January 07, 2007
This isn't about selling toothpaste
Newsweek has a piece titled "How the U.S. Is Losing the PR War in Iraq.
The P.R.War?
And here's some of the problems they highlight:
Most large-scale attacks on U.S. forces are now filmed, often from multiple camera angles, and with high-resolution cameras. The footage is slickly edited into dramatic narratives: quick-cut images of Humvees exploding or U.S. soldiers being felled by snipers are set to inspiring religious soundtracks or chanting, which lends them a triumphal feel.....
The U.S. military's response, on the other hand, usually sticks to traditional channels like press releases. These can take hours to prepare and are often outdated by the time they're issued.
So is that what we are supposed to think it comes down to? We need better-edited footage? Faster turn-around time with press releases?
The article would be very, very funny if it weren't all very tragic.
Posted by zeynep at 12:42 PM | Comments (1)
September 17, 2006
Putting Out Fire With Gasoline
These "apologies" crack me up, almost.
"At this time I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims," the pope told pilgrims at his summer palace outside Rome.
So he's sorry about their reaction? Brilliant. Just what the world needs right now.
Posted by zeynep at 03:33 PM | Comments (3)
August 02, 2006
Where is the world going?
"Civilian Targets." That was the subject of a piece of spam I received yesterday, pushing some stock or other.
Whatever happened to "Paris Hilton," "Urgent, Your Money," and "Lose Weight Fast"? Civilian Targets?
Posted by zeynep at 07:44 AM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2006
How Bad Do You Have To Fail?
This is such an amazing example of internalized affirmative action for rich white guys. The first two Bush presidents think Jeb would be great as president...
How bad do you have to fail, how much damage do you have to do before it gets through one's thick layers of privilege that they are not doing a good job, by any measure?
Posted by zeynep at 07:24 AM | Comments (2)
May 07, 2006
Cheney ... wants ... Democracy
Cheney ... criticizes ... lack of democracy ... in Russia. (While in Lithuania, of course).
Then, he defends his words saying that it's better to have open, honest, frank discussions:
Vice President Cheney, wrapping up an overseas trip that produced sparks in Moscow, defended his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying Sunday that it was "more important that you have open, honest, frank discussions about your views."
What's funnier is that the Russian autocrats seem to be offended. They should be laughing in stitches.
Posted by zeynep at 09:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2006
Batman to the Rescue...
Great. We already have an administration that thinks its own fiction has the same status as facts. Artists should be careful not confuse them any further. (How long before Batman makes an appearance in a TV ad)?
Posted by zeynep at 09:35 PM | Comments (1)
December 14, 2005
Who Writes This Stuff ?
Unsurprisingly, our mistreatment of human beings is reflected more and more in our domestic policies. Of course, foreigners get killed and tortured while, as of yet, the sanctions at home generally much lighter. Still, you can see the same "mindset creep" displayed in the euphemisms.
Here's this gem from the recent revelations about spying on the anti-war activists (especially those targeting military recruiting):
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has a secret database that indicates the U.S. military may be collecting information on Americans who oppose the Iraq war and may be also monitoring peace demonstrations, NBC reported on Tuesday. ... T he Pentagon has already acknowledged the existence of a counterintelligence program known as the "Threat and Local Observation Notice" (TALON) reporting system.This system, the Pentagon said, is designed to gather "non-validated threat information and security anomalies indicative of possible terrorist pre-attack activity."
Security anomolies indicative of a possible terrorist pre-attack activity? Can we assume those will not be averted with pre-dawn vertical insertions? Not too much collateral damage, one hopes. And what on earth is "non-validated threat information"? Stuff that hasn't happened yet? Stuff we don't like?
Posted by zeynep at 07:07 PM | Comments (1)
December 11, 2005
Winter Soldiers and Victims
I just saw the documentary "Winter Soldier."
I already knew what the hearings were about and I knew what would be said. Still, just watching the courage of those young men talk about what they had done shook me. It was brave, horrifying, deeply repellent and one of the most honorable acts a human being could do, all at once. I think they were able to do that because there was more than one of them, and they stuck together, just like in the war.
The other thing that struck me was how un-self-absorbed they were, given their obvious, deep pain and shame. They talked about what they had done and very earnestly, repeatedly, insistently pointed out what mattered was what they had done, and what had happened to their victims.
There was a small panel discussion afterwards. The panelists mostly started by talking about how hard war was on the soldiers. After listening to almost two hours of amazing testimony from the soldiers who first and foremost thought about their victims, the panelists knee-jerk reaction was to turn back to the soldiers. Someone from the audience made that point and the panelists said, yes, of course, the victims are first and foremost. Still, it felt a bit like lipservice. A high-level person from Peace Action who was on the panel said, yeah, sure victims but, well, polls don't show concern for Iraqis, unfortunately.
Sure. If we, the anti-war movement, acts like the victims of our bombs and guns and torture don't matter, why should anyone else? I'm not saying that the anti-war movement doesn't care about Iraqis. I'm sure most of them do. But many have so deeply internalized the instrumental approach to the troops that they are in a lose-lose situation. They do not confront the reality of the soldiers actions, but instead attempt to pander to them and the military families -- which doesn't work. They also don't provide the kind of moral leadership that anyone would want to follow. (I mean, if proper armor for the humvees in Iraq is your first and foremost concern, why wouldn't you just work with established Republicans and even Democrats?) In the end, we get neither the numbers nor the strength of moral clarity. And that is a shame, and I think that dishonors the very honorable path those soldiers on the Winter Soldiers hearings --and many soldiers since-- have taken, which is to stand up and take responsibility.
Posted by zeynep at 10:55 PM | Comments (1)
December 09, 2005
Christmas is for Gifts!
Umm, how shocking.
Some of the nation's most prominent megachurches have decided not to hold worship services on the Sunday that coincides with Christmas Day, a move that is generating controversy among evangelical Christians at a time when many conservative groups are battling to "put the Christ back in Christmas."Megachurch leaders say that the decision is in keeping with their innovative and "family friendly" approach and that they are compensating in other ways. Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., always a pacesetter among megachurches, is handing out a DVD it produced for the occasion that features a heartwarming contemporary Christmas tale.
A heartwarming DVD. A predictable consequence of moves like when pushing the Mega-Retailers to make sure they mentioned Christmas in their advertisements -- further strengthening the connection between Christmas and shopping, buying, consuming and shopping more.
Posted by zeynep at 09:14 AM | Comments (2)
July 19, 2005
Let's Match the Terrorists, Says our Elected Officials
Just imagine our outrage if an elected official in a Muslim country had said anything like this:
Talk show host Pat Campbell asked the Littleton Republican [Rep. Tom Tancredo] how the country should respond if terrorists struck several U.S. cities with nuclear weapons."Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.
"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.
"Yeah," Tancredo responded.
And, when questioned, Rep. Tancredo stands by his statement:
Muslim groups earlier Monday called on Tancredo to apologize and said they want to meet with the Colorado Republican."I'm not suggesting we do it. I have nothing to apologize for in that respect," Tancredo said. "I'm simply saying to have a good discussion on this issue, a thorough discussion on what is perhaps the most serious kind of possible situation we could face as a civilization, that you cannot simply take things off the table because they are uncomfortable to talk about."
...
Tancredo is a member of the House International Relations Committee.
A fervent opponent of illegal immigration, he has begun an insurgent bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination that he says is designed to force a more serious candidate to take a hard-line stance on immigration.
Remember this is our elected official talking about responding to terrorists, who are not elected representatives of anyone...
