Volunteer Tailgate Party
...at Les Jones Blog. It's a compilation of recent posts submitted by "Rocky Top Brigade" bloggers with connections to Tennessee. Quick takes on a few:

Glenn Reynolds is right: I'd link to and read a blog that focused on news about my home town or county. I'd prefer a citizen voice to a newspaper one, but I'd even link to a newspaper blog about local news. Hmm... maybe there is one...

How about that! Les Jones is a two-time Clinton voter. So am I. Les holds Kerry's opposition to the Viet Nam war against him -- no, that's not right, it's more that he holds what he sees as Kerry's calculated gestures against him. He also holds Kerry's opposition to the Gulf War against him; I agree more with that. (Al Gore had it right, back then.) As far as I'm concerned, there's too much else at stake not to vote for Kerry if (when?) it comes to that. But I'd prefer Edwards -- despite concerns about his views on free trade.

Check out Peggy's report of Edwards' campaign stop in Knoxville. Nice writing, it gives me a good sense of what's appealing about Edwards.

I liked Janet Dagley's conversation with Mr. (Surprise) Swing Voter, her commentary, and the sense that working for her friend's vote is not a waste of time even if he's in a different political camp.

Brian, who is "Voluntarily in China," makes a good point about pirated DVDs in China: they introduce the Chinese viewers to America directly, with no intervention by Chinese government censorship. But I'm not sure he makes his title's case ("...doing Hollywood a great service") in that even if the pirated DVDs create a demand to see more movies... they'll be pirated, too.

Check out the rest of the posts as well! posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:15:00 PM -- |    

 
Briefly noted

Marriage Amendment: In the current issue of the New Republic, Jacob Levy zeroes in on the "incidents thereof" part of the proposed "Federal Marriage Amendment" too. He also points out that the amendment takes the unusual step of federally prescribing how a state court may interpret state law.

He concludes, "We're left with an amendment that achieves social conservative aims by subverting both the separation of powers and federalism. In this case, a bad cause seems to have made for bad law." Well, not yet.

AFSCME's Gerald McEntee excoriated ...by Mark Shields, in the Washington Post and in this article for CNN, for retracting his endorsement of Howard Dean. The Post title: "Solidarity Forever: The Abridged Version." Shields doesn't strike me as a Deaniac, but I haven't been watching the Lehrer Hour much recently. I think he's mainly aghast that a union president would be so casually careless with his word. (I thought it was shabby myself.) As another union leader puts it, "your word is your bond... It's a terrible precedent."

posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:17:00 AM -- |    

 
Those were the days, my friend
Over at my favorite German blog "le sofa blog," this reminiscence by Peter Praschl:

completely pointless memory of 1995, netscape 1.0, logging in over the 'federal data autobahn', an e-mail address with a mail.provi.de component, m's question, what I was getting out of being able to find out how full a coffee machine in berkeley (elite university!) was, my answer ("nothing, but you don't understand that.") (link added)

Praschl's post has drawn 62 comments last time I checked -- a lot of people suddenly struck (again) by how different it all is now.

My introduction to computers began at UC Davis in the mid 1980s, struggling into the night with Fortran, then Pascal, then Modula, writing disease diagnosis programs and maze solving routines, and messaging classmates on the UNIX system (with servers named Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. Those wacky computer geeks).

I remember I set up a mailing list of nuclear freeze supporters on the campus computer system -- now it can be revealed. Sortable by zip code, precinct, that kind of thing. I did it out of an office using a phone modem where you put the phone itself into a two-holed receptacle, I think it must have 9600 speed maximum. Used a TV for the computer screen.

Later on, Michigan, 1994, I finally got my own PC with - gasp - a 14400 modem, set up an America Online account -- thomasn528@aol.com -- and started to surf the net. Kind of. AOL was a good way to start for me.

Yep, we were computin' out on the prairie, in a covered wagon, in a blizzard, with nothin' but a 14400 modem and 486x PC ... and a dream! (Geezer voice) We wuz pioneers, son! You kids have it so easy now... posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:04:00 AM -- |    

 
Google image search mystery solved!
It's been bugging me for a while: why such a high proportion of Google hits to my site are about an image of some fellow poking through the rubble of a Predator strike in Yemen. The image shows the remains of a vehicle with 6 Al Qaeda in Yemen (not much left). I mentioned the news in this post ("Excellent") in November of 2002, and linked to the image, an AP photo in the New York Times. Seems like a long time ago.

I tried Googling "yemen predator", "yemen harithi", "yemen al qaeda", etc., but the solution was simpler. It turns out that if you just search for "Yemen" on Google Image, my post is in the top 20 image referrers, right at number 20.

That seems like an odd result to me, I think many hundreds of sites should outrank mine. Guess that's why I'm not in that line of work.

Perhaps of greater interest
My obsessive hunt through GoogleLand may have briefly made me one of the best informed persons in southern Maryland about Yemen -- worse luck for you, dear reader.

The news peg for recent higher interest in Yemen may be either of two late January stories. In one, Yemeni authorities confirmed that they authorized the Predator strike. A second story, reported in the Dubai's Gulf News, involves an alleged Al Qaeda offer to the Yemenis to forego attacking "Western interests" in Yemen if the government ceased cooperating with the United States. The message described Yemen as the "second partner" of America, next to Pakistan. The Yemen Observer reports ("Authenticity of Al-Qaeda remarks cast in doubt") that Yemeni officials denied there was such an offer:

"It is a bad habit to publish such statements on the internet," the source said. "The falseness of the remarks has been proved. Such remarks just serve as media bombshells strewn about by elements who are working to stir up disorder." [...]

Meanwhile, sources who said they belong to Al-Qaeda denied truth of the statements, saying Al-Qaeda had issued no such remarks at the present time. They blamed foreign intelligence services for preparing such statements to sow disorder among elements of the network.

Kind of entertaining either way.

There's also news, in a December 2003 BBC story, that Yemeni officials are having success "turning" some Al Qaeda sympathizers by ... discussing the Koran with them. Islamic Judge Humoud Hattar explains:

"The results depend on convincing people through the Koran and Islamic texts. Young people should accept those texts and comply with them."

Yes, I suppose they should. Nice news, on the face of it. I'd still keep an eye on Mr. Hattar's graduates for a while, but that's just me.


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UPDATE, 2/21: The image has dropped out of the top 20 Google Image hits for "Yemen" now; it's currently at 26. I suppose if there's fresh Al Qaeda-related news out of Yemen, I'll see more visits from this source again. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:23:00 PM -- |    

 
American heroes
The Underground Railroad is commemorated with the documentary "Whispers of Angels." Have a look, it's playing on PBS stations, perhaps in honor of Black History Month.

The documentary mentions William Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Thomas Garrett, to name a few. All played a part in the Underground Railroad, the network that helped slaves escape to freedom in the north and Canada.

There's an interesting item in Smithsonian Magazine about another Underground Railroader: Thaddeus Stevens. He's much better known as the quintessential Radical Republican -- post Civil War Republicans who insisted (with mixed success) on recognizing African Americans as citizens and enforcing their rights in the post war South. Stevens was largely responsible for the 14th and 15th Amendments after the Civil War.

What was unknown until recently was that his house, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was almost certainly a way station of the Underground Railroad. A secret cistern seems to serve no other purpose, according to historian James Delle: "Usually I’m debunking these sites. But in this case, I can think of no other possible explanation." Stevens didn't just hide fugitive slaves:

Stevens also paid a spy to report on slave catchers active in the area, passing on what he learned to fugitives. "I have a spy on the spies and thus ascertain the facts,” he wrote to his fellow abolitionist, Jeremiah Brown, in 1847. "All this, however, must remain secret or we will lose all the advantages we now have. These are the eighth set of slaves I have warned within a week."

Sadly, incredibly, Thaddeus Stevens' home in Lancaster has received less care than that of fellow Lancastrean James Buchanan, Lincoln's ineffectual and nearly treasonous predecessor in the Oval Office. Much of the building will be demolished to make room for a convention center, although the rest will be preserved as a museum about Stevens.

If a hypocrite like Thomas Jefferson deserves a monument in Washington, D.C., people like Stevens and Douglass, Garrison, Tubman, and Garrett deserve a greater one. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:02:00 PM -- |    

 
My goodness

Startling photo of German interior minister Otto Schily, at the European Police Congress, via Reuters.

I confess I had no idea what a good and holy man Schily is. We're lucky he's on our side; I should think John Ashcroft would want to listen carefully to everything he says. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:00:00 PM -- |    

 
Oppose the "Marriage Amendment"
There was a good article about the looming "Federal Marriage Amendment" in Saturday's Washington Post -- "Little Consensus on Marriage Amendment", by Alan Cooperman -- that crystallized my opposition to this unnecessary, wrong-headed, divisive amendment.

The "Musgrave amendment" text likely to be submitted to state legislatures for approval is:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

Supporters are engaging in creative obfuscation to rebut one obvious concern, stated in the article by Eugene Volokh:

[Volokh] poses the hypothetical case of a gay man trying to add his partner to an insurance policy. The insurance administrator turns him down. The man argues that, under the state's civil union law, he and his partner must be treated as a married couple. "Not so," the administrator replies. "The Federal Marriage Amendment specifically says that no state law shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples."

If the gay couple went to court, Volokh said, judges might well agree with the administrator.

"Might" is one way of putting it. "Would damn near have to" is another. Any other interpretation is a distraction and a lie. Enter amendment co-author Robert Bork:

Bork, a former federal judge, called Volokh's argument "unrealistic."

"This whole thing," he said, "is really in response to courts that are running away" in favor of homosexual partnerships, not against them. "If there were any ambiguities," he said, "courts that are inclined toward civil unions would resolve them in that direction."

What kind of attitude is that?! "It's just a little old amendment, folks will interpret it however they want." Bork is either a fool, a liar, a homophobe, or most likely all three. It's a good thing the good guys kept him off the Supreme Court once upon a time.

This amendment is a shameful travesty. We don't use the Constitution to find ways to unnecessarily limit personal freedom, and we don't use it to enforce religious values. I will help fight this tooth and nail. Bring 'em on.


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EDIT, 2/19: "Federal" instead of "Family", 1st sentence. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:26:00 PM -- |    

 
The only thing we have to fear is... ?
Jim Henley welcomes John Kerry's view that the Administration is abusing Americans' fear of further attacks ("George Bush has announced that he intends to make national security the key issue of this campaign: preemption, war on terror," Kerry said. "It's gonna be another one of these 'culture of fear' elections.") After considering a David Brooks column, Jim adds:

If you still feel "every day" the way you felt on September 12, 2001, and you did not personally lose a loved one to the savages, there is something wrong with you. Snap out of it. You are indulging yourself and it is unseemly.

I don't know which is more unseemly: to indulge in obsessive fear, or to presume to judge someone else is doing so. Let's call it a tie. I've never liked someone else sticking my neck out for them, or prescribing the level of risk I "ought" to be willing to tolerate.

To be clear, I don't feel like it's "9/12 every day," and some of Brooks' language was a little over the top for me. But to the extent it reflected that 9/11 was a focusing event, I agree with Brooks' language a lot more than I do with Henley's. There are people out there who would be happy to slaughter me and my family and my neighbors in their thousands, and lack only the means and opportunity to do so. There are more people out there who would dance in the streets once it happened. And there are more yet who would take two minutes of silence -- who knows, maybe even three -- to mourn the victims. And then go about their business as usual.

So I'm not inclined to apologize about thinking a lot about 9/11, about how to prevent or at least put off another day like it, even if that might earn me the label "sniveling coward." And ceteris paribus I'd prefer a president who does dwell on 9/11 to one who doesn't. The issue is what is undue fear-mongering, and what is clear-eyed understanding of the dangers around us.

Postscript
A year or so ago I had a talk with someone who's much more in Henley's corner about these matters. Things got a little heated, and when I suggested that he might be able to afford a relaxed view given the small town he lives in, far from any likely attack -- not Jim's situation, by the way -- he got upset. "If you feel that threatened, move!" he said. Me and the rest of the eastern seaboard? Where to? We'll be right over. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:01:00 PM -- |    

 
Some good news
Following up on the case I mentioned last Tuesday, the subpoenas against a number of anti-war protesters at Drake University have been dropped. But Iowa ACLU director R. Ben Stone makes a point:

"Despite any retreat by the Iowa U.S. Attorney," Mr. Stone said, "there remain serious questions about the scope of this particular investigation. If it was just a trespassing investigation, why seek the membership records of the National Lawyers Guild? If this was an attempt to chill protests through the aggressive policing of a run-of-the-mill crime, we've got a serious problem in America."

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh says that the court order barring Drake University officials from discussing the case was itself a serious First Amendment violation, and promises a discussion soon.

According to an earlier item by Volokh, the situation was not as cut and dried as I thought, since the meeting involved may have involved planning a criminal act -- albeit a minor one, trespassing:

These sorts of subpoena cases are, I think, quite hard. Subpoenas asking about what was said at political meetings do risk deterring people from participating in such meetings; and this sort of inquiry, together with the subpoena of university records related to the group (which seem unlikely to be particularly relevant, or particularly informative), seems rather disproportional to the misdemeanor offenses involved here.

Nonetheless, meeting in order to plan an illegal activity may well be criminal conspiracy. The line between criminal conspiracy and protected advocacy is at times hard to draw (my Crime-Facilitating Speech article touches on one aspect of this difficulty), but if the speech was essentially detailed planning of what to do, coupled with mutual agreement to commit criminal acts -- e.g., "At 10 a.m., we'll all show up here; you folks go here to block this location until they arrest you; if they arrest you, become limp, and throw a kick or two; are we all agreed?" -- then there is pretty clearly a constitutionally unprotected conspiracy going on here. That the conspiracy (if there is one) was organized at a political meeting doesn't make the meeting immune from government investigation.

Bottom line: yes, trespassing is illegal. No, that doesn't justify shooting this kind of fly with the cannon of federal subpoenas for membership records and meeting notes. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:56:00 PM -- |    

 
Schroeder vs. Bild
In happier days, German "media chancellor" Gerhard Schroeder liked to say, "Auf 'Bild' und Glotze kommt es an" -- "It all comes down to 'Bild' and the tube."* Bild -- the word just means "picture" -- is a boulevard press paper published by the Springer family. It's similar to the "Sun" in the U.K., complete with cheesecake girlie photos and a determinedly common touch. Schroeder's phrase seemed to embrace the reality of big media in Germany, or at least act savvy about it, rather than decry it.

These days aren't quite as happy. A week ago, Schroeder reacted to falling poll numbers and unrest within his SPD party by stepping down as chairman -- a major step for an acting leader of a parliamentary democracy, but not one that seems to have benefited either Schroeder or the SPD yet. Now he and new party chairman Muentefering are taking the classic loser's position of blaming the media for their troubles. And ironically, the main object of their ire is Bild. SPIEGEL's Markus Deggerich reports:

The SPD leaders have thundered against "Bild" both in party and cabinet meetings. Schroeder reminded listeners that it was the Springer press who used all the means at their disposal to prevent the re-election of the SPD/Green coalition in 2002. ... Everyone who couldn't discipline himself was providing the Springer press with material and opportunities to destabilize the [SPD/Green] government project.

Deggerich goes on to observe that

Schoeder und Muentefering are building up an image of the enemy to close their own ranks. [Socialist] comrades fall in reflexively when threatened by the "bourgeois."

Even if it's just Bild, it seems like a bonehead move to whine about a newspaper like that. Already, an outfit called Medien Tenor is claiming its research (PDF file) shows that Bild is merely in the middle of the pack with its generally critical coverage of Schroeder, with several respectable left-wing newspapers -- including Sueddeutsche and Die Zeit -- at least as critical of Schroeder as Bild over the last couple of years.

Perhaps needless to say, Medien Tenor doesn't let us in on how it goes about judging whether an article about Schroeder is "positive" or "negative," or whether it gives any thought to circulation, vehemence, or accuracy. The point is, this is an argument Schroeder just can't win. It's surprising that he even tried.

"Auf Bild und Glotze kommt es an." Well, there's always "Glotze."


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* The phrase may have predated Schroeder, but he certainly gave it a lift. "Glotze" means +/- "a thing you stare at", so "boob tube" or "tube" is a reasonable translation. posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:22:00 AM -- |