-That vote in Myanmar, the one that they didn't put off despite the horrible natural disaster thing? Yeah, 92% of voters approved the new constitution. The new constitution that the military junta came up with. And the vote that the military junta set up and controlled. Really, there's nothing else to say about that.
-The article doesn't tell you if the Chilean computer hacker who published the confidential records of six million Chileans was caught, so I'm going to assume he wasn't.
-I'm starting to wonder, after Gordon Brown's latest tax cut, if he's so sensitive to public opinion that a well-timed phone call could earn me a couple of extra dollars.-I realize Bush isn't a big foreign policy whiz, but he does realize that telling the Israel prime minister that he's "an honest guy" doesn't really achieve anything, right?
-This week in bear news: we're running out of the polar kind.
-If General Electric sells it's appliance division, doesn't that mean it just makes television shows and weapons?
-Last week, Cablevision bough the Sundance channel, and now they've bought Newsday. Which must mean Cablevision is trying to corner the market on the parts of the media that people respect even less than Fox News and that Us Weekly.
Leaders
-The best thing that someone as dumb as this reader can say about the philosophy of finance laid out in this opening piece is: are people as intelligent as this pieces writer going to determine whatever financial restructuring follows the mortgage crisis? Or is it going to be controlled by reactionaries who bow to the financially illiterate mob?
-Georgia versus Russia, for whatever it is that makes Kodori Gorge so totally awesome that people should die to possess it. Coming soon?
-There's probably more than one skeleton in Morgan Tsvangirai's closet--like any politician, they've all got a few pretty reprehensible moments--but regardless, it's lovely that the Economist has so completely thrown their support behind him in his decision to get back into the ring with Robert Mugabe and his gang of thugs. Although there are a lot of similarities between what happened with the Kenyan election debacle, Zimbabwe's situation is getting a lot more advance press than that one. Hopefully, Thabo Mbeki (South Africa) will get off his ass if, after the coming second voting round, Mugabe continues to refuse to bow to the wishes of Zimbabwe's voters.
-Lebanon hasn't had a president since November. That screams stability. The Economist recommends that they also get a new constitution and electoral law. In other words holy shit everything will continue to stay terrifying except for when it gets worse than that. In some odd form of counter-intuitive editing, there's also a briefing on the state of Lebanon a few pages after this leader article. Bafflingly enough, the briefing article has some helpful charts listing the roughly 16 Lebanese factions involved in politics, a color coded map of the religious breakdown of the various areas in Lebanon, both of which would have helped to make what's clearly a complex situation less so. Instead, two articles, no obvious reason they're separated.
Letters
-Hey, Milan Shah--the solution to world hunger will never come from the widespread embrace of vegetarianism. Also, John Lennon? There's only two or three people that embraced pacifism after listening to "Imagine" and both of them were pretty easy to beat up in the first place.
United States
-If there’s another reference for this article’s title “It Won’t Be A Walk In The Woods” besides that Bill Bryson book, then it escapes this reader. Thankfully, The Economist includes a picture of a stern looking John McCain taking a, wait for it, walk in some woods. Which brings this issue closer to the NY Post then ever before. Anyway, this is one of those articles that everybody has already read—McCain is screwing around, trying to placate more conservative members of the party while trying to spice himself up to the undecided, and some Democrats have started calling him “McStay.” McStay? That’s the kind of name that people who love puns and riddles call somebody. It’s the opposite of funny and clever. That makes Democrats sound like people with names like Felix who write it in lowercase cursive.
-“Nobody showed me any money yet.” That’s Steven Ybarra, one of those superdelegates they keep mentioning. While the money is a requested $20 million to register Hispanic voters, which is totally a worthy cause, it’s still repugnant behavior. Where’s the money supposed to come from? Should it come from one of those depleted funds that American soldiers are supposed to get bulletproof vests from? Should it come from a fund to register African-American voters? Should it come from relief money for starving Africans? Or Burmese disaster survivors? Or Chinese earthquake victims? Or maybe, Steven Ybarra, you, my tender friend, maybe you should go fuck yourself. Maybe with a hammer?
