I'm not the only one who didn't show up on time this week-Charlemagne and Bagehot also have the week off. Kisses to you, and magic is in the air. (Actually, your resident moron who reads the magazine was out of town and got his copy late in the game. Back to regular schedule, but let's clear the floor.)
-Well, The Economist can't talk about the Olympics, and it published at a time when it couldn't know that Georgia V. Russia was going to hit. So here's some of the news that went under the burner when the oven exploded.
-Pakistan decided to try to impeach their President, which is a hell of a lot nicer then the way they normally change leaders in Pakistan. Actually, punching him in the stomach would still be a step in the right direction, so make sure you send a thank-you card. According to people who would know, you have a year.
-You'd think taking the time to study and become a professional neuroscientist might prevent someone from becoming a terrorist, but then again, you aren't Aafia Siddiqui. She went the other way.
-Somebody yelled "Landslide" and 145 Indian's got trampled in the non-landslide confusion. No landslide, just trampling. Like a Pearl Jam concert, only much more tragic and without a crying Eddie Vedder.
-Rwandan government officals accused a whole lot of French officials, including the former president and two prime ministers, of actively supporting the '94 genocide. I try not to make snarky jokes about genocide--easy to do this time, because...I mean, really?
-Italy is pulling an NYC subway station era 2002, and putting fully loaded soldiers on the streets for six-months because of "crime problems" which means that before too long, a shoplifter is going to get killed by a machine gun. Good call, that one.
-Before you get nervous and worry that you might be one of the 40 million people whose credit and debit card numbers were stolen, ask yourself: Don't I deserve to be punished for shopping at TJ Maxx? Yes. Yes you do.
-Whole Foods isn't doing well, which is totally attributed to the fact that they don't sell Sara Lee Pecan Coffee Cakes, so fuck you and change your stocking decisions, Whole Foods.
Leaders
-Can an ex-bishop from the jungles of liberation theology help fix Paraguay's struggling economy, crime, and hideous poverty? Can anything? My money is on no, but that's because I've basically given up. Best of luck to Fernando Lugo. Best of luck to us all! Merry Christmas! Go Steelers! Mazel Tov?
-There's two articles this week on quite a few subjects--the cover feature on Solzhenitsyn, another double shot about a cartoon character, and then there's the Economist taking a couple of different looks at the recent Lambeth conference between Anglican Christians. In a way, the Lambeth conference was sort of like the Civil War--the easy way to answer the question to the Civil War is "It was about slavery" and the easy way to explain the Lambeth Conference is "It was about homosexuality." Why the Economist cares, I'm not altogether sure--they've made their point multiple times, that they support gay marriage, support gay anything, and also that they take as much of a secular position as is journalisticly possible anytime religion comes up. The question I have with there coverage is: Well, why talk about Lambeth at all? The majority of the people on the outer sides of the debate didn't show, little got resolved regarding the schism, and it was mostly just another collection of various fringe lunatics screaming down any decent conversation. It's just pomp and circumstance, and without any significant opinion to give on the subject, I wonder why they even care. I certainly could give a shit. Win, lose or draw--it's hard to buy into the concept that what Anglican officials end up saying is going to have much of an impact on the greater public opinion--for example, if the Pope hopped out on his ridiculous balcony tomorrow and made out with Tom Ford, I don't think that a bunch of Catholics are going to all of a sudden start watching Queer as Folk. They'd just find a way to get rid of him and find another Pope to tell people that masturbation will send them to hell, and shit would keep on staying the same.
-This one though, well, that's just funny. Two articles about a manga character? From a manga that's only been translated a few times, and is no longer in print in the English speaking world? It's not that I'm not interested to read about Kosaku Shima--if anything I'd love to read it, and would certainly que up to purchase it, but...seriously? Two articles about a Japanese cartoon character, and the second article references that it stopped being believable in recent years? It's like reading the Wall Street Journal and having them talk about how great it would be if the CEO of Washington Mutual acted like Bruce Wayne, but only during the years when Alan Grant was the writer, because later on Batman started taking heroin and hanging out with dead homeless people.
