Since late January I’ve withdrawn to my little cave in the side of the mountain. I can’t explain it. Maybe I was just recharging. Maybe I couldn’t look beyond the rim of the chasm anymore without wanting to jump. As is so often said, “It’s nothing personal,” I just had the feeling that everything on this 3rd rate little planet, circling a 5th rate star, was swirling down a huge black hole.

It’s not as if anything has changed, but I’ve upped my Prozac and I’m looking at things a little different now. Now, different should not be read as rosy. Different is different, not better. It appears that approximately 24,000 more soldiers will be sent to Iraq in the next few months. Democrats are so afraid of being labeled as defeatists (or “cut and runners”) that they’ve packed their balls away for the time being. Frankly, I thing that they should take their Conservative critics up on their challenge to do more than pass non-binding resolutions. Finger-wagging doesn’t stop an administration bent on accruing more power for themselves than Croesus had gold. (more…)

Just a few thoughts now that that our long national funeral has ended. There’s a lot to be said for loyalty. However, one must always question what they’re loyal to: is it to their ‘school,’ or to their ‘tribe,’ or to their nation? It might seem an odd question, but bear with me.

After Gerald Ford died, we found out that he had not supported the war in Iraq. He told this to Bob Woodward in an interview 2 years ago with the caveat that it not be revealed until after Ford’s death. So, where was his loyalty, in the end? Was it to the country? Or was it to his school, his tribe?

Do you find it odd that I call the Republican Party a tribe? Well, what do you call it when someone puts his loyalty to his party above his loyalty to his country? When his voice was needed in the national debate, he chose to remain silent. He didn’t support the war, he thought that it was wrong from its premise to its execution; but he said nothing. Now, we have his hollow ghostly voice speaking up too softly, and too late. When he could have made a difference, he chose silence. (more…)

It’s the end of another annus horribilis. Not for Anon, personally, though I will admit to a certain amount of melancholy. But, the rest of the world didn’t fare as well as even I did. There’s really no need to tick off the list; we all know where the problems are and continue to be. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from Dafur to Somalia, from Ukraine to the rest of the ‘Stans; the list just goes on and on.

At home, there’s the loss of habeus corpus and the general mucking about with the first 10 amendments to the Consitution, aka: the Bill o’ Rights. Evidently, Rights must be abrogated in order to preserve them (this goes along with the military philosophy used in Vietnam: you have to burn the village in order to save the village). As we search for the enemy, we can now look in the mirror to find him. For our fragile experiment of representational democracy it is ‘the darkest part of the longest night,’ and it’s time for clear-eyed honesty when looking into our souls for answers. (more…)

Well, I’ve been sitting on the sidelines for a while: watching and thinking about the world and the sentient creatures who occupy it. It’s funny what will set one off. It doesn’t have to be a huge occurrence. Sometimes it’s a trivial thing. For me it happened while the HB and I were channel surfing. We happened on to the Time “Person of the Year” show. It’s not something we’d ordinarily watch, but we were too lazy to click on.

The show revolved around the process that the Pooh-Bahs at Time magazine go through to pick their so-called person of year cover story. Now this ‘honor’ of dubious distinction has, in the past, been awarded to Hitler, Stalin and Wallace Simpson. So, it isn’t as if the ‘person’ has to be a good one. The criteria seem to revolve around who affected world the most in the year just ending and the year to come. (more…)

Perception is a strange thing. I had studied these photos of Ron Mueck’s sculpture of a boy for quite a while. They are obviously from 2 different exhibitions. The larger of the 2 was in a gallery with soaring dimensions. Also, the photo is taken from a height above. The figure of the boy appears to be looking down at the spectators. There is something slightly menacing about him, as if he’s contemplating standing up and then stomping on the people. Or, perhaps, he’s thinking of playing with them as if they were dolls. The sculpture seems in proportion with the space, it’s the people who seem small and insignificant.

In the second photo, the boy seems cramped. His outsized figure can barely fit in the space he’s been allotted. This time he’s looking off in the distance. He has a thousand-yard stare. The people aren’t menaced by him at all. The space is theirs and he can do nothing but crouch down in it.

Many aspects of life can be contrasted this way. A situation that seems huge in one context, can seem more in proportion (or at least manageable) in another context. Yes, it’s all in how you look at it. (more…)

Well, I did call it, didn’t I? Just to refresh your memories here were my predictions for 7 November:

Senate 5-8 seat pick up for Democrats
House 27-34 seat pick up for Democrats
Governors 4-6 pick up for Democrats

The Senate is on the low end of my estimate (5-6), but still there. The House is right on (33) and the governors are at the high end of my margin of error (6). This is what happens when you strip the rhetoric, the partisan passions and negative ads from your analysis. I’m not saying that those aren’t factors in how elections are decided. What I am saying is that if you want an honest analysis, you must strip all the noise from what you’re looking at. (more…)

One of my favourite holidays is the Mexican La Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead). It starts on what we old-school Catholics used to call All Souls Day. Behind the celebration is the concept that you can commune with the spirits of your dearly departed. This idea appeals to me. The holiday started before the Christian era, but was co-opted by the priests who came with along with the conquistadors. They even moved the date of the holiday from mid-summer to coincide with All Souls Days in an effort to mitigate its pagan roots.

This year, however, La Dias de los Muertos has another meaning for me. I came across this picture of el Presidente Americano made from photos of many of the soldiers who have died in his vainglorious war. (more…)

Okay, let’s talk about the Prisoner’s Dilemma. In game theory, the Prisoner’s Dilemma is used try to understand, hypothetically, how people choose their options in different situations. The classic situation posits 2 prisoners and what they can achieve if they choose to either confess (cooperate) or not (defect).

As you can see, by the chart (I’ve added some colour to mine, nice effect I think), the best possible outcome for both prisoners is if they both confess (cooperate). As an example of another outcome, if prisoner B doesn’t cooperate and prisoner A does; then B wins and A loses. If neither of them confesses, however, it doesn’t go any better for either prisoner: their outcome is mediocre for both of them. (more…)

This is just an idle Sunday musing. There’s nothing much happening on the political scene, right? Yeah, I know, but I’m not going there. Too many people have had too much fun with that situation already.

No, I’m thinking about inconsistency. Specifically, I’m thinking about inconsistency in politics. This isn’t about politicians, it’s about the public, it’s about you and me. Inconsistency in political philosophy leads to rationalization on a grand scale.

I didn’t come up with this myself. There was a piece on NPR about trying to find a name for people who are inconsistent in their political thinking. Some examples would be: environmentalists who drive SUVs, so-called ‘pro-lifers’ who believe in the death penalty, gay Republicans, Clintonian Democrats. Well, you get the drift. Frankly, I can’t remember all the various monikers that the NPR folks came up with because I immediately came up with what I think is the perfect name: Hypocrats. (more…)

–James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 51

Can we appeal to our better angels and, in turn, oblige ourselves to be more responsible? The problem for all of us ordinary stiffs was defined a few centuries back by Plato.

In “The Republic,” Plato describes a cave where people don’t see what’s really happening in their world. What they do see are shadows made by puppets and reflected on the walls. It’s not as if the people in the cave even see the puppets, they see the shadows of the puppets.

Today, we see the shadows of what the puppet masters want us to see. Don’t believe it? Where do you get your news? How do you know what’s going on in your world? More to the point, who owns your news source? (more…)