Posted by zeynep at 09:56 PM | Comments (0)
April 08, 2005
My Way or the Highway, Says GM
While we are on the subject of the propaganda model, here's GM in action:
General Motors Corp. on Thursday pulled its advertising from the Los Angeles Times over disagreements with car reviews and other articles that have appeared in the newspaper.The world's largest automaker said the move was "based on strongly voiced objections from our dealers in California about factual errors and misrepresentations in The Times editorial coverage."
A GM spokesman would not specify the errors or say which articles caused the rift.
...
A GM executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday's review of the Pontiac G6 by Times Pulitzer Prize-winning automobile critic Dan Neil was particularly offensive.
Neil wrote that "GM is a morass of a business case" and called for the ouster of GM's chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner. Among other things, Neil took the company to task for not more aggressively developing fuel-efficient cars and focusing instead on SUVs.
All this over a few critical reviews... Imagine if there were critical reporting on our automobile culture. (I guess it's easy to see why the previous sentence had to be in the hypothetical subjunctive mood.)
Posted by zeynep at 09:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 02, 2005
Family Values and Corporate Heroes: The Curious Makeover Jack Welch
Here's Jack Welch, ex-CEO of GE on honesty and family values:
Bosses know that the work-life policies in the company brochure are mainly for recruiting purposes and that real work-life arrangements are negotiated one on one in the context of a supportive culture, not in the context of, "But the company says ...!"People who publicly struggle with work-life balance problems and continually turn to the company for help get pigeonholed as ambivalent, entitled, uncommitted, incompetent—or all of the above.
In other words, don't believe what we say. And families are not our problem. He hobnobs with all the politicians who can't stop saying how much they are for family values. Why is this man on the cover of Newsweek? And why are these corporations allowed to control our airwaves?
Posted by zeynep at 01:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 01, 2005
You Too Can Lose Weight and Keep it Off: The Terri Schiavo Success Story
(I am reposting here a piece that I submitted to a few websites. It sums up my response to the eating-disorder discussion that has been taking place on this blog, as well as my concern that many progressives are not recognizing the significance of the Schiavo case for the disability-rights community.)
If it hadn't been for that moment when the potassium imbalance brought about by her bulimia caused Terri's heart to stop, she might have been the woman in the television ad I just watched, selling the latest weight-loss method. "I lost a hundred pounds," declares the svelte looking woman on TV, "you too can lose weight and keep it off."
If we had any amount of decency in our culture, weight-loss ads would have been hastily pulled off the air this week, as Terri Schiavo's body died from lack of water.
There is much to be angry about the indignant, callous manner the right-wing has exploited the plight of this family. They have taken hypocrisy to new levels, and much ink has been spilt on that. But I am disappointed that the progressive community has not seized upon the publicity generated by this tragedy to do more on two very important moral issues.
One is that this is an opportunity to shout from many rooftops that the cause of her condition is bulimia, and that her plight was not so far removed from that of the typical woman trying to keep her weight at a level that is considered socially desirable but is, in fact, nearly impossible for most women without heroic measures, such as forcing yourself to throwing up your food, eating too little to nourish your body, or exercising obsessively.
Second, that there is genuine reason to "err on the side of life" -- and that a system that gives a husband or a parent the right to terminate a person's life based on the argument that "she wouldn't want to live like that" is fraught with grave danger for the sick and the disabled. That's why many in the disability-rights community cheered when Federal courts intervened, however hypocritical the source of that intervention might have been. Frankly, when someone is coming to yank your feeding tube, and you can't speak, you take whatever help you can get.
Progressives should give be better allies to them. The current alignment means that many in the disability-rights community are forced to work with an outrageously-hypocritical right-wing political machine. As a case in point, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, a well-known advocate of disability-rights, chose to work with the Republicans in this case. This is no aberrant occurrence; many of the issues raised in the Schiavo case are of genuine concern to people with disabilities and chronic illnesses.
I personally know of one person who was thought to be a "vegetable" and abandoned in a corner, unable to communicate, who was, in fact, very much cognizant and, if anything, wickedly intelligent. The reason that he ended up in law school rather than in a hospice where he might well have been put to death because of "lack of quality of life" is a story of luck, perseverance and very good advocates -- the kind of advocates that appear irrational, and looking for hope when there is none, until proven right.
About a week ago, I wrote in my blog that I found it hard to believe that her husband was oblivious to her bulimia, and that her parents were obviously in denial about it. Michael Schiavo knew "she had peculiar eating patterns." She had lost more than a hundred pounds. She had stopped menstruating regularly. She was trying to survive on liquids. I got a lot of angry letters from people with eating disorders and their loved-ones about the secretive nature the illness. Terri's condition, bulimia, brings about its own shame and secrecy. Many argued out that it was unfair to blame him for her actions, which she most likely kept secret.
Fair enough. Maybe Michael Schiavo could not see. Maybe neither he nor the rest of the family could recognize the signs. That simply highlights the urgency of talking about this subject. Terri was just 110 pounds when she collapsed, down from more than 200 in her high school years.
Most people's first reaction to such a drastic weight-loss would be to congratulate the person. As Schiavo's case illustrates, concern may be more appropriate. And her behavior was practically broadcasting that something was amiss. In his Larry King interview, Michael Schiavo said that "When I was with her, when we were together, Terri would eat and eat and eat" -- yet she was able to maintain her weight-loss. Michael's brother, Scott remembers noticing in family gathering that, "Terri was eating a huge plate of food, but she was thinner than ever." How can you eat like that and still be so thin, he asked her. "She laughed," recalls Scott, "and said she must just have a good metabolism." It is not really possible for someone who has a propensity to gain weight, as Terri obviously did, to suddenly develop a "good metabolism."
Although we don't know, there might have been other typical signs of bulimia present in Terri. Bloodshot eyes, as the eye vessels burst during the forced throwing up. Chronic sore throats. Brittle nails. Dull hair. Rapid weight-shifts and a fluctuating weight. Frequently bruising. Menstrual irregularities. Smell of vomit in hair or hands. And, yes, cardiac arrest in A 26-year-old.
Frankly, it was no comfort to hear Michael Schiavo's long-time lawyer, George Felos, declare that he'd never seen "such a look of peace and beauty upon her," as Terri Schiavo was more than a week into her starvation. With this level perversity among Michael Schiavo's team, one could not help but wish that Terri Schiavo had had independent protection. In fact, all these last two weeks, I have kept hearing many people, progressives among them, say "this is a private matter" and "government should stay out of this."
This is very hard to understand. I keep wondering do these people really not understand how hostile and uncaring families can become when faced with a member who requires long-term care? One often hears of stories of remarkable heroism and perseverance from family members of the disabled and the chronically-ill. Outside of Planet Reader's Digest, there are also other stories.
It is very human for loved ones of people who are seriously sick or disabled to project their own wishes unto the situation. From every reading of the story, it seems clear that Michael Schiavo first tried very hard to see if she could recover, realized that the chances were almost zero, and gave up and moved on with his life; forming a new family and having two kids. In such a situation, he would humanly be tempted to see Terri, who is obviously gone as a person, also be gone in body. There is a genuine conflict of interest here, regardless of the lack of interest in Terri Schiavo the Republican leadership has shown.
And the problem here is much bigger than Terri Schiavo. In her case, there has been enough controversy that we have a reasonable belief that she may have had no brain-activity. Her EEG was flat. Most of her brain had been replaced with fluid. Not all people whose quality of life may be deemed "too low to be worth living" have such clear medical diagnosis. Many in disability-rights community fear the consequences giving legal guardians such sweeping authority over life-and-death. The same issue comes up with the right to euthanasia. While I also believe in a person's right to choose to die, I am truly scared of the consequences of this right if it is not coupled with very strong social support in favor of people who wish to live with their disability. To put it bluntly, if the right to assisted suicide is recognized, some of the time, it will bring down pressure on the disabled to commit suicide.
