We're so vain, we probably think Iran is about us

Back in the day -- the 60's that is -- conservatives fostered and circulated the idea that the people who were opposed to continued armed interference in Vietnam were all but on the payroll of Chairman Mao. Mumblings about "front" organizations and accusations of treason were commonplace even without anything resembling the internet to make it easy. One of the planned results of the strategy was to make it easier to continue the war indefinitely, violate the civil rights of objectors and easier to get conservatives to support the violation. Suggestions that Ho Chi Min preferred the Democratic candidate was heavy ammunition against him.

Now of course the Mullahs of Iran are far smarter than the average American -- who isn't? -- and if Barak Obama were to take on the traditional Republican role of moral bloviator and condemn the crackdown in Iran, they would be delighted to have the excuse that the thousands in the streets are foreign agents, motivated and backed and perhaps even paid by the United States. Any kind of violence could then be justified against these "enemy combatants" on religious and political grounds. Our open support of the protests in Tehran would effectively taint the movement which could be discussed as a Western incursion and not an Iranian movement by Iranians to take back control of Iran from a corrupt government.

Our Average American however, never can seem to resist a chance proudly to display anger and even more so when he can pretend it's moral outrage. CNN's current poll shows 76% in favor of having the President "condemn" the government of Iran as though he were himself an Ayatollah pronouncing a fatwah. Of course he has expressed sympathy for those seeking democracy and there is no one in the world who would think that we would support Khamenei anyway, but the contest between statecraft and soul satisfying, but counterproductive, rage has a predictable outcome.

I have severe misgivings and doubts about the way in which our economic predicament is being addressed, but when it comes to handling touchy and dangerous world affairs, Obama seems almost a genius compared to the man the Republicans would have had as president, strutting about a stage like an overweight, underpowered Mick Jagger, singing "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran."

HAPPY FATHERS' DAY

Dear Dad,
$chool i$ really great. I am making lot$ of friend$ and $tudying very hard. With all my $tuff, I $imply can't think of anything I need, $o if you would like, you can ju$t $end me a card, a$ I would love to hear from you.
Your loving $on

Dear Son,
I kNOw that astroNOmy, ecoNOmics, and oceaNOgraphy are eNOugh to keep an hoNOr student very busy.  Do NOt forget that the pursuit of kNOwledge is a NOble task, and you can never study eNOugh.
Love, Dad

On Studying a Language

This is just a muse about my return to the intensive study of several languages, for whatever the thoughts be worth.

The desire to study languages not one's own may come from any number of directions – from practical ones like wanting to become a professional translator to ones the source of which is lost in the "dark backward and abysm" of childhood and, as with so much we value most, not available to our waking selves. So put it down to whimsy if you will, but the currents of our interests – indeed of whimsy itself – surely run deep.

The study of languages might be thought a sign of shallowness, since a person may know ten languages and yet be a villain or a fool. Still, it seems better to say that the pursuit of language competence is the mother of studies. And in spite of all the memorization and grammar-conning involved, it's also a fine proof of Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon's assertion that learning itself is not a matter of aggregation, of permanent acquisition, but rather a series of insights that seem to come from nowhere and that are gone as soon as they have come, leaving us again in darkness, under the sway of various necessities. It induces humility as well since whatever of wisdom and knowledge is gained, whatever unlooked-for advances in comprehension come as if from the workings of a power akin to Coleridge's silent, secret "ministry of frost," will most likely be lost along with all else when we die. In the shadow of the Preacher's injunction, the study of a language, too, is vanity.

But in favor of language studies is the prospect that there's something in them of pure love of words – a capacity much derided in this age of virtual bronze, where to lose what Hamlet calls "the name of action" is considered shameful. Even the poorest of paragraphs can sell a product or teach us how to use a software program. But such a paragraph remains a pitiful thing in its own right, and shows little regard for the deep humanity that precision of speech or writing may reveal.

A language is something we have made collectively and over time – something mostly beyond our individual efforts at manipulation, though we may have some small success there, some power of innovation and precision. And to this power we must respond, and within it, to a large degree, work out our felicity or infelicity. To speak a "foreign" language is to speak with the voice of another that beckons us outside ourselves even as it takes us back to our earliest and most intimate experiences, moments when an illusory but nonetheless powerful bond was forged between words, ourselves, and the world around us. In a sense, to return to language is to return to our mother and father, to an experience not unlike what we may surmise to have been our earliest conscious days, months, and years – the ones that made us what we are. The child is father of the man, just as Wordsworth said.

AT NANO SCALE, MAGIC HAPPENS

Thus says Justin Hall-Tipping, senior managing partner of NanoHoldings, LLC. His company is “a mixture of venture fund and operating company.” I was sent an article about this company and it’s partnership with Dr Carroll, a professor of physics at Wake Forest University and the nanotech research center at the university.

I also had the great fortune to see the light board mentioned in the article and pictured at right.

