Gandhi takes over InstantReplay!

Chops has turned over control of InstantReplay for a month. I wonder if it ever occurred to him that we might change his blogging password and convert the site into a pulpit for promoting Sharon, Rumsfeld, and Jesse Jackson! But I think we're on an honor code of some sort :)

Long live all half-Indians!

This post was guest authored by Gandhi.

Rwanda

It is now T minus 10 hours. Tomorrow morning my sister Polly and I are boarding a bus to Montreal, and after a few days training we're flying to Rwanda, a small and troubled country in central Africa. We'll be with 16 other Christians, nine of whom are teenagers, bringing the love of Christ and the sympathy of the North American church to our brethren in Rwanda. Our activities are highlighted by a lot of day camps that we'll be running in cooperation with local ministries for orphans and widows. We'll also be praying with churches in Kigali and Butare and at genocide sights, where we'll pray for national healing.

I'm as much interested in what I'll learn as in what I'll teach. Having grown up in such a phenomenally sheltered culture (I, like the Buddha, have reached age 20 without ever seeing a corpse), I feel far inferior in experience and the faith that comes from enduring trials to Rwandans, and I'm hoping I can gain some of what they've developed through pain. I do feel somewhat guilty for living such an easy life, but more than that I feel the weighty imperative that "from everyone who has been given much, much will be required" and the desire to translate my advantages in life into something more than cash.

I will be returning home on August 26th or so, and until then I'm hoping a few of my friends and loyal readers can update this site occassionally, with their own views and gripes. Thus, anything that may be written here until late August is probably not me (and I'll ask them to sign articles). Blessings!

Instant Review: Gods and Generals

I rented Gods and Generals last night and watched it alone because all my friends have their noses duct-taped to the grindstone. Of course, it's three and a half hours long, so I was up way past my bedtime (and got up at 7:15 to go pray outside a nearby abortion clinic). But the film itself? I'll grade it a "C". It scores perfectly for historical accuracy, but I found it longwinded and boring as a film.

The main characters are Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (Stephen Lang) and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, with Robert E. Lee hovering in the background as a demi-god. The film follows these commanders through the first half of the Civil War, ending with Jackson's death at Chancellorsville. It portrays them as very devout men, all opposed to slavery and very noble, men who love their wives, but who "could not love them if they loved not honor more." Choosing the name "Gods and Generals" gives them the right to do that, in a sense, and there is nothing particularly wrong with that: Jackson was extremely devout and rather eccentric, Lee was a gentleman soldier, and Chamberlain was a philosophy professor. In fact, nothing the film does is wrong. It's just that it doesn't do a lot of things right.

Gods and Generals would be a good movie if:
- It portrayed evil to counterpoint its good. The film never criticizes these devout men for leading so many to their deaths, nor does it show the evil of slavery as anything more than a social malaise.
- It portrayed death more poignantly. It actually does an amazing job at duplicating the Civil War attitude towards death: an unpleasant inevitability. While I don't like modern America's attitude that death should never happen to anyone, I think they made a lot less of the horror of Fredericksburg than they could have.
- It had a clear plot-line or climax. Perhaps the fact that I know way too much about the Civil War ruins the suspense for me, but there's never a sense that the Union might win at any point. Like in many Civil War games, the Confederates are just Better.
- There was any tension between the sides off the battlefield. It fails to capture the way brother turned against brother; the portrayal of the opposing Irish brigades was moving, but a sense of concord lost might add some drama and pain.
- It came out and said the Confederacy was bad. I'd like my hero in blue, please, because it's uninspiring to see him fight for the continuation of slavery.

To be really cruel to Gods and Generals, I'll recommend you go to its website, click on "Enter Advanced Site" and check out the game trailer.

OK, so maybe I'm being unfair to a movie that did most things well, and just lacked that oomph to put it over the top. Really my gripe is that I've only ever seen one Civil War movie that I love (and I love the Civil War!): Glory, which I saw in the theatre at age 8 with my dad and remember vividly years later. Needless to say, the Civil War has plenty of Glory-esque material for more possible films. Sherman's march to the sea comes to mind, or Grant's career, or the Baltimore riots, or the immigrant regiments (who did get a few minutes in G&G), or the infamous XI Corps. I'd love to see more tough guys: westerners, farmers, woodsmen; men James Fenimore Cooper would have written about. The gentlemen-soldier angle has been examined ad nauseum, and the reality was - especially in the South - that poor, non-slave-owning whites bore the brunt of the conflict. Let's get some blood, sweat, tears and toil in there! The chaos of the battlefield can easily be captured on camera, and if a film is from a soldier's perspective it can (like the book "Red Badge of Courage") give a very claustrophobic, horrific feeling that the whole thing is beyond your control and you have no way out.

