Sunday, May 11, 2003
Following me around
It sometimes seems that things just follow me around. For instance, a former college roommate and I independently moved into and out of the same general vicinities several different times over a period of about fifteen years ... western Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, Philly, back to Pittsburgh. We never discussed plans to move, never coordinated, didn’t have all that much contact with each other, yet somehow we’d end up moving to the same places at around the same times.
And speaking of places I’ve lived, for unknown some reason I’ve favored states that are actually commonwealths—of the four such states (Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia), I’ve called all but one my home at one time or another. Even presidential primaries followed me one year; the 1976 Massachusetts primary came early in the year, while Kentucky’s was late enough that I could register there in time to cast another primary ballot as a resident of the Bluegrass State. I am, therefore, perhaps the only person in the world to have cast presidential votes for Mo Udall twice.
Now I’m being followed by TOPOFF. Tomorrow, somewhere south of Safeco Field, Seattle is going to be subjected to a surprise attack by terrorists, who will detonate a so-called “dirty bomb" that spreads radioactive materials over a wide area of the Puget Sound region. Not really, of course ... this is just a WMD preparedness drill, sponsored by our good friends in the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Tom Ridge’s Homeland Security department. This exercise, which also involves a simulated biological weapon attack in Chicago and will necessitate cooperative operations by the governments of Vancouver, British Columbia, and Canada, is supposed to examine how well agencies across the spectrum of jurisdictions and responsibilities can work together in a WMD emergency.
I’ve seen such a drill before. The upcoming exercise is TOPOFF 2, and one of the sites in the first TOPOFF exercise in May 2000 was Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In fact, the Portsmouth event (a simulated car bomb explosion with involvement of mustard gas), described by the Portsmouth Herald here and here, actually transpired within a hundred yards or so of my home in Portsmouth. By the way, TOPOFF stands for top officials, because those are the folks who would need to coordinate their efforts and efficiently work together if a real WMD crisis occurred.
My recollections of the Portsmouth TOPOFF exercise are not particularly vivid, perhaps because there was very little disruption of the ordinary routine. I do recall a large number of emergency and work vehicles parked along Market Street, the main road that takes traffic from Interstate 95 into downtown Portsmouth, and an even larger number in the Port Authority parking lot directly across Market Street from my condo community. The ever-changing array of vehicles was there for several days, but never disrupted the regular flow of traffic for more than a few minutes at a time. Although we were literally only a few hundred feet away from the “attack”, our condos were not evacuated. In fact, no authorities ever even went through the motions of patrolling or securing our condos. Life went on without difficulty, within sight of the supposed WMD attack.
At one point during the exercise, I strolled across the street and entered the Port Authority grounds, just to see what there was to see. No one stopped me from walking right up to within a few dozen feet of the simulated explosion site ... no checkpoints, no challenges. I’m not sure whether there was even any yellow police tape to duck under. Now, it’s quite likely that this occurred when the exercise was pretty much wrapping up, but the collection of equipment, materiel, and manpower on the Port Authority property was still mighty large when I walked in. That took place before 9/11. No doubt, the procedures for TOPOFF 2 will be far more stringent, far more controlled, far more military than the fun-and-games of TOPOFF in Portsmouth three years ago.
Though I suppose it’s useful to go through the motions in this manner, I’m not at all convinced that such activities adequately or accurately replicate what would happen in a real emergency. I mean, the participants in this exercise have already gotten their equipment all set up and ready, they’ve made sure to get a good night’s sleep, they’ve fully charged their batteries, stocked their vehicles, and so forth. Area residents have been informed that this incident is going to happen, the newspapers have printed detour maps and listed road closures, and there have been repeated campaigns to inform the public about it so as not to overtax Seattle’s 911-emergency system. Some “emergency”...
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Posted by N in Seattle on 05/11 at 07:19 PM
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Friday, May 09, 2003
Logical inconsistency
In his photo op speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln last week, Dubya refrained from declaring his little war of occupation completely over. The reason, as always when Karl Rove and his friends are in command, was political expediency. From the above-referenced news story:
But Bush carefully avoided announcing that the war itself was over, a declaration that could trigger international laws requiring the speedy release of prisoners of war, limiting efforts to go after deposed Iraqi leaders and designating the United States as an occupying power.
Today, the United States, along with its paired lapdogs Spain and Great Britain, introduced a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council in which they ask the UNSC to lift the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq under a number of Security Council resolutions over the last dozen years.
Aren’t those two items contradictory?
How could the UN justify lifting sanctions on a sovereign nation while it remains in a state of war with another nation? As Karen DeYoung and Dana Milbank point out in the excerpted paragraph, the United States cannot be declared an “occupying power” until the war is officially over, yet the draft resolution states that the US and Britain will indeed be the “occupying powers”:
Noting the letters of [DATE] from the Permanent Representative of the United States of America and the United Kingdom to the President of the Security Council and recognizing the specific authorities, responsibilities, and obligations under applicable international law of these states as occupying powers and the responsibilities of others working now or in the future with them under unified command (the “Authority’’);
It seems logical to me that either the US will have to declare the war ended—thereby folding their hand on the infamous deck of Iraqi enemy cards, releasing POWs (though perhaps not the Gitmo detainees), and so forth—or they won’t be able to convince the Security Council to let them have their way.
But, hey, I’m just a guy at a computer in Seattle. What do I know about the logic(?) of international law and diplomacy?
Posted by N in Seattle on 05/09 at 10:03 AM
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Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Uncle John wants YOU
Early this evening, I went to a “new members reception” at the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington‘s offices near Pioneer Square in the heart of Seattle. Though I’m not absolutely certain it’s the first time they’ve ever held such an event, it’s certainly the first in a long, long time. In addition to the opportunity to meet the staff and volunteers—to put a human face on the organization—I also heard a preview of what Barry Steinhardt, Director of the national ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project, will talk about Thursday evening at Seattle’s Town Hall. Steinhardt will address such important issues as CAPPS II (note the clever marketing switch in this one, now referring to pre-screening instead of the earlier profiling), Adm. Poindexter’s still-operating TIA project, and the latest anti-privacy program foisted upon the American people, HIPAA (remarkably mislabeled as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ... it has very little to do directly with maintaining health insurance across and between jobs). Steinhardt’s speech, which you should attend if you possibly can, is titled Is the United States Becoming a Surveillance Society?.
The ACLU has seen an appreciable rise in its membership in recent years, and quite a few of my fellow newbies (also the staffers and volunteers in attendance) agreed with me that a significant portion of that increase is directly attributable to the Attorney General of the United States. The policies and actions of Mr. Ashcroft and his band of anti-Constitution zealots have raised the alarm in many people, spurring me and many of my fellow new members to finally do what we’d often been thinking about for years if not decades—to become card-carrying members of the ACLU.
Incidentally, in searching for possible origins of the phrase “card-carrying member” I ran into several interesting items. It’s well known, for instance, that an early use of the term was its application to Communists (that is, suspected Communists) during the McCarthy era of blacklisting. Secondly, until this evening, I didn’t recall that in one of the 1988 presidential debates George H.W. Bush had sneeringly quoted Michael Dukakis’s self-appellation as a “card-carrying” ACLU member, Bush’s tone clearly indicating his disdain for the organization and its policies. The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?
My sojourn through the Web also led me to a really interesting commentary from the Bridgewater Review, a journal published by the faculty of Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. In his June 2001 essay, sociology professor William Levin muses on several subjects that I’ve looked at here on my blog, such as the language tricks at which the Republicans seem to be so adept. Levin describes quite a few that I hadn’t mentioned in my blog entry. I was particularly struck by one of the examples he cites, the subtle difference between Democratic party and Democrat party. The latter was first popularized by Senator Bob Dole, but it has now become so common that it’s pretty close to being the default term, at least in Republican (should I instead say Republic?) circles.
Bringing this back to the ACLU reception, I was struck by the wide variety of people I encountered there. Collegians and senior citizens, many ethnicities, several non-English native tongues, artisans and lawyers, scientists and union labor. Though I didn’t probe deeply, I’m sure there was also a range of political orientations ... after all, the ACLU has collaborated on some efforts with such non-left groups as the Free Congress Foundation and the Eagle Forum. Difficult is it is to envision, Dick Armey and Bob Barr have worked on joint projects with the ACLU.
I don’t yet know how deeply I’ll become involved with the Washington state ACLU. Perhaps I’ll do some volunteer work with them; I possess some skills that they might be able to exploit, though it’s more likely that they’d be looking for brochure-folders and envelope-stuffers. Hey, I can do that too.
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Posted by N in Seattle on 05/07 at 07:58 PM
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Sunday, May 04, 2003
Verses
As is his wont, George W. Bush closed his “we won, but we aren’t declaring it’s over because we don’t want to give back our prisoners yet” speech last week with a Biblical quotation:
In the words of the prophet Isaiah: “To the captives, `Come out,’ and to those in darkness, `Be free.’ “
Commenting on the speech soon thereafter, Atrios identified the quotation as a portion of Isaiah 61, and then presented what he said was the same material in a different translation and placed in full context:
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has annointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
That is, in fact, Isaiah 61:1. When I first saw that quotation, I thought about posting its equivalent as written in my Masoretic text, a direct translation of what Christians call the Old Testament (to me, it’s just the Bible) from the original Aramaic and Hebrew into English. Most Christian Bibles, e.g. the King James, are translations of translations of translations, with all the attendant potential for garble and misinterpretation we know so well from the childhood game of “telephone” (aka “whispering down the line").
Well, one thing led to another, and I never got around to writing that entry that day. I recall thinking to myself that Atrios’s version of the verse was quite different from Bush’s pithy little line, but I did see a more than tenuous, but less than precise, connection between them.
Now I see why I didn’t find a really satisfying association between the quote and its supposed context ... Atrios pointed to the wrong verse in Isaiah. On Saturday, Pete Kaminski of istori/log referred us to what is clearly the actual verse used by Dubya—Isaiah 49:9.
Now, because Isaiah 49:9 is extremely short and seems to leap right into the middle of a thought, it really does need to be placed into context by starting with the previous verse (Isaiah 49:8). It may also be instructive to demonstrate how differences in translation can affect the verse(s) in question. Thus, I present here four versions of the very same pair of verses (Isaiah 49:8-9):
8 This is what the LORD says: “In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
9 to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’” They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill.—New International Version
8 Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;
9 That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.—King James Version
8 Thus says the LORD, “In a favorable time I have answered You, And in a day of salvation I have helped You; And I will keep You and give You for a covenant of the people, To restore the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritages;
9 Saying to those who are bound, ‘Go forth,’ To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’ Along the roads they will feed, And their pasture will be on all bare heights.—New American Standard
8 Thus saith the Lord: In an acceptable time have I answered thee, And in a day of salvation have I helped thee; And I will preserve thee, and give thee For a covenant of the people, To raise up the land. To cause to inherit the desolate heritages;
9 Saying to the prisoners: “Go forth”; To them that are in darkness: “Show yourselves”; They shall feed in the ways, And in all high hills shall be their pasture;—Masoretic text
Bush chose the text as shown in the New International Version, the only one of the four suggesting that those who have been in darkness either can or even should become free. The other three translations are in agreement that those people in darkness are to do nothing more than reveal their presence. There are numerous other small differences among these translations—sometimes the pastures are on poor soil, while other translations don’t comment on soil quality; three versions describe God answering Isaiah, while the prophet is merely heard in the King James Version; if the soil is poor, then the time for interacting with God is favorable, otherwise, it is only an acceptable time for such interactions.
And so forth. Not that I’m making a really big deal of this ... merely pointing out how small translation/transcription differences can lead to subtle, or perhaps not so subtle, differences in interpretation. That’s true for sacred texts, diplomatic initiatives, legislative resolutions, press releases, news reports, and much more. For everything, really.
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Posted by N in Seattle on 05/04 at 09:13 PM
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Gone but not forgotten
Somewhere around 15 percent of my life was spent as a resident of New Hampshire. I was a student at Dartmouth College, graduating in 1972. Sad to say, that makes me one of the last of the real Dartmouth Men; women were officially accepted as (non-exchange) students in Hanover in the fall of 1972. Nearly a quarter-century later, after sojourning through Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Kentucky, and back to Pennsylvania, I returned to the Granite State to take a position at a Medicare contractor similar to the one at which I currently work here in Washington state. During my four-plus years working in New Hampshire, I lived in the wonderfully historic Seacoast Region of the state, even farther from the rugged White Mountains than is Hanover (located on the Connecticut River, across from Norwich, Vermont).
Though I never lived all that close to Franconia Notch, I had seen the Old Man of the Mountain any number of times. In New Hampshire, you really couldn’t get away from the Old Man. He was right there on the state emblem, right there on the standard automobile license plate, and right there as the reverse of the New Hampshire quarter (wags called it the only two-headed United States coin):
So I felt a great deal of sadness when I heard that the Old Man is no longer with us. The best engineering efforts of human beings, in particular the late Niels Nielsen and his family, during the last century or so were not able to counteract the forces of nature’s freeze-thaw cycles. All that’s left of their attempts to shore up the five rock strata that constituted the Old Man are the failed turnbuckles and cables.
The Old Man lived for some 10,000 years, a very short piece of geologic time ... even though it exceeds the entire span of recorded human history. He reminds us of the inexorability of geologic time. Though the geologic cycles of uplift and erosion, of tectonic movement and sea-floor spreading, are all but undetectable to humans (with our infinitesimal century-long lifespan), those cycles are always with us. Cannon Mountain, once thousands of feet taller than its present 4100 feet, will eventually wear away to nothing. That a certain tiny portion of the cliffs of that mountain was perceived to resemble the profile of a man is more a statement about human pattern-seeking than anything else. We humans ascribed such symbolic meaning to those rock layers that some of us devoted themselves to what turned out to be a fruitless effort to preserve the appearance of those juxtaposed layers.
It will certainly be interesting to observe the human fallout of the collapse of the Old Man of the Mountain. New Hampshire governor Craig Benson has already stated that he will have the state try to “revitalize” the Old Man, whatever that means. In fact, he has already named Steve Merrill, who preceded Benson and Jeanne Shaheen as governor, to head the project.
Will New Hampshire change its state emblem? My guess is that they won’t, that the symbolism is more powerful than the mere fact of the Old Man’s existence ever was. After all, the reverse of Connecticut’s state quarter displayed the Charter Oak, which is the state’s official tree even though it toppled over in a storm way back in 1856.
At least New Hampshire was saved the embarrassment of having the Old Man collapse during the year in which its state quarter was minted.
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Posted by N in Seattle on 05/04 at 12:19 PM
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