"If Barack Obama wants to question John McCain's service... he should have the guts to do it himself and not hide behind his campaign surrogates."

Said retired Admiral Leighton "Snuffy" Smith... speaking as a surrogate for the McCain campaign.

Questions:

1. Is it really so bad to use surrogates to articulate the arguments that wouldn't sound too pretty coming from the candidate's mouth?

2. Is every supporter who makes an argument a "surrogate" for the candidate? I think that "surrogate" implies that the campaign authorized the person to say something on behalf of the candidate and that it should not cover supporters who happen to say things, even when they say things that make you want to ask the candidate whether he would adopt the supporter's statement as his own.

3. Was Wesley Clark sent by the Obama campaign to say that John McCain's military experience — "riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down" — is not the kind of executive decisionmaking that a President needs to do and is therefore not much of a qualification for President? Clark was responding to a question about Barack Obama's lack of equivalent experience, and the point was to minimize McCain's service — which would be stupid — but to defend Obama's qualifications.

4. Wasn't Clark correct on the precise point that he made about executive experience?

5. Wasn't Clark a fool not to see how the other side would be able to use his remark?

6. How should Obama respond now? He has to say something today, and I feel as though I could type out the appropriately Obaman professorial distinctions and explanations that I expect to here, but this post is too long already.

7. Wesley Clark can't be the VP pick now, right? Or does the uproar over his remarks show that McCain supporters think Clark is a formidable opponent?

Child prostitutes sell themselves on Craigslist

For more than two years, undercover cops on the Sacramento Police Department's vice squad have been working one of the most draining beats: trying to crack down on online child prostitution.

Sacramento police have nabbed nearly 70 underage girls for child prostitution since 2005.

Police have nabbed nearly 70 girls under the age of 18 since 2005. Most of the girls were released to foster or group homes. Those are just the official figures; investigators think there are many more child prostitutes out there.

It is no easy task.

"We're asking these girls to do a big thing ... which is to stop what they're doing," said Sgt. Pam Seyffert of the Sacramento Police Department. "Stop what's working for them. Surviving is basically what they're doing."

Sacramento police are working with the FBI as part of a nationwide campaign to combat underage prostitution called Innocence Lost. The goal of the program, which is now in almost 30 U.S. cities, is to decriminalize the girls and concentrate on catching the pimps who control them.

"It really makes me angry," Seyffert said. "I think everybody on the team has different reactions to it, but I just flat out get really angry that some guy thinks he can take this girl and basically deprive her of her freedom."

It is not uncommon for the officers on the unit to put in 30-hour shifts. Oftentimes, their work is heart-wrenching.

Child prostitution is even tougher on the parents of these girls. Roslyn and Sergio's daughter had been missing for more than two weeks. They waited for hours at police headquarters in hopes that their daughter would be found.

Vice squad officers found her in a downtown apartment with Bruce William Carter, a 21-year-old man who police said had posed on the Internet holding fistfuls of cash. He pleaded not guilty to charges of statutory rape and was held in lieu of $35,000 bail.

The couple's daughter, who had just turned 17, was detained but not arrested.

"It hurt," said Roslyn, who appeared weary and a bit shell-shocked. "Because you don't want to see your children involved in things like this. You don't realize how dangerous the Internet is. Now, we got to keep her away from the Internet."

Police say most of the ads appear on Craigslist, the popular and free Internet classifieds site, under a category named "Erotic Services." Even though Craigslist has posted a bold disclaimer warning against human trafficking and the exploitation of children, law enforcement officials said it doesn't seem to deter girls from posting the ads or men who are searching for sex.

But why would a girl sell her body online?

To help answer that question, Sacramento police made arrangements for CNN to interview a 14-year-old girl who said she'd started selling herself as a prostitute at the age of 11.

"I wanted to feel loved. ... I wanted to feel important," said the teen, who did not want to be identified.

She said she used Craigslist because it was free and she could post dozens of ads a day. Even though she understood the seriousness of what she was doing, she said she didn't care.

"You could put stuff in your ad like 'wet and wild,' 'fun and sassy,' things like that to catch their attention, to make them want you," she said.

Craigslist executives said they abhor the fact that their site is being used for child prostitution but believe that the problem could be harder to track if they removed the category.

"It would be a bigger problem if we removed that category and had those ads spread throughout the site," said Jim Buckmaster, chief executive officer of Craigslist.

Both legal experts and police say Craigslist bears no legal responsibility. Undercover officers said the fact that the listings can be traced helps them pinpoint the girls and sometimes leads them to pimps.

For her part, Roslyn has a strong message for the man arrested in connection with her daughter's detention.

"I want him to stay away from my daughter," she said. "I'm going to put a restraining order on him. Every time he goes near my daughter, I'm going to call the police and have him put in jail."

Even though they have more work than they can handle, vice officers hold out hope that they can save more girls from a life of prostitution.

Next stage of advertisement

Lowe Ad Agency sent samples of laundry detergent to potential customers in Thailand. They wrapped the sample with a new t-shirt and addressed it with washable ink. By the time the samples arrived, the shirts were pretty dirty. Then voila, the solution was right there inside! Clever marketing. See more pictures at Ads of the World.

Map of the virtual world

I've found a little map utility to help people locate bloggers around the world. There's a menu item called "blogmap". The locations are approximate, because most bloggers want a certain degree of anonymity. It's a work in progress, but eventually I hope to construct a fairly comprehensive locater.

Trying to construct a physical map of the blogosphere created some challenges. For example some blogs specialize in places they do not actually inhabit. For example, it turns out that one of the better known blogs about Russia is physically edited and written out of Texas. But sometimes bloggers absolutely, positively want people to know where they are. Professor Bainbridge and Eugene Volokh both advertise themselves as being in UCLA.

The question is why would one build such a map? One reason is the belief that eventually the information will come in handy. If there's an accident or incident somewhere it pays to have some sense of whose site I should log onto; maybe even send an email to. One never knows when it will come in handy.

History irony

Here's a very old NYT article about a certain Hitler. I would say it's funny but I shouldn't.

Limits to Growth: China and India

A long list of concerns about China is feeding the trend: inflation, shortages of workers and energy, a strengthening currency, changing government policies, even the possibility of civil unrest someday. But most important, wages in China are rising close to 25 percent a year in many industries, in dollar terms, and China is no longer such a bargain.

Both China and India are facing problems with shortages of workers, rising wages, corruption, and inflation, which are causing large western industrial companies to begin building new factories in other countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines.

Inflation in China — more than 8 percent in February, March and April and 7.7 percent in May — raises the prospect that labor costs will soar even faster soon. That could push up prices for a wide range of goods exported to the United States.