Of course, the biggest obstacle to making dramatic war films is people like me, who demand absolute historical integrity. But I for one would hold my peace about minor embellishments if they went ahead and made a really good Civil War movie. Here's to "Last Full Measure": it could attain at least to the B+ standard of "Gettysburg".

Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant.

This may not be quite how you remember it from the movie, but this Matrix Reloaded script captures the highlights and the main point of the film. And it doesn't cost $9. Thanks for the link to Dave C.

Rwandan elections

As many of you know, I'll be spending most of the next month in Rwanda. I didn't know this until now, but we'll be leaving the country a few days short of its first elections in a decade. That's probably a good thing in terms of safety, but I'd love to be there to watch the polling (and to pray for peace).

President Paul Kagame has been leading the country for nine years after his Rwanda Patriotic Front liberated the capital and ended the genocide nine years ago. He's currently the front-runner in the elections, which isn't exactly a surprise. AllAfrica.com (which I'm adding to the news links) has an in-depth interview with the president, which sheds light on the main issues facing a Rwandan leader right about now.

WORLD Blogwatch

Forget Baywatch... Blogwatch has arrived! WORLD magazine is not only online, it's also reading the online world. Their newest section is a Blogwatch, which isn't too scientific, but has at least caught on to the fact that "when InstaPundit pundits, Big Media listens."

Briefing

I've begun preparing a Topic Briefing for delegates to the Council on Palestinian Affairs for the 2003-2004 Model Arab Leagues. It's nice to have so much influence over all the discussions of these issues at all sixteen MAL conferences in the U.S., especially since the real Arab League assigns us the topics and uses our debates as a measure of American perception of the Arab world. It's like a wannabe-power-trip.

So here's my draft on our first topic.

I. Defining the proper role and limits of armed resistance in the liberation of Palestine. A. History Violence is not exactly a new phenomenon in the Middle East. Communal strife within the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan has been supplemented by periodic outside conquests for millennia. However, the twentieth century witnessed destruction on a scale never before imaginable. Civilian casualties account for an increasing percentage of casualties in wars throughout the world. At the same time, the world has become more interconnected, and recent developments in the Palestinian Conflict can be linked to the Russian economy, American electoral politics, or even the demand for illegal drugs in Western Europe. The destructiveness of modern weapons and the complex causality of the modern state system means that threatening or using force has deeper and wider consequences than ever before. Thus, opinions on the appropriate uses of force have diverged. Some lessons from the 20th century – India and South Africa, for instance – seem to suggest that nonviolent protest is more effective than armed resistance. Other lessons imply the opposite; could Hitler have been defeated without force? Even terrorism has been effective – the Jewish Palmach hastened the evacuation of Palestine by terrorizing the British occupiers in the 1940’s. Since the naqba (“catastrophe”) of 15 May 1948, Palestinian factions and individuals have used force against the occupying military and civilian population. Arab states bordering Palestine have been bases for some armed raids, while others (since 1967) have been planned and executed entirely within occupied territory. The Palestinian Liberation Operation, a coalition created by the Arab League in 1961, openly engaged in armed resistance and acts of terror until 1989 when it agreed to acknowledge their opponent’s right to exist and renounced terror. In ongoing violence that began in September, 2000, a number of Palestinian factions, some of which identify themselves as members of the P.L.O., have engaged in armed resistance. These include the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Islamic Jihad, the Tanzim, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. B. Debate Two principle issues are at stake in this debate on the role and limits of armed resistance. First of all, the morality and ethicality of using force is always a question. Who has the right to use force? Against whom? By what authority? Less ideologically, there is a second question, that of effectiveness. Does armed resistance further the Palestinian cause? Is it more important to wage war directly or to appeal as victims to the world? Because of the intense political nature of the conflict, detailed information on most acts of armed resistance are widely reported, and Palestine has undoubtedly gained headlines and airtime through acts of violence. However, while these acts increase awareness of Palestinian frustrations, they also tend to increase sympathy for those who are killed, especially civilians. C. Responsibilities of the delegate In addressing this contentious issue, each delegate must balance his or her government’s view with the sensitivity of the topic. Decorum should be maintained at all times, as well as respect for the deceased. Consider that untoward remarks by members of this august body will make our topic on improving the image of the Palestinian cause that much more difficult. Delegates should understand the content and nuances of their countries’ positions on armed resistance in general, and relating to Palestine specifically. Likewise, delegates should familiarize themselves with the histories of armed and passive resistance, and know the underlying causes and recent developments in the al-Aqsa intifada, which began in September, 2000. Some members of the League actively support armed resistance, while others oppose it, either verbally or actively. All members should remain cogent of the public responses to an Arab League resolution both in the Arab world and across the globe. Needless to say, these directions are not exhaustive, and it is the delegate’s responsibility to come fully prepared and well-read on this topic.

Anyone interested, see if your school has a program, or check out the MAL website and contact me for more info - only takes five students to start a team and compete at a regional model.

Letter to a friend

Someone made the mistake of asking how my week was. Rather than write this over and over again, I'll post it here, no names. The young lady whom I talk about below doesn't read the blog, nor do any of our mutual friends who aren't already in the know, so I don't feel this is a breach of confidence or anything.

We had the Big Talk. It was the worst conversation of my life. Took two or three days, and everything that could go wrong went wrong. After talking face-to-face for an hour and a half on Sunday I had no idea where she was at. I knew she wasn't quite where I was, but it wasn't clear what she saw. We both proved to be terrible at expressing ourselves - I went on forever and couldn't just spit out what I wanted to say. She'd hardly say anything, even when I asked or waited. Sunday night I talked with my guy friends for hours, figuring out what I should do. I felt I still had a chance to get the kind of agreement I was looking for, but mainly I was confused and hurting. Monday we chatted online for three hours. I finally understood what she was saying, though I still couldn't get her to give me a good explanation for why. She was clear, however, that courtship wasn't an option, now or ever, and that she'd never felt for me what I felt for her. She also says she didn't know I liked her as more than a friend, though our mutual friends certainly picked up on that. So we had each projected our own feelings onto the other! Anyway, I got the message loud and clear. I was on the verge of tears all evening. The song "Yesterday" came on the radio, and I had to run out of the room to keep from breaking down (I didn't want to have to explain the whole saga to my family, though I told my Dad). I emailed her again the next morning with questions about her motivations, which I still didn't understand. She's said a few times that she wanted to see me as a brother, no matter what our relationship. But the few times she'd lapsed and viewed me as "potential" she'd lost sight of my being a brother, so she didn't want to see me as "potential" unless she could also see me as a brother, which she couldn't. This explanation was rather unsatisfactory. I mean, I'd be willing to wait until she could work this out in her mind, but clearly that wasn't what she was looking for. So I emailed her. Tuesday night, however, I had a good prayer time for the first time in a few days, and God really spoke to me. He showed me how much I value Meg as a friend, and how in the chaos of the conversation I'd lost sight of our friendship. He also showed me that my last email had been too much, too prying, and not serving her. So I emailed again, very apologetically, telling her not to respond to the previous one, and mostly apologizing for how long it had been dragged out. She emailed me back Wednesday morning, thanking and forgiving me, but at the same time giving a very reasonable explanation: she hadn't been interested the way I was, and she also saw things that confirmed that we weren't right for each other, though she didn't want me to try to "fix" those things so she didn't tell me (I suspect this may include my vision for living in the Middle East; I knew that would be the biggest question mark). With this explanation in hand, the conversation is finished, and I have closure. I didn't need this, as God showed me, but it's nice to know what was really going on inside her head. Anyway, worst conversation I can ever imagine having, and if I could spend the last week working as a garbage man in Cairo instead of doing what I did, I would.

If you have any questions, don't ask them.

What a way to go

IR's sympathies are with the nine people who were run down by an elderly driver at a farmer's market in Santa Monica. Police don't know why this happened: they tested him for drugs and alcohol, and say it might be medically related, though his neighbors don't know of any medicines he's taking that would impair his driving like that. This dude drove through the markets for three blocks, scattering booths, produce, and people horrifically. Really sounds like something from a bad movie, but then, this is Santa Monica.

I'm politically correct and I can't get up!

The Christian Science Monitor is a lot more analytical than most newspapers. In this article they've outdone themselves.

Casting blacks as angelic characters has become an increasingly common trend in mainstream movies... [many films] feature black characters whose main function is to help a white hero through magical or supernatural means. These are Hollywood's "black angels," whose popularity has surged in recent years - so much so that in an episode last year of "The Simpsons," Homer mistook a black man in a white suit for an angelic visitor, all because (according to his embarrassed wife) he'd been seeing too many movies lately.

The article goes on to hyper-analyze the trend (which I've noticed as well) to cast blacks in supernatural roles. In fact, I knew before seeing a single ad for Bruce Almighty that if it portrayed God with an actor, it would have to be a black male.

While the CSMonitor can't admit this, we at InstantReplay know the real reason blacks get all the angel roles: it's politically correct. Christianity in the U.S. developed the unhelpful habit of portraying God, angels, Christ, and Biblical characters as white. We do, as Nietzche suggested, tend to remake God in our own image. To compensate for the traditional 'whiteness' of God, Hollywood has been as loyally politically correct as ever, and filled all its supernatural roles with blacks.

Blacks, however, aren't cheering. While nobody's suggesting that heaven should go back to being a whites-only club, the African-American community (including my friend Karen, who pointed this out to me) isn't unduly impressed by the casting wave.

InstantReplay has two rather obvious suggestions for fixing this problem. First, view supernatural beings as supernatural; God doesn't have the attributes or character of one race, or even of a human; nor do angels. If you really want to be diverse or challenge folks' image of the Almighty, try casting an Arab or Indian-American. More importantly, find an actor who (like Morgan Freeman) can portray the role well, regardless of race. Political correctness has replaced racial exclusionism with a racial quota system. If I recall, that wasn't anybody's goal.

Second, race should be viewed realistically. While "Bruce Almighty" is a light comedy, more serious films should be brave enough to use their art to address the issue of race, where appropriate. Not every movie, not every character; plenty of Americans live in mixed-race settings without ever worrying about it, and that's something to aspire to! On the other hand, plenty are still affected by ungodly attitudes towards race, and their plight should not be glossed over. I, for one, was offended to see James Earl Jones in "The Sandlot" talking about playing ball with the Bambino; revisionist history does a disservice to the memory of Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, Lary Doby and the other brave men who desegregated baseball.

Speaking of which, has anyone ever made a good film about them?

Free Beer

The Washington Post rarely begins a story with the line Two words: free beer.

But it got your attention, didn't it? That phrase also gets the attention of Washington interns, who flock to low-cost establishments. The story has some meaning to me, because the principle venue is the Tequila Grill, where I managed to spend $0 one night last April (2002) with a bunch of friends from the Model Arab League, including one who says that I'm quite a slow dancer (that's debatable; I stepped on her foot).

Northeastern has something of an edge on most schools when it comes to experience. I met an acquaintance today who gushed about how much he was saving GM as a consultant; he's halfway through school. While NU students drink hard, they also know what end of a stapler to use, and what 9-5 means. As my friend Dan points out, "Notice the part about not being able to party every night and having to be home by midnight? Only a sophomore on her first coop would say something like that around here."

Apologies

For not blogging much just about now. I'm subjecting myself to all the nerve-wracking sinking sensations of real life.

What Africans want

An African columnist writes a New York Times op/ed stating that Africa doesn't need aid. Or, at least, it doesn't just need aid.

In the 1960's, many African economies were more advanced than South Korea's. The continent stagnated largely because corrupt dictatorships took over, and the areas that slid back to the medieval age did so mainly because of the ravages of war. To really change Africa, Mr. Bush needs to offer long-term leadership in two areas: ending the wars, and helping pro-democracy forces bring honest and effective government to African countries burdened by oppressive regimes, even if that means accepting antiterrorism laws that aren't as strict as he would like.

This ought to be music to a Republican's ears: developing nations asking for multiparty democracy, peaceful trade, and civil liberties! Communism has really been defeated when this is the sort of thing the African intelligentsia are looking for. Unfortunately, it's easier to throw a couple billion at AIDS than it is to, say, ease the ruling party out of power in Uganda, or mediate an end to ethnic violence in Burundi.

In fact, I don't think the U.S. can do it. The writer, Charles Onyango-Obbo, and others like him, need to affect change themselves in their own countries. This isn't pie in the sky: after 24 years under Daniel Arap Moi, Kenyans had a "peaceful revolution", in the words of one Kenyan Christian leader I heard speak in London. Pressure from within (supported by pressure from without) forced Moi to step down and allowed an opposition party to take the presidency for the first time since independence. Kenya's example is probably the best one for countries like Uganda and Rwanda, where democracy is the official system, but in practice elections still mean very little. While we can't manufacture change from the outside, let's be ready to assist pro-democracy forces whenever they need us, and not support dictators just because they agree to crack down on terrorism.

Preacher-man

IR reader Dubya is preaching at church on Sunday... check out his last message, from 6/22/03. (I'm listening to it now for the first time).

We call him Dubya because, like the President, he shares a first but not middle name with his dad, and his middle name begins with a W. Also, like the President.... well, listen to the message and you'll know what I mean.

Manfood

You know I made dinner for myself when I ended up eating 2 cups of rice (that's 2 uncooked cups), 4 eggs, 3 hot dogs, olive oil and and lots of spices, all fried in one pan which is still sitting dirtily on the stove.

Manfood. MMMMMMM.

The wind blows leftward

John Kerry knows what he wants: the Democratic nomination for president. What he doesn't know is how to get it. Clearly, the only way to get noticed now is to attack President Bush, a tactic that's working wonders for "near-frontrunner" Howard Dean. So Kerry gets his ink today by complaining about the post-invasion process.

While he probably has a point - that the Bush team was not well enough prepared for this phase - the coveted Washington Post story smells like a low quality whine. Kerry says the U.S. needs to get other countries' troops involved. Isn't that what the administration has been saying it's trying to do for the past week?

Kerry is in the uncomfortable position of trying to keep part of the pro-military vote with his Vietnam creds. However, when President Bush's main initiatives are military, how do you distinguish yourself from the President without attacking his military goals? Kerry probably knows that arguing details makes for lousy politics, but can't see a way around it right now. And while his current doldrums (c.f. Lieberman, Graham, Edwards) don't preclude a surge when it begins to matter (and when Dean's novelty wears off), I think there are a lot of fundamental flaws with Kerry's candidacy and I doubt he'll carry any states outside of New England in the primary.

Playing the Jew card

Was Harry S. Truman an anti-semite? More specifically, are notes from a 1947 diary anti-semitic, as the Washington Post claims. Truman's newly-discovered diary (it was 'hidden' in his presidential library) includes the following, quoted by the Post:

"The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes."

Now, this is not a flattering or sympathetic passage. It criticizes the post-War Jews of Europe for their self-interested lobbying. In particular, comparing Hitler and Stalin favorably to 'former underdogs' is hyperbolic at best. However, Truman doesn't make the comparison to Jews directly, and qualifies the term underdog by listing a range of groups. Truman is critical of post-war European Jews, but to me that doesn't make him anti-semitic. He's criticizing them for their actions; not for being Jewish. He has no desire to see them treated badly, only to see equal treatment of Eastern Europeans.

The Post's knee-jerk use of the term "anti-semitism" is both cheapening to the term and symptomatic of our culture's tendancy to fixate on the atrocities committed against the Jews during World War II. In London, at the Imperial War Museum, I was very offended to see the figure 6,000,000 as the human cost of the Holocaust. As any student of the Holocaust knows, 14,000,000 people were murdered, 6,000,000 of them Jews. Poland alone lost 6,000,000 citizens - half Jews, half ethnic Poles.

It is very true that the genocide against the Jews is comparable only to that against the Gypsies, but that fact is too often allowed to diminish the massive loss of life by many Eastern European countries. Unfortunately, there is an extreme disparity between the voice of Jews and that of Eastern Europeans or Gypsies in the West. Thus, while we have become aptly aware of the crime perpetrated against European Jewry (and are politically sensitive towards Israel and Jews as a result), we remain quite ignorant of the crimes against many other groups.

This is truly unfortunate, for though the attempted eradication of the Jews - the chilling "final solution" - was the worst of the Holocaust, the rest wasn't a whole lot better. And in my opinion, we are much more likely as a society to ostracize and take rights from those of unpopular political or religious views, not those of one race or other. As always, the only way to redeem past atrocities is to learn never to repeat them.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, we do have an obligation in the world, but we can't be all things to all people. We can help build coalitions, but we can't put our troops all around the world. We can lend money, but we've got to do it wisely. We shouldn't be lending money to corrupt officials. So we got to be guarded in our generosity... The coalition against Saddam has fallen apart or it's unraveling, let's put it that way. The sanctions are being violated. We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He'd better not be or there's going to be a consequence, should I be the president... I hope you can get a sense of, should I be fortunate enough to be the president, how my administration will react in the Middle East. - Governor George W. Bush

The preceding remarks were made my Governor Bush on October 11, 2000 (my 18th birthday, incidentally) in the second Presidential debate. The three-year-old text of the debate doesn't give us the clearest picture of how his administration would react to the Middle East, but we can hear you now, Mr. Bush.

