Facial Hair of the Weekend

ZZ Top. I once saw Billy Gibbons in person, and the beard is even more epic in real life.

Foreign Women and Male Domination

Lisa has a really interesting post on the marketing of Asian women to white men because of their supposed submissiveness.

I first became aware of this in 1996 when I spent a year teaching English in South Korea. I had a middle-aged Australian roommate who I am sure was a virgin. He combined the lovely characteristics of hating women combined with Victorian beliefs about courtship to make himself perennially sexless. He came to Korea in part because he hoped to finally meet someone, which of course didn't happen. He then turned to mail-order catalogs of Russian women. I'm not sure how that turned out. Another guy I knew was an ex-G.I. who married a Korean woman. He extolled the virtues--submissiveness, knowing how to take care of a man, sex when you want it instead of only when she wants it, etc. It was kind of nauseating.

So I've been interested to see the growth of mail-order brides ever since. Many of the men who purchase these women treat them horribly. They often hate American women, resent feminism, and not surprisingly, treat their new wives as objects. Domestic violence is a pandemic in these relationships.

About Asian women, supposedly the most subservient, Lisa writes:

The idea, specifically, that Asian women are more passive and deferential than white women, has been used to explain white men’s fetish for Asian women, Western men’s sex tourism in Asian countries, and Western men’s use of Asian mail-order bride services. Some of these men, it is argued, want a subordinate partner and they find it difficult to meet a white/American woman who is willing to play that role. You can actually hear a male sex tourist make this argument in this post.

She doesn't really seem to buy this argument, but I mostly do. This is what these men want. But the real point of her post is to link to this absurd website, explaining the "condition" leading women to hate men. Warning: This is really reprehensible stuff. But it's worth flipping through if you are interested in the levels of woman hating among certain segments of the male population.

Tebow

With the college football season approaching, I want to ask one simple question. Is it too much to wish that Tim Tebow suffer a career ending injury?

I'm not wishing this because I am an alumni of the University of Tennessee. Rather, it's because Tebow is such a self-promoting blowhard, with the right mix of conservative values that make sportscasters go ga-ga. He writes bible versus on his eye black patches so that we can all see what a Christian he is. He is tough and shows up every day. He talks about God constantly. In the championship game last January, play by play man Thom Brennanman went over the top, proclaiming (in a slight paraphrase since I'm not going to spend time searching for the actual quote) "If you spend 5 minutes with Tim Tebow, you will be a better person." That disgusting statement of actual love (rather than, oh I don't know, impartiality) rivals Joe Buck and Tim McCarver's decade long fellation of Derek Jeter, Dan Dierdorf proclaiming that he wished he could be Jerry Rice for one day, and Buck's own moral outrage with Randy Moss fake mooned the Green Bay Packers crowd after scoring a touchdown as the worst moments of sportscasting I have ever seen.

Now, Tebow claims he is a virgin. Why should I care about this? I don't care what his sexual history is. But of course, everyone else does. He's living his faith! He's a prime example of white American manhood! He's a model for our children to follow!

Man, I can't wait for the allegations that he got someone pregnant. That's going to be awesome, on the level of Sarah Palin's daughter getting pregnant after Palin pushed abstinence-only education level of awesome.

As for rooting for the career ending injury, since Tebow has taken out a $2 million insurance policy on his own body, I don't see who loses here. Truth be told, I'm not sure I've ever loathed a college football player as much as Tebow. Maybe former Washington QB Chris Chandler, who said that losing to Oregon was the most embarrassing moment of his life. But that's about it.

Historical Image of the Day

1911 basketball team, Independence High School, Independence, Missouri.

Dancing into 1639

Ireland pretends we are in the 17th century, passes a law outlawing blasphemy.

Around Latin America

-It's been a really busy week. For starters, Manuel Zelaya has apparently returned to Honduras, but what's going to happen next is anybody's guess.

...UPDATE: Apparently he entered briefly, but has returned to Nicaragua to avoid arrest. We'll see what follows...

-Brazil has agreed to allow Paraguay to sell its surplus energy from the Itaipu dam to Brazilian companies other than the state-run Eletrobras. The Itaipu issue has been a stickler for years - Brazil needs more energy as it grows, and Paraguay has had a surplus thanks to the agreement to share power from the dam between the two countries when it was built back in the 1970s. Although Lula had originally said he would not review the contract from the 1970s when Lugo won election, he has since taken a more diplomatic stance (as is characteristic of his administration), and it now seems I was correct in suggesting that this would not be nearly the diplomatic crisis between the two countries that some scholars thought it would be.

-There's also great news on how Brazil has stemmed the spread of AIDS:

Two decades ago, it would have been hard to imagine finding an upside to an HIV crisis of the scope that Brazil had on its hands. The World Bank estimated that 1.2 million Brazilians would be infected by the turn of the century — by far the highest number of any country in the region. But today, there is plenty of good news to go around. Thanks to aggressive intervention, Brazil has only about half as many HIV cases as predicted. And the country's popular President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula for short, has taken the show on the road: HIV/AIDS assistance is becoming a powerful tool in the president's growing diplomatic chest.

The article traces how Brazil's government offered free antiretroviral medicine to victims beginning in 1996 and aggressively launching both treatment and prevention programs (in what is simultaneously a reminder that government health programs can and do work, and that even Fernando Henrique Cardoso got some things right in his administration). It also links those efforts to Brazil's broader diplomatic accomplishments since Lula took office in 2002, and is well worth reading in its (relatively brief) entirety.

-I've commented before on Brazil's efforts to build alliances with African countries. Those efforts have not gone unnoticed, as Mozambique President Armando Guebuza this week called Lula's government "a true ally and partner in the fight against poverty." I've said it before, and I'll say it again: when discussing Brazil's ascendance as a global economic and political actor, one cannot overstate the strides made via Lula's insistence on negotiating with any legitimate government, regardless of ideology, if the other governments had things to offer Brazil and vice versa. By refusing to exclude countries like Venezuela or China or the U.S. over ideological issues, Brazil has greatly strengthened its presence globally, and has made many friends where other countries and regions like the U.S., the EU, and others have been alienating countries. And Lula's focus on Africa has seemed genuine and useful for both Brazil and Africa, and I can only hope (though with baited breath) that the next Brazilian president will continue this trend.

-While things are goign smoothly between Brazil and Paraguay, the same cannot be said for Brazil and Budweiser's owning company, AmBev - the anti-trust organs in Brazil are hitting AmBev with a record-setting fine of $150 million reais ($79 million dollars US) for "anti-competitive practices" dating back to 2004 in Brazil. Although the fine only marked 1% of AmBev's 2003 income, the announcement was enough to make stocks drop in Brazil Wednesday.

-In broader economic terms, Latin America may have gotten some good news this week, as Nouriel Roubini, known as "Dr. Doom" for his depressing-but-ultimately-accurate prediction of the economic crisis the world began to face last year, offered some rare optimism in discussing Latin America's outlook:

Major emerging powers such as China, India and Brazil are among nations that may recover fastest once the global economy picks up, Roubini told reporters at the conference. He also mentioned Chile, Uruguay, Colombia and Peru as countries better- positioned to grow. Countries facing the biggest challenges include emerging markets in Eastern Europe, such as Hungary, Bulgaria and Ukraine, he said.

-In a stomach-churning story of despicable actions, a jury is considering a lawsuit against a Florida hospital that deported a brain-injured illegal immigrant back to Guatemala in 2003.