-How did Hilary Clinton win in West Virginia? Well, apparently some people in West Virginia, hopefully not the majority, latched on to a t-shirt campaign adorned with the slogan “We Need A Mama, Not Obama.” Also, she quoted John Denver song lyrics to raucous applause. That sound you just heard? God, turning the light off. (Don’t construe this as support for any other candidate. Construe it as abject loathing for slogans and John Denver.)
-Good God, Mr. Brady, Mr. Berlatsky: Chicago had 36 shootings in one weekend, and that resulted in nine deaths? Seriously, did The Wire taught us nothing? Urban America—always in competition with Beirut to be somewhere no one wants to go.
-Crawford, Texas always sounds like the nexus of every weird backwoods style horror movie ever made.
-Lexington has it both ways, with a column on whether or not Obama and Hilary should hook up and ride this Democratic thing all the way to a knockdown drag out with John McCain. Although it certainly still looks like Hilary is out for blood, against all numerical reason, glad-handed apologies and bullshit friendships are what US Presidential tickets are made of. Well, that and drugs.
The Americas
-The only good thing that seems to have come out of America’s current status in the world regarding the way it treats prisoners is this: Columbia might be able to put some serious fear into those who want to use the country as a shooting gallery, now that President Alvaro Uribe has unveiled his latest big stick—dumping right-wing warlords into American jails.
-Chile may be going through some current struggles with corrupt officials right now, but it’s still a pretty fantastically governed country, and it’s pretty great that they’re being so open about the problems they’re facing. So, good on you, problem facers!
-India’s recent terrorist attacks are certainly beginning to pile up, but it’s heartening to read that those on the street seem not to be letting it get them down. It’ll be interesting to see how the government responds to the various strains of (mostly jihadist-based) terrorism they are now facing. Maybe “interesting” isn’t the right word. Informative?
-When disaster strikes, when does it become morally acceptable to begin criticizing the government for allowing practices that increase civilian deaths? If the critics in China are right, and the low quality of construction of public facilities (including a four story elementary school) is one of the main reasons the earthquakes death toll is so high, then it might behoove the less beholden to the Party aspects of China to begin pursuing change—not at the dismissal of mourning, but at least while the government is actively listening. With the world preparing to focus on China for the behemoth the Olympics have become, criticizing those in power isn’t going to be this easy again.
-It’s easy not to support murder when you aren’t reading about what the Myanmar junta is doing to actively prevent emergency aid and relief workers from entering the country. If there doesn’t come a day, soon, when the region’s leaders aren’t brought to horrific consequence for their current actions, then this is a world with no hint of justice whatsoever.
-It’s possible that the death toll in Darfur for the last four years is at 300,000. Obviously, it’s a fucking cruel joke to pretend that the majority of the world gives a shit—four years with little more than some useless concerts and celebrity-based catch-phrases, while the UN negotiated the definition of genocide. Now, the violence is spreading from the western outskirts of the Sudan into the capital city of Khartoum, and it’s more than likely that the government of Chad is in full support. Thankfully, the rest of the world still spends most of it’s time thinking about other things, like whether or not they’ve bought enough Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to last through the 2-hour American Idol finale. Then again, being disappointed in white people for not caring about African problems, no matter how horrific, isn’t really trendsetting either.
-This art show sounds pretty amazing, but also heroically sad. Of course, it’s set in Kenya, and it focuses on the recent crisis brought about by the riots and voting debacles—so it’s not supposed to be the Joy Luck Club. (I’ve always assumed the Joy Luck Club is a happy story about smiling immigrants and melting pots.)
-Forecast for the euro-based economy, now as dismal as forecast for…oh, hell, every other countries economy.