A Ha'aretz columnist writes notes that Bush this week opened yet a new front in his administration's involvement in foreign relations and efforts at conflict resolution, visiting African states including Liberia, the subject of speculation over a future police role for American forces. With so many irons in so many unbanked fires, can Bush succeed where one after another of his predecessors failed - bringing an end to six score years of Arab Jewish conflict? His point is well-taken: since September 11, American troops have conquered two countries and continue to hold them together (to the extent that they are "together"). North Korea has built nukes, and Bush is committing the U.S. to conflicts in Israel/Palestine and Liberia, besides all the previous commitments (Kosovo, etc) left over from the inconsistent Clinton administration.

Can Bush do it? Short answer, no. But can the U.S. do it? Can Bush's leadership bring the ample wealth, armed force, and mediating skill of the U.S. government and its friends to bear on multiple conflicts, and by taking arms against a sea of troubles, end them?

A cynic might point out that the more conflicts Bush highlights the more likely he is to find a success. In other words, if Iraq falls apart, we need a success story (by November, 2004) to fall back on. Liberia? They've been collapsing since 1989! And if you try to solve the conflict in Liberia, you have to at least contain if not resolve the 12-year-old conflict in next door Sierra Leone, where Liberian president Charles Taylor has been supporting insurgents.

The bottomless pit of conflicts doesn't have to expand far beyond our current commitments to be daunting. Afghanistan is in very bad shape (Post on poppy proliferation), and Iraq has been conquered for two months and is still quite unpacified (Arab News editorial). Palestinian-Israeli relations have been sagging in the last few weeks (NYTimes on Palestinian frustrations), underscoring the fact that the U.S. has to keep constant pressure on all parties to expect any results.

Mr. President, we can hear you now. Now stop making promises and deliver results.

A-List linkee

The Reverend Al, whose recently created blog The Right Christians is linked by Instant Replay, installed a hit counter three days ago. His first full day he received 180 hits (by comparison, I was getting 30 or 40 before I left for England, and now I'm down to 17 a day). This morning at 3:29a.m. A-List blogger Andrew Sullivan posted an item mentioning and linking The Right Christians. As of 10:58am, the Reverend Al's hit count has reached 726.

Since I began blogging two years ago, I think the influence of the A-List has grown, despite the proliferation of blogs (blogiferation?). Commercial sites are realizing the value of blogs: Bambino's Curse is now published on Fox Sports Net New England, and MSNBC now publishes it's own metablog, Blogspotting and has a sidebar with eight "MSNBC Weblogs", including A-Listers like Glenn Reynolds (thanks to Ali Baba for pointing this out).

Clearly the wider online world, if not the wider world in general, is listening to the groundswell of blogging.

Cannot Find Page

This is perhaps the funniest thing I've seen on the internet all year. Thanks to the referal from Ali Baba. Go to Google, and type in weapons of mass destruction, without quotes. Click "I'm Feeling Lucky".

Money can't buy me fear

Pedro lays the smack down on George the Third. In response to the Yankees owner's disparaging comments, Petey came back with a rare public appearance of his own, reminding Red Sox fans of the other reason we love him: he's a bona fide Yankee-hater, just like us.

"Georgie Porgie, he might buy the whole league, but he doesn't have enough money to buy fear to put in my heart," reports ESPN. Asked if Steinbrenner was trying to stir up the Yankees-Red Sox feud, Martinez said to the Post, "He doesn't need to, it's already enough of a good rivalry."

Go Sox!

Unravelled

Blogger and IR-linkee Irene Q has bought herself a domain, moved her blog, and changed its name. Same good stuff, but check out Irene's new digs at http://www.ireneq.com/.

Sweat

I blame the lack of recent updates on the heat wave that has been slowly crushing the life out of Boston, degree by degree. Since my computer room isn't airconditioned and my bedroom is, I've been finding excuses to avoid what's now quite literally the hot seat. It's not that hot in absolute terms - low 90's most days - but the humidity means every time you're in still air, sweat begins to accumulate on every inch of skin you own, and forms into small rivulets flowing down into your eyes, soaking your clothes, dampening anything you sit on.

Yuck.

Folks from much hotter climates, just remember how little A/C we have here. Most public buildings have some A/C, as does the subway, but most homes rely on window units or mere fans. I've been swimming a lot - each of the last four days, in fact. And by holing up in my bedroom and escaping to the lake or beach you can hide from the heat, but it means that basic tasks (like blogging) don't get done. I've had a hurt toe as my excuse for not running since I came home from England, but with that scratch healed up, I'm faced with the real reason I haven't run: it's sweltering by 7:00 am. Generally I like to get my body going in the morning. Now, I try my hardest to keep my metabolism to a slow crawl, and I drink tall glasses of ice water at regular intervals.

So I'm looking forward to cooler temperatures sometime, somewhere. Until then, I sweat.

What's the score?

In a case of flagrantly irresponsible journalism, the New York Times website carries this headline: "Scores Reported Killed in Blasts at Moscow Concert" on an article that says that the number of dead at the concert is reported as 13 or 20. Last I heard "scores" had to be at least 40.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
Those who can write, write. Those who can't write, become famous editors.

Rockets' red glare

I just came back from the greatest fireworks show ever put on. It was phenomenally arranged, creative, musically synchronized, and elicited awe from the 600,000 folks who came from near and far to see Boston's show.

Earlier in the day, I had a great time in New Hampshire at a multi-church picnic, where IR reader DJN, myself, and our 11-year-old pal Day had loads of fun soaking each other and others with water balloons and ambushing people and dragging them into the water. Really a great time. Lots of ultimate frisbee, sun, hot dogs, and lemonade. Now I'm sweaty and salty beyond belief, my feet are excoriated, I'm chafing and sore, and I've had an awesome day.

The best things in life are free.

Bambino's Curse lifted

Not lifted off the Red Sox, but lifted to a higher level of webagogy. The inimitable Ed Cossette has agreed to publish his blog on Fox Sports New England's website. That's quite an honor, and it's great to see that a blog can make it into a higher-profile location like that - this is sports fandom from the ground up.

So I'll be changing the link on the left to http://www.fsnnewengland.com/, though I'll leave the text the same.

Go Eddy!!!

Come for the Holy War, stay for dessert

Re:Generation mag has a fascinating cover story on medieval Christendom's fantasies of the mystical and magical East, and one Prester John in particular.

With lavish decor, mood lighting, and burning incense, Prester John’s crib offered all the sensual pleasures Europeans loved in their stories of exotic East without the slightest hint of impropriety. A good Christian really could have it all.

I Love That Dirty Water

I compared London with cities I know in the U.S. - Boston, D.C., etc - for its usability and general quality. Here's a few aspects:

Social
General politeness. Edge: U.S. Londoners don't even nod in return.
Kindness to strangers. Edge: U.S. Londoners are tuned in to WII-FM 24/7.
Availability of restrooms. Edge: U.K. Somehow, the U.S. hasn't caught on to public restrooms.
Availability of water fountains. Edge: U.S. Apparently it's not water that's driving demand for all those restrooms. Civic freedom. Edge: U.S. The Big Brother is a reality in much of London, which has more Closed Circuit TV's per square kilometre than Radio Shack. Class differentiation. Edge: Boston. London has a big divide between the "commoners" and the new nobility, and D.C. has a big divide between the natives and the powerful imports from other states.

On the Street
Driving ability. Edge: Boston. Neither DC nor London folk can match our mad skillz.
Driving courtesy. Edge: U.S. Londoners won't stop for you unless they absolutely have to.
Walking ease. Edge: U.S. The law (drive and walk on the left) conflicts with the natural tendancy of righties to go to their own right.

Public Transit
Extent of transit system. Edge: London. Huge system, very well integrated, including bus, train, subway, tram, light rail and water shuttle.
Frequency of service. Edge: London. Buses and rail especially run much more frequently than any stateside.
Redundancy and reliability. Edge: London. There's generally multiple routes to any destination, which distributes stresses on the system more widely.
Comfort and modernity. Edge: D.C. London has the oldest underground in the world, Boston the oldest in the U.S. Most of London's current system was in place by 1908 - when America's first lines were still new!
Air quality. Edge: U.S. The Tube is gasping for aircon.

Tourism
Number of museums. Edge: London. Has museums in bunches, and good ones too.
Cost of museums. Edge: London. The best museums are free.
Quality of parks. Edge: London. Beautifully groomed public parks throughout the city.
Weather. Edge: U.S. London's weather is not only often rainy, but it's also even more inconsistent than Boston's.
Historical sites. Edge: Boston. London's historic sites have been built over so many times they're invisible.


Oh, I love that dirty water......Boston, you're my home!

Nation-Building

Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said the administration was "actively discussing what the next step should be" to help end the fighting in Liberia, which has had close ties to the United States since its founding by freed American slaves in 1847. -- NYTimes.com

Apparently, Bush has decided that if you're going to be activisit, be activist everywhere. While that's better than being a halfway-committed activist (e.g., Bill Clinton), I would rather see Bush's initial, non-activist stance. Basically, the U.S. can't police the entire world. If I'm mistaken and we can, than go for it, Dubya - I'm with you in '04!

U.K.

I just got home from the airport, having survived two weeks of the Tube, warm beer, cool weather and driving on the wrong side of the road (the driving, I must admit, almost did me in, but I pulled through). The highlight of the trip was visiting my good friends Meredith and Feike, both in London.

I'm not sorely tempted to relay every gory detail of the trip, but I'll try and convey a taste of what it was like. First, my accommodations. I got a good deal fror $15 a night - near the Tube, single room, didn't have anything stolen, good breakfast, etc. However, it was quite clear that what was advertized as the "Hammersmith Lodge" online did not in fact exist! Rather, the name was a front for the overflow wing of the Premier West Hotel. The PWH itself isn't exactly five-star, and I spent one night in their real rooms. The rest of the time I was in two other rooms in neighboring apartment buildings where PWH owned some of the rooms. No phone, TV, soap, toilet paper, etc. But I had the dumps to myself, so it was cool. Having a key to my own building and room gave a sense of ownership too... they had to pry the keys out of my white-clenched knuckles when I seized up nostalgically while trying to check out.

London is a world-class city on primarily three counts (in my book): sheer size, museums (er, musea?), and parks. They've had to shrink Buckingham Palace a few times to make room for all the musea and parkage. I visited the British Museum, Imperial War Museum, London Transport Museum, National Gallery, Science Museum, and there were a few dozen more I didn't visit. The beauty and santuarial feel of London's urban parks really contrasts with the way parks are even in Boston (which is pretty good by American standards). I loved Regents Park, and also spent time thinking, praying or reading in Battersea Park, Ravenscourt Park, Queen's Garden or something in Croydon, and probably a few more.

I made side trips to Cambridge (the whole town is a park, basically) and South Wales. My Wales trip was great fun and very productive, and it consisted largely of me unleashing one long reeling, punishing hurt on myself for days on end.

On Wednesday, a week ago, I took the train from London to Abergavenny, changing at Newport (Casnewwyd in Welsh Gaelic). I went to the Park Information Office where old doom'n'gloom told me how perilous the park was and how unprepared I was. I bought an OS map and headed on the way he forebodingly pointed me on. It took me up to a canal that runs from Brecon to somewhere near Newport, and I started hiking along it, gamely shouldering my 25-pound, 25-year-old pack. The way was flat, and I walked from 2:00 to almost 9:00 before reaching Pencelli Castle Caravan & Camp Park and dropping my $30 for three nights. My body was sore in a lot of places, and badly chafed in other places. I stretched for 15 minutes and prayed for healing when I went to sleep.

My prayers were sufficiently answered, because I hopped up the next morning with pain only in my foot-muscles and my hips where the pack had dug into me with every step all the previous day. So I strapped on a fanny pack full of water, sardines, crackers, a map and a granola bar (and a camera, which I didn't use), and started up the Brecon Beacons, the highest of which (Pen Y Fan) is the top of South Wales at 2,900 and change. By the time I reached Pen Y Fan (my third peak of the hike), I was spent. The way down I intermittently walked and sat, and held my empty canteen fruitlessly above my panting tongue - those sardines had way too much salt. The descent was short and not too painful, but dumped me five miles from home. I trudged along, even hoping to hitch a ride, and it began to drizzle. Enough to wet me, not enough to make a dent in my overwhelming thirst. I finally reached a village called Llanfrynchan or something, and gulped down water in the public bathroom's sink. The last mile home was a victory lap. But now I was really hurting - my muscles were unionizing in preparation for a strike, I was wracked by sheer fatigue, and chafage had worn right through my skin and drawn blood in the least comfortable quarter.

The next morning I bounced out of bed a little slower, but my ability to recover is real proof that I'm still young (and my ability to unleash that kind of punishment on my body is proof that I'm still foolish). It rained on Friday, so I had good reason to stay in my tent and plow through the second half of "A Walk to Remember" (I'd finished the inimitable "Cry, the Beloved Country" on the train out). The afternoon cleared up nicely, so after an important prayer time I hoofed it 4 miles into Brecon along the canal, and walked around town (including leaving Safeway through an Emergency Exit, which are covered with inviting green stickers in the U.K.) I purchased two books (well five, but I'll get to that) at W.H. Smith: John Grisham's "A Painted House" (don't read it) and Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker" series (four in one volume) (do read them, over and over again).

On Saturday morning, after reading until 1:00am, I got up at 6:30, folded my tent, ate breakfast, and waded through grass up to my hips and the river Usk up to knees and then more grass. I hitchhiked in to Abergavenny, read for an hour in a castle-turned-public-park, and then caught my train back to London.

More will follow, but that's enough for starters.