Posted 4:36 PM by Angie Schultz

Star Trek's Department of September 12

I started number 3) in the previous post, below, by saying that sometimes Lileks seems to be reading my mind, as happened the other day. Well, he did it again Friday. Get out of my head, James. You won't like it in there, I promise you. There are dark spaces with pools of unknown substances and rats and things that...feed...upon them. Whatever you do, don't talk to the woman with the yellow eyes.

He does basically what I've done here, except he relates the various guises of Star Trek to the culture at large, rather than to the face that liberalism wears in each, which I think is more accurate. After all, the dull gabby diplomats of Next Generation were launched in 1987, during the Reagan era. The writers of the show tend to be liberals. I know that Roddenberry was (for his time) a very liberal fellow. (Maybe us more hawkish liberals ought to start calling ourselves the James T. Kirk Brigade, or sumpin).

Lileks begins by talking about the season finale of the latest franchise avatar, Enterprise.

AVAST! HERE BE SPOILERS.

As he says, in this episode there's been a suicide attack against Earth, with seven million killed. Through a dumb deus ex machina, Capt. Archer finds out who's behind it. They're called Xindi, and live in "the Delphic Expanse", a mysterious and unexplored region that Capt. Kirk never visited. And they're planning another attack with an even more powerful weapon.

I thought this was a bit too much copying from reality, although the episode was well done, and gripping. The hard, cold expression that Archer and Tucker wore was familiar to me; I wore it for months after 9/11 and could feel it settling on my face again as I watched.

Lileks describes a scene between them:

Captain Archer and his First Officer [sic---major geek failure here; Trip's not the First Officer] are sitting up late at night drinking scotch. (!) The First Officer lost a sister in the suicide attack. He's not exactly the cheerful fellow he used to be. He kills his drink and glares at the captain with angry, haunted eyes. "Tell me we're not going to pussyfoot around when we get in there," he says. "None of that noninterference crap."

Archer stares out the window. "Whatever it takes," he says, and he drains his glass.

This is not your father's Star Trek, you might think. But it is. We're back to the sixties' vision of the future. All Kirked up and ready to roll.

As much as I hate to, I disagree with Lileks' diagnosis. When Archer said, "Whatever it takes", he kept it very ambiguous. I took him to mean, "Yes, if we have to destroy them, we will, but if we can get to know them and come to some understanding, somehow prove to them that we mean them no harm, while, we'll do that instead." He looked a bit disturbed at Trip's bloodthirstiness.

After all, throughout the episode they have a pesky Klingon buzzing about, and it's only on the third encounter, the third time the Klingon endangers their crucial mission, that Archer finally orders him destroyed. But before he does, Archer wastes some of their precious new photon torpedoes on trying to discourage the Klingon without destroying him.

But more importantly, the reason the Xindi attacked earth is that they learned that the Federation would wipe them out in four hundred years. Therefore, obviously we are the aggressors and we must ask ourselves how we can prevent such a horrible catastrophe and atone for this genocide which we didn't even do yet. That kind of resolution is still possible.

(I wondered if I was mis-hearing the name of the attackers, and they were acutally the Kzinti, but this site, among others, spells the name "Xindi". My first guess was Zindi; I've changed it now. Supposedly, chasing after the Xindi is going to be the major activity of the series for at least the next season.)

It remains to be seen what the crew of the Enterprise will do. If Star Trek is a reflection of the current thinking of liberalism, and if Archer unleashes his inner Kirk, it may mean that liberalism can be rescued from the Chomsky choir.

Posted 4:35 PM by Angie Schultz

The Klingon in the Mirror: Star Trek as Reflection of the Zeitgeist

This began as a quick list of peeves, and turned into a boring rumination. You're warned. The title is an extremely obscure reference.

Happy Fun Dan missed war so much he tried to get a new one started with his Top Ten Things I Hate About Star Trek.

I love Star Trek. The original series saved my life. No, really. Remind me to tell you sometime.

But, that said, there are certain flaws. Steven Chapman points out one of my least favorite ones:

6. # Every planet the Enterprise crew encounter just happens to have only one culture.

Well, actually, I think it's the result of unchecked globalization, myself.

In the original series, you didn't have to worry about this. Most of the time, the crew was dealing with particular people (or beings), and took their culture as they found it. They usually didn't have to bow down to the entire notion of cultures, kicking themselves in the ass to demonstrate that they treasured each and every alien culture more than the last one.

Now for my feral (not tame enough to be pets) Star Trek peeves:

1) Everyone got lumpy. I don't mean that the original actors began to bulge---that's only natural. I mean their heads. Back in the original series, when there was no budget, Klingons were just muddy-colored humans with big eyebrows. Romulans were, like Vulcans, aquiline greenish humans with pointed ears and Moe Howard hair. In TNG, the Klingons grew great lumps (I think they got lumpier over the years), and even the Romulans (and the Vulcans, I think) began to swell a bit at the temples.

Perhaps they got a special budget for make up, and had to use it up or...er...else. But this doesn't explain the fact that every subsequent species was just humans with cheek quills or nose plates or ear fungus. Why no tails, or horns, or extra limbs? Laziness, that's why.

2) Enemies were outlawed.

This is a large and hungry peeve.

In the beginning, you had the Klingons, and they were nasty bastards. They'd burn a hundred innocent villagers just to get two men the village was allegedly hiding.