The lawsuit seeks nearly $1 million to cover the estimated lifetime costs of his care in Guatemala, as well as damages for the hospital's alleged "false imprisonment" and punitive damages to discourage other medical centers from taking similar action.

Jimenez was a Mayan Indian who was sending money home to his wife and young sons when in 2000, a drunken driver plowed into a van he was riding in, leaving him a paraplegic with the mental capability of a fourth grader. Because of his brain injury, his cousin Montejo Gaspar was made his legal guardian.

Jimenez spent nearly three years at Martin Memorial before the hospital, backed by a letter from the Guatemalan government, got a Florida judge to OK the transfer to a facility in that country. Gaspar appealed.

But without telling Jimenez's family - and the day after Gaspar filed an emergency request to stop the hospital's plan - Martin Memorial put Jimenez on a $30,000 charter flight home early on July 10, 2003.

The outcome of the case could play a major role in how hospitals deal with illegal immigrants in the future, making the case of major importance not just to health-care, but to immigration issues, as well as the basic decency of treating any person, regardless of nation, race, or creed, respectfully and tenderly.

-Many people are aware that the Atacama Desert is the driest place on earth; some parts of the desert in Northern Chile have never seen recorded rainfall. It is, suffice to say, extremely dry, and any rainfall can cause major problems. And I mean any rainfall, as this week, .001 inches of rain led to a state of emergency that led to power outages and school closings.

-In the "politically-charged pension awards" category, Argentina is giving a "special pension" to 18 individuals who hijacked a plane with the hopes of gaining control of the Malvinas/Falkland Islands back in 1966. "will grant a special pension to the nationalist group of 18 civilians who in 1966 took command of a commercial flight to Rio Gallegos and had it re-routed to the Falkland Islands with the purpose of taking over the Malvinas for Argentina."

-In the "racial stereotype? or just not funny?" department, apparently the "Yo quiero Taco Bell" chihuaha died this week at the age of 15. And in the funniest pet-news I've heard since learning that the lady-magnet Spuds Mackenzie was female, it turns out that that male-voiced symbol was "Gidget".

-Extinction of any species sucks. Here's hoping that the 90-something year old Galapagos giant tortoise "Lonesome George" is rescuing his breed from the brink of extinction.

-Finally, in touching and sad news, a woman has been arrested for killing twin Mexican midget wrestlers. El Espectrito II and La Parkita, 35, were found dead in a hotel room. Prosecutors suspect the anonymous, 65-year-old suspect and a friend posed as prostitutes and planned to poison the wrestlers to unconsciousness and rob them as part of a broader wave of female gangs robbing men. Unfortunately, the normal dosage of drugs to knock a man unconscious was enough to kill the two wrestlers. The memorials (fans showing up at the funeral in masks) have been touching, and for all the senselessness in so many violent acts, this one seems particularly senseless.

Perry Doubles Down

My question from earlier this week is proven to be true; yes, Rick Perry is currently America's stupidest governor.

Perry wants to nullify Obama's health care plan:

Gov. Rick Perry, raising the specter of a showdown with the Obama administration, suggested Thursday that he would consider invoking states’ rights protections under the 10th Amendment to resist the president’s healthcare plan, which he said would be “disastrous” for Texas. [...]

“I think you’ll hear states and governors standing up and saying ‘no’ to this type of encroachment on the states with their healthcare,” Perry said. “So my hope is that we never have to have that stand-up. But I’m certainly willing and ready for the fight if this administration continues to try to force their very expansive government philosophy down our collective throats.”

As commenters have claimed in previous discussions of Perry's nullifying and secessionist rhetoric, he is pandering to the extreme right to stave off Kay Bailey Hutchinson's primary challenge for the Republican nomination for governor in 2010. He's getting increasingly desperate--Perry was booed at the last Texas teabagger event because he's not crazy enough, showing that there is no limit to what Texas extremists are hoping for. This is probably all bluster. But it's still incredibly irresponsible.

Greatest Baseball Matchup Ever--Jews v. KKK

I like old-timey baseball weirdness because it so wonderfully reflects the weirdness of American at large during that time. Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic wrote of this 1926 baseball game between a Ku Klux Klan team and a Jewish team. He then followed it with a more substantial post, demonstrating that these kind of weird racially charged matchups were pretty common.

Historical Image of the Day

Time to bring back the historical images since I am more or less off vacation. No theme through the weekend; will start back with that on Monday.

1868 version of an Aladdin story, published in New York.

Summer Reading

With summer nearing an end, I thought I would mention my recent reading. Summer is just about the only time I can read fiction. Occasionally, I assign a novel. And maybe I slowly move through 1 or 2 a semester. But not much. In fact, I would say that the only negative I can think of to being a professor is the lack of time to read what I want.

I've started to pick an American author to catch up on each summer. Last year, it was Raymond Chandler. This year, I went with Mark Twain. But I haven't done much with him. Maybe I'll sneak another one before school starts.

Anyway, here's my summer reading list thus far:

Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain, Puddinhead Wilson
Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays
David Malouf, The Great World
Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

All have been good. I've read the Twain and Didion before; all three impressed me again upon rereading. Diaz was great and Murakami pretty amazing. The Malouf book is also very good, though I would put it in the category of respect rather than love.

Still, I'm not done. Today, I hope to read Antonio Tabucchi's Pereira Declares, a novel about Salazarist Lisbon. It's short and I have to fly from New York to Texas tonight. So I should get through it. After that, I still hope to get through:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi
Alice Munro, Love of a Good Woman
Ann Enright, The Gathering
Tomas Eloy Martinez, Santa Evita

I've read the Marquez and Twain before. I'm trying to prioritize re-reading novels of late. Even though I don't have time to read much of anything, I still think it's important to remember what you do read by occasional re-readings.

Public Enemies

I originally avoided reading Trend and Sarah's discussion of Michael Mann's "Public Enemies." I was in Central America and I didn't want to be influenced.

After seeing it, I basically agree with Sarah up and down the board. I thought it was a totally soulless movie. I didn't care about any of the characters at all. I talked to Trend about it the day before I saw it and he told me about the great shootout scene in the forest. I agree, it is very well done. The movie looks great. But do I have to sit through 2 hours of horrible dialogue, half-drawn characters, and indifferent acting to witness a good shootout scene. It's like Michael Mann thought it would be cool to have a great action scene in a forest with guys wearing 1930s outfits and then created a shell of a movie to construct around that.

Think about "Public Enemies" in comparison to "The Untouchables." I'm hardly one to use a Brian DePalma movie as a positive comparison, but in this case it's apt. "The Untouchables" was a collage of ripoffs from the gangster movies of the past. But it was fun. You cared about all the characters. DeNiro was truly evil as Capone, Connery was fantastic, the plot was great. Even Costner was decent for Christ's sake. The tension during the baby carriage on the stair scene was intense. I don't care that DePalma ripped it straight from Battleship Potemkin, it worked.

What in "Public Enemies worked as well as The Untouchables?" Nothing, except perhaps the craft in the shootout scenes. Christian Bale is completely wasted. I feel bad for Marion Cotillard. She learned English for this role and this was to be her big coming out in America. But she is also completely wasted. Depp is always good, even if I usually don't care for his movies too much. But he can't carry this terrible script.