Just think about it: many families can have bitter, cruel fights over who will inherit that valuable piece of jewelry. Can you imagine the kind of bitterness and resentment that accumulates upon a severely-disabled family member whose care is incumbent upon the family? I have hard many stories of loving, caring families, but I have also heard many horror stories.
I have a friend who has very severe cerebral palsy caused by lack of oxygen to his brain during birth. For the first many years of his life, it was assumed he was almost like "a vegetable," and he was parked in a corner of his family's home. He could not talk, and he had almost no control over body. Yet, somehow, his mind persevered. He learned to read through the scattered observations he could make from his corner. Years later, he managed to trace out a few letters, enough to alert people to the fact that perhaps there was a person "in there." With much intensive therapy, a means for him to communicate was devised -- he can shape his mouth and throat to the words he is trying to vocalize and he makes up the kind of sounds that Terri's parents got ridiculed for saying that their daughter was trying to make: saying "aaaaaah, whaaaaa" in order to start the sentence "I want to live." I understand that, in a persistent vegetative state, those are sounds not words.
But that's exactly how my friend speaks. Only trained-interpreters and his close friends can understand his words. The reaction to claims made by Terri's parents scared me. It scares me to see the idea that someone could communicate in spite of severe speech impediments ridiculed. In fact, most people's first reaction to hear my friend speak is that the interpreter is making it up -- a conclusion soon overcome as one's ear gets used to his articulations and one starts recognizing a few words here and there. (Besides, my friend's vocabulary and range of knowledge is often much greater than that of his interpreters.)
To make it clear, I do support the right to die. Many of our methods of artificially extending life for people who are terminally ill and in pain are downright cruel and perverse. But there should be extraordinary pause in cases where the person is not terminally ill remember Terri Schiavo was not dying; the required assistance is minimal, a feeding-tube, not a respirator; and the wishes of the person is unclear.
Terri Schiavo's situation has apparently prompted a boom in living-wills; I wish it would also prompt a will-to-live among all the women who may have skipped or thrown-up their breakfast, lunch, or dinner this very day. I also hope it prompts a deeper dialogue between progressives and the disability-rights community about the right to live with dignity, as well as about the right to die with dignity.
Posted by zeynep at 11:02 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
March 25, 2005
More on Eating Disorders: Terri Schiavo's and Others'
Many readers have commented on my post about the discomfort I feel about lack of discussion about Terri Schiavo's bulimia. Many readers criticized my criticism of Michael Schiavo, arguing that it's very hard to help people with eating-disorders.
Point taken. Eating-disorders very tough illnesses. I'll readily concede the possibility Michael Schiavo did all he could before Terri collapsed.
That would make it even more incumbent upon him to speak out as much as possible now, given the unfortunate spotlight. He could speak about how hard it is to reach someone in the grip of this illness. He could try to warn all the young woman out there who could drop brain-dead any moment. Her situation has apparently prompted a boom in living-wills; I wish it would also prompt a will-to-live among all the women who may have skipped or thrown-up their breakfast, lunch, or dinner this very day.
There are conflicting reports about her environment, but it's clear that Terri Schiavo had a serious issue with her body, the body that has now been cut off from all food and water:
Terri never said anything about her weight, but her mother always sensed it bothered her."She cried a lot when she went to get clothes," Mrs. Schindler says.
...
By a year later, Terri had gained back some of the weight she had lost since high school. Meyer says Terri told her that Schiavo had seen her high school graduation picture and warned her "if she ever got fat like that again he'd divorce her."
"I said, 'He's probably kidding,"' she says. "But it was upsetting to her."
Scott Schiavo, Michael's brother, says it was the Schindlers who rode Terri about her weight. He says her brother sometimes showed one of Terri's old driver's licenses for a laugh.
Terri Schiavo was 110 pounds when she died, down from 200. She was throwing up what she ate. She was trying to surive only on liquids. She had stopped menstruating. Hers is the true face of "success" you see in all those diet ads that tout how people can lose dramatic amounts of weight "and keep it off."
Posted by zeynep at 02:53 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 20, 2005
Terri Schiavo's Bulimia: Not on "The Agenda"
There has been a lot of attention on Terri Schiavo as her formal husband, her parents, and the so-called pro-lifers fight over whether her feeding-tube should be removed so that she'll die by starvation or whether she should continue to be force-fed so that she will remain alive in a persistent vegetative state.
Much less mentioned is the fact that Schiavo had this heart attack at a very young age, causing the current persistent vegetative state, because of her bulimia:
When she finally lost 65 pounds in her late teens, men started to pay attention — including the man who would become her husband, Michael Schiavo, who was tall and handsome.But keeping the weight off was a struggle for Terri Schiavo, and years later — after her heart stopped briefly, cutting off oxygen to the brain — a malpractice case brought against a doctor on her behalf would reveal she had been trying to survive on liquids and was making herself throw up after meals. The Schiavos' lawyer said her 1990 collapse was caused by a potassium imbalance brought on by an eating disorder.
It is a cruel twist lost on no one close to the case: A woman who is said to have struggled with an eating disorder is now in the middle of a court battle over whether her feeding tube should be removed so that she can starve to death.
Terri Schiavo was forcing herself to throw up her food. She was denying herself the most human of activities, nourishment. Bulimia is a very dangerous activity. Stomach acids are not meant to travel back up through the esophagus and the mouth, where they will digest one's insides and rot one's teeth. Bulimia also results in serious chemical imbalances which can cause heart attacks -- as it did in Terri Schiavo's case.
I find it hard to believe her husband is not culpable in her bulimia, either through action or inaction. Her illness had progressed to the point she had stopped menstruating. He knew "she had peculiar eating patterns." He must have known about her discomfort with her body. He either reinforced her self-hatred or did not fight hard enough against it. Terri Schiavo's parents also seem to be in denial about her bulimia. The whole bunch of so-called pro-lifers seem only concerned with somehow continuing to force-feed this unfortunate woman without any pretense at discussing our sick culture that causes women to hate their own flesh. With all these Senate bills and last-minute interventions by the Governor, why not fund an eating disorder awareness fund or two? Even just for show, why not use this tragedy to try to warn the who-knows-how-many young women risking a similar end? Why not use this to examine how culture fosters such severe self-hatred in women?
That might actually save lives, you know...
But, instead, we have a public fight whether to force-feed or starve Terri Schiavo, carried out, it seems, mostly by people who care neither about her or about the myriads of young women who could become her any moment. A fight that would not have had to happen if we had just let her eat.
Posted by zeynep at 12:41 PM | Comments (29) | TrackBack
December 03, 2004
In My Culture, We Cut Off Books' Spines And Put Them On Spikes As A Warning To Others
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
So Gerald Allen, a state representative in Alabama, wants to prohibit libraries from using public money to buy books that "recognize or promote homosexuality." Such books already on the shelves would be destroyed.
In an interesting twist, however, Allen does not want to burn the offending books, like the Nazis did. He wants to take them all home so he can furtively examine them late at night with the door to the bathroom locked.
Whoops -- sorry, no, my mistake. Actually, Allen suggests that rather than burning the books, they'll just "dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them."
So, this makes me wonder... clearly there are people everywhere who want to suppress books, but could it be they express this differently from culture to culture?
