America's Failure in Iraq

Today's editorial in The Guardian: "Many attempts were made to justify the invasion of Iraq, but one of the most frequently and cynically used was that, irrespective of the absence of weapons of mass destruction, putting an end to the barbarities of Saddam Hussein's regime was a moral imperative. Well, now there is chapter and verse, from ringside seats, on the systematic use of torture by the Iraqi government that the US installed in Saddam's place. The worst practices of Saddam's regime did not apparently die with him, and whereas numerous logs show members of the coalition making genuine attempts to stop torture in Iraqi custody, it is clear their efforts were both patchy and half-hearted. In the worst incidents, one can only reasonably conclude that one set of torturers and thugs has been replaced by another."

Abe Greenwald and Jonathan Franzen's Failure of Imagination?

Abe Greenwald admits that he hasn't read Jonathan Franzen's novel, "Freedom," but that doesn't stop him from offering a review of Franzen's artistry based on an interview the author gave to The Guardian. It was too filled with liberal pieties for Greenwald's taste:

"Franzen’s failure is ultimately not political but artistic. His realm is the creative, and in parroting those of the most meager imaginations, he has reversed the artist’s aim. Liberalism doesn’t only encroach upon things like opportunity and standard of living. It’s what it does to the self that’s most dangerous and pernicious. It pushes out the individual imagination and replaces it with wooden convictions. Before that wreaks havoc on a polity, it has its way with a mind. For a novelist, this is fatal. And so Franzen, a writer of copious narrative and descriptive gifts, ends up sounding like a 14-year-old who broke up his usual Daily Kos with his first read through Howard Zinn."

I suppose it would be churlish of me to ask that Greenwald actually engage Franzen's art before declaring him an artistic failure? Nah. Liberals fail because they're liberals. Seems like Commentary could use its own version of Ta-Nehisi Coates.

The Last Flight of the Shuttle Discovery

...is Nov. 1, and it makes me a bit wistful. By the time I was born, humans had already walked on the moon for the last time. But I became a space buff thanks to the Skylab missions -- why did they seem so romantic to me? And when the Shuttle Columbia launched in 1981, it seemed possible to me that having a career in space would be just another option when I grew up.

That didn't turn out to be the case, of course, and as an adult I've come to believe that manned space flight is probably an unnecessary government activity. But I'd love, still, to float weightless someday. I know it's never going to happen. And the passing of the shuttles from the scene, without replacement craft ready to go, makes me feel a little older, a little more disconnected from my youth.

All Those Political Attack Ads

We don't have a TV, but I got exposed to the current state of affairs by watching Phillies games with friends during the NLCS. The onslaught of political ads was a little bit nauseating. The Inky reports:

"G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College, said he had no doubt 'that the commercials are more negative and that there are more of them than we've seen in maybe forever here.'

With a U.S. Senate seat, the governor's mansion and several key U.S. House seats in play, Madonna said, 'there is probably more being spent on TV in Pennsylvania in this cycle than even in the presidential elections.'"

Of course, it seems like we see this story nearly every cycle: More money, and more negative attacks. These stories were being written back in 1994, when the Gingrich Republicans first took Congress. I have no doubt they were being written decades before that. It's annoying -- I'm grateful we don't have a TV -- but it's not new.

LeBron's Self-Pitying New Ad

Interesting how LeBron takes self-pity and casts it as defiance:



Maybe I'm older, but the reference to the old Charles Barkley commercial is instructive. That 30 seconds wasn't about self-justification for signing a $110 million contract -- and if Barkley's commercial also reeked of Nike myth-making, it was at least genuinely provocative at the time. Nike and LeBron have decided to embrace the whole anti-hero thing here, and more power to them, but it feels (as Bill Simmons would probably point out) like a moment from a pro wrestling script: Hulk Hogan has turned heel! It's an interesting story, but it doesn't mean anything.

The Mob Ain't Like the Movies

The Inky reports on the upcoming sentencing of reputed mob leader Andrew Merola:

"One of the more audacious schemes outlined in a 30-count indictment handed up in May 2008 involved the creation of counterfeit bar codes that Merola and his associates used to purchase high-priced items from stores like Lowe's, Home Depot, and Circuit City.

The defendants placed the phony bar codes over the bar codes of expensive merchandise before checking out, according to authorities.

They then sold the items at close to market value on the street, or peeled off the counterfeit bar codes and returned the items for full store credit.

Examples cited were a bar code for a vacuum cleaner priced at $49.97 used to buy a Dyson vacuum that listed for $549.99; a bar code from a chain saw that sold for $44.97 used to buy a saw valued at $374; and a bar code for a welding machine worth $58 used to buy a machine that sold for $669."

Sounds pretty petty. Hard to see a "Goodfellas" sequel made out of the great Dyson caper.

Clearly I Need To Kill More People in Order To be A Real Man

The Wall Street Journal reviews Peter McAllister's "Manthropology": "For Mr. McAllister one measure of manhood is the willingness to face an enemy and mete out punishment without flinching. Today our conduct in war is governed by a handbook of careful rules. Mr. McAllister, for contrast, points to the 17th-century Native American practice of not only scalping victims alive but also 'heaping hot coals onto their scalped heads.' Which is nothing compared with the attentions lavished by the Romans on a Christian named Apphianus, who was racked for 24 hours and scourged so hard that 'his ribs and spine showed.'"

I haven't read the book, but assuming the review accurately conveys the tone, well, what silly, juvenile crap. People who view the ability to inflict death and torture as a prime measure of manhood aren't macho, they're psychotic.