Trend defended the movie to me by basically saying that it was a Michael Mann movie and that's what you were getting, love it or hate it. I really liked "Heat" when it first came out. But I was a much younger person then. Would I like it now? Or would I also think it is a poorly put together production that looked good and had some well-done action scenes? I really think it would probably be the latter. I always respected Michael Mann for his earlier work but "Public Enemies" has made me reconsider that in the face of overwhelming evidence of poor direction.

The Idiocy of Ayn Rand Combined with the Vapidity of TV? Oh, Joy....

The good news: we may be spared a film adaptation of Atlas Shurgged.

The bad news: it may end up being a mini-series instead, so that we could enjoy all of the nuances of such subtlties like speeches that never end and the occasional rape without being limited by the 3-hour movie time.

Hopefully this is just talk, and somebody takes Charlize Theron aside and explains the manifold ways why this is a bad idea, from philosophical to practical. If the mini-series does ever see the light of day, though......well, hopefully, the television will reveal to many just how stupid Rand's words are when they actually spoken aloud, rather than eliminating that 1000-page obstacle that kept an insufferable book out of the hands of so many unthinking-and-easily-swayed people and leading to a new army of idiots walking around asking "who is John Galt?" and sincerely insisting that government is bad.

I don't really watch TV now, but if this thing ever sees the light of day, it will be a guarantee that I don't watch TV ever again.

Honduras Crisis Talks Dead - Now What?

Talks on Honduras have broken down, and Zelaya and Micheletti seem about as far apart as they ever have been. While the term "postponed" provides a sense of optimism, I suspect it's false optimism. Oscar Arias has failed to negotiate an end to the presidential crisis, and the OAS failed before Arias stepped in. The fact that some within Micheletti's negotiating team were willing to make concessions that Micheletti was not indicated earlier that there may be some cracks forming in the pro-coup faction, but those cracks did not result in any concrete agreements, and Micheletti remains as intransigent as ever.

Arias's claim that the OAS now hasto negotiate a deal is odd, since, as Greg also commented, the OAS already tried and failed, and it's pretty unclear why the OAS will suddenly be able to resolve things quickly. Boz maps out how the reports of what the sticking points in the talks remain unclear (whether Zelaya also rejected the 12-point plan on limiting his powers upon his return, or whether it was just Micheletti who refused the plan due to the return of Zelaya). RAJ believes it was Micheletti, and offers some fair criticisms of Arias's approach:

Arias also made the mistake of getting involved in "negotiating" issues that are
strictly internal-- such as including a requirement that the budget passed by
the de facto regime would be left stand for the remainder of Zelaya's
presidency. This was a red herring thrown in by the Micheletti crowd, and adding
it to the plan simply showed them that Arias would include anything they wanted.
And then they held a press conference and used him rhetorically as a prop.

From the non-Honduras standpoint, Arias's reputation for diplomacy seems to have taken a hit a bit in this whole ordeal. Between the strange comment that the OAS can now take up the issue and his insistence on getting involved purely domestic Honduran affairs as part of the negotiation, he seems to be a bit out of touch with how to have tried to solve this crisis and other alternatives. This isn't to suggest he's inept or that the failure is all his (Micheletti and Zelaya no doubt played major roles as well, to put it lightly), but certainly hopes were riding high that he could bring the situation to a resolution, and not just his failure, but some of his approaches as well, certainly have put a dint his reputation.

More important than Arias's reputation, though, is Honduras itself. It seems fairly likely now that Zelaya will at least try a return to Honduras, saying "only God can stop me," though, as Greg pointed out, there is the small question about the Honduran military, too. The EU has already slashed $90 million in aid, and Hillary Clinton has told Micheletti that, if Zelaya is not returned, the U.S. will also impose severe sanctions. That could theoretically change the playing field a bit, but given Micheletti's intransigence, I find this unlikely. This could end up quietly, or it could end up violently; one can hope it's not the latter, but that possibility is looking increasingly likely, as anti- and pro-Zelaya supporters are already planning public demonstrations that could lead to further conflict.

Absolutely Unnecessary Things that Albuquerque Spends Money On: Hovercrafts

Talking with a friend in Albuquerque last night, I learned something that boggled my mind: the Albuquerque police department has a hovercraft.

Let me repeat that. Albuquerque has a hovercraft.

A city. In the desert. With a shrinking river. And they got.....a hovercraft.

There's so much one can say here: another of Marty Chavez's ridiculous and stupid self-promotion efforts? The worst waste of taxpayer dollars in Albuquerque? The complete futility of this hovercraft beyond the issue of river rescue on a body of water that's disappearing? The fact that a lifeboat, which would have been much cheaper, could have been used instead to the same effect? Does the hovercraft get used more in parades than in police work?

I think my favorite part of this is the hovercraft-manufacturer's website, which puts the "balloon fiesta water rescue" images up all over, as if to show the hovercraft's utility, yet in every picture, the hovercraft is either A) unoccupied, clearly to be photographed for publicity, or B) sitting there while there are no balloons in the water. The smile on the officer in the first picture says it all, just screaming, "I cannot believe we convinced them to buy this thing for us!"

To be clear, hovercrafts can have their uses, as the company's page shows. There are some much more compelling pictures of a "Mud/Ice/Water rescue" at Anchorage airport. That is a circumstance in which a hovercraft seems like a defensible purchase. But Albuquerque, with its one shrinking river?

And for those who still can't believe it, you just have to see the police report from June 30th of this year: "APD deployed the hovercraft and ATVs manned by Open Space personnel and APD divers" when a boy fell into the river. And in a sad turn, the boy was not recovered, and while his presumed death is indeed tragic, it prompts the question: if the hovercraft cannot do the one thing it was ostensibly purchased for, why get it?

Oh, right - so you can show it during parades and take pictures of it with balloons in the sky (not the water) behind you.

Get out your sulfur pumps: Geo-engineering is going mainstream

If the Obama administration’s steadfastness in putting geo-engineering on the table as a valid solution to combat global warming and DARPA’s diving into it are not disconcerting enough, the once far-fetched theory has now received a nod from the American Meteorological Society, which is endorsing research in the area. In addition to working toward reducing emissions, and adapting to climate change, the organization is promoting studies that would look into ways of “manipulating physical, chemical, or biological aspects of the Earth system.”

Geo-engineering has, of course, remained a marginal theory among some environmental experts for decades. But the concept has increasingly crept into the conversation in recent months as a real solution warranting debate and discussion. I certainly do like the idea of scientifically credible entities exploring all possible options as opposed to radical individuals spouting their viewpoints, but the evidence available for this concept as a valid answer is less than encouraging.

This article in the Atlantic is one of the most comprehensive ones I’ve read to date on the subject. Graeme Wood examines close to every geo-engineering strategy so far proffered – from pumping sulfate aerosols which would absorb and reflect sunlight back to space, to growing more CO2-consuming plankton in the sea.

Volcanoes are known to cause noticeable cooling of the earth by spewing sulfur dioxide, why can’t we? Valid point. Except that excessive sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere has the potential to cause acid rain upon reaction with other substances in the sky. The terrifying effects of acid rain formed by too much sulfur in the air are easy enough to comprehend. But what could possibly happen by growing too much plankton? A lot. The dead algae could generate methane, a gas much more harmful than carbon dioxide.