-Supermarkets aren’t allowed to sell non-prescription drugs in France. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, in what seems to be the millionth article this reader has seen where the French people come across as wanting to enjoy the fruits of a diverse global economy when it comes to the availability of consumer products, but they don’t wish for it to make any change whatsoever in their quasi-socialist labor practices.
-Vladimir Putin fully acknowledges that the Russian government is rife with “corruption, lawlessness and inefficiency,” and while his verbal response is along the lines of “I’ll fix it, don’t you worry,” his actions are of a guy who’s totally content to enjoy the monolithic power such corruption provides. While it’s not like anyone was going to write letters about the wonderful human beings that ran Yukos, grabbing the sociopath who eviscerated the company through extraordinarily illegal means and putting that gentleman, Igor Sechin, in charge of Russian industry—well, that’s just about the complete opposite of “fixing” anything. Of course, he did let Dmitry Medvedev hire two former KGB agents. Good times, this coming future.
-Yeah, I’m really sure that the integrity of Soviet war graves will stand in the way of oil drilling. Puh-fucking-leeze.
-I’m sure Serbia is a fantastic place to visit, and it’s full of delightful human beings, but all I gather from reading about it on a semi-regular basis is that there are two things to do there: vote (be it for independence or political leaders) and indict people for war crimes. Somebody needs to write a story about the local music scene, a cookie bake-off, anything.
Britain
-Only two articles in this section, not counting Bagehot’s column on Frank Field. Why? Because the Economist devoted the majority of it’s British coverage to the unraveling mystery of Michael Ashcroft’s connection to Hugo Chavez and an mysterious $10 million dollars. If you read between the lines, especially at the end, you can so tell how excited the writers are to really put the screws to Ashcroft, the Tories current deputy-chairman. He must’ve killed their dog, something like that.
International (This Week I Don’t Mind This Section’s Existence)
-Chinese diplomats in the United Nations compared the disaster in Myanmar to the French heatwave of 2003. That’s part of their argument not to force UN assistance upon the Burmese junta. It doesn’t get much more cynical then that.
-I never fully comprehend the methodology behind articles that focus on the economic costs of peacekeepers, conflict prevention, and anything that refers to the “worth” value of renewed violence, but they are always interesting to take in.
-There are too financial articles that point to the power still found in the hands of people (usually men) who are in their 80's. Regardless of what Hank Greenberg has to say about the state of the US's biggest insurer, American International Group, the problems there need to be fixed and under the sway of individuals further away from death. It's not age-ism, and it's not a rejection of their skills--it's that large financial institutions aren't small family businesses that can make overnight transitions when their long time brain trusts finally kick the bucket. Then again, AIG is already under the control of Martin Sullivan--which makes it that much more irritating that we're still jerking off to the stockholders opinion.
-"The deposit business is largely built on the laziness of customers who keep their money in accounts no matter what the rate." Never thought about it that way before, but there really looks to be money in chasing higher savings rates. Not that banks want anyone to do that.
-CompartamosBanco supposedly charges 100% a year in interest on small loans to the Mexican poor, yet it's still under debate whether they are an exploitative demon out of hell, no different from a finger breaking loan shark. That seems odd.
Science and Technology
-This reader has his own personal interest in the behavior of apex predators--we weren't, at the time of this publication able to confirm whether pilot whales are included in that category, but it seems possible that they certainly might be. Now that their methods of hunting and killing prey (mostly squids) are being more researched, this is one story we hope to find out more about--especially if it turns out that they are holding the speed records for cetaceans.
-Apparently nothing much is happening in the world of science this week, because the Economist published a story about Dusseldorf (a city the newspaper feels the need to snidely point out is "not well-endowed with nostalgic charm) and the change-over in street lamps currently occurring. This is the sort of article that trade magazines were invented to publish.
-Then again, maybe the street light story made it through because the Economist committed their reporters to focus on the growing development in mobile phone microscopes. That's the sort of technological advancement that could definitely have extensive positive medical ramifications, especially for the developing world.
-They had to publish a story about the growing oxygen depletion in multiple coastal regions, of course, that shit is totally important, but this is one of those scientific articles that would have benefited from a couple more days of editing or research. It's so desperate to be informative AND give opinion on the subject that it changes it's mind about multiple aspects of the subject with every paragraph. "What's worrying" and "Sounds like good news but" and etc, etc, etc. Infuriatingly complicated article, but that's probably a reflection of me being stupid and the subject being complex.
Books and Arts
-"As people write books on global warming, so they generate interest in the subject, which increases demand, which leads to the writing of even more books. Both these cycles result in a lot of hot air." Then the Economist goes on to review four books on global warming, recommending one and pooping on the others. Of course, that's right up this readers alley. Hell, we wish it was a bigger alley. A main thoroughfare, even.
-Abu Gharib book comes out, and the Economist, like so many others, is still pretty angry that no one higher in the line of command was ever punished for what went on there. It's these moments in the magazine that are always hiding in plain sight--99% percent of the magazine is sober analysis, which can, yes, make it a bit boring, but then you'll catch these little moments where you can tell that these writers are just as angry about injustice as the loudest protester. Screaming all the time makes everyone else tone-deaf to your claims, no matter how justified. But a quiet, blistering condemnation, resting at the tail end of a mature, somber article? It's a classic sucker-punch.
-Joseph Nye is probably a really great dude, and it sounds like his books on leadership are really intelligent, but still, this reader can't escape wondering how incredibly boring it must be to have spent such a healthy portion of one's adult life writing and researching books on "leadership." A bunch of historical perspectives might be fascinating, as you'd get to spend time in the worlds of Napoleon, US Presidents, Genghis Khan, etc, but lurking in the field of analytical research on it? As an idea, a concept, a practice? That sounds awful.
-An autobiography of Barbara Walters could be written on the side of a lambs flesh with a curling iron and I still wouldn't even remotely be able to make myself give a shit.
-Jewelery museums either, god, I can't imagine being paid to go to a place like that. To each their own, I suppose.
Obituary: Mildred Loving
-That's three in a row that we didn't know, although in Mildred's case, that may be that she is probably in the first wave of things to be dropped from the history book--she wasn't a civil rights activist, and her case (a black woman and a white man, who's marriage went all the way to the American Supreme Court) didn't interest her and her husband enough for them to attend the arguments or hearings. (According to the obit, they didn't even read the decision, which reached a unanimous ruling in 1967.) The best thing about someone like Mildred Loving and her husband is, for this reader, that they once again put to lie the idea that great social change can only be brought about by those in great power. While it was lawyers and courts that changed the law, it was a quiet, funny black woman and her gangly white husband who decided that they were going to get married whether there was a law in the way or not. They didn't do much--but then again, what they did made the country a better place for those who came after them. That, in it's own little way, is more than enough.
-Next week in the Economist--more depressing stuff! More money talk! War, famine and pestilence, on the way!
Although I claim to be from Chicago, I actually live way the hell out in the suburbs, so the inner city violence doesn't really affect me, outside of being outraged about it when I watch the local news. Where I live, the big crime stories always seem to be about white women who suddenly disappear, leaving their husbands looking suspicious.
I don't usually click through on these articles, since I only have so much time in my day, and your summaries/commentary usually suffice. But I had to check out the one about the art show in Kenya; maybe artistic stuff captures my attention more than dry news. I guess that's the point, right? It sounds incredible and horrific, and hopefully some pictures will get displayed in the politicians' dining room, as per the artists' suggestion.
When disaster strikes, I think it becomes morally acceptable to begin criticizing the government for allowing practices that increase civilian deaths right fucking away. Hell, even here in the US, where we're supposed to be the best country in the world and shit, people (rightly) jumped all over the government for the bungling of the Hurricane Katrina situation. Of course, little came of it, but at least people weren't afraid to point out when the people in power fucked up.
Posted by: Matthew J. Brady | 2008.05.27 at 14:47
You write very well.
Posted by: Marlie | 2008.10.22 at 20:40