No, no, not the lobsters! (But I think PETA will be quite happy, nevertheless)

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Today a gloomy story in the Globe caught my eye, indicating that a disfiguring lobster shell disease may be heading northward. This isn’t good news at all. New England lobstering is a lucrative and important industry, with its own rather heated turf wars (although I guess “turf” isn’t quite the correct word–“surf wars,” instead? “Surf and turf” wars?)

The problem hasn’t reached north of Cape Cod yet, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t. Apparently, the coldness of our more northern waters has had a protective effect (I’m glad it’s good for something; it certainly is wretched for swimming).

Here’s an excerpt from the report:

Lobsters with shell disease, according to Robert Bayer, executive director of the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, have such grotesque shells that they “look like they’ve had battery acid dropped on them. There’s something going on inside that lobster that allows bacteria on the shell to essentially eat the shell,” Bayer said. The disease isn’t dangerous to humans, Bayer said, but afflicted lobsters are so unsightly they can’t be sold on the lucrative market for live lobsters. Diseased lobsters can still be sold for packaged food, biologists say, but at lower prices.

So, it’s a cosmetic problem only. I bet this fact brings great joy to PETA, since the disease doesn’t seem to hurt the lobsters themselves at all; it just discourages their consumption by humans. In fact, I have a suspicion that this all might be a PETA-bioengineered plot to save the lobster, in conjunction with their recently-announced fish empathy project.

This disease appears to be the nail fungi of the lobster world. If we weren’t so squeamish and appearance-focused, we could still eat those yummy lobsters in the best way: freshly boiled, in the shell. But oh, we shallow Americans, so focused on lobster loveliness! I, for one, think I could learn to rise above it; I’m more interested in the lobster’s inner beauty.

The news that isn’t happening

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The media saturation we’ve experienced over the slow and sorrowful Schiavo case is now fading, along with the women herself. The latest round-the-clock story is the death vigil for the Pope. And, of course, the Jackson case continues in fits and starts when there’s not much else to report, now that Peterson has been sentenced and put away.

It’s easy to see what is being covered in the news. It’s hard, if not impossible, to remember what isn’t happening.

Three years ago Israel was rocked by suicide bombing after suicide bombing, in close succession. It was difficult to see how anything would ever stop that pattern. Remember the grisly Iraqi beheadings of less than a year ago, the kidnappings and the grim hostage videos that were almost a daily occurrence? Now they are few and far between, and the hostages tend to be released. Even the horrific suicide bombings in Iraq, so numerous right before and after the election, have declined in recent weeks.

It’s human nature to stop dwelling on something that isn’t happening any more. It’s easy to forget how commonplace that very thing was only a short while ago. We want to forget terrible things, we don’t want to hold them in our minds. And the media makes sure it replaces them with the news de jour, which of course is as it should be.

But sometimes I wish we had an alternate history to hold before us, the history of what would still be happening if certain actions hadn’t been taken. If Israel hadn’t held firm and built the wall; if the Iraqis hadn’t bravely turned out in record numbers for that election; if, if, if.

It is so very easy to criticize what is, what has actually been done. The resultant faults and flaws are right before our eyes. The world will always be imperfect; each action will create its own problems. But the even worse (perhaps far worse) things that might have happened but for those actions–those always remain invisible and unknowable, and can only be guessed at.

I don’t follow the Michael Jackson trial, but every time I turn on the TV and see it being covered so intensely, I breathe a little sigh of relief, because it means that it’s a slow news day, a regular news day.

And slow news is good news.

Peretz is pulling no punches

The New Neo Posted on by

I still subscribe to the New Republic. I’m both fascinated and, at times, frustrated by its split personality. Depending on the writer, the subject, and sometimes which way the wind is blowing on any particular day, it careens wildly from pro- to anti-Bush and back again, from hopeful about the war to pessimistic and then back to hopeful again.

But Martin Peretz has been consistent for some time now. Speaking as a liberal addressing other liberals, he writes what seems (to me, at least) to be common sense, telling them how they’ve gone off the deep end and sacrificed principles they used to hold dear.

Unfortunately, though, most of the New Republic’s articles are available only to subscribers, so unless you are one you won’t be able to read Peretz’s latest article online.

But here’s his opening salvo, which I think is spot on:

If George W. Bush were to discover a cure for cancer, his critics would denounce him for having done it unilaterally, without adequate consultation, with a crude disregard for the sensibilities of others. He pursued his goal obstinately, they would say, without filtering his thoughts through the medical research establishment. And he didn’t share his research with competing labs and thus caused resentment among other scientists who didn’t have the resources or the bold–perhaps even somewhat reckless–instincts to pursue the task as he did. And he completely ignored the World Health Organization, showing his contempt for international institutions. Anyway, a cure for cancer is all fine and nice, but what about aids?

Peretz goes on to list Bush’s accomplishments in potentially changing the face of the Middle East and helping to turn it towards democracy. One gets the distinct impression that it pains Peretz more than a little to have to say these things, and he certainly doesn’t consider Bush perfect.

But it pains Peretz a lot more that most liberals are still unwilling to give credit to Bush where it clearly is due. Peretz writes:

Bush, it now seems safe to say, is one of the great surprises in modern U.S. history. Nothing about his past suggested that he harbored these ideals nor the qualities of character required for their realization….It is simply stupid, empirically and philosophically, to deny that all or any of this [the recent advances in democracy] would have happened without the deeply unpopular but historically grand initiative of Bush.

The article is long, and doesn’t lend itself easily to summary. But here is Peretz’s zinger of a conclusion:

One does not have to admire a lot about George W. Bush to admire what he has so far wrought. One need only be a thoughtful American with an interest in proliferating liberalism around the world. And, if liberals are unwilling to proliferate liberalism, then conservatives will. Rarely has there been a sweeter irony.

Blogger is up to its new tricks

The New Neo Posted on by

Those of you who don’t blog are probably unaware of the frustrations inherent lately in using blogger. Blogger, the free service that is kind enough to host this blog and so many others (all of the ones with “blogspot” in the name), is having–to put it mildly–problems.

Sometimes it’s impossible to log on. When logged on, most of the time it’s impossible to post. It’s necessary to save each post in some other venue before trying to publish it, because nine times out of ten (or actually, ten times out of ten) it would be lost otherwise.

I attempted to publish one of today’s posts about seven times to no avail. I only managed to get it published by a little trick I’ve developed–changing the title. Why this ploy should work I haven’t a clue, but I have found that sometimes it does. However, if a few hours from now seven identical posts suddenly pop up in a delayed reaction to my efforts, don’t be surprised.

So, this constitutes my disclaimer: don’t blame me for anything, blame blogger! I would think it’s an elaborate passive-aggressive April Fools’ joke on the part of blogger, except that it’s been going on now for over a week.

Neo-neocon’s handy guide to neos, paleos, and cons

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Are you confused about the terminology? Me too. But I think I’ve mastered it now. Here’s my guide to the world of neos and paleos, guaranteed to make the distinctions Kristol clear (pun intended):

1) neocon–person who used to be a liberal but is now still mostly liberal on social issues but hawkish on foreign policy, particularly about spreading democracy. Example: Paul Wolfowitz

2) paleocon–an old-fashioned conservative: small government, isolationist in foreign policy although hawkish when attacked. Example: Pat Buchanan

3) neo-neocon–recently changed from liberal to neocon. Example: moi

4) paleo-neocon–made the switch from liberal to neocon a long time ago. Example: Norman Podhoretz.

5) neo-paleocon–made the switch to paleocon recently (either from liberal or from neocon). Example: can’t think of any, but there must be some (suggestions, anyone?) Or perhaps paleocons are born, not made.

6) neocon-paleocon–made the switch from paleocon to neocon quite some time ago. Example: same problem as #5.

7) neo-neocon-paleocon–made the switch from paleocon to neocon recently. Example: George Bush.

8) ex-con–Marion Barry

9) neo-con—Sandy Berger

Polite protest letters don’t get no respect

The New Neo Posted on by

A year or two ago, I went through a phase of energetic protest letter writing. I sent outraged (but always polite) missives to the NY Times, the New Yorker, and CNN, pointing out to them just where they might be going wrong. But I never heard back; not a word. Which, in retrospect, is not really much of a surprise.

One letter with which I took particular pains was a lengthy tome to Amnesty International, outlining in some detail why I, a twenty-one-year dues-paying member in good standing who still supported the work they did to help bona fide political prisoners, could no longer stomach the organization’s misplaced emphasis and was resigning (it was the focus on campaigns such as this that did the trick).

What did I get from them in return? A form letter, thanking me for my continued support, and asking for another donation.

I sent off another letter, more detailed and more furious than the first, angry at the added injury of having had my first letter ignored. And what did I receive in reply? Another request for money, and a free Amnesty International Calendar. Just the thing.