There are more moderate ideas like infusing clouds with seawater to induce them to reflect more sunlight (this, according to Stephen Salter, a Scottish engineer, would entail 1,500 ships spraying seawater into clouds with the help of wind currents), and even constructing a gigantic visor (electromagnetic guns would shoot ceramic disks into the air using a hitherto unknown technology), which would block out the sun. Less drastic methods, like Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s recent suggestion to paint roofs white – or spraying seawater into clouds are both insufficient and economically unfeasible, according to Ken Caldeira, a scientist at the Carnegie Institute of Washington, who recently co-published a study finding that geo-engineering options would merely cause acidification of the ocean without any real reduction in CO2 levels.

Besides the problems of sulfur potentially coming down as acid rain and huge plankton blooms emitting too much methane, geo-engineering would also cause uneven distribution of its effects on different parts of the world; perhaps, Africa might get much warmer and more arid than before, and India would suffer from severely reduced rainfall.

I’m no environmental expert, but that seems like common sense. Reversing the effects of mankind’s engineering of the earth by further engineering not only seems counterproductive but also has the potential to go horribly wrong. But maybe that is all the more reason why any discussion is good, especially if it is based on scientific experimentation and analysis. As Chris Mooney points out, the fact that geo-engineering can have grave consequences if the technology were to reach the wrong hands is important enough to warrant a discussion.

Many of the geo-engineering solutions – especially the sulfur-pumping strategy - are incredibly cheap compared to the money and resource investment needed for regulations that curb global warming at its source. The advantage is that these methods would not involve hundreds of nations getting together to decide on a common law. The disadvantage is that these methods would not involve hundreds of nations getting together to decide on a common law.

Sure, they might go perfectly well, but the effects of such changes are not predictable to any reasonable degree because nothing of the sort has ever been implemented before. And we wouldn’t know until we are actually suffering the consequences of it. Ezra Klein offers a good analogy. A decade ago we thought using hydrofluorocarbons instead of chloroflurocarbons would save the ozone layer. And we were right, but we later found out that HFCs in the atmosphere can act as a super-greenhouse gas, with heat-warming effects over 4000 times that of CO2.

Reliance on an emergency geo-engineering solution, of course, has other consequences. Governments, not to mention big businesses, will have further excuses to do nothing about global warming. As Greame writes, "If you promise that in a future emergency you can chill the Earth in a matter of months, cutting emissions today will seem far less urgent."

Many environmental experts do agree that all the strategies so far suggested to merely reduce global warming may be too little too late. So, possibly a multidimensional plan that would tap into a variety of these methods to offset climate change in addition to a reasonable level of curbing emissions would probably be the best approach.

Or we could all follow James Lovelock's advice and move to the poles because according to him, humankind simply cannot combat global warming at the pace it is happening at. Lovelock writes in the The Vanishing Face of Gaia:

"Simply cutting back fossil-fuel burning, energy use, and the destruction of natural forests will not be a sufficient answer to global heating, not least because it seems that climate change can happen faster than we can respond to it. . . . Because of the rapidity of the Earth's change, we will need to respond more like the inhabitants of a city threatened by a flood. When they see the unstoppable rise of water, their only option is to escape to higher ground."

Apparently, this isn’t outlandish anymore either.

Astronomical Intertubes

If you are going to be on-line anywhere from 5:30pm - 8pm Pacific time, check out the webcast of the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century tonight. It is only visible in parts of China and the South Pacific, but the Griffith Park Observatory here in Los Angeles is broadcasting the view via webcast from Shanghai. The "totality" stage of the eclipse will happen around 6:30pm Pacific, lasting from 6:37pm - 6:43pm.

Here is the link.

Around Latin America

-It's been awhile since we did any updates on Honduras. Micheletti and Zelaya had agreed to negotiations with Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, and while things were looking good for awhile, they now appear to be breaking down. Zelaya has vowed to cross the border back into his home country by foot if a resolution is not agreed upon by the end of this week. Meanwhile, the U.S. is ratcheting up its rhetoric, telling Micheletti that, if Zelaya is not restored to power, the U.S. will impose "severe sanctions" on Honduras. Some are critical of the Obama administration for waiting this long to take such a strong stance, but it strikes me as the right approach: let the negotiations begin, with mediation by a smart and respected diplomat, and if/when Micheletti refuses to back down from the coup, raise the specter of fierce economic reprisals if Zelaya's (democratically-elected) administration is not returned to power.

-American interrogators apparently were not the only government agents present during interrogations in Guantanamo. According to one report, Chinese agents also had unsupervised access to a number of Uighur detainees held in Cuba after September 11th. This isn't terribly surprising, given China's efforts to crack down on Uighur separatism and general mobilization, a case that's resurfaced recently as massive protests and clashes recently erupted between Uighurs, Chinese, and the state police in western China, resulting in the deaths of 100s. Equally unsurprising is that Chinese agents were allowed into Guantanamo to interrogate prisoners, even while Congressional representatives were denied access to examine conditions. Still, the Chinese-U.S. collaboration in the "war on terror" is an interesting and unexplored topic, and if this story is any indicator, could mark some rather dark interactions between the two countries, in Cuba and elsewhere.

-I've commented before on the close ties between Colombian paramilitaries and Alvaro Uribe's administration, as well as the impossibility of attaining peace in Colombia until the government cracks down as hard on paramilitaries as on the FARC. Lillie points to one more way in which the government is trying to cover up paramilitary violence, as well as offering some fascinating news I had not heard about the search in Brazil for the bodies of guerrillas who were killed and "disappeared" in the Araguaia region in the early 1970s (as well as the controversy of having the military look for the very bodies it is accused of having executed and dumped.)

-Speaking of the FARC, Colombia is claiming it has evidence that the FARC financially sponsored Rafael Correa's election. Correa insists he did not know about it, and I imagine he didn't. Beyond that, I think Boz's analysis of what Correa needs to do is pretty spot-on.

-In a very noble cultural move, Cuba is restoring the 120-meter tall mural painted onto a mountainside in the 1950s by muralist Leovigidio Gonzalez. The restoration will weather-proof the mural, and the project will incorporate the labor of local campesinos, helping jobs in the region.

-I couldn't agree more with Evo Morales: Bolivians (and Brazilians, and Argentines, and Ecuadorans, and people in the United States, and etc...) need to be more aware of the role of dictatorships in Bolivia (and Latin America) in the past, the causes of their rises to power and the effects of their regimes, the lessons (positive and negative) that civilian governments have learned, and the ways in which repression continue to manifest themselves in the world today.

-Brazil is outraged over Britain's decision to quite literally dump its shit on Brazil:

Brazilian police are investigating after 64 containers with more than 1,400 tonnes of hazardous UK waste were found in three of the country's ports.

The authorities say that among the material which was brought in illegally they discovered batteries, syringes, condoms and nappies.

Since the initial discovery, another 25 containers with hospital waste were found, also apparently from England.

The dumps happened in Santos (one of Brazil's most important ports, located in Sao Paulo) and in Rio Grande do Sul. To add insult to insult, one of the bins was filled with dirty toys with a note saying to wash the toys before giving them to "poor Brazilian children." Britain has promised to take "immediate steps," but it's a pretty embarrassing and despicable action nonetheless.

-Also in Brazil, in the "lack of sensitivity" department:

Jobless people seeking information about their benefits on the Brazilian Labor Ministry's Web site were forced to type in passwords such as "bum" and "shameless."
Labor Minister Carlos Lupi is apologizing for the situation - and he blames a private company that created the site's security system.

