Dallas to Austin and beyond, sightings were reported of a red and orange fireball with a small black center speeding toward Earth before burning out in a trail of lingering white smoke.

Roland Herwig, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration’s southwest division, said the fireball was probably superheated debris from a broken satellite falling to Earth.

The FAA could not directly link the debris to the reported collision last week of Russian and U.S. communications satellites, however.

“It’s yet to be proved it’s those satellites,” Herwig said.

However, a spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command said the fireball spotted in the Texas skies Sunday was unrelated to the satellite collision.

Now the Federal Aviation Administration has declared that the object over Austin was an IFO (Identified Flying Object) and not UFO. Moreover it was a natural phenomenon and not the result of any activity by sentient beings, earthly or extra-terrestrial.

The fireball that blazed across the Texas sky and sparked numerous weekend calls to police agencies now can be considered an identified flying object.

The Federal Aviation Administration said today the fireball was a natural phenomenon — not flying space junk — and a North Texas astronomer said it probably was a meteor about the size of a pickup truck, with the consistency of concrete.

The FAA backed off its weekend statement that the fireball might have been caused by falling debris plummeting into Earth’s atmosphere after Tuesday's collision of two satellites from the United States and Russia.

The FAA fielded calls from across Texas on Sunday morning with sightings of a fireball in the sky. Callers also reported hearing an explosion, probably a sonic boom caused by  an object moving faster than the speed of sound, said Roland Herwig, an FAA spokesman.

A chief of staff for Mayor Bill White, Michael Moore, said a blindingly bright flash made its way across his windshield in a matter of seconds. It seemed nearby, but Moore realized it had to be closer to heaven than Earth to appear so clearly in the morning sky.

“It’s hard to compete with the sun,” said Moore.

Moore was just leaving Austin when he saw the bright blip in the sky around 11 a.m. He assumed it was an unusually large meteor.

Hmm... are they sure? Should we believe everything the government tells us?  

Still Overrated

Just in time for Presidents Day, C-Span has surveyed 65 historians for their opinion of American presidents.  Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt top the list at  #1, 2 and 3 respectively. James Buchanan ranks last. Predictably enough, George W. Bush is among the ten worst, coming in at # 36. That makes him the seventh worst president to date. But I feel that it is  still too high a position for such a dangerous and clueless man. I am convinced that Bush will slide down the list as his misdeeds and missteps are evaluated more objectively in the proper historical perspective of time and distance from his disastrous reign.

Further analysis of the survey here.

An Indian Revolutionary in Mexico

I guess to be perfectly accurate, in Mexico he was more of a "green" revolutionary - a Norman Borlaug of sorts.

This is the first time I have heard of Pandurang Khankhoje, an Indian nationalist who traveled the world seeking support for India's freedom from British rule. For a while Khankhoje settled in Mexico where he applied his training as an agricultural scientist to help Mexican farmers successfully grow sturdier varieties of corn. For his efforts and his popularity, Mexican artist Diego Rivera painted a picture of the revolutionary scientist at the head of a dinner table, sharing bread with others. Although I have seen numerous paintings by Diego Rivera, I was unaware of the painting of Khankhoje, just as I was of his life story.  (Thanks to my sister Mandira for the link to the story)

Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje, born in Wardha in 1886, was an angry young man who wanted freedom for India and dignity for Indians. He was raised on stirring tales of 1857 and was in constant trouble with the British police who had a long history sheet on him. The fiery young revolutionary had to flee India when the British spread a dragnet for him.

He became a founder-member of the Ghadar Party in America (many of whose members were executed by the British) and worked unrelentingly to gain international sympathy for the cause of India’s freedom.  Khankhoje’s adventures took him to Japan, Russia, Persia, the US and finally to Mexico, where he settled with his devoted Belgian wife, Jeanne, and had two daughters, Savitri and Maya. A stauch believer in the tenets of the Holy Gita, he started free agricultural colleges for the Mexicans, successfully experimented with varieties of corn, pioneering Mexico's ‘Green Revolution’ and was part of the country’s vibrant artistic and intellectual circle. The image (right) is of a mural by the great  Mexican artist Diego Rivera showing Khankhoje distributing bread to the nations of the world.