1. European Fascists: Book Cremation
2. Southern Religious Fundamentalists: Book Burying
3. Ancient Egyptian Authoritarians: Book Mummification, with a retinue of dozens of librarians and editors sealed in the tomb with the books to accompany them to the afterlife
4. Close-Minded Pirates: Book Burial At Sea
5. Totalitarian Uruguayan Rugby Players Trapped In Andes: Book Cannibalism, in which books are eaten by other, more deserving books
Posted by jonathan at 08:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 14, 2004
Shoppers Rush Past Protesters -- Into the Walmart Built Upon an Ancient Gravesite
I'm normally as unsentimental as it gets about gravesites and cemeteries. I once remember hearing a caller to an advice radio show ask if it was okay to go into some huge amount of debt to built a headstone for their teenage daughter, killed in a traffic accident. The caller -the mom- explained how much this kind of marble cost, and the various estimates they had gotten from different companies, and how much their credit cards would charge in interest...
It made me feel sick. Here was this person who had suffered the losing of a child, perhaps the deepest blow to a parent. And here you have this industry that commodifies this grief and makes sure you feel guilty if you don't spend the maximum amount on the most lavish piece of stone. (Isn't that blasphemous in any case?). You've seen those ads too: buy insurance to pay for your funeral so that your relatives aren't burdened with... thousands of dollars in funeral costs. Why, what, how?
Me, I'd want cemeteries done away with. Bury the dead under trees, here and there. What better way to remind you to live? Or, if there must be a collective place, how about no headstones? People can take a walk in a nice park full of big trees --and big trees is what one will get if the abominable practice of burying people in caskets that separate their bodies from the earth is abolished, please. Take a walk, sit on a bench and reminisce about life: theirs, yours, the trees. No need to purchase dead flowers either, some will grow anyway -- especially if that icky, artificial construct of monoculture called lawn is not inflicted upon the area.
But this one bothered even me, so it must be pretty bad. Wal-Mart opens up a store in Hawaii, during the construction of which they encounter the remains of 44 people. They dig 'em up, put 'em "in an air-conditioned, darkened trailer in a secure location on the site" -- and proceed to open the store. A few native Hawaiian groups protest the opening saying they should kindly rebury those people at the site before opening up the store. Alas, shoppers "lined up hours ahead and then poured into the discount store" -- rushing right past the protesters. I suppose the religion of shopping trumps all.
Posted by zeynep at 11:17 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
October 11, 2004
Only the Crazy
Christopher Reeve died yesterday, at age 52, the way many people with serious levels of paralysis: from an infection from a bed sore. Much will be made, I guess, about stem cell research and the political implications of the inevitable sympathy that follows the death of a public figure.
But let me say what struck me about his post-paralysis stance. I thought the man was nuts. As in loony and delusional. Here he was, after having survived a C1-C2 level injury, (smashed the topmost two two vertebrae, as bad as it gets in other words), spending hours and hours each day ... exercising. Actually, hooked up to machines exercising him in an attempt to slow the atrophying of his muscles. Reeve was getting ready for the day science would catch up to his will -- he predicted he'd walk about the age of 50.
Reeve's effort generated a lot of discussion, especially after a Superbowl commercial, in 2000 if I recall correctly, that digitally created a walking Reeve. In a bizarre turning of political tables, I found myself agreeing with Charles Krauthammer, the war-mongering, generally pretty-vile, but not stupid-by-any-means columnist who himself uses a wheelchair. Krauthammer wrote a column in response to the ad, called "Restoration, Reality Christopher Reeve" -- the only free version I could find is this google cache -- which pretty much summed up my thoughts. Sure, someday research might help spinal cord injury, Krauthammer argued, but that will most likely benefit the newly-injured and even that is far, far away in time, if ever. The best advice to the people who are already injured, Krauthammer argued, is to refashion their lives around what they can achieve in their newly-configured bodies -- and the possibilities in that realm have been expanding steadily as both assistive-technologies and the social understanding of disability and disability rights advance.
But Reeve had the intensity of the crazy and the pocketbook of a movie star. So, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, he trained, exercised, received physical therapy and participated in experimental regimens.
And then, one day, he moved his pinkie at his will. At will, on demand, whenever.
Which is pretty much a miracle by the current standards of medical science. He single-handedly (single-pinkiely?) changed what was considered possible in terms of recovery years after the injury.
Krauthammer's argument, of course, still holds. Being able to move your pinkie is a far cry from being able to walk -- or even sit up, for that matter. I think it would be unconscionable to advise a newly-injured person to spend a good portion of their available waking hours hooked up to machines which move their limbs -- even if they had the resources to afford it, which most will not. Being disabled will already consume up a good portion of their time, which makes what remains even more valuable?
However, both Krauthammer and I missed something more important: the power of the crazy to open doors, often to their own great detriment. You see, taken as a method to help Christopher Reever [fill in name of person with spinal cord injury here], his project was loony and going nowhere. But it should be seen as something else: a crazy act of sacrifice that altered our understanding of the possible. And isn't it exactly what captures the human soul: the noble, quixotic, hopeless, dream for the impossible. We celebrate and admire such men and women -- and sometimes the footnotes concede how the fire burned the torch-bearer, everytime.
As it is often with the crazy of that kind, I'm sure Reeve did what he wanted to do. In other words, he probably didn't see what he did as sacrificing what remaining years he had in the possible service of future generations. (He must have known he'd die relatively early; most people with severe paralysis do). He did the thing that made him happy: he worked like a maniac against impossible odds in the service of an insane and impossible mission. And that very human trait may save or doom our troubled-enough species. I don't know, it's too soon to tell. It is, however, hard not to be awed by it.
Posted by zeynep at 11:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2004
We All Scream About Forged Documents
Tom Toles again, from the Washington Post (9/22/04).
Posted by zeynep at 10:37 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 12, 2004
Converting a Kid into a User
There is a new book out by Juliet Schor about the effects of the saturation-marketing directed at kids these day: "Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture." Nothing surprising: "Psychologically healthy children will be made worse off if they become more enmeshed in the culture of getting and spending... Children with emotional problems will be helped if they disengage from the worlds that corporations are constructing for them."
This is like a "is smoking bad for you" question. Everyone knows it is. But the corporate interests behind it are so strong that you must prove it beyond reasonable doubt with a lot of research before you're even allowed to make the case even though everyone knew from the beginning what the answer was. And it's hard to isolate and demonstrate the effect of any single cultural experience since we can't perform perfect experiments with children controlling for different variables most of which also interact with each other. For example, kids who watch a lot of television probably also have parents who work a lot -- the TV acts as a babysitter. So, when you point out some correlation between heavy exposure to advertisements and, say, nagging parents for purchases of certain brands, the the advertisers will argue that maybe, just maybe, the cause is the fact that both parents work and not the advertising. You have to find a sample of tv-watchers whose parents aren't working long hours and so on. But then there will be something or other they can claim since social life is indeed complicated.
But the truth is the question on the table isn't about knowledge or science, it's about power. It's about their power to make us deny the obvious, to entertain the ridiculous.
So, it's always great when someone does all this work in order to take away more of their excuses. She has a piece in Post's Outlook section and an interview with her was published recently in Salon.
It really is hard to come to terms with what we allow to be done to children in this society. It's especially shameful because we're so rich. We don't need to send them down mineshafts or make them stitch soccer balls 12 hours a day just to survive. We could let them be children, learn a little, work a little and play a lot. Instead, we let their minds be attacked by sicko, predator adults out to make a buck. These people even attend children's sleepovers, just to figure out how to manipulate them better.
The most interesting part of her work was her interaction with some these marketers. Schor says that she encountered a lot of unprompted expressions of guilt, one marketer told her that she knew she was going to burn in hell. I'd say that's an appropriate feeling for an industry where the jargon includes phrases like ""converting [a kid] into a user," an expression --and sentiment-- borrowed from the drug peddling business, as Schor points out.