The government had previously decided against renewing the company's contract, prompting the speculation that the website gaffe was a revenge-prank on the part of the company.

-In one final bit on Brazil, according to a new academic study, Brazil is the global leader in a dubious category: soccer-related deaths. The report says that 42 people have been killed in the last 10 years, putting Brazil ahead of Italy and Argentina.

-In Venezuela, former Defense Minister Italo del Valle Alliegro has been criminally charged for his role in ordering the repression of protests that resulted in the deaths of hundreds and probably thousands of people dead in 1989. The protests, known as "Caracazo," were in response to government-imposed price hikes, and as the article points out, the failure to punish any authorities for the excessive force in response has been a dark stain on the human rights record of Venezuela since 1989.

-In good news on the (non-Dirty War) human rights front, Argentine courts have ordered a reopening of the investigation into the 1994 bombing of a Jewish organization that killed 85 and injured over 300. Recent developments have included beginning a more thorough and nuanced investigation than the one that simply said Iran was to blame, and has allowed the re-admission of evidence that had been acquired prior to the date that a judge had bribed a suspect to falsely blame the police for the bombing.

-On a more light-hearted note for Argentina, and in what is a very interesting case of how individual cultures can force international companies to adapt, Pepsi is now changing its logo to read "Pecsi" in Argentina, making the spelling match the pronunciation Argentines have given to the soda for years.

-There are many reasons why Alberto Fujimori is a disgusting human being, and his conviction today for embezzlement only adds to that long list. Still, to get at the essence of Fujimori's evil, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better quotation that sums it all up than the one Fujimori issued today: "I only accept the deeds; I accept neither the legal responsibility, nor the punishment nor the civil reparations." (h/t to Lillie).

-If anybody has any information on the apparent arson of the Ministry of Health in Guyana, it could be financially useful: president Bharrat Jagdeo is offering a $25 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpretrators.

-Finally, as Erik can no doubt attest, traveling in Costa Rica (and in many parts of the world) can be quite an adventure, particularly outside of the cities. This interesting (and kind of frightening) display shows the poor condition of many bridges throughout Costa Rica, from San Jose to the rural areas. Having lived there for awhile several years ago, it looks like travel has only gotten more "adventurous."

Only In Texas...

...could they decide that regular bacon was too healthy, and that they had to come up with chicken-fried bacon. None of these 10 items seem healthy, but chicken-fried bacon is....wow. And I'm pleased but surprised to note that Ohio was not on the list (though Anthony's old stomping grounds of Indiana does have the "pizza cone" at its state fair).

Rushkoff on Colbert

I don't have a TV at the moment, so I have to watch TV on my computer. As such, I watch it in bursts rather than in entire TV shows--I watch pieces of Maddow and clips from The Daily Show.

Douglas Rushkoff was on Stephen Colbert the other night, and it's a burst of TV worth watching.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Douglas Rushkoff
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

Remembering the First Moon Landing, Today and Everyday

As many have already noted, and many more will note, today marks the 40th anniversary of the first human being setting foot on the moon. Perhaps those who remember the moon landing will remember feeling about like this, but for many of my generation, born years after the last landing, the fact that humanity has been to the moon is as mundane as Hiroshima or Watergate.

However, I've never ceased to be amazed at the events of (and the years leading up to) 1969. I was one of those numerous children who grew up looking at the stars and wanting to be an astronaut (my father's amateur astronomy hobby giving me a slightly more scientific edge in my desire than kids who just dressed up as spacemen), and although 1969 seemed like forever ago in the 80s, it was closer to the moon landing than it is to today. The moon landing in particular always amazed me, and I still carry much of that childhood wonder as an adult: it's rare that I'll see a full moon and not stop and gaze and wonder what it must have been like for (fellow Ohioan - that's the spaceman on the Ohio state quarter) Neil Armstrong and all those who followed him, to see, "feel," experience life on the moon. I've never understood the devotion of the six percent who believe Apollo 11 (and the subsequent moon landings) was a hoax (which I've never understood nor believed, and not just because every "proof" that the landings were faked has been demonstrably shown false, but because, if we were able to actually get humans to fly further into space than any other manned mission by sheer improvisation across 4 days, as we did with Apollo 13, then I'm pretty sure we could have figured out how to land on the moon with 8 years of planning). The moon landing is still such an amazing story on so many levels. I'm certainly a cynic in most things, but I'll never grasp the cynicism that refuses to accept the overwhelming evidence of one of humanity's greatest accomplishments.

People will look back nostalgically and with wonderment today, but it will fade; yet for me, I will always think of that event as amazing, not just because humanity pulled off what still strikes me as an amazing feat of astronomy; for all of the terrible things people have done with their knowledge, from nuclear weapons to genocide, from state-sponsored terrorism to fundamentalist terrorist attacks, for all of that, the moon landing and the innovation and invention it took will always remind me of the positive side of human inventiveness and ability. For that reason, whether we return to the moon, or to Mars, or anywhere else, I will always share the wonderment and amazement that humans did it first in 1969.

The Myth of College Admissions

Reading this absurd story about people charging up to $40,000 to families for advice of college admissions reminds me of something about which I feel very strongly:

Where you go for your bachelor's degree doesn't really matter

OK, that's not exactly true. Yes, if you go to Yale and have the money to get into Skulls and Bones, you are going to make a lot of connections.

For a graduate degree, one needs to get into the best school possible. But as someone who has attended three public institutions and teaches at a private school, I think I can say that your undergraduate degree flat out doesn't matter. Yes, there are things about private schools that are great. And perhaps in certain fields (music performance for instance), there are exceptions. But you can get a great education at a fraction of the price at a public institution. You have to be more motivated and it's easier to get lost in the crowd. But it can certainly be done and many people have gone on to great careers in their field after having attended really second-rate public schools.

Moreover, the idea that parents should pay tens of thousands of dollars for consultants or that the decision for an undergraduate institution is so fraught with danger that students need to spend years preparing to make the right call is completely ridiculous. If you are smart and rich enough to get into Yale or Kenyon or Princeton or Barnard, then the chances are that you will get into one of those schools, even if you don't get into the other three. And if you fail and (God forbid) you have to go to a public institution or a private school not in the top 20, you can still have just as successful a career.

A little rational thought on these issues would really help.

Will Anti-Trust Laws Continue to Apply to Professional Sports Leagues?

That's seems increasingly unlikely. Come August, the Supreme Court will rule on the pending case of American Needle, Inc. v. NFL, and the decision the court very well may end up making in favor of the NFL, frightens me. Lester Munson does a great job breaking it down:

The case began innocuously enough in Chicago in December of 2004 when American Needle, Inc. (ANI), filed an antitrust case against the NFL, claiming that the league was using its monopoly powers illegally to deprive the company of its share of the market for caps and hats bearing logos of NFL teams. ANI had made knit caps and baseball hats bearing NFL logos for decades until the NFL ended the relationship in 2000.

But American Needle didn't give up. It filed a request for review to the U.S. Supreme Court, one of 7,500 or so such requests filed annually. The court takes only 70 or 75 cases for decision each year, and American Needle's quest seemed quixotic at best.

Then, in a stunning development, the NFL told the Supreme Court it endorsed American Needle's request for a hearing and a decision. The league's attorneys announced, in a remarkable understatement, that they "are taking the unusual step of supporting" American Needle's effort to have the case reviewed at the highest level.