You also had the Romulans, and while they were no cream puffs, they didn't have the commitment to viciousness and cruelty that the Klingons had.

Then came Next Gen, and we actually had a Klingon on the Enterprise bridge, and we had to be all worshipful about his precious Klingon culture, which led inevitably to us "understanding" the Klingons. Then the Klingons somehow needed Picard's help to hold their empire together, and after that they changed from fearsome equals to posturing, whining brats always threatening but never able to do anything without the Federation's help (hmmm...). By the end of Deep Space Nine they were operatic (comic and dramatic) figures, spending more time on declaiming how sweet and fitting it is to die for the Empire, and less on slaughtering innocents wholesale.

The Romulans lay low for a while, put in a brief appearance which showed they'd been boning up on cruelty and oppression, and then just sort of faded away.

Oh, and there were the Ferengi, who were vicious little bastards when they first slithered on-screen in TNG, using electric whips on Riker and Co., but by the end of Deep Space Nine they were much more cuddly and comical than the Klingons.

The Cardassians, now, were initially the series' Nazis, what with oppressing and murdering the Bajorans. And they were pretty sinister at first, but they were soon too involved in spying on and imprisoning one another to be very good villains, and then they got taken over by the Dominion.

Then, in Deep Space Nine, came the unnecessarily-apostrophated Jem'Hadar, unstoppable, unflinching warriors. But, oops. Turns out they are merely the poor drug-enslaved pawns of the Dominion, who, actually, are a subject race of the Founders (the shapeshifters).

Ah, but the shapeshifters really are bad guys, right? After all, they hate and fear the "solids". Nope, turns out they're all just sick, and when Odo cures them they stop their war against, er, everybody.

Wait just a damn minute, you say. I've forgotten the biggest baddies of all: the Borg. They are the implacable enemy, right? There is no understanding, no negotiation, no compromise with them, true? Er, no. In TNG we first find that, after all, the Borg are only Hugh-man (or whatever), and with sufficient cuddling and hand-holding, they can return to what they were. This, of course, is what Janeway is doing throughout most of Voyager with 7 of 9.

My point here is that Star Trek has become uncomfortable with the idea of enemies. We are no longer permitted enemies, except for the purposes of demonstrating that they are only our enemies due to a sickness in their society, or in ours. When we make the effort to Understand them, we see that there's really not so much difference between us after all. Hurray!

Um, however, a universe without enemies of some kind turns out to be dull. So every few years we have to show that our enemies are paper tigers, or linen lions, or whatever, and they are replaced by new enemies---races whose names are only legends, fearful whispers in seedy dives. Then, after we've fought them a time or two, and there's been a lot of talk about this most terrible threat to the existence of the Federation ever, they too become pussycats, and a new bunch takes their place. No doubt if Voyager had continued a few more years, Species 8472 would have revealed themselves to be fluffy bunnies who were only afraid of the big, bad Borg.

3. Star Trek as Zeitgeist

I guess, technically, this isn't a peeve, but a !peeve. (That will make sense to none of you; just roll with it.)

Sometimes I'll be writing or thinking about some topic, and then I'll find that Lileks has been thinking along the same lines. This happens fairly often, and it scares me. It happened again on May 16th. Lileks says,

[Anthony] Burgess saw the two poles of political philosophy at work in the West, and beyond. Augustinian philosophy, which saw man as flawed and sinful and basically hosed when it came to perfectibility in this mortal plain, was the conservative view. Pelagius was liberalism: our nature is not only perfectible, we can perfect ourselves here and now. Burgess saw governments as shifting back and forth between the two - the excesses of one would push people to embrace the other, and vice versa, and so on.

I would say that the two poles are not as far apart as they seem. When I think of what Lileks is describing as Augustinianism---"man as flawed and sinful"---I first think of rigid Christianity (or, if you'd rather, the Taliban): dedicated to punishing "sinful" behavior, or anything that might lead to sinful behavior, or anything that might make someone, somewhere, think a naughty thought. Mankind is weak and foolish, and the pious must take extreme measures to see that society is kept pure.

But this would equally well describe the direction the pious Left is taking. Having eradicated great societal sins (e.g. segregation)---for which I say, Hallelujah!---they are now trying to ensure that everything that even looks like sin (in the dark, if you squint) is ruthlessly irradicated. A good example of this are the Lexicops, moving to make sure you don't use the word "niggardly", or Making A Statement by spelling "women", "womyn" (or, $DEITY help us, "wombyn").

Or, as we see, opposing American policies for no other reason than they American policies, even if that opposition violates every principle the Left (supposedly) holds dear.

Instead, I would say the two poles are those who believe that whatever perfection man can reach, he must do himself; and those who believe that man is corrupt, but that his society can be made perfect by outside force. That outside force might take the form of religious deities with numerous rules for mankind, or the form of laws made by the Right-Thinking elements of society, who have only the best interests of society as a whole in mind.

I doubt that history swings between these two poles; perhaps instead it's a constant struggle of the do-it-yourselfers against the rulegivers. Or, if you prefer, the individualists against the authoritarians.

