Thursday, March 06, 2003

What's in it for Tony?

In my morning review of the blogosphere, an entry in Daily Kos took me to this news story about the Prime Minister of Great Britain.  In still another baffling move Bush-ward, Tony Blair apparently will let neither public opinion in his own nation, nor rising opposition in Parliament within his own political base, nor (now) the likelihood of deeply considered and deeply felt Security Council vetoes to deter him from plastering himself and his country’s fortunes firmly to parts-unmentionable of Dubya.

It doesn’t make sense that what once appeared to be an erudite, progressive, thoughtful man, leading Britain with firm hand into a peaceful international community, has turned into this.  In the United States, the leadership transformation is (unfortunately) perfectly explicable—subtract Clinton and add Bush, and raving-lunatic hell breaks out.  But Blair was PM then and is PM now, with much the same cast of characters in his Cabinet at 10 Downing, and I suspect that 90-95% of today’s Labour MPs are the same people who were in Parliament three years ago.  So what has changed?

A friend of mine at work, a close observer of Anglo-Irish relations (and thus, of the British political scene), suggests that the explanation must fall into one (or more?) of four possibilities:

Wednesday, March 05, 2003

Moratorium

Today was the day of the National Moratorium to Stop the War in Iraq, in which students and employed people were asked to take the day off and join protests.  Along with such cities as San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, and Dallas, and along with college towns and high school campuses, there was a Not In Our Name-sponsored “convergence” in Seattle.

I can’t say that our event was earth-shattering in its size or in its fervor.  On a raw, gray, and breezy afternoon at Seattle’s Westlake Park, the total number of participants came to somewhere between “more than 1000” (Post-Intelligencer) and “about 2000” (according to an organizer quoted in the Seattle Times).  Given that the principal organizations leading Seattle’s anti-war/anti-Bush movement, e.g. the SNOW Coalition and the Church Council of Greater Seattle, didn’t do much of anything to promote or encourage this event, the turnout was actually fairly significant.

I was underwhelmed by the speakers.  They seemed more interested in five-second applause lines than in raising logical or factual arguments in support of their/our stances against Dubya’s multi-pronged attack on America and the world.  With so very many kids in the audience, I suppose that’s OK.  This wasn’t a Vietnam-era teach-in, after all.

Without a doubt, the best part came when representatives of all the schools involved in the day’s activities got up on the stage and gave *their* applause lines.  Hign schools and middle schools, colleges and elementary schools ... three or four dozen different schools, from inside the city to Puget Sound islands to Eastside suburbs!  The enthusiasm of youth was evident, and in many cases, it was clear that these kids had been pondering the big world events swirling around them very intensively.

All in all, despite the rather meager turnout, I’m glad I went.  I can’t say that it reinvigorated me or that my spirits were lifted, but it’s always good to see that there are others out there who are willing to speak their minds, raise their voices, and practice the highest form of American patriotism ... freely and openly protesting against the actions of the people occupying the highest seats of government in the land.

Tuesday, March 04, 2003

Will GWB listen? ... followup!!

While reading what the always-informative Atrios had to say about today’s Wolf Blitzer poll, I observed that the comments quickly developed into a discussion of a name that was missing from the choices offered to those deciding who is the “greatest threat” to the United States.  In comment #23, someone named Observationist revealed that, amazingly enough, the HTML code defining the poll does contain a commented-out fourth choice!  Without a few well-placed brackets, the poll would read as follows:

Who’s the number one threat facing the United States: 

Saddam Hussein
Kim Jong Il
Osama bin Laden
George W. Bush

I don’t have the HTML skills to show the code itself, but it’s easily seen.  Click on this link to Blitzer’s page, then use your browser’s View Source utility and scroll down about halfway through the HTML code.  Search for the phrase “Answer 4”, for example.

Amazing!!!

Will GWB listen?

Yeah, I know it’s really early in the voting (as I write, the program has only just hit the CNN airwaves), but the first results of today’s Wolf Blitzer poll continue to demonstrate that the Bushies are completely out of touch with not only the non-US world, but the residents of this country as well.  Wolf’s poll question for today:

Who’s the number one threat facing the United States:

Saddam Hussein
Kim Jong Il
Osama bin Laden

As I write this, just over 2000 votes have been recorded, and the respondents have made one thing perfectly clear ... it ain’t Saddam.  At this point, Kim seems to have pulled out into a small lead over bin Laden, with Dubya’s favorite candidate far, far in arrears.  A link to the poll results is here.

So why does Dubya insist on ignoring North Korea, mentioning al-Qaeda only when lying about its (non)connection to Saddam, and buildingbuildingbuilding his military forces aimed at Iraq?  Is it revenge for the alleged assassination attempt against Poppy?  Is it black-ops intelligence about WMD that we-the-people don’t know about?  Is it all about commercial interests and the Iraqi oilfields?  Is it really anticipated to be the first stage of the influx of Western-style democracy that will transform the Middle East from top to bottom?  Is it the word of God passed through the strong right arm of America’s president, smiting evil and fulfilling prophecy on the way to an apocalyptic endtime?

Monday, March 03, 2003

It's not the end of the world...

...but you can see it from there.  And if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I wouldn’t believe it. 

Imagine, if you will, a television commercial for the Victoria’s Secret “Angels Collection”, with surreal post-modern young women lounging about in underwear and feathery wings as out-of-focus images of Venice swirl across the screen.  Imagine the soundtrack for such a commercial:

I’m walking through streets that are dead
...
My feet are so tired, my brain is so wired
And the clouds are weeping

Recognize the words?  That’s three of the four lines of the opening verse of Bob Dylan’s Love Sick, from his 1997 release, Time Out of Mind.  Yes, that’s right ... Dylan has sold his song for use in a commercial.  A Victoria’s Secret commercial, fercryinoutloud.  Not only that, if it isn’t Bob himself croaking out the lyrics, then it’s a spot-on mimic.

Bob Dylan singing a lingerie ad… This must be a nightmare… When I wake up from it, who knows what else will prove to have been just a flight of (very scary) fancy?