The league's action was a legal bombshell. Instead of standing on its lower-court wins over American Needle, the league told the Supreme Court that it wants the justices to consider an issue far beyond the caps-and-hats contract. It wants the court to grant the NFL total immunity from all forms of antitrust scrutiny, an immunity that would then apply to the NBA, the NHL and MLB, as well.

In essence, the NFL agreed with the appeal in the hopes that the Supreme Court will rule that the NFL is a single entity competing with other entities in the entertainment business, rather than 32 competing teams. Ruling that the NFL is a single entity would basically get rid of anti-trust allegations such as collusion, price-fixing, etc., as well as greatly weakening the already-relatively-ineffective NFL Player's Union, whose victories (such as for free agency) have generally come in anti-trust lawsuits.

And the ruling would impact not just the NFL. If the NFL is ruled a single entity, then the NBA, NHL, and MLB may also be ruled as such, and the price-gouging of fans and exploitation of players with relatively weak unions (although it seems baseball is in a slightly better place thanks to a stronger union) can begin. And this isn't paranoia. In his previous legal analysis for ESPN in issues ranging from the Kobe Bryant rape allegations to the SEC investigating Mark Cuban for insider trading, Munson has offered very sound and intelligent analysis for legal experts and legal dummies (like me) alike. Here's Munson's take on what could happen if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the NFL

If the NFL can find five votes for its single-entity concept, it will transform the industry.

Leagues will enjoy unfettered monopoly powers.

Salaries for players and coaches will drop.

Free agency will wither away.

Sponsors will pay more.

Fans will pay more for tickets, television and Internet broadcasts and for paraphernalia.

And owners' profits will soar.

That's about as concise as you could make it, and as bleak as things could be. Sure, if you don't particularly care for football (as I don't), then you don't have to spend the money, and the diehards can spend money the way they like. But this isn't about picking a sport and sticking with it. This would be a vulgar display of abuse and power on the owners' sides, something that has already begun (the year after not renewing its contract with American Needle, Inc., NFL hat prices jumped 50%, from $19.99 to $30). Everyday fans who like to show their support for their teams would have a harder and harder time being able to afford the goods, and would have nowhere (other than the black market, which could really burgeon thanks to things like this) to turn to. Their options would be limited: either shell out a ridiculous amount for an organization you like and an identity you've adopted, and help a multi-millionaire get even richer, or let part of your identity die as you opt not to spend the money. And if you don't like it, there are probably plenty of other suckers whose money those greedy owners will gladly take. It's like trying to buy season tickets at the new Yankee stadium, only on an industry-wide level.

And that only addresses the fans. What the players, coaches, and managers are facing is even bleaker. The MLB union is the strongest of the four unions in professional sports, so maybe it could hold out a bit better. But the fact that the NBA and NFL players' unions usually win their complaints via anti-trust lawsuits effectively means that a ruling in favor of the NFL would strip players in those leagues of any sort of meaningful labor rights. Hell, the NFL was dragged kicking and screaming into allowing free agency, and that didn't even happen until the late-1980s and early-1990s. And the NFLPA's fight to have the NFL take better care of its players in retirement when they suffer the long-term effects of abuse they suffered as athletes, well, that would probably be a dead letter too. And the sports leagues could all collude to keep salaries low for both players and managers. Sure, people get indignant when A-Rod can opt out of the last 3 years of a $252 million contract, just to sign a $275 million 10-year deal, but you can't deny the major pay improvements that players in the MLB have enjoyed, watching the minimum pay go up to $390,000 last year, after the paltry salaries players previously made.

And for those who think, "oh, well, maybe the Supreme Court will rule in favor of American Needle, Inc." Maybe it will. But if anybodh yas paid even the slightest attention to how court decisions under the Roberts court have trended, they almost always end up deciding (usually 5-4) in favor of businesses over labor, and I don't see why Sotomayor's arrival will change that (she's replacing Souter, not Thomas or Scalia). Sure, the Court may rule against single-entity status for the NFL, but it hasn't exactly offered a lot of hope in its previous recent decisions.

Again, I'm far from a legal expert, and so maybe there are alternative solutions (such as Congressional action), but the notion that professional sports should be exempt from all anti-trust monitoring and regulation is bunk. It will absolutely destroy the players' labor rights and organizations. It will force fans to either stop buying products to show support for their team, or to pay ridiculous amounts so the owners can get richer. And we'll be able to watch such fine, upstanding individuals as the Steinbrenners, Donald Sterling, Jerry Jones, Al Davis, and others get richer.

And that's a bleak future for professional sports.

Deep Thought

Now that Sarah Palin is gone, does my governor, Rick Perry, take over the title as America's Stupidest Governor?

Facial Hair of the Weekend

More great beards and moustaches from another facial hair competition. And "Whaler's Beard" is probably my favorite category, not just because it seems silly, but because there were apparently enough people growing such beards to merit a category in the first place.

Gilberto Gil Chimes in on the Question of Digital "Piracy"

Gilberto Gil, one of the founding members of Tropicalia, the former Minister of Culture under Lula, and (for my money) a much better writer and singer than Caetano Veloso, has entered the fray on the debate over music piracy and how to treat it. Gil has become a vocal critic of how piracy is being punished, and while he does not go so far to openly support piracy either, he has a far more sensible approach. In an interview, he suggested that broader notions of democracy and access to cultural production need to be taken into consideration, rather than simply handing out heavy-handed fines and jail time. Beyond calling for a "full" and "democratic" debate involving all sides discussing the role of technology, culture, and democracy, he also commented that, "in the cultural arena it's necessary to find an equilibrium between common interests and the agenda of the capitalist world." ("No terreno cultural é preciso buscar um equilíbrio entre o interesse comum e a agenda do mundo capitalista."). Gil's stance is remarkably sane and even-handed; here's hoping more individuals in the music industry and government apparati are willing to join him in this vision of how to proceed with the "digital revolution."

RIP - Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite is dead at 92. A good run, no question. Still, the world of journalism is worse for it, and there may never be another Cronkite, not only for who he was, but for how television news (and news media more generally) has shifted. He'll be remembered for plenty, but for my money, his reporting on the Vietnam War and his shift against it is a highlight in a career filled with highlights.

Around Latin America

-Ever since the War of the Pacific, Bolivia has been without direct access to the ocean, joining Paraguay as the only two landlocked countries in the Americas (out of 44 globally). However, aid may be coming soon, as Uruguay is seriously considering offering access to the sea to Bolivia.

-Are individuals in the FBI contributing directly to the drug violence plaguing Mexico?

-Augusto Montanaro, the Minister of the Interior for over 20 years during the dictatorial regime of Alfredo Stroessner, returned to Paraguay this week after 20 years in exile. This is major news because Montanaro was one of the key figures in the tortures and disappearances during Stroessner's 35-year reign: "as interior minister from 1966 to the end of the Stroessner regime, Montanaro was instrumental in the abduction, torture and mu rder of government opponents and he faces numerous criminal charges in Paraguay." Upon his return, he was medically examined and then sent off to the national prison, where hopefully he will serve his remaining days; however, his "senility" and Parkinson's disease make it seem likely he may end up with house arrest (though I'm not familiar with the particulars of Paraguayan prison law in terms of the ailing).