However, despite his busy, useful life in Mexico where he felt safe and welcome, Khankhoje pined deeply for his homeland. He saw her gain freedom and came home for good, settling in Pune, re-reading his beloved Gita and the Upanishads. He passed away in 1967. His pediatrician daughter, Savitri Sawhney, who married into the Indian Army, has written a wonderful account of her father's life, called I Shall Never Ask Pardon (Penguin India, 2008, Rs 399). This inspiring and moving Indian life story is truly worth celebrating. Here's a taste:

A skunk by any other name...

... would stink just as foul.  Blackwater, the private US security outfit of ill repute has now changed its name to "Xe" in the hope that the new title will help bury its murderous history.

Blackwater Worldwide, a private security company whose work in Iraq was plagued by trouble, said yesterday that it is changing its name to Xe as it shifts its business focus.

The company, based in Moyock, N.C., has more than a dozen business units that are owned by Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and heir to an industrial fortune. Prince grew the company over the past decade from a small firm that offered training for law enforcement and small military units to landing part of a lucrative State Department contract to provide security in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Its work in those countries was plagued with problems. In 2004, four of Blackwater's guards were ambushed by insurgents in Fallujah. The company made headlines again on Sept. 16, 2007, during a chaotic confrontation in downtown Baghdad, when Blackwater contractors allegedly shot and killed 17 Iraqis in a crowded square. That incident led to congressional inquiries and protests that it be removed from the country. Last month, the Iraqi government refused to issue a new operating license to Blackwater, and the firm is winding down its work there.

In a memo to employees, the company said its main focus will be on operating training facilities.

Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for the company, said it was changing its name because "the idea is to define the company as what it is today and not what it used to be."

"We've taken the company to a place where it is no longer accurately described as Blackwater," she said.

Tyrrell said there is no meaning to the new name, which is pronounced "zee." "It was just a choice of a name," she said. "We thought of it internally." Xe is also the chemical symbol for the element xenon...

RJ Hillhouse, a national security expert and author of the blog called The Spy Who Billed Me, said the company is "obviously trying to distance itself from their image as reckless cowboys that's etched into the world's mind from the September shooting. With a new name, "there are a lot of people who probably won't connect the dots," she said. "In a year or two, people won't remember that's Blackwater."

Valentine's Day Love Guide: Think International Relations

Forget chocolates, roses, baubles and bears. Don't fret over the perfect ambience for the candlelight dinner. Ignore Mars-Venus interpretations of the world. What you really need to pay attention to in a romantic alliance is diplomacy, negotiation and balance of power. So says Stephen M. Walt, professor of International Relations at Harvard. Believe me, as a long married person who has had to negotiate and re-negotiate terms of endearment over the years, Walt's perspective is closer to the truth than all feel-good psycho babble out there.  (via 3 Quarks Daily)

To begin with, any romantic partnership is essentially an alliance, and alliances are a core concept on international relations. Alliances bring many benefits to the members (or else why would we form them?) but as we also know, they sometimes reflect irrational passions and inevitably limit each member's autonomy. Many IR theorists believe that institutionalizing an alliance makes it more effective and enduring, but that’s also why making a relationship more formal is a significant step that needs to be carefully considered.

Of course, IR theorists have also warned that allies face the twin dangers of abandonment and entrapment: the more we fear that our partners might leave us in the lurch (abandonment), the more likely we are to let them drag us into obligations that we didn't originally foresee (entrapment). When you find yourself gamely attending your partner’s high school reunion or traveling to your in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner every single year, you’ll know what I mean.