Nanotechnology is the understanding and manipulation of matter at dimensions between 1 and 100 nanometers in size. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. Just for a comparison, a sheet of paper is 100,000 nanometers thick. We are talking MINISCULE! With this technology, science will be able to provide us with “super materials” capable of changing the global environment in a clean, organic way.

The lighted material generates no heat and is at least twice as efficient as fluorescent light. It is a thin-film device that can be custom-tailored to produce light of different color and flexible so that it can be shaped into all sorts of creative lighting applications. (The image in the picture is of the school mascot, The Demon Deacon).

The solar fiber cell is another new innovation mentioned in the same article. The film acts as an absorber and concentrator and can be applied to a variety of surfaces such as the whole roof of a house.

From the FiberCell website: “Each FiberCell subunit within the module can produce the operational voltage, so there is no need to connect the individual devices in series. Loss of a single cell does not dramatically affect the module performance.”

When we talk of a future without oil and other polluting substances, we aren’t talking about a distant future. In fact the future is here, now and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Imagine the possibilities that are just around the corner…

Pete Hoekstra - hero of the revolution

Believe it or not, very few Americans voted for Barak Obama. The 9 million or so difference between the count for McPalin and Obama was the result of election tampering by ACORN. This notion seems to be part of the ever-changing catechism of the Republican faithful because I've been hearing it over and over again and so it's not all that surprising that congressman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) would feel encouraged to tell us that the internet activity and the massive street protests since the Iranian election was

" similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House."

He said, referring to last August when the Speaker adjourned the House before an energy vote. Jon Stewart joked last night about the parallels being eerie: "Not parallels, the perpendiculars” but to a party that has tried to compare the governments we've cobbled together in Iraq and Afghanistan to the formation of our own government, the humor will be written off as liberal meanness or deflected by some tale of an unfair joke about the Palins or Joe the Plumber. No, once again they're posing as victims of a corrupt system and a stolen election.

I can imagine the groans of his staff, who quickly told us what Hoekstra would have said if Hoekstra had been as smart as they are:

"The two situations do share the similarity of government leadership attempting to limit debate and deliberation, and the ability of new technologies to bypass their efforts and allow for direct communication. That’s the only point that he was trying to make."

No it wasn't and of course his party had been doing just that for 8 years. The reaction was swift, according to CNN, and one counter-twitter responded with:

"Except the Democrats didn't come after you with clubs and guns, did they?"

No, they did it with the ballot box and will all allowances made for poetic license, the perpendiculars are striking.

Man was made for the law.

At least while the remnants of Republican barbarism still control the court, the law is the law is the law; right or wrong .

Is anyone still so idealistic as to think that our justice system is about justice and not about upholding the authority of. . .well, authority? Well, maybe the latest ruling from the Old Bastard's Club we sometimes call the Supreme Court and the Republicans sometimes accuse of giving a damn, will change your mind. In a ruling today one might have expected from a Texas court or perhaps the Spanish Inquisition, it ruled that once you're convicted, you have no right to obtain evidence that might exonerate you at least in Alaska, one of the six states in which innocence is no defense once the infallible courts have ruled.

"Science alone cannot prove a prisoner innocent,"

read the decision and of course not, but it can prove him not guilty and it often has done just that. But I guess this is a good way to keep from the inevitable embarrassment of killing a few innocent people now and then.

So isn't it nice that at least one branch of Government retains it's contempt for the value of human life once it's had the chance to be baptized?

The Right Reaction on Iran

The proper reaction regarding the recent turmoil in Iran is clear, or at least it should be. It's also exactly the reaction President Obama has had so far. The president has been very reluctant to use aggressive language when discussing Iran's election, the subsequent protests, or the seeming illegitimacy of Ahmadinejad's rule (or Khamenei's). He's actually been quite reluctant to say anything at all.

His reasons are many. His doesn't want to anger an Ahmadinejad/Khamenei-run government should the current regime maintain its power - he will, after all, have to work with whatever government emerges from this struggle. He doesn't want to use overly forceful rhetoric only to find that he has to ratchet it up further should the violence become drastically worse. He also doesn't want to risk emboldening Ahmadinejad by giving the Iranian president someone to point the finger at.

But most importantly, President Obama recognizes that this decision needs and ought to be made by the Iranian people. It is a fool's errand trying to sway the politics of a nation in the midst of upheaval. We could only make matters worse. And if we really want genuine change to come to Iran - change that will stick - we need to recognize that that change must come from within; as Sen. John Kerry wrote in a NYT op-ed, "Iran’s election must be about Iran — not America."

Obama has expressed all of this without any of the bombast characteristic of his predecessor (see Evil, Axis of). On Monday, President Obama spoke briefly to reporters about Iran, closing by saying,

We will continue to pursue a tough, direct dialogue between our two countries, and we'll see where it takes us. But even as we do so, I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we've seen on the television over the last few days. And what I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was. And they should know that the world is watching.

And particularly to the youth of Iran, I want them to know that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for the Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected.

Careful to express that this is Iran's election, Iran's battle, but subtlely showing support for the protesters. Nuanced. Sophisticated. To the point, but full of between-the-lines insight.