-For all the talk and mention one hears about UNICEF, it's rare that anybody knows exactly how the organization is effecting change in the world. Well, it would appear that, among other things, it's helping trobuled youths in Guyana get a second chance and seeking genuine reforms that rehabilitate rather than punish juveniles in that country.

-Human rights organizations are asking for the protection of a Chilean journalist after he received death threats from right-wing apologists groups. Francisco Herreros, head of the communist El Siglo, received the threats from right-wing terrorists after the newspaper published "a series of declassified CIA documents that involve Chilean right wing organizations and persons in crimes, fraud and other violations," providing just one more reminder that, while Pinochet and his regime have been largely discredited within Chile and abroad, there are still extremists who feel that those who disagree with them should be killed.

-Also in Chile, around 100 indigenous Mapuches marched on the presidential palace in Santiago, "trying to denounce police repression prevailing in their communities, as well as the implementation of the Anti-terrorist Act," and seeking a meeting with President Michelle Bachelet. Despite the importance of human rights rhetoric and justice in terms of the Pinochet regime, repression and violations of Mapuches' rights continue at a disturbing rate in Chile.

-I'm not quite sure why the South Dakota National Guard might need training in jungle warfare, but the U.S.'s 46th-most populated state has entered into a partnership with Suriname for military training, as well as a "medical readiness exercise."

-Johnny Depp as Pancho Villa? (h/t)

-Apparently, Dominica's Prime Minister has been talking trash about the other islands in the Caribbean. I look forward to responses from Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Lucia, Montserrat, and others. Could this be the first step in an inter-island war in the Caribbean? The world watches with baited breath...

-Finally, one of my favorite "discoveries" last year was a great album of Garifuna music sung by women. For those who are unfamiliar with Garifuna music (the Garinagu people are descendants of indigenous and African peoples in the Caribbean coast of Central America), it's excellent stuff, and (in addition to the samples at Amazon), you can check out some more music and info about it here.

Can We Finally Put to Rest the Notion That State Bureaucrats in Health Care Would Be Any Worse than Private Bureaucrats?

Rob has yet more (and unfortunately real-life) evidence that Republican opposition to national health care due to a "government bureaucracy" that would only make the health care slower and more tortuous is completely naive and stupid.

Best of luck next week, Rob. And may the litigation-prone wife end up not only filing, but winning. If nothing else, it will help for the college fund down the road.

Awards are weird

I'm not a huge TV/film person-- I only ponied up for cable last November for the first time in my adult life-- but I do watch an ample amount of TV, especially during the school year while I grade stacks of papers. This is something of a disclaimer, because I am about to tread into waters in which I'm not completely comfortable swimming.

The Emmy nominations came out, and I was surprised to read that Family Guy has been nominated in the Best Comedy category. This would not have been terribly surprising, except that it is the first animated series to be nominated for Best Comedy since The Flintstones in 1961.

This I don't get. The show is based on the simplest, most elementary kind of post-modern juxtapositional shock jockery. The plot lines are completely stock, a feature I'm not entirely convinced the writers intend ironically, and the endless stream of referential pop culture non-sequitors seems over-played to me. Not to mention the show goes to the "take-a-moderately-funny-moment-and-make-it-funnier-by-stretching-it-out-so-it-isn't-funny-but-then-keep-going-so-it's-funny-again" well too much for my taste. For this kind of compulsive pop-nostalgia, I'll take Robot Chicken any day, in no small part because 11 minutes of this kind of schtick is enough.

I wouldn't care so much, save the fact that The Simpsons was never nominated, even in its greatest stretch of seasons in the early 90's. Or South Park, which is often incisively topical, completely fearless, and spot-on (the South Park where Butters is sent to a Christian camp to rid boys of homosexuality is a work of art).

I suppose if the Emmy's track to public sentiment, the nomination makes sense, since Family Guy seems to be airing on some channel for at least 4 hours a night. For my money, though, I'd rather watch South Park or classic Simpsons.

It's time for this clown to go away

Is it the early 90's still? I can't believe we still have to talk about Marion Barry; that this drug-addled tax cheat still has a political office is astounding. But hey, the stalking charges were dropped...

Barry has been in the news for being the lone Washington, D.C. city council member to vote against a measure that would recognize same-sex marriages conferred in other states in D.C. Now, he's claiming a "vendetta" against him because of his vote from openly-gay councilman David Catania. The investigation centers around "allegedly awarding his then-girlfriend a monthly $5,000 city contract and allocating nearly $1 million in tax dollars to social service organizations run by members of his staff.".

A memo to Marion Barry: This investigation likely stems not from your idiotic dissent vote in the same-sex marriage law, but rather, that you are a corrupt, life-long political hack and convicted felon who has no real political accomplishments of note. In a fair and just world, you would lose the next election in a landslide.

Behold - More Evidence of America's Cultural Death

I didn't see the Super Bowl this year, so I missed this little abomination of crass commercialism until it re-aired during the All-Star game last night.

All I can say is, congratulations, Rod Stewart - now you only have the second worst ripoff of the original version ever. (And seriously - I will always be amazed that he talked his way out of a plagiarism suit on this, given the similarities between this and this. It's not like Stewart had never plagiarized before - you just have to compare the chorus of this to this to hear it.)

(And in one last parenthetical, if anybody is unfamiliar with Jorge Ben, I can't recommend his material from the 1960s and 1970s strongly enough. Some of it has been re-released in the U.S. recently, and is outstanding, as is his 1975 accoustic-jam improv session w/Gilberto Gil.)

Teaching U.S. History in Texas

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article on the battle over teaching U.S history in Texas public schools. Mirroring the evolution/creationism debate, this pits right-wing ideologues over those who have sense. One of the conservatives says this:

"We're in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America, and the record of American history is right at the heart of it"

I absolutely agree with this and that's why these right-wingers must be stopped. What do they object to? Including positive discussions of Cesar Chavez for instance.

• Delete César Chávez from a list of figures who modeled active participation in the democratic process

Two reviewers objected to citing Mr. Chávez, who led a strike and boycott to improve working conditions for immigrant farmhands, as an example of citizenship for fifth-graders. "He's hardly the kind of role model that ought to be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation," Rev. Marshall wrote.

How's that? Marshall doesn't say, but presumably it is part anti-labor, part racism. They also oppose discussion of Anne Hutchinson as an important person to discuss for colonial America and want to replace discussion of Thurgood Marshall as an important person to study with--wait for it--Sam Houston!!!! There's also a bias against discussing the country as a democracy.

I do agree with the conservatives that studying primary documents should be valued higher. Conservatives always think things like this are going to lead to capital R republican values, but there's no actual evidence of this. One can easily discuss the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution and come to the conclusion that the current Republican party is completely insane.

The moderate reviewers have entirely reasonable proposals such as emphasizing more Latinos, toning down emphasis on the Cold War, and discussing America's historical relationship with Islamic nations and peoples. You know, things that actually make sense in modern society.

Kenneth Stampp, RIP

The great historian Kenneth Stampp died at the age of 96. Stampp did more than any other historian to destroy the myth of the contented slave. The historical establishment parroted the southern line about the benevolent white owner and happy slave for over 50 years before Stampp's The Peculiar Institution came out in 1956. While one can certainly criticize that work today, its historical importance both within the profession and in society at large cannot be overstated.

Ichiro!

You have to love Ichiro. What other player would go to the grave of George Sisler to pay his respects? Sisler held the hits record from 1920 until Ichiro broke it in 2004. With the All-Star Game in St. Louis, Ichiro decided to honor the man.

