Category: Everything Else

Two op-eds this weekend decry the decline of reading in America today: Harold Bloom and Andrew Solomon. Kevin Drum takes Bloom to task for writing off the Internet completely. Solomon, to his credit, concedes that the Internet can have some good writing, but also assigns it to the same category as TV watching – non-interactive, alienating.

I actually agree with Bloom and Solomon that Americans should read more. What I take issue with is the sweeping generalization that the Internet is part of the problem. For example, this Solomon quote:

The Nazis were right in believing that one of the most powerful weapons in a war of ideas is books. And for better or worse, the United States is now in such a war. Without books, we cannot succeed in our current struggle against absolutism and terrorism. The retreat from civic to virtual life is a retreat from engaged democracy, from the principles that we say we want to share with the rest of the world. You are what you read. If you read nothing, then your mind withers, and your ideals lose their vitality and sway.

If Solomon thinks that the ‘virtual life’ is not capable of producing an engaged democracy, then he has not only never checked out any blogs but also slept through the entire Democratic primary season. Interaction and communication are the lifeblood of the Internet. It’s worth noting that long before the Web came along, most of the major functions of the Internet were interactive – email, mailing lists, and Usenet – not to mention IRC, MUDs and MOOs as well.

Of course, by posting this here instead of writing a letter to the editor, I’m well aware that I’m preaching to the choir.

Totally gratuitous side note: Andrew Solomon attended the same high school as I did, although he was a few years ahead of me. The Horace Mann School gave us a heck of an education. I grew to love Shakespeare by having to read several of the plays aloud in various English classes. The first time we did it, in 8th grade, I thought it was a little weird. But by 10th grade it was one of my favorite things to do in class.

Digby has a nice long post today about what happens when innocent people, like the guy whose crossword puzzle scribblings got him onto the Homeland Security watch list, get swept into the DHS’s web.

His conclusion?

The stories begin to accumulate, each one a random intrusion by dumb, underqualified government authorities who seem to have watched too much television and have very little common sense.

Dumb? Not quite. What I think we’re seeing is a bunch of people who do not know how to handle the situation they have been thrust into. This is not to say they’re stupid. They’re scared, and scared people rarely make smart choices. Just look at today’s latest security alert:

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on Thursday warned Americans that al Qaeda may try to carry out “a large-scale attack” to disrupt upcoming elections, but offered no details and had no plans to raise the terror threat level.

Bottom line, this is about fear – or terror, if you will – and how humans respond to it. You’d think that by now we’d have learned that the predictable response is usually the wrong one, and that we need some new solutions.

How are people supposed to react when they hear ongoing unspecified warnings of terrorist threats? Absent any concrete information, those of a more fearful cast of mind are going to see a potential threat at every hand. A doodle on the edge of a crossword puzzle can be seen as a threat of lethal action. (There’s a Greek tragedy in there somewhere but I’m not smart enough to write it.)

Those of a more conspiracy theorist cast of mind will say that the government’s true intent is to keep American citizens cowed and fearful while they move forward to bring about their own nefarious goals. I believe that about as much as I believe the wingnuts who insist that anyone who seriously opposes the Clintons ends up dead – which is to say, not at all.

I have previously commented on the similarities of our current invasion of Iraq with Vietnam. But it also occurs to me that parallels to the “Red Scares” of the 20s and 50s are also apt for the times we live in today. Apparently we have to re-learn the lessons of history all over again.

Yahoo News is reporting that the Archdiocese of Portland has filed for bankruptcy under the weight of payouts due to accusations of sexual abuse by priests. It’s the first US archdiocese to do so.

I wonder how they will structure the refinancing? The Boston archdiocese avoided bankruptcy by selling off a bunch of church-owned property, and I assume that Portland has similar assets, albeit probably not as many. At last resort the Vatican can bail them out if the local banks can’t or won’t.

I said I wasn’t going to post unless something bad happened but insead I wanted to note something good happening: the laying of the cornerstone of the new Freedom Tower.

I hate the name but I’m really glad that rebuilding on the Ground Zero site has begun. It’s a good way to show terrorists that in the long term they didn’t win.

No blogging for me unless something really bad happens. In the meantime, here’s some thoughts for the day:

The Declaration of Independence

The United States Constitution

And in honor of the 800+ members of the US armed forces killed in Iraq. May they rest in peace, and may those still in Iraq come home soon, safely.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Per the AP via Yahoo News:

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s new government is considering offering amnesty to Iraqi insurgents who fought the U.S.-led occupation, perhaps even pardoning those who killed Americans.

A spokesman for Allawi said fighting with U.S. troops was “justified” as resistance to occupation.

“If he (a guerrilla) was in opposition against the Americans, that will be justified because it was an occupation force,” spokesman Georges Sada said. “We will give them freedom.”