China is also phasing out its practice of charging lower corporate tax rates for foreign-owned companies. By contrast, Vietnam still offers foreign investors a corporate tax rate of zero for the first four years, and half the usual rate of 10 percent for the next four years.

...A popular saying among Western investors these days is that Vietnam is the next China. Cambodia, with even lower wages attracting garment manufacturers, is called the next Vietnam.

But how long those analogies will hold — in a world where economies evolve from agriculture to manufacturing to services in a couple of decades — is unclear.

As foreign investors leap into each new country, they drive up the cost of workers and goods, a dynamic that makes it less likely that a shift in investment patterns will hold down inflation in American imports.

...even in India, workers with industrial skills or the ability to speak English are increasingly scarce — and their wages have been rising by 10 to 20 percent a year.

That has led to worries about India’s long-term competitiveness, even at companies investing heavily there, like Ford, which is planning to spend $500 million on factory expansion.

High fuel costs will soon enter the picture as well, perhaps inducing some western corporations to think closer to home when planning new factories. As automation takes over more of the manufacturing process, labour costs are less of a concern, and shipping costs take on greater relative importance.

China's remarkable growth rate has been part real and part bubble. Many analysts have been predicting an unlimited steep trajectory of growth in China for at least the next decade and a half. But the bloom may have partially gone off the rose. Chinese government duplicity has papered over much of the underlying instability in Chinese financial institutions and in Chinese society itself. Ham handed censorship of the internet and all public discourse, along with liberal arrest and harassment policies against perceived political dissidents, have projected a mirage of political stability to western analysts.

We will have to see how things look after high fuel costs, inflation, slower growth rates, less foreign investment, newer ways to circumvent government censorship, and less favourable international attention hit the CCP fan.

Another corruption scandal rocks Colombia

First it was the “para-politics” scandal which linked Colombian politicians and government allies with right-wing paramilitaries. Then came the FARC-politica brouhaha where opposition figures had been accused of close ties with leftist guerillas. Now the latest Colombian corruption scandal revolves around accusations by a former senator over the buying of votes by the government.

Yesterday Colombia's Supreme Court sentenced ex-legislator Yidis Medina to three years and four months of house arrest after she confessed that she was bribed in order to pass an amendment permitting presidential reelection. The Yidis-politica affair has led to the investigation of numerous senior government members including an ex-Interior Minister and a top advisor to President Alvaro Uribe (image).

According to Medina’s testimony, she was offered quite a prize by the government for her support:

On another occasion Medina was called to the presidential palace and met with (ex-Interior Minister Sabas) Pretelt De La Vega, President Uribe and members of the presidential staff. In that meeting “they expressed their concern about my vote and asked what I wanted in return for supporting the bill,” Medina claims.

During that meeting, Medina says, Pretelt De La Vega explicitly mentioned the possibility of offering her a consulate.

Despite mounting evidence of government corruption and malfeasance a poll released today showed that most Colombians in the five largest cities would grant Uribe a third term in the presidency. The results reflect Uribe’s high popularity throughout the country and shows that he’s untouchable in the eyes of most Colombians.

Though Colombians have mobilized en masse to march against violence it’s too bad that there isn’t a widespread protest against the fraud that has hurt the country.

Farewell Mr Gates

Bill Gates insists he is not retiring

Bill Gates has announced he will end his day-to-day role as head of software giant Microsoft by July 2008.

Mr Gates said the move would allow him to spend more time on health and education work at his charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"This is a hard decision," said Mr Gates, adding that he was not retiring but "reordering [his] priorities".

Mr Gates will continue to serve as the company's chairman and advise on key development projects after July 2008. "I'm not leaving Microsoft," said Mr Gates."What's happening now is we're starting the transition plan... I'll be working as hard as I ever have during these next years."

The firm said it would take two years to make sure the transition takes place smoothly.Mr Gates said there was a "common thread" between his work at Microsoft and the foundation.

How Microsoft's market value compares

"I'm very lucky to have two passions that I feel are so important and so challenging," he said.

'No huge shock'

Microsoft's chief technical officer Ray Ozzie will be given the title of chief software architect and work with Mr Gates on all product issues.

Microsoft Founded in 1975, now the world's biggest software company Flagship products are the Windows operating system and Office suite of word processing and spreadsheet software Windows runs on about 90% of the world's PCs 2005 revenues - $42.6bn What now for Microsoft?

Craig Mundie meanwhile will assume the title of chief research and strategy officer.

At the same time Mr Mundie will work with general counsel Brad Smith to focus on the firm's intellectual property and technology policies.

The change comes as Microsoft gears up for the delayed launch of its new Vista operating system, now scheduled to be available to the public in January 2007.

Shares in the firm closed up 0.9% at $22.07 before the announcement but after the news emerged, they fell 9 cents in electronic trading on the Inet electronic brokerage.

Analysts said the move had not come as a huge shock and that two years provided enough time to make the change.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Fund of $29.1bn $10.5bn in grants since 1994 Aims: reducing poverty and improving health and access to education Largest grant: $1bn to the United Negro College Fund 70% of aid spent outside US

"The people who are taking over are very experienced and have been with Microsoft for a while," said Jean Orr, an analyst with Nutmeg Securities.

Daryl Nanes, principal at Nanes Delorme Capital Management, said: "I don't think Gates stepping away from his day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft will be negative for the rest of the market.

"But Microsoft shareholders are assumed to have some jitters about the ambiguity regarding the future leadership of the company that Gates founded and ran for over 20 years," he added.

Medvedev talks to western media

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has spoken with the Reuters news agency about Russia's domestic and international affairs. This is Medvedev's first interview with a Western media outlet since taking office in May.

(more)

The Russian president says poverty and corruption are the biggest internal threats to Russia's security. He said freedom, democracy and respect for private property are the foundations of the country's foreign policy, as a response to Russia's western detractors (read more).

Medvedev says Russia wants to see an agreement come out of this week's summit between Moscow and the European Union, although he admitted there were problems in the country's relationship with the EU. Medvedev believes that some EU governments are ready to improve the relationship, but other European nations are standing in the way. The president says Russia respects the fact that the discrepancy is an internal matter for the EU (Talks had been stalled since late 2006, when Warsaw objected to a Russian ban on meat imports from Poland).

Talking about his relationship with predecessor Vladimir Putin, Medvedev says a change in tone is to be expected but would not affect Russian policy.
Medvedev said, "Putin and I are good partners in dealing with the federal government's complex issues. We will work together for as long as is needed to achieve the goals which stand before us... within the framework of the law, of course."

Medvedev says he doesn't think Russia's economy is overheated, but he'll keep a close watch to make sure no problems develop. He says the real threat is international financial instability and global production problems. The Russian president says he'll do everything in his power to control inflation.

West declares Russia as 'the leading antidemocratic force'

A publication of Freedom House human rights organization , based in Washington, says that Russia has become 'the leading antidemocratic force' in the region.

"Over time, we have seen rising oil prices correlate clearly with sharply falling democracy performance, especially in Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan," the group's director of studies, Christopher Walker, said in an interview.

The report says that these three former Soviet republics are basing their development on energy resources, and the last decade was marked by "sharp and systematic erosion of accountability and transparency".

In Russia, by last year, it became clear that Vladimir Putin's era had ushered in a new elite that grabbed power, Freedom House said. Experimenting in "authoritarian capitalism," an "Iron Triangle" of state power, industry chiefs and security services is leading a decline in the electoral process and increased control over political opponents and news media, the report said.

Human rights activists believe that "the growing authoritarianism is also shaping foreign policy, producing "a more assertive and often belligerent posture by Russia toward its neighbors."

Earlier the same American human rights organization monitoring levels of freedom all around the world announced that the worst situation with human rights is in Tibet, which is now under control of China, and in Chechnya, which is now under the invasion by Moscow. At the same time the report by the Freedom House stressed that the situation in Chechnya is the "worst of the worst".

Freedom House also pointed out that "an indigenous Islamic population is engaged in a brutal guerrilla war for independence from Russia".

Tel Aviv to start bombing Iran after U.S. elections?

The war of nerves between Tehran and Washington is continuing. US faithful ally, the Zionist enclave in occupied Palestine -- Israel is threatening with attacks on Tehran's nuclear facilities. The more often Iran expresses the opinion that a threat of war is real, the more often and bold Tel Aviv gets.

The version that Israel will certainly attack Iran is supported by Western media, which are playing the part of the "informational special forces" in anti-Iranian alliance.

Daily Telegraph reported that John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush's successor is sworn in.

The ex-diplomat claims that the US will not get involved in the military action against Iran."If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don't think it's in the cards," Israeli Zionist Mignews quoted Bolton as saying.

Earlier this month Israel conducted a large-scale military training exercise, which in the opinion of Western commentators reminded of a rehearsal for bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.

According to the US administration, the purpose of the military exercise was long-range flight training, as well as demonstration how serious Israel is about Iran's nuclear program.

Zionist authorities demonstratively refused to give any comments on these exercises. But even one who is far from politics can see that Tel Aviv would very much like Iran to know about these exercises and feel the "breath of war".

Earlier on, Shaul Mofaz, a former Israeli Zionist regime's defense minister who is now a deputy prime minister, publicly stated that Tel Aviv "may attack Iran unless Iranian authorities curtail their nuclear program".He complained that international sanctions against Iran have proven ineffective."If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack," Shaul Mofaz warned.

Meanwhile Iranian Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Taskhiri warned the US and its allies against attacking his country.He repeated the words of President Ahmadinejad that Iran is not as weak as Iraq.

Earlier, President of Iran has warned on several occasions that if Tel Aviv goes for a military scam, "Israel will be wiped off the map".

Seasteading on Pykrete, and Other Novel Uses

I first learned about the material called Pykrete while reading the blog "Colonize Antarctica." Pykrete is a mixture of wood fibre and ice, a combination that is very hard, very tough, floats, and is very slow to melt. Structures built of Pykrete would be ideal in a polar environment, such as a polar city pictured above.

2 Million Ton Pykrete Aircraft Carrier In WW2
More exotic uses of Pykrete would be to build a large ship, a floating island city, or floating arcology. Pykrete was made famous by Geoffrey Pike. Sir Winston Churchill was one of the earliest promoters of using Pykrete for building large ships in WWII. The hull for a giant Pykrete aircraft carrier would have been 40 feet thick or more, and almost impossible to penetrate with the torpedoes of the day. Even without refrigeration, such thick Pykrete walls would have taken years to melt in a temperate climate. The video below demonstrates the ballistic resistance of a 14% wood fibre Pykrete. A 50% fibre Pykrete would be much tougher, and slower to melt.

A modern Pykrete seastead would incorporate built-in refrigeration to keep the walls frozen even in tropical seas. A floating breakwater made of Pykrete would keep a more fragile inner-seastead safe from rogue waves and the pounding of normal storm swell.

The walls could be built hundreds of feet thick, if necessary, and in any conceivable shape. The fibre content could vary from as little as 14% to as much as 50% or more, for greater toughness. It would be necessary to experiment with coating materials for maximum longevity a

More weapons

Iraqi soldiers stand guard over rows of rifles seized by Iraqi security forces during recent operations in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City, June 18, 2008.

At Israel's Parliament, a French Lesson in Leadership for Bush

Barely a month after President Bush chose the venue of Israel's Knesset to scold his domestic critics (or was he scolding the Israeli leadership, as this NYT editorial suggests) with accusations of appeasement, French President Nicholas Sarkozy found himself at the same podium yesterday, but with dramatically different results.

Sarko gave his American counterpart something of a French lesson not only in how to behave at a foreign parliament, but also in what constitutes both friendship to an ally and leadership on an issue.

The full Sarkozy speech is here (in French)--and contrasting it to Bush's May 15th effort is nothing short of embarrassing.

Sarkozy is credited by Israel and by the French Jewish community with having immeasurably improved French-Israeli bilateral relations. He is considered a friend and trusted ally and was feted during his Israel visit--no less than his Washington equivalent.

Sarkozy's speech was full of admiration for Israel's accomplishments and understanding for Israel's genuine security concerns--but it also contained the home truths that the Israeli's needed to hear. It contained precisely the ingredient--honest friendly advice or leadership--that was so absent in Bush's speech.

Bush did refer to some of what is needed for a peace deal during his visit last month--but that was in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt three days later, not in the Knesset.

Two Presidents, two speeches, one leader:

President Bush on the borders for a 2 state solution: ___________.

President Sarkozy: "It is not possible to have peace without a negotiated border based on the 1967 lines with an exchange of territories."

President Bush on settlements: ___________.

President Sarkozy: "Peace cannot be achieved without a total and immediate cessation of the settlements."

President Bush on Jerusalem's future status: ___________.

President Sarkozy: "Peace cannot be achieved without the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of two states and guaranteeing freedom of access to holy sites for all religions."

President Bush on the Palestinian refugee issue: ___________.

President Sarkozy: "Peace cannot be achieved without solving the problem of the Palestinian refugees, while respecting the identity and purpose of Israel."

President Bush on Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Syrian, or Israeli-Lebanese peace talks: _________.

President Sarkozy: "(France) is ready to organize on its soil all the talks that could lead to (peace), whether in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Syrian-Israeli dialogue, or the talks that will have to resume, one day soon I hope, between Israel and Lebanon."

Both stated their commitment to Israel's existence and security, and expressed their staunch opposition to anti-Semitism. And both of course discussed the threat of Iran.

Just how appalling was the use of the phrase "the false comfort of appeasement", by America's leader to describe negotiations is given a new clarity when one considers that "appeasement" (read: diplomacy) has been outsourced by the Bushies to the French and other Europeans.

This is all the more stunning when one considers that President Sarkozy has also improved US-France relations, is close to Bush, and is hardly a 'gauchiste'. But then this was not really about ideology--Bush probably agrees with Sarkozy on the substance of 2 states--it was all about leadership.

Nelson Mandela , 90 , still on US terrorist list

The African National Congress (ANC) was designated as a terrorist organisation by South Africa's old apartheid regime. Since that time, things changed. Apartheid is not legal anymore, Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and the ANC became the government.

Other things have not changed: all ANC leaders, including Nelson Mandela, are still tagged as 'terrorists' in US security databases and need to get a special waiver to enter the US.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has now asked for the "embarrassing" travel restrictions to be lifted. Good. I am happy the US administration is keeping up with the fast moving pace of world politics. The ANC has been South Africa's governing party since 14 years. (Full)

Soon, one embarrassment less. Some more challenges still to tackle, though. Like convincing US President Bush statements like "Mandela is dead" is not really OK. Not really.


It might have something to do with the fact that Mandela has never been short of criticism on US politics or the current US presidency. Remember that back in 2003, he commented: "If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care."
Mandela was rather specific on Bush too: "What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust (referring to the Iraq war)." (Full)

Genuinely Clueless

Let me follow up on this McCain gaffe in which he got confused and claimed that al Qaeda was getting trained and equipped by Iran before doing mischief in Iraq, before being corrected by his senate colleague Joe Lieberman.

Let's start by stipulating that if Barack Obama had had this slip up it would be everywhere on the news for the next week. Pretty much the same if it had been Hillary Clinton.

But this is really just the tip of the iceberg with McCain. In almost every discussion of foreign policy, not just today but in previous years, what stands out is McCain's inability to see beyond the immediate issues of military tactics to any firm grasp of strategy or America's real vital interests. His free willingness to commit to a decades long occupation of Iraq is an example, his push for ground troops to be introduced during the Kosovo War is another. His refusal, almost inability, to grapple with the political failure of the surge is the most telling one if people will sift through its deeper implications.

It is very difficult to draw practical lessons from history. But one of the closest things to a law is that military power is almost always built on economic might. Indeed, countries with sound finances have routinely been able to punch over their weight -- great Britain and the Netherlands during different periods are key examples. So fiscal soundness even over the medium term is much more important than any particular weapon system or basing right.

Then you step back and see the huge number of dollars we're pouring into Iraq, the vast mountains of capital being piled up in China, the oil-fueled resurgence of Russia, the weakness of the dollar (not only in exchange rate but in its future as a reserve currency), the rising tide of anti-Americanism around the world. I don't think I've ever heard anything from John McCain that suggests he's given serious consideration to any of these issues, except as possible near term military challenges -- i.e., is China building a blue water navy to challenge the US, Russian weapons systems, etc.

Hillary Clinton has stipulated to McCain's qualifications as Commander-in-Chief; and Obama, implicitly, does the same. But his record actually shows he's one of the most dangerous people we could have in the Oval Office in coming years -- not just because he's a hothead in using the military, but more because he seems genuinely clueless about the real challenges and dangers the country is facing. He's too busy living in the fantasy world where our future as a great power and our very safety are all bound up in Iraq.

Supporting The Troops

Not really the best way to do it.

Earlier this morning, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) sent Defense Secretary Robert Gates a letter requesting documents about the military’s management of contracts for maintenance of electrical systems in U.S. military facilities in Iraq.

The reason: Because he found out that 12 Army and Marine servicemen have died as a result of electrocution since 2003.

The latest casualty: Staff Sergeant Ryan D. Maseth (pictured), a Special Forces soldier from Pennsylvania, who was electrocuted while taking a shower in his living quarters in Radwaniyeh Palace Complex in Baghdad on January 2.

Meanwhile in Zimbabwe

Hyperinflation continues:above, dinner for one.

Silvio Berlusconi's 'iron fist' laws approved

All across Europe attitudes are stiffening toward immigration, nowhere more so than in Italy.

Soldiers could be sent into Italy's cities, illegal immigrants will be imprisoned for four years and all non-serious court cases will be frozen for a year under new measures approved by Italy's senate.

The senate voted 166 to 123 to approve a wide-ranging package of measures which will allow Silvio Berlusconi to govern Italy with an iron fist.

Mr Berlusconi, 71, will now be able to use as many as 3,000 soldiers for up to six months in order to fight crime. Previously, the use of the army had to be agreed by the parliament beforehand. The first destination for the troops is likely to be Naples, where Mr Berlusconi faces violent opposition to his plans for dealing with the city's rubbish crisis.

The perma-tanned billionaire will also no longer have to worry about his ongoing court case for allegedly corrupting David Mills, the husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympic minister. Mr Berlusconi is accused of giving Mr Mills £350,000 in order to stand favourable witness in a separate trial. Both men deny wrong-doing.

The trial could be suspended under a measure designed to free up Italy's judiciary to concentrate on murder and Mafia cases. More than 100,000 "non-serious" trials, including trials for fraud, manslaughter, theft and kidnapping, will shut down for a year to give the courts a chance to catch up on their backlog.

The National Association of Magistrates said the move would cause "unprecedented chaos" and offered Mr Berlusconi the chance to cut a deal: personal immunity from prosecution if he would let the trials continue.

Mr Berlusconi said he was "outraged" by suggestions that he would pass a law in order to have his own trial suspended. He vowed that the Mills case would continue, despite the new decree.

Another controversial measure in the package will see illegal immigrants imprisoned for up to four years. Landlords who rent homes to illegal immigrants will have their properties seized. Mr Berlusconi has pinned much of the blame for Italy's crime problem on immigrants nad has vowed to "wash the piazzas clean of uncertainty". Immigrants who claim to have family in Italy will be given DNA tests.

Quite surprising for someone who said "Personally, I don't think you can prosecute someone for their illegal presence in our country" , quoted by Euronews some days before.

Anna Finocchiaro, a spokesman for the opposition Democratic Party, said there had been no consultation by the government over the new measures. "We have to have a dialogue over our shared principles and rules," she said.

"We will vote no. The text has two mistaken measures, which are dangerous and against the Constitution. First there is the criminalisation of immigration, and the second is the suspension of trials".

However, Mr Berlusconi's enormous majority in the Senate easily overwhelmed the opposition. The measure will now be ratified by the Lower House of parliament. No date has been set, but the parliament has 30 days in which to carry out a vote.

Brazilian jail puts stop to 'pigeon post' drug deliveries

The inmates of a Brazilian prison used pigeons to deliver drugs and mobile phone parts to their cells, national TV reported on Tuesday.

The deliveries came to light after authorities at the prison, located some 444 km (275 miles) from Sao Paulo, noticed a growth in drugs and mobile phones seized from prisoners.

A subsequent crackdown, as well as the installation of a new security system, failed to reveal the source of the forbidden goods. However, the strange behavior of pigeons on the roof of the jail attracted the attention of the guards.

Prison officers later found out that some of the birds had special containers attached to them. According to the jail authorities, one of the prisoners had managed to tame the birds and make a nest in his cell, and the pigeons were then passed on to friends outside the prison with visitors. The birds later returned to the prison carrying their valuable 'cargo.'

Zimbabwe crisis

Most of the people have the feeling that the current Zimbabwe situation emerged upon the elections but it's more complicated than that (see BBC's report ). Today's crisis
is the result of a long battle for the land:

Squatters occupying white farms

Zimbabwe's white farmers own much of the country's best agricultural land.

According to government figures published before the current crisis, some 4, 400 whites owned 32% of Zimbabwe's agricultural land - around 10m ha - while about one million black peasant families farmed 16m ha or 38%.

Scores of farm workers have been beaten up

But much of the white-owned land is in more fertile areas with better rainfall, while the black farming areas are often in drought-prone regions. So in terms of prime farming land, whites own a disproportionate share.

Where they do exist side by side, huge, modern, mechanised estates are divided by a mere fence from subsistence farmers living in mud huts.

The situation was created in colonial times when blacks were forced off their ancestral lands.

"The land question" was a major cause of the guerrilla war which led to Zimbabwe's independence in 1980.

Twenty years later, little has changed.

Who pays?

Land reform and redistribution is expensive: farmers asked to give up some of their property demand compensation; and infrastructure, such as roads, bore-holes, schools and clinics, is needed for those who are given the land.

President Robert Mugabe says Britain should pay because it was in charge when the problem was created.

White farmers say they are also Zimbabweans

He also points out that the colonialists did not compensate Africans when they first took the land.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's government responds that £44m has been provided for Zimbabwe's land reform since 1980, and that much of the redistributed land has so far ended up in the hands of cabinet ministers and other government officials.

Other donors agree and have refused to support further land reform unless it is more transparent.

Famine

There is also concern that taking large, sophisticated farms and then sub-dividing them into plots to give to people without the means to manage them properly could spell disaster for Zimbabwe's agricultural economy.

A steep fall in production on white-owned farms is one reason why two years of drought look set to become a famine in which up to six million Zimbabweans could go hungry.

Despite promises that the main targets for seizure would be under-utilised farms, many of those on the so-called "hit-list" have been efficient growers of tobacco - Zimbabwe's major export.

Tobacco is a big earner for Zimbabwe

The white farmers themselves do not see why they should have to pay because of what happened in the past.

Many say they bought their farms at market rates since Zimbabwe's independence and reject the whole "colonial sins" argument.

Some farmers have been paid compensation but under a new law, they must leave their farms and wait for their money - not the other way round.

Mr Mugabe's opponents accuse him of exploiting the land issue to win back rural support amid the current economic crisis.

They say he is sacrificing the country's future in order to remain in power.

Pleasantville

Tom Weber:

If you’re paying attention to the economy, television ads these days can have a “Pleasantville” quality. In that movie, Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon play teenagers magically transported to a fictional town from a ’50s sitcom. Pleasantville is an innocent place, free of worry until the future kids arrive.

In TV ads at the moment, some of the fictional characters seem trapped in a yesteryear, too. It’s a time when the stock market was climbing or at least holding its own, and recession seemed like a distant possibility. In this world of ads, most people are still living it up–though a few seem aware that not all is right.

As I've written several times before, it's been a long time since there's been a severe downturn and much of the country has lost any psychological connection to the possibility. Yes there have been regions which have done badly and of course individuals have had personal financial hardships, but there hasn't been an extended national moderate-to-severe downturn since the early Reagan years.

Things could be weird.

Because It's Time For a New Surrogate Controversy

Elton John.

Sir Elton John has a new Candle in the Wind.

Mr. John, the legendary British pop crooner who memorialized the late Princess Diana by rewriting the lyrics to his song, “Candle in the Wind,” will be holding a “one night only” solo concert on behalf of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign on April 9 at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

John on religion:

LONDON - Organized religion fuels anti-gay discrimination and other forms of bias, pop star Elton John said in an interview published Saturday.

“I think religion has always tried to turn hatred toward gay people,” John said in the Observer newspaper’s Music Monthly Magazine. “Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays.”

“But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion,” he said. “From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn’t seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it’s not really compassionate.”

Let the denouncing and renouncing begin!

Pretty Tall

Philly grows up.

The American Commerce Center, at a proposed 1,500 feet, would be 525 feet higher than the Comcast Center, now Philly's tallest building at 975 feet, a block away.

It would surpass the Empire State Building's 1,250 feet.

Phillyskyline.com waxed poetic in its description of what's happening:

"Your Philly skyline is about to change. About to incur a growth spurt. About to shatter any notion of Philadelphian reservedness, about to take A New Day A New Way to a whole other level."

Generating this excitement is the proposal to construct what would be a mix of retail, hotel and office space - and even a movie theater - in an $800 million, 2.2-million-square-foot skyscraper on what is now a parking lot.

Initial looks suggests this is a good urban project, with the appropriate street level retail.

Back to basics: Chicken Game

Playing it.

“A Discovery Bay man who asked not to be identified said he is ‘upside down’ on his house by about $260,000. Instead of bemoaning the situation, he plans to capitalize on it.”

“‘I refinanced a couple of years ago and pulled out $100,000 and put in a fabulous pool,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve got this fabulous pool and fabulous house, but it’s not worth anything. Why shouldn’t I be building equity over the next four to five years instead of playing catch-up?’”

“The man said he has not made a mortgage payment for five months.”

“‘I’m playing the bank game,’ he said. ‘I’m playing chicken with them. I already got them to agree to put (the unpaid) payments on the tail end of the loan. What I’m really pushing them to do is to (adjust my mortgage) for the current market value and write off the rest. I’d love (to have it) lopped down to a $450,000 basis rather than $710,000.’”

“If the bank won’t negotiate, he’ll walk away, the man said.”

Elites

Alan Greenspan goes for another round of "IT'S NOT MY FAULT WAHHH." And, of course, in our current corrupt and depraved system, nobody "serious" will try to hold him or anyone else accountable. Poor Uncle Alan, he couldn't have known and he couldn't have done anything if he did.

I was thinking about the housing bubble and why most of the "experts" failed to see that there was a problem, and I realized it's because they're all rich. There was one unavoidable and obvious fact that was apparent to anyone who isn't especially rich, and that's that there was no possible way that many households in this country had large enough incomes to be able to afford the monthly mortgage payments they were supposed to be paying, even without ridiculous interest rate resets. There just aren't enough people who make enough money to support that many $00,000 homes.

Invasion Strategy

June 2002.

Col. John Agoglia, who served as a war planner for Gen. Tommy Franks at the United States Central Command, said the idea of using the Iraqi Army had long been an element of the invasion strategy.

“Before the campaign started we already had it as a premise of our planning,” said Colonel Agoglia, who serves as the director of the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute of the Army. “Starting in June 2002 we conducted targeted psychological operations using pamphlet drops, broadcasts and all sort of means to get the message to the regular army troops that they should surrender or desert and that if they did we would bring them back as part of a new Iraq without Saddam.”

Hope

Looking back3

Holy crap:

Bear Stearns Cos. reached an agreement to sell itself to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., as worries grew that failing to find a buyer for the beleaguered investment bank could cause the crisis of confidence gripping Wall Street to worsen.

The deal calls for J.P. Morgan to pay $2 a share in a stock-swap transaction, with J.P. Morgan Chase exchanging 0.05473 share of its common stock for each Bear Stearns share. Both companies' boards have approved the transaction, which values Bear Stearns at just $236 million based on the number of shares outstanding as of Feb. 16. At Friday's close, Bear Stearns's stock-market value was about $3.54 billion. It finished at $30 a share in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading Friday.

On Dec. 31 Bear Stearns closed at $88.25/share.


...and the Fed's in for another $30 billion.

In addition to the financing the Federal Reserve ordinarily provides through its Discount Window, the Fed will provide special financing in connection with this transaction. The Fed has agreed to fund up to $30 billion of Bear Stearns’ less liquid assets.

Capitalism rawks!


...misty watercolored...

Buy Bear Stearns (BSC - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) despite all the toxic hedge fund handwringing, Jim Cramer said Friday on CNBC's "Stop Trading!" segment.

Cramer said that on June 22, 2007, when Bear closed at $143.75/share.


They bought it for $270 million.

Looking back2

Helicopter Ben to the rescue.

March 16 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve reduced the rate on direct loans to commercial banks by a quarter-point and said it will allow primary dealers to borrow at the rate in exchange for a ``broad range'' of investment-grade collateral.

The central bank, in a statement today in Washington, also extended the maximum term of discount-window loans to 90 days from 30 days. The Fed approved the financing arrangement announced by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bear Stearns Cos. JPMorgan separately agreed to buy Bear Stearns for about $2 a share.

Looking back:JPM To The Rescue

Interesting.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bear Stearns Cos Inc is hoping to announce a deal to sell itself to JPMorgan Chase & Co before Asian markets open on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, as the investment bank struggles to save itself.

Bear Stearns, the fifth-largest U.S. investment bank, could sell itself for around $2.2 billion, the newspaper reported. That would amount to less than $20 a share.

The low sale price, equal to about two-thirds the company's $30.85 closing share price on Friday, signals just how dire the situation is for the 85-year-old investment bank.

Radical Action

Nouriel Roubini's financial meltdown:

So the question is: if Bear Stearns screwed up big time - as it did - with huge leverage, reckless investments, lousy risk management and massive underestimation of liquidity risk why should the US taxpayer bail out this firm and its shareholders? First fully wipe out those shareholders, then fire all the senior management and have the government take over such a bankrupt institution before a penny of public money is wasted in bailing it out. Instead now the use of public money to bail out financial institutions is spreading from banking ones to non banking ones. The Fed should at least give a clear and public explanation of why such extremely exceptional - and almost never used - intervention was justified.

Unless public money is used on a very temporary basis to achieve an orderly wind-down or merger of Bear Stearns this is another case where profits are privatized and losses are socialized. By having thrown down the drain the decades old doctrine and rule that the Fed should not lend or bail out non-bank financial institutions the Fed has created an extremely dangerous precedent that seriously aggravates the moral hazard of its lender of last resort support role. If the Fed starts on the slippery slope of providing massive liquidity support to non-bank financial institutions that have recklessly managed their risks it enters into uncharted territory that radically changes its mandate and formal role. Breaking decades-old rules and practices is a radical action that seriously requires a clear public explanation and justification.

No Market for McCain

On April 1, 2007, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) strolled through the open-air Shorja market in Baghdad in an effort to prove that Americans are “not getting the full picture” of what’s going on in Iraq. In a press conference after his Baghdad tour, McCain told a reporter that his visit to the market was proof that people could “walk freely” in parts of Baghdad.

What McCain failed to mention was that he was accompanied by “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead.” He also appeared to be wearing a bulletproof vest during his visit.

Since that trip, McCain has claimed that the situation in Iraq has improved even more. A few months ago, McCain claimed that “we’ve succeeded militarily” in Iraq. Things, of course, are going so well, that he wants to keep U.S. troops there for at least 100 years.

McCain is now back in Iraq for a “surprise visit with Iraqi and American diplomatic and military leaders.” He is joined by fellow Iraq war defenders Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). But it’s unlikely they will be visiting the Shorja market again. Today, CNN reported that they tried to visit the Shorja market, but it was too unsafe and they were unable to go:

We got close to that marketplace today, Jim, but our own security advisers here in Iraq did not want us to go there. They didn’t believe it was safe for an American to be in that area. We were in a thriving marketplace nearby.

But when you show up, the local Iraqis, while it is clear security is better on the street — it is clear there are more markets open, just the traffic jams alone tell you that things are better on the streets of Baghdad — it’s also a very sensitive potential neighborhoods.

That one marketplace, as a matter of fact, you do see Iraqi police, you do see the Iraqi army, but in truth, that area is controlled by the radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi army.

Watch it:

Civilian deaths per day in Iraq are up to 39 from a low of 20 last January, while at the same time, there has been “a sharp increase in attacks resulting in the deaths of U.S. soldiers.” Twelve Americans were killed last week over a period of four days, “bringing the overall U.S. military death toll since the start of the war near 4,000.”

The Associated Press recently interviewed Iraqis who “said they were not necessarily changing their daily routines,” but “the growing bloodshed was present in their minds, clouding what had until recently been a more hopeful time.”

"Oh fiddle-dee-dee"

Dana Perino:

"The type of missiles that are out there: patriots and scuds and cruise missiles and tomahawk missiles. And I think that men just by osmosis understand all of these things..."

Yes, it's called "overcompensating by blowing shit up". That's why they're all phallic.

Sincerely,

Men


[there may be some sarcasm in this post]

German general needs 6,000 additional troops in Afghanistan

Up to 6,000 additional troops are urgently needed in Afghanistan and a failure to deploy them will only prolong the presence of Western forces in the country, a German NATO general said on Sunday.

Egon Ramms told public radio station Deutschlandfunk that alliance members would end up paying a price later if they did not boost troop numbers now.

"We are talking about a total of 5,000, 6,000 soldiers," Ramms said. "We need these soldiers now, very soon, because we need to hold specific areas, we need to win over Afghanistan's citizens and because at some point, in 2010, 2011 or 2012 we will want to hand over responsibility to Afghan forces."

Roughly 60,000 foreign troops are in Afghanistan, most of them part of the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF), but security has deteriorated over the past two years.

Some 6,000 people were killed in 2007, the deadliest year since U.S. and NATO-led forces and gangs of the so-called "Northern Alliance" seized Kabul and established the puppet regime in the country.

Western experts admit that since the departure of the Taliban from large cities the war in Afghanistan did not end. The Taliban have been actively fighting against the US and NATO forces and it does not look like they are going to stop the war. Moreover, judging from the emotional statement by the German general, the fate of the victory in Afghanistan is far from being resolved.

Polish dailies chew over Walesa allegations

All the Polish dailies write extensively on the just released book alleging communist cooperation by Lech Walesa, former trade union and human rights activist.

The controversial book about the legendary Solidarity leader and former Polish President Lech Walesa, “Secret services and Lech Walesa. A Contribution to the Biography” is out on sale today, reminds Rzeczpospolita broadsheet.

Whether the publication by two historians from the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) will or will not ultimately destroy the legend of the vanquisher of Communism is not certain yet, but the long queues outside the main bookshop at the seat of the publisher IPN suggest that the book could be a bestseller.

In the article “The image of a hero does not have to be crystal-clear”, published by Dziennik daily on the first day of sale of the book about Walesa, the newspaper points out that the discussion about the Solidarity leader’s alleged collaboration with the Communist secret services in 1970s. has been mostly dominated by Walesa’s defenders. They wrongly believe in the daily’s opinion that those who attempt to shed some more light on Lech Walesa past, simply want to destroy a national legend.

Gazeta Wyborcza writes that the latest publication may give rise to the reopening of Lech Walesa’s vetting procedure. The newspaper points out that according to the applicable law, vetting proceedings may be reopened within 10 years from a court verdict if new evidence emerges against a defendant. The daily also reminds that in 2000, the Vetting Court found Lech Walesa ‘not guilty’ of collaboration with the Communist services and ruled that the evidence against him had been forged by secret services agents.

Investment schemes

Gawker writes:

He got married and bought an apartment on the Lower East Side and THEN wrote a massive New York Times article about it. (Isn't that sort of like purchasing stock and then telling everyone to buy it? )

It was a bit "peculiar" of Al Sharpton

to say he was "unilaterally opposed" to states' rights, as Robert Garcia Tagorda notes.

Surely, he meant to drag up the word "unequivocally" from the old memory bank of cliches. If Flaubert were still keeping his "Dictionary of Received Ideas," there would be an entry:

Opposed. Always add "unequivocally."

Oh, and:

Action. When referring to the government, assert that it shouldn't be taken "unilaterally."

Political Graffiti

More about Captain Kangaroo,

Bob Keeshan, from the NYT obituary. He started out in show business with the job of seating children in the audience--the Peanut Gallery--for "The Howdy Doody Show." When he did "Captain Kangaroo," he had no studio audience. Asked why, he expressed his concern for the children watching at home:

"The children should never be excluded from what I am doing and should never have the feeling of being part of an audience."

How sensitive that was to the feelings of a child! I remember watching "The Howdy Doody Show" and feeling left out of the Peanut Gallery. Who were those children? How did they get there? Was there something that made some children "Peanuts" that allowed them into the wonderful television world, while I was left stranded on the other side of the screen--screened out? Mr. Rogers followed the same intuition.

Strangely, shows for nonchildren--Oprah, Letterman, MTV's Spring Break--go on the assumption that an audience tends to make the home viewer feel more included. Perhaps that's because nonchildren understand how to get out of the house and into the audience and can therefore project themselves into the audience, which they know is composed of people like them. They have shaken off the feeling that the people on TV are a different breed--they aren't Peanuts, just people like me getting out of the house.

It's funny that back in the 1950s, the kids on TV were Peanuts, while now, we name the people at home after foodstuffs: Couch Potatoes.

Back to Keeshan: He was elevated from audience-seating to a character role on "The Howdy Doody Show," in 1948. He was

"Clarabell, a clown who said nary a word but who jumped around the stage a lot and, to the delight of the members of the Peanut Gallery, frequently sprayed [the show's host Buffalo Bob] Smith in the nose with his seltzer bottle.

Buffalo Bob fired Keeshan/Clarabell because he thought he was trying to form a union! That was in 1950, a couple years before I was in a position to be watching the show, so the Clarabell I remember was Keeshan's replacement. (I remember Clarabell as the best-loved character on the show (along with Flub-a-Dub). I could never understand why Doody got top billing.)

Keeshan got started with "Captain Kangaroo" (which was originally called "Tinker's Workshop"), in 1954. I may very well have watched the first episode and believe I remember the original title.

To play Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Keeshan had to catch the 4:20 a.m. train from Babylon, on Long Island, to be at CBS by 6. He lived in constant fear of oversleeping and employed three alarm clocks plus a phone service. He never missed a broadcast.

In the beginning, he would do "Captain Kangaroo" live twice a day, an 8 a.m. broadcast for the East Coast and then, after a break of less than a minute, a repeat of the whole show for the Midwest.

Ah, the travails of live television! Those guys were heroes!

Things to write in an obituary for a photographer

Things to write in an obituary for a photographer:

•His images were calculated to shock, often featuring tall, blond, sometimes naked women in heels, perhaps illuminated by headlights or trapped in a dark alley. ...

•"Helmut was very clear that he liked a big girl and blond girl, in an impeccable suit and high heels," said Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue. ...

•At 18, … he was forced to flee the Nazis, eventually arriving in Singapore, where, he wrote, he became a gigolo. ...

Info in “The Arts” article but not in the obituary in the same issue of the NYT:

•In one 1973 series of photos, [his wife] was portrayed as Hitler wearing a cropped mustache with model Jerry Hall posing as Eva Braun.

Helmut Newton, at age 83, left the Chateau Marmont Hotel and crashed his Cadillac into a wall across the street with sufficient force to kill himself. Both articles in the Times say that he “lost control” of the car.

If blogging is the way your mind looks on the web,

then going back and rereading one’s miscellaneous back entries ought to give a person some new insight into their own minds. After ten days of blogging I decided to take account, not of my soul, but of the names I had managed to drop.

Total names dropped (not counting journalists other than Diane Sawyer, but counting fictional characters): 100.

Major categories:

Human movie personalities: 16%
Current political figures: 14%
Human TV personalities: 12%
Artists: 11%
Writers (fiction writers & public intellectual types): 11%
Fictional characters (other than puppets): 9%

5% in each of these categories:

Singers.
Historical figures.
Fashion people/royalty.
Puppets!

The NYT in a bid to pick up male readers for the Sunday Styles section.

Nice forehead indentations, Neil!

Gennifer Flowers

Oh, the horror of late-stage fame! Gennifer Flowers is starring in a musical revue called "Boobs." She has lips painted on her fingernails. And she's married to a man named Finis D. Shelnutt--which sounds like a Groucho Marx character.

How much of "The Apprentice" is a set up?

Consider this description of the first three installments, described by the NYT:

In the three episodes of "The Apprentice" that have been broadcast, the women's team has beat out the men's three times. And each time, the women have used their gender and good looks to get ahead. In order to sell lemonade, the women — all attractive and trim, and some scantily clad — rewarded customers with kisses. Their winning advertising campaign pitch for the jet company invoked phallic double entendres about nose cones and fan tails, which the women delivered wearing adorable flight attendant uniforms. In the most recent challenge, the women shamelessly flirted with a gold merchant in order to win a key discount.

I don't think the women are actually actresses, in on a joke, like the housemates on "The Joe Schmo Show," because you can find an old article verifying that Omarosa really did have a job of some kind in the Clinton White House, and because it seems unlikely that they wouldn't clue in the audience that the guys were being scammed, since knowing that would probably be thought to help us enjoy things. But I do suspect that the women, chosen in part for good looks, were encouraged to go all out using sexuality to win every contest, to produce a show where the men would lose again and again, challenging them to break down and begin complaining in amusing and politically incorrect ways.

Speaking of political correctness, what's with the locution "the women have used their gender"? The word "sexuality" is not fit to print?

Brilliant interplay between photography and painting by Eric Fischl

It's not enough to take a photograph. You have to elaborately stage the photograph. It's not enough to Photoshop the photograph. You then make a painting of the Photoshopped photograph. And then you publish a book with images of both the photographs and the paintings so people can become absorbed in discovering the differences between the two. The NYT writes:

These paintings depict scenes that the artist orchestrated in the museum, formerly a residence, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1928. Mr. Fischl brought in modernist furniture, hired two actors and photographed them over four days in 2002 as they staged unscripted domestic scenarios throughout the house. With more than 2,000 pictures, he moved the figures from one image to another in Photoshop, reimagining the domestic tableaus in a set of final constructed photographs from which he made this series of paintings. The paintings were exhibited last fall in the rooms in which the fictional scenes took place, and the photographs were shown at the Mary Boone gallery in New York last month. The catalog is just now being distributed in this country by D.A.P.

Look at the enlargements of the two images here. At first, they appear identical. Why bother to paint when you can photograph? If you want painterly effects, you can Photoshop. Fischl shows why there is still reason to paint photographable images. You don't need to move very far from what is photographic: in the small moves away from photographic accuracy, we find the value of the hand on the paintbrush.

So can "a bisexual woman who works for a university with spousal benefits" marry her gay male roommate, in order to provide him with health insurance?

The NYT ethicist Randy Cohen says yes:

People have married for many reasons -- to gain a fortune, accumulate land, forge an international alliance, secure a dynasty, raise children -- and even on account of affection, a marital motive that became widespread rather late in human history with the rise of bourgeois society. ... Marrying to obtain health insurance does not seem, historically at least, the most ignoble reason, particularly where same-sex folks are forbidden to marry for love....

We live in a country where more than 40 million people lack health insurance and thus reliable access to medical care. ... If marriage is his best means to decent medical care, I see no ethical objections to you two kids' tying the knot. Nor would you be deceiving the university if you did.

It requires only marriage, not love. ...

I'm not sure why it matters that these two persons are gay, or why it matters that it is hard to get health insurance and good health care. We wouldn't justify shoplifting based on the discriminatory practices of the store or because the thing stolen was very expensive and necessary. Cohen's point must be that marrying to share spousal benefits is perfectly legitimate whenever two persons go through the legally required steps needed to get married.

If that's okay, unmarried persons with good benefits could charitably find an uninsured cancer patient or other seriously needy person--of the opposite sex, of course--and marry them as a good deed. Or, if economic benefit is acceptable, offer to marry the highest opposite-sex bidder. On Ebay!

If that sounds terrible, consider Shari Motro's op-ed, also in today's Times:

Amid all the heated discussion on both sides of the gay marriage debate, a broader point has somehow gotten lost: why should formally committed couples, straight or gay, enjoy special privileges in the first place?

Married couples can receive thousands of dollars in benefits and discounts unavailable to single Americans, including extra tax breaks, bankruptcy protections and better insurance rates. ...

Research consistently shows that unmarried Americans are on average poorer, sicker and sadder than their married counterparts. Yet they are denied perks given to married couples who, in many cases, neither need nor deserve them. Though gay couples certainly lose out as well, singles of any preference pay a triple price for not finding love: they don't enjoy the solace and support of a life partner; they don't profit from the economies of scale that come from pooling resources with a mate; and they effectively subsidize spousal benefits that they themselves can't take advantage of.

Ending discrimination based on marital status is one way to resolve the current quandry over gay marriage, and it has the added benefit of extricating government (and employers) from a matter many people see as fundamentally religious.