So, how does this relate to Star Trek? Well, the direction that the Left has been taking recently mirrors the evolution of Star Trek. The original series was a (relatively) sunny, optimistic series in which our heroes fought barbarism, not only in the dark corners of the galaxy, but in themselves. Is a machine controlling the thoughts of humans; is a society forcing certain of its members to work in an environment which makes them stupid and violent; Klingons preparing to attack a peaceful and primitive society? Well, the Enterprise will put a stop to that!

They had few rules to constrain them, and they often ignored those they did have. After all, it's a big universe, and the established rules don't always fit new situations.

In The Next Generation, this version had triumphed over the bad guys (at least locally). Picard's crew didn't need all that vulgar Kirkian muscle; they knew that all lifeforms and all cultures are to be respected and cherished, so that if we just talk things out we can come to some sort of accommodation. This was the Age of Peace Through Gabbing. The Federation was thoughtful, peaceful, smug, and dull.

But in Deep Space Nine, it began to turn upon itself. DS9 had wheels within wheels, plots within plots. Starfleet was not the hopeful group of explorers who sent Kirk out, nor was it the dull statesmen who dispatched Picard (even though it was supposedly contemporaneous with him), but a bloated, corrupted organization, its leaders more interested in consolidating their own power than in exploration (or whatever it was that Starfleet was supposed to do). This was the X Files Era.

Then came Voyager. I was among the few who liked Voyager (I hated DS9). It reminded me more of the original series, in that it was not above looking a bit stupid in order to arouse a sense of wonder (this is the most important thing in science fiction, in my opinion---more so than characterization or plot or explosions). Unfortunately it was a bit directionless, and to make up for this, it embraced dogma.

I don't think Voyager got through an episode without using the word "protocols" (always plural). If it wasn't computer "protocols", it was Starfleet protocols. "Starfleet protocols clearly state that we sit here and do nothing, Captain." Thanks to Kirk and his merry band, the Alpha Quadrant was a safe and peaceful place, and Starfleet had developed "protocols" which assumed the entire infrastructure of Starfleet close behind every decision a captain made. Then Voyager was thrown into the Delta Quadrant, and couldn't count on the support that would make those rules work. (Janeway supposedly knew she had to throw away the rulebook, but as time went on she only seem to cling to it more tightly.)

Perhaps Voyager is Star Trek's Department of September 10th: people used to peace and order, clinging desperately to rules that no longer apply lest they face the fact that they live in a fundamentally dangerous world. But Voyager started in 1995, ending in May 2001. If Voyager reflected the coming catastrophe, why, that would mean...Brannon and Braga knew!

Or perhaps my analogy is breaking down. Perhaps we need a bit of temporal distance between us and the era, to see what exactly was the defining quality. But I did want to point out the difference in outlook between the cheerful swagger of the original series, and the sweaty paranoia of Deep Space Nine.

To be continued...

Posted 1:45 PM by Angie Schultz

More ROT[C] at the BBC

Note: Joanne Jacobs has a post on this as well.

While poking around the BBC, I came upon this story which is on military programs in secondary schools. The article is titled "The price of an army education," but apparently on TV it was called "America's School Kid Soldiers". That's what it's called on the comments page (of which very much more anon). Both pages have a photo of kids (that is to say, teenagers) on parade, with a caption reading, "Is this just a scheme to recruit for a life in the services?"

Bias? What bias?

Here are the salient points in the article:

1) New legislation "demands increased access to high schools for military recruiters".

[er, shouldn't military recruiters have finished high school already?]

and "asks" schools to provide student info to military recruiters. Schools who do not cooperate may lose federal education funds.

[Note: federal funds.]

2) A black mother sends her two daughters to a military academy. She thinks this will help them get an education they might not get otherwise. Her kids like their school, but one says that not all the pupils there are keen to join the military on graduation.

3) A Quaker woman doesn't like the whole thing, says "they're training young people saying the military way of life is the right one."

"It's giving hope to a lot of people that frankly don't have a lot of other options in our society."

[And apparently this is a bad thing, at least to the Quaker lady.]

4) Another school, this one mostly Hispanic, has recently cut its mob violence way back. Within the school is a military academy. No explanation is given for commenting on the mob violence in connection with the military academy. Do the cadets run out and shoot anybody who threatens violence?

In this school, the students can have their college tuitions (note, college) paid for, but they have to join the army, the Reserves, or the National Guard.

5) Back to the first school:

Bronzeville student Elizabeth Stewart had signed up for the army - but did not understand the extent of her commitment.

Her college bills were paid by the military. But now she and her mother are faced with the realities of National Guard service - she could be sent to the Middle East.

"My daughter is just like all the other kids whose parents couldn't afford to pay for college," says Karon Stewart.

"If I had had money for her to go to college she probably wouldn't have joined the National Guard, so that's a burden I bear."

There's a picture of Elizabeth captioned: "Elizabeth Stewart is paying the ultimate price for education." Elizabeth is one of the two daughters mentioned in item 2); her twin Erin is her school's top pupil and the batallion commander, according to the article.

OK, so what it seems we have here is that some high schools have Junior ROTC programs. Some people think this is a good way for the kids to get an education; others are concerned that this is recruiting for the "military way of life". (Horror!)

I'll point out that the woman with the two daughters---who thinks this is a good idea---is black; while the protesting Quaker is white.

Before we go on, here is the text of the new education law in HTML and pdf formats. To save you the trouble, this is the section on military recruiting. (By the way, this is an enormous bill, which nicely illustrates the old adage about sausages and the law. I'm guessing the military recruitment requirements are far from the most worrying thing in it. Like, for example, the entire issue of federal meddling in education, while piously insisting that they're not meddling.)

The law does indeed require schools to provide student information to military recruiters on the request of the recruiter, but it also mandates that such information be given to university recruiters. The second clause says that students or their parents can refuse to have this information given out, and it requires schools to tell them that. This Fox News story seems to be scandalized that some school districts are actually complying with this provision in the law.

Note that this law, despite its position at the head of the BBC story, has virtually nothing to do with the schools mentioned, which already have military programs. It would be strange indeed if schools with military programs would try to prevent the military from recruiting their students (which was why the clause was inserted into the education legislation in the first place). So why's it there in a story about schools which already have military programs? Why, to direct your attention to the approaching tidal wave of fascism.

Now, on to the BBC comments. These are more balanced than in the Jessica Lynch story, with a higher percentage of people---even Britons---saying it sounds like a good idea to them. But here are some juicy ones:

There is only one word for what was shown on tonight's programme and what is happening in the world today - obscene! What we saw here were the results of a social, political, economic and cultural deficit. Is this the bankruptcy of civilisation?
Stephen Vaughan, Ireland

Terrifying - Not satisfied with this current war, W Bush is creating a perennial army for the future. If this was filmed in Iraq or China or Korea we would be worried, this is the future of democracy - we should be worried. The only way you can get a free education is to sign up for the latest American action.
Trevor H, UK

"...a perennial army for the future." Why should the US need an army in the future, huh? Huh? Only to wage war. After all, you don't need to even have an army if you don't plan on fighting someone. Terrifying, indeed! Good for you, Trevor H, you have uncovered Bush's horrendous plan to extend the US military into the future! Someone alert the media!

This programme further demonstrates the American mentality and fixation with war as a concept. These ideas are forced upon the American people by the current Administration to further its own right-wing agenda. Any dissent from the established view is quickly denounced (or simply unreported in the American news media) and labelled unpatriotic.
Nick, England

The "American mentality and fixation with war as a concept". I cannot conceptualize what that may mean. Oh, wait, yes I can. It means that when these idiots watch a nervous kid parading around with a flag, praying he won't trip over his own shoelaces and drop it, they see the Hitler Youth, crazed and foaming and ready to die for the Fatherland.

They also---and I keep meaning to point this out---don't understand that these ideas are not forced on the American people by the current Administration, that programs like this have been around for decades, through both Republican and Democratic administrations. This is a common trope in the foreign press: they either believe that dumb Bush and his cadre of evil geniuses has forced their will upon the people, or that the percentage of American people who are stupid, violent hicks have gotten temporary control of the country, wresting it from its rightful owners, the level-headed and caring liberals.

To continue:

Yes you can have the education if you are from the disadvantaged group you can go to college like the rich children but by the way you make not make it there because you may be killed as part of the National Guard and the time that these youngsters will owe to their country who have given this wondderful opportunity! It screams at me saying it is a cheap way to get cannon fodder, and may a good way to cut down crime. I thought these days had gone!
Jan Brinkley, UK

Perhaps Ms. Brinkley should've gone to a military school; they might have taught her how to write without gibbering.

And now, straight from Conspiracy Theory Central:

This programme provides evidence that the war on Iraq was premeditated. Mr Bush had already planned to boost the number of members to his military by using these school kid soldiers. To send someone into schools from the military to speak to 14 year olds about becoming cadets is sickening. I would not allow my child into any school that allows this to happen. But the schools have their hands tied due to the politics implicated within this Bush system.
James & Nancy Corrigan, England


I found this cynical exploitation of poor children, sickening for a supposedly free and democratic country. Not only the coercion to join the military, but also the indoctrination and propaganda that seems to pass for lessons. My first thought was to send a copy of this program to Downing street, for Mr Blair to see what our allies are up to. I then realised this may not be such a good thing, as it would probably give him ideas.
Angela Peacock, UK


The online article had no information about "the indoctrination and propaganda that seems to pass for lessons". Maybe they meant the flag-folding.

Well, my first thought is that whoever makes adult diapers (or "nappies") in the UK really needs to buy advertising time on the BBC, since its audience is continually pissing themselves over the latest American threat to Civilization. But I'm guessing the Beeb does not sell advertising time in the UK, so I advise them to go after the Guardian's readership instead---same people.

The day after my stepfather graduated from high school, his father took him to town, saying they were going to have a special celebratory beer down to the Stag Bar. Oh, sure, Dad wasn't of legal age yet, but everybody knew everybody else in town, and as long as it was only one quiet beer, then nobody said anything.

On the way home, Grandpa pulled up to an unmarked, nondescript building, saying he had something to do. He told Dad to come in with him. Inside, Grandpa gave his name to the man behind the desk, and two big guys came up and handcuffed Dad before he knew what was going on. My Grandpa said, "Son, I'm so sorry, but your Mama and me can't afford to feed you no more, so we've sold you to the Navy." Then Grandpa turned and walked out the door, trying not to hear his son's cries of "Daddy! Come back, Daddy! I'll get a job! I won't cause no---"

It was thirty years before Dad saw his parents again---thirty years chained to an oar in the Empire's largest trireme, where he saw men die around him as---

Er, wait. Wrong story. No, what really happened is that Dad didn't know what to do with himself after high school, so he joined the Navy, possibly because his older brother had. This was also true of my father and most of my uncles, some great uncles, several second cousins, and so forth. A few others were drafted, and some joined other services to keep from being drafted into the Army.

Doing a stint in the service was so ubiquitous, in my circle, that I thought it was required---just one of those life stages everyone goes through. You go to school, graduate, get a job, get married and have kids, and then your life is over. If you're a man, after high school graduation you go into the service and get a tattoo.

But to read that story, and those comments (not to mention other stories in other venues), you'd think the Poor were having to sell their children to the rapacious maw of the military just so the children could have a hot meal (this was some idiot's direct quote) every few days for the rest of their short and miserable lives.

Somehow I have a hard time worrying about this terrible burden on the poor and downtrodden in our society, when virtually every flippin' one of my male relatives did the same thing.

Now, those who worry that recruits might join up without realizing they may be killed at least have a valid point, though I should hope that anyone who's smart enough to graduate from high school is smart enough to realize this.

But most of the commenters seem instead to be wringing their hands over the implications for the "militarization" of our "so-called democracy". My grandfather and stepfather and father and uncles and brother and second-cousins were not turned into killer droids. They do not goose-step around the house shouting "Sieg Heil!" They do not swallow everything the government says unquestioningly, nor did all of them particularly enjoy military life, and only a few stayed in longer than a few years. (Somehow, every single one of them was allowed to leave!)

Last but not least, here is a local teacher weighing in:

As a teacher in a Houston public school, I've had ROTC students in my class. I don't see any evidence of indoctrination other than, perhaps, some better discipline, particularly on the days they wear their uniforms. What I think it does, however, is allow the military men to identify certain characteristics that are prized by the military: patriotism and its underlying single-minded willingness to subjugate oneself to authority.

Most of the ROTC students aren't the smartest in school, and without the military option, they'd likely languish in minimum-wage jobs in the city slums. Those that join have a chance to at least travel and perhaps see that Houston isn't the only possible state of existence. Overall, the results are probably slightly more positive than negative, but the motivation is suspect.
Donald Johnson, United States (Texas)

The part about subjugating oneself to authority has got to be one of the stupidest things I've read lately, which is a high achievment. After that, I must question the truth of his statement that the ROTC students would wind up in minimum wage jobs if they weren't in the military. When reading all of these comments, remember that the O in ROTC stands for Officer; the poor Little Brown People in these programs are being trained to be officers. Heaven forfend that the LBP acquire some self-respect, that they build a good foundation for their civilian lives, or (horror!) become admired leaders.

We can't showcase our own exquisite pity for them if they won't stay in their place, dammit!

So, well done, BBC! Rarely have I seen such a fine of selective reporting and innuendo combined to turn a benign molehill into a malignant mountain.

Posted 2:27 PM by Angie Schultz

A Lynching at the BBC

Sometimes I write up a post, and then I find that Lileks is writing about the same thing. Quite frankly, this happens way too often to be coincidence. James Lileks comes to me in dreams, smoking cigarettes and coating my cerebellum with a dark, sticky film. STOP IT, JAMES!

It happened again today. Fortunately, there was really not much overlap in the two posts, about the comments BBC readers/viewers had regarding the Jessica Lynch rescue story.

You get off easy this time, James.

Begin original post:
-------------------

For my money, the most interesting thing about this BBC story---which says that the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch was staged, that there was no opposition at the hospital and that the soldiers fired blanks---is the comments it has provoked.

The comments fall into basically three categories. The first are those who urge a bit of caution on the BBC story---there are only a relative handful of these. About a third of these are indignant at the BBC for daring to air this story. The worst (which I include as my token effort toward "balance") is this one:

Jessica Lynch is our treasure and everybody involved with getting her back should be honoured not ripped apart.
Joe Parks, USA

And may I say, bleah.

The second class of comments are from Americans saying, "Thank God for the BBC! Any American with any brain cells---which is only me, and a couple of my friends---knows the American media is filled only with lies, Lies, LIES! And government propaganda!":


Thank God for the BBC. You don't know how your helping to keep the sanity of us Americans who have braincells. Everytime one of my fellow citizens falls for these Hollywood movie stunts, I fell like strangling them. The US Media needs daily humilation doses. Thank you for helping.
Joan Ranade, USA

Huh. Guess I didn't really have to make up a silly, hysterical example; Ms. Ranade already provided us with one. Here's another in the same vein:

This is news, but not terribly shocking. Any intelligent American will balance US reports against non-US news and make a rationale decision - with little weight to be given to the US gov't. Most Americans, however, are not intelligent and prefer to accept everything which is easy and spoon-fed.
Michael DiPresso, NYC, USA

The third major group of comments comes from people wetting themselves over anything that will confirm their bad opinion of the Bush administration and the US in general. I offer this fine, if rather extreme, example:

This fabricating the news of Private Lynch's rescue is just another incident in which the Bush administration and its appointees control information. Making the military heroic is one way to make the American public more accepting as the Bush gang continues to turn the country toward military governance. And the American people are so busy cheering, they don't see what's truly happening.
Sandra Carrubba, USA

Now, one thing that crops up again and again is the absolute confidence of most of the commenters that the BBC can have no agenda of its own---no bias, conscious or not. Apparently it can't even make a mistake. Anything the US government or the military says is probably lies, but the BBC is beyond reproach:

What is worrying here is some of the comments by our American friends. If they question the validity of the BBC, their only ally, then what hope does other media in the world in questioning USA foreign policy, and states for that matter? This report seems to be the only the tip of the iceberg.
Mark, Glasgow, UK

There are many more comments, some of which seem to be coming from an alternate universe. For example:

...No-one who watched the coverage of the war could have been in any doubt that, from its very outset, all the news the public was issued with was heavily biased towards the coalition.
Richard, UK

But if I had to pick only one comment that sums it all up, I think it would have to be this one:

I think those who question the accuracy of John Kampfner's account of the Jessica Lynch rescue are rather missing the point. The bigger picture was the impossibility of getting anything like honesty or objective fact out of the military and political administration.

It is not about who did what, or who is telling the truth, but that the press has access to the facts to enable us to make our own minds up. This, as Kampfner's excellent work illustrated, was continuously refused every day in Doha.
I Ginsberg, UK

See, it doesn't matter if the BBC's report is correct or not, the real story is the fact that the government constantly lies. And if it should turn out that the BBC's story is 100% fabrication, and the military's version is 100% correct, well, we can't let that alter our conclusion that the government is always lying. No matter what the pesky "facts" of the matter---our prejudices are confirmed!

Now, among all these comments---which are chosen for publication by the BBC---comments along the lines of Warren "Wilbur" Smith's, which goes into technical details about the improbability of blanks being used, seem to be conspicuous by their absence. The comments page has not been updated in at least a day, even though I could not find a notice saying that the comments are closed (the BBC usually announces when this has happened). The commenting form is still there at the bottom of the page.

Smith also has a post commenting on this Guardian article, also by Kampfner, which contains essentially the same info as the BBC piece. If the dreaded Blogger Archive Bug strikes, here's Smith's home page.

And in this CNN story, Kampfner "defends" his story. (Note: the picture caption calls Kampfner "Kampener", and that's the way it's spelled in the URL, too.) When asked directly about the Iraqi doctor's statement that the US troops had used blanks, Kampfner says, "Well, that is his contention," making it seem as if he was merely reporting what he was told. Except that he has built an entire story---an entire scandal---around basically that point.

The other elements of Kampfner's article were the story about the ambulance (supposedly, the Iraqi doctor had tried to get her to the Americans in an ambulance, which was then fired on at a checkpoint, and was forced to return), and Lynch's wounds (the doctor said she did not have gunshot or stab wounds). The CNN interview says that they reported the ambulance story long ago (I never heard it), and many sites carried multiple and conflicting reports about whether Lynch had stab or gunshot wounds (I still don't know the truth of this). Those are hardly news, and are really only damning if you assume that the rescue mission was entirely staged; the blanks are the smoking gun, if you will, of that theory.

(Actually, I believe that Kampfner's BBC piece implies that the doctor had arranged with the Americans to deliver Lynch ["Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance."], and that they shot at her ambulance either due to incompetence, or---more in keeping with the tone of his story---because they'd decided they'd rather stage a dramatic "rescue". I don't know if that's what Kampfner means to imply, or whether it's just sloppy writing or editing.)

In the CNN interview, Kampfner says:

The British were worried about the Lynch episode, but they saw this more in general terms. They were worried about the entire U.S. media operation.

The man behind the scene sent a long a letter to Blair's head of strategy, Alex Campbell, setting out in quite considerable detail his misgivings about the way the Americans conducted the whole media operation from Doha.

At the same time, in our film, the British military spokesman, who figured very much in BBC, CNN and all international broadcasters' coverage of the war, told us on camera that he was deeply unhappy with the American media handling, and he said to us, there were two different styles of media management. There was the American one and the British one, and I was pleased to be part of the British one.

And that to me, that's a pretty damning indictment.

Note the shadowy "man behind the scene". Behind what scene? Where? He seems to be describing some sort of British official, but who he is or what office he's with is completely unknown. Also unknown is just what, exactly, he or any other British official was unhappy with. It's all very vague, and (dare I say it? dare! dare!) McCarthyesque.

I will also point with great glee to the notion that a Briton claiming to be pleased to be part of a British, rather than American, operation is somehow a "damning indictment" of the American way of doing things. In my experience, the British seldom recognize the concept of different-but-equal. Either you do things the British way, or you're doing them wrong. (And when it comes right down to it, even when those colonial johnnies do things the British way, they still can't get it right.)

And that's even without noting that it would be extraordinary indeed for a British officer to say he'd rather be part of the American operation, and vice versa.

In conclusion, let me remind you of the BBC's preferred way of dealing with the military, which is to emit "questions" in the form of propaganda statements that could be later re-worded into things like, "The general denied reports of 5 million dead in Umm Qasr alone."

Posted 3:38 PM by Angie Schultz

Democracy, Hot 'n Spicy, Texas Style

Gather 'round, all you pipsqueak nations, and learn how to do real democracy. We've been practicing it in this country for more than two hundred years; one day maybe we'll get it right.

I am pure proud that Texas is stepping to the forefront to show infant democracies exactly how it's done. Seems that more than 50 Democratic Texas state representatives skipped town yesterday, in order to prevent a quorum being formed (they are about ten people short). The idea was to thwart a new (federal) congressional re-districting plan, put forward by (daaa-dum daaa-dum) Tom DeLay.

The real scandal is that not only did the legislators flee the capital, they fled the state, holing up in the Holiday Inn in (oh, the shame!) Ardmore, Oklahoma. Now, the Houston Chronicle says,:

House rules allow for the arrest of members who thwart a quorum, although the act carries no other criminal or civil sanction. But [House Speaker Tom] Craddick, who earlier Monday had ordered the missing members arrested and returned to the Capitol, said the DPS [Texas Department of Public Safety] officers did not have arrest authority in Oklahoma.

In other words, the cops can physically drag them back to the Capitol, but they're not charged with anything and don't risk jail or fines. Texas cops can't touch them in Oklahoma, though, so they're "safe" for the time being. (Europe: take note. Texas officers cannot just waltz into Oklahoma and grab its legislators, and the odds of them being extradited for something that isn't a crime, and even if it were, wouldn't be a crime in Oklahoma, are, well, zero.)

The legislative walkout erupted from months of growing tension that the Democrats described as the "tyranny of the majority," resulting from the Republican takeover of the House for the first time since Reconstruction [i.e. since just after the Civil War].

The errant House Democrats issued a statement saying a walkout was the only way they could protect current congressional district lines from being changed solely for political reasons.

I'm shocked, shocked that anyone would draw congressional district lines based on political reasons.

But Craddick described the Democrats as sore losers now that they are in the minority.

"How do you think the Republicans felt for the last 130 years?" Craddick said.

"I've been in the House for 35 years and I've lost some, but I've never walked off the floor like these Chicken D's."

I don't know anything about the redistricting plan. I'm suspicious of anything that DeLay does, because I think he's the kind of reactionary froot loop who gives conservatism a bad name. Take, for example, this shining statement from him, on the significance of his redistricting plan:

"What's at stake here is the most effective and accurate representation for Texans," DeLay said Monday. "Republicans are the majority party in both Washington and Austin and are best able to deliver on Texans' priorities and represent their beliefs."

Forever and ever, amen.

But I don't know if it's any more egregiously political than any that has gone before, nor do I know whether the Republicans have pulled any shady tricks to push the plan through.

This act was not unprecedented. The first (near as I can tell) time was in 1979, when only twelve senators walked out. Then, it was hot Democrat-on-Democrat action, and it was over a change in the date of the presidential primary.

[Then-Lt. Gov. Bill] Hobby, the presiding officer and a Democrat, angered the 12 senators by serving notice he would bypass the Senate's rules and allow the bill to be debated in the closing days of the session without first requiring the normal two-thirds procedural vote.

The change was viewed as an effort to help Connally, a Democrat-turned-Republican eyeing a presidential race in 1980.

One might argue that bypassing the Senate's own rules was a dirty tactic, and deserved some sort of drastic action. I just don't know enough about the situation at that time, or how often the Senate's rules got bypassed in the course of things. At any rate, there was nothing in the paper about shady dealings in the present case. The Chronicle has been such a reliably (I hate to use the word in this way, but there it is) liberal paper that surely they'd report any underhanded shenanigans if there were any.

I mostly post this to highlight the fun you can have in a democracy. For example, the senators who walked out in '79 are called, for no adequately explained reason, the "Killer Bees", and their act is now the stuff of legend:

Nine of the 12 senators...spent five days and four nights...cooped up in a West Austin garage apartment with one bathroom, one bed and one couch, within two miles of the Capitol...

After a couple of days, then-Sen. Gene Jones of Houston, pleading claustrophobia, was allowed to leave and headed home to Houston, where he almost got caught.

Spotting a police officer near his house, Jones sent his brother, the late Clayton D. Jones, to get the morning paper.

The officer insisted Clayton Jones come with him, and the brother -- never denying that he was the senator -- allowed himself to be taken to Austin by helicopter. Only on his arrival did Senate staffers realize the DPS had the wrong man...

Asked how the senators passed the time, [A.R. "Babe"] Schwartz, who is now a lobbyist, replied: "We drank a lot..."

Those rascals in the Lege are such (nyuk) cards:

Republicans constructed signs and gimmicks ridiculing their colleagues. They plastered the Democrats' faces on milk cartons, and state Republican chair Susan Weddington, borrowing from the "most wanted Iraqi" cards, announced she had playing cards featuring the missing legislators.

Omigod! Dissent is being crushed! The Chronicle ran a picture of the cards---obviously hurriedly printed out on the cheap---but I haven't been able to find a copy online.

Ah, but here's another shining example of good clean democratic (note the small d) debate:

"They're legislative terrorists and their leaving today is a weapon of mass obstruction, blocking hundreds of pieces of legislation," Republican Rep. Dan Branch said Monday.

As Molly Ivins says, if you took all the fools out of the Lege, it wouldn't be a representative body anymore.

More coverage here.

Posted 7:40 PM by Angie Schultz

Colonialism and Oppression

Big Arm Woman brings us word of another Tunnel of Oppression post at Critical Mass. (See there for previous tunnel posts.)

A "tunnel of oppression" is apparently a bit like a Fun House, except it's a No Fun House. It's an exhibit set up by Professional Scolds for the edification of the sheeplike mass of college students, who apparently have never cracked a book or fingered a newspaper or glimpsed a TV news report, and are therefore unaware that other people on the planet don't spend their lives swaddled in cotton and fed honeyed cream from golden spoons. See Critical Mass link for all boring details.