Posted by zeynep at 11:45 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 09, 2004
The Taliban are women! They're bitches!
The loudspeakers atop the Humvee crackle to life: "The Taliban are women! They're bitches! If they were real men, they'd stop hiding under their burqas and they'd come out and fight!"
This, apparently, is how the U.S. army is trying to lure the Taliban out into the open in Afghanistan. I know, it looks like a parody.
Posted by zeynep at 10:27 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
The CPA doesn't want this to be done
Spurred on by the 1,000 American casualty, The Associated Press does a story on the number of Iraqi dead, which confirms that this number is a known unknown:
No official, reliable figures exist for the whole country, but private estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000 killed since the United States invaded in March 2003
So how did we get here? Pretty simple, actually. The CPA ordered Iraq's Health Ministry, which was counting, to stop counting and further banned the statisticians from releasing whatever preliminary information they had collected. Here's the story from December 2003, re-highlighted by Yahoo's full coverage section on Iraq, about how Iraq's Health Ministry came to stop the count:
Iraq's Health Ministry has ordered a halt to a count of civilians killed during the war and told its statistics department not to release figures compiled so far, the official who oversaw the count told The Associated Press on Wednesday.The health minister, Dr. Khodeir Abbas, denied in an email that he had anything to do with the order, saying he didn't even know about the study.
Dr. Nagham Mohsen, the head of the ministry's statistics department, said the order was relayed to her by the ministry's director of planning, Dr. Nazar Shabandar, who said it came on behalf of Abbas. She said the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which oversees the ministry, also wanted the counting to stop.
"We have stopped the collection of this information because our minister didn't agree with it," she said, adding: "The CPA doesn't want this to be done."
The U.S.-appointed Health Minister denied the charge. The Minister even added that the Health Ministry had never started counting civilian deaths, so how could he have ordered them to stop?
Abbas, whose secretary said he was out of the country, sent an email denying the charge."I have no knowledge of a civilian war casualty survey even being started by the Ministry of Health, much less stopping it," he wrote. "The CPA did not direct me to stop any such survey either."
"Plain and simple, this is false information," he added.
There was one little problem with this story, though. Not only had they been counting the civilian deaths, they had already released figures to the media:
Despite Abbas' comments, the health ministry's civilian death toll count had been reported by news media as early as August, and the count was widely anticipated by human rights organizations. The ministry issued a preliminary figure of 1,764 deaths during the summer.
The Minister further claimed that somehow such a study couldn't be done because one couldn't distinguish between deaths resulting from military action and deaths resulting from Saddam's brutal regime:
Abbas, the minister, said he had nothing to do with the order, and suggested the study wouldn't be feasible anyway."It would be almost impossible to conduct such a survey, because hospitals cannot distinguish between deaths that resulted from the coalition's efforts in the war, common crime among Iraqis, or deaths resulting from Saddam's brutal regime," he wrote.
Got that? We can't distinguish between someone who died because he was blown up by a bomb or hit by a bullet and someone who died from Saddam's brutal regime ... which had been out of power for nine months by that time. So did Saddam have Matrix-style slow-motion bullets that take nine months to hit their target?
The CPA, unsurprisingly, had nothing to add:
A spokesman for the CPA said it had nothing to add to Abbas' response, which came after the CPA reached him by telephone.
I guess this fits with this administration's tendencies. Don't count votes, don't count the dead, don't count pollution emissions, don't count overtime, don't count anything if you can help it.
Dr. Nagham Mohsen, the head of the ministry's statistics department quoted earlier, insisted that she could carry out the study if only she were allowed:
Mohsen insisted that despite communications that remain poor and incomplete record-keeping by some hospitals, the statistics she received indicated that a significant count could have been completed."I could do it if the CPA and our minister agree that I can," she said in an interview in English.
But, of course not. So now we don't know if 10,000 or 30,000 Iraqis have died as a result of our military occupation because the CPA ordered Iraqi statisticians to stop counting.
Now imagine yourself an Iraqi, watching the U.S. media identify, count and mourn every single American death while you aren't even allowed to be accurate to the thousandth. What do you conclude? And how many times have you heard about how much we value human life, every human life, while their culture doesn't?
Posted by zeynep at 12:17 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 05, 2004
Harleys, Hooters and Missing Hands and Legs
So I hear an ad in the radio for September 11 remembrance with, who else, Harley Davidson, Hooters and "U.S. Angels" calendar girls and soldiers wounded in Iraq. Proceeds to benefit Walter Reed Fisher House fund. The jarring mixture prompted my curiosity.
So, here it is. If you've lost both your legs and your left arm in a war supposedly to disable weapons of mass destruction and instead turned out to involve pounding cities with helicopter gunships and being thoroughly unpopular with the actual people of the country, where can your parents stay while you ponder your future with your now badly broken body? That's Fisher House, a place for families to stay close to the wounded soldiers. And I didn't make the example up:
There is no better example for the need for Fisher Houses than Hilario Bermanis.The young soldier was hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in Iraq. He lost both legs and his left arm, and he suffered various other wounds.
Bermanis is from the State of Pohnpei - a part of the Federated States of Micronesia. When he was wounded, the military notified his family. His father and mother flew to his side, first in Germany and then here at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
His parents have stayed at the Fisher House on the grounds of Walter Reed for almost a year as they help him get better. They could not have stayed by their son's side without the Fisher House facility
While I was pondering the appropriateness of Harleys and Hooters for 9/11 commemorations, I checked out the "U.S. Angels" calendars. They wear hot pink shorts and pose for this calendar under the slogan "what more could a soldier want?" Golly, how about his right arm and both his legs?
What to make of this culture: a kid from our faithful ally at the United Nations, Micronesia has single limb remaining. Labor day weekend is about shopping to spend the money we now work for longer than any other industrialized nation. Hooters joins 9/11 commemorations except the commemorations are about soldiers wounded in Iraq which has what do to with 9/11 again, except serving as a convenient pretext? And how is it that a motorcycle manufacturer build a brand identity around pretending to be Rambo's first choice for transportation? (Note the ever-present POW/MIA silhouette flag in their ads). Oh, wait, Rambo was just Slyvester Stallone pretending to be a brave warrior. (Did you know oh-so-tough guy Slyvester Stallone couldn't brave going to the Cannes Film Festival for fear of terrorists?)
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Maybe I should stop listening to classic rock stations; it's a very schizoid experience. The best songs are from the sixties and seventies; naturally many are very anti-war and anti-establishment. Unfortunately, the ad demographic is males 19-35 which is why the ads are all about Harleys, Hooters, a variety of cars and trucks, hair growth products and such. Plus, many of these stations are owned by Clear Channel which loves these historical genre formats that give readily to pre-prepared playlists. So you get "One Tin Soldier" followed by "Fortunate Son," followed by a promo for Clear Channel that features some lame soundbite by George W. and a radio announcer "pledging allegiance to the flag," followed by an ad for a strip joint and a no money down truck blowout sale, with some legalese fineprint read so rapidly that the only word you understand is "restrictions."
So, we're at war without decorum, a war where your duty is to vote for the king and reach for your wallet. Something happened three years ago this month but we won't really talk about it except the television channels will have these faux-documentaries where we will see the buildings fall but not really feel it between commercials for weight-loss products, beer, and kitchen cabinets. And only Citibank will say stuff like "People make money. Not the other way around."
It is just me or is this all crazy?