This is also amusing:

But this time, Ichiro got to meet President Barack Obama, who threw out the first pitch. Obama, visiting the clubhouses, stopped and signed a ball for Ichiro, who gave a slight bow upon meeting the President and appeared as giddy and excited as a kid.

"My idea, when I saw him, was to say, 'What's up?' to him," Ichiro said. "But I got nervous. You know, he has that kind of aura about him. So I got nervous and I didn't say that to him. I was a little disappointed about that.

"But I realized after seeing him today that presidents wear jeans, too. So my hope is that our skipper, [Don] Wakamatsu, was watching that and we can wear jeans on our flights, as well."

More distortions from the fringe of the immigration debate

Obviously, the solution to California's problems is another ill-conceived ballot initiative.

This proposed ballot initiative is a reincarnation of sorts of Prop 187, a 1994 initiative that sought to deny benefits to illegal immigrants. Prop 187 passed by a wide margin, but was ruled unconstitutional. The new initiative seeks to pass constitutional muster in a rather back-handed way: one of the major tenets of the initiative is to create two kinds of birth certificates in the state of California-- one for children born to citizens and legal residents, and one for children born to illegal aliens. Under this plan, the parents would have to pay a fee, be fingerprinted, and submit paperwork and photo ID (all of which would be forwarded to Homeland Security). The proponents of this nascent proposition understand that citizenship is granted by the federal government and not by states, so instead, they plan to use the threat of Homeland Security to scare illegal immigrants away from getting their children their rightful U.S. birth certificates.

This is tricky because the infants are, well, infants. They need an agent to act on their behalf to obtain their birth certificates-- their parents. Think about it-- if birth certificates were received upon reaching the age of majority, this would be clearly unconstitutional. It is ludicrous to think of making an eighteen-year-old citizen of the United States give the government information about her or his parents' citizenship status, and then be awarded a "second-class" birth certificate based on that information. Because infants can't obviously request their own, the state, under this law, would hold their birth certificate effectively hostage. And clearly, the idea that some citizens have a certain type of birth certificate and others have yet another is extremely suspect; I really don't see how that would be anything less than a substantial violation of equal protection.

This has a certain resonance with Plyler vs. Doe, the 1982 Supreme Court case that struck down a Texas law that sought to deny public education to illegal immigrant children. The majority argued that the children had little power over their legal status and that the state did not have a substantial enough interest in denying them an education. Note that this law, struck down as unconstitutional, dealt with children who were in the U.S. illegally-- the ballot initiative now proposed in California is aimed at U.S. citizens whose parents are here illegally.

The High Court has dealt with a number of cases dealing with citizen children of illegal immigrants. In John D. Guendelsberger's journal article "Access to Citizenship for Children Born within the State to Foreign Parents", published in 1992 in The American Journal for Comparative Law, the author lists a number of cases in which the Supreme Court has "explicitly recognized the citizenship of children born to undocumented aliens". The list includes Doe v. Miller, Banks v. INS, Enciso-Cardozo v. INS, Acosta v. Gaffney, Perdido v. INS, Mendez v. Major, Lee v. INS, Cervantes v. INS, and Gonzalez-Cuevas v. INS.

This is a terrible, terrible initiative, which means it probably has a decent chance of passing in California. I'd like to point out a few issues I have with the website of the supporting organization, The California Taxpayer Protection Act.

1. There is a quote from a Sacramento Bee article by David Whitney that is rather inane in context. The website cites one of the article's early lines: "Although Congress has never passed a law saying so, no president has ever ordered it, and no court has ever ruled on the issue, each of these babies automatically becomes a U.S. citizen when it takes its first breath." This is something of a red herring; the 14th Amendment is rather clear in its statement that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Of course no presidential executive order or act of Congress has mandated birthright citizenship-- it's rather explicit in the Constitution. An act of Congress isn't needed to affirm one's right to a jury of one's peers, either. This is just disingenuous.

2. Numbers, numbers. The website also states that 32% of illegal immigrants collect welfare. I'm not sure what time frame this is, or where the figures came from (since there are no footnotes explaining sources), but a quick search yielded a figure close to that-- 34%-- but that was from the 1990's, and published by the Heritage Foundation. A more recent number (from 2001, published in a Center for Immigration Studies report), has a considerably lower figure of 23%. Moreover, most of the money spent on illegal immigrants is in the form of Medicaid, not in direct cash payouts.

3. Ted Hilton, Constitutional Scholar. The website claims that Ted Hilton, one of the authors and supporters of this alarming piece of proposed legislation is "a scholar of Constitutional Law, and over the last 17 years has researched the 14th Amendment's original intent, the debates written in the Congressional Globe, along with the study of numerous United States Supreme Court citizenship and jurisdiction cases". For one to claim she or he is scholar, a requisite list of published articles in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals should be offered. The site only lists a few op-ed columns. A cursory JSTOR and Lexis-Nexis search yielded no articles by purported scholar Ted Hilton. I could say that I was a brain surgeon, but that doesn't make it true.

4. Under section marked "Facts", the site notes that "90% of illegal migrants lack non-government medical insurance. One third of the estimated 10 million uninsured children are Latino." This is a bit of trickery, of the apples-to-oranges variety. They set up the expectation of talking about illegal immigrants with the first sentence, and then switch and talk about Latino children in general-- not specifically Latino children who are here illegally. This creates the idea that there are 10 million illegal immigrant children without non-government healthcare, which isn't true. The Center for Immigration Studies estimated California's illegal immigrant population in 2005 to be just over 2.5 million-- that's the TOTAL illegal immigrant population, not just children. The conflation of Latino/immigrant/illegal immigrant is at best, disingenuous, and at worst, a racially-motivated and calculated manipulation of available data.

5. Fear-mongering, as exemplified by the following statement: "Women from nations all around the world, even terrorist sympathizers, can take advantage of the "birth tourism industry" at taxpayer expense and the refusal of Congress to correctly define the jurisdiction clause" (emphasis mine). What a strategy! All those Guatemalan Taliban having children in the U.S., so that 16 - 20 years later these children can be terrorists in the U.S.! Brilliant.

6. The worst bit of semantic trickery comes from the following statement: "Most Californians do not know this, and the Democrat controlled Legislature is not going to tell them: Illegal aliens are paid 18 years of welfare checks for the anchor child in a child-only Cal-WORKS case, while federal regulation allows a five year maximum for citizens." The implication of this statement is heinously false. First of all, illegal immigrants do not receive welfare benefits. If their children are U.S. citizens, the children receive public assistance (which is of course, entrusted to their parents, since most toddlers don't have checking accounts). These U.S. citizen children are entitled to welfare, should they need it, for 18 years. The federal regulation that stipulates a five year maximum is for adults, not children. All children in the U.S. who are citizens are entitled to 18 years of public assistance if they need it. Period. That is a fact, and this organization's website is polluting the public discourse with disingenuous innuendo and semantic gamesmanship.

That this proposition has support from sitting members of the Congress is shameful. Representatives Dana Rohrbacher [(R) - Huntington Beach] and Brian Bilbray [(R) - Solana Beach] should be completely appalled to be linked with an organization whose willful manipulation of the facts is so obvious and blatant. I expect members of Congress, even those with whom I disagree, to exercise due diligence and intellectual honesty before supporting organizations that intentionally blur the facts of an important debate. Shame on you both.