In praise of memorizing poetry

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I think it may be a lost pedagogical device, but when I was in grade school, we were forced by our teachers (mostly elderly women, as it happens) to memorize poetry. Lots of poetry. Most of it doggeral, but not all of it, not by any means.

There was an old-fashioned quality to their choices: patriotic and seasonal verse, concerning Presidents and holidays (“If Nancy Hanks came back as a ghost, seeking news of what she loved most”; “There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood”).

I was a good poetry memorizer. I’m not trying to brag here, since I don’t think this ability implies any particular merit on my part. But no sooner had I written the thing down, copied from the blackboard on which the teacher had slowly and laboriously written it in her beautiful handwriting, then it was firmly ensconced in my head.

And there much of it stays. To this day, actually. Fortunately, along with the Edgar Guest and the others (“It takes a heap o’ livin’, in a house t’ make it home”) we were assigned some very fine poetry, mostly in junior high. Shakespearean sonnets and Wordsworth and Milton, some Robert Frost and Shakespeare, the Gettysburg Address (not poetry, but it might as well have been).

Much of this I simply memorized by rote. I understood the basic meaning, but it had no real significance to me, no depth. I had no context for it.

But since it had been filed away, somewhere, I experienced a curious phenomenon later on. I found that in crises or emotional times, a line of poetry would suddenly come to me—a phrase I’d never paid much attention to before—and I’d have one of those “aha!” moments.

At one point I sustained a serious and chronic injury. My physical limitations were such that for long periods of time I could not work, nor even read or write in any sustained way. I took to visiting a park near where I lived and slowly walking around a track there. Nearby was a small wooded area, and it was wintertime and snow was on the ground. Looking at the trees, the following line suddenly came to my mind, unbidden, (“Whose woods these are I think I know…”) memorized so long ago, and hardly thought of since.

But the words were all there, waiting for me, and when I came to the lines, “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep” they hit me with the force of near-revelation. Frost seemed to be talking about wanting to give up, to surrender to something dark and restful (what? death?) in a time of great weariness such as I was experiencing. And then the next line came, too, offering hope and resolution, “But I have promises to keep…”

This sort of thing kept happening to me. Keeps happening to me, actually. In situation after situation, a line or passage of poetry will announce itself—something that I’d apparently held in my mind, in suspended animation as it were, without any true reflection or understanding—and suddenly, it would be freighted with deep and poignant meaning.

So I’m hereby declaring myself in favor of the practice of poetry memorization in schools. I know there are many many children—adults, too—who hate poetry. I don’t think that will change; I’m not imagining that poetry will gain a lot of converts from the mere act of children being required to memorize it. But for the rest, I think there’s great value to be had in carrying around a small library of poetry in one’s head, to draw upon in the hard times—or even the joyful times.

Right after 9/11, Yeats’ “The Second Coming” was the poem that kept swirling around in my brain. It doesn’t really offer any comfort; it’s a very bleak vision, after all. But for me, even the act of recalling the lines, somber and frightening as they are, had its own sort of solace, saying to me, “Others have had this fear, others have passed through terrible times of chaos,” and, paradoxically, lending words of great beauty to the description of that terrifying state:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…

A mind is a difficult thing to change: interlude

The New Neo Posted on by

Part 4 is percolating. But this isn’t it; not yet. I’m finding it slow going, perhaps because it deals with the Vietnam War. Astounding how that event casts such a long shadow even now–or perhaps especially now.

I think Part 4 will be out soon, soon. But, in the meantime…

I was thinking about whether there were any formative defining political events that occurred in the years between the 50s and the commitment of regular US troops (as opposed to Green Beret advisors) to Vietnam. Naturally, the first thing that came to mind was Kennedy’s assassination. But I’m not going to deal with it in any depth because, although it was certainly a dramatic and heart-wrenching event, I don’t think it was an event that caused any sort of political change. The ramifications of Kennedy’s assassination had nothing to do with policy or changing parties or political beliefs. Most of us reacted on an intensely personal emotional level.

I think it must be difficult for anyone born afterward to understand the profound shock inherent in Kennedy’s assassination. Those of us who’d grown up in the 50s were well aware–perhaps hyper-aware–of the threat of atomic war (as I’ve discussed in Part 3), but I think I can speak for most of us when I say that something on the order of Kennedy’s death was almost literally unthinkable, right up till the day it happened.

I was fifteen years old at the time, and, like most others, I can vividly remember the exact moment I heard the news. The details are not interesting–I was a sophomore in high school, in school when I heard he was shot, then sent home early to have my mother tell me the news that he was dead–but the sense of fear and unreality and downright sorrow were profound. In fact, I cried almost unceasingly for four days, right up to and through the funeral, and I was hardly alone.

What was I weeping for? Many things, including Kennedy’s wife and children. But I think it was really lost innocence–my own–that I was weeping for. Despite the atomic fears of the 50s, and then the Cuban missile crisis, our sense was that all threats would come from outside. We had a sense of security within this country, a sense of internal personal safety from our own countrymen, that was as powerful as it turned out to be false. Kennedy’s death tore the veil away and exposed the ugly reality–violent death, hideous and bloody, could come unawares, even on a sunny untroubled day, even to the great, powerful, young, and beautiful, even without a missile to be seen in the sky.

Life magazine published stills of the Zapruder photos, but in those far more protective days they left out the most horrific ones, the frames in which Kennedy’s head seemed to explode. But we had seen Oswald murdered, live, on TV, and that was a further assault on our sense of security. It seemed that the world had opened itself up to chaos.

We had heard of assassinations before; after all, there was Lincoln. But that was fusty old history, not reality. But now the two intersected, and now–even though we would never have described it that way–now we, too, had entered history.

Where we remain, today.

[ADDENDUM: For Part IVA, go here.]

Kofi Annan: is his “press pass” getting a bit frayed?

The New Neo Posted on by

The Oil-for-Food UN scandal has been one of those long slow excruciatingly drawn-out stories that, somehow, hasn’t gotten anywhere near the coverage it should have. Over the last year, Claudia Rossett of the WSJ and Roger Simon in the blogosphere have been instrumental in not allowing the story to die.

But recently it’s been showing more signs of life, sort of like those little green shoots poking out of the snow in my garden. Now Roger writes that the NY Times’ response to the interim Volker report on Kofi Annan’s involvement is to claim that the report largely exonerated Mr. Annan of personal corruption in the awarding of a contract to a company that employed his son. But, as Roger points out, the report merely stated that no evidence has yet been found of such involvement. The report is by no means either definitive or final.

So, what about Kofi’s “press pass”? (see definition of the term here). It’s a bit frayed, but still intact, apparently. The mere fact that the Times has been forced to write about the scandal is a good sign, but the way it is writing about it still leaves a lot to be desired. The word “exonerated” is certainly not appropriate at this time; the Times is extremely premature in using it. But the Times knows exactly what it’s doing. Words are its business, after all, and it chooses them very very carefully.

Women and the tsunami

The New Neo Posted on by

The chilling news of another large earthquake in Indonesia, and more deaths there, has reawakened memories of the cataclysmic tsunami of late 2004. Fortunately, there was no tsunami this time, although I’m sure the people of Indonesia were terrified of a repeat.

Norm Geras recently linked to a BBC report discussing the fact that women were disproportionately represented among the victims of the December tsunami, in a ratio as high as 4 to 1 in some areas. Reading the report, I expected to see a reference to something I’d read about before (unfortunately, I have no recollection of where I read it): that women in third-world countries are less likely than men to know how to swim.

In addition, if one thinks about it, women–even strong women used to physical labor–tend on the average to have less upper body strength than men (please, folks, don’t Larry Summersize me here). Since many of the survivors used their arm strength to hold onto something stable to resist the incredibly powerful force of the water, this could also have been part of the reason so many women died as compared to men.

I did a search on all of this and haven’t come across much information specifically about the swimming issue, but I did find this extremely PC report with some other speculations as to why women died disproportionately. It makes quite sad and disturbing reading.

The idea is that women’s social conditioning may have been a good part of the reason. Here’s just one example:

As the first wave raged through the women’s’ huts, the force of the wave ripped off their clothes- disrobed them. It is culturally against the social mores for a woman to be allowed in public without clothes, so the women never ran! The women never left their huts, and in the next waves, they chose (?) or were conditioned to die in their houses paralyzed by fear and custom rather than be seen in their nakedness and live. Apparently, nakedness wasn’t an issue for the male population.

The entire thing bears reading. I haven’t a clue as to how reliable this information might be–but hey, it’s the Sisters of Mercy talking, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Don’t cry for Mikalah, Argentina (or America)

The New Neo Posted on by

I know I’m a little slow on the uptake here, since she was voted off last week. But those troubled by the elimination of Mikalah from the American Idol lineup can be comforted by the fact that the perfect position for her has just opened up. She can play Fran Drescher’s long-lost love child–the role for which she was born, IMHO–on Ms. Drescher’s new series, conveniently beginning on April 8.

When one door closes, another opens.