Posted by zeynep at 10:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 30, 2004
Peaceful Police to Get Discounts, Smiles
Peaceful NY Police Campaign Launched:
Peaceful police officers will receive smiles and positive responses from RNC protesters, as well as discounts at several New York City stores, if they pledge to remain peaceful during demonstrations that are planned during the Republican National Convention....
Police officers who choose to wear the buttons can receive discounts from such businesses as ABC Homes and Carpets (20 % off); Axis Gallery (10 % of art work); The Culture Project (50 % off on any performance); Angelica’s Kitchen (5 % off on meals); and screenings of the movie “Uncovered” at the Angelica Theater (10 % off).
Posted by zeynep at 04:27 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 18, 2004
Come, protest, shop
When I first saw this story at the Post, I thought it must have been a parody -- that I was reading the Onion and not a real newspaper.
But it's true.
NYC Mayor Bloomberg, a billionaire by the way, has decided that protestor might as well try to do some shopping --and fine wining and dining-- while they are in NY for the Convention.
Here's the Post article and here's the NYC "Welcome Peaceful Political Activist" page. Check out the "special offers" that include $189 a night hotels, a steal. If you are a billionaire, that is.
By the way, before you get too dazzled by the special offers, remember:
Offers are based on availability; offers cannot be combined; not valid on prior purchases; some manufacturers may be excluded; refunds or exchanges may be limited; advance reservations may be required; tax, alcoholic beverages, and gratuity may not be included; offers may not be valid on prix-fixe or other special menus; phone and internet orders subject to service fees; ticket limit may apply; blackout dates may apply; plays, performers, and dates subject to change without notice; additional restrictions may apply. Offers are for 2004 Republican National Convention Peaceful Political Activists who present a Peaceful Political Activists Savings Card, downloaded from this web site, or a Peaceful Political Activists pin, at the NYC businesses listed August 22-September 8; or redeem offers as otherwise indicated in individual listings.
Posted by zeynep at 02:20 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
August 10, 2004
The Puppy Dog Close, or How to Recruit for the Marines
There was an eye-opening piece about military recruitment process in the Washington Post magazine this Sunday titled “Uncle Sam Wants Your Children.” It chronicles the work of a marine recruiter in a relatively affluent suburb.
The recruiters have quotas which they work very, very hard to fulfill, seeing everyone who stands in the way of the kids enlisting --parents, promising careers, colleges, scholarships-- as the enemy. At one point, the recruiter complains how a potential was “conned into doing a semester” at a community college by his mom. They try to talk kids out of college, other jobs and possible scholarships.
They learn and use all the pressure-sell techniques and more at a San Diego “Recruiters School.”
Here’s a sample of what the recruiters are taught:
"The first time you call the prospect, his mother states, 'He's not home right now, he's at school rehearsing for the senior play.' (Use this information to get the prospect to do the talking.) Recruiter: I understand you're in the senior play. Tell me more about it!" Baxley also learned how to handle what the textbook refers to as "stallers.""When you reach the moment of decision and John begins the 'staller two step,' control your urge to strangle him and simply state, 'John, I'm confused. When we began this conversation I asked . . . if you would describe yourself as the type of person who, when given enough information and whose questions have been answered, can make a decision? You said yes. Now were you trying to impress me, or were you serious?' "
If that pressure doesn't work, recruiters can try the "challenge close," where they say something like: "I'm not sure you have what it takes to be a Marine." Or they can try the "Puppy Dog close:" "Have an extra set of dress blues in the office and have the prospect wear the jacket looking into the mirror. Ask them what they see."
At the school, trainers “deprogram” the marine recruiters so they don’t appear as... marines. They teach them to leave behind the “marine mentality” so they won’t scare off the kids with their military mannerisms. They teach them how to change their body language, their words, their smile so they become more approachable.
And the recruiters constantly call the kids, visit them at school, mall, their home, wherever they can get access. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act requires “public high schools to provide military recruiters with lists of students' names and phone numbers” -- unless the parent knows about this and takes steps to opt-out. As usual, opt-out requirements mean most people don’t even know about this and remain accessible by default. (How many have managed to opt-out of the of the complicated privacy “agreements” of credit card issuers and merchants?)
The military also works hard at keeping the teachers and guidance counselors on board. As the article explains, “last year, the Marines spent nearly $1 million transporting almost 2,000 educators from around the country to South Carolina or California for a three-day, all-expenses-paid taste of the rigors of boot camp.”
The trip to Parris Island is a public relations offensive, and the Marines are not coy about their intentions. If the Marines can convince this group of 75 teachers, guidance counselors and principals from the Baltimore-Washington region that the Corps is a viable option for their students, they are that much closer to convincing the students of the same.Even if the educators don't become die-hard Corps supporters, the recruiters make valuable contacts in the schools. As Lt. Jeff Banasz, the executive officer overseeing many of the recruiting stations in the region, explains, "I can walk into their schools and say, 'Hey, I need this transcript, can you help me out? And, say, remember when we were drinking a beer together in the officers club?' "
There is a point where the recruiter tells the nervous, reluctant kid that “don’t worry, I ain’t gonna do no Jedi mind trick on you” although that’s exactly what they are trying to do to impressionable 17 year olds. That’s what the recruiters are trained to try. I can’t help thinking that even the bad grammar is intentional.
One of the potential recruits is failing two courses which would mean no high school diploma as scheduled, which in turn would mean that he couldn’t be recruited. The recruiter goes ballistic: first visiting the guidance counselor. “I can get drastic,” the recruiter says, “I don’t know what you’ll let me do, but I’ll sit in class with him.... If he has to sit in my office to do his homework, he will.”
Don’t you wish someone paid this much attention to kids for reasons other than to send them to occupy Iraq?
It’s very clear from the article that the recruiters biggest enemy is college, scholarships, good jobs and concerned parents. The worse the economy, the more expensive the higher-education, the more stingy the scholarships, the better for the military.
If fruits of empire are high-standards of consumption, these are the burdens. The trick for the establishment is to separate the rewards from the encumbrances. The United States cannot have a draft because the only thing the middle classes are willing to sacrifice for their gluttonous standard of living is their soul, to be sucked dry in endless hours in corporate cubicles as their life passes on by. So, in order to maintain an army of an imperial scale, there must be a large, impressionable, vulnerable pool of youth, largely drawn from the poor, of course. The economy cannot be doing too well. College cannot become affordable. Scholarships cannot be widespread.
There you have it, a “volunteer” army.
Posted by zeynep at 10:18 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
July 29, 2004
I was joking; they're not
Couple days ago, I wrote that the boundaries of the national debate on how to approach soldiers who have killed or tortured in Iraq seems to be limited by whether to recommend Prozac or Valium, shopping or vacation. I was lacking in imagination. That's the limits of national debate on underemployed workers as well. Thanks to Billmon.
Posted by zeynep at 07:41 PM | Comments (1)
July 27, 2004
The Road Not Taken
During the prime-time hour of the first day of the Democratic Convention, Haleema Salie talked with a quivering, accented English about her daughter, son-in-law, and unborn grandchild who were on American Airlines Flight 11 on September 11 and how, on that day, we seemed resolved to be a better people; she was followed by 16-year-old violinist Gabe Lefkowitz’s beautiful, unpretentious rendition of "Amazing Grace," the ultimate Christian song of redemption written by a slave-trader who became an abolitionist following a miraculous survival in a treacherous storm.
It made me ache for the road not taken after 9/11: a soul-searching nation, an honest dialogue about our place in the world, a repudiation of all that is revealed as inconsequential by tragedy... If only this stuff occurred to the Democrats when not scripting long televised commercials paid by large corporations and public funds.
Still, it would have been moving even if it were an ad for Halliburton.