Well, I got yer tunnel of oppression right here. [WARNING: color pictures. Safe for work, but not for dinner, especially if you're having cannelloni.] This is a link to the Colossal Colon Tour web site. The CCT is a travelling exhibit of a giant colon---40ft long by 4 ft high---meant to show in graphic, disgusting detail the various problems that can arise if you do not bow down to your colon's every whim.

The thing is, the Colon-ialists seem to be a lot more fun than the diversity-worshipping Anti-Colonialists. The website makes visiting a giant poop pipe and seeing its many disgusting malfunctions seem like loads and loads (har!) of fun for the whole family. For example, this page describes the ten "stations" of the colon tour, of which Station Three is "Check It Out. Your Colon. Your Rectum. What They're All About!" That would make a swell cheer, wouldn't it? Another one might be, "Give me a one! Give me a two! Give me a three! Give me a colonoscopy!" Feel free to make up more of your own.

And how fun is this picture? You've got to have a sense of humor to allow yourself to be photographed popping (almost wrote "pooping"---bad Freud!) up out of a giant colon like a prairie dog. Not that any prairie dog would do that.

After its triumphal city tour, you can arrange for the colon to come to your event. I think it should be taken to college campuses. Imagine this conversation:

Heather: So, you guys want to go to the Haunted by White Guilt House, the Oppression Tunnel of Love, or the Colossal Colon?
Jessica: We saw White Guilt last semester. What's the Tunnel of Love?
Heather: "Come witness the ways in which the vagina has been---"
Jessica: Colon.
Ashley: Colon.
Brittany: Colon.
Heather: Colon it is, then.

There are more pictures here, including one captioned: "Darrell Green (ex-Washington Redskin) speaks out against colorectal cancer at the DC Colossal Colon Tour Press Conference". Who do you suppose they got to speak for colorectal cancer?

The Colon will be in Houston this weekend, which is how it came to my attention.

Posted 9:57 PM by Angie Schultz

Innocents Abroad

This is rich. Laurence Fishburne, who's been to Australia twice to make The Matrix and its sequels, thinks that Sydney has a "racist vibe". Were there incidents? Did someone insult him? Nope, nope, none of that. Nothing definite, just a "vibe". Fishburne explains it thusly:

"There's a vibe. There's no malice," he said. "The only way for you to really get this is you need to go to a country where there is nothing but black people and you need to be there for a month and a half or two months and you need to be in a room one day when you are the only white person in a room and then you'll get it..."

Let us turn back the clock, to my first excursion outside the US, in 1990. I spent two weeks at a conference on Crete, and when I came back through Athens I took a couple days for sightseeing. After a little bit I came to sense there was something...odd...about Athens. Soon it struck me: the place was lily white. Once I'd noticed it, it became a bit unnerving. In my experience, cities contained black people; this was a law of nature. To find a city in which black people were conspicuous by their absence suggested some sort of horrible incident, something from a science fiction thriller in which they'd all been rounded up and gassed overnight. Once I saw a pickup carrying several teenagers in the back; for some reason they were waving randomly at people. One of them was black, and I thought, "Hey, he must be an American!" I was so glad to see him I nearly waved back.

Now, that sounds kind of stupid, I know. I'd plead youth but I wasn't that young (I was homesick). However, I will point out that I was a hell of a lot younger than Fishburne is today, and even then I realized that there was no "racism" about it, it was simply that not all countries are the United States (shocking, I know).

So I understand what Fishburne means about the "vibe"; his dumbass mistake was in labelling it "racist". I don't think that was a slip of the tongue, or a grasping for a word and finding the wrong one. I suspect that he is comfortable with labelling anything that makes him racially uncomfortable as "racist", even if there's no malice (as he admits), or intent. I am beginning to see a lot of this in quotes in the press. (I didn't save examples. It's a "vibe" I get.)

Tim Blair, cites the first paragraph of the story linked above:

Matrix star Laurence Fishburne, who has visited Australia twice to make films, said he felt racism while in the country, describing the "vibe" as similar to the US in the 1950s.

And notes that Fishburne was only born in 1961, so how the hell would he know what the '50s "vibe" was like. The full '50s reference is given toward the bottom of the story:

...[T]here was a woman who was in the accounting department, a white woman from the south of our country (the US), who said 'Is it me or does this country feel like our country in the 50s?'," he said. Fishburne said he had agreed that it did.

I wasn't there for that conversation, so I don't know if they were talking about race specifically, but several Americans told me that Australia seemed to them like the 1950s US (at least one of those people was actually around in the 1950s). Race had nothing to do with it.

And if Fishburne and the woman were talking about race, they're idiots. The 1950s meant (in some areas) segrated lunch counters, buses, schools. It meant black people couldn't get some jobs (say, studly movie action hero). It did not mean some vague unease at being surrounded by (eek!) white people who talk funny.

Perhaps if you star in three paranoid science fiction films in a few short years, it begins to affect your mind.

But I really think Fishburne's problem is not racism, but rubism. Mr. Fishburne is a rube. I was (am) also a rube, but at least I'm not so much of a rube that I don't recognize it.

Via not only Tim but Tex.