Friday, October 29, 2004

Off to Reno!

Well, I'm actually going to do it. After years of sitting on my butt complaining, I'm actually volunteering for the Democrats. The Cal Dems are going to Reno to drum up swing voters and I will be going with straight through till Wednesday. I will try to update this blog with photos and interesting accounts if I can.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 1:11 PM
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Thursday, October 28, 2004

Game, set, match

Yahoo reports that satellite footage shows the weapons went missing after the start of the war. Well, that’s the smoking gun, folks. Even I don’t know what the crazies are going to do about this.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 5:11 PM
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Syrian Border as Deus Ex Machina

Have run through all their other excuses for the Al QaQaa scandal in about three days the Republicans have been reduced to saying the Russians took it using the Syrian border. You see, the Syrian border is a magical place where anything you can’t find has probably disappeared to and things you didn’t expect magically show up. The current list of missing items rumored to have gone over the Syrian border thus far includes:

• WMDs
  
• Al QaQaa munitions (380 tons)
  
• Foreign fighters (since it can’t possibly be the Iraqis fighting us)
  
• The remaining Bathists that are behind the insurgency
  
• George Bush’s 90% approval rating
  
• International support
  
• Flu vaccine
  
• Post war plan for Iraq
  
• Osama Bin Laden (that’s how he got into Iraq, don’t you know)
  

If science could somehow find a way to harness the power of this enchanted border perhaps we can cause anything to appear or disappear there. We could get rid of pollution and create fighting dinosaurs to battle terrorists. We could even create a plausible explination for Al QaQaa that absolves Bush. That would be a head trip. We can only hope that Republican talking heads put their minds together and focus on this task before they become too busy trying to figure out why John Kerry won the election.

Update: The Russians are calling the story poppycock and the Pentagon says they have absolutley zero reasons to believe it's true. I wonder what lame reason they're going to pull out of their asses next.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 9:49 AM
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004

More incompetence and the efficacy of the right wing misinformation machine

I want to hand it to the right half of the blogsphere for sticking to the adage of “When life gives you lemons, tell everyone that NBC is working on a report that each lemon in fact contain a golden wish coin.”

So recently, it was revealed that there were not enough troops in Iraq to guard all the explosives in Iraq, specifically the approximately 400 tons now missing from Al QaaQa. Now, a normal person would look at this and say, “There is no way to spin this.” You would be wrong. Let’s take a look at the different “explanations” rightists have been asked to believe in the past two or three days:

The Liberal media will back us up Defense:
Have the Drudge Report throw up a news item that NBC will be reporting that the administration was not at fault. Although NBC is part of the liberal media, they report things helpful from to us from time to time. We can’t exactly explain why. Later, when the NBC article fails to absolve the administration or even reflect anything of what drudge said, we will continue to talk about Drudge as one of the few “legitimate” bloggers.

The shoot the Moon defense:
“Well, if these weapons were so dangerous, don’t they count as WMDs?” Actually, no. They’re only dangerous because we’re in Iraq. Also, you are an idiot.

The chicken hawk defense:
“Typical liberal: blaming the military! You should have more respect for our men and women in uniform.” Well, I guess if we respected them as much as you did, we wouldn’t care to make sure that they had enough of them in Iraq to do the job right. Perhaps if we loved the military so much we’d want to kill 1000 of them off because we couldn’t wait a year or two till Afghanistan was settled.

The Fascist defense:
“This is just another in the complaint of the blame America first crowd. Perhaps if they, like us, understood that Republican presidents embody America they would understand that trying to find out who made a mistake that hurt America is wrong if the person who made that mistake is Bush. Clinton on the other hand is totally to blame for continuing the successful policy of containment. Blaming Clinton is different from blaming America because we say so and we are jerks.”

It was like that when I got here defense.
“Let’s go back to our old logs and see if we can pretend that we had someone look into this right away. Oh! Here’s something. Some American troops rolled through town at the beginning of the war. Let’s just assume they did a thorough search and found everything missing already. What? The commander of that unit gave and interview and explained that he didn’t have a quarter of the troops that he would have needed to check the weapons? He also says that he was too involved in actually fighting to spare men for that task? Hmmmm….”

Blame the UN defense:
“The IAEA was supposed to guard them. They did a bad job.” Well, they were supposed to guard them until Bush told them all to leave. You remember, right? Right before the invasion Bush had all the inspectors leave and Hans Blix was left on the floor of the UN kneeling on his scattered briefcase and papers with that weird look on his face like, “Why? What was… Why?” and he his hands were just opening and closing like he had the weapons in his grasp? Do you remember that? He cried.

The Unknowable unknowns defense:
“Well, I guess it’s just a mystery. Where did the weapons go? Could we have protected them better? Well… we shouldn’t talk about this until after the election… err, I mean after we’ve had a thorough investigation by the Republican congress. Certainly, they’ll get to the bottom of this. What with all those young republican ‘Federalists’ running around we’ll surely take our responsibility to police the presidency seriously. We mean it this time.”

Update: Talking Points Memo goes into more detail about Fox news and Mooney Times spin. In his update he links to a NY Times story where they interview Iraqis that looted Al QaQaa after the US was supposedly in control.

John Kerry in a landslide, people.

Update: This is awsome. Video from reporters embedded with US military showing explosives at the facility a the time US troops were there.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 8:52 AM
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Saturday, October 23, 2004

Dammit Fellow Liberals!

Can we please stop using the word “inequality” when we mean “inequality of opportunity”? In honor of Rebecca's request to keep my posts short I will end right here.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 3:24 PM
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Friday, October 22, 2004

ASUC.org is being completely redesigned.

Yep, my webmaster and I are starting asuc.org from scratch. 'Cause right now it's really ugly and unsalvagable.

So, what do you want to see on the new asuc.org? What features or links or services could make it better? Thanks for your input.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 10:21 AM
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Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Just you wait and see.

Goloshes will be Rainy Season 2004-2005's answer to the Ugg Boot. Mark my words.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 8:43 PM
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Monday, October 18, 2004

Veggie Dating

One of my favorite online vegan recipe sources is vegweb.com; since all recipes are user-supplied, some of them are fairly nasty and/or incomplete, but the majority are healthful, tasty, and unique.

This website also offers personal ads. Geekfest '99. Seriously.

Today I came across Ted, one sexy bitch of a vegetarian. He's old enough to vote, he's Californian, and he's got a stunning smile. It also looks like he's posing on his late grandmother's couch. If I were single and thought meeting people on the internet was a good idea, and if I was desparately alone, I might drop Ted a line. I think you should. I bet Ted's a good guy with a big heart. And an indefatigable head of amber locks.

Ryan here will definitely murder you on your first date. Mark my words.

Scott is servicable, but he used "I" when he should have used "me." Damn Canadians.

Lynd thinks ideas are good things. I couldn't agree more.

And so on.

Note that for some reason most people on this site have "eastern" religions, are non-religious, or are simply atheist. It confounds me that more "conventionally" religious Americans (Christians, Jews, etc.) aren't vegan. It's a lifestyle predicated on the belief that the well-being of other creatures is more important than one's non-essential desires.

Anyhow, point is, browsing VegWeb personals is a great way to waste time at work.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 11:35 AM
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Sunday, October 17, 2004

Thoughts on Jon Stewart’s Crossfire Appearance

I’m sure you’ve all seen Jon Stewart’s horrible smack-down of the Crossfire duo. I was left feeling a little disappointed. Although Stewart obviously has a good point in his head, one which, if properly expressed I would agree with, it was frustrating to watch him try and fail to explain it. He said that the reporters were too quick to jump on something a politician says while simultaneously letting them get away with everything. If you say it like that it really does sound contradictory as Tucker Carlson said. However, I think he was trying to say that opinion journalists are too eager to jump on misstatements (going too hard on them) and too permissive in letting candidates get away with big lies (too easy on them).

All this sounds pretty basic to you and me, and even though the audience understood Jon I sure wish we didn’t have to mind read him to get it. Anyhow, Jon Stewart is still the funniest thing on television and his show will rock for many years to come. If he wants to become an advocate for change in journalism however, he better study up… or hire a bunch of writers.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 2:07 PM
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Saturday, October 16, 2004

Homecoming indeed.

I am. The only person who goes to Cal. Not. At. The. Football. Game.

I assure you that Moffitt Library (or Boyfriend Number Two, as I like to call it), though, is like a house party. Like a goddamned house party.

Sigh. Oh, and go Bears, I guess.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 4:21 PM
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Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Bloggers are people, too. Sad people, sometimes.

I'm almost done. Ten units this semester, four in the spring. Then I'm off to get a teaching credential, hopefully at SF State. After that, besides saving the world, what's next? Marriage, homeownership, child-rearing, obligatory vacations to Europe when I have the money, general malaise of relative affluence? If this is what I have to look forward to, why am I so eager to be done with my undergraduate experience?

Maybe it's Berkeley. The Sproul characters are fun, but they never change. The arguments of angry students are admirable, but nobody ever tries to see anyone's side but their own. The academic courses are awesome, but after a while the reading lists all start to look the same.

Maybe it's my age. I didn't manage to make friends in high school, but I made scores at Cal. But now I have to reexamine what friendship means. Now that I'm already mentally planning my post-grad life, it occurs to me that most the people I've befriended will disappear after May; more upsetting is that I won't care, and they won't care, and we'll make more temporary friends. I'm also more in the throws of being in love than ever before, and the gravity of this privilege is playing no small part in giving me wrinkles.

Maybe it's political. The older I get, the more resigned I am to the fact that life isn't fair. People suffer, and all the blogging in the world won't make people equal. No matter who gets elected, each human is still consigned to pain; there's pain in poverty and in wealth. People are still going to ravage the natural resources that we've commandeered as our own. Americans will always consume more than they need.

What to do about all these boring/obvious/inescapable conclusions? With seven months to go at Cal, and hopefully a few more decades to go on Earth, I suppose the only reasonable action is to remain positive. It's more difficult than it sounds, especially for people like Rebecca C. Brown who really like angst. Even if the Berkeley schtick gets old, at least people are trying to shake up the system. Even if I'm not sure if I even know what real friendship feels like, as long as I think I feel love I'm in the clear. Even if we're all headed to Hell in a Hummer, upholstered with the skins of African AIDS orphans, fueled with the tears of a million abused circus elephants, rolling on tires crafted from millennia-old redwoods, we're all equal when we die (thanks, Defoe), and at least I'm giving it my best shot before that eventual day happens.

I promise my next post will be less Baudrillard and more ASUC insider gossip.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 9:00 PM
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An Open Letter to a Republican Friend

I wanted to expand on the point I should have made earlier. Liberals desire to be proactive in remedying the anti-American illiberalism in the Middle East that terror grows from. I can understand why you could want to divert resources from Afghanistan and the hunt for Bin Laden to radically remake Iraq. But your plan is founded on misconceptions about the origins of American power and the threat we face.

America real power is its moral power. It’s why we won the Cold war. It wasn’t just physically supporting countries struggling with democracy and freedom, but by supporting them in ways consistent with those moral standards. It means that war would only be a last resort (pre-emptive rather than preventative). It means that we support international human rights like democracy even where it’s inconvenient (Saudi Arabia, Guantanamo, most of South America). It means we are extra-skeptical of endeavors that force us to cozy up to illiberal anti-democratic regimes (Uzbekistan, Pakistan). And it means acting clearly, not changing our reasons for war after the fact.

The disease we face now is not the threat of rouge nation states that can be expected to act in their own self-interest. Al-Qaeda is not a subsidiary of Afghanistan. Al Ansar Islam is not amendable to logic. You call attention to Libya (a state that was already negotiating to halt sanctions) as proof that police actions will prove that it’s in a country’s best interest to capitulate. Maybe it is, although the recently awakened nuclear ambitions of Iran and N. Korea prove that there is a big downside to the bluff and bluster strategy if you can’t occupy the whole world. That’s not going to do anything to stop the kind of destruction that happened on 9/11. These illiberal anti-American groups we must dissolve are not going to see the error of their ways and come to the negotiating table. Nor is their system of command going to suffer if we just keep blowing them up in twos and threes. In short, we also need to drain their supply anti-American illiberals they recruit from.

You see Abu Grab as an unacceptable PR problem. (By the way, it involved prison guards [possibly accidentally] murdering inmates and the anal rape of children and women. You wouldn’t have heard that on FOX since unlike all other networks, their reporters were directed to underplay the story.) But, you say, it was worse under Saddam so we’ll get by. NO. That is exactly the wrong way to view it. This is not some kind of small detail in the effort to rehabilitate Iraq, this is the main show. When we removed the government of Iraq, we undertook a new moral responsibility: to make the sacrifices necessary to maintain order and to protect Iraqis.

How can we expect Iraqis to appreciate freedom if we don’t act morally? They see Iraqi companies passed over for crony contractors. They see an administration which fails to follow the plan to keep the peace because they were too expensive and required too many soldiers. They see a president threatening to veto $87 million for reconstruction because he didn’t want to ask the rich to invest in the future. They see the president failing to rally our allies because he refuses to share the responsibility of planning the economy and politics of Iraq. We might be able to fail in these things and still pacify the country. But it won’t cure the problem because the way we win this war is as important as how we win it.

Iran provides the perfect example of what can go wrong. We supported the undemocratic Shah because of his “liberal” (though anti-democratic) society. Result? He’s eventually overthrown and the most twisted form of democracy-in-name only is erected. We amorally support the terrorist-like Mujahideen because it is convenient. Result? Osama and his henchmen now have the know-how to attack us on Sept. 11. We support the anti-democratic Saudi Arabia to keep oil prices steady. Result? To maintain legitimacy, the king has to support the same twisted religious schools that turn out terrorist recruits. We support a secular strongman in Iraq to prevent theocracy. Result? Saddam Hussein.

It’s not that amoral actions always breed failure. But the hazard of taking the easy way out is undeniable. We were more successful where we acted morally.

During the cold war, Reagan’s push for human rights (despite all his other failures) was instrumental in inspiring thoughts of democracy in the countries behind the Iron Curtain. In Kosovo, where we went in with overwhelming force and enough allies to keep the peace the genocide stopped and peace is returning. In post-war Japan, Macarthur allowed even the Communists to participate in elections. Compare this to the Bremer’s ham-handed censorship of Sadr’s al-Hawza newspaper which turned a dissatisfied interest group into a rebel faction.

That’s why we liberals understood that democratizing Iraq by force was going to take a lot of resources we could have used elsewhere. To do the job right (i.e. morally) we would have had to mobilize all the troops Gen. Shinseki said we would. We had to invest the taxes Bush wasn’t willing to raise. It couldn’t be done on the cheap because it wasn’t about knocking Saddam out of the picture. It was about accepting a new moral responsibility to help the Iraqi people. That’s why we’re upset that Bush wouldn’t let the UN have a hand in the planning in return for some help. That’s why we get so upset at the rights violations in Guantanamo and the meaningless torture and killings in Abu Gareb. And that’s why we’re upset with the Bush administration. In short; that’s why we’re liberals.

I wish I could divorce the idea of the Iraq war from the way it has actually been administered. In principal, we could have had a good argument about whether the “ideal” Iraq war would have been the best way of bringing freedom to the Middle East. I am confident that a moral version of the Iraq war could be fought. It would have required so many resources though, possibly even a draft (which many liberals support), that it would be clear that our other goals (catching bin Laden, pushing heavy on Saudi Arabia to open up, restoring order to all of Afghanistan) would suffer. We didn’t get that moral war however; just the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time.

We support the current effort in Iraq, and will press for victory, but we should not pretend that it was a good idea to start it then just becuase it's a good idea to continue it now.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 8:13 AM
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Sunday, October 10, 2004

George Lakoff's new book: Don't think of an Elephant. Get it today!

I got it. Read it. It's totally awsome. If you are a liberal and want to know why and how we are going to win this short book is for you.

No seriously. Go read it now.

Facts Machine... I'm looking in your direction.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 6:30 PM
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Friday, October 08, 2004

Catch Phrase for the New Millennium: "Where's the Sombrero?"

That old fart from the 1984 Wendy's commercial has nothing on me.

Anyhow, many congratulations to Heuristic Squelch Editor-in-Chief, 2003 ASUC senate candidate, and all around cool dude Matthew Arthur Loker on his very first Daily Californian column. You should read it. It's insightful. And it has nothing to do with Cal, Christianity, or cunnilingus, so I'm happy.

What's with the sombrero headline, then? Well, Matt originally wanted his column picture to be of him donning said headgear. Obviously one of two things happened: the DC wouldn't let him wear a silly hat in would should be a serious publication, or else he just couldn't get his hands on a big Mexican hat in time for the photo. My guess is the latter.

Instead, the picture features Matt in all his hippie-haired glory flashing the "shocker." For those of you unfamiliar with this guesture, think of it as the college man's (or women's, for that matter) gang sign. Bloods. Crips. Jolly good time.

Matt's column has inspired me to want my own weekly DC feature next semester. (You know that Rebecca C. Brown can't stand not getting maximum exposure.) All I need to think of is an angle. (Oh yeah, and an OGB membership. Or is it the other way around?) Maybe my column could be Sex on Tuesday meets The Economist. Front page story: "George W. Bush's foreign (object) policy and your clitoris: Is this a war we can win?"

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 1:52 PM
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Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Why I don't like PETA: Meat, it turns out, is not murder.

I've been a vegan just short of seven years...about a third of my life. That makes me one of the 1% of Americans who abstains from meat (including poultry, fish, and, yes, even "stupid" animals like shrimp), dairy, eggs, and gelatin. It seems natural to many people that because we vegans are such a small yet convicted group of eaters that we would all band together with one mindset, one set of goals, and one attitude toward our chosen diet (and toward people who don't adhere to our diet, which is 99% of you); Joe Omnivore for some reason tends to think that we all jive with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the nation's most visible animal rights groups.

But alas, PETA bugs the heck out me and most my vegan friends. They are nothing short of a half-assed militant group who thinks that the road to unerstanding is paved with judgement, self-reightousness, and fear.

For example, many Cal students have seen the large PETA displays on campus that visually and textually liken animal cruelty to the Holocaust. Hmm. Let's think about this. "You know what would be a great way to recruit people to our vegetarian lifestyle? By alienating them and comparing one of the most tragic events of the 20th century to a legal and socially acceptable practice such as meat eating! This won't offend anyone who's lost a loved one to genocide!" Yee haw, PETA. In general, PETA public demonstrations are obnoxious, and ineffective at best.

Or how about this suggestion, from animalactivist.com, a sub-site at peta.org:

Within earshot of other shoppers in the checkout line, talk with a friend about the television special that you saw on animal experimentation. Have loud conversations on the subway or bus about how great it is to be vegetarian. Be sure to carry literature with you so that when everyone around you starts asking questions, you can provide them with more information. People eavesdrop all the time—use their nosiness to animals’ advantage.

No! Being loud and obnoxious and smug is a terrible way to get people interested in your ideas. This website, plus many PETA pages, also say that massive flyering is a good way to get the word out...'cause if there's one thing that's gonna save the animals, it's exausting reems of bleached paper. Oh yeah.

What about the well-known PETA maxim "meat is murder"? Well, I'm not a law student, but doesn't murder mean that the killing is illegal? I think that using animals for food, clothing, and entertainment is one of the most disgusting and shameless institutionalized forms of abuse in this country, but I'm not going make stuff up in order to get my point across. By making exaggerations, you say to the general public, "I'm right, you're a murderer. I'm saved, you're destined for brimstone."

Lastly (and I'm leaving a novellette of stuff out), PETA panders to the power celebrity, even if it means having spokespeople who have compromised beliefs about animal rights. Pamela Anderson, for example, has become a prominent icon for PETA, due in no small part to the cute contradiction that a beautiful woman would actually have, like, beleifs. She protests furs, and is even identified as a vegetarian. But she eats seafood and other animal products. Why is this a problem? It's not that I oppose support having a broad range of degrees of animal rights lifestyles and beliefs under one organization; it's that I oppose an organization touting celebrities who have lifestyles and beliefs that the organization simultaneously likens to murder. With such a non-inclusive brand of ideology, it's annoying that PETA can only find kind words for "murderers" who have media appeal.

Why can't there be an animal rights organization that believes that compassion and love are the best ways to promote a diet choice that is in fact about compassion and love? How about a coalition of people who supports all forms of animal rights; rather than claiming that eating animals is murderous, this group could say that any small effort that a consumer makes - be it to eat meat once less every week, or to avoid shampoos that test on animals - is a positive step toward a better planet, whether or not you have the resources and desire to be hard core all the time.

After all, you don't win friends with salad.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 9:27 AM
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Sunday, October 03, 2004

I'm not a Republican, I swear...A belated commentary on the increased UC minimum GPA from a decidedly "left" thinker.

Okay, so we've all read and heard too much reaction to this as it is (especially from bloggers), but now it's my turn to put in my two cents. (Just in case you were living under a rock for the past two weeks [I guess Berkeley housing is more scant than I thought], the Daily Cal article is here.) Where to start?

Okay, the most obvious critique of the backlash first. What's with this argument? "Hey, minorities can't get 3.0 GPAs! Rather than attempt to provide said minorities with more educational resources in high school that would afford them the chance to get better grades, let's just keep the standards low! It's the American goddamned way!" I'm not gonna pull that cute "the protesters are racist" claptrap that some of my conservative blogging friends have tried to pass off as insight. But I don't see why the solution to the problem of lack of diversity should be a flimsy bandage; the solution needs to by systemic because the causes are systemic. Obviously making poor schools more equipped to produce college students is expensive, but if all the energy and money invested in fighting raised standards were invested into root-cause programs such as Teach for America, the dent would be significant.

Second, GPAs aren't SAT scores; they're fairly comprehensive, and not determined by for-profit organizations. Grades in high school are for the most part given relative to a person's classmates, and take into account how hard he's willing to work (not just how well he does on tests...even in my college prep classes in high school, exams never made up more than half my grade). If you can't muster a B average in high school, well, you don't belong in the UC system. Apparently an epidemic problem in the UCs is that students get in, then get left in the dust because they can't compete; I don't happen to think that it's the university's job (especially not at Berkeley) to hold students' hands and show them how to handle college life. If a student can't manage as many A's and C's in high school, then I fully support her going to Cal State Long Beach or a JC, easing into the college experience, getting awesome grades the first two years, then transfering to a UC if she wants. What I don't want is unqualified students feeling sorry for themselves when Berkeley kicks their ass the first year. I sucked it up here at Cal my first semester, but rather than complaining that the university wan't offering me enough resources, I got my shit together the second semester, and every year's GPA has been better than the previous for me. It's not that hard!

And, for the record, the 3.0 GPA minimum is on an unweighted 4.0 scale, so the availability of AP classes isn't a factor in who gets to come to a UC. Also, only 1% of Cal had a high school GPA under 3.0, so this measure isn't affecting the most selective UCs that much anyway.

Anyhow, it's not that I don't think that ethnic diversity on is an unimportant issue; it bothers me that my campus is disproportionately un-black/Latino/southeast Asian/etc. These demographics are indicative of the systemic discrepancies between wealth and education. I grew up among the poorest of the poor, and I know how much poor schools get shit on. The job of the state is to stop shitting on poor schools, not to lower the standards that make these universities desirable places to attend to begin with.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 1:47 PM
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