Posted by zeynep at 04:02 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
July 26, 2004
Glorious Achievement Responding to a Hostile Crowd of People
870th Military Police Unit, stationed in Abu Ghraib during last year, has just marked the third month of their return from Iraq. None of the soldiers has been charged with abusing prisoners but many were involved in the riot of November 2003, which resulted in three inmates being fatally shot -- but that doesn't count because according to the official Army investigation the killings were justified. That’s all the national discussion we seem to have had on the subject, in spite of a lot of stuff in the Taguba report regarding the conditions that led to the riot.
According to the full annexes of the Taguba report, which seems to have receded into dusty shelves of bureaucracy in favor of quick exonerations, here's a summary of what happened on November 24th:
The most serious riot, at Camp Vigilant, took place on the night of November 23 when guards shot and killed four detainees. "The prisoners were marching and yelling, 'Down with Bush,' and 'Bush is bad,'" another Army review said. "They became violent and started throwing rocks at the guards, both in the towers and at the rovers around the wire..." Guards feared for their lives "the sky was black with rocks," the report said, and a mass breakout appeared imminent. The review of the November riot cited the failure of guard commanders to post rules of engagement for dealing with insurrections. Soldiers were hesitant to shoot, and when they did shoot, they often didn't know whether they were using lethal or non-lethal ammunition because they had mixed the ammo in their shotguns.Another classified annex reported that the prison complex was seriously overcrowded, with detainees often held for months without ever being interrogated. Detainees walked around in knee-deep mud, "defecating and urinating all over the compounds," said Capt. James Jones, commander of the 229th MP Battalion. "I don't know how there's not rioting every day," he testified.
So, we know there is widespread torture, the nature of which we know thanks to the pornographic impulses of the torturers, and detainees walking in knee-deep mud and human waste, and officers wondering why they aren't rioting every day. When a riot does finally occur, the soldiers don't know confuse when they are shooting with live ammo with when they are not.
Those facts alone should have prompted the top brass to launch a full-scale investigation, even if they didn’t know order what was going on as they keep claiming.
They chose to walk down a different path:
Pvt. David Ruth, who killed one inmate during the riot with a shot to the head from a light machine gun, received a medal on Saturday "for glorious achievement responding to a hostile crowd of people."
Glorious achievement responding to a hostile crowd of people.
Here's another look at the riot from the Taguba report:
h. (U) 24 November 03- Riot and shooting of 12 detainees # 150216, #150894, #153096, 153165, #153169, #116361, #153399, #20257, #150348, #152616, #116146, and #152156 at Abu Ghraib... Several detainees allegedly began to riot at about 1300 in all of the compounds at the Ganci encampment. This resulted in the shooting deaths of 3 detainees, 9 wounded detainees, and 9 injured US Soldiers. A 15-6 investigation by COL Bruce Falcone (220th MP Brigade, Deputy Commander) concluded that the detainees rioted in protest of their living conditions, that the riot turned violent, the use of non-lethal force was ineffective, and, after the 320th MP Battalion CDR executed "Golden Spike," the emergency containment plan, the use of deadly force was authorized.
What's more scary? To read about awards for "glorious achievement responding to a hostile crowd," something that seems right out of the latest issue of Führer, Volk und Vaterland? Fatally shot detaines identifed by six digits? A plan for shooting to kill called the “Golden Spike”?
The fact that the November riot did not serve as a wake-up call is telling of Army's intentions. In fact, lacking guidance from leadership towards improving the conditions that led to the riot -- again, think about it, living conditions were appalling, torture was openly practiced, and as Red Cross reported, 70 to 80 percent of detainees were guilty of no more than being swept up in raids-- if furthered soldiers fear and animosity towards the prisoners. The same Capt. James Jones, commander of the 229th MP Battalion, who told Taguba that he wondered that there weren't riots every day said that it made "people aware that those prisoners in there are enemies. They are not your friends, they are not people who you will ever go out and have a beer with."
Meanwhile, another other soldier who killed two detainees that day talked about "intense memories":
Sgt. Terry Stowe, who killed two prisoners in the riot, said the memories remained intense and still filled his dreams."I'm still looking for a job, still looking for a house," he said. "Still trying to get my life together."
Maybe we can have a national debate on the subject, after all. Should Sgt. Stowe go shopping or go on a vacation? Should he take Prozac or Valium?
Posted by zeynep at 02:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 19, 2004
More Stun Gun Fun
I know I seem to be stuck on these Taser shocking devices while car bombs blow up in Iraq, a genocidal wave of violence continues to drown Sudan in blood and the 9/11 commission seems ready to partially blame Iran for the attacks because 8 to 10 of the hijackers legally entered Iran. By the way, if that's all the evidence linking Iran to the hijackers, I'd like to point out that 19 of the 19 hijackers legally entered the United States. What's Iran supposed to do in order to avoid suspicion: keep a better tab on suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists than the United States was able to?
But I'm really amazed by the Taser gun story partly because I expect to see them in the near future at a peace rally or a protest outside a trade organization meeting and partly because it is such a shocking display of corporate malfeasance resulting in huge payoffs for the corporate malfeasants.
So, while Taser's stock shot up from less than $2 to $60 over the course of two years, the company kept denying that the Taser had anything to do with the 50-odd people who happened to have died after being shocked. It claimed that it was basing its denials on on coroners' reports. Well, alleged coroner's reports, it turns out.
The Arizona Republic set out to obtain the autopsies for the 42 cases of death following shocks that were cited in refutations by Taser. Taser claimed that "the stun guns were cleared each and every time."
After obtaining only 22 of the autopsy reports, the Arizona Republic reported that in some of the cases the doctors had either specifically blamed the Taser shock or had concluded it could not be ruled out. That's hardly "cleared each and every time." What's Taser's response?
When presented with cases linking Tasers to deaths, Smith says the medical examiners got it wrong and dismisses their reports.Smith says medical examiners are generalists who don't have the expertise needed to analyze deaths involving the stun gun. And they often "throw everything" into autopsy reports as a way to cover themselves so they can't be accused of missing something later on.
"There is no penalty for a coroner to be overly broad," Smith says. "These guys deal with the whole broad spectrum of what can go wrong in the human body. Am I going to expect that they are going to be right 100 percent of the time? No."
Smith says his company's report presents the "big picture" of Taser-related deaths. He says it proves that Tasers are not to blame and that actual autopsies are not needed to summarize each case.
"I know in my heart what the truth is," Smith says. "Taser hasn't killed any of these people."
As you can tell from the quote, they hadn't even based their analysis on the actual autopsy in each case but had used whatever anectodal sources, third-party reporting, campus newspapers and whatever suited them. They must have calculated nobody would bother looking them up -- clearly related to an understanding that the class of victims, "suspects," do not have too many defenders and investigators with clout.
Plus, the cause of deaths occurring following Taser shocks seem to follow broadly similar patterns, further reinforcing the obvious point. It may also be that the Taser is even more lethal in people who are under the influence of drugs that induce tachycardia, such as crack and cocaine. While it's hardly wise or advisable to use such drugs, or worse yet, to engage in any kind of activity that could possibly involve a confrontation with the police while intoxicated, since when is death the penalty for drug addiction?
But leave aside all the details, here's my point: we have a very clear case of a corporation blatantly lying about a very dangerous product and making off like a bandit during the process. They have gotten away with it so far and if they manage to weather the current meager level of media interest, all may yet end well in Taserville. The original founders of the company have already sold at about $40 millions of dollars of stock and own another $130 million worth.