Contrast that with this comment from Sen. John McCain on the "Today" show:

He should speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed sham of an election and that the Iranian people have been deprived of their rights.

In speaking with David Gregory, he advised that the United States should

[...] do what we have done throughout the Cold War and afterwards, we speak up for the people of Tehran and Iran and all the cities all over that country who have been deprived of one of their fundamental rights.

To which The Huffington Post bitingly noted,

Ah, yes, because U.S.-Iran relations "throughout the Cold War and afterwards" are such a model of success.

McCain is aggressive. Overly-confident. Ignorant of history and of our potential to influence an election that isn't any of our business. We should not be surprised that the man who jokingly, and irresponsibly, mock-sang "bomb, bomb Iran" would desire such decidedly strict language. McCain's sometimes belligerent nature played no small role in costing him the presidency. We should be thankful that America is awake enough to have recognized that the prudence Obama brings to the table is a far more powerful diplomatic tool than the incitable speech of 43 or the failed-44.

And most important of all, we should recognize that by treating Iran and the rest of the Middle East with respect, Obama has already done more to help spur the change we're seeing than either of these men (or the countless other neoconservative war-mongers) can imagine. No more Axis of Evil, no more distrust of Muslims and Muslim culture, no more overt (very overt in the case of Iraq) aggression in the Middle East. Just an invitation for some honest dialogue with a region of the world we have managed only to alienate in recent years. That is progress, that is how you make a difference.

Update:

Shaw has two posts at her blog that complement this very well.

Who's the victim here?

Yes Sir, it's terrible how tasteless old far-left liberal David Letterman got away with some comment about the Palin family because the media is like you know all Liberal and hardly mentioned the grievous offense. Why if some God-fearing Christian conservative were to make some comment about Obama or his family? All hell would break loose, right?

You say you need evidence? Why how liberal of you, but look at how they're handling that really, really funny and tasteful picture of the 45th president of the United States that Sherri Goforth, an aide to state Sen. Diane Black (R-TN) sent out by e-mail? Why it's made international headlines, hasn't it? Well OK, at least it made some blog called Raw Story, but that's more exposure than the Palin story got from being headline material on all the media for days, isn't it?

Besides, you know, showing Obama as a pair of googly eyes on a black background is the funniest thing since the minstrel shows went away because of Liberal Fascist censorship and it just proves that far left Liberals have no sense of humor anyway. I mean none of us America loving patriots ever went beyond the bounds of truth or good taste by trashing Obama the Magic Negro and that only proves that it's them behind all the hatred and racism they throw at us Republicans who are the real victims here.

Training the Nazis

“I hate Arabs more than anybody, for the simple fact I’ve served over there and seen how they live, They’re just a backward people. Them and the Jews are just disgusting people as far as I’m concerned. Their customs, everything to do with the Middle East, is just repugnant to me.”

says Forrest Fogarty. He's an Iraq War veteran and a lifelong Nazi. Despite being covered in Racist and Nazi tattoos and despite having been expelled from High School for overt and unrepentant racism; despite his public support for ridding the US and Europe of non-white races, despite the fact that regulations forbid it, the US military has trained him in weapons and tactics he hopes one day to use in a race war.

Writing in Salon.com, Matt Kennard tells us in Neo-Nazis are in the Army Now that Fogarty left the US Army in 2005 with an honorable discharge and was asked to re-enlist. He is apparently not a unique case and a DHS report outlines how as the military has had to scrape the bottom of the recruitment barrel, issuing waivers for criminal behavior, militant extremist groups have benefitted from the increased hate and frustration - and the government's willingness to train current and potential hate-group members.

It's become very difficult for Americans to criticize the military and the image of our "warrior" heroes fighting for freedom is a sacred icon, as it often becomes when our government has to hide and distract from the lies and distortions and cover-ups behind an unneccesary and probably illegal war, but it seems to me that another of the victims of George Bush's War, along with the Iraqi people, is our military and its reputation. It's bad enough that we've abused their patriotism and dedication, left too many wounded by the side of the road without adequate care and benefits, but have we trained and disciplined another generation of domestic terrorists to carry out a racist, hate-based mission?

PIRATES OF THE PERSIAN GULF

Photoshop credit: AZrainman

Latest developments: Iran's Supreme Pirate, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who upheld last Friday’s election, has reversed himself in the face of nationwide protests.  It seems the Supreme Pirate will allow the defeated candidate, Mirhossein Mousavi, to appeal the election before the Guardian Council, which will rule within 10 days on two official complaints received from Mousavi and the another losing candidate, Mohsen Rezaie.  The Guardian Council is chaired by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who endorsed Ahmadinejad before the vote.

How exceptionally kind of the Guardian Council to consider this appeal while Iran's favorite rap group, Syncopated Security, gets ready to release their next smash hits, I’m in the Mahmoud for Love and Bad, Bad Ahmadinejad.

UPDATE (3:39 pm): Hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into the streets today. This protest march in central Tehran is reportedly 5 miles long: