I’m just back from Sri Lanka, where I shared it’s first week as a unified country in decades.  I saw late night street parties, and Sri Lankan flags stuck on anything that stayed put, or that moves for that matter.  I heard the honks of roving truckloads of flag-waving, drum-beating, celebrators, watched but didn’t understand the President’s speech, and enjoyed the impromptu victory holiday.

The origins of the conflict always seemed pretty abstract to a newcomer, and it is somewhat baffling that progress has incurred such a heavy cost on the economy and liberty of the people.

As far as I can make out the origins of the conflict lie as they often do in colonialism, which employed a divide-and-conquer strategy between the Singhalese majority and the Tamil minority.  The Tamils are known as an industrious people and amassed a disproportionate amount of wealth and power under colonial rule.

After independence 50 years ago, the fledgling democracy was poor at protecting the minority Tamils from the vengeful rule of a suppressed majority – for instance Singhalese was declared the only official language which emotionally, educationally, and legally disenfranchised other language minorities.  One thing led to the next, and with poor decisions and corrupt manipulation on both sides, plus some probable interference from Tamils in South India, a brutal civil war broke out.

Several tired decades later, it is very hard to see objectively why the fighting had continued.  I suppose that a conflict this long generates its own momentum, deepens grudges, and incubates a set of entrenched interests.  In the few years I’ve been visiting I’ve often thought that there hasn’t been objective reasons left to warrant the continuing damage the conflict inflicts.  Like the conflict wouldn’t be very severe if it were starting fresh today.  Furthermore and most depressing, the fighting had concentrated power (namely LTTE leader Prabhakaran) in such a way that no compromise was possible.

Under those circumstances, I sympathize with the Sri Lankan preference for a decisive victory (despite the horrors that accompany it) rather than endure decades more of guerilla war, assassinations, and suicide bombers.  The victory earlier this month capturing the final LTTE territory, and the killing of Prabhakaran and other leadership figures, allows the country to move into a new phase.

I consider the military victory only one step in resolving the larger political conflict, but all the Sri Lankans I spoke with placed much more importance on it than that – for example:

• The feeling that Jaffna and the beautiful east coast will shortly be accessible to travel.  Many are looking forward to their first visit in years (and for the younger set, the first visit ever.)
• The feeling that many Tamils were forced into supporting the LTTE (financially, as human shields, and even as child soldiers), and now that the LTTE is gone these Tamils cannot be pressured in the same way.  There seems little desire to continue to label them “terrorists” and the term “ex-terrorist” and “ex-combatant” seems to signal a desire for reconciliation rather than ongoing revenge.
• The agricultural riches of the north will again soon allow Sri Lanka to feed itself and result in lower food prices.  The internal trade will also help bind the populace together.
• Confidence in the hard work ethic and capabilities of the Tamils to rebuild quickly and effectively join the political discourse.
• There’s hope that nobody would want to be the last suicide bomber to die for a losing or unjust cause.
• The end of the war will immediately start bringing in more tourist dollars, badly needed now as hotels, resorts, and restaurants already were suffering under the war before the economic collapse.

By the end of my visit I felt more confident that Sri Lanka can take this hard-won victory and build upon it a more peaceful, stable, and prosperous society.  The Sri Lankan people, of any background, certainly deserve that.  And they deserve our support in that process.  Godspeed!

My favorite story of the week: Hayduke Lives: Tim DeChristopher’s Heroic Act of Creative Civil Disobedience.  In short – a University of Utah student posed as a bidder in one of the BLM’s parting-shots mineral-rights auctions, bid up the parcels by about $500K, and walked away winning $1.8M worth of leases around Arches National Park.  Of course, he had no intention to actually pay, was detained and now faces federal charges.  But until it’s resolved, those leases are protected from exploitation, and the process of the auctions is undergoing greater media scrutiny.

What else is inspiring though, is that he is trying to raise the $45K initial payment in order to keep his bid legitimate until the end of the Bush administration, and then there’s a good chance the new administration will keep them off the books.  In just a few days, he’s attracted $37K – plus a bit from me - and I’m hopeful that he can fill the rest in the remaining two days.

Bush, our turn to prescribe “two of these”!

Funniest thing I saw all week ;-).  Is this a parting shot at Bush, or is Bush giving the American people a nasty parting shot?  A bit of viewer discretion is advised (uptight conservatives have been warned.)

I have been greatly enjoying the weekly Slate Political Gabfest podcast – it’s both informative and informal, gets deeper than the sound bites but still moves right along, and while fairly journalistic (Slate is part of the Washington Post) has a liberal bent without being unquestioning.

One thing I especially enjoy is the “Cocktail Chatter”, where each of the gabbers (regulars are Emily Bazelon, David Plotz, and John Dickerson) highlight something that grabbed their interest during the week that would make interesting conversation during weekend parties.  While I don’t go to many parties on the weekend, the idea is a great one, promoting the one thing, brilliant or perplexing, that most stood out for the week among the tweets, feeds, email, podcasts, searches, and so forth.

So my first choice for weekly chatter has to be the Slate Political Gabfest itself.  Kudos on an entertaining and informative show!

I’ve been trying to refrain from political commentary lately - hard to stop when that geyser opens.  But I did notice something that deserves more attention and I haven’t seen others talking about it much.

The Republican convention was full of the phrase "small town," e.g. Sarah Palin’s statement that "we grow good people in our small towns."  Which seems factually accurate (she’s not saying some bad people don’t also come out of small towns, nor that good people don’t come out of big cities either.)  In fact, given how self-evident the statement is on its face, what is she trying to convey?

Is it something like "family values?"  When the 2004 election again fell surprisingly to Bush, the pollsters claimed that "family values" pushed the undecideds towards Bush.  That was my only comfort - who can be against "family values."  Families support and love each other, build communities to help each other, avoid criminal behavior such as stealing and killing, and even try to be as honest with each other and in their community dealings as possible.  What’s not to like there?

But it didn’t take long for me to realize that "family values" for most of those voters was a code word, for opposing gay marriage and abortion.  That is, it’s not about how well you live your family life, it’s about judging and interfering with other people’s families and the tough decisions they make.  In other words, for me "family values" in the hands of the Republican messaging machine has become just another cynical abuse of the language for propaganda purposes.

So what does "small town" mean when uttered by a Republican?  I live in a small town.  It means working with a community of people who aren’t self-selected to be just like you (as you so often can in a bigger pond).  It means working together to ensure all boats rise.  It means enjoying simple things, like attending lame-o July 4th parades because it’s an opportunity to interact with others in the town.  It means helping other people’s kids as well as your own.

John Stewart was pretty quick with a segment trying to see what "small town" meant to Republican delegates.  The ones he showed were pretty insightful.  Those that do more thinking than just "me like small town, you like small town, me like you" seem to mean mostly that "everyone goes to the same Christian church" and "gays are in the closet."  Clearly meanness can emit from small town America too, along with the good things.  Don’t be fooled into supporting meanness under the shiny "small town" seal of goodness.

The term also arises with the ascendancy of Sarah Palin, which suggests another purpose - it’s an attempt to flip the liability of her lack of experience into a positive.  I guess in conjunction with the coded meaning above, she’s trying to say "I don’t need national or international experience because I oppose homosexuality."  Just the kind of claptrap the Republican base laps up with brains turned to power-saver mode.

Don’t get me started on Palin’s use of "community organizer" as a dirty word.  Shouldn’t that label apply to every Chamber of Commerce member in every small town across America?  I’m afraid to find out what they mean by "charity"…

A rather obscure news story came to my attention recently, and triggered some musing.

On October 12, France passed a law extending the same penalties (a year in prison, 45K euro fine) for denying the Holocaust to the so-called Armenian Genocide, a horrific massacre back around 1915.  I accept that killing people in the 6 and 7 figure numbers may be considered genocide by all rational people.  But I also agree with this editorial from the Christian Science Monitor that penalizing free speech, even when that speech is a damaging lie, can have a high cost.

That reminds me (for reasons you will have to bear with me on) of some cool programming my brother did a few years ago.  He had a genetic algorithm that would grow digital plants.  Each plant had DNA of 100 instructions, and the instructions told the plant which direction to grow in.  He would generate some random DNA, put them in a garden, and see which covered the most ground.  The losers were all killed off (natural selection), and the winner would be randomly mutated into several new varieties, placed back in the garden, and allowed to compete for space again.  After a tens or hundreds of thousands of generations, some pretty sophisticated strategies would emerge, filling the screen with colorful whorls in an amazing variety of shapes.  Very cool that essentially random numbers could be coerced into creating complex and beautiful forms! (These aren’t images from the program, they are simply fractal images generated using Apophysis; I needed some illustrations!)

My brother started looking at the digital "DNA" to see how the plants’ algorithm actually worked, and to his surprise found that on average only about 5 of the 100 instructions were actually engaged - the other 95 were "dead code."  So he reduced the size to about 5 instructions - and the result was completely uninspiring.  Countless generations of mutating those 5 instructions simply never resulted in the variety and beauty possible with 100 instructions.  Those 95 unused instructions were vital, not to the "life" of the plant, but to the future evolution of the plant.  Despite having no present purpose whatsoever, they provided fertile ground for evolution to blossom in.

Geneticists find the same thing in real DNA - lots of sequences that appear not to serve any functional purpose, or may even have harmful effects, yet are there as a result of the evolutionary journey.  If we were able to remove all those dead or harmful sequences most organisms would probably be able to live just fine, perhaps even better in some circumstances.  But the potential for evolution would be flattened.

Tying this back to the Armenian Genocide, denying well-documented facts about history seems deluded and hurtful to a civilization.  It seems to have no beneficial purpose whatsoever.  However, over the course of history there have been many seemingly non-sensical and dangerous theories, a few of which have revolutionized human development and allowed our civilization to evolve in unimagineable ways.

We may not need to believe that well-documented genocides are hoaxes (I certainly hope not!) but a civilization that limits freedom of expression, a crude attempt to limit freedom of thought, is limiting it’s primary potential for evolving to ever higher levels of splendor.  That seems like a far graver threat in the long run.

Big Brother is trying to pull another one over on us.

The administration, in cahoots with Fox and other propaganda outlets, is trying to give the formerly covert domestic warrantless wiretapping program a new name - the "terrorist surveillance program."  If this terminology gets adopted, the issue is as good as dead.  Who can stand and say "I’m against terrorist surveillance!"  The debate is lost before it’s started, just as "tax relief" was.  The terminology shifts the debate from "warrantless" which is what the real issue is, to "terrorist", which it is not.

You can see how misleading the terminology is by following the logic through.  If it’s a "terrorist surveillance program" then it only "surveills" terrorists, right?  By definition anyone who’s under surveillance must be known by the government to be a terrorist.

If that’s the case, Mr. Bush, why aren’t these known terrorists in jail?  Why are they free to roam our streets making cell-phone calls to their co-conspirators?  You’re the one who labeled them terrorists, and if you haven’t arrested them then I can only conclude that you must be soft on terrorism.

What’s that?  I’ve gone to far?  They aren’t known conclusively to be terrorists?  You might watch a suspect that isn’t a terrorist?  Just someone who might cause harm to the US?  If "harm to the US" is the standard you use, the program seems destined for some exponential growth, starting with those who brought this important issue to our attention:

“The fact that somebody leaked this program causes great harm to the United States.” [MSNBC]

Terrorist, suspect, leaker, political opponent: if these terms aren’t distinct, we’re in grave danger.  Refuse to swallow terminology that is manipulative, inaccurate, and prevents the meaningful democratic discourse (in this case on the role of warrants in legitimate surveillance activities) upon which our freedom from government tyranny relies.

From the Verbal Energy column following trends in language in the Christian Science Monitor comes more evidence that the language of political discourse is being IED’d.  Ruth Walker reports that the usage of the word "mainstream" has been observed changing from the time-honored meaning:

Mainstream: the prevailing current of thought.

to a quite opposite meaning:

Out of the Mainstream: Used to describe the ideology of any political opponent."

When a word can mean two opposite things simultaneously, it no longer is useful for real political discourse.  Instead it’s all about whipping up emotions, and unthinking support for one’s position. The Republican talking point machine has clearly been studying Lewis Carroll:

When I use a word,” said Humpty Dumpty in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less”.

Orwell warned about damaging liberty by damaging the language.  Pair this warning with Richard Mitchell who ties clear thinking to clear language. How can democracy survive when the ability to discuss/think clearly about the important issues facing us is under active attack?  Soon we’ll be reduced to single syllables, on our way to confining our language to grunts and whines.  And we won’t be whining about "democracy" at that point because we will no longer have either the word, or the concept.

P.S. My prediction on the next word to fall into meaninglessness: "activism" as in "judicial activism."  Challenge your conservative friends for a meaningful definition.

I’ve been more than a little frustrated with the media coverage of the debate over Iraq strategy.  It is little more than a declaration "you don’t have a strategy" followed by "do too!"  Where is the strategy?  Where is the substance?  This kind of insubstantial coverage helped lead us into the war in the first place, on the unsound basis of WMD.

Now at last the White House has released a document outlining their strategy.  And you might be able to dig it up, though none of the news reports I read provided a link to the strategy itself, or discussed it’s contents in any meaningful way.  The document is the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq."  If you read it, instead of the lame media coverage, you can start to have a real debate.

I for one find some things to be concerned about in the document, such as this excerpt:

Prevailing in Iraq will help us win the war on terror.

• The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror.
  • Osama Bin Laden has declared that the "third world war…is raging" in Iraq, and it will end there, in "either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation."
  • Bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has declared Iraq to be "the place for the greatest battle," where he hopes to "expel the Americans" and then spread "the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq."
  • Al Qaida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has openly declared that "we fight today in Iraq, and tomorrow in the Land of the Two Holy Places, and after there the west."
    • As the terrorists themselves recognize, the outcome in Iraq — success or failure — is critical to the outcome in the broader war on terrorism.

Skipping over some of the dumbest parts ("war against humanity" - give me a break!), it is pretty clear, and even the Bush administration seems to admit it, that the invasion has created a haven of sorts for terrorists.  But even more, it’s given the terrorists a global boost in popularity by associating them with freedom fighters defending the homeland.  The issue we should be talking about is whether the war (I still hate to dignify it as such) on terror is being won.  IMO the invasion has tipped the balance in favor of terrorism rather than the reverse.  This, the real Bush legacy, should be covered more fully by the media.

Progressives are having a good I-told-you-so snicker at Bush’s approval ratings among African-Americans, which dove to an amazing … wait for it … 2%.  But what’s amazing to me is that 9% more (11% total) voted for him in 2004.  I guess they were beguiled by the spin which this administration crafts with psychological precision.

The administration’s lack-luster performance during the Hurricane disasters really strikes to the heart of their so-called "strength" in being the leadership most trustworthy in a disaster.  This despite the many appalling lapses during and after 9/11.

Last time I heard Bill Moyers speak, I was ready to draft Moyers for high elective office.  His ability to explain progressive ideals as emerging from a deep moral background is unsurpassed.  His latest address, 9/11 and the Sport of God, is a must read, addressing some of the same questions I asked in Bad Muslims, or Bad Islam? - only this time directed at Christian fundamentalists.

An excerpt:

In his last book, the late Marvin Harris, a prominent anthropologist of the time, wrote that "the attack against reason and objectivity is fast reaching the proportions of a crusade." To save the American Dream, "we desperately need to reaffirm the principle that it is possible to carry out an analysis of social life which rational human beings will recognize as being true, regardless of whether they happen to be women or men, whites or black, straights or gays, employers or employees, Jews or born-again Christians. The alternative is to stand by helplessly as special interest groups tear the United States apart in the name of their ’separate realities’ or to wait until one of them grows strong enough to force its irrational and subjective brand of reality on all the rest."

That was written 25 years ago, just as the radical Christian right was setting out on their long march to political supremacy. The forces he warned against have gained strength ever since and now control much of the United States government and are on the verge of having it all.

…

It has to be said that their success has come in no small part because of our acquiescence and timidity. Our democratic values are imperiled because too many people of reason are willing to appease irrational people just because they are pious.

…

As I look back on the conflicts and clamor of our boisterous past, one lesson about democracy stands above all others: Bullies - political bullies, economic bullies and religious bullies - cannot be appeased; they have to be opposed with a stubbornness to match their own.

Well.  I say again: Moyers for President!!

One more for the funny pages: the Onion’s theory of "Intelligent Falling".

I was selfishly relieved when Walmart took over the mantle from Microsoft as the company America most loves to hate.  This honor seems to accrue to companies that demonstrate incredible success year after year, and reach a size that makes their potential influence rather scary to some.

Incidentally Paul Downey lent me McLibel, a great documentary film about the events that transpired when McDonald’s occupied the "most hated" slot (though IMO much more deservedly than the others I mention!)  This dubious distinction appears to have a pretty long history!

But I’ve noticed that we’re getting pretty tired of hearing about how bad Walmart is - it distracts us from what we like to do best - shop on sale!  Now the New York Times reports on early signs that Google may be the next to take over the mantle despite their carefully managed public identity which seems to basically be "we’re not evil."

Given the opportunities for leveraging their assets to keep revenues on the up-and-up as the company matures and things start to flatten out, we should rightly be concerned that Google’s ideals fade perceptibly in the face of shareholder expectations.  And a slight change in Google can completely change the dynamics of an industry, an economy, a country, or even a religion.

Being the good guy is a hard pedestal to stay on top of when people start throwing rocks at you.  As Google grows the target gets bigger, as do the opportunities to simply stumble and fall off on your own.  It’s easy to keep your ideals when your stock options are shooting through the roof.  As Google grows it will increasingly be under pressure to become yet-another-giant-multinational with the accompanying unreasonable expectations for revenue growth.  It’s been a bit frustrating to me to watch Google get away with some things Microsoft was excoriated for.  But that disparate public treatment can turn about pretty quickly!

So when the honor comes your way, enjoy it Google!  It’s probably not possible to avoid becoming the company America most loves to hate, but by careful conduct and holding to your high ideals as closely as you can you may be able to quickly pass the trophy on to another "worthy" candidate!

By way of Michael Champion:

Seems that Intelligent Design should have a place in the curriculum after all - at Comedy School.

I love the Do Not Call list.  I signed up immediately and the level of phone solicitations has dropped off to near zero.  The primary remaining calls are my credit card companies, who call ostensibly to verify some detail of my account, and then attempt to move smoothly into a sales pitch for balance transfers, payment protection, or some other crap that I have already repeatedly turned down by tossing dozens of junk mail solicitations.

But, I am increasingly bothered by junk faxes.  There are unscrupulous marketers out there that have automated systems to call and detect fax numbers.  They send faxes to those numbers selling insurance, vacations, all kinds of junk.  It’s bad enough when these junk faxes fill up my computer’s fax inbox, but they also attempt to send them to my home phone.  At odd hours.  This morning it was two attempts at 2:45 and 3:15 AM.  I didn’t get back to sleep until almost 5.  I’m grumpy and I’m not going to take it any more!

I spent some of that time trying to figure out ways to make such marketing un-economic.  The fax itself doesn’t come with a source number, so I can’t send 1000 faxes back to the source for every one they try to send me.

Most of these junk faxes have an 800 number to call and remove yourself from the database, but this doesn’t seem to have reduced the volume any.  The automated systems on the other end seem suspiciously identical.  Trying to set up my computer to bombard the 800 number for delisting didn’t seem to work - they must have protections built in against that.

The product being hawked usually doesn’t have an 800 number either, and it’s not economic for me to invest my long distance dollars in annoying the spammer indirectly.

As fax spam is illegal, there is small claims court or class action lawsuits.  But perusing junkfax.org doesn’t give me much hope for a simple strategy to combat fax spam.  At least there are folks wielding the full weight of the legal system against this invasion of my home.