-Did I say that they doubled up on Solzhenitsyn? In a way, they actually tripled. Again, if there was an article of the week feature, which I guess there is, then here you go: a three page write-up on the current state of Russian intelligentsia. If you like it when you know the truth, and you don't mind the taste of a broken heart jumping out of your chest cavity, then here you go: whether it's a bunch of artists lining up to serve fascism, or a group of people so broken by fear that they won't even protest the shocking murder of one of the few champions of truth that Russia has recently had (Anna Politkoveskaya), this is a pull-no-punches look at a place in the world that had seemed to have finally emerged from the shadow of Stalin, only to discover that it's best and brightest have either fled or become fat and lazy off the bribes of gangsters.
Letters
-Here's some testicular twisting for you, but first, background: Georgia v. Russia started after the publication of the magazine, so the only mention of that region is a hint of turmoil later in the Europe section. Now, you know Georgia is a sovereign state, right? That's what it is. It's a sovereign nation. Now, the director of policy planning from Moscow's Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes in to complain about the way the Economist has been covering his country--part of his defense of recent behavior is that Putin and Medvedev have the "overwhelming support of the Russian public" which is a clever statement, based in the reality that the Russian public hasn't had any sort of option BUT to be supportive since they replaced Boris "The Smiling Drunk" Yeltsin with Vladimir "I Know How Good Human Flesh Tastes" Putin. Then he goes on to say that the reason Russia vetoed possible sanctions against Zimbabwe, a country which is sort of a great example of your worst possible fantasy about fascism and horror, is that Russians "do not believe in the punishment or isolation of sovereign states."
Oh.
So when did you change your mind, you bloodthirsty piece of shit?
United States
-Off-shore drilling and its place on the campaign table starts it off. I'm disappointed to learn that off-shore rigs have become safe enough that Floridians don't have to live in fear of an Exxon Valdez incident, because I've never had a good trip to Florida, except for the time I hung out with a Cuban who was hand-making the tiles that would serve as the floor for the drug-dealers house in Michael Mann's Miami Vice remake. Besides him, I don't really like Florida very much. Oh, and neither Obama nor McCain really have a plan on the drilling yet--I mean, they've said stuff, but it conflicts with stuff they've said before, it's August, who fucking knows. Come January, we could be drilling for oil inside Angelina Jolie's womb, nobody knows.
-Not a lot of info on the trial of Osama bin Laden's driver, especially because the important stuff (like why they let a confession that may/probably was produced by torture admissible) was redacted and/or held from observers. That's the way the tribunals go, so it's not really a big shocker--but at the same time, you'd think the guys in charge would want to go large on the facts of this specific case. Hiding them just makes it seem like every hardcore conspiracy has weight. All that aside, after reading Steve Coll's excellent The Bin Laden's book, I don't have much empathy for Osama's circle of hanger-ons. I hope the guy is guilty, and I hope that this isn't a miscarriage of justice--I just wish there was some more evidence to base that hope on--which is why they probably used a military tribunal, because "Guilty beyond reasonable doubt" seems unlikely to have been the verdict in a normal court of law.
-The write-up on old Bruce Ivins, the wacked out sunuvagun who sent anthrax around to various peeps isn't for the quick-to-paranoia--after plowing through the varied reasons why he was able to hide for so long, the first being "it was really fucking easy," the Economist points out that these sorts of attacks aren't really that difficult to pull off, and that we're supposed to count on Wal-Mart to distribute the antidote if a widespread biological attack occurred. Really. I'm supposed to count on Wal-Mart? I can't count on Wal-Mart to properly lick a fucking stamp.
-The swing state of the week is Colorado, and how it turned purple. (For those who care, or haven't already picked up on this growing trend, you call a state "purple" when it's neither red or blue, because politics have to be boiled down as simply as possible for the sort of people who base their vote on "Which candidate is most likely to kill the people who disagree with me?") I've been to Colorado, and can firmly tell you that yes, it is very pretty. It has many fine shops, and I saw The Prestige there in a dollar movie theater. The teenage girls are just as obnoxious and loud as they are in New York, the chain restaurants have the same interior decoration as they do anywhere, and the locals have that same "we're the best" attitude that all locals have, even the ones in El Salvador, which is the murder capital of the world. If you care to find out how they went from red to...goddammit, "purple" then here's your article. If you want to know quickly, here you go: a bunch of liberals moved there. Boom, you're done.
-Lexington asks the question "Is America beginning to weary of 'Yes We Can'?" He seems to think yes, and while I can't give any anecdotal evidence to back him up--because my own personal research seems to tell me that the local NYC Obamaniacs are still rubbing one out to that fearsome Rolling Stone cover from a few months ago--I do think that if the quote from Lili Haydn gets more play, then maybe some people will stop treating a political campaign for president like they're in the fucking Babysitters Club. Her quote is this "Barack Obama is inspiring us like a desert lover, a Washington Valentino. Couples all over America are making love again and shouting "Yes we can" as they climax." Excuse me. I have to cut off my penis now. I don't think it's going to work again.
The Americas
-Hugo Chavez figured out that the way to make sure things work right in Venezuela is to give up on that whole "give the people what they want"--he's moved onto the "Here's your new laws I wrote by myself! GET OUT OF MY NEW HOUSE OLD LADY" portion of leadership. That's my favorite part, because it always ends in people smiling and holding hands while we listen to Mike & The Mechanics.
-Well, that's interesting. I've always thought those sorts of harm reduction programs Canada has for drug users were pretty useful, but apparently providing a safe place for heroin users to shoot up hasn't helped stem new HIV infections, crime, or lessened the overdose rate. It hasn't really made it worse, but it's failed to produce any benefits. At all. I guess we really should just kill all the junkies. Wait, I don't mean that. No, really, I don't. I like junkies. My mom is a big time junkie, and she's the tits. Seriously, she shoots up junk in her toes, always stealing my VCR, I love her to pieces. I'm taking her to Coney Island next week. She'll go score, I'll ride the Cyclone. Awesome. A perfect Wednesday.
-I love the solution to making saving the rain forest profitable for those who live in The Amazon. The solution? Just ask for money. That's it, just say "hey, we'll cut this down unless you give us money." I mean, I think that sounds kind of like blackmail. But it's just so ballsy I don't think I care.
Asia
-The king of Tonga is finally giving up his powers, leading me to wonder how many places are still rocking Kings and Queens with some serious muscle. I'm sure there's an episode of Sunset Tan to distract me from such concerns. Shiny things!
Middle East And Africa
-There's a nice little piece here about how the Arab world feels about the American presidential candidates, especially where it's pointed out that the main reason the Arab world sort of seems to not care is that they have moved into the Bill Hicks phase of political thought, the part where you just go "The puppet on the left is more to my liking" and then you change the tone of your voice and say "Well, I prefer the puppet on the right." Then somebody starts talking about the Green party and everybody breaks their spine rolling their eyes.
Europe
-As mentioned above, the Economist missed the start of the Russian conflict by hours, so here's their article where they predict bad times coming and lock in the right to say "Told you so."
Britain
-If you're an Olympic fanatic waiting for the games to get going again, here's an article about how horribly London is handling the whole "get ready for 2012" set up.
-If you're not an Olympic fanatic, but you like cutesy shit, here's an article all about how a group of people are trying to get Roosevelt Island style cable cars, which apparently are nowhere near as useless as that Spider-Man movie led me to believe.
Business
-This article about the Microsoft Vista ad campaign is pretty fucking great, especially because they take the screws to them for those awful "you were using Vista the whole time" videos, and even more so because you can tell whoever wrote it really likes the Cripsin Porter & Bogusky company. (And if you don't like CPB, then you really need to check your taste. Anybody who hires Peter Stormare deserves a Heisman trophy.)
Finance and Economics
-An anonymous essay from a risk manager at a large global bank who takes two pages to tell you that the credit crisis isn't his fault because he and risk managers have a hard time saying no to financial chiefs. If you read this, and you feel sorry for this whining asshole who clearly cares more about his job then any of the people who are now living in a Holiday Inn, then you and I probably wouldn't get along. And I can cook a mean ass quesadilla, so that's totally on you.
Science and Technology
-The world of fingerprinting is finally going to be more like CSI, and something tells me that rubber glove sales are going to go up. There's no way to distill this article, but rest assured--science is making progress! On...you know, science type stuff!
Books and Arts
-Well, if you're going to read a story of love between an American and Maori tribesman, that's fine. But I really don't think you should get to call it Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story. That name demands something--well, cooler than a true to life relationship book.
-Here's a story that I'll be checking out as soon as possible--The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia, a non-fiction account of the Soviet Union's embrace of impoverished American's fleeing the Great Depression, the majority of whom slunk into "a living Hades of torture, rape, slave labor, starvation, frostbite and death, shared with millions of others." It's the perfect antidote to a good mood, and I hate good moods.
-The Economist thinks that Tropic Thunder is a real fine film, and it recommends you go see it. It goes o far as to say that when it's over, "you want to stand up during the final credits and clap." Let me be the first to remind you that The Economist also thought the Indiana Jones movie was a bang-up classic.
Obituary: Alexander Solzhenitsyn
-He got the cover, and yes, I knew who he was. Like a lot of pretentious assholes before me, I too have plowed deep into the heart of Gulag Archipelago, his magnum opus that makes most people's definition of magnum opus look sort of like penny-ante circus acts--it's safe to say that there's a really short list of people who actually put their actual lives on the line in purely intellectual pursuits, and that list has Solzhenitsyn in a proud place. While not much of the obituary nor the cover feature dives deep into the talk show points that a years old article in the Believer hung it's hat on, here's a little bit: He hid out inside various secluded locations to type, muting the sound of the punching keys with cotton so that his neighbors wouldn't point him out to the Stalinist hordes, he occasionally typed in the dark underneath wool blankets in the summer so that he couldn't be caught, and he committed all kinds of various thievery and lies to steal enough paper--again, because that would have led those in power to track him down. While it's a depressing black mark that he later embraced Putin, it's also understandable given that here was a man who gave everything he could to struggle against tyranny, only to find that he was unjustly mistreated by his countrymen and embraced by the West as a weapon against his motherland. Still-the Archipelago is one of the most important creations of the century, and his legacy will remain. This, motherfuckers--this is what it means to be a badass.
I was just watching an episode of The Daily Show from a few weeks ago, and they had a piece complaining about newspeople confusing Osama and Obama. So I was bothered when you did it above. Dude, it's Osama's driver who was on trial, not Obama's. Grrr. I know it's just a typo, but still: annoying. Or maybe you just did it to get a rise out of me, in which case, well played, sir.
Oh, and if the Peter Stormare ad you're talking about is the one for Volkswagen where he shouts stuff like "German engineering is the shiznit!", we may have found an area in which our opinions part ways; that series of ads was fucking annoying.
Posted by: Matthew J. Brady | 2008.08.19 at 16:39
Oh, the commercials themselves are horrible, totally irritating. I'm just a huge fan of anybody who hires Peter Stormare, to do anything. He's the closest the world has to a My Best Fiend era Klaus Kinski--he's completely insane. I like to see him working.
Whoops on the Osama thing. Those letters aren't even that close on the keyboard. Yikes.
Posted by: Tucker Stone | 2008.08.19 at 16:58
I totally agree about Stormare; he's awesome. Like, I don't know if you saw the stupid Keanu Reeves Hellblazer movie, but the best part was when Stormare showed up at the end as the devil. Or his role as the crazy black-market surgeon in Minority Report. Or anything he's done with the Coen brothers. Yeah, he should be in more stuff, even if it's stupid commercials.
Posted by: Matthew J. Brady | 2008.08.19 at 23:01