The victims are the kinds of people that don't count: they are poor, they are most likely people of color, they they are the kind of people one sees portrayed so degradingly in television shows like Cops. We watch them drunk, high, half-dressed, acting stupid, hancuffed, disheveled, sometimes guilty of nothing more than living in the wrong neighborhood and sometimes plenty guilty of speeding down the highway at breakneck speeds and recklessly endangering everyone around. They just seem less than human.
Just compare the Taser story with the amount of attention the media has shown to the West Nile virus, a fairly rare disease transmitted by mosquitos which is relatively fatal for the elderly and the already frail. According to the CDC, a total of 246 Americans were killed in all of last year from the disease -- yet there have been many times that the evening newscast opens with the West Nile as the main story of the day. The reason for the difference is obvious: the West Nile virus can strike accross class and racial boundaries, Tasers don't.
Posted by zeynep at 06:42 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
July 17, 2004
Who Needs Safety Studies? My Heart and Soul and Wallet Say It's Safe (on Other People).
A long and scary article in the New York Times about the Taser stun guns now carried by more than 100,000 police officers in the United States and coming soon to a Radio Shack near you. Although 50 people have died since 2001 after being shocked with the Taser, and although studies done by non-company flacks, in Britain, Canada and the United States, have found that they are not safe my any definition of the term, potentially lethal to be more precise, we can all rest assured:
Patrick Smith, Taser's chief executive, said the guns are safe. "We tell people that this has never caused a death, and in my heart and soul I believe that's true," Mr. Smith said.
How is it that Martha Stewart goes to jail five months for a lousy, small-potatoes insider deal while this man is not charged with reckless endangerment, manslaughter and "lethal fraud," a criminal category that does not but should exist? You compare: she's annoying, he's accessory to murder.
Posted by zeynep at 05:26 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 01, 2004
Consumer Friendly Stun Guns: Think Outside the Semi-Automatic
You really couldn't make this stuff up:
Wall Street-darling Taser International, maker of "nonlethal weapons" (that have been shown on at least 40 occasions to contribute to death), said recently it is in talks with electronics chain Sharper Image, among other retailers, to sell "consumer-friendly" stun guns in the U.S. and Canada. For those of us not near a Sharper Image, Taser also plans to sell a "consumer-friendly" version of its 50,000-volt weapon on its Web site -- just a shock and click away.
Read it and, uhm, [weep | laugh | buy TASR on the Nasdaq | dig a well in your backyard.]
Posted by zeynep at 06:15 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 28, 2004
Reclaiming Our Sanity
After I wrote phrase "the better [the site] will become" in the previous post, I started wondering what I meant by "better." Better written, better known, more widely read? Well, sure, but something else.
It's a world where an insidious form of immorality is pretty much the reigning norm, it’s hard not to feel insane of sorts. To effect change in such a world thus requires a double-bootstrapping: one has to regain one’s sense of self and one has to find ways to come together with others.
On the one hand, I think we have to start with individual moral agency -- if for nothing else, as humans, we are individuals in separate minds and bodies. I'm not a transnational entity, neither are you. On the other hand, no matter what one does, as long as the "I" in the "what can I do" isn't pooled into something larger than each of us, there is no good answer -- if for no reason other than the simple fact that forces arrayed against us are so large. Not that there is a nice, easy answer in collectivity but there is a distinction between choosing the most moral path open to an individual and achieving effectiveness. And effectiveness does require some form of collectivity. And morality without effectiveness can, and often does, induce despair, hopelessness and inaction.
So, where do we go from there? Faced with massive forces, seemingly impossible odds and made to doubt our sanity, our basic moral truths?
First and foremost, I think that we have to believe in our understanding of the world. In spite of all this massive ideological onslaught, we have to accept that, in this world, under these conditions, these are the sane positions, these are the moral considerations. It is sane and moral to be centered in this way. The greatest success of the ideology disseminated by the current power structures is in the way they make us feel uncentered, weird, a little loony, corny, pretentious or well-meaning but stupid for feeling this way.
I’m not saying we have a monopoly on immutable and transcendent truths. But not all moral beliefs are equally thorny and complicated. One can start somewhere while conceding a lack of full and comprehensive answers to everything.
Here's a few. It is simply wrong, wrong, wrong to have almost a billion malnourished people while a part of the world is drowning in almost obscene levels of cornucopia. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong to have millions die of easily curable or controllable diseases when the global luxury retail market alone is upwards of $100 billion. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong to be the five percent of the planet’s population while consuming from 25 to 40 percent of its resources -- and going to war under these set of circumstances in the heart of the region producing the most strategic resource in the world.
That's all wrong and I think we all know it. And most everything in the modern, affluent lifestyle and cultural climate that surrounds us is designed anesthetize us to that knowledge. We have to take back our own hearts and minds before worrying about who else’s we’re losing or winning.
What to do about it all may not be simple but it has to start with reclaiming what we do know as that which what we do know. (And, no, I don’t mean that as a tautological statement. It might be one for a machine but it’s not one for us humans who often hold multiple levels of beliefs filtered through inconsistent ideologies.)
As a friend of mine once put it, it's like there is this evil person/machine throwing kids to a raging river. Do you go try to save one? What about all the others? If you decide it's more important to stop him for once and for all, what about all those kids who drown while we gnaw at his ankle, relatively unnoticed? And why not just give up rather than take responsibility, confront difficult choices -- and pretend not to have noticed?
And, yes, there are many thorny issues beyond that. But how does one even start thinking, start doing something about it all before being able to stand on some ground that feels like it’s there -- rather than in our loony heads?
I think the way out is the way we know anything else in this world: we reference our minds with other people’s minds. That’s almost how one can define insanity: it’s that state when your reality is so distinct, so incommunicable to others that you become trapped in your own mind. In the same way, being able to share the reality reflected in your mind with kindred souls is how people achieve that state of mind called sanity.
So, in many ways, that what the effort in this site is about; it’s not just about writing and it’s not just about being read. It’s about reclaiming both a sense sanity and a knowledge of that moral center -- mine, yours and ours. The more we get there, the better it is.
Posted by zeynep at 01:03 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 23, 2004
Sunday Song: Guantanamera
I've been thinking a lot about that song this week. Not just because May 19th was the anniversary of the death of Jose Marti, who wrote the poem, and not just because that bay at Guantanamo is now etched in history as a prison without any reasonable definition of justice (like the right to due process, the right to be charged with a crime, habeas corpus.) I've been thinking about it because I've been thinking about Jose Marti's "Manifesto of Montecristi" which he wrote and published on 1895 along with Maximo Gomez.
I couldn't find the text online but basically, they proclaimed the equality of all races, proclaimed Cuban independence, declared that white people were welcome, and indeed invited, to join the struggle for independence and equality (even though they materially benefited from the slavery and colonialism) but also that black people's participation in this movement was crucial since it was largely their freedom and liberaton on the line.
I'm sure we'd find many complications and subtleties if we dug into the history of the Cuban independence movement and I'm sure people can point out how I'm oversimplifying things.
But it just all seems so different, so much more crisp and clear than today's world.
Here we have a democracy at home, however imperfect it may be, but we also have world's most powerful military deployed in more than a hundred countries around the world engaged in occupation and imperial force projection. On the other hand, you have an adversary that is willing to kill thousands indiscriminately and, seemingly, without remorse.
Where is the side that is moral but also serious and powerful? Can moral, reasonable people everywhere escape this straitjacket -- this straitjacket of being limited to attempting to curb the violence inflicted by powers on "their side"?
By the way, I hate that song. I've been thinking about it, not listening to it. I heard it so many times in so many pretentious settings that I just cannot stand it. Sorry Jose.
Maybe we'll have some good new songs when we have a good new movement.
Posted by zeynep at 07:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack