Jose Cuervo Hits 4 Jesus

DO NOT play this near your neighborhood school.

Tony Blair is the wrong man for the job

Slate Magazine: By Shmuel Rosner

Building institutions for the Palestinians and bringing the two sides closer to an agreement demands a long-term commitment to move forward in baby steps. Keep dreams in a vault and focus on the day-to-day 'management of the conflict' to save lives and ease the pressure—and wait for a better opportunity. The appointment of Blair—a world celebrity with an ego to match—to mediate the conflict is meant to bring more attention, more money, and a higher profile to heal the bleeding wound. But the higher the profile, the higher the expectations, and as was proved at Camp David, the higher the expectations, the more painful the failure to fulfill them.

I often disagree with Rosner, and hope he is wrong here. Baby steps (too often with a baby's sense of direction) have not worked in Israel/Palestine since the assassination of Rabin. I continue to wonder whether Clinton's final push might have worked if the clock had not run out, and if the Arab states (with more adroit American diplomacy) had put more pressure on Arafat to make a deal. The "conservative" Arab regimes now have reason for concerted action in response to growing Shi'a power and influence (and their own fragility), and Blair potentially has some time to work. I'm hoping for better, but not betting on it.

Fuel Rationing in Iran Prompts Protests

New York Times:

Iran is rich with crude oil and is the second largest exporter of oil in OPEC. But it has far fewer refineries than it needs to satisfy booming domestic demand, so it must import as much as half of its gasoline from refineries abroad, at a cost of $5 billion a year.

Somehow this story and headline upset me less.

Bombing Near Shiite Shrine Kills 14

: By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Haven't I seen this headline before?
Do they just run it every day?
Oh, and this part also:

BAGHDAD (AP) -- America's No. 2 diplomat in Iraq predicted progress ...

White House, Cheney's Office Subpoenaed

New York Times:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush's controversial eavesdropping program that operated warrant-free for five years.

Also named in subpoenas signed by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the Justice Department and the National Security Council. The four parties have until July 18 to comply, according to a statement by Leahy's office. ...

'We're aware of the committee's action and will respond appropriately,'' White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. ''It's unfortunate that congressional Democrats continue to choose the route of confrontation.''

It must be a job qualification to get out lines like that with a straight face. More grist for the Daily Show, I suppose.

Hot-Dog Champ Is Coming to Brooklyn

New York Times Blog:

“They’re amazing eaters,” Mr. Rios told Dalton Walker, a Times reporter. “To stand next to them is an honor.”

Obesity be damned. Nathan's. Hot dogs. I'm helpless.

(My father took me on my first trip to the original Nathan's on Coney Island.)

Nathans | 2007 Hot Dog Contest

Hot Dog Contest History

The Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest has been held at Nathan's Famous on the corner of Surf and Stillwell avenues in Coney Island each year since 1916, according to legend.

At midday each Fourth of July, a group of 20 steely-eyed individuals line up behind a 40-foot table to begin the 12-minute contest. These competitors, known in the sport of competitive eating as gurgitators, may not appear athletic to the untrained eye of John Q. Public. However, they are among the finest athletes in the world.

A very special year for the contest was 1993, which marked the return of the coveted Mustard-Yellow International Belt to American soil. In November of 1993, in a one-on-one contest, Nathan's champ Mike Devito beat Japanese eating phenom Orio Ito to bring back the belt, which had been in Japan for seven years. By winning this contest, Devito reunified the world hot dog eating titles (an accomplishment similar to Mike Tyson's reunification of the world's boxing titles in 1987).

The bejeweled Coveted Mustard Yellow International Belt, worn only by the International Champion, is to hot dog aficionados what Faberge Eggs were to Czar Nicholas. The belt is of unknown age and value, and is unveiled only at the annual contest. The belt is now in Japan, where it stands in a secure display case in Saitama near the Nakazato Danchi campus.


IFOCE Eating Records
International Federation of Competitive Eating - IFOCE

Pointing to Stability, Kurds in Iraq Lure Investors

New York Times:

The Kurdistan government has placed special emphasis on attracting investors from the United States and Britain, unleashing a slick advertising campaign in English called “The Other Iraq,” which includes television commercials featuring romantic shots of Kurdistan’s mountains and waving, cherubic children. “It’s spectacular, it’s joyful,” intones a narrator in one 30-second spot. “It’s not a dream. It’s the other Iraq.” ...There is even talk of a Burger King franchise ...

Do you think they will serve "the other white meat"?
Long may they flourish.

‘The Queen’ Got It Wrong: No Hands Are Kissed

New York Times:

It had been so often foretold as to seem an anticlimax. But finally — and not quite as in the movie starring Helen Mirren — Gordon Brown got his “Queen moment” today when he took over from Tony Blair as prime minister of Britain. ...

For the Queen, there was, perhaps, a hint of déjà vu: Mr. Brown is the 11th prime minister to hold office since her reign began in 1952. And, as with all the others, the details of the encounter were kept secret — save for one assertion from Buckingham Palace: the movie “The Queen” got it wrong.

Technically, the moment when the Queen first greets a new prime minister is called “Kissing Hands” — and that’s what happened in the movie, when Mr. Blair, played by the actor Michael Sheen, physically knelt to kiss the hand of the monarch, played by Ms. Mirren, as he took office in 1997.

But a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace said shortly before Mr. Brown’s encounter today that “there will be no kneeling or kissing of hands — that is not something that has happened in modern-day politics.” ...

“In fact, the actual kissing of hands will take place later, in Council,” the website continues, referring to the Privy Council, the time-honored assembly of the Queen and her close advisors, including cabinet ministers.

Except that these days, there is no actual hand-kissing then, either. “It’s just a meeting,” the spokesperson said, citing royal rules to insist on anonymity....

The actual details, along with the Queen, are secreted in Dick Cheney's safe.

The tigress strikes

New York Times: (You know who!)

A group of high school Presidential Scholars visiting the White House on Monday surprised President Bush by slipping him a handwritten letter pleading with him to not let America become known for torture and urging him to stick to the Geneva Conventions with terror detainees.

The president reassured the teenagers that the United States does not torture. Then the vice president unleashed a pack of large dogs on the kids, running them off the White House lawn, before he shut down the Presidential Scholars program and abolished high schools. ...

The White House got another unpleasant surprise Monday when the ordinarily compliant Dick Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee who has gone along with the Bush administration on every Iraq vote, came to the Senate floor to upbraid the president on his Iraq policy in a 50-minute speech.

“Those who offer constructive criticism of the surge strategy are not defeatists, any more than those who warn against a precipitous withdrawal are militarists,” the 75-year-old senator told the deserted chamber.

Dick Cheney, the president of the Senate, immediately expelled Mr. Lugar and appointed himself the new senator from Indiana. It was a busy day of Constitutional shape-shifting for the vice president, who had earlier nominated and confirmed himself to the Supreme Court, so that he could roll back judicial decisions tempering his desire for torture galore, and then morphed back into his executive branch role to bar the door to the Oval Office sandbox and prevent Condi and Bob Gates from giving W. the plan he wanted to close down Gitmo....

Mediators Appoint Blair Mideast Envoy

New York Times: By CHRISTINE HAUSER and TAGHREED EL-KHODARY

Tony Blair, who stepped down today as the prime minister of Britain, has been appointed a new senior peace envoy for the Middle East, working on building the framework for a Palestinian state, officials said today.

The widely expected announcement was made at the United Nations in New York and at the State Department"...

A State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said Mr. Blair would spend significant time in the region “working with the parties and others to help viable and lasting government institutions representing all Palestinians, a robust economy and a climate of law and order for the Palestinian people.”

President Bush welcomed the appointment today.

“Tony will help Palestinians develop the political and economic institutions they will need for a democratic, sovereign state able to provide for its people and live in peace and security with Israel,” he said in a statement. “I thank him for his willingness to give his time to this goal, which would be a historic step toward peace in the Middle East.”

As had been speculated, Blair's mandate (as stated)
focuses largely on the development of internal governing institutions for the Palestinians, apparently assumed to be a necessary step toward meaningful progress in negotiations with Israel on Palestinian statehood. Very interesting.

Yet another Hillary thumb-sucker

Slate Magazine: By John Dickerson

You might think that as a woman and a Democrat, Hillary Clinton's biggest challenge would be proving that she's tough enough to handle the presidency. So why is she play-acting and inviting the itchy parallels between the Sopranos' marriage and her own? Because Clinton's problem is not her qualifications. Democrats consistently tell pollsters that the senator has far more experience and leadership skill than her primary opponents.... "It's kind of cool that she's doing so well on all the guy attributes," says one of the female leaders in her campaign. Where Clinton doesn't do well is on the "softer" set of attributes—trust, likability, and the feeling that she's "just like us"—that help voters form a personal connection with a candidate. The Sopranos video is just one of the many ways Clinton's campaign is trying to solve the central dilemma of her campaign: Is she too polarizing to get elected?...

The Clinton candidacy poses a fascinating question for the ongoing debate among political scientists over whether emotion or reason drives voters. Many Democrats still debate whether in 2004 they should have picked Howard Dean, the flawed candidate who thrilled people, rather than John Kerry, who was stable, sensible, and safe. As Bill Clinton has said, Democrats prefer to fall in love with their candidates and Republicans fall in line. But now his wife is the fall-in-line candidate—the front-runner with the résumé, discipline, and organization. Barack Obama is clearly the candidate of the heart.

Barack does pretty well with my brain as well, Hillary less so. Her problem with me is less her intellect than her direction...and her indirection.

Meanwhile, check out the Slate Video on the linked site.
It's a bit balky, but has some nice scenes. Why does Hillary seem at her worst--that is, her most cloying-- when she is trying to be warm and friendly? (I guess if I can survive Bush TV appearances, I can probably survive Hillary, and the policies would be much improved. But does that have to be the choice?)

Michael Moore takes to the phones to promote Sicko

Slate Magazine: By Christopher Beam

The other day, a Slate staffer got a call from a person—a real, live person—asking if she planned to go see Michael Moore's new movie, Sicko. She said that she was indeed planning to see it but didn't know exactly when. The caller insisted that she go this weekend, to 'send a message' to the Bush administration that the country is fed up with the health-care system. What was this—an advertising campaign? Political mobilization? Some kind of Get-Out-the-Audience phone-a-thon?

All of the above. The Weinstein Company, Sicko's distributor, has hired a Democratic 'phone vendor' to contact a select group of potential moviegoers and encourage them to see the film. Phone vendors are usually employed by political campaigns and other interest groups to promote a candidate or a cause. But in this case, they just want you to watch a movie. They've already made 'tens of thousands' of live calls, with another slew of 'robo calls'—recorded messages read by Moore himself—on the way...

On the one hand, it's encouraging to see a studio believing that a film actually matters, and acting on that belief. But on the other, something troubles me about a major production company stealing a grass-roots campaign tactic. These callers aren't volunteers sharing their enthusiasm for a cause; they're getting paid to praise the virtues of universal health care. ... Even more disturbing is what this means for movie advertising. It's hard to imagine a scenario more horrific than Hollywood discovering telemarketing. ...

I'm on a do not call list, which I think protects me from unsolicited commercial (but not political) calls. Which is this?

Love on Campus

Inside Higher Ed : By Scott McLemee

One generation’s faculty gossip is sometimes another’s cultural history. At the University of Chicago in the early 1950s, a professor stopped a teenage student leaving one of his classes. She was not properly enrolled in the course, but bureaucratic proprieties really did not have anything to do with it. She was stunning. He was smitten. They had lunch. And 10 days later, give or take, Philip Rieff was joined in marriage to a young woman who never actually did change her name to Susan Rieff, instead always being known as Susan Sontag.
They did not live happily ever after. ...

The narrator mentions reading George Eliot as a young bride and bursting into tears at the realization she had, like Dorothea in Middlemarch, married Casaubon.

As you may recall, Dorothea is at first transfixed by the learning and gravitas of Casaubon, a scholar who is many years her senior. It soon dawns on her (as it does perhaps more quickly for the reader) that he is a bloodless pedant, joyless except when venting spleen against other bloodless pendants. And there are hints, as clear as Victorian propriety will allow, that Dorothea’s honeymoon has been disappointing in other ways as well.

Sontag’s allusion must rank as one of the more subtly devastating acts of revenge ever performed by an ex-wife. ...

The summer issue of The American Scholar contains an essay by William Deresiewicz called “Love on Campus” that identifies a “new academic stereotype” visible in popular culture. ...

Deresiewicz offers a cogent analysis of how this stereotype may reflect the changing place of academe in American society and the contradictory attitudes it evinces. He also presents some thoughts on a dimension of education that popular culture for the most part ignores: the eros of learning, the way a student can fall in love with a teacher for reasons having nothing to do with sexuality. Combining them, as Sontag tried to do with Rieff, seems like a bad idea.

DFA: What Majority?

Dear Alan,
Joe Lieberman doesn't vote with the Democrats on Iraq. Never has, never will. He prefers the Bush party line. Lieberman is why a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate doesn't really exist.

Ending the occupation of Iraq depends on electing real progressives to the Senate in 2008.

Unfortunately, Joe Lieberman isn't up for re-election next year. But there are 22 Republican Senate seats up for grabs in 2008. Your contribution of $22 today gives DFA the resources to take them back.

Photo shows Lieberman kissing Bush.
Huh?
This email from DFA takes non sequiturs to a new level.

The Caucus

New York Times Blog: By Michael Falcone

Elizabeth Edwards ...took on Ann Coulter yesterday, calling in to MSNBC’s “Hardball” to criticize the conservative commentator for “debasing” the political dialogue in the country and to demand that she stop making personal attacks on her husband and other candidates.

Their exchange followed Ms. Coulter’s remarks on Monday that she wished Mr. Edwards would have been killed in a terrorist assassination plot, in response to a question about having labeled Mr. Edwards with an anti-gay slur earlier this year....

Paris is back on the streets. Ann has to keep up.
I'll keep my own wishes about Ms Coulter's fate to myself...

Bushs Amnesty Gaffe

New York Times Blog:

This morning President Bush tried to take on critics of his stance on immigration while casually dropping by (along with a big press contingent that set up long before he arrived) a meeting among his key officials dealing with the issue.

And, in defending the bill pending in the Senate, he said:

“I’ve heard all the rhetoric — you’ve heard it, too — about how this is amnesty. Amnesty means that you’ve got to pay a price for having been here illegally, and this bill does that.”

Dick, can't you get this guy to read the script properly?
It's been more than six years. Time to trade him in?

A Cheney-Thompson swap?

War Room: Salon:

From the 'When Pigs Fly' Department, Sally Quinn suggests in the Washington Post today that a group of Republican 'party elders -- led by, say, John Warner -- could prevail on George W. Bush to dump Dick Cheney in favor of Fred Thompson.

Quinn's theory on Cheney: He's 'toxic' on Iraq and 'dangerous' on Iran, and surgery scheduled for this summer -- doctors will replace the batteries in Cheney's pacemaker -- provides a perfect excuse to say that it's time for the vice president to go.

Quinn's theory on Thompson: He could bring on Bush's 'better nature' while setting the Republicans up for victory in 2008. Besides, Quinn says, 'Everybody loves Fred.'

Not quite everybody. Although I thought the idea was to trade out Bush, not Cheney, and probably for Condee.

Robert Bork redux

War Room: Salon:

It has been 20 years since his contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings, but Robert H. Bork, it seems, is back.

Somehow, the 80-year-old conservative judge, author and intellectual has managed to land in the spotlight several times this month. On June 7, the tort reform crusader who has derided the 'lottery-like windfalls' in civil lawsuits, filed a $1 million lawsuit of his own against the Yale Club of New York City after he slipped and fell while stepping up to a club lectern to deliver a speech....And today, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. EDT, Bork was feted by the Federalist Society. The event, attended by about 200 people at $100 a head, included speakers such as Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese and University of California at Berkeley professor John Yoo.

The mood was jovial.

Bork's current affairs were officially ignored by most speakers, but attendees -- a dark suit and pantyhose bunch -- couldn't help whispering about the latest adventures of the man whose name has become, as Meese put it, "a noun, a verb and an adjective." Federalist Society president Eugene Meyer joked that he'd had a passing worry the guest of honor might be wary of speaking in ballrooms for fear of his past injury rate. When George Priest, who took over Bork's antitrust class at Yale Law School, admitted that Bork routinely said horrible things about Yale, and "has now added the Yale Club" to his list, he got a muted chuckle from a clearly uncomfortable crowd. How do you respond, exactly, when your hero has seemingly committed public hypocrisy by embracing the civil lawsuits he once opposed?...

"Bork was savaged because he was honest," said Jonathan Turley of George Washington Law School. "His hearings were refreshingly truthful, direct and substantive," the opposite, as he sees it, of the "contentless" confirmation of John Roberts, who Turley described as looking as though he were "raised hydroponically in the basement of the White House."

To say that recent confirmation hearings have been a disingenuous travesty (witness recent Supreme Court decisions) is not to say that on the merits, Bork should have been confirmed...unless your worldview is that of the Federalist Society.

Seven Lights for the Green Menorah

The Shalom Center:

(Report from Rabbi Arthur Waskow. See below for background and fuller exploration of an extraordinarily rich meeting on energy policy and the danger of global scorching/ climate crisis held by The Shalom Center on June 18, 2007. Out of this meeting came this approach to policy change.)

To save our planet, crops, water supply, & coastlines from the ravages of climate crisis & global scorching, The Shalom Center urges these seven directions of PERSONAL & POLICY change at all governmental levels, corporate and labor-union decisions, and household / congregational action. To work for these policy changes, write Office@shalomctr.org or Shalom Center, 6711 Lincoln Drive, Philadelphia PA 19119.

A. Making carbon pay: making it public policy that carbon emissions into the atmosphere must cost the emitter, whether through a carbon tax or carbon caps, or a combination, and providing for a rising ramp of such costs. At the personal level, this means agreeing as hoiuseholds, congregations, even individuals to reduce our carbon emissions in one area of our lives if we need to increase them in another.

B. Shifting public subsidies, loans, and investments from high-carbon to low-carbon energy sources: Ending subsidies to such carbon-producing sources of energy as coal, oil, and corn-based ethanol; creating and constantly increasing subsidies for research and production of non-carbon-emitting sources of energy such as wind, solar, switch-grass. For individuals and households, this means chamging our purchasing habits, joining wind-energy plans, etc.

C. Energy conservation in buildings. Setting strong building-code regulations for new buildings and retrofitting old ones. We can make these decisions as well in our own homes, our congregational buildings, etc.

D. Energy conservation in transportation: Reducing/ ending subsidies to high-emission forms of transportation (autos and airplanes), imposing costs on them, insisting on strong conservation measures to reduce emissions from autos and airplanes, and raising subsidies to lower-energy-consuming forms of transportation (bikes, rail, walking) and for meetings by teleconferencing, etc., that use less energy. Again, what forms of transpoiration do we choose as households?

E. Whether in actual cities or in suburbs, strongly encouraging urban-style high-density living and discouraging sprawl -- with subsidies, investment in urban recreation, workplaces, etc. vs investment in suburban and low-density housing, long distances between home and workplace, etc.)

F. Focusing education, arts, and science on climate crisis. Subsidizing scientific climate-crisis analysis; climate-centered educational projects throughout school years from pre-K through grad school; support for art, literature, music, dance, film, games, etc. that address climate crisis. In religious life and specifically Jewish life, infusing celebration of festivals, life-cycle markers (esp. intergenerational markers like bar/bat mitzvah & confirmation), prayer, and Torah-study with concern for the earth and climate.

G. Shabbat: Setting aside restful time as practice and model (especially but not exclusively in Jewish life). Encouraging minimal work and use of carbon-emitting energy for the time of Shabbat itself ; and on that principle, making public policy favoring longer vacation and holiday time for family, neighborhood, and communal celebration (as against long-distance high-energy-consuming vacation time).

The Family Jewels | Video

New York Times Video