Realists have long argued that bipolar systems are the most stable. So if any of you lovers out there are thinking of adding more major actors to the system, please reconsider. As most of us eventually learn, trying to juggle romantic relationships in a multi-polar setting usually leads to crises, and sometimes to open warfare. It's certainly not good for alliance stability.

IR theory also warns us that shifts in the balance of power are dangerous. There's an obvious warning here: relationships are more likely to have trouble if one partner's status or power changes rapidly. So that big promotion that you both celebrated may be a good thing overall, but it's likely to alter expectations and force you and your partner to make serious adjustments. The same is true if one of you gets laid off. Bottom line: it can take a lot of patience and love to work through a major shift in the balance of power within a relationship.

Ice Sailing (Joe)

Looks like fun!

Carnival of the Liberals # 84

CotL #84, the Stimulus Edition is up at Submitted to a Candid World. Please check out who is to be bailed out by Obama's nearly trillion dollar stimulus package.

Updated Train Hypo (Joe)

Neil Sinhababu has his own version of the famous train hypothetical.  Apparently it's an ethical dilemma or something.  Anyhow, he's doing "philosophical research" based on the responses that he gets -- so go participate!

My response, for those who are curious:

How can the train be empty? Even if it's not a passenger train, there's the engineer. Conductor? I dunno, the person driving it.

Anyhow, assuming that away, and assuming away the possibility that I know any of these people -- what I do is subject to change if I'm friends with some of them; I'm not sure if what I think is "right" is also subject to change -- it's easy for me. Push the button. One life versus five, it's pretty simple math.

(Actually, I'd like to know what's on the train. Would that affect what I would actually do? No. But if in the hypo we have perfect knowledge, it's possible that at some level of value wrecking the train becomes a factor along with those six people -- e.g., if it's a train full of the only known source of the cure for AIDS.)

My train-value counterfactual (or hypo?) isn't all that well thought out, obviously -- why would there be a train full of the world's supply of AIDS cure?  But I think I'd stand by the point that there comes a point at which the value of wrecking the train becomes a significant factor in the decision-making process.

(For what it's worth, despite my description of this as "simple math," I'm not a hard-line utilitarian.  I'm pretty sure, though, that I'm some sort of consequentialist.)

Buying Happiness (Joe)

Turns out, it's not a question of whether money can buy happiness (at least not directly); it's a question of what you should buy to maximize the amount of happiness purchased.  You'll buy more happiness, or maybe longer-lasting happiness, with a ski trip or concert tickets than a new big-screen TV.

It's NOT cheaper by the dozen... or Goodman and Good Sense # 7

As a concession to the grumbling GOP members of the Congress, President Obama dropped the provision for family planning and contraception for low income families from his economic stimulus package. Not that it did much to garner bipartisan support - no Republican voted for the bill.  The conservatives had argued that family planning is not a means of stimulating the economy. As usual, they are wrong. Helping low income families have fewer children may not be a direct way to boost the economy in terms of creating jobs but indirectly it is indeed a way to create prosperity by reducing costs in social services. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi points out in the article, savings too are good for the economy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi-D-Calif., appeared to sidestep the question when she was pressed over the weekend to explain how family-planning money would boost the economy or create jobs.

"Well, the family-planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost," she said on ABC.

"The states are in terrible fiscal budget crisis now, and part of it, what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements, are to help the states meet their financial needs," she said. "One of those, one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception ... will reduce cost to the state and to the federal government."

Unfortunately, in the minds of conservatives any discussion of contraception and family planning here and around the world, is inextricably linked to just one thing - abortion. Every time the matter of limiting birth rate comes up, the specter of abortion becomes front and center. In their zeal to abolish abortion, the right wing often ends up opposing funding and education for any form of birth control.  There is much to be settled in the abortion debate. However, family planning is NOT abortion. If anything, proper contraception is a deterrent to abortion, making it unnecessary.

I was born in a country where overpopulation is the single most identifiable cause of poverty, infant death, poor maternal health and malnourishment of the young. Far be it for me to dictate who should have a baby and who should not. But it doesn't take much deductive power to figure out why large numbers of children around the world are condemned to a life of need and unrealized potential. Most of them are poor and often born in families with too many mouths to feed and too many minds to nurture.  One image of a perfect (or near perfect) world that I envisage is where most, if not all babies are born to responsible and willing parents who can provide them with the basic minimums of health, nourishment, emotional support and education. That of course, is an idealistic dream. Meanwhile, responsible governments everywhere should have that very goal in mind for their citizens as far as is practical. I am not for eugenics, communist China style punitive measures of limiting family size nor the coercive attempts at population control  that Indira Gandhi attempted in India in the 1970s for which she was rightly voted out of office. But what about common sense?  What is not desirable about educating people that given the limited global resources, small families are good for parents, children and the world at large and then aiding those who like the idea?

Of course, the right wingers who are perpetually on a warpath against abortion in particular and contraception in general to a large degree, hardly ever raise their voices at irresponsible child bearing. (How else can they maintain a steady pool of man power to do cheap labor and fight the wars? ) More often than not, we hear from them that "children are gifts from god." God or not, most children born to poor mothers without access to contraceptives, especially in underdeveloped countries indeed are born the old fashioned way. But that doesn't hold true for wealthier, developed societies. Medical science now plays a vital role in making childbirth possible for parents who otherwise would remain childless. Fertility drugs, in-vitro births, surrogate pregnancies etc. are now thriving businesses of birthing. The alarming case of Nadya Suleman, the 33 year old single, unemployed mother of six who gave birth to an additional set of octupulets recently, has focused the public's attention on the physical, social and ethical aspects of unbridled fecundity. When does someone else's personal choices become our business? What ethical guidelines are there in place for the fertility industry? What are the penalties for non-compliance?  Ellen Goodman explains with her usual aplomb.

Entitlement Reform (Joe)

Digby beats the drum in boring fashion about the impending "entitlement reform" agenda.  Maybe I'd feel differently if I read Hullabaloo every day, but as it is I certainly don't find the rant to be boring. 

Incidentally, the drum I feel myself wanting to beat in boring fashion is the one about the impending failure of postpartisanship.  I'm going to quote Digby here, just because I'll pretty much quote any reference to "Presidents Nelson, Snowe and Collins":

I'm hopeful that this is a lesson for the administration and the Democrats in congress. Despite a big electoral victory and a mandate for change, they are not going to get cooperation from the Republicans and Presidents Nelson, Snowe and Collins aren't the kind of people who have the imagination or necessary boldness to lead us out of this mess.

This comic on "centrists" also seems apt.

Hopefully, President Obama will learn a lesson from the harm caused to the stimulus by the combination of his own "be reasonable and work with the other side" tendencies and the Republicans' "be unreasonable and never play nice" philosophy.

"They bent down and listened to my heart,"

We have recently focused a lot on the greed and self absorption (here, here and here) of the wealthy and the powerful who even with plenty to spare, don't stop to think of others less fortunate than themselves. Here now for a refreshing change is the story of ordinary people who thought of the need of others even in a time of extraordinary grief. 

CLIFTON, N.J. — James O'Hea was told privately his failing heart gave him little more than a month to live. Terence Begley's diabetes meant more years of dialysis and deteriorating kidneys.  That was before a tragic event — the shooting of three people in a church last November — turned life-affirming through the quick response of one victim's family.

O'Hea, Begley and three other people received organs from 25-year-old Dennis John Malloosseril (mahl-LOO'-sir-ihl). He was shot and killed Nov. 23 as he tried to break up an argument between a fellow church member and her estranged husband, according to police and witnesses.

O'Hea, Begley and the other recipients — Malta Hameed, 40, of Clifton; Migdalia Torres, 52, of Cleveland, Ohio, and John Muscarella, 22, of East Newark — attended a memorial service for Malloosseril on Sunday at the St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya (kah-nahn-NIGH'-ya) Church, where the shooting happened. Before the service, the recipients had an emotional meeting with Mallossseril's parents.

"They bent down and listened to my heart," O'Hea said. "I had tears rolling down my cheeks."

Torres, who has suffered for 25 years from lupus that has affected her kidneys, recalled jumping out of bed at 6 a.m. on the morning after the shooting when she received a call that an organ match had been found. Like the others, she admitted having mixed feelings about the events that led to her transplant.

More Populism (Joe)

Krugman:

What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses?

A proud centrist. For that is what the senators who ended up calling the tune on the stimulus bill just accomplished.

[ . . . ]

One of the best features of the original plan was aid to cash-strapped state governments, which would have provided a quick boost to the economy while preserving essential services. But the centrists insisted on a $40 billion cut in that spending.

The original plan also included badly needed spending on school construction; $16 billion of that spending was cut. It included aid to the unemployed, especially help in maintaining health care — cut. Food stamps — cut. All in all, more than $80 billion was cut from the plan, with the great bulk of those cuts falling on precisely the measures that would do the most to reduce the depth and pain of this slump.

On the other hand, the centrists were apparently just fine with one of the worst provisions in the Senate bill, a tax credit for home buyers. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research calls this the “flip your house to your brother” provision: it will cost a lot of money while doing nothing to help the economy.

If the election was a mandate (it was an anti-Bush mandate certainly, but quite plausibly also a populist mandate), and this is government's response, either politicians will have to start getting it right--soon--or we could be looking at some serious political backlash.

I Think I Hear the World's Tiniest Violin (Joe)

Apparently it's impossible to live on a $500,000 salary in New York.  Or at least, it's impossible for a banking executive living in the ritziest parts of the city if "to live on" includes the banker being the sole bread-winner for his family, and no change whatsoever of lifestyle.

“Some of them want their drivers to have guns,” the driver said. “You get a cop and you have a driver.” To garage that car is about $700 a month.

A personal trainer at $80 an hour three times a week comes to about $12,000 a year.

The work in the gym pays off when one must don a formal gown for a charity gala. “Going to those parties,” said David Patrick Columbia, who is the editor of the New York Social Diary (newyorksocialdiary.com), “a woman can spend $10,000 or $15,000 on a dress. If she goes to three or four of those a year, she’s not going to wear the same dress.”

Total cost for three gowns: about $35,000.

Not every bank executive has school-age children, but for those who do, offspring can be expensive. In addition to paying tuition, “You’re not going to get through private school without tutoring a kid,” said Sandy Bass, the editor of Private School Insider, a newsletter that covers private schools in the New York City area. One hour of tutoring once a week is $125. “That’s the low end,” she said. “The higher end is 150, 175.” SAT tutors are about $250 an hour. Total cost for 30 weeks of regular tutoring: $3,750.

Two children in private school: $64,000.

Nanny: $45,000.

Ms. Bass, whose husband is an accountant with many high-end clients, said she spends about $425 every 10 days on groceries for her family. Annual cost: about $15,000.

More? Restaurants. Dry cleaning. Each Brooks Brothers suit costs about $1,000. If you run a bank, you can’t look like a slob.

The total costs here, which do not include a lot of things, like kennels for the dog when the family is away, summer camp, spas and other grooming for the human members of the family, donations to charity, and frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity, are $790,750, which would require about a $1.6-million salary to compensate for taxes. Give or take a few score thousand of dollars.

I think I'm actually offended by this newspaper article.  Seriously, if Allen Salkin, the reporter who wrote this Times article, wants to just crawl into a hole and die of shame, I'd be okay with that.  I'd even shed a crocodile tear for the sake of appearances if that would help the process.

It's one thing to say it's more expensive to live in Manhattan than Fargo, which is clearly true.  It's another to say that kids all need to go to private schools -- which is not an absurd position, actually, but then the honest thing to do is to mention the combination of bad policy and racism which causes the problems with public schools in big cities.  And it's a great leap further still to say that, as a matter of course, these kids can't get by in school without expensive private tutors, and $250/hr tutors for the SAT.  Similarly, it's one thing to say that a person running a bank can't look like a slob, so we'll let the Brooks Brothers suits slide.  It's another to say that a person running a bank needs to own a summer house, and has to take two expensive family vacations per year, totaling at least $16,000.  Seriously, is the author insane?  Completely detached from reality?

People all over this country are losing their homes -- not their summer places, but their sole places of residence.  There's a healthcare crisis.  A lot of people are losing their jobs, people can't afford to buy proper food, and we're supposed to be upset that President Obama doesn't want to allow banks to be bailed out with federal tax dollars and allow executives to be paid more than $500k/yr?  As if there's a moral obligation to ensure that the rich and powerful continue to remain rich and powerful?  Their kids who are unmotivated or just too stupid to otherwise get into Harvard or Princeton (or, God forbid, Brown or Cornell) have to get their ridiculously priced tutors on top of their expensive private schools!  They need to take their families to Hawaii in January and the Alps in March!  I mean, screw the poor and the middle class, if they can't afford their prescription medications tough!  They should have thought of that before all the rich people decided that the rich people needed to be bailed out!

At the risk of sounding like a populist, I'm just going to suggest that maybe perhaps the government's moral obligation is to take care of the many Americans who need help in these difficult times, not the few whose lives of luxury are at risk of becoming slightly less luxurious.

From frumpy to foxy - reincarnating the first First Lady

A second post on the same day about altered images - or at least an extrapolated one. This one does not involve plagiarism or copyright infringement. Rather it is an exercise in the restoration of national vanity.

The president of the United States is widely perceived to be the most powerful person in the world. So far only males of the species have occupied the august office. Their mates, the first ladies, have played public roles that have ranged from ceremonially ornamental to activist partners. Apparently, it irks some folks that any consort of a US president should be perceived as "frumpy," even if the woman in question has been dead for more than two hundred years. The very first First Lady, Martha Washington is the lady in question.  Her likeness in existing portraits, most of them painted in middle age, are as one historian describes it, of the double-chinned Old Mother Hubbard variety. So, armed with ultra modern technology, a few historians and museum curators embarked upon a mission to revise or rather, photo shop history. With the help of forensic anthropologists at the Lousiana State University's special project known as Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services, or FACES, a new image of a twenty five year old Martha Washington was created by working backwards from her middle aged visage. This painstaking Benjamin Buttoning of the first lady has yielded a satisfactorily attractive and lissome young woman and revamped her "dumpy" reputation.  

  This just in: Martha Washington was hot. Or at least hotter than we thought.

Our image of the mother of our country, vague and insubstantial as it is, is drawn from portraits painted after her death showing a frumpy, dumpy, plump old lady, a fussy jumble of needlework in her lap, wearing what could pass for a shower cap with pink sponge rollers rolled too tight underneath.

But today, 250 years after Martha and George tied the knot, a handful of historians are seeking to revamp the former first lady's fusty image, using the few surviving records of things she wrote, asking forensic anthropologists to do a computerized age-regression portrait of her in her mid-20s and, perhaps most importantly, displaying for the first time in decades the avant-garde deep purple silk high heels studded with silver sequins that she wore on her wedding day.

Take that, Sally Fairfax.

History is about to be revised.

"We always see Martha with a withered face in her old age. But she was quite a beautiful woman in her younger years, and Washington loved her deeply," said Edward Lengel, senior editor at the Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia. "What's happening now is revisionist. But I think it's a whole lot closer to the reality of what she was."

The